Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 04 (3 page)

The lance stabbed through and into the ground beneath her, and she closed her hands around it gingerly, almost tenderly. The warrior grunted as he placed a foot on her stomach next to the lance and started to tug it free. The last thing she saw was his gritted teeth, shiny in the moonlight, as he started to pull.

T
HE RAID HAD
gone well. Peta Nocona rode at the head of the returning raiding party, his face impassive. The Comanche had taken nearly three hundred Mexican horses, and they hadn’t had to go that far over the border to get them. In the past, they had gone as far south as Durango, through rough country where food was scarce and water scarcer still. It had tested their determination and their endurance, and the pickings had been slim. Even the few horses they had managed to capture then had found the return trip too strenuous and almost half of them had been lost. But that had been a hard summer, when the water holes had shrunk, leaving thick layers of salt crystal in rings to mark the slow dwindling. More often than not, what water had been left was unfit to drink.

But that was the past. Now, three hundred head of prime Mexican stock to the good, there was every reason for Nocona to smile, but it
seemed too taxing for him. His face sat like a stone carving on his shoulders, and even Black Snake was reluctant to ask him what was wrong. But that was what friends were for, and the warrior eased his pony close to Nocona’s mount. He thought it best to start with idle chatter.

“We have done well for ourselves, old friend,” he said.

Nocona grunted. “So it seems.”

“You get first pick. Is there one that catches your eye?”

Nocona shook his head. “No. I think White Heron is right. I think I have enough horses. I don’t need any more.”

“But it is your right to choose before anyone else. It is the way it has always been. You know that better than anyone. It was you who taught me everything I know about horses. How to geld them, how to choose a pony that would run all day and all night without breaking down, how to choose a good mare for breeding. You love horses as much for what they are as for the honor their ownership brings you. How can you say you don’t want any more?”

Nocona shook his head. “You’re right. In the old days I knew a good deal about horses. I thought I knew everything.”

“There are some who say you do.”

“They are wrong. Besides, as you said yourself, that was the old days. That was the old way.

I think maybe the old way will not be our way for too much longer.”

“Why? Why should anything change? Why should not things go on as they always have? We can defeat anyone who comes against us. We go where we please, to follow the buffalo or to trade horses. We have everything we need. The
comancheros
come to us with anything we can’t make for ourselves. It is a good way. I don’t see why we should change.”

“We should change because we will be forced to change. I think maybe it would be best if we decided for ourselves when and how.”

“Maybe you are tired. I think you will feel differently once we get home, and White Heron makes you new moccasins and a new shirt. Gray Fawn says she has been working on something special for you. I think maybe it will be ready by the time we get back to the village.”

“I have enough shirts, too,” Nocona grunted.

“Is there anything you don’t have enough of?”

“Time,” Nocona said. “There is never enough time. The days slip by so quickly, like a sidewinder on the desert. They make no noise as they move. They are in front of you and then they are behind you before you even knew they were there at all.”

“You talk like an old man. My grandfather says things like that all the time, but I expect it of him. It is what the old ones do, because it is
all they
can
do. But you are young yet. Your best days are ahead of you. That should be reason enough to smile, but you pull a long face today. You pulled a long face yesterday, as if you were carrying a heavy stone on your back.”

“I am. I am practicing. That is what being chief is like. A heavy stone, many heavy stones. Sometimes I think there is one for each of the people and the chief has to carry them all. I want to be ready.”

“You always wanted to be chief. Now it sounds like you have changed your mind.”

Nocona nodded. “Yes, I did. But that was before I knew just how hard it was … and how little anyone else understood. I knew nothing then. And now that I am soon to be a chief, I know things that no one else knows, things I can’t teach them, and things they can’t understand if I talk about them. Even you, my oldest friend. You don’t understand. You
can’t
understand. I look at you and want to tell you what it is like. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I think, ‘Maybe this is something I can tell Black Snake.’ But I know right away that it would be no use. I don’t blame you for that, but it makes me very lonely. Any burden is less heavy when you can share it with someone. The only one who understands even a little is White Heron, and she doesn’t understand much.”

“So, what are you saying? Are you saying that you don’t want to be a chief any longer?”

