The snap of a dry twig? The crack of stones?
The sound woke Toohmah instantly. Yet, he did not move, but lay on his side, eyes closed, and listening. His motionlessness derived in part from a lifetime of caution. He could not identify the sound nor locate its origin. Any movement would give him away, and he knew not what waited beyond the buffalo robe covering him from head to feet.
In equal part, his stillness resulted from age. Sixty taum, the annual coming of ice and snow, had passed since his mother bore him into the world. His body no longer held the strength and agility of a young brave. It needed time to gather itself, to discover the new aches and pains brought with each sunrise. The night’s cold breath, foretelling winter’s approaching harshness, did nothing to lessen the nagging of his cramped arms and legs.
Old; he recognized the weight of his years pressing down upon him. The relative strength of his teeth, sharpness of his eyes and ears, were a deception, one he accepted to hide the truth from himself. The truth remained.
Few Nermemuh knew so many seasons. Better to have died with war lance in hand beside the companions of his youth. There was honor in such a death. Age lacked the strength to hold its head erect and proud. The ever quickening pace of years brought the slow draining of a man’s mind and body that prepared him for the inevitability of the grave. To be touched by youth once again.
Toohmah’s mind filled with memories. A hundred youthful faces floated behind his closed eyelids. He knew them all, remembered the feel of their names on his tongue. Names he neither thought nor spoke. The names of the dead, even those who died bravely, were forbidden ever to be uttered by the Nermemuh. Still, the faces, painted in black and red in preparation for a raid, remained vivid, as did the sound of their boasting voices.
Gone, all of them gone to hunt and raid forever young in the Valley of Ten Thousand-fold Longer and Wider that waited beyond the sun. And he remained to endure the shame and disrespect of age. The People tolerated the presence of the old, never accepted them.
A sharp crack sounded outside the robe.
Toohmah’s memories dispersed in a heartbeat. Chagrined by the cloud-drifting of his mind, another sign of mounting years, he opened his eyes. A pale gray light seeped in beneath the edges of the buffalo skin. He slept later than normal; sunrise approached. The three days and nights spent in search of a medicine vision added to the weakness of his body.
Cautiously, he edged his right hand forward to inch the buffalo robe from the ground. He blinked, accustoming his eyes to the light while he peered into the coming dawn.
A smile slowly spread across the heavy lines of Toohmah’s leathery, copper-hued face. A lone antelope stood twenty paces from where he lay on the ground. Apparently the creature mistook the bundled buffalo hide for a boulder. The morning breeze blew directly from the east into the old man’s face. An unusual wind for this late in the year, but it kept the scent of man and robe from the animal’s delicate nostrils.
For minutes, he studied the antelope’s sleek form while its head arched low to graze on a patch of dry grass that grew amid the rocks. Its simple beauty pleased him. Even in the pre-dawn glow he could discern the wetness of its dark nose and the working of its small jaw. Occasionally, the creature’s head lifted to search the land around it for signs of predators. Then it returned to munching grass.
A doe. Toohmah’s smile grew to a grin. He saw the brown of its large, round, wet eyes. An antelope was rare this far north of the Red River. And unheard of this late in the season. Had he but carried his bow and quiver with him. The doe would make several fine meals. Its wild, rich meat would be like honey to a tongue dulled by the taste of the white man’s beef.
He suppressed the thought. A man who sought medicine did not come with weapons in hand.
Toohmah caught his breath. Medicine? Was the doe the sign he sought? Kwerharrehnuh, was he not of the Antelope Eaters, the proudest and fiercest of all the Nermemuh? Why else would an antelope awaken him this fourth morning of his vigil? And at this time of year when its kind should be far to the south?
He shook his head. Now was not the time to read magic into things that did not hold power for him. The medicine of the antelope, eagle, coyote, hawk, buffalo, or any other natural creature did not belong to him. His had always been the most powerful of Nermemuh medicine—the nenuhpee.
