Comanche (9 page)

After seeing to the wounded, Long Walker went to where the three boys sat on the ground. All rose as he came near, trying to hide their excitement and look like men used to performing brave deeds.

‘You did well,’ the chief told them and they could have asked for no greater reward then the words, especially as he continued, ‘Ride into the village and tell of our victory.’

On returning from a successful war path, raid or battle, the warriors always sent word ahead so that a fitting welcome could be arranged. Normally the youngest
tuivitsi
carried the word, but Long Walker gave the honour to the three boys whose courage made the victory possible. In view of Loncey’s actions, the chief planned another reward for the boy.

Everybody in the village gathered to hear the news. Eagerly they began to prepare a welcome for the returning warriors, to be followed by a Victory Dance that night. Even the families of the three men lost in the fight joined in the preparations. Each of the dead men had counted coup before being killed and the People considered it to be a great honour for a brave to count coup and be killed in the same fight.

While the people in the village made ready, each warrior freshened his war paint, tidied his clothing and put a shine to his horse’s coat with a vigorous rubbing by handfuls of grass. Having counted coup twice, including on the Waco war bonnet chief, Rains Coming was granted the privilege of fastening one of the scalps he took to the lower lip of his horse. That showed he had distinguished himself and expressed contempt for the defeated enemy. When sure all was ready in the village, the men mounted. Led by Long Walker, as commanding chief, and Rains Coming, the men rode towards the tepees.

Taking up a long, slender scalp-pole, Raccoon Talker led the people out to greet the returning braves. As medicine woman of the tribe it was her right to do so and also to lead the victory songs which welcomed the men home. In passing the woman, each warrior who could tied a scalp to her pole. Followed by the women, children and such men who had not been involved in the fight, the braves paraded into the village. After passing through the length of the village, the warriors separated. Each man rode to his tepee, dismounted and handed over horse and weapons to wife, mother or sister. While the women tended to the horses, the men rested so as to be in good condition for the activities of the Victory Dance.

After dark, a huge fire threw its glow of light upon Raccoon Talker’s scalp pole as it stuck into the earth in the centre of the village. Near the pole sat drummers and singers to supply the music for the dancers who formed up, men facing women, ready to celebrate.

Among the other rights won by Long Walker was that of
Piane’epai’i
, the Big Whip. At a Victory Dance he carried his whip; its wooden handle having a serrated edge and bearing symbols which represented his great deeds and two short lashes of otter-skin swinging free. The whip signified that he acted as a kind of master-of-ceremonies and anybody to whom he pointed must rise and dance, or be whipped. At various times during the dance, the Big Whip had to halt the music and relate a great deed performed by himself, ending it with a sacred oath attesting the truth of his words.

‘Sun, Father, you saw me do it. Earth, Mother, you saw me do it. Do not let me live another season if I speak with a forked tongue.’

Should a warrior not wish to dance when called by the Big Whip, he had the right to rise and tell his greatest deed. If the crowd decided the deed was stronger than that of the Big Whip, its teller need not dance. To gain the title of Big Whip, a man must be the bravest of the brave; so his deeds could rarely be bettered.

In the case of a major victory, or return of a very successful raiding party, the ensuing Victory Dance might continue for several days. The fight that morning did not merit such lengthy celebrations and it broke up soon after midnight. However, before it ended Long Walker announced that Loncey would be given his second Give-Away Dance as a reward for rescuing his friend during the attack.

Much comment greeted the words, but everybody agreed that the boy merited the honour. Never before had any Comanche received two Give-Away Dances at so young an age. Clearly Loncey would be a name-warrior and a pride to the
Pehnane
if he continued to show such courage and ability.

Not to be outdone, Loud Voice and Comes For Food’s parents also announced a Give-Away Dance. For convenience’s sake, the three celebrations were held on the same night and acclaimed a great success. Each of the boys received, among other things, a good horse and a saddle. The latter gift caused much puffing out of young chests and delighted grins. Usually a boy rode bare-back or on a blanket until old enough to ride in his first buffalo hunt, which normally preceded being taken on the war path; but public opinion demanded special awards for the trio’s courage.

