Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

Clara put her arm around Pearl Coleman, but didn't speak. People were always leaving, men mostly. The cold wind burned her wet cheeks.

Soon she herself would be leaving with Bob Allen, her chosen husband, to start the great adventure of marriage. She was excited by the thought. She expected to be happy. Soon she would be living away from her parents, and Gus McCrae would not be riding in, dusty, every few weeks, to kiss her. A part of her life was gone. And there stood Maggie, crying for Call, and Pearl Coleman, wailing, bereft at the departure of her Bill.

For a moment Clara wondered whether life was a happier affair with men, or without them.

Pearl, who had calmed a little, was walking back and forth, looking down the road where the rangers had gone. Her face was the shape of a moon and now looked like a moon that had been rained on.

"My baby's a boy, I know it," she said.

"He's going to need a pa." In a few more minutes the sun came up and the women parted. Pearl, somewhat relieved, went back to her house. Two or three wagons were in the street now--Maggie Tilton discreetly went home through an alley, and Clara Forsythe, soon to be Clara Allen, walked slowly back to her parents' store, wondering if, before the summer came, a child would be growing in her too.

ook II

For three days Buffalo Hump and his warriors rode south in a mass, singing and chanting during the day and dancing at night around their campfires. They were excited to be going to war behind their leader. Worm, the medicine man, made spells at night, spells that would bring destruction and death to the Texans. They flushed abundant game and ate venison and antelope when they rested. At night, when the half-moon shone, the warriors talked of killing, raiding, burning, taking captives, stealing horses. They were still well north of the line of settlements and forts --they were lords of the land they rode on and confident in their power. The young warriors, some of whom had never been in battle, did not sleep at night, from excitement. They knew their chance for glory lay at hand.

On the fourth morning Buffalo Hump stayed long at the campfire, watching some of the young men practice with their weapons. He was not pleased by what he saw. Many of the young warriors, his own son included, were not good with the bow. After he had watched for a while he called all the warriors together and issued an order that took everyone by surprise, even Worm, who knew what Buffalo Hump felt about the proper modes of warfare.

"Those of you who have guns, throw them down," Buffalo Hump said. "Put them here in a pile, in front of me." More than two hundred warriors had firearms of some sort--old pistols or muskets, in most cases, but, in some instances, good, well-functioning repeating rifles. They prized their firearms and were reluctant to give them up.

There were a few moments of silence and hesitation, but Buffalo Hump had planted himself before them and he did not look to be in a mood to compromise.

Even Blue Duck, who far preferred the rifle to the bow, did not say anything. He did not want to risk being chastised by his father in front of so many warriors.

Buffalo Hump had not expected all the warriors to be happy with his order. He was prepared to have it challenged. Many of the warriors were from bands who scarcely knew him, over whom he held no authority--except the authority of his presence. But he had thought much about the great raid they had embarked on. He knew it might be his last chance to beat back the white man, to cleanse the land of them and make it possible for the Comanche people to live as they had always lived, masters of the llano and all the prairies where they had always hunted. He wanted the warriors who rode with him to fight as Comanches had always fought, with the bow and the lance--and there were reasons for his decision other than his devotion to the old weapons.

After he had faced the warriors for a time, Buffalo Hump explained himself.

"We do not need these guns," he said. "They make too much noise. They scare away game that we might need to eat. Their sound carries so far the bluecoat soldiers might hear it. There are bluecoat soldiers in all the forts but we do not want to fight them yet. We will spread out soon. We will slip between the forts and kill the settlers before the soldiers know we are there. We must slip down on the settlers and go among them as quietly as the fog. We want to kill them before they can run and get the bluecoats. Kill them with your arrows. Kill them with your lances and your knives. Kill them quietly and we can ride on south and kill many more. We will go all the way to the Great Water, killing Texans." He stopped, so the warriors could think over what he had said. He had spoken slowly, trying to bring all his power into the ^ws. His fear was that some of the young warriors would defy him and split off.

They might make their own raid, shouting and raping, in the way of young warriors. But if such a thing occurred there could be no great raid into the large towns of the whites. There were many forts now, all along the Brazos and the Trinity. Unless they could get below the forts, into the country where white settlers were thick as sage, the soldiers would pour out of the forts and come after them. Then the Comanches would have to defend themselves, rather than bringing war to the settlements. It was not what he wanted, not what he had prayed for.

The half-moon was still visible in the morning sky. Buffalo Hump pointed to it.

"Tomorrow we will break into small parties," he said. "We will fan out, as far as the headwaters of the Brazos. Go quietly between the forts and kill all the settlers you find. When the moon is full we will come back through the hills to the Colorado and strike Austin, and then San Antonio. When we have killed as many Texans as we can, we will go on to the Great Water. If the bluecoats come after us we can go into Mexico." The warriors listened silently. There was no sound in the camp except the stamping and snorting of horses. No one, though, had stepped forward to lay down his gun. Buffalo Hump feared, for a moment, that he was not going to be obeyed. The warriors were too greedy and too lazy to surrender a gun, even a poor gun. With guns they didn't have to hunt so hard and carefully. Too many of them had ceased to depend on their bows, or to practice with them. He decided he had better keep speaking to them.

"Now is the time to fight as the old ones fought," he said. "The old ones had no trouble killing Texans with our own weapons. It was only when we first tried to use guns that we lost battles to the Texans. The old ones believed in the power of their weapons. They fought so hard that they made the Texans run back down the rivers. We took their women and made their children captives. The Mexicans feared us worse than they feared their own deaths. Leave your guns here and let us make war like the old ones made it." At that point old Yellow Foot pushed through the crowd and put his musket on the ground. The musket looked even older than Yellow Foot, one of the oldest warriors to come on the raid. He had wrapped buffalo sinew around the gun so that the barrel would not jump off the stock when he shot at something. It was such a bad gun that no one wanted to stand near Yellow Foot when he shot it, for fear that it might do more damage to them than to whatever Yellow Foot was shooting at.

Nevertheless, Yellow Foot was very proud of his gun and wasted many bullets shooting at game that was too far away to hit. Twice he had killed young horses because his vision was poor and he mistook them for deer. Buffalo Hump was pleased when he saw the old warrior come forward.

Though a little crazy, Yellow Foot was much respected in the tribe because he had had over a dozen wives in his life and was known to be an expert on how to give women such extreme pleasure that they would remain jolly for weeks and not complain as other women did.