Quanah ducked through the flap with Pecos on his heels and rushed to Nocona’s side, where the great chief lay on a buffalo robe beside the fire. He was wrapped in another robe, and his teeth chattered as he opened his eyes.
“I am very cold, my sons,” he said. “So very cold.”
Then, with a shuddering gasp, he closed his eyes.
Chapter 21
PECOS DIED THAT SPRING. Stricken with cholera in one of the waves of the deadly diseases that were sweeping the plains, along with smallpox and typhoid, he lingered only two days, and Quanah spent every minute with his younger brother, alternately swearing revenge on the Anglos for bringing the plague and promising anything and everything if only the boy would be spared.
When it was over, Quanah was alone. With Naudah and Prairie Flower taken away by the Texans, Nocona dead, and now Pecos, he had no one. Chieftainship was not strictly hereditary, but with Nocona’s help, Quanah knew he would have been a chief one day, but now there was no hope of that.
He drifted aimlessly, from the Noconi to the Peneteka to the Quohada. He even spent some time among the Kiowa. He was welcomed everywhere, not only as the son of one of the greatest of all Comanche chiefs, but as an outstanding warrior and hunter in his own right. But it was cold comfort. He missed his father’s gentle lectures, the teasing of his brother. He missed Naudah’s comforting words when things went wrong. He felt as if he were alone on the plains. No amount of friendship could take the place of his family, and it seemed like he were looking for something to fill the void.
In 1863, he decided to join a band of Comanche led by the famous chief Yellow Bear, and quickly became one of the leading warriors in one of the most active of all Comanche raiding bands. With the Texas Rangers preoccupied with the Northern Army, and homesteads and ranches ripe for the picking, the Comanche swept over half of Texas, hitting and running, leaving little but death and embers in their wake.
Stealing cattle and horses, they roamed at will over the plains, seldom staying in one place for more than two or three weeks. The buffalo were beginning to dwindle now, and food was harder and harder to find. Whites had been slaughtering the great beasts in numbers, taking trophies and skins and leaving the meat to rot in the sun. Time and again, a Comanche hunting party would break over a ridge only to see the next valley full of bloated carcasses. The stink of the rotting meat swirled in clouds, and the drone of flies seemed to fill the whole valley. At a distance, it looked as if the carcasses were glistening with some sort of iridescent cloth. Only on closer approach could the individual maggots be seen, swarming over entire carcasses, writhing in the putrescent fluids of the rotting buffalo.
But Quanah didn’t mind the long days on the trail. As long as he kept moving, he didn’t think about the fact that he had no real home. On the trail, all warriors were homeless. Only in the breathtaking excitement of a hit-and-run raid on a cattle herd or the breakneck thunder of an attack on a wagon train did Quanah feel comfortable.
There were some who thought he was courting death, as they had thought Nocona had done after Naudah was taken. Others just thought that he was trying too hard to live up to Nocona’s reputation. Still others, those few he allowed to get close, knew that he was mourning in the only way he knew how—living the life his father had taught him, the life he loved, and the only life he really knew.
He seemed to care nothing for the accumulation of possessions. Even the hundreds of horses taken on raids were given away. He kept only what he needed. He hunted as much for the solitude it brought him as for the meat, killed more game than he needed, and gave most of it to the needy, the old women with no one to hunt for them, or the old men whose sons were dead and gone and who could no longer wield the bow or the lance to feed themselves.
It was a harsh life, but Quanah didn’t seem to notice. He wasn’t morose, but he was seldom cheerful, either. It seemed almost as if he wanted to be there without being there, to blend into the background, as if he’d rather not be noticed.
But there was one who noticed. And he found himself paying more and more attention to her. Weakeah herself was noticed by almost everyone, but she seemed to live only for Quanah. With her, he could be himself, tell her what he thought about, even what he dreamed about. The more time they spent together, the more time they wanted to spend together.
But Quanah was not the only one who fancied Weakeah. Tennap fancied her, too, and Tennap had a wealthy father, Ekitacups, a man who owned a hundred horses and more, and who could make a gift to Weakeah’s father that Quanah could never hope to match.
The more they saw of each other, the more they wanted to see. But Tennap was not prepared to give up easily. While Quanah and Weakeah sat by the river, spinning the silky webs of a glorious future, Tennap was working hard to ingratiate himself with Yellow Bear.
Tennap was a good warrior, hardly Quanah’s equal, but still a courageous fighter and good hunter. Yellow Bear had been friendly with Peta Nocona, and he was fond of Quanah, not just because of that friendship, but because of the qualities he recognized in Nocona’s son. As chief, he was concerned not just about the man who might one day marry his daughter, but also about the man who might one day lead his people, and there was no doubt in his mind that Quanah would be a worthy successor.
That Quanah was half white was an issue that Yellow Bear chose to disregard, and Tennap, full of himself and confident that his father’s wealth would make up for any discrepancy in reputation, went out of his way to cultivate the chief’s affection.
But Quanah was impatient, and fearful that wealth would win what character might not. Rather than approach Yellow Bear directly, and risk getting a definitive answer not to his liking, he hatched a plan that was not without risk, but seemed the surest way to win Weakeah for himself.
