Comancheros (A Cheyenne Western. Book 7) Read online

Adding to her misery were the constant cries of the children. They did not understand what was happening, why they had been wrenched away from their parents. Nor were the women captives allowed to console them.

  Riding nearest to Honey Eater, likewise lashed to a pony, was a young girl named Singing Bird. She was the sister of Two Twists, the young junior warrior who had helped Touch the Sky ward off a Kiowa-Comanche attack on the women and children during the recent hunt.

  Though all the prisoners were suffering, Honey Eater was especially worried about her. Singing Bird was pretty but in delicate health. The shock of capture and the hard pace of flight had taken their toll. She was conscious, but had not responded to any of Honey Eater’s anxious attempts to engage her in some kind of talk. It was important to rally Singing Bird, to keep her from giving up—Honey Eater knew full well what these tribes would do to any who could not finish the journey.

  Finally, as the shimmering orange sun went to its resting place, the leaders signaled a halt for the night. But soon Honey Eater realized there would be no rest this night—not for the prisoners.

  The Kiowa and Comanche braves were worked up to a frenzied mood by their successful raid. Now and then one of them would let loose a yipping war cry. Others engaged in a favorite source of amusement, holding their pistols right next to a prisoner’s skull while they fired them. Not only did this damage the ears, but it caused severe burns and bruises from powder flash and flying cartridges.

  But tonight, Honey Eater saw, the suffering would be far worse.

  She sent a silent prayer to Maiyun, the Good Supernatural, when she saw the two leaders slowly walking among the prisoners. They stopped here and there, looking, poking, before moving on. Then they paused in front of the place where she sat on the ground, her ankles and wrists lashed together.

  Accompanied by Big Tree as their translator, they had been lifting the women’s dresses as they went, looking to see which ones were still virgins wearing the knotted-rope chastity belts of the unmarried maidens. Now, as the smaller Comanche gripped her skirt, Honey Eater tried to pull back. But a moment later both men were staring at her exposed nakedness.

  The huge Kiowa grinned and said something to Big Tree. He too grinned as he translated for Honey Eater.

  “Hairy Wolf sees that you have no rope over your belly mouth. He says, ‘Now I know who cut off her braid—it was a jealous husband. But no one misses a slice off a cut roast.’“”

  As she had from the beginning, Honey Eater refused to say anything. A moment later the warriors were gone, moving among the children now. Honey Eater felt her heart sink when they selected a scrawny young boy with only four winters behind him, Little Sun of the Panther Clan. The child was taken, kicking and screaming, to the center of the camp.

  There was no available wood for fires, but the Kiowa-Comanche band had lashed plenty of good drift cottonwood to packhorses. Now they built a huge central fire.

  The braves were out of whiskey. But they had learned from the Navajos how to brew corn beer, and now they were getting crazy drunk on it. Two of them used stakes and rawhide thongs to tie Little Sun spread-eagle beside the fire. The child’s wails of fear infected the other children and set them to crying. Now the Cheyenne women were pleading with their captors to spare the child, but the frenzied warriors ignored them.

  At least Honey Eater was far enough away that she wasn’t forced to look. But some of the others, including Singing Bird and Blue Feather of the Sky Walker Clan, were not so fortunate. Honey Eater saw Kiowa and Comanche warriors grabbing their heads and holding them so they could not look away. Their screams were as pitiful as Little Sun’s.

  Even though she could close her eyes, Honey Eater could not close her ears. They told her more than she needed to know. At first the torture was the usual fare: pistols were fired right next to Little Sun’s skull, terrorizing him, evoking pitiful shrieks.

  But as the moon crept toward his zenith, and the corn beer flowed, the scene got even uglier.

  She could not see Little Sun. But she saw the warriors dancing in a circle, now and then stepping close to kick or strike out with their bows. His shrieks of pain rose above the commotion and sent tears of pity and helpless frustration springing into Honey Eater’s eyes.

  Honey Eater was past screaming now. For a moment the horrible nightmare reminded her of the time when she had been held prisoner by Henri Lagace and his ruthless whiskey traders. She had been forced to listen then too as Touch the Sky was similarly tortured. Yet in spite of his pain, he had sworn his love for her.

