Come Sundown (13 page)

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Authors: Mike Blakely

BOOK: Come Sundown
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O
ur trip to the Nokoni camps was one of the finest I ever took anywhere. The weather remained crisp and sunny, warming slightly as we rode south. The time had come for the deer to rut, and everywhere we saw large bucks with sprawling antlers—sometimes emerging right in front of us, oblivious to everything but their own lust as they followed the scent trails of estrus does; sometimes barreling at astonishing speeds after comely females; sometimes battling each other in vicious squabbles that could be heard a mile away as their antlers crashed together.
A Comanche scouting party could easily cover forty miles a day in those times. Furthermore, fifty miles was not out of the question, but there was no need for us to ride that furiously as we searched south for Peta Nocona's village. So it occurred that on our fourth day of riding, we struck the North Pease River and found a trail leading west.
We got down from our horses to talk about this trail leading west up the right bank of the North Pease—except for Fears-the-Ground, who almost never got off his horse.
“Indian ponies,” Kills Something said. “No metal moccasins.”
“No pony-drags,” I observed.
“True. Maybe a war party. Maybe scouts.”
“What nation?” I asked.
“I will ride upstream to look for signs of our people,” said Fears-the-Ground.
“And I will ride downstream,” I said.
Kills Something gave a sign, and I leapt back onto my pony. I took off at a trot downstream as Fears-the-Ground turned upstream, and the rest of the party led their mounts down to the water to drink and rest. As I rode along the riverbank, I kept a close eye on the trail, hoping to find a Comanche trail sign. The Comanches had devised many such signs. Sometimes
grass was bundled and tied. Sometimes tree trunks were blazed with a hatchet. Sticks might be found protruding from the soil. Rocks might be piled in coded fashion. So I rode, keeping my eyes trained on the ground and the trees and brush near the trail. I knew I might have to ride for hours before finding a sign, so I settled onto my Comanche pad saddle for a long jaunt.
I already knew a few things about this trail. There were some fifty to sixty warrior-hunters in the party. The lack of pony-drags told me there were probably no women or children riders. Because I didn't see many individual sets of tracks coming or going, it seemed these riders were at ease, confident, and unconcerned about enemy movements around them. Otherwise, they would have been sending out many scouts. The trail seemed to be only a couple of days old, judging by the freshness of the dung piles, and by the way the stalks of grass had begun to rise back toward the sky from where the hooves had stomped them down.
I rode for over two hours, then finally found what I was looking for. A gathering of small white stones caught my eye a few steps to the left of the trail. The stones had been set down in the shape of the first quarter of the moon. It was as if this message had been left especially for me, for my life revolved around moon phases. The sign meant that the party had passed this spot at the time of the first quarter of the moon, which had risen three nights before. To the east of the image of the moon, two sticks jutted from the ground, one slightly taller than the other. This meant that the party had been two days on the trail from the old camp. To the west of the image of the moon, a line of pebbles indicated the party's direction of travel—the very direction from which I had ridden.
Now I had a good idea of what was going on. We had heard that Peta Nocona's band had set up a large camp on the Pease River, and had killed plenty of buffalo nearby. The warriors had left the women behind to butcher the kill and dry the meat, and had ridden west to establish a new camp. From reports we had received from outriders, I knew that Peta's camp was several weeks old. It had been established as a main supply camp
for Peta's raids on the Texas settlements. I knew that Peta's village could not muster more than about a hundred warriors, so it seemed that virtually all the men had ridden west to find the new camp. This had to mean that scouts had ridden far and wide and had found no signs of enemies within a hundred or more miles in every direction. Otherwise, the men would never have left their women and children unprotected at the village.
Once I deduced all this, I turned my pony upstream and struck a canter. My mount was a young sorrel mare, gifted with endurance and hard, tough feet. I returned to Kills Something's party in half the time it had taken me to trot downstream. Kills-Something looked with approval at the sweat covering my horse, and asked what I had learned. Fears-the-Ground had not yet returned, so I reported what I knew.
