Comanche Raid (A Cheyenne Western--Book Six) Read online

  Grass was not as plentiful as it was on the Plains to the north. But neither were white hunters, blue-dressed soldiers, and paleface work crews stringing the talking wires which carried words through the air like bolts of lightning. As a result, game had become more plentiful in this semiarid country. Toward mid-morning Touch the Sky glimpsed a herd of antelope, their white-spotted flanks flashing in the sun.

  In daylight the churned-up earth caused by the buffalo herd was easier to follow than a paleface wagon road. It was shedding season; occasionally, near water, he would encounter cottonwood trees, their thick-ridged bark covered with woolly hair where the buffalos had backed against them to scratch themselves.

  Finally, riding up out of a shallow red-dirt ravine, he spotted the conical tipis of the temporary Cheyenne hunt camp.

  He saw at his very first glance that the men were gone. Clearly they had already ridden further forward for the next kill. This troubled Touch the Sky. Had Arrow Keeper and Gray Thunder and the rest been present, he could have warned them that an enemy war party was near, probably approaching.

  Now he would almost surely have to convince whoever was in charge of the hunt camp to pack it up and go forward, joining the hunters for safety even earlier than Hunt Law dictated. This could jeopardize the hunt by frightening off the buffalo. But if they were indeed in danger of attack, his action would not cause him trouble with the headmen. However, if enemy pursuers failed to show up, he would be in trouble yet again.

  Still, he thought, thinking of Honey Eater, the risk was worth it.

  Then, as he topped the last long rise before entering camp, he realized there would be no chance to join the hunters. He had turned to look behind him one last time. And there, on the distant horizon, he saw a brown cloud of dust swirling above the ground—riders approaching fast. The attack was coming.

  How many? he wondered. Could they have captured their horses so quickly they were able to catch him like this? It didn’t seem likely, as hard as he had been riding. More likely, they had sent a smaller force on the horses Touch the Sky had not been able to scatter. He hoped this last was the case.

  And now his suspicions became a certainty: This was not strictly a war party, but a slave-taking mission. The Kiowas and their Comanche allies were especially fond of the Cheyennes because the Beautiful People brought a good price in guns and bullets and alcohol and the white man’s rich tobacco. And Honey Eater might very well end up in one of Santa Fe’s or Chihuahua’s stinking bordellos.

  As he entered the camp, the women and children and elders eyed him curiously. They knew he had been punished by the Bull Whips. Yet very few respected the Whips, so their eyes were sympathetic when they saw his wounds. The warriors-in-training, who had between twelve and fifteen winters behind them, had been left in charge of the camp. They too eyed him curiously, many with open respect—though he was called a troublemaker and a white man’s dog, all knew of his feats as a warrior. They had counted the coup feathers in his war bonnet, remarked on the mass of scars covering his chest and back.

  “Little Brother!” Touch the Sky called out to a junior warrior named Stump Horn. “Who is in charge?”

  “Two Twists,” the youth replied.

  “Run quickly and get him. You are about to taste your first fight!”

  The youth’s dark eyes widened at this news. He tore off to find Two Twists. Meantime, drawn out of her tipi by the sound of his voice, Honey Eater crossed quickly toward Touch the Sky as he dismounted.

  She stopped dead in her tracks, however, when she saw what the savage whipping had done to his flesh. Before she spoke even a word, her eyes filmed with tears.

  “Is this what my husband the Bull Whip has done to you? This? Little Horse told me they hurt you, but this!”

  The words choked her throat and she turned her head away, tears now openly streaming down her cheeks.

  “It was not enough,” she added bitterly, “that they beat you this way. Black Elk and Wolf Who Hunts Smiling are also saying things. They say you should not be allowed on this or any other hunt because your smell is scaring away the herds.”

  “To you I will say nothing against your husband,” Touch the Sky said. “I will settle with him and his lying cousin, all in good time. For now, little Honey Eater, dry your tears and draw on your courage as a Cheyenne woman—an attack is coming!”

