Comanche Dawn (4 page)

Once, long ago, while hunting alone, Wounded Bear had been captured by the Wolf People on the plains who called themselves
Parisu,
which meant the Hunters. Their women had tied him down to stakes driven into the ground and begun to burn his hands and feet with the ends of sticks made red in the fire. But Wounded Bear's friends and brothers had come looking for him and attacked the Wolf People camp, killing all the enemy warriors there before their women could burn very many scars on him. After this battle, Wounded Bear had taken as his own captive one of the enemy women who had burned him, and he had made her into a pretty good wife. Her name was Broken Bones, and she had become a bringer of babies and a
puhakut
with powerful medicine.

The scar burned onto Shadow's horse was similar to the ones burned onto his grandfather's hands and feet, yet the pony's scar made two very straight lines that Shadow's father said surely held some manner of medicine. The design was like a long pole, with a shorter pole lain across it. When he touched it, Shadow believed he could almost feel its magic, but he could not fathom what kind of burning stick must have left such arrowlike lines upon the flesh of his horse.

As they rode on, Shadow moved his hand from the scar on his pony to the antlers of the deer his uncle had killed, the tines of which were rounded and covered with soft fur-like growth that resembled the look of the bluish sage on the red hills far away.

The Burnt Meat People were crossing over high ground, the few horses and many dogs dragging lodge poles loaded with their possessions. Ahead of him, the boy watched his mother walk beside the dog that pulled the cradle board of his baby sister, Mouse. Strapped tightly to the cradle board, wrapped in buckskin and packed in moss, she watched her big brother with wide, peering, black eyes as they moved. Mouse wore a bag of crushed pine needles around her neck as a charm to assure good health.

It had been decided in council that Shaggy Hump should take two young warriors on a hunt, each riding a horse, which he would lead to the new camp, packed with meat. While Shaggy Hump was away on this hunt, Black Horn, his brother, was to lead the Burnt Meat People to their northernmost camp, at the spring called Never Freezes in the Red Canyon. They seldom came this far north in summer, for Never Freezes was dangerously close to the summer hunting grounds of the Northern Raiders. However, the Thunderbird had flown over these rough hills making much rain, bringing sweet grass that drew herds of buffalo as seldom were seen this far from the open plains. The council of the Burnt Meat People had decided that the old men would make arrows while the warriors repaired their bows, lances, war clubs, and battle-axes. Then they would move north to hunt buffalo, and if the Northern Raiders wished to make war, the Burnt Meat People would be ready.

Riding beside his grandfather in the middle of the long line of travelers, Shadow held to the antlers lashed in front of him. Most of the warriors were ahead, ready to take on trouble, but a few remained behind to guard the rear of the band. As they started down the steep and ancient trail that led to the rim of the Red Canyon of the spring called Never Freezes, Wounded Bear spoke:

“Grandson, are you holding the horns of the buck your uncle gave to you?”

Wounded Bear was almost blind now, and though he could make fine arrows, he could scarcely see from one end of the arrow to the other. He wanted to make sure the boy was holding the antlers, which were lashed tight with rawhide to the lodge poles. Wounded Bear did not like this new pursuit of riding horses and rode only because he was too old to walk. In days behind him, the old ones were simply left behind to die, and so he might have been grateful for this horse to ride. But Wounded Bear was afraid his grandson, whom he loved very much, might fall off and have the loaded lodge poles dragged over him.

“Are you holding on like a hawk?” he asked.

“Yes, I am holding the horns, Grandfather.”

“Good. Maybe I have told you the story about where the first deer horns came from. Even if I have told you, I am going to tell you once again, because it is a good story. Hear me, Grandson.”

Shadow grabbed the antlers with both hands as his horse stepped off a small ledge that had worn away in heavy rains.

“Long ago, in the days when animals spoke words and walked about like two-leggeds, Deer was a young warrior who did not have any weapons and did not have a wise grandfather to show him how to make any. So he decided to make medicine and grow his weapons from the top of his head. His guardian spirits, who spoke to him in visions, told him he must eat green leaves and berries every night, and run from place to place to find enough food to have the medicine for growing his weapons. This was not easy to do, but after three moons had passed, the warrior had a beautiful pair of weapons on his head.

