“There would have been time to capture all the white women if both of the men were dead,” Swift Pony went on, frowning all around the group. “But everyone went after the women, even though I said some of you should kill the men.”
“You missed the first shot,” Broken Branch muttered.
For an instant, Hornet thought Swift Pony was going to attack Broken Branch and kill him for his disrespect. However, they needed every warrior who could fight, if they were going to avoid capture themselves and reach the border.
They had been carrying on the conversation in the Comanche tongue, of course, when suddenly the darker blond woman said in English, “You. Big fella. Where in blazes are you taking us?”
Because of the time they had spent on the reservation, all the warriors spoke the white man’s language, at least to some degree. Hornet was fairly good at it, having picked it up because he was young.
Swift Pony spoke it well, too. He glared at the blonde and said, “Be quiet, woman.”
“Yeah, well, you can just go to hell,” she responded. “If you’re smart you’ll let us go right now, before you get even deeper in trouble.”
Swift Pony laughed scornfully. “Trouble? Do you believe my men and I fear women?”
“I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about Ace and Chance Jensen.”
“The white men who were with you?” Swift Pony shook his head. “I am not afraid of these . . . Jensen boys. If they pursue us, they will die!”
The woman sounded strangely confident—confident enough to make Hornet frown in sudden worry—as she said, “You just keep on thinking that, mister, and in the end we’ll see who lives . . . and who dies!”
* * *
Chance had dragged Ace to the wagon and propped him up against one of the front wheels. Agnes dipped a rag in one of the water barrels and wiped it over his face as he started to come around.
Ace’s eyes fluttered open. For a moment he wasn’t able to focus, but then Agnes’s face settled into familiar lines as she knelt in front of him and leaned close.
“You’re hurt!” he said.
“What, this?” She gestured toward the strip of cloth tied around her forehead. “It’s nothing, just a cut. Chance cleaned and bandaged it.”
Chance walked around from the other side of the wagon, carrying a rifle. “He’s awake?”
“Yes, he just came to. How do you feel, Ace? Can you see all right?”
“Yeah, things were a little fuzzy at first, but it’s better now.” He sat up straighter and winced. “What happened?” Something occurred to him and made him look around quickly, even though the movement caused fresh pain to pound inside his skull. “Where are the others?”
Agnes swallowed hard. “The Indians took them.”
“All of them?” Ace said, his eyes widening in shock.
“Yeah.” Chance’s face and voice were grim. “I think all of them were all right when those renegades rode off with them, but God knows what’s happened to them since.”
Ace took hold of the wagon wheel and pulled himself to his feet. The world spun crazily for a second, but he braced himself on the wheel and his head settled down quickly. “How long ago was this?”
“Less than half an hour,” Agnes said.
“I’d say twenty minutes,” Chance added. “You were out for a while. You must’ve banged your head pretty hard when you fell off your horse.”
Ace looked around again. Relief went through him when he spotted the chestnut standing not far off with Chance’s gelding. The horse appeared to be all right.
“He’s not hurt,” Chance said, knowing what his brother was thinking. “He must have stepped in a hole when he went down. Lucky he didn’t bust a leg.”
“Yeah, lucky,” Ace repeated with a slightly hollow note in his voice. He was glad his horse was all right, but that was the only ray of light in an otherwise terrible situation. “We have to go after them.”
“Damn right. Are you able to ride?”
“You bet I am,” Ace said. “Where’s my hat?”
“It’s up on the driver’s seat,” Agnes told him. “I’ll get it for you, and if you’ll wait a minute I’ll put together some supplies for you.”
Ace started to tell her that they couldn’t afford to wait, but considering that they didn’t know how long they would be on the trail of the renegades, maybe taking some supplies with them wasn’t such a bad idea.
Agnes climbed onto the box, tossed Ace’s hat to him, and then disappeared into the wagon. The canvas cover had been lowered on the sides, so the Jensen brothers couldn’t see what she was doing.
