He didn't want to stay with the rangers if they were going to proceed so foolishly.
Nonetheless, he went ahead for a few miles, because he wanted to see if there was another lake nearby, or any reason to continue north.
It was while he was trotting ahead of the cautious rangers that he noticed a lance sticking up from the ground a short distance ahead. Since Buffalo Hump was the only man likely to be in that area who carried a lance, Famous Shoes immediately became more cautious, fearing that the old man was plotting some kind of ambush.
While he was studying the land, trying to figure where the old man could be hiding, Famous Shoes saw his body. The lance held it pinned to the earth.
The sight startled Famous Shoes so that for a moment his legs felt weak. He had long surmised that Buffalo Hump was making his last journey, seeking a hiding place of some sort, in which to die. But that surmise did not diminish his shock when he saw the body with the lance driven through it.
On weak legs he went forward until he stood on the edge of the circle of black rocks.
He was too shocked to wave at the rangers, or do anything but stand and look. Buffalo Hump had been killed with his own lance, and it was undoubtedly Blue Duck and his men who had killed him. The lance went right through the hump; Famous Shoes remembered hearing some prophecy or old story to the effect that Buffalo Hump would only die when his hump was pierced. It might have been Buffalo Hump's own grandmother who told him the story, long ago when he was caring for her as she waited to die.
The old man's great buffalo skull shield lay beside him. It was a shield that many warriors wanted, yet Blue Duck had left it, as if it were a thing without value or power. That too was a shock.
Famous Shoes was squatting just outside the circle of black rock when the rangers rode up.
'Oh my Lord,' Augustus said, when he saw that Buffalo Hump was dead. 'Oh my Lord.' Call was just as shocked, though he didn't speak. He dismounted and stood by Famous Shoes; the others dismounted too, but, for a time, no one spoke. Deets, who had never seen Buffalo Hump up close, was so scared that he wanted to leave. It was his belief that only a witch would have such a hump, and, though the man appeared to be dead, a lance through his body, it was not clear to Deets that a witch would have to stay dead. He thought it would be better to stand a little farther away, in case the witch with the big hump suddenly rose up and did some witchery on them.
Call was curious at last to see Buffalo Hump up close. It had been some years since he had thought much about the man, yet he knew that his career as a ranger had been, in large measure, a pursuit of the Comanche who lay dead at his feet.
Augustus was so startled that all color had drained from his face.
'That's a lance like the one he stuck me with, way back then,' he said.
Pea Eye, too, wanted to go. He knew that Buffalo Hump had been a mighty, fearsome chief, but now he was dead and it was wasteful just to stand there looking at his body if they hoped to catch the bandits they had been chasing for so long.
Captain Call and Captain McCrae, though, showed no inclination to hurry on, and neither did Famous Shoes. Pea Eye only looked once at the hump; he did not care to examine deformities, for fear it would result in bad dreams.
To Call's eye, Buffalo Hump looked smaller in death than he had looked in life-- he was not the giant they had supposed him to be, but only a man of medium height.
'I thought he was bigger,' Call added, squatting for a moment by the body.
'I did too, Woodrow,' Augustus said.
'When he was after me with his lance I thought he was as big as a god.' 'He's old,' Call said. 'He might have shrunk a little in his old age.' 'No, we just remember him as bigger than he was because he was so fierce and had that terrible war cry,' Augustus said.
To Pea Eye it seemed that the discovery of Buffalo Hump's body had put the two captains into a kind of memory trance.
'He was the first Comanche I ever saw,' Call remarked. 'I remember when he came racing out of that gully with that dead boy behind him on his horse --I forget the boy's name.' 'Josh Corn was his name,' Augustus said.
'He went into the bushes to take a shit and picked the wrong bunch of bushes to go into--it was the end of him.' 'This old man was gaunt,' Call said. 'I doubt he found much to eat, these last few years.' Famous Shoes started to tell the two rangers that they should not be standing within the circle of black rocks as they talked. Buffalo Hump had made a death circle with the rocks, and it should be respected. But he had, himself, another concern which also involved respect. He wanted the great buffalo skull shield. He wanted the shield badly. It was just laying there, ignored by Blue Duck and ignored too by the rangers. Though he wanted it, Famous Shoes knew the shield should remain within the circle of rocks. If he himself took it the Comanches might find out and try to kill him because of what he had done. He knelt down and looked closely at the shield, knowing that it contained great power, but he was afraid to take it.
'We ought to get that lance out of him, if we can,' Call said. He pulled, and then he and Augustus pulled together, but they soon saw that the task was hopeless. The lance point came free of the ground, but it did not come free of Buffalo Hump's body. It had gone through his hump, through his ribs, and through his chest.
'It's like a tree grew through him,' Gus said.
'He was a great chief--he ought to be laid out proper, but there's now no way to do it with this lance sticking through him,' Call said.
'Well, I ain't holding a funeral for him, he's killed too many of my friends,' Augustus said. 'I expect but for him Long Bill would be alive, and Neely Dickens and several more I could name.' 'I didn't mention a funeral,' Call said.
'I just think any man ought to be laid out proper.' He looked again at the body of Buffalo Hump and then, mindful that their task was not done, turned toward the horses. He didn't feel the relief he had always supposed he would feel, at the death of Buffalo Hump. The man who lay before him was no longer the terror of the plains-- he was just an old man, dead. Though they were in pursuit of Blue Duck, Call felt, for a moment, that there was little
