Chapter 3

White Buck happened to be home, and he heard the story told by Spring Flower. I was a little embarrassed at all she had to say because I thought that she inflated my part a bit too much and did not say enough about how she saved me with her warning. However, I did not get a chance to say anything because White Buck immediately wanted to go look at the site of the fight.

He had me put on my loincloth and take up my weapons to go with him to see how much truth there was in Spring Flower’s story. He did not doubt her, but he had no trouble seeing how excited she was, and he knew how much she admired me and cared for me. Squirrel was also invited to come along, and we left as soon as everybody had gathered his weapons.

White Buck wanted to get to the fight scene before there were any changes made either by humans or by animals. He walked very fast and that forced Squirrel and me to jog to keep up. As far as I could tell when we arrived, the corpse and all of the surroundings were exactly as we had left them. That was when White Buck had me go through my version of the story, and I started off with Spring Flower’s warning of the man behind me.

White Buck’s skill in reading sign gave him considerable insight into what had happened, and he was obviously impressed at the fact that I had won the fight with an opponent who was older and significantly larger than me. I had pointed out how inept a fighter my opponent had seemed to be, but White Buck was not dissuaded by my comment on the other man’s lack of skill.

White Buck pointed out that it made no difference what level of skill the man had. What was important was that I had kept my head and had not panicked. Upon reflection, I had to agree with what he said. Furthermore, I should have been more skilled than my opponent because I had been schooled in fighting with the war club by an acknowledged expert in the art: White Buck.

White Buck did ask, “You had your pistol with you. Why did you not use it instead of the war club?”

That question caught me by surprise. I had to think for a few seconds before I could come up with the correct answer. “I could put the war club into action immediately, and it would have taken me a few seconds longer to use the pistol. For one thing, I would have had to make sure that the barrel had not been fouled by sand when I fell to the ground. If there had been sand in the barrel, the pistol might have exploded in my hand. Furthermore, there is always a chance of a misfire with the pistol.”

“Excellent, Jimmy! You made the wise choice when you selected your weapon to use against your attacker. I am proud of you!”

Man, let me tell you, those last few words from White Buck were the greatest sort of praise that I had ever heard. Imagine, my father-figure actually said that he was proud of me! Surely, that made this the best day of my young life!

Now that White Buck had seen what had happened, he ordered Squirrel and me to pull the corpse into the underbrush far enough away that it would not stink up the berry patch as it decomposed. Surely, the scavengers would have stripped all of the edible parts of the corpse away before that had time to happen, but there was no point in taking a chance that the scavengers might miss something.

White Buck cleaned up the fighting area while Squirrel and I moved the body. Oh, White Buck confirmed that this man had been a Comanche. Before we moved the body, he had pointed out the significant identifying characteristics that made the identification positive.

On the way home, White Buck said that both Squirrel and I should accompany Spring Flower and/or Honey Bee whenever they came to gather blackberries. He also said that he was going to arrange that at least two bodyguards accompany any women who fetched berries. He was mulling over whether the women needed guards when they went anywhere away from the village. He had no answer for that question before we got home. He left us at home while he went around to talk to the other men of the village.

By this time, the women had questioned Spring Flower further about our adventure and had discussed it among themselves. The women had gone back to preparing lunch, but Spring Flower found time to talk to me. To my surprise, she asked me if I had chosen my adult name yet. I was still a little over a year away from my 12^th birthday when I would be accepted as an adult, and that was when I would be anointed with my adult name.

I told her that I had not yet given the matter any thought. That was when she suggested Stalwart Defender as a good name. I was stunned! Obviously, she was greatly influenced by what had happened today, but I thought that her suggestion was just a bit too self-serving for me to take. Spring Flower looked disappointed at my reaction to the name, but she did not argue with me. I had no idea what she was going to do between now and my 12^th birthday.

Squirrel’s 12^th birthday would come up about three months after mine, so I wondered if he were already considering what he wanted for his adult name. I planned to ask him at the first opportunity.

Squirrel and I now had what amounted to two permanent jobs. First and foremost was to accompany Spring Flower and Honey Bee whenever they left the village, usually to gather more blackberries. White Buck seemed to expect more trouble from the Comanches, and he was making more extended scouting trips. He was taking Squirrel and me on these trips so that we could learn even more about what a warrior, and especially a scout, had to do.