  At this news the sadness left her face, replaced by the same grim determination that now marked his scarred features. Now Two Twists was rapidly approaching from the opposite end of camp.

  As they waited for the youth, Touch the Sky hungrily drank in a long glance at the woman he loved with all his soul. Rarely did he get an opportunity to be this close to her without having to worry about Black Elk’s jealous eyes.

  She flushed under his stare, turning her face away. “I am ashamed to have you see me like this.”

  He knew she was talking about her mangled hair.

  “A beautiful oak,” he said, “is the same tree even after its leaves blow away during the cold moons. And soon, the new leaves grow back.”

  Despite the danger approaching, his words brought a brief smile to her face. But now Two Twists had arrived.

  “Little brother,” Touch the Sky said, “how long would it take to move the women and children to the hunt?”

  “Perhaps half a morning s ride.”

  This news made Touch the Sky frown.

  “Then we must stand and hold,” Touch the Sky said. “Kiowas and Comanches are approaching even now and will catch us if we try to flee. Gather all your warriors, buck.”

  Two Twists, who had earned his name from his preference for wearing his hair in two braids instead of just one, which was the usual custom, swelled with importance at these words. He nodded and raced off to gather the bucks.

  “Honey Eater,” Touch the Sky added, “gather the women and elders. We must make our battle plan, and quickly. I fear these red devils are not coming simply to fight. They plan to steal women and children as slaves!”

  ~*~

  Touch the Sky knew their enemy was approaching rapidly, so the impromptu council was brief.

  As always when the tribe was traveling, the women had brought along their stone-bladed hoes which they used to dig up wild turnips and onions. At Touch the Sky’s instructions, they went to work digging shallow rifle pits in the loose soil. He had come up with a reckless plan which might well get him killed. But Touch the Sky knew full well it was their only chance.

  The young warriors had no time to paint or dress for battle. Unlike some tribes, which rode into battle on a moment’s notice, the Cheyenne tribe always painted their faces and donned special battle garb. This was considered so important that, often, courageous warriors fled from a fight if they could not thus prepare.

  But fleeing, and deserting the women and children, was out of the question now. So Two Twists went around to all the junior warriors, quickly marking their faces with black charcoal— the symbol of joy in the death of an enemy.

  Then, while Honey Eater and the other young women gathered up all the children, Touch the Sky addressed Two Twists and the rest of the youths.

  “Little brothers! Hear my words and place them in your sashes. Soon the war cry will sound, and blood will stain the earth. True it is you are young. But every great warrior was once young. I watched my brother Little Horse wade into the midst of frenzied Pawnees when he had only fifteen winters behind him, like Two Twists here. And I swear by the earth we live on, my brother greased their bones with his war paint!

  “Little brothers! Of course you feel fear at this moment. So do I, and have you counted my scalps? There is nothing unmanly in feeling fear. It is staying and doing that counts! We are the fighting Cheyenne! Remember this, you do not fight for glory or for scalps or for the right to stand in the doorway of the clan lodges and make brags. You fight to save your mothers, your grandparents, the little ones who are the future of the Cheyenne people.”

  The youths were stone silent,
stone still, absorbing every word. This Touch the Sky, had he not counted first coup at the famous Tongue River Battle which saved their homeland from greedy whites?

  It was a rare mark of distinction for a warrior such as this to address them as fighters, as brothers. Yes, they were afraid. But their games from infancy on had all centered around mock battles, taking scalps, and counting coups. Two of them had even lost an eye from “toy” arrows fired from miniature bows in battle. They were afraid, but they were keen to prove themselves.

  “Bucks, this day you will cover your tribe in glory! If you fall, fall on the bones of a Kiowa or Comanche. If their blood be rain, cause a flash flood! The Cheyenne tribe defeated them at Wolf Creek. Some of your fathers were in that battle when they were barely older than you are today. What Cheyennes have done, Cheyennes will do!”

  Now Touch the Sky thrust his war lance over his head.

  “Hi-ya!” he screamed. “Hii-ya!”