One evening, with the moon full and flooding the plains with silver light, he told her that he had something very important he wanted to discuss with her.
“Tell me now,” she said.
Quanah shook his head. “Not yet. We’re too close to the village.”
“Is it a secret?”
“Not for long,” he said, giving her a cryptic smile.
He tugged her by the hand, moving down toward the river and past the last lodges. When he could no longer hear conversation from any of the tipis open to the evening breeze, he sat on the grass. Tugging her down beside him, he held her hand. Weakeah was surprised that he would be so demonstrative, since it was frowned upon and was not his way.
“What do you want to tell me?” she asked.
“I have been thinking …” He hesitated.
“That will come as a great surprise to just about everyone,” she teased.
“I’m serious.” He seemed nervous, and she decided to let him have his say with no interruption.
“I’m listening.”
“You know that Ekitacups has many horses.”
“Yes.”
“And that I have only those I need for hunting and for war.”
She nodded, wondering what he was getting at.
“Tennap is a good warrior.”
“Not as good as you are. And not as good looking, either.”
“Please, be serious, Weakeah.”
“Well, please tell me what you have to tell me. You are making this as long as one of my father’s stories, and you know how long-winded he can be.”
“I am afraid that Yellow Bear will look favorably on Tennap, if he asks for you.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But Yellow Bear will ask me what I want, and I will tell him.”
“And what will you tell him?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I am asking you to tell me.”
“I will tell him that I do not wish to be married yet. And that when I do, I will tell him.”
Quanah seemed crushed. “Oh,” was all he managed to say.
“Why, was there something else you would want me to tell him?”
“No.”
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br /> They sat in silence for nearly a minute. Finally, Weakeah leaned over and tugged on his ear. “I am teasing,” she said. “Naturally, I will tell Yellow Bear that I prefer you.”
The news did little to lighten Quanah’s mood. “Suppose he doesn’t listen?”
“What else can we do? If you have a better idea, I’d be happy to hear it.”
“I thought we might run away together.”
“Alone?”
He shook his head. “Not alone, no. There are many warriors who will go with us.”
“And what do you think Tennap will do, if we run away?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t given that much thought.”
“You know he will feel cheated, and then Ekitacups will bend my father’s ear, and twist his arm. He will say that you didn’t play fair.”
“But if we are already gone, it will make no difference.”
Once again, silence filled the night around them. Quanah watched the current, and tugged at the grass beside him, tossing blades one by one into the river and watching them glide away. Once a fish, tricked by the grass, broke the surface, then arced through the air and fell back with a splash, a blade no doubt clenched in its jaws.
Once more, it was Weakeah who broke the silence. “When can we leave?”
Quanah, as if he were uncertain of her words, said, “What?”
“I asked you when we could leave.”
“Do you mean it?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Tomorrow night, as soon as the sun goes down. We can be far enough away by morning that no one will catch us.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain of that. But I’m willing to take that chance. There is just one thing … “
“What?”
“If Tennap is prepared to fight, I want you to promise me that you won’t hurt him.”
“I won’t, unless he gives me no choice.”
“All right. I will be ready as soon as it gets dark.”
“Meet me here. I will have a horse ready for you. Bring only what you need. We will want to move fast.”
He leaned over and pecked her on the cheek, then said, “Promise me you won’t change your mind.”
“I promise.”
“Good. Then we should go back. There is no point in making anyone suspicious.”
He got to his feet, helped her up, and walked her to Yellow Bear’s lodge, where he said a quiet good night.
Back in his own lodge, he lay awake all night. In his mind, he kept revising the list of whom he would tell and what he would need to bring along. Each time he thought he had made the final choice, something or someone else occurred to him. He knew pretty well which of the young firebrands would follow him, and which ones he could trust. But he wouldn’t be able to sleep until they were well away from the village, so he stoked the fire and packed his meager belongings, then covered them with a buffalo robe in case a visitor should pay a call during the day.
Chapter 22
QUANAH AND HIS ALLIES TRAVELED nonstop for more than twenty-four hours. Several of the warriors who accompanied him had wives and children of their own, and brought them along. Without intending to do so, Quanah had established himself as the leader of a separate band of Comanche. It was a small group, and when they made camp after the flight, most of the warriors stayed up all night, talking about their plans for the future.
“We can do anything we want, now,” Fast Panther told Quanah. “You will be our chief, and we will follow wherever you lead us.”
“I am not ready to be a chief,” Quanah argued. “All I want is to be with Weakeah and be left alone.”
Fast Panther shook his head. “You know we won’t be left alone. The Anglos will never leave the Comanche alone. One reason we came with you is to continue to fight them. The old chiefs are getting soft. Yellow Bear thinks all the time of how to live in peace. He doesn’t understand that the Anglos will not let us live in peace. They say the only good Indian is a dead Indian. You know that as well as I do.”
Quanah nodded. “What you say is true, but maybe Yellow Bear knows something we don’t. Maybe his years have taught him things we don’t yet know.”
“Peta Nocona would never think of peace with the Anglos,” Fast Panther argued.
