Call scanned the horizon to the east, but saw nothing unusual--just the bright edge of the rising sun.
Lady Carey still had a teacup in her hand.
Willy was eating bacon. Mrs. Chubb was trying to wash his ears, pouring water out of a little canteen onto a sponge that she kept with her, just for the purpose of washing Willy. Wesley Buttons had his boots off--he was prone to cramps in his feet, and liked to rub his toes for awhile in the morning, before he put his boots on.
If he took a bad cramp with the boot on, he would have to hop around in pain until the cramp eased.
Matilda Roberts walked her mare around in circles. The mare was skittish in the mornings, with a tendency to crow-hop. Matilda was no bronc rider; she liked to walk off as much of the mare's nervousness as she could. Twice already, the mare had thrown her; once she had narrowly missed landing on a barrel cactus, which was all the more reason to walk the mare for a while.
Gus McCrae and Long Bill had walked off from camp a little ways, meaning to relieve themselves. Long Bill was much troubled by constipation, whereas Gus's bowels tended to run too freely. They had formed the habit of answering nature's call together--they could converse about various things, while they were at it. One of the things Gus had on his mind was whores; now that he was eating better and not having to walk until he dropped, his sap had risen. A subject of intense speculation between himself and Long Bill was whether Matilda Roberts intended to take up her old profession, now that they were back in Texas--and if so, when? Gus was hoping she would resume it sooner, rather than later. He was of the opinion that anytime would be a good time for Matilda to start being a whore again, even if he and Long Bill were her only customers.
"Well, but Lady Carey might not approve," Long Bill speculated, as he squatted. "Matty might want to wait until we're shut of all these English folks." "But that won't be till Galveston," Gus said. "Galveston's a far piece yet. I would like a whore a lot sooner than Galveston." Long Bill had no comment--he noticed, as he squatted, that there was commotion back at the camp. Woodrow Call and Lady Carey were standing together, looking to the east. Long Bill could see that Call had his rifle. Matty had come back to stand near the others. Long Bill felt a strong nervousness take him--the nervousness clamped his troubled bowels even tighter.
"Something's happening," he said, abruptly pulling his pants up. "This ain't no time for us to be taking a long squat." The two hurried back to camp, guns in their hands. It seemed a peaceful morning, but maybe it wasn't going to be as peaceful as it looked.
"Here's Gus, he's got the best eyes," Call said.
Lady Carey went to her saddlebag, and pulled out a small brass spyglass.
"Help me look, Corporal McCrae," she said. "Corporal Call thinks there's trouble ahead, and so does my horse." Lady Carey looked through her telescope, and Gus did his best to scan the horizons carefully with his eyes, but all he saw was a solitary coyote, trotting south through the thin sage. He, too, had begun to feel nervous--he didn't fully trust his own eyes.
He remembered, again, how completely the Comanches had concealed themselves the day they killed Josh and Zeke.
Emerald walked over, leading her white mule.
"The wild men are here, my lady," she said, calmly.
"Yes, I believe they are," Lady Carey said. "I believe I smell them. Only they're so wild I can't see them." Then they all heard a sound--a high sound of singing. Buffalo Hump, in no hurry, walking his horse, appeared on the distant ridge, the sun just risen above him. He was singing his war song.
As the little group watched, the whole raiding party slowly came into view. All the braves were singing their war songs, high pitched and repetitive.
Gus counted twenty warriors--then he saw the twenty-first, Kicking Wolf, somewhat to the side.
Kicking Wolf was on foot, and he was not singing.
His silence seemed more menacing than the war songs of the other braves.
Call looked around for a gully or a ridge that might provide them some cover, but there was nothing --only the few sage bushes. They had camped on the open plain. The Comanches held the high ground, and had the sun behind them, to boot. They were four fighting men against twenty-one, and Wesley Buttons couldn't shoot. Even if he had been a reliable shot, the Comanches could in any case easily overrun them, if they chose to charge.
Four men, four women, and a boy would not look like much opposition to a raiding party, singing for death and torture. Call wondered if the English party knew what Comanches did to captives; he wondered if he ought to tell Lady Carey, and Emerald, and Mrs. Chubb how to shoot themselves fatally, if worse came to worst. Bigfoot's instructions about putting the pistol to the eyeball came back to him as he watched the Comanches.
