CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Rolling over on his back, Hank Benteen lowered the binoculars and slid back down the embankment, careful not to raise dust or send a stone rolling down toward the horses. A whinny or any other sound could travel a long way in this country.
“What did ya see?” Uncle Zach asked.
“They’re getting ready to pull out.” Hank did not bother to tell him that this morning, like every morning since they had caught up with the murderer of Hank’s cousin, he had focused on the gorgeous woman who took off every stitch of her clothes at gunpoint. She never looked too shamed about baring her breasts and everything else to three tough, dirty, ignorant fools and a crooked-armed Indian boy.
“Why don’t we just ride down there and shoot ’em all down like the dirty dawgs they is?” Hank’s uncle asked one more time.
“They vood kill mein Bruder,” Hans Kruger said, almost in a panic.
“They’d be the one who shoots us down like dirty dogs,” Hank said. “For the last time, Uncle, the men down there are professionals. They’ve killed more men, I suspect, than the number of Mexicans the boys of the Alamo shot before they got cut down.”
The old coot cussed and snorted, and went back toward his horse, mumbling his normal rant. His kinfolk, like his own boy, like all outlaws their age didn’t know what it was like. They wouldn’t be a patch on Zach Lovely’s overcoat. Why back in his day . . .
“No soldaten?” the Hun asked.
“Huh? Speak English, buster,” Hank said.
Kruger did some ignorant pantomime trying to find the word, and at length did say soldiers.
“No. The soldiers are gone.”
“Well,” Uncle Zach said, “That was your excuse for not hitting them yesterday. Soldiers was too close by. Might come to investigate. Now them soldiers ain’t close by, and you still don’t want to hit the low-down skunk who murdered my boy, your cousin, your right-hand man.”
“You’ve always been my right-hand man, Uncle Zach.”
That should have shut up the damned fool for a few hours, at least, but it didn’t. Not that windy morning.
“It just don’t make no sense, not to me. Maybe I’m just too danged ol’ to know no better than how we’d avenge a death before every outlaw, and all my kin, and even this damned Hun turned dandified, gentrified, and petrified. We’d just ride down there, kill ’em all or get killed. By gawd, we’d make a show and get revenge or die tryin’.”
“And what would happen to those mustangs?”
“Mustangs?” The old man spit. Shaking his head and wiping his mouth with the back of his coat sleeve, he swore again. “Ponies. Runts. Not like the big hosses we rode. Them things ain’t no better than donkeys. They’d stampede, of course. Scatter like the wind.”
The old man was so worked up, he couldn’t think straight.
Like the wind? Hank frowned.
“What you mean is that our fortune in gold would scatter with the wind.”
“Huh?”
“Those horses, small that they may be, will bring a fortune if we could sell them at a town.”
Uncle Zach wet his lips, considering the possibilities. The German tried to follow the conversation without much success.
“My plan is to hit that murderer and his pals when they are in town or at a trading post when they leave the boy and maybe one man with the Hun’s brother and that woman. We kill them all”—by all, Hank meant Otto Kruger, the woman, and Hans Kruger after his usefulness had disappeared—“then we take the herd into the town, and sell them.” He laughed. “That’s almost like we were earning honest wages for once in our lives. Now do you understand?”
Hans Kruger scratched his head, but Uncle Zach wet his lips again and smiled. “Well, maybe I was wrong about how ignorant folks is.”
“There’s a crooked trading post a little ways west of here. I’m not sure we can hit them by then, but shortly after they get past Camp Singletree, they’ll be following the stage road. That’s when we’ll hit them. The horses will be easier to round up in that country, and we won’t have far to drive them to some place where they can fetch us a profit. You’ll get your revenge then.”
If it all worked out, maybe Hank would have that fine-looking woman to himself for a little bit. He wouldn’t have to see her from a looking glass, either. He also thought of something funny. Hans Kruger and his brother were wanted. Not many people knew Hank Benteen in the Territory of Arizona. If he turned in two dead Kruger brothers for a reward, that would be one mighty funny joke.
* * *
Scouting around, Killed A Skunk watched a raven fly across the mesa, then decided that the white man with the see-far glasses had moved away to join his two foolish comrades instead of watching the white woman put on her white-man clothes or watching those who’d stolen Broken Buffalo Horn’s son continue their dumb white-man work before leading the fine Comanche ponies farther from the land of the Comanches.
He hurried to where Broken Buffalo Horn and Lost His Thumb waited with the horses.
“Do the three white men still watch from far away?” the great holy man asked.
“It is so,” Killed A Skunk answered and took the hackamore to his horse from Lost His Thumb.
“What of those men who have taken my son and our Comanche ponies?” Broken Buffalo Horn inquired.
“What they always do,” the warrior answered. “They make the woman stand naked before them.”
“Yet they never touch the woman.” Lost His Thumb shook his head. “All white men are fools, but Texans are the worst of the fools.”
“Maybe it is their medicine,” Broken Buffalo Horn said.
“It is bad medicine,” Lost His Thumb said.
“No.” The medicine man nodded. “I see the reason now, though why it has taken so long I do not understand. Perhaps the God of All Comanches made me wait to see, but now I see, and it makes sense. These white-eyes get their power from the woman. She makes them strong.”
Lost His Thumb and Killed A Skunk exchanged glances.