  But this now was even more hopeless. At least then Black Elk and a few others had been in hiding nearby, waiting to strike. There could be no hope now. In the vast openness of the Llano, not even a prairie dog could sneak up on them unnoticed.

  She wasn’t quite sure when Little Sun finally died. He had suddenly quit screaming in a way that could only mean death.

  Evidently the two leaders agreed that this was too abrupt an end to all the fun—now they walked among the women prisoners, thrusting a flaming torch in their faces to inspect them where they sat upon the ground. The one who had been holding up Singing Bird called them over. The two leaders glanced at the unconscious girl and nodded.

  Clearly, their manner said, this one would probably not even survive the journey, much less earn a decent price as a slave. The Comancheros wanted strong young women, not sickly runts of the litter like this one.

  Blue Feather was closest to her. When their captors started dragging Singing Bird toward the middle of the circle, she tried to lunge forward at them. A Comanche shoved her back down hard, being careful not to inflict any marks that might lower her price.

  Despite everything she had seen and endured already, Honey Eater felt hot tears welling up in her eyes as they dragged Singing Bird forward. She had only fourteen winters behind her. Honey Eater had helped her make a beaded shawl for the girl’s first Sun Dance ceremony. Now she was forced to watch as her dress was ripped off. A Kiowa used his bone-handled knife to slice through her knotted-rope chastity belt. She too was tied down spread-eagle, tied tight at the ankles so she couldn’t close her legs.

  Whooping, shrieking, firing their pistols in the air, the braves lined up behind her.

  Big Tree stood within hearing of her. “No!” Honey Eater shouted, the first word they had heard her utter.

  All of the braves turned to stare at her.

  “You,” she said to Big Tree, “tell your leaders I beg them not to do this thing. It will kill her. And even if it does not kill her now, she will have to kill herself when she can. Our law demands this.”

  “You Cheyennes have many foolish laws,” Big Tree told her before he translated for Iron Eyes and Hairy Wolf.

  Both war leaders were surprised to hear the girl finally speak. Her request was foolish, of course. The girl would be killed anyway when the braves were finished with her—she would be “stoned into silence” about the deed, as were all rape victims.

  But both braves were also thinking something else. This Cheyenne girl was extraordinarily beautiful. Taken as a wife, she would be a source of much pleasure. And a grateful woman gave far more pleasure. Each man already harbored secret hopes of owning her.

  “Truly,” Iron Eyes said now, looking at Singing Bird. “We have already given the men a child for their entertainment. It is foolish to waste another prisoner. This one is sickly, yes, but note the fine face and flawless skin. She will earn her keep in Over the River.”

  “Well spoken, Quohada,” Hairy Wolf said. “I will give another gift to the men.”

  The braves watched, some curious, some impatient to begin the fun, as Hairy Wolf crossed to a packhorse and drew a large parfleche out of a pannier. Honey Eater saw the men crowd around him when they realized it was his highly guarded store of fine, rich tobacco, the kind white men smoked. Each man received a ration. Some of them, however, began to complain when a brave, instructed by Iron Eyes, started untying the still-unconscious Singing Bird.

/>   All complaints ceased, however, when Big Tree stepped forward to confront the disgruntled few. Later, when Singing Bird had been returned close to her side, Honey Eater felt a small nubbin of relief beneath the thick layer of numbness.

  It turned to cold fear, however, when Big Tree again squatted beside her and spoke in Cheyenne.

  “Do not think that you moved their hearts with your plea. Their blood is hot to rut on you. Like two dogs, they circle the meat and wait for their chance to grab it. Count upon it, little proud one: As soon as they puzzle out how to divide you up, you will learn firsthand what the sickly one was just spared.”

  Chapter Four

  The combined band of Kiowa and Comanche warriors, their Cheyenne prisoners lashed to ponies on lead lines behind them, rode past the last in a series of round sandstone shoulders. The first sight to greet them in the Blanco Canyon was their magnificent pony herds.

  A herd guard below raised his skull-cracker—the stone war clubs so deadly in the hands of a mounted Comanche—in greeting.

