Текст книги "Comanche Moon"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 46 страниц)

Deets, the black man, was the happiest and least troublesome member of the troop. Deets liked being a scout far better than he liked being in town, the reason being, Call suspected, was because in town there were always men who might abuse him because of his color.

"Why are you so dern hard to convince, Woodrow?" Gus asked. "I've known you forever and I've never been able to convince you of a single thing." "No, you've convinced me of one thing for sure," Call said, "and that's that you're foolish about women.

"I expect Clara turned you down because she knew you were too fond of whores," he added.

"Not a bit of it!" Gus retorted. "She knew I'd give up whores in a minute if she'd marry me." Nonetheless, the thought that what Call said might be true made Augustus so unhappy that he wanted to get down and beat his head against a rock.

They had only been in Austin two days: what happened with Clara happened so fast that, when he thought back on it, it was more like a visit in a dream than something real. He wanted to believe that when they returned to Austin again, things would be as they had always been, with Clara in her father's store, unmarried, waiting for him to rush in and kiss her.

Long Bill Coleman rode up to the two captains in hopes of getting some things clarified. He had quickly come to regret his gallantry in allowing himself to be conscripted for the new expedition. Adjusting to the racket of domestic life was hard for him, after a long trip; it might have been a little quieter had Pearl not insisted on keeping her chickens in the kitchen, but Pearl couldn't stand to be parted from her chickens; so there was the racket to contend with, on top of which Pearl was a fervent woman who liked to make up his absences by lots of fervor–an overwhelming amount of fervor at times, in fact.

Thus Long Bill was subjected to conflicting feelings: part of him wanted Pearl and her fervor, while another part longed for the peace of the prairies.

For the moment he seemed to have the peace of the prairies, though there was no guarantee that the peace would hold. Several times, moving west along the rivers and creeks, they had struck Indian sign–enough Indian sign to make Long Bill nervous. His opinion of the matter, now that he was too far west to do much about it, was that he ought to have stayed with his wife. The chickens, after all, could be tolerated; better chickens than Comanches.

"Shut up, Bill–I don't know where we are and neither does Woodrow," Gus said, when he saw Long Bill riding up, an interrogative look on his face.

"I never asked a question," Long Bill pointed out.

"No, but you were about to–I seen it in the way you was holding your mouth," Gus said.

"I just wanted to know when we give up on finding the Captain," Long Bill said. "I got chores to do at home." "You're a ranger and that comes first," Gus said tartly. "Your wife's big and stout. She can do the confounded chores." "Well, but she's got a baby in her–t will slow some women down," Long Bill said.

"Rather than arguing, we need to be paying attention to the trail," Call said. With Augustus in such an uncertain temper he wanted to cool things before the argument became a fistfight.

"What trail?" Gus said. "There's no trail. We're just following our noses and our noses are pointed west." "That's what it looks like to me," Long Bill said. "Captain Scull's got clean away.

When do we go back?" "I guess we'll go back when we've gone far enough," Call said, aware that it was no answer.

"Well, but what's far enough?" Jake Spoon asked, thrusting himself into the conversation–and not for the first time, either. Pea Eye Parker would never have intruded when his elders were talking. Pea Eye offered an opinion only when asked for one, which was seldom. He tried to determine correct procedure by watching his elders. Jake Spoon didn't think in terms of elders or superiors.

It never occurred to him that there were times when the two captains might not want to be bothered with a youngster.

Jake just barged in and asked his question.

"We're not to the Pecos yet," Call said.

"If we don't strike his trail between here and the Pecos, I expect we ought to go back." "I think we ought to look in Mexico, myself," Augustus said.

"Why?" Call said. "We had no orders to look in Mexico." "No, but there's whores and tequila in Mexico," Gus said. "Bill and me, we could drown our sorrows." "I ain't going all the way to Mexico just so you two can drown your sorrows," Call said.

"Woodrow always changes the subject when the talk turns to women," Augustus said.

"I didn't know the talk was even about women," Call said. "I thought we were talking about when to give up on the Captain and go back home." Long Bill Coleman, to his own surprise and Call's, suddenly burst out with an opinion that he had been holding in for months.

"A man ought to marry, Captain," Long Bill said. "It's a lonely life not having no woman to hold on to when you bunk down at night." Call was so startled by the remark that he hardly knew what to say.

