Comanche Moon (11 page)

Now two dusty young rangers stood in his office with news that he found to be nearly incredible: Inish Scull, the brilliant hero of the Mexican War, the most experienced military man in the state, had left his command and walked away on foot, merely to reclaim a stolen horse.

The Governor had a map of the western regions spread out on his desk and was attempting to get the young rangers to pinpoint the area where Captain Scull had left the troop, but it was fast becoming apparent to him that they couldn't.

"We were east of the Pecos and some ways north of the Red River," Call said.

"Way north of the Red," Augustus said.

"We were several days getting down to the Red." The Governor, whose spectacles had been unaccountably mislaid, had to squint to make out many details; but when he did squint he discovered what he already suspected, which was that there was no way of deducing where Inish Scull might be.

"Why, there's nothing there, not even a creek," the Governor said. "Inish has lost himself, and over a goddamn horse." "Well, it was his warhorse, Governor," Gus remarked. "He held that horse in high regard." "Yes, and what about his duty to the state of Texas?" Governor Pease said. "Did he hold that in high regard, sir?" Call and Gus had no idea what to say.

They had never met a governor before. Call thought they ought to talk as little as possible, but Augustus, as usual, found it hard to keep quiet.

"He made us both captains, before he went," he said. "I guess he thought we could get the boys home safe, and we done it, and recovered those captives too." "Yes, though I doubt the woman will recover --they rarely do," the Governor said. "I'll endorse your promotions--the state can use a pair of competent young captains like yourselves. What stumps me is Inish. How did he expect to catch up with Kicking Wolf on foot when he had already failed to catch him horseback?" The Governor went to the window and looked out.

Far to the west huge white thunderheads floated like warships across a blue sky.

"Inish Scull is a rich man," he said.

"He's always been a rich man. He could buy and sell me ten times over, and I'm no pauper.

He don't need the job. He was only rangering because it interested him, and now it's stopped interesting him, I guess.

"So away he went," he added, turning back to the young men. "Away he went. He might be off to California to prospect for gold, for all we know. Meanwhile we've still got several thousand hostile Indians to contend with, and a whole nation to the south that don't like us one bit. It's a poor performance, I say." "At least he was with Famous Shoes," Gus pointed out. "I expect Famous Shoes will guide him home." Governor Pease was staring out the window at the Scull mansion, its strange turrets just visible above the trees along Shoal Creek.

"I'm the governor, but the rich Yankee son-of-a-bitch has never answered to me, that I recall," the Governor said. "Every time I call him in for a report, that Yankee nose of his goes up--but that ain't the worst of it. The worst is that he's left us Inez. I expect we can hold our own with the Comanches and I believe we can whip back the Mexicans, but the heavens are going to ring when Inez Scull finds out that her husband didn't care to come home." Neither Call nor Augustus knew what to say about that.

"She's richer than Inish, you know," Governor Pease said. "They're quite a couple, the Sculls. A Yankee snob and a Southern slut. They're hell to manage, both of them." The Governor stared glumly out the window for a while. The fact that the two young rangers were still in his office seemed to slip his mind. Below him he could see Bingham sitting in the buggy, waiting to take someone somewhere; but it was not until his reverie ended and he saw the two dusty young rangers standing by his desk that he realized Bingham was waiting for them.

"Why, gentlemen, excuse me--y'll think I'm daft," Governor Pease said. "Inish Scull used good judgment in making you captains, and I'll second it. You've both got a bright future, if you can keep your hair." He had given the young rangers a careful looking over. They were polite in deportment, unlike their commander, the wild millionaire soldier who had just marched off into the wilderness for reasons of his own. Governor Pease was suddenly moved to emotion, at the sight of such sturdy, upright young fellows.

"You're the future of Texas, fine young men like yourselves," he said. "Why, either of you could wind up governor, before you're done, if you apply yourselves diligently and keep to the straight and narrow." He patted them both on the shoulder and gave them a warm handshake before sending them away-- Augustus claimed the man had even had tears in his eyes.

