There were several different branches of Comanche back then, some of which were more powerful than others. Like I said before, I was a member of the Penateka, or the Wasp Band. Others included the Yamparika (the Yap-Eaters), the Kweharena (the Antelope People), the Kutsuaka (the Buffalo-Eaters), the Pahuraix (the Water Horses), and the Wa’ai (the Wormy Penis), to name just a few. But even collected together in all their glory, there couldn’t have been more than ten thousand Comanche, total. So you can imagine the damage that was done when smallpox broke out in 1850. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven at the time, but I remember it being worse than any nightmare I’d ever had—or ever will again.

  It was then that my adopted mother, Thunder Buffalo Woman, died. It broke poor Eight Clouds’ heart, and he was never quite the same after that, even though he ended up taking her younger sister, Little Dove, to wife a year or two later.

  I was twelve years old by the time I finally got to go on my first real buffalo hunt. I was riding with Eight Clouds and several other braves from our band, including one that went by the name Grass Rope. Grass Rope’s specialty was laying low in the grass and sneaking up on the buffalo while they were grazing. He wore a coyote skin draped over his shoulders to mask his scent. Since coyotes were always haunting the fringes of the herds, looking to scavenge afterbirth during the calving season, the buffalo didn’t pay much mind, since they were too small to bring down even the youngest calf.

  When we spied the herd, Grass Rope got off his pony and motioned for me to follow him. Holding his bow at the ready, he got down on his hands and knees and started creeping through the prairie grass in the direction of the herd. I followed him, doing my best to keep myself upwind of the grazing buffalo. I was very proud that a skilled stalker such as Grass Rope had chosen me to accompany him, and I was determined to cover myself with glory the best I could. However, as we crept closer and closer to the herd, something strange began to happen.

  My sense of smell had always been acute, but for some reason it was incredibly keen that particular day. I could smell the grass as the sun dried the dew from its stems, the pungent odor of buffalo wool, the reek of their flops—but, more importantly, I could smell the coyote pelt Grass Rope was wearing. I caught its scent and for the briefest moment I knew everything there was to know about the beast it had once belonged to: its sex, age, health, and social standing in its pack. The surge of recognition was so powerful, I had to lower my head and whine.

  Grass Rope gave me a hard look. Hunting was serious business and it was no time for foolish pranks. “Be quiet, Little Wolf!” he whispered.

  I tried to keep silent, but I was suddenly gripped by a strange fire that burned deep inside me like a banked coal. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out, causing blood to flow. The fire in my belly was growing and my skin felt as if it was covered with biting ants. My bones seemed to be inflating inside my flesh, and for a fleeting second I was afraid I’d been bitten by a rattlesnake without knowing it and was dying.

  Grass Rope grew very angry with my whimpering and twitching and turned to give me the sharp side of his tongue, but what he saw made him forget about scolding me. Even though I was in great pain, I knew something must be very wrong, because his face suddenly went pale under his paint. Then the next thing I know, the buffalo start to bellow and stampede, running away from us.

  Without thinking, I leapt to my feet and started chasing after the fleeing buffalo, running like a band of Apache were at my heels. I vaguely remember seeing some of the other braves from the hunting party sitting astride their ponies, pointing in my direction open-mouthed, their lances and arrows forgotten. Then I spotted a young buffalo calf that had lost its mother and, panicking, placed itself on the fringes of the herd. I closed the distance between us, separating it from its fellows, snapping at its trembling flanks. The frightened youngster bellowed for its mother, but it was too late. She was already miles away, trapped within the nucleus of the herd, helpless to defend her errant child.

  Without realizing what I was doing, I leapt onto the calf’s wooly back, sinking my talons and teeth into its neck. The calf shrieked and, overbalanced, fell on top of me. (And seventy-plus pounds of buffalo calf is nothing to sneeze at, believe me.) Although I had the wind knocked out of me, I refused to let go. The dying calf jerked and kicked, but to no avail, as I tore out its throat with my bare teeth.

