Winter Rain

In the past five days the soldiers had drawn ever closer to the village that hurried to the canyon where they would join Lone Wolf’s Kiowa in safety until Kinzie passed on by. But they needed meat to feed their people. Of late too many days had passed without time taken to hunt. And if they were to wait out the soldiers at the bottom of the dark canyon, then the Kwahadi desperately needed meat. Reluctantly the war chief had allowed a small band of hunters to go in search of the buffalo said to be just south of the canyon.

He hoped this wide, scoured trail of the pony herd would be enough to draw the army scouts from discovering the trail of their meat hunters. Drawing so close to the canyon where his people would hide, the war chief had come up with what all the Kwahadi prayed would be a successful diversion.

Many of the warriors had even tied bundles of lodgepoles to some of the herd ponies, the better to scratch the ground in shallow furrows, to fool the Tonkawa trackers into thinking this was indeed the trail of a great village fleeing to the east, back to the reservation.

Surely, the lure of so fresh a trail could not be denied by the pony soldiers and their scouts.

But if their diversion failed, Kinzie’s Tonkawa would bring the yellow-legs right to the canyon, once more to the very doorstep of the Kwahadi.

So to confuse the soldiers all the more, to make Kinzie think the Comanche warriors were acting as a rear guard to their fleeing village, to draw Kinzie’s scouts off the scent of the chase, the Kwahadi war chief ordered a large-scale night raid on the yellow-leg camp.

Hours after sunset, when the sky had darkened from rose to twilight’s deep hues, more than 250 horsemen lashed their ponies in among Three-Finger Kinzie’s herd. Only to find the soldiers ready for them.

In the midst of the confusion, yelling, and gunfire, the war chief rallied his warriors. If the soldiers would not scatter with surprise, then the Kwahadi would fall back on what always worked: the grinding of the Comanche wheel. Around and around Tall One and Antelope galloped with the rest, firing into the herd, working in and out, looking for a weak spot in the soldier lines where they could drive the frightened soldier horses. From time to time, Tall One barely heard Antelope’s familiar war song against the rattle of gunfire, the rumble of hammering hooves, and the shouts of men at battle.

Then as quickly as he had come and found the soldiers prepared for their attack, the war chief called off his warriors. They drew back and sniped here and there on the perimeter of the yellow-leg camp throughout the rest of that cold night. Just before dawn, when the soldiers finally gathered up the courage to make their own counterattack, the gray-eyed one ordered his warriors back atop their ponies, telling them to withdraw as he led them in a circle to the east, riding away into the bright, rosy-gold autumnal sunrise, their backs to a falling, overturned sliver of a moon—a route determined all the better to confirm for the soldiers and their Tonkawa trackers that the village lay to the east. Only after that great war party had covered many hours and that many more miles did the gray-eyed one finally rein about to the north. Back toward the deep canyon where their families waited.

Every man of them prayed their buffalo hunters had been successful. Every man of them prayed for the success of their costly ruse.

Riding with the ten chosen to stay behind atop the ridges, where they would keep an eye on the yellow-legs, Tall One watched Kinzie march his soldier column to the northeast, along the outbound trail they had made with their pony herd.

“Our plan is working!” one said as the soldiers plodded below them.

“We can go tell the others,” agreed another.

“Shouldn’t we follow the yellow-legs a while longer?” asked Tall One of the warrior who led the scouting party.

“I remember you as a boy, Tall One,” Dives Backward chided. “You always refused to listen to the rest of us. Always wanted to go your own way.”

Standing laughed. “He didn’t learn his lesson then. And it seems he still hasn’t learned!”

“How long are you going to think like a white man?” demanded Tortoise Shell.

The burn of embarrassment fired Tall One’s face. “I only want to be sure. To know that the yellow-legs are really going to march on to the east, away from our village.”

“You have eyes, Tall One!” Dives Backward roared. “Look!”

He felt their eyes on the back of his shoulders, burning holes in his flesh with their disapproval. He wanted to belong to them more than just about anything, wanted their approval. What hurt him most at that moment was that he still hungered to belong just as he had when he had first come to the Kwahadi. Thirsted for their approval like a man many days in the desert. To belong, he would now shove aside his gnawing suspicion.