Return of the Tall Man Page 12

  18

  Mark of the Water Horse

  As Lame John’s body hurtled across the fire, Ben leaped back and drew the .44. But he could not fire before the Nez Percé had struck Dominguin, and then he dared not. He thought of the murderous lieutenant standing behind him and whirled to get him down. Again he was too late. Midway through his turn, the snarling bandit slashed him across the skull with the barrel of his rifle, and Ben went down as though every bone in his body were dissolved.

  Big Bat, roaring like a buffalo in rut, charged the carreta and its armed guard. The latter fired directly into his face. Big Bat bellowed, staggered, pawed at the spurt of blood from the bullet crease above his eyes. Blinded, he crashed into the side of the carreta, spun off it, lost consciousness. He fell with the earth-jarring force of a giant pine and lay, as Ben had, where he struck and without moving.

  Frank Go-deen did not move except to elevate his hands and loudly call out his neutrality. His plea was honored for the reason that Dominguin’s four lieutenants were all leaping to rescue their desperately struggling chief. In the golden opportunity thus provided, the Milk River breed sat down at the fire and reached hurriedly for a buffalo rib and refill of his coffee mug, in the act claiming the age-old immunity granted by all nomad peoples to those partaking of their bread.

  Dominguin, meanwhile and inadvertently, was saving Lame John’s life. The converging lieutenants, because of the snakelike threshing and coiling of the combatants, could not shoot the Nez Percé without endangering their leader. Accordingly, they pulled the battlers apart by the hind legs as they would have two fighting dogs. Then with methodical viciousness they rifle-butted Lame John into a human pulp. In the space of time required for Go-deen to reseat himself and pour his cup, the Comanchero jefe and his winded aides stood panting above their bloodied victims. Seeing but three bodies upon the ground, their narrowed looks leaped at once to find the fourth. When these ranging glances swept to Go-deen, the breed elevated his palms and gestured helplessly.

  “What would you have me do, my brothers? I am here only in the capacity of a paid guide. I am of the half blood, the same as yourselves. Could I fight my own blood? Never. So here you see me, a man of peace, sharing your fire and your fellowship. Also your food,” he reminded hastily, as two of the lieutenants started toward him with lifting rifles. He raised the coffee mug hurriedly. “To your health, gentlemen! And my own—”

  He put coffee to lips, kept it there, his tiny eyes watching over the pottery rim of the container. Looking at him disgustedly, Dominguin snapped at the two aides to put down their guns and take the Apaches’ woman away.

  “Get this offal out of sight before the Mimbreños come,” he ordered the other two, pointing to the bodies on the ground. “Tie their hands and throw them in the carreta. Better put in gags, too. I don’t want any noise when I am delivering to the Apaches. Cover them up with some of those green robes. I will take care of this fool at the fire. Andale!”

  The four lieutenants jumped to his commands, the two leading the girl back across camp, the other pair scooping up Ben and his companions, dumping them into the empty carreta and starting to whip ropes and gags into place.

  At the fire Dominguin squatted down again, refilled his own cup. Go-deen gave him his very best twist of the old lance scar, raising his own cup again.

  “Your health,” he repeated hopefully.

  Soledad Dominguin stared through him.

  “You said that already,” he informed him unblinkingly.

  “Oh, I did? Well, you will excuse it, brother. My memory grows short.”

  “Your future, too.”

  “What is that, cousin?”

  “You heard me, Gordo.”

  “What? Me, fat? You joke, of course!