He approached the wagon, came off his horse, and handed the lines to another Indian. In one smooth move, he leaped up into the wagon and seized Moriah by the arm. She could smell the wild, rank odor of him— sweat and grease—and his eyes were totally black. She tried to pull away, but his strength was frightening. He simply tightened his arm and pulled her out of the wagon. He uttered a short, guttural phrase, and one of the Indians, who was leading a horse, brought the spare animal forward. He said something, and the other Indians laughed. The leader simply ignored him. He grabbed Moriah and lifted her as easily as if she were nothing but air. She found herself astride the small, stringy mustang, and then the leader tied her feet together, securing the rope under the horse’s belly. He leaped on his horse’s back. Without another word he drove his horse on. Moriah felt her mount start, bunching his muscles as he ran on. The leader had not said one word to her, which frightened her more than anything else. She clung as best she could to the back of the racing horse and wanted to cry out, but there was no one to cry to. She took one look backward, and although she could not see her home, she wondered if she would ever see it again.
Clay Taliferro was scared, perhaps for the first time in his life. He had faced danger many times, but that was always his own skin. But now, since he had married, he had found a love for Jerusalem so deep that it seemed to be twisted around everything on the inside of him. He could not imagine life without her.
But the pregnancy had not been easy. Jerusalem had never complained, but Clay had learned from talking to the other members of the family that she had never had a hard time like this before. He lay beside her at night listening to her uneven breathing, and knowing she was in difficulty, he was frustrated at not being able to help.
“I reckon I ought to go get Doctor Woods, Jerusalem,” he said finally. The two were sitting at the kitchen table, and Jerusalem was peeling potatoes. She always insisted on trying to work all she could, although Moriah and the men did as much as they possibly could to take every burden from her.
“It’s way too soon, Clay. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.”
Clay shook his head, unhappiness etched across his features. “I think we ought to go stay in town so we’d be handy to the doctor before the baby comes.”
“Why, Clay, I had most of my children without any doctor.”
“I know, but this is my baby. And besides, well, you’re older now.” He reached over and took her hand and said, “You don’t look it, but you are.
I can’t have anything happen to you.”
Jerusalem felt his hand squeeze hers, and despite the discomfort, she managed a smile. “It’s good to have you with me, Clay. I’d be lonely without you.”
The two sat there for a time saying little, but then Clay lifted his head.
“Somebody comin’,” he said, “at a hard run.”
Jerusalem rose painfully. She was near her time, and she moved slowly and awkwardly to the window. She saw the horseman riding into the yard at a furious rate. “Something’s wrong, Clay.”
The two of them moved to the door, and as soon as they were outside, Clay said, “It’s Zane.”
Fear gripped Jerusalem then, and she stood there clinging to the pillar that held the porch roof up. She saw Zane fall off his horse, his face flushed and covered with a fine dust. His expression told her that something terrible had happened. “What is it, Zane?” she cried.
“I found the team three miles from here, dead. Comanche arrows.”
“Where’s Moriah?” Jerusalem whispered and knew the answer.
Zane dropped his head for a moment and shook it. He shook his heavy shoulders and said, “Gone. I reckon they took her. I followed their tracks.
There’s about a dozen horses, then I went back to town to get help.”
“Where was Quaid?”
“He was in town drunk at the Golden Lady. He let her go home alone.” Rage contorted Zane Satterfield’s face. “I wanted to kill him, Clay! I may yet. We’re going after them. Sheriff Bench is rounding up all the help he can get.”
“I’ll get my horse and gun,” Clay said and turned away, but Zane’s voice caught him almost like a blow. “Clay, you can’t go.”
Clay whirled. “What are you talking about? ’Course I’m going!”
But Zane was adamant. “You’ve got to think of Jerusalem.”
Clay whirled and saw Jerusalem watching him. He remembered the three things she had asked him before she had agreed to marry him. One of them was that he promised not to leave her.
