Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family)

by Georgina Gentry

  The captain leaned on his saddle horn, picking at a pustule on his scarred face as he grinned down at Maverick. He was old for a captain, Maverick thought; gray streaked his hair. “Christ! How lucky can I get! Maybe there’ll be a promotion back to New York in this for me! You heard me, grab him, men!”

  “Yes, Suh, Captain Baker!” Two of the black cavalry men dismounted and moved toward Maverick.

  Maverick hesitated, looking from the middle-aged officer to the black troopers. “Now, wait just a minute,” he shook his head, backing away. “You got this all wrong. . . .”

  “Injun, you’re the one who’s wrong, gettin’ caught red-handed like this!” The officer sneered. “Every soldier on the plains is on the lookout for Quanah, knowing he’s leading this uprising. . . .”

  “I’m not Quanah,” Maverick backed away. “My name’s Maverick Durango, and if you’ll get in touch with the Triple D Ranch over in the Hill Country—”

  “Christ! Don’t try to fool me!” Baker picked at his face. “We all heard what Quanah looks like—big half-breed Comanche, eyes gray as a gun barrel.”

  Maverick hesitated. What should he do now? If he managed to escape, what would happen to the unconscious Cayenne? Could he depend on the cavalry officer to get her to safety in the supply wagon they had with them?

  One of the black soldiers turned toward the mounted officer. “Suh, you want us to—?”

  “Yes!” Baker swore under his breath as the two big blacks grabbed Maverick and he fought them. The officer dismounted and came around to face Maverick. “Stupid nigger troops I got! Seventeen years I been in this man’s army and I don’t get no promotions; they stick me in the Territory and give me nigger troops!”

  Maverick stopped struggling, realizing he would have to talk his way out of this. The black soldiers frowned as they looked at the white officer. Obviously they didn’t think much of him, either.

  Maverick said, “Look, Captain, I’m a half-breed all right and I ride a gray horse, but that doesn’t mean I’m Quanah Parker.”

  The officer studied the big gray. “You ain’t no warrior? Ain’t that a scalp I see dangling from that Injun bridle?”

  He should have known that would get him in trouble. “I can explain about that. That gray’s from the Triple D . . . .”

  Baker motioned to his black sergeant. “O’Bannion, check the brand on that horse.”

  Maverick shook himself free of the two black soldiers. He watched the sergeant walk over and inspect Dust Devil’s rump. The sergeant was a giant of a man with a lighter coffee-colored skin that betrayed white blood.

  Sergeant O’Bannion pushed his hat back, rocking on his heels as he studied the horse. “It’s shore ’nuff carryin’ a Triple D brand, Suh.”

  The officer frowned, obviously not willing to admit he might be wrong. “That don’t mean nothin’!” he snapped, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the sweat from his bumpy face. “I don’t know where Colonel Mackenzie got his gray pacer to begin with and I need a promotion to get out of this hellish state! I can do that by bringing in Quanah, the colonel’s horse.” He gestured. “So tie up that half-breed and we’ll take him along with us; sort the whole thing out when we get back to Fort Sill.”

  Maverick whirled, knocking down the first trooper that grabbed him, but now the rest of the soldiers ran to overpower him, tie his hands behind his back. “You’re making a big mistake!” Maverick shouted and cursed. “By damn! You pus-faced bastard, I’ll have your neck when the old Don Durango finds out what you’ve done to me!”

  Captain Baker strode over, slugging Maverick now that he was safely tied up. Maverick tried to lunge at him anyway, half groggy from the blow, the sweet coppery taste of his own blood running in his mouth, down his lip.

  “Shut up, Injun!” Baker shouted. “I never had a promotion all those years! First I got stuck at Fort Smith before the war, then almost court-martialed ’cause I made a mistake in a battle judgment. For that, they sent me to this hellhole to lead nigger cavalry!” He spat disdainfully as he pushed Maverick so that he stumbled and fell to the ground.

  The man grinned down at him. “Christ! This may be my one chance to get out of this hellhole and it’s certainly a good enough reason to turn back from this patrol!”

  The giant black sergeant looked at Baker anxiously. “Beggin’ yore pardon, Suh, but we ain’t gonna continue searchin’ for my big brother?”

