“To that blackjack yonder.”
He wouldn’t live to make it to the tree. He’d choke to death right here, or bleed to death.
Another cannon roared, and a taibo screamed.
A pistol roared over Daniel’s face. He forced his eyes open, found out he could breathe again, saw a gloved hand cock a revolver. Another bullet screamed, and the man holding the gun fell back, crying out in pain.
“It’s the whole damned Comanche nation!”
“Injuns! God A’mighty, they’ll butcher us all!”
“Shut up, Joe!”
Then, guttural English: “Guns down! Now! Else die!”
* * * * *
Shadows crossed his face. How cool it suddenly felt, and he opened his eyes. Twice Bent Nose’s ugly face hovered above him. His mangled hands reached down to Daniel’s side, and Daniel flinched, tightened his eyes, remembered how he had wet himself, and felt shame. He was no warrior, but a frightened child.
“Just stand back there.” This was in English. A voice he recognized.
“You speak English? This bastard killed our foreman. Slit his throat.”
“Look at him. Look at him. Look at what he done to Vince!”
“Just shut up. Don’t move. We don’t want to kill anyone.”
He turned his head. Did not believe what he saw. Charles Flint stood, rifle in both hands, standing in front of three or four Tejanos, yelling at them. One more Pale Eyes sat against a rock, blood soaking through his blue shirt at the left shoulder.
Another voice reached his ears, this one speaking the language of The People, saying that coup had been counted, that now it was time to kill these thieves, or turn them over to The People’s women for torture. Horses snorted all around him, and Daniel made his head turn the other way.
“No, Father!” Charles Flint’s voice again. “We will not kill anyone!”
Daniel swallowed. Isa-tai swung around on his horse, face defiant, holding a rifle over his head. Then he began to sing. To Daniel’s surprise, he did not argue with Flint or Twice Bent Nose. Instead, he sang a song of pride.
Look at my son
Look at my son
Look at my son
See how brave he is
See how brave he is
He has taken his first coup
He has saved the life of a warrior of The People
We will sing songs in his honor
Look at my son
Look at my son
Look at my son
Tetecae
Tetecae
Tetecae
See how brave he is
The words held no meaning for Daniel. Not now. What he wanted to focus on, what he had to remember, was the rifle Isa-tai held. It was a Sharps, one of those far-killing weapons of the buffalo hunters. And Isa-tai’s face. He must remember that, too. Painted red.
Chapter Twenty-One
He woke into a world of darkness.
Cold. Damp. The smell of rot.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, smoky gray light sneaked between iron bars on a window above him. Shivering, he brought his hand to his forehead. Even that slight exertion exhausted him, and his hand slid off his head and struck hard rock, wet rock, skinning his knuckles. His throat felt parched, and fire blazed across his side every time he drew a breath. He ran his tongue over cracked, bleeding lips. He touched his chest, realized he lay on a blanket, shirtless, though his ribs were bandaged. Turning his head, he could just barely make out the thick door. Dripping water was the only sound, almost deafening, maddening, until he began to make out voices carrying beyond the barred windows.
He called out, but no one could hear a whisper he barely heard himself. He was alone, but Daniel knew where he was. He had sent his share of men here himself.
Bluecoats called it the dungeon. The People knew it as The Lodges That Are Always In Darkness.
The post guardhouse at Fort Sill.
Daniel closed his eyes, letting sleep overtake him again.
* * * * *
The song brought him back to life. A gourd rattled over his head, then his chest, and he felt the cloth being pulled away, small fingers gently applying a salve to the wound in his side.
The rattling and the chant stopped, and a strong voice called out, “You are awake, my son!”
His eyes fluttered, focused, and a mostly toothless smile greeted him.
Tears filled his eyes, and he tried to reach up to Nagwee. The puhakat’s fat hand swallowed his, and pressed it against his cheek.
“We feared for you, He Whose Arrows Fly Straight Into The Hearts Of His Enemies. I wanted to perform another pianahuwait, but the Long Knives would not allow it. They will not even allow you into the big doctor house at the soldier fort. But my puha remains strong. You will live, and that is good for The People.”
