The Texans (12 page)

Two fang holes punctured the web of his right thumb, and he wondered if he was going to die. He remembered that one of his neighbor girls back in Georgia had died from a rattlesnake bite while picking huckleberries. Such thoughts weren't good for his morale. He reminded himself that the girl had been bitten on the neck by a seven-foot snake with a head bigger than a grown man's fist, and not just any run-of-the-mill, little prairie rattler.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he recalled hearing that the flesh of a serpent was supposed to be able to draw out venom. He quickly skinned and gutted it, and cut a cross section of the pale white meat. He held the snake meat poultice to his wound while he scowled at the prairie dog only a few yards away. The rodent seemed especially proud of itself and amused by the clumsy human's antics. Odell waved his good hand to scare it off, but the animal just sat there and stared.

“Dumb prairie dogs,” Odell muttered.

He went and gathered enough dead yucca stalks to build a fire. He soon had a tiny blaze going, and meat roasting over it. He had no way of knowing if the snake's flesh would draw the poison from his body, but his stomach could well make use of some nourishment. Never would he have pictured himself eating such a thing, but after the first bite he decided that prairie dog would surely be poor doings compared to rattlesnake.

He finished off almost half of the snake and lay down beside the fire with a fresh piece of it held against his hand. He thought the pain had gotten better but decided it wouldn't hurt to rest a little. He felt the prairie dogs' beady little eyes on him, but he was too tired to worry about what evil plans they were hatching.

The stirring of Crow grazing around him and the hot sun scalding his face woke him after a long nap. His hand was swollen to twice its normal size and turning black. He was as thirsty as he'd been the day before, and he went to Crow and took down his water bag. He guzzled greedily and then poured some in his hat for the horse.

While Crow drank, Odell leaned against his saddle. He felt even sicker than he had before he fell asleep, and his whole right arm ached terribly. He tried to recall all the things he knew about snakebites and hoped he wouldn't lose his arm. There were dark streaks running up from his wrist, and he wondered if he would have to watch the poison spread through him one limb at a time.

The threat to his appendages brought the crazy Mexican to mind, and the image of spending the rest of his life limbless and worming around in the dust wasn't a pretty one. He had just about convinced himself that he was doomed to die a most heinous death when he looked across his saddle and saw a dozen Comanche warriors coming across the flat barely two hundred yards away. He looked to his little pile of ashes and knew that his smoke had called them to him.

Death by venom was much preferred to what the Comanches could dish out. He grabbed up his gun and the snakeskin and hit the saddle. He slapped Crow across the hip with the snake hide, and they lit out of there hell-bent for leather and barely three jumps ahead of the Comanches yipping and yelling at their heels. Crow must have been just as leery of Indians and rattlesnakes as his rider was, for he was motivated to a speed even Odell hadn't guessed he possessed.

It was a pretty close race for a mile, and Odell was praying Crow didn't trip or falter. His only chance lay in outrunning his pursuers, and Crow didn't disappoint him. Odell continued to whip him with the snakeskin, and after another bit the Comanches had fallen back to a more proper distance. Odell slowed Crow to a lope and then to a trot. He looked behind him and saw that the Comanches had pulled up, their horses used up after such a long sprint. Odell stopped Crow and slid off of him. The horse seemed to be breathing fine, but for the first time Odell really recognized just how thin and used he looked.

“Partner, you are starting to look like I feel,” Odell said.

Crow shook the lather from his sides and tried to rub his sweaty bridle off on Odell's chest. Odell led the horse on, keeping an eye on their back trail, lest they have to run again. He intended to walk and rest Crow for a while, but he wasn't sure how long his own legs would hold up. He felt like death warmed over and hoped it wasn't far to the San Saba.

He thought they might make it if his hand didn't rot off, or if they didn't run out of water or rattlesnakes before they got there. Men who knew better might have called him a damned fool for such optimism, but he was sure that a little luck and a fast horse could see a man through some awful hard times.

And the Comanches had already begun to speak of him around their campfires at night. Word of the Running Boy who wandered the prairie alone spread from camp to camp and band to band throughout Comancheria. Many young warriors dreamed of taking the scalp of the young white giant who shot the big gun, used a rattlesnake for a quirt, and rode a horse as black as a thundercloud and as fast as the wind.

Chapter 14

T
he Waco escort Chief Squash had promised wasn't to be. Instead of a healthy bunch of warriors that would follow his lead, what the Peace Commission found was a village with half its population taken sick with a fever. Squash's wife hadn't eaten in two days, and lay in a sweaty state of delirium. The demons that ailed her were too strong for the healers, and Squash appealed to Commissioner Anderson to see if his white man's medicine could save her and the rest of the sick.

“I would just ride on. Indians are notional and superstitious folks. None of us are doctors and whatever illness has taken a hold of this camp looks to be bad.” Captain Jones surveyed the village cautiously and wouldn't even dismount.

“Are you sure it ain't the pox?” Jim, the leader of the Delaware scouts, asked. He was the only one of his trio of tribesmen who would even ride in. The other two sat their horses at the edge of the village, having a somber discussion.