  “No.” The Yankee officer went over to the spring and splashed his face. “I don’t know why he deserted, he wasn’t treated no worse than any of the rest of you niggers! We’d have hung him anyway if we caught him!” He filled his canteen, taking a long drink while the troops watched him thirstily.

  “Suh,” O’Bannion hesitated. “If you’ve had all you want, can the men get a little water?”

  Baker yawned. “Yeah. I just wanted to get mine before they got their dirty mouths in it. I don’t drink after horses, neither.” He grinned at his little joke and Maverick saw the hatred for the officer reflected in the other men’s eyes.

  Cayenne moaned aloud and Maverick looked toward her anxiously, struggling against his bonds. “She’s used to having me right by her side,” he said. “She’s been snake bit.”

  “Stay right where you are, Injun!” The man picked at his face as he went over, knelt by the prone girl, and stared down at her. “Christ! What a beauty! Haven’t seen such a pretty gal since ’58 when that blonde from Boston, Summer Van Schuyler, got carried off by the Cheyenne!”

  Cayenne moaned again, thrashing restlessly on her blanket. Maverick tried to struggle to his feet to go to her, but the big sergeant reached out and grabbed him.

  The captain laughed. “That’s right, Sergeant, keep Quanah under control.”

  “I’m not Quanah,” Maverick snarled, struggling in the big black’s hands. Bound as he was, Maverick had no chance of breaking free and getting to Cayenne.

  She moaned again and the Yankee leaned over, stroking her face. “She’s beautiful, she—”

  “Get your hands off her!” Maverick went loco at the sight of the other touching her pale, lovely face. “Get your dirty hands off my woman!”

  It took three troopers to hold him while the officer laughed. “Your woman! I’ll just bet you been mounting this poor, unconscious girl three or four times a day, you filthy savage! Why, I ought to—” He swaggered over to Maverick, unsheathing his knife while the troopers held the half-breed.

  Baker grinned. “I ought to cut you, Injun, for rapin’ that white girl. We ought to geld every Injun on the plains to protect decent women!”

  Maverick froze, staring into Baker’s eyes as the man turned the knife over in his hands. Should he try to talk his way out of it, fight his way toward his horse?

  The black sergeant stepped halfway between the two men. “Suh,” he ducked his head humbly, “I ain’t exactly interfering, but you don’t have no orders to do nothin’ to Quanah if you catch him.”

  “Nigger, don’t tell me what to do!” Baker brandished his knife and Maverick held his breath. It occurred to him that they were a long way from civilization. If Baker decided to kill Maverick and leave him for the buzzards, the blacks might be afraid to report it. “Christ! I suppose you’ve got a point, O’Bannion! This heat is gettin’ to me! It was crazy to send us out looking for one lousy black bugler even if he did play the best of any of ’em.”

  Black bugler. Deserter. The pieces fell neatly into place. Maverick suddenly remembered the dark man at Adobe Walls playing charges for the warriors.

  The New Yorker went back to stare down at Cayenne. “We’ll wait ’til dark, then start moving toward the fort.”

  Maverick swore with fury. “You can’t move her! She’s sick! You can see that!”

  Captain Baker leaned over, put his hand on the girl’s shoulder and she smiled in her sleep. “Maverick,” she whispered. “Maverick.”

  Baker leered up at him maliciously. “You’re rotten, you known that? Even with her unconscious and
helpless, you’ve been climbin’ her, ain’t ya? Well, I might try a little myself some night as we move back to the fort. She won’t know the difference and my troopers won’t tell.”

  “By damn, I’ll kill you if you try that!” Maverick snarled and struggled to reach the grinning man. “I’ll tell them at the fort and you’ll end up in the stockade . . .”

  “The stockade’d beat riding around looking for nigger deserters and takin’ a chance on losin’ my hair to Injuns.” Baker stood up. “If she’d let an Injun touch her, she’s just a slut and don’t deserve no respect. Besides, nobody at the fort would take niggers’ or Injuns’ word against a white officer’s.”

  Maverick glared at him then with eyes as cold as winter’s ice. “You touch her,” he whispered, “and I’ll hunt you down, let you die slowly as only Comanche know how!”

