Comanche Moon Read Free Page A

ain't it?" Then she put the spurs to Lord Nelson and went galloping straight out of town.
    Kicking Wolf could move without sound. When he decided to steal the Buffalo Horse he only took Three Birds with him--except for himself, Three Birds was the quietest warrior in the band. Fast Boy and Red Badger were brave fighters, but clumsy. They could not approach a horse herd in the soundless way that was required if a tricky theft was being contemplated. Kicking Wolf prayed every night that he could keep his grace with animals--few Comanches could go into a horse herd at night without alarming the horses.
    Buffalo Hump could not do such delicate work, not at all. He was a great raider, Kicking Wolf acknowledged. Buffalo Hump could run off many horses, and kill whatever white men or Mexicans got in his way. But he could not go into a horse herd at night and steal a mare or a stallion--he was too impatient, and he did not bother to disguise his smell. Mainly, he was a fighter, not a thief.
    Kicking Wolf, though, was very careful about his smell, and he had instructed Three Birds how to eliminate his odor before going into a horse herd.
    Kicking Wolf would eat little, for a day or two before a raid. He wanted his body to empty out its smells. Then he gathered herbs and rubbed them on himself, on his armpits, on his privates, on his feet. He chewed sweet roots to make his breath inoffensive. He prepared carefully, but mainly it was his grace, his ability to move without sound, that enabled him to go into a herd of strange horses at night and not alarm them. He wanted to be able to move close to the horses and stroke them--he wanted the stroking to begin before the horse was even aware that a man was there. Once he had the horse's trust he could move through the herd seeing that all the horses stayed calm. It was important to start with a horse that had calmness in him--often Kicking Wolf would study a horse herd for a few days, until he had selected the horse that he would approach first--it had to be a horse with calmness in it, a horse unlikely to panic.
    Once Kicking Wolf had chosen the first horse, he would pray in the morning that his grace would not desert him; then he could move into the herd with confidence and stroke the lead horse. He liked a night that was cloudy but not entirely moonless, when he went to steal horses. He wanted to be able to see where the ground was--and so would the horses. In complete darkness a horse might brush up against a thornbush and panic if it rattled. A whole herd might break into a run in an instant, if they heard a strange sound.
    Kicking Wolf was proud of being the best of the Comanche horse thieves--he had honed his skills for many years. Simply stealing many horses had never been enough for him; he only wanted to steal the best horses--the horses that would run the fastest, or make the best studs. He wanted to steal the horses that the Texans would miss most. Plow horses he never touched.
    Invariably, when he got back to camp with the horses he had stolen, the other warriors would be jealous. Even Buffalo Hump was a little jealous, although he pretended not to notice Kicking Wolf and his horses.
    The other warriors always offered to trade Kicking Wolf for his horses--they would offer him guns, or their ugly old wives, or even, occasionally, a young pretty wife; but Kicking Wolf never traded--he kept his horses and because of them was envied by every warrior in the tribe.
    From the moment Kicking Wolf first saw the Buffalo Horse he wanted to steal it. The Buffalo Horse was the most famous horse in Texas. If he could steal such an animal it would make the Texans look puny. It would shame their greatest warrior, Big Horse Scull. It would bring glory back to the Comanche people--the women and the young men would all make songs about Kicking Wolf. The medicine men could take piss from the Buffalo Horse and use it in potions that would make the young men brave and the women amorous. Buffalo Hump