Summer finally relented and the days were cool, the nights cold. The huge fall moon was dwindling and misshapen, as though one edge had been torn off. Overhead, the leaves of the tall cottonwoods and pecans glimmered a brilliant gold where the moon’s light shone on them. Piles of brittle leaves, driven by the wind, rattled around the sides of Sunrise’s lodge, like dogs scratching to get in.
Naduah and Star Name sat by the fire cracking pecans from the huge pile between them. Medicine Woman was sorting the latest batch of bark and roots and herbs, feeling and sniffing them to identify them. Then she tied them in bundles to hang for drying. Sprays of them were already filling the air with a spicy scent. Black Bird was sewing by the fire’s light, and Takes Down The Lodge was giving Sunrise the usual account of the day’s gossip. Dog was on Naduah’s bed, snoring lightly. No one knew where Upstream was. More than likely he was with his friends, rustling the band’s ponies for a ride through the moonlight that washed the prairie.
There was a jingling outside and a dry rustle as the hide flap was pulled back. Wanderer stepped into the light, followed by Spaniard and Deep Water. They all walked around the fire, murmuring their apologies to Medicine Woman for blocking her from the heat as they passed. Medicine Woman recognized the voices.
“Wanderer, you have wandered back to us.” Her smile wrinkled around her sightless eyes.
“Yes, Grandmother. And I brought you presents.” He pulled a sack from the leather saddle bag he carried and handed it to Takes Down. She beamed at him.
“Coffee. We had run out. It will warm our hearts as well as our bellies, Wanderer.” She rattled the beans into an iron skillet and began roasting them. Naduah leaned forward to sniff the wonderful aroma, and to get a better view of Wanderer. No one said anything else as the three men sat down next to Sunrise on his pile of woolly buffalo hides. It was courtesy to let guests warm themselves and relax before distracting them with conversation.
Star Name stood, shaking the pieces of pecan hulls from her skirt, and searched for a container to put the nut meats in. When she sat back down, she was close to Deep Water. Naduah saw the smile her sister gave him. Only Star Name could manage to look shy and impish at the same time. And there was now the hint of wantoness in the imp. Deep Water stared at her, a spark of joy in his big, sad eyes. They were so beautiful they made one forget the scars on his face.
Star Name was almost fifteen and too big for a simple one-piece dress now. She wore the poncho and skirt of a woman. And she filled it well. She had a heart-shaped face with a full, wide mouth.
It was Star Name who had sneaked into Wanderer’s lodge when he had camped with Pahayuca’s band in July, three month earlier, before Buffalo Piss’s raid. She had stolen a pair of his moccasins and brought them triumphantly to her sister. Naduah needed them to take measurements for a pair she wanted to make him in return for all his help with Wind. She thought she was finally a good enough seamstress. They’d giggled, she and Star Name, as she traced around the sole onto the tanned hide, using Takes Down’s sharp drawing stick to indent the lines into the leather. Then Star Name had sneaked them back to the guest lodge.
Naduah looked over at the box where she kept her present in the soft case she had made. Suddenly she didn’t want to give the moccasins to him. They were crude. Poorly sewn. He probably had many pairs, all of them better than the ones she’d made. She decided not to say anything about them. She didn’t have to. Star Name broke the silence.
“Naduah has a surprise for you, Wanderer.” Naduah glared at her. Not here. Not in front of all these people. What if he didn’t like them?
“Not now, Star Name,” she said. Naduah could feel the blush heating her face and hoped it would look like light from the fire. “The men have important things to talk about.” And she stopped in confusion. She didn’t want the men to talk about those things. They might make her leave. She saw Wanderer so seldom, and he might leave tomorrow. Or tonight. He always put her off balance, making her self-conscious and shy. But she wanted to watch him and listen to him all night. And all the next day.
“May I see it, Naduah?”
She rose slowly, reluctantly, conscious of the bare skin at her waist. She wished she had her robe with her, and wondered if she would stumble or do something clumsy as she went to the box.
