Comanche Rose (36 page)

Settling down beside the river, he tied the cat's lead to his belt, then opened the tablet. Wetting the pencil, he started in where he'd left off. While the animal climbed all over him and played beneath his knees, he lost himself in his memories.

It wasn't until his hand cramped that he looked up. A half dozen little brown faces watched Spider with obvious fascination. Picking up the cat, he held it out, then demonstrated how to pet it. Spider started purring.

"Go on, try it," he offered the closest kid.

The little boy reached out, touched the soft fur, then drew back. A little girl peered around him, and Hap felt the world stop. As brown as a berry, with dirty hair that fell in greased, feather-trimmed braids, she had eyes as blue as Annie's.

"Susannah?" he asked cautiously.

She blinked, then pointed at herself. "T'sana," she said.

His heart raced. T'sana. Susannah. They sounded enough alike to be the same thing. Maybe the little girl remembered. "Wait here," he insisted, picking up the cat. To be sure they stayed, he reached into his pockets and took out a handful of copper pennies. "Here." As they divided up the prize, he fairly ran back to the tipi, tied the cat to one of the lodge poles, retrieved the little china doll with the gold silk hair, and hurried back to the river.

His heart sank almost immediately. There was an Indian woman with them now, and she had her hand on the little girl's shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he approached them, anyway, and held out the doll. The child's eyes widened, either with pleasure or recognition, he wasn't sure which. Then she reached out, snatched it from his hands, and ran away. The woman spoke sharply, but the child kept going. Finally, the boy caught her and wrestled the doll from her arms. Her face grim, the woman ordered him to give it to Hap.

"T'sana?" he asked, pointing to the child.

She nodded. "T'sana."

Trying to keep them there, he touched his shoulder. "Hap—Tondehwahkah." Forcing a smile, he pointed at her. "Who? Who you?" he tried to ask. Then he repeated the name the Indians had given him. "Tondehwahkah."

"Tondehwahkah," the woman echoed, nodding as though she knew it.

"Yes. You?"

She hesitated, then touched her breast lightly. "Asabeti."

"Asabeti," he tried, rolling it off his tongue, hoping he'd be able to remember it. "Asabeti." He wanted to ask if she lived around there, but it wasn't even proper for her to be speaking to him. Instead he held out the doll, then pointed to the child. "For T'sana." She shook her head. "For T'sana—from Tondehwahkah. You give."

Finally, she allowed the little girl to take the doll, then apparently ordered both children to leave. The child ran around a tipi and disappeared, but not before he'd seen the way she'd held the doll. Not like an Indian, but close to her breast like a white woman.

Annie was still talking to Sun in the Morning when he found her. Not wanting to say too much in front of Bull Calf's wife, he asked quickly, "Is T'sana a Comanche word?"

"It means rose—like the flower."

"Oh."

"Actually, it's a wild yellow rose." Seeing his disappointment, she asked, "Why?"

"Those children you saw, the ones by the river..."

She didn't move a muscle, not even to blink. "Yes?" It was more of a whisper than a question.

"The little girl's white, Annie."

"White?" she echoed, her eyes widening.

"She's got blue eyes." Afraid he could somehow be wrong, he looked away. "Yeah, I gave the doll to her."

"What?"

"I wanted to see what she'd do—if she'd recognize it."

"I see." She couldn't think. He was telling her that he'd found a white child called T'sana. For a moment she couldn't even breathe, then she had to know. "Where? Where did you find her?"

"By the river. But you'd better look at her first."

"But you think it's Susannah, don't you?"

"I don't know, Annie. Maybe I just want her to be. But yeah, I kinda think so. There was something about the way she held that doll. Like maybe she'd held it before."

"I want to see her, Hap. I've got to see her."

Turning back to Sun in the Morning, she made her excuses. Then barely hiding her excitement, she all but ran for the river where she'd seen the children. They were gone, and now only a couple of women waded in the cold, shallow water.

"Did you see where they went? Do you know where they went?" she asked anxiously.

Approaching the women, she asked if any had seen a little girl named T'sana, if they knew anything about her. Both of them regarded Annie suspiciously, then shook their heads.

