Comanche Dawn (24 page)

“At Tachichichi, we trade with many nations,” Speaks Twice replied, “so it is good to know many tongues.” Again, he made talk with his hands as well as his voice. “How far away is your country?”

“It lies north of the
Yuta
lands.”

“I have heard others speak of your nation,” Speaks Twice said. “They call you Snake People.”

Horseback had known for a long time that many other nations referred to the True Humans as Snake People. He could not understand why the true two-leggeds would be named for no-leggeds, especially when the
Noomah
avoided snakes, according to the wisdom of their grandfathers' grandfathers. He thought maybe it was a joke among all the inferior nations, because they could not understand the importance of the snake taboo to the True Humans. Horseback did not understand the wisdom of the taboo either, for it was ancient and mysterious wisdom, and therefore the most powerful and unquestionable of all wisdoms.

“Our enemies call us Snake People,” Horseback explained. “In our country, we have many enemies.”

Speaks Twice took a moment to translate to his friends. “We have only one enemy. The Wolf People who come across the plains from the east to attack our villages.”

“The
Yutas
are your allies?” Horseback inquired.

“No. We have no need of allies. The
Tiwa
people trade under truce with all nations of people, except the Wolf People. We do not take the war trail with other nations. We are traders, planters, and hunters. Even the Metal Men are at peace with us, though once we were at war.”

Horseback took a bite from a piece of buffalo that he had removed from the flames to cool. He grunted his appreciation for the meat. He liked this
Tiwa
warrior named Speaks Twice who spoke with his hands as well as his tongue. He felt he might learn much of the hand talk by making conversation with him. “Are all the warriors of your village here in this camp?” he asked, looking across the many lodges of the
Tiwa
hunting camp.

When Speaks Twice translated this to his friends, the hunters laughed.

“If Tachichichi were the size of my hand,” Speaks Twice said, “this camp would make only my little finger.”

“I would like to see that many people in one place.”

“I will take you to Tachichichi.” Speaks Twice pointed south. “It stands one sleep south, near the banks of the River of Arrowheads.”

“I have heard talk of this river,” Shaggy Hump said to his son. “Warriors of many nations find flint at a place along the banks of the river.”

Among these strange people, Horseback felt as if he wanted to dance, or sing the song Sound-the-Sun-Makes had given him. The spirits were trying to tell him things that he could not quite understand—much like the hand talk of Speaks Twice. He thought of Teal, and the moments he had stolen with her alone. He wanted to tell her of the things he was finding here in the south. He longed to show her these places.

The halting talk between
Tiwa
and
Noomah
went on as searchers and hunters feasted on buffalo meat. Speaks Twice did not know all of the
Yuta
words, but he was skilled at the hand signs, and he easily learned new words Horseback taught to him in their awkward attempts to communicate. Speaks Twice seemed about the same age as Horseback. He was taller than any of the
Noomah
riders, the features of his face straight and long. He seemed strong and quick, though his muscles did not bunch and ripple like those across the shoulders and arms and legs of the burly
Noomah.

“You ride near the hunting grounds of your enemies, the
Yutas,
” Speaks Twice said. “Your party is small. Why do you undertake this danger?”

“I have received a vision telling me to seek the country of Metal Men and get horses. Do the Metal Men have many horses?”

Speaks Twice translated this very slowly, as if making time to consider his reply. “Yes, the Metal Men keep many, many horses of many different colors,” he finally said. “But the chiefs of the Metal Men forbid all trade in horses.”

“You have horses,” Horseback said, pointing at the poor mounts grazing near the
Tiwa
camp.

Speaks Twice smiled. “There are ways to get horses, though my people do not need many.”

“What ways?”

“Some trade with other nations who steal horses from the Metal Men. Some battle with enemies who have large herds. And then, some of the Metal Men disobey their chiefs and trade in horses, though it is forbidden.”

“What do they take in trade for these horses?”

Young Speaks Twice seemed uncomfortable with this question. “I have never seen this trading take place. I cannot know in my own heart what my eyes have not seen. Why do you want so many horses? The ones you ride now look good.”

