by Tony Masero
Deciding not to risk a fire, he checked his pistol as best he could in the darkness, and found that although the gun appeared okay he was sure it had suffered under Warren’s blow with the rifle butt and that he could not trust its accuracy any longer. He needed to see a gunsmith to have it checked out as soon as he could, until then he would have to rely on his carbine. It was a nuisance but better the Colt than the bones in his wrist.
Patiently, he hunched down to wait out the night hours.
Chapter Ten
They urged Nathan to be the first with the captured woman.
She was fighting like a tigress, her long dark hair thrashing wildly as she fought with the braves holding her down.
They had spotted her on their trail and three of them had waited in ambush as the rest of the party moved on.
Jan Marques had done her job well and come upon the Comanche tracks and followed them boldly, almost recklessly in her eagerness to catch up and that had been her undoing.
Laughing gleefully and with whoops of encouragement offered by the gathered band Nathan was urged forward towards the helpless woman with shoves and teasing grins.
She was his to take, their intention was obvious, this was to be his baptism into the tribe.
Esacona stood passively watching, arms folded across his chest and his eyes fixed on Nathan, who sensed that some kind of test was involved in this unpleasant exercise.
One of the braves leaned over the captured woman and two-handed ripped her blouse apart to expose ample breasts, which caused Nathan to start back in surprise at the sudden spill of naked flesh. He felt a wave of distressing nausea, not only for his own predicament but also for that of the woman.
She glared up at him, her teeth clenched fiercely and her eyes dark and hard as stone.
‘You want to do this?’ she snarled.
Slowly, Nathan shook his head negatively from side to side.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I am Jan Marques, we have come to take you back to your parents.’
‘You are a rescue party?’
‘That’s right. Can you get these animals off me?’
Nathan glanced up at the feverish attitudes of those around him, ‘I’m sorry, I doubt it,’ he admitted.
‘Will they kill me afterwards?’
‘I don’t know.’
The Indians were working on the rest of her clothing now, tearing and cutting at the cloth with their knives. Jan Marques fought bravely but she was held by wrist and ankle and locked solidly on the ground by the frantically aroused Indians.
Kowa caught a firm hold of Nathan by the shoulder and pushed him forward, he was not laughing like the other Indians, his grim features were filled with a determined look of intent. He was obviously going to force Nathan to carry out this barbaric act whether he wanted to or not.
In a sudden show of determination that surprised even himself, Nathan shrugged off the hand at his back. He turned to look Kowa in the face and then, even more surprising, he slapped the Indian hard across the painted cheek with his open hand.
‘Get off me!’ barked Nathan. ‘I will not do this.’
Kowa started back, wide-eyed in surprise, not so much at any pain but more by the impudence of one so young and all the watching Comanche’s went suddenly silent.
Nathan turned on them his disgust filling him with a reckless sense of indignation, ‘Let her go!’ he bellowed, taking their gripping arms and pulling them away from Jan Marques. ‘You cannot treat a lady like this.’
It was more surprise and no small amount of humor at his audaciousness that caused them to fold under his advance. Nathan helped Jan to her feet and tried to wrap her remaining shreds of clothing about her in an attempt to cover her nakedness.
Amongst the Indians, eyes were flicking uncertainly from one to the other. They were waiting for one of them to take the lead and set a pattern of behavior for this unusual move from a captive white. Although, perhaps to some degree it was also Esacona’s known favoring of the boy that kept them still. Taking Jan’s arm, Nathan led her, brushing through the crowd that unexpectedly parted to let him through.
Then Kowa who stood across his path blocked his way.
The Indian pushed Nathan hard in the chest, forcing him back a pace. He spat spiteful words of Comanche in Nathan’s face, prodding him with his finger as he forced him to step back. With lowered eyebrows and obvious anger written across his face, Kowa sneered and then shouted.
Nathan did not know what to do so he shouted back.
‘Stay away from me, you wretched man! You have no right to do what you do.’
