The T-shaped tongue held the oxen’s heads at an unnatural angle. That, added to the weight of the carts, made it necessary to use four times the normal number of animals to pull a load. Carretas were a ridiculous form of transportation, but they hauled away the remains of ten to twelve thousand buffalo a year. Their catch was insignificant when compared to the millions of animals that blanketed the plains, but it supplied the pueblos and outlying ranches of New Mexico with food for the winter.
El Manco rode to a place at the head of the line and led his people eastward.
As he watched the band of Komantcia approach, El Manco noted that one of the women was blond. But that wasn’t unusual. And except for her hair she was Komantcia in every way. The men behind El Manco were nervous. They were a fierce-looking lot, but it was mostly bluff. They knew they were no match for Komantcia on an equal basis.
Fortunately, this wasn’t an equal basis. The band coming toward them had only nine members. And of those, only five were warriors. So El Manco waited calmly. He had learned long ago not to worry about things he couldn’t control. And death was the major one of those. The manner of it was unimportant, though he would prefer not to die by torture.
The sixty Anazasi ciboleros crowded behind El Manco would have given most men pause. Even in the hot sun they wore leather pants and jackets. Round, flat straw hats protected their faces. Their lances rode upright, the butt ends wedged into leather cases and the shafts held in place by straps tied to their saddle pommels. A forest of slender lance points waved overhead, each decorated with a long tassel of brightly colored cloth that fluttered in the wind. The Pueblo’s old flintlock muskets were also carried vertically on the other side of each saddle. Each had a tasseled stopper in the muzzle.
The muskets were more for show than defense on the Staked Plains. The constant wind blew away the sparks and priming and made the guns almost useless. The men’s long, wiry black hair was pulled back into thick queues. Their swarthy faces were grim as they fingered the fourteen-inch blades in their belts. They looked like a band of land-locked pirates among their beached spars.
“Jesus, help Eulalia bring up the cart with the trade goods.” El Manco beckoned with his right arm, and he heard the creak of the wheels grinding against their axle. The noise drowned out the fainter noises of creaking saddles and fluttering tassels. The Komantcia conferred at a distance, and the mayordomo waited patiently. He felt the small black buffalo gnats swarming around his face. They crawled down his shirt front and up his pants legs. He dared not mar the dignity of the occasion by slapping at them. And he cursed them under his breath. They left ugly, pus-filled welts that took days to go down. He hoped they were biting the Komantcia as badly.
If they were indeed Komantcia. They could be Kiowa, but more than likely they weren’t. He hoped not. The Kiowa were the Komantcia’s allies. But they didn’t have the same shaky peace with the people of New Mexico that the Komantcia had had for over sixty years.
Suddenly the members of the small party spurred their ponies and raced toward the waiting ciboleros. The tallest warrior and the golden-haired woman rode in front, side by side. As El Manco moved out to meet them alone, he heard Hanibal behind him.
“Madre de Dios! ¡Qué mujer, what a woman! I wonder if the chief would consider selling her.”
“In your whole life, Joven,” said Jésus, “you wouldn’t have enough horses to buy her.”
Then the Komantcia bore down on El Manco as if to crush him under their hooves, but slowly held his right hand up. With the palm forward, he moved it deliberately back and forth, signaling them to halt. If they didn’t they were hostile, but it would probably be too late for El Manco. The ponies lurched to a stop just out of reach of a lance and danced there nervously. El Manco still held his hand up, but now he moved it from right to left and back again. “I do not know you,” his hand said. “Who are you?”
The tall, lean young warrior held his aim in front of him, the forearm parallel to his waist. He made a backward wriggling motion with it, around toward his side. El Manco gave a tiny sigh of relief. They were Snakes Who Came Back. Koh-mat, the Utes called them, Those Who Are Always Against Us. Komantcia. Comanche. Dangerous, but not as bad as Kiowa. They didn’t look like they were the advance scout of a war party. They had too much baggage with them. They were young families on the move somewhere.
El Manco raised his right hand and shook the stump of his left arm. “Are you friends?” he asked, giving the sign as best he could with only one hand.
The warrior held both hands up high and locked his two forefingers. “Yes. We are friends.” Then he rode forward to claim the gifts he considered his right.
Gifts. Tribute. Bribe. It was all the same. It was a custom begun by a shrewd Spanish viceroy in 1786, and now no one questioned it. When the order first went out to buy off the ferocious raiders from the east, the Komantcia had tried to return gift for gift, as was their own custom. But they were assured it wasn’t necessary. As the years went by, they took arrogantly what they considered their due.
The cart had been turned around so Eulalia could see her husband. She sat with her short, plump legs dangling. As she watched the hand talk, she whispered the prayer said over each child at his naming ceremony.
May you always live without sickness.
May you have good corn and all good things.
May you travel the sun trail to old age,
And pass away in sleep without pain.
