The Black Jacks (34 page)

In the end, the council agreed to let McAllen make his offer to the captor of the white woman. Gray Wolf was summoned.

Gray Wolf was one of the few Comanches who was not already at the council gathering. Almost as soon as McAllen arrived in the village, he had heard that a white man had come in search of a woman who had been taken captive during the great raid. While it was possible that this man sought somebody besides Emily—perhaps the woman whose infant had been so brutally murdered, and who herself had perished at the end of a Quohadi lance, or even a woman taken by another band—Gray Wolf had a feeling that this was not the case. His heart was heavy when the council summons came. No doubt the white man had described the person he was looking for, and the council had known it was Emily.

With curt words and hand gestures, Gray Wolf told Emily to remain in the skin lodge. Emily was unclear about the words—during her months of captivity she had not been able to come to terms with the Comanche language—but she understood what Gray Wolf wanted her to do. Something important was happening, but it never occurred to Emily that it had anything to do with her.

When Gray Wolf reached the council circle and saw McAllen, he recognized the Texan immediately.

This was the man who had saved his child's life at Bexar.

"You have a young white woman in your tepee," Caldero told Gray Wolf. "She belongs to this man. He wants her back. He will trade."

Gray Wolf sighed. He would be within his rights to refuse to barter for Emily. He was under no obligation to trade.

"What does he give for her?" he asked, stalling for time, trying to think.

Caldero turned to McAllen and translated Gray Wolf's query into English.

McAllen indicated the gray hunter. "I will give this horse."

He did not have to elaborate on Escatawpa's many fine points. Anyone with eyes could tell that the gray hunter was second to none. It was easy for a Comanche, who knew horses better than most, to measure Escatawpa's worth. Caldero nodded his approval. McAllen's offer was an excellent one. The gray was worth ten ordinary mustangs. He relayed the offer to Gray Wolf.

Gray Wolf was silent for a moment. Though he tried to give nothing away, his expression betrayed him, and in an instant of indescribable elation McAllen knew without a doubt that his search had come to an end. This warrior
did
have Emily—and he was reluctant to give her up.
I've found her. Thank God in heaven, I've found her.
His heart was racing. What if the Comanche refused his offer? McAllen only knew that he would not leave without Emily.

At last Gray Wolf turned to Caldero and spoke.
"I
will give him back his woman, and he can keep his horse."

The decision created a stir among the Quohadis who overheard it. Caldero thought at first that perhaps he had misunderstood. He had never known a Comanche to give anything away in a transaction with strangers—especially of such value.

"You will accept nothing in return?" asked the bandit leader.

"Nothing. I owe this man the life of my son."

Caldero stared at McAllen. "You saved this man's child, Captain?"

McAllen nodded. "Unfortunately, I was too late to save the mother's life." He saw something new in Caldero's eyes then. Respect.

"Come," said Gray Wolf. "I will take you to her."

They walked to Gray Wolf's lodge, followed by a large portion of the village. Bidding McAllen and Caldero to wait outside, Gray Wolf entered the tepee. Emily was sitting right where he had left her. She was making a buckskin tunic in the way that Spotted Tail's wife had shown her. Shirts, leggings, and bison-hide boots were necessary winter garments, and it was her duty to make them for herself and Gray Wolf.

The look on the warrior's face caused her to put down her work and stand, suddenly afraid. He was so downcast that Emily could tell something terrible had happened. He gestured for her to follow him outside, and she obeyed with trepidation, knowing by the sounds from outside that a crowd had gathered.

The sight of John Henry McAllen stole her breath away.

"Emily!" He surged toward her, and she ran to meet him, blinded by tears of joy, flying into his arms.

"We'll never be apart again," he whispered, holding her tight, almost unable to speak. "I love you, Emily—I love you with all my heart. We'll be together for the rest of our lives. That's a promise."

"We'll take tomorrow as it comes," she said. "Today is what matters."

McAllen glanced at Gray Wolf. "Did he hurt you, Emily? Did he mistreat you?"

"No." She was laughing and crying at the same time. "No, he saved me. He was kind to me."

McAllen turned to Caldero. "Tell him—"

Distant gunfire from downcanyon reached their ears.

