Comanche Dawn (67 page)

“Lie with me,” he said.

She pulled her deerskin dress off over her head and lay down next to her husband, gasping when she felt his sweat-soaked body. “My husband,” she said, “are you well?”

“Very well. Better than well. I have been dreaming.” He pulled the robe back over him, and even this felt clammy with his own sweat. When he felt Looks Away reach between his legs, he caught her hand, and said, “Just lie with me, woman. Make me warm.”

“Hah,”
she said, snuggling close to him. “What have you been dreaming about?”

“Times to come.” He said nothing for a while. Owls were hooting to each other in the night. “My son's warhorse is beautiful, is it not?”

“Hah.”

“He knew Medicine-Coat would come. He has good, strong
puha.
Sometimes the spirits tell a good warrior what will happen, so the warrior will know what to do.”

Looks Away said nothing. She always listened well and spoke little.

“There is going to be a council. You know our duty is to avenge our dead.”

“Hah,”
she said.

“I have dreamed of this vengeance. I am ready. My son has dreamed of a war pony. Medicine-Coat has come. My son is ready. The people in this camp believe in my son again. When Medicine-Coat came, they gasped at the beauty of such a pony.”

“That is a beautiful pony,” said Looks Away, who rarely spoke in judgement of anything, good or bad. “A spirit-pony.”

“You speak well, my wife. Now, listen. I am a warrior. My scars make my medicine coat. I do not wish to die an old man, making arrows and telling stories in the lodges of winter. I do not wish to burden my grandchildren.”

“You are strong,” she said, gripping his arm. “You will burden no one for many winters to come.”

“Listen. I have dreamt. The war with the
Na-vohnuh
comes. I wish to die in battle. My brothers have all gone before me. You will be alone.”

She nestled closer to him. “Do not speak of it,” she begged.

“Listen, woman. The old ways are changing. Once, a wife would follow her husband to the Shadow Land. She would kill herself over his grave, or the people would kill her. But that was in the old country of poor lands, where a woman could not live alone, or expect another man to take her as a second wife. Here it is different. A man should have many wives. A warrior should wait for his wife in the Shadow Land. She will come along in good time. I will speak of this in council under the sun that comes now beyond the eastern plains. The people will know. When I am dead, you will live. You were born to the
Yuta
people, when the True Humans made war upon the
Yutas.
Now everything has changed. We are at peace with the
Yutas.
When I am gone, you may return to your old people if you wish. Your brother, Bad Camper, will take you into his camp.”

“My brother?” she said.

“Yes. I know. I have known for a long time. My sits-beside wife told me. She knew things. When I am gone, you will not be killed over my grave. You may return to the
Yutas
if you wish.”

Looks Away lay beside Shaggy Hump a long time in silence. Finally, she spoke, her voice steady and low. “I will stay with the Horseback People. I love my son, Horseback, very much. He is not of my blood, but he is my son. If you die in battle, my husband, I will remain a True Human.”

Shaggy Hump rolled toward her and threw his leg over her. Her warmth had beaten the chill of the sweat that had covered him. “You are good, my wife. You are better than good. Now, I am going to sleep beside you. Wake me when the sun comes.”

*   *   *

A lively council convened under the following sun. Shaggy Hump spoke first, for he was the elder in the camp of the Horseback People. He told the tales of his exploits in battle, the scalps he had taken, the battle strokes he had counted, the ponies he had stolen. He had survived many raids. He spoke a long time. He said nothing of days to come, except for a vehement insistence that wives should no longer die over the graves of slain husbands.

“No woman is a burden in this land of buffalo,” he insisted. “Here, a man needs many women to cure the hides of the animals he kills. If a warrior dies, another must take his widow. I have spoken.”

Other seasoned warriors followed Shaggy Hump, relating tales of their many victories. Bear Heart repeated the story of the first visit to the land of the Metal Men and of the return of all five searchers under the leadership of Horseback.

Finally, Horseback's time came to speak, and he rose. Just then, a raven called overhead. It circled the camp and flew to the southeast. Through the southeast side of the council lodge, which had been left uncovered to catch the southern breeze, Horseback watched the raven in silence until it disappeared in the distant sky. Then, he began to speak.

