Praise for Captive Trail
Fans of the Old West will welcome another tale with classic elements—a beautiful captive, her rescuer, and her pursuer. Susan Page Davis knows how to immerse her readers in the frontier setting. A compelling read, reminiscent of Louis L’Amour.
—LYN COTE, author, Texas Star of Destiny series
Susan Page Davis’s Captive Trail stands up to Conrad Richter’s classic The Light in the Forest as a novel of substance that will endure. Texan Taabe Waipu, like Richter’s young Pennsylvanian captive hero, is conflicted over her identity. She escapes a forced Comanche marriage, and her plight tugs at the reader’s heart to draw him into a real page-turner of a Western frontier tale.
—ERIC WIGGIN, author of The Hills of God and the Hannah’s Island series.
Captive Trail blends a powerful plot, rich historical details, and remarkable characters into a story I won’t soon forget. Susan Page Davis wove a compelling tale that drove me to set aside everything else to discover what happened—truly a unique and enjoyable read!
—MIRALEE FERRELL, author of Love Finds You in Sundance, Wyoming
With Captive Trail, Susan Page Davis really captures the essence of Texas in the middle 1850s—the diverse people, the clashing cultures, the setting. I’ve actually lived near Fort Phantom Hill and recognized the authenticity of her depiction. And her story captured my heart. This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I highly recommend it.
—LENA NELSON DOOLEY, award-winning author of the McKenna’s Daughters series and Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico
Susan Page Davis’s Captive Trail is a wonderfully descriptive tale that will lure you in on page 1 and not let go until you’ve read The End. Escape and freedom, courage and faith, and the sometimes fearsome beauty of the wild Texas landscape combine for a fast-paced, spirit-filled read. Make space on your keepers shelf for this one!
—LOREE LOUGH, bestselling author of more than 80 award-winning novels, including From Ashes to Honor
Captive Trail (along with many other titles by Susan Page Davis—who is high on my list of favorite authors) earns a place on my overcrowded book shelves. Action, authenticity, and compelling characters combine with masterful writing to make it a real page-turner … one I would be proud to have written!
—COLLEEN L. REECE, author of more than 140 titles (totaling over six million copies sold)
TEXAS
TRAILS
CAPTIVE TRAIL
SUSAN PAGE DAVIS
A
MORGAN FAMILY
SERIES
MOODY PUBLISHERS
CHICAGO
© 2011 by
SUSAN PAGE DAVIS
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Edited by Andy Scheer
Interior design: Ragont Design
Cover design: Gearbox
Cover images: 123rf, istockphoto, jupiterimages and Veer
Author photo: Marion Sprague of Elm City Photo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis, Susan Page.
Captive trail / by Susan Page Davis.
p. cm. – (Texas trails: a Morgan Family series)
ISBN 978-0-8024-0584-5 (alk. paper)
1. Families—History—Fiction. 2. Texas—History—19th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.A976C37 2011
813’.6—dc22
2011022407
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To my husband, Jim,
who has been through so much with me.
PROLOGUE
1845
Taabe Waipu huddled against the outside wall of the tepee and wept. The wind swept over the plains, and she shivered uncontrollably. After a long time, the stars came out and shone coldly on her. Where her tears had fallen, her dress was wet and clammy. At last her sobs subsided. The girl called Pia came out of the lodge. She stood before Taabe and scowled down at her.
Taabe hugged herself and peered up at Pia. “Why did she slap me?”
Pia shook her head and let out a stream of words in the Comanche language. Taabe had been with them several weeks, but she caught only a few words. The one Pia spat out most vehemently was “English.”
“English? She hit me because I am English?”
Pia shook her head and said in the Comanche’s tongue, “You are Numinu now. No English.”
Taabe’s stomach tightened. “But I’m hungry.”
Pia again shook her head. “You talk English. Talk Numinu.”
So much Taabe understood. She sniffed. “Can I come in now?”
“No,” Pia said in Comanche.
“Why?”
Pia stroked her fingers down her cheeks, saying another word in Comanche.
Taabe stared at her. They would starve her and make her stay outside in winter because she had cried. What kind of people were these? Tears flooded her eyes again. Horrified, she rubbed them away.
“Please.” She bit her lip. How could she talk in their language when she didn’t know the words?
She rubbed her belly, then cupped her hand and raised it to her mouth.
Pia stared at her with hard eyes. She couldn’t be more than seven or eight years old, but she seemed to have mastered the art of disdain.
She spoke again, and this time she moved her hands as she talked in the strange language. Taabe watched and listened. The impression she got was, “Wait.”
Taabe repeated the Comanche words.
Pia nodded.
Taabe leaned back against the buffalo-hide wall and hugged herself, rubbing her arms through the leather dress they’d given her.
Pia nodded and spoke. She made the “wait” motion and repeated the word, then made a “walking” sign with her fingers. Wait. Then walk. She ducked inside the tepee and closed the flap.
