Funny thing—most men don’t believe it when you tell them never to harm a woman’s children.
She broke her first knife on the shell of the Turtle-Man she caught relieving himself behind a clump of huckleberry bushes. Squatting as he was, the blade should have slipped neatly between his shoulder blades and into his heart from behind...but the hard stuff that encased his torso snapped the flint, leaving her with a stub.
If the man had not been entangled with his own clothing, that would not have been enough. As it was, she made a rough job of his jugular before he could do anything about it. The knife, however, was lost. Only the fact that her victim carried one of bright metal, worth any number of hers, comforted her for its loss. She used the new weapon to sever one of the ears, which she strung on the thong she had brought for such a purpose.
The first of her son’s killers now anchored the string of ears that she hoped to live to lay on the mound covering his burial place. There were now only five more to catch and to kill, in order to complete her tally of vengeance.
She did not remain in the thicket. The others would come to find their lost companion. She slipped backward through the brush, replacing every disturbed leaf or twig as she went. One of her own kind would be able to see where she had gone, but these blind newcomers would not, she felt certain.
Moving in a wide arc, she slid through the trees, down a shallow creek to pass the point nearest the campfire where the other Turtle-Men talked in their strange tongue, and around to a thick cluster of sumac on the side opposite that in which the body lay. Only one of these remaining men had taken part in the death of her son, and she waited only to get him apart from his fellows. Then she would leave these survivors to their own devices, and follow the group in which the other three traveled.
It was some time before one of the men called out for the other. “Capitán! Capitán Escobedo! Cómo está usted?”
The tallest of the armored figures stood, when there was no reply, and said something to his fellows. When he strode away through the bushes and disappeared behind the trees, Nahadichka flattened herself among the dead leaves and waited.
In just a moment, there came an exclamation, followed by a cry of “¡Venga! ¡Venga! ¡El es muerto! ¡Aquí!”
As the other three men rose to their feet, dropping the gear they had been mending while they rested, Nahadichka stared hard at the back of the one they called Ho-an. It had been he who caught her son as he played with the bright metal things he had found in the shelter of the white men. He had beaten the child, for Bear-boy had lived long enough to speak to his mother.
“The one whose hair burns, he caught me and beat me. And then the others came, and they beat me too. And why? I had not taken those things away. I only wanted to look at them.” His dark eyes had been filled with astonishment, even as he died.
She had not been able to tell him. She only hoped, as she stalked those who had killed him, that they were as puzzled about the death that tracked after them as her son had been.
She furrowed her brow, staring, staring at the back of the man whose hair flamed in the firelight. As his companions crashed away toward the call for help, he turned, as if unwillingly, to gaze into the circle of brush about the small clearing.
“¡Juan! ¡Juan! ¡Aquí!” came the call again, and he shrugged and turned to go.
She was upon him before he knew what had happened. Her arm locked about his neck from behind, and that sharp steel knife that had belonged to his fellow parted the flesh of his neck smoothly, deliciously. He fell at her feet, and she stared down for an instant before leaning over to sever a circle of scalp, with its bright hair hanging long from it. That joined his ear on her string, once she regained the shelter of the forest that covered East Texas from the Big Water to the Flat Ground.
She did not wait to see what the three survivors might do. They were no concern of hers. That other group had been going west, and they now had two days on their road, while she had stalked this group. That much larger number of armored men would be harder to deal with, she was sure, and so she had made certain of this manageable one.
The deer-things that the Spaniards rode moved fast, and Nahadichka traveled most of the night, pausing only to chew some dried meat and to rest for a very short time. She ran through the trees, making shortcuts when the ancient trail followed by her prey made one of its curves to avoid difficult ground or deep streams. One afoot could go where those awkward beasts could not.
She felt that those ahead of her could not know that they were pursued. She had seen how they regarded her people, and the women they had scorned as of no account, much to the amusement of the entire tribe. Her people knew all too well that without the work of the women life would have been almost impossible. Men liked to hunt and to fish and to battle among themselves, but they were not at all dependable when it came to farming and preparing hides and making the stores of food that kept the People alive in winter.
So the Turtle-Men would not expect to be stalked by the mother of the child they had beaten to death. That thought helped her to keep her wearying feet moving at top speed. It woke her from her brief bouts of exhausted sleep, and it bore her up as she crossed the rivers, in which alligators sometimes lay sluggishly, watching as she swam or waded or walked over fallen trees.
Her people had traveled all the forest country for countless generations. Their trails were many, though that oldest of roads that the Spaniards used was the best marked and easiest. Nahadichka knew others, however, that criss-crossed the forests, linking up bits of other tracks, sometimes faster to travel than that easier road. She used them, making a wide angle southwestward that brought her out of the woodlands in less than two more days.
When she examined the trail of the Old Ones, there were no tracks of the hooves of the beasts, no droppings in neat piles. She had beaten her prey to this point, and she knew they were still in the forest country. Something inside her relaxed, as she found a spot from which she could see the track without being seen and slept, her ear flat to the ground, for a long while.
There was no vibration of hoof on earth to wake her, and when she rose it was with her strength renewed. She took up an easy trot, again along a minor set of trails, that sent her again into the forests. She watched the crows, the circling hawks, as she ran, and at last, before the sun was overhead, she heard a raucous chorus of caws from the direction of the road.
It wasn’t difficult to keep her prey in sight without being seen. Those Turtle-Men were as blind as new puppies. She kept pace with the group, staying well downwind of them. She could track them by the stink of their rank bodies, as well as the strong scent of the beasts they rode.
