The Texans (10 page)

“Well, I ain't no lover of Comanches, but I'd say you've got a grudge to top mine.”

“Iron Shirt was impressed by the fact that I would cut my own legs off and then live through it. He didn't expect my medicine to be so strong, and he assumed I would lay there until I rotted and died or bled to death.”

“Yeah, he sounds like a swell fellow.”

“He brought me this burro and a bag of water the next day.”

“I reckon he thought he was just torturing you more,” Odell said.

“There is no knowing what a Comanche is thinking. I once thought I knew them, but I was a fool.”

“They sure played a dirty trick on you.”

“It was my own fault. I was vain and full of too much pride to think I belonged on the Llano. It asks a price of every man.” The Mexican crossed himself again.

Odell hadn't slept at all the night before, and the warm meat juice in his belly was causing his eyes to droop. He wrapped his robe tight about him and lay down on his side in a faint patch of sunlight near the fire. He was asleep almost as soon as his shoulder touched the ground.

A noise woke him hours later. It was the sound of something dragging on the ground. He sat up groggily and it took him a moment to locate the sound. It was the Mexican crawling on his belly to where his donkey had grazed away from the fire.

“Hold on there, and I'll give you some help,” Odell called out.

The Mexican just kept crawling. The burro was fifty yards off and grazing farther away. The sun was shining like the blizzard had never even been, and Odell tied his buffalo robe behind his saddle and checked his gear. He gave Crow half of the remaining water in his buffalo bladder canteen, pouring it in the crown of his hat for the gelding to drink. When Crow had finished, Odell squeezed the wet felt in his fist above his upturned face and let a few drops of liquid trickle into his mouth. He took one swig from the water bag and mounted and went to help the Mexican catch his burro.

He rode alongside the burro and caught hold of the hemp hackamore and lead the little animal was wearing. He led the gaunt long-ear to where the Mexican bee hunter was crawling through the short grass. He dismounted and brought the burro close to its crippled owner.

“Here, let me help you. You'd be in some shape if you let this old jackass get too far away.”

The Mexican never looked up at him and shook his head vigorously while he continued to crawl. “No, I don't travel anywhere fast, but I eventually get where I'm going.”

“I could just pick you right up and set you on him,” Odell offered. It made him highly uncomfortable to see a man crawl like that. The bee hunter wiggled his torso like a snake and his arms pulled him along in a fashion that reminded Odell of an insect—as if the Mexican were no man at all, rather some new kind of animal alien to the world as it should be.

“No, this may be my penance and I wouldn't want to prolong it by taking your help.” The Mexican had reached the burro and pulled himself up to a sitting position by its tail. He was breathing raggedly, but there was a smile on his face. “We all must crawl at some point in our lives. If we are lucky, we start out that way, but some come to such an end.”

Odell went to his horse and retrieved the buffalo robe. He spread it across the burro's back. “Here, take that. It will give you some padding and keep you warm at night.”

“
Gracias
, senor, but how will you keep warm?”

“I'm headed south, and besides, I think spring is here and I'll have plenty of time to kill me another one before next winter.”

Both of them gave the empty distance an unsure look, bonded for a brief instant by the uncertainty that was the Staked Plains.

“Senor, you never said what brings you out onto the Llano.”

“A Comanche tortured my pappy to death and scalped a neighbor of mine. He stole all our stock, burned our house, and killed my dog.” Odell was getting to where the thought of that night wasn't as bad as it had been, but any mention of it still brought the pain back. “He wasn't much of a dog, and I guess they just killed him for pure meanness.”

“That sounds like Iron Shirt.”

“He was a little Comanche with big muscles and not much older than me.”

“I don't know him. Iron Shirt wears Spanish chain mail and is an older man.”

“Then he ain't who I've been after.”

“I've heard about a small warrior they call Little Bull. He's supposed to be a great horse thief and war leader. Maybe that's the man who raided you. He is said to live far to the northeast along the Canadian. Maybe you can find him there.”

“I'm about hunted out, and there ain't enough black powder left in my horn to blow the hat off of my head. I think I'll go back home and see if my girl will marry me.” Odell didn't mention how tired he was. What he needed more than anything was rest away from all the worries of trying to keep himself alive in a land that didn't seem to want his company.

“See, the Llano has already given you wisdom. Go back to your home and marry your
novia
,” the Mexican said.

“You wouldn't happen to know the quickest or best way to Austin would you?” Odell could only guess that the town lay somewhere to the southeast, or maybe it was just due east.

“No, I've never been there.” The Mexican looked perplexed for the first time.

