by Mike Blakely
“I have waited for my war pony, and he has come. I will ride Medicine-Coat south and east, the way the raven flies. I will find buffalo to hunt. I will find enemy camps to plunder. I will weave a kingfisher feather into the mane of my pony, and his wounds will heal like the water. When I die, I will die astride my war pony. I am Horseback. I have spoken.”
No one spoke against Horseback. Those who did not believe in his power had already gone away with Whip’s people. The council agreed to the last man to move into the land of buffalo and seek the Na-vohnuh war. The women began to pack things into parfleche bags. With dawn, they would take the lodges down and move.
As the light faded behind the mountains, a large cloud of dust rose in the west. The Horseback People took up weapons and waited, fearing a Na-vohnuh attack. Horseback went to scout and came riding back into camp on Medicine-Coat.
“The Yutas!” he cried. “Our allies! Bad Camper comes with fifty warriors! They come to fight the Na-vohnuh!” He galloped all through his camp, shouting the news with joy. He saw Looks Away and rode to her, bending low on his pony to speak softly. “Your brother,” he said. “Bad Camper comes to fight with us.”
The Horseback People cooked all the meat in the camp that night, for they expected to kill many buffalo on the war path. Men, women, and children feasted until none could swallow another bite.
Speaks Twice came from Tachichichi. He had been summoned by a rider and invited to go with the Comanches. “I will go with you to make talk with your enemies, but I will not fight those you call Na-vohnuh. The elders in my kiva at Tachichichi forbid it.”
Horseback nodded. “Come make talk with us. You will teach me more of the Spanish. No one must fight unless his own spirits tell him to fight.”
61
They began to move southward the next day, Horseback leading on his war pony. He rode east of the Breasts of Mother Earth. From that point, he could see the peaks the Metal Men called the Rat Mountains. One peak had a flat-topped summit that from a distance looked like a Tiwa house. This summit overlooked the pass through the Rat Mountains.
Negotiating the pass the next day, Horseback saw a deer sign, and had to ride his war pony carefully for fear of angering his spirit-guide. Yet, he remembered what his father had said. It was not enough to honor Sound-the-Sun-Makes in the sight of men; he must serve his guardian in his heart above all else.
He was relieved to put the deer trails of the Rat Mountains behind him, for over the peaks a beautiful grass-covered valley snaked away to the southeast. Here, antelope darted ahead of the war party, elk loped, and the bulls had rubbed the thin fuzzy skin from antlers that now glinted in the sun. The pole-drags moved easily through this valley, and the Comanches could see the marks of previous pony-drags and dog-drags, surely made by parties of their enemies.
The Rat Mountains dwindled along their left flank after two days of easy moving while, to their right, a few hills rose. Between the hills, Horseback looked across grassy plains that went on to the sky.
On the third day, the Rat Mountains shrank into a series of bluffs. Now Horseback rode toward a lone mountain on the southeastern horizon, five times as wide as it was high. Horseback named it Five Sleeps, for he arrived there on the fifth day of his journey.
Camping at the base of Five Sleeps, the scouts spotted a few buffalo beyond it. A mounted hunting party eased through the timber that grew on the north face of the wide mountain and charged the buffalo. Horseback rode Medicine-Coat on his war pony’s first hunt, expecting his pony would fear the buffalo. To his surprise, Medicine-Coat seemed to crave battle with the horned four-leggeds. He swooped down on them like a coyote after a rabbit, carrying Horseback close enough to shoot an arrow into a large cow, hitting her behind the ribs. When she turned to fight, Medicine-Coat dodged her horns so quickly that Horseback had to grab the pony’s mane to stay mounted. The spirits had taught Medicine-Coat how to hunt, giving him courage as well as speed.
Beyond Five Sleeps, another mountain stood on the southeast horizon, even broader than the last mountain. Horseback named it Seven Sleeps. From the slopes of this mountain small herds of buffalo could be seen across the plains and in the valley, which had grown ever broader and more grassy.
