Comanche Sunset

by Rosanne Bittner

  “You’d better tell your uncle, too. He must be worried. You should at least tell him you haven’t married yet. You ought to consider going back to him, Jennifer. I’m sure he doesn’t think of you as a burden, and you have surely seen all you want to see of this West you thought would be so exciting.”

  Jennifer limped out to a small table beside the bed, sitting down in a chair near it and taking up a quill pen. “I’ll write him, too,” she lied. She had no intentions of contacting her uncle until she was well on her way to California with Wade. He apparently had given up on her, since there had been no word since the two men he had hired tried to grab her in San Antonio. She hoped she was rid of the man for good. Mattie, however, deserved to know what was going on. She would write Mattie and tell her not to tell her uncle yet that she had arrived at the fort and that she might not marry the sergeant.

  She wondered if she should tell the woman about Wade. Perhaps for now she would just tell her she had met another man, who was in the freighting business. After all, that’s what Wade was in her eyes—just a man like any other, except that she was desperately in love with him. She didn’t see the dark skin that surrounded those blue eyes. She didn’t care that he wore his hair longer than white men. She only cared that he might still be alive, and would be coming for her.

  Dear Mattie, she began writing. You will not believe the things that have happened to me since leaving St. Louis. I will tell you only some of them, as I do not want you to worry or be alarmed. I am fine now, and I am at Fort Stockton. I am trusting in our friendship when I ask that you do not show this letter to Uncle John, or tell him any of its details or that I got here all right. When the time is right to tell him, I will let you know.

  West Texas is more wild and desolate than I could ever have imagined, yet there is something about this land that grows on a person and begins to hold him or her here, even against their will…

  Chapter Twenty

  “Wild Horse! He has come back!”

  Wade glanced at the Indian woman who spoke the words. He said nothing as others began staring when he rode past them toward a trading post. One woman ran out into a field, where a Comanche man was walking behind a plow, trying his luck at farming. It looked to Wade as though he was not being very successful, and he doubted the man’s heart was in the work. He was already aware that most Comanche still refused to farm at all, calling it womanly to do such work, and feeling it was wrong to tear a plow into the earth. For centuries they had survived on what Mother Nature had provided freely. All of this work was the white man’s way, and they could not understand why the white man had to make everything so difficult.

  Wade couldn’t help but understand that attitude himself at times; but he also understood that the country was filling up with too many people for all of them to subsist strictly on what Mother Nature provided in animals and wild roots and berries. Now man must begin helping the process through farming and raising cattle. It was a situation that could not help but bring conflict with people of an entirely different culture.

  Now he was himself caught up between these two worlds, and he felt as though he was being crushed between two stones. Wild Horse had been heavy on his mind these last five days. He wanted to be friends with the man, not kill him. He knew now that convincing the man that neither of them had to die was going to be the most difficult task he might ever accomplish, if, in fact, he could accomplish it at all. He knew that if push came to shove, he would have to defend himself, but he was not sure he could literally land a knife into Wild Horse’s heart and end his own brother’s life. Just the thought of it filled him with sick remorse.

  A few young braves came running, hope in their eyes, and Wade realized they thought a beloved leader had returned to stay with them for a while. Perhaps he had brought news of a great new uprising. Perhaps he would tell them they could go back to their homeland. More women, a few children, and old people began walking in his direction, and he wondered if his own mother could be among them.

  He drew his horse to a halt in front of the trading post, and a white man wearing an apron came out, being herded along by two women who were gabbing rapidly that Wild Horse was here.

  “He wouldn’t come here,” the man was saying irritably. “He knows soldiers are lookin’ for him. They’d drag him back to Texas and the citizens there would have him hanged. Why, he’d no more—”

  The man looked up at Wade then as he wiped his hands on the apron. His eyes widened. “Wild Horse! What the hell are you—” He stopped and began speaking in the Comanche tongue then. “What are you doing here!”

