Nancy a collins, p.3
Nancy A. Collins, page 3
You can imagine how surprised my tribe was when I came riding back into camp, leading a string of forty ponies. When I told Medicine Dog how I succeeding in tricking the Apaches into returning my original ten horses, plus thirty more, the old coot came close to busting a gut laughing.
“Walking Wolf, you are indeed touched by the hand of Coyote! Only he could have wrested forty ponies from Apache braves without resorting to violence!”
I showed up the next afternoon in front of Calling Owl’s tipi with the thirty horses needed to buy his daughter from him. Calling Owl was very pleased. Flood Moon, on the other hand, looked less than thrilled. She stood there, staring at her feet, as her father talked about how he was looking forward to grandchildren. After Calling Owl and I had sealed the transaction with a smoke from his pipe, Flood Moon went into her family’s tipi for the last time and removed her sleeping roll, her feeding bowl, and a few other belongings and, walking behind me with her head still bowed, followed me to my tipi. Suddenly I was married. Like I said, the Comanche were practical people who didn’t go in much for ceremony.
“How do you like your new home, Flood Moon? Isn’t this better than the lean-to I built when we were children and played camp together?”
Flood Moon grunted and started to unroll her sleeping blankets. She didn’t seem too impressed by her new home, but I tried not to let her lack of enthusiasm bother me. I reached out to embrace her, only to have her go rigid in my arms.
“Flood Moon, what is the matter?” I lifted her chin with my thumb and forefinger, but she looked away.
“I am frightened, Walking Wolf. I have never been with a man before.”
“But I am your husband! You need not fear me!”
She looked at me from the corner of her eyes, smiling shyly. “Go outside and smoke your pipe. When you finish, I will be waiting for you inside my sleeping robes, ready to be your wife.”
I was ready for her to be my wife right then, but I knew better than to hurry her. Comanche women could be powerful shy, but once you got them under the sleeping robes they were randier than a she-bear in heat. So I went outside, had me a smoke and watched the sun go down.
When I’d finished my pipe I got up and stood by the tent flap and called softly to my wife. “Flood Moon? Are you ready? I’m coming in now…”
The moment I set foot in the tipi, something crashed into the back of my head, knocking me to the ground, where I stayedunconsciousuntil the next morning. When I came to, I discovered Flood Moon and her belongings were gone. The only thing she’d left behind was the grinding stone she’d used to coldcock me. Judging from the amount of blood on the grinding stone, it looked like she’d been meaning to crack my brain-case open for the whole world to see what a witless fool I was.
I staggered out of my tipi to find Medicine Dog waiting on me, puffing on his pipe. “So. You aren’t dead,” he said, by way of greeting.
“Where’s Flood Moon? Where is my wife?”
“She is gone.”
“Gone? Where did she go?”
Medicine Dog shrugged. “I do not know. She and Small Bear were very scared. They thought they had killed you.”
“Small Bear? Flood Moon is with Small Bear?” I could feel the anger swell inside me. My head still ached and I did not want to hear what Medicine Dog was telling me.
“Yes. They left together last night.”
My best friend. The woman I loved. Both had betrayed me. And worse, they had robbed me of my pride. I had been made to look a fool in the eyes of the tribe. Such a crime against my honor could not go unpunished. My distress was quite obvious and Medicine Dog put aside his pipe and tried to calm me.
“My son, do not let your anger drive you to do something worse than foolish.”
My head throbbed like a war drum and I doubled over, pushing at the sides of my skull to keep them from exploding outward. My anger was fueling the pain inside my head, forcing my body into its true-form. Medicine Dog stepped away from me. I had the bloodlust on me and he knew words would be useless. Snarling like a beast, I fled the camp. I had the scent of Flood Moon and Small Bear and I was determined to hunt them down and make them pay for their treachery.
It did not take me long to catch up with them. Like most vargr, I am a tireless runner and the rage burning deep inside me kept me from growing weary. Although they had a whole night and day’s head start on horseback, I found them not long after dark.
I saw their fire long before I saw them. They were alone except for each other and their horses, huddled against the coming night. Careful to keep upwind of their mounts, least they catch my scent and alarm Small Bear, I circled their camp, listening to them as they talked.
