Chapter Twenty-four
Hannah Huckabee followed the tracks that had been left by Dave Winter’s men on their way north. The beautiful Texas morning, the limitless prairie and infinite sky, reminded her of just how precious was life and how she might well be throwing hers away bracing a man whose gun skills were said to be so much deadlier than her own.
She had no idea if Dahteste was alive or dead, but either way, Dave Winter had to face a reckoning. And she had to bring it about. It would be so easy to feel lost, trapped, and Hannah battled her own fears as she drew rein and looked around her at the vast wilderness. Someone, somewhere, had once told her, “You’re never alone if you’re with a cigar,” and she heeded that advice. She took a slim, black cheroot from her case and lit it, letting the fragrant smoke soothe her.
After a while, Hannah kneed her horse forward. Ahead of her was Dave Winter, the dreadful ogre who was growing even more dreadful with every passing hour.
No matter, she owed it to Dahteste. She had it to do.
By mid-afternoon the tumbled ruins of Fort Mason came in sight. Buzzards glided in lazy circles above the fort, and Hannah felt a dreadful sense of foreboding, as though something terrible had happened in this place.
She drew rein and studied the demolished layout of the fort, especially those buildings that still had standing walls. The Patterson stage was parked to one side of what had probably been the parade ground, and the six horses of the team were scattered around, grazing.
There was no sound from the sun-splashed ruins, and nothing moved. She laid the Allen & Wheelock, hammer back, across her mount’s withers and then kneed the horse forward again.
The tall gelding immediately tossed its head, jangling the bit, and danced a little jig of alarm. Hannah spoke soothing words to her restive mount and pushed it ahead, fighting small battles of will with the horse as she made her way onto the parade ground.
Around her, everything lay in ruins, but a small building to her right still had all four of its walls standing, and even the door, though badly warped, was still in place. The big horse whinnied and backed away. It wanted nothing to do with the structure that looked as though it had once been an administrative office of some kind.
The horse smelled or sensed death or both, and with a feeling of dread Hannah dismounted and let the gelding back off, its reins trailing. Her rifle at the ready, she advanced on the building, the two front-facing windows reflecting the sun flare like rectangles of fire. Somewhere close she heard a bird sing, trilling notes that fell into the hush like a rush of water, and then a flutter of wings followed by a silence that closed in on her once again.
Hannah swallowed hard and tightened her grip on the Allen & Wheelock.
The door hung on leather and brass tack hinges and Hannah raised her booted foot and kicked it in. The door slammed against the wall with a bang that reverberated around the compound, and she leveled the rifle, ready to shoot at anything male that moved.
Nothing. The stillness mocked her. How could complete silence be so loud?
Once the office had partitions, but those were long gone, and what remained were four fieldstone walls. And what had once been Dahteste lay curled in a corner, her naked body already showing signs of decay and something else . . . bruises and cuts all over her arms and legs and a deeper, deadlier one across her throat.
Hannah closed her eyes and then opened them again. But the horror was still there. It was all too real. Now she had to face reality and think the unthinkable, the way of Dahteste’s appalling death.
Dave Winter and his men had used her unmercifully, enjoying both rape and torture. And at the end, when they tired of her, Dahteste’s throat had been cut and she’d been thrown away, tossed into a corner like garbage along with the cigar stubs and empty whiskey bottles.
To Winter, Dahteste had not been a human being, but a . . . thing . . . to be used for his own amusement and then disposed of.
Hannah fought back tears, knuckles white on the rifle. Winter was not fit to live. By God, she’d kill him, slaughter him, like he’d slaughtered Dahteste.
* * *
Hannah Huckabee stripped to the skin and bathed in the shallow stream that ran close to the fort. She dressed again, putting her clothes on her damp body, her pith helmet and goggles on ringlets of wet hair. After she buckled on her Colt and picked up her rifle, she walked to the grave she’d made for Dahteste. Beyond tears now, she stood in silence at the cairn of piled fieldstones for a long time. And then she said, “Please forgive me, Dahteste.”
The quietness enfolded her, birds sang, and under her tomb of rock, Dahteste lay still.
“Forgive me,” Hannah said again.
Afterward, she mounted her horse and rode away from Fort Mason, and in the distance, she heard the dull thrum . . . thrum . . . thrum . . . of the approaching steam wagon.
* * *
Hannah was not an expert tracker, but she figured there was no need. It seemed logical that Dave Winter would head for Fredericksburg, where he could rest up and scheme his next plan of action.
She decided to spend the night on the prairie and with luck ride into the settlement around noon the next day.
The moonless night had drawn a black curtain across the plains when Hannah dismounted and unsaddled her horse, letting it graze on what was good grass. From a pocket of her safari jacket she retrieved a thick slice of sourdough bread and some fried bacon, the breakfast she hadn’t eaten that morning. A cold camp is a cheerless place, and after she’d eaten, Hannah hugged her legs and laid her head on her knees. Soon the steady chomp of her grazing mount and the soft whisper of the wind in the grass lulled her to sleep. A pair of hunting coyotes wandered close to the sleeping woman, but they feared the human smell and it drove them away. Hannah dreamed of Dahteste in a white buckskin dress, her jet-black hair circled by a wreath of pink wildflowers. The girl rode a spotted pony, following a great buffalo herd that kicked up enough dust to haze the sun. Dahteste stopped and then, smiling, turned and waved.
Hannah woke with a start, and for a fleeting moment she looked around for Dahteste and the great buffalo herd, but now, in the bleak dawn, she saw only grass and the uncaring sky.
A sadness in her that was almost a pain, Hannah touched the St. Christopher medal that Blanche Carter had given her. It brought her a small comfort. Then she caught up her horse and again rode south.