ALICE PATTERSON STRETCHED back on the sand and tried to ease her body around to a position where her bound wrists and ankles wouldn’t give her cramps.
She was used to uncomfortable beds. Lord knew, Moses had taken her to enough, but she never had gotten used to sleeping on bare sand; not with her hands and feet tied; not after spending all day on the pad saddle of a Comanche mustang.
She tried to scrape a hollow out with her left elbow, but the sand was packed too hard, and when her shifting got noticed, a warrior reached back to thud the butt of his lance against her stomach: Alice stopped moving and tried to ignore the cramps. She was uncomfortable, but at least she was still alive. Why, she didn’t know; just felt grateful for the simple fact.
It was more than the others had.
The Nokoni had come in one day after that Johnny Reb had agreed to go find Donnely and his troop. That had seemed like a blessing at the time: a man who looked like he could bring help. But, if he had tried, it hadn’t come soon enough. Maybe the Comanche had seen him go out and decided to attack early. She hadn’t thought of that when she talked Kincannon into persuading the man to find Donnely. But then it had seemed like the only salvation: to send a man able to fetch the captain back, and bring the troop back to the mission, where the superior firepower of the Army could defeat the Indians.
But the Nokoni had come in fast and hard when the garrison was at its lowest strength, with no hope of support other than the man in the dark red shirt of the Missouri guerrillas. They had come in as fast and firm as the waves she had seen when her parents took her to the beach at Galveston and showed her the ocean for the first time. And like the water on the sand, they had washed everything before them away. Clean or bloody, depending on the point of view.
They had come over the walls with the setting sun behind them, their bows firing arrows faster than the few troopers could load their rifles and carbines. She had seen one man – a skinny, red-haired private who never drank more than three glasses, and always called her ma’am – go down with a shaft in his left eye. He had gone on loading his single-shot carbine while the blood from his head dribbled down the length of the arrow. Then shot the warrior who planted a lance deep in his belly and lifted him backwards so that they stayed joined, in death, by the ghastly cord of the lance pole.
That had been in the first wave of the attack. A terrifying rush that was carefully planned to panic the defenders. As many Indians as white men had died then. But the second wave had caught the troopers by surprise. It had come in fast behind the first, not using bows – that might make a separate noise against the thunder of the hooves – but lances: the traditional weapon of the Nokoni. No, they had come in fast behind the suicidal rush and taken the soldiers while they were still priming their weapons. The lances had gone in with the same skill the Comanche used to spear buffalo, and in much the same way.
She had seen a man who got drunk every payday picked up on the tip of a lance while he was fumbling his Colt’s Army model from his buttoned holster and get carried away. The lance had gone into his stomach as he stood up and tried to drag the pistol clear. It had come out through his back as his feet left the ground and he clutched at the bloody pole jutting through his body. Then the Comanche had swung the lance so that the tip broke out of the belly and swung it round to smash the rifle of a second trooper aside.
She had seen Kincannon come running out, his hangover long gone in the urgency of the fight, shooting a pistol, like a 'gunfighter, at the Indians surrounding the cabin.
Watched three go down.
Watched Kincannon batter a fourth into brainless oblivion, then fire once more before he stuck the pistol into his own mouth and blew his skull away.
Which wasn’t a bad thing to do, because the Nokoni had hauled Moses out from under the bar where he had been hiding with a shotgun in his hands that he was too frightened to fire.
Dragged him out and showed him what they thought of cowards.
That was maybe why they hadn’t burned down his saloon. Maybe because they wanted his wife to watch it all.
Like the Comanche leader taking the gun from Moses’ trembling hands and triggering both barrels into the floor. Then laughing as he shouted orders in his own language and the warriors began to break bottles and ram them, jagged-edged, into his body.
Moses had taken a long time dying. He had bled a lot as he writhed over the floor of the saloon, and then the Indians had wrapped Alice in a blanket and taken her away.
They hadn’t raped her, which was what she expected. Nor killed her, which was the next thing she waited for.
Instead, she was still alive. Frightened and moving west, as best she could tell.
She stared at the sky, concentrating on the stars until they got blocked out by a tall figure with the angles of a rifle jutting either side of his body.
