They surrounded him anxiously when he came into the firelit encampment, tossing the reins of his horse to Zack.
Paco Davis looked dusty and tired. And he refused to answer any questions until he had had a cup of steaming hot coffee, spiked with some tequila he poured into his mug from a bottle he produced out of his saddlebag.
“Well?” Carl Hoskins demanded impatiently. He stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt, glaring down at the slim Mexican, who had accepted a bowl of beans from the cook, and was now sitting with his back against a wagon wheel.
“Why can’t you tell us what happened? Did you see any Indians back there? And where’s Morgan?”
Paco shrugged negligently.
“One question at a time, amigo.” His black eyes rested almost guilelessly on Carl, but there was a touch of steel in his voice that made the other man pause, and clear his throat awkwardly.
“We cut Indian sign all right,” Paco continued softly. “Two bands, it looked like at first. An’ they split up, right near the foot of the hills back there. So Steve and I, we split up too. Caught up with my lot ’bout two hours later, and they was just a bunch of old men, squaws and kids, travelling real fast, like they were gettin’ out of the way. Reckon, like Steve thought, the other bunch of ’em was that war party the Wichitas were tellin’ us about.”
“Suppose he don’t get back to tell us about ’em, and they try jumpin’ us?” Pop Wilkins sounded upset, and Ginny remembered how much he hated Indians. Paco must have thought about that too, for his eyes seemed to sharpen, although his voice sounded deceptively calm and unconcerned.
“I know Steve. He’ll get back. Could be he decided to parley with them—he knows Indians pretty well, and I know for sure he speaks Comanche.”
“I don’t trust any Injuns!” Pop exploded. “They’re all nothing but a bunch of thievin’, murderous critters.”
“We’ve got the men and the rifles—” Carl Hoskins said harshly. “Why don’t we just go after them and attack before they decide to? We could take them by surprise—and if the wagons kept moving they’d be through the pass before the Indians know it.”
Paco came agilely to his feet and faced Hoskins across the fire, his mouth a thin, warning line under his black mustache.
“You keep forgetting, Hoskins, that with Steve gone, I’m in charge when it comes to the defense and safety of this party. Are you loco?” His voice was bitingly sarcastic.
“Talkin’ about leaving the camp and the women practically undefended to go chasin’ after a band of Indians who’d know you were comin’ a mile off? This ain’t like any war you ever fought in or heard of, Hoskins, and these Indians are the most unpredictable bunch on earth. I’ve fought ’em and been friends with them, just like my partner has, and that’s why the Senator hired us to do the scoutin’. That clear?”
Ginny thought for a frightening moment that Carl might go for his gun, but Pop Wilkins, by accident or design, interposed himself between the two men.
“All right, all right! Guess what you just said makes sense, Davis. So—what do you suggest we do now?”
“We’ll follow the orders Steve gave me just before we separated. Break camp before five tomorrow mornin’ and keep travelling as far as we can before sundown. It’s gonna make longer, harder days, but we’ll get close to the mountains. And the Indians know we’re headed for that pass, so if they’re planning to attack, that’s where they’ll be waiting. No point in their trying to attack us on these flat plains where we can see ’em comin’ for miles off! An’ you can bet they know already how many of us there are!”
“What happens when we get to the mountains?” Carl said with a sneer. He had not forgiven Davis yet, nor forgotten that he’d had to back down.
“That’s gonna take us some days, even travelling faster than usual. But we’ll hear from Steve before then. First things first.”
They had more questions, more arguments, but Paco wasn’t in the mood for them. He walked calmly to his blanket roll, spread it out under one of the wagons, and lay down, closing his eyes. If they were to get a real early start, he needed some sleep.
The others were still arguing out there by the fire, and he heard Carl Hoskins’ angry voice, demanding what in hell Morgan thought he was doing, staying out there—sending back orders. Surprisingly enough, it was Ginny Brandon’s cool voice that quieted them down.
