"The train don't have no place to take me to," she said. "All my people are dead." "They are not all dead," Maria replied.

"Billy Williams says there are many of your people, in the Territory. The train could take you to them, if you will get up and come with me." "No, there are only whites in the world now," old Naiche said. "I have all this food. You got it for me. I want to stay here and eat this food." "Bring it, I'll help you carry it," Maria said. She knew it was no use, trying to save a woman as old as Naiche, but she wanted to try.

The women of Crow Town were too sad. Even with her eyes half gone from smoke, the old Comanche woman had more life left in her than any of them. She didn't seem discouraged, to be living in a small hovel made of mesquite sticks, with rotten buffalo hides to cover it and protect her from the cold breath of the norther.

"Come, try," Maria said. "I don't know what will become of you if I leave you here with these men." "I don't worry about these men," Naiche said. "Look. I'll show you what I have." She bent, and began to dig with her hands by the little fire.

"This fire don't go out," she said, as she was digging. "I only let it go out in the summer, when it is hot. When the norther comes, I let the fire burn so my scorpions won't freeze." Naiche uncovered a pit, so near the fire that the glow of the coals lit it. Maria looked in and saw that the pit was full of scorpions. She didn't like scorpions; she didn't count, but there were many scorpions in Naiche's little pit, and also a few of the long centipedes with the red legs.

Old Naiche had made a roof over the pit, with little sticks and a badger skin to cover it and keep the scorpions in.

"When they sting me, it don't hurt," Naiche said. "If men are bad, I will go around and put scorpions in their clothes. I did it to old Tommy, because he stole my tobacco. When he was drunk, I put three scorpions in his pants, and they stung him where he is a man." Old Naiche grinned. She had few teeth.

Maria, too, was amused, at the old woman's vengeance and her cleverness in keeping a pit of scorpions near her fire. Billy had once told her that the Apaches sometimes kept scorpions because they needed their poison.

"Are you Apache?" Maria asked, thinking she had made a mistake about Naiche's tribe.

"No, but I was given to an Apache," Naiche said. "I lived in the Bosque Redondo, but I didn't like it. I ran away." "Run away again," Maria said. "I will take you to my home. I have two children who are damaged.

My girl is blind and my boy cannot think too well. Come to my home, and I will take care of you. We'll leave the others at the railroad, but you can come to Mexico with me." But again, Naiche shook her head.

"My time is coming," she said. "It will come when I finish this food you gave me. I do not want to go away and miss it. When you miss your time, then you cannot rest.

"Besides, I like the crows," Naiche added. "I have one that comes to my house and tells me secrets. That is why I know I have to stay here and wait for my time. She is up there now, my crow." Maria had no more time. She saw that she could not persuade the old woman, and she needed to be far from town with the other women when morning came.

Maybe if it was still snowing, the men would be too lazy to follow the women. That was her hope, and her only hope. The women she was taking away were ugly, dirty, and weary, but they still had the places between their legs. The men wouldn't like losing those places. Maybe they would pursue them, and maybe they wouldn't. But Maria had to go, and go at once.

"I will give you this advice," she said to Naiche. "Do not put your scorpions on the killer with scabs in his hair. He don't care about women. He will sting you worse than you sting him." Old Naiche didn't answer. She looked into the smoke, the smoke that had ruined her eyes.

Again she dipped her hand into the bucket of strippings from the pig's guts.

Maria crept out. The snow had stopped, which made her fearful. She had to hurry, and she had to get the women moving. Several crows sat on top of old Naiche's hut. Maria wondered which one was the crow that had told the old woman secrets. She wondered, but she did not have time to find out. The snow had stopped. She had to get the women and the two scared girls, and go.

When Mox Mox and his seven men rode into Crow Town, he made the men ride their horses back and forth over old Naiche's little brush shelter, trampling her to death.

At first, the horses shied, and didn't want to crash through the shelter. Mox Mox pointed to a sandhill, about one hundred yards away.

"Go to the top of it and blindfold them shittin' horses," he instructed. "Head them for this brush and keep on spurring." Old Naiche heard. While the men were blindfolding the horses, she tried to crawl out, but Mox Mox was waiting for her with his leaded quirt.

He quirted her in the face until she gave up. She crawled back into her hut and waited for the hooves to bring her darkness. Soon she heard the horses coming hard. The crows began to caw.

Naiche tried to be ready, but she had begun to feel regret for not going with Maria. It was a sharp regret, so sharp it made it hard for her to be ready.

But the horses were coming hard, whether or not she was ready. Naiche clawed open her little pit and dug quickly with one hand into her scorpions and centipedes. She raked a handful of them up and shoved them under her blanket. Perhaps one of them would bite The-Snake-You-Do-Not-See. The horses were closer. Naiche still had scorpions in her hand when they crashed through the branches of mesquite.

The hooves did not immediately bring her death, though they broke both her hips and crushed one hand.

"She's still stirring--ride again," Mox Mox said. The seven men wheeled their horses and rode again, and again. Because they couldn't see, the horses were frightened. Soon the men stopped racing. They merely spurred their mounts, causing them to jump into the broken branches. The rotten buffalo robes were soon kicked away, the mesquite branches broken.

"I guess that will teach her," Hergardt said.

He was German, the largest of the seven men. He was also, by common consent, the dumbest. Hergardt was so dumb he often put his boots on the wrong feet. He was strong and would pull his boots on without looking, as easily as most people pull on socks. Later, he would wonder why his feet hurt.

Hergardt rode a big bay horse. The other men dismounted and began to pile the broken mesquite limbs into a pyre, but Hergardt kept riding his horse back and forth over the body of old Naiche.