Chapter 10
Bud Wilson unhitched from the plow and rode just as fast as his poor mule could go all the way to the Prussian’s farm. A crew of men busy building a new house watched him come down the little creek valley with cautious looks. Every man of them set aside their tools and went to stand beside their guns, at least those that had them. A fast-approaching rider in that neck of the woods was never a good sign and often meant danger was at hand.
Bud pulled up before the framed beginnings of the house that stood like a skeleton in the clearing with its bare, white lumber looking more like bones than wood. The Prussian stood at a long table set up in the yard, poring over a set of building plans with a square and a pen. He straightened the silk sash around his waist and adjusted his saber before coming up to greet Bud.
“Herr Bud, you’ve come fast and look tired. If I didn’t know you only live four miles from me I’d say you’d come all the way from Austin.”
Bud felt a little silly when he realized he was indeed breathing hard, as if he’d run the distance himself and not been carried by his mule. He tried to calm himself and managed to finally blurt something out. “They’ve run off with Red Wing and are going to give her to the Comanches.”
The Prussian studied the young man while he absorbed the news. Bud gathered his breath and a jumbled, confusing version of the day’s events at the Wilsons’ farm poured out of him in one quick rush. The Prussian held up a palm to slow him down and invited him to dismount and take a seat under the shade trees surrounding the house they were building.
“This will steady you some.” The Prussian poured a tin cup full of whiskey from a jug and offered it to Bud. It was well known among the settlers on the upper Colorado that the Prussian’s stills turned out especially good sipping liquor.
“I ain’t a drinking man.” Bud was just barely sixteen, and the fact was, he had never been offered any.
“Go ahead and drink it. It’ll take the edge off your day, and then maybe you can slow down and tell me just what happened.”
Bud tossed down the liquor in one gulp and took the chair the Prussian offered him. His host remained standing, and despite all his calm talk, it was plain that he was impatient to hear what Bud had to say. The whiskey burned Bud’s throat to the point of almost bringing tears to his eyes, and it was a moment before he could give another go at telling his story.
The Prussian listened quietly until Bud had told him of the Peace Commission taking Red Wing from Mrs. Wilson. Bud had expected him to react powerfully, but the Prussian went back to his table and traced a finger over the blueprint pinned down on the tabletop with small creek stones at each corner. He studied the house framing as if he was seeing the construction finished in his mind, and then surveyed his hired men standing around doing nothing but staring at him.
“You’ve four men here, and with you and me that should be enough to run the Peace Commission down and take her back,” Bud said.
“Yes, I have four men here, but they’re carpenters and farmers and not fighters,” the Prussian said.
“You mean to tell me you’re just going to let them take her? I thought the congress appointed you some kind of militia officer or something. She sent me here, counting on you.” Bud had always looked up to the Prussian and was more than a little shocked at the man’s complacency. He took new measure of him and wondered if it had only been the sword that had impressed him. Rich foreigners with fine manners, gold money, and a fancy horse were certainly inspiring to a frontier boy.
“No, I mean nothing of the sort.” The Prussian pointed to the white framing of the house being erected. “I’m building this for Red Wing, and as soon as it was finished I was going to ride over to your home and ask her to marry me again.”
“Well, you ain’t going to marry her if they trade her off to the Comanches.” Bud could see no need to dawdle around talking while the men who’d taken his sister got farther away by the minute.
“Rest assured, I will bring her back.” The Prussian waved his laborers back to work. “You men know what to do, and I expect my house to be finished by the time I get back. And I expect it to be built according to my plans.”
Bud thought the big house the Prussian was building was a little silly. Nobody on the frontier built frame houses, even if they did own a sawmill. And besides, there was already a good log cabin on the farm that was bigger than the one the entire Wilson family lived in. There was a round-topped barn with a loft and a nice set of split-rail lots, a large corn crib, cotton press, and wagon shed on the place. In Bud’s opinion, such hard work and money as the new house required would have been better spent clearing brush and breaking new farm ground. Corn would feed you and cotton would make you wealthy, but a big, fancy house was nothing but showing off to the neighbors or his sister.
“Let’s get going. Maybe we can pick up more men as we go,” Bud said as he started for his mule.
“You go back to your mother and see that she’s all right. With your father gone, you’re all she has to take care of her.”
“I ain’t going back home. I’m riding with you.”
“By Gott, that old plow mule of yours wouldn’t make it a day on a hard ride.” The Prussian could already tell he might have to tie the boy up to keep him from going. “If you want to help, you’ll stay and protect your mother so I can go after Red Wing without worrying she won’t have anyone to give her away in marriage when I get back.”
“You can’t talk me out of going with you.” Bud jumped to his feet and stuck out his jaw.
“Oh, well, you’re a man grown.” The Prussian shrugged and quit the argument as quickly as it had begun.
