Comanche Dawn (39 page)

“Why does a god endure such torture? Why does he not call on his powers and destroy those who torture him?”

“He wanted to prove his courage to those who would worship him.”

Horseback's heart beat strong to think of a god brave enough to lay aside his powers and live among people. “Did he fight well before he was captured and tortured?”

“He did not fight at all.”

Horseback shot a curious glance at Raccoon-Eyes. “If he knew he was going to be tortured, he should have fought. He should have made his enemies kill him swiftly on the battlefield rather than die slowly on the cross. When I ride the war path against my enemies, I know I will be tortured if I am captured. That is why I fight so fiercely. That is why my brothers will ride into certain death to keep me from being taken alive. They know I will do the same for them, for if we are captured, our enemies will make us suffer tortures much worse than Jesus on his cross.”

Raccoon-Eyes folded his arms across his chest and looked at the carving on the wall. “Like you, Jesus did not fear death, for he was God. Yet he was human, and he feared torture. Still, he endured it, proving that his courage was great. The Black Robes say Jesus died this way to wash away the sins of all humans—even those who came after his time, like you and like me. The Black Robes say that if you believe this, you will go to a good place in the next life, and if you do not believe, you will go to a bad place.”

“Do you believe this?” Horseback said.

Raccoon-Eyes sighed, then spoke in a voice almost as soft as a whisper: “I believe what I believe. I say only as much as I must. The Black Robes are powerful.”

Horseback looked for a long time upon the likeness of the god-man on the cross. Finally, he turned toward the door of the sacred lodge, saying, “The Great Creator of the True Humans would have counted many strokes upon his enemies before enduring such torture.”

35

While Horseback learned from
Raccoon-Eyes and Speaks Twice, the others—Shaggy Hump, Whip, and Echo—hunted in the mountains for deer, elk, bear, and lesser game. The hunting was hard near the city of the Metal Men, yet over the mountains, meat abounded. Also, there were signs of
Na-vohnuh
camps.

“My son,” Shaggy Hump said one evening, as Horseback returned from the square lodge of Raccoon-Eyes, “I have found the trail of a
Na-vohnuh
band over the mountains. It is only four suns old and shows the tracks of sixteen horses. Echo and Whip wish to go with me to steal the horses.”

“Will you take scalps?” Horseback said.

“I have prayed, and the spirits tell me this band of
Na-vohnuh
is not for killing, but for providing the horses for us. I wish to kill many
Na-vohnuh
in days to come, but I do not wish to displease the spirits.”

“The spirits are wise. We are only four warriors. Go. I will stay here with Raccoon-Eyes. He is going to show me how the Metal Men catch the cattle by throwing a snare made from rope.”

The next day, Horseback woke alone in the lodge of the searchers, for the others had left in the night to steal ponies. He rode through a light snow to the square lodge and found Raccoon-Eyes waiting there with three horsemen.

“The riders are dark-skinned,” he said, “but they dress like whites.”

“They are
Indio
by blood,” Raccoon-Eyes explained, “yet their grandfathers lived among the Metal Men far to the south, and they know the ways of the whites. You will like them. They ride well.”

Horseback looked at them suspiciously. “I will see.”

The
Indio
riders used the heavy saddles of the Metal Men, and this made Horseback doubt that they could show him anything he did not know about riding. He noticed that each of the riders, including Raccoon-Eyes, had a large coil of rope tied to his saddle. He had studied this kind of rope before, and had even watched a slave making a length of it. It consisted of rawhide strips woven expertly into a strong cord about as big around as a finger. Horseback wanted to trade for such a rope, for it would be good to trail behind a buffalo pony.

To hold his horses and cattle, Raccoon-Eyes's slaves had made a trap of straight tree trunks that were too big around to serve as lodge poles. Inside this trap he saw six cows. Taking down the lighter poles that closed the trap, the five riders stood their mounts in the opening so the cattle would not escape the trap. Then one of the
Indio
riders took the coil of rope from his saddle. As if by magic, he formed a noose in the end of the rawhide rope. It reminded Horseback of how his father once tricked him when he was a boy by making things appear from nowhere in his empty hands.

