Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

Red Badger's poor vision made the buffalo seem as if it were standing up, so he kept shooting over it. In battle he shot wildly, hitting no one. Some of the warriors were even afraid Red Badger might accidentally shoot one of them. He would not be the one to protect them from the Texans, if they followed past the Brazos.

Fast Boy was taken aback by Kicking Wolf's statement about the Sierra Perdida.

Those mountains were the stronghold of Ahumado, the dark-skinned bandit whom the whites called the Black Vaquero, because he was so cruel and also because he was so good at stealing cattle from the big ranches of the Texans, down below the Nueces River. Ahumado hated the Texans and killed them in many cruel ways; but what made Kicking Wolf's statement startling was that he also hated Comanches--when he caught Comanches he killed them with tortures just as bad as those he visited on the Texans.

"The Black Vaquero lives in the Sierra Perdida," Fast Boy reminded Kicking Wolf. "He is a bad old man." "That is where I am going--the Sierra Perdida," Kicking Wolf repeated, and then he was silent.

Fast Boy didn't say more, mainly because he knew that it was easy to put Kicking Wolf in a bad mood by questioning his decisions. He was far worse than Buffalo Hump in that regard.

Buffalo Hump didn't mind questions from his warriors--he wanted the men he fought with to understand what they were supposed to do. And he gave careful orders. Problems with Buffalo Hump would come only if the orders were not carried out properly.

If some warrior failed to do his part in a raid, then Buffalo Hump's anger would be terrible.

With Kicking Wolf, though, it was unwise to rush in with questions, even though what he wanted to do seemed crazy. Stealing the Buffalo Horse was a little crazy, but then Kicking Wolf was a great stealer of horses and could probably manage it; but the really crazy part of his plan was taking the horse to Ahumado's country, a thing that made no sense at all. Even Buffalo Hump was careful to avoid the Sierra Perdida when he raided into Mexico. It was not from fear--Buffalo Hump feared nothing--but from practicality. In the Sierra Perdida or the villages near it there were no captives to take, because Ahumado had already taken all the children from the villages there--if he did not keep the captives as slaves, he traded them north, to the Apaches. Some people even speculated that Ahumado himself was Apache, but Famous Shoes, the Kickapoo, who went everywhere, said no, Ahumado was not an Apache.

"Ahumado is from the south," Famous Shoes said.

When questioned about the statement Famous Shoes could not be more specific. He did not know what tribe Ahumado belonged to, only that it was from the south.

"From the south, where the jungle is," he said.

None of the Comanches knew the ^w, so Famous Shoes explained that the jungle was a forest, where it rained often and where Jaguar, the great cat, hunted. That was all Famous Shoes knew.

Fast Boy did not ask any more questions, but he thought he ought to make his views clear about the foolish thing Kicking Wolf wanted to do. Fast Boy was a warrior, a veteran of many battles with the whites andwiththe Mexicans. He had a right to speak his mind.

"If we go into the Sierra Perdida, Ahumado will kill us all," he said.

Kicking Wolf merely looked at him coldly.

"If you are afraid of him you don't have to go," Kicking Wolf said.

"I am not afraid of him and I know I don't have to go," Fast Boy said. "I don't have to go anywhere, except to look for something to eat. I wanted you to know what I think." Red Badger was of the same opinion as Fast Boy but he didn't want to state his views quite so plainly.

"Once I was in Mexico and a bad thorn stuck in my knee," he said. "It was a green thorn. It went in behind my knee and almost ate my leg off. That thorn was more poisonous than a snake." He paused. No one said anything.

"Ever since then I have not liked going to Mexico," Red Badger added.

"You don't have to go, either," Kicking Wolf said. "Once Three Birds and I have the Buffalo Horse we will go alone to Mexico." Three Birds looked at the sky. He had heard some geese and looked up to see if he could spot them. He was very fond of geese and thought that if the geese were planning to stop somewhere close by, he might go and try to snare one.

The geese were there, all right, many geese, but they would not be stopping anywhere nearby. They were very high, almost as high as the clouds. No one else had even noticed them, but Three Birds had good hearing and could always hear geese when they were passing over, even if they were high, near the clouds.

He made no comment about the business of Mexico. It seemed risky, to him, but if Kicking Wolf wanted to go, that was enough for Three Birds. When there was discussion he rarely spoke his thoughts. He liked to keep his own thoughts inside him, and not mix them up promiscuously with the thoughts of other warriors, or of women, or of anyone.

His thoughts were his; he didn't want them out in the air. Because of the firm way he stuck to his preference and kept his thoughts inside himself, some Comanches thought he was a mute. They thought he was too dumb to talk and were puzzled that Kicking Wolf put so much stock in his ability.

Sometimes even Kicking Wolf himself was annoyed by Three Birds' silence, his unwillingness to give an opinion.

"What is wrong with you?" he asked Three Birds one time. "You never speak. Where are your ^ws? Are you so ignorant that you have forgotten all your ^ws?" Three Birds had been a little offended by Kicking Wolf's rude speech. When Kicking Wolf asked him that question Three Birds got up and left the camp for a week. He saw no reason to stay around if Kicking Wolf was going to be rude to him. He had not forgotten his ^ws and would speak them when he felt like it. He did not feel he had to speak idle ^ws just because Kicking Wolf had decided that he was in a mood to hear him speak.

What Three Birds saw, when he looked in the sky, besides the geese that were not stopping, was that it was going to get even colder than it had been; it was going to stay very cold for a while yet. There would be more snow and more sleet.

"When will you steal the Buffalo Horse?" Red Badger asked. Red Badger was the opposite of Three Birds. He could not hold in his questions, or stay quiet for long. Red Badger often talked even when he had nothing to say that anyone at all would want to hear.

Kicking Wolf didn't answer the loquacious young warrior. He was thinking of the south, andof how angry Big Horse Scull would be when he woke up and discovered that his great warhorse was gone.

Maggie could tell by the footsteps that the man outside her door was drunk. The footsteps were unsteady and the man had just lurched into the wall, though it was early morning. A man so drunk at that hour of the morning that he could not walk steadily might have been drinking all night. The thought made her very apprehensive, so apprehensive that she considered not opening her door. A man that drunk might well be violent--he might beat her or tear her clothes. Maybe he would be quick and pass out--t sometimes happened with men who were very drunk--but that was about the best that she could expect, if she opened her door to a drunk. Some drunks merely wallowed on her, unable to finish; or the exertion might agitate the man's stomach--m than once men had thrown up on her or fouled her bed with vomit.

For Maggie, it had never been easy, opening her door to a man. Once the door was open she was caught; if a bad man or a cruel man was standing there, then she was in for a bad time. Sometimes, of course, the customer outside her door would just be some unhappy man whose wife had passed away.

Those men, who were just looking for a little pleasure or comfort, were not a problem. The men she feared were the men who wanted to punish women--t was the chief peril of her profession; Maggie had endured many sweaty, desperate times, dealing with such men.