“These weapons were matched. Each one split into five branches, and they were curved like old moons. But they were still covered with fur when he grew them—like those you are holding on to, Grandson—so Deer had to polish them and make them smooth and sharp. He found many small trees that were just right for rubbing the different places in his weapons, and every day he would go from one small tree to the next and polish the different points and branches.

“After the next moon had changed, this warrior had weapons that were smooth and shining, for he had worked on them long and carefully, as you have watched your own grandfather make arrows, Shadow. The points were sharp like a lance, and the curve of each weapon was thick and heavy like a war club, so Deer went away to seek battle.

“He found his enemies and he fought many battles with the weapons on his head. His wounds became many, but his honors numbered still more, for he counted many battle strokes. He became a great warrior among his people, and every father wanted his daughter to be the wife of Deer, for a strong warrior will provide meat and shelter for a father-in-law who is not lucky enough to die young in battle.

“So Deer had many wives, and many sons and daughters. He became so powerful that his enemies would no longer fight him. Instead, they would run away and hide when they saw him coming.

“One day, Deer wanted to couple with a new young wife but she ran into the thick bushes, and it was hard to chase her around in the bushes with such large weapons on his head. So he let them fall from his head, and they landed together on the ground, but he forgot where they had fallen. He did not really care because there was no one to fight, anyway.

“But now Deer's wives were ashamed when they saw him, and to scorn him, they ran away with his rivals who still carried their weapons. Deer tried to get his wives back, but his rivals laughed at him and wounded him with their arrows and lances, and he ran like a coward.

“So Deer decided he was going to make his medicine again and grow new weapons. He prayed to his guardian spirits, but the spirits were angry because he had lost his sacred weapons and insulted them.

“And so the spirits changed Deer from a two-legged into a four-legged who would always be hunted by all tribes of people. The spirits gave him some wives but told him he would have to drop his weapons after every winter had passed, lose all his wives, and make new medicine and new weapons all summer long, every summer, as long as he lived. And even Deer's sons and grandsons would suffer for his insult. Their horns would fall off after every winter, and they would lose their wives and have to eat leaves and berries and hide from all kinds of people. And that was Deer's punishment for losing his weapons and offending his guardian spirits.”

They neared the place where the trail narrowed and dropped off into the Red Canyon, and Shadow thought of Deer turning into a four-legged.

“Did you hear my story, Grandson?”

“Yes, Grandfather. That is a good story.”

“Yes. It is an old story. Even older than I am.”

As Shadow laughed with his grandfather, he saw his uncle, Black Horn, riding up from the trail ahead on the only horse in the band unencumbered by a pole-drag. Black Horn carried his lance in his right hand, while the rawhide thong of his stone-headed war axe remained looped around his left wrist. His bow and arrows were in his bow case and quiver, strapped upon his back. Each cheek was painted with two bright yellow stripes, with a single red stripe standing on his forehead.

Shadow checked to make sure the two lodge poles were tied securely where they crossed in front of him. He tested the buffalo-hide straps tightened around his mount's girth and running under the horse's neck. He looked over his shoulder to see that the bundle of hides for his lodge remained tightly packed.

It was an uncle's place to be stern and strict, and Black Horn took this responsibility more seriously than most. “Nephew! Let your grandfather go ahead! Do you not see the trail getting narrow?”

“Yes,
Ahpoo,
” the boy said, using the term of respect for a father's brother. He lifted his reins from the deer antlers where he had draped them and slowed his horse to let Wounded Bear go ahead. His uncle fell in line after him as Shadow's little brown horse stepped stiffly down to the steepest part of the trail. Behind him, the boy heard the widely spread ends of the lodge poles dragging against both sides of the narrow red rock chasm through which the old trail ran.

