Iron Shirt stood next and intoned a eulogy for the souls of those who died. Then he turned his wrath on his son.
"Our band lost thirty warriors, thirty of its finest young men. We have heard that the Texans have magic guns that don't need reloading. We have heard that they chased the warriors, still shooting at them with guns this big—" he held up his hands to show the size of the small Colt Paterson "—and didn't allow them time to help the wounded.
"This is hard to believe. Never in my fifty seasons has such shame fallen on my band. To die in battle, to run from the enemy when it is foolish to stay and fight, these things happen to us. But to leave comrades on the battlefield, to abandon them, that has never happened. I ask myself if this story of guns that fire without reloading is only a tale men tell to cover their own cowardice. I wonder if perhaps they only thought they saw such guns."
The council sat stunned. To accuse a man of lying and of cowardice was unheard of. Buffalo Piss started to leap to his feet, but Wanderer beat him to it. His robe was pulled over his head and his face was withdrawn to show his anger.
"Father Behind The Sun." He raised his face upward, toward the bit of sky showing through the smoke hole. "You have heard this of which I am accused. Of cowardice. Of lying to hide my guilt. If this accusation be true, let the next bolt of lightning and the next roar of thunder take my life." He paused, as though to give his god a chance to prove Iron Shirt right. Then, without looking at his father, he turned and stalked from the lodge.
Silence followed his going. The men sat, letting the words fade before they moved. Rarely did anyone call down the curse of tabbe bekat, sun-killing. Without speaking, Iron Shirt shifted his robe. He draped it togalike around his chest and threw the edge of it over his left shoulder. It was the People's way of showing a change of attitude. It was Iron Shirt's way of asking his son's forgiveness. But Wanderer didn't see it. And his father was too proud to go after him.
Wanderer lay staring up at the top of the lodge for hours that night. Naduah lay awake beside him.
"Stop it," she finally said.
"Stop what?"
"Brooding."
"Golden one, how can you understand the shame."
"I can understand very well. I'm a hated Texan, remember? I understand shame."
"You're one of the People."
"And so are you. And a great chief and a brave leader. What happened was not your fault, and you could have done nothing to prevent it. You couldn't know about the new guns. But now you do, and the mistake won't happen again. Stop wounding yourself over and over."
"My father called me a liar and a coward in front of the entire council."
"If he called you that he was calling Buffalo Piss and Sore-Backed Horse and some warriors of his own band the same thing. All of you agree about what you saw. No one really thinks ill of you. Iron Shirt speaks before he thinks sometimes. You know that."
"Yes, I know that very well." Wanderer even laughed a little. "But I won't stay here. We'll leave soon. Head out on our own."
"Alone?"
"Alone, or with anyone who wants to come with us. I think Deep Water will come, and Lance and Spaniard, and Sore-Backed Horse. Perhaps even Buffalo Piss will come. You should have seen his face in council this afternoon. Tomorrow I'll smoke with those who might want to join us."
"Where will we go?"
"South, to the southern edge of the Staked Plains. There's room there."
"Wanderer."
"Yes."
"I have something to tell you."
"Then tell me, golden one. But I would prefer it be good news if possible."
"When spring comes, Night will be a father."
"And Wind will be the mother?"
"Yes. And when spring comes, you'll be a father too."
It took a moment for the words to penetrate Wanderer's gloom. When he realized what she was saying, he rolled over and put an arm protectively around her.
"A son?"
"I can't promise that. But one or the other."
He drew her close to him, and she felt his breath stirring her hair. She slept cradled in his arms that night.
CHAPTER 40
A winding procession of ponies and mules and travois stretched behind Wanderer and Naduah, Star Name and Deep Water. Ten families and several single men had fallen in line behind Wanderer when he left his father's camp. Iron Shirt stayed stubbornly in his lodge, smoking with his friends and pretending he knew nothing of his son's departure. Naduah could hear him inside, talking loudly, when she rode by at the head of the caravan. She carried Wanderer's shield and lance, as befitted the first wife of a leader. And her lion skin, edged now with red cloth, hung draped across Wind's flanks.
Buffalo Piss had come with them, although he probably wouldn't stay. As much as he complained about the Penateka, he kept returning to them. Spaniard was part of the group, as well as Lance and Sore-Backed Horse, his shoulder still bandaged from the wound the Rangers had given him. Wanderer had saved his life. Sore-Backed Horse wouldn't forget it.
Many of the men from that raid had left with Wanderer. Naduah had been right. Iron Shirt's son wasn't the only one offended by his rash words. The band had barely cleared the camp when a small group came pounding after them. The boy in the lead stood on his horse and waved his arms.
"Wait for us!" It was Upstream, Star Name's brother, sixteen years old now. He and Cruelest One, Skinny and Ugly, and Hunting A Wife had passed through the village on a run when they heard Wanderer was leaving.
"We came to visit and hunt with you this fall," panted Upstream as he pulled alongside them. Cruelest One rode up, looking dour, and Upstream beamed at him. Cruelest One was coming anyway and asked me to join him."
"I only wanted you to help with the horses. I figured I could leave you with your sister once we got here."
