Comanche Dawn (52 page)

Whip stood still for a long shameful moment amid the silence. The muscles in his face writhed as his eyes rose to glare at Horseback. No man could have missed the anger of all those who had lost ponies to the Wolf People thieves, only to see Whip claim them now. Yet, the anger of the people fell not upon Horseback, but upon Whip, for no man could say that Horseback had acted unwisely.

In days to come, it would be said that Whip's heart went bad at this moment. The elders would tell their grandchildren that Whip could have announced a great giveaway. He could have shed his shame by giving away all his ponies and other things, trusting that his spirit-power would return him to wealth. But Whip did not believe in spirit-power. He chose to harden his heart at this moment. He would never give the ponies back to their rightful owners. He tossed his head in mock pride and stalked away from the circle.

The Foolish One Echo spoke: “This is good. Whip deserves this gift from the spirits.”

The people began to go back to their lodges, and Teal noticed that Whip's wife, Dipper, ran away sobbing. She caught up to Dipper and grabbed her by the arm.

“Why do you cry?” Teal asked.

“I am afraid,” Dipper said. “He beats me. He is very angry now. He is going to hurt me bad this time.” Her eyes were filled with the same kind of humiliation that had filled Whip's eyes at the circle. “How am I going to care for my daughter, if I am broken up?”

Teal pursed her lips and looked toward her husband. Were the spirits wise to endanger Dipper this way? Dipper was just a captive made-good wife, but her daughter carried real
Noomah
blood. It was true that Whip was bad about beating his wife. A man had the right to beat his wife, and even his sister, but Whip used the right too often, sometimes for no reason.

Five winters ago, after Whip's sister, White Bird, had been rescued from her captivity with the Northern Raiders, she had started to grow large with a child—the child of some Northern Raider defiler. Noticing her pregnancy, Whip had beaten her mercilessly with a pole for bringing Northern Raider seed to the Burnt Meat People camp. In shame, White Bird had snuck away from camp, where she had pounded her own belly with stones, trying to rid herself of the child her brother hated. The Burnt Meat People had found her dead in a dry gully, the ground under her stained with her own blood.

Now the name of White Bird was never spoken among the True Humans who knew the story, and Whip had only his wife to beat. It was known that Whip gave his dead sister her beatings through his wife, Dipper, for sometimes he called his wife elder sister when he beat her.

“Stop crying,” Teal ordered. “You will hide in my lodge. Your husband will have to use his anger on one of his horses. I will speak to my husband about the beatings. You are good now. You have borne a
Noomah
child. My husband will make your husband stop beating you.”

Making sure that Whip had left the camp, Teal pulled Dipper away by the arm, leading her quickly to her hiding place.

48

His band of True
Humans came to be known by his name. In the
Noomah
nation, they were called Horseback People. In the summer that the Metal Men called by the number 1711, the Horseback People made a large camp on the River of Arrowheads, a morning's ride upstream from the earthen village of Tachichichi.

The day the women raised the first lodge poles of the camp, all the True Humans in the new band of Horseback People yet hailed from one of three old bands: the Burnt Meat People, the Wild Sage People, and the Corn People. But by the time the Moon of Heat rose full, True Humans of many other bands had come to join the Horseback People. They came from the Root Diggers, the Downstream People, the Head-of-the-Stream People, the Liver Eaters, and the Bend-in-the-River People. They came from the No Meat People, the Steep Climbers, the Undercut Bank People, and the Hill Wearing Away People. They came in small parties, in ones and twos, in family groups that spanned three generations.

Two poor warriors of a band called Grasshopper Eaters came all the way from their poor lands in the western extremes of
Noomah
country. These people spoke the same language as the True Humans and practiced the same customs, but they were very poor and knew little contact with the other bands. The two Grasshopper Eaters who came to Horseback's camp wore holey skins and were covered with fleas and lice. They owned one spear between them and had almost starved to death on their long journey, living mostly on roots, seeds, grubs, bird eggs, and rancid meat they had stolen from vultures and wolves.