He did not answer, for Brodie and Clinton had come running out, and Mary Aidan was with them. Clay listened as Zane broke the news to them, but his eyes were fixed on Jerusalem. Mary Aidan burst into tears and buried her face in her mother’s skirts. Clay knew they were all thinking of the time they had been captured and dragged off by Red Wolf. He remembered well the night he had walked into Red Wolf’s camp and rescued Jerusalem and her daughters. He went over and stood beside her and put his arm around her. She was waiting for him to speak, he knew, and he said the words that came hard. “They’ll find her and bring her back, sweetheart.”
They’ll find her. Jerusalem knew then that Clay would not be leaving her. She clung to him.
“We got a pretty big bunch, according to Sheriff Bench,” Zane said.
“Even Len’s going with us.”
“He won’t be much help,” Clay muttered. He knew Jerusalem was worried about Brodie, but there was no stopping him. Clinton begged to go, but Jerusalem shook her head. “No, Clinton, you stay here.”
The three of them watched Zane and Brodie as they rode off on fresh horses. Clay said, “They’ll bring her back.” But his words were hollow. He knew that the Comanches could outride and outlast any white man that went after them. “Come on in and sit down.” He walked inside with Jerusalem, and neither of them spoke as they sat down.
Clinton stood and watched the dust from Zane’s and Brodie’s horses, and fear had its way with him.
Clay heard the sound of the horse coming at a slow walk. Jerusalem was in bed, trying to sleep, so he got up and walked softly out. Clay took one look at Quaid Shafter as he stepped off his horse. Clay walked over and without warning struck Shafter a tremendous blow that caught him high on the cheekbone. It staggered Shafter, and Clay said bitterly, “I ought to kill you!”
The news of Moriah’s capture had spread everywhere. After Quaid had learned that Moriah had been captured by a band of Comanches, he had drunk half a bottle of whiskey. Finally, Frisco Barr had told him coldly, “Get out of here, Shafter. We don’t need you, and I don’t want you in my place.”
He had borrowed a horse from Devoe Crutchfield, the blacksmith, and ridden back to the ranch. Now blood ran down his cheek, and he stared at Clay. “I’ll go bring her back,” he muttered.
Clay shook his head in disgust. “You never came through in your life, Shafter. You’re a useless drunk! Get out of my sight!”
For the next two days and nights, the Indians rode at top speed, stopping only twice for rest. The ordeal was a nightmare to Moriah, who was exhausted and frightened, wondering if she would ever see her family again. The Comanches had extra horses and kept swapping them to keep half of the animals fresh. When they had stopped to eat, they only had dried meat to gnaw on.
They had stopped again by a small water hole fed by a spring. One of the Indians dragged Moriah off her horse, and she staggered as the warrior shoved her. She fell down and did not have the strength to get up. She lay there in the dirt unable to move. The farther they rode away from the ranch, she discovered that the horror and the screaming, clawing fear that grew in her could not be maintained. She had become numb inside from that terror of what could happen to her. For all practical purposes, she looked at herself as dead.
Suddenly, the leader of the Comanches stood before her. He extended his hand, and she saw a hunk of greasy, half-cooked meat. She shook her head.
He said, “Eat.”
S
urprised that he could speak English, she said, “No, I’m not hungry.”
“White woman no good. You die if you don’t eat.”
Knowing it was useless, Moriah struggled to her feet. “Please,” she said through parched lips, “let me go.”
The Indian stared at her. His dark eyes seemed to have nothing behind them. All the blackness was on the surface. He was a handsome man, his nose aquiline and slightly hooked. He stared at her as if she were some sort of disobedient animal that he had to bend to his will. “White people kill my woman. You will take her place.” He watched to see her reaction, and then a cruel grin turned the corners of his lips upward. “I am Bear Killer.”
Moriah had heard of him. Clay had told her he was one of the worst of the Comanches, the cruelest and the strongest and the most fearless.
