Crack in the Sky

by Terry C. Johnston

  No telling what might happen to those white women and children once the Comanche believed their pursuers had halted for the night, no longer pushing the chase … when those raiders were free to halt, light their fires, and take a good, close look at the women they’d thrown up on horses and whipped out of the village. Women like Rowland’s wife.

  It made Scratch shudder.

  “We ain’t stopping here for long, ye understand,” Hatcher declared brusquely at twilight when the sun had receded from the flat land far below them, gone beyond the western hills on the far side of the Taos valley.

  “Ain’t we gonna rest none?” Graham asked wearily, his face liver-colored with fatigue like the rest of them. Then Rufus noticed at the way the sudden pinch of pain crossed Rowland’s face and said, “Hell, forget it, Jack…. I s’pose we ought’n keep on long as we can see far ’nough in front of us for the horses.”

  “Just what I was figuring myself, Rufus,” Jack replied. “It’s for damn sure them Injuns gonna be stopping somewhere up ahead once it gets dark enough—but they’ll keep on climbing long as they can.”

  “I’ll wager them bastards get a mite spooked in these here mountains at night,” Caleb observed.

  Isaac said, “For sartin the Comanch’ ain’t used to no mountains, that’s for sure.”

  “They’re flatlanders, by whip,” Solomon agreed.

  “Maybeso we can turn that back on ’em,” Bass declared.

  “What ye mean?” Jack asked, his eyes narrowing in interest.

  “Like you boys said: they ain’t on their own ground,” Scratch explained. “Even if they ain’t spooked by the mountains or the night, leastwise we know they ain’t on their home ground where they’re used to fighting.”

  “Bass is right,” Workman said enthusiastically. “This is home ground for you fellers. That’s gotta count for something.”

  Hatcher nodded, thoughts clearly spinning round in his head, and he growled, “We’ll make it count for something, boys. Willy, turn back down-trail and go talk to that Guerrero soldier. Get him to hurry up his men now that it’s getting dark.”

  “I’ll bet they’re the sort to stop for the night,” Simms grumbled.

  “They cain’t this night,” Hatcher argued. “Tell ’em in Mexican that we gotta use these hours of darkness to close the gap on the Comanche the most we can.”

  “Right.” And Workman began to turn his horse around.

  Jack continued, “Ye stay with ’em, Willy—till I send one of the boys back for you.”

  The whiskey maker sawed back on his reins. “Stay with them soldiers?”

  “Yep,” Jack advised. “Till tomorrow sometime.”

  Concern knitted Workman’s brow. “Why tomorrow I gotta wait to join back up with you?”

  “We eat up enough of the ground atween us and the Comanch’ tonight,” Hatcher explained, “we’ll have us a chance to lay a trap for them sumbitches afore tomorrow night.”

  The whiskey maker nodded. “You want me to tell Guerrero you’re gonna lay a trap for the Comanche?”

  “Ye tell ’em we got a chance at getting the women back, only if them soldiers ain’t afraid to keep on comin’.”

  “All right, Jack. I’ll wait back with ’em. Wait till you send one of the boys to come fetch me up.”

  “When I do,” Hatcher said quietly, “it’ll be time to bring them soldiers up on the run. Time for us to open up the dance on them Comanche.”

  Workman didn’t utter another word, only nodding at two of the men as he reined his horse about and set it off down their backtrail into the mountain twilight. In moments he was gone from view, engulfed by the growing gloom, along with the fading muffle of his horse’s hooves, that last vestige of him swallowed by the trees and the boulders, become a part of the night coming down around them.

  “Caleb, I want you and Bass to hang back ahind the rest of us.” Hatcher waited till the two of them nodded. “Keep yer eyes on the downslope so them red sumbitches don’t double back and pull a grizz on us. Let’s move out.”

  They followed him into the dark, across the open ground and past the stands of tall evergreen and spruce, where the shadows seemed to loom all the larger for the coming of night as the stars winked into view overhead. Right then it didn’t feel all that much colder than it had been during the day, Bass thought. Odds were good it would be before morning, before sunrise, before the earth ever started to warm once more.

