Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

by Comanche Moon

  "That bear's not much bigger than a cub," Augustus said. "If his ma's around here I expect she'll be wanting to eat us." "Shot her yesterday," Ben Lily said.

  "Took us a day to catch up with the cub. Howler and me, that's us." Call thought the man looked daft. What use was a dead bear, in a place so remote? Of course he could eat some of the meat, but why take the skin, which was heavy and awkward to transport? Where would he take it, anyway? Yet the man seemed content at his task. He even began to whistle as he skinned, and he clearly had no interest in the rangers.

  "Well, if you shot his ma, where's her skin?" Augustus asked. He too was puzzled by the skinning. How many bearskins could a man use?

  "Buried," Ben Lily said, a little testily.

  "I bury skins. Then if I get caught in a blizzard I can dig up one of my skins and wrap up." "You best be worrying about Indians, not blizzards, Mr. Lily," Long Bill said.

  "If Buffalo Hump was to catch you I expect he'd throw you on a campfire and cook you." Ben Lily disregarded that remark completely.

  He finished with his skinning and sat down on a rock. He plunged his hunting knife into the ground to cleanse it, then took out a whetstone and began to sharpen the knife. The fact that his task was concluded seemed to put him in a sociable mood.

  "You can have this bear meat," he informed them. "I don't eat much bear." Deets had been hoping for such an offer. He immediately got down and began to inspect the carcass, meaning to secure the tenderest cuts. But what was tender, on a bear?

  "We've been sent to look for Captain Inish Scull," Call said. "He was last seen going south with one scout. Have you seen or heard of him?" The name "Scull" seemed to excite the man-- he looked at the group with interest for the first time.

  "I know Scull," Ben Lily said. "Took on a hunt once, over east. He wanted to shoot bear and we shot 'em. One bear got into the canebrakes and Scull crawled in after him and shot him. He was a small fellow. He went right into that cane and shot that quick little bear." "That's him, he's a hunter," Augustus said. "We need to find him if we can." Ben Lily was carefully folding the bloody bearskin.

  "Ain't seen Scull since that hunt over east," he said. "I'd know him if I seen him, but I ain't seen him. I expect they took him in the big raid." All the rangers were startled by the remark.

  "Big raid? What big raid?" Gus asked.

  Ben Lily looked at them with genuine astonishment.

  "The big raid," he repeated. "Ain't you seen any dead? I buried six dead just yesterday, back up this creek. Six dead-- trying to farm where they oughtn't to farm. Took me all morning to bury them. I'd have caught this cub sooner if I hadn't had to do that burying." "We've been on the trail for two weeks," Call said. "We don't know anything about a raid. Was it Comanches?" "It was Buffalo Hump," Ben Lily said.

  "He came down off the plains with a passel of warriors--a thousand or more." "A thousand braves--I doubt it," Call said. "People always think there's more Indians than there are, when the Comanches attack." Ben Lily hoisted his bearskin onto one shoulder, and picked up his gun. Then he whistled for his dog.

  "Go east," he told them. "See how many dead you find. There's dead along ever creek. I don't know how many men he came with but he struck Austin and nearly burned it down. This wasn't just a few scalp snatchers. Buffalo Hump came for war, and he made it." All the rangers were stunned by his last statement.

  "Struck Austin, are you sure?" Long Bill said.

  "Struck it and burned most of it," Ben Lily repeated. "Kilt everybody he saw-- that's what I heard." Then, without waiting for further comment or discussion, he took his gun and his bearskin and walked away. He took no more interest in the troop of rangers.

  "Do you believe him, Woodrow?" Long Bill asked. "My wife's in Austin--my Pearl." "I don't know why he'd lie to us," Call said.

  "Clara," Gus said. "My Lord. I wonder if she was gone when they struck." I wonder if Maggie hid where I told her to, Call thought.

  "Woodrow, we have to go back," Augustus said. "If they burned Austin, Clara might be dead." Long Bill remembered the captive they had rescued, Maudy Clark, now demented. What if the Comanches caught Pearl and left her in the same state?

  "Captain, let's go back," he said.

  Augustus looked across the emptiness they had just crossed--now they would have to recross it, riding for days and days in great anxiety.

  "Lord, I wish I was a bird," Gus said.

  "I wish I could just fly home." "You ain't a bird, Gus," Call said.

  All the rangers, even Deets, seemed stunned by Ben Lily's news. An Indian force large enough to strike Austin and burn most of it was a calamity greater than they could immediately comprehend.

  Call felt stunned, too. The first time he and Augustus had gone into the Pecos country, with a small surveying troop, nine Comanches led by Buffalo Hump had attacked them, killed three men, and captured their ammunition. None of the nine Comanches had been so much as grazed by a ranger bullet. If a thousand warriors had indeed come into the settlements, there might be little to defend, by the time they reached Austin.

  "You ain't a bird," he said, again, to Gus.

  "We can't fly it--we'll have to ride it, and we don't want to wear out these horses, because horses won't be easy to find, on the way back.

