For the second day the rain fell. Rain bred of icy arctic winds that swept down from Canada, across the northern prairies to mate with warm, moisture-laden air gently rolling upward from the Gulf of Mexico.
The first day it deluged the land in violent, wind-lashed torrents that swelled streams and rivers with flash floods. To the east, dark funnels dipped to the earth venting their tornadic fury as they skirted the reservation.
On the second morning, the storm’s anger subsided. Through the day, gray and shadowless from the unbroken overcast, the rain fell with a monotonous constancy.
Toohmah sat on the floor of his tipi listening. The downfall pelted the walls around him, striking the stretched hide like a thousand small hammers on the skin of a drum. The lulling rhythm would have easily brought restful sleep had it not been for the journey ahead and the three men seated about the small fire with him.
The old Nermemuh drew deeply from the pipe and passed it to Quinne. The tobacco ritual both calmed the spirit and bound the four together for what must be done.
Toohmah quietly studied the three young men. Following his directions, all wore white men’s clothing, dark and unadorned with the bright colors that so pleased the eyes. Their gazes moved slowly about the interior of the tipi to linger on the many patches that mended the walls. He detected the doubt on their faces as though they expected the skin to give way any moment and admit the rain. Inwardly, he smiled. His tipi remained warm and secure after many of the shelters built by white settlers lay in muddy ruins.
“What do we do now, chocofpevistal,” The one named Chana called him old man. Toohmah cringed at the sound. The youth displayed rudeness to speak while the pipe still burned. He ignored the words.
Ghana’s lips parted to speak again, but Quinne placed a hand on his shoulder to quiet his companion. “He meant no disrespect, Uncle. Unlike you, we have never ventured beyond the reservation. We grow restless.”
And nervous, Toohmah thought. A disquieting sensation writhed like a snake through his chest. His own nervousness? His own doubt? Of himself, or of these three he would lead south across the Red River into the land the Whites called Texas?
Toohmah nodded, accepting the apology. Their faces were brightly lit by the flames. Yet, what did he know of them?
Quinne was the youngest. Like the Nermemuh he was, he yearned for the adventure of the trail, to be hold the lands that once belonged to his father’s father. Toohmah did not question him. Quinne would do all required of him without hesitation.
Moreover, Quinne understood the full weight of the white man’s yoke. At age twelve, he had been held and forced to watch four drunken soldiers repeatedly rape his mother and older sister. No shame lay in the violation of a woman’s body. If a child resulted, it would have been accepted and loved as one of the People. A child was a child, to be cared for and nurtured no matter who the father or mother was.
Quinne’s shame came in his being denied revenge. Before the reservation, he would have sought each of the soldiers and left them staked out in the summer sun, eyelids cut from the faces. Or worse, placed them in the hands of the band’s women. Death from braves came quickly. Squaws could keep an enemy captive alive a week, screaming his every waking moment.
To be sure, the four soldiers had been apprehended and court-martialed. Their punishment was to be sent to the white man’s prison. After two years they walked free.
The penalty was not enough, if indeed they ever had been locked behind prison bars. What assurance did any Nermemuh have that the Whites punished their own? The four were taken north to a land called Kansas. Perhaps they were set free there? No Nermemuh could be certain.
Toohmah knew the one called Chana. One glance at the nineteen-year-old youth and it was easy to understand where he got his name, why his family called him Hog. Chana’s nose lay wide and pressed flat against his face. His eyes were small and nervous, his cheeks fat and round. He stood two inches shorter than Quinne. The fat rounding his body gave him the appearance of a smaller man. Even his voice came pig like from his mouth in short, snort like bursts. He wore his dark hair cropped short in the manner of the Whites.
The one called Boisa Pah bothered Toohmah. He did not like the twenty-year-old’s name. Crazy Water was ominous. A man should not be named after whiskey.
Nermemuh blood ran in Boisa Pah’s veins. His angular face revealed that. But the young man was taller than most of the People. Toohmah estimated his height at six feet. His body was lean and angular to the point of being lanky. His eyes were mere slits that shifted constantly. Cheyenne blood? White? Toohmah could not be certain. Like Chana, Boisa Pah cut his hair close to the scalp.
