“You deserve a treat for putting up with me for so long,” Ebidiah praised her. They’d been together pretty near thirty years. Longer than many marriages. He only hoped she lived another ten, which was about as long as he could count on lasting. He’d heard of a mule, once, that lived forty-one years, so it was possible.
Although, now that he thought about it, Ebidiah wouldn’t want Sarabell to outlast him. She’d be at the mercy of strangers. No one might take her in, and she’d be forced to fend for herself. At her age, she wouldn’t last long.
Cradling his Sharps, Ebidiah took note of the landmarks. That was how a frontiersman got around so well in the wild—the landmarks. A hill with a split in the middle told him he wasn’t more than a day from the Weaver place. He considered stopping. Mrs. Weaver was a snooty hen, but she made good coffee.
Dreaming of the money he would make from his new pelt, Ebidiah hiked for half the morning. He was winding along a dry wash when, out of the blue, a feeling came over him that he was being watched. Stopping short, Ebidiah turned. He saw no one behind him, saw no one on the hills that flanked the wash.
“Must be nerves,” Ebidiah joked to Sarabell, and walked on.
The sun was warm on his face, the sky as blue as a high country lake. A few pillowy clouds drifted lazily along. It was a gorgeous day, the kind the Texas hill country was famous for.
Ebidiah took to humming his favorite song, “Rock of Ages.” His ma used to drag him to church when he was a sprout, and the only thing about going that he liked, the only thing that stuck with him, was the music. He didn’t remember much about the sermons except mention of the Ten Commandments, and specifically Thou Shalt Not Kill.
The recollection reminded Ebidiah of the Comanche he’d slain. And as if that were an omen, the same feeling came over him again, stronger than before, that unseen eyes were on him.
Ebidiah stopped. “Surely not,” he said to Sarabell. He’d killed the Comanche weeks ago. And he’d come a far piece from the cattle camp, and that hill. No one could connect him to the grave, even if by some chance someone stumbled onto it. He was perfectly safe.
“Consarn me, anyhow.” Ebidiah tried to make light of his worries, but he didn’t succeed.
He’d only gone a short way when another troubling notion took hold. He’d been smart enough to bury the young warrior where no one would find him. But it hadn’t occurred to him at the time to do something else just as important: erase the tracks.
The ground had been rock hard, but what with the scuffle and all, there were bound to have been prints. Maybe not a lot, but there didn’t need to be. Comanches were superb trackers. They could read sign better than any white man.
“Wait,” Ebidiah said out loud. “So what if they do find some?” He wore moccasins. The Comanches would think an Indian was to blame.
“I’m safe, I tell you,” Ebidiah addressed his own doubts.
Then the nagging voice in his head reminded him that some trackers could tell if a white man or a red man left a set of prints by the gait and the positions of their feet. In fact, some trackers could tell one individual’s tracks from another’s as easily as, say, a sheepherder could tell one of his sheep from another. So it was possible the Comanches did know a white man was responsible.
Even worse, if they came across his trail later, they’d recognize his tracks and be out for his hide.
“Think of the odds, though,” Ebidiah said, to dampen his concern. There weren’t any Comanches within fifty miles. He must stop his fretting.
Early afternoon found him perched on a sawtooth rise studying his back trail. No one was after him. Or if they were, they stayed well hidden.
Ebidiah tried to will himself to relax, and couldn’t. He thought of Mrs. Weaver, of her coffee and cakes. A visit with her would relax him.
All he had to do was get there.
Chapter 38
Wilda Weaver wished her husband had heard about cattle drives years ago. The peace and quiet were wonderful.
Wilda loved having the farm all to herself. She slept in later than she did when Jasper was there, would eat a leisurely breakfast, then go to the barn to milk the cows and to the coop to feed the chickens and collect their eggs.
Her mornings were spent sewing or knitting or cleaning. In the afternoons she’d take a stroll. After supper she’d sit in the rocking chair on the porch and enjoy the setting of the sun and the blossoming of the stars.
