Philipp Meyer - The Son

“And N uukaru is straight ahead of you, on the other side of the fire.”

“You are both dreaming,” said the woman. “Forget I am here.”

“The wife of Fat Wolf. You are joking me.”

“Where is Tiehteti?”

“He is right here,” said Escuté. “You are talking to him right now.”

“Is he in here or not?”

“I don’t know. Tiehteti, are you here? Probably not. I saw him heading out to the pasture; Fucks a Mare was going to show him something.”

Hates Work said: “You are a serious asshole, Escuté.”

“But funny?”

“Sometimes.”

“N uukaru, I have bad news. For the one-thousandth time, a woman has come to the tipi and she has no interest in you.”

“Fuck off,” said N uukaru.

“As for Tiehteti,” he pronounced, “it is time for him to become a man. It is a process that requires physical contact, and so at some point, unless you would simply prefer to watch a master at work, you will have to tell this woman, who is among the most beautiful of all Comanches, though also the laziest, where you are located in the tipi.”

“I’m over here,” I said quietly.

“N uukaru, you skinny pervert, don’t think you can lie there and masturbate; get up and give Tiehteti his privacy.”

“Noyoma nak uhkupa.”

“I would prefer not to,” said Escuté. “For I am wise, and a great leader, and one day I’ll be your chief.”

He and N uukaru took their blankets and left.

“Tiehteti? Say something so I can find you.”

“Follow the wall to the right,” I said.

I felt her touch my pallet. It was too dark to see her, or to even know who she was except by her voice, but I could hear the rustling as she took off her dress. Then she slipped under the robe. Her skin was smooth against me. She began to kiss my neck and drift her fingers along my stomach, I tried to touch her, but she put my hand back and continued to rub my belly, then my thighs, it seemed I ought to be doing something, I tried to reach between her legs, touched hair, but she stopped that hand as well. I began to feel docious. Nothing was expected of me; she was a grown woman and she had the reins.

She was of this same opinion. She ran her fingernails up and down, across my chest and down my legs, while slowly kissing my neck. This went on much longer than I thought it properly ought to, but finally she climbed on top of me and then I was inside.

There was a noise. Escuté poked his head into the tipi.

“How long, wife of Fat Wolf? One minute? Or, let me guess, he is already p ua .”

“Out,” she said. “Go masturbate yourself with N uukaru.”

She kissed me on the nose. She was leaning over me, being very still. I wanted to start moving but she held me in place.

“How does that feel, brother-in-law?”

I made some noise.

She moved her hips. “Should I do this?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm. Maybe not.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I think we will just stay like this,” she said.

I cleared my throat.

“It feels good to me also,” she said.

This seemed like an unbelievable coincidence. At some point she began to move slowly. She was leaning forward and our foreheads were touching and she was holding my hands. Her breath was sweet. “Hates Work is not my real name,” she said. “My name is Single Bird.”

BY THE TIME N uukaru and Escuté came back, I had slept with Single Bird five times. I expected Escuté to have something to say but he didn’t; he and N uukaru whispered something to each other and then N uukaru went to his pallet but Escuté, instead of going to bed, slipped over to us very quietly. He felt Single Bird’s hair, and then he gently felt my face, and then he patted me on the chest and said something in Comanche I did not understand, and Single Bird murmured something in her sleep, and Escuté leaned forward and kissed her hair and patted me again and then kissed me on the forehead. Then he went back to his pallet.

I was awake. I woke up Single Bird and we did it again.

IN THE MORNING, when the faintest of gray light was coming through the smoke flap, I felt her get up. I pulled her back.

“No,” she whispered. “It’s already late.”

“Tell me why they call you Hates Work.”

“Because I only do the work of ten men. Instead of fifty.” She leaned over and kissed me. “Don’t look at me in public. This will probably never happen again. This is the first time my husband has sent me to anyone, and I don’t know what kind of mood he’s going to be in when I get back.”

A few hours later, N uukaru and Escuté and I were sitting around the fire, eating dried elk and watching the bustle of the camp. Something was wrong with Escuté; normally he did his hair carefully into an a fan on the top of his head but that morning he had not even painted himself.

“Is Fat Wolf going to be angry at me?” I said.

“He’s going to cut your dick off. I hope it was worth it.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said N uukaru. “Everyone wants to sleep with Hates Work and you’re the only one who has, except the guy who paid fifty horses for her.”

“My father paid fifty horses, not my fat brother. If it was my father getting her I wouldn’t care.”

“Escuté is especially pissed, as you can tell.”

“Why shouldn’t I be? Where are my fifty fucking horses if I wanted to marry? Meanwhile, Hates Work gets sent to Tiehteti.”

“Who do you want to marry?” I said.

“No one. That’s the point. Who the fuck can I marry now that the fat one has taken the best-looking girl anyone has ever heard of?”

“Her sister is not bad,” said N uukaru.

“I am fucked, is the point. He is a fat coward but I still end up looking like the bad one. Eight of the horses that went to her bride-price were horses I gave to my father. When was the last time my brother even went on a raid?”

“You should stop,” said N uukaru.

“I don’t care who hears me.”

“You will later.”

We sat for a while. I couldn’t see what Escuté had to worry about. He had six scalps and while he was shorter and slimmer than his father and brother, he was nicely built and had an easy way of moving and all the young Indians, men and women alike, looked up to him. Then I thought maybe he was right: Hates Work was his only real equal in the band.

“There is a very beautiful captive owned by Lazy Feet, the blond one? The German?”

“Yellow Hair,” I said.

“Yes, her. She is the equal of Hates Work.”

“I’m not marrying a fucking captive. No offense, Tiehteti.”

“We’re all from captives at some point,” said N uukaru.

“Yes, but still I am not doing it.”

“You weren’t angry last night,” I said.

“No, I wasn’t. I’m not angry at you, Tiehteti; I’m glad you got a taste, you deserved it. It’s just my father, because the fat one is the oldest, he can do no wrong, and fifty fucking horses, he didn’t even try to negotiate.”

“We all know you’ll be a chief,” said N uukaru. “Everyone knows that. Your brother won’t be. He’s just a man with a rich father.”

“Yes, and if I get killed on a raid before I get to be a chief? While my father supports the fat one and buys him a few more wives?”

“Then I’ll make sure you don’t get scalped.”

“Unbelievable,” said Escuté, and shook his head.

“You still have a father,” said N uukaru. “This is something to be grateful for.”

“Your father died well and he wasn’t scalped,” said Escuté. “He is already at the happy hunting grounds.”

“Thank you, Escuté, and where is that, exactly? I’ve heard it’s beyond the sun somewhere, in the west. You know it’s strange, because sometimes I get the urge to ask my father’s advice on various matters, or feel his hand on my shoulder, but everyone assures me he is in the west, just past the sun, though Tiehteti, who does not know our ways, tells me that if you follow the sun to the west you eventually reach a limitless expanse of salty water, rather than a land where horses run fast enough to fly, where it is neither hot nor cold, where game impales itself on your lance and is magically roasted and you eat everything with an accompaniment of the richest marrow.”