Comanche Dawn (62 page)

Trotter and Bear Heart and the Grasshopper Eater called Crooked Teeth had returned to the camp of the Horseback People two suns ago and told of the killings that had happened at Quivira. Yet, they had come back with many stolen ponies, making the people happy. Trotter had explained that the rest of the party had gone after the tall Osage warrior who had stolen Raccoon-Eyes's sacred metal. Surely, Horseback and Shaggy Hump and Raccoon-Eyes and the others would return within a few suns.

All this made Teal sigh, for she knew she would not get back to sleep now, thinking of all the things she wanted to get done before her husband returned. Suddenly, her eyes flew open and she sat upright, tossing the soft robe away. This was the day! Twenty-eight suns had crossed over since the last time! Now she remembered. She would not make parfleches today, or rain garments, or even a meal for Sandhill. The bleeding would begin today and she would be unclean. She would go and stay with others in the lodge for unclean women, away from the rest of the camp.

A big smile crossed her face. Happily, she pulled on her moccasins, and threw a plain old antelope-skin dress over her head. She crawled to Sandhill's bed, yanked the warm robe away from him and shook him. “Wake up, my son. Wake up, now! Today makes twenty-eight suns. It is always twenty-eight.”

She pulled the naked boy out of the lodge and he stumbled along groggily, rubbing his eyes with his one free hand. She went straight to the lodge of her husband's sister, Mouse. Stopping before the doorway to the lodge, she said, “Sister, I am here. Your nephew comes to stay in your lodge.”

In a moment, the bear-skin covering flew aside, and Mouse looked out, bare-breasted from sleeping under the robes with her husband, Trotter. She smirked at Teal. “You wake early.”

Teal took Sandhill's face in her hand to make sure he was listening. “Be good in your uncle's lodge, or
Tso'apittse,
the giant made of rock, will come from the mountains and take your head in his pitchy hands and carry you home for his children to eat!”

Mouse took the boy by the hand and pulled him into the lodge.

Turning away, Teal said, “Do not forget to move my mare to grass.”

Closing the doorway to the lodge, Mouse replied, “Do not forget to keep away from my husband's shield and weapons.”

“I am not unclean yet, but it will begin today.”

Skipping back to her lodge, Teal gathered some things to eat, a wooden bowl, a buffalo-horn spoon, her back rest, and a new pouch she was decorating with dyed and flattened porcupine quills. Inside the pouch was her awl and some thread made of tendons separated from the back of an elk carcass, and also four dried buffalo bladder containers holding four different sizes of quills. The pouch would give her something of her own to work on while she spent a few days in the lodge for unclean women. She would not make anything for her husband while she was unclean, for her bleeding might taint his power.

When she left, she secured the door flap of her lodge with a wooden pin, in case rain fell while she was away. Then she trotted happily out of camp.

The lodge for unclean women stood downstream from the camp, around a grove of
sohoobi
trees that kept it out of sight. As she approached, she smelled the aroma of tallow melting. She smiled hungrily. Already, there was giggling in the lodge, though Father Sun had not begun to show himself.

The woman at the cook fire looked up from an iron pan and smiled. “Looks Away, the wife of your husband's son is here,” she announced.

It was Slope Child's voice that replied from inside the lodge: “Even one so pure becomes unclean.”

Laughter erupted inside the lodge. Looks Away stepped out, eyes cast low, not wanting to take part in making fun of Teal.

Teal touched Looks Away as she passed her, then she marched close to the lodge and spoke loudly: “Is that the mother of Coyote's child?”

The women gasped, then burst into laughter again.

Slope Child had never married, but had a daughter. She would not say who the father of the girl was, and most women agreed that it was because she did not know who the father was herself. Among the
Noomah,
such a baby was known as Coyote's child. When she came to the lodge for unclean women, Slope Child had to pay someone to look after her daughter. This did not seem to bother Slope Child. She always had plenty of things to pay with, even though she had no husband.

“Perhaps it is Coyote's daughter,” Slope Child answered. This was a scandalous thing to say, for the elders often told the story of how Coyote tricked his own daughters into coupling with him. Slope Child seemed to enjoy shocking the women by saying such things.

