Shortgrass Song (16 page)

The Tonkawa ate human flesh and fought on the side of the Texans. They had served the Texas Rangers as scouts on many a campaign against the Comanche. But now their treachery would turn against them. The Texans were too busy fighting the blue coats to worry about protecting the Tonkawa, who had moved to Indian Territory, weak in number and poorly supplied with weapons. The other tribes with Confederate sympathies had fled to Kansas. The Tonkawa had foolishly remained behind. They would make easy targets for Comanche arrows. There would be a glorious slaughter.

Laughing Wolf called a council in which he related that just the night before he had dreamed of wolves eating the corpses of a hundred Tonkawa. Every warrior in camp agreed to follow the chief in a raid on the Tonkawa village, including Buffalo Head.

The warriors painted their faces red and tied feathers in their horses' tails. They repaired their weapons as they talked about the coming battle. When the party was in fighting order, it assembled and paraded through the village, over a hundred warriors strong. Most of them wore buffalo horns on their heads and carried shields circled by eagle feathers.

Caleb could tell they had murder in mind simply by looking at them. It made him painfully aware of his own whiteness. His hair was getting long, but it was still brown. He had lost his shoes and woven clothing, now wearing soft tanned skins and mocassins, but he was still white under them. He didn't know who the Comanche were going to kill, but he knew they killed white people. Matthew always talked about Indians killing white people. Caleb had seen scalps of white people in camp. Some of them had long hair, as his mother had. He didn't want to be an Indian anymore.

Buster attended the war dance that night and listened to the old men stand and speak. He didn't understand the language but figured out that they were telling of their old triumphs in battle to urge the young warriors on. At last Laughing Wolf reminded the braves of their purpose: annihilate the Tonkawa, steal their horses, burn then-lodges, enslave their women and children. The party would leave before sunrise. There would be no sleep. The men were too excited.

When Buster left the ceremony, he went to his tepee to get his weapons—a knife, a lance, and the rifle Laughing Wolf let him use. He shook Caleb. The boy had tired of the war dance and had gone to sleep in the middle of the night.

“Wake up, Caleb,” Buster said. “It's time to leave. We got to sneak away.”

The news woke Caleb in an instant. “Are we goin' home?” It was strange seeing Buster's face painted red, the horned headdress covering his curly hair.

“All the way to Monument Creek. We got to ride fast, and we can't get caught, so be quiet and do what I tell you. Put those moccasins on.”

Caleb slipped the deerskin shoes on and wrapped a soft robe around his shoulders. He followed Buster to the flap of the tepee and waited as the black man looked out.

“Remember that little waterfall I showed you the other day?”

“The one with the icicles?”

“Yeah. You think you can find your way there in the dark?”

“I know I can.”

“Sneak over there after I leave. Don't let nobody see you. Especially not Snake Woman. I'll bring our horses and meet you there when the war party rides.”

Caleb felt Buster's hand squeeze him on the shoulder and he took courage from it. After Buster left, he waited a minute, then peeked out of his tepee. The warriors were still milling about, moving between their horses and their lodges, lingering a few moments with their women. Caleb scampered into the shadow of his lodge and looked up and down the creek. No one was watching him. He ran a few yards up the creek bank and hid behind a boulder, pausing again to look for pursuers. The rocks rattled under his feet as he scrambled up the bank. At the brink he flung himself to the ground and looked back at the camp.

Amid the throng of Indians, Snake Woman suddenly materialized in the firelight, moving like a witch toward Caleb's tepee. He shrank into the grass and pulled the robe over his white face. She stuck her head into the lodge, withdrew it, and glanced around the Indian camp. Her eyes darted everywhere, first to the light, then to the shadows. Caleb's heart thumped hard against the ground. Snake Woman was looking up the creek bank, tracking his footsteps with her eyes. Her gaze climbed higher and higher until Caleb felt it lock on him. He shivered, afraid to even flinch, frozen like a mouse charmed by the stare of a rattlesnake.

Then Buster was there. He broke the spell that Snake Woman's eyes held on Caleb. The moment she turned to look at Buffalo Head, the boy slithered backward through the grass, out of sight, over the brink of the creek bank. He found his footing and ran for the waterfall, almost tearful with fear.