  Jack stopped them not long after moonrise some four hours later. He slid from his Spanish saddle, only motioning with an arm that he wanted the other eight to do the same. Gripping their reins, the bone-weary men stepped in close.

  “Solomon, you and Isaac good at a sneak,” he began in a low voice. “What with the moon coming up and it being dark for some time now, I figger them Comanch’ gonna be ready to hold up for what’s left of the night so they can get ’em some sleep. You two keep going ’head of us—find out where and when they stop for camp and some sleep.”

  Bass looked over at Rowland. He knew that the man damned well knew better. If the raiders stopped for the rest of the night, sleep might not be all they stopped for. That brand of cruel worry had already been at work at the man all day—carving deep lines in Rowland’s grayish face.

  If the warriors had no more than three or four hours head start on them at the most, then what hours remained between now and daybreak could hold the key to freeing the women. Staying on the trail of those ponies and cattle and sheep here in the cold and the dark might well be their only chance of catching up to the raiders before they got over the mountains and down onto the plains. Down onto the flat where they would again be on their home ground, where they and their ponies would again have the advantage of numbers and knowing the terrain.

  But up here, across the next few hours, the Americans would have the advantage to use, or lose. Either they would succeed because of how they used the time and the terrain, or they would lose because they had recklessly squandered both.

  “Johnny,” Hatcher said as Solomon Fish and Isaac Simms disappeared on up the hoof-chewed trail left by the raiders. “Want ye stay near me.”

  “Sure, Jack.”

  “See to yer cinches, boys,” the leader reminded the rest. “We’ll give them two fellers a li’l bit more rope till we foller along.”

  In something less than an hour, with the moon climbing above the plains to the east, Hatcher suddenly threw up his hand and whispered harshly for a halt. Out of the dark limned two horsemen riding low along the withers until they made out their companions.

  Solomon Fish straightened. “Figgered it had to be you.”

  “Ye run onto ’em?”

  Simms nodded as the rest of the bunch came to a halt on Hatcher’s tail root. “Looks to be ’bout half of ’em sleeping. Other half up watching.”

  “They got a fire?”

  Shaking his head, Fish said, “No. Not a damned one. They ain’t taking no chances, Jack.”

  “Damn,” Hatcher grumbled, scratching at his chin in reflection. “I don’t think we’re gonna jump ’em this way, fellas.”

  Between that gap of the missing four front teeth, Rufus asked, “If’n it ain’t in the dark—how the hell you ’spect us to s’prise them red niggers?”

  “Lookit the moon,” Jack ordered them.

  Caleb asked, “What you saying?”

  “This is a cagey bunch of niggers, they are,” Hatcher told them. “Don’t ye figger they’re the sort to be up and on down the trail soon as it gets light enough to see?”

  “Damn right,” Rowland protested, spewing his words. “That’s why we ought’n go on in there now!”

  Hatcher put his hand out dramatically, grabbing the front of Rowland’s blanket coat. “We do that, Johnny—not knowing where them women are, where yer Maria is in that bunch, they’ll kill all them prisoners in the dark afore we can get in there to know who to shoot, who to save.”

  “She’s … Maria … damn—”

  “I kno
w,” Hatcher said, turning to look at the others again. “So how much time ye boys figger we got till it gets light enough for them Comanch’ to go riding off?”

  “Not much,” Rufus said.

  “Tell me how long.”

  Bass had been studying at the position of the moon hung there a little south of west in the sky, slowly laying one hand lengthwise right above the horizon, then laying the other horizontally atop it, then the other hand on top of that one until he had a count of distance from the horizon.

  In that heavy silence Titus said, “We got less’n four hours left.”

  “Then we gotta get our trap set in three hours,” Hatcher said. “I don’t wanna take the chance we’ll get caught moving, so we’ll figger they’ll be up and on the trail afore first light.”

  “Three hours,” Rowland repeated. “Then what?”

  “Then we’ll kill the sumbitches.”

