Odell was a traveling man, but even his long legs were no match for a Comanche on horseback. Nobody ever had much luck riding down a raiding party when it knew it was being followed. The Comanches traveled light, and when unencumbered by plundered stock or a village in tow, they could sometimes make better than eighty miles in a day. His only chance was to borrow a horse, and a good one at that. He had no money and could only think of one place where he might beg himself a mount.
The Wilson place came into view as the trail he was on entered a clearing where Massacre Creek emptied into the river. Red Wing was stirring hominy in a lye pot in front of the house, and she shaded her eyes with one hand and watched him come. He stopped before her, not quite sure what to say. Something about the look on his face must have told her all she needed to know. She stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug. She squeezed him tight while he let his arms hang at his sides, feeling startled and surprised at her actions. He’d often thought about what it would be like hugging her, and now that it had happened he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Tenatively, he placed his left hand on the small of her back and pulled her tight into him. He could feel the quiver of her body beneath his palm, and warm tears soaked through his shirt where her face rested against his chest. They stood like that for a long moment, and he felt strength return to him, as if he fed from her concern.
She finally pulled away from him and held him by his shoulders at arm’s length. She made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down her cheeks. “We saw the smoke coming from your place this morning.”
“If I’d been there, Pappy might still be alive,” he said.
“Or you might be dead.”
“I almost wish I was.” Odell was looking over her head at someplace far, far away. “I still remember when he showed up to get me in San Augustine. He didn’t ask about my mama or my daddy, or try to pump me for information. He just said, ‘I’m your grandfather. Come on, boy, let’s go home.’ Now that I think about it, he never asked near as much from me as I thought he did.”
She knew how great his loss was. His family ties had been almost as shifting and traumatic as her own. His parents had started west from Georgia with everything they owned in a single wagon. They had stopped in Louisiana to resupply before crossing the Sabine River, but they never made it into Texas. His father had gotten trapped in a crooked card game and stabbed to death with some tinhorn gambler’s Arkansas toothpick. His mother, weakened by the loss of her husband and ready to quit, fell victim to the typhoid fever epidemic that was sweeping the settlements. At thirteen Odell was stranded in a strange land, and the only family he had left was a man he didn’t know and had never seen before.
“The men left here at daylight,” she said.
“I saw them.”
“What about the Youngs?”
Odell couldn’t meet her eyes. “They’re all dead.”
“Is Father on the Comanches’ trail?”
“He is.”
She bit her lower lip and tried not to start crying again. The fear of losing another family was so great in her that she almost couldn’t bear it. She took a deep breath and tugged at Odell’s sleeve. “Come on up to the house, and I’ll feed you. I feel better with you here to watch over me and Mama.”
Odell didn’t budge out of his tracks. “I need a horse.”
“You need to stay here. Those Comanches are probably long gone, and even if you could catch up to them, you’d just get yourself killed.”
“I have to try.”
“If there’s any chance of catching them, Father and Karl will get it done.”
“You mean we should leave it to the men while I stay here and tend to the butter churning,” Odell said bitterly.
“I meant nothing of the kind. I just don’t want to lose anybody else I love.”
It took a moment for what she said to register with him. He could have sworn she said she loved him. “I thought you were falling for that Prussian.”
She smiled at him the way parents smile at foolish children. “No, it’s not Karl that I love.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.” His words sounded foolish and inadequate to his own ears.
“Are you?”
He was torn by the need for revenge seething inside him and the desire he felt for Red Wing. He tried to ignore that soft, sweet face lit up by the sunshine and seeming to stare into his very soul. That was the one and only thing about her that disturbed him. She never seemed to lose focus, and when she wanted something from him her attention could be quietly intense and a little discomforting. Odell knew his own mind never stayed on one thing too long. Most days, it flitted around like a grasshopper jumping from one blade of grass to another.
“I need to borrow a horse,” he said.
Over the course of the three years he’d lived close to her, he’d told her things he told no others. They were both orphans in a way, and bonded by those scars of loss they shared. They had walked the riverbank and made each other laugh long before she could even speak good English. She knew his stubborn nature, and that her words would hold no sway with him once he set his mind to something.
“You can take Crow, but you’d better bring him back.” She turned away from him, more hurt by the lack of effect her admission of love had on him than she was willing to let him see.
Crow was her good black gelding, and she babied and petted the horse like a spoiled child. Colonel Moore had bought the Comanche buffalo runner from a Mexican trader days after the fight in which he captured her, and used it to carry her to the Wilsons. Odell knew that the horse was more to her than just a pet. It was a last link to her former self and the people that she no longer called her own.
The two of them went to the corral gate and she whistled to Crow. The horse came to her in a trot, and put his head over the gate for her. She rubbed his face and played with his forelock. “Crow is the fastest, toughest pony in Texas, but Father won’t agree. He thinks nothing can match Karl’s Kentucky horse, but he’s wrong.”
“I can’t take your horse,” Odell said.
“He’s the only one left on the place, and if the Comanches are raiding, he may be the only horse left in the settlements for miles and miles.”
