Comanche Rose

by Anita Mills

  "You got let yourself grieve first, then forget—and I'm not saying that's easy. But instead of going to Austin on a wild goose chase, take care of yourself. Take the time to get well. And pretty soon time will take care of the rest of what ails you. Some fellow will come along that knows none of this was your fault, and then—"

  Her fingers closed on the fabric, clenching it tightly. When she spoke, her voice was flat and toneless. "I would rather die first. Nobody's going to touch me like that again, ever. I think if a man kissed me, I would vomit. No, I knew I would."

  "All right, look, I didn't mean to upset you. I just think you're going to keep hurting yourself."

  She swallowed again. "Well, you did—and you have."

  "Look, you don't have to talk to me about any of this if you don't want to. I was just trying to tell you you've got the rest of your life left ahead of you." When she said nothing, he went on, admitting, "I feel pretty, guilty about what happened—I want you to know that. I feel like it was me that let you down."

  "You?" Her eyes widened. "Why would you think that?"

  He took a deep breath, then let it out. "I was there, Mrs. Bryce. About a day after it happened, I was there."

  "Yes, but by then—"

  "I was with the state police then. Six of us had been tracking that war party for days—had followed it all the way from South Texas when we stumbled on your place," he remembered. "Yeah, we were about a day behind 'em, I'd say."

  "You were too late, Captain."

  "Yeah, I know, but that doesn't make me feel any better. I keep thinking I ought to have found you and the kids—-and that German girl they took before you."

  "Gretchen Halser."

  "Yeah. The Comanches got her ma—left her for dead, but she was still alive when we found her. Wiped out everybody but the girl. It told the woman I'd find her, but I didn't."

  "She didn't survive."

  "I'd sure like to get my hands on the buck that killed her. But I don't guess that'll ever happen," he conceded, sighing.

  "His name was Two Trees."

  "Still alive?"

  "I don't know. I hope not." She looked at her hands for a moment, then said fiercely, "I prayed to God he would die. Every day I prayed he would die."

  "Yeah. Like I said, I was at your place. Me and Romero Rios buried your husband under a cottonwood tree in the backyard, near where you had your flowers. I passed by there last summer, and I think you'd be pleased with where we laid him. It's a pretty spot, looking toward the river."

  "Yes," she managed, her throat constricting. "Yes, it is. When it was hot, we used to eat out there on a blanket. Susannah liked to bring me the wild roses."

  "They're still growing—must've been a hundred blooms on 'em when I was there." Compelled to make a clean breast of everything he felt about it, he went on: "But when we found your place, everything was mud, and the river was coming up fast. I got across it, but there wasn't a trace of tracks anywhere on the other side. Finally, I just went back, and we buried your husband."

  "Thank you."

  He looked down at the rag rug on the floor, then exhaled heavily. "I guess I'm wanting you to know every one of us hated giving up on you and the kids. I rode the boys pretty hard for three days trying to catch up to that war party, and then the rain came."

  "I don't blame you, Captain Walker," she said quietly. "You'd never have caught up, anyway. They never stopped. They didn't eat or sleep for the first two days. They wouldn't even let me change Jody's wet clothes." She closed her eyes again, this time to hide hot tears. "They killed my baby," she whispered.

  "Yeah, I know."

  "It wasn't his fault." Her mouth contorted as she fought the flood that threatened to overwhelm her, but the dam broke, sending shudders through her. "They killed my baby, Captain Walker—they killed my baby!" she choked out. "They wouldn't let me feed him!"

  He slid down the sofa and reached out to touch her shoulder. "Don't—" he said gently. "Look, I'm sorry for bringing it up."

  "I-I cannot help it! There isn't a day that goes by that— that I don't think about it—that I don't wish I'd been able to stop them, but I couldn't!" She raised anguished, tear-reddened eyes to his face. "Don't you understand? I should have done something, anything to save him! But there wasn't anything I could do—nothing!" she cried. "I saw it happen and—and I couldn't stop it!"

  "Shhhh, don't—"

  His arm circled her shoulder, turning her against his body, pulling her close. She stiffened momentarily, then clutched his arms, digging her nails into his flesh, holding on as though she were drowning. Burying her face in his shirt, she sobbed uncontrollably.

