Authors: Alan LeMay
“Keep hold of it,” Amos said. “Come in handy if the Comanches go through my pockets before you.”
“It don’t change anything,” Mart said bleakly. “I’ll do what I have to do.”
“I know.”
They rode four hours more. At mid-afternoon Amos held up his hand, and they stopped. The rolling ground hid what ever was ahead but now they heard the far-off barking of dogs.
Yellow Buckle’s village was strung out for a considerable distance along a shallow river as yet unnamed by white men, but called by Indians the Wild Dog. The village was a lot bigger than the Texans had expected. Counting at a glance, as cattle are counted, Mart believed he saw sixty-two lodges. Probably it would be able to turn out somewhere between a hundred fifty and two hundred warriors, counting old men and youths.
They were seen at a great distance, and the usual scurrying about resulted all down the length of the village. Soon a party of warriors began to build up just outside. They rode bareback, with single-rope war bridles on the jaws of their ponies, and their weapons were in their hands. A few headdresses and medicine shields showed among them, but none had tied up the tails of their ponies, as they did when a fight was expected. This group milled about, but not excitedly, until twenty or so had assembled, then flowed into a fairly well-dressed line, and advanced at a walk to meet the white men. Meanwhile three or four scouts on fast ponies swung wide, and streaked in the direction from which Mart and Amos had come to make sure that the two riders were alone.
“Seem kind of easy spooked,” Mart said, “don’t they?”
“I wouldn’t say so. Times have changed. They’re getting fought back at now. Seems to me they act right cocky, and sure.”
The mounted line halted fifty yards in front of them. A warrior in a buffalo-horn headdress drew out two lengths, and questioned them in sign language: “Where have you come from? What do you want? What do you bring?” The conventional things.
And Amos gave conventional answers. “I come very far, from beyond the Staked Plains. I want to make talk. I have a message for Yellow Buckle. I have gifts.”
A Comanche raced his pony back into the village, and the spokesman faked other questions, meaninglessly, while he waited for instructions. By the time his runner was back from the village, the scouts had signaled from far out that the strangers appeared to be alone, and all was well up to here. The two riders were escorted into the village through a clamoring horde of cur dogs, all with small heads and the souls of gadflies; and halted before a tepee with the black smoke flaps of a chief’s lodge.
Presently a stocky, middle-aged Comanche came out, wrapped himself in a blanket, and stood looking them over. He was weaponless, but had put on no headdress or decoration of any kind. This was a bad sign, and the slouchy way he stood was another. Amos’ gestures were brusque as he asked if this man called himself Yellow Buckle and the chief gave the least possible acknowledgment.
Visitors were supposed to stay in the saddle until invited to dismount, but Yellow Buckle did not give the sign. He’s making this too plain, Mart thought. He wants us out of here, and in a hurry, but he ought to cover up better than this. Mart felt Amos anger. The tension increased until it seemed to ring as Amos dismounted without invitation, walked within two paces of the chief, and looked him up and down.
Yellow Buckle looked undersized with Amos looming over him. He had the short bandy legs that made most Comanches unimpressive on the ground, however effective they might be when once they put hands to their horses. He remained expressionless, and met Amos’ eyes steadily. Mart stepped down and stood a little in back of Amos, and to the side. Getting a closer look at this chief, Mart felt his scalp stir. A thin line, like a crease, ran from the corner of the Comanche’s left eye to the line of the jaw, where no natural wrinkle would be. They were standing before the mythical, the long-hunted, the forever elusive Chief Scar!
The Indian freed one arm, and made an abrupt sign that asked what they wanted. Amos’ short answer was all but contemptuous. “I do not stand talking in the wind,” his hands said.
For a moment more the Comanche chief stood like a post. Amos had taken a serious gamble in that he had left himself no alternatives. If Yellow Buckle— Scar—told him to get out, Amos would have no way to stay, and no excuse for coming back. After that he could only ride to meet the Rangers, and guide them to the battle that would destroy Scar and most of the people with him. It’s what he wants, Mart thought. I have to stay if Amos rides out of here. I have to make what try I can, never mind what Amos does.
But now Scar smiled faintly, with a gleam in his eye that Mart neither understood nor liked, but which might have contained derision. He motioned Amos to follow him, and went into the tepee.
