by Alan Lemay
“No way to comb him out if that’s where he is,” Amos said; but he studied the buckbrush a long time.
Mart got up, and took the canteens from the saddles.
“He’ll put an arrow through you so fast it’ll fall free on the far side, you go down to that crick!”
“Not without raising up, he won’t.”
“That’s a seventy-five yard shot from here— maybe more. I ain’t using you for bait on no such—”
“You never drew back from it before!” Mart went jauntily down the slope to the creek, swinging the canteens. Behind him he could hear Amos rumbling curses to himself for a while; then the morning was quiet except for the sound of his own boots.
He walked directly, unhurrying, to the point where the firm ground under the buckbrush mushed off into the shallow water at the saw-grass roots. He sloshed through ten yards of this muck, skirting the brush; and now his hackles crawled at the back of his neck, for he smelled Indian—a faint sunburnt smell of woodfires, of sage smoke, of long-used buffalo robes.
He came to the water, and stopped. Still standing straight up he floated the two canteens, letting them fill themselves at the end of their long slings. This was the time, as he stood motionless here, pretending to look at the water. He dared not look at the buckbrush, lest his own purpose be spoiled. But he let his head turn a little bit downstream, so that he could hold the buckbrush in the corner of his eye. He was certain nothing moved.
Amos’ bullet yowled so close to him it seemed Amos must have fired at his back, and a spout of water jumped in the river straight beyond. Mart threw himself backward, turning as he fell, so that he came down on his belly in the muck. He didn’t know how his six-gun came cocked into his hand, but it was there.
“Stay down!” Amos bellowed. “Hold still, damn it! I don’t think I got him!” Mart could hear him running down the slope, chambering a fresh cartridge with a metallic clank. He flattened, trying to suck himself into the mud, and for a few moments lay quiet, all things out of his hands.
Amos came splashing into the saw grass so close by that Mart thought he was coming directly to where Mart lay.
“Yes, I did,” Amos said. “Come looky this here!”
“Watch out for him!” Mart yelled. “Your bullet went in the crick!”
“I creased him across the back. Prettiest shot you ever see in your life!”
Mart got up then. Amos was standing less than six yards away, looking down into the grass. Two steps toward him and Mart could see part of the dark, naked body, prone in the saw grass. He stopped, and moved backward a little; he had no desire to see anything more. Amos reached for the Indian’s knife, and spun it into the creek.
“Get his bow,” Mart said.
“Bow, hell! This here’s a Spencer he’s got here.” Amos picked it up. “He threw down on you from fifteen feet!”
“I never even heard the safety click—”
“That’s what saved you. It’s still on.”
Amos threw the rifle after the knife, far out into the water.
“Is he in shape to talk?”
“He’ll talk, all right. Now get your horse, quick!”
“What?”
“There’s two Rangers coming up the crick. I got one quick sight of ’em at a mile—down by the far bend. Get on down there, and hold ’em off!”
“You mean fight?”
“No-no-no! Talk to ’em—say anything that comes in your head—”
“What if they try to arrest me?”
“Let ’em! Only keep ’em off me while I question this Comanch’!”
Mart ran for his horse.
Chapter Thirty-four
No Rangers were in sight a mile down the creek when Mart got there. None at two miles, either. By this time he knew what had happened. He had been sent on a fool’s errand because Amos wanted to work on the Indian alone. He turned back, letting his horse loiter; and Amos met him at the half mile, coming downstream at a brisk trot. He looked grim, and very ugly, but satisfied with his results.
“He talked,” Mart assumed.
“Yeah. We know how to get to Yellow Buckle now. He’s got the girl Lije Powers saw, all right.”
“Far?”
“We’ll be there against night. And it’s a good thing. There’s a party of more than forty Rangers, with sixty-seventy Tonkawas along with ’em, on ‘the hill by the Beaver’—that’ll be old Camp Radziminski— and two companies of yellowlegs, by God, more’n a hundred of ’em, camped right alongside!”
“That’s no way possible! Your Indian lied.”