The only landmark that stood on the trail ahead now was a double peak that Horseback named Rabbit Ears Mountain, for its twin summits looked like the tips of rabbit ears standing above the grass. All along the trail to Rabbit Ears Mountain, shallow lakes formed at intervals in the valley. Even when the valley began to rise to blend with the plains, the lakes continued to provide water for the ponies and the Horseback People.
On the eighth day of the journey, the True Humans camped at one of these lakes. From this camp, Horseback and several other warriors rode to the flanks of Rabbit Ears Mountain. Upon its slopes they looked toward the southeast, where they expected to encounter enemies and buffalo to kill. They saw no more hills or mountains to guide them. They would have to ride across plains that stretched without end, to the edge of the earth.
“I see a shadow in the sky,” Shaggy Hump said.
Horseback looked. The shadow was like a ghost. “Hah. What is it?”
“Perhaps the dust of a great herd. Perhaps a flock of ravens and vultures. Perhaps both.”
“We will hunt buffalo.”
“Hah.”
Every day, while the camp moved, scouts rode out in all directions, looking for trails, tracks, signs of game or enemies. Horseback always scouted ahead. On the second day after Rabbit Ears Mountain, he began to see buffalo. He rode into a dry stream bed that would get him closer to the herd so he could judge its number. He saw hopeful signs of a large herd, for wolves prowled everywhere, and many birds circled overhead.
Finally, he rode out of the dry stream bed, to a nearby divide. From there, he knew he would be able to see far across the plains. A few buffalo saw him coming from a distance and trotted away. He did not chase them, for he did not want to alarm the herd. He passed over the divide cautiously, watching carefully, leaning over Medicine-Coat’s withers to look like a buffalo.
He made his pony walk as the plains beyond the ridge gradually rose into view. He saw the far prairies first, those near the horizon, and the sight was odd, for the distant peaks seemed covered with some strange kind of thick black brush. Then the nearer rolls of the earth fell under his gaze, and Horseback saw that this black brush moved. It lived. It roiled like a reflection of dark clouds that covered half the sky. His breath caught in his lungs, and he tasted dust in his mouth. The sight at once enthralled and terrified him. Not even through the mist of his visions had he seen anything like this.
He wheeled Medicine-Coat and ran his pony all the way back to his band of people, his mouth open, and his eyes wide with wonder. When he approached his band, he waved, and three men rode ahead to meet him. They were Shaggy Hump, Bear Heart, and Speaks Twice.
“What have you found?” Bear Heart asked.
“Buffalo.”
“How many?”
Horseback tried to imagine how he would answer. “You will not believe me.”
Shaggy Hump smiled. “Tell us. How many?”
Horseback slipped down from his pony. He found a bare spot on the ground and scratched a circle in the earth with his quirt. “My lodge is a circle.” He placed a rock in the center of the circle. “I stand in the center of my lodge, here. Now, I throw thick, hairy buffalo robes all over the half of my lodge to the east, and the robes cover the ground.”
“Hah,” said Speaks Twice, practicing his Noomah tongue. He smiled, realizing that Horseback had found something these Comanches had never seen. “The robes cover half your lodge.”
Horseback nodded. “The sky and the earth meet in a great circle, like ground under a lodge for the spirits. How wide is the circle of the sky, my friends?”
“Three sleeps,” Bear Heart said.
“Four,” Shaggy Hump countered. “We ride well, but the circle of earth meeting sky is great.”
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��Perhaps four sleeps,” Horseback agreed. “I came over a ridge, not far from here, and I saw half of the great circle of sky meeting earth, covered with buffalo. Nothing but buffalo.”
The men stood in silence for a moment, trying to envision such a sight.
“Many small herds, scattered?” said Bear Heart.
“No. You do not understand. They cover the ground like the robes cover the ground under my lodge. It is one herd. The buffalo are thick as bees in a hollow tree. When I saw it the first time, at a great distance, I thought it was some kind of black brush growing like sage in the old country.” He looked at the blank stares of the men. “As I said, you do not believe me.”
“It is true,” Speaks Twice said. “I have seen such herds. They may go on for five sleeps, even six or seven sleeps.”
“Then I must see it,” Bear Heart said.
“Hah,” said Horseback. “We will all see it. Now, listen, my friends. Do not tell the other men what I have found. Only the four of us will know. I know a good way to show the others.”
