by Tim Washburn
“I know that,” Amanda snapped. “I’m the one takin’ care of her.”
“I know, and I appreciate it mightily.” Percy paused, trying to frame the next few statements in his head. After a moment or two he said, “Where do you keep the bottle of laudanum you’ve been givin’ her?”
“On a shelf in the kitchen.”
“I want you to leave the bottle on her bedside table,” Percy said. “And when that one runs out, put a new bottle out and just keep doin’ it.”
“Until when?” Amanda asked.
Percy took a deep breath and released it. “Until it’s over.” Expecting anger, tears, or outright hysteria, Percy was astonished when Amanda simply said, “Thank you.”
Father and daughter hugged and that was when the dam broke, Amanda’s tears wetting his shirt. Percy rubbed her back and talked to her. The last two years had been a hellish nightmare as Mary’s health declined gradually enough that hope for a recovery lingered, stretching on for months. There was no such hope now.
“How long are you . . . goin’ to be gone?” Amanda asked between sobs.
“A couple of weeks. Could be longer. I ain’t got any idea how long it’s going to take.”
Amanda lifted her head and looked at her father. “You said ‘ain’t.’”
Percy smiled a small smile. He rubbed her back and said, “I gotta go.”
With one final squeeze, she broke the embrace and stepped back, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Find Emma, Papa.”
“We will, however long it takes. If I don’t make it back in time, you tell your uncle to put your ma up on the hill with your brother and sister.”
Amanda nodded.
With a heavy heart, Percy turned and headed for the wagon.
CHAPTER 16
Rachel Ferguson was thumbing through an old issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine when she glanced outside to see Seth limping toward home. She tossed the magazine on the table and rushed outside and wrapped her arms around him, anger coursing through her body at the obvious beating Seth had taken.
Seth burst into tears and buried his face in his mother’s chest. When the sobbing subsided, Rachel stepped back and held Seth at arm’s length. Her heart broke to see his battered face. She wanted to ask a thousand questions, but instead, took Seth’s hand and led him back to the porch, deciding Seth needed to tell the story at his own pace. Rachel took a seat on one of the rockers and Seth attempted to sit down then immediately jumped back to his feet.
“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked.
Seth loosened his belt and pulled his pants down far enough to expose the X branded on his left buttock.
All thoughts of allowing Seth to tell the story flew from her mind and she lurched to her feet, trembling with rage. “Who did that to you?!”
“Three men. They’re the ones who roughed me up, too.”
“Where are these bastards?”
“Uncle Eli and Win shot them.”
“Good,” Rachel said, the sudden rage dropping back to a medium simmer. She stepped in the house, grabbed a pillow, and returned, placing it on the rocker’s seat. “Sit.”
Seth gently eased down on the pillow as his mother retook her seat. “What else did they do to you?” Rachel asked.
“Slapped me around, then burned me with the brandin’ iron.”
“Nothing more?”
“I reckon that was enough.”
Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. “Were they Indians?”
“No. White fellers about Pa’s age. They was drinkin’ whiskey.”
“Bastards,” Rachel muttered. “Well, they deserved what they got. How’d you run into them?”
“I saw ’em riding toward me. Didn’t nothin’ seem unusual about it. I was hopin’ to ask them if they’d seen anything of Pa’s group, but when they rode up and stopped, the meanest of the three grabbed the reins out of my hand.”
“Why didn’t you just jump off your horse?” Rachel asked.
“And go where?” Seth asked, his voice tinged with anger. “A man afoot ain’t no match for three armed men on horses.” He stared at his mother a moment. “You act like it’s my fault.”
Rachel took a deep breath, wanting to tell him if he hadn’t ridden off nothing would have happened. But she didn’t. “You sure they didn’t do anything else to you?”
“How many times you goin’ to ask me that?” Seth asked. “Ain’t being beat up and branded enough?”
Knowing that some people were capable of the most vile, deviant behavior, Rachel was hoping her son was telling the truth and that nothing else had happened. “I’m just glad you’re home safe now.”
