“Hello,” Faith whispered. “Who are you?”
He murmured something in Comanche.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand your language, any more than you do mine,” she said. Was he her captor’s son? But somehow she didn’t think so. He had probably only come to satisfy his curiosity about the white captive. He’d probably never seen a white woman before—or perhaps he had, and he knew what would happen to her. If only she could talk to him!
Was this the same band whose braves Gil had encountered? Had the same savage who had seized her from the road and struck her when she tried to resist been one of those who’d chased Gil?
Now she’d never get to tell Gil of her regained faith, never get to kiss him, never hold his child... She felt a tear trickle down her face despite her resolve to remain stoic in front of this boy.
“Oh, Gil...” She was not aware of speaking aloud until she saw the spark of interest in the boy’s black-as-midnight eyes.
“Geel,” he repeated. “Geel.”
Then the boy uttered a spate of Comanche words. He reached some distance above him, then leveled his hand, as if indicating height. He put his hands together, as if praying.
Faith’s jaw dropped. “Did you meet Gil?” she breathed. “Was he here?”
As if he could understand her. He was merely parroting her word. You’ll have to learn English from someone else, child, Faith thought. I may not live long enough to teach you.
“Gil,” she said again.
The boy stared at her, then made two circles with his thumbs and forefingers, and placed them over his eyes—like spectacles. He smiled at her.
“You’ve met Gil,” she said. Had this boy ridden with the braves who had attacked Gil? Dear God... Could she somehow get the boy to try to find Gil and bring him here? But how was she to convey that idea?
“I am Faith,” she said, pointing to herself. “Faith.”
“Fait,” the boy repeated. Perhaps they had no “th” sound in Comanche.
Before they could say anything more, however, the tepee flap was opened again and her captor reentered. As soon as he straightened, he saw the boy and snapped something at him, his voice both angry and scornful.
Without a backward glance, the Comanche boy scampered from the tepee.
* * *
It was dusk by the time Gil and Mr. Bennett reached the Brookfield ranch, only to be told that Faith had left the place hours ago and should have been home by midafternoon. The blood drained from Mr. Bennett’s and Milly Brookfield’s faces. Gil’s blood turned to ice in his veins.
Bennett groaned, “Merriwell’s caught her, then. What are we going to do now?”
“We don’t know it was Merriwell,” Gil reminded him, not wanting to panic the man or Milly Brookfield. “Perhaps her horse went lame and she had to stop in at one of the ranches along the way.”
But Faith’s father wasn’t willing to be reassured. “Dear God, no...”
“You think Yancey Merriwell took her?” Milly demanded. “While she was here, Faith told me what he’d done to that poor saloon girl.”
Milly took a fortifying breath, then continued. “I told Faith to let one of the men ride back with her, but she wouldn’t listen, said she wanted to be alone...we’d been talking, you see, and...” Her voice trailed off, and she darted an uneasy glance at Faith’s father, who looked as if he might pass out, too.
“Mr. Bennett, let’s go inside. Let me get you some water,” she said, firmly taking the older man by the arm. With Gil’s help, she shepherded Faith’s father inside the ranch house.
“Can I borrow a fresh horse?” Gil asked in a low voice, once they had Mr. Bennett sitting in an armchair with a glass of water.
“Of course,” she said.
“Where are you going?” demanded Bennett, still looking too pale for Gil’s comfort. “I’m coming, too. It’s my daughter—” He winced then and placed his open palm over his chest.
“No, you’re not, Mr. Bennett, you’re obviously exhausted. I can go faster without you,” Gil said kindly but firmly. “You can ride back in the buggy in the morning.”
“But it’s pitch-black out there,” Milly said. “At least wait until first light.”
“There’s a moon. I can follow the road well enough if you’ll lend me a lantern, too, Miss Milly,” he told her. “By the time I get home, check on Papa and let Mrs. Bennett know her husband is resting here, it’ll be dawn. I’ll leave word at the jail that we didn’t find Faith here, but that you’re all right. Better bring your men in close because we really don’t know what happened.” Gil knew from the look in Milly’s eyes that she’d already intended to do just that.
