the others turned in I was tied down for sleep as I’d been since my brother died—my arms and legs roped to separate stakes in the ground. Toshaway put his buffalo robe over me. The stars were too bright to sleep, the Dipper, Pegasus, the serpent and dragon, Hercules; I watched them turn while meteors left smoking trails that stretched across the canyon.
A few of the Indians had their way with the Germans. This time I tried not to listen.
T HE NEXT MORNING the spoils of the raid—weapons, tools, equipment, horses, anything valuable including the German girls and me—were set out and divided. The older girl went with Urwat’s group; the younger girl and I with Toshaway’s. The younger girl was crying as Urwat’s group rode away with her cousin, and there was a patch of long dark hair, my mother’s, tied to the saddle of a horse in Urwat’s band. N uu karu came over and slapped me. I knew he was doing me a favor.
After climbing back onto the Llano we didn’t see water all day. A few hours before sundown we camped at a small playa lake sunk beneath the level of the grass. It was invisible from more than a hundred yards distance and how the Indians had navigated to it, I had no idea, as the plain was so flat and empty you could see the curve of the earth.
Toshaway and N uu karu led the blond girl and me to the far end of the lake and after we washed ourselves we lay on our bellies while they lanced all the boils and blisters from riding and cleaned our other wounds as well. Our legs and backsides were rinsed with a bark tea and covered with a poultice made from pear pad innards and coneflower root. Despite the sunburn and saddle sores on her legs and rear end, now that she was cleaned up, the German girl was quite beautiful. I looked at her and hoped we might connubiate but she ignored me. I guessed she’d been a haughty one like my sister. Then I couldn’t look at her.
Mostly they treated her like an expensive horse, taking care with her feed and water but hitting or throwing sticks if she did anything that got their ire up. I was given plenty of lather myself but never without an explanation; Toshaway and N uu karu spoke to me constantly, pointing things out, and I was picking up the language already: paa, water; t u h u ya, horse; tehcaró, eat. Tunets u ka —keep going.
A few days later we came to a big river that I guessed was the Canadian. The country improved. By then, neither I nor the girl were tied up at all. We’d been riding at an easy pace, eating and drinking and nursing our wounds, and even the horses were putting on flesh.
Two buffalo calves were killed and for a change the liver was put on the coals along with all the heavy bones, the warm marrow spread on the liver like butter. Toshaway kept passing me more meat and there was more curdled calves’ milk, which got sweeter each time I tried it.
The next morning I woke up thinking about my father and how even with a group of willing men he never would have been able to catch us. Even a young Indian like N uu karu would have lost them. The Comanches left conflicting trails at every patch of soft ground, changed direction at every stretch of rock or hardpan, took note of the natural line of travel across a landscape and rode a different way. A detour that cost them a few minutes would confuse a pursuer for hours. I had never felt so alone in my life.
I got up to find the Indians. I could hear voices at the river and found all the warriors bathing themselves, scrubbing off the dirt and old war paint. Some were sitting naked in the sun, looking into tiny hand mirrors or small pieces of cracked glass, and, with steel tweezers they must have gotten from the whites, they were plucking all the hair from their faces. When that was done they took small pouches of vermilion and other dyes from their possibles, which they ground with spit to form a paste, then put on their paint, color by color. Each man parted his hair down the middle and rewove
A few of the Indians had their way with the Germans. This time I tried not to listen.
T HE NEXT MORNING the spoils of the raid—weapons, tools, equipment, horses, anything valuable including the German girls and me—were set out and divided. The older girl went with Urwat’s group; the younger girl and I with Toshaway’s. The younger girl was crying as Urwat’s group rode away with her cousin, and there was a patch of long dark hair, my mother’s, tied to the saddle of a horse in Urwat’s band. N uu karu came over and slapped me. I knew he was doing me a favor.
After climbing back onto the Llano we didn’t see water all day. A few hours before sundown we camped at a small playa lake sunk beneath the level of the grass. It was invisible from more than a hundred yards distance and how the Indians had navigated to it, I had no idea, as the plain was so flat and empty you could see the curve of the earth.
Toshaway and N uu karu led the blond girl and me to the far end of the lake and after we washed ourselves we lay on our bellies while they lanced all the boils and blisters from riding and cleaned our other wounds as well. Our legs and backsides were rinsed with a bark tea and covered with a poultice made from pear pad innards and coneflower root. Despite the sunburn and saddle sores on her legs and rear end, now that she was cleaned up, the German girl was quite beautiful. I looked at her and hoped we might connubiate but she ignored me. I guessed she’d been a haughty one like my sister. Then I couldn’t look at her.
Mostly they treated her like an expensive horse, taking care with her feed and water but hitting or throwing sticks if she did anything that got their ire up. I was given plenty of lather myself but never without an explanation; Toshaway and N uu karu spoke to me constantly, pointing things out, and I was picking up the language already: paa, water; t u h u ya, horse; tehcaró, eat. Tunets u ka —keep going.
A few days later we came to a big river that I guessed was the Canadian. The country improved. By then, neither I nor the girl were tied up at all. We’d been riding at an easy pace, eating and drinking and nursing our wounds, and even the horses were putting on flesh.
Two buffalo calves were killed and for a change the liver was put on the coals along with all the heavy bones, the warm marrow spread on the liver like butter. Toshaway kept passing me more meat and there was more curdled calves’ milk, which got sweeter each time I tried it.
The next morning I woke up thinking about my father and how even with a group of willing men he never would have been able to catch us. Even a young Indian like N uu karu would have lost them. The Comanches left conflicting trails at every patch of soft ground, changed direction at every stretch of rock or hardpan, took note of the natural line of travel across a landscape and rode a different way. A detour that cost them a few minutes would confuse a pursuer for hours. I had never felt so alone in my life.
I got up to find the Indians. I could hear voices at the river and found all the warriors bathing themselves, scrubbing off the dirt and old war paint. Some were sitting naked in the sun, looking into tiny hand mirrors or small pieces of cracked glass, and, with steel tweezers they must have gotten from the whites, they were plucking all the hair from their faces. When that was done they took small pouches of vermilion and other dyes from their possibles, which they ground with spit to form a paste, then put on their paint, color by color. Each man parted his hair down the middle and rewove
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