Horseback fed these two men, but told them they could not live in his camp until they had rid themselves of vermin. He told them to shave their heads and to purify themselves with steam and cedar smoke. When they had done this, he led them to a place where an abundance of a certain weed grew, tall and rangy, topped with tiny red blossoms.

“Pull many of these plants,” he said to the Grasshopper Eaters, “and rub them on your bodies, especially your heads.”

“Oo-bia!”
said the Grasshopper Eater called Crooked Teeth. “This plant stinks!”

“It drives the fleas and lice away,” Horseback replied. “It is good. Now, go to my mother, River Woman, and she will give you a powder made from the crushed seeds of another plant. When your hair grows back, you will sprinkle this on your heads to ward off the return of fleas and lice. When you are wealthy in times to come, you will bring my mother a pony.”

When they were free of biting bugs, Horseback gave each of the men tanned skins for making new clothes, and good buffalo hides for making their lodges.

“Those Grasshopper Eaters will not have women to make their lodges or their pole-drags,” Teal said. “No father wants his daughter to marry a Grasshopper Eater.” It was a good point, for even now, Teal was wrapping a length of wet rawhide around a new pole-drag she was making to move Horseback's lodge. The Grasshopper Eaters would need good wives in order to ascend in social standing.

Horseback smiled and brushed her comment aside, as if swatting at a fly. “They will capture their women, or trade for them.” He wore no Foolish paint today and spoke like any other natural
Noomah
warrior.

“Where?”

“Maybe in trade with the Raccoon-Eyed People, or in war with the Wolf People.”

“We are far from their country,” Teal argued.

“Soon we will ride farther than any other people ever dreamed. Our horses are getting fat here in this land of much grass. The nearest village of Raccoon-Eyed People lies only seven sleeps away on the plains for a rider who knows how to travel. As for the Wolf People, Speaks Twice tells me they come sometimes to attack Tachichichi. If they bring women, some of the young men may capture slave wives.”

“I do not wish to have any Wolf women in my camp,” Teal said. She used her teeth to pull the strip of wet rawhide snug where she had bound two poles.

“Even a Wolf woman can be made good.”

“Maybe the Grasshopper Eaters will get women from the
Yutas.
”

“My wife speaks wisely. Now that we are at peace with the
Yutas,
our boys may find women among them without raiding. My father's second wife is
Yuta
by blood, and she is a good woman.”

“Do the Metal Men have women?” Teal asked.

Horseback's bare eyebrows rose. Now he could see his wife thinking far ahead. Their son, Sandhill, was only four winters old, but one day would need a bride. “Their women are not as beautiful as my wife, but a woman of the Metal Men could serve a Grasshopper Eater well enough.”

“Will my husband raid the Metal Men?”

“I will trade with some, like my friend, Raccoon-Eyes. I will raid others for horses. My dreams tell me my camp will need many horses. Many, many horses. Plenty of horses.”

“Will my husband take scalps from the Metal Men?”

“Their scalps do not prove much, for they would rather hide in their lodges than fight. Except for the soldiers. They like to fight. Their scalps are worthy.”

Teal glanced up from her pole-drag and began to giggle. “Look, my husband. The two Grasshopper Eaters are coming. They have no hair upon their heads! They are spotted all over from flea bites!”

“Quiet, woman. They come seeking honor.”

Horseback greeted the two men with shaved heads and looked approvingly at the new loin skins they had fashioned.

“We come to thank our host for giving us food and good tanned hides,” said the one called Crooked Teeth.

“We wish to learn about the ponies now,” said the other, a man called Crazy Eyes, for his eyes seemed to watch two different things at once.

“Go watch the ponies I have given to you,” Horseback suggested.

The two Grasshopper Eaters looked at each other, then glanced at Teal, who was giggling as she worked on her pole-drag.

“We do not know which horses to watch. The gift is a great one. Any horse is more horse than either of us has ever owned, but we do not know which horses our good host gives to us.”

“Go watch the horses.” Horseback said. “My mother, River Woman, will loan you tools to make moccasins. While you work on your moccasins, you will watch the horses. You will work and watch. When you finish your moccasins, you will wear them and you will follow the horses wherever they go. Watch them. When your hair has grown out of your heads long enough to make braids, then you will know which horse I have given to each of you.”