Once again, Nocona shook his head. “No, I am not saying that. I would not wish any man to carry the burden I will carry. I don’t mean to sing my own praises, as if I were someone special. I’m not, and that is the one thing that being chief has made me see me more clearly than any other; but measured against the burden I will carry, no man is special. One ant under a great stone is like any other.”

Black Snake didn’t really know what to say, but he had the feeling that he had to keep his friend talking. “Have you discussed this with any of the old ones? Red Owl might understand. He was a chief. It was a long time ago, but …”

“Yes, it was a long time ago. Times were different then. Red Owl understands the old ways better than anyone I know. But he knows nothing of the new ways, the new troubles. He would want to do things as they have always been done, but that is not possible. Not anymore. Knowing how to deal with the new troubles requires new ways of thinking. I am not sure anyone is ready for that. I know I am not.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You have always done well. No matter how difficult the problem, you have managed to deal with it. There is enough to eat, more than enough, even. We have all the horses we need. We don’t have to worry about the things that really matter. You have done well.”

“Yes, so far. But it has made me tired.”

“Maybe in the council, we can discuss these things. Maybe there is some way to …”

“No! If I bring it up in council, it will be an invitation for some young hothead to challenge me. He will not know what he is getting into. It will tear the people into pieces, force them to choose sides. Now, more than ever, we have to think as one man. There are too many who would use that confusion for their own purposes.”

“Inside?”

Nocona nodded. “Yes. Inside. And out. But if you work against the people, it makes no difference whether you are inside or out. The result is the same. I can’t let that happen. It will probably happen one day soon anyway, but I don’t want to make it easier for anyone.”

Nocona lapsed into silence, and it seemed to Black Snake that it was permanent. He had nothing to say that could help, and he realized that, rather than helping Peta Nocona as he had intended, he succeeded only in blackening his friend’s mood still more. He didn’t understand what Nocona was concerned about, but thought maybe that one had to be a chief to see far enough into the future, where troubles moved like shadows at the bottom of a deep well. One needed sharp vision to distinguish the shades of darkness. It was all well and good for him to be cheerful, and to tell Nocona there was nothing to worry about, but
he didn’t have to make the decisions Nocona had to make. All he had to do was keep his arrows sharp and his arm strong. The rest would take care of itself.

Reluctant to let the conversation end on such a bleak note, he said, “At least we will be home tomorrow. We can rest. Maybe things will not seem so bad when you have had time to be with White Heron and Little Calf. A man’s wife and son help him forget about things he can’t control.”

Nocona laughed. “Maybe you are right, my friend. Maybe what I need is something I already have.”

Just then they heard a shout, and Nocona stiffened. Black Snake pointed toward a high ridge far ahead, where the silhouette of riders could be seen heading toward them. The riders were moving fast, kicking up a cloud of thick dust from the dry ground.

“Apache?” Black Snake wondered.

“No,” Nocona said. “If they were Apache, we would not know they were there until it was time for them to spring their trap.”

“Maybe it is a trick.”

“I don’t think so. Those people are in a hurry. And they are heading right for us. They must have seen us, must know who we are. I wonder … “

Others in the Comanche raiding party had spotted the riders now, and started yipping, jabbering excitedly and stabbing at the oncoming
riders with the tips of their bows. Nocona realized he had better do something.

“Take three men,” he said, “and see who those people are. And be careful!”

Black Snake dug in his heels and peeled away, shouting to the nearest group of warriors. Three of them waved their bows high overhead as their ponies leaped forward. Black Snake led the small band at a full gallop, the sturdy Indian ponies making good time as they raced downhill into the broad shallow valley between the Comanche raiding party and the advancing newcomers.

Nocona slowed his own pony to a walk, then turned and shouted for a halt. It was best, he thought, to wait and see what Black Snake learned before heading down into the valley. If trouble were coming, better to face it from high ground.

He saw the small advance party closing rapidly on the distant strangers. In a matter of minutes, Black Snake had reached them, pulled up and held a hand overhead for the three warriors with him to stay quiet. He saw Black Snake turn then and look back up the hill toward him. He squinted, trying to read his friend’s features, but at that distance they were just a copper blur in the sunlight.

