The Texans

by Brett Cogburn

  And then there was Manuel Ortega. He wasn’t big as a minute, but the little Mexican was hell on wheels in a scrap with a gun or a knife and he was an equal match on horseback for any Comanche ever born. He had spent three years of his boyhood as a Comanche captive, and that time hadn’t improved his opinion of those he called “los diablos de Tejas.”

  To the Prussian’s left was Kentucky Bob Harris, hero of San Jacinto, and survivor of the Santa Fe Expedition. He was possibly the best rifle shot in Texas, and to those present that meant the world. The veterans of the Cherokee War had watched him kill two Cherokee warriors with his fancy squirrel rifle at distances that seemed impossible. Kentucky Bob never went anywhere without his brother, Dub. Dub wasn’t as fine a marksman, but he was an uncommonly strong, mean bastard. Anybody who could pick two Mexican soldiers up over his head and throw them back among their own, as he had during the fight with General Cos at San Antonio, was a good man to have in a fight.

  And just beyond the Harris brothers was the one man besides Placido that the Prussian was most glad to see. There was no guessing just how old Son Ballard really was. He had been traipsing around Texas when there wasn’t anything there but mustangs and mesquite beans. He looked to be a hundred, but he could travel all day either on horseback or afoot without complaint. When foul weather and hardship turned most men back, old Son was still grinning and laughing. He knew Texas as few men did, and nobody who called him friend was ever surprised if he showed up anywhere from the Rio Grande to the Red, from the Sabine to the Pecos. He was a wanderer to say the least. Son swore he could smell Comanches, and that the hair on the back of his neck stood out and warned him when an attack was imminent. Maybe that was true, because after all his years traipsing the distances alone, he still had a full head of hair, and nothing more than a faraway look and a weathered countenance to ever prove where he had been.

  The other twenty white men that rounded out the Prussian’s volunteer ranging company were all of the same sort. The Comanche had pretty much pillaged and plundered at will as long as there had been Texans around to kill, and it was high time the hostiles got a dose of their own medicine. If President Houston’s Peace Commission worked, it was going to gather a large number of the Comanches together for them to attack. Old Sam might have good intentions, but he never had understood that the only good Comanche was a dead one.

  The Prussian started them down off the mountain, a tiny army of good men, if a touch hardened by the times, filibusters and self-motivated mercenaries every one, loyal to nothing but their families, friends, and their own ideas of justice. No drums or regimental flags proclaimed their march, and few would remember their daring if they didn’t return. Earlier failures had taught these men that the only way to whip Comanches was to copy many of their tactics, and that meant traveling fast and light, and striking hard when they got there. There were no supply-laden pack trains to slow them, and every man carried his own larder in his saddlebags, mostly relying on nothing more than a little salt and coffee and whatever they could procure during their travels to feed them in the coming days or weeks. If game was scarce, they went hungry; if water couldn’t be located, they died.

  Grown men and weapons were heavy enough, and there was no grain for their horses to further weigh them down. The individual mounts were the best each man could procure, speed at a premium and endurance a must. Their warhorses had to be as tough as the Comanche ponies and able to live off nothing but whatever grazing was at hand after a hard day’s travel. A man afoot in the country where they were going was as good as dead, and he had better choose his mount wisely.

  While their weapons were different from the Comanches’, the men following the Prussian were savages of a sort themselves. No town-tamed citizen of more civilized parts could view them and not wonder what barbaric horde they belonged to. They brought the blood feud with them from places like Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alabama. They migrated from mountains and backwoods bayous already hacked into submission by blood, sweat, and ax. Some of them came to Texas to avoid debts, others to avoid being hung, and some because the lands they left had already grown too tame and stagnant for such free-thinking men. The Comanche were their sworn enemy, gave no quarter, and had no understanding of mercy. Neither did the Texan fighter, and he would keep at the Comanche until one of them was wiped off the face of the earth.

