That night, as they smoked and lounged, Changa began a song of how Tres Coronas tricked the Comanches, killed many and drove the others away.
Quil, whom the youngster followed like a shadow, snorted and kicked the fire into sparks. “Better save that song, muchacho! Sing it when it comes true.”
Changa laughed, his white teeth flashing in the firelight. “Ay, friend, if one waits for a safe time to make a song, he may never sing it! Anyway,” he added disarmingly, “if Don Mateo prevailed over you, Quil, in a knife fight, what chance do Comanches have?”
“I know the Comanches,” Quil returned, sobering after a chuckle at the boy’s question. “Scalps of many peoples hang on their lances; many are Mexican, some are from other Indians. But a great number are gringo.” He looked around at the silenced men. “One’s hair must cling very tight to the head before one laughs aloud at Comanches.”
“I laugh at them!” cried Changa, but not for long, for a cuff from his huge mother sent him tumbling.
“Was not your father, may the Virgin intercede for his many sins, especially for his knocking my teeth out—was not he killed ten years ago by these Comanches? Work fast, hombres, and let us get back quickly to the ranch. I do not like this Rio!”
Two days later, the ambush prepared and Matt a bit queasy from his introduction to tatema, the party journeyed back to Tres Coronas.
“The Comanches leave the Staked Plains very happy,” sang Changa, swaying happily as he rode his little bay mustang.
They ride by the Pecos and Horsehead Crossing,
They come through the Chisos and ride to the Rio.
How fat are the cattle they will steal, how swift the horses
How despised the Mexicans, easy to plunder!
But this Mexican Moon holds blood for Comanches,
A surprise is waiting down there by the river …
“It’s bad luck to saddle a horse before he’s caught,” cautioned Luz. But Changa larked on, and even the older, more solemn men were infected by his mood.
Matthew wished he were as confident as Changa. The ambush had a good chance of working, but if it didn’t, the Comanches would spare no one in their southward pillaging. Usually on these raids they killed only those who resisted or made tempting targets.
Matt gathered his reins and sat straighter on Storm marveling with part of his mind that the pranking Changa didn’t fall off his horse, and hoping with renewed intensity that Don, Celestino would return with the guns.
Excitement, mingled with an edge of fear that intensified it, possessed the people of Tres Coronas as they prepared for once to take the offensive in their long struggle with the Comanches. Don Celestino had threatened, frightened and bribed the Governor into supplying twenty carbines and generous ammunition, though Matt’s Sharps was the only breech-loading weapon. Another dozen, in reasonable repair, had been collected at the ranch. These were given to the best marksmen, and they drilled for an hour each day, after which a reserve of eager but less skilled men practiced. Lances made of palo duro wood were sharpened and the points toughened by holding them in hot coals. These were made not only for the fighters but also for storage in each hut and building as a defense in case the Comanches evaded the ambush.
As the summer passed, Matt grew daily more restless. He dreamed of Rachel, sometimes awakening depleted and spent. This was as well, to have some release, for Doña Anatacia wasn’t an aging wife but a vibrant widow in her thirties, Don Celestino’s only sister. Though she had resigned herself to dining with Matt, she maintained a rigid formality with him belied only by the full curve of her lips. There was something sensuous and disturbing in the way she moved. She was too young, too lovely, to be without a man, but one night when he’d drunk more brandy than usual, Don Celestino admitted his sister had scorned all the matches he’d tried to make for her.
“Our father married her to a friend slightly older than himself,” the Don said ruefully. “When her husband died, ten years ago, my sister vowed she’d never wed again, and I begin to think she means it, which is a double pity since I have no son.” He squinted at Matt. “But I think my sister finds you—interesting, Mateo.”
“Doña Anatacia is an enchanting lady,” Matt said. “I’m sensible of that, even though I’m married.”
“You are?” Don Celestino quickly concealed his disappointment, and they talked of other things.
