Comanche Moon

"That's question number one, and question number two is, why would Blue Duck be following him? I doubt he's rich enough to rob." Famous Shoes had been too preoccupied with the question of the white owls to give much thought to the questions Captain McCrae raised. The white owls had distracted him so much that he had almost forgotten about Blue Duck. But, once he stopped thinking about the owls, it was not hard to know the answers to Captain McCrae's questions.

"The old one is looking for a good place to die," Famous Shoes said.

"Lord, if that's all he wants, he can stop looking," Augustus said. "He's found his place to die." "Blue Duck is following him because he wants to kill him," Famous Shoes said. "He doesn't want to let him die of thirst. He wants to kill him. The old man is Buffalo Hump. He twists his foot when he steps, because of the hump. I should have remembered this, but I was thinking about the owls." The name gave all the rangers a start. No one had mentioned Buffalo Hump to them in several years--not since the beginning of the war.

"Buffalo Hump? We thought he was dead," Call replied, startled.

"Blue Duck is his son, I recall," Augustus said. "He ran to his father's camp that day he killed Jimmy Watson." "It was cold that day," Pea Eye said. He didn't remember the Indians very well, but he did remember the cold. He had supposed he would freeze that night, for want of an adequate coat.

The whites began to speculate about why Blue Duck would want to kill Buffalo Hump, but Famous Shoes didn't listen. The young man wanted to kill the old man for all the reasons that normally drove men to kill one another. In the clear night he had just heard the song of the plover, which meant that water was near.

All night Famous Shoes sat listening.

He heard the plover cry several more times, and rjcd. Men lied often, but the plover only lied when it had eggs to protect; if the plover's nest was near, then water, too, was near. In the morning they could drink.

Blue Duck let Ermoke and Monkey John ride his spare horses because of the two Comanches who watched them for a day. Ermoke was the first to see them; it was shortly before his horse gave out. He pulled his rifle and pointed to the west, but Blue Duck, at first, could see nothing that he could clearly identify. Monkey John, so shortsighted that he would sometimes climb on someone else's horse thinking it was his own, could see nothing, but he pulled his rifle just in case.

"What you see is a yucca, or two yuccas," Blue Duck told Ermoke. He was anxious to press on and catch up with Buffalo Hump, whose track was the track of a weak old man--a man who would die within a day or two.

Blue Duck did not want his father to die before they found him. He was prepared to ignore everything else in order to catch his father before he died.

It was not until they had limped into the Lake of Horses and were drinking at the little spring that Blue Duck finally saw the two Comanches. He decided that thirst had weakened his vision; sitting well to the west, in plain view, were two Comanche warriors. They were not approaching; they were merely watching, but it made Blue Duck more anxious than ever to hurry on with the chase. Then Monkey John's horse lay down and could not rise, no matter how hard they beat him. Blue Duck knew that the Comanches must belong to the Antelope band--Quanah's band. No other Indians would dare venture that far into the llano. They must know of the little spring--perh they were its guardians. If they were there, the rest of the band must not be far.

Blue Duck knew that the Antelope would not consider him a Comanche. If they decided to kill him they would come with enough warriors to kill him, which is why he decided he had better keep Ermoke and Monkey John with him, even if it meant letting them use his spare horses. Both men were reliable shots and three rifles were better than one if it came to a fight with the Antelopes.

They rested for part of a day by the spring in the Lake of Horses; the two Comanches did not approach, but neither did they leave. Blue Duck knew his father could only be a few miles ahead. In an hour or two they could catch him and dispatch him. He wanted the horses to rest and eat. They could fill up on the weeds that grew around the little spring. He did not want to fight the Antelopes unless he had to--it was a fight he would be unlikely to win. He stayed near the spring through the night, until an hour before dawn. He meant to leave before it was light, find his father, kill him, and go north as fast as he could, to strike the Rio Carrizo or the Cimarron.

If he moved quickly enough he would soon be back in the tall grass along the Cimarron; he didn't think the Antelopes would follow him there. If necessary he would kill Ermoke and Monkey John and take the horses they rode --better to ride all the horses to death and hope to ambush a traveller on one of the westward trails than to get into a fight with the Antelopes.

In the morning, when it was light enough to scan the whole plain, Ermoke, who was very nervous, made another discovery: the rangers they thought they had outdistanced had not given up. Not only were the two Comanches still in plain sight to the west, but at least four horsemen were pursuing them from the south.

Seeing this, Ermoke became bitterly annoyed with himself, for following Blue Duck to such a place.

Now there were Comanches on one side and Texas Rangers behind them, in country too dry to live in; and they were there for no better reason than that Blue Duck wanted to settle a grudge with Buffalo Hump.

"We ought to have let him come by himself," he said, to Monkey John. "Them two to the west want our hair and the goddamn rangers want to hang us." Monkey John was too frightened of the Comanches to worry about the rangers.

"I ain't worried about the hanging," he said.

"There's nothing out here they could hang us from. I'd like to keep my hair, though, if I can.

"Besides that, we're out of tobaccy," he added, a little later.

"That's because you chewed it all up, you goddamn hog," Ermoke said. In fact Monkey John, in his opinion, was little more than a human spittoon.

In the back of Monkey John's anxious mind was another worry: Blue Duck. He had not asked them to come on the trip--if the Comanches had not showed up he would probably have left them to starve, and he still might. As they rode north Monkey John found that his worry about Blue Duck overwhelmed his other worries.

"I'm afraid Duck will kill us, once he's done with his pa," he said to Ermoke, who had stopped for a moment to relieve himself.

Ermoke ignored the comment. His own chief worry was Captain Call, whom he knew to be an implacable foe. He knew that Call must be one of the rangers who were following them--no one else in the ranger troop would have been likely to have pressed a pursuit so tenaciously.

Now, to his vexation, he saw that the rangers had found the dry lake and the spring in the center of it. They had all dismounted to drink and water their horses. It made it difficult to count them, but the count in itself was not too important. If Captain Call was one of the rangers it meant that they had plenty to worry about.

"I'm scared of Duck, he's mean," Monkey John said, a comment that amused Ermoke a good deal.

"Mean? Duck? Why, when did you notice?" he said, before he turned back north.

Famous Shoes had heard of the spring in the dry lake from one or two old men whose minds had been cloudy when they talked of it. He had not quite believed that it was a real place, and was grateful to the plover for calling and calling until he was able to find it. It was such a small spring that it took more than an hour for the horses to water--Captain Call forbade the men to drink until the horses had had their fill, an order Captain McCrae agreed with.

"We can drink our piss and make it another day or two, but these nags have to water," Augustus said. Pea Eye and Deets, their tongues thick in their mouths, waited as the two horses drank.

Pea Eye was so thirsty that his head swam.

He had begun to see double, too, a thing that had never occurred before in his life.

While the horses were drinking Augustus spotted the two Comanches. Famous Shoes was a few hundred yards to the west, exploring the edges of the old lake; he too saw the Comanches and came running back.

"We should leave here as soon as we can," he said. "Those men may not like it that we have found the spring." Call could not see the two warriors-- eyesight weaker than the norm, or at least weaker than Augustus's, was an old vexation.

He did not dispute the opinion, though. The Comanches who lived in the depths of the llano still had all their fight, as many an unfortunate traveller had found out to his doom.

"Blue Duck got here first," Augustus commented. "If they're feeling frisky maybe they'll take after him." "Maybe--or they might take after us both," Call said.

Famous Shoes thought that the little spring must be holy. The old people who had talked about it said it was near the place where the People had come out of the earth.

Now only a few birds and the Antelope Comanche knew where it was. If the spring .was holy it might not want to give its water to strangers; that might be why it flowed so slowly.

He was glad when the horses and the men had finished drinking--he did not want to disturb the spring that might be holy by taking too much from it.

When Buffalo Hump awoke he reached for his lance, but Blue Duck had already taken it.

