Comanche Sunset

by Rosanne Bittner

  Those who rode beside him left him then, and he continued forward until he was within a few feet of the man he knew now had to be Wild Horse, for if not for the difference in their horses, and the fact that Wild Horse wore nothing but a loincloth and a hairpipe breastplate, Wade would have thought he was looking into a mirror.

  Wild Horse fit his name. In spite of his blue eyes, he was every bit the wild looking warrior Wade had imagined. Black and white striped paint adorned his cheeks, and additional hair had been braided into the ends of his own hair to create a length that nearly reached his saddle. Wade was aware that the Comanche often used the hair cut off by others in mourning to tie into their own hair and make it longer.

  A wind rose, as though God himself was touching this event. It made tiny bells on Wild Horse’s moccasins tinkle, and a strand of hair found its way across Wade’s face. He pushed it back, waiting for Wild Horse to make the first move or say the first word. For the moment, his shock was obvious. He stared at Wade as though he were a ghost, with the same disbelief Wade had seen on the faces of the other warriors the day of the raid.

  “Bad spirit,” someone nearby murmured in the Comanche tongue.

  “Strong spirit,” another said.

  Wade didn’t know whether to be overjoyed, or if he should turn and ride out of here as fast as he could ride. A thousand feelings moved through him. It would be ridiculous to think there was a possibility this man was not his brother. He wanted to embrace him, but the look in Wild Horse’s eyes did not show him any welcome.

  “So, it is true,” the man finally said in the Comanche tongue. His blue eyes moved over Wade, then met his eyes again. “What are you called?”

  “I carry a white man’s name—Wade Morrow.”

  Wild Horse nodded. “And why have you come here to destroy me, Wade Morrow?”

  Wade frowned. “Destroy you? I have only come to find my brother. I did not even know I had a brother, until now. I was taken in by whites twenty-six summers ago, and I have never known my own people. I came here to find people of my own blood, to learn why the Comanche abandoned me.”

  Wild Horse’s eyes narrowed to hateful slits. “Now you know. And now I know that my mother betrayed her people. We should both have been destroyed.”

  “Why?”

  “Twin spirits are a bad sign. Twin spirits can never be strong, for they must share their strength. One robs from the other.”

  “I am no less strong because of you, and you are no less strong because of me.”

  “It is a bad sign. Now my people wonder about my power. Now they wonder if I am strong and wise enough to lead them. They have seen my shadow. They know there are two of me. This will bring bad things to them, they fear, and I fear. There is only one thing to be done now. One of us must die!”

  A mixture of sadness and keen alertness moved through Wade at the words. “No, Wild Horse. We are brothers. All my life I have dreamed of finding family among the Comanche. They are as much my people as yours.”

  Wild Horse kept a proud posture. A flicker of affection showed in his eyes, and Wade was sure that for a moment he caught a look of deep sorrow there. “Comanche law is Comanche law,” the man said then. “It is not something that is changed because of blood or feelings. Twin spirits are bad medicine. It is true the Comanche are also your people, but we cannot both belong to them, nor they to us. It must be decided which one of us is the strongest, which one can belong to the people and which one cannot. It is the way.”

  Wade felt a creeping dread. This man was a vicious fighter, more experienced at the Indian way of fighting than Wade. “And how do we decide?”

  Their eyes held. “It is between you and me. The others will bring you no harm. Only you and I can decide, and it must be done finally and quickly. We fight, Wade Morrow, until one of us dies.”

  Wade breathed deeply to stay calm, wondering how he could get through to this man. “You are my brother. I will not fight you.”

  “You must!” Wild Horse’s eyes blazed. “I will be a broken man, a man of no respect, a man of shame, if you go on existing as my shadow, if you go on robbing me of my strength and power.”

  “I’m not robbing you of anything! I want to know you, Wild Horse. I want to talk to you, learn the Comanche way.”

  Wild Horse shook his head. “One of us must die.”

  Wade felt his anger at the primitive idea rising. He told himself to stay calm, told himself he had come here to understand. “I won’t fight you,” he repeated. “Kill me if you must, but I won’t fight my brother.”

