SIGNS SHOWED ALONG the canyon. There were shadowy marks on the rock walls, where fires spread soot across the stone, and in two places large patches of sand were fused to an almost glass-like sheen, as though fires were built regularly in those spots. Azul noticed a tumble of rock fallen out of the wall, several of the boulders scratched and scraped as if some animal had run massive claws against the stone: the marks came from Kiowa knives and hatchet blades being ground sharp against the rock. In other places there were small pieces of wood or sun-dried skin left behind when the Indians moved on.
The signs were small, unlikely to be noticed by any other eye than one trained to spot the minute details that went to make up a total picture of the past. Azul’s eyes were trained that way: he could see where successive camps had rested, even guess that the last was only a month or so old.
‘Man as brought the doll in came from here,’ said John Havee. ‘I don’t know what he called hisself, but he come from the Turtle group.’
Like the Apache, the Kiowa were divided into several “families’, subdivisions of the larger tribal groupings. Each “family” would live independently of the others, coming together only at specified times, or when there was a need felt for protective groupings.
‘The Turtles band up with the Eagle clan sometimes,’ muttered the old man, staring at the ground. ‘Though they been known to run with the Coyote clan. Could be they’re camped farther down.’
‘Let’s take a look,’ said Azul. ‘You may as well earn that twenty dollars.’
Havee grinned. ‘Yeah. Could be we’ll wind up dead, too. Kiowa ain’t over partial to surprise visitors.’
‘Only one way to find out,’ grunted Azul. ‘Let’s go.’
They rode on, holding close in against the cliffs so that they were protected on the right side, ready to run or fort up as the situation demanded. The Little Man creek ran straight and shallow on their left, a silver blue line through the yellow sand. It was still chilly in the shadow of the rimrock, though the sand beyond was heating up as the sun hit it, a faint haze lifting up off the water.
The canyon ran straight for about a mile, then branched hard south with a deep cut running off to the east. The stream split there, one narrow fork disappearing into the shade of the cut, the other following the cliffs round in a sweeping curve. Creosote bushes and scattered patches of dogwood and mesquite covered the entrance to the cut, spreading out to flank the creek through its southwards curve. It was a good place for an ambush, and Azul eased the Winchester loose in its saddle bucket.
Cautiously, they rounded the corner, following the line of the cliffs.
Beyond, the canyon narrowed in, the high rock walls coming within a few yards of the stream.
‘If anyone’s camped here, they’ll be on the far side o’ that neck,’ said Havee. ‘If they ain’t watchin’ us now, they’ll be guardin’ the far side. Best thing’ll be to go straight through, nice an’ easy. An’ hopin’ they recognize me. If not, run like hell.’
Azul nodded and followed the old man down towards the bottleneck.
A movement from across the creek caught his eye. It might have been a random breeze, or an animal moving amongst the bushes. But he doubted it. He looked up towards the top edge of the neck and thought he saw a second slight movement. The Kiowa were good, very good. But not quite good enough to hide from Apache eyes.
He kept his hands carefully away from his guns and rode after Havee with his eyes scanning idly across the ground ahead.
Beyond the bottleneck the canyon opened out again, spreading wide on both sides of the Little Man. The walls ran out in a spreading circle that formed a huge box canyon. Grass grew luxuriantly across the base, and trees dotted the lower slopes. At the center was a double ring of tipis, smoke from the cookfires drifting lazy into the warm air. Beyond the tents, cropping calmly on the grass, were close on thirty horses. The farther end was too distant for clear sight, but he guessed there was another way out: why else would the Kiowa pen their animals beyond their homes?
Four warriors stepped out from behind the rocks as Havee and Azul came through. Three of them carried horn bows with arrows notched and ready to fire; the fourth held a Winchester rifle pointed at Havee’s chest.
The old man lifted his arms wide and began to shout a fast gabble of Kiowa.
When he was finished the man with the Winchester nodded and waved a hand for them to follow him. He called to the other guards, who stood back to let the riders through, and then led the way down towards the camp. He took them down to a tent in the center of the rings and called a greeting. A voice answered from inside, and the guard turned away, trotting back to the entrance.
A dog yapped at Azul’s mount, and the grey shifted nervously. Azul held it to a standstill, taking the time afforded him by the Plains Indians’ custom of dismounting only when invited to study the tents.