The sound triggered an instant reaction among the Comanches. They scattered, the women and children making for their lodges, the men heading for the weapons and horses. McAllen knew instantly what the gunfire signified. The Rangers had found the canyon and run into Caldero's
bandoleros,
who were waiting at the south end. He leaped into action, lifting Emily into the saddle on Escatawpa. As he prepared to get on behind her, she shouted a warning, and he whirled to see the warrior Red Eagle coming at him with knife raised. Joshua, though, had seen Red Eagle first. The half-breed drew his pistol and fired, hitting the Comanche war chief but not stopping him. Joshua lunged into the Quohadi's path, triggering the Colt again as they collided. Red Eagle's dead weight bore the half-breed to the ground. For a moment McAllen thought the warrior's knife, meant for him, had taken his friend's life instead. But then Joshua disentangled himself from the Comanche's corpse and ran to his horse.

Swinging aboard the gray hunter behind Emily, McAllen looked around for Caldero and Gray Wolf. Both men had vanished. The shooting was much closer now, and McAllen could hear the thunder of many horses running and the screams of Comanche women and children coming from the south end of the village. He kicked Escatawpa into a gallop and hurried north, followed closely by Joshua.

Having killed all but one of the
bandoleros
in a running fight from the mouth of the canyon to the village of the Antelope band, Eli Wingate and his Texas Rangers tore through the Comanche camp like a whirlwind of death, shooting anything that moved. One hundred and thirty Rangers armed with Colt revolvers could do a lot of damage in a very short time, and though the Quohadi warriors outnumbered them by almost three to one there was no stopping the charge.

Wingate was in front of his men, blazing away with his pistol, the reins clenched between his teeth, and guiding his horse with his knees. Seeing the Comanches fall like wheat before a scythe gratified him. This was the moment he had dreamed of, lived for, the reaping of his vengeance. He killed a woman, shot an old man in the back, dropped a warrior attacking him with a lance. Exterminate the vermin, young and old, male and female. He and his men had virtually wiped out a Penateka village two weeks ago, but Wingate's thirst for revenge had not been sated by that bloodletting. He had dared the Llano Estacado to find and punish the elusive Quohadis and now, at long last, he had found them. A clear trail from the site of the buffalo hunt had brought him right to the village, and he would not rest until life had been snuffed out of the last of these red devils. . . .

Armed only with a knife, Gray Wolf raced to Spotted Tail's tepee. This took him south, toward the Rangers galloping north, and as he neared his destination a Texan appeared out of the dust and powder smoke and headed straight for him, bent low in the saddle. Expecting Gray Wolf to run, the Ranger was Startled when the Comanche lunged straight into the path of his horse. Gray Wolf grabbed the bridle's cheek strap and threw his legs up and around the animal's neck. With one savage slash of the knife he opened the horse's throat. The Ranger could not get a clear shot in the split second that he remained in the saddle. Then the dying horse fell sideways, and the Ranger tried to jump clear. He landed poorly. Dazed, he was slow in getting up. Covered with the blood of the horse, Gray Wolf drove his knife to the hilt in the Ranger's back. Only then did he notice that one of the Ranger's boots had come off—it had been caught in one of the stirrups—and that the dead man's foot was missing. Gray Wolf rolled the Ranger over and gazed into the sightless eyes of Brax Torrance. . . .

Eli Wingate was the first man to reach the northern end of the Quohadi village. Checking his lathered mount, he jammed the barrel of his Colt Paterson between a thigh and the saddle, "broke" the pistol open, and began to replace the cartridges. As he prepared to make another ride through the Comanche tepees, he saw McAllen and what appeared by her clothing to be an Indian girl galloping north along the line of trees which marked the course of the river. With a snarl he kicked his horse into a gallop and gave chase. He recognized the gray hunter and the black jacket McAllen wore. Recognized, too, the half-breed who rode with McAllen. What was Houston's spy doing here among the Quohadis? No doubt conspiring against Lamar and the Republic of Texas, fraternizing with the red devils. McAllen was a traitor to his country, and now he would pay the price for his treason. Wingate raised the pistol and fired.

The sound of the gunshot turned McAllen's head. He watched in horror as Joshua slipped sideways off his horse. McAllen turned Escatawpa into the trees. A bullet smacked into a nearby tree trunk, throwing splinters. Sliding off the gray hunter, he swept Emily out of the saddle and pushed her to the ground.

