The three of them were almost finished with their breakfast when Speckled Tail finally appeared in the door. She tried to ignore the scowl Buffalo Butt gave her but walked a noticeably wide arc around the other woman as she made her way to the fire. Little Bull could tell Buffalo Butt was considering taking a stick to the slim little squaw, but she seemed to decide against it and merely stuck to her glare.
Speckled Tail stretched her arms high above her head and yawned like a cat just waking from its nap. The elk-tooth Wichita dress she wore clung to her lithe body, and even through the deerskin he could see that her nipples were hard. Contrary to Comanche custom, she wore her hair in the Kiowa style. It was almost as long as Little Bull’s, and he watched as she fondled and twisted it into a thick rope above her ear. He thought about taking her back to bed right then, but the look Buffalo Butt was giving him changed his mind. He tried his best to focus on the quail and smiled and rubbed his belly so that she could see how much he loved her too. Her sour look didn’t change, and the idea of taking both of them back into the tepee was fleeting.
Speckled Tail brushed a hand lightly across the back of his neck and smiled coyly at Buffalo Butt, who merely mumbled something to herself. The two of them had been at odds since the moment Little Bull had brought Speckled Tail back from a visit to the Kiowas early that spring. He had hoped that time would bond them, but it was plain that Buffalo Butt still had no wish to share her man or her lodge with a vain Kiowa girl.
“It’s about time you got up,” Buffalo Butt said. “Our husband would never have breakfast if it was left to you.”
Speckled Tail continued to smile and tickle the back of Little Bull’s neck with her fingers. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you would get up so early for food?”
Buffalo Butt mumbled something again, and Speckled Tail reached out for the last remaining quail on the spit with her free hand. Before she could lay claim to it, Buffalo Butt snatched it away and pitched it to the nursing yellow cur and her litter of puppies waiting for scraps at a hungry, yet safe distance from their masters. The quail was gone in a split second of growling and snapping, and Speckled Tail was left with nothing but the pout on her lips.
Buffalo Butt did a passable job of appearing regretful. “I’m sorry. Did you want that? Our husband said it was for the bitch, and I must have been mistaken as to which one he meant.”
“You fat pile of guts.” Speckled Tail’s knife was suddenly out and pointed at Buffalo Butt.
“You Kiowa slut!” Buffalo Butt must have changed her mind about the stick, because she raised it over her head clutched in both her stubby fists. She swung it in a mighty downward stroke that would have killed Speckled Tail had she not been quick to dodge.
Speckled Tail’s defiance was all bluff, and she broke and ran so quickly that she dropped her knife. The two of them raced away with Buffalo Butt’s stick swishing the air around the Kiowa’s head. Most of the blows missed, but Speckled Tail squealed like a little girl with each swing of the stick.
The fight got the large pack of camp dogs stirred up and they too joined the chase, barking and yapping behind the two women. The dogs were long since wise to the wrath of Buffalo Butt’s stick, but Speckled Tail’s shrieking was more excitement than they could bear. One of the mongrels latched his teeth onto the seat of Speckled Tail’s dress and held on for dear life. Normally, Speckled Tail would have been far too fleet of foot for Buffalo Butt to catch, but the added encumbrance of a growling, shaking dog dragging from her skinny rear made the footrace just about an even match. The entire camp laughed and cheered Buffalo Butt on as the two of them passed by.
Little Bull noticed that Pony Heart looked concerned. “Don’t worry, Buffalo Butt is already breathing too hard to catch her.”
“But what if she does? Mother will kill her with that stick.”
Little Bull pitched the last of the bird bones aside and wiped his greasy fingers on his bare thighs while he considered the possible outcomes of the fight. “No, they’ve fought before, and Buffalo Butt hasn’t killed her yet. If she can catch her, I imagine she’ll just give her a good whipping and then Speckled Tail will do a little work for the next few days to get back on her good side.”
As if to prove his point, Buffalo Butt came parading back through the camp with her stick propped over one shoulder and a triumphant smile on her face. Most of the camp had followed along to watch the fight, and from the fact that they were still laughing Little Bull was sure that Speckled Tail was still alive.
“If that slut keeps messing with me she won’t look so pretty for you, because I’m going to stomp moccasin tracks in her skinny ass.” Buffalo Butt stopped in the door of their tepee with one hand on her rounded hip and the stick waving at him in the other.
“Calm down, woman. Speckled Tail will eventually come around, and then you won’t have to work so hard. You just have to give it some time and try to remember that we can’t always get our way.” Little Bull thought it was high time he put an end to all the feminine catfighting and to remind her who was the master of the lodge.
“I’ll remember that the next time that Kiowa has a headache and you come rubbing up against this fat old butt in the night with your stinger hard.” She tossed her stick aside and disappeared into the tepee with a huff, slamming the hide door shut behind her.
Little Bull looked to the boy sheepishly. “Well, I’d say that went well.”
“Father, when I’m a man I think I will have only one wife,” Pony Heart said seriously.
Little Bull tried to keep a straight face and clapped the boy on the back. “You are wise beyond your years. Let’s leave the women to their warpath and see if we can fix Badger’s hoof.”