"I'm usually working at night, Bill–I don't spend much time in a bunk," he replied, finally.

Long Bill's Adam's apple was quivering and his face was red. Call had seen him fight several fierce engagements with the Comanches and exhibit less emotion.

"I don't know that little Maggie Tilton too well, but I do know she wasn't meant to be no whore," Long Bill said. "She was meant to be a wife and she'd make a fine one." Then, embarrassed by what he had said, he abruptly shut up and rode away.

"Amen," Gus said. "Now you see, Woodrow –the sooner you marry Maggie, the happier the rest of us will be." Call was amazed–here they were in the middle of the wilderness, on a dangerous assignment, and Long Bill Coleman, the solidest man in the troop, had seen fit to deliver a public lecture, urging him to get married! Surely the decision to marry was a private matter that need only be discussed between the couple who were thinking of marrying.

Worrying about it while patrolling the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos struck him as highly inappropriate. It would only distract them from the business at hand, which was rangering. While on patrol he liked to give his full attention to the landscape, the men, the horses, tracks, sign, the behaviour of the birds and animals they spotted, anything that might help keep a troop of men alive in a country where a Comanche raiding party could swoop down on them at any moment. It was no time to be clouding the mind with issues of marriage or lustful thoughts–andthe mention of slim Maggie Tilton did lead to lustful thoughts. Many a night, on guard, he had been distracted by the thought of Maggie. It was just good luck that he hadn't come under sudden attack at such a moment.

Long Bill, embarrassed by his own impertinence, avoided Call for the rest of the day.

Augustus, as surprised by Long Bill's statement as Call had been, thought it best to avoid the subject of marriage for the rest of the day.

That evening, as soon as he'd had coffee and his bite, Call walked away from the campfire and sat by himself all night.

"I doubt he'll marry her, Gus," Long Bill whispered to Gus McCrae.

"I doubt it too," Gus said. "He ought to, though. You're right about that, Bill."

In the middle of the next afternoon they heard the crack of gunshots from some low, rocky hills to the north. Then a dog bayed, a hound of some kind. They had just watered their horses at a thin trickle of creek, with a few wild plum bushes scattered along it. While the horses were taking in water and the men relieving themselves of it, Deets hurried up and down the little creek, looking at the plum bushes. Of course it was too early in the year for plums yet, but he liked to make note of such things in case they passed that way in June, when the sweet plums would be mature.

When the shots rang out, Deets came hurrying back. There were two shots and then silence, except for the hound.

Since the party was so small, Call and Augustus decided they had best stay together. They could not afford to send one man to scout–he might be surrounded and cut down.

"That ain't a real hound," Augustus ventured. "It's a damn Comanche, imitating a hound. They can imitate anything, you know– Indians can." All during his years as a ranger, Augustus had been prone to anxiety because of the Indians' well-known ability to perfectly mimic birdsongs and animal sounds. He had never actually caught an Indian imitating a bird, but he knew they could.

Long Bill Coleman shared this particular anxiety.

"That's Indians for sure, Captain," he said. "They're trying to make us think there's a hound over in those rocks." Call didn't share the anxiety. Deets himself could mimic several animals and most birds –he could perfectly imitate the snuff an armadillo makes when startled, and Deets wasn't an Indian. Besides, there was an abundance of wildlife, birds and animals, that did an excellent job of making their own sounds.

The ridge of shaley rock where the shots had come from looked uninviting, though. The ridge wrinkled the prairie for miles and could easily shelter an ambushing war party.

"They're there, Woodrow," Augustus said.

"They're just waiting till we get closer.

Look to your weapons, boys." Young Jake Spoon was so terrified that he felt frozen. He put his hand on his pistol but was too scared to pull it out. If an Indian did come running at him Jake felt the fright alone would kill him. He realized he had been wrong not to stay in town. He felt as good as dead and just hoped the termination would be as quick and painless as possible.

"Well, if that's a Comanche, he not only sounds like a dog, he looks like a dog," Call said–a large gray hound had just appeared, trotting back and forth amid the rocks.

Long Bill felt immediate relief.

"Why, I know that dog," he said. "That's old Howler, Ben Lily's dog. Ben probably shot a bear. That's all he does, shoot bears." "I doubt there's many bears out in this country," Gus said.

