Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) (31 page)

She felt his hand grab her magnificent mane of hair, the sharp blade of the knife cutting along her hairline as he scalped her.

The he cut her throat with one swift move and threw her down to choke and struggle in the dirt, her scarlet blood soaking into the torn red tafetta, into the dust of the trial to Caldwell.

Little Fox threw back his head and laughed in triumph. “For my sister!” He held the long black hair aloft.

Now the war party mounted up, the fine ebony locks streaming from his Comanche lance as the braves turned and galloped off to their rendezvous.

Maverick had seen the soldiers coming for a long distance as he sat patiently at Cayenne’s side, listening to her mumble, watching her thrash in her delirium.

Because of her snake bite, they had been stranded here for days. Food was beginning to run low and Maverick had been afraid to shoot passing buffalo or deer, not knowing whose keen ears might hear the sound of the echoing shots. For the last two days, he’d been catching long-eared jackrabbits in snares to make a rich broth for the semiconscious girl. But it worried him that they’d been in the same spot too long. Sooner or later, a war party would cross their trail and maybe follow it right into the small campsite by the spring.

And yet she couldn’t ride, so they couldn’t move on. It occurred to him once, as he thought bitterly of Joe McBride, that Maverick didn’t need her any more. Maverick had gleaned enough information from the innocent Cayenne to find the man he’d sworn to kill.

The Comanche in him said,
Leave her here and follow your quest. She may die anyway, and what is she to you, this whelp of the wolf you hunt?

But in his heart, he was as white as his mother’s Kentucky ancestors; Annie had seen to that. It had been her final vengeance on her tormentors, her torturers.

The boy called Eagle’s Flight could think like a warrior, track like a warrior, and if need be, kill without mercy like a Comanche brave. Against the tribe, there was no one so deadly as one who had been raised by them, knew all their tricks, all their hiding places. He looked at the sick girl as the boy, Eagle’s Flight, would have and he thought of deserting her. But the man called Maverick Durango knew he could not do that; he loved her too much. She would not love him when he killed Joe, and he had sworn on Annie’s dying body the night he escaped forever from his father’s people. Soon Maverick could finally say after all these years,
Suvate; it is finished.

It occurred to him now as the day lengthened into hot orange and yellow heat that the approaching cavalry patrol might shoot first and ask questions later. Quickly, Maverick changed from the warrior garb to pants and boots, stuffing the warrior things in his saddlebags. He was still attempting to wash all the war paint from his features when the small patrol rode their lathered horses into the little oasis.

Maverick raised his hand in greeting, but before he could speak, the captain shouted, “Grab the red bastard, Sergeant! Looks like we’ve caught Quanah Parker red-handed, not only with the colonel’s gray horse, but with a white captive besides!”

“Now wait a minute,” Maverick gestured. “I can explain—”

But the white officer and the black troops he led weren’t going to give him a chance, Maverick realized in sudden horror, looking into their grim faces. He made a dive for his holster that lay near the unconscious girl, but a soldier reined his heaving mount in between Maverick and the weapon.

The captain leaned on his saddle horn, picking at a pustule on his scarred face as he grinned down at Maverick.
He was old for a captain,
Maverick thought; gray streaked his hair. “Christ! How lucky can I get! Maybe there’ll be a promotion back to New York in this for me! You heard me, grab him, men!”

“Yes, Suh, Captain Baker!” Two of the black cavalry men dismounted and moved toward Maverick.

Maverick hesitated, looking from the middle-aged officer to the black troopers. “Now, wait just a minute,” he shook his head, backing away. “You got this all wrong. . . .”

“Injun, you’re the one who’s wrong, gettin’ caught red-handed like this!” The officer sneered. “Every soldier on the plains is on the lookout for Quanah, knowing he’s leading this uprising. . . .”

“I’m not Quanah,” Maverick backed away. “My name’s Maverick Durango, and if you’ll get in touch with the Triple D Ranch over in the Hill Country—”

“Christ! Don’t try to fool me!” Baker picked at his face. “We all heard what Quanah looks like—big half-breed Comanche, eyes gray as a gun barrel.”

Maverick hesitated. What should he do now? If he managed to escape, what would happen to the unconscious Cayenne? Could he depend on the cavalry officer to get her to safety in the supply wagon they had with them?

One of the black soldiers turned toward the mounted officer. “Suh, you want us to—?”

“Yes!” Baker swore under his breath as the two big blacks grabbed Maverick and he fought them. The officer dismounted and came around to face Maverick. “Stupid nigger troops I got! Seventeen years I been in this man’s army and I don’t get no promotions; they stick me in the Territory and give me nigger troops!”