One prize came Loncey’s way at the Give-Away Dance. Hearing of Loncey’s exploits, Sam Ysabel declared it to be time his son possessed a man’s weapon. Among other items brought back from the trip was a Tryon, Son and Co. Mississippi rifle. At the height of the dance, Ysabel brought the rifle forward and presented it to his son along with a powder flask and, bullet pouch. Despite the fact that the rifle had a length of four foot, one inch, and a calibre of .54, Loncey did not feel worried. Hefting the rifle in his hands, looking at its fine walnut stock and foregrip, the iron ramrod under the barrel and the patch box in the butt, he grinned like to split his face.

‘How’d you like it, boy?’ asked Ysabel.

‘I like it fine,
ap
,’ enthused Loncey.

A grin split the big white man’s face and he winked at Long Walker. ‘Now all you have to do is learn to shoot with it, Loncey.’

‘If he’s his father’s son, that won’t be hard for him,’ prophesied Long Walker.

In view of the way things would turn out, the chief made a mighty shrewd guess.

oooOooo

* A’He: Comanche cry, meaning ‘I claim it’ (the coup).

CHAPTER NINE

ALTHOUGH it tested his young muscles severely, Loncey quickly came to master the rifle. Coming from Kentuckian stock on his father’s side, he appeared to inherit that rifle-toting breed’s ability to aim true. Even quicker then accuracy came the ability to care for, clean and prepare the rifle to be fired. Although paper cartridges might be popular among the white settlers, Loncey knew nothing of them in early days. Instead he poured the powder charge direct from the horn, its built-in measure preventing him from using too many grains, and patch-loaded the bullet.

Nobody knows for sure who first discovered patch-loading. The old-time woodsmen discovered that the European system of tapping home a bullet with a mallet down the rifle barrel could not be practised in a country where keen-eared enemies lurked for the slightest sound. It was discovered that by casting the ball about a three-hundredths of an inch smaller than the rifle’s bore and placing it upon a piece of dressed buckskin, or felt, well-soaked in tallow, a ramrod could force the charge down the rifling lands of the barrel in silence and ease. Nor did accuracy suffer, as the patch fitted tightly into the rifling and formed a gas-tight seal without the actual bullet being distorted. Using the patch method, Loncey could soon get off two shots a minute; not a bad time when one must pour in the powder, place patch and ball in position and ram them home the full length of the iron rod, then fit a percussion cap on the breech nipple. While practising the loading, either so as to shoot, or dry, the boy longed for a weapon which would fire several times without needing to reload after each shot.*

Gaining accuracy took more time than learning the loading drill, but Ysabel saw to it that Loncey had access to a good supply of powder and lead. The boy learned how to mould his own bullets. When shooting, he quickly acquired the knack of aligning the tip of the foresight in the centre of the target and squarely in the middle of the V-notch of the backsight. Allowing for wind and trajectory of the bullet, once taught, became almost a natural thing. Before two months passed, Loncey could make consistent hits on a stationary
Aritsi
target at a hundred yards.

Not all his time went in rifle practice. The acquisition of a saddle—made by a
tsukup
and resembling the modified Spanish pattern most often seen by the Comanches—laid open a whole new world of exciting horsemanship. Many of the feats performed by warriors, such as hanging along the racing horse’s flank and discharging arrows or a bullet under its neck, could not be done when riding bare-back. Once given the security of a saddle, Loncey, Loud Voice and Comes For Food swiftly mastered every trick; although they all collected a few bruises and bumps in the process.

As mastery of saddle and rifle came, Loncey began to look for an opportunity to repay his father for the latter gift. He also hoped he might again perform an act which brought him into the limelight. The chance came one evening as he sat by Long Walker’s fire, eating a meal and listening to Ysabel and the chief discussing the merits of various animals as food.

‘There’s nothing I like more than a taste of those wild big-horn sheep you get over in the high country to the West,’ Ysabel stated, after deer, elk, bear and antelope had been mentioned. ‘I’d sure admire to taste some again.’

Listening to the word, Loncey began to form an idea. After finishing eating, he rose and went to find his two companions. In the way of his people, Loncey stated that he intended to ride on an expedition and wanted friends to go along with him. Without asking what Loncey planned, Loud Voice and Comes For Food offered their services. They showed no apprehension when hearing that Loncey meant to visit the distant hill country in search of a bighorn sheep to present to his father. Considering that, from past performance, Loncey possessed the medicine-power to succeed, his friends willingly put themselves under his orders.