Buffalo Hump had been deep in a dream--in his dream he had seen millions of buffalo grazing, as they had grazed on the plains in his youth. Because of the buffalo, he did not want to wake up. He wanted to dream his way into the spirit world, where Comanches rode forever. For that reason he had tried to ignore the voices that he had begun to hear in his dream.

The voices were not the voices of Comanches, and they were not ghosts. For that reason he tried to ignore them, to stay in his comfortable sleep, dreaming of buffalo.

But the voices were too loud; soon he felt the prickling in his senses that he always felt when an enemy was near, or when there was some threat from the wild. Once the prickling awakened him when a herd of buffalo were stampeding toward the place where he rested. He had had to mount quickly and ride for his life. Another time the prickling saved him from a great she-bear, angry because a hunter had killed her cub; many times it had alerted him to the approach of human enemies, some of them Indian and some of them white.

Buffalo Hump had come to the place of black rocks to die. He wanted to help his spirit slip away from his body, and, for that reason, he ignored the prickling and the voices. It was when he felt the point of his own lance touch his side that he could ignore the voices no longer.

He opened his eyes and rose to his feet, but he was stiff; he rose slowly, and, anyway, it was too late. Blue Duck had his lance. It was Blue Duck who had poked him in the ribs with his own lance: he thrust with it again, but this time Buffalo Hump blocked the lance with his buffalo skull shield, which he had kept in his lap as he slept.

The lance point hit the shield and, for a moment, stuck in the thick bone of the buffalo's skull.

Buffalo Hump held on to his shield, Blue Duck to the lance. The men with Blue Duck, one half-breed and one white, watched the brief moment of pushing and pulling silently. One of them held the short bow that Buffalo Hump had brought with him. It was plain, though, that the man could not shoot the bow. He had merely taken it so Buffalo Hump could not shoot at them with the small arrows that were only good for killing rabbits and other small game. The third man was short and misshapen, with eyes like a goat. Buffalo Hump saw that the men were comancheros or renegades of some kind, low men his son had brought with him on his errand of killing.

Finally, with a jerk that almost pulled Buffalo Hump out of the circle of black rocks, Blue Duck freed the end of the lance. He did not speak and neither did Buffalo Hump. It was obvious that Blue Duck had learned of his departure from the camp and had followed him to kill him. It was clear, too, that Blue Duck wanted to kill him badly, for he had gone to a great deal of trouble to follow him to the place of the black rocks. He and his two comancheros might have starved.

Rather than talk, Buffalo Hump took out his knife, the one weapon left to him. A knife was not much use against a lance but was all he had to fight with; and it .was a knife that had pierced the vitals of many enemies. Buffalo Hump had taken the knife off the body of a bluecoat soldier near the Rio Concho many years before.

Blue Duck was smiling--he knew it would be easy to kill an old man who had only a knife to fight with. Besides the lance, he and his men had several guns.

"I reckon you took too long a nap, old man," Blue Duck said. He moved just outside the ring of rocks, holding the lance as if he might throw it.

Buffalo Hump saw from the awkward way Blue Duck held the lance that he had not changed. He seemed undecided as to whether to throw the lance or jab with it. Any well-trained Comanche, who knew how to use a lance, could have killed the young fool in only a few seconds.

Buffalo Hump felt the scorn he had always felt at Blue Duck's crude disregard of the old weapons. He saw that Blue Duck rode a Mexican saddle and had a buffalo gun strapped to it. But such failings didn't matter now. His son had come to kill him and had even awakened him from his death sleep to do it. All that was left was one fight, and since his son had brought two well-armed helpers, it would not be a long fight. Buffalo Hump crouched a little and waited, hoping Blue Duck would be fool enough to grapple with him. Even though he was weak, Buffalo Hump still trusted his skill with the knife. If Blue Duck were fool enough to come near him, Buffalo Hump meant to slash at his throat. Several times he had opened an enemy's windpipe so cleanly that the enemy would not even know he had been touched until blood blew out with the bubbles of air.

For a minute, there was a circling. Blue Duck shifted the lance from hand to hand; Buffalo Hump held his knife and his shield. Buffalo Hump knew that he could not move well. One of his legs had stiffened when he slept, and it was still stiff. All he could do was wait and hope Blue Duck made some foolish mistake. Buffalo Hump began to sing his war cry as he waited. His voice cracked as he sang, but he wanted his three enemies to know that he was still a Comanche warrior, a man who sang as he went into battle.

The three men looked amused when he began to sing. They thought it was funny that an old man would sing as he was about to be killed. They were men so degraded that they didn't realize it was a warrior's special obligation to sing in battle and to raise a death song if it was clear that the battle was going against him. Other warriors who might be fighting with him would need to hear that their chief was still making war; if it had to be that he must die in the fighting, then, particularly, the spirits needed to be offered a death song, so that they could welcome the warrior into the spirit world once he had fallen.

The comancheros didn't know these things.

They merely thought he was a silly old man, singing in a weak voice to the men who were about to kill him.

Then Blue Duck disappeared. The other two men pulled knives and waved them at him, though they didn't come within the circle of rocks.

Buffalo Hump, his vision wavery, realized that his son must have slipped behind him; before he could turn to face him, Blue Duck, who was young and nimble, struck full force with the lance. Buffalo Hump had tried to turn but the stiff leg had kept him from being able to pivot as he once had. He had twisted, and then the lance struck his hump. It went in but did not go through, though the force of the blow knocked Buffalo Hump on his face; dust was in his nostrils. He didn't feel the piercing at all, only the force of the blow. Blue Duck tried to push the lance through, or else pull it out, but could do neither. The lance point was stuck more firmly in the big hump than it had been in the buffalo skull shield. Blue Duck, maddened by the failure of his blow, jumped on his father's back and put all his weight on the lance, determined to shove it through.

"Come help!" he yelled at the two renegades--soon Buffalo Hump saw several feet moving around him as the two men and Blue Duck leaned as hard as they could on the lance.

Buffalo Hump realized that once again his foolish son had erred. Once he himself had tried to put his lance through the hump of a running buffalo and had nearly lost his life as a result. Before he could push the lance through, the buffalo jerked him off his horse into the path of other buffalo. Now Blue Duck had made the same error by thrusting the lance into his hump rather than his heart. Buffalo Hump lost his war song --the men were stepping on him as they tried to push the lance through; he could not get his breath well enough to sing.

He was jerked this way and that as the men struggled with the lance. Once he tried to slash at the feet of the men moving around him, but his fingers had no strength. He lost hold of his knife just as he was losing hold of life itself, his life as a warrior. With a final desperate push Blue Duck shoved the lance through the hump and through Buffalo Hump's body too; its red point went into the earth beneath him, just as his own arrows had once gone through the bodies of his enemies, pinning them to the ground. Buffalo Hump was filled with hatred for his son, for denying him the death of prayer and song that he had hoped for, though he knew, from seeing many men die, most of them at his own hand, that few men were fortunate enough to die as they would have chosen, for death did not belong to the humans or the great creatures either--death came when it would, and now had come to him; he could do no more, and even the last look of hatred which he directed at his son went unnoticed. Blue Duck and the two other renegades were panting behind him somewhere, panting from the effort it had taken to kill him. Even then Buffalo Hump could still move his hands and legs a little, as the lance held him pinned to the earth.

"Look at him!" one of the men said. "He still ain't dead. He's moving like an old turtle." Buffalo Hump closed his eyes. He remembered that there were old stories--old, old stories, about a great turtle that had let the People ride on its back as he brought them from their home in the earth to the place of light. He remembered the turtle story, an old story he had heard from his grandmother or from somewhere even older than his grandmother, someone who knew about the beginnings of the People in the time before they knew of the light or the buffalo or the grassy plains. He felt the grass growing beneath him, growing and rising to cover him, growing to hide him from wolf and bear. Then he knew no more.