This was the life, Wilda happily told herself. No men around. No husband or son to feed and clean up after and nag about doing things they should do without her having to remind them.
On this particular evening, the sunset was spectacular. Wilda had always liked sunsets more than sunrises; they were more colorful. All those reds and yellows and other bright hues.
Slowly rocking, Wilda enjoyed the spectacle, grateful her husband wasn’t home because she’d be inside cooking his supper.
As slowly as a turtle sinking in a pond, the sun sank from view and the gray of twilight spread. A single star sparkled, a harbinger of the multitude to come.
The serenity of it all made Wilda drowsy. Her eyelids grew heavy and she closed them and must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, her eyes snapped open and that one star had become fifty. With a contented sigh, Wilda stretched. She was about to get out of the rocking chair and go inside when she noticed something strange.
Over by the barn was a . . . figure.
Wilda gave a mild start. It looked like a man. “Jasper?” she called, and rose. In doing so she glanced down, and when she looked up again, the figure was gone. “What on earth?” she said, wondering if her imagination was to blame. “Jasper?” she called again. “Reuben? Is that you?”
No one answered.
Wilda stepped to the rail and peered into the gathering darkness. A stillness had fallen, a quiet so complete, she could hear herself breathe. She saw no one. Shaking her head in bemusement, she went inside. Out of habit she bolted the door, then laughed and threw the bolt open. There was nothing to be afraid of.
Wilda decided a cup of tea was in order. She walked down the hall to the kitchen, rekindled the stove, and got the tea tin down from the cupboard. The tea came from England. It was her opinion that if anyone knew good tea, it was the British. They’d been drinking tea for ages. Her grandmother, who came over from England on a ship when in her teens, used to say that Brits had special times for “taking” tea, as they called it. There was low tea, which was taken in the early afternoon, and high tea, which was taken in the evening. Wilda always thought that was classy, having two times for tea.
Her pitcher only had half a cup of water left, so Wilda carried it out the back door and over to the pump. She worked the handle several times and a trickle appeared. A few more and she got a steady flow. When the pitcher was full, she stopped pumping. She turned to go back in, happened to glance across the way, and stiffened.
About thirty feet off in the darkness were two more figures, watching her.
Wilda blinked, but they didn’t disappear. “Who’s there?” she demanded. “Jasper? Reuben? Are you two playing games?”
Neither answered her.
Wilda started toward them. She only took a couple of steps, and stopped in consternation. They were gone. She looked for sign of them, but they had melted away as if they were ghosts. “Well, I never,” she said.
A seed of fear took root. Her husband and son never played pranks on her. They knew she wouldn’t like it. It must be someone else. But all the menfolk were away, and she couldn’t see Philomena Burnett or Ariel Kurst coming all the way to her place and acting so silly.
Smothering a spike of fear Wilda hurried inside. She set the pitcher on the counter, stared at the back door while gnawing her bottom lip, then quickly bolted it and hastened to the front to bolt that door, as well.
“It can’t be,” Wilda said as
she returned to the kitchen. She refused to countenance the notion that the figures might be the very ones she had dreaded encountering ever since they came to Texas. “Not now.”
Wilda set to making the tea. After filling the teapot and setting it on the stove, she sat in a chair to wait for the water to come to a boil. Crossing her legs, she resisted an impulse to run to the barn, jump on her horse, and flee. She could be at the Burnett place before midnight.
“No,” Wilda said out loud. That would be childish. Adults didn’t let their fears get the better of them. Besides, no one had tried to harm her. It could be they were curious.
Impatient to have her tea, Wilda drummed her fingers. People liked to say that a watched pot never boils, and apparently they were right. She tore her gaze from the stove and looked over at the side window, and all the blood in her veins changed to ice.
A face was staring back at her. A swarthy face, with paint on the cheeks and the forehead, and eyes that glittered like black coals.
Wilda gasped and placed a hand to her throat.
