by Mike Blakely
“Now, Teal, when I want to know the spirit of a horse, and I want that horse to know my spirit, I shall breathe in the air from his body, and he shall breathe mine.”
She leaned away from Horseback and shifted to face him. “I believe you know well the talk of horses, except for the things the filly was saying to the stallion.”
“Do you know better?”
“Only because I am more like her.”
“Then what does she say now to the stallion?”
Teal moved close to Horseback, her eyes not daring to look into his. She put her hand on his shoulder and sensed that he had not expected her to come so close. She saw no harm in causing him this little surprise. She eased closer, her arm resting on his shoulder, and her thigh against his thigh. The long slender fringes of her deerskin sleeve brushed the bare skin of his chest, making his muscles like rocks. Her mouth came nearer to his, until she could feel the moist warmth of his breath.
“The young filly says, ‘Stallion, you shall have me when it is time. Until then, let your heart beat with mine, and know that the love I keep for you is like the love of the river for the rain, and the love of the cloud for the wind.’”
Horseback breathed these words into his lungs as Teal spoke them and felt the fires inside flare as he consumed her spirit. He touched his fingertips to her ribs and found she shied from his touch for a moment. Then he flattened his palm against her and felt his fingers bend around the soft firmness of her back. The sweet scent of her breath drew his lips closer to hers, and they were about to touch when a familiar voice called from far away.
“Daughter! Elder daughter!”
Teal gasped and pulled away from Horseback, but happened to catch his hand and she peeked over the boulder that shielded them from the village. She knew her mother was angry when she called her elder daughter, for Teal had no brothers or sisters.
“I must go,” she said. “My mother waits for water.” Reluctantly, she let her hand slip from the young warrior’s grasp and went quiet as a cat back toward the lodges.
Horseback felt the way he had felt when the hail storm struck him during his vision quest. He released a sigh he had held since Teal left, then he lay his face down on the rocks and stared across the canyon at nothing.
22
He saw his first white man during the Moon of Scarlet Plums, as he and his father gathered lodge poles in the mountains of the Northern Raiders.
The country where they cut the lodge poles was a dangerous place, but the pines were straight and tall and slender. He worked as quietly as he could with his father, taking his turns at watch without ever letting sleep cloud his eyes. He was on watch when he first saw the white man riding a horse. It was so far away that Horseback could barely make out the color of the horse, let alone the rider, yet he could sense something strange in the manner of this man. He only glimpsed the strange rider angling down a mountain face on a trail that showed itself but briefly in a gap between two nearer slopes. The moment the rider disappeared behind the near mountain, Horseback jumped astride his mount and rode to his father.
“My son, what have you seen?” Shaggy Hump asked. The lodge poles behind him numbered as many as the two ponies could drag back to the Burnt Meat People. The edge of the stone axe in his hand had been flaked and flaked again until the flint head was light and chipped away back to the rawhide straps that bound it tightly to the pine handle. “This is the last pole. I am almost finished chopping it.”
“I saw one rider, too far away to hear your axe, for not even I could hear it where I watched, and the rider was far beyond me.”
Shaggy Hump’s eyes were combing the slopes around him. “I will chop lightly and quickly and get this tree down. When the Northern Raiders find this place in times to come, I do not wish them to think they frightened us away before we could finish stealing their trees.”
Quickly, he made the last calculated strokes with the axe and let the pine sapling fall. He trimmed the branches away, each with no more than three blows, then turned to his son. “Now, show me the place where the rider passed.”
“This way, Father.”
Horseback led Shaggy Hump to the lookout place and pointed to the trail, far away. “I felt something strange about that rider.”
“Strange?” Shaggy Hump said.
“He was like a bird that passes so quickly that you cannot see what kind of bird it is.”
Shaggy Hump thought about this, and said, “The spirits are trying to show you something, my son. I am going closer to see this strange rider. Are you coming?”
“Yes.”