"He's gone, Duck," Monkey John said, observing that the old Comanche with the ugly hump had ceased to move his arms and legs.

Blue Duck was still breathing hard from the effort it had taken to kill his father. For a few moments, when the lance stuck in the hump, he had been desperate. His fear was that his father would cheat him again by dying in his own way. His father's last looks, when he had been just a weak old man holding a knife and pretending to be a warrior, had been the same looks of determined hatred that had caused so many men to lose their will and allow Buffalo Hump to kill them. Even when the old man was pinned to the ground by his own lance his look was one of hatred--Blue Duck had been ready to get a hatchet and cut his head off, if it took that to finally kill him; but when he looked again he saw that Monkey John was right. Buffalo Hump was dead. All the same, he started for his horse, meaning to get the hatchet, when Ermoke stopped him.

"Where are you going, Duck?" Ermoke asked him.

"I mean to take his head," Blue Duck said.

"Not today, you ain't got time," Ermoke said, pointing south toward the Lake of Horses.

Blue Duck saw what he meant. On the dry plain the dust thrown up by the four horses of their pursuers hung in the air. It annoyed Blue Duck that the rangers were so persistent, rushing him, denying him the full pleasure of his triumph over his father.

"Goddamn them, what's their hurry?" he said. "I wanted to take his ugly old head home with me--I could use it to scare the boys." "Let's go, Duck--y can come back and get his head, if you're that set on having it," Ermoke said. "It was hard enough to kill him. That's Call and McCrae after us. I'm for leaving." Blue Duck wanted to linger, to savor the triumph he had waited for so long; he felt like killing Ermoke for so insistently rushing him off.

But he knew the renegade was right. Call and McCrae had followed him where no other rangers and no other whites would have dared to go. Ermoke and Monkey John were no match for them. He himself might be, but only if he could insure himself proper cover, and there was no cover close.

"You kilt the man you came to kill, Duck," Ermoke said. "Let's leave." "We'll go, but once they're gone I mean to come back for his head," Blue Duck said. He went to his horse, mounted, and rode once more around the still body of his father. He rode close and put his hand on the lance. He wanted to keep it but knew it would take much too long to pull it out.

"He must have liked them black rocks," Monkey John said. "He gathered up a bunch of them before we got here." Blue Duck had a vague memory of his father saying something to him about the black rocks, long ago on their journey to the Lake of Horses. But he couldn't remember what he had said, and Call and McCrae were getting closer.

He left the lance in his father's body and turned to the north.

As they were leaving, Monkey John reached down and picked up Buffalo Hump's big knife.

Famous Shoes had not wanted to go north of the dry lake. He thought the fact that the spring was so small and so well hidden meant that the dry lake was as far as men ought to go--al, he had seen the two Antelope Comanches; it worried him that they were watching. Also, they had no sooner left the lake than he began to notice the black rocks.

The three things taken together were to him powerful evidence that they had followed Blue Duck far enough. All the Kickapoos agreed that black rocks were to be avoided--they were not normal rocks and were only likely to be in places where the spirits were malign.

When they left the lake Famous Shoes said as much to Captain Call, but the captain paid no more attention to his ^ws than he would have paid to a puff of wind. Captain Call didn't care about the black rocks. He did care about the Antelope Comanches--he knew they represented danger, but he was not willing to turn back on their account.

"Woodrow wants Blue Duck, and Blue Duck ain't five miles ahead," Augustus pointed out, when the tracker came to him with his worries. "If you think Woodrow Call will turn back with his quarry in sight you've hired on with the wrong company." Famous Shoes concluded that there was no point in talking to the two captains. He had been patient and intelligent in explaining his reasoning as to why it was unwise to go farther north at that time, yet both men ignored him. They just kept going.

Famous Shoes thought he might as well go home--it was a waste of time to advise men who wouldn't listen. He didn't want to stay with the rangers if they were going to proceed so foolishly.

Nonetheless, he went ahead for a few miles, because he wanted to see if there was another lake nearby, or any reason to continue north.

It was while he was trotting ahead of the cautious rangers that he noticed a lance sticking up from the ground a short distance ahead. Since Buffalo Hump was the only man likely to be in that area who carried a lance, Famous Shoes immediately became more cautious, fearing that the old man was plotting some kind of ambush.

While he was studying the land, trying to figure where the old man could be hiding, Famous Shoes saw his body. The lance held it pinned to the earth.

The sight startled Famous Shoes so that for a moment his legs felt weak. He had long surmised that Buffalo Hump was making his last journey, seeking a hiding place of some sort, in which to die. But that surmise did not diminish his shock when he saw the body with the lance driven through it.

On weak legs he went forward until he stood on the edge of the circle of black rocks.

He was too shocked to wave at the rangers, or do anything but stand and look. Buffalo Hump had been killed with his own lance, and it was undoubtedly Blue Duck and his men who had killed him. The lance went right through the hump; Famous Shoes remembered hearing some prophecy or old story to the effect that Buffalo Hump would only die when his hump was pierced. It might have been Buffalo Hump's own grandmother who told him the story, long ago when he was caring for her as she waited to die.

The old man's great buffalo skull shield lay beside him. It was a shield that many warriors wanted, yet Blue Duck had left it, as if it were a thing without value or power. That too was a shock.

Famous Shoes was squatting just outside the circle of black rock when the rangers rode up.

"Oh my Lord," Augustus said, when he saw that Buffalo Hump was dead. "Oh my Lord." Call was just as shocked, though he didn't speak. He dismounted and stood by Famous Shoes; the others dismounted too, but, for a time, no one spoke. Deets, who had never seen Buffalo Hump up close, was so scared that he wanted to leave. It was his belief that only a witch would have such a hump, and, though the man appeared to be dead, a lance through his body, it was not clear to Deets that a witch would have to stay dead. He thought it would be better to stand a little farther away, in case the witch with the big hump suddenly rose up and did some witchery on them.

Call was curious at last to see Buffalo Hump up close. It had been some years since he had thought much about the man, yet he knew that his career as a ranger had been, in large measure, a pursuit of the Comanche who lay dead at his feet.

Augustus was so startled that all color had drained from his face.

"That's a lance like the one he stuck me with, way back then," he said.

Pea Eye, too, wanted to go. He knew that Buffalo Hump had been a mighty, fearsome chief, but now he was dead and it was wasteful just to stand there looking at his body if they hoped to catch the bandits they had been chasing for so long.

Captain Call and Captain McCrae, though, showed no inclination to hurry on, and neither did Famous Shoes. Pea Eye only looked once at the hump; he did not care to examine deformities, for fear it would result in bad dreams.

To Call's eye, Buffalo Hump looked smaller in death than he had looked in life-- he was not the giant they had supposed him to be, but only a man of medium height.

"I thought he was bigger," Call added, squatting for a moment by the body.

"I did too, Woodrow," Augustus said.

"When he was after me with his lance I thought he was as big as a god." "He's old," Call said. "He might have shrunk a little in his old age." "No, we just remember him as bigger than he was because he was so fierce and had that terrible war cry," Augustus said.

To Pea Eye it seemed that the discovery of Buffalo Hump's body had put the two captains into a kind of memory trance.

"He was the first Comanche I ever saw," Call remarked. "I remember when he came racing out of that gully with that dead boy behind him on his horse --I forget the boy's name." "Josh Corn was his name," Augustus said.

"He went into the bushes to take a shit and picked the wrong bunch of bushes to go into--it was the end of him." "This old man was gaunt," Call said. "I doubt he found much to eat, these last few years." Famous Shoes started to tell the two rangers that they should not be standing within the circle of black rocks as they talked. Buffalo Hump had made a death circle with the rocks, and it should be respected. But he had, himself, another concern which also involved respect. He wanted the great buffalo skull shield. He wanted the shield badly. It was just laying there, ignored by Blue Duck and ignored too by the rangers. Though he wanted it, Famous Shoes knew the shield should remain within the circle of rocks. If he himself took it the Comanches might find out and try to kill him because of what he had done. He knelt down and looked closely at the shield, knowing that it contained great power, but he was afraid to take it.