They were different to anything the Apache used, for the people whose name meant enemy preferred to build their homes from wood and adobe rather than the temporary structures favored by the horse tribes. An Apache, when he decided to stay somewhere with women and children along, built a hogan of branches packed with mud and lined with hides. A moving group, or a raiding party, would use tipis if such structures were available; or sleep in the open: they followed a different system to these constantly wandering Indians. It was partly because the Apache favored the high country, the mountains of the Mogollons or Dragoons or the Candelarias. Partly because they tended the ground and took their meat from the deer or the big horned sheep that ran wild through Apacheria. The horse tribes of the Southwest, the Comanche and the Kiowa, lived with and from the buffalo, chasing the wandering herds as the great beasts trekked their annual pilgrimage over the grasslands.
At least, until the white men came and killed the buffalo.
The tipis were fashioned from buffalo hide. The bows Azul had seen were made of buffalo bone, cut in sections and glued together with a paste made from the hooves and bones. The strings were of plaited gut. Inside the tipis there would be rugs and robes of the thick, warm hair, the fat removed with tools made from the ribs and leg bones.
Everything was used. The bones for weapons or tools, the hides for homes and clothing. The flesh gave meat; the sinews and the tendons, cord for sewing. Bones made paste that could be used to glue the bows together or seal a pot. Horns made fine tools for digging or scraping. Nothing was wasted. The buffalo was everything.
Until the white men came.
The tipi outside of which he waited was larger than the others, its sides decorated with scenes of hunting and of war. To either side of the entrance flap there were coyote heads painted in dark ochre, with fierce red eyes and vicious teeth.
The man who stepped out into the sun’s light matched the paintings.
He was tall, his natural height dragged down by the bowing of his legs, their curvature shaped by the flanks of his pony. His hair was long, spilling in greased folds over his shoulders, two thick plaits drooping across his chest. His eyes were narrow and dark, set close to a broad, heavy nose that curved down to almost meet his wide, thick lips. A vest of porcupine quills covered his chest, patterned with symbols in red and black and yellow, and over one shoulder he wore a bright scarlet blanket banded with white. A rawhide loincloth covered his groin, the legs beneath heavy with muscle and scarred with the markings of old wounds. He wore short moccasins of soft hide, beaded with glass and little shells. Around his waist was a leather belt holding a wampum pouch and a heavy knife. Apart from that, he was unarmed.
He spoke to John Havee, and the old man turned to Azul.
‘This is Buffalo Runner. A real big man with the Kiowa. He used to ride with Eagle Dancer, but then he married a girl from the Coyote clan and swapped over. Now he’s the big chief and wants to know why a half-breed Apache comes visitin’.’
Azul said: ‘Tell him I’m looking for someone like me. A white boy who got taken by his people. There might be a girl as well. It was her doll McLaglen bought, so she could be alive still. Tell him I’m doing this for a white man with big business in the East: the kind of man who could tell the government to ease up on the Kiowa.’
Havee shrugged and launched into a thick flow of guttural speech. Buffalo Runner listened, then replied. Havee turned back to Azul.
‘He says he doesn’t believe there’s any white man willin’ to speak with the government on his behalf. He says he thinks you’re a liar an’ if you can’t convince him, he’s gonna kill you himself.’
Azul said: ‘Tell him he can try to kill me any time he wants. Tell him I don’t think he could because he’s spent too long running away and he doesn’t know how to kill a real fighter any more. Tell him that I promised the white man I’d look for his kids, and the white man spent most of his money looking for them, and I’m the last hope he’s got. Then see what the old bastard says.’
Havee shook his head. ‘You want me to translate that like it sounded? He’s likely to kill you straight off.’
‘Tell him,’ said Azul. ‘I’m not backing .down from some coyote-eating Kiowa. My people were fighting his before I got born. I can do the same.’
Deliberately he swung down from the grey stallion. It was as great an insult as he could deliver, short of striking the Kiowa chief in the face. Buffalo Runner’s eyes widened, anger blazing out to match Azul’s own fury. John Havee spoke fast, conscious of his own safety.
Azul had dismounted Indian style, landing on the left side of his horse. He would have preferred to dismount on the other side, where his carbine would be in easy reach.
But that would have lost him face.
