Comanche Dawn by Mike Blakely

all—grazing across the high ground above the camp. He made his pony circle them, and closed the circle tighter as they became excited. He leaned forward and hooked his heels beneath the curve of his horse’s ribs. The big dun responded, leaping ahead with greater speed, snorting for breath.
    As he circled the herd, he saw Whip and Trotter, and rumbled past them.
    â€œI need my pad,” Whip yelled as he passed. “This horse makes much sweat against my legs.”
    â€œThen go and get it!” Shadow shouted. “I will get on a different horse when this one sweats too much!”
    As Trotter and Whip watched him, he angled into the herd, like a hawk diving on a raft of ducks. Pacing a small black, he grabbed a handful of the black’s mane with one hand and placed his other hand in the middle of the black pony’s back. Throwing his weight to his shoulders, his seat left the dun and he pushed off with his legs, landing behind the withers of the black horse. He still carried his bridle looped across his shoulder, and now used the reins like a quirt, whipping the black ahead of the other horses, guiding the animal with his heels and knees, as his father had taught him.
    Trotter and Whip loped away to the camp to get their pads. Beyond them, Shadow saw a group of people standing, watching him as he sped around the herd. This made him bolder, and he drove the horses in a serpentine path, Mother Earth drumming under him contentedly. The black began to sweat, which made Shadow stick better to its back, yet it irritated his skin, so he angled against a red mare he knew well, and sprang to her back, now driving her through the middle of the others, forming two herds. Quickly, he had the horses together again. He pushed them toward the lodges, closer to the growing group of onlookers.
    Riding by the people, he yelped in victory—“yee, yee, yee!”—as if he had stolen these horses from some enemy, and he saw his father, smiling, standing beside an old man of the Corn People. The old man was squinting to see, and his toothless mouth was open.
    Next he glimpsed a face as sweet as a dew-kissed blossom and smiled at Teal as he rode by her. But before she could respond, Slope Child had stepped in front of her, staring provocatively, and then Shadow had passed.
    Now he whipped the red mare ahead of the other horses, turning them sharply away from the camp. He found himself against a bay colt, and sprang to its back, realizing only as he lit that this colt belonged to some Corn People warrior, and not his father. The moment his weight settled, the colt humped his back and sprang on four stiff legs, then leapt, then ducked his head low, whirling as his rump rose.
    Shadow tumbled like a war axe thrown long through the air, and he caught glimpses of the lodges, the horses, and the people. Bouncing across the back of another horse, he saw himself engulfed by horseflesh, shadows, and dust. The ground flattened him, and he heard hooves thump near his ears. A blow tore his inner thigh and another shifted hard across his chest as sunlight burst down on him like the pain that flared through his body.
    His breath was gone, but his first concern was that his father would think him dead, so he rolled to hands and knees, then knelt, facing the fleeing herd. Dust caked the raw flesh across his chest and clung to the blood that trickled down his leg. A great peal of laughter came from all the people who had been watching him show off. A gasp of air came to him as Whip arrived, his mount now wearing the pad saddle.
    Whip laughed and said, “You must heed what you say when you talk horse, my friend.”
    Shadow rose to his feet, wincing at his pain, yet proud of his wounds. “ Hah, ” he wheezed. “Drive the horses back to me. I want them to smell my blood.”
    Trotter arrived now and helped Whip turn the horses back. Shadow spread his arms as they came to him, and he spoke to them again,