"We ought to get that lance out of him, if we can," Call said. He pulled, and then he and Augustus pulled together, but they soon saw that the task was hopeless. The lance point came free of the ground, but it did not come free of Buffalo Hump's body. It had gone through his hump, through his ribs, and through his chest.

"It's like a tree grew through him," Gus said.

"He was a great chief--he ought to be laid out proper, but there's now no way to do it with this lance sticking through him," Call said.

"Well, I ain't holding a funeral for him, he's killed too many of my friends," Augustus said. "I expect but for him Long Bill would be alive, and Neely Dickens and several more I could name." "I didn't mention a funeral," Call said.

"I just think any man ought to be laid out proper." He looked again at the body of Buffalo Hump and then, mindful that their task was not done, turned toward the horses. He didn't feel the relief he had always supposed he would feel, at the death of Buffalo Hump. The man who lay before him was no longer the terror of the plains-- he was just an old man, dead. Though they were in pursuit of Blue Duck, Call felt, for a moment, that there was little point in going on. He felt he had used up his energy. When he walked back to his horse he didn't, for a moment, have the strength to mount.

"Those were Comanches watching us at the lake," he told Gus. "I expect they'll find Buffalo Hump and do what's proper." Famous Shoes knew better. The two Comanches were of the Antelope band, and the Antelopes had always held aloof from the other tribes. Probably the warriors who watched them were too young to have heard of Buffalo Hump-- even if they rode over to look at the body, the deformity would scare them away. When they saw the hump they would think witchery was involved. They would want nothing to do with the old dead man with the ugly hump.

He himself wanted nothing to do with the Antelopes.

Though their country was poor and harsh, they were not broken men. He didn't know why the two warriors were watching the dry lake, but he was glad there were only two. Maybe the rest of the band were hunting somewhere. If more of them had been there they would probably have attacked.

Captain Call and Captain McCrae lingered by their horses; for some reason they were reluctant to mount and ride on, although their quarry, Blue Duck, was not many miles ahead.

The delay broke down Famous Shoes' resolve in regard to the shield. It was an important thing. None of the whites seemed to realize that; none of them had even picked it up, or looked at it. Famous Shoes, though, couldn't take his eyes off it. Even though he knew he should leave it with Buffalo Hump, so that he could use it in battle in the spirit world, Famous Shoes wanted it too much. After all, once they left, no one might ever come near the spot where Buffalo Hump lay. They might be the only ones who would ever look on the body of the old chief. But the animals would look. Wolf would come, and Coyote and Badger and Bobcat.

Buzzards would come, and beetles, to take what they could of old Buffalo Hump. If he left the shield a wolf or a coyote might drag it away. With all the animals that would soon be coming, the shield of Buffalo Hump might soon be lost, and yet it was a shield made by a great chief from a buffalo skull. With the buffalo now almost gone, it might be that no one would ever make such a shield again.

With such thoughts in his mind Famous Shoes soon convinced himself that he should take the shield, though he did not want to step into the death circle to do it.

While the rangers made a careful inspection of their horses' feet--a very wise thing since they had no spare horses--Famous Shoes took a rifle and reached across the black rocks and hooked the shield. He got the rifle barrel inside the rawhide grips that Buffalo Hump had made so that he could hold the shield where he wanted it. Famous Shoes was glad the shield had not been too far inside the circle-- he was just able to reach it with the rifle barrel, and in a moment he had it, the shield of Buffalo Hump, an important and powerful tool of war.

He was just about to take the shield to Deets and ask him to carry it in one of his saddlebags when the first shot came.

"We were too far away--I didn't get no chance to sight this gun," Blue Duck said, in annoyance, when he saw that his first shot from the big buffalo rifle had only hit Captain Call in the foot. At least that was how it appeared. The man held up one leg and hopped behind the horses.

Ermoke was annoyed too. He had wanted to be the one to shoot the big gun. He considered himself a far better shot than Blue Duck, particularly at long distances, and in this case the distance was long. They had made sure to ride well beyond the range of the Texans' Winchesters before they pulled up and unstrapped the big buffalo gun. There was a little growth of yucca where they stopped, the only cover in sight, but all they needed. With the big gun they could relax and pick off the Texans one by one--only now Blue Duck had spoiled the whole plan by shooting low.

Blue Duck quickly drew a bead on Ranger McCrae but missed again, though the bullet did knock one of the four horses down.

He was aware that Ermoke was looking at him critically--Ermoke was vain about his marksmanship, particularly if the distances were long. He had once killed an antelope with a Winchester at a distance of almost a thousand yards, and had never ceased to brag about the exploit.

Even though he had now missed twice, Blue Duck didn't yield the gun. It was his gun, for one thing. He had run the frightened buffalo hunter to earth, and it had been no easy chase.

The hunter had three guns and had emptied them all at him during the long pursuit.

He might even have escaped had his horse not stepped in a prairie-dog hole. In the fall the buffalo hunter broke his neck. He was paralyzed when Blue Duck walked up and cut his throat. The pursuit had taken all day, and the hunter had no money, only a worthless tin watch and his guns.

Blue Duck had meant to practice a little with the big rifle, but Last Horse had arrived unexpectedly, before he got around to it. He had never shot such a powerful rifle before; now, with the rangers in easy killing distance, he was vexed to find that the weapon shot low. He had missed a clean shot at Call and an even better one at McCrae. Now the rangers were on their bellies in the grass, hard to see. Ermoke clearly wanted a chance to shoot, but Blue Duck didn't give it to him. Instead he shot another of the rangers' horses, even as the black man was trying to hurry them out of range.

"I guess that will stop them," he said. "Two of their horses are down and Call's shot in the leg. They'll starve anyway. Let's go. We won't have to be in such a damn hurry now." "Monkey's sick--he's shitting white shit," Ermoke observed. He saw that Blue Duck was angry, so he did not ask if he could shoot the buffalo gun. If he asked, Blue Duck might turn the gun on him, as he had on the Comanche who came to tell him about Buffalo Hump.

"What about Monkey?" Ermoke asked, when he saw Blue Duck mount up.

Blue Duck glanced at the stumpy man, who was a few yards away, squatting with his pants down, looking miserable.

"Monkey? He can come or he can stay," Blue Duck said. "I guess our fine waters don't agree with him. You can wait for him, if you like. I doubt I ought to be associating with a man who shits white shit, anyway."

The first bullet knocked Call a foot in the air. Immediately, he lost all feeling in his left leg, but he pulled himself around behind his horse; then the second bullet knocked the horse down on top of him, or almost. Pea and Augustus pulled him out from under the horse, which was kicking wildly. A third shot hit Pea's horse and killed it.

"Run with the other horses!" Call yelled to Deets. "If you don't he's going to put us all afoot." Deets needed no urging. He was already running south, with his brown mule and the other, uninjured, horse. There were four more booms from the big rifle, but Deets was soon out of range and the other men had their faces flat in the dirt. The bullets merely kicked up dirt. The rifleman stopped firing, since he had stopped hitting, but the three rangers kept their heads down, fearing that the rifleman would soon find the range.

Call glanced at his leg and saw no blood, but he assumed he was probably crippled anyway. The leg was numb from the hip down--his horse, by then, had stopped kicking but lay with its eyes open, panting.

"He's shooting a buffalo gun," Augustus said. "If I'd known he had one I'd have been more careful." "We ought to have been more careful anyway," Call said. "Anyone can get their hands on a buffalo gun." Augustus had not yet looked at his friend's wound. In their time as partners it was the first time he could remember seeing Woodrow Call knocked off his feet; the sight made a bad impression on him. If Woodrow was still down it probably meant the wound was mortal. Everyone who worked with Call knew that he had to be killed to be stopped. The thought that Woodrow might die sobered Augustus so much that he put off examining the wound.

