Comanche Dawn

by Mike Blakely

  “If you want to trade hides, bah! But if you want to trade in slaves or gold, mon ami, you need—what shall we say—an agent to the east of the plains. I know the savages from the Ousconsin River to the mouth of the Messipe—from the Blackfeet to the Tejas. You send the gold and the slaves. I will send good muskets, powder, whiskey, cloth. Hey, do you want me to send you a real French girl? I know where to get one or two.”

  Jean slid off the rolled buffalo hide and feigned a yawn, though Casaubon’s talk was making him more wary than tired. “No girls. No slaves. This whole trip has been wasted. I am going back to Santa Fe. Forget this trade, Casaubon. It is no good.”

  Jean pulled his hat over his eyes, but kept the bald man in view under the brim. The fire in the center of the lodge had burned down to a few flickers, but he could still see the whiskey glistening on the slave trader’s lips after he took another swig. He followed Casaubon’s eyes: touching upon each of the sleeping Comanches, drifting to the door, finally settling on Jean himself.

  Casaubon took another drink and smiled. He looked for a long time at Jean, grinning all the while. He knew he was being watched from under the hat brim, and Jean knew that he knew. It unnerved Jean to the point that he decided he had better not fall asleep.

  Finally, he sighed, pushed his hat back on his head, and sat up. He said nothing. He thought about his pistols, out of reach now in his saddle holsters just inside the door. The powder was probably too damp, anyway. He wanted to reach for the knife on his belt scabbard to make sure it was ready, but he resisted.

  Pretending to rub his brow as if his head ached, he covered his eyes and glanced across the floor of the lodge to look for a weapon equal to Casaubon’s cutlass. He saw none. All the Comanche lances had been bound in tripods outside, the shields hung from them in their protective rawhide cases. There was not even a good-sized stick left in the fire.

  Then he happened to glance at the place where Horseback lay. Under the cover of the heavy buffalo robe, he saw the faint glisten of two open eyes, though Horseback’s chest was rising and falling heavily, as if in sleep. Relief washed his dread away from him like the rain cleansing the thatched roof of the Quiviran lodge. Horseback was awake and watching.

  Jean knew very well that Horseback, as a Foolish One, carried only his buffalo scrotum rattle with him as a weapon. Still, the thought of Horseback remaining awake filled him with courage. The young Comanche would be of little help to him against the cutlass of Henri Casaubon, yet the mere fact that the proud young warrior was watching made Jean feel more bold. He would not behave as a coward in the eyes of the fearless pony warrior.

  “I know who you are,” Casaubon suddenly said.

  Jean removed his hand from his brow, a new confidence willing him to lock eyes with the slaver; “Do you?”

  “Oui, mon ami. I recall. Fort St. Louis, on the Spanish Main. The slime pits. You remember me, non? You remember the day of death for the great lunatic, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.” He rasped in laughter again and took a drink of whiskey. “I was in Quebec in 1688 when your friend Goupil, the mapmaker, was hanged.” He looked at the dark smoke hole in the thatched roof. “Good God, that was twenty-three years ago!” He shook his head and took another swallow of whiskey. “Your name is in La Salle’s diary, mon ami. And in the diary of your friend, Goupil, the hanged murderer.”

  “Goupil was no murderer.”

  “Bah! Who will believe you, Jean L’Archeveque, accomplice of the mapmaker, he who consorts with savages and Spaniards, a tattooed traitor?”

  Jean grunted. He leaned back against the heavy post and crossed his arms over his chest. “I am no traitor. I am no murderer. I live among Spaniards because Frenchmen do not want to listen to the truth. It was Minime, the valet, who murdered La Salle—Minime and his followers. And you were one of them, Henri Casaubon. You would have murdered me, too, had I not fled to the Raccoon-Eyed People, who treated me as a brother and a son. I live as I must, not as I choose.”

  Hacking laughter rattled from deep within Casaubon’s chest. He coughed, spat toward Night Hunter’s bed, and put the whiskey jug to his lips again. “We are a long way from the nearest French fort, non?”

  “What matter is that to me?”

  “What matter, you say? A hangman’s rope waits for you there, L’Archeveque, and a bounty of gold for me. I suppose I might have some trouble getting you there, non? More than the slaves—women and children—who are starved and beaten. I would have to keep you bound and guarded all the while. A difficult proposition, non? And you with your friends. How do you call them? Comanches?”

