Dead Man's Walk

“Hell, I won’t look at him at all,” Sam said. “That damn hump is an ugly thing, anyway.”

Buffalo Hump saw immediately that the slavers wanted Rosa, the Mexican girl. He had once come upon the slavers while the old one was tormenting a dead missionary’s wife. He had watched from a distance as Joe Nibbs beat the woman with the handle of his hammer — beat her and did more. That night the woman died from the beating and abuse — she had not been young., What he mainly wanted from the slaver was knives and needles. It would soon be time for the fall hunt—they needed to kill many buffalo before the winter came. Often ice storms came, coating the plain for several days at a time, making hunting difficult. The white men made good knives, far better than the stone knives his people had had to use when he was a boy. After the hunt, there would be much cutting—the women would need knives, and also needles, for sewing leggins from deerskin, and stitching buffalo robes. The white man’s blankets Buffalo Hump mostly scorned—buffalo robes were warmer. But he liked the yellow cloth that shed the rain and allowed his braves to hunt on wet days and yet be dry like ducks. The rifles he was offered were cheap, and his young braves were rough with guns: soon half would be broken, and the ammunition used up. It was not worth giving up good captives for weapons that would be broken in a month. He himself had the fine gun the white chief Caleb Cobb had given him. He was careful with the gun—no one in the tribe was allowed to touch it. Kicking Wolf was bitterly jealous that Buffalo Hump had such a gun, but he knew better than to disobey the edict. Buffalo Hump only rarely shot the gun; he had not even taken it with him on the raid, preferring to depend on his bow and his lance. But once he had shot it at an antelope, a very great distance away, and the antelope fell.

But if the old trader, Joe Nibbs, thought he could trade a few cheap weapons for the Mexican girl, he would have to think again. Buffalo Hump was willing to give him several of the Mexican children for a box full of good, sharp knives. The girl he meant to keep. It might be a cold winter—a fresh young wife to lay with would be good to have on days when the ice covered the plains.

“Now, don’t be mentioning that girl—don’t even look at her,” Joe Nibbs warned Sam Douglas. “I’ll trade for the brats first. And remember what I said. Don’t look him in the eye.”

“Why would I want to—he’s a goddamn stinking Indian,” Sam said.

Kicking Wolf at once wanted the Negro boy. When the boy was brought out of the wagon, naked, and saw Buffalo Hump, he was so frightened that he tried to run away, speeding on his little legs toward the ridge the sand spumed over. The Comanche braves followed, curious; Kicking Wolf and the others had seen few blacks. They thought the boy might be some kind of small black animal—perhaps he could be trained to gather firewood, or just be kept as a pet, like a bear cub. Just as the little black boy was about to get to the ridge, Kicking Wolf picked him up, screaming, and brought him back to the wagons.

“That’s my brat, give him back,” Joe Nibbs said. Kicking Wolf, too, was a man to be wary of—everyone on the plains knew what a good thief he was. Joe and Sam had two extra donkeys with them, besides the horses that pulled the wagons. He meant to see that the donkeys were close hobbled that night, else Kicking Wolf would come back and take them.

Kicking Wolf motioned toward two of the captives, indicating that he would trade them for the black boy. Before Joe Nibbs could even walk over and inspect the children, to be sure that they were healthy, Buffalo Hump lowered his lance and put it in front of the children. Kicking Wolf had not set foot in Mexico. Who was he to be offering the captives in trade? While they had been raiding he had lingered near the Pecos, torturing one scalp hunter to death. Of course, Kicking Wolf had made many raids and taken many children—he would have to be allowed some booty. But he could not simply trade away children that were not his. Fast Boy had taken the two children in question—if anyone had the right to dispose of them, it should be he.

Kicking Wolf was very a

“Even swap—even swap,” Joe Nibbs said, pointing at a Mexican boy who was about the same size as the little Negro. He didn’t like trading blacks, not on the plains. He had only given a packet of needles and a small blanket for the black boy. In the south it was profitable to trade little blacks, but not on the plains, and even less so west of the Carlsbad Mountains. The Apaches had superstitions about blacks—they usually killed them.

Buffalo Hump allowed the trade—one Mexican child for the black cub Kicking Wolf held. He had merely lowered his lance to remind Kicking Wolf that he was not the war chief. Of course,Kicking Wolf was an unusually good raider; the need to torture Kirker had distracted him; but his pride had to be considered. He could have the black cub.

Joe Nibbs produced tobacco, and the trading went quickly. Buffalo Hump kept four captives, including the girl, Rosa. The other three were Mexican boys old enough to be useful slaves. The others he traded for three boxes of knives, many needles, some mirrors, a box of fishhooks, and four rifles. Several of his younger braves considered themselves to be great marksmen. It was well enough to take a few guns for them to break.

“He don’t like guns much,” Sam said, to Joe. “He only took four. How are we going to get this girl if he won’t take guns?”

Rosa, still tied, sat by a little bush near Buffalo Hump’s horse. She had seen the two traders looking at her—she felt no hope. Either the white men or the Comanches would use her and kill her. She watched the sand spuming over the ridge as the wind gusted. She wished she could simply lie down and be covered with sand; be dead; be at peace. She watched the sand come, and tried not to think.

Joe Nibbs was wondering the same thing as Sam—what could he offer Buffalo Hump that might make him part with the girl?

“I’ve got that old Gypsy glass,” he said. Some months before he had found a wagon and a dead man, an old Gypsy, on the Kansas plain near Fort Lawrence. Probably the old man had been killed by Pawnees, who had ripped up his body and his wagons, taken his whiskey, and left. Joe had happened to notice something shining through a crack in the wagon bed, and had discovered a ball of glass, or crystal, hidden so well that the Pawnees had not noticed it.

“He might want that glass,” he said, going to his wagon and taking the glass from a blanket he had wrapped it in. It was the size of a small melon. When you looked into it, it made your face elongated.

“It’s Gypsy glass—take it to your medicine man, he can use it for prophesying,” Joe said, offering the ball of glass to Buffalo Hump.

All the warriors crowded around, exclaiming at the way the glass made their faces long. Buffalo Hump thought the glass a very odd thing—he turned it over and over, and let his young braves handle it. It was clearly a thing of power, but he was not convinced that it could be used for prophesying.

“Yes, it’s a prophecy glass, that’s what it is,” Joe insisted. “Take it to your medicine man. It’ll tell him where the buffalo are, and when’s the best time to hunt. It’ll tell you when to go to war, and when to stay home.”

Buffalo Hump was not convinced, but as the afternoon waned, he began to want the glass. He wanted to take it home to his main camp and study it. Perhaps he would come to understand its power. His mother was old, and knew much. Perhaps she would understand why the glass made faces long.