Comanche Rose

by Anita Mills

  "He's right here."

  He looked down, seeing the blood on his shirt where the animal's claws had ripped his skin, and he didn't know whether to be glad or not. She followed his gaze, then decided, "I'd better get the balm."

  "Yeah."

  He laid his wet gun down and stood up, smoothing his soaked clothes downward, squeezing the excess water against his skin. He knew he smelled so bad that a polecat wouldn't want to be around him. Stripping his clothes, he flung them on the ground, then looked around for anything to clean himself with. Annie'd been a whole lot luckier, and when her horse had hit the water, she'd brought her knees up, keeping everything but the hem of her dress dry.

  As he stood there, buck naked, she let the cat down, and it dragged its leash between his legs, rubbing against his wet legs affectionately. "No need to come around now," he growled. "Reckon I've got a good notion of what you think of me, you little varmint." But even as he said it, he bent down to pick the sorry black mess up. "Here now," he said gruffly as it began washing his face with the sandpaper tongue. "You'll make yourself sick."

  "He's probably trying to make up," Annie observed, carrying the jar of balm over. Taking off the lid, she dipped her fingers into it. "This may smart a little, but cat scratches get infected."

  "Yeah, well, the river water doesn't help much." Turning his head away, he spat on the ground, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. "Must be ten tons of gypsum in there."

  "At least. Here..." Instead of doctoring the scratches, she handed him the jar, then went to the packs where she found a dry cloth. Pouring a small amount of the precious drinking water on it, she rubbed a bar of lye soap into it. When she came back, she held it out. "It's strong soap, so maybe it'll help."

  Scrubbing himself, he got most of the crusty stuff off, then found a clean shirt and pants. Pulling the shirt on, he left it open so she could treat all the holes and gouges. As she worked, he squinted up at the sun, measuring its position in the sky. "I was kinda hoping to make it into the gap before we bedded down." Turning back to her, his smile was lopsided, reminding her of a little boy's. "I can make a real soft bed out of cedar."

  Feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, she had to look away. "By tonight I probably won't need it. I'll probably be able to sleep anywhere."

  Disappointment washed over him; then he reminded himself that he was further ahead already than he'd expected to be with her. For a man who'd never had a woman with any regularity before, he was getting damned greedy. It seemed that all he had to do was look at her to get the notion.

  He took a deep breath, then nodded. "They kinda brought it back to you, didn't they? Those Indians, I mean."

  "Yes." She closed her eyes briefly, then dared to meet his gaze. "I think it was the war paint."

  "You were real brave, Annie—you didn't show it."

  "But I thought it, Hap. When the first one came riding down on me with that lance, I thought it." Taking one last dab at his neck with the balm, she closed the jar. "I thought he'd kill you, and—" She couldn't bring herself to say it.

  "Then why the hell'd you go running out there like that?" he demanded. "I had a good bead on him."

  "I had to. I wanted to know where the Quadahis are. And I had to prove to myself I could look them in the face," she added soberly. "In my mind I was sure they wouldn't hurt me, but in my heart I was afraid. And I knew if you killed him, they wouldn't listen to anything I said."

  "You'll never know how much I wanted to pull that trigger, Annie."

  "Believe me, if you ever have Two Trees in your sights, I won't stop you. It'd almost be worth dying just to see him pay for what he did to Gretchen."

  "And to you."

  "And to me. But I've always hoped he died somewhere, that somebody made him pay before now. I know it's not right, but I've prayed for that since the day he took me away."

  The pain in her eyes was so real that he wanted to take her into his arms and hold her, but he knew if he did, they'd never get on down the trail. And they had to. Right now they were sitting ducks on the riverbank, and there was no guarantee the next Comanches would be friendly.

  "If you don't mind, I'd like to get away from this smell," she murmured.

  "The balm?" he teased.

  "The river."

  Bending down, he retrieved the Peacemaker and spun the cylinder, removing the bullets from the chambers. "Soon as I get this dried out and a little oil on it, I reckon I'm ready. I can't afford to let it get fouled up." He scanned the open area around them, then made up his mind. "I'd better check the Henry, too, 'cause I reckon you'd better carry it from here on. You know how to use it, don't you?"

