Shortgrass Song Page 12

  Snake Woman was beginning to show her pregnancy, and it made Buster feel full of regret. She was going to have his child, and he would probably never see it. By the time the papoose came, he would either be back in Monument Park with Caleb, or dead. It was his own fault. He should have resisted her in the dugout.

  He could feel the members of Laughing Wolf’s band watching him constantly. Not because they mistrusted him anymore, but because he was supposed to be big medicine. He tried his best to fulfill the image. He hunted hard and brought down more than his share of game with the long rifle Laughing Wolf let him use. But he knew he had to do more. The Comanche expected something great of the strange black warrior who had figured in Snake Woman’s signs from the spirit world.

  Buster’s chance came when Moon Bull began organizing a hunt. The brave had some trouble finding warriors to follow him at first. He had lost some status since Buffalo Head had beaten him so soundly in the rock-throwing contest. But when Buffalo Head said he would go with Moon Bull on the hunt, the ranks suddenly swelled with willing participants.

  The day before Moon Bull’s party was to attack the buffalo, Buster and Caleb rode to the top of one of the Wichita Mountains to survey the country for herds. Caleb rode his blue-eyed mustang, and Buster took Crazy.

  “Are those buffalo?” Caleb asked in astonishment.

  “Yep,” Buster said. “Look like muddy rivers, don’t they?”

  Veins of bison streamed between the hills in every direction. Around them the barely visible wolf packs loitered—gray, white, and brown specks against the dried grass. Between the clots of buffalo, antelope grazed or moved like low-flying birds over the plains. The wind was cold whipping over the mountain peak, but the odd Comanche pair had buffalo robes. Cotton-white clouds raced across the winter sky, their shadows undulating over every rise and fall in the topography below.

  “Is this what it looks like from the top of Pikes Peak?” Caleb asked.

  “Oh, Lord, no, boy. Pikes Peak must be twice as high as this mountain. Maybe we’ll climb it when we get home and you’ll see.”

  “Home?”

  “After I go huntin’ with Moon Bull, I’m gonna let Crazy rest a few days, then we’re gonna sneak away. You let Blue Eyes rest up, too. We’ll have to ride fast. They might come after us.”

  Caleb pulled the buffalo robe around his shoulders and looked back across the plains at the Indian camp. He could just see the tops of some of the tepees in the creek bottom. “I thought we might stay here,” he said. When he thought of home, he remembered the ridge log and his mother’s grave and the guilt he felt in his father’s presence.

  “We ain’t Indians, Caleb. If we stay here too long, they’re gonna expect us to go kill some white folks. That’s what these Indians do when they ain’t huntin’. Besides, don’t you miss your mandolin playin’?”

  “Yeah,” Caleb admitted.

  “Well, that’s where we belong, playin’ music in Monument Park. Workin’ our farm.”

  “I’d rather chase the cows like Matthew and Pete,” Caleb said.

  “You can do that, too. Your papa will let you when he sees how good you’ve learned to ride. Just let Blue Eyes rest, and don’t let nobody know we’re leavin’.”

  Caleb nodded. He didn’t mind leaving so much if he could take Blue Eyes with him to chase the cattle with when he got home.

  The next morning Buster found himself riding with Moon Bull and about thirty other warriors toward the largest herd of buffalo in the area. He had watched several hunts from the mountain and knew what to do. He had borrowed a lance from Moon Bull, choosing to use the lance instead of a rifle because hunters who dared to gallop within spearing distance of a buffalo earned the highest respect. It was the most dangerous way.

  Moon Bull led his hunting party up a dry creek bed, out of sight and downwind of the herd. Sliding from his hunting pony, he climbed the bank and peeked over the rim, the yellow feather in his scalp lock rising only as high as the top blades of grass.

  After observing the movements of the herd, he crawled silently back into the creek bed and issued his orders in sign. The hunters would spread out and surround the herd, closing around the buffalo on the upwind side last. Then they would circle the animals the way the whirlwinds blew, force them into a mill, and close in on them to kill as many as they could.