Maverick stopped struggling, realizing he would have to talk his way out of this. The black soldiers frowned as they looked at the white officer. Obviously they didn’t think much of him, either.

Maverick said, “Look, Captain, I’m a half-breed all right and I ride a gray horse, but that doesn’t mean I’m Quanah Parker.”

The officer studied the big gray. “You ain’t no warrior? Ain’t that a scalp I see dangling from that Injun bridle?”

He should have known that would get him in trouble. “I can explain about that. That gray’s from the Triple D . . . .”

Baker motioned to his black sergeant. “O’Bannion, check the brand on that horse.”

Maverick shook himself free of the two black soldiers. He watched the sergeant walk over and inspect Dust Devil’s rump. The sergeant was a giant of a man with a lighter coffee-colored skin that betrayed white blood.

Sergeant O’Bannion pushed his hat back, rocking on his heels as he studied the horse. “It’s shore ’nuff carryin’ a Triple D brand, Suh.”

The officer frowned, obviously not willing to admit he might be wrong. “That don’t mean nothin’!” he snapped, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the sweat from his bumpy face. “I don’t know where Colonel Mackenzie got his gray pacer to begin with and I need a promotion to get out of this hellish state! I can do that by bringing in Quanah, the colonel’s horse.” He gestured. “So tie up that half-breed and we’ll take him along with us; sort the whole thing out when we get back to Fort Sill.”

Maverick whirled, knocking down the first trooper that grabbed him, but now the rest of the soldiers ran to overpower him, tie his hands behind his back. “You’re making a big mistake!” Maverick shouted and cursed. “By damn! You pus-faced bastard, I’ll have your neck when the old Don Durango finds out what you’ve done to me!”

Captain Baker strode over, slugging Maverick now that he was safely tied up. Maverick tried to lunge at him anyway, half groggy from the blow, the sweet coppery taste of his own blood running in his mouth, down his lip.

“Shut up, Injun!” Baker shouted. “I never had a promotion all those years! First I got stuck at Fort Smith before the war, then almost court-martialed ’cause I made a mistake in a battle judgment. For that, they sent me to this hellhole to lead nigger cavalry!” He spat disdainfully as he pushed Maverick so that he stumbled and fell to the ground.

The man grinned down at him. “Christ! This may be my one chance to get out of this hellhole and it’s certainly a good enough reason to turn back from this patrol!”

The giant black sergeant looked at Baker anxiously. “Beggin’ yore pardon, Suh, but we ain’t gonna continue searchin’ for my big brother?”

“No.” The Yankee officer went over to the spring and splashed his face. “I don’t know why he deserted, he wasn’t treated no worse than any of the rest of you niggers! We’d have hung him anyway if we caught him!” He filled his canteen, taking a long drink while the troops watched him thirstily.

“Suh,” O’Bannion hesitated. “If you’ve had all you want, can the men get a little water?”

Baker yawned. “Yeah. I just wanted to get mine before they got their dirty mouths in it. I don’t drink after horses, neither.” He grinned at his little joke and Maverick saw the hatred for the officer reflected in the other men’s eyes.

Cayenne moaned aloud and Maverick looked toward her anxiously, struggling against his bonds. “She’s used to having me right by her side,” he said. “She’s been snake bit.”

“Stay right where you are, Injun!” The man picked at his face as he went over, knelt by the prone girl, and stared down at her. “Christ! What a beauty! Haven’t seen such a pretty gal since ’58 when that blonde from Boston, Summer Van Schuyler, got carried off by the Cheyenne!”

Cayenne moaned again, thrashing restlessly on her blanket. Maverick tried to struggle to his feet to go to her, but the big sergeant reached out and grabbed him.

The captain laughed. “That’s right, Sergeant, keep Quanah under control.”

“I’m not Quanah,” Maverick snarled, struggling in the big black’s hands. Bound as he was, Maverick had no chance of breaking free and getting to Cayenne.

She moaned again and the Yankee leaned over, stroking her face. “She’s beautiful, she—”

“Get your hands off her!” Maverick went loco at the sight of the other touching her pale, lovely face. “Get your dirty hands off my woman!”

It took three troopers to hold him while the officer laughed. “Your woman! I’ll just bet you been mounting this poor, unconscious girl three or four times a day, you filthy savage! Why, I ought to—” He swaggered over to Maverick, unsheathing his knife while the troopers held the half-breed.

