Comanche Sunset

by Rosanne Bittner

  “He comes,” the scout said, dismounting before his horse even came to a halt. “Aguila comes with him.”

  Wild Horse’s nostrils flared with excitement. “Aguila! He promised to stay with Slow Woman until—” His eyes suddenly changed from a man thirsty for a fight to a man who felt great sorrow. He turned away. “So…my mother must be dead.” He breathed deeply. “This is what this brother of mine has done. He brings death. He makes my people doubt me.”

  “You do not know yet that he is your brother.”

  Wild Horse turned to look at the man, his eyes watery but blazing with hatred. “I know without asking. There is no other reason Aguila would come. The man called Wade Morrow is his nephew. He would want to be here when we fight.” The man walked a few yards away. “Only the two of them?” he asked.

  “I think so. They are perhaps one day away. By sunrise they will reach our village.”

  Wild Horse stared out over a sea of rolling hills dotted with red rocks and cacti. “I do not trust him. He said he would go and see the white woman first. Aguila would never go to that fort with him. Wade Morrow could have told the soldiers what he is doing. He could be leading them to us.”

  “There were no soldiers with him.”

  “Maybe not. But they might follow. If my brother is the coward I think he is, he will bring the soldiers to save him. He will show up thinking that proves he has kept his word and that he is not afraid of me. But then soldiers will come, to rescue him and to capture me.” The man turned. “Tell the women and children we will move our camp. We will circle around.” He waved his arm in the general direction from which Wade would be coming. “If after a day’s ride we see no soldiers, we will know we have not been betrayed. Then we will find Wade Morrow, rather than to let him find us first. If we do see soldiers, we will lie in waiting for them. We will surround them and kill them!” A look of sweet victory came into his eyes. “Then I will find and kill Wade Morrow!”

  The man walked back to his tipi, ordering Bright Flower to prepare his mount.

  Morning broke bright and clear. Wade opened his eyes to see Aguila putting dry mesquite on the smouldering embers of their camp fire. He studied the man a moment. Aguila was his uncle, but he had shown Wade no particular affection. Wade realized the man’s heart would have to be with Wild Horse, the man he raised from a small boy.

  Aguila had at least shared with Wade some of the Comanche beliefs, some of their sorrows and losses, how they felt about reservation life, how the white man’s president had never delivered all the things that had been promised to them. They were dying of starvation, disease, and broken hearts. Only those like Wild Horse, who dared to defy the orders of the white man’s government, still lived like the free Comanche. But, Aguila admitted, he realized their days were numbered. It was only a matter of time before Wild Horse would also have to give up, or die.

  “Perhaps our luck will change when he kills you,” the man had said matter-of-factly. It was then Wade realized he would get no help from his uncle. It was up to him to try to change Wild Horse’s mind, but his hopes looked dimmer each day.

  Aguila turned to see him watching. “We will drink more of the white man’s coffee this morning,” the man said. “There is some left. I like coffee, but we seldom see it on the reservation. We see mostly bad whiskey and rotten meat.”

  Wade threw off his blanket. “I’m sorry, Aguila. If you could convince Wild Horse to forget about this ridiculous idea that I must die, I could get the Comanche all the supplies they need. My white father owns a supply business. All I have to do is ask, and he would take wagonloads of supplies up to the Red River, if Wild Horse would just give up fighting and go back to the reservation.”

  Aguila rose. “You do not understand. Our pride and honor has been too much destroyed for the white man to make it better now. And it should not be you who should bring the things promised. It is the duty of your white man’s government.” His dark eyes fell on Wade. “Besides, Wild Horse and the others would never accept gifts from a bad spirit.”

  Wade scowled and got up, frustrated at how difficult it was to get through to people of his own blood. “I give up,” he muttered. He walked away to relieve himself, then stretched, flexing his muscles, wondering if he would die today, wondering what would happen to his precious Jennifer if he did. Was he wrong to be doing this?

