“To trample Chino, one would have to trample also his machete,” pointed out Deep Water.
“And no one takes advantage of you. Your soul is a lump of lead and you would gladly trade it for a good price.”
“And you would buy it, Sore-Backed Horse. I wish my soul were lead. Lead brings a good price indeed.” José turned to Wanderer. “Later I’ll come to your lodge to see your son. I hear he’s handsome, like his father.”
“Be careful, Wanderer. He may try to steal little Quanah to sell to the Pawnee,” said Sore-Backed Horse.
“He wouldn’t dare,” said Deep Water. “Wears Out Moccasins would come after him with her battleax.”
“If Wears Out Moccasins is here, your son is safe, amigo. Once she thought I had cheated her, and almost broke every fragile bone in my body with a shovel that I had just given her.”
The men rose, stretched, and walked toward camp. The warriors and the Mexicans had tired of baiting El Bravo and were drifting toward the cooking fires too. Spaniard held his gored arm gingerly as he walked. The smell of coffee was strong, and Wanderer’s stomach rumbled. Piles of crisp hump ribs and tongues waited for them. Every man would eat at least five pounds of meat. Then they would lie around the fire and talk until dawn.
Around their own fires the women would be studying José‘s stiff sample cards of beads. Each card unfolded to show examples of the different colors and sizes. The women would take hours deciding what they wanted. Already they were wrapping themselves in the coarse, heavy buff and brown and blue-striped blankets he had brought. They would be happily comparing their new finery and kitchen trinkets. It would be a pleasant night.
For acres in all directions the sprawling camp was astir. The women of Wanderer’s band were toppling their lodges, shouting and laughing and racing to see which groups would finish first. And probably betting some of their new trade goods on the outcome, thought Wanderer. The huge lodge covers lay all over the ground, along with piles of rawhide food boxes, bags, painted buffalo robes, bone and horn utensils, axes, kettles, the envelope-shaped wardrobe pouches, and hundreds of other things. The horses stood patiently amid the noise and confusion, flicking their ears at the horseflies. Their mistresses lashed the travois poles to their sides and piled baggage on their backs.
Children were lifted into place on other ponies, and the smallest, those one to two years old, were tied in place. Other children were stowed into domed willow cages on travois. The older boys ran hither and yon, dodging between their elders. Some of the warriors, painted and decked in feathers, charged through the flattened village, sometimes two or three abreast, racing their horses. The dogs lay panting in whatever shade they could find, yelping and running with their tails between their legs when someone stepped on them by mistake.
The Comancheros were packing up too. They lifted the huge burdens, using their knees as fulcrums, their arms and bodies as levers. With grunts and shouts and curses, they threw them over the mules’ backs. Then, bracing their feet against the animals’ sides, they tightened the wide straps of woven sea grass, pulling them until they gripped like ladies’ corsets. They tied crupper lines from the pack saddles around under the tails to steady the loads and keep them from sliding forward. The cruppers cut cruelly into the animals’ flesh, and many of them bled.
Tafoya now owned the ungainly carts that the little trader had dreamed of seven years before as he sat in Sun Name’s lodge, bargaining for Rachel, the white-eyes woman. He remembered her with a certain amount of affection. She was largely responsible for his success, she and the price she had brought.
There were curses and shouts and singing, the crack of whips or the thunk of stout sticks against mules’ flanks. There was the bawling of animals and the grating squeals of the carts’ axles. And over it all Wanderer could hear the delicate jingling of the bell on the madrina, the bell mare.
“Que lio, amigo mio. What a wonderful riot. And the madrina stands quietly through it all. You should have a madrina, a bell mare, for your herds.”
“Yes, and tell everyone where the ponies are so they’ll have no trouble stealing them.”