“Tsu Kuh Puah,” Daniel whispered. “I shamed The People. I disgraced myself. When the Pale Eyes wounded me, I cried from the pain. When one kicked me in the ribs, I wet myself.”
Nagwee lowered Daniel’s hand, and patted his shoulder. “There is no disgrace. You performed bravely. The Pale Eyes say you killed a taibo. You would have killed the others, but there were too many. It is good that Twice Bent Nose arrived when he did, or we would speak your name no more. Instead, now, we will sing songs of your bravery, in your honor. For you. And for Twice Bent Nose, Tetecae, and Isa-tai, who stopped the other Tejanos from killing you.”
Hands began wrapping a new bandage across his side and chest, but Daniel tried to comprehend what Nagwee had just told him. He wet his lips, blinked, shook his head slightly.
“Tsu Kuh Puah.” Speaking hurt. He wanted to ask for water, but felt he needed to explain first. “I killed no one.”
“Hush.” The sharp, feminine voice brought his attention to his chest, and he flinched as those delicate, once gentle, hands tightened as they knotted the bandage. Daniel looked away from Nagwee and met Rain Shower’s stare.
“Don’t talk,” she said. “You are still weak.”
His lips parted, but she raised a warning right fist. His lips closed. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
As Nagwee disappeared in a dark corner, Rain Shower suddenly broke out in laughter. Briefly Daniel joined her, but his ribs ached too much, and he shook his head, fighting off the pain. The medicine man returned, sat, gently lifted Daniel’s head, and he tasted sweet, cool water. He drank greedily, wanted more, but this Nagwee would not allow.
The old holy man then gathered his belongings, and walked away. Daniel heard Nagwee’s fist hitting the door. Keys rattled, metal turned, and the door dragged heavily against the rock floor as it opened.
“You done?” a bluecoat voice called out.
With a grunt, Nagwee stepped into the hall.
“Hey, woman. You done?”
“No!” Rain Shower answered in English.
Tobacco spit splattered into the slop bucket in the corner, and the door slowly shut.
“I did not kill that taibo,” Daniel told her.
“This I know. The Pale Eyes are such fools. The agent, Biggers, he yelled at the big bluecoat chief, but they say you must stay here. For now. One taibo is dead. Another, in the soldier fort, might die.”
She slid down the blanket, and touched his hand. Daniel shuddered.
“I hear Tetecae was very brave.” He stumbled over the words.
“Bah. He is not as brave as you. Twice Bent Nose was even braver. He stopped them from …” She couldn’t finish, forced a smile, and tried again. “And Isa-tai, his puha was very strong. He shot the one the Pale Eyes say might die. But you were the bravest. One Nermernuh against a dozen Pale Eyes.” She leaned forward, and pressed her lips to his.
“It was not that many,” Daniel said after they had kissed. He knew he sounded unconvincing.
“Twice Bent Nose says there were even more Pale Eyes.”
“He …” Daniel shrugged, and gave up on trying to translate the pale-eyes phrase “stretches the truth” into the l
anguage of The People.
She kissed him again, though this time on his forehead, and stood. “I must go. The bluecoat will be impatient.”
“I …”
He didn’t know what to say, so she said it for him. “I love you, He Whose Arrows Fly Straight Into The Hearts Of His Enemies. I have always loved you. I will always love you.”
* * * * *
He runs in the morning sun, side no longer throbbing, legs no longer weak, wearing not the uniform of a Metal Shirt, but buckskins and moccasins, no shirt, a lone hawk feather hanging behind his left ear. He carries a magnificent shield that would have impressed even old Isa Nanaka.
Stopping, he reaches down and plucks the leaves from a bush, crumpling them in his hand, bringing them to his nostrils. The scent is stimulating. It makes him free. Sage. Holy sage. He stands in a field of sage that stretches across the prairie. Nothing to see but blue sky and green sage.
The marsh hawk lands on a nearby clump.
Daniel sees it, and greets the raptor politely.
“This is holy land.” The marsh hawk speaks in the voice Daniel remembers as his father’s.
