Although Gathered Up had never been adopted, Naduah thought of him as a son. With his even white teeth flashing in a quick, shy smile and his thick, black lashes lowering over his eyes, it was no wonder Quail thought of him as something other than a brother. Naduah knew the girl’s sleeping robes were often empty at night, and that she was with Gathered Up.
Lost in her thoughts, oblivious to the familiar noise of the wind and the sand and the clamor of those who were leaving, Naduah chased a bit of armadillo meat around the big iron kettle. She had just speared it with the point of her knife and was lifting it to her mouth when she heard hoofbeats. She stopped, knife poised in midair, and listened. The pounding was coming from the southeast, the wrong direction. Quail ran to the door.
“Soldiers!” she screamed.
Naduah dropped the knife and scooped up her daughter. She ran for her pony tethered outside. She balanced the child on the dun’s back while she mounted. Then she enclosed Flower in the blanket she wore draped around her shoulders. With Quail riding close behind her, she headed for the mouth of the creek. It was shallow there and free of quicksand. Naduah squinted to see through the blowing sand and the confusion around her.
The pace of the Noconi flight quickened as the first shots rang out. Women dropped what they were trying to save, or lashed their pack animals into a gallop. Loads fell or dragged along behind. The Rangers raced headlong into camp, firing as they rode. Most of the women were shrouded in buffalo robes and blankets and bent over in the stinging wind. It was impossible to tell if they were warriors or not. And the Rangers had no time for niceties. Even if they were women, they were shooting back.
It would have made little difference to men like Ezekiel Smith anyway. He hunted Comanche and Mexicans with the same enthusiasm-He whooped with glee whenever an Indian slumped and fell. And he swerved to trample children and the wounded.
Naduah rode with her legs, guiding her coyote dun with heels and knees and thighs. With one arm she encircled her daughter and with the other she shielded her eyes. She could barely see through the stinging sand, but she could hear. And she knew they were being followed. She tensed at the sound of a breech bolt clicking, and she waited for the shot. When it came she wondered fleetingly how long the bullet would take to reach her, and what it would feel like when it hit.
Then she heard a war cry. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Gathered Up had fired. He was racing behind them, trying to hold the white men off. The mouth of the creek was ahead of them. Once across it they could scatter into the maze of bluffs and ravines on the other side. Then Naduah saw fifty men rise up over the crest of the lopsided hill just across the creek. The bandanas they had pulled over their faces to filter out the blowing dust and sand made them look even more sinister. They fired down on the women and children and old men trying to cross the creek. Sul Ross had planned well when he deployed his one hundred and twenty Rangers and Tonkawa scouts. He had sent some to cut off escape attempts.
“Head up the creek,” shouted Gathered Up, waving his carbine in that direction. Quail cried out as she fell, a bullet in her side. Gathered Up galloped toward her. He hooked his arm through the loop in his pony’s mane and hung low, using his mount as a shield. At the last moment he swung down and lifted her up behind him. She slumped there, her arms around his waist and her head against his back. Naduah turned to help them.
“Keep going,” Gathered Up shouted. From the corner of her eye, Naduah saw two men raise their guns and fire. She saw Quail and Gathered Up jerk as one of the bullets passed through her and into him. She saw them fall. Then she fled. Her daughter wailed in fright and clung to Naduah’s arm as she bent over her, trying to shield her from the bullets. Naduah had a horror of one passing through her as it had Quail and finding her child.
Gathered Up raised himself to a kneeling position and felt Quail’s chest for a heartbeat. There was none. He stood and threw down his empty gun. He unslung his bow and shot one of his pursuers before he was hit again. Ignoring the blood oozing from wounds in his chest and shoulder and flowing down his arm, he walked to a tree. With his back against it, he began chanting his death song in a loud, clear voice.
Where I walk
I am feared.
There is danger
Where I walk.
Where I walk
There is death.
And I shall walk
No more.
He held his knife ready in his good hand and continued to sing while the white raiders swirled around him. They seemed to be listening, admiring his courage, waiting for him to finish. Then one of them raised his rifle and leveled it at Gathered Up’s head. Gathered Up ignored him. He stared straight ahead, looking far beyond the men who surrounded him. The gun went off.
