Chapter 8

Big Wolf and I headed back to Mexico to try to buy some more sheep and the dogs we needed to look after them. Meanwhile, White Buck and four more men followed the Comanches to see where they were going. We were all determined to punish them for what they had done to us. It looks like, no matter where you live, you have to treat bullies the same way. Once White Buck and his party had found out where the Comanches lived, they would return to the village and help in the rebuilding at least until Big Wolf and I returned from our expedition to Mexico.

As it turned out, White Buck had no trouble following the Comanches. They had tied each corpse across a horse and were herding them home for a mass funeral. As a matter of courtesy that I did not think the Comanches deserved, he was not going to attack them until after the funeral. That gave Big Wolf and me plenty of time to get to Mexico and back.

While we were traveling, Big Wolf had talked about getting his own pistol and learning to use it. I promised to help him do that once he had the pistol. I was already digging deeply into my money reserve, so I did not offer to buy him a gun. The Women’s Council of Elders had been very impressed by what the guns could do when we were attacked by the Comanches, though they were very reluctant to admit that, so I thought that Big Wolf might be able to get the money from them to buy a gun.

Just before we got to the river to cross into Mexico, we heard some gunfire. The shots were too close together to be coming from a rifle, so whoever was shooting must have been using a revolver. We sped up to see what was going on and to see if our assistance was required.

We were riding through a growth of trees, so we could not see very far. However, as we cleared the trees, we say four Chiricahuas fighting with two men dressed as Dragoons. Of course, it was the Dragoons who were using the pistols. There were already two dead Dragoons pierced by arrows, and three Chiricahuas lying dead on the ground. Just as we got closer, one of the Dragoons was hit in the belly by an arrow. He did not die immediately, but it was obviously a fatal wound.

The other Dragoon had an arrow projecting from his left shoulder, so he was having a difficult time shooting his pistol, but we saw him dispatch one of the Injuns as we approached. Just as I fired my shotgun at one of the Injuns, another one put an arrow into the chest of that Dragoon. I hit another one of the two remaining Chiricahuas with my shotgun and Big Wolf disposed of the last one with an arrow.

Dammit, we were too late to do any of the Dragoons any direct good, but we did finish off the Chiricahuas who had attacked them. At least, they all still had their scalps intact, so they were going into the afterlife in respectable condition. Big Wolf and I took the scalps of the Injuns that we had killed, but we did not touch the rest of them. There was nothing that we could do for any of the combatants, since they were all dead.

We did go through their possessions to see if there was anything useful to us. We did find a few silver coins in the pockets of the Dragoons, but the things we took with some enthusiasm were their guns. We came up with eight 0.44 caliber Dragoon revolvers and a fair amount of ammunition.

The Dragoons had shot their horses and were using them as breastworks. We assumed that had worked fairly well because the bodies of the horses were festooned with a large number of arrows. Big Wolf salvaged those and added them to his quiver.

We also salvaged the saddle holsters that the Dragoons had been using. We got enough for all eight pistols. For no reason other than that I have always been the cautious type, I loaded all of the pistols and the spare cylinders. I hung four of the Dragoon pistols from the saddle horn beside my shotgun, but that was all there was room for, so I stowed the rest of the pistols and the spare cylinders in my saddlebags. That made up nearly a 45-pound extra load for the horse, and he was unhappy about that. My plan was to give one of the pistols to Big Wolf when we got home.

That was the only thing of note that happened on our trip to buy sheep. I wound up buying 60 sheep and three dogs. The sheppard insisted that we were going to need that many dogs in order to get home with that many sheep. I had nothing to judge by, so I took his word for it. Of course, he charged a heavy price for the sheep and the dogs, but I paid him what he demanded without a lot of argument.

White Buck and his party were back by the time Big Wolf and I got home with the sheep and the dogs. The women hardly bothered to acknowledge what Big Wolf and I had done by getting all of those sheep home safely. I think that a number of them were still pissed off at me over the way I had not fawned over them in regard to the Comanche attack. Well, I was getting kind of pissed off at them, myself, and, had it not been for Spring Flower and the rest of the family, I would probably have left the village to pout over the way they were acting.

I stayed around because Spring Flower had agreed formally to become my wife. We had sex many times lately, but that was no big deal as far as the Mescaleros were concerned. Any teen who was still a virgin by the age of 15 was considered to be weird, and that was often the way couples found each other.

