by Tony Masero
Nathan found that he had unconsciously been toying with the gifted bead necklace Esacona had given him and wondered why he was doing that. Was it out of some form of respect that was forming in his mind? Respect for a rapist and wanton killer of his own people? It was a confusing and puzzling state of affairs and it twisted his brain and made his head spin.
Esacona continued to speak, more quietly and urgently as he clearly laid out a plan. The braves listened attentively and at the climax, they all shouted agreement in unison and raised their weapons in the air. Their war cries echoed around the small enclave of rocks and Nathan could plainly see the pleasure at which they greeted Esacona’s words. Then, as one, the band broke up and moved off to collect their ponies.
The three white captives stood watching as Butler was set down and sent to join them. As the child trotted across, Esacona came over and stood before Nathan. He stood upright and proud, arms folded across his breast with the blood still running from his cut arm ignored. He spoke to Nathan, quiet and serious words that Nathan could not understand, and then the chief reached out a hand and laid it on Nathan’s shoulder. He nodded his head in some kind of show of reassurance before walking away to join the others.
In one motion, Esacona swung up onto his pony and without a word led the warriors out from amongst the collection of rocks. Singing and calling out battle cries the rest followed, at the rear were the two young horse guards and between them they led the ponies that Nathan and the others had been riding. The nearest of the two grinned at them and cheerfully shouted a few words before driving in his heels and speeding off in pursuit of his fellows as he tugged the ponies behind him.
‘What the devil was that about?’ asked Nathan. ‘Are they leaving us here? Are we released?’
‘I think not,’ said Oban.
‘Then what?’
‘Are my friends coming back to play?’ asked Butler, a frown of childish concern showing on his face. ‘I like them, they’re nice.’
Oban was watching the departing riders, ‘I believe they are going to surprise their attackers and make a revenge raid against them.’
‘You think so?’ said a concerned Nathan. ‘But they have left us without guard.’
‘Where can we go? Look around you, we would not last three hours in this heat on the open desert.’
‘They left us no water so how will we survive anyway?’
‘There is water,’ said Oban. ‘There amongst the rocks.’
Nathan turned to look amongst the jumble of rocks that Oban indicated, ‘And we have no way of warning them,’ he complained, more to himself than to the others.
‘Not without a pony and even then I doubt you would be able to pass the Comanche without falling foul of them.’
‘Thanks, Oban, that’s good to know,’ said Nathan with a touch of cynicism, as he turned his back on them and walked over towards the rock pool.
It appeared to Nathan that he was standing alone in his resolve to gain freedom; the others had already decided to accept their lot it seemed. Nathan could not grasp their willowy shift and found it faintly unsettling; he supposed it was a result of the sheltered lives they had led. Protected by money and their parent’s position, even Oban with his tales of parental abuse had still benefitted from a wealthy environment. It proved to Nathan’s more militaristic mind that as a group they had no inner resolve and were as flexible as a wet leather strap and only too willing to bend to the will of the Indians. He must go it alone, he decided. His father had worked hard to instill in him too much of a sense of responsibility and pride in himself for him for him to allow it to slip so readily from his grasp. He would escape and find a way home, with or without the others.
As he arrived at the small waterhole he saw that they had not been left quite alone. A wounded brave lay there within reach of the water. He lay on his back, his side bloody with a wound that pumped a continuous stream of red. The Indian looked up at Nathan, he said nothing, his face expressionless. Then he turned his head to look away. For an instant, Nathan felt a wave of pity for the man.
By the time the chuck wagon arrived everybody was hungry and the troop set to, immediately preparing a simple meal of beans and biscuits to appease their appetite. It was nearing full dark by the time they were done and two fires were stoked up with brushwood and a lantern lit over the bow of the wagon.
The men were relaxed after eating and Britt felt himself drifting into a comfortable doze in front of the fire with his pipe alight and his eyes on the flames. It was mesmerizing, the warmth and the fire glow on a full belly and for a moment he forgot he was a scout in pursuit of a ferocious foe. Britt’s mind wandered again to his prospects once this mission was over.
