by Gary Paulsen
HE WAS SURE he was dead. There had been times before when he thought he would die—–several times—but this time he was certain, and so when there seemed to be things happening in his mind, he thought he was either in heaven or hell. And whichever it was, Lottie's voice was there.
“I think it's disgraceful the way you just tied him up and dumped him across a saddle like a piece of meat. His head is all bioody, and I think I see his brains in there ready to leak out, and you're just letting him hang like that where they could flop out in the dirt …”
It all faded then into a kind of redness that covered him and he stayed that way until something jerked at him, pulled him sideways and threw him down to the ground.
“He might be dead already, for all you care. Look at him, he's all shot to pieces. What's he going to be worth to you if his brains flop out?”
This time Francis tried opening his eyes. He was on his back, and when he opened them the sun was shining direcdy into them and seemed to shoot a hot spear into the center of his head. He jerked his eyes shut. It did not stop Lottie's voice.
“Where are you taking us? All I see ahead is mountains and brush. Nobody of a civil nature would take two children into a wilderness—ummph!” There was a thump and Lottie's voice stopped. This time Francis turned away from the sun a bit and opened his eyes and kept them open.
His head was exploding in pain; waves of it came from the left side over to the right. He started to reach up and feel it but his hands were tied together. When he tried to roll and free his arms, somebody in back kicked him in the ribs hard enough to make the breath whisde out of his nose.
He lay still on his side and tried to focus on what he could see. A forest of horses’ legs was there, standing still. There was a smell of horse sweat, so they had been working hard. Men moved back and forth tightening cinches and checking hooves. They were stopped in a small clearing in a stand ofphion and juniper. The ground was rocky. He could not see Lottie or Billy or Garcia without moving, and he was afraid that if he moved, the men would kick him again and he would pass out. It had all come back to him now, riding into the men, raising his rifle, getting shot at. Garcia. What had happened to Garcia? Probably dead.
Aside from the pain in his head and what he thought was dried blood caked there and down the side of his face, he had another burning pain across his left thigh. It looked like a ball had creased there, only slighdy breaking the skin. That must be the problem with his head as well: A ball had creased him. How in heaven's name could all those men shoot at him and miss? And after not killing him in the first place, why did they keep him alive and not just shoot him and be done with it?
“Up,” somebody said in English and kicked Francis again, this time in the back.
Francis rolled onto his stomach, worked his knees beneath him and levered himself up. His head was on fire. He didn't move fast enough and somebody kicked him again.
“Francis, you have to get up and get on a horse. These men will shoot you sure if you can't ride.” Lottie's voice sounded on the edge of crying. “Please get up …”
“Lottie?”
“Shut up!” Another kick, but this time the force of the blow helped him move up and he gained his feet. “Mount.”
There was the mare standing next to him. She had a bloodied ear and blood down her neck from the wound there but was apparently not hit in any other place. It was a miracle, he thought—that he hadn't been riddled and that somehow they hadn't hit the mare solid either.
He grabbed the saddle horn and pulled himself up, foot in the stirrup, leg up and over, sitting there, on The edge of vomiting with pain but sitting there hanging on to the horn with his tied hands and weaving slightly.
Now he could see better as well.
They had been climbing into a shallow pass, heading south by the direction the sun stood. He had been facedown over the saddle; his stomach was bruised, and his shoulders and arms were sore from bumping against the side of the horse. How long he had been unconscious he couldn't guess.
The men worked on in silence. They were, now that Francis had had time to study them, very hard men. Some of them looked to be full-blood Indians and some appeared to be mixed, but they all knew horses and wasted no time checking their mounts. There was no water but some snow in patches. They rubbed the snow up inside their horses’ lips to moisten diem. They had ridden hard, Francis thought, and planned to ride harder.
Lottie and Billy were still on me mule ahead of him three or four paces, Lottie looking back with worry in her eyes. She had a bruise on the side of her face where she'd been struck. Billy had been crying but he seemed quiet now and was looking at the men the way Francis had studied them—checking their gear, their mounts, the way they looked. Francis almost smiled. Billy was growing faster than he'd thought.
He started to say something but Lottie saw his face and shook her head, held her finger to her lips and whispered, “They don't like it if you talk.”
“Shut up,” a man mounted next to her said. “Or we will leave you tied to a tree for the coyotes …”
There was no chance for talk after that. The men mounted, spread out in single file with Francis on the mare and Lottie and Billy on the mule in the middle and set off without speaking another word.
Headed south. Away from any civilization, away from the trail west, away from help.
Away.
Francis had done some long riding in his time, hard riding and hard living, but he had never experienced anything like what these men did now. He didn't think men could stand it. Even more, he didn't think horses could take it.
They simply didn't stop.
As the day wore on Francis felt the pain diminishing to a steady throb that kept the side of his head burning. The dizziness left him, and he worked his wrists to loosen the tie there so that his blood would circulate better. In spite of her wounds, the mare kept up the pace easily—she was, like the others, a tamed wild horse and had enormous stamina. The mule kept up as well.
