by John Benteen
First they must find a way down from the cap rock of the great escarpment of the Staked Plains. At this point the abutment of colored rock was several hundred feet high, and too precipitous to descend. They had to ride southward along the edge for perhaps a half a dozen miles before they found a descent that appeared not too perilous. Dismounting, Sundance tied back Eagle’s reins then led the animal to the steep, rocky slope.
“Down you go, boy,” he said and gave the Nez Percé horse a light slap on the rump.
Eagle snorted in what seemed protest but obediently began making a switch backing descent of the slope. Having let the horse do the trail blazing, which it did with an amazing surefootedness, Sundance turned to Virginia.
“You next, sweetheart. But take it slow and easy.”
Her Comanche saddle had no stirrups, and she prepared to drop from her pony’s back. Sundance caught her in his arms and lifted her down, afterward holding her to him for a moment. She had indeed become precious to him.
“Take care not to make a misstep.”
“I won’t,” she said, a trace of bitterness in her voice. “I realize I’m worth money to you only when alive.”
“To hell with the money,” he said. “I can earn more. But you can’t be replaced.”
“Do you really care, Jim—a little?”
“I wish my trail through life wasn’t cut out for me,” he told her. “I’d like to keep you forever.” Then, in a less serious tone, he added, “Get going,” and gave her a light slap on the rump to start her down the slope.
He waited until both the Appaloosa and the girl reached the base of the escarpment, then he started down with her pony in tow. A wiry little paint, it balked at first and he had to tug hard at its single rein to get it to follow him. As Eagle and Virginia had done, he too made a zigzagging descent, searching out the safest footing, and even then he feared that the Comanche horse might stumble and come tumbling down—to carry him along with it to injury or even death. But finally they too were off the slope.
He found Eagle acting up. The spotted horse was snorting, tossing its head, pawing the ground with a fore hoof. Some of its excitement infected the paint, causing it to behave skittishly.
“What ails them, anyway?” Virginia asked.
“They’ve caught the scent of water,” he told her. “We’ll get mounted and give them their heads. They’ll take us to it.”
A mile farther on they came to a creek fringed with trees and bushes. They dismounted and Sundance let the horses drink a little while, then led them from the stream so they wouldn’t over drink after having traveled so fast and far on so little water. He didn’t want them to sicken, for he still had his feeling that Virginia and he must keep on the move—get to the Territory as quickly as possible. He still did not know why he was gripped by this sense of urgency. He thought a sixth sense must be warning him that some of the Noconas were not far behind him and the girl. After a few minutes he let Eagle and the paint drink again, then turned them out to graze. Virginia had already knelt at the edge of the creek, and quenched her own thirst, and now she removed her buckskin Comanche dress and moccasins, unbraided her hair, and walked naked into the water. Sundance got a cake of yellow soap from his saddlebags.
“Here, catch,” he called, and tossed the soap to her.
Catching it, she cried, “Oh, good—real soap! Jim Sundance, I love you. I’d rather have this than a diamond necklace!”
He debated a moment, fighting his sense of urgency, then removed his clothing and waded into the stream. Passing the soap back and forth, they bathed from head to foot. By the time they had finished washing and were letting the sunlight dry them, his hair was clean of dye and restored to its true golden color. She gazed at him with admiring eyes.
“Why, you’re beautiful!”
He laughed, and avoided her when she came to throw her arms about his neck.
“We’ve not got the time,” he said. “We’ve got to keep moving.”
“Oh, what a mean brute you are!”
They dressed and took to the saddle again, following the creek downstream of its meandering course through a long, narrow valley. He dug some jerky from the flour sack tied to the horn of the saddle, handing a piece of it to her. They chewed on the tough, dried meat as they rode along. The thought came to Sundance that he would really miss this girl when he turned her over to Phil Markham.
If you get that far with her.
What caused this disturbing thought to pop into his head, he did not know. That warning from his sixth sense, he supposed. He couldn’t rid himself of his feeling that their lives were somehow in jeopardy.