  She closed her eyes again, remembering the urgency she'd felt firing Ethan's, and she nodded. "Yes," she answered low.

  "I'll get it. Then we'd better get around. I never did like this place."

  Later, riding beside a silent and decidedly sober Annie, he thought a lot about how hard it was for her to forget, about how no matter how passionate she was in his arms, there were still times when he saw fear in her eyes. There were still times when all he could do was hold her through her nightmares.

  "What if he's still alive, Annie? What if you come face to face with him again?" As soon as the words had escaped, he wanted them back. He hadn't meant to remind her again, not after what she'd said.

  "I don't know." She sucked in her breath, then let it out slowly. "No matter what I said back there, I wouldn't want you to die for killing him. So I guess if I had to face him again, I'd ask him again to tell me who he sold Susannah to. I know he knows, Hap—I know he knows."

  "Then I'll wring it out of the son of a bitch," he promised her. "Right before I kill him."

  And he meant it. He didn't know how, or where, or when, but someday he was going to find and kill Two Trees. As slowly as possible. And even then that wouldn't be enough compensation for the hell the Comanche had put her through.

  "He said it was a Quahadi," she said suddenly. "But he may have lied. At the time I didn't know one Indian from another, but later I learned there had been Noconis—and even some Kiowas—with the war party. But Two Trees said he sold her to a Quahadi," she remembered painfully. "Yet when I asked him who it was, he wouldn't give me any name. Dark Water taunted me that it was a Kiowa, and that he'd killed her, but I never believed it. She hated me, so she would say anything."

  "Dark Water?"

  "His oldest wife. He had two—they were sisters. The younger one was called Burns His Supper, but she was named that before he married her. She wasn't any better than Dark Water."

  It was the most she'd ever said about her captivity. Hoping she'd tell him more, maybe get some of it out in the open, he didn't interrupt her. She'd kept it bottled up inside her too long, and maybe if she talked about it, she'd heal.

  "If he'd let them cut me, maybe it would have been different, but he wouldn't," she said slowly. "He told them he was going to sell me for many horses because of my hair. He liked my hair—and Gretchen's—because it was pale. He used to terrorize Gretchen, telling her how it would look on his scalp pole. He liked to see her afraid. And she was."

  "God."

  "He kept me for a different reason, because I wouldn't show him I was scared. It became a game, I think, because he had to win, he had to make me give in. And then there was the obvious reason," she added tonelessly. "But no matter what he did, I made up my mind, I wouldn't scream or cry. I wouldn't let him win."

  "Annie—"

  It was as though she didn't hear him. "I think that's why Dark Water hated me so much. She was afraid he'd marry me, and I'd have the same status she and Burns His Supper enjoyed. To them it was inconceivable that I didn't want it. They made me lose a baby because they were afraid he'd want to marry me, but he wouldn't have. He hated me. But when it happened, as painful as it was, I was glad. I would have rather died than have his child."

  Her voice was low, monotonous, devoid of emotion. And suddenly he was afraid to hear any more. The emptiness
was worse than tears. It haunted him.

  "Annie," he promised quietly, "I won't let you go through that again. If anything goes wrong, and it looks like I'm done for, I'm taking you with me. You'll get the next to the last bullet."

  It was as though she came out of a trance. Recovering, she shook her head. "It'll be different this time, Hap. I'm coming to them, and I can speak enough of the language that I can make them understand. I even have a name to give them now—Saleaweah, Woman Who Walks Far. Without Two Trees or Dark Water and Burns His Supper to dispute it, I'll be considered Nermernuh. Just like Clay McAlester."

  "It's different—you're a woman, Annie."

  "No." She looked over at him, forcing a bitter smile. "If you survive long enough, most of them eventually come to think of you as one of them. Even the white women. Big Thunder's wife had been a captive, but after he married her, she was treated as though she'd been born Comanche. When she died in childbed, he wailed and carried on, and the women in his family cut their breasts and hair in mourning. Dark Water was the only Comanche I knew who complained she didn't deserve the honor." She considered for a moment, then allowed, "Not all of them were like Two Trees, you know."

