Comanche Sunset

by Rosanne Bittner

  “I don’t know anything about any of them,” Jennifer admitted. “Back East we hear all kinds of stories, mostly bad, about all Indians. But there is a lot of sympathy for them there, I suppose because they have already gotten rid of all their Indians and aren’t in any danger any more. I have to admit, after yesterday, I’ll have trouble sympathizing with them myself for a while. I can’t understand that kind of brutality.”

  “Well, it isn’t easy for me, either. But I can probably understand it better than most of my white friends, because I’ve experienced my own persecution, felt the white man’s hatred. There’s a part of me that sometimes wants to be as vicious as I can with some people—men like Buck, for instance. That fight I had with him—it wasn’t just because of what he did to you, although that was initially the reason. When I saw you that way, I was never so angry. But once I lit into him, I started thinking about all his insults and how he seemed to represent everything I hated. If Hughes and the others hadn’t pulled me off him, I might have used my knife on him.”

  He sighed, stopping the combing again and sitting down beside her. “That scared me a little once I started thinking about it,” he admitted. “For a moment there, I was no different from those renegades yesterday.”

  She looked at him sympathetically. “You could never be like that, Wade.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I only know it would help me understand that side of myself if I could find out more about my past and the Comanche way of life. I especially want to understand the brutality.” He got back to his knees and started combing the last section of hair. “This is kind of crazy, isn’t it—telling all these things to a young woman from St. Louis I barely know, and who knows next to nothing about Indians and this land. You’re easy to talk to, Jenny. You’re a brave and resourceful young lady, and I admire you very much.”

  His conversation and the fact that he was sharing personal feelings with her set her heart to racing, and helped her forget her aching leg and shoulder. “You can tell me anything you want. I like talking to someone so different. When I left St. Louis, I knew it would be an adventure. I just didn’t know it would be quite this adventurous. I would have settled for less.”

  They both laughed lightly. She still wanted to know about the woman called Rebecca, but she suspected she had better not mention her. “Is life at the fort really as bad as that sheriff and Nick and some of the others hinted it would be?” she asked then.

  “Oh, not as bad as it used to be.” He stopped to stir the beans, then began pulling the comb back through her now-untangled hair. “But to someone from St. Louis’s wealthier section, it won’t be any picnic, Jenny. Like I said, nobody can make you stay.”

  “But I don’t like breaking my word. The understanding is that I will reimburse Sergeant Enders if we don’t marry, and I don’t have enough money for that.”

  “Well, you could stall for a while—tell him you need time to get to know him better, work as a laundress to earn your keep until you decide. There is nothing that says you have to marry him right away. And while you’re waiting, you’d be earning a little money. You could even give him just part of what you would owe and go on to a bigger town and get a job—send him the rest.” He touched her shoulder and turned her to face him. “If worse comes to worst, I’ll give you the money myself. I have plenty.”

  “Oh, no, I would never expect that! I can take care of myself.”

  He frowned, looking her over. “Well, I guess you have done a good job of that, except for yesterday. And if Enders is a decent man, you might do all right. It’s just that out here a man gets lonely. That could put a strain on his patience, if you know what I mean.”

  She looked away and then his hand was on her arm. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Jenny.” She met his eyes again, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her. He was so close, and she was sure it was desire she saw in his eyes. Was she reading him wrong? What did she know of men? What did she even know when it came to what men to trust? She tried to remember just when he had started calling her Jenny, and she had started calling him Wade; tried to remember just when she suddenly felt close to him, able to tell him anything and knowing he would understand.

  “I’m scared, Wade.”

  The words tore at his heart. He gave her a reassuring smile, taking her chin in his hand. “Don’t be. No one can force you to do anything. Besides, I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ve kept that promise so far, haven’t I?”

  She nodded, unable then to resist the urge to hug him tightly around the neck. “Thank you,” she told him, the tears coming.

  He knew in that moment that with the right words and touches he could probably lay her back and enjoy tasting her mouth, could take a great deal of pleasure in her, and she would let him. But he was not about to go through that kind of hurt again—not like Rebecca. With great effort he grasped her arms and gently pushed her away.

  “Lord, woman, don’t ever let any white men see you doing that,” he tried to joke. “You lie back and rest now. I’ll have something for us to eat real quick. Then I’m going to take my own bath.”

  Jennifer reddened deeply, sure he must think her foolish and forward, sure she probably misinterpreted the feelings she thought she had read in his eyes. She reminded herself of his position. He was determined not to get too involved with a white woman. He was simply giving aid to her injuries and seeing that she got safely to Fort Stockton, nothing more. She felt like a stupid child, lost in a world of unreality.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jennifer woke up in a sweat, realizing through blurred vision it was barely dawn. The fire was nothing more than the soft red glow of dying embers. She started to move, but her leg hurt more this morning than it ever had yet, and she cried out.

  Wade, who again lay beside her, quickly turned, rubbing at his eyes and sitting up. Lying next to her in order to keep her warm through the chilly desert nights had cost him considerable sleep, as he lay fighting forbidden desires.

  “My leg…hurts bad,” she told him.