Normally, we would not have been doing such advanced work before becoming adults, but White Buck was worried that the Comanches were going on a rampage. The Comanches were constantly on what amounted to a war footing, so we could be hit by a raid at any time. He had discussed this feeling he had with the other men of the village, and they agreed with him. For practical purposes, this made us men about 1½-2 years before we would customarily have become men.

However, our village was somewhat short of young men, resulting in a surplus of women, so everything was getting pushed out of the normal cultural routine. White Buck even had me spend some time practicing with my pistol—that was how concerned he was. He even had Spring Flower and Honey Bee promise not to leave the village unless both Squirrel and I went with them. Furthermore, they were always to travel together. That way, they always had a “trained warrior” (White Buck’s words) to guard them. As you can see, he was really concerned about the prospect of attacks, especially from the Comanches.

Our first trip on a long range scouting expedition was a momentous one. We started out with our usual weapons, but we also carried a bag of pemmican and a water canteen. I had saved some canteens from the original wagon train, and that was what we were using because they were more convenient and had a higher volume capacity than did the usual water bag. White Buck said that we might be out as long as a week.

We headed south east from the village toward the heartland of what was called Comancheria by the Comanches. White Buck explained to us that he expected to hit roaming bands of Comanches before we got very far, so we had to be very careful as we made our way into Comanche territory. He told us that this land had once been a part of the Mescalero hunting grounds, but we had been pushed out by the more populous and more aggressive Comanches. He said that they had no right to keep us out of the territory, but the Comanches did not see life that way.

We had gone only about five miles when we spotted the first Comanches. They were riding over the crest of a hill as if they wanted to be spotted. White Buck warned us to stay low because he thought those four riders were bait in some sort of trap. In only a minute or two, I saw a detachment of 10 US Army Dragoons riding along a trail down in a shallow valley.

The soldiers had no trouble spotting the Comanches, and they turned to ride toward the Injuns. There was a flat area about 120 yards wide and 200 yards long between the two groups. The moment all of the soldiers were onto the flat area, the Comanches let out a lout whoop and charged down the hill and at the soldiers.

I was surprised to see eight soldiers dismount as soon as the Comanches charged at them. Two of the dragoons who were still mounted grabbed the reins of the other horses and raced toward the rocky area they had just left. The eight soldiers left behind quickly pulled out shovels and used them to dig shallow holes in the soft ground.

The Comanches had to slow down as they rode down the hill because there was a danger of the horses stepping on a loose rock and having it roll from under the foot of the horse. That surely would have caused the horse and rider to fall, and such a fall could result in a broken bone in a horse’s leg up to the death of the Comanche rider.

That was enough to give the soldiers time to frantically dig shallow firing positions that would keep them from being ridden down by the charging horses. No horse was going to step into a hole that was so easy to see! The soldiers were using muzzle-loading rifles, so they were only going to get off one shot with them before the Comanches were practically on top of them, but the soldiers had Colt Dragoon 0.44 caliber revolvers for followup shots.

If all they had to face were the four Comanches that we all could see, the Injuns had no chance. However, just about the time the four Comanches reached the flat ground, even more Injuns, about 25 from my quick count, came over that same hill. Uh-oh, those soldiers were in trouble!

Well, them soldiers were made of stern stuff and did not panic. All eight of them fired a volley from the rifles and cut down the four Comanches what were leading the charge. Two of the horses were also wounded in that same volley. Well, by this time, the rest of the Comanches were coming down that hill. The Dragoons seemed to calmly reload their rifles and waited for the Comanches to get closer.

This time, though, the Dragoons dropped down into their firing pits and aimed their rifles at the oncoming Comanches. Another volley from those rifles took out seven more of the charging Injuns, and no horses were hit as far as I could see. This was perfect as far as the soldiers were concerned. All of the Injuns what had been shot had been leading the charge, so that there seven riderless horses in front of the charge.

As soon as the riders fell from the horses, the horses halted and did a wonderful job of getting in the way of the rest of the running horses. That broke up the charge as nothing else could, and the remaining riders had a difficult time controlling their horses. With that going on, there was no way that the Injuns had a free hand to attack the Dragoons, and all they could do was to try to keep from falling from their own running horses. Whoever was commanding the Dragoons sure knew what he was doing—obviously, he was no amateur.