The next day, Horseback led many Comanche and Yuta warriors to the southeast before dawn. It was a cloudy morning, and in the dark the hunters could not see the dust in the sky. At sunrise, Horseback led the men into a deep draw that ran north and south.
“Stay in this draw, each of you an arrow shot away from the next. I will ride to the east with seven swift riders. We will chase the buffalo into this draw, where the killing will be good.”
The hunters agreed, spreading out along the length of the draw. Horseback rode down the draw into the breaks of a big valley. He and his riders leaned over the necks of their mounts to keep from startling the buffalo that filled the valley.
“I have never seen so many buffalo,” Shaggy Hump said. “I never knew there were so many on all the earth.”
“Wait,” Horseback said, smiling. “More stand on the flat lands above this valley. The eyes of those hunters we left in the draw are going to look like the eyes of rabbits caught in a snare when they see the buffalo pouring down on them like the waters of a flooding river.”
Coming over the rise of the riverbank, the riders found the buffalo so numerous that they could not even see the ground. Horseback gave his riders a few moments to marvel at the sight, then led a charge into the herd. Medicine-Coat popped his teeth at the cows and calves and they parted, many of them running away to the east, many others running to the west, toward the hunters waiting in the draw. A great rumble of hooves rose into the air, and seemed to make the very earth shake like the surface of a drum. The riders turned in pursuit of the beasts that ran west.
Horseback looked for the finest cows and yearling calves, and Medicine-Coat could sense which animal he wished to close in on. He used his arrows sparingly, killing three buffalo with three arrows. Now he had a robe for each wife to cure, so he angled Medicine-Coat to the south and loosed a battle cry that made his pony burst forward with unbelievable speed. The beautiful pony’s head lunged forward with every stride, and his mane rose like the flames of a sacred fire.
As he left the other riders behind, Horseback could see the breaks of the draw where the hunters waited ahead. He had ridden fast enough to see the first buffalo plunge into the draw. In an instant, he saw his fellow warriors fleeing up the east side of the draw before the onslaught of stampeding beasts.
Horseback laughed, and his laughter made Medicine-Coat dart to one side and kick a hind hoof joyfully. The hunters looked like timid rabbits running from coyotes. Now every man who had called him elder sister while he lay wounded would know that he had heard and remembered, and if one let a buffalo catch him and tear the guts from his mount and stomp scars all across his back, he would have no cause to whimper, for a Comanche hunter-warrior must pursue such danger. If he did not, he would not last long with Horseback’s band of True Humans.
* * *
Two days later, the Horseback People made a camp beside a spring of fresh water near a river that ran red. While the women worked on hides and dried meat, Horseback explored farther to the south. Coming out of the breaks of the river he called Red Water, he found himself on a land so flat and treeless that a man could see a day’s ride ahead of him, just sitting astraddle of his pony. It was a fearful thing to look at. Even the peaks of Rabbit Ears Mountain had faded far to the northwest, and there was nothing to use as a landmark. Only in his visions had Horseback seen such a land. So flat. So treeless. So covered with good, sweet grass. To wander out upon this land would be dangerous, for water was scarce. Exploration of this country would have to be done gradually. He would watch for flights of birds to find water. He would make maps and remember them. In time, he would know the way to cross that land. From stream to stream. Lake to lake. Spring to spring. It was a land worth mastering, for it teemed with enough buffalo to feed the largest of nations.
But for now, Horseback would hold to the breaks of this valley of the Red Water. There were good springs along this valley. This was the country of the Na-vohnuh. He would encounter his enemies here. He went back to his camp and sent scouts upstream and down. He hoped to find the village of the chief called Battle Scar. There was vengeance to exact which would lead to war. His people were ready to fight.
After seven days of searching, Bear Heart returned to the camp on Red Water. “I have found the village of Battle Scar’s people,” he said.
“Did you see Battle Scar?”
“Yes. I crept into the village at night. I saw him go into his filthy little lodge. I did not leave any trace behind me. I stole no horses, though I could have taken them all. I did not want his people to know about us here. They will be surprised. They are harvesting their fields by day, dancing by night. They know nothing of our camp.”