“They’re beautiful! How did you know what size to make them?”
“That’s our secret.” said Star Name, giggling at the memory of her raid on his lodge. Wanderer held one of the moccasins against his foot to measure it. He turned it over to inspect the bottom.
“I made the soles from an old lodge cover, the smoked part near the chimney, so they won’t get stiff. And I greased them to make them waterproof.”
“She shot one of the skunks and I shot the other,” broke in Star Name again. “From a hundred paces.” The thick, silky skunk tails hung down the backs of the moccasins. They were designed to trail in the dust and obscure the wearer’s tracks. Wanderer smiled.
“My paces or yours?”
“Ours. But we’re good shots, Naduah and I.” Wanderer passed the moccasins around so the others could admire the beading on the pointed toes. And Naduah glowed with pleasure, her head down. She could almost feel the warmth of his smile on the top of it.
“I have something for you too. I’ll show it to you later. It’s something from the raid to the Big Water.”
“Of course you know what happened after you left.” Sunrise spoke for the first time, turning the talk to the most important issue.
“Yes. We’ve been staying with different bands on the trail from Mexico.” There was no criticism of Buffalo Piss’s decision to come north through hostile territory. That was something to be discussed only among the men, and in council.
“The white men raided again.” Spaniard spoke up.
“Rain’s camp,” said Wanderer. His face shifted, became angry. “They burned everything. They roasted Rain’s people’s stores of meat in the flames of their burning lodges. They attacked at dawn again.”
“Had Rain posted lookouts?” Sunrise asked a question that should have been obvious, but wasn’t.
“No. Of course not. We’ve never had lookouts in our big camps.” It was unheard of. A camp of one hundred and fifty lodges being attacked. It bothered Wanderer. The white men were braver and more reckless than he had given them credit for.
“Wanderer.” Medicine Woman’s soft, quavery voice called from a dim corner. “You tell the story. It’s confusing when everyone speaks at once.”
“All right, Grandmother.” There was silence, broken only by Dog’s whimpering as she chased a rabbit in her dreams. Wanderer sat staring into the fire and collecting his thoughts. The light flickered on his face, and Naduah held her breath, lost in the beauty of him.
Wanderer concentrated on the story he was telling, living it again in his mind.
“We had been following the trail of Rain’s band and planned to stay with them. But we found several of them hiding in that cave in the humped bluffs near the Talking Water River.
“Many of the people in the cave were wounded, and one woman was mad with grief. She had seen her baby trampled under the hooves of the white men’s horses. The woman sneaked out of the cave, climbed to the bluff, and threw herself into the river. And no one could mourn, except in silence. They feared the white men’s patrols who might be hunting them still.
“Most of the men were away hunting when the white eyes attacked. They rode through the camp howling like a pack of angry panthers and shooting into the lodges. Many people ran to the river and were killed trying to swim across. The white men had stolen Rain’s horses, and they chased the warriors a great distance, hunting them through the brush like prairie hens. Then they went back to the village and burned everything, except the tent where they piled the wounded.
“When we found Rain’s men, they were waiting for nightfall to steal their ponies back. We went with them, of course. Deep Water would travel a long way to kill a Texan, and h
ere were some close at hand. It was easy to steal the horses.
“The white men are so careless. They’ve learned to attack on horseback. And they’ve learned to steal our ponies before they attack. But they haven’t learned to leave, to sting and fly away. And they never will learn that we’re the best horse thieves there are. We sniped at them all the way back to that new village they’re building farther down the Talking Water River. Every night we yelled as we rode away with a few more horses, so the white men would know we’d visited.
“They finally got home, though some of them were walking and they had few extra pack animals left. And they had a big dance to celebrate their victory. Their women were there too. So we decided to steal the horses we’d missed.” Wanderer rose to a low crouch and stalked stealthily around the lodge, acting out their raid into Austin itself.
