'Take your rifle--if you don't want to shoot it I will shoot it,' Dancing Rabbit said.
Kicking Wolf ignored him. What weapons he took was none of Dancing Rabbit's business. Horses could smell rifles--having a greasy gun along only made them difficult to approach; but that was only one of the reasons that had made Kicking Wolf decide to leave the gun.
There were many bad Indians adrift on the plains in these days; comancheros, half-breeds, renegades, and exiles such as Blue Duck, men with no respect for anything. He was an older man--if he ran into some greedy renegades and they saw he had a fine rifle they might kill him for it. It was better to leave the gun at home, where he would be sure of having it the next time he went to hunt antelope.
Of course, Dancing Rabbit came with him when he left the camp. He was so excited by the prospect of stealing horses with Kicking Wolf that he didn't stop talking for many miles.
As Dancing Rabbit chattered on, Kicking Wolf rode west into the llano. It was not until the afternoon of the next day that he finally crossed the track of the Texans--they had been farther away than Dancing Rabbit supposed.
By then the young man was so thirsty that he had almost stopped chattering. Kicking Wolf had not gone deep into the llano for several years--he too had forgotten how very dry it was. The Texans still mainly farmed the watered lands--it was not necessary to get thirsty in order to steal their horses.
The good part of the venture they had set out on was that Kicking Wolf's leg did not cramp at all during the night. The next morning he moved his bowels easily, with no twinges from his leg.
He mounted his horse with grace. It was so good not to have a tight leg that he felt like kicking or jumping or taking part in a dance. The fact that his leg had immediately stopped cramping once he left Broken Foot convinced him that he had been right all along. His wife was mad at him and had probably fed him bad herbs.
In the dry country the trail of the four Texans was easy to spot. They were travelling slowly and there was something wrong with one of the men's boots. The boots had no heels. The other men left normal footprints. Dancing Rabbit knew nothing about tracking--he even failed to notice that one of the men had no heels on his boots.
Kicking Wolf had not really believed that the Texans would be so far into the llano with only one horse. He had expected to steal several horses and was irritated to find that that part of Dancing Rabbit's story was true. But the tracks were plain: there was only one horse with the Texans.
'They may have had to eat the other horse,' Dancing Rabbit conjectured nervously. He saw that Kicking Wolf was irritated that there was only one animal for him to steal. Nonetheless they had come a long way and the old man decided to press on.
They caught up with the Texans sooner than Kicking Wolf had expected to. They had only ridden a little way south when they spotted the four men, dots on the llano far ahead.
Immediately Kicking Wolf made a long loop to the west--McCrae had sharp eyes, and so did Famous Shoes. He didn't want to alert the Texans to the fact that they were being followed. He intended to loop well in front of them and wait, in case he decided to steal their one horse. Walking men were sure to be tired--it would be an easy theft if the horse was one he wanted.
During the rest of the day, as the sun fell, Kicking Wolf and Dancing Rabbit made a half circle around the Texans, taking care as they rode to make use of gullies or little ridges to hide themselves so that not even the sharpest eye could detect their presence. Then they came back in front of the Texans to await their passage. Once they had hidden their own horses well, Kicking Wolf told Dancing Rabbit to stay with them, an order that upset the young warrior greatly.
'But I want to see what you do!' Dancing Rabbit protested. 'I want to see how the great Kicking Wolf steals a horse.' 'You wait!' Kicking Wolf insisted. 'I am not going to steal the horse while the sun is up. If I want the horse I will steal it tonight.
You can come with me then.' He paused and looked at the sullen young warrior, a young man full of complaint. When he himself had been young he would never have dared protest an order given by an older man. Dancing Rabbit was pouting like a girl when Kicking Wolf left him with their horses.
Kicking Wolf was well ahead of the Texans.
He hid behind a low stand of yucca and waited.
Long before the Texans passed he saw to his disgust that it was not even a horse they had with them: it was only a brown mule. It was all a waste, his trip. The only use Comanches had for mules was to eat them. Some Comanches thought mule meat tasted better than horsemeat. He himself had mainly avoided stealing mules because they couldn't breed.
Why steal a horse that couldn't make colts?
He waited, though, crouched behind the yucca, as the Texans passed, about a half mile away.
Famous Shoes had gone ahead, hoping to find water, probably. Gun In The Water was with the Texans, and so was McCrae. Besides them there was a black man and a skinny man, both younger.
Gun In The Water limped a little--perh it was because he had no heels on his boots.
As he watched the weary men walking toward the big orb of the setting sun, Kicking Wolf suddenly had a sadness fill him. His breast felt so heavy with it that he began to envy Buffalo Hump, who was dead. He knew already that he didn't want to steal the Texans' brown mule, and that was not because he had any liking for Texans or pitied them their long walk. He knew the Texans would kill him, if they saw him, and he in turn would try to kill them if they made themselves easy targets. They had always been hated enemies and were hated enemies still-- Kicking Wolf was grateful that he was prosperous enough and free, so that he could still hate Texans as a Comanche should. He was glad that he did not have to pretend to be friends with them to collect a mere pittance to live on.
Yet he felt sad, and, as the Texans stopped to camp, while dusk made the long plain indistinct--shadows here, last streaks of sunlight there--the sadness filled him until he felt he would burst. There, nearby, were Gun In The Water and Silver Hair McCrae, men he had fought most of his life and would gladly fight again if he could. He had stolen many, many horses from them, or from companies of rangers they rode with. Once he and Buffalo Hump had set a prairie fire that had nearly caught the two men and burned them and their company. There had been shots exchanged, arrows shot, lances thrown, and yet the two rangers were still alive; and so was he.
