The Comanche Vampire

Evernight
Publishing

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2014 Lee Ann
Sontheimer
Murphy

 
ISBN: 978-1-77130-930-1

Cover
Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

Editor:
JC
Chute

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal.
 
No part of this book may be
used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This
is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

For
my uncle, Raymond Neely, who once lived and dreamed in southwestern Oklahoma
and called Lawton home.
 
He shared his
appreciation for the Native American portion of our shared heritage with me and
he would enjoy this tale.

THE COMANCHE VAMPIRE

Lee Ann
Sontheimer
Murphy

Copyright © 2014

Prologue

June 2, 1875

Not
a breath of wind rippled the tall prairie grasses as the band of warriors rode
in silent defeat toward the fort.
 
Pea’hocso
stared toward the western horizon, at a blue sky
filled with thick white clouds.
 
They
would bring storms by evening and he wondered if the gods mourned with the
Quahadi
or raged at them.
 
Time would reveal which, he thought as his heart weighed heavier than
the oppressive summer heat.
 
Although
some of the others slumped,
Pea’hocso
sat straight and
tall, the way a Comanche warrior should.
 
He’d ride during these last moments of freedom with pride and
skill.
 
Saddle sore and heartsick, he
refused to yield anything to the Indian agent or
taibo
, the white man.
 

Often,
Pea’hocso
wished he’d died in battle. An honorable
death, and he would never have been forced to endure the coming bondage.
 
But although the
ta’siwoo
had all but vanished
from the earth,
Pea’hocso
would continue and outlive
the buffalo.
 
He just didn’t know why.

Quanah
Parker, son of Comanche Chief
Peta
Nocono
and a woman stolen from the whites long ago, led
their ragged band.
  
A year and a half ago,
Pea’hocso
counted a thousand warriors in the
Quahadi
, but less than four hundred rode behind their
leader now.
 
In their last war against
the
taibo
, the
final effort to expel the intruders from tribal lands and save their people,
they’d lost many: some to death. More to disease. And still more, who didn’t
wait.

Many
Comanche had trudged back, broken and bitter, to the reservation and tried to
learn the new ways.
 
Pea’hocso
rode among the final Comanche warriors, the last of the people to live free.
Their efforts had failed and so they returned, disgraced and broken, to Fort
Sill.
 
The 4
^th
Cavalry had
driven them to this end, hounding them through the seasons under Colonel
McKenzie.
 
If Quanah hadn’t brought them
here, the blue coats had vowed to kill them.
 
Pea’hocso
thought it might’ve been better to
die as a warrior, but it hadn’t been his decision.

The
storm struck before they reached the Kiowa-Comanche Agency at the fort.
 
Winds howled with fury as rain descended from
the heavens and drenched everyone.
 
Accustomed to all weathers, none of the
Quahadi
flinched, but instead rode faster.
 

They
arrived on post in a wild tattoo of hoof beats and noise.
 
Lightning streaked the skies overhead with
vivid fire, and the voice of thunder boomed. The rain turned to hail, which pummeled
and punished
Pea’hocso
until he decided the gods were
angry.
 
It would’ve been better to die
free beneath the wide prairie sky than live confined by the white man, tied to
a post like their cur dogs.

He
had no woman, children or family left.
 
His brothers died as warriors, faces painted, their weapons in
hand.
 
Their mother died long ago and
their father ended his life an old man, sad to see the last of the once-great
buffalo herds.
 
Pea’hocso
might still have a sister somewhere, but he didn’t know if she lived or had
died.
 
His wife, Aiyana
,
died giving birth to his third son and
the child followed her in death.
 
Pea’hocso’s
boys had defended their village from blue coats
at McClellan Creek.
 
One died there, the
other of smallpox at Fort Concho far from home.
 
Two of his daughters died of some fever, one in his arms.

Other
Comanche had all yielded with the Medicine Lodge Treaty, after the war that
divided the white men against each other––but not the
Quohada
.
  
They’d fought the buffalo soldiers, the
white men with black skins, across the plains for two full seasons but were
ordered to go to the place called ‘reservation’.
 
While other Comanche donned the calico shirts
and heavy pants white settlers wore, took up the plows and learned to speak the
white tongue, the
Quohada
rebelled.
 
They returned to the open plains and lived
free, joined by other Cheyenne warriors and renegades.
 
Time defeated them, along with the ceaseless
trek of the white faces into the
Comancheria
.
 
If the
ta’siwoo
hadn’t been slaughtered
for their hides and tongues, the Comanche people might’ve survived.
 
But the buffalo provided all to the people:
food, shelter, clothing, tools, and life.
 
Without them, their existence would end.
 
Hearts like the one deep within
Pea’hocso’s
chest refused to accept the reality and
struggled, but now he knew the time of the Comanche was no more.

Their
horses were put into a corral with Army livestock.
 
Pea’hocso
watched,
silent.
 
He said nothing when they filed
into a barracks building to spend the night.
 
The taste of the beans, brought in the kettles, was strange upon his
tongue and he didn’t care for the hard baked rounds called biscuits.
 
Hunger forced him to eat, but the strange
food wasn’t what he’d choose.
 
Nor were
the close quarters where odors of sweat and stench rose into his nose with
force.
 
He preferred fresh air and
solitude, and so he wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and walked
outside.
 
No one stopped him.
 

Pea’hocso
wandered away from the barracks
and felt better.
 
He stared upward at the
clearing sky.
 
Clouds scudded away to
reveal the full moon: the one Texans called the Comanche moon, reminiscent of a
time when warriors had prowled and raided.
 

A
powerful longing rose up within
Pea’hocso’s
soul to
slip into the night and let his stallion gallop across the open country.
 
He ached to go into battle, to take horses or
plunder.
 
Pea’hocso’s
skin prickled with blood lust.
 
If he
could hunt buffalo, he wouldn’t want to kill … but with few
ta’siwoo
left, he desired revenge.

Pea’hocso
might’ve vanished into the humid
night.
 
He could’ve taken his mount from
the corrals and bolted.
 
And if not for
the woman, he would’ve done so.
 
His calf
muscles tensed, and his body stiffened in preparation to launch in flight, when
she spoke.

“Good
evening.” Her voice carried the same kind of deepness as the blooming
honeysuckle he smelled nearby.
 
Although
he understood a great deal of English,
Pea’hocso
preferred not to soil his tongue with it or use the translation of his name,
Big Eagle.
 
He turned to see who spoke,
expecting a white woman in bonnet and shawl.
 
Her skin gleamed pale in the darkness, but she wore neither hat nor
bonnet.
 
Hair black as midnight streamed
over her shoulders and down her back with abandon and he stared, struck by the
sight.
 
Comanche women often kept their
locks short for ease, unlike the men, who let their hair grow.
 
She gazed back at him, from eyes deep blue as
a lake beneath a summer sky. “This is a wild place, isn’t it? But then you’re
wild, too.”