But there was no mistaking the urgency as Black Snake wheeled his pony then and broke back across the valley floor. He left the three warriors with the newcomers, and charged back
the way he’d come, glancing back over his shoulder once or twice, either to make certain his orders were being followed, or as if he feared something unseen on his trail might be gaining on him.

He was yelling long before his words were intelligible. Nocona knew now that something was wrong and told the raiders to stay put while he headed downhill to meet Black Snake in the middle of the slope.

“What is it?” Nocona shouted, while he was still two hundred yards away.

Black Snake shook his head and waved a hand in front of his face as if to chase away words he’d rather not speak.

Nocona felt a chill then. It froze his spine and seemed to spread into the deepest recesses of his body.

“Something’s happened. What is it?”

Again, Black Snake flailed with his hands. He swallowed hard.

“Tell me,” Nocona said gently.

“The village … Osage … they … “

“How bad?”

“Bad.”

Black Snake looked at him then, his eyes suddenly welling up. “White Heron,” he said. “Little Calf … “

Nocona tilted his head back just a little. Then he nodded.

“Both of them?” he asked.

Again, Black Snake nodded. “Both of them.”

Shaking his head slowly, then faster, Nocona said, “All right. Bring the horses. I’m going on ahead.”

“You can’t. The Osage might be …”

“I hope so,” Nocona said.

N
OCONA FELT THE WIND
in his hair like a pair of ragged claws, tugging and scratching at him, as if it meant to tear his scalp from his head. It seemed as if all his fears, everything that had haunted his late nights, had gathered up ahead of him like some deadly flock of predators, and he plunged headlong toward it, knowing that it was too late, and not caring. He had to see for himself if each of those fears had come to roost.

He rode without regard to anything, even the gallant pony beneath him. If the horse played out, he would run, and when he could no longer run, he would walk, and then he would crawl on bloody knees, if that’s what it took. But somehow, no matter how, he would reach the village.

Twice, he passed bands of stragglers, but skirted them rather than stop and learn another few bits and pieces of the horror that awaited him. He knew the fury of the Osage, how terrible their
vengeance could be. He had seen the ruins of the friendly Kiowa camp the year before, and knew that what awaited him would be every bit as bloody and as terrible as that slaughter.

His heart was hammering at his chest in unison with the pony’s hooves, and when his heart would race ahead, he would lash the horse with a rawhide quirt, sometimes even pounding on its chest with a fist to squeeze every last bit of speed from the laboring animal. And sometimes, taking a deep breath to try to still the pounding beneath his ribs, he would hear a drumming in his ears as his blood raced through him looking for some way out, some way to vent the unbearable pressure, the way a raging flood will find the tiniest crack and begin tearing at the walls that tried to hold it in.

It was near sundown by the time he entered the valley of the Arkansas River. The village was not that far away now, but he raced on, as if the carnage ahead were some kind of giant magnet, pulling him faster and faster the closer he came to its irresistible force. The sun had paled, its waning orange seeking refuge behind a haze that spread from one end of the valley to the other. He glanced up at it, telling himself he could not be sure whether it was natural or the residual smoke from a village laid to ruin. But that was a lie. He knew.

He was following the river now, the pony keeping to the sandy bank where the grass was thinner and the rocks were more easily seen. The
sluggish current was dyed orange by the sunlight, stretching two hundred yards to his right, a sheet of cloth broken here and there by the leap of a trout, its own back a darker orange as it spasmed in a violent arc before landing with a slap like that of clapping hands.

In the back of his mind was the thought that the Osage could be haunting the riverbank, waiting to pick off stragglers. It was a remote possibility, because even the fearsome Osage knew the fury of the Comanche, and would likely not wish to linger too near the flames of that rage.

Deep inside him, a voice kept whispering, repeating over and over the wordless hope that the report was wrong, that some mistake had been made, that it was all a horrible joke. But there was another voice, this one trapped in his skull, that screamed again and again that there was no mistake, that it was all true and that it would be better he cut his own throat and tore out his own eyes than look on the ruins. Nocona knew which voice to believe, and he knew which one he wanted to believe. The warring voices shouting each other down were like two mad women fighting over a man. The louder one screamed, the louder the other responded, until words were useless, and furious volume was the only communication left them.