  Wild Horse jerked at his horse’s reins, causing the animal to turn in a restless circle. The anger on the man’s face was enough to cower any man, but Wade sat firm on his horse, refusing to flinch.

  “I cannot just kill you,” Wild Horse growled. “It would prove nothing. It must be a test of strength. You must fight me!”

  “I will not!”

  Wild Horse rode close to him, whipping out a knife and slamming it flat against Wade’s chest, its tip close to Wade’s throat. “Then I will make you fight me,” he sneered. “I will bring you pain until you hate me and want me dead!”

  Wade met his eyes. “It isn’t right, Wild Horse.”

  “It is the law!”

  The tip of the knife cut into Wade’s skin, drawing blood. Wade quickly reasoned that if he was going to be forced into fighting this man, this was not the time or place. One false move now would bring Wild Horse’s blade across his throat. He did not relish fighting the man at all, but such a fight, if it had to be, must not take place until he had found his real mother.

  “There are some things about the Comanche I will never understand,” he told Wild Horse, “even though our blood is the same. One of them is the belief that twin babies must die. But if you say we must fight to the death, I respect that belief, Wild Horse, because we are brothers, and because I did not come here to bring you shame or to take power from you. Let me go for now, long enough to find Slow Woman, your mother—our mother. I want to speak with her. I want to know if it is true she had twin boys and abandoned one and kept the other. I have a right to meet my own mother, Wild Horse. Is there a Comanche law against that?”

  The man slowly withdrew the knife, and blood trickled down Wade’s throat. “No.” He grinned a little. “So, I will see how brave and honest you are, Wade Morrow. I will let you go and see our mother first, to be sure what we feel and see with our eyes is true. I will see if you are brave enough to return to a certain death. I will see if you are honest enough to keep your word. We will watch you, Wade Morrow. We will know if you try to flee, and we will find you. If you run like a coward, it will be bad for you.”

  Wade nodded. “I won’t run. I am no coward. I am the brother of Wild Horse.”

  Again he caught a flicker of feelings, but Wild Horse was too steeped in Comanche custom to ever allow feelings to overcome “the way.” Wade felt torn. He did not have the heart to try to kill his own brother, but neither did he care to bring the man shame or to destroy his spirit. He had no idea what he was going to do. It just didn’t seem right to raise a hand against the man, even though Wild Horse was determined that was how it must be. If he continued to refuse to fight, he suspected Wild Horse would keep his promise to bring him enough pain to make him hate him. All he could do was try to appeal to their brotherhood, but he suspected that was a very faint hope. Devotion to Comanche law was too strong in Wild Horse’s soul.

  “Go and find our mother. She dwells with the Comanche north of the Red River—the Comanche who have given up their spirits and have chosen to live the lives of old women on the white man’s reservation! I do not accept such a life!”

  “I know that you tried once, Wild Horse. I know that you lost a wife and son. I am deeply sorry.”

  Pain moved into the man’s eyes. “Being sorry does not bring them back. The only thing that takes away the sorrow is revenge! Ever since, I have made the whites pay: white women for my woman, white children for my son, whit
e men for their treachery! Blood for blood! It is the way! We who choose not to live on the reservation are hungry and hunted, but at least we are free. This is Comanche country. The tejanos refuse to understand that. They insist on learning the hard way. They are fools!”

  “They are also great in number, Wild Horse. Fools that they are, they will still win, and your people will keep dying. You only make things worse for yourselves. If you keep this up, some day there will be no Comanche to occupy this land!”

  The man grinned a little. “Spoken like a white man. The white man’s way is deep in your soul, Wade Morrow. That is why it will be easy for me to kill you.”

  Wade held his eyes. “Maybe. First I will find Slow Woman and learn the truth.”

  Wild Horse pulled his horse back. “Go then! I will be waiting for you.”

  “There is someone else I must also see before I come back.”

  A sneer moved across Wild Horse’s face. “The white woman.”

  Wade frowned. “How did you know?”