Many warriors of the People saw the nenuhpee when four days without food and water opened their eyes to medicine visions. Only the strongest and bravest accepted the puha they brought. Most denied the nenuhpee’s medicine, fleeing like a frightened child rather than accept the burden it carried.
The puha brought by a nenuhpee was unlike all other medicines. It carried a double edge for those who accepted it. Both good and evil might come to a man who counseled unwisely with the nenuhpee.
Many of the People considered the nenuhpee totally evil, like the awesome Cannibal Owl that flew the darkest nights.
For those visited by the nenuhpee, men whose inner strength and will could hold the vision to a true path, the Nermemuh gave the name puhakat, maker of strong medicine. A praise often bestowed on Toohmah in his younger days. Of the braves who rode with Quanah, only he talked with the nenuhpee and held their power.
His head moved sadly from side to side. Had the nenuhpee not told him to shun Eeshatai, the self-proclaimed medicine man the Whites called Coyote Droppings, and his Sun Dance that brought the Nermemuh, the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and the Arapaho together to battle the Whites? The Sun Dance and its gathering of war bands did not belong to the People. It could never bring good medicine. The Sun Dance was the way of the Kiowa and Cheyenne.
Claiming to be a puhakat, Eeshatai gathered seven hundred warriors about him. Quanah rode as war chief to the People. Lone Wolf and Woman’s Heart led the Kiowas, while Stone Calf and White Shield rode before the Cheyenne. Together, united against a common enemy, they thundered across the high plains to a trading post known as Adobe Walls to the Tejanos. Within that small mud-walled post were twenty-seven Whites. Twenty-seven against Eeshatai’s seven hundred.
Toohmah closed his eyes to hold back welling tears. Before the day ended, three Whites died and nine warriors lost their life-breath. Many more braves were wounded by the Whites’ buffalo rifles. The alliance of nations shattered and scattered in all directions. Eeshatai claimed a brave killed a skunk the morning of the attack and destroyed his medicine. But all knew him as a fool, not a puhakat
By fall that year, the blue-coat Mackenzie and his black-skinned soldiers discovered the Nermemuh camp within Palo Duro Canyon. Then all ended. Eeshatai had led the People from their ways, and there was no path to return. Only the reservation and the twenty-eight years within its confines awaited the Kwerhaehnuh.
Toohmah stared at the antelope. No, she was not his medicine. But the doe was a sign, a favorable omen that told him the waiting was not in vain. If his body could contain its weaknesses, endure the lack of food, the night’s coldness, the constant pipes of tobacco, he would be rewarded. The nenuhpee would come to provide the answers he sought.
His thoughts drifted to Quinne, son of his sister’s daughter. The youth had seen eighteen taum, eighteen passings of winter’s ice, yet remained a boy. Before the reservation, such a youth would have been blooded, gathered many horses, taken a wife, and earned the right to be called a man. The reservation and its soldier guards left no means for a young man to prove himself.
A week ago, Quinne, the Eagle, came to Toohmah’s tipi. They smoked a pipe together, an action Toohmah would have avoided had he realized the son of his sister’s daughter sought a favor. The sharing of tobacco bound a man to those needing aid.
After hours of sitting and pondering the correct words, Quinne agreed to Toohmah’s insistence that the old ways must be maintained, that a decision would balance on the older man’s vision. If a vision came.
Carefully, Toohmah rose, easing the buffalo robe from his head. The aged warrior’s movement was imperceptible. Occasionally, the antelope looked in his direction. Her brown eyes perused the dark bulk of hide as though perceiving a change, but unable to comprehend the metamorphosis of rock to man.
Toohmah felt pride in his ability. A good hunter was patient. A man who remained motionless became part of nature, no more than a rock or a tree, as long as his prey did not catch his scent.
Past the doe to the east, golden-rose fingers of light reached toward a bluing sky. The last stars of a velvet night dimmed and faded. Slowly and softly, Toohmah filled his lungs, sucking into his body the birth of a new day. Its power and strength were all allowed him during the vigil. On this the fourth day of waiting, even the air held a taste much richer than when a man’s stomach lay bloated with food.