  Buster nudged Crazy along the creek bed about two hundred yards, emerged on the plains, and galloped around the right side of the herd. He pressed himself low against the mare’s back to keep from alarming the buffalo. As the horsemen closed the surround at the upwind side of the herd, the animals caught scent of the hunters and stampeded downwind.

  The circling began, the riders moving counterclockwise around the animals. A few bison broke through the surround, but the downwind hunters managed to turn the major portion of the stampede with the circling motion. The best of all possible circumstances resulted for Moon Bull. The herd began to mill, and the hunters closed in ever tighter, pressing the terrified bison closer together, as if a whirlpool were drawing them down into the prairie.

  Buster held his spear overhead and yelped like a Comanche. “You better hope the Lord forgives you,” he said to himself, suddenly feeling like a pagan. He looped his reins around his left forearm and grasped the spear shaft with both hands. Crazy was running well around the herd, but Buster wondered how she would react when asked to press against the very flanks of a huge, bellowing beast.

  The humped brutes were running with remarkable speed when a young bull veered from the whirlwind of bison in front of Crazy. To Buster’s surprise, she almost shot out from under him in pursuit. He didn’t twitch the reins or give his mount the slightest nudge with his knees to guide her. She closed quickly on the right of the errant bull and carried Buster within lancing distance.

  The painted spear shaft was longer than Buster was tall. The point of sharpened rasp was eight inches and honed to shave. When he drove it between the bull’s ribs, he felt Crazy leaning with him on the thrust and pulling away as he withdrew the bloody blade. She was taking Buster buffalo hunting.

  The stuck bull stumbled once and turned to destroy the spotted mare. A hideous bellow rattled from his punctured lungs, his eyes rolled back in his huge head, and his twin horns hooked violently at the mare. Buster barely held his seat as Crazy sprang to safety, leaping almost like a cat avoiding a snakebite. He looked behind and saw the wounded bull drop and roll through the grass.

  The slaughter mounted at every point around the milling herd. Dying beasts peeled away from the vortex of hooves and pitched headfirst into the sod, shuddering in their death pangs. Buster squinted at the herd through the dust and guided Crazy nearer with a nudge of his knee. He couldn’t hear himself shout above the thunder of hooves. He drove the shaft into another body, angled away, returned for a third victim, circled, felt the warmth of the herd, smelled their cuds. He speared a fourth, a bull with a head that looked as big as a bass fiddle.

  Then, with one sudden change, the entire herd broke from the swirl as if possessed of a single brain. Moon Bull was caught in the stampede for a couple of minutes as it rushed through the dry creek bed, but he managed to work his way to the edge without falling. The surviving bison fanned out and trampled a swath of earth a quarter mile wide as they left the exhausted buffalo horses behind. The squaws were already arriving on the grounds, leading old jaded horses that would pack the meat back to camp. They raced one another, laughing as they pretended to count coup on the carcasses.

  Moon Bull rode like a king back to his band of hunters, whipping his heaving horse with a buffalo tail he had cut from one of his kills. He asked how many Buffalo Head had killed. The black warrior held up four fingers.

  “There are four seasons in the great circle of time,” Moon Bull said to his followers. “There are four points of the sky and the earth. There are four legs under our horses. Now Buffalo Head kills four buffalo. It means Big Medicine.”

  * * *

  It was th
e last and most successful hunt of the winter. There was plenty of work ahead for the squaws, pounding the meat into pemmican, tanning the hides, making the robes. But for the braves there was nothing to do but lounge. Buster figured he would give Crazy about a week to recuperate fully from the punishment of the hunt before he made his escape on her.

  However, three days after the hunt, a warrior rode into camp with news that started every tepee buzzing with excitement. The main winter camp of the Tonkawa had been located a hundred miles east.

  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 Hil
ls 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.