Ride the Wind

  The only time her attention was engaged here was when she played with her daughter or worked at her chores. She chopped wood and hauled water without complaint. She was learning to spin and seemed to enjoy it. Often in the evening she carded wool, piling the soft rolls of it, neatly combed, into a basket by her chair.

  Bess Parker watched Naduah as she sat motionless. They all watched her. Constantly. She had tried to escape nine times in the first two months she had been with them. They had had to sell her pony. The dun had almost carried her completely out of their reach the first time. They had only caught her because she was burdened with little Flower.

  Grain and good living had made the dun impossible anyway. She would only let Naduah near her. The more she was pampered, the better she was treated, the surlier she became. Finally she bit Isaac Parker hard on the arm. Naduah said nothing as she was led away, but two tears coursed down her cheeks. They had had to give her a room with no windows and a door that could be bolted at night from the outside.

  "What do you suppose she's thinking, Mr. Parker?" Bess kept her favorite chair near the front window where she could sew by its afternoon light and watch her niece at the same time. Her husband sat nearby.

  "I don't know, Mother." Isaac laid aside the single sheet of newspaper he was reading. He rested his spectacles on top of it, and rubbed his eyes. "It's so hard to talk to her."

  "It'd be easier if she'd learn a Christian tongue. She's not stupid, but I never did see anyone so stubborn."

  "Yes, she's a Parker all right."

  "Only on the outside."

  "She's unhappy, Mother. She wants to see her children. I promised her she would, I told her I'd help her."

  "I know you did. It bothers you, don't it, that you can't keep that promise."

  "I can't even explain to her why I can't keep it. I try to tell her about the war, about how the men are either gone or needed here in case the Yankees come. There's no one to go with her. And the Comanches and Kiowas are raiding again. They always know when our defenses are down. She just looks at me with those eyes, wounded and proud and sorrowful all at the same time. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, bringing her here."

  "And what else could you have done, Mr. Parker? Leave her with those savages? Of course you did the right thing. Heathens is what they are.

  'I fear, Mr. Parker, that her soul will be damned if we can't reach her. Today I finally threw out that nasty old rabbit-skin bag she had. Law, you wouldn't believe what was in it. Horrible things. A mummified mouse. And a rabbit's foot. And pieces of dried animal innards. Claws and teeth. Smelly roots and leaves and things whose devilish purpose I would be afraid to even guess.

  "My, but she was angry when she discovered it gone. First time I've seen her like that. She always has that blank face, you know. She talked more than she has since she arrived, and I was glad I couldn't understand a word of it. She broke my good pitcher. Threw it against the wall."

  "We'll buy another one. I don't think she would harm you."

  "Oh, I don't think so either, now that she's back to her silent self. And the pitcher don't matter. It's only worldly goods. But she scared me at the time. She's so helpful, so good with the child. And I've gotten used to the wild look in her eyes. She don't mean nothin' by it.

  "I took the last of her Injun clothes and buried them too. Bad enough she has to sit out there wrapped in a blanket like a squaw. I don't care what the neighbors think, but I get tired of people coming by here to gawk, like she was a freak show, a circus. And she acts like she don't even see them."

  "I don't think she does, Mother."

  Big Bow noticed the change in Wanderer's eyes immediately. He asked Sore-Backed Horse about it as they rode along.

  "No," Sore-Backed Horse answered. "The anger never leaves him. The laughter is gone. I haven't seen it in his eyes or heard it in his voice since his woman was taken almost two years ago."

  "There are other women. I would be glad to share any of mine."

  "There are no other women for him. He's had none since then. He refuses to even discuss it. The happiest I've seen him was when you told him about this raid."

  "I thought an attack on Placido's camp would interest him. The Shawnee and the Caddo are right. It's time we joined forces and fought the whites and their allies. And since the Tonkawa moved to the reservation, they're easy to find."

