The Outlaw Josey Wales

by Forrest Carter

  “Never knowed raw chicken could taste so good," Josey said as he wiped his hands with a bunch of vines. Lone was cracking the bones with his teeth and sucking out the marrow.

  “Ye oughta try the bones,” Lone said, “ye have to eat ALL of ever’thing when ye’re hungry... now, the Cheyenne... they eat the entrails too. If Little Moonlight was here ...” Both of them left the sentence hanging... and their thoughts brought a drowsy, light sleep... while the horses pulled at the vines.

  Near noon they were aroused by the beating of horses’ hooves approaching from the east. The riders stopped for a moment on the lip of the ravine above them, and as Josey and Lone held their horses by the nose... they heard the riders gallop south.

  Sunset brought the welcome coolness of a breeze that shook the brush and brought out the evening grouse. Josey and Lone emerged cautiously onto the prairie. No riders were in sight.

  “East of us,” Josey said, as they surveyed the land, “it’s too heavy settled... we got to go west... then turn south.”

  They headed the horses westward toward a gradual elevation of the land that brought them, as they traveled, to a prairie more sparse of vegetation, where the elements were more rugged arid wild.

  In 1867, if you drew a line from the Red River south through the little town of Comanche... and keeping the line straight... on to the Rio Grande, west of that line you would find few men. Here and there an outpost settlement... a daring or foolhardy rancher attracted by that unexplainable urge to move where no one else dare go... and desperate men, running from a noose. For west of that line the Comanche was king.

  Two hours after daylight Josey and Lone sighted the squat village of Comanche and turned southwest... across the line. They nooned on Redman Creek, a small, sluggish stream that wandered aimlessly in the brush, and at midafternoon resumed their journey. The heat was more intense, sapping at the strength of the horses as it bounced back off a soil grown more loose and sandy. Boulders of rock began to appear and stunted cactus poked spiny arms up from the plain. At dusk they rested the horses and ate a rabbit Lone shot from the saddle. This time they chanced a fire... small and smokeless, from the twigs of bone-dry ’chollo brush. Coarse grass was bunched in thick patches that the horses cropped with relish.

  Josey had lived in the saddle for years, but he felt the weariness, sapped by lack of food, and he could see the age showing on Lone’s face. But the rail-thin

  Cherokee was eager for pushing on, and they saddled up in the dark and walked the horses steadily southwest.

  It was after midnight when Lone pointed at a red dot in the distance. So far, it looked like a star for a moment. But it jumped and flickered.

  “Big fire,” Lone said, “could be Comanches havin’ a party, somebody in trouble, or... some damn fool who wants to die.”

  After an hour of steady traveling, the fire was plainly visible, leaping high in the air and crackling the dried brush. It appeared to be a signal, but approaching closer, they could see no sign of life in the circle of light, and Josey felt the hairs on his neck rise at the eeriness. Still out of the light, they circled the flames, straining eyes in the half-light of the prairie. Josey saw a white spot that picked up the moonlight, and they rode cautiously toward it. It was the paint horse, picketed to a mesquite tree, munching grass.

  Josey and Lone dismounted and examined the ground around the horse. Without warning, a crouched figure sprang from the concealment of brush and leaped on the half-bent figure of Lone. The Cherokee fell backward to the ground, his hat flying from his head. It was Little Moonlight. She was holding Lone’s neck, astride him on the ground ... giggling and laughing, rubbing her face on his, and snuggling her head, like a playful puppy, into his chest. Josey watched them rolling on the ground.

  “Ye damn crazy squaw ... I come near blowin’ yer head off.” But there was relief in his voice. Lone struggled to his feet and lifted her far off the ground ... and kissed her fiercely on the mouth. They moved to the fire, where Josey and Lone extinguished it with cupped hands of sand while Little Moonlight chattered around them like a child and once shyly clasped the arm of Josey to her body and rubbed her head against his shoulder. An ugly, deep gash ran the width of her forehead, and Lone examined it with tender fingers. “Ain’t infected, but she could have shore stood sewing up a day er two ago ... too late now.”

  “By the time that’n scars over,” Josey observed, “she’ll look like she stuck her haid in a wildcat’s den ... ast her how she got it.”