He considered ranching but was not well versed in cattle production, a small farm came next to mind but then he reflected on the labor involved and wondered if he was up to it. Perhaps some kind of work as a meat hunter for the railroads or maybe even a job as a law keeper in a small town. The thoughts drifted loosely through his mind and only sluggishly did he draw back from his ramblings as he heard the distant sound of a night owl.
His heart bucked and suddenly he was alert and all attention. His eye roved over the rest of the troop and he noted how they all lazed by the fire, some of them he could see were already asleep. Slowly, so as not to alarm, he knocked out his pipe and climbed to his feet and his gaze met Kilchii’s across the fire. The Navajo, who had been sitting with Niyol whilst he played one of their string games, dropped the cat’s cradle of thread from his fingers and slowly stood up. His head rotated, ears to the night sounds and nose scenting the air. With a whispered word, Niyol also joined him and the two slipped into the shadows beyond the chuck wagon.
Britt picked up his rifle and crossed over casually to O’Brien who sat, his back propped against his saddle, a blanket across his knees and his eyes fixed dreamily into the flames. Britt knelt down beside him.
‘It may be nothing,’ he said quietly in O’Brien’s ear. ‘But rouse the men. Make sure you have an armed perimeter ready. Go easy though, make it natural.’
‘You heard something?’ whispered O’Brien urgently.
‘Like I say, might be nothing. We’ll go take a looksee.’
‘I’ll get it done,’ promised O’Brien, slipping the blanket from his knees.
With that, Britt followed the Navajo’s out into the shadows beyond the wagon.
They fanned out and tracked into the surrounding dunes. Once away from the firelight, Britt took a moment to allow his eyes to adjust. He crouched down in a defile, tense and listening. It was a moonless night and only a nightglow showed the desert horizon, the rest was in total darkness. Slowly and moving on his belly he wormed his way up to the low crest. Britt removed his hat and laid it beside him on the mound. Keeping his head low so that only his eyes were above the level of the rise, he searched the darkness watching for any movement or glitter of weapon.
The natural sounds of the night were all around him, beetles crunching their way, rodents and other tiny animals on the move. Hunting coyotes and snakes, even ants streaming through the sand. The rustles and small movements seemed suddenly loud and deafening as Britt strained to hear the unusual. The owl hooted again. It was behind him, over towards the butte beyond the chuck wagon.
Surrounded, he thought, they have us surrounded.
It was unexpected that the routed Comanche should regroup and come on the attack so swiftly and it confirmed for Britt that they were facing a determined and bloody-minded enemy for he was certain that now they were all in deadly peril.
The soft tread that he heard, was off at fifty yards to his front and he caught the reflected movement of starlight on the sheen of bare skin. They were coming but they moved so well, slick and easily through the shadows. He had them pegged, at least some of them but they moved in and out of vision in the blackness.
Bringing his rifle up, he tracked the prospective path of the figure he had noted. Even if he missed his target he needed to give n
otice to those in the camp that an attack was imminent. His finger was tightening on the trigger when he heard the sound behind and swiftly rolled to one side.
A body flopped down heavily beside him, breath escaping from the slashed throat in a long blubbering sigh.
He spun around to see Kilchii looming over him, a bloody blade in his hand. Kilchii smiled and waggled the knife in demonstration that Britt should be more aware.
Looking at the dead Comanche beside him, Britt had to agree. He nodded and indicated with the rifle barrel where he had seen the other advancing Indians. Kilchii looked off to where Britt pointed and then back in the direction of the camp as he calculated distance, they both understood each other without words and the Navajo moved smoothly off into the darkness.
There was a sudden explosion of firing to Britt’s right and he knew that Niyol was involved in a gunfight. As the noise of the gunshots abated the sharp sounding crack of the army’s carbines commenced to flash out from the campsite in a wave. They were firing blind and Britt ducked down as bullets whined overhead. Blood curdling screams joined the fusillade and there was a rush of movement amongst the shadows as the Comanche attacked.
