Philipp Meyer - The Son

As they began to repack their mules, a sense of despair came over everyone; a few people sat down in the snow and refused to be consoled. The night had cleared and I walked away from the fire to look at the stars. There did not seem to be much point in continuing. The few people like me, who could still hunt, could simply ride away, but that was out of the question. I was standing there thinking when our surviving chief, Mountain of Rocks, came up next to me.

“I would like to speak quickly, Tiehteti.”

“All right,” I said.

“Obviously,” he said, “we may not make it through the winter.”

“I can see that.”

He looked out over the prairie, now covered with a light dusting of snow, which would soon turn into several feet.

“There is a way for you to help.”

I knew what he was getting at. The government was still paying high prices for returned captives.

“You yourself may survive this winter here. Most of us will not. Maybe none of us will. But if you return to the taibo …” He shrugged. “You can simply come back once the traders are paid.”

I didn’t look at him.

“It is your decision, of course. But there is talk that you might volunteer to do this, especially given the sacrifices that many of the families have already made.” He meant the children. “Still, you are one of us and we would prefer if you stayed.”

FOR THE GERMAN girl and me, the Comancheros left twenty bags of cornmeal, forty pounds of piloncillo, ten bushels of squash. Twenty pounds of lead, a barrel of powder, some gun lock screws, a thousand-pack of steel arrowheads, a few rough knife blades with rawhide handles. It was considered quite generous, though the traders had no doubt they would make a large profit, as I was still young, and the German girl still pretty, her face unmarked. Many captives, especially women, were returned with ears and noses cut off, faces branded, but Yellow Hair looked unscathed, and it was obvious that she would be beautiful once cleaned up. I was asked a few questions in English, to see if I still knew how to speak it, which I did. After nearly three years living among the wild Indians, that was not common, either, and by any measure our return would look like a great success and the Comancheros would be well paid.

Mountain of Rocks asked me to leave him my Colt Navy, one of the two I’d gotten off the scalp hunter, but it was out of the question. I had buried the other with Toshaway. And I did not like the look of the traders, or Mountain of Rocks, for that matter.

THE FIRST NIGHT Yellow Hair stayed close to me, away from the Comancheros.

“Don’t let them touch me,” she said.

“I won’t.”

“Make them think I’m your wife.”

“They’re trying to get money for us,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll do anything.”

“Please,” she said.

The next night I knew she was right: one of them kept sitting closer until finally he put his arm around her. He was a big man with a large gut; he looked like an unwashed version of St. Nicholas. I stood up and pulled my knife and he put up his hands, laughing at me.

“You look a little young, but I won’t fight you.”

“We don’t have to fight for her,” I said. “We can just fight.”

He laughed some more and shook his head. “Boy, I can see you are holding on to her like death to a dead nigger. I already said I won’t fight you. I’m going to sleep.” He got up and went to his pallet under the wagon.

That night she slept in my robe. I hadn’t touched a woman or even myself in nearly two months, because all I could think about was Prairie Flower, and her ruined face when I put the dirt over her.

But spooning with Yellow Hair, part of me seemed to forget all that. I could smell her sweet unwashed hair, and finally, when I couldn’t stand it, I began to kiss her neck. I wondered if she was asleep but then she said: “I won’t stop you, but I don’t want to do that right now.”

I kissed her behind the ear and tried to make out that I had just been being brotherly. She moved my rutter so that it was not poking into her. We fell asleep.

The next night she said: “We can make love if you want to but you know I was raped by maybe ten men in our band. I tried to talk to you about it many times.”

I felt so ashamed that I pretended to be sleeping.

“It’s okay,” she said, patting my hip. “I doubt they would have let you into the tribe if you’d been nice to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Just don’t let these men rape me. I don’t think I could stand it.”

On the third night I asked her: “Do you think I am not attracted to you because you slept with all those men in our band, or do you just not want to sleep with me?”

“I don’t want to sleep with anyone,” she said. “But especially not these Comancheros. St. Nicholas showed his cock and balls to me and they are covered with a disease.”

On the fourth night I persisted: “But what about me?”

“Would you kill these Comancheros if I asked you?”

“Yes.”

“In that case I’ll sleep with you. But we have to be quiet so they don’t hear us or you might end up having to kill them.”

“I’ll kill them,” I said, though in truth I thought it was unlikely, as we represented a year’s wage for them.

She looked at me. She was a sensitive one. “Forget it. I’ll sleep by myself.” She got out of the robe. “I’d rather be raped than have sex with a liar.”

“I’ll protect you,” I said. “Let’s not do anything. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

The last time I asked her anything about sex was: “Did you ever get pregnant?”

“Three times, but they all came out after a couple of months.”

“How?” I said.

“I beat myself in the stomach with rocks. Also, no matter how hungry I was, I would not let myself eat.”

“If you’d had a baby, they might have made you a tribe member.”

“That would have been great except every night I was there, all I dreamed about was going home.”

“To where?”

“Anywhere there were white people. Anywhere I wouldn’t have to live with men who’d raped me.”

I should have felt sympathy for her, but it just made me angry. I missed Toshaway more than I missed my own parents and the thought of Prairie Flower made me so empty that I wanted to put my gun to my head. I rolled over and went to sleep.

We rode together for three weeks, sharing the same robe so the Comancheros would think we were married, and every night I expected we would make love, as we slept spooning in the same robe, but it was true what she had told me, she had no interest at all. Even the one night we drank whiskey with the traders and she let my hands wander more than normal and I thought this is the night I might get inside her, but soon realized she was breathing very deeply and was no longer awake. I let my hands wander over her a little longer. The Comancheros knew their buyers, they were feeding us four or five times a day and Yellow Hair was looking healthier every minute, her ribs softening, her breasts and hips filling out, though still she cried every night in her sleep.

“I guess if I had a fantasy,” she told me, “it would be to rape all the men who raped me. Bring them back from the dead and rape all of them, over and over. With a big jagged stick, I mean. I would push it in and out and I would not stop until I was good and ready.”

I didn’t say anything. I thought about Toshaway and N uukaru and Pizon, and Prairie Flower and Fat Wolf and Grandfather, and Hates Work, who was really Single Bird, Escuté and Bright Morning, Two Bears, Always Visiting Someone; I guessed I might kill Yellow Hair quite happily just to have a single one of them back.