Would this be the time they murdered El Manco? They were so unpredictable. It was hard to tell. A black shawl shielded Eulalia’s face from the sun and shrouded her fear. Behind her on the bed of the cart were piles of flat, round, golden loaves of bread. She had spent many hours grinding the corn for them in a series of ever finer stone metates. There was always grit in the cornmeal, of course. “Every man must eat a metate in his lifetime,” the saying went. But the Komantcia loved the bread. It was a major trade item. Not that they would be traded today. They would be given in exchange for safe passage across the Llano.
She knew that the Komantcia considered them trespassers. But the Anazasi’s Ancient Ones had been hunting buffalo here when the Snakes Who Came Back were still living in the mountains far to the north. Before they ever walked out onto the plains on their stubby, highlanders’ legs, carrying their possessions on their bowed backs or making their dogs drag them. Before they ever stole their first horse and became a menace to everyone around them.
Now bread and sugar, flour and coffee were the price the Anazasi had to pay to use what had once been theirs. Just as they had to pay taxes for the land that was theirs. Eulalia wished there were more left for themselves after the tributes and the taxes and the tithes. The Spanish took, the Komantcia took. The priests took. Especially the priests. Looking at her kind face and that of her husband, it was difficult to see the rage that made the Anazasi rise up every hundred years or so and slaughter when too much had been taken from them.
Eulalia gathered up as many of the loaves of bread as she could carry and slid off the cart to offer them to her husband. He in turn solemnly handed them to the young chief and his retinue.
CHAPTER 37
As they rode away from the caravan of Pueblo buffalo hunters, Naduah could hear the carretas moving forward again. The oxen bawled loudly, and the wail of the axles against fifty sets of cart wheels sounded like huge fingernails scratching against slate. Naduah nibbled contentedly on the corn cake, glad she was one of the People and not a cibolero, crawling across the landscape like a slug.
“This is delicious!” She waved the cornbread at Wanderer.
“It’s even better warm, with honey.”
Star Name and Deep Water cantered to catch up with them, and they rode together side by side. Spaniard’s new woman and Big Bow’s latest conquest stayed to themselves, gossiping and taking care of the pack animals. Lance, the Wasps’ crier, had decided to come too. He was remote and preoccupied as usual, keeping to himself and chanting his songs throug
h his nose all day. Naduah had asked him why he had come with them. He looked at her as though surprised by the question.
“To see the world, of course.” She knew it was probably the only answer she would get.
Star Name looked over her shoulder at the crude, clumsy carts disappearing into a cloud of dust. Ahead of them, off to one side, stretched the broad, ravaged furrow left in the grass by the heavy wooden wheels and the hundreds of plodding animals that pulled them.
“There’s no mistaking their trail, is there?” said Star Name. “Not when there are this many,” said Wanderer. “They don’t always come in such a large party.”
Naduah studied the vast sweep of absolutely flat land all around them. The short, curly, yellow grass stretched to the horizon like a newly mown meadow.
“How do you track a small party here?” she asked.
Wanderer reined Night around in a tight circle to face in the direction they had come. The others did the same. He and Deep Water waited silently for the women to figure it out.
“I see it,” said Naduah. “Do you, Sister?”
“Yes. The grass is slightly darker where we passed.”
“It’ll stay that way for two days or more, depending on how dry it is.” Wanderer turned and started moving again. “You’ll learn to see the trails in the grass more clearly after you’ve lived here a while. One day they’ll be so obvious you’ll wonder how you ever could have missed them. You’ll know when a deer has passed.”
Naduah unfastened her gourd canteen from the loop on her saddle. She took a sip and handed it to Star Name. Star Name tilted it up to drink, then looked over at Wanderer.
“Should I save this?” She held the canteen up. “When will we find water?”
“Soon. Drink as much as you want.”
“How will we find water?” asked Naduah.
“The same ways you have always found it.”
“We just climb a high hill and look for darker colored trees along the riverbed,” laughed Star Name. “That’s where the pools will be in dry weather.”
“Star Name, you have no respect for maturity and wisdom.” Wanderer looked aggrieved. “Look for ponies.”
“If they’re strung out in a line and walking steadily without grazing, they’re headed for water. Right?” Sunrise had taught Naduah and Star Name that.
“Right.”
“Or look for mesquites,” added Star Name. “Mustangs eat the beans and drop the seeds in their dung. And ponies rarely graze more than a few miles from water.”
“Right also.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s much water to find around here.” Naduah was daunted by the immensity of the landscape. She was used to seeing plains that seemed to roll on forever, but never had she seen country as empty and monotonous as this. There was nothing to relieve the eye, nothing to soothe her mind or distract her from the barrenness. She longed for a big, cool cottonwood, with its rustling leaves that sounded like rainfall in the night.
“It doesn’t look like there’s any water here at all,” said Star Name.
“There’s water, but it tastes like piss,” said Spaniard as he rode up to join them.
“He’s right. Remind me to tell you about keeping the horses away from alkali water. And what it will do to them if they drink it.”
“Hey, you Kiowa stud,” Spaniard waved to Big Bow. “Get up here. I don’t trust you back there with my woman.”
“Very wise, Spaniard,” said Deep Water. “I wouldn’t trust Star Name with him either.” Star Name gave him an evil look.
