Comanche Dawn

by Mike Blakely

  When the tobacco was gone, Horseback said, “Tonight we will make a war dance. We will leave our lodge poles and our little lodge here. It has served us well, but we have no time to drag it now. We must move fast for many sleeps. Then, when we are home, in our own country, I will tell you the rest of my great vision, for I have kept the most wonderful part hidden away from you, as if behind a cloud of mist.”

  41

  The herd appeared out of nowhere ahead of the trade caravan—twenty to thirty horses milling in confusion. From their midst a horseman rose, face painted black. The rider carried a shield, a lance, a war club. Across his back he wore a quiver holding arrows and bow. A single feather angled from his topknot.

  Captain Lujan raised his hand to halt the carts. “Dragoons!” he shouted. “Come forward!” He looked toward the caravan’s herd of horses, traveling parallel to the carts some distance to the west. Some of these Spanish ponies began calling to the Indio horses ahead, their voices coming out in stirring musical screams. Three regular dragoons and several mounted militiamen came forward from their positions in the caravan.

  “What is it, Capitán?” asked the first soldier to arrive. “Apaches?”

  “No,” Lujan answered. “Comanches.”

  “Comanches?”

  “I have been expecting them since they killed that freighter and rescued Acaballo. I knew they would come back.”

  “Is that him—Acaballo—ahead with the horses?”

  “It cannot be him. After the whipping he got, he will not ride for weeks. It is a wonder he survived at all.”

  “Then there will only be three of them.”

  “Yes. Acaballo’s father and the two others.” Lujan chuckled. “Now we will see what kind of riders these Comanches really are. Valverde, take your two dragoons and guard the herd of mules and horses.”

  “Sí, Capitán!” Valverde thundered away toward the caravan’s horse herd with the two regular soldiers.

  Lujan drew his sword, the ring of fine Toledo steel bracing both him and his mount. “You three militiamen, come with me to attack that lone rider ahead. The rest of you stay with the caravan to guard the flanks and rear. Santiago!”

  The three militiamen answered the traditional yell of the cavalry charge, and galled their mounts with huge iron spurs, charging past the leading oxcarts. As they closed on the single rider ahead, they saw him disappear in his herd of milling horses. Suddenly, the Indio horses were on the move, angling toward the Spanish herd. Lujan searched the cloud of dust, but could not see a rider rising above the back of a single horse.

  “Where did he go?” shouted one of the militiamen. “I don’t see him!”

  “We frightened him away!” another sang.

  “No matter,” Lujan shouted. “Drive the horses in with ours.”

  Circling the captured herd, Lujan still could not see the painted Comanche anywhere among the horses. The two herds rumbled the ground as they moved closer together, raising a plume of dust that drifted toward the caravan on the southerly breeze.

  “This is too easy!” Lujan shouted. “Something is wrong. As soon as we get these two herds together, you militiamen go back to the caravan to guard the carts!”

  From somewhere behind the caravan, a high human scream knifed through the dusty air and pierced the noise of the horse herds. Lujan looked back toward the carts, and saw four mounted Indio warriors storming into the rear of the caravan, scattering men, women, and animals. One of the raiders slowed down just long enough to drive his lance into an ox, then all four began weaving among the people and carts.

  “Four riders!” a militiamen shouted. “There should only be three!”

  Suddenly, a fifth rider materialized from the herd of horses, rising from nowhere between Lujan and one of the militiamen. The black-painted face scowled through the dust. “Look!” the captain shouted, his warning coming too late. The war club swung down on the unsuspecting militiaman who was watching in horror as the raiders plundered the caravan.

  The club cracked against the skull, and the warrior screamed a battle cry that chilled the captain’s bones. Lujan saw long lines of scabs crossing the back of the rider, who quickly dropped from view again, vanishing behind veils of dust and flowing manes of horses.

  “¡Dios mío!” Lujan cried. How could Acaballo have recovered so quickly? He found himself woefully out of position, on the far side of the two herds as they came together. Horses began to fight. The roar of escopetas erupted from the caravan, but Lujan knew there was no one there to direct the fire. He rode around the windward side of the herd to avoid the dust, hoping to rally the guards at the caravan.