"There's one less now–Ben Lily, he's deadly on bears." The sight of the large gray dog dispelled the general apprehension. As they drew closer to the rocky ridge the hound started howling again, a dismal sound, Pea Eye thought. He had never been overly fond of the canine breeds.

Sure enough, when they clattered over the rocks that covered the ridge, they came upon a large, stooped man in buckskin clothes, skinning a young brown bear. The man's thick hair and long beard were evidently strangers to the comb or the brush. He favored them with a quick glance and then went on with his work.

"Howdy, Mr. Lily," Long Bill said.

"What are you doing out here on the baldies?" He had intended the remark to be jocular, but Ben Lily took it literally.

"Skinning a bear," he said.

"That bear's not much bigger than a cub," Augustus said. "If his ma's around here I expect she'll be wanting to eat us." "Shot her yesterday," Ben Lily said.

"Took us a day to catch up with the cub. Howler and me, that's us." Call thought the man looked daft. What use was a dead bear, in a place so remote? Of course he could eat some of the meat, but why take the skin, which was heavy and awkward to transport? Where would he take it, anyway? Yet the man seemed content at his task. He even began to whistle as he skinned, and he clearly had no interest in the rangers.

"Well, if you shot his ma, where's her skin?" Augustus asked. He too was puzzled by the skinning. How many bearskins could a man use?

"Buried," Ben Lily said, a little testily.

"I bury skins. Then if I get caught in a blizzard I can dig up one of my skins and wrap up." "You best be worrying about Indians, not blizzards, Mr. Lily," Long Bill said.

"If Buffalo Hump was to catch you I expect he'd throw you on a campfire and cook you." Ben Lily disregarded that remark completely.

He finished with his skinning and sat down on a rock. He plunged his hunting knife into the ground to cleanse it, then took out a whetstone and began to sharpen the knife. The fact that his task was concluded seemed to put him in a sociable mood.

"You can have this bear meat," he informed them. "I don't eat much bear." Deets had been hoping for such an offer. He immediately got down and began to inspect the carcass, meaning to secure the tenderest cuts. But what was tender, on a bear?

"We've been sent to look for Captain Inish Scull," Call said. "He was last seen going south with one scout. Have you seen or heard of him?" The name "Scull" seemed to excite the man– he looked at the group with interest for the first time.

"I know Scull," Ben Lily said. "Took on a hunt once, over east. He wanted to shoot bear and we shot 'em. One bear got into the canebrakes and Scull crawled in after him and shot him. He was a small fellow. He went right into that cane and shot that quick little bear." "That's him, he's a hunter," Augustus said. "We need to find him if we can." Ben Lily was carefully folding the bloody bearskin.

"Ain't seen Scull since that hunt over east," he said. "I'd know him if I seen him, but I ain't seen him. I expect they took him in the big raid." All the rangers were startled by the remark.

"Big raid? What big raid?" Gus asked.

Ben Lily looked at them with genuine astonishment.

"The big raid," he repeated. "Ain't you seen any dead? I buried six dead just yesterday, back up this creek. Six dead– trying to farm where they oughtn't to farm. Took me all morning to bury them. I'd have caught this cub sooner if I hadn't had to do that burying." "We've been on the trail for two weeks," Call said. "We don't know anything about a raid. Was it Comanches?" "It was Buffalo Hump," Ben Lily said.

"He came down off the plains with a passel of warriors–a thousand or more." "A thousand braves–I doubt it," Call said. "People always think there's more Indians than there are, when the Comanches attack." Ben Lily hoisted his bearskin onto one shoulder, and picked up his gun. Then he whistled for his dog.

"Go east," he told them. "See how many dead you find. There's dead along ever creek. I don't know how many men he came with but he struck Austin and nearly burned it down. This wasn't just a few scalp snatchers. Buffalo Hump came for war, and he made it." All the rangers were stunned by his last statement.

"Struck Austin, are you sure?" Long Bill said.

"Struck it and burned most of it," Ben Lily repeated. "Kilt everybody he saw– that's what I heard." Then, without waiting for further comment or discussion, he took his gun and his bearskin and walked away. He took no more interest in the troop of rangers.

"Do you believe him, Woodrow?" Long Bill asked. "My wife's in Austin–my Pearl." "I don't know why he'd lie to us," Call said.

