Slocum and the Comanche

by Jake Logan

  “You’re hurt. Those bruises need attention.”

  “No go,” she said emphatically.

  He turned the Palouse north, keeping it at a walk when they left the clearing. Slocum was careful not to put his free hand on her waist to keep her in the saddle. He remembered what Major Thompson had said about Senatey hating all white men.

  “Show me where the soldiers found you when you were taking your bath,” he said. “I’m hoping the same thing that happened to you isn’t happening to the other women. There could be big trouble on the reservation if Conas finds out what was done to his women, and in particular what they did to you. Major Thompson isn’t gonna be happy. He could have a Comanche uprising on his hands at Fort Sill if any harm has come to the other women. It’ll be hard enough to explain what was done to you.” He fell silent, figuring Senatey only understood a part of what he was saying. But the truth was, a bloody confrontation between the Kwahadies and Thompson’s troops was in the making. Slocum knew the Kwahadie temperment all too well. Conas wouldn’t take what had been done to Senatey lying down. He would be after revenge ... Comanche-style.

  “The Tosi Tivo soldier chief told me you are the daughter of Lame Bear,” he said, after a few miles of silence between them. “I was also told you belong to Quahip.”

  “Senatey no understand ‘belong.’ What it mean?”

  He had to think about a way to explain it. “He is your uncle, and it is his job to look out for you while your father is in the white man’s jail.”

  “Quahip is brother to my father,” she said, as they crossed the prairie.

  “The word in English is ‘uncle.’ Not that it matters. Quahip keeps you safe.”

  He felt her relax against him a little, but she was still rigid in the saddle, not allowing her back to touch his chest.

  “My father is brave warrior. The Tosi Tivo treat us like dogs at Stinking Place.”

  “I saw how bad conditions were. It’s a shame to treat men and women of any color that way. Conas told me your children are very hungry. There is nothing to eat but beef with worms in it and moldy flour.”

  “Many are sick,” she said softly. “Many die also. Is wrong to make children die.”

  “I agree. If I could, I’d feed all the children and the old people myself.”

  She turned around in the saddle to look at him. When he stared into her deep chocolate eyes he saw her pain and a trace of fear.

  “You say good words,” she told him. “You no be same as bluecoat Tosi Tivo.”

  “I’m different, I reckon. I was a soldier once, only we wore different uniforms. The white men fought each other in a terrible war. We killed each other. Even back then, it didn’t make much sense.”

  “Why you not same?”

  “Can’t say as I can explain it. I guess it’s because I think a white man doesn’t have any more right to this land or any other place than the Sata Teichas. Not many white men agree with me on the subject.”

  “Senatey want to kill Tosi Tivo bluecoats. War Chief Quannah say we no make war again. Children die. Old ones die. Is wrong to do this thing.”

  “We agree on that too,” he said. Suddenly Senatey bent forward and began to cough.

  Slocum halted the stud when bloody foam came from the girl’s mouth, spraying her hands and arms, the pommel of the saddle, and the front of her dress.

  “Let’s rest a while,” he said, dropping to the ground near a thick red oak. Its crimson leaves swirled to the ground in gusts of northerly wind. “You’re hurt worse than I thought. If you have blood in your lungs, you’ll need a doctor.”

  She looked down at him from the back of the horse. “Senatey no go to white medicine man,” she said, wiping the bloody spittle from her chin defiantly.

  “Okay. Just let me help you down so you can rest under this tree for a spell. I’ll spread out my bedroll. We can spare a few hours until you feel better.”

  She coughed violently again, spitting up more pink foam. He reached for her waist without waiting for her reply. After helping her to the ground, he took down his blankets and spread them at the base of the tree.

  She gave him a suspicious look and refused to lie down on his bedroll.

  “Don’t worry, Senatey. I’m not a bad man. I promise I won’t hurt you. I’ve got a little whiskey in my saddlebag. It tastes bad, but it will help with your pain.”

  “Whis-key is boisapah,” she said. “Make Sata Teichas fall down. No talk. Go to sleep. Bad thing”

  “Only if you drink too much of it. I’ll just give you a sip or two. You’ve got my word it won’t hurt you.”

