The Bank Robber

by Robert Broomall

  “I want you to do it.”

  Kirby guessed that Swede must be touchy about the subject. He felt proud that his new friend trusted him this much. “Sure,” he said, “I’ll teach you. It’s not hard. We’ll start tomorrow, if you like. I’ll give you the primer when we get to the Worths’ house.”

  Swede nodded. He leaned back, looking content. “Always figured a fella should read. Might come in handy some—”

  Suddenly Swede was on his feet, peering into the dark forest. Kirby looked up at him, bewildered.

  “Somebody out there,” Swede whispered, reaching for his long rifle.

  Undergrowth cracked. Swede raised the rifle. His voice broke as he shouted, “Who is that?”

  A girl’s voice cried back, “Swede—is that you? Oh, thank God!”

  The undergrowth crashed again, close by, and a girl stumbled into the firelight. She was about eight, slender, with matted black hair. She was barefoot and covered with blood. Her clothes and skin were ripped to shreds by thorns and rocks, and there were dark welts on her face where she’d been beaten.

  “It’s Sarah Worth!” Kirby cried. He had not recognized her at first. His heart grew cold as he realized what must have happened.

  Sarah buried her head in Swede’s familiar chest; she’d known him all her life. “Oh, Swede, I’m so glad this fire was you.” She realized Kirby was there, and she looked at him with trepidation.

  “Comanches?” Swede asked.

  “Yes,” she sobbed, turning back.

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. A lot. They came to our house yesterday morning. They killed Mommy and Daddy and Homer, the hired hand. They took all the horses, then they burned the buildings and killed the rest of the animals—even Jeff’s dog, Ben. Swede, they nailed Ben to a pecan tree and made us watch. ...”

  Sarah started crying, and Swede finished for her. “And then they took you and Jeff prisoner.”

  “Yes.”

  Kirby had fallen to his knees. He buried his face in his clenched fists.

  “Which way are they headed?” Swede asked Sarah.

  “Along the divide between the Guadalupe and the Cibolo. We were traveling fast. They weren’t keeping watch on me—they must have thought a girl wouldn’t try to escape. I managed to slip away last night. I’ve been running all day. I stayed on the trail, but they never sent anyone back to look for me.”

  “And Jeff?” Kirby breathed.

  “He’s probably all right, so far. He’s riding with one of the chiefs.”

  For a moment, Kirby was so mad he was incapable of movement. Then he rose slowly, crying. He choked incoherently and turned on Swede. Grabbing the tall boy’s deerskin shirt, he shook him violently. “Damn you!” he cried. “Damn you, damn you, damn you! I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into coming on this trip. If only I had been there, I could have—”

  “You’d have got your scalp lifted, along with Homer and Pat and Becky Worth,” Swede told him brutally, knocking his hands down. “Comanches was on them people before they was even out of bed, prob’ly thirty or forty braves with knives and axes. Think you could have stopped that. Schoolmaster? What would you do—read Latin to ‘em?”

  Kirby burned with rage. His fists were clenched white, but he said nothing.

  Swede turned away. He thought quickly. “All right. John, take Sarah and head for Marty Miller’s place. That’s closest to here. Tell Marty to enlist a company of minutemen and come quick. Tell them I’ll be following the Comanches. I’ll keep them under observation till the minutemen come up.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Kirby said, raising a hand. “I’m coming with you.”

  “You have to look after Sarah.”

  “Sarah can take the packhorse and ride on by herself. She’s not hurt too bad to make it to the Miller place.”

  Swede looked at Sarah. The eight-year-old was clear‑eyed, level-headed. She’d been raised on the frontier; she knew what was expected of her in these situations.

  She nodded, brushing her dark hair out of her face, trembling and swallowing her sobs. “Yes, I can make it all right.”

  Swede looked back to Kirby. “This won’t be no camping trip, Schoolmaster.”

  Kirby felt as though his chest would burst through his hickory shirt. “I told you before—anything you can do, I can do.”

  Swede shrugged and turned away. “I hope you’re right.”