“And then what? You’ll join a search party?” Bennett asked.
Gil nodded. There was strength in numbers. He’d kill Merriwell himself if he’d harmed a hair on Faith’s head.
* * *
Runs Like a Deer stood outside the tepee, wondering what to do. He’d heard enough of Black Coyote Heart’s boasting to know that he considered the white eyes woman his to either keep as a captive or kill, as his whim dictated. Being a captive, one who might eventually marry a warrior and became one of the people herself, would not be a bad fate for a woman, he mused. There was no finer life than that of the People—free as the wind, moving from place to place as they wished, at one with nature and the Great Spirit... He’d seen male captives in this band and others on the staked plains become Comanches, too, some of them fiercer than their adopted tribe.
But he also knew Black Coyote Heart’s spirit—it was as dark as his name. He would not treat the white woman fairly, rewarding obedience with increasing trust. He would abuse her, and on a whim, kill her if it suited him. He’d heard the other braves egging Black Coyote Heart on to tie the woman to a pole and do the scalp dance.
Panther Claw Scars would not intervene, even though the boy knew the chief preferred that his band not take captives from the whites. Mexican captives were safer—their people would not ride over the Big Long River to save them for fear of the Texans. But the taking of captives was a long, honorable tradition among the people, and in any case, the boy suspected the old chief was a little bit intimidated by Black Coyote Heart in the absence of his medicine man, Makes Healing. He would not forbid Black Coyote Heart to do as he wished with the white woman.
This woman knew Gil, the white holy man. Perhaps she was even his woman. And Gil had been kind to him, speaking in a fatherly tone and courageously helping him return to his tribe—at his own expense, as it turned out. Gil would not want this woman to be tortured and killed. He would want her back.
But Runs Like a Deer did not know where to locate Gil, the white holy man. He wouldn’t be able to find him even if he was brave enough to ride his pony into the closest white eyes’ town, and they might take him captive and torture him.
He had to go get his father to intervene. Makes Healing was on a spiritual retreat, and he had not disclosed where he would be meditating. In all likelihood he hadn’t even known himself when he’d left. But it didn’t matter. Runs Like a Deer would have to find him.
He would mount his pony and leave at dawn, telling no one where he was going.
* * *
His father was already sitting in the kitchen with his Bible in front of him when Gil arrived back. Quickly Gil explained that Faith wasn’t at Milly’s, so he was going to find the sheriff and form a search party to look for her.
The old man seized Gil’s hand and stared up with that keen, penetrating gaze of his, and for a moment father and son just stared deeply into one another’s eyes. Then his father pulled downward on Gil’s hand, and Gil knew his father wanted him to kneel.
He felt his father’s hand on his head. The old man’s prayer was silent, but Gil knew the old man was praying for his son’s protection and success in finding F
aith.
“Thank you, Papa,” he said, when the hand was lifted from his head. “Try not to worry about me.”
The old man shook his head and smiled faintly. “No...I pr-pray.”
Gil straightened. “Where’s Mrs. Bennett?”
His father pointed toward the parlor. “Sleep.”
Gil strode into the parlor and found her asleep on the horsehair sofa, covered with her shawl. Gently he woke the woman, wishing he had better news to tell her.
The woman sprang awake at his light touch. “I can’t believe I dozed off, Reverend. You didn’t find Faith with Milly?” she said, her eyes desperate and wild.
He shook his head and explained he was going to form a search party. “Your husband is spending the night at Mrs. Brookfield’s ranch,” he added. “He was done in, so I suggested he wait till morning to drive the buggy back.”
“But—”
“I’ll look till I find her, Mrs. Bennett,” Gil promised. “We’ll ride out as soon as it’s light.” A glance outside the window revealed the first faint graying of the dark. That wouldn’t be long, and he had to get a fresh horse.
