Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

by Comanche Moon

  "I came here to pray," he said. Then he could not seem to think of more ^ws. He got to his feet, moving like an old man, and mounted his gray horse.

  "This is a new place you have found to pray," Buffalo Hump pointed out. "Many people find good places to pray in the canyon." He was trying to be patient. After all, a man's prayers were serious. He himself had chosen a difficult place on a high rock when he had prayed for the success of the great raid. Red Hand had every right to pray on a rock pile if he wanted to. Buffalo Hump was merely curious as to why he had chosen this particular rock pile as his praying place.

  What Red Hand wanted to do was change the subject. What had driven him to the rock pile to pray was the fact that one of his wives had got her blood on him--they had been coupling when her impure time came. When he pulled away from his wife and saw that he was red with blood he was so upset that he jumped on his horse and left the village. Red Hand was no longer a youth; he had four wives and he coupled with them as frequently as possible, but never before had he coupled with one of his wives when she was impure.

  The wife it happened with was known as High Rabbit because she stepped so high in the dance--al her legs were thin like a jackrabbit's. High Rabbit was not an immodest woman; in fact she was the most circumspect of his wives. She insisted on a great deal of privacy before she would let Red Hand couple with her. High Rabbit was also horrified by what had happened. She ran quickly to her mother to find out what her fate would be. Sometimes women were driven out of the tribe or even killed for allowing men to come near them when they were impure.

  Red Hand didn't know what High Rabbit's mother might have told her, because he had left the village immediately and had not been back. As soon as he came to a stream he washed himself many times, though he knew the washings would do little good. The impurity would strike him inside, where he couldn't wash it away. His assumption was that he would die soon; he wanted to pray as much as possible before his end came, and the rock pile seemed as good a place as any. In his mind contact with impure blood meant death and he wanted to hurry to a praying place and start praying. Some rattlesnakes had been around the rock pile when he arrived, but they soon went away.

  Probably even the rattlesnakes knew of his impurity and hurried to their dens to dissociate themselves from it.

  To Red Hand's surprise, he didn't die; now Buffalo Hump, leader of the great raid, had come upon him and seemed to find it amusing that he had chosen to pray on a rock pile. Of course Buffalo Hump didn't know about the dire thing that had occurred in Red Hand's lodge.

  Red Hand would have liked a few ^ws with Worm about the matter of impure blood, but Worm had never liked him very much. Probably he would just tell him to go away and die if he knew about the blood.

  Under the circumstances Red Hand thought it best to talk about something beside his choice of places to pray. Buffalo Hump was not a great chief for nothing. He might find out that Red Hand had come to the rock pile because he was stained.

  "Kicking Wolf is back," Red Hand said.

  "He was very weak when he found us and he sees two deer where there is one." Buffalo Hump was not concerned with Kicking Wolf's vision problems.

  "Where is the Buffalo Horse?" he asked.

  "I don't know about that, but the worst thing is that Three Birds did not return," Red Hand said. "The Black Vaquero got him." "If he got Three Birds, how did Kicking Wolf get away?" Buffalo Hump asked.

  Then Red Hand realized that he did know what had happened to the Buffalo Horse--he returned in his mind to an earlier part of the story; he was so upset about his impurity that he could not remember events in a straightforward way. Now he suddenly remembered about the Buffalo Horse --an Apache had told Slipping Weasel about him. The Apache had heard the story from a man who was wandering.

  "Wait, I was in my prayer, I forgot this," Red Hand said. "They cooked the Buffalo Horse in a great pit, but they took away his head and cooked it somewhere else. It took a whole village to eat him. I think Ahumado ate his head. They also caught Big Horse Scull and hung him in a cage." "I was wanting to know about Kicking Wolf," Buffalo Hump said, without impatience. He could tell that Red Hand's mind was in a disordered state. He was talking rapidly, although there was no need to hurry their talk.