  As one, the junior warriors repeated the war cry.

  “One bullet!” Touch the Sky shouted.

  “One enemy!” the warriors responded.

  “One bullet!”

  “One enemy!”

  They were worked up to a frenzy, their eyes blazing.

  “Quickly now,” Touch the Sky said. “Make ready your battle rigs. And never forget, the fight is not over until the last Cheyenne buck is dead. I have spoken and can say no more. From this moment forth, let deeds speak for words. Two Twists, take command of your warriors.”

  Hurriedly, Two Twists began issuing orders while Touch the Sky headed quickly to a spot just north of camp. It had caught his eye because of a series of small humps on the ground, humps that could not be seen easily from horseback.

  Sure enough, it turned out to be an area pocked with holes left by prairie dogs. Touch the Sky saw that he could stand behind it and still be close enough to call out commands to the warriors in the rifle pits just to his right and behind him. He would be completely exposed, but that was part of the plan.

  The dust cloud on the eastern horizon was beginning to take shape now. Touch the Sky gave thanks to the four directions and to Maiyun, the Good Supernatural, when he realized this force was only about half the size of the original war party he had spotted—meaning that only those whose horses he had not scattered had come after him.

  Still, even so, there were at least three Comanche and Kiowa attackers for every young Cheyenne defender. It was not just a brave rallying cry—it really would have to be one bullet, one enemy, or they would be overrun in mere moments.

  Before he walked back to the main camp, he dropped to his knees and briefly offered a battle prayer. Already, he could hear Two Twists leading the youths in a Cheyenne battle song to fortify their courage.

  Now it was time to return and give them their final instructions.

  By now Honey Eater and the others had gathered the children and elderly behind a hastily erected breastwork. She knew by now that the attackers were Kiowa and Comanche—and she also knew what that meant.

  Unaware that he was observing her, Honey Eater s right hand rose to touch the rawhide thong of the suicide knife hidden under the neck of her doeskin dress. If the attack went badly, he knew the women would try to kill the children and themselves before they allowed the slave-takers to grab them.

  Then Honey Eater saw him watching her.

  She lifted both hands and crossed her wrists in front of her heart—Cheyenne sign talk for love.

  Out on the horizon, the boiling, yellow-brown dust cloud drew closer and closer.

  Chapter Eleven

  Two Twists and the other junior warriors had settled into the rifle pits and readied their weapons. Fortunately, the Cheyenne beaver traps had yielded a good supply of pelts this season, and the tribe was well equipped with rifles, ball, and black powder.

  Touch the Sky walked up and down among the pits, calming the youths, inspecting weapons, repeating his instructions over and over. He knew that, caught flush in the heat of battle, the brain could sometimes shut down completely and cause serious mistakes.

  His plan revolved around the words Arrow Keeper had spoken to him before the hunt:

  I have seen Comanches when their ponies are shot out from under them. It is said they lose their courage when not on horseback.

  The fierce warriors must be separated from their mounts. The number-one priority this time was neither counting coup nor even killing their enemies—they must simply prevent them from ever getting past the line of defenders. A thin line made up of Touch the Sky and a dozen or so unblooded warriors was all that protected the women and children and elders.

  Touch the Sky had already borrowed Two Twist’s war shield made from the sturdy wood of an osage tree. It would stop arrows, but not bullets. He could only hope the attackers were not rich in firearms and bullets, for his part in the plan would call for constant exposure to the attackers.

  For this reason, he also removed the mountain-lion skin tucked into the pannier sewn to his horse blanket. Arrow Keeper had given it to him, assuring him it was blessed with strong medicine. Little Horse swore that, while he was wearing it during the Tongue River Battle, it had made a load of musket balls fired from a blunderbuss miss him at point-blank range. Touch the Sky donned it now, not sure if he believed or not. But he did believe in Arrow Keepers magic—had in fact witnessed it numerous times.

  By now the hollow thundering of hooves clearly reached the camp as the attackers drew ever closer. Touch the Sky returned to his position just to the left, and in front of, the rifle pits and the camp.

