Comanche Dawn (69 page)

A warrior ran at him with a lance, but Shaggy Hump notched his next arrow with patience. He drew his bowstring as the man threw his lance. He released his arrow, saw it pierce the stomach of the enemy. The enemy spear glanced off the top of Shaggy Hump's shield and struck him in the jaw. Pain shot through his neck and body as hot blood gushed down his chest. He reached for another arrow. His scream rattled with blood that ran down his windpipe, and he knew the lance had wounded him badly. He felt the twitching of severed muscles along the side of his face.

Now, Shaggy Hump felt the recklessness of a Crazy-Dog consume him. It fed on his searing pain, and he charged into the village. He saw Horseback gallop by on Medicine-Coat. He recognized the
Yuta
chief, Bad Camper, clubbing some enemy warrior to the ground. A round of
Na-vohnuh
gunshots began to fire, and one
Yuta
warrior fell from his pony. Another riderless horse thundered by, wild-eyed. The swarm of battle engulfed him as he charged toward the river. Through the dust, he caught a glimpse of the enemy horse herd running across the valley, and knew the Horseback People would have plenty of ponies to ride.

He drew his bow, made a kill. Drew again. Wounded another. A searing pain raked across his back, but when he wheeled, no one stood near enough to have struck him. His fellow horsemen leaped all through the village. Enemy women and children ran and crawled. Blood shot from one man's neck in a stream as he stood, wobbling, singing his death song.

Wheeling again, Shaggy Hump shot another arrow, but missed a man who ducked behind a hide lodge. He saw a young Comanche on his pony, blood covering his hands and face, his eyes wide with terror. The young man was drawing his bow again and again, letting his bowstring go without notching the arrows that waited in his quiver. Shaggy Hump rode to him and tried to speak, but his own jaw would not work, and he only felt blood come out of his mouth. The young warrior looked at him with terror in his eyes, then a wound from an enemy Fire Stick tore his chest open.

Shaggy Hump grabbed the wounded warrior before he could fall from his pony and pulled the boy across his thighs. The boy was already dead, but Shaggy Hump would not leave him to be mutilated by the enemy. As he turned for the valley rim, he looked for enemies to shoot, and took in the glory of the plundered village. He saw
Yutas
and Comanches carrying children and women away. Dead enemy men lay everywhere. Moaning and wailing rose around him.

And Shaggy Hump knew this was only the beginning. The war would drag on. He did not pity the
Na-vohnuh,
for they deserved this. Always it had been told how the horrible ones had tried to rub out the whole
Noomah
nation in the ancient war, but now it was different. Now the True Humans possessed the power of the horse. Not just the power of this animal's speed and strength, but the spirit-magic sent to the
Noomah
in the form of ponies. And his own son, Horseback, was the prophet of all this pony medicine. Shaggy Hump was only now fully realizing this truth as he felt life slipping away from him in the midst of his final fight. Now a new generation of
Noomah
warriors would repeat this horseback raid time and again as village after village of
Na-vohnuh
fell to the great spirit-powers of a new nation. It was good. Glory would rain upon the people like a thunder burst.

The time to retreat had come, and all the horsemen began moving back up the valley, some driving the stolen ponies of the enemy, some struggling with women or children who kicked and screamed against the terrors of captivity, some carrying dead or wounded friends. Shaggy Hump felt weak and dizzy. Looking down, he saw his own blood running over the dead boy he carried, all the way to the tips of his own moccasins, where it dripped off, dotting the ground with a trail.

He came across Bad Camper—the brother of his wife, Looks Away—the
Yuta
warrior he had once waged war against. He could not speak, for he was swallowing his own blood to keep from choking; but he reached for Bad Camper and made signs telling him to take the dead boy who lay across his thighs.