Honey Bee was also after me as husband material, but I insisted that I was not going to fuck her until she proved that she was old enough to bleed on a monthly cycle. The two sisters were both agreeable to being co-wives, so I was home free as far as that was concerned. I certainly had the status to justify having two wives, especially since White Buck and our mothers did not object, so there was no reason for me not to marry the sisters when the time came.

I had not realized how much stronger I had become to go along with my growth spurt, so I was surprised that I could handle the heavier Colt Dragoon pistols with such ease. It only took a minimum amount of practice for me to shoot as accurately with those 0.44 caliber pistols as I had been doing with the 0.36 caliber Colt Navy revolvers.

I readily switched to the larger pistol because of its greater range and stopping power. These pistols could stop a charging horse in its tracks, and that was something that the smaller caliber Colt Navy could never do. Since I almost never encountered Comanche warriors without their horses, the Colt Dragoon revolver had very little difficulty in selling itself to me.

The real problem was the added weight of the Dragoon pistol, but my over the shoulder suspenders helped a lot with that. I managed to adjust to the added weight of four of the Dragoon pistols, but I did not walk around with all four of them any more than I had to.

I stopped wearing my Colt Navy revolvers and gave two to Spring Flower and two to Honey Bee. They were very pleased to have the guns and made a point of letting the other girls know how well they were armed. Some of the older women were shocked that the sisters were carrying weapons because it was not traditional for women to do so.

Men were responsible for all phases of fighting, and that included protecting the women, but I poo-pooed that thought. No way was I willing to let my women be harmed just because tradition said that women did not protect themselves. I had to explain the facts of life to the sisters, but they were willing to listen because of my proven track record and the fact that Spring Flower had been attacked twice.

Yes, I trained Big Wolf in the use of the gun. I started him off with the Colt Pocket Pistol, took him through the Colt Navy, and finally finished the training with the

Dragoon pistol. I was a bit amused by him because he always used his bow against a man, but he had no qualms about shooting a horse with the 0.44 caliber bullet. The first time he did that, he was surprised at how easy it was to bring down a horse with the larger bullet, but after that, he just treated it as a matter of course.

We took a few weeks to get ready for the big raid on the Comanches. White Buck was the primary war chief, but he had four assistants. He had asked me if I wanted to be a war chief, but I respectfully declined the honor. War chiefs normally did not take part in the actual fight, and I wanted to be in the thick of the fighting. White Buck said that he understood my feelings and let me off the hook.

White Buck had a shotgun and one of the Dragoon revolvers with him on this raid, but he did not expect to use either one for fighting. Of course, he had his customary bow, war club, and knife, so he was not likely to have any trouble surviving the raid, no matter how it turned out. I was armed pretty much like White Buck, but I had a total of six of the Dragoon revolvers—I was carrying four and I had two hanging on my saddle beside my shotgun. That was a total of 38 shots. Woe unto the Comanche who attracted my attention!

We left early one morning, all mounted, so that we could reach the Comanche village in good condition the following day. We would camp overnight at a large waterhole. We had 43 warriors, counting me, plus the war chiefs. The main plan of the battle was really quite simple and was explained to everybody before we left.

We were going to move up to the village as stealthily as possible, and you had better believe how stealthy an Injun can be when he wants to slip up on you. Once in position, we would charge in upon the camp and catch the Comanches by surprise. Our plan was to kill every Comanche we could find with no regard to age or gender. The idea was to show all of the Comanches how dangerous it was to provoke the Mescaleros. White Buck was going to fire one shot from his shotgun to signal the start of the battle. Oh, no time was to be wasted in taking scalps, that would be done after the Comanches were wiped out.

We left the village in a joyous mood—at last, the damned Comanches would be taught a lesson! Previously, as far back as anybody could remember and as far as the legends stretched into the past, the Comanches had always been the ones who attacked, and the Mescaleros had always been the ones on the defensive. Well, without a doubt, that routine was going to be reversed this time.

We pushed the horses as hard as we dared and arrived at the designated waterhole in plenty of time to prepare a supper before dark. We ate pemmican and jerky and drank water. No fires were lit. It was still plenty warm enough that we did not need fires for heat, and the idea was to do nothing that would tell the Comanches that we were on the way.