“Good,” Kills Something said. “Now, from this place, we will follow the trail, the way Fears-the-Ground has ridden. Once we have found the Nokonis, we will send riders back to our main village to guide them to the new place.”
 
 
THREE DAYS LATER, we found Peta's main camp on the upper Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River. This was one of the largest Comanche camps I ever saw. It seemed that Peta had invited Comanches of many bands to gather with him here, hunt buffalo, and talk of war with the Texans. Tipis flanked the river on both sides for almost four miles. The little river provided a good stream of fresh water, owing to good autumn rains on the Llano Estacado, yet was narrow and shallow enough to cross with ease. Just upstream of the camp, the jagged canyon walls of the Caprock rose, forming numerous draws and side canyons where deer and bear might hide, adding to the plentitude of buffalo in the area.
We had seen the smoke from the cook fires hanging in the sky for half a day before actually seeing the camp, so we knew we would find a large one. Even this could not have prepared us for the sight. The moment I saw the camp over the brink of the river valley, I whistled low through my teeth. “That is a large camp,” I said.
“Many lodges,” Loud Shouter said. “Too many to count.”
“I hope each lodge has at least one pretty girl in it,” said one of the young scouts.
“You will have to use the breeze and stalk them like deer,” replied his friend, just downwind from him, “for your scent will spook them an arrow shot away.”
The warriors all laughed at the young suitor, and Kills Something suggested that we visit a creek that issued into the river downstream of the lodges, to bathe before entering the great camp. This was done, and then we went to meet the people of Peta Nocona's camp.
When we approached, we encountered a sentinel some distance from camp. Seeing us, he leapt on his horse and prepared to ride back to camp to spread the alarm if necessary. By now twilight had fallen, and we might have been a dozen Texans in the fading light, so the sentinel was cautious.
The Comanches and their allies had a sign that they would give in those days to indicate from a distance that they were friendly, for often parties were spotted from such a distance that they could not he identified. Kills Something ordered us to line up abreast so that we could give this sentinel the sign. The twelve of us brought our horses into an even row. Kills Something then rode ahead of us about twenty steps. Here he stopped, then turned to the right, again about twenty steps. He stopped, then returned to the line the same way he had ridden out, following the right angle.
The sentinel now made the same maneuver in response, and we all knew that we could enter the camp. This simple sign could be seen at a great distance and saved the Indians many an anxious moment as unidentified strangers approached encampments. When used from a great distance, the maneuvers were executed on a grander scale, so that they might be seen and understood from miles away. If the U.S. Army or the Texas Rangers had ever figured out this signal, they might have charged many an ill-prepared camp and committed even more outrages than they ultimately did.
We were only about five hundred yards from the sentinel when he responded to our sign, so we struck a canter and rode to the edge of camp with our sentinel acting as our escort. The sights, sounds, and smells of the village greeted us as we began
to pass among the hide lodges. We were hungry, and the aroma of roasting buffalo hump filled the air. Having just bathed in chilly waters, we all longed to warm ourselves at one of the many fires we passed as we rode at a walk through the camp. Laughing children darted all around us, running foot races and shooting blunt arrows. Young girls ceased their gossiping to turn and judge the young riders in our band.
By now it had dawned on me why Kills Something had chosen the young scouts for this expedition. Among the twelve of us were eight youths who would probably be looking for wives soon. Kills Something had brought these young men along on the advance party to give them first crack at all the marriageable girls gathered here. They would probably never again find this many young women to choose from in one place. I could see the looks of excitement on the faces of these warriors as we passed the crowds of comely Comanche girls.
It was customary for an arriving party of visitors to seek out the chief of a village, so our escort took us to Peta Nocona's lodge—a large tipi overlooking the prettiest part of the river valley. We found him outside of this lodge, preparing to put on an elaborately decorated headdress made of buffalo horns and the shaggy hide from the head of a big bull. In addition to the headdress, he had donned finely beaded deerskin leggings, and had painted his face in preparation for a dance. When he saw us coming, he put the headdress aside for the moment, and came to greet us.
