Текст книги "Comanche Moon"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 46 страниц)

"They got the blacksmith," Call said.

"Here's the preacher and his wife–got them both." He walked on, stopping over every grave.

"Oh Lord, boys," Call said. "Here's Neely and Finch and Teddy–I guess Ikey must be alive." "My God, Neely," Gus said, coming over to look.

As they rode on into town, past a grove of live oak or two, they saw house after house that showed evidence of burning; and yet most of the houses still stood. Only the church and one saloon seemed to have burned to the ground.

"They didn't kill Governor Pease–there he stands," Augustus said, as they turned into the main street. "I expect he'll be glad to see us back." "We didn't do what we was sent to do–he may fire us," Call said.

"I doubt that," Gus said. "He won't have nobody who can fight at all, if he fires us." The Governor stood in shirtsleeves and black suspenders on the steps of what had been the Forsythe store. He was loading a shotgun when they rode up, and he looked grim.

"Hello, Governor," Call said. "Are the Indians still around?" "No, but the coons are," the Governor said.

"The coyotes got most of my hens, after the raid. The coons don't bother the hens but they're ruining me in the egg department." He sighed, and cast a quick glance at the little troop.

"Lose any men?" he asked.

"No sir, but we didn't find the Captain," Call said. "When we heard about the raid we thought we better just get home." The Governor's buggy stood in the street, but Bingham, who usually drove him, wasn't in it.

"I just came down to get some shotgun shells," the Governor said. "I need to do something about those coons." Governor Pease was usually clean shaven, but now had a white stubble on his cheeks; he looked tired.

"Where's Bingham, Governor?" Augustus asked.

"Dead ... they killed most of our niggers," Governor Pease said. "They stole that yellow girl who worked for Inez Scull–she was down by the springhouse and they took her." Just then Long Bill gave a yell. They all turned and saw why. Pearl, the wife he had given up for dead, was in plain view far up the street, hanging out washing.

"It's my Pearl, she ain't dead!" Long Bill said. The cares of the last weeks fell away from him in an instant–he wheeled his horse and was off in a run.

"That's one happy ending, I guess," Augustus said.

The Governor did not smile. "She's alive but she was outraged," he said, before going to his buggy. He drove off holding his shotgun, his eggs on his mind.

Call saw that the house where Maggie lived was partially burned but still standing, which was a relief. He thought he glimpsed someone at her window but could not be quite positive. Maggie was ever discreet. She would never lean out her window and look down at him–she didn't feel it was right.

He quickly crossed the street and saw her coming down the steps behind the house. She looked so glad to see him that he had to dismount and hug her; when he did she cried so hard that she wet the front of his shirt, just as she had when he was leaving.

"Now hush, I'm back," he said.

He had never before touched her outside her room. After a moment he got nervous, and Maggie did too.

"They didn't get you ... that's good ... and they didn't get Pearl, either ... Bill's been about worried to death," he said.

Maggie's face clouded, for a moment. "They shot four arrows into her, and that ain't all," she said. "But they didn't touch me–I hid where you told me, Woodrow." "I'm glad you hid," Call said. Maggie didn't say more. She still had tears in her eyes.

Call went back to the rangers, who were still in the street, where he had left them. Gus had dismounted and was sitting on the steps in front of the Forsythe store, a dejected look on his face.

"We ought to get the boys settled and see to the horses," Call said. Jake Spoon and Pea Eye Parker both looked as if they might go to sleep in their saddles. Even Deets, who seldom flagged, looked very weary.

"You do it, Woodrow," Gus said. He stood up and handed his bridle reins to Deets as he went by him. Call turned and followed Gus a step or two, curious as to what was the matter.

"I guess you're going drinking," he said.

"By God, you're a genius, Woodrow," Augustus said. "I ain't even close to a saloon, but you figured it out." Call knew it was Clara, or the fact that she was absent, that caused Gus to look so low. It was usually Clara at the bottom of Gus's dark moods.

"She's alive, at least," he said. "You ought to be glad she's alive." "Oh, I am glad she's alive," Gus said. "I'm mighty glad. But the point is, she ain't here. Your girl is here, Billy's wife is alive, but my girl's married and gone to Nebraska." Call didn't argue–there would be no point. He turned back to the rangers, and Augustus McCrae went on across the street.

