The Rocking R Ranch

by Tim Washburn

  Luis rubbed his eyes. “Gracias, Percy.”

  “We’ll bury Arturo around sundown if that’s okay with you.”

  Luis nodded. “He’d like that.”

  Percy patted him on the shoulder then walked back to the fire to see if the pot of water was boiling. It was, and he nudged it out of the coals with his boot and walked back to the wagon to grab a package of Arbuckles’ coffee. He ripped the top open, walked back to the fire, and poured some grounds into the pot and let it steep for a few minutes. While he was doing that, Luis climbed up on the seat and backed the team away from the creek. “Amos, you see any sign that the Indians were still around while you were out digging?”

  “Nope. But they could hide behind a blade of grass if they was a mind to. Didn’t see no tracks, though.” Amos leaned his rifle against a tree. “Am I cookin’?”

  “Might as well,” Percy said. “There’s some beans in one of those pots at the back of the wagon that I put on to soak this morning.”

  Amos grabbed the pot of beans, drained the water off, and added fresh water and some salt and pepper and carried it over to the fire.

  Percy took a moment to study the location where Luis had parked the wagon. His dilemma was whether to leave it where it sat or drive it up out of the creek bottom and make camp in a more open area. If the Indians were really gone then he’d much prefer to camp down here in the shade where it was a little cooler. Percy decided to put the decision on hold until Win and Wilcox returned with some answers. Where it was now was an okay defensive position with a heavy stand of timber behind it. The Gatling gun would be able to cover both sides of the creek and any frontal approach and the only weakness was the rear, but a couple of cannon blasts into the timber would be somewhat effective. Percy walked over to the wagon for a different perspective. His father had stepped out from behind the gun and was lying down flat on his back on the wagon seat and rubbing his chest.

  “Pull a muscle?” Percy asked.

  “Naw,” Cyrus said. “My back. What happens when you get old.”

  “If your back’s hurtin’ why are you rubbing your chest?”

  Cyrus groaned as he sat up. “Had an itch.”

  Percy stood back where the gun was mounted and surveyed the situation. A couple of junipers encroached on the right side, but it also acted as a screen in case anyone else, other than the Indians, was around. The Indians already knew they were there. Percy looked at his father and said, “I sure would like to get that team unhitched to let them graze a bit. When do you think Wilcox will be back?” Percy asked.

  “He’ll be here when you see ’im. Coffee ready?”

  “Should be,” Percy said. “What do you think about unhitchin’ the wagon?”

  “It’d put us in a pickle if them Injuns showed up. Best wait to see what Wilcox has to say.” Cyrus climbed down, wobbled around to the back of the wagon to grab a cup, then headed for the coffeepot. Percy thought his father was favoring his left side as he walked away, and he didn’t know if it was a back problem or something related to his hip. Either way, he probably wasn’t going to find out from his father, who worked from can’t see to can’t see most every day and hardly ever complained about his ailments.

  A while later, as they were sitting down for supper, Wilcox and Win rode in. Once they were dismounted and had a cup a coffee in their hands, they began to talk.

  “The bunch that was pesterin’ us rode on south about three hours ago,” Wilcox said.

  “All of ’em?” Cyrus asked.

  “Looked like it,” Wilcox said. “Could be a stray or two around but I doubt it.”

  “Well, I guess we can unhook the team now,” Percy said.

  “Might want to hold off,” Win said. “That be the good news. The bad news is we cut the trail of a bigger bunch of Injuns that looked to be followin’ a buffalo herd to the north of us.”

  “How far away is the trail?” Cyrus asked.

  “An hour due west of here,” Win answered. “Might want to head out and get past ’em fore any of them drop back south.”

  “How many Indians we talkin’ about?” Percy asked.

  “Might near two hundred,” Win said. “And there ain’t no pole marks, neither.”

  “Meaning it’s all braves,” Percy said. “What makes you think they’ll drop back south?”

  “Don’t know fer sure,” Win said. “But if any of ’em get a hankerin’ to go raidin’ they’ll ride smack into us.”

