Comanche Moon

by Larry McMurtry

"Go on, leave," Slow Tree said. "If your father has any sense he will listen to the elders and make you leave his camp too. You are rude like the mexicanos--y don't belong with the Comanche." "I am a Comanche!" Blue Duck insisted, in a loud voice. "I went on the great raid! I killed many whites and raped their women. You should give me food at least." Slow Tree, not amused, stood his ground.

  "You will get no food in my camp," he said.

  "Then I will take my prisoner!" Blue Duck said, riding toward Famous Shoes, who stood just where he had been standing when Slow Tree released him.

  "You have no prisoner," Slow Tree said.

  "Your father granted this man protection. I heard him say so myself, with my two ears. You were there.

  You heard the same ^ws I heard, and they were your father's ^ws. Your father said not to interfere with this man, and you should have obeyed." "You are afraid of my father," Blue Duck said. "You are old." Slow Tree didn't answer, but several of his warriors scowled. They did not like hearing their chief insulted.

  Slow Tree just stood, looking.

  "You have no prisoner," he repeated. "You had better be gone." Blue Duck saw that the situation was against him.

  His own friends had walked away. He could not reclaim his prisoner without fighting the whole camp. Fat Knee had been right to begin with. They should have tortured the Kickapoo themselves. He himself had insisted that they take him to Slow Tree, never supposing that Slow Tree would consider that he was bound by Buffalo Hump's instructions regarding the Kickapoo tracker. He thought Slow Tree might be so happy to get the Kickapoo to torture that he would reward him with a fine horse, or, at least, a woman. Now he had lost his prisoner and had been insulted in front of the whole camp. He was angry at his father, at Slow Tree, and at Famous Shoes, all three. He had expected to gain much respect, from bringing Slow Tree such a desirable prisoner; but Slow Tree was more interested in remaining at peace with Buffalo Hump. Instead of gaining respect, and perhaps a horse and a woman, he had been humiliated by an old fat chief.

  Without another ^w he turned his horse and rode out of Slow Tree's camp. He didn't look back, or wait for his companions to join him. He didn't even know if they would join him. Probably they, too, were only interested in staying in good with his father, Buffalo Hump.

  When Blue Duck rode away, only Fat Knee chose to follow him. The other boys made themselves at home in Slow Tree's camp.

  Famous Shoes watched the two young Comanches ride away--he did his best to maintain a calm demeanor. He figured the only reason he was alive was because Slow Tree, who still had sleet in his eyes, did not want trouble with Buffalo Hump, not when Buffalo Hump had just led the great raid that all the warriors were talking about--and all the travellers too. Famous Shoes was still a Kickapoo, in the camp of Comanches--and some of the young warriors were undoubtedly more reckless than Slow Tree. They didn't have a chief's responsibilities, and most of them probably didn't care what Buffalo Hump thought. They were free Comanches and would feel that they had every right to kill a Kickapoo if they could catch one.

  "I think I will go now," Famous Shoes said.

  "I want to keep looking for that hole where the People came out." Slow Tree no longer looked at him so politely. Though he felt obliged to respect Buffalo Hump's wishes in this matter, he did not look happy about it. The braves who stood behind him didn't look friendly, either.

  "That hole is to the north, where the great bears live," Slow Tree said. "If you are not careful one of those bears might eat you." Famous Shoes knew that Slow Tree himself was the bear most likely to eat him--or at least to do something bad to him. It was not a place to linger, not with the old chief so moody. He got his knife and his pouch back from the Comanche boy who had taken them, and trotted out of the camp.

  Call found Gus McCrae asleep by the river, under a bluff that looked familiar. Long before, when the two of them were young rangers, Augustus had stumbled off that very bluff one night and twisted his ankle badly when he hit. Then, because of Clara Forsythe, Gus had been too agitated to watch where he was going; now, an hour after sunup, he was snoring away and probably hung over because he pined for the same woman. In a boat, turning slowly in the middle of the river, an old man was fishing. An old man had been fishing the night Gus hurt his ankle--for all Call knew, it might even be the same old man, in the same boat. Years had worn off the calendar, but what had changed? The river still flowed, the old man still fished, and Augustus McCrae still pined for Clara.