“Please, Reverend,” Mrs. Bennett begged, fresh tears streaming down her face. “I can’t bear to think of what that monster Merriwell might do to my little girl!”
“With God’s help, we’ll find them,” he promised again. “Please keep praying.”
“Oh, I will, of course. Go with God, Reverend,” Mrs. Bennett said. “Take some of my biscuits with you on the trail. You...you have a gun?”
He nodded. “Miss Milly wouldn’t let me leave without one,” he said, then left to go wake Sheriff Bishop.
In an hour, they rode out—Gil, Sheriff Bishop, Dr. Walker, Jack Collier, who’d been told of Faith’s being missing by Milly and had brought a couple of his ranch hands, and Andy Calhoun from the livery. Bishop left his deputy at the jail in case some sort of ransom demand was brought there.
Gil prayed they weren’t too late to save her. And that he’d be able to conquer his urge to kill the Georgian when they caught up to him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Faith woke with a cramp in her left calf, but still bound hand and foot, she could do nothing but endure the stabbing pain. She gritted her teeth so she would not cry out and awaken the snoring Comanche woman sleeping a few feet away from her. Finally the spasm passed, leaving her with nothing to do but imagine what would happen today.
It might be her last day on earth. A tear slid down her cheek at the thought.
She had wandered far from the Lord, and had only made the first few steps back toward Him. She hadn’t had a chance to do anything that would make her worthy of forgiveness.
Gil had said that if she believed in God, she would see her brother in Heaven. But had the prayer she prayed been enough that He would forgive her for her past faithlessness? She still had so many questions—questions she’d planned to ask Gil the next time she could speak with him alone, and now she would never have the chance. She would never get the chance to show him how much she loved him, or what a worthy wife she could be for a preacher.
By now, she figured, it would have been discovered that she was missing. Someone would have ridden out to the Brookfield ranch to see if she’d merely stayed the night with Milly, and a search would have begun. Was Gil part of the search party? Was her father?
Her parents would be worried sick. She remembered what her father had told her about his heart, and her anxiety kicked up several notches. Would the stress of fearing for his daughter cause a fatal heart seizure? Her father did love her—she knew that now. True, he’d been clumsy at showing it for some time after Eddie had died, and he’d taken her for granted many times, but she’d begun to realize her father’s quiet pride in her when she’d begun helping him more at the newspaper office after Merriwell fled.
Her poor mother—losing daughter and husband at the same time.
Or this might be her first day of a long and miserable captivity. Gil and her family would never find her, for the Comanche camp was well hidden. How long had they existed here, with no one in Simpson Creek the wiser? And they wouldn’t stay here forever, wherever here was. The Comanches were a roaming people and would move on whenever they felt like it.
Then she became aware that the Comanche woman’s eyes were open, and staring at her across the floor of the tepee.
Once again, she was taken out to see to her needs, then given pemmican and water. Faith hoped this meant they did not intend to kill her today, for surely they wouldn’t waste food on her if she was to die within hours.
Then she was tied back up, and spent an endless day where she could do nothing but stare at the tepee wall or at a rotating group of women guards, who alternated staring back at her with scraping the flesh from hides, sewing pieces of tanned leather together into clothing, or stitching beading onto new moccasins.
Twice, the big brave who had captured her came in and stared at her, his eyes greedy and threatening, and she closed her eyes until she heard him leave. Once, she heard what she thought was his voice, raised in angry discussion outside her tent.
She spent the hours praying, napping and wondering what Gil and her parents were doing and what would happen to her.
* * *
Gil and the other men of the search party camped on the banks of the Colorado River that night, tired, saddle-sore and discouraged. They’d ridden miles in every direction around Simpson Creek and the rest of San Saba County and had found no trace of Faith or Yancey Merriwell, nor had anyone they encountered seen them.
