permanent sanctuary for the Kiowa and Comanche. In this place they and their families could peacefully prepare to take the white man's road, a road which was open to all the red children of God.
Education would be open to everyone, especially children. The standing of headmen would be preserved. Food would be provided in the form of rations, including the fresh meat of cattle. People could camp together in traditional bands. Soldiers would be garrisoned nearby with the twin tasks of keeping order among Indian residents and protecting them against white incursion. Interpreters, agents, merchants, and many others working for the welfare of Indian people as they assimilated were already being mobilized to support the effort.
By a single action, all these things could be made available to peace-loving people. Those who touched the pen to a thing called “enrollment' would find themselves free to pursue a new life in which no one would go hungry and no one would be attacked by enemies.
The Kiowa and Comanche had listened to all this with mute attention and the abject silence continued for a few moments after Hatton had finished, Then Touch The Clouds rose, his nearly seven-foot frame requiring the white emissaries to gaze upward at an uncomfortable, neck-bending angle.
'I have heard this talk,' he began. 'It is good to hear and makes me glad I have taken your hands.'
When this was translated, the white emissaries, sensing acceptance, smiled at one another in congratulation. But as Touch The Clouds continued, their smiles gradually faded with the realization that their feelings of satisfaction were premature.
'Touch The Clouds is only one man,' he said. 'I have but one voice, but I think we do not need what you want to give us. I love my country. The bones of my ancestors are everywhere in it. It has everything we need. Kiowa people are happy to walk on it. Why should we give up something we love so much? I can see no good reason for me or my people to throw away happiness.'
The faces of the whites turned blank. Some of them had become restless and there was a persistent shifting in the two rows of listeners.
When Touch The Clouds sat down, Kicking Bird rose, and in his imagination he felt his upward motion carrying him into the sky and beyond. The well-being he had felt when he got off his pony in front of Lawrie Tatum's house had been growing all afternoon. Now, as he paused to look over the crowd of whites he was about to address, Kicking Bird's psyche expanded and rose until it was floating over the heads of the hair-mouths, and his natural curiosity was displaced by a stone-hard resolve to speak exactly what lay in his Comanche heart.
'Touch The Clouds has spoken as I would speak. His words are good and it makes my heart glad to hear them. I love my country as a child loves its mother. I love my people in the same way a father loves his son. I was born out on the plains and that is where I want to die.'
Kicking Bird detected a small smile in the beard that covered most of Lawrie Tatum's face but the slight expression of support barely registered. The words poured from his mouth with a fluency that made it seem as though someone else might be speaking them, and as he stood before the white men, he imagined that what he was saying was rolling over his listeners like some magical vapor.
'It is good that the Great Father in Washington looks for peace. It makes me happy to take the hand of white men in friendship, because I seek peace as well. But we do not need what you are offering. All we need from white people is to be left alone. We need white people to stop killing the buffalo. I have been told many times that the white man loves money above all things. Maybe you can understand when I tell you that the buffalo is our money. What would white men feel if all their money was taken away? The buffalo was given us by the Great Mystery to feed and clothe ourselves. The buffalo is more than money. . he is our brother. . blood-related to all of us. When he is carried away, our hearts go with him. This must stop before there can be peace between us.'
Commissioner Hatton wriggled his sizeable bottom from side to side and cleared his throat.
'The Great Father and all his people decreed several summers ago that no one can hunt buffalo south of the Red River.'
'Then it must be that the Great Father's promises are no stronger than any other white man's, because there are more of these hunters in our country than ever before. They are hard to kill because they have far-shooting guns, but we do what we can. What does the Great Father do to stop people he has forbidden to come into our country? I have never seen them punished.'
What Kicking Bird said begged a response and, in the silence that followed, all eyes turned toward Bad Hand. Moments before his soft, thin voice sounded, the mangled digits of his left hand made the odd clicking sound.
“My soldiers cannot be everywhere at once,' he said flatly.
Kicking Bird met Bad Hand's stare with equal force, never averting his eyes through the response and translation.
'What the soldier chief says is true,' he began, his gaze still unwavering. 'The country of the Kiowa and Comanche is vast. It makes all men puny. The country of the Texans is as big, but when one of our warriors kills a single, bony cow to feed his starving children, soldiers saddle their horses and come after him to avenge the white man whose worthless cow was lost. Your white hunters come without permission. They kill our buffalo. . more than can be counted. . as fast as they can, taking the robes and tongues and leaving the rest to fester on the plains. No soldier saddles his horse or blows his trumpet when this is done.'
Bad Hand remained still during Kicking Bird's talk, so still that the Indian delegation, who were impressed with his warrior-like bearing, could not be certain if he had blinked during all that time. But beneath this tranquil surface were currents of emotion that were expressed once again in the clicking of his ravaged fingers.
'Tell me when you find them and I will send soldiers to punish them.'
'If we make a ride of one or two sleeps to tell you this what good can it be? The hunters will have quit their camps when your soldiers arrive. These men must be stopped before they come into the country.”
Bad Hand shook his head.
'That is not my job,' he said. 'I am a soldier, not a politician.”
Kicking Bird turned his head and looked down on Hatton. But the commissioner also gave a little shake of his head.
'I do not have the power to keep people from going where they want to go.'
Kicking Bird looked from Hatton to Bad Hand and back again but nothing more was forthcoming.
'Our young men will kill as many hunters as they can,' he declared. 'So long as these men take our money without asking, there will be trouble. That is all I have to say.'
In the hours that followed, warriors rose again and again to address unfulfilled promises, while the whites, with equal obstinacy, returned unfailingly to their plan for peace that would deny the aboriginals all freedom of movement. It was nearly dark before the meeting broke up.
Nothing of substance had been achieved, yet by virtue of having met, a certain progress had been made, and there were handshakes all around as the deadlocked delegations took leave of each other in front of the lodge tent.
The warriors said little as they followed Lawrie Tatum back up the hill to their horses, having decided only that since the moon was up they would travel awhile rather than camp close to the whites. Though none of them said so, each man was hungry for open space after the grueling talk in the stuffy tent.
If Lawrie Tatum was disappointed with the meeting he didn't show it, for he was his usual ebullient self as he took each man firmly by the hand, making it clear to all that he was glad they had come and would continue to pursue the friendship he so eagerly desired.
After he and Kicking Bird clasped hands, the Quaker pulled the Comanche aside and showed him into the place he called a 'house.' Passing over the threshold, Kicking Bird was astounded to find that a single footstep could transport him into a foreign, confounding world.
As he stood fixed to a floor of wood, his head turned slowly, allowing his uncomprehending eyes to absorb fully the numbing wonder of what he saw. This was the box that Lawrie Tatum lived in, and the sight of four walls, a roof, and a floor sent a tremor of horror up Kicking Bird's spine.
How a person could exist in such a place was difficult to believe. The Quaker was completely sealed inside the box. The air inside did not move, and although the things called windows admitted the moon's light, they seemed completely unnecessary. The whole world was only a few feet away! Who could possibly want to look outside when the opportunity of being outside was as easy as walking?
Tables and chairs were placed in the room, as if in wait for a large child. A heavy piece of soft material obscured much of the floor's planking. The fire was hidden in a metal box, where it could not be enjoyed. But most startling of all, macabre images of hair-mouths hung in several spots on the walls. For a beat or two of his leaping
