Walking Wolf Read Free Page B

while my old playmates Quanah and Small Bear were off hunting buffalo or out on pony raids.
    It pains me to look back and realize just how big a fool I was. But Medicine Dog didn’t seem to mind it—I guess he expected a certain amount of thick-headedness on my part. Still, I did learn things, in spite of myself. Medicine Dog schooled me as to the prayers necessary to ensure successful raids and hunts, the prayers that correctly guide the dead to the Spirit World, and the prayers that confuse evil spirits so they can’t tell which tipi is the one they’re looking for at night. He also taught me breathing and meditation exercises that helped me control my shapeshifting, so I could summon what he called my “true” skin at will and with minimum discomfort. He also warned me to never tell a White that I was a skinwalker.
    â€œWhites are jealous of things they don’t understand, and of things they cannot have. That is why the human beings—we who lived on this land before they came—have had so much trouble with them. If you tell a White that you have more than one skin, they will try and take it away from you. Just like they did your natural father. Be very careful who you show your true skin to, Walking Wolf, if you want to keep it on your bones.”
    Medicine Dog also told me stories of Coyote, the trickster god from whom all skinwalkers are descended. I reckon it was on account of their most popular folk hero having the head of a coyote that the Plains Indians I knew back then rarely got upset by me sprouting hair, claws and fangs. When they looked at me, instead of seeing a monster, they saw a god. After all, according to their folklore, Coyote was responsible, in part, for human beings coming into existence in the first place. He also gave them fire and corn and the buffalo to make their life on earth easier. While their acceptance of my condition was indeed broadminded, it did nothing to prepare me for what I would run up against later in life, although I did get a taste of rejection early on.
    I’ve already mentioned Flood Moon. As I said earlier, I’d known her all my life. She was a pretty thing by Comanche standards, with long, straight black hair woven into two thick braids. She had this shy way of smiling that was enough to melt my heart every time she looked at me.
    I’d known from the time I was seven years old that Flood Moon was going to be mine, and once, when we were still very young, I even got her to promise to be my wife when we grew up. But that was back when I was Little Wolf. Things became very different once I became Walking Wolf and, like the young fool I was, I refused to admit it.
    As I said, most of the Comanche took my being not-exactly-human as a matter of course. Occasionally I’d get asked by an exasperated older sister to threaten to eat a misbehaving youngster, but that was quite rare, and the children usually knew better. Flood Moon, however, was one of the few who had genuine trouble with my condition.
    Before I’d learned how to shift, she’d been all smiles and flirts, but when we rode back from the hunt that day—me still wearing my true skin—she grew ashen-faced and hurried into her family’s tipi and wouldn’t come out.
    Despite Flood Moon’s sudden coolness towards me, I was still sweet on her. Whenever I could manage it, I would sneak away from Medicine Dog’s tipi and loiter near the creek, waiting for her to pass by on her way to gather firewood or water.
    One thing you’ve got to understand about the Comanche way of courting is that it was all very proper. Boys and girls, after a certain age, weren’t allowed to be in one another’s company unchaperoned. And there’s nothing more bashful than a love-struck brave. So young lovers had to sneak what time they could together during daylight.
    I spent agonizing hours waiting for just a glimpse of Flood Moon. And when I finally did get