by Mike Blakely
“Hear me,” Horseback said. “Our ancient enemies wait around the bend in this valley. They have danced around the scalps of our people. But under the sun which now rises, they will see a new nation ride from the mist. This is not a day to count battle strokes, but to take scalps. We will kill many warriors. We will take women and children for the rescate of the Metal Men. We will take all their horses and leave them wailing afoot. Our wounds will heal like the waters.”
Shaggy Hump watched his son turn into the valley, and he followed quickly. They held their ponies to a walk until the first lodges of the Na-vohnuh came into view. Suddenly, Medicine-Coat leapt forward in a huge bound, and Shaggy Hump felt his heart pound as strength shot all through his body, as if he were a young man again. He followed his son in the charge as hooves rumbled suddenly like thunder.
The Na-vohnuh women were just coming out into the bean fields, and they dropped their baskets and trilled a warning back to their village. Now Shaggy Hump felt his war cry burst from his lungs, a scream of some eagle spirit sent to make him powerful in this, his last battle. In a few long strides he, his son, and Bear Heart, had overtaken the fleeing women and charged into the camp to look for warriors.
A man stepped from one of the red-and-white lodges of the enemy. He looked small to Shaggy Hump. He tried to avoid the blow, but Shaggy Hump’s pogamoggan slammed against his head, the iron point splitting the skull, killing the man as surely as if a great killer stallion had kicked him viciously with a hard hind hoof.
As he rode on by, the iron point of his club head lodged in the skull of the man, and its handle pulled from his hand, the leather wrist strap snapping as it almost yanked him from his mount.
The loss of the weapon made no difference to Shaggy Hump. His bow was ready. He reached for his quiver, all the while galloping through the camp, trusting his pony to choose the way. Halfway through the Na-vohnuh village, with screams and battle cries and gunshots mingling behind him, Shaggy Hump peeled away to his right, and those behind him began to swarm like bees. He circled, then reined his pony in. He notched an arrow, drew the bow, found an enemy target, saw his arrow sink into the Na-vohnuh’s bare chest. He drew another arrow. Made another kill. Horsemen were leaping everywhere before him, dodging and pursuing. Ponies reared and fought the enemies with flailing hooves, the ancient hatreds flowing from the hearts of their riders into their great masses of powerful muscle.
A warrior ran at him with a lance, but Shaggy Hump notched his next arrow with patience. He drew his bowstring as the man threw his lance. He released his arrow, saw it pierce the stomach of the enemy. The enemy spear glanced off the top of Shaggy Hump’s shield and struck him in the jaw. Pain shot through his neck and body as hot blood gushed down his chest. He reached for another arrow. His scream rattled with blood that ran down his windpipe, and he knew the lance had wounded him badly. He felt the twitching of severed muscles along the side of his face.
Now, Shaggy Hump felt the recklessness of a Crazy-Dog consume him. It fed on his searing pain, and he charged into the village. He saw Horseback gallop by on Medicine-Coat. He recognized the Yuta chief, Bad Camper, clubbing some enemy warrior to the ground. A round of Na-vohnuh gunshots began to fire, and one Yuta warrior fell from his pony. Another riderless horse thundered by, wild-eyed. The swarm of battle engulfed him as he charged toward the river. Through the dust, he caught a glimpse of the enemy horse herd running across the valley, and knew the Horseback People would have plenty of ponies to ride.
He drew his bow, made a kill. Drew again. Wounded another. A searing pain raked across his back, but when he wheeled, no one stood near enough to have struck him. His fellow horsemen leaped all through the village. Enemy women and children ran and crawled. Blood shot from one man’s neck in a stream as he stood, wobbling, singing his death song.
Wheeling again, Shaggy Hump shot another arrow, but missed a man who ducked behind a hide lodge. He saw a young Comanche on his pony, blood covering his hands and face, his eyes wide with terror. The young man was drawing his bow again and again, letting his bowstring go without notching the arrows that waited in his quiver. Shaggy Hump rode to him and tried to speak, but his own jaw would not work, and he only felt blood come out of his mouth. The young warrior looked at him with terror in his eyes, then a wound from an enemy Fire Stick tore his chest open.
