No one in the troop was as glad to see the sun shine, the morning they finally headed south, as Pea Eye Parker.
"The dern old sun, it's finally come out again," he said, to Long Bill Coleman.
To Pea Eye's surprise, he almost cried, so happy was he to see the familiar sun. He had always despised cloudy weather, but he had never despised it as much as he had during the recent days of cold.
Fortunately Long Bill Coleman took no interest in Pea Eye's remark and didn't see him dash away a tear. Long Bill was attempting to shave, using a bowl of water so cold that it had a fine skim of ice on it; he considered the whole trip an intolerable waste of time--in that it was no different from most expeditions against the Comanches, only, in this instance, colder.
"Me, I'll take Mexico over these dern windy plains," he told Augustus McCrae, when the troop was on the move South.
"Me too, Billy--there's plenty of whores in Mexico, and pretty ones, too," Gus remarked.
"Now, Gus, I'm married, don't be reminding me of the temptations of the flesh," Long Bill admonished. "I got enough flesh right there at home--there's no shortage of flesh on Pearl." Augustus thought the comment dull, if not foolish.
"I know you've got a fat wife, Billy," he said. "What's your point about Mexico? I thought that was what we were talking about." "Why, the point is, it's convenient," Long Bill said. "In Mexico there's Mexicans." The remark seemed even duller to Augustus than the one before it. Since marriage to Pearl, Long Bill had lost much of his liveliness, in Gus's opinion. He had grown dull, cautious, and even pious. His wife, Pearl, was a large woman of little attraction, a bully and a nag. Had he himself been married to Pearl he would have endeavoured to spend as much time as possible in the nearest bordello.
"In Mexico there's usually someone to ask where the bandits are," Long Bill went on. "And there's trees to hang them from, once we corner them. Out here on the plains there's no one to ask directions from, and if we do see an Indian he's apt to be way down in the canyon, where you'd have to scramble to get at him." Augustus didn't answer. The fact was, he missed Clara. No amount of easily located bandits, or hanging trees, made up for that one fact. A good two-week jaunt on the prairies always lifted his spirits, but then, inevitably, there'd come a night by the campfire or a groggy morning when he'd remember his old, sweet love and wonder if he'd been foolish to let his long courtship lapse, just for the sake of adventure. Despite her standoffish ways, Augustus felt, most of the time, that there was little likelihood that Clara would actually marry anyone but himself; at other times, though, the demon of doubt seized him and he was not so sure.
Pea Eye found Mr. McCrae puzzling-- Mr. Call he was more comfortable with, because Mr.
Call only spoke to him of practical matters. Mr. McCrae sounded convincing, when he talked, but a good deal of what he said was meant in jest, like the business about his tongue snapping off.
The hardest part of Pea Eye's job, as the company farrier, was to see that the Captain's big horse, Hector, did not get anything wrong with his feet. Pea Eye had never seen an elephant, but he doubted that even an elephant had feet as heavy and hard to work with as Hector.
The Captain had to have special horseshoes forged, to fit the big horse's feet. When Pea Eye did manage to lift one of Hector's hooves the big horse would immediately let his weight sag onto Pea Eye--he could just support the weight, but it left him no strength with which to clean out the hoof. Several times Deets, seeing his plight, had come over and helped him support the big horse long enough that his feet could be properly cleaned.
"Much obliged," Pea Eye always said, when Deets helped him.
"Welcome, sir," Deets would reply.
It unnerved Pea Eye to be addressed as "sir," though he knew that was how black people normally addressed white people. He didn't know if it would be correct just to ask Deets to call him by his name; he intended to discuss the point with Mr. Call when the time was right.
Then, to his dismay, though they travelled south through a day of sunlight, the cold struck again.
On the third day of their ride south the sky turned slate black and an icy wind was soon slicing at their backs and making their hands sting.