Still, as the summer wore on, Matt was extremely aware of the hidalga’s creamy long throat, provocative glances, and ripe, unharvested body. He was glad when September came and it was time to put his plan in motion.
Pairs of watchmen had been dispatched as far as the northern edge of the Big Bend to guard the Comanche trail. They would signal with fires when they spotted the first warriors, so that the nearest pair, watching from an eminence, could kindle their warning, and the alarm would reach Tres Coronas. The vaqueros practiced at their targets, stuffed dummies shuttled along on ropes, with fierce concentration, for failure would bring terrible vengeance on their families.
“The Comanches have not killed so many of us—” one old man quavered as he watched the shooting.
“They just run off the livestock and make slaves of our women and children!” hooted Tomás, a red-haired young vaquero, a good shot to begin with who had grown expert with Matt’s training. “You’re the sort, old one, who makes Comanches laugh and say they let live because we’re their herders—we raise the cattle they come for every autumn!”
“How can you stop them?” shuddered the old man. “A crazy gringo scheme!”
Some agreed with him, but the prevailing spirit was one of hope. Hadn’t the gringo bested Quil and convinced Don Celestino? Wasn’t it better to die fighting, with a chance of preserving one’s people, than to always flee the Comanche, staking one’s survival on his whim, while friends and family died or were taken as slaves?
Two weeks passed. The September moon rose sometimes orange above the Sierra del Carmen, sometimes pure silver, sometimes warm yellow, and as it came into its fullness, the people of Tres Coronas scanned the north for a warning beacon.
Perhaps the lookouts had been caught or met with other disasters? Or, possibly—what they dared not even hope—possibly the Comanches would not ride this way. It was too much to hope that they wouldn’t raid Mexico at all, but perhaps they would go toward the east, as some usually did, past Ojinaga.
“Even if they go that way,” pointed out the older folk, sadly experienced in the methods of Comanches, “they may sweep around past us on their way north. Better they come while we’re ready.”
Matt thought of Rachel and Lupe. It was unlikely Comanches would stray there, where no pickings had ever been available, yet it might happen—He tried to close his mind to this nagging fear. Days he spent preparing the men or mentally singling out specific cattle he wanted for his pay. Evenings he dined with the Don and Doña Anatacia, then sat on the veranda, sipping peach brandy and savoring fine cigars. Except when he visited Chihuahua or very rarely Mexico City, the Don had no male to talk with on matters other than Tres Coronas, and he spoke nostalgically of his youth, when he had toured Europe and spent a year in Paris.
“The women!” he remembered, smiling, one evening after his sister had retired. “They understood men! But my father had arranged a marriage with a lady of good family from Mexico City. Not beautiful, but very devout and good. She died in childbed a year after we married. This country was too hard for her. To live here a woman must get tough as a cactus, and as dry!” Don Celestino winked. “And who wants to take a cactus to bed?”
Matthew thought of Anatacia, who was certainly no cactus, though of this soil, and said, “I see many pretty women at Tres Coronas, sir.”
“Oh, the little chiquitas may warm a bed, but they’re not for marriage,” shrugged the Don, in a way that implied he took such women as pleased him as casually as he would sip of his rich, homegrown brandy. He looked suddenly at Matt. “Your wife is beautiful?”
“Very.” Mat
t’s voice turned husky.
Don Celestino looked away. “You’re lucky. Young, strong and lucky. You’d better not leave your wife often, Mateo, even to win cattle.”
“I must make her a home,” said Matt. But something in the Don’s manner made him glad the older man would never see Rachel.
As they sat in the deepening twilight, Matthew stared, got to his feet. There, north toward the Rio, blazed the signal, a distant imperative warning.
“We’ve got to ride! I’ll tell the men!”
“You may have a day or two to wait at the Rio, depending on how quickly the signals passed,” reminded the Don. He caught Matt’s hand. “Ay, Norteño! If only I could ride in the fashion required by this matter!”
“We’ll do our best, sir.”
Don Celestino’s mouth quirked down. “I know you will, Mateo. For the cattle you need—and for your beautiful lady!”
