He wasn’t even a good shot. But he had a way of coolly calculating the odds and pulling off audacious maneuvers. Legends were already being told about him. One of his Apache scouts once said to a friend, “You, me, we ride into hell together. Captain Jack, he ride into hell alone.”
Hays roamed the frontier, training men to follow him and to follow no one. He didn’t create an army. He created hundreds of them, each composed of one man. His Rangers tracked the Indians ruthlessly, finding their camps by the languid wreaths of vultures and crows that hung over them. The Rangers were officially an arm of the Texas government, but neither Hays nor his captains wore insignia of rank. “Chicken fixings” was what they called gold braid, when they were being polite. Hays had trained Ben McCulloch as one of the first Rangers. And now Ben was one of the best.
Ben went on searching the ground, reading it for more information. “Comanche. Not that there was much doubt. Just wanted to make sure.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Here’s a track of the foot. Short and stubby. That’s the way Comanche feet are, square as tobacco tins.”
“You are a wonder.”
“The wonder is that they got this far south with no one discovering them. I’d like to know who’s leading them. He’s brilliant.” But already Ben’s mind was churning over the next move. It would be suicidal to chase them and attack now. He had ten men with him. Even figuring the Comanche had their families with them, which they surely did. judging from the travois ruts, there must be at least five hundred braves. Ben knew his few men would be better deployed scattering through the countryside, rounding up recruits and warning people who might be in the Comanche’s path.
My God. No wonder they’ve been so quiet lately. Every Comanche in the country must be with this mob. They’ve even brought their dogs. McCulloch would never have believed that the Comanche could have gotten this many people together for a raid. But for once, he was wrong. Entire bands of the People often had raided a thousand miles into Mexico before the whites came and provided easy pickings closer to home. Now they were on the march again, the largest force any chief of the People had ever led against the whites, an avenging army in a war of extermination. Ben could picture the devastation they would find as they followed the war party. War army. This was no party.
Well, best get on with it. He’d try to round up as many men as he could. And when he ran out of reinforcements, he’d attack with what he had. There was no choice, and he never considered not attacking. It was his job and his way of life. It was what the Republic of Texas paid him a dollar a day to do. When he was paid at all.
“Shit!”
Wallace and McCulloch and Ford and the three dozen men they’d gathered stood around the body. Those in the rear craned to see. The man had been shot and scalped, of course. They were used to seeing that. It was his feet they were staring at. The soles had been sliced off. From the torn and lacerated flesh it was clear that he had been forced to run a long way on the flayed surfaces. He’d probably been tied behind a horse.
“What kind of people would do a thing like that?”
“Comanche, John.” There was a hint of exasperation in Wallace’s voice. “If you’d studied Indians the way you study that Bible of yours, you’d not ask that question.”
“You don’t have to study them very hard,” said McCulloch. “Just run across their handiwork now and then.”
“We’re going to be paying for the Council House stupidity a long time, aren’t we, Ben?” Noah Smithwick came up to stand with them. Ben nodded and turned to him.
“You lived with them for three months, Noah. And you were at the council when the chiefs decided to meet with Lamar’s gang. Who’s left to lead this bunch?”
Smithwick mulled it over. “Well, there was Santa Ana and one dried-up old geezer, Old Owl, and a big, fat chief who probably couldn’t find a horse to carry him. Pahayuca, I think his name is. The only other one was an ornery, snot-nosed kid. I don’t know if one of them is in charge here or someone else altogether. Spirit Talker said there were bands not represented at his council.”
“Save one bullet in your pistols,” Ben called over his shoulder as he mounted his weary horse. He didn’t have to say for whom they should save them. A few men started digging a hole for the body. They’d done a lot of digging and no fighting. Ben still didn’t know who was responsible for this sweep to the sea, but he was going to find out. He had put the word out to catch a live prisoner if possible, so he could question him. He checked off the list of those killed in San Antonio. Who was left? It was a mystery that nagged at him.
