Comanche Dawn

by Mike Blakely

  But Horseback’s band was not the only Comanche camp making war on the Na-vohnuh. It was said that Whip’s band tortured some captive slowly after every raid. The Horseback People did not make raids with Whip’s people, but the stories spread. Whip always chose the oldest captive boy to torture to death as if he were a warrior. The tales of this torture were ghastly. Some people said that Whip would have tortured all the captives had they not been so valuable in trade to the Metal Men.

  There were other stories about Whip’s band. Disturbing stories. It was said that witches lived among Whip’s people, and cast evils spells on people, and even on each other to the point that all the people in the camp had gone crazy. Whip, himself, was said to have made himself a sorcerer and summoned the powers of evil spirits, since the good spirits had never given him a vision. It was even said that brothers and sisters coupled in that camp, and nephews with their aunts, and daughters with their fathers. The tales made Horseback’s people shudder with fear, for dabbling with such evil things could cause the spirits to unleash unspeakable punishments.

  The only time the Horseback People saw any of Whip’s band was when the Metal Men held their trade fairs at the ancient Tiwa town called Taos. It was a time of truce among all nations, and even the Na-vohnuh and the Comanche would suspend fighting, though they never attended the fair together, one nation waiting for the other to leave Taos before moving in.

  Here, the nations would come from the mountains and the plains and the deserts and the valleys to trade things with one another and with the Metal Men, who had items like iron kettles, knives, beads, and looking glasses. The nations came from the pueblos and the river villages and the wandering camps. They brought hides of buffalo, deer, elk, antelope, beaver, mink, and otter. They brought deerskins filled with honey, tallow, and bear fat. They brought corn, tobacco, lodge poles, salt, pine nuts, and tools of horn and antler. They brought things of beauty like turquoise, and eagle feathers, and shells that looked like rainbows inside, and rich red stone soft enough to carve into fine ceremonial pipes. They brought finely crafted items such as moccasins, winter boots, leggings dyed and quilled, deerskin shirts, tipi covers, fancy cradle boards, baskets, and pots. They brought herbs and medicines. And they brought their human captives—hollow-eyed women and children wrenched violently from their villages by enemies.

  The Tiwa dwellings at Taos stood in two clusters, one on either side of a fine little river. Horseback had been told that each adobe and rock structure held a hundred families. With the annual fair, the area between the adobe structures filled with goods brought by traders of all the nations. People who spoke as many different tongues as moons of the circle came here to haggle in gestures and broken bits of one another’s languages. Sohoobi trees made cool shade to lie about in when the sun rose high. Taos was a good place during the trade fairs.

  But it was here that Whip began to make trouble with the Spaniards in the year the Metal Men called by the number 1717. Horseback was there the day it started. He saw it happen. The Comanches had been coming to the Taos fairs for six years in a row, without any trouble. Horseback’s winters now numbered thirty, and he was known as a warrior-leader in his prime whose wisdom exceeded that of others his age.

  The day that Whip began to make trouble, Horseback was watching Crooked Teeth, the former Grasshopper Eater, bargain with a young Spanish trader for a red blanket. The young Spanish trader was the son of Horseback’s friend, Raccoon-Eyes. Raccoon-Eyes was at Horseback’s side, and they were both smiling at the obstinate traffic of barter-talk between Crooked Teeth and Raccoon-Eyes’s son, whose name was Juanito. Behind them rose the adobe walls of Taos, its nooks and corners painted with sunlight and shadow. Beyond the adobe walls stood the high dark slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which Horseback knew had been named for the blood of the son of God who walked on earth.

  “I must have three buffalo robes for a blanket this fine,” Juanito said in a voice yet boyish.

  Crooked Teeth fumed and shook his head. He stalked about and looked incredulously up at Father Sun to witness such an absurdity as this boy-trader had offered. “One robe and one skin bag filled with bear fat. That is all!”

  Juanito laughed and rolled his eyes. “That would not pay for the shearers who gathered the wool to make the blanket, not to mention the weavers, the makers of the dye, the builder of the loom, the freighters who hauled this blanket here to this remote outpost. Two robes and a skin bag of bear fat. I can do no better.”