  "Get up, the Governor wants to see us," Call said, when he got back to where his friend was sleeping. Gus had stopped snoring; he was nestled comfortably against the riverbank with his hat over his eyes.

  "It's too early to be worrying with a governor," Gus said, without removing his hat.

  "It ain't early, the sun's up," Call said. "Everybody in town is up, except you.

  The barber is waiting to give you a good shave." Gus sat up and reached for an empty whiskey bottle by his side. He heaved the bottle out into the river and drew his pistol.

  "Here, don't shoot," Call said. "There's an old man fishing, right in front of you." "Yell at him to move, then, Woodrow," Augustus said. "I'm in the mood for target practice." He immediately fired three shots at the bottle, to no effect. The bottle floated on, and the old fisherman continued to fish, unperturbed.

  "That fisherman must be deaf," Call said.

  "He didn't realize he was nearly shot." Gus stood up, shot twice more, and then heaved his pistol at the bottle, scoring a solid hit. The bottle broke and sank, and the pistol sank with it.

  "Now, that was foolishness," Call said.

  Gus waded into the river and soon fished out his gun.

  "Which barber did you hire to shave me?" he inquired.

  "The small one, he's cheaper," Call said, as they walked back toward town.

  "I don't like that short barber, he farts," Gus said. "The tall one's slow but he don't fart as often." They were almost to the barbershop when a shriek rent the calm of the morning. The shriek came from the direction of the Colemans' house--one shriek followed by another and another.

  "That's Pearl," Gus said. "Nobody else in town can bellow that loud." The shrieks caused a panic in the streets.

  Everyone assumed that the Comanches had come back.

  Men in wagons hastily grabbed their weapons.

  "It might not be Indians--it might just be a cougar or a bear that's strayed into town," Gus said, as he and Call, keeping to what cover there was, ran toward the Colemans' house.

  "Whatever it is you best load your gun," Call said. "You shot at that bottle, remember?" Gus immediately loaded his pistol, which still dripped.

  Call happened to glance around, toward the house where Maggie boarded. Maggie Tilton stood on her landing in plain view, looking at whatever caused Pearl Coleman to shriek. Maggie had her hands clasped to her mouth and stood as if stunned.

  "It ain't Indians, Gus," Call said.

  "There's Maggie. She ain't such a fool as to be standing in plain sight if there's Indians around." Yet the shrieks continued to rake the skies, one after another.

  "Could she be snakebit?" Gus asked. "I recall she was always worried about snakes." "If she's snakebit, where's Bill?" Call said. "I know he's a sound sleeper, but he couldn't sleep through this." Two more women were in sight, two laundresses who had been making their way back from the well with loads of laundry. Like Maggie they were looking at something. Like her, they had clasped their hands over their mouths in horror. They had dropped their laundry baskets so abruptly that the baskets tipped over, spilling clean laundry into the dirt.

  "It might just be a big bear," Call said.

  On occasion bears still wandered into the outskirts of town.

  The shrieks were coming from behind the Coleman house.

  There was a big live oak tree a little ways back from the house--in happier days Gus and Long Bill had spent many careless hours in its shade, gossiping about women and cards, cards and women.

  As
the two men approached the corner of the Coleman house, pistols drawn, they slowed, out of caution. Pearl Coleman shrieked as loudly as ever. Gus suddenly stopped alt, filled with dread, such a dread as he had not felt in years. He didn't want to look around the corner of the Coleman house.

  Woodrow Call didn't want to look, either, but of course they had to. In the streets behind them, men were crouched behind wagons, their rifles ready.

  Whatever it was had to be faced.

  "Somebody's dead or she wouldn't be shrieking like that," Gus said. "I fear something's happened to Bill. I fear it, Woodrow." Both of them remembered Long Bill's doleful face, as it had been for the last few weeks; no longer was he the stoical man who had once walked the Jomada del Muerto and eaten gourd soup.

