'Maybe
'This is backwards,' his father started, 'what will you do —'
'How can you have a lodge without a woman?' his mother interrupted.
'I will have a woman.'
'Who?'
'I don't know. . someone good.'
'People will laugh,' his mother cautioned, 'a grown man with a lodge and no family.'
“Let them laugh,' said Smiles A Lot. 'I am a Comanche man. I can do what I want. I want a lodge and I'm going to have one. Father, will you take the ponies I'm offering or should I walk them over to Powder Face?'
'Powder Face!' his father exclaimed. 'His arrows can't hit anything.'
'Is it a bargain?' Smiles A Lot asked.
'You will have to be patient. . an ash bow takes time.'
'I'll be patient.'
Leaving his stunned parents, Smiles A Lot set off once more and a few minutes later was standing at Owl Prophet's lodge flap. He announced himself and waited.
After what seemed a long time the flap opened and the slit-eyed prophet stooped through the opening. He said nothing but stood staring down at Smiles A Lot, waiting for the boy who was good with horses to state his business.
'I am taking the warrior's path,' the young man said evenly. 'I want you to guide me.'
Owl Prophet continued to stare at his caller. He looked at the sun. 'Come back when there is shade on the other side of my lodge,' he said. Then he ducked back through the flap.
When Smiles A Lot returned early in the afternoon he was leading another of his ponies. Again he announced himself and again Owl Prophet emerged. He glanced expressionless at the young roan stallion Smiles A Lot had brought and told the boy to come inside his family's lodge.
No one was at home and Smiles A Lot sat in the spot Owl Prophet indicated, on the other side of the small fire burning in the center of the floor. The prophet did not offer his visitor a pipe. He sat still, his long unbraided hair spilling down his shoulders, his eyes so narrow that it looked as if he might drift off to sleep at any moment.
After a long silence, his lips moved almost imperceptibly. 'Tell me how this has come to pass.'
Smiles A Lot told of the night he had spent in the rain outside Kicking Bird's lodge. He told of the arrangement he had made with Magpie Woman and the bargain he had struck with his father. He was tempted to reveal his feelings for Hunting For Something but decided that such an admission would only distract Owl Prophet.
It was hard to tell what Owl Prophet was doing. His eyes had shut as soon as Smiles A Lot started to explain, and they remained closed even after Smiles A Lot had stopped talking.
But all the while Owl Prophet held his head up, as if the eyes were somehow seeing through the lowered lids. Smiles A Lot started when the lids suddenly flew open and the prophet's eyes, round as eggs, stared straight through him. The words Owl Prophet spoke were flat and trancelike, delivered with an authority that discouraged questioning.
“Journey to the country of the Kiowa. Seek out the place of mystery, the great bluff with sides that slope back to the earth, the bluff whose rock face looks like a bear has clawed it. A creek runs along its base and winds around behind. Secret your horses and possessions there and climb the back side of the place of mystery. Sit near the edge where the rock face falls to the creek. Do not eat. Do not drink. Only pray. Pray hard. Ask the Mystery to reveal your destiny. When you see something, come and tell me what it is.'
Owl Prophet trembled. His eyelids closed then opened into slits once again. 'You have heard me,' he said lowly. 'Make ready and go. Leave that pony where he is.'
Smiles A Lot wasted no time. He asked his befuddled mother to prepare enough food for a week of sleeps, then picked up his old bow and a few arrows and cut three favorite ponies from his herd. His preparations were so single-minded and hasty that to say good-bye had not occurred to him. His only thought was to follow Owl Prophet's instructions, and when his father asked when he would return, Smiles A Lot answered simply, 'I don't know.”
Then he vaulted onto a dapple-gray pony and, with horsehair lines to the other two in hand, started off through the village. People noticed him leaving but no one spoke to the boy, whose eyes were fixed straight ahead to the northeast.
One, however, followed him to the edge of the village, there to stand watching on the lip of the prairie as the young man and his horses shrank to specks. For a long time she had wished he would look her way or speak to her. For a long time she had been unable to think of much else and her heartstrings had been jumping all morning with the news that Magpie Woman was building a lodge for him, that his father was going to make him a bow, and that he had been sequestered with Owl Prophet.
What mission he was undertaking she did not know. She only knew that whenever a man left camp there was no guarantee he would return, and she stood squinting until the black dots moving in the distance vanished below the horizon. All along she had hoped that the rider and his horses would by some miracle grow larger again and that he would be riding toward her instead of away. But now he was gone and inwardly she chided herself for being shy. Life was uncertain these days. It seemed like something new was happening every day and there was no knowing what tomorrow promised. And now there was nothing she could do but wait and hope for his return. Then she would do something, she told herself.
For now her heart was on the ground. She stared down at her moccasins with wet eyes and with the wild thought of jumping on one of her father's ponies and racing out to catch up with him. But when she lifted her eyes once more and saw that he was truly gone, she put herself back in the hands of fate and walked gloomily into the village. It would do no good to mourn a missed opportunity, she told herself. Might as well go home and make up grandfather's bowl of pemmican.
Chapter XI
Wind In His Hair did not much care for domestic life. Left to his own, he would have little to do with anyone, even those connected to his blood. But his sense of dedication defeated him. He recognized that a part of his responsibility as a warrior was to make himself available to family beyond his wives and children, to occasionally make long journeys away from the home village. He avoided such forays to the scattered villages of the plains whenever possible, but his wives were shrewd. Several times a year they laid careful traps for their celebrated husband, traps which once sprung were rarely evaded.
Such was the case with his most recent trip, a trip to the south one of his wives had asked for as they slept together on a snowbound night many moons before. In the time that followed she had taken care to remind him of his promise only at moments when his spirits were especially good, and he finally declared that they would go soon after his return from Mexico.
Any attempt to wriggle out of the domestic mission was made especially hard by One Braid Trailing's status as his youngest, prettiest, and favorite wife. She was devoted to him and didn't lose her temper often. And they never had to go all over the country because her only family resided with the Honey-Eater band in the south.
Her father was a Comanche, her mother a lifelong Mexican captive, and Wind In His Hair liked them both, especially the father, who was esteemed as a member of the Honey-Eaters' equivalent of the Hard Shields.
What he didn't like, aside from the unexciting social nature of the visit, was the country. The country had too many small hills and trees. Hills and trees made him nervous because he was used to gazing as far as he could see.
The worst thing about going to the Honey-Eaters, however was their closeness to the whites. The slow- spreading infection of whites eating into the body of the Comanche empire was most pronounced in the southern extremities, and though the band he was visiting was the largest and strongest among the remaining Honey-Eaters, it was still tiny in comparison with the powerful communities farther north.
Attrition from constant conflict with the whites had tattered the community's once cohesive quilt. The village was top-heavy with the old and infirm. Mature warriors seemed to grow scarcer each year, and few were the young