“How will we know this?” Crazy Eyes said. “We know nothing of horses.”

“You will know. When you are able to lay your hand upon your pony, I will teach you the things you need to know to ride. Now, go. Ask my mother for the tools for making your moccasins. She has prepared the powder made of sacred plants that will drive away the tiny bugs that bite. My mother knows the shadow secrets of all the plants. She finds new things growing in this good country, and her visions teach her their uses. Do not be afraid of her. She says strange things, but her heart is good.”

When the two Grasshopper Eaters turned away, Teal burst into laughter, unable to contain her amusement any longer. “Spotted bald men go to watch the horses,” she sang after them. “The horses will run away in fear!”

“Quiet, woman,” Horseback said, though he too chuckled.

“They know nothing. How are they going to know which pony to claim?”

“How does a man know which woman to claim as his wife?” Horseback said. “The spirits tell him, and it is good.”

As he drank in the beauty of Teal's smile, Horseback heard the crack of a stick, and the muffled cry of a woman. Looking across the camp, he saw Whip standing over Dipper, a broken stick in his hand. Dipper held one hand over the back of her head and used the other arm to shield her stomach, as if she expected Whip to kick her now that he had broken the stick over her head.

“Now you will learn!” Whip shouted.

Sure enough, he kicked her, but the gasp came from the lips of Teal. “She carries a child,” Teal said.

Whip stalked around the place where Dipper lay, jabbing her with the splintered end of the stick and taunting her with fake kicks. He laughed at her all the while, his long braids dangling menacingly, his eyes like cracks in a dark bank of clouds. Again, he kicked her, causing her to cry out and clutch her knees to her stomach.

The Foolish One emerged from Horseback, and he stalked toward Whip. He shouted,
“Hah!”
as though he approved, yet he knew everyone near would see the Foolish One in his bearing and his walk. “It is good to beat a wife that way! What terrible thing has she done, my friend, that she should be beaten like a dog? Has she coupled with another warrior? Has she touched your sacred shield during her time of unclean bleeding? She must be a very bad woman to deserve such a beating, my friend. Tell me, how has this woman dishonored you?”

Whip's face showed his anger at the interference of the Foolish One. “I will not say what my wife has done! I do not need to say!”

“It is so bad my friend cannot speak it!” Horseback yelled. “I must ask the woman herself!” Dropping to the dirt, Horseback grabbed Dipper by the hair and turned her face to his. “Tell me, woman, what thing you have done!”

Her small voice came out with a sob: “I let my shadow fall on the meat that I was cooking for my husband!”

“Oo-bia!”
Horseback shouted, drawing away from Dipper as if she were diseased. “This is a very bad woman! Is it not a taboo to let one's shadow fall on cooking meat? Such a careless person must be pushed roughly away, so the shadow does not taint the meat. But, the way my friend punishes his wife, I believe she must have stood with her shadow on the meat a long time, on purpose.”

“I saw Dipper cooking,” a voice said.

Horseback looked and saw Bear Heart, a man known for truthfulness. “Tell us why my friend beats his wife so!” Horseback said.

“I cannot say. I did not see her shadow fall on the meat.”

“She lies!” Whip shouted. “The beating has nothing to do with her shadow. She is a wicked slave wife. She makes spells against me. I beat a witch. She practices Northern Raider sorcery!”

“Winters have passed since you made her good,” Horseback argued. “Is her witchcraft even stronger than your seed?”

Some women ducked behind lodges and hooted at Whip like knowing owls who see everything.

Horseback pointed at the sky. “Let Father Sun witness your oath, my friend, for he who swears falsely to Father Sun is struck down, and so you will prove your right to beat this woman!”

Whip dropped the broken stick he had been holding, and took two steps back. “I do not have to swear. She should be the one to swear!”

Without hesitation, Dipper lifted her face and palms to the sun. “As Father Sun is my witness, I am not a witch. I am only a woman!”