He was wearing beaded moccasins, the heels draped with fox tails that hung red behind the black-and-white patterns that covered his feet. His legs were bare, dark brown, except where the puckered white lines of old scars showed against the skin. He was tall, the loincloth spanning his waist set high above his knees. A quill breastplate covered his chest, a bone necklace that was made up of bears’ and wolves’ teeth draping over the painted spines of the porcupine’s covering Over the paint there; in red and white and black. His hair was long, falling down in thick strands from the shell-bead band that kept it off his face. He wore one long feather, fastened point downwards from the headband; it was all red, with just the tip painted with white and black.
‘I am called Walking Bear,’ he said. ‘War leader of the Nokoni.’
She was surprised that he spoke American.
More surprised when he stooped down, flashing a long knife from his belt, and cut her bonds instead of her throat.
‘Why?’ was all she could ask through the dry fear that filled her mouth.
‘Why do I free you?’ Walking Bear sheathed the knife and stood up. ‘Or why do I not kill you? Or why did we bring you here?’
‘Yes.’ She had thought she was brave; had been convinced of it. But now her voice was a dry rasp in a fear-filled throat. ‘Why?’
‘There is nowhere you can run,’ said Walking Bear. ‘And there was no reason to kill you. You mean too much.’
‘Not now.’ Alice Patterson rubbed at her numb wrists and ankles. Finding courage as she realized the inevitable. ‘My husband’s dead. You killed him when you hit the mission. I don’t mean anything.’
Walking Bear laughed, squatting down in front of her. He brought the rifle round and lifted it up, so that the muzzle tucked under her chin, the foresight snagging in the veined flesh.
‘We took all the blue-coats’ guns,’ he said. ‘They have nothing now, but we have plenty. We took the only other thing they might try to find: you.’
‘They won’t come looking for me,’ said Alice. ‘I’m not worth anything.’
‘You are strong,’ said Walking Bear. ‘I could sell you in Mexico. I could get a horse and a rifle for you. But that is not what I want. I think they will come after you. That is why we stop here: so I can kill the blue-coats and take this land again.’
‘You’re crazy,’ said the woman. ‘You didn’t leave enough men alive to come after me.’
Walking Bear dropped his right hand from the trigger of the rifle and swiped it casually forwards. The hard knuckles of his fist slapped Alice Patterson across the mouth.
‘Men have pride,' woman,’ he said. ‘They will come after me. They must. If they don’t, they are not men.’
He stood up, leaving her on the sand as someone else brought her a bowl of thin soup that tasted like sweat. She drank it anyway, chewing on the gristle at the bottom while she looked at the stars and wondered about her future.
McLain came awake with frost plucking at his hair. He stood up, blowing on the breech of the Sharps as he looked around. There was nothing: just the scene he had memorized the night before: no threat of attack, or immediate danger.
He went down to his horse.
After he had fed the animal and eaten himself, he mounted up again and went on moving west. The sky was grey, a dull, uniform color. But across his path there were faint streamers of smoke, dark against the dawn mist.
He watched them, wondering if the Nokoni had made camp. And if they had, why for so long?
He could think of only two reasons. Either the Indians felt confident enough of their position that they saw no need to hide it; or they wanted it to be known, to draw fresh victims into their ambush.
Either way was dangerous. For a lone rider even more than a squad of Cavalry. And the Civil War had taught McLain caution.
Not cowardice, but the sensibility of approaching a problem from the flank. To check out the enemy before charging in blind.
He took the roan stallion up the ridge from the trail and eased his way through the trees. The going was slower because he was no longer following a clearly defined path, but had to pick his way along game trails and through tall stands of timber, not wanting to give away his position.
He rode onwards until the sun was directly above him, then halted to water the horse and feed himself. He waited up for as long as it took the sun to shift from his spread forefinger to the second digit, then moved on again, still holding to the high ground.
By the time dusk fell over the gullies and arroyos, he was within three miles of the fires he had seen the previous day. They hadn’t moved, and that made him suspicious; so he went on until the light got too dark for the horse to find its way, and he camped for the night.
It was a cold camp: no fire to give away his position, nor any chance of the horse revealing his place, for he gave it water and grain and then wrapped his shirt over the muzzle so that any sound would be lost under the folds of the cloth.
In the morning the strands of smoke were still lifting high above the mist. And when the mist cleared, the thin columns were still there, pinpointing a wide arroyo that cut like a scar across the sandy country before him.