Suddenly, like a storm cloud breaking up when the sun hits it, Buffalo Runner’s face split in a huge grin and he reached out to slap his hands around Azul’s shoulders as he shouted at Havee.
‘Jesus Christ! I thought you’d killed us both.’ Havee’s voice was breathless with relief. ‘Seems he’s taken to you. Says he’s never met a man with more gall an’ he wishes he had a son like you. You remind him o’ someone called Lost Boy. He’ll tell you what he can after we eaten.’
Havee climbed down off his mustang and followed Azul and Buffalo Runner into the tipi.
It was warm inside, and the chief called for his women to lift the edges of the tent so that the wind blew through. Then he called for food. Azul wasn’t hungry, but he ate none the less, anxious to maintain the friendship of the old chief.
Up close he could see that Buffalo Runner’s hair was greying, its color rescinded by grease and dies. The face was lined with age, its contours, like those of the hard body, held in place by work and living and fighting. He guessed Buffalo Runner to be as old as Havee, maybe a hand’s span of years more. The man had only two wives—unusual in a Kiowa chief—and three daughters. He had, he told them, four sons. But they were all out riding with a young war chief called Mahka.
Azul’s ears pricked at the sound of the name, but he held his face impassive and ate his meat while Buffalo Runner talked of the old days, mentioning fights with the Apache as if still testing Azul.
They finished the meal and the chief waved his women out of the tipi. Azul wiped his hands clean on the cloth left, along with a bowl of warm water, by the last woman.
‘The doll?’ he said to Havee. ‘You asking about that?’
Havee shrugged and turned to Buffalo Runner.
When he was finished, he said: ‘The doll was sold by a renegade Kiowa. Ole Buffalo Runner don’t hold with drinkin’ whiskey, so he drove the man out. He was a Turtle clan man, picked it up from a raid they done on a single wagon. Years ago, it was. He can’t rightly recall when, except there was a coupla kids along. I guess they’d be dead by now. Leastways, the way he told it, it sounded a long way off.’
‘Show him this,’ said Azul. ‘See if it jogs his memory.’
He pulled the little painting Horn had given him into sight, passing it over to Havee.
‘It got taken off the woman with the wagon. It’s a picture of her mother. Would’ve been with the doll.’
Havee passed the miniature over to Buffalo Runner, explaining in the Kiowa language what Azul had said about it.
Buffalo Runner stared for a long time at the faded paint. Then shook his head and began to speak fast. When he was done, Havee explained.
‘He says he’s seen this before. He don’t properly recall when, but it seems to tie in with the raid where they took the doll.’
‘Ask him if he can remember where it was,’ said Azul. ‘That might help.’
Havee spoke some more then said: ‘He thinks it was somewhere between here an’ the Red River. He was young then. Ridin’ with Eagle Dancer, an’ the big chief took most o’ the loot. He don’t recall exactly where, nor what happened.’
‘There were five people,’ urged Azul. ‘Two of them on the wagon. A man and a woman. The woman had dark hair. There was a scout with them, a man called Henneker, who carried a buffalo gun. Two children: one was a little girl with fair hair; the other a boy with dark hair. The girl was about two, the boy around three.’
Havee translated and Buffalo Runner stared at the miniature for a long time. Then he shook his head and began to speak again.
‘He says he still can’t place it just right,’ grunted Havee, ‘because he don’t like the memory. Sounds like ole Eagle Dancer was meaner then than he was later. I gather they hit a wagon like you describe an’ killed off the grown folk. Then Eagle Dancer said to kill the girl child on account o’ the Kiowa had enuff wimmen that summer. Sounds like the boy got took in.’
‘Where?’ asked Azul. ‘Which clan?’
Havee spoke some more with the old chief, then Buffalo Runner stood up and went across to the far side of the tipi. He pulled a pile of furs aside and exposed a brass-bound, oaken chest. It looked to have come off a stagecoach. He opened the lid and rummaged through the contents, coming up with a carefully rolled cylinder of hide, fastened with a wide, faded ribbon. He tugged the knots loose and came back to face the two half-breeds, spreading the hide over his knees. He unrolled it like some ancient manuscript, priced beyond value—which it was, for it held the history of his tribe in pictograms, inked against the skin.
He eased the scroll loose and began to unwind the closest end, staring hard at the designs rolling before his eyes.