As Horseback tried to catch the rider at this sleight-of-hand trick, the others let one of the cows out of the trap. The beast loped away, then began to trot aimlessly, as if uncertain where it should go. These beasts the Metal Men kept were stupid animals who had no spirits in their hearts to guide them.

Suddenly, the rider with the noose in his rope galled his horse with the iron things the Metal Men wore on their heels like the weapons of turkey gobblers. They had to wear these spurs, as they were called, to make their horses run, after strapping all that heavy wood and leather and iron onto them. The horse lunged into a gallop, lay his ears back, and angled directly toward the cow that had been released from the trap.

Now Horseback saw the rider whirl the noose above his head like a
Noomah
boy playing with a bull-roarer. The cow turned away, but the horse gave chase and closed quickly on the slower animal. When the rider came near, he lashed out with his noose, making it fly ahead of him and settle around the head and neck of the cow. Now he wrapped the end of his rope around the part of the Spanish saddle the Metal Men called a pommel. He flicked the slack around the hocks of the cow and angled sharply away, jerking the snared beast to the ground.

Horseback smiled as he watched the
Indio
rider jump from his mount and tie three legs of the stunned cow together, leaving her writhing on the ground. Before he could ask any questions, Raccoon-Eyes had chased another cow from the trap and another
Indio
rider was whirling a noose. This rider made his loop touch the ground just in front of the cow, and when the cow stepped into the noose with her front legs, the rider jerked the rope, tripping the cow hard to the ground.

A third cow ran from the trap. Raccoon-Eyes and the third
Indio
rider gave chase. The
Indio
caught the cow by the neck. Raccoon-Eyes rode in behind the cow, threw his noose, and caught her by the back feet. The two riders pulled the cow in two directions until she fell on the ground.

After the cow had been tied down like the others, Raccoon-Eyes shouted at Horseback: “Release the rest of the cows from the trap,
Kiyu!
”

Horseback rode his pony around the inside of the trap until the four remaining cows ran out. Each of the riders chased one of the cows, yet none whirled his noose as Horseback had expected. Raccoon-Eyes rode the fastest horse and closed in on the nearest cow. Riding to the left side of the cow, he leaned to his right and grabbed the tail of the cow. He threw his leg, stirrup and all, forward and over the tail he held in his hand. Using the strength of his leg and arm together to hold the tail, he suddenly angled his horse to the left and pulled the cow off balance, releasing her tail as she tumbled to the ground.

Horseback laughed at the silly-looking animal lying stunned on the ground. The three
Indio
riders caught the cows they chased about the same time, and made three more clouds of dust rise as they jerked the cows off their feet. He laughed out loud at the trick the men had played on the stupid beasts.

Riding out to meet Raccoon-Eyes, Horseback said, “That is a good game, my friend, but why not kill these beasts with a lance? That is also a good game that makes much meat. Why tie them on the ground?”

“The Metal Men have different ways. They live in one lodge and keep their cows nearby to make calves, so they do not always have to hunt. The owners catch the cows with the nooses so they can mark them with a hot iron that burns their own symbol on the cow.” He pointed to the brand on the hip of the cow. “When they want one for meat, they bring it to a pen, and kill it by cutting its throat.”

Horseback nodded and put his fingertips on his chest, searching his heart for questions. “They own cows, as I own horses?”

“Yes.”

Horseback grunted at the strangeness of this thought, then pointed at Raccoon-Eyes's coil of rawhide rope. “The noose is good. I would like to learn to throw it. Can it catch an enemy?”

“It has been used that way before. Also as a game to catch lions, wolves, coyotes, and bears—even the great humpbacked bears.”

“Buffalo?” Horseback asked.

“It has been done, but it is a dangerous game. The Metal Men send large hunting parties out onto the plains to the east, in the country of the
Inday.
They kill the buffalo with lances, as your hunters do. It is better to kill the buffalo with the lance than to rope it.”

“Can the noose catch wild horses?”

Raccoon-Eyes smiled. “If the pony you ride is fast.”

“I ride fast ponies. Slow ponies move my lodge and make meat for my fire. Will you teach me?”