  “Eat up, boys,” Cyrus said. “We’ll put Arturo in the ground and then skedaddle.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Emma wept. And for the first time in a long time, it wasn’t because she was frightened or injured. No, this time the tears were the result of one of the most basic human needs—kindness. Lying on her stomach atop a pile of soft buffalo hides, Emma studied the ground inside the teepee as the Indian woman who had welcomed her inside knelt next to her, gently removing the prickly pear spines from her back and legs. It was the first time since her abduction that an Indian had touched her without malice in mind. And she didn’t know if this was a halt in hostilities or a brief interlude, but she wasn’t going to think about that.

  When the woman finished removing the spines, she used a damp piece of soft deerskin to wipe the blood, dirt, and grime off Emma’s blistered skin. After that, the woman slathered on some kind of oil that had a gamy odor with just a hint of mint. After the oil had a little time to absorb, the woman tapped her on the leg and said something in Comanche. Emma lifted her head, looked at the woman, and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” She certainly didn’t want to make the woman angry, but she didn’t know if she was supposed to get up and leave or what.

  The woman must have understood her confusion. She held her hand out and turned it over.

  “I get it,” Emma said. “You want me to turn over.” Emma rolled over on her back and the woman went to work removing the prickly pear spines from the rest of her torso. “I don’t know your name,” Emma said out loud, “so I’m going to name you Angel because that must be what you are.”

  Angel looked up but didn’t say anything before returning to her task. Emma took the opportunity to closely study her newfound savior. Angel, like all the Indians Emma had seen, had long, dark hair and a prominent nose. However, she didn’t have the heavy brow ridge that many Indians did, and she had a more rounded face and her dark eyes were slightly slanted. With full lips, she was lithe and lean and moved with a certain gracefulness. Emma thought she might be the most beautiful Indian woman she’d seen, and she wondered what role Angel played in the tribe. Was she one of the chief’s squaws? Or maybe a sister or niece? The chief didn’t look old enough to have fathered Angel, but it was clear she had unfettered access to his teepee, if this was indeed his dwelling. Emma was terrible at guessing ages, but she thought Angel was probably in her midtwenties or somewhere close to that. She’d never know for sure because of their inability to communicate. Thinking of Angel’s age made her wonder if the Indians adhered to some type of calendar or if they had any concept of time. Did they celebrate life events such as birthdays or anniversaries? It was an unanswerable question. The Comanche world was as foreign to Emma as if she’d sailed halfway around the world and landed in an unknown land.

  Angel dipped the deerskin cloth into a small pot of water, squeezed out the excess, and began wiping down Emma’s legs. It hadn’t bothered her when she had been lying facedown, but it bothered her now. Reaching down, Emma attempted to take the cloth from Angel and got her hand slapped for her efforts. Maybe it’s some type of ritual, Emma thought. She lay back and let Angel continue.

  Emma switched from studying Angel to studying the inside of the teepee. Three piles of buffalo robes were lined up around the outer perimeter and Emma wondered about that. Was it for the chief and his family? Did Indian children sleep with their parents? Or did the chief have two squaws that lived in his teepee? The only way Emma was going to learn the answers to those questions was through observati
on. Overhead, someone had strung a rope all the way around the teepee and hung on it were some of the personal items of the inhabitants—a fringed buckskin dress, a pair of deer-hide leggings, and a few blankets that were unneeded this time of year. There was no sign of a chief’s headdress or anything that would indicate a higher social status and that led to doubts about her initial assumptions. Maybe the man she thought was the chief didn’t live here at all. But the sheer size of the teepee compared to the others had to represent something. Again, Emma thought, she would have to watch and learn.

  Turning her gaze to the ground inside, she looked for clues that would tell her how long the teepee had been there. If there had been grass at one time, it was now gone. The ground was hard packed, suggesting this might be a more permanent location for them. After further study, Emma was fairly certain that this particular teepee hadn’t been moved in months. She pondered that as Angel rubbed oil across her upper torso. If that was true—if the Indians lived for long periods of time in one place—then her father’s and grandfather’s odds of finding her increased exponentially.

