Comanche Heart

by Catherine Anderson

  Swift threw himself to the grass and rolled. A slight rise to the ground provided him meager cover. Dirt geysered around him as the remaining fourteen men came to their senses and started firing. He drew his other single-action and, in a second blur of movement, fired three more shots. Three men went down.

  In a lull between shots, Swift came up on one elbow, adrenaline numbing him to the fear, his palm poised over the hammer spur. “Which of you bastards wants it next?”

  Between them, the remaining eleven men had at least a hundred cartridges, ready to fire. When no one ventured another shot, Swift said, “I’m as good as dead, and you all know it. But if I go, I’m taking three more of you with me.” Well aware that Jos’ was the closest thing to a leader the men had left, Swift sighted in on him. “Rodriguez, you’re going to be first.”

  A spasm of fear contorted the Mexican’s swarthy face. Pupils dilating, he stared at the barrel of Swift’s .45. After a moment he holstered his revolver and lifted his hands. “Ain’t no woman alive worth gettin’ plugged over.”

  Swift saw several of the other men cast bewildered glances at Chink. Without their leader spouting orders, Swift guessed they weren’t quite sure what to do. Taking Rodriguez’s lead, they all retreated a step, holstering their guns.

  “You want her that bad, you can have her,” one said.

  “I don’t want no trouble with you, Lopez.”

  Bull spat and shot Swift a murderous glare. “I knowed you was trouble the first time I set eyes on ya. You ain’t seen the last of this. I promise you that.”

  “Shut up, Bull, and git on yer goddamn horse,” Rodriguez ordered.

  Swift remained prone on the grass until all eleven men had ridden off. Then he turned his gaze to the girl, who had gone strangely silent. She sat hunched over, buck naked and shivering, her blue eyes riveted to Chink’s bare lower torso. Swift guessed she had never seen a nude man. There was no help for that. Seeing was far better than what had almost happened.

  He rose and holstered his guns, his hands stricken with the uncontrollable quivering that always followed a gunfight. His gaze slid over the scattered bodies, and his guts twisted. He closed his eyes and flexed his fingers, the sweat on his body turning ice cold. Killing. He was so weary of it, so sick-to-death weary. Yet no matter what he did, it never seemed to end.

  He whistled for his stallion and when the horse had trotted up he opened the saddlebag that held his store of extra cartridges. He wasn’t taking any chances that Rodriguez and the others might come back. Only after he had reloaded his Colts did he clamp his wide-brimmed hat back on his head and walk over to where Chink lay. He dragged the comanchero off the girl’s leg and then jerked up the dead man’s pants.

  “You all right?” he asked, more gruffly than he intended.

  She slid a blank gaze from Chink’s body to the other eight men sprawled around her. Swift sighed and raked a hand through his hair, uncertain what to do. If he took her to that ranch house on the horizon while she was in this shape, the only thanks he was likely to get would be at the business end of a rope.

  He gathered up her clothes, which were torn and barely wearable. Kneeling beside her, he began the difficult task of dressing her, which he decided was pointless before he finished. He touched a fingertip to her cheekbone.

  “He busted you a good one, didn’t he?”

  Her wide blue eyes flicked to his, blank with shock.

  Striding to his horse, Swift pulled one of his shirts from his pack. The girl offered no resistance when he shoved her limp arms down the black sleeves. When his knuckles brushed her breasts as he fastened the buttons, she didn’t so much as flinch. He guessed she was numb, nature’s way of lessening the horror.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t shoot him quicker,” he offered. “But I didn’t think I stood a chance. I guess maybe that God of yours heard you hollering and decided to help me out.”

  “She didn’t seem to register the words. Swift sighed and fixed his gaze on the distant ranch, wondering if she lived there. Whether she did or not, it was the closest house, and time was playing out. He had to get out of here. Though he had never met them, he knew Chink had two brothers who wouldn’t take his passing lightly. Once Rodriguez got to thinking things over, he’d be back. If he let Chink’s death go unavenged, the Gabriel brothers would kill him.

