A Vast and Desolate Land

by Robert Peecher

  Rab stood and looked down the wash, following the tracks of the sorrel with his eyes.

  "They walked the sorrel this way," he said, pointing.

  "Get back to the herd, O'Toole. Ride up to Kuwatee and send him here to meet me. You take his position, and make sure Fitz knows he's riding alone at the back. You lay eyes on him constantly. I don't have to tell you, O'Toole. You've done this enough with the cavalry. We're in real danger. If them Comanche have decided to take us one at a time, this could get real ugly."

  O'Toole spat on the ground.

  "Hell, Rab."

  "Tell Kuwatee not to waste daylight getting down here."

  -10-

  A half hour lead was an enormous advantage that would only get better as the day grew longer.

  The Comanche knew where they were going and could go at whatever speed they wanted. Rab Sinclair and Kuwatee had to learn their way, following tracks that sometimes disappeared and had to be rediscovered or sometimes deceived. And if the Comanche attempted to hide their trail or double back, Rab and the half-breed might lose an hour or more just figuring out where they'd gone.

  "Our only advantage is that from a high spot on a level plain they've got no place to hide," Rab said. "If we catch sight of them, we can catch them."

  They'd followed the tracks down the wash and then followed as they diverted back up another wash.

  There a fourth man joined them, and they were now tracking five horses — the horses belonging to the Comanche and the sorrel.

  Kuwatee had Caleb's horse on a lead and was bringing it with them.

  Rab considered changing mounts, but despite its morning adventure to the abandoned hut, the Appaloosa seemed ready to go all day as hard as Rab wanted to ride, and Kuwatee's horse had done nothing more than ride along as the herd's pace. And changing mounts would lose them another fifteen minutes.

  So without fresh mounts, Rab and the half-breed tracked the Comanche through the wash until they found a place on the bank where the horses had left out of the wash and cut a trail to the north.

  It was luck that Kuwatee spotted the place. One of the Comanche had ridden his horse ten or fifteen yards forward and then backed it up to the place where the others left the wash. It was an effort to deceive anyone trailing them. Rab had missed it, and might have been several minutes trying to find the right trail. But Kuwatee, riding along behind Rab, had seen a fresh scuff mark on a boulder jutting out from the bank. This was the place where the Comanche had exited the wash.

  It seemed almost deliberate, and probably was, but the Comanche's trail kept to the low places on the open plain. Twice, Rab left Kuwatee to follow the trail and he rode up to a hill to look out for any sign of the Comanche. But wherever they were out on the horizon, he could not see them.

  "What are the chances they're trying to pick us off one by one?" Rab asked Kuwatee.

  "Small," Kuwatee said. "If that was what they wanted, we would have found Caleb's body by now. And they would have attacked us. They took the boy as a hostage."

  "Why would they want him as a hostage?" Rab asked.

  "They have reasons," Kuwatee said. "They will make those reasons known when they're ready."

  An hour of riding and following the trail finally took them out to a place where the low spots leveled out, and up ahead, more than a mile away, Rab and Kuwatee could see the small band they were tracking.

  Five horses, including the sorrel, were standing in a wide semi-circle and from the distance appeared to be grazing.

  The Comanche were sitting on the ground.

  "Eating their supper," Kuwatee said.

  "It's like they don't even care that we're here," Rab said. "You think they haven't seen us?"

  "They've seen us," Kuwatee said.

  He pointed to a nearby pile of boulders as tall as a house and long as a train.

  "We ride to Caleb, maybe thirty Comanche come out from behind those rocks."

  "A trap?" Rab said.

  "Surely."

  "Stay here. Be ready to run. I'll ride out to them."

  Kuwatee nodded. "Go slow. Do not charge them. Do not draw your gun. They seek to parley or we'd already be dead."

  Rab urged the Appaloosa forward.

  He broke out into the open plain and rode an easy pace out toward the Comanche. As he neared them, he could see Caleb sitting among them. He looked as if his hands and feet were bound with rope.

  He cleared the edge of the boulders, about thirty yards away from him, and as Kuwatee predicted, sixteen Comanche rode out toward him. They were also going at similarly easy pace, though they managed to get all the way around him and box him in. None of them came too close, though. They kept a wide berth and allowed Rab to keep riding out toward the Comanche who had taken Caleb.

