Come Sundown (37 page)

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Authors: Mike Blakely

BOOK: Come Sundown
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The days that followed brought all manner of problems to
bear upon Kills Something. First, there were several disputes concerning who had killed which buffalo. Though the arrow markings should have prevented this, some buffalo survived a first arrow, only to be killed by a second arrow shot by a different hunter, and this almost always led to each hunter claiming the kill. Witnesses had to be called to testify, and Kills Something had to decide the conflicts as quickly and fairly as he could, calling upon the wisdom of elders to help in making his decisions.
One hunter had made four clean kills, then shot a fifth animal that had already been wounded by a younger warrior who had only managed to shoot the one beast. When Kills Something heard this case, he became furious at the more successful hunter, saying, “Would you let a brother go hungry while you already have four buffalos killed? You must not believe strongly in your medicine if you must hoard meat that way! The shot this young man made would have killed the buffalo, and you had no reason to add your arrow to his! If you have any faith in your spirit-powers, you will hold a great giveaway feast and prove it! Now, go!”
In addition to the disputes, there were a few cases involving impatient hunters who had sneaked past the Watchers and started killing before the signals had been given. Again, witnesses had to be consulted, and alibis corroborated. A couple of the accused Kiowa hunters were found guilty, and the Horse Headdresses indeed took all their weapons and horses from them, and destroyed the meat and hides they had bagged. One of these young hunters from Little Bluff's band was held down to have buffalo
kwitapu
rubbed over him as well as his kill, as Little Bluff had warned.
Then there was the problem of water. The small creek along which we camped soon became fouled by people, animals, and the business of butchering. Kills Something ordered the camp to move west to the stream called Running Water where it issued from the canyons of the Caprock Escarpment. The little river was known to have plenty of clear water. The march was to be made in haste, so meat would not spoil. There were nearer rivers to the north, but the elders
knew their waters would have been muddied by the stampeding of the great herd.
So it was that on the Running Water, Westerly tanned the sacred hide while I was made to tell the story again and again of how I had made the kill. Great quantities of meat were consumed, sun-dried, smoked, even salted by those who had traded for salt. The pecans gathered on the San Saba were added to dried meat, pounded thin, encased in cleansed intestines, and flavored with wild fruits. There was wood and grass on the Running Water in quantities sufficient to last through the process of preserving all the meat taken in the hunt. When that wood and grass gave out, Kills Something ordered the move to the Crossing on the Canadian River, our favorite winter campground, there in the shadows of old Fort Adobe. Satank and his people went elsewhere, but Little Bluff's people followed Kills Something to Adobe Walls. There we camped in peace into the winter, living the good life for a while.
It was simply understood now that Kills Something was our war chief, while the venerable old warrior Shaved Head nursed his broken leg and graciously accepted his new role as peace chief. And I, an adopted Comanche, white by blood, had become a hero to Kills Something's band. I can say without boasting that in the entire band, only three men were more respected than me. They were Kills Something, Shaved Head, and Burnt Belly—the war chief, the peace chief, and the medicine man. I was the trader, the apprentice conjurer, the translator, and the slayer of the fabled white buffalo, whose robe would surely protect us all from destruction. Life was good that winter, and I did my best to enjoy it and pretend that it would last.
Yet, my heart knew better. Wandering Indians and Comanchero traders from New Mexico brought disturbing news from the world outside of Comancheria. Trouble continued in the East with the war raging, Yankees and Rebels both trying to sway the Indians to their bloody causes. Trouble raged in the West, where Colonel Kit Carson's forces had invaded the very heart of Navaho country, striking where no soldiers had ever
ridden before. I knew the hoops of time would roll and whir and come crashing to earth again, and I feared they would in time come violently trundling down the Canadian River Valley to my very home.
M
ethodically, with the meticulous care of an apothecary, I spread the circle of doeskin before me across the blanket upon which I sat cross-legged. Upon this doeskin I placed a bundle of cranesbill geraniums that Burnt Belly had uprooted and washed several moons before. The aroma of smoke filled the lodge, for the old healer had just lifted a red-hot stone from the fire with a chokecherry fork and placed a few dried fir needles upon it. As my mentor had instructed, I dissected the stalky little flower, making separate piles for roots, stems, and leaves.
Burnt Belly was chanting under his breath, producing a low hum that was not unpleasant to listen to. Suddenly, his chant ended, and he reached for the small jug of trade whiskey I had brought to him. He pulled the stopper and tipped the mouth of the jug up to his lips. I did not see him swallow, but he held the whiskey in his mouth until he replaced the stopper and put the jug aside. Then, he leaned forward and spat the whiskey out on the fire, making it flare and sizzle. He laughed a raspy old chuckle, obviously pleased with the way the whiskey fueled the flame.
“That is good.” He went back to his work with some other herb he was preparing for his practice. “That cranesbill is very useful,” he said, gesturing to the plant I held in my hand. “Every warrior should carry the powdered root on raids. It stops bleeding. So, you will grind that root in the stone bowl when you get it all taken apart.”
“What about the other parts of the plant?” I asked. “How should I prepare them?”
“Let the leaves remain whole. They can be eaten to stop
bleeding inside or to stop loose bowels. Or they can be made into a hot poultice for rashes or other skin problems. They can be boiled to a potion that will wash out evil of the mouth, or the eyes. My sits-beside wife puts a bit of the leaf in my parfleche bags to keep meat fresh.”