"The mother's name is Asabeti—at least that's what it sound like to me," Hap offered.

"Asabeti?" she asked quickly, getting a glimmer of recognition from them. Splashing into the water, she confronted one of the Indian women, asking this time for Asabeti's direction. Coming back, she pointed toward where Hap had seen the child run between the tipis. "They're from another band of Quahadis just come in," she said, unable to hide her excitement. "There's a boy, a little girl, and a baby—and his name-—Asabeti's husband, that is—is Waseca," she said breathlessly. Hurrying past him, she whispered under her breath, "Please, dear God, let it be Susannah."

"Don't say anything to them. Just look," he cautioned her. "Don't let 'em know why you're wanting to see her."

They were in luck. The little girl was sitting cross-legged in front of a tipi decorated with a large vermillion sun, and she was holding the doll, stroking its hair, crooning Indian words to it. As they approached, she looked up, and Annie felt a shiver of excitement all the way to her soul. Forcing herself to speak calmly, she moved closer to the child.

"T'sana?" she asked softly. Telling her it was a pretty name, she dropped to her knees and touched the doll's china face, asking its name. When the child shook her head, she suggested, "Molly."

"Mowi?"

"Molly."

"Molly," the little girl repeated solemnly. "Molly."

It was hard to tell if she remembered or not, but Annie was sure she was looking into her daughter's face. For a moment she studied every inch of it, taking in those blue eyes, the curve of the child's cheek, the chin that reminded her of Ethan. Then she reached out with shaking hand to touch the small shoulder.

"Susannah, do you remember me? It's Mama. Oh, dear God, Susannah—it's Mama!"

"Annie, don't."

Her hands slid down the slender arms as she fought back tears. "We've found her, Hap—we've found her!"

"T'sana!"

Asabeti came out of the tipi, then stopped cold when she saw the white woman. Recovering, she grasped the child's arm, pulling her away, then gave her a quick push toward the lodge. Facing Annie, she angrily demanded to know why she'd been touching T'sana. Recovering, Annie assured her she'd been admiring the doll. But the explanation came too late. The Comanche woman turned on her heel and went back inside.

Annie stared for a moment, then turned and ran toward the main body of the camp before Hap could stop her. Racing after her, he caught her from behind.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going to Quanah. I'm going to tell him she's mine. I'm going to ask him to help me," she gasped. "They can't keep my daughter from me!"

As she struggled to get loose, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her. "That woman's not going to give her up without a fight, Annie."

"But she's mine! I'm not leaving without her. Now that I've found her, I'm not leaving without her!"

"We're going to steal her. Hold still, will you?" he said, tightening his embrace. "Now, listen to me—and get a hold on yourself."

She took a gulp of air before nodding. "All right."

"They've had her a long time, Annie, and it's pretty obvious that Asabeti's real proud of her. You go around asking about her, telling these people she's yours, and all hell's going to break loose. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes."

"So we've got to make plans, kinda figure out how we're getting her out of here without having a couple hundred Comanches chasing after us. So I reckon we'll kinda have to keep our distance, wait for a chance, then just take her. But I'd kinda like to do it when there's something to distract 'em, so we can get a good start on 'em before they miss her."

She nodded.

"So don't go saying anything to anybody—not even to Sun in the Morning or Bull Calf. Or to the other wife, either."

"All right."

"And now that you've seen her, you've got to stay away from her. You don't want 'em to hide her out somewhere."

"No. But I told Sun in the Morning we were leaving tomorrow."

"Tell her the baby's making you sick, and you don't feel like going," he suggested, releasing her.

"All right. But I don't see how—"

"I'll keep an eye on the kid. I reckon I can do it while I'm writing. None of em act like they've seen a cat on a rope before, believe me."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing. Visit around, act like nothing's different. And wait. I don't aim to take long at this, I can tell you that much. I aim to have her out of here within the week. Then we're going home—you, me, and the kid. By the time we get there, I expect I'll have a real hankering to farm the rest of my life. Hell, I
knew
I will."