  Emma’s thoughts were interrupted when Angel tapped her on the shoulder and grunted something in Comanche. Angel mimicked walking with two fingers on her right hand and Emma assumed that she wanted her to get up, which she did. Pulling the buckskin dress from overhead, Angel thrust it into Emma’s hands and said something else in her native tongue. Assuming she wanted her to put the dress on, Emma slipped it over her head and felt instant relief that she no longer had to parade around naked. She let the dress fall and Angel looked at her and laughed out loud. Emma looked down and saw that the hem of the dress was so long it hid her bare feet and she, too, laughed. The dress had obviously been made for a much taller woman or at least a woman who had matured into adulthood. But Emma didn’t care. It had been so long since she had laughed that fresh tears formed in her eyes. The dress was beautifully beaded around the neck and along the shoulders and hem and it was evident a great deal of time was spent working on it.

  Angel made her way to the entrance and Emma followed, euphoric over having clothing on once again, even if it was too long. Angel lifted the flap and she and Emma stepped outside. Angel pointed to a large, leather, baglike object with a rope handle and mumbled something in Comanche. When Emma didn’t immediately move, Angel pointed again, this time more emphatically. “You want me to pick that up?” Emma asked, knowing it was a pointless question. She stepped over and picked up the bag. It had been stitched along the bottom and on one side and had a round hole at the top. Angel picked up another similar bag and started walking. Emma fell in behind her, having no idea where they were going.

  They walked through the camp and it wasn’t long before Emma noticed something that puzzled her. The men were lounging about or playing a game of some sort that involved dice, while the women worked. Some were cooking, others were scraping hides or were busy doing something. And Emma noticed that even the young boys sat idly about or played while the young girls were busy helping their mothers or were working on other tasks that someone deemed necessary. Age didn’t seem to be an issue, either, because even the oldest of the Indian women were laboring at something. It was startling to see, and Emma couldn’t understand why the men didn’t offer to help or take on tasks of their own. Seeing the stark contrast between male and female duties gave her an inkling of what life was going to be like during her days in captivity.

  Emma kept an eye out for Scar as they walked. She didn’t know if Angel’s gentle cleansing or being allowed to wear a dress entitled her to certain protections or not. But she wasn’t willing to press the issue to find out. And if she never saw Scar again it would be too soon. They left the camp behind and as they drew closer to the river, Emma finally understood what the bag she carried was used for. How she was going to carry it back full of water was yet to be determined.

  At the water’s edge, Angel slipped her dress off and waded out into the water with her bag. Not knowing if she was supposed to follow, Emma hesitated. Would Angel be angry that she’d spent all that time applying oil to Emma’s body only to have it washed off in the river? Or had that been some type of ritualistic cleansing that the Indians held as sacred? Emma was momentarily flustered and angry at her inability to communicate, but she had her answers a moment later when Angel waved for her to come in. Slipping her dress up over her head, she laid it gently on the ground, grabbed the water bag, and waded in.

  They didn’t spend much time luxuriating in the river, but Emma was grateful for the opportunity. There were parts of her body that Angel hadn’t cleaned, and it was a welcome relief to be able to clean those and rinse her hair. They each dunked their bags beneath the surface and let them fill before making their way back to the bank. Angel left her bag in the water and climbed out to put on her dress before she reached down and slung the rope over her shoulder. Emma wasn’t paying much attention and didn’t follow that sequence of events. Grunting and groaning, she got the bag up high enough to get it on dry land and when she set it down, the bag collapsed and all the water rushed out. She tried one more time with the same result. She stopped and ran through the last few images in her mind and finally understood why Angel had done it the way she did. Emma climbed out, put on her dress, and reached over for the handle. She succeeded in lifting it, but within six steps of the river it felt like the rope was going to cut her in half. And there was nothing she could do but keep on trudging.

