by Mike Blakely
The trail of the tall Osage guard was plain before them, a line of bent-over grass stretching eastward, almost arrow-straight. They had snuck out of Quivira in the night, leaving their three pole-drags loaded with hides and furs. They had taken all the ponies of the Quivirans. Raccoon-Eyes said it made his heart feel bad, but it had to be done to keep the warriors of Quivira from chasing them down. Bear Heart, Trotter, and the Grasshopper Eater called Crooked Teeth had taken all the captured horses westward. Raccoon-Eyes and the others were to catch and kill the Osage guard, recover the stolen yellow metal, and turn westward to catch up with the captured horses.
Unlike Raccoon-Eyes, Horseback felt good. He had agreed to this trade expedition to get horses, and he was getting more than he had imagined, since stealing the horses from Quivira. He was not afraid of the Quivirans, but they had many more warriors than his small party. It was a good idea to take their horses. Besides, their horses were fat.
It was true that things had gone bad at the village of grass houses last night. The death of Night Hunter and the theft of the horses would likely make enemies of the Comanches and the Raccoon-Eyed People, though it had been the Tiwa, Speaks Twice, who had actually killed the Raccoon-Eyed elder. None of this worried Horseback. He was accustomed to having enemies. He felt bad for Raccoon-Eyes, whose trade had gone all wrong, but he was seeing plenty of new country and enjoying much foolishness. As long as his medicine remained strong, he rode with confidence and thought about the many stories he would tell Teal and Sandhill when he returned to his camp on the River of Arrowheads.
Looking up, he saw Whip riding back to the party, having gone ahead to scout. Whip had been worthless during the whole trip, and Horseback had begun to think he had come along merely to make things difficult. Last night’s fight with the bald Flower Man had not been Whip’s fault, of course, but every other little nuisance could be traced to him. The mere fact that he had volunteered to ride ahead as scout made Horseback uneasy, though he had said nothing, thinking it would be good to get rid of Whip for a while.
When he rejoined the other riders, Whip’s pony was winded and white with frothy sweat. “I have found the pony of the tall Osage guard,” he said. “The Osage rode it to death. He has gone on afoot.”
“How far?” Raccoon-Eyes asked.
Whip pointed. “The dead pony lies over the second ridge. The Osage cannot be far beyond.”
Horseback noticed dark stains on Whips hands when he pointed. “Why do you have blood on your hands?” he asked.
“I made meat. I wish to eat something better than horse meat after we get the yellow metal back from the Osage.”
“What meat? Where?”
“Let us catch the Osage. Then we will worry about the meat.”
Raccoon-Eyes seemed to agree. He urged his pony forward, and the party began to lope. Over the first ridge, Horseback saw the side trail where Whip had ventured into some timber to kill his meat. He had probably spotted a fat cow or a buffalo calf through the trees and used the timber as cover to get close enough for an arrow shot.
The grasslands rolled on, dotted with stands of timber. They rode near one stand, and Horseback noticed strange things about one of the trees. The bark was rough like the scab of a bad wound. The large coarse leaves had soft hairs underneath.
“What is that tree?” he asked. “I have never seen it before.”
“Slippery elm,” Raccoon-Eyes answered, offering a glance at the tree. “The nations of the timber country make good medicine from its bark. Tea for coughs and poultices for wounds.”
Over the second ridge, they found the dead pony. Two coyotes were already sneaking toward it. Approaching the carcass, they found that the Osage had cut the horse’s belly open to eat the raw liver.
“This Osage knows how to use a pony,” Shaggy Hump said. “It is better to count ribs than tracks.”
“He is afoot now,” said Whip. “We will catch him easily.”
Raccoon-Eyes shook his head. “It is never easy to catch an Osage, even on foot. He will step long and go all day. You have never seen a man run like an Osage can run.”
Whip scowled, as if he did not like being counseled by an elder who was not even a True Human.
The coyotes had withdrawn beyond arrow range, for they were wise ancestors of the Noomah. They sat on their haunches and watched the mounted men. “Look,” Horseback said, tilting his head at the coyotes. “Our ancestors are hungry. When they finish eating this pony, they will go to the meat Whip has made, and we will only gnaw bones and howl after we kill the Osage.”
