Sundance 11

by John Benteen

  “And dear Phil will want children by me, will he?”

  “Find another man if you have doubts about him.”

  Her arm still lay on his stomach and now she dug her nails into his flesh, as though needing to hurt him—or the whole world that she felt had turned against her. He grabbed her hand and pulled it away.

  “All I’m concerned about is keeping you,” she said. “Or finding some other warrior if you go your way.”

  “When I go, you’re coming with me.”

  “What a terrible man you are, Jim Sundance. To do such a thing to me for a mere two thousand dollars. What are you, a bounty-hunter?”

  He explained why he needed the money—and much more than Sam Owens’ two thousand dollars. She seemed impressed by his championing such a cause, but she still protested his having rescued her for pay.

  “You may have made the Indians your problem, but I’m my own problem—and somehow I’ll look out for myself with or without your help.” She gripped him by the shoulders. “Want me again, you hear?”

  She was showing her wanton side once more …

  ~*~

  The worst of the storm passed late in the day. The wind fell. The lightning and thunder receded and were finally gone. But rain continued to fall heavily during the night, then more lightly all the next day. It fell intermittently the second night, but the following day dawned with a clear sky.

  Jim Sundance did not know if he were pleased or displeased by the change in the weather. He was far from being inexperienced with the opposite sex, but for a man to be stormbound with Virginia Stevens was, he told himself, a bachelor’s most erotic dream come true. He had never known so passionate a woman. Desire never needed to be aroused in her. It burned in her with a steady, seemingly inextinguishable flame. When she woke to find the sun blazing in a cloudless sky, she was disappointed—and began to sulk.

  “Now you’ll take me to that ranch where Phil is waiting.” This was spoken like an accusation. “You want to be rid of me. You don’t care about my feelings at all.”

  Getting dressed to go outside, he said, “I’m going to find the horses—make sure they’re all right. Have breakfast ready for me when I get back. And put on some clothes for a change, for Pete’s sake.”

  Her only response was to make a face at him.

  He breathed deeply when outside the cave, for the air seemed especially crisp and clean after the long rain. The sunlight felt pleasantly warm against his bare upper body. He saw at once that Eagle and the two Indian ponies were safe. The former wouldn’t have strayed with the storm, and the latter, being hobbled, weren’t able to move freely. He whistled for the Appaloosa, then swung onto its bare back when it came trotting to him. He rode through the rock field to the river. As he had expected, the stream was still in flood—four or five times its normal width. Crossing it with Eagle would be no great problem, but he was dubious about Virginia making it safely on one of the Comanche ponies. He wouldn’t take the risk of losing her by drowning. He smiled wryly over the thought that she would be pleased when he told her they would have to remain at the cave for at least a day longer.

  He was amused no longer upon returning to the cave, for he found her gone. She had taken one of the ponies and run for it. He swore under his breath, angry with himself—thinking he should have expected such a thing. He dropped from Eagle’s back, entered the cave, and got the animal’s saddle, blanket and bridle. Once he had the rigging on the Appaloosa, he mounted again and set out after the fleeing girl.

  Her trail was almost plain enough for a blind man to follow, for her mount’s unshod hooves had left their tracks in the still soggy ground. She had ridden north through the rock field, then swung west upon reaching open country. He could tell from the pony’s tracks that she had set out at a hard run and was now, after a half a dozen miles, traveling at a walk. He supposed she was no longer able to keep the animal moving fast. Eagle was running strongly without any urging from him, and soon he saw her in the distance. Another few minutes and he would overtake her. A moment later, looking back and seeing him, she brought her mount to a stop and dropped from its back. He reined Eagle down to a lope, closing the distance between her and himself more slowly. Now he saw that she had Broken Nose’s rifle with her, and evidently intended to use it against him. Well, he’d been warned. She had told him she would try to kill him to keep him from taking her back to Phil Markham.