  She walked around him cautiously and settled down on the blankets, holding her ribs as though she was in great pain. “Senatey take only little bit of boisapah,” she said, slipping very slowly to her knees with her arms still around her ribcage.

  Slocum realized that the soldiers had injured her far worse than he’d thought at first. “Lie down and take a swallow or two of the whiskey,” he said gently. “I’ll tie my horse to that other tree and stand watch so nobody bothers you while you’re asleep.”

  “No sleep!” she spat angrily, openly distrustful of him now. “You no stay close. All Tosi Tivo bad men.”

  It was pointless to argue with her. He took the bottle from his saddlebag, uncorked it, and offered it to her. She took it tentatively, wrinkling her nose at its strong smell. Then she took a very small swallow and gave it back to him.

  “No good,” she said, first leaning back gingerly on her elbows, then resting her body against the tree.

  He wouldn’t argue with her. He led his Palouse over to another red oak and he tied the reins to a low limb. The girl could have broken ribs or injury to her lungs. He’d seen men die during the war from blood entering the lungs, but that was usually the result of a bullet. He wondered if one of those gutless soldiers might have kicked her during the struggle to get her tied to the tree.

  I’ll find those three sons of bitches, he thought. I’ll be able to recognize them. I’ll report what they did to Thompson, but not until after I give them a dose of what they gave her.

  He took several pulls at the bottle of whiskey, squatting on his haunches and listening to the wind. Every now and then, he’d glance over to the tree where Senatey rested. Each time, she was watching him. It was painfully clear that she didn’t trust him.

  A few minutes later, she began to cough again, wincing, gripping her sides, spitting blood.

  Damn, he thought. I’ve got to get her to a doctor, only she says she won’t let one examine her. The Comanche medicine man would only treat her with ceremonies and maybe a natural remedy—some plant or root or berry.

  Slocum wondered about the other Kwahadie women. If anything had happened to them, a war was in the making and he had the misfortune to be right in the middle of it.

  “I should have ridden on with Fannie,” he muttered, as if saying it aloud made a difference. He could have taken the hot redhead to the closest railroad line and enjoyed himself along the way, instead of sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong. An investigation into the scalping of seven white settlers was a job for the army and the law.

  Then again, it was Slocum’s nature to take sides when there was trouble. He’d been that way since boyhood. His sense of right and wrong was easily awakened, even when it came to affairs that weren’t rightly his. Thinking about it now, with this injured Comanche girl in his charge for the present, he realized that his guns, or his prick, got him into trouble at times. Despite the pleasure that harkening to the needs of his cock frequently gave him, there had been occasional misfires when a beautiful woman had put him in the wrong place at the wrong time. And in this case, it was two beautiful women who were the cause. Fannie had kept him in Cache longer than he had intended to stay, and the lovely Indian maiden was the real reason he had agreed to help track the killers who raided the cabin, so Senatey’s people wouldn’t be blamed.

  He heard her cough again, and now he truly began to worry.
If the girl had serious internal injuries, waiting too long to see a doctor would seriously worsen the damage.

  He got up slowly, so as not to frighten her, and walked over to the tree where she lay. “More blood,” he said darkly. “I want you to try to trust me, Senatey. I know you don’t trust white men, but I’m asking you to make an exception ... to believe my words when I say it is very important to get you to a doctor.” As he said this, he used sign language to help her understand, but he wasn’t quite sure of some of the signs.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No go to white medicine man at Stinking Place.”

  “You could die, Senatey. You are bleeding inside.”

  “No go,” she said again, but as she spoke a trace of a tear appeared in the comer of each eye.

  “You’re in a lot of pain. The white doctor can give you something for it, so it won’t hurt so bad.”

  “No!” she said, more emphatically this time.

  Slocum looked up at the sky, feeling helpless. He wouldn’t force her to go. “I speak true words when I tell you I am not a bad man like the other white men you’ve known. You can trust me. I won’t let anything happen to you if you let me take you back to the fort to see the doctor. I’ll stay right there with you the whole time, to make sure nothing bad happens.”

  She was watching him closely as he spoke. “You not same. I see in eyes. Hear in words.”

  “Then I want you to trust me. The white doctor at the fort can help you.”

