Comanche Gold by Richard Dawes Page A

to anything.”
    “Come with us,” Two Bears said, kicking his
horse in the ribs. “Soaring Eagle will see you now.”
    * * * *
    Tucson rode between Two Bears and Cuchillo,
with the rest of the Comanche braves riding in a group behind them.
Although the late afternoon coolness rested over the prairie, they
still kept to the shadows thrown by the clumps of mesquite growing
along the edge of the Trail. Glancing around at the others, Tucson
couldn't help but compare these ragged Indians, just surviving on
their barren reservation, to the mighty warriors they once were in
the prime of their history.
    Calling themselves Nermernuh, The People, the
Comanche had ruled the Great Plains for hundreds of years before
the arrival of white men. They had repeatedly defeated the Spanish
conquistadors in their bid for North American empire, and stymied
the Mexicans who took over the southwest when the Spanish left.
They halted the Canadian French, and drove them north again, and
frustrated every attempt by the Anglo-Americans to tame them, until
the invention of repeating rifles and pistols. Even then, Tucson
reflected, the frontier civilians were unable to come to terms with
the Comanche. It took a full scale war waged by the American Army
after the Civil War to finally destroy their fighting spirit.
    Now there was only a remnant left of the once
mighty Comanche Nation, scratching out a bare existence on a few
reservations here and there across the west. Tucson was realist
enough to know that the Comanche’s defeat was inevitable, but the
misunderstandings on both sides of the conflict made the results
worse than they had to be.
    They rounded a hill, reined in their mounts
along the crest then looked down into a shallow canyon.
    Squalid shacks, constructed of wood and hide,
interspersed with native teepees made of skins, were scattered in a
haphazard line along an almost dry stream. Ragged children and
bone-thin dogs were running everywhere, while in the shade of the
hovels women dressed in colorful homespun bent over cooking fires
or chopped food for the pots. Some were stretching skins on wooden
racks, while others knelt at the side of the stream, washing
clothes.
    The impact of the poverty and degradation of
the village struck Tucson with the force of a blow, but even that
wasn't as bad as the rank stench hanging over the canyon like
rotting death. The Comanche had a habit of not cleaning up after
themselves, which wasn't so bad when they were out on the
plains...when a campsite became too contaminated, they just moved
on to another spot.
    But now they couldn't move, and so they
squatted in their own filth.
    To the far west and upwind of the village,
Tucson noted a wooden cabin with a corral in back, where two horses
dozed beside a shed. It was the best building in the camp, with a
plume of smoke rising from the chimney, and Tucson guessed it was
the home of the Indian Agent.
    Two Bears broke in on his thoughts. “Soaring
Eagle not live in the village,” he said, pointing further north.
“His lodge that way. We must go there.”
    Two Bears, Tucson and Cuchillo rode on while
the remainder of the braves took the trail that led down into the
camp. A quarter of an hour later they reined in outside a large
teepee set in the cover of a stand of oak trees. Made of buffalo
hides, the lodge was dyed white and covered with innumerable black
zig-zag patterns, like lightning.
    They dismounted, and Two Bears held up his
hand. “Wait here by horses, Storm Rider. I will let Soaring Eagle
know you are here.”
    Two Bears was back outside in a minute,
followed by a grey-haired old woman in a deerskin dress who stood
less than five feet tall. After glancing briefly, but deliberately,
at Tucson with sharp black eyes, she turned and walked away with a
hobbling gait toward the village.
    Two Bears motioned for Tucson to follow him
inside.
    The interior of the teepee was dark and
stuffy, and even with the smoke-hole at the top it was full of wood
smoke