  Walking Eagle now, he saw her lever a cartridge into the rifle’s chamber and assume a shooting stance. When he drew within easy range, she would bring the Winchester up and cut loose at him. Evidently Broken Nose had taught her to use the weapon against the possibility that the two of them would have to fight some of the Nocona warriors. The Kiowa had been very sure of her. Sundance reined in at a distance of fifty yards.

  “All right, Virginia ... go ahead and kill me.”

  She raised the rifle to her right shoulder and lined its sights on him, and he thought: My God, she’s really going to do it! He flung himself from the saddle, none too soon. The crack of the rifle came as he made his move, and the slug shrieked past him as he dropped to the ground. He landed on his hands and knees, then shoved himself erect and ran at her. She made ready to fire again, but then, with the range point-blank, she abruptly threw the weapon from her and covered her face with her hands. She was sobbing bitterly when he reached her. He took her into his arms.

  “My way is better, sweetheart,” he said. “Believe me. If you’d killed me and gone on, you would have run into one of the New Mexican outfits that graze sheep farther along the Canadian. That would have gotten you back to your uncle’s ranch. Or you might have fallen into the hands of some of the outlaws hiding out in the river breaks in this direction—and God only knows what would have happened to you then. Look: there’s still a way out for you ... Are you listening to me, Ginny?”

  “I’m listening,” she said, her voice bleak. “But there is no way—no way at all, unless you take me back to the Comanches.”

  “You could make your home with your uncle from now on.”

  She raised her head, looked at him with tear-filled eyes. “Do you think he would let me?”

  “I’m sure he would,” Sundance said. “Now come along … ”

  He’d hit upon the right thing to say, for from that moment on she seemed to have given up all thought of escaping from him. She was buoyant of spirit during the remainder of their stay at the cave and did not utter any protest when they finally made their way out of the rock field once the river had fallen from flood stage. They made their departure the following morning, and Sundance set out on a southwestwardly course with her.

  She rode one of the Indian ponies, sitting on a crude Comanche saddle of buffalo hide and having but a single rein—a rawhide rope with a bosal hitch taken about the animal’s lower jaw. She handled the pony expertly, which reminded him that she had been a fine horsewoman before coming to Sam Owens’ ranch—and that her enjoyment of riding horses had caused her to be captured by that war party.

  He led the second Indian pony, having packed onto it what food remained in the cave and the Kiowa’s camp gear. He had figured that Virginia and he would need food, for it might well be that they could not follow a direct course across the Staked Plains to the Montoya ranch in the mountains in the Territory.

  He hadn’t forgotten that the Noconas wanted desperately to find the girl. He felt sure that they were out looking for Broken Nose and her, searching in far-ranging, scattered groups. As they left the rocky, brush-grown river area behind and rode across the Plains, he kept a sharp lookout and used his telescope whenever he saw any far-off movement. That first day he saw a vast herd of buffalo, a small herd of antelope, and a band of mustangs, but no horsemen at all. He did cut a fresh sign of about a dozen ridden ponies late in the afternoon, however, and this gave him a scare. He was sure the band consisted of warriors only, for there were no travois tracks, which would have meant squaws, and he decided that they were searching Noconas.


  “We’ll stop here,” he told Virginia, “and go on after dark. A bunch of warriors passed this way not long ago, and they may be Noconas. And you needn’t hope that they’ll find us. Nocona has made a deal with the Comanchero, Esteban Montoya, to trade you for rifles, ammunition and whiskey.”

  She gave him a bleak smile. “There’s just nobody I can trust, is there?”

  “Your uncle. You decided to live with him, remember. Though maybe you’ll change your mind once you’re back in Phil Markham’s arms.”

  She didn’t reply to that, but he saw a look of hurt shadow her face briefly.