He laughed. And took the roan horse down on to the flat, skirting through the lower line of trees until he felt confident of avoiding being seen. Then he came out on to the lower level and galloped hard to the northwest, swinging round in a wide arc that fetched him up a mile away from the fires.
By then they were burning down as the afternoon got darker. The trailers of smoke were thin now, and getting lost against the lowering sky. He hauled the roan stallion into a stand of cottonwoods and dismounted. He fed the horse, and gave it water, as he watched the sky to the east darken and the columns of smoke give way to fire-glow again.
And he laughed again as he saw the trap—not the prerogative of the Comanche, but a decoy he had seen too often during the war: the setting up of a false camp, designed to pull unwary attackers in, while the main force waited outside.
He watched the sun go down and the sky get dark, remembering the answers his guerrilla band had used against the same traps.
‘What are you doing?’
Alice Patterson struggled against the rawhide thongs holding her wrists and ankles to the pegs driven into the ground. They were tight, the pegs driven deep and the bindings cutting hard into her flesh as she fought them. There was a fire built up close to her left side, and another a yard away from her spread legs. Behind her there was a tipi she knew was empty; just like the others spread about the arroyo. Blankets set up on poles inside so that the small fires would give the impression of people sitting under the hides. The impression of a full camp.
Walking Bear had even left a few old ponies tethered outside the fake wigwams. And some dogs.
‘I am waiting for your people to save you,’ said Walking Bear. ‘So I can kill them.’
‘They won’t come.’ The woman lifted her head as far as she could. ‘They won’t look for me.’
‘One is already coming,’ said Walking Bear. ‘We saw him a day ago. He must be a scout.’
Before the woman had any kind of a chance to reply, the Comanche was gone into the heavy shadows beyond the fires. All she heard after that was his laughter and the thudding of his pony’s hooves as he joined his men in the darkness.
She lay back on the warm sand, staring up at the sky. For a while she thought about screaming, but then decided it was better not to cry out. If there really was a Cavalry patrol looking for her, her screams would lead the men straight into an ambush: which was exactly what Walking Bear wanted.
Better then to stay silent.
Accept whatever happened.
Even if that meant dying here.
She thrust her tongue between her lips and bit down hard; promising herself that she would bite off her tongue before she gave the Comanches what they wanted.
McLain circled on foot around the camp.
It took him past midnight before he knew the full strength of the band, and the positions. And by then he was weary from crawling on his belly through stands of scrub oak and over hard stone; across sand that was still hot from the day’s heat; and sharp rock that cut his knees and face as he checked out his next move.
But as the moon moved westerly across the sky, he knew what he was going to do.
He eased back to his horse and opened the saddlebag containing his Missouri shirt. The cloth parted easily, weakened by the many washings and the long months of wear. He used it to muffle the roan stallion’s hooves and muzzle. Then took the horse down to a point exactly west of the camp.
The Comanches were grouped to the east, anticipating an attack from that direction. Sensibly: because the largest force in the area was grouped there, and whoever led the Indians was a sensible planner of military tactics.
His only problem – though he didn’t know that yet – was that he didn’t know how a Missouri guerrilla worked.
McLain went in on foot. He moved mostly through shadow, leading the horse down the connecting gullies and arroyos with his breath held and the muffled hooves making no sound on the dry sand.
He got close enough to the camp that he was able to make out the spavined shapes of the old, tired horses, and see how the trap had been set up.
Getting past the horses was no problem, but the dogs were a whole different puzzle. He crouched in a gulley before the answer came to him, and then he opened his saddlebags and pulled his remaining hardtack out.
Threw the pieces of dried meat into the camp. And listened to the dogs begin to chew on the succulent favors.
He waited until all of them were settled down and munching on the meat, and then slid forwards towards the fire-lit body at the center.
He got down into the arroyo and bellied to the right, coming wide of the tents and the chomping dogs. He was careful to make no sound as he crawled over the sand. Like attacking a Union position with sentries out in front, the bayonets glinting bright under the moon. Only now there were no sentries: only the threat of an even less pleasant death.
He came down through the tents flat on his belly, seeing that the tipis were set up as camouflage as he passed amongst them. Ignoring the dogs and the ponies as he bellied forwards to the woman staked out at the center of the false camp.