"Herd the horses!" Upstream looked aggrieved. "I've gone on my vision quest. I'm a brave now."
"So I've heard. You've talked of nothing else the entire trip."
"My new name is Esa Habbe, Wolf Road."
"That's a good name. Brother," said Star Name.
"Esa Habbe, Wolf Road. Asa Habbe, Star Road." Naduah played with the words, sounding them out. The People called the Milky Way by both names.
"Takes Down and Mother and Something Good made me my own lodge. You women can set it up for me."
"And what will you do for us, Brother?" asked Star Name, cocking one brow at him.
"I'll bring you scalps."
"Wonderful." Star Name turned to Naduah. "Sister, how do you like your scalps, roasted or boiled?"
"And I'll hunt for you too, of course. Women!"
"Wolf Road, how are Takes Down The Lodge and Sunrise and Medicine Woman and Something Good?" asked Naduah.
"And Black Bird and little Weasel?" added Star Name.
"Has Pahayuca begun trading with the Texans?" asked Wanderer.
"One at a time." Upstream, now Wolf Road, patiently went over all the gossip of the Wasps that he knew. And he knew most of it. When they had wrung every last drop of fresh news from him, Naduah turned to Wanderer.
"You said we were going south."
"We are."
"My sense of direction isn't that bad. We're headed north and east."
He grinned at her. Being away from Iron Shirt's camp seemed to have restored his good humor.
"We'll head north a while, then south. I want to see what the country's like. I haven't been up north for a year." Wanderer was a lone wolf now, searching for his own territory.
They camped that night on the Salt Fork of the Red River. Broad swells of grassy prairie paralleled it for twelve miles. The clear stream was twenty feet across, with huge cotton woods along the river banks. The women rushed to raise their lodges before the rain that had threatened all day. They could see it as they rode, a rusty gray curtain hanging from the black clouds on the horizon.
Naduah didn't take time to lash a platform to keep their gear out of the mud. She leaned the l
oaded travois against the lodge poles and covered them with old hides. She fell asleep that night listening to the rain patter against the taut leather wall above her head. The next day dawned clear and cool and freshly scrubbed.
As they rode at the head of the procession, Wanderer continued their discussion of the day before. They did that often, sometimes picking up the end of a conversation that had been dropped a month earlier.
"Your sense of direction isn't bad at all, golden one. But traveling on the Staked Plains can be confusing."
"I've noticed." They topped a high ridge dividing the waters of the north and middle forks of the Red River, at the eastern edge of the plateau. From that height they could see the valleys of both streams, although the rivers themselves were screened by the heavy growth of trees along them. The Staked Plains were behind them now, rippling and wrinkling and blending into the rolling, high plains to the north. Wanderer pointed to the valleys.
"Streams are usually parallel. If you're traveling upstream, follow the ridges, toward the headwaters. You'll have to branch out when you hit a tributary, but at least you'll be headed in the approximate direction you want to go. If you're traveling downstream, that method doesn't work. Do you know why?"
"Because going downstream you'll run into dead ends where the tributaries meet the main stream. You'll have to descend the ravine, cross, and climb up again. You could use that method if you were willing to ford a lot of tributaries, couldn't you?"
"You could. But there are easier ways to orient yourself."
"What are they?"
"The wind. It blows steadily here."
"Does it ever stop?"
Wanderer thought a moment.
"I don't remember it stopping. Except just before a really bad norther. Tonight I'll show you stars that can guide you." He didn't bother mentioning that she should notice every feature of the landscape and store the image away in her memory. He knew she already did that.
As they moved northward, toward the Canadian River, more people joined them. They came in small groups, preceded by their dust clouds. Most of them were displaced Penateka, forced from their homelands by the Texas settlements. But there were Quohadi too, and Kotsoteka, the Buffalo Eaters from the lands to the east. They were men who knew Wanderer and wanted to ride with him.
Naduah had long since stopped being surprised at how fast news spread among the People as they camped in isolated villages scattered throughout their vast territory. The newcomers fell casually into line with the others. The women were soon chatting like old friends, and the children chasing after each other. The men rode forward to pay their respects to the leader of the band. No one questioned their right to be there. The People were used to coming and going as they pleased.
Finally the group halted on the flat top of a high hill that towered two hundred feet over the beautiful valley spread below it. The valley sloped gradually upward on the other side, and formed a ridge with outcroppings of rock along its crest. A spring flowed from it and fell in a series of narrow waterfalls to join the creek below.
The rains had turned the hills a vivid green. Cactuses were vibrant flecks of color in the grass—pinks and yellows, white and deep purples and crimson. The yuccas, thriving in the wet autumn, still had stalks of red flowers rising from the centers of their fanned, swordlike leaves. A small white yucca moth fluttered past Naduah. She was probably on her way to lay her eggs and, in the process, pollinate the plants that depended on her for their survival.
Meadowlarks sang, their yellow breasts bright in the sunlight. The air was sweet with their flutelike warbling. From the deep grass a pale coyote emerged and loped aloofly in front of them, down the hill and into the trees along the creek. Wanderer ignored it all, concentrating his attention on the scene below him.
