Chapter 7

We made our way to our horses and waited for our friends to show up. Eventually they did, but the delay was caused by one of the men having a broken leg. It was a simple break, so I was able to set it and apply a splint before we rode back home. The consensus was that the raid had been successful, but it had been a lot more work than anybody had anticipated.

When we got home and the story of the raid was told in excruciating detail by everybody, yes, I was finally learning how to act properly in public, I was awarded four of the scalps. My wives very proudly tied them to my coup stick and made sure that all of the villagers made at least one trip past it to see all of the prowess exhibited there. Chief called for a big celebration that night, and preparations started immediately.

Apparently, there was a time-honored protocol for this sort of celebration, and those of us who had been on the expedition had places of honor set aside for us. Even the man with the broken leg was carried to the celebration, and his wives made sure that he had plenty of the choice cuts of meat.

After the food came the entertainment. Each man had his story told by the best storyteller in the village, and each swing of a war club, knife, or tomahawk was described in thrilling detail. When it came my turn, the speaker not only described the fighting, but extolled the virtues of my superior leadership as war chief. I swear, I wondered if that was really me he was talking about!

When his speech was finally over with, Chief got up to talk. I had no idea what he was about to say, so I was stunned when he called me up front to present me with an eagle feather as a sign of my successful leadership of my first war party. My wives were even surprised at that, and I thought that Dove was about to faint with joy!

I gave a little speech of thanks that was well received. I had still not conquered all of my modesty, so my speech was short. However, I did make a point of praising the men who had helped me in the raid. That was a bit unusual, and was greeted with awe and respect. I later learned that every one of the men in my raid were anxious to follow me whenever I wanted to attack the Chiricahuas again, and my speech was part of the reason. Their status went up when they were praised in public for their bravery by their war chief.

In any case, the Chiricahuas let us alone for a while. Life went along wonderfully well for the next month, with me spending most of my "working" time either hunting or teaching martial arts. However, that ended on a sad note when a small hunting party was attacked by a band of Comanches. Two of the men were killed outright, and they third man barely escaped to warn us of the Comanches being in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, he died the next day of his wounds.

Chief asked me to form a punitive war party to drive the Comanches away from our territory. I agreed, one of the reasons for which was that my wives would probably have died of shame if I had refused. Another reason was that the Comanches had to be taught a lesson every few months that we were not to be trifled with.

I was not looking for a pitched battle, something more on the order of a guerrilla attack. Therefore, I took six men, mostly those who had been on the previous raid with me. I wanted this fight to be one of missile weapons as much as possible, since my people were superior to the Comanches in that form of warfare. The Comanches much preferred the lance to the bow, though, of course, they were well versed in its usage.

We left the next day after the attack on our hunting party, and we expected to find some Comanches once we got well clear of our village. We rode for about an hour and had reached the open plain before we saw some horsemen in the distance. They were Comanches in war paint, and our war paint was fresh, so there was nothing to hold us back. We charged and they charged.

I had told my men that I wanted to play a nasty joke on the Comanches if we could, and they all agreed that it would be great fun if we could make it work. By phrasing it as a nasty trick played on an enemy, I was able to convince the men to shoot at the horses, not at the riders. I figured that one of the Comanches might survive if we did it that way, and he could take word back to his people that we were not to be trifled with. If not, we would just go looking for another bunch to try our trick on.

We pulled our horses to a stop about 50 yards from the charging Comanches and began to fire our arrows and atlatl darts. There were eight horses and men charging us, and we managed to down all eight of them, though some were very damned close before the arrows really did a complete job on the horses.

The only Comanche to survive the tumble from his horse was the last one, and that was because he had slowed his horse in preparation for his lance attack. I killed his horse with a dart, and the man dropped almost at my feet. I dropped from my horse to examine him and to make sure that he was still alive. When I got close enough to him, I pissed in his face to make sure that I had his full attention!

"You are not worth killing, you miserable excuse for a man. I'm going to let you live so that you can tell your people how we brave Mescaleros treat vermin who try to bother us." I rubbed salt in the wound by saying, "You see that we killed all of your horses because we do not think that stupid Comanches know how to select the best horses, and they are worthless to us. Be sure to tell your people what I said, or I may remove your worthless cock the next time I see you!"

To compound the insult, I had all of my men line up and also piss in his face. This may not have been the ultimate insult, but we were getting close! We scalped the other Comanches, but left the living one in one piece—even that was insulting! The men agreed that the injured man would probably be found before he died, so we just left him to his fate and rode back to our village.

All of the men thought that this was a spectacularly successful raid and talked so much about the trick we pulled on the Comanches by killing their horses that I hardly had to say anything in my own behalf. My wives were thrilled at the result and delighted in tying three more scalps to my coup stick. God, it was now smelling so bad that I was beginning to hate the thing!

That night, at the celebration of the successful raid, I suggested that we make a practice of playing that trick on the Comanches. It could be our signature to make sure that the world knew who had defeated the arrogant Comanches. That was just the suggestion needed to carry the day. I had an ulterior motive in that I knew that the Comanches' favorite battle tactics involved the use of the horse, and they would be severely discommoded if they lost their horses.

I don't know how much Dove's politicking had to do with it, but I was awarded another eagle feather to wear in my hair. Of course, I only wore the feathers on special social occasions or into battle, but Dove and Sunny seemed to be inordinately proud of them. I even started to hear, again, talk between them of me taking another wife to bespeak my new status. Hell, I couldn't guess how long I was going to be able to stall it off, but it began to look to me like three wives would be inevitable!

Meanwhile, Dove's belly was beginning to expand enough that even the men could see that she was carrying a child. She told me to expect a son in about two months, so she would have to stop fucking in about four weeks. She and Sunny did decide that I should fuck only Dove up until she had to stop, and I should fuck her every night so that as much as possible of my spirit would be transferred into my son.