  Jean shifted on his roll of hides. Now he indeed reached for his knife, and felt it pull smoothly from the sheath when he tested it. “You would attempt to take a brother of the Raccoon-Eyed People from their own village?”

  “You are their brother, oui. But here is their master.” He held the jug before him at arm’s length, grinned, and stuck his tongue hideously into one of the gaps in his row of discolored teeth. “Now, listen, traitor. It is known everywhere across the kingdoms of France and Spain that Jean L’Archeveque wears the tattoos of a savage on his face. Charles the Second, that bastard king of Spain, boasted of your capture in 1688, when you were taken across the ocean to report as his spy.”

  “I am aware of my infamy, Casaubon. Why do you remind me?”

  The slaver pulled the red wool cap from his bald head and tucked it into the waist of his trousers, as if preparing for a fight. “Your heathen tattoos betray you.” He reached for the hilt of his cutlass. “I have taken heads with one blow. I have a keg of trade whiskey in my lodge where yours would fit. Nothing rots in that swill. I need not take you alive to the forts, mon ami. All I need to collect his majesty’s bounty for a traitor is your tattooed head.”

  A certain realization struck Jean. To complete the plans for his illegal trade between the French and Spanish frontiers, he would have to kill Henri Casaubon. Perhaps within the next minute. He prepared to spring from his sitting position if need be. His heart was pounding furiously. “Your head is probably worth more than mine. You are the most infamous courier de bois on the continent, Henri Casaubon. If you wish to take my head, then come and get it. You will be hanged as soon as you arrive with it at the Arkansas post, or Creve Coeur, on the Seignelay.”

  Casaubon removed his hand from his sword hilt and laughed at the ceiling, a Voiceless burst of whiskey breath grating up his throat. “You know me well, mon ami. Yet, there are ways. I could sell your head to some legal trader, but it wouldn’t be worth as much. I will make a bargain with you, L’Archeveque. Work with me in this trade for Spanish gold, and I will let you keep your head.”

  “I have already told you that there is but little gold in Santa Fe. The trade I wish to begin here is for my friends, the Comanches. I only want to keep them from raiding the ranchos around Santa Fe.”

  The ugly smile slid from Casaubon’s face. “You are a liar as well as a traitor. Do you think I am so stupid? Earlier today, when your Comanches untied the ponies from the travois, I was watching. You had them stack two of the travois on top of the other one. What were you trying to protect in that bundle of hides on the lower travois?”

  Jean sniffed as if in ridicule, but he knew now he had been observed paying too much attention to the one pony-drag. “I merely wanted to keep the best furs above the mud. A fool could see that a storm was coming.”

  “You lie well, L’Archeveque. But I see through your lies. Earlier, when I went into the rain to fetch my jug of brandy, I visited your stack of three travois.” He pulled his cutlass from its sheath and jabbed at the air between himself and Jean. “I pushed my blade in between the layers of hides and felt the metal of your cache, mon ami.”

  Jean’s anger began to boil as he watched Casaubon reach into the front of his shirt and slowly pull a chain of gold into view. At the end of the chain came the golden crucifix Jean had flaunted to Horseback on the River of Arrowheads.

  “You see, I alre
ady have your gold, traitor. You might as well take what whiskey and guns I offer in trade. I will throw in a young French whore girl as a token of my good faith. If you decline, I will be forced to take your gold—and your pickled head—back to Creve Coeur.”

  Jean reached his right hand around the back of his right hip, where his knife hilt jutted above the sheath. It was a plain knife, but good, made of tempered steel with an ivory handle. He kept it honed and serviceable at all times, but it was no match for a cutlass. He would have to move quickly to avoid Casaubon’s first blow, and hope he had truly seen Horseback’s open eyes gleaming under the cover of the buffalo robe.

  Jean wrapped his grip around the knife hilt and said, “You are a thief, Casaubon, and as such you deserve no quarter. If you do not take that gold chain from your neck, you will not leave this lodge alive.”

  “Too late for that,” Casaubon said. “My Osage guard has already ridden off into the night with the rest of your gold cache. This I cannot return, no matter how fiercely you threaten me. I love the treason, but hate the traitor. The die is cast. Iacta alea est.”