“I’m a little surprised you didn’t go after them without me,” Ace said.
“Believe me, I thought about it, but I knew how much you’d complain if you came to and I’d already had all the fun.” Chance grew more solemn as he added, “Besides, I figure we’d stand a better chance of rescuing those ladies if we both go after them.”
“You mean if all three of us go after them.” Agnes jumped down from the driver’s box.
Both brothers raised their eyebrows when they turned to look at her. She had taken off the simple traveling dress she’d been wearing and replaced it with a pair of overalls and a man’s shirt. Work boots were on her feet, and she had a broad-brimmed hat on her head.
“This is what I wore back on the farm,” she went on. “I thought it would be better for riding.”
“Wait just a blasted minute,” Chance said. “You’re not coming with us, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.” Agnes picked up the rifle she had placed on the floorboards in front of the driver’s seat. “I’m going to unhitch that bay horse from the team. He looks like he’ll do the best for riding.”
“We don’t have an extra saddle,” Ace pointed out.
“I rode all over my family’s farm, almost from the time I could walk, and never saw a saddle. I’ll put one of our blankets on him, and it’ll be fine.”
“You’re going to fight Indians?” Chance said.
“What do you think I was doing just a little while ago? I burned plenty of powder, shooting at the varmints.”
“How many of them did you hit?” Ace asked.
Agnes glared at him. “I don’t know. Maybe I hit some of them and maybe I didn’t. But the important thing is that you’re not going to leave me here while you go off after those savages. I may not have known any of those ladies a couple weeks ago, but they’ve become friends of mine.”
Ace thought about it for a moment and then said, “Having an extra gun along might not be a bad idea.”
“But she might get hurt,” Chance objected.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not right here,” Agnes said. “I’m willing to run the risk. Besides, we may have trouble coming up on us from behind, too. What if I was here with the wagon by myself and those Fairweather brothers came along?”
“She has a point,” Ace said. “It’s not safe to take her with us, but it’s not safe to leave her here, either. She might as well be where we can keep an eye on her.”
Chance grimaced. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s get that horse unhitched.”
“We need to take all of the horses with us,” Ace said. “Once we’ve rescued the ladies, they’ll need mounts to ride, too.”
That made sense. They unhitched all the horses and rigged hackamores and lead ropes for them. Ace had considered taking the wagon along, then quickly discarded the idea. Even with the extra horses they could move a lot quicker than they would be able to with the wagon. They would have to leave the vehicle and all its contents. Somebody might come along and loot it, but that couldn’t be helped, and anyway, it didn’t really matter.
Everything the women had packed to bring along with them to their new lives wouldn’t mean a blasted thing if they remained captives of the Comanche—or worse.
A few minutes later, Ace, Chance, and Agnes rode away from the wagon, leading the extra horses an
d heading south.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The six men reined their horses to a halt as they came in sight of what appeared to be an abandoned wagon.
“What’s that?” Ripley Kirkwood asked as he lifted himself in his stirrups and peered across the scrubby wasteland.
“Might be just an immigrant wagon that some pilgrims went off and left,” Lew Shelby said.
“No, it ain’t,” Seth Cooper spoke up excitedly. “That’s the wagon them women were travelin’ in, ain’t it, Earl? We got a good look at it when we snatched Molly away from ’em.”
Leon grunted. “Didn’t do a very good job of keeping her, did you?”
Cooper’s face flushed angrily, but Earl Brock lifted his good hand and motioned for Cooper to take it easy. They had come this far in their edgy alliance, and there was no point in letting it descend into argument.
“Let’s just go see what that wagon can tell us,” Brock suggested.
“Might be a trap,” Shelby said.
“Not likely. The horses are gone. It looks like they went off and left the wagon there.”
Kirkwood’s voice showed the strain he was under as he asked, “What if the women are in there . . . dead?”