Taabe shivered. Her breath came in short gasps. She would not cry. She would not. She wiped her cheeks, hoping to remove all sign of tears. How long must she wait? Her teeth chattered. It is enough, she thought. I will not cry. I will not ask for food. I will not speak at all. Especially not English. English is bad. I must forget English.
She looked to the sky. “Jesus, help me learn their language. And help me not to cry.” She thought of her mother praying at her bedside when she tucked her in at night. What was Ma doing now? Maybe Ma was crying too.
Stop it, Taabe told herself. Until they come for you, you must live the way the Comanche do. No, the Numinu. They call themselves Numinu. For now, that is what you are. You are Taabe Waipu, and you will not speak English. You will learn to speak Numinu, so you can eat and stay strong.
She hauled in a deep breath and rose. She tiptoed to the lodge entrance and lifted the edge of the flap. Inside she could see the glowing embers of the fire. The air was smoky, but it smelled good, like cooked food. She opened the flap just enough to let herself squeeze through. She crouched at the wall, as far from Pia’s mother as she could. The tepee was blessedly warm. If they didn’t give her food, she would just curl up and sleep. Since she had come here, she had often gone to bed hungry.
&n
bsp; Pia didn’t look at her. Pia’s mother didn’t look at her. Taabe lay down with her cheek on the cool grass. After a while it would feel warm.
She woke sometime later, shivering. Pia and her mother were rolled in their bedding on the other side of the fire pit. The coals still glowed faintly. Taabe sat up. Someone had dropped a buffalo robe beside her. She pulled it about her. No cooking pot remained near the fire. No food had been left for her.
At least she had the robe. She curled up in it and closed her eyes, trying to think of the Comanche words for “thank you.” She wasn’t sure there were any. But she would not say it in English. Ever.
CHAPTER ONE
PLAINS OF NORTH CENTRAL TEXAS, 1857
Faster. Taabe Waipu had to go faster, or she would never get down from the high plains, down to the hill country and beyond. South, ever south and east.
Clinging to the horse, she let him run. The land looked flat all around, though it was riddled with ravines and folds. She could no longer see any familiar landmarks. The moon and stars had guided her for two nights, and now the rising sun told her which way to go on her second day of flight. She’d snatched only brief periods of rest. At her urging the horse galloped on, down and up the dips and hollows of the land.
Taabe didn’t know where the next water supply lay. The only thing she knew was that she must outrun the Numinu—Comanche, their enemies called them. No one traveled these plains without their permission. Those who tried didn’t make it out again. She glanced over her shoulder in the gray dawn. As far as she could see, no one followed, but she couldn’t stop. They were back there, somewhere. She urged the horse on toward the southeast.
South to the rolling grasslands where the white men had their ranches. Where Peca and the other men often went to raid. Where Taabe was born.
The compact paint stallion ran smoothly beneath her, but as the sun rose and cast her shadow long over the Llano Estacado, his breath became labored, his stride shorter. Where her legs hugged his sleek sides, her leggings dampened with his sweat. He was a good horse, this wiry paint that Peca had left outside her sister’s tepee. Without him she wouldn’t have gotten this far. But no horse could run forever.
Taabe slowed him to a trot but didn’t dare rest. Not yet.
Another look behind.
No one.
Would she recognize the house she’d once lived in? She didn’t think so, but she imagined a big earthen lodge, not a tepee. Or was it a cabin made of logs? That life was a shadow world in her mind now. Fences. The warriors talked about the fences built by the white men, around their gardens and their houses. She thought she recalled climbing a fence made of long poles and sitting on the top. When she saw fences, she would know she was close.
At last she came to a shallow stream, sliding between rocks and fallen trees. It burbled languidly where it split around a boulder. She let the horse wade in and bend down to drink.
Taabe stayed on his back while he drank in long, eager gulps, keeping watch over the way they’d come. She needed to find a sheltered place where the horse could graze and rest. Did she dare stop for a while? She studied the trail behind her then took her near-empty water skin from around her neck. Leaning over the paint’s side, she dangled it by its thong in the water on the horse’s upstream side. She wouldn’t dismount to fill it properly, but she could stay in the saddle and scoop up a little. She straightened and checked the trail again. The horse took a step and continued to drink.
She stroked his withers, warm and smooth. With a wry smile, she remembered the bride price Peca had left. Six horses staked out before the tepee. A stallion and five mares—pretty mares. Healthy, strong mounts. But only six.
The stallion raised his head at last and waded across the stream without her urging. They settled into a steady trot. Tomorrow or the next day or the next, she would come to a land with many trees and rivers. And many houses of the whites.
Would she have stayed if Peca had left twenty horses?
Fifty?
Not for a thousand horses would she have stayed in the village and married Peca—or any other warrior. Staying would make it impossible for her ever to go back to that other world—the world to the south.
Eagerness filled her, squeezing out her fear. She dug her heels into the stallion’s ribs. Whatever awaited her, she rushed to meet it.
