by Alan Lemay
White wife. Amos made the throw-away sign. The Rich One did not trade for squaws. If the Yellow Buckle wanted rifles, he must bring horses. Many-heaps horses. No small deals. Or maybe—and this was sarcasm—Yellow Buckle did not need rifles. Plenty Mules could go find somebody else.... Amos was giving a very poor imitation of a man trying to make a trade with an Indian. But perhaps it was a good imitation of a man who had been sent with this offer, but who would prefer to make his deal elsewhere to his own purposes.
Scar seemed puzzled; he did not at once reply. Behind the Comanche, Mart could see the details of trophies and accoutrements, now that his eyes were accustomed to the gloom. Scar’s medicine shield was there. Mart wondered if it bore, under its masking cover, a design he had seen at the Fight at the Cat-tails long ago. Above the shield hung Scar’s short lance, slung horizontally from the lodgepoles. Almost a dozen scalps were displayed upon it, and less than half of them looked like the scalps of Indians. The third scalp from the tip of the lance had long wavy hair of a deep red-bronze. It was a white woman’s scalp, and the woman it had belonged to must have been beautiful. The squaws had kept this scalp brushed and oiled, so that it caught red glints from the wavering fire. But Scar’s lance bore none of the pale fine hair that had been Martha’s, nor the bright gold that had been Lucy’s hair.
Scar turned his back on them while he took two slow, thoughtful steps toward the back of the lodge and in that moment, while Scar was turned away from them, Mart felt eyes upon his face, as definitely as if a finger touched his cheek. His glance flicked to the younger squaws on the women’s side of the lodge.
He saw her then. One of the young squaws wore a black head cloth, covering all of her hair and tied under her chin; it was a commonplace thing for a squaw to wear, but it had sufficed to make her look black-headed like the others in the uncertain light. Now this one had looked up, and her eyes were on his face in an unwavering stare, as a cat stares; and the eyes were green and slanted, lighter than the deeply tanned face. They were the most startling eyes he had ever seen in his life, strangely cold, impersonal yet inimical, and as hard as glass. But this girl was Debbie.
The green eyes dropped as Scar turned toward the strangers again and Mart’s own eyes were straight ahead when the Comanche chief looked toward them.
Where were the rifles? Scar’s question came at last.
Beyond the Staked Plains, Amos answered him. Trading must be there.
Another wait, while Mart listened to the ringing in his ears.
Too far, Scar said. Let the Rich One bring his rifles here.
Amos filled his lungs, stood tall, and laughed in Scar’s face. Mart saw the Comanche’s eyes narrow but after a moment he seated himself cross-legged on his buffalo robes under the dangling scalps and the shield. “Sit down,” he said in Comanche, combining the words with the sign.
Amos ignored the invitation. “I speak no more now,” he said, using his voice for the second time. His Comanche phrasings were slow and awkward but easily understood. “Below this village I saw a spring. I camp there, close by the Wild Dog River. Tomorrow, if you wish to talk, find me there. I sleep one night wait one day. Then I go.”
“You spoke of gifts,” Yellow Buckle reminded him.
“They will be there.” He turned and, without concession to courtesy, he said in English, “Come on, No-Speak.” And Mart followed him out.
Chapter Thirty-six
Pringles ran up and down Mart’s back as they rode out of that village with the cur dogs bawling and blaspheming again all around them, just beyond kick-range of their horses’ feet. But until they were out of there they had to move unhurriedly, as if at peace and expecting peace. Even their eyes held straight ahead, lest so much as an exchange of glances be mis-read as a trigger for trouble.
Amos spoke first, well past the last of the lodges. “Did you see her?... Yeah,” he answered himself. “I see you did.” His reaction to the sudden climax of their search seemed to be the opposite of what Mart had expected. Amos seemed steadied, and turned cool.
“She’s alive,” Mart said. It seemed about the only thing his mind was able to think. “Can you realize it? Can you believe it? We found her, Amos!”