“They will not get the meat I made,” Whip said. “I hung it high in a tree.”
Horseback frowned. He knew Whip could not have lifted even a buffalo calf into a tree. The calves had grown too large. He had not had time or the tools to quarter the animal. “What kind of meat did you make?” Horseback asked. “I have seen no antelope in this country.”
Whip smiled and lifted his chin in pride. “I made the meat of a young buck deer, not too heavy to lift into the fork of a tree for one as strong as I.”
The sun blazed suddenly through a hole in the clouds, scorching Horseback’s shoulders, and he heard a far-off echo of warning from the Great Deer, Sound-the-Sun-Makes. “Fool!” he said. “You kill the sacred deer! My puha! Our protector is angry!”
“Our protector? You are the only one forbidden to eat the meat of a deer.”
“Those who follow me on the war path must honor my medicine. You have broken the taboo!”
“Do you think I follow you on the trail of this trade for ponies? I follow Raccoon-Eyes. I do not worry about your puha.”
“My spirit-guide has protected us,” Horseback insisted. “Now you have dishonored him.”
“Your spirit-guide has not spoken to me. Do you think everything is yours? This country? This nation of Horse People? This trading party? Since you were a boy, they have told you: ‘born on the day of First Horse, born on the day of First Horse…’ Now you think the spirits made the pony for you, and no one else. Everything is not yours, Foolish One. I follow Raccoon-Eyes.”
Horseback felt his anger rise. “Raccoon-Eyes is my friend, but he is not a True Human. It is my puha that has protected us, and now you have destroyed it.”
“I have only destroyed your pride. You think I follow you? I would not follow you to make dog meat.” He turned to Speaks Twice. “Tiwa, ask the Raccoon-Eyed man which god he serves on this trail!”
Speaks Twice asked, and the eyes of the party turned on Raccoon-Eyes. Horseback watched the tattooed face, and saw the look of worry go to a look of shame. Raccoon-Eyes could only stare at his pony’s mane. Finally, he spoke:
“I serve the god of yellow metal. I expect no one to follow me.”
Raccoon-Eyes reined his mount away and began to trail the Osage. Whip went with him. Speaks Twice followed close behind.
“My son,” said Shaggy Hump, “what will you do?”
“It does not matter. Any trail I take, my spirit-guide will punish me. Whip has summoned the shadows made dark by the great light.”
“Then we should go the way Whip goes. If something goes bad, let us all witness it together. Let Whip see it.”
They followed the foot trail of the Osage in silence, each mount in a trot. Horseback looked back on the carcass of the dead pony to see the coyotes closing in on it. The trail of each pony lay plain in the grass. It was impossible to hide a fresh trail in this grass. Anyone who hunted him could find him, and he was a stranger here. He felt as if cast suddenly naked into a strange land. He longed for the short-grass country of his camp on the River of Arrowheads, or even the rocky sage country of the old Noomah lands.
“There are many strange things here,” he said to Raccoon-Eyes. “When we kill the Osage, I hope we will turn around and ride west.”
“You will,” Raccoon-Eyes said. “I will go on alone to complete the trade with the Flower Men. You will ride hard. All the warriors of Quivira will be looking for you.”
> “We have their ponies.”
“They will send runners to other Raccoon-Eyed villages. They will get ponies.”
The trail of the Osage was a mere rift in the sea of grass, but it was easy to follow. It led over one hill, then the next, then the next. The hills were low, their summits far apart, but the trail just went on and on. Horseback had no idea what might lie in wait over the next rise.
As the party mounted that rise, Horseback began to feel bad. He was indeed a Foolish One. He carried only his buffalo scrotum rattle. Whip had killed a deer. Fool! Whip knew nothing about the power of a spirit-protector. He did not understand medicine as great as that of Sound-the-Sun-Makes. Whip had never spoken of great visions. He thought all his power lay in his hands and his weapons. He had killed a deer! Horseback could feel his puha seeping out of him like blood from a wounded man. He was weak, and the hill hid something horrible.