“We crept among the square lodges like coyotes coming into the village at night to sniff around the meat racks. We went to the pasture, but they had dug a ditch around it. We filled in a section of it and led forty of their best horses across it while the white eyes danced and laughed nearby.
“The three of us tied our ponies far away and went back to watch them when they came out and found themselves afoot. I wish I could have understood what they were yelling.” Wanderer laughed, and the boy returned to his face.
“I understood it.”
“I didn’t know you could speak white talk, Spaniard.”
“I can’t. I didn’t have to speak it to understand what they were saying.”
“I wonder why one of them threw his hat down and jumped on it,” said Deep Water.
“Maybe it was a sacrifice to their gods, asking for help getting the horses back,” suggested Spaniard.
“Or a war dance they do,” Wanderer continued. “Rain’s people will need those horses to hunt and replace what they lost. They’re living in caves now, or staying with other bands.”
As she listened, Naduah felt fear in the pit of her stomach. It frightened her to think that they might be attacked in their beds. Sunrise must have been thinking the same thing.
“We will discuss this with Pahayuca and suggest that sentries be posted.”
“I only wish we had killed more of the white men.” Deep Water’s voice was low but intense.
“We’ll kill plenty of them,” said Wanderer. “The Texans will wish they had never come here. And when we drive them out, they’ll be walking.”
Just as she had expected, Naduah saw little of Wanderer for the next two days. He was shut up with Pahayuca in the council lodge. The smoke was so thick inside, it floated out the door. Naduah tried to peek surreptitiously inside as she and Star Name passed on their way to Something Good’s and then the river.
Something Good’s lodge looked as it always had, except that things of value were hung high on the walls, and little Weasel’s toys and clothes were scattered about. Weasel herself sat naked in the middle of the floor, near the fire, her chubby legs spread in front of her. She had dragged away some of the hide rugs to clear a space, and was deeply engrossed in her play. She was chanting to herself and pulling a crude twig travois over the mountains and trails that she’d made. Her mother sat sewing, a thick, furry robe thrown over her shoulders.
“Is the Weasel planning our next move?” asked Naduah.
“I suppose so.” Something Good smiled at her daughter. “Any day now she’ll want to sit on the council and tell the men what to do. She’s very headstrong. I don’t know where it comes from.” Naduah thought of Wanderer’s dead brother’s cheerful obstinance. and of how he could charm anyone into doing whatever he wanted. The child’s mother went on. “Yesterday, while I was gathering wood, she tried to make rivers in here. And she brought in water to fill them. You should have seen the mess.”
Star Name squatted beside Weasel and was murmuring to her while she whittled a crude pony from a forked stick. Together they fastened the travois to it with a piece of thong. While they played, Naduah stated her business.
“We’ve come to take Weasel to the river with us. It looks like she could use a bath too.”
“Just don’t keep her in too long. She’ll get chilled.”
“When the afternoon sun hits the shallow part of the river it isn’t bad. And the weather’s warm for this time of year.” Naduah carried a bag with shampoo in it. It was a thick ooze made of bear grass boiled with the pale, parasitic love vine. It looked disgusting, but it did the job.
It took them a long time to leave the village with the Weasel. They had to stop at almost every lodge so the women could admire her and give her sweets. No matter who her father had been, it was impossible to snub Weasel. Her eyes seemed to take up most of her face, and tiny lights danced in them. Her laugh was irresistible.
The three of them finally cleared the camp and trotted down the path to the water. They wove through the cedars, jumping out from behind them to scare each other. The thick mat of dry needles was springy under their moccasins. But it was cooler in the shade of the trees, and they worried that Weasel might get cold.
“We’ll race you, Weasel.” The child ran, pumping her small legs and grimacing while the other two pretended to be unable to catch her. They broke from the trees onto the narrow beach. The warm sun felt wonderful. They spent half an hour scrubbing and washing, then lay back in the water.
“We should get out now,” said Naduah. “The Weasel pup is beginning to shrivel.”
“I know. But the air is colder than the water.”
