“It’s called a kiss, Kaku. It’s something white people do when they love someone.”
“Kiss? Kiss means wait.”
“In the People’s language, yes, but not in…” Naduah almost said “my own,” but stopped. In spite of her blond hair and blue eyes, in spite of the fact that she had been with them only two months, she knew they loved her as their own. She changed the subject.
“How did you make everything fit so well, Grandmother? You never tried anything on me.”
Medicine Woman took her medicine pouch down from its peg. The bag was bigger than most and made from the entire skin of the rabbit whose foot hung around Naduah’s neck. Streamers of red flannel were sewn to it, and a drawstring pulled it shut at the throat. Naduah had never seen what was inside it, and she was afraid to peek. Everyone held the medicine in too much awe.
Medicine Woman held the bag a moment, communing silently with it. When she opened the drawstring, the odor of wild herbs escaped like a djin that had been trapped inside. She laid it along her palm with the opening pointed toward the light of the fire, and peered up inside it. She fished around with her free hand and pulled out a grimy, lumpy cord. It dangled and danced from her fingers like a live snake. Naduah recognized the thong that her grandmother had measured her with that first morning. All her dimensions were recorded on it. At least for another month or two. She was growing fast.
Sunrise finally stirred from his usual place, sitting crosslegged on the thick buffalo robes of his bed. He searched through a pile of boxes and bags and held out a square of folded navy blue wool. It was a brand new trade blanket that he had been saving for a special occasion. Then he gave her a small bow and a dozen arrows.
“Daughter, these are for you. I almost forgot them.”
“A bow and arrows?”
“Yes. I’ll teach you how to shoot them. I’m making a quiver for the arrows. Soon you’ll be shooting better than the boys.” He saw the puzzled look on her face. “You must learn everything you can. And you should excel at whatever you attempt. We’ll be proud to have you for our daughter, and you’ll be proud of yourself, which is more important. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t learn to hunt your own food and defend yourself. And do it well.” It was a long speech for Sunrise. Naduah sometimes wondered if he even noticed her. She was only a girl-child, after all. Now she knew he did. Takes Down spoke next in her low, shy voice.
“I have a small present for you too, Daughter.” Takes Down thought she was plain, which she wasn’t. Not to those who knew her. She had a way of talking with her hand held to her mouth, as though she didn’t want to be noticed. She offered her gift as if expecting it to be rejected. Naduah took it and hugged her hard, her arms going only a little way around her mother’s plump body.
Takes Down’s gift was a beautifully beaded envelope of deerskin with a shoulder strap. The long, tapering tongue was held firmly closed by a flat brass toggle attached to a cord. The cord ran down the inside of the bag and out through the bottom, where it was knotted to hold it tight.
She untied the knot, pulled the toggle loose, and peeped inside. There were smaller bags of paint powders, two or three brushes in hollow reed cases, a hairbrush made of a porcupine tail, thongs and ribbons and otter fur for her braids, and a pair of clamshell tweezers. There was even her own mirror. Takes Down handed her something else, a doll sewn of buckskin like Something Good’s, but with a dress exactly like Naduah’s new one and hair cut from Takes Down’s head.
Naduah hugged her presents to her and swiveled her body to make the fringe on her dress swirl. Medicine Woman had taken time to add extra layers of fringe and it chased around her like a playful puppy. Naduah loved the feel of it tickling her arms and legs, and the tinkling sound of the bells.
“I’m going to show Star Name and Black Bird and Something Good and Owl.”
“When you get back there’s a case for you to store your new clothes in.” It was Takes Down’s gentle way of reminding her that the dress and leggings were for special occasions. She would never forbid Naduah to wear them for everyday use. She only told her what was proper and common sense and left it to Naduah’s judgment.
Naduah stood a moment outside the door, listening to the sounds of drums and laughter from the other end of the village. As she walked toward Star Name’s lodge, she looked around at the tents with firelight flickering softly through their creamy sides. She looked at the familiar tanning frames with hides stretched between them, and at the heaps of dogs twitching and moaning in their sleep. Her own dog followed closely behind her. She saw the shields standing guard, assuring her that she and her loved ones were safe from attack.
