by Zack Wyatt
Soldiers stationed around the plaza answered the assault upon the crowd by lifting their rifles and opening fire. The death cries of the Nermernuh mingled with the thunder like reports. The Comanches whose bodies jerked and twisted beneath the impact of rifle balls were not warriors, but squaws and their children. And like the Pehnahterkuh chiefs they had followed into San Antonio, they died.
“Will, get the men!” Hays cried out, waving the young ranger toward the garrison. “And bring our weapons! And hurry the hell about it!”
Will didn’t question, just ran.
Unarmed, and his stomach threatening to empty itself, Sands stood by Hays’ side. Until Will returned, all that either could do was stare on in mute horror as the streets of San Antonio ran red.
Chapter Thirteen
Sands watched four soldiers drag the squaw from the jail. He wasn’t certain of her name, only that she had been one of the wives of the dead Pehnahterkuh war chief Many Ponies. In spite of the grasping arms that wrenched her to one side then to the other, she appeared passive and uncaring. Only the ice in her coal-black eyes hinted at the hate that seethed within her breast and brain.
Sands saw the same hatred reflected in the faces of soldiers and onlookers who crowded about the small jail, heard it growled in their throats and voices. If there had been a chance for peace—even a temporary one between redman and white—it had been rent asunder. The Comanche refusal to release their captives had irreparably violated the very foundations of the peace council for whites, while Fisher’s soldiers and the treacherous attack had breached the Nermernuh’s sacred sanctuary of a council meeting.
Thirty-five Pehnahterkuh had died in the fighting—braves, women, and children. Seven whites had fallen and another ten had been seriously injured. No one had bothered to count the minor wounds suffered by the onlookers—or the Comanche.
The thirty-two Indian survivors—all squaws and children—had been seized and packed into the confines of a jail that was little more than a single cell made from limestone blocks. San Antonio now placed itself behind bars of its own. The majority of the citizenry remained behind locked and barred doors, with loaded rifles in terrified hands. The whole town was abuzz with rumors of Comanche reprisals for the “Council House Fight,” as the massacre had been dubbed overnight.
“Tell her to ride to the camps of her people and spread the word of how the republic now deals with liars, murderers and butchers.” Colonel Fisher’s voice drew Sands’ attention back to the soldiers and their prisoner.
The soldiers lifted the squaw astride the bare back of a mustang mare. Her eyes never leaving her captors, she took the single hackamore rein in a steady hand while Beasos translated Fisher’s words. Then she securely gathered a bundle of food a soldier handed her into the crook of her free arm.
“Tell her to inform her people that unless the Comanche bands release all their white captives within twelve days, the prisoners we now hold will be put to death,” Fisher ordered the Lipan scout.
Beasos did as told with a doubtful shake of his head; the soldiers released the squaw when Fisher nodded to them. She rode from town as passively as she had been pulled from the jail.
Sands turned away sucking at his teeth. The squaw’s facade was deceptive. The cries of the mourning chant she would wail when she reached her band already echoed in his mind. Those cries of sorrow and rage would soon be heard all across the plains—of that he was certain.
Listlessly, Sands stirred a fork among the pinto beans and bacon-that filled the tin plate balanced on his knee. He tried to listen to Hays, but his mind, like those of every man in the garrison, refused to give up the bloody visions of yesterday’s council meeting. Even the heat radiating from the black box stove he sat beside provided no warmth. It might be late March—spring this far south in Texas—but today seemed colder than the days of the winter.
The bunkhouse was silent for several heavy minutes after Jack concluded his announcement. Sands lifted a forkful of beans toward his mouth, then dropped it back to the plate. In spite of his stomach’s rumbling, he had lost whatever appetite he had. He placed the plate on the floor beside the chair, and looked up at Jack.
“No patrols for twelve days, huh?”