  They made a cold camp, and a dry one. A buffalo-chip fire would have been risky, for the smoke of it might have been seen miles away—by the Noconas, if they were indeed out searching. And here there was no water. Sundance did not unsaddle Eagle or Virginia’s pony, nor remove the pack from the spare horse. He gave each animal a little water from his canteen, which he had filled at the Canadian, letting them drink it from his battered old Stetson ... which he afterward again stowed away in one of his saddlebags. Virginia and he ate some of the food she had cooked before they left the cave, and afterward, while he kept watch, she spread a blanket and lay down to rest—and was soon asleep. At sundown he gave the horses a little more water, then wakened her.

  “Time we moved along,” he said, handing her the canteen. “Drink a little, then we’ll head out.”

  Mounting up, they again headed southwest as dusk settled over the vast flatland and thickened into darkness. Since the sign they’d cut earlier had told Sundance that the band of warriors had been traveling northwest, he hoped to avoid contact with them by leaving the flat country by a break in the cap rock called the Door to the Plains. This was near Trujillo Creek, a watering place for those Comancheros that followed the south fork of the traders’ trail from Las Vegas. But about midnight he saw a glimmer of light in the distance directly ahead. He reined Eagle in at once and dismounted as Virginia stopped her pony beside the Appaloosa.

  “I’ll sneak out and have a look,” he told her. “If they’re warriors, we’ll have to take another trail out of the llano. If it’s a whole band—warriors, squaws and children—on the move, we’ll swing wide around them and stay on our course.” He moved close to her, placing a hand on her thigh. “Don’t try to run for it. You’re better off with me than ending up with the Noconas and being traded for rifles that will be used for raiding Texas ranches.”

  “I’ll wait, Jim, I promise.”

  Taking his rifle, he set out through the darkness on foot. As he drew close to the light, he saw that it was the glow of a campfire as he had expected. Dropping flat, he snaked his way near enough to it that he could see a man sitting by it. A warrior, this man—and evidently awake to keep watch on the band’s small pony herd. He could make out the sleeping, blanket-wrapped forms of the watcher’s companions. Eight of them, by his count. And nine ponies yonder, in a loose bunch. All warriors, he felt sure. Possibly a searching party of Noconas. Withdrawing as stealthily as he had approached the camp, Sundance got to his feet and at a dogtrot made his way back to Virginia.

  “Nine warriors,” he told her, as he rose to Eagle’s saddle. “And I’d lay a bet that they’re Noconas.”

  “You may be wrong,” she said. “They may be Quahadis, or members of some other band of Comanches. Or even Kiowas.”

  “They may be, but we’re taking no chance. Let’s go.”

  He took the packhorse in tow, then turned due south with the girl riding beside him. Her spirits seemed at low ebb, and he supposed she was despondent over the prospect of soon having to face her fiancé—dreading the moment of their reunion because of her having become so changed a young woman during the seven weeks she had been a captive. He again found himself feeling sorry for her. She’d had a bad experience indeed, one that she would never be able to blot from her memory.

  As though having read his thoughts, she said, “I don’t much like myself any more. I’ve become a fallen woman, as people back home call girls who do such things as I’ve done.”

  “It wasn’t your choice. You were forced into it.”

  “That’s only partly the truth.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She was silent for the time required for them to ride perhaps a half a mile, then said in a hollow voice, “After Running Wolf forced me to sleep with him the first night, I found myself changed from the way I’d been raised. I found that I wasn’t revolted by what he did to me ... that I wanted to be his squaw. When Broken Nose killed him and took me away, I found that I could be as fond of him as I’d become of Running Wolf. And now I’m the same way about you, Jim. I am a fallen woman. I’m immoral.”

  “You wouldn’t have been this way if you hadn’t been taken captive. You’re not to blame.”

  “I am at fault, because I’m wanton.”

  “Any other girl as young and innocent as you would have reacted the same way.”

  She was silent again for a long interval, then asked, with hope in her voice, “Do you really think that?”