Although they kept on the move throughout the remainder of the day, they failed to come upon a trail over which riders, wagons and ox-drawn carretas traveled. And of course not having found the trail he sought, Sundance did not see any rendezvous where the Comancheros and Indians did their trading. He kept a westward course, however, knowing that it would eventually take him to New Mexico.
They made a halt by a different creek than the one they’d found when first coming down from the plains. Sundance still had his urge to keep on the move, but the horses, especially the Indian pony, needed a few hours to graze. Virginia and he ate sparsely of the dwindling supply of food, she having cooked it over a fire he built and then put out as soon as she was finished with it. After eating they lay on the grass of the creek bank, she sleeping soundly and he lightly and waking often. He had no peace of mind, being kept constantly alert by his sense of impending danger.
They moved on with nightfall, and the rising moon, Sundance noted, was nearly full. Montoya would be headed for the Valley of Tears with those fifty Winchester rifles, five thousand rounds of ammunition and ten casks of rotgut whiskey—if he were not already there. And from the Llano Estacado Nocona and his warriors would be coming to meet the Comanchero and his men—without the girl the Comanche chief had promised to deliver—if they were not already at the rendezvous. Sundance wished he knew the location of the Valley of Tears, so he and Virginia could give it a wide berth.
About an hour after they’d started out, Sundance heard the crackle of gunfire from some distance ahead of them. He reined Eagle in, motioning for Virginia to stop. Listening intently, he decided that many guns were involved—and thought a pitched battle was underway. The heavy shooting continued for several minutes, then eased off to what seemed a sniping fire. Virginia reached out and touched his arm.
When he looked at her, she asked, “What is it, Jim?”
“My guess is that the Valley of Tears is just ahead and both the Comanchero crowd and some Nocona Comanches are there—at one another’s throats. Not having you to hand over to Montoya, Nocona must have tried to do what I figured he would—take those rifles, cartridges and whiskey by force.”
“What are we to do?” Virginia sounded frightened. “Turn back the way we came?”
He shook his head. “That’s no good. We’ve got to get through to New Mexico. I’ll try to find a way around the shooting—after I’ve left you in a safe place.”
He found a spot that suited him close at hand. It was a mass of rock slabs and boulders along the creek bank and surrounded on the other three sides by a dense brush thicket. Taking her there, he got from the saddle to help dismount and to tie her pony to a bush so it couldn’t wander off.
“It’s not likely any of them, either Comancheros or Noconas, will come this way,” he told her. “The way it sounds, they’re going to be busy for a long spell. Just stay close to these rocks, so I won’t have any trouble finding you.”
As he swung back onto the Appaloosa, she said, “Jim, be careful.”
Realizing that she was badly frightened, he said, “It’s not my fight, I wouldn’t side with a man who runs guns or an Indian chief who wants guns to go raiding. For my money, the one’s no better than the other. I’ll have a look at the lay of the land, then we’ll swing wide around the fighting.”
“All right, but I’ll worry about you
anyway.”
“You know, Virginia, I can’t remember anybody ever having said that to me before.”
“You’ve become important to me, Jim.”
“And you to me,” he said, and rode off through the darkness.
A mile farther on he came to some low hills. The gunfire was much louder now, and he realized it came from just beyond this hilly area. He put Eagle to climbing one of the slopes, and then dismounted upon gaining its summit. Taking his rifle with him as a precaution, he walked to the opposite side of this hill and found himself looking down upon a small valley. A creek ran through the center of it, and here and there were stands of timbers. The Comancheros would call those clumps of trees bosques, he knew. He could see the muzzle flashes of guns being fired in the two largest bosques. The shooting had no regular pattern, nor was it at all heavy. The two factions, each having taken cover, had evidently had one hot exchange of fire and then settled down to sniping at each other. A Mexican standoff, Sundance thought. But it wouldn’t be that for long, since the Noconas though too few in number at the moment to overwhelm the Comancheros, would be getting reinforcements.