She felt an overwhelming rush of affection for it all. How could she have ever been afraid and lonely here? The camp seemed almost like one big house, with each lodge a room. Standing in the quiet, dusty street, she felt as though she were in a familiar corridor and surrounded by family. She stopped to let Sunrise’s war pony nuzzle her. He whiffled her outstretched palm with his velvet lips, searching for the tender grass she usually brought him. She stroked his neck and murmured to him. With her fingers she untangled and separated the thick strands of his mane, picking out the burs. Then she walked in front of him, stood on tiptoe, and reached up, scratching hard behind both his ears, while he stood with a blissful expression on his bony face.
“Do you like my dress and leggings and moccasins?” She stood back and gave him a better view in the pale starlight. The pony snorted. “You’re right, old war-horse. They are beautiful.”
She whirled and skipped toward Star Name’s lodge, dancing in time to the bells on her dress and practicing the heel-toe step of the dances she was learning. She had a sudden desire to show her finery to Wanderer. To show him that she was not a child, that she was as good as those young women who were always staring after him with their big, stupid, cow’s eyes. And someday, when she was very brave, she’d tell him that she had thought he was a thief and would apologize for it. Someday. When she was much braver.
CHAPTER 15
This hunting trip was a mistake. It had seemed like a good idea when Wanderer had proposed it, a chance to get away from camp and disperse the suspicions that were gathering like storm clouds over Pahayuca’s lodges. Now Eagle regretted coming. He looked over at his friend, who sat near the fire in the waning light, splitting the stems of turkey feathers, dipping the ends in glue and binding them with sinew to the shafts of his hunting arrows. The silence between them was like Cannibal Owl devouring then-friendship, but there was no way Eagle could break it. He dared not let his guard down lest Wanderer verify what he only suspected. Of the two people he loved most, Eagle must betray one.
He pretended to concentrate on the water lily roots and wild onions cooking in the ashes at the edge of the flames. He poked at them, turning them so they would roast evenly. The onions’ strong aroma rose with the smoke. Then he stood and went to see how Spaniard was doing with the day’s kill, a young buffalo. He was usually full before he ever finished dressing out an animal. He feasted on the heart and liver and entrails unless reminded to share. His favorite delicacy was to cut the udders of a freshly killed doe and suck the warm mixture of blood and milk as it spurted out. At least he volunteered for the messy job of butchering. And he did share, as long as someone reminded him.
If Spaniard had been indolent, he would have, been fat. But he was as solid as a piece of mahogany furniture, with arms and legs that looked like they’d been turned on a lathe. His bushy black hair seemed to dance with electricity. Wisps of it always escaped his thick braids, no matter how much buffalo dung he rubbed into them. With his smooth, plucked brows, black eyes, hooked nose that curved into swooping nostrils, and full, sensuous mouth, Spaniard looked, except for his hair, very much like one of the People. His Aztec ancestors had bred true.
Spaniard handed Eagle the remains of the brains and leg marrow he had stirred together on a piece of hide and eaten with a rib bone. Bits of gray matter clung to the co
rners of his wide mouth, and more spewed out as he greeted Eagle. Eagle took the hide plate and the pieces of flesh that the Mexican had draped over platters of dried buffalo chips to absorb the blood. He went back to the fire and offered Wanderer some of the warm brains and marrow. Wanderer took it in silence, and Eagle bustled about, collecting and sharpening sticks to roast the meat. They would each eat about five pounds of it before the evening was over.
Eagle lay under the robe that night, long after Wanderer had begun to breathe heavily and Spaniard had started his nightly moaning and twitching and tooth-grinding. The misshapen moon shone through translucent clouds as though seen behind a sheet of mica. Eagle searched idly for the old shieldmaker who was supposed to live there. Eagle was uneasy here in the Penateka territory. They were far to the south and east of the Staked Plains, the huge plateau where the Quohadi ranged undisturbed by white men and their destruction. The hills here were too close together and there was too much brush. The countryside seemed to be choking on it. He missed the limitless sweep of home, he missed being always able to see the horizon.
