There were a dozen Indians. Two Bulls was in the lead with Man-Who-Catches-Rain at his side. Behind him could be seen the young man who had wanted trouble when they had met the party of Kiowas on the plains. As they approached in a head-tossing rush, Pagley said to Spur: “Cover me. I’ll go out and talk with them or they’ll be all over us.” He handed his rifle to the girl and hitched his revolver around so that he could reach it quickly. Spur made a quick inventory of the Kiowas’ arms - Man-Who-Catches-Rain was armed with a Spencer repeating rifle, but that was the only such weapon. There were a couple of breech-loaders and a revolver there. The rest were bows and lances, war-clubs and hatchets. Neither Spur nor Pagley, with their experience, underestimated any of them. At this range bows and arrows could be more deadly than a rifle.
Pagley stepped over the packs and walked forward, a hand raised in the peace-greeting. The Kiowas pulled in their horses and halted not a couple of yards from him in a choking swirl of dust. Pagley coughed on this. In their shelter, Spur and the girl watched the Delaware standing motionless as the fierce painted faces glared down at him. Man-Who-Catches-Rain shouted something, as his horse jigged this way and that, and pointed toward the man and girl by the river. Two Bulls gave him a curt word and slid from the saddle, stalking up to Pagley and making the sign of peace.
The Delaware’s hands started talking.
Almost at once a murmur of dissatisfaction ran along the line of mounted braves. Taking their lead from Man-Who-Catches-Rain, they quickly turned this into a shout of anger. A couple of warriors jumped their ponies past Pagley and came toward the river. Spur stood up and pointed his rifle toward them. Pagley’s hands worked frantically and old Two Bulls screamed furiously at the two young men. They turned their ponies and returned to their companions. Spur breathed again.
The old jefe of the Comancheros came flat-footed from his camp, flanked by two men armed with bows and arrows and lances. He was scared and showed it. He and Two Bulls exchanged greetings. The Kiowa was cold. Within five minutes the jefe was running toward Spur shouting in voluble Spanish, he beat his breast and pulled savagely at his hair.
“Por Dios” he howled. “What are you trying to do? To kill us all? If this is the wrong girl, give her back.”
Spur said: “Calm yourself, old man. The girl stays,”
“Give her back or we all die today.”
“Would you give a Christian girl back to the heathen?”
“A Christian! She has been with the Kiowas - that one is a Christian no longer.”
Jane Croxley yelled at him in Spanish: “Keep a clean tongue in your head, you old thief. I know you. My father knows you.”
The old man held his hands out in front of him, aghast. “No - it cannot be. Señorita ... I had not heard …. this is terrible.” He wept a little and walked up and down throwing his hands up to heaven and calling on the Virgin. “This girl’s father is a terrible one. I see trouble all around me.”
Spur said: “So she cannot go back.”
“No, you are right. She cannot. Yet she must. God in heaven, my friend, tell me what I must do.”
“Hitch up your animals and go south.”
“Who can escape from Kiowas? We shall all be killed.”
Suddenly, Spur moved fast, hurling the old man to one side. There had been an eruption of movement from the Indians. Man-Who-Catches-Rain had jumped his pony forward. The animal’s shoulder caught Pagley in the chest and bowled him over. At once the pale-eyed warrior had leapt to the ground and was swinging his rifle up to pound out the Delaware’s brains with the brass-bound butt.
Spur levered a shot into the breech of his rifle and fired a shot close over the heads of the bunched Indians.
Feathered heads ducked.
Man-Who-Catches-Rain paused, rifle held high. Two Bulls shouted at him. Slowly he lowered the weapon. Pagley got to his feet and Spur saw that his pistol was in his hand. Slowly, he walked back toward the river. Spur did not take his eyes from the Indians. The temptation to charge was strong in them. Only the leveled rifle stopped them. Yet Spur knew that if they were mad enough to attempt it, they could pull it off and no rifle on earth could stop them.
He heard the girl at his side work the lever of Pagley’s rifle.
The old Comanchero was running toward Two Bulls, holding out his hands, begging him not to fight.
Alan-Who-Catches-Rain’s pale eyes glared balefully at Pagley’s retreating back, longing to put a bullet into it.