Each day the Rangers gathered more men and buried more dead. The Comanche leader, whoever he was, had formed his army into a huge, thin crescent, a scythe that mowed everything in its path as it moved relentlessly toward the coast. The people of Victoria were lucky to have gotten off with only fifteen killed. The Indians could easily have massacred the whole town, if they had been more adaptable. That might be the key. As brilliant as that chief was, he was stuck in the traditional way of doing things. He’d tried the old surround maneuver on the town. The medicine ring, riding in a circle around the victims, shouting and firing. It might work on a herd of buffalo, but stone walls didn’t stampede.
At least he had made one mistake. And he was bound to make more. For one thing, his retinue was becoming unwieldy. They must have stolen a couple thousand horses and mules, five hundred from the Mexican traders in Victoria alone. Those, added to the ones they’d brought with them, meant a lot of forage. And a column that moved slowly.
They were headed for Linnville on the coast, and there was little to stop them from taking it. There were no fortifications or even strong buildings in which to make a stand. There were only the homes and warehouses for the port that fed San Antonio’s appetite for gewgaws.
Buffalo Piss had led his army safely through the hill country and into the alien, swampy land of the coast. They had passed, hushed, through the gloomy tunnels of overarching live oaks hung with curtains of silvery-gray Spanish moss. The People had gathered the moss. The women would weave it into saddle pads, and the men would dry it as tinder for their pipes. They had all been scratching ever since as the tiny red bugs that nested in the moss crawled under their clothes and burrowed into their skin.
One of the dogs had been eaten by an alligator. Several people had come down with malaria and had to be sent back. But otherwise, they had traveled and raided unmolested. Not one man had been lost in battle.
As they neared the coast, the land flattened out and became veined with mangrove-lined rivers and tributaries. The live oaks dwindled in size and were punctuated with tall, spindly cabbage palms. The trees all leaned inland, twisted and sculpted by the prevailing winds from the gulf.
The low, flat land, the brushy scrub oak and palmettos, the sky and the distant town itself had a bleached, weathered look. The pale, gently curved shoreline lay along the blue water, the tiny waves licking at it lazily. Overhead the white August sun seemed to be trying to bleach everything to the same non-color. Even the people, Wanderer thought as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He could feel the heat, like flames from a campfire, toasting his back. Only the waters of the gulf refused to fade. They sparkled a brilliant, blinding blue in contrast to the land and sky.
Wanderer sat next to Buffalo Piss on a knoll outside the Texans’ wooden village. It was the highest point around. They could see the women lining up in the sand behind and below them, waving their arms, hooting and calling out to their men to bring them scalps and presents. Dressed in their finest, the warriors formed their battle wedge, their ponies restless in the steamy heat. The men looked toward Buffalo Piss and awaited his signal.
As he watched the young leader, Wanderer wondered when he had begun to change. Probably before they had left the main encampment, two weeks ago. The adulation would have been enough to turn anyone’s head. For an entire day the war party had paraded, chanting its war song. They had ridden, doub
le-file, through the huge camp. The women had lined their route, handing them pieces of clothing to carry as good luck, and promising them a warm bed when they returned. The celebration had lasted over a week. The People praised Buffalo Piss everywhere he went. He was their avenger, their weapon to regain lost glory. They believed he was invincible. And now he believed it himself.
To believe one’s medicine was powerful enough to make one indestructible was normal. But to believe it would make a thousand people indestructible was putting a great burden on one’s spirits. As the days and miles passed and the People stole and murdered, took captives and swept unchallenged toward the Big Water, Buffalo Piss had become less approachable. He was now more hostile to suggestions and criticisms from his captains.
Now Buffalo Piss raised his shield and dropped his other hand to the war whistle hanging on a thong against the elaborate bone bib that covered his chest. The whistle was made of an eagle’s wing bone and had been painted and decorated with a long, beaded pendant fringed with downy breast feathers. He blew a shrill blast on it, like the cry of an eagle, and dipped his shield at the same time. With a howl, the warriors urged their ponies forward and the wedge formation opened into wings as they raced toward the town.
