The Trail

by M L Dunn

  Jonas rose after a few hours and found the light had sharpened. The sun’s heat had pooled along the plain and now was the source of the wind’s increased strength. The heat had woken him, but now rising and moving about it did not bother him as much. He tried to find a way to pass the time productively. There were no shadows to watch lengthen - the clouds overhead were small and high and the shadows they cast were pale and fleeting. Shade was scarce and everything looked hard and menacing in the bright light. Occasionally a tiny brown lizard would traverse the wall of the ravine at an odd angle, occasionally stopping to consider Jonas through protruding eyes. High above him, vultures floated down from the sky in corkscrew patterns as if they were descending grand spiral staircases.

  He remembered his mother instructing him that some birds, like a flock of martins meant good fortune. Birds, she believed were a lesser form of God communicating with man and we should not turn our back on them the way city-dwellers did just by their being city-dwellers. They were sent to encourage, or warn or just to demonstrate His power of creation. The owl, or a murder of crows in a line, was a warning of some impending event. The heron and bald eagle gave us hope just by their sight. A solitary raven landing nearby, she’d told him, was an omen, foreboding death or foul weather. Their time as messenger was coming to an end though she predicted, because we failed to recognize them as such, and God would take this gift from us.

  Jonas also was drawn to the watch’s ticking, but the great number of ticks seemed to culminate in little actual time having passed. The distant horizon let the day endure much longer than he liked. He would have spent the time reading, but he had neither a book to read, nor had he ever acquired the ability. What he did have was the desire. It had come from watching men passing time contently in the shade of trees reading, their minds, seeming to him, so occupied yet unconcerned. A kind of freedom he once again was denied.

  “Can you read?” Jonas asked.

  “I can,” Caleb said turning towards him. “I don’t have much time for it though. Why?”

  “No reason,” Jonas said. “Mattie your only child?”

  “No. I got another younger girl, Abby. You got any?”

  “Nah,” said Jonas, “I ain’t got nothing but what the army issues me and they ain’t issued me of the sort. Where you from originally?”

  “Pennsylvania.” Caleb said. “Ever been there?”

  “No,” said Jonas. “They sent us over into Louisiana during the war. I’ve seen the Mississippi river, but I ain’t never crossed it. It don’t seem like something that’s meant to be crossed, not without a good reason anyway. I ain’t never had one.”

  “I’m not sure I have either,” Caleb answered. “Why would this Comanche want my daughter?”

  “Comanche will raise a captive child just like it was their own if the child impresses them,” Jonas answered. “Don’t matter the race or color of the child. White or brown, or black,” he added. I think your child must have impressed that Comanche.”

  Jonas thought it was strange that he was here opposing an Indian who was willing to raise a child of any color, while few whites would. A stolen child is a stolen child though, and he wanted the girl to be able to return home.

  Caleb was scanning the camp with the binoculars when he spotted Mattie. “It’s her,” he said, spotting her bright hair tossed by the wind. “That’s Mattie,” Caleb said pointing at her.

  The distance and having to peer through waves of shimmering heat made Mattie’s appearance seem dream-like. Mattie regularly went to the edge of camp, hoping to spot her father coming for her.

  Jonas asked to see her and Caleb handed him the binoculars and pointed at her.

  “Do you see her?” Caleb asked, wondering if he’d imagined her standing there, if somehow the heat and sun had confused him.

  “I see her,” Jonas reassured Caleb. Her hair, seized by the wind, blew wildly. He handed Caleb the binoculars back and smiled. “You’ll get her back soon.”

  “Maybe if I snuck a little closer, she’d see me. She’d see me and come running.”

  “No,” Jonas said, holding up a hand. “Sooner or later them braves will leave on a hunt or something, and then there won’t be nobody to stop us from going in there and taking her. Just keep watching. See what tepee she disappears into.”

  Caleb went back to watching and realized then that Mattie was not wearing the blue calico dress Allison had made for her. She had on a deerskin dress and her skin was much tanner. She could easily have been mistaken for an Indian child if not for her bright yellow hair that the wind twisted and lifted.

  Caleb lost sight of her when she went back into the camp. He kept watching, closely, and after some time spotted her again just before she stepped inside a teepee. “She went in a teepee that has a black horse painted on it,” Caleb told Jonas.

  “Keep your eye on it,” Jonas said. “The most important thing right now is not to let anyone discover us here.”

  That night they made a small fire to boil coffee, making sure it didn’t smoke, and they ate some biscuits Sweet Time had left with them along with dried fruit.

  Chapter 25

  “How old you think he is?” Rachel asked looking at Mr. O’Hara. She was sitting on the ground next to the sheriff changing his bandage. They had reached the banks of the Cimarron and Sweet Time, feeling much more secure, was restoring the wagon’s cover with Joe’s help.

  “Sweet Time?” July judged, “sixty something.”

  “I can see where a life like his would have its benefits.”

  “Trading?”

  “Travelling,” Rachel explained. “Be nice to pick-up and move any time you felt like it.”