  “Dragoons, come with me! Militiamen, hold the herd!”

  This time, Lujan saw Acaballo rising from the off side of the horse nearest to him and realized that this Comanche warrior could somehow cling to the flanks of his mount like a spider, and then rise to the back of the pony in one swift, fluid motion. The war club carried the momentum of the rider’s weight as he swung over the back of the horse and stuck with the force of the horse as it angled toward him. Lujan parried in time to catch the blow with his hilt, but he felt his two smallest fingers splinter under the impact of the hard wood.

  Screaming in pain and rage, the captain wheeled his mount in a practiced maneuver that reversed his position and allowed him to swing his sword backhanded with all his arm strength. His eyes followed the thrust in time to see the sharp steel edge split Acaballo’s painted shield, releasing a few tufts of buffalo hair stuffed between the layers of rawhide. The blow seemed to knock the Comanche rider from his mount, but then he was gone, and Lujan realized that he had simply ridden away again, clinging to the side of his horse.

  He tasted the hot blood on his hand and looked back toward the caravan. The Comanches had scattered everyone along the whole line of carts. Frightened freighters were hiding among the sage and cactus. Genízaros were running to escape in the hills. Half the oxen had died with their heads still in the ox bows. Lujan saw one of the Comanches ride down a girl who fled. Grabbing her by the hair, the raider pulled her kicking and screaming across his thighs and rode away with her, beating her into submission with his club. He saw another Comanche dragging a dead man by the hair until the hair came off like the bloody pelt of an animal.

  The dragoons had followed orders to return to the carts, but they were too late, coming in behind the raiders. Everything at the caravan was dust and blood, moans and screams. Lujan galloped that way, watching warily for Acaballo to rise up again from the edge of the horse herd. As he approached the caravan, he saw the four Comanche attackers circle to the west, two riding to Acaballo’s aid at the horse herd, the other two curling back to attack the freighters once again.

  “Escopetas!” the captain shouted. “Who has a loaded weapon?”

  No one answered. The two circling Comanches neared. Screams at the herd of fighting horses told him a stampede was coming. Lujan sheathed his sword and drew his horse pistol from the saddle scabbard. Hoping the prime charge had remained fast in the frizzen pan through all the chaos, he cocked the hammer and aimed at a returning warrior. It was the older one, who was said to be the father of Acaballo.

  Taking aim, Lujan saw the old warrior drop behind the neck of his mount, and this time saw the arm thrust through the loop woven into the pony’s mane, and the heel hooked over the hip bone. These were horsemen! He fired with the enemy horse just a couple of hoofbeats away. The horse took the ball in the shoulder and rolled, sprawling the warrior in a snarl of his own weaponry.

  Lujan dropped his pistol on the ground and drew his sword, charging the downed warrior. To his astonishment, he found the man attacking him on foot! The Comanche lance thrust toward him, piercing Lujan’s mount in the flanks behind his stirrup. He smelled the vile odor of guts and knew his horse was useless. Another warrior—Lujan could not tell which one—passed between him and the father of Acaballo. The stampede was near. He slipped from his dying horse and looked back just once to see the ani
mal stepping on its own entrails.

  Lujan found himself running toward the Comanche he had unhorsed, but now the stampeding ponies were all around him. He dodged the first few, then got knocked to the ground. A hoof came down full force on his shoulder, and slipped off. He sprang, felt himself knocked down again. He lost his sword, covered his head, and cringed at the thought of dying like this.

  The sounds all around him were horrible. How could five warriors cause such chaos? What kind of killers were these Norteños, these Comanches?

  The stampede passed and Lujan rose. He looked for his sword, but the dirt gummed his eyes. He made out the shape of a dragoon riding to his aid until an arrow shaft appeared in the hardened leather armor the soldier wore. The soldier grabbed the shaft, and pulled the arrow out, but then fell from his horse, motionless.

