Comanche Dawn (15 page)

Horseback was trying to string his bow, but had to hold his frightened horse. He had never tried to use a bow while riding a calm horse, let alone one crazed by an attack of a huge humpbacked bear. Glancing up, he saw that his father's bow was strung, and Shaggy Hump was reaching for an arrow.

The bear charged Shaggy Hump's mount again, which ran around the edge of the clearing in terror, against every effort of the rider to hold it. Plunging into the trees, Shaggy Hump was knocked aside by a limb and landed on the ground at the same moment the bear raked its claws across the rump of the horse. Kicking and squealing, the horse drove the bear away with hard hooves and made an escape.

Before he could think, Horseback was using his bow on his mount's rump to charge ahead and draw the attack of the bear away from his father. When the bear turned to him, he let his horse dodge and run back up the trail. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the bear turning back for his father again, but Shaggy Hump was drawing his bow, and his arrow sank deep into the great bear's flank.

After biting at the new wound, the bear charged Shaggy Hump again, and again Horseback had to whip his horse into the middle of the clearing to lure the bear away from his father. Horseback even held his mount back so the bear would chase him longer, for he could not stand to think about his father falling into the jaws of this ravenous beast.

The bear chased Horseback from the clearing, but still refused to leave the dead cow it had claimed, and turned back to do battle with Shaggy Hump. Shaggy Hump was climbing a tree when Horseback came back to the clearing, and this seemed to enrage the bear. Nothing Horseback could do could keep the bear from swatting at his father, and one sharp claw raked Shaggy Hump's leg, almost causing him to fall. Yet, the pain gave the hunter more strength and he scrambled higher, beyond reach of the creature so crazed with bad medicine.

Horseback took confidence, seeing his father safe in the tree, and he started to string his bow again. His hands were shaking, so he thought of his vision, of Sound-the-Sun-Makes. He felt his medicine pouch inside his loin skins, and knew it granted him protection. He hooked the bow over his thigh and under his foot and bent it to loop the bowstring on the other end. He heard his father's bow string thump, followed by the roar of the bear.

Reaching for an arrow in his own quiver, Horseback saw the bear shaking the
sohoobi
tree that held his father, biting at the trail of blood that ran down from Shaggy Hump's wounded leg. He notched the arrow, thought of his shadow-song, and let the shaft fly into the bear's back.

Startled by a noise behind him, he turned to see the other hunters coming, having heard the fight all the way from the camp. Arrows flew like wasps, and the great bear attacked his own flesh where each point stung him, finally attempting to drag himself into the trees. Even before the bear had stopped crawling, Shaggy Hump was coming down from the tree. Dropping to the ground, he favored his mangled leg.

The bear tried to snap at him, but Shaggy Hump poked a hind quarter with his bow, yelling, “Aaa-hey! I claim the first honors!”

Now Horseback raced ahead to beat the others to the second battle stroke, for he deserved it more than they. The other hunters had left their horses to fight the bear afoot, so Horseback easily beat them to the dying bear. Leaning from his mount, he struck the very head of the bloody beast with his bow and yelled, “Aaa-hey! I have the second!”

The men sang like their coyote forebears over the carcass of the bear, so the women back in camp would know of their victory. Then Shaggy Hump tied a leather strap tight around his leg under the knee.

“Your leg, my father,” Horseback said, as the others looked over the huge dead bear.

“Let me ride behind you, son. Your mother will know how to make the leg well. The strap will make the blood stop flowing, and the pain makes me feel proud. You fought bravely, and the great humpbacked bear is as dangerous as any of our many enemies in a close fight. You will do well in battle.”

Horseback helped his father onto the horse behind him. “I will make my father and my mother proud, and all of my people. I will kill or die on my war pony.”

