Comanche (A J.T. Edson Western Book 1)

by J. T. Edson

  Nobody knows for sure who first discovered patch-loading. The old-time woodsmen discovered that the European system of tapping home a bullet with a mallet down the rifle barrel could not be practiced in a country where keen-eared enemies lurked for the slightest sound. It was discovered that by casting the ball about a three-hundredths of an inch smaller than the rifle’s bore and placing it upon a piece of dressed buckskin, or felt, well-soaked in tallow, a ramrod could force the charge down the rifling lands of the barrel in silence and ease. Nor did accuracy suffer, as the patch fitted tightly into the rifling and formed a gas-tight seal without the actual bullet being distorted. Using the patch method, Loncey could soon get off two shots a minute; not a bad time when one must pour in the powder, place patch and ball in position and ram them home the full length of the iron rod, then fit a percussion cap on the breech nipple. While practicing the loading, either so as to shoot, or dry, the boy longed for a weapon which would fire several times without needing to reload after each shot. v

  Gaining accuracy took more time than learning the loading drill, but Ysabel saw to it that Loncey had access to a good supply of powder and lead. The boy learned how to mould his own bullets. When shooting, he quickly acquired the knack of aligning the tip of the foresight in the center of the target and squarely in the middle of the V-notch of the back sight. Allowing for wind and trajectory of the bullet, once taught, became almost a natural thing. Before two months passed, Loncey could make consistent hits on a stationary Aritsi target at a hundred yards.

  Not all his time went in rifle practice. The acquisition of a saddle—made by a tsukup and resembling the modified Spanish pattern most often seen by the Comanches—laid open a whole new world of exciting horsemanship. Many of the feats performed by warriors, such as hanging along the racing horse’s flank and discharging arrows or a bullet under its neck, could not be done when riding bare-back. Once given the security of a saddle, Loncey, Loud Voice and Comes For Food swiftly mastered every trick; although they all collected a few bruises and bumps in the process.

  As mastery of saddle and rifle came, Loncey began to look for an opportunity to repay his father for the latter gift. He also hoped he might again perform an act which brought him into the limelight. The chance came one evening as he sat by Long Walker’s fire, eating a meal and listening to Ysabel and the chief discussing the merits of various animals as food.

  ‘There’s nothing I like more than a taste of those wild big-horn sheep you get over in the high country to the West,’ Ysabel stated, after deer, elk, bear and antelope had been mentioned. ‘I’d sure admire to taste some again.’

  Listening to the word, Loncey began to form an idea. After finishing eating, he rose and went to find his two companions. In the way of his people, Loncey stated that he intended to ride on an expedition and wanted friends to go along with him. Without asking what Loncey planned, Loud Voice and Comes For Food offered their services. They showed no apprehension when hearing that Loncey meant to visit the distant hill country in search of a bighorn sheep to present to his father. Considering that, from past performance, Loncey possessed the medicine-power to succeed, his friends willingly put themselves under his orders.

  ‘I’ll bring pemmican for us,’ Loncey promised.

  ‘We can use my pony as a pack horse,’ Comes For Food offered.

  ‘My mother has plenty of jerked meat we can use,’ Loud Voice continued. ‘Will you be taking your bow, Loncey?’

  ‘No. The rifle. How about you?’

  His companions had no firearms and so said they would each bring his bow and arrows. From what Loncey had heard at various times, the rifle would be more suitable while hunting sheep. Although the bighorn sheep at that time had not been pushed into the most inaccessible crags by hunting pressure, they lived in country that did not lend itself to close-range stalking. So, despite it being slower to reload, Loncey settled on the rifle for the hunt.

  At dawn the following morning, the boys headed for the remuda. After loading Comes For Food’s pony with a few necessities, they caught and saddled their horses, then rode off to the West. Nobody questioned their right to go, nor would have raised any objections even if knowing they planned the one hundred and fifty mile trip to the western edge of the Pehnane country in search of bighorn sheep. If they were to be of any use to the community, young Comanches must show self-reliance, spirit and initiative. Preventing them from doing so had never been the Comanche way. Any boy who could not survive away from the village without adult supervision’s education had been neglected and he would never make the grade as a warrior.