He reined his horse to one side, unwilling to draw the wrath of Sound-the-Sun-Makes down on anyone but himself, for it was coming. Whip had killed a sacred deer. Horseback felt sick. He noticed the other warriors spreading out, stringing their bows. They could all feel it. No one spoke. He remembered the fury of his spirit-guide in the land of the Metal Men, six winters past. Oh, Teal, I am afraid! Oh, Great Deer, have mercy. My power has darkened.
Coming over the rise, Horseback could see much timber to the east. In the distance, he saw smoke. There was a camp near. Probably Osage. He watched the trail of the yellow metal thief: grass bending eastward toward the smoke. As he came higher over the hill, he saw the Osage running. Raccoon-Eyes was right! The Osage covered ground in long strides, like a two-legged antelope! It was going to be hard to catch him before he got into the timber, but it could be done.
The moment Horseback started down the eastern slope of the hill, he noticed something peculiar. There were other trails of bent grass on this side of the hill. These trails led up from the distant Osage camp. The grass of these trails bent westward. These trails led nowhere. They simply stopped.
He drew in a breath and yelped a warning call, but it was too late. As the reins of his Comanche brothers tightened, seven tall warriors rose from the grass. They towered like giants! They sprang from the grass silently and ran straight toward the Comanches, their long arms swinging, their knees coming all the way out of the tall grass. The Comanche horses bolted in fear.
Horseback looked for Echo, his fellow Foolish One. Echo’s pony was dodging away from one Osage giant, while another ran to catch the pony’s reins. The giants ran fast! The hearts of the ponies were telling them to run downhill, so they could go faster, but this carried them into the Osages. The Comanche riders were trying to tell their ponies to run away uphill, so they could escape the attack and swarm around the enemy. But this only confused the ponies and made them slower. The attack was happening too fast. Raccoon-Eyes’s prophesy was coming true. The Osage runners were closing on the ponies!
Horseback gathered his courage, and made his pony feel his heart. He screamed a battle cry and rushed to the aid of his fellow Foolish One. Echo was bearing down on one Osage, unaware of the other who closed in on him from behind. The other Comanches were dodging aside, or breaking downhill, through the Osage line. Raccoon-Eyes rode low as an Osage arrow sped over him. He headed downhill at a gallop, bound for the thief of his yellow metal. Horseback rode toward Echo, glancing over his shoulder once to make sure none of the giant antelope-men was about to catch his pony.
“Pinakwoo!” he warned. “Behind you!” But Echo did not hear as he screamed a battle cry and shook his Foolish rattle at the Osage ahead of him. The giant behind caught the pony by the tail and pulled to one side. Echo kicked himself away from the falling pony. He hit the ground, bounced to his feet, and turned on the Osage behind him, but the other struck him in the back of the head with an iron axe.
Blood gushed from the wound as the Osage vanished in the grass to take the scalp. Horseback screamed so loud his throat felt as if it would tear apart. He made his pony ride over the Osage in the grass, knocking him to one side. He wheeled, saw his father tangled in battle with the giant who had caught Echo’s horse. Horseback knew he had to protect his fellow Foolish One’s body to prevent him from going mutilated to the Shadow Land.
My pony is my weapon, he thought. He dropped his rattle, for he was no longer a Foolish One. Oh, Sound-the-Sun-Makes, let my pony feel my heart one time more before I am to be punished.
The pony leapt and snorted, striking with its front hooves like a deer fighting off a wolf. The Osage reached a long arm toward his reins, just as Whip’s lance pierced his chest.
The battle swarmed in the favor of Comanches now, as the survivors escaped the initial foot speed of the Osages and began to use their weapons on this new enemy nation of giant antelope-men. Horseback reached low for the arm of Echo, and felt the weight of death. Whip brought his pony stomping to the dead Foolish One’s other side, and together they lifted and dragged him to safety as Horseback heard Raccoon-Eyes’s single gunshot from the timber.
As they paused so Horseback could muscle the body of Echo across his thighs, he heard an ominous song whistle in the air and felt the sun burst through the clouds again. Something hit him hard in the chest, knocking him back onto the rump of his pony. Opening his eyes he saw an arrow shaft protruding from his breast bone, the barbed war head completely hidden in his own chest. As he sat up, he noticed the angle of the arrow shaft. It had come from above. From Sound-the-Sun-Makes. Immediately, he broke the shaft off, causing pain to stab all through his body.
