The power of bear, eagle, wolf, and earth filled his arm and his chest, and he knew even before the white man arrived that he had come. The Indian turned to where Gannon was standing, at the foot of the ledge—and Roving Wolf’s face twisted with anger. The white man was like the Demon of Many Faces, dressed with the trappings of both his kind and Comanche.
The battle was for more than just the Comancheria. It was a fight for the spirit of a people.
* * *
Gannon had never imagined that a final encounter with Roving Wolf, whenever it came, would be a matter of man versus man. He had been in Texas long enough to know that the Indians had a way of drawing strength from the unseen world. Whether such forces were real or not, the Indians did not doubt its existence. Like the heroes and patriarchs, martyrs and saints whose tales were told in church every Sunday, belief was a power in itself. Gannon wished he had some of that faith in his heart here and now.
But he was not spiritually unarmed. Gannon had an iron-solid resolve to return to Constance. It was time to discover whether the spirit of this Comanche was equal to the soul of this white man. Nothing greater would be decided than that; they were a sideshow to a sideshow, the kind that even Captain Keel would have had no difficulty explaining to his superiors.
Gannon drew the Indian knife and spread his arms. Since walking up the steep slope could hurt his side, he had decided to make the Indian come to him. Maybe Roving Wolf would take the eagle feather seriously, jump the ten feet or so to the ground, and break his neck. Gannon had nothing to prove. He was here to protect his future.
Full of the spirit, Roving Wolf strode down the rocky incline, as surefooted as any creature of the wild. Gannon got a good look at the weapon he had been looking for the night they met, a bone knife with the claw of what looked like a bear. Gannon had carried a knife in Florida, had killed crocodiles, skinned foxes and rabbits, and once fought a drunk over a woman. He had trained with the police—a little. If he stood a chance of winning here the combat would not have to be about fighting skill but tactics.
Gannon’s belly boiled with anticipation. It wasn’t fear; he had experienced that earlier, walking after Roving Wolf. And it wasn’t fear of death, but only of what he had to lose by dying—his future with Constance. Now that the action was begun, the end in view, he was almost relieved.
He removed the waterskin but left the tunic on. It would not afford much protection against the claw, but it would be better than bare skin and bandage.
The sun had arced somewhat to the west, so Gannon moved in that direction. Roving Wolf seemed so intent on the man himself that he did not seem aware of the direct light of the sun or anything else. Roving Wolf stopped just a few yards from Gannon, facing him.
“I bear you no malice, Roving Wolf,” Gannon said. “We don’t—”
The Comanche cut him off with a lateral swipe of the blade, then crouched in a fighting stance, the blade behind his wrist, the claw out. Held that way, the bony paw could rake or the knife could slash with an underhanded swipe of the wrist. Gannon stood with his legs apart, arms wide, the knife pointing forward in his right hand.
With a howl meant to paralyze any foe, Roving Wolf ran forward, simultaneously sweeping the bony blade outward, like a scythe. Gannon stepped back; the initial attack missed but the sharp, fast return swipe connected with his tunic, cutting through it to the bandage below. Gannon lunged forward with his own knife, but the Comanche hopped to the side. The strike missed him, the men quickly faced one another, and they were back where they started—though the sun was no longer entirely to Gannon’s back.
That was why Roving Wolf didn’t care where we started, Gannon realized.
Gannon was about to run in and thrust up, under the Comanche’s arm, when the Indian slashed again. This time Gannon moved with the blade, circling wide around the enemy. The Indian’s sweeping arm was briefly frozen between Gannon and its owner; Gannon jabbed out with his own blade, striking the back of the Indian’s exposed forearm, drawing blood. With a growl, the Comanche swung his arm back, lower and more viciously than before. Gannon leapt away, bending deeply at the waist to avoid the blade. The edge missed his belly, but Gannon pulled his injured side, leaned in that direction, and the Comanche seized the moment to run at him.