  Despite the length of the journey, none of the trio felt at all worried. Their whole life’s training had equipped them for just such an adventure. While expecting to live off the country, their pack pony carried parfleche bags—known as awyaw among the People—containing jerked meat and pemmican; both of which kept well and proved most welcome when fresh food could not be obtained. Jerked meat, usually sun-dried flesh of the buffalo, did not look appetizing but was nourishing. On the other hand, pemmican took more making, looked better and proved even more satisfactory to eat. After dried meat had been softened over a fire, berries, cherries, plums, pinon, pecan, walnuts, chestnuts or occasionally acorns, also partially dried and crushed, went into it. Stored in either an awyaw, or the large intestine of a buffalo and coated in tallow to form an airtight seal, pemmican stayed fit to eat for a long period. Not that it often had a chance to put its fresh-keeping qualities to a test, being regarded among the People as a prime delicacy. Comanche children ate it sliced and coated in honey, enjoying every succulent mouthful.

  To a Comanche on a journey, fifty miles a day constituted a reasonable pace. Filled with the eagerness of youth, the boys pushed their wiry horses a good fifty-five miles upon the first day. They traversed the range with an inborn sense of direction every member of the Nemenuh possessed; and with that same fixity of purpose that drove them as small children to spend an entire day if necessary in the pursuit of one particular humming-bird when hunting with the small bows and blunt arrows.

  Towards evening Comes For Food and Loud Voice killed three jackrabbits with their bows. These served to give bulk and fresh meat to a meal that included the tuberous roots of the Indian potato, eaten raw, a few wild onions and bulbs of a sego lily. All in all the boys fared very well in the food line. Nor did they forget to take the basic precautions and made their camp in a small, wood-surrounded canyon which hid them and masked the light of their fire.

  Another day’s hard riding saw a further fifty miles behind them without incident. Travelling through the traditional hunting grounds of the Pehnane, they saw no sign of enemies. Next day the boys wended their way upwards, through the wooded slopes and towards evening made a well-concealed camp among the trees just below the open moorland on which the sheep lived.

  In a few years time, with the coming of the white man, the sheep would be hunted to the verge of extinction and pushed beyond the New Mexico line into the arid, semi-desert hill country. However, when Loncey—possibly one of the first white men to enter and hunt the area—arrived with his two companions, the bighorn sheep still grazed in fair numbers in the high country beyond the timber line.

  Finding sheep country proved far, far easier than making the required kill. With the cheery optimism of youth, the boys expected to arrive and, after a night’s sleep, bag a sheep in the early morning; then return to the village in triumph and receive the plaudits of the people.

  Their early training caused them to once more make a safe camp. Up in the high country among the spruce and jack-pine, close to a stream, the boys tethered their horses and prepared to settle down. While Comes For Food went out to see what he could shoot for their meal, the other two collected wood and made a fire. When the sun went down, they found a decided chill in the air and so prepared to keep their fire going all night with as little inconvenience to themselves as possible. Taking the axe which Loud Voice remembered to bring along, Loncey cut t
wo long, stout young saplings and took them to the camp. While he sank the saplings into the ground at an angle, Loud Voice brought in a number of logs from which the boys trimmed all branches and protuberances. After the fire had been lit and before going to sleep for the night, the boys placed the logs on to the sloping saplings so that the lowest rested upon the flames. While the boys slept in their buckskin shirts, breechclouts, leggings and moccasins, wrapped in a blanket each, the fire burned away the first log and the next rolled down into its place. While the system did not work perfectly, it saved the boys from spending too much sleeping-time awake and tending the fire.

