The Son (6 page)

I ignored him.

A while later he said: “Can you imagine any white man, even a thousand white men, riding this easy in Indian country?”

“No.”

“It’s funny because everyone calls them heathens and red devils, but now that we’ve seen them, I think it’s the opposite. They act like the gods were supposed to act. Though I guess I mean heroes or demigods because as you have certainly helped demonstrate, though not without a certain cost, these Indians are indeed mortal.”

“Please stop.”

“It does make you wonder about the Negro problem, doesn’t it?”

A
T MIDDAY WE
climbed out of the canyon. We were on a rolling grassland thick with asters and primrose, ironweed and red poppy. Some bobwhites scuttled into the brush. The prairie went on forever; there were herds of antelope and deer and a few stray buffalo in the distance. The Indians checked their pace to look around and then we were off.

There was nothing to protect us from the sun and by afternoon I could smell my own burning skin and was going in and out of sleep. We continued through the high grass, over limestone breaks, briefly into the shade along streams—though never stopping to drink—and then back into the sun.

Then the Comanches all reined up and after some chatter my brother and I were led back to a stream we’d just crossed. We were pulled roughly off the horses and tied to each other back to back and put in the shade. A teenager was left to guard us.

“Rangers?”

“This one doesn’t look too nervous,” said my brother.

We were facing opposite directions and it was strange not seeing his face.

“Maybe it’s Daddy and the others.”

“I think they would be behind us,” he said.

After a while I decided he was right. I called the young Indian over. There were grapes hanging all along the stream.

He shook his head.
Itsa ait
u
. Then he added
itsa keta kwas
u
p
u
and when he still wasn’t satisfied I understood, he said in Spanish,
no en sazón
.

“He’s saying they’re not ripe.”

“I know that.”

I wanted them anyway and I was so hungry I didn’t care. The Indian cut a section of vine and dropped it into my lap. Then he rinsed his hands in the stream. The grapes were so bitter I nearly aired my paunch. I thought they would help my fever. My lips were itching.

“They’re good,” I said.

“For tanning hides, maybe.”

“You should eat.”

“You are not making any sense,” he told me.

I ate more of the grapes. It felt like I’d swallowed boiling water.

I said, “Scoot over to that stream and lean over it,” and we did. My brother let his head rest in the water, as sunburned as I was, but I could tell he wasn’t drinking. Something about this made me want to puddle up but I kept drinking instead. The young Indian stood on a rock and watched. We sat up again. It seemed like my fever was going down and I could stretch my legs.

“What’s your name,” I said to our guard.
“Cómo te llamas?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Then he said: “N
uu
karu.” He looked around nervously and then walked off as if he’d given away some secret and when I saw him again he was upstream, lying on his belly, sucking up water. It was the first time I’d seen any of the Indians eat or drink much of anything, except for a few swallows. When he stood up he arranged his braids and checked his paint.

“I wonder if they’re cockchafers,” my brother said.

“Somehow I doubt it.”

“You know the Spartans were.”

“Who are the Spartans?” I said.

He was about to say something else when there was a rattling of shots far off. There was a scattered return volley and finally the slow knocking of a single repeating pistol. Then it got quiet and I knew it was just the Indians using their bows. I wondered whose bad luck it had been.

Another young Indian came bounding down the rocks and then we were tied back on the horses and led out of the streambed. My fever had gone down and I didn’t mind the sun. After crossing a stony plateau we descended to a prairie that seemed to be mostly larkspur and wine-cup. A red dirt wagon road went up the middle and it was a pleasant sight with the blue sky and a few bright clouds and wildflowers everywhere.

The Indians were milling around a pair of ox-drawn freight wagons. A third wagon was far ahead in the grass, turned on its side, a mule team standing dumbly in front of it. Someone was screaming.

“I don’t want to see this,” said Martin.