Horseback chewed a piece of meat. “In my country, the four-leggeds that make meat do not number as they do here. We must ride far to find enough to eat. We are surrounded by enemies, and our numbers are few. The horses help us move our villages when our enemies come in great numbers.”

While this talk was going on, Shaggy Hump had been studying the red-and-white lodges of the
Tiwa
hunters. “Your lodges,” he asked through his son, “do your women make them?”

Speaks Twice turned his hand over in front of him to make the sign meaning
no.
“In Tachichichi, we live in great lodges made of earth, and stone, and timbers. We use the hide lodges only when we hunt. We trade for these lodges.”

“With whom?”

“The people from the plains who come to trade at Tachichichi.”

“What do these people call themselves?” Shaggy Hump inquired.

“
Inday,
” Speaks Twice said.

At mention of the lost
Noomah
enemy, Shaggy Hump sprang from his crouching position near the fire and drew his knife. Horseback and the other searchers joined him quickly, for all had heard the stories from their grandfathers of the cruel and treacherous
Inday,
most ancient of all
Noomah
enemies.

Almost as quickly, the
Tiwa
hunters sprang and formed a defensive half-circle, reaching for the weapons they had on hand, one brandishing the pointed stick upon which he had roasted his chunk of buffalo meat.

“Stop!” Speaks Twice shouted. “We only trade with the
Inday.
That is all. Sometimes they camp at our village. We do not go with them on the war trail. Our village, Tachichichi, is a place of peace for all nations who wish to trade. Many peoples come there under truce, even if they make war with one another when they leave Tachichichi. So it is with the
Inday.
”

Horseback took his hand from the handle of his flint knife, noticing now that all the knives, lances, and arrow points of the
Tiwas
were made of iron. Other
Tiwa
warriors were coming with more iron blades, having seen the strangers spring and reach for their weapons. It would be foolish to fight these people, he thought. Horseback did not fear the
Tiwa.
He did not fear death or battle. He feared only that he would fail Sound-the-Sun-Makes in achieving his great vision, which yet stood shrouded in his heart by a blizzard of ignorance. To die here in battle, however bravely, would mean the end of his great quest, the end of the hazy thing that Sound-the-Sun-Makes wanted him to achieve.

And there was yet another reason in his heart that made Horseback want peace with the
Tiwas.
Never in the memories of his elders had the True Humans known peace with any nation. Never before had he been greeted and allowed to enter the camp of another people, to feast and exchange gifts. Horseback did not need allies, but he liked the feeling of feasting with friends. Yet, he dared not trust these
Tiwas,
for he could feel the spirits moving in his stomach, warning him not to trust what he did not know.

“Listen to Speaks Twice,” he finally said. “Let no blood stain this place of peace. I see no enemy of my people here. To trade with a nation under truce is not the same as taking that nation as an ally. Sometimes there must be trade, even between enemies.”

Horseback's warriors sheathed their weapons. Whip went to the fire and picked up the piece of buffalo meat he had dropped. Brushing away the dirt and ashes, he began to gnaw on it again. The talk between Speaks Twice and Horseback resumed, though they spoke no more of the
Inday.
Instead, they spoke of the
Yutas.

“You must pass through the hunting grounds of the
Yutas
if you wish to ride straight to the villages of the Metal Men,” Speaks Twice warned.

“I will ride straight,” Horseback boasted. “Straighter than straight.”

“The
Yutas
are powerful.”

“I do not fear them.”

When Speaks Twice translated this in the
Tiwa
language, the
Tiwa
warriors all laughed. Many of them had now gathered around. Horseback only laughed with them, for he liked the
Tiwas.
They laughed much and made graceful conversation with the sign talk. They possessed many beautiful and useful things they had acquired through trade with other nations. He found more iron in this camp than he had ever seen before in all his winters put together.

The
Tiwas
were handsome people, in a lesser way. They were tall compared to
Noomah
people. Horseback saw one of them riding a pony, and thought how odd the warrior looked, so tall above the back of the mount. The rider's broad shoulders made him seem off balance. His long legs stuck out, away from the horse, unlike the short, bowed legs of the
Noomah
warriors, which held a horse like a palm cupped around a gourd dipper.