No doubt Bigfoot had known exactly what he was talking about, but would the English lady, the nanny, and the Negress be capable of performing such an act? Would Matilda Roberts, for that matter?
Lady Carey stood watching the Indians calmly. As always, she was dressed only in black, and wore her three veils. She did not seem frightened, or even disturbed.
"What do you think, Corporal Call?" she asked. "Can we whip them?" "Likely not, ma'am," Call said. "They beat us when we had nearly two hundred men. I don't know why they wouldn't beat us now that we've only got four." "It's interesting singing, isn't it?" Lady Carey said. "Not so fine as opera, but interesting, nonetheless. I wonder what it means, that singing?" "It means death to the whites," Gus said. "It means they want our hair." "Well, they may want it, but they can't have it," young Willy said. "I need my hair, don't I, Mamma?" "Of course you do, Willy," Lady Carey said. "And you shall keep it, too--Mamma will see to that. Corporal Call, will you saddle my horse?" "I will, but I don't think we can outrun them, ma'am," Call said.
"No, we won't be running," Lady Carey said. "I think the best thing would be for me to try my singing. I will be leading us through these Comanches, gentlemen. I'll be mounted, but I want the rest of you to walk and lead your mounts. Saddle my horse, Corporal Call--and don't look at me. None of you must look at me now, until I say you may." "Well, but why not, ma'am?" Gus asked-- he was puzzled by the whole proceedings.
"Because I intend to disrobe," Lady Carey said. "I shall disrobe, and I shall sing my best arias --besides that, I shall need my fine snake, Elphinstone. Emerald, could you bring him?" Calmly, not hurrying, Lady Carey began to sing scales, as she undressed. She let her voice rise higher and higher, moving up an octave and then another, until her high notes were higher than any that came from the Comanches.
Emerald took the boa from its basket on the mule, and let it drape about her shoulders as Lady Carey undressed.
"I think, Willy, you should mount your pony," Lady Carey said. "The rest of you walk.
Matilda, would you take my clothes and carry them for me? I shall want them, of course, once we have dispersed these savages. You haven't saddled my horse yet, Corporal Call. Please cinch him carefully, so he won't jump--I've got to be a regular Lady Godiva this morning, and I don't want any trouble from this black beast." Call saddled the horse and handed the reins to Matilda, along with his pistol. He had no belief that anything they could do would get them through the Comanches. Lady Carey could undress if she wanted--Buffalo Hump would kill them anyway.
He kept his eyes down, as Lady Carey undressed--so did Long Bill, and Wesley Buttons. They had come to like Lady Carey-- to revere her, almost--and were determined not to offend her modesty, though they were much confused by the undressing.
Gus, though, could not resist a peep. So normal did she seem that he had almost forgotten that she was a leper, until he caught the first glimpse of black, eroded flesh as she turned to hand a garment to Matilda. Her neck and breasts were black; bags of yellowing skin hung from her shoulders. Gus was so startled that he almost lost his breakfast. He didn't look at Lady Carey again, though he did notice that her legs, which were very white, did not seem to be affected by the disease, except for a single dark spot on one calf.
"Oh Lord," he said--but no one else was looking, and no one heard him.
Lady Carey kept on her hat, and the three veils that hid her face. She also kept on her fine black boots. Matilda looked at Lady Carey's body, and felt bad--the English lady had been nicer to her even than her own mother. To see her young body blackened and yellowish from disease made Matilda feel helpless. Yet, she took the garments, one by one, as Lady Carey handed them to her, and folded them carefully. Mrs. Chubb was calm, as was Emerald--neither of them had seen what Comanches could do, Matilda reflected.
When Lady Carey had disrobed she mounted the black gelding, settled herself firmly in the sidesaddle, and reached for her snake.
"All right now, keep in line," she said. "You too, Willy--keep in line. I want you Texans in the middle, right behind Willy.
Matilda, Mrs. Chubb, and Emerald will bring up the rear. Emerald, if you don't mind, I think you might want to carry my husband's sword. Unsheath it, and hold the blade high-- remember, it's sharp. Don't cut yourself." The Negress smiled, at the thought that she might cut herself. Call had often noticed a fine sword in the baggage, but had not known that it was Lady Carey's husband's. Emerald took it and unsheathed it. She went to the rear, and waited.