“They’d better not be,” Brock said. “I’ve got too much riding on Molly still being alive. Nothing bad’s going to happen to her . . . at least until I catch up to her again.” He hadn’t explained about the money Molly had stolen from him. There was no point in tempting their newfound allies into a double cross. All Kirkwood, Leon, and Shelby knew was that Molly was married to Brock and had run away from him, and that he was determined to find her and settle that grudge.
The men nudged their horses into motion again. They spread out so they could approach the wagon from slightly different directions. Kirkwood and the wounded Earl Brock hung back a little, letting Leon, Shelby, Cooper, and Hawthorne—all able-bodied fighting men—take the lead. Those four rode with their rifles ready.
Coming up to the wagon, it quickly became apparent that no lurking threat would be found. The vehicle was empty of human occupants—living or dead.
From the back of his horse, Shelby looked over the tailgate, spotted some bloodstains in the back of the wagon, and pointed them out to the others. “Something happened here, that’s for sure.”
Cooper poked at some marks on the outside of the wagon bed. “Bullet holes.”
“Empty shells inside the wagon, too,” Hawthorne added. “There was a fight here.”
Kirkwood and Brock rode up.
Hearing the comments, Kirkwood quickly moved his horse over next to the driver’s box. “Let me look through their things. If I can find something of Isabel’s, that’ll prove this is the right wagon.” He stepped from the saddle onto the box and then climbed into the back of the wagon.
He was in there for only a few moments before he reappeared on the box clutching a gold necklace with an emerald dangling at the end of the chain. He waved it in the air and said, “This is hers! I should know since I gave it to her, the ungrateful bitch. This is the right wagon, all right.”
“That’s what we told you,” Cooper said. “Question now is, where the hell are them women?”
Hawthorne pointed to a welter of tracks on the ground and said, “Looks like some unshod ponies were millin’ around here. That means Indians.”
“Savages,” Kirkwood said. “I thought the Indian troubles in Texas were over.”
“Mostly,” Shelby said. “But that don’t mean all the redskins are gone. Every now and then some of those bucks take it in their heads to go raiding again.”
Kirkwood’s face became more pale than usual as he asked, “They usually kill white captives, don’t they? Often by torturing them to death?”
“Hey, you’ve got a grudge against that gal you’ve been chasing, don’t you?” Shelby said with an ugly grin. “Maybe her winding up in the hands of some bloodthirsty Comanches will do the job for you.”
A growl sounded deep in Leon’s throat. He started to turn his horse toward Shelby’s when Kirkwood shook his head in a signal for Leon to let the gibe pass.
Hawthorne said, “Any time redskins go to the trouble of carryin’ off a woman, there’s at least a chance they won’t kill her. Could be they figure on makin’ squaws out of those prisoners. That’s happened plenty of times. After a few years, the only way you can tell a captive woman ain’t an Injun is because she’s got blond hair or blue eyes. Other than that, they talk Comanch’, they dress Comanch’, they have Comanch’ babies and live like Comanch’. And some of ’em, even when they’re rescued, don’t want to go back to bein’ white.”
“That would never happen to Isabel,” Kirkwood snapped. “She’s too strong-willed for that. She’ll force them to kill her before she would ever go along with such degradation.”
Brock said, “You’d be surprised what some folks will do in order to survive.”
Cooper had ridden off a short distance from the wagon. He called to the others and pointed to the ground. “Looks like they all headed south. Funny thing, though. There’s this whole bunch of unshod Injun ponies, and then trailin’ along behind them are the tracks of half a dozen horses wearin’ shoes.”
“That explains where the wagon team is,” Brock said. “Those Jensen boys went after the Indians, and they unhitched the team and took the horses with them so the women will have something to ride once they’ve been rescued.”
“There were more than a dozen renegades,” Shelby said. “What are the chances those two youngsters can rescue those women?”