  “No,” Senatey said, but there was less anger in her voice now. “I hear what you say. I Sata Teichas. No Tosi Tivo. Isa Tai give me help. No see white medicine man.”

  “Isa Tai is your tribal medicine man?” He gave the sign for someone who heals sickness.

  She nodded and then suddenly coughed again. Pink foam sprayed from her lips in spite of her efforts to keep them closed, adding to the blood covering the front of her dress.

  Slocum spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Can’t you see how bad it is? You are bleeding inside. You’ve got to have some medical attention.”

  Before he got everything said, her head fell back against the tree and her eyes closed. Her arms dropped limply on the ground beside her. She was unconscious.

  “That does it,” Slocum muttered, wheeling for his horse. His mind was made up. He was taking her to the post surgeon at Fort Sill whether she liked it or not. The responsibility was his now to make certain she was given proper medical treatment. No doubt she would be angry, but that seemed less important than saving her life.

  He led over the stud and left it ground-hitched while he bent down to lift her in his arms with his blankets wrapped around her. It was a struggle, but he mounted his horse with the girl cradled in the crook of his elbows.

  Senatey’s eyes remained closed as he tried to make her comfortable across his lap, holding her in sidesaddle fashion so that one hand was free to use the reins.

  With his beautiful burden resting against his chest, he sent his Palouse due northward, toward Fort Sill, at an easy walk to keep from jarring her any more than necessary. From the first time he saw Senatey, he’d wanted to hold her in his arms, but not like this, with her life hanging in the balance.

  9

  Senatey lay unconscious in his arms, groaning every now and then when the Palouse crossed rough ground. Slocum angled north and west across empty land that had once been the prime hunting ground for the Arapaho and Kiowa tribes. But now the buffalo were gone, killed off by hide hunters who slaughtered the animals just for their furry skins. Mounds of sun-bleached buffalo bones lay in the clumps of late fall grasses, proof that this was once one of the most fertile hunting lands in the Indian Nations.

  He came to a creek and his Palouse snorted a warning. He pulled back on the reins, trying to see what worried his horse.

  He quickly sighted what the stallion had scented. Lying around a pool where the creek made a bend were the dead carcasses of five Indian ponies.

  “The yellow bastards killed their horses,” Slocum muttered as he guided the Palouse down to the water. To a man like Slocum, there was something far more tragic about killing a horse than killing a man who needed killing. In a lifetime of being around horses, he’d never seen a horse of any breed that needed anything more than a little discipline—a spur now and then, or the end of his reins across its rump.

  As he rode down to the stream, he heard a noise. Out of habit, he reached for his .44.

  Off in some bushes to the south of the pool, a human voice cried out softly in pain. He swung his horse in that direction, keeping Senatey close to his chest. Picking his way through scrub brush and slender trees, he soon found the source of the painful moans.

  A young Comanche woman lay on her back, her hands and feet tied by ropes to stakes in the ground. She was naked, and it was all too easy to see what had been done to her.

  “Damn,” Slocum hissed. He halted his stud and climbed down to the ground carefully. He placed Senatey on a patch of soft grass and walked over to the girl.

  Blood was oozing from her pubic mound, and a number of deep red marks covered her body. One of her nipples was missing, and he could see tooth marks where someone had bitten it off.

  “Somebody oughta cut those bastards’ balls off,” he said in a savage whisper. He knelt down beside the girl. Her skull had been crushed. A blood-encrusted rock was lying near her.

  “Murder,” he said. There was nothing he could do for the Comanche girl. Her nostrils flared with slow, irregular breaths. She was dying, and it was clear from her twisted facial features that she was in unbearable pain.

  He gave the pool and the bullet-torn Indian ponies a closer examination. Dozens of shod hoofprints were visible in the soft mud around the edges of the pool.

  “The sons of bitches won’t get away with it,” he seethed. “If Major Thompson won’t do anything, I’ll take it all the way to Washington, to General Crook. He won’t want soldiers like this in his army. He’s an honorable man, and there isn’t a trace of honor in any of this.”

