by Neil Hunter
‘Go on, Luke.’
‘We can wait out here. Or....’
‘Or we can take him to his own people,’ Jeannie finished for him.
Kennick nodded. ‘And maybe do something for Griff and Beecher.’
‘A trade?’
‘Maybe.’
He looked at her as he spoke, knowing what he was asking her to do. He didn’t relish the idea of riding into a hostile Comanche village. It had been done, but that didn’t make thinking about it any easier. It was a big chance to take. The kind of chance that could go very wrong. Dead wrong.
Kennick saw that Jeannie was smiling gently at him.
‘I can guess what you’re worrying about, Luke, but don’t. I said before I’m in this with you. To the end. Whatever you decide is for both of us.’
He saw she meant it, and he couldn’t find words. How did a man tell a woman his feelings for her? Did he fumble something out, or did he keep his fool mouth shut and thank God for the goodness in it?
Kennick shook his head in bewilderment. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, ignoring the stabbing pain in his shoulder. And Jeannie was told all she needed to know.
‘Go pack the gear,’ Kennick said, releasing her. He stepped across to where Kicking Bear lay.
Jeannie watched him for a moment, smiling to herself. She realized fully what his decision could mean for them both. But she knew she would follow no matter where he went.
She crossed to where their gear lay and began to roll up the blankets. As she did, she looked down at the place she’d shared with him the night before. A warm flush colored her cheeks. She almost laughed, thinking how shocked ladies back home in Layersville would be at the thought of her spending the night under a blanket with an ex-cavalry officer. But Layersville seemed like another world. What did it, or its ways, have in common with this vast, violent land of heat and silence and sudden death. Out here a person lived a lifetime in a day and took whatever came as a matter of course. Like wearing pants and carrying a gun, she thought wryly. Rolling the blankets, she collected the saddlebags and other gear and carried it all across to where the saddles lay. Kennick joined her.
‘Kicking Bear’s still out.’
‘How can he travel, Luke?’
‘I’ve got a notion. Pity there’s no trees around. If I had me a couple of long poles, I could rig up a travois.’
‘That the thing the Indians drag behind their ponies, isn’t it?’
Kennick grinned. ‘Sounds like at least some of the tales about the West that reach Boston might be accurate.’
He selected the largest blanket from the bundle and shook it out, gauging its size. ‘If we can suspend this between two of the horses, like a hammock, it should be as good as any travois.’
With Jeannie’s help, Kennick rigged the blanket up between two of the mounts. It was a long, tiring job, involving the making of a cradle of rope over which they secured the blanket. A second blanket was laid over this for padding. Then Kennick held the horses’ heads while Jeannie climbed into the hammock to test it. When she was settled, Kennick led the paired animals around for a while.
‘It’ll support him, Luke,’ Jeannie said. ‘The problem will be keeping the horses apart. If they come too close together, he could be crushed.’
‘We’ll have to go careful is all. You can ride one of these two. I’ll take the free horse and control the other one. We should be able to manage between us. Just have to ride slow.’
Jeannie insisted on helping him to saddle up. Kennick was thankful. Any physical effort sent pain shooting through his shoulder. He remembered to reload the rifle before he placed it in the boot. He hung the remaining two water-canteens from his saddle horn. What food they had left, he crammed into one set of saddlebags and tied them behind his saddle.
‘He still hasn’t woken up,’ Jeannie said, when Kennick led the paired horses over to where Kicking Bear lay.
Together they lifted the unconscious Indian and got him, with much difficulty, into the improvised hammock, Jeannie covering Kicking Bear with the one remaining blanket. Kennick had propped himself up against one of the horses. He used his sleeve to wipe sweat from his face. He felt weak and sick. His shoulder hurt bad, and he knew there was no way of relieving it. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he wondered how long he’d be able to sit a saddle. God knew how long they’d be riding. He hoped that the Comanches’ trail would be easy to follow. He was in no condition to do a lot of back tracking and fooling about.
