see, corpses of the revered, indomitable buffalo blanketed the prairie. At first glance it seemed inconceivable that anything but the Mystery could have produced such a startling panorama of death. Yet as soon as Kicking Bird and his feathered warriors began to cross the ocean of slaughter, they knew it was the work of the people they had come to fight. Only white men killed like this.
Birds in numbers that occasionally darkened the sun rose from the carcasses in massive clouds as the warriors passed through, their deafening shrieks obliterating the hoofbeats of a thousand ponies.
Rising from the floor of the prairie were the yips and growls and snaps of four-leggeds as the smaller predators were evicted from one carcass by teeming clans of coyotes and wolves only to arrive at another for a few frantic seconds before being driven off again. The entire animal world, it seemed, had been driven mad by the tragedy of the buffalo.
The stench of decaying flesh quickly became so great that many hardened warriors, men who had endured injury and deprivation, found their hands involuntarily flying toward their faces to shut out an odor that seemed to have become the air itself.
It was only when the corpses began to thin that the body of warriors, weighed down by an invisible, incomprehensible anchor of woe, gradually slowed and stopped. The men fell out to wander the nearby prairie, trying to clear the concussive haze of what they had seen through their eyes. Some sat in numb groups of two or three, and in many of these cells no words were exchanged until the light began to fade. In others, a few low sentences were uttered but it amounted to nothing that could be called conversation.
The majority of warriors sought out little patches of individual space to reflect on the damage inflicted upon their hearts and, in opening themselves to grief, they inadvertently created a spectacle of their own. Fires were kindled and pipes were lit and a wide array of prayers were spoken, beseeching the Mystery to relieve their misery. Everywhere men sat cross-legged, their arms outstretched toward heaven, their innermost thoughts sealed behind pursed lips. Some, for the first and last time in their lives, wobbled, then collapsed in uncontrollable sobs.
At twilight, hundreds of tiny fires twinkled in the vast prairie night, and an hour after the lonely plain was cloaked in darkness, one sorrowful man lifted his voice and began to sing his death song. Spontaneously, others followed, and in a short time hundreds of sad voices were singing about how they had lived and how they hoped to die. The short, simple laments were repeated many times before the singers, satisfied that the Mystery had noted their pleas, lay their heads down and rested.
Kicking Bird was no less affected than any other man, but all night his mind hummed with the responsibilities of leadership, and shortly before first light he was presiding over an extraordinary council of half a hundred warriors. Once the men were seated, Kicking Bird rose to address them. The pipe had not been passed, but no one thought of smoking.
'We have seen what cannot be seen,' Kicking Bird signed. “A monster walks our land.'
The warriors watched his words in unblinking silence.
'I have never fought a monster. I have wondered all night if such a thing can be done. It must take the strongest men with the bravest hearts, men who are not afraid to die, to fight a monster. . men like ourselves.'
A ripple of affirmative grunts coursed through Kicking Bird's audience.
'Is any man here afraid to die?'
A chorus of
'Is any warrior among us afraid to die?'
Louder and more confident, the chorus was repeated as light spread over the prairie.
'Then we must fight this monster!'
Kicking Bird's words were what every warrior needed. They shifted restlessly on the ground, muttering and grunting their approval. A few jumped to their feet and shouted out their disdain for all enemies, regardless of size. More warriors were streaming in from the surrounding prairie, and in what seemed no time, a gigantic circle had formed around the men in council.
'We must fight this monster with care if we are to defeat him,' Kicking Bird continued. 'We must fight him as he sleeps in the night.'
'Yes. . yes. . at night,' the voices of his listeners rejoined.
'The monster is of many parts. We must kill it a little at a time. We must kill it whenever, wherever we can find it. Death to the killers of our brother!'
It would have been useless for Kicking Bird to sign more because pandemonium had overtaken the council. Every warrior was on his feet. Some had begun to dance and sing. Others were racing onto the prairie to gather their horses.
Kicking Bird stood calmly at the center of the upheaval. He did not know what would happen now, nor did he want to think about it. But for the moment he felt good. The hearts of the men who followed him were beating again.
Chapter XXXIII
That same afternoon, outriders of the great party discovered the first camp of hunters. The scouts had not actually seen their bivouac, but the distant boom of the long-barreled, far-shooting buffalo guns of the whites told of its existence. Following instructions, the scouts hurried back to the main body of warriors and, shortly after their arrival, the leading men went into council.
No one had ever seen a party of white hunters that consisted of more than ten or twelve men, and their camps never had fortifications. Their heavy, fast-firing rifles presented the most difficult problem. A warrior might not even see the man who was firing before losing his life an instant after he heard the hollow report of the big gun. A handful of such rifles were enough to deter large forces. A night attack, however, reduced this threat to practically nothing.
As the men in the circle talked these things through, it quickly became apparent to all that Kicking Bird's strategy was wise. A few men wondered aloud at the lack of honor in killing enemies as they slept, but they were quickly reminded that the whites were not so much an enemy as a scourge, and a scourge, as everyone knew, must be eradicated by any possible means.
Ever mindful of the niceties of diplomacy, Kicking Bird suggested that each tribe select fifteen warriors by lot to ride in the first wave, an approach embraced by every man in the circle. The timing of the attack was set for an hour before dawn, and as the sun dropped below the horizon, the warriors concluded their talk and returned to their followers, certain that by the time the sun returned, the prairie would be soaking up the hated blood of the buffalo- killers.
Around midnight a force of sixty-five warriors, augmented by Kicking Bird, Wind In His Hair, Young Dog, Touch The Clouds, Wolf Robe, and White Bear, who, by virtue of standing, had been exempted from the random draw, moved to within striking distance of the hunters, camp.
After an hour's wait, two scouts returned to report that there were eight white men in the squalid camp and that all of them, even the guard they had posted, were asleep. Two wagons were parked near the fire, but otherwise there was no visible impediment to the attack.
A few young men whooped with anticipation but their cries were quickly stifled by the reproaches of elders mounted next to them. Only a signal from the man who had created the war party could send it into action, and Kicking Bird was sitting calmly on his pony.
Like any good field commander who strives to leave nothing to chance when the lives of his fighters are in the balance, Kicking Bird decided to wait a few more minutes. It was possible that the scouts, maneuverings had caused a light sleeper to open his eyes, and the Comanche leader wanted to give the camp time to slip back into the deepest slumber possible.
But even the shrewdest commander cannot anticipate all of the infinite chance deviations of life, and it was no different with Kicking Bird. That one of the hunters might have a toothache never occurred to him, much less that the man who sat up in his blanket shortly after the scouts departed had done so at the instance of a throbbing