There was something white at the edge of the road; a small tow-headed boy in a boiled shirt. An arrow shaft had stuck through his eye and a big red-headed woodpecker was tapping a branch over his head.

Farther up the road blood was dripping from the wagons as if someone had splashed a bucket. There were four or five Texans sprawled in the red dirt and another curled up like a baby in the back of the wagon. Off in the grass and larkspur the Indians were doing something to the last teamster and he was shrieking in a high voice and they were imitating him.

With the exception of the two dealing with the remaining teamster, no one was wasting any time. The mule team was cut loose but they didn’t move; they stood with their heads down as if they had done something wrong. A spotted pony was dead in the ditch, his neck covered with blood, the owner trying to free his saddle. Another Indian pony, a handsome strawberry roan, was standing blowing pink froth out of a hole in its chest. His owner removed his saddle, blanket, and bridle and set them carefully in the road. Then, while hugging and kissing the roan’s neck, he shot it behind the ear.

Everything was pulled from the wagons, including two more bodies we hadn’t noticed. It was hot and the red dust was settling over the flowers. The dead men’s pockets were searched, those who hadn’t been scalped were scalped; the last teamster had gone quiet. One of the Indians had a poultice applied, a pear pad split and tied with cloth; most of the hide shields had fresh lead streaks and a tall brave with Karankawa blood was cleaning his lance with grass. Others were going through the cargo, mostly flour sacks, which were cut and dumped in the road. A keg of whiskey was tomahawked and smaller kegs of gunpowder were strapped to horses along with several small crates, which from their weight must have been lead. Knives and blankets were taken, plugs of tobacco, bullet molds, a pair of axes and a handsaw, some calico fabric, a few repeating pistols. The locks and mainsprings on the rest of the guns were checked and the ones still good were taken. There was a brief debate over a scalp. Two plum pies were discovered and divvied up with the bloody knives.

The younger Comanches were combing the grass for stray arrows, the mules were put into the horse pack, a few quick circles were made to be sure nothing and no one had been missed, a piece of interesting fabric recovered, then all the guns were recharged and the quivers repacked, straps and hitches tightened, mouths rinsed. The oxen bellowed their final protest as someone cut their throats; by then the rest of the blood in the road had turned black and the bodies covered over with dust. They looked like they’d always been there.

The Indians split into three groups and left a wide set of tracks leading toward civilization, opposite the direction we were actually headed. Everyone was in a good mood. One of the braves rode up and slapped a fresh scalp on my head, the stringy gray hair hanging down. A man’s bloody hat was crushed down on top of it, which the Indians found hilarious. We continued northwest, the grass tall with scattered thick motts of oak and the mesquites with their flickering leaves and the yuccas in bloom with their white flowers.

After a few hours the brave decided he didn’t want to soil his trophy any further and took it off my head, tying it to his belt and throwing the dead man’s hat into the bushes. The scalp and hat had been keeping the sun off and I asked for the hat back but we rode on. By then the other groups had rejoined us.

At the next change of horses, the Indians passed around some jerky they’d taken off the teamsters. My brother and I were offered a few bites. It was still hot but the Indians didn’t care about drinking water, and when one of them offered me tobacco I was so thirsty I couldn’t take it. My brother was not offered tobacco. He stood with his legs in a straddle and looked miserable.

When the sun finally went down my mouth was so dry I thought I would choke. I reminded myself to pick up a pebble to suck but then I was thinking about the spring near our house, of sitting and letting the water rush over as I looked out past the river. I began to feel better.

It was dark and at some point we stopped at a muddy hole and the horses were held back while the Indians tore up grass and piled it on the mud and took about two swallows each. My brother and I stuck our whole faces in and drank our fill. It tasted like frogs and smelled like animals had been wallowing but we didn’t care. After he’d swallowed enough my brother started to cry, and then the Indians were kicking him in the belly and giving him the knife at the throat.
W
u
yupa?nit
u
,
quiet down.
Nihp
u
?ait
u
,
stop talking.

