Man in the Saddle

by Matt Chisholm

  Pagley said: “Come on,” and trotted back toward them.

  The Kiowas watched their approach impassively, except for the young man who could not keep the excitement from his eyes. Maybe this was his first time out. Under the paint, Spur reckoned him at no more than sixteen.

  The Delaware took the lead, making signs of peace to them without halting till he was within a few yards of them. With the horses blowing and snorting,* he and the oldest man exchanged sign talk.

  There came a pause.

  Spur asked: “What’s he say?”

  “Not much,” Pagley told him. “He’s fencing. Something about us riding nearly as good as Kiowas. And how about some presents. He wouldn’t say ‘no’ to some tobacco. And sugar, maybe.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  The flicker of a grin touched the Delaware’s dark face again.

  “I said we had the same idea, knowing how rich and powerful the Kiowas were.”

  Spur said: “Ask him about the white girl.”

  “Too direct. It would frighten them off.”

  “Say we’re in the market for white prisoners.”

  Pagley used his arms and hands. The old man in the war-bonnet grunted and answered.

  Pagley said: “He says the Kiowas have no white prisoners.”

  The Delaware kept at it for about a half-hour, but he learned nothing. Finally, he said: “We’re wastin’ our time. Either these boys don’t know anythin’ or they’re not tellin’.”

  “How in hell do we break this off?” Spur asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  It was the Kiowas themselves that broke it off. Suddenly the old man gave them the peace-sign again and slowly turned his horse south-west. The others followed suit and slowly they trotted away, feathers fluttering.

  “They’re on the war-trail all right,” Pagley said. “All dressed up.”

  The young brave broke away from the others, urged his pony into a run and looked as though he would charge down on them, but the old man screamed orders at him and he changed his mind. He contented himself with shouting defiance at them and followed his eiders. Spur sighed with relief.

  The wind blew up that night and they camped under the lip of an arroyo. Rainclouds ran across the moon overhead and Pagley reckoned there would be rain before dawn. They slept turn and turnabout and saddled their horses under a light rain. Neither knew which direction they should take, so they started circling, Pagley going into the west and Spur to the east until around noon the Delaware fired three summoning shots with his rifle and Spur came running.

  The rain had stopped and Pagley had found tracks. He pointed to the marks on the ground that had been scarcely moistened by the rain.

  “We follow that,” the Delaware said, “an’ I’ll bet we pick up the trail of those Kiowas we met yesterday.”

  “Wagons?” Spur said puzzled.

  “No,” Pagley told him. “Carts. Look there. Those ruts were made by big wheels.”

  “Mexicans?”

  “Maybeso. Maybe Comancheros.”

  Spur jerked up his head and looked at him. There might be a chance. If the Kiowas were meeting Comancheros, it was possible that they were fixing to arrange the exchange of prisoners. He had heard that they worked as contracts for the Kiowas as well as the Comanches, but he did not know for sure.

  “Do you know if the Kiowas would work through Comancheros?” he asked.

  “Somehow I don’t think so,” the Indian said. “But they could sell the girl to the Comanches. Maybe they’ve heard we are after her and don’t want to be found with her. It would be a joke to leave the Comanch’ with a hot potato. But don’t let’s raise our hopes. These fellers most like have nothing to do with our girl.”

  But they followed the trail and by the afternoon found the smoke of the carters. They rode toward a clump of willows near water, going cautiously because they did not know if there were Indians about. They found six carts and a rag-taggle of Comancheros, fierce-looking untamed men with wary eyes and long moustaches, blowsy women who had led the hard life too long; ragged, naked-assed children playing in the dust and the water. Spur was reminded of a gypsy encampment. Most of the arms in view were bows and arrows and lances. Rusty spurs adorned sandaled feet.

  They were challenged within a hundred yards of the camp by two ugly-looking men on small curly-haired ponies not big enough to keep their riders’ feet more than twenty-four inches from the ground.