“He didn’t lie.” Amos seemed entirely certain. Mart saw now that a drop of fresh blood had trickled down the outside of Amos’ scalping-knife sheath.
“Where is he now?”
“In the crick. I weighted him down good with rocks.”
“I don’t understand this,” Mart said. He had learned to guess the general nature of the truth behind some kinds of Indian lies, but he could see through this story. “I never heard of Rangers and calvary working together before. Not in Indian territory, anyway. My guess is Sill sent out a patrol to chase the Rangers back.”
Amos shrugged. “Maybe so. But the Rangers will make a deal now—they’ll have to. Give the soldiers Yellow Buckle on a plate in return for not getting run back to Texas.”
“Bound to,” Mart said glumly, “I suppose.”
“Them yellowlegs come within an ace of leaving a big fat pocket of Comanch’ in their rear. Why, Yellow Buckle could have moved right into Fort Sill soon as Davidson marches! They’ll blow sky high once they see what they nearly done. They can hit that village in two days—tomorrow, if the Rangers set the pace. And no more Yellow Buckle! We got to get over there.”
They reset their saddles, and pressed on at a good long trot, loping one mile in three.
“There’s something I got to say,” Mart told Amos as they rode. “I want to ask one thing. If we find the village—”
“We’ll find it. And it’ll still be there. That one Comanche was the only scout they had out between them and Fort Sill.”
“I want to ask one thing—”
“Finding Yellow Buckle isn’t the hard part. Not now.” Amos seemed to sense a reason for putting Mart off from what he wanted to say. “Digging the girl out of that village is going to be the hard thing in what little time we got.”
“I know. Amos, will you do me one favor? When we find the village—Now, don’t go off half cocked. I want to walk in there alone.”
“You want—what?”
“I want to go in and talk to Yellow Buckle by myself.”
Amos did not speak for so long that Mart thought he was not going to answer him at all. “I had it in mind,” he said at last, “the other way round. Leave you stay back, so set you can get clear, if worst goes wrong. Whilst I walk in and test what their temper be.”
Mart shook his head. “I’m asking you. This one time—will you do it my way?”
Another silence before Amos asked, “Why?”
Mart had foreseen this moment, and worked it over in his mind a hundred times without thinking of any story that had a chance to work. “I got to tell you the truth. I see no other way.”
“You mean,” Amos said sardonically, “you’d come up with a lie now if you had one to suit.”
“That’s right. But I got no lie for this. It’s because I’m scared of something. Suppose this. Suppose some one Comanche stood in front of you. And you knew for certain in your own mind—he was the one killed Martha?”
Mart watched Amos’ face, gray, then darken. “Well?” Amos said.
“You’d kill him. And right there’d be the end of Debbie, and all hunting for Debbie. I know that as well as you.”
Amos said thickly, “Forget all this. And you best lay clear like I tell you, too—if you don’t want Yellow Buckle to get away clean! Because I’m going in.”
“I got to be with you, then. In hopes I can stop you when that minute comes.”
“You know what that would take?”
“Yes; I do know. I’ve known for a long time.”
Amos turned in the saddle to look at him. “I believe you’d do it,” he decided. “I believe you’d kill me in the bat of an eye if it come to that.”
Mart said nothing. They rode in silence for a furlong more.
“Oh, by the way,” Amos said. “I got something for you here. I believe you better have it now. If so happens you feel I got to be gunned down, you might’s well have some practical reason. One everybody’s liable to understand.”
He rummaged in various pockets, and finally found a bit of paper, grease-marked and worn at the folds. He opened it to see if it was the right one; and the wind whipped at it as he handed it to Mart. The writing upon it was in ink.
Now know all men: I, Amos Edwards, being of sound mind, and without any known blood kin, do will that upon my death my just debts do first be paid. Whereafter, all else I own, be it in property, money, livestock, or rights to range, shall go to my foster nephew Martin Pauley, in rightful token of the help he has been to me, in these the last days of my life.