They were planning something. They changed their mounts but we were kept back with the horse herd.

“I think we’ve come a hundred miles. We must be right below the San Saba.”

“Do you think they’ll let me drink again?”

“Sure,” I said.

He put his face back in the muddy water. I tried again but now I couldn’t stand the smell. My brother drank and drank. It hurt even just to sit in the dirt now. I wondered how long it would take to heal; weeks maybe. We huddled together as best as possible. There was a bad odor and I realized my brother had shat himself.

“I can’t stop.”

“It’s all right.”

“There’s no point,” he said.

“All we have to do is keep going,” I told him. “It is not that much when you think about it.”

“And then what? What happens when we get where they’re taking us?”

I was quiet.

“I don’t want to find out,” he said.

“There was John Tanner,” I said, “Charles Johnston, you yourself have read those books.”

“I am not the type to live on bark and gooseberries.”

“You’ll be a legend,” I said. “I’ll visit you in Boston and tell your friend Emerson that you’re a real man and not just some cockchafing poet.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You could try a little harder,” I told him. “You’re risking our hair every time you piss them off.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“That is not true at all.”

“Well, I’m glad you know.”

He started to cry again. Then he was snoring. I was mad because he was just being lazy. We were not being fed any less, or driven any harder, than the Indians were driving themselves; we’d both had a lot more water than they had and who knew how long they’d been going like this? There was a logic but my brother couldn’t see it. If a man has done it, so can you: that is what our father used to tell us.

Then we were slapped awake. It was still dark and they tied us to the horses and there was a bright light in the distance that I knew was a burning homestead. I hadn’t thought there were whites this far out, but the land was rich and I could see why they had risked it. A few braves came up and I could tell they were pleased with the youngsters for getting us mounted.

In the darkness we saw another dozen or so horses driven into the remuda. There were two new captives; by their crying we knew they were women and by their language we knew they were German, or Dutch as we called them back then.

By sunrise we’d gone another fifty miles, changing horses twice. The Germans didn’t stop crying the entire night. When it was light enough we climbed a mesa, winding around the far side before coming up to watch our backtrail. The land had opened up; there were mesas, buttes, distant views.

The Germans were as naked as we were. One was seventeen or eighteen and the other a little older, and while they were both covered in blood and filth it was obvious they were at the peak of their female charms. The more I looked at them, the more I began to hate them and I hoped the Indians would degrade them some more and I would be able to watch.

My brother said, “I hate those Dutch women and I hope the Indians give them a good fucking.”

“Me too.”

“You seem to be holding up, though.”

“Because I don’t keep falling off my horse.” We had stopped twice that night so they could lash my brother on tighter.

“I’ve been trying to catch a hoof in the head, but I haven’t been so lucky.”

“I’m sure Momma would be happy to hear that.”

“You’ll make a good little Indian, Eli. I’m sorry I won’t be there to see it.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You know the reason I didn’t shoot is because I didn’t want them to hurt Mother or Lizzie.”

“You froze up.”

“They would have killed Mother anyway, that’s obvious, but they would have taken Lizzie with us. It was only because she’d been shot that . . .”

“Shut up,” I said.

“You didn’t have to see what they did to her.”

I was looking at him. He looked the same as always with his squinty eyes and thin lips but he seemed like someone I’d known a long time ago.

A little later he told me he was sorry.

The Indians passed around a few pieces of jerked meat from the teamsters. One of the Germans asked me where I thought we were going. I pretended not to understand her. She knew better than to talk to Martin.

T
HE NEXT DAY
the views got longer. We were in a canyon ten miles wide, the walls going up a thousand feet above us, all red rock. There were cottonwoods and hackberries but not many other trees and we passed a magenta spear point in the sand, twin to the one I’d seen below our house. There were stone creatures in every rock and stream bank: a nautilus big as a wagon wheel, the horns and bones of animals larger than anything still alive on the earth.