Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

Only once, long ago, had he had the opportunity to watch Indians run buffalo.

That time it had been two tired Indians and one tired buffalo--in their desperation to bring down the meat they had chased the buffalo right through a ranger encampment, to the astonishment of the rangers, who roused themselves from cards and singsongs just in time to shoot the animal. The tired Comanches, badly disappointed, made it into the brush before the disorganized rangers could think to shoot them.

This time there were four buffalo and at least twenty young Indians in pursuit. Soon the buffalo fanned out, each with four or five Comanches at tail and side. None of the Comanches had guns.

Augustus saw one buffalo absorb six arrows without slackening its pace. Another was lanced and almost managed to turn under the horse of the young brave who lanced it, but the brave avoided the charge and returned to strike the buffalo twice more.

Soon, prickling with arrows, the buffalo began to stumble. Two fell, but two ran on.

Inish Scull, by now, was as absorbed in the chase as Augustus.

"What grand sport!" Inish Scull exclaimed. "I wish Hector and I were down there. Big Horse Scull and the Buffalo Horse could show them what for, I reckon!" Augustus didn't say anything, but he agreed. He and Woodrow had run buffalo a few times; even Woodrow got caught up in the sport of it. Even though they might need the meat, there was always a letdown when the buffalo fell and the skinning and butchering had to begin.

The third buffalo, prickly with arrows, finally fell, but the fourth ran on, although the whole force of Comanches was now after it, the braves crowding one another in order to aim their arrows.

"Look at it--why, you'd think the beast was immortal," Inish Scull said. "There must be thirty arrows in it." The buffalo, though, was not immortal. Finally it stopped, swung its head at its pursuers, and dropped to its knees. It bellowed a frothy bellow that echoed off the canyon walls. Then it rolled on its side and lay still--the young Comanches milled around it, excited from the chase.

Augustus watched for a moment. The Indian women were already skinning the first of the buffalo to fall.

"That's that--let's be off, sir--else they'll be skinning us next," Captain Scull said.

Augustus mounted, but turned his horse to watch the scene for another moment. He hadn't done the chasing or made the kill, but, for some reason, he felt the same letdown as if he had. The Comanche braves had stopped milling. They simply sat on their horses, looking down at the fallen beast. Though he could barely see the fallen animal--it was just a dot on the canyon floor--in his mind's eye he saw it clearly.

He was reminded of an old bull buffalo he and Call and Bigfoot Wallace, the famous scout, had struggled to kill years before on the Mexican plain. They had shot the beast more than twenty times, chased it until one of their horses died, and had finally had to dispatch it with their bowie knives, a process that bloodied Augustus from shoulder to calf.

The Comanche boy who had dealt the fourth buffalo the final lance hit was probably just as bloody--t buffalo, too, must have poured blood from a number of wounds before it rolled its eyes up in death.

Looking down on the scene from high above, Augustus, though he couldn't say why, felt a mood of sadness take him. He knew he ought to be going, but he could not stop looking at the scene far below. A line of Indian women were moving out from the camp, ready to help cut up the meat.

Inish Scull paused a moment. He saw that his young ranger had been affected by the chase they had just observed, and its inevitable ending.

"Post coitum omne animal triste," he said, leaning over to put a hand, for a moment, on the young man's shoulder.

"That's Aristotle." "What, sir?" Augustus asked. "I expect that's Latin, but what does it mean?" ""After copulation every animal is sad,"'" the Captain said. "It's true, too--though who can say why? The seed flies, and the seeder feels blue." "Why is it?" Augustus asked. He knew, from his own memories, that the Captain had stated a truth. Much as he liked poking, there was that moment, afterward, when something made his spirits dip, for a time.

"I don't know why and I guess Aristotle didn't either, because he didn't say," Scull observed. "But it's not only rutting that can bring on that little gloom. Killing can do it too-- especially if you're killing something sizable, like a buffalo, or a man. Something that has a solid claim to life." He was silent for a moment, a little square cut chaw of tobacco in his hand.

"I grant that it's a curious thing," he said.

"The acts ain't much alike, and yet the gloom's alike. First excitement, then sadness.

Those red boys killed their game, and they needed to kill it, too. A buffalo is to them what a store would be to us. They have to kill the buffalo to live. And they have killed it. But now they're sad, and they don't know why." Well, I don't know why neither, Augustus thought. I wish that old man who talked about it to begin with had said why.

In a moment they turned back toward camp.

Augustus fell in behind the big horse. When they came over the first little rise they saw the camp boys, rushing around like ants, packing up.

"Where is his scalp? I don't see it," Buffalo Hump said, when Blue Duck walked up to him, dripping blood. "I thought you were going to bring me the scalp of Gun In The Water?" "He is quick," Blue Duck admitted.

"He shot me while he was shitting. I didn't know anyone could shoot straight while they were shitting." Buffalo Hump looked the boy over. He saw no wounds that looked serious.

"I had another son once," Buffalo Hump said. "Gun In The Water shot him too--shot him dead. He was almost drowned in the Brazos River but he was still quick enough to kill my son. You're lucky he didn't kill you too. Where is your horse?" The boy stood before him wearing a sullen look.

No doubt he had run across the canyon, hoping to be praised because he had gone alone against the whites and been wounded. It was a brave thing: Buffalo Hump didn't doubt the boy's courage. Blue Duck always led the charge, and could not sleep for days, from excitement, when a raid was planned.

Bravery was important in war, of course, but that did not mean that a warrior could afford to neglect the practicalities of war. The boy seemed to have rolled much of the way down the canyon and kept his weapons undamaged, which was good. On the other hand, he had lost a horse, which was not good.

Also, he had attacked a proven warrior, Gun In The Water, without being sure of his kill. Courage would not keep a warrior alive for long if courage was not backed up by judgment.

"My horse is dead," Blue Duck admitted. "Silver Hair McCrae shot him --I was running for my life. Big Horse Scull almost cut me with the long knife." Buffalo Hump motioned to Hair On The Lip, indicating that she was to tend to the boy's wounds. Slow Tree was approaching, at the head of his band, and would have to be greeted with the proper ceremony. Though Buffalo Hump would have liked to lecture the boy some more, he could not do it with Slow Tree and his warriors only half a mile from camp. He looked sternly at his young wife, Lark--he did not want her tending Blue Duck's wounds. The women made much of Blue Duck, old women and young women too.

He did not want Lark to be doctoring his handsome son. He had seen many unfortunate things happen, in his years as a chief. Sometimes young women, married to old men, could not resist coupling with the old men's sons, a thing that made bitter blood. If Lark was reckless with Blue Duck he would beat her so that she could not move for three days, and then he would drive Blue Duck out of camp, or else kill him.

"Why is Slow Tree coming?" Blue Duck asked, as Hair On The Lip began to poke at the wound in his side.