He knew neither Chana nor Boisa Pah’s reasons for wanting to break the white man’s bonds. Nor did he care. He would give the son of his sister’s daughter a taste of the freedom the Nermemuh once held.
Toohmah took a deep breath and admitted the truth to himself. The journey was not for Quinne. He went for one reason only—himself. The Valley of Ten Thousand-fold Longer and Wider lay in the near future for him. At times its features seemed distinct and clear. Before he joined dead friends, who must never be named, he wished to visit the plains of the Kwerharrehnuh again. He wanted to touch the soil of the land the Spaniards called Llano Estacado, the Staked Plains. He wanted his feet to feel the earth he once knew as home.
It was an old man’s dream; one these three provided the means to secure. Their reasons for fleeing the reservation did not concern him. Each man must seek what he must seek. Toohmah accepted and understood his reasons for leaving.
“I must prepare for our journey.” Toohmah pushed to his feet. “You should eat. We will be deep into the lands below the Red River before we rest again. But eat only enough to warm your bellies. I do not want you heavy with food. We leave when the sun sets.”
Ducking outside the tipi, the old Nermemuh turned his face to the dark, gray sky. Large, cold drops splattered over his skin. He shivered. Was it the damp chill or his own nervous hesitation? Better to believe his trembling came from the weather than doubt himself. He tried to forget that twenty-eight years had passed since he last rode the trails of the People.
His steps were heavy as he walked to the dark trunk of a live oak five hundred paces behind his tipi. Carefully, he examined each step. The footprints vanished within seconds on the spongy ground. He gave his silent approval. Tracking them would be difficult in this weather.
He knelt beside the tree and used his hands to dig into the rain-softened dirt. Half a foot down, he found the oiled-leather bundle he sought. He stared at it a long, wistful moment. He had buried the bundle to protect it from grease and women during their monthly time of blood. Both destroyed the medicine it held. His efforts had been in vain. No medicine, good or evil, remained. The nenuhpee had taken that.
Brushing dirt and mud from the oiled leather, he stood and started back to the tipi. His steps felt strange. Another reminder that the supernatural powers had abandoned him. His loins seemed empty and lonely without the medicine bag nestled beside his testicles. A few days was not enough to accustom himself to the loss of something he had carried forty-five years.
Within the tipi, his three young companions sat eating a light meal of dried beef and tosi tothteeah, a flat, white bread the Mexicans called tortilla. Toohmah accepted a portion of the meal from Quinne. His teeth gnawed a bite from the hard, salty meat, then chewed slowly to soften it before swallowing.
“The meal is dry, old man.” Boisa Pah reached into a back pocket and produced a flat bottle sloshing with amber liquid. “This should aid your chewing.”
“No whiskey.” Toohmah shook his head sternly. “It is not a time to celebrate or relax. Whiskey will fog your mind. But carry it. There will be time for celebration when we have crossed the Red River.”
Boisa Pah slammed the half-removed cork back into the mouth of the bottle. He glared at Toohmah, but did not speak when he slid the whiskey back into his pocket.
The old Nermemuh weighed his reaction. He considered ordering him to leave the bottle, but decided against it. The false summer had passed. If the rain continued, it could easily turn to ice or snow. Whiskey would help warm their bellies. Divided among four, there was not enough in the small bottle to affect their minds.
Finishing his meal, Toohmah lifted the bundle to his lap. He unwrapped the layers of leather to reveal a brightly painted war shield. He sensed the others’ eyes on him when he placed the shield upon the fire. He ignored their unspoken questions, his total attention on the flames that licked at the buffalo-hide shield. The circle of dried skin darkened, blackened, then split open. The paper stuffed within the shield caught fire. An amused, ironic smile touched the old brave’s lips. The paper came from five books, each bearing the title Holy Bible. He had traded two ponies for the books to a band of Honey Eaters who received them from Quaker missionaries during one of the multitude of peace councils with the Whites.
The People’s interest in books astonished the Whites until they learned the pages were used to stuff shields. Paper was more effective than dry grass and feathers the Nermemuh shield makers used prior to the white man’s coming. Very few rifle bullets penetrated a paper-stuffed shield. Those that did pierce the shield’s face were normally deflected by the mass of paper.
