“So would hell.”
“Cheer up, Case. We’re goin’ to Utah soon.”
“I heard that rumor. You suppose it’s true?”
“Sounds like the sort of fool thing brass Will do. No one over the rank of cap’n knows his ass from his ears.”
“Well, hell, Mac, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of a Comanche for over a month.”
“Now why do you spose that is?”
“We’ve whipped them.”
“Casey, I like you. But if you think that, you’re as big a fool as the brass.”
“Then where are they?”
“Up thar.” McKenna waved vaguely toward the north and the Staked Plains. “Can’t conduct a campaign on the Staked Plains, they say. ‘No water.’ Iff’n that’s true, then the Comanches’ve found a way to live without it.
“Onliest way to do them mean varmints is to thrash ‘em soundly. And the ones who’re left’ll sorta take to you and mind their manners. But no. We have to stand at the border with our hats in our hands and wait for ‘em to come out to play. Comanches may be red-bellied savages, but they ain’t stupid. Not by a long ways. They can figure out our limits, same way they can gauge a carbine range. And they’ll stay jest outside that range.”
“Hell, it don’t matter,” said McKenna with resignation. “We can fight Injuns jest as badly in Utah as we do here.”
“But we’ve fought a lot of them. And we’ve chased them away. You have to admit that.”
“Oh, I’m the first to admit it. ‘Course, they’ve been chased away before, you know. Onliest trouble is, they always come back. You’d think someone would’ve learned that by now.” Over the clatter of shod hooves and the clank of gear, Sergeant McKenna’s baritone rose.
Roll your tail
And roll her high;
We’ll all be angels
By and by.
I got a girl
In Tennessee;
I love her
And she lets me.
The men joined in on the chorus. From somewhere in the ranks an Irish tenor soared into another verse. The verses became more and more ribald as the morning wore on.
The Noconi too had retreated back into the wilds of the Staked “Plains. They were camped near a creek running into the Red River near its source. Naduah and Star Name had set up their lodges under the largest cottonwood on the plateau. Nearby was the clear, sweet stream, twelve feet wide and two feet deep. There were large cottonwoods all along it, and meadows of thick, wild rye. The valley was bordered on each side by twenty-foot bluffs of sandy red loam. On the plain beyond the bluffs were round, conical hills, thrown up by the constant winds.
Down the river from the camp were hundreds of acres of small plum trees, six feet high. They were closely meshed and so loaded with fruit that their branches dragged the ground. Beds of wild roses grew among them, as well as currants and gooseberries. They were all interwoven with huge masses of prickly pear. They formed a solid mat on which fat snakes and lizards lay basking.
Quanah and the other eleven-and twelve-year-olds were having an archery contest on the outskirts of camp, with Sore-Backed Horse acting as judge. The object of the contest was to see how many arrows each boy could shoot into the air before his first shaft fell to ground. The arrows looked like flocks of birds as they arched upward.
Most of the men who weren’t away hunting or who weren’t mending their gear were gambling. They gathered around buffalo hides marked into sections with a chalky stone. The dice were two smooth, four-inch-long sticks, flat on one side and curved on the other. A player held the sticks between his thumb and forefinger and either tossed or dropped them on a flat stone in the middle of the robe. His score depended on which chalked sections the sticks fell into.
A few of the Penateka men, followers of Buffalo Piss, were playing poker with a greasy deck of leather cards. Buffalo Piss played too, shaded by his tattered black parasol. “Brag” or “Poker” was a game the Penateka had learned from bored soldiers at Camp Cooper when they had spent the winter there. And they had taken to it immediately. Once the men of the People learned the game, the soldiers started to lose. No white man could bluff as well as they could.
In the shade of the trees the women worked or played at dice or practiced kick ball. Seven-year-old Pecan and his ‘friends were chattering among the roots of the huge cottonwood. Dwarfed by its immensity, the girls set up small lodges while the boys hunted squirrels with their tiny bows and arrows. Naduah sat in front of her lodge while Star Name plucked at the fine, pale hairs on her sister’s face.