He went to his cabin and disappeared inside for a long while. He finally came out balancing a roll of blankets bound inside an oilskin groundsheet, an odd-shaped, small box on one arm, and a stubby carbine in his other hand. One of the carpenters brought up the Kentucky horse, and the Prussian tied his bedroll and the box behind the saddle and hung the carbine by its sling from the saddle horn. The ancient, decrepit Mexican woman who served as his cook followed behind him with a thin wooden chest, and he opened it while she held it in her outstretched hands and pulled out a matched pair of flintlock pistols. He checked the priming on both pans before attaching the pistols to lanyards tied to his belt, and then stuffed them into the holsters on each hip at a cross draw.
“Herr Bud, can you go inside and get my saddlebags? They’re on my bed.”
Bud leaned his rifle against the worktable and did as he was asked. He came back out of the house just in time to see the Prussian take up the rifle he had left behind and lay it across the mule’s rump. He pulled the trigger on Bud’s gun and the exhaust from the muzzle burned the mule enough to cause him to leave in a crazed runaway.
“What’d you do that for?” The mule had always been a little harebrained, and Bud was surprised more by the Prussian’s act than he was to see the animal fleeing wildly over the hill toward home.
“It’s a short walk home for you, and I am sure you will find your mount waiting there.”
The Prussian took the saddlebags from Bud and handed him the empty rifle in exchange. He tied the saddlebags behind his cantle and mounted without so much as a word of apology. By the time Bud had thought about what had just happened long enough to get angry, the Prussian was already loping away and out of hearing distance of any complaints. Bud knew he should have at least returned the favor and ran off the Prussian’s horse, but it was already too late. He was disappointed by his own inaction and being left standing there like a fool. If he had been given more time to think, he might have made a better account of himself, but Bud had never been the brightest of the Wilson children. He wished Red Wing had been there to help him figure things out. As it was, the only thing left for him to do was to go after his mule.
The Prussian felt bad for treating the boy so, but he knew it was better than getting him killed
somewhere out on the trail. He was going to have to ride fast if he was to gather the help he needed and then catch up to the Peace Commission. He had no time to babysit young boys with poor rifles and slow mules.
He knew the expedition had taken Red Wing up the Colorado, but he rode southwest instead. He hated to abandon the fresh tracks they were sure to leave, but he was outnumbered and hoped to remedy that by traveling out of his way to get some help. He could have gone into Austin, or downriver to Bastrop looking for men to aid him, but he had no use for cautious family men or drunken brawlers loafing in taverns—not for what he intended.
If Colonel Moore and Placido weren’t going with Commissioner Anderson, then his guess was that they would be heading for the headwaters of the San Marcos. Placido often left his wife there while he went off to fight with various ranging companies. Colonel Moore might have ridden there with him, but the Prussian blamed Moore too much for Red Wing’s predicament to want his help. To his way of thinking, much of Colonel Moore’s reputation as an Indian fighter was ill deserved anyway. However, Placido was known to be a fine tracker and killer of Comanches. The Indian might know the route the Peace Commission intended to travel, and maybe he could round up some more Tonks to help fill out the war party the Prussian hoped to gather.
Against his better judgment, he did stop at several homesteads far to the south to try to stir up some settler men with a little Indian fighting experience to ride with him. None of them had been neighbors of the Wilsons, and they didn’t seem to care about a captive Comanche girl being taken back to her murderous tribe enough to leave their work and families. He didn’t even mention the fact that the Comanches had killed other settlers and had stolen livestock, and left the farmers to their corn and barefoot children.
By nightfall he was in a foul mood from the long ride and cussing everything in general. Although more than a little put out with some of his fellow Texans’ apathy and prejudice, he was no less determined to free Red Wing from her captors. Texas was a paradise to his way of thinking, but the one thing it lacked was women, especially women beautiful enough for a man who liked the best of everything.
He wished he had a regiment of Prussian hussars to ride with him, because he was sure no force in Texas was strong enough to stand up to his fellow countrymen in arms, even Comanches. The hussars were the finest light cavalry on the face of the earth. The fact that he had been forced to flee the place of his birth due to political difficulties didn’t diminish his pride and assurance of Prussian superiority over all makes of men. His homeland might suffer under foolish tyrants, but there was nothing wrong with the men bred there. Where other soldiers might falter, a Prussian never did.
The Prussian was a hot-blooded and violent man at heart, and the illegitimate son of an important baron had been no match for him with a saber. He had killed the slanderous dandy in a duel, and rather than waiting to be executed or locked up in prison, he had fled the country with his extended family aboard a chartered English ship. Texas at the time was nothing but a vague spot on a map to them, but it promised to be a place where stubborn, free-thinking men could live their lives without interference. To the Prussian’s surprise, Texas had proven more than he had dreamed. It wasn’t long before he began to consider killing the baron’s bastard as the greatest stroke of fortune in his life. Granted, Texas was a primitive place, but a tough, smart man with a little ready gold and the ability to lead men might one day make a fortune there.
It was as if Texas was made for him, and the bloody attributes that had almost landed him in a Prussian prison served him well in his new home. The best thing about the frontier was that a man could always find a fight, or it would find him. Wild, violent men in Texas were as common as flies, and their deeds often led them to rank and position, rather than jail. Adventurous rogues seemed drawn to the land like moths to a flame, and the Prussian was a bigger rogue than any of them.