  Dawn found the trio riding their horses over the open high country in search of their quarry. Although they found plenty of tracks and scats, noon came and went before the boys saw a flock of sheep. On seeing the animals, from a distance of at least a mile, and realizing what they must be, Loncey’s party acted as they would when hunting whitetail deer. Retreating down a slope out of sight, they prepared to leave the horses and make a stalk. Then came the first lesson in a major difference between sheep and deer hunting. Loncey peeked back cautiously over the slope and saw, to his annoyance, the flock bounding away over a distant rim.

  The previous night, seated around the camp-fire, Loncey and his friends had pooled their knowledge of sheep hunting. It came second-hand, from listening to fathers, uncles and elder brothers discussing the difficulties and techniques of the business. Their knowledge proved limited, for the Comanche—a realist and hunting meat, not sport—rarely went to the trouble necessary to hunt the sheep. About all the boys really knew was that any hunting must be done from a long range.

  During the first day, the boys found that getting close enough for Loncey to chance a shot was next to impossible. Four more times during the day, the boys saw sheep without being able to approach close enough for Loncey to use his rifle. Among the keenest-sighted animals, the sheep also possessed good ears and a sharp nose. In addition, they did not behave like the woodland game the boys usually hunted.

  ‘They don’t act like deer,’ Loncey stated as he sat with his companions by the fire that night. ‘If you frighten a deer, it will run a short way and then stop to see if you follow.’

  ‘The sheep have strong medicine,’ admitted Loud Voice. ‘When they see you, they run away and keep going.’

  That had been discovered when the boys tried tracking the third flock they saw. After almost three miles, the sheep had still been going and the trail petered out on a shale bank which held no sign.

  Determined to succeed, Loncey refused to think of giving up the attempt; even though he realized that he faced a task which might have tried the skill and knowledge of much older, more experienced hunters than his party. Making the camp their base, he started to sweep the high country. For four days the boys hunted without success, but learned lessons from their failures. Normal deer-style stalking proved useless. In each case the sheep saw the boys long before human eyes located them and as soon as the boys took cover to make their stalk, the sheep headed for safety. Due to the bighorns’ habit of keeping going once scared, tracking brought no better result.

  On the third day of their stay, Loncey began to get an uneasy feeling of being watched. In later years he would come to know that feeling and, relying on it, save his life from hidden enemies. vi While unable to shake the feeling, he failed to see any sign of watchers and so said nothing of his suspicions to his friends.

  Remembering his grandfather’s frequent advice about turning an animal’s habits to his advantage, Loncey gave long and hard thought to the way the bighorns behaved. One significant point struck him early on the fourth day, causing him to halt his horse and look at his friends.

  ‘The sheep always see us before we see them. Yet they don’t run away as soon as we come into sight,’ he said. ‘They stand and watch us—’

  ‘Until we hide from them,’ Loud Voice finished for him. ‘Then they run.’

  About an hour later the boys saw a flock of sheep higher up the hills and a mile away. Already the sheep had spotted them and stood staring in their direction.

  ‘Let’s stop and see what happens,’ Loncey suggested. ‘We’ll stay in sight.’

  Obedient, as warriors should be when their leader gives an order, the other two halted their horses. Patiently they remained in the same place for over an hour and the sheep made no attempt to flee. Some of the flock resumed their feeding, two or three lying down, but always at least one watched the boys.

  ‘Now we’ll go out of sight,’ Loncey ordered after waiting for some sign of flight.

  Not until the boys backed their mounts out of sight did the sheep turn and flee. Loncey felt that he might be approaching an answer to the problem. On the next contact with a flock, he continued to ride closer. Although he and his friends kept in plain sight, the sheep fled long before they reached shooting range.

  ‘We could try riding them down, like buffalo,’ Comes For Food remarked.

  ‘Over this sort of country?’ Loncey scoffed. ‘No, that’s not the answer. But I think I know what is.’

  ‘What?’ asked his friends together.

  ‘I’ll tell you about it on the way back to the camp.’