  He turned then to see Aguila watching the eastern horizon and seeming to be listening intently for something. Suddenly he got down on the ground, lying flat out on his stomach and putting his ear to the ground. He looked at Wade then with a strange, astonished look, then slowly rose. He walked to his gear and whipped out his rifle, cocking it and pointing it at Wade before Wade realized what he intended to do with it.

  “You brought soldiers!”

  Wade frowned. “I did no such thing, Aguila. I came back from that fort alone.”

  “Soldiers are coming—many of them!”

  Wade looked in the general direction Aguila had looked. He saw nothing.

  “You said once you were a scout yourself. Put your ear to the ground, Wade Morrow. Tell me you do not hear many horses. Strain your ears. Tell me you do not hear distant voices, men shouting orders!”

  Wade walked closer, his own pistol and rifle lying near his bedroll. Aguila quickly walked to his gear and kicked the weapons away. “Listen!”

  Wade watched him closely as he got to the ground and put his ear to the hard, dry earth. What his keen ears picked up gave him chills. He reasoned Aguila sensed the presence before he did because the Comanche were accustomed to being hunted, accustomed to listening for such things. He got to his feet, concentrating on listening intently. It was then he heard the voices, barely discernible because of several hills that rose and fell between them and the soldiers. He looked at Aguila.

  “I don’t understand. I swear to you I brought no soldiers,” he told the man. His thoughts immediately turned to Jennifer. If soldiers were following him, somehow they must have found out about his going to Fort Stockton the night before. Had he been followed? And had he and Aguila been followed since then, with the hope they would lead the soldiers to Wild Horse?

  “Get our things together, Wade Morrow. We must find Wild Horse—quickly!”

  Wade met his eyes boldly. “I brought no soldiers, Aguila. Someone must have suspected what I was up to—maybe had us followed this way from the reservation. I would not betray my brother, or you.”

  “We will see who has been betrayed!” The man held the rifle on Wade, while with his left hand he reached down and dumped the coffee out over the fire. “Hurry!” He picked up Wade’s pistol and rifle then, holding them while Wade prepared their mounts. Wade considered jumping the man, but that would prove nothing. It would only make him look more guilty. This was something to be settled with Wild Horse.

  Both men mounted up, Aguila telling Wade to ride ahead of him. Wade’s stomach growled with hunger as he rode forward, and he wished he had at least gotten a swallow of coffee, realizing breakfast might have been his last meal. He cursed his predicament. If soldiers were following, they knew Wade had lied about going back to California. As a citizen, he had a right to do what he pleased, but there would be no love lost when it came to Captain Howell’s attitude toward him. His prospects with Wild Horse looked even worse, and now Jennifer might be in trouble. That was the worst part.

  “Stop,” Aguila said then. The man halted his own horse and listened. Then his eyes lit up. “Do you hear it? Gunfire! Fighting! War whoops! Wild Horse has found the soldiers!”

  “Or the soldiers have found him,” Wade answered.

  “No. He knew you might bring soldiers. He must have circled behind us. Go back, over the hills to the east!”

  Wade reluctantly obeyed. He felt the noose tightening around his neck. If he survived an encounter with Wild Horse, the U. S. Army would be after his hide if Wild Horse had set up some kind of ambush. Wild Horse thought Wade had brought the soldiers. The soldiers would think he led them
into a trap for Wild Horse. Either way, he was a dead man.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Gunfire roared and war whoops pierced the air as Wade and Aguila rode hard toward the sound of battle. They came upon a rise to see what Wade guessed to be about thirty soldiers, trapped in a gully, Comanche warriors firing on them from both sides. Several soldiers already lay dead. Wade spotted Wild Horse sitting and watching from the top of a rock-studded hill, and he headed for the man at a hard gallop, ignoring the fact that Aguila held a rifle on him.

  Wild Horse saw Wade coming, and he turned his horse to face the man, his eyes blazing. “So, you thought me a fool, brother!”

  “I thought no such thing! Stop the slaughter, Wild Horse.”

  “It is you who should be slaughtered, for bringing them!”

