Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

But Blue Duck still sat on his prancing horse.

"When you saw this Kickapoo in my father's camp you wanted to torture him," Blue Duck said. "You wanted to put scorpions in his nose.

We caught him and brought him to you, though it was out of our way. We were going after antelope when we saw this man. I would not have brought him to you if I had known you would only turn him loose. I would have killed him myself." Blue Duck's tone was so rude that even his own companions looked unhappy. Fat Knee walked away--he did not want to be associated with such rude behaviour.

Slow Tree looked up at Blue Duck casually, with no expression on his face. It was as if he had just noticed the loud-spoken boy who had not had the manners to dismount. He looked Blue Duck up and down and his eyes became the color of sleet. He still had a knife in his hand, the one he had used to set Famous Shoes free.

"You are not a Comanche, you are a mexicano," Slow Tree said. "Get out of my camp." Blue Duck was shocked--it was as if the old man had slapped him. No one had ever offered him such an insult before. He wanted to kill old Slow Tree, but the chief was backed by more than thirty warriors, and his own friends had dismounted and quickly walked away from him. They were all being so polite it disgusted him; it made him think they were cowards. He was sorry he had ever ridden with them.

"Go on, leave," Slow Tree said. "If your father has any sense he will listen to the elders and make you leave his camp too. You are rude like the mexicanos--y don't belong with the Comanche." "I am a Comanche!" Blue Duck insisted, in a loud voice. "I went on the great raid! I killed many whites and raped their women. You should give me food at least." Slow Tree, not amused, stood his ground.

"You will get no food in my camp," he said.

"Then I will take my prisoner!" Blue Duck said, riding toward Famous Shoes, who stood just where he had been standing when Slow Tree released him.

"You have no prisoner," Slow Tree said.

"Your father granted this man protection. I heard him say so myself, with my two ears. You were there.

You heard the same ^ws I heard, and they were your father's ^ws. Your father said not to interfere with this man, and you should have obeyed." "You are afraid of my father," Blue Duck said. "You are old." Slow Tree didn't answer, but several of his warriors scowled. They did not like hearing their chief insulted.

Slow Tree just stood, looking.

"You have no prisoner," he repeated. "You had better be gone." Blue Duck saw that the situation was against him.

His own friends had walked away. He could not reclaim his prisoner without fighting the whole camp. Fat Knee had been right to begin with. They should have tortured the Kickapoo themselves. He himself had insisted that they take him to Slow Tree, never supposing that Slow Tree would consider that he was bound by Buffalo Hump's instructions regarding the Kickapoo tracker. He thought Slow Tree might be so happy to get the Kickapoo to torture that he would reward him with a fine horse, or, at least, a woman. Now he had lost his prisoner and had been insulted in front of the whole camp. He was angry at his father, at Slow Tree, and at Famous Shoes, all three. He had expected to gain much respect, from bringing Slow Tree such a desirable prisoner; but Slow Tree was more interested in remaining at peace with Buffalo Hump. Instead of gaining respect, and perhaps a horse and a woman, he had been humiliated by an old fat chief.

Without another ^w he turned his horse and rode out of Slow Tree's camp. He didn't look back, or wait for his companions to join him. He didn't even know if they would join him. Probably they, too, were only interested in staying in good with his father, Buffalo Hump.

When Blue Duck rode away, only Fat Knee chose to follow him. The other boys made themselves at home in Slow Tree's camp.

Famous Shoes watched the two young Comanches ride away--he did his best to maintain a calm demeanor. He figured the only reason he was alive was because Slow Tree, who still had sleet in his eyes, did not want trouble with Buffalo Hump, not when Buffalo Hump had just led the great raid that all the warriors were talking about--and all the travellers too. Famous Shoes was still a Kickapoo, in the camp of Comanches--and some of the young warriors were undoubtedly more reckless than Slow Tree. They didn't have a chief's responsibilities, and most of them probably didn't care what Buffalo Hump thought. They were free Comanches and would feel that they had every right to kill a Kickapoo if they could catch one.

"I think I will go now," Famous Shoes said.

"I want to keep looking for that hole where the People came out." Slow Tree no longer looked at him so politely. Though he felt obliged to respect Buffalo Hump's wishes in this matter, he did not look happy about it. The braves who stood behind him didn't look friendly, either.

"That hole is to the north, where the great bears live," Slow Tree said. "If you are not careful one of those bears might eat you." Famous Shoes knew that Slow Tree himself was the bear most likely to eat him--or at least to do something bad to him. It was not a place to linger, not with the old chief so moody. He got his knife and his pouch back from the Comanche boy who had taken them, and trotted out of the camp.

Call found Gus McCrae asleep by the river, under a bluff that looked familiar. Long before, when the two of them were young rangers, Augustus had stumbled off that very bluff one night and twisted his ankle badly when he hit. Then, because of Clara Forsythe, Gus had been too agitated to watch where he was going; now, an hour after sunup, he was snoring away and probably hung over because he pined for the same woman. In a boat, turning slowly in the middle of the river, an old man was fishing. An old man had been fishing the night Gus hurt his ankle--for all Call knew, it might even be the same old man, in the same boat. Years had worn off the calendar, but what had changed? The river still flowed, the old man still fished, and Augustus McCrae still pined for Clara.

"Get up, the Governor wants to see us," Call said, when he got back to where his friend was sleeping. Gus had stopped snoring; he was nestled comfortably against the riverbank with his hat over his eyes.

"It's too early to be worrying with a governor," Gus said, without removing his hat.

"It ain't early, the sun's up," Call said. "Everybody in town is up, except you.

The barber is waiting to give you a good shave." Gus sat up and reached for an empty whiskey bottle by his side. He heaved the bottle out into the river and drew his pistol.

"Here, don't shoot," Call said. "There's an old man fishing, right in front of you." "Yell at him to move, then, Woodrow," Augustus said. "I'm in the mood for target practice." He immediately fired three shots at the bottle, to no effect. The bottle floated on, and the old fisherman continued to fish, unperturbed.

"That fisherman must be deaf," Call said.

"He didn't realize he was nearly shot." Gus stood up, shot twice more, and then heaved his pistol at the bottle, scoring a solid hit. The bottle broke and sank, and the pistol sank with it.

"Now, that was foolishness," Call said.

Gus waded into the river and soon fished out his gun.

"Which barber did you hire to shave me?" he inquired.

"The small one, he's cheaper," Call said, as they walked back toward town.

"I don't like that short barber, he farts," Gus said. "The tall one's slow but he don't fart as often." They were almost to the barbershop when a shriek rent the calm of the morning. The shriek came from the direction of the Colemans' house--one shriek followed by another and another.

"That's Pearl," Gus said. "Nobody else in town can bellow that loud." The shrieks caused a panic in the streets.