Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

"I'm the governor, but the rich Yankee son-of-a-bitch has never answered to me, that I recall," the Governor said. "Every time I call him in for a report, that Yankee nose of his goes up--but that ain't the worst of it. The worst is that he's left us Inez. I expect we can hold our own with the Comanches and I believe we can whip back the Mexicans, but the heavens are going to ring when Inez Scull finds out that her husband didn't care to come home." Neither Call nor Augustus knew what to say about that.

"She's richer than Inish, you know," Governor Pease said. "They're quite a couple, the Sculls. A Yankee snob and a Southern slut. They're hell to manage, both of them." The Governor stared glumly out the window for a while. The fact that the two young rangers were still in his office seemed to slip his mind. Below him he could see Bingham sitting in the buggy, waiting to take someone somewhere; but it was not until his reverie ended and he saw the two dusty young rangers standing by his desk that he realized Bingham was waiting for them.

"Why, gentlemen, excuse me--y'll think I'm daft," Governor Pease said. "Inish Scull used good judgment in making you captains, and I'll second it. You've both got a bright future, if you can keep your hair." He had given the young rangers a careful looking over. They were polite in deportment, unlike their commander, the wild millionaire soldier who had just marched off into the wilderness for reasons of his own. Governor Pease was suddenly moved to emotion, at the sight of such sturdy, upright young fellows.

"You're the future of Texas, fine young men like yourselves," he said. "Why, either of you could wind up governor, before you're done, if you apply yourselves diligently and keep to the straight and narrow." He patted them both on the shoulder and gave them a warm handshake before sending them away-- Augustus claimed the man had even had tears in his eyes.

"I didn't see any tears," Call said, when they were in the buggy again, heading back down the hill toward the ranger corrals. "Why would he cry if he likes us so much?" "I don't know and it don't matter --we're captains now, Woodrow," Augustus said. "You heard the Governor. He said we're the future of Texas." "I heard him," Call said. "I just don't know what he meant." "Why, it means we're fine fellows," Augustus said.

"How would he know that?" Call asked. "He's never even seen us before today." "Now, Woodrow--don't be contrary," Gus said. "He's the governor, and a governor can figure things out quicker than other folks. If he says we're the future of Texas, then I expect it's so." "I ain't being contrary," Call said. "But I still don't know what he meant."

When Slipping Weasel came racing into camp with the news that Kicking Wolf had stolen the Buffalo Horse, there was an uproar at what a big joke it was on the Texans. Old Slow Tree was still there, talking to anyone who would listen about how the time for war with the Texans was over, how it was time for the People to grow corn, how the buffalo would soon disappear, so that the People would starve if they did not soon learn the ways of the whites and plant and reap.

Buffalo Hump had started avoiding the old chief whenever he could do so without giving offense.

When Slipping Weasel came into camp Buffalo Hump was boiling a buffalo skull in a big pot he had taken from a white farm on the Trinity River.

Boiling the skull was taking a long time-- Buffalo Hump had to send Lark off several times to gather more firewood. He was boiling the skull because he wanted to make himself a new shield and he needed the thickest part of the bone for the center of his shield. Very few warriors bothered to make bone shields anymore; it was slow work.

And yet only the thickest part of the buffalo skull would turn back a rifle bullet. He had been fortunate enough to kill a bull buffalo with an exceptionally large head. The buffalo had been watering in the Blue River when Buffalo Hump saw him. He had driven the bull into deep water and killed him with an arrow; then he took the head and carried it all the way back to Texas, despite the flies and the smell, so he could boil it properly and make his shield. The skull was the thickest Buffalo Hump had seen in a long life of hunting--it was so thick that it would turn away any bullet, even one fired at point-blank range. It was important to him that he make the shield correctly. It would not be a very large shield, but it would protect him during the years he had left to raid.

All over camp the warriors were whooping and dancing because of the news Slipping Weasel had brought. It had been poor hunting lately, mainly because old Slow Tree was too lazy to go back to his own hunting ground--the game in the big canyon was exhausted. Naturally the news about Kicking Wolf's audacious theft cheered the young men up. Many of them wondered why it had not occurred to them to steal the Buffalo Horse. If they ate him they would not have to hunt so hard for a while.

Buffalo Hump thought it was a good joke too, but he did not allow the news to distract him from the task at hand, which was to fashion the best possible shield from the great head he had taken on the Blue River, far north of his usual hunting range.

When Slipping Weasel came over to sit with Buffalo Hump for a while Buffalo Hump was skimming the broth from the boiling pot and drinking it.

In the broth as in the shield was the strength of the buffalo people. He gave Slipping Weasel a cup of the broth, but Slipping Weasel, a poor hunter and indifferent fighter, did not like it much.

"It has too many hairs in it," he told Buffalo Hump, who thought the comment ridiculous.

It was the skull of a buffalo; of course the broth had hairs in it.

"Where is he taking the Buffalo Horse?" he asked. "Why didn't he bring him here, so we could eat him?" Slipping Weasel was silent for a while, mainly because he didn't know what to answer. He had met a Kiowa medicine man on his ride back, and the Kiowa told him that the news was that Kicking Wolf meant to take the big horse to Mexico and sell him to the Black Vaquero.

Slipping Weasel did not really believe such a tale, since the Black Vaquero hated all Indians, as Kicking Wolf well knew. Buffalo Hump might not believe the story either, but it was the only explanation Slipping Weasel had to offer.

"They say he is taking the horse to Mexico --he wants to sell him to the Black Vaquero," he said finally.

Buffalo Hump didn't take that information very seriously.

"If he gets there Ahumado will boil him like I am boiling this skull," he said.

Then Slipping Weasel remembered an even more surprising thing he had heard from Straight Elbow, the old Kiowa. Straight Elbow got his name because he had never been able to bend his right arm, as a consequence of which he could not hunt well.

Straight Elbow had to live on roots and acorns, like a squirrel--he searched constantly for herbs or medicines that might allow him to bend his arm, but he never found the right medicine.

"Old Straight Elbow told me something else," Slipping Weasel admitted. "He said Big Horse Scull is following Kicking Wolf. Famous Shoes is with him, and they are both walking." Buffalo Hump agreed that that was out of the ordinary. Once there had been whites who walked everywhere, but most of the old walking whites were dead.

Now the soldiers and rangers were always mounted. He went on boiling his skull. What he heard seemed like a crazy business--Kicking Wolf and Scull were both doing crazy things. Of course, old Straight Elbow was crazy himself, there might be no truth in what he said.

Buffalo Hump, though, made no comment. He had reached the age where time was beginning to seem short. He wanted to devote all his thought to his own plans, and plans he thought he should make for his people. A few years before, when the shitting sickness struck the P--the cholera--the Comanches had died so fast that he thought the end of the People had come. Then the smallpox came and killed more people, sometimes half the people in a given band. These plagues came from the air; none of the medicine men were wise enough to cure them. He himself had gone on several vigils, but his vigils had had no effect on the plague.