“My lance ... bow and arrows.” Toohmah motioned to Quinne.
The youth rose to retrieve the weapons from where they hung above the old man’s bed. He handed them to Toohmah, then returned to his place by the fire.
Three pairs of eyes on him, Toohmah placed the bow and arrows within his buffalo robe, then wrapped all in the oiled leather that had protected the shield. The leather would keep the rain from destroying the old robe or warping the wooden bow and arrows.
Toohmah then lifted the war lance. After all the years, it still felt right in his hands. He could shoot a bow, pistol, and rifle. But the lance was his chosen weapon. It was honored by the Nermemuh. The lance meant hand-to-hand combat. The warrior who carried one never retreated. He had felt twenty-five men die on the head of this lance.
Fifty men and women, Indian and White, he had killed before coming to the reservation. Yet they did not bring the honor that came when the People sang his name for the coup he took. Even a squaw could kill, but a brave’s courage was measured by the coup he counted.
He grasped the ends of the lance and bent it over a knee until the cured wood snapped in two. Each of these pieces he broke again. He placed them atop the fire. Inwardly, he wept. The shield and lance were old friends meant to rest beside him in the grave. But they were too conspicuous. The color of his skin and the features of his face would be enough to contend with on the journey. The weapons would be too obvious to any he met on the trail.
Rising, the old Nermemuh stepped to his bed and the clothes laid out there. Atop his breechclout, leggings, and moccasins, he dressed in black pants and shirt, purchased at the reservation store. He gathered his braided hair atop his head and stuffed it beneath a high-crowned hat. He would have covered his feet in boots had he the money to buy them.
He slipped a white man’s belt through the loops of the pants, then attached a knife in an unadorned sheath to the belt. The clothes made him uncomfortable, but he endured them. At a distance, they would appear White. A necessary deception for four Nermemuh to ride through the Whites’ land unnoticed.
“It is time to leave.” Toohmah turned back to his young companions. “It will be dark soon. We have a long walk before us, and an even longer distance to travel before the sun brings a new day.”
“Where are we going, old man?” Chana faced Toohmah, hands resting impatiently on his hips.
“To steal the horses we need.” Pride touched the old brave’s words. The best horses were those stolen from an enemy.
“Where can we get horses?” Chana asked. “None of our people, or any of the other nations, is allowed mounts. Only the soldiers have horses.”
“Listen to your own words, Chana.” A thin smile moved over Toohmah’s lips.
“The soldiers? Has your mind fled you, old man?” Chana protested, his eyes darting to his companions for support. “The soldiers have guns. All we have are knives!”
“And the night and the rain,” Toohmah answered. “No more is needed. They are enough.”
“I don’t know.” Chana shook his pig like head. “I didn’t bargain on the soldiers. I want to ride south, but—”
“There will be no shame if you stay behind,” Boisa Pah said with a twisted little grin that mocked his friend’s hesitancy.
Chana glanced at Quinne. The younger man nodded. “One should not go if he feels uneasy about the outcome.”
Chana’s head swiveled back to the grinning Boisa Pah. The fat youth swallowed, his gaze uncertain where to alight. “I am not a frightened child. I shall come with you.”
A grin of greater amusement spread on Boisa Pah’s lips. Quinne silently nodded his acceptance.
Toohmah studied them a moment, feeling that chill of uncertainty once more. He edged it away. These were no more cautious or reckless than those he had ridden with when he was a young man.
“A few last words,” Toohmah said. “I must repeat, I may not kill nor take a scalp on our journey—”
“Your vision.” Boisa Pah’s voice was steeped in sarcasm. “You have told us this already, old man.”
“—and until we cross the Red River”—Toohmah ignored the tall one’s comment—“I will lead you. In the land of the Tejanos, you may ride where you please. Until then, you follow me without question.”
He paused, his gaze moving over the three young faces. Chana’s pig like eyes narrowed, and Boisa Pah’s mouth uplifted at one corner. Even Quinne’s bright eyes blinked.