“Kwerhar, ein meadro. ” Toohmah threw the buffalo robe back, shouting for the antelope to flee.
Startled by his voice, the doe jumped three feet into the air. She landed on light feet to bound down the hillside.
“Ein meadro.” Laughing, Toohmah called after the fleeing animal when she disappeared into a clump of live oak. “Ein meadro. ”
Pleased by his small joke, Toohmah turned back to the eastern horizon. Despite the stiff knots left in his legs from the night air, he sat cross-legged oil the ground. The sun would be up soon. Little time remained to properly greet it.
He rolled the buffalo robe in a neat bundle. His palms caressed its texture for a long moment. Before the reservation, only the poorest of the People possessed such a moth-eaten hide.
Twenty-eight years had eaten at it as moths devour the white man’s wool blankets. Yet Toohmah could not part with it. The robe was a link to the past, a reminder of a once-had-been time. While he lived, the robe would be at his side. When it was gone, there would be no more buffalo robes.
From a pouch beside him on the ground, Toohmah pulled out a pipe and filled its bowl with hand-crushed tobacco. He lit the bowl and raised it to the sky, letting the smoke be sucked away by the wind in an offering to the Mother Moon. He then held the pipe to the east and the fiery ball that pushed above the horizon, the Sun Father.
Bowl in hand and stem between his teeth, Toohmah drew deeply to fill his lungs with smoke. He held it a moment before exhaling. Steadily, he smoked the first bowl, tapped the ashes on the ground, refilled the pipe, and began again.
He followed the rituals required of any Nermemuh male who sought a medicine vision. His was the old way, taught to him by his father’s brother. He shunned those on the reservation who used peyote to unlock their visions.
Worse were those who followed the White Warrior, an imaginary god patterned after the white man’s god, the one called the Christ Jesus. Some of the People even followed this Jesus.
Their reasons lay beyond Toohmah’s understanding. Jesus seemed a weak god who preached that war lances should be used to dig the earth and grow corn. Jesus spoke of love, yet in his name the Whites killed. What use could any have for a god who died with nails driven through hands and feet? What medicine was there in a dead god?
The Quakers who came to the reservation said Jesus rose from his grave to walk the earth again, then was lifted into the sky to dwell in heaven with his father. Was not the Valley of Ten Thousand-fold Longer and Wider the same as the Quaker’s heaven? The old ways opened the path to that valley. Why should one follow Jesus to obtain the same thing? It made little sense.
Toohmah’s gaze moved over the hill on which he sat. He had positioned himself on the rise’s south face so that both sunrise and sunset would be visible. During the days, he waited naked beneath the sky, wearing only a breechclout. At night, the buffalo robe warded off the cold.
As with thousands of Nermemuh before him, he waited alone. He neither ate food nor drank water. The only things to pass his lips were air and tobacco smoke. It required a minimum of four days for a medicine vision to present itself to a seeker.
Four days; Toohmah whispered a silent hope that it took no longer. Seeking medicine belonged to younger men. While his mind eagerly anticipated a vision, his body could not endure more than four days without the comforts of campfire and tipi.
When but twenty-four taum, he sat six days in the summer sun before the nenuhpee appeared. Now, if answers did not come this day, he would be forced to return to his tipi when night fell. To wait longer would leave him too weak to make the walk home, he feared.
He finished his second bowl and lit a third. Today he would smoke bowl after bowl until he emptied his tobacco pouch. Through the tobacco smoke, visions came. He glanced at the leather bag. At best seven bowlfuls remained, the last of his monthly ration. A meager weight of tobacco with which to go in search of medicine visions.
He grimaced when he turned back to the sun. Aged, tobacco poor, his whole existence seemed against him. Only the weather favored his vigil. Rather than late fall, the air and sun felt like early summer during the day.
Even in its mildness, the fall had stripped the leaves from the trees that spotted the rolling prairie below him. Here and there, cedars and pines did stand proudly, displaying their evergreen coats. The only other greens visible were patches of grass poking through the browns and yellows of the fall range.
