The medicine man who, along with Quanah Parker, led the entire Comanche nation against the whites in the Red River War of 1874 was named Isahata?i, meaning Coyote Pussy. The newspapers called him Ishtai, Eshati, and Eschiti, no translation offered. Toshaway had a nephew called Tried to Fuck a Mare, a name acquired in adolescence, and Hates Work, as previously mentioned, was originally called Single Bird. The Comanches were a good-natured sort and names were accepted with humor, though after Tried to Fuck a Mare got his first scalp and it was decided to change his name to Man on a Hill, he was not heard to complain.
BY FEBRUARY THE tribe was starving. There had not been a big buffalo kill in over a year, and most of the local deer, elk, and antelope had been hunted down over the winter. The few animals still alive moved only at night, surviving on twigs and dry brush. By then we had taken to tracking packrats back to their nests and eating their stashes of dried fruits and nuts, along with the rats themselves if we could catch them, and everyone in the tribe knew that the very young, the very old, and the sick would soon begin to die, and they would have, had we not discovered a buffalo herd beginning to drift north.
Everyone took this as a sign that our bad luck had ended, and the Creator-of-All-Things had forgiven us. By the time the first Spring Beauties appeared we had replenished our stores of meat and hides and begun to look forward to the summer, when the weather would be warm, though this also meant that the women in the band were put to double work preparing all the hides, so that they would be ready by the time the Comanchero traders arrived.
IN MAY IT was time to go raiding again. A third of the band had been killed the previous year, most of its horse wealth lost, and if this summer’s raids were not successful, it was not clear how much longer we would survive. Toshaway would go again, though Escuté, who still could not quite draw his bow, was ordered to stay in camp, and I would be sent in his place. Nuukaru was also going but, unlike the other young braves, he was quiet about the deeds he would commit.
“Don’t look so down in the mouth,” said Escuté. “You can bring back a beautiful Mexican girl and listen to me fuck her.”
Nuukaru shook his head.
“Let me guess. You have a bad feeling.”
“Stop,” he said, indicating me.
Escuté looked over: “This one always has a bad feeling. Don’t listen to him.”
“I had it about the last one, too.”
“Ah, the great puha tenahpu. I had almost forgotten.”
“Things are changing,” he said. “Whether or not we admit it. The Penateka . . .”
“Fuck the fucking Penateka. They were the white man’s tai?i and they got what was coming to them.”
“They were four times our size.”
“And they were the white man’s bitch and got all his diseases.”
“Ah, of course. The ones who make the greatest-ever raid on the whites were also his bitch.”
“Ten winters ago.”
“They had horse herds as thick as buffalo.”
“Nuukaru, we had one bad year, and you are a gloomy cocksucker, and you might ask to stay behind because if you continue to talk like that, instead of singing the woho hubiya, someone will shut your mouth with a tomahawk.”
“If we have another raid like last year,” said Nuukaru, “there will be no one left to shut my mouth at all.”
“Ignore him, Tiehteti. This is what gets people killed.” He shook his head. “You will bring back a thousand horses and a hundred scalps and fifty Mexican slaves. That is what you will do. Talking about it is a waste of time.”
“All right,” said Nuukaru.
“My arm hurts so bad I can’t sleep but you don’t hear me whining like a child. Kill some Mexicans, die a hero, I don’t give a fuck, but this talking is pointless, you might as well cut your own throat, and the throats of your people while you’re at it.”
“WE ARE PLANNING to avoid the whites,” said Toshaway, “but . . .”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I told him.
“Good.” He looked out across the village, noticeably smaller than it had been the previous year. “I wish you had been born twenty years ago, Tiehteti, because those were real days. The buffalo wolves used to follow us on our raids because they knew they’d get something to eat.” He scratched his chin. “But perhaps those times will return.”
WE DESCENDED FROM the plains and the land became mesas and canyonlands again, there were trees, mostly cottonwoods and oaks, the grass was tall and the blanketflowers were thick, patches of color going on for miles.
Toshaway had relatives along the San Saba headwaters and while looking for them we found a freshly raided Comanche camp, around seventy bodies, all scalped. There were a few warriors, but mostly it was women and children and old men. Toshaway had found his relatives. They were a splinter band of the Kotsoteka. Many of the women and girls had been treated the same as my mother and sister, cut up in the same way as well. We spent the day burying them.
“Their men must still be out,” said Pizon.
There were boot prints everywhere, boots made in Austin or San Antonio or somewhere in the east. There was a strange litter of musket balls on the ground and the hoofprints of shod horses. The tipis, weapons, and camp equipment had all been thrown into a fire and burned. I was dauncy with shame, but the other Comanches kept their faces hard, and the only thing said was that a few years earlier, the nearest white settlements has been hundreds of miles away, and it was a bad sign that they had found this camp.
“How many whites are there?” said Toshaway. “Do you know?”
“They say about twenty million.”
He grunted and looked at me.
“Come on.”