  About ten yards from Caleb and the four Comanche who had led him here, Rab reined in the Appaloosa to a stop.

  "My name is Rab Sinclair. That boy belongs with my outfit," Rab said. "Cut him loose and turn him over to me."

  One of the Comanche stood up. They'd been eating a roasted bird of some kind, though there was no fire anywhere.

  "Boy stay with Comanche."

  Rab Sinclair had an easy way. He didn't rile very quick. Growing up among the tribes had given him that level temper. Too often, white men were quick to angry, and their anger never set well with Indians. But Rab Sinclair's nature was equally infuriating to them because he did not act the way they expected him to act.

  He also never showed any kind of fear because he wasn't afraid.

  "No, that boy don't belong to the Comanche. You haven't told me your name. Who am I talking to?"

  The Comanche warrior was a young man, and that was a poor sign. If there were no elders, that meant these Comanche were likely renegades and they'd do any damn thing they took a notion to because they didn't have an elder to rein them in.

  He wore deerskin leggings and a breechcloth and a deerskin shirt. His long hair was braided in the fashion of the Comanche and tied with leather thongs. His scalp lock, the small braid at the top of his head, was tied with a bright blue cloth and had a single white feather coming out of it. He wore shell earrings in both ears and his cheeks bore shape tattoos.

  "I am called Pounding Fist."

  The Comanche stood with an imposing posture. He looked like he might charge at Rab at any moment. The men surrounding him were still mounted and most of them carried lances. Pounding Fist had a knife in his belt, but was otherwise not armed.

  Rab looked over Caleb. He was pale with fright, but otherwise seemed unharmed.

  "You okay, boy?" Rab asked him.

  "They knocked me on the head pretty good, but I ain't hurt," Caleb said.

  "You no talk to boy," Pounding Fist said. "You talk to me."

  "Let's parley, then," Rab said. "Why did you take this boy from my outfit?"

  "You have one we want."

  Rab bit his lip. "Who do we have that you want?"

  "Buffalo killer. You take him in."

  This caused Rab a moment of confusion. His outfit had taken in two of the buffalo hunters, but Pounding Fist seemed to be interested in just one. Or maybe he only knew that Rab had taken in one. Skinner Jake had not come out of the wagon since they'd found him. It was possible the Comanche did not know about Skinner Jake.

  "Comanche slaughtered all them buffalo killers," Rab said.

  "Not all," Pounding Fist said. "One walk with you."

  Cossatot Jim.

  "He ain't with us no more," Rab said. "He stole a hawss in the middle of the night and rode off."

  Pounding Fist had pretty good English. Rab had tried to communicate with Comanche before and it was always saying the same thing over again in a dozen different ways trying to make himself understood. Sometimes Rab wondered if the Comanche always understood but just wanted to be aggravating because they seemed to take great pleasure in a parley of circles.

  But Pounding Fist didn't need anything repeated.

  The Comanche stood for a
long time, contemplating this new piece of information.

  Rab stretched one leg out and over the Appaloosa's neck so that he was sitting side saddle with one leg crossed. He purposefully sat as relaxed as he could. He wanted all those Comanche to know he wasn't afraid of them.

  At this point, Rab was fairly certain the Comanche didn't intend to kill him, or if they did it would just be through sheer meanness.

  "What do the Comanche want with the buffalo killer?" Rab asked.

  Pounding Fist stared hard at Rab Sinclair, his face contorted in rage. He spoke just one word, and it was chilling.

  "Justice."

  Rab chewed his lip a moment.

  "Mind if I smoke?" he asked.

  Pounding Fist nodded.

  Rab took a pipe from his pocket and the tobacco pouch from his saddlebag. The pipe he was smoking was given to him by a chief of the Ute tribe. Ordinarily, in dealing with Indians, Rab liked to display any pipe he had that was given to him as a gift of friendship. But with the Comanche that was pointless. The Comanche seemed to exist in a constant state of war with every other tribe, whether it was open warfare or just smoldering hatred.

  Rab went through three matches before he could strike one that stayed lit in the wind.