  "Captain, whatever—?"

  Cora stopped in the doorway. Hap looked over Annie's shoulder, meeting her eyes, and shook his head. She withdrew without another word, leaving them alone again. If Walker could make the woman deal with her grief, it was a good thing, Cora reasoned.

  He tried another tack. "Go on, cry. Get it all out," he said softly. "It's all right, you've got a right to cry." One of his hands stroked her hair, smoothing it against her head, while the other rubbed the hollow between her bony shoulder blades. "If I could, I'd kill every last one of 'em for you."

  He didn't know how long she wept, only that his arms ached from holding her. Finally, the shudders subsided into shivers; then she lay still and exhausted against his shoulder. He cradled her like that in a silence broken only by the steady ticking of the big clock.

  If he hadn't had to move the leg, he could have held her forever. But as he shifted his weight, she sat up guiltily. Wiping her wet cheeks with the back of her hand, she said self-consciously, "I've, uh, soaked your shirt. I'm sorry."

  He looked down, seeing the wet place where her face had been. "I reckon it'll dry. It'd be a good thing if you softened it up some, anyway."

  Her forced smile twisted. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I always thought if I let myself weep, I'd never stop. I guess I was right, wasn't I? I'm truly sorry."

  "For what? You had that coming to you, probably for a long time. Besides, I didn't mind. It was like I was still good for something." Reluctantly, he removed his arm from her shoulder and sat back also. Looking again at the stove, he said quietly, "I've never been through anything like what happened to you, so I can't even imagine it. It had to be hell."

  "It still is. Without Susannah, it still is." Sniffing, she fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief, then blew her nose loudly. "I'm sorry," she apologized again.

  "You know, you and Gretchen were the only white females I didn't make 'em pay for. I guess that's always going to bother me."

  The intimacy had passed, replaced again by the awkwardness between strangers. She sat on the edge of the sofa, twisting the blue cotton between her fingers again, unable to think of anything more to say. Finally, she rose and walked to the window.

  "How long do you think the weather's going to hold?" she asked suddenly.

  "Hard to tell."

  "The snow's melted, and the ground is nearly dry now."

  "Just about."

  "I want to go home."

  "I know."

  "I want to plant flowers on Ethan's grave."

  "Yeah, I reckon you ought to."

  "It's a wonder the coyotes didn't dig him up. They dug everything else up—even the plow horse he buried the winter before."

  "They tried, but they couldn't get at him. Rios found a big metal trunk in your house, and we locked the body in it."

  "That belonged to Ethan's mother. When they divided her things up, he wanted it." She sighed. "I guess in a way it was fitting. The trunk was all he had left of her, and they're both gone now. I'm beholden to you for taking care of that."

  "No."

  "But you didn't have to do it."

  "I always thought it was part of the job. I guess I hope if I died like that, there'd be somebody to do the same for me.

  She couldn't stand thinking it anymore, not right now, anyway. She stared into the twilight, wa
tching a soldier light the lantern marking the hospital. "I hate winter. It turns dark so early," she said low. "The sun's gone already."

  "Kinda like life sometimes."

  "Yes."

  "Eventually it passes, and spring shows up. Then it's all pretty and green again, and we forget the cold and the darkness. It's bound to happen."

  "I hope so, Captain—I hope so. You don't know how much I want the sun to shine."

  CHAPTER 9

  Hap stared at the three fingers left in the bottle, wondering why he was still sober enough to think. He took another long pull, savoring the trail of liquid heat running all the way to his stomach. No, it wasn't the whiskey's fault—it was his. His mind was too occupied to let the spirits work.

  He looked toward the curtainless window, seeing the starlit sky, and he wondered if Anne Bryce was sleeping. It was long past midnight, so he guessed she probably was. God, he felt worse about her kids than anything else he could think of, and he had ever since Davidson told him about it. And seeing her hadn't eased that, not at all.