"Clara," Gus said. "My Lord. I wonder if she was gone when they struck." I wonder if Maggie hid where I told her to, Call thought.

"Woodrow, we have to go back," Augustus said. "If they burned Austin, Clara might be dead." Long Bill remembered the captive they had rescued, Maudy Clark, now demented. What if the Comanches caught Pearl and left her in the same state?

"Captain, let's go back," he said.

Augustus looked across the emptiness they had just crossed–now they would have to recross it, riding for days and days in great anxiety.

"Lord, I wish I was a bird," Gus said.

"I wish I could just fly home." "You ain't a bird, Gus," Call said.

All the rangers, even Deets, seemed stunned by Ben Lily's news. An Indian force large enough to strike Austin and burn most of it was a calamity greater than they could immediately comprehend.

Call felt stunned, too. The first time he and Augustus had gone into the Pecos country, with a small surveying troop, nine Comanches led by Buffalo Hump had attacked them, killed three men, and captured their ammunition. None of the nine Comanches had been so much as grazed by a ranger bullet. If a thousand warriors had indeed come into the settlements, there might be little to defend, by the time they reached Austin.

"You ain't a bird," he said, again, to Gus.

"We can't fly it–we'll have to ride it, and we don't want to wear out these horses, because horses won't be easy to find, on the way back.

Buffalo Hump's probably run off most of the horses from the ranches out this way." "I don't care about the dern horses, I just hope he ain't took my wife," Long Bill said. "Took her or kilt her. I don't think I can do without my Pearl. I should never have left her, not to come on no silly chase like this." Augustus, though heartsick himself, saw the anguish on Long Bill's face and thought if he joshed him a little it might help.

"Now, Billy, don't worry," he said.

"Pearl's too bossy to steal. She'd argue those Comanches to a frazzle. I expect she'll be there ready to boss you, when we get back." The witticism had no effect. Long Bill looked no less anguished. The rangers sat in silence while Deets finished taking what he hoped was tender cuts of the bear meat.

"I guess Captain Scull will have to find his own way back," Call said, looking south.

Then he turned his horse and the little troop began the long ride home, every man wondering what they would find when they got there.

Buffalo Hump took only one man with him when he went on to the Great Water. He took Worm, the medicine man. The glory of the great raid was over; the Comanches had harassed and murdered the Texans in town after town, and had even defeated a company of bluecoat soldiers who charged at them foolishly, not realizing how many warriors they faced. By then the Comanches were driving more than a thousand stolen horses; the bluecoats managed to separate off a few of the horses but then they had to leave them and flee for their lives. One soldier whose horse went lame fell behind–when his gun misfired Blue Duck killed him with a lance, a thing that would have made Buffalo Hump proud had Blue Duck not spoiled his coup by bragging about it excessively around the campfire that night. It was no great feat to kill a white soldier whose horse was lame and whose gun wouldn't shoot. Blue Duck also bragged excessively about his rapes.

Buffalo Hump had meant to take Blue Duck and a few warriors on to the Great Water, but after listening to Blue Duck brag he decided to leave the boy–let him fight his way back to the plains. He did not want such a braggart with him. Many of the warriors were still crazy for blood; they did not want to stop killing just to see water.

The morning after the chase with the bluecoat soldiers Buffalo Hump decided to leave the war party and go, alone with Worm, to the Great Water. The raid had been a fine triumph– all the Texans knew again that the Comanche power was still great. The Texans were scattered and frightened.

They had their dead to bury, their wounded to heal. The bluecoat soldiers would come, in time, to the llano but it would not be soon.

Buffalo Hump spoke to some of the chiefs who had joined the raid with their warriors. He advised them to break into parties of forty or fifty and filter back up to the plains along the old trails. The whites, if they pursued at all –which he doubted–wd wear themselves out trying to decide which party to chase.

When Blue Duck saw his father preparing to leave, with only old Worm for a companion, he loped over and watched his father filling his quiver with arrows; Buffalo Hump had worked on the arrows most of the night, making sure that the arrowheads were tightly set.

"I will come with you," Blue Duck said. "You might need me." "No, you go with the horses," Buffalo Hump instructed. "Keep them together and travel fast.

Take them to the canyon and don't lose any.

I will come in a few days, with Worm." Blue Duck was annoyed. He was a warrior now–he had killed a bluecoat–and yet his father treated him like a horse herder.