  Buffalo Hump's probably run off most of the horses from the ranches out this way." "I don't care about the dern horses, I just hope he ain't took my wife," Long Bill said. "Took her or kilt her. I don't think I can do without my Pearl. I should never have left her, not to come on no silly chase like this." Augustus, though heartsick himself, saw the anguish on Long Bill's face and thought if he joshed him a little it might help.

  "Now, Billy, don't worry," he said.

  "Pearl's too bossy to steal. She'd argue those Comanches to a frazzle. I expect she'll be there ready to boss you, when we get back." The witticism had no effect. Long Bill looked no less anguished. The rangers sat in silence while Deets finished taking what he hoped was tender cuts of the bear meat.

  "I guess Captain Scull will have to find his own way back," Call said, looking south.

  Then he turned his horse and the little troop began the long ride home, every man wondering what they would find when they got there.

  Buffalo Hump took only one man with him when he went on to the Great Water. He took Worm, the medicine man. The glory of the great raid was over; the Comanches had harassed and murdered the Texans in town after town, and had even defeated a company of bluecoat soldiers who charged at them foolishly, not realizing how many warriors they faced. By then the Comanches were driving more than a thousand stolen horses; the bluecoats managed to separate off a few of the horses but then they had to leave them and flee for their lives. One soldier whose horse went lame fell behind--when his gun misfired Blue Duck killed him with a lance, a thing that would have made Buffalo Hump proud had Blue Duck not spoiled his coup by bragging about it excessively around the campfire that night. It was no great feat to kill a white soldier whose horse was lame and whose gun wouldn't shoot. Blue Duck also bragged excessively about his rapes.

  Buffalo Hump had meant to take Blue Duck and a few warriors on to the Great Water, but after listening to Blue Duck brag he decided to leave the boy--let him fight his way back to the plains. He did not want such a braggart with him. Many of the warriors were still crazy for blood; they did not want to stop killing just to see water.

  The morning after the chase with the bluecoat soldiers Buffalo Hump decided to leave the war party and go, alone with Worm, to the Great Water. The raid had been a fine triumph-- all the Texans knew again that the Comanche power was still great. The Texans were scattered and frightened.

  They had their dead to bury, their wounded to heal. The bluecoat soldiers would come, in time, to the llano but it would not be soon.

  Buffalo Hump spoke to some of the chiefs who had joined the raid with their warriors. He advised them to break into parties of forty or fifty and filter back up to the plains along the old trails. The wh
ites, if they pursued at all --which he doubted--wd wear themselves out trying to decide which party to chase.

  When Blue Duck saw his father preparing to leave, with only old Worm for a companion, he loped over and watched his father filling his quiver with arrows; Buffalo Hump had worked on the arrows most of the night, making sure that the arrowheads were tightly set.

  "I will come with you," Blue Duck said. "You might need me." "No, you go with the horses," Buffalo Hump instructed. "Keep them together and travel fast.

  Take them to the canyon and don't lose any.

  I will come in a few days, with Worm." Blue Duck was annoyed. He was a warrior now--he had killed a bluecoat--and yet his father treated him like a horse herder.

  "What if the Texans trap you?" he asked.

  "You will not get much help from that old man." "I will not need much help," Buffalo Hump said. It wearied him to have to be always arguing with his son. The boy never accepted any command simply, as an obedient son should. He always had ^ws of his own to say about every request. Because Blue Duck was so rude, Buffalo Hump had to keep reminding himself that he was also brave--he was one of the bravest young men in the tribe.

  He too had been brave and daring, when he was young, yet he had not been disrespectful. His own father was named Two Arrows--he had once killed the largest grizzly bear anyone had ever seen with only two arrows. Buffalo Hump would never have dared question anything Two Arrows told him to do. He seldom spoke to his father, unless Two Arrows asked him something. He would not have dared be rude, as Blue Duck was rude.

  Blue Duck did not like being sent home with the horses. He sulked and pouted, and insulted two young warriors, hoping to provoke a fight.

  Buffalo Hump saw it all, but he ignored it. He gathered his things, motioned to Worm, and left the camp. It was a relief to go. He had taken pride in being able, once more, to gather so many warriors that the whites could not stand before them; but now he felt the need to be alone, to move quietly across the land and just take care of himself, without having to mediate disputes and make decisions for so many warriors.

  Worm was old; he was a man of silence. He could speak prophecy and make spells, but mostly he was quiet and alert, a pleasure to travel with. For two days they travelled through the thick brush country, a country where there were many armadillos. Worm was particularly fond of armadillo meat--al, the little scaly animals seemed to amuse him. Sometimes he would catch an armadillo that was half in its hold and would have to tickle its testicles to make it come out. When he cooked an armadillo he carefully preserved the scaly case that had been the beast's defense; soon he had several armadillo shells dangling from his pack.

  "Why do you like that meat so much?" Buffalo Hump asked him one night--they were only one camp from the Great Water. He himself had killed a javelina that afternoon and was eating it. In his view pig was tastier by far than armadillo.

  Worm rarely answered a direct question directly.

  "The armadillo people are from a time before the Comanche," Worm said. "They were here when we were not. They are so old that they have learned to grow shells, and yet they are not slow, like turtles." Worm paused. He was studying the paw of one of the armadillos he had killed.

