the Viking and his men have just eaten. Most of them have gone back to work (brushing the horses, laying out strips of beef to dry); the boss is lying by the embers of the fire, next to a demijohn of sotol. A Mexican falcon flies overhead. Bruno takes his slingshot from his shirt pocket. He places a smooth pebble into the rubber band. He aims …
The shot misses, despite the fact he had plenty of time. It’s the falcon’s good luck that the hunter had too much to drink.
The falcon circles. Once again Bruno has him within reach, he reloads his slingshot … But the sun plays a trick on him and blinds him just as he’s about to take his shot.
The falcon is one-in-a-million, and it escapes! This infuriates Bruno, mostly because of the sotol running in his veins, which puts him in a foul mood. He hides his face beneath the brim of his hat. And, just like that, he falls asleep.
He snores.
Pierced Pearl, his captive—the Comanches recently sold her to him but she won’t last long, he can’t stand having a woman around—has watched the whole scene with the lucky, free falcon.
It pleases Pierced Pearl—bravo for the falcon! A hand’s breadth from Bruno, she lays her head on the ground—there’s nowhere else to lay it—and curls up to try to sleep—it was a bad night. She dreams:
That Bruno’s snoring is the falcon’s voice. That the falcon approaches, flying close over her, flapping its wings noisily. It has a human torso. It’s neither man nor woman. It caws:
“There. Theeere. Theeere.”
The falcon develops legs, they grow till they reach the ground. It bends them. Continues flapping. It speaks:
“Leave this place. Here. You’re … hic. You’re interrupting my … hic … hic … hic … I’m … like a fish …”
The falcon stretches its legs, swaggers around, and disappears into thin air, like smoke.
Pierced Pearl, Bruno’s prisoner, awakens. Yet again she is overcome by anxiety and bitterness. Knowing the falcon escaped gives her the only flicker of hope she’s had in a long time. And then the falcon became meaningless in her dream.
Pierced Pearl grinds her teeth.
Just then one of the Born-to-Run arrives in a cloud of dust, like a ghostly apparition at a vigil, his eyes bulging. He pulls up short. He drinks from the goat’s bladder he wears around his neck. This liquid is poison to most, but it makes him feel tireless, immortal.
Pierced Pearl forgets her worries for a moment and pays close attention to the messenger. She hears him swallow, listens to him gargle, making sounds to clear his throat.
“Bruno!” the Indian messenger shouts. Bruno awakens immediately, lifts his hat, and his pupils are still adjusting when the messenger drops the news about Nepomuceno like a hot potato.
And in the blink of an eye, the messenger, like a flying arrow, whizzes off, back to the Well of the Fallen, his blood burning with the poison that fuels him.
The pigeon Hidalgo has just passed over Bruneville when Bob Chess arrives to visit Ranger Neals. Bob’s not a Ranger—not even close—“I’m a Texan, from this side of the river, the American side.” He likes horses, women, guns, conquering Indians, and killing Mexicans. He thinks sitting in the Café Ronsard drinking and shooting the breeze is stupid. “I’m a man of action, life is about what you do, everything else is a waste of time; it’s thanks to places like that, and to temples and churches, that Texas is going to hell in a handbasket.”
Bob Chess wants money and absolute power to enjoy himself as he pleases. No faggotry for him—sitting around drinking, rocking a baby, doing needlepoint—and that’s why he doesn’t like games, music, dancing, fine food, or any other (“idiotic”) aspect of domestic life. “My ten commandments for being a real man: First commandment—Sleep in the open air; Second—Eat meat roasted on an open fire; Third—Have a woman once a month; Fourth—Never get drunk; Fifth—Increase your landholdings; Sixth—Never speak to a Negro, or a Mexican; Seventh—Do not attend church or temple; Eighth—Get around on a horse, never on wheels, which are for the lazy (and are the source of all evil); Ninth—Always have a pistol on your hip; and the Tenth commandment—Love yourself as yourself.”
He follows his commandments, more or less. He never sleeps in the open air—“It’s just a saying, sometimes the open air’s not good for you; if we were on the prairies it would be a different story”—he rents a room in Mrs. Big’s Hotel, a real luxury for him since, as a boy, he never slept in his own bed. (“Who woulda thunk it!” his mama would have said, “A mattress makes you soft.” And by “mattress” she meant thin cotton mat.) He likes (and how!) a good meal—which some would say is the most sedentary aspect of domestic life. He doesn’t ride because the saddle and the motion of the horse are no good for his hemorrhoids. And he doesn’t have a woman on a monthly basis, just whenever the opportunity arises.
He always wears a hat—despite the fact it’s not one of his commandments.
The Kwahadis, invincible Comanches who refuse to have anything to do with the gringos (they prefer to trade with the Mexicans), receive another Born-to-Run on the high plains, five thousand feet above sea level, in Indian Territory (which the Mexicans call the Apachería), past the Llano Estacado and the Caprock escarpment, a three-hundred-foot cliff that separates the high plains from the Permian basin.
The Kwahadis are renowned for their violence. They are experts at battle. No one lives to tell about a Kwahadi attack unless they’re taken captive. And fighting isn’t their only distinctive characteristic. They can withstand anything. If they can’t find water, they drink from the stomachs of dead horses. The rest of the Comanches fear them. They’re the wealthiest Indians, they have more than 15,000 tame horses. Their camp is deep in the Palo Duro Canyon (second in size only to the Grand Canyon), and they roam the Pease River, McClellan Creek, and Blanco Canyon.
Their battle strategy is difficult to decipher.
Rawhide (the newest Kwahadi—a few months ago he was taken captive by the Comanches, who bought him to have someone who could read, to be able to communicate—takes care of both verbal and written correspondence at the camp) listens to the message.
Rawhide asks the messenger to wait, and delivers the news to Chief Smells Good.
The Born-to-Run waits. Since he doesn’t have farther to go, he doesn’t drink from his jug of poison. He squats and waits.
The Kwahadi chief, Smells Good, is preparing to lead an attack. Naked to the waist, his face daubed with black war paint, he wears a long eagle-feather headdress that flies out behind him on horseback, he leans back, his headdress nearly skimming the ground, his copper earrings jingling in the air, leaving everyone speechless. Especially Rawhide.
“Speak!” Chief Smells Good says, when he sees Rawhide, the newest Kwahadi, standing before him, immobile. He understands he brings a message.
“Chief Smells Good …”
“Speak!”
Rawhide knows that delivering unwelcome news will imperil him, if the chief doesn’t like the message he may pay with his life. He masters his fears and relays the Born-to-Run’s news.
Smells Good listens. He departs without a word. He tells the