She stared at him, knowing that she could expect no mercy. In one smooth motion Bear Killer pulled out his knife. He grabbed Moriah by the hair and tilted her hair back, and she felt the edge of the knife on her throat.
“You will choose,” he said. “Live or die.”
“What—do you mean?”
“You will be my woman, or I will kill you now. Choose.”
Something in Moriah wanted to cry out, “Kill me,” but the desire to live was strong. She thought, Somehow there is always hope, and that hope was like a tiny pinpoint of light amidst the darkness. She shuddered at the guttural laughter of the Indians. She knew the cruelty that women could expect who were captured by the Comanches. The door on the good life she had known with her family had now closed, and the fear of the unknown stalked her like a wild animal. Being loved and protected and honored would no longer be part of her life. She whispered, “I want to live.”
Instantly, Bear Killer released her hair. She watched as he put his knife into his belt.
He stared at her, his obsidian eyes filled with an emotion that she could not understand. Finally, he said, “I should kill you. You have brought shame to me.”
“No! I never saw you!” Moriah whispered.
“You do not remember me, but I remember you. You were captured with your mother and sister by Red Wolf and brought to our camp. When a Comanche warrior is shamed, he takes revenge on the family of the one who did it.”
“My mother never shamed anyone.”
“Her man, the White Ghost, he is my enemy.” Bear Killer’s lips tightened into a thin line, and hatred glittered in his eyes. “He came through all of us, like a spirit, right into the presence of Red Wolf. No man should have been able to do that.”
Moriah was frightened by the look on the Comanche’s face. “But . . . it wasn’t just you who let him get through. It was the whole tribe.”
“I was next to Red Wolf, his war chief. Anything that happened was my shame!”
Moriah had never felt so helpless. She could not run, and her life was in the hands of one of the most murderous Comanche warriors living. He could kill her now, and no one would ever know. Her breathing grew shallow, and she could only pray, Lord, let me live!
But then Bear Killer suddenly laughed harshly. “I will take you. That is a shame to white eyes—to have their women taken by one of The People,” which is what the Comanches called themselves.
And then he reached for her, and Moriah Hardin closed her eyes as his strong hands gripped her. She tried to pray, but she knew that it was useless.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
I think you’d better go for Doctor Woods, Clay.” Jerusalem’s words, though quiet, shocked Clay Taliferro. He had been putting dishes back up into the cabinet when her words came to him. They startled him so much that as he whirled, he dropped a plate, which shattered on the floor. Ignoring it, he took two steps toward Jerusalem, who was sitting in a straight chair. One look at her face, and he said, “I’ll send Clinton. I ain’t leavin’ you.”
He whirled and ran outside the house shouting, “Clinton!”
Clinton appeared from the barn, carrying a bucket in his hand. “What is it, Clay?”
“It’s your ma’s time. Get on your horse and go get Doctor Woods.
Break him down if you have to!”
“I will,” Clinton yelled. He turned and disappeared into the barn, and in a few moments he came out, not even bothering to saddle his horse but hanging on to the bridle. “I’ll get him, Clay!” he shouted as he drove the horse at a dead run out of the yard.
Clay watched him go and had to struggle to make the fear he felt inside subside. Taking a deep breath, he turned and walked back into the house. He went over to Jerusalem and said, “Clinton will get him here quick. Can I do anything?”
“No, this is my job, Clay.”
Clay stared at Doctor Woods and swallowed hard. “What do you mean? How is she, Doc?” Woods had just come out of the bedroom, and his face was drawn as he clawed at his whiskers.
“She’s in a bad way, Clay,” he said, shaking his head.
“You’ve got to do somethin’, Doc. You’ve got to!” Clay pleaded.
“I’ll do all I can, Clay. You know that. But . . . I think . . .” He struggled for words, and then in an unusual gesture, he reached out and gripped Clay’s shoulder hard. “I think you’d better prepare yourself.”