  Call stepped around the corner, his pistol cocked, not knowing what he expected, but he did not expect what he saw, which was Long Bill Coleman, dead at the end of a hang rope, dangling from a stout limb of the live oak tree, a kicked-over milking stool not far from his feet.

  Pearl Coleman stood a few yards away, shrieking, unable to move.

  The pistol in Call's hand became heavy as an anvil, suddenly. With difficulty he managed to uncock it and poke it back in its holster.

  Gus stepped around the corner too.

  "Oh my God ..." he said. "Oh, Billy ..." "After all we went through," Call said. The shock was too much. He could not finish his thought.

  The townspeople, seeing that there was no battle, rose up behind, wagons and barrels. They edged out of stores, women and men.

  The barbers came out in their aprons; their customers, some half shaven, followed them. The butcher came, cleaver in hand, carrying half a lamb. The two laundresses, their work wasted, had not moved--the clean clothes were still strewn in the dirt.

  Above them, Maggie Tilton, clearly pregnant and too shocked to trust herself to walk down her own steps, stood sobbing.

  Augustus holstered his gun and came a few steps closer to the swaying body. Long Bill's toes were only an inch off the ground; his face was purple-black.

  "Billy could have done this easier if he'd just taken a gun," he said, in a weak voice.

  "Remember how Bigfoot Wallace showed us where to put the gun barrel, back there years ago?" "A gun's noisy," Call said. "I expect he done it this way so as not to wake up Pearl." "Well, she's awake now," Gus said.

  The silent crowd stood watching as the two of them went to the tree and cut their old friend down.

  Together Call and Augustus cut Long Bill down, pulled the noose from his neck, and then, feeling weak, left him to the womenfolk. One of the laundresses covered him with a sheet that had spilled out when her basket overturned. Maggie came down the steps and went to Pearl, but Pearl was beyond comforting. She sobbed deep guttural sobs, as hoarse as a cow's bellow. Maggie got her to sit down on an overturned milk bucket. The two laundresses helped Maggie as best they could.

  "I don't want him going to heaven with his face so black," Pearl said suddenly. "They'll take him for a nigger." Maggie didn't answer. The undertaker had been killed in the raid--funerals since then had been hasty and plain.

  Call and Gus caught their horses and rode on to the Governor's. Though the distance was not great, both felt too weak to walk that far.

  "What are we going to say to the Governor, now that this has happened?" Augustus asked.

  "He's the Governor, I guess he can do the talking." Call said, as they rode up the street.

  When informed of the tragedy, Governor Pease shook his head and stared out the window for several minutes. A military man was with him when the two captains came in, a Major Nettleson of the U.S. Cavalry.

  "That's three suicides since the raid," Governor Pease said. "Raids on that scale have a very poor effect on the nerves of the populace. Happens even in the army, don't it, Major?" "Why, yes, we sometimes have a suicide or two, after a violent scrap," the Major said.

  He looked at the rangers impatiently, either because they were late or because they were interrupting his own interview with the Governor.

  "Bill Coleman had been with us through it all, Governor," Call said. "We never expected to lose him that way." Governor Pease turned from the window and sighed. Call noticed that the Governor's old brown coat was stained; since the raid he had often been seen in an untidy state. He had grown careless with his tobacco juice, too.

  Judging from the carpet, he missed his spittoon about as often as he hit it.

  "It's one more murder we can charge to Buffalo Hump," the Governor said. "A people can only tolerate so much scalping and raping. They get nervous and start losing sleep. The lack of sound sleep soon breaks them down. The next thing you know they start killing themselves rather than worry about when the Comanches will show up again." Just then Inez Scull came striding into the room. Major Nettleson, who had been sitting, hefted himself up--he was a beefy man.

  Madame Scull merely glanced at him, but her glance caused the Major to flush. Augustus, who was merely waiting dully for the interview to be over, noted the flush.

