Philipp Meyer - The Son

When the sun hit the upper walls of the canyon a wailing and chanting went up. There was a shot and the burial party began to file back down to the river and when they reached us they knocked us down and kicked us until my brother shat himself again.

“I can’t help it,” he said.

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m worried,” he said.

Several of the Indians thought we ought to be marched to the burial site and killed along with the dead man’s horse but the one who was in charge of the war party, the one who’d dragged me out of the house, was against it. Nabit uku tekwaniwapi Toshaway, they would say. My brother was already starting to pick up bits of Comanche; Toshaway was the chief’s name. There were charges and offers and counteroffers, but Toshaway would not give in. He caught me watching him but gave no more account than if I were a dog.

My brother got a philosophical look and I got nervous.

“You know,” he said, “the whole time, I was hoping that when the sun came up they would see us and realize they had made some terrible mistake, that we were people just like them, or at least just people, but now I am hoping the opposite.”

I didn’t say anything.

“What I am getting at is that the very kinship I had hoped might save us might be the reason they kill us. Because of course we are completely powerless over our fates, but in the end they are as well and maybe that is why they will kill us. To erase, at least temporarily, their own reflections.”

“Stop it,” I said. “Stop talking.”

“They don’t care,” he said. “They don’t care about a word we say.”

I knew he was right but just then the debate ended and the Indians who had been for killing us came over and began to stomp and kick us.

When they finished my brother lay in a puddle of water among the stones, his head at an angle, looking up at the sky. There was blood running into my throat and I threw up into the river. The rocks were floating all around me. I decided as long as they killed us together it would be fine. I caught a wolf watching me from a high ledge but when I blinked he was gone. I thought about the white one I’d shot and how it was bad luck, then I thought about my mother and sister and wondered if the animals had found them. I got to blubbering and was cuffed in the head.

Martin looked like he’d lost twenty pounds; his knees and elbows and chin were bleeding and there was dirt and sand stuck everywhere. The Indians were changing their saddles onto fresh horses. I was hungry and before they could put me on another horse I sucked water from the river until my stomach was full.

“You should drink,” I told him.

He shook his head. He lay there with his hands cupping his privates. The Indians jerked us up.

“Next time,” I said.

“I was thinking how nice it was that I didn’t have to get up again. Then I realized they hadn’t killed me. Now I’m annoyed.”

“It wouldn’t be any better.”

He shrugged.

WE CONTINUED TO ride at a good pace and if the Indians were tired they didn’t show it and if they were hungry they didn’t show it, either. They were alert but not nervous. Every now and then I’d get a glimpse of the entire remuda trailing behind us in the canyon. My brother would not stop talking.

“You know I was watching Mother and Lizzie,” he said. “I had always thought about where the soul might be, near to the heart or maybe along the bones, I’d always figured you’d have to cut for it. But there was a lot of cutting and I didn’t see anything come out. I’m certain I would have seen it.”

I ignored him.

A while later he said: “Can you imagine any white man, even a thousand white men, riding this easy in Indian country?”

“No.”

“It’s funny because everyone calls them heathens and red devils, but now that we’ve seen them, I think it’s the opposite. They act like the gods were supposed to act. Though I guess I mean heroes or demigods because as you have certainly helped demonstrate, though not without a certain cost, these Indians are indeed mortal.”

“Please stop.”

“It does make you wonder about the Negro problem, doesn’t it?”

AT MIDDAY WE climbed out of the canyon. We were on a rolling grassland thick with asters and primrose, ironweed and red poppy. Some bobwhites scuttled into the brush. The prairie went on forever; there were herds of antelope and deer and a few stray buffalo in the distance. The Indians checked their pace to look around and then we were off.

There was nothing to protect us from the sun and by afternoon I could smell my own burning skin and was going in and out of sleep. We continued through the high grass, over limestone breaks, briefly into the shade along streams — though never stopping to drink — and then back into the sun.

Then the Comanches all reined up and after some chatter my brother and I were led back to a stream we’d just crossed. We were pulled roughly off the horses and tied to each other back to back and put in the shade. A teenager was left to guard us.

“Rangers?”

“This one doesn’t look too nervous,” said my brother.

We were facing opposite directions and it was strange not seeing his face.

“Maybe it’s Daddy and the others.”

“I think they would be behind us,” he said.

After a while I decided he was right. I called the young Indian over. There were grapes hanging all along the stream.

He shook his head. Itsa ait u . Then he added itsa keta kwas up u and when he still wasn’t satisfied I understood, he said in Spanish, no en sazón .

“He’s saying they’re not ripe.”

“I know that.”

I wanted them anyway and I was so hungry I didn’t care. The Indian cut a section of vine and dropped it into my lap. Then he rinsed his hands in the stream. The grapes were so bitter I nearly aired my paunch. I thought they would help my fever. My lips were itching.

“They’re good,” I said.

“For tanning hides, maybe.”

“You should eat.”

“You are not making any sense,” he told me.

I ate more of the grapes. It felt like I’d swallowed boiling water.

I said, “Scoot over to that stream and lean over it,” and we did. My brother let his head rest in the water, as sunburned as I was, but I could tell he wasn’t drinking. Something about this made me want to puddle up but I kept drinking instead. The young Indian stood on a rock and watched. We sat up again. It seemed like my fever was going down and I could stretch my legs.

“What’s your name,” I said to our guard. “Cómo te llamas?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Then he said: “N uukaru.” He looked around nervously and then walked off as if he’d given away some secret and when I saw him again he was upstream, lying on his belly, sucking up water. It was the first time I’d seen any of the Indians eat or drink much of anything, except for a few swallows. When he stood up he arranged his braids and checked his paint.

“I wonder if they’re cockchafers,” my brother said.

“Somehow I doubt it.”

“You know the Spartans were.”

“Who are the Spartans?” I said.

He was about to say something else when there was a rattling of shots far off. There was a scattered return volley and finally the slow knocking of a single repeating pistol. Then it got quiet and I knew it was just the Indians using their bows. I wondered whose bad luck it had been.

Another young Indian came bounding down the rocks and then we were tied back on the horses and led out of the streambed. My fever had gone down and I didn’t mind the sun. After crossing a stony plateau we descended to a prairie that seemed to be mostly larkspur and wine-cup. A red dirt wagon road went up the middle and it was a pleasant sight with the blue sky and a few bright clouds and wildflowers everywhere.