Comanche Moon

Madame Scull was breathing in loud snorts, like a winded horse. She squatted right over him, but Jake couldn't see her clearly, because her head was amid the hanging coats. There was the smell of mothballs in the closet, and the smell of saddle soap, but, even stronger, there was the smell of Inez Scull, who was not cautious in her behaviour with him--not cautious at all. She flung coats off their hangers and kicked shoes and boots out into the hall, in order to situate herself above him, exactly where she wanted to be.

To Jake's amazement, Madame Scull began to do exactly what the Captain had told him she would do: make him her horse. She sank down astride him and rode him, hot and hard, rode him until he was lathered, just as the Captain had said she would, though the Captain himself was probably not even halfway to the Brazos River yet. He wondered, as she rode him, what the servants would think if one of them happened to come upstairs and notice all the shoes Madame Scull had kicked out into the hall.

Kicking Wolf had killed the seventeen geldings in a barren gully. The butchering had been hasty; though the best meat had been taken, much was left. The rocks in the gully were pink with frozen blood. The carcasses all had ice on their hides--Augustus saw one horse who had ice covering its eyes, a sight that made his stomach rise. Guts had been pulled out and chopped up; those left had frozen into icy coils. Buzzards wheeled in the cold sky.

"I thought I was hungry a minute ago," Augustus said. "But now that I've seen this I couldn't eat for a dollar." Many of the men were dead asleep, slumped wherever they had stopped. Captain Scull sat on a hummock of dirt, staring toward the west. Now and then, he spat tobacco juice on the sleety ground.

"I can eat," Call said. "It won't cost nobody a dollar, either. I've seen the day when you didn't turn up your nose at horsemeat, I recall." "That was a warmer day," Gus commented. "It's too early to be looking at this many butchered horses." "Be glad it ain't butchered men," Call said.

Deets, the black cook, seemed to be the only man in the outfit who could muster a cheerful look. He had a stew pot bubbling already, and was slicing potatoes into it when they rode up.

"If Deets can make that horsemeat tasty, I might sample a little," Augustus said. At the sight of the bubbling pot, he felt his appetite returning.

Long Bill Coleman had his feet practically in the fire, his favorite posture when camped on a cold patrol. He had fallen asleep and was snoring loudly, oblivious to the fact that the soles of his boots were begi

"Pull him back, Deets, his feet are about to catch fire," Augustus said. "The fool will sleep with his feet amid the coals." Deets pulled Long Bill a yard or two back from the fire, then offered them coffee, which they took gratefully.

"Why'd you let all these boys nod off, Deets?" Gus said. "Old Buffalo Hump might come down on us at any minute-- they best be watching their hair." "Let 'em nap--they ridden for two days," Call said. "They'll wake up quick enough if there's fighting." Deets took a big tin cup full of coffee over to Captain Scull, who accepted it without looking around. The Captain's mouth was moving, but whatever he was saying got lost on the wind.

"Old Nails is talking to himself again," Augustus observed. "Probably cussing that feisty wife of his for spending money. They say she spends twenty-five dollars ever day of the week." Call didn't think the Captain was cussing his wife, not on a bald knob of the prairie, icy with sleet. If he was cussing anybody, it was probably Kicking Wolf, who had escaped to the Rio Pecos with three fine stallions.

"What was he saying, Deets?" he asked, when the black man came back and began to stir the stew.

Deets did not much like reporting on the Captain. He might get the talk wrong, and cause trouble. But Mr. Call had been good to him, giving him an old ragged quilt, which was all he had to cover with on the cold journey.

Mr. Call didn't grab food, like some of the others, or cuss him if the biscuits didn't rise quick enough to suit him.

"He's talking about that one who shot him--down Mexico," Deets said.

"What? He's talking about Ahumado?" Call asked, surprised.

"Talking about him some," Deets admitted.

"I consider that peculiar information," Augustus said. "We're half a way to Canada, chasing Comanches. What's Ahumado got to do with it?" "He don't like it that Ahumado shot his horse," Call said, noting that some of the men around the campfire were so sound asleep they looked as if they were dead. Most of them were sprawled out with their mouths open, oblivous to the wind and the icy ground. They didn't look as if they would be capable of putting up much resistance, but Call knew they would fight hard if attacked.

The only man he was anxious about on that score was young Pea Eye Parker, a gangly boy who had only been allotted an old musket. Call didn't trust the gun and hoped to see that the boy got a repeating rifle before their next expedition. Pea Eye sat so far back from the campfire that he got little succor from it. He was poorly dressed and shivering, yet he had kept up through the long night, and had not complained.

"If you pulled in a little closer to the campfire you'd be warmer," Call suggested.

"It's my first trip--I don't guess I ought to take up too much of the fire," Pea Eye said.

Then he swivelled his long neck around and surveyed their prospects.

"I was raised amid trees and brush," he said. "I never expected to be no place where it was this empty." "It ain't empty--there's plenty of Comanches down in that big canyon," Augustus informed him.

"Buffalo Hump's down there--once we finally whip him, there won't be nothing but a few chigger Indians to fight." "How do you know we'll whip him?" Call said.

"It's bad luck to talk like that. We've been fighting him for years and we ain't come close to licking him yet." Before Augustus could respond, Captain Scull abruptly left the hummock where he had been sitting and stomped back into camp.

"Is that stew ready? This is a damn long halt," he said. Then he glanced at Call, and got a surprised look on his face.

"I thought Famous Shoes was with you, Mr.

Call," Scull said. "I had no reason to suspect that he wasn't with you, but I'll be damned if I can spot him. It might be the glare off the sleet." "No sir, he's not with me," Call said.

"Damn it, why not?" Captain Scull asked. "If he's not with you, you'll just have to go fetch him. We'll save you some of the stew." "Sir, I don't know if I can fetch him," Call said. "He went to visit his grandmother. I believe she lives on the Washita, but he didn't say where, exactly." "Of course you can fetch him--why shouldn't you?" Scull asked, with an a