They rode in such places that the Raiders would not be able to follow their trail back to the cut lodge poles should they be discovered. They rode watchfully and quietly, arriving finally at the trail where Horseback had seen the strange rider pass. They looked at the hoofprints on the trail, then sank back into the cover of pines and scrub oak flanking the trail, listening to the sounds of the mountains around them, searching for any sight or sound or smell that might warn or inform them, for they were in a strange and dangerous country.
But, it was a good country, cool and green, with plenty of waters singing, with tracks and droppings of much game everywhere, with lodge poles growing like quills on the back of a porcupine. Horseback thought of the day when the True Humans would claim such a rich country.
He knew it was true that there were other peoples poorer than the True Humans. He had heard of a nation to the west called Diggers, whose people spoke the Noomah language and were so poor that they would surround grasshoppers as if they were antelope, then smash the grasshoppers into a paste and eat them. So, his country was not so poor, though the antelope and buffalo ranged far and were hard to kill. When he claimed Teal and began to make sons and daughters, Horseback wanted his children to play in a country with plenty of meat and skins from four-leggeds to make big lodges and warm clothes. He would pray for the spirits to give him the power to make this happen.
“Father,” he hissed in a rough whisper. “I must not ride behind you. You have taken to a deer trail where I am forbidden to pass.”
Shaggy Hump leaned to one side to look at the tracks on the trail below him. He grunted. “It is good that you live in a country where few deer pass, my son.”
At length, they came to an open grassland surrounded by low wooded crests and saw a string of lodges lining a stream. Seven enemy horses grazed in the open park, including one sandy-colored mare dragging a rope to make her easier to catch.
“What do you see?” Shaggy Hump asked his son, as they looked on, far back in the shadows.
Horseback studied the camp. “The horses wear no war paint. No elk or deer hides hang fresh. They do not come to make war, or to hunt.”
“What, then? Listen to the spirits.”
Horseback listened for some time. “The strange rider I saw on the trail has led us to this place. He comes from another nation. I believe these Northern Raiders have come here to trade with the strange rider.”
“Now you are listening well, my son, for that rider’s horse made deep tracks. He carries many things to trade. He comes from a strange land, yet rides the trail unafraid. Yes, he comes to trade. Now, let us go closer and see this strange rider and count our enemies. Do you remember the story I have told you about the time I snuck into the camp of the Northern Raiders, took a scalp, and left my arrow between two other warriors?”
“Yes, Father.”
“We must creep ahead quietly, as I crept that night. If we fail, we will surely die fighting on this day.”
They left their horses far enough away that a nicker would not be heard. They went ahead on foot, slipping through tall timber that grew dense along the stream. Rushing water covered any noise their footsteps might have made. They came downwind so no dogs or horses would scent them, and Horseback smelled a faint wisp of tobacco smoke, ensuring him that the spirits had spoken wisely of the trade.
Voices came from the camp, and at last the two Noomah stalkers
moved far enough up the stream to reveal a circle of Northern Raider warriors flanked by lodges. As soon as he saw them, Horseback crouched low, like a grouse hiding from a hawk overhead. His eyes widened. One of the men across the circle had a pale face half covered with long dark hair that was shaggy like that of a buffalo, instead of straight like the hair of a human. Horseback was afraid, for this was the rider he had seen, and the rider was grotesque, as if part animal.
The white man’s shirt was made of fine deerskin, quilled with many colors and adorned with long fringes. The strange rider’s chest and arms filled this shirt like the muscle of a buffalo filled its own hide. Across his lap, the strange rider let a Fire Stick rest as he took the pipe from the Northern Raider next to him. Though his clothes were like those of the nations Horseback had seen, the white man’s appearance was bizarre. The pale features of his face seemed swollen, and hair grew right out of his jaw and chin like some terrible disease. The pipe stem disappeared into his mouth, which looked like the den of an old bank beaver with roots hanging down in front of it.
“Father,” Horseback whispered. “Is that a man?”