  "If we could learn to grow shells we would be safe in battle," he said. "If I eat enough of these armadillos maybe I will grow a shell." "You have eaten several and I don't see any shell on you," Buffalo Hump commented.

  Worm was silent. He preferred to think his own thoughts about the armadillo people.

  The next day they came to a country where the trees were low and inward bent, from the constant push of the sea wind. The air was so salty Buffalo Hump could lick salt off his lips. The land became swampy, with tall reeds higher than a horse growing in dense thickets; there were inlets of water here and there, with cranes and great storks standing in there. As they grew nearer the sea both the land and the air were alive with birds: geese and ducks in great numbers floated on the inlets or waddled through the grass. There were white gulls that rose and dipped. But the most interesting to Buffalo Hump were the great cranes--they came from far in the north and did not stop in the Comanche country. Once, in Nebraska on the Platte River, he had seen a few of the great cranes, but in the swamps and inlets near the Great Water there were thousands of them.

  Worm seemed in awe of the birds. His old eyes widened when the storks flapped into the air, or when the herons sailed down to the water on their wide wings. He turned his head from side to side and listened when the sea gulls spoke; it was as if he were trying to learn their language. Worm had only half an upper lip--the other half had been cut off years before, in battle. When he was excited, he licked his half lip; it was a thing he did, too, when his interest in a woman was high. The women of the tribe joked about it. They could always tell when old Worm needed a woman because he licked his lip. All his wives had died of one illness or another. There was a story about him from the old days that the old women told the young women, to inform them about the vengefulness of men.

  Worm had once had a wife who would not open her legs when he wanted her; to teach her obedience Worm had made a great black cactus grow out of her womb, a cactus with thorns so sharp that the woman could never close her legs again, but had to walk with them widespread even when she was only doing chores.

  Buffalo Hump had heard the story from Hair On The Lip and did not believe it.

  "I have been with this tribe since I was born," he said. "I have never seen a woman waddling around with a cactus sticking out of her." "Oh no, a bear took that woman--y were just a child then," Hair On The Lip assured him.

  Buffalo Hump still did not believe her, but he did like most of the stories Hair On The Lip told. Many of her stories were about things that happened to humans while they were coupling-- such stories seldom failed to amuse him.

  After wading through several inlets, frightening many birds off the water, Buffalo Hump and Worm at last came to the long strip of sand that bordered the Great Water. They rode along the edge of the Great Water for many miles. Buffalo Hump liked to ride on the wet sand, so close to the sea that the waves foamed over the hooves of his horse, as the waves died.

  Worm, though, would not come near the Great Water. He kept his horse far back at the edge of the sand, where sand gave way to grass. He tried repeatedly to point out to Buffalo Hump that the Great Water was unsafe to approach, but Buffalo Hump ignored him. He rode where he wanted to ride.

  "There are great fish in the water, and snakes as long as the tallest pine tree," Worm insisted.

  "One of those snakes might wrap its tongue around you and pull you under." Buffalo Hump paid no attention to Worm and his talk. Despite Worm's protest he camped that night on the sandy beach. The air at night was warm and salty. He built a small fire of driftwood and sang as the fire died.

  Worm finally came and sat with him; they shared a little of the javelina meat. Worm still worried that the water might somehow engulf them.

  "That water is never still," he told Buffalo Hump suspiciously. "It is always moving." Buffalo Hump shrugged. He liked it that the water moved, that the waves came in and went out.

  He liked the sound it made, a sound that came from depths he could not see.

  "I like the land--it doesn't move," Worm said. "This water sighs like a woman who is sad." There was some truth in that comment, Buffalo Hump thought. The ocean did sigh like a woman, as she sighed in sorrow, or at the slowing of her passion.

  "There are great fish in that water with mouths so wide they can swallow buffalo," Worm worried. Buffalo Hump sang over Worm's droning, his complaints. He sang much of the night, in the warm salt air.

  In the gray mist before the dawn Buffalo Hump got on his horse and sat waiting for the sun. On impulse he forced the horse into the water and made him swim until the small waves broke over them. Then he swam back to land. Worm was beside himself when he saw Buffalo Hump in the water. He was worried about the snake as long as a pine tree, but Buffalo Hump had no s
uch worry. He merely wanted to watch the sun rise out of the water. All his life he had watched the sun rise upward out of the prairie; now he wanted to see it come out of the water. When it came, at first it was only a faint glow in the grayness of water and sky.

  "We had better move back there in those trees," Worm said, when Buffalo Hump came out.

  "Why?" Buffalo Hump asked.

  "They say the sun rides all night on the back of a great fish," Worm said. "When it is time for morning the great fish brings it back so it can shine on the people of the land and make them warm." In the mist it was hard to see the sun clearly.

  Buffalo Hump wondered if there was a great fish so large that it could carry the sun. He watched the surface of the water and saw no great fish, though that didn't mean that the story was untrue. The sun was now well up. Maybe the great fish that carried it had gone back to its home in the deep water.

  Maybe the fish slept all day, while the people of the land enjoyed the sun. He didn't know.