  The war party moved across the gently rolling plain. The grass waved around the ponies' knees. There was nothing but the grass as far as the eye could see. They were following the Washita River into Oklahoma Territory, where Placido had his village.

  Wanderer called a halt to inspect a collapsed soddy. The house had been dug into a hillside that provided the back wall. The other three sides were made of large sod bricks laid in double rows. Grass and flowers grew thickly on the partially caved-in-roof. The house hadn't been abandoned long. The canvas door still hung askew from the broken cottonwood pole that served as a lintel. With charcoal, someone had written on the stained, gray canvas.

  250 miles to post office.

  100 miles to wood.

  20 miles to water.

  6 inches to hell.

  Quanah ducked inside to look around. Banners of tattered, dusty burlap hung from the rafters. The cloth had been stretched there to keep some of the dirt from raining down. There was an old pallet mattress in the corner. Most of its grass stuffing had been scattered by rats and mice in search of nesting material. There was a broken three-legged stool and a rusty candle mold. The air was thick with the smell of dust and animal droppings and dead insects. Quanah was glad to get back outside and mount again.

  Farther on they found three boards nailed together like a stack of army muskets. They discussed what it could mean, sure only that it was the work of white people. They couldn't know that it was a "straddle bug," the mark of some homesteader's claim.

  Nor could they know that five months earlier President Lincoln had signed an act giving one hundred and sixty acres to anyone who could live on them for five years and improve them. Soon the plains would be dotted with those mysterious markers, and then with more and more of the sod houses.

  Wanderer and his men couldn't know that the new "grasshopper" plow made it possible to slice through the solid mass of buffalo-grass roots, laying back long ribbons of rich black soil. They couldn't know that the sound it made, like the tearing of canvas, would replace the booming of the prairie chickens and the long, plaintive whistle of the solitary hawk. However, they did know one thing that the United States government and the settlers didn't. They knew that one hundred and sixty acres wasn't enough for a person to live off of in such dry country.

  "Wanderer," called Big Bow, "these are fine rifles your men have."

  "Yes." There was a bit of pride in his voice. "Tafoya got them for us. The war between the white men has helped his cattle business. The bluejackets are paying him well for Texas stock. And he pays us well too."

  "Father, Buffalo Piss is coming with Penateka men." At seventeen Quanah was almost six feet tall, and a stockier version of his father. He had a fine, aquiline nose and high cheekbones in his dark, oval face. His eyes were gray, tinted with blue. They were hooded and usually brooding, like his great-uncle Daniel's had been. His mouth was full and wide like his mother's. His thick, dark brown hair was long and loose and brushed behind his ears.

  Wanderer rode forward to meet Buffalo Piss and embrace him. Whatever their differences may have been in the past. Wanderer now thought of Buffalo Piss as a comrade. He was someone who understood what it had been like to live without the interference of white men. Without their treachery and disease. Together they rode toward the main encampment of the combined war parties.

  More than three hundred warriors from the Shawnee, the Delaware, the Caddo, the Kiowa, and the People grazed their ponies together that night. Their sleeping robes and neat piles of weapons and saddlebags were collected into groups according to tribe. But they mingled at small fires to brag and ta
unt each other. Their leaders sat in the center of the litter of equipment and tethered war ponies.

  It was an uneasy truce, especially where the Delaware were concerned. But the soldiers at the agency were Confederate, and the Delaware were allied with the Union forces. And they had intermarried with the Shawnee who had initiated this revenge raid. The others cared nothing for sides in the white man's war. They knew only that it drained the frontier of soldiers and fighting men and left it helpless.

  The camp was quiet. Even the boys roamed noiselessly from herd to herd as they guarded their ponies. They conversed silently in hand talk, sniffing out the future competition from other bands or tribes. There was no loud singing or drumming. The gambling was muted, which made it even tenser than usual.

  But even thought it was quiet, it was the largeset group of warriors that had gathered this near a fort since the cavalry had begun patrolling seven years before.

