Now he whistled again, and the blue roan wheeled and darted back toward where Rab was standing.
Rab shouldered the rifle and fired off two quick shots at the nearest Comanche. He deliberately shot into the ground, backing them off and making them run for cover but not killing them.
Though he knew they blamed him for the killing of Pounding Fists, Rab had no dispute with the Comanche, and if he did not have to kill them, he didn't want to.
He spun and fired two more shots into the ground near their horses that were still grazing and ignoring the others that were running amok within the camp. Those two shots were enough to spook the horses, and most all of them now started to run.
The roan danced in circles around him.
"You're a good ol' hawss," Rab said, grabbing up horse's reins and patting his neck. Rab shook out the blanket and swung it over the roan's back. Then he lifted his saddle and slung it onto the horse.
That's when he heard the rifle shots and for the first time realized that Fitz was standing on the outskirts of the camp.
Moving quickly, Rab cinched the saddle. The roan was already breathing hard from an active morning, first bucking the Comanche men from his back, then leading the charge through the camp. Rab knew running was not a long-term solution to his troubles.
He replaced the two cartridges he'd already fired and then swung himself into the saddle. He moved fast. Fitz had renewed the commotion within the camp, but it would not take long for the Comanche to rally, grab some horses, and resume a fight. Rab wanted to be gone long before that happened.
He rode quickly to one of the horses still grazing, unlooped his lariat and roped the horse.
"Come on now, pony hawss," Rab said, pulling the horse back toward the tepee where Skinner Jake still lay unconscious.
At the tepee, Rab fired off another couple of rounds to back off a group of four Comanche warriors who were stalking him.
Fitz had reloaded and was again firing shots from distance into the camp.
Rab pushed the Yellow Boy back into its scabbard, and he bodily lifted Skinner Jake up to his shoulder. He took Jake to the horse he'd roped and draped the man over the horse's back. Jake's stomach rested on the horse's back, and his arms and legs dangled off.
"You probably ain't going to survive this, but I'll not just leave you," Rab said to the unconscious man.
Rab cut a length from his lariat and hogtied Skinner Jake's wrists and ankles under the horse's belly.
He drew out the Yellow Boy and fired more shots into the tops of a couple of tepees. From the second one, a group of children poured from the opening, screaming. He'd fired too high to hit anyone, but he'd scared hell out of the children. And that's what he wanted. More chaos added to the mayhem of the stampeding horses and Fitz shooting up the camp.
As best as Rab could see, not a single Comanche was struck. But between the horses and the two gunmen, they'd turned the camp upside down.
Now Rab Sinclair stepped into the stirrup and threw a leg over Cromwell's back.
"All right, you old biter," Rab said. "You've had a big day of it already, but I'm going to have to ask you for more."
Rab squeezed the horse with his knees, and Cromwell — with the Indian pony trailing — rode hard toward Fitz.
"Glad to see you," Rab said, riding up to the former Yankee cavalryman. Fitz was reloading his rifle from cartridges in his pocket.
"Kind of a tight spot we're in," Fitz said.
Rab chuckled.
"I've been in worse," he said.
"About a fifteen minutes ago," Fitz said.
Fitz's face was full of panic as he worked to reload.
"You got a hawss?"
"Back in that dry wash."
"Hold this," Rab said, tossing the loose end of the lariat down to Fitz. "You hold them Injuns off a mite longer. I'll go and fetch your hawss and we'll ride out of here. If they come for you and you can't fight 'em back, cut him loose and get mounted on this pony. I'll leave ol' Skinner Jake there if the choice is him or you."
Fitz nodded and put a foot on the end of the lariat. He raised up with a fully loaded rifle and resumed shooting at the camp.
Unlike Rab, Fitz was a man of war who tried not to waste a shot. He was shooting from distance, but he'd already hit and wounded two of the Comanche men. The rate of fire he could keep up with the lever-action Yellow Boy was like nothing he'd experienced in the war, and he felt like a one-man army the way he could keep at bay as many as three dozen men. Even shooting from a long ways out, Fitz believed if he could have taken more time to pick his shots he'd have put down more of the Comanche.