“Seriously, Wandering One. The mules love that bell mare. They’ll follow her anywhere. Mules form the most outrageous attachments. They’re like women that way. Sinverguenzas. Shameless. They bestow their affections on someone, even someone not of their station at all. And when they do, beware, hombre. Don’t try to change them. They maintain their love as steadfast as the mountains. I have seen mules devoted to colts, to dogs. To buffalo calves. Even to a duck once.”
Wanderer laughed.
“Truly. The whole herd followed that duck everywhere. They are like women, wonderful beasts. Stubborn, loyal, stupid. Just like women.
“Chino, beat that maldito mule.” José pointed imperiously with his bone-handled quirt. “That one. Hit him hard.” He turned back to Wanderer. “But like women, they become spoiled, lazy, if you don’t beat them regularly.
“My men are ready to go.” Tafoya reached out his right hand, and Wanderer clasped his wiry forearm just below the elbow. Tafoya did likewise, clapping him on the shoulder with his left hand, in the Comanchero manner. Then, standing on tiptoe, he grabbed Wanderer in an abrazo, hugging him first to one side, then to the other.
“When will we see you again, Ho-say?”
“Same time next year, amigo.” He considered the bluffs around them thoughtfully. “And next year I’ll build a little cave up there in the cliff. It’ll be a storeroom, with barred windows and a little roof. That way I can keep my merchandise dry and safe from… let’s say coyotes. And I can meet more bands here.
“Remember, jefe, what I said about the horses and mules and cattle. Steal a lot of cattle. I’ll bring you guns if you’ll bring me stock.”
“Not just guns. Repeating guns.”
“Entendido, amigo. Understood. ¡Dios te leeve, y la virgen y todos los santos! God carry you!” he shouted. As he rode away in the wake of his ragtag caravan, Tafoya waved his arm in a broad sweep, a motion vaguely representing a cross.
Wanderer rode to find Naduah. She and Gathered Up were just loading the last pack mule. The arched wooden frames of the pack saddle fitted so snugly over the rawhide pads that there was no need for a cinch. Gathered Up handed Naduah the goods and she lashed them tightly. They worked efficiently together. The process of moving had been shaved down to its barest essentials. They knew where each small item would best fit in the packs.
Lance was walking his pony slowly through the campsite, calling out the marching instructions. Wanderer had been so occupied with Tafoya and his traders that he hadn’t had a chance to tell Naduah where they would be going. He rode next to her now as they led the procession away from Cache Creek. As usual, she carried his lance and shield.
“Lance says we’re headed for the Pease River,” she said.
“Yes. I think that’s where we’ll hunt this fall. It’s between the land of the Quohadi and the Tenawa. And there are buffalo there.”
“It’s pretty country.”
“Then you approve?”
“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I approve?”
“You might like some other place better.”
“No. I’m happy anywhere, as long as you’re with me. And I think I’ve seen all the country between the Cimarron and Mexico.”
“I suppose I am a wanderer.” He smiled. “I have more than one reason, you know.
“What’s the reason, besides the fact that you’re looking for your own territory and you like to roam?”
“I worry that someday traders will find you and try to take you back. Or they’ll tell soldiers. I want to make it as difficult as possible for them to get you.”
“No one’s going to get me. They’ve forgotten all about me. I have one request, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to winter with my family, with Pahayuca’s band. I want to see Takes Down The Lodge and Medicine Woman and Sunrise again. And Something Good
and Weasel. I want to show them our son.”
“We’ll camp with them this winter.”
CHAPTER 42
Wanderer stared at the pictures crudely sketched with charcoal on the folded piece of bark. He had found it in the largest cottonwood. It was wedged into a cut made by a hatchet.
“Pahayuca’s planning to camp on the Canadian. That’s good. When we get bored this winter we can raid the wagons headed for Santa Fe.”
“Here’s a track.” Naduah dismounted to look at it. The hoof marks were near the cottonwood, at the edge of the churned trail left by a village on the move. “They were here only two days ago, in the morning.” She brushed at the sand that had dried on the blades of grass crushed by the horse’s hooves. The brittle coat of sand grains meant that the grass had been wet with morning dew when the hoofprints were left. And there had been no rain or dew since two mornings before.