  Pagley tried them with sign language and Spur spoke to them in Spanish. They answered both. Their Spanish was harsh and Spur had difficulty in understanding it. They eyed the two men’s weapons with respect. Spur told them that he wanted to speak to their jefe. They demanded to know what brought him here.

  “We are travelers,” Spur said, knowing that he was believed. “We travel for our health.”

  “We will take you to our jefe” one said. “But he will not be best pleased.”

  They put themselves on either side of Spur and Pagley and escorted them into the camp, shouting the news of the arrival ahead of them and brandishing their spears as if they were living up to their reputations of being terrible fellows.

  As soon as Spur rode among the wagons, he saw that it was a rawhide outfit, living hard and hand to mouth. Saddles, wheels, cart-bodies, all were mended with rawhide. The old man they were taken to was dressed in hide from his sandals to his leggings and his tattered hunting shirt. His hat was a battered straw sombrero that dropped to his bent shoulders. His face was composed of a thousand tiny brown crinkles. His eyes were black and watchful as he squatted Indian-fashion by his fire and watched their approach. His Spanish was like that of the two horsemen and he larded it with Indian words. The guards had been right, he was not best pleased to see the two strangers.

  He demanded their names and Spur told him, but he would not give his. What did it matter, he demanded, what his name was? He was nothing but a poor old man wandering on the plain, here today and gone tomorrow.

  Spur and Pagley squatted. The old man asked for news. Any news. He heard little of the outside world. His carts were his world. The talk drifted desultorily and Spur let it be that way. He felt that if he mentioned Kiowa prisoners, he would scare off this old man. They gave him tobacco, but that did not seem to thaw him out much. Men, women and children came and squatted in a circle around them. They smelled.

  They had been there an hour when Pagley said softly in English without looking at Spur: “Keep talkin’. There’s a Comanch5 behind you in spittin’ distance.”

  “Trouble?” Spur asked.

  “He’s just leanin’ against a cart, watchin’.”

  That meant there would be no getting any information out of the old man now. But he reckoned it worth a try.

  Out of the blue, he said: “Old man, I have heard that the Kiowas aim to sell a young white girl.”

  He let it out casually and the old man blinked. No more than that. His black reptilian eyes shifted for a second to the Indian behind Spur, then flicked back to the white man’s face.

  “Kiowas!” he exclaimed in disgust. “What do I know of Kiowas?”

  “You might hear of this white girl from the Comanches.”

  The old fellow snickered in derision.

  “Since when did the Kiowas talk with the Comanche?”

  “I have heard that the Kiowa and Comanche talk war against the whites together.”

  A gnarled brown hand waved the suggestion away.

  “That is foolishness. In the name of God, whoever heard of such a thing. It is madness.”

  Spur tried again.

  “There are Kiowas near here. And Comanches.”

  That brought the old eyes wide. There was real surprise there.

  “It is not so,” he mumbled. “Not possible. My people would have heard. There is nothing on the Llano Estacado that I do not hear.”

  “Then you will have heard, old one, that the great white chief is tired of his young women being stolen and his settlements att
acked.”

  The thin lips twisted in a brief and horrible smile.

  “He has been tired for a long time of that. But he cannot stop it.”

  Spur put iron into his voice.

  “He can stop anything he pleases. He has soldiers who are more than ten times ten all the Comanches in the world, ten times ten all the Kiowas and even the great Cheyenne and Arapaho people. Take all the Indians there are and the great chief has more soldiers.”

  The Comanchero drew his breath through his few yellow teeth sharply. The enormous number was almost beyond his comprehension. This whiteman must be a great liar.

  “You think you speak with a child,” he said. “There cannot be so many white people.”

  “There are many many times more. And the soldiers will come and they will be more numerous than the blades of grass. They will destroy the Comanches and the Kiowas. And I have heard that the great chief has heard of the Comancheros and he is angry with them.”