That night Hector leaned particularly heavily on Pea Eye, and Deets was too busy preparing a meal to help him. Pressing up against the big horse caused Pea Eye to break a sweat; when he finished the sweat froze on his shirt before he could even walk back to the fire. The sun had just gone down; Pea Eye did not know how he was going to make it through the long winter night. He had only a thin coat and one blanket; few of the men had more.
Deets didn't have a coat at all, just an old quilt he kept wrapped around himself as he worked.
It was Deets who showed Pea a way to survive, as the cold deepened. Deets took a little spade and dug out one side of a small hummock of dirt; he dug it so that it formed a sort of bank. Then he made a small fire up against the bank of dirt. He brought a few coals over in a small pan, and, from the coals, made a fire near enough to the bank that the bank caught the heat and reflected it back.
"Here, sit close," Deets said, to Pea Eye. "It ain't much, but it will warm us." He was right. Pea Eye could never get close enough to the big campfire to derive more than a few moments of warmth from it. But the little fire reflected off the bank of dirt, warmed his hands and his feet. His back still froze and his ears pained him badly, but he knew he would survive.
Even with the good fire it was difficult to sleep, though; he would nod for a few minutes and then an icy curl of wind would slip under his collar and chill his very backbone.
Once, in a few minutes of sleep, Pea Eye had a terrible dream. He saw himself freeze as he was walking; he stopped and became immobile on the white plain, like a tree of ice. Pea Eye tried to call out to the rangers, but his voice could not penetrate the sheath of ice.
The rangers rode on and he was alone.
When he woke from the dream there was a red line on the eastern horizon; the sun glowed for a moment and then passed above the slatelike clouds, which reddened for a little while but did not allow the sunlight through.
"Much obliged for keeping this fire going," Pea Eye said--all night Deets had fed the fire little sticks.
"You welcome, sir," Deets said.
Pea Eye, cold but glad to be alive, could not contain himself about the "sir" any longer.
"You don't need to be sirring me, Deets," he said. "I ain't a sir, and I doubt I ever will be one." Deets was startled by the remark. He had never heard such an opinion from a white man, never once in his life. In Texas a black man who didn't call a white man "sir" could get in trouble quick.
Of course Pea Eye wasn't really a grown man yet--he was just a tall boy.
Deets supposed his youth might account for the remark.
"What'll I say?" he asked, with a puzzled look. "I got to call you something." "Why, just "Pea Eye"' will do," Pea Eye said. "I'm just plain "Pea Eye"' so far." Deets didn't think it would do, not in the hearing of the other rangers at least. He turned away and went to gather a few more sticks--the fire was burning well but he needed a little time in which to think about what Mr. Pea had just said.
Then, while he was pulling up a half-buried twist of sagebrush, it occurred to him that his mind had found a solution. He thought of the tall white boy as "Mr. Pea"--he would call him "Mr.
Pea." When he came back with the wood the young ranger was still holding his hands to the little fire.
"I guess I just call you "Mr. Peaea"' if it suits you," Deets said.
"Why, yes--t'll do fine," Pea Eye said. "I guess I'm a mister--I guess everybody's a mister." No, I ain't, black people ain't, Deets thought--but he didn't say it.
Famous Shoes was eating a good fat mallard duck when the Comanche boys found him. He had noticed some ducks on the south Canadian and had crept down to the water and made a clever snare, during the night. His trip to the Washita had been a disappointment. He did not find his grandmother, who had gone to live on the sweet-
grass hills near the Arkansas River, but he did find his Aunt Neeta, a quarrelsome old woman who was living with some mixed-blood trapping people in a filthy little camp. The trapping people mostly trapped skunks and muskrats--there were hides everywhere, some of them pretty smelly. The minute he arrived his aunt began to upbraid him about a knife she had lent him years before which he had broken accidentally.
At the time he had been trying to remove a good length of chain from an old wagon that had fallen apart on the prairies. He thought the chain might come in handy, but all the chain did was break the tip off his aunt's knife. Only the tip was broken, most of the knife would still cut, but his Aunt Neeta considered that the knife was now useless and had never forgiven Famous Shoes for his carelessness. Famous Shoes only stayed on the Washita long enough to be courteous, before making his way back to the south Canadian, where he discovered the little flock of fat ducks.