He looked around to see if they’d missed anything. There was only the discarded saddle and an empty canteen. He helped Jeannie to mount, then climbed awkwardly into his own saddle.
‘Ready?’
Jeannie nodded. As they moved off Kennick glanced down at Kicking Bear. The Comanche looked near dead already. His face was almost gray, the flesh drawn, the closed eyes looking sunken in the skull, the mouth a bloodless gash. His chest rose and fell very slowly. He was still breathing. Just. Kennick hoped he would go on breathing, hoped they could make some good come out of all this.
The ravine walls echoed the sound of their passing, and for a moment Kennick had the forbidding feeling of riding beneath Death’s dark shadow. It didn’t leave him even when they rode out of the ravine into the full glare of the sun.
Chapter Eighteen
Late afternoon of the second day out from the ravine found them resting their horses on a high ridge overlooking a watered basin. At the far end of the basin from them was the Indian village they’d been looking for. Smoke curled up into the sky from many cook fires, and figures could be seen moving about the village..
A low sound made Kennick turn his head. Kicking Bear was conscious again. It had been this way all along. The Comanche had been in and out of his death-like sleep a dozen times or more. But when he was conscious, he was unable to do anything but lie and mumble feverishly, his eyes staring unseeing up at the sky.
Kennick glanced across at Jeannie. She sat hunched forward, the reins of her mount held tightly in her fingers. Like Kennick she was dust-covered from head to foot, her skin dry and raw from exposure to the sun. Her hair had lost its glossy sheen and lay limp against her cheeks and forehead in gray-streaked twists. Many hours back she had discarded useless modesty and opened her shirt to the waist in an effort to catch any trace of coolness raised by the faint breeze of their passage.
Kennick cleared his clogged, dry throat. ‘Jeannie, we’re going down now.’
She raised her eyes to his and Kennick winced inwardly at the dark circles under them.
‘Yes, Luke,’ she said, her voice flat, expressionless, full of the weariness of her body.
‘When we get down there, just let me do all the talking. You just stay close and act dumb.’
She nodded. ‘I won’t find that hard to do,’ she said, managing a faint smile to show that she was still with him. ‘Go ahead, Luke, I’m ready.’
Kennick urged the tired horses forward down the slope. He hoped what he was feeling didn’t show on his face. He was scared, but he felt no shame. Any man who felt no fear in such a situation was either a fool, or crazy, or already dead.
But no matter how much fear he had inside none must show. The Comanche respected courage and despised cowardice. Fear didn’t exist for the Comanche. From childhood, a warrior was taught to bear pain and face danger without emotion. It made for a proud and fearless race of people. Many of his own race, Kennick knew, thought of the Indian as a naked savage who lived in dirt, a heathen animal who raped and slaughtered needlessly.
But there were those who knew the Indian better. Men like Luke Kennick who fought them, yet retained a great respect for them. They knew them as a clever, organized people with a highly evolved pattern of living. Law and order had long been established by the Indian nation many years before the white man ever ventured to America. His social and political customs were important to the Indian, though his ways were very mysterious to the outsider at first, until he learned the Indian way
of community living.
Kennick brought his wandering thoughts back to the here and now. He needed to be alert from here on in. Trouble could come from any direction, in many forms. He didn’t know how the Comanches down there were going to react to Kicking Bear’s appearance.
Then there was no more time to do any figuring, or wondering, or anything. A half-dozen mounted Comanches came charging up the slope. Dust swirled raggedly in the hot air as the Comanches wheeled their ponies in wild patterns around Kennick’s party. High-pitched yells rose, mingled with hard-edged words in Comanche. Kennick knew enough of the language to make out what was being said. He was thankful Jeannie couldn’t. Out the corner of his eye, he saw that she had buttoned her shirt and was sitting stiff backed on her horse, staring straight ahead, ignoring the laughing Comanches.
