The Texans (24 page)

“My life has taken me so far away from here that I can never come back.”

He paced back and forth in front of her like a caged animal, all the while studying her. “I'm no longer a poor child among a band of beggars. I have many horses and many warriors follow me each time I ride against my enemies.”

“I'm proud. Our father would be too.”

“Come with me. All will know you're my sister, and life will be good. We will live as we were taught, and honor all that we once lost.”

Red Wing stood to her feet and held her hands out wide as if to draw attention to her dress. “Do you see me, Brother? This is who I am.”

“You are Comanche.”

She shook her head sadly. “No longer.”

He came to stand close to her, his face inches from hers. “I see a stranger, but my heart remembers a sister who I used to tease and who could outshoot all the boys with her little bow.”

Red Wing shrugged and tears streamed down her cheeks. “I can't be her again. She is as lost to me as she is to you.”

“Do you remember what will happen to you if you don't come with me? Do these weak, strange white men have such powerful medicine?”

“I have a new white mother that has loved me for many years. I only want to go back to her,” she said. “Come to visit me this winter if you wish to be my brother again. I won't ask you to change.”

He drew his knife and held it between them lying on her chest. “If I could cut the sickness from your heart, I would. If I could cut you from my heart, I would.”

“Your knife isn't sharp enough.”

He started for the door, but she caught his arm. He tensed at her touch and the wild, angry hurt was plain in the clench of his jaw and the weathered crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. But he did not jerk away.

“I'm a prisoner in your camp. Free me, Brother. Free the men who brought me here, and let us go home.” Her voice trembled.

He strained to see behind the smoke of her words. He felt like a small, helpless boy again, unable to fight strongly enough to keep the good things that were his. His life had been shaped by loss, and he had willed himself to a place among the Comanche. Now all his strength and prowess wasn't enough to gain back what was right before him.

He straightened himself and once more looked like the stranger who had walked into her lodge. He was a Comanche to fear, and a warrior who kept what he was strong enough to take. “I see our mother's face in yours. I will not see you shamed and raped and made a toy for any warrior who wishes to abuse you. Do away with your white woman's clothes and dress yourself as a Comanche woman should. Then nobody will lay a hand on you.”

“If I am your sister, does it matter so much what I wear?”

“Show the camp that you are Comanche.”

“I will not. I am who I am.”

“You've become a fool.”

“What I've become is what you must accept.”

“Your spirit is not lost, but you have forgotten. After I kill the Tejanos across the river, I will help you remember.” He pulled away from her hand.

She cut in front of him as he started for the door. “Spare those outside. They knew nothing of the other Tejanos. How can men who brought us back together be your enemies?”

He looked at her like she was a child. “They're dead men.”

She watched him leave, and her heart was pulled and torn more than she had ever imagined it could be. It was as if she was cursed to never know love without loss soon to follow. She had done all she could to hold on to her new life, but stubborn willpower wasn't enough.

Chapter 28

T
he tepee door was lifted again an hour later and two squaws entered. One of them was tall and slim with a catty look about her, and despite her beauty, bore the bruises of a recent beating. The fat one held a stout mesquite stick that she patted in the palm of her hand. Both had an air of disinterested determination about them.

“Little Bull has sent us to take you to his lodge,” the slim one said.

Red Wing had no words left to argue with. She started by them for the door, but they refused to move out of her way. The fat squaw shook her head and pointed at the buckskin dress and moccasins Red Wing had left lying on the floor. Red Wing looked at the dress and folded her arms stubbornly across her chest. She would go to her brother's lodge, but dressed as she was. The slim squaw shook her head sadly, as if she thought Red Wing had made a very poor decision.

“I am Buffalo Butt, and this is Speckled Tail. Our husband said you are to wear those things, and you will wear them.” Buffalo Butt pointed to the buckskin dress again.

“I will not.”

Buffalo Butt frowned and reached out to grab Red Wing's arm. “You are sassy for such a little one.”

Red Wing clenched her small right fist and swung it from her hip. Her aim was off, and her punch hit the bigger woman in the shoulder. Buffalo Butt's short, squat body felt like hitting a wall. She shoved Red Wing away easily and whacked her across the arm with the stick. The blow hurt horribly, but Red Wing had no doubt that the fat squaw was holding back.

All the frustration of the past days welled up in Red Wing, and she gladly took the opportunity to vent them. She charged Buffalo Butt with both fists swinging wildly. Most of her punches failed to have any effect, but she did manage to get a strong hold on the woman's hair. She scratched and clawed with her free hand while she tried to bend Buffalo Butt to the ground by the hair. But her strength was no match for her opponent. Buffalo Butt let out a girlish shriek that was no way in keeping with her fierce looks or stature. She slung Red Wing to the ground as if her weight was nothing, and sat on her chest and slapped her viciously.

