Commanche Vengeance Page 5

  It was full dark when Sarah dropped from the roan and worked her way carefully into the brush where she had left Gibson Duke tied hand and foot unable to defend himself if the rider of the second Indian pony discovered him.

  She moved fast, but silently, broke through the opening and breathed easier. Duke glared up at her in the darkness when she approached him, bending over to untie his hands. “It’s about time you showed up—Miss Sarah!” His voice was angry, but restrained.

  “Shh!” she warned. “We have company.”

  “Barb?”

  “Injuns. I just plucked one of ’em, but there were two of the red devils in this brush. You heard anything?”

  Duke shook his head and with his hands free, began to untie his legs. His anger faded almost immediately. He picked up his gun and checked it “Are you sure there’s two of them?”

  “I found two horses.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Comanches,” Sarah replied.

  They waited in the still darkness, back to back, facing out, Colts high and ready. “I want you to know, Miss Sarah,” Duke whispered over his shoulder, “that I thank you for saving my hide from that skunk, but I don’t rightly know how to feel about you clobbering me over the head and taking me out of a fight.”

  “Shut up!” Sarah hissed. “I think I heard something.”

  “Over to your right,” Duke replied. “Circle around, and come up in back. Shoot first and don’t worry about hitting me.”

  Sarah moved away with a nod that Duke could not see and hit the first clump of brush quietly. She listened and heard Duke, opposite her, making another circle. There was a slight sound, like the first, as if someone were turning over in dry leaves, straight ahead of her. She inched forward, breathing tightly, pushing along the ground with her free hand and lifting her body clear of the tangled brush.

  She saw the Indian’s head and the movement the same instant she heard the thung! of the bowstring. She dropped to the ground and fired.

  She emptied the Colt after the slight movement and where she thought the Indian would be.

  Suddenly there was a wild crashing noise opposite her. Duke came thundering through the brush, bellowing at the top of his voice. “Miss Sarah—Miss Sarah! Are you hurt?”

  There was a cry, followed by a scuffle. A shot was squeezed off. Then silence.

  Sarah waited. It seemed an eternity before she heard movement in the brush. Duke came toward her. “You can come out now, Miss Sarah,” he said.

  Sarah found the Indian sprawled on the ground, covered with blood. “You hit him four times,” Duke said.

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah said quietly. “That makes two I killed.”

  “It was them or us, ma’am,” Duke said.

  “I know.”

  “And I figure you’re going to have to kill some more if you go on with this hunt for your Injun chief.”

  “Don’t try to talk me out of it, Mr. Duke.”

  “No, ma’am. Just telling you how things are going to be.”

  “I know how things are going to be.”

  They drank coffee and pulled at deer meat and stared into the small fire. “They probably come from around here somewhere,” Duke said after a long period of silence.

  “I guess they do.”

  “It won’t be safe to hang around in this brush much longer. When these two don’t show up, they might send others to look for them.”

  “And suppose it’s One Nest’s village?” Sarah said.

  “That’s a likelihood, ma’am.”

  “Then instead of running away from them, Mr. Duke, I’m going to look for their village.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  Sarah stood up. “I guess the score is kind of even, Mr. Duke, if that’s the way you feel.”

  “Feeling no way in particular, Miss Sarah.”

  “You saved my bacon from the medicine lodge and I returned the favor with that calico rider named Barb. We can call it quits right now, if you have a mind to,” Sarah said slowly.

  Duke shook his head in protest. “Damn it, woman, I didn’t say I was going to walk out.”

  “Then stop trying to get me to quit! Tell me one thing, Mr. Duke. What am I going to do if I do quit?”

  “What are you going to do when you find him—and get him, if you’re that lucky?”

  “I’ll think about that when the time’s here,” Sarah said. “I’m riding, Mr. Duke.”

  She got up and moved to the roan, swung into the saddle and waited while Duke kicked out the fire and signaled to his black. They moved out of the brush and stopped at the edge, staring out over the dark, unfolding flatlands.