‘I’ll bring pemmican for us,’ Loncey promised.

‘We can use my pony as a pack horse,’ Comes For Food offered.

‘My mother has plenty of jerked meat we can use,’ Loud Voice continued. ‘Will you be taking your bow, Loncey?’

‘No. The rifle. How about you?’

His companions had no firearms and so said they would each bring his bow and arrows. From what Loncey had heard at various times, the rifle would be more suitable while hunting sheep. Although the bighorn sheep at that time had not been pushed into the most inaccessible crags by hunting pressure, they lived in country that did not lend itself to close-range stalking. So, despite it being slower to reload, Loncey settled on the rifle for the hunt.

At dawn the following morning, the boys headed for the remuda. After loading Comes For Food’s pony with a few necessities, they caught and saddled their horses, then rode off to the West. Nobody questioned their right to go, nor would have raised any objections even if knowing they planned the one hundred and fifty mile trip to the western edge of the
Pehnane
country in search of bighorn sheep. If they were to be of any use to the community, young Comanches must show self-reliance, spirit and initiative. Preventing them from doing so had never been the Comanche way. Any boy who could not survive away from the village without adult supervision’s education had been neglected and he would never make the grade as a warrior.

Despite the length of the journey, none of the trio felt at all worried. Their whole life’s training had equipped them for just such an adventure. While expecting to live off the country, their pack pony carried parfleche bags—known as
awyaw: t
among the People—containing jerked meat and pemmican; both of which kept well and proved most welcome when fresh food could not be obtained. Jerked meat, usually sun-dried flesh of the buffalo, did not look appetising but was nourishing. On the other hand, pemmican took more making, looked better and proved even more satisfactory to eat. After dried meat had been softened over a fire, berries, cherries, plums, pinon, peccan, walnuts, chestnuts or occasionally acorns, also partially dried and crushed, went into it. Stored in either an
awyaw: t
or the large intestine of a buffalo and coated in tallow to form an airtight seal, pemmican stayed fit to eat for a long period. Not that it often had a chance to put its fresh-keeping qualities to a test, being regarded among the People as a prime delicacy. Comanche children ate it sliced and coated in honey, enjoying every succulent mouthful.

To a Comanche on a journey, fifty miles a day constituted a reasonable pace. Filled with the eagerness of youth, the boys pushed their wiry horses a good fifty-five miles upon the first day. They traversed the range with an inborn sense of direction every member of the
Nemenuh
possessed; and with that same fixity of purpose that drove them as small children to spend an entire day if necessary in the pursuit of one particular humming-bird when hunting with the small bows and blunt arrows.

Towards evening Comes For Food and Loud Voice killed three jackrabbits with their bows. These served to give bulk and fresh meat to a meal that included the tuberous roots of the Indian potato, eaten raw, a few wild onions and bulbs of a sego lily. All in all the boys fared very well in the food line. Nor did they forget to take the basic precautions and made their camp in a small, wood-surrounded canyon which hid them and masked the light of their fire.

Another day’s hard riding saw a further fifty miles behind them without incident. Travelling through the traditional hunting grounds of the
Pehnane
, they saw no sign of enemies. Next day the boys wended their way upwards, through the wooded slopes and towards evening made a well-concealed camp among the trees just below the open moorland on which the sheep lived.

In a few years time, with the coming of the white man, the sheep would be hunted to the verge of extinction and pushed beyond the New Mexico line into the arid, semi-desert hill country. However, when Loncey—possibly one of the first white men to enter and hunt the area—arrived with his two companions, the bighorn sheep still grazed in fair numbers in the high country beyond the timber line.

Finding sheep country proved far, far easier than making the required kill. With the cheery optimism of youth, the boys expected to arrive and, after a night’s sleep, bag a sheep in the early morning; then return to the village in triumph and receive the plaudits of the people.

Their early training caused them to once more make a safe camp. Up in the high country among the spruce and jack-pine, close to a stream, the boys tethered their horses and prepared to settle down. While Comes For Food went out to see what he could shoot for their meal, the other two collected wood and made a fire. When the sun went down, they found a decided chill in the air and so prepared to keep their fire going all night with as little inconvenience to themselves as possible. Taking the axe which Loud Voice remembered to bring along, Loncey cut two long, stout young saplings and took them to the camp. While he sank the saplings into the ground at an angle, Loud Voice brought in a number of logs from which the boys trimmed all branches and protuberances. After the fire had been lit and before going to sleep for the night, the boys placed the logs on to the sloping saplings so that the lowest rested upon the flames. While the boys slept in their buckskin shirts, breechclouts, leggings and moccasins, wrapped in a blanket each, the fire burned away the first log and the next rolled down into its place. While the system did not work perfectly, it saved the boys from spending too much sleeping-time awake and tending the fire.