The thoughts that had been buzzing around his head like a swarm of horseflies came back to plague him. It had definitely been a mistake to come along. He was too vulnerable to Wanderer’s probing. He had thought he could use the time to think and plan. He had been uneasy in the village, constantly having to see and talk to Pahayuca. He wasn’t afraid for himself. All Pahayuca could do was kill him. And he wouldn’t do that without a fight. Eagle was used to fighting. But he worried for Something Good. She was the one who would suffer if they were discovered. She would be mutilated, shamed for the rest of her life. If that happened, he knew he would have to kill Pahayuca and suffer exile as long as he lived, if he wasn’t killed himself by a relative. Perhaps Wanderer himself.
Could he live without Something Good? Just keep riding north and west and never turn back? No. After only three days away from her the ache had spread from his groin into his chest. It was like hunger in February, when the snow flows in drifts on the currents of the wind, when the pemmican supply runs out and the babies cry for food. He could relieve himself, with his own hands or with other women, but it would be no better than eating bark to fill an empty stomach. He had had many women, but never one like her.
They could run away together. It happened all the time. But this was different. Pahayuca was known and respected all over the land of the People, even in the north. His wife and her lover would be welcome nowhere. They could go to the Kiowa, live with Big Bow. If anyone understood eloping and wife stealing, he did. He’d done enough of it himself. But it would be exile for life, and a hard test for their love. He had promised her that everything would be good for them. And she said she believed him. He wished he could believe it himself.
It had been a hard day’s hunt for the three of them, and the sun beat down on them without mercy. As Wanderer lay lapping at the edge of the cold spring that gushed from the bottom of the shallow ravine, he felt chills prickle his arms and back. He leaped to his feet and whirled around. On the embankment above them stood a dozen Tonkawa, arrows nocked and bows drawn. Two of the Tonkawa were already sliding down the slope to grab the three ponies with all the hunting and war gear.
“Nermateka, People Eaters,” breathed Eagle. “What are they doing this far north, away from the swamps and their stinking fish?” The Tonkawa rode clumsily and owned few horses. But they’d managed to catch the three of them by surprise.
“We will go with them now,” Wanderer muttered, “They’re stupid, these people, and we can get away from them easily.” The leader, a tall gaunt man with the deceptive name of Placido, made an arrogant sweep of his arm. Wanderer started up the slope toward him, followed by Eagle and Spaniard.
In the heat of the midsummer day several of the Tonkawa wore sleeveless, painted hide jackets with a curved extension covering their groins. The cuera, the conquistadors’ leather armor, lived on. Most of the men had vertical stripes painted or tattooed on their foreheads and chins. It may have been the clink of one of their shell necklaces that had alerted Wanderer too late.
As they rode, their wrists tied behind them and their feet lashed under their horses’ bellies, Wanderer signalled with his hands to the two who followed him. He knew that the People Eaters weren’t horsemen, certainly not the experts that he and his friends were. If the People Eaters had known horses they would have put the captives on their own plodding pack ponies. The three Comanche war ponies were almost like having three invisible warriors along.
Wanderer gave a low cluck to Night, along with pressure from his right knee against the pony’s side. Night leaped from the line of march and raced away. Reflexively the Tonkawa whirled to catch him, and from the corner of his eye, Wanderer saw Eagle and the Spaniard bolt in opposite directions. Even with their hands tied they were better riders than their captors. He knew they’d be able to escape easily.
“People Eaters, you stink of yamma roots and fish shit! You’re the spawn of toads and soft like mosquito larvae in foul ponds.” Eagle’s voice rose over the shouts and hoofbeats. Wanderer could picture him sitting proud on his pony.
He hadn’t followed instructions, of course. Instead of fleeing, he was trying to distract the Tonkawa away from his blood brother. Wanderer leaned forward and tightened the grip of his knees. As his body moved in rhythm with Night’s long stride and mesquite whipped by his legs, he braced himself against his pony’s neck and stuck like a bur to his mane.
