Tess's Trials

by C Wayne Winkle

  Tess slept the sleep of the exhausted. So deep she didn’t even dream. Almost too deep.

  Later that day, she awoke to the sound of voices. For a few moments, she had no idea where she was. Had she been dreaming? Did she awaken in the back of that wagon in Snake Eyes’ camp? No. That didn’t seem right. She’d escaped from there.

  Then it came back to her. She’d slept in hiding near a water hole. Now, she heard voices.

  Listening closer, she didn’t understand what was being said. She heard literally a foreign language.

  Slowly, she eased toward the edge of the trees that hid her. Peering around a tree with one eye, she saw a small group of Indians gathered around the water hole. She counted seven of them.

  Cheyenne! What are they doing here? They’re way out of their territory .

  The Cheyenne looked like a hunting party; they wore no paint. But there weren’t any woman or children with them, so they weren’t moving across the country. All were young men, and young men wanted to prove themselves. Possibly, they had been raiding down in Mexico and now were on their way home. She saw a fresh scalp on one of the lances.

  Tess watched the young Indians without showing herself. It didn’t look like they were aware she was there. Then, Tess thought, Did I leave any tracks?

  She tried to see whether there were any. Couldn’t tell. And she knew she hadn’t taken any precautions by trying to cover her tracks. She’d been too exhausted. That was not a good way to be in this country with men hunting her.

  But from the actions of the Indians, they didn’t see any, either. She took heart from

  that, at least. She lay back, stayed out of sight, and watched them. What she would do if they

  did find tracks, she had no idea.

  The Indians stayed only a short while. They watered their horses and themselves, then left.

  Tess waited for a long time after they left before she moved. She stayed ready to run the entire time. Only gradually did she relax.

  It was a long time before sleep returned.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rafe spent another long night in camp with Merita. He awakened every hour or so, looked over at her sleeping soundly, then went back to sleep. When he did sleep, it wasn’t restful.

  With the coming of the dawn, he was up and starting the fire. Not long after, Merita got up and did what she usually did.

  They were on the trail again in less than an hour.

  The trail proved easy to follow. The wagons left clear tracks across the prairie. Except in places. Wind scoured places in the prairie down to rock where the soil was thin. In some places, this went on for several miles. There, Rafe had to get down and walk, keeping a close eye on the ground so he wouldn’t miss even the smallest sign. He also stopped frequently to scan the country around them for any sign of others. He didn’t know if the raider had men out to protect them from surprise ambushes. This made the going slow.

  “Can you see the trail?” Merita rode up behind him.

  “Bits an’ pieces,” Rafe replied. “Enough to see we’re still goin’ th’ right way.” He pointed south.

  “How can you be sure?” Merita didn’t sound like she doubted, just that she wanted to know.

  “Found a partial track back there,” he said, pointing a few yards back. “Goin’ in the same direction. Look here,” he knelt down, showed her a scar on the rock. “See the way this scar looks? It was made by a horse or a mule walking south.” He stood again. “We’re still on their trail. Nobody else out here except cowboys countin’ cows. An’ we haven’t seen any cows, so the ranch hands will be someplace else.”

  Half a day passed in this slow manner. Walking, checking the rocks for scars, the bare places for partial hoof prints. Rafe kept an eye on the thunderheads building continually in the west. He didn’t want to get caught out in the open in a spring thunderstorm.

  Finally, they left the rocks behind. Rafe mounted again and kept on the trail from horseback. About the middle of the afternoon, they came upon what looked like a camp site that showed recent use.

  “Looks like they stopped here not long ago,” he said as he rode slowly around the area. “There were tents set up here. And here’s where the wagons were.” He pulled up at a dark spot on the ground, dismounted. “Looks like somebody lost a lot of blood here. Lot of tracks all around.”

  “Over here!” Merita called. She had been riding along the edges of the camp and stopped at a small arroyo.

  Rafe re-mounted and rode over to her side. “What is it?”

  “Looks like three bodies.” She pointed down at three men lying in obvious death sprawls.

  Rafe dismounted and slid down into the arroyo. In a couple of minutes, he climbed back up to her. “All of them shot at close range. Nothin’ in their pockets.” He glanced back across the camp site. “I didn’t see any sign that there was a fight or anything. I wonder if there was some kind of disagreement about somethin’, an’ these three were on th’ losin’ side?”

  “It looks like there’s something over there.” Merita pointed a little way down the arroyo. “The side of this gulley has been caved in.”

  Rafe led his buckskin down the rim of the arroyo to the place Merita pointed out. There were tracks that showed someone had carried something to that spot. The tracks leaving were not as deep as the tracks coming to it. And the rim of the arroyo had been caved in to cover something up.

  He ground hitched the buckskin and climbed down to the spot that had been covered. A few minutes shoving dirt around revealed the torso of a young woman. Another minute, and he had her face uncovered. She was naked, and her throat had been cut.

  Rafe heard a gasp and saw Merita looking down from the rim. “Is, is that one of the women who were kidnapped?”

  “Appears so.” Rafe carefully covered her up again.

  “What are you doing? Aren’t we going to bury her?” Merita’s voice sounded shaky.