  They rode hard for two days, and when nearing the old presidio forty miles along the San Saba River, the entire party pulled up to study the lone figure waving at them from the rock ruins. The Tonk scouts were already cautiously flanking the man on the north bank, but most of the party didn’t need their guides to tell them what their own eyesight already had. It was a white man yonder, and he looked to have come a long way and played hell getting back from wherever he had been.

  Chapter 16

  Odell sat on a tumbled section of stone wall and studied his visitors around the campfire. The sight of them made him uneasy, and it wasn’t just the fact that he had been long away from his own kind. He had been looking forward to talking with the first Texan he met on the trail, but never had imagined running across the likes of this war party. At first he had hidden in the ruins of the presidio, alarmed by the sight of the Indian scouts riding in advance of the procession. Time in the wilds had made him cautious, and even after spying the white men he took long to come out of hiding.

  “Herr Odell, I didn’t expect to see you again. You are strong to survive so long alone out there.” The Prussian pointed to the west with the curved stem of his pipe.

  The sight of that pipe made Odell think of his pappy. He poked at the campfire with a mesquite root while he tried to shut out such thoughts. “I don’t know that I ever expected to see you again either.”

  “What happened to your hand?” the Prussian asked.

  “My supper bit me.” Odell studied his still discolored, but healing snakebite. Three days of rest, and the venison from a whitetail doe who had wandered too close to the ruins had gone a long ways toward nursing him back to health.

  “You’ve come far and must have seen many things that few men have,” the Prussian said.

  “Huh?” Odell answered absentmindedly. He was acutely aware of the men around the fire quietly and expectantly staring at him.

  It came as a shock to him to remember that it had been nearly a year since he left the settlements. How could he put to words how he had lived for the past long months—the heat and cold, the eternity of stars glittering in the night’s blackness, the endless nothing all the way to the horizon that was as much an origin as it was a destination? He thought of running buffalo with the Wichitas, of the shrill cries of the hunters coming out of the dust, and the drum of thousands of hooves thumping the ground. He closed his eyes to the hot glare of the fire and he could see again the long procession of the village on the move with chattering children and barking dogs weaving in and out of the line of march. They were a laughing people, migrating to the rhythm and surge of their horses’ strides, called into the distance as if by some primordial memory and urge that even a white man such as he could feel. How could he explain to them just what it felt like to leave all civilized concerns behind and live like the life between sunup and sundown was all that mattered?

  “I’ve seen some things,” Odell said quietly.

  “Did you ever find that Comanche, or any Comanche?” the Prussian asked.

  Odell didn’t want to admit how fruitless his wanderings had been after all his bold predictions of vengeance. His so-called knack for survival had less to do with his courage or skill and more to do with Crow being able to run almost any old Comanche pony into the ground. “I’ve cut their sign a time or two.”

  “I intend to find the Comanches, and a large village of them if possible.” The Prussian’s eyes were unblinking as a snake’s. “We’ve come to fight, and we have the men and the numbers to do it.”

  Odell wasn’t about to tell
the men around him that he thought looking for Comanches in large numbers was like going bear hunting with a switch. The Prussian’s Texans looked formidable, but having seen the Comanches up close and personal, he wouldn’t guarantee whipping them even when the numbers on both sides might be even. And he had no hope of outnumbering them. He had seen signs of a lot of Comanches on the plains.

  “I’m no tracker, but I think the Comanches are already riding the war trail. I came across a camp two days west of here, and all the tracks away from it were pointed south to Mexico,” Odell said.

  The Prussian considered what he had just heard. He knew as well as many in his company did, that it was hard to find Comanches in any numbers, except when you didn’t need to find them. The springtime would have the bands broken up into small hunting groups, but he was counting on the Peace Commission to gather the enemy for him. The best way to fight Comanches was to attack them in their camps. The confusion of a swift surprise attack had far more chance of success than a set battle where the enemy had time to organize.