He could hear the sounds of pursuit getting fainter, and laughed softly with Night. Then there was a wrench at his shoulder, as though a giant hand had shoved him forward. An arrow tore through him and buried itself in the fleshy part of Night’s neck. The pony stumbled, gathered his feet back under him, and surged forward. Wanderer tugged backward, but the arrow stayed glued to the shaft pinning him to his pony. He cursed the People Eaters for shooting him with a hunting point, like a deer. His blood mingled with Night’s and was blown into his face, almost blinding him. He could feel the numbness spreading through his shoulder and arm, and he could hear the hoofbeats crescendoing behind him. In a fury he pulled at the thong that bound his wrists. He tore the skin, but the cord held.
The Tonkawa chief, Placido, caught up with Wanderer first, but soon he and Night were surrounded. Even with him wounded and his hands tied, it took four men to unseat Wanderer from his pony’s back.
Night bucked and reared and lashed out with his hooves as one of the warriors tried to mount him. He whirled on the man and sank his teeth deep into his shoulder just at the base of the neck. Three others had to beat him about the head and mouth to make him let go. In spite of the blood running from his own face, Night drew his lips back over his reddened teeth in something like a laugh.
His victim fell back, the rows of purple punctures spurting blood, and looked wildly for a weapon. Several men dropped lariats over the horse’s head and rear legs and pulled on them, keeping him spraddled and off balance. The man he had bitten beat Night’s face and tender muzzle with a bow. Night’s ears were already laid all the way back. Now he arched his neck and rolled his eyes up into his head. His chest heaved as he screamed with rage. Wanderer was struggling to get loose and help him when something hard and heavy hit him from behind, landing just above his neck. He collapsed, bright lights fracturing and shooting off like comets behind his closed eyelids.
When he woke up, he was tied like a sack of meal across the back of a mule. The blood pooling in his head wasn’t helping the stabbing pain there. Every jolt sent fresh spasms through his eyes. The numbness was wearing off in his shoulder and was being replaced by a throbbing ache. Someone had stuffed grass into the wound in a halfhearted effort to slow the bleeding, and it scratched at the raw edges of the torn flesh. Blood still ran down his arm in rivulets and was slung off the tips of his fingers as his body swayed with the mule’s gait. The cords had cut off his circulation and his toes curled in the grip of knotting cramps.
Worst of all, Eagle wo
uldn’t shut up. What was the matter with him? Was he trying to get them killed quickly to avoid the ordeal that was sure to come? He smeared the Tonkawa with his contempt as though he were rubbing their faces in fresh dung. There was no mistaking his meaning, and they regularly lashed him with their bows and musket butts. They seemed to take a perverse pleasure in exchanging insults with him in broken Spanish and Comanche. Tied to another swaybacked, hip-slung mule, he rode ramrod straight, and taunted them all the way back to their small hunting camp. At least Spaniard had gotten away. There was little chance of his bringing a rescue party in time to save them, but there would be revenge and a decent burial for their bones.
The shabby brush shelters blended in with the stunted cedars that grew thickly in all directions. But the camp would have been easy enough to find just by following one’s nose. The sky was spattered with wheeling crows and buzzards, the usual retinue of a hunting camp. The stench from the carcasses could be smelled a hundred yards away. Several mounds of dead buffalo, like brown boulders rising from the grass, lay rotting in the sun. Their tongues alone had been cut out for the evening meals. The flies were thick enough to slice, and they swarmed around the fresh blood on Wanderer and Night.
These people were stupider than Wanderer had thought. They had stayed far too long at this site, in the territory of their enemies. It was possible that their luck would run out and a party of the People would happen across them. If Eagle didn’t get them both killed before sundown, which was a more likely possibility.
With arms and legs tied, they were propped against two mesquite bushes near the fire. The mesquites were chosen on purpose so the prisoners would have the added discomfort of wicked thorns stabbing their backs and shoulders. The Tonkawas began their victory dance slowly, slapping their feet down deliberately to make as loud a thud as possible. Their chants started low and built as the night wore on. As they leaped and whirled, they stabbed at the air with their knives. One of them sliced so near Wanderer’s head that he carved a piece from the tip of his ear. The blood tickled as it ran down Wanderer’s neck. Eagle was knocked over by a blow with a musket, and someone righted him again. Through the dance and the beating he never stopped taunting them. Wanderer was afraid he had gone mad.
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 18