  “What happened after your father died?” July asked.

  “I think you’re really asking me how I ended up a whore,” Rachel said.

  “You don’t have to say.”

  “In a way I’m glad you asked,”

  “What way is that?”

  “Only decent men ever ask me how I came to be a whore,” she explained, “If a man asks me that, I know he’s the kind not to hurt me. After my father died I remarried. It was more an arrangement than a marriage,” Rachel said drawing her knees up close to her and wrapping her arms around them. “The war was ending, things were tough and we lived some ways from any of my family,” she said, “he was older and he drank too much and he started beating me. So I ran away, but he found me and beat me real bad. He must have got scared then because he stole a wagon and took me two days travel across the river into Kentucky and he sold me to a man there who ran a whore house. I tried to run from there too, but I was caught and soon anything is more tolerable than being beat again,” Rachel explained. “But I’m not going back to that way of life.”

  “I’ve known plenty of men who married whores,” July claimed. “I know a Judge in Texas who married a whore and has four children with her now. Most men don’t really care that much.”

  “Your right.”

  “Would you marry again?”

  “I would,” Rachel said standing up and brushing her clothing off.

  “Would you love them though?” July asked.

  “I could,” she said. “It don’t take much more than a willingness to do so. That and some time. I’d make you a fine wife. Even if you don’t realize it,” she added before turning and walking away to help prepare supper.

  Chapter 26

  All the next day was spent doing nothing more than watching the Comanche and listening to the watch tick. Jonas was afraid Caleb would get impatient and insist they try something, but Caleb never did say anything. In fact he spoke little. When the sun finally began sliding slowly towards the indeterminate horizon, and would have caused long shadows to be cast if there had been any trees or features around, they sat with their backs against the gully wall crowded into what shade it did provide. Caleb sat wearing his big hat, his attention fixed on the dirt wall opposite him, when a large shadow suddenly did appear. The shadow moved up the wall and Cale
b thought for a second it was the shadow of a hawk, before realizing it was that of a horse and rider approaching the gully.

  A Comanche warrior was behind them, having spotted their horses and coming closer to investigate. Jonas was up and out of the gully before the warrior realized they were there. “Don’t use your pistol,” Jonas yelled, rushing the warrior.

  The Comanche brave tried to ride past Jonas, but Jonas caught hold of his pony’s lead before the warrior could get away. Jonas jerked the animal to the ground and the warrior slipped off and began running.

  “Stop that horse from running off,” Jonas told Caleb starting after the Comanche.

  Caleb hurried and caught hold of the horse while Jonas ran down the Comanche and tackled him. They began wrestling then, but it was not much of match, in fact the Comanche was no more than a boy or twelve or thirteen and Jonas had the warrior quickly pinned. He had hold of him by the throat and could easily have crushed his windpipe, but instead let go and grabbed him by the arm. Jonas disarmed the boy of a knife before leading him back to the gully. Caleb met him there with the horse. Jonas indicated for the boy to sit down against the wall of the gully and then stood over him catching his breath. “Find me something to tie him with.”

  They soon had the boy’s legs and arms bound.

  “I wish he hadn’t come across us,” Jonas said hopping up to look at the camp. “I don’t think anyone saw anything. We’re far enough away they wouldn’t,” he said not seeing any commotion there. He came back from the gully’s edge and stood over the warrior.

  “What are we going to do with him?”

  “Nothing right now,” Jonas said. “I’m not sure what to do with him.”

  Jonas was glad to see Caleb was of a like mind. Other men would have cut the boy’s throat with no more concern than not wanting to get blood on their boots.

  “I guess we’ll baby sit him for a while,” Jonas said.

  “Someone’s bound to come looking for him sooner or later.”

  “Comanche boys often go off for days hunting,” Jonas said. “Still, you’re right; sooner or later he’ll be missed.”

  Caleb was holding onto the Indian boy’s pony. He noticed what was painted on its hind quarters, among other markings there was a small black horse painted there. “Look at this,” Caleb said pointing at it.

  Jonas looked. “You think this horse belongs to Black Horse?”

  “Who else would have that painted there? This kid must be his.”

  “The irony,” Jonas said.

  After dark they built a small fire and ate. The young warrior would only accept water from them. Jonas decided he wanted to explore their surroundings and he left after checking the boy’s ropes. While he was gone another visitor happened by - a Comanche dog that had wandered out from the camp. It became aware of Caleb and stood at the edge of the gully barking at him.

  Caleb was afraid the dog might alert someone inside the camp so he rose and tried to shoo it away, but failed. He drew his knife, and moving slowly, approached it. He caught hold of the animal by its leg and as bit him, Caleb plunged his knife in it. He had been reluctant to do such a thing, but after the Comanche pony and now this dog, it seemed to be getting easier. The dog rolled and Caleb slashed its throat. The dog howled and Caleb forced its jaws closed. He dragged the dog away and buried it under a stone slab. He brushed away his footprints with the branch of a sage brush. When Jonas returned, he found Caleb tending to a fresh wound on his arm.