Shaggy Hump grabbed the wounded warrior before he could fall from his pony and pulled the boy across his thighs. The boy was already dead, but Shaggy Hump would not leave him to be mutilated by the enemy. As he turned for the valley rim, he looked for enemies to shoot, and took in the glory of the plundered village. He saw Yutas and Comanches carrying children and women away. Dead enemy men lay everywhere. Moaning and wailing rose around him.
And Shaggy Hump knew this was only the beginning. The war would drag on. He did not pity the Na-vohnuh, for they deserved this. Always it had been told how the horrible ones had tried to rub out the whole Noomah nation in the ancient war, but now it was different. Now the True Humans possessed the power of the horse. Not just the power of this animal’s speed and strength, but the spirit-magic sent to the Noomah in the form of ponies. And his own son, Horseback, was the prophet of all this pony medicine. Shaggy Hump was only now fully realizing this truth as he felt life slipping away from him in the midst of his final fight. Now a new generation of Noomah warriors would repeat this horseback raid time and again as village after village of Na-vohnuh fell to the great spirit-powers of a new nation. It was good. Glory would rain upon the people like a thunder burst.
The time to retreat had come, and all the horsemen began moving back up the valley, some driving the stolen ponies of the enemy, some struggling with women or children who kicked and screamed against the terrors of captivity, some carrying dead or wounded friends. Shaggy Hump felt weak and dizzy. Looking down, he saw his own blood running over the dead boy he carried, all the way to the tips of his own moccasins, where it dripped off, dotting the ground with a trail.
He came across Bad Camper—the brother of his wife, Looks Away—the Yuta warrior he had once waged war against. He could not speak, for he was swallowing his own blood to keep from choking; but he reached for Bad Camper and made signs telling him to take the dead boy who lay across his thighs.
Bad Camper took the corpse, his face grim. He made signs with his right hand: “You fight well, Snake man.”
They were at the edge of the enemy village now. The attacking warriors were still trying to gather dead and wounded, for no one would be left behind. Men who had been unhorsed were trying to fight their way out. Here, where the bean fields met the village, the survivors gathered for a mass retreat. Shaggy Hump slipped down from his pony, letting the animal go. He staggered to the edge of the bean field, feeling tired. He prayed for power: one last burst of courage and strength. He placed himself between his own men and the enemy village. He untied his new deerskin sash and cast it with a flourish upon the ground ahead of him. He dropped to one knee, pulled an arrow from his quiver, and stabbed it through the golden deerskin that was now stained with blood. He drove the arrow into the ground with all the strength he could gather, making a ceremony of it. He thought he heard the bellow of a buffalo bull echo through the valley as he drove the stake home. He rose to his feet and looked toward the village.
The last of his warriors were fighting their way out, some dragging friends who could not walk. Behind them came angry Na-vohnuh warriors possessed by the reckless fury of men who have seen wives and children carried away. Shaggy Hump found one of these horrible enemy warriors in the strange blur that had begun to fall upon his world, making the moment feel like a nightmare. He had dreamt of this moment. Laboriously, he drew his bow and shot the warrior through. He reached for his quiver, but felt no arrows left jutting from it.
Battling the pain of his face wound and the dizziness that gathered around him, Shaggy Hump swallowed another gulp of his own blood and drew his knife. He saw Horseback and Trotter—his son and his son-in-law
—darting into the village, guarding the retreat in their own way, on nimble war ponies. Horseback had four arrows sticking out of his shield. The pride he felt in these young men made Shaggy Hump stand straight and shake the fatigue from his head. He saw enemy warriors break through the rear guard of ponies. They were misty. They moved like dream people. One came ahead of the others. He was older than the rest. He carried a hatchet with an iron head. Shaggy Hump saw his face, recognized him. It was Battle Scar, the worst warrior chief of the whole Na-vohnuh nation. He saw the ugly scar across the enemy chief’s belly where his daughter-in-law, Teal, had raked her arrow point.
