Robson, Lucia St. Clair

by Ride the Wind

  That evening, as the sun was setting, Wanderer came for his bride. They walked side by side to the guest tent where he was staying. She stretched her long legs to keep up with his. It seemed as though the pounding of her heart must be loud enough to be heard over the muted noises of the camp. Activity had stopped as people watched them pass, and Naduah knew she was blushing again. She was relieved when they stepped inside the lodge and the hide cover dropped closed after them, shutting out the eyes.

  Before Wanderer led her to the bed of thick, soft buffalo robes, he gave her the silver mirror that he had carried with him for seven years. He stared at her intensely as she held it in her hands, turning it over to trace the raised design with her fingers. It was the same kind of inspection he had given it in the yard of a ravaged fort so long ago. He searched her face to see if the mirror brought back memories of the day his people had killed hers. She looked up at him and smiled her thanks, and the tension drained from him.

  She came to him silently, and he put his arms around her. She stood, caressing the small of his back and his firm haunches. She rested her cheek against his chest as he held her. They swayed’ there slightly, eyes closed, lost in the feel of each other. Filled with the comfort and the joy of each other’s presence.

  FALL

  “On the plains the senses expand and man begins to realize the magnificence of being.”

  Col. Richard Irving Dodge, Hunting Grounds of the West

  CHAPTER 36

  The plateau loomed in the distance like a vast, flat-topped fortress. It brooded dark and solid against the wide, blue, cloudless sky. It was a citadel two hundred miles long, one hundred and fifty miles across, and eight hundred feet high. Its bulwarks seemed to soar straight up from the undulating swells of the plains around them. Vertical outcroppings of red sandstone looked like flying buttresses braced against the cliffs. Along the plateau’s rim, the gypsum cap rock gleamed like burnished silver in the flaring sun.

  It was a desert, or so the white men believed. A trackless waste. Nothing grew there but grass. The only water was alkaline, poisoned by mineral salts. And there was damned little of it. bad as it was. The three forks of the Red River meandered through the plateau, their single source lost in a tortuous maze of ravines and gullies and plummeting gorges. No one had ever mapped the plateau, and no white man had ever tracked the Red River to its original spring. It was considered deadly country and few dared go there.

  In 1541, the Pueblo Indian, El Turco, led Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and three hundred of his soldiers on a chase across the top of it. El Turco would probably have led them to hell to get them away from his own helpless village. And there must have been some in the expedition who thought that was precisely where he was taking them. A la cola del mundo, to the tail end of the world, as they put it. But they followed him doggedly. They couldn’t resist the promises of a land where King Tatarrax ate off golden plates and listened to the music of gold bells hanging in the trees. By the time the soldiers were well into the high plain, they would have been grateful just for the trees, without the bells.

  Mile after mile the Spaniards and their six hundred Pueblo slaves toiled across the high plateau. It was as level as a griddle and almost as hot. There was nothing, no trees, no boulders, no ridges or mountains, to measure their progress. There were ravines, but they were gouged into the surface of the plain, and invisible until one’s horse teetered on the edge. The air shimmered and trembled incessantly. A raven in the distance would stretch and distort until it looked like a man approaching, giving the land the look of a place inhabited by phantoms. Groves and pools shimmered and beckoned, then vanished.

  The summer sun heated the men’s heavy metal helmets and cuirasses until they were too hot to touch, much less wear. The soldiers baked inside them. Men born and bred in the harsh, hot hills of Salamanca and Extremadura began to sway in their saddles. If they took off their helmets, spots would heat up on the crowns of their heads, as though a magnifying glass were being held there. Dizziness swept them from their saddles. Many fell with a clatter, losing their lances and trumpet-shaped arquebuses in the grass.