“That is a white man, my son. He makes our enemies his allies.”
Upon his head, the white man wore a headdress of red fox hide, with the face of the fox looking forward over his own face. After passing the pipe, the white man removed the red fox headdress to scratch his head. Horseback was astonished to see that the white man had no hair upon his pate. Not even a topknot. He had heard stories of Wolf People shaving part of the hair from their heads, but never all of it.
Horseback and Shaggy Hump watched as this strange, hairy-faced white man rose and began to place rawhide parfleche bags in the circle before him. He untied the thongs binding these bundles and folded back the flaps. The first revealed iron arrow points that he held up to show the Northern Raiders. Next he displayed axe heads, then knives. When he held these things high, Horseback noticed that he grew dark hair out of the backs of his hands.
For the women, the white man had brought tiny colored pebbles with holes growing through them so that they could be strung like drilled elk teeth. He held up a string of these. He opened the next bundle and presented a handle affixed to a thing that was like a small dark pool, and the women had a wonderful time looking at their own reflections in the surface of the thing. He had many of these things to trade.
After he had presented all his wares, the warriors began offering skins of beaver, buffalo, and deer. The bargaining promised to last into the night.
“Father, what should we do?” Horseback’s whisper blended with the rush of white water.
“How do the spirits speak to your heart?”
He looked beyond the circle of traders and the angled lines of the lodges and saw the herd grazing in the open park. “The spirits tell me we should steal their horses.”
“I hear the same voices, my son.”
Slowly, they crept backward, keeping their eyes just high enough in the bushes to watch the enemy. Having pulled beyond sight of the Northern Raiders, they trotted to the place where they had left their horses and mounted. Horseback thought of Sound-the-Sun-Makes and prayed for courage and strength. Through his loin skins, he grabbed the medicine bundle.
“You are the better rider,” Shaggy Hump said. “You will circle the herd and start it toward our camp where we cut the lodge poles. I will stand guard between you and the enemy village. They are foolish to leave all their horses together. They will not be able to follow us if we steal them all. They should have left their best ones staked in their village.”
Horseback thumped the cord of twisted buffalo sinew he had strung tight to the ends of his bow.
“Are you ready?”
Horseback leaned over the neck of his mount, letting the horse feel his excitement. He had spent many days riding quietly in this strange land, and now he was going to get to run hard and vent his war cry. His mount sensed this and began to shift about on his feet.
“We are ready,” Horseback said.
Shaggy Hump smiled. “Your medicine is good, my son. Your pony hears you when you speak.” He kicked his mount in the ribs and turned toward the enemy camp.
When they reached the open park, they held their mounts to a trot. Horseback felt strange moving into the open like this, after so many days of sneaking around in the timber. Now they rode as if they were in their own country. He felt wind pulling at his hair, and he could tell his mount liked the same feeling through his mane. The pony saw the strange horses in the enemy herd and wanted to run and join them, but Horseback held him to a trot.
He glanced at his father beside him, sitting his stallion proudly, hair streaming, eyes blazing. They were almost within range of a long arrow shot when one of the animals of the enemy herd noticed them, singing out high in the language of horses.
Together, the two invaders lunged forward to a gallop, shoving their knees under the coils of rope looped about the barrels of their mounts. Four-leggeds began to stir in the park, and two-leggeds in the village. Knowing now that he had been discovered, Horseback sang a battle cry that matched the timbre of the horse-song and felt his mount stretch longer in his charge. It was good to feel this animal take joy and courage from his magical cry. Shaggy Hump veered away to guard against the coming attack, and Horseback thought only of making a sacred circle around the horses of the Northern Raiders, soon to be his own.
Mother Earth was his drum, and the hooves of his horse were the fingers he used to play upon her surface. His cry charmed the horses and drew them together, making them easier to circle.
“The Fire Stick! My son! The Fire Stick!” Shaggy Hump warned.