  "Big Thunder took a white woman captive," he reminded her harshly. "He took her away from her family."

  "No. He was like Bull Calf—he didn't take captives because he thought they were a lot of trouble. He just bought her out of pity, because a Kiowa was mistreating her. And he was kind enough that when he brought her two horses, she took them, accepting his proposal. That was another reason why Dark Water hated me—Big Thunder tried to buy me from Two Trees."

  "Remind me to write up a commendation for him," Hap muttered.

  She hesitated, then looked at Hap. "There was a time when I wished he had bought me, as shameful as that sounds. I would have done anything to escape the hell I was living. I suppose that shocks you, doesn't it?"

  "No. I always kinda figured nothing a body did to survive was wrong. You did what you had to, and I still admire you for it."

  Hot tears stung her eyes again, and her heart was full. She swallowed painfully. "Thank you," she managed gratefully. "I don't know anybody else that would have said that. You make me feel so very lucky, Hap."

  He ought to have felt good about that at least, but there was something missing that struck at his very core. He didn't want gratitude; he wanted her to love him. He wanted to hear the words, and he never had. Not yet, anyway.

  But all he could bring himself to say aloud was: "Come on, we've probably got another ten to twelve more miles of daylight. And I'd sure like to get to that cedar, whether you're interested or not. I'd kinda like a soft bed."

  CHAPTER 23

  The Llano was a rugged, isolated area stretching across the border between New Mexico and Texas, then almost up to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. And it was known almost exclusively to the Comanches and the Comancheros who traded with them. In a few months Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and his Fourth Cavalry would be coming up here, but as Hap looked across the high, grassy plains, he didn't see how the hell Mac was going to manage it. The supply problems alone would be formidable.

  The land itself was deceptive, with grasslands going along for miles, then suddenly they'd end in sheer dropoffs, yawning chasms that looked like the earth had been split to its core. And down at the bottom would be some little stream that had been carving that ravine for a hundred thousand years. There were nine rivers crossing the Llano from east to west, and at all of the headwaters, arroyos, deep canyons, high escarpments, and sheer buttes dotted the landscape with a barren, almost frightening beauty. It was the heart and soul of the Comancheria.

  Looking for a particular group of Indians here was like looking for a pebble at the bottom of a muddy creek, but Annie wouldn't give up. For well over a month, they'd been going up dead-end ravines, isolated canyons, climbing steep, almost impossible walls of rock. But while they'd encountered a number of small Comanche and Kiowa encampments stretching along the streams and the Prairie Dog Fork of the Red River, they'd found no white captives of an age to be Susannah Bryce. The most promising lead, provided by a Kiowa named Two Owls, had turned out to be a ten-year-old Mexican girl from south of Sonora.

  For all her fear of individual Comanches, particularly the men, Annie had proven herself a diplomat far beyond anything Hap would have expected. Armed only with the language and her conviction, she'd managed to convey the notion that she was more or less a relative come home to visit, bringing her warrior husband with her. To his chagrin, he'd been recognized, admired, and feted in every little camp between the Pease River and Palo Duro Canyon. He'd watched her play Indian with amazing success, and his pride in the way she handled herself was nearly boundless. She had more guts and will than any man or woman he'd ever known, except maybe Clay.

  But they were no closer to finding her little girl than if they'd stayed home. It was as though the child, and the nameless, faceless Quahadi who'd bought her, had fallen off the face of the earth. They could be anywhere, but it looked like they were nowhere. As determined as she still was, it was getting harder for Annie to hide her discouragement. And all Hap could do was watch her disappointment build, and wait for her to finally give up the search.

  But the journey had provided a catharsis of sorts. Having faced the Comanches in their villages and being welcomed by them seemed to have brought respite from Annie's bad dreams. She no longer woke up beside him screaming and shaking in the dead of night. Now only lightning and thunder still terrified her.