Ahumado had never had a captive who behaved like the small americano, Captain Scull. Most captives despaired once they realized they were in a place they could never get out of, except by death. In his experience, Americans made poor captives. He had had old Goyeto try to skin several Americans–traders, miners, travellers who happened to travel the wrong road–but they all died before Goyeto had got very far with the skinning.

Even if he only skinned an arm or a leg the Americans usually died. They were weak captives, the whites. Once he had had a small Tarahumara Indian from the north who had stood at the skinning post without making a sound while Goyeto took his whole skin off–t Tarahumara had been an exceptional man.

Ahumado decided to shelter him and feed him well–he thought it was possible that the man might grow a new skin; but the man took no food and didn't profit much from the shade he was given.

He died after three days, without having grown any new skin.

Once or twice Ahumado had tried sticking Americans on the sharpened trees, but there again they had turned out to be disappointing captives, dying after much screaming before the sharpened tree had penetrated very far into their bowels. The Comanches and Apaches he captured on the whole did much better, although it was not unknown for one of them to disgrace himself. Once, though, he put an Apache who had stolen a woman on the sharpened tree and the Apache lived for two days even after the sharp point of the tree had come out behind his shoulder blade. No Comanche and so far no whites had done so well.

It was clear, though, that the white man Scull, the ranger, was an americano of a different order. Scull had mettle, so much mettle that Ahumado was surprised; and surprise was a thing he rarely experienced.

As for men in the cage, the best survivor had been an old Yaqui man who had been both exceptionally tough and exceptionally lucky. It had rained often while the old man was in the cage, so the man had moisture. Also, since he was a Yaqui of the hot desert, he wasn't used to eating much. In his days in the cage he cleverly peeled all the bark off the bars of his cage and ate it–the old Yaqui seemed to like the taste of dry bark better than the taste of raw bird meat. Later the blind woman Hema, the curandera, told Ahumado that the bark kept the old man from feeling hunger.

Even this Yaqui, skilled at going without food, was not as adept at living in the cage as the white man Scull. No one before Scull had ever put his legs through the cage and wiggled them.

Ahumado spent a good deal of time watching Scull through some binoculars he had taken off a dead federale. Once he even let old Goyeto look through the binoculars and Goyeto was so astonished at what he saw that he did not want to give the binoculars back to Ahumado.

He called them the Two Eyes That Made Things Large–theirthe ability to make things large left Goyeto speechless, and he was a man who usually chattered a lot. Even when Goyeto was skinning a person and the person was screaming, Goyeto would often be running on, talking about things of little interest or importance. Goyeto had always lived in the mountains, close to the Yellow Canyon. Though he was an old man he had only seen Jaguar once. Sometimes it amused Ahumado to startle Goyeto with trinkets he had stolen from the whites. Some whites carried watches that made sounds, and these sounds never failed to impress Goyeto, who thought they were magical.

Goyeto did not understand mechanical things; even guns were too complicated for him. He understood only knives–with knives he was better than anyone Ahumado had ever known.

Once Ahumado had even had Goyeto skin a great rattlesnake alive–a snake that was more than eight feet long. The reason for skinning the snake alive was that it had bitten Ahumado's favorite mare, a fleet gray filly that could outrun the Comanche horses. The snake had bitten the filly right in the nose; when the nose swelled up her air could not get through. She struggled so hard to breathe that her heart gave way.

Ahumado saw the old snake lying insolently only a few yards from where he had killed the mare. Because the old snake was insolent Ahumado caught him with a crooked stick and nailed him to the ground. Then he instructed Goyeto to skin him, and Goyeto did, turning the snake carefully until it was naked of skin.

Then, once it was skinned, Ahumado threw it into a pit of hot coals and cooked it. He did not want to turn it loose because snakes were better than humans at growing new skins. If he let the snake go it might grow a new skin and kill another filly. Some of the pistoleros were made nervous by this treatment of the snake. Many of them feared the vengeance of the snake people, and, indeed, the very next day, a pistolero was bitten when he rolled on a rattlesnake in his sleep.

But Ahumado was indifferent to such worries.

Any man should be able to watch out for snakes. He had the skin of the big snake made into a fine quirt.

