by Zack Wyatt
On second glance, Sands admitted that Elena was right, but he still would have backed his previous statement with silver or gold. Will Brown might be a man, but he still had to convince himself of that fact.
“Joshua Sands, not only do you have the table manners of a field hand,” Elena’s regal nose wrinkled, “but you have the smell of a field worker!”
A sheepish grin crept across Sands’ mouth and he shrugged. “Two days on patrol doesn’t leave a man time for soap and water.”
“I shall see that it is remedied immediately. I’ll have Manuel draw a hot bath.” Elena’s stare was a stern reprimand. “Be in my rooms in ten minutes.”
“Elena, all I want tonight is ...”
Sands’ words were hushed by a cool finger pressed against his lips and a whisper from the Spanish beauty. “Ten minutes, mi corazón.” She turned with a crisp rustle of petticoats and lace. An amused smile plastered on his face, Sands watched Elena float—she did float rather than walk, he decided—across the room to whisper to the bartender. She glanced back at Sands and silently mouthed “ten minutes” before she disappeared down an arched hallway to the left of the cantina’s main room.
With a shrug, Sands finished the steak in three bites and corralled the last of the beans with a spoon. Feeling well-fed and sassy, he leaned back in his chair to leisurely sip the last of the coffee.
He stared at the corridor Elena had vanished down. A bath was not part of his twofold plan for the night. The spotless plate before him represented completion of step one. A soft feather bed and hours of undisturbed sleep was the second part of those plans. He had no intention of being sidetracked from his second goal. While he admitted there was a little aroma about him, a bath could—would—wait till morning.
Still he dreaded confronting Elena on that point. The Spanish bloodline that molded her beauty also had given her a truly passionate temper. One Sands avoided religiously. But tonight ...
Slowly draining the mug, he drew a deep breath and pushed from the table. Crossing the cantina, he walked down the arched hall. A rap on the heavy, hand-carved wooden door at the end of the corridor brought a bid for him to enter.
Rooms was a correct description of Elena’s quarters—five rooms in all. The one Sands entered was a small parlor. It was also empty.
“Elena?” He called out, but received no answer. “Elena?”
“Here, Joshua.” Elena’s voice came from behind a beaded curtain covering a doorway to the right. “I was just testing the water Manuel prepared.”
“Elena ...” Sands stepped toward the multi-hued strings of glass beads, “… it’s been two nights since I’ve slept, and …”
Sands swallowed his words when he edged aside the tinkling curtain and poked his head inside the adjoining room. His eyes widened, and he felt his jaw sag in pleasant surprise.
“The water is perfect, Joshua. Nice and hot to ease the aches from stiff muscles.” Elena smiled with childlike innocence. Her hair fell long and flowing about her flawless shoulders.
It wasn’t her smile Sands focused on. Elena had done a thorough job of testing his bath water. She sat naked within a large wooden tub! The steaming water rippled invitingly about her opulent breasts, playing hide and seek with two nut-brown nipples, that grew firm and erect beneath the caress of his eyes.
A wide grin spread on Sands’ face as he peeled his buckskin shirt above his head. Perhaps he had been too hasty in planning the evening. After all, a man needed to be flexible. The olive-skinned beauty who awaited his bath could not be ignored—nor the surging hunger she awoke in his loins.
First a bath, he told himself while he skinned his soiled breeches from his lanky legs, then the feather bed.
As for sleep ... he and Elena could discuss that in a few hours.
Chapter Six
Thunder rolled in rumbling fury through Josh Sands’ head. He tossed to his side and pulled a pillow over his head. The storm outside might signal a second forty days and nights of rain, but today he didn’t intend to get out of bed until he had caught up on too many hours of missed sleep.
The thunder rolled again, sounding closer and hollow.
Hollow? Sands tugged the pillow about his ears. The thunder could sound like a blaring hundred-piece, brass band for all he cared. All he wanted was sleep.
“Sands!” a man’s voice called above the next clash of thunder.
Then Elena eased the pillow from his head and whispered, “Joshua, there’s someone at the door ... a man.”