“You’d never forgive me if I let something happen to him.”
“No, I wouldn’t. But you’ll take him anyway, won’t you?”
“I have to go. Can’t you understand that?”
“I understand you think you can make up for some bad thing you think you’ve done by killing others, or maybe getting yourself killed. Maybe you think a few Comanche scalps will make you forget Pappy’s death.”
“You don’t know how I feel.”
“You’re wrong, I know that much. I was basically already an orphan before Colonel Moore captured me, and I know about loss. That was the one thing I already knew when I came here to the Wilsons. Death doesn’t fix anything for the living. We just have to patch up our lives and try to forget the bad things.”
“It ain’t about bringing Pappy back or me making up for failing him. Those Comanches need to pay for what they’ve done.”
She started to reply but got hung up. She was proud of her English, but sometimes when she was upset or excited the words wouldn’t come. At times like that she couldn’t seem to speak at all. She couldn’t find the proper English words she needed, nor could her mind grab hold of the Comanche she still dreamed in but hadn’t spoken aloud in years.
“They need to pay, or you need them to pay?” she finally managed to ask.
“You don’t know what they did to Nellie Young.”
“I was a Comanche once and know more than you ever will about just how cruel they can be.”
Odell went through the gate and caught Crow. He saddled the horse with the spare rig that was resting on top of the fence. It was a bare-bones Mexican saddle with huge tapaderos covering the s
tirrups, a fat saddle horn, and a hair-on, tanned deer hide to cover the seat. He unlaced the stirrup leathers and adjusted their length to fit him. He cinched up and climbed on and off a few times to readjust the stirrups. She handed him a hitched horsehair bridle and he slipped the Spanish bit into Crow’s mouth.
“You hold on for a minute.” She turned and ran for the house.
While he waited, he stuffed his sack of corn into the long Mexican saddlebags that were tied behind the cantle. By the time he finished she was running back to him with something clutched in both hands against her skirt. She stopped, panting in front of him with a small bar of lead in one hand and a wadded-up piece of cloth in the other.
“You take this, Odie. There’s a bit of powder in that rag, and if I had the time, I’d mold your bullets for you,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“You mold those bullets good and grease your patches carefully. I want you to shoot straight when you have to, and come back to me.”
There was nothing left to do but ride, but he hesitated anyway. “Maybe you don’t think I’m man enough to do this thing I’m setting out to do, but I promise you I’ll be back.”
“I know the kind of man you are, Odie. I know it better than anyone else, and that’s what scares me. When others might turn back, you’ll go on, because that’s the way you’re made. Vengeance has a hold on you, and you’ve always been half wild and more like the Comanches you hate than you know.”
“I’ll come back to you, I promise.” He wasn’t as sure of that as he tried to sound.
She was so, so near to him, and her lips seemed to be begging for him to kiss her. She was only fifteen, with her willowy body only starting to take on the curves of womanhood, and perhaps too young for a man to court. But Odell was a young man himself, and he loved her. She had always been his woman, even if only in his mind. What that meant was only a vague, shy concept fluttering around inside him, but he did know if there ever was anything he should do, it was to kiss her. He’d never kissed a girl, although he’d thought about it enough. His body wouldn’t seem to obey his will, and he stood flat-footed and clumsy before her without a trace of anything on his face but awkward and handicapping shyness.
Mrs. Ida had walked outside and was watching them from the porch. “Where are you going with her horse?”
Odell threw one look at the old lady and took Red Wing in his arms. He kissed her clumsily but long. She yielded to him softly and passionately in one last effort to keep him with her.
He pushed gently away from her and shoved one big foot into the stirrup and swung aboard her good horse. “So long, Red Wing. Maybe I won’t be gone too long.”
Mrs. Ida was starting down to path to the corral with a frown on her face, and he waved to her as he rode out of the gate and set old Crow to a high lope toward sundown. Red Wing shaded her wet eyes once more and watched him disappear in the distance. He never looked back, not even once.
“What’s that boy doing with your horse?” Her mother said behind her.
“I loaned Crow to him. The Comanches killed Pappy Spurling and the Youngs, and Odie’s going to hunt them down.”
“That fool boy will get himself killed, and maybe your father too. You shouldn’t have given him your horse.”
Red Wing gave her a wistful smile as she passed by her on her way back to the house. “You don’t know him at all.”
“I won’t have a daughter of mine mooning over the likes of Odell Spurling. Where do you think you’re going?” Mrs. Ida asked with a halfhearted scowl. “That hominy needs tending to.”
“I’ll tend the hominy pot, but when I get done I’m going to start sewing on a wedding dress. That fool boy is the man I’m going to marry when he gets back.”
Chapter 4
The tracks left by the Comanches driving their herd of stolen horses and those of his neighbors following them were plain, and Odell stuck to them like a cocklebur tangled in a mustang’s tail. Crow was as tough as Red Wing had said he was and they rode the sun down and kept on traveling by the light of the moon. The trail he followed seemed to be going up the river to the northwest, and though he lost it in the dark, faith and feel kept him moving and he picked it back up again at sunrise.