This once belonged to the People, this land extending to the mountains in the west to Balcone’s Escarpment to the south. Comancheria, the Spanish and the Mexicans called it. In the Medicine Lodge Treaty, the Whites gave the Nermemuh almost three million acres in the Indian Territory. For a White with his farms and ranches the land meant a fortune. For the People who ranged the majority of the lands now called Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, the reservation formed a prison. A prison the Whites tightened in 1892 by giving each Nermemuh but one hundred sixty acres and opening the remainder of their lands to settlers. The acreage meant nothing to Toohmah. While some of the People tried to adapt to the White way, he could not. A man could never own the land, only live with it.
Yet, even he, who adhered to the old ways, had been forced to raise cows. Their calves he traded for grain and the other food he needed. Better to eat dog and turkey than plow the earth, scarring her face.
He sucked at the pipe. No smoke passed through his lips. Except for gray ash, the bowl was empty. It felt cold in his hand. Tapping the bowl on the ground, he glanced overhead. The sun now rode at its zenith.
Toohmah shook his head. How long had the pipe been out? An hour, two? Age was like a swiftly running river that ate at its clay banks. Soon it destroyed the barriers that held it to its course and flooded the plain surrounding it to wash everything away in its path.
His tongue moved over his lips while he filled the pipe a fourth time. The action did nothing to relieve the dryness, the leathery texture of his mouth. He looked at the stream flowing at the foot of the rise. It would be so easy to ...
He pushed the temptation away. He could not, would not, leave his position until the last glow of the day’s sun faded from the sky. If the nenuhpee did not appear by then, he would drag himself back to the comfort of his tipi. He would quiet his thirst and hunger, then explain his failure to Quinne. Another sign of his years, the inability to aid those who sought help.
Quinne would understand. Toohmah could imagine his expression, the unspoken words reflected in the eyes of the son of his sister’s daughter. Where trust and respect existed before, the youth would view him with the contempt the rest of the young held for the old. He would be but an aged man who clung to the past, a remnant of a dead world. That would be the final humiliation, the final dishonor, to fail the last one who looked upon him with meaning.
Laughter like the distant tinkling of bells touched Toohmah’s ears.
He pulled at the pipe. He contained himself, displaying no outward sign of his inner excitement. The nenuhpee could not be rushed. If they suspected a man eagerly sought them, they hid and delighted in tormenting the seeker. The nenuhpee came when it suited them.
A blur of movement flashed to the old man’s left. He blew smoke into the air, suppressing the urge to cock his head to the side. If he did, he would see nothing. The nenuhpee were masters of masking themselves. Some said they held the power to change shape, even become invisible. Toohmah never believed this. The nenuhpee were one with their world and used it to conceal their bodies. Like a wood lizard, they blended with their surroundings.
Another flicker of movement—another puff on the pipe.
“Cona cheak. ” Toohmah heard a small voice call the name his father’s brother gave him at birth, Fire Lance. The name had all but been forgotten when the People began calling him Black Hand for his method of taking coup. Toohmah was a good name, one earned and one to be proud of. Yet to hear his true name was also good.
He sucked at the pipe again.
“Cah boon chocofpe nertahmah. ” The voice called him an old man. “Cah boon nahlap. ”
He did as directed and looked at his feet. Still disguising any outward sign of excitement, he stared at the nenuhpee standing by his bare toes. A warrior in miniature, the nenuhpee rose only twelve inches in height. He wore a breechclout and moccasins. His long, flowing hair fell in braids to his waist. Bits of silver woven into those strands sparkled in the sunlight.
Toohmah leaned forward and held his pipe toward the nenuhpee. The tiny warrior waved the offering away.
“Nei tebitze utsaetah. Nei mea monach. Nei habbe weichket. Nei nayoore.” The brave of the Little Folk stared up into the old man’s face.
I am hungry. I am going a long way. I am seeking death. I live. Toohmah pondered the nenuhpee’s words, a riddle to be solved.