“Of course, my friend. It is forbidden for me to trade horses to you, but I can teach you how to catch them with…” he lifted his coil of rawhide before him “…
la reata.
”

“La reata,”
Horseback repeated. He reached for the roll of snakelike line as Raccoon-Eyes handed it to him.

In the days that followed, Horseback learned to make the noose, whirl it, throw it, and catch with it. Without a Spanish saddle, he had no pommel around which to wrap his
reata,
so Raccoon-Eyes showed him how to tie the home end of the rope to his own mount's tail. The tail was strong and would hold any horse or cow of equal or lesser size.

“You can even catch an animal larger than your mount if you choke it to weaken it,” Raccoon-Eyes said. “But it is dangerous for your horse to be tied to the rope. When I wrap my rope around the pommel of my saddle, I can just as easily unwrap it if I need to get free.”

“My horse is not afraid to be tied to the rope. My horse shares my spirit power when I ride.”

At first, Horseback's mounts feared the noose whirling above their heads, but he sat on them and whirled the rope as Father Sun crossed over him and the horses pranced under him. He made the rope sing through the air until his arm was tired and sore. The horses learned not to fear the rope.

After learning to rope cattle, Horseback asked Raccoon-Eyes if he could try roping a colt, two winters old, in the big pasture of the hacienda. Raccoon-Eyes nodded. This time, Horseback did not tie his rope to the tail of his mount, for he wanted to try another way.

He threw many times at the colt and missed. His mount was tired, but Horseback kept chasing the colt until he finally caught it. Before the slack could straighten from the
reata,
he sprang from his pony. With his moccasins on the ground, he fought the lunges of the frightened colt. He held the rope until the sun sank from the sky, finally laying his hand on the colt at dark. He spoke to the colt, saying,
“Noomah. Noo-oo-oo-mah-ah.”

His heart told him that this was the way to catch wild horses. He had heard from Raccoon-Eyes, Speaks Twice, and Bad Camper that wild horses ran among the buffalo on flat lands to the east, in the country of the
Na-vohnuh.
Horseback began to dream of riding into that country, of hunting buffalo, catching horses, and killing
Na-vohnuh.

As he trained his ponies, Horseback rode much in the hills over the city of Santa Fe. One day, when Raccoon-Eyes rode with him, they came over a crest, and Horseback slowed his pace to peer cautiously over the rise and down into the next
arroyo.
He was looking for deer sign, for enemies, for meat. Instead, he saw a bird that was strange to him, stalking among the low sage bushes.

This bird was the size of a very young turkey, but conformed differently. It was not like the fat chickens the Metal Men kept, nor was it like the wild chickens from
Noomah
country. It was not like a grouse of the plains or a ptarmigan of the high mountains. When it moved, it carried its head and tail low. When it stopped it raised both head and tail alertly, giving Horseback the impression that it was both hunter and hunted. Whatever it was, it looked like a good piece of meat, so he strung his bow.

Slipping from his pony to stalk closer on silent moccasins, he moved easily within range before the bird knew he was there. When the strange winged one stepped from behind a large rock, Horseback loosed his arrow, hitting the bird at the base of the neck. It flopped on the ground until he walked up to it and found its eyes wide and dull in the stare of death.

Smiling, he spread the wings to look at the feathers, as Raccoon-Eyes rode up beside him, leading Horseback's pony.

“Good shot,” Raccoon-Eyes said. “Do you know this bird?”

“No,” Horseback replied, surprised now to find a hidden sheen to the feathers that had before looked so dull.

“It is the bird of the chaparral. Some call it road runner.”

Suddenly, Horseback noticed the wing feathers, white-tipped and elegant. He gasped and sprang from his crouch, backing away with fear. He stumbled backward, and startled the horses.

“What is it?” Raccoon-Eyes asked.

“The sacred one!” Horseback cried. He clawed at his quiver and reached inside. Carefully, he removed the feather Teal had given him. Comparing it to the feathers of the bird on the ground, he knew he was right. “The Sacred Bird of the South!”

“No,” Raccoon-Eyes argued. “It is only a chaparral bird. I would not have let you kill it if it was sacred.”