“Maybe you could just point me to the Colorado River.”

“There is a supposed to be a big spring a day's ride to the east of here. It's in a little canyon just off of a big draw, and the Comanches use it enough that you ought to find it if you're careful. Angle southeast from there and in another day or maybe more you should come to the San Saba somewhere close to the old presidio,” The Mexican offered a little tentatively.

“Thanks.”

“Don't thank me. Thank God if you get there. I've never been east of the Llano, and what I tell you is only rumor. Your journey may be far from over.”

“Well, that's more than I've had to go on since I left Old Star and those Wichitas last winter,” Odell said.

The Mexican gave the burro's tail a couple of quick jerks, and to Odell's surprise, the little animal lay down docilely. The bee hunter crawled on his back and chucked until the burro rose back to its feet.

“Now that's a neat trick. How long did it take you to teach him that?”

The Mexican seemed a little perturbed at another question that regarded the consideration of time. “Maybe two years, maybe more.”

“How'd you get on before that?”

“It wasn't easy.”

“Well, I guess I'd better be riding,” Odell said.

“Vaya con Dios, caballero.”

Odell reined away, but pulled up short. “I didn't even catch your name. I'm Odell Spurling.”

“I just saw a bee.
Andale
, burro.” The Mexican swatted the burro's rump with his hand and rode off in a trot with his eyes madly searching the horizon to the east.

Odell followed along, as the bee hunter was going in the direction he needed to travel. They trotted a distance of two or three miles in an arrow straight line, until the Mexican suddenly turned and came back in the opposite direction. He passed by Odell as if he weren't there, blind to anything but the bee he thought he'd seen and the fevered vision that had led him out onto the Llano Estacado.

“Where are you going old man? Your canyon of honey is supposed to be to the east.”

The Mexican didn't answer him. Odell thought about going back and leading the Mexican to water, but something told him that wasn't the thing to do. The Llano was a crazy, endless place, but he couldn't think of anywhere else the mad bee hunter might belong.

The two men traveled in opposite directions until they were diverging and vanishing specks on the plain who might not have ever even met. The only sign of their passing was the dust that rose under their animals' feet, but even that was short-lived and soon gone under the expanse of sky.

Odell finally quit looking behind him and cast his gaze homeward, or at least in the direction where he thought home might lie. He was whisper-thin and weather-cured, with the scraggly beginning of a man's beard hanging from his chin and the faint hint of coyote wisdom showing in his eyes. The hurt and turmoil within him had all but been boiled, frozen, and starved away by the wild country like the slow erosion of soft, red sandstone exposed to the elements. Lost as he was, something told him he was riding toward Red Wing, and he kicked Crow up to a lope with the sweet south wind cutting across his right cheek.

Chapter 12

T
hree days of monotonous travel had only deepened Red Wing's depression. The Peace Commission rode hard from sunup to sundown, and every mile they put behind them brought her that much closer to no longer being who she had become, to losing all that she had come to cherish. Every time she turned to look back behind her, a little bit of hope floated away from her like the faint smoke from coals banked beneath ashes. She hated the fear and cowardice that turned her cold and numb on the inside and made her feel like the wretched little squaw in a filthy rag of a dress she had been so many years before.

She passed the miles and days trying to remind herself that she was more than the color of her skin or the wild blood that ran in her veins. She wavered between angst and anger, between the urge to cry and the desire to scream at her captors. Memories of earlier pain and loss made her fearful of what was to come, but they also stiffened her resolve with the knowledge that she had already seen much of the ugliness life contained and was a survivor in spite of that. At those times she straightened her dress, pinned her hair back in place, and tried to sit a little straighter in her sidesaddle. She gave her captors cold, haughty looks, and her eyes dared them to deny that she was anything but a lady.

The party was scattered in a single-file line with the Delawares scouting their front and flanks and the Waco chief guarding their rear. Commissioner Anderson usually rode at the head of the column, but he drifted back down the line to ride beside her. She observed how he knocked some of the dust from his jacket and ran his fingers through his hair beneath his lifted hat before coming her way. She knew he would soon make some attempt at polite conversation or ask about her comfort, as if the charade would convince her that he had her welfare at heart and that her situation was nowhere near as bad as it appeared to be. She wanted nothing more than to slap the smile from his face.

“We should reach the Waco village just before dark. Old Chief Squash back there has assured me he can provide us with warriors to guide and protect our party out on the plains,” Commissioner Anderson said merrily.

“You're a fool if you think a handful of Wacos can protect you from the Comanche, much less that fat old chief.” Red Wing stared straight ahead, but pointed her hand to the west. “Out there is Comancheria, not Waco land.”