  Swift carried the trembling girl to his horse. She seemed to come around a bit when he settled her onto the saddle. He mounted up behind her, taking care not to get his hand close to her breasts when he looped an arm around her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered in a quavery voice. “Th-thank you. . . .”

  “No thanks needed. I was hankerin’ for a little excitement.”

  They rode in silence for a couple of miles, the girl finally relaxing against him. After several more minutes she took a long, ragged breath. “You saved me. You could’ve just rode off. Yet you didn’t. Why?”

  Swift swallowed and fixed his gaze on the house ahead of them. He wanted to say “Why not?” but he didn’t. A girl her age would never understand how pointless life could become for a man who drifted from one town to the next, his people gone, his loved ones gone, his dreams gone.

  “I’ve never seen anybody shoot that fast.”

  Swift nudged his black into a trot, making no reply.

  “There’s only one man who can handle a gun that way.” She twisted her neck to look up at him, her eyes wide with a curious blend of awe and fear. “My daddy’s talked about you. You’re Swift Lopez. He has a scar on his cheek, and so do you! Now that I think on it, you even look like him!”

  Swift struggled to keep his tone matter-of-fact. “I’m just a drifter who got lucky, that’s all.”

  “But I heard one of those men call you Lopez.”

  Swift fought down a vehement denial. “Gomez, not Lopez.”

  “You are Swift Lopez.” She turned slightly to study him. “I saw a photograph of you once. You’re dressed all in black, and you’re handsome, just like in that picture. Is it true you’ve killed over a hundred men?”

  Feeling trapped, Swift dragged his gaze from hers. By this time tomorrow, everyone for fifty miles would have heard about this gunfight, and the number of dead would multiply in the retelling. And somewhere out there, a greenhorn kid who hankered for fame would hear the story and strap on his guns. Sooner or later Swift would find himself standing on some dusty street, facing that kid and having to decide whether he was going to draw or die. And, as always before, in that last split second, reflex would take over and his hand would slap leather.

  The scenario never changed, and it never ended. Swift cursed the day he had first touched a revolver.

  Turning his face westward, he contemplated the horizon. Oregon. These last few months he had been thinking of his lifelong friend Hunter more and more frequently. Swift was no longer sure if he really believed in the ancient Comanche prophecy that had led Hunter west. It didn’t seem possible that Comanches and white people could live in harmony anywhere, at least not in this life. Hunter had probably settled in Oregon to find himself surrounded by nothing but more hatred. But that really didn’t matter. To Swift, the thought of being among friends again, even if their number was few, had a powerful pull.

  Hunter’s tosi wife, Loretta, had sent a letter to the Indian reservation years back, welcoming any of the People who cared to join them in the west lands. Swift hadn’t been present to hear the letter read aloud by the minister’s wife, but he’d heard others talk about it, whispering the word Oh-rhee-gon and gazing with longing at the horizon. At that time Swift had given up on dreams of finer places, but now . . . A lump rose in his throat. With his life a living nightmare, a dream, even if it had no more substance than a wisp of smoke, had to be sought.

  Swift had no idea what kind of a place Oregon might be, but three things recommended it highly: it was a far piece from Texas, the Gabriel brothers, and the legend of Swift Lopez. The minute he got this girl delivered to that ranch house, he
was heading west.

  Chapter 2

  October 1879

  NOON SUNSHINE WARMED SWIFT’S SHOULDERS as he guided his black stallion up the steep, rutted road to Wolf’s Landing. After six months of traveling, some through desert, some through barren high plains, his senses felt bombarded by the sheer lush-ness of Oregon’s vibrant display of autumn. He took a deep breath of the crisp mountain air and feasted his eyes on the colorful hillsides, which ranged from bright orange to dark rust and varying shades of green. Never had he seen so many species of trees in one place, oak, fir, pine, maple, and a beautiful evergreen he couldn’t identify, with peeling trunks that twisted through the surrounding growth like gnarled fingers.