  “Stay out of sight!” he called out again to the junior warriors when one of them peeked anxiously over the top of his pit. “I will be your eyes. They must not see you. If they do, they will go into a circular attack, and then all is lost.”

  In fact, Touch the Sky feared this might happen anyway. If it did, his plan to use himself as a lure would be useless. It was necessary to convince the attackers that he was the only defender and trick them into a direct assault. He knew the Kiowa and Comanche would prefer this, not wishing to give the Cheyenne women time to use their suicide knives.

  “Steady, little brothers!” he called out again. “Heads down! You know what you must do. We are the fighting Cheyenne!”

  He was forced to speak even louder now above the noise of the ponies and the shrill war cries of the Comanche and Kiowa. He could make them out clearly now, racing through the flowering mescal and low-hanging pods of mesquite. Their leader was a huge Kiowa with a bone breastplate and a flowing black mane of hair streaming behind him.

  “Two Twists!” Touch the Sky shouted above the din.

  “Yes!”

  “A pure black with white forelegs, bearing straight down on you. It is their war leaders pony.”

  “I am for him!”

  The first sharp cracks of the attackers’ rifles sounded. Bullets whipped past Touch the Sky’s ears with a sound like angry hornets. Holding the shield in his left hand, Touch the Sky lifted his Sharps into the socket of his right shoulder and snapped off a round. As he had hoped, this seemed to focus the attackers’ attention squarely on him.

  “Walking Coyote!”

  “I hear you, Touch the Sky!”

  “A buckskin, bearing down just to my left! Wait for the command.”

  “Already dead!” the youth shouted back.

  More rifles cracked, a chip flew from Touch the Sky’s shield. The first arrows had already embedded themselves in the sturdy wood.

  “Stump Horn!”

  “Here, brother!”

  “A small chestnut on the far right flank!”

  “My aim will be true!” the youth replied.

  Now the attackers were closing fast. More chips flew from the war shield, and an arrow flew past his exposed right leg so close that the fletching burned his skin. Touch the Sky could clearly make out the painted horses, distinguish the oval-faced Comanches with their green and yellow war paint from the Kiowa faces painted in ga
rish greens and yellows and reds.

  “Young Two Moons!”

  “I have ears!”

  “A pure ginger with a tan mane!”

  “I will leave it for the Apaches to eat!”

  And thus it went, Touch the Sky calling out the junior warriors’ names one by one, calming them while also telling them exactly which horse was their target so that each shot might count.

  The arrows were coming in with more accuracy now, and Touch the Sky tried to hunch himself into a smaller target behind the shield. A bullet ripped through the parfleche on his sash. Despite the danger now pressing down on him, Touch the Sky could not help admiring the skill of the riders. The Comanches especially seemed to blend with their horses. They did not even bother to hold on—they strung arrows and reloaded their rifles, which thankfully were not as plentiful as bows, as easily as if they were sitting on the ground.

  A bullet pierced the shield and almost knocked it from Touch the Sky’s hand. Now the enemy was so close he could see the blood lust in their eyes.

  “Steady, little brothers! Steady! One shot, and you must make it count.”

  The Comanches liked to capture Bluecoat bugles in battles with the pony soldiers, then blow them to mock their enemies. Now, celebrating what was clearly about to be an easy victory, one of them sounded a bad version of “Boots and Saddles.”

  A flurry of arrows rattled into the shield and were shot between his legs. Another corner of the shield was chipped away.

  “NOW, Cheyennes!” Touch the Sky bellowed above the din.

  As one man, the dozen young warriors rose from their rifle pits and fired together. Immediately, at least ten ponies collapsed. This took the thunder out of the enemy war cries and silenced the bugler, who found himself bruised and shaken on the ground with many of his comrades.

  But though the attack was considerably slowed, the rest continued charging toward Touch the Sky. However, he had timed his command to come just before the survivors would reach the stretch of ground pocked with prairie-dog holes. They entered it now, and several ponies tripped hard, throwing their whooping riders earthward.