The Outlaw Josey Wales

by Forrest Carter

  “It is her lodge,” Lone said. “She’s told me it’s the first time she has a lodge of her own.”

  “Reckin it’s her’n and yore’n,” Josey said quietly.

  Lone shifted uncomfortably, “The woman ... I never thought, old as I am ... this place is like when I was a boy ... a young man ... back there....” His voice trailed off in a helpless apology.

  “I know,” Josey said. He knew what the Indian could not say. Back there, back beyond the Trail of Tears ... back there in the mountains there had been such a place; the home ... the woman. And now it was given to him again; but he fretted against what he felt was somehow ... disloyalty to the outlaw. Josey spoke, and his voice was matter-of-fact and held no emotion, “Ye ain’t knowed ... by name. We’ll git the riders, but I couldn’t leave Laura Lee ... the womenfolks, without I knowed they was somebody to be trusted ... to boss and look after. Ye must stay here ... ye and Little Moonlight . she’s near good as a man ... better’n most. Ain’t no other way. Besides, I’ll be trailin’ back this way and more’n likely need a place to hole up.”

  Lone touched the shoulder of Josey, “Maybe,” he said, "maybe they’ll fergit about ye, and ...”

  Josey cut a chew of tobacco and studied the valley below them. There was no use saying it ... they both knew there would be no forgetting.

  Chapter 18

  Ten Bears trailed north from wintering in the land of the Mexicano, below the mysterious river that the pony soldiers refused to cross. Behind him rode five subchiefs, 250 battle-hardened warriors and over 400 squaws and children. Glutted with loot and scalps from raids on the villages and ranchos to the south, they had come back over the Rio Grande two days ago. They came back, as they had always done in the spring ... as they always would do. The ways of the Comanche would not be shackled by the pony soldier, for the Comanche was the greatest horseman of the Plains and each of his warriors was equal to 100 of the bluecoats.

  Ten Bears was the greatest of the war chiefs of the mighty Comanche. Even the great Red Cloud of the

  Oglala Sioux, far to the north, called him a Brother Chief. There was no rivalry in all his subchiefs, for his place, his fame, was legend. He had led his warriors in hundreds of raids and battles and had tested his wisdom and courage a thousand times without blemish. He was eloquent in the speech of the white man, and last fall, as the buffalo grass turned brown, he had met General Sherman on the Llano Estacado and had told him the ways of the Comanche would not change. Ten Bears always kept his word.

  When he had received the message that the blue-coat General wished to meet with him, he had at first refused. There had been four meetings in five years, and each time the white man offered his hand in friendship, while with the other hand he held the snake. At each meeting there was a new face of the bluecoat, but the words were always the same.

  Finally he had agreed and selected the Llano Estacado as the meeting site ... for this was the Staked Plain that the white man feared to cross; where the Comanche rode with impunity. It was a fit setting in the eyes of Ten Bears.

  He had refused to sit, and while the bluecoat leader talked, he had stood, arms folded in stony silence. It was as he had suspected; much talk of friendship and goodwill for the Comanche ... and orders for the Comanche to move farther toward the rim of the plain, where the sun died each day.

  When the bluecoat had finished, Ten Bears had spoken in a voice choked with anger, “We have met many times before, and each time I have taken your hand, but when your shadow grew short upon the ground, the promises were broken like dried sticks beneath your heel. Your words change with the wind and die without meaning in the desert of your breast

  If we had not given up the lands you now hold, then we would have something to give for more of your crooked words. I know every water hole, every bush and antelope, from the land of the Mexicano to the land of the Sioux. I ride, free like the wind, and now I shall ride even until the breath that blows across this land breathes my dust into it. I shall meet you again only in battle, for there is iron in my heart.”

  He had stalked away from the meeting, and he and his warriors had burned and looted the ranches as they rode south through Texas into Mexico. Now he was returning, and hatred smoldered in his eyes ... and in the eyes of the proud warriors who rode with him.

  It was late on a Sunday afternoon when Ten Bears rounded the ridge of the mountains to make medicine in the cool valley ... and saw the tracks of the wagons.

  That same Sunday morning, the gathering for services took place in the shade of the cottonwoods that surrounded the ranch house. Grandma Sarah had announced it firmly at breakfast, “It’s a Sunday, and we’all will observe the Lord’s day.”

