by J. R. Ayers
“What time is it?” he asked?”
“Time to get moving.”
They moved out an hour after daylight and promptly ran into a spot in the road where another flooded creek had abandoned its banks and pooled in the middle of the road. Crossing slowly in the rain a few feet at a time they managed to get across without bogging down in the mud. Jack felt a certain type of exhilaration in getting across the swirling flood of brown water. Even the civilians after loading their children and animals into their carts made it across without incident suffering no more discomfort than water logged boots.
An hour later the road divided and Colonel Ford halted the convoy. “We’re going to split up,” he said. “I want the wounded and the civilians to continue moving northwest. My scouts tell me that we’re within twenty-five miles of Laredo. But they also tell me that there’s a sizable Indian presence a few miles up this other road west of here. Apparently they’re camped very close to the road. So I’m sending a squad over there to investigate, and if, necessary, neutralize the threat. With any luck we’ll all meet up in Laredo and plan from there. I want Captain Ross and his men to investigate the Indians. I need my Calvary to guard the ambulances and wagons so we’ll be continuing on the north bound road. My lieutenant will see to it everyone gets a horse. Captain Ross, pick twenty of your best men and some sturdy horses and be on your way. Any questions?”
There were none, so the captain singled out twenty men including Jack and Campbell and Baxter and the men took horses from the remuda and saddled up.
They rode out in single file the captain leading the way. The rain had stopped and the sun was struggling to shine between thick layers of soft white clouds bunched up on the eastern horizon like folds of cotton. The road was narrow, no more than a wide path, and scattered with stones and jagged rocks that had been deposited by the flooded creek. The men rode along slowly, careful to avoid the rocks, their carbines held loosely across their saddle pommels. Jack had just finished taking a drink from his canteen when an arrow flew past his head and struck the man in front of him. The man fell to the ground and more arrows zipped through the air, some falling harmlessly to the ground others striking men in the chest and back and, in Baxter’s case, the side of his neck. He fell backwards against Jack’s horse and the frightened animal shied and took off running across the field in a westerly direction with Jack holding on for dear life. He was just beginning to get the animal under control when something hard and sharp struck him in the back of the head. He had a sense of falling and spinning and then nothing but deep numbing darkness.
Chapter 29
Jack opened his eyes and saw an Indian looking at him. The man was old and wrinkled and smelled like wet feathers. His long braided hair was gray and he was tall and lean and well-muscled for a man of his age. Jack moved to rise from the ground and someone grabbed him from behind and pulled his right arm up so that it twisted in the socket and Jack cried out in pain and tried to pull free but the grip on his arm was powerful and unyielding. The old Indian grunted something in a dialect and the man gripping Jack’s arm let go and Jack scrambled to his feet. His head hurt and there was blood on the collar of his shirt and he knew he was in serious trouble.
The Indians took him down the slope of the hill toward a group of men gathered in the road. Some of the Indians were holding the horses while others went through the pockets of the dead soldiers. There were many dead and a few wounded, but none of the Indians paid any attention to them. As they drew closer to the group Jack saw a few soldiers kneeling in the road. Their hands were tied behind their backs and four Indians armed with lances stood guard over them. One of the men was Corporal Campbell. His face was bloody and the broken shaft of an arrow protruded from his left thigh. Jack looked around for Captain Ross and found him lying in the middle of the road with three arrows in his body. It was clear by his enervated stare that he was dead.
Someone shoved Jack in with the group and forced him down on his knees. Another man tied his hands behind him with rawhide string. The Indians all seemed efficient and cold and in total command of their actions. It was clear to Jack that they had done this sort of thing many times before. They all wore battle paint and bird feathers in their hair and leather breeches and beaded moccasins made of deer hide. They looked to about fifteen in number not counting the old man who appeared to be the leader.
The old Indian said something to a couple of the others and they took hold of a kneeling soldier and dragged him to the side of the road. One of the Indians took out a stone knife and cut the soldier’s throat in one swift motion. The soldier fell on his side his throat spurting blood. His legs twitched in the wet grass for a while and then he lay perfectly still as he bled out and died. The old man spoke again and the process was repeated. The next victim was a young man barely old enough to shave. He began to cry softly as they dragged him away. Corporal Campbell was next in line. Jack could see his lips moving soundlessly and he appeared to be on the verge of passing out. The Indians came for him, but a trio of horses came galloping down the road and stopped in front of the old man. An Indian dismounted and began talking to the old man in their language. He spoke with haste and pointed to one of the other horses. It was then that Jack saw the eldest of the three Kickapoo girls he’d rescued from the old white man the day before sitting on one of the Indian ponies.
There was a quick conference and then some of the Indians began loading Jack and the other bound soldiers on horses. There were four of them left alive; Jack, Corporal Campbell and two privates from the regiment that Jack didn’t know very well.
The group headed off across the plain angling toward the trees in the distance. An Indian rode beside each soldier ensuring they didn’t try to escape from the saddle. At one point Jack saw his escort glaring at him his dark eyes as unreadable as a block of stone. Jack had no idea how the Indian’s minds worked; if they had minds and if they worked at all. Except for the chief they appeared to be fairly young men, but there was no doubt that they were capable of extreme violence as indicated by the little throat cutting party back at the road.