  “Can’t do much more’n what’s already been done for her.” He looked up and down the arroyo. “I’ll bring some rocks to put over her to keep th’ varmints away. We’ll have to remember this place an’ come back to get her later. I’m sure her family will want to bury her proper.”

  Merita climbed down in to the arroyo to help him. In a short while, they had the body covered well. Their efforts should keep the coyotes off the body, especially with the other bodies readily available.

  Once they finished and climbed back out, the sun had traversed the sky to the point of

  almost touching the western rim. Rafe looked to the west where thunderheads built up, their

  tops spreading out in the classic anvil formation, the bottoms black with stored-up water. He wiped the sweat from his face, feeling the increased humidity.

  “Those storms are gonna hit here pretty soon,” Rafe said. “This looks like a good place to ride ‘em out. Let’s get back in those trees by th’ stream an’ see if there’s an overhang we can get under.”

  “What about those men?” Merita jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward where the bodies lay. “It doesn’t seem right to just leave them lying there.”

  “It’s not right what they did with those women, either,” Rafe replied as he gathered the reins of the buckskin and started walking toward the trees. “Kidnappin’ ‘em, doin’ who knows what to ‘em while they have ‘em. Then plannin’ on sellin’ ‘em down in Mexico.” He shook his head. “Far’s I’m concerned, they’ll lay where they are. They made a wrong choice in life, an’ now they’ve suffered the consequences.”

  “They might have families somewhere, too.” Merita caught up with him. “Families that will want to know what happened to their people.”

  “May be,” Rafe agreed, nodding. “But how you gonna find ‘em? There was nothin’ in their pockets to tell who they were. Nothin’ we can do.”

  “You’re cold-hearted.” A flat statement, said as if she’d had experience dealing with cold-hearted men before.

  He stopped, faced her. “Yes, Ma
’am. That’s been said of me before. Maybe it’s true. I don’t want to think it is, though. I don’t know how long you’ve been in the West, but out here people make their choices and deal what comes because of ‘em. Those men made choices. Bad ones. Now they’ve paid for ‘em. Nothin’ more to be said about that.” He saw she was about to say more, but jumped back in. “This is a hard country, Ma’am. People take up hard ways to handle it. That’s just the way it is.”

  Rafe turned back the way they were headed and started walking again. He knew she was standing there, wanting to say something or wanting him to apologize or something. And he didn’t care. Right now, the most important thing was to find them a dry spot to get through the coming storm.

  At the place where the trees backed up to the hill behind, there was a place where the wind and rain had scoured sand and dirt off a large shelf of rock. The rock had one side buried in the hill, the other resting on some huge boulders. It formed a perfect roof, big enough for both of them to get under comfortably.

  Rafe unsaddled the buckskin and rubbed him down with a bit of burlap he carried in his saddle bag for this purpose. When he finished, he led the horse out to a patch of grass and hobbled him. All the time, thunder built to the west.

  When he got back to the overhand, Merita was there, unsaddling her horse. Neither of them said anything. While she cared for her horse, he went in search of firewood. With the trees, there were plenty of downed limbs lying on the ground. In only a few trips, he had enough wood in the dry to last the night.

  After he got a fire going, Rafe started on their supper. “What can I do to help?” Merita asked. She didn’t meet his eye as she spoke.

  “Think you can make the coffee?” He tried to put a smile in his voice.

  Her head jerked up quickly when he said this. Then she saw the twinkle in his eye. She smiled, ducked her head, then fixed the coffee.

  Their supper was small, but filling. Later, they lounged on their blankets drinking the last of the coffee.

  “Why would they cut that poor girl’s throat?” Merita asked into the silence. “She wasn’t much more than a child.”

  Rafe had been almost dozing, but perked up at the question. “Don’t know for sure. My

  guess is she did something the head man didn’t like. Must’ve been really bad.”

  “But she was so young! Why would those men take her?”

  Rafe thought a moment. How much should he tell this young woman he didn’t know at all? What did she know about men and women and the things men could do to women? She must know enough; she killed that man who tried to attack her.

  “Some men like really young girls. The younger, the better. That girl would have brought a really good price in some places in Mexico.” He sipped the last of his coffee. “She must’ve done somethin’ really bad to get herself killed like that.”

  After a few moments’ quiet, Merita went on. “I still don’t understand why men steal women and sell them.”

  “Lots of reasons. Men steal women to sell ‘em because they think it’s easier than gettin’ a real job. More money faster than workin’. An’ there’s always a market in some places. No shortage of men, and women, willin’ to buy women.” He paused, just long enough to take a deep breath. “An’ there are always men willin’ to rent women for … well, you know. Men who can’t for one reason or another find or support a wife. So they do the next best thing in their eyes. They pay money for a part-time woman.”

  “That’s not right!” Merita went on. “I know some women choose that kind of life. Sometimes because they like it, sometimes because they don’t any other way to make a living. But being forced to do it! That’s something else altogether. And there’s something wrong with men who do that to women. Steal them, I mean!”

  Just then, a flash of lightning speared across the sky right over their heads. Thunder enveloped them in a blast of sound that made them think they sat in the middle of an explosion. Immediately behind, a rush of rain that sounded almost as loud as the thunder.