“Karnes’ orders,” Jack said with a dubious heave of his chest. “He says we are to respect the word as well as the intent of Fisher’s command. Give the Comanches the chance to return the captives. Karnes said that he feels even reconnaissance patrol could be interpreted as a hostile action.”
“Hostile action! Bullshit!” this from Hap Ingram.
Twelve days without patrols was insanity! Sands silently cursed Karnes’ and Fisher’s parental relationship to a female dog. If either man knew what he was doing, he’d send out the soldiers with the rangers. Let them attack before the bands could recover from the loss of their chiefs. That would drive home the point in the only language the Nermernuh understood—blood!
Jack shrugged. “For the next twelve days we’re stuck here. Until Karnes changes his mind, everyone’s on repair duty. That means new roofs for the stable, then the garrison.”
The men just sat there, not even protesting the order with the usual chorus of disgruntled moans.
“You got a Joshua Sands in here?” A soldier opened the door and poked his head inside. “There’s a wagon out here and the driver wants to talk with a Joshua Sands.” Jack glanced at Sands then motioned him to the door with a tilt of his head. Sands rose and walked through the still open door.
The wagon outside was the Hammer wagon. Marion and Jamie sat beside a heavy set man with a thick shock of salt and pepper hair that pushed in disarray from beneath a weather-beaten hat.
“Mr. Sands,” the man called out and stretched a hand down from the driver’s seat toward the ranger, “the name’s Arlan Turner. I’m Marion’s father ... and this boy’s grandfather.”
The man tousled Jamie’s hair arid smiled as Sands took his proffered hand and shook it. “Marion told me all you did for her and my grandson after ... after what happened to Felix. I didn’t think it would be right for me to head back to Linnville without at least telling you how much your kindness is appreciated.”
“Linnville?” Sands’ gaze shot to Marion. Her green eyes rolled downward as though embarrassed; guilt suffused Sands. “You’re leaving for Linnville?”
“Thought we could make thirty or forty miles ‘fore sundown,” Arlan Turner said. “After what happened here yesterday, it don’t seem safe to loiter around San Antonio any more than necessary. The sooner I get my daughter and grandson back to the coast, the safer I’ll feel.”
Sands looked back at Marion. For an instant her eyes rose to him expectantly. Words, the desire to call to her, to ask her to stay, formed on Sands’ tongue. Then a bitterness like bile rose within him to drown his unspoken words.
The expectancy in Marion’s face faded, and her gaze returned to the ground. Sands could see the hurt that trembled at the corners of her mouth: hurt that he placed there. He cursed himself for that, but could not utter the words that would erase the pain.
Sands’ brow furrowed as he turned back to Marion’s father. “You aren’t thinking about heading out alone, are you?”
Arlan Turner shook his head. “I brought three other supply wagons with me up from Linnville. They’re waiting at the other side of town for me.”
Sands nodded his approval. Usually the journey from San Antonio to the coast was safe enough for a single wagon, but now, after all that had happened, the only safety was in numbers.
“S’pect it would be best for a man to drive straight south,” Arlan Turner said. “Put as much distance between the wagon and San Antonio as possible before turning east.”
“That’d be my advice, Mr. Turner,” Sands said. “Keep an eye on your team and wagon. It’s not a time to have either break down.”
“Aye.” Arlan Turner held out his hand once more and shook Sands’ again. “Reckon we’d best be going. Thank you again, Mr. Sands, for all t
he aid you’ve given Marion and Jamie.”
“Marion ...” Sands started, feeling himself open to the woman, then the words vanished when her head lifted. All he could mumble was, “Marion, you keep care of yourself. And Jamie, you look after you mother, hear?”
“I’m the man of the family now, Josh.” Jamie grinned widely, his small chest expanding. “I’ll watch after Ma.”
Sands’ gaze shifted back to Marion as her father lifted the reins. He saw moisture welling around her emerald eyes, but there were no tears.
“And you, Joshua Sands,” she said, “you take care of yourself.”