“Better start figuring how to stay alive yourself. Or finding her won’t do anybody much good.”
That was what was taking all the glory, all the exultation, out of their victory. They had walked into a hundred camps where they could have handled this situation, dangerous though it must always be. White captives had been bought and sold before time and again. Any Indian on earth but Scar would have concealed the girl, and played for time, until they found a way to deal.
“How in God’s name,” Mart asked him, “can this thing be? How could he let us walk into the lodge where she was? And keep her there before our eyes?”
“He meant for us to see her, that’s all!”
“This is a strange Comanche,” Mart said.
“This whole hunt has been a strange thing. And now we know why. Mart, did you see—there’s scarce a Comanch’ in that whole village we haven’t seen before.”
“I know.”
“We’ve even stood in that same one lodge before. Do you know where?”
“When we talked to Singing Dog on the Little Boggy.”
“That’s right. We talked to Singing Dog in Scar’s own lodge—while Scar took the girl and hid out. That’s how they’ve kept us on a wild-goose chase five years long. They’ve covered up, and decoyed for him, every time we come near.”
“We’ve caught up to him now!”
“Because he let us. Scar’s learned something few Indians ever know: He’s learned there’s such a thing as a critter that never quits follering or gives up. So he’s had enough. If we stood in the same lodge with her, and didn’t know her, well and good. But if we were going to find her, he wanted to see us do it.”
“So he saw—I suppose.”
“I think so. He has to kill us, Mart.”
“Bluebonnet didn’t think he had to kill us.”
“He never owned to having a white girl until Jaime Rosas made him a safe deal. And down there below the Llanos we was two men alone. Up here, we got Rangers, we got yellowlegs, to pull down on Scar. We rode square into the pocket where he was figuring to set until Davidson marched, and all soldiers was long gone. Scar don’t dast let us ride loose with the word.”
“Why’d he let us walk out of there at all?”
“I don’t know,” Amos said honestly. “Something tied his hands. If we knew what it was we could stretch it. But we don’t know.” Amos bent low over the horn to look back at the village under his arm. “They’re holding fast so far. Might even let us make a pass at settling down at the spring....”
But neither believed the Comanches would wait for night. Scar was a smart Indian, and a bitter one. The reason his squaws were on the honor side of the lodge where his sons should be was that Scar’s sons were dead, killed in war raids upon the likes of Mart and Amos. He would take no chances of a slip-up in the dark.
“We’ll make no two mistakes,” Amos said, and his tone was thoughtful. “They got some fast horses there. You saw them scouts whip up when they took a look at our back trail. Them’s racing ponies. And they got nigh two hours of daylight left.”
They reached the spring without sign of pursuit, and dismounted. Here they had a good three-furlong start, and would be able to see horses start from the village when the Comanches made their move. They would not, of course, be able to see warriors who ran crouching on foot, snaking on their bellies across open ground. But the Comanches hated action afoot. More probably they would try to close for the kill under pretense of bringing fresh meat, perhaps with squaws along as a blind. Or the Comanches might simply make a horse race of it. The fast war ponies would close their three-eighths-mile lead very easily, with even half an hour of daylight left. Some Indians were going to be killed but there could hardly be but one end.
They set to work on the one thin ruse t
hey could think of. Mart kicked a fire together first—about the least token of a fire that would pass for one at all— and set it alight. Then they stripped saddles and packs. They would have to abandon these, in order to look as though they were not going any place. Bridles were left on the horses, and halters on the mules.
“We’ll lead out,” Amos said, “like hunting for the best grass. Try to get as much more lead as we can without stirring ’em up. First minute any leave the village, we’ll ease over a ridge, mount bareback— stampede the mules. Split up, of course—ride two ways—”
“We’ll put up a better fight if we stay together,” Mart objected.
“Yeah. We’d kill more Indians that way. There’s no doubt of it. But a whole lot more than that will be killed if one of us stays alive until dark—and makes Camp Radziminski.”
