Comanche Moon (41 page)

He said as much, but Buffalo Hump merely stood and looked at him, a chill in his eye.

"We didn't hurt the Kickapoo," Blue Duck said. "We merely teased him a little. I thought Slow Tree might want him but he didn't so we let him go." Buffalo Hump didn't change expression.

He was not interested in arguments or explanations.

He had his big lance in his hand.

"Slow Tree heard me tell you to leave the Kickapoo alone," Buffalo Hump said.

"He did not want to assist you in your disobedience.

Now I am telling you to go. You have never been obedient and I have no time to argue with you or to correct your ways. If you stay I will kill you soon, because of what is in you that will not obey. You have courage but you are rude. Take the five horses and go away now. Any warrior who sees you near this camp after today has a duty to kill you." Blue Duck had not expected such a terrible judgment to fall on him so quickly. Yet it had fallen. Though he didn't really like many people in their band, it was the camp where he had always lived. He had always been where the tribe was; his roaming had seldom lasted more than a week. When he could not kill game there would be food in the camp. He felt a terrible anger at the Kickapoo, for having brought such a judgment on him. The next time he saw Famous Shoes he would kill him, and he would also like to kill Slow Tree, the fat chief who had been unwilling to torture Famous Shoes merely because Buffalo Hump had forbidden it.

But he could not think much about such things, not then, when his father still stood before him. He had his rifle in his hand; perhaps he should shoot his father right there. But he didn't shoot, or do anything at all. As always, when confronting his father, he felt a weakness in his legs and his belly. The weakness paralyzed him. He knew that if he tried to raise his gun and shoot, Buffalo Hump would be quicker. His father would shove the big lance into him. Blue Duck thought of murder but did nothing.

Buffalo Hump watched his son for a minute and then turned away. A little later he saw the boy ride out to the horse herd, to select his five horses. He looked dejected, but Buffalo Hump did not relent. He had returned home tired, only to have to listen half the night to stories of Blue Duck's bad behaviour.

The boy had beaten Hair On The Lip severely, though he had no right to. Hair On The Lip was still sore and could not move well.

Also, Blue Duck had followed Lark when she went into the bushes to make water, and had spoken to her rudely. Also he had raced a fine young horse that belonged to Last Horse's father. In the race he put the horse off a cutbank and it broke both its front legs. Of course it had to be killed and eaten; the old man was indignant and wanted a high price for the horse that had been lost.

Buffalo Hump had never been able to like his son and now he wanted to see him gone. He had never been obedient to the Comanche way, and never would. The bluecoat soldiers would be coming onto the llano to fight them soon, in a year or two; Buffalo Hump didn't want anyone in the camp who was only disposed to make trouble, as Blue Duck had.

Soon ^w of the banishment spread around the camp. Buffalo Hump was with Lark for a long time; when he came out he discovered that the men and women who came to visit him were more cheerful. All of them approved of what he had done. A few brought him new stories of Blue Duck's bad behaviour, mostly with women. Buffalo Hump was not especially disturbed by these stories. Many young warriors strutted too much with women and were not careful about marriage customs--he himself had almost been banished in his youth because of his lusts.

Later that day Fat Knee came hesitantly up to Buffalo Hump--it seemed that Blue Duck wanted Fat Knee to accompany him into exile. Blue Duck planned to go north and east, into a territory where renegades and exiles from many tribes gathered.

There were slavers there, and bandits. They watched the Arkansas River and picked off people who travelled in boats, or freighters who hauled goods in wagons. Blue Duck told Fat Knee they would soon be rich if they joined the renegades, but Fat Knee was hesitant.

"Isn't he gone yet?" Buffalo Hump asked.

"No," Fat Knee said. "He is still looking at the horses. He wants to take the best five." A wind had come up. Sand was blowing through the camp. It had been warm for several days but a cold wind was bringing the sand.

"You stay in camp," Buffalo Hump said.

"I will go drive him away." He found the whole business vexing. The fact that Blue Duck was still prowling around the horse herd was annoying, so annoying that Buffalo Hump caught his own horse, took his lance, and immediately rode out to the horse herd. Blue Duck's delay was merely one more example of his disobedience. Buffalo Hump thought it might be wiser just to kill the boy--talking to him that morning, his arm had tensed twice, as it did when he was ready to throw his lance. But he had held off-- exile should be enough--but now the boy had angered him by not leaving.