  Crooked Teeth ranted a while in his Noomah tongue that he knew the trader would not understand. Then, he said in Spanish, “One robe, one skin of bear fat, and a skin of honey. This is more than the blanket is worth, but I will offer it, for I am wealthy and you look like you need my generosity.”

  Juanito looked at his father for approval, and Raccoon-Eyes nodded. The young trader frowned at the Comanche as if he were just a little disgusted, then made the deal fast with a handshake. Crooked Teeth turned happily away to collect the goods for his end of the bargain.

  “Your son learns well,” Horseback said. “I will also be generous with him.” He stepped up to Juanito’s stacks of goods and said, “I will have three blankets like Crooked Teeth bought. One for each wife. Green for Teal, yellow for Sunshade, and blue for Dipper.”

  Juanito sighed. “Very well. Since you overheard, I must offer you the same price as Crooked Teeth paid.”

  Horseback drew back and glared at the boy. He held his chin high and sniffed as if he had smelled something foul.

  “Juanito!” Raccoon-Eyes scolded. “Where are your manners? Look who you are speaking to. This is Acaballo, the greatest of the Comanche chiefs, the finest horseman alive. His wealth is twenty times that of Crooked Teeth. It is an insult to treat him like a common warrior.”

  Juanito seemed astonished and confused. “But, I only … He just now heard my bargain with Crooked Teeth. Am I to demand more of Acaballo because he is wealthier?”

  “Yes, of course, Juanito. This is not a greedy Spanish miser you are dealing with. Do not treat him as such. This is the great chief of the Comanches. Have I not told you how the noble Comanches hold prestige, wealth, and generosity in the highest veneration?”

  Juanito glanced uncertainly again at Horseback. “You mean he wants to pay more?”

  “He has earned the right to pay more, hijo. He is proud of it. His power is strong.” Now Raccoon-Eyes glanced around him for Black Robes before saying, “He is guided and protected by powerful spirits who will see that he quickly regains any price you could possibly convince him to pay.”

  Juanito smirked. “Very well,” he said, turning back to his customer. “Ten ponies for each blanket!”

  Juanito’s face could not contain his surprise when Horseback quickly replied, “Bueno. Muy bueno!”

  They had shaken hands and Juanito was folding the blankets when a war cry rose across the Taos River. The murmur of voices died all across the trade grounds, and Horseback saw Whip beyond the river. He was mounted and pulling a young Spanish girl onto his lap by her hair. She kicked and screamed, but he muscled her across his thighs and charged past the hands that groped to save the girl.

  Horseback and Raccoon-Eyes leapt from stone to stone in crossing the shallow river, arriving at the side of a weeping woman, who was screaming, “My daughter! Save her! Someone help her!”

  “What happened?” Raccoon-Eyes asked a Spanish trader who had been standing there.

  “The savage wanted to buy the girl. Her parents would not sell her, of course, so he just took her.”

  From the distance, Whip’s war cry pierced the air like a hawk’s call, and his pony was seen riding onto a rise that overlooked the pueblo. He was near enough to be seen dismounting, throwing the girl to the ground at the same time.

  “Merciful God!” someone cried. “That heathen bastard is going to rape her! Where are the soldiers? Who has a gun?”

  Whip’s warriors were pouring from the trade grounds now, like bees shaken fr
om a hollow tree. They rode to the rise to protect their leader and to watch him defile the girl.

  “They will kill anyone who tries to stop Whip,” Raccoon-Eyes said. “And he will probably kill the girl if you go after him with a weapon.”

  Women screamed and wept, and men shouted for soldiers, as Whip raped the girl in plain view of the trade grounds. Finally, a Taos merchant came running with an old matchlock musket, but had to stop at the edge of the river to load the weapon and get the treated cord lighted. By then Whip was seen dragging the girl back onto his pony.

  “He’s going to bring her back!” someone cried.

  “Do not fire,” Jean said, pointing at the man with the matchlock. “He will kill her if you fire. Fire only if he releases her.”

  Whip came loping boldly back to the pueblo, the weeping girl straddling the pony in front of him. He wore an evil smile on his face and his eyes glinted like those of a lizard-monster. People stood aside for him as he brought the girl back to the same place he had stolen her. Leering, he grabbed her by the hair and said, in Spanish, word by word, “Now … she … is … good.”