  "Ahumado did catch Kicking Wolf," Red Hand said. "He tied him to a horse and the horse almost dragged him to death. But Big Horse Scull cut him loose." "What did Ahumado do with Three Birds?" Worm asked.

  "There are some stories about Three Birds but I don't know if they are true," Red Hand said. "An Apache said that Three Birds flew off the Yellow Cliff. He did not want to go in the cage where they put Scull." "I don't think Three Birds could fly," Buffalo Hump said. "I will ask Kicking Wolf about it myself. He may know more than that Apache." "He may, but since the horse pulled him he sees two deer where there is one," Red Hand told him.

  On the ride home Buffalo Hump asked Worm about the things Red Hand had said, but Worm was not very informative. He was annoyed that Kicking Wolf had taken the Buffalo Horse to Mexico, to be eaten by a village.

  "We could have cooked it in a pit ourselves," Worm said. "We could have eaten it as quickly as that village." Later, in camp, Buffalo Hump mentioned Worm's complaint to Kicking Wolf. The latter was having his hair greased by one of his wives, at the time.

  "Worm thinks you should have let us eat the Buffalo Horse," Buffalo Hump said.

  "If Worm had stolen it he could have eaten it, but I stole it and I wanted to take it to Mexico," Kicking Wolf said. "Anyway, Apaches are liars. The Buffalo Horse may still be alive." Buffalo Hump saw that Kicking Wolf was in a quarrelsome mood. He had been about to tease Kicking Wolf a little--af all, the man had missed the great raid--but he decided to let it be, mainly because he was anxious to see Lark and his other wives. Fat Knee had ridden ahead to let them know he was coming, so they would probably have cooked him something good. He wanted to eat.

  Kicking Wolf he could tease anytime.

  "How about Three Birds?" he asked, before going on to his tent. "Do you think he is still alive too?" At that Kicking Wolf merely shook his head.

  He didn't think Three Birds was alive, and it was a sorrow to him.

  "I didn't want him to go to Mexico," he told Buffalo Hump. "I was going to take the horse myself. I wanted Three Birds to go home, but he came to Mexico anyway. He wanted to be brave." Though Buffalo Hump had always considered Three Birds a fool, there was no doubt that what he had done had been very brave.

  "He got his wish," Buffalo Hump said. "He was brave. When your eyes are better we will sing for him, some time."

  When the wild black cow came popping out of a thicket of mesquite and chaparral, she was on them and had gored Deets's horse badly in the flank before the rangers even knew what kind of beast they were dealing with. The horse squealed and fell over, throwing Deets almost under the cow, whose horn tips were red with the horse's blood. The cow lowered her head when Call and Gus shot her, firing almost at the same time. The bullets knocked the cow to her knees but didn't kill her. Even on her knees she tried to go for Deets--it took a bullet to the head to kill her.

  Deets was shaking, as much from surprise as from fright. His horse gushed blood from its torn flank.

  "My horse dying," Deets said, stunned.

  "Well, where'd she come from?" Pea Eye asked. All he could remember was that a black streak with short shiny horns came popping out of the brush--he had had no time to make precise observations.

  "She came out of that!" Augustus said, pointing to what seemed to be an impenetrable thorny brush. The mesquite and chaparral grew out above a solid floor of green prickly pear.

  "Maybe she had hydrophobie," Stove Jones volunteered. "I've lived with cows and such all my life, but I've never seen a cow charge a bunch of men like that." "Just be glad it wasn't one of them tough little black bulls," Lee Hitch said. "One of them little black bulls would have done for about half of us." "You can't kill a bull with no pistol bullet," he added. "Not even with
ten pistol bullets." A mile or two farther--Deets was now riding double with Jake Spoon, who had the stoutest horse--they came upon three of the small black bulls Lee Hitch had described. Everyone in the troop drew their rifles, expecting to have to defend themselves, but the bulls were content to paw the earth and snort.

  Then, just as they were about to stop for coffee and a bit of bacon, a second cow came shooting out of the brush behind them. This time the rangers were primed, but even so it took three rifle shots to bring the cow down.