  Josey and Lone stood, awkwardly bareheaded; Little Moonlight between them. Laura Lee, still mocca-sined, but wearing a snow-white dress that accentuated the fullness of her figure, opened the Bible and read. It was a slow process. She moved her finger from word to word and bent her sun-browned face studiously over the pages: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me…”

  It took a long time, and Little Moonlight watched a house wren building a nest in a crack of the ’dobe.

  With a great sigh of triumph, Laura Lee finished the Psalm, and Grandma Sarah looked sternly at her little congregation, expending a particularly lingering look at Little Moonlight. “Now we’ll pray,” she said, “and ever’body’s got to hold hands.”

  Lone grasped the hand of Grandma Sarah and Little Moonlight; Josey took the right hand of Little Moonlight and extended his right to hold the hand of Laura Lee. He felt her tremble ... and he thought he felt a squeeze. Little Moonlight perked up ... there was more to the white man’s ceremony.

  “Bow yore heads,” Grandma Sarah said, and Lone pushed Little Moonlight’s head down.

  “Lord,” Grandma Sarah began in stentorian tones, “we’re right sorry we ain’t had time to observe and sich, but Ye’ve seen like it is. We ast Ye to look after Pa and Dan’l, they was ... ’ceptin’ a little liquorin’ up, occasional ... good men, better’n most, and they fit best they could agin that low-down, murderin’ trash out o’ hell that done ’em in. They died tol’able well, considerin’, and,” her voice broke, and she paused for a moment, “... and we thankee Ye seen fit to send one to bury ’em proper. We thankee fer this here place and ast Ye bless Tom’s bones at Shiloh. We don’t ast much, Lord ... like them horned toads back East, wallerin’ around in fine fittin’s and the sin of Sodom. We be Texans now, fit’n to stand on our feet and fight fer what’s our’n ... with occasional help from Ye ... Ye be willin’. We thankee fer these men ... fer the Indian woman ...” here, Grandma Sarah opened one eye and looked cannily at the bowed head of Josey Wales, “... and we thankee fer a good, strong, maidenly girl sich as Laura Lee ... fit to raise strappin’ sons and daughters to people this here land ... iff’n she’s give half a chancet. We thankee fer Josey Wales deliverin’ us from the Philistines. Amen.”

  Grandma Sarah raised her head and sternly scanned

  the circle. “Now,” she said, “well end the service, renderin’ the song ‘Sweet Bye and Bye.’ ” Lone and Josey knew the song, and hesitantly at first, then joining their voices with Laura Lee and Grandma Sarah, they sang:

  “In the sweet bye and bye, we shall meet on that beautiful shore,

  In the sweet bye and bye,

  We shall meet on that beautiful shore.”

  They sang the chorus ... and stumbled a bit over the verses. Little Moonlight enjoyed this part of the white man’s ceremony most. She began a slow shuffle of her feet that picked up tempo as she danced around the circle; and though she didn’t know the words, she brought a peculiarly appealing harmony to it with an alto moan. The red-bone flopped on his haunches and began a gathering howl that added to the scene, growing in noise if not melody. Josey reached back a booted toe to delicately, but viciously, kick him in the ribs. The hound snarled. />
  It was ... all in all ... a satisfying morning, as Grandma Sarah opined over a bounteous Sunday dinner; something they could all look forward to, each and ev’ry Sunday morning.

  Chapter 19

  The scouts told him that only two of the horses were ridden, and Ten Bears knew the meaning of the wagons ... white squaws. He ordered the camp set boldly in the open at the foot of the valley. Ten Bears took pride in the order of the tight, tidy circles of tepees that marked the strict, disciplined ways of the Comanche. They were not slovenly as had been the Tonk-aways, and the Tonkaways lived no more; the Comanche had killed them all.

  Ten Bears had hated and despised the Tonkaways. It had been rumored throughout the Comanche Nation, as well as the Kiowa and Apache, that the Tonkaways were human flesh eaters. Ten Bears knew that they were. As a young warrior, having just passed his test of manhood and inexperienced in the ways of the trail, he had been captured by them; he and Spotted Horse, another youthful brave.