He was glad the spirits had made his people to fit astride their ponies. He was happy that the spirits had sent First Horse on the day of his birth. He was proud to have made this trip into the Sacred South, though it was dangerous and fraught with uncertainties.

Horseback asked many questions about the Metal Men, and Speaks Twice began to answer:

“The Metal Men first came to our old villages in the south many generations ago, bringing much iron, and many horses and other animals. They came in peace and spoke of the Great Spirit, but soon began taking our corn and other things that they did not own. Some took
Tiwa
girls and defiled them.

“They call us
Pueblo.
It is their name for the kind of village we live in. They call our allies to the south by the same name—those who speak the
Towa
and
Tewa
tongues, and those who speak
Keresan
and
Zuni
and
Tompiro.
At Picuris and Cochiti and Nambe and many other villages. They call us all by the name of
Pueblo,
because of our lodges, but we are not related to all those peoples. The Metal Men do not understand this.

“Twenty-five summers ago, the
Tiwa
nation and its allies made war against the Metal Men and drove them far away to the south. Many warriors died in this war, for the Metal Men fought bravely with many weapons of iron, but the victory was won by the
Tiwa
and our allies.”

“Did they fight with Fire Sticks?” Horseback asked.

When Speaks Twice translated the question, his fellow warriors laughed. “My brothers laugh because you say ‘Fire Stick' like the old men used to say. The weapon is called a
gun.
Sometimes
musket
or
escopeta.
The Metal Men have many guns, but not much powder.”

“Powder?” Horseback answered.

“The powder that makes the gun kill.”

“The black medicine dust.”

Again, Speaks Twice translated, bringing howls of laughter from his friends. “Gunpowder. The Metal Men have little of it, so they fight mostly with bows and lances and swords.”

“Swords?” Horseback asked.

Speaks Twice stared for a long moment, but did not translate any more of Horseback's ignorance for his friends' enjoyment. Horseback felt that Speaks Twice honored him by not making him the object of more ridicule, but imagined that Speaks Twice would only make the translations later.

After explaining the thing called a sword, Speaks Twice told more about the war with the Metal Men. “They wore shirts of thick leather. Some wore shirts of iron. They were hard to kill, and fought bravely. Still, my people defeated them and drove them to a place far away in the south, whence they had come.

“When they fled, the Metal Men left many horses behind. Some of my people traded some of these horses to the
Yutas,
and some to other nations. Other horses ran away and went wild like their elk ancestors.”

Shaggy Hump spoke, pausing after each sentence to let his son translate: “The first horse the spirits gave to my people came on the day my son was born.” He gestured with pride toward Horseback. “It made a sacred circle around his birth lodge. We were hungry that winter, and so we killed First Horse and ate it. We did not know then that the horse was as good to ride as it was to eat. Since First Horse came to bring medicine to my son, the
Noomah
people have become richer.”

“It is true,” Horseback added. “We will ride to greatness on the backs of many ponies. The spirits have told me in visions and dreams that I must seek the hairy-faces that you call Metal Men and get horses. Tell me more about the Metal Men, Speaks Twice. Tell me what happened after your people and your allies drove the Metal Men away in the big war.”

Speaks Twice began making signs to match his words, and his movements were like those of a good dance. “The Metal Men stayed away twelve winters. When they returned they brought many weapons, many soldiers, and many families with women and children. There were too many of them. I was a child when they came back, thirteen winters ago. The Metal Men attacked my village and took me and my mother captive. They took many women and children captive. They would not give us back to our families until the village surrendered to them. The village surrendered, but the Metal Men made some of us work for them, like slaves. Some of us did not want to live there with the Metal Men, so we fled to the plains where we made our new village called Tachichichi. The Metal Men have come to Tachichichi in the past, but they do not stay. They come to bring us back to the old villages in the south. When they come, some of our people go with them, to make them happy. But they will only return, one by one to Tachichichi. In this way, we avoid war with the Metal Men.”