I could tell from their words and actions that they had been lovers for some time. Small Bear sat with his rifle at the ready, Flood Moon pressed close to him. The sight of my best friend sharing an intimacy with my wife that I myself had never known stoked my anger even higher, until everything I saw was covered by a bloodred scrim.
One of the ponies wickered nervously and Small Bear tightened his grip on his gun, peering anxiously into the dark beyond the fire as he got to his feet.
Flood Moon looked up at her lover, knuckling the sleep from her eyes. “Small Bearwhat is wrong?”
“There is something out there.”
I came in low, tackling him from behind, snarling like a rabid wolf. Small Bear’s rifle discharged as he hit the ground. Flood Moon screamed out her lover’s name, driving the knife she’d kept hidden in her blanket into my right side. I yowled in pain and made to grab at the intruding blade, giving Small Bear the chance to roll free and get back on his feet. Unsheathing his own knife, he made to drive it into my heart. Growling, I knocked the weapon from his hands and pounced on him as a coyote would a prairie dog, my teeth sinking deep into his soft, hairless throat.
I don’t want people reading this to think the fight was one-sided. Small Bear was a strong, swift brave, and he did not surrender easily to death. Still, I tore at his struggling body with my talons, gleefully ripping his bowels free of his stomach. Small Bear’s liver, glistening brown-red in the campfire, lay on the prairie grass, and without pausing to think, I snapped the tender morsel up and devoured it on the spot.
Wiping my muzzle on my forearm, I turned my yellow gaze to Flood Moon, who stood transfixed, staring in horror at the ruined remains of her lover. Smiling, I plucked her knife from my side as if it was no more bothersome to me than a thorn.
“Wife,” I said, holding up the dripping blade. “Is this how you greet your husband?”
She gave a sob of fear and turned to flee, but I was too fast for her. I grabbed her by her braids, wrapping them around my forepaws so her face would be within biting distance. Her eyes were huge with fear and the smell of her terror radiated from her like heat from the sun. Grinning, I licked her face with my tongue, laughing when she shuddered and began to cry.
I took her there, beside the cooling body of her lover. She screamed and whimpered and pleaded with me repeatedly as I raped herfor that was what I did, I don’t deny itbut all it did was increase my determination to punish her even farther. By the time my lust had run its course Flood Moon bled from dozens of deep bites and scratches on her breasts, belly, buttocks and thighs. Sated at last, I pulled myself from her quivering, sobbing body and collapsed beside her in a deep slumber.
I awoke to find Flood Moon astride me, ready to plunge the knife she retrieved into my chest. I’ll never forget looking up into the face of the woman who, until that day, I had loved with all my life and heart, her face rendered almost unrecognizable by the bruises I’d given her. The hatred that burned in her eyes was so intense, so all-consuming it was like a blow. She screamed in triumph as the knife sank up to the hilt in my chest.
My first reaction was a primal onewithout thinking, I swiped at her as she struggled to pull the blade free for a second strike, my talons sinking into the soft flesh of her jugular. Flood Moon clutched her throat, a rattling gasp coming from her lips. I had sliced open her windpipe.
Struggling to get to my feet, I tugged at the knife wedged in my ribs. I was fully expecting to die, but to my surprise, after an initial spurt of blood, my wound sealed itself. The same could not be said for Flood Moon, who lay writhing on the ground at my feet, blood spurting between her fingers.
I felt as if I had woken from a bad dream only to find myself trapped within a nightmare. My head no longer ached and I was empty of the anger that had driven me so relentlessly to such a horrible end. I looked around me as if in a daze. When I saw the mutilated body of Small Bear, I cried out in horror. Even as I closed my eyes to the murder I had committed, my memory replayed for me how I had brutally violated the only woman I had ever loved. When I opened them again, it was to see that Flood Moon, in her last moments, had crawled next to Small Bear to die.
I buried them there, side by side, on the lone prairie. I wept as I dug their common grave with the knife Flood Moon had planted in my heart, mourning as much for myself as for my victims, for I knew I could not return to my tribe after what I had done.