He traveled hard for two days, only stopping to sleep for a few hours at a time. He had nothing to eat but mush made from the hard corn pounded into coarse meal between two rocks, but vengeance fueled him and gave him strength. The trail veered west from the Colorado to follow along another river he presumed was the San Saba. All of the country was new to him, and when the trail turned north again and crossed the Colorado a second time, he slowly began to leave behind the low, rocky ridges and stands of oak, cedar, and mesquite. The country began to open up into grasslands with only scattered timber along some of the drainages. The brown summer grass was thicker and healthier than the rugged country he had left behind.
He dreamed one night of his mother. It bothered him that he couldn’t exactly recall anymore what she looked like in his waking hours, but her face was plain in the dream. His father didn’t appear to him, but Odell could feel his presence just the same. He wanted to ask them just what it was he had done that had cursed him so, but he awoke beside the cold ashes of his little fire alone. He closed his eyes and tried to summon the ghosts again but couldn’t. The dream had felt so real that waking was like losing his parents all over again. The stars were already fading in the gray morning light, and he finally got to his feet and went to saddle Crow.
He passed the Prussian and his neighbors on the third day when he saw where they had lost the Comanches’ faint trail. Although he considered himself no tracker, he trusted his own eyes and went where his hunch told him. Somebody in the party of white men had been a fair hand at reading sign, and Odell had simply followed them up until that point, hoping they would lead him to his quarry. When the Comanches gave them the slip Odell wasn’t sure just how he could stay on the raiders’ trail alone. However, the Comanches seemed to be traveling with a goal in mind. He found that if he kept to their line of travel that he usually came across some sign of them later on. Every time he was sure he had lost their trail he stumbled upon it again.
Somewhere north and west of nowhere, he crossed another dry riverbed and came out on a wide expanse of prairie scattered with prickly pear and yuccas. To the north was a line of rocky little hills and he spied a gap between them. He spent no more time looking for Comanche sign and aimed for that pass.
The sun was in his eyes and the dry grass crackled under Crow’s feet. The heat coming off the ground threatened to jerk them both like strips of buffalo meat. The black horse had lost some weight and his former sleek and shiny coat was caked with dried sweat and dust. He was still willing but needed a long rest. Odell couldn’t afford to give him that and knew he was pushing the limits of riding him to the point of ruin.
Crow stopped and lifted his head high with his ears erect and forward. Odell strained to find what the horse was looking at in the distance. Finally, he saw the slim finger of smoke coming off the hills. The odds were it was an Indian camp making that smoke, because no white man with any sense would build a fire so plainly seen in a land where that was liable to get him scalped.
“You’ve smelled smoke or Indians. Either way, you might just be the best horse in Texas.” Odell rubbed Crow’s neck and booted him forward.
He had no plan how to proceed next, so he just rode straight for the smoke. He’d hung his rifle by a string from his saddle horn, and he freed it and rested its butt on his right thigh with the muzzle pointing skyward. He checked his knife in its sheath, weighed his powder horn, and jiggled the bullets in his shot bag to make sure they were still there. It was at least a mile to that smoke, but even at a walk he was going to get there pretty quick.
* * *
Little Bull squatted by the fire with a chunk of greasy meat clenched in his teeth and hot juice dripping off of
his chin. He glared at the Jersey milk cow tied to a tree at the edge of his camp. She wallowed her cud in her mouth and looked back at him in dumb contentment, with her tail switching flies and her fat, full udder almost dragging the ground.
If it hadn’t been for that stolen cow slowing him down, Little Bull would have been almost back to his band’s camp far to the north. As it was, most of the war party had left him behind, and he was still far south of the Antelope Hills. He knew the Tejanos were sure to be following him, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the cow behind. He’d stolen her two days back, and he was bound and determined to keep her.
Little Bull’s belly bothered him terribly sometimes, and his chest ached liked something was hung there. By accident on an earlier raid he had taken a drink of the white man’s cow milk. He had found that it cooled his burning stomach and settled the bile that rose up in his throat. His intent was to take the cow to his camp for his squaws to milk.
Tejanos traveled far too slowly to catch Little Bull at any other time, but the cow went even more slowly than those hated white men did. He threw down the bone he’d picked clean and moved to where he could watch the plains south of the hill. There were two separate dust trails worming their way toward him, and neither one was very far away. He knew the closest for the three warriors who had stayed behind with him. They had split off from him two days before to try to steal more horses from a Wichita village to the east. They were originally from one of the Honey Eater camps, and were far more familiar and at home in the land of timber and little mountains they had raided in the past days. Little Bull himself was Kotsoteka Comanche, the Buffalo Hunters, and his home range was the Canadian River Valley to the north.
The three Honey Eaters weren’t especially good raiders or fighters, but any allies would be welcome help at that moment. The second cloud of dust had to be Tejanos, either on the trail of the three Penatekas coming to join him, or following his own tracks. Little Bull gathered his weapons and mounted his horse. From the size of the dust, the Tejanos were few, and he knew four Comanches were more than enough to whip them.
The Texans Page 3