Matthew put down his goblet and hurried to alert the men.
Thirty-two men with firearms and four boys to watch the horses rode out from Tres Coronas, along with another twenty men, armed with machetes and homemade lances, and the knives which everyone carried. In close quarters these men could be as deadly as those with carbines, and all could shoot, in case a marksman had to be replaced.
Some had been asleep when Matt called them, others had been drinking with friends or making love to their wives or playing with their children. But within an hour they rode under the huge moon that turned the country bluish silver, casting shadows of the horsemen.
Twice they stopped briefly to rest. At dawn they chewed tortillas and ate jerky by a water hole, fed their horses corn, and pushed on. It was sundown by the time they reached the Rio. Though both men and horses were exhausted, Matt decided to split the force and get it into position that night in case the Comanches were near enough for an early morning crossing. It seemed certain they would not attempt the treacherous ford at night.
“Luz,” called Matt, “take half the carbine men and half the lancers across now. Eat and rest after you’ve concealed your horses a good way off and post a lookout. Just sit tight till the Indians come, and don’t open fire until most of them are into the river.”
“And watch where you fire!” warned Changa, grinning. “Don’t try to pick off Indians who’ve climbed up the Mexican bank or you may hit me!”
“We’ll all have to watch that,” nodded Matt. “Men, there’ll be many more Comanches than there are of us. We need the advantage of surprise. Don’t fire until I do—but then shoot as fast as possible while taking aim. Lancers, you’ll take over any dropped carbines, and fight where you have the best chance without too much exposure to arrows or firearms. You can take care of the stragglers and runaways.”
“What if some of us run away?” clowned Changa, backing his mount as if about to flee.
“You might wind up a skinned monkey,” retorted Matt. “All right, men. Pick your side of the Rio, and let’s get as much sleep as we can! Water the horses early tomorrow so they can be kept out of the way—and fight your damnedest!”
Matt awoke in dim light, surprised to find Quil lying next to him on the ground, until he remembered where they were, and why. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, his neck and shoulders aching from their uncomfortable rest on a saddle.
Quil stood up in one flowing motion. Tomás, the vaquero with startling red hair, was peering over the piled-up rocks and earth. He turned with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Nothing.”
“So let’s eat,” suggested Matt. Gnawing some jerky rolled in one of the dozens of tortillas Madrecita had sent with them, he made his way to the arroyo where the boys had hidden the horses.
Yes, Don Mateo, they had watered the horses early, let them drink deep so they could wait till night to drink again. The Comanches! Was there any sign?
“Not yet,” Matt told the lithe, sparkling-eyed boys, too young to fight but old enough to care for the horses. “Don’t come out or move the horses until you get word—unless you hear lots of shooting, and it’s over, and no one comes for you, even after a couple of hours.”
The boys’ eyes widened even more. For the first time they seemed to realize this was not a fiesta. Matthew grinned at them. “Just look out for the horses!” he said, and made his way back to the ambush.
All the men were up now, munching their dry food and inspecting their weapons. The sun barely rose above the gleaming edge of the mesas, but it was already hot. Tomás gazed over the barrier again.
“I hope they come soon. I’d rather fight than wait here quiet as mice all day, baking in the sun.”
“Better the sun than hell,” remarked a grizzled vaquero, one of the best shots. “Be sure that when the Comanches come, some of us won’t live to complain about the weather.”
“Old vulture!” began Tomás, then whirled back, his head tilted, listening. He raised a warning hand. In a moment Matt heard, too.
A sound like dim thunder reverberated from the north. The lift and fall of many hoofs. Half the men, led by Quil, went to the other side of the pass.
“Remember!” Matt called softly. “Watch where you shoot! And wait until I fire!”
Every man had found a hole, or made one, through which he could aim and shoot without exposing himself above the rocks. Twenty six men waited on either side of the pass, eight armed with carbines, five in reserve with lances and machetes.