  He threw her aside and wheeled his pony. People scattered around him as he galloped toward the rise. Powder flared in the pan of the matchlock as Whip threw himself to the side of his pony. The gun roared and the pony collapsed, the ball having caught it in the back of the neck. Angry Spanish men sprinted toward the downed warrior, but one of Whip’s men circled quickly, swung him up behind, and they escaped amid a chorus of victorious yelps.

  Instantly, Raccoon-Eyes was pulling Horseback away, as people gathered around the assaulted girl. “The soldiers will be coming,” he said to his friend. “You must take your people away.”

  “I do not like the things Whip does, but I can do nothing to stop him. He has his own band and his own council.”

  “The soldiers will not understand that. They will come after any band of Comanches they can find. Please, my friend, take your people back onto the plains.”

  Horseback sensed the anger of the Spaniards gathering around the girl Whip had raped. He knew the way the soldiers thought. Raccoon-Eyes was right. “I will go,” he said. He was sure his eyes must show his sorrow. “I will go.”

  64

  He ducked, but Fray Gabrielle Ugarte could not lean low enough on the back of the big mule to avoid the branch of the juniper. It raked him hard on the nape of his sunburned neck and tore his frock as the mule slid on down the trail that led to the plains, to the country of los Indios bárbaros, and to the realm of doomed souls. Quickly, he regained his seat, not even bothering to feel his neck for blood. Below, along a stream called the Cimarron, the ash piles of Comanche campfires dotted the valley. As he trotted to catch up to the soldiers, he found Capitán Lorenzo Lujan and the tattooed guide, Juan Archebeque, in the midst of a heated discussion.

  “Governor Del Bosque made our mission clear,” Archebeque was saying when Fray Ugarte rode into earshot. “We are to seek out the man who raped the girl in Taos, to capture or kill him and as many of his accomplices as we are able.”

  “I know what our mission is, Frenchman. That is why we are going to follow the trail to the north. It is the largest trail. The rapist stands a greater chance of being among the larger band.”

  “The trail that leads north was made by Acaballo’s people. Whip will not be among them. Whip’s band made the trail that leads east, onto the llano.”

  “You have no way of knowing that.”

  “I know by the size of the bands,” Archebeque insisted, his frustration building. “If you will ride two more leagues downstream, I will show you where Whip’s band camped. Acaballo and Whip will not camp together, for they have broken off all communication. Acaballo has more people, and many more ponies. The larger trail is obviously his, and the lesser trail, Whip’s.”

  Lujan glared at Archebeque with obvious hatred. “You know too much about our enemies.”

  “The Comanches are not our enemies. The governor made that clear when he asked me to guide this expedition. What happened in Taos was not an act of war. It was a crime against God and the Crown. Whip is the man we seek. He and his men are criminals. Leave Acaballo out of it. He has done nothing.”

  “He did this,” Lujan said. He removed his iron helmet and used his quirt to point to the place on his head where the flesh had grown back together like a hairless battle scar on a fighting dog. “This was his act of war.”

  “That one little scar on your scalp is nothing compared to the scars on Acaballo’s back from the whipping you and Ugarte gave him.” He sidled his angry eyes at the friar. “His flesh looks like a map of Spain, and yet he is satisfied with the revenge he took on the export caravan. If you go after him, you will be making a mistake. Whip will get away with his crime, and you will bring war down upon the Kingdom of New Mexico such as you have never dreamed possible. You do not understand the power of the Comanches. They have already caused the Apaches more grief than all the combined efforts of your Spanish military over the last hundred years. Your small force of soldiers will be no match for them.”

  Lujan’s smirk revealed his disdain for his guide’s advice. “Fray Ugarte, what do you say?”

  The Franciscan mopped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his heavy robe. “It is God’s work to follow in the tracks of the greatest number of heathens, that we may chance to save more souls among them.” He knew this would enrage Archebeque. The trader had never appreciated the logic of the Franciscan Order.

