Comanche Dawn (38 page)

“I came for horses.” He struck a few sparks on the fire-making thing that the Metal Men called a
chispa.
It sparked even better than the flint stone on Trotter's musket. “I must take many horses back to my country.”

“Where will you get them?”

“From the
Na-vohnuh.
Those who call themselves
Inday.
They are evil things. Not even human. In ancient times, there was a great war between the
Noomah
and the
Na-vohnuh.
The
Na-vohnuh
tried to kill all of the True Humans, but my grandfathers' grandfathers escaped into a bad country. There, the
Noomah
have lived for generation upon generation. We have become like our wolf ancestors. We have learned to fight and survive. Now it is time to hunt down our enemies as though they were rabbits, and tear them to pieces. We will have horses.”

Raccoon-Eyes paused out of respect for the power of Horseback's words. “Will you make a sacred peace with the Metal Men?”

Horseback looked beyond Raccoon-Eyes and saw the suspicious glares of the Black Robe, and the hairy-faced war chief. The wealthy peace chief looked on, too, but with trust for Raccoon-Eyes. “I will smoke with the peace chief,” he said. “The one who wears the red cloth around his waist.”

Jean nodded. “It is good, my friend.”

After Horseback passed the pipe with the peace chief of the Metal Men, Raccoon-Eyes invited him to come as often as he wished to his square lodge, and learn the ways of the Metal Men. Horseback's heart told him to trust this Raccoon-Eye white man, and he began to learn many things—so many things that when he went back to the lodge of the searchers at night at the camp on the river, his head swam with images, and his heart ached with questions.

“I must learn many things here,” he said to himself. “Teal's father will respect my knowledge as much as my ability to offer the gift of ten horses.”

Horseback's name in the language of the Metal Men was Acaballo but Raccoon-Eyes called him
Kiyu,
as a True Human would. “Come,
Kiyu,
my friend,” he said the first day. “I will show you all about the Metal Men's ways with horses.”

Horseback learned that the whites strapped much iron and other heavy things upon their horses, taking from them much speed and many tracks. They forced large pieces of iron into the mouths of their horses. The saddles used by the Metal Men were beautiful, but heavy and rigid, locking onto the withers of the horses where they were strapped down tight. The foot pieces called stirrups were made of iron, while the rest of the saddle must have taken half of a hide from one of the lesser buffalo the whites called cattle. The leather from these cattle was not as fine as buffalo hide, yet the Metal Men knew how to paint, carve, and polish it. Raccoon-Eyes let Horseback ride upon one of these saddles one day.

“How do you like it?” Raccoon-Eyes asked.

“I can not feel the heart of the pony between my legs through all that wood and leather.”

Later, Raccoon-Eyes took Horseback to a place where slaves were making saddles. They started with a piece of wood that the Metal Men called a tree. They covered this tree with wet rawhide, stitched on. When the rawhide dried, it shrank around the tree, making a strong saddle. To this tree, the slaves fixed the leather pieces with tiny iron thorns.

Horseback picked up one of the saddle trees and said, “It is not heavy this way. Too much leather makes it heavy. You should ride your saddle like this.”

Raccoon-Eyes's brows raised when he heard this. He told a slave to fit the saddle tree with light iron stirrups, a leather cinch strap to hold it onto the horse, and also a sheep skin to make the seat soft. He threw a blanket over a horse, and strapped the saddle tree on over the blanket.

“Yes,” Horseback said, after riding the padded saddle tree. “It is better than your heavy saddles. I am closer to the heart of the pony.” He leaned to one side, then the other, noting the way the saddle stayed locked onto the withers of the horse. “This would be a good saddle for a woman.”

Raccoon-Eyes laughed. “I give this saddle to you as a gift from the nation of Metal Men. Perhaps you will present it to one of your
Noomah
women.”

Horseback smiled as he dismounted and removed the saddle carefully from the pony.

The next day they rode to a place called a forge where slaves from many nations made things of iron. Here, the strong
puha
of fire spirits caused powerful things to happen. It changed hard cold iron to a thing that glowed, smoked, and moved like a living being trying to escape. The slaves would pour it into shapes, and beseech the iron to change like water to ice. Once cool, it possessed a heft and a hardness greater than any stone.