  Little Moonlight told the story with her moving hands, and as Lone repeated it to Josey, he listened, head down. She laughed and giggled at the confused Regulators, the running crowd, the stupefied people. Her own actions, which caused the hilarious scene of comedy, came out as an afterthought. She saw nothing extraordinary in what she had done... it was a natural action, as proper as pot-cooking for her man. When she had finished, Josey drew her to him and held her for a long moment, and Little Moonlight was silent... and moisture shone in the eyes of Lone Watie.

  “We’d better git away from where this house fire was at,” Josey said, and as they walked to the horses Little Moonlight excitedly ran to a brush heap and drug forth the new saddle that Josey had dropped in Towash.

  “Supplies, by God!” Josey shouted, “she got the supplies.”

  Lone gestured to her and made motions of eating. “Eat,” Lone urged. She ran and picked up a limp sack and from it extracted three shriveled, raw potatoes. “Eat?” Lone asked... and she shook her head. Lone turned to Josey, “Three ’taters, looks like that’s it.”

  Josey sighed, “Well... reckin we can eat the damn saddle after Little Moonlight tenders it up... bumpin’ her bottom agin it.”

  Only after an hour’s riding was Josey satisfied with their distance from the fire .... and they bedded down. Noon of the following day they crossed the Colorado and lingered there in the shade of cottonwoods until sundown. Sun heat was becoming more intense, and it was in the cool of dusk before they saddled and continued southwest.

  Their southwest direction would not take them to San Antonio, but Josey knew that after Towash they must avoid the settlements.

  Chapter 14

  The Western outlaw usually faced high odds. Beyond their physical, practiced dexterity with the pistol and their courage, those who “done the thinkin’” were the ones who lasted longest. They always endeavored an “edge.” Some, such as Hardin, stepped sideways, back and forth, in a pistol fight. They would draw their pistol in midsentence, catching their opponents napping. Most of them were masters of psychology and usually made good poker players. They concerned themselves with eye adjustment to light ... or maneuvering to place the sun behind them. The audacious... the bold... the unexpected; the “edge,” they called it.

  To his reckless men Bloody Bill Anderson had been a master tutor of the “edge.” Once he had told Josey,

  “Iff’n I’m to face out and outlast another feller in the hot sun ... all I want is a broom straw to hold over my head fer shade. A little edge, and I’ll beat ’em.” He had found his greatest student in the canny, mountain-bred Josey Wales, who had the same will to triumph as the wildcat of his native home.

  So it was that Josey was concerned about the horses. They looked well enough, though lean. They ate the bunch grass and showed no lack of spirit. But too many times in the past years his survival had hung on the thread of his horse, and he knew that with two horses, given the same blood, breed, and bone, one would outlast the other in direct proportion to the amount of grain, rather than grass, that had been rationed to it. The wind stamina made the difference, and so gave the edge to the outlaw who grained his horse ... if only a few handfuls a day. The “edge” was an obsession with Josey Wales, and this obsession extended to the horse.

  When they crossed the wagon tracks in late afternoon of the following day Josey turned onto their trail. Lone examined the tracks, “Two wagons. Eight... maybe ten hours ago.”

  The tracks pointed west, off their cour
se, but Lone was not surprised at Josey’s leading them after the wagons. He had learned the outlaw’s concerns and his ways, so that when Josey muttered an explanation, “We need grain... might be we could up-trade thet paint,” Lone nodded without comment. They lifted the pace of the horses into a slow, rocking canter, and Little Moonlight alternately popped and creaked the new saddle as she bobbed behind them on the rugged little pony.

  It was near midnight before Josey called a halt. They rolled in their blankets against the chill and were back in the saddles before the first red color touched the east. The elevation in the land was sharper since turning west, and by morning they were on the Great Plains of Texas. Where the wind had swept away loose soil, stark rock formations rose in brutal nakedness. Arroyos, choked with boulders, split the ground, and in the distance a bald mountain poked its barren back against the sky. As the sun rose higher, lizards scurried to the sparse shades of spiny cactus and a clutch of buzzards soared, high and circling, on their death-watch.

