to be his son.
The farther Last Horse went from the camp and the tribe, the more he began to doubt that he could ever go back and live among the People again. With the People he was always hungry; everyone in the band was always hungry.
The great days of feasting were over. Peta, their leader, had talked to the whites more than once lately; it would not be long before the band would have to move onto the land the whites wanted them to have.
Because of that, Last Horse felt less bad about what he was doing. He pressed his horse until the horse was lathered white with sweat. There was nothing behind him but sickness and starvation; if he rode with Blue Duck there would at least be food, because Blue Duck hunted in the forests where the deer were still thick.
When Blue Duck saw Last Horse coming, his horse pushed almost to the point of death, he immediately slipped his ammunition belts over his shoulder. If the Comanche had run his horse almost to death it could only be because he had urgent news of Buffalo Hump. Blue Duck went to a little wagon where he kept his whiskey and pulled out a bottle, which he handed to Last Horse as soon as the Comanche stepped off his stumbling mount.
'You have killed your horse, we might as well eat him,' Blue Duck said. 'I don't know why you were in such a hurry, unless you have a big thirst for whiskey.' Last Horse was almost as tired as his mount.
He wanted to deliver his news at once, before he started drinking the whiskey.
'Buffalo Hump left,' he said. 'He took only one horse and he went northwest.
Kicking Wolf says he has gone away to die. Now can I have that pretty gun?' He saw the rifle he had been promised, propped against a wagon wheel, the sun glinting off the silver on the stock. Blue Duck walked over and picked it up; he looked at it carefully, as if he had never seen it before. Then, instead of giving it to Last Horse, as he had promised, he pointed it at him instead.
'This gun is too good for a thieving Comanche like you,' Blue Duck said. 'But since you are here I can let you have the bullets.' Blue Duck fired twice; the bullets spun Last Horse around and knocked him to his knees. Several grasshoppers were hopping in the brown grass. Last Horse fell forward. His eyes were still open when one of the yellow grasshoppers hopped onto his face.
Blue Duck took the unopened whiskey bottle out of his hand and put it back in the little wagon. Ermoke, who had been about to snatch it, was disappointed.
After killing Last Horse, a man so foolish he had shot off his own toe, Blue Duck needed only a few minutes to complete his preparations for his journey in pursuit of Buffalo Hump. He caught four of his fastest horses, because he wanted to travel fast and far.
Although he didn't expect much resistance from the old man himself, it was hard to predict what one might encounter on the prairies, so he made sure he was well armed. The week before, his men had come upon two buffalo hunters whose hide wagon had broken down, and had killed them both, mainly in order to get their supply of tobacco, a substance always in short supply around the camp.
Blue Duck didn't care about the tobacco himself, but he was always pleased to capture the buffalo hunters' heavy rifles and their ammunition.
Now he strapped one of their big fifty-caliber rifles on one of the horses, an action that aroused the suspicions of Ermoke and Monkey John. They knew that Blue Duck had it in mind to kill his father someday, but they were not aware of the news Last Horse had brought. When they saw Blue Duck making ready to leave, with four horses and a buffalo gun, they assumed he must be going to ambush somebody rich. Blue Duck made no effort to divide treasures when he killed or captured some traveller. He always kept everything for himself, and frequently bullied other members of the robber gang to give him some of their spoils. It was a source of annoyance. When Ermoke complained, which he only did when he was drunk, Blue Duck laughed at him. Two or three men immediately went over and searched the dead Comanche, Last Horse, but he had nothing on him except a knife and one of the pistols Blue Duck had given him earlier--it was the pistol he had used to shoot off his own toe.
When Blue Duck was ready he simply rode away, without saying a ^w to anyone. As soon as he was out of sight, Ermoke and Monkey John caught their horses and followed him. They caught up with him about three miles from camp.
Both men were a little nervous; when Blue Duck acted as if he didn't want company it was well to be cautious. His killing moods were unpredictable. Neither of them had expected him to kill the Comanche who had ridden into camp-- earlier he had been quite friendly with the man.
Certainly the Comanche had not expected to be killed. He had ridden his horse to death to reach Blue Duck quickly. But now he was dead, and so was his horse. The women were butchering it as Ermoke and Monkey John rode away.
Blue Duck didn't say a ^w when the two men joined him on his ride to the west. He knew they had followed thinking he was about to kill some traveller with a lot of money. Though it was impertinent for the two to join him when he hadn't asked for their company, he decided to let them come.
They didn't know he was only riding off to kill an old Comanche who owned nothing worth stealing.
They would make a long ride for nothing, which would serve them right.
Once they found Buffalo Hump, Blue Duck meant to inform the two killers that only he was to kill the old man--he did not want them to interfere. The mission he was on was one he had waited for since he left the tribe. Blue Duck had forgotten none of the insults Buffalo Hump had heaped on him: now he meant to have his revenge.
Blue Duck was convinced, too, that he knew where his father would go to make his death. Long ago, when Blue Duck was a boy of seven or eight, before his father began to insult him, Buffalo Hump had taken him on a long ride to Black Mesa, west of the Beaver River, in country that was so dry Blue Duck thought they might die of thirst. But Buffalo Hump did not intend to die of thirst-- he knew of an old lake near Black Mesa, a lake that was then dry. What Buffalo Hump knew was that there was a little seeping spring in the center of the dry lake, hidden under weeds. They had ridden two days without water before they came to the dry lake and found the little seeping spring; Blue Duck had never forgotten the taste of that cool water, and he never told anyone else about the existence of the spring. Buffalo Hump had told him that the People had lived near Black Mesa long before his own time, when they were just becoming a horse people.
He had said it was a place of powerful spirits.
Blue Duck had a clear memory of the journey and felt sure he could find the dry lake again, and the little spring. He wanted to hurry, though.