  “If we don’t strike the Peace Commission’s trail to the north by the time we reach the Concho, I intend to ride for the Red.” The Prussian looked around him at the faces of the men gathered around the fire. “Herr Ballard, what do you think?”

  Son Ballard stretched a buckskinned leg to the fire and the craggy lines of his face deepened into a grimace of aching, old joints. “That country between good water on the Brazos and the Red is a hard stretch of ground if you don’t bear to the east. If we ain’t half starved and afoot by the time we make the Red, the country between there and the Arkansas is pretty easy traveling.”

  “You think we might have to go so far?” the Prussian asked.

  “We might. The Comanches will be following the buffalo north. The Peace Commission is going to have to hunt them down just like us, and the Comanches ain’t waiting around for anybody when there’s meat to be put up after a long winter. From what you say, I guess Chief Squash will take them up the Brazos past his village and on to the northwest of Fort Bird on the Trinity. It figures that they’ll head for the Canadian if they have any sense. The water’s better along that route, and they have a better chance of getting the northern bands to come to a meeting at the fort. They’ve had fewer run-ins with us Texans over the years.”

  “Then we ride north by northwest until we find them.” The Prussian pitched a piece of salty, hard bacon rind into the fire and all were silent while it hissed and sizzled on the coals.

  “Where we’re going you’d better save even your rind. It might not be so long until we’ll all be chewing on our saddles,” Son said.

  “What’s this Peace Commission y’all are talking about?” Odell asked.

  The Prussian stared at him with his brow lowered, as if the question angered him. “President Houston has assigned them to trade Red Wing back to the Comanches.”

  Odell fought not to stutter or stammer. “What?”

  “They’re a damned party of Injun agents and they’ve kidnapped that girl,” Son Ballard said.

  “I don’t just intend to kill Comanches. Red Wing and the Peace Commission is what brought us out here,” the Prussian said.

  There were a million questions running through Odell’s mind. “What chance do we have of heading this Peace Commission off?”

  “If we catch up to them, we will convince them or bluff them into setting Red Wing free. They aren’t likely to give her up to us without a fight, and Sam Houston isn’t a man to make an enemy of. Will Anderson may be the spoiled son of a Galveston schooner captain, but he has a reputation as a fighter. Killing him or his men is a quick way of becoming an outlaw,” the Prussian said.

  “I thought you were riding to rescue her,” Odell said quickly. The thought of Red Wing in danger and lost to him churned his guts and made his heart pound. He didn’t care who he had to fight, Texans or Comanches either one. He was going after her, and anybody foolish enough to stand in his way could take the medicine they had coming.

  “Herr Odell, I am going to get her back, but we have to play this carefully. If they won’t give her up, our best bet may be to join their party. If we can attack the Comanche at just the right moment, we can put an end to Houston’s crazy peace talks. Without anybody to trade with, Commissioner Anderson will have to give Red Wing back to me.”

  “To you?” Odell didn’t like the blunt hint in what the Prussian said.

  The Prussian sighed as if he had news that he would rather not deliver, and then lied, “Herr Odell, Red Wing and I planned to be married this spring.”

  The news hit Odell like a punch in the stomach. “I don’t believe that. She as much as told me she was my girl before I went after those Comanches.”

  “Maybe. I’ll call no man a liar without good cause or a willingness to defend my word as a gentleman.” The Prussian paused to let that soak in with Odell. “You were gone a long time, and we all assumed you were dead. I asked her and she said yes.”

  Odell’s hands gripped the mesquite root until his knuckles turned white. The Prussian was within easy reach and he wanted nothing more than to knock the smug look off of his face. He tried to calm himself enough that his words wouldn’t come out shaky.

  “No offense, but I’ll hear it from her myself. If what you say is true, it doesn’t mean she can’t change her mind.”

  “I take it that you are riding with us?”

