Comanche Moon

You can come with me then." He paused and looked at the sullen young warrior, a young man full of complaint. When he himself had been young he would never have dared protest an order given by an older man. Dancing Rabbit was pouting like a girl when Kicking Wolf left him with their horses.

Kicking Wolf was well ahead of the Texans.

He hid behind a low stand of yucca and waited.

Long before the Texans passed he saw to his disgust that it was not even a horse they had with them: it was only a brown mule. It was all a waste, his trip. The only use Comanches had for mules was to eat them. Some Comanches thought mule meat tasted better than horsemeat. He himself had mainly avoided stealing mules because they couldn't breed.

Why steal a horse that couldn't make colts?

He waited, though, crouched behind the yucca, as the Texans passed, about a half mile away.

Famous Shoes had gone ahead, hoping to find water, probably. Gun In The Water was with the Texans, and so was McCrae. Besides them there was a black man and a ski

Gun In The Water limped a little--perh it was because he had no heels on his boots.

As he watched the weary men walking toward the big orb of the setting sun, Kicking Wolf suddenly had a sadness fill him. His breast felt so heavy with it that he began to envy Buffalo Hump, who was dead. He knew already that he didn't want to steal the Texans' brown mule, and that was not because he had any liking for Texans or pitied them their long walk. He knew the Texans would kill him, if they saw him, and he in turn would try to kill them if they made themselves easy targets. They had always been hated enemies and were hated enemies still--Kicking Wolf was grateful that he was prosperous enough and free, so that he could still hate Texans as a Comanche should. He was glad that he did not have to pretend to be friends with them to collect a mere pittance to live on.

Yet he felt sad, and, as the Texans stopped to camp, while dusk made the long plain indistinct--shadows here, last streaks of sunlight there--the sadness filled him until he felt he would burst. There, nearby, were Gun In The Water and Silver Hair McCrae, men he had fought most of his life and would gladly fight again if he could. He had stolen many, many horses from them, or from companies of rangers they rode with. Once he and Buffalo Hump had set a prairie fire that had nearly caught the two men and burned them and their company. There had been shots exchanged, arrows shot, lances thrown, and yet the two rangers were still alive; and so was he.

Kicking Wolf remembered, as he watched the black man hobble the brown mule, that once, only a few miles from where they were, he had stolen the Buffalo Horse, right from under Big Horse Scull's very nose. He had stolen him and taken him to Mexico, a venture that had cost Three Birds his life and led to his own derangement, his time of seeing two where there was one.

It had been a great thing, the stealing of the Buffalo Horse, a great horse whose fate had been to be eaten in Mexico by many small dark people. Some of the old men still sang about Big Horse Scull and the Buffalo Horse--he sang about it too, when there were great feasts and dancing, a thing that had not been common since the buffalo went to the north, where they would not have to smell the whites.

Remembering his great feat made Kicking Wolf want to sing--the urge to sing rose in him and mixed in his breast with the sadness that came in him because he realized that the time of good fighting was over. There would be a little more killing, probably; Quanah and the Antelopes might make a little more war, but only a little more. The time of good fighting was ended; what was left for the Comanches was to smile at the white men and pretend they didn't hate them.

Kicking Wolf did not want to smile at the white man. He wanted to die somewhere on the llano, alone, in a spirit place, as Buffalo Hump had tried to do. Not only that, he did not want to steal the puny brown mule, either. Why would a man who had once stolen the Buffalo Horse want to steal a ski

So he waited until the moon rose and turned to go back to the gully and the horses, only to discover that Dancing Rabbit, the foolish boy, had disobeyed and followed him.

"What are you doing? I told you to watch the horses," Kicking Wolf said. "If those Texans were not so tired they would steal our horses." "I only came because I wanted to watch you steal the horse," Dancing Rabbit said. "I just want to see how you do it." "It is not even a horse!" Kicking Wolf said. He grew so angry that he almost forgot to whisper--but then he remembered the Texans and led the foolish boy farther away, to reprimand him.

"It is only a mule," he pointed out, once it was safe to talk. "It was near here that I stole the Buffalo Horse. I am not going to steal a mule.

"You steal it, if you want it so badly," he told the boy.

Dancing Rabbit knew he had not skill enough to steal the mule. Besides, he didn't want the mule--he merely wanted to watch as Kicking Wolf stole it.

"Just show me how you approach it," he pleaded.

"Just show me how, in case I see some Texans with a fine horse I could steal." "I stole the Buffalo Horse," Kicking Wolf said, several more times, but, in the end, he gave in and did what Dancing Rabbit wanted.

He sat with the young warrior most of the night, watching the moon arch over the still prairies. He saw Famous Shoes come back and lay down to rest. He watched as the Texans--exhausted, all of them--fell asleep. Even Gun In The Water, whose habit was to stand guard outside of camp, did not stand guard that night.

"When will you do it?" Dancing Rabbit asked him several times. "It will be light soon." He was worried that Kicking Wolf wouldn't do it; but then he looked again and Kicking Wolf was gone. The old man had been sitting quietly, a few feet away, but now he was gone.

Then, to his astonishment, he saw Kicking Wolf standing by the mule, stroking its neck. The black man who had tethered the mule was sleeping only a few yards away, but the mule was calm and so was Kicking Wolf. The old man stood by the mule for a few minutes, as if talking quietly to it, and then he disappeared again. He had been by the mule, but now he wasn't. Dancing Rabbit had no idea where the old man had gone. Hastily he made his way back to the gully where the horses were, only to find, when he reached it, that Kicking Wolf was there and had already mounted his horse.

"We had better go," Kicking Wolf said.

"The Kickapoo will see my track first thing in the morning. I don't think they will follow us, but I don't know. Gun In The Water might chase us on the mule." "I didn't see you move," Dancing Rabbit said, when they were riding together. "You were with me and then you were with the mule. I didn't see you move." Kicking Wolf smiled. It had been pleasant to do his old trick again, to walk without making a sound, to go up to a horse, or, in this case, a mule, to touch it and make it his while the owner slept nearby. It was a skill he had that no other Comanche had ever equalled. Though he had had to travel a long way across the llano in dry weather, it was good to know that he still had his old gift. It made up a little for Broken Foot and the cramps in his leg and the sadness of knowing that the old ways were gone.