CHAPTER 63
Kiowa and his pack perch like Lords of the Hunt on top of their mountaintop. They scan left and right and patiently wait for flashes of movement.
"This is our seventh peak in three weeks and we have seen no buffalo," Paw says, echoing Kiowa's thoughts.
"I am starving," Walpi grumbles.
"I could chew the bark off a tree," Kida says, looking at the pine trunks next to her.
Kiowa, walk with me, Makes Trouble signs, motioning for his friend.
Kiowa slowly stands up, stretching his legs. He turns and follows Makes Trouble a good distance from the pack.
A short distance away, Makes Trouble signs, Perhaps Raging Bull was telling the truth. We have never, in all of our lives, gone so long without seeing so much as a buffalo track. Our senses are heightened and still we struggle for even a trace. Something is out of order.
"Or perhaps Raging Bull's herd has warned all the buffalo that wolves are hunting them in lands that were once safe."
Makes Trouble nods. Maybe.
"Have the buffalo wings?" Kiowa asks.
Makes Trouble looks at him with a dumbfounded expression on his face.
"They cannot take to the skies, my friend. We will follow the streams until we find a trail. That is what we have always done. It is reasonable to think that animals drink water, is it not?"
This is true, and the streams are high.
"We will find something to ease our pain. Then we will find the buffalo when we have our strength back."
Though Paw can see and hear Kiowa and Makes Trouble's conversation, there was something unsettling in that old buffalo's warning, and he feels uneasy.
I will go look for food down where the pale-face work the land, Makes Trouble decides.
"You are so ugly. Why did you resist the magic?"
Makes Trouble's shoulders droop and his long ears flatten out.
Am I to be a monster all of my days?
A few days later Makes Trouble hides quietly, waiting for night to fall. Earlier in the day he had detected a strong chicken scent and followed his nose to a small ranch that was recently settled and is still under construction. He nestled into the sage grass and observed them all day.
To his great delight, he sees the man of the house kiss his wife and children good-bye, mount his horse, and ride out on some business, no doubt.
What a fool. To leave all of this unprotected. His little woman. His children. His animals. I am going to talk to Kiowa about raiding these foolish, pale people. They have scalps to lose and bounty aplenty.
His lime-green glowing eyes seem to hover in the descending night. Looking through the window, he waits patiently until the candles are blown out and the lanterns dim to darkness. It is time to make trouble and move.
Fortunately for me, the moon is out and will light the way so that no snakes will surprise me and bite me. Oh, how I hate rattlesnakes.
Exercising extreme caution, he moves his massive disfigured frame across the grass with a swiftness and a stealthiness unnatural for a man.
The family bloodhound picks up the intruder's scent and charges him just as he enters the coop.
Makes Trouble releases a low growl that shakes the walls of the henhouse and starts the hens clucking.
The dog lowers his head, tucks his tail between his legs, and disappears into the night.
"Hush, hush, hush," he hisses, holding his long, gnarled fingers up to his fanged mouth. Hush, round, tame white birds. We do not want to wake up the little woman and scare her small children, do we? he signs.
The hens quiet down.
"What is that noise?" Anna, a hen, clucks to her neighbor, Beverly.
"Oh, I don't know. Master is so good to us. He knows a fed hen is a well-bred hen." Beverly yawns, then falls fast asleep.
"He sure does stink. More than usual. It smells like he's bathed…" Before Anna can finish her sentence, Makes Trouble scoops her up. She frantically flutters her wings and attempts to squawk. But Make Trouble's elongated fingers wrap around her beak and head. She feels a tight pressure and then…crack.
See, now, isn't that better? Makes Trouble asks as he opens his giant mouth and stuffs the limp hen in. He nearly swallows her whole.
Gathering one victim after another, Makes Trouble gorges himself. He pays no attention to the farmer's wife, who hears the hens' clucking and lights a lantern, which now illuminates the second-story window.
The intruder doesn't hear the front door slam behind her, and he doesn't hear her cock a double-barreled shotgun.
Makes Trouble is so preoccupied with filling his belly and gathering for the pack that he doesn't detect Lorraine Kelsey till it is too late.
"I'm gonna count to three, and if I don't hear an answer, I'm gonna assume you're a fox," Lorraine shouts.
"One Mississippi." She pushes the buttstock up to her shoulder.
"Two Mississippi." She closes one eye and holds the lantern out as she reaches for the door.
"Three Mississippi." She twists the handle and pulls it wide open.