“It’s a fact.”
“Okay, Tiehteti.”
We rode in a wide circle around the camp, taking a break from digging. It could not have been a Ranger squad because twelve men could not kill seventy-three Comanches, even women and children. Toshaway guessed three hundred riders, but there were so many tracks on top of each other, as they had spent at least a day raping and sacking the village, it was hard to be certain.
I thought about my father’s tracks, he had a strange duck-footed walk and his left foot stuck out more than his right, and for a tall heavy man he had very small feet. I decided not to look.
At the top of a hill we found ruts as if a pair of wagons had been parked. The grass was burned down to the dirt.
“Strange,” said Toshaway.
“Those were cannons,” I said. “That’s why the grass is burned.”
“Those are very heavy, no?”
“A mountain howitzer can be pulled behind a horse. The army used them against the Mexicans all the time.”
The hill was maybe a furlong from the village and I knew the musket balls littering the ground must have been canister. A mountain howitzer loaded with canister was like two hundred rifles firing at once, or as my father used to say, like the hand of the Lord Himself.
“Tiehteti, it is very strange. For instance, how did they get into position without being noticed? And why would they have brought cannons all this way unless they were sure that Indians would be here? That is what I find strange.” He shook his head. “Someone was leading them.”
“They put the guns in place in the dark.”
“Of course in the dark. But still. They knew Indians were here.” He stood looking down at the ruins of the camp.
“Unfortunately most of the men seem to have fallen into their cooking fires and I could not tell if my cousin was among them. Though I did recognize his wife and two daughters.”
By then the other men were washing the ash and gore off in the river. Before we left, we hacked a flat place into a cottonwood and carved a note in hieroglyphics, telling what had happened, and how many we had buried, in case there were other members of the band who had not yet returned.
THE NEXT NIGHT we saw campfires in the distance, fires as only the whites made them, twice as large as the
y needed to be, nearly two dozen in all. It could only be the army, as there were not that many Rangers in the entire state of Texas.
There was discussion about whether to steal their horses but we decided to keep going. It would be safer to get them from the Mexicans, and instead of sleeping we rode all night to put distance between us and the soldiers. We crossed the Pecos without seeing anyone else, though there were recent tracks of shod horses, a small party of travelers. There was a debate about following them but the army was still close and it was again decided to wait. Climbing out of the Pecos Valley, the land became flat and dry. Long patches of caliche, clumps of oaks, mesquites, and huisache, the occasional cedar. We didn’t relax until we’d reached the Davis Mountains, where there was another debate about using the standard route past the old Presidio del Norte, which was well watered and had good grass and involved the least climbing, or going farther east into the mountains, where it was steeper and less watered but also less traveled. The younger men—who needed scalps—were annoyed we hadn’t taken on either the army or the travelers whose tracks we’d crossed, so it was decided to go past Presidio.
We stayed at a distance from the town, dropping gradually into the valley, then the river itself, and then back up into the mountains. A day’s ride from the border was a latifundio that was known to have a thousand horses.
THERE WAS A small village attached to the latifundio and we left the remuda with a half-dozen young Indians to guard the animals. Most were better hands than I was at riding and shooting, but that did not matter, because I had gotten a scalp and they hadn’t.
The rest of us picked the best horses, covered our faces and bodies with red and black and yellow paint, put on silver and brass armbands and bracelets, and tied feathers to the manes of our horses. Toshaway made sure I got a medicine hat with a large brown shield and I spent a long time painting it. I emptied my bowels three times, though the last time it was all water. I kept my eye on Toshaway and Nuukaru. Toshaway was laughing and joking with various people, making sure everyone was ready; Nuukaru was keeping to himself, and looked serious, and I also saw him go into the bushes and then a second time a few minutes later. I tried to eat some pemmican, but my mouth was too dry. I decided that was fine. If you were hit in the guts you did not want them to be full.
The sun was close to setting when a bell in the hacienda began to ring, probably the supper bell, but the Comanches thought we’d been spotted and then everyone was on their horses, moving toward the village and the ranch. Shields were adjusted. A few riders carried cut-down shotguns or repeating pistols, but most had their bows ready with a half-dozen arrows clenched in the hand that held the bow, the seventh arrow nocked, quivers adjusted so they could get to more arrows when they needed them. Reins were tied short so they would not be in the way. You were expected to steer only with your knees.
We came at them with the sun behind us, making our way quietly through the brush until we were nearly at the edge of the village. Then we kicked the horses into a run. There was a small open area to be crossed and there was whooping and ululating as if we were celebrating a great occasion, white-clad Mexicans fleeing for the chaparral, a general cry of “Los bárbaros,” a single puff of gunsmoke from between two houses, another musket pointing from a window. I aimed just to the left of the barrel but the horse was running too fast and I missed. I fumbled away my rifle and took out my bow and we were into the village, a wide main street with white adobe houses on either side; I wondered how many people there were and saw more puffs of gunsmoke but all I heard was the whooping and ululating and I started to think I would not be hurt. Everything was moving slowly. I could see each stone and clod of dirt, arrows falling toward men on rooftops or behind walls, a boy holding an escopeta sprinting down the street in front of us, his hat fell off, his arm went back to reach for it and an arrow stuck into him, then a second arrow hit and then he turned suddenly and dodged between two houses.