Baker grinned. “I ought to cut you, Injun, for rapin’ that white girl. We ought to geld every Injun on the plains to protect decent women!”

Maverick froze, staring into Baker’s eyes as the man turned the knife over in his hands. Should he try to talk his way out of it, fight his way toward his horse?

The black sergeant stepped halfway between the two men. “Suh,” he ducked his head humbly, “I ain’t exactly interfering, but you don’t have no orders to do nothin’ to Quanah if you catch him.”

“Nigger, don’t tell me what to do!” Baker brandished his knife and Maverick held his breath. It occurred to him that they were a long way from civilization. If Baker decided to kill Maverick and leave him for the buzzards, the blacks might be afraid to report it. “Christ! I suppose you’ve got a point, O’Bannion! This heat is gettin’ to me! It was crazy to send us out looking for one lousy black bugler even if he did play the best of any of ’em.”

Black bugler.
Deserter
. The pieces fell neatly into place. Maverick suddenly remembered the dark man at Adobe Walls playing charges for the warriors.

The New Yorker went back to stare down at Cayenne. “We’ll wait ’til dark, then start moving toward the fort.”

Maverick swore with fury. “You can’t move her! She’s sick! You can see that!”

Captain Baker leaned over, put his hand on the girl’s shoulder and she smiled in her sleep. “Maverick,” she whispered. “Maverick.”

Baker leered up at him maliciously. “You’re rotten, you known that? Even with her unconscious and helpless, you’ve been climbin’ her, ain’t ya? Well, I might try a little myself some night as we move back to the fort. She won’t know the difference and my troopers won’t tell.”

“By damn, I’ll kill you if you try that!” Maverick snarled and struggled to reach the grinning man. “I’ll tell them at the fort and you’ll end up in the stockade . . .”

“The stockade’d beat riding around looking for nigger deserters and takin’ a chance on losin’ my hair to Injuns.” Baker stood up. “If she’d let an Injun touch her, she’s just a slut and don’t deserve no respect. Besides, nobody at the fort would take niggers’ or Injuns’ word against a white officer’s.”

Maverick glared at him then with eyes as cold as winter’s ice. “You touch her,” he whispered, “and I’ll hunt you down, let you die slowly as only Comanche know how!”

The officer looked at him a long moment, then shivered and stood up. “Big talk,” he scoffed, “and it’s a long way to Fort Sill. You may not make it, Injun.”

“You may not, either,” Maverick reminded him. “You know how many Indians you may have to ride through to get back to the Indian Territory?”

The other man swore. “I know better than you what my chances of gettin’ grabbed by a war party are! This is a full-fledged Uprising and the biggest bunch of troops ever thrown into an Indian campaign—some three thousand, I hear.”

Maverick whistled low and leaned against a tree. “Even the combined tribes won’t stand a chance against a force like that even if the Kiowa decide to join them.”

Baker laughed. “Don’t play innocent with me, Quanah,” he tipped his hat back. “You know as well as anyone the Kiowa hit the warpath a couple of weeks ago when those supplies they’d been promised never arrived.”

Maverick frowned. “What about Pat Hennessy? He was trying to get there in plenty of time with food. . . .”

“Aha!” The officer’s eyes gleamed in triumph. “So you admit you were there!”

Maverick shrugged. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! Yes, we ran across Pat Hennessy and—”

“And tortured all those poor devils, turned the wagons upside down, stole or wasted all those supplies!”

“No,” Maverick shook his head. “You ask Pat about—”

“A dispatch finally got through. Hennessy’s dead and you admit you were there!” The officer crowed. “This ought to get me a promotion, a permanent assignment back east!”

“Dead? Pat Hennessy’s dead? When did it happen?” Maverick felt dread and horror deep in his soul. Now the Kiowa would take the war trail, too, and there would be even more death and destruction.

“As if you didn’t know,” the other sneered. “You red devils must have caught him sometime between July 2 and 4; the bodies were in too bad a shape to know for sure. Poor Hennessy’d been tied upside down to one of his own wagon wheels, roasted alive over a fire.”

Maverick cringed, remembering the big, good-natured man. If he and Cayenne had ridden along with the teamsters, they would have been caught by the raiders, too.

The New Yorker leaned back against a rock, lighting a cigar as the troopers scurried around, setting up camp and tying horses to a picket line. “The army intends to surround you red bastards. Mackenzie’s coming up from the South, Major Price from New Mexico to the West, Colonel Miles down from Fort Dodge, and the nigger troops from Fort Sill, Indian Territory and Fort Richardson in Texas are moving in to help close the trap.”