  While young Sarah scraped a hunk of bread around the inside of the cook pot and swallowed it down. Swede and Kirby saddled their horses and made ready the packhorse. Swede helped Sarah onto her mount, and she started for the Miller farm. She knew the way. Swede and Kirby took out after the Comanches.

  They traveled light, carrying only weapons and ammunition, along with some parched com and dried meat in their morrales. Everything else was abandoned at camp, save for a hunting horn that Swede tied to his saddle. They rode upriver in the dark. Not long after dawn they turned up Buffalo Creek, where they picked up the Comanche trail at the burned Worth farm.

  Confident of their strength, the Indians had made no effort to hide their trail—anyone could have followed it. It was broad and deep, with the prints of many ponies. The smell of horse manure was overpowering in the heat. As they followed the trail, Kirby’s emotions veered violently between a desire to rescue Jeff and a soul-shattering fear. If he and Swede were discovered by this many Comanches, it meant certain death.

  Beside Kirby, Swede was tight-lipped. His eyes never stopped searching the horizon. “You done this before?” Kirby asked.

  Without looking, Swede said, “I rode on a scout with Sam Walker and the Texas Rangers once, and I’ve ridden with the militia when my pa couldn’t go. But we never cut no hot trails, and I for sure never fought no Comanches.”

  Kirby could not stop shaking. “Swede, I’m scared to death. Every bend we round, I’m afraid we’ll see Jeff’s body lying there.”

  “We won’t,” Swede told him. “Them Comanches’ll do everything they can to keep Jeff alive. They’re fixing to make him a brave. Comanches don’t have many kids as a rule, so they like to capture young boys and raise ’em up as their own. Some of their chiefs are part white or Mexican—even Negro. They don’t have as much use for girls Sarah’s age, ’cept to rape and use as slaves around the camp—that’s why they didn’t come back looking for her.”

  Next day the warm weather broke, and a norther slammed down on the boys with howling wind and driving rain. The temperature must have dropped thirty degrees in an hour, and it kept dropping. Wet and frozen, the boys wrapped their weapons in oilcloth and pushed on. The Indian trail bent back to the Guadalupe, and the boys arrived to find the normally placid river gushing fiercely past them.

  “River’s rising,” Swede shouted above the screaming storm. “Tie your rifle down. We’ll have to swim our horses across. When the water reaches your thigh, slide off and hang onto your pommel.”

  Kiiby watched a sizable tree limb swirling over and over down the river. “What happens if I let go of the pommel?”

  “Don’t,” Swede said, kicking his reluctant gray into the water.

  Kirby followed, praying for dear life. The freezing water rose up his legs quickly, and he slid out of the Mexican saddle. The horse swam forward, struggling against the current. Kirby’s gloves were slipping on the thick pommel of the saddle. Icy wavelets smacked his face. He flung his weight forward, trying to get a better grip on the pommel, but instead lost his grip entirely and was thrown adrift in the raging river.

  He had but one chance. As the current surged him past the swimming horse, he reached for the animal’s tail. He caught it with one hand, then two, locking his fingers in the horse’s thick, wiry hair. He hung on, swallowing huge amounts of freezing water, gasping for breath. His mouth and eyes were full of water. He couldn’t breathe. He was drowning.

  Then something was battering his feet. It was the riverbed. They were across. He let go the horse’s tail and dropped into the water
.

  He emerged from the river hatless and dripping, and he waded to shore. He was shaking, his legs so weak he could hardly stand. He was so relieved to be on solid ground, he no longer noticed the rain and wind lashing his face.

  Swede showed little pity for Kirby’s experience in the water; judging from his looks. Swede’s own crossing had been difficult enough. The tall boy was staring back at the

  river. He was breathing in great draughts. Fear and uncertainty clouded his face, though he tried not to show them. At the same time there was a look in his eyes like he’d been summoned to a test, as if he’d arrived at a moment he’d always known would come, a moment he’d awaited with both dread and fascination.

  Swede turned to Kirby. “We barely made it across. Time that river’s down enough for the minutemen to cross, them Comanches’ll be safe in Mexico, or in the Unknown Lands west of the Llano Estacado. It’ll be twelve—fifteen years before your brother Jeff sees Texas again, and when he comes, he’ll be painted and feathered and looking for white blood. We’re the only ones who can save him now.”