The smile on his face disappeared quickly, and it was plain that he didn't like to appear a fool to anyone. His free hand once again tugged at the front of his fancy jacket, and his back straightened even more in the saddle, as if braced by a steel rod. Red Wing remembered what her brother Bud had always said about such folks. She watched the commissioner out of the corner of her eye and thought that he did indeed look like he had a cob up his butt. She stifled a giggle with the back of her hand, not quite managing to keep it quiet.

“Do you find enjoyment in mocking me?” He too was now staring straight ahead.

“Commissioner, I've had no enjoyment whatsoever since I first laid eyes on you.”

“Call me Will, please.” He turned to look at her with his sharp blue eyes.

He was a handsome man. In fact, he was about the prettiest man she could ever recall seeing. He cut quite a figure sitting on his fine gray horse with his fancy coat and broad hat. But something about the brushed and polished look of him made her even madder, as if the spectacle of such a man in such a country teased and taunted her terrible predicament by his very existence.

“I could call you Will, but the good men of Texas will name you a low-down kidnapper and Comanchero when they learn of what you're doing.”

“You can hate me if you want to, but it won't help you. If you'll keep your cool and cooperate with me, maybe we both can get out of this situation no worse for the wear.” It was clear to her that he was fighting to maintain his calm.

“You want to trade me to the Comanches, and yet you ask me to be happy about it? What a scoundrel you are.”

He took in the high lift of her little chin and the tight line of her full lips. Her hair was so thick and black that he couldn't help wanting to reach out and run his fingers through it. She reminded him more of some of the Mexican girls he'd danced with at the bailes and fiestas than a Comanche squaw. He wondered if President Houston had any idea of just what kind of girl he wanted traded to the Comanches.

But then again, his own ambitions had landed him in more than one difficult situation. One of his greatest regrets was that he had been born too late to fight against Santa Anna's forces in the War for Independence. It was a shame, because killing Mexicans was a surefire way to gain political office. Texans liked to vote for heroes, and the sad fact was that he was far too young to compete with the glut of veterans and old colonists that controlled the republic's destiny.

Family connections had once promised to open certain doors for him, but somebody always seemed to be a little better connected when it really mattered. At the ripe old age of twenty-five, a touch of wisdom and of introspection finally took hold of him in a roadside tavern on the way to San Antonio. The truth hurt, but he saw himself clearly for what he was—a penniless but educated adventurer with few prospects and not the price of a drink in his pockets. Big ideas had never materialized themselves into anything other than just ideas. His family had written him off, and all his business schemes and pandering to those in power had failed him in the end.

Just when it seemed his reckless life choices had ruined all his hopes of ever gaining the position and status he desired, a bone had been thrown his way in his appointment as a commissioner to the Comanche. President Houston had his enemies, but he had offered a promising young hellion a last chance at gaining the political station and status he sought. There were far better Indian fighters than Will Anderson, but anybody who knew the young man would tell you that he was smart as a whip. The republic's new Indian specialist had listened intently to Houston's plans for a peace expedition to the Comanche. He was a keen study of frontier gambling dens, and as such, he quickly surmised that while the odds were long against him, the prize was great indeed. The man who could put an end to the Comanches' raiding and pillaging of the frontier could go far in Texas.

He continued to study Red Wing's profile while he ran through a long checklist of his earlier failures. Begrudgingly, he had to admit that, thus far, the only thing Will Anderson was known for in Texas was a penchant for the ladies and a rare ability as a duelist. Both of those skills, in a roundabout way, had landed him on what he thought was a foolish trek westward to locate some Comanches who probably had no desire to talk peace with the hated Texans. However, he refused to consider failure. There was no place for that in any of his plans.

“I've found that nothing ever turns out quite as bad as we expect,” he said.

“I've found that they often turn out worse than we can even imagine.” There wasn't a hint of remorse or complaint in her voice, and her gaze was steady and unblinking.

It wasn't the first time he had tried speaking with her to break the monotony of the trail, but he was having no better luck than usual. And that was a shame. She was really quite beautiful, and he would far rather pass the time of day with her than with the men of his expedition. Agent Torrey was a man lost and too overwhelmed with the wilderness to provide decent conversation. Captain Jones was as ambitious as he was and was cagey around his competition. The Delawares might have dressed like white men, but the mercenary gleam in their eyes made him sleep with a pistol in his hand. Chief Squash, the Waco, was talkative for an Indian, but the crafty wrinkles at the corners of his dark eyes and the overly zealous, fawning smile he had ready at a second's notice made him more of a nuisance than a companion.