Red Wing's head rang with the blows, and she bucked and squirmed to no avail. She felt someone tugging at her shoe and kicked out. Speckled Tail grunted painfully and flew across the tepee. Buffalo Butt finally managed to pin both of Red Wing's arms underneath her chubby knees, and Speckled Tail circled around carefully and began undoing Red Wing's shoes.

Spent and defeated, Red Wing went still. The beating was humbling enough, without them stripping her. “Let me up. I will fight no more.”

Speckled Tail was still tugging at Red Wing's shoes. “Hit her again, Buffalo Butt. The bitch broke my shell necklace and nearly kicked my tit off.”

Buffalo Butt wasn't quite sure Red Wing had given up, and she remained on her chest while she considered whether to get up or not. Finally, she eased to her feet with her stick at the ready should Red Wing decide to fight more.

Speckled Tail scampered to safety behind Buffalo Butt. “She's lucky I don't take your stick and beat her good.”

“Shut up, you pimple-titted slut. Little Bull says this is his sister, and all your lusty tricks won't keep him from kicking your bony butt if she's hurt,” Buffalo Butt said.

Red Wing did hurt in several places, but she wasn't seriously wounded. Knowing that Buffalo Butt had taken it easy on her just added insult to injury. She rose slowly and stared at the dress the fat squaw held out to her. She hated to admit defeat, but she was no match for Buffalo Butt, much less the two of them.

“Go outside and I will change,” Red Wing hoped for at least that much of a moral victory.

“You can take off your dress, or I will take it off for you,” Buffalo Butt said flatly.

Red Wing slowly worked out of her clothing until she was naked before the two. Buffalo Butt pitched her the buckskin dress while Speckled Tail blatantly stared at her new sister-in-law with more than a hint of jealousy. Once Red Wing had pulled the dress over her head and fitted the moccasins on her feet, Buffalo Butt drew a skinning knife from her belt and pitched it to her.

Red Wing caught the knife deftly, but hesitated to turn it on her attackers. No matter her fighting spirit, she was sure that if Buffalo Butt had given her the knife, she was confident she could take it away again.

“Cut your hair like a Comanche woman,” Buffalo Butt said.

“I will not.” Red Wing's beautiful, long black hair was one of her only vanities. Hacking it off in the Comanche style would have taken the last bit of her spirit, and she would have been truly defeated.

“You will, or I will take the knife and do it for you,” Buffalo Butt said.

Red Wing raised the knife belly high with the cutting edge turned up. “You will have to kill me first.”

Surprisingly, Buffalo Butt laughed. “You're as vain as this Kiowa.”

The two squaws stepped out from in front of the door. Red Wing started past them and laid the knife into the hand Buffalo Butt held out for it. She went outside with her new guard and fashion adviser right on her heels.

Speckled Tail was intrigued by the fabric of the dress left on the floor and the high button shoes. Red Wing's valise was nearby, and she weighed its potential treasures with pirate eyes. Buffalo Butt was very traditional, and had little use for the white man's trinkets or those who longed for them. Speckled Tail knew she would be angry for her dawdling over such plunder, but the temptation was more than she could stand. She snatched up the dress and shoes and grabbed the valise in her free hand. She had to run out of the tepee to catch up.

Red Wing noticed that the other prisoners were gone as soon as she stepped outside. She searched for them fearfully as Buffalo Butt led her along. They arrived at one of the largest tepees she had seen, set just across a dry streambed from the rest of the camp. Another smaller tepee, the many curing buffalo hides, the number of steel pots and pans, and the two fine horses staked nearby told her that her long-lost brother was truly an important man.

Just as they were arriving at Little Bull's lodges, a small boy came running from behind one of them. He had an excited look on his face, and he tore through the trio without saying a word. He crossed the streambed in a single bound and kept on running even though Buffalo Butt yelled at him to come back.

Red Wing stopped to watch the boy, and his progress led her vision to the large group of men bunched afoot a long stone's throw out on the prairie. It seemed as if every warrior available in camp was gathered there. She stared until a slight parting of their numbers revealed the three mesquite posts set into the ground. Her heart skipped a beat when she recognized that the three Texans were tied to those posts.

She lurched forward, but Buffalo Butt's hand clamped around her arm like a vise. She wanted to cry out in horror at what she knew was about to happen, but her voice seemed lost to her.

Chapter 29

L
ittle Bull sat on the grass with the rest of the warriors and shared a pipe of tobacco with Iron Shirt. The medicine warrior had power that Little Bull envied. His name was known to all Comanches, and he was richer than any man Little Bull could recall. Although only ten summers Little Bull's senior, it took all four of Iron Shirt's wives, several slaves, and many travois to move his possessions from camp to camp. It was said he could blow away arrows and bullets with his breath, and never had he been wounded in a fight. Little Bull thought the man's success in battle had more to do with the Spanish armor he wore than it did with his medicine, but he couldn't deny the number of scalps or the vast herds of horses Iron Shirt had taken from his enemies.

