“I’m here to see Kwihnai Evah,” Geoffrey declared in the Comanche language when the warriors, donned in their war gear, raised their bows to shoot.
One of the men, who sported white streaks of paint across his cheeks and several eagle feathers tied in his hair, held up his hand toward the others. They didn’t loose their arrows, but neither did they slip them from their bows.
“What is your name?” he demanded. “And how do you know Kwihnai Evah?”
Geoffrey met the dark stare of the Comanche, but from the corner of his eye, he could see his son’s hands twitch as if he were eager to pull out a knife or bow that wasn’t there. Besides the pistol Geoffrey had strapped to his belt, they carried no other weapons. And for a good reason.
“I met him years ago. My name is Geoffrey Swenson, but he calls me Tenahpu Tseena.”
He ignored the sideways look he received from Hugo. “Does this chief know?”
Geoffrey shook his head, though he did think it was ironic that the Comanche peace chief would grant him such a fitting name as “Man Wolf”. As soon as he spoke the name he had been gifted, several of the Comanche lowered their bows and guided their horses to stand a few feet away from the three. A bit of the tension left his shoulders. At least they had heard of him.
The one with the white-painted cheeks peered at him curiously and then nodded his approval. He barked his orders to the other Comanche, who then circled around to cocoon the three of them so they could be escorted toward the village. One of the younger warriors rode on ahead to announce their arrival.
Geoffrey and the others lowered their hands to take their reins again.
“What did you say to them?” Adam asked under his breath, knowing the others wouldn’t be able to hear him like Geoffrey could.
“I wasn’t sure if this was the right tribe, but I asked to see the peace chief we had met some time ago on a trading trip.”
“That was a gamble,” his son replied as he glanced to the stoic, painted warriors that rode beside him. Compared to Adam’s clean skin and unadorned hair, the Comanche truly looked like the savages that the Spanish had asserted them to be.
Hugo nodded. “It was, but it was worth it. Now, we’ll be talking to someone we have a rapport with.”
“How do you know so many people?” Adam questioned. “First the captain in Santa Fe, and now this chief.”
“And I know many more men of power who live even farther away,” Geoffrey replied coolly. “It pays to be on good terms with everyone. Being neutral in conflicts has its benefits.”
“And to be that one person who makes good decisions?”
Geoffrey looked to Adam, and for the first time, he didn’t see a little boy anymore. He didn’t see his son, who needed constant guidance. He saw a man who was growing wiser by the hour. With a nod, he replied, “Yes, that too.”
As they came to the village and moved between the tipis, he caught glimpses of the tiny faces peeking out from the cracked flaps over the doorways. Curious eyes watched them make their way toward the council’s spacious tent in the center of the village.
Geoffrey had admired their homes for some time, and though he could never convince the Navajo to adopt their easily collapsible tipis, he could see the practicality in them. If they needed to move their camp, they could do so within half a day. An entire tribe could simply lift their stakes from the ground, load everything onto their pack horses, and leave to evade the militia or other raiding natives nearby.
They followed the lead of the other Comanche and only dismounted in front of the council tipi. Hugo and Adam stayed on his heels, passing wary looks toward the Comanche with alarmingly huge knives sheathed at their hips. Geoffrey was tempted to tell them to wait outside, but the altercation in Santa Fe reminded him that the best place for his son to be was at his side.
They were brought into the tent and Geoffrey saw the peace chief sitting on the far side, encircling the meager fire that had been built in the center. All around, the other chiefs of the village sat with grave faces and severe eyes that pinned Geoffrey just inside the entryway. His son received the most scrutiny. It was likely they had never seen a man with a face like a Navajo and eyes like a white man.
Kwihnai Evah stiffly rose to his feet, the tiny bones and beads around his neck jingling with his movements. Geoffrey remembered a younger man, bold and wise beyond his years. The Comanche that stood to greet him was the same man, but the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes had deepened. It gave his features the impression that his skin was sagging and drooping, heavy with the many miles and lessons he stowed under his belt.