Completing the circle around the captured herd, Horseback looked toward the village. He saw Shaggy Hump standing on the ground, holding his reins. He watched his father’s arrow fly long toward the enemy lodges. The terrible enemy warriors had gathered there around the strange white man with the hairy face. And now Horseback saw the Fire Stick against the shoulder of the white man.
Shaggy Hump’s arrow flew over the white man’s head and stuck in a lodge pole behind the bunch of warriors. Shaggy Hump pulled his horse in front of him as a shield, and the Fire Stick came alive, puffing smoke like a bull elk whistling out his hot breath on a cold morning.
As the cloud of black smoke came, Shaggy Hump’s horse screamed and fell, thrashing the air with hooves as blood spouted from his shoulder. The enemy warriors yelled and began to charge from their village. Their women came right behind them, urging them on with trilling voices.
Horseback leaned forward and raced to his father. He had practiced shooting his bow from the back of a running horse, but now everything was happening so fast that he drew the string without choosing a single enemy warrior as his target. He let the arrow fly hastily, and it landed short of the oncoming attack.
His father’s next arrow flew truer, but found the shield of a Northern Raider, instead of vitals. He took the next moment to remove the war bridle from his dying stallion, for his son was coming fast.
An arrow thumped the carcass of the stallion, and others passed Shaggy Hump like bees. He turned away from the attack to watch his son ride to his rescue. He had seen the boys practice pulling one another onto their horses, and knew how it was done, though he had not tried it himself.
Horseback reached for his father and ignored the arrows that brushed by him. He clasped his fist tight above his father’s elbow and used his weight to pull Shaggy Hump on behind him. Having sprung at the right moment, Shaggy Hump landed astride the rump of the horse, quickly scooting up behind his son. He cawed like a crow and smiled over his shoulder at his enemies, though their arrows seemed to swarm. Beyond them, he could see the white man preparing the Fire Stick for more magic.
Soon they were beyond arrow shot, riding toward the horses, which had bunched ever closer for protection, too curious to run from the two strange riders. Horseback rode directly into this herd, and leapt upon the sandy colored mare that dragge
d the rope. Quickly, he grabbed the rope around her neck and slid off. Standing on the ground, he let the mare pull against the rope as he motioned to his father for the war bridle.
Shaggy Hump tossed the bridle he had taken from his dead stallion, and slid up behind the withers of the pony, taking the reins Horseback had dropped. As his son charmed the horse at the end of the rope, Shaggy Hump rode around the captured herd to keep them from scattering. The Northern Raiders were coming swiftly on foot, picking up their arrows as they ran.
Grunting at the captured mare to calm her, Horseback worked his way up the rope until he could touch her head. He stroked her a few times, gently, though she tried to pull away. He said, “Noomah. Noo-oo-oo-mah-ah…” He used a firm and steady hand, and the mare ceased to fight. Quickly, he hitched the horsehide bridle around the lower jaw of the captured mare and mounted. She was a beautiful animal the color of fine river sand, with a dark stripe down her back and another across her shoulders. Her ears stood straight, like two young pines reaching for the same sun, and her eyes were large and round and black.
Coiling the rope to keep her from stepping on it as they made their escape, Horseback heard a strange voice shouting from the enemy village. Glancing, he saw the hairy-faced white man waving his arms at the Northern Raiders, warning them aside, for the enemy warriors had moved in between the horse takers and the Fire Stick.
“Ride low, my son!” Shaggy Hump said, starting the stolen herd toward their own camp of cut lodge poles. “Keep our enemies between us and the white man!”
Horseback tied the coiled rope into the sandy mare’s mane and swatted her rump with his bow to make her run. Looking over his shoulder, he tried to keep the enemy warriors between himself and the Fire Stick, yet he had to weave to herd the horses. He saw his father lying along the neck of the horse he rode, and thought this was a good idea, making a smaller target of himself for the Fire Stick, which he knew would soon lick with its evil tongue of black smoke.