“One of us should get out and dry her.” Naduah felt as though she could lie there forever. The water washing over her left her completely limp and relaxed.
“You can do it.” Star Name felt the same way.
“She likes you better than me, Star Name. You play with her more.”
“You can stand the cold better than I can.”
“All right,” sighed Naduah. She stood up, and for some reason looked up. And sat back down so fast she felt the gravel cut into her.
“What are you doing up there?” she yelled. “Go away!”
Star Name and Weasel looked up too, and Weasel laughed with delight. Wanderer was one of her favorite people.
“Come play with us, Wanderer,” she called. She stood and cupped her small hands around her mouth. She was in shallower water, and her naked little body glistened, her stomach jutting out over her sturdy, bowed legs.
“Go away,” Naduah yelled again, an edge to her voice. Wanderer sat on top of the bluff, his legs dangling over the side.
“I’ll dry her off,” he shouted. And he stood and disappeared as though sinking below the horizon.
“Go away!” But Naduah was too late. She and Star Name moved out into deeper water. The cold was beginning to affect them. They felt colder patches of water surging around them, and their fingers and toes were becoming numb. Wanderer appeared, running from the cedars, and Weasel splashed to meet him. She leaped into his arms like a wriggly puppy when he squatted, and soaked his shirt front. He rubbed her hard with the rag they had brought, until there was a pink glow to her skin. Then he dried her hair, tumbling it all over her head, and he dressed her. Holding her by the hand, he came to stand at the edge of the water.
“Do you want me to dry you two off too?” Naduah had never seen him look that devilish.
“No!” By now even Star Name was becoming angry. “Go away so we can come out. We’re freezing.”
Wanderer held out his hands to show they were empty.
“I have no weapons. I can’t stop you from coming out.”
“Wanderer, I’ll get even with you for this.” Grimly, Star Name stood and stalked toward him, her fists clenched at her sides. The late afternoon sun turned the beads of water into small jewels on her dark, sleek body. Naduah knew Star Name was lovely, and suddenly she felt pale and ugly and jealous.
“Please, Wanderer. Leave us alone.” By now her teeth were chattering.
“All right.” He laughed and turned, leading Weasel by the hand
. “We’ll wait for you at the top of the bluff. I have the presents I promised you both, and I wanted to give them to you before I left.”
“No!” Naduah stood without thinking, sending the gray water out in surges around her. “You can’t leave.” She pulled her long, heavy, wet hair across her chest and waded in after her sister. By this time Star Name was pulling her dress over her head, regally ignoring Wanderer, who had turned around again.
“You just told me to leave.” He was looking at Naduah solemnly, but she knew he was laughing. She could see it in his eyes.
“You know what I mean. Turn around.” She said it imperiously, circling her hand in front of her to explain it further.
Wanderer made a complete circle and ended up staring at her again. She held her hands up, trying to cover herself and at the same time grab the clothes he held out to her. She tried to ignore him the way Star Name did, and she concentrated on the dress. The soft suede clung to her wet skin and made it difficult to pull it on in a hurry. She kept her eyes lowered, avoiding his. She could almost feel his look. Her body was still smooth and without hair, but her breasts were beginning to swell and she was self-conscious about them. She scolded to hide her embarrassment, hopping around as she put on her moccasins.
“You’re always leaving. All I ever say to you is good-bye. Why don’t you stay with us?”
“I’ve been away from my band a long time. I have to go back.”
Naduah felt the sting of tears. He was so hateful. Why did she feel as if a big hole was ripped from her life every time he left and a cold, bleak wind was whistling through the opening? He didn’t care about her. She was only a child for him to tease. He probably had someone back on the desolate Staked Plains waiting for him, someone more beautiful even than Something Good.
She gave Wanderer her robe and he wrapped Weasel in it. He carried the child lightly in his arms, her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. With one hand poking out of the robe she played with the fringes decorating the yoke of his hunting shirt. Naduah shivered in the shade of the cedars. Her hair felt cold and clammy on her neck.
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 40