  The officer looked at him a long moment, then shivered and stood up. “Big talk,” he scoffed, “and it’s a long way to Fort Sill. You may not make it, Injun.”

  “You may not, either,” Maverick reminded him. “You know how many Indians you may have to ride through to get back to the Indian Territory?”

  The other man swore. “I know better than you what my chances of gettin’ grabbed by a war party are! This is a full-fledged Uprising and the biggest bunch of troops ever thrown into an Indian campaign—some three thousand, I hear.”

  Maverick whistled low and leaned against a tree. “Even the combined tribes won’t stand a chance against a force like that even if the Kiowa decide to join them.”

  Baker laughed. “Don’t play innocent with me, Quanah,” he tipped his hat back. “You know as well as anyone the Kiowa hit the warpath a couple of weeks ago when those supplies they’d been promised never arrived.”

  Maverick frowned. “What about Pat Hennessy? He was trying to get there in plenty of time with food. . . .”

  “Aha!” The officer’s eyes gleamed in triumph. “So you admit you were there!”

  Maverick shrugged. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! Yes, we ran across Pat Hennessy and—”

  “And tortured all those poor devils, turned the wagons upside down, stole or wasted all those supplies!”

  “No,” Maverick shook his head. “You ask Pat about—”

  “A dispatch finally got through. Hennessy’s dead and you admit you were there!” The officer crowed. “This ought to get me a promotion, a permanent assignment back east!”

  “Dead? Pat Hennessy’s dead? When did it happen?” Maverick felt dread and horror deep in his soul. Now the Kiowa would take the war trail, too, and there would be even more death and destruction.

  “As if you didn’t know,” the other sneered. “You red devils must have caught him sometime between July 2 and 4; the bodies were in too bad a shape to know for sure. Poor Hennessy’d been tied upside down to one of his own wagon wheels, roasted alive over a fire.”

  Maverick cringed, remembering the big, good-natured man. If he and Cayenne had ridden along with the teamsters, they would have been caught by the raiders, too.

  The New Yorker leaned back against a rock, lighting a cigar as the troopers scurried around, setting up camp and tying horses to a picket line. “The army intends to surround you red bastards. Mackenzie’s coming up from the South, Major Price from New Mexico to the West, Colonel Miles down from Fort Dodge, and the nigger troops from Fort Sill, Indian Territory and Fort Richardson in Texas are moving in to help close the trap.”

  Maverick could almost pity the Indians. “If the army had kept all those damned buffalo hunters off the tribes’ hunting grounds, this Uprising wouldn’t have happened.”

  The smaller man took a deep pull of his cigar. “Don’t give me that ’bleeding heart stuff’ about breakin’ treaties, Quanah. Sooner or later, the whites are gonna take all this land, no matter what kind of treaties we sign! The buffalo hunters are doin’ America a favor by killing off all the game so we can starve the tribes back onto the reservations.”

  Maverick gave him a long look. “And you call us savages?”

  That night, the troopers loaded the unconscious Cayenne in the wagon, forced the resisting and still bound Maverick onto his gray stallion, and started east. The fact he had to mount the gray from the right side only seemed to further convince Baker that Maverick was really an uncivilized Indian. Maverick watched closely every time the officer rode close to the wagon and stared down at the helpless girl. The expression on the pitted face gave away his emotions. Sooner or later, Baker might try to take advantage of her unconscious condition.

  Maverick noticed the big black, O’Bannion, watching with sympathetic eyes. Here might be someone who would help him. But that first night, he never got a chance to visit with the sergeant.

  They found a spring to camp near at dawn and spent the day there. Cayenne seemed to be feeling much better, Maverick noted with relief. She never became completely conscious, but she did rouse enough for Maverick to feed her and take care of her needs. The captain let him, seeming amused by the sick girl’s dependence on the half-breed. She didn’t seem aware that the soldiers existed or that anything was wrong, Maverick thought as he sponged her face.

  Well, there was no use in alarming her. The passage of time was to her advantage, since she seemed to be getting stronger and Maverick had not yet come up with a plan to escape from the patrol. When she finally did rouse enough the second night to ask about the soldiers, Maverick lied, telling her they had picked up an army patrol escort all the way through west Texas. He didn’t tell her they were really headed southeast toward Fort Sill in the Indian Territory.