When he reached the horse herd the only person who was there was Last Horse--one of his mares had just foaled and he was watching for a bit, to see that no coyote slipped in and killed the foal.

"I thought Blue Duck was here," Buffalo Hump said.

Last Horse merely pointed upward to the rim of the canyon. A rider with five horses in front of him had climbed out of the canyon and was following the horses along the rim.

Buffalo Hump could barely see the rider through the blowing sand, but he knew it was Blue Duck, leaving.

"Whoa, now ... stop, boys!" Augustus said.

Far down the river, in the shallows, he saw something he didn't like; something blue. The creature was a good distance away, but it was rolling in the shallow water; Gus judged it to be an aquatic beast of some sort. Few land animals worried him, but he had long been afflicted with an unreasoning fear of aquatic beasts--and now one had appeared in the muddy Rio Grande, where, up to then, they had seen nothing more threatening than the occasional snapping turtle.

The rangers immediately stopped and yanked out their rifles. Thanks to the hostility, as well as the volatility, of the south Texas cattle, they had become well accustomed to yanking out their rifles several times a day. Gus McCrae was known to have exceptional eyesight; if he saw something worth calling a halt for, then it was best to look to their weapons.

"What is it?" Call asked. All he saw ahead of them was the brown Rio Grande. An old Mexican with three goats whom they came upon half an hour earlier assured them that they were nearly to the town of Lonesome Dove--Call was anxious to hurry on, in hopes that Captain King would be there. But Augustus apparently saw something that made him nervous, something Call could not yet see.

"It's blue and it's in the edge of the water, Woodrow," Gus said. "I expect it might be a shark." "Oh Lord, a shark," Stove Jones said, wishing suddenly that he had never left the cozy cantinas of Austin.

"It was a shark that swallowed Jonah, wasn't it?" Lee Hitch inquired.

"Shut up, you fool--t was a whale, and this river's too small for a whale to be in." Augustus kept his eyes on the blue object thrashing in the shallow water. It was an aquatic beast of some kind, that was for sure--now and then he thought he glimpsed the limb of a body; it might be that the shark was eating somebody, right before their eyes, or before .his eyes at least. None of the other rangers could see anything, other than the river, but they had grown accustomed to accepting Gus's judgment when it came to the analysis of distant events.

"If it's a shark, why are we stopped?" Call said. "It's in the water and we ain't.

Sharks don't walk on land, that I recall." "It might jump, though," Augustus said.

"If it jumped out of the water then it would die," Call pointed out. "Let's go." Call was about to ride past him when they suddenly heard brush popping from the Mexican bank of the river. In a moment two men and a bull emerged from the brush and plunged into the river. In a minute the bull, a large brown animal wearing a bell that clanged with every step, came out of the river and trotted straight into a thicket of brush, popping their limbs liberally as he went.

One of the riders was an American, a short man riding a fine bay gelding; the other was an old vaquero on a buckskin mare.

The short man pulled up in surprise when he saw the rangers but the old vaquero went right on into the brush, behind the bull. The rangers, who had been stopped by the brush a number of times in the last week, were as amazed by the vaquero's ability to penetrate the thicket as they were by the size of the bull that had just swum out of Mexico.

The American had bushy sideburns and a short, stiff beard. He surveyed the rangers carefully if quickly before he trotted up to where they were stopped.

"You're Call and McCrae, aren't you? And these are your wild ranger boys, I expect," the man said. "I'm Captain King. So you want a thousand cattle, do you?" Though Call had already suspected the short man's identity--several of the ranchers had described him, mentioning that he was partial to fine horses--he was surprised that Captain King not only knew who they were but what they wanted of him.

"Yes, but not as a gift," Call said. "The state will pay you for them." "I doubt that, but let's see the letter," Captain King said.

He observed that Gus McCrae seemed to be considerably less interested in the matter of the thousand cattle than was Captain Call. Gus McCrae was looking downriver, in the direction of Lonesome Dove.