At the bottom of the ridge across the valley, men swarmed. A depression about eighty feet square and a few inches deep had been paved with hard-packed adobe mixed with animal blood and ash to harden it and make it water resistant. Walls two and a half feet thick were rising around it.
For acres in all directions the ground was a grid of wooden brick molds. Each mold was ten inches by eighteen inches and five inches deep. Some were empty and some full of the buff-colored adobe laid out to dry in the sun.
There was a shout below when someone sighted Wanderer and his band. The Mexican workers scurried for cover, dodging through the latticework of molds and around the piles of gravel and burned grass waiting to be mixed with the clay. Fifteen-foot beams were dropped with a clatter and rolled down the slope. Men who were tramping the gooey mortar with their bare feet left buff-colored tracks to the low walls, where their muddy soles disappeared over its edge.
Under her stony stare Naduah smiled a little to see them scatter like prairie chickens before her husband and his warriors. Only one man stood his ground. He rode slowly to meet them.
"It's Hook Nose," said Wanderer. "It would be better if you hid, golden one."
Naduah drew back among the women and pulled her robe over her head. She felt safer here, away from the settlements, but the man coming toward them was white. She was taking no chances.
William Bent held his arms up over his head and shook hands with himself. Wanderer locked his forefingers in the sign of peaceful greeting. Then he beckoned his group to follow him. Bent was small and dark, with heavy, slate-gray eyebrows like gathering storm clouds over a hawk's nose.
The Cheyenne called him Little White Man, and they considered him one of their own. He had married Owl Woman, the daughter of their chief, Gray Thunder. The Kiowa and Comanche knew him as Hook Nose, but all the Indians knew him. Already the women in Wanderer's group were gathering their spare buffalo robes and the men were considering which of their ponies and mules they'd be willing to trade. William and his brother, Charles, had operated trading posts for years. And the Indians trusted them as they trusted few white men.
The People camped for two days near the site of the new trading post. And when they left, their pack animals were loaded with calico, lead, powder, coffee, and trade cloth. Naduah and Star Name both had bright new vermillion paint in the parts of their hair. They had painted the insides of their ears with it, and Naduah had carefully stroked three vertical lines onto her chin. Wanderer was silent, disappointed that there had been none of the new repeating pistols for sale at the post. He had come north to find them, and was now planning his next move. He had no way of knowing that the maker of the wonderful pistols, Samuel Colt, was bankrupt and that no more were being manufactured.
Naduah heard the cries first. She kicked Wind toward them, crashing down the embankment they were following and into the brush-filled ravine along the shallow creek. A mule bolted up the other side, scattering the split willow lathes that were only half tied onto his back. Wolf Road and Cruelest One took off in hot pursuit.
"Naduah, come back!" Wanderer would be angry with her. She knew better than to rush into a blind spot like that. There was always the possibility of an ambush at a watering place. But her instincts had taken over. She could no more have resisted that cry than a mother doe could resist the bleat of its terrified fawn. The cries were those of a child.
She found him crouched against a boulder, babbling in terror and holding his leg. There was a dry whirring sound and the crackle of leaves as a dusty brown and black rattler, six feet long, twined off among the stems of the plum bushes.
"Wanderer, the fire horn." She didn't need to explain. He quickly gathered twigs and dry leaves and pulled the horn's strap over his head. He yanked out the hardwood stopper and the moist rotten wood that lined the inside. He shook the live coal onto the twigs and fed it sprigs of dry moss, blowing gently to fan it into a blaze. Then he held one of his arrow heads in the flames, feeding the fire until the metal glowed a deep, translucent orange-red.
While he was doing it, Naduah ran after the boy, who bolted when he saw the men. She and Star Name and Deep Water darted through the bushes like children chasing a rabbit. They knew they
had to stop him as soon as possible. The more he ran, the faster the venom would reach his heart.
Deep Water tackled him and sent him sprawling. He pinioned the child's arms while Star Name threw herself across his thin, heaving midsection. Naduah knelt on his unhurt leg to hold it and grasped his other ankle firmly in her left hand. With her knife she made small incisions over the punctures. She sucked blood from the cuts and spat it until Wanderer arrived with her medicine bag and the heated arrowhead. The boy had been jibbering in Spanish, but when he saw the metal, pulsing with intense heat, he screamed.
Wanderer ignored him and knelt beside Naduah. He quickly bored the point of the arrow into the holes left by the snake's fangs. Rows of teeth marks fringed the fang punctures. Already the skin was discoloring and swelling. The heat seared the flesh, cauterizing it and drying up the poison. The boy fainted. Naduah sprinkled pulverized tobacco over the raw, ugly wound and bound a prickly pear pad over it.
She mounted Wind, and Wanderer gently lifted the child and sat him in front of her. She held him in the circle of her arms until he regained consciousness. When she felt him begin to stir, she murmured to him, trying to soothe him with the little Spanish she knew. Spanish was the language of trade, and most of the People knew some.
"Está bien, niñito. No te haremos daño. We won't hurt you."
"Dejeme. Dejeme. No me maten," the child sobbed it over and over, begging them to leave him, not to kill him.
"He must belong to the Mexicans who're building the trader's lodge," said Wanderer.