[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line (34 page)

Pete Dawkins and the other man who had fled Jacksboro sat in straight chairs in the parlor. They looked as if they had been whipped. A middle-aged woman stood beside Pete and wept.

The colonel said gruffly, "Amity, you'd best leave the room."

She cried, "You can't do this to our son."

"Our son has done it to himself. You'd best go and let me talk to the captain."

The woman left the room in tears.

Pete pleaded, "Papa, please ..."

The colonel rubbed the knuckles of his left hand as if arthritis was biting him. Gravely he said, "Pete asked me to help him get away. He told me what he'd done, he and Scully here, and some of those renegades out in the brush. They stole from others, and they stole from me." He turned on his son with a flash of anger. "For this, I've kept you out of the army." The anger left him quickly, and a deep sadness came over him again. "I have had men hung for less than what he has done. He's my son. I can't have him hung. But I can turn him over to you and let the law take its course."

Whitfield gave the two culprits a long study. "I can't say what a court might do. Stealin' horses is a penitentiary offense."

Dawkins looked at the floor. "No Dawkins has ever gone to the pen. We've always gone the last mile to uphold the law. The thought of a son of mine in that place ..." His voice trembled.

Rusty had never thought he could feel sorry for a man like Dawkins, and he resisted it now. But a touch of sympathy came unbidden. He had a hard time putting it down.

The captain said, "I might suggest one thing. I can take him into custody and turn him over to the conscript officers. He'd do his country more good in the army than in the pen."

Dawkins walked to the window and looked out into the yard, nervously flexing his big hands behind his back. When he turned, his mind was made up. "Son, you've shamed us. You've brought dishonor on the Dawkins family name. The army might give you a chance to redeem yourself."

Pete protested, "Papa, a man can get killed in the army."

"He can get himself hung for a horse thief on the outside. So you'll go and serve your country. You too, Scully. The army'll make men of you, or it'll kill you." He walked to the door through which his wife had gone. He turned. "They're yours, Captain. Take them."

He disappeared into the hallway. Rusty heard a door slam behind him.

Captain Whitfield motioned for Pete and Scully to stand up. "You boys are under arrest. Try to run again and we'll shoot you."

Pete looked toward the door where his father had disappeared. He opened his mouth as if to shout something, then changed his mind and hung his head. "We won't run. Next time he'd hang us himself. He told us so.

Whitfield looked back toward the house as they rode across the yard. "Shannon, if you know some way to get word to James Monahan, tell him there's no use tryin' anymore to kill Caleb Dawkins. Pete has already done that."

"Colonel still looked alive the last we saw him."

"Walkin', breathin', sure. But this has hurt him worse than any bullet ever could. It'll eat on him like a cancer. It'll kill his soul."

In a peculiar way, Rusty felt that the Monahans had been avenged.

HIGH PLAINS COMANCHE ENCAMPMENT, 1863

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Buffalo Caller fidgeted in a vain attempt to find comfort. He had sat in the council circle so long that his arthritic joints had stiffened and were beginning to ache. A horse had stumbled and rolled over him during a buffalo hunt last fall, leaving him with chronic pains he had never felt before. If this interminable discussion ever ended, he would probably have to ask someone to help him to his feet. That was embarrassing to a man who in his prime had led ambitious raids far down into the Texas settlements and deep into Mexico. Once his war party had ridden so far that the horsemen from the open plains penetrated the edge of dark, humid forests and marveled at the excited chatter of funny-faced little people perched high up in the limbs.

Now the council was considering Buffalo Caller's proposal for an invasion on a scale not seen since the great raid that had carried him and so many others all the way to the big water, chasing terrified whites out into the surf. He was ready to do it again. It was high time that the land-hungry Texans felt once more the full fury of The People, that the blood cry of Comanche warriors rang in their ears at the moment of their deaths.