"What if the Texans trap you?" he asked.

"You will not get much help from that old man." "I will not need much help," Buffalo Hump said. It wearied him to have to be always arguing with his son. The boy never accepted any command simply, as an obedient son should. He always had ^ws of his own to say about every request. Because Blue Duck was so rude, Buffalo Hump had to keep reminding himself that he was also brave–he was one of the bravest young men in the tribe.

He too had been brave and daring, when he was young, yet he had not been disrespectful. His own father was named Two Arrows–he had once killed the largest grizzly bear anyone had ever seen with only two arrows. Buffalo Hump would never have dared question anything Two Arrows told him to do. He seldom spoke to his father, unless Two Arrows asked him something. He would not have dared be rude, as Blue Duck was rude.

Blue Duck did not like being sent home with the horses. He sulked and pouted, and insulted two young warriors, hoping to provoke a fight.

Buffalo Hump saw it all, but he ignored it. He gathered his things, motioned to Worm, and left the camp. It was a relief to go. He had taken pride in being able, once more, to gather so many warriors that the whites could not stand before them; but now he felt the need to be alone, to move quietly across the land and just take care of himself, without having to mediate disputes and make decisions for so many warriors.

Worm was old; he was a man of silence. He could speak prophecy and make spells, but mostly he was quiet and alert, a pleasure to travel with. For two days they travelled through the thick brush country, a country where there were many armadillos. Worm was particularly fond of armadillo meat–al, the little scaly animals seemed to amuse him. Sometimes he would catch an armadillo that was half in its hold and would have to tickle its testicles to make it come out. When he cooked an armadillo he carefully preserved the scaly case that had been the beast's defense; soon he had several armadillo shells dangling from his pack.

"Why do you like that meat so much?" Buffalo Hump asked him one night–they were only one camp from the Great Water. He himself had killed a javelina that afternoon and was eating it. In his view pig was tastier by far than armadillo.

Worm rarely answered a direct question directly.

"The armadillo people are from a time before the Comanche," Worm said. "They were here when we were not. They are so old that they have learned to grow shells, and yet they are not slow, like turtles." Worm paused. He was studying the paw of one of the armadillos he had killed.

"If we could learn to grow shells we would be safe in battle," he said. "If I eat enough of these armadillos maybe I will grow a shell." "You have eaten several and I don't see any shell on you," Buffalo Hump commented.

Worm was silent. He preferred to think his own thoughts about the armadillo people.

The next day they came to a country where the trees were low and inward bent, from the constant push of the sea wind. The air was so salty Buffalo Hump could lick salt off his lips. The land became swampy, with tall reeds higher than a horse growing in dense thickets; there were inlets of water here and there, with cranes and great storks standing in there. As they grew nearer the sea both the land and the air were alive with birds: geese and ducks in great numbers floated on the inlets or waddled through the grass. There were white gulls that rose and dipped. But the most interesting to Buffalo Hump were the great cranes–they came from far in the north and did not stop in the Comanche country. Once, in Nebraska on the Platte River, he had seen a few of the great cranes, but in the swamps and inlets near the Great Water there were thousands of them.

Worm seemed in awe of the birds. His old eyes widened when the storks flapped into the air, or when the herons sailed down to the water on their wide wings. He turned his head from side to side and listened when the sea gulls spoke; it was as if he were trying to learn their language. Worm had only half an upper lip–the other half had been cut off years before, in battle. When he was excited, he licked his half lip; it was a thing he did, too, when his interest in a woman was high. The women of the tribe joked about it. They could always tell when old Worm needed a woman because he licked his lip. All his wives had died of one illness or another. There was a story about him from the old days that the old women told the young women, to inform them about the vengefulness of men.

Worm had once had a wife who would not open her legs when he wanted her; to teach her obedience Worm had made a great black cactus grow out of her womb, a cactus with thorns so sharp that the woman could never close her legs again, but had to walk with them widespread even when she was only doing chores.

Buffalo Hump had heard the story from Hair On The Lip and did not believe it.

"I have been with this tribe since I was born," he said. "I have never seen a woman waddling around with a cactus sticking out of her." "Oh no, a bear took that woman–y were just a child then," Hair On The Lip assured him.

