Comanche Dawn (19 page)

Echo made a rare chuckle. “He is still acting brave. Wait until he begs to die. Horseback, it is your duty to decide what must be done with this captured enemy. Perhaps your mother will heal quickly enough to kill him very slowly. Let the wound in your leg and the pain it brings you help you decide his fate.”

Horseback swallowed some bad shadow pressing up from his chest. “My father has taught me not to decide these things. I will listen for the voices of the spirits to tell me what I must do with the captive.”

The warriors seemed to hum their approval of the words spoken by Horseback. Trotter had been studying the wound on Horseback's leg, and now poked it with his finger, making his friend flinch.

“It grows very red,” Trotter said.

“My father's wife, Looks Away, will heal it,” he replied. “She will pack it with grass and smear bear fat on it. She knows many ways to heal.”

“I think it will make a fine scar,” Trotter said.

“A flint knife raises an uglier scar than an iron knife like the one the enemy stuck you with,” Echo said. “But that scar is better than none at all.”

“You can make some girl tattoo the scar,” Trotter suggested, his brow raising where he had plucked all the hair from over his eyes.

“No,” Horseback said, wondering about Teal for the first time since the battle, and whether or not he might find her in the dark somewhere tonight. “I will not flaunt the loneliness of a single scar.”

*   *   *

That evening, at sunset, River Woman woke. Her chest was so racked with pain that she could only whisper, and Looks Away had to place her ear over River Woman's mouth to hear her speak.

“She wants to know why she cannot hear a great scalp dance.” Looks Away said.

And so the lodges were brought out of hiding and set up in a sacred circle. Five enemy scalps were placed on spare lodge poles set in the ground. The old men began to cajole the young unmarried women, saying, “Now these young warriors have protected you! You know how to reward them!”

Hearing the crier tell that his mother had woken, Horseback trotted to her place in the timber to see her. He found that she had gone back to sleep. Shaggy Hump was there, with Spirit Talker.

“My son, your mother is strong. Spirit Talker is letting her borrow much magic.”

“How long will she rest?”

“Only the spirits know. Why do you wonder such things?”

Horseback sat on the ground beside his father. “What must I do with the
Yuta?
”

“He is your captive. I cannot say what you must do. Listen for the shadow-voices.”

“Perhaps he will die there, tied to that tree.”

Shaggy Hump said nothing.

Spirit Talker had been sitting near River Woman's head, slumped over as if asleep. Suddenly, the old man lurched and began chanting without opening his eyes.

“Before she went back to sleep your mother told me that we must have a giveaway dance tonight to celebrate your first battle strokes counted. Your medicine was strong today. We must give away everything to show the spirits our faith and keep our medicine strong.”

“Must we give my mother's lodge away? She may need it if a storm comes.”

“We give away
everything,
” Shaggy Hump said, sternly. “Our
puha
will provide anything we need.”

They sat without talking, listening to Spirit Talker's chant and River Woman's shallow breathing.

“You must go to my second wife,” Shaggy Hump said. “Your wound looks bad. You should have Looks Away heal it.”

Horseback rose, glad to have something to do other than watch his mother lie in pain. “Yes, Father. Where has she gone?”

“She went up the bank of the river. She worries about her sister.”

Horseback limped up the bank of the river, stopping only briefly to look at his wounded bay horse, tied at a quiet place in a draw. The bay's head hung low and his eyes looked dull and watery. He had been thrown down, and the arrow head cut out of his rump as many warriors held his legs and head to keep him from thrashing. Now he was still able to stand, and this was a good sign to Horseback, though the warrior also noticed that the knife wound between the stallion's ribs oozed a bloody fluid. He hoped the bay would live, for the pony had proven useful in battle on this day.

Reaching the top of the river bank, Horseback swept his eyes across the sage, growing dim now in the twilight. He searched for a long moment before he located a human form moving away beyond the horses. Looks Away was far from camp, heading over a rise, stopping briefly against the sky before she disappeared behind the hill.