After Scull had been in the cage three days Ahumado noticed that he had acquired a small tool of some kind. By watching closely with the glasses he saw that it was a small file that Tudwal had once used to sharpen things. It did not surprise Ahumado that Scull had managed to kill Tudwal, who was not a smart man; but he was curious as to what Scull meant to do with the file now that he had it. Of course he could use the file to saw through the bindings of the cage, but where would that leave him? He would either fall to his death or have to climb the rope to the top of the cliff.

Ahumado suspected that climbing was what Scull had in mind–he immediately sent ^w to the dark men to watch the rope carefully, day and night. If Scull did make it to the top of the cliff the dark men were instructed to chop off his feet with their machetes. A lack of feet would quickly put an end to his travels.

Ahumado noticed, though, that Scull did not seem to be interested in filing through the bindings, at least not in daylight. One day Scull spent the whole day scratching at the rock face with his file. It was the most puzzling thing he had done since his capture–Ahumado watched closely but could not make out the purpose of the scratching.

Scull was so absorbed by his scratching that he did not even try to catch several fat pigeons that lit on the cage while he was working. Most men, once in the cage, made desperate efforts to catch any bird that came near, fearing that they would starve if they didn't. But Scull seemed confident that he could catch birds when he needed them. Hunger didn't seem to worry him.

It occurred to Ahumado one day that Scull might be a witch. He had had that suspicion from the beginning, but the suspicion increased when Parrot appeared one day from the south and soared close to Scull's cage. Ahumado was not one who thought much about witches. He didn't believe there were very many witches–most vision people, in his view, were just charlatans, full of foolish talk.

That did not mean, though, that there were no witches at all. Ahumado believed there were only a few witches, but those few possessed powers that enabled them to do very unusual things. It was possible that the small ranger, Scull, was just such a rare thing: a witch.

Fortunately the old blind curandera, Hema, knew something about witches. Hema was a woman of the desert who knew more than anyone else about plants that could heal. Ahumado went to her and asked her what she thought Scull might be doing, scratching on the rock with Tudwal's file. Hema of course could not see Scull but she had an acquaintance with witches. Her own sister had been a famous witch who had been taken by the Apache Gomez many years before.

Hema was not a witch herself, but she was skilled with herbs and plants. She could help barren women, and old men who could no longer couple pleasantly with their wives. One woman, barren for years, had come to Hema and borne four babies, one of which was carried off by a she-wolf. She was able to brew concoctions that made the organs of aging men stiffenough again when they went to their wives.

Sometimes Ahumado talked to Hema when he needed to know about things which were beyond sight. Scull, of course, was not really beyond sight; Ahumado could see him clearly, through the binoculars he had secured by killing the federale. But the fact that Scull was scratching on the rock with a file was worrisome. Why did he scratch on the mountain?

Ahumado knew that whites could find things in the earth that others couldn't see. Sometimes they would dig into a mountain at a certain place and come out with gold. Some Indians believed that whites could make the earth shake; they might even be able to make whole mountains fall. In the war with the americanos Ahumado himself had seen the little cannons of the whites knock down a great church and several smaller buildings. When the cannonballs hit the earth they tore it up terribly. Ahumado was a child of the earth; he didn't like the way the guns of the whites could scar it and disturb it.

Now the fact that Captain Scull chose to scratch on the mountain annoyed Ahumado. The more he watched it and wondered about it, the more it annoyed him. What if the white man knew how to open a hole or tunnel into the mountain? Then he could simply file through the bindings on the cage and escape. He knew that the whites opened great holes in the mountains when they mined; then they walked into the earth, through the holes. A white man such as Scull might even be able to make the whole cliff fall all at once, like the church that had been knocked down during the war.

Ahumado soon developed such a strong curiosity about what Scull was doing on the cliff that he considered having himself lowered down beside him in one of the other cages, in order to watch Scull closely. He himself had no fear of heights and would not have minded being in a cage. But he soon rejected the notion of having himself lowered in a cage because of the dark men. Though they were obedient if he ordered them to chop off someone's feet, the truth was that they hated him. Once they got him in a cage they might simply cut the rope and let him fall; or they might just leave him in the cage to starve and go home to their villages in the south. Though very curious about what Scull was up to, Ahumado was not so foolish as to put himself at the mercy of the dark men.