One of the braves heeled his pony up to Kennick. He was a thin, hard-muscled young buck, his face pockmarked. He pointed the lance he carried at Kicking Bear.
‘You show courage, white, to come here with him.’
‘He is dying. I have brought him to his own people,’ Kennick answered, in Comanche.
‘For a price? The whites never do anything without a price.’
‘If you will take me to your council, I will talk with them.’
‘I could kill you now. And have the woman.’ The buck grinned at Kennick. ‘I have had a white woman before,’ he boasted. ‘Very white and very soft.’
Kennick choked back rising anger, forced himself to keep his face expressionless. This sort of thing was to be expected, he knew. But knowing didn’t make it any easier to take. He kneed his mount into motion. Jeannie did the same.
They rode down into the village, the six bucks following them closely. They moved past the staring noisy occupants of the village, aware of their hostility. Kennick gave a sigh of relief as he reined in before the council tepee. He glanced across at Jeannie. She surprised him by giving him a broad wink in return.
By now it seemed like everyone in the village was gathered around them in a surging, jostling mass. They all wanted to see their warlord Kicking Bear. Voices rose angrily above the general din. Kennick felt cold sweat running down his back. A squaw began to wail, then another, and another. That kind of thing wasn’t going to ease things any, Kennick decided.
A flurry of movement in the council tepee. A group of Comanche men stepped out. They were Elders of high rank Kennick saw, followed by one who wore the garb of the village Shaman. This old one came shuffling round to Kennick’s horse. The lined old face turned up to look at Kennick, the lips moving silently. Then the Shaman turned and instructed a group of bucks to lift Kicking Bear out of the hammock. When this was done, the Shaman led the way into a nearby tepee.
One of the Elders stepped forward, eyeing Kennick gravely. ‘If I were to lift my arm you would die,’ he said.
‘This I know, father,’ Kennick replied in Comanche.
‘And yet you still came here.’
‘It was a thing to be done.’
‘You have courage, Kennick. So, too, your woman.’
Kennick looked at him. ‘You know my name, father. If so, the two whites are here.’
‘Yes. One of them chatters like a woman. He does not want to die.’ The Elder’s face hardened. ‘You hoped to bargain for them?’
Kennick dismounted. He was careful not to make any wrong move. The mood of the village was such that any suspicious act on his part could set off an attack against him and Jeannie. He was going to have to walk softly. It was a win or lose game from now on. Winning meant riding out alive. Losing meant— Well, there was no future in thinking about that.
‘Are they alive?’
The Elder nodded. ‘They live. For now.’
‘I would see them, father.’
The Comanche permitted himself a bleak smile. ‘Kennick, you speak as if you were a man with power to wield. Look about you. You are in no position to bargain.’
Kennick didn’t need to be told. He knew his position. He tried another tack. ‘Father, I came here to bring a dying warrior to his people. Does not the Comanche repay a debt?’
‘Maybe, Kennick,’ the Elder said. He moved away and began to speak to the other Elders.
Kennick took the chance to look at Jeannie.
‘What are they doing?’ she asked softly.
‘Figuring what to do with us, I guess. Maybe I should have come in alone.’
She shook her head. ‘We talked that out, remember? Surely they’ll let us go. After all, we did bring Kicking Bear to them.’
‘With a bullet in his chest,’ Kennick reminded her.
The Elder came back. ‘Kennick, you have courage. Not many men would have done what you have done. For this, we respect you. And out of this respect we will allow you to take your woman and go. Leave our village. Return to your people and tell them the Comanche are not all bad. Go, and do not return.’
‘What of the two whites?’
‘They are not your concern, Kennick. They have killed many of our young warriors. Feeling is bad against them. We honor your courage to come here, and give you your freedom.’
Kennick stood for a moment, feeling helpless, knowing there was nothing more he could do. At least for now. He was lucky to be still alive. And Jeannie. Griff and Beecher? He couldn’t do a thing for them while he stayed here. He had to get Jeannie away first. Clear away.