  “Why?” demanded the old man. “Why should he be angry with us? We are a poor people who do nobody any harm. How many prisoners have we brought back to the Tejanos?”

  “The great chief knows that if there were no Comancheros, the Comanches would not steal women and children to make trade.”

  The old man glowered.

  “Not possible,’ he snarled, but he was shaken.

  Pagley said softly: “I don’t know what you said to the old goat, but you sure have him worried.”

  Suddenly, the old man started. He leaned forward and stabbed the air toward Spur.

  “Go away,” he said. “You have come here to make trouble for me. I shall become angry, my men will become angry and it will not be safe for you here.”

  A woman squatting near Pagley got up abruptly and hurried away. She screamed a child’s name and a dusty little urchin ran after her. At once there was a sudden exodus of women and children. All that was left was about a dozen men.

  Spur said in English: “Pagley, watch my back.”

  Casually, the Indian rose and faced the camp, leaning on his rifle.

  “The Comanch’ is gone,” he said.

  In Spanish, Spur spoke to the men -

  “We look for a white girl. She is young, too young for marriage. We will pay for her in gold.”

  Men turned to look at each other. The old man’s eyes came to life at the mention of gold.

  “You have the gold here?”

  Spur laughed.

  “We are not so foolish.”

  “How do I know if there is any gold?”

  “You don’t. Is there a girl?”

  The gnarled hands waved. “Maybe. Each year there are girls taken. It will take time to find out.”

  “We will wait.”

  “Where?”

  “Here, if necessary.”

  “It will be many days before we can get word to the Comanches. The heathen are not easy to find.”

  “We will wait.”

  Chapter Five

  They camped a half-mile away from the Comancheros, neither of them feeling uneasy and always one of them watching the horizon for dust. Days passed, during which they had little communication with their neighbors. They cleaned their guns, talked, moved camp so that there would be grass for the horses, smoked, ate and talked again.

  If the Comancheros had contacted the Indians at all, the rider must have gone out at night, for neither Spur nor Pagley saw one go. On the fifth day, they saw dust far to the south. The two of them at once moved into some rocks on a high ridge and waited. It was a strong position, one that two men could hold until their ammunition or water ran out. From here it was soon evident that the dust was being kicked up by a multitude of hoofs. Both men felt some apprehension. So did the Comancheros. They were alarmed and showed it. The carts were drawn in close together near the willows on the edge of the water and a rider went out to scout. Men strutted with weapons in their hands, women yelled for children to stay close.

  In two hours the scout was back, his horse in a lather. His shout of “Los Indios” was plainly audible to the two men in the rocks.

  Several hours before dusk, the van of the advancing cavalcade was visible to the watchers.

  “My guess,” Pagley said, “is Kiowas. They have a big bunch of horses with them.”

  Soon they both saw that he was right. Plainly this was a raiding party. There were some forty men, brilliant in paint and feathers, all riding good horses. With them they had a horse herd of some three hundred. Spur reckoned they had been on a profitable trip south of the border into old Mexico. They trooped past the rocks at a distance of about two hundred yards, feathers fluttering at lance-heads, rifle-barrels glittering in the sun.

  The Comancheros came out to greet them. The old man was approached by a short Indian on a paint pony. They exchanged signs and talked together. The Indian turned his head and stared at the rocks. Other heads turned. Pagley and Spur stayed still under the stares of the warriors. But the Indians made no move toward them and went into camp.

  It was a nervous time for the two men in the rocks after nightfall. They stayed alert and the Comanchero who approached them too quietly nearly got himself shot.

  It was a man they had seen over in the camp and he was nervous, too. He stayed only long enough to tell them that the jefe wanted to speak with them. They said for him to go back and say that they would come later. No, he told them, they must come now. They repeated what they had said and, grumbling, he went.

  When they went, they moved along the bank of the river and came to the old man’s cart without his being aware. He showed surprise and alarm, as did the two Indians squatting by the fire with him. Spur took up a position with his back to the cart with Pagley off to his left.