  “What happened?” Jonas asked

  “A dog discovered me here, I had to kill it.”

  “Where’s it now.”

  “I buried it under a rock.”

  Jonas went and spent some time cleaning the area.

  The next morning, just before the sun rose, they woke and saw the Comanche were gathering some of their horses in from the herd and bringing them into camp. Jonas told Caleb they were readying to move and he thought they might pass over where they were hid, so while the light was still dim, they quickly packed up their things and moved. They threw the young warrior sideways over his pony and followed the ravine until it worked its way behind a swell of land. An hour later, they lay atop the small hill watching the Comanche pass it front of them a half mile away. Jonas had been mindful not to leave any sign of their being in the ravine, but still some sign of them having been there was discovered.

  “We got trouble,” Caleb said watching through the binoculars from their new hiding place. “There’s a dog sniffing around where we buried that one last night.”

  “Must have found its scent.”

  There was nothing they could do, but watch and hope that nobody paid much attention to the dog working furiously to expose something lying under a rock. That seemed unlikely though when Caleb spotted a thin boy approaching the dog. The boy knelt next to the burrowing dog and peered into the hole it had dug. The boy must have figured someone had tried to conceal the animal buried there, for he rose and looked all around. Unexpectedly he stopped the dog from unearthing anymore, and then he pushed the dog away and began re-covering the grave.

  “That’s funny,” Caleb said.

  “What is?”

  “We just got real lucky. Some Mexican-looking kid just dragged that dog away and covered the spot back up.”

  “Let me see,” Jonas said, snatching the binoculars from in front of Caleb. Jonas looked and saw it was the same boy he had spoken to inside the camp. Like trying to spot someone who had called his name, the boy was looking all around, and Jonas realized what had happened. “That boy knows we’re out here.”

  “Nah,” Caleb responded. “He can’t see us.”

  “I mean I think he suspects I’m out here.”

  “Why?”

  “He asked me to the other day when we were at their camp, except I didn’t know what he was saying, because he spoke Spanish. I didn’t know what he way saying until I asked Sweet Time later.”

  Caleb shrugged his shoulders to indicate he did not know what to think about that and Jonas went back to watching the boy. The boy soon disappeared into the line of Comanche moving south.

  Caleb and Jonas waited till the last of Comanche had disappeared from sight before they began following their trail, dragging the young warrior along. Towards evening, the clouds south of them began to gather and lower until there was only a single dark cloud. It moved slowly towards them, like a curtain being drawn, and then with a loud crash, as if a giant gong had been struck, rain started falling.

  There was little light to see by except for an occasional lightning strike. They threw blankets over the horses’ heads to calm them and used the brief moments of illumination to mark their way, like men getting up in the middle of the night and trying to find the door of an unfamiliar room. The rain was cold and fell in sheets, it splattered on the ground and dripped off their hats as they walked ahead of the horses.

  The flashes became fainter and less often as the storm relocated and the rain lessened to a drizzle. They felt the ground underneath them begin sloping upwards. They found they were climbing a long, gently rising ridge. When they reached the top, they spotted a few fires glowing where the Comanche had made camp. Atop the ridge were exposed sections of rock and then the other side of the ridge descended in a long grassy slope towards the camp. Caleb and Jonas looked around for somewhere else, but there were no other visible features, so they moved down the ridge to where there were a few large rocks and hid there.

  Chapter 27

  A young Army doctor, fresh from the East, and eager to show his skill in applying chloroform, put the sheriff under before he removed the bullet lodged in July’s leg. The doctor had to cut away at muscle, and a number of veins were opened in doing so, but he was able to tie them off and seal up the wound satisfactorily. Afterwards they carried the sheriff down a hallway lit with candles attached to the wall. The light outside was fading, but it had not completely withdrawn, so the candles mostly produced pale, yellow circles along the ceiling. They laid him on a narro
w bed in a tiny room and Rachel took watch over him in a chair by the window. The young doctor opined that the sheriff would probably be left with some hobble, but otherwise would recover. He expected the sheriff to sleep for some time from the effect of the anesthetic.

  Mr. O’Hara had left Rachel at the fort and said he would be parked near Sally’s establishment, but he had promised to check on her before heading off from there. She had no definite plans as yet, wanting to see how July responded to her being there when he was to wake. He’d not answered her, but it was encouraging that his attitude towards her had not seemed to change any after she’d proposed. If he was to bid her farewell and good luck, she was prepared to ask Mr. O’Hara and Joe where they were headed and could she tag along a little while longer.

  There was a knock on the door and Rachel rose to find a soldier there with tray of food covered with a cloth. She thanked him and returned to her chair and sat eating with the tray balanced on her lap. After a while there was a knock again and she expected the soldier had come for the empty tray. She opened the door.

  “Hello mam, I’m Colonel Campbell, may I talk to you for a moment.”

  “Of course,” she said stepping into the hallway.

  “What happened with Corporal Jackson?”

  “Who?”

  “The Negro soldier I sent with that man?” the colonel said pointing at the door behind them.