  They rode on, sleeping on piles of brush, huddling together from the elements. The norther blew itself out, but the weather stayed cold. As soon as the rain stopped, the boys halted and cleaned their weapons thoroughly. Then they took up the chase once more. The dry uplands were approaching. The tall pin-oaks were giving way to gnarled mesquite.

  Swede eyed the trail eagerly. “They’re traveling slower. They reckon they’re safe.”

  Because of the mud, there was no dust cloud to locate the raiding party’s position, but the tracks got fresher and fresher until it was apparent the Comanches were just ahead. Kirby’s blood was racing, his heart beating like one of the new steam hammers.

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Swede warned.

  They sighted the Indians in the late afternoon—a large party of braves and a lot of horses. They were crossing a long, bare ridge line ahead, silhouetted against the leaden sky.

  The boys took cover until the last Indian disappeared over the ridge. Swede ran his tongue across his lips, while he searched for stragglers or a rear guard. “There’ll be water over that ridge. That’s where they’ll camp. Come on, I want to scout them out before it gets dark—there’ll be no fires to see by tonight. The wood’s too wet.”

  They tethered their horses in a thicket of mesquite and crept to the top of the ridge. They didn’t feel the cold or the wet or the mud that soaked their clothes. The Indians were camped below them, beside a rain-swollen creek. There were thirty to thirty-five warriors, Kirby guessed, and at least a hundred horses. It had been a good raid. The Comanches were relaxed and laughing, clearly unworried by thoughts of pursuit. Some of them started beating hollow sticks and singing in a strange, guttural chant.

  Kirby’s heart fell as he surveyed the scene. “Swede, we’ll never get Jeff out of there.”

  “We’ve got to try,” Swede said. He pointed. “There’s the chiefs war lance, stuck in the ground by those cottonwoods— that’s where Jeff’ll be. There—is that him?”

  Kirby saw a diminutive figure wrapped in a huge buffalo robe. His hair was straw-colored, and he was staring this way and that, as though bewildered.

  “That’s him.” Kirby had practically raised Jeff; he would know him from any distance.

  “Looks warm enough, anyway,” Swede said.

  As they watched, a tall figure whose elaborately beaded shirt and head full of feathers identified him as a chief approached Jeff. He handed the boy some food, then beckoned him to the stream for water.

  Kirby felt an irrational urge to scream at the top of his lungs, to relieve his tension with some violent physical activity. Anything to keep himself from thinking.

  Swede was studying the Indian camp, memorizing its features as the late autumn daylight turned to night. “After dark, you take all our weapons and my hunting horn. Slip down the hill and cut loose their caballado . Stampede ’em into the camp, then start shooting off the guns. Blow that horn. Make them Comanches think they’s being attacked by a company of Rangers. In the confusion, I’ll try to slip into-the camp and bring Jeff out.”

  “Will that plan work?” Kirby said.

  Swede shrugged. “It’s the only one I can think of. We’ll wait till after midnight, when they’re asleep. If my pa’s stories are right, they won’t place a guard on the camp tonight—Pa says Comanches is mighty careless when they reckon they’re safe.”

  The clouds blew away during the night, and the new moon gave a thin light. Kirby took Swede’s pistols and stuffed them into his belt alongside his own. He slung Swede’s hunting horn and long rifle over his shoulders.

  Swede left his hat on his saddle. He loosened his bowie knife in its sheath. The knife blade was fourteen inches long and nearly as thick as a sword, with an edge like a fine-honed razor. “Give me a head start,” Swede said in a low voice, “to get near the camp.”

  Kirby held the tall boy back. Kirby was proud, and he didn’t know how to word this. “Swede . . . thanks. For doing all this.”

  “Forget it, Schoolmaster. In Texas we all pull together.” Then Swede flashed his big grin. “’Sides—we’re friends, ain’t we?” He slapped Kirby’s shoulder lightly and shinnied over the ridge.

  Kirby watched Swede slither soundlessly down the hill, until he was lost in the shadows. Kirby could not wait any longer, if he didn’t start moving now he would go mad. He rose and started down the hill toward the horse herd, carrying his rifle at the ready.