  “You don’t need to speak to me in Comanche,” Wade answered in English. “I’m not Wild Horse. My name is Wade Morrow, and I believe Wild Horse could be my twin brother. I’ve come here to find Slow Woman. Do you know where I can find her?”

  The man’s eyes widened, and some of the Indian women gasped at the fact that this man was using the white man’s tongue. Wild Horse spoke only Comanche. Now they began to notice little differences. He did not ride an Indian pony. The horse looked like the kind the bluecoats used, and his gear was white man’s gear. His pistol and rifle looked like fancier models than any Indian could afford, although they could have been stolen in a raid.

  “Mister, you better come inside and explain yourself better,” the man answered. “I’m a trader here—name’s Jake Owen.” The man told the others in the Comanche tongue that Wade was not Wild Horse, that he might be the man’s twin brother. Immediately there was a sound of gasps, and faces took on a frightened look. Again Wade heard the words “bad spirit” and “strong spirit,” as well as “bad medicine.” Most of those who had been staring at him scattered, as though they might die if they looked upon him any longer.

  Wade dismounted and followed Owen inside the trading post, and more Comanche immediately vacated the building. A rather bitter grin moved across Wade’s lips. “I feel like the black plague,” he said with a note of sarcasm.

  “In their minds you’re worse than that. Have a seat,” Owen answered, pulling a chair away from a table. “Want some whiskey?”

  “I could use a shot.”

  Owen retrieved a bottle of good bourbon, which he reserved only for himself. He decided maybe he couldn’t fool this Wade Morrow with the watered-down liquor he usually sold to the Indians. He poured Wade a glass and listened to the man’s story, all the while finding it incredulous how much he looked like Wild Horse.

  “Well, if that ain’t the damnedest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said when Wade finished. “I’ve never seen the like.” He poured himself another shot of whiskey. “You know you’re a dead man if you go back to Wild Horse, don’t you?”

  Wade sighed. “Maybe. I can handle myself pretty good.”

  “Maybe so. But if you end up havin’ to fight Wild Horse, mister, you’d better understand that if you don’t dredge up a true killer instinct, there’s no way you’ll win. You’ve got to be just as vicious as he is. You’ve got to understand that kind of hate, understand the Comanche way, and you can’t hesitate or let emotions get involved for one second, ’cause that’s when Wild Horse will slide his knife right through your innards. You remember that. When it comes to somethin’ like that, there’s no room for compassion.”

  Wade stared at his empty glass. “I’m beginning to understand it, but I don’t like it.” Owen started to pour him another glass, but Wade waved his hand over the top of it. “No more. I want my wits about me when I talk to Slow Woman. Where can I find her?”

  Owen shook his head, setting the bottle back down. “I’ll take you to her, but you won’t get much of a visit. She’s dying—mostly from old age, I guess.”

  Wade frowned, his heart feeling heavier with every new revelation.

  “She can’t be more than forty, but for these people that’s old,” Owen continued, “especially the ones who have lived through the events of the past twenty years. They’ve been raked with white man’s diseases, starved, hunted, driven out of their
homeland, butchered, burned out, lied to, you name it. I’m no Indian lover myself, and I’m just as much against what these people have done to the poor settlers as the next man. But I understand some of the reasons, and I understand a little bit about the nature of the Comanche. Most folks don’t try to understand. They just figure anybody who doesn’t live and believe like they do is wrong. And a lot of them figure any man with skin a shade too dark is fair game, like rabbits, figure they’re worthless and can never learn another way. I’ve seen some of them around here try, but it’s hard for them. Now you, you’re livin’ proof that a Comanche man can be as civil as any white.”

  Wade hardly heard the man’s words. Slow Woman was dying. And she was only forty? That meant she was only fourteen when she gave birth. He imagined a mere child going through that hell alone, left with the awful decision of choosing which baby to keep, and his heart ached for her.