He saw smoke now, not much, not enough to suggest a peaceful village, but certainly not left
from the slaughter of a week before, either. The sun was darkening, turning the river to blood, as if the village lay prostrate, hemorrhaging the last precious drops of its life into the current. Dead ahead was a steep rise and the village lay beyond it, not more than a mile away. He pulled up then, feeling his sides heaving, the frenzied hammering of his heart almost audible in the sudden silence. Taking a deep breath, he dismounted, grabbing the war rope and curling it securely in his hands and tugging the pony toward the rise.

The thick grass looked dark, almost gray in the fading light, and felt it crush under his moccasins as he started uphill, the pony jerking its head behind him, as if reluctant to accompany him.

He felt the urge to run, to let go of the horse and sprint through the long grass the way he had as a child, but it struck him as unseemly, and he shook his head, as if baffled by such a treacherous impulse. The grass seemed to cling to his buckskin leggings, as if trying to persuade him not to climb the rise, to stop and stay where he was, even to go back. But he trudged on, the horse still bucking him with every step. Near the top of the rise, he stopped and turned to look at the sun setting now far behind him. The trees were all tinged with red, bright ruby auras surrounding the crowns of the tallest, as if they were just about to burst into flame. The dark shadows of the trees
speared up the rise like so many charcoal snakes.

He let the pony go, and it shook its head, nickered once, then backed up a couple of steps. Shaking its mane, it turned away from him, but moved no further. He collapsed into the grass, his legs folding beneath him by instinct.

He was breathing deeply, each inhalation swelling his powerful chest and taking with it some of the terror as it rushed from his body. His hands trembled in his lap, and he looked at them as if they were live things that crept up on him unawares. Lifting them, he held them overhead, blocking the sun and watching as the fingers turned ruby red at their edges. He curled the fingers into fists, shook them once, and let a great shout rush from his lungs. He heard the wordless bellow come echoing back from the hills around him and looked toward the loudest echo as if someone else had shouted to him.

Shaking his head, he doubled over. A hand closed over his shoulder, and he gave a start, reaching for his knife as he tried to rise, but the hand held him down, and he was too drained to struggle.

He glanced up then, and found himself staring into the face of Red Owl, the oldest man in the village, a man who had lived more winters than anyone could count, more winters even than Red Owl himself could remember clearly.

“My son,” he said, “you have come back.”

“Too late,” Nocona mumbled. “Too late.”

“You’ve heard, then?”

Nocona nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard.”

“It was terrible, terrible. I think maybe you should not see.”

Nocona shook his head sharply. “And what should I do, then, Father? Should I forget what has happened? Should I pretend that I never lived here? That my family never was?”

“No. Of course not. But some things are better not seen.”

“This is not one of them. This I must see for myself. I want to carve it into my memory to scar it, the way a knife scars the skin.”

“Then I will go with you. We should go now, in the dark, when these terrible things you will see will not blind you.”

Nocona nodded his assent. He got to his feet and looked then at Red Owl. The old man looked as if he had aged fifty winters since the last time Nocona had seen him. It must be horrible, he thought, to make this old one so much older still.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Red Owl turned and looked toward the crest of the rise, not more than fifty yards above them. He nodded. “We will go,” he said. He started walking, and Nocona made a move to brush past him, to take the lead. Red Owl reached out and closed his bony fingers around the younger man’s wrist. “No,” he said. “I will lead you.”

“There is nothing there that can harm me,” Nocona argued. “I don’t need your protection.”

“Everyone needs protection from such things,” Red Owl insisted.

“And what then, will the dead be less dead because you see them first? Will their hearts still beat, will breath still be drawn?”

“No.”

“Then what difference does it make whether you go first or I do?”

“It is better. Trust me. It is better so.”

“All right, but get on with it.”

Once more, Red Owl nodded his head, the long white Sioux-styled braids he favored draping his shoulders and seeming to wriggle like snakes with the movement. He started forward again, this time more purposefully, his short legs whispering in the tall grass with every step. Nocona fell in behind him, leaning forward against the increasingly steep incline. At the crest, Red Owl raised his hands to the sky and mumbled something that Nocona didn’t catch.