“Aye,” Arlan Turner said. “Should you ever meander down Linnville way, know that the door to my house is open to you—day or night.”
With that, the man lifted his whip and snaked it out so that it popped loudly above the team leader’s head, while he whistled and called out to the horses. The wagon creaked as its thick-spoked wheels began to turn.
As Sands stood mutely staring up, Marion’s lips silently formed the three words he had been unable to say to her—“I love you.”
Then the wagon moved away, and she and Jamie and her father were gone from his sight, hidden by the canvas covering the wagon’s bed. Deriding himself, Sands watched the wagon roll southward behind a line of white-washed buildings.
His head jerked around and he stared at the ranger stable. There was still time to saddle up and ride after them. Time to ask Marion to remain—to make a life with him.
Sands looked at the garrison, then back at the stable, unable to bring himself to take that first step, unable to ride after the woman he loved.
The retreating wagon with Arlan Turner at the reins offered him an unexpected solution to all the questions and doubts that had plagued his brain. It was the coward’s way out, he realized, but he took it.
Seven days after the Council House Fight, a cry went up from a sentry, bringing Sands and Will scrambling down from their awkward perch atop the rangers’ stable. Their gazes followed the soldier’s pointing finger northward until they located the source of the man’s excitement—a cloud of dust—and before it a lone man riding hell bent for leather straight for town.
Jack and the remainder of the company had joined them by the time the rider reached the garrison. The man wasn’t a man, but a woman who identified herself as Catherine Webster. Nestled securely in her arms was an infant daughter.
“I got away!” Tears of joy transformed to mud as they streamed down her dust covered cheeks. “My lord, I didn’t think I could do it. I thought they’d catch up with me and kill us both. They’ve gone crazy! They’re killing all the whites. All of them! Don’t you understand? All of them!”
The woman’s eyes were saucer round and wild. Her words came in a disjointed rhythm, and her meaning, if any, was lost on Sands.
Under Jack’s direction the hysterical woman was guided into the garrison and given coffee. After three steaming cups, drained in hasty gulps without a single sound except her own heavy breathing, she looked up at the men who pressed around her.
“I stole me a horse while they were killing everybody. I got my baby, but I couldn’t get to Booker. They took him from me, but they didn’t kill him like they did all the other whites. They had already made him a Comanche ... made him one of their adopted sons. But they killed all the rest. They would have killed us if I hadn’t stole the horse,” Catherine Webster’s sentences still came fast and jerky as though she couldn’t get them out quickly enough.
“Comanches,” Jack asked, “did they attack your wagons ... farm?”
“No, no,” the woman shook her head violently. “We was captives. My baby, my son ... Booker ... and me. But I escaped. Got away before they could kill us like they was doing to all the others. They only spared Booker and the Putnam girl ‘cause they was adopted ... the Comanches had made them part of their tribe.”
Jack poured the woman another cup of coffee, then turned to Hank Ferris and ordered him to gather some of the town’s women and bring them to the garrison to care for Mrs. Webster. He sent Hap Ingram to inform Colonel Karnes of the woman’s escape from the Comanche. Jack then pulled a chair beside her and in a soft and gentle voice began to piece together her story.
She had escaped from a Pehnahterkuh band a day ago and ridden south toward San Antonio, certain the Comanche would follow her and her young daughter.
“They went crazy about three days before that,” Mrs. Webster said. “Best I could tell was that some of their chiefs had been killed here in San Antonio ...”
She told of braves and squaws wailing and screaming all through the night.
“They tore at their faces, chopped off fingers. The squaws were even ripping at their teats,” she said. “Most of the men cut off their hair and sat on the ground moaning and crying like children.”
Sands could not suppress the icy floe that moved up his spine. Their long black tresses were sacred to the Comanche, both men and women, to shave their scalps was unheard of. He had no doubt that their insane grief stemmed from news of the Council House Fight.
