Comanche Gold (14 page)

Given the number of gunmen who were riding
for Ed Thompson, Tucson knew that the odds were stacked against
him. In a way, he was a fool for giving Durant first warning. He
probably should have gunned him down on the spot like a rabid dog.
But Tucson's personal code wouldn't allow him to move against a man
without first letting him know that he was coming.

Whatever it cost Tucson in the long run, he
had to give Durant a chance to get out. If the banker didn't take
it, then it was open season.

His gaze moved ceaselessly over the
chaparral, searching for rising dust or any unusual movement, and
he kept glancing at the ears of the stallion, knowing that it could
catch sounds too faint for Tucson.

He reached the small rise above the Comanche
village without spotting any riders, not even the Comanche patrol.
He kept well back this time and didn't see the village, but he
smelled it. The stallion shook its head furiously and danced
sideways; it didn't like the stench any more than Tucson did.

Skirting wide, Tucson approached the lodge of
Soaring Eagle from the east. A grey wisp of smoke rose straight up
into the clear blue sky from the hole in the top, and there were
two mustangs standing ground hitched outside. One of them was the
decrepit pinto of the boy, Cuchillo.

As Tucson dismounted, the entrance flap of
the teepee was thrown aside and Soaring Eagle stepped out, followed
by Cuchillo. Wrapped in a buffalo robe in spite of the heat, the
old chief couldn’t have stood more than a few inches above five
feet.

Cuchillo was dressed in a buckskin shirt,
breech clout, leather leggings, and moccasins. His black hair was
held back with a leather cord.

Soaring Eagle spoke in Shoshone dialect, and
Tucson looked to Cuchillo for a translation.

“Soaring Eagle knew you would come this
morning, Storm Rider,” Cuchillo said. “He welcomes you, and invites
you into his lodge.”

Tucson followed them back into the teepee.
The old woman he had seen before was squatting over a pot simmering
above the fire in the center. At sight of Tucson she got up without
a word and left.

Soaring Eagle dropped down onto his pile of
skins, while Cuchillo knelt at his side. Tucson unbuckled his
gun-belt, hung it up, then sat cross-legged to the right of and
facing the old chief. Without speaking, Soaring Eagle reached
inside a beaded leather case and brought out a long wooden tube
with eagle feathers dangling from it and a stone bowl attached to
the end.

As Tucson watched, he began filling the bowl
with what looked like a blend of tobacco and sumac. With a forked
stick, Cuchillo pulled a burning coal from the fire and lit the
mixture for the old man. Once the pipe was going, Soaring Eagle
lifted his arms and offered the smoke to the four corners of the
universe before he drew on it himself.

Then he handed it to Tucson.

After following the same ritual, Tucson drew
in on the pipe, grimacing at the bitter taste of the sumac. He and
Soaring Eagle passed the pipe back and forth until the contents
were consumed. The old chief tapped the bowl against his palm until
it was cleared of ashes then he returned it to its case.

Only then did he speak.

“What have you found out, Storm Rider?” he
asked - and Cuchillo translated.

“Nothing I could take to a white man's
court,” Tucson replied, with a heavy sigh. “But I'm convinced
you're right. Charles Durant
is
trying to steal your gold.
When he found out that I'd visited you here at the reservation he
tried to have me killed.”

Soaring Eagle grinned, revealing the stumps
of black teeth. “We have heard of your battle with the two gunmen,”
he said. As he translated, Cuchillo's dark eyes gleamed with
admiration. “What do you do now?”

Tucson straightened his back and listened to
his spine crack. “I told Durant to be out of Howling Wolf by
tonight or I'd shoot him on sight.” He grinned back at Soaring
Eagle. “Now we wait and see whether or not he does it.”

The old chief shook his head. “He has many
guns. He will try to kill you first.”

“That's what I figure,” Tucson agreed. “He'll
probably wall himself in with gunmen hoping I won't be able to get
at him. I'll just have to take my chances.”