Then we were at the end of the village. There was only one street so I turned around and went back down it. An old man stepped out with a pistol; he was pulling a careful bead and I felt the wind as the ball went. Before I could get my bow aimed the horse changed course and ran him over and I could tell by the sound that he would not be getting up. Then I was going by a long adobe wall and there were puffs of clay the whole length and I realized people were shooting at me. Somehow I was at the front, but the arrows were still going past on both sides and then I reached the end of the village again.
A man wearing the black coat of a hacendado was crouched behind a mesquite, calmly letting off a repeater. I shot two arrows but they went rattling off the branches and then another arrow came from behind me and cut through a small opening and the man fell backward. There was a whoopwhoopwhoop and Toshaway shook his bow, then turned away to look for more people. I realized I had not been shooting enough. I stopped to situate my arrows. My shield popped me in the nose; there was a white-shirted man surrounded by a cloud of gunsmoke and I shot a quick arrow. He dropped his musket and took a few drunken steps, then ran into the chaparral with the arrow wagging in front of him. I shot another into his back, which didn’t slow him down either. He disappeared. I noticed I’d been standing still. I kicked the horse and we went back down the street.
There was no longer a charge as much as a general melee. Arrows kept flying past me; people kept falling over; I would look at someone—they would get hit by an arrow—I would look at someone else—they would get hit as well. I was beginning to feel like the hand of God Himself, then remembered my shield and got it up and moving just as it was knocked into my head again. I tried to wipe my eyes and kicked the horse just as the shield was hit a third and fourth time. I was rowing it in huge circles; I crouched and reached the end of the village and charged directly into the chaparral to gather myself up.
A woman with a child appeared in front of me; she was running blind and the horse turned to trample her. I kneed him away, missing her, then made a big circle in the brush and headed back to the village. By now the street was nothing but bodies and dismounted Comanches taking scalps. Most of the riders had gone somewhere else. There was shooting a few hundred yards away, at the main ranch house. A person with a musket came out from behind a wall, looked around, and sprinted for the chaparral. I cut his shirt with an arrow but he kept running and I knew I’d been missing most of my shots. I sat there a minute and nothing happened. I rode toward the shooting.
A dozen Indians had surrounded the house and were shooting arrows and occasionally a rifle toward it. The inhabitants were alive and well as there were regular puffs of smoke coming from the gunports and windows. On a stone patio, two men were lying next to a stub-barreled cannon, a ramrod and barrel of powder turned over next to them.
The main body of Comanches was off rounding up the horses, and I got a strange feeling watching the siege of the house so before I could be recruited I rode off to help gather the animals.
WE RODE ALL night but everyone was in a good mood, a thousand horses stretched out in front of us, enough to get our band back on its feet. I thought about the man I’d shot in the back and stomach and the other man I’d run down with the horse, and the others I had shot at but was not sure if I had hit. I figured it was possible they were all dead. None of them had given me the feeling of the Delaware and I wondered if I would ever have that again. I told myself they were just Mexicans and they would have done the same to me. My father always said the Mexicans had as much fun torturing people as the Indians.
Around midday we were into the foothills, driving the horses up a dry streambed. At the top of the hill, opposite the side we’d climbed, we stopped to collect our thoughts. I rode to find Toshaway and found him standing with Pizon, refilling his waterskin at a stream and cursing the Indians who had driven the horses through the water instead of along the banks.
“Ah,” said Pizon. “The Great Tiehteti.”
“He who charges at the front.”
I started to grin.
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“Oh, that was quite beautiful, Tiehteti, you charging through the middle of them like that, missing with every arrow you fired, then meanwhile every single one of them was trying to kill you, and they were missing as well.” He chuckled and shook his head. “It was something to behold.”
“I did hit one of them,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, in the stomach. And in the back. And I killed another one with the horse.”
“Did you scalp them?”
“No, I kept going.” I couldn’t quite remember why I hadn’t scalped them. “The one had a musket,” I said.
“Oh, a musket.”
“Pizon and I were maybe ten paces behind, but it was as if all the rays of the sun were shining only on you, you were like the prize that every man in that village wanted and they had no eyes for the rest of us.”
“And you were riding so fucking fast.”
“That’s what you said to do.”
“If you are attacking, you don’t ride faster than you can shoot.”
“Don’t worry, we killed them all for you. And Saupitty and Ten Buffalo killed the ones we didn’t see. What a beautiful fucking massacre.”
“How is it possible I missed?” I said.
“I would say that you shoot like a woman,” said Pizon. “But it would not be fair to the women.”