Comanche Sundown: A Novel

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301 26 Quanah thought the Cheyennes were haughty and vain. Their presence always made him edgy. All peoples thought spring grass and flowers sprouted anywhere they left a footprint , but the Cheyennes were arrogant to an extreme. They would go around shirtless with an inch of ice on the water in order to show off their Sun Dance scars. Quanah had several times been a guest at these affairs, when the Cheyennes made their camps on the Canadian and the Washita. Some warrior would come running through the lodges with leather straps punched and pulled through the skin between his neck and shoulder blades—two buffalo skulls bouncing and clattering behind in the dirt. This was how they found vision and power? Cheyenne stew was a bit too rich for Quanah’s taste. He thought of them as pretty boys. But they were strong and important allies now. As the Quohada band came into the lush cottonwood bottoms where Elk Creek emptied into the North Fork of the Red, Quanah was thrown off a bit to see they’d have to ride past the tall and elegant tipis of the Cheyennes on the way in. Beyond them more than three hundred lodges fanned out through the valley. The purpose of the council was war, but the occasion was the biggest Sun Dance the Comanche bands had ever attempted. Unlike their Cheyenne, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, and Arapaho guests, they had scant tradition of it. The Comanches were going down this road at the insistence of Isa-tai, who rode beside Quanah at the head of the incoming band. To a man the Comanches indicated they were not going to hang by 302 leather thongs in their chests from any lodge pole. Wolf Shit, who was not eager to do that himself, decreed that it wasn’t a proper part of their Sun Dance. Quanah rode Deer’s Son, his black war horse. Riding Bad Hand Mackenzie’s gray pacer, which Bose had surrendered to his appropriation without regret, Wolf Shit extended his arms level with the ground and raised his jaws theatrically to the sky. Quanah turned and called up Bose on his paint gelding. It ruined the moment for Wolf Shit, who shot a glare at both of them. “I don’t want you,” Quanah joshed Bose. “Just your horse. For those ahead.” Bose returned the Cheyennes’ stares. “Are they going to eat him?” Quanah laughed. “No. They’re the ones who believe in him. Gray eagles and white buffalo and Medicine Hat paints. They got so much help in the spirit world I don’t know how they turn around. You’ll like their cooking, though. Roast puppy stuffed with chokecherries—not bad.” That summer of 1874 Quanah and Bose were twenty-nine years old. Bose was no captive anymore; he had chosen to come back and rejoin the Quohada. Bose leaned forward and rubbed Tricks’ spotted white neck. Looped to his saddle horn was his army bugle. He’d been showing the alliance how cavalry used the bugle to overcome distance, differences in language, and difficulty hearing. “Are you going to get them organized?” Quanah asked. “We’ll see about the Cheyennes,” Bose answered. “But the Kiowas love it. You know Pago-to-goodle?” “Sure, the one with the scar on his face. Eighteen winters old yesterday and means to be war chief day after tomorrow.” “He tells me he’s going to take Satanta’s bugle away from the old fart, and I’m going to teach him how to play it properly.” A group of Cheyennes were walking out to pay their respects and examine their animals. “Make yourself presentable,” said Quanah. “Who are you, my mother?” said Bose. 303 │• In the council Wolf Shit listened with a look of stony patience to all the nominations before announcing that Quanah’s wife Weckeah would select the tree for the Sun Dance lodge pole. The shaman naturally thought his wife, She Invites Her Relatives, was the more fitting choice—one that enhanced his stature. But she was afraid of his power and medicine to the point of it giving her the shakes, and Wolf Shit needed Quanah just as much as Quanah needed him; this concession was an easy one for the shaman to make. Late that day Weckeah walked through the grassy bottom accompanied by her husband, Wolf Shit, and chiefs, war leaders, and...