  When the council ended at midnight. Wanderer walked away from the sleeping forms and past the men who still sat smoking in small groups. The light from their pipes looked like tiny twinkling stars. He moved carefully through the dark, avoiding the piles of fresh horse dung that signalled their presence with their odor. The smell brought back memories of hot afternoons in the horse pasture, training Wind and working with the child who was to become his woman. The ache inside him hurt as much as the belly wound she had healed. He rubbed his fingers over the long scar. It would be a night of memories.

  He remembered her eyes, as beautiful as a clear summer sky. She had been such a serious child. It had been hard not to smile at her when she wrinkled her forehead in concentration as he taught her. Wanderer paced through the still night with his fists tightly clenched at his sides. He fought the urge to reach for her, to try to touch her.

  He wanted to stroke her thick, honey-colored hair. He wanted to see her next to him, scent her in the air as she rode and walked and slept beside him. If only he could feel her warm, naked body just once more.

  He sat cross-legged in the cold, damp sand by the river. The tiny rushing sound of the water always different, always the same, masked other noises and helped him focus inward. His people didn't write. They remembered what they needed to know. And Wanderer was better than most at remembering.

  He started by remembering the very first day, the raid where he had picked her up and swung her behind him on Night. He remembered her small arms wrapped tightly around his waist. She had been just another child to him. He had taken her because he had promised Pahayuca he would try to find a girl for Sunrise and Takes Down The Lodge. He hadn't kicked her or the others as the war party danced that first night. But that was because he never did, not because she meant anything special to him.

  When had she become more than a captured urchin? He reviewed each day of the march toward Pahayuca's camp. It had happened the morning she had stared levelly up at him as he bent to cut the thong across her throat. When she thought he was going to kill her. That was when she ceased being his captive and he became hers. He remembered watching her at play with the other children in Pahayuca's camp. He thought of how her long, blond hair flowed out behind her as she ran.

  When the pain became too great he closed his eyes and let the tears fall unheeded down his cheeks, until he was calm again. Then he picked up his memories where he had dropped them. He sat there, perfectly still, all night. He was surrounded by images and voices, traveling through his past. Just before the first pale pink streamers of dawn began unfurling along the horizon, he made love to her for the last time. He did it slowly, gently, and with great tenderness. When he finished, he kissed her lightly good-bye and memorized her face as she lay tranquil in sleep beneath him.

  He had finished his medicine song and a prayer when he heard slow hoofbeats on the bank overhead.

  "Father?"

  "I am here."

  It was time to go. He stood and walked to where Quanah and Polecat waited for him. He leaped effortlessly up behind his son, and they rode back toward the campsite. As they approached, there were the muffled sounds of low talk, the occasional clink of metal on metal, the mutter of a pony or the stamp of a hoof. As the sky lightened, three hundred men could be seen dark against the sky. Wanderer would be meeting his two oldest enemies that day, Placido and death. He was ready for them both.

  The war party divided in half as it swooped down on the sleeping agency. Half of it, intent on plunder, attacked the office building, the store, and the commissary. Wanderer led the others at a gallop toward the Tonkawa encampment five miles away. As they approached it, a woman filling dented tin pails at the river screamed a warning. But she was too late.

  The warriors swept into the village, shooting at anyone who ran from the patched-together lodges of brush and canvas. The women and boys, old men and the few warriors that weren't out hunting fought back. But they were no match for the People's new lever-action, rim-fire Henry repeaters. Wanderer had obtained two dozen of the rifles from Tafoya and had armed his men with them. That was something even the United States Army hadn't done yet to any great extent. Few of the Winchester Henrys were made in 1861 and 1862, and many of them ended up in the People's hands. Wanderer didn't know who the white traitor was who sold the army rifles to Tafoya. Nor did he care.

  He rode to the center of the village and dismounted amid the shrieking, fleeing Tonkawa. With his bow and quiver slung over his back and his revolver tucked under his belt, he shouted over the din.