“Where are your wives today?” I asked, looking around the lodge. It was one of the most spacious tipis in the camp and it seemed especially large when the women were absent.
“They have gone to the lodge for unclean women.”
“All four of them?”
“
Tsah.
Women are very strange creatures. You know, of course, that they have an unclean time of bleeding with every moon, and they must go to the lodge for unclean women until that time is over.”
“Yes, so their unclean time does not spoil the good things the spirits have given us.”
“True. But I would make a wager that you did not know this: when women live in a lodge together—even if they all have the unclean time at different phases of the moon when they start the living together—after a few moons, they will all begin to have the unclean time
at the same time
! They claim that they do not have any control over this, but I am not so sure.”
I smiled. “Do you think they intend to do it?”
“I suspect that this is so. This way, all four of my wives get to go away to the lodge for unclean women together and leave me here to take care of myself.”
“But how can they make the unclean time change?”
“They are all
witches,
” he said, glaring at me. Then he burst into laughter and shook his head. “Perhaps not. But I do know that while they should be chanting and praying to cleanse themselves out there in that lodge, they are instead making jokes and telling stories and laughing. I have heard them from far away, cackling like a bunch of grackles. I can hear things from farther away than anyone else because of the Thunderbird power.”
I reached for the stone metate and the pestle that went with it—things I had brought to Burnt Belly from New Mexico. I began grinding the roots of the cranesbill geraniums into a
powder. “Does the power of the Thunderbird also show you how to make your voice sound as if it is coming from a place other than your mouth?”
Burnt Belly glanced up at me briefly, as if to warn me. “I learned that from the thunder.”
“How?”
“What do you hear when you listen to thunder?”
I shrugged. “A rumble. Sometimes a loud blast.”
“You are not really listening. There are voices in the thunder. Perhaps a person must be struck by lightning to hear the voices. I would not recommend that you try that.”
“What do the voices say?”
“Many things. But your question was about the way my voice speaks where I want it to. The voices in the thunder taught me this. You can learn it, too.”
I looked up from my herbalist's chores. “How?”
“A noise is not just a noise. A sound is like a person with a false heart. It behaves one way in one place, and another way in different surroundings. I can cast my voice off a stone bluff, but not off the moist dirt at my feet. The stone bluff listens and repeats what it has heard immediately, like a gossiping woman. Mother Earth is wiser. She just listens. Hard things make sounds echo. If they are far away the echo comes after my voice. If they are close, there is still an echo, but it comes almost at the same time as my voice. So, listen to the objects around you. Touch them. If they are solid and slick, they will throw your voice for you. It takes practice and much thought, but you can learn it. Like most magic, there is really no secret to it at all”
“I will practice it.”
“Do not dwell on it. It is just a trick.”
I worked with the mortar and pestle until I felt a pang of hunger. “We should go to my lodge so my wife can cook some fresh meat for us,” I suggested. “I killed a fat squirrel yesterday, and a rabbit the day before. She will make a stew for us.”
“Good,” he replied. “Your wife is a good wife. I think she is afraid of me.”
“Only a little. She likes you, grandfather.”
“I like her, too. She is Cheyenne, and that is good. The
Cheyennes are good people, and their women are pretty. When I was a boy, we were at war with the Cheyennes. It is better now that we are allies. Come, we will see how a Cheyenne woman makes stew.”
Burnt Belly dropped his herbs, rose, and drew his favorite buffalo robe around his shoulders for the short walk to my lodge. When we got there, he held me back and pointed to the smoke hole of my tipi. “Those lodge poles are hard and polished. They will cast your words down into the lodge if you will your voice to go there.”
I tried to somehow focus my voice in one direction, saying, “Your husband is home with Grandfather Burnt Belly.”
No one responded.
“Westerly!” I said, louder. “I am home.” There was no answer. “She is not here.”
We stepped inside and found the fire burned down to a few coals. I saw a sheet of paper at my feet and picked it up to read Westerly's handwriting on it. I had to laugh.
“What does it say?” the shaman asked.
“It says, ‘Husband … I have gone to the lodge for unclean women.'”
Burnt Belly grinned and said, “Witches! Now we must do our own cooking.”
He took the note from me and looked at it as I threw some small sticks on the coals. He smelled it, and held it to his ear for some time.
“I hear voices in thunder,” he said. “But you … You hear voices from a thing that makes no noise at all.” He shook the missive at me. “
This
is magic.”
 
 
AFTER A TIME, Peta Nocona's village came to camp near Adobe Walls, bringing young Quanah. They located some distance down the river so as not to crowd our horse herd with their own, for grass was growing scarce. I rode to their village one day and found Peta Nocona himself making arrow points from a barrel hoop with a file. I noticed an open gash on his upper arm. An arrow wound, he said, received in a fight with some Utes in the mountains.
“You should go see Burnt Belly about that,” I suggested.
“I make my own medicine,” he said. Peta—once a powerful force among the Nokoni Comanches—had grown sullen since his wife, Nadua, had been recaptured by whites at the battle of Pease River and forced to adopt her old identity of Cynthia Ann Parker. He never again attacked a Texas settlement, and seemed to have lost his interest in leading his people. He had not taken a wife to replace Nadua.
I left Peta and sought out Quanah. As soon as he saw me, he said, “I have heard a story that you killed a white buffalo, uncle.” He used the term of respect when he addressed me now, though I was not really his uncle.
“It is true.”
He smiled, his eyes glinting with anticipation. “You must tell me.”
So I repeated, once again, the tale of my famous hunt to my young friend who called me “uncle.” Life was good that winter. Very good for a while. But very good things, like very bad things, never last very long.

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