He stepped forward until he felt the sash of the Crazy-Dogs tugging the earth behind him. Battle Scar was running at him. Shaggy Hump called upon his faithful spirit-guides, knowing they offered him no protection, only courage. He forced himself to sing, sending an eerie death song into the air on a spray of blood. Battle Scar came at him like a wolf, fangs bared. Shaggy Hump struck with his knife, but he was weak and Battle Scar was good at fighting. The hatchet hit him on the chest and shoulder, ripped flesh and crushed bones. Shaggy Hump felt the ground slam against his back. Even now, his pain was fading, but he dared not slip away. Horses leapt over him. Something grabbed his hair and he slashed wildly with his knife, mustering every morsel of energy left to him. He kicked and thrust his blade. He would fight to the last breath. He heard the victory cries as the retreat began.
He heard Bear Heart’s voice: “I have pulled the stake from the ground for you, Shaggy Hump! Do not cut me as I carry you away.”
Shaggy Hump let his knife fall away, somewhere far away. He felt himself lifted. His pain melted like snow under the first warm sun of spring. He heard Horseback:
“Carry my father ahead of me!”
A river of blood flooded into his lungs, and Shaggy Hump felt cool. There was a sudden chill in the air, yet he was too weak to shiver. He saw the bright light of the sun burst into the valley as he floated up. Everything was cold. Everything except the warmth of the pony across which he lay. This was a spirit-pony. Shaggy Hump made himself feel the heart of this animal as he had learned to do in his dreams. He felt warmer. He rose higher. It was good. Everything was good. Better than good. He heard the songs of happy people, songs of feasting, songs of joy. He heard laughter. His spirit-pony bore him away on the warm light of the sun, and Shaggy Hump heard the songs River Woman had sung in the old days. She was young again, and so was he.
63
In the seasons that followed the death of Horseback’s father, the Na-vohnuh war swelled like a great thundercloud that blossomed in the sky and blotted out the sun. Blood ran like the waters of a rainstorm, and with it the powers of the Na-vohnuh slowly leached away to someplace dark and cold.
True Humans continued to come down from the old country. In addition to Horseback’s camp, and Whip’s people, bands of Comanches emerged with names like the Wanderers, the Antelope People, the Buffalo Eaters, and the Honey Eaters. They came to fight Na-vohnuh, and hunt buffalo, and ride horses, and take wives, and trade.
The Na-vohnuh villages proved easy to plunder, for they did not understand the power of the horse. They could not fathom how much distance a Comanche war party could cover in one night, and so the horse-warriors would appear without warning when Na-vohnuh scouts had found no sign of them anywhere near their villages the day before. When a fight came, the Na-vohnuh would stand on the ground to do battle, even if they had ridden to the battleground. They did not understand how to use the war power of a pony. Even if they had, they would not have ridden with the skill of the Comanches.
The Na-vohnuh lived along rivers in settled villages throughout the growing season, tending their fields of beans, squash, corn, and pumpkins. Because of this, they were easy to find in large numbers. They became suppliers of ponies for the Comanches. Sometimes Horseback would pass up the chance to raid a Na-vohnuh village, saying, “Let us wait until their colts are stronger. Now they are too small to keep up with our retreat.”
The Comanches followed herds of buffalo, always moving, hunting, fighting, riding, camping. Some Comanche warriors spent more time on their ponies than off. Some would eat their meals astride their horses, drink by riding their ponies into a stream so they wouldn’t have to dismount. Some would not even get down to urinate. Some warriors had their wives build lodges to keep their best hunting ponies and war ponies out of the rain, snow, and hail. Some could sleep astride their ponies. Others coupled with their women on horseback, hoping the children so conceived would know the skill of spirit-riders.
Horseback himself was the most renowned of these such warriors, and he was spoken of throughout the whole nation for his courage, generosity, wisdom, spirit-power, and skill on the back of a pony. His band grew larger than any other, and moved more to keep its huge herd of ponies fed. The herd numbered no fewer than one thousand, and sometimes twice that, as each warrior possessed at least six ponies. Some owned many more. Horseback himself claimed over two hundred, though he gave ponies like other men gave counsel.
