Hairy Wolf used a pointed stick to draw a diagram in the dirt. Iron Eyes and He Bear, the newly arrived Kiowa Apache war leader who had led twenty seasoned braves to join this fight, crouched on both sides of him.
They were hidden in a wide apron of shade behind a mesa to the east of their enemy’s camp. The warriors of all three tribes huddled behind them in small groups, checking their weapons for the final time and passing around earthen jars of pulque or cactus liquor. None of the warriors in this group, unlike their enemies from the Northern Plains, was worrying about counting first coup or undergoing elaborate religious rites. Southern Plains tribes did not count coup nor care as much about scalping. War was not for honor, but for goods and profit.
Neither did they harbor taboos about attacking at night. But He Bear had not arrived until well after dawn with his warriors, and their numbers without his band were not great enough against the well-armed Cheyenne—fanatical warriors who did not retreat until they or their enemy were dead. Nor would they be able to engage in their favorite attack tactic, circling in an ever-tightening pattern. The land around here would not permit it, nor the scattered line of hunters.
“South of the herd and the Cheyenne camp,” Hairy Wolf said, drawing a ragged trench, “are the redrock canyons. The tribe has these canyons to its left flank, the herd dead ahead, the river on its right flank. They must ride straight into our main force, which I will lead.”
“This has a good look to it,” He Bear agreed. “Me gusta. Trapping them is a good thing, and so is attacking them like the paleface soldiers like to attack. These Cheyenne dogs, they like to flee on their ponies until the pursuers’ horses tire. Then they whirl and suddenly attack. This way, they have no room for such tricks.”
“Even better,” Hairy Wolf said, “Iron Eyes will lead a hidden force of his Comanches on their most surefooted ponies. He knows a secret trail once used by the Navajos. It leads deep through the redrock canyons to the south. He will approach unseen through the canyons while my force attacks head-on.”
“My warriors slip up from the canyons,” Iron Eyes said. “They stay carefully behind the hunters as they desert the hunt and turn back to rush out past the camp and meet Hairy Wolf’s force.
We can grab all the slaves we can carry, without once getting off our mounts,” he added boastfully. “They will realize soon enough, but these are our fastest ponies. None of theirs will catch ours in this country we know much better than they. Once we reach the Llano, they won’t have a chance.”
“What about this young shaman?” He Bear said. Unlike the Kiowa, who left their long hair unrestrained, He Bear and his warriors wore red flannel bands. “You say he remained unscathed by bullets or arrows during your first attack. And the Pawnees refused to attack the Cheyenne Chief Renewal ceremony one spring after this one supposedly commanded a grizzly to attack them. I’d like to see such a big Indian.”
“Before they join Iron Eyes and the rest, Red Sleeves and Standing Feather will pay him a visit while he swings from the pole, another of their superstitious practices. They will slice off his eyelids and slit his belly enough to pull some gut through for the carrion birds. He fancies himself defiant, but watching the crows eat his entrails will make him beg like the rest who defy us.”
~*~
Before the hunters rode out for the kill next day, the Bull Whip soldiers took charge of Touch the Sky’s punishment.
As the custom for voluntary penance required, Touch the Sky selected his own sturdy cotton-wood limb and sliced it from the tree with an ax. He spiked one end, then followed Lone Bear and the rest of the Bull Whip troop to a lone hill just south of camp. From there, everyone who stayed behind could watch him swing all day. And the hunters would all see him as they filed by.
Touch the Sky held his mouth in its grim, determined slit. Again the punishment was unjust, but how could he prove he did not have the stink on him and was not frightening off the buffalo? Calf Woman’s “vision” had not convinced everyone in the tribe, true. But enough were impressed by the realization that the entire tribe might be suffering because of him—and indeed, in his confused heart of hearts, Touch the Sky thought it possible that he did carry the stink.
So he never once hesitated as he secured one end of the pole into the dirt at the top of the hill. Nor did he flinch when Lone Bear drew the curved-bone hooks out of the parfleche over his hip.
“Remember this,” Lone Bear said, “I did not declare this punishment. You chose it, buck. Now it must go forward. I will see that the thing is done right.”
“I see clear enough,” Touch the Sky said, “that Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Black Elk are keen for this.”
“They may be, but I am not!” a Bull Whip said, though a stone-eyed glance from Lone Bear hushed him.