Buffalo Head told Snake Woman he would go to kill some Tonkawas now.

She took his hand and put it on her stomach. His son was hoping his father would be courageous in battle, she said in sign language.

Buffalo Head nodded and indicated by signing that he had to get his horse.

Where was the white boy?

He wasn't in the tepee?

No.

He wanted to watch the war party go.

Yes, she indicated, and turned into her lodge.

Buster took his weapons out of camp and walked to the far edge of the horse herd. He had Crazy saddled there. In a ravine about a hundred yards away, three other horses waited. Blue Eyes was among them, wearing the saddle Snake Woman had stolen from Holcomb Ranch. The two other horses were poor mounts he didn't think any brave would miss tonight.

He hoped no one would see Crazy's white flanks in the quarter moon as he rode her away from the herd. He took the reins of Blue Eyes's bridle and led the string of three horses up the ravine to the waterfall.

Caleb rose from the grass when he saw his horse. “Can we go now?” he whispered.

“Wait till we hear the war party ridin' out,” Buster said. He got down to tighten the cinch around Blue Eyes and to tie the two spare horses behind his own mount. “They won't hear us if we leave the same time they do.”

Caleb knew the Indians made animal sounds. Every wolf that howled or owl that hooted made him shudder with fear of an ambush. But finally the thunder of war horses rode east and it was time to leave.

“Come on,” Buster said, lifting Caleb to the saddle.

They charged out of the ravine and rode along the flanks of a hill, Buster trailing the two stolen mounts behind Crazy. Caleb looked over his shoulder and saw the Comanche riding like ghosts in the moonlight.

“Don't look back,” Buster said, flinging the buffalo headdress aside. “Ride fast and get behind these hills.” It was a good thing Indians didn't go to war the way white men did, he thought. If they had called a muster roll they would have discovered the missing soldier and sent a detail out to fetch him. He knew his absence would hardly stand out among a hundred surging warriors in the dark, even if he was the only black Comanche in the territory.

They struck the Washita River after an hour of hard riding. Buster switched the saddles to the two stolen horses. He didn't tell Caleb, but he intended to ride them until they dropped, then let Crazy and Blue Eyes carry them into Colorado at a more reasonable pace. The Comanche would not pursue for a couple of days. Their horses and men would be worn from fighting the Tonkawas. With luck they would make Long Fingers's camp before the Comanche caught up with them.

It was dawn when they left the Washita, eating on the run from a parfleche bag full of pemmican. At dusk Buster was squinting at the Antelope Hills on the South Canadian when Caleb's horse gave out and fell. The boy jumped out of the way before the dying beast could roll over him. He had found an instinct for riding over the winter. Buster pressed Crazy and Blue Eyes back into action and crossed the river. He hoped an early spring rain might make it swell and cut the Comanche pursuit behind him.

After resting two hours, he woke Caleb and told him to get on Blue Eyes.

“You're gettin' mean as she was,” he said, pushing himself laboriously from the ground.

“Who?”

“Snake Woman. She never let me sleep either.” He noticed that Buster had washed the red war paint from his face.

“It ain't meanness. I just got to get you out of the Indian Territory before Laughing Wolf comes after us. Now, let's go. You always wanted to ride, so let's ride.”

As he went to mount Blue Eyes, Caleb stumbled over an old buffalo skull and stopped to turn its nose in the direction he considered Monument Creek to be.

“What'd you do that for?” Buster asked.

“It'll make the buffalo follow us home so we can shoot 'em.”

“Don't believe that heathen garbage. You ain't a Indian no more.”

EIGHTEEN

When Buster and Caleb finally got home, they found Horace Gribble living in the Holcomb cabin. He and Pete had taken care of the place all winter and brought most of the stock through. Only five head had vanished, and Horace didn't know it, but Long Fingers had taken three of them in exchange for helping Buster find Caleb. The winter wheat was sprouting thick, owing to good snows and early rains. The plains were turning green, and the creek was flowing with snowmelt. Buster was tired, but there was little time to rest.