“We’ll split up in the morning and go farther,” Bishop said, as they ate whatever food they’d been able to pack and bring along. “Half of us will go north, half south—”
He stopped as the braying of a mule and the creaking of wagon wheels announced the arrival of a newcomer, a bearded mule skinner hauling freight.
“Mind if I share yore fire, gents?” the mule skinner asked. “Got my own grub, but I wouldn’t mind some company, after what happened t’day a coupla miles southeast a’ here.”
“And what would that be?” Bishop inquired, gesturing that the mule skinner could come in and join them.
“Comanches burned a ranch, killin’ every soul there and drivin’ off their stock. So ya see why I ain’t hankerin’ t’camp alone. What’re you fellows out fer?”
Gil barely listened as the sheriff explained their purpose, for the mule skinner’s mention of an Indian raid had sent a chill skittering down Gil’s spine.
What if Faith had been taken not by Merriwell, but by Comanches? The possibility that Merriwell’s recent flight had nothing to do with Faith’s disappearance on the way back from the Brookfield ranch had occurred to him before he joined the search party, but the rest of them had concluded Merriwell was the most likely culprit.
The longer Gil sat there, eating what Mrs. Bennett had packed for him while he listened to the mule skinner talk about the carnage he’d seen at the burned ranch, the surer he became that Faith had been taken by Comanches, not Merriwell. And he knew what he had to do.
Bishop looked thoughtful as the search party considered how the mule skinner’s report might affect their plan.
“Those redskins can travel like the wind,” Andy Calhoun said. “They could be fifty miles or more away by now.”
“Not if they’re driving cattle,” Jack Collier said.
“But they might have split up,” one of his ranch hands suggested. Faces around the campfire were somber as they all realized the very real possibility that Faith Bennett might be an Indian captive and never found.
“I’ll need a man to ride back to town at sunup and have my deputy contact the cavalry—they need to know what we just found out. We’ll keep searching, but if Miss Faith is a Comanche captive, they have a far better chance of rescuing her than we
do.”
“I’ll go,” Gil said.
Bishop nodded, probably figuring a preacher not used to hard riding was the man they could most easily spare. “Let’s all get some shut-eye, then.”
Gil would have liked to leave right then, but he had no lantern to light his way as he had had the night he rode to town from the Brookfield ranch. And every bone and muscle he possessed screamed with exhaustion. He needed to sleep if he could, so when tomorrow came, he could do as he’d told Bishop he would, then get a fresh horse and ride off to where his heart told him Faith would be.
* * *
The next morning began as the previous one had, but as soon as she had broken her fast with the inevitable pemmican, she was yanked out of the tepee and lashed to the post in the middle of the camp.
Hours later, Faith winced as yet another round-faced Comanche woman poked at her with a sharpened stick in passing, then ducked as much as the leather thongs binding her to the pole would allow when the woman’s bright-eyed child chucked a handful of pebbles at her. One caught Faith on the cheek in spite of her efforts, and she bit her lip against the stinging pain.
Most of the tribe went about their business, however, merely giving her sidelong, opaque glances from time to time. There was no brush piled up around her feet as if they meant to burn her, at least yet. Perhaps the purpose of leaving her tied to the pole was to provide humiliation and distress for the captive and a source of amusement for the women and children—before escalating the torment.
Faith faced another post stuck in the ground. It was sharpened to a point at the top, and just below the point several scalps were impaled. She did everything she could not to look at that hideous sight, and hoped none of the victims had been people she knew. Please, Lord, protect the people of Simpson Creek, especially Gil, Mama, Papa and all the Spinsters’ Club.
She’d been tied to the pole since early morning and not been given food or water since shortly after sunrise. The inside of her mouth felt dry as the middle of a haystack. Her head pounded dully as the summer sun beat down on her. At first, she’d been clammy with perspiration beneath her long-sleeved shirt and heavy skirt, but her sweating had ceased, and she could feel her skin of her scalp and cheeks being scorched with sunburn.
The Preacher's Bride (Brides of Simpson Creek) Page 21