One day he went to the hut where blind Hema sat, and told her his fears about the white man Scull opening a hole in the mountain. He wanted her to go up to the top and be lowered to the place where Scull was, in hopes that she could determine what he was doing. Though blind, Hema had hearing so sharp that she could tell what sort of bird was flying just by listening to its wing beats.

Ahumado wanted her to listen to the rock and see if the rock was all right. If she thought the earth might be about to move he would have to shift his campsite. Ahumado had become convinced that Scull was not a normal man. He did not put men in cages so that they could enjoy themselves, and yet Scull seemed to be enjoying himself. While Scull scratched on the rock he sang and whistled so loudly that everyone looked up at him. That in itself was highly unusual. Most of the men put in the cages quickly lost their spirit; they did not sing and whistle. They might yell down pleas, and beg for a day or two, but after that they usually sat quietly and waited for their deaths.

Blind Hema listened closely to what Ahumado said. Then she got up and moved slowly to the base of the cliff. She moved along the cliff for an hour or more, putting her ear close to the rock and listening. The longer she moved along, listening to the cliff, the more agitated she became. When she came back to where Ahumado waited, she was trembling–in a moment her teeth began to chatter and froth came out of her mouth.

Ahumado had known the old blind woman for many years and had never seen her so upset that froth came out of her mouth.

"He is calling the Serpent," old Hema said. "That is what he is doing when he scratches on the rock. He is sending signals to the great snake that lives in the earth.

He wants the Serpent to shake the mountain down on us." Then the old blind woman stumbled around the camp until she found someone who would give her tequila. Soon she became drunk–v drunk, so drunk, finally, that she fell on her face in the dust. She could not stand up, for drunkenness, but had to crawl around the camp on all fours. Seeing her on her hands and knees, some of the pistoleros began to tease her. They pulled up her skirts and pretended that they wanted to couple with her in the manner of dogs–of course it was only a joke. Hema was an old woman, too old for a man to be interested in.

Ahumado paid no attention to the teasing, and not much attention to what old Hema said about the Serpent. There were many people who believed that there was a great serpent in the center of the earth whose coilings and uncoilings caused the earth to move. These were not beliefs Ahumado shared. He had seen many large snakes in his youth, in the jungles of the south, but no snakes large enough to move the earth, and he did not believe that there was a serpent god who lived within the earth. Even if there was such a serpent in the earth there would be no reason for it to respond to the scratchings of a small americano.

The gods Ahumado believed in were Jaguar and Parrot; the thing that worried him most about Scull was that Parrot had flown by his cage and looked at him. None of the spirits were as intelligent as Parrot, in his view. In his youth in the jungles he had often seen parrots who could speak the ^ws of men. Though men could imitate the calls of many birds, no man could speak to a bird unless the bird was Parrot. Parrot was to be feared for his brain, Jaguar for his power.

Jaguar was not interested in the human beings; he might eat one but he would not talk to one. In his youth Ahumado had been like Parrot; he talked to many men–now that he was old he had become like Jaguar. Rather than talk to men he merely had Goyeto skin them, or else thrust them onto the sharpened trees.

In the morning old Hema stumbled back to her hut. She had forgotten her ^ws about the Serpent.

She had forgotten that her teeth chattered and that froth came out of her mouth. Still, Ahumado kept a close watch on Scull, up in his cage. Scull was still scratching on the rock with the little file that had been Tudwal's, but Ahumado no longer cared about that very much. He only wanted to know if Parrot would come again.

When Kicking Wolf was halfway home he began to encounter signs of the great raid. He crossed the tracks of many bands of warriors, all of them going north. The bands travelled in a leisurely way–they drove many horses ahead of them and they were not being pursued. At first he thought that only a few bands had been raiding, but then, as he saw more and more tracks, all flowing north, he began to realize that a great raid had been launched against the whites. Twice he came upon the bodies of white children who had died in travel.

Several times he saw pieces of garments that had been torn off captive women, either by thorny brush or by warriors who had outraged the women and left their clothes.

By good luck he even came upon three stray horses and was able to catch one of them. The sorrel horse of Three Birds had travelled a long way in rocky country. Its hooves were in poor condition. Kicking Wolf had been about to abandon him and go home on foot; it was a boon to find the three horses.