  Sometimes they were dragged, their feet caught in the solid brass stirrups they wore like shoes. Many of them suffered dysentery, made worse by the brackish water. The sun blazed through their eyelids when they closed them, and they had seen no shade for days. The grass, only inches high and burned a dull yellow color, closed in after their horses passed. Almost a thousand men, their mounts and pack animals, left no mark of their passing, to the untrained eye, than a ship leaves on the ocean. So they cut slender saplings from among the few stunted cottonwoods and willows along the dry creek beds. And they staked their route with the poles. Some of them stood, years later, stark and mysterious sentinels against the sky. In time the plateau became known as El Llano Estacado, the Staked Plains.

  Naduah had watched it grow for three days as their small party meandered across the rolling prairie. Now it soared over them, filling the empty sky. A patchy growth of stunted red cedars clung to its vertical face. Naduah tilted her head far back as she craned to see the top of it.

  “We’ll never be able to climb up there.”

  Wanderer grinned at her over his shoulder.

  “You know better than that. Do you think I brought you all this way just to look at it?”

  “How will we reach the top. Wanderer?” yelled Star Name from behind them. “Pull ourselves up the sides by the cedars?”

  “There’s another way,” said Wanderer. “Be patient.”

  Naduah searched for a path upward and could find none.

  Wanderer led them around the base of the plateau, picking his way through the labyrinth of ravines. Finally they all stood at the edge of the deepest one. Two hundred feet below them they could see the roiling water of the south fork of the Red River as it roared and churned out of the plain. Wanderer pointed out their route.

  “We’ll go down to the river bottom, then follow along the cliff wall or splash through the shallows. We’ll follow it upstream onto the plain. It’s the easiest path.”

  The easiest path. Naduah thought she’d rather haul herself up the side using the cedars. Wanderer disappeared over the edge of the deep gorge that pinched the river at its narrow base. Naduah followed him. As Wind braced and slid down the winding trail, Naduah felt the paws of her new mountain lion skin brush against her legs. The hide was draped across Wind’s hindquarters like the brocaded quilts of the Spanish caballeros. When the People stole the Spaniards’ ponies they took more than just livestock. They lifted the whole horse culture.

  The lion skin had been expensive. They had almost bought it with their lives. Naduah thought about how they had killed the lion, she and Wanderer. It gave her something to think about beside the high, narrow path she was following. The trail was so steep it would be easy to pitch forward and plummet to the bottom. She could imagine bouncing on the rocks below. The lion skin, and the look in Wanderer’s eyes when he pulled my arrow from its heart, think about that.

  It had happened several days before, when the party stopped to rest after a long, hot ride that had started before dawn. It was late afternoon, and they were all lying propped against their saddles in the tall grass under a huge, spreading cottonwood. They had found a deep pool and bathed, then they watched, mesmerized, as the clear, shallow stream raced and chortled by them. The high boulder-strewn bluffs around them were covered with round, dark green cedars and scrub oaks. There were pale green feathery mesquites, plum and grape, raspberry, and currant bushes, and various kinds of cactus.

  Naduah lay on her back watching the tiny vultures circle and glide on the air currents at the cliff’s edge high above them. She felt lazy and at peace. She wished, in a way, that this trip could go on forever, traveling at their leisure across the plains, laughing and gambling at night around the fire. Telling stories with her friends. And loving Wanderer under their sleeping robes until they were both spent, then lying wrapped around each other un
til dawn.

  “Do you want to hunt a deer for dinner?” Wanderer had stood looking down at her.

  “Of course.” She had gotten up, stretched, and yawned. Then she put on her moccasins and fetched her bow and quiver from the packs. Together, on foot, they walked down the river to where the canyon opened out and there was a large meadow of waving grass. Naduah moved silently and lightly, aware of everything around her. Sunrise had taught her well. It had rained the day before and the air was cool and clean, the bushes washed free of dust. Here, where there was enough water, the buffalo grass reached as high as their waists.

  Wanderer found a spot near the middle of the meadow and sat, pulling Naduah down with him. He stretched out on his stomach, and she did the same.

  “I thought we were hunting deer,” she whispered in his ear.

  “We are. Hasn’t anyone taught you to make a fawn’s distress call?”

  “No.”