Pony Heart held Badger’s rope while his father picked up the lame foot. The boy hoped that some day he would have a buffalo runner as good as the gray. Once Little Bull had been offered fifty horses for Badger, but refused. Like the ill-tempered, masked burrower of the plains that was his namesake, Badger was gritty and tough. While there were swifter runners, Badger never seemed to tire or want to quit, and he had never fallen, even at a dead run over the roughest ground. Once brought alongside a running buffalo he would guide himself in for a close thrust from his rider’s lance or a shot from his bow. He would pin his little ears back and willingly rub shoulder to shoulder with a half-ton animal that could gore him to death with one swipe of his curved black horns.
“Come see.” Little Bull held the horse’s hoof between his knees and waited for the boy to walk around for a better view.
“What’s the matter with his hoof?”
“See the little spot where the sole is soft and wet?”
“Yes.”
“He has bruised it on a rock or something, and it’s rotting from the inside. We need to cut a hole to let the poison drain out.”
“Will he heal?” Pony Heart was genuinely troubled by the thought that Badger might be forever crippled. He had always envisioned his first hunt on the back of the gray.
Little Bull took his knife’s point and carefully drilled into the sole of the hoof. He only had to dig a little ways before serum and stinking pus ran from the hole. The abscess was deep, and he widened the drain before setting the foot down.
“I think he’ll be fine before long. We’ll pack the sole of his hoof with your mother’s good poultice for the next few days,” Little Bull said.
Buffalo Butt had already gotten over her mad enough to bring them a moist pack of clay and various herbs known only to her, and they tied it in place with a soft strip of deer hide. Little Bull led the horse to a picket rope near the tepee and staked him out where he could graze but still be close to hand.
“I think he is walking better already,” Pony Heart said.
“Yes, I believe you’re right. He’ll be ready to run buffalo again before too long.”
Pony Heart looked at his father adoringly. “When wi
ll I know all the things you know?”
Little Bull laughed and jumped on his black warhorse, then swung his son up behind him. “You will be a man soon, but ride with me today just as my son.”
Pony Heart had been riding his own horse since he was three, and he knew his friends would tease him when they saw him riding double behind his father. He started to ask to retrieve his own horse but thought better of it. He hugged close and smiled around his father’s broad back as they passed through the camp. His friends could think what they wanted. None of them had a father like Little Bull.
They wove through the cluster of tepees scattered along the shallow river until they reached the far edge of camp. Two elderly squaws were beating a young white woman with switches and shouting at her. The slave had dropped the water buckets she had been carrying and was cowered on the ground with her knees drawn up and her arms protecting her head. Bloody welts already crisscrossed her back and legs, and she whimpered pitifully.
Little Bull didn’t stop, but Pony Heart studied the filthy, half-naked white girl in passing. “Why must they beat her so? Can’t they see she won’t get up?”
Little Bull cast a bland glance back behind him at the captive girl lying in the trail while they splashed across the river. “Have no pity for the Tejano slave. She is less than nothing.”
“But you told me there is no pride in killing a weak enemy.”
Little Bull pulled up his horse halfway up the side of the mountain where he had sat earlier that morning. He sighed and reminded himself to be patient with his son. “Yes, but I did not say there was no pleasure in it. Revenge is big medicine, and it is good for our people to see our enemies captive and crying out in pain like babies. A people who hate strongly will fight strongly. It has always been our way.”
Pony Heart wrinkled his brow. “What if the warrior who captured her takes her as his wife?”
“Some captive wives become Comanche, others just bear children until they can be ransomed. You already know these things and are talking yourself in circles.”
“But even if she becomes Comanche, her white body will still be the same.”
“But her heart will not be. At least for now, that one is still a slave and her masters can do what they will with her. She will be beaten until she sees that we are superior to all men. If she is strong, maybe she will live to raise more Comanche; if she is weak, she will die.”
He swept his hand before him, tracing the arc of the horizon around them. “All that you see is ours. None of our enemies have yet stood long before us. The corn growers cower in their villages because we let them so that we will have trade for our horses. The Lipan and the Tonkawa have fled east before our fury, and the Mexicans are weak and only know how to die.”
“I understand these things you say, but why do you hate the Tejanos so much? All of the Kotsoteka speak of your hatred and how you will ride far to raid them even when other enemies are closer.” The boy hoped his face looked as fierce as his father’s.
Little Bull swung his left leg over his horse’s neck and dropped to the ground. He took hold of Pony Heart’s leg with one hand and looked up into his eyes with an anger simmering there that scared the boy. “You remember this always. The Tejanos are different. They are still learning this land, but most of them fight and die well. And they have one thing that can’t be tolerated or forgiven. To do so will be the end of us.”
His father’s grip was digging painfully into his leg and Pony Boy bit his lip and tried to think. “What thing is that?”
“Pride.”
“Pride?”
“Our pride is our strength. As long as we are fearless we are proud, and as long as we are proud we will be fearless and hold these plains forever. But the Tejanos have a strange pride too, and there is no room for two such people.” Little Bull softened his grip, embarrassed that he was so caught up in the passion of the truth that he hadn’t noticed he was hurting the boy.