The Indians were short of firearms and they relied heavily on lance and arrow for long work only using their hatchets and knives when close in and by the firelight Britt could see that the campsite was being peppered with steel tipped arrow shafts and feathered war lances. Britt moved, crouched over and in scurried rushes, to bring himself up behind the attacking force, which was a dangerous game of cat and mouse in the darkness. Finding the enemy whilst avoiding the barrage of firing from the troopers was indeed a risky business.
Somewhere away in the night someone was screaming horribly, long and loud the terrible cries echoed over the gunfire. Britt could not tell if the agonizing calls came from the Indian front or the campsite. He saw bobbing heads before him outlined by the firelight from the camp and swiftly leveled his rifle and fired. The bursting flash of dazzling light seared across Britt’s night vision temporarily blinding him, without thinking he fired again and then again. Then he rapidly moved position as a babble of calls rent the night, high-pitched and loud they were followed by the eerie piercing sound of bone whistles shrieking into the night.
The gun battle was continuing and Britt hunched down as he heard the rustle of a wave of moccasined feet rushing through the undergrowth. The sound of heavy breathing and bodies moving unheeding through brush told him the Comanche were retreating. Their hoped for surprise attack had been blunted and they were moving out before they suffered more losses.
The figures moved away in the darkness and the only noise in the night was the continuing firing coming from the soldiers. Gradually it died away and he could hear O’Brien calling for a ceasefire. Only then did Britt raise his head. As he did so he again heard the cries of the wounded man and now he could identify direction and knew it was an Indian who had been hit and he moved off towards the sound.
‘O’Brien!’ he called. ‘It’s Marley. They’ve gone, bring a lantern will you?’
‘Coming,’ the Sergeant replied and Britt saw him take down the lantern from the chuck wagon and set off at the jog.
‘Where away?’ called O’Brien. ‘It’s blacker than the inside of Satan’s hat out there.’
‘Over here,’ replied Britt. He was standing over a squirming shape in the darkness and Kilchii’s figure was beside him in the shadows.
‘Is he Comanche?’ asked Britt.
Kilchii nodded an affirmative.
The figure writhing on the ground was wailing and clutching at himself and as O’Brien arrived with the lantern they could see it was a painted warrior and he had been horribly wounded. It looked like half the Indian’s side had been torn out, ripped from belly to armpit by a tumbling rifle bullet. It was a ghastly wound where broken rib bones from the smashed ribcage protruded through the ragged flesh.
‘Well, that one won’t be seeing his squaw and papoose again, I’m thinking,’ observed O’Brien with some relish.
‘We lose anyone?’ asked Britt.
‘We did, aye,’ growled O’Brien sadly. ‘Pyotowski and Zagreb, they were both up in the chuck wagon and were lost to us by arrow and lance at the first.’
Kilchii looked at Britt and then down at the Indian, ‘We kill?’ he asked, his knife ready at the wounded man’s throat.
‘Ask him who he follows? I want a name.’
The gasping Indian was spitting blood and barely conscious and it took some rough handling from the Navajo until the wounded man could hear the question delivered in Numic, the tongue of the Comanche. It was a language most Indians understood whatever their tribe, as the Comanche so dominated the pony market amongst the Indian population that it was the basic language for all deals involving the trade of horses.
‘He say it is one named Esacona, that you would call Returning Wolf, he is the parabio, the chief they follow, he and Kowa who is called Stinking Tobacco in your tongue. They were the….’ He faltered over the numbers and held up and opened his fist three times.
‘A better name would be stinking dog,’ growled O’Brien.
‘Esacona,’ mused Britt. ‘I don’t know this one.’
‘I have heard.’ It was Niyol coming up quietly behind them out of the darkness, his rifle held in the crook of his arm.
‘What do you know?’ asked Britt.
‘He is of the Kotsoteka, the Buffalo Eaters band of Comanche. He has much puha, much medicine power and is strong leader. Kowa is more dangerous warrior, little brain but big killer. The two are like two halves of one man, one thinks and the other does.’