Bad Camper took the corpse, his face grim. He made signs with his right hand: “
You fight well, Snake man.
”

They were at the edge of the enemy village now. The attacking warriors were still trying to gather dead and wounded, for no one would be left behind. Men who had been unhorsed were trying to fight their way out. Here, where the bean fields met the village, the survivors gathered for a mass retreat. Shaggy Hump slipped down from his pony, letting the animal go. He staggered to the edge of the bean field, feeling tired. He prayed for power: one last burst of courage and strength. He placed himself between his own men and the enemy village. He untied his new deerskin sash and cast it with a flourish upon the ground ahead of him. He dropped to one knee, pulled an arrow from his quiver, and stabbed it through the golden deerskin that was now stained with blood. He drove the arrow into the ground with all the strength he could gather, making a ceremony of it. He thought he heard the bellow of a buffalo bull echo through the valley as he drove the stake home. He rose to his feet and looked toward the village.

The last of his warriors were fighting their way out, some dragging friends who could not walk. Behind them came angry
Na-vohnuh
warriors possessed by the reckless fury of men who have seen wives and children carried away. Shaggy Hump found one of these horrible enemy warriors in the strange blur that had begun to fall upon his world, making the moment feel like a nightmare. He had dreamt of this moment. Laboriously, he drew his bow and shot the warrior through. He reached for his quiver, but felt no arrows left jutting from it.

Battling the pain of his face wound and the dizziness that gathered around him, Shaggy Hump swallowed another gulp of his own blood and drew his knife. He saw Horseback and Trotter—his son and his son-in-law—darting into the village, guarding the retreat in their own way, on nimble war ponies. Horseback had four arrows sticking out of his shield. The pride he felt in these young men made Shaggy Hump stand straight and shake the fatigue from his head. He saw enemy warriors break through the rear guard of ponies. They were misty. They moved like dream people. One came ahead of the others. He was older than the rest. He carried a hatchet with an iron head. Shaggy Hump saw his face, recognized him. It was Battle Scar, the worst warrior chief of the whole
Na-vohnuh
nation. He saw the ugly scar across the enemy chief's belly where his daughter-in-law, Teal, had raked her arrow point.

He stepped forward until he felt the sash of the Crazy-Dogs tugging the earth behind him. Battle Scar was running at him. Shaggy Hump called upon his faithful spirit-guides, knowing they offered him no protection, only courage. He forced himself to sing, sending an eerie death song into the air on a spray of blood. Battle Scar came at him like a wolf, fangs bared. Shaggy Hump struck with his knife, but he was weak and Battle Scar was good at fighting. The hatchet hit him on the chest and shoulder, ripped flesh and crushed bones. Shaggy Hump felt the ground slam against his back. Even now, his pain was fading, but he dared not slip away. Horses leapt over him. Something grabbed his hair and he slashed wildly with his knife, mustering every morsel of energy left to him. He kicked and thrust his blade. He would fight to the last breath. He heard the victory cries as the retreat began.

He heard Bear Heart's voice: “I have pulled the stake from the ground for you, Shaggy Hump! Do not cut me as I carry you away.”

Shaggy Hump let his knife fall away, somewhere far away. He felt himself lifted. His pain melted like snow under the first warm sun of spring. He heard Horseback:

“Carry my father ahead of me!”

A river of blood flooded into his lungs, and Shaggy Hump felt cool. There was a sudden chill in the air, yet he was too weak to shiver. He saw the bright light of the sun burst into the valley as he floated up. Everything was cold. Everything except the warmth of the pony across which he lay. This was a spirit-pony. Shaggy Hump made himself feel the heart of this animal as he had learned to do in his dreams. He felt warmer. He rose higher. It was good. Everything was good. Better than good. He heard the songs of happy people, songs of feasting, songs of joy. He heard laughter. His spirit-pony bore him away on the warm light of the sun, and Shaggy Hump heard the songs River Woman had sung in the old days. She was young again, and so was he.

63

In the seasons that
followed the death of Horseback's father, the
Na-vohnuh
war swelled like a great thundercloud that blossomed in the sky and blotted out the sun. Blood ran like the waters of a rainstorm, and with it the powers of the
Na-vohnuh
slowly leached away to someplace dark and cold.

True Humans continued to come down from the old country. In addition to Horseback's camp, and Whip's people, bands of Comanches emerged with names like the Wanderers, the Antelope People, the Buffalo Eaters, and the Honey Eaters. They came to fight
Na-vohnuh,
and hunt buffalo, and ride horses, and take wives, and trade.