“Ouch!”
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to be gentle.”
“Mother, look!” Pecan came running, holding a bottle in front of him. It was caked with the red clay soil and stoppered with a wooden cork. She pulled the stopper and shook the bottle, working the folded paper inside toward the neck.
“Where did you find this?”
“It was buried near the cottonwood. What do the magic marks, say?”
“I don’t know.” Naduah stared at the brown lines crawling like worms across the yellowed paper. She could remember nothing of the little schooling she had had twenty years before. Still, she studied it, knowing it meant something. The ink was faded, but the letters were written in a crisp, educated hand.
On the 16th day of June, 1852, an exploring expedition, composed of Captain R. B. Marcy, Captain G. B. McClellan, Lt. J. Updegraff and Doctor G. C. Shumard, with fifty-five men of Company D, Fifth Infantry, encamped here, having this day traced the north branch of the Red River to its sources.
“There are marks on the tree too. Mother. Come see them.” He pulled her by the hand to the cottonwood. A section of the bark had been sliced off and “Exploring Expedition, June 16, 1852” had been carved into the raw wood.
“It must have been made by white men,” said Star Name.
“It must have. But what white men would dare come here?” The paper and the marks on the tree made Naduah uneasy. The Noconi were camped where no white men came, save the few Comancheros, and they weren’t really white.
The United States military was sometimes slow to react, but Captain Marcy’s four-year-old report of his mapping expedition was finally being considered by those in command. Marcy had proven that patrols, entire military columns, and support trains could cross the Staked Plains and find good water and forage along the way.
Marcy was a thorough man. He had a keen eye, an excellent memory, and a level head. He didn’t just explore the territory, he took along artists and cartographers. He described in detail the flora and the fauna, the soil and the geological formations. He outlined the best routes to take. He detailed each day’s march, with mileages between watering places. Marcy’s report was a manual for anyone wanting to cross the wilderness. It was only a matter of time before someone put it to use.
When Wanderer returned that evening, Naduah showed him the paper and the marks on the cottonwood. He stared at them a long time, until the light faded too much for him to see.
“White men.”
“They have to be,” she said.
“White men here. And leaving messages. They would only leave messages for other white men to find.” Beside her, in the darkening twilight, Naduah could sense Wanderer’s outrage. But she felt only despair. There was nowhere left. No place the white people wouldn’t hound them. The enormity of it engulfed her. Here, on the Staked Plains. She almost expected white men to appear from the trees and begin shooting at them.
She looked back over her shoulder at the looming columns of the cotton woods and the flickering shades of the bats. The dry crackling of an armadillo crashing through the underbrush made her start, her heart pounding. Naduah hated the white people. She wished fervently that there were some way to do away with them all, forever.
“The tabay-boh horse soldiers are leaving,” said Wanderer. “Buffalo Piss’ scouts from the south report that the forts are empty of them. There are only the clumsy walk soldiers. There’ll
be a full moon soon. I’m planning a raid to the Texas lodges and villages again. What do you want me to bring you?”
“Scalps.” Naduah said it ferociously. “Bring me as many scalps as you can. And I want to go with you.”
“It’s too dangerous. Even with the riding soldiers gone, the south is full of white people now. I don’t want to lose you, golden one. I’m taking Quanah along as a herder. And I’ll bring you scalps. That’s why I’m going.”
CHAPTER 50
Naduah packed quickly by the light of the smoldering fire in the center of the lodge. Outside, the pale pink light of the sun, still buried below the horizon, was just beginning to hint that there would be another dawn soon. Wanderer’s raiding party had left a few hours before, and Naduah was preparing to follow.
By the time Wanderer discovered her, it would be too late to send her home. She might have traveled alone to meet him, but she knew he wouldn’t send her back alone. It was one of the few irrational things about him. He might send someone back with her, but she was depending on her ability to get her own way. She did it often enough.