Call produced the letter, which he had wrapped in oilcloth--two or three violent rainstorms had doused them lately. Inasmuch as the letter was their only hope of getting the cattle they needed, he wanted to make sure it didn't get wet.

"That was my bull Solomon you just saw--y'll not see his equal in America," Captain King said, taking the letter from Call. "He strayed off last night--tempted by a Mexican heifer, I suppose." He started to read the letter but then looked again at Gus.

"McCrae, you seem jumpy as a tick," he said. "What do you see that's upset you so?" "It's down the river and it's blue, Captain," Gus said. "I expect it's a shark." Captain King glanced at what Gus pointed at and immediately burst out laughing--j as he did a gust of wind took the Governor's letter out of his hand and blew it into the river. Before anyone could move it sank.

Call jumped off his horse and ran into the river--he was not a little vexed at Captain King, who sat astride his horse enjoying a fit of laughing. Call was able to pull the letter from the water, but not before it had become a sodden mess.

Call felt like giving Captain King a good dressing down, for being so careless with an important document, but it was hard to dress down a man who was laughing; and, anyway, Captain King was the one man who might help them succeed in their mission.

"I wish you'd read it before you let it blow in the river," Call said. He spread the letter on a good-sized rock; thinking it might dry if given time.

"I beg your pardon, Captain," Captain King said, attempting to control his amusement. "I don't usually throw letters into the river, particularly not if they're letters from a high potentate like Ed Pease. But I must say this is the best laugh yet. Captain McCrae here has mistook our blue sow for a shark." "Sow ... what sow?" Gus asked, annoyed by the man's jocular tone.

"Why, that sow," Captain King said, with a wave of his hand. "She probably caught a snake--a moccasin, perhaps. There's not much to Lonesome Dove but at least it's mainly clean of snakes. The sow eats them all--she's thorough, when it comes to snakes." "But Captain," Gus said, appalled by his mistake. "Whoever heard of a blue pig? I ain't." Captain King evidently didn't welcome challenges to his point of view--he looked at Augustus sharply.

"That's a French pig, sir," he said.

"She's silvery in the main, though I suppose she does look bluish in certain lights. She comes from the region of the Dordogne, I believe. In France they use pigs to root up truffles, but you'll find very few damn truffles in this part of the world--s mainly she roots up snakes. Madame Wanz brought her over, and a fine boar too. I expect the boar is off girling, like my bull Solomon. When you get a closer look you'll find she's unusually long legged, that sow. She ain't low slung, like these runty little Texas pigs. The long legs are for climbing hills, to seek out the truffles, which don't flourish in low altitudes." Call was listening carefully, impressed by Captain King's quick manner. Gus had had the rangers half spooked, with his talk of sharks, when it was only a pig in the water, downriver.

He didn't know what a truffle was, or why one would need to be rooted up.

"What is a truffle, Captain?" he asked, putting up the rifle he had pulled during the alarm.

"Truffles are edible delicacies, Captain," Richard King said. "I have not had the pleasure of digesting one myself, but Th@er@ese Wanz swears by them, and she's as French as they come." "If she's French, why is she here? This ain't France," Gus said. He was a good deal embarrassed by the matter of the shark that was only a sow; he felt sure he would be ribbed about it endlessly by the other rangers, once they got to town --if there really was a town.

"She should have stayed in France, and her pig too!" he said, in a burst of annoyance.

"They've got no call to be disturbing the local stock!" Captain King had been about to turn his fine bay horse and ride down the river, but he paused and looked at Gus sharply again.

"As to that, sir, you've got no call to be coming down here asking me for cattle when I'm hellish busy selecting worthy wives for my bull Solomon," Captain King said. "When was the last time you had a drink of whiskey, Captain?" "More than a week's passed--I last touched liquor before we struck this dern brush," Gus said.

"No wonder you're surly, then," Captain King said. He pulled a flask out of his saddlebag and offered it to Gus. Gus was startled --he politely wiped the top of the flask on his sleeve before taking a good swig and handing the flask back to Captain King. Lee Hitch and Stove Jones looked on enviously.

"Thank you, Captain," Augustus said.