Comanche Dawn

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Authors: Mike Blakely
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dawn, and mock them for their youthful inability to make war.
    He used even more care moving away than he had used approaching, for this was where a warrior of lesser skills would lose discipline. The moon-made shadow of the bluff was moving onto the enemy camp now, staying close against the heel of Shaggy Hump’s moccasin as he withdrew, step by purposeful step. He moved no faster than this shadow, arriving at last at the tree where he had tied his dead brother’s horse, now his.
    He led this horse away at the same regimented pace, as if each step spanned the body of a sleeping foe whom he must not wake. He moved away so slowly that the horse cropped every blade of grass along the way as they went. Away … away … away … until he had gone far enough to mount, and ride back to the Burnt Meat People in victory and glory.

6
    The Time of Great Change came in Shadow’s fourteenth summer. It started during the Moon of Thunder, when the True Humans rolled up the bottoms of their lodge covers to let the breezes cool their resting places. Shadow was lying naked on the soft cured side of an old buffalo robe in his tipi, looking out under the rolled-up hides at the small herd of grazing horses the Burnt Meat People owned. Beyond the horses, he could look far across the gray sage and short brown grass. A great distance to the west, he saw a purple thundercloud hanging in the sky, a curtain of blue rain slanting from it.
    He wished that it might come the way of his camp, that the grass would green again and bring herds of elk, deer, or antelope—maybe even buffalo. He knew he would be taking his first hunt soon, and the things he wanted to kill for meat numbered plenty. Yet, there was no hunger now in his camp, for the roots of the yampa vine were easily dug, and much meat had been dried. Also, small animals were plentiful here and tasted good enough.
    He was chewing a piece of bread made from the crushed seeds of lamb’s-quarters and sunflowers. His father’s second wife, Looks Away, had made this bread and flavored it well with berries. Shadow loved Looks Away almost as much as his own mother, for they were both kind to him, though Looks Away sometimes scolded him.
    As he ate, he listened to his father tell the story of the time he followed the Northern Raiders who had attacked the Burnt Meat People, and of how he had ridden home with the fresh scalp of the enemy who had stolen his brother’s horse. Shadow remembered his uncle well, and knew his father did, also, though Black Horn’s name was not mentioned in the story. To speak it might bring ghosts out with the moon.
    â€œDo you remember the scalp dance we held when I returned, my son?” Shaggy Hump said.
    â€œYes, Father. It was a good one.”
    The warrior waved his hand modestly. “It was just a little one. Only one scalp. You have yet to see a really good scalp dance.”
    â€œWhy did you not kill more Raiders that time, Father? You have said that you might have killed them all, because they slept so soundly.”
    â€œThat is true, but I must do as my guardian spirits instruct me in my dreams and in the visions I seek before battle. I was told to kill only one Raider, count only one battle stroke, and take only one scalp. To have killed more would have displeased the spirits and destroyed my medicine.”
    Shadow inhaled through his nostrils, trying in vain to smell the faraway thundercloud. Instead, he smelled only the dung of horses, which pleased him nonetheless. “Why did you leave the arrow in the ground between the two Raiders?”
    The warrior rubbed his full stomach and closed his eyes, speaking groggily now. “This, too, I was instructed to do. My markings were on the arrow shaft, so that the Northern Raiders would know who crept among them and killed their fellow warrior. This brings greater glory to the spirits who guide me and greater medicine to me.”
    Shadow smiled with

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