  It hurt to realize that if she was his mother, there was little time left now to get to know her. This trip was becoming more and more of a disaster—except for Jennifer. Right now the thought of her was like a cool drink of water in the middle of a desert, his only comfort when he went to sleep at night. Somehow he had to survive all of this and get back to her.

  “I’d like to talk to Slow Woman now, if I could,” he told Owen.

  “Sure.” The man slugged down the whiskey and rose, picking up the bottle to cork it and put it back in its hiding place so no Indians would find the “good stuff.” He took off his apron, which was bloody from killing chickens that morning. Wade could smell the odor of a man who had cleaned the innards out of an animal without washing afterward, and he had never stopped being amazed sometimes at what the white man considered “civil.”

  For the moment, Jake Owen’s physical appearance meant little. There was no time to contemplate the strange, unsolvable difference between the races. Today he was himself Indian, and his chest actually hurt him as he followed Owen through the sorry-looking village of Comanche, who were no more than refugees chased from their homeland. A few gaunt-looking children stared at him with wide, dark eyes until their mothers jerked them aside and ordered them not to look upon the “evil spirit.” Dogs ran about, most of them looking hungry, and a few smoky fires burned here and there, while horses grazed nearby, flies eating at them without mercy.

  Again he thought about how one woman’s choice had meant the difference between his being raised by Lester Morrow, or living here in filth and poverty. Owen approached a tipi and shook at a bell that hung near the entrance to announce his presence. A middle-aged Comanche man stepped in front of its entrance, arms folded. He gave Wade a long, hard look.

  “So,” he said gruffly in English, “it is true, what the people came to tell me. You look like Wild Horse.”

  “I want to talk to Slow Woman,” Wade answered. “Is she your sister?”

  The man nodded. “She is dying,” he said flatly. “I do not think it would be good for Slow Woman to see this bad spirit who accuses her of betraying the Comanche way. You must go.”

  Wade stood his ground. “You must be my uncle. What are you called?” He saw the same flicker of affection in the man’s eyes as he had seen briefly in Wild Horse’s.

  “I am Aguila. Now go away from here!”

  “No,” Wade answered sternly, pushing Jake Owen aside and stepping closer. “I have come to see the woman who could be my mother. I have that right. And I have the right to know the truth. So does Wild Horse. How can we know whether or not we must fight this out if we aren’t certain of the truth?”

  “My sister would not disobey Comanche law.”

  “For God’s sake,” Wade growled, “look at me! Can’t you see what the truth must be? I’m your nephew!” He knew the importance of the relationship between uncle and nephew in the Indian culture. He realized then that he could actually touch this man more easily than he could touch his own brother. Aguila’s eyes softened a little as he moved them over Wade.

  “Why would my sister allow this?”

  “Maybe because she was nothing more than a frightened child when all this happened! Maybe because a woman’s love for the life she has carried in her womb is much stronger than Comanche law! Can you tell me that no Comanche woman has ever wept when her twin babies have been killed?”

  Aguila glanced at Owen, who simply shrugged. He didn’t like to get involved in the personal affairs of the Comanche. It was bad business, and he knew it was dangerous for Wade Morrow.

  “I have a right to see my own mother, Aguila,” Wade was saying then. “And I’ll do it, even if I have to fight you to get to her.”

  Aguila shook his head slowly. “I would not fight you. That is for Wild Horse. And if you should be my nephew, I could not lay a hand on you.”

  “Then let me see Slow Woman. I promised Wild Horse I would discover the truth, and I would go to him with it. I cannot go back to him unless I know for certain, and I do not intend to break my word. He is your nephew. Surely you understand how important this is to him.”

  Aguila stepped aside. “All right, you can see her. Just do not raise your voice to her. She does not have long left to live.” He searched Wade’s eyes. “She has never been a happy woman. She never got over the shame of what the white men did to her, and she never took a husband. Wild Horse was all she lived for.” His eyes showed more sadness. “Sometimes the sorrow deep inside can slowly kill as surely as disease or hunger. Perhaps all these years she has carried a sorrow for the child she left behind.”