The Osages were running on foot back toward their village. Echo’s pony was stumbling, a lance wound bleeding heavily. In his pain and shame, Horseback thought it well that someone had prevented the capture of the pony by killing it. He could see Shaggy Hump, Speaks Twice, and Crazy Eyes coming together, and each man seemed to be favoring a wound. Far down the hill, at the edge of the timber, Raccoon-Eyes was getting back on his pony with his bundle of yellow metal. The body of the tall Osage metal thief lay at his feet.
When the riders all came together, they looked first at the dead body of Echo, laid across the thighs of Horseback. Then they looked at one another’s wounds. The arrow wound in Horseback’s chest only trickled blood, and he tried to ignore it, though it sent waves of pain through him with every little movement he made. He knew he would have to live with the arrow head imbedded in his breast bone until he was safely out of the country of the Osage and Raccoon-Eyed People.
Shaggy Hump held an ugly gash on his upper arm, though blood flowed heavily between his fingers. Speaks Twice seemed sleepy and was bleeding from his nose, which looked crooked and swollen. The Grasshopper Eater, Crazy Eyes looked the worst. His wound was from an arrow that had passed all the way through his stomach. No one spoke for a long moment, then Crazy Eyes began to sing the death song his spirit-guide had given him in his vision quest, not so many winters ago. It wailed like the voice of a tortured wolf mixed with the howl of a great wind in a canyon.
Horseback looked at Whip and scowled. He knew, even if Whip did not, that the killing of the deer had caused all this death and pain. Why had Whip himself not been wounded? It was he who had killed the deer and angered Sound-the-Sun-Makes, yet he had fought well, killed an enemy warrior, helped to protect the body of Echo. Then a pain racked Horseback as his pony pranced, and he understood. Whip’s power came with darkness.
It is light that makes me powerful. It is the shadow made darker by the brightest light that gives Whip his power. The great hot power of the blinding sun lends the shadow form, distinct and dark, making it stronger. Never again shall we ride the same war path again. His power weakens me. Our paths must part.
Raccoon-Eyes joined the survivors, having ridden around the tall enemy foot soldiers. “The Osage will bring more warriors,” he said, tying his recovered metal down behind his saddle. “We must ride hard.”
54
His mother named him Noomah. So she called him the moment he found h
is four legs under him and began to root for her milk. He had felt forever hungry since that day. First for the milk of his mother. Now for grass.
He had left his mother two winters ago, when his father drove him from the herd of mares and foals. Noomah’s father was stern and had made him run in terror of his popping teeth and slashing hooves. He had tried to return several times, but his father would punish him more severely with each return, and Noomah learned to respect the power of pain his father wielded.
Noomah lived in the land between the river and the mountains. He feared the river. It made much noise and felt boggy under his hooves, as if it would suck him down and hold him for the flesh-eaters to devour. He stayed away from it except in dry times when it was the only place to drink, and then he would pick his way cautiously to the water’s edge, testing each step, avoiding the fearful piles of driftwood that surely concealed unimaginable horrors.
The mountains, too, made Noomah uneasy, their steep slopes choked with trees and underbrush that prevented him from running. In the timber, he could not smell the stinking odor of the flesh-eaters until they were almost upon him.
So he lived in the sage and grass country between the mountains and the river, where he could run from danger. Noomah loved to run. Sometimes he did not wait for danger. He would pretend that the aroma of rain was the odor of a flesh-eater, and he would bolt across the flat country and kick his hooves at imaginary fangs. When he came to a place where the land dropped out from under him, into a draw or creek bed, he would lower his head as he slowed his pace just slightly, and he would choose his footing well as he plunged down dirt banks almost as straight up and down as the great trees in the mountains. He learned to climb rocky inclines with his hooves rattling a song on the stones. He learned to hurtle fearlessly across the rough ground, adjusting his footing instantly as a burrow or a snag passed under him, his legs churning, then gathering, then flailing four wild ways to keep solid ground under him as they drove his great weight and muscle into the wind.