"Where'd he hit you, Captain?" Pea Eye asked finally. He too was afraid that the captain was mortally hit, else he would be up fighting.

"In the leg," Call said. He too assumed that his wound was serious, perhaps fatal. He didn't try to rise because he knew his leg wouldn't hold him. Standing up would have been unwise in any case. The man with the buffalo gun had them well marked. He was not a very highly skilled marksman or he would have killed all four of the horses and probably at least two of the men; but he was good enough, and he might improve, once he found the range. Call noticed that his horse had only been hit in the hip, but the minute after he noticed it the horse died.

"Those buffalo guns are powerful," Call said. "That one killed my horse, and the shot wasn't even well placed." "Don't be getting pessimistic now--s far he ain't killed you," Augustus said. "You're going to have to let us drag you farther away, Woodrow, so we can look at your wound." "Keep as low as you can," Call said. "I expect it's Blue Duck shooting." "Yes, that's why we are alive," Famous Shoes said. "Ermoke is a better shot. If he had let Ermoke shoot he would have killed us all." "I don't know Mr. Ermoke," Augustus said, "but if he's their marksman I'm glad he took the day off. He might have put a bullet in me, and I'm intolerant of bullets." "Pull me back," Call said. "We better look at this wound." Augustus and Pea Eye, keeping low, grabbed Call under the armpits and dragged him away, expecting at any moment to hear the boom of the great gun. But no shots came. Deets, looking scared, was waiting with the horse, well out of range of even a buffalo gun.

"You examine him, Deets--y're the best doc we got," Augustus said.

Call noticed that Augustus, always a cool man under fire, looked a little pale.

"What's the matter, are you hit too?" he asked.

"No, but I'm vomity," Augustus said.

"It's seeing these horses die. I've never been able to tolerate seeing horses die." Call felt the same way. For some reason injuries to horses affected him worse than injuries to men. Eating one of his own horses, if it was a case of necessity, didn't trouble him so long as he didn't have to see the animals suffer and die. It was a curious thing.

Augustus crawled off a little distance, to empty his stomach; while he was gone Call surrendered himself to Deets and waited for the black man to tell him he was dying--or, at the very least, crippled or lamed. He felt no pain, just a numbness, which he knew was common enough when a wound was fresh. The pain would come later, and in abundance, usually.

When Deets began to examine the Captain he had the darkest apprehensions. He expected to see a gaping wound, a splintered bone, or both; but he saw immediately, there was no blood on the captain's leg, or on his body anywhere. The horse that had just died bled profusely, but Captain Call wasn't bleeding at all, not that he could see.

"What's the matter?" Call asked, seeing Deets's look of puzzlement.

"You ain't got no blood on you," Deets said. "No blood, Captain." "I must have, somewhere," Call said. "I can't feel my leg." But when he looked again himself he saw that Deets was right. There was no blood on him anywhere. Pea Eye came over to help with the examination, and Augustus, once finished with his vomiting, came too. Deets, Call, and Pea Eye were all dead serious; they were puzzled and almost offended by their inability to spot the blood that would surely issue from such a large wound.

Call took his pants down, fearing that the wound must be higher on his body than he had supposed, but Augustus, after a careful look, smiled and pointed at Call's boot.

"Keep your pants on, Woodrow," he said.

"You ain't shot in the leg, you're just shot in the boot heel." Call looked again at his foot and saw that Augustus was right--the boot heel was entirely missing. He had not been hit at all, and yet the shock of the big bullet hitting his boot heel had thrown him in the air and left his leg as numb as if all its nerves had been removed.

"Well, I swear," he said. "See if you can find the boot heel, Deets. I'd like to tack it back on if I can. Otherwise I've got a long way to hobble." A diligent search failed to turn up even a trace of the boot heel.

"It's a waste of time looking," Augustus said. "That was a fifty-caliber bullet that hit that boot heel. You won't find it because it's been blown to smithereens." Call found it hard to adjust to the fact that he was unhurt. His mind had accepted the thought that he was wounded easier than it would accept the fact that he wasn't. Once the notion that he was crippled or dying left his mind it was succeeded by vexation at the thought that the man they had chased so far was undoubtedly getting away. For a moment he was tempted to take one of the surviving horses and go after him, but Augustus would not hear of that plan.

"We're in a bad enough fix as it is, Woodrow," he said. "It's a long way back to where we need to be, and most of it is dry travelling. We've only got one horse and one mule for four men--we'll have to walk a good part of the way and save the horses for when we have to have them. We may have to eat both animals before we get home. We need to think about saving ourselves now. Blue Duck can wait.

"Besides that, there's Quanah and his warriors out there somewhere," he added, pointing to the west, into the empty llano. "I don't know what their mood is and you don't neither. We may have to fight our way back, for all you know." Call knew he was right. They were a small force, stranded in a desert. They would be easy prey for any strong band of fighters, whether native or outlaw. They would have to stay together to have any chance. But the fact was, he still wanted to go after Blue Duck--he had a hard time mastering himself, and Augustus knew it.

"He's a damn killer--I hate to let him go," Call said.

"You're as bad as Inish Scull," Augustus commented. "He was so determined to catch Kicking Wolf that he walked off on foot." "Yes, I was with him," Famous Shoes said.

"He walked fast, that man. He did not stop until we were in the land of the Black Vaquero." "I wonder what became of the old Black Vaquero?" Augustus said. "There's been no news of him in years." "He went back to where Jaguar lives," Famous Shoes said.

Augustus saw that Woodrow Call was still not settled in in his mind about Blue Duck. He had never known a man so unwilling to leave a pursuit once he had begun one. It would not be unlike him to go after Blue Duck on foot, even with one boot heel shot off.

"He ain't gone forever, Woodrow," Augustus pointed out. "He'll just go back to the Red River and start raiding again. We can go get him in the fall." "If they let us," Call said. "They may disband us before the fall." "All the better if they do," Gus said. "Then we can just go get him for the fun of it--t way we won't have to keep track of the damn expenses." Famous Shoes was annoyed by the rangers' habit of debating meaningless things while the sun moved and time was lost. Whether they were to be rangers in the fall did not interest him. There was the llano to cross, and talking would not propel them across it.

"We had better go drink some of that water back at the spring," he said.

His ^ws reminded the rangers of what they faced. They had barely survived the trek out, when they had horses. Now they would have to cover the same distance walking--or, at best, riding double a few hours a day.

"That's right," Augustus said. "It's apt to be a long dry walk." "I aim to drink all I can hold," Pea Eye said, turning toward the dry lake. "All I can hold and then some. I sure hate to be dry in my mouth."

In the night Newt knew that his mother must have died because he couldn't hear her breathing anymore. The room felt different--it had become a room in which he was alone. But he didn't know what he was supposed to do, so he lay on his pallet doing nothing until the gray light came into the windows by the street. Then he carefully got up, dressed, and put a few things of his into a shoe box--his top, his ball, his book full of pictures of animals, and a deck of cards the rangers had let him keep. Then he put on his hat--Captain Gus had given it to him--looked just once at his mother, dead in her bed, and hurried down the stairs and over to Mrs. Coleman, who began to sob the minute she saw him--Mrs.

Coleman continued to cry all day. Newt was sad about the fact that Deets and Pea Eye and the other rangers were gone; he knew they would have wanted to say goodbye to his mother, but now they would have no chance. The grave was dug; that same afternoon they put his mother in it--there was a little singing and then they covered her up.

Mrs. Coleman gave him supper. There was a lot of food, but he wasn't very hungry. Mrs. Coleman had mainly got control of herself by then, though tears still dripped out of her eyes from time to time.

"Newt, I know you'll be wanting to stay with the rangers when they all get back," she told him after supper. "But would you like to just stay here for a night or two? There's nobody much in the bunkhouse." Newt shook his head. Though he didn't want to hurt Mrs. Coleman's feelings--he knew she had been his mother's best friend--he didn't want to stay with her, either.