  “I did not bring them! Commander Howell must have had me followed, maybe all the way from the Red River.”

  A proud, arrogant look spread across Wild Horse’s face as he looked at the melee below. “I will win even more victories after you are dead and my spirit is whole,” he told him.

  “Call off your warriors, Wild Horse, before those soldiers are all dead.”

  Wild Horse gave him a look of evil joy while Aguila rode up beside them both. “Do you think I care if they all die?” Wild Horse continued. “This is why you cannot win a battle against me, my brother. You do not hate enough! You have not lost enough! You care too much for people who do not deserve to live.”

  “Not all those men down there deserve to die, any more than all Comanche deserve to die!”

  Wild Horse raised his eyebrows. “Only some Comanche? Am I one who deserves to die?”

  Their eyes held challengingly. “I don’t know yet,” Wade answered. “I only know for certain now that you are my brother, and because you are, I have no wish to fight you or kill you!”

  The right side of Wild Horse’s mouth curled into a wicked smile. “You will—in time.” In an instant, without warning, he lashed out with his war club, landing it across the side of Wade’s head in a stunning blow that knocked him from his horse. He landed facedown, and before he could move he felt a heavy foot pushing down on the back of his head so that he nearly smothered in the dirt, while someone jerked his arms behind him, tying the wrists painfully tight with rawhide.

  “This is so you do not think about riding down there to help your white soldier friends,” Wild Horse sneered. It was he who bound Wade’s wrists while Aguila kept his foot shoved against his head. When Wild Horse finished tying him, Aguila finally took his foot away, and both men helped Wade to his feet.

  “Get back on your horse and watch,” Wild Horse sneered, giving Wade a shove. “Learn the ways of the Indian!” He held Wade’s arm for support while Wade spit dirt and shook it from his hair and eyes so that he could see his stirrup. He turned to Wild Horse before mounting up, blood streaming from a gash on his left cheekbone, where Wild Horse’s war club had slammed into him.

  “I am enough Indian not to break my word,” he sneered. “Why would I have gone through all this when I could have walked away from it, if it didn’t mean so much to me to find you! Why would I bring soldiers to destroy my only brother!”

  Again he saw the tiny flicker of feeling in Wild Horse’s eyes, but it quickly vanished.

  “Perhaps you did not bring them, but that does not change what must be between you and me. I could let you go down there and help the soldiers, or even fight on the Comanche side, if you should choose to do so. But you could be killed by another man’s bullet. I do not want someone else to kill you, or for you to die from a bullet. It must be by my own hands. Get on your horse. When this is over, you will come back to our camp. There I will find a way to make you fight me, to make you hate me!”

  Wade’s eyes drilled into Wild Horse’s. “Damn you,” he sneered.

  Wild Horse only grinned, then laughed. “That is better, my brother. Perhaps the fight will be more of a challenge for me than I expect.”

  With Aguila’s help Wade mounted his horse, feeling warm blood trickle down past his throat. With an aching heart he watched the slaughter below, more worried about Jennifer now than the soldiers. They would find a way to blame her for this, blame both of them. Her name would be smeared, and God only knew how safe she would be. Somehow he had to survive this. He had to get back to her.

  Below, Enders and Deaver lay side by side, each man taking careful aim from behind a small rock that gave them little protection. “Damn bastards,” Deaver almost screamed. “We’re all gonna die, and it’s all the fault of that Wade Morrow.” He looked at Enders, his eyes blazing. “And that damn bitch who came out here to marry you, puttin’ on airs, all the time panting after an Indian man!”

  “Shut up and reload,” Enders growled in return, his own fury with Jennifer knowing no bounds.

  Deaver kept cursing and moaning while he reloaded his rifle. He aimed it farther up the hill, then noticed a familiar horse and rider. “Look! Look up there,” he shouted to Enders. “That’s a damn army chestnut if I ever saw one. Why would an army horse be up there? It’s Wade Morrow, that’s who it is! That’s the horse he bought at the fort! Look at him, just sittin’ there watchin’ us get slaughtered!”