  In midafn it happened a third time. A red cow came charging directly at them, breathing froth and bellowing. All the rangers shot this time and the cow went down.

  Call, though profoundly startled by the violent behaviour of the wild south Texas cows, held his counsel, meaning to talk the development over with Augustus privately, when they camped.

  Gus McCrae couldn't wait for a private parley. They were scarcely south of San Antonio and had just been attacked three times, with the loss of one horse. They had seen no ranches or ranchmen who might advise them on the bovine behaviour they were encountering. The rangers were jumpier now than they would have been if they had been crossing the comancher@ia--in the space of an afternoon they had come to fear cattle more than they feared Indians. And it was the cattle of the country, hundreds of them, that they were supposed to round up and deliver to Mexico.

  "This is pointless travelling," Gus said.

  "How are we going to deliver a thousand cattle to that old bandit if we have to shoot ever damn cow we see?" Call accepted the point. It was obvious they had been presented with a difficult mission.

  "There must be tamer cattle down here somewhere," he said. "There's ranches down this way--big ranches. They ship cattle to New Orleans regular, I hear. The boats come to Matagorda Bay. They don't shoot ever cow. There's got to be cowboys down here who know how to handle this stock." The rangers listened in silence, but his ^ws made little impression compared to their fresh memories of the mad, frothing cows.

  "Livestock ain't supposed to be this hostile," Stove Jones commented.

  "We're Indian fighters, Woodrow," Augustus pointed out. "Indian fighters and bandit chasers. We ain't vaqueros. If I tried to go into one of them thickets after a cow I'd be lucky not to get scratched to death. We'd just as well try to deliver a thousand deer. At least deer don't come charging at you.

  "That damn governor's betrayed us again," he added in disgust.

  Call couldn't really disagree. Governor Pease had given them a flowery letter to show to the ranchers in south Texas. The letter bound the state of Texas to compensate the ranchers for cattle sufficient to make a herd of one thousand head.

  There was no mention, however, of a price per head.

  When Call pointed this out to Governor Pease, the Governor had merely shrugged.

  "Our south Texans are patriotic men," he said. "They'll be glad to let you take a few head of stock if it will get our hero back.

  "Speak to Captain King," he added--two harried clerks were following him around at the time, hoping to get his attention. "Captain Richard King. He'll help you. I expect that goddamn old black bandit has stolen at least that many cattle from him already." "Where do we find Captain King?" Augustus asked. "I've never met the man." "Why, just ask, Captain McCrae--j ask," Governor Pease said. "Captain King is well known along the coast." The Governor's office was bustling that day-- besides the clerks and an army man or two, there were three benches packed with legislators, all of them evidently hoping for an audience with the Governor. As a lot they looked dusty and drunken.

  "Look at them ramshackly senators," Augustus said, as they left the office.

  "Maybe we ought to change jobs, Woodrow.

  We could make laws instead of enforcing them." "I can barely read," Call reminded him.

  "I'd be a poor hand at making laws." "Why, you wouldn't need to read," Gus said.

  "We could hire a clerk to do the scribbling. All it takes to make laws is good sense. I could probably make better laws than that whole bunch sitting in there half drunk." "Maybe," Call said. "Maybe not." Governor Pease handed them the letter and sent them away. As they left, several of the legislators were attempting to crowd in his door.

  Now, faced with the fact that they were barely out of sight of the Alamo and had already had to shoot three cows, Call remembered the Governor's advice.

  "I expect we better try and find Captain King," Call said. "Maybe he'll want to lend the state of Texas some vaqueros for a week or two." "I don't know, Woodrow," Gus said.

  "When I'm given a job that's downright impossible, my practice is to find a whorehouse and stay in it until my funds run out." "We don't need to find a whorehouse, we need to find a ranch house," Call said. "This is Captain Scull we're trying to rescue.