"I better just bunk with the boys," he said, although he knew that the only ranger in the bunkhouse at the time was Ikey Ripple, who was far too old to be called a boy. But he wanted badly to stay in the bunkhouse, and Mrs.

Coleman didn't argue with him. It was dark by the time the meal was finished, so she went with him the few blocks to where the rangers stayed. Ikey was already asleep, and was snoring loudly.

"I hope you can sleep with that snoring, Newt," Mrs. Coleman said--then, suddenly, she hugged him tight for a moment and left the bunkhouse.

Newt put his shoe box under the bunk where he usually slept when he stayed with the rangers. Then he took his rope and went outside. He could hear Mrs. Coleman sobbing as she walked home, a thing which made him feel a little bad.

Mrs. Coleman had no one to live with--he supposed she was lonely. Probably he should have stayed with her a night or two. He climbed up on the fence, holding his rope, and watched the moon for a while. He could hear Ikey snoring, all the way out in the lots. In the morning he planned to go down to the graveyard and tell his mother the news, even though there wasn't much--j that he had decided to move into the bunkhouse right away, so he would be there to help water the horses and do the chores. That way he would be ready to help the boys, when they came home.

When Kicking Wolf heard that four rangers were walking across the llano with only one horse and a mule, he didn't know what to make of the news.

A lot of strange news had come lately, some of it distressing and some of it merely puzzling. He had not left the camp in two weeks because one of his legs had a bad cramp in it. Of course now and then a man's leg would cramp, but never in his life had he experienced so debilitating a cramp as the one which afflicted his right leg. Sometimes even when he was moving his bowels a cramp would seize him, playing havoc with even that simple operation.

Kicking Wolf thought it was his old wife, Broken Foot, who was sending the cramp into his leg. The fact was, Broken Foot had been angry with him for several months--he didn't know why. When he asked her she smiled and denied that she was angry, but Kicking Wolf didn't believe her denials. Even though he was aging, Kicking Wolf was still a good hunter; he owned more horses than anyone in the tribe and supplied Broken Foot with everything she needed. Their lodge was the warmest in the camp. Kicking Wolf knew, though, that having many reasons to be content didn't necessarily mean that a person .was content, particularly not if the person in question was a woman. Broken Foot, despite her denials, was angry with him--ei she had put a bad herb in his food, causing his leg to cramp, or else she had conspired with a medicine man and had had the medicine man work a bad spell.

Broken Foot was not much younger than he was, and had grown very fat in her old age. Kicking Wolf gave up trying to get her to stop being angry with him and concentrated on avoiding her. But it was hard to avoid a woman as large as Broken Foot in a tent at night, which was why, as the weather grew warmer, Kicking Wolf started spending more and more nights outside, by himself. It didn't stop the cramps but at least he didn't have Broken Foot there gloating while he tried to get the painful cramps to leave his leg.

It was during the period when Kicking Wolf was sleeping outside that the strange news began to arrive, most of it brought by Dancing Rabbit, a young warrior who had wanderlust badly and just plain lust as well. Dancing Rabbit was constantly visiting the various bands of Comanches, hoping to find a woman who would marry him, but he was poor and also rather ugly. So far no woman had agreed to be his wife.

It was Dancing Rabbit who dashed up to Kicking Wolf one morning while Kicking Wolf was sitting by a pile of white cattle bones, rubbing his leg to lessen the cramp. Dancing Rabbit was very upset with the news he had, which was that Blue Duck had followed Buffalo Hump to his death place and killed him with his own lance.

"Ah!" Kicking Wolf said. He had hoped that Buffalo Hump had been able to make a peaceful death. Certainly he had not led a peaceful life, but to die at the hands of his own son was not a thing Buffalo Hump would have expected to happen.

Kicking Wolf didn't immediately believe it, though. Dancing Rabbit wandered from camp to camp, collecting stories; then, often, he got them all mixed together before he could get back to his own camp and tell everyone the news.

"Blue Duck probably just said that--he was always a braggart," Kicking Wolf said.

"No, it's true--the Antelopes saw his body with the lance sticking through it," Dancing Rabbit insisted. "The lance went into his hump and then it went through his body into the ground." Several of the young men of the tribe had gathered, by this time, to hear Dancing Rabbit tell his tale about the death of the great chief Buffalo Hump, the only chief to lead a raid all the way to the Great Water. Only a few days before, the same young warriors had scorned Buffalo Hump.

To them, while he lived he was just a surly old man with an ugly hump and a violent temper, an old man who was weak, who could not hunt, who had to live by snaring small game. The presence of the young men irritated Kicking Wolf. They had never seen Buffalo Hump in his days as a raider, and had been rude to him many times once he was old and couldn't strike at them; but, now that he was dead, they could not get enough of hearing stories about him. They did not deserve to know about Buffalo Hump, in his view--and, anyway, he himself did not believe half of what Dancing Rabbit was saying.

"How do you know where the lance went in?" he asked, in a tone that was not friendly. "Were you there?" "No, but the Antelopes saw the body," Dancing Rabbit insisted. "The Texans saw it too. The Texans tried to pull the lance out but they couldn't remove it. Then Blue Duck shot two of their horses--t is why they are walking across the llano. They have little water. We can go and steal their horses if you want to." Kicking Wolf sat in silence for a long time after hearing this speech. Dancing Rabbit was claiming knowledge he didn't have; also, there were several issues that needed to be studied and assessed before he could make up his mind what to do.

Dancing Rabbit was annoyed that old Kicking Wolf kept silent, even though he had brought him exciting news. The Texans were not far, only thirty miles. They had walked a long way and were tired and low on water. They could easily be killed; or, if Kicking Wolf was not interested in killing them, they could at least steal the Texans' horse and mule. That would be a simple thing, for a master horse thief such as Kicking Wolf.

In fact, Dancing Rabbit was very anxious to go with Kicking Wolf and watch how he went about stealing horses. Dancing Rabbit, at the moment, possessed only two horses, and neither of them was a very good horse. The fact that he was poor and had no horses to offer was one thing that was making it difficult for him to find a wife. He wanted a wife badly, but knew that he would have to get some horses first, if he expected to purchase a wife who had much appeal. That is why he spent so much time with Kicking Wolf, the great horse thief. Dancing Rabbit hoped to get Kicking Wolf interested in stealing horses again; perhaps if they could manage to steal a good many horses Kicking Wolf would allow him to keep a few-- enough, at least, to allow him to trade for an acceptable wife. But now Kicking Wolf was sitting by some cattle bones in silence; he showed little interest in the story Dancing Rabbit had ridden all night to tell him.

Kicking Wolf was thinking that most of what Dancing Rabbit told him was probably a lie. For one thing, he claimed that his information came from the Antelope--but the Antelope were an aloof people, so contemptuous of other Indians, even other Comanches, that they routinely made up big lies in order to mislead them.

"If the Antelopes saw these Texans, why didn't they kill them?" Kicking Wolf asked. "You said there were only four Texans. The Antelopes are hard fighters. They could easily kill four Texans." One of the things Dancing Rabbit liked least about Kicking Wolf was that he was always skeptical.

He was never willing just to accept the information that was given him. Now Kicking Wolf was embarrassing him in front of several young warriors by doubting the information he had brought. Now the young warriors, including some of his best friends, were beginning to look skeptical too. Dancing Rabbit was vexed that an old man would put him in such a position.

"They didn't kill the Texans because they don't have very many bullets," he said--in fact he had no idea himself why the Antelope Comanche were letting the Texans get away.

"Gun In The Water was one of the Texans," he added. It was information he had just remembered, and it did cause Kicking Wolf to raise his head and look a little more interested.

"If Gun In The Water was there, Silver Hair McCrae is there too," Kicking Wolf said.

