From then on, they traveled slowly, stopping when any shade appeared on the trail during the heat of the day, camping here and there a day or more to hunt antelope and buffalo or pick wild fruit.
A week after the skirmish with the Mexicans, they were nearing their permanent camp when they all heard a strange noise carried by the warm wind. Some rode a bit faster. The noise sounded to Sacajawea like the cackling of wild geese. She scanned the heavens but saw nothing. As they drew nearer, some said the noise sounded human.
With a loud whoop, Kicking Horse dug his heels into the flanks of his tired horse. The horse dodged overhanging branches of mesquite as it plunged forward, urged on by strikes from Kicking Horse’s quirt.
Then they all heard the voices, wild and savage. In the clearing was Gray Bone in the lead, mounted on a large roan with a stripe of white paint on each of its flanks and a black stripe running down each hind leg. A few other women were mounted on ponies; others ran awkwardly on foot, holding on to the legs of the mounted ones. They were all moaning the death chant. The scouts had arrived in camp in advance of the main party and spread the news of Wolf’s death. Then someone in the hunting party shouted, “Tell her about the two children you have brought to take his place, Kicking Horse! Tell her not to grieve! She has two for one!”
The wailing of the women stopped. Sacajawea looked around her as the women headed for Kicking Horse. He watched them for a few measured minutes, then pointed to his short-cropped hair—the mark of mourning—then to the two Mexican children. Without warning, he shoved the girl and baby off his horse to the ground. The girl, shaken, looked at the approaching women running straight for her. She bent over her brother as the women felt her arms and legs and pinched her here and there. All agreed that she was plenty strong and would be a good worker in the lodge of Gray
Bone. Gray Bone stepped forward and struck the girl across the head and shoulders with painful blows. As she beat her with her fists, her cries rose to maniacal fury.
Sacajawea thought of the time she was a girl and a captive of the barbarous Minnetarees. She kicked at the flanks of her horse and rode through the crowd. “Stop!” she shouted. None could hear. “Stop, she is only a child. She is badly frightened.”
The crowd fell away and turned to greet their men, brothers, and fathers. Gray Bone turned her back and ignored Sacajawea and the Mexican children. Sacajawea saw Spring, who grinned back broadly, but looked as though she had run for miles in the heat to meet the hunting party.
Sacajawea dismounted. “Ticannaf?” she asked first.
“He can ride better than Wild Plum. He has learned to make a slingshot and has a skinned knee.” Spring gave Sacajawea a quick glance, then looked at the Mexican girl holding the baby. “We have missed all of you and had no idea you would bring strangers to us.”
Kicking Horse, leading his horse, walked to the girl, pulled her to her feet, and indicated she was to lead the horse. Amidst the mob, he carried the baby boy triumphantly on his shoulder to his lodge.
“The girl is afraid,” said Spring.
“Ai. The Quohada life is strange to her.”
“I hope Gray Bone is not strange in her ways with her,” sighed Spring.
At her tepee Sacajawea had a sudden desire to pull her son up into her arms, but she knew she must not show that much emotion. She rumpled his long black hair and saw him run off to greet his father.
Every young Comanche boy learned to be self-reliant. By the time he was five years old he could manage a pony and a year later he could use a bow and arrows. He learned the signs and tracks of birds and animals. He learned the customs of the band and was seldom reprimanded. He learned to catch the night-flying bull bats with arrows whose foreshafts were split horizontally and hummingbirds with arrows whose foreshafts were split vertically. He was adept at shooting the large, prairie grasshoppers with the hummingbirdarrows. The young Comanche enjoyed eating the grasshoppers’ large, muscular legs.
The winter camp was five days south of the camp that had been burned by the bluecoats. The Quohadas were heavily loaded as they moved through the rough country hoping to find Mexican traders so they could buy more guns. Some of the men wanted to make a trip into Mexico before the cold came; some even suggested going to Fort Sill for revenge against the bluecoats. Others, including Chief Pronghorn, thought the bluecoats would leave them alone because they had fought a dead camp and did not want to be so tricked again. A few said they would like to find a wagon train and raid it for supplies.