  Lujan started running toward the saddled horse the dragoon had fallen from, but an arrow caught him in the thigh. As he fell, he looked to see where the arrow had come from, and saw the blackened face of Acaballo riding him down. Lujan drew his knife as he rose, but Acaballo used his horse to send the captain staggering. The Comanche circled, whipping Lujan fiercely with his bow as he tried to rise and fight.

  Lujan heard the war cry: “Ay-yee!” and slashed viciously at nothing with his knife. He felt the club knock his iron helmet away from his head with a metallic knell. He hit the ground, then felt the knife pulled from his hand. He felt his own blade slash down his back, and he screamed in pain as he felt the cold air on his sweaty skin. Acaballo was pulling his leather armor and his shirt away from him. He heard his dragoons shouting, and hoped for salvation.

  A whir of something sang through the air, and Lujan felt the doubled rope whip his back. It sang again, and again, and again, as he screamed and tried to rise. Pulling himself to all fours in spite of his dizziness, he tried to rush Acaballo, but missed and staggered. He saw more Comanches circling, horses everywhere.

  He heard the strange tongue of the warriors, felt a fist in his hair. He rose to his feet, smelled a sweaty horse against him. The knife traced a small circle against his skull as he screamed in anguish. The ground moved out from under his feet, rocks banged his ankles, cactus spines pierced his shins. The fist pulled at his hair. Pain. Screams. Thunder in his own skull. Powder blasts.

  Lujan hit the ground, felt the hot gush of blood from his torn scalp. The Comanches were riding away, horses stampeding everywhere. The rumbling lingered … dwindled … faded … He hoped they wouldn’t come back. Please, God, do not let them come back …

  42

  In later generations, even after the circle of seasons had turned many times and the souls of the fighting men had gone to the Shadow Land, the elders would talk still of the first, great, long-ago fight with Metal Men. His grandsons’ grandsons would not call the leader of this fight by name, for this would be after Horseback’s time, and to speak of departed warriors would summon evils from the Shadow Land. But those old enough to remember would know it was Horseback, and hear his name whispered in their memories. And even the younger ones, who would never hear the name spoken, would picture this warrior-leader in their hearts, and they would know that the leader of the first fight with the Metal Men was the same great man who had been born on the day of First Horse, who had searched for the source of ponies in the south, who had led a new nation into glory and wealth.

  After Horseback carried away a piece of the scalp of the Metal Men’s soldier-captain, he led his party northward, through the ranchos and villages of the Metal Men, taking more horses wherever he found them.

  Whip had taken a slave girl captive and begged for time to stop. “It will not take much time for me to make her good,” he said.

  “No,” Horseback insisted. “Not until we reach the country of the Yutas and give them mules in exchange for safe passage to our own country.”

  “Very well,” Whip replied, eagerly eyeing the girl whose feet he had tied under the belly of the horse she rode. “I would have shared her with you, but now I will make her good all by myself.”

  “Remember whose power protects us,” Horseback said, angrily. “All that we take belongs to me. That is the way. All the horses and even that girl slave you grabbed belong to me until I give them away.”

  “My son speaks the truth,” Shaggy Hump said, frowning at Whip. “If you go against the way, you destroy the puha that protects us all.”

  “Very well,” Whip repeated. “If I cannot stop to make her good, I will content myself with beating her, for I can beat a slave girl at a full gallop.” He angled toward the captive and started beating her across the back with the shaft of his lance.

  “Enough!” Horseback said. “I take the girl slave for my own.”

  “You cannot tell me not to beat a slave,” Whip said. “I respect your spirit-powers, my friend, but I am not afraid of you. We have played rough games together all our lives, and I have won as many times as you.” He made his lance shaft glance off the head of the tied captive.

  “I do not claim the girl for myself,” Horseback said, “but to give her to Echo. He will decide what to do with her, who will beat her, and who will make her good. Tell me you are not afraid of Echo, for he rides close enough to hear you say it!”

