Comanche Sundown: A Novel

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171 14 A year had passed since Quanah had come into the canyon country with a fine herd of horses stolen out of Mexico and a beautiful young wife on the best one, a thick-chested bay. Quanah thought the stars had at last lined up with favor in his sky. That fall’s hunt had gone well. Parra-o-coom had approved of his bargaining with Old Wolf and had sent out young carriers and captive Mexican packers with one hundred buffalo robes for the Mescaleros in exchange for three hundred horses and mules that enriched his herd and those of his elder war chiefs. Quanah had added robes made from eight cows that he killed as a compliment to his father-in-law, a gift in gratitude for his daughter. Hides of cows were smaller than the bulls’ but they made softer and warmer robes, and the best of all were the autumn hides, when the bison had put on the rich brown fur that protected them from the oncoming winter. Quanah spent several weeks smoothing the bois d’arc sapling shaft and sharpening the head of his grandfather’s lance. Iron Shirt had made the spearhead from the axle of a wagon, and even with its age it could still be honed as sharp as a knife. Quanah fashioned a decorative collar for the head with feathers of a cardinal and peregrine falcon. To-ha-yea took an interest in this; he watched her decorate the shaft with swirls and sparkles of beads that she tapped and glued in the hard wood. Quanah’s lance was admired and envied. Her beadwork became a fashion of the craft. Quanah could carry the lance because Parra-o-coom approved it on inspection, and he proved he could use it, too. They wintered on the Canadian that year, avoiding trouble with the bluecoats but ea- 172 ger to turn fury loose on buffalo hunters and a new enemy, the gangs of surveyors who walked the prairie with their sticks and spyglasses. In the spring he joined a raid of Quohada and Kotsoteka who set fire to houses within sight of the big Texas town San Antonio, a place with much bitter history between the two peoples. The raid stirred a long and furious pursuit by a company of rangers, who said to hell with the occupation army of the North. In the rough country out by the Devils River, Quanah circled back through a cedar brake and with some acrobatic riding he put his lance deep in two of them. It slipped in and out like a knife in a bowl of suet. Quanah was as thrilled with these kills in close fighting as he was raised to be, but he had lived twenty-three winters now and was mature enough to stop bragging. In his lodge hung just one scalp, that of the red-haired boy he put an arrow through the day the black cowboy gave him his whipping with a quirt. He did not take peyote before a raid—it was too dangerous, he wanted his head clear—but he knew he had finally found his medicine . After he took down those rangers with his lance, the headman and fellow raiders came back bragging that his surprise solitary attack so turned the morale of the fight that the heavily armed Texans had to quit their horses and go scrambling through the thorn fields on foot. Parra-o-coom called a council of elders that included Yellow Bear and they came out of it with Quanah elevated to the rank of war leader. His True Friends the Little Horses honored him with a headdress of eagle feathers that almost reached the ground, even as tall as he stood. Possession of such a bonnet signified him as a war leader of great stature. And he had shown many of his brothers the power and way of the peyote road. Yet not one of these True Friends would accept his wife. The humiliation of To-ha-yea had started as soon as their moccasins hit the ground. After coming out to thump his forearms on Quanah’s shoulders and welcome him back, Parra-o-coom had given her a broad smile, yawped on in words she couldn’t fathom, and called out his number one wife to thrust a bowl of spine soup in her hands. 173 But...