  Sundance assured her that he did, adding, “That layer of civilization that white folks have is pretty thin. It can be peeled away with no trouble at all. In your case, it was stripped away by others. In the case of my father, the scion of a fine old English family, it was stripped away by himself. He became a mountain man, then a member of the Cheyenne nation when he met the girl who became my mother. He lived out his life as an Indian, and didn’t regret it to his dying day. You now, Virginia, need only to wrap that layer of civilization back around yourself when we get to the Territory.”

  “If only it could be that easy.”

  “You’ve got the spunk—the spirit,” Sundance said. “And I’ll tell you in simple words how to manage it … don’t look back on the past. Nobody should ever do that.”

  She made no reply, but he sensed that she kept thinking about it as they rode on through the night in silence.

  They kept on the move until almost dawn, having traveled far on their way toward another trail out of the Staked Plains. They would have to drop down from the cap rock of the high plains into the Quitaque country and pick up this Comanchero trail at one of two trading rendezvous, Las Lenguas and Valle de las Lagrimas. The English names for these places were The Tongues and The Valley of Tears. Sundance recalled that it had been the Valley of Tears that Quanah Parker and Nocona, each with some of his warriors, had met with the Comanchero Montoya and been given his offer to trade rifles, ammunition and whiskey for Virginia. The chief of the Quahadis had told him that Montoya would return there at the next full moon with the trade goods and the expectation of having the girl delivered to him. Since the moon was still several nights short of being full, Sundance hoped that neither the New Mexican trader nor the Noconas would be there yet. He had no thought that Nocona and his warriors wouldn’t show up at the scheduled rendezvous even though they didn’t have possession of her.

  As he told Virginia, when they stopped to rest the horses an hour before dawn, “Quanah Parker told me Nocona has his heart set on getting those fifty rifles from Montoya. And since the Comanches are such great thieves, I figure Nocona and his braves will try to take them by force—since he doesn’t have you to trade for them. We’ll have to be long gone from the Valley of Tears before the night of the full moon.”

  Virginia didn’t reply. She didn’t seem to be listening, in fact. She got a blanket from the packhorse and spread it on the ground as she had done during their last stop to rest. This time she spoke after a few minutes, her voice reaching out softly to him as he stood guard.

  “Jim, come to me—please.”

  When he went to her, she raised the blanket in invitation.

  “It may be the last time for us,” she said. “Once we’re out of Comanche country, there’ll be nothing between us anymore.” Her voice held sadness. “It will be different now, for me. You see, Jim, I have feeling for you now. It’s not as it was with Running Wolf and Broken No
se. Do you believe me? Can you believe this of me?”

  Dropping down beside her, to share her blanket, he said, “Yes, I can believe it of you, Virginia.” He recalled that for a long time he had not liked her at all. Now, as he took her in his arms, he felt warmth and tenderness for her, as though she had become very precious to him.

  Later they slept in each other’s arms, but he woke at the first light of dawn to a sense of urgency—and danger. Waking Virginia, he said, “We’ve got to move out. I’ve a bad feeling—a hunch that we’re in for trouble!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sundance dumped some of their food and most of their camp gear, and turned the spare horse loose, so Virginia and he could travel faster. When they were mounted again, he set their pace at a lope. Even though the great, gray llano was empty of the other riders as far as he could see, he still had his feeling of impending danger and need to make tracks fast.

  Late in the morning they reached the edge of the Staked Plains and looked out over an entirely different sort of country. There beyond, in a vast vista, the land was broken by hills and valleys; it supported more plant life than merely grama grass—a great variety of flora that was especially luxuriant in belts along its watercourses. But it was a wild, rugged land, empty of all habitation until a traveler reached the ranchos and villages well inside the boundary of the Territory of New Mexico. This was the Quitaque country, named after the narrow river that flowed through it. Somewhere in its vastness were the two places of rendezvous—Las Lenguas and Valle de las Lagrimas—and the Comanchero trails leading to them. Sundance must find one of those trails so he and Virginia could make their way out of the wilderness to the Montoya ranch.