Red Wing could understand Jim's fear, because he was called Jim Pockmark. The pitted scars on his face let it be known that he had already suffered from the disease and lived to tell about it, as had Red Wing herself. No Indian survivor, or white for that matter, ever lost their fear of the killer that wiped out entire villages.

“It isn't smallpox.” Agent Torrey followed Squash out of the lodge. He shoved his glasses back up his nose and looked up at the party still on their horses before the door. “She has a bad fever and nausea, but no lesions.”

“It ain't the typhoid or cholera, is it?” Captain Jones asked.

“I don't think so.”

Commissioner Anderson looked to Chief Squash. “Is it the same with all the rest of the sick ones?”

Squash merely nodded, his sly old eyes all but pleading.

“How long have they been sick?”

“Three days,” Squash said.

“I'm telling you, don't get mixed up in this,” Captain Jones said quietly.

Commissioner Anderson considered his predicament with a frown. “We need Squash's help, and we need the food he can supply us with.”

Captain Jones looked to the corn, watermelon, and squash plants growing in the river bottom field just outside the village. “It's too early yet for them to supply us. The first of their crops won't be producing for another month.”

“Jim and his Delawares may squawk about Squash being our Indian ambassador on this expedition, but he's the only one that has had any contact with the Comanche and can speak their language. You know as well as I do that the Comanche would just as soon kill a Delaware as a white man. Our mission would be in serious jeopardy without Squash.”

Captain Jones studied the fat chief disapprovingly. Squash was notoriously crafty, despite a reputation for being helpful. He had lived in peace with the Texans for years, but his motivations were always driven by what he could get in exchange for his goodwill, whether it was material goods or simply aid in the defeat of his tribe's traditional enemies. His guttural English was plenty good for him to understand everything they were saying.

“I don't trust him one bit,” the captain whispered.

“Neither do I, but he's our ticket to meeting peacefully with the Comanche.”

“We don't have time to dally here while you try and heal this village.”

“We have all summer to get as many Comanches as possible to Fort Bird. Unforeseen delays and difficulties are bound to happen.”

“I still say we ride on.”

Commissioner Anderson ignored the captain and dismounted. “Agent Torrey, it is said you have some medical experience.”

“I came to Texas overland with a doctor, but I wouldn't say what little I learned gave me any skill to speak of.” Torrey looked extremely uncomfortable with where the conversation was leading, but then again, he generally looked uncomfortable.

“Nevertheless, you were given charge of outfitting us with the necessary medical supplies for our journey,” the commissioner said.

“We have little in our kit beyond bandage material, a bottle of laudanum, some herbal concoctions, and two quarts of whiskey.”

“Fetch the kit, and let's get to work.”

“I wouldn't even know where to begin. How can we doctor them without even knowing what they're sick with?”

“Let's just give it our best, and make a show of wanting to help.”

Agent Torrey wanted to stand his ground and refuse, but Commissioner Anderson intimidated him far more than pretending to be a doctor. He wasn't an assertive man, and his whole life had consisted of taking orders that led him to do things he would rather not. He wasn't even sure how he had ended up being chosen to go along with the expedition. It was readily apparent to him that such confident men as the commissioner seemed to look for adventure as a matter of everyday occurrence.

“Forget whatever you're thinking about and get the medicines. The whole village is staring at us.” The commissioner's voice was gentle, yet commanding.

Torrey started for the packhorses. The commissioner's reminder made him all too aware of the crowd of Wacos surrounding them. Normally, a friendly arrival in an Indian camp was a noisy, happy affair, but the worried Wacos stood somberly with their dark eyes boring into him. Too many people's attention on him all at once always left him feeling like he was too small for his clothes and awkward to the point that he wasn't even inside his own body. At least walking to retrieve the medicine bag alleviated some of that shrinking, disjointed feeling.

Once he returned with the medical kit, Chief Squash led him and the commissioner into the lodge. Captain Jones with Jim Pockmark and the Delawares went off to tend the horses. Agent Torrey was surprised that Red Wing followed them inside. Her face was unreadable but calm, and somehow that soothed his shaky nerves.

The circular lodge was large with sleeping platforms spaced along the curve of the wall surrounding the center support posts and fire pit. The grass roof had a hole at its peak to vent smoke, and the only light within was a spear of sunlight that pierced down through it to ricochet in a small circle in the center of the room. The beds along the wall were partitioned for privacy, but the hide curtains were pulled back where Squash's wife lay attended to by a small group of female family members.

Both white men were a little surprised at Squash's demeanor. He exchanged a few quiet words with the eldest of the squaws before taking a seat next to the cold ashes of the fire pit. The commissioner and his group stood unsure while the squaws seemed to debate whether they should give way to the strangers or not.

“Wacos are like the Wichitas and Keechis. Women head the family,” Red Wing said.

“Ah, they are matriarchal,” Agent Torrey said.

“Matri-what?” The commissioner frowned.

“Family descent is through the mother rather than the father. I would assume that the lodges are family units ruled by an extended group of sisters and their female offspring. When a man marries, he goes to live among his wife's people.”