Soaring Eagle's black eyes grew reflective,
and he stared into the fire, as if he were seeing shapes rising in
the smoke. “Always The People have had to deal with men like the
white banker.” He spoke in dialect; but even though he couldn’t
precisely understand the words, Tucson felt the pathos of the old
man’s speech. “Since the time of my grandfather,” Soaring Eagle
went on, “they came to us with promises and demands. Always they
broke their promises, while they rammed their demands down our
throats.

“We watched our hunting grounds become
chopped up with their fences, wars with our ancient enemies
prohibited, our traditions spat upon and forbidden in the name of
the Great Father in the sky.” Soaring Eagle's eyes held immense
sorrow as he shifted his gaze to Tucson, who watched him fixedly.
“We were told that all Comanche land was ours, and that no one
would stop us from living on it. Then they made us leave the rivers
and the sun and the wind and forced us to live in square houses.
They say we must give up buffalo and eat beef, move to reservations
and live off what they give us and what we pull from the
earth.”

As he spoke, his aged hands gestured along
with his words.

“Always they give a little with one hand,
while they take much with the other. Our young men revolted. How
could they feed their women and children without hunting, how could
they gain honor without war, how could they live by cutting into
the sacred earth and pulling things out of the ground - work no
real man would ever agree to do?”

He raised a hand and pointed in the direction
of the village. “You can see what we have come to. Our great chiefs
are gone, our warriors are dead. Our women no longer respect the
men, and the men lose themselves in whiskey and peyote.”

The three of them sat silently after Soaring
Eagle had spoken and all stared pensively into the fire.

Then Tucson spoke. “I share your sorrow,
Great Chief. The destruction of the Comanche lies heavily on the
spirits of us all. Still, you have to understand that there never
could have been a real peace between the Nermernuh and white men.
Neither people could ever understand the other—the differences in
way of life were just too great. Whatever way you cut it,” he
pointed out, “the Indians would've gone down before the white
storm. But, once you agreed to stop fighting, the whites could have
dealt more honorably with you. They could have kept promises and
allowed you to retain your dignity as human beings. That this
wasn't done will live on as the great shame of the white man.”

Soaring Eagle nodded his head as Cuchillo
translated for him. The mass of wrinkles that formed his mouth
deepened into a frown. “You speak truly, Storm Rider. Nermernuh
medicine could not defeat the medicine of the whites.” Then his old
eyes sharpened. “But now we have the only medicine the whites
respect - gold! The white man will slit the throat of his own
mother to have it.” His voice grew stronger. “I think now we have a
chance to survive. Now we can buy what we need.”

“You'll still need a white to act for you,”
Tucson replied, after a moment’s thought. “No Comanche should ever
go to a white banker with gold. It would be stolen from you just
like the last time. And after they stole the gold they'd take away
your land, like Durant is trying to do now.”

“What we do then?” the old chief asked. “If
we cannot sell gold, it is no use to us.”

“I have an idea,” Tucson replied. “There's a
white woman in Howling Wolf. Her name is Catherine Murry, and she
runs a boarding house. She's honorable, and is sympathetic to the
Comanche. I believe she would agree to act as your agent.” After
pausing to consider for a moment, he added, “But it will still be
dangerous. Anyone—no matter who it is—would cause a stir if they
showed up at a bank carrying gold. People will want to know where
it came from. The danger is that the source may still leak out. If
that happens, you'll be moved off your land, most likely to a place
even worse than this. You’ve got to realize, Great Chief, that
you're taking a big chance.” He stared piercingly into the old
man’s face. “What you’re trying to do could mean your final
destruction.”

Soaring Eagle sighed, closed his eyes and
sank down within himself. Tucson and Cuchillo sat silently and
waited. The heat inside the lodge was stifling. Tucson wiped the
sweat from his brow and listened to the flies buzzing in the air
and to the snorting and stomping of the horses outside.

Finally, Soaring Eagle opened his eyes and
looked at Tucson. “We must do whatever we can to survive,” he said.
“If we stay like this we will die. Both roads may bring death, but
with the gold at least we have a chance. Without it we have
nothing. We will go to the white woman in Howling Wolf and pay her
well to help us.”

Tucson nodded. “Then all I can do to help you
is to eliminate Charles Durant. That issue will be settled by
sun-up tomorrow. When that's done, if I'm still alive, I'll be
heading out of Howling Wolf.” He started to rise, but turned back.
“By the way, Great Chief, if I find that pouch of gold you sent to
Durant - I'm keeping it!”

