Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

The second beating of the bear was too much for Idahi. He took his new shotgun and walked away, beside the Red River, pretending he wanted to hunt geese; he was a new guest and did not want to complain, but he knew it was wrong for Blue Duck to beat the bear. Behind him, he heard screams. The two renegades who had been playing at drowning the woman had brought her back to camp and were tormenting her with hot sticks.

Idahi walked away until the sounds of the camp grew faint. The thought of finding Blue Duck had excited him so much that he had ridden all the way to the Arkansas River and then back to the Red. But what he found, now that he was in Blue Duck's camp, troubled him. He didn't know if he wanted to stay, even though Blue Duck had already given him a fine shotgun and would certainly expect him to stay. But Blue Duck's treatment of the bear discouraged him.

Idahi knew that Blue Duck had formed a company of raiders, but he had thought that most of them would be Kiowa or men of other tribes who had joined Blue Duck in order to keep killing the whites in the old way. But the men in the camp were mostly white men; some were mixed blood, and all of them, he knew, would kill him without a qualm if they could do it without Blue Duck knowing. They didn't like it that Blue Duck had ridden out especially to escort him in, and the longhaired half-breed Ermoke liked him least of all.

Idahi felt Ermoke's angry eyes following him as he walked around the camp. Even the women of the camp, all of them filthy and most of them thin from hunger, looked at him hostilely, as if he were only one more man who had come to abuse them.

It was not what Idahi had expected; but, on the other hand, he had not expected his own chief, Paha-yuca, to agree to take his people onto a reservation. He knew he could not live on a reservation and be subject to the rules of a white man. He did not want to wait like a beggar by his lodge for whites to give him one of their skinny beeves. He had left his three wives behind, in order to join Blue Duck--aletter he missed his women, and yet he had no intention of bringing them to such a filthy camp, where the men had no respect for anything, not even a bear.

The longer Idahi walked the more troubled and confused he became. He did not know what to do.

He was a hunter and a warrior; he wanted to hunt on the prairies and fight his enemies until he was old, or until some warrior vanquished him. There was no shame in defeat at the hands of a good fighter--Idahi knew that in many of the battles he had fought, but for a lucky move at the right moment, he would have been killed. He did not fear the risks of a warrior's life; he respected the dangers such a life entailed. But Idahi wanted to remain a warrior and a hunter; he did not want to become a mere bandit. He wanted to steal from his enemies, the Texans, but he did not intend to steal from the people who had always been .his people. The men in the camp of Blue Duck had no such qualms, he knew. They would steal from anyone. If they saw a Comanche riding a fine horse, or carrying a fine gun, or married to a pretty plump woman, they would, if they could, kill the Comanche and take the horse, the gun, or the woman.

Fine gun or no fine gun, Idahi knew he could not live with such men. After all, he himself had a fine shotgun now; several of the men in camp had looked at his gift with envious eyes--someday, if Blue Duck happened to be gone, one of the renegades would kill him for it, or try to.

Idahi considered the problem through a long afternoon.

Many ducks and geese landed on the Red River and then flew away again, but Idahi did not shoot them. He was thinking of what he had done, and, by the time the sun set, he had reached a conclusion. It was clear that he had made a mistake. He could not live as Blue Duck lived. Where he would go he was not sure. The way of his chief, Paha-yuca, was not a way he could follow any longer. He would have to give back the fine shotgun and leave. He had begun to feel wrong when he saw Blue Duck beat the bear--now he felt he didn't want to stay where such things happened.

When Idahi walked back to camp it was almost dark. One of the skinny old white men had been killed while he was gone; someone had clubbed him to death. Blue Duck was sitting alone, eating the dog meat the women had cooked. Idahi went to him and handed him back his shotgun.

"What's this--I thought you were going to bring us a goose?" Blue Duck said.

"No, I wasn't hunting," Idahi told him. "This is a fine gun, though." "If it is such a fine gun, why are you giving it back to me?" Blue Duck asked, scowling.

He did not like having his gift returned.

Idahi knew that what he had done was rude, but he had no choice. He wanted to leave and didn't want the renegades following him in order to kill him and take the gun.

"When you gave me this gun I thought I could stay here," Idahi said. "But I am not going to stay." Blue Duck stared at him, a dark look on his face and coldness in his eyes. Idahi remembered that Buffalo Hump had once stared at people like that, when he had been younger; and then, usually, he killed the people he had been staring at with eyes like sleet. Idahi wanted to get his horse and leave. He did not want to fight Blue Duck, in his own camp, where there were so many hostile renegades. He knew, though, that he might have to fight. Blue Duck had gone out of his way to welcome him as a guest, and he was going to think it rude of Idahi to go away so soon.

"Eat a little of this dog--it's tasty," Blue Duck said. "You just got here. I guess you can leave in the morning if you're determined to go." Idahi did as he was asked. He had not changed his mind--he meant to go--but he did not want to be rude, and it was very rude to refuse food. So he sat down by Blue Duck and accepted some of the dog. He had not been eating much on his travels and was happy to have a good portion of dog meat to fill him up.

While they were eating Blue Duck seemed to relax a little, but Idahi remained wary. In deciding to go away he had made a dangerous decision.

"What about my father?" Blue Duck asked.

"Is he going to the reservation too, with his people?" "No, only Paha-yuca is going now," Idahi said. "Slow Tree has already taken his people in, and so has Moo-ray." "I didn't ask you about them, I asked about Buffalo Hump," Blue Duck said.

"He is old now--p do not speak of him anymore," Idahi said. "His people still live in the canyon. They have not gone to the reservation." "I want to kill Buffalo Hump," Blue Duck said. "Will you go with me and help me?" Idahi decided at once to change the subject. Blue Duck had always hated Buffalo Hump, but killing him was not a matter he himself wanted to discuss.

"I wish you would let the bear go," Idahi said. "It is not right to tie a bear to a tree.

If you want to kill him, kill him, but don't mistreat him." "I drug that bear out of a den when he was just a cub," Blue Duck informed him. "He's my bear. If you don't like the way I treat him, you can go kill him yourself." He said it with a sly little smile. Idahi knew he was being taunted, and that he was in danger, but, where the bear was concerned, Idahi suffered no doubt and had to disregard such considerations.

"He's my pet bear," Blue Duck added.

"If I was to turn him loose he wouldn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to hunt anything but dogs." Idahi thought that was a terrible comment. No bear should have its freedom taken away in order to be a pet. He himself had once seen a bear kill an elk, and he had also had two of his best stallions killed by bears. It was right that bears should kill elk and stallions; it was a humiliating thing that a bear should be reduced to killing dogs in a camp of sullen outlaws.

Idahi didn't know what life he was going to have now, anyway. He had left his people and did not intend to go back. He could go to one of the other free bands of Comanches and see if they would accept him and let him hunt and fight with them, but it might be that they would refuse. His home would be the prairie and the grasslands; he might not, again, be able to live with his people. It seemed to him that he ought to do what he could to see that a great animal such as a bear was treated in a dignified manner, even if it meant his own death.