He had asked to go along as one of the seven young scouts who accompanied the old Shahiyena chief White Wolf—those seven to find the exact location of the meadow where stood the white hunters’ earth lodges. The gray-eyed Kwahadi chief had agreed, but held back the young brother. Antelope had been angry enough to spit bees, but was told that soon enough he too would see the hide men’s settlement, and close up. Very soon they would all get to see the looks on the buffalo hunters’ faces as these warriors rode among them, smashing clubs into their faces, pummeling their heads to crimson jelly.
With the graying of the sky at dawn, they would make that meadow reek with blood.
The scouts located the four earth lodges. Some ponies and the white man’s slow and lumbering spotted buffalo used to pull his high-walled wagons.
“How many
The leader of the scouting party held up five fingers, then struck his other arm six times.
“Three-times-ten. And they will all be asleep. With their bullets useless and their guns like limp manhood unable to answer our challenge!” the chief had roared. Then he laughed loud, the hundreds laughing with him.
It was not the first time Tall One and Antelope had made their toilet together, helping one another paint themselves for battle, stringing an owl or turkey feather in their hair, hopeful that the coming battle would earn Antelope his first eagle coup. Every man—Comanche, Kiowa, and Shahiyena—prepared himself for this great victory, smearing on his bullet-proof medicine before a fragment of a mirror stolen from a settler’s soddy. Black braids were loosened, then retied with trade cloth or animal skins. Gleaming conchos traded off the comancheros were again polished and woven into scalp locks, lashed to clothing. A nervous tension ran through that camp waiting for the order to move downstream toward the meadow. War ponies were given attention: a sprinkling of puffball dust was rubbed on an animal’s muzzle, or red mud from the creekbank was smeared around a pony’s nostrils to give it extra wind for the coming fight, bear grease streaked up and down each of the four long legs to give the pony speed for what would be required of it in the coming hours.
It was then that the war chief instructed them all to put their saddles and extra baggage in the trees. The branches hung heavy with all that they would not carry into battle. Up there, it was explained to Tall One, badgers and skunks and other scavengers could not drag off their belongings before the warriors returned, victorious in battle.
For but a moment Tall One and Antelope caught a glimpse of Isatai, always escorted by those who wished to be seen in the company of the powerful young shaman as he strutted through camp on foot, leading his pony. He did so completely naked except for a special pair of yellow-painted moccasins, his skin carefully covered with yellow earth-paint. His pony had been smeared a dull yellow as well. In his hair the medicine man stuffed sprigs of gray sage.
“I need nothing—no clothing to stop the white man’s bullets!” he harangued them. “My medicine will turn the bullets to water!”
When darkness came to court the short summer night, the gray-eyed war chief gave the order for the warriors to move out without mounting their ponies. They walked for a long time until reaching the edge of the valley where stood the white man’s earth lodges. Here they were told to sleep with the reins in their hands until it was time to attack.
Tall One did not sleep. How could he—come this greatest of all his days as a Kwahadi warrior! How could any man sleep?
When the command came to mount the attack, the tall war chief rode his gray horse before the hundreds, reminding these hot-blooded young men they must remain in a solid, unbroken line until he gave his order to charge.
“We walk slow at first,” he told them. “When the earth lodges come into view—then I will order the charge.”
In the murky, graying light of dawn-coming, Tall One barely made out the dark shadows of the four buildings where the
His heart had pounded in his throat, threatening to choke Tall One as he waited those last moments until the war chief had finally screeched his call for the charge.