  Heat rays began to lift off the baked ground, making the distant land ahead look liquid and unreal. Josey began to search for shade.

  It was Lone who saw the horse tracks first. They angled from the southeast until they crossed the trail of the two wagons. Now they followed them.

  Lone dismounted and walked down the trail, searching the ground. “Eight horses... unshod, probably Comanch,” he called back to Josey. “But these big wide-wheel tracks... three sets of ’em... and they ain’t wagons ... they’re two-wheel carts. I never heard of Comanches travelin’ in two-wheel carts.”

  “I ain’t never heard of anybody travelin’ in two-wheel carts,” Josey said laconically.

  Little Moonlight had walked down the trail and now came back running. “Koh-mahn-chey-rohs!” she shouted, pointing at the track. “Koh-mahn-chey-rohs!”

  “Comancheros!” Josey and Lone exclaimed together.

  Little Moonlight moved her hands with such agitation that Lone motioned for her to go slower. When she had finished, Lone looked grimly up at Josey. “She says they steal... loot. They kill... murder the very old and the very young. They sell the women and strong men to the Comanche for the horses the Comanche takes in raids. They sell the fire stick ... the gun to the Comanche. They have carts with wheels higher than a man. They sell the horses they get from the Comanches... like the two ye killed in the Nations. Some of ’em are Anglo... some Mexicano... some half-breed Indian.”

  Lone spread his hands and looked at the ground. “That’s all she knows. She says she’ll kill herself before she’ll be taken... she says the Comanch will pay high price only for the unused woman and... her nose shows she has been used... that the Comanchero would... use her... rape her... many times before they sold her. That it would make no difference in her price.” Lone’s voice was hard.

  Josey’s jaws moved deliberately on a chew of tobacco. His eyes narrowed into black slits as he listened and watched the trail west. “Border trash,” he spat, “knowed them two in the Nations was sich when I seen ’em. We’d best git along... them pore pilgrims in the waggins...”

  Lone and Little Moonlight mounted, and in her passing, she touched the leg of Josey Wales; the touchstone of strength; the warrior with the magic guns.

  The sun had slipped far to the west, picking up a red dust haze, when the tracks they were following suddenly cut to the left and dipped down behind a rise of rock outcroppings. Lone pointed silently at a thin trail of smoke that lifted, undisturbed, high into the air. They left the trail and walked the horses, slowly, toward the rocks. Dismounting, Josey motioned for Little Moonlight to stand and hold the horses while he and Lone stealthily walked, head down, to the top of the rise. As they neared the summit both bellied down and crawled hatless to the rim.

  They weren’t prepared for the scene a hundred yards below them. Three huge wooden carts were lined end to end in the arroyo. They were two-wheeled... solid wheels that rose high above the beds of the carts; and each was pulled by a yoke of oxen. Back of the carts were two covered wagons with mules standing in the traces. It was the scene twenty yards back of the wagons that brought low exclamations from Lone and Josey.

  Two elderly men lay on their backs, arms and legs staked, spread-eagled on the ground. They were naked, and most of their withered bodies were smeared with dried blood. The smoke rising in the air came from fires built between their legs, at the crotch, and on their stomachs. The sick-sweet smell of burned human flesh was in the air. The old men were dead. A circle of men stood and squatted around the bodies on the ground. They wore sombreros, huge rounded hats that shaded their faces. Most of them were buckskin-trousered with the flaring chaparral leggings below the knees and fancy vests trimmed with silver conchos that picked up the sun with flashes of light. They all wore holstered pistols, and one man carried a rifle loosely in his hand.

  As Josey and Lone watched, one of the men stepped from the circle, and sweeping the sombrero from his head, he revealed bright red hair and beard. He made an elaborate bow toward the corpse on the ground. The circle roared with laughter. Another kicked the bald head of a corpse while a slender, fancily dressed one jumped on the chest of a corpse and stomped his feet in imitation of a dance, to the accompaniment of loud hand-clapping.

  “I make out eight of them animals," Josey gritted between clenched teeth.

  Lone nodded. “There ought to be three more. There’s eight hosses and three carts.”

  The Comancheros were leaving the mutilated figures on the ground and strolling with purpose toward the wagons. Josey looked ahead toward what drew their interest and for the first time saw the women in the shade of the last wagon.