In a moment, Rab rode up out of the wash leading Fitz's horse, and he galloped forward to where Fitz was just now reloading again.
"Never mind that rifle," Rab said. "Let's ride on out of here."
Fitz swung himself into his saddle, and the two men rode with Skinner Jake and his pony trailing behind.
"Hell of a thing, you showing up the way you did," Rab said.
"When Jake took off I went looking for him," Fitz explained. "I heard shooting yesterday morning, and I came upon the aftermath of your skirmish. I followed from a distance until the Comanche brought you to their main camp, and I've been watching the camp all night."
"Where are the others?" Rab asked.
"No idea," Fitz said.
"Where are we?" Rab asked.
"No idea," Fitz said.
***
Rab Sinclair stood on the highest spot he could find and looked back south over the horizon.
"Nothing's moving," Rab said. "If they're tracking us, they're still well back there."
"Do you think they're tracking us?" Fitz asked.
"I do."
It was late in the afternoon, but they still had a couple of hours left of sunlight. The moon tonight would be full, or nearly so.
In their flight from the Comanche, Rab and Fitz first cut east, the fastest way from the camp, and then made a wide arc north to try to get back west. Maybe they could catch up to the others or the vaqueros with the cattle.
"We're still headed north," Fitz observed, looking at the sun over his left shoulder.
"The Llano Estacado is more than two hundred miles north to south and a hundred and fifty miles east to west," Rab said. "I've heard 'em say the entire state of South Carolina could fit inside the Llano Estacado. And right now, we could be anywhere inside it. My thinking is to ride north until we find the trail our cattle cut."
"Will we see it?" Fitz asked.
"We'd be hard pressed to miss it," Rab said. "Them steers chewed up every blade of grass in a swath a mile wide. And what little grass they didn't eat they stamped down under hoof. When we come to that trail, we can cut west and maybe catch the others. But even if we don't catch them, it's a pathway home."
"I reckon so," Fitz said. "What about the Comanche behind us?"
"If they want to follow me home, I'll fight them there," Rab said.
"Any thoughts about Jake?"
Rab looked at the wounded man still unconscious and draped over the back of the pony.
"I've got nothing for him," Rab said. "I don't even have a salve in my saddlebags. I ain't going to leave him, but I probably can't save him."
Rab did cut his shirt into strips that he wetted with his canteen and loosely wrapped the burned feet.
"Let's just keep going," Rab said. For the last half hour the men had been walking along beside the horses to spare the mounts in case they had to make a run. They continued now to walk, leading the horses along.
"This is the damnedest cattle drive I ever been on," Rab said.
"It's the only cattle drive I ever been on, and I can promise you I'll not be on another," Fitz said with a laugh.
Rab laughed, too. But then he stopped.
"I'm sorry Fitz," he said. "Sorry to you and the others. I sure did not think buying cows in Texas was going to turn into an ordeal."
"Nothing you should apologize about," Fitz said. "You
couldn't know. And you said up front we'd be passing through the damnedest country this side of hell. I just didn't know there'd be so many of the Devil's demons."
"Huh," Rab said. "Them Comanche?"
"Demons," Fitz said again.
"They ain't demons," Rab said. "If Cossatot Jim had violated a white woman and killed a white child, we'd have formed up a posse to go after him. And we'd have found him, and we'd have stretched his neck from the first stout tree we encountered. He'd have never visited a judge, but we'd have called it justice."
"The Comanche killed everyone in that buffalo hunting party," Fitz said. "Is that justice?"
"It's Comanche justice, sho'nuff. The way they see it, if you ride with a man who does something like that then you ain't no different from him. Besides, if Skinner Jake told the truth, at least a couple of them buff hunters joined in the rape and murder."
"And torture?" Fitz said.
