Comanche Moon

by Larry McMurtry

  It was during the period when Kicking Wolf was sleeping outside that the strange news began to arrive, most of it brought by Dancing Rabbit, a young warrior who had wanderlust badly and just plain lust as well. Dancing Rabbit was constantly visiting the various bands of Comanches, hoping to find a woman who would marry him, but he was poor and also rather ugly. So far no woman had agreed to be his wife.

  It was Dancing Rabbit who dashed up to Kicking Wolf one morning while Kicking Wolf was sitting by a pile of white cattle bones, rubbing his leg to lessen the cramp. Dancing Rabbit was very upset with the news he had, which was that Blue Duck had followed Buffalo Hump to his death place and killed him with his own lance.

  "Ah!" Kicking Wolf said. He had hoped that Buffalo Hump had been able to make a peaceful death. Certainly he had not led a peaceful life, but to die at the hands of his own son was not a thing Buffalo Hump would have expected to happen.

  Kicking Wolf didn't immediately believe it, though. Dancing Rabbit wandered from camp to camp, collecting stories; then, often, he got them all mixed together before he could get back to his own camp and tell everyone the news.

  "Blue Duck probably just said that--he was always a braggart," Kicking Wolf said.

  "No, it's true--the Antelopes saw his body with the lance sticking through it," Dancing Rabbit insisted. "The lance went into his hump and then it went through his body into the ground." Several of the young men of the tribe had gathered, by this time, to hear Dancing Rabbit tell his tale about the death of the great chief Buffalo Hump, the only chief to lead a raid all the way to the Great Water. Only a few days before, the same young warriors had scorned Buffalo Hump.

  To them, while he lived he was just a surly old man with an ugly hump and a violent temper, an old man who was weak, who could not hunt, who had to live by snaring small game. The presence of the young men irritated Kicking Wolf. They had never seen Buffalo Hump in his days as a raider, and had been rude to him many times once he was old and couldn't strike at them; but, now that he was dead, they could not get enough of hearing stories about him. They did not deserve to know about Buffalo Hump, in his view--and, anyway, he himself did not believe half of what Dancing Rabbit was saying.

  "How do you know where the lance went in?" he asked, in a tone that was not friendly. "Were you there?" "No, but the Antelopes saw the body," Dancing Rabbit insisted. "The Texans saw it too. The Texans tried to pull the lance out but they couldn't remove it. Then Blue Duck shot two of their horses--t is why they are walking across the llano. They have little water. We can go and steal their horses if you want to." Kicking Wolf sat in silence for a long time after hearing this speech. Dancing Rabbit was claiming knowledge he didn't have; also, there were several issues that needed to be studied and assessed before he could make up his mind what to do.

  Dancing Rabbit was annoyed that old Kicking Wolf kept silent, even though he had brought him exciting news. The Texans were not far, only thirty miles. They had walked a long way and were tired and low on water. They could easily be killed; or, if Kicking Wolf was not interested in killing them, they could at least steal the Texans' horse and mule. That would be a simple thing, for a master horse thief such as Kicking Wolf.

  In fact, Dancing Rabbit was very anxious to go with Kicking Wolf and watch how he went about stealing horses. Dancing Rabbit, at the moment, possessed only two horses, and neither of them was a very good horse. The fact that he was poor and had no horses to offer was one thing that was making it difficult for him to find a wife. He wanted a wife badly, but knew that he would have to get some horses first, if he expected to purchase a wife who had much appeal. That is why he spent so much time with Kicking Wolf, the great horse thief. Dancing Rabbit hoped to get Kicking Wolf interested in stealing horses again; perhaps if they could manage to steal a good many horses Kicking Wolf would allow him to keep a few-- enough, at least, to allow him to trade for an acceptable wife. But now Kicking Wolf was sitting by some cattle bones in silence; he showed little interest in the story Dancing Rabbit had ridden all night to tell him.