The paint lunged forward and down. His right front hoof sank, and he didn’t stop falling. Taabe tried to brace herself, too late. The horse’s body continued to fly up and around. She hurtled off to the side and tucked her head.
“Today’s the day, Ned.”
“Yup.” Ned Bright coiled his long driver’s whip and grinned at his partner in the stagecoach business, Patrillo Garza. He and “Tree” had scraped up every penny and peso they could to outfit their ranch as a stage stop, in hopes of impressing the Butterfield Overland Mail Company’s division agent. Their efforts had paid off. Tree was now the station agent at the Bright-Garza Station, and Ned would earn his keep as driver between the ranch and Fort Chadbourne. “Never thought everything would go through and we’d be carrying the mail.”
“Well, it did, and as of today we’re delivering,” Tree said. “Now, remember—the mail is important, but not at the passengers’ expense.”
“Sure.” Ned took his hat from a peg on the wall and fitted it onto his head with the brim at precisely the angle he liked. “But if we lose the mail on our first run, we’re not apt to keep the contract, are we?”
Tree scowled. “We ain’t gonna lose the mail, ya hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“Right. We’ve made this run hundreds of times.”
It was true. The two had hauled freight and passengers to the forts for several years. They’d scraped by. But the contract with the Butterfield Overland would mean steady pay and good equipment. Reimbursement if they were robbed.
“Oh, and you’ve got some passengers,” Tree said, offhand.
“Great. That’s where we make a profit, right?”
“Well …” Tree seemed unable to meet his gaze. “There were nuns, see, and—”
“None? I thought you said there were some.”
“Nuns, Ned. Catholic nuns. Sisters.”
Ned’s jaw dropped. “You’re joshing.”
Tree shook his head. “Nope. There’s a pack of ’em at the old Wisher place, out near Fort Chadbourne. Came out from Galveston a month ago to start a mission.”
“A mission? What kind of mission?”
“A Catholic one, what do you think? They’re going to start a school, like the one in Galveston.”
Ned eyed him suspiciously. “You’re making this up.”
“Nope. Somebody gave them the land, and the convent in Galveston sent them out here. I’m surprised you didn’t know.” Tree ran a hand through his glossy dark hair. “That’s right—they came while you were off buying mules. Seriously, they intend to start a school for girls. I’m thinking of sending Quinta to them.”
Ned stared at him. What would the station be like without Quinta? The nine-year-old followed her brothers around and alternately helped and got in the way. She swam like a water moccasin, rode like a Comanche, and yapped like a hungry pup. Since Quinta’s mother died, Tree had pretty much given up trying to feminize her, and he let her run around in overalls and a shirt outgrown by Diego—the next child up the stairsteps.
“And I’m taking them to the fort?”
“Can’t see any harm in dropping them at their place. It’s right beside the road. Two of ’em caught a ride here to pick up some supplies that were donated to their cause, and I told them that if there was enough space, we could haul their stuff out to the mission without them paying extra for it.”
“But freight is—”
Tree raised a hand as he turned away. “Don’t start, Ned.” Esteban, Tree’s third son, charged into the ranch house spouting in Spanish, “Papa, the stage is coming.” In the distance, a bugle sounded.
Tree laughed, his teeth flas
hing white. “Who needs a horn when you’ve got kids?” He tousled Esteban’s hair. “You got the team ready?”
“Si.”
“I’ll be out in a minute.” Tree hurried into the next room.
Ned stared after him. Only one way to find out if his partner was exaggerating. He strode for the door. Outside in the baking heat, Benito and Marcos, the two oldest boys, had brought the team out of the barn into the dusty yard and stood holding the leaders’ heads.
To the right, waiting under the overhang of the eaves, stood two women in long, black dresses. Robes. Habits. Some sort of head shawl—black again, with white showing over their foreheads—covered their hair. Ned glowered at no one in particular.
To his left, Brownie Fale, Ned’s shotgun rider, leaned against an adobe wall of the station. He nodded at Ned and spit a stream of tobacco juice into the dust. They’d ridden hundreds, maybe thousands of miles together, hauling tons of freight. No need to talk now.
The stage barreled into the yard in a cloud of dust and pulled up short. Ned looked over the high, curved body of the coach and pulled in a deep breath. Mighty fine rig. Driving it would be a pleasure, if it wasn’t too top heavy. Putting some passengers and freight inside would help.
“Howdy, boys,” he called to the two men on the box. He stepped forward and opened the coach door. No one was inside, but three sacks of mail lay on the floor between the front and middle benches.
The driver and shotgun rider jumped down.
“How do, Ned,” said Sam Tunney. He and the shotgun rider headed out back to the privy while Tree’s boys began to change out the teams. Benito held the incoming mules’ heads, Diego and Esteban scrambled to unhitch them from the eveners, and Marcos stood by with the fresh team.
Ned turned and went back inside. Tree sauntered toward him carrying a bulging sack on his shoulder. On the side was stenciled “U.S. Mail.”
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