“What did you say?” the young man asked.

“Never mind, my son. That is between me and the Great Spirit.”

Nocona moved up alongside him and stared down into the broad valley. The river still had a trace of color, its rippling surface dark red at the center and shading to nearly purple near the banks. The valley was full of shadows, the willows on the far end of the village masses of black as the sun disappeared behind boiling black clouds. Nocona looked up at the spears of
blinding light for a moment, half a dozen of them lancing out from behind the gilt-edged clouds and, one by one, vanishing.

Peering down into the gathering darkness, Nocona could see that it was worse than he had feared. Most of the tipis had been burned, leaving heaps of ash and burned goods, sometimes, too, leaving charred lodgepoles like the rib cages of great beasts. Mounds of shadow lay scattered, and he knew without seeing the details, that they were the bodies of his people, slaughtered like buffalo and left to rot in the sun.

He started to run then, breaking away from Red Owl, his voice roaring from his lungs of its own volition. His feet were flying through the tall grass and he had the sensation that if he tried to stop, they would go out from under him. Halfway down, he stumbled, fell headlong and rolled over and over, then spread his arms out like wings to arrest the fall and popped to his feet again as if he had meant to fly.

On the flat, he picked up speed, stumbled once more and this time sprawled on his face, the wind knocked from him by the fall. He turned to see what had tripped him, and realized even as he crawled toward it that it was a body. He closed his eyes, screwing them tightly shut, hoping that he would never have to open them again. But he knew that was no answer. Slowly, he opened them, his hand hovering just over the back of the prostrate figure. The smell was overwhelming and it hit him with all the
suddenness of a bird flying into a stone wall.

The smell of death was everywhere, thick in the air, like a mist that seemed to be coating his skin. He covered his nose, scrambling away from the corpse and getting to his feet. Nocona pinched his nostrils shut. In the last lingering dark gray of twilight, he could see mounds of shadow everywhere he looked. Heaps of belongings lay scattered everywhere, bits of cloth charred at the edge, broken arrows, dried meat in piles in the dust.

Here and there, Nocona saw the body of a dead horse, its belly bloated, its legs stiff as driftwood. And the flies were swarming around every bloated corpse, dog, horse and human being. Moving toward the ruins of a tipi that lay on its side, its buffalo skin covering charred to wavering sheets of ash, he bumped against a food basket. It fell on its side, and something moved. He thought for a moment that a scavenger of some sort had been hiding in the basket, but whatever it was stopped and lay still only a few inches from the overturned basket.

He dropped to one knee for a closer look, leaning over the basket and peering at its contents. It took him a few moments to realize it was a human head, the black tongue swollen like rotten fruit in its mouth, the eyes hidden under a pulsing mass of insects.

He gagged then, and his stomach emptied itself before he realized what was happening. He
lay there in the dust, his body wracked by convulsions, and he knew that he had to find his own tipi, knowing that there was no point, knowing that any hope White Heron or Little Calf might have survived was foolish, but still, he had to see for himself. Getting to his feet again, he staggered toward the center of the village, his eyes darting this way and that, fixed dead ahead rather than on the wreckage all around him.

He found where his tipi had been, and saw that it, too, had been overturned and burned. The hide covering was charred ash, the lodge-poles like black bones in the fading light.

He found her almost at once, lying on her back. Her head, at least, had not been severed, but her buckskin dress had been torn, and her legs were splayed wide. Her throat had been cut, and her fists were clenched in the agony of her dying.

He knelt beside her, his head falling to his chest. He didn’t want to look at her, but he couldn’t not. Steeling himself, he opened his eyes again, brought his fingers to his lips then reached to brush hers with the tips. An angry fly buzzed, landed on his hand for a second, and he swiped at it with his other hand, the sharp crack of the slap echoing off into the night, the mocking buzz of the unharmed insect darting past his ear for a moment then disappearing.

He looked at the sky then and knew that everything he feared was becoming real. Things
had to change, and kneeling there next to the body of his wife, the wreckage spreading around him all the way to the edge of the world, he no more knew how to change them than he knew how to fly.

He would learn.

But not before the Osage were made to pay.