  It was outright cruelty to leave the Indian woman to die a slow death. He had no choice. There was no way to carry both her and Senatey to the fort. Facing a heartbreaking choice, he did what he knew he had to do to spare the girl any more suffering. Taking his bandanna from his neck, he placed it over her mouth and nose, holding it in place until her breathing stopped.

  When he mounted his Palouse again with Senatey safe in his arms, his teeth were clenched so tightly his jaws ached. It had been one of his failings all his adult life, to get on a mad over something that was none of his affair. With the bile rising in his throat, he turned his horse back toward Fort Sill as the sun lowered in the west.

  It was a small campfire, flickering in the darkness. As he rode closer, he heard voices. Laughter, and a few words he couldn’t quite make out. He halted the stud and got down gingerly with Senatey in his arms. Gently he settled the blanket-wrapped girl in the darkness under a tall oak.

  Walking quietly, Indian-fashion, he approached the fire with his pistol drawn. He could see the dim outlines of seven or eight soldiers seated around a firepit. A coffeepot gave off a wonderful smell.

  Slocum crept up to a tree overlooking the camp and gave each face a close inspection. The men’s features were bathed in dim firelight. His gaze came to rest on a face he recognized. It was the corporal who had given him the name Dave Sims back where Slocum found Senatey, the man he’d given a lesson in fistcuffs when he poleaxed him in the jaw for failing to show proper respect.

  Slocum’s temper flared up beyond his control. He knew this was army business, but his anger got the better of him. He stepped around the tree into the circle of firelight.

  “If it ain’t Corporal Dave Sims,” he said, “or whatever your real name is.” His gun was aimed at Sims. “You were supposed to bring me a horse for the girl you had tied up.”

  All eight soldiers stiffened. Sims gave him a wary look.

  “Couldn’t find our way back,
” he said sarcastically. “Got lost in all them trees.”

  Slocum kept his gun on the others. He walked up to Sims, who was drinking coffee from a tin cup.

  “You’ve got a bad sense of direction, don’t you, soldierboy?” he said. “My pappy always said one way to teach a mule what you wanted him to learn was to get his full attention beforehand.”

  With a suddenness Sims didn’t expect, Slocum swung the barrel of his Colt across the top of the soldier’s skull, sending him spinning away from the fire, his coffee cup flying as he let out a high-pitched yowl.

  Sims landed on his chest, rolling, arms and legs askew. As his fellow troopers made moves to jump to their feet to help their fallen comrade, Slocum lowered his gun at them.

  “You boys stay real still unless you’re ready to meet your Maker,” Slocum snarled. “I’ll kill the first bastard who reaches for a gun or scratches his ass.”

  The soldiers froze in their tracks. Sims began moaning in a deep, muffled voice. His hands were pressed over his face and the spot on his temple where Slocum’s gun had struck him.

  “You ain’t fit to call yourselves soldiers,” Slocum spat. “I say you’re nothing but uniformed chickenshits, to do what you did to those women and those horses. Any sumbitch who don’t like being called a chickenshit can call me on it right here and now.”

  “You wouldn’t talk so tough if you wasn’t carryin’ that gun,” a sergeant said from the far side of the fire, his face drawn into hard lines.

  “Is that so?” Slocum replied. He walked around behind the others until he came to the sergeant who made the remark. “Stand up, you yellow asshole. I’m gonna put this gun away, and then I’m gonna bust your fuckin’ head wide open, just like you did to that Comanche girl I found a few hours ago with her head caved in. Only I promise you I’m gonna do a better job. You won’t be layin’ there alive, pissing in your pants, calling out to your mamma to come and help you. I’ll kill you with my bare hands, and then I’ll wire General George Crook about what you did, and what these other yellow sumbitches did to those Indian girls. The ones I don’t kill here tonight are gonna face a court-martial, and I’ll wager Major Thompson will back me up all the way on this. You yellow motherfuckers ain’t soldiers. You’re trash, only they put uniforms on trash so you can priss around acting real official. But I’ll tell you right now, before we start, them goddamn blue uniforms don’t mean a damn thing to me. I never counted ’em, but I’d be close if I guessed I killed four or five hundred men back in the war who were wearin’ blue. No reason to stop now, not when I find a few more who are yellow-bellied chickenshits who’ll tie down a defenseless woman and bash her skull.”