* * * *

Tucson was putting his boot into the stirrup
when Cuchillo came out of the lodge. “Wait, Storm Rider,” called
the boy. “I need to talk to you.”

Tucson glanced at him, noting again his
traditional Comanche garb, different from the clothes he had worn
when he went into town. “Okay...” he replied, as he lifted himself
into the saddle. “...talk”

Cuchillo swung effortlessly onto the bare
back of the pinto then lifted his thin arm and pointed north.
“Let's ride that way.”

It was early afternoon, and the air Tucson
drew into his lungs was hot and dry. The very earth seemed to reel
under the impact of the heat as if from the blows of a huge hammer.
The chaparral, the prairie grass, the yucca and the oaks, all
seemed to be gasping for breath.

Tucson and Cuchillo rode down the Old Spanish
Trail in silence. Tucson held his peace and let the boy come to
what he wanted to say in his own time.

“I'm goin’ on my spirit quest today,”
Cuchillo stated, finally, with a tinge of pride edging his voice.
“In the north of our land there's an arroyo with a spring where I
can stay. I've put up a teepee and built a sweat lodge for
vigils.”

That explained the boy’s traditional
clothes.

“You're searching for your own medicine,”
Tucson commented quietly.

“I knew you'd understand.” Cuchillo gazed up
at him worshipfully. “But what do you think,” he asked, “can a
Comanche still get
puha
, power, or is it all dead now that
The People have been almost wiped out?”

“Shouldn't you be asking Soaring Eagle?”
Tucson replied with surprise. “Why ask a white man about Comanche
medicine?”

“Because you ain't no ordinary white man!”
Cuchillo exclaimed. “Soaring Eagle told us before you came that
he'd seen Storm Rider, the great white warrior, in his spirit
vision—and he put out the call to you for help.

“He said that you're a warrior like the
Nermernuh used to be,” he explained. “And you understand our ways
and traditions. But I don't know...” he glanced away; then his eye
was caught by the majestic form of an eagle circling in the clear
sky above them. “It seems to me,” he said dejectedly, bringing his
gaze back to Tucson, “that the spirits have deserted the Comanche.
Our medicine's been destroyed by the white man with his farms and
towns and soldiers. I wonder if lookin’ for my medicine now is
useless.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “I thought, since you
understand both sides, you maybe could tell me.”

They rode on, side by side, while Tucson
thought over what to say. He too had seen the eagle, and was
impressed by the fact that it was circling in the sky at just that
moment. His gaze sharpened as he looked again at the boy.

“The first thing you have to understand,” he
said, “is that you can't ask anyone else about your own medicine.
Power is a personal matter, and it depends on the man whether or
not he can attract enough
puha
to himself. Still,” he added
sadly, “it is a fact that the Comanche's medicine has been wiped
out. The same is true for all the Tribes. The trail for The People
will be long and hard from now on,” he concluded with a shake of
his head, “and I don't see any light at the end for them—not in the
sense of a return to your old ways. That's gone for good.”

As Cuchillo listened to Tucson, his shoulders
slumped despondently. Then the pinto stumbled as a jack rabbit shot
out of the prairie grass and across the trail in front of them, and
he pulled back on the reins to steady it.

“What's the use, then?” he asked in despair.
“Maybe I should just lay around the village, soak up whiskey, swat
flies and plant corn! Why search for
puha
when it's already
deserted us?”

“Because,” Tucson explained patiently, “even
though Nermernuh medicine is gone, you can still discover your own
way as a man. Listen to me, boy...” He shifted in the saddle and
stared at Cuchillo. “Your spirit vision can help you to find out
who you are and what your purpose is in life. It's a great
achievement for a man to discover his purpose—what he was born to
do.” Remembering the eagle, his gaze concentrated into a point. “I
believe you have an important purpose. Now, more than ever, the
Indians need leaders. They need men with an awareness of the past,
but who can also see into the future and can help them prepare for
it. Soaring Eagle is such a man, but he's old now and ready to join
his ancestors. I think that you can become such a man.”