After they settled in the winter camp, a council was called and the men decided to go to Mexico, attacking any wagon trains they found along the way. No women were allowed to go on this journey. Six-year-old Ticannaf begged to go and prove his bravery. Sacajawea held him close and pointed out gently that Big Badger was staying behind, and his cousin, Wild Plum, who was older by several winters, was not going.
Jerk Meat looked at his son. “It is time you had man-training. Do not let your mother teach you squaw-cooking or berry-picking while I am gone. Go to Big Badger. Tell him you wish to learn the art of arrow-making.” Jerk Meat made his eyes small slits and looked at Sacajawea, who was still hugging the boy. Ticannaf suddenly cried out in some distress. Sacajawea freed him and watched as the child put his forefinger in his mouth and explored. After a moment Ticannaf grinned and showed his mother and father a small white tooth. He rolled the tooth in the palm of his hand. He was a sturdy child with olive-brown skin and a mop of raven hair, which had never been cut. “Why did it come out?”
“It all began when Old Man Comanche walked beside a big river looking for trouble.” Sacajawea began laughing down at her son.
“Do not fill our son with made-up foolishness, Little Bird,” growled Jerk Meat, taking his shield from Sacajawea. He had four or five horse tails and a couple of mule tails attached to the rim to indicate he was anaccomplished raider. These tails were attached with leather thongs to the underside of the shield. An outside cover of thin hide protected the shield, and around the rim of the cover were six feathers held in place with sinew.2
As they watched the men leave, Sacajawea continued with her story. “Old Man came to some ducks swimming in the reeds. They asked what he had in the skin pouch over his shoulder. Old Man told them it was songs. They asked him to stop and sing so they could dance. ‘I’ll sing you a legend of the People,’ he said, ‘if you keep your eyes shut.’ He was thinking how good they would taste on a roasting stick. Old Man sang, and the ducks came out on the sand and danced. Then he took a stick and hit them on the head, one by one. But the last duck was suspicious and opened his eyes in time to save himself by flying away. Old Man built a fire and found a roasting stick, but he found one duck was missing and went off to look for it. While he was gone, Coyote came along and ate all those delicious roast ducks. Then he filled the empty carcasses with stones and put them back on the stick before he slunk off. Old Man came back empty-handed and hungry. He bit into the first duck, and all his front teeth broke off. He was madder than a mud dauber whose home is trampled on by a thick-skinned moose. He spit blood and swore and could not find anyone to get even with, so he picked on the small, teasing boys—like you, my son. He said that from that time on, all the young children would lose their teeth.”
Ticannaf laughed, pushing his tongue in the gaping hole in front of his mouth.
Sacajawea pulled a chunk of venison from the cooking pot over the outside fire and carefully handed it to Ticannaf on a cedar stick. ‘There are no stones in this,” she said, and went inside the tepee to pick up clothes for mending for the coming winter.
Buffalo were still present in the canyon, and some of the old men left behind went on hunts. Big Badger brought down one. The buffalo hair was good and thick at the start of winter, and the women decided to make a new bed robe for Big Badger. Spring and Sacajawea cut the meat in thin strips to dry on the rack. Hides
Well saved the heart and liver to dip into the gallbladder as delicious snacks for the next couple of
days. Try as they would to shoo them away, flies, sweat bees, and yellow jackets gathered on the raw meat. Ticannaf washed his snacks off before eating. Wild Plum teased him, but he explained it was a protection that his mother had learned somewhere long ago among some strange people she had been with.
One afternoon as spring approached, Ticannaf tired of boiling hooves for arrow glue. Sacajawea took him with her as she rode up the rim of the canyon and onto the broad plain. They felt good. The early spring sunshine was warm on their faces. Ticannaf was beginning to ride very well.
He stopped and pointed down into the flat river valley where a stink was coming up on gusts with the wind. There were acres of whitening bones and the meat that had not been pulled off the slaughtered buffalo carcasses by scavengers was black with blow flies and putrefying in the hot sun. They were accustomed to the stench of bad meat, but this smell combined with the sight of the awful, plundered waste sickened mother and son.