The other warriors were smoking and swapping lies, and some of the older ones had even sprawled out on the ground to nap. Little Bull tinkered with the idea of trying to trade Iron Shirt out of a horse he fancied, but the man wouldn't stop talking long enough for him to broach the subject. Iron Shirt was a great one for promoting himself, and at the moment he was telling a story about a white otter he had once seen swimming in a river to the east—an event that first foretold his ability to see into the spirit world as few men could. Little Bull politely tried to listen, but he had heard the tale too many times.

Little Bull was an angry, restless man. He could not remember when the anger had not been with him, or the reason for it. Like the burning sickness in his guts, it drove him. Physical exertion was sometimes the only thing that could calm him. The shocking discovery of his sister and her rejection of him made him want to fight. Lounging around with a Tejano war party nearby had him ready to explode.

His vision was drawn to the Tejano captives tied to the mesquite posts. He hated the sight of their pale bodies more than anything, but he could see no need in drawing out their demise into such a formal ceremony. Iron Shirt insisted that it would give the young warriors courage to ride against the Tejano war party, but Little Bull didn't want to ride with warriors who needed games to make them brave. The captives should have already been well tortured and the warriors riding out to fight the Rangers before they chanced too close to camp.

Iron Shirt finally finished his story, and was looking at him as if he knew how impatient he was and was purposely drawing things out. The older warrior had a lot of clout, and as it was his camp, all the others deferred to his ideas of what to do with the prisoners. Some of the warriors had wanted to go to work on the captives immediately without having a dance, and others had wanted to ransom them. Iron Shirt had heard them all out, and then in his crafty way had convinced them all that his way was best.

After an hour of relaxation, Iron Shirt and a few other warriors of importance rose to their feet. The rest of the Comanche men quickly followed suit. Every one of them bore a weapon in his hands, and some of them had two. Steel knives, tomahawks, and flint-edged blades were brandished so casually as to almost mask the deadly intent of their presence. Only the wild paint on the warriors' faces and the predatory way they stared at the prisoners foretold what was to come.

There were over one hundred warriors in camp, but only half of them participated. The rest were old men who were willing to leave such pleasures to their younger counterparts, or members of the Yamparika group that had recently arrived seeking new alliance with Iron Shirt's Kotsotekas. Those warriors were only going to sit and watch as interested bystanders.

Iron Shirt had a Mexican slave whose Achilles tendons had been cut years before to keep him from attempting escape. Unlike many victims of the painful procedure, he had never healed enough to run again, and barely managed a shuffling, wobbly walk. What he could do was to fetch his master's horses and play drums. All the standing warriors held their places until the crippled Mexican began to beat on a skin drum. The rhythm was slow and steady, and not overly loud.

Iron Shirt started forward in slow steps that were more a threatening march than they were a dance. There were no wild leaps or pantomimed fighting moves like many other tribes performed at such ceremonies, at least not yet. The other warriors fell in behind him, and while their steps were individual decisions, all of them moved slowly. Not a sound escaped their lips, and they came forward as ominous mutes. Their moccasins scuffed up a trail of dust, and the scrape of leather soles against the ground provided a counter beat to the drum.

Little Bull was near Iron Shirt at the front of the line and he had the pleasure of being able to see the terror on the prisoners' faces as the warriors approached them. That was part of the purpose for the slow pace and the lack of war cries. For some reason the silence behind the slow scratch of shuffling moccasins and the dull throb of the drum scared their victims far worse than a much louder approach. The quiet, restrained procession also emphasized the discipline in battle that a warrior needed to survive.

Three stout posts had been set into the ground, two of them close together, and the other some thirty yards away. The fat white man and the pretty soldier had been tied to the side-by-side posts, and the little four-eyed man with the speckled skin was tied to the odd post facing them across the distance. The line of warriors danced toward the twin posts first.

The prisoners' hands were tied high above their heads to prevent them from falling down, and their ankles lashed to the bottom of the posts. The pretty soldier stood straight and watched the warriors come to him. No matter that he acted brave, his eyes fluttered around in his head like a scared rabbit. Little Bull saw him look to the sky and call on his creator.

The fat man made no attempt to honor his name and was crying like a small child. Iron Shirt approached him first and made one pass across that big stomach with his knife. The fat man groaned, and then screamed by the time the third warrior had cut him. As each warrior passed by him they slashed and hacked. All of the strikes were purposely meant to cause pain but not to kill. Several warriors mocked scalping him before they added to his wounds. Each one of them went on to do the same to the pretty soldier as they snaked by, curving back toward the four-eyed man. By the time the entire group had passed the first two posts those prisoners were cut from head to toe and screaming and groaning with pain, terrible pain.