  Hairy Wolf and Iron Eyes lifted their streamered lances to return the greeting. Then they led their men and the prisoners down the narrow and rock-strewn trail which descended into the canyon.

  Despite her utter exhaustion, Honey Eater also noticed plenty of bleached-white bones littering the trail—most of them human. As they drew closer to the bottom, she watched the well-disguised camp began to emerge from its natural camouflage. Unlike the tipis preferred by her northern Plains tribe, the Comanches who inhabited this canyon lived in one-room, mesquite-branch huts called jacals and in even cruder wickiups—curved-brush shelters which withstood the strong wind and dust storms of the Llano better than tipis. The visiting Kiowas had stolen Army tents.

  For the last part of the grueling journey, Honey Eater had slipped in and out of consciousness, exhausted and faint from hunger. The ordeal of Little Sun’s death and Singing Bird’s near-tragedy had drained the Cheyennes as much as the rapid escape across the burning inferno of the Llano. Honey Eater’s lips had parched so badly they were cracked like old clay, and despite her copper skin that rarely burned, she was burning and feverish from dehydration and sun exposure.

  The reception below in the camp was no friendlier than the journey had been. A group of Comanche wives had gathered to stare at and taunt the prisoners. The prettiest girls—Honey Eater standing out by far despite her wretched condition—were singled out for the worst treatment. Several women spat on her, and another threw a rock which barely missed her face.

  Iron Eyes barked a sharp command in Comanche and the women scattered. Hairy Wolf nudged his pony up beside his companion’s. The Kiowa’s long, black hair was matted under a thick white layer of alkali dust. Rivulets of sweat poured out from under the extra heat of his bone breastplate.

  “Send a guard out in addition to the herd guards,” he said. “And since your men know Silverton best, send one of them as a word-bringer to Aragon. You know he is keen for laborers and whores.”

  Iron Eyes nodded. “Don’t worry about a war party crossing the Llano unobserved. There, from the rim of the canyon? One man can easily spot the dust of any large movement, one full sleep before enemies can attack. It matters nothing if they choose another direction of attack. The Llano completely surrounds us, and it is the same everywhere.”

  “Just like the place called ‘hell’ which the Spanish priests live in fear of,” Hairy Wolf said. “The white men made up this place for their fairy tales, now they find living Kiowas and Comanches for their devils! Let Cheyenne warriors taste what long knives have tasted when they tried to attack this place—bloody death. We are safe here.”

  As if by silent agreement, they had both stopped beside Honey Eater’s pony. Though the knot of wives had obediently scattered, the women noticed this and passed jealous looks and comments among themselves. It was bad enough, said those looks, that their men took more than one wife, killing any they chose to kill without having to answer to Comanche law. But to bring Cheyenne whores into the camp for their filthy pleasures! This haughty Cheyenne she-bitch, their looks seemed to agree, would soon be doing the hurt dance along with her sisters.

  “We have enough jacals if the children are packed in tight,” Iron Eyes said, his gaze resting steadily on Honey Eater as she slumped on her pony. “Don’t trust the women, though. These Cheyenne girls are taught to fight and scheme like their warriors. We should keep them in separate wickiups.”

  “Except for her.” Hairy Wolf nodded toward Honey Eater. Though they had said little about it to each other directly, both braves had been longtime battle allies and could read each other’s thoughts like sign on a trail. Both knew they had no intention of trading this one to Juan Aragon.

  “Except for her,” Iron Eyes agreed. “She goes in a separate jacal of her own—one where we might be free to visit her.”

  Hairy Wolf liked this suggestion. Iron Eyes was offering the best solution. Until they found some amicable way of deciding which one of them would own her, they would put her where they could share her. This was especially convenient for Iron Eyes, as he had three jealous wives in camp with prying eyes. They were wily, patient men in certain matters. Arrangements could be made.

  “We must be careful that Aragon doesn’t see her,” Hairy Wolf said. “Out of spite, when he learns she is not for sale, he will lower his offer on the rest. They will bring plenty, even without this bob-tailed beauty.”

  “Surely, brother, Aragon must not see her,” Iron Eyes agreed. “That Aragon, he has the mind of a distempered dog. He is loyal to no one and gold-crazy like the white men. And though I would put Big Tree up against any man, I swear by the skin of a roadrunner that I fear Aragon’s machete! His blade sings only one tune—the death song.”

