Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

Certainly the Comanche had not expected to be killed. He had ridden his horse to death to reach Blue Duck quickly. But now he was dead, and so was his horse. The women were butchering it as Ermoke and Monkey John rode away.

Blue Duck didn't say a ^w when the two men joined him on his ride to the west. He knew they had followed thinking he was about to kill some traveller with a lot of money. Though it was impertinent for the two to join him when he hadn't asked for their company, he decided to let them come.

They didn't know he was only riding off to kill an old Comanche who owned nothing worth stealing.

They would make a long ride for nothing, which would serve them right.

Once they found Buffalo Hump, Blue Duck meant to inform the two killers that only he was to kill the old man--he did not want them to interfere. The mission he was on was one he had waited for since he left the tribe. Blue Duck had forgotten none of the insults Buffalo Hump had heaped on him: now he meant to have his revenge.

Blue Duck was convinced, too, that he knew where his father would go to make his death. Long ago, when Blue Duck was a boy of seven or eight, before his father began to insult him, Buffalo Hump had taken him on a long ride to Black Mesa, west of the Beaver River, in country that was so dry Blue Duck thought they might die of thirst. But Buffalo Hump did not intend to die of thirst-- he knew of an old lake near Black Mesa, a lake that was then dry. What Buffalo Hump knew was that there was a little seeping spring in the center of the dry lake, hidden under weeds. They had ridden two days without water before they came to the dry lake and found the little seeping spring; Blue Duck had never forgotten the taste of that cool water, and he never told anyone else about the existence of the spring. Buffalo Hump had told him that the People had lived near Black Mesa long before his own time, when they were just becoming a horse people.

He had said it was a place of powerful spirits.

Blue Duck had a clear memory of the journey and felt sure he could find the dry lake again, and the little spring. He wanted to hurry, though.

Last Horse had said that Buffalo Hump had left with only one horse, and an old one at that. If the horse weakened, Buffalo Hump might die before he reached the mesa. Blue Duck rode hard all day, switching horses often so as not to wear out his mounts. Ermoke and Monkey John, foolishly, had not brought extra horses. They had assumed that Blue Duck must be after a victim fairly close to camp, which only showed Blue Duck how stupid they were. They had seen him ride out with four horses--did they think the other three were only to carry loot from his ambush?

Blue Duck showed them no mercy, where speed was concerned. If they rode their horses to death he meant to leave them; if they starved before they could get back to camp it was what they deserved. By the afternoon of the third day Ermoke and Monkey John were far behind. Already they were on a part of the llano they didn't know, and it was very dry. Both men knew Blue Duck would not wait for them, or show them any consideration at all.

Monkey John began to regret that they had come--z usual, Ermoke had been hasty in his judgment. If their horses failed in such country they would probably die.

"Who's he going to rob, out here?" Monkey John asked, several times. "There don't nobody live way out here." Ermoke didn't answer. He was watching the ground, determined not to lose Blue Duck's track.

"We ought to have brought more horses," Monkey John said, a little later, when he began to feel the force of the desert. They were in a great ring of empty land; the horizons seemed a hundred miles away.

Ermoke was thinking that if Blue Duck didn't slow down he might have to kill Monkey John. That way he would have another horse.

Call had no trouble persuading Famous Shoes to help them find Blue Duck's camp.

Famous Shoes liked to be free to go anywhere at any time, across the plains, into the forests, down to Mexico, over the mountains. The Kickapoo people were widely scattered now--he had to be able to move freely in order to visit his own people.

Recently, though, because of Blue Duck and his renegades, he had had to recognize that it was unwise to travel north of the Trinity River, unless he went very far to the west to do it. Famous Shoes did not want to get killed, and he knew that Blue Duck would kill him without hesitation if he found him alone. He well remembered that Blue Duck had once delivered him to Slow Tree, thinking he was delivering him to torture.

Slow Tree had let him go, but Blue Duck would not let him go if he caught him now.

So when Captain Call came to him and said that the rangers were going after Blue Duck, Famous Shoes immediately made ready to go with them.

Four days later Captain Call, Captain McCrae, eight rangers, and several sheriffso were hidden in a clump of timber near the south bank of the Red River, waiting for Famous Shoes to find the renegades and let them know how many fighting men they would have to face.

Famous Shoes easily found the renegades' camp, but he soon saw that Blue Duck wasn't there. He knew this news would displease Captain Call and Captain McCrae, and he was right.

"Who is there, if he ain't?" Augustus asked impatiently.

"There are twelve men and some women--they are cooking a horse," Famous Shoes said.

"Ermoke is not there either. He is a man who rapes whenever he can." "Where the hell is Blue Duck?" Gus asked. "I hate to waste time on the chiggers he left behind. The sheriffso can handle them." "Gus, we're here--we might as well help the sheriffso do this job," Call said. "Maybe some of the men know where he went." "Blue Duck has gone west and he is in a hurry," Famous Shoes said. "He took four horses and two men." "That's it, let's go get after him," Augustus said.

Call looked at the sheriffso, all local men. They did not look happy at the prospect of being left to fight a dozen renegades. All were poor men--probably they had just agreed to serve as sheriffso because they feared starvation if they tried to continue as farmers or merchants. Money was short and jobs scarce in Texas at the time.

"No, let's help the sheriffso round up these outlaws," Call said. "The sheriffso would be outnumbered if we leave." In the event, the renegades in Blue Duck's camp didn't fight at all. One man did raise his rifle when the rangers came charging into camp, but he was immediately shot dead. Then ten dirty, half-starved men threw up their hands --the twelfth man managed to wiggle out of the back of a tent into some reeds by the river. He escaped that day but was killed two days later in Shreveport, Louisiana, while trying to rob a hardware store.

Once the renegades were disarmed Deets was given the job of tying them. Jake Spoon, before he left, taught Deets what he knew about knots. Call and Augustus were ready to hand the prisoners over to the sheriffso, but the sheriffso balked.

One of the sheriffso, whose name was Kettler, pointed to a grove of oak trees not far from the river.

"We can't be putting the county to the expense of raising no jury," he said. "It's planting time. The men need to be in their fields. I ain't asking them to take off just to try a bunch of bad 'uns like these men.

"Your nigger there is good with knots," he added.

"We'd be obliged if you'd wait long enough for him to tie the hang knots." Call looked at Augustus, who shrugged.

"I expect they're all horse thieves, at least," Gus said, pointing to the sizable horse herd grazing nearby.

"All right," Call said. "If they're with Blue Duck I've no doubt they need hanging." None of the doomed men said even a ^w in their own defense, and none of the slatternly women followed the little procession to the oak grove. The women seemed numbed by the morning's events--they sat in dejection near one of the smouldering oak grove campfires.