Most of the men were breathing loudly, gripping their weapons. One hastily withdrew to relieve himself. The rumble in the earth came nearer.
XII
The Comanches came in sight, filling the approach to the river, light sparkling from silver ornaments and lance tips. Mounted on horses of every color, including a great number of spotted ones, the warriors were painted on their faces, chests, and arms, with vermilion, white, black, yellow, green and blue, in every combination of color and design.
A few had muskets, but all had bows and arrows in leather cases slung by a band over the right shoulder. Saucer-shaped shields flaunted turkey feathers; some were painted, some dangled horse and mule tails and others bore hair of different colors—scalps, some long and yellow.
Joking and talking, the first Comanches rode into the water. Matt tried to count as they poured past the low cliffs toward the ford.
Over a hundred. Another score. Another and still another. Taut as a wire, Matt prayed not many would be left outside the river area when he signaled for the assault. The dug-out ford would stall the Comanches for a while, but it couldn’t stop them for long. The crucial thing was to choose the best moment, when most of the warriors were still milling around in the river, in order to pick off as many as possible during the initial shock.
Matt stopped counting when over two hundred warriors had jogged into sight. Some women straggled at the rear, probably brought to cook and serve their men. Along the destroyed ford on the Mexican side, the first Comanches floundered, riding, up and down beneath the bank, hunting a way up, but on both sides the rock cliffs rose too steeply to be climbed.
Amidst loud shouts and exclamations from those hunting a way up, a brightly painted warrior kept urging his horse at the bank, until its hoofs, struggling for a hold, crumbled away clods of earth. Two other Comanches did the same with their mounts, and after thrashing that sent chunks of the bank churning down the river, the leader gave a shout, leaned forward in his saddle as if to lift his piebald, and clambered up the Mexican shore.
He was quickly joined by the other two, and they rode forward, so near that Mathew could see silver discs and bits of fur braided into long plaits that swung to their thighs, earrings of shell and bone and silver and legging fringes tipped with beads. The river was now swarming with painted raiders, and the women, waiting at the rear, seemed to be the last of his party.
In another minute, the leaders would be past the ambush.
Matthew thrust his carbine through the hole, squinted along the barrel at the gaily painted chief, and fired. The warrior flung up his arms and slumpe
d forward. His horse burst into a gallop, its rawhide bridle dangling. The rider fell under the hoofs of the horses following behind as their owners pitched from their saddles.
Loading another linen-cased cartridge into the breech, Matt sighted at another Comanche, missed as the man fell under fire from the other side of the defile.
Load and shoot, load and shoot.
Horsemen swarmed up from the river, yelling, trying to find their enemy, unslinging their bows, brandishing lances, but unable in the uproar to locate their foe until many had fallen. Horses trampled dead men. Riderless mounts, neighing and rearing in their panic, bolted toward the plains, or lurched out on the other side.
The Comanches stopped surging up the bank and tried to turn back. They charged confusedly into their friends until the river was chaos, a tangle of horses and men upon whom Tres Coronas forces fired from four directions. The Comanche women, still on the Texas bank, whirled their horses and fled. The Tres Coronas men let them go, not from mercy but because there were armed warriors yet to fight.
Suddenly one warrior broke out of the milling welter, calling something in tones of scorn that drew others to him. He charged up the Mexican bank, lance atilt, and though everyone, including Matt, continued to fire, the warrior rode on, though blood poured from one shoulder and ran from his face.
Rounding the defile with a few survivors, the Comanche drove his lance into the nearest vaquero using an underarm thrust. Freeing it from the sagging body, the warrior poised it to rush at Matt, who, loading his carbine, was helpless in that instant.
Quil swung his rifle, knocking the Comanche to the ground. In a second, machetes hacked him to bits, but the rearing mounts of the other warriors had trampled down Tomás and two of the lancers. One Comanche got off a swift arrow that struck Matt’s left arm, but Matt continued to fire with the arrow hanging from his flesh, and the warrior fell as Quil cut the throat of the Comanche grappling with him.
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