Ride the Wind

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

"You seem to know everything else about them, Star Name."

  "Deer."

  "Oh." Takes Down's friend. Deer, would sometimes know a piece of gossip before it happened. And she often embroidered it with designs of her own.

  Then the girls saw her. She was carrying water from the river. Even in the winter's cold she had no robe to throw over her shoulders. Her wrists, where they stuck out from the tattered sleeves, looked like sticks. Her face and head, arms and legs were covered with bruises and raw, running sores. Her hair had been burned from her head in patches. Her nose was charred to the bone, and there was no flesh left on the insides of her nostrils. Her face was puffy and purple with welts.

  She limped and staggered under the weight of the heavy paunch. Then she turned her head and looked their way. At fourteen, Matilda Lockhart was an old woman, a walking nightmare. Naduah whirled, her stomach churning, and ran. She ran all the way to where Wind was tied, and her hands trembled as she fumbled with the knot. She galloped back to her own camp, crying the whole time. She never tried to see the white girls again. Nor would she go near Spirit Talker's camp.

  Spirit Talker's council lodge was crowded. The leading civil and war chiefs from all six bands camped together were there. In the center, opposite the door, in the warm place of honor, sat Noah Smithwick. Noah had been in Texas a long time. Ten years before he had made his living as a blacksmith in Stephen Austin's original colony.

  This gathering of Indians in the council lodge reminded him of the stag parties he and his friends used to hold in Austin. They called them "love feasts," and demanded that everyone perform. Three-Legged Willie would give minstrel shows, patting juba with his wooden peg and playing the banjo. Noah accompanied him on fiddle. On second thought, mused Noah, maybe the scene is more like the ongoing monte game run by old Vincente Padilla. In any case, Noah felt at home.

  Noah's huge, bushy red beard flowed down his shirt front like a napkin, and he used it as such while he ate the greasy stewed meat. There was plenty of food. A regular fireman's line of women paraded back and forth to the lodge, bringing more steaming kettles of stew. Noah belched loudly, feeling a little queasy from too much meat and too much tobacco smoke and too many unwashed bodies in too close a space. He was used to all those smells, but not so closely packed together. He felt like he could slice the air with his knife, spear it, and eat it. He turned to the solemn Delaware who sat next to him.

  "Jim, tell Spirit Talker that this is very good stew. Ask him if there's anything in it besides buffalo meat."

  Jim Shaw was elegant. He was the only Indian Smithwick had ever seen whose leggings looked like they'd been tailored in London. He spoke English and Spanish and six Indian languages, and he trailed like a wolf. Made mean biscuits too, when pressed. He would never lack work on the frontier. He knew what Noah was getting at.

  "It's okay. Comanche don't eat dog."

  Santa Ana reached a beefy hand across Shaw and stroked Smithwick's beard, talking all the while. There was a roar of laughter.

  "What did he say?"

  "He says white eyes has very fine beard. Wishes he had a beard like that."

  "Tell him thank you."

  "Are you sure you want me to? He wishes he had a beard like that to hang on his shield. Wants to know if you have hair all over your body. Make a very powerful scalp. They like to take it all off in one piece. I saw one once like that. Ears and all."

  "Don't tell him thank you. What's he saying now?" Noah had done most of the talking in Spanish in his three months with Spirit Talker. He had only sent for Jim Shaw to help him with the delicate maneuvering necessary for this council. For three months he had been in the Comanche camp alone, as Spirit Talker's guest. And he had enjoyed it. But now he found himself depending on Shaw's knowledge of Comanche and handtalk.

  "Santa Ana wants to know if your women like your beard in bed. Does it tickle them?" Noah thought about how long it had been since he'd had a white woman. Whoever had nicknamed the Penateka tenyuwit, Hospitable Ones, had known what he was talking about. Comanche were a lot more thoughtful and generous in some ways than Christian folk.

  The women came slithering under his lodge wall late at night, no mean feat for a couple of them. Those prairie belles must have outweighed him by fifty pounds, and he was a big man. They left before light and he never knew who they were. But Spirit Talker always grinned broadly in the morning when he asked how Noah had slept. The toothless, bawdy old goat. If he hadn't sent them, he damned well knew they were there. Noah wondered what stories about him were circulating through camp. Well, at least women were safer subjects than beards as ornamental items.