The bosques lay in darkness, for the trees screened out the moonlight, and Sundance could not distinguish Comancheros from Comanches or determine how many guns each side had. However, he was able to figure out that the New Mexicans were in the timber to the south. From his advantage point, the valley appeared bathed in the moon’s cold, silvery light. Thus he was able to see that a cluster of seven or eight wagons, some of them doubtlessly carretas, stood beyond that grove of trees. These were certainly the vehicles in which Esteban Montoya had hauled his trade goods down the long trail, and he and his men were in the woods nearest them—protecting them. For the time being they were successful in keeping the Noconas from reaching the wagons and stealing their cargoes.
But in the end Montoya would be forced to withdraw. He wouldn’t be able to hold out against all the warriors that Nocona could bring in—and doubtlessly had coming even now. The Comanchero would have come with a driver for each of his rigs; that would be seven or eight men, but they were probably only peones, not fighting men. He would have recruited some tougher hombres—most likely vaqueros—to gun-guard his caravan on the trail and serve as his bodyguard while he was carrying out the bartering he’d hoped to do here at the Valley of Tears. They might number only a half a dozen, or, since he had come to trade costly goods for a white girl worth ten thousand dollars to him, he may have brought as many as a dozen—or a score.
Sundance decided that no matter how many gun-hands the Comanchero had with him he wouldn’t be able to win this fight. He would have to break it off and run for his life, leaving his wagons behind. Sundance was surprised that Montoya had the nerve to keep on fighting. Maybe it wasn’t nerve that had him making a stand against the Comanches. It might be anger, because Nocona had come without the white girl and had tried to take the rifles, cartridges and whiskey … anger that would cost him and his men their scalps.
Sundance had no reason to care what happened to the Comanchero but suddenly he knew he must do what he could to keep the rifles from falling into the hands of Nocona and his warriors. He would have it on his conscience forever if he didn’t at least make a try at keeping the Indians from stealing them and eventually using them to cut a bloody swathe along the Texas frontier. He had told Virginia this wasn’t his fight, and he still believed it wasn’t. But he was going to take a hand in it, and maybe end up fighting both Comancheros and Indians.
For he was going to try to get to those rifles before the Noconas did—and somehow destroy them.
Chapter Fourteen
Having made his decision to lay his life on the line, not for himself but for the people on the Texas frontier and also indirectly for the Comanches themselves, Sundance returned to Eagle, swung to the saddle, and rode farther through the hills. He dismounted upon arriving at a spot from which he could look directly down on the Comanchero wagons. They were parked about a hundred yards south of the bosque in which Montoya and his men had taken cover, from which they were still shooting occasionally at the Noconas’ position. He was pleased to see that the animals had been unhitched from the rigs and turned out to graze. This meant they wouldn’t be endangered when he, if he were able, carried out his scheme to destroy the rifles. For he could destroy them only by setting fire to the wagons in which they were loaded.
A risky business that was going to be, and he needn’t run the risk. He could return to Virginia and with her ride wide around this valley—and be safely on their way. But he couldn’t do that, for he could visualize Nocona and his warriors, armed with those brand-new Winchesters, rampaging through mid-Texas to kill, loot, burn, and almost certainly carry off more women and children. Convinced that he would have to fight his way back out of the valley, once he torched the wagon with the rifles, he removed his bow and arrows from their pannier. He figured that since he would be fighting to escape a silent, flashless weapon would be better than a rifle.
He left Eagle ground-hitched and began a furtive descent of the slope. He had his quiver slung at his back and carried the bow in his left hand. Reaching the valley floor, he found that he would have no cover except an occasional clump of bushes and some scattered rocks. Now the bright moonlight was to his disadvantage. Bending low, he sprinted from the base of the slope to the nearest brush thicket, pausing there to study the lay of the land ahead.