“When you leave this lodge,” Teal said, knowing Slope Child would go back to camp on this day, “I know a place where you can gather much stone seed.”

The women howled with laughter, for Slope Child was said to take stone seed to prevent getting pregnant. Slope Child stepped out of the lodge and glared at Teal. Finally, she smiled, and said, “Do not trifle with me, pure one. Is this true about the stone seed?”

The women laughed, and even Looks Away smiled, though she covered her mouth with her hand.

Teal set her back rest on the ground, and sat down to lean against it. She began eating a piece of boiled breadroot that she had brought along with her. The woman at the fire was adding honey and water to the melted tallow to make a fine sauce. She offered some to Teal, that she might dip her breadroot in the good sauce. Unclean women were forbidden to consume meat, but they could still eat well.

“Where did you get that iron vessel?” Teal asked, enjoying the sweet sauce.

“My husband traded two good robes for it at Tachichichi. The
Tiwas
there have many metal things.”

Teal ate until she was full, then began to work on her new pouch. Slope Child was gathering her things and preparing to go back to the camp.

“You leave early,” Teal said.

Slope Child smiled wantonly. “I would rather be among men now. I have stayed long enough among women.”

As Slope Child turned, a sound like that of a lightning bolt erupted from upstream, but no clouds hung in the sky. A scream and a chorus of war cries followed, like the songs of geese in the sky. Hooves rumbled across the valley, and two more guns fired.

Teal sprang from the ground and sprinted beyond the timber shielding the women's lodge from camp. She saw the camp's herd of horses stampeding her way. Looking into the camp, she saw strange warriors running on foot among the lodges, shooting arrows into the doorways that were open.

The women who came up behind Teal began to scream and cry, but she thought only of Sandhill, and ran immediately toward the camp. The horses were galloping her way, so she waved the quilled pouch that was still in her hands, turning part of the stampede into the camp. As hundreds of hooves shook the ground to either side of her, she saw a mounted warrior driving the ponies. She recognized his appearance from the stories she had heard in the winter lodges of the elders. The warrior's hair grew long on the right side of his head, but was folded over and up, with the end tied to the top of the long lock. His hair was cut short above his left ear, giving him an evil lopsided look. He rode near enough for Teal to notice the red stripe painted across his eyes and the bridge of his nose, but he would not come near her, seeing that she had come from the unclean women's lodge.

She saw another enemy warrior driving the horses, then another. They were
Na-vohnuh,
the most ancient of all
Noomah
foes. A born hatred gripped her heart like a hand just pulled from icy water. She kept swinging her pouch over her head to keep the horses from running over her, and followed about twenty ponies into the camp.

The
Noomah
warriors were rallying now, and even women were stepping from the lodges with weapons. Everything had gone suddenly crazy in a camp so peaceful just before dawn. She caught glimpses of
Na-vohnuhs
darting among the lodges. They had come from upstream, against the wind, and had run on foot all the way through the camp to the downstream side. Many of the warriors of Teal's camp were now pursuing them, or trying to catch the horses that Teal had so luckily driven among the lodges. She kept weaving through the ponies and frightened people to get to the lodge of Trotter and Mouse.

She picked up a warrior's lance from a tripod that had been knocked over by horses, and ran toward the lodge where she had left Sandhill. She saw Bear Heart on a pony that dragged a rope, and knew now that he would help other men catch mounts, drive the
Na-vohnuh
foot-warriors from the valley, and maybe even recapture the ponies that had been stolen. It was well that she had divided the horse herd and frightened some of them into the camp, yet Teal could not feel any relief from her terror until she knew her son was well.

When she came to the lodge, she saw an enemy warrior trying to get in. She ran at him with her lance, and he looked at her, piercing her with his evil glaring eyes. Teal was afraid, but she ran ahead anyway. Then a
pogamoggan
swung through the entrance to the lodge, bashing the warrior on the side of his head and knocking him back. As he hit the ground, Teal drove her lance into him, possessing the presence to turn the edges of the flat flint blade upright so they would slip between the ribs of the attacker when she stabbed him.

The enemy warrior screamed and grabbed the lance shaft, trying to get up, but Mouse sprang through the entrance and smashed his face in with the war club. Sandhill came to the entrance and looked out at the dying enemy warrior bleeding at his feet outside the lodge. He stared, but said nothing. Teal stepped in front of him, to shield him from arrows.