  He had learned that Comanche didn't consider brevity the soul of wit, and he launched into a lengthy listing of all the fine qualities of their women. He ended with the conclusion that they only had one fault. They giggled so much about his beard it was hard to make love to them. The hide walls almost shook with laughter as he told one story after another on himself.

  Noah was at home with story-telling, and he'd refined his technique after watching the Comanche. When it came to storytelling they could hold their own with any barb-tailed Texas yarn-spinners. And the Texans were no slouches either. When a situation got so bad there was nothing left to do, they made jokes about it. They were a lot alike, the Texans and the Comanche. Tough, mean, stubborn, and always ready to laugh at themselves.

  "Boys," he said, finishing his last anecdote, "I even tried tying my beard up, you know, the way you tie your ponies' tails before you fight. The little lady laughed so hard that my sturdy pine tree here," he waved grandly at his lap, "wilted like a dry daisy on a hot day." He held up his hand and forearm, then circled the hand and dropped it limply, palm up, onto his thigh. The hand rose slightly, quivered once, and fell back like a dead animal. His audience whistled and applauded, shouted and stamped their feet on the hard dirt floor. The wizened old buzzard next to Santa Ana laughed so hard he began to choke. Santa Ana pounded Old Owl on the back, almost knocking him over.

  "Why don't you cut your beard off?" Santa Ana asked the question while he pounded on Old Owl.

  "Cut my beard off!" Noah covered his beard with both hands, his eyes saucer-wide in horror. "Cut my beard off! Why, boys, you might as well ask me to cut off something almost as near and dear to me." Again he gestured toward his groin, framed by his crossed legs. "My beard is my strength and my medicine." Everyone grunted. They could understand that.

  "Let me tell you a story about a great warrior who lived a long time ago. So long ago Spirit Talker wasn't even born yet. He wasn't even a glint in his father's eye, as we say in Texas. This warrior's name was Samson, and he had the most magnificent mane you ever saw." Noah had gotten warmed up now and had almost forgotten why he was there. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten too, as they listened raptly. And the night wore on.

  When Noah finished his tale of Samson and Delilah, Spirit Talker reached for his ornate medicine pipe. A hush fell over the lodge. The friendly, frolicking hounds turned into hungry wolves. The orange flames flickered on their solemn, chiseled faces, carving their stern lines even deeper.

  Noah looked around at them in the silence of the pipe-lighting ceremony. He thought of the hours he had spent with the men of Spirit Talker's band, and the times he had stood by their campfires and fiddled for them with three or four of their dogs asleep around his feet. The women and children and the men too had laughed and clapped and stamped and danced their own version of "Haste to the Wedding."

  The real business was about to begin, and Noah had a moment's pause. He was alone here, at the mercy of men with whom he was at war. Never mind that Spirit Talker had told him the custom. That anyone who asked for hospitality from the People, even if that person was an enemy, was received as well as a friend or loved one. Spirit Talker had told him that when treaty talk was going on, both sides were guaranteed safety and good treatment. Noah knew that he had almost undoubtedly charged into the sleeping camp of some of these men and had tried to kill
their people. He was little comforted by the fact that these men had also raided his own folks and done worse than kill them. Oh, Lord. I hope we white eyes all look alike to them.

  Spirit Talker was the one who had proposed this council and had introduced the white envoy, so he gave the first speech. He drew deeply on the pipe before talking. His hair was graying, and he was the first balding Comanche Noah had ever seen. He looked like a chicken that had been half-heartedly plucked. His spare body was covered in leggings and high moccasins, with a breechclout so long it almost grazed the floor when he stood. His chest was hidden by a breastplate of bone cylinders laced to form a bib. It was so heavy it seemed to be pulling him forward by its weight. His voice was high and quavery. He talked for a long time, while Shaw murmured the translation. Finally he came to the point, his voice rising to a crescendo.