  Captain Scull led us for quite a few years and got us out of plenty of hard spots. Now he's in a hard spot and we've got to do the best we can to bring him back." "Well, the fool would walk off to Mexico," Augustus said. He reloaded his rifle and kept a wary eye on the thickets, as they passed them.

  The next day they did find a ranch house, but there was no one there except three womenfolk, some babies and small children, and two old Mexican men who had been left to do the chores.

  A lanky woman with a baby at her breast and two toddlers clinging to her skirts just looked unhappy when asked where the menfolk were.

  "They're off branding cattle," she said. "I expect they're south. They've been gone three weeks--I've been looking for them back but they ain't here." "South's a big place," Augustus remarked.

  The woman just smiled a tired smile. "It's a brushy place too--y'll find that out once you leave here," she said. "I got goat and I got frijoles--y won't get much except goat and frijoles, not in this part of the country." The men ate outside, at a long table shaded by a great mesquite tree whose limbs seemed to spread over an acre. The woman who greeted them was named Hannah Fogg--she had a pretty younger sister who helped with the serving. Though the younger sister was shy as a deer, Gus did get her to reveal that her name was Peggy. Gus stole several glances at her during the meal and lingered over his coffee so he could steal several more.

  As the men ate, Augustus began to notice children, peering out shy as mice, one under the porch, another behind a bush, two more who had managed to climb the big tree. Two, at least, were under the wagon.

  "Why, there's a passel of children here," he said to Peggy--it was an excuse to speak to her. "Are all these little tykes Mrs. Fogg's?" But Peggy ducked her head and wouldn't say.

  Hannah Fogg was not lying about the difficulties of the country south of her ranch house. For a day and a half more the rangers zigged and zagged in a southerly direction, proceeding from little clearing to little clearing. They were seldom long out of sight of cattle, but no more cows charged--^the cattle fled like deer the moment they saw the riders.

  In the afternoon of the second day they heard the sound of men working and came upon the rancher Denton Fogg and his branding crew, which numbered more than twenty vaqueros. The cattle were held in a large clearing. Ropers slid into the herd and soon came out, dragging the animal to be branded.

  Denton Fogg himself, drenched in sweat and lugubrious in appearance, applied the iron himself; he was not happy to be interrupted in his hot work by a party of Texas Rangers with a letter from the Governor asking for a donation of cattle to be driven into Mexico in return for Inish Scull.

  He did read the letter, though, holding it carefully so his sweat wouldn't drip on it.

  "This is a piece of worthless foolery, sir," he declared, handing the letter back to Call.

  "The Mexicans steal half our cattle anyway and Ed Pease does nothing about it. Now he wants us to give them a thousand more? No thank you, sir--not my cattle." Call didn't like the man's tone.

  "He's not asking you to give anything," he pointed out. "The state will pay you for your cattle." "If the state intended to pay for the cattle it should have provided you with cash money," the
rancher said. "Have you got cash money, sir?" Augustus didn't care for the man's tone either.

  "We're in a hurry to rescue our captain," he said. "We couldn't wait for a bunch of money to be gathered up. Don't you even trust the state of Texas?" "Nope, not the state and not Ed Pease, either," Denton Fogg replied. "I wouldn't give either one of them a cow. But I will sell cattle for cash on the barrelhead. Come back with the money and I can have a thousand head ready for delivery within the week." With that he walked off and picked a hot iron out of the branding fire.

  "The fool, I feel like shooting him," Augustus said.

  "We can't shoot a man just because he doesn't want to give away his cattle," Call said-- he was not without skepticism about the state's willingness to pay for the cattle.

  "Well, he's out here branding ever cow he can catch," Augustus pointed out, "Who said he could take these cattle?" "I guess that's just how you build up a ranch," Call said. "The cattle belong to the man who gets to them first." "Hell, we could be ranchers ourselves then," Gus said. "We could hire a few ropers and buy some branding irons and get to work. Pretty soon we'd be big livestock men too." "Where'd we put the cattle once we branded them?" Call asked. "We don't own any land.