Buffalo Hump still did not believe her, but he did like most of the stories Hair On The Lip told. Many of her stories were about things that happened to humans while they were coupling– such stories seldom failed to amuse him.

After wading through several inlets, frightening many birds off the water, Buffalo Hump and Worm at last came to the long strip of sand that bordered the Great Water. They rode along the edge of the Great Water for many miles. Buffalo Hump liked to ride on the wet sand, so close to the sea that the waves foamed over the hooves of his horse, as the waves died.

Worm, though, would not come near the Great Water. He kept his horse far back at the edge of the sand, where sand gave way to grass. He tried repeatedly to point out to Buffalo Hump that the Great Water was unsafe to approach, but Buffalo Hump ignored him. He rode where he wanted to ride.

"There are great fish in the water, and snakes as long as the tallest pine tree," Worm insisted.

"One of those snakes might wrap its tongue around you and pull you under." Buffalo Hump paid no attention to Worm and his talk. Despite Worm's protest he camped that night on the sandy beach. The air at night was warm and salty. He built a small fire of driftwood and sang as the fire died.

Worm finally came and sat with him; they shared a little of the javelina meat. Worm still worried that the water might somehow engulf them.

"That water is never still," he told Buffalo Hump suspiciously. "It is always moving." Buffalo Hump shrugged. He liked it that the water moved, that the waves came in and went out.

He liked the sound it made, a sound that came from depths he could not see.

"I like the land–it doesn't move," Worm said. "This water sighs like a woman who is sad." There was some truth in that comment, Buffalo Hump thought. The ocean did sigh like a woman, as she sighed in sorrow, or at the slowing of her passion.

"There are great fish in that water with mouths so wide they can swallow buffalo," Worm worried. Buffalo Hump sang over Worm's droning, his complaints. He sang much of the night, in the warm salt air.

In the gray mist before the dawn Buffalo Hump got on his horse and sat waiting for the sun. On impulse he forced the horse into the water and made him swim until the small waves broke over them. Then he swam back to land. Worm was beside himself when he saw Buffalo Hump in the water. He was worried about the snake as long as a pine tree, but Buffalo Hump had no such worry. He merely wanted to watch the sun rise out of the water. All his life he had watched the sun rise upward out of the prairie; now he wanted to see it come out of the water. When it came, at first it was only a faint glow in the grayness of water and sky.

"We had better move back there in those trees," Worm said, when Buffalo Hump came out.

"Why?" Buffalo Hump asked.

"They say the sun rides all night on the back of a great fish," Worm said. "When it is time for morning the great fish brings it back so it can shine on the people of the land and make them warm." In the mist it was hard to see the sun clearly.

Buffalo Hump wondered if there was a great fish so large that it could carry the sun. He watched the surface of the water and saw no great fish, though that didn't mean that the story was untrue. The sun was now well up. Maybe the great fish that carried it had gone back to its home in the deep water.

Maybe the fish slept all day, while the people of the land enjoyed the sun. He didn't know.

What Buffalo Hump did know was that the ocean was a great mystery. In his country the stars and the moon were the great mysteries; he had been studying them all his life, and yet he knew nothing of the stars and the moon. The ocean was such a mystery, too. He could live his life on the sand, as the Indians of the seaside did, and yet never know the secrets of the ocean–why its waves moved in and out, why it sighed like a woman. Perhaps the ocean was even more powerful than the moon and stars. After all, it had called him to it, across hundreds of miles of land. Although the fighting had been good, he had finally grown restive with it; he did not want to delay any longer his trip to the Great Water.

When the sun was high Buffalo Hump rode back to Worm, who was crouched nervously over the little campfire. Often Worm could be irritating, a cranky man with half an upper lip and many fears and complaints. But Worm, for all his complaining, was a powerful prophet, and sometimes his clearest prophecies were called forth by his fears.

Buffalo Hump wanted a prophecy–all through the fighting he had wanted one, for his feelings were not good. Although he had felt again the excitement of war and the thrill of running down and killing his enemies, there had been a sadness in him through it all. At night as the young men sang and bragged of their killing, he had felt apart and could not make the sadness leave. In his life he had had many victories; the young men bragging and singing were as he had been in his youth, brave and unthinking. They expected that they would live their life as warriors and have many victories over the whites and the Mexicans. In their dreams and in their songs they saw themselves as Comanche warriors always, men of the bow andofthe horse.