“Nei mahnahichcah cin,” he told his visitor he heard the words.
“Hein ein mahsuite?” the nenuhpee asked what he sought.
“Coonah maheyah. Haichka sodishmedro?” Toohmah requested the tiny warrior’s aid in showing him the path to take.
The nenuhpee stooped to pick up an object from a rock at his feet. Toohmah bent closer to identify it as a small double-edged knife.
“Voonet?” the small voice asked.
The old Nermemuh nodded solemnly. He did indeed see. Silently he watched the nenuhpee slide the silver blade beneath his wannup, the G-string binding the breechclout to his waist. With a flick of his wrist, the small brave severed the cord. A thin, red line appeared on his hip. Blood. The blade cut the nenuhpee’s flesh when it sliced the binding.
Standing naked before Toohmah, the nenuhpee dropped the blade and moved his small hands to his barely visible genitals. From beside his penis, the most powerful of all organs to the People, the brave untied a medicine bag. He opened the bag and emptied it on the ground.
Toohmah bent closer. He eyed each object spilled at his feet. An eagle feather, a small bird arrowhead of flint, a tightly woven ring of buffalo grass, a string of black and red beads.
The old man sat erect. These were the very same objects the nenuhpee told him to gather and place in a buffalo hide bag when he was but fifteen years old! The same items still within the sack hung beneath his breechclout, nestled beside his drying testicles.
A cold shiver moved up Toohmah’s spine. What was the tiny brave attempting to tell him? He did not comprehend the meaning. He blinked down at the nenuhpee, perplexed by the unexpected display.
“Ka maywaykin. Ka pahrpee. Toquet. Ein meadro. Suvate, ” the nenuhpee said.
Not to kill. Not to take a scalp. It is all right. You go. That is all. Toohmah repeated the small warrior’s words in his mind.
He closed his eyes to allow their meaning to come to him. His thoughts flitted like a sparrow that would not perch. Four days without food or water left him too light-headed to reason, to think. Later he would sort through what the nenuhpee said and showed him. Now he must do his best to memorize all that transpired.
Opening his eyes, he looked back down at the little one. The nenuhpee was gone.
“Suvate, ” Toohmah repeated. It was all, there was no more to be said.
Rubbing a hand over his tired eyes, the old man turned his head to the sun. Darkness stared back at him. He blinked, then squinted, uncertain of the truth in what his eyes saw. Above all, stars twinkled like bright beads suspended in the air. It was night. He wagged his head in disbelief. The nenuhpee’s medicine was strong. Time twisted in the presence of the Little Folk.
Toohmah placed the pipe he still held into the tobacco pouch and securely tied it within. He uncrossed his legs. They screamed in protest, knotting and cramping from being in one position all day. He grunted in disgust; he cursed his age, then rubbed the muscles of his calves and thighs until the knots relaxed.
Using his arms, he pushed from the ground to stand on less than steady legs. Warily, he lifted the buffalo robe and wrapped it about his nakedness to cut the growing night chill. For a moment, he remembered the clear, running stream that flowed at the foot of the hill. It would be easy to walk there and drink deeply before he returned to his tipi.
Old rituals demanded that a brave be within his own tipi before either eating or drinking. With a heavy sigh, Toohmah began the five miles to his home, wishing a horse awaited him below. Five miles was a long journey for old legs.
When he awoke two mornings later, Quinne sat across a neatly kept fire from him. The young man looked wide awake and expectant. Toohmah studied the son of his sister’s daughter while Quinne ladled a bowl of hot cereal and venison from a pot hung above the fire. The old man gave his silent approval. Quinne was a true member of the Nermemuh.
Erect, Quinne stood five and a half feet. He displayed a wide, deep chest when he handed the full bowl to Toohmah. “Water?”
The older man nodded and accepted a turtle-shell cup. He could see his sister’s face in Quinne’s features.