"I didn't see any tears," Call said, when they were in the buggy again, heading back down the hill toward the ranger corrals. "Why would he cry if he likes us so much?" "I don't know and it don't matter --we're captains now, Woodrow," Augustus said. "You heard the Governor. He said we're the future of Texas." "I heard him," Call said. "I just don't know what he meant." "Why, it means we're fine fellows," Augustus said.

"How would he know that?" Call asked. "He's never even seen us before today." "Now, Woodrow--don't be contrary," Gus said. "He's the governor, and a governor can figure things out quicker than other folks. If he says we're the future of Texas, then I expect it's so." "I ain't being contrary," Call said. "But I still don't know what he meant."

When Slipping Weasel came racing into camp with the news that Kicking Wolf had stolen the Buffalo Horse, there was an uproar at what a big joke it was on the Texans. Old Slow Tree was still there, talking to anyone who would listen about how the time for war with the Texans was over, how it was time for the People to grow corn, how the buffalo would soon disappear, so that the People would starve if they did not soon learn the ways of the whites and plant and reap.

Buffalo Hump had started avoiding the old chief whenever he could do so without giving offense.

When Slipping Weasel came into camp Buffalo Hump was boiling a buffalo skull in a big pot he had taken from a white farm on the Trinity River.

Boiling the skull was taking a long time-- Buffalo Hump had to send Lark off several times to gather more firewood. He was boiling the skull because he wanted to make himself a new shield and he needed the thickest part of the bone for the center of his shield. Very few warriors bothered to make bone shields anymore; it was slow work.

And yet only the thickest part of the buffalo skull would turn back a rifle bullet. He had been fortunate enough to kill a bull buffalo with an exceptionally large head. The buffalo had been watering in the Blue River when Buffalo Hump saw him. He had driven the bull into deep water and killed him with an arrow; then he took the head and carried it all the way back to Texas, despite the flies and the smell, so he could boil it properly and make his shield. The skull was the thickest Buffalo Hump had seen in a long life of hunting--it was so thick that it would turn away any bullet, even one fired at point-blank range. It was important to him that he make the shield correctly. It would not be a very large shield, but it would protect him during the years he had left to raid.

All over camp the warriors were whooping and dancing because of the news Slipping Weasel had brought. It had been poor hunting lately, mainly because old Slow Tree was too lazy to go back to his own hunting ground--the game in the big canyon was exhausted. Naturally the news about Kicking Wolf's audacious theft cheered the young men up. Many of them wondered why it had not occurred to them to steal the Buffalo Horse. If they ate him they would not have to hunt so hard for a while.

Buffalo Hump thought it was a good joke too, but he did not allow the news to distract him from the task at hand, which was to fashion the best possible shield from the great head he had taken on the Blue River, far north of his usual hunting range.

When Slipping Weasel came over to sit with Buffalo Hump for a while Buffalo Hump was skimming the broth from the boiling pot and drinking it.

In the broth as in the shield was the strength of the buffalo people. He gave Slipping Weasel a cup of the broth, but Slipping Weasel, a poor hunter and indifferent fighter, did not like it much.

"It has too many hairs in it," he told Buffalo Hump, who thought the comment ridiculous.

It was the skull of a buffalo; of course the broth had hairs in it.

"Where is he taking the Buffalo Horse?" he asked. "Why didn't he bring him here, so we could eat him?" Slipping Weasel was silent for a while, mainly because he didn't know what to answer. He had met a Kiowa medicine man on his ride back, and the Kiowa told him that the news was that Kicking Wolf meant to take the big horse to Mexico and sell him to the Black Vaquero.

Slipping Weasel did not really believe such a tale, since the Black Vaquero hated all Indians, as Kicking Wolf well knew. Buffalo Hump might not believe the story either, but it was the only explanation Slipping Weasel had to offer.

"They say he is taking the horse to Mexico --he wants to sell him to the Black Vaquero," he said finally.

Buffalo Hump didn't take that information very seriously.

"If he gets there Ahumado will boil him like I am boiling this skull," he said.

Then Slipping Weasel remembered an even more surprising thing he had heard from Straight Elbow, the old Kiowa. Straight Elbow got his name because he had never been able to bend his right arm, as a consequence of which he could not hunt well.