Another brave tied Touch the Sky’s hands behind him with sturdy rawhide thongs looped tight over both wrists. The same tough rawhide was used for the halter arrangement which was attached to the hooks and would fit over the top of the pole. From this he would dangle, his weight held by hooks in his muscles.
Without another word, Lone Bear drove the first hook deep into the hard-sloping curve of Touch the Sky’s left pectoral muscle. There was surprisingly little blood, but the pain corded his neck and arched his entire body like a bow.
He met first Black Elk’s, then Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s eyes and held them, showing them no fear or pain—only hatred and the promise of sure vengeance. Then his vision blurred when Lone Bear drove in the second finely honed hook.
But that pain was as nothing compared to the sensation when several braves picked him up and lashed the halter to the pole. His feet dangled only a short distance above the ground. But it was enough to leave all his body weight tugging on the hooks. They felt like giant rattlesnake fangs trying to pierce through to his heart.
“You will hang there until the last buffalo is killed today,” Lone Bear said. “This is decreed by Hunt Law. Any who attempts to help you will hang beside you.”
But Touch the Sky, deep lance-points of pain ripping through him, held his mouth slitted and refused to make a sound.
~*~
Long after the hunters had ridden out, Arrow Keeper stood beyond the last clan circle of conical tipis. He stared toward the grotesque sight on the hill above him, his heart stung with pain for the youth’s suffering.
How viciously clever his enemies had been this time! There was no way out for Touch the Sky. Had he refused this penance, every bit of bad luck from now on would be blamed on him. And truly, the tribe was not short on bad luck and suffering.
All of this had been foretold in Arrow Keeper’s first great vision, the same vision Touch the Sky had eventually sought for himself. The hand of the Supernatural was in this thing. But so too were many trials and sufferings for the youth once called Matthew Hanchon—a name for which he had paid dearly ever since leaving the white man’s world for the red man’s.
Too dearly, Arrow Keeper suddenly decided.
Watching the young buck hang out there, the skin of his breasts stretched to the point of tearing, he made up his mind to visit old Calf Woman.
~*~
The pain was too great, too intensely focused in his chest, for Touch the Sky to put it completely outside of himself. He hung semiconscious now, the morning sun growing hotter on his stinging flesh. His vision alternated between blurry awareness of his surroundings and a red film of pain as effective as a blindfold.
He had been aware, earlier, when a rumbling thunder and the angry bellowing of bulls announced that the herd had begun to stampede. It was followed by the sharp cries of the hunters as they gave pursuit, beginning to isolate sections of the herd. But he knew it would be a long time before the final kill was complete and someone returned to free him.
When he saw the two Comanche braves climb over the rim of the nearby canyon, headed straight for him, he realized his tribe’s mistake in ignoring the rugged string of canyons.
One of them removed a knife from its beaded sheath. Touch the Sky could not even lash out at them with his feet as they came closer—the slightest motion sent additional fiery pain throbbing deep into his chest.
The war-painted Comanche raised the narrow-bladed knife toward Touch the Sky s left eye and brought the tip against the soft skin where the eyelid met the forehead. The Cheyenne knew he meant to remove the lids and leave his eyes to literally bake in the glaring sun.
The next moment a rifle spoke its piece, and a gout of blood and brain erupted from the knife-wielding Comanche’s skull. A heartbeat later, a throwing ax split open the rib cage of the second one.
And then there was another moment of intense pain, a flash of red, filmy confusion before Touch the Sky briefly passed out. When he came to again, he was lying in mercifully cool grass. Arrow Keeper, young Two Twists, and another of the junior warriors leaned anxiously over him.
“When I found Calf Woman boiling coffee,” Arrow Keeper told his young apprentice, “it was easy enough to learn from her that Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Swift Canoe had been playing the foxes. They will pay for this, little brother. I have already sent a runner ahead to the hunt, commanding the soldiers to arrest them. I went to Gray Thunder. It was he who issued this order to free you immediately.”
Wincing, but forcing himself to sit up, Touch the Sky said, “Father, do not arrest Wolf Who Hunts Smiling yet! He is too good a fighter, and warriors will be needed. Those two Comanches came up out of the canyons. I fear our enemies have used them for some graver purpose too.”
~*~
When the mirror signal was flashed by one of the Comanches down in the canyon, Hairy Wolf’s main band launched a direct attack on the Cheyenne camp.