Billy stuck to the packsaddle like a burr but Lottie started to have trouble toward the end of the day. She weaved and Francis would see her catch herself to keep from falling asleep and falling off the mule.
In late afternoon, they stopped but not to rest. The men all dismounted and made Francis and the children do the same. Francis thought they would stop for the night but he was wrong. They loosened the cinches on the horses for no more than five minutes, retightened them and remounted.
They can't be serious, Francis thought. They're not going to keep riding. One of the men dug into his saddlebags and handed each of the children and Francis a piece of jerky.
“Eat.”
“But I'm thirsty,” Lottie said. “And Billy is too …”
The man struck her once alongside the head. “Eat.”
She started to chew the jerky, and Billy did the same. Francis did likewise and within moments they were riding again.
At first Francis had the strength to think while they rode. The men were running—he was sure of it. Initially he thought they were Indians but some of them spoke Spanish and several spoke English fairly well, and they didn't seem to be of a tribe. Renegades, he thought.
Afternoon bled into evening and soon it grew dark and cold. The men didn't care. The leader kept the pace, riding somewhere ahead in the darkness. The rest followed with Francis and the children in the middle.
They came out of the mountains in The darkness and started riding across flat prairie. The stars were brilliant enough to give some light, and when a sliver of moon came up it seemed almost daylight.
All night they rode. Just before dawn, when it was coldest, the leader stopped and dismounted and the rest of them did the same. Francis thought surely they will stop now; surely they have run far enough to be safe.
But they did not. The men jumped around and slapped their arms against their sides to get warm. They let the children take care of their “personal business,” as Lottie called it, gave them another piece of jerky
and a short swallow from a canteen, and retightened cinches before remounting and setting the same crippling pace.
The sun crawled up and by this time Francis was on the edge of hallucinating. He kept seeing shadows jumping out at the edge of his vision. Billy was fast asleep, somehow maintaining his balance, and Lottie had jammed herself into the packsaddle and was sleeping as well.
It was then, just before the sun was high enough to provide warmth, that Francis found out who had them.
The men hardly spoke, and when they felt it necessary they kept it low, just above a whisper. But as Francis dozed the mare moved ahead a bit to be near two of them and one of them said the word: “Comanche.”
Francis's eyes snapped open and he knew instantly who tliey were. Not Indians, not Coman-ches—these men were Comancheros.
Francis had heard stories of the Comanchcs down south—mosdy in Texas. They were universally feared and made raids for plunder and prisoners as far as the northern edge of the Texas frontier.
From what he'd heard, they were bad enough. But worse were the dreaded Comancheros, groups of men who traded with the Comanches. It would explain how they worked the horses. At one of the trading posts, Francis had heard mountain men talking of The Comancheros and how they rode. They said a white man could drive a horse until it dropped, then a Comanche could get tlie horse up and get forty more miles out of it before it dropped again, but a Comanchero could come along, get two hundred more miles out of it, then eat it when it finally collapsed. Tough men.
When they had stolen stock and goods from raiding, the Comanches would meet bands of Co-mancheros to trade for ammunition, weapons, flour, sugar, lead, and salt. Sometimes, Francis had heard, the Comanches would keep children to raise as slaves.
The Comancheros had a reputation worse than the Comanches themselves. As near as Francis could figure it, he and the children were being taken by a band of them down into the south country where the Comanches roamed.
Absolutely nothing good could come from it. They would be sold, he thought. Or worse: separated and given to the Comanches.
There was only one way open for them. They had to escape.
But the Comancheros kept driving south, farther and farther away from any possible help, into a country Francis did not know. With every step escape seemed more and more impossible. If they would just stop, Francis thought, give him time to think, to rest.
But the pace never let up. They ate riding, slept riding, and kept moving, somehow keeping the horses going by force of will.
All day they moved, stopping only once to loosen and retighten cinches, to take a sip of water and a bite of jerky. All day and into the night they kept riding until Francis felt like he'd never done anything else; moving until Lottie and Billy became part of the mule and packsaddle. All through the night and into the next day. Finally, out in the flats of the prairie, they came upon a cut, a wide canyon that didn't show until they were almost on top of it.
The leader led them down a winding trail wide enough for one horse along the canyon wall. Far below Francis could see a group of small shacks in a stand of cottonwoods—little more than brush huts covered with skins—and a winding stream. It was too far away to see any people, but he could make out a fairly large herd of horses, and by squinting, he finally saw small figures running back and forth. Some wagons were parked near the shacks. As they dropped down the canyon wall, Francis could hear dogs barking.
It wasn't a village so much as a mobile camp, and if this trail was the only way out, it didn't leave much hope for escape. Not that it mattered so much now. Francis was so tired he couldn't make his brain work to formulate a plan anyway; so tired he had difficulty paying attention to anything but keeping his balance on the mare.
She was tired as well. When they came out into the bottom of the canyon, she began to weave and wobble and he knew she would go down soon. She somehow stayed on her feet until they were near the horse herd, then she setded gendy to the ground. Francis stepped off as she caved in, and as if she were signaling, half the other horses went down as well.