  "We have set our lodges in these groves and swung our children from these boughs since time immemorial. When the game beats away from us we pull down our lodges and move away, leaving no trace to frighten it. And in a little while it comes back. But the white man comes and cuts down the trees, building houses and fences, and the buffalo get frightened. They leave and never come back, and the Indians are left to starve. Or if we follow the game, we trespass on the hunting grounds of the other tribes and war comes.

  "The Indians were not made to work. If they build houses and try to live like white men, they will all die. If the white men would draw a line defining their claims and keep to their side of it, the red man would not molest them."

  There it was. The crux of the matter. Summed up beautifully by an ignorant savage. Ignorant, hell. They wanted their land and the freedom to hunt on it without interference. A reasonable request. But it could never be. Lamar wouldn't agree to any kind of boundary barring Texans from taking as much land as they wanted. He planned to spread Texas all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and to hell with anyone who got in his way. Even if he did agree to a boundary, it would be worthless. Sam Houston had summed it up: "If you built a wall a thousand miles long and a hundred feet high between the Texans and the Indians, the Texans would find a way to get over it."

  This treaty would be like all the rest. The Indians gave and the white men took. If he were a Comanche he doubted that he would even discuss the demands, much less give them the solemn and dignified consideration these men were giving them. One of the other chiefs rose to give a lengthy oration on the love the Comanche felt for the Texans, and, "By the way," he asked, "did the messenger bring more presents?"

  The worst part of all this had been living in the village with Matilda Lockhart and her six-year-old sister. He had seen Matilda's eyes pleading with him to help her and knew the agony her family was suffering for them. He had tried to ransom her, but their owner wouldn't part with them. Noah dared not push too hard and ruin the chance of keeping Spirit Talker's cooperation. It was more important to bring all the leaders to the talks, and win the release of every captive, than to jeopardize the treaty over these two. But the picture of them gave him the determination to stand and repeat the Texans' demands one more time.

  "The Texans want peace with their red brothers." Well, that much was certainly true. "It grieves them that there must be killing and bloodshed. They are sad when their children are taken from them and must live far from their families. It is impossible for them to feel love in their hearts for their brothers, the People, when their children are kept from them. Father Lamar asks that you meet with his war leader in San Antonio and that you bring all the white captives with you to return to those who gave birth to them and love them."

  Then the shriveled old man who sat silently, like an emaciated and unhappy gargoyle, reached for the pipe. Until then Noah had thought he was there by mistake, someone's favorite grandfather, perhaps. A family retainer kept around out of kindness. Old Owl drew long on the pipe, his cheeks caving in until they looked like they would meet in the middle and be held there by the suction. Then he rose. His joints snapped loudly, and his breechclout hung between his bandy legs. After half an hour of rambling, he finally got to the point.

  "For as long as we can remember we have taken captives in war. We do it because our own children are taken. It is the custom. The lodges of the People are often filled with the mourning cries of the women for a dead child. Our women do not have enough children. If our people are to grow strong and prosper, we need children. And you Texans have more than you need. So we steal them and raise them as our own and love them." Noah refrained from pointing out that no one loved Matilda Lockhart here. He wouldn't have dared interrupt. No one ever did. And what the old man said was true as far as it went.

  "If we must part with our white children, it will cause us great pain. The grieving mothers and fathers, the uncles and aunts, sisters and brothers and cousins and grandparents must be compensated for their grief. And the slaves must be paid for, too. That is even your custom, I hear.

  "What is the White Father, La-mar, going to pay us for our children and slaves? We will need horses and mules and blankets. And many knives and guns, lead and powder and flints, as well as coffee and sugar and mirrors and cloth for our women. My own wife is fond of those fancy Mexican shawls, and I am too old to ride down and steal her one. When my horse runs I grunt." He fingered his elbows, swollen with arthritis. "I would like a dozen of those shawls and a dozen more white vests like the one I wear now."

  Solemnly, Old Owl detailed an impossibly long list of items that his people would want in payment. He ended with horn pocket combs, files, indigo and vermillion, brass wire, and silk handkerchiefs.