Neither understood the other except by the tone and anger obvious in their voices.
Kowa, advancing all the time, slapped at Nathan’s face, rocking his head from side to side as he spat curse words from his curled lips.
In desperation, Nathan struck out. It was a pointless gesture but by pure luck his fist caught the surprised Indian, who was sure he would receive no such defense from the captured white boy. Nathan’s bunched fist cracked hard against Kowa’s jaw, splitting his lip and bringing a roar of approval from the watching Indians.
Kowa glared at them bringing instant silence. Then he crouched down and brought his knife from its sheath at his belt. He waggled the blade invitingly at Nathan, urging him to come and fight if that was what he wanted.
‘About your standard,’ sneered Nathan, gritting his teeth and knowing that now everything was cast into the wind. ‘To take on an unarmed man, you are indeed a lousy excuse even for a coward.’
Kowa said nothing, he smiled thinly with his lips whilst his eyes stayed fixed on Nathan and then Kowa waved him on again with the knife blade. It glittered and sparkled in the light, the steel edge honed to razor sharpness.
‘Kill the bastard, tear his heart out,’ spat Jan Marques angrily from the sidelines.
Kowa looked around at her and barked an order at the Indians and two of them fell on her and dragged her to one side. The rest were torn between watching the coming fight and attacking the woman but Nathan successfully used the moment of confusion. Whilst Kowa’s attention was diverted and the rest were hovering in indecision he charged forward, barreling wildly into Kowa with arms outstretched. Adroitly, as if sensing a shift in the wind, Kowa turned side-on and allowed Nathan to slide past his chest. Slashing down with his knife as the youngster passed by, he sliced at Nathan’s back, splitting his shirt and opening a long thin wound that parted the flesh.
The cut stung and as Nathan blundered around to face the Indian again he could feel the steady drip of blood running down his spine. He was committed now and he could see no way out, he knew it probably meant his death and wondered if this was one of those moment’s his father had spoken of, when courage and bravery despite the odds counted for everything. Despite such thoughts he did not feel any sudden surge of uplifting spirit coursing through him, all he did know was the pain in his back and the certainty of Kowa’s cold blade facing him. Nathan clenched his jaw in determination there was nothing for it he would have to face his end as best he could.
Kowa was confident, almost strutting as he moved around Nathan with a self-assured smile quirking his lip. He spoke derisory words, their meaning unknown by Nathan but their sense clear enough.
‘He says you chicken, have no heart,’ translated Esacona and Nathan saw him standing watching, his face impassive and arms still folded across his chest.
‘Tell him he would have no chance without his knife,’ said Nathan and Esacona duly translated.
Kowa barked a laugh and arrogantly tossed the blade aside.
Beyond them a few of the Comanche had fallen on the figure of Jan Marques and there were the sounds of struggle and Jan screaming abuse and spitting insults as she fought with her nails and teeth as they commenced their rape of her. For Jan it was not a matter of the act itself, she had known many men in her time, some just as fierce as these Indians, but it had been a matter of choice on her part in those inst
ances. This, she did not want or ask for and she fought accordingly.
Kowa leapt forward, moving with wiry ease and he caught Nathan a blow on the side of the head. Nathan raised his hands defensively but they were ineffectual as the brawny brave delivered another blow that sent Nathan to the ground. Kowa was on him instantly, covering Nathan’s body and pressing his forearm down across the young man’s neck.
He was close, teeth bared and eyes glittering with victory and Nathan could smell his body odor and feel the rasp of his breath on his face. Nathan gagged, trying desperately to breath; he kicked and wriggled under the tensile body pressing him down. Fear rose up in him and gripped his thinking, he was lost and now he must face his death, he was sure of it. Almost as if in a dream he could hear the muffled sound of Jan’s grunting fight and distantly he was sure that Elizabeth and the other children were calling to him, urging him to fight back.