As they approached the outer perimeter of the Indian camp it began to rain. Jack and his companions were hauled off the horses and placed in front of a deer hide tent. They sat in the rain and waited to see what the Indians were going to do to them. Corporal Campbell was mumbling something unintelligible and flexing his wounded leg in an effort to take the pressure off the arrowhead embedded deep in his thigh muscle.
So far the Indians had killed fifteen men, and seemed prepared to kill Jack and the other three survivors. But the three teenage girls from the wagon appeared in the midst of the gathered crowd and began talking to the old chief. There seemed to be some disagreement for a while and finally the chief raised a hand and said something to an Indian standing beside him. The man walked to the tent drawing a knife as he drew near to the four soldiers. Jack was saying his silent prayers when the Indian cut the rawhide strings binding his wrists. Then the Indian cut Campbell’s bounds as well and stood back a few paces his arms folded across his chest.
The old chief made a sweeping motion with his hand and pointed across the field toward the road. It took Jack a moment to realize that the he was telling him and Campbell to leave the camp. Apparently the girls had petitioned for their release out of gratitude for rescuing them from the old slaver. Jack looked over at the other two soldiers kneeling beside him and the Indian guarding them shook his head.
Jack hesitated for a moment then grabbed Campbell by the arm and began walking out of the camp. He looked back a couple of times expecting to feel a stone arrowhead pierce his spine. But the Indians weren’t even looking at them. They were concentrating on the two remaining soldiers and Jack knew it was only a matter of time before they would also be dead.
Instead of heading back to the road, Jack angled for the swollen creek thinking he would have a better chance of getting away if the Indians changed their minds and came after them. Campbell was having considera
ble trouble keeping up and Jack had to stop a few times to help him along. Finally Carl sat down in the tall wet grass and said, “Go on, go on without me. I can’t keep up with this leg.”
“I can’t just leave you, Carl.”
“Sure you can. Those Indians just let us go, they don’t want us no more. You go on ahead and catch up with Colonel Ford and tell him to send the Calvary.”
“Damn, Carl.”
“Just go. And hurry up about it.”
Jack didn’t want to leave Campbell behind, but he knew he could make much better time without him. Campbell was right, the Indians had let them go when they could very well have killed them. He didn’t know much about Indians, but he’d always heard they were a people of their word. They may be savages, and in Jack’s mind cold-bloodied murderers, but they seemed to be very principled people. Campbell was probably out of danger, at least as far as the Indians were concerned.
With a promise to get back as soon as he could Jack sprinted to the creek intent on following the creek bed northward where he figured to find Colonel Ford’s convoy. It didn’t turn out as planned however, because as he turned to head north his boot slipped on the slick mud and he was in the raging water before he could recover his balance. The water was very cold and the current swirled around him and pulled him under the surface of the water. He could feel his back scraping over rocks and broken tree limbs and more rocks until he thought he would surely drown if he couldn’t somehow get his head above water for a breath of air. His head did pop up briefly and he took a giant breath and then he was submerged again as his shirt caught on a tree stump. He struggled to free himself, his lungs burning from the lack of oxygen. He pulled as hard as he could and the shirt ripped away and he was rolling and tumbling again as the raging creek pushed him along as if he was a feather. Water poured into his mouth and he flailed his arms in an attempt to grab anything solid. Finally a large tree branch came sailing by and he grabbed the bottom of it and pulled himself up out of the water.
The tree limb swung like a pendulum in the eddying current and Jack held on with all his strength. The water was so cold his body was starting to become numb and he feared he would lose his grip and be pulled under the rushing water again. And then just when he thought he couldn’t hold on any loner, he saw a deadfall still connected to a stump lying half way across the creek. He grabbed it with both hands as he rushed by and climbed upon the wet slippery bark. He was wet and cold and out of breath, but he was free of the pull of the water and free to continue his journey to find the convoy.
At least he thought he was, and then his hands slipped, and in an instant he was once again being pulled along in the raging torrent of brown icy water.
Chapter 30
Jack didn’t have any way of knowing how long he was in the creek. The flow moved so swiftly that it was impossible to gauge distance, or even time for that matter. Tree limbs and large chunks of wood and uprooted mesquite bushes rushed past Jack’s head tumbling and spinning like objects in the grip of a whirlwind. He lay on his back with his chin tilted upward and scanned the water ahead in search of some solid object to grab on to. He was afraid he would begin to cramp up and lose even more strength in his arms and legs.
The current took him around a long curve and he could see a little peninsula of land looming straight ahead where the creek narrowed around a deadfall. The section of cottonwood tree stuck up like a tombstone in center of the swirling water. Jack watched the land draw nearer and for the first time since going into the water he felt an inkling of hope.
