“By Gott, don’t go off half-cocked,” the Prussian growled. “You follow me.”
Odell freed his rifle from the saddle horn and found his stirrups. “If you’re going to lead, you’d better get on your horse and ride. Red Wing’s over there across the river, and I don’t aim to wait for anybody.”
“You listen. The odds are those Comanches know we’re prowling around their stomping grounds.” Son Ballard worked his chew around in his jaw and contemplated a hole in the sole of his moccasin. “If that gal is over there we won’t do her any good getting ourselves killed. I don’t care how tough we are, we ain’t going to whip a whole damned passel of Comanches easily. Rein in a little and let’s hear how the Prussian intends to skin this coon.”
Chapter 27
The men sat stark naked on the ground in front of their former tepee with their hands bound in front of them and their ankles tied together. All but a dozen of the warriors had left them, and those remaining had built a fire. They had pierced cuts of buffalo meat with sticks driven into the ground at an angle over the flames, and they hunkered over their cooking and laughed at the discomfort of their captives.
Agent Torrey covered his genitals with his bound hands and squeezed his scrawny shoulders in toward his chest until he was half his normal size. “I find our current situation to be highly embarrassing and uncomfortable to say the least. I never imagined that such things happened in Texas.”
“It will only get worse,” Captain Jones said. “Our death won’t be easy.”
It was disheartening to hear the captain. Despite the man’s cynical personality, Agent Torrey was usually impressed with his dry wit and self-assured demeanor. The agent had come to lean on the more experienced man when the trials of the wilderness became too much. But the undignified nature of their captivity made him appear as someone else altogether. He didn’t look like a captain anymore sitting there with his pale, pudgy flesh exposed, and his bald head turning red under the sun. The fear on his face was a match for what Agent Torrey supposed was on his own.
“At least old age has already taken my scalp and robbed the Comanches of that pleasure,” Captain Jones said.
“That’s enough of that, Captain. Scaring Agent Torrey doesn’t help matters,” Commissioner Anderson said.
Agent Torrey was surprised that the commissioner still looked important and commanding even though he was as naked as the rest of them. He thought that perhaps it was because the commissioner was not fat like the captain. Slender people looked much more dignified naked, and it seemed to him that they had an unfair advantage when it came to Indian captivity.
“If the Comanches are right, there’s a company of Rangers somewhere nearby,” Agent Torrey said.
“They’d better come quick, if they’re coming at all,” the commissioner said.
“You two don’t get your hopes up for any Rangers to pull our fat out of the fire. If they hit this village, it’s just going to get us killed quicker,” Captain Jones said.
“It doesn’t hurt to hope,” Agent Torrey said.
Captain Jones recognized one of the guards for the quieter of the two Comanches that had guided them to the camp. “You’re a fine, trustworthy bastard. Judas hadn’t anything on you.”
The warrior grinned at him and said something that the other Comanches obviously found very funny. Then the comedian took one of the cooking sticks and held it toward the captain. Only the outside of the steak on it was charred, and the half-raw bit dripped hot, bloody juice. It was plain that the Comanche was offering the captain or his friends something to eat.
“They offer us food? Perhaps they intend to ransom us.” Agent Torrey was willing to grasp at any hope, no matter how slim. He still wasn’t certain that Squash had told the truth. “Surely the Comanches wouldn’t murder emissaries of the republic who brought gifts and offerings of peace.”
“To hell they wouldn’t,” Captain Jones said.
Commissioner Anderson motioned with his chin and held out his bound hands with palms turned upward to let the Comanche know he would take the offered meat. “The condemned man deserves a last supper, and I was foolish enough to pass on breakfast.”
The Comanche grinned and flung the meat off the stick, slinging hot grease across his victim. The bit of sizzling steak hit the commissioner’s leg and he flopped around wildly to get it off of him. When he was through, there were red specks across his chest and a deep burn on his thigh.
The rest of the Comanches joined in. While chewing their own meals lustily, they would take up a stick and dexterously fling a piece of meat at the prisoners’ bare flesh. No matter how hard the captives tried to avoid being burned, the flying chunks hit home. The three men were soon flopping around on the ground like fish out of water while the Comanches laughed as if it were the funniest thing they had ever seen.
“The blackhearted bastards are devilishly good aims,” Captain Jones said during a break in the action.
The commissioner was trying to reach a particularly nasty burn on his shoulder with his mouth to cool it and didn’t answer him. The warriors seemed to have lost their enthusiasm with the game and had turned to the sole focus of filling their bellies with large quantities of meat. Captain Jones said a small prayer of thanks that maybe the ordeal was over, but it turned out to just be an interlude. The Comanches went back to their torturous antics just as soon as their hungers were thoroughly satisfied.
The commissioner and the captain sacrificed their hands to fend off many of the hot pieces, or to at least knock them off their skin, but Agent Torrey refused to let go of his genitals. The warriors found his modesty even funnier than his epileptic attempts to dodge, and as a result, he took the worst punishment of the three.