“It is.” Daniel nods. “The People will always cherish it.”
“No,” the hawk tells him. “The People will not have it for long. That is to their disgrace.”
“I do not understand.”
“You will, my son. In time, you will.”
Silence. The wind blows. Daniel and the hawk fill their lungs with sage-sweet air.
“Your side has healed?” the hawk asks.
“It hurts no more.”
“Because of this holy ground.”
“Haa. And because of Nagwee’s puha.”
“Haa. His puha has always been strong.”
Another voice whispers behind him: “Should I bring up your disgrace, Isa-tai?”
“Yellow Bear?” he asks, whipping his head around, but discovers nothing but sage.
Daniel’s head falls, and he cannot look back at the marsh hawk. Tears stream down his cheeks.
“What is the matter, Oá?”
He looks up. The hawk called him Horn, the name Daniel had been given before his father presented him with his own name, He Whose Arrows Fly Straight Into The Hearts Of His Enemies.
“I spoke the name of a brave Nermernuh who has traveled to The Land Beyond The Sun.” Daniel’s voice cracks as he confesses, and bitter tears flood the ground.
The hawk shakes his head. “He was not dead when you spoke his name.”
He forces his head up, sniffs, wipes the last tears from his eyes, and says, “I do not understand.”
The hawk spreads its wings. “This is holy land.”
Silence. The wind still blows.
“What else troubles you?” the hawk asks.
He touches his side. Now it hurts. “Father,” Daniel says, “I disgraced myself. I cried when those Pale Eyes shot me. I wet myself when they broke my ribs.”
“Nagwee said there was no shame, and I am not one who would argue with Nagwee. Pain is no disgrace, Oá. Nor is fear. Neither means cowardice, and you are no coward, my son. No, pain and fear are part of life. And death.”
Yellow Bear’s voice comes from another direction. “Should I bring up your disgrace, Isa-tai?”
When Daniel looks, however, again he sees nothing but sage, so he turns back to his father.
“What does he mean?”
“Who?”
“The one who has traveled to The Land Beyond The Sun.”
“I did not hear him, my son. He was speaking to you. Not to me.”
“Why have you come?”
“Because I love you.”
Tears well again. His voice chokes. “I love you, too, Father.”
“The marsh hawk is your puha, as it was mine,” his father says. “You will always find strength in the hawk. That is why you wear my feather on your hat.”
He reaches up, surprised. He is wearing the battered, dusty black hat he had bought at McEveety’s post a year earlier. But hadn’t he been wearing just a ribbon and a lone feather dangling behind his ear? He turns the hat around by the brim, the feather floating in the breeze.
Sage remains pungent.
When he hears Yellow Bear’s voice again, now coming from the north, he does not bother to look. His tears stain the sage leaves, which turn into blood.
“It is hard for you, Daniel,” the marsh hawk says. “It will always be hard for you.”
“I am not Daniel,” he says.
“You are Daniel. And you are Killstraight. And you are Sergeant. And you are He Whose Arrows Fly Straight Into The Hearts Of His Enemies. You are Oá.”
Adds a feminine voice: “And you are Huu-ma.”
He pivots, heart aching, and gazes at his mother, the way she looked before the Kwahadis surrendered. Young, beautiful. She has not come to him in the form of an animal, but as a Mescalero captive who became one of The People.
Smiling, he asks, “I am With The Stick? This I do not understand.”
“When you were but a child, just learning to walk, wherever you went, you would be carrying a twig.” His mother’s voice is musical, relaxing, as refreshing as the sage. “Perhaps it gave you balance. Perhaps you just wanted it to chew on, for often that is what you did. Always, however, you grasped a stick. So your father and I called you With The Stick.”
“I do not remember this.”
“Of course not,” the hawk tells him, “for you were too young.”
He closes his eyes, trying to summon the memory of this childhood story, but can’t. When he opens his eyes, his mother has gone.
“Mother!” He turns, desperate. The hawk has flown away. Daniel stands alone in a wilderness of sage. His side begins to throb. He wears the uniform of a Metal Shirt.
“One thing lasts forever,” the familiar voice says, and when he turns to the west, he knows he will see Yellow Bear this time.