Wanderer and Buffalo Piss spurred their horses after the men, all of whom were headed toward the first building on the outskirts of the settlement. One white man stood outside the customhouse door, a breechloader in his hands. He got off one shot before he was overwhelmed, but he went down swinging. The warriors trampled him as they leaped from their horses and tried to crowd through the doorway all at once.
Cruelest One came back out first, pushing upstream against those who were still trying to get in. His friends, Skinny And Ugly and Hunting A Wife, followed him. They dragged a woman with them, hauling her kicking and screaming outside where there was more room to maneuver. The customs office itself was pandemonium. Men were tearing open every chest and emptying every drawer. When they found only paper, they threw it and the furniture in destructive abandon. Buffalo Piss had told them that the white men’s goods entered Texas here, and he had promised them loot. All they found was paper.
Those who couldn’t get inside waited for Skinny And Ugly to finish stripping the woman. Many of them had never had a white woman, and they figured the town would still be there when they finished with her. Besides, she was beautiful, by anyone’s standards. She had hair like the sun, and although she was almost as buxom as one of the People, she had a waist like a wasp.
“Let’s see what she looks like under all that cloth.”
“Hurry up.”
Skinny And Ugly ignored them and tugged at the stubborn blouse while Hunting A Wife tried to figure out the complex row of tiny hooks and eyes that fastened it up the back. Cruelest One pushed Skinny And Ugly aside and pulled out his knife.
“Don’t kill her yet” said one of the men. “She’ll get cold before we all have a chance with her.” Cruelest One scowled around him. Pulling the cotton away from her body, he made a slit at the waist. He slashed the material up the front, between the soft swells of her breasts, and pulled at the edges, ripping the blouse apart. The woman no longer screamed or struggled. She had fainted, and hung limply between Hunting A Wife and Skinny And Ugly.
They began tearing at her skirts. Under her calico skirt she had several cotton petticoats, with flounces. The crowd moved in for a better view. Some of them jiggled their breechclouts, grinning in anticipation. Others began rubbing bear grease onto themselves so they would slide in easier. White women were delightfully tight, they’d heard, but dry. Of course, she wouldn’t be dry after the first few men had used her, but it never hurt to be prepared.
More cloth. Cruelest One tore the white linen chemisette with his strong, bony fingers, then stood back, puzzled. He studied her as she hung there between his two friends. In the middle of August, on the steaming Texas gulf coast, Mrs. Watts was securely strapped into a whalebone corset. Cruelest One reached out and yanked at the buckles and straps, lacings and hooks and eyes. Frustrated, he tried to cut the corset off, but his blade bounced off the bone strips encased in the cloth.
Wanderer galloped up a little ahead of Buffalo Piss, and headed toward the other buildings. He was curious to see if this was indeed the source of the good things the white people had. Buffalo Piss was in a foul mood. He knew Night was faster than his own war pony, but he never got used to the idea. He pulled his horse so sharply to a halt that he reared, spraying the men with sand and gravel.
“Leave that woman!” He was almost shrieking in fury. “Drop her. Throw her away. We came here to fight, not fuck.” Cruelest One turned and glowered at him, one hand still on the corset straps.
“I’ll leave when I’m finished here.” There was a quiet menace in his voice.
“Stay, then. But the rest of us will get the loot while you waste your time with that woman.” He yanked his horse around and set off at a gallop toward the center of Linnville. The others ran to their mounts and followed him, shrieking and howling. Skinny And Ugly, Cruelest One, and Hunting A Wife threw Mrs. Watts and her armor over the back of her own horse, tied her there, and set out after them.
As Wanderer and the first wave of warriors swept into Linnville, the townspeople fled out the other side. They raced to the beach and pushed off in anything that would float. The raid had lost its most important advantage, surprise, because of Mrs. Watts and her corset. As the disappointed warriors ran up and down the shore, they screamed and fired their guns at the precariously loaded boats bobbing in the gentle swell. The people of Linnville shouted insults back.