Geoffrey gave the customary gesture of greeting, and Kwihnai Evah was the only one to return it with a soft smile of recognition. The rest didn’t even want to acknowledge him. It was a similar reception that he had received in Santa Fe. If Kwihnai Evah would have been open enough in front of his fellow chiefs, he might have made the same comment that Captain Hernando gave. Geoffrey wasn’t aging like everyone else he knew. Just another reason why werewolves couldn’t stay in one place for long.
“It’s been many moons since I last saw you, Tenahpu Tseena,” spoke the old chief.
Geoffrey nodded. “It has.”
“They say you wanted to see me, but would not tell me why.”
They were not asked to sit, so all three – along with their guard detail – remained standing in the presence of the Comanche leaders. Since Adam knew nothing of their language, he seemed content to look around at the decorations within the tipi, while Hugo tried to keep up with the conversation.
“Captain Hernando of Santa Fe tells me a raiding party of Comanche warriors came and took some valuable things from their fort.”
As soon as he mentioned the hated Spanish fort, the chiefs made sounds of displeasure and began grumbling to their neighbors.
“I hope you do not suggest that we take the supplies back, because there is none left,” Kwihnai Evah said. “Our people needed those supplies. The Spanish have hunted most of the buffalo in this land. We were just discussing the wisdom to leave this place and go farther east where the Spanish haven’t settled yet.”
It was the same story all across the region. The Spanish and Mexicans were disrupting their way of life. It was no surprise that the other leaders were already hinting that Geoffrey and his group should be thrown out of the village just for uttering the name of a captain whom they despised with a fervent passion.
“I’m not asking that you give the supplies back,” Geoffrey replied in a tone that he hoped would sooth the raised hackles of the village elders. “But I do ask that we may trade for something you acquired. My family is in need of medicine. We’ve come a long way to find it and I’m willing to trade anything you ask for at this point.”
Kwihnai Evah nodded in grave understanding. “If it is the same sickness my people have suffered, then I understand why you have come so far. But, I cannot help you. Our warriors went to Santa Fe to collect the same medicine you ask for, along with other things. It has been used.”
Geoffrey’s heart sank between his feet. They had crossed hundreds of miles to track down the medicine, only to find that they couldn’t have it. He heaved a heavy sigh. “Are you sure it’s all gone?” he asked, hoping that this old ally might remember something.
Kwihnai Evah only shook his head. “It is all gone, Tenahpu Tseena. I am sorry.”
Geoffrey ground his teeth, and then looked to Hugo, who appeared just as angry as he felt on the inside. They could always try to find another Spanish presidio that might have the medicine. There were plenty of towns and settlements to the south. But every mile they traveled and every day they wasted blindly searching into the unknown for this miracle cure was only bringing his wife closer to death.
Before he could say something he regretted, Geoffrey thanked the old chief for what help he offered and they ducked out of the tipi.
Once they were clear of the entryway, Adam took his arm and pulled him close to whisper in his ear. “I know th
ey have the medicine. I can smell it. I know which tent it’s in. I could – “
Geoffrey cut him off. “No. Hold your tongue until we’ve left the village.”
As much as he wanted to hear more of what his son was scheming, now was not the time to discuss it. He trusted his son’s senses, now more than when they first started out on this mission. So when Adam said the medicine was somewhere hidden, Geoffrey believed him completely.
The frustration he felt when he heard the medicine was gone, had morphed into a burning rage once he knew that Kwihnai Evah had lied to him. All the way out of the Comanche village, Geoffrey tried to reason that the peace chief was only looking after his people. He might have done the same in the old man’s position. If there were truly sick people within their tribe, Geoffrey knew they needed that medicine. If there weren’t, then perhaps the elders had heard of the spreading disease and were taking precautionary measures to ensure that if any of their people did fall ill, they could use the medicine later.