"I'll confess it's over in a hurry, but you don't think a hanging is a kind of torture?" Rab said. "A man knows he's going to die. Feels that rope go around his neck. Sure, it ain't having your feet burned off to keep you from running, but there's a kind of torture to a hanging — even if it's just a torture of the mind."
"Maybe," Fitz said. "But you can't defend them taking Caleb?"
Rab nodded thoughtfully. "No, and I'd have killed every one of them to get Caleb back. But the Comanche don't distinguish much between one white man and another. They knew if they took Caleb that they'd be making Cossatot Jim our problem. And they knew that we'd go and fetch him back for them. I don't defend it, but I can understand why they done it."
Fitz shrugged and walked along quietly for some time.
And then he said, "It's a strange thing to think about your enemy as justified."
"Walk a ways in another man's path and he don't seem so much like a demon," Rab said. "Folks'll always say you should do this or you should do that, but if they can't see things from the way you see them, then they can't really say. If that had been Evangeline that Cossatot Jim violated and murdered, I believe I wouldn't think twice about putting him to a fire."
Fitz nodded his agreement, and the two men kept walking.
They'd gone another three miles or more, and still had daylight left, when Rab Sinclair stopped.
"Look at that, yonder," Rab said.
Fitz strained his eyes, but then he saw it. Up ahead, the ground seemed to change color. It was like the brown and black of the grass in the distance suddenly turned a color like sand.
"What is that?" Fitz asked. "Why's it look like that?"
"Unless I miss my guess, I reckon that's where a herd of cattle recently chewed all the grass it could find down to the nub."
"That's it, then?" Fitz asked. "That's our road home?"
"I reckon it is," Rab said.
They continued walking, and as they neared it and their vantage changed, the discolored ground began to fade to normal again. But as soon as they were in among the chewed grass, it was obvious to Fitz what he was seeing. The grass and weeds were chewed down. There was other evidence, too. Marks in the sand that showed hooves and dried cow chips scattered all over.
"This is it," Rab said. "Here we turn west and keep an eye on our backtrail."
"How far in front of us do you think they are?" Fitz asked.
"The herd moves at twelve or fifteen miles a day," Rab said. "My guess would be the herd came through here three or four days ago. So maybe fifty miles ahead. A hard day's ride on a fresh hawss. A day and a half for these hawsses."
Rab stopped walking.
"Help me get Skinner Jake down off this pony," Rab said. "We'll stop here for an hour or so. Rest the hawsses, maybe eat some of what we've got. Then when it gets dark, we'll pick up the trail again."
"Keep going after dark?" Fitz asked.
"Unless you want them Comanche catching up to us while we're asleep," Rab said. "Ever heard of a Comanche Moon?"
"Where they attack by moonlight?" Fitz said.
"A full moon with Comanche on your trail is a dangerous time," Rab said.
"But we're not sure they're behind us," Fitz said. "We've seen no sign of them."
"They're back there," Rab said.
-25-
Fitz had a lead in each hand, pulling his own horse and the Indian pony as well as he walked along within the path left by the grazing herd. In the moonlight, he could follow the path with ease. Clumps of grass munched to the ground showed up white. If he drifted outside of the path the herd had taken, the grasses and buckwheat still grew tall, and he knew to cut back the other way. Or sometimes, Fitz would lead the horses into the tall grass and watch them graze some before leading them on. He was careful to keep them away from cockleburs, though the horses knew not to eat it as long as there was other grazing to be had.
Skinner Jake made some noises, but he did not wake up.
The wind blew harder now than it had most nights, and Fitz had to strain his ears for any noise.
He wore his six-shooter on his hip at half cock. Every man who carried a Colt Dragoon or an Army or Navy knew that a good knock on the back of the hammer could discharge the gun, and so most men didn't put a cap on the chamber under the hammer. But if a band of Comanche warriors was riding after him, that man would cap all six nipples. Fitz was read to grab for the gun in his holster. While he wasn't riding he'd even moved the leather loop off the hammer so that he could draw the gun quickly.