  I stared down at the calf as it bled its life onto the prairie grass and threw back my head and howled in triumph. And it was only then, as I licked the fresh blood off my snout, that I realized I was covered in fur and that my hands boasted cruel, curved talons in place of fingernails.

  Eight Clouds rode up, reigning his pony at a safe distance. The pony rolls its eyes and stamped the ground nervously, uncertain whether to stay or flee. Eight Clouds looked the same way.

  “My son—are you still inside?”

  “Yes, father. I am still here.” My voice was strangely distorted and gravelly, like an animal given the power of human speech.

  Eight Clouds nodded, relieved. “You have hunted well. You bring honor to our lodge.”

  Grass Rope rode up, looking positively thunderstruck. “What manner of thing is this?” he demanded, pointing at me.

  Eight Clouds smiled, proud enough to bust. “It is not a thing, it is my son, Little Wolf.”

  Grass Rope shook his head in amazement. “He is a walking wolf! Never have I seen such a thing!”

  And that’s how I got my adult name—and how I shapeshifted for the first time in my life. I didn’t realize it then, but my boyhood days were gone forever and things were soon going to change in ways I had no way of foreseeing.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  After my first experience with shapeshifting, my life amongst the tribe became very different. The first, and most radical, change came with my apprenticeship to Medicine Dog. The old shaman had always taken a grandfatherly interest in me, but now I was expected to move my meager belongings from my father’s tipi into his.

  Medicine Dog was a wise man, full of knowledge acquired during a long and eventful life. I remember I once asked him if he hated the Apache for blinding him in the right eye, and he laughed.

  “My life was good in the old days. But it was the life of a fool. I was a mighty warrior back then. I was very proud. Too proud. I was vain and my vanity made me weak. When the Apache took away my eye, I may have lost the ability to see things in this world, but I gained the ability to see into the Spirit World. Should I hate the Apache for giving me such a wonderful gift, Walking Wolf?”

  Like I said, Medicine Dog was a wise man, but I was young and still aching to prove myself as a brave, like other boys, so I tended to ignore a lot of what he told me. I genuinely liked the old fellow, but it chafed me that I had to tend his fire and fetch his water, just like a woman, while my old playmates Quanah and Small Bear were off hunting buffalo or out on pony raids. It pains me to look back and realize just how big a fool I was back then. But Medicine Dog didn’t seem to mind it—I guess he expected a certain amount of thick-headedness on my part.

  Still, I did learn things, in spite of myself. Medicine Dog schooled me as to the prayers necessary to ensure successful raids and hunts, the prayers that correctly guide the dead to the Spirit World, and the prayers that confuse evil spirits so they can’t tell which tipi is the one they’re looking for at night. He also taught me breathing and meditation exercises that helped me control my shapeshifting, so I could summon what he called my “true” skin at will and with minimum discomfort. He also warned me to never tell a White that I was a skinwalker.

  “Whites are jealous of things they don’t understand. Of things they can not have or do. That is why the human beings—we who lived on this land before they came—have had so much trouble with them. If you tell a White that you have more than one skin—they will try and take it away from you. Just like they did your natural father. Be very careful who you show your true-skin to, Walking Wolf, if you want to keep it on your bones.”

  Medicine Dog also told me stories of Coyote, the trickster god from whom all skinwalkers are descended. I reckon it was on account of their most popular folk hero having the head of a coyote that the Plains Indians I knew back then rarely got upset by me sprouting hair, claws, and fangs. Instead of seeing a monster, they saw a god. After all, according to their folklore, Coyote was responsible in part for human beings coming into existence in the first place, and he gave them fire and corn and the buffalo to make their life on earth an easier one. While theirs was a far more reasonable reaction to my condition, it did nothing to prepare me for what I would run up against in the white man’s world, although I did get a taste of rejection early on.

  I’ve already mentioned Flood Moon. As I’d said earlier, I’d known her all my life. She was a pretty thing, by Comanche standards, with long, straight black hair woven into two thick braids, and she had this shy way of smiling that was enough to melt my heart every time she looked at me.