“More than likely they’ll just get themselves and all the women killed. But they’d damned well better not do it before I get my hands on Molly!” With that, Brock set off on the trail of the Indians and their prisoners, following the tracks that were clearly visible in the sandy soil. Cooper and Hawthorne were right behind him, and after a moment, Kirkwood, Leon, and Shelby turned their horses and followed as well.
* * *
Ace had worried about Agnes’s ability to keep up, but so far she had shown no signs of flagging. She rode well, just as she had claimed. Her face was etched with lines of determination. The bandage around her forehead just added to her grim appearance.
At the same time, it gave her a bit of a rakish look. Chance commented quietly on that while they were stopped to let the horses rest and Agnes had retreated into a stand of chaparral to tend to personal business.
“That bandage makes her look a little like a pirate, don’t you think?” Chance said.
“Would you have noticed that if Jamie was still around?”
“I think I might have. Agnes is hard to ignore.”
“You did a pretty good job of it starting out,” Ace said.
Chance grimaced and waved a hand. “I was distracted. That doesn’t mean I don’t open my eyes sooner or later and see what’s right in front of me.”
“Maybe the way Jamie acted around Lieutenant Wingate helped open those eyes for you.”
“Maybe,” Chance admitted. “But I’d like to think I would have noticed her sooner or later.”
Agnes came back from the brush then, so the brothers couldn’t discuss the subject anymore. They all mounted up and resumed following the trail.
“How far behind them do you think we are?” Agnes asked. “Can we catch up to them before nightfall? Where are they headed?”
“That’s three questions,” Ace said with a smile. His head still hurt from being knocked out, but the pain had faded to a dull ache. “Judging by the tracks they left, they were moving pretty fast when they rode away from the wagon. They’ve got a good lead on us. How big is hard to say. Can’t really predict how long it’ll take to catch up to them, either.”
Chance said. “They’re bound to be headed for Mexico. Across the border, they’ll be safe from the cavalry, and there’s plenty of rugged country down there where they can hole up. Comanches are Plains Indians, but Swift Pony probably knows that if they stay in Texas, they’ll either
be killed or captured and hanged. Hiding in the Mexican mountains is better than that.”
“It’s such a wild, uncivilized life,” Agnes said. “I don’t see how anyone can exist that way.”
“It’s all they’ve ever known,” Ace said.
The terrain got even flatter and drier the farther south they went. The Jensen brothers hadn’t visited that part of Texas before, but it struck them as pretty inhospitable. The only wildlife they saw were tarantulas, scorpions, long-tailed rats, big-eared jackrabbits, and rattlesnakes. And buzzards wheeling through the high, pale blue sky. Dry washes still cut through the landscape, rocky ridges reared here and there, and mesas thrust up in the distance. Prickly pear cactus seemed to be everywhere.
They moved at a fast, steady pace, resting the horses when necessary. All three of the pursuers were prepared to push themselves as hard as possible, but the horses had to be protected. Without their mounts, they stood no chance of rescuing the captives, and if they were set afoot, out there so far from anywhere, they might not make it out alive.
Ace felt his hopes sinking as the afternoon wore on and the sun began to drop toward the horizon. As far as he could tell by studying the hoofprints they were following, they had cut into the renegades’ lead to a certain extent, but the Indians were still well ahead.
The war party had been moving too fast for the women to be in danger of being assaulted, but once night fell, that vestige of safety might disappear along with the sun. The renegades would have to call a halt. They were traveling through unfamiliar country, just like the Jensens and Agnes, and the danger of riding right off a cliff into a canyon would be too great.
Then they would have time to start thinking about their prisoners as women, not just captives.
Ace wasn’t going to bring up that subject. He knew Chance was probably aware of it already, and Agnes might well have her suspicions. All they could do was keep moving, keep searching.
And maybe pray a little, too.
By the time the sun touched the western horizon, they hadn’t come in sight of the renegades.
Ride the Savage Land Page 26