The night after he caught the fresh horses Kicking Wolf heard the faint sound of singing from a camp that was not too distant. Even though at first he could scarcely hear the singing he recognized the voice of one of the singers, a brave named Red Hand, from his own band. He had often raided with Red Hand and did not think he could mistake his voice, which was deep, like the bellow of a bull buffalo. Red Hand was the fattest man in the tribe, and the biggest eater. When there was meat Red Hand ate until he fell back in sleep; when he woke up he ate some more. He was something of a braggart, who, when he was not eating, sang of his own exploits. Though fat, Red Hand was quick, and deadly with the bow. He had three wives who complained that he didn't lie with them enough. When Red Hand was at home he devoted himself to eating, and to the making of arrows.

Kicking Wolf was tired, but he was also hungry. Ahumado had left him no weapons and he had had a hard time getting anything to eat on his trip north. He survived on roots and wild onions and several fish he speared with a crude spear when he was crossing the Rio Grande. He had been so hungry that he had been almost ready to kill Three Birds' horse and eat him.

Though he had been about to sleep he decided it was better to go on to the camp where Red Hand was singing. There would probably be food in the camp, unless Red Hand had eaten it all.

The camp was farther away than he thought, but Red Hand and a few others were still singing when Kicking Wolf appeared on his new horse. There were almost twenty warriors in the party; they had two captive girls. The warriors were so confident that they hadn't even posted guards. When Kicking Wolf appeared they all stopped singing and stared at him, as if he were someone they didn't know. Red Hand had been eating venison but he stopped when he saw Kicking Wolf.

"If you are a ghost please go somewhere else," Red Hand said politely.

Several of the warriors looked at Kicking Wolf as if they thought he might have come from the spirit world, the place of ghosts.

"I am not a ghost," Kicking Wolf assured them. "I hope you don't mind if I eat some of this deer meat. I have been on a long trip and I am very hungry." He could tell that some of the warriors still thought he might be a ghost, but after they watched him eat for a while they got over their suspicions.

Then they all wanted to brag about the great raid they had been on. Several warriors talked so fast that Kicking Wolf had to delay his eating in order to listen politely. They were men of his own band, and yet he felt like a guest. The warriors had been off fighting together, whereas he had been on a quest of a different kind. His own vision was still damaged; he still saw two where there was one. The men talked to him about all the whites they had killed and all the captives they had taken.

"I don't see so many captives," Kicking Wolf said. "There are only two girls and one of them looks as if she might die tonight." Then he looked at Red Hand.

"I found you because you were singing so loudly," he said. "If the bluecoat soldiers were after you they could find you too. You didn't even put out a guard. The bluecoats could sneak up and shoot you all down with rifles. Buffalo Hump would not be so careless if he were here." "Oh, he went to the Great Water, with Worm," Red Hand said. "We don't have to worry about the bluecoat soldiers. They tried to fight us and we chased them away." Red Hand had an arrogant side that was apt to come out when he was questioned or criticized. Once Buffalo Hump had hit him in the head with a club when he was talking arrogantly. The blow would have killed most warriors but it only made a lump on Red Hand's head.

"I am only telling you what any warrior should know," Kicking Wolf said. "You ought to post a guard. Though I have travelled a long way and am tired I will be your guard tonight if no one else wants to." Before anyone could speak or offer to stand guard Red Hand started talking about the rapes he committed while on the raid. While Kicking Wolf was listening he happened to glance across the fire and when he did he got a shock: he thought he saw Three Birds sitting there–the sight was so startling that Kicking Wolf began to shake. He thought perhaps the men had been right at first to consider him a ghost. Perhaps he .was a ghost. He was becoming more and more disturbed when the warrior who seemed to be Three Birds stood up and went to make sure that the captive girls were tied well. At that point Kicking Wolf saw that the warrior was not Three Birds, but his brother, Little Wind. The two brothers looked so much alike that it was confusing. But the warrior seeing to the girls' bonds was Little Wind. He had been away on a hunt when the Buffalo Horse was stolen–he might not even know that his brother, Three Birds, had helped Kicking Wolf take him.

"Your brother, Three Birds, did a brave thing," he told Little Wind, when the man came back and sat down.

