The Black Jacks

by Jason Manning

  She could not know that Gray Wolf had called the warrior a coward for making war on defenseless women and children. That the whites murdered Indian women and children was no excuse. Was the Quohadi no better than the white man? His own wife, Snow Dancer, had been gunned down by a Texas Ranger, but Gray Wolf refused to dishonor her memory, and himself, by shedding the blood of innocents out of revenge. He would no longer ride with warriors who had no honor. Removing the bonnet of feathers which signified his status as war chief, Gray Wolf coldly announced his intention of going his own way. From now on, Red Eagle could lead the Quohadis. A few of the warriors tried to reason with him, including his brother, Running Dog, but Gray Wolf refused to listen.

  As he walked angrily away from the campfire, Gray Wolf caught a glimpse of the fierce elation on Red Eagle's face. Red Eagle knew that Gray Wolf had destroyed his reputation by forsaking his responsibilities as a chief, especially while on the warpath. Few if any Quohadi warriors would ever again follow Gray Wolf, mused Red Eagle, who could not believe his own good fortune. His greatest rival for the loyalty of the Quohadi warrior class had figuratively cut his own throat, and over what? A dead white baby and its mother! Truly Gray Wolf had betrayed his true self. He was weak in spirit, and unfit to lead the Quohadis into battle.

  That night Gray Wolf rode west, leaving the rest of the Quohadis in their camp, and taking Emily with him. Exhausted, she kept dropping off to sleep, jerking awake as she felt herself falling off the mule. Finally she did not awaken until her body hit the ground. The pain of the fall scarcely registered. She was wet, cold, and hungry. Her inner thighs were rubbed raw from riding countless miles bareback.

  To her surprise, Gray Wolf did not make her get back on the mule. They spent the remainder of the night in a rocky draw. He gave her some pemmican, and she consumed it. Then she lay on the hard wet ground and went to sleep.

  He woke her before dawn and they were on their way again. At least the storm had passed. About midday they crossed a wide river. Grasping his pony's mane with one hand, Gray Wolf held on to Emily with the other. The mule swam across on its own recognizance. She assumed the Comanche was afraid she might try to escape by letting the current carry her away. The thought had occurred to her, but she quickly discarded it; she doubted that she had the strength to fight the river and keep from drowning. But then, it was possible that he knew she was too weak to swim on her own and did not want her to drown.

  Emily had no idea what river it was, but the fact that she was far from home was made manifest by the starkly different landscape. This country was arid and rocky and rugged, dotted here and there with dusty mesquite trees and wind-sculptured post oaks, the grass sparse and brown, the soil red and sandy. Clumps of prickly pear cactus were everywhere. It was a far cry from the grassy meadows and thick forests of the Brazos blacklands. This alien and inhospitable terrain did nothing to alleviate Emily's dull despair. Still, flying in the face of all reason and reality, she clung to the belief that Uncle Yancey and Captain McAllen would save her.

  The day seemed to go on forever. A hot sun blazed in a colorless sky. The blanket did not cover very much of her body, and her flanks and arms were soon burned. Finally Gray Wolf stopped and helped her off the mule. She sank immediately to the ground, but he took her roughly by the arm and half dragged, half carried her down into a dry creek bed, leading the horse and mule. Emily could tell by the expression on his face that something was wrong. They reached a cutback and Gray Wolf pressed her back against the hard, fluted red earth, a hand clamped over her mouth. Emily's heart leaped against her rib cage. The sound of horses drifted out of the twilight's purple haze.

  Minutes crawled like hours. The darkness deepened. Gray Wolf was watching the rim of the cutback overhead. Emily gazed over his shoulder at the far side of the dry wash, and it was there that she saw the shape of a horse and rider seemingly rise up out of the ground, silhouetted against the indigo backdrop of the western sky. She could tell it was a white man by the distinctive shape of his broad-brimmed hat. She gasped at the sight of him, even as she realized that the man could not possibly see her or her Comanche captor—the shadows that had gathered in the dry wash were blacker than the devil's heart.