  The suddenness with which Casaubon moved startled Jean, and made every muscle in his body convulse. He saw the blade of the cutlass sweep back for the blow, and he instinctively curled himself into a ball and rolled forward, under the path of the sword. Somersaulting, he saw the blur of Horseback’s buffalo robe flying as if by magic into the air. He heard the cutlass strike the post he had been leaning against—a muffled ring of metal and a sharp thud of wood. He felt his shoulders hit hard, then drew the knife as he rolled to his feet. He whirled to his right and slashed backhanded with the blade.

  He felt the tip of the knife rake a long wound across Casaubon’s shoulder, saw the slaver’s head jerk with the pain, as a turtle would retreat into its shell.

  Casaubon released his right hand from the sword hilt and pulled with his left to dislodge the blade from the heavy post, but now Horseback was upon him, grinning, striking with the only weapon a Foolish One would carry into battle. The blunt stub of the buffalo scrotum rattle jabbed Casaubon in the eye, driving his head back until his ugly grimace faced the ceiling. His mouth opened, and his groan of agony seemed to roll into the thunder above.

  Blankets and robes began to toss about the dim lodge like waves sloshing in a barrel, yet no voice called out, as every man had enemies to awaken.

  Casaubon grabbed Horseback by the throat as he fell backward, and began to snap his gapped teeth viciously at the Foolish One’s face. Horseback landed on top of the slaver, then used his weight to roll to one side, exposing the bald man’s vitals to attack from his white friend, Raccoon-Eyes.

  Jean saw his opening and jumped onto the two men, driving his sharp knife deep between Casaubon’s ribs, where a hunter would drive an arrow into a buffalo. Casaubon’s head lolled back, blood flowing from his eye. His mouth gaped, and would have screamed, but Echo-of-the-Wolf had landed on the dying slaver and stuffed the corner of a blanket into his mouth.

  As Jean scrambled away from the horrible bloody pile, he saw Night Hunter bolt for the thatched door. The Raccoon-Eyed elder screamed a warning cry that was half-lost in a peal of thunder, then Speaks Twice drove a knife into the elder’s chest, lifting him from the ground as he clamped his palm over Night Hunter’s mouth. Speaks Twice slammed the Quiviran chief to the ground, withdrew his knife, stabbed again. Night Hunter squirmed under him, and blood flowed from the hand Speaks Twice used to muffle the elder’s cries. Grimacing at the pain of his bitten hand, the translator managed to hold on until death clouded Night Hunter’s eyes.

  “He would have called the others,” Speaks Twice explained, in Spanish, to Jean. “The Raccoon-Eyed People would avenge the killing of the bald one.”

  Jean sheathed his knife and shook his head. He realized that he was panting for breath, and every muscle in his body felt near to paralysis. Then he heard the voice calling from the next lodge, barely audible through the rainstorm and the thatched walls. His breath caught in his throat as he strained to hear.

  “Elder!” the voice cried. “Do you call?”

  Jean looked down at the bleeding body of Night Hunter. “Tell the Foolish Ones to laugh,” he said to Speaks Twice. A sick feeling began to grow in the pit of stomach. “Tell them!”

  Speaks Twice gave the order with signs, his hand bleeding badly from Night Hunter’s bite. Horseback began to chuckle, jabbing Echo. They laughed together, and cajoled their Comanche brothers into joining them. The laughter quickly died, and all listened through the patter of rain.

  Jean barely heard the chuckle from the neighboring lodge. Then faintly, so faintly, he heard the words in the Raccoon-Eyed tongue: “They drink Bald Man’s fire water.”

  Jean raised his hands, as if conducting an orchestra, and the Foolish Ones made more laughter roll. But Jean could not even try to join the Comanches. He looked at Speaks Twice, and saw his same feelings of unavoidable remorse and shame in the translator’s face. He knew Speaks Twice would not take Night Hunter’s scalp. They lifted the Quiviran elder and carried him to his bed. Jean crossed the dead man’s arms over his chest, and signaled for an end to the ridiculous laughter. He covered Night Hunter with a good robe, and wiped the blood from his hands on a French trade blanket.

  Horseback took the gold chain from Casaubon’s neck and handed it to Jean as he approached. “The yellow metal made the bald one go crazy.”

  Jean nodded. “The yellow metal, and the fire water,” he said in a low voice. He took the chain with the cross, and considered for a moment tossing it into the ashes of the dying fire. But the craziness was in him, too, and he knew he must keep the gold. “We must sneak away before dawn. I must go after the Osage guard who took the rest of the yellow metal. I do not expect you to come with me. This trade has gone bad.”