“How far?” Horseback said.
“Four sleeps downstream.”
Horseback smiled. “Let us call our warriors together in council. Let us feast and dance. Let us paint our faces and our ponies, and weave sacred feathers into their tails and manes. It is good to hunt here in this country. It is better to make war.”
62
Shaggy Hump reined in his pony and raised his hand, which was barely seen in the pale light before dawn. The other riders stopped behind him. He slid from the bare back of his warhorse, and all his tools of battle went with him as his moccasins hit the ground—his pogamoggan, fitted now with an iron point jutting from one side of the club head; his shield painted like the sun, with a stuffed road-runner puhahante tied to the center; his quiver and bow case slung across his back, holding his best bow and twenty good arrows with barbed war points his enemies would not be able to pull out.
He looked back at the faces of the warriors who had agreed to come on this vengeance raid—seventy-two Comanche and Yuta fighting men, anxious to kill or die. Their faces looked good all painted with streaks and slashes of black, red, and yellow. As he dropped his reins and walked away from his war pony, he pulled at the strap of his new deerskin sash, the long tail of which was now rolled under his right arm.
Pulling his loin skins aside, Shaggy Hump lifted one leg and urinated on the daggerlike points of a yucca plant, imitating the posture of a male dog marking his domain. This would amuse his fellow warriors, and remind them of his speech. In council, under yesterday’s sun, Shaggy Hump had made a long and stirring oration, announcing finally that his dreams had instructed him to start a new warrior society among the Horseback People. The members of the military order would be called the Crazy-Dogs-Wishing-to-Die. He had heard of this society among his old enemies, the Crow, and had long admired the idea. The Crazy-Dogs-Wishing-to-Die would be older warriors, with much experience. In a fight, they would plunge recklessly into battle, then guard the retreat of their war party. They would be known by a long deerskin sash that they would use in guarding the retreat. When unrolled, the sash would drag the ground, and come equipped with an arrow for pinning it to the earth. They would not tie their penises to the ground like Wolf People warriors. They were not that crazy. But each Cr
azy-Dog would stand his ground against any number of enemy pursuers until a fellow member of the society pulled his arrow from his sash, releasing him. Otherwise he would die staked to his ground. Only another Crazy-Dog-Wishing-to-Die could release a member of the order from the ground he had claimed.
Shaggy Hump knew that his son did not like this idea. It meant that those who guarded the retreat would have to dismount to stake themselves to the ground and give up the power of their ponies. But Horseback was young yet, and did not understand. These Crazy-Dogs-Wishing-to-Die were old veterans. They did not wish to turn gray and grow weak. They wished to die in battle. His dreams had told him to go to war this way. It was good.
He adjusted his medicine bundle next to his penis as he pulled his loin skins up tight between his legs. With the eyes of the younger warriors on him, he swung a leg over his pony’s back. It was hard to mount this way at his age, and he remembered how swiftly and smoothly he had once horsed himself, in the old days, when the pony was a new thing sent by the spirits. He drew his bow from the case and strung it.
The enemy village lay around a bend in the valley. Without looking behind him, Shaggy Hump could hear his fellow warriors preparing for the attack. A few of the Yutas had guns which caused much clicking and rattling as their owners prepared them to fire. Some men sang softly, bolstering their courage with spirit-music. The ponies could sense the coming of the battle. They snorted and stomped. But Shaggy Hump’s eyes remained fixed on the bend in the valley. He realized now that he had seen this place in his dreams—hazy and dim, as it appeared here before sunrise. Bear Heart came to his side, he too wearing the sash of a Crazy-Dog-Wishing-to-Die, the tail of the sash rolled neatly under his right arm.
Then Horseback rode up from the rear, his magnificent spirit-pony tossing its head and rolling its eyes as it pranced. The black and white patches of its handsome coat came together like light against shadows. Horseback’s war paint was red on one half of his face, black on the other, running together in a lightning-bolt jag. His chest was marked with a black set of antlers in homage to his spirit-protector and with red crosses that enumerated his kills and battle strokes. Shaggy Hump smiled. Only the spirits could match such a pony with such a rider.