  Tony looked up, studying the figure, which was too far away to shoot. “Bastard,” he sneered. “If I get out of this, Jennifer Andrews will pay!”

  “I get my turn at the slut,” Deaver growled.

  Suddenly Tony’s body jerked back and slumped down, falling over onto its back. Deaver stared at a gaping hole in the man’s head, then screamed his name, grabbing his shirt. “Tony!” He jerked the body up but knew instantly it was lifeless.

  James Deaver was not a man to have deep feelings about anyone, but Tony Enders had been an interesting friend and had helped relieve the boredom at the fort. He would miss him. His sorrow was quickly replaced by anger as he looked at his dead friend, anger at Tony for bringing Jennifer Andrews to Fort Stockton. It seemed her presence had taken away from their friendship, and had brought only bad luck.

  He did not stop to reason any of it, to realize that it was not Jennifer’s fault that she happened to be on the same coach as Wade Morrow, or that the coach had been attacked and she had been left with no one to help her but the half-breed. In Deaver’s mind, Anthony Enders was dead because of Jennifer Andrews; this slaughter of his friend was partly her fault.

  He hated her, hated the way she had pretended to be so proper. God only knew what had gone on between her and Wade Morrow before they arrived at the fort, but he had a damn good idea.

  He slowly lowered Tony’s body, and a bullet hit the dirt next to him, startling him into action. He quickly returned to his post and began firing again, pretending each man was Wade Morrow, and thinking gleefully that with Tony dead, and Jennifer Andrews a “soiled” woman, she was now fair game for everyone. He would make damn sure the woman paid for Tony’s death, and that she learned what happened to white women who consorted with Indians.

  The bugler sounded the call for retreat. Deaver quickly grabbed a roll of money he knew Tony had in his pants pocket. “Sorry, friend, but you won’t need this any more,” he muttered. He quickly joined what was left of the platoon in hurriedly mounting up, some taking on an extra man because some of the horses had been killed. They all rode off at a hard gallop, realizing the danger of riding with their backs to the Indians, but knowing it was fruitless to keep fighting. They would die to the last man if they didn’t get out. Deaver felt bullets and arrows whizzing past him, but he rode hard, leaving his dead friend behind.

  From above Wild Horse watched, eyes glittering with victory. “So,” he said, turning to Wade. “When you were free, things did not go so well for us; but now that you are my prisoner, we have a victory.” Sorrow suddenly filled his eyes. “But I take no joy in it. Our mother is dead, isn’t she?”

  Wade frowned. “How did you know?”

  “Aguila would not have left her otherwise.” Wade detected more emotion in the m
an’s eyes in that one brief moment than he had seen yet. “And you have learned the truth?”

  Wade held his eyes. “We are twins. Slow Woman loved both her babies. She didn’t want to see them both die, so she kept one, praying the other would not suffer too long before it died.”

  Wild Horse shook his head. “She was young and foolish. She broke Comanche law.”

  “It was her wish that we both should live. Will you go against your own mother’s heart?”

  “She went against Comanche law! I honor her as my mother, but I do not honor any wishes that bring harm to me or my people!” He turned his eyes back to the fleeing soldiers. “Look at them run. You are my captive, and we have won this battle. It is a good sign. It will be even better for us once you are dead. Come. We will go below and see what weapons and other supplies were left behind.”

  He grabbed the reins of Wade’s horse and led it down the hill. Wade watched sadly as the warriors began looting the bodies and taking scalps. His eyes fell on one man in particular, an ugly bullet hole in his forehead. The face was distorted because of the wound, but Wade was certain it was Anthony Enders.

  He stared at the man with mixed feelings, sorry for the slaughter, but relieved that at least the man could no longer make trouble for Jennifer. Still, he knew that did not mean she was out of danger, and his own chances of getting back to her were getting dimmer. He could only pray for her safety, and that she would get hold of his father and brothers. He knew they would take care of her; and he also knew he might never get the chance to do it himself.