Quanah smiled sadly at the mention of his father. “Peta Nocona thought of peace often. He thought that the old ways were going to change, whether the Comanche wanted them to change or not. He believed that it was better for the Comanche to decide for himself how to change, and when.”
“But that time has not yet come,” Fast Panther insisted. “There are plenty of buffalo. We can still hunt where we wish and live where we wish. I don’t want to be like the Cherokee and wear white man clothes and live in white man houses. I want to be free.”
Quanah agreed. “I want to be free, too. I want to live as we have always lived. But we have to think of the future. Right now, the blue coat soldiers are not here, and it is easy to talk of what we wish to do, and say brave words about how we will fight to the last warrior. In my heart,” he said, thumping his chest, “that is what I want. But when there are children to worry about, and old ones who need help, it is not so easy to be free.”
“Did you run away so that you could make peace with the white men on your own?” Fast Panther asked.
“No!” Quanah glared at his friend. “I ran away to be with Weakeah, to have a family of my own, to live the kind of life I want to live.”
“You can’t live that life and make peace with the Anglos,” Fast Panther insisted. “Because the Anglos won’t let you.”
“I know.” Quanah sighed. “I understand. But we need to think about what we want to do. We need to plan carefully. If we are full of ourselves and reckless, and walk around thumping our chests to show everyone how strong we are, we will make fools of ourselves and we will lose everything. Better to be cautious, to decide what we want and get it our way.”
“We need horses,” Fast Panther said. “We will have to raid the Anglos, and soon. That will bring the Rangers after us, maybe the blue coat soldiers, too. Are you prepared for that?”
“I am prepared for anything but surrender on the white man’s terms,” Quanah said. “I have thought a great deal about what my father believed, and I think he was right that the Comanche have few choices. But I think there is another way, too. It might mean a lifetime of war, but I am prepared for that, if it is necessary. But I don’t know about the others.”
“The others will follow you. They know you think more than they do, and they respect that. They know, too, that you learned much from Peta Nocona, and that he was not afraid of the Anglos.”
“What we need first is rest,” Quanah said. “Then, if we are to fight the white man, we need white man weapons. You have seen, as I have, how the white man’s long guns are more powerful than our bows and arrows. They can sit far away and kill us one by one, as their hunters do the buffalo, without ever getting close enough for us to fight back.”
“But where do we get such weapons? The whites will not sell them to us. You know that.”
“Yes, I know that. And I know that we will have to get them from those who already have them—Anglos. And that will be the first thing we do, once the horses are rested.”
By morning, Quanah had decided that he would continue Nocona’s fight, not because he wanted blood, but because it was the only way to preserve the freedom he had been raised to love, and because the Texans were determined to put an end to that freedom, no matter what the cost.
As the sky turned gray, he looked up at Double Mountain and watched the sun rise over the twin peaks, thinking that it was more than the beginning of a new day. It was the beginning of a new life, one that he would defend with every drop of blood.
They spent several weeks in hiding, picking up a few more warriors, as word of Quanah’s defection spread. Sporadic raids added more horses to their herd, and soon they were ready to move again, even farther south, away from Yellow Bear’s village.
But Tennap did not take his loss lightly. And as his resentment simmered, he made up his mind to make one final attempt at winning Weakeah. Gathering a few trusted friends, he headed south, painstakingly hunting the runaways. It was several weeks before one of his scouts stumbled on a returning band of raiders and tracked them to Quanah’s camp on the Rio Concho. Once they were certain they had found Quanah, they raced back to Tennap and told him of their discovery. Resentment boiling over into rage, Tennap sprang onto his pony and led his small band to the camp.
But what he found was not a frightened Weakeah cowering by Quanah’s side in some makeshift tipi, but a strong, well-armed band of Comanche, and discretion prevailed.
He paid a visit to Quanah’s lodge, and barely recognized the man he had for so long painted in his own mind as a skulking weakling. There was no mistaking Quanah’s courage, or his determination, and Tennap bowed to the inevitable. He returned to Yellow Bear’s village full of admiration for the young warrior even he could now see was destined to become a formidable chief, if he wasn’t one already.
For the next few years, Quanah swept across the Texas plains like the wind, raiding where and when he wanted to, adding more and more warriors to his band as tales of his exploits spread from camp to camp, not just among the Comanche, but among the Kiowa and Arapaho, too.
The great chiefs of the last generation were getting old, and had had their fill of bloodshed. Most of them were beginning to see what Nocona had seen so long before, that the days of the wild Indian on the great plains were coming to an end. But the younger men were not willing to surrender just yet. As long as there was someone willing to lead them, they would follow. Just as Crazy Horse was building a devoted following among the Sioux, Quanah was accumulating influence, hard won, and not consciously sought, by his insistence on his right to live the way he saw fit.
But as the Civil War came to an end, the defeated Confederates and the Union Army began to see eye to eye on at least one thing—the Comanche were an obstacle to settlement, and something had to be done about it. During the war, with both armies currying favor among the plains tribes for their own ends, and with neither side having time for a second war, the Comanche had managed to push back the western edge of settlement by more than one hundred miles.
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