“I thought what you said the first time sounded bad,” the commissioner muttered. “That just goes to show how backward Indians can be.”

“Comanches would never give their women such power.” Red Wing was more than a little surprised at the hint of scorn in her own voice.

“If these women don't want to move, we may have some problem wading through them. That old crone with the soup bowl looks plumb mean. As well armed as we are I'd say it's about a standoff.” The commissioner tried to keep smiling at the squaws even while he spoke.

The ancient matriarch said something loudly in her native tongue and pointed one bony finger at Agent Torrey, who had the bad luck to be standing slightly forward of the others. The old woman's flat, bare breasts swayed against her potbelly as she waggled her finger's aim back and forth from him to the sky. His pale face blushed red at the sight of the ponderously flapping remnants of what had once been the source of his greatest interest in the female anatomy. From his first arrival at the village he had been bashfully ducking his eyes and avoiding the ripe offerings of half-naked womanhood evident everywhere, but somehow he couldn't look away from sagging teats of a toothless crone scolding him without concern for the discomfort her lack of dress was causing him.

Squash said something loudly, and the old squaw glared at his back and grunted. She gave Agent Torrey's medicine bag a disdainful look and stepped aside. The younger women moved back to give him some room, but he still felt too crowded to move. The commissioner's hand on the small of his back nudged him forward.

“I don't have a clue what to do for her,” he said.

“Just act like you care. Do a little hocus pocus and give her something.” The commissioner was standing behind Agent Torrey and looking at the sick woman over his shoulder.

Agent Torrey couldn't tell whether the patient was conscious or not. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was so shallow he couldn't see the rise or fall of her chest beneath the robes she was covered in. Her forehead was hot to his touch, and his shaking hand came away wet. Gently, he pulled back her covering and the soured smell of sweat and sickness almost made him gag. Nobody around him seemed to notice that she was naked, and he forced himself to gently probe her abdomen. A faint moan issued from her lips, and she grimaced and tossed wildly when he pressed harder.

“What do you think?” the Commissioner asked impatiently.

“I think she's sick and dying.” Agent Torrey lifted his ridiculous hat to wipe the sweat from his bald little head.

“Well, give her something.”

“I could kill her just as easy as I could heal her.” The press of bodies around Agent Torrey had him feeling jittery and sick himself. He sat on the edge of the bed and took a few deep breaths to steady himself.

Red Wing took a seat at the patient's head and began to bathe the woman's face with a wet rag from the pot of water the squaws had been using. She smiled at him and looked to the crowd around them. “Perhaps Agent Tom could work better if we could give him more room.”

Squash and the squaws had a short, contentious discussion. The result was that the women didn't leave, but they did move back several steps and made a halfhearted attempt to appear busy with other things.

“Has she been vomiting or had any loose bowels?” Agent Torrey tried to sound more assured than he felt.

The commissioner repeated the question to Squash, and the chief replied with a negative shake of his head.

Agent Torrey opened his bag and stared dubiously at the contents within. The leather satchel had been the property of a drunken doctor who had fallen from his buggy in a state of intoxication and had his head run over by the rear wheel. His wife had been willing to sell her deceased husband's tools of the trade on credit to the Peace Commission, even when many were beginning to scoff at the notion that the Republic of Texas ever paid its bills. Agent Torrey had been glad to check off another item on the expedition's purchase list of supplies, but he didn't have a clue what most of the various compartments in the medical bag contained.

He took out a few tiny jars and paper packets and stared at them dumbly while he stalled for time. Of all his choices, only a pint bottle labeled “Croup Tonic” showed any promise. People called any cough or winter illness “the croup.” While he had seen no signs of coughing or raspy lungs, he was almost sure that such a generic term was bound to encompass what ailed Squash's wife. Spring rains and damp conditions could give anyone a cold. Very few people except children died of the croup, and surely the medicine required for such a simple illness couldn't do any harm.

He considered himself a well-read man and abhorred most all kinds of ignorance. He had never claimed to be a doctor, and he was unable to make a random guess when lives were at stake. Just when he was about to give up hope and flee from the lodge a gleaming chunk of red in a paper sack at the bottom of the bag caught his eye. He immediately snatched it up and touched it to his tongue. A wry smile showed faintly on his face and he quickly slipped the large pill between his patient's lips. She struggled for a moment to spit it out, but Red Wing cupped her hand gently over the woman's mouth and held it there until she ceased to fight.

As if gaining courage by his choice, Agent Torrey uncorked the croup tonic. He squeezed the sick woman's cheeks until her lips puckered open in a little circle, and poured a slug of the medicine into her mouth. Most of it leaked out over her chin, but she didn't choke. Displeased with the dosage, he repeated his actions. He spilled less the second time and upon inspection found that she had swallowed the pill with the tonic.

He buckled the leather bag shut and looked up to the commissioner. “I understand that she hasn't drunk for two days. Make it plain to Squash that she must have fluids or she will surely die. Broth and all the water she can be made to take would be best.”