“I’m not certain how long it all went on,” Mrs. Webster continued. “But when the wailing ended, there was only fire in their eyes. And those eyes were on the captives they held in the camp.”
One by one, the band took each of the captives and staked them naked to the ground outside the camp, she detailed. “They mutilated them. Cut the skin from their bodies. And when the men were through, the squaws burned them with torches and embers from the fires, laughing at the screams.”
Catherine Webster looked up at the men around her. “There weren’t no men captives. Only young women and children. But that didn’t make no difference. They killed them. When they came for the little Lockhart girl, I made my break.”
Sands was certain that the Lockhart girl, Mrs. Webster spoke of was Matilda Lockhart’s sister. The girl was only six years old. She had been tortured by Comanche knives, then her mutilated body was burned alive while her screams rose helplessly to the heavens.
“Captain, there’s some lady folks outside,” Hap was back with Karnes at his side.
While Jack reiterated Mrs. Webster’s story for the colonel, Will and two other rangers took the woman outside to those offering comfort for her and her child.
“We need to get word of this to Colonel Fisher,” Karnes said.
“Might be better if he and his men moved back into town instead of holing up in San Josè Mission,” Jack suggested.
Karnes shook his head. “I don’t think that’ll happen. Fisher’s taken sick. He says the mission, with its walls, is a natural made prison for the Comanche captives.”
Sands tuned the men out. He didn’t care what Fisher wanted; the military colonel had made his move. Now Pehnahterkuh had begun to exact retribution for Fisher’s murder of their chiefs. And Sands feared the captives who had died were only the first payment.
Chapter Fourteen
“I don’t understand! Where are they?” Will Brown yanked off his hat back and swiped at his forehead with the arm of his shirt. Tiny droplets of sweat immediately popped out on his brow to replace those wiped away. “They can’t just up and disappear. Can they?”
Sands shook his head and shrugged. It wasn’t an answer, but he didn’t have any answers. At least none that made any sense.
He searched the open prairie that fanned wide below the patrol. Even from the vantage point atop the rise, he saw nothing except grass and rock baking in an already hot morning sun. He had given up trying to make sense of the vast emptiness two weeks ago. Like everything since the Council House Fight back in March, nothing seemed to fit together the way it was supposed to.
The Comanche revenge he feared had come. Three days before the end of Fisher’s twelve-day truce Pehnahterkuh bands had ridden on San Antonio and surrounded the town. They had the numbers and the strength to raze the town. Yet, they didn’t attack; they merely rode about taunting the soldiers with shouted insults and challenges for Fisher’
s men to ride forth and face them in hand-to-hand combat.
What could have been a massacre had been diverted by one fact: the Pehnahterkuh had no leader to unite them—all their powerful chiefs had been killed in the council house.
The ineffectual display of Comanche bravado might have been seen as a joke by some, had it not been for the steady wave of raiding parties. The Nermernuh struck the frontier with an unheard of ferocity and brutality that paralyzed the southwestern region with terror. Night or day, the Comanches were always there.
The rangers had been unable to contain the attacks; there had been too many for such a small company. Jack Hays had answered the need for men by organizing what he called his “Minute Men.” The pealing of the San Fernando church bell and the raising of the flag over San Antonio’s courthouse now brought a troop of town volunteers running to aid the ranger captain and his troop.
The “Minute Men” helped, Sands admitted, though they had not been enough. Even with the extra men from nearby communities that organized their own “Minute Men” companies, it had been only a defensive measure. The rangers had never been able to take the offensive against the raiding Pehnahterkuh.
The government sent regular army to aid in the fighting. While the Texian infantry could stand without shame against the troops of Mexico, when it came to Indian fighting, they were useless.
The Comanche avoided direct confrontation with the army. And there was no way a foot soldier could effectively pursue an enemy who was borne on horseback.
As for the Pehnahterkuh squaws and children taken at the Council House Fight ... Sands sadly shook his head. They were the only real joke stemming from the situation.