Gathered Up was dead before his body slid down the rough bark of the tree and hit the ground. But he had done what he intended to do. He had died in battle and assured himself a place in paradise. And he had drawn the enemy away from Naduah and her child. Only two men continued to chase her, racing up the narrowing valley into the blowing sand.
Naduah could hear them behind her, and she knew their larger horses were gaining on her pony. Soon she would be within range of their rifles. In desperation she lifted little Flower over her head, hoping that these white men wouldn’t kill a child. Many of them didn’t.
“God damn it!” swore Ross. “It’s a squaw. You go after her, Tom.” He shouted to be heard over the wind and Lieutenant Kalliher’s hacking cough. Then as he wheeled and headed back toward the village, Kalliher spurred his horse and began closing Naduah’s lead.
They galloped all-out for miles. Naduah’s pony leaped rocks and boulders and clumps of chaparral. Kalliher’s horse sailed after her. He was a thoroughbred, a racer, the lieutenant’s pride. And he was in his element. Tom Kalliher wasn’t. He coughed and spat. His head ached and his eyes burned from the sand. His face was red and sore from the wind. He cursed steadily under his breath.
The valley began to close in on them, the bluffs coming together at the head of it. The creek originated there, from a spring that was surrounded by a morass of icy mud. Naduah veered toward the cliff face and searched for a way out. She urged her pony up the talus slope, but he fell back, his hooves slipping on the loose gravel and sand. Like a trapped animal, she tried again and again, until her horse was blowing with exhaustion.
Then her head cleared and she calmed. He hadn’t tried to shoot her. He was one of those foolish white men who didn’t kill women. Not deliberately, anyway, not unprovoked. He thought too little of her. He didn’t consider her dangerous, a warrior in her own right. One who had killed an enemy in battle. It was demeaning, but at least it meant her daughter’s life might be spared. If only she had her bow and arrows with her instead of her child. If only little Flower were safe with her father.
But she wasn’t safe. She was here, clinging silently now in terror. And Naduah was defenseless. She turned her pony around and sat waiting for her enemy to arrive. Her blanket formed a hood that she pulled far out over her face. She was trying to keep out the sand and to hide her blue eyes.
Kalliher spared her face little attention anyway, once he had her headed back toward the village. He was still coughing, and his prisoner and his horse were both giving him a great deal of trouble. Naduah dodged, trying to escape into the brush and out of the valley. Kalliher had to constantly head her off, and his horse didn’t fancy acting as a cow pony. He had a fiery temperament, and he reared and balked. Kalliher cursed himself for neglecting to bring a rope. Not that he was sure he could have gotten it around the woman anyway. She was an excellent rider. If she hadn’t been burdened with the child Kalliher knew he wouldn’t have been able to catch her, much less herd her along.
By the time he reached the Comanche encampment, his Irish temper had been pushed to its limits. Finally he had cocked his rifle and leveled it at his prisoner’s midsection, where her child rode in front of her. He glared at her, to show there would be no more trick
s or he would shoot the baby. He wouldn’t have. But he knew a Comanche would expect it of him. They killed troublesome captives all the time, and not always mercifully, with a bullet.
With his gun still trained on her, he drove her to where Sul Ross stood in the shelter of a lodge. With him was Chief Placido. The wind had died some, and the sand was settling. Only small flurries scurried along the ground, biting at their ankles. But it was becoming bitterly cold. The lather was freezing on the two horses. Kalliher dismounted and tried to calm his thoroughbred. While he tethered him, he warmed the air with oaths.
“God damn it to hell, Ross. I’ve winded a fine animal for a dirty old shit-eating squaw. Should’ve shot her and saved all this trouble,” he grumbled. “Holy Mother of God, look at Prince tremble, would you. He’ll probably die of pneumonia, lathered up in this weather. My balls are so frozen they play ‘Jingle Bells’ when they knock together.” Kalliher hawked and launched a large glob of phlegm downwind.
” ‘Jingle Bells?’ ” asked Ross.