“The time comes for every True Human to decide. Will you live and die in the new country of the buffalo and the pony, or will you go back to the old
Noomah
ways in the land of stinging snow? There the True Humans must hoard pine nuts and pemmican or starve through the cold moons. Here we will hunt buffalo and grow fat, even through the snows of winter. In the old country, the cold days before the moons of spring were called the Time When Babies Cry for Food. Here, there will be no such time. Here, there is tallow, and meat, and marrow, and pemmican, and fresh brains, and liver, and paunches to cook in, even through the Moon of the Snowblind.

“When I was a boy, our camp lived in terror of attack from the Northern Raiders, and Crow, and Flathead, and
Yuta.
Now the Northern Raiders and Crow and Flathead fear our horse power, and we are far away from their camps where they could not harm us even if they had the courage. The
Yutas
make peace with us, for they know we are powerful.

“The Metal Men do not matter. Only their soldiers fight, and they have few. The Wolf People, and the Osage, and the Raccoon-Eyed People are far away. They will seldom bother us. The
Tiwas
at Tachichichi live under a truce. They attack no one.

“Our true enemies now are
Na-vohnuh.
They have attacked our camp to remind us that we must avenge our ancestors. The
Na-vohnuh
do not know how to ride. They get off their ponies to fight. In the winter they follow the buffalo, but we will find them, take their scalps and ponies, and avenge our dead. In the spring they will go back to their villages. They will be easy to find then. We will hunt buffalo and attack the
Na-vohnuh
camps. They have many more warriors than we have, yet new Horseback People come with every moon from the old country. Our enemies do not know how to possess the power of ponies, as we do. Our enemies do not have the protection of powerful spirits. Yet, the war will last many winters, for our enemies number like pebbles in a riverbed. Our young braves will learn to fight and win glory. When it is over, the land of buffalo will be ours.

“The spirits have summoned us to this good place to bring a nation out of the mist. Yet, they do not give us this land. The spirits say we must avenge our ancestors. We must destroy our ancient enemies. We must
win
the good land. We must
conquer
our new country. Upon all the earth, no land is better. There is much meat. Much meat! Plenty of humps and ribs and backstops and briskets.

“I have waited for my war pony, and he has come. I will ride Medicine-Coat south and east, the way the raven flies. I will find buffalo to hunt. I will find enemy camps to plunder. I will weave a kingfisher feather into the mane of my pony, and his wounds will heal like the water. When I die, I will die astride my war pony. I am Horseback. I have spoken.”

No one spoke against Horseback. Those who did not believe in his power had already gone away with Whip's people. The council agreed to the last man to move into the land of buffalo and seek the
Na-vohnuh
war. The women began to pack things into parfleche bags. With dawn, they would take the lodges down and move.

As the light faded behind the mountains, a large cloud of dust rose in the west. The Horseback People took up weapons and waited, fearing a
Na-vohnuh
attack. Horseback went to scout and came riding back into camp on Medicine-Coat.

“The
Yutas!
” he cried. “Our allies! Bad Camper comes with fifty warriors! They come to fight the
Na-vohnuh!
” He galloped all through his camp, shouting the news with joy. He saw Looks Away and rode to her, bending low on his pony to speak softly. “Your brother,” he said. “Bad Camper comes to fight with us.”

The Horseback People cooked all the meat in the camp that night, for they expected to kill many buffalo on the war path. Men, women, and children feasted until none could swallow another bite.

Speaks Twice came from Tachichichi. He had been summoned by a rider and invited to go with the Comanches. “I will go with you to make talk with your enemies, but I will not fight those you call
Na-vohnuh.
The elders in my
kiva
at Tachichichi forbid it.”

Horseback nodded. “Come make talk with us. You will teach me more of the Spanish. No one must fight unless his own spirits tell him to fight.”

61

They began to move
southward the next day, Horseback leading on his war pony. He rode east of the Breasts of Mother Earth. From that point, he could see the peaks the Metal Men called the Rat Mountains. One peak had a flat-topped summit that from a distance looked like a
Tiwa
house. This summit overlooked the pass through the Rat Mountains.