He had sensed from the first that the council did not share his enthusiasm for a massive strike. He could not understand the reluctance. He argued that the timing was perfect. Many reports from south of the Eckhoft Pahehona, the Red River, indicated that the white men had become so hopelessly embroiled in their war against one another that their defenses at home had almost fallen apart. They had sent most of their fighting men away to some distant country to kill their own kind in awesome numbers.

The white man's foolish ways would forever be a mystery. But it seemed equally foolish for The People not to take advantage of them.

Buffalo Caller voiced a strong opinion that the Texans were vulnerable enough now to be pushed back from all the lands The people claimed for their own. He was convinced that the spirits were moving to bring this about. How else could one account for the white men's destructive war against each other unless it had been willed by the spirits? How else could one explain the fact that the western line of Texan settlements was guarded only by a small and tattered group of men on horseback who had to range over long distances because they were so few and the land so large? Such a line should he easy to breach. With help of benevolent spirits, the destruction should be well under way and irreversible by the time "Texan patrols discovered the signs of invasion.

Black Wing countered that several attempted penetrations of late had been discovered early and pushed back, some with painful loss of life. He felt that Buffalo Caller was much too optimistic. "You and I have both seen the Texans' settlements. Even with their war, the hair-faces have become thicker to the east of us than winter hair on the back of a horse."

Buffalo Caller argued, "There was a time we could have stopped them easily, but we waited. We thought the Mexicans would turn them back, or the land itself. But they continued to come. If we wait much longer, the white men's war will end and there will he twice as many of them. This is the time to be bold."

He used a pointed stick to draw a crude map in the sand. He indicated the course of the Colorado River, far south of the Red. "This is the Talking Water River. As a young man I hunted there. Many times since the Texans built their houses, I have gone and taken horses from them."

Black Wing knew. He had ridden along on a couple of the excursions and had acquitted himself with honor. He now owned many horses. But he cautioned, "Many more Texans live there now."

"And many more horses." Buffalo Caller hoped the appeal to greed would be persuasive if an appeal to patriotism was not. "The Texans to the south and east are not as ready as those to the north. They no longer expect us.

"But the searchers are out all the time. "They will find our trail."

"Not if first we go far west, where they do not ride. Then we go far south before we turn and move into the Talking Water settlements."

"Are there not white men to the west?'

"Only a few. They are fugitives. Even if they see us, they cannot send warning. They hide from the white man's law."

Black Wing's frown told Buffalo Caller he was resistant to the whole notion. Black Wing was already rich enough in horses. And many of The People did not share Buffalo Caller's strong compulsion to drive the white man away. After all, most Comanches remained at large. Though they had lost homelands to the south, they still ranged in relative freedom across the high plains. Most had not allowed themselves to be gathered like cattle and confined to the reservation north of the Clay-Colored River, the way less resistant tribes had done, or the white men's pet dogs, the despised Tonkawas. The Comanches could still hunt buffalo unimpeded so long as they did not venture too far eastward into areas infested by the white men.

Buffalo Caller felt a sour letdown. Though the argument would go on and on, he already sensed that he would lose it. At least there was an alternative. Above all, a male Comanche was a free man, allowed to act on his own volition if the way of the others did not please him. If the council would not agree upon a huge raid, he could organize a smaller one of his own. He had always found young men ready to follow him. Seldom had they come home empty-handed. Sadly, it was true that the last time he had led warriors into the land of the Texans, he had had the misfortune of running unexpectedly into a ranging patrol. The warriors had been obliged to give up some of the horses they had taken and flee back across the river to sanctuary.

But that had not been his fault. One of the reckless young men had chased an owl from its perch and made it angry. Everyone knew that Mope the owl harbored dark spirits. The same ill luck could have happened to anyone burdened with unseasoned youngsters who did not respect the proprieties.

If he was obliged to make up his own raid, he would be careful in choosing those who went with him. He had felt compelled the last time to take some poorly seasoned men who wanted the glory without regard to the requirements.