  Kicking Wolf was thinking that most of what Dancing Rabbit told him was probably a lie. For one thing, he claimed that his information came from the Antelope--but the Antelope were an aloof people, so contemptuous of other Indians, even other Comanches, that they routinely made up big lies in order to mislead them.

  "If the Antelopes saw these Texans, why didn't they kill them?" Kicking Wolf asked. "You said there were only four Texans. The Antelopes are hard fighters. They could easily kill four Texans." One of the things Dancing Rabbit liked least about Kicking Wolf was that he was always skeptical.

  He was never willing just to accept the information that was given him. Now Kicking Wolf was embarrassing him in front of several young warriors by doubting the information he had brought. Now the young warriors, including some of his best friends, were beginning to look skeptical too. Dancing Rabbit was vexed that an old man would put him in such a position.

  "They didn't kill the Texans because they don't have very many bullets," he said--in fact he had no idea himself why the Antelope Comanche were letting the Texans get away.

  "Gun In The Water was one of the Texans," he added. It was information he had just remembered, and it did cause Kicking Wolf to raise his head and look a little more interested.

  "If Gun In The Water was there, Silver Hair McCrae is there too," Kicking Wolf said.

  At mention of the two rangers Kicking Wolf lapsed into memory, but it was not the two rangers he was remembering--r, he was thinking of the young Mexican woman who had been Blue Duck's mother. His memory would not bring back her name, but it did bring back her beauty. He had tried hard to get Buffalo Hump to let him have the girl.

  He had offered many horses, and fine horses too, but Buffalo Hump had ignored him, insulted him, kept the girl, and then let her run away and freeze in a blizzard, not long after she bore Blue Duck. If Buffalo Hump had only accepted his offer--it had been a handsome offer, too--the woman might be alive and he might not have to suffer the anger of his fat old wife, Broken Foot, every day and every night.

  He wouldn't let me have that pretty Mexican girl and now the son she bore him has killed him, Kicking Wolf thought, but he said nothing of what he was remembering to Dancing Rabbit and the other young warriors. Already, several of the young men had concluded that Dancing Rabbit was only telling more lies--they had begun to wander off, making jokes about coupling with women. They were young men, they did not want to waste all day hearing an old man tell stories of the past.

  "What is wrong with you?" Dancing Rabbit asked, unable to contain his annoyance with Kicking Wolf any longer. "Are you too old to steal horses from the Texans now?" "You are just a boy--g away and tell your lies to the women," Kicking Wolf said. "Right now I have to think about some things." He wanted Dancing Rabbit to calm down and stop pestering him, but, once he had given the matter some thought, he decided to go see if it really was Gun In The Water and McCrae who were crossing the llano. Many Texans came to the plains now, but those two hadn't, not in some years.

  For all Kicking Wolf knew, they might suppose he was dead. They might think they were rid of the great horse thief Kicking Wolf. It would amuse him to show them that he was still alive, and that he had lost none of his skill where horse thievery was concerned. Also, it might be that if he got far enough away from Broken Foot, the cramps in his leg might subside.

  After midday Kicking Wolf began to stir himself. He took several rawhide thongs he used when he was leading horses away. He had acquired a fine rifle in a trade the year before, an excellent Winchester, but, after some thought, he decided to leave the rifle. He only took his bow and a good supply of arrows.

  Dancing Rabbit, who had been watching Kicking Wolf closely, saw him making preparations to leave camp and hurried over, eager for the trip to begin.

  "Take your rifle--if you don't want to shoot it I will shoot it," Dancing Rabbit said.

  Kicking Wolf ignored him. What weapons he too
k was none of Dancing Rabbit's business. Horses could smell rifles--having a greasy gun along only made them difficult to approach; but that was only one of the reasons that had made Kicking Wolf decide to leave the gun.