  “How we gonna do that?” Solomon asked.

  “Let’s get moving,” Jack suggested. “We’ll sort the rest out once I find us a good place to spring the trap.”

  Bass didn’t know what Hatcher had in mind; then, again, he figured he did know. Simple enough what they had to do: they were going to be waiting somewhere ahead for the Comanche.

  “But before we set off again,” Jack said, “Scratch—I want ye to ride back to tell Workman what we’re planning.”

  “Us to get ahead of ’em?”

  “Have Willy tell the soldiers to keep on coming, no stops now. That goddamned noisy bunch gotta be coming close enough for to scare the Comanch’ into moving outta their camp.”

  “And us,” Scratch replied, “we’ll be waiting on down the trail for them Injuns to come running right smack into us—right?”

  “Right on one count: we want them soldiers to flush them Injuns into us.”

  But Bass was confused. “What d’ya say I’m wrong on?”

  “You and Workman can’t come catching up to us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Someone’s gotta keep them soldiers up and humping, high behind … or this plan ain’t gonna work,” Hatcher advised.

  “So you want me to stay behind with Workman and the soldiers?”

  “You two just make sure them greasers are close enough ahind the Comanch’ that ye can jump on in the fight when me and the rest of the boys here start up the band.”

  “When’s that gonna be?” Rowland asked impatiently.

  Hatcher turned to him. “I hope we can wait till sometime after we got enough light to see Injun from greaser … from American.”

  “God pray that we have enough light,” Kinkead mumbled.

  “That’s the plan?” Bass asked, not sure if he had it all square in his mind.

  “Ye just have them soldiers ready to run up on the back-ass of them Injuns soon as ye hear us lay down the first shots into their faces,” Hatcher explained.

  “Merciful heavens! We’ll have ’em in cross fire,” Caleb declared.

  “That’s a touchy place to put us,” Rufus argued. “Out front like that.”

  Jack fumed a moment, then growled, “Any of ye got a better idea what to do here and now?”

  As he glared at them one by one, most of the rest turned their faces away.

  Finally Hatcher said, “Awright. Since’t none of ye got a idea what’s better’n mine, we’ll go with my plan. Scratch, ye take off now.”

  Holding out his hand, he shook with Jack, Kinkead, and three more before he said, “See you boys afore sunrise. Keep your goddamned eyes peeled and don’t shoot anything that looks like me, you hear?”

  Some of them grinned nervously as Scratch mounted up and reined the horse around, adjusting his position in the Spanish saddle. Its seat was a bit too small, even for his bony butt, but with its stirrups the saddle was better for making a long ride than having nothing at all.

  “See you, boys,” he said once more.

  “We’ll find us a hollow piece of ground,” Hatcher explained as Bass was bringing his horse around. “Where we can hold out if we have to hunker down and make a stand.”

  “A hollow?” Bass asked, reining up a moment.

  “Low place, not no high ground. We’ll wait up the hill from that hollow and open fire when the Comanch’ are under our guns.”

  Scratch grinned. “You boys just remember my purty face and don’t shoot at it when the time comes.”

  He pulled hard on the reins, tapped heels into the horse’s ribs, and quickly pulled away from them, engulfed by the brooding dark of the night forest.

  “This ain’t nothing new,” William Workman quietly explained in something just above a whisper as they rode along ahead of the Mexican officer and his mounted soldiers.

  Scratch asked, “The Comanche been raiding the greasers for a few years now, eh?”

  “Not no few years. They been raiding that poor town even before there was a town.”

  The whiskey maker went on to explain how the Comanche, even the Navajo far to the west, both had raided the ancient pueblos for food, plunder, and prisoners far back into the telling of any of the ancient stories.

  “It’s something that’s always been. Always will be, I s’pose,” Workman declared. “The Injuns come in and steal and kill. So the Mexicans work up enough nerve to go find a camp of Injuns and kill them. So the Injuns come in and steal again. Which means the Mexicans gonna work up a bunch to go kill Injuns again.”

  “So it never stops?”