"All right now, front march," Lady Carey said. "I am going to sing very loudly--after all, I'm one voice against twenty. Willy, you might want to stop your ears." "Oh no, Mamma," Willy said. "You can sing loud--I won't mind." Lady Carey, on the fine black gelding, started up the long ridge toward the Comanches, the boa draped over her shoulders. She was still singing her scales, but before she had gone more than a few feet she stopped the scales and began to sing, high and loud, in the Italian tongue--the tongue that had caused Quartermaster Brognoli to rouse himself briefly, and then die.
The line of Comanches was still some two hundred yards away. Lucinda Carey, watching from behind her three veils, rode toward them slowly, singing her aria. When she had closed the distance to within one hundred yards, she stretched her arms wide; Elphinstone liked to twine himself along them. She felt in good voice. The aria she was singing came from Signor Verdi's new opera Nabucco-- he had taught her the aria himself, two years ago in Milan, not long before she and her husband, Lord Carey, sailed together for Mexico.
Ahead, the line of Comanches waited. Lady Carey glanced back. Her son, the four Rangers, and the three women all walked obediently behind her. Emerald, the tall Negress, at the end of the line, had undraped one breast--she held aloft Lord Carey's fine sword--the keen blade flashed in the early sunlight. Emerald paused, on impulse, and shrugged off her white cloak. Soon she, too, was walking naked toward the line of warriors.
As she came nearer, close enough to see the Comanche war chief's great hump and the ochre lines of paint on his face and chest, Lucinda, Lady Carey, opened her throat and sang her aria with the full power of her lungs--she let her voice rise high, and then higher still. She pretended for a moment that she was at La Scala, where she had had the honor of meeting Signor Verdi. She filled her lungs, breathing as Signor Verdi had taught her in the few lessons she had begged of him--her high, ripe notes rang clearly in the dry Texas air.
Ahead, the war chief waited, his long lance in his right hand.
Kicking Wolf grew tired of listening to the war songs. He ran ahead, meaning to make the first kill. He would leave Buffalo Hump the Texan called Gun-In-The-Water, since Gun-In-The-Water had killed his son; it would not do to cheat the war chief of his vengeance. The man Kicking Wolf meant to kill was the tall one who always walked beside Gun-In-The-Water. Kicking Wolf was short; he would kill the tall one; Buffalo Hump, who was tall, could kill the short one.
So Kicking Wolf ran ahead, and squatted beside a small clump of chaparral--he had an arrow in his bow, ready to shoot. He heard a death song coming from the Texans, but because he wanted to surprise them, he did not look up once he was in his ambush place behind the chaparral. Of course, it was appropriate for the whites to sing a death song--they would all be dead very soon, unless one or two could be caught for torture. But it was a little surprising; Kicking Wolf could not remember any instances in which whites sang death songs. Once in awhile, when there was cavalry, a man might blow a short horn, to make the soldiers fight; he had actually killed such a person once, near the San Saba, and had taken the horn home with him. But it was not a good horn; when he tried to play it, it only made a squawking sound, like a buffalo farting. He eventually threw it away.
Then Kicking Wolf realized that he was hearing no ordinary death song--the voice that he heard lifted higher toward the sky than any Comanche voice could go. The notes rose so high and were so loud that, as the singer came near him, the song seemed to fill the whole air, and even to turn off the far cliffs and come back. Astonished at the power of the death song, Kicking Wolf stood up, ready to kill the person who was singing it.
His arrow was in his bow; he could tell from the power of the song that the person was near--but what Kicking Wolf saw when he rose from his ambush place chilled his heart, and filled him with terror: there, on a black horse, was a woman with a hidden face, black breasts, and shoulders that were only yellowing flesh and white bone. Worse, this woman who poured a song from beneath the cloth that hid her face had twined around her naked arms a great snake--a snake far larger than any Kicking Wolf had ever seen. The head of the snake was extended along the horse's neck.
Its tongue flickered out, and it seemed to be looking right at Kicking Wolf.
So frightened was Kicking Wolf, that he would have immediately sung his own death song had his throat not been frozen with fear. The woman on the black horse was Death Woman, come with her black flesh and her great serpent, to kill him and his people.
Kicking Wolf let the arrow fall from his bow-- then he dropped the bow itself, and turned and ran as fast as his short legs could carry him, toward the war chief. Behind him he heard the high, ringing voice of Death Woman, and could imagine the head of the great serpent coming closer and ever closer to him.