“For heaven’s sake, Carl, is there any point in our standing out here and discussing it? I’m sure Mr. Morgan knows quite well what he’s doing.”
So she thought that, did she? From what he’d observed, she hadn’t seemed to cotton to Steve at all, not one bit, and Steve had been unusually close-mouthed on the subject.
All the same—just like Hoskins, Paco could not help wondering what in hell Steve was up to.
12
Steve Morgan was hunkered back on his heels before an Indian campfire. He was stripped to the waist, and the kerchief he’d worn that morning was bound tightly around his arm, stained with his own blood. He wore a blanket around his shoulders to keep off the night cold, and his face, like those of the Indians who sat around the fire, showed no emotion at all.
The pipe came around, and when it was his turn for the ceremonial smoke he handled it respectfully, in the approved manner; drawing in the acrid smoke and letting it escape slowly.
He passed the pipe to the tall brave on his right. This was Mountain Cat, his new blood brother—the same warrior Steve had fought earlier, to prove he was still one of the Snake People and had not gone back to the safe, soft ways of the white man.
It had been a good fight. The older man, wearing the ceremonial headdress of a warrior chief, began to speak now, describing the fight, expressing his pride in the fact that one who had been a Comanche warrior never forgot that fact, no matter what trails might have led him away.
Steve knew that once started, the traditional, ceremonious speeches would probably go on for most of the night. The muscles in his heels and calves had already begun to ache a little, for it had been a long time since he’d squatted in front of an Indian campfire. But his face, carefully trained, showed no sign of strain.
Listening to the speeches with only a part of his mind, Steve found himself hoping that Paco had gone back to the wagons, and would start them rolling early, as he’d told him to do. If all went well, he’d catch up with them before they reached the pass, and by then, the Apaches who usually roamed this part of the country and were their greatest danger, would be out of the way—for the moment, at least.
Lucky for him this particular band of Indians happened to be Comanches. They usually did not come this far south, but in this case they were after a renegade band of Apaches, led by Flaming Arrow, a chief’s son. The war paint these Comanches were wearing was for the Apaches—who had raided their camp a week ago, making off with some of their younger, prettier squaws.
Following a hunch, Steve had trailed the Comanche war party for quite a way, and had ridden boldly and quite openly into their camp afterwards, greeting their chief, whom he had met once before—long ago, when he had been one of the People himself, his hair worn long and braided like the hair of the young warrior who sat beside him.
A good thing he hadn’t forgotten how to use a long knife—he’d had reason to be thankful for that when this same young warrior had challenged him to prove he was still a Comanche, and hadn’t grown soft from the white man’s ways.
The fight had been bloody. Small nicks and cuts on the chest and arms of both men showed redly to prove it. And Mountain Cat had drawn the first real blood, when Steve, beads of sweat falling in his eyes to blind him for an instant, had lowered his guard slightly.
The gash in his arm might have been worse, if he hadn’t moved quickly, turning his body out of the way. It had waked him up, made him vicious and less cautious. And, because of the blood he was losing, he knew he had to end the fight quickly.
Here the street-fighting days of the Louisiana docks, and all the other river
towns, had helped. He’d learned some fancy footwork, as well as some tricks with a knife the Indian wasn’t familiar with. He’d pretended to trip, and then, moving fast on the balls of his feet, had thrown the knife from his right hand to his left. Mountain Cat, confused by this manoeuver and caught off-balance, had fallen, the knife spinning away in an arc.
Steve leaped for him like a cat, straddling his body, the knife now held against the Indian’s throat. He’d seen the glittering, fearless eyes stare upward, and knew suddenly what he had to do.
Deliberately, he’d gashed the warrior’s arm with his knife, just as his had been. This was the kind of cruelty, the kind of show that the Indians appreciated.
“Since I also am one of the people, I cannot kill my brother. But if you need more proof that I am one of the Comanche, I will help you kill Apache instead.”