In the forge, the Metal Men made wonderful things. Weapons that never broke, flaked, nor chipped. Tools that dug and cut and chopped and scooped and bored and raked and scraped and pounded. Handles that pulled and pushed and twisted and lifted.

Sometimes the slaves in the forge would offer shapes of iron to the fire spirits, making the shapes smoke and glow and yield just enough to be pounded into new shapes between a cold hammer of iron and a cold hunk of sacred metal called an anvil. This work made ringing noises that hurt Horseback's ears.

Other times, the slaves would plunge a red-hot piece of iron into water, then heat the iron again, then plunge it back into the water.

“This makes the iron very hard,” Raccoon-Eyes claimed.

“The spirits work the same way with
Noomah
warriors,” Horseback replied. “When I was a small boy, my father would take me from my warm robes beside the fire in our lodge. He would carry me out into the coldest day of winter and throw me down into a hole broken through ice. This made me hard, like iron.”

One day, Horseback helped Raccoon-Eyes take all his horses to the forge. There a slave heated and pounded iron that came in the shape of a river bend. This slave made these pieces fit the hooves of the horses, and drove iron thorns into the hooves to hold the pieces in place. Raccoon-Eyes called these curved pieces of iron pony-moccasins.

“A pony that needs iron moccasins,” Horseback said, “is better to eat than to ride. When my pony has a sore foot, I wrap it in wet rawhide. That is the only moccasin my pony needs.”

Besides the fine horses and the cattle, the Metal Men kept other strange animals. One was a lesser pony called a burro that was neither graceful nor good to ride. Horseback thought this race of ponies must have displeased the gods in ancient times and become malformed forever.

When a male burro mated with a true horse, the offspring was called a mule. This kind of animal was strong and useful to the Metal Men, but not as fast or as good to ride as a true horse. Also, the mules would not produce colts. Horseback understood this to mean that the gods did not approve of the mating between the two races. However, he thought a mule would make a fine feast for many families. The Metal Men packed many things on the backs of mules, without the use of a pole-drag. Horseback watched the way they did this, and learned.

Another strange animal of the Metal Men was a kind of sheep, but it scarcely resembled the wild sheep Horseback had seen in the high-mountain country of the Northern Raiders. Raccoon-Eyes explained how the curly hair of the sheep could be cut from the animal during the Moon of Shedding Buffalo.

“With much labor,” Raccoon-Eyes said, “this sheep hair is made into warm clothes, and robes, and blankets that are almost as warm as a buffalo robe.”

“You should kill these sheep and skin them,” Horseback replied, “then eat their meat. The robes last longer when the hair stays on the hide. I have seen good robes passed down for generations.”

“True,” Raccoon-Eyes said, “but the Metal Men have a saying that they believe is wise: ‘Shear a sheep many times; skin a sheep but once.'”

Horseback thought about this and said, “The spirits give us lambs so we will have more sheep for skinning when the circle of seasons comes around again. A robe made from sheep skin lasts longer than a blanket. It is also warmer and will shed rain. Why is a blanket better?”

“A blanket can be washed.”

“The wind and rain will cleanse a robe. If the spirits wrap the sheep in his own hide, why should I not wrap myself in the same hide? Am I wiser than the spirits?”

“No,” Raccoon-Eyes replied, with a big smile bending the tattooed lines around his mouth, “but I think you are wiser than Metal Men when it comes to the matter of sheep.”

Horseback nodded. “It is only because my heart is closer to the Great Mystery. The Metal Men have learned many things, but their hearts are far from the voices of spirits. Speaks Twice tells me that the Metal Men believe in only one god.”

“Speaks Twice tells the truth. The Metal Men worship the Great Creator, but do not know lesser gods.”

“How can this be? When the pony-moccasins fall red hot into the water, can they not see and hear the power of the fire spirits meeting with the water spirits?”

“They think it means nothing.”

“Everything means something.”

“That is true,” Raccoon-Eyes said.

“You are white, but you have lived among the Raccoon-Eyed People. You know the power of visions and spirits.”