“Thanks for lookin' after the place,” he said to Horace.

Horace shrugged. “Reckon y'all'd do the same for us.”

Matthew had been living at the Gribble Ranch with the other two Gribble brothers, Hank and Bill, who had come from Kentucky with a herd of cattle. He had picked up some of their more highly refined characteristics such as chewing tobacco and cussing. He didn't really want to go back to Monument Creek, but Horace told him his little brother had been rescued from the Indians by “that colored boy” and made him go home.

Buster was planting cottonwood saplings around the cabin one day. He had dug them up along Monument Creek and was setting them in perfect orchard rows, envisioning the day when they would stand high enough to shade the yard. He was gently tamping the soil around the roots of one when he saw two riders coming.

He stood and whistled, and the boys rode in from the plains—Matthew on Crazy, Pete and Caleb riding double on Blue Eyes. They got to the cabin about the time their father arrived with a stranger and a herd of six horses. The stranger drove the horses into the corral as Ab rode to the cabin, pausing briefly at Ella's grave. It gave him a sudden pang of dread to see his youngest son straddling the wild-looking blue-eyed mustang.

“Caleb, get off that horse,” he said.

Caleb slid down and looked at the ground. Matthew spit.

“What's that in your mouth?” Ab asked.

“Chewin' tobacco.”

“Well, spit it out.”

Matthew raked the chaw out of his cheek.

“Hello, Papa,” Pete said.

“Hello.” He nodded at Buster. “What are you doing?”

“Puttin' in some cottonwood trees for shade.”

“You're looking pretty far ahead if you can see shade under those sprouts. Are we going to have any wildflowers this spring?”

“Yes, sir. They're up, they just ain't bloomin' yet.”

“Good.”

When he stepped down from the saddle, the peg leg landed right in front of Caleb. No one had seen it on the off side of the horse, but now it stood like a skeleton's leg in front of the boy. It was skinny as the neck of Buster's banjo. As if to show it off, Ab opened his coat and held the tails back, placing his hands on his hips.

His knee fit into a rawhide-lined socket at the top of the artificial limb, and an ungainly network of straps held it to what was left of his leg and attached to his belt. He had to cinch the belt tight around his waist to get it to hold the leg on. The waistband of his trousers slanted to the right, as if the peg leg were trying to pull his pants down.

Ab had been a suspender man before Apache Canyon. Caleb had never even seen him wear a belt before, let alone strap a banjo neck to one and use it for a leg.

“Damn, where'd your leg go, Papa?” Matthew said with a look of astonishment on his face.

“The Texans shot it off at … What did you say?”

“I meant to say ‘dang,' but … How'd it happen?”

“I'll tell you about it later. And if I hear you swear again, I'll take this leg off and use it on your rear end.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ab's companion rode toward the cabin, having closed the corral gate on the six horses. So unusual was his appearance that he drew even Caleb's attention away from the peg leg.

“This is Javier Maldonado,” Ab said. “He's from New Mexico.”

Javier swept the sombrero from his head and bowed from the saddle as if his own feet stood under him instead of his mount's. Rings of hair were plastered with sweat against his head. His skin was brown and olive and red, depending on the light it caught, and his beard, though shaven that morning, appeared drawn in charcoal. He had a crease in the middle of his chin that he seemed to flaunt.
“Buenos días,”
he said.

“Does he speak English?” Matthew asked.

Javier's eyes glinted with mirth. “Yes, I know English very well. I even know the cuss words! I learned in Texas.”

“Probably learned the cuss words first,” Ab grumbled. One of the Holcomb dogs was sniffing the wooden leg. He rapped it once across the nose.

Javier dismounted and became another person. Out of the saddle he looked rather comical. He was bowlegged, potbellied, and swaybacked. His legs, which had seemed proportionate in the stirrups, were too short for the rest of him on the ground.

“Glad to meet you,” Buster said, shaking Javier's hand. He saw the thick coil of rawhide next to the saddle horn. “I guess you're gonna teach the boys how to rope.”

“That's right,” Ab said. “I brought him back to show Matthew and Pete how to work those cows. There's more to it than just roping.”