“Pahayuca’s still riding that bay. The horse with big feet,” said Naduah. “But he won’t last much longer. He’s starting to favor his left forefoot.” Naduah stared at the tracks, tears stinging her eyes. The rounded impression in the soft sand brought back a flood of memories. The hoofprint was as familiar to her as the patterns of stitching in the top of her lodge.
When they rode into the abandoned campsite, they knew immediately that it was last used by the People, even though the Kiowa also preferred open timber for their villages. The fire holes were fifteen inches across rather than twenty-four. And each round lodge site had four larger holes rather than three, where the main poles had been. Naduah could tell from a distance if an occupied camp was Kiowa or one of the People’s by the pattern of the lodge poles. When the Kiowa women laid their smaller poles against the three larger ones, they formed a spiral where they jutted out from the smoke hole. The People’s poles grouped between the four main ones.
Naduah spurred Wind and moved ahead of Wanderer.
“Woman, where are you going?” he shouted after her.
“I want to see them. Hurry!” He laughed and obediently squeezed Night lightly with his knees. The pony broke into a canter to catch up with her, and the rest of the band quickened their pace. Wanderer grimaced as he thought of the days of travel to come. In their haste Naduah and Star Name would be dismantling the lodges around him and Deep Water and Wolf Road as they slept each morning. There would be no peace until they found Pahayuca’s people and their own family.
“Star Name, come on!” Naduah shouted and waved her arms. “They’re only two days ahead of us.” Star Name came at a gallop, and the two of them took off across the hills in a race with the wind, their ponies’ manes and tails streaming behind them. Naduah stood on Wind’s back.
“I’m giving you a handicap,” she shouted to Star Name.
Wanderer shook his head as he watched them grow smaller in the distance. Naduah was a good mother most of the time. But it was fortunate that Wears Out Moccasins watched over Quanah. He was riding in front of Wears Out Moccasins now. But soon he would be old enough to ride tied onto a pony by himself.
The group of women and girls gathered near Takes Down’s lodge was larger than usual. They claimed they were there to work, but not much work was being done. Sewing projects lay forgotten on hides scattered around the area. Awls were stuck into half-finished seams. Half-tanned skins lay with their scrapers on top of them. Most of the scrapers were metal now, as were the awls and the needles. And some of the women’s clothes were being made of the blue and white striped ticking and red calicos that the traders brought. The blouses wrinkled and soiled quickly, but the women liked their bright colors.
Most of them were sitting in a circle around little Quanah. He was delirious with the attention. He would crawl, laughing, to someone and sit in the red dust, his bare bottom coated with it. When he held out his pudgy arms and smiled, no one could resist his sparkling slate-gray eyes. He was passed from hand to hand and told how handsome he was.
When he tired of that, eight-year-old Weasel helped him to stand. He threw himself, shrieking with glee, backwards onto the nearest ample lap. Weasel helped him up, and he did it again, until all the women were laughing with him. His laugh was contagious, and the warm sun was intoxicating. It was unusually mild for December.
Naduah and Black Bird, Star Name and Something Good watched Takes Down The Lodge. They were waiting for her to finish painting the outline of the design she was putting on Naduah’s lodge cover. The cover was draped over a framework of poles so she could draw the picture as it would appear on the cover when it was raised. Using a peeled willow stick for a ruler and a narrow, flat piece of bone for a brush, she carefully traced in black paint the lines she had indented earlier with her pointed drawing stick.
Naduah stood by with a paunch of water to dampen the hide as her mother worked. Medicine Woman was heating more water to mix with the pulverized mineral colors. The hot water made them set better. She fed sticks into the fire by feel, holding her palm up to test its heat.