  I’d known from the time I was seven years old that Flood Moon was going to be mine, and once, when we were still very young, I even got her to promise to be my wife when we grew up. But that was back when I was Little Wolf. Things became very different once I became Walking Wolf and, like the young fool I was, I refused to admit it.

  As I said, most of the Comanche took my being not exactly human as a matter of course. Occasionally I’d get asked by an exasperated older sister to threaten to eat a misbehaving youngster, but that was quite rare, and the children usually knew better. Flood Moon, however, was one of the few who had genuine trouble with my condition.

  Before I’d learned how to shift she’d been all smiles and flirts, but when we came riding back from the hunt that day—me still wearing my true-skin—she grew ashen-faced and hurried into her family’s tipi and wouldn’t come out.

  Despite Flood Moon’s sudden coolness towards me, I was still sweet on her. Whenever I could manage it, I would sneak away from Medicine Dog’s tipi and loiter near the creek and wait for her to pass by on her way to gather firewood or water.

  One thing you’ve got to understand about the Comanche way of courting is that it was all very proper. Boys and girls, after a certain age, weren’t allowed to be in one another’s company unchaperoned. And there’s nothing more bashful than a lovestruck brave. So young lovers had to sneak what time they could together during daylight.

  I spent agonizing hours waiting for just a glimpse of Flood Moon. And when I finally did get a few minutes alone with her, I was so tongue-tied I never said much. She would tolerate my presence well enough if I was wearing my human skin, but if I was wearing my true-skin she’d be as nervous as a pony staked out to trap a mountain cat, hurrying through her chores as fast as she could, often slopping half the water she’d drawn from the creek on her way back to camp.

  Although I was nowhere near as bold as some of my friends, who would lie outside their chosen one’s tipis at night and whisper promises of love and marriage through the seams in the tent-skins, I was determined to make Flood Moon mine, and set about saving up ponies to give her family as marriage tribute. But first I had to make sure her father and brothers would not turn down my offer.

  I talked one of the older, more respected women in the tribe into approaching Flood Moon’s father, Calling Owl, and putting my case to him. Calling Owl was very pleased that his daughter had caught the fancy of the tribe’s resident skinwalker, as it meant good luck for his family. But when Flood Moon heard that I’d sent the old woman over, she begged her father to ask for thirty horses. Although Calling Owl saw having a skinwalker as a son-in-law a good thing, he loved his daughter enough to agree to her wishes—at least for the moment.

  When the old woman told me how much Calling Owl wanted for Flood Moon, I was dismayed. Thirty ponies! I was thirteen years old and only had one pony to my name—and that was one Eight Clouds had given me! How was I to get thirty ponies? Well, the same way any Comanche got ponies—it was up to me to steal some.

  Now, let me digress a bit and explain horse-stealing, Comanche-style. The Comanche set a great deal of stock in horseflesh—and if there was ever a people born to ride, it was them. Compared to, say, the Cheyenne, the Comanche were a short, squat race. On the ground, they were far from graceful—but on the back of a horse, they were poetry in motion. Since their society revolved around the horse, the Comanche used them as a rate of exchange. And the mark of a rich man was to have more ponies than he could ever possibly ride. A truly powerful chief would have dozens, if not hundreds, of ponies, most of them taken in raids from either other tribes or settlers. And while Whites considered horse-stealing the lowest thing next to snatching an infant nursing at its mothers’ breast and dashing its brains out against a wall—if not lower—Indians saw it as a truly worthwhile skill. In fact, when they weren’t out hunting buffalo, the Plains tribes seemed to spend the vast majority of their spare time stealing horses from one another. Still, it wasn’t without its hazards.

  Although I was apprenticed to Medicine Dog, he did not forbid me riding with the others on raids. After all, how else was I going to make myself a respected member of the band if I didn’t distinguish myself on the warpath? Medicine Dog might have had one eye in the Spirit World, but he was a practical man. So I began joining the raiding parties, doing my best to help steal as many ponies as possible, so I could benefit when the spoils were divided at the end of a successful raid. Still, it was slow going for a brave as young as myself, since the elder warriors got preferential treatment.