  “Ain’t never stopped,” Workman replied dolefully. “And right now—it don’t appear it’s gonna stop anytime soon.”

  “Leastways not near soon enough to leave off this here fight,” Bass grumbled.

  “Like Jack wanted, we’ll just have these damned soldiers ready when the rest of Hatcher’s boys open up on them Comanche.”

  The two of them talked quietly from time to time as they rode along, able to hear the murmur of the soldiers whispering behind them each time the cold wind died in the trees. Bass began to grow edgy when he found the moon near to setting at their backs.

  Minutes later he thought he smelled something different in the air as the chill breeze drifted toward them. Then he was sure as they came into a small clearing.

  “Hold ’em up here, Willy,” he commanded as he kicked down from the saddle.

  Holding on to the reins, Bass led his horse toward the far line of trees. He let his nose lead him until he was sure, bending down finally when he could smell that unmistakable spoor—horse dung. Using one bare finger, he probed its surface. Just starting to dry, and cold as could be. With the way the temperature had dropped through the night, it wouldn’t take long at all for a steaming pile of dung to cool off completely.

  Then his nose caught wind of something else. A little different sort of smell. He followed his nose here, then there, the way old Tink would have stayed locked on the scent of a coon back in Boone County. Going to his hands and knees to get closer to the ground as he inched his way-back among the trees, Scratch found it. Another pile of dung. But this was left by a human.

  Damn, he thought. Now I’m sniffing the snow for Comanche shit.

  But just as he turned away, his nose caught the scent of something new, yet something recognizable. He had smelled this before. And instantly he knew. Nothing else quite like that sweetish tang on the air, an odor going old and rancid.

  Crouching low once more, Bass moved another two steps, sniffed, then a second two steps. Again he sniffed, moved to his right, and the smell hit him all the stronger. In five steps he was standing over it in the dark.

  Whatever it was had attracted him, he was no longer so sure he was right as he knelt over the clump now, the odor growing stronger than ever. Giving it a good sniff, Bass assured himself he was right about the smell, but remained uncertain what the clump was. He poked a finger at it, then a second time to confirm it.

  Cloth—a pile of some greasy cloth. Soaked in blood. It was plain from the looks of the area right around the clump of bloody rags that
someone had lain here. With the flat of his bare palm he found the snowy ground as cold as the air.

  He heard the saddle horse snort quietly behind him, a sound that yanked him back to the urgency of the moment.

  Rising, Scratch hurried back to Workman and the soldiers.

  “What’d you find?”

  “They been here,” Bass disclosed. “I s’pect this is where they waited out the night. Moved on not too long ago.”

  Both of them glanced at the eastern horizon far away, far out on the eastern plains beyond the top of the ridge they were nearing.

  Workman said, “We ain’t got long. If them Comanche pulled out, they’ll be bumping into Hatcher and the boys real soon.”

  “Get them soldiers moving with us,” Scratch suggested as he rose to the saddle.

  Once the rest were moving up in tight order behind the two Americans, Bass leaned close and whispered, “I found where one of ’em was bleeding real bad.”

  “They leave a body behind?”

  Shaking his head, he spoke low. “No. Just some bloody rags.”

  “You look close at them rags?”

  “No. Why?” For a minute Workman didn’t answer. “I was just wondering if they … they was someone’s … clothes, is all. Some woman’s dress … maybeso a child’s, a li’l—”

  “I don’t even wanna think about it,” Scratch snapped, cutting him off.

  They rode on in silence.

  Intently listening, they were both anxious to give that long-delayed signal to the soldiers, the strings inside each man strung so tight, they were stretched to the point of popping. Both of them listened to the darkness ahead as it slowly converted itself into that inky gray of dawn-coming.

  As the light grew, so did the muttering of the nervous soldiers riding on their tails. Bass realized their fear must be mounting with each passing moment as they pressed on toward the break of that day—these Mexicans who had grown up learning to fear a raid by the Comanche as early in life as they had learned their own language. Hadn’t it been that way for his Grandpap? Titus pondered.