Gannon felt as though he’d been hit by a charging bull. He was simultaneously doubled over and knocked backward. He threw his left arm behind him to take the brunt of the fall and held tight to the knife in his right hand. The Indian fell on him and tried to rake him with the bear claw, but Gannon met it with his knife plunged through two of the fingers. The blade clanged and the men wrestled for a moment, back and forth, locked together, Gannon pushing up and the Indian pressing down. Roving Wolf raised his left hand, tried to claw Gannon’s face, but was met with the white man’s strong grip.
The Indian’s weight sent fire through the other man’s chest, an endless wave of it. The men were both animals now, grappling, pushing, Gannon releasing a primal scream that was part pain, part fury. He managed to bring a knee against the Indian’s belly and thrust up, shoving him off. Both men immediately scrambled for advantage, bear claw and blade seeking flesh, finding an arm, a thigh, a waist, staining the earth with spatters of blood.
Gannon was still below the Indian, protected only by the upraised knee, which the Comanche finally, angrily pushed away with his hip before sitting fully on the waist of his intended victim. Gannon was stuck on his back, his legs unable to do more than wriggle. But in the moment after Roving Wolf succeeded in straddling him, Gannon saw an opening. The Comanche had moved to pin the white man’s left arm to the ground as he raised the claw to strike down in his eyes. In what was only a moment but seemed much longer, the man’s body seemed frozen, like a historic tableau in a saloon show; though brief, it was enough time for Gannon to move his free right arm and thrust the knife upward into the Comanche’s chest, beating the downward drive of the bear claw by a heartbeat.
The bone weapon scraped Gannon’s cheek before clattering to the ground. The Indian sat motionless atop his foe, the knife in his breast. Gannon’s fist was still on the hilt and rage was still in his eyes as he yelled and pushed the knife in harder. He was aware of the warm blood coursing over his hand, down the inside of his sleeve. Roving Wolf was still looking down at Gannon, but the feral turn of his mouth softened into something human, the eyes ceased to burn, the nostrils no longer flared. With a sigh, the Comanche rolled slowly off the white man, onto his side, onto the ground, where his left arm flopped outward.
Gannon rolled what was left of the Indian on his waist to the ground. Roving Wolf was on his back, the knife jutting from his chest throwing a long cruciform shadow on the dirt. He was breathing deeply but otherwise did not move.
Bleeding where the knife had initially cut his side and arm and clutching his right arm to his ribs to keep from using those muscles, Gannon struggled to his knees and looked down at the dying man.
There was nothing to say, nothing the Indian would have cared to hear. They were from different worlds and their only common ground was war.
So the battle has been fought, Gannon thought without satisfaction. Now we have nothing. He looked down as the Indian shut his eyes and breathed his last. You have even less than that.
And yet there was the hint of a smile on the face of the dead man. It didn’t appear to be a trick of light and shadow; perhaps he had found the boy who had been taken from him up here. The white man hoped so. If there were one heaven, there might be others.
Gannon got to his feet with effort. He sheathed his knife and held his side. It was going to be painful, but he would pull over as many rocks as he could to cover the body. He decided he would keep the bear-bone knife. Not as a memento—he had one of those, dug into his cheek. But it seemed to have a history that should not be buried; maybe it would speak to him one day.
First, though, he recovered the waterskin and took a drink. It felt good to be alive—even the ache of his muscles, the sti
ng of the cuts. Gannon looked down again at the bloody remains of the Indian. He remembered the last time he had looked down at a dead man in these lowlands—Sketch Lively. Another man who hated so hard it got him killed. Gannon couldn’t say whether any of it was right or wrong. Only that somewhere, right now, both the Big Father and the Lord God Almighty could only be feeling a helpless kind of sad.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
October 23, 1871
Gannon had taken his time leaving the scene of their struggle. He hurt too much and, until he had nearly run out of water and needed to eat, there was no reason to move.