As he came to the packs, the Delaware said: “They say give back the girl or die. They also say they know of no fair-haired girl such as the one we have come for.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I said that we would keep this one until they brought the one we want. Then we will exchange and give them many presents.”
“My God, no,” Jane Croxley said.
“You won’t go back,” Spur assured her.
Pagley stepped over the packs and faced the Indians, saying: “Easier said than done.”
“It has to be done,” Spur said.
The two dismounted Indians went to their ponies and mounted. Old Two Bulls said something curtly to the jefe and the Indians wheeled slowly away. Spur let out a deep sigh of relief. The three of them watched the Kiowas go past the camp of the Comancheros and halt beyond it. They dismounted and a young warrior drove the horses away to good grass,
Spur and Pagley settled down behind their shelter, undecided, not knowing what they should do, knowing that there was no escape from here in daylight.
They waited out the rest of the day, sweating under the tarp they stretched again to shelter from the blistering sun. The girl slept a little, then they made coffee and talked while they watched the Indian camp. Jane told them something of her captivity. Knowing the Kiowas5 treatment of white women, they asked no questions. When she had finished, Spur asked: “How about your pa? Has he tried to contact the Indians for your release?”
“Pa?” she said, showing her surprise. “Why, didn’t you know? Pa and my brother Jim were killed when the Indians jumped us.”
The two men mumbled their regrets.
“Have you any other folks, miss?” Pagley asked.
“No. I don’t even know where pa came from. All I can remember is chasin’ the wild ones.”
As the heat of the day started to decrease, the girl went to the river and bathed as best she could exposed to the gaze of the three camps as she was. But when she came back her face was clean and she had removed the dust and grime from her Indian clothes. Spur was struck by the change in her appearance. He saw a touch of beauty in her face.
As soon as it was dark, they moved camp some twenty yards along the river bank, going as quietly as they could. They were worried about the horses, because they had not been on grass all day, so decided to hobble them two at a time for grazing during the night which would mean that at all times they would have animals to escape on if the necessity arose. They could see the Indians’ fires burning brightly and the figures of the warriors moving around them. The Comanchero camp was silent, but Pagley and Spur knew that it was watchful.
The two men took it in turns to keep watch while the other slept.
Spur was keeping guard under a bright moon just past midnight when the Indians made their first move.
With a suddenness that made him nearly take leave of his skin, a small bunch of horsemen burst out of the night along the edge of the river, coming down at full tilt on the little camp. It was as much as he could do to let off a shot before they were on top of him. He heard the vicious hum of an arrow as it went past his face and fired into the black mass of riders.
At once the night was split by a blood-curdling series of cries. As the Indians hit the camp, he heard his own horses fighting to get off the tie-ropes. He yelled to the girl to keep down and felt Pagley come to his knees beside him. There seemed to be charging horses all around him, the dust came up in a cloud to choke him and then the Kiowas were gone, taking the horses with them.
Spur raged helplessly as hoofs pounded away into the night. To be caught like a damned greenhorn. Cursing, he ran to the hobbled horses and brought them back into camp. Pagley led in one of the tied mounts that had run into the river. The two men and the girl were shaking like leaves.
“By God,” Pagley said, “we get out of here. Now.”
Spur didn’t like the idea because tomorrow the Indians would catch up with them and finish them, but he couldn’t see any alternative.
“Do you know this country at all?” he asked the girl. She nodded.
“Sure, pa worked around here a good bit.”
“Which way should we head?”
“This time of year, I’d say follow the river. That’s the best chance of coming on a settlement and you have water all the way.”
Pagley reckoned that made sense.
They had no saddles left to them, so it meant riding bare-back. They didn’t like the idea but there was no alternative. They listened to the night and took a long look at the Indian fires. Someone was singing in a wild monotone over there.
“I sure feel like busting over there and getting our horses,” Spur said.
“Forget it,” Pagley told him. “You wouldn’t stand a chance and we have the girl with us.” He mounted a sorrel pony and said: “Come on.” The girl got aboard, but Spur was hesitating. “What’s keepin’ you?”
“We’re forgetting the Grimes girl.”
“Right now,” Pagley said, “we sure are.”
Spur mounted and they headed their horses into the river. The water was running low at this time of the year and they crossed without trouble. Maybe nobody saw them go and maybe they did, but they reached the other side safely and followed the stream due east.