“The Lipans and the Tonkawas have made peace with the Tejanos.” Pony Heart’s voice was a whisper, and he felt that perhaps he had caused his father’s anger.
“Without fighting there is no life for us, no warriors, no Kotsoteka, no Comanche. We would grow weak and die. We would become like the Tonkawas and the Apaches who the Tejanos have conquered with this word ‘peace.’ What is peace? I say there can be no such thing between true enemies.”
“My enemies.” Pony Heart’s little chin lifted defiantly.
“They are the worst of our enemies. In your time you shall see the truth of this. There is no room here for both, and one of us must die,” Little Bull said. “We are the People and the pale-faced Tejano thinks he is the people. That is his pride too. He cries that the Comanche break their word when the old chiefs bluster of peace, but the Tejano breaks his word too when it suits him. My father, your grandfather, went to one such gathering at the old Mexican village on the River of the Bells, and the Tejanos tried to take him prisoner after promising peace.”
“He shouldn’t have trusted the Tejanos.” Pony Heart felt his own anger rising up in him.
“You are right to never trust them, no more than they should trust us. They claimed your grandfather had agreed to bring in all the Tejano women and children held captive by the Comanche. He tried to tell them that he had brought in all that he had, and that he had no control over the other bands. They claimed he was holding prisoners back to bargain for more of their goods later, and they killed him.”
“They killed him?”
“They were going to make him their captive, and that is death enough for a Comanche warrior. He fought them with his knife until they shot him many times with their guns.”
“I will fight the Tejanos.”
“I know you will. You have the heart to be a great warrior and killer of our enemies. So, feel no mercy for that pale girl being beaten with switches, or for the scalps you see hanging in our lodge. Slay the Tejanos where you can find them until there are no more of them left to die. Steal their horses and their women and children until you are rich and well satisfied.”
“I promise, Father, I will.”
Little Bull jumped up behind Pony Heart this time and started them down off the mountain. He hugged the boy tight to his chest and told him of all the Comanches who had died at the Tejanos’ hands, of the sicknesses the white men brought, and the treachery of their lies and promises. He told the boy of mighty Comanche warriors of old and of their great deeds in battle against all comers, and how the people had ridden from the north long before to conquer many tribes and come to rule over Comancheria. He recited the names of their enemies by rote and then Pony Heart repeated them to himself silently.
“Remember that the bull of the herd always has the most to lose and has to fight to keep what is his. We are the bull and our enemies are many. The Tejanos killed my family until there was once only me. Now I have a strong son and I will fight them for you as long as I can, but one day it will be your glory.”
“Will it take so long?”
Little Bull scanned the horizon to the east. “I don’t know their numbers or the land where they come from. The Comanche have killed many Tejanos, but there are always more. My heart tells me there will still be plenty for you to kill when you come of age.”
“One day I will ride with you against the Tejanos,” Pony Heart said.
“You will, but that is for another day. For now, let’s ride down and see how badly Speckled Tail is beaten.” Little Bull ruffled the boy’s hair and grinned.
When they crossed the river the white captive girl was still lying there, but the old women had finally walked off and left her. Pony Heart looked down at her angrily and spat on her bloodied back as they passed. “Enemy.”
“Never forget that, and who you are. Without enemies there can be no Comanche,” Little Bull said.
“I promise I will never forget.” Pony Heart hugg
ed his father’s forearm to him and began again to say the list of his enemies over and over to himself.
Chapter 18
The moon was so bright and low in the sky that it almost felt as if Odell could ride his horse right up and touch it. It was as if it was no moon at all, but rather something unreal hovering in the dark night. He had slipped away from his second camp with the Prussian’s war party to ride out upon the expanse—looking for something and finding another thing altogether. He sat Crow in silence and felt small upon the face of the earth. The white light lay gently on the land and the silhouettes of brush, cacti, grass, and the dry waste of the plain were lit in soft, glowing black—all somehow made alien and magical under the illumination of the strange moon. He had only intended to be alone with his thoughts and not to ride into a different world.
Trouble rode Odell’s soul with sharp spurs, and the nights could be especially bad. Often, when sleep wouldn’t come and doubts and frustrations crept in on him, he went out alone to do nothing more than sit his horse in the dark. The quiet and the emptiness surrounding him calmed him like a lullaby, and his thoughts came clearer.
The wind had lost the day’s heat, and it touched his face like a cool kiss. Crow was still beneath him and the weight of his rifle lay heavy across his thighs. The months on the trail had left him wild and unkempt, and hard living and loss had left his heart equally ragged. He removed his broad hat and bowed his head and ran a hand up his forehead and back through the tangled mop of his hair. He did so more out of weariness than anything else, but anyone watching would have thought him some pagan bowing before the white orb of the heavens. But truly, there was something in the wide land of his wanderings that spoke to him.
Red Wing was somewhere out there, and his eyes inadvertently made a search of the distances for the glow of a fire, as he did almost every night, but there was nothing to make him feel any closer to her. He wondered if she too saw the big moon, and he swore for the thousandth time he wouldn’t quit. He had lost everything dear to him but her, and no matter how long and how far he had to ride, he was going to find her.
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