  Children’s voices drifted to him on the breeze as he crested the hill. He reined in his horse and sat a moment, taking in his first sight of Wolf’s Landing, a bustling little mining town ten miles from Jacksonville, the county seat. The main street looked like any in a white community, with colorfully advertised shops lining the boardwalks. On the left, three two-story buildings loomed above the others, a saloon, a hotel, and a restaurant.

  Up on the hillside, nestled behind a sprawling log house, Swift spotted two tepees. Judging from the smoke that trailed above the lodge poles, someone here clung to the Indian ways. He grinned as the words of the ancient Comanche prophecy ran through his mind: A new place, where the Comanche and tosi tivo will live as one.

  The wonderful smell of baked bread floated on the air. Houses of varying size and structure, some impressive, some one-room shanties with bare dirt yards, peppered the thick woodland. In the distance Swift saw a woman hanging up clothes behind a squat log cabin. Farther up the hill from her, two cows ambled through the brush, one bawling, the other stopping to graze.

  He relaxed in the saddle, a feeling of peace washing over him. It had been three years since he had escaped the Indian reservation—three long, restless years—and in all his wanderings he’d never come upon a place that spoke to him as this one did. Home. Maybe, just maybe, if he waited and lay low, he could escape his reputation here and hang up his guns.

  A squeal of laughter caught Swift’s attention, and he nudged his hat back to survey the schoolyard to his right. A small girl raced from the playground toward the schoolhouse, her gingham skirts flying as she tried to evade the boy who chased her. The next instant someone began beating a triangle with a steel bar, raising such a din that Swift’s gaze shifted to the porch. He glimpsed a flash of golden hair, then heard a sweet, hauntingly familiar voice. “Time to come in, children. Recess is over.”

  Swift stared at the slender woman who stood on the schoolhouse steps, a vision in dark blue muslin. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Amy! Surely it couldn’t be. Yet it sounded like her. The hair color was right, a rich honey gold. Could it be Loretta, Amy’s older cousin? With her golden hair, fine features, and blue eyes, Loretta always had resembled Amy. If not for the difference in their ages, the two might have passed for twins.

  The children raced for the schoolhouse. Their feet slapped the wood as they ran up the steps and went inside. Swift, drawn by the faint sound of the woman’s voice, reined Diablo around and rode toward the schoolyard. He pulled up by the stoop, swung out of the saddle, and draped the reins over the hitching post. For an instant he stood frozen and listened, afraid to hope.

  “Attention, attention!” she called out.

  The clamor of children’s voices settled into silence.

  “Jeremiah, you’re first. If a gentleman meets a lady on the boardwalk, on which side should he pass?”

  “His right,” piped up a boy’s voice. “And if the boardwalk’s narrow, he will step off into the street and make sure the lady passes without mishap.”

  “Very good, Jeremiah,” the woman said with a soft laugh. “You’re answering my questions before I ask them. Peter, should the gentleman recognize the lady?”

  “No, ma’am,” replied another boy in a shy, unassertive tone.

  “Never?” she prompted, her voice growing gentle.

  “Well, maybe, if’n he knows the lady will favor a nod.”

  “Excellent, Peter.”

  Swift heard the pages of a book rustle. “Indigo Nicole? Is it proper for a lady to walk between two gentlemen, with a hand on the arm of each?”

  A girl replied, “No, ma’am. A true lady gives her favor to only one gentleman at a time.”

  Swift didn’t hear the next question. In a haze of disbelief he walked up the steps, his legs weak and trembling, a rivulet of sweat trailing like ice down his spine. He knew the woman’s voice. Maturity had enriched its silken alto. The diction was more precise and proper. But the voice was definitely Amy’s. He would know it anywhere, for it had haunted his dreams for fifteen years. I’ll wait for you, Swift. Just as soon as I’m old enough, I’ll be your wife. A promise that had become his greatest sorrow, now transformed into a miracle.

  He stepped to the open doorway, peering out from under the brim of his hat into the shadowy room. So shaken he didn’t trust his knees, Swift braced a shoulder against the door frame, his gaze riveted to the teacher, trying to come to grips with the reality of seeing her. Amy . . .