The sniping continued, telling him that Esteban Montoya was still angry enough or foolhardy enough to continue to stand his ground. He wondered if the Comanchero was so stupid it hadn’t occurred to him that Nocona would have sent for more warriors. He became convinced that Montoya must have a good-sized bunch of gun hands with him there in the bosque. But however many they wouldn’t be enough—in the end. And before the end he, Sundance, must get to those wagons.
He made out a shadowy figure wearing a big sombrero lounging against one of the wagons. The hombre held a rifle in the bend of his arm. He wouldn’t be alone, the half-breed decided. There would be other guards. Yeah … there was another on the other side of the wagon. Sundance peered intently at the other rigs but saw no more of the Comanchero’s men. He tallied the wagons; seven in all, and five of them solid-wheeled carretas that would be drawn by oxen. He decided that they probably carried some ordinary trade goods that Montoya had hoped to barter to the Noconas or some other Comanches for cattle. The two ordinary wagons, with which teams of horses would be used, had bows and were canvas-sheeted. They would be loaded with the important merchandise: the rifles, cartridges and whiskey. The two standing guard presented a problem. He could drop them silently with arrows, but he didn’t want to take their lives unnecessarily.
He darted from the thicket and dropped down behind some rocks. The intermittent shooting continued between the Montoya crowd and the Noconas, but it was merely intended to keep each faction holed up—or perhaps, hopefully, to bring down an adversary by mere chance. He began to think that Nocona had misjudged the Comanchero, The chief had probably come with only a dozen or so warriors, thinking he would be strong enough to send Montoya running. On his part, the trader must have come to the rendezvous with more gun hands than he normally did. He would do his running only after Nocona received reinforcements. Or maybe Montoya was standing firm because he too had sent for reinforcements. The Comanchero might want to show Nocona that no Comanche could steal from him. If such was the case, so much the better. He, Sundance, would need all the time he could get to destroy the rifles.
How to dispose of the guards without killing them?
Sundance decided he would have to close in on them by stealth and take first one and then the other by surprise—and somehow render each unconscious before either could sound an alarm. That would take some doing. Peering from the cluster of rocks, he studied the position of the carretas in relation to that of the two wagons. The five Mexican rigs stood a little distance beyond them, and he might be able to reach them unseen by circling farthe
r down the valley. Then he could move out from them and jump the guards at their posts beside the conventional rig. He moved back to the clump of bushes, then to the base of the nearest hill.
Ten minutes later he arrived behind one of the carts and there unburdened himself of his bow and quiver. He moved away from the carts and crouched beside the rear wheel of the unguarded wagon. From here he could see only one of the New Mexicans, and he decided to ignore the other for a moment—and trust to luck. He closed in on the unsuspecting guard with a rush. The hombre heard the scurrying sound of his moccasins only at the very last instant. As the guard turned, Sundance clubbed him with a fist to the jaw. The hombre’s head rocked and the whole of him began to fall over backward. The half-breed grabbed the man with one hand and his rifle with the other, easing both silently to the ground.
Without a pause in his rush, he dropped to his hands and knees to scramble under the wagon. As he came erect on its opposite side, the hombre there saw him and spoke in sharp alarm.
“Quien es? Quien es?”
He stared with his eyes bulging and his mouth agape, as though confronted by a frightful apparition.
“Have no fear, amigo mio,” Sundance said softly. “I am only going to put you to sleep.” Then, lunging at the man, he added, “But not by singing you a lullaby.”
His punch landed just as the guard raised his rifle to shoot. It landed between the hombre’s eyes, dropping him as though his feet had been jerked from under him. But he clung to consciousness. Moaning softly, he struggled to retrieve his rifle from where it had fallen beside him. Sundance kicked the weapon out of his reach, then bent over him and gagged him with his own neck scarf. A mere peon, he wore only a cotton shirt and pants, sandals, and a sombrero that had been knocked from his head when he went down. His pants were held by a length of rawhide rope. Sundance untied the rope and pulled it off him, then rolled him over and used it to hogtie him.