Sacajawea was angry. As far as she could see, there were enough buffalo on the ground to feed the entire Comanche tribe, all the different bands, for nearly half a dozen winters.
“What did this?” asked Ticannaf.
“It must be the white men,” she answered slowly.
“Why?”
“They wanted only the hides to make them rich so they can live better than their neighbors. It is a greed that some men have.”
“What is this greed?”
“Oh, my son, it is a desire beyond reason for things—food, clothing, tobacco, guns, buffalo hides—or to manage other people. Greed makes men disrespectful of their friends, dishonest, and unkind. It is all bad.”
“No entiendo.”
“Men sometimes want things so much they will destory to get what they want. These terrible white men have destroyed good meat to get the thick hides of the buffalo. They can trade these hides for many suppliesand lots of tea, tobacco, coffee, even for the women they wish.”
“Were they soldados?”
“Quién sabe?”
Sacajawea gazed at the scene for a long time, thinking that the great beasts had been dead more than a week, and no one in the Quohadas’ camp even knew the hunters had been so near. Her heart was on the ground. She knew that not all white men were friends. She turned crosswind back to camp in the secluded canyon.
She wanted to call a council immediately, but most of the important men were not there and it was not the place of a woman to call a council.
Sacajawea was angry.
She waited four days. In the meantime she talked with several of the old men as they left the Smoke Lodge, where they usually gathered each evening to smoke and talk. No boys or women were allowed in there with them. They went because they were mostly interested in the past. As they smoked they could enjoy the latest gossip or talk about deeds they performed long ago. Sometimes they had fun asking each other such embarrassing questions as, “Did you ever run away from the enemy?” They had no need to struggle for prestige and were wise, giving sound advice to prevent quarrels and the making of enemies.
They told her what they had heard or seen. White shooters could kill as many as thirty to forty buffalo a day. Each shooter had a dozen hide skinners and they came with white-topped wagons. The skinner stripped off the buffalo hides, leaving the carcasses along with the big woolly head. They sold the hides to other men in the forts. It was hard to understand why the white men needed all those hides.
She stood in front of the Council Lodge and called everyone to listen to her news. Those that saw a crowd in the center of the village came to see what was going on. She began by telling about the thousands of skinned buffalo lying in the river valley and ended with, “The white men are trampling upon our hearts. What are we going to do?”
“Hey-yah!” There was general agreement. A solitary drum began to beat slowly.
Sacajawea moved away from the circle, letting some old men step forward to give their ideas. She went close to Spring, who had Ticannaf and Wild Plum beside her. Wild Plum was making faces at the young girls who were skipping among the crowd. The sun was sinking toward the treetops.
“I think we had better all go to our lodges and get our evening meal,” said Hides Well, moving among the women but staring intently at Sacajawea. “The men are not here, and we cannot do anything yet about the white raiders of our buffalo.”
A few of the women got up to go. A few more followed. The singing continued, and Sacajawea heard “Hey-yah” over and over as some of the older women stamped their feet when they sang.
Big Badger passed from the old men’s circle on his way to his lodge. “Bad, bad”—he shook his head—“this will be a bad night.”
Sacajawea did not understand his remark. She was still angry from seeing all those wasted, rotting buffalo. It was hard to fathom the irresponsibility of the act. The night air had a chill on it. The smoke of fires hung everywhere.
While Sacajawea and Ticannaf were putting their bone spoons away, they heard someone singing. It grew louder, like a death chant. Sacajawea felt her pulse pounding in her throat. Something unusual was happening in the center of the village.
They walked until the lodges thinned out and they came to the center of the village, where the ground slanted downward into a natural arena. Here half a hundred women squatted along the gentle slope on all four sides, with twice as many children and half again as many old men. At the sight of Sacajawea, a heavy silence settled over the crowd. Nobody moved; they were watching. Everyone knew that a turning point was at hand. Gray Bone’s lodge witnessed the first struggle. Not long before, Gray Bone had come out carrying the Mexican baby and dragging his resisting sister.
