four
The ride back was the longest and most agonizing of Lieutenant Dunbar’s life. For several miles he rode in a daze, his mind churning away with thousands of negative thoughts. He resisted the temptation to cry in the way one resists vomiting, but self-pity bore in on him relentlessly, in wave after wave, and at last he broke down.
He slumped forward, letting his shoulders bunch up at first, and his tears fell without a sound. But when he began to sniffle, the floodgates swung wide. His face twisted grotesquely and he began to moan with the abandon of a hysteric. In the midst of these first convulsions he gave Cisco his head, and as the miles piled up unrecorded, he let his heart bleed free, sobbing as piteously as an inconsolable child.
five
He never saw the fort. When Cisco stopped, the lieutenant looked up and saw that they had halted in front of his quarters. The strength had been wrung from him, and for a few seconds it was all he could do to sit comatose on his horse’s back. When he finally lifted his head again, he saw Two Socks, stationed at his usual place on the bluff across the river. The sight of the wolf, sitting so patiently, like a royal hunting dog, his face so sweetly inquisitive, brought a new lump of sorrow into Dunbar’s throat. But all of his tears had been spent.
He tumbled off Cisco, slipped the bit out of his mouth, and lurched through the door. Dropping the bridle on the floor, he flopped onto his bunk, pulled a blanket over his head, and rolled into a ball.
Exhausted as he was, the lieutenant could not sleep. For some reason he kept thinking of Two Socks, waiting out there so patiently. With a superhuman effort he dragged himself off the bed, staggered into the twilight, and squinted across the river.
The old wolf was still sitting in his place, so the lieutenant sleep-walked his way to the supply house and carved a big hunk of bacon off the slab. He carried the meat out to the bluff and, with Two Socks watching intently, dropped it on the grassy ground near the top of the bluff.
Then, thinking of sleep with every step, he threw some hay for Cisco and retreated to his quarters. Like a soldier hitting the dirt, he pitched onto the pallet, pulled up the blanket, and covered his eyes.
A woman’s face came to him, a face out of the past that he knew well. There was a shy smile on her lips and her eyes shone with a light that can only come from the heart. In times of trouble he had always called upon the face, and it had come to comfort him. There was much more behind the face, a long story with an unhappy ending, but Lieutenant Dunbar didn’t get into that. The face and the wonderful look it wore were all he wanted to remember, and he clung to it tenaciously. He used it like a drug. It was the most powerful painkiller he knew. He didn’t think of her often, but he carried the face around with him, using it only when he was close to scraping bottom.
He lay unmoving on the bed, like an opium smoker, and eventually the image he held in his mind began to take effect. He was already snoring by the time Venus appeared, leading a long parade of stars across the endless prairie sky.
CHAPTER XIV
one
Minutes after the white man’s departure, Ten Bears called another council. Unlike the recent meetings, which had begun and ended in confusion, Ten Bears knew exactly what he wanted to do now. He was set on a plan before the last of the men had seated themselves in his lodge.
The white soldier with blood on his face had brought back Stands With A Fist, and Ten Bears was convinced that this surprise was a bright omen, one that should be followed through on. The issue of the white race had troubled his thoughts too long. For years he had not been able to see anything good in their coming. But he wanted to desperately. Today he’d seen something good at last, and now he was determined not to let what he considered a golden opportunity slip past.
The white soldier had showed extreme bravery in coming alone to their camp. And he had obviously come with a single intention . . . not to steal or cheat or fight but to return something he had found, something that belonged to them. This talk of gods was probably wrong, but one thing was abundantly clear to Ten Bears. For the good of everyone, this soldier should be investigated. A man who behaved like this was bound to be positioned high with the whites. It was possible that he already carried great weight and influence. A man like this was someone with whom agreements might be reached. And without agreements, war and suffering were sure to come.
So Ten Bears was encouraged. The overture he had witnessed that afternoon, though it was only a single event, appeared to him as a light in the night, and as the men filed in, he was thinking of the best way to put his plan into action.
While he listened to the preliminaries, throwing in an occasional comment of his own, Ten Bears sifted through a mental roster of reliable men, trying to decide who would be best for his idea.
It wasn’t until Kicking Bird arrived, having been held up by attending to Stands With A Fist, that the old man realized it should not be a one-man job. He should send two men. Once that was decided, the individuals came to him quickly. He should send Kicking Bird for his powers of observation and Wind In His Hair for his aggressive nature. Each man’s character was representative of him and his people, and they complemented each other perfectly.
Ten Bears kept the council short. He didn’t want the kind of protracted discussions that could lead to indecision. When the time was right, he made an eloquent, beautifully reasoned speech, recounting the many stories of white numerical superiority and white riches, especially in terms of guns and horses. He concluded with the notion that the man at the fort was surely an emissary and that his good actions should be cause for talking, not fighting.
There was a long silence at the end of his speech. Everyone knew he was right.
Then Wind In His Hair spoke up.
“I do not think it is right for you to go and speak to this white man,” he said. “He is not a god, he is just another white man lost in his way.”