After a while he halted and stared harder at the pictures. Then chuckled, and stabbed a finger at the skin, murmuring to Havee as he read off the idealized dates and events shown there.
‘It was three summers before the white man war,’ said Havee. ‘When the grass was high and only a few whites came to kill the buffalo. It was the summer of the dry grass, when the buffalo died because of the bad eating. There was an attack on a wagon that strayed into Kiowa land. Eagle Dancer led the raid because he knew the man with the wagon— that’d be Henneker, I guess—because he’d led raids against the Kiowa before. They killed the people with the wagon, but kept a child.’
Buffalo Runner paused, spreading the hide scroll wider over his knees. He studied the pictograms a while longer, then spoke again.
‘The kid was called Lost Boy,’ Havee translated. ‘He got raised by the Kiowa an’ took the name of Mahka. He’s a war chief now.’
Buffalo Runner folded the hide back on its polished wood runners and set it off to the side.
‘Where is he now?’ asked Azul. ‘Does he know?’
Havee spoke with the old chief, who shook his head and smiled slyly as he spoke.
‘He says not,’ grunted Havee. ‘Last he heard, Mahka was driftin’ south. Seems he had a run-in with the Army over some peace talks an’ figgered he’d do best to get down into Mexico. It ain’t necessarily true, but I reckon that’s the way he’d drift.’
‘How long ago?’ Azul said.
‘Peace talks were last year,’ grunted Havee. ‘But if Mahka felt confident, he could’ve been hangin’ on a while longer. I recall a cavalry patrol gettin’ wiped out right after that. If he was feelin’ his oats, then he’d likely hang around to pick up more scalps.’
‘So he might be here now,’ said Azul. ‘If what you say is right.’
Havee shook his head. ‘No. Been too much Army around here to let any hostile rest easy. This ole feller’s alright on account o’ he lets the Army know where’s he at an’ he don’t make much trouble. Young buck like Mahka’d be a real thorn in the blue-coat’s side. He’d hafta to shift on.’
‘Ask him where’s the most likely place,’ said Azul. ‘If he helps me, I can pass word through to the man with the government.’
Havee translated it, and Buffalo Runner laughed out loud. Azul had known it was a long gamble anyway. He was not surprised by the outcome.
‘He says you can look for Mahka around Dragonsville,’ said Havee. ‘Last he got word, that was where the boy was headed. After that it’s anyone’s guess.’
‘Where do you think?’ Azul asked.
Havee shrugged and grinned. ‘What’s it worth?’
‘Another twenty?’ Azul suggested. ‘If you come down with me to translate.’
Havee chuckled. ‘Done!’ he said. ‘My bet’d be they’re headin’ due south. Run straight through Dragonsville an’ then cut on down over the river.’
‘Alright,’ grunted Azul, ‘let’s get on down to Dragonsville. We’ll take it on from there.’
They said their farewells to Buffalo Runner and went out from the tipi. The old chief saw them onto their horses and called for warriors to escort them down the canyon to the southern exit. As they left, he shouted something to Havee, chuckling and slapping his thighs at the joke.
‘Says you’re the meanest-faced feller he ever met,’ muttered the old man. ‘At least, this side o’ Mahka. He reckons that if you two meet it’s gonna be somethin’ worth watchin’. He’s sorry he can’t be there, ’cause he’d like to see who kills who.’
‘I don’t aim to kill him,’ grinned Azul. ‘All I want to do is ask him to come and talk with his uncle.’
Havee laughed, throwing back his head so that the old grey derby threatened to tumble clear of his silvery hair.
‘You never heard o’ Mahka before?’
Azul shook his head.
‘Jesus Christ! He’s reckoned to be the meanest goddam buck in the whole Kiowa nation. He ain’t over twenty-one yet, an’ he still got more scalps than chiefs twice his years.’
‘How come you never mentioned this before?’ asked Azul. ‘I thought you was guiding me.’
‘Only to the camps, son,’ grinned Havee. ‘You never paid fer no more.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ grunted the half-breed, ‘you’re a real friend in times of need.’
‘Indeed I am,’ chuckled Havee. ‘I guess I like to see young fellers havin’ fun.’
‘On whose account?’ said Azul.
‘Yours, son,’ replied the old man. ‘Just yours.’