Then, as cold as a shock of ice water, it fell over him and his mind cleared. He remembered the wrestling brawls he had known as a child and how they had always fallen short of any really savage retaliation. Now it was different, his life was on the line and anything went if he was to survive. There was no need to obey the civilized rules of combat and keep to the finer way of doing things as he had been taught by his parent’s society. Now he was free to behave as wildly as this savage pressing down upon him. It was as if a door had been opened to him and all the pretensions to a cultured life fell away in an instant.
He freed his arm from beneath Kowa’s pressing knee and with one swift jabbing movement; he brought his hand up and stabbed his thumb deep into Kowa’s left eye. With a bark of pain, Kowa twisted his head away, blinking rapidly as water wept from the suffering eye.
Nathan bucked and rolled sideways out from under the Comanche, he lashed out kicking Kowa in the ribs. Then he raised himself and leapt across Kowa’s back, circling an arm around the Indian’s neck and plunging the clawing fingers of his free hand over his brow, digging for the eyes again. Kowa’s muscular back rippled as he heaved up and threw Nathan clean over his head to land with a thump on his back in the dust.
Blinking and only seeing clearly through one eye, Kowa came on and Nathan scrabbled away from him on his elbows and heels. As Kowa pounced again Nathan felt the rock under his hand. And as the Indian fell on him, Nathan swung the rock up and smashed it into Kowa’s jaw and the Indian swung his head aside spitting a spray of blood.
Nathan climbed to his feet, his pulse racing and blood running hot in him. He raised the rock high, ready to bring it down and with every intention to smash open the head of this vile enemy. Kowa swung his strong legs in an arc across the ground, catching Nathan in a whirling kick that swept his legs from under him and he landed hard, the breath punched from his body.
Kowa was going fairly berserk now; he had been slapped, punched and kicked by this child. More offensively he had been shamed before his fellow tribesmen and now he reacted with an insane kind of battle madness. There was only killing written in his face, a cold determination to wrest the life from this figure before him and he came on ripping with his fingers and ready to tear skin and bone with his teeth if necessary.
Nathan barely felt the blows they came so fast and frequent, all of them blending into one red misted battering. The world shifted and darkened, he felt the thump of the beating raise nausea as well as pain and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He hovered on the brink, barely conscious when he heard Esacona call out loudly.
Kowa hand was clenched around his throat and his fist repeatedly banging into Nathan’s face when Esacona knelt over them and barked a loud order directly into Kowa’s face. Slowly and breathing deeply, Kowa eased his hold on Nathan’s throat.
Esacona was speaking rapidly to Kowa, talking directly at him with intense words of an explanation that Nathan could not understand. Gradually Kowa released his hold, he listened and nodded, obviously seeing the value in whatever Esacona was saying and then accepting it.
He lifted himself from Nathan’s supine body and stood over him, his chest heaving as he looked down. Then, abruptly, he turned away and walked off. Esacona crouched beside Nathan. He went through his head nodding routine a few times and reached out, patting Nathan paternally on the chest a few times before getting to his feet and moving off.
Nathan could feel the sore swelling starting to grow all over his face; limply he raised a hand and touched the blood flowing from his nose and mouth. He just wanted to lie there, to fold himself up and vanish into a dreamy world of forgetfulness. His ribs and wrists ached and the pit of his stomach was filled with an indeterminate sickness of pain. There was very little clarity in his thinking and his thoughts drifted past his consciousness with vague darkness.
He swallowed, his dry throat needing water and he turned his head to look across at where the crowded Indians were busy with Jan Marques. Between their legs he could see her lying on the ground her head turned also and looking at him. There was no expression on her face and her lips were pressed tightly together as she suffered their abuse. If only he had a weapon, Nathan thought, he would kill as many of them as he could before they got to him.
He swore to himself then, aching from the fight and bitter as he was at Jan’s misfortune, that if ever he had the chance he would see to it that all these wretched people were swept from the face of the earth. It was such a pure and powerful string of hate and so strange an emotion for Nathan, that for a moment he was shocked by the ferocious strength of it.