  Daybreak found them in the bowels of the Palo Duro, camped along a stream, shaded by hackberry and cedar. Already awake, Hap lay behind her, his arm over her shoulder, drinking in the seeming peace of the place, watching Spider cavort with a bug at the end of his tether. That had to be the gamest cat he'd ever seen. Easing closer to his wife, he turned his attention to her. He could tell something was bothering her.

  She'd been up once to start the cooking fire and tend to nature, but instead of fixing breakfast, she'd crept back to the fragrant cedar bed, and now she lay still and silent, lost in thought. Thinking to distract her from obvious melancholy, he caressed her nipple with his thumb, feeling it harden. Usually that was enough to get her to turn over, but not this morning.

  "Don't."

  "I'll make it good for you," he whispered close to her ear.

  "I don't want to—not now, anyway."

  Sighing, he rolled away and sat up. "All right, do you want to talk about it?"

  "No."

  "Annie—"

  Bursting into tears, she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked. "She's out here somewhere, I know it!" she sobbed. "I know it! Can't you understand, Hap? I know it!"

  "Hey, have I said I want to turn back?"

  "No, but you don't have to!" she cried. "You don't believe anymore! You think she's dead!"

  "Annie... Annie..."

  "Go ahead, say it! You're thinking it, aren't you?"

  He'd thought it for a long time, but he knew he couldn't admit it. "I'm still looking, you know," he said quietly. "I haven't said anything about quitting, have I?"

  "Hap, it's nearly June! Pretty soon the soldiers will come, and when that happens, I'll never find her!"

  Lying back down, he stroked her hair where it touched her shoulder. "I'm willing to give it the rest of the summer, Annie. I'm willing to look that long."

  "I haven't even found anybody I know, Hap. I just keep asking strangers. Every time we stop somewhere, I keep thinking it'll be the place where I find out something, but there's nothing—nothing at all."

  "Shhhhh." At a loss for a means to comfort her, he drew her closer and nuzzled her hair. "Don't, sweetheart," he whispered. Reaching around her, he found the neck of her dress. "We'll keep on," he promised, working the button.

  Pulling away, she struggled to sit. "Is that all you think of?" she demanded angrily. "It's not the answer to everything! Don't you think I know what you're doing? You just want to make a ba
by so I'll forget her—but I won't!"

  Stumbling away from the blankets, she caught a hack-berry branch, leaned her head against it, then was sick. By the time he got to her, it was over. But she was still pale, ashen, and her skin was clammy to the touch. The heat he'd felt moments ago was gone, replaced by guilt.

  "Why didn't you say you were sick?" he demanded. "All you had to do was say it, Annie. I'm not some kind of animal, you know."

  "I wasn't, until just now—until I sat up," she choked out. "It's the heat—I can't stand the heat."

  "Here, let me get you some water," he offered, going to the packs for a cloth. "Just hold on, and I'll be back." Walking to the stream, he bent down and wet the rag, then wrung it out. When he turned around, he felt sick himself. Dropping the rag, he lunged for her and the Henry at the same time.

  "Cheyennes!" he gasped.

  For a moment she was paralyzed with fear. Then he pushed her toward a mound of rocks and boulders. "Take cover—and keep your head down. They haven't seen us yet," he told her urgently.

  "Spider, they'll get Spider! They'll eat him!"

  "You can't get him, Annie."

  But she'd stopped and was turning back. Cursing himself for a fool, he pushed her down into a crevice between the rocks, threw the rifle in after her, then he went sliding down the craggy hill. He didn't even have time to save Old Red, but he was going back for that damned cat.

  Crossing beneath the cover of cedar, he passed the horses and mules, cut the tethers, then stood up, shouting, "Yeehaw!" The big roan, having caught the scent of the oncoming Indians, took off down the canyon, with the other animals following him. Dropping down again, Hap crawled on his belly to the hackberry where he'd tied Spider, grabbed the cat and his gun belt, then scrambled back up the rocks, diving under a boulder just as the Cheyennes thundered past in pursuit of the horses and mules. He could feel four sets of claws tearing into his chest.