  There were many bad Indians adrift on the plains in these days; comancheros, half-breeds, renegades, and exiles such as Blue Duck, men with no respect for anything. He was an older man--if he ran into some greedy renegades and they saw he had a fine rifle they might kill him for it. It was better to leave the gun at home, where he would be sure of having it the next time he went to hunt antelope.

  Of course, Dancing Rabbit came with him when he left the camp. He was so excited by the prospect of stealing horses with Kicking Wolf that he didn't stop talking for many miles.

  As Dancing Rabbit chattered on, Kicking Wolf rode west into the llano. It was not until the afternoon of the next day that he finally crossed the track of the Texans--they had been farther away than Dancing Rabbit supposed.

  By then the young man was so thirsty that he had almost stopped chattering. Kicking Wolf had not gone deep into the llano for several years--he too had forgotten how very dry it was. The Texans still mainly farmed the watered lands--it was not necessary to get thirsty in order to steal their horses.

  The good part of the venture they had set out on was that Kicking Wolf's leg did not cramp at all during the night. The next morning he moved his bowels easily, with no twinges from his leg.

  He mounted his horse with grace. It was so good not to have a tight leg that he felt like kicking or jumping or taking part in a dance. The fact that his leg had immediately stopped cramping once he left Broken Foot convinced him that he had been right all along. His wife was mad at him and had probably fed him bad herbs.

  In the dry country the trail of the four Texans was easy to spot. They were travelling slowly and there was something wrong with one of the men's boots. The boots had no heels. The other men left normal footprints. Dancing Rabbit knew nothing about tracking--he even failed to notice that one of the men had no heels on his boots.

  Kicking Wolf had not really believed that the Texans would be so far into the llano with only one horse. He had expected to steal several horses and was irritated to find that that part of Dancing Rabbit's story was true. But the tracks were plain: there was only one horse with the Texans.

  "They may have had to eat the other horse," Dancing Rabbit conjectured nervously. He saw that Kicking Wolf was irritated that there was only one animal for him to steal. Nonetheless they had come a long way and the old man decided to press on.

  They caught up with the Texans sooner than Kicking Wolf had expected to. They had only ridden a little way south when they spotted the four men, dots on the llano far ahead.

  Immediately Kicking Wolf made a long loop to the west--McCrae had sharp eyes, and so did Famous Shoes. He didn't want to alert the Texans to the fact that they were being followed. He intended to loop well in front of them and wait, in case he decided to steal their one horse. Walking men were sure to be tired--it would be an easy theft if the horse was one he wanted.

  During the rest of the day, as the sun fell, Kicking Wolf and Dancing Rabbit made a half circle around the Texans, taking care as they rode to make use of gullies or little ridges to hide themselves so that not even the sharpest eye could detect their presence. Then they came back in front of the Texans to await their passage. Once they had hidden their own horses well, Kicking Wolf told Dancing Rabbit to stay with them, an order that upset the young warrior greatly.

  "But I want to see what you do!" Dancing Rabbit protested. "I want to see how the great Kicking Wolf steals a horse." "You wait!" Kicking Wolf insisted. "I am not going to steal the horse while the sun is up. If I want the horse I will steal it tonight.

  You can come with me then." He paused and looked at the sullen young warrior, a young man full of complaint. When he himself had been young he would never have dared protest an order given by an older man. Dancing Rabbit was pouting like a girl when Kicking Wolf left him with their horses.

  Kicking Wolf was well ahead of the Texans.

  He hid behind a low stand of yucca and waited.

  Long before the Texans passed he saw to his disgust that it was not even a horse they had with them: it was only a brown mule. It was all a waste, his trip. The only use Comanches had for mules was to eat them. Some Comanches thought mule meat tasted better than horsemeat. He himself had mainly avoided stealing mules because they couldn't breed.

  Why steal a horse that couldn't make colts?

  He waited, though, crouched behind the yucca, as the Texans passed, about a half mile away.