  Wade felt his throat tighten. He did not answer. He pulled aside the entrance flap to the tipi and ducked inside, where he saw the small, frail form of a woman lying on a mat. Although it was hot and muggy outside, the tipi was surprisingly cool because of the relief from the sun. The bottom of the buffalo skins that formed the structure were rolled up about eighteen inches and tied, in order to let air flow through it; also letting in enough daylight to make it bright and pleasant inside.

  Wade approached the woman on the mat, noticing she looked terribly thin. Her tunic, clean but worn, looked too big for her as it draped loosely over her bony ribs and gave outline to her protruding hip bones. It was too warm to use a blanket, and her legs were exposed, spindly-looking, the knees bony. Her breathing came in short, agonizing gasps, and Wade guessed she had pneumonia. Although she was only forty, her hair showed shocks of gray. But the face he looked upon when he knelt beside her still carried a lingering, youthful beauty.

  “Slow Woman,” he spoke up softly in the Comanche tongue.

  She slowly opened her eyes, which had a glazed look to them. She studied him a moment, then smiled softly. “Wild Horse,” she whispered. “My son.” She put a weak hand on his arm. “You have come…to see me…before I die.” Alarm came into her eyes then. “You should not! The bluecoats…will kill you.”

  Wade took hold of her hand, afraid to squeeze too tightly for fear of breaking it. He leaned a little closer. “Look at me,” he said softly. “I am not Wild Horse. I am called Wade Morrow, and I have come here to learn the truth.” He watched joy turn to terror, then to an awful sorrow as he explained his beginnings and why he had come to see her.

  “No,” she groaned. “It…cannot be!”

  “Tell me, Slow Woman. I must know!”

  She let out an odd cry, like a wounded animal. Aguila ducked inside at the sound, hesitating when he saw how Slow Woman was looking at Wade. “I thought…you must have died…out there,” she croaked in a raspy voice. “All these…years…wondering…what had happened…to the little son I…left behind.” Her eyes teared, and Aguila watched in agony, torn between his love for his sister, and his disappointment that she had kept a twin son and had never told the truth.

  “My God,” Wade whispered.

  She pulled her hand away and scooted farther back with all the strength she could muster. “I did…a bad thing…and I have been punished with a sad…heart. Now…I will die…and so will you…my son. You…should never…have come!”


  She began coughing then, a wrenching gagging that made her spit blood. Again Wade reached out to her, refusing to let go of her arms when she tried weakly and vainly to get away. Wade pulled her gently back to the mat where she had been lying. He kept hold of her arms and leaned over her.

  “If coming here means my death, then so be it,” he told her. “I would not trade this moment for life, my mother. And you didn’t do a bad thing. The custom of killing twin babies is wrong, Slow Woman. You knew it in your heart. And you gave me life by not telling anyone that I existed. I am glad to have found you. All my life I have wondered about myself, wondered where the Comanche side of me belonged, whether I had family here. Now I know—I have a mother and an uncle, and I have a brother.”

  She shook her head, tears flowing out of her weary eyes. “He will…kill you. He has no…choice. One spirit…cannot share two…bodies.”

  “Before he knew I existed, Wild Horse did just fine. Learning he has a brother doesn’t change anything.”

  “Yes…it does,” she whispered. “He has not…had a happy life.” She gasped for breath. “He lost one wife…and a son to…white man’s disease. He lost…another wife…another son…to…white man’s treachery. He has…watched his people give up…and grow weak…and leave their homeland. Now alone…he tries to keep fighting…the white man. Now he will know…that all this has come upon him…because he was born under a bad omen. He will not…be strong enough…to defeat the white man…until he has killed you…and takes your strength and…spirit…into his own heart. It is…the way.”

  “Slow Woman!” Aguila came closer. “What have you done! You have destroyed us!”

  “She’s done nothing,” Wade answered angrily, looking up at the man. “She was only a mother who loved her sons, and she was hardly more than a child!”