AMOS EDWARDS
Beside the signature was a squiggle representing a seal, and the signatures of the witnesses, Aaron Mathison and Laura E. Mathison. He didn’t know what the “E” stood for; he had never even known Laurie had a middle name. But he knew Amos had fixed him. This act of kindness, with living witnesses to it, could be Mart’s damnation if he had to turn on Amos. He held out the paper to Amos for him to take back.
“Keep hold of it,” Amos said. “Come in handy if the Comanches go through my pockets before you.”
“It don’t change anything,” Mart said bleakly. “I’ll do what I have to do.”
“I know.”
They rode four hours more. At mid-afternoon Amos held up his hand, and they stopped. The rolling ground hid what ever was ahead but now they heard the far-off barking of dogs.
Chapter Thirty-five
Yellow Buckle’s village was strung out for a considerable distance along a shallow river as yet unnamed by white men, but called by Indians the Wild Dog. The village was a lot bigger than the Texans had expected. Counting at a glance, as cattle are counted, Mart believed he saw sixty-two lodges. Probably it would be able to turn out somewhere between a hundred fifty and two hundred warriors, counting old men and youths.
They were seen at a great distance, and the usual scurrying about resulted all down the length of the village. Soon a party of warriors began to build up just outside. They rode bareback, with single-rope war bridles on the jaws of their ponies, and their weapons were in their hands. A few headdresses and medicine shields showed among them, but none had tied up the tails of their ponies, as they did when a fight was expected. This group milled about, but not excitedly, until twenty or so had assembled, then flowed into a fairly well-dressed line, and advanced at a walk to meet the white men. Meanwhile three or four scouts on fast ponies swung wide, and streaked in the direction from which Mart and Amos had come to make sure that the two riders were alone.
“Seem kind of easy spooked,” Mart said, “don’t they?”
“I wouldn’t say so. Times have changed. They’re getting fought back at now. Seems to me they act right cocky, and sure.”
The mounted line halted fifty yards in front of them. A warrior in a buffalo-horn headdress drew out two lengths, and questioned them in sign language: “Where have you come from? What do you want? What do you bring?” The conventional things.
And Amos gave conventional answers. “I come very far, from beyond the Staked Plains. I want to make talk. I have a message for Yellow Buckle. I have gifts.”
A Comanche raced his pony back into the village, and the spokesman faked other questions, meaninglessly, while he waited for instructions. By the time his runner was back from the village, the scouts had signaled from far out that the strangers appeared to be alone, and all was well up to here. The two riders were escorted into the village through a clamoring horde of cur dogs, all with small heads and the souls of gadflies; and halted before a tepee with the black smoke flaps of a chief’s lodge.
Presently a stocky, middle-aged Comanche came out, wrapped himself in a blanket, and stood looking them over. He was weaponless, but had put on no headdress or decoration of any kind. This was a bad sign, and the slouchy way he stood was another. Amos’ gestures were brusque as he asked if this man called himself Yellow Buckle and the chief gave the least possible acknowledgment.
Visitors were supposed to stay in the saddle until invited to dismount, but Yellow Buckle did not give the sign. He’s making this too plain, Mart thought. He wants us out of here, and in a hurry, but he ought to cover up better than this. Mart felt Amos anger. The tension increased until it seemed to ring as Amos dismounted without invitation, walked within two paces of the chief, and looked him up and down.
Yellow Buckle looked undersized with Amos looming over him. He had the short bandy legs that made most Comanches unimpressive on the ground, however effective they might be when once they put hands to their horses. He remained expressionless, and met Amos’ eyes steadily. Mart stepped down and stood a little in back of Amos, and to the side. Getting a closer look at this chief, Mart felt his scalp stir. A thin line, like a crease, ran from the corner of the Comanche’s left eye to the line of the jaw, where no natural wrinkle would be. They were standing before the mythical, the long-hunted, the forever elusive Chief Scar!
The Indian freed one arm, and made an abrupt sign that asked what they wanted. Amos’ short answer was all but contemptuous. “I do not stand talking in the wind,” his hands said.