A noise somewhere nearby piqued Fitz's interest, and he took both leads in one hand and dropped his other hand to the grip of the gun.
It must be coming on to midnight. Sinclair had been gone for some time now. He was riding the backtrail looking for any evidence of pursuit. Neither man wanted to have the Comanche sneak up on them, but they agreed that they should spare the horses as much as possible. Water and feed had been light, and the horses had spent a rough couple of days.
Still, the horses weren't the only ones exhausted.
"Fitz, I'm coming up behind you," Rab called.
The voice made him jump, and Fitz laughed at himself.
"See anything?" Fitz asked.
"Nothing," Rab said. "If the Comanche are back there, I don't know where they are."
"But you still think they're back there?"
"They're back there."
"In the army, during the war, on a long march I got pretty good at sleeping in the saddle," Fitz said. "If we weren't sparing the horses, I'd be able to fall asleep right now."
Rab chuckled.
"Climb on up there," he said. "I'll walk for a while, and then we'll switch."
"You sure?" Fitz asked.
"Go ahead."
Fitz climbed wearily into his saddle, and it did not take more than a moment for his eyelids to start to fall shut. He jerked sometimes in the saddle as he drifted further to sleep and began to slide or collapse. But he'd jerk back awake and then begin to doze again.
Rab kept walking.
He'd journeyed many times on long trips through prairie and mountains, and he could walk all night if he had to.
He watched the moon fall to the western horizon. It was setting almost due west this time of year, and the path the cattle took seemed to be taking a perfect west-northwest line. Rab wondered if he was still with the cattle when the herd came through here or if he'd already gone off in search of Cossatot Jim. He figured the cattle passed through here without him.
Walking through the night they were not making quick time, but every step brought them closer to the herd. Rab hoped that when he got to the herd he would find Caleb, Vazquez, Kuwatee, and O'Toole had rejoined the trail drive.
The silver light of the moon shooting in rays from the western horizon masked the first gray light of dawn touching the night sky.
"I slept all night," Fitz said, waking up.
"I reckon you did," Rab told him.
"Skinner Jake ever stir?"
"Not once," Rab said. "I haven't checked him, but he might well be dead."
Out here on the Llano Estacado the horizon was as much as ten or fifteen miles in the distance. A thunderstorm could be seen from fifty or a hundred miles or more.
Rab swung himself up into the saddle and turned the blue roan to the east where the sun was now casting its bright morning light. Rab held up a hand to shade his eyes from the sun and looked across the backtrail.
"Almost easier to see at night than to try to look back into the morning sun," Rab said.
Fitz walked his horse over to where Skinner Jake was strung across the Indian pony.
"Still breathing," Fitz said. "His breathing's weak, but he ain't dead."
"If we can catch Sancho Biscuit, he's got a salve in his wagon. I don't know that it will do any good, but it's some treatment. And we can lay him out in the wagon, which will have to be better than being tied over a hawss."
Fitz started to say something but stopped. Something to the south had caught his attention.
"Is that dust?" Fitz asked.
Rab looked to where Fitz pointed and saw it.
"Riders," Rab said. "I'd guess it's at least a dozen of them."
"The Comanche?"
"We'd be fools to wait around to find out," Rab said.
"Going to be a rough ride for Skinner Jake," Fitz said.
"That can't be helped."
The two men wheeled their horses and began a long run, covering distance quickly. Sparing the horses through the night proved out the wisdom. The horses galloped hard for nearly two miles and then slowed to a trot. The pony, without the gait of the other two horses, fell behind several yards, but it kept following without being led. The dust cloud had disappeared.
"They've slowed to a trot or a walk," Rab said. "But they're still back there. Like as not they've seen us and know we're here."
They let the horses walk a short distance and they held them to a trot. Periodically they would slow the horses to a walk, but never for long.
"We should spare these hawsses as long as we can," Rab said. "We made need 'em to make a big run here soon."
A Vast and Desolate Land Page 15