The men dismounted and unsaddled, dragging gear off the horses without making them rise. Some other men and a few women—as dirty as the men who had taken them prisoner—came out and greeted them, all without talking except in low murmurs. They spoke a mixture of Indian dialect and Spanish as they helped to strip gear off the horses and drag it to the wagons.
A woman came over to Lottie and pinched her cheek. Lottie kicked her and the woman backhanded the girl, slapping her so hard that Francis heard her teeth click.
“Leave me alone!” Lottie was half asleep on her feet. “Just leave me—”
The woman grabbed her hand and took Billy's as well—he was standing near Lottie, his eyes closed—and dragged them into one of the huts.
“Where are you taking them?” Francis started after them without thinking. One of the men stepped up in back of him and quietly, professionally thumped Francis just under his left ear with the brass butt of his rifle.
Francis went down like a stone.
“Francis! Wake up, Francis! We need you—you have to wake up!”
Lottie's voice, insistent, pushing, pulling him awake. He opened his eyes and saw a dark brush ceiling over him. Then Lottie's face came into view, and next to her, Billy's. Billy was chewing on a piece of jerky.
“What …”
“One of them hit you on the back of the head with his gun. Billy and I dragged you in here—-the woman let us—and then they went away and they haven't been back, and I untied your hands. I think they're expecting somebody because they killed one of the horses and are cutting it up to roast. I've been watching them through a crack in the wall. It's not hard. The wall is all cracks. There isn't actually a wall at all, just a bunch of sticks you could throw a cat through—”
“Lottie, please. Quiet. My head is killing me and I have to think. I know who they are now.”
“So do I. They're called Comancheros. I heard some of them talking and they used the word. Is that a bad thing? I mean I know it can't really be good, the way they're treating us and all. But are Comancheros really awful, like I think?”
Francis shut his eyes. “As bad as it gets, from what I hear. We have to get out of here.”
“Not until we get some rest. Billy fell asleep standing up and I'm near ready to drop.”
“All right. One of us should stay awake and watch thern. I rested some on the mare so I'll take the first watch— Oh, she's not the horse they killed to eat, is she?”
“No. It was a scruffy wild thing they had in the herd.”
“Good. I've been through a lot with that mare …”
Lottie had settled against the wall. She seemed to shrink into her blanket pullover and was asleep instantly.
Francis sat and leaned back against the other side of the hut, and turned so that he could see between The branches.
There wasn't much happening. The men who had taken them prisoner were asleep as well, and some older men and women—there were no children—were dragging in wood and making large fires. Francis could see the dead horse where they'd shot it. Two women were cutting chunks of meat from it, hanging diem over sticks near the fire.
There were half a dozen mangy dogs nearby. They clearly wanted the meat but stayed away from it out of fear. Francis saw why when one of them came a litde too close and a woman hit it with a piece of firewood so hard that it ran off screaming, dragging a leg.
Nice, Francis thought. Really nice people here, these Comancheros.
He dozed. Every part of him hurt: his hips and legs from riding, his head from the bullet strike and the rifle butt, his arms from being tied. He didn't sleep but he dozed, in and out, catching himself when his head dropped and snapping his eyes open. But at last he couldn't stay awake.
He wasn't sure how long he'd slept—several hours—and it was dark when he awoke. Lottie and Billy were still asleep, and he wondered for a moment what had awakened him. Then he heard it. Men and women
were running back and forth, dogs were barking in alarm.
Somebody was coming and Francis moved to the doorway of the hut to see.
It was pitch dark, the lowering sky threatening to snow. Aside from the fire there was almost no light.
The dogs were all barking toward The northeast and Francis watched that direction until he saw a figure looming out of the darkness. One man on a horse, pulling two other packhorses with huge loads piled so high tliat the horses looked like dwarf ponies.
But it was the man who caught his eye.
The man sat straight in the saddle and was wearing a buffalo robe for warmth. He had a rifle balanced across his lap, though he didn't seem concerned that he might be in danger, and the rifle just lay diere cradled. The packhorses followed him naturally—he didn't have a rope back to them—and as he rode near the fire he raised his right hand in greeting and smiled. His left arm was missing and he was wearing a derby-style hat with a feather in it.
“No,” Francis said half aloud. “It can't be …”
The man sitting on his horse by the fire, greeting the Comancheros like old friends, was Jason Grimes.
Francis was stunned. Memories roared back. His capture by the Pawnees, Grimes “helping” him escape, their life together trapping until Grimes fought a man named Braid in single-handed combat. Grimes had reverted into a kind of madness as he mutilated the dead Braid.
Grimes had been badly wounded in that fight, and Francis had struck out on his own, angry at Grimes for becoming what he considered so evil. He'd thought it probable that the mountain man had died of his injuries.
Clearly he had survived. And just as clearly he was not trapping beaver any longer. He had become a businessman, judging by the enormous loads on the two packhorses. A trader.
Somebody who traded with The Comancheros.
Talk about stooping low, Francis thought, watching Grimes and the men unpack the horses near the fire. Grimes could crawl under a snake.
“Who is it?” Lottie had awakened and was peering through the brush wall next to Francis. “You know him? Is that another friend?”