The face vanished.
Overcoming her fright, Wilda ran to the window. The warrior was nowhere to be seen. “Just curious,” she said aloud, and closed the curtains.
Her mouth had gone dry. She needed that tea more than ever. Taking her seat, she licked her lips, but there was no spittle to wet them. “I refuse to be afraid,” she said. But she was.
The water took forever to heat. Now and then she glanced at the window, but the face didn’t reappear.
“Gone, I’d wager,” she reassured herself.
Her teapot let out a hiss. She got a cup and saucer down from the cupboard, and a spoon from the drawer, and opened the tin. As she always did, Wilda raised it to her nose and inhaled. She loved the scent. Not bothering with the strainer, she put tea in the cup, added water, and stirred. The tiny tink of the spoon against the china was unusually loud.
Taking her seat, Wilda raised the cup in both hands, closed her eyes, and sipped. Warmth spread through her but not the relaxation she sought. She was so tense, her body might as well be made of nothing but bone.
“Cut this out,” Wilda chided herself. She was a grown woman. She must behave as such. She kept her eyes closed and sipped. So long as she kept her eyes shut, she told herself, nothing would happen. They were passing by, was all. They were passing by and were merely curious, and in a while they would go their way and let the white woman be.
She sipped, and swallowed, and said bitterly, “Where are you when I need you, you worthless man?”
She shouldn’t blame Jasper. She was the one who’d convinced him to go. Forced him, was more like it. He hadn’t wanted to. She’d made him go for their own good. For the money they stood to make.
A soft scrape caused Wilda to break out in gooseflesh. She didn’t open her eyes, though. Not until she’d swallowed the last drop of her tea and set the cup down. Girding herself, she looked up.
“Lord, no.”
Somehow they had gotten in. Not two or even three but eight or nine, with more in the hallway. The nearest had his knife out.
Forcing a smile, Wilda motioned at the stove. “Would you gentlemen care for some tea? I have plenty.”
They might have been carved from granite. Their faces resembled so much stone.
“What did I do?” Wilda said.
They neither spoke nor moved.
“Why do this to me? I’ve never hurt any of you.”
Wilda remembered hearing about a Comanche village to the north that was wiped out not long ago. Most of the warriors were away, after buffalo, so it was mostly women and children. They were cut down; some were mutilated, and some were scalped. She remembered saying that it served them right for all the whites their kind had killed. Maybe that was the reason they were here.
Now three of them had drawn their knives, and a fourth had produced a tomahawk.
“Please,” Wilda said. “Don’t.”
More entered the kitchen.
Behind her, the back door crashed open.
Quaking uncontrollably, Wilda closed her eyes. So long as she kept them closed, she would be all right.
She would be all right.
She would be . . .
Chapter 39
Ebidiah Troutman came within sight of the Weaver farm when the sun was at its zenith. He hoped Mrs. Weaver was in a good mood. She could be shrewish, that woman. She treated her husband and her son as if they both were ten years old. With his own ears, he’d heard her boss them around as if they were privates in the army and she was their general.
She usually treated Ebidiah nice, though. Probably because she liked the furs he brought.
Ebidiah was almost to the Weavers’ pasture when he noticed something strange. The barn door was wide open. He’d once seen Mrs. Weaver take Reuben to task for not closing it. She’d been worried their cows might wander out. Odd that she’d leave it open herself when they weren’t around.
Then Ebidiah noticed that the door to the chicken coop was wide open, too. That in itself wasn’t unusual since coop doors were usually left open during the day so the chickens could wander about. Most farmers only closed their coops at night to keep the foxes and coyotes out. But now there were feathers all over the place, strewn around the door as if there had been some sort of chicken massacre.
Ebidiah slowed and said to Sarabell, “This ain’t right.”
A few more yards and Ebidiah stopped in his tracks.
The front door to the farmhouse was the same as the others.
Ebidiah felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle. Wilda Weaver would never leave the door to her house open, not when bugs and who knew what else could get in. She was a stickler for keeping her house clean.