Curious, Horseback ran to the ponies and caught one that his father had trained not to run away when approached. He didn't have his war bridle with him, so he took off his loin skins. He threw the skins over the back of the pony for a pad, and tied one end of his belt to the lower jaw of the pony, so he could make the pony stop. This pony knew how to turn in response to leg pressure, so Horseback did not need two reins. Mounted, he overtook Looks Away quickly and called her by name.

“I am going away,” she said, without stopping in her brisk walk.

“Where?”

“I do not know.”

“Why?”

“Because of the warrior you have captured. I cannot bear to see him tortured and killed.”

Walking the horse beside her, Horseback thought for the first time how it must feel for Looks Away to see a warrior of her own blood suffer at the hands of her adoptive people. “His fate is my decision. I will make him die quickly in the morning sunlight with my arrow. I will not let him be strangled or killed at night. That way, his spirit will fly to the Shadow Land.”

“His name is Bad Camper,” Looks Away said. Her eyes looked up to Horseback, full of tears. “He is my brother.”

19

None of the Corn
People, nor the Burnt Meat People, could remember such a giveaway dance. First, Shaggy Hump presented his weapons to young warriors who had fought well against the invaders. He gave his best horses to leading warriors like Echo. He gave his older, easier-to-handle horses to aging men so their wives could more easily move their lodges. He gave the small lodge in which he had kept his weapons to a young warrior of the Corn People who had just taken a wife and yet had no lodge. He gave the large lodge of ten poles and twelve skins to Spirit Talker, so that the old
puhakut
might tell stories on long winter days and pass the pipe among many warriors. He gave Looks Away's small lodge to a poor crippled girl of the Corn People whom no one would take as a wife. He gave his seven spare lodge poles to families who had mended old broken and rotting poles with rawhide. He gave his water bags to hunters he had seen ride or walk farther than others to bring home meat.

He gathered the young wives and tossed the cooking vessels and utensils of River Woman and Looks Away among them, letting them scramble for them, providing fine entertainment. Then he gathered all the young horsebacks and tossed pad saddles and bridles and cords of twisted rawhide or yucca fibers among them. This amused the women, seeing the warriors kick and push one another to get at items they wanted, even pulling on two ends of the same rope, like two dogs fighting over a length of gut.

Then Shaggy Hump started giving away all the food his wives had prepared to the poorest and hungriest of the True Humans. Meat, marrow, berries, and seeds; pemmican stuffed into sections of scrubbed intestine. Yampa roots in parfleche bags. Tallow stored in paunches. Buffalo tongues and cactus fruits dried and enriched under the sacred gaze of Father Sun.

He gave away everything—paint, flint, rawhide, tanned deerskin, sinew for making bowstrings—everything but the clothes he wore and his sacred shield, for the shield would have burdened some taker with powerful magic.

Horseback had little to give, but he added his warhorse and its trappings, his weapons, and the good robe he slept on. He kept only his shield and the quiver embraced by deer antlers with the feather inside from the bird of the south. Then, he gave his moccasins to a barefoot old man who would not last as long as the moccasins themselves. Shaggy Hump was moved by this gift, and also gave away his moccasins and the leggings he wore, leaving himself and his son with only their loin skins, their feathers, their shields, and their quivers.

A scalp dance began, and women's voices trilled. Old men told stories of bygone battle strokes. Cook fires were stoked and feasting began. Shaggy Hump was given a piece of meat, but before he would eat it, he held it to the dark night sky and cut off a chunk to bury in the ground in homage to the spirits. The enemy scalps dried and stiffened in the breeze, high on poles surrounding the dancing ground.

“My father,” Horseback said, at the height of the celebration, “have you ever seen a scalp dance like this one?”

Shaggy Hump thought for several long moments, his face drawn and serious. He would have enjoyed this more with River Woman. “No, my son. Never have I seen so many scalps on the poles. I hear no women mourning dead husbands or sons. We have seen a great victory on this day. And we yet have a captive.”

Horseback smiled. His father was going to be surprised at what he would do with this captive.