At mention of the two rangers Kicking Wolf lapsed into memory, but it was not the two rangers he was remembering--r, he was thinking of the young Mexican woman who had been Blue Duck's mother. His memory would not bring back her name, but it did bring back her beauty. He had tried hard to get Buffalo Hump to let him have the girl.

He had offered many horses, and fine horses too, but Buffalo Hump had ignored him, insulted him, kept the girl, and then let her run away and freeze in a blizzard, not long after she bore Blue Duck. If Buffalo Hump had only accepted his offer--it had been a handsome offer, too--the woman might be alive and he might not have to suffer the anger of his fat old wife, Broken Foot, every day and every night.

He wouldn't let me have that pretty Mexican girl and now the son she bore him has killed him, Kicking Wolf thought, but he said nothing of what he was remembering to Dancing Rabbit and the other young warriors. Already, several of the young men had concluded that Dancing Rabbit was only telling more lies--they had begun to wander off, making jokes about coupling with women. They were young men, they did not want to waste all day hearing an old man tell stories of the past.

"What is wrong with you?" Dancing Rabbit asked, unable to contain his annoyance with Kicking Wolf any longer. "Are you too old to steal horses from the Texans now?" "You are just a boy--g away and tell your lies to the women," Kicking Wolf said. "Right now I have to think about some things." He wanted Dancing Rabbit to calm down and stop pestering him, but, once he had given the matter some thought, he decided to go see if it really was Gun In The Water and McCrae who were crossing the llano. Many Texans came to the plains now, but those two hadn't, not in some years.

For all Kicking Wolf knew, they might suppose he was dead. They might think they were rid of the great horse thief Kicking Wolf. It would amuse him to show them that he was still alive, and that he had lost none of his skill where horse thievery was concerned. Also, it might be that if he got far enough away from Broken Foot, the cramps in his leg might subside.

After midday Kicking Wolf began to stir himself. He took several rawhide thongs he used when he was leading horses away. He had acquired a fine rifle in a trade the year before, an excellent Winchester, but, after some thought, he decided to leave the rifle. He only took his bow and a good supply of arrows.

Dancing Rabbit, who had been watching Kicking Wolf closely, saw him making preparations to leave camp and hurried over, eager for the trip to begin.

"Take your rifle--if you don't want to shoot it I will shoot it," Dancing Rabbit said.

Kicking Wolf ignored him. What weapons he took was none of Dancing Rabbit's business. Horses could smell rifles--having a greasy gun along only made them difficult to approach; but that was only one of the reasons that had made Kicking Wolf decide to leave the gun.

There were many bad Indians adrift on the plains in these days; comancheros, half-breeds, renegades, and exiles such as Blue Duck, men with no respect for anything. He was an older man--if he ran into some greedy renegades and they saw he had a fine rifle they might kill him for it. It was better to leave the gun at home, where he would be sure of having it the next time he went to hunt antelope.

Of course, Dancing Rabbit came with him when he left the camp. He was so excited by the prospect of stealing horses with Kicking Wolf that he didn't stop talking for many miles.

As Dancing Rabbit chattered on, Kicking Wolf rode west into the llano. It was not until the afternoon of the next day that he finally crossed the track of the Texans--they had been farther away than Dancing Rabbit supposed.

By then the young man was so thirsty that he had almost stopped chattering. Kicking Wolf had not gone deep into the llano for several years--he too had forgotten how very dry it was. The Texans still mainly farmed the watered lands--it was not necessary to get thirsty in order to steal their horses.

The good part of the venture they had set out on was that Kicking Wolf's leg did not cramp at all during the night. The next morning he moved his bowels easily, with no twinges from his leg.

He mounted his horse with grace. It was so good not to have a tight leg that he felt like kicking or jumping or taking part in a dance. The fact that his leg had immediately stopped cramping once he left Broken Foot convinced him that he had been right all along. His wife was mad at him and had probably fed him bad herbs.

In the dry country the trail of the four Texans was easy to spot. They were travelling slowly and there was something wrong with one of the men's boots. The boots had no heels. The other men left normal footprints. Dancing Rabbit knew nothing about tracking--he even failed to notice that one of the men had no heels on his boots.

Kicking Wolf had not really believed that the Texans would be so far into the llano with only one horse. He had expected to steal several horses and was irritated to find that that part of Dancing Rabbit's story was true. But the tracks were plain: there was only one horse with the Texans.

"They may have had to eat the other horse," Dancing Rabbit conjectured nervously. He saw that Kicking Wolf was irritated that there was only one animal for him to steal. Nonetheless they had come a long way and the old man decided to press on.

They caught up with the Texans sooner than Kicking Wolf had expected to. They had only ridden a little way south when they spotted the four men, dots on the llano far ahead.

Immediately Kicking Wolf made a long loop to the west--McCrae had sharp eyes, and so did Famous Shoes. He didn't want to alert the Texans to the fact that they were being followed. He intended to loop well in front of them and wait, in case he decided to steal their one horse. Walking men were sure to be tired--it would be an easy theft if the horse was one he wanted.

During the rest of the day, as the sun fell, Kicking Wolf and Dancing Rabbit made a half circle around the Texans, taking care as they rode to make use of gullies or little ridges to hide themselves so that not even the sharpest eye could detect their presence. Then they came back in front of the Texans to await their passage. Once they had hidden their own horses well, Kicking Wolf told Dancing Rabbit to stay with them, an order that upset the young warrior greatly.

"But I want to see what you do!" Dancing Rabbit protested. "I want to see how the great Kicking Wolf steals a horse." "You wait!" Kicking Wolf insisted. "I am not going to steal the horse while the sun is up. If I want the horse I will steal it tonight.

You can come with me then." He paused and looked at the sullen young warrior, a young man full of complaint. When he himself had been young he would never have dared protest an order given by an older man. Dancing Rabbit was pouting like a girl when Kicking Wolf left him with their horses.

Kicking Wolf was well ahead of the Texans.

He hid behind a low stand of yucca and waited.

Long before the Texans passed he saw to his disgust that it was not even a horse they had with them: it was only a brown mule. It was all a waste, his trip. The only use Comanches had for mules was to eat them. Some Comanches thought mule meat tasted better than horsemeat. He himself had mainly avoided stealing mules because they couldn't breed.

Why steal a horse that couldn't make colts?

He waited, though, crouched behind the yucca, as the Texans passed, about a half mile away.

Famous Shoes had gone ahead, hoping to find water, probably. Gun In The Water was with the Texans, and so was McCrae. Besides them there was a black man and a skinny man, both younger.

Gun In The Water limped a little--perh it was because he had no heels on his boots.

As he watched the weary men walking toward the big orb of the setting sun, Kicking Wolf suddenly had a sadness fill him. His breast felt so heavy with it that he began to envy Buffalo Hump, who was dead. He knew already that he didn't want to steal the Texans' brown mule, and that was not because he had any liking for Texans or pitied them their long walk. He knew the Texans would kill him, if they saw him, and he in turn would try to kill them if they made themselves easy targets. They had always been hated enemies and were hated enemies still--Kicking Wolf was grateful that he was prosperous enough and free, so that he could still hate Texans as a Comanche should. He was glad that he did not have to pretend to be friends with them to collect a mere pittance to live on.

Yet he felt sad, and, as the Texans stopped to camp, while dusk made the long plain indistinct--shadows here, last streaks of sunlight there--the sadness filled him until he felt he would burst. There, nearby, were Gun In The Water and Silver Hair McCrae, men he had fought most of his life and would gladly fight again if he could. He had stolen many, many horses from them, or from companies of rangers they rode with. Once he and Buffalo Hump had set a prairie fire that had nearly caught the two men and burned them and their company. There had been shots exchanged, arrows shot, lances thrown, and yet the two rangers were still alive; and so was he.

Kicking Wolf remembered, as he watched the black man hobble the brown mule, that once, only a few miles from where they were, he had stolen the Buffalo Horse, right from under Big Horse Scull's very nose. He had stolen him and taken him to Mexico, a venture that had cost Three Birds his life and led to his own derangement, his time of seeing two where there was one.