The conversation and the wrangling went on around him, but mentally Buffalo Caller had already stood up and left. He shut out the sound of others' voices and kept counsel only with himself. Already he was visualizing the country he would cover, the circuitous western route by which he would make his way down to the Colorado River settlements with the least chance of discovery. He knew the farms where he had found horses and mules before and where he would likely find them again. But this time he would do more than simply take the white men's animals. He would make a concerted effort to take as many of their scalps as possible. Those he did not kill, he would leave frightened for their lives. The survivors would be glad to gather their families and leave the land that had been Comancheria since the time of his grandfathers' fathers.

He itched for the council to finish its deliberations, for he had preparations of his own to make. He would need, among other things, to repeat the vision quest ritual he had undertaken as a young man first seeking his guardian spirits. He would ask those spirits for a renewal of the power he had known in his youth, that he might bring down The People's full wrath upon the Texans. Granted that power, he and others would regain the land that was the Comanches' own by every right a warrior held sacred.

Unbidden, a loud war cry escaped him. He looked around quickly and saw that the rest of the council was as startled as he was. Everyone looked at him.

He was sure one of the warrior spirits had spoken through his voice. "The signs are good," he said. "Many enemies will fall."

* * *

Often in the past he had sought a vision, and usually one had come to him if he prepared himself properly to receive it. He entered the hide-covered sweat lodge naked and poured water on heated stones to force the impurities from his body, then cleansed himself in the river. His son Steals the Ponies rode beside him to the hill chosen for the vigil so he could take Buffalo Caller's horse back to the encampment.

Formerly known as Jackrabbit, his son had earned a new name after leading several young men in stealing army horses right out of the military corrals one moonlit night last fall. They had not so much as awakened a sentry. Any father would have cause for pride in such a bold stealer of the soldiers' mounts.

"Come for me in four days," Buffalo Caller said. "If the vision appears earlier, I can walk back."

He waited until his son had passed from sight, then unrolled the buffalo robe he had brought and spread it carefully on the ground. He built a small fire and lighted his pipe, blowing the smoke in each of the four principal directions, then down toward the earth and up toward the sky. He would not eat or drink until he saw a vision that would guide him. Often it came on the fourth day or night, for four was a number that held much power.

Four days was a long time, but Buffalo Caller could wait. Infinite patience was one attribute of a good warrior.

Several times recently a disturbing dream had visited him. It was an old dream, actually. He had first experienced it after the great raid on the coast, when for a short time he had held the captive boy with red hair. In the dream he had seen his old friend Antelope, warning him that the red-hair was an ill omen, that the boy should be killed before he could bring evil upon The People. But Antelope had already been dead when the dreams had begun; the Texans had regained the red-haired boy. The dreams had eventually become less frequent, though he had never quite put them out of his mind. It seemed to him, when he allowed himself to dwell on it, that the spirits were saying Antelope had been right.

It was probably true enough that red hair was a bad omen, because Antelope, a fearsome warrior, had died trying to kill the boy who possessed it. To Buffalo Caller this meant that red hair had great power. The spirits were telling him to beware of anyone whose hair was red.

Fortunately there seemed to be few red-hairs among the Texans. The rest were fair game.

Fasting was little hardship for Buffalo Caller. He had done it many times on the war trail and in quest of a vision. The discomfort was small compared to the satisfaction of a victory or being visited by a dream of good portent. The first night he slept well. His dreams were an empty succession of meaningless images. He was not disappointed. He did not expect a real vision the first night or the second. Usually they did not come to him until the body had advanced beyond the distracting sensations of hunger and thirst and the mind was open to whatever message the spirits wished to deliver.

By the close of the third day his vision was blurring because of self-imposed deprivations. He considered this good. Unimportant details faded, and he could better see the intentions of the spirits, better hear their voices above the whisper of prairie wind through the dry grass.