  "Placido!" Each time he shouted he fired the rifle, until it was hot to the touch and he had emptied the fifteen cartridges in the magazine. Some of those he shot had fled their beds naked. Now, as they tried to drag themselves through the dust to safety, they reminded Wanderer of large slugs inching across the ground. He didn't waste ammunition killing them. Someone would do it later with a knife. Nor did he take the time to scalp them. He had earned all the coups he needed in his life. Let some young man take them.

  Then he saw Placido walking toward him through the smoke and clouds of dust. Wanderer dropped his empty rifle and took off one of his moccasins. He pushed a large stone down into its toe. He whirled the moccasin around his head and flung it as far as he could. Then he turned on Raven, who stood patiently nearby, waiting to carry him away. He yelled at the pony and waved his arms. Raven ran a few steps and stopped, waiting again. Placido had broken into a trot and was coming fast. Wanderer drew his Colt repeater and aimed it at Raven's head.

  "I'll meet you in paradise, my brother," was all he had time to say. He fired, and the pony dropped, kicked his long legs once, then was still. Wanderer threw his Colt away. He was rooted there now. He could neither run nor ride away. With his knife ready, he turned to face Placido.

  Placido also held his long hunting blade loosely in his thin hand. He was older than Wanderer by more than ten years, but he was taller. His reach was longer. And he was still in magnificent condition. The two men circled each other, the muscles of then-tensed shoulders and arms flexing and bunching under their bronzed skin. Wanderer danced lightly backward as Placido feinted, sweeping his knife in a wide arc that left a red line above the scar on his stomach.

  Wanderer knew he had to get in close or Placido's longer arms would win. He lunged forward and grabbed the old chief's wrist on its upward swing. The two locked together and stood swaying, straining to drive the knives home. They both knew they would have to finish quickly. All around them the battle raged. Wanderer feared that he would be killed before he could take his revenge. Worse yet, one of his own men or a Shawnee ally might kill Placido and deprive him of the chance.

  Wanderer gave his wrist a quick twist, jerking it from Placido's grasp. He used the momentum to strike upward, slashing the older man's throat. As the warm blood washed over him, Wanderer had the fleeting feeling that he was fifteen again and had just killed his first grizzly. Then Placido slid from his embrace and sprawled on the ground. Wanderer panted as with his foot he rolled the body onto its back.

  He sliced Placido's
chest and abdominal cavities from the neck to the navel. He made diagonal cuts along his torso, arms, and legs so that Placido would arrive in paradise crippled and mutilated. Then he ripped away the breechclout and cut off the penis and testicles. He pried Placido's mouth open with the blade of his knife and stuffed the genitals into it. Placido would be able to take no pleasure in the afterlife.

  He stood a moment with his eyes closed, his hands and arms, his head and chest covered with bright crimson. He was drained, not of strength but of emotion. He had waited years for this moment, and now it was over. Even mutilating the body gave him no satisfaction. Placido had already been dead, so the mutilation wouldn't be as crippling in the afterlife. There was nothing more he could do, and he felt cheated. There had been no time for Placido to suffer.

  "Father!" Two shots rang out almost simultaneously, but Placido's sixteen-year-old wife fired before Quanah did. Wanderer felt her bullet slam against his head like the heel of a hand. It plowed through his scalp and chipped a piece of his skull. As he fell, Quanah and Sore-Backed Horse raced to rescue him. As they rode by him they picked him up and swung him on Polecat behind Quanah. Then they lashed their ponies and galloped for safety.

  They and the other Noconi warriors rode west for three days with Wanderer tied to a spare mount. They were sure the soldiers would follow them. Even in the midst of the civil war the whites couldn't allow an attack on an official installation to go unpunished. Wanderer was unconscious much of the time, and Quanah bound his father's head as best he could while he slept. But when Wanderer awoke he tore at the bandages, opening the ugly, ragged wound and causing more blood to flow.