  The two Indians were very different in appearance. One was the man who had spoken with the old man from the back of the paint-pony. He was short and thick-set, his face like that of a withered hawk. Two eagle’s feathers were stuck in his graying hair. His doeskin shirt was old and worn. His loincloth and leggings were frayed. Only his moccasins were good. They were decorated with quills and had been dyed black, white and red. They looked oddly sporty on so dignified a man.

  The warrior who sat to his right and a little to his rear was half his age, tall for a Kiowa and of lighter skin. His face paint was highly decorative and its application must have taken him a long time. His face was divided in half, one side with a basic color of yellow ocher, the other of black. These were slashed with streaks of white and vermilion. The eyes were pale, showing that somewhere among his forebears was a whiteman.

  The old Comanchero started to say something in Spanish to Spur, but Pagley cut in on him with a sudden hurry of signs.

  The two Kiowas stared at him unblinkingly, not making a move.

  “You must speak through me,” the old Comanchero said petulantly. “I am the go-between. These men won’t speak to whitemen.”

  “Go ahead,” Spur said and Pagley made one sign, quickly and widely with his hand and fingers to one side.

  The old Kiowa lifted his right hand, palm forward. The younger one grunted. Then the old man started using his hands.

  The Delaware said: “He says he is Two Bulls. I have heard of him. He is a big man among his people. The younger one with the pale eyes is Man Who Catches Rain with his Hands. I don’t know of him. Maybe he has changed his name recently. I don’t know.”

  Spur asked: “Don’t you speak Kiowa?”

  “Some, but I don’t aim to let on.”

  Pagley and the old Indian exchanged signs patiently for an hour, the Comanchero fretting and muttering to himself. Obviously much of the hand talk was lost on him and he felt out of it. Spur kept his eyes on the Indian fires on the other side of the carts. He could see the Kiowas sitting around them, but none of them made any move to come any nearer.

  Finally, Pagley said: “He tells me that he has no girl in his band, but he has hinted that possibly one of the northern bands has one. He has heard such a story, but he
doesn’t know if it’s true. We should remain here and when he reaches home, he will send word that a whiteman wants the girl returned and can pay for her.”

  “What do you think, Pagley?”

  “I don’t think anything. Who can tell with an old fox like this one?”

  “How shall we know if there is a girl there or not?”

  “He says that the Comancheros will go north across the Canadian River and we should rejoin them there. He will get word to us.”

  “When?”

  “In a month’s time.”

  Spur thought about it, feeling cut off from and entirely uncomprehending of the old Indian who stared at him flatly, his old black eyes glittering in the firelight.

  “Tell him we shall come to his camp in the morning and talk. I want to take a look at his men.”

  “That’s pretty risky.”

  “So’s this whole business.”

  The Delaware started talking with his hands again. Old Two Bulls grunted when he had finished and finalized the conversation with an abrupt movement of his right hand.

  He stood up, the younger man followed suit and they stalked away silently to their camp.

  “Por Dios,” the old Comanchero complained, “I don’t like this. You think you can treat with these heathens like this? You don’t know them like I do. Go away from my camp and stay away. I want no part of this.”

  Spur and Pagley walked back to their camp.

  Chapter Six

  They took turns to keep awake as usual that night. Both men were acutely uneasy. It was an uncomfortable night in more ways than one. It rained fairly heavily around midnight and soaked their blankets. About this time, Pagley thought that there was too much activity in the camps below them and they shifted their position as quietly as they could to some rocks about fifty paces to the north.

  But at dawn they both still possessed their hair. They made coffee and ate a hasty breakfast before walking down into the Kiowa camp. The Comancheros watched them darkly as they passed the carts. They found Two Bulls smoking with his paint-pony tied to his wrist.

  Spur squatted, Pagley stood cradling his rifle in his arms. Several warriors gathered around while some completely ignored the whiteman.