For a moment more the Comanche chief stood like a post. Amos had taken a serious gamble in that he had left himself no alternatives. If Yellow Buckle— Scar—told him to get out, Amos would have no way to stay, and no excuse for coming back. After that he could only ride to meet the Rangers, and guide them to the battle that would destroy Scar and most of the people with him. It’s what he wants, Mart thought. I have to stay if Amos rides out of here. I have to make what try I can, never mind what Amos does.
But now Scar smiled faintly, with a gleam in his eye that Mart neither understood nor liked, but which might have contained derision. He motioned Amos to follow him, and went into the tepee.
“See they keep their hands off the mule packs,” Amos said, tossing Mart his reins.
Mart let the split reins falls. “Guard these,” he said in Comanche to the warrior who had been spokesman. The Comanche looked blank but Mart turned his back on him, and followed Amos. The door flap dropped in his face; he struck it aside with annoyance, and went inside.
A flicker of fire in the middle of the lodge, plus a seepage of daylight from the smoke flap at the peak, left the lodge shadowy. The close air carried a sting of wood smoke, scented with wild-game stew, buffalo hides, and the faintly musky robe smell of Indians. Two chunky squaws and three younger females had been stirred into a flurry by Amos’ entrance, but they were settling down as Mart came in. Mart gave the smallest of these, a half-grown girl, a brief flick of attention, without looking directly at her but even out of the corner of his eye he could see that her shingled thatch was black, and as coarse as a pony’s tail.
Women were supposed to keep out of the councils of warriors, unless called to wait on the men. But the two squaws now squatted on their piled robes on the honor side of the lodge, where Scar’s grown sons should have been, and the three younger ones huddled deep in the shadows opposite. Mart realized that they must have jumped up to get out of there, and that Scar had told them to stay. This was pretty close to insult, the more so since Scar did not invite the white men to sit down.
Scar himself stood opposite the door beyond the fire. He shifted his blanket, wrapping it skirtlike around his waist; and his open buckskin shirt exposed a gold brooch in the form of a bow of ribbon, hung around his neck on a chain. In all likelihood his present name, assumed midway of his career, commemorated some exploit
with which this brooch was associated.
Amos waited stolidly, and finally Scar was forced to address them. He knew them now, he told them in smooth-running sign language. “You,” he said, indicating Amos, “are called Bull Shoulders. And this boy,” he dismissed Mart, “is The Other.”
Amos’ hands lied fluently in answer. He had heard of a white man called Bull Shoulders, but the Chickasaws said Bull Shoulders was dead. He himself was called Plenty Mules. His friends, the Quohadas, so named him. He was a subchief among the Comanchero traders beyond the Staked Plains. His boss was called the Rich One. Real name—“Jaime Rosas,” Amos used his voice for the first time.
“You are Plenty Mules,” Yellow Buckle’s hands conceded, while his smile expressed a contrary opinion. “A Comanchero. This—” he indicated Mart— “is still The Other. His eyes are made of mussel shells, and he sees in the dark.”
“This—” Amos contradicted him again—“is my son. His Indian name is No-Speak.”
Mart supposed this last was meant to convey an order.
The Rich One, Amos went on in sign language, had many-heap rifles. (It was that sign itself, descriptive of piles and piles, that gave Indians the word “heap” for any big quantity, when they picked up white men’s words.) He wanted horses, mules, horned stock, for his rifles. He had heard of Yellow Buckle. He had been told—here Amos descended to flattery—that Yellow Buckle was a great horse thief, a great cow thief—a fine sneak thief of every kind. Yellow Buckle’s friend had said that.
“What friend?” Scar’s hands demanded.
“The Flower,” Amos signed.
“The Flower,” Scar said, “has a white wife.”
No change of pace or mood showed in the movement of Scar’s hands, drawing classically accurate pictographs in the air, as he said that. But Mart’s hair stirred and all but crackled; the smoky air in the lodge had suddenly become charged, like a thunder-head. Out of the corner of his eye Mart watched the squaws to see if Scar’s remark meant anything to them in their own lives, here. But the eyes of the Comanche women were on the ground; he could not see their down-turned faces, and they had not seen the sign.