  Archebeque gathered his reins. “Then, may God go with you, for I will not. The two of you would let a rapist go free in order to carry on your foolish vendetta with Acaballo. I wish to take no part in promulgating an unnecessary war.”

  “The words of a coward,” Lujan said.

  Archebeque trained his eyes on Lujan like a brace of pistol barrels. “If you are lucky enough to survive your ridiculous quest, Capitán, you may choose swords or pistols, for you will have an affair of honor to face upon your return to Santa Fe. I will not be termed a coward.” He spun his mount all the way round, piercing Lujan again with a glare that now spoke more of amusement than ire. “However, I suspect that Acaballo will rob me of the pleasure of killing you.”

  Father Ugarte breathed a sigh of relief as the tattooed Frenchman spurred his horse and headed back up the trail to the pass. The guide had been at odds with Lujan since the very start of this expedition. He was a half-savage heathen himself, his soul blackened as surely as his skin by Indio heresy. The expedition was better off without him.

  Often, over the years in Santa Fe, Ugarte had been tempted to report Archebeque to Inquisition authorities. Perhaps the trader had the secular authorities fooled, but not the friar. The Frenchman was a good friend of the governor, and a suitor to the governor’s daughter. As such he represented a danger to the entire Kingdom of New Mexico. He treated with barbarians. It was said that he had participated in heretical ceremonies with shamans and witches.

  “Shall we go after him?” a soldier said. “He is deserting.”

  “Let him go,” Lujan growled. “I will look forward to dealing with him upon our return to Santa Fe.” He glanced at the friar. “We are going to ride hard, Padre. Are you ready?”

  “I will not fall far behind. Vámanos.”

  * * *

  The trail was plain. It led north, then east across the plains. At the end of the day, the soldiers still had not found the next Comanche campground. Instead; an advance scout came galloping back to Lujan’s column of twenty soldiers, shouting, “Capitán! Capitán! A large body of Indios approaches. There must be two hundred!”

  Lujan ordered defensive preparations. Men loaded muskets and pistols and took cover in a nearby arroyo. When the savages appeared, Ugarte counted no more than sixty. Still, he understood how they had seemed to number more to the excited scout. Lujan sent a Tompiro guide out to speak with them.

  “They are Apaches,” the Tompiro said, when he returned. “Battle Scar is their chief. He want
s to help the soldiers fight Acaballo’s people.”

  “Padre Ugarte,” Lujan said. “Does this alliance have your blessing?”

  Ugarte placed his hand on his chin. If Archebeque’s warning about the strength of the Comanches proved half-true, it would not be such a bad idea to have some Indio allies along. In addition, this smacked of an opportunity to increase the tally of souls he had ushered to the gates of salvation. “If Battle Scar’s warriors agree to be baptized and christened,” he said, “they may join our party. We go on together as Christians, or not at all.”

  The Tompiro guide took the decision to the Apaches, and returned. Ugarte and the soldiers could see the glow of the pipe as Battle Scar’s warriors passed it and conferred. At dawn, Battle Scar himself came to the Spanish camp and said, in broken Castilian:

  “My name … Christian name … Carlana.”

  “Very well,” Ugarte replied. “You must kneel.” He recited a terse version of the Latin liturgy, and then ended, saying, “I christen thee, Carlana.”

  One by one, the Apaches came forward for Christianization until Padre Ugarte grew weary of reducing them individually, and told the rest to kneel at once. He mumbled the rites, named them all Carlos, and urged Captain Lujan to mount the troops.

  The day’s ride was a dry one, and the men used all the water in their canteens. The next day, Lujan’s force found an abandoned Comanche campground at a lake out on the plains. There was not much water left, but enough for horses to drink and men to cook with.

  “They are not far ahead of us,” Lujan said to the Franciscan that night at dark. “We will rise three hours before dawn, and be upon them by noon tomorrow.”

  Noon passed the next day, but Ugarte caught no glimpse of the Comanches. Evening came without water or any sighting of the enemy. Drinking the last drops from their canteens the next morning, the Spaniards and Apaches set upon the trail again. They traversed a country of bluffs, dry streambeds, sage, grass, and plains. Their horses were stumbling from exhaustion when they came over a rise and spotted a small lake on the plains where the Comanches had camped.