A tiny twinkle flashed in the old man’s eyes as he made his reply.
“I will not go. But good men should. Men who can show what a Comanche is.”
Here he paused, shutting his eyes for dramatic effect. A minute passed, and some of the men thought he might have fallen asleep. But at the last second he opened them long enough to say to Wind In His Hair:
“You should go. You and Kicking Bird.”
Then he closed his eyes again and dozed off, ending the council at just the right place.
two
The first big thunderstorm of the season came that night, a miles-long front marching to the hollow boom of thunder and the brilliant crackle of forked lightning. The rain it brought swept over the prairie in great rolling curtains, driving everything that lived to shelter.
It woke Stands With A Fist.
The rain was drumming against the lodge’s hide walls like deadened fire from a thousand rifles, and for a few moments, she didn’t know where she was. There was light, and she turned slowly on her side for a look at the little fire that was still popping in the center of the lodge. As she did, one of her hands drifted over the wound on her thigh and accidentally brushed against something foreign. She felt carefully and discovered that her leg had been sewn.
Everything came back to her then.
She glanced sleepily around the lodge, wondering who lived here. She knew it was not hers.
Her mouth was dry as cotton, so she slid a hand from under the covers to explore with her fingers. The first thing they bumped into was a little bowl half-filled with water. She lifted herself to one elbow, took several long swallows, and lay back down.
There were things she wanted to know, but thinking was difficult now. It was warm as summer under the robe. The fire’s shadows were dancing happily above her head, the rain was singing its strong lullaby in her ears, and she was very weak.
Maybe I am dying, she thought as her eyelids began to lower, shutting down the last of the firelight. Just before she fell asleep she said to herself, It is not so bad.
But Stands With A Fist was not d
ying. She was recovering, and what she had suffered, once it was healed, would make her stronger than ever.
Good would be coming out of the bad. In fact, the good had already begun. She was lying in a good place, a place that would be her home for a long time to come.
She was lying in Kicking Bird’s lodge.
three
Lieutenant Dunbar slept like the dead, only vaguely aware of the spectacular show in the sky overhead. Rain punished the little sod hut for hours, but he was so snug and secure under the pile of army-issue blankets that Armageddon could have come and gone without his knowing it.
He never stirred, and it wasn’t until well after sunup, long after the storm had passed on, that the carefree, persistent singsong of a meadowlark finally brought him around. The rain had freshened every square inch of the prairie, and the sweetness of its smell was shooting up his nose before he could open his eyes. At first flutter he realized he was lying on his back, and when they opened he was looking directly over his toes at the hut’s entrance.
There was a flash of movement as something low and hairy ducked away from the door. The lieutenant sat up, blinking. A moment later the blankets were thrown aside and he was tiptoeing unsteadily to the entrance. Standing inside, he peered around the jamb with one eye.
Two Socks had just trotted clear of the awning and was turning around to settle himself in the sun of the yard. He saw the lieutenant and stiffened. They watched each other for a few seconds. Then the lieutenant rubbed at the sleep in his eyes, and when he dropped his hands, Two Socks stretched out prone, his muzzle resting on the ground between his outstretched legs, like a dutiful dog waiting for his master.
Cisco whinnied shrilly in the corral, and the lieutenant’s head jerked in that direction. He caught a simultaneous flash from the corner of his eye and turned back in time to see Two Socks galloping out of sight over the bluff. Then, as his eyes panned back to the corral, he saw them.
They were sitting on ponies, not a hundred yards in front of him. He didn’t make a count, but there were eight of them.
Two men suddenly started forward. Dunbar didn’t move, but unlike previous encounters, he held his ground in a relaxed way. It was in the way they were coming. The ponies’ heads were drooping as they plodded in, casual as workers coming home after a long, routine day.
The lieutenant was anxious, but his anxiety had little to do with life or death.
He was wondering what he would say and how he could possibly communicate his first words.
four
Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair were wondering exactly the same thing. The white soldier was as alien as anything they had ever met, and neither one knew how this was going to turn out. Seeing that blood was still smeared on the white soldier’s face didn’t make them feel any better about the meeting that was about to begin. In terms of roles, however, each man was different. Wind In His Hair rode forward as a warrior, a fighting Comanche. Kicking Bird was much more the statesman. This was an important moment in his life, the life of the band, and the life of the whole tribe. For Kicking Bird a whole new future was beginning, and he was sitting in on history.
five
When their faces were close enough to be distinct, Dunbar instantly recognized the warrior who had taken the woman from his arms. There was something familiar about the other man, too, but he couldn’t place him. He didn’t have time.
They had stopped a dozen feet in front of him.
They looked all lit up, resplendent in the glittering sunshine. Wind In His Hair was wearing a breastplate of bone, and a large metal disk hung around Kicking Bird’s neck. These things were reflecting in the light. There was even a glint coming off their deep brown eyes, and each man’s shiny, black hair was shimmering with sun streams.
Despite having just awakened, there was a certain sheen about Lieutenant Dunbar as well, though it was much more subtle than that of his visitors.