The aquiline nose, the eyes dark and bright, the thin lips, the shining copper of his skin, told of the ancestry coursing through the youth’s veins. His countenance was intelligent, unlike many of the reservation Nermemuh who carried the blood of other nations in their bodies.
Between fingerfuls of the cereal and venison, Toohmah’s attention drifted back to the young man. Quinne’s facial hair, like his own, was nonexistent. Even the eyebrows had been plucked. Many of the young men cut their hair in the manner of the Whites. Quinne’s hair grew long and straight.
Toohmah saw the anticipation in the youth’s face while he ate. But Quinne held his tongue, waiting in respect for the brother of his mother’s mother to speak. That was good. Patience gave a man time to observe and learn.
Pondering his words, Toohmah slowly emptied the bowl and downed the water. Such a breakfast was not fit for a man. He hungered to again taste the richness of buffalo, hot and dripping grease from a blazing fire. No Nermemuh would taste buffalo again. The white butchers had seen to that.
“There was a vision.” Toohmah stared across the fire at Quinne. “But like this meal, which sits heavy in my stomach, my brain has yet to digest its meaning.”
The young man nodded, but did not speak.
“Wait outside,” Toohmah motioned to the tipi’s flap with a hand. “I will call you when the medicine makes its meaning clear to me.”
“I shall wait, even though a year passes before you utter my name, Uncle.” Quinne’s voice contained solemn respect for the vision.
Toohmah smiled while he watched the youth leave. He then turned his thoughts to the nenuhpee.
Time and again, he sifted the events through his mind. He recalled each minute detail, the way the small warrior held his body, every nuance of his tiny voice.
Gradually, the vision opened to him. The nenuhpee’s first words were not a riddle, but a description of Toohmah himself. They told of the journey he considered—must take.
The double-edged knife warned of hidden dangers concealed within all medicine brought by the Little Folk. There was good, but there was evil for those who could not control it. Thus the drawing of blood when the small brave cut his wannup.
The emptying of the medicine bag took longer for Toohmah to grasp. A medicine bag protected the man who wore it from the evils in the world. To cut it from one’s body and expose its contents destroyed its power.
Perhaps he knew the meaning from the beginning but could not accept what the nenuhpee implied. He was not certain. But now he accepted. He was to carry no medicine bag on his journey. What must be done must be done totally under his own power. There would be no supernatural spirits to aid him.
However, the nenuhpee did offer him a key to success. He must neither kill nor take scalps. If he violated this warning, he would be unable to control the vision, and evil would befall him.
Toohmah gazed into the fire’s dancing flames. The burden was heavy. He sought medicine to make himself invulnerable for the journey and found himself abandoned by the Little Folk who guided his life.
Still, if he heeded the nenuhpee’s words of caution, he could succeed.
Heaving a long sigh, Toohmah rose. Reaching beneath his breechclout, he untied the sack hung beside his penis. He opened the bag and sprinkled its contents on the fire. The sack itself followed.
He then seated himself on the floor of the tipi and watched the flames consume the medicine that had protected him all the days of manhood. He could not suppress the chill that sent gooseflesh rippling over his body. He now walked alone. His survival depended on his skill and his skill alone.
When the last of the medicine bag dissolved in powdery ash, he summoned Quinne. The youth entered and took his position opposite Toohmah.
“Does the wind still blow from the southeast?” the older man asked.
“As it has for the past two days,” Quinne replied.
“It is good. The wind will bring clouds up from the great waters in the south. They will be fat with rain and cover the moon,” Toohmah said. “It will be a good time to make a journey.”
Quinne’s eyes widened, but he did not speak.
“Tell your companions on the second night of the rains I will lead them from the reservation,” Toohmah continued. “I will have further instruction when I have thought on this matter further.”
“I shall tell them,” Quinne said, unable to hide his pleasure. “They will listen with open ears to your instructions.”
“And tell them I shall not kill when we ride. My time for that is passed.” Toohmah closed his eyes, recalling the nenuhpee’s warning. “Go tell them, Quinne.”
The youth rose and left him alone within the silence of the tipi.