Then the five Comanche boys showed up and began to talk about killing him. One of the boys wanted to kill him immediately, just because he was a Kickapoo, and another because he had scouted for Big Horse Scull. The rudest boy, though, was Blue Duck, who wanted to kill him just because he was there.
Famous Shoes did not think the boys would do him much harm. In any case he was hungry--he went on eating the duck while the boys walked around him, saying ugly things. They were just boys, it was normal that they would strut around and make rude remarks. The boys had been chasing a deer when they found him, but they had lost its track.
Famous Shoes had seen the deer only that morning, running east. The Comanche boys were so impatient that they had overlooked a plain track and let the deer get away. The deer had looked exhausted, too--the boys would have had it if only they had kept their minds on their business.
"That deer you were chasing got away," he told them. "There are plenty of fat ducks on this river, though." "We want to kill Big Horse today, where is he?" Blue Duck asked. "He tried to cut me with the long knife but I was too quick. A vision woman taught me how to fly, so I flew down into the canyon and got away." "You are lucky you found that vision woman," Famous Shoes said. He didn't believe that Blue Duck could fly, but the boy had such a bad reputation for killing people that he thought the best thing to do was be polite, keep eating his duck, and hope to get through the morning without being shot. Blue Duck had an old rifle and kept pointing it at him as he ate, a very rude thing.
"You come to our camp--my father might want to torture you," Blue Duck said. "He is angry because you brought Big Horse here." "Big Horse is chasing Kicking Wolf," Famous Shoes informed them. "He has given up and is on his way south by now. He is not going to bother your father." Nevertheless he was forced to humour the boys.
Instead of settling down they began to threaten him with arrows Famous Shoes decided he had better go with them--they were young boys; they might want to take a scalp just for practice. He trotted along in front of them as they made their way to the canyon. He was not worried that Buffalo Hump would torture him. Buffalo Hump owed him a debt and would never offer him violence, even though he scouted for the Texans.
The debt had come about because of Buffalo Hump's grandmother, a famous prophet woman.
One winter years before, when there were few buffalo on the prairies where the Comanche hunted, the tribe had had to move north, beyond the Arkansas.
The old woman's death was at hand; she was too weak to make the cold journey to the north. So, in the way of such things, she was left with a good fire and enough food to last her until her passing. Everyone said goodbye and the band went north to seek game.
But the old woman's time was slow in coming. When Famous Shoes chanced upon her, in her little dying place on the Quitaque, she was weak but still alive. Her fire was out and her food was gone but she was restless with visions and could not die. Famous Shoes had been in Mexico and had come back to seek advice from his grandfather; but, instead of finding his grandfather, he found Buffalo Hump's old grandmother, and struck up a friendship with her in her last days. He stayed with her for a week, keeping her fire going through the cold nights.
Famous Shoes knew that it was a delicate thing he was doing. What if the old woman got so healthy that she decided to stay alive? Then he would have an old Comanche woman on his hands, which would anger his grandfather, if he ever found him. His grandfather hated two things, rainy weather and Comanches. Besides, for a Kickapoo to attend a Comanche at such a time was not entirely proper--once an old one was left to die, and the farewells were said, it was their duty to go on and die. He was beginning to worry that he had gotten himself into a difficulty when the old woman closed her eyes and ceased to breathe. Famous Shoes saw to it that her remains were treated correctly, a thing that was the duty of any traveller; then he went on his way.
When Buffalo Hump found out that Famous Shoes had been helpful to his grandmother in her dying he told his warriors that the Kickapoo was to be left alone, and even made welcome at their campfires if he cared to visit. Famous Shoes was glad Buffalo Hump had given such an order; it had probably saved his life several times. Even so, he did not seek out Buffalo Hump, or visit Comanche campfires. He did not think it wise.