  Famous Shoes had gone ahead, hoping to find water, probably. Gun In The Water was with the Texans, and so was McCrae. Besides them there was a black man and a skinny man, both younger.

  Gun In The Water limped a little--perh it was because he had no heels on his boots.

  As he watched the weary men walking toward the big orb of the setting sun, Kicking Wolf suddenly had a sadness fill him. His breast felt so heavy with it that he began to envy Buffalo Hump, who was dead. He knew already that he didn't want to steal the Texans' brown mule, and that was not because he had any liking for Texans or pitied them their long walk. He knew the Texans would kill him, if they saw him, and he in turn would try to kill them if they made themselves easy targets. They had always been hated enemies and were hated enemies still--Kicking Wolf was grateful that he was prosperous enough and free, so that he could still hate Texans as a Comanche should. He was glad that he did not have to pretend to be friends with them to collect a mere pittance to live on.

  Yet he felt sad, and, as the Texans stopped to camp, while dusk made the long plain indistinct--shadows here, last streaks of sunlight there--the sadness filled him until he felt he would burst. There, nearby, were Gun In The Water and Silver Hair McCrae, men he had fought most of his life and would gladly fight again if he could. He had stolen many, many horses from them, or from companies of rangers they rode with. Once he and Buffalo Hump had set a prairie fire that had nearly caught the two men and burned them and their company. There had been shots exchanged, arrows shot, lances thrown, and yet the two rangers were still alive; and so was he.

  Kicking Wolf remembered, as he watched the black man hobble the brown mule, that once, only a few miles from where they were, he had stolen the Buffalo Horse, right from under Big Horse Scull's very nose. He had stolen him and taken him to Mexico, a venture that had cost Three Birds his life and led to his own derangement, his time of seeing two where there was one.

  It had been a great thing, the stealing of the Buffalo Horse, a great horse whose fate had been to be eaten in Mexico by many small dark people. Some of the old men still sang about Big Horse Scull and the Buffalo Horse--he sang about it too, when there were great feasts and dancing, a thing that had not been common since the buffalo went to the north, where they would not have to smell the whites.

  Remembering his great feat made Kicking Wolf want to sing--the urge to sing rose in him and mixed in his breast with the sadness that came in him because he realized that the time of good fighting was over. There would be a little more killing, probably; Quanah and the Antelopes might make a little more war, but only a little more. The time of good fighting was ended; what was left for the Comanches was to smile at the white men and pretend they didn't hate them.

  Kicking Wolf did not want to smile at the white man. He wanted to die somewhere on the llano, alone, in a spirit place, as Buffalo Hump had tried to do. Not only that, he did not want to steal the puny brown mule, either. Why would a man who had once stolen the Buffalo Horse want to steal a skinny brown mule? It would be an insult to himself, to do such a thing.

  So he waited until the moon rose and turned to go back to the gully and the horses, only to discover that Dancing Rabbit, the foolish boy, had disobeyed and followed him.

  "What are you doing? I told you to watch the horses," Kicking Wolf said. "If those Texans were not so tired they would steal o
ur horses." "I only came because I wanted to watch you steal the horse," Dancing Rabbit said. "I just want to see how you do it." "It is not even a horse!" Kicking Wolf said. He grew so angry that he almost forgot to whisper--but then he remembered the Texans and led the foolish boy farther away, to reprimand him.

  "It is only a mule," he pointed out, once it was safe to talk. "It was near here that I stole the Buffalo Horse. I am not going to steal a mule.

  "You steal it, if you want it so badly," he told the boy.

  Dancing Rabbit knew he had not skill enough to steal the mule. Besides, he didn't want the mule--he merely wanted to watch as Kicking Wolf stole it.

  "Just show me how you approach it," he pleaded.

  "Just show me how, in case I see some Texans with a fine horse I could steal." "I stole the Buffalo Horse," Kicking Wolf said, several more times, but, in the end, he gave in and did what Dancing Rabbit wanted.