The calculated bravado of his words had won a grunt of approval from the other warriors; and for Mountain Cat, who had fought well, there was no loss of face. Later, his father the chief had performed the ceremony that made them blood brothers—formally making Steve, who had been the “son” of one of his old and respected friends, his son as well.
Tomorrow, before dawn, he would put on war paint and ride with them to find the thieving Apaches. For tonight, there were still the rest of the speeches to listen to, and perhaps one of his own.
Stoically, pushing away the thought of pain from his throbbing arm, Steve settled down to wait the night out. The arm he could take care of, with herbs, and it would heal eventually, but he hoped it wouldn’t be too long before he was able to catch up with the wagons. He had a job to do—and he’d almost forgotten about it in the excitement of being back again in an environment which had once been his life.
The wagons, moving before the first early light painted the sky, trailed snakelike over the plains, with the cattle lumbering slowly and complainingly along, still keeping about two miles west.
Sonya was still asleep, but this morning Ginny sat on the high wagon seat beside Tillie, who was holding the reins. She had a thick wool shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and her thick, pale copper hair hung in braids down her back.
She could see Paco Davis riding a short distance ahead with Pop, who was gesturing towards the mountains ahead.
“Mister Morgan ain’t back yet is he, Miss Ginny?”
Tillie’s soft voice broke into Ginny’s sleepy, half-dazed thoughts, and the wide, sea-green eyes looked troubled.
“I suppose not. I wonder where he is? But then, he’s such an unreliable, unpredictable man!”
Ginny and Tillie had slipped into a kind of companionable familiarity when Sonya was not around—a familiarity that Ginny, brought up in Paris where color was a matter of small regard, had been the first to encourage. Sonya was never rude, always invariably polite to her maid, but there was a distance between them that they both took for granted. With Ginny, on the other hand, Tillie found herself able to talk, almost as she would have to an equal. When she thought about it, she knew it was rather strange, but the Senator’s young daughter was only a year younger than Tillie herself, and she always acted natural and friendly, as if she really liked her as a person.
Now Tillie glanced rather slyly at the young woman who sat huddled beside her, still sleepy-eyed.
“You think he’s found those Indians yet? Maybe they found him first—although that Mr. Davis, now, he sure don’t seem worried.”
“I’m not even sure there are any Indians out there,” Ginny said sharply. “And if there are, I don’t think Mr. Morgan would be foolish enough to get too close to them. In any case, I’m certainly not worried about him!”
By the time they prepared to make camp on the evening of the third day, however, it was certain that everyone in the party was worried—for their own, different reasons.
Paco Davis was silent and grim-faced, and even Pop Wilkins wasn’t his usual garrulous self at mealtimes. Carl Hoskins complained at the pace they were forced to maintain, and warned that the cattle were losing too much weight—they had already lost two calves.
They were almost at the foot of the mountains now, and it was just as if a kind of sullen tiredness of mind and body had seized them all. During the day, Sonya had been unusually irritable, snapping at Tillie, who burst into tears—this unusual reaction on her part causing Sonya to cry also. And Ginny, who had appeared to be in high spirits during the past two days, was abnormally silent, hardly allowing Carl Hoskins more than a half-hearted “oh, hello, Carl” when he rode into camp for supper and found her staring at her untouched plate.
The men began to argue, as they had been doing for the past two nights, and Sonya, her eyes still red-rimmed, said sullenly that if that was all they were going to do, she, for her part, was going back into her wagon.
“And, Ginny, you haven’t even started to eat yet!” she said petulantly. “What in the world’s got into you?”
“It’s probably whatever’s got into everyone else around here,” Ginny retorted. “They can’t seem to make up their minds!”
Paco, it appeared, was for going on—taking a few men to scout out the approach to the pass early in the morning, and then pushing through.
Carl announced that he was concerned about the fate of the herd—it wasn’t likely that any Indians would molest a wagon train bristling with armed men, but would they pass up the chance to get themselves some cattle of a breed they hadn’t seen before?
Pop Wilkins, it seemed, was for “setting tight” another day—maybe trying to find another trail around the mountains.