Dawn found the trio riding their horses over the open high country in search of their quarry. Although they found plenty of tracks and scats, noon came and went before the boys saw a flock of sheep. On seeing the animals, from a distance of at least a mile, and realising what they must be, Loncey’s party acted as they would when hunting whitetail deer. Retreating down a slope out of sight, they prepared to leave the horses and make a stalk. Then came the first lesson in a major difference between sheep and deer hunting. Loncey peeked back cautiously over the slope and saw, to his annoyance, the flock bounding away over a distant rim.

The previous night, seated around the camp-fire, Loncey and his friends had pooled their knowledge of sheep hunting. It came second-hand, from listening to fathers, uncles and elder brothers discussing the difficulties and techniques of the business. Their knowledge proved limited, for the Comanche—a realist and hunting meat, not sport—rarely went to the trouble necessary to hunt the sheep. About all the boys really knew was that any hunting must be done from a long range.

During the first day, the boys found that getting close enough for Loncey to chance a shot was next to impossible. Four more times during the day, the boys saw sheep without being able to approach close enough for Loncey to use his rifle. Among the keenest-sighted animals, the sheep also possessed good ears and a sharp nose. In addition, they did not behave like the woodland game the boys usually hunted.

‘They don’t act like deer,’ Loncey stated as he sat with his companions by the fire that night. ‘If you frighten a deer, it will run a short way and then stop to see if you follow.’

‘The sheep have strong medicine,’ admitted Loud Voice. ‘When they see you, they run away and keep going.’

That had been discovered when the boys tried tracking the third flock they saw. After almost three miles, the sheep had still been going and the trail petered out on a shale bank which held no sign.

Determined to succeed, Loncey refused to think of giving up the attempt; even though he realised that he faced a task which might have tried the skill and knowledge of much older, more experienced hunters than his party. Making the camp their base, he started to sweep the high country. For four days the boys hunted without success, but learned lessons from their failures. Normal deer-style stalking proved useless. In each case the sheep saw the boys long before human eyes located them and as soon as the boys took cover to make their stalk, the sheep headed for safety. Due to the bighorns’ habit of keeping going once scared, tracking brought no better result.

On the third day of their stay, Loncey began to get an uneasy feeling of being watched. In later years he would come to know that feeling and, relying on it, save his life from hidden enemies.** While unable to shake the feeling, he failed to see any sign of watchers and so said nothing of his suspicions to his friends.

Remembering his grandfather’s frequent advice about turning an animal’s habits to his advantage, Loncey gave long and hard thought to the way the bighorns behaved. One significant point struck him early on the fourth day, causing him to halt his horse and look at his friends.

‘The sheep always see us before we see them. Yet they don’t run away as soon as we come into sight,’ he said. ‘They stand and watch us—’

‘Until we hide from them,’ Loud Voice finished for him. ‘Then they run.’

About an hour later the boys saw a flock of sheep higher up the hills and a mile away. Already the sheep had spotted them and stood staring in their direction.

‘Let’s stop and see what happens,’ Loncey suggested. ‘We’ll stay in sight.’

Obedient, as warriors should be when their leader gives an order, the other two halted their horses. Patiently they remained in the same place for over an hour and the sheep made no attempt to flee. Some of the flock resumed their feeding, two or three lying down, but always at least one watched the boys.

‘Now we’ll go out of sight,’ Loncey ordered after waiting for some sign of flight.

Not until the boys backed their mounts out of sight did the sheep turn and flee. Loncey felt that he might be approaching an answer to the problem. On the next contact with a flock, he continued to ride closer. Although he and his friends kept in plain sight, the sheep fled long before they reached shooting range.

‘We could try riding them down, like buffalo,’ Comes For Food remarked.

‘Over this sort of country?’ Loncey scoffed. ‘No, that’s not the answer. But I think I know what is.’