Negotiating the pass the next day, Horseback saw a deer sign, and had to ride his war pony carefully for fear of angering his spirit-guide. Yet, he remembered what his father had said. It was not enough to honor Sound-the-Sun-Makes in the sight of men; he must serve his guardian in his heart above all else.

He was relieved to put the deer trails of the Rat Mountains behind him, for over the peaks a beautiful grass-covered valley snaked away to the southeast. Here, antelope darted ahead of the war party, elk loped, and the bulls had rubbed the thin fuzzy skin from antlers that now glinted in the sun. The pole-drags moved easily through this valley, and the Comanches could see the marks of previous pony-drags and dog-drags, surely made by parties of their enemies.

The Rat Mountains dwindled along their left flank after two days of easy moving while, to their right, a few hills rose. Between the hills, Horseback looked across grassy plains that went on to the sky.

On the third day, the Rat Mountains shrank into a series of bluffs. Now Horseback rode toward a lone mountain on the southeastern horizon, five times as wide as it was high. Horseback named it Five Sleeps, for he arrived there on the fifth day of his journey.

Camping at the base of Five Sleeps, the scouts spotted a few buffalo beyond it. A mounted hunting party eased through the timber that grew on the north face of the wide mountain and charged the buffalo. Horseback rode Medicine-Coat on his war pony's first hunt, expecting his pony would fear the buffalo. To his surprise, Medicine-Coat seemed to crave battle with the horned four-leggeds. He swooped down on them like a coyote after a rabbit, carrying Horseback close enough to shoot an arrow into a large cow, hitting her behind the ribs. When she turned to fight, Medicine-Coat dodged her horns so quickly that Horseback had to grab the pony's mane to stay mounted. The spirits had taught Medicine-Coat how to hunt, giving him courage as well as speed.

Beyond Five Sleeps, another mountain stood on the southeast horizon, even broader than the last mountain. Horseback named it Seven Sleeps. From the slopes of this mountain small herds of buffalo could be seen across the plains and in the valley, which had grown ever broader and more grassy.

The only landmark that stood on the trail ahead now was a double peak that Horseback named Rabbit Ears Mountain, for its twin summits looked like the tips of rabbit ears standing above the grass. All along the trail to Rabbit Ears Mountain, shallow lakes formed at intervals in the valley. Even when the valley began to rise to blend with the plains, the lakes continued to provide water for the ponies and the Horseback People.

On the eighth day of the journey, the True Humans camped at one of these lakes. From this camp, Horseback and several other warriors rode to the flanks of Rabbit Ears Mountain. Upon its slopes they looked toward the southeast, where they expected to encounter enemies and buffalo to kill. They saw no more hills or mountains to guide them. They would have to ride across plains that stretched without end, to the edge of the earth.

“I see a shadow in the sky,” Shaggy Hump said.

Horseback looked. The shadow was like a ghost. “
Hah.
What is it?”

“Perhaps the dust of a great herd. Perhaps a flock of ravens and vultures. Perhaps both.”

“We will hunt buffalo.”

“
Hah.
”

Every day, while the camp moved, scouts rode out in all directions, looking for trails, tracks, signs of game or enemies. Horseback always scouted ahead. On the second day after Rabbit Ears Mountain, he began to see buffalo. He rode into a dry stream bed that would get him closer to the herd so he could judge its number. He saw hopeful signs of a large herd, for wolves prowled everywhere, and many birds circled overhead.

Finally, he rode out of the dry stream bed, to a nearby divide. From there, he knew he would be able to see far across the plains. A few buffalo saw him coming from a distance and trotted away. He did not chase them, for he did not want to alarm the herd. He passed over the divide cautiously, watching carefully, leaning over Medicine-Coat's withers to look like a buffalo.

He made his pony walk as the plains beyond the ridge gradually rose into view. He saw the far prairies first, those near the horizon, and the sight was odd, for the distant peaks seemed covered with some strange kind of thick black brush. Then the nearer rolls of the earth fell under his gaze, and Horseback saw that this black brush moved. It lived. It roiled like a reflection of dark clouds that covered half the sky. His breath caught in his lungs, and he tasted dust in his mouth. The sight at once enthralled and terrified him. Not even through the mist of his visions had he seen anything like this.