  A year passed and all I had to show for it were ten horses. I still ached for Flood Moon, and the waiting was driving me to distraction. Medicine Dog cautioned me and suggested I had much to learn about patience. Many Comanche braves waited until they were well into their twenties and were solidly established with many ponies and buffalo robes to their name, before taking a wife. But my blood burned and I was convinced that the only way I was ever to know happiness was if I took Flood Moon into my tipi as my wife.

  One night the Apaches raided our herd when most of the braves were away hunting, and all of my ponies were stolen. At first I was devastated. It had taken me so long to acquire those ten ponies, only to have them stolen! Then my grief turned to anger and I became determined to go after the Apaches and reclaim my horses, plus as many more as I possibly could!

  I set off after the Apache raiders on Medicine Dog’s pony that very night, armed with nothing but a bow, some arrows, and a knife. They had stolen close to a hundred horses and their trail was not hard to find. Still, they had a head start, and I knew once they made it to the hill country I wouldn’t stand a chance.

  I caught up with the raiders near dawn, several miles west of the camp. They had decided that they had gotten away scot free and had slackened their pace enough to stop and have a brief meal along the banks of a dry riverbed. As I watched them from a distance, I could tell the six braves responsible for the raid were very young—some no older than myself—and overconfident. A couple of them had rifles, which added to their cockiness. It occurred to me that my decision to leave ahead of my fellow braves had been foolhardy. Here I was alone, armed with nothing but a bow and a knife, while my enemies carried guns. There was no way I could reclaim the horses without exposing myself to attack… Unless I took a lesson from the trickster himself.

  The Apache brave keeping watch was genuinely surprised to see me. Then again, he probably hadn’t seen many upright wolves dressed in breechclouts and buckskin leggins before.

  “Greetings, Brother Human Being,” I smiled, licking my snout and speaking passable Apache. “I am Coyote.”

  The Apache was so thunderstruck his knees began to wobble like a newborn colt’s. He called out to his fellow braves, who hurried to see what was the matter. Naturally, they were equally amazed to see the trickster-god of legend standing before them.

  “I hope I am not bothering you fine warriors this beautiful morning,” I said, gesturing to the rising sun. “But I was passing by on my way to visit the Great Spirit, to ask him certain favors for those who are my friends, and could not help but notice what a beautiful herd of horses you have.”

  “Th-thank you, Father Coyote,” stammered the raiding party’s leader. “You are going to see the Great Spirit?”

  “Yes! Those blessed to Coyote receive good hunting and many coup against their enemies. Did I mention before how fine your horses are?”

  The Apache braves looked amongst themselves then glanced back at the herd.

  “Yes, the Great Spirit shows great respect for those who prove their generosity to others,” I continued, lying through my fangs. “Why, just the other day, the Wasp Band of the Comanche gave me ten horses…”

  “Ten! Is that all?” snorted the Apache leader. “I would not call that generous!”

  “Perhaps so,” I said. “But in any case, I must be on my way…Have a good journey, friend human beings.”

  As I made to leave, the lead Apache called after me. “Father Coyote! We can not let you leave without giving you a gift!”

  “A gift, you say? What of?”

  “Ponies.”

  “How many?”

  I could tell he was trying to figure out how many ponies would be enough—he surely didn’t want to offend a god important enough to put his case to the Great Spirit.

  “Twenty—?”

  I had him dangling but good. “Twenty? What a coincidence! Why, the Kiowa gave me a string of twenty ponies just last week…”

  “Forty then!” The Apache blurted.

  I made a great show of scratching my chin in deliberation. I was actually enjoying the part of sly trickster, but I knew I was running the risk of irate braves unwilling to part with their share of the night’s raid calling my bluff.

  “Forty? Friend human being, you are truly a generous and great man! I shall be certain to mention your name first when I speak with the Great Spirit!”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17