She took only extra moccasins, her sewing kit, a change of clothing, some pemmican and jerky, her bow and quiver, and a buffalo robe. The items she used on a daily basis anyway were already in the bags she wore at her belt. She had a flint and tinder, and her awl, in its tiny beaded leather cylinder with a tightly fitting cap that slid down on the thong straps and was tied in place. She carried the bag for her paints and mirror, tweezers and hairbrush that Takes Down had given her many years ago.
She stood in the center of the lodge, taking mental inventory of her medicine bag. It was well stocked. And she decided to carry a hatchet with her, as well as her old trader’s blanket that Sunrise had given her twenty years before. It was faded and thin, but it was a link with her dead parents.
She wore her leggings and one of Wanderer’s breechclouts. She had on one of Gathered Up’s old hunting shirts that had been packed away for Quanah to wear when he grew into it. It was a little small for her and stretched taut across her full breasts. She made wings of her arms and pulled them sharply back several times at the shoulders, expanding the soft leather to fit her better. The heavy fringe around the hem fell almost to her knees.
She threaded the end of her outer belt through the slots on the broad, beaded sheath of her knife and tied the belt tightly at her waist. The side of the sheath that the blade touched was studded with brass tacks to reinforce it. Finally she tucked her hair behind her ears. She still wore it cropped in mourning for her parents.
“Are you going after Wanderer, Mother?” Quail rose on one elbow, yawning. She called Naduah Mother, but she could never bring herself to call .Wanderer Father. Sometimes Naduah remembered how self-conscious she had been around Wanderer when she was Quail’s age.
“Yes. Take care of Pecan. He stayed with a friend last night. Star Name will help you when you need it.”
“Wanderer will be angry with you.”
Naduah looked at the child affectionately.
“It won’t be the first time.” She knew Wanderer’s anger was never real as far as she was concerned.
She slung her quiver and bow across her back and her saddle onto one shoulder. With her gear under her arm, she padded through the sleeping village, threading her way around the drying racks. As she passed Star Name’s lodge, she stopped and scratched on the hide where she knew her sister’s head would be. It was their old childhood signal. Star Name staggered sleepily out, her buffalo robe wrapped around her.
“You’re going after him.”
“Yes. I’m tired of staying home.”
“So am I.” Star Name patted her swollen belly. “But I can’t go raiding for a while.”
“Please look after Pecan and Quail while I’m gone.”
“I will,” said Star Name, yawning. “I’m making a new pair of saddlebags. Bring me some scalps to decorate them.” Star Name grinned, the imp dancing in her eyes. Naduah laughed.
The birds were awake, chattering and crashing in the trees high overhead. The dogs were sniffing around camp. Naduah could hear the first quavery notes of Lance’s good-morning song. It was time to go. She hugged Star Name and went off down the path toward the pasture. As they trailed behind her, the fringes of her saddlebags made wavy lines in the dust.
Naduah rode casually into the war party’s base camp as the men were eating their evening meal. It had been easy to find them, following the columns of smoke from their signal fires on the hilltops and their cooking fires. Wanderer had gone back to the old way of raiding. He was confident that the settlements were helpless again. The Rangers were disbanded and the riding soldiers had left Texas. And so Wanderer’s scouts would leave the temporary camp to find the Texans’ horses and cattle. Then the party would divide up and raid, driving the stolen animals back to their base.
Temporary shelters were set up in an open grove of huge, deep green oaks that spread like a canopy over them. The country around them was broken and wild. There were mazes of buttes, tall, narrow ridges, and deep, twisting gorges filled with brush and trees. It was country that few white men would enter, yet it was within an easy day’s ride of their isolated farms and small groups of cabins north and west of Austin.
Once again the Texans would watch in fear and dread as the full Comanche moon rose in September. When its brilliance washed the tops of the trees and bushes, lapped against the door jambs, and seeped through the cracks in the shuttered windows, no one slept easy. And the settlers cursed its light.