Buffalo Hump might follow the rules of courtesy, but being near him was too much like being near a bear. It was possible to come close to a bear, even a grizzly, and talk to it; the bear might allow it. But the bear was still a bear, and might stop allowing the courteous talk at any time. If the bear changed his mind about how he felt, the person trying to exchange courtesies with him might be dead. Besides, for all Famous Shoes knew, Buffalo Hump might not have liked his grandmother very much. She might have been quarrelsome, like his Aunt Neeta. Buffalo Hump's respect might have its limits.
When Famous Shoes walked into the Comanche camp Blue Duck rode right beside him, making his horse prance and jump. The boy wanted everyone to think he had brought in an important captive. Some of the young warriors rode up to Famous Shoes a few times, to taunt him, but he ignored their taunts and went on calmly through the camp.
To his surprise he saw old Slow Tree, sitting on a robe with Buffalo Hump. Slow Tree was talking, which was no surprise--Slow Tree was always talking.
Buffalo Hump looked angry--no doubt the old chief had been making boring speeches to him for a long time. Slow Tree might have been bragging to Buffalo Hump about how many times he had been with his wives; he wanted everyone to believe that he was always at his women, bringing them great pleasure. Slow Tree had always been boastful, but he had once been a terrible fighter and had to be treated respectfully, even though he was old and boring.
"What are you doing here?" Buffalo Hump asked, when Famous Shoes walked up. "Your white friends were here but now they have gone south. The Buffalo Horse was here three days ago but I don't see him today." "Your son made me come," Famous Shoes replied. "He came with these other boys and made me come. I was on the Canadian, eating a duck. I would not have bothered you if these boys had let me alone. They said you might want to torture me awhile." Buffalo Hump was amused. The Kickapoo was an eccentric person who was apt to turn up anywhere on the llano on some outlandish errand that no other Indian would bother about. The man would walk a thousand miles to listen to a certain bird whose call he might want to mimic. Most people thought Famous Shoes was crazy, but Buffalo Hump didn't. Though a Kickapoo, the man had respect for the old ways. He behaved like the old ones behaved; the old ones, too, would go to any lengths to learn some useful fact about the animals or the birds. They would figure that someone might need to know those facts; they themselves might not need to, but their children might, or their grandchildren might.
Very few Comanches would go to the trouble Famous Shoes went to, when it came to seeking useful information. It made Buffalo Hump annoyed with his own people, that this was so. The Kickapoos were a lowly people who had never been good at war. The Comanches wiped them out wherever they found them, and did this easily. Even young boys no more skilled than his son could easily slaughter Kickapoos wher
ever he found them. Yet it was Famous Shoes, a Kickapoo, who sought the knowledge that few Comanches were now even interested in.
Besides, the man was funny. He would just walk into an enemy camp and offer himself up for torture as if torture were a joke.
Then Slow Tree, who was rarely polite, pointed a pipe he was smoking at Famous Shoes and made an ugly speech.
"If you came into my camp I would hang you upside down and put a scorpion in your nose," he said. "When the scorpion stung you it would kill your brain. Then you could wander around eating weeds, for all I care. I don't like Kickapoos." Famous Shoes ignored the old man, though he decided on the spot to avoid the country where Slow Tree hunted until the old chief was finally dead. He had never heard that a scorpion bite could kill a brain, but it might be true, especially if the scorpion stung you inside your nose. The nose was not far from the brain--the poison of the scorpion would not have far to travel.
"I was on the Washita looking for my grandmother," Famous Shoes said, thinking it would be wise to change the subject. "There are many deer in the Washita country. If you are wanting deer, that is where I would go." Blue Duck stood nearby, strutting and playing with a hatchet he wore in his belt. He wanted the band to know that he was responsible for bringing in the Kickapoo. If his father didn't appreciate it, maybe Slow Tree would. It was clear that the great chief Slow Tree had no fondness for Kickapoos.