  "Since this is still early summer,” Duke said, “it’s a possibility that these two came from a village up the trail to the north.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “How many bluffer have we seen in the last two weeks?”

  “Not many.”

  “Neither has anybody else.” Duke said. “And that includes the Injuns. It ain’t reasonable they would be out making meat for little game in the brush like this, if they had plenty of bluffer meat at hand.”

  Sarah nodded. “Trailing after the bluffer, and not finding any, they would double back into this brush for meat.”

  Without a word, she heeled the roan around and pointed it north across the flats at a slow gallop.

  A little after midnight they pulled to stop before a stand of half a dozen tipi. The cookfires were out, but there was still the smarting red glow of embers in the dark earth.

  “Not a very big village,” Duke said quietly.

  The hot desert winds had chilled off during the night and they both pulled at their brush jackets. “We can sit and wait for ’em to come out and see if your Injun is here, or we can ride in and roust ’em out. They won’t do a hell of a lot of fighting if we surprise them.”

  “That means taking care of their guards,” Sarah replied.

  “Well, yes, ma’am. We’d have to do that first.”

  “And if we wait for ’em to show up, they might catch wind of us and go to wondering about their meat-making party that didn’t come back yet.”

  “All them things is logical,” Duke said.

  Sarah Phelps turned in her saddle and faced her companion. “If you got anything on your mind, Mr. Duke, I would just as soon you come right out with it.”

  Duke wagged his head and kept silent.

  “Well?” Sarah demanded. “You still fretting about the way I handled you back there with them cowmen?”

  Duke kept his silence.

  “There wasn’t no other way—” _

  Duke cut her off. “Yes, there was, Miss Sarah,” he said gently. “I reckon I could of slipped my saddle and put a wad in old Barb’s head before he could pull the trigger.”

  Sarah humphed. “I don’t know about gun fighting, Mr. Duke, but it seems to me that when a man has a carbine leveled at your head—a man intent on killing you—there isn’t much you can do. I always heard you don’t make a move if another fellow’s got the drop on you.”

  Duke nodded heavily. “That’s true, ma’am, but that rule is like any other kinda rule or saying. It lulls men into overconfidence. Now take old Barb. He’s a tough one, all right, in more ways than one, and knows a lot about handling guns and all, and he knows about not drawing against a man who has the drop on you, and that’s just what I was counting on.”

  “It sounds as if you was messing around with losing a head if you ask me.”

  “Well, Miss Sarah, I didn’t ask you.”

  “Well, you’re here, ain’t you? And no blood shed, either.”

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “If you’d have got that Barb, them others would’ve gunned you down like a rattler.”

  “That may have been the case.”

  “And me along with it”

  Duke was silent.

  “And nothing is going to stop me from getting that Injun,” Sarah said with
finality.

  “Well, ma’am,” Duke said, and his voice was edged in a manner that Sarah had not heard before, “be careful how you put me down before other gents. I reckon I can take a lot of things and understand a heap more, but I don’t fancy to having me taken by a woman pulling me out of fights.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to speak and then clapped her lips closed and pressed them tightly. Whatever she thought of Gibson Duke, or any other man for that matter, she knew that where a man’s pride was concerned, she had better tread carefully.

  “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Duke. And I promise you I won’t interfere in your private affairs again.”

  She heard Gibson Duke let out a deep breath, without haste. She glanced at his profile in the darkness, barely making out the sharp lines of his nose and chin beneath the wide-brimmed hat.

  “Be still!” Duke hissed. “Don’t try for your gun!”

  A dozen braves moved around them in a circle, bowstrings tight and leveled, a few carbines held high.

  “Don’t move and don’t raise your hands,” Duke whispered. “But watch me—follow my lead.”

  Sarah stiffened, turning her head slowly to watch the Indians move in closer and draw the circle trap tighter around them.