  Noah didn't know Old Owl at all, much less well enough to know he was being taken. People who had been acquainted with Old Owl all their lives sometimes didn't know it. Old Owl had no intention of either going to the treaty talks or of giving up his grandnephew. But he knew better than to refuse directly and for a purely personal reason. So he fanned the spark of greed in the others, in the expectation that the negotiations would go up in flames. He demanded more horses than existed in Texas, at least in the hands of the settlers. He was deliberately creating obstructions.

  Noah listened impassively to Old Owl and his mind raced ahead to his own response. He could promise them presents, but nothing in the way of payment. And not many presents either. He remembered Lamar's purple face at the very suggestion. He had pounded the desk in rhythm to his own words. "We won't be blackmailed by savages! We'll pay them nothing. We won't allow our women and children to be sold like cattle. Just get the Comanches here, Smithwick," Lamar had said, his voice low and dangerous. "Just get them here and we'll deal with them after that." Just get them there. Noah knew he had to proceed carefully.

  But before he could reply, the second mistake at the council stood up. If Old Owl looked like someone's moss-grown grandfather, this one was a kid who should be out playing pranks with the rest of the boys. How could he take a pudgy scamp seriously? Smithwick had never met Buffalo Piss either. Buffalo Piss's style was direct. He wasted no time, and he aimed his words for the vital organs.

  "We of the Wasps do not deal with the white men. They bring sickness of the body, and worse than that, they bring sickness of the soul. We have seen what their stupid water does to a man's reason. We have seen what their disease does to our children's faces. We have seen warriors sell their manhood for the sweet sugar of the white men.

  "Last year Spirit Talker made treaty talk with the Texans. He has told us of it. He has told us that the People must not molest the settlers in any way. The People must not raid. The People must trade only with the government traders. The People must be punished by the Texans' laws. The People must fight the Texans' enemies. And what will the Texans do? Will they be punished under our law for the wrongs they do us? Will their traders treat us fairly? Will the Texans fight our enemies? Will they leave our land to us? No. They will not.

  "The Wasps are not so foolish as to expect any different of them this time. Nothing but bad comes from their sweet words, their honey talk.
We will have the things that Old Owl said we wanted. But we will take them."

  Buffalo Piss sat down hard, and there was a low murmur in the lodge. Pahayuca remained silent, his broad face unhappy. Like Old Owl, he knew his nephew's wife would be brokenhearted if her white daughter were taken from her. And he knew better than to go into a white man's town. He and his band had seen what smallpox could do, and he feared it. And he dreaded what Medicine Woman would do if he sold Naduah back again. There would never be a moment's peace. On the other hand, all those presents would go to the other chiefs and to the people of their bands. The chiefs' prestige would be enhanced. It was a difficult time for Pahayuca, but Buffalo Piss prevailed.

  The first pale wash of dawn was diluting the black night sky when the council finally broke up. All of the bands there had agreed to follow Spirit Talker to San Antonio in the spring, except Old Owl and Santa Ana and the Wasps with Pahayuca and Buffalo Piss. Spirit Talker said that others who were not camped here would join him also. There would be more than six bands of the Penateka represented at the council talks. It would be the biggest group of Comanche civil and war leaders ever assembled to meet with the white men.

  Smithwick was satisfied. Perhaps there would be peace after all.

  CHAPTER 30

  In late March of 1840, four months after the council with Noah Smithwick, Pahayuca and Buffalo Piss again sat on the crest of a high hill overlooking a town. This time it was San Antonio. The Alamo was still in ruins at the edge of town. Nearby were the lodges of Spirit Talker, the twelve leaders who had come with him and their families. They knew that treaty councils, honey talk, could take a long time, and they would all be safe while the talks went on.

  The chieftains' camp was almost deserted. Everyone had gathered in the center of town. The Comanche and the Texans milled around in the square outside the small limestone courthouse where the talks would be held. The bright March sun seemed to whitewash the gleaming stone and adobe walls with light. The town's plazas were paved in a shifting layer of gray dust, stirred by the sweeping hems of the Anglo women. The shorter, gaily colored skirts of the Mexican women fluttered in the breeze. A large crowd of people had come to see the wild Indians wandering so peacefully among them.