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The sun beat down hard on Button. She blinked away the sweat that was trying to run down into her eyes. The rope around her waist jerked, nearly pulling her off her feet again. She looked up and glared at the young Comanche, who had turned at his waist so he could watch her stumble as he tugged her along at the end of his rawhide rope. She’d heard that Comanche warriors never smile, but he wore as near a grin as she’d ever seen on an Indian. He was enjoying this, the task of trying to break her, to humble her spirit. Well, she’d see about that. He’d had to give up trying to make her take her clothes off. Even gagged, she’d made like she would bite at him and she’d kicked until he’d backed away. Now the tiring walk behind the paint horse was supposed to tame her. But if he let up for a single moment she was going to kick him into next week, no matter how tired her feet were getting.
The horse started up a slow rise and the line went a little slack. She knew by now she needed to run forward into the slack, still the leather rope nearly jerked her off her feet when it went taut again. She scrambled to keep from falling, knew he’d drag her a while as he’d done before, with her trying hard to get back to her feet. One knee was skinned through her coveralls, her elbows were raw, and she felt like a solid bruise. She glared at him, never knew she was capable of this level of hate. At least she wasn’t tied to his horse’s back next him any longer, having to breathe in what he probably thought was the manly scent of a warrior.
Gad, she was hot. She could no longer tell if her anger or the sun was making her so warm. Button used her growing rage to force herself to keep her feet moving. If she got even the least chance, and she could get clear of this gag, she knew she darn well would try to bite him too.
As the trail of Button behind the Comanche horse got more and more obvious, Justin knew he was getting closer, catching up to him. Part of him was elated that he might soon have the chance of rescuing Button. The other part was starting to tremble inside. He’d never done anything like this before, at least when he’d had time to think about it, face an Indian in what might be a life or death confrontation. He sought to calm himself, be ready, not an easy task. He’d not thought much about dying, but that could become a quite real possibility out in these parts.
Justin wasn’t sure how very close he was getting until he thought he heard something. He reined in Mr. Dobbs. He had heard a voice, one now shouting. “Take off your clothes.” The words came out in an odd twisted accent, but Justin didn’t pause long enough to ponder on that. He hopped off Mr. Dobbs, tied the reins to a bush, and slid the muzzleloader out of its scabbard. For the very first time he wished he’d switched with Scamp and brought the Winchester along, not that he was a crack shot with either. He fetched the powder horn and little pouch of bullets out of one saddlebag. Then he crouched low and eased forward toward the voices.
He came around the sprawling base of a cedar and saw the Comanche brave first, a young man who was just getting off his horse. Then he saw Button, her waist tied to a rope that the Comanche held and pulled on as he moved toward her, trying to tug her off her feet. Her hands were tied, but she was doing an admirable job of staying upright in spite of the Comanche’s tugging. That only made the Comanche madder. He bunched the gathered ends of the leather rope in his right hand and raised the loops to swing at her like a whip. He was almost to her when Justin had eased up to within a dozen feet from them and yelled.
“Hey! Hey, you! Stop where you are.” It only then occurred to Justin to wonder if the Indian knew what he was saying.
The Comanche spun and saw the barrel of the muzzleloader pointed right at him. He stared back at Justin.
The moment grew long. Justin’s finger tightened on the trigger. He took slow, steady steps toward his target, the barrel never wavering. He kept moving until he was five feet away with far less chance he might miss, unless the Comanche dove to one side or the other, or some other of the tomfool things they were apt to do.
In a second the Comanche made his decision. He dropped the rope, spun and leaped onto his paint horse. He made a harsh cry and rode away, was out of sight in a matter of seconds.
Justin let out a deep breath of air. He lowered the gun to the ground and rushed to Button, hurried to untie her hands. As soon as they were free she waved him away and loosened the rope that the Comanche had bound around her waist. She let it drop to the ground. Then she took off the gag and threw it into a nearby agarita bush.
Justin bent to pick up the rope, a fine rawhide riata. He undid the knots and wound it into a tight coil, took it over to the saddlebags and slipped it in. Out here a person never knew when he’d need a handy rope.
Button dusted herself off and took a look at skinned places on her arms and where one knee of her coveralls had worn through and she had a scabbed knee. She looked up at him as he came back for the muzzleloader. “Why didn’t you shoot him? You had him right in your sights and let him go.”
He grinned, and that only seemed to make her madder. “If I missed he could have an arrow in his bow quicker than I could have reloaded this old thing. He’d have killed me, and then you wouldn’t be free. That was what I was after, all I was after.”
“Oh.”
“And you’re welcome.”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah. Thanks and all that.”
Justin glanced at her. She was a prideful young woman. He had to say that, and had the temper to go with that red hair. But, man alive, didn’t she look pretty just now, even tousled as she was.
“I really am thankful. I’m still a mite rankled at that smelly young Comanche.”
“You have every right to be. He wasn’t treating you very kindly.” Justin went over to Mr. Dobbs, put the muzzleloader into its scabbard, and swung himself up into saddle. He held down a hand for her.
She came slowly to the horse, but reached up and let him swing her up behind him. “He tried to make me get naked.”
“I’m glad he didn’t succeed. You’d have probably made that poor Comanche go blind.”
She hesitated at first, then put her arms around him. “In a good or bad way?”
“You decide.”
She punched her right fist into his low ribs, still a light jab for her.