  “Two Hawks told me about the woman in the cave, when he brought you water. We knew there was a white woman on the white man’s coach. We know that you helped her. Again your white ways show. No Comanche man would care about a white woman, except to bring her shame and death.”

  Wade shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Wild Horse. My own white parents loved me as much as any Comanche would have. They are good people, and the white woman who waits for me at Fort Stockton is also good. Not all whites hate the Comanche.”

  “It matters not how good some might be. They do not belong here. And their kind has betrayed and murdered us, they have starved us, shamed us, stolen our land from us. I see no good or bad white people, Wade Morrow. I see only the enemy.”

  Wade could see he was getting nowhere. He backed his horse slightly. “I go to find Slow Woman now. Then I will see the white woman once more before coming back to find you.”

  “You will not find us, Wade Morrow. We will find you.”

  Wade watched him sadly. “Yes, I suppose you will.”

  Wild Horse rode closer again, reaching out and grasping Wade’s wrist in a grip that told Wade his life would definitely be on the line when and if he fought this man. “It is the way,” the man repeated. “You want to learn about being Indian. Then learn that there are times when you must not feel. You must only act. In our world, Wade Morrow, we know only survival…and revenge!”

  Wade opened his hand to grip the man’s wrist in return, wondering if this was to be the only chance he would have to touch his brother in peace. Wild Horse suddenly let go, yanking his wrist from Wade’s hold, then turned his horse and rode back to the others. He let out a call that seemed more like a wild animal than human. In seconds the entire group of braves disappeared over the ridge.

  Wade looked down at his wrist, which still had white marks on it from Wild Horse’s fierce grip. He kicked at Red’s sides and headed north, toward the Red River.

  Jennifer sipped some tea, looking again at the mantle clock above the stone fireplace in Alice’s little cabin. Crutches, which Anthony Enders had ordered made for her, sat leaning against the fireplace. Across from her Alice looked up from some mending and grinned. “You waiting anxiously for Sergeant Enders to come, or wishing that clock would stop so he never comes at all?”

  Jennifer grinned a little and met the woman’s fading blue eyes, wondering what she would think if she knew her thoughts had been of Wade Morrow, not Anthony Enders. “I think I wish it would stop.”

  Alice chuckled. “Still not too fond of the man, hmmm?”

  Jennifer sighed. “No. Something about him doesn’t ring true, Alice. He says he’s from Houston, that his parents died when he was about fourteen, and he’s been on his own, working at odd jobs and such, ever since. Then he joined the army, supposedly because he wanted to help protect Texas settlers.”

  Alice let out a snicker and shook her head. “Joined the army to get away from the law, more than likely, like a lot of others out here. They don’t fool me one bit.”

  Alice looked down at her teacup. “It isn’t just his rather vague past that bothers me, Alice. It’s the feeling I get around him. He frightens me. On the outside he behaves himself. He’s kind and attentive and all; but I sense a mean streak under all those manners. I can’t marry a man I’m afraid of, let alone the fact that he isn’t…well, he isn’t very clean.”

  Alice’s eyes still showed some humor, but also concern. “I didn’t figure a pretty young lady like you would go for a man like Sergeant Enders. And you can bet that a man who’s been out here as long as he has isn’t going to be patient and kind on his wedding night. I hate to embarrass you, dear, but those are the facts.” She frowned. “Why don’t you just pay him off right now and tell him to forget the whole thing? Soon as you’re completely well and it’s safe to go, you could go back to San Antonio or maybe Houston or New Orleans—maybe up to Austin. A young, educated lady like yourself could tutor some rich folks’ kids, something like that. You’d do all right. There’s no sense taking this thing with the sergeant any farther.”

  Jennifer leaned back in the wooden rocker in which she sat, closing her eyes for a moment. How could she tell Alice the real reason she had to keep up the pretense? “It’s only been nine days, Alice. And part of those I couldn’t even see Tony. I suppose I have to make it look as though I’m giving him a chance. I keep hoping each time he comes that I’ll find something about him that I like.” She met the woman’s eyes. “Besides, I still have some healing to do, like you said; and where I go from here will take some deep thought. On top of that I can’t leave right now anyway. Things are too dangerous out there.” She grinned. “And how can I leave you here all alone now that I’ve met you? You said you were glad to have a woman’s company, and I’ve grown to like you very much. Maybe I’ll just stay on here a while and work as a laundress.”