“It’s a new song back home, in Boston. Everyone’s singing it.” Kalliher sang a few bars while Ross threw a line around the coyote dun. He snubbed it tightly to an exposed lodge pole. The lodge’s owner had been getting ready to pack it when the attack came, and the cover was half pulled off.
As Ross was tethering the pony, a gust of wind snatched the edge of the blanket away from Naduah’s face. She lowered her eyes, but not quickly enough. Ross saw them.
“Why, Tom, this is a white woman.”
“White hell. She’s a dirty old squaw. We should feed her to the dogs. Or to the Tonkawas,” he added.
“We take.” Placido stepped forward. As soon as he saw her eyes, he knew who she was. His face was almost boyish, eager, under his wrinkled stoic’s mask. He had been waiting a long time for this.
“Hold your horses, Chief. You’ll eat rations like the rest of us,” said Ross. “Indians don’t have blue eyes, Tom. She’s white, I tell you. Who do you suppose she is?” He walked closer for a better look. She glared back at him sullenly, but without shifting her eyes she was looking around her.
She was aware of everything in her peripheral vision, and she was gauging her chances of escape. The chances weren’t good. The village was full of Ross’s volunteers. They were throwing things out of boxes and bags, looking for souvenirs. Some were scalping bodies, mostly women’s, that were lying scattered on the cold ground. Ezekiel Smith was ecstatic. He carved a long strip from the back of a corpse and danced, waving it like a streamer.
“Gonna make me a razor strop outta this here Injun, boys,” he shouted.
Naduah knew that even if she could get away she and her daughter would be without weapons or tools in very cold weather. She had dropped her knife in her hurry to save Flower. And the child wasn’t dressed for the cold.
“Tom,” said Ross, “tell Sergeant Spangler to post lookouts around the camp. We’ll stay here a couple days until the weather gets better. And maybe we can ambush the menfolk when they come home. Throw a surprise party for them.”
As Kalliher was leaving, two men rode up. Naduah recognized the horse they were leading as Gathered Up’s.
“Guess who we got here, Cap’n,” yelled Kelly.
“The Mexican cook says it’s old Chief Nocona hisself,” added Garret. “Kelly and I split his scalp. Fer a trophy.” They each waved a blood-soaked braid with skin and hair attached. One of them pushed Gathered Up’s body onto the ground.
With a wail of grief, Naduah jumped down from the dun. She set Flower on the ground and ran to Gathered Up’s still form. Wrapped in her blanket, she knelt over him and rocked, sobbing inconsolably. She held his hand, which was already stiffening like some small animal whose soul had escaped and carried its warmth with it.
Flower wailed in unison with her mother, and Kelly picked her up. He patted her clumsily, trying to soothe her, but she only screamed louder. Women and children, thought Ross. Some victory. The man stretched in front of them was the only warrior in the lot. Well, he thought wearily, the only way to beat them is to bring the war home to them. But to find, when the dust had cleared, that one had killed only women and children and old folks, that was hard on a man. Even Kelly and Garret were chagrined. They all stood helplessly watching Naduah grieve. It was so like the grief of one of their own women.
Kelly jiggled the baby, trying to distract her. Like most of the Texans, he wore rusty, homemade trousers that gapped at the waist between his galouses and bagged at the knees. His stretched-out woolen socks hung in folds at the ankles, covering the tops of his patched, rundown moccasins. His coat was colorless as well as shapeless.
It didn’t occur to Kelly or the others to compare themselves to the dead man lying in front of them. Even scalped, Gathered Up was handsome. His tight, fringed leggings followed the contours of his muscular legs. His shirt was tailored to fit him perfectly. In some unexplainable way, Gathered Up was the victor among them. In death he still commanded respect.
Then the crying began to grate on the men’s nerves. Just like white women, Comanche squaws didn’t know when to quit. Garret tried grinning at the child as Kelly bounced her in his arms. He contorted his face ridiculously to make her laugh, and her screams escalated to shrieks. It was the shrieking that finally penetrated Naduah’s grief. If the child irritated the white men too much they might dash her life out against a tree.