  “You can bet your sword I am. I don’t intend to lose Red Wing to you or anybody else.”

  The Prussian smiled coldly. “We shall see, won’t we?”

  “I reckon.” Odell kept his eyes on the Prussian’s sword and the pistols at his waist. He wasn’t fool enough to believe that smile meant anything funny.

  The two of them stared across the fire at each other like buffalo bulls taking a breather between butting heads. Odell wasn’t about to blink first or seem unwilling to take things as far as the Prussian wanted them to go.

  “There’s nobody following us.” A giant Indian with a rifle cradled in one elbow stepped into the firelight to stand beside the Prussian.

  Odell had never seen an Indian so big, and he wasn’t sure what to make of him. There was a look about the Indian that reminded him of the Comanches. The savage face was covered in small scars and the statuesque nose and jaw bespoke a fierceness and a wild restlessness that put Odell instantly on guard.

  “I feel it in my bones that Comanches are following us, and yet your scouts have found nothing.” The Prussian seemed as comfortable with the big Indian towering over him as he would be swapping stories with family.

  “Nothing but old tracks.” The Indian’s English was good but short and clipped. Despite his appearance, he seemed at ease and familiar with the company of whites.

  “Comanches?” the Prussian asked.

  “Yes, and others too. Many tribes are out after the buffalo.”

  Odell still couldn’t get over the presence of the massive Indian.

  The Prussian must have noticed, because he jerked a thumb at the man beside him. “I see you haven’t met the famed Placido, Tonkawa chief, terror of the Comanches, and the finest ally a Texan ever had.”

  “No, I never.”

  “Placido, meet Herr Odell Spurling. By Gott, the two of you are pair big enough to pull a wagon.”

  The Tonkawa acted as if he noticed Odell for the first time. His face was unreadable, but there was a devilish twinkle in his eyes. “How, Odell. Not many white men can make it to the Llano and back alone.”

  Odell merely nodded, not quite knowing what he was agreeing with.

  “Herr Odell, I’m sure the men will donate enough powder and lead to rearm you. We ride at daylight and I swear by King Frederick’s hairy ass that we’ll keep on riding until we find Red Wing and have given the Comanches a fight.” The Prussian turned away and walked off into the night.

  Odell w
as left staring at where the Prussian had been. He kicked the coals at the edge of the fire angrily and brooded over his concerns. Son Ballard chuckled and a couple of the men joined in.

  “What are you laughing at, old man?” Odell snapped.

  Son’s pale blue eyes, made paler and watery by years under the prairie sun, seemed to look right through him. “If the Comanches don’t kill you, the Prussian is liable to.”

  “Me and him have ridden together before. We’ve got no grudges that would require a killing.”

  Son laughed softly again. “Karl doesn’t need much reason to cut a man wide and deep. From what I just heard, you and him want the same woman, and that’s been reason enough for more than one bloodletting.”

  “I reckon we’ll have the Comanches to keep us busy,” Odell said.

  “If you cross that German, you’d better keep an eye on that pig sticker he carries. Old Bob Carney complained about his run of cards and the Prussian’s dealing one night. Bob was drunk and slow and got himself opened up from his gizzard to his pecker.” Hatchet Murphy leaned into the flames and leered at Odell with his one good eye.

  Odell didn’t tell any of them that he had seen what the Prussian could do with his saber. “I’ll do my share of fighting when you need me, but I ain’t looking for trouble.”

  “Nobody goes looking for the Prussian. They must raise ’em mean where he comes from,” Son said.

  Odell pitched his poker in the fire. He was sick of hearing how tough the Prussian was, and hoped his silence would turn the conversation elsewhere. He reached to his belt and pulled out a massive sheath knife and studied it by the firelight.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” Son Ballard asked with a hint of something more than just natural curiosity.

  Odell held the knife a little farther out into the light. The once rusty blade showed brightly where he had been polishing it with handfuls of sand. “I found it not far from here.”