"Why is he shooting at us?" asked Emily.

"It's Eli Wingate, and it's personal. Stay down."

Drawing both Colts, he moved away.

As McAllen emerged from the trees, Wingate checked his horse and dismounted. A man could shoot better on foot than in a saddle, and Wingate wasted no time in proving it. "McAllen! Time to meet your Maker!" he roared, and fired.

Wingate's bullet caught McAllen in the fleshy part of the leg. The impact staggered but did not stop him. He kept moving forward, firing first one Colt and then the other. The Ranger captain fired again. This time the bullet tugged at McAllen's shell jacket. McAllen kept walking and shooting. Squinting through the acrid powder smoke, he saw Wingate shudder and drop to his knees. "You bastard," groaned the Ranger, and tried to lift his Colt for one more shot. Ten feet away, McAllen stopped, took dead aim, and put a bullet between Wingate's eyes. The Ranger's body jackknifed, twitched, and lay still in the sun-browned grass.

McAllen went to Joshua. The half-breed was unconscious and his breathing was ragged, shallow. The bullet had hit him squarely in the back, and McAllen knew the wound was fatal. Sadly he carried Joshua into the trees, returning to the place he had left Emily. He laid Joshua down gently and sat beside him and watched him die as Emily applied a makeshift dressing to his wound, using a strip of soft buckskin from her dress to stop the bleeding. . . .

Reaching Spotted Tail's tepee, Gray Wolf saw his lame friend emerge with his wife. She carried a papoose—his son. Gray Wolf gave silent heartfelt thanks to Our Sure Enough Father that they were still alive. Then he shouted a warning as a Texas Ranger stumbled around the skin lodge into view. The Texan's horse had been killed under him, and he had hurt his leg in the fall.

As the Ranger raised his pistol, Gray Wolf lengthened his stride, but he could not reach the man in time. The pistol barked, and Spotted Tail staggered, shot in the back. Somehow the lame Quohadi kept his feet and shielded his wife from the Ranger's second shot. The second bullet killed him outright, and he fell.

The Ranger aimed again at Spotted Tail's wife, who stood staring in horror at her husband's body. That she had a baby in her arms did not deter the Ranger. Nits made lice. But then he saw Gray Wolf and turned his pistol on the warrior, and Gray Wolf saw the hammer fall and knew he was going to die. But he would not die before the Ranger—before the threat to his son—had been dealt with.

The pistol misfired.

Gray Wolf caught a glimpse of the fear in the Ranger's eyes as he closed the distance between them and drove his knife into the Texan's chest, turned so that the blade could slip between the man's ribs and pierce his heart.

Before the Ranger's body hit the ground Gray Wolf was turning to Spotted Tail's widow.

"Come," he said hoarsely. "We must go."

She handed him the papoose and knelt beside her husband. "I will stay."

The Rangers had swept into the northern part of the village, but Gray Wolf knew they would return. That was the Ranger way, to make several runs through a village at full speed. She knew this, too, but she was exercising her right to die alongside her husband, and Gray Wolf did not try to talk her out of it or force her to come with him. Sadly he walked away. The baby was crying. He wrapped his bloodstained fingers around its little hand and the crying stopped.

Luck was with him. He found a horse near the river—a Ranger's mount, saddled and iron-shod—and the animal let him approach and take up the dragging reins. He rode south out of the village, trying not to look at the all the dead who lay sprawled in the pale dust. . . .

Not long after the last gunshot's echoes faded and the canyon fell deathly silent, Joshua breathed his last. McAllen ignored the pain of his wound and piled river stone on top of the body to deny the wolves and the vultures. Emily helped him. The half-breed's horse had been trained not to stray, so McAllen put her in his friend's saddle and mounted the gray hunter.

"Let's go home," he said.

"Yes. Home. What a wonderful word." She smiled. It was the most beautiful smile John Henry McAllen had ever seen.

They skirted the village, inhabited now only by the spirits of the dead. The long shadows of day's end were creeping across the canyon floor. The Quohadi survivors had scattered. The Rangers were gone. McAllen wondered if Antonio Caldero had escaped. He had a hunch the bandit leader was a hard man to kill. Perhaps someday he would find out if that was so. But for now he had only one thing on his mind—going home to Grand Cane and starting his life anew with the woman he loved.