And One Rode West (47 page)

He leapt to his feet, quickly cutting her bonds. “We might have just signed your death warrant,” he said.

“And yours.”

“I was already a dead man,” he assured her. “We’ve got to get horses.”

“And Mrs. Brooks!” Christa said.

He stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “And Mrs. Brooks,” he said.

She looked back up the trail. The horses were to the left of the fire and small encampment. Mrs. Brooks was somewhere to the far rear.

“You go for the horses,” Christa told Darcy. “I’ll go for Mrs. Brooks.”

“If she opens her mouth just once,” Darcy warned her. “Leave the old witch!”

Christa nodded. She slipped around the trail. Apparently, the Comanche seemed assured that their captives weren’t going anywhere. The six braves remained around the fire, and though Christa couldn’t understand a word that they were saying, she found them surprisingly similar to their white counterparts, probably telling tall tales around a campfire.

Mrs. Brooks had been very quiet during the morning, and Christa felt a surge of fear rise to her throat. The Comanche had cut out her tongue.

But when she found the woman, her eyes were closed. And she had been silenced with a gag made out of her petticoat. Christa, with Darcy’s little knife, began sawing at the ropes that bound her to her tree. The
woman awakened, her eyes flying open in terror. Christa pressed a finger to her lips.

For once in her life, Mrs. Brooks had the very good sense to keep silent.

Christa reached down for the woman. It seemed for several minutes that Mrs. Brooks wasn’t going to find the strength to stand, she wavered so. “Please!” Christa whispered to her. Mrs. Brooks seemed to realize that they were dealing with life or death. She had no remonstrations for Christa; she looked at her with eyes as appealing as a child’s.

“Come on. Quietly. Carefully.”

She led the woman the long way around the braves once again, feeling as if she died a little with every step. They reached Darcy, who had untethered three of the horses. Between them, she and Darcy lifted Mrs. Brooks onto one of the horses before leaping atop mounts themselves. Darcy loosed the others from their tethers so that the horses would be gone when the Indians came after them.

Darcy swallowed hard and nodded to her. They broke away from the group slowly and carefully.

Then Darcy cried, “Ride!”

As if the flames of hell themselves were in pursuit, the three slammed their heels against their Indian mounts. Darcy knew his way, and Mrs. Brooks and Christa followed. She didn’t know just how long they had ridden before she heard a cry behind them.

The Comanche were alerted at last.

Darcy leaned low over his horse and looked at Christa. The expression on his face warned her that they were all dead.

She looked back. Only three of the Indians were following them. Only three had managed to recapture their horses after Darcy had loosed them.

“Split!” she cried to Darcy.

“Jesu, Christa, no!” he warned her frantically.

But there was no choice. They could all die. Or she could lead the Comanche away. They might follow her.

They would kill Darcy now. Maybe they wouldn’t kill her.

She reined in slightly and quickly before she could lose her courage. Darcy and Mrs. Brooks went racing by her. She turned toward a more northerly course and slammed her heels against her horse.

She raced the beast cruelly. Her heart beat with the same awful rhythm as that of the horse. Dirt and dust spewed up around her, yet despite the terrible pounding of her horse’s hooves, she felt the tremor of the ground when another mount came in pursuit.

She turned slightly.

The Indians were in pursuit of her. One of them was nearly upon her. She could ride, and ride well, but the man coming after her was surely one of the most talented horsemen on the plains.

Buffalo Run.

She cried out as he bore down upon her. When he reached for her, she was certain that she was dead, for he would send her spilling down to the earth at their frantic pace.

But he did not. He pulled her from the horse and across his own, slowing his gait. In moments they walked. He made a curious sound with his tongue against his palate, and in a few minutes the other racing horse returned to him.

Miserable, beaten, Christa lay across his horse tasting dirt, animal hair, and sweat.

Buffalo Run’s horse began a jolting trot. In another few minutes they were back with the other Indians. Buffalo Run shoved her from his horse and she fell into the dirt. She scrambled quickly to her feet, looking around. She was surrounded by Indians.

There was no sign of Darcy or Mrs. Brooks. The two had escaped.

Because Buffalo Run had come for her. She had gambled, and she had been right. She was the greater prize.

She backed away uneasily because the Indian was coming for her. He struck her hard on the cheek and she fell to the dust once again, reeling from the blow. He reached down a hand for her. She tried to shimmy away from him in the dirt, but he caught hold of her firmly, jerking her to her feet. He called out an order to the other men, then lifted her over his horse. They still had plenty of mounts, their own six Indian horses, hers, and Jeffrey Thayer’s mount. But they weren’t trusting her to ride alone anymore.

They started out slowly, allowing the horses a chance to breathe.

Buffalo Run rode behind her, a creature composed of flesh and steel, she thought dully.

“Are you going to kill me now?” she asked him.

“Not yet.”

“Jesu!” she breathed out. “Then let me go!”

“It’s never that simple. Not with the Comanche. Has no one warned you?”

Yes, she had been warned!

“Why don’t—”

“You not only cost me two horses and two captives, you nearly killed the animal you rode so hard and those we rode to catch you!”

“Then—”

“I may still kill you!” he warned her. “And I may cut you up in bits and pieces to feed to the buzzards first.”