  An old woman was on her hands and knees, white hair loosened and streaming down about her face. She was vomiting on the ground. A younger woman supported her, holding her head and waist. She was kneeling, and long, straw-colored hair fell about her shoulders. Josey recognized her as the girl he had seen at Towash, the girl with the startling blue eyes, who had looked at him.

  The Comancheros, a few feet from the women, broke into a rush that engulfed them. The girl was lifted off her feet as a Comanchero, his hand wrapped in her hair, twisted her head backward and down. The long dress was ripped from her body, and naked she was borne up and backward by the mob. Briefly, the large, firm mounds of her breasts arched in the air above the mob, pointing upward like white pyramids isolated above the melee until hands, brutally grabbing, pulled her down again. Several held her about the waist and were attempting to throw her to the ground. They howled and fought each other.

  The old woman rose from her knees and flung herself at the mob and was knocked down. She came to her feet, swaying for an instant, then lowered her head like a tiny, frail bull and charged back into the mass, her fists flailing. The girl had not screamed, but she fought; her long, naked legs thrashed the air as she kicked.

  Josey lifted a .44 and hesitated as he sought a clear target. Lone touched his arm. “Wait,” he said quietly and pointed. A huge Mexican had emerged from the front wagon. The sombrero pushed back from his head revealed thick, iron-gray hair. He wore silver conchos on his vest and down the sides of tight breeches.

  “Para!" he shouted in a bull voice as he approached the struggling mob. “Stop!” And drawing a pistol, he fired into the air. The Comancheros immediately fell away from the girl, and she stood, naked and head down, her arms crossed over her breasts. The old woman was on her knees. The big Mexican crashed his pistol against the head of one man and sent him staggering backward. He stomped his foot, and his voice shook with rage as he pointed to the girl and turned to point at the horses. “He is tellin’ ’em they’ll lose twenty horses by rapin’ the girl,” Lone said, “and that they got plenty of women at camp to the northwest.”

  A burst of laughter floated up from the Comancheros. “He jest told ’em the old woman is worth a... donkey... and they can have her... if they think it’s worth it,” Lone added grimly.

  “By God!” Josey breathed. “By God, I d
idn’t know sich walked around on two legs.”

  The big leader drew a blanket from the wagon and threw it at the girl. The old woman rose to her feet, picked up the fallen blanket, and brought it around the younger woman, covering her. Orders were shouted back and forth; Comancheros leaped to the seats of the carts and wagons. Another bound the wrists of the two women with long rawhide rope and fastened the ends to the tailgate of the last wagon.

  “Gittin’ ready to leave,” Josey said. He looked at the sun, almost on the rim of earth to the west. “They must be in a hurry to make it to thet camp. They’re travelin’ at night.” He motioned Lone back from the rimrock. Pulling Jamie’s pistol and belt from his saddlebags, he tossed them to Lone. “Ye’ll need a extra pistol,” he said and squatted on the ground before Lone and Little Moonlight and marked with his finger in the dust as he talked. “Put thet hat of yores on Little Moonlight, thet Indian haid of yores will confuse ’em. Ye circle on foot around behind. I’ll give ye time ... then I’ll hit ’em, mounted from the front. What I don’t git, I’ll drive ’em into you. We got to get ’em ALL ... one gits away... he’ll bring back Comanch.”

  Lone squashed the big hat down over the ears of Little Moonlight, and she looked up, questions in her eyes, from under the wide brim. “Reh-wan,” Lone said... revenge... and he drew a finger across his throat. It was the cutthroat sign of the Sioux... to kill... not for profit... not for horses... but for revenge... for a principle; therefore, all the enemy must die.

  Little Moonlight nodded vigorously, flopping the big hat down over her eyes. She grinned and trotted to the paint and slid the old rifle from a bundle.

  “No ... No,” Lone held her arm and signed for her to stay.

  “Fer Gawd’s sake,” Josey sighed, “tell her to stay here and hold the hosses... and keep thet red-bone from chewing one of our laigs off.” The hound had, throughout, made low, rumbling noises in his throat. Lone strapped the extra gunbelt around his waist.