He headed back to the valley, where he knew he would find water not only to drink but to thoroughly clean his wounds. He had also seen lizards among the rocks and suspected there would be small mammals nosing around the horse and the stone grave of the Indian they had left there. During the war it was what spies and sharpshooters and trackers who were out in the field called “survival rations.” As a boy, he had learned that Florida salamanders, cooked on a stick, weren’t bad, if not terribly filling.
Though he knew that Constance would be worried, Gannon couldn’t bring himself to stir much. There was much on his mind, yet so much of it scattered. He walked a little one day and a little more the next, trying to sort out how he felt about the Comanche and what they had done—and what he would have done in their place. After four years of war, he did not think that fighting was the best solution to any dispute. Unfortunately, talking never seemed to get anyone anywhere and he couldn’t think of a third option. With no disrespect intended to the Lord, turning the other cheek reminded him of saloon doors. People just pushed through on their way to one side or the other.
Gannon also walked because, as a matter of pride, he wanted to be able to stand upright when he saw her parents again—if he saw them again—to ask for their daughter in marriage. Sgt. Calvin or someone with the police might be persuaded to lend him clean clothes for that. Hopefully, Captain Keel would not object.
It had been nearly two full days before Gannon heard horses approaching from the northern end of the valley. Though he was feeling stronger, Gannon was not up for scaling the limestone crags or going back into the subterranean passage. He hoped that, coming from the north, and making no effort to conceal their approach, it was not a party of Comanche.
It was not. It was a small contingent of guardsmen and police led by one of their own. The four horsemen were greeted by Gannon, in trousers and bandage, holding his Indian knife and his bear-claw weapon. He lowered the weapons when he saw the men more clearly. He recognized one, a young German-born officer named Gustav Schündler who had joined the force a month before. The men were trailing a horse and wagon.
“Officer Gannon,” said May as he approached.
“Mister Gannon,” he corrected.
“Officer,” May repeated. “As personally ordered by Captain Amos Keel to Sgt. Richard Calvin shortly before the commander’s death.”
The words caused Gannon to start. “Captain Keel?” he said.
“You didn’t know?” the mustachioed sergeant said.
“No.”
“I’m sorry,” May said. “He was protecting Miss Breen—who is fine and waiting for you back in Austin. We were dispatched to look for you. She said we should start here.”
“I . . . I was gonna get there, eventually,” Gannon said, absently speaking his plans. For a moment, the revelation of Keel’s death and his thoughts for Gannon’s well-being made it difficult to breathe. He had been out in the valley for two days, off and on contemplating the futility of the hate men had for one another. To learn of the captain’s sacrifice moved him deeply.
“How is . . . Sgt. Calvin?” Gannon asked cautiously, braced for the worst.
“Alive, if not quite kicking,” May said. “He has a badly broken leg, but the army doc is hopeful he may keep it.”
Gannon thanked the dark-skinned sergeant for the information but didn’t ask about anyone else. He had learned during the war that too many names, too soon, did not permit him to reflect on any one man. There would be time enough for more.
Gannon had not even noticed the blond, square-jawed Schündler dismount and come to his side.
“Will you come to the wagon, Officer Gannon?” he asked with a thick accent. “We have it padded with blankets. It should not be too bad a ride.”
“Yes . . . thank you,” Gannon said absently. He sheathed the knife and stuck the bear-bone in his belt.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like that,” May said, nodding toward the ivory-colored weapon. “Did it belong to one of the hostiles?”
“The man I killed,” Gannon said, touching his face. “It—it was special to him.”
“I would like to hear about it sometime,” May said. “Indians have some strange notions, eh?”
Gannon made no reply. He just walked to the wagon with Schündler, let the man help him up, then collapsed on the blankets as if they were clouds and he was an angel who had earned his space among them. It seemed impossible that he was going home after—was it more than a month? He had lost track of time. He wondered if the same people who had turned out to see his last entry into Austin would turn out again. What would they be thinking or saying, how would they look at him?
He had no answers, nor did he think of any before the side-to-side rocking of the wagon lulled him to sleep.