He nudged Mr. Dobbs and they started back the way he’d come in. He kept a wary eye out in case that Comanche decided to come back for another try at him. But with just a bow and arrow Justin figured him for moving on, for now. They jostled along at a steady pace, Justin trying to get Mr. Dobbs up to a trot and the horse resisting for the moment.
They rode along that way for the next mile or two.
“I’m glad you came after me.” Her words were an exhausted murmur.
He waited a while. “Me too.” But she was asleep, clinging as she leaned against him. He could hear her exhausted breathing and light snore. He kept Mr. Dobbs’ pace slow and steady all the way back until he could see the house.
“Hey, Button. Wake up.”
“Huh?” She stirred.
“Here comes Aunt Sara on a dead run.”
Button straightened up behind him. Aunt Sara was almost to them, running flat out, her apron flapping and her arms extended. She swept Button off the horse from behind Justin and clasped her in a hug that didn’t end soon.
Hearing an approaching horse Justin looked quickly around, spotted Scamp coming at a full gallop toward the house on Butch’s horse, Jim Bob. He reined to a stop, throwing up a big yellow-brown cloud of dust, and took in the happy reunion. He turned to Justin with an eager grin. “Did you kill that Injun?”
Aunt Sara shooed Scamp and Justin out of the pueblo fort long enough for her to tend to Button’s scrapes and bumps. He and Scamp took the saddles off the two horses, watered them, and turned them loose in their own pen, though Boxo had to come over to that fence and stuck her furry head through to see how Mr. Dobbs was doing and to check out the newcomer, Jim Bob. The horses went over to trade sociable sniffs with the little jenny before they settled in to graze since they hadn’t eaten in a spell.
Justin felt spent himself as he and Scamp crossed the dirt yard. Being face-to-face with a Comanche had taken a bit from him. Neither boy spoke as they walked. Back at the house Scamp called out, “Okay to come in now?”
“Yeah, do come in.” Aunt Sara had some dough on the table and flour all over her hands and arms, but that didn’t keep her from rushing over to Justin and giving him a big hug that got flour all over him. “Thanks for saving Button from that heathen redskin before . . . well . . . before he could get her back to his people.”
“Hey, Scamp did the serious tracking. We couldn’t have gotten Button without him. He would have been there in at the end only he had a hurt Ranger to get to Doc Willis.”
Aunt Sara gave Scamp a floury hug too, then went back to the dough she was working.
Button and Missy were busy cutting up vegetables to go into a stew, Button keeping a close eye on Missy who at barely five was really too little to be using a knife, so they’d given her a butter knife so she could feel involved. Button looked up at Scamp and Justin. It looked to Justin like she was doing her best to repress a grin but not all the way winning that battle. Good to know she was recovering from what had to be a trying day for her.
That was it. No big fanfare. Just another day with some or all of them not being killed, or worse. So far that was the biggest thing Justin had to adjust to, the acceptance of ever-present danger and quick return to just being glad to keep on living. That was the west for you.
“Was that Ranger you took to town doing okay when you left?” Aunt Sara asked Scamp.
“Doc Willis did a pretty good job on him, but he seemed glad Butch was brought to his attention. Butch would have had a rough time of it riding hard with Rangers as shot up as he was. But, man alive, did that Butch ever use some of the saltiest language I ever heard when he came to while we were bumping our way into town. Fairly turned the air blue, he did. He was thankful later, but not on that travois ride in, mind you.”
“Did you stop in to let the sheriff know what the Rangers were up to, in case he needs to watch for those renegade Comanches?”
Scamp shook his head. “Sheriff Cawley was out of town. He got wind of where that Gabe Bentley might be and took off hoping to bring him in.”
“Town named Bentley and the only surviving member is the Captain’s son who was robbing stage coaches.” She shook her head.
“Is that still in your craw and bothering you, ma?” Scamp said. “That the two big spreads around us are likely to be bought up by cattlemen just as bad as Captain Bentley and that Kenedy fella turned out to be?”
“One of them’s already been bought.” Sara shoved a fist into the dough hard enough to send up an angry cloud of flour. Outfit all the way out of England, I hear. Hard to tell what sort of hard scrabble they’ll hire for help. I suspect were due for the same sort of hardships we had with the Kenedy and Bentley bunches. Can’t sell the Bentley spread yet until they settle things with Gabe. Hang him probably. That’ll settle it. Old Captain Bentley thought he was doing those two boys of his a favor by not letting them at his money. Made them into robbing thieves is what it did. The bad apples didn’t fall far from that tree.”
Her eyes slipped to the corner of the room. Justin saw a trunk and a barrel taking up room in corner of what was already a pretty tiny interior. He and Scamp slept out most nights in the hay loft of the shed where they kept the goat feed.
“Where’d those come from?” he asked.
“Your dear friend Francis sent them ahead. Insured is what the freight handlers said. He’s invited himself and is coming out this way again.”
“He’s not my friend. He attached himself like a barnacle to me. Once here you were the one who he took a shine to.”
“Oh, don’t I know that.” She hit the dough another pretty good lick that sent the flour flying.
“He did break your only wine glass the last time.” Justin was sorry he brought that up as soon as he’d said it. Aunt Sara narrowed her eyes at him.
“For the next few nights I want you two boys to stand a watch. Work out who is taking which turn, at least until things settle down around here.”
“You want us to shoot any Injuns who come this way?” Scamp sounded way too eager.
Aunt Sara nodded.
“What about Francis if he comes this way?” Justin said.
“You can shoot him too if you get a clear shot.” She was kidding, of course, Justin hoped. But, in spite of herself, she let loose the first mere hint of a smile Justin had seen in several moments.