Comanche Dawn by Mike Blakely Page A

fresh buffalo hide. This told Shaggy Hump that the main enemy camp was near, for the warriors were taking the body home instead of burying it here. Beside the body lay the warrior Black Horn had cut across the belly with his white flint knife. The other three warriors were unhurt, and one kept the Fire Stick forever at his side.
    Shaggy Hump could tell that they were young warriors who had gone out to scout and hunt and had gotten themselves into more mischief than they could handle. They were making no attempt to guard their back-trail against pursuit. They did not understand the ways of war like the True Humans—a people forever hunted. Tonight he would teach them.
    After crawling back to his pony, Shaggy Hump prayed silently and used paint of red clay and berry juice from his paint pouch to make the war marks upon his face: two red streaks streaming snakelike, downward from his cheeks to his jawline. Waiting for darkness to fall and the moon to rise, he crept downwind of the enemy camp to plan his attack. The fire had burned out, and only the moon and stars made light. He smelled the faint trace of smoke and the aroma of horse sweat, and knew he was very near. He carried only his knife and war club with which to kill, though he had also brought along a single arrow with a chipped point and half a feather missing—one he did not mind parting with.
    He thought about each step he took, testing the ground gradually with his weight in case a cracking stick from the willow and cottonwood timber or a pair of rocks scraping together might warn the Raiders. Once, a dried leaf crackled as he shifted on one foot for balance, and he remained still a very long time to ensure he had not been discovered.
    The spirits were making the winds gust with their breath, causing the sounds of whistling tree branches and scuttering leaves to cover his approach, and he moved more rapidly than he otherwise might have.
    Finally, he was upon the camp and could hear the feet of the horse shifting from time to time. He could see all three of the unwounded warriors sleeping now. One slept near the horse, guarding it. The rawhide thong around the animal’s neck was also wrapped around this warrior’s wrist. He was curled in his robe at the roots of a sohoobi tree—the kind of tree that rained little tufts of white hair in the spring. The other two warriors had gone to sleep some ten or twelve steps away, beside the fire. Beyond them were the corpse of the dead Raider and the wounded man, moaning in his sleep.
    The wind came up, allowing three quick steps, and Shaggy Hump was upon the rawhide thong. He grabbed it just as his scent reached the nostrils of the horse, which pulled against the rawhide in curiosity, for the beast knew Shaggy Hump’s scent. Keeping the thong from pulling at the wrist of the sleeping guard, Shaggy Hump began slowly sawing at the rawhide with the iron knife his son had captured in the battle of the Red Canyon.
    When at last the rawhide had been cut, Shaggy Hump tied the horse to a stout tree, which would prevent the horse from wandering off as he went about his duty. He chose each step carefully, until he was standing over the sleeping guard. He raised his pogamoggan in one hand, taking the rawhide line he had cut in the other.
    He pulled gently on the rawhide, as if the horse were moving away. Two coils of the rawhide slipped off of the Raider’s wrist before he grabbed it, half-asleep. Shaggy Hump slacked the tension, then pulled harder. The Raider jerked angrily, as if to punish the horse. Shaggy Hump waited for the next gust to roar in the treetops, then pulled once more on the rawhide, horselike.
    The enemy warrior grunted and revealed his head from within the robe. The pogamoggan struck swiftly, and hard. Its thump against the skull caused the horse to shy, the hooves sounding much like the thump of the club upon the head. This was good. As the wind died, Shaggy Hump fell upon the enemy with his