  And Baker couldn’t have been more charming, more solicitous to Cayenne as she drifted in and out of consciousness. But the New Yorker seemed preoccupied with being deep into hostile Indian country. Maverick figured it was only a matter of time until that officer felt secure enough to halt the patrol and enjoy the sick girl while the black troops looked on helplessly. Maverick struggled with the ropes that bound his hands behind him until his wrists were raw and bleeding, but he couldn’t escape. He had a feeling that when the swaggering, pimply-faced man finally raped the helpless, half-conscious Cayenne, he’d enjoy making Maverick watch. And of course he’d deny it if Cayenne told on him when they got back to the fort. What white man would listen to or care about any woman who’d been sleeping with an Indian or a ’breed? He thought of Annie again and gritted his teeth.

  The third night, the horses were exhausted from being pushed too hard by the inexperienced officer. He made the decision to let the patrol sleep a few hours and move on in the middle of the night. The big sergeant, O’Bannion, stood guard duty that evening. When the camp was quiet, Maverick jerked his head at him.

  The coffee-colored man crossed through the sleeping forms around the small fire, coming over to where Maverick lay trussed on the outside edge of the circle. “What you want, Renegade?”

  “Can’t you loosen these ropes a little?” Maverick whispered. His arms ached from being tied behind his back and he could feel dried blood from the rope cutting into his wrists.

  The sergeant squatted down and made a clicking sound of sympathy. “That Baker is a sonovabitch,” he whispered, and he untied the ropes and offered Maverick a small sack of tobacco, and a paper.

  Maverick took them, nodded his thanks, and rubbed the circulation back into his raw wrists before rolling a cigarette. “You’re okay, O’Bannion. You know I’m not Quanah, don’t you?”

  The black man nodded. “It don’t make no sense even if you are a gray-eyed half-breed riding a gray horse. Why would a chief be out in the middle of nowhere lookin’ after a snake bit white girl?”

  Maverick smoked and studied the young man. “Where you from?”

  “Tennessee. A big plantation called Shannon Place on the Mississippi.”

  “Your daddy a white slave owner?”

  O’Bannion’s round face broke into an amused grin. “My Daddy’s half white, but he wasn’t sired by Mr. Shawn, no Suh! My
daddy’s mama was raped by some big cracker back in Georgia and Mr. Shawn O’Bannion bought her when she was sold down the river. Finest man who ever drew breath, Mr. Shawn is; got rich in the California gold strike.” The quadroon paused. “My older brother’s just a little crazed, you know, like maybe he inherited a streak of loco meanness from that white man. If I can find him and have a chance to straighten him out, take him back home—”

  Maverick smoked a long moment. Should he tell? End the black’s quest? It seemed a merciful thing to do. “O’Bannion, you been kind to me, so I’m gonna tell you something so you won’t spend the rest of your life worryin’ about your brother.”

  The strong dark features studied his a long moment. “You got bad news, don’t you? The Indians get him, torture him to death? He was always talkin’ about oppressed people, how we ought to join together, rise up against the whites.”

  Maverick smoked, remembering the black bugler sounding the charges at Adobe Walls. “Your brother was a brave man, a very brave man. He did join the Indians.”

  O’Bannion didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I was hopin’ he finally found the freedom he was looking for, a little happiness.”

  “He did,” Maverick said softly. “I think those weeks he spent with the Indians must have been happy ones if he was willing to fight on their side. They at least accepted him, treated him like an equal.”

  “You’re telling me he’s dead?”

  Maverick tried to think of something comforting to say. His heart went out to the young black man. Finally, he nodded. “Yes, he’s dead. Killed in a charge. Never knew what hit him. To die bravely and quickly is all a real man, black, white, or red, can aspire to.”

  The other ducked his head so Maverick couldn’t see his brown face, made a choking sound for a long moment. A slight breeze blew the scent of campfire smoke toward them, a cricket chirped somewhere, a horse snorted and stamped its feet. The heat of the night enveloped Maverick as he waited and smoked, the tobacco abruptly bitter to his mouth. Without thinking, he reached over, put his hand on the big black’s shoulder, and felt him shaking with sobs a long moment.