  Through the night, Rafe and Merita stayed relatively dry. Except when the wind pushed the rain into their camp. The second half of the night was wet.

  Still, it was better than being fully out in the weather.

  When Merita scooted over close to Rafe to get warm, he began thinking maybe being out in the weather would be a better choice.

  Chapter Twenty

  That same day that Rafe and Merita found Bessie’s body, Tess woke up to a sweat-soaked afternoon. Once sure the Indians were really gone, she’d relaxed enough to sleep again.

  Now, she lay in what little shade she found among the boulders. And little it was.

  For a few minutes, she lounged in the aftermath of sleep, thinking and planning for the journey that faced her. She knew there would be trials. Severe trials.

  A long distance to cover on foot. Difficult country to cross. Weather that could turn bad in a matter of a few minutes. Raiders to avoid. Little food to get by on. No way to carry water.

  At the thought of water, her thirst almost overwhelmed her. Even as she slept, she lost precious body fluid to the sun and its effects. This country could suck a person dry in a number of ways. Sweating, of course. Sometimes just standing still would bring a sweat, it got that hot. But something many didn’t understand was the wind and how it could also pull out the moisture people needed to live. And the wind always blew.

  She slowly stretched the kinks out of arms, legs, and back. Then, very careful to stay silent and unseen, she crept to the edge of the boulders and peeked around with one eye.

  The next few minutes crept on a snail’s back as she examined the area she could see. Listening brought nothing to her ears. Only the thunder that muttered and grumbled in distant canyons to the west.

  Still, she crept out, watching all around.

  At the small pool, she lay down on her stomach to drink her fill. After drinking, she sat up on her knees and combed through her hair with her fingers.

  It may have been the thunder that kept her from hearing the young Indian as he eased up behind her.

  Tess had both hands at the back of her head, smoothing down her hair as the Indian grabbed her around the body just under her breasts. Hardly more than a boy, the Indian weighed less than Tess’s hundred and twenty-five pounds. If he’d weighed more, they would’ve gone into the water.

  As it was, she grunted with the impact of the Indian boy’s body and bent over, almost touching the ground with her forehead. The boy’s momentum carried him nearly right over her back.

  Tess recovered quickly. So did the Indian boy.

  She scrambled to her feet just in time to meet the boy’s rush. They grappled, each trying for a grip on the other in order to throw them to the ground.

  In this, the Indian boy had the advantage. He wore only a breech clout and leggings with his moccasins. Tess’s dress made it easy for him to grab and hold her.

  Tess’s advantage was her size and the strength hard ranch work gave her. She shook his hands loose, tearing her dress at the shoulder in the process.

  Both of them sweated profusely. This made grappling with the boy very difficult for Tess. The sweat made his skin very slippery.

  She knew she couldn’t out-run him, so she had no choice other than to fight with him. And for sure his age was an advantage. With quick glances, she searched for something to use as a weapon.

  One of her glances showed a knife in the rawhide strip holding on his breech clout and leggings. Thankfully, he hadn’t pulled it yet. Tess knew he could yank it out at any time. That he had no other weapons with him showed he had expected to overwhelm her.

  His mistake in that regard helped Tess.

  They grappled again. Tess smelled his sweat and the scent of wood smoke that clung to him. Neither of them said anything beyond the grunts and harsh breath sounds from their fighting.

  The young Indian knew more about fighting than Tess thought. Suddenly, he grabbed her around the upper body and fell backward.
He pulled Tess down on top of him, then expertly rolled over on top of her.

  Tess bucked and flopped around, trying to throw him off. But she couldn’t get a grip on him anywhere.

  He swatted her arm away from trying to grab his hair. Her arm hit something solid, more solid than the ground. Frantically, she felt around the ground trying to find what she hoped was a rock.

  She didn’t dare move her head to look for the rock. That would tell him what she had in mind. Instead, she kept swatting and clawing at his neck, his chest.

  For what seemed like an hour, but was only about a minute, Tess felt around. Finally, her hand gripped what felt like a rock a little larger than her fist.

  She dug her fingers under the rock. Fear fueled her strength, and the rock wasn’t very deep under the surface.

  Tess grabbed the rock in the palm of her hand and swung it with all she had up to meet

  the side of the Indian boy’s head. It landed with a solid, but hollow ‘thunk’.

  The boy grunted, fell over on his side, and didn’t move.

  Tess just lay there on her back, sucking air into her lungs as deeply as she could. Thank goodness he was alone , passed through her mind. In another moment, she rolled over, the rock at the ready.

  She didn’t need it.

  The boy lay sprawled on his back, eyes wide to the sun. A red stream flowed from a wound in the side of his head. A projection on the side of the rock was also covered in red.

  Tess hated to kill the boy, but he gave her no choice.

  She sank back to the ground, breathing hard. The combination of fear and fighting for her life sapped her energy.

  How could she go on now? She could barely stand. There were no reserves left. She might be able to lift her head from the sandy ground sometime tomorrow.

  Tess lay there, small particles of dirt moving beside her mouth with every breath. She felt like the weight of the entire world lay on her back.