  “You know that a doe will leave her fawn hidden and graze away from it, don’t you?”

  “Of course. The fawn doesn’t leave a scent trace when it’s very young, and the mother knows it’s safer hidden by itself than with her.”

  “Right. So we make a noise like a fawn in trouble, and the doe will come to help it.”

  “How do you know there are deer nearby?”

  “This is perfect country for them. And it’s the right time of day. They’ll be feeding. They’re here.” He cupped a thin reed in his hands and blew across it, making a frightened bleating noise, then another. Then they both lay still.

  Naduah listened to the wind soughing across the grass and the insects singing and buzzing all around here. Lying there in the tall, cool grass with the sun warm on her back, she felt like a child again. Wanderer made the call three or four times, and she inched closer to him. Finally her leg brushed his, and they lay with their bodies touching. That was the most difficult part of being Wanderer’s wife and lover as well as his friend. She constantly wanted to touch him, to feel his body, his hands, his mouth. She never tired of watching him, when he sat quiet and pensive at the fire, or when he moved gracefully around the camp. Now, as he lured the deer, she realized something about him.

  “It’s a game with you, isn’t it?” She said it suddenly and very quietly.

  “What’s a game?” He glared at her, pretending to be irritated at the disturbance.

  “All of it. This. Hunting. War, life, love.” He stared at her as though he’d been caught at something.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The look on your face. I used to think you were laughing at me. But I just realized you’re laughing at everyone. At life.”

  “I laugh at it.” He thought a while. “But I take it seriously too. Enjoying life is serious business. You have to work at it.”

  “Your friend and brother who died didn’t work at it.” She thought of his smile, his contagious laugh.

  “No, he didn’t. He was a rare one.” Wanderer rolled over to weave his fingers into her hair. She had washed it in the river and it hung loose and heavy around her shoulders. He leaned over and buried his face in it, breathing the clean odor of its warm dampness.

  “I like the way it curls on the ends, like pale oak shavings.” She turned onto her back and twined her arms around his neck. She arched her body, straining to touch every part of him. He murmured in her ear.

  “You’re right as usual, my golden one, my palomino. Life is a game. If it wasn’t a game before, you’ve made it one.”

  Looking over his shoulder, Naduah saw the mountain lion first.

  “Roll!” She shoved him off to one side and twisted in the opposite direction. She felt claws rake her arm as the cat’s spring carried him to the spot in the grass flattened by their bodies. Without thinking, Naduah snatched her bow, nocked an arrow, and fired, in one flowing motion. Wanderer shot at the same time, and both shafts were fatal.

  “Some deer.” She laughed, partly with relief and partly to keep from trembling. She wiped at the blood as it ran down her arm. Wanderer looked sheepish, and she laughed harder.

  “Woman, you have me so bewitched, I forgot that call sometimes attracts more than deer. Did Medicine Woman give you all her love potions before she turned you over to me?” He grumbled a little as they began skinning the animal. “You’ll be the death of me if I don’t break your spell.” He looked up at her mischievously as they knelt with the carcass between them. “Of course, it wouldn’t have been as noble as dying in battle, but not a bad way to go. Not a bad way at all.” He rested his free hand lightly on her shoulder as they walked back to camp.

  Now he rode in front of her down the steep canyon trail as comfortably as if he and Night were out for a stroll at the edge of camp. She could see the long scar that curved under his shoulder blade. It was darker than the rest of his skin and freckled where the sun had burned the new scar tissue many years before. She smiled as she thought of the times she had traced it with her fingers, running them along the soft, velvety ridge as he lay on top of her. As though guessing her thoughts, he turned to look at her and shouted over the noise of the water.

  “Let Wind do the steering.” He was trying to hide the fact that he was concerned about her, but she knew he was.

  “Wind’s never traveled this trail either.”

  “Trust her.” Then there was no more talking. No one could be heard as the river roared down from the plain and crowded through the narrow gorge. The sound of it echoed and swelled as it reverberated between the two-hundred-foot high walls.