The peninsula was very close now and he could see the tops of mesquite bushes and cat tails rising up from the water’s edge all along the south end of the small strip of land. He began kicking his legs and sweeping his arms in wide arcs in an attempt to propel his body toward the shore. He thrashed and sputtered and fought the pull of the water and thrashed until he had his body basically in line with the peninsula. As the current pushed him close to the bank he reached out and grabbed a handful of mesquite bush and wrapped his fist around the long slick branches. He hung on with all his strength and began to pull himself up on the grassy slope of solid land. He lay on his back gasping for breath his feet and legs still submerged in the water. The thought that he would not drown crossed his mind and he sobbed out loud. He felt hollow and numb and sick to his stomach. His chest burned intensely from the effort of breathing and inhaling the cold water. Still, he thought, I’m alive. I’m alive and I have to go get help for Carl.
When the sick feeling began to fade, he crawled all the way out of the water, stood to his feet, and quickly examined himself. He’d lost his pistol and hat somewhere along the way and half his shirt tail was missing. There was an egg sized knot on the back of his head where an arrow had hit him a glancing blow and an innumerable amount of cuts and bruises covered most of the meaty parts of his body. But he was alive, by damn, he was alive!
After a while, when his breath had returned to normal, he started walking along the bank staying well clear of the rushing water. Ahead there was a animal trail leading up from the water to the open plain east of the creek. Jack stopped in the middle of the path, sat down on a flat rock, took off his boots, and emptied them of water. Then he removed his blouse and torn shirt and tugged off his trousers and wrung all of them out, squeezing out as much water as possible. He would have liked to let the clothing drip dry for a while but he knew he had to find Colonel Ford as soon as possible. He had no idea how much distance he had covered while in the water. Finding the convoy could turn out to be much more difficult than he originally thought. But he knew he had to try.
Before putting on his clothes he rubbed a little mud on the worst of his cuts and scratches hoping to stop the bleeding. Then he got dressed and started up the path hopeful that he could make good time now that he was free from the perils of the flooded creek. The fields were bare and still wet and withered from all the recent rain and he could see a long way across the open terrain. There was a line of low hills rising up out of the plain about a mile ahead and Jack thought he saw movement within the shadows cast by the tree covered hills. He stopped walking and stood still for a long time watching the hills until he decided he hadn’t seen anything after all. Just nerves, he told himself.
He began walking again and crossed the plain at a brisk pace. It was level country with good sod but the unrelenting rain had turned it spongy and flattened the grass to where it looked like an enormous straw mat for as far as the eye could see. He followed the animal trail until it turned sharply to the west then he blazed his own trail heading for the center of the hills in the distance.
When he arrived at the tallest hill he climbed up an embankment and made his way through a stand of cottonwood trees to the summit. He looked across the other side of the hill and saw soldiers riding single file heading in a northerly direction. At that distance, it was hard to tell if the troops were Union or Confederate, but Jack was willing to gamble that they were Colonel Ford’s advanced guard patrolling the road ahead of the convoy. He sat on the ground and watched the soldiers moving away from him trying to muster up the strength to follow them. The bump on his head had now swollen to the size of a duck egg. It had stopped bleeding but it felt malleable and segmented. He picked away the dried blood that had coagulated over the cut and ran his fingertip along the exposed section of his skull that the arrow has gouged out. There was nothing he could do to treat the wound so he wiped away the seeping blood with the sleeve of his shirt and tried not to think about how badly it hurt. But that was impossible to do because he ached from head to toe. His stomach felt as though it was on fire, and his old shoulder wound was becoming stiff and sore having underwent much punishment at the hands of the Indians and the ravages of the swollen creek. He felt lonesome inside and alone outside with nothing but wet clothing and an aching head to remind him that it didn’t matter how he felt. His only concern now was to get moving and catch up with that convoy as soon as possible. He could never overtake the scou
ting party as they were a horse back, and he on foot, so he would have to head due south and hopefully intercept the convoy somewhere down the main road.
It had never occurred to Jack to be anger with his current situation. The cold water in the creek had washed away every emotion, save abject fear and despair. He thought about the men who’d been executed like common criminals before his very eyes. He wished them all a good existence in the after life. In his judgment they were good young men, and brave, and dedicated and they deserved more out of life than a slit throat and an undignified death. Campbell had survived the slaughter, but there was no guarantee he would survive the arrow wound to his leg. When Jack last saw it, it was bleeding steadily with no sign of relenting. Then there was the stone arrowhead still buried in his thigh muscle no doubt incubating all manner of infectious germs. What would they say to his family if he succumbed to his injuries? That he died from wounds and other causes in the commission of his duties? It would be very hard to explain to them that he died from injuries received during an Indian attack. There was a civil war on, for goodness sake. If he was killed, shouldn’t it be in glorious battle fighting for the freedom of the precious Confederacy? Jack thought it best not to think about such complex complexities. The main thing now was to get Corporal Campbell the help he so desperately needed.
Chapter 31
Jack finally made it to the main rode by early afternoon. It hadn’t rained for at least three hours and the sun was out and steam rose from the damp ground like curls of smoke from a furnace. He walked south for two miles before coming across a small cabin sitting off the road under a grouping of walnut trees. He went right inside, emboldened by the fact that he no longer possessed a weapon and thus had no way to defend himself anyway, and an empty stomach that screamed to be filled with some type of nourishment.