Straight Elbow had to live on roots and acorns, like a squirrel--he searched constantly for herbs or medicines that might allow him to bend his arm, but he never found the right medicine.

"Old Straight Elbow told me something else," Slipping Weasel admitted. "He said Big Horse Scull is following Kicking Wolf. Famous Shoes is with him, and they are both walking." Buffalo Hump agreed that that was out of the ordinary. Once there had been whites who walked everywhere, but most of the old walking whites were dead.

Now the soldiers and rangers were always mounted. He went on boiling his skull. What he heard seemed like a crazy business--Kicking Wolf and Scull were both doing crazy things. Of course, old Straight Elbow was crazy himself, there might be no truth in what he said.

Buffalo Hump, though, made no comment. He had reached the age where time was beginning to seem short. He wanted to devote all his thought to his own plans, and plans he thought he should make for his people. A few years before, when the shitting sickness struck the P--the cholera--the Comanches had died so fast that he thought the end of the People had come. Then the smallpox came and killed more people, sometimes half the people in a given band. These plagues came from the air; none of the medicine men were wise enough to cure them. He himself had gone on several vigils, but his vigils had had no effect on the plague.

Still, though many died, some lived. The Comanches were not as powerful a tribe as they had been, but there was still no one on the plains who could oppose them.

They could still beat the whites back, slipping between the forts to attack farms and ranches. The white soldiers were not yet bold enough to attack them on the llano, where they lived.

Slow Tree, though boring, was not foolish; he saw what any man of sense could see: that it was the whites, not the People, who were growing more numerous. It would take many years for the young women to bear enough babies to bring the strength of the People back to what it had been before the coming of the plagues.

But the whites had not suffered much from the plagues. For every white that died, three arrived to take his place. The whites came from far places, from lands no Comanche had ever seen. Like ants they worked their way up the rivers, into the Comanche lands. Soon there would be so many that no chief could hope to kill them all in war, or drive them away.

Slow Tree was right about the buffalo, too. Every year there were fewer of them. Each fall the hunters had to range farther, and, even so, they came back with less.

Now there were signs that the bluecoat soldiers meant to come into the field against them. Soon an army might come, not just the few rangers who followed them and tried to take back captives or stolen horses. The rangers were too few to attack them in their camps; but the soldiers were not too few. For now the soldiers were only parading, but someday they would come.

Buffalo Hump saw what Slow Tree saw, but he did not intend to let the whites control him. He had never broken the earth to raise anything, and he did not intend to. It was fine for Kicking Wolf to steal the Buffalo Horse, but that was only a joke, though a bold joke.

What Buffalo Hump wanted was a great raid--a great raid, such as there had been in the past, when warriors went into even the largest towns and stole captives, or burned buildings, or ran off all the horses and livestock that they wanted. Once he himself had raided all the way to the Great Water, coming back with so many horses that they filled the plains like buffalo.

The great raids had scared the Texans so badly that they were eager for councils and treaties --they made the Comanches many promises and gave them small gifts, in hopes that they would not raid all the towns and scare the new white people away.

Buffalo Hump wanted to launch a great raid again; a raid with hundreds of warriors, into Austin and San Antonio. They would kill many Texans, take many captives, and take what booty they wanted. Such a raid would show the Texans that the Comanches were still a people to be feared. Again, they would call for councils and treaties. He himself did not believe in councils or treaties, but old Slow Tree could go. He loved to parley with the whites; he would sit under a tent for weeks, boring the whites with his long speeches.

Meanwhile, on the plains, the young women would be having babies, bringing a new generation of warriors, to replace the ones lost to the plagues.

A great raid would remind the Texans that the Comanches were a people still; they could not be turned into farmers just because the whites wanted their land.

Buffalo Hump wanted to launch such a great raid, and he wanted to do it soon, with all the warriors he could persuade to accompany him, from his band and Slow Tree's and the others. He wanted to make the raid soon, while the north wind was still sharp as a knife--while the snows fell and the sleet cut down. Never before had the Comanches made a raid in the coldest month of the winter.