by Lou Bradshaw
Rita had both hands clutching her topknot trying to keep from being yanked baldheaded. All the while, he was laughing, and she was screaming and swearing. The Ute pulled his pony up and swung his leg over the back and dropped to the ground. Rita immediately started clawing and fighting. The brave swung the barrel of his carbine and gave her a little love tap… she dropped like a rock.
Without any wasted motion he was down on one knee with a piece of rawhide and tying her hands in front of her. Then he slapped her a couple times and she began to come around. Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, she began cussing again. He yanked her to her feet and then shut her up with a slap across the face. Then he unceremoniously threw her across the saddle of her horse.
I stepped out from cover with my Winchester ready to use and said, “What ya got there, Powder Face?”
He spun around ready to shoot, but I had the drop on him and he knew me well enough to know that I’d shoot and hit what I was shooting at. Powder Face had an old muzzle loader blow up on him, and it left about a third of his face forever black.
His face split into an evil smile as he recognized me. “Aye, Mean Eyes, you get so blind you don’t know a nekked white woman when you see one? You want to fight me for her?”
“I got no reason to want her… she’s too mean and ugly for me… I’m just surprised that you’d want one that ugly and skinny… You be careful, my old enemy, this woman has killed at least eight men. If I’d a caught her, I’d taken her back to be hung, or else I’d a shot her.”
“She too skinny for me… I give her to my squaw for slave. Ute women know how to break a slave. When she no good for work I sell her to Apaches… they no care about ugly… sooner or later she wind up in Mexico.”
He was standing between me and Rita’s horse. She was draped over the saddle cussing, with her bare bottom looking at me. If I’d looked the other way, he’d have shot me.
“Let’s move over here away from the pony, I’m not sure I should be lookin’ at that.”
Powder Face roared with laughter and gave her a swat that left a red hand print that must have stung. We walked away from Rita and the horse, and we got down to dickering. I’d known Powder Face for years. We’d fought many times and managed to draw blood a couple of times. And we’d fought side by side when some White Mountain Apaches raided into Ute land. We respected each other as a fighting man, but neither of us would turn his back on the other.
“I’d just as soon you took that woman back with you and put her through hell because she deserves it… but I will fight you for her horse. She killed mine and left me afoot… I need that pony, and I’ve got something better to trade for it… unless you’d rather fight me for it.”
“What you got, Mean Eyes?”
I led the way over to where I’d stashed Rita’s things. I picked up her gun belt and pulled her old Dragoon Colt from the holster and ejected the three cartridges it contained. “How about that?”
“Three bullets… no enough.”
“Not the bullets, you bone head… the pistol.”
“Do I still get three bullets?”
“Sure.” I told him. Then I checked the belt and handed it to him “And you can have these too.”
“Hmmm? Don’t know… that a fine pony.” I gave him two more cartridges from my belt.
He walked over and dragged Rita from her horse letting her fall to the ground. She started screaming at me, telling me it was my job to protect her and not let those heathen savages take her.
“Ma’am, there ain’t a blessed thing I can do about it. He’s got me out numbered and surrounded. I’ll be shot with luck if I can make it out of here alive.”
About that time two more Indians came up stream leading several horses. They were both squaws, one a might older than the other. I figured them to be Powder Face’s wife and her mother. Both women were built like boulders, and neither one showed any inclination toward smiling. The younger one was missing the end of her nose.
Rita asked me what was wrong with her nose. I told her, “That’s the dirty nose sign. She was unfaithful to her husband and he cut it off. He had the right to kill her, but he loved her and she was a good cook…. So if he would do that to someone he loved, just think what he’d do to a trouble making skinny white woman.”
She was trying to put up a front, but she kept looking at those women and then to Powder Face. Rita was a tough woman, and she had used her sex to keep from getting shot. She knew that few white men would be apt to pull the trigger on her. She also knew there wouldn’t be one jury in a thousand would hand down a hanging sentence on a woman. But this was something she hadn’t planned on. I think she was still holding out hope that I’d come to her rescue.
“Those two women will be your judges and your jury. You give them trouble, and they will peel your skin off strip by bloody strip. Every squaw in the village will take part… from now on; you will belong to the squaws. The first thing they will do when you get back to the village make you run a gauntlet through the women, each will have a stout stick or a switch.”
“You behave and you’ll be miserable, but if you fight them, you’ll die a horrible death. Personally, I doubt that you’ll last a year.”
“But they can’t have slaves,” she wailed… it’s against the law.” *
“Yep… I’d heard that kidnappin’, bank robbin’, and murder was too.” I said as Powder Face’s women threw Rita to the ground and started kicking her. I don’t think she heard me, but it didn’t matter because I was loading my gear onto her grulla and getting’ ready to pick up my fancy dude clothes and start to courtin’.
The End
*Actually, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 only specified 10 warring states. It did not include Indian reservations or neutral states. It is said that many Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw families took their African slaves with them on the Trail of Tears march. Those legal flaws were fixed, but a number of western tribes held slaves of various races for some time.
About the Author
I am a retired illustrator, cartoonist, and graphic designer, who had spent more than 40 years in the graphic arts field. A lifelong storyteller, I didn’t venture into serious writing until the age of 64. I now have nine finished novels, and I’m working on the tenth. I didn’t know if I could write, but since no one told me I couldn’t, I went ahead and gave it a shot. I knew there were a few readers around, who like me, still loved the old style westerns. I had no idea there were so many. And I’m truly thankful for each and every one.
One of the more perplexing aspects of my writing is that until I was well into adulthood, I would have been considered a functional illiterate. I could barely read, and I still struggle. Children in those days who couldn’t keep up were considered slow or lazy by most educators. I have no idea what the problem was, but I worked through it. Since then, I’ve become an avid reader and a collector of old books, with many of vintage titles in my personal library.
I live in the Ozark Mountains of southwestern Missouri, USA, with my lovely wife, Avon. We enjoy golf, kayaking, and the great outdoors.