Britt looked down at the dying Comanche, ‘Who is he?’ he asked.
Kilchii shrugged, ‘I do not know but he is near death,’ he answered solemnly.
‘Then let him suffer no more, see him to the Spirit World.’
Kilchii knelt beside the wounded brave and with one knee on the man’s chest and a hand holding the long haired head down to one side he drew the knife blade swiftly across the Indian’s artery.
‘Depart, brother,’ whispered Kilchii as the heart blood spouted. ‘See that a way is prepared for me on the other side for I take your life in pity not anger.’
‘How many hostiles did we take down?’ asked Britt.
‘Well, there’s this one here,’ said O’Brien. ‘I think Niyol took another,’ he looked at Navajo for confirmation.
‘Kilchii got one over yonder,’ said Britt. ‘That’s three for certain, maybe more we’ll check come daylight. With the two taken down at the ambush that leaves this Esacona down to ten men now.’
‘And we are eight,’ said O’Brien. ‘Eight to ten, the odds are getting shorter. God bless us.’
But Britt was thoughtful, ‘Let us just hope they don’t do anything drastic with the children now.’
‘What’s your thinking? Do we just keep after them?’ asked O’Brien.
Britt took out his pipe and sucked on the end a moment, ‘I think we need a plan.’
‘You have something in mind?’
‘I do, but let’s see to our dead first. Then tomorrow we’ll make a move.’
Chapter Eight
The four riders who arrived at Fort Rosebud dismounted outside the Sutler’s store and stood silently getting their bearings.
Their leader was a tall, broad shouldered figure; dressed entirely in black, with a long drape jacket and a broad brimmed planter’s hat that shadowed his eyes. He brushed at his lapels to rid himself of trail dust, checked the knot on his ribbon tie and tugged at the waistcoat with its silver watch chain. Lastly he eased the holster and bone handled revolver strapped to his waist.
Beside him stood a small woman, black haired with deeply penetrating eyes, dressed in buckskin leggings and a checkered shirt. All of which gave her less the appearance of a woman and more of a trail hand. Her long hair was tied at the neck and hung down her back and on her head she wore a flat topped, round brimmed Mexican hidalgo’s hat wi
th a chinstrap to keep it in place.
She was a striking woman, small but with a full figure and there was a hint of the Negress about her broad lips and long lashed almond-shaped eyes. No doubt of a mixed heritage, whatever the origins they had combined to create a vital and attractive looking woman. It was only the dark eyes that spoke of pain suffered and given; they were as black as pitch and without any symptom of mercy evident within.
The third to step down was a keen eyed, wiry figure in a split-tailed duster and carrying a long rifle covered by a soft leather sleeve that he kept a close hold on at all times. Next to him a bluff, heavily built and boorish looking man with small eyes and a mean expression permanently stamped on his unshaven face. He carried a remarkably long butcher knife, a machete shortened to the length of a small sword, strapped along his right leg.
All of them stood silently and quite still on the porch of the store and waiting, they stared across at the hotel opposite.
‘It seems they are here,’ said Clairmont Royce from his chair by the window on the second floor of the hotel.
‘You are sure about this?’ asked his companion Delvin Reese, the shipping magnate.
Royce was broody, his normal bombastic manner restrained as he glowered thoughtfully. ‘No way I want to trust those soldier boys with my boy’s life. Hellfire! Did you see that scout? He’s a beat-up old man, for Christ’s sake.’
‘The Colonel gave him high recommendation,’ advised Reese. He was a tight-faced and hunched-back slender man who attempted to dress up with flamboyant ties and stickpins in an effort to belie his natural appearance. But he bore all the look of a bookish accountant and it was certainly through his understanding of profit and loss that he had risen to become the owner of a shipping empire. Such a rise had its costs and his secretive and overbearing behavior with his son was a mark of his inner timidity. A way of proving to himself the physical power he did not possess. He was a man who understood well columns of figures but the pathways of the human heart were lost to him and he deluded himself that he controlled all by dominating those smaller and weaker than himself.