Whatever their reasons, Geoffrey was faced with a crucial decision. Leave the Comanche and search for medicine elsewhere, or listen to what his son suggested. One thing was for certain. Geoffrey would not go back to the Navajo empty handed.
“Absolutely not!” Geoffrey thundered.
Adam could feel the wolf rise inside him. “Why not?” he questioned. “They have the medicine we need and we’re running out of time.”
Geoffrey did not hold back and the golden glare of the wolf shined through. “Stealing back the medicine would make us just as bad as the Comanche.”
“I thought you said there were no bad people, only bad decisions?”
His father made it clear that he wasn’t in the mood to be contradicted. “The Comanche aren’t bad, but it isn’t right to steal and I will not condone such a plan.”
Hugo meekly stepped up between them. “I think the boy has some sense. In all reality, the medicine doesn’t belong to the Comanche, but to the Spanish. If we take it back, we’re righting a wrong that was committed, and we can ask Captain Hernando for a bit of the prize once we return it. In that, we’re doing the Spanish a favor.”
Adam hadn’t thought of that to begin with, but it was a logical point. Surely his father would agree to that.
“Then what if some of the Comanche are ill and we’ve taken the only hope of recovery from them? We’d be accessory to murder.”
So much for that.
Adam held out his hands beseechingly. “Then what about the Spanish? What if they need the medicine too? What about my mother and the rest of the Diné who need the medicine?”
Geoffrey ran his hands through his hair. “There probably isn’t enough of that medicine to split it three ways.”
Once more, Adam hadn’t thought of that. Stealing a portion of the medicine, just enough to help his mother and the other tribes, might have been a better route to take. Just by the spoiled sample he sniffed on the ground the night before, he knew where more medicine was within the village, but he couldn’t determine how much. His father might have been right in his statement that there wouldn’t be enough to go around.
“The best alternative I can think of,” his father continued, “is that we go to another Spanish settlement to find more medicine. Perhaps there is another presidio who has received another shipment and –“
“That’s wasting time,” Adam interjected, a sparkle of gold flickering in his gaze. “Mother could be on the verge of death right now. Why search for more medicine when it’s right here at our fingertips?”
It wasn’t their dire situation, or even his father’s refusal to hear out his plan that made the wolf surge forth. It was the thought of his mother, lying in bed and too weak to even move that summoned the beast forth to help him fight for his proposal.
“Because we have always found a way to get what we need the right and lawful way,” Geoffrey said, his hands balling into fists at his sides. “Even when everyone else steals, lies, and kills, we don’t. You haven’t seen the world. You know nothing of its cruelty and unfairness. When there is so much wickedness, we must endeavor to be a better example. We are not the beasts that men claim us to be.”
Adam heard his father’s wisdom and his wolf attested to its soundness, but he couldn’t follow it. Stealing from the Comanche might have been a bad decision, but the lives of those he loved depended upon the actions he had to take.
“What would you have us do?” Hugo asked, probably content to move on from this quarrel as much as Geoffrey was. The dissatisfaction burned within Adam’s core and he knew he couldn’t leave the matter alone. Not completely.
“We’ll retrace our steps to the south and go to Albuquerque. It’s not much farther beyond Santa Fe. I don’t know the men of the presidio there, but I’m sure we can strike a bargain with him if he has any medicine.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Adam asked with a scoffing tone.
Geoffrey’s brows snapped together, the only warning he would give before unloading on his son again. “Then we will go to other Spanish settlements until we find what we’re looking for.”
Without another word on the matter, he mounted his horse and started toward the south. Hugo turned to Adam just before he went to his own horse and gave a sly wink. He opened his mouth to question it, but his uncle held up a reproving finger. “Not yet,” he mouthed. Anything louder and Geoffrey would hear.