  The strong prairie wind sliced through Kirby’s wet clothes and body, chilling him until his teeth chattered loudly in the darkness. He almost had to pinch himself to believe this was happening, to believe that Jeff was being held prisoner by savages not three hundred yards away, and that he; was even now going to try to free him. His boots kicked pebbles and small rocks down the hillside. To Kirby it sounded like a series of avalanches—the Indians must hear him. His imagination conjured terrifying images out of the darkness. He expected a Comanche to leap upon him any second.

  He reached the horse herd, circling to come in downwind, like Swede had taught him. There was a string of personal horses tied to picket ropes, while the stolen animals were held in a makeshift corral. There was no sign of a guard.

  Kirby approached the picketed horses first, his knife in one hand, his loaded rifle in the other. The horses stirred uneasily. “Shhh,” Kirby whispered. He smelled their coats, wet and cold.

  Kirby severed the picket ropes with his knife, hurrying down the line. As the animals wandered free, they grew more restive, snorting and pawing the ground. “Shhh.”

  He cut the last picket rope and turned to the large stolen herd, which was penned along the creek by a single strand of rope. The Indians obviously believed the captured animals were too tired to try to run away. Kirby cut the rope, then began pushing the horses toward the Indian camp. One of the horses balked, rising up on his hind legs and whinnying loudly.

  From nearby came a sleepy grunt and a sound of uncertain movement. Kirby turned, cocked his rifle, and fired toward the noise. The muzzle flash lit up the blackness, revealing a hideous painted face. Kirby didn’t know if he hit the Indian. He didn’t stay to find out.

  The rifle shot had started the horses running toward the Indian camp, crashing through the thick undergrowth. Taking care not to be trampled, Kirby unslung Swede’s long rifle and hurried toward the camp, cocking the hammer. He stopped and blew three loud blasts on the horn. He let out the high- pitched, yipping cry characteristic of the Texas fighter, then fired the rifle and reslung it.

  He moved closer to the camp, but in a line that would take him back to the ridge. He blew the horn again. Shouts sounded above the drumming hoofbeats in the darkness. He kept moving, dodging scared horses, stumbling into sharp thickets. Something whizzed past his cheek. “There’s one trying to escape!” he yelled in what he hoped was a deep voice. “Get him!” He fired one of the pistols.

  Something barreled into him, knoc
king him flat. Was he shot? No, it must have been a horse. He scrambled up unsteadily. His head was ringing, but he forced himself to keep moving, to keep blowing the horn and yelling his Texas war cry. Ahead of him there were shouts and screams and also splashes—that meant horses or men, or hopefully both, were crossing the creek for safety. Orange muzzle flashes split the darkness, followed by shots. The Indians had fallen for the ruse and were firing back. Kirby could imagine how the sleepy Indians had been taken in, with the shots and the horn blowing, and the racket of the unseen horses, which might have been men, all around them—though things might have been very different had that guard not been sleeping. Kirby fired his second pistol toward the muzzle flashes. He wondered if Swede was in the camp—for an absurd instant, he wondered if he might have hit Swede with one of his shots.

  The Indian camp was all shooting and confusion now. Kirby saw figures moving in the dim moonlight. Somewhere a horse had been hit and was crying out loudly. Kirby came down on the Indians’ flank, always closer, until he was standing on an abandoned blanket. He blew three more blasts on his horn and fired his last two pistols, simulating an attack from a new direction. Then he turned and sprinted for the ridge.

  He used a cleft rock he’d seen earlier against the skyline as a landmark. He slipped and cut his hand open, but he didn’t notice, just as he didn’t notice the heavy weight of the weapons he was carrying. His body felt charged with some strange power he had never known before. He reached the cleft rock and crossed the ridge, leaving the uproar of the Comanche camp behind him. The Indians must be shooting at each other in the darkness, he thought.

  Kirby tumbled down the far side of the ridge, toward the mesquite thicket. A sudden thought jerked him up short— what if Swede was not there, what if the thicket was full of Indians, waiting for him? He realized how dry his throat was, how his lungs burned from lack of air.

  “Over here!” came a loud whisper—Swede’s voice.