As they feasted on pieces of hump that had been suspended above the fires on sticks jammed into the ground at a slant, Horseback kept his eyes moving for a glimpse of Teal. He saw Trotter moving away into the dark with Slope Child and felt a measure of regret that he had not secured her for himself, for she had made him feel good several nights in his lodge that was now given away. But she had made many a young warrior feel good, and so Horseback also felt a measure of relief that Trotter had taken her on this night. She was no longer a mystery to him. Teal was.

Anyway, his mood was not completely given over to celebration, though it was his duty to join the dance and feast. Not until he knew whether his mother would survive could he give Teal the attention he wanted to give to her. She was different from Slope Child. He felt a longing for Slope Child in his loins. His lust for Teal came from his heart, and it welled up in him in pangs that tormented and pleasured him all at once.

Perhaps she was waiting for him in the dark somewhere. Perhaps she was wise not to show herself at all, knowing that Horseback should be more concerned with his wounded mother than his own pleasures. When it came to Teal, it was difficult to know what to do. He would wait for guidance from the spirits.

He felt eyes upon him and looked toward the timber to see Bad Camper staring at him. This warrior was brave. His head had been thumped soundly with Horseback's
pogamoggan,
yet he continued to keep his feet under Mm, and his head raised, though his arms had been hoisted up high behind his back. He had to be battling much pain now, yet he still possessed the fight to glare at the warrior whom he knew had the right to decide how he would be tortured.

Horseback walked toward Bad Camper and sat near him on the ground. He watched the scalp dance, listened to the good cadence of rattles and drums. He thought of letting the captive down from the tree so he could rest, but decided against it. His people deserved to see this invader suffer.

*   *   *

As the light of the waking sun began to lift the robe of stars away from the sky, the people tired of the scalp dance and went to their lodges. Horseback was left alone with Bad Camper. He borrowed a horse from Echo's string, borrowed a lance from a friend's stack of weapons. He used the lance to cut the rope holding Bad Camper's arms up behind him. When he cut the rope, Bad Camper fell face-forward in exhaustion.

Prodding the captive with the butt of the lance, Horseback made him rise, which he did with difficulty, for his wrists were still bound tightly behind him. Horseback made him march toward the river. There was a sandbar there where the river was easy to cross on foot, and he forced Bad Camper to the south bank, knowing that the captive intentionally fell into the water to refresh himself and drink. Horseback was alert. The captive was likely to try to kill him to affect his escape.

Going up the south bank, Horseback would not walk his mount behind Bad Camper for fear the captive would jump down on him. He walked to one side, making his own trail. At the top of the bank, Bad Camper suddenly broke into a sprint, jumping clumps of sage and running as fast as he could go with his hands tied behind his back. Horseback loped along behind, remaining alert with his weapon. They ran until Bad Camper realized he could not outrun the horse, and he wheeled on his captor, snarling like a snared badger.

Horseback remained a safe distance away, laughing.

“Come kill me!” Bad Camper finally said. “My hands are bound! You have the only weapon! If I must die this day, may my killer prove his skill with the lance! Are you a girl or a warrior?”

Horseback took no glory in the fear he saw behind Bad Camper's mask of courage. He knew it was a more powerful thing to face a sound enemy in battle than to torment this beaten foe. “If this was your day to die, you would be screaming at the coals heaped upon your pecker,” he replied. “Today you will return to your people and tell them how we danced under the scalps of your slain brothers.”

The desperate fear flew from Bad Camper's eyes, and his face became laughable with surprise. “Why? Why do you release me?”

“It gives me more power than you can understand because you are less than a True Human. Now, go, before the spirits decide I should let the women slice and burn your flesh before your own eyes. Go back to your mountains and tell your people that you were defeated in battle by a
Noomah
warrior.”

Bad Camper took a few cautious steps backward, then stopped. “What will I tell them when they ask me the name of this warrior?”

He rested the shaft of the lance across his thighs and sat tall. “I am Horseback.”

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