When she stood and held her arms out for her daughter, the blanket fell away from her head. They could see that the dirty, tangled hair underneath was blond. As she took Flower from the white man, she stared directly at him. Her deep blue eyes were awash with hatred. For an instant Ross was nervous. If she had a knife hidden under her blanket, she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. He was relieved when she bent over the baby, crooning to quiet her.
Maybe Kalliher’s right, Ross thought. Blond hair or not, she’s a squaw. A Comanche just as sure as if she’d been born in a teepee with a witch doctor mumbling over her. A hard looker, she is.
“Ya reckon she’s the chief’s missus?” Kelly almost stumbled on the last word. A white woman married to a Comanche was difficult for him to comprehend. He’d known white women who’d been used by Indians. Victims. Chattels. Slaves. But a woman willingly -submitting was beyond him. He wondered if she’d enjoyed it.
Word spread that the dead man was the infamous Chief Nocona who had terrorized Texas for twenty-five years. Men came to collect souvenirs. They cut pieces from the hunting shirt that Naduah had made Gathered Up, and from his leggings. Two men had a tug-of-war with one of his moccasins. Naduah cradled Flower in her arms and watched them. Her face was expressionless, but Ross could detect the disdain behind it.
Placido watched everything silently too. The Mexican cook, a former captive, must have forgotten more of the Comanche language than he’d admit. This wasn’t Wanderer, although the woman was certainly Wanderer’s golden-haired wife. Perhaps the dead man was a member of the family, or a beloved slave. Perhaps the cook had understood the word Nocona, but had missed the rest of it.
No matter. Placido smiled to himself as he walked away to help with the destruction of the village. Wanderer was alive. He would have to return eventually, after the white men had left. The Tonkawa knew that the Texans could sit here until the world ended, but they would never trap Wanderer.
Placido had only two regrets. He wished he could see Wanderer’s face when he rode into his ruined camp. And he wished that he could leave the blue-eyed woman’s body, naked and rotting, staked spread-eagle in front of Wanderer’s charred lodge as a greeting from his old friend Placido.
The light and the heat of the campfires that night were augmented by the burning lodges. A few were left standing temporarily to provide shelter from the cold, but most of the men preferred to sleep outside. They complained that the smell was too bad inside the tents. In truth, they were nervous, as though the ghosts of the lodges’ owners would come back to take revenge. Also, there was the chance that the hunting party w
ould return, and Ross’s volunteers didn’t want to be trapped inside if they did. They made their own shelters and sat around the campfires.
Naduah sat near a campfire with Ross and Kalliher and a few others. She drew as far away from them as she could, but she couldn’t go far. The night air was well below freezing, and little Flower had only one moccasin. Naduah had tried to find another pair when the soldiers let her choose items from her own things to take with her. But the lodge had been ransacked, and Flower’s extra pair of tiny, beaded moccasins was gone. Perhaps they had been taken as a present for someone’s child.
While she was in the lodge she looked for her knife, or for any weapon, but they were all gone too. And she was guarded carefully as she searched. No one mistreated her, but there was always a man with a rifle nearby.
The beautiful Spanish bridle that Wanderer had given her twenty years before was missing, and so were her good dresses and the silver-backed mirror. All she could claim were her saddle, which a white man would find uncomfortable, a few plain clothes for herself and her daughter, some blankets, and her mountain-lion skin. She had salvaged her medicine bag too, the one that had belonged to Medicine Woman, and carefully put its scattered contents back inside. The she had stood back as the Texans touched huge crackling torches of cedar boughs to her family’s belongings, the winter’s food supply, and her home.
Tears streamed down her face as the flames devoured her lodge, eating at the seams she had sewn so carefully. She felt her life shrinking, shriveling, being consumed along with the poles and the hide cover, while around her the Texans laughed and joked.
As she sat with them now, she grieved inwardly. She refused to speak to the interpreter or to look at anyone. She held Flower on her lap, wrapped in the blanket with her.
Under the blanket she clutched the one thing of value that the white men had missed. The gold of the eagle coin and chain was warm and smooth in her hand. She could feel the embossed design with the tips of her fingers. As she held it she remembered Something Good and the night word was brought of the death of Wanderer’s brother. It was the same night Wanderer had asked her to take care of his war pony for him.
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 68