“Wait a minute,” Mart said. “If we lead the yellowlegs on ’em—or even the Rangers, with the Tonkawas they got—there’ll be a massacre, Amos! This village will be gutted out.”
“Yes,” Amos said.
“They’ll kill her—you know that! You saw it at Deadhorse Bend!”
“If I didn’t think so,” Amos said, “I’d have killed her myself.”
There was the substance of their victory after all this long time: One bitter taste of death, and then nothing more, forever.
“I won’t do this,” Mart said.
“What?”
“She’s alive. That means everything to me. Better she’s alive and living with Indians than her brains bashed out.”
A blaze of hatred lighted Amos’ eyes, while his face was still a mask of disbelief. “I can’t believe my own ears,” he said.
“I say there’ll be no massacre while she’s in that village! Not while I can stop it, or put it off!”
Amos got control of his voice. “What do you want to do?”
“First we got to live out the night. That I know and agree to. Beyond that, I don’t know. Maybe we got to come at Scar some far way round. But we stay together. Because I’m not running to the troops, Amos. And neither are you.”
Amos’ voice was half choked by the congestion of blood in his neck. “You think the likes of you could stop me?”
Mart pulled out the bit of paper upon which the will was written, in which Amos left Mart all he had. He tore it slowly into shreds, and laid them on the fire. “Yes,” he said, “I’ll stop you.”
Amos was silent for a long time. He stood with his shoulders slack, and his big hands hanging loose by his thighs, and he stared into space. When finally he spoke his voice was tired. “All right. We’ll stay together through the night. After that, we’ll see. I can’t promise no more.”
“That’s better. Now let’s get at it!”
“I’m going to tell you something,” Amos said. “I wasn’t going to speak of it. But if we fight, you got to murder all of ’em you can. So I’ll tell you now. Did you notice them scalps strung on Scar’s lance?”
“I was in there, wasn’t I?”
“They ain’t there,” Mart said. “Not Martha’s. Not Lucy’s. Not even Brad’s. Let’s—”
“Did you see the third scalp from the point of the lance?”
“I saw it.”
“Long, wavy. A red shine to it—”
“I saw it, I told you! You’re wasting—”
“You didn’t remember it. But I remember.” Amos’ voice was harsh, and his eyes bored into Mart’s eyes, as if to drive the words into his brain. “That was your mother’s scalp!”
No reason for Mart to doubt him. His mother’s scalp was somewhere in a Comanche lodge, if a living Indian still possessed it. Certainly it was not in her grave. Amos let him stand there a moment, while his unremembered people became real to him—his mother, with the pretty hair, his father, from whom he got his light eyes, his young sisters, Ethel and Becky, who were just names. He knew what kind of thing their massacre had been, because he had seen the Edwards place, and the people who had raised him, after the same thing happened there.
“Let’s lead off,” Amos said.
But before they had gone a rod, the unexpected stopped them. A figure slipped out the willows by the creek, and a voice spoke. Debbie was there— alone, so far as they could see she had materialized as an Indian does, without telltale sound of approach.
She moved a few halting steps out of the willow scrub, but stopped as Mart came toward her. He walked carefully, watching for movement in the thicket behind her. Behind him he heard the metallic crash as Amos chambered a cartridge. Amos had sprung onto a hummock, exposing himself recklessly while his eyes swept the terrain.
Mart was at four paces when Debbie spoke, urgently, in Comanche. “Don’t come too close. Don’t touch me! I have warriors with me.”
He had remembered the voice of a child, but what he was hearing was the soft-husky voice of a grown woman. Her Comanche was fluent, indistinguishable from that of the Indians, yet he thought he had never heard that harsh and ugly tongue sound uglier. He stopped six feet from her; one more inch, he felt, and she would have bolted. “Where are they, then?” he demanded. “Let ’em stand up and be counted, if they’re not afraid!”