“See they keep their hands off the mule packs,” Amos said, tossing Mart his reins.
Mart let the split reins falls. “Guard these,” he said in Comanche to the warrior who had been spokesman. The Comanche looked blank but Mart turned his back on him, and followed Amos. The door flap dropped in his face; he struck it aside with annoyance, and went inside.
A flicker of fire in the middle of the lodge, plus a seepage of daylight from the smoke flap at the peak, left the lodge shadowy. The close air carried a sting of wood smoke, scented with wild-game stew, buffalo hides, and the faintly musky robe smell of Indians. Two chunky squaws and three younger females had been stirred into a flurry by Amos’ entrance, but they were settling down as Mart came in. Mart gave the smallest of these, a half-grown girl, a brief flick of attention, without looking directly at her but even out of the corner of his eye he could see that her shingled thatch was black, and as coarse as a pony’s tail.
Women were supposed to keep out of the councils of warriors, unless called to wait on the men. But the two squaws now squatted on their piled robes on the honor side of the lodge, where Scar’s grown sons should have been, and the three younger ones huddled deep in the shadows opposite. Mart realized that they must have jumped up to get out of there, and that Scar had told them to stay. This was pretty close to insult, the more so since Scar did not invite the white men to sit down.
Scar himself stood opposite the door beyond the fire. He shifted his blanket, wrapping it skirtlike around his waist; and his open buckskin shirt exposed a gold brooch in the form of a bow of ribbon, hung around his neck on a chain. In all likelihood his present name, assumed midway of his career, commemorated some exploit with which this brooch was associated.
Amos waited stolidly, and finally Scar was forced to address them. He knew them now, he told them in smooth-running sign language. “You,” he said, indicating Amos, “are called Bull Shoulders. And this boy,” he dismissed Mart, “is The Other.”
Amos’ hands lied fluently in answer. He had heard of a white man called Bull Shoulders, but the Chickasaws said Bull Shoulders was dead. He himself was called Plenty Mules. His friends, the Quohadas, so named him. He was a subchief among the Comanchero traders beyond the Staked Plains. His boss was called the Rich One. Real name—“Jaime Rosas,” Amos used his voice for the first time.
“You are Plenty Mules,” Yellow Buckle’s hands conceded, while his smile expressed a contrary opinion. “A Comanchero. This—” he indicated Mart— “is still The Other. His eyes are made of mussel shells, and he sees in the dark.”
“This—” Amos contradicted him again—“is my son. His Indian name is No-Speak.”
Mart supposed this last was meant to convey an order.
The Rich One, Amos went on in sign language, had many-heap rifles. (It was that sign itself, descriptive of piles and piles, that gave Indians the word “heap” for any big quantity, when they picked up white men’s words.) He wanted horses, mules, horned stock, for his rifles. He had heard of Yellow Buckle. He had been told—here Amos descended to flattery—that Yellow Buckle was a great horse thief, a great cow thief—a fine sneak thief of every kind. Yellow Buckle’s friend had said that.
“What friend?” Scar’s hands demanded.
“The Flower,” Amos signed.
“The Flower,” Scar said, “has a white wife.”
No change of pace or mood showed in the movement of Scar’s hands, drawing classically accurate pictographs in the air, as he said that. But Mart’s hair stirred and all but crackled; the smoky air in the lodge had suddenly become charged, like a thunder-head. Out of the corner of his eye Mart watched the squaws to see if Scar’s remark meant anything to them in their own lives, here. But the eyes of the Comanche women were on the ground; he could not see their down-turned faces, and they had not seen the sign.
White wife. Amos made the throw-away sign. The Rich One did not trade for squaws. If the Yellow Buckle wanted rifles, he must bring horses. Many-heaps horses. No small deals. Or maybe—and this was sarcasm—Yellow Buckle did not need rifles. Plenty Mules could go find somebody else.... Amos was giving a very poor imitation of a man trying to make a trade with an Indian. But perhaps it was a good imitation of a man who had been sent with this offer, but who would prefer to make his deal elsewhere to his own purposes.