  God, he could still feel her thin body against his, and he could still hear her cry for that dead baby. No, it didn't matter how many times he told himself he'd done everything he could have; it didn't even matter that she'd said the same thing. Back then he hadn't been used to failing, and that one loss had stuck in his craw more than anything else. Gretchen Halser was dead. Little Joseph Bryce was dead. Susannah Bryce might as well be. And Anne Bryce was left to live with her losses.

  He had to get her out of his mind. Sitting up, he leaned into the window, looking up at the night sky. That big, full moon hung like a giant ball beneath one lonely cloud, making it seem almost as bright as day out there. Just by looking at it, one would think the night air was warm, but he knew it wasn't. When he'd left the Sprengers after supper, the wind was cold.

  Old Washaya, a colorful Tonk scout, had predicted a warm spell, and the post sutler insisted the Indian had an uncanny knack of knowing the weather, so much so that even Black Jack Davidson wouldn't send out a patrol if Washaya said it was coming a storm. Hap hoped the Tonk was right. Winter'd just begun, but he was already sick of it.

  He looked beyond the fort itself, squinting at the faint light coming from the lantern on the Hog Ranch. This time next week the girls would be having company out there. Only then it'd be real swine, and not the human kind they were used to. And Davidson wouldn't care when they complained of the stench.

  It was hard to figure what made a woman do that for a living, and even poverty didn't seem enough of an excuse to let a parade of unwashed strangers use her, knowing she was no more than a convenience to any of them. Even if she was passable-looking when she started, she wouldn't stay that way long. Most of the old whores he'd seen were drunks at best, disease-ridden drunks at worst. But maybe they got even in the end, because according to Doc Sprenger, every year syphilis killed more men in the army than "arrows, bullets, malaria, and all the other fevers put together."

  Then there was Anne Bryce. A decent Christian woman forced to endure the unspeakable to stay alive. It didn't seem right that some folks couldn't or wouldn't make the distinction between her and those whores out there. She'd probably end up going someplace where nobody knew her to escape from the stigma.

  Filled with a longing for the trail, for a night spent over a campfire rather than in the back room of a damned store, he swigged more whiskey down. After all those years of raising hell with Indians and desperados, he still had enough wildness left to yearn for a little meanness in his life.

  Jim Miller, his first captain, used to say, "Ain't much difference between a ranger and an outlaw, 'cepting it's the outlaw as gets himself hanged. Rangerin' is nine-tenths guts and one-tenth law, but it's the guts that will keep you alive." Unfortunately, right after he'd said it, Jim got himself ambushed by Kiowas over by the Big Spring, and his guts weren't enough to save him. To stay alive in the business, a man had to outthink his quarry. And be willing to kill him without remorse. There'd never been any time to second-guess anything he'd ever done. Right or wrong, once it was over, it was over.

  But now the Halser and Bryce raids were bothering him again, leaving a hole in his gut that wouldn't go away. Anne Bryce wasn't getting that kid back, but it'd take her years to finally give up. Until then she'd be pounding her head against a lot of closed doors, and nobody'd answer. Nobody.

  He'd tried to tell her it wouldn't do any good to ask for help in Texas. Hell, the whole frontier battalion was twenty-five men, and they couldn't even keep up with the rustling and the raids the way it was, let alone spare any men to ride up into the Comancheria with nothing but a dim hope of finding one little girl. But she didn't want to hear it, and he couldn't blame her. If it had happened to him, he'd have combed every inch of desert and canyon all the way up into the Indian territory, keeping at it until he either had a live kid or dead body to bring back. Or until he was dead himself.

  He knew only one man who could go up there and come back with his hair. And no matter how bad Hap felt about Anne Bryce, he wouldn't ask Clay to do it. Not with a new wife, with a baby on the way. And he couldn't go himself, not even if he'd wanted to. No, she was just going to have to do what he told her—go on without the kid.

  He started to take another pull off the long-necked bottle and found it empty, something that did nothing to improve his morose mood. He stared at it for a minute, then threw it against the cast-iron stove. The glass shattered, sending shards across the rough-hewn floor. Disgusted, he lurched to his feet, started to reach for his crutches, then knocked them out of the way. No, by God, he wasn't going to hobble around on the damned things anymore. He was going to walk on the feet the Almighty gave him.