“Yes, I cost you two captives!” she informed him, thinking herself a fool. “And two horses. And nearly four more! So do what you will—”

“The horses truly grieve me,” he said roughly. “And if you wish to keep your tongue in your head, keep it still!”

“My husband will come for you. He will cut you into little bits and pieces!”

“Shut up.”

“The cavalry will—”

“I will slice your tongue out myself if you do not take care!”

He meant it, she knew. A trembling seized hold of her.

Jeremy! She would never be able to tell him that she loved him.

“Please!” she began.

“One more word and it will be your last!” he said.

So warned, Christa fell silent.

The whole of Company D was still riding with Jeremy when he looked across the rolling plain to see the two riders.

He saw them from quite a distance at first, and he had to blink to assure himself that they were appearing before him. Because his vision was very sharp or perhaps because of instinct, he knew right away that the riders were connected with him, and he called out a warning to James. He then spurred his horse and went racing over the plain. There were only two. Mrs. Brooks and Darcy.

His disappointment when he neared the two—who had broken into a gallop at the sight of him—was difficult to conceal, and he swallowed it down with bitterness. He didn’t have much chance to speak as he dismounted from his horse, for Mrs. Brooks threw herself into his arms, screaming and talking gibberish all at once and sounding something like a Comanche herself.

Darcy was far clearer.

“It’s Buffalo Run, sir, I’m certain—”

“Christa!” he said hoarsely. “Darcy, where’s my wife?”

“I know she felt responsible, sir. And I don’t think
that the Indian knew quite what he had on his hands. He loosed her to go to the stream. She managed to free me and go back around for Mrs. Brooks. Then we all started to race out of there but the savages were on our heels. Mrs. McCauley suddenly cried out that she was going to split up and I couldn’t stop her, sir. She knew that they’d let us go and follow her. Sir, you don’t know the half of it! Colonel, Doc Weland went mad on us! If he’s still back there, he’s dangerous, sir. He—”

“He’s dead,” Jeremy said flatly.

His heart sank. Christa was still with the Comanche. She had caused trouble and Buffalo Run had caught up with her again. She might still be fighting him.

No, Christa, no. They’ll hurt you! I’ve warned you about the Comanche. I don’t know if he’ll remember that he’s my blood brother or not, or if he’ll see only that I was responsible for Thayer and that he was riding free. Christa, don’t fight him.

Move, fool, he warned himself. He was still at the very least a day’s ride from the encampment. Time might well be of the essence.

He turned to James, thrusting the wailing Mrs. Brooks upon his lieutenant. “I’m going on alone from here. I can ride faster.”

“It’s dangerous territory—”

“It’s Buffalo Run’s territory. If he sees me coming in with a company, he might decide to slaughter us all, and that will do Christa no good.”

“We can go back for reinforcements,” James said.

Jeremy shook his head. “If they were to see us coming, they might kill Christa and any other captives on the spot. We might annihilate half of them, but they’d do a damned good job on us too. I’ve no right to risk the entire regiment, although I’d do so if I thought it would save her life. But it won’t. I have to go in alone. I have to bargain with Buffalo Run.”

“Colonel, sir, I’ll come with you—” Darcy began.

“Darcy, I guarantee it—you’d be a dead man. You and Mrs. Brooks hurry straight back to the encampment.”

“Yes, sir, but I’d be willing to come with you, just the same. She was the bravest woman I ever saw, Colonel.”

“She’s a Reb,” Jeremy said softly. “She learned how to fight with some of the best.” He mounted his horse once again. “James, you’re in command here. Bring them all back. Jennings is in command at the encampment. He knows to move the men into the fort.”

James swallowed hard. “If you find her, sir—”

“If I find her, I’m going to do my best to convince her that the fighting is over,” he said. He tipped his hat to the company.

He turned away from them and rode on alone, only the Comanche girl, Morning Star, following behind him.

Twenty-two

They came to Buffalo Run’s encampment late that afternoon. It was a curiously peaceful sight. Perhaps two dozen tepees were set up along a slowly moving stream. Children were at play in the water and dogs roamed the camp. Women dressed in cotton shirts, skirts, and buckskin clothing were busy with their tasks, some sewing skins with large bone needles, some at work with what looked like mortars and pestles, and others working on skins that were strung across long frames by the sides of the tepees.

As they moved into the encampment, an old Indian with a broad, brown, and heavily leathered face came toward them, a wool blanket about his shoulders, his still pitch-black hair hanging in braids down his back.

Buffalo Run spoke to the old Indian with deference. The old man nodded, observed Christa where she sat before Buffalo Run, and nodded again. He raised his hands and spoke. The women, who had come running in when they had seen the braves returning, now milled around.

“Now you are with the Comanche!” Buffalo Run told her. He lifted her and set her down in the midst of the women.

They began shouting and poking at her. Some of
them carried sticks. She tried to back away but she was encircled by them. She swirled, trying to see her tormentors, shouting at them in return.

There was a white girl among them, a long scar down the side of her left cheek. The lobes of her ears were missing. But whatever torture she had met at the hands of the Comanche, she was one with them now, shouting at Christa. She shoved at Christa so hard that she fell.

Christa rose and turned around. A very tall Comanche woman had joined in with the tormenting. Her eyes were obsidian dark, her words a singsong with a curious roll to the R’s that was almost melodic.

Christa nearly fell again, her knees shaking horribly, when she saw the newly arrived, tall Comanche woman.