Going over to a tree near the house, Ebidiah tied off Sarabell’s rope, and patted her.
“Stay put, girl.”
Hefting his Sharps, Ebidiah went up the steps. The rocking chair was gone. That puzzled him until he saw it lying on its side in the grass. Someone had apparently tossed it over the rail.
“What in the world?”
Leveling his Sharps, Ebidiah cocked it. He hadn’t thought to check the ground for tracks, but now he did. At the base of the steps, where the grass had been worn away leaving only bare earth, were moccasin prints, some coming and some going.
Ebidiah’s breath caught in his throat. An icy dread came over him, and he almost backed away. But no, he owed it to Mrs. Weaver to find out.
The farmhouse was as silent as a cemetery, and there wasn’t any movement at the windows.
Every nerve taut, Ebidiah crept to the doorway. He could see the length of the hall, clear back to the kitchen. Just inside, pieces of a broken vase were strewn about. Further in lay a quilt, ripped to ribbons. The kitchen floor appeared to be a shambles.
Ebidiah entered. He stayed close to the wall to avoid the pieces of vase, which might crunch underfoot and give him away.
The parlor was a mess. Mrs. Weaver’s china cabinet had been pushed over and her prized china busted. Her settee had been overturned, her drapes slashed.
Ebidiah edged to the kitchen. Broken dishes were everywhere, chairs upended, the table on its side. But it was the other thing that horrified him; pools and smears of dried blood. More was splattered on the walls. There were even scarlet drops on the ceiling.
A foot poked from behind the table.
Taking a breath, he poked his head around. Bile rose in his gorge, and he felt light-headed. He could take the sight of a butchered animal without flinching. But this had been a human being. A woman, no less.
The things they’d done to her were hideous.
“Comanches,” Ebidiah gasped the obvious. Sagging against the table, he bowed his head. He would like to think it had been a quick death, but he knew better. She had taken a long time to die.
The smell of the blood made him want to gag. Holding his breath, he collected himself and hurried out.
All the tales he’d heard came back to him. Stories of Comanche atrocities. Not that the Comanches had a monopoly on butchery. Other tribes, and plenty of whites, were capable of the same vile deeds.
Even so, the manner of Wilda Weaver’s death seemed excessive. As was the destruction of her chickens, and possibly the cows. It was almost as if the Comanches were leaving a message for the whites. Or as if—and Ebidiah froze in midstride—this attack was more personal than most.
More vengeful.
“Lord, no,” Ebidiah breathed. That young warrior had been trying to kill him. . . . What else was he to do?
Ebidiah got out of there. The fresh air and sunlight were a tonic. He breathed deeply, then set to searching for sign. A good distance behind the farmhouse he found what he was looking for: the tracks of unshod horses.
The tracks of a large war party.
Ebidiah had a decision to make. Town was to the southeast. Comanche Creek and the cattle camp, to the northwest. The smart thing was to head southeast. Report the attack to the marshal. The lawman would get word to the army, and soldiers would come.
Ebidiah went over to the oak. He untied Sarabell, gave the house a last look, and started back the way he had come. Owen Burnett and Jasper Weaver needed to be warned. Thanks to him, they were about to be massacred.
Ebidiah stopped again. “What am I thinking?” He must warn Philomena Burnett and her girls, and the Kurst woman, before he warned their menfolk. Their homesteads were closer.
And the Comanches were heading their way.
Chapter 40
Philomena Burnett was peeling potatoes for supper when her youngest came in and informed her that Blue was acting up. “How so?” Philomena asked without taking her eyes from a potato. A flick of her wrist, and the knife sent another peel to the floor.
“He’s growling off at the woods,” Estelle said.
“Growling?” Philomena stopped peeling. Blue would bark at strangers and he’d howl on occasion, usually if he heard coyotes yipping, but he rarely growled.
Ralph Compton Texas Hills Page 15