Sitting cross-legged, the old man prepares a pipe, which he offers to the directions before breathing fire into the bowl. Yellow Bear smokes, then offers the pipe to Daniel.
“What lasts forever, Tsu Kuh Puah?” Daniel asks. He smokes, and passes the pipe back to the elder.
“Not you,” Yellow Bear replies. “Nor I. Certainly not the buffalo. Sadly not even this.” He gestures toward the sage. “Perhaps not The People as we know The People. Certainly not the taibos, ignorant and as unclean as they are. Not the Mescalero. Not the marsh hawks.”
“Then what?”
“Love.” Yellow Bear nods. “Some day, the taibos, especially the Tejanos, will say that The People fought them the hardest, and why did we do this? For the love of our family. Our ways. Our land. Love endures.”
“I do not understand.”
“I think you do.” The pipe has disappeared. “Isa Nanaka remains with you. As does Marsh Hawk. And your mother. I will always be here for you, my son. Quanah and Nagwee will always be here for you. Rain Shower will always be here for you. Don’t forget us. We shall not forget you. For we love you. And we know that you love us. You love all The People. That is why you are a Metal Shirt.”
Yellow Bear’s body is becoming translucent.
Desperation fills Daniel’s voice. “Don’t leave me! Tsu Kuh Puah!”
The old man smiles. “I said I will never leave you, my son.”
“But there is something you said.” Yellow Bear is fading into the sage. “‘Should I bring up your disgrace, Isa-tai?’ You said that. But what does it mean?” He shouts to only sage. “What does it mean? Please, Tsu Kuh Puah. What does that mean?”
From the east echoes Yellow Bear’s fading voice. “I think you know the answer to that question, too.”
Alone, sweating, he closes his eyes, trying to dam back the tears. When his eyes open, he no longer sees a never-ending field of sage. Something flaps above his head, and he looks up, finds the bluecoat flag of red and white stripes, of stars in a night sky, flapping in the wind.
Daniel stands in the center
of the parade ground at Fort Sill.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Now he knew how Quanah had felt when the Fort Worth doctor insisted he take a wheelchair to the T&P depot. Defiantly pushing aside the curved walnut cane Major Becker had offered him, Daniel stood, taking a deep breath. That was a mistake. Pain rifled up his side, making him grimace, but Daniel tried not to show how much he hurt.
“Are you ready?” Rain Shower asked.
“I am ready.” He took a tentative step toward the open door.
“You’re as mule-headed as Quanah Parker,” Major Becker said, causing Daniel to smile.
Light almost blinded him when he stepped into the tiny hallway, and he was still inside the guardhouse. He fumbled along, feeling Rain Shower beside him, hearing the footsteps of Major Becker, the post surgeon, behind him. From outside came angry voices, muffled by the prison’s thick stone walls. A bluecoat snapped to attention, and pulled open the outer door.
Even more light. Daniel had to stop, squeeze his eyelids closed.
“Are you sure you don’t want this cane, Daniel?” Major Becker asked.
He wasn’t quite sure of anything, but he forced his eyes open, waited for the dots to disappear, and stepped into clean air for the first time in a week.
“There’s the murderin’ savage!”
“We should have lynched that sum-bitch when we had the chance!”
“What kind a law is this, Marshal?” a voice thundered. “Lettin’ a murderin’ red devil out?”
“Reckon that’s the kind of law a Texian should expect from a damyankee.”
“Carmody.” The drawl eased Daniel’s tension just a tad. “You’re the biggest damned fool I’ve had the displeasure of meetin’ in a month of Sundays.”
The big Tejano rancher straightened, face turning scarlet, and started to raise a fist, but Deputy US Marshal Harvey P. Noble stopped him with words.
“That’s right, Carmody. Add assaultin’ a federal peace officer to the charges I might file against your ornery hide. Hell, I might even call it attempted murder.” Noble’s big, gloved hand rested on the butt of his revolver. “Or maybe, with my luck, I won’t have to file no charges, just a report on how come I killed a worthless cur at Fort Sill.”
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