  Wade reached out and touched her face. “My God, you’re burning up.” He quickly rose and searched out dried grass and a few buffalo chips, throwing them on the fire; then he tore out a few mesquite shrubs to build the fire more. There was little else to use for fuel, since they were in nearly treeless country.

  As he rummaged then through his supplies for clean bandages and whiskey, he realized in the back of his mind that he could no longer hear the ripple of the nearby stream. He knew it had only appeared because of the rain, and that it would not take much more than another day for it to disappear altogether. He quickly untethered the Indian pony so mysteriously given to him, and led it to what was left of the stream, tethering it there to drink in case they had trouble finding water once they left this spot. He filled two extra canteens that he had retrieved from the debris around the stagecoach, then hurried back over to Jennifer, who was trying to sit up.

  “Stay down,” he told her. She protested weakly as he quickly removed her dress. “I can’t work on you with this thing on, and you don’t want to keep it on while you’re sweating like this, do you?” he told her gently. “You have few enough dresses left. I’ll wrap you up in blankets.”

  “My leg,” she moaned. “It’s…infected…isn’t it?”

  “Most likely. I’m going to take a look.” She felt her dress come off, felt a blanket coming around her. She protested that she was too hot, but he insisted she stay covered against the still-chilly air.

  She groaned as he quickly slid his hunting knife up under the bandages on her leg and sliced through them. He began pulling them away as gently as he could, wincing when some of them stuck to the wound from blood and pus.

  “Don’t…cut off my leg,” she cried. “Promise me. Just…let me die.”

  “You aren’t going to die, and I’m not going to cut your leg off,” he answered calmly. “Hang on. This is going to sting.”

  She screamed as he poured whiskey into
the wound. From then on the day became vague and confused, as she lay in near delirium from fever and pain. The only thing that was real and comforting was the knowledge that Wade Morrow was there with her, holding her, bathing her in cool water, talking soothingly to her. She thought she heard him say something about cauterizing the wound. She scrambled to remember what that meant, finally realizing he meant to burn the tissue around the infection.

  Someone was screaming for him not to do it. Was it her own voice? “I’ve got no choice now,” he was saying. His voice was close to her ear, his strong arms around her. “I’ve been trying to avoid it, Jenny, but I can’t now. You don’t want to die or lose your leg, do you?”

  Memories of the pain of her burns from the riverboat fire terrified her. Was that how it would feel? “Just let me die,” she muttered.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he told her. “It will be over before you know it.”

  Was that a kiss she felt at her cheek? She was too hot and in too much pain to be sure. He lay her back, and her mind floated, first to the awful explosion and fire that had taken her parents from her. Then she saw her Uncle John, huge and looming, leering at her, his hands grabbing for her and holding her down. Or was it Buck?

  She struggled, hearing the war whoops of Indians then, seeing their painted faces, screaming as they tore her from the coach. There were dead, bloody bodies all around, men screaming for her to help them—Adam Hughes, Will Perry. She struggled again, but then came the gunshot to her leg, or was it a flaming lance? She screamed with the horrible pain. The savages were holding her down, burning her!

  She opened her eyes to see one of them bent over her now. He was saying something about it being “all over.” What did he mean? Was he going to kill her now? She saw dark skin and a buckskin shirt and long, dark hair. Would he rape her now? Her body was engulfed with shaking then, and the last thing she remembered was the dark savage bending over her.

  Anthony Enders rubbed at his clean-shaven face, wincing at several cuts. He shaved so few times now that whenever a razor met his skin, it was a painful operation. He stood back from the mirror, studying himself, considering himself reasonably handsome. He slicked back his dark hair with a scented oil another soldier had told him women loved to smell.

  He straightened his blue uniform, feeling almost uncomfortable being so clean. He was not used to it; but if it meant getting his new wife into bed sooner, it was worth the effort. He had already talked Captain Howell into allowing him to use a small cabin within the fort grounds as his “honeymoon” quarters. The cabin had been left empty when another commissioned officer and his wife had gone back East with the many others who were preparing for a possible war between the states.

  Enders could care less at the moment whether or not there would be a war, or what the government was going to do about the renegade Comanche. The only thing that mattered was that Jennifer Andrews was due to arrive today on the stagecoach. In two days the traveling preacher who always came to the fort the end of each month would arrive and he and Miss Andrews would be married.

  Two days was plenty of time for the woman to get to know him. After all, what did she need to know? He was a man and he was lonely, or so he would tell her. Once she was his wife, it wouldn’t make much difference what she thought of him or how he treated her. She wouldn’t have any choice then. He hoped the preacher would arrive earlier than expected, or that perhaps Miss Andrews was so lonely herself and would be so impressed by him that she would allow consummation of their pact before the preacher even arrived.

  He grinned at the thought, painful needs moving through him. He put on his hat and picked up the locket again, thinking what an impression he would make on her when he gave it to her as a gift. If it would soften her up, it was worth the five dollars he had paid Deaver for it. He put it in his breast pocket.