Cries of “Remember Wolf Creek!” echoed through the riders as their well-trained mounts raised spiraling whirlwinds of alkali dust. As intended, they were almost immediately spotted by the Cheyenne sentries. They, in turn, flashed signals to the warriors engaged in the hunt, urgently summoning them back.
Below in the canyon, Iron Eyes had decided on the added precaution of dividing his braves into two groups. They would ride up separately and approach the camp behind the hunters from two different directions. Once the battle had begun forward of camp, they would strike quickly while the foolish Cheyenne were preoccupied in counting coup.
~*~
Touch the Sky heard the first wolf howls of alarm from the junior warriors even as he was returning to camp, Arrow Keeper and Two Twists helping him walk.
Now they could hear the attacking enemy as they approached, see the swirling dust on the horizon to the east. Soon the main body of Cheyenne hunters rode hard from the west to meet the fight before it could reach the camp.
As Little Horse flashed by, long, loose black locks streaming in the wind, Touch the Sky desperately signaled him to stop. At the same moment he stopped young Two Twists as the youth prepared to mount and join the defending force.
“We must ride back toward the herd,” he shouted to his friends above the din of the riders. “I fear the slave-takers have cleverly tricked us by using the canyons! This attack to the east, it is a diversion!”
He nearly cried out at the protesting pain in his chest when he swung up onto his gray and pushed her hard to the west, toward the river valley and the now-stampeding herd. But his suspicions were soon confirmed: All three Cheyennes saw it when a score of well-armed braves streamed up out of the canyon ahead of them, heading east toward the camp.
Touch the Sky made only one fatal mistake: He assumed this was the entire force. In fact it was only half of Iron Eyes’ men.
His mind was preoccupied with a greater problem: As the sounds of a fierce battle rose behind them, where the two main forces were closing for the kill, he had to decide how three Cheyennes were going to stop twenty braves from reaching the women and children.
One possible answer came to him when he saw the band maneuver itself between a sharp cliff and the last fragment of the panicked buffalo herd. Truly, the Cheyenne were too few to stop the slave-takers—but perhaps a few hundred charging buffalo could literally send them under.
He desperately signaled his companions and they nodded agreement. They fired their rifles, whistled, and shouted their shrill war cry to turn the buffalo. The furious bulls constantly tried to gore his pony as Touch the Sky recklessly, desperately pushed the gray right up tight against them.
Realizing the Comanches were about to burst out into the open, Touch the Sky made a final, dangerous effort. Linked to his pony only by a handful of mane, he swung his entire body free and lashed out hard with both feet full into the bearded face of the biggest bull.
After the hard impact, his legs flew down into the unbroken sea of shaggy fur and he felt himself trapped tight between two of the animals. Then, even as the momentarily intimidated bull veered sharply toward the cliff, Touch the Sky made a supreme effort to outwrestle death and won—he wrenched his upper body hard, and a moment later he was bouncing freely on the back of his pony.
The buffalo barely avoided the cliff as they swerved. Nearly half of Iron Eyes’ band were not so lucky. The inexorable weight of the herd literally swept them, screaming, over the edge to a hard death on the flint and rock rubble below. This unnerved the others, who turned and fled back into the canyon on foot when their ponies panicked, several of them leaping over the cliff to death.
Touch the Sky, Little Horse, and Two Twists all raised high their lances in victory. But there was no time to celebrate now. As one, they let out their war cry and raced to join the main battle east of camp.
From the canyon brim, Iron Eyes and the remaining force of twenty had watched once again as the young medicine man defeated sure death and routed their companions. But clearly he was not infallible—look now how he rode to join the feint! These Northerners had a good deal to learn about the art of war as fought by those who had driven out the Spaniards.
He had just shed good Comanche blood. Now his tribe would pay dearly. Scalps were worthless things, good only for a bit of decoration in a war lodge. It was the living who were valuable. The Northern tribes were averse to slave-taking, but why? What more logical way to literally profit from revenge?
And the Cheyenne women, were they not the best and the cleanest on the Plains? Until marriage they wore a knotted-rope chastity belt, and any man who touched that belt would never smoke the common pipe again. With the dripping diseases so common, they brought top prices from the Comancheros who delivered them to their new owners.
Iron Eyes had heard the scouts speaking about this slender maiden with the cropped hair—how she was as proud as she was beautiful. The Comancheros would not miss a few bites off of a juicy steak. Before she was sold, the Comanche men would teach this beauty about pride.