  They had been bound, and that night, as the Tonkaways sat around their fire, one of them rose and came to them. He had a long knife in his hand, and he had sliced a piece of flesh from Spotted Horse’s thigh and carried it back and roasted it over the flames. Others had come with their knives and sliced the flesh from Spotted Horse; his legs and his groin, and in the friendliest manner had complimented him over the taste of his own flesh.

  When they had hit the fountains of blood, they had brought firebrands to stop the flow ... so to keep Spotted Horse alive longer. Ten Bears and Spotted Horse had cursed them ... but Spotted Horse had not cried out in fear or pain, and as he grew weaker, he began his death song.

  When the Tonkaways slept, Ten Bears had slipped his bonds, but instead of running he had used their own weapons to kill them. With the captured horses bearing the stripped skeleton of Spotted Horse and a dozen scalps, he had ridden, splattered with the blood of his enemies, back to the Comanche. He had not washed the blood from his body for a week, and the story chant of Spotted Horse and the courage of Ten Bears was sung in all the lodges of the Comanche. It had been the beginning of Ten Bears’ rise to power and the beginning of the end for the Tonkaways.

  Now, in the gathering dusk of evening, the subchiefs had their squaws set their separate fires along the cool creek. Their tepees blocked any entrance or escape ... from the valley...

  Ten Bears knew of the white man’s lodge at the end of the valley, where the canyon walls came together. He had settled there during the period of peace, after a meeting of Comanche and bluecoat, and more promises that would be broken. Ten Bears once had come to kill him and to kill his Mexicano riders ... but when he and his warriors had ridden to the house, they had found no one.

  Everything was still in order in the white man’s lodge; the hard leaves from which the white man ate were set on his ceremonial table; the food was in the lodge, as were his blankets. True, the horses of the man and his Mexicano riders were gone, but the Co-manches knew that no man would leave without his blankets and his food ... and so they knew as certainly that the man and his riders had been snatched from the earth because of Ten Bears’ displeasure. They had not disturbed the white man’s lodge ... it would be bad medicine.

  Later, in the settlements, Ten Bears had learned that the man had gone to join the Gray Riders, who were fighting the bluecoats ... but he had not told his warriors; they would have listened and accepted his words ... but they had seen with their own eyes the evidence of mysterious disappearance. Besides ... it added to the stature of Ten Bears’ legend. Let them believe as they wished.

  Ten Bears stood alone before his tepees as his women made food. He looked contemptuously at the medicine men as they began their chant. He had stopped the medicine dances when he found that the medicine men were accepting bribes of horses from braves who did not want to dance in the exhausting routine, the test of stamina that would decide if medicine was good or bad. Like religious leaders everywhere, they sought power and wealth, and so had become double-tongues, like the politicians. Ten Bears looked on them with the inborn disgust of the warrior.

  He allowed them their chants and their prattlings of omen and signs, pomp, and ceremony ... but he paid no attention to their advice nor their superstitions.

  Now, with a few words and a wave of his arm, he sent riders along the rim of the canyon to station themselves and watch the lodge of the white men. There would be no escape in the morning.

  Josey slept lightly in his bedroom across the hall from Laura Lee. He had not yet accustomed himself to the walls and roof ... nor the silence away from the night sounds of the trails. Each night Laura Lee had heard him rise several times and walk softly down the stone-floored hall and then return.

  She knew it was late when the low whistle wakened her. It had come from the thin, rifle-slot window of Josey’s room, and she heard his walk, quick and soft, down the hall. She followed him on bare feet, a blanket wrapped around her nightgown, and stood in the shadows, out of the square of moon that shone on the kitchen floor. It was Lone who met Josey on the back porch .... and she heard them talk.

  “Comanches,” Lone said, “all around us on the rims.” His clothes were wet, and water dripped into little puddles on the rough boards.

  “Where ye been?” Josey asked quietly.

  “Down the creek, all the way. There’s an army of ’em down there ... maybe two, three hunnerd warriors ... lot of squaws. It ain’t no little war party. They’re makin’ medicine ... so I stayed in the creek and got close to read sign. And listen to this ...” Lone paused to give emphasis to his news ... “ye know the sign on the Chief’s tepee? ... It’s Ten Bears! Ten Bears, by God! The meanest hunk o’ walkin’ mad south of Red Cloud.”