  “You should forget the yellow metal,” Horseback replied. “Let the tall Osage have it. Yet, if you must go after it, I will ride with you. It is true the trade has gone bad, but my medicine stays strong. I want to see the country of the Osage in the east. I may want it for my own country.”

  Jean frowned, but he knew he could not change Horseback’s faith in his spirit powers. He kicked a bloody robe on top of Casaubon to cover the ugly sight. “You saved my life from the bald one. You are welcome to ride with me.”

  Horseback glanced at the pool of blood where Night Hunter had died. “Now you are an enemy to your own nation of Raccoon-Eyed People,” he said. “You were rich with the Metal Men. You should have stayed with them.”

  Jean shook his head. “You do not understand. The Metal Men let me stay there only as long as I make them rich, too. I am a slave to their god of yellow metal.”

  Horseback rubbed his throat where the bald man had attempted to strangle him. “When you have no nation left, Raccoon-Eyes, come to my camp. I will give you a pony, and a good lodge, and a lance to hunt the buffalo. You will have a good woman, and plenty of good country to ride over. Then you will know the meaning of wealth.”

  Jean could not help smiling. He felt the horrors of bloody death begin to slip behind him, and knew he would have the will to go ahead. Horseback was a good friend—and wise.

  53

  Horseback rode between his friends, Raccoon-Eyes and Speaks Twice. Their ponies traveled eastward at a long walk that verged on a trot, but felt much smoother. Behind these three leaders rode Echo-of-the-Wolf, Shaggy Hump, and the Grasshopper Eater called Crazy Eyes.

  “This country is no good,” Horseback said, trying to make Raccoon-Eyes’s heart lighter. “The grass is too tall. It rains too much. Everything looks so green that my eyes hurt. The buffalo are always getting in the way.”

  Raccoon-Eyes smirked. “Do not grow too fond of this country, Foolish One. It belongs to the Osage. They are fierce, and they number many.”

  “I do not want to know about the Osage,” Horseback said, comically cupping his hand behind his ear.

  The tattooed white man rolled his eyes. He had been in a poor humor
since the trouble at Quivira, and he was not in the mood for the antics of a Foolish One. “You remember the bald man’s Osage guard at Quivira,” he said. “He was tall, but some of their warriors are even taller. They fight well. They run like antelope-men. I have never seen it, but I am told that they can catch ponies by the tail and throw them down.”

  Horseback laughed. “Now who speaks more foolishly? You or I?”

  “It is true,” Raccoon-Eyes insisted. “Keep your pony fresh.”

  Horseback whirled to face the rear of his mount, holding his reins behind his back. He signaled with one heel and a tug of one rein, and the pony turned around and began to walk backward, keeping pace with the other mounts.

  “What are you doing?” Raccoon-Eyes said, sounding irritated.

  “I am going to back my pony until he gets fresh again.”

  Raccoon-Eyes cracked a smile for the first time since leaving Quivira in the dark and rain. “Tell me, Foolish One. How do you make your pony walk backward with a loose rein?”

  Horseback whirled his pony back around and spoke in his normal voice so the white man would know he meant no foolishness. “Start with a tight rein. That is the signal to back up. When the pony starts back, you must loosen the rein and feel joy in your heart. Let the pony feel this joy, and he will be happy to walk backward. He will go that way as long as you feel joy.”

  “You must make the pony part of yourself?” Jean said, following with the sign that meant he was asking a question.

  “That is only half.”

  “What is the other half?”

  “You must make yourself part of the pony. Feel what the pony feels. If he gets tired of walking backward, you must get tired of it, too. You must know that if you fail to serve as the pony’s eyes, and he steps on something that hurts him, you have hurt yourself, for he will no longer serve you. Unless you are only going to cook and eat that pony at the end of the ride, you must make yourself a part of him.”

  Raccoon-Eyes thought about that in silence as they rode on, and Horseback simply admired the land. Never had he dreamed of a country so rich. His moccasins were lost in the seedy tops of grasses that the horses tried constantly to crop as they walked. Across distant hillsides, he could see small herds of buffalo. Trees stood on some of the ridges and in the low crevices between hills. The day was cloudy and warm, and the air strangely sticky. A breeze from the south made the tall grasses ripple like the waters of a great lake.