Free Comanche Dawn by Mike Blakely Page B

remembered the lesson. Now she will only remember the beating.”

8
    After riding three of Shaggy Hump’s horses, they ate their rabbit, roasted whole over the open fire. They stripped the intestines between their fingers and divided them equally, wrapping the slick gut around a hand to tear off chunks with their teeth.
    They had held a horse race to determine choice of heart, liver, and brains. Shadow had won easily on his father’s fastest horse. He chose the heart. Whip, who had come in second, chose the brains. As the Corn People owned few horses, Trotter had ridden very little, so he had come in last in the race, but he claimed to prefer liver more than heart and brains anyway. They gnawed every morsel of meat from the bones of the rabbit, then broke the bones to suck out the delicious marrow.
    â€œTell my sister you want the rabbit hide, Shadow. You will need it when Slope Child visits your lodge.”
    Shadow laughed, but Trotter said, “I think she will go to your lodge, my friend. Slope Child is that way. She has no brother to beat her, and no mother to shame her. Not even an aunt or a sister. She does not want to be a wife of any one warrior. The young men with no wives give her gifts.”
    Shadow looked across the open grounds beyond the tipis and saw his father’s horses looking back at him, as if they were waiting for him to come and play some more. “I will give the rabbit skin to Slope Child if she wants to come to my lodge, but I think she is foolish. A woman must have a husband, and sons. Who will take care of her when she is old and ugly?”
    After they finished their meal, they borrowed some arrows from Whip’s grandfather, who always made plenty of arrows for the boys. The three friends made a game of throwing the arrows at a circle they scratched in a part of the creek bank that water had worn away. They gambled the things they owned—flints and elk teeth and feathers. Shadow was winning this game, but when he looked over his shoulder he saw the horses watching him again.
    â€œLook,” he said. “The ponies want to play.”
    Taking the war bridles from their shoulders, the boys approached the band of horses. The animals started to break away from Trotter and Whip, so Shadow told them to stand still.
    â€œI will teach you how to talk horse,” he said. He walked toward his father’s fastest horse, a big dun saying, “Huh, huh,” in a low tone. The animal stood still, as if charmed. He came closer, and the horse tossed his head and nickered. Then something happened that Shadow would never forget. The ponytalk changed between the horse’s mouth and Shadow’s ears. The spirits made the horse-sound into a word, and the word was Noomah.
    Shadow stopped and stood like a tree, amazed that a pony had spoken to him. Affecting the tone and voice of the pony, he answered, saying, “Noomah. Noo-oo-mah-ah.” The big dun came to meet him. Without bothering to slip the bridle around the horse’s jaw, he grabbed the mane and swung onto the dun’s back. Guiding the animal with his knees, he kept the other ponies bunched so Whip and Trotter could catch their mounts. Yet, he was thinking about the way he had learned to talk to the horse he now rode. It did not seem that Whip and Trotter had heard the pony say, “ Noomah, ” or heard Shadow reply the same way. It was as if the spirits wanted only him to know the language of the horse.
    While the other two boys were fixing their war bridles and mounting, Shadow began leading the band of horses away. He held the mane tight as the dun changed from a lope to a gallop. The riderless horses beside him kicked their heels and tossed their heads, making Shadow smile. He could feel his own hair pulling in the wind, like the mane of the dun horse he rode.
    Thundering around the big camp of the Corn People and Burnt Meat People, Shadow saw the rest of the horses—nine of them in