It was twilight and the moon hadn’t risen yet as Naduah rode among the camp cooking fires, the temporary drying racks, and the shields set on tripods. She nodded and spoke to the men as she passed, finally finding Wears Out Moccasins cooking under an enormous, gnarled, silvery old oak. She had come along as usual to add to her already large herds.
“Wears Out Moccasins, where are Quanah and Wanderer?” asked Naduah.
Wears Out Moccasins looked up from the stew bubbling in its buffalo hide. She tilted her chins, like flounces at her neck, pointing in the direction from which Naduah had just come.
“Following you.”
“Following me?”
“Yes. They’ve been following you for two days.”
Naduah dismounted and tethered her pony, the coyote dun that Wanderer had given her thirteen years ago. The dun was cream-colored with black mane and tail, black stockings and a black stripe running along her back. With the point of her knife Naduah fished a hunk of buffalo meat from the hide suspended like a kettle from a tripod. She ignored the ashes from the hot rocks that had brought the stew to a boil, and tore off a piece with her teeth. Through the steam she saw Wanderer and Quanah approaching on Raven and Polecat. She moved away from the fire to meet them.
She stroked Raven’s neck and Polecat sniffed around her, looking for the treat he expected her to have. When he didn’t find one, he bit her lightly on the shoulder.
“Wears Out Moccasins says you’ve been following me.”
“Yes,” said Wanderer. “I was teaching gray eyes to trail.” He slid down from Raven, who began cropping grass. His hand brushing Naduah’s was his greeting.
“Mother, I saw the strangest animals. I’ve never seen anything like them before.” Quanah was bursting to tell her. “No one will believe me, and when I took Father to see them, they were gone.”
“Gray eyes,” said Wanderer. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to get a new name. Esop, liar, storyteller.”
“I did see them. Two of them. They were bigger than elk and the color of coyotes. And they each had two big humps on their backs, like buffalo. And long skinny legs and big flat feet. And they were eating mesquite. Not the beans, but the thorns. And cactus too.”
“Little liar,” called Sore-Backed Horse from the group of men settling down with their pipes around the fire. “Come tell us about your coyote-colored, two-humped buffalo elk again.” The men laughed.
“I told you they don�
�t believe me. But I saw them.”
“Maybe you had a vision and didn’t know it,” said Naduah.
“I don’t think so. I was pissing at the time. Can you have a vision while you’re pissing, Father?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Quanah,” called Sore-Backed Horse again.
“Your uncle wants to see you, gray eyes.”
“He only wants to tease me.” But Quanah pressed his heel into Polecat’s side and headed for the group.
“He tells some wonderful stories, but this is the best one I’ve heard,” said Naduah as they walked toward Wanderer’s brush shelter. “How long have you known I was behind you?”
“I expected you to follow us. You were so meek when I told you to stay. The scouts spotted you the day after we left.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“Yes. I’ll beat you later. When I’m not so hungry.” He dropped his saddlebags and gear and went back to Wears Out Moccasins’ stew. When he finished eating he joined Sore-Backed Horse and Spaniard, Deep Water, Cruelest One, and the others whom he had chosen to help lead the raid. Quanah solemnly lit the pipe and tended the tire. His hands shook in his eagerness to do it right.
Naduah laid her sleeping robes out under the trees where she could watch them as, wrapped in their blankets and robes, they sat around the council fire. Their voices rose and fell on the still night air while they passed the sacred pipe carefully from hand to hand. They were strong and capable and familiar. She felt safe and comfortable with them nearby.
Fireflies winked on and off around them. Crickets sang. The light from the flames danced on their faces. She could hear Wanderer as he discussed the reports from the scouts. He detailed the countryside, going over the best routes and the safest retreat trails. Then they began chanting their war song. The other men joined until most of them were singing. When they finished. Wanderer sang one of his medicine songs. As the last note died away, Naduah heard Raven nicker nearby, and a solitary wolf howl somewhere far off. Her eyes drooped, and she smiled as they closed. She was where she wanted to be.
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 63