  Two braves lowered their guns and snatched the leather out of their hands, jerking the horses. Suddenly, both Duke and Sarah’s hands were grabbed from behind and lashed quickly and expertly from behind. A guttural voice spoke an order from the darkness and the horses were led down toward the silent village.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the village the squaws came out of the tipis to watch as they were brought in and pulled from the horses. Roughly and brutally, they were dragged from the mounts and thrown into a tipi and were followed by at least two dozen men, women and children. They sat on the hard dirt floor and looked up at the sweating, greasy faces of their captors, flames from several torches lighting the expressionless faces one minute and creasing them in darkness the next.

  “They’re waiting for someone," Duke said. “Maybe it’s your boy.”

  “I hope it is,” Sarah said.

  One of the squaws stepped forward quickly and slapped Sarah viciously across the face and another stepped in and kicked her. Several others joined in and began beating her with sticks. Sarah fell back to the ground, but did not utter a sound.

  Duke closed his eyes as the women began to beat Sarah with the sticks around the head. He saw one blow land mercifully on her temple and saw her body sag. At least she wouldn’t feel anything else.

  The men began to yammer among themselves and turn toward the opening of the tipi to make room for someone to enter. The squaws pulled back away from the bleeding Sarah and turned to the door, where a tall Indian with a full nose and huge hands stood gazing down at her. He swung his gaze toward Duke. “Why you watch village of Comanche?” he asked in broken English.

  One of the braves started to speak in his ear, but the chief silenced him with a wave of his hand. “Speak, cur!” he said to Duke.

  “My woman is with child,” Duke lied. “I take her to the white medicine doctor. We hoped to find friends in this village.”

  One Nest remained silent a long time, studying Duke and the unconscious figure of Sarah. “I have seen this squaw before,” he said.

  Duke shook his head. “I don’t think so. We come from the land beyond the mountains, on the other side of the Apache country.”

  “Your woman does not look as if she carries a child,” One Nest said, stepping closer to Sarah and scrutinizing her figure.

  “What is the trouble,” Duke said.

  “My eyes are not so old that they should deceive me,” One Nest said heavily. “Take them—I will try and remember where I have seen this squaw before.”

  The others in the tipi began to protest, demanding that Duke and Sarah be killed at once, but One Nest cut them off with a curt command. He turned and left the tent. Half of the others followed. More than a dozen turned to spit on Sarah and Duke. One of the braves pulled a wicked-looking knife and made a threatening gesture toward Sarah, all the while watching Duke. The tall Westerner stared the brave in the eye and did not flinch. He knew nothing would happen to them until One Nest gave the word.

  One by one the others drifted out of the tipi until there were only three old squaws who had sat down on the floor of the tipi and stared at them. Once in a while they spoke among themselves, in monosyllables, but for the most part they remained quiet and just stared.

  Duke knew that Sarah would remind One Nest where he had seen her before the moment she saw him. In fact, Duke knew that her passion for revenge on the chief was so overwhelming that she would threaten and rage in fury and make any attempt at hand to get at the Indian.

  Someway, they had to get out of the village before One Nest remembered Sarah, and had them killed. But what could he do as long as the three squaws sat and looked at them like three mummies?

  Once, about three in the morning, One Nest came into the tipi and held a torch over Sarah’s face and studied her features. He grunted and turned back to Duke. The cowman held his breath.

  One Nest threw the torch down and made short chopping motions with his hands. “These eyes have seen your woman before.”

  “She is a kind woman,” Duke said softly. “I hope that the chief of the Comanche will remember her with good thoughts.”

  One Nest grunted, his eyes flashing anger at his own incapacity to remember where he had seen Sarah. He turned and stomped out of the tipi

  One of the squaws got up and waddled out after him without a word.

  Duke closed his eyes, falling forward gently and lay his head on the ground. He closed his eyes, but every minute or so slitted them enough to see the two old women. One of them sighed and spoke to the other. The other refused to reply. The first spoke again insistently, and pointed to Sarah. The other refused to reply. Finally the talkative one got up and waddled across the tipi in her shapeless buckskin dress and knelt down beside Sarah. With a short, stubby forefinger, she gently prodded the white woman in the stomach. She grunted, turned and nodded her head vigorously to the second.