The warrior who had begun the fun and games walked over and took the glasses off Agent Torrey’s face. He put them on himself and made a big show of acting dizzy. The rest of the warriors passed the spectacles around, each of them trying them out and going through the same little act to loud laughter. When the new had worn off the glasses, they went back to flinging hot meat at Agent Torrey.
“Dammit, Mr. Tom! Let go of your taproot and protect yourself,” Captain Jones said.
But Agent Torrey was far too modest for his own good. By the time the Comanches were through, the agent’s body was covered in small burns where the hot grease had burrowed itself into his flesh. He curled up on his side in a fetal position and tried to forget where he was at. He thought that if he squeezed his eyes shut tightly enough, perhaps he could make the Comanches disappear.
The hot sun and their full bellies made the Comanches sleepy, and soon they went off to a brush arbor nearby. Most of them proceeded to take naps, but a few of them began to gamble with a set of carved trinkets thrown onto a blanket. They looked up from their game occasionally to check on their prisoners but seemed content to leave off their torture for the time being.
The commissioner’s raw wounds stung fiercely, and the sweat running into them and the constant attack of the swarm of flies buzzing around made the pain worse. He tried to ignore his suffering body and reached out and took a piece of meat from the ground. He brushed away the worst of the grass and dirt and tore off a bite of it. Captain Jones watched him chew for a while, and then found himself a morsel and did the same.
“Agent Torrey, you should eat while you have the chance. We need to keep up our strength,” the commissioner said.
Agent Torrey seemed not to have heard him, for he remained curled up in a ball. His two companions felt bad for him and understood his state of mind. Neither of them had any doubt that the Comanches could find a way to break them too.
* * *
Red Wing listened to the men’s torture from inside the tepee. She was helpless to aid them and knew that it was just a matter of time before her own trials would begin. The suffering of captives was an old story to her, and she waited to hear the sound of footsteps at
the door. She had gotten Iron Shirt to confirm that she wasn’t Comanche, but there was a price to be paid for that. Her own stubborn and clever plotting had kept her status as an outsider, but soon some warrior or warriors would come to treat her as such.
The Comanches outside had grown quiet, and she took a quick look out the door. It would shame the men for her to see them naked and abused, but she had to know how serious their injuries were. The warriors wouldn’t kill them yet, but that didn’t mean that the little games they thought up to pass the time wouldn’t be dangerous. She was glad to see that the commissioner and the captain seemed little worse for the wear, but her heart went out to Agent Torrey lying there. Except for the rise and fall of his ribs, she might have taken him for dead.
The cowardly instinct for self-preservation urged her not to draw attention to herself, but the sight of the men suffering under the hot sun worked at her more strongly. She took up the Mexican water jug hanging above her and went out the door before she lost courage. She didn’t look toward the Comanches under their arbor, but she could feel their eyes on her. It was only a few yards to where the prisoners were, but the distance seemed like an eternity. She expected the warriors to stop her at every step.
She went to Agent Torrey first and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Sit up, Mr. Torrey. I’ve brought water for you.”
He flinched under her hand. “Go away, Red Wing. You shouldn’t see me like this.”
“I only see only a friend lying out in the hot sun,” Red Wing said.
He stirred slowly and wouldn’t look at her when he finally sat up. She held out the water jug to him, but his bound hands were unable to hold it. Seeing his predicament, she held the rim to his lips and he drank greedily until he could hold no more. He stared at her strangely, and she assumed that he was almost blind without his glasses.
He squinted into the sun and tried to focus on the blur of her face. “I’m not sure you aren’t an angel.”
“It’s just me, Mr. Torrey.”
She started to rise, but he laid a hand on her forearm. “Thank you.”
She moved on to Captain Jones, who managed the jug on his own. She averted her eyes and knelt by him while he drank his fill. He had nothing to say, and when she felt the jug pressed against her hands, she moved on.
Commissioner Anderson’s curly blond locks were tangled with grass and dirt, and burn blisters speckled one side of his face. He never looked away from the Comanches under the arbor while he drank.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” he said when he was through.
She blamed him for their troubles, but she couldn’t find her anger. It would have been a lie to tell him he was forgiven, but there was no pleasure in torturing him further. “You have been wrong, but you’re a brave man.”
He had enough spirit left in him to laugh. “No, we wouldn’t be here if I had been braver.”
“Look over there and see how those warriors glare at you. It’s because they see your courage.”
“Appearing brave has almost been a profession with me. Now that I’m to die without anyone to see, it remains to be seen if I can keep up the act,” he said. “Agent Torrey cringes and cowers, but I wonder if he isn’t braver than I am to be so truthful with himself.”
The gambling warriors seemed annoyed enough by her kind attentions to quit their game, and Red Wing got to her feet. “I have to be going. It will mean no good for you if they come over here.”
“Had things been different I would have liked to walk with you along the streets of New Orleans, or even Charleston. There are places beyond Texas where a gentleman and a fine lady belong. I see no place out here for beautiful things,” he said quietly. “The world here is turned upside down.”
Two of the Comanches were coming her way. She left the water jug beside the commissioner and walked quickly back to the tepee. She heard one of the warriors kick the jug away just as she ducked inside.