  He puffed on the pipe a few times.

  "Looked to me like the buffalo killers go their justice," Rab said. "I come up on a whole lot of bodies a couple days back. Why worry over one?"

  Pounding Fist narrowed his eyes.

  "You want boy, you bring buffalo killer."

  "I told you," Rab said. "He rode off on one of my hawsses."

  "You bring him."

  "What did he do?" Rab asked.

  "He take Comanche woman. Use her. Kill her. Leave body in arroyo. Kill her son."

  Rab puffed the pipe. "How do you know it was him and not one of the others?"

  "Three buffalo killers take woman. Three. No matter which ones. All get justice."

  Rab chewed a piece of tobacco between his front teeth and then spit it into the wind.

  "How do you know it was three?"

  "Comanche woman's daughter saw. Told Pounding Fist what happen. Now we come for justice."

  "Comanche justice is damned harsh," Rab said, thinking back on the massacred buffalo hunters.

  "Justice is justice," Pounding Fist said.

  "That boy didn't have nothing to do with what happened to your woman," Rab said. "You know that. Turn him loose."

  Pounding Fist held his tongue for a long moment. Then he said, "You bring buffalo killer and trade for boy. Or boy will stand for buffalo killer."

  "How's that?" Rab snapped. It was the first sign of anger he'd offered.

  Pounding Fist let the slightest grin cross his face, and he nodded his head. He knew now that he'd struck a chord.

  "Boy will stand for buffalo killer. Justice will be done. Either you bring buffalo killer, or boy take justice."

  "What's he saying?" Caleb cried out.

  "He ain't saying nothing," Rab said. "Don't you worry, Caleb."

  "He's going to kill me for what that man Cossatot Jim done?"

  "Yes!" Pounding Fist thundered. "Kill boy or kill buffalo killer. That is justice."

  Rab drew on his pipe and blew the smoke out. It immediately disappeared into the wind.

  "That ain't justice, and Pounding Fist knows it. Turn loose the boy and go get the buffalo killer yourself. And when you get him, bring me back my hawss, and I will buy the hawss from Pounding Fist with white man coins."

  Pounding fist shook his head. "Pounding Fist do not care about white man coins. Justice is all. Boy or buffalo killer. No more talk."

  "I don't have the buffalo killer. He run off on my hawss."

  Pounding Fist held up three fingers. "Six sunsets. One tonight. Five more after the sun sets tonight. If you do not bring buffalo killer, before the sixth sunset, Pounding Fist finds his justice with boy."

  "Rab," Caleb pleaded.

  "You just be cool, Caleb," Rab said. "Be cool and calm."

  "Six sunsets," Pounding Fist said. "You bring buffalo killer."

  Rab looked out to the west where the sun was already getting low on the horizon.

  "Where will Pounding Fist be?" Rab asked.

  "You will find Pounding Fist."

  Rab Sinclair wheeled the Appaloosa and at a sign from Pounding Fist the mounted Comanche behind him broke their circle to give him space to ride through.

  "Rab!" Caleb called. "You can't leave me here."

  Rab turned in his saddle and looked at the boy. "Don't you worry none, Caleb. I'll be back. They ain't going to hurt you. I promise you that."

  He started to leave, but then reined in the Appaloosa and gave another glance back to Pounding Fist. "I'll want that damn sorrel hawss back, too."

  -11-

  When Rab Sinclair and Kuwatee reached the herd, Carlos had already stopped the drive for the day.

  Sancho was cooking beans and bacon in a skillet.

  Fitz and O'Toole had picketed the horses near the chuck wagon, and Miguel and Jorge were pushing a few stray steers back into the herd.

  "Yo! Gather round me," Rab called out as he rode into camp and dismounted.

  Kuwatee took the three horses — his own, and Rab's Appaloosa, and Caleb's that they'd been trailing — and picketed them with the rest of the remuda. He unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down. They'd been ridden hard back to the camp, and the sun was not yet down.

  "Me too?" Sancho asked.

  "Finish your cooking," Rab said. "Where the buffalo runner?"

  "Still in the back of the wagon," Sancho said.

  "Keep him there. Don't let him out where he can be seen at all."