  The second squaw made a noise as if clearing her throat The other spoke sharply in reply, then another clearing sound from the second and the first one got up from Sarah’s side and stood before her friend. They began to talk, both at once, gesturing in loud voices, and making gestures. The voices became louder and louder until they were screaming at each other and pointing toward themselves and Sarah.

  There was a sudden, harsh command from the outside and the women turned toward the opening, quieting immediately. The flap was pulled back and a heavymuscled brave, well over six feet, with flat, black eyes stuck his head inside. He spoke to them sharply and grabbed one of the women by the arm and jerked her out of the tipi. Both of them scurried outside whimpering and speaking in soft, whining voices.

  The brave looked around the tipi, first at the sleeping Duke and then the unconscious Sarah. He paused and walked to her side.

  He stooped down beside Sarah and touched her breast cautiously. He slipped his hand inside her shirt and Duke could see him stroking the hard, flat belly. The brave said something to himself and pulled out his knife, slitting the belt and waistband of Sarah’s trousers.

  The white, firm belly and thighs gleamed in the flickering torchlight. The brave, squatting down beside Sarah, keened his body back and forth, mumbling to himself. He stroked Sarah gently.

  Duke moved his hands and arms slowly, gently, pushing himself upright. The smouldering cottonwood torch that One Nest had thrown to the ground lay a few feet from him. He would have to shift his whole body, crawl at least two steps to reach the heavily knotted club and then back across the tipi—a distance of about ten feet—to reach the brave.

  Measuring his movements carefully, he slipped one knee out and placed it carefully on the earthen floor; he followed it with the other. Then he had his hands on the end of the torch. It was much heavier than he had thou
ght. He turned now, slowly, and studied the back of the brave.

  The Indian continued to stroke Sarah’s thighs and belly, talking to himself and swaying from side to side. Duke lay flat on the ground, the club held tightly in his hands, and worked his way slowly, and carefully, breathlessly, across the tipi floor.

  Four feet from the Indian, he raised the club and brought it down hard on the Indian’s skull. The man flopped over sideways and lay still without uttering a sound.

  Duke grabbed the knife that had fallen to the ground and slit the leather thongs that bound his wrists, then slashed at those around his ankles, drawn so tight that he had felt their bite through his boots.

  He turned to Sarah. For a moment he stopped and gasped at the creamy hardness of her thighs and belly. He bit down hard on his lip and slit the leather on her hands and legs. Then he moved to the front of the tent and stared out.

  At that moment a brave entered the tipi and without hesitating, Duke struck with the knife. He shoved the blade into the man’s chest, twisted it slightly, and felt the man slip off the end as the weight of the body sagged to the ground.

  Duke pulled the dead Indian inside and turned back to Sarah. He cradled her in his arms and slapped her face gently. “Sarah—Miss Sarah! Wake up, Sarah.”

  Sarah was out cold.

  Duke moved back to the front of the tipi and stared out. The village street was quiet. He listened for a moment, trying to find the direction of the horses.

  He waited for a minute, but then began to get impatient. He glanced back at Sarah, took a deep breath and stepped out into the open street

  He moved to the back of me tipi and slit the leather covering, and then hurriedly moved down the line of tents. Past the fourth tipi, he heard the unmistakable stamping of a horse. He hurried into the darkness, bent over low and moving fast, a knife in his hand, a second stuck in his belt

  A hundred feet from the stand of tents he found the horses, and immediately saw the lone guard over them. The Indian rode his black, lounging in the saddle, appearing to be asleep. Duke made his decision quickly. He flipped the knife in his hand and set himself. It was a long throw, but it would be nearly impossible to work his way through the horses without disturbing them and bringing the brave down on him. He judged the distance, balanced the knife in his hand and let it fly. He held his breath as the blade flew through the air. There was a distant thunk! and the sudden gasp of the man. Against the night sky of stars, Duke saw the body slip from the saddle.