Wanderer cantered past the wharves with their piles of bundles and sacks, kegs and hogsheads, barrels and neat stacks of fresh, resinous lumber. There was a strong odor of tarred rope and raw cotton and burlap, rising with the heat. Some of the men were already breaking into the kegs and barrels, scattering flour and grain, coffee and bolts of cloth. Wanderer pulled Night to a stop at one of the weathered buildings near the docks.
The sturdiest part of the building was its double door of solid, six-inch oak. It had a huge beam across it, fastened in place with a heavy lock and chain. Wanderer pushed at the door with one hand and saw that he would never get in that way. He walked all the way around to the back of the warehouse, and pulled his war ax from its loop on his surcingle. The boards at the back of the building were flimsy enough to shoulder his way in if he wanted to. but he had left his shirt off in the heat, and he didn’t feel like pulling out splinters.
Soon he was joined by others, hacking and chopping and kicking with their moccasins until they had a hole big enough to ride a horse through. Sunlight streamed through the opening and played on the heaps of goods, piled to the ceiling. The first box Wanderer broke open held the new percussion breechloading carbines. He whooped, forgetting everything as he stared at the bright polish of their barrels. He handed them out to the others, keeping three for himself. He began smashing box after box, searching for powder and lead and bullet molds, metal and knives. Finally, in the stack of boxes next to the rifles, he found something better, paper cartridges. They were of a new design, but he knew immediately what they were. Ten cartridges and twelve percussion caps nestled in each package. And there were a hundred packages in each pine box. He quietly piled them with the rifles and began tying them onto Night.
By this time the rest of the party had arrived, and the sounds of jubilation and destruction echoed up and down the hot, sandy streets. The warriors had torn apart the bales of cotton stacked by the docks and thrown it about until the streets looked as though snow had fallen in the August heat. Soon Linnville was littered with pieces of crates and scattered goods, sinuous trails of cloth and broken china.
Buffalo Piss sent a reluctant Skinny And Ugly back to where the woman and young boys waited with the pack animals. Theoretically Skinny And Ugly was supposed to get a fair share of the loot, but he could tell that the usual procedure might not apply here, and it was every man for himself
. He kicked his pony viciously, racing to carry out his task and return as soon as possible.
Warriors began dancing through the streets, sporting their new finery. They wore top hats and morning coats, ribbons and ladies’ bonnets and silk scarves. The air was filled with their shouts and laughter and the bawling of cattle as the raiders tried out their new guns. They rode around the milling herds shooting into them, like ducks in a barrel. Hugging one of the shiny, newfangled brass spittoons to his breast, Spaniard staggered up to Wanderer. He held it up, offering his friend a drink of what was inside. He had found a hogshead of whiskey. Wanderer sniffed at it and wrinkled his nose.
“You know what that does to you, Spaniard.”
“Of course. That’s why I’m drinking it. If it didn’t do anything to me I might as well drink skunk piss.” Spaniard howled at his own joke, slopping some of the whiskey over the curved rim of the spittoon.
“Look!” He nodded toward the beach, not trusting his arm to hold the precious whiskey while he pointed. A lone man with white hair was wading ashore, leaving his leaky dugout to founder and sink. Judge Hayes brandished his rusty Revolutionary War musket over his head and shrieked at the warriors running by him.
“You miserable swine. You destructive sons of bitches. You misbegotten spawn of the evil saint!” His voice rose to a shrill scream as the Comanche ignored him. “Maggots! Those are my cattle you’re murdering.” Spaniard was impressed.
“He must have very powerful spirits with him.”
“Or he’s crazy.” Wanderer continued methodically sorting through the boxes he had pulled into the sunlight.
“In either case, he’s very holy.” Spaniard reeled off toward the beach for a closer look at the brave man. The others seemed to agree with his opinion of Judge Hayes. None of them dared touch him. They dodged around him as they continued to shoot at the people baking in the boats.
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 37