Sands flopped on his back, blinking away the blurry veils of sleep. The hollow thunder wasn’t thunder at all, but someone beating on the door.
“Sands! Josh Sands!” the voice called again.
“Who is it?” this from Elena.
“It’s Captain Jack Hays, ma’am. I’m looking for one of my men ... Josh Sands.”
Sands mouth opened. Elena slapped a hand over it, muffling his words to unintelligible grunts.
“Captain Hays,” Elena replied in a cool and indignant way. “This is the home of a lady. There is no Josh Sands here.”
Sands sank down in the bed. San Antonio was free and open as any frontier town. Still a woman had to protect her reputation. One word from him would have soiled the name of the most beautiful and uninhibited woman he had ever had the pleasure to know.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jack answered. “I realize that, but one of my men last saw Sands in your cantina last night. I was just ... I, uh, guess I was mistaken. Sorry to have disturbed you, ma’am.”
Sands and Elena listened to Hays’ boot steps retreat down the hall. His captain gone, Sands tossed aside a down comforter and scrambled for his buckskins laying on the floor where he had hastily discarded them the night before.
“A shot of tequila!” he called to Elena as he stepped into his breeches and yanked on his boots.
Elena held a glass of tequila by the time Sands’ head poked through the neck of his shirt. He took the glass and upended it, swishing the potent liquor around his mouth before spitting it into a washbasin.
“Appearances, my rose,” Sands said, then kissed Elena before grabbing his hat and shoving it down on his head. “Better for the captain to think I was drunk in an alley all night than soiling your virtue. Now back to bed with you—and sleep! I’ll be back tonight. Got a feeling whatever Jack has in mind is going to leave me awful dirty.”
Naked and all abounce and ajiggle, Elena trotted toward the feather bed. Unable to resist such a delightful temptation, Sands playfully swatted her perky backside. He merely tipped his hat to the string of Spanish curses that came in reply and made a hasty retreat via the backdoor.
In half run down alleys and backways, Sands passed Jack as he returned to headquarters. For the final touch to his charade, Sands staggered from an alley in front of Hays. He yawned and stretched as though just awakening from a night curled with stray dogs.
“Damn you, Sands! Where the hell have you been!” Jack called out.
“Uh?” Taking a deep breath in preparation for the forthcoming hurricane of profanities, Sands continued his performance with a wobbly turn. “Why, Captain! What are you doing up at this time of the morning?”
The tirade came, passed, and Jack finally got around to what he wanted—three Comanche chiefs had ridden into town at sun up, demanding to see Colonel Henry W. Karnes. Karnes, governor of the region, now delayed the meeting, waiting until Hays could attend the meeting.
“Drunk or not, I want you at the meeting. What little Comanche you speak might come in handy,” Jack concluded. “Apparently these three are looking to sign some kind of treaty.”
“Treaty?” Sands’ surprise was genuine. Comanches had as much need of a treaty as a boar had for teats!
The courthouse looked desolate, out of place. Sands’ gaze traveled around the one-room building with its unadorned limestone walls, unable to shake the feeling that the structure had been abandoned by the town.
The desolate feeling stemmed from security measures
. Outside two rangers casually leaned beside the courthouse’s wooden door, discussing the virtues of Kentucky thoroughbreds versus mustangs. To passers-by on the town’s main plaza, they were simply two men arguing incessantly. The two, however, stood guard to make certain no unexpected intrusions interrupted this unscheduled parley.
The inside of the courthouse was barren of all furniture.
Near the door, Colonel Henry Karnes stood, stiff-spined and granite-faced. The Lipan scout Beasos, a former Comanche captive, leaned against the wall. Jack Hays was to Karnes’ immediate right, with Sands at his side.
Across the barren room, cross-legged on the packed dirt floor, sat the three Comanche chiefs. Although their arms waved and hands gestured as they spoke, they sat as stiffly as stood their Tejano counterparts.