We all swung down from our horses when we greeted Peta. Instead of shaking hands with each of us, he raised his palm in friendship to us all, and said,
“Aho.”
We repeated the greeting, and Kills Something alone stepped forward to shake Peta's hand. “We have decided to join your great camp-together,” he said. “This is our scouting party. The rest of the village will follow.”
“Tsuh,”
said Peta with a smile. “This is good. Our camp gets larger and stronger. The buffalo are plentiful near here. We will hunt by day and dance by night. All the chiefs of all the bands will meet in council and we will seek the wisdom of the spirits. My heart tells me that this is the beginning of a good time for the True Human Beings.”
“We will camp tonight,” Kills Something said. “Tomorrow, we will send scouts running back to our main village to guide them quickly to this place. Our people long to feast and dance with your people, and all the other bands gathered here. If you wish, I will send one of my scouts to your camp on the river where your women and slaves are making meat.”
“Tsah,”
Peta said. “My warriors are ready to hunt, so it is good that one of your scouts will ride to my old camp and bring along the women and children. They have been too long in that place, and it is time that they join us. My wife, Nadua, is there, and I want her here in my lodge. Yes, send one of your scouts. That is good.”
“Tsah,”
Kills Something replied.
Peta turned to a boy sitting on the ground near the fire, gnawing on a rib bone. “My son,” he said. “Run through the whole village. Tell everyone that the scouts from Shaved Head's band of the Quahadi have come to camp with us. Tell everyone in this camp that they must not refuse these scouts anything they wish to have. They will have food to eat, robes to sleep in, lodges to shelter them, supplies and weapons of any kind that they will need to ride again tomorrow and bring still more True Humans to this great gathering in this sacred place. Now, go!”
The boy threw his rib bone to a nearby dog and sprang to his feet. At this moment, I recognized the boy as Quanah, the son of Peta and his captive white wife, Nadua, who was known as Cynthia Ann Parker in the Texas settlements. In an instant, young Quanah was running up the river, weaving among the tipis, repeating Peta's orders to the camp. It impressed me that Peta would trust the duties of village crier to a son only twelve winters old, and that young Quanah took on the responsibility with such alacrity.
The people in Peta's camp knew more about hospitality than any people I ever met. They sought us out, bringing robes, roasted buffalo meat, curdled buffalo milk mixed with blood, pemmican for our ride the next day, rawhide bowls filled with buffalo stew seasoned with wild onions, and buffalo horn spoons with which to eat it. They brought gunpowder, lead for bullets, blankets, hand mirrors for signaling one another from
a distance, flints for making fire, and more tobacco and coffee than we could use in a week. They offered us fresh horses to ride the next day. They vacated two lodges so that we could all sleep comfortably. We wanted for nothing.
After we feasted, we watched the mounted procession leading up to the great scalp dance. It started with Peta himself riding a horse through the camp, his buffalo headdress on his head, his recently taken scalps tied to his tomahawk. There were hundreds of dancers following Peta, and they all dressed up as animals, wearing headdresses made of cranes, eagles, antelopes, deer, bear, mountain lions, and wolves. The riders arrived and dismounted at a large dance ground that had been left open among the lodges. Drums began to beat, and the warriors began to dance in their elaborate costumes.
One visiting chief named Tasacowadi wore an incredible headdress and cape made from the hide of a huge spotted jaguar that he must have killed far to the south in Mexico. Tasacowadi meant “great spotted cat” and I could see that the killing of this cat must have granted powerful medicine to the slayer for him to take his name from the cat he had killed. Tasacowadi and all the other dancers did their best to imitate the sounds of the animals they were portraying by roaring, squawking, screaming, howling, and growling while they danced. Other dancers sang a rhythmic series of syllables that had no meaning, as white people will sing “fa-la-la-la” and “fiddle-dee-dee.” At one point in the song, however, everyone, including the spectators, would scream the most bloodthirsty war cries they could muster. I can't remember a more entertaining spectacle.

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