Red Wing was well aware of the way the commissioner was staring at her. She reminded herself of her mother's words, and tried to temper her actions toward the man. “It isn't too late to turn around and take me back home.”

He smiled, but it was easily apparent that it was just for show. “Well, that's the most civil thing you've said to me today.”

“If you're worried about defying Houston, you can just turn away and act like you don't see me riding off.”

The same tolerant smile was still on his face, but he was shaking his head solemnly. “I wouldn't have agreed to this if I'd known you first, but it's too late to back out now. Peace with the Comanche will save a lot of lives, and maybe all of Texas is at stake if the Mexicans are trying to get the Comanche to ride against us while they attack from the south. President Houston trusted me to see this mission through. I gave him my word, and always finish what I start.”

“Maybe breaking your word would be wrong, but so is taking me against my will. Where is the honor in that?” She was sure her words would have no impact on him, but she had to try.

“I wish life were as simple as that. I wouldn't expect a woman to understand, but I'll trust to duty to see me through.” As he had for days since laying eyes on Red Wing, he reminded himself that he was only giving a girl back to a life she was born into, and that it was for the good of the republic that she went back to her people. There was little sacrifice in that. For all her talk and trappings, she was still an Indian.

Her anger grew until it almost broke through the cool outer shell she was fighting to keep up. It wasn't just his spit-and-polish vanity or his righteous excuses that drove her crazy. It was the way he looked at her, as if she were nothing more than a prize to be had and traded away on a whim. She had known that life with the Comanche. There were warriors among the bands who loved their wives and spoiled them, but as a whole, women were just another commodity to be bartered for or stolen. Wealth was measured by the number of wives a man could support, or the size of his horse herd and the bounty of his lodge. There had never been a time among the tribe that she was sure that the horses weren't rated higher than the squaws.

She cherished her new life as a member of the Wilson family, but that was one thing that hadn't changed among the whites. Since she had come into womanhood, supposedly civilized men had begun to look at her with hunger. It wasn't love that she felt in their stares but instead the desire to possess. She had a mind and a soul but wondered if any man would ever want them.

“Sometimes you remind me more of a Mexican senorita than a Comanche,” he said.

“My mother was Mexican.” She said it without thinking and immediately regretted sharing that with him, as if such information might lead him to assume he was her confidant.

“I've never been in a Comanche camp, but I've heard that there are a lot of Mexican captives.”

“White, Mexican, it doesn't matter if they get you young enough. A Comanche can be made out of just about any kind of human on this earth.”

“So, you're half Mexican, half Comanche?”

“I'm Red Wing Wilson, a settler's daughter you're taking away from her family.”

“But your real father was a Comanche?”

She hated that she had gotten herself cornered into such a conversation. “Yes, he was a Comanche, and a noted war leader and hunter.”

“I guess he stole your Mexican mama?”

“No, he traded three horses for her from a warrior called Dog.” She tried to stem the tide of memories coming to her. She had sworn that she would never let any of her captors see her cry.

“Was it her that made you want to get away from the Comanches?”

“No, she loved her husband very much.”

“Well, I thought maybe that explained why you don't want to go back.”

“Do you mean that I'm more Mexican than Comanche?”

“Maybe your mama raised you to think that way.”

“If I'm Mexican, then you have no right to give me to the Comanches.”

The conversation wasn't going to the commissioner's liking, and he couldn't hide his frustration. He liked his women laughing or even slightly drunk, and not at all so smart or argumentative. “Colonel Moore captured you from the Comanches, and that's who I'm taking you back to.”

“If he had found a white captive in the camp, would you take her back?” she asked. “I'll ride back home on my own, and you just tell Houston he was mistaken. Tell him that I was a Mexican captive instead of a Comanche.”

He at least paused to consider things, if only to form another excuse. “No, that wouldn't work.”

“You mean that it wouldn't matter if I was truly a Mexican? Just another shade of brown in your world, right?”

“President Houston says you're a Comanche, Colonel Moore says the same, and so does a lot of Texas. I guess that makes you a Comanche.” He felt like cussing, but a gentlemanlike approach had always gotten him farther with the opposite sex.

It was plain to her that he was looking for a way to have his cake and eat it too. “If you think I find the company of a woman stealer and slave trader enjoyable, you are sadly mistaken. I would suggest you ride elsewhere and leave me to my misery. A good man would reconsider his actions and find reason to protect me and see me free. Perhaps such a man will come along and see justice done to a woman in need.”