  Gray Wolf heard her gasp, felt her body go rigid, and he turned his head to look behind him. The sight of the rider not a stone's throw away gave him a start, but he didn't move an inch, his eyes narrowed to slits. The horseman rode on, seeming to sink back into the earth as he quit the high ground. Gray Wolf looked at Emily. She was gazing at the spot where the rider had disappeared, and the anguish in her eyes was apparent even in the gloom of twilight, and he experienced a twinge of remorse. He admired this woman's courage and stamina and intelligence. In some ways she reminded him of Snow Dancer. The memory of his dead wife was still agonizing, and it occurred to him that there was probably a white man who loved this woman as he had loved Snow Dancer, and who was suffering the same kind of agony.

  Without fully knowing why, he removed his hand from the woman's mouth.

  Emily stared at him in disbelief. They stood close together, and she thought she recognized a kind of calm resignation on his face—a face painted for war with traces of vermilion strokes across his forehead and beneath the eyes, strokes that had once been boldly delineated but now, after a rainstorm and a river crossing and many days on the warpath, were mere shadows of their former selves.

  She could cry out for help—the rider was close enough to hear her in the stillness of the evening, and he wasn't alone; she was sure she'd heard several shod horses. Perhaps it was Uncle Yancey and Captain McAllen and the Black Jacks. Whoever it was, they could kill this lone Comanche and she would be saved. Her long, hideous ordeal would be over. She could go home.

  But the Comanche knew all this, too—knew she could bring death down upon him with a single word. And yet he had removed his hand from her mouth. He was giving her permission to call out. Why? In that split second of decision Emily sought the answer in his dark eyes.

  He did not want to live! Yes, that had to be the reason.

  Emily had not really thought of him as a human being before, but of course he was, and at this moment, for whatever reason, he did not feel that life was worth all the pain of living. She had felt the same way time and time again during her captivity. She had endured the depths of despair which her captor was now experiencing.

  She remembered how he had saved her from the Comanche who had tried to trade her for a horse or a jug of whiskey, who had stripped her naked and presented her to his companions as though she were a slave girl on the auction block. She was certain she had been spared from a fate worse than death. And she remembered how this warrior had reacted to the deaths of the white mother and her baby, and how he had raged at the murderer. And how could she forget that this man had fed her and given her water, all the while never striking her or even attempting to molest her during this horrible ordeal?

  Now he had put his life in her hands, fully expecting her to throw it away.

  Emily thought of home, of Uncle Yancey, and, most of all, of John Henry McAllen. John. He had asked her to call him John. And she thought of the flower which he had preserved and which he treated like some precious artifact.

  She began to cry silent tears, because she could not cry out, could not save herself if it meant signing the Comanche's death warrant. Sinking to her knees, she covered her face with her hands and wept. But she wept quietly.

  Gray Wolf sat on his heels beside her and watched her cry. His heart went out to her, even as he marveled at the fact that he was still alive. Why had the woman spared him? He was her enemy. The urge of war and revenge abandoned him in that moment and left him oddly empty and directionless. A white man had spared his infant son's life months ago, when the Rangers attacked the Comanche encampment outside of Bexar. Now a white woman had proved she would rather remain a prisoner, her fate uncertain, than be the instrument of his death. Gray Wolf was puzzled. He tried to sort through his jumbled thoughts.


  Eventually the woman could cry no more. She lay down and went to sleep, curled up in a ball, and Gray Wolf removed the blanket from the back of his war pony and covered her with it. Suddenly he felt very protective toward this woman. He wanted no harm to come to her. He knew he ought to set her free, so that she might return to home and loved ones. Now was the time, before they got too far into the wild country. Until morning he debated with himself. But in the end, as the new day dawned in soft shades of gray and pink, he came to the realization that he did not want to let her go. He did not want to part with her.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  On the night that Emily let slip the chance to save herself, John Henry McAllen and his Black Jacks attacked the Quohadi war party which Gray Wolf had forsaken.

