Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 04 Read Online Free

with one false step.
    At the water’s edge, she sat down, her back to the village, and watched the placid surface. The water murmured softly. Almost instinctively, she turned her gaze skyward, toward the cold moon, impassive in its stare. It was almost unfriendly, as if it wanted to force her to use its light to see things she chose not to see. Out near the center of the river, an image of the moon, like a second, colder eye stared back at her as unblinkingly as the original, or the eye of a rattlesnake.
    She was worried about Nocona. He seemd to be struggling with some heavy burden. No one else seemed to be aware of it, but she could sense it in the sag of his shoulders, in the grudgingway he laughed now, so unlike him. He was a young man, not even thirty winters behind him, but he carried himself like one of the old ones, as if he had seen things no man should have to see, or knew things one was better off not knowing. Even the children, who normally could make him smile in the middle of a towering rage, no longer seemed to brighten his mood. When he looked at them now it was with a silent sadness, as if he feared for them some fate he could sense but not understand.
    Things were changing rapidly. White Heron knew that. He was soon to be a chief, and she understood that being chief in such a time was no easy thing. But that was always true. Being chief was never easy, and things were always changing, sometimes rapidly, sometimes not. The perils were constant, the pressures unremitting. The Osage were as bloodthirsty as always, the Apache as rapacious, the Texans as greedy.
    But those were not new concerns.
    White Heron grabbed a fistful of grass and slapped it against her thigh as she watched the surface of the river. Almost as if the moon read her mind, it exploded into a shower of silver droplets, a dark shadow arcing into the air where the white disc had been, then crashing with an audible slap that sent ripples in every direction. Startled, it took her several seconds to realize that a trout had leaped after a bug, destroying her tranquility in its hunger.
    When the reality finally sank home, shethought how appropriate it was that the stillness should be broken by a need that respected nothing, not even tranquility. It is, in some ways, a perfect emblem of the Comanche life, she thought. She smiled ruefully, embarrassed that she had been so frightened by something so ordinary. Almost as if she expected that someone would be there, she looked over her shoulder, hoping no one had seen.
    Getting to her feet then, she moved east, along the riverbank, heading away from the village, as if it were too solid a presence, despite its apparent fragility. A stand of willows marked the eastern edge of the camp, and she headed toward the trees. A single dog drifted toward her from the tipis, falling in behind her, hanging at her heels as she kicked at the sandy shore.
    The trees were dark against the pewter of the grass and the brighter shine of the water where the river curved around behind the willows. A cluster of boulders jutted out into the river just past the trees. She would be shielded from the prying eyes of early risers there, and since sleep was out of the question and it was too early to disturb the others with morning chores, she decided to spend some time in total isolation.
    Brushing aside the trailing branches of the first willow, she ducked under its umbrella into deep shade. Turning for a moment to peer back through the thickly leaved branches, she could barely see the tipis, even under the bright moonlight. It seemed almost as if the village hadceased to be. Part of her wished that it would, that she could just walk off into the rising sun to see what life might be like where the white men were in control.
    She knew that Nocona hated the whites, and feared their coming. And she knew, too, from years of living under the dangling sword of Mexican soldiers, that he was right to be concerned, but that didn’t dampen