  Smiling, Echo rode in between Whip and the captive girl. “I will make her good,” he said. “When we are in the Yuta country under protection of a truce. If you are lucky, I will let you watch me while I make her good.”

  Bear Heart and Shaggy Hump laughed at Whip, who quirted his horse and rode angrily away.

  They drove the horses and mules beyond the Tiwa village of Taos, the northernmost outpost of Metal Men. They found a few more ponies to take here, and kept riding hard to the north, into the country of the Yutas. They rode the poorest horses on this return, and when one of the poor horses would stumble and refuse to run, they would kill it and take the best things to eat from it, then move northward again, away from the evil Metal Men.

  It was told in later times that Horseback knew his way on this return to his own country because he had flown over these mountains like a bird in his vision. In this way, he found the camp of the Yuta leader, Bad Camper, and gave many mules in exchange for a place to rest, and safe passage to the country of the Noomah.

  It was at this camp that Echo made the captive girl slave good. She did not resist him, for Echo did not beat her as Whip had. After he had lain with her and made her good with pure Noomah seed, Echo let her eat and gave her fresh water to drink. He told Whip to stay away from her, for she had been given to him by Horseback, in accordance with the way, and to violate the way would endanger the spirit-powers of the party.

  Whip was very angry that the girl slave he had captured had been taken from him before he could make her good, and he refused to speak to his companions through many suns.

  On the journey through Yuta country, the girl slave proved useful, making food for the men, lighting fires, and gathering wood. She told Echo with signs that she had been born to a Keresan mother in one of the missions of the Metal Men. She had never known her father, but knew he was white. The Metal Men scorned her because her mother was not married. Her mother’s people rejected her because she was half-white. Having passed sixteen winters, she had come of age, and so the Black Robes had sent her south with the caravan, though they had not told her what would become of her in the south. She told Echo that she was happy to be away from the Metal Men, who hated her, and that she would serve him in any way he wished.

  Horseback let his men rest two sleeps at Bad Camper’s village, then rode northward again, pushing his ponies through Yuta country. Bad Camper rode with him to ensure no other band of Yutas would attack the party of returning Noomahs. In generations to come, this would be spoken of as the beginning of the time of peace between the new Horse Nation of True Humans and the Yutas. It was said that the peace came about because of warrior respect between Horseback and Bad Camper, and it would last as long as both men lived. On the way north, Bad Camper showed
the True Humans the way through mountain passes, along cold streams of rushing water, and through good hunting grounds for elk, pronghorn, bear, and deer.

  But this country frightened Horseback, for he had to watch constantly for the sacred trail of the deer, so abundant in the mountain fastnesses of the Yuta. He told Bad Camper that he would be happy to reach his own country, where he would find fewer sacred trails to avoid. “I offended my spirit-guide in the land of the Metal Men,” he admitted, pointing over his shoulder to the scars now healing well on his back. “You see how my punishment left scars to remind me. When the new nation goes out, it will find a place with few deer to disturb.”

  “It is good that you say this, Snake man. My country has many deer. You will stay out of my country if you know the best thing for yourself and your new nation.”

  Crossing downstream from the camp called Two Rivers, the Noomah searchers stopped to rest, for now they were safe in their own country. Horseback gave a fine pony to Bad Camper before the crossing, for the Yuta leader would not cross this river, saying he wished to return to his own village in the southern mountains before the Moon of Long Nights brought much snow.

  At this camp, Whip came to Horseback, and spoke to him for the first time since the girl slave had been taken from him.

  “My friend,” Whip said. “I have been thinking about the story of your vision. We must find the Corn People so that you can trade your ponies to Teal’s father. Then, we must go fight with the Northern Raiders before we go back to our village of the Burnt Meat People.”

  “I know this, my friend. Why do you tell me what I must do to fulfill my own vision?”

  “You have given the girl slave to Echo. You will have Teal to take back to the Burnt Meat People. Your father has two wives already, and Bear Heart has a wife waiting for him to return, as well. I want to take a girl from the Northern Raiders and make her good with my seed. I want a woman in my lodge when we return from this long journey.”