  While riding back, Loncey explained his theory and the other two agreed that he might have hit upon the answer. More than ever Loncey felt the uneasy sensation of being watched. Halting his horse, he turned in the saddle and slowly scanned every inch of the country around him, but without result. It seemed that neither of his companions had yet developed the instinct, for they showed no concern and took his action to mean that he sought for a sight of the sheep.

  At the camp, Loncey helped Comes For Food to prepare for the night and Loud Voice went out in search of food. However they had been in the area for long enough to make the animals wary and that night, for the first time, the boys found themselves living on the rations brought from the village. Loncey knew that if his plan failed, he must call off the expedition and return; for it would be a sign that his medicine was bad. No leader had the right to command under such conditions. That night, after the other two went to sleep, Loncey sat by the fire and said a silent prayer to Ka-Dih that he might have success the following day.

  Not until noon did they find what they wanted. It almost appears that Ka-Dih looked with favor on the boy, for the sheep—a flock of half-a-dozen rams—lay resting after feeding. Being on good grazing, the rams did not offer to leave although all stood up as they caught sight of the boys in the distance. Age-old instinct kept the sheep stationary. Their natural enemies, bear, wolf and the occasional cougar, hunted by stalking.

  When the sheep saw a predator, they studied its actions. If it turned back into cover on seeing them, they realized that it probably tried to stalk them and so fled. When the predator remained in plain view, the sheep did not worry until it came closer and could become a danger. While not being sure what the boys might be, the sheep treated them as predators. Unconsciously Loncey hit upon the answer to the sheep’s’ tactics.

  At about three quarters of a mile from the flock, Loncey gave the order to halt the horses. He would have liked to go closer, but decided not to chance doing so. Too much depended on his making a success of his scheme.

  ‘This is our chance,’ he told the other two. ‘If it fails, we’ll go home.’

  ‘May Ka-Dih give you luck, brother,’ Loud Voice answered. Following the plan thought out, Loncey eased himself backwards out of the saddle. He moved slowly, sliding over the horse’s rump and keeping its body between himself and the sheep. Hardly daring to breathe, he stood still until Loud Voice told him that the sheep showed no signs of departing.

  ‘I’ll see if I can get up to them then,’ Loncey said. Cautiously he backed away from the horses, sinking to the ground with his rifle resting upon his arms. All the skill gained during his formative years went into locating the best route over which to make his stalk. Due to the nature of the ground he had to make a long detour. Taking advantage of every
scrap of cover using each rock and fold in the ground, Loncey swung around in a rough half-circle that he hoped would bring him up close to the sheep for him to chance a shot.

  At one stage he crawled almost an inch at a time, flat on his belly and ignoring the pain as rocks jabbed into his flesh through the buckskins, across some twenty yards of open ground as there was no available cover. Just as he felt sure the sheep must see him, a narrow crack in the ground appeared. Rolling over its lip, he advanced in comparative ease and safety for some distance. Further along, the only way led him across a narrow ledge with a sheer, fifty foot drop to jagged rocks if he missed his step.

  Eventually he reached a point where he could see his two companions. They still sat their horses in the same place that he left them; a sure sign that the sheep had not moved. Reaching a group of rocks, he peered cautiously around them and his heart missed a beat. Not seventy-five yards from where he lay, the flock of sheep still studied the two boys and three horses.

  In later years a shot at that range would have been simple enough; but at that early age it seemed like a great challenge. With infinite patience he slid the rifle forward between two of the rocks and snuggled down into a firing position. Cuddling the butt to his shoulder, he sighted at the nearest sheep; a young ram standing broadside on to his position. The rest of the flock lay down, watching the decoys, but Loncey felt the standing sheep offered him the best mark. Just as when he first aimed his bow at a deer, Loncey felt a wave of buck-fever hit him and the rifle’s barrel wavered instead of lining steadily. Sucking in his breath, he forced himself to be calm and took a careful aim at just behind the ram’s shoulder.