I grew physically ill at the thought of how Eight Clouds Rising, Medicine Dog, Quanah, Peta Nocona and the others would react once they learned of my crimes. Flood Moon and Small Bear had wounded my pride, but the punishment I had meted out to them was beyond all decent measure. And, to make matters worse, I had compounded my sin by breaking the Comanche taboo against cannibalism.
I was ashamed and frightened by what I had done. I had lost control of my baser nature and allowed it to revel in the pain of others. I felt sick to my soul. I decided I needed to know more about my strange powers and the beast inside me, lest I lose control again and harm someone else dear to me. There was only one way I could learn more about myself. I decided it was finally time for me to go into the White Man’s world.
* * *
CHAPTER THREE
My decision to abandon the way of the Comanche for the White Man’s society was not an easy one. Even though, technically, I was one of their number, I had no reason to love or trust Whites.
First of all, it was Whites who killed my natural family. I’d known that before I learned to walk, since Eight Clouds made a point of telling me, early on, the story of how I came to be his son. Secondly, throughout my years as a member of the Wasp Riders, I had ample occasion to see how treacherous Whites could be. They had broken numerous treaties and waged war against the Comanche in a cowardly fashion for years. And third, it was the Whites who were responsible for the epidemics of cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, smallpox, and syphilis that spread through the tribe like brushfire, claiming brave, elder, squaw, and papoose alike.
The Whites seemed stricken with a craziness the Comancheand all other Indianswere at a loss to comprehend. Their buffalo hunters killed more than they could possibly eat in a lifetime. Their farmers wrapped the land in barbed wire and claimed the dirt below and the sky above their property. Still, for madmen, they were privy to immense power. The iron horses and the buffalo-guns that could kill from a mile away were truly impressive. So, was it not possible they might have knowledge as to how I might better control my wolf-self?
I knew better than to ride up to the nearest settlement and expect to be welcomed with open arms. What with my long dark hair and sun-browned skin, I looked more Indian than White. I was likely to catch a bullet between the eyes before I had a chance to dismount. Besides, my English was pretty badin fact, non-existent. No, if I was going to introduce myself to White society, it was going to have to be through an intermediary of some kind.
A week or more after I had voluntarily banished myself, I came upon a black man traveling alone across the prairie, driving a wagon pulled by oxen. When he saw my pony approaching, he reigned his oxen to a halt and pulled out a rifle and rested it across his knees, watching me cautiously.
As I drew nearer I recognized him as the man called Buffalo Face, who traded on occasion with the Wasp Riders, swapping rifles, ammunition and liquor for ponies.
“Good day, Buffalo-Face,” I said, speaking in the mixture of Spanish and Comanche dialect that was reserved for dealing with traders.
He squinted at me and spat a stream of tobacco juice out of the side of his mouth. He was a big, powerfully built man with skin that gleamed like polished stone and a mass of dark, nappy wool that hung to his shoulders, which was the reason the Comanche had given him his name.
“You Comanche, ain’t ya?”
“I am Walking Wolf of the Penateka.”
Buffalo-Face’s shoulders relaxed. “Walking Wolf? You’re Eight Clouds’ boy, am I right? What you doin’ way the hell out here, son? You out scoutin’ buffalo?”
“I’m looking for Whites.”
“Why? You on the warpath?”
“No. I want to go into the White Man’s world and learn how it works.”
Buffalo-Face spat another streamer of tobacco juice, narrowly missing the rump of his lead ox. “Why the hell would you want to do something like that?”
“Because I am White, too.”
Buffalo-Face squinted harder, leaning forward a bit. “Damned if it ain’t so! You are white under all that dirt and paint! Imagine that.”
“Will you take me to the Whites, Buffalo-Face?”
Buffalo-Face frowned and rubbed his chin for a spell, occasionally giving me a look from under his knitted brow. After a long minute he shrugged. “Son, you’re a fool to ask me, and I’m an even bigger fool for sayin’ yes. Hitch your pony to the back of the cart there and ride up front with me. I could stand the company. It gets pretty lonesome out here with no one but Goodness and Mercy here to talk to,” he said, gesturing to the yoked oxen.