“Where is my mother?” Mouse screamed, glancing around the camp.

Trotter rode bareback to the lodge on a pony, and motioned for the war club in Mouse's hand.

“Find my mother!” Mouse shouted.

Trotter took the
pogamoggan
and wheeled his pony, looking for his mother-in-law. Then Teal herself spotted River Woman, standing outside her lodge, singing a death song, an arrow sticking out of her back. As Trotter rode to her, a great war cry rose, and a long line of enemy foot-warriors appeared on the river bank upstream.

The first assault had been a ruse by the bravest enemy warriors to decoy most of the Comanches downstream. Now the main enemy body was descending on the upstream side of camp. Yet, Teal knew that the horses she had frightened into the camp would give the
Noomah
men power and quickness. They would come at a gallop and clash with the enemy, she hoped before the horrible
Na-vohnuh
reached her son.

Shoving Mouse back into her lodge, she said, “Get your baby.” She pulled Sandhill out of the lodge. When Mouse came out with her baby in his cradle board, Teal said, “Take them to the riverbank, away from the enemy. Hide in the bushes.” She pulled the lance from the dead
Na-vohnuh
and handed it to Mouse.

Sprinting toward the enemy attack, Teal reached her own lodge, wishing now that she hadn't closed the flap with the wooden peg. She pulled the peg out, flung the flap aside, and dived inside to retrieve her bow case and quiver full of hunting arrows. She strung the bow inside, shaking as she listened to River Woman's death song and the screams of the attackers. When she stepped out of her lodge she saw Trotter pulling River Woman onto his pony, the strap of his
pogamoggan
looped around his wrist. It made Teal proud to see Trotter protecting his mother-in-law, as every
Noomah
warrior was sworn to do.

Teal notched an arrow and looked for a target. They were already near enough to shoot. She aimed at a
Na-vohnuh
raider headed for Trotter, and saw her arrow speed into the enemy warrior's hip, crumpling him instantly. Trotter whirled his mount to take on the next warrior, who ran upon him and stabbed his pony with a knife as Trotter knocked his shield away with the club. An enemy arrow hit the already wounded pony in the neck, and Trotter's second blow crunched the skull of the
Na-vohnuh.

Teal drew the bow again and saw her second arrow go all the way through the next attacker. As she groped for a third arrow, she saw Trotter take River Woman away, the pony leaving a solid line of blood on the ground. Beyond Trotter, the enemy foot-warriors had invaded the camp and were leaping into lodges, screaming battle cries.

Teal turned away from the attack. She saw
Noomah
horsemen coming like hawks that dived on mice. Suddenly, the horse-warriors and the foot-warriors collided all around her, and the battle screams made her skin crawl as she dodged the chaos of gnashing weapons. She looked for Mouse and the children now, and saw her husband's sister holding off a warrior with her lance.

Sandhill was standing behind Mouse, holding the cradle board with the baby, looking bewildered and afraid. Teal drew her bow, saw her arrow drop low, into the ankle of the enemy, spinning him, and giving Mouse a chance to stick the blade of the lance into his guts.

Mouse dropped the lance, and turned to take the cradle board from Sandhill. She grabbed for the boy's wrist, but he had seen his mother, and was running toward Teal. An enemy foot-warrior broke through the line of horsemen and scooped Sandhill up like a puppy before Teal's very eyes. She would not shoot with her son in the warrior's arms. She feared she could not catch the enemy raider, and if she could, was not sure she could kill him, for he was muscular and scarred from many battles. He was grizzled, one particular scar raised in an ugly welt across his face. Teal knew this warrior as Battle Scar, the
Na-vohnuh
chief.

A black craziness tried to possess her, until she remembered Mother Killdeer. She dropped her bow and quiver, holding only one arrow. Lifting her antelope skin dress she stabbed herself high on her thigh. The hunting point came back out easily, and with it came the blood, and a searing pain. She gritted her teeth and snapped the arrow shaft one fist behind the point. Keeping the killing end of the arrow in her hand, she jabbed the broken stob of the back portion of the shaft into the wound she had made, so the feathered end stuck out of the wound.