  Wind’s hoofs dislodged pebbles that rattled and clattered on the stony trail before launching off the edge and sailing out into space. Naduah’s stomach contracted with fear, and she tried not to look down at the ragged boulders and blood-colored rapids of the river. Wind lurched forward with each step. She carefully placed each hoof, then braked to avoid sliding with her own momentum.

  Naduah leaned over and pressed her cheek to Wind’s cheek. Wind shook her head in response. Wind’s ancestors had been raised in the desert, bred to eat sparse grass and travel long distances between water holes. Wind was only fourteen hands tall, a descendant of pure Arab mixed with tough little North African barb. A Texan would have called her shaggy, mean, and ugly, but to Naduah she was perfect.

  If anyone could travel this trail safely, she could. But what about skirting that mad river? A fish couldn’t do it. She searched for a trail and found only fragments, tiny beaches eaten into by the swirling water. It’s impossible. Maybe he’s remembering when the river was lower. But even as she thought it, Naduah knew she was wrong. He knew what he was doing. He always did.

  She watched the dark, smooth skin slide over his shoulder blades as he eased Night down the slope. His muscles didn’t bulge and swell like Pahayuca’s, but Wanderer was strong. Sometimes when they made love, he held her immobile, paralyzed in his grip, as he stared down at her. It frightened her and excited her to see the wild hunger in his eyes then.

  He was strong and he was tall. So tall there were those who claimed he wasn’t born one of the People at all. That he was a Mexican captured as an infant. She had heard the rumors. Now maybe she would learn the truth. She was riding to meet Iron Shirt, Wanderer’s father.

  Wanderer’s people, the Quohadi, ruled the Staked Plains. They were the fiercest warriors in a nation of them. They looked down on the rest of the world from their aerie, swooping from it to raid deep into Mexico or to plunder the Texas settlements. Then they disappeared back into their vastness. They lived confident and secure in the knowledge that white men would never dare enter their territory.

  There was only one group of people who invaded the Quohadi’s land regularly. They were called ciboleros, buffalo hunters, and were from the New Mexican pueblos. The Pueblo, or Anazasi, were peaceful folk. Each year they ventured onto the plateau to hunt meat to feed their families and to sell.

  It was dangerous work. Not many were suited to it. But those who were came every year. They brought their famil
ies with them, their women and children, their dogs and oxen and their clumsy wooden carts. The hunt had been good this year, and the men and women of El Manco’s party were packing the dried meat strips into their carts. El Manco steadied himself with his one hand on the cart’s tall side and kneaded the meat into a compact mass under his bare feet.

  El Manco, One Armed, was still the mayordomo, the leader of the hunts. As he chased the buffalo, he held the reins in his teeth. Using one hand, he drove his lance in with the force of two. Now he climbed out of his cart, wiped his feet on the clumps of grass, and walked away to start the band moving.

  There was a stir in the vast, straggling camp around them. The oxen began to low in protest as the men rounded them up and hitched them to the carts. The heaps of buffalo skulls and bones buzzed with flies. The odor of putrifying meat was lying heavier on the camp with each hour. The women shoveled dirt over their cooking and smoking fires. They stepped back, shielding their faces from the wind-blown ashes, sparks, smoke, and dust.

  There were over one hundred men, women, and children, fifty carts and five hundred oxen and burros, and seventy-five horses to collect and organize and form into marching order. It was two hours before the procession pulled out. It looked like a band of gypsies on the move. Whips cracked, men shouted, the women screamed for their children. The oxen complained bitterly, and dogs barked along the edges.

  A caravan of carretas had no chance of proceeding with stealth. Even without the high-pitched squealing of their axles they could be easily tracked by the broken cottonwood axletrees that littered their trail. The two wheels were sliced from solid logs and stood chest-high to a man. They were only roughly circular, and the holes for the axles were never exactly in the center. Supporting them as they ka-chunked over the rocky ground was a lot to ask of a cottonwood pole, especially since buffalo fat was the sole lubricant available.