He reached down to the hind part of his belt while he was still flat on the ground. Tugged the short-bladed knife he carried there free, and began to hack at the thongs binding her right hand to the ground.
Alice Patterson said, ‘You’re crazy. Leave me.’
McLain said, ‘No. I gave my word.’
‘They’ll kill you,’ said the woman as her left hand came free. ‘It’s a trap.’
McLain nodded and fastened his left hand over her mouth. The gesture was enough to silence her, and he went on cutting at the ropes holding her ankles to the stakes. When they were severed he sheathed the knife, and motioned for the woman to follow him. She nodded and twisted over on her belly, crawling beside him to the edge of the arroyo, beyond the circle of tents.
McLain pointed up the slope without speaking, then pushed the woman forwards. Alice Patterson got up on her hands and knees and began to clamber up the rise with the big man just behind her. She halted under the rim and felt McLain nudge her hip, gesturing to the right. There was a gap showing: she crawled to it. Went through. And found herself looking down on a second arroyo, where a big brown horse was standing patiently in the dim light. Forgetting dignity, she bunched her skirts about her thighs and scrambled down the slope. McLain came after her, passing by as he eased towards the horse and began to stroke the muzzle under the muffling drapery of the torn-up shirt. He tugged the reins loose from the fetlocks and swung the horse round, waiting for the woman to join him. Still without speaking, he pointed west and made walking movements with his fingers. Alice nodded, and fell into step behind.
They walked for around a quarter mile, weaving through the badlands until McLain halted and stripped the pieces of cloth from the hooves and muzzle.
‘You tore up your shirt.’
It sounded ridiculous as she said it: an irrelevant comment that smacked of hysteria. But she didn’t feel hysterical; at least, she didn’t think so. Somehow she didn’t even feel frightened anymore. Whatever fear she had felt earlier was now replaced by a strange calm: a stoic acceptance of whatever might happen. But the sight of the ragged maroon cloth dropping to the ground filled her with a curious sadness; and a curious hope. She had heard stories of the Missouri guerrillas; had known they wore those fancy shirts as some kind of uniform. So McLain’s willing destruction of the garment indicated some kind of commitment on his part.
She watched him gather up the scraps and stuff them under a rock, and repeated her words.
‘You tore up your shirt.’
‘Got a new one.’ His voice was soft, pitched low so that the sound wouldn’t carry. ‘I wore that color long enough.’ He smiled as he said it, but she still sensed a note of regret, and saw the concern in his eyes.
‘I’m all right,’ she murmured. ‘They didn’t do anything to me, and I’m not the kind of woman who gets the fits.’
‘Good,’ he said, hands moving with deft precision over his weapons, checking the loads. ‘You all right to ride?’
She nodded. ‘But we’ll not get far. They saw you coming. The whole thing’s a trap.’
‘I know.’ McLain swung into the saddle. ‘But not for me. Not for us. They’re hoping the Army’ll be coming after. So long as they think that, they’ll wait up.’
He reached down to grasp her hand and swing her astride the stallion behind him. She grunted as the cantle dug against her stomach, than got herself settled on the wide back, looping her arms about McLain’s lean belly.
‘They’ll send riders,’ she said. ‘Walking Bear won’t give up.’
‘A few, maybe.’ McLain eased the roan to a trot. ‘But so long as they think there’s a chance of pulling all the troopers in, they’ll wait.’
‘Where we headed?’ Suddenly she felt drowsy, the heady odor of sweat coming from his shirt comforting her; like the safe, familiar smell… of a familiar body under blankets. Promising reassurance.
‘West,’ he murmured. ‘Far as we can get before dawn. Then we hole up an’ wait a spell. There any other settlements near?’
‘No.’ She let her face slump against his shoulder, suddenly finding it difficult to hold her eyes open. ‘Fort Davis is a week’s ride, and the closest ranch is fifty miles.’
‘Don’t leave us much choice,’ grunted McLain. ‘So we’ll wait up an’ then swing back. When they know the Army ain’t coming after you, they’ll either head out or attack. Donnely’s got around fourteen men, so he should be able to hold them off. Either way, the mission sounds like the safest place.’
‘Yes,’ she said. And let her eyes close as the warmth of his body and the steady movement of the horse induced slumber. ‘Whatever you say.’