“When’s Pa comin’ home?” Seth asked.
Rachel shrugged. “Who knows how long it’ll take them to find Emma.”
Seth looked away then did a double take. “Where’s Emma?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“No, but I heard Uncle Percy shootin’ the Gatling gun. I wondered why. What happened to Emma?”
“She was kidnapped by Indians last night.”
Seth hung his head. “Oh no.”
“They’ll find her,” Rachel said with more conviction than she felt. “Now, go inside and wash up and put on some clean clothes.”
Seth pushed unsteadily to his feet. “Which Injuns took her?” he asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Rachel lied. “Now go on.” She didn’t have the heart to tell Seth that it was most likely the Comanches. Everyone along the frontier knew what happened to Comanche captives. They’d all heard the horror stories. And Seth needed to focus on healing rather than wonder what tortures his cousin might now be enduring.
Seth limped into the house and Rachel stewed. If Amos and the others hadn’t gone off on a wild-goose chase after rustlers, she thought, things probably wouldn’t have gone sideways. “Damn him,” she muttered.
CHAPTER 17
Emma wanted to die. Not figuratively, but literally—a bolt of lightning out of the blue, an arrow to the heart, or a broken neck from a fallen horse—any of those would be welcome relief from the excruciating pain pulsing through her body. Still tied to the horse, her pale skin was blistered, and she was sitting in a mixture of her own bodily fluids—blood, urine, and feces. And having ridden endlessly for hours with no water, her tongue was swollen with thirst. She would have begged them to stop, but she knew what would happen if they did.
Emma winced in pain with every lunge of the horse. To her it felt like her insides were going to fall out and deep within her, it felt as if something had torn loose. What it was she did not know, but she was still bleeding, and the constant pain felt like someone had placed a burning coal deep in her stomach. During the very brief periods when the pain subsided to a dull ache, Emma worked to remove the rope encircling her wrists. She thought it a futile task because even if she were somehow able to free her hands, they were now so far beyond civilization that escape was impossible.
Big Nose, the name she’d given to the savage now leading her horse, never once glanced over his shoulder to check on how she was doing or even to acknowledge her presence. Not that she wanted him to. The less they thought about her the better.
The area they were riding through would appear as a blank space on a map. There were no towns, no houses, no man-made structures of any kind—a vast open space where a person could ride for hours and feel like they hadn’t gone anywhere at all—the big empty. Occasionally, when they came to a patch of soft ground, the Indians would slow and rein their ponies first one direction then the other in an attempt to throw off any pursuers. A few seconds of random riding would add hours to those tracking them. Emma had also noticed that when they were leaving a stream or creek, the braves would always choose an area of rocky ground to make their exit. How her father and grandfather would ever find her was something that weighed heavy on her mind.
Thinking of creek crossings only heightened Emma’s desperation for water. She was so parched she could barely swallow, and her thirst was
exacerbated by all the blood she’d lost and continued to lose. Finally, around midday, they came upon a wide muddy river and the Indians herded the stolen horses into the water and allowed their mounts to dip their muzzles in for a drink. Big Nose and the others made no move to dismount and Emma worried they wouldn’t allow her an opportunity to drink.
Emma’s fears were put to rest when Big Nose rode his horse into the middle of the stream and pulled Emma’s pony up beside him and untied the rope, pushing her into the stream. The four savages laughed as Emma sputtered back to the surface. She splashed the water with her hands and shouted a string of obscenities, but in truth, the water felt glorious, cooling her blistered skin and her chafed inner thighs. Emma rode the gentle current as it pushed her downstream and, once she quenched her thirst, began plotting an escape. Trees lined both sides of the river, but they were sparsely spaced and unsuitable for hiding. She didn’t know what the Indians would do if she tried to escape again and, despite what she’d been telling herself throughout the long ride, she came to the sudden realization that she didn’t want to die. Not here and not now. She had too much life left to live and if she could just hold on long enough, her grandfather and father would come.