So, Adam nodded, and hoped that his uncle would explain himself in time. The two climbed onto their horses and followed Geoffrey, but both under protest.
Chapter Six
It was a wonder that Adam could fall asleep at all. The last couple of nights, he had forced himself to block out the chorus of chaotic noise that prevented him from getting the rest he needed. Just on the brink of a deep sleep, he felt a swift kick to his rump that startled him awake again.
The campfire had been reduced to a dark pile of charred wood, a few dying embers speckled in the ashen dust as a wisp of thin smoke trailed upwards. Across from him, Geoffrey slept soundly with his back turned and Adam could hear his steady breaths. Hugo was the one who’d kicked him and he glared up at his uncle.
All grogginess left him as he realized this must have been the moment Hugo hinted to that afternoon. Adam had held his tongue against his father’s decision to seek out another Spanish village, knowing that it was a time-consuming task. All the while, he tried to push out the image of his mother, suffering for their delay every passing hour. Did Geoffrey not even care that the Diné were in danger? Or did he overstate their condition just to convince the Spanish and Comanche that they needed the medicine more than anyone else?
If his father hadn’t been lying, it made no sense that he should choose this course of action. Adam would break every unwritten moral code conceived by the minds of men and werewolf if it meant that he could ease his mother’s affliction. It might have been wrong, or a bad decision, but stealing the medicine would be done for a noble purpose, and because of that, Adam would disobey his father one more time.
Hugo wouldn’t speak, but jerked his head toward the north, toward the Comanche village they had left earlier in the day. They were miles upon miles away now, but Adam was sure that it wouldn’t take them long to backtrack as long as they didn’t take the horses with them.
With one last look to his father, Adam stood and the two darted into the darkness. Once they were a safe distance away, he asked, “What’s your plan?”
Hugo glanced over his shoulder to the youth. “We sneak in and steal the medicine, of course.”
“All of it?”
“Just what we need,” he replied, adhering to the sound wisdom Geoffrey had spoken earlier.
Adam nodded in approval. “Only what we need. No more.”
They came to the canyon where the lookout kept a vigil watch over the only entrance into the Comanche village, but they didn’t even slow down. The cloudy trail of dust they kicked up might have been spotted, but they would arrive back to the village long before the s
cout.
The tipis were not as dormant as Adam had hoped. The deep voices of men drifted up with their ever-burning campfires. Hugo slowed to a stop and they took shelter behind a thick row of shrubs on the edge of the village. Not too far away, the makeshift corral of horses didn’t so much as buck their heads at the arrival of the intruders.
“Where’s the medicine?” Hugo whispered. “Which tipi?”
Adam closed his eyes and reached out with his senses, using nothing but his nose to search through the tents. He recalled passing it on their way in and out of the village earlier that day, but unless he passed it again, he wasn’t completely sure which one. If they were found, there was no telling what the Comanche might do. Of course, that was if they could be caught. No horse could possibly keep up with their supernatural speed, and he was positive there were no other werewolves in the camp. They might have been safe, as long as they could find the medicine and get out. That surety didn’t ease his pounding heart.
“Follow me,” he replied before slowly rising from their hiding place and speeding toward the village.
He and Hugo ducked behind a tipi that belonged to a family, all the occupants sleeping soundly inside. Adam’s gaze shifted from one tipi to the other, but they all looked the same. He ran again, weaving through until he reached the council tipi in the center of the village. Here, at least he could pick up the trail again.
But the tipi wasn’t empty. Several men were still inside and Adam could smell the strong aroma of their smoking pipes as they conversed. Stepping lightly around the tent, he was sure he knew where the medicine was now.
Adam pointed to one particular tipi half a dozen yards away. Hugo nodded and dashed forward first. Once they determined that there were no people manning the supply tent, they ducked inside. Crates, baskets, jars, and barrels of supplies sat unattended. It didn’t take him long to sniff out the medicine.
The Native_A Legacy Series Novella Page 8