From then on, Kowa left him alone.
The sub-chief also avoided Elizabeth and took up with Jan Marques, treating her very much as he had Elizabeth originally.
As they travelled eastwards, Elizabeth took to siding with Nathan. She brought him water and tended his wounds after the fearful battering he had received and Nathan slowly came to understand that he was filling the gap in her life left after her indifferent dismissal by Kowa. It was a strange situation the captives found themselves in, the juxtaposition of their old lives still alive in their minds but rapidly changing in their attempts to adapt to their new regime.
Oban, it appeared, had totally gone over to the concept of becoming a Comanche warrior and he rode with them with their apparent acceptance, he even painted himself as if a fully-fledged member of the war band. Young Butler was contented and happily playing with his two young friends who doted over him as if he were a younger brother. With the two women forced to fulfill their earlier tasks the two Indian youngsters had only to guard the ponies and therefore much time to play with the little boy. Only Elizabeth and Nathan stood apart in some way. Elizabeth by the rejection she suffered, where once her rich-girl arrogance had been enhanced with false pride earned by her position as concubine to Kowa now her status was depleted as she was sidelined. Her fall from grace had inclined her towards Nathan and yet the young man’s hardening heart was almost as dismissive as Kowa’s had been. He felt no attraction towards the girl and to see her rapid shift in allegiance did nothing to endear her to him.
It was Esacona who took him under his wing. Nathan rode with him daily and the chief took to guiding him in the way of their weapons and with hints of woodcraft and scouting. It was a thing Nathan found himself enjoying and as his wounds healed and left only bruises and scabbed cuts he found that he felt a new self arising within. A confidence and self-assuredness grew that allowed him to ride with a straighter back and taller in his seat on the pony.
He noticed that Jan Marques did not stumble or fall after suffering at the hands of the Indians. She kept herself aloof from them and despite her forced association with Kowa, there was no doubt in Nathan’s mind that given half the chance she would slit the Indian’s throat with his own knife. It was an attitude that Nathan had some sympathy with and he found he held a sneaking respect for the half-caste girl and her solid behavior.
Daily, Esacona sent out scouts and they obviously ranged far and wide for it was often some time until they returned. They were searching it appeared for
some place to make a successful raid. And it was with a sinking heart that Nathan noticed the excited return of one of the scouts one day.
The band moved forward at a fast pace at the scout’s news and Nathan dreaded what lay ahead, thinking that perhaps another unsuspecting homestead lay in their path. But it was not white settlers that confronted them, it turned out to be an encampment of Indians, their skin lodges set up in a roughly circular pattern beside a small creek amidst rolling hillocks.
Nathan, who by now had gained some words of Comanche, turned on his pony and asked Esacona if these Indians were friends.
Esacona smiled wryly, ‘Comanche have no friends,’ he said proudly. ‘These are Kiowa of the Salqahyol; they make friends with your people not ours. Sometime though they join and fight with us.’
‘You will raid with them?’
Esacona shook his head negatively, ‘No, we stay here, eat, rest pony, that is all.’
Although he made no answer, Nathan breathed a silent sigh of relief.
Chapter Eleven
In the cold light of dawn, Britt watched as Warren cautiously exited the homestead. The lone marksman searched the horizon carefully before going across to the corral and saddling his pony. Britt kept his binoculars fixed on the man below and decided he would keep up in a following position. Warren would not have left the safety of his home so soon unless he had a place to go urgently and Britt guessed that it would be Cromwell and the others of the gang that he was due to meet up with.
There were no displays of fond departure from below and Britt saw Warren slide quietly away from the silent building and head out in northwesterly direction. Scribing an arc out of sight of the homestead, Britt took up his following tactic. He kept himself well back, tracking by sign and not sight. It meant keeping a close eye on likely ambush sites as well. He was, after all, following a trained sniper, a man used to killing from afar but if Britt could keep himself distant enough and out from range of the Sharps rifle without losing sight of the trail he knew he would be safe.