They understood, he was certain of that. But they did not fully accept it. That was to be expected. Youth was always eager to find ways to slip unnoticed beneath the watchful eyes of the old. He would be hard pressed to keep a tight rein on these three. Once across the river, they would be on their own. Then, he would only help if asked.
“It is time to go,” Toohmah said. “Walk on the feet of hunters, and let your tongues sleep until the horses are under us.”
Cloaked by the night, Toohmah crouched alone beside the trunk of a wind-snarled sweetgum tree. The leafless branches overhead did nothing to shelter him from the constantly falling rain. Despite his disgust for the white man’s clothes he wore, the hat of the Tejano cow herders shielded his eyes from the downpour, allowing him clear vision to study the corral before him.
He smiled. An inward excitement coursed through him, bringing alive sensations he had thought were long dead. Lovingly, his gaze caressed the forty head of horses held within the circle of wooden fence. Once he measured his wealth in one hundred fifty horses and thirty mules. Now he ached to sit astride the back of but one of these rain-sleeked mounts.
His attention returned to the two soldiers standing guard on the corral. The cold misery of the night made them careless. Normally, the guards continually circled the corral, eyes and ears watching the night while they walked side by side.
Tonight, the rain and its chill dulled their caution as water rusts a keenly sharpened blade. A hundred paces from Toohmah’s position, they had constructed a makeshift lean-to from tree branches and a piece of canvas. Under this, they built a fire and cooked coffee in a smoke-blackened pot. While one man circled the horses, the other sat beside the fire warming himself. After five circuits of the corral, the soldiers exchanged places.
Toohmah imagined one of the reservation officers coming upon the two. Both would be punished for their behavior. But no officer would be out on such a night, nor at this late hour. The guards realized that, thus found the courage to flaunt the authority of their superiors.
That knowledge, and the fact that there had been no raids on the horses for over five years, was their weakness. A weakness Toohmah hoped to use to his advantage.
The sound of sloshing mud came from behind the old brave. He glanced over a shoulder. Shadows moved within the night’s blackness. The sound was too soft for the soldiers or the ears of any White to hear over the rain. Toohmah allowed an overly held breath to escape from between his teeth.
The shadows took form—three crouching men, backs bent by the saddles they carried.
Toohmah listened to their movement. Each footstep sounded distinct to his ears. Once even a squaw of the People moved through the night silently. These reservation-bred Nermemuh sounded like stampeding buffalo.
Together the three came to the sweetgum and sank to the ground. Quinne scooted beside Toohmah. “It went quietly. Boisa Pah took the single guard from behind with a rock.”
Toohmah saw the tall one grin widely. He nodded his approval of the youth’s action.
“It took but a few minutes to pry the lock from the tack room door,” Quinne explained. “We did as you said ... four Mejano-style saddles and bridles, plus rope halters and shanks for four more mounts.”
“This will not be as simple as the tack room.” Toohmah pointed to the corral and briefly outlined his plan. When he finished, Boisa Pah reluctantly surrendered the bottle of whiskey. The old brave eyed Boisa Pah and Chana. “Move quietly. I could hear you coming for a quarter of a mile.”
“The guard by the tack room did not hear me, old man,” Boisa Pah said with pride. “This one will not either.”
Chana grunted his support of his older companion, then the two slipped back into the night to circle behind the corral and wait.
Toohmah watched a few moments, hoping their success at the tack room would not lessen their caution. Timing was essential to his scheme. Both guards must be taken at the same moment. A cry, a warning shot would have every soldier in the reservation garrison down on their backs in a matter of minutes.
“Wait until the soldiers exchange places again before moving.” Toohmah looked at Quinne. “And remember, move quietly. One small sound and they will be alerted.”
“I shall move like a feather in the air,” Quinne said, pulling his hunting knife from its sheath.
Without another word, Toohmah, whiskey bottle in one hand, moved away from the tree into the darkness. Carefully, he skirted the semicircle of light radiating from the campfire. He positioned himself so that he gazed directly into the lean-to, then crouched in the open, hidden only by the night’s blackness.
The soldier circling the corral walked past, his head low against his chest to avoid the downpour. Toohmah caught his breath. His heart thudded heavily in his ears. The guard never glanced in Toohmah’s direction. The old man smiled; age did not diminish pride.