“Finished.” Takes Down stood back to check her work. “Help me lower it.” The others caught at the edge of the heavy cover and dragged it onto the ground, where they spread it out flat. While the black paint dried, the women mixed large quantities of yellow powder into a thin paste. They needed a great deal of it to fill in the huge sun design that Takes Down had outlined. To hold the paint they used whatever containers they could find—iron skillets, large turtle shells, horn cups, stomach paunches. The sun design was five feet across and had four sets of black lines radiating out from it in the wind’s four directions. Around the circumference, between the straight lines, saw-toothed designs represented rays.
Each women used whatever type of brush she preferred. Black Bird always used a chewed willow stick, but Naduah liked the end of a hipbone. The honeycombed structure of the bone let the paint flow smoothly. Takes Down filled in the larger areas by blowing the paint through a hollow bone. Star Name and Something Good rubbed it into the damp hide with wads of buffalo hair. They scrubbed hard, working the paint into the surface of the leather.
Wears Out Moccasins and Medicine Woman were making the sizing that would fix the paint permanently in the damp hide. They had a huge pile of prickly pear leaves between them, which they crushed between flat rocks. The sticky juice that oozed out would give the design a gloss when it dried and make it impervious to water. Blocks The Sun, Pahayuca’s first wife, was too large to bend over the cover, so she worked on her contribution near Medicine Woman and Wears Out Moccasins. She was stringing tiny dried deer hooves on a long thong. Naduah would hang them from the tallest lodge pole, where they would clatter cheerfully in the wind.
While they worked, the women talked. There was two years of gossip to catch up on, and they weren’t wasting any time. As she listened to them, Naduah felt as though she had never left her mother’s village. She felt as much a part of life there as she always had.
“A scout from Old Owl’s band arrived today,” said Takes Down. “They’ll be here soon to camp with us.”
“Then he’s back from his journey to the home of the Great White Father in Wah-sin-tone?”
“Yes. They say he’s telling the biggest lies anyone’s ever heard. Santa Ana threatens to change his name to Easop, Liar. Very entertaining stories. We won’t be bored this winter.” Takes Down’s hair had fine lines of gray, like pencil strokes, in it. But otherwise she looked much the same. “In the spring Old Owl and Santa Ana and Pahayuca have agreed to meet with the chiefs from Wah-sin-tone. There’ll be more presents for us.”
The idea of so much contact with the whites made Naduah uneasy, but she was silent.
“Will you stay the winter with us, Naduah?” asked Something Good.
“Of course.”
“Don’t say of course,” called Medicine Woman. “We hear you Noconi never stay in one place more than a day or two.”
“Noconi?” Star Name and Naduah said it together.
“Yes. Haven’t you heard, Granddaughter? That’s what Wanderer’s
band is called. The Wanderers.”
“The Wanderers, Noconi, I like it,” said Star Name. “It fits.”
“They’re calling us the Noconi.”
“I heard that,” said Wanderer. On the other side of the hide curtain that divided the lodge, they could hear Gathered Up’s deep breathing. Between his chores and his long hours riding and playing with the other boys, he had no trouble falling asleep at night.
“Golden one, I’m restless. And so are the other men. We’re going to raid the wagons that travel along the Canadian. Maybe they’re carrying the new guns.”
“I’m going with you.”
“What about little gray eyes? Will you abandon our son?”
“Abandon him!” Naduah put a hand out to rest on Quanah’s back as he slept between them. His legs were drawn up under his chest and his bottom waved in the air under the robe. “Half the time I don’t even know where he is. Weasel begs to take care of him, and plays with him most of the day. And Takes Down The Lodge can barely pull him away from Wears Out Moccasins. She and Medicine Woman go out gathering herbs and he rides along in front of one or the other of them. There are more than enough women to take care of him. Besides, Star Name is pregnant and she won’t be able to go on raids for a while after this one.”
“I didn’t say Star Name could go too.”
“Of course she can. She’s my sister. And she’s a better shot than Skinny And Ugly.”
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 51