Although the idea of riding on anything besides a pony was alien to me, I did as he asked and joined him on the wagon seat. The oxen did not move nearly as quickly as horses, but they plodded along without protest or halting.
During the course of our first day together, Buffalo-Face told me things about himself. I learned that he had been born a slave in some place called Alabama, that his mother had been raped at the age of twelve by the white overseer of the plantation she served on, and that he had killed a manthe same overseer who’d fathered himin order to escape when he was sixteen. I also learned that he had left behind a wife and two, possibly three, children, in a place called Philadelphia.
Buffalo-Face shook his head and spat a streamer of tobacco juice, drowning a blue-bottle fly perched on Goodness’ left rump. “I’ll be damned if I can figger out why you want to get yourself turned white. Sure, they’re your own kind, but you’re as much a stranger to their ways as any full-blooded injun. Hell, I spent the first sixteen years of my life doin’ my best to put distance ‘tween me and white folk. I thought once I was free, things would be different for me.
“Well, things may have been better for me, up north, but they weren’t no different. I was still a nigger, far as anyone was concerned. I could never get my wife to understand that bein’ free of the plantation weren’t enough for me. I didn’t escape Alabama so’s I could turn myself into a white nigger and spend the rest of my life tryin’ to be like them.
“Six years ago I come out west. I’m still a nigger, far as the folks out here are concerned. But at least I can at least spit without hittin’ one of ‘em,” he demonstrated. “I can be my own boss and do as I please. If white folks could look inside my head and see how much I hated ‘em, I’d be hanging from the nearest cotton wood faster’n a jackrabbit. So instead of shootin’ whites and burnin’ their homes to the ground, I get my satisfaction by peddlin’ guns to the Comanches. Way I sees it, they got as much reason as me to be fond of the whites.”
That night we set up camp and Buffalo-Face served up black beans, dry bread, and hot coffee. I’d never had coffee before, and I promptly spat it out. Buffalo-Face laughed as I grimaced and wiped my mouth with handfuls of grass.
“Give yourself a week, son, and you’ll be suckin’ it up like it was mother’s milk!”
I liked Buffalo-Face. Outside of a Mexican boy stolen from a ranchero during one of our winter encampments, he was the only non-Comanche I had ever spent any time with. I wondered if I ought to tell him that I was a skin walker, but I remembered Medicine Dog’s warning concerning who I showed my true-skin to. Buffalo-Face wasn’t a White, but he wasn’t an Indian, either. I fell asleep, pondering the question of whether I should tell him more about myself.
When I awoke, the coffee pot was on the fire but Buffalo-Face was nowhere to be seen. I found him down by the creek, stripped to his waist, washing his face and upper body. His muscular back was covered from shoulder to waist by scars that ran from rib to rib. The wounds were very old, some of them five or six deep in places. I watched him for a few more seconds, then returned to the camp.
When Buffalo-Face came back, he had replaced his shirt and was shrugging into his braces. He bent to pour coffee into a dented tin cup. “You sure you want to go ahead with this plan of yours? You seen the stripes on my back when I was washing at the creek. That’s what white folk had to offer me.”
“Medicine Dog told me that Whites are crazy. Is this true?”
Buffalo-Face nodded and swallowed his coffee, grimacing, whether from the bitterness of the brew or his memories was hard to say. “That they are. But not fall-down, foam-at-the-mouth crazy, though. Whites are singular creatures. They ain’t part of nothing but themselves, not even other whites. Mebbe that’s what makes ‘em act so snake-bit.
“Let me give you a bit of free advice, son. Whatever you do, always watch your back. Whites may hate niggers, injuns, kikes and chinksbut that don’t mean they love their own kind. If they can find a way to get what they want and leave you bleedin’ and nekkid in the snow, they will. Whites ain’t out for no one but themselves. Bear that in mind whenever you’re dealing with ‘emdon’t matter if they’re a man of the cloth, an old spinster lady, or a young’un in knee-pants. Whatever you do, don’t trust ‘em any farther than you can throw ‘em.”