The warriors moved on toward their next victim at the same monotonous pace. The four-eyed man was the last of the three captives Little Bull would have expected bravery from. From his first arrival in camp he had never met the eyes of a single warrior, but now he seemed fearless. He wrinkled his nose and strained against his bonds to squint hatefully at his enemies. He had to have seen his companions' treatment and heard their screams of agony, but not a single tremor of fear ran along his pale, speckled flesh.

Little Bull had assumed that the loss of his glass eyes would have robbed the man of any medicine they might have possessed, but that didn't seem to be the case. Little Bull had tried the glass eyes on himself and had found that they made the world a blur. It seemed the little man had been blinded by his magic eyes, and without them he was not the coward he had first seemed.

The first warriors passed by the man with weapons flashing, yet their victim went unscathed. Instead of bleeding him well as they had the other two prisoners, they only mocked attack. Their knife edges slid within a fraction of an inch from his flesh, and yet the white man did not flinch. It was if he knew no fear at all.

When Little Bull made his pass, he didn't even raise his knife. He didn't trust himself to hold back his wrath. For some reason the pathetic-looking Tejano's cool courage made Little Bull hate him even more. He looked for the tiniest hint of fear in the pale eyes and saw none. Amazingly, the little man smiled at him. Little Bull wondered if the Tejano had lost his mind in the heat, or if he was a witch like the Mexican traders claimed existed among their people. He didn't think about the matter long before he was sure the entire camp was being mocked by their captive. Iron Shirt was a fool for not killing him.

The pompous medicine warrior had said that killing odd numbers of white men in such a ceremony would bring bad luck to the tribe, and it had been decided that the four-eyed man would live to be ransomed for whatever booty the white chiefs could be made to pay. Little Bull had suggested that the pretty soldier looked to be a more important man, and thus the Tejano chiefs would pay more for him. Iron Shirt had quickly pointed out that it would be wrong to let a soldier live to fight them again, when the pitiful, laughable four-eyed man would never be a threat to them. Iron Shirt had come off looking wiser than ever and managed to make Little Bull look foolish at the same time.

All the warriors danced back to their original starting point and the drum beat ceased. They all sat down on the grass and began to visit with each other again. They watched the bleeding captives carefully to measure their handiwork, but the conversation soon turned to the four-eyed man and his strange bravery. The entire purpose of such torture was to strike fear into the captives and to make them suffer longer mentally, as well as physically. It was the slow, silent pace of the dance that usually created dread and had many captives crying out before the first blows were ever struck. If the four-eyed man was scared to see the warriors coming with their knives, he hid it well.

“It's a shame we can't cut the four-eyed man to see if his courage is real,” Little Bull said.

Iron Shirt acted like he had been thinking the very same thing and regretting his decision to spare the man. “No, I had a vision long ago that we should never torture three enemies at the same time.”

“Maybe we could still ransom the pretty soldier. He looks as if he might live if we cut him down.” Little Bull already knew that Iron Shirt would never admit to his mistake.

“I think the four-eyed man must secretly speak our language and knew that he was to be spared,” Iron Shirt said more loudly than necessary.

Many of the warriors heard his words and it was soon the almost unanimous opinion. The four-eyed man knew he was to be ransomed. Had he been cut like the other two he would undoubtedly cry out and beg for mercy. No such weak excuse for a man could be as brave as the Comanche.

However much they may have told themselves that the four-eyed man was the coward he should have been, Little Bull noticed that the glass eyes traded owners twice, and the last time for two good horses and three buffalo robes. It was plain that many of the braves wanted the power of the deceiving white warrior who knew no fear.

After another long rest, Iron Shirt stood to start another pass by the prisoners. Little Bull studied their victims while he took his place in line. The fat man had bled badly, and was hanging limply from his arms. The pretty soldier groaned occasionally with pain, but still had enough strength in his legs to stand. Little Bull was impatient to ride out and find the Tejano war party and was afraid that the two white men would take longer to die than he wanted them to. He had seen strong captives drag the dance out for hours.

The drumbeat was slightly faster this time, as was the warriors' pace. Occasionally one of them would let out a soft war cry, or strange sounds that the drum moved them to. Little Bull tried to lose himself in the moment and to think only of his hatred for the Tejanos.

He was working himself slowly up to a fury when he noticed a young Comanche boy racing his horse across the prairie straight toward them. The boy was whipping the horse across the hip with his quirt and shouting something at the top of his lungs. The second or third time he yelled every warrior there understood what it was that he was saying.

The crippled slave quit beating on his drum, and the warriors stopped their dancing. The Tejano war party was just across the river.