After gently scrubbing her torso clean, she swam for the far bank where the Indians waited, not knowing if she would be molested again or if the four savages had some other form of torture in mind. As she got closer, she began feeling for the river bottom with her feet, found it, and walked out of the water.
Humiliated because of her nakedness, she crossed her arms over her chest to cover her breasts. The Indians laughed and then Scar, her name for the meanest of the four with a knife wound on his cheek, walked over, yanked her hands down, then latched on to her right breast and squeezed with all his might. Emma’s knees sagged with the pain, but she refused to submit and stood her ground, looking the Indian in the eye as he squeezed and twisted her breast. It felt like someone was stabbing a hot poker into her chest and it took everything Emma had to not cry out. Finally, one of the other Indians said something and Scar gave one final squeeze and smiled before turning her loose. Then just as quick, he grabbed her by the hair, pulled her to the ground, pulled up his breechcloth, and assaulted her. Once the other three had another turn, Emma, bleeding freely again, was tied onto afresh horse and the journey through hell continued.
CHAPTER 18
Cyrus rode back into Fort Sill ready to stomp a mudhole in someone’s ass and then walk it dry. As he approached, a pack of cur dogs began barking and snarling at his horse and he was sorely tempted to pull his pistol and send them back to their maker. But he didn’t and, instead, steered toward the Indian agency building and dismounted. He arched his back in an attempt to stretch out the kinks and then wrapped the reins around a hitching post and stepped up onto the porch.
The recently constructed building was a square, two-story clapboard structure with two long porches fronting the building, one on each level. Indians of all types—squaws, kids, men young and old—lazed about in the heat, no doubt, Cyrus thought, waiting for a handout. He hadn’t always felt this way about the Indians, but after a lifetime of scrapes over stolen livestock or attempts to drive him from the land that was rightfully his, Cyrus now thought the only good Indians were the dead ones. He opened the door, stepped through, pushed his hat back on his head, and shouted, “Who’s in charge here?”
A short, balding, portly man waddled out of a nearby office and said, “That would be me.”
Cyrus walked over to look the man in the eye, his spurs jangling with every step. “Who’re you?” he asked.
“James Haworth, the Indian agent for this facility.”
“Where’s Tatum?”
“He resigned in March. To whom am I speaking?”
“Cyrus Ridgeway. I run a spread down south of here. You a Quaker, too?”
“That’s not relevant, sir.” Haworth shuffled back a step. “How may I help you, Mr. Ridgeway?”
“Some of your thievin’ savages run off with my granddaughter.”
“They aren’t my Indians, Mr. Ridgeway. We’re here merely to help them integrate into our society.”
“Layin’ around on the porch? That part of your integratin’?”
Haworth sighed. “Sir, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with you upon our first meeting.” He waved a hand at the door to his office. “If you’ll come in, I’ll be glad to write up all the details.”
“What good’s that goin’ to do?”
“Well, it will allow me to pass on the pertinent information to traders, other tribes, and anyone else that might have business with the Indians.”
“I want to talk to some of your thievin’ Comanches.”
“Sir, they’re not—never mind. I’d be pleased to introduce you to some of the Comanche members and will also provide you with an interpreter, but I need a few more details about the kidnapping before we proceed.”
Cyrus brushed past Haworth and entered the office the man had just exited. When Haworth didn’t immediately follow, Cyrus turned and looked at him and said, “Get your pencil.”
Haworth sighed, entered his office, and worked his way around the desk, taking a seat in his chair. He opened a drawer, pulled out paper and pencil, and set to work as Cyrus sat. Over the next fifteen minutes, Cyrus passed on all the relevant information about who and where, as Haworth dutifully wrote it down.
“I’ll pay whatever ransom it’ll take,” Cyrus said.
Haworth laid his pencil on the desk and leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on his ponderous belly as he steepled his fingers together. “Mr. Ridgeway, we’ve recently instituted a new policy of not paying ransoms for Indian captives.”