  "Why, there you are, Johnny Nettleson," Inez said. "Why'd you leave so early? I rather prefer for my house guests to stay around for breakfast, though I suppose that's asking too much of a military man." "It's my fault, Inez," the Governor said quickly. "I wanted a ^w with the Major--since he's leaving, I thought we'd best meet early." "No, Johnny ain't leaving, not today," Madame Scull said. "I've planned a picnic and I won't allow anything to spoil it.

  It's rare that I get a major to picnic with." Then she looked at Governor Pease defiantly. The Governor, surprised, stared back at her, while Major Nettleson, far too embarrassed to speak, stared solemnly at his own two feet.

  Augustus suspected that it was stout Major Nettleson that Madame Scull was trotting with now; the picnic she was anxious not to have spoiled might not be of the conventional kind. But this suspicion only registered with him dully. His mind was on the night before, most of which, as usual, he had spent drinking with Long Bill Coleman. It was a close night, and the saloon an immoderately smelly place. During the raid a bartender had been stabbed and scalped in a rear corner of the barroom; the bartender had been murdered, and so had the janitor, which meant that the bloody corner had been only perfunctorily cleaned. On close nights the smells made pleasant drinking difficult, so difficult that Gus had left a little early, feeling that he needed a breath of river air.

  "Come along, Billy, it's late," he said to Long Bill.

  "Nope, I prefer to drink indoors, Gus," Long Bill replied. "I'm less tempted to seek whores when I drink inside." Augustus took the comment for a joke and went on out into the clean air, to nestle comfortably by the riverbank all night. But now the remark about whores, the last ^ws he would ever hear from Long Bill Coleman, came back to mind. Had Bill, so deeply attached to Pearl, really been seeking whores; or was it, as he had supposed, a joke?

  He didn't know, but he did know that he hated being in the Governor's office, listening to Inez Scull banter with her new conquest, Major Nettleson. Long Bill's death was as much a shock as Clara's marriage. It left him indifferent to everything. Why was he there? What did he care about rangering now? He'd never stroll the streets of Austin again, either with the woman or the friend; at the thought, such a hopeless sadness took him that he turned and walked out the door, passing directly in front of the Governor, the Major, and Madame Scull as he went.

  "I'll say, now where's McCrae going?" the Governor said in surprise. "The two of you have just got here. I haven't even had a moment to bring up the business at hand." "I expect he's sad about our pard--he'd ridden with the man for many years," Call said.

  "Well, but he was your friend too, and you ain't walked out," Governor Pease said.

  "No," Call said, though he wished the Governor would get down to business. He thought he knew how Gus felt, when he walked out.

  The Governor seemed momentarily thrown off by Gus's departure--he bent right over the spittoon but still managed to miss it with a stream of tobacco ju
ice. Madame Scull had relaxed, but Major Nettleson hadn't.

  "Was there something in particular, Governor?" Call asked finally. "Long Bill will be needing a funeral and a burial soon. I'd like to arrange it nice, since he was our friend." "Of course, excuse me," Governor Pease said, coming back to himself. "Arrange it nice and arrange it soon. There's work waiting, for you and McCrae and whatever troop you can round up." "What's the work?" Call asked.

  "Ahumado has Captain Scull," the Governor said. "He's offered to exchange him for a thousand cattle, delivered in Mexico.

  I've consulted the legislature and they think we better comply, though we know it's a gamble." "The U.S. Army cannot be involved--not involved!" Major Nettleson said, suddenly and loudly. "I've made that plain to Governor Pease and I'll make it plain to you. I'm trying to train three regiments of cavalry to move against the Comanche and finish them. I've no men to spare for Mexico and even if I did have men, I wouldn't send them below the border--now that there is a border, more or less. Not a man of mine will set foot across the Rio Grande--not a man. I must firmly decline to be involved, though of course I'd be happy to see Captain Scull again if he's alive." Both the Governor and Call were nonplussed by this stream of talk. Madame Scull, however, was merely amused.