Sands’ gaze centered on these three representatives of the Pehnahterkuh, the Honey-Eaters, band of the Comanche. The three had donned their finest fringed buckskins and moccasins, decorated with beads and bits of colored glass. None bore the slightest trace of facial hair. While whiskers were a rarity on a red man, neither of the three chiefs even sported eyebrows. Comanche custom required their removal, slowly, painfully, one hair at a time with bone tweezers.
Their hair hung long and shining, slicked with buffalo fat and dung, and adorned with single eagle feathers in the back. At least this was true for two of the three. The oldest was bald with sparse tuffs of white ringing his bare crown. This was Mook-war-ruh, the great Pehnahterkuh par-riah-boh, or civil leader. The aged brave’s presence added an unexpected gravity to the meeting. Mook-war-ruh was known throughout Comancheria and respected even by aloof Antelope-Eaters, the Kwerharrehnuh bands.
In spite of the colorful regalia, their obvious tribal markings, the Pehnahterkuh appeared estranged and distant from the savage warriors who sprang into Sands’ mind at the mere mention of the word Comanche.
For minutes the ranger pondered the strangeness before recognizing its source. Horses! The three were unmounted. A Comanche looked incomplete, almost naked when he was on the ground. Astride their mustangs, armed with bows and arrows, war axes, lances, and occasional outmoded rifles, Comanches were the most devastating light cavalry known to modem man.
Short, Sands thought, and beefy.
The Pehnahterkuh were far shorter and heavier set than the mental image the ranger carried of the fierce warriors. When he watched them enter the courthouse, he sensed an awkwardness in their movements, as though they were out of their element when not seated on the back of mustang ponies.
“This is a waste of time,” Jack whispered under his breath as he shifted restlessly. “These three are all Pehnahterkuh.”
Sands didn’t comment, but Jack was right. The three chiefs were of the Pehnahterkuh. The Kwerharrehnuh, Yampahreekuh, Dertsahnaw-yehkuh, and Tahneemuh were not here, nor had the three chiefs mentioned these other bands.
Chiefs? Sands resisted the urge to shake his head. Chief was a misnomer when applied to the Nermernuh as were the terms nation and tribe. Did Colonel Karnes believe dealing with Comanche was like dealing with the Eastern Indians or with the Wacos, Lipans, and Caddoes?
There were no Comanche “tribes.” The Nermernuh lived in bands that remained together for as long as it suited its members. If a brave was no longer satisfied with a particular band, he simply packed his tipi and joined another.
Nor did a designated “chief” rule these bands. Those whom the band respected were the leaders in times of peace. Their only power was community respect.
As for war chiefs—any brave could gain that title. If he convinced others that his medicine was strong and they should follow him on a raid, then that warrior became a war chief—for that one raiding party. The next day another warrior might gather a party, and he was the war chief of that raid.
Comanches were like no other Indians on the continent. A fact that settlers in the republic seemed unable to grasp. Something that had cost more lives than either whites or Mexicans wanted to be reminded of. Here in the southern frontier region the spilling of blood was the worst.
The three brightly adorned braves abruptly sat silently. They stared across the vacant room, their now mute arms and hands resting in their laps.
Karnes made no immediate response, but leaned to Beasos, whose whispered voice buzzed through the courthouse like the annoying hum of a flying insect.
Sands shifted his weight from one foot to another. He caught just enough of the Lipan’s words to be certain the man was giving an accurate translation of what the Comanches proposed. Beasos’ inflection echoed Sands’ own skepticism.
The whispering stopped, and Colonel Karnes stood straight-backed again. Unflinching, he returned the chiefs’ stares across the empty room for several long, silent minutes. He then cleared his throat and began:
“As I understand it, you are offering to treaty with the Republic of Texas, Moor-war-ruh ... ”
Sands gave Karnes a mental nod of approval for correctly pronouncing the old par-riah-boh’s name. Government officials sometime preferred to create their own names for braves when facing the Comanche tongue. Often the language was too difficult, or a literal translation of a name was offensive to the white ear. The practice of name-changing was used by newspaper reporters who also found Indian names offensive.
Buffalo Pizzle, Wolf’s Haunch, and Coyote Droppings were common names among the Comanche. The name Buffalo Pizzle might stem from a brave’s uncanny ability to track bison by smelling where the great shaggy beasts had urinated.