‘Take your chance,’ the Elder was saying. ‘Take it, Kennick, before it is taken away.’ His voice became cold, hard. ‘You are our enemy and I cannot forget that for long.’
Kennick mounted up then. Jeannie started to speak, but he silenced her with a hard look. Reining about, without a backward glance, he rode beside her through the crowding Indians, sensing the bitter hatred they radiated. Before they reached the edge of the village, Kennick was sweating heavily and his stomach was twisting in on itself. Christ! A man was all kinds of a fool to get himself mixed up in something like this! Still, Kennick thought it somehow lacked all the tension he’d expected. True the Comanches had been hostile toward him, but; it had somehow been a subdued hostility. Why?
Kennick could only guess. Had the sight of their so-called invincible warlord, struck down by a mere bullet, been a shock to them? Kennick knew the depth of the Comanche faith in their champions. The shattering of that faith, he suppose, could have sobered them. But he didn’t, couldn’t, know, and he stopped trying to puzzle it out.
Be thankful, he told himself, that you’re getting out alive. Next time your luck might not be so strong.... Next time? Kennick tossed the question around. Next time? Yes. He knew he was going back to that village. He had at least to make a try to get Griff and Beecher out. He was a damned fool, but then that was common knowledge. Even so, he was going back. One way or another, darkness tonight would bring a finish to the affair. He hoped.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Luke, are you crazy? How can you even consider going back in there?’
Kennick finished cleaning his Colt, then reassembled the weapon. He looked up into the sky. Give it another half hour and it would be full dark. Lord, if you ever answered a prayer, don’t give me a moon tonight. Make it as black as Hell—if you’ll forgive the liberty.
‘Luke Kennick, look at me, damn you!’
Kennick glanced up. ‘You can quit that cussing. It’s not fitting for a lady to cuss.’
‘Well, right now, damn it, I don’t feel like any lady!’
A moment of silence followed, broken finally by a series of metallic clicks as Kennick dropped shells into the Colt’s chamber.
‘I know how you feel,’ he said. ‘There’s nobody more than me wants to get up in the saddle and get the hell out of here. But I can’t. I’m carrying enough dead men on my back. I don’t want two more. Maybe I won’t get near ‘em. Maybe they’re already dead, I don’t know. But I’ve got to give it a try. Understand me, Jeannie, and trust me. I’m no hero. Just a man trying to do what’s right, what’s expected of him. And like I said, maybe
I care too much.’
Jeannie moved across and sat down beside him. ‘And I’m not helping much, am I, Luke? Just thinking of myself. I’m not as tough as I make out.’
‘You go on just as you are. It suits me fine.’
‘How are you going to do it?’
Kennick shrugged. ‘Play it by ear. Make my way in, find Griff and Beecher—if I can—and try to get them out.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Stay right here. When I get back, with or without them, we’ll be moving out fast. You stick with the horses.’
‘I’ll be here, Luke.’
‘There’s a chance I might not get back,’ he said slowly.
‘I know that too. I’m ready to take that chance if you are.’
‘Scared?’
‘Like hell ... I mean, yes. Is cussing catching, Luke?’
He grinned. ‘There’s hope for you yet.’
He holstered the Colt and stood up. The Comanche village lay three hours’ ride to the north. During their ride out, he had kept a sharp watch on their back trail. Apparently, the Comanches had not followed them. If he was wrong, he’d find out soon enough. But even Comanches would have been hard put trying to keep completely out of sight in this open country.
Kennick worked the stiffness out of his shoulder. It didn’t pain as much now. He saw Jeannie eyeing him worriedly.
‘Quit frettin’, woman. We’ve done pretty good so far.’
‘So far,’ she repeated.
Inside he had to agree. But he didn’t let it show. Scared as she was, Jeannie was holding up fine. He didn’t want to give her reason to do otherwise.