“I wouldn’t trust any woman with him,” grumbled Spaniard. “I don’t understand it. I’m much better looking than he is. What makes him so irresistible to women?”
“He has five hundred horses and half as many mules. And he has so many women, none of them has much work to do,” said Wanderer.
“That’s why he goes on the war trail so often;” added Deep Water. “To get away from his women.”
Wanderer and Naduah rode ahead while the others bantered.
“It’s so empty, Wanderer. I feel lost and helpless here.” Naduah looked around at the barren land lying inert under the weight of the wide sky.
“It’s not empty. It’s boundless. Free. Nothing blocks your vision. Nothing stands between you and the horizon. Or you and the heavens. You’ll like it when you get used to it.”
“I suppose so. You were telling me how to find water.”
He picked up the trail of his thoughts.
“Watch for doves. They find water every day. They’re usually not far from it. And the dirt daubers. If they have mud in their beaks, they’re coming from water. And if they’re going to it, they fly straight and low. Also, there’s a type of grass that grows around water. I’ll show it to you. Even if there’s no water visible, you may be able to bring some to the surface by walking your pony back and forth in the sand. And listen for frogs. They’ll lead you to a hidden spring sometimes.” - “All those methods sound chancy.”
“Life is chancy. Maybe chancier here than in the country you’re used to. But you’ll learn.”
You’ll learn. Naduah despaired of ever learning all there was to know. Just when she thought she’d done so, Wanderer or Sunrise or Takes Down The Lodge would spring something new on her. And she would feel like an ignorant child again. Wanderer went on talking in his low teaching voice.
“Be very careful of the water, especially for your ponies. Always drink from a spring when possible. The rivers are safest when the water’s low. When it’s high it leaches the mineral salts from the banks, and it’s worse. Don’t even let a horse graze near an alkali river. Floodwater leaves deposits on the grass that can make him sick.”
“How do I know if a pony’s been poisoned by it?”
“His stomach and chest will swell. And he’ll cough. If it’s allowed to go uncured, it’ll destroy his lungs.”
“How can it be cured?”
“If you catch it early enough, you can pour grease down his throat.” Wanderer swung a leg over and sat on Night’s back as though on a log, with both feet swinging free. “Enough lessons. I’ll race you to the next ravine. It’s about three miles straight ahead.”
“How do you know there’s a ravine three miles ahead?” Naduah was a little exasperated with him. How could anyone know where they were on this featureless plain?
“You’ll know in time too. There’s a spring there where we can fill our canteens and water paunches.”
“A race with Night is no contest. Even for Wind.”
“I’ll ride backwards.”
“You could ride standing on your head. It wouldn’t make any difference to Night.”
“Mea-dro, let’s go!” He swung the other leg over and sat facing her as Night surged forward. He made hideous faces at her, and she returned them. Unable to resist the challenge, she kicked Wind’s sides and raced after him.
For four leisurely days, the party traveled across the plain. They headed north and west into the sun. They took their time, stopping to chase buffalo or pronghorn, otherwise riding slowly so Naduah’s dog could keep up. Dog was growing old, and sometimes rode on a travois, her nose on her paws, her liquid brown eyes staring serenely off into space. But she still chased anything that ran, her legs trembling with fatigue when she returned to them.
The party spent the hottest part of each afternoon lying under small shelters of hides or brush, or in the wispy shade of stunted willows at the bottom of a ravine. One day, they found a clear spring gushing gallons of water from the bottom of a shallow, brush-choked canyon. As they lay around the spring lapping the cold water, Naduah sneaked up on Wanderer and poured a canteen full of it on his bare back. He leaped to his feet with a yelp, scooping up water in his cupped hands and spraying her face with it. Star Name came to her defense, and the war was on. They threw water until they were all soaked. All but Lance. He hunkered at the rim of the ravine and smiled down on them, like a fond parent on his mischievous children.
“Will we find Iron Shirt’s band soon?”
“Yes.”
“What’s he like?”
“Who?”
“You know who, Wanderer. Don’t play with me.”
“There’s no reason for you to worry, golden one.”
“I just want to know what to expect. What kind of man is your father?”
Wanderer rode silently beside her. The silence seemed to stretch and distort time, like the dancing mirages that shimmered constantly on the horizon.
“He’s a great warrior,” he said finally.
“So I’ve heard. What else?”
“What else is there?”
“There are other things about a man besides his ability in war.”
“I suppose. But that’s the only thing that counts.”
Naduah tried another tack. “Is he kind?”
“Kind? I don’t know. He has great power. His breath is magic. It makes arrows fall harmlessly around him, like the gnats you slap away. He has a shirt of metal that keeps bullets from touching him. He has more coups than six average men put together. I never thought about whether or not he was kind.”
It was hopeless. Wanderer could see everything clearly, except his own father. Or maybe he didn’t want to tell her. It would be like him to make her meet Iron Shirt knowing nothing about him but what was common knowledge. The stories were told around the fires of even her own band, far to the south. She would have to meet Iron Shirt and form her own opinions of him.
Late in the afternoon, Wanderer called another halt.
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 45