  While Iron Eyes spoke, Hairy Wolf had noticed several of the men staring at Honey Eater and the other girls. Many of them still felt they had been robbed of their manly right when the rape had been prevented. Nor were they happy to see their battle leaders hoarding such a prize. Both tribes were marauding raiders, and it was understood that raiders shared the wealth. Only the nearby presence of Big Tree held them in check. Extra rations of tobacco and coffee kept him loyal to his leaders, and not one man in the Blanco would ensure his own death by challenging Big Tree.

  “We will place a sentry in front of each jacal and wickiup,” Hairy Wolf said. “How much we receive for them in goods will be determined by their condition when Aragon inspects them. I see some of our bucks are randy for Cheyenne flesh.”

  A wide grin split Iron Eyes’ dusty, sweat-streaked face. “Good. After Aragon sells them in Over the River, our randy bucks can visit them all they want. For now, let us make sure that Big Tree guards this one here.”

  ~*~

  Touch the Sky’s little band rode out well behind Black Elk and his group, bearing southwest across the Staked Plain. The trail, as River of Winds had assured them, was as easy to follow as a herd of buffalo. No one bothered to cover their sign on the Llano.

  Touch the Sky did not want to pressure Black Elk into revealing their presence to their enemy any sooner than was necessary. As he had already learned from experience, in a contest against superior numbers the element of surprise was the key to victory. Unfortunately, the Kiowas and Comanches had perfected the surprise attack and the art of stealth. Like a hawk or an eagle, they liked to attack out of the sun and strike before they were seen.

  As if reading his troubled thoughts, Little Horse said, “Brother, I see you shedding much brain sweat. Do you have a plan?”

  Miserable, Touch the Sky shook his head. Little Horse rode on his left, Tangle Hair on his right. Touch the Sky’s percussion-action Sharps protruded from the scabbard sewn to his blanket. Little Horse had wrapped his four-barrel flintlock shotgun in doeskin to protect the hand-rotated barrels from dust. Both weapons were gifts from John Hanchon, who had been Touch the Sky’s white father in the days when he was named Matthew. Tangle Hair, a young Bowstring soldier who had befriended
Touch the Sky during the recent hunt, carried a sturdy but small-caliber British trade rifle.

  “No,” Touch the Sky admitted. “My only plan right now is to keep Black Elk on his leash while we get a map in our minds of this canyon River of Winds spoke of.”

  It was the height of the afternoon, the sun’s heat so searing that none of them could look ahead and keep his eyes open. The horses could only reluctantly be pushed to a long trot, despite a generous watering before they departed. Buffalo bladders lashed to the remounts carried extra water, but it was being quickly depleted in this bone-dry heat.

  The suffocating dust sometimes made conversation impossible and cut visibility to a few feet in front of them. The horses balked and had to be forcibly driven on. There was no shelter even if they had wanted to stop. What little water they found was tainted, and the bones of men and animals were found as frequently as any vegetation.

  “They will have sent scouts to watch their back trail,” Touch the Sky said when the three bucks had stopped in the lee of a small mesa to get a breather from the relentless dust. “We should ride single file now, and move farther away from the trail. If we keep our eyes keen, we can spot them before they spot us.”

  They rode on, fighting wind and dust and reluctant horses. Despite the desperate conditions and the persistent image of Honey Eater plaguing him, Touch the Sky remembered Arrow Keeper’s urgent warning. He also tried to keep his “shaman eye” open too, attending to the clues of all his senses.

  Toward late afternoon the wind died down, the pale white dust settled, and the going was easier. For some time they had been riding parallel to a long redrock spine which formed a ridge to their left.

  Suddenly Touch the Sky, who was leading the three, tugged on his pony’s hair bridle, halting the sturdy little chestnut.

  “What is it, buck?” Little Horse asked him anxiously, seeing his friend stare toward the redrock spine.

  Touch the Sky said nothing at first, still staring. For the past few minutes, a prickling sensation in his scalp had warned him of something. Now he felt he knew what it was: Somebody was watching them from the other side of that spine.