“It takes more than barking dogs to drive the fox from cover,” someone had called.
And Gray Bone had answered back, “And so that non-Comanche, Lost Woman, talks fire to you, but her deeds are ashes! I make the flame!” She directed the placing of two posts of newly hewn cottonwood into the ground. Leather thongs were hung from each post. Several gaunt-faced women, shockingly pale, and a lone woman drummer sat in an open space beside the posts. A fire of cedar was kindled nearby. Its light glanced off the feverish eyes and bared teeth of the women, who began to sing and whose fervor increased as the Mexican girl and her brother were dragged to the fire.
Contempt was on Gray Bone’s dark face. She moved to the center. The air was rent with her arguments for punishment. “We must not shrink from any measures!” she shouted. “These are offspring of the vile dogs who kill the buffalo, taking away our meat and hides! I have proof. This girl also takes. She takes extra broth for the wretched, squalling boy here. She steals a robe to cover herself at night. Hey-yah! I knew these two were sent to this village to gorge our food, pilfer our robes, so that we starve and freeze. Then their relatives will come and take over our village and our land. They are the enemy living in our camp!”
The children were bound hand and foot. The Mexican girl kicked and struggled; the baby cried.
Sacajawea sucked in her breath. She knew that Kicking Horse had kept them in his own lodge, treating them as well as his own children. The girl helped Gray Bone and the younger woman, Flower, with the lodge chores, and she seemed well liked. The baby was being raised as a son by Kicking Horse. He was to take the place of Wolf. Sacajawea pressed forward, using her elbows, until she reached the front row. In her everyday voice she ordered Gray Bone and the others to set the Mexican children free. “That,” she said, “is not the sort of children they are. They are innocent. They can be Comanches, and we will be proud to have them in this tribe. So—that should be your choice. Take them home. They are frightened.”
A few women raised objections. They wrangled for some time. Sacajawea repeated that Gray Bone had no other choice. The children were captives of her man,
Kicking Horse, and it was Gray Bone’s duty to care for them.
“I’ll take care of them!” Gray Bone shouted back.
Disconsolate, Big Badger moved behind Sacajawea, smiling hel
plessly. “You must come back. Lost Woman,” he said.
Sacajawea stopped, and the crowd behind her was suddenly silent. Her face was as gray as the skins in her tunic. She stared at Big Badger as though she did not know him.
“You must come back, Lost Woman,” Big Badger reiterated, nearly weeping with distress. “You cannot stop it now. You will only be hurt.”
But Sacajawea took one step farther and began to shriek, “Children, can you hear me?”
The Mexican girl flung her head up and screamed.
“Can you hear me?” shrieked Sacajawea, waving her arms like banners. “We are not savages who mistreat children. I gave you my promise. No one will mistreat you. We all know Gray Bone has seen justice done and now goodwill is to come.” Her Spanish was bad, but she used her hands out where she thought the girl could see.
A few in the crowd laughed; the rest were silent. A coarse voice cried, “Wait until Pronghorn comes—he’ll put a stop to it all.” Other voices joined in; the whole arena roared. Big Badger, near tears, pulled Sacajawea back. Still she shrugged off his hands.
‘Tree the children. They are not slaves!” she shrieked.
His eyes agape, Big Badger receded a step. His neighbors right and left quickly put out their arms to bar Sacajawea’s way. It grew very quiet, and Sacajawea suddenly realized she stood alone in the empty space between these Quohadas and the others, Gray Bone’s friends. Her knees gave; she reeled. Hides Well leaped forward because she thought she had been pierced by a skinning knife from the others, and supported her with her arms. The rest surged forward, too, and the empty space was obliterated by the crowd that pressed around the Mexican children.
There were several old dried scalps swinging from peeled white-willow wands implanted in the dirt. These seemed a clue to the occasion.
Gray Bone was in the center. In a shrill voice she recited glories that the Quohada men had performed in battle and then bragged about the number of slaves they had brought back from raids. Sacajawea could not recall anyone ever mentioning any other captives used as slaves since she had been with the Quohada band.
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