  The day before, McAllen thought they had lost the trail of Emily's abductors. Hard rains had obliterated the sign made previously on hard ground. But they pressed on westward, and though they missed the place where the Quohadis had camped—and where Gray Wolf and his warriors had reunited with the group led by Red Eagle—they could not miss the tracks left by eighty warriors and a herd of more than one hundred stolen horses, especially when the sign was made on rain-soaked ground. The Indians he was following had joined an even larger group, and McAllen realized that would make rescuing Emily more difficult, but for the moment he was glad for it—the Comanches left a trail a blind man could follow.

  McAllen entertained some hope of acquiring a few reinforcements himself. After all, by this time it had to be common knowledge up and down the frontier that another band of Comanches besides those whipped at Plum Creek were on the loose east of the Colorado River. And yet, with the exception of the men from Columbus who had fired on the Black Jacks by accident, McAllen hadn't seen another soul on the prowl for the hostiles. And where, pray tell, were the Texas Rangers? The men Mirabeau B. Lamar counted on to make the Texas frontier safe? Where had those vaunted Indian fighters been keeping themselves during the great raid?

  But then McAllen decided it was probably just as well that there were no Rangers on the trail of the Comanches who had raided Grand Cane. Their first priority—their reason for being—was killing Indians, while his was rescuing Emily Torrance.

  As usual, the Comanches sought the cover of trees in which to make their night camp, in this case the willows and cottonwoods which grew along a shallow, rocky creek, with open prairies to the north and south. They knew that San Antonio and Austin were but a long day's ride to the southwest and northwest, respectively, so they were on the constant alert for armed bands of Texans. The horse herd was driven down into the timber, and the herd guards were charged with keeping them there. No fires were permitted. Most of the stolen whiskey had been consumed long ago, and there would be no boisterous recounting of warpath exploits; the Quohadi warriors were bone-tired, and most of them just wanted to get home to the Llano Estacado.

  Following their trail, and spotting the line of trees up ahead as the last shreds of daylight melted out of the western skyline, McAllen halted the Black Jacks and considered the situation. He did not need Joshua to tell him that they were but an hour or two behind the hostiles, and those trees yonder made a perfect site for the Comanche night camp. He sent Joshua ahead on foot to reconnoiter. The half-breed was back in a quarter of an hour with news that was music to McAllen's ears. The Comanches were there and settled in for the night.

  The odds were about seven to one, but this in no way deterred McAllen and his men. Never in their history had the Black Jacks enjoyed numerical superiority going into battle. In a dozen major engagements against the Seminoles, in the Battle of San Jacinto, and on previous occasions when they had tested the mettle of Comanche war parties, the Black Jacks had always been outnumbered. Perhaps never so greatly, but these men were not the type to be discouraged by what they considered a minor point.

  They waited for hours, sitting or lying in the tall prairie grass, reins tied to their wrists. A few took this time to get a bite to eat—cold, hard biscuits and jerky. Others tried to sleep. No words were spoken. No tobacco was smoked—they were about a quarter mile from the Comanches, and Indians had sharp noses. All weapons had long ago been loaded and primed.

  McAllen waited until midnight, checking his key-winder more than was necessary, battling the demons of impatience. He had set for himself the goal of locating Emily as soon as they entered the Comanche camp. Nothing else mattered. Whether Yancey had the same intentions was not a factor. Yancey had changed, and McAllen could not be sure what was in his friend's mind. Possibly his desire to avenge Mary's death might blind him to his responsibilities. His behavior regarding his son Brax had raised serious doubts in McAllen's mind.

  At midnight McAllen stood up. As one the Black Jacks also rose, watching their leader. McAllen gestured for them to fan out and then began to walk toward the trees, leading Escatawpa. The others followed suit. The only sounds to interrupt the stillness of the night were the rustle of the tall grass made by their passage, the cry of a distant nighthawk, the occasional whicker of a horse. Three hundred yards. In spite of the coolness of the night, McAllen found himself sweating. Two hundred yards. The Black Jacks' horses smelled the creek now, and their whickering was answered by a few ponies in the Comanche herd. Any second now, thought McAllen, and the alarm will be raised. One hundred yards. McAllen could see the milling shapes of the stolen horses in the silver-blue moonlight that filtered down through the trees.

