Blood of My Blood by Geo W. Proctor

Author:Geo W. Proctor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: quanah parker, comanche indians, piccadilly publishing, western fiction ebook, the american west, the american frontier, geo w proctor, chief of the comanches, quahadi band of the comanche nation
Publisher: Piccadilly

Chapter Fifteen

... They will be back. They always come back ...

Quanah’s left hand lifted, and he traced the scar ridge hidden by the hairline on his left temple. He fingered the remainder of his brush with death at Adobe Walls while studying the early morning stars of the newly arrived autumn.

Surely his uncle Cona Cawb-vey did have the long sight. How else would he have known that the white men and the blue-coated soldiers would never stop coming no matter what the Kwerhar-rehnuh did?

Quanah shook his head. He had yet to see the coming and going of thirty tawra, but he felt as ancient as the oldest gray-haired brave camped within the secure walls of Palo Duro Canyon. What had once been an excellent location for the bands to gather for the winter now had become the last refuge of the People. The soldiers and Tejano Rangers freely patrolled all the lands the Nermernuh claimed. Here was the final stronghold, the one place the whites had not penetrated.

Quanah took a measure of comfort in that fact. Something in a world of constant turmoil should remain unchanged.

His gaze lowered and traced along the western rim of the canyon barely discernible in the early morning darkness. He had been uncertain of Palo Duro and ridden ahead of his band to ascertain the canyon remained secure. Today he would ride back to the village and lead the band to their winter camp.

Winter, the thought of the coming season slowly turned in the war chief’s mind. In spite of the howling winds and ice and snow, he welcomed winter’s return. The blue-coated soldiers were less likely to press deeply into Kwerhar-rehnuh lands when snows covered the ground. With the soldier hounds off his heels, there would be time to ponder the future. He needed that opportunity. When spring once more coaxed the bright green shoots of grass from the ground, he had to be ready for a new attack on the whites—one that would drive them back to their cities in the south or the forests in the east.

Peta Nocona had done that when the soldiers in blue and gray had fought each other. Quanah’s mind wandered back over a decade when his father was the greatest of all the warriors among the People. With tobacco and peyote, he would seek visions throughout the winter. He would ask his father’s spirit to guide him, to reveal the path that would defeat the whites once and for all.

For an instant the disastrous defeat at Adobe Walls wiggled into his mind. He pushed it aside. His mistake during the spring had been to abandon the spirit of the shield and lance that had served him since Peta Nocona’s death. The medicines of the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho were not for the Nermernuh. He should have known that, but desperation blinded him like fear blinds a frightened rabbit. The winter would give him time to cleanse himself and—

“Blue coats!”

A single cry echoed through the canyon.

Temples a-pound, Quanah twisted, his gaze probing the darkness, as the warning cry abruptly died in a strangled gurgle.

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