Philipp Meyer - The Son

Meanwhile the bandit raids continue: three ranches hit in the Big Bend. The Twelfth Cavalry, after several months of heavy losses, crossed the border and burned two Mexican towns.

JANUARY 4, 1916

Sally and the boys are back. She accused me of feeling more for the Garcias than she did for our own son. Asked me why I go back there so often.

“Because no one else will.”

“Those greasers shot Glenn,” she said. “I want you to think on that.”

“Well, we killed them. All nineteen of them, not one of whom was present when Glenn was shot.”

“That doesn’t make us even,” she said.

“You’re right,” I said, “but we do not have that many family members, do we?”

“I wonder if I am beginning to hate you. But then I wonder if you would even notice.”

“If you hate me it is because I have morals.”

That left her speechless. I went to my office and put a few logs in the fireplace and pulled the sheets over the couch.

It is only now, since we have been sleeping apart these three months, that I wonder how I ever managed to have any feelings for her at all. She is still pretty, charming in her way. But if she has ever had a thought that did not in some way involve herself, I have not heard of it.

By summer we knew that the Penateka, the largest and wealthiest of all the Comanche bands, had been mostly wiped out. The previous year’s smallpox epidemic had been followed by cholera — all spread by the forty-niners, who shat into the creeks — and a hard winter had finished off the survivors. By the time the first meadowlarks appeared, the Penateka — with the exception of a thousand or so stragglers — were rotting into the earth.

We moved our camp far north, into what was then still New Mexico, to get away from the sick Indians and the disease-carrying whites still crossing along the Canadian toward California. We were now in the territory of the Yap-Eaters and I had a hope I might run into Urwat and be able to pay him back, but I never saw him, as the Yap-Eaters had gone even farther north, into Shoshone territory.

Despite the extermination of ten thousand Comanches, the plains had never been more crowded. The displaced tribes — from the easterners like the Chickasaws and Delawares to the more local Wichitas and Osages — continued to be resettled in our hunting grounds. The buffalo were scarcer than anyone could remember and the spring hunts had not yielded enough meat or hides to carry us through the year. Toshaway and the other elders decided to put in all our chips; planning the largest raid in the band’s history, which would bypass most of the settlements in Texas and go straight down into Mexico. Because of the size of the raid and the long distance, a number of women and boys would go along to keep the camps, and three hundred people in total, including Toshaway, N uukaru, and Escuté, rode out in July and did not return until December.

I was left in the main ranchería, where, with the men gone and the buffalo scarce, the younger boys, whether they had gotten scalps or not, were kept patrolling and hunting all the time. There was a sense things were changing for the worse. The camp felt empty, everyone was missing a family member or two, and a general downheartedness had settled. The only good news was that the market for captives had improved — a white person could be sold back to the government at any of the new forts, sometimes for three hundred dollars or more. We bought several whites from the Yap-Eaters and took them to sell to the New Mexicans, who eventually sold them at the forts.

HATES WORK NEVER came back to my tipi, but gradually other girls began to, because their notsakapu or lovers were off raiding, and I was known to be a solitary type who didn’t talk to the other young tek uniwap u. Scalp or not, I was still a captive, and the other men saw nothing to gain by talking to me.

So the women would find me while I was out hunting or taking a nap and tell me things they didn’t want anyone to hear. Who was sleeping with her friend’s husband or with the paraibo . Who was planning to defect to the Yap-Eaters or start a new band. Who was going to elope with her notsakapu because his parents couldn’t afford her bride-price, who was tired of being the third wife of some fat old subchief — who, by the way, was lying about something he’d done in combat — who had caught pisip u from a married man, was it worth paying for a cure?

ONE NIGHT SOMEONE came into the tipi and sat by the opening, looking for my pallet in the darkness. There was a sweet smell I didn’t recognize, like honey, or maybe cinnamon.

“Who is it?” I said.

“Prairie Flower.”

I poked the embers to get some light. She was possibly not as pretty as her sister, Hates Work, but she was so far above my bend that I guessed she had come to talk.

“I’m tired,” I said.

She ignored me and took off her dress. She fell asleep so quickly afterward, nestled into me, that I wondered if that was all she wanted in the first place, someone to sleep next to while her boyfriend was off with Toshaway and the others. I fell asleep but only halfway. It was too dark to see her face, but she was warm and sweet-smelling and her skin was smooth. I lay for a long time breathing into her neck. I wanted to rut but I did not want to wake her up. Then I must have fallen asleep because later she was shaking me awake. She was putting her clothes on.

“Don’t expect this ever to happen again, and don’t tell anyone, either.”

I wondered if I’d done a bad job. “That’s also what your sister told me,” I said.

“Well, I am not a slut like she is, so you can expect I’m telling the truth.”

“She was also telling the truth.”

“Then you are one of the lucky few who has only had her once.”

“Huh,” I said.

She adjusted her dress. “That’s not true, really.”

“You can get back under the robe,” I said. “We don’t have to do anything.”

She thought about it, then did. I gave her as much space as I could.

“Good night,” I said.

“It’s been hard for you, with everyone being gone?”

“It’s been hard for everyone.”

“But you especially. N uukaru and Escuté are your only friends.”

“That’s not true.”

“Who else, then?”

I shrugged. “What do you smell like?” I said, trying to change the subject.

“This? Cottonwood sap. The bud sap, you can only collect it in spring.”

“It’s nice,” I said.

It was quiet.

“People are stupid,” she said. “Everyone is from captives.”

“I guess not everyone looks like it.”

“What about Fat Wolf?”

“No, not really.”

“Poor Tiehteti.”

“Poor nothing,” I said.

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

“Time to sleep.”

“I wonder when you’ll stop being so nice.”

“Time to sleep,” I said again.

“You are nice,” she said. “It’s obvious. You don’t order people around, you mostly skin your own animals, you—”

“Ask that papi bo?a how nice I am.” I pointed above the pallet, where the scalp of the Delaware was hanging.

“It’s a compliment.”

A short while later she put her hand on my thigh. I was not quite sure what it meant. She moved her hand slightly higher. “Are you still awake?”

“Yes.”

She pulled me on top of her and hitched her kwasu up. As usual it was too quick and then it was awkward as she tried to keep moving. I started to roll off but she held me.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Everyone is quick with me at first.”