Little Wind received this news modestly, without comment. Like Three Birds he seldom spoke, preferring to keep his sentiments to himself.

"He helped me steal the Buffalo Horse from Big Horse Scull," Kicking Wolf informed him.

"Yes, everybody knows that," Red Hand said rudely. "The two of you went away with the Buffalo Horse and missed the great raid.

"None of us had time to go look for you," Red Hand added, in such a rude tone that Kicking Wolf would have hit him with a war club if one had been handy.

"You be quiet! I have to tell Little Wind that his brother is dead," he said, a statement that caused Red Hand to shut up immediately. The death of a warrior was serious business.

"I hope he died bravely," Little Wind said. "Can you tell me about it?" "I did not see him die," Kicking Wolf said. "He may even be alive but I don't think so. He went with me to Mexico, to the Yellow Cliffso where the Black Vaquero has his camp." The warriors who had been moving around, doing small chores, stopped at this moment. The camp became silent. There were no more rude comments from Red Hand. All the warriors knew that to go willingly to the country of Ahumado required great courage. It was a foolish act, of course, for any warrior who wanted to continue with his life; but it was the valor of the act, not its wisdom, that stilled the warriors now. They stood or sat where they were, quiet, in awe. For two warriors to go alone into Mexico and put themselves at the mercy of the Black Vaquero was a thing of such manliness that the warriors wanted to be quiet for a time and think about it.

Kicking Wolf waited a bit, in silence, for the news of what he was saying to be absorbed.

"I stole the Buffalo Horse and took him to Mexico," he said. "I took him to Ahumado–I wanted to do it." He saw that the warriors understood him. Many warriors would leave the band for a few weeks, to go on a quest, or see someplace they wanted to see. Such journeys became a part of the strength of a warrior.

"Ahumado caught us," he said. "He tied me to a horse and made the horse run away.

He wanted to kill me but Big Horse Scull found me while I was in the blackness and cut me loose." "Ah's!" came then from several warriors– exclamations and looks of puzzlement. Why would Big Horse Scull do such a thing?

"I did not see him," Kicking Wolf said.

"I only saw his track. But now I see two things where there is one." Little Wind waited patiently for Kicking Wolf to tell him more about his brother.

"Three Birds decided to go with me to the Yellow Canyon," Kicking Wolf said.

"Even though I told him I would seek Ahumado, he decided to come. When we found Ahumado he was behind us. He tied me to a horse and made the horse run. That is the last time I saw Three Birds. Ahumado kept him." The warriors continued to be silent. All of them had heard what Ahumado did to Comanches when he caught them. They knew about the cages, the pit, and the sharpened trees. Little Wind felt proud of his brother, for doing such a brave thing.

In his life with the tribe Three Birds had never been considered especially brave. He did not lead the hunt when buffalo were running in a great stampede. He had never gone off alone to kill a bear or a cougar, though such a thing was common enough.

Several of the warriors at the campfire had done such acts of bravery. Three Birds was seldom in the front of a charge, when there was an attack. His main skill as a warrior had been his ability to move quietly–t was why Kicking Wolf had chosen him to help steal the Buffalo Horse.

Since his wives and children had all died of the sickness Three Birds had been sad–Little Wind knew. He still had his quietness of movement, but he did not join in things. Little Wind thought his brother's sadness might explain why he had decided to do such a brave thing.

When Kicking Wolf finished talking he stood up to go sit on guard, as he had offered to do when he arrived and found that the camp was unguarded. But, when he stood up, Red Hand quickly gestured for him to sit again. Red Hand had always liked Kicking Wolf and was ashamed that he had been rude to him, earlier. Kicking Wolf had done a great thing, a thing that would be sung about for many years. He should not have to listen to rudeness. It was just that his sudden appearance had startled everyone a lot. Some had taken him for a ghost. Red Hand had sought to challenge the ghost with his rudeness. But, now that he had heard Kicking Wolf's story, he was eager to make amends.

"I see that you are hungry," Red Hand said.

"You should eat some of this deer meat. I will stand guard tonight." Kicking Wolf politely accepted Red Hand's offer. He stayed where he was, but did not eat much of the deer meat. Now that he was back with the warriors of his own band, a great tiredness came over him. He lay down in the warm ashes of the fire and was soon asleep.