He considered Sam Houston as no fool, and surely the old general had picked competent men to man his expedition to the Comanches. It would be no easy task taking Red Wing away from them. The Prussian knew defying the president of the republic was liable to cause him problems, but he wasn’t the type to be thwarted in what he set out to do. Life could be like playing high-stakes poker, and a man sometimes had to take his chances in the game. Red Wing was a prize worth gambling for, and just to sweeten the pot, his journey chasing after the Peace Commission was likely to be long and land him in the middle of Comanche country.
Thinking of Comanches excited him, and a new plan began to form in his mind. He had no doubts that he could rescue Red Wing, but why not kill two birds with one stone? All he needed was a good band of fighters to help him. A man who could successfully lead a battle against a large number of Comanches might go all the way to the presidency of Texas. President Houston had made some very unpopular decisions of late, and there was no way he was going to be reelected.
What the Prussian would have admitted, had anybody been there to ask him, was the fact that the promise of another bloody fight with the Comanche excited him more than the woman or his position in Texas political affairs. He would take his prizes as they came to him, but war trumped all pleasures.
Thinking of Red Wing and glory made him push the Kentucky horse a little faster down the trail to San Antonio, and his hand went inadvertently to his saber handle. He intended to one day be the king of Texas, and as such, he would need a queen—Sam Houston, Comanches, or anyone else who got in his way be damned.
Chapter 11
Odell gathered his buffalo robe tighter about his throat and shivered in the breeze. A good squaw would have done a better job, but he’d tried to tan the hide himself and it was stiff and almost unmanageable. His hand cramped from holding the hard, dried edges of the ill-cured robe tight enough to keep the cold from leaking in. A late spring norther had blown a short-lived snowstorm down on the plains and had almost frozen him. But that was nothing unusual. It seemed the country had been trying to kill him ever since he left his home to chase Comanches.
When the April storm had struck in the night he’d been unable to light a fire, so he saddled Crow and just let the wind carry them along, hoping that by keeping moving they wouldn’t freeze to death. Although the blizzard had barely lasted until daylight, that was more than enough time to drive him far enough south on the plains that he didn’t have a clue where he was at. But that was nothing new either. Since leaving the Wichitas he had grown used to not knowing his exact location on a map, even if there had been proper maps of the country he rode. He had decided that half the battle was just getting used to being lost, and he was content to simply wander. If he could find his way to the nearest water in time to save himself, then he considered it a good day. The plains he rode were flat and almost without landmarks, and he had come to think that feeling lost went with the territory, at least for a white man.
The sun was leaking white light through cracks in the gray clouds and the wind had shifted again to blow from the south. That was the thing about the plains—it could be spring one moment and winter the next. He could already feel it warming up and hoped it would be spring again by the late afternoon.
Despite the fact that the storm was over, he couldn’t quit shivering or seem to warm himself. Most of the ground was free from snow, as the wind had swept it into powdery white lines that ran in long, wavy rows across the prairie. What he needed was a fire, but he wasn’t sure his cold-stiffened fingers would function well enough to gather some buffalo chips, much less strike an accurate spark from his flint and steel.
Just when he’d given up hope of warmth and had decided to angle east to the caprock that edged the Llano Estacado somewhere in the distance, he spotted a campfire burning brightly through the early morning light. It seemed very near, but his eyes often fooled him on such an expanse of nothing, and the fire turned out to be almost three miles away.
Odell had nearly gotten himself killed by various
follies during his fall and winter upon the plains, but he had learned to approach campfires cautiously. Most of those he ran across out on the buffalo grass were liable to be his enemies. He did cut a wide quarter circle around the flickering orange eye before him, but he was pretty sure that whoever was stopped there wouldn’t be Indians, or at least not very many of them. Most Indians had better sense than to be caught out in the open during a blizzard without at least the shelter of a tepee. Although spring was at hand, most of the Comanche were still huddled up in their winter camps in the canyons north along the Canadian and Red, or east along the edge of the high walls of the escarpment that fronted the headwaters of the Brazos and Red Rivers.
What Odell found beside the fire was a single little man with his feet propped up on a rock to warm them before the flames. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, as the man had no feet or much above that either, and it was merely the scarred stumps of his legs shorn off just above the knees that must have needed warming. The only other occupant of the camp, if it could be called that, was a skinny burro that stood three-legged with its side practically in the small fire. It appeared to be asleep, and must have been cold, because Odell was sure that the hair on its ribs was getting singed.
“Mind if I use your fire? I have a little buffalo meat to share.” Odell pulled up at a polite distance.
The little man beside the fire didn’t answer and seemed content to study the stumps of his short legs stretched out before him. Odell assumed that the Mexican might have been asleep like the little donkey, or else he didn’t speak English. He stepped down from his saddle anyway and loosened Crow’s cinch. After rummaging around in his saddlebags he drug out the dry buffalo tongue he’d been carrying there for the better part of two days. He carried it over to the fire.
The Mexican was awake, and the sight of the buffalo tongue seemed to interest him more than Odell’s arrival had.
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