  Laura Lee shivered in the darkness. She heard Josey ask,

  “Why ain’t they done hit us?”

  “Well,” Lone said, “thet moon is a Comanche moon all right... meanin’ it’s plenty light enough to raid ... with plenty light fer the Happy Huntin’ grounds if one of ’em died ... but they’re makin’ medicine fer big things, probably ridin’ north. They’ll hit us in the mornin’ ... and that’ll be it. There’s too many of ’em.”

  There was a long pause before Josey asked, “Any way out?”

  “No way ...” Lone said, “sayin’ we could slip by them that’s on the rim ... we’d have to go afoot up them walls, and they’d track us down in the momin’, out in the open, with no horses.”

  Again, a long period of silence. Laura Lee thought they had walked away and was about to peer around the door when she heard Josey.

  “No way,” he said.

  “Git Little Moonlight,” Josey ordered harshly and came back into the kitchen. He bumped full into Laura Lee standing there, and she impulsively threw her arms around his neck.

  Slowly he embraced her, feeling the eagerness of her body against him. She trembled, and easily, naturally. their lips came together. Lone and Little Moonlight found them this way when they returned, standing in soft beams of the moon that filtered through the kitchen door. Josey’s hat had fallen to the floor, and it was Little Moonlight who retrieved it and handed it to him.

  “Git Grandma,” he said to Laura Lee.

  In the half-light of the kitchen Josey spoke in the cold, flat tone of the guerrilla chieftain. The blood drained from Grandma Sarah’s face as their situation became clear, but she was tight-lipped and silent. Lit-de Moonlight, holding a rifle in one hand, a knife in the other, stood by the kitchen door, looking toward the canyon rim.

  “Iff’n I was lookin’ fer a place fer a hole-up fight,” he said, “I’d pick this ’un. Walls and roof is over two foot thick, all mud, and nothin’ to burn. Jest two doors, front and back, and in sight of each other. These narrer crosses we call winders is fer rifle fire ... up and down ... and side to side, and cain’t nobody come through ’em. The feller ... Tom ... thet built the house, ye’ll notice, put these crossed winders all around, no blind spots; we got ’em right by each door. Little Moonlight will fire throug
h that’n ...” he pointed toward the heavy door that opened into the front of the house, “and Laura Lee will fire through this’n, by the back door.”

  Josey took a long step to stand in the wide space of floor that separated the kitchen from the living room. “Grandma will set here,” he said, “with the buckets of powder, ball, and caps, and do the loadin’ ... can ye handle thet, Grandma?”

  “I kin handle it,” Grandma Sarah said tersely.

  “Now Lone,” Josey continued, “he’ll fill in firing where at the rush is, and on towards the end, he’ll be facin’ thet hallway runs down by the bedrooms and keepin’fire directed thataway.”

  “Why?” Laura Lee asked quickly, “why would Lone be firing down the hall?”

  “ ’Cause,” Josey said, “onliest blind spot is the roof. They’ll finally git around to it. We cain’t fire through the roof. Too thick. They’ll dig a dozen holes to drop through back there in the bedrooms. That’s why we’re goin’ to stack logs here at the door to the hall. All we’re defendin’ is these here two doors and space ’twixt ’em. When we git to thet part,” he added grimly, “the fight will be ’bout over, one way or t’other’n. It’ll be a last drive they’ll make. Remember this ... when things git plumb wuss ... where it’s liken to be ye cain’t make it... thet means it’s all goin’ to be decided right quick ... cain’t last long. Then ye got to git mean ... dirty mean ... ye got to git plumb mad-dog mean ... like a heller ... and ye’ll come through. Iff’n ye lose yore head and give up ... ye’re finished and ye ain’t deservin’ of winnin’ ner livin’. Thet’s the way it is.”

  Now he turned to Lone, who was leaning against the kitchen wall. “Use pistols short range ... less reloadin’, more firepower. We’ll start a fire ’bout dawn in the fireplace and put iron on it ... keep the iron red hot. Anybody gits hit ... sing out ... Lone’ll slap the iron to it ... ain’t got time to stop blood no other way.”