“I don’t give a damn about your policies,” Cyrus said. “If I find out you had a chance to ransom my young’un and don’t, I’ll shoot you right between the eyes.”
Haworth squirmed in his seat and dropped his hands to the arms of the chair. “I don’t appreciate being threatened.”
Cyrus pulled off his hat, mopped his face with a red handkerchief, put the hat back on, and leaned forward, giving Haworth a hard stare. “Ain’t a threat, sir. Ask around. I’m a man of my word.”
Momentarily flustered, Haworth quickly changed the subject. They discussed who might have taken the girl and where Emma might now be. “If I find out they’ve snuck back onto the reservation, you’re goin’ to have a passel of trouble.”
“I’ll make inquiries, but I don’t think they’d return here right after taking a new captive.”
Cyrus pushed to his feet.
“Where are you going, Mr. Ridgeway?”
“You said we’re making inquiries. Let’s go.”
Haworth remained seated. “I need to give some thought to who best to approach.”
“How ’bout we start with the first Comanche we see? Every minute you spend in here thinkin’ is another minute of torture my young’un’s facin’. You know what these savages do to their captives. Get your ass up and let’s get goin’.”
Still, Haworth sat, and Cyrus’s anger flared red-hot. “You’re ’bout as worthless as tits on a boar hog. I’ll do my own askin’.”
That got Haworth to his feet. “Mr. Ridgeway, there’s a right way to do this. Please don’t enflame the local Indian population.”
“Screw the local population. Most of ’em are a bunch of thievin’ murderers.” With that, Cyrus exited the office and made his way outside. He paused a moment to think then decided to pay a visit to Davidson to tell him about the kidnapping and to put some pressure on him to send out a patrol. But Cyrus’s immediate plans changed as he walked past the trading post, where a man was loading a buckboard wagon with supplies. Cyrus, whose eyesight wasn’t what it once was despite what he told his wife, thought he recognized the man, but he hadn’t seen him for three or four years. Walking across the street, Cyrus shouted, “Charlie Goodnight?”
The man dumped his load into the wagon and turned. “Cyrus Ridgeway, how th
e hell are you?”
The two men shook hands. “Last I heard you was up somewhere in Colorado,” Cyrus said.
Goodnight pushed his hat back on his head. “Yep, still there, but hopefully not for long. Gonna do a little scoutin’ around down this way while I’m here.”
“Thinkin’ about running some cattle round here?” Cyrus had met Charles Goodnight back when Goodnight worked as a ranger and scout for a troop of Texas Rangers.
“Maybe. Don’t know yet. The army needs to get these Indians squared away fore I can do anything.”
“I’m glad you said that,” Cyrus said. He went on to explain the details of his granddaughter’s kidnapping.
When he finished Goodnight asked, “You talk to the Indian agent?”
“Far as I can tell,” Cyrus said, “he ain’t much good for nothin’ but sittin’ on his ass. You been around the Injuns, Charlie. Any idea who’d know anythin’ about where my young’un might be?”
Goodnight thought about it a moment. “Yeah, I do.” He looked up at the sky and said, “But it’ll be dark before we could get there. How about you hitch your horse to my wagon, and you can camp with me. Get a fresh start in the mornin’ and I’ll take you out to meet Kicking Bird, a Kiowa chief.”
Cyrus hated the thought of losing more time but prowling around in the dark up in these parts could get a man dead real damn quick. “Sounds like a plan.”
CHAPTER 19
Sitting at the kitchen table alone, Abigail was absently watching the dust motes drifting about in a slash of sunlight cutting through the front window. She was working overtime to tamp down thoughts of what might be happening to her daughter Emma, but it was a losing battle. Amelia and Wesley, her two youngest, were with her mother or playing with their cousins. Abby couldn’t muster the energy to go outside to find out. And it was approaching suppertime, and she had no appetite nor any inclination to even think about rustling up some grub.