His crisis of the heart had passed, leaving him as the storm of the night before had left the prairie: fresh and full of vigor. Lieutenant Dunbar tipped forward in the suggestion of a bow and tapped his hand against the side of his head in a slow and deliberate salute.
A moment later Kicking Bird returned this overture with a strange movement of his own hand, turning it over, from back to palm.
The lieutenant didn’t know what it meant, but he interpreted it correctly as a friendly gesture. He glanced around, as if to make sure the place was still there, and said, “Welcome to Fort Sedgewick.”
What the words meant was a complete mystery to Kicking Bird, but as Lieutenant Dunbar had done, he took them for some kind of greeting.
“We have come from Ten Bears’s camp to make a peaceful talk,” he said, drawing a blank look of ignorance from the lieutenant.
Since it was now established that neither one would be able to converse, a silence fell over the two parties. Wind In His Hair took advantage of the lull to study the details of the white man’s buildings. He looked sharp and long at the awning, which was now beginning to roll in the breeze.
Kicking Bird sat impassively on his pony as the seconds dragged. Dunbar tapped his toe against the ground and stroked his chin. As time ticked away he grew nervous, and his nervousness reminded him of the morning coffee he’d missed and how much he wanted a cup. He wanted a cigarette, too.
“Coffee?” he asked Kicking Bird.
The medicine man tilted his head curiously.
“Coffee?” the lieutenant repeated. He curled his hand around an imaginary cup and made a drinking motion. “Coffee?” he said again. “To drink?”
Kicking Bird merely stared at the lieutenant. Wind In His Hair asked a question and Kicking Bird answered. Then they both looked through their host. After what seemed an eternity to Dunbar, Kicking Bird finally nodded his assent.
“Good, good,” said the lieutenant, patting the side of his leg. “Come along then.” He motioned them off their horses and waved them forward as he walked under the awning.
The Comanches trailed along cautiously. Everything their eyes fell on had an air of mystery and the lieutenant cut something of a ludicrous figure, fidgeting like a man whose guests had caught him off guard by arriving an hour early.
There was no fire going in the pit, but luckily he’d laid in enough dry wood for coffee. He squatted next to the pile of kindling and started making up the fire.
“Sit down,” he asked. “Please.”
But the Indians didn’t understand and he had to repeat himself, pantomiming the act of sitting as he spoke.
When they were down he rushed over to the supply hut and returned as quickly carrying a five-pound sack of beans and a grinder. Once he had the fire going, Lieutenant Dunbar poured beans into the rim of the grinder’s funnel and started cranking the handle.
As the beans began to disappear down the grinder’s metal cone, he could see that Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair were leaning forward curiously. He hadn’t realized that something so ordinary as grinding coffee could be magic. But it was magic to Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair. Neither one had ever seen a coffee grinder.
Lieutenant Dunbar was thrilled to be with people after all this time and was anxious for his guests to stay awhile, so he milked the grinding operation for all it was worth. Stopping abruptly, he moved the machine a couple of feet closer to the Indians, providing them with a clearer view of the process. He cranked slowly, letting them watch the beans descend. When there were only a few left he finished with a flourish, cranking with a wild, theatrical flair. Then he paused with the dramatic effect of a magician, allowing his audience to react.
Kicking Bird was intrigued with the machine itself. He ran his fingertips lightly against one of the grinder’s slick wooden sides. True to his nature, Wind In His Hair found the crushing mechanism most to his liking. He stuck one of his long, dark fingers into the funnel and felt around the little hole at the bottom, hoping to find out what had happened to the beans.
It was time for the finale,
and Dunbar interrupted these inspections by holding up a hand. Turning the machine around, he squeezed the little knob at its base between his fingers. The Indians bent their heads, more curious than ever.
At the last possible moment and in the way someone might reveal a fabulous jewel, Lieutenant Dunbar’s eyes widened, a smile sprang up on his face, and out came the drawer, filled with fresh black grounds.
Both Comanches were mightily impressed. Each took little dabs of pulverized beans and sniffed. Then they sat quietly as their host hung his pot over the fire and let the water come to a boil, awaiting the next development.
Dunbar served up the coffee, handing each of his guests a steaming black cup. The men let the aroma climb into their faces and exchanged knowing looks. This smelled like good coffee, much better than what they raided from the Mexicans for so many years. Much stronger.
Dunbar watched expectantly as they began to sip and was surprised when they screwed up their faces. Something was wrong. They both spoke a few words at once, a question, it seemed.
The lieutenant shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
The Indians held a brief but inconclusive conference. Then Kicking Bird had an idea. He made a fist, held it over the cup, and opened his hand, as if he were letting something drop into the coffee. He pretended to stir what he had dropped with a twig.
Lieutenant Dunbar said something he didn’t understand and then Kicking Bird watched as the white man jumped up, walked to the badly made house of earth, returned with another sack, and handed it around the fire.
Kicking Bird looked inside, grunting when he saw the brown crystals.
Lieutenant Dunbar saw a smile flicker on the Indian’s face and knew he had guessed right. Sugar was what they had wanted.