The stark words struck Clay with all the force and impact of a fist. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were trembling. “Is it . . . is it that bad, Doc?”
“It’s not good. I’ll do the best I can.”
Clay watched as Woods went over, got a drink of water, and then turned and went back toward the bedroom. Turning, Clay moved across the floor, but he felt a numbness. He had been shot once, and what he remembered was not the pain, but the numbness that had spread through him. He felt that way now, as if a bullet had struck him somewhere in a vital place. Though he was walking and thinking, he felt like one on his way to death.
Dusk had come now, and Clay stood on the porch watching the shadows creep across the land. He was alone, and he could hear Jerusalem’s moans all the way outside. Every one of them struck him like a blow on an anvil. Jerusalem was not a crying woman, he knew that, and her cries were muted. Still, each one of them revealed the agony that she was suffering.
He began to pace slowly along the long front porch that extended the width of the house. He had walked steadily now for hours, and now, as at other times, he felt the impulse to leave, to get on a horse and run as far away as he could from what was happening inside that bedroom.
Jerusalem said that it was her job to have the baby, and he longed in some way to take some of the pain from her. But that he could not do. He reached out and put both hands against one of the pillars that supported the roof. He gripped it hard until his hands ached, and then he placed his cheek against it and clung to it as a sailor might cling to the rigging on a ship when the wind was about to take it to the bottom. He wanted to close his ears, but that would be cowardly.
As he stood there clinging to the post, everything about Clay Taliferro suddenly became dim and indistinct. He could still hear Jerusalem’s moans. He was aware of the stars in the sky vaguely, but a distinct realization was happening on the inside.
It came to him slowly. Then with all the certainty of anything that had ever touched him, Clay knew that his running from God was over. He slumped down to his knees, still clinging to the post. He pressed his face against it, and words of desperation and need for God began to form deep inside him. They did not come out at first, but finally his lips began to move, and he, for the first time in his life, began to call upon God for himself.
Clinton had been out walking in the darkness, getting far away from the cries of his mother. He knew he had to return, and when he did, he rounded the corner and stopped as abruptly as if he had run into a wall.
He saw Clay down on his knees and heard his broken cries. Clay Taliferro was weeping, and it shook Clinton down to his foundation. He stood without moving for a time, and then finally Clay grew quiet. Clinton watched as he got to his feet, and when he was
standing, he came over and said, “Clay, are you all right?” He watched as Clay turned. The tears had made tracks down his face, and Clinton saw that his mouth was twitching.
“I’m all right, Clint.”
“I . . . I was worried about you.”
“I called on God, Clint. I think maybe for the first time—and He heard me.”
Clinton felt a sudden rush of gratitude and joy, even in the midst of this terrible crisis. “I’m glad, Clay,” he said.
“I’ve been runnin’ from God my whole life, but I’m through running.”
Jerusalem’s voice came then, and Clinton grew silent. Finally, he said, “Do you think there’s any hope for Moriah?”
“For her life there is. Any woman taken by the Comanches will have it hard, but she’s stronger than she thinks, Clinton. She’s like her ma.
There’s hope.”
The bright rays of dawn crept over the horizon. Clay had been standing in the same position for what seemed like hours. Clinton had gone off again. Clay did not know where. Suddenly, he heard the sound of footsteps, and the door opened. Clay turned instantly and could not speak.
Doctor Woods came out and put his arm around Clay’s shoulder. “She’s all right, Clay.”
Clay began to tremble. It was all he could do to keep himself upright.
He cleared his throat and blinked his eyes, then asked huskily, “And the baby?”
“Go and see.”
Clay walked stiff-legged into the house and down the hall. He turned into the bedroom. The door was open, and he saw the morning light throwing its beam over the figure in the bed. He moved to the bedside and bent over. His eyes were fixed on Jerusalem, and he reached out and touched her cheek. “You all right?”
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