She felt sure they would camp before darkness fell, for a convenient stream offered a comfortable site. They were a people who liked their ease, as her People had learned by watching them. She scurried ahead and found herself a spot in which to rest and wait, with the stream and the clearing edging it within easy distance.
They were noisy and careless. Their beasts made their whinnying noises as they neared the water, and the men shouted in their coarse voices as they made their camp. She felt nothing but contempt for them. Children were valuable, and these creatures thought nothing of killing one, simply because he was curious. The thought made her dry eyes burn with rage, as she slid through the tangle of brush along the edge of the water and found a spot from which to watch them.
There was no moon that night, which was helpful. Their watchfire flared red against the darkness, and the four sentries thumped about the perimeter of the camp, as easy to hear as the crackle of the flames. She had marked, while they cooked and ate and sat about the fire, the three she wanted. One had gone into the shelter they set up at the farther edge of the clearing. Two were together in one nearer the fire. The four shelters held three hands of men, though they took turns watching through the night.
Nahadichka crept easily around the circle, avoiding the sentries without effort. Their heavy feet, their audible breathing, and their occasional comments as they met and passed made them irrelevant. She reached the dark tangle of grapevine and sweetgum and oak and hickory for which she had aimed herself, and then she lay waiting for a chance to slip across the narrow span of grass to the shelter.
The fire burned down, and the shadows grew darker. She found her chance and reached the side of the shelter without trouble. Her keen blade made a long slit, soundlessly, in the stuff, allowing her to peer through.
Three men lay cramped together in the narrow space. The flap was thrown back, and by the flicker of the coals outside, she could see them. The long one—that was the one she wanted! The others she would leave as they were, for they would fear greatly, and that was worse than death.
The knife moved, slick and silent, and the long legs flexed, straightened, twitched. She took the ear and slipped backward again, into the concealing forest. There was another camping spot, a day’s travel westward. She would be waiting there.
* * * * * * *
The next camp the group made was much more secure than the first. She watched them from a clump of brush as they cut away encroaching growth that might conceal an enemy. The horses were hobbled, and six sentries patrolled the perimeter, instead of three. The men kept their metal shells on their backs, instead of setting them aside for comfort, and a few even kept their heads covered with the high metal pots they wore.
She found herself able to laugh quietly at the obvious nervousness of the group. When an owl mourned shrilly downstream, they all jerked and turned to stare. She found that very gratifying. She was making them suffer.
There was no way to reach either of the others as she had done their fellow, and so she did not wait for full darkness. Again, a man went behind a clump of brush to relieve himself. He was not one she wanted, so she waited patiently until he was done. After a time another came, his sword in his hand, his gaze flicking from right to left, before and behind him. She lay curled around her bush, secure in the knowledge that he was as blind as his fellows.
When he had his clothing all undone and disarranged, she uncurled silently, slithered over the ground as quietly as a rattlesnake, and took him from behind. Having learned with her first attempt, she went for the throat, always, knowing that the armor would foil a stab at the back. He died as easily as the others had done, and she dropped him into his own mess and retired downstream, crossed the water, and sped southward and westward, paralleling the old road.
Only one of the killers was left alive. She told herself that she should be satisfied, should return through the forest to her own Caddoan people while yet she could. Her stealth and cunning had been great, but she knew that fortune had favored her as well. You could not depend upon that to continue.
Yet every time she thought to turn back, her son’s bewildered eyes stared at her from the leafy crowns of the trees or the muddy purls of the river water. No, she must go on to complete the task she had taken upon herself. She did not wait for the Spaniards to camp, this last time. She knew they would be so cautious that there would be little chance for success. She must attack from some hidden place, at a time when they least expected it. That meant that she could not use a stream or a river as her hiding place. They would now expect that.
She must rise from the earth itself, ready to kill that last slayer, whatever happened to her. Nahadichka was a woman of the forest now, but she had been born in the plains of a warrior people. She knew how to mislead an enemy into thinking himself safe, and she set about doing that.
The forest had been damp, for there had been rain in the east. But the flatlands were much dryer, and the grass, the soil, and the bushes and scrub oaks were dusty. She became a heap of dusty weeds beside the faint track that generations of travelers had worn into the prairie.
The sun burned up the east, traveled overhead slowly, and at last she heard the thud of hooves through the earth against which she lay. The group came closer, and she opened her eyes to stare through the mesh of grass she had arranged so as to hide her face. First came the heavy man who led the Turtle-Men. Then the one in black robes who raised his hands so often.
Behind came the others, riding in pairs, their hands on their weapons and their eyes busy studying the terrain about them. They were not fools, those Spaniards.
The last of the killers rode on the side nearest her. Fortune still was kind. Two pairs rode before him and three behind. There would be time. As he drew nearer, she gathered herself into a tense knot of muscle and resolve. The horse stepped steadily forward, and she sprang upright almost beneath its hooves. The knife flew unerringly from her hand and buried itself to the hilt in the eye socket of her victim.
There was a circle of riders about her, weapons in hand, their eyes burning with anger. Anger and astonishment. “¿Una mujer? ¡No lo creo! ¿Donde están los hombres?” Their words meant nothing to her.
She stood proudly, waiting, as several of the riders pulled away and circled, wider and wider, searching, she suspected, for a band of warriors that had harried them across the countryside. She smiled as the blade swung, holding her neck still for its impact.
Her son was avenged, and she had no other child. Her man had two wives to comfort him. It was time to die.
She felt the impact of the blade—and then the darkness descended, and she was freed of effort. The string of ears would not go onto her son’s mound, but perhaps she would find Bear-boy there in the Other Place, where the deer were fat, and the fruit was sweet and plentiful.
That would be enough.