  Angel was long gone, Emma’s shoulder was on fire, her right arm was numb, and she was drenched in sweat as she shuffled back into camp. Some of the water had sloshed out, which helped a bit, and she was hoping they wouldn’t make her go back and refill it. It angered her that the men who could probably lift it with a single finger sat and watched her struggle. She’d walk over and dump the water on their heads if she thought she could get away with it. But she didn’t. Finally, she made it back to the teepee, where she slid the bag’s handle onto a pole and pushed it over next to Angel’s bag. All she wanted to do now was to sit down for a moment and rest until the feeling in her arm came back. But it was not to be.

  After discovering Emma was back, Angel led her over to a large buffalo hide that had been stretched between a square pole frame. She handed Emma a large piece of bone and, using her own piece of bone, demonstrated how to scrape the flesh from the hide. Forced to use her offhand because her right arm was still numb, Emma began scraping. It was easier than carrying the water bag, but she wouldn’t classify the job of scraping as easy, especially with such primitive tools. It was hard, dirty work and, as the monotony set in, she couldn’t keep her mind from drifting to thoughts of what the reunion with her family would look like. What she couldn’t envision was how long it would be until those images became reality.

  CHAPTER 45

  Although his mother had been white, Quanah Parker did not live like a white man, did not speak the white man’s tongue, and had absolutely no qualms about killing every white man he saw. His band of Comanches, the Quahadis, had never affixed their names to a treaty nor spent a minute on the reservation. And if it was up to Quanah they never would. They were the last of their kind and, from his point of view, the only way he would set foot on the reservation was if the army were to defeat them in battle. Something that hadn’t occurred yet and Quanah aimed to keep it that way.

  None of those particular issues were weighing heavy on his mind as he sat near the river alone, his spot shaded by an enormous cottonwood tree. It was something else that commanded his attention, and he didn’t really know what to do about it. And it involved one of the new captives. He wasn’t averse to taking captives by any means, be they white, black, Mexican, or even from another tribe. But he’d never had a captive quite like this one. And that was the problem. The easiest way to solve his dilemma would be to kill the captive and disavow any knowledge of her existence. However, he knew people talked and if word got out that the captive had been in his camp when she was killed then Quanah knew he would be hunted
to the ends of the earth. And for the same reason he couldn’t pass the captive off to another band of Indians or sell her to the Comancheros that came occasionally to trade.

  The second easiest thing to do would be to give the captive back to her family. But that, too, had implications. Quanah had no doubt she had endured some hardships because that’s the way the Comanches treated all their captives. And he couldn’t be angry with the four braves because they were young and had no idea whom they had captured. In fact, Quanah thought he would have probably done the same thing at that age. However, he was a much wiser man now and what had already happened was water down the creek.

  Quanah had never met the man his brothers called Heap Big Guns, but he’d seen him plenty of times from a distance and had heard the stories. And none of the stories he’d heard had happy endings if you were an Indian. Quanah knew the types of guns the man had and had seen similar guns in action, but he’d never fought against anyone who had weapons like that, and he had no desire to do so now. To help prevent any possibilities of future conflict with Heap Big Guns, Quanah had ridden by the man’s lodge many times and had spent a fair amount of time familiarizing himself with the faces he saw. That’s why he had a general idea who the new captive was even before he saw the brand drawn in the dirt.

  As an alternative to the already-discarded list of possibilities, he wondered if he could hide the girl long enough for the old man to die. But then he remembered hearing Little Heap Big Guns wasn’t any better and he crossed that off the list.

  With no easy answers, Quanah switched his thinking. If he could get some of the braves on the reservation to join him, he figured he could put together a fairly large war party of maybe eight hundred braves. And if the old man and his son were already on the hunt, they could attack them and kill them, thereby eliminating the problem altogether. The only problem he could see with that scenario was one of numbers—how many dead would be too many? The big boom gun and the gun of many rifles would be like squaring off against an army of four hundred well-armed soldiers. Some on his side would surely die, but how many? Quanah wondered. The more he thought about it the more he came to realize an outright attack wasn’t plausible. It would be a suicide mission and Quanah liked living too much.