* * *
Gannon slept through his entry into Austin.
He woke in a hospital bed in the military garrison, a fact he discerned from the flag on the wall and the uniformed private at the door. The bed was smaller and lumpier than the one he’d enjoyed in the back of the wagon.
There were a few men to his right and the cot directly to his left was occupied by Sgt. Calvin; in a chair beside the sergeant was Hernando Garcia. The men were playing cards. There was sunlight coming through the high windows and a smell of something tart and medicinal in the air.
Gannon saw Garcia poke Calvin with his elbow; the arm itself was bound in a thick splint. The sergeant looked over.
“Good afternoon, Officer,” Calvin said.
Gannon was busy feeling under the thin sheet and the flimsy nightgown he wore. The touch-touch-touch was something he had seen with some regularity during the war: men who woke wanted to make sure they were still intact. He determined that his torso had been rebandaged, the wounds on his arms had been treated, and there was gauze on his cheek.
Only then did he look over and say, “Good afternoon, Sergeant.” His eyes went up a little. “And Officer Garcia.”
“Hello,” Garcia said. He touched his own chin. “They shaved you. You’re thinner than I remember.”
“You cannot get fat on lizards,” Gannon replied.
There was a clean wooden table between the cots with bottles of various color, glasses, and spoons.
“My things?” Gannon asked.
“Footlocker, end of the bed,” Garcia said.
“And Miss Breen?” he asked, still waking from what was beginning to feel had been an artificial sleep. No doubt a doctor had given him a draught of some kind.
“She is at home,” Calvin told him. And that was all he said, despite an expression that was eager to hear more.
“She has been to see you,” Garcia added. “Twice, that I saw. She will come again, I’m sure.”
Gannon lay back, his thinking a little muddled.
“You heard about the captain?” Calvin asked.
Gannon nodded.
“He asked that you be reinstated.”
“For a hearing,” Gannon said.
“A formality. My report talks at length about your courage in the field.”
“Thank you. Back wages?”
“You will get them.”
Gannon was glad. That would make things easier . . . and quicker. He glanced at the construct of wood and leather poking from under the sheets of Calvin’s bed. “Your leg?”
“Crushed by a horse chasin’ down escaped Comanche,” C
alvin told him. “We got two, Sergeant. May got the third.”
“Well done.”
“Except for the very end,” Garcia remarked, pointing to the leg.
Gannon tried to get up. He was bound a little tighter than before, did not have the same pain—or freedom of movement.
“You probably shouldn’t try getting up till the doctor’s seen you,” Garcia noted. “Do you wish me to get him?”
Gannon nodded and, setting his cards on the bed, far from where Calvin could reach, he left the room. The sergeant had never been a man to make conversation, and he didn’t try now.
“I was wondering about clothes,” Gannon said as he began to collect his thoughts.
“I’ve had some sent over. Clean, pressed, ready for courtin’.” Calvin pointed. “Also in the footlocker.”
The door squeaked open and a tall, balding man strode in. He was dressed in shirtsleeves, rolled tight, with blue military trousers, spectacles, and what was probably a perpetual scowl. He greeted the few other men by name as he passed.
“I’m Dr. Breeding,” the man said when he reached Gannon’s bedside.
“A surgeon,” Garcia said as a warning.
“How do you feel, Gannon?”
“Good, thank you. And thanks for what you’ve done.”
“If you can walk, you can go,” Dr. Breeding said. “Just sign out with the steward at front and make sure you drink a lot of water, and you might have a few of Mrs. Breen’s pies. You’ve been living in an arid wasteland and you look it. Oh”—he paused as he turned to go—“if you do leave, come back to have the dressings checked by a nurse. Though the marks on your face are going to scar regardless.”
“I suspected they might.”
“You will be fearsome,” Garcia said.
Gannon thanked the doctor again as he walked away.
“It will be a few weeks before we have a replacement for Dr. Zachary,” Calvin said. “Breeding is not happy having to work for the army and the police.”
War Valley Page 24