Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

"Choose," Ahumado said. "It is almost dark. It is a long way back down to the pit, if you want the pit." "Don't you have a better cage to put me in?" Three Birds asked. "This is a filthy cage. It has parts of that dead man sticking to it.

I don't think I will be comfortable in such a filthy cage." Tudwal was astonished. He gave a nervous laugh.

"It is the only cage we have," he said.

"Maybe it will rain and wash away some of that blood." "It isn't the only cage you have," Three Birds pointed out, in a calm reasonable voice. "There are three more cages down there. You showed them to me." "They are full," Tudwal said. "There's that vaquero who's still alive, and two dead men." "You could throw the dead men out," Three Birds pointed out. "Maybe one of those cages would be cleaner." There was silence on the cliff. Tudwal was disconcerted. What did this Comanche think he was doing? It was crazy to bargain with Ahumado--it would only cause him to think up something worse to do to the prisoner.

"He doesn't like our cage," Ahumado said. "Take him back down. We'll let Goyeto skin him." Before Tudwal could reach him Three Birds took two quick steps, to the very edge of the cliff.

In only a second he could put himself beyond the reach of the old torturer and his blinking henchman.

He only had to step backwards and he would be gone forever, into the fine air where the spirits lived.

For a while he would fly, like the birds he was named after; then he would be where the spirits were, without having wasted any time in the dirty pit or the filthy cage. Three Birds had always been a clean man; he was glad they had brought him to a high place, where the air was clean. In a moment he would go backward, into his final home in the air, but he wanted to speak to Ahumado and his henchman before he left them.

"You are stupid men," he said. "A child could fool you. Now Big Horse Scull is coming, and he is not a child. I imagine he will kill you both, and then you will not be skinning people and putting them in cages." Three Birds saw, out of the corner of his eye, one of the dark men sneaking toward him along the cliff edge. The man was short, so short he must have thought no one could see him. But Three Birds saw him and decided he had lectured the two bandits long enough--somewhere behind him in the air, the spirits hovered, like doves. He began to cry out his death song and stepped backward off the cliff.

When Kicking Wolf came to he was almost too weak to move. The tight bonds made his limbs numb and his eyes were strange. Not far away he saw a horse that appeared to be two horses and a cactus bush that seemed to be two cactus bushes. The horse was Three Birds' horse, the one he had been tied to. It was only one horse, and yet, when Kicking Wolf looked at it, it became two, and the one bush became two.

Some witch had distorted his vision so that he saw two things when there was only one. It must have been Ahumado or someone who worked for him.

Then he saw that the rope that had bound him to the horse had been cut. To his surprise, near his head, he saw Scull's footprint, a footprint he had often seen while he was following the rangers, before he stole the Buffalo Horse. Scull must have been the one who cut him loose, another puzzling thing.

Kicking Wolf's tongue was thick with thirst.

When he sat up the world turned around. Three Birds' horse was still two horses, but the two horses were not far away. Kicking Wolf knew that if he could free himself he could catch the horse and ride it to water. There must be water nearby, else the horse would not have stayed.

Because of his thick tongue it took him a long time to chew through the bonds on his wrists. It was dark when the rawhide finally parted.

The vaqueros who had roped him had not taken his quiver--there were no arrows in it, so they had left it. But in the bottom of the quiver was a small flint arrowhead that had broken off one of his arrows.

With the arrowhead he was able to cut quickly through the rawhide that bound his ankles. Flies were stinging him all over his body, where the skin had been taken off in the dragging. All he could do about the flies was throw sand on himself to cover the skinned areas. He found he could not hold his head up straight, either. Something had made his neck so sore that he had to keep his head tipped to one side or else a violent pain shot through him.

When it became dark Kicking Wolf felt a little less confused. In the dark he could not see two of everything. He made his way slowly to where the two horses that were one horse had been grazing and when he got there one of the horses melted into the other. As soon as he mounted, the horse went trotting north. Kicking Wolf found that the riding made him sick--it also made violent pains shoot through his head, but he did not stop and attempt to recover a little. He was still in the country of the Black Vaquero--in his weakness he would be easy to catch if Ahumado sent his men back after him. He remembered Three Birds, who had gallantly come with him to Mexico, although he had no business there. Probably Three Birds was being tortured, but Kicking Wolf knew there was nothing he could do about it. The pains shooting through his own head were as violent as torture. He had to slow the horse to a walk or he would have passed out. In such condition he could not go back to the Yellow Canyon and try to save his friend. Perhaps, later, he could go back with many warriors and avenge him--even Buffalo Hump might join such a war party. He would not like it that the old man had tortured Three Birds to death.

He might want to ride to the Yellow Cliffso and do some torturing himself.

Near morning the horse found water, a little trickling spring high in some rocks. The pool was only a few feet across but it was good water.

Kicking Wolf let the horse drink and then tethered him securely. Then he lay down in the water and let it wash his wounds. It stung but it cleaned him. He drank a little, and then drank more, until his tongue became the right size again.

He wanted to sleep by the little pool, but was afraid to. Ahumado's men would know of the water hole. They might catch him there. He rested an hour, let the horse drink, and then rode on through the day. It was sunny; he began, again, to see two things that were one. He saw a deer running and the deer became two deer. Kicking Wolf knew a bad witch must have made his eyes untrustworthy.

The pain in his neck and head was still violent, but he kept riding. He wanted to get back across the Rio Grande. Besides the pain in his head there was also a sadness in his heart. He had had too much pride and because of it Three Birds was lost. Everyone had told him that his plan was folly; even a foolish man such as Slipping Weasel, who did stupid things every day, had been wise enough to warn him against taking the Buffalo Horse to Mexico. But he had done it, for his pride--but his pride had cost his friend's life and he would have to go home humbled and shamed. Ahumado had taken the Buffalo Horse, the great horse of the Texans, as if he had been given a donkey. He had not acknowledged Kicking Wolf's courage, or anything else. Even courage, the courage of a great warrior, didn't matter to the Black Vaquero.

It occurred to Kicking Wolf, as he rode north, that the problem with his eyes might not be the work of a bad witch; it might be the work of his own medicine man, Worm. The old spirits might have spoken to Worm and told him that Kicking Wolf had shamed the tribe by his insistence on taking the Buffalo Horse to Ahumado. The old spirits would know what happened to Three Birds--the old spirits knew such things. They might have come to Worm in a vision and insisted that he work a spell to punish this haughty man, Kicking Wolf. Because he had had too much pride, Worm might have made a spell to change his eyes so that they could never see accurately again. Always he might see two where there was one.