  Alice smiled again. “Well, I’d like that just fine. But it wouldn’t work. If you stayed on here a free woman, those men out there would kill each other off trying to be the man you pick. After a month or so you’ve got to make up your mind or get out of here. Believe me, a pretty, single woman in a place like this only spells trouble. It’s not even allowed. Only wives can live here, and even they have to work as cooks or laundresses. Now there’s no wives left. Most went back East with men who got sent back, the rest got out because it’s too dangerous around here for women now that the army is so thinned out.” She cut off a piece of thread from a shirt she was mending. “Those damn Comanche seem to know when the army has pulled out again. Soon as they see an opening, they come sneaking back down here from up by the Red River and start their raiding and murdering all over again.”

  Jennifer sipped some more tea. Would Wade find his brother and mother? Would he become like them? “Why do they do it, Alice?”

  The woman laughed in a short, bitter grunt. “Because they’re Comanche. It’s in their blood, like breathing and eating. They’ve been nomads and plunderers for so many centuries, they don’t know how else to live. They don’t understand settling in one place, farming, having only one wife. They’re like animals. They move with the seasons and the buffalo. You can’t tame a Comanche any more than you can tame a bobcat.”

  Jennifer lowered the teacup. “But look at Wade Morrow. He’s more civil than some white men I know. He’s kind and intelligent, highly educated.”

  “He’s also only half Comanche. But then he wasn’t raised among them. I’m saying the ones that have lived the Comanche way all their lives can’t be changed. They are what they are. The only hope of changing that is to take all the newborn babies from them and raise them among whites from infancy. But even then, there’s going to be a restless spirit there that will show. Take the bobcat again. Raise one from a kitten and it will be pretty tame. But the time will come when you hang out some meat to smoke, and it will come up missing; then maybe your neighbor’s small dog will come up missing, or a small child will be fou
nd mauled. There’s a wild instinct bred into that bobcat that will come out, in spite of how it was raised. It’s the same with Indians.”

  Jennifer thought for a moment. “Perhaps. But I don’t think that would happen with a man like Mr. Morrow. Maybe it’s because he’s already half white and was raised by whites. All I know is he could never turn on those who raised him, or become wild and vicious. He’s much too good, a very kind and gentle man, although he is brave and skilled when it’s called for—but only in self-defense, never deliberately.”

  She ran a finger around the edge of her cup, not even realizing the strangely soft, melancholy way she had spoken the words. Alice watched her for a moment. This was not the first time she had sensed that Jennifer Andrews had special feelings for Wade Morrow. Alice couldn’t help agreeing the man seemed well-spoken, and he was amazingly handsome in spite of his Indian blood, but still, he was part Comanche. Maybe this young woman from St. Louis still didn’t understand how people out here felt about such a thing.

  “You be careful defending that half-breed, especially around Tony Enders. I agree he seemed pretty decent, and he did save your life. But he’s Indian, Jenny, and it’s not good for a white woman to be defending a man like that.”

  Jennifer looked over at her, frowning. “A man like what? He’s just a man, Alice, that’s all.”

  The woman scowled. “Not in Texas. In Texas he’s Comanche. You’ve got a lot to learn. I just don’t want you to learn the hard way. Besides, it doesn’t make any difference now. The man is gone.”

  The pain moved through Jennifer’s heart again. Gone! Little did Alice know how that word pierced her chest like a knife. She didn’t even know if he was alive or dead, and she wouldn’t know for weeks. How she longed to share her pain and agony with someone, to talk to someone about her love for Wade, talk to someone about her first experience with man. But she certainly couldn’t talk to Alice. She was alone in this, as she had been alone in everything else she had done since Aunt Esther died.

  She rose from her chair and grabbed the crutches. “I think I’ll write a letter home,” she said then. “I promised my uncle’s maid I would write her and let her know I’m all right. We were good friends.”