Raccoon-Eyes looked away, as if he had heard something in the mountains. “I know what I know,” he said.

“You should teach the Metal Men what you have learned.”

Raccoon-Eyes shook his head. “They would burn me alive for practicing sorcery. They are afraid that the Great Creator will be jealous of lesser gods and spirits, and will punish anyone who worships them.”

“Will the Black Robe speak to me about these things?”

“He is very powerful,” Raccoon-Eyes warned. “Many of the Metal Men fear his power and will do whatever he says.”

“Will he speak to me?”

“Yes, but he does not understand your way, and he is afraid that the Great Creator will punish him if he tries to understand.”

“How will the Creator punish him?”

“By making him burn forever in the Shadow Land. This is what the Black Robe believes.”

“I want to speak to him.”

Raccoon-Eyes sighed. “Listen, my friend. The Black Robe wants one thing with you. He wants you to know about the son of the Great Creator, who walked the earth, like a human, a long time ago.”

“Is it true?”

“In my heart, I believe it is true.”

“Then I want to know about this.”

“I will tell you about it. It is dangerous if the Black Robe tells you.”

Horseback thought of how old Spirit Talker had warned him about the danger associated with great
puha.
“What will happen if I listen to the Black Robe?”

Raccoon-Eyes made graceful moves with his hands as he supplemented his
Yuta
vocabulary with signs. “The Black Robe hears the voice of the Great Creator telling him to make all people believe in the son of God who walked on earth. He believes this is more important than anything. More important than my life, or yours, or even his own. To him, the soul of one who believes his way is more important than all the souls of all others who believe all the other ways, even though the others number like blades of grass.”

Horseback narrowed his eyes at the white man. “You make him sound evil. Is he not a holy man?”

Raccoon-Eyes shrugged. “The brightest light makes the darkest shadow.”

Horseback said nothing more about the matter. His heart told him to trust Raccoon-Eyes. He would stay away from the Black Robe. He would listen to Raccoon-Eyes tell the story of the son of God who walked on earth, but he would trust first in his own spirit-guide. He would purify himself with cedar smoke in his lodge and pray to Sound-the-Sun-Makes for protection from shadows made dark by bright lights.

*   *   *

The next day, Raccoon-Eyes took Horseback to the sacred lodge of the Black Robes. This lodge had a large metal noisemaker with a tongue in it that made it ring loudly. Inside were many strange things: a vessel of water said to be sacred; paintings and carved wooden likenesses of white holy people from long ago; an altar where the Black Robes made people kneel before the Great Creator, which Horseback knew would only anger and disgust the spirits.

On the far wall of the holy lodge hung a large carving in the shape of a man who was bleeding from many places. This man was stretched across the sacred symbol of the Metal Men: the cross. Blood came from places where his hands and feet had been pierced by spikes that held him to the cross, and from a wound in his side where he had been stabbed. Thorns circled his head, and these, too, made him bleed. The carving made Horseback fear evil spirits, for the body of the man seemed misshapen, rudely carved from pine branches. He was familiar with hide paintings depicting warriors, but this was different. All the features of the face had been painted on, including eyes that looked sadly upward. The crimson streaks of blood seemed to glisten as if still wet. Yet the body on the cross looked as twisted and unnatural and as ill-proportioned as a grass doll carried by a
Noomah
girl.

“Why do the Black Robes hang such a thing in a sacred place?” Horseback asked.

“It is supposed to look like the son of the Great Creator who walked on earth. His name was Jesus.” Raccoon-Eyes made the sacred sign across his face and chest. “It is not a very good carving. Jesus did not look like that. He was a natural human, like you or like me.”

“You and I are very different.”

“We are both human.”

“I am a True Human.”

Raccoon-Eyes nodded. “So was Jesus.”

Horseback studied the carving. “Was Jesus not half god?”

“He was all human, yet all God.”

“How did he show that he was god?”

Raccoon-Eyes thought about this for some time, using the curious habit the white people had of scratching their heads while thinking, as if wisdom came from their heads instead of their hearts. “He had powerful magic to cure sick people and heal lame people. He made things appear and disappear. He was God.”