Scar seemed puzzled; he did not at once reply. Behind the Comanche, Mart could see the details of trophies and accoutrements, now that his eyes were accustomed to the gloom. Scar’s medicine shield was there. Mart wondered if it bore, under its masking cover, a design he had seen at the Fight at the Cat-tails long ago. Above the shield hung Scar’s short lance, slung horizontally from the lodgepoles. Almost a dozen scalps were displayed upon it, and less than half of them looked like the scalps of Indians. The third scalp from the tip of the lance had long wavy hair of a deep red-bronze. It was a white woman’s scalp, and the woman it had belonged to must have been beautiful. The squaws had kept this scalp brushed and oiled, so that it caught red glints from the wavering fire. But Scar’s lance bore none of the pale fine hair that had been Martha’s, nor the bright gold that had been Lucy’s hair.
Scar turned his back on them while he took two slow, thoughtful steps toward the back of the lodge and in that moment, while Scar was turned away from them, Mart felt eyes upon his face, as definitely as if a finger touched his cheek. His glance flicked to the younger squaws on the women’s side of the lodge.
He saw her then. One of the young squaws wore a black head cloth, covering all of her hair and tied under her chin; it was a commonplace thing for a squaw to wear, but it had sufficed to make her look black-headed like the others in the uncertain light. Now this one had looked up, and her eyes were on his face in an unwavering stare, as a cat stares; and the eyes were green and slanted, lighter than the deeply tanned face. They were the most startling eyes he had ever seen in his life, strangely cold, impersonal yet inimical, and as hard as glass. But this girl was Debbie.
The green eyes dropped as Scar turned toward the strangers again and Mart’s own eyes were straight ahead when the Comanche chief looked toward them.
Where were the rifles? Scar’s question came at last.
Beyond the Staked Plains, Amos answered him. Trading must be there.
Another wait, while Mart listened to the ringing in his ears.
Too far, Scar said. Let the Rich One bring his rifles here.
Amos filled his lungs, stood tall, and laughed in Scar’s face. Mart saw the Comanche’s eyes narrow but after a moment he seated himself cross-legged on his buffalo robes under the dangling scalps and the shield. “Sit down,” he said in Comanche, combining the words with the sign.
Amos ignored the invitation. “I speak no more now,” he said, using his voice for the second time. His Comanche phrasings were slow and awkward but easily understood. “Below this village I saw a spring. I camp there, close by the Wild Dog River. Tomorrow, if you wish to talk, find me there. I sleep one night wait one day. Then I go.”
“You spoke of gifts,” Yellow Buckle reminded him.
“They will be there.” He turned and, without concession to courtesy, he said in English, “Come on, No-Speak.” And Mart followed him out.
Pringles ran up and down Mart’s back as they rode out of that village with the cur dogs bawling and blaspheming again all around them, just beyond kick-range of their horses’ feet. But until they were out of there they had to move unhurriedly, as if at peace and expecting peace. Even their eyes held straight ahead, lest so much as an exchange of glances be mis-read as a trigger for trouble.
Amos spoke first, well past the last of the lodges. “Did you see her?... Yeah,” he answered himself. “I see you did.” His reaction to the sudden climax of their search seemed to be the opposite of what Mart had expected. Amos seemed steadied, and turned cool.
“She’s alive,” Mart said. It seemed about the only thing his mind was able to think. “Can you realize it? Can you believe it? We found her, Amos!”
“Better start figuring how to stay alive yourself. Or finding her won’t do anybody much good.”
That was what was taking all the glory, all the exultation, out of their victory. They had walked into a hundred camps where they could have handled this situation, dangerous though it must always be. White captives had been bought and sold before time and again. Any Indian on earth but Scar would have concealed the girl, and played for time, until they found a way to deal.
“How in God’s name,” Mart asked him, “can this thing be? How could he let us walk into the lodge where she was? And keep her there before our eyes?”
“He meant for us to see her, that’s all!”
“This is a strange Comanche,” Mart said.
“This whole hunt has been a strange thing. And now we know why. Mart, did you see—there’s scarce a Comanch’ in that whole village we haven’t seen before.”
“I know.”
“We’ve even stood in that same one lodge before. Do you know where?”
“When we talked to Singing Dog on the Little Boggy.”
“That’s right. We talked to Singing Dog in Scar’s own lodge—while Scar took the girl and hid out. That’s how they’ve kept us on a wild-goose chase five years long. They’ve covered up, and decoyed for him, every time we come near.”