Herrera talked on. Buffalo Horns grunted. The bowman slacked his string. Herrera turned in the saddle to regard his employers. “The fight is not ended,” he told them, “but the Kwerhar-rehnuh will receive us. Chief Quanah himself is here.” Moisture glistened on his face. He had gone a bit pale around the nostrils. In English he added, for many Co-manches knew some Spanish: “Be ver-ree careful. Sey ‘ave much anger. Sey can easy kill a w’ite man.”
THE RANCH buildings had already been visible. As he drew closer, they seemed to Tarrant, if anything, more small and lonesome in the middle of immensity. He recognized what must be the owners’ home, a bunkhouse, and three lesser outbuildings. Sod, they were little damaged. A barn was smoldering ashes and charred fragments; the family had doubtless spent a lot of money and hope on getting the lumber hauled to them. A couple of wagons had been pushed into the flames. A chicken coop had been emptied and smashed. Hoofs had trampled saplings that were to have grown into shelter against sun and wind.
The Indians were camped where a windmill stood skeletal by the cattle trough for which it pumped water. That put them out of rifleshot from the house and, probably, sight through loopholes. About thirty tipis lifted their gaudily decorated buffalo hide cones across what had been a pasture. At a fire near the middle women in buckskin gowns prepared captured, butchered steers for eating. They were rather few. The braves numbered maybe a hundred. They loafed about, napped, shot dice, cleaned firearms or whetted knives. Some sat grim in front of lodgings from within which sounded keening; they mourned kinsmen slain. A few, mounted, kept an eye on the many horses that grazed in the distance. They were as tough as their masters, those mustangs that could keep going on winter’s grass.
When the newcomers caught the notice of the camp, excitement kindled. Most people ran to crowd around and jabber. The stoic reserve of Indians was a myth, unless they were in pain or dying. Then a warrior’s pride was that not the most prolonged and agonizing torture his captors or their women could think of would make him cry aloud. It was an ill thing to fall into such hands.
Buffalo Horns shouted and pushed his pony through the ruck. Herrera called greetings to men he knew. The smiles and waves that he got in return made Tarrant feel easier. If they took due care, bis party ought to outlive this day. After at!, to these folk hospitality was sacred.
Close by the windmill was a dpi whereon were painted signs that Herrera whispered were powerful. A man too dignified to leave it for curiosity’s sake stood outside, arms folded. The travelers drew rein. Tarrant realized that he looked on Quanah, half-white war chief of the Kwerhar-rehnuh. The name of that band meant “Antelopes”—an American misnomer for the pronghorn, like “buffalo” for bison or “corn” for maize; and curious it seemed for the lords of the Staked Plains, the fiercest of all those Co-manches whom the United States had yet to conquer.
Save for lightning-like bands of yellow and ocher, he wore simply loincloth and moccasins, with a Bowie knife sheathed on a belt, xet there could be no mistaking him. From his mother’s race he took straight nose and a height that towered, thickly muscled, over his followers. However, he was even darker than most of them. His regard of the strangers was lion-calm.
Herrera greeted him deferentially in the tongue of the Nermerauh, the People. Quanah nodded. “Bienvenidos,” he rumbled forth, and continued in accented but fluent Spanish. “Dismount and come in.”
Tarrant felt relieved. In Santa Fe he had learned some of the Plains Indian sign language, but used it haltingly; and Herrera had told him that few Comanches were adept in it anyway. The trader had said Quanah might or might not condescend to speak Spanish with Americans. He had a certain grasp of English too, though he would scarcely handicap himself with it when he didn’t have to. “Muchas gracias, senor,” Tarrant said, to establish that he was the head of this band. He wondered whether he should have used the honorific “Don Quanah.”