It had been a great thing, the stealing of the Buffalo Horse, a great horse whose fate had been to be eaten in Mexico by many small dark people. Some of the old men still sang about Big Horse Scull and the Buffalo Horse--he sang about it too, when there were great feasts and dancing, a thing that had not been common since the buffalo went to the north, where they would not have to smell the whites.

Remembering his great feat made Kicking Wolf want to sing--the urge to sing rose in him and mixed in his breast with the sadness that came in him because he realized that the time of good fighting was over. There would be a little more killing, probably; Quanah and the Antelopes might make a little more war, but only a little more. The time of good fighting was ended; what was left for the Comanches was to smile at the white men and pretend they didn't hate them.

Kicking Wolf did not want to smile at the white man. He wanted to die somewhere on the llano, alone, in a spirit place, as Buffalo Hump had tried to do. Not only that, he did not want to steal the puny brown mule, either. Why would a man who had once stolen the Buffalo Horse want to steal a skinny brown mule? It would be an insult to himself, to do such a thing.

So he waited until the moon rose and turned to go back to the gully and the horses, only to discover that Dancing Rabbit, the foolish boy, had disobeyed and followed him.

"What are you doing? I told you to watch the horses," Kicking Wolf said. "If those Texans were not so tired they would steal our horses." "I only came because I wanted to watch you steal the horse," Dancing Rabbit said. "I just want to see how you do it." "It is not even a horse!" Kicking Wolf said. He grew so angry that he almost forgot to whisper--but then he remembered the Texans and led the foolish boy farther away, to reprimand him.

"It is only a mule," he pointed out, once it was safe to talk. "It was near here that I stole the Buffalo Horse. I am not going to steal a mule.

"You steal it, if you want it so badly," he told the boy.

Dancing Rabbit knew he had not skill enough to steal the mule. Besides, he didn't want the mule--he merely wanted to watch as Kicking Wolf stole it.

"Just show me how you approach it," he pleaded.

"Just show me how, in case I see some Texans with a fine horse I could steal." "I stole the Buffalo Horse," Kicking Wolf said, several more times, but, in the end, he gave in and did what Dancing Rabbit wanted.

He sat with the young warrior most of the night, watching the moon arch over the still prairies. He saw Famous Shoes come back and lay down to rest. He watched as the Texans--exhausted, all of them--fell asleep. Even Gun In The Water, whose habit was to stand guard outside of camp, did not stand guard that night.

"When will you do it?" Dancing Rabbit asked him several times. "It will be light soon." He was worried that Kicking Wolf wouldn't do it; but then he looked again and Kicking Wolf was gone. The old man had been sitting quietly, a few feet away, but now he was gone.

Then, to his astonishment, he saw Kicking Wolf standing by the mule, stroking its neck. The black man who had tethered the mule was sleeping only a few yards away, but the mule was calm and so was Kicking Wolf. The old man stood by the mule for a few minutes, as if talking quietly to it, and then he disappeared again. He had been by the mule, but now he wasn't. Dancing Rabbit had no idea where the old man had gone. Hastily he made his way back to the gully where the horses were, only to find, when he reached it, that Kicking Wolf was there and had already mounted his horse.

"We had better go," Kicking Wolf said.

"The Kickapoo will see my track first thing in the morning. I don't think they will follow us, but I don't know. Gun In The Water might chase us on the mule." "I didn't see you move," Dancing Rabbit said, when they were riding together. "You were with me and then you were with the mule. I didn't see you move." Kicking Wolf smiled. It had been pleasant to do his old trick again, to walk without making a sound, to go up to a horse, or, in this case, a mule, to touch it and make it his while the owner slept nearby. It was a skill he had that no other Comanche had ever equalled. Though he had had to travel a long way across the llano in dry weather, it was good to know that he still had his old gift. It made up a little for Broken Foot and the cramps in his leg and the sadness of knowing that the old ways were gone.

"I don't move," he said, to the credulous young man who could still not quite believe what he had seen. "When the time is right I am just there, by the horse." "But I saw you--y were with me and then you were by the horse. I know you moved," Dancing Rabbit said.

"It isn't moving--it is something else," Kicking Wolf said.

Dancing Rabbit pestered him all the way home, wanting to know how Kicking Wolf did what he did when he approached a horse; but Kicking Wolf didn't tell him, because he couldn't. It was a way--his way--and that was all.

When Famous Shoes saw Kicking Wolf standing by the mule he thought at first that it was just another of his dreams. Since seeing the white owl come out of the earth he had had many dreams that were not good. In some of them Comanches were killing his children. In another Ahumado had him, and, in a third, a great flood came while he was on the llano. He tried to outrun the water but the flood swept over him and carried him down to where there was a great fish shaped like Jaguar.

Compared to those nightmares, seeing Kicking Wolf standing by the brown mule was not so bad. Then, waking, he thought he saw Kicking Wolf walking in the white moonlight--it might have been Kicking Wolf or it might have been his ghost.

In the morning, when he had almost forgotten his dream, Famous Shoes walked over to where the brown mule grazed and saw at once that no dream had occurred: Kicking Wolf had been there. On the ground, plain to see, was the footprint that he had seen so many times when he and Big Horse Scull had followed the Comanche horse thieves into Mexico. What he had seen in the moonlight was not a ghost but a man. Kicking Wolf had come for the mule and then left it.

Famous Shoes found it surprising that the old Comanche would follow them all the way into the llano after one mule, but it was not surprising that he had left the mule once he saw how skinny it was. Kicking Wolf was a man who had always been choosy about horseflesh. He only took the best horses, and Deets's brown mule could not even be said to be a horse.

When Famous Shoes went to the campfire and announced that Kicking Wolf had been there, all the Texans put down their coffee cups and ran over to look at the tracks, bringing their rifles with them, as if they feared attack. They all looked around anxiously, but, of course, the llano was empty in all directions. Captain Call was vexed, but he had been vexed the whole way back because of the trouble with his boot heels. His boots were now so nearly useless that when they were in grassy country he often walked barefoot. On the worst of the walk the rangers had had to drink their own piss, a thing that bothered Captain Call less than the fact that Blue Duck's first shot had ruined his only boots.

Fortunately they were only two days from the Brazos now and would not have to drink their own piss again. Far to the south, thunderclouds rumbled--the rain might soon fill the many little declivities that dotted the llano, turning them into temporary water holes.

"Well, I swear," Pea Eye said, looking at the tracks. "A man was here but he didn't take the mule." The sight of the footprints made him nervous, though. A Comanche had come close enough to kill, and no one had heard him. It was a scary thing, just as scary as it had been the first time he journeyed onto the plain.

"Didn't take it and I'm glad," Deets said, for he was very fond of his brown mule, the only animal, after all, to survive their trip --the other horses had either starved or been shot.

Augustus took his hat off and scratched his head, amused by what he saw--even though it was a dark joke. After the walk they had had, any joke seemed better than none, to him.

"Why, he turned up his nose at our mule, old Kicking Wolf," he said.

Call didn't find it amusing. He would have liked to chase the man--it seemed that half his life had been spent chasing Kicking Wolf--but he had only a tired mule to chase him on. The rain clouds hovering to the south had been dancing away from them for a week; the Brazos River, still a full two days to the south, might have to be their salvation, as it had been for many travellers.

Once again he had to carry with him, on a long trip home, a sense of incompletion. They had travelled a long way, hung ten bandits, but missed their leader, Blue Duck, murderer of his own father, and many others besides.

Augustus, though, would not be denied his amusement.

"How's this for a scandal, Woodrow?" he said.

"We didn't get our man, and now we've sunk so low that a Comanche won't even steal our mule. I guess that means the fun's over." "It may be over but it wasn't fun," Call said, looking at the long dry distance that still waited to be crossed.

The End