The
Na-vohnuh
villages proved easy to plunder, for they did not understand the power of the horse. They could not fathom how much distance a Comanche war party could cover in one night, and so the horse-warriors would appear without warning when
Na-vohnuh
scouts had found no sign of them anywhere near their villages the day before. When a fight came, the
Na-vohnuh
would stand on the ground to do battle, even if they had ridden to the battleground. They did not understand how to use the war power of a pony. Even if they had, they would not have ridden with the skill of the Comanches.

The
Na-vohnuh
lived along rivers in settled villages throughout the growing season, tending their fields of beans, squash, corn, and pumpkins. Because of this, they were easy to find in large numbers. They became suppliers of ponies for the Comanches. Sometimes Horseback would pass up the chance to raid a
Na-vohnuh
village, saying, “Let us wait until their colts are stronger. Now they are too small to keep up with our retreat.”

The Comanches followed herds of buffalo, always moving, hunting, fighting, riding, camping. Some Comanche warriors spent more time on their ponies than off. Some would eat their meals astride their horses, drink by riding their ponies into a stream so they wouldn't have to dismount. Some would not even get down to urinate. Some warriors had their wives build lodges to keep their best hunting ponies and war ponies out of the rain, snow, and hail. Some could sleep astride their ponies. Others coupled with their women on horseback, hoping the children so conceived would know the skill of spirit-riders.

Horseback himself was the most renowned of these such warriors, and he was spoken of throughout the whole nation for his courage, generosity, wisdom, spirit-power, and skill on the back of a pony. His band grew larger than any other, and moved more to keep its huge herd of ponies fed. The herd numbered no fewer than one thousand, and sometimes twice that, as each warrior possessed at least six ponies. Some owned many more. Horseback himself claimed over two hundred, though he gave ponies like other men gave counsel.

His war pony, Medicine-Coat, was the reason for his horse wealth. No matter how many ponies he gave away, his spirit-pony would win more in the horse races that always went along with the great camp-togethers of the True Humans. As a racer, Medicine-Coat was never beaten, nor even seriously challenged. The likes of his speed and strength were beheld in no other pony on earth, for Medicine-Coat had the blood of spirits coursing through his veins. He bred many mares, and the Horseback People were known to possess the finest ponies on the plains because of Medicine-Coat's blood. Many of his foals wore the coat of light and shadows, yet none was quite as beautiful as its father.

As a war pony Medicine-Coat had proven invincible. Bullets went around his magical coat of darkness and light. Arrow and lance wounds closed up like waters behind a kingfisher. As the war dragged on, Medicine-Coat's hide became as a map of many battlefields, and Horseback could stand by his side and point to scars and match them with scars on his own skin, and give the accounts of the making of the wounds. Men would gather around him to hear the tales of his many battle strokes as he fattened Medicine-Coat on bark stripped from
sohoobi
trees.

“See this scar that my wife has tattooed on my thigh,” he would say, holding the flap of his loin skins aside to reveal the old wound. “I won this scar in the fight against Battle Scar's people on Red Water. The arrow went through my thigh and into my pony.” Here, he would point to the hairless welt on Medicine-Coat's hide. “We have both healed, but the arrow point is still inside my war pony. It does not bother him. Now when we ride, my scar touches his, and we remember the glory of that battle.” And he would strip more bark from the
sohoobi
trees to feed to Medicine-Coat as he told the scar stories.

The battles were not all glorious. There were chiefs even among wolves, and each
Na-vohnuh
warrior fought like one of these wolf-chiefs. They protected their women and children to the death, and many young Comanche warriors fell to the sure aim of
Na-vohnuh
marksmen. Yet, the
Na-vohnuh
almost always lost more men dead than the Comanche. And because the Comanche moved around, the
Na-vohnuh
did not attack their camps as often as Comanches attacked
Na-vohnuh
villages. The True Humans lost few women and children to the slave market. The
Na-vohnuh
lost many, making them ever weaker and less able to replace their warriors lost in battle.

Even when the
Na-vohnuh
did make raids on Comanche camps, the Comanche horsemen repelled such attacks with greater success. Comanche warriors learned to keep their best horses staked near their lodges so they could mount in the time a sacred shooting star took to streak across the sky.