She sat alone in the shadows at the back of the lodge and wished she could see her mother one last time. Somewhere far across Texas, Mrs. Ida would be sitting on her porch waiting for the boys to come in from the fields. The lightning bugs would be flashing in the yard, and the bullfrogs calling from the river. Red Wing longed to sit at her mother’s feet and feel her fingers gently twine her hair. Bud and Mike would make them laugh over supper, and then they would all go back out on the porch to listen to the night and to cool themselves in the breeze.
Her longing was interrupted by the sound of someone at the door. She looked up into the ghostly face she had seen the day before. Older memories came to her in a rush, and all that she had come to believe battled against the evidence before her. The buffalo horn hat was gone, but it was him just the same.
Little Bull stopped just inside the doorway. His fierce face was painted black for war, but there was a slight awkwardness behind the mask. “Hello, Sister.”
“I thought you were dead. I saw you ridden down beneath a Tejano’s horse.”
She couldn’t believe what her own eyes told her.
“I thought when the white-haired colonel took you away that I would never see you again,” he said.
For an instant she wanted to hug him, but there was a strangeness between them that shouldn’t have been there. She struggled to bridge the gap between the man she saw before her and the boy who had been her brother. The flashing eyes, the war paint, and the angry tenseness apparent in his scarred muscles were no part of her memories.
“I have avenged your death many times,” he said.
“I never forgot you.”
“And yet you come here dressed like a white woman to deny your people?”
“My life has taken me so far away from here that I can never come back.”
He paced back and forth in front of her like a caged animal, all the while studying her. “I’m no longer a poor child among a band of beggars. I have many horses and many warriors follow me each time I ride against my enemies.”
“I’m proud. Our father would be too.”
“Come with me. All will know you’re my sister, and life will be good. We will live as we were taught, and honor all that we once lost.”
Red Wing stood to her feet and held her hands out wide as if to draw attention to her dress. “Do you see me, Brother? This is who I am.”
“You are Comanche.”
She shook her head sadly. “No longer.”
He came to stand close to her, his face inches from hers. “I see a stranger, but my heart remembers a sister who I used to tease and who could outshoot all the boys with her little bow.”
Red Wing shrugged and tears streamed down her cheeks. “I can’t be her again. She is as lost to me as she is to you.”
“Do you remember what will happen to you if you don’t come with me? Do these weak, strange white men have such powerful medicine?”
“I have a new white mother that has loved me for many years. I only want to go back to her,” she said. “Come to visit me this winter if you wish to be my brother again. I won’t ask you to change.”
He drew his knife and held it between them lying on her chest. “If I could cut the sickness from your heart, I would. If I could cut you from my heart, I would.”
“Your knife isn’t sharp enough.”
He started for the door, but she caught his arm. He tensed at her touch and the wild, angry hurt was plain in the clench of his jaw and the weathered crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. But he did not jerk away.
“I’m a prisoner in your camp. Free me, Brother. Free the men who brought me here, and let us go home.” Her voice trembled.
He strained to see behind the smoke of her words. He felt like a small, helpless boy again, unable to fight strongly enough to keep the good things that were his. His life had been shaped by loss, and he had willed himself to a place among the Comanche. Now all his strength and prowe
ss wasn’t enough to gain back what was right before him.
He straightened himself and once more looked like the stranger who had walked into her lodge. He was a Comanche to fear, and a warrior who kept what he was strong enough to take. “I see our mother’s face in yours. I will not see you shamed and raped and made a toy for any warrior who wishes to abuse you. Do away with your white woman’s clothes and dress yourself as a Comanche woman should. Then nobody will lay a hand on you.”
“If I am your sister, does it matter so much what I wear?”
“Show the camp that you are Comanche.”
“I will not. I am who I am.”
“You’ve become a fool.”
“What I’ve become is what you must accept.”
“Your spirit is not lost, but you have forgotten. After I kill the Tejanos across the river, I will help you remember.” He pulled away from her hand.
She cut in front of him as he started for the door. “Spare those outside. They knew nothing of the other Tejanos. How can men who brought us back together be your enemies?”
He looked at her like she was a child. “They’re dead men.”
She watched him leave, and her heart was pulled and torn more than she had ever imagined it could be. It was as if she was cursed to never know love without loss soon to follow. She had done all she could to hold on to her new life, but stubborn willpower wasn’t enough.
Chapter 28
The tepee door was lifted again an hour later and two squaws entered. One of them was tall and slim with a catty look about her, and despite her beauty, bore the bruises of a recent beating. The fat one held a stout mesquite stick that she patted in the palm of her hand. Both had an air of disinterested determination about them.
“Little Bull has sent us to take you to his lodge,” the slim one said.
Red Wing had no words left to argue with. She started by them for the door, but they refused to move out of her way. The fat squaw shook her head and pointed at the buckskin dress and moccasins Red Wing had left lying on the floor. Red Wing looked at the dress and folded her arms stubbornly across her chest. She would go to her brother’s lodge, but dressed as she was. The slim squaw shook her head sadly, as if she thought Red Wing had made a very poor decision.
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