  He had to get out of there before the walls overwhelmed him. Holding onto the bedstead, he made his way to the door and let himself out. The store was deserted now, and like everybody else, Harper was probably somewhere huddled by a fire. Hap's gaze traveled over the shadowy barrels, the counter, the sacked hams hanging from the ceiling, to the bottles lined up like soldiers along shelves against the wall. He could just help himself to another one, but it wasn't going to help. What he needed was Texas.

  He went back through his rented room and out the back way. Cold, raw air slapped him in the face, taking his breath away. And the alcohol hit him then. He reeled, then steadied himself. For a moment he stood there, looking up at that big moon, then started across the open ground. He walked unsteadily, working to keep his balance, trying not to favor the gimpy leg. Before he realized it, he was standing in front of the Sprenger house. And he knew why he'd come there.

  Pulling himself up by a post, he pounded on the door, shouting, "Annie, Annie Bryce!" at the top of his lungs. When there was no answer, he went around the side of the house and stood outside her window. "You want to go to Texas, Annie?" he yelled. "I'm going that way! By God, you want to go—I'll take you!"

  At first she thought she was dreaming. Then as his shouts penetrated her consciousness, she recognized his voice. She groped for a match, struck it against the bottom of the night table, and lit the kerosene lamp. About that time the clock in the parlor struck three o'clock. Throwing back the covers, she padded barefoot to the window and opened it a couple of inches. She confronted a disheveled Hap Walker.

  "What in the world—? Captain, what are you doing out there?" she demanded in a loud whisper.

  "I'm damned drunk." As he spoke, he weaved slightly, and it looked as though he would fall. But he caught the edge of the house and held on. "I'm taking you to Texas, Miz Bryce," he declared, slurring his words. "All you got to do is say you want to go with me."

  "Can't this wait till morning?"

  "I'm going. Soon as I can, I'm going."

  "Well, you'd better sleep off the liquor first," she told him severely. "Go on, before you wake up the Sprengers."

  "You coming with me to Texas?"

  "We'll discuss it tomorrow."

  "I'm taking you. As soon as I can get
a wagon, I'm taking you there," he insisted.

  "You won't even remember this in the morning," she muttered. "You'll have the worst headache of your life."

  "You think the damned leg won't hold me? Go ahead, say it," he challenged her almost belligerently. "Say it."

  "You're standing on it. Please, the major needs his sleep, and so does Mrs. Sprenger."

  She was too late. A door opened and closed on the front porch. Then a lantern cast his shadow up the wall as Cora, still tying her flannel wrapper, peered around the corner.

  "Captain Walker! What on earth—? What's the meaning of this, sir?"

  "Going home," he mumbled. "Going to Texas."

  "He says he's drunk, and I believe him," Annie told her through the window.

  Cora moved the lantern, illuminating his face, then the rest of him. He was coatless and his clothes were badly wrinkled, as though he'd just got out of bed. He blinked bleary eyes, trying to focus on the light. He looked about ready to pass out.

  "Obviously," she agreed. "And he has no business walking around on that leg." Half turning, she called out, "Will, come out here. It's Captain Walker, and he needs help!" Afraid Hap would stumble, she caught his arm and held on. "Will!"

  "I'm all right," Hap said thickly. "Just taking Miz Bryce home, that's all. Going to Texas."

  "What's the matter, Cora?" Will Sprenger mumbled sleepily. "What're you doing out there?"

  "Holding Mr. Walker, and you're going to have to give me a hand. Otherwise, he's going to fall down and break something."

  "What?"

  "He's drunk, Will!" she snapped in exasperation.

  He passed a hand over his eyes, then took a better look. "Hap, where the devil are your crutches?" he demanded.

  "Threw 'em away," Walker muttered. Turning back for another look toward Annie's window, he stumbled and almost took Cora Sprenger with him.

  "Will! He's falling!"

  But the major was quick on his feet. "I've got him. Come on, Hap, you'd better get inside before you take pneumonia," he murmured, throwing a shoulder under his patient's arm. "Take it real easy on that leg."