The argument was growing more heated when someone spotted a small dust cloud just clear of the shadow of the hills.
Paco grabbed for his field glasses and squinted through them.
“Lone rider—” he said laconically. “Don’t do no firing. Could be an Indian or it could be Steve, comin’ back—we’ll wait and see.”
He lowered the glasses and Pop made a grab for them.
“Here, let me take a look. Mebbe I got gray hair, but my eyes are still bettern’ most young squirts!”
“If it’s Morgan, he has his nerve, riding in here after three days without a word or a sign!” Carl Hoskins said furiously, not noticing the strange, almost considering look that Ginny Brandon gave him.
“Looks more like an Injun to me—but it could be Morgan, I guess,” Pop said finally. “Hoss sure looks like his!”
As it finally turned out, they couldn’t make out who their impatient visitor was for dust until he had ridden his horse right into camp with a wild Comanche war whoop that made the women cringe with apprehension, and the men grab for their rifles.
“You damned fool! Good way to get your head shot off, riding in hollering that way,” Paco yelled in disgust as the man slid off his dust-covered black.
Ginny had come to her feet almost instinctively, and now she had to force herself to stand still, leaning against the wheel of her wagon as if his return hadn’t mattered to her one bit. She bit her lip in annoyance at herself for not being able to stop the sudden wild thudding of her heart. It was that yell, she told herself—he’d had no right to scare them all that way!
She had privately given him up for dead already, and here he was, having ridden into camp screaming like an Indian, blue eyes alive with impudence and excitement.
As she took in the way he looked, her lips tightened with anger. It was disgraceful! Couldn’t he have remembered there were women in camp? She certainly wasn’t about to go and join the others who crowded around him, laughing and asking questions.
Steve Morgan was bare to the waist—his face and chest still showing traces of Indian war paint, and he still wore a fancy, beadworked headband around his forehead, Apache fashion. His boots and shirt were tied to the horn of his saddle, and he wore moccasins on his feet. He was as brown as an Indian too—all over, Ginny could not help but notice.
She caught snatches of conversation as he hunkered unselfconsciously down on his heels by a fire, pourin
g coffee while Paco fired questions at him.
“What took you so damn long, anyhow?”
“They were Comanches—I rode into their camp to talk; got myself persuaded into joining them in huntin’ Apaches. Couldn’t think of a better way to find out where the ’paches are hiding out, and how many of them are around.”
“You bin out ridin’ the warpath with Comanches?” Pop’s voice sounded almost disbelieving, and Morgan grinned up at him.
“I used to live with the Comanches—long time ago. An’ they’re about the only tribe them Apaches are really scared of. We went after some squaws the ’paches had the bad judgement to steal—got ’em back too.”
“Do you mean to tell us you just met up with some of your old friends and took off with them—just like that? Leaving us here, not knowing what was going on?”
Carl sounded furious, and Ginny noticed that Pop Wilkins laid a warning hand on his arm.
“Now hold on Carl—”
“If there was any way of letting you know, I’d have done so—” Steve Morgan’s voice was deceptively mild, but steel underlay it. “As it is—” his eyes swept the circle of faces and went back to Carl. “We won’t be bothered by any type of Indians when we go through that pass. The Comanches are headin’ back to their own stompin’ grounds, and the Apaches will be lickin’ their wounds. Weren’t many of them left to make it back to their camp. They were Lipano, and a renegade band of ’em at that.”
“You got some scalps on yore saddle—you take ’em yourself?”
“Yeah—as a matter of fact I did. Old Comanche custom. Guess they won’t be in a hurry to mess with Comanche women again.”
Ginny felt sick—against her will her eyes had gone almost fearfully to the black’s saddle—but fortunately Zack had already led the horse away. How could he talk so casually about killing and then scalping men? He was worse than an Indian himself, and the matter-of-fact way he’d answered Pop’s question showed it, if his appearance didn’t!
“You got hurt—when did that happen?”
Sweet Savage Love Page 11