Within minutes the two guards changed places. As the second soldier began his circuit around the fence, Toohmah saw Quinne’s dark form slip from behind the sweetgum and shoot quickly into the shadow cast by the lean-to. The soldier sheltered by the canvas sat on his haunches sipping a fresh cup of coffee. Quinne’s movement went unnoticed.
Now if Boisa Pah and Chana were in their positions.
Taking a deep breath, Toohmah stood. He pulled his hat lower to his face and tucked his chin against his chest. Singing to himself, he staggered forward in a perfect mimicry of a drunken brave. He forced himself to walk with a mock, disoriented slowness into the campfire’s light.
The guard beneath the lean-to dropped his coffee, scurried from the shelter, and lifted his rifle. “Halt! Identify yourself!”
Toohmah looked up as though startled by the soldier’s presence. Then he grinned a broad, silly grin. Waving the bottle before him, he called a greeting to the guard in his own tongue.
The soldier’s stance relaxed, the muzzle of the carbine drooping. “You drunken bastard! Go home. You’ve no business out on a night like this. I could have shot you. I should shoot you. One less stinking Indian to worry about.”
Toohmah continued forward, maintaining his charade. He ignored the soldier’s words, his attention on Quinne, who crept behind the guard.
The knife blade flashed silver in the campfire’s light when the young brave’s arm rose and fell. The guard collapsed with a grunt as the knife pommel smacked solidly into the back of his skull.
“Quickly!” Toohmah motioned to the son of his sister’s daughter.
They took the carbine and stripped the unconscious soldier of his spare cartridges. Dragging the man beneath the lean-to, they propped him upright as though he sat warming himself. While Quinne returned to the shadows to await Boisa Pah and Chana, Toohmah took cooled ash from the fire and coated the palm of his right hand. He pressed it against the soldier’s forehead, leaving the print of a black hand. The first coup of the ride had been taken.
The horses within the corral stirred. Toohmah looked up to see Boisa Pah and Chana climbing over the fence. The two young men smiled widely. Chana hefted a soldier’s carbine.
“There was no need to worry, old man,” Boisa# Pah whispered when he reached Toohmah’s side. “The guard never knew we waited for him.”
“There will be time for boasting later,” the older man answered. “We still have a long night’s ride ahead. Chana, Quinne, get the saddles.”
Boisa Pah’s grin did not diminish. His chest swelled while he surveyed the campfire. Abruptly, a puzzled expression darkened his angular face. “This one lives!”
Before Toohmah could answer, Boisa Pah dropped beside the unconscious man, jerked back his head, and ran his knife across the soldier’s exposed throat. A dark line, like a second mouth, opened; blood flowed like a river.
“Now there are two soldiers who will never plague our people again.” Boisa Pah stood, chest expanding again as he held out his blade to let the rain wash it clean.
“You killed the other guard?” Toohmah stared at the young man, uncertain he saw and heard correctly.
“I killed them both, old man,” Boisa Pah said proudly. “They shall never wake to warn the other soldiers now.”
A cold shiver slid along Toohmah’s spine. He sought words, but they refused to form.
“Your vision remains intact, old man.” Boisa Pah stared at him defiantly. “You have not killed. It is I, Boisa Pah, son of Pihume, who has rid the world of two Whites this night!”
Toohmah’s gaze shifted back to the dead soldier. His life’s blood pooled around his head in a dark circle on the ground. Dead men were nothing new to him. Had not his own blade eviscerated his enemies to watch them scream in agony? Then why did this one soldier trouble him so? Boisa Pah was correct. He had not killed.
“Uncle,” Quinne called to him. The youth stood by the corral’s gate. “The horses are ours. Now we can ride!”
Like a man coming out of a dream, Toohmah stepped toward the corral. Ten minutes later, astride a horse, leading another behind him, he rode northward with his three young companions. Toohmah grinned into the face of the night. They would lay a false trail for the soldiers. Several eyes would see them riding, eyes mated to waggling tongues that would be only too willing to sell information to the Whites.
While the soldiers searched the north country for them, they would ride east and follow the Cache River south to the Texas border.