His war pony, Medicine-Coat, was the reason for his horse wealth. No matter how many ponies he gave away, his spirit-pony would win more in the horse races that always went along with the great camp-togethers of the True Humans. As a racer, Medicine-Coat was never beaten, nor even seriously challenged. The likes of his speed and strength were beheld in no other pony on earth, for Medicine-Coat had the blood of spirits coursing through his veins. He bred many mares, and the Horseback People were known to possess the finest ponies on the plains because of Medicine-Coat’s blood. Many of his foals wore the coat of light and shadows, yet none was quite as beautiful as its father.
As a war pony Medicine-Coat had proven invincible. Bullets went around his magical coat of darkness and light. Arrow and lance wounds closed up like waters behind a kingfisher. As the war dragged on, Medicine-Coat’s hide became as a map of many battlefields, and Horseback could stand by his side and point to scars and match them with scars on his own skin, and give the accounts of the making of the wounds. Men would gather around him to hear the tales of his many battle strokes as he fattened Medicine-Coat on bark stripped from sohoobi trees.
“See this scar that my wife has tattooed on my thigh,” he would say, holding the flap of his loin skins aside to reveal the old wound. “I won this scar in the fight against Battle Scar’s people on Red Water. The arrow went through my thigh and into my pony.” Here, he would point to the hairless welt on Medicine-Coat’s hide. “We have both healed, but the arrow point is still inside my war pony. It does not bother him. Now when we ride, my scar touches his, and we remember the glory of that battle.” And he would strip more bark from the sohoobi trees to feed to Medicine-Coat as he told the scar stories.
The battles were not all glorious. There were chiefs even among wolves, and each Na-vohnuh warrior fought like one of these wolf-chiefs. They protected their women and children to the death, and many young Comanche warriors fell to the sure aim of Na-vohnuh marksmen. Yet, the Na-vohnuh almost always lost more men dead than the Comanche. And because the Comanche moved around, the Na-vohnuh did not attack their camps as often as Comanches attacked Na-vohnuh villages. The True Humans lost few women and children to the slave market. The Na-vohnuh lost many, making them ever weaker and less able to replace their warriors lost in battle.
Even when the Na-vohnuh did make raids on Comanche camps, the Comanche horsemen repelled such attacks with greater success. Comanche warriors learned to keep their best horses staked near their lodges so they could mount in the time a sacred shooting star took to streak across the sky.
Through the many seasons of the war, Horseback spoke often of the revenge he would take on Battle Scar, the Na-vohnuh chief who had killed his father. Yet, Battle Scar proved hard to catch. After the first big fight at Battle Scar’s village, the old Na-vohnuh warrior grew cautious and sly. He made his village on the Red Water a nation of weapons. He traded for many guns, recruited hard-fighting men from all over the
Na-vohnuh nation, and maintained a constant guard around the village. It was said that he killed a young warrior-guard caught coupling with a woman when he was supposed to be guarding the village. Then he killed the woman, too.
Because of his vigilance, Battle Scar’s camp became impossible to attack. Only when his people completed their harvest in the fall and went out to hunt buffalo would Horseback seek battle with him. Then, the fights were short but bloody. Horseback’s people would whittle away at Battle Scar’s warrior force, riding down the enemy braves and laughing at their attempts to defend themselves when they got down from their mounts to fight.
Every fall, out on the buffalo ranges, Horseback would catch sight of Battle Scar and give chase. Twice his arrows had pierced the flesh of his bitter enemy, yet failed to kill. The old warrior was canny as a fox, quick and clever, and guarded by many warriors.
These Na-vohnuh warriors proved so fierce that they were almost never captured, preferring death to captivity. Only once had an enemy warrior been brought back to Horseback’s camp, by Trotter. The captive was a young warrior.
“Will it make you powerful to have this boy-warrior tortured to death?” Horseback asked.
Trotter thought a while and replied, “It will only rob me of anger I should use in battle.” With that, Trotter tied the young enemy to a tree and let one of the women in camp shoot him with his Fire Stick. The woman did insist on leaving the ramrod in the barrel, however, so that she would have the satisfaction of seeing it sticking out of him like an arrow. This woman had lost both a husband and a son in the war.