Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

The man could well be a trickster of some sort, allied with a witch. If he was just a plain man with horse trading on his mind, he was making a foolish mistake.

"Go eat," he told Tudwal. "Goyeto has to finish his work." Relieved, Tudwal left at once.

Goyeto peeled the strip of skin up the unconscious caballero's chest and up his neck to his chin. Then he cut it off and walked away with the thin, light strip. He meant to peg it out, salt it a little, and hang it in the big cave, with all the other human skins he had taken for Ahumado. On little pegs in the cave were more than fifty skins, a collection any skinner could be proud of. From time to time Ahumado would come into the big cave for a few minutes, take down the skins one by one, and admire them. He and old Goyeto would reminisce about the behaviour of this captive or that. Some men, like the German who had tried to steal the rocks, behaved very bravely, but others, weak like the young caballero, were disappointing to work on. They broke down, fouled themselves, and bawled like babies.

Outside on his blanket, with the winter sun reflecting off the yellow walls of the canyon, Ahumado sat, thinking about the three men who were coming from the north--Big Horse Scull and the two Comanches. The notion that they had come for a visit was amusing. No one visited him in the canyon of the Yellow Cliffs.

When the time came for a visit, he would visit them.

"What will you say to the Black Vaquero when he catches us?" Three Birds asked.

They were camped in a long canyon with high walls, a place Three Birds didn't like.

He had lived his life on the open prairie and didn't like sleeping beneath a cliff of rocks.

Someone with the power to shake the earth could make one of the cliffso fall on them and bury them, a thing that could never happen on the plains. In his dream he had seen a great cliff falling and had awakened in a sweat.

Kicking Wolf had killed a small pig with spiky hair, a javelina, and was too busy roasting its bones to respond to Three Birds.

Then Three Birds remembered another bad story he had heard about the Black Vaquero, this one having to do with snakes. It was said that the old man had such power that he had persuaded the rattlesnake people to give up their rattles. It was said that Ahumado had many snakes with no rattles, who could crawl among his enemies and bite them without making a sound. Though Three Birds normally didn't fear the snake people, he didn't like the thought of rattlesnakes that made no sound. The pig they were eating was tasty, but not tasty enough to make him forget that the Black Vaquero had a number of evil ways.

"Have you heard about the snakes without rattles?" Three Birds asked. "There might be a few of them living in this canyon right here." "If you are going to talk all night I wish you would go home," Kicking Wolf said. "I don't want to sleep tonight--I want to stay up and sing. If you want to sleep you had better go somewhere else." "No, I will sing too," Three Birds said, and he did sing, far into the night. He had the feeling that they would be dead very soon and he wanted to sing as much as possible before death closed his throat.

The two Comanches sang all night and in the morning took pains to paint themselves correctly.

They wanted to look like proud Comanche warriors when they rode into the camp amid the Yellow Cliffso, the camp of the hundred caves, where Ahumado had his stronghold.

Kicking Wolf was just about to mount the Buffalo Horse when he felt a change come. The sun had not yet struck the cliffso to the south; they were still filled with blue light. Three Birds had just finished painting himself when he felt the change.

Sometimes, hours before a storm, the air would begin to change, though there was no sign of anything to fear.

That was how the air changed in the long canyon.

"I think he is here," Kicking Wolf said, coming over to Three Birds.

Just then Three Birds saw a rattlesnake without rattles going under a rock near where they had their blankets. He knew then that Ahumado must be near. He wondered if Ahumado's powers were such that he could turn himself into a snake and come near to spy on them. It might even have been Ahumado who crawled under the rock near where the blankets were. He didn't mention his suspicion to Kicking Wolf, though--Kicking Wolf didn't believe that people could turn themselves into animals, or vice versa, though he admitted that such things might have been possible in the old days, when the spirits of people had been more friendly with those of animals.

Then the Buffalo Horse snorted, and swung his head. He looked around the canyon, but didn't move.

"I don't want to camp in any more canyons," Three Birds observed--he was about to outline his objections when he turned and saw an old man sitting on a high rock a little distance behind them. The rock and the man were in shadow still; it was hard to see them clearly. He sat cross-legged on the rock, a rifle across his lap.

When the light improved a little they saw that he was as dark as an old plum.

Kicking Wolf knew that he was in great danger, but he also felt great pride. The old man on the rock was Ahumado, the Black Vaquero. Whatever his own fate might be, he had completed his quest. He had stolen the Buffalo Horse and brought him to the great bandit of the south; he had done it merely for the daring of doing it. If a hundred pistoleros rose up in the rocks and killed him, he would die happy in his courage and pride.

"I have brought you the Buffalo Horse," Kicking Wolf said, walking closer to the rock where the old man sat.

"I see him," Ahumado said. "Is he a gift?" "Yes, a gift," Kicking Wolf said.

"He is a big horse," Ahumado said.

"I shot him once but the bullet only scratched him. Why did you bring him to me?" Kicking Wolf made no answer--there was no answer that could easily be put into ^ws. He knew that at home, around the campfires, the young men would sing for years about his theft of the Buffalo Horse and his inexplicable decision to take him to Ahumado. Few would understand it--perh none would understand it. It was a thing he had done for no reason, andfor all reasons andfor no reason. He stood on his dignity as a Comanche warrior.

He would not try to explain himself to an old bandit who was black as a plum.

"I will take this horse and the other one too," Ahumado said. "You can go home but you will have to walk until you get to Texas. Then you can steal another horse." Kicking Wolf picked up his weapons. He and Three Birds started to walk out of the canyon past where Ahumado sat. But when Three Birds moved Ahumado made a motion with his rifle, pointing it directly at Three Birds.

"Not you," he said. "Your friend can go but you must stay and be my guest." Three Birds didn't argue. What had happened was exactly what he had expected would happen. He had come to Mexico expecting to die, and now he was going to die. He was not upset; it was a moment he had been waiting for since the shitting sickness killed his wife and his three children. He had wanted to die then, with his family, but his stubborn body had not wanted to go. But some of his spirit had gone with his wife and his little ones and he had not been able to attend much to the things of the world, since then. Now he had had a good journey with his friend Kicking Wolf--they had travelled together to Mexico. He did not want the evil old man to do bad things to him, but, as to his death, that he was at ease with. He immediately stretched up his arms and began to sing his death song.

Though Three Birds wasn't upset, Kicking Wolf was. He did not like the disrespectful tone the old man had used when he addressed Three Birds. Even less did he like it that Ahumado meant to keep Three Birds a captive.

"This man helped me to bring you the Buffalo Horse," he said. "He has come a long way to bring you this gift." Ahumado kept his rifle pointed at Three Birds. It was clear that he had no interest in what Kicking Wolf had just said.