That afternoon Laura asked Ma what a stockade was. Ma said it was something to make little girls ask questions. That meant that grown-ups would not tell you what it was. And Mary looked a look at Laura that said, “I told you so.”
Laura didn’t know why Pa said he must not act as if he were afraid. Pa was never afraid. Laura didn’t want to act as if she were afraid, but she was. She was afraid of the Indians.
Jack never laid back his ears and smiled at Laura any more. Even while she petted him, his ears were lifted, his neck bristled, and his lips twitched back from his teeth. His eyes were angry. Every night he growled more fiercely, and every night the Indian drums beat faster, faster, and the wild yipping rose higher and higher, faster, wilder.
In the middle of the night Laura sat straight up and screamed. Some terrible sound had made cold sweat come out all over her.
Ma came to her quickly and said in her gentle way: “Be quiet, Laura. You mustn’t frighten Carrie.”
Laura clung to Ma, and Ma was wearing her dress. The fire was covered with ashes and the house was dark, but Ma had not gone to bed. Moonlight came through the window. The shutter was open, and Pa stood in the dark by the window, looking out. He had his gun.
Out in the night the drums were beating and the Indians were wildly yelling.
Then that terrible sound came again. Laura felt as if she were falling; she couldn’t hold on to anything; there was nothing solid anywhere. It seemed a long time before she could see or think or speak.
She screamed: “What is it? What is it? Oh, Pa, what is it?”
She was shaking all over and she felt sick in her middle. She heard the drums pounding and the wild yipping yells and she felt Ma holding her safe. Pa said, “It’s the Indian war-cry, Laura.”
Ma made a soft sound, and he said to her, “They might as well know, Caroline.”
He explained to Laura that that was the Indian way of talking about war. The Indians were only talking about it, and dancing around their fires. Mary and Laura must not be afraid, because Pa was there, and Jack was there, and soldiers were at Fort Gibson and Fort Dodge.
“So don’t be afraid, Mary and Laura,” he said again.
Laura gasped and said, “No, Pa.” But she was horribly afraid. Mary couldn’t say anything; she lay shivering under the covers.
Then Carrie began to cry, so Ma carried her to the rocking-chair and gently rocked her. Laura crept out of bed and huddled against Ma’s knee. And Mary, left all alone, crept after her and huddled close, too. Pa stayed by the window, watching.
The drums seemed to beat in Laura’s head. They seemed to beat deep inside her. The wild, fast yipping yells were worse than wolves. Something worse was coming, Laura knew it. Then it came—the Indian war-cry.
A nightmare is not so terrible as that night was. A nightmare is only a dream, and when it is worst you wake up. But this was real and Laura could not wake up. She could not get away from it.
When the war-cry was over, Laura knew it had not got her yet. She was still in the dark house and she was pressed close against Ma. Ma was trembling all over. Jack’s howling ended in a sobbing growl. Carrie began to scream again, and Pa wiped his forehead and said, “Whew!”
“I never heard anything like it,” Pa said. He asked, “How do you suppose they learned to do it?” but nobody answered that.
“They don’t need guns. That yell’s enough to scare anybody to death,” he said. “My mouth’s so dry I couldn’t whistle a tune to save my life. Bring me some water, Laura.”
That made Laura feel better. She carried a dipper full of wa
ter to Pa at the window. He took it and smiled at her, and that made her feel very much better. He drank a little and smiled again and said, “There! now I can whistle!”
He whistled a few notes to show her that he could.
Then he listened. And Laura, too, heard far away the soft pitter-pat, pat-pat, pitter-pat pat, of a pony’s galloping. It came nearer.
From one side of the house came the drum-throbbing and the fast, shrill, yapping yells, and from the other side came the lonely sound of the rider’s galloping.
Nearer and nearer it came. Now the hoofs clattered loudly and suddenly they were going by. The galloping went by and grew fainter, down the creek road.
In the moonlight Laura saw the behind of a little black Indian pony, and an Indian on its back. She saw a huddle of blanket and a naked head and a flutter of feathers above it, and moonlight on a gun barrel and then it was all gone. Nothing was there but empty prairie.
Pa said he was durned if he knew what to make of it. He said that was the Osage who had tried to talk French to him.
He asked, “What’s he doing, out at this hour riding hell bent for leather?”
Nobody answered because nobody knew.