  Close enough. McAllen stopped and mounted the gray hunter, drawing one of the Colt Patersons from his belt. To left and right the Black Jacks climbed into their saddles. McAllen drew a deep breath and kicked Escatawpa into a gallop.

  The Black Jacks thundered straight into the Comanche camp, yelling like banshees, their pistols and rifles spitting flame. Escatawpa carried McAllen across the creek and into the very center of the Indian encampment. All was noise and confusion. Muzzle flash sporadically illuminated the scene. Some of the Indians sought only to escape, leaping upon their ponies and scattering, or taking off on foot. Others turned to fight. The horse herd stampeded. The Black Jacks tore through the Comanches like a scythe through wheat. "Glory Hallelujah!" shouted Will Parton as he dealt death. "Glory Hallelujah!" McAllen emptied his Colt Paterson, jammed the pistol under his belt, and drew its fully loaded mate. Each time he fired, a Comanche went down, dead or dying.

  As usual, Joshua was by his side. A Comanche, fleet of foot, came up on McAllen from behind and leaped on the back of Escatawpa with a war club raised and a cry of savage triumph on his lips. But before he could strike, Joshua was leaping out of his saddle and dragging the Indian off the gray hunter. They hit the ground in a jumble. With one swipe of his Bowie knife, Joshua nearly decapitated the warrior. McAllen shot down another Quohadi who was closing in on the half-breed. Quid pro quo. It had always been so. McAllen had been fighting side by side and back to back with Joshua in more scrapes than he cared to remember. For both men it was second nature to look out for the other.

  Guns and surprise worked in favor of the Black Jacks. Twenty Comanches fell in the first two minutes. The death of so many brothers discouraged the surviving Quohadis. The merciless fury of the Black Jacks discouraged them even further. The survivors broke and ran. Some were chased down and shot to death. But the Black Jacks did not stray too far afield. They were too experienced for that. They regrouped beneath the trees. Dying Comanches were finished off; no prisoners would be taken. McAllen put Joshua to work looking for some sign of Emily, and set about doing the same. But there was no sign of her to be found, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach McAllen wondered if she had even been here.

  Matt Washburn was found lying dead in the creek, a lance jutting from his chest. Cedric Cole had taken an arrow in the arm. The shaft was broken and then pulled through. Then Cole's wound was cauterized with gunpowder set aflame. McAllen led his men a few miles up the creek before calling a halt for the night. He didn't think the Comanches were in any condition to launc
h a counterattack, but it wasn't wise to tarry too long at the scene of an Indian fight.

  The men who rode with him were grim and silent. There was no elation, no crowing about the hurt they had put on the hostiles. The trail from Grand Cane had been a long one, and McAllen sensed that they were near the end of their rope. He sat down with his back to a tree trunk and reloaded his Colts and faced facts. That wasn't an easy thing to do. He was not the kind of man who easily admitted failure.

  Yancey walked up and sat on his heels in front of him. In the darkness McAllen could barely make out his old friend's face, but then he didn't really need to; he knew what Yancey was going through because he was going through the same thing himself. For a while neither man spoke, for neither much cared to hear the truth spoken right out loud.

  "We lost her," said Yancey finally, choking on the bitter words. "Somewhere along the line we lost her. I don't think she was with this bunch."

  "We'll go back down the creek in the morning," said McAllen. "Joshua may find a footprint or something." He tried to inject some optimism into his voice, but the attempt was feeble.

  "The Colorado's less than a day's ride," said Yancey, his tone of voice dull and lifeless. "After that. . ."

  He didn't finish. They both knew what he meant. Yancey took a deep breath and abruptly stood. "You better take the boys back home, John Henry. They've got families and such to take care of. Crops or businesses to tend to. This is a losing proposition."

  "Yancey, what about your boy?"

  Yancey walked away without answering.

  McAllen took a handkerchief from the pocket of his trail-grimed black shell jacket—the handkerchief enfolded the flower Emily had given him. Fresh determination intruded upon his misery. As long as there was a chance, he would not give up. Clearly he would not be able to find Emily this way. But there was another way. . . .