Shaggy Hump pointed down the trail that had led him and his son to this glorious fight. “It is better to wear battle scars and count honors on living enemies, than to kill or to die. Too much killing makes our enemies crazy to enslave our women and children and to take our scalps. Dying makes our women weep and slash their breasts, for they will have no one to feed them when we are gone. But these are things for the spirits to teach. Listen to the spirits, my son, not your father.”

15

With a buffalo rib
held delicately in her hand, Looks Away lightly scraped at the deposit of fine white clay she had found, gathering it into the palm of her other hand. She took care to pick out all the pebbles and particles of dirt that did not gleam with the pure brilliance of snow. Satisfied that the handful of clay was pure, she poured it into a small buckskin pouch. This clay would make fine white paint for her husband. As she filled the pouch, she heard hoofbeats over the crest of the river bank, so she left the small outcropping of white clay and climbed higher up the steep bank to see what caused the commotion.

Peeking over the crest of the river bank, she saw Horseback and his two young friends stalking a tawny mare with golden mane and tail. The mare watched, head high, as they crept up from three directions, their arms spread wide as if to gather her in. This mare was the one horse in the herd who dragged a long rawhide tether, looped around her neck. She was difficult to catch, but once mounted, made a good riding horse upon which to catch the other horses.

As the young warriors closed in, the mare made a dash between Horseback and Trotter, and Horseback ran hard to leap for the rope before the mare could drag it past him. She pulled him along the ground until Trotter and Whip could help him hold on. Knowing she was caught now, the mare let Horseback put the war bridle around her jaw and scramble onto her back. He left the long tether dragging behind, in case he fell off and had to catch the mare again.

Looks Away made sure she would not be seen by the boys, for she enjoyed watching them work with the horses and did not want to interfere with their fun. She was responsible for much of what the boys had learned, and this made her heart feel light.

Looks Away had lived in the mountains as a girl, with the
Yutas.
She had known horses as long as she could remember, for the
Yutas
had owned horses many winters before the
Noomah.

When Horseback's uncle, Black Horn, captured her and made her his wife, she brought with her much knowledge about horses that she did not even know she possessed. Looks Away's brother, a
Yuta
warrior named Bad Camper, had traveled far to the south to steal some ponies. Bad Camper had told the warriors of his band that the ponies came from strange men in the south with iron shirts and pale skin and hairy faces. It always frightened her to think of such things.

Looks Away tried not to ponder her old life in the mountains. She missed many things from that life. Her name had been Pine Cone there. Summers were cool, and winters spent in protected canyons. Food was more plentiful than it was among the
Noomah.
The hunting grounds of her people were green and there were many elk, whose whistling she missed during the Moon of Falling Leaves.

Among these happy mountain people, the
Noomah
had been regarded as savage foreigners with very dark skin, bowed legs, and broad faces. The
Yutas
called the
Noomah
by the word
Komancia,
which meant Those Who Always Want to Fight Us in the
Yuta
tongue. Looks Away had been warned as a girl that they were horrible torturers, that they ate bugs and snakes and even their own filth. Judging from the few captives she had seen as a girl, these strange people were small and squatty, shorter and more heavily muscled than other peoples she had seen. Now she noticed that this compact build seemed to make the
Noomahs
more suited to riding the horse, as their weight and bulk stayed low on the back of the animal, making them almost become a part of the horse itself.

Many things were different here among these embattled people who had captured and adopted her, but she did not dwell on the
Noomah
hardships. Here she had already served two great warrior husbands. First, Black Horn, who had died well. And now, Black Horn's brother, Shaggy Hump, who was the bravest and richest warrior of all the Burnt Meat People, and perhaps all the
Noomah
nation. And she had become a second mother to Horseback, whom she loved as much as any child she could have borne herself. Horseback was a rider with medicine, and she had brought much of the knowledge he needed to become great. Though life was hard here—harder than it had been with the
Yutas
—the spirits had acted wisely when they sent her to live with the people who call themselves the True Humans.

“Looks Away!”

The grating voice made her flinch, and she turned quickly to see River Woman scowling at her from below.