The great Comanche medicine man said, “I will explain. When each day begins, as soon as Mother Sun has risen and there is light enough to see, these white-eyes have their woman disrobe before them. This woman, her hair is not black like a crow’s feathers. She is too tall and too thin and not as beautiful or desirable as any of my wives, but she is still a woman. Pale perhaps, and hair the color of flames, not like a fine black pony, but still, she is not a bad woman to look at.”
He let his friends picture the woman.
“When they make their camp, and before she cooks their meal that fills their stomachs before they go to sleep, these white-eyes again make their woman disrobe before them again.” He shrugged. “Sometimes, they make her disrobe in the daytime.”
“At least one of them always aims a weapon at her,” Lost His Thumb said.
“Because they fear this strong woman,” Broken Buffalo Horn said. “They fear her power. She must have great power. She could smote them like Killed A Skunk when he grinds ants into the sand. That is how strong this white-eye woman’s power must be.”
“So why does she not smote those white-eyes?” Killed A Skunk asked.
“Because she is not their enemy, nor are they her enemies. It is a test. A test that requires much power.”
Again, the two warriors looked at each other.
Broken Buffalo Horn laughed. “You do not see, do you?”
“No,” said Killed A Skunk, “But we are not holy men. We do not see beyond the horizon.”
The great medicine man nodded. “It is true.” He drew a breath, exhaled, and said, “What would you do if a woman, the woman of an enemy—not a woman of the Comanche who is spoken for by another Comanche man, but a woman you found on a raid, a white-eye woman”—he grinned—“What would you do if you were in front of that white-eye woman that the white-eyes have, and she disrobed before you?”
“I would—” Lost His Thumb began, but the medicine man cut off the rest of his sentence.
“Exactly.” Broken Buffalo Horn grinned wider. “Now do you see?” He did not wait, but explained the obvious, so obvious, he should have seen it long ago, but did not. The God of All Comanches was testing him, blinding him, but now he knew.
“Every day they look at a fine woman. Every day they do not touch this woman, they do not molest her, they even—white men are strange animals—let her put her clothes back on. They grow stronger. Their will grows stronger. They become more and more powerful every day, every time that woman stands before them naked. They will be more powerful than any Apache they should meet on the trail west.”
“And what of us?” Killed A Skunk asked.
“They do not know about us,” Broken Buffalo Horn said. “But we have watched this woman, too. We have not ridden down to take coups, or take scalps and gain glory for all Comanches.”
“I have been tempted.” Lost His Thumb hung his head in shame.
“Yes, but you have not ridden down there. Our strength grows, not as much as those white-eyes, but it grows. Theirs grows more because they are closer. But they are white-eyes. We are Comanches. We are more powerful than they are already, and the little power we gain by watching this woman from a distance makes us stronger than they could ever hope to be.” Broken Buffalo Horn nodded with finality.
“Your own son watches the woman when she is without clothes,” Lost His Thumb said.
“That is so, and thus he sees power. But do not forget that my son is trapped by the tree that has become one of his arms. That reduces the amount of power he can gain by looking at this naked woman.”
Killed A Skunk had another question.
“What, great medicine man, about the three other white-eyes?” He nodded toward the grove of juniper on the ridge off to the north. “They watch this woman, too. That means they grow stronger, too.”
Broken Buffalo Horn tilted his head back, waiting for the Great Spirit to help him solve that mystery. Yes, those white men did watch. They watched from afar, so the power they got would not be as strong . . . like the power he, Lost His Thumb, and Killed A Skunk got. It would be a slight percentage of the power received by those white-eyes in the camp with the wagon and the Comanche horses and the ugly man whose face was scarred and who always wore chains.
On the other hand, those white-eyes who watched from the hills or the top of an arroyo, and sometimes behind cactus, trees, or shrubs had see-far glasses. Broken Buffalo Horn had seen more than a few of such white-eye instruments of power. The glasses would bring the woman closer than could be seen with their naked eyes. Those three white-eyes who watched might grow stronger—not strong enough to wipe out three strong, smart Comanches, but—
“Who are those white-eyes?” Lost His Thumb asked.
“I believe they seek the scalps of Comanches and our other Indian brothers,” Broken Buffalo Horn said.
“They are bad, bad men,” Killed A Skunk said.
“They are bad, bad men,” Broken Buffalo Horn agreed, nodding while still considering what must be done. “Yes, and their power grows, too, from watching the white-eyed woman disrobe. It grows stronger because they look through the see-far glasses.”
He knew what he must do.
“We must smoke on this.” Broken Buffalo Horn
broke out his pipe, tamped the bowl with Comanche tobacco, lighted it, offered it to all directions, and passed it around.
The white-eyes with the powerful woman and his son would be moving away again with the stolen Comanche horses. It also meant the other white-eyes—the three men with the see-far glasses—would be leaving, too. Broken Buffalo Horn and his two good friends had fine Comanche ponies to ride. They would catch up. It was a decision that could not be reached without smoking.
It did not take long for the God of All Comanches to let his wisdom find Broken Buffalo Horn and tell him the truth that he must follow.
Lowering the pipe, he said, “I know what must be done.” His face turned grim. “The white-eyes with the see-far glasses grow stronger. We cannot let them continue to grow stronger. So . . . we must kill them.”