  His chest puffed proudly, he marched out of the barracks, where a few men marched in a lazy drill while others swept off boardwalks and more were busily painting the officers’ quarters, where he knew Captain Howell would be drinking with First Lt. Michael Brown, both men the only two commissioned officers left at the fort. Howell was frustrated at not being able to capture any of the Comanche renegades so far, who had been creating havoc for surrounding settlers. With war looking more and more likely back East, Howell wanted to impress his superiors, hoping to earn a promotion and be sent east himself, where his wife waited for him.

  Howell and Brown both hated being stationed in west Texas, and they spent a good deal of time drinking and planning ways they could capture the renegades, especially the one called Wild Horse. They had come close once, when they had convinced the man to come to the fort for gifts of food and clothing and tobacco, as well as the promise to set aside some land in west Texas where they could live freely, in exchange for the return of white captives and a promise to stop the raiding.

  Wild Horse had shown up, bringing only one white captive, a woman who had obviously been badly abused. For once Howell and the others, including Enders, had got a good look at the notorious renegade, all of them amazed at his handsome features and deep blue eyes. The man had brought along his own wife and son, hoping, Enders figured, that this time the white man would keep his word and follow through with his promise.

  Enders didn’t much care one way or another what happened to the Comanche. He would just as soon kill them all anyway, for he had seen the damage they could do. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing human about them. He considered it a good lesson to the man when area Texans who attended the peace council forgot all about any promises the minute they set eyes on the white woman captive. One of them opened fire, and all hell broke loose. The woman captive was immediately killed by Wild Horse, and stray bullets cut down Wild Horse’s wife and son. Several other Indians were killed, but most of them got away, skilled horsemen and fighters that they were.

  Since then Wild Horse had been more vicious than ever. Enders considered real peace an impossible task out here, since the whites had never kept one promise they had made to the Comanche, and the hatred between Texans and the Indians was too volatile to ever allow a reckoning. The Texans wanted one thing—for all Comanche to be dead or permanently planted in Indian Territory to the north. That was fine with Enders, since he, too, was a Texan and was raised with hatred for all Comanche.

  The U. S. Army’s biggest problem was that the government, fearing they would be labeled heartless murderers, refused to allow its soldiers to hunt down and massacre Indians. If local volunteers wanted to do so, that was fine. But the army’s duty was to patrol the area and defend settlers if necessary, pursuing raiders only after an act of violence had been committed. But Comanche could not be chased and caught. They were too clever. And since the army could not set out and hunt them aggressively, attacking and destroying Indian strongholds wherever found, there could be no end to Comanche aggression.

  Enders figured the Comanche must be laughing at army strategy. In the meantime, local Texans were furious with the U. S. government’s attitude, and they continued to wage their own war against the Indians. Their anger at how Washington was handling the Indian situation was just one more reason why Enders was certain that if a civil war should occur, Texas would stand for the southern cause, which was much more than the slavery issue. It was an issue of states’ rights.

  At least for the moment there was so much confusion due to a possible civil war, and the Indian trouble here, that no one would be concerned with checking out the backgrounds of any of the army’s enlisted men. His real identity was safe, and in two more years his voluntary duty would be over. He would take his pretty new wife to California and return to his gambling ways. If Jennifer Andrews didn’t like his gambling, he would get rid of her. She would have served her purpose by then—to provide sexual satisfaction for a lonely soldier until his service was up.

  He had often contemplated deserting, once he realized the miserable mess he had got himself into by volunteering, but he d
idn’t care to suffer the consequences if he was caught. He had seen two men shot for deserting; another hung by the wrists right now from a pole in the center of the parade grounds, his back bloody and torn from forty lashes with the whip. He had tried to desert. Enders watched as men cut him down and carted him off. He normally would have been left there until dark, but Miss Andrews was due to arrive today, and Captain Howell thought it only proper that the woman shouldn’t have to see the ugly sight.

  “Hey, look at you,” Corporal Deaver spoke up then, coming close to his friend. “I haven’t seen you this spruced up since I’ve known you, sir.” The two men saluted gratuitously, both knowing it wasn’t really necessary between them. “You sure look ready to meet your bride-to-be.”

  “I’m ready in more ways than one,” Enders answered. Both men laughed. “I just hope that preacher shows up like usual,” Enders added. “I don’t aim to give Miss Andrews too much time to think about this. I’m in bad need of a woman.”

  Other soldiers looked at each other after seeing Enders spiffed up. They joked about “poor Miss Andrews,” who didn’t know what she was in for, and made dirty gestures with their hands, some of them daydreaming about having a woman in their own beds. A few restrained from the dirty bantering, feeling a little sorry for the woman, who surely didn’t know the kind of conditions under which she would be living here, or the danger of the land and its wild occupants. They had little doubt that Sergeant Enders would be anything but kind and patient with his new wife, but they reasoned it was not their business.

  Alice Hart watched from her cabin, to the south of the parade grounds. She busily scrubbed long underwear against a washboard, a daily project that helped her earn her keep at the fort. Ever since her husband, a Sergeant Major, had been killed three years ago by the Comanche, she had stayed on, for the moment the only woman on the grounds, since three other wives had left to go back East because of the danger, the boredom of fort life, the hard work.