Woman of the People

3. Winter When the Buffalo Hid

~ 3. WINTER WHEN THE BUFFALO HID ~ HELEN TEHANITA had come up on the gentle divide above the travel camp to pick prickly pear apples. She had not been told to do it, but having picked them with great trouble at times during the past two years, could not now pass up this field where the apples stood up thick and fat and red on the graygreen leaves. She had become a good worker on purpose, not to be more a part of their life, but to gain and keep their trust. Let them believe that she was a good Comanche, that she had forgotten her great grievance against them, that she accepted her life as it was and had given up hope of a decent life among white people. Let them believe it if they would. This day without much work she had half filled her basket, a container woven of heavy grass that Lance Returner had brought back from the Mexico raid. She picked the apples skillfully with a tool made of cane, almost never getting any of the fine stickers in her hands. She had learned patience and great respect for the long job she had set for herself. She had determined to learn Comanche ways so that she would have the ability to escape from them, but the more she learned, the more she found to learn. Those visitors now in the travel camp were Penatuhkas, and there 46 47 WINTER WHEN THE BUFFALO HID were many other Comanche bands: N awkoni, Tanima, Tenawa, Kwahadi, Yamparika, Kotsoteka, Pagatsu, Pahuraix. The Penatuhkas had some kind of connection with white people. They lived part of the time on something called a "reservation ." That was the kind of thing she had to learn. Understanding the nature and ways of her captors was hard. They believed that they were better and stronger and smarter than any other people, white or Indian. They liked to brag about what they had done and what they intended to do to such as the Lipan Apaches. It seemed false, yet they had gone against the Lipans and brought back scalps. They bragged about feats of horsemanship that seemed impossible; yet she had seen them riding in play, man and boy, and had seen them drop down to hang on the side of a running horse and shoot arrows under his neck. And she had seen two of them charge side by side on running horses, lean over, and pick up a grown man lying on the ground and pull him up on one of the running horses. Having seen some of the amazing things they could do, she found it difficult to judge their bragging, whether it were true or false. During the two years she had seen some of the country they called their own, which she was trying to learn. She was wondering if the trouble were that she wasn't old enough, for as much as she had seen was all different, and its only common trait was its vastness. It was filled with landmarks that one never saw again and with paths made by buffalo and deer that led everywhere and nowhere. At least she had learned to ride in comfort. She could live most of a week on a horse and not mind it, as all the others seemed able to do. After the winter on Goodwater Creek she had gone with a hunting party in the spring, then with a party that met a Mexican trader and exchanged robes and skins for silver ornaments, tobacco, knives, red cloth, and powder and lead for the few muskets they had. After that they had moved the whole Mutsani camp, carrying everything they owned by horse, carrying the old, such as Story Teller, and the young children A WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE 48 by travois, traveling for ten days to a new home camp on the Concho River. From there she had gone with a party to set up a raid camp from which the braves went out to fight the hated Tonkawas. Later she had stayed at home camp with Old Woman and Story Teller while the braves went on an autumn raid to Mexico. Then she had gone on a winter meat hunt as cold weather came and on a spring hunt as grass began to green and leaves sprouted on the trees. They had made a raid...