He looked over his shoulder to make sure the poles would not get broken, and to judge his uncle's expression. His eye caught a mass of feathers rising above the canyon rim, followed by a face streaked with horizontal bands of red and yellow paint From stories the elders had told, he recognized the distinctive upright shape of the headdress as that of a Northern Raider. He had heard many tales of these cruel and evil people who painted their feet black in the belief that the paint made them run faster, but this feathered and painted warrior was the first Northern Raider he had seen with his own eyes, now standing no farther away than a deer could leap, drawing a bow.

The boy gasped and then, realizing that the arrow of the enemy warrior was aiming at Black Horn, cried,
“Ahpoo!”

By the time Black Horn caught his nephew's eye, slipped from his horse, and spotted the Northern Raider on the canyon rim, the bowstring had spoken. Black Horn drew his battle-ax back to throw as the arrow point hit him, but because Shadow had warned him, and he had begun to react, the cruel barbed war point only lodged in his upper arm. The wound seemed to give him strength to throw his axe, and it sped true, glancing off the top of the Raider's shield and smashing into the enemy's jaw with a crack that sounded like someone breaking buffalo bones to get the marrow. The axe itself bounced off the enemy and slid back into the canyon.

Shadow felt his horse lurch as he had never known, heard the enemy war cry rising. The walls of the Red Canyon seemed to spin around him as he looked for the sources of the horrible new noises that sounded like a whole war party on the rimrocks above.

Black Horn was breaking the arrow shaft from his arm, the wound gushing blood. The wounded enemy warrior on the canyon rim had stumbled back, out of view. Now the smell of blood hit Shadow, and the boy saw a red stream pouring from his horse's neck where an enemy arrow had driven deep.

Instantly figuring the path this arrow must have taken, he glanced up at the other rim of the red chasm and saw a second Raider, reaching now for the next arrow in his quiver.

Black Horn's rattling battle scream mingled with a wailing song that came from Shadow's grandfather, old Wounded Bear. Looking down the chasm, the boy saw his blind grandfather slinging his old
pogamoggan
—his war club—to ward off any foe who might come to finish him. An arrow shaft protruded from the old man's ribs, and he bled onto his leggings as he valiantly slung the club and shrieked his death song.

Shadow spotted a third Raider now, the one who had shot his grandfather, already fixing a second arrow on his string.

The little brown horse under him was trying to back up, but the lodge poles prevented it. Shadow found himself sliding from the horse, taking cover behind the body of the animal so the Raiders could not shoot him. He heard two bowstrings thump—the first sending an arrow that caused Wounded Bear to groan in the midst of his death song. The other arrow sped straight toward Shadow as he shrank behind his pony, but it glanced off the antlers lashed to his lodge poles, angling harmlessly away.

Another arrow sang, and Shadow glimpsed it as it flew from Black Horn's bow toward the enemy warrior who had shot the boy's little brown horse and had tried to shoot Shadow himself. This arrow struck the side of the Raider's head and lodged there, causing the warrior's braids to fly wildly as he vanished behind the red rock rim.

Now his mother, River Woman, was screaming, and Shadow saw the third Raider sliding into the Red Canyon with a knife to take Wounded Bear's scalp lock. The old war club missed as the Raider pounced on the old man and stabbed with his knife. The Raider tried to take the scalp, but a large red rock hit him on the shoulder.

Shadow saw the Raider turn on his mother as she picked up another rock, and he knew he must act. At his feet, he found a large rock, spotted with the blood of his own brown pony. He picked up this rock and held it over his head as he heard the hooves of Black Horn's mount clattering behind him.

He threw the large rock and it landed short but bounced, as the Raider was below him on the trail, and caught the Raider on the back of the knee, whirling him. Shadow saw the eyes of the enemy lock onto him and flash an age-old hatred, but Black Horn was coming.

The boy fell aside as he saw his uncle bounding on foot over the lodge poles and over the wounded brown pony—over everything clogged in the narrow chasm as he screamed his love of war and his hatred of enemy invaders. He had scooped up his battle-ax. Its heavy head of freshly flaked flint had been lashed with shrunken rawhide to the feathered and painted handle as fast as the horns to the head of a buffalo bull. It circled high, like the sun, then came down on the painted Raider.