  That grave behind Henry Masters’s barn hadn’t been Amy’s. The cross Swift had so lovingly straightened hadn’t borne her name and life song. His sweet, precious Amy was here, alive and well in Wolf’s Landing. Three wasted years! For God only knew what reason, Henry Masters had lied to him. A wave of sheer rage hit Swift.

  Then joy blotted out all else. Amy stood before him, breathing, smiling, talking, so beautiful the mere sight of her took his breath. Fifteen years ago she had been coltishly pretty, as thin as a bowstring, with an impertinent little nose dotted with freckles, a stubborn chin, and huge blue eyes outlined by thick dark lashes. Now, though still fragile of build, she had acquired the soft curves of womanhood. His gaze rested fleetingly on the white piping that edged her prim bodice, then dipped to her slender waist and the gentle flare of her hips, accented by two ruffled poufs that fell in a graceful sweep across her fanny. His throat closed off, and for a second he couldn’t breathe. No dream this, but reality.

  From the corner of her eye, Amy glimpsed a shadow looming in the doorway. Distracted from her place in The Manual of Proper Manners, she forgot what she was saying and looked up, taking in the tall man, clad all in black, with a wool poncho draped back comanchero style over one shoulder, a gun gleaming like silver death on his hip. With a shallow gasp she retreated a step, pressing her spine against the blackboard.

  “M-may I help you, sir?” she asked in a frail voice.

  He didn’t reply. With his shoulder against the door frame, he stood with one hip slung outward, his knee slightly bent, the stance careless and somehow insolent. The wide brim of his concha-banded hat cast his face into shadow, but light played on the twist of his sharply defined lips and the gleam of his white teeth. Touching the brim of his hat, he nodded to her and shifted his weight to the other foot as he drew to his full height, which seemed to fill the doorway.

  “Hello, Amy.”

  His deep silken voice sent a wash of coldness over Amy’s skin. She blinked and swallowed, trying to assimilate the reality of a comanchero standing in the doorway of her schoolroom, blocking the only means of escape. The fact that he knew her name terrified her even more. This wasn’t Texas, yet the nightmare of her past had somehow found her.

  Mouth as dry as dust, she stared at him, trying to think what to do. Were there others outside? She felt the uncertainty of her students, knew that they were frightened because they could see that she was, but courage, if she had any, eluded her. Fear consumed her, a cold, clawing fear that paralyzed her.

  The man took a step closer, his spurs chinking on the wood floor. The sound swept Amy back through time, to that long-ago afternoon when the comancheros had kidnapped her. To this day she could remember the feel of their rough, hurting hands on her breasts, the cruel ring of their laughter, the endless haze of pain as man after
man took his turn violating her child’s body.

  The floor dipped under her feet. In her ears, echoes from the past jostled with sounds of the present, a deafening cacophony that beat against her temples.

  The comanchero moved closer, step by relentless step, the rowels of his spurs catching on the floor planks. She couldn’t move. Then, coming to a halt a scant few feet away from her, he removed his hat. Amy stared up at his dark face, once so familiar, now chiseled by manhood, each line etched upon her heart yet changed so by the years that it had become the face of a stranger.

  “Swift. . . .”

  The whisper trailed from her lips, barely audible. Swirls of black encroached on her vision. She blinked and reached wildly for support, her groping hand finding only open air. As if from a great distance, she heard him repeat her name. Then she felt herself falling, falling . . . into the blackness.

  “Amy!”

  Swift lunged forward, snaking out an arm to catch her around her waist before she fell. She hung limp against his body, head lolling, arms dangling, eyes half-closed with the whites showing. No practiced swoon, this, but a genuine, out-cold faint.

  Swift knelt on one knee to lower her to the floor. His heart slammed with unreasoning fear as he pressed his fingertips to her throat to find the uneven and weak thread of her pulse. Her pallor frightened him. Cursing beneath his breath, he grasped the high collar of her dress and struggled to unfasten the tiny buttons, frustrated by the ruffle of starched muslin sheer that formed an overlay at the neckline.