But when he got his tablet and Spider and returned to the place by the river, there was no sign of any kids, only women getting water for cooking pots. Still, he found himself a spot, sat down, and wrote several pages of his life story. By the time he got finished, nobody was going to believe it, he decided. He'd done a lot more in thirty-seven years than he'd realized. In another month or so he'd be thirty-eight, but that didn't bother him anymore. He had too much to look forward to now. Annie. The little girl. The baby.

When they got home, he had a whole list of things he wanted to do. Whitewash the house. Make that cradle. Get to know Susannah. Buy a real wedding ring for Annie.

Civilizing the kid wouldn't be easy, but at least he'd done it before. At least he had a notion what to expect. Comanches didn't raise children like white folks, and there was something about that freedom they never got over. Of course, it might be a little different with a girl, because they learned to do most of the real work.

But the first thing on the list was the wedding ring. And he wanted to get a nice one, one that told her what his sometimes awkward words never quite said what he wanted them to. Every time he thought of Baker's Gap and that grim, dirty, one-room house, he could kick himself all over again. She'd deserved a whole lot better than that.

She'd given him everything, but she probably wouldn't look at it like that. She might even think it was the other way around, but it wasn't. Without her, he'd be drifting along, dissatisfied with damned near everything. With her, he had a pretty wife, a family, and a place he could call home. A whole lot more than a man like him had a right to ask for.

The damned cat kept climbing onto his lap, settling right on top of his tablet. Pushing it off for the fourth or fifth time, he happened to notice somebody was taking a tipi down, loading in onto a travois. And he had a pretty fair notion it was Asabeti and her husband fixing to leave.

Shifting his body against the tree for a better look, he could see the little girl helping carry things, the woman deftly lashing everything down, while a fair-sized Comanche warrior watched from a place in the shade. A round-faced baby with black hair slept in a cradleboard propped against the man's leg, while the half-naked boy darted around, firing sticks from his bow at anything that moved. A rangy dog got up, checked out an empty pot, then dropped to the ground again.

Two white folks and a doll had set them to running. On the one hand, it was going to upset Annie, but on the other, it wasn't a bad thing. As long as they didn't lose sight of Asabeti and her family, they'd probably be a whole lot better off trying to steal Susannah someplace that wasn't swarming with Indians. This way if anything went wrong, all he'd have to contend with was Waseca and the woman. But once he got the kid, he'd still have to ride like hell.

Throwing Spider onto his shoulder, he rubbed his cheek against the soft fur for a moment, murmuring, "Reckon you'll be damned glad to get to where you aren't tied down, won't you, fella? And the time's coming. 'Course, then you're going to have a mighty rough little girl wooling you around," he warned the cat. "Kinda serve you right, won't it?"

As he walked back with the cat perched there, trying to wash the hair over his ear, he decided he must be getting soft. He was actually going to feel bad about running off and leaving old Bull Calf in the middle of the night. But he couldn't afford to say anything about it. Not when he was this close to getting Annie's kid for her.

CHAPTER 25

It seemed that they were going farther north, up toward Tule Canyon. Following at a safe distance, Hap was determined not to let them disappear again. Every hour or so, he'd climb up a hill with a spyglass to make sure they weren't getting too far ahead.

"Well, if they don't hook up with anybody before nightfall, I reckon this is about it," he told Annie, coming back. "As soon as they make camp, we'll try to get ahead of 'em, then I'll double back for the kid while you wait, ready to ride as soon as I get back in the morning."

"I want to go with you, Hap."

"No. We're going to need at least one rested horse for you and the kid. And you need to get some sleep, because I expect we'll be riding hell for leather if Waseca figures out which way we're heading."

"We're heading for the San Saba, aren't we?"

"No, not yet, anyway. Coming north like they have, we'd be going back down through the Comancheria. 'Way I've got it figured, I'll try to make 'em think like that, then we'll head up to Fort Sill. Maybe visit a few days with Doc Sprenger while you and Susannah get reacquainted." Trying not to think how tired he was, he squinted up at the late afternoon sun. "You know, it may not be easy, Annie. She may not thank us for this. We may be hauling her kicking and squalling the whole way there."