Mystification came into her face; she stared at him with blank eyes. Suddenly he realized that he had spoken in a rush of English—and she no longer understood. The lost years had left an invisible mutilation as definite as if fingers were missing from her hand. “How many warriors?” he asked in gruff Comanche; and everything they said to each other was in Comanche after that.
“Four men are with me.”
His eyes jumped then, and swept wide; and though he saw nothing at all, he knew she might be telling the truth. If she had not come alone, he had to find out what was happening here, and quick. Their lives might easily depend upon their next guess. “What are you doing here?” he asked harshly.
“My—” He heard a wary hesitancy, a testing of words before they were spoken. “My—father—told me come.”
“Your what?”
“Yellow Buckle is my father.”
While he stared at her, sure he must have misunderstood the Comanche words, Amos put in. “Keep at her! Scar sent her all right. We got to know why!”
Watching her, Mart was sure Debbie had understood none of Amos’ Texan English. She tried to hurry her stumbling tale. “My father—he believes you. But some others—they know. They tell him— you were my people once.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I tell him I don’t know. I must come here. Make sure. I tell him I must come.”
“You told him nothing like that,” he contradicted her in Comanche. “He smash your mouth, you say ‘must’ to him!”
She shook her head. “No. No. You don’t know my father.”
“We know him. We call him Scar.”
“My father—Scar—” she accepted his name for the chief—“He believes you. He says you are Comancheros. Like you say. But soon—” she faltered— “soon he knows.”
“He knows now,” he contradicted her again. “You are lying to me!”
Her eyes dropped, and her hands hid themselves in her ragged wash-leather sleeves. “He says you are Comancheros,” she repeated. “He believes you. He told me. He—”
He had an exasperated impulse to grab her and shake her; but he saw her body tense. If he made a move toward her she would be gone in the same instant. “Debbie, listen to me! I’m Mart! Don’t you remember me?” He spoke just the names in English, and it was obvious that these two words were familiar to her.
“I remember you,” she said gravely, slowly, across the gulf between them. “I remember. From always.”
“Then stop lying to me! You got Comanches with you—so you say. What do you want here if you’re not alone?”
“I come to tell you, go away! Go tonight. As soon as dark. They can stop you. They can kill you. But this one night—I make him let you go.”
“Make him?” He was so furious he stammered. “You make him? No squaw alive can
move Scar a hand span—you least of all!”
“I can,” she said evenly, meeting his eyes. “I am— bought. I am bought for—to be—for marriage. My— man—he pays sixty ponies. Nobody ever paid so much. I’m worth sixty ponies.”
“We’ll overcall that,” he said. “Sixty ponies! We’ll pay a hundred for you—a hundred and a half—”
She shook her head.
“My man—his family—”
“You own five times that many ponies yourself— you know that? We can bring them—many as he wants—and enough cattle to feed the whole tribe from here to—”
“My man would fight. His people would fight. They are very many. Scar would lose—lose everything.”
Comanche thoughts, Comanche words—a white woman’s voice and form …the meeting toward which he had worked for years had turned into a nightmare. Her face was Debbie’s face, delicately made, and now in the first bloom of maturity; but all expression was locked away from it. She held it wooden, facing him impassively, as an Indian faces a stranger. Behind the surface of this long-loved face was a Comanche squaw.
He spoke savagely, trying to break through to the Debbie of long ago. “Sixty ponies,” he said with contempt. “What good is that? One sleep with Indians— you’re a mare—a sow—they take what they want of you. Nothing you can do would turn Scar!”
“I can kill myself,” she said.
In the moment of silence, Amos spoke again. “String it out. No move from the village yet. Every minute helps.”
Mart looked into the hard green eyes that should have been lovely and dear to him; and he believed her. She was capable of killing herself, and would do it if she said she would. And Scar must know that. Was this the mysterious thing that had tied Scar’s hands when he let them walk away? An accident to a sold but undelivered squaw could cost Scar more than sixty ponies. It could cost him his chiefship, and perhaps his life.