“What are you doing?”

“Gathering clay.”

“For what?”

“To make a white paint for my husband.”

“
Your
husband!” River Woman hissed her disapproval. “Shaggy Hump is
my
husband. Are you the one who carries his shield when we move the village?”

“No.”

“But, I am. You are little more than a slave. If you were a sits-beside wife, you would know that Shaggy Hump does not like white paint. He likes yellow and red and black. I do not see that you are gathering anything, anyway. What are you looking at up there?”

“Your son. Come see.”

River Woman climbed the crumbling dirt bank and crouched with Looks Away behind the brink. She saw Horseback darting back and forth on the yellow mare, trying to pull Trotter on behind him as Whip scrambled around like a four-legged. “What are they doing?”

“Can you see the circle they have made in the dirt, my sister? That is the clearing in the woods. Whip is the great humpbacked bear, and Trotter is my …
your
husband.”

River Woman watched the boys play. “They play a new game. It will serve them well one day in battle. My son is young, but he is wise to think of such a thing.”

Looks Away did not try to explain that the new game had really been her idea. She had asked Horseback what he had learned from the fight with the great bear. After thinking a while, Horseback had said that he had learned he was not the great rider the spirits wanted him to be, or else he would have prevented his father's wound.

“Show the spirits that you want to ride better,” she suggested.

“How will I show them?”

“Ride as you wish you would have ridden during the fight with the great bear. The spirits watch always.”

Now she felt her heart grow with pride as Horseback clasped arms with Trotter and pulled him onto the horse behind him with one smooth pass. This was a thing she had never seen before, even during her old life among horsed warriors in the mountains.

“Look,” River Woman said, pointing down the brink of the riverbank. “Our eyes are not the only ones watching the young horsebacks play.”

Looks Away spotted a girl of the Corn People crouching behind clumps of saskatoon bushes, her eyes glistening and her girlish mouth open in awe.

“Yes. That girl watches Horseback all the time.”

“What are we to think of this girl?” River Woman said.

“There is none prettier among the Corn People. I think Horseback likes the way she looks.”

“I thought he liked that other girl.”

“Slope Child? No, that was only a few nights in his lodge. She showed him the way, but now she visits some other boy's lodge. Horseback likes that girl, there, much better.”

“She is small, but she looks strong.”

“She is very healthy. I have seen her run like a coyote and climb trees like a little skinny bear cub.”

River Woman turned to face Looks Away. “What is her name?”

“Teal.”

“Her hips look good for bearing warrior babies.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Her father is poor, yes?”

“Among the Corn People he is a rich one, my sister.”

“A rich one among the Corn People is the same as a poor one to the sits-beside wife of Shaggy Hump. You do not know that because you are not a sits-beside wife.”

Looks Away did not try to argue with River Woman, for it was always futile.

“We should go together to speak to the mother of this girl, Teal, then she will know my son's father is a great warrior to have two wives, and she will want her daughter marry my son.”

Looks Away remained silent. She only hoped River Woman would not offend Teal's mother, for River Woman was proud and haughty.

“Do you not agree, sister?”

Looks Away liked to hear River Woman honor her with the name of sister, but knew she only used it to get something she wanted. “I have listened to the girl's mother before. I am worried that she is greedy. If we both go to her and prove how great your husband is to have such a proud and beautiful sits-beside wife, and a second slave wife as well, then she may want too much for the girl. Teal's father has only one horse, and he may demand many more from the great Shaggy Hump.”

“I shall go alone to speak to her.”

“Yes. That would be better. Or send me with the words you choose me to say. I am only a plain second wife and will not excite the Corn woman's greed.”

River Woman looked at the girl spying from the bushes, then looked back at her son, practicing his riding skills. “You must tell me everything she says before you promise anything.”

“Of course. I will be only the ears to hear, and the mouth to speak. It is your heart that guides your son, my sister.”