Comanche names were either acquired or bestowed by members of their tribe and usually reflected some medicinal phenomenon or physical attribute with little regard for what whites termed as proper or dignified.
Faced with a name such as Buffalo Urine, journalists refused to provide literal translations in their reports. Instead they substituted a name they felt more dignified and suitable for the sensibilities of their readers.
Sands could only wonder what names journalists would create for these three warriors should reports of this meeting ever reach Jefferson or Washington-On-The-Brazos.
“A treaty between our peoples is an admirable goal,” Karnes continued. “One we should strive to attain ... ” Sands hoped that the Comanches had less trouble believing Karnes than he did. The colonel was a personal friend of Texas President Mirabeau Lamar. Unlike Sam Houston, his predecessor and hero of the war for independence, Lamar believed that every redskin within the Texas borders had to be eradicated like vermin before the land would be safe for settlers.
“… however, before peace and open trading between our peoples can exist, I reiterate certain provisions that the Comanche must agree to. First ...”
Sands knew the terms by rote. Time and again they had been placed before the Comanche—with no success. The Texas government wanted the Comanches to recognize the sovereignty of the republic, to leave settlements unmolested, and allow settlers to appropriate lands up to, but short of the plains where the great herds of buffalo grazed each season.
The Mexican and Spanish government before had sought similar terms. The treaties achieved were at best short-lived. The Comanches weren’t a nation, not in the white man’s terms. A treaty made with one band did not apply to another.
Did Karnes believe that this would be any different than the treaties that had gone before?
“… Our main proviso, one that must be met before our people can sit together and talk peace,” Karnes said, “is the return of all white captives presently held by the Comanche.”
Sands caught his breath. The demand had to be made, but it was one that would not sit well with the three chiefs.
Since 1836 more than two hundred white captives had been carried off by Comanche raiders. Asking the Comanche to return that many women and children, whom the Nermernuh considered no more than property, would be the same as asking whites to abruptly release their black slaves.
The three chiefs merely sat silently for a long moment. Then to Sands’ surprise, M
oor-war-ruh’s bald head nodded in what could only be interpreted as agreement. His two companions followed suit. Then the ancient par-riah-boh spoke:
“In twenty days we shall return. All the great leaders of the Pehnahterkuh will ride at our side. Then we shall continue our talk. Farewell, Tejanos.”
There was no more to be said. With Moor-war-ruh’s words, the Comanches stood and walked out the door. Karnes’ mouth sagged visibly, and Sands saw a flush of crimson inflame his whiskered cheeks. The colonel turned to Jack.
“Captain Hays, I want to see you and Sands in my office in an hour from now. I wish to hear your views on what has just transpired.”
Karnes pivoted sharply and hastily strode from the courthouse to the plaza outside. Jack glanced at Sands and shook his head.
“I don’t need any hour to tell him what I think.” Jack started to the door. “We can’t base anything on what one band is offering. Any treaty has to be with all the bands, not just the Pehnahterkuh!”
Sands nodded in silent agreement. Jack was right. Still, maybe the Comanche were tired of fighting. Perhaps this was a beginning of peace. After all, Mook-war-ruh had nodded his agreement on the demand for return of all the Comanche-held white captives. And there was the fact that Mook-war-ruh himself had come to San Antonio. Why would such a great leader of the Nermernuh hold a hand out to whites unless the Comanche wanted something?
Determining what that “something” was, was the job of other men with more authority than Sands. A fact he was glad of. Yet like every Texian, he could hope for the dawn that would bring peace with the Comanche.
Chapter Seven
Sands entered the office behind Jack and closed the door. Colonel Henry Karnes sat at his desk with quill in hand. The only sound in the room was the scratch of inked feather on paper.
“Gentlemen,” Karnes began without even a glance at the two rangers, “I have begun a letter to Albert Johnston. Before I detail my recommendations concerning this morning’s council to our secretary of war, I would like to have both your opinions of my meeting with those three savages.”