  Fitz and O'Toole made their way to Rab. Vazquez left the post he'd taken up near the chuck wagon. Carlos was still mounted, but only so that he could keep an eye out across the plain for any steers that looked like they might drift too far from the main body of the herd.

  "Miguel and Jorge are still bringing in the steers," Carlos said. "Should I signal to them?"

  "Let them keep working," Rab said. "They don't speak enough English for it to matter, anyway."

  Rab stood where he'd dismounted and rubbed the dust from his eyes. He dropped the bandanna he'd used to shield his face from the dust and wind. Even with the bandanna, Rab's lips were cracked and his face burnt from so many days in the relentless wind.

  "The Comanche took Caleb," Rab told the others. "He's unhurt, but they've taken him as a hostage. They claim the buffalo hunters killed a Comanche woman, and that's why they attacked the camp. They know we took in that feller Cossatot Jim. They saw him walking with us. They say if I don't bring them Cossatot Jim in six days, they're going to give Caleb the justice they've planned for that Arkansas buffalo hunter."

  Fitz let out a long whistle.

  "Hell," O'Toole said. "How many men are they?"

  "I counted twenty altogether," Rab said. "Could be more, but that's the number they showed me."

  "Probably ain't a coincidence they showed you twice our number," O'Toole said. "They like having an advantage in a fight. If they showed twenty, you can bet they's thirty at least."

  "Who doesn't?" Fitz said.

  Rab directed his next question to O'Toole. "The leader of the Comanche is a man named Pounding Fists. Ever heard of him?"

  O'Toole shook his head. "Never did. He can't be much of a chief, or I'd probably have heard his name."

  "He's young," Rab said. "I wouldn't make him more than about twenty-five years old."

  "So what are you going to do?" O'Toole asked.

  Sinclair chewed his lip.

  "Like as not, I'm going to fetch that man Cossatot Jim and trade him out for Caleb," Rab said.

  Fitz was the first to bristle, but he wasn't the last.

  "You cannot turn a man over to those savages," Fitz said. "You and I both know what they would do with him, or we have a near enough idea of it."

  Vazquez interjected. "I agree with Fitz, R
abbie. If it's true that he did what the Comanche claim, he should be turned over to a U.S. Marshal. That's the way to deal with it."

  Rab shrugged.

  "If we found this man, forgetting the Comanche for a moment, what would we do with him for stealing my hawss?"

  "We'd hang him," O'Toole said. "But we wouldn't roast his privates like a duck on a spit. That's what the Comanche will do."

  "We'd give him frontier justice," Rab said. "Because that's what men like us do with hawss thieves. The Comanche have their own sense of justice. It would be right and proper for me to ride out after that man, Cossatot Jim, and string him up for thieving my hawss. Well, it's right and proper that if he violates a Comanche squaw and then kills her, he should be handed over to the Comanche for justice."

  "Is that what you'd do to me?" O'Toole asked.

  Rab gave him a hard look.

  "If you violated a Comanche squaw and killed her then I'm a poor judge of a man," Rab said. "I reckon I don't believe you'd do such a thing. But if you did, yes. I'd turn you over to them. But y'all are all forgetting our choice here. The Comanche are going to deal out justice one way or t'other. Our choice is to give them the guilty man in exchange for Caleb or to stand by while Caleb gets the treatment they planned for Cossatot Jim."

  "We could fight it out," O'Toole said. "Try to get Caleb back."

  Rab didn't bother to respond. If anyone knew how that would turn out it was O'Toole. The numbers were in favor of the Comanche, but even if the outfit survived a fight, Caleb certainly would not.

  "Why does it fall on us to turn over the man?" Fitz said. "Why not just go after him themselves?"

  Rab nodded. "I reckon they ain't convinced that I'm telling the truth when I say that Cossatot Jim ran off on one of my hawsses. This way, if I'm lying to them and I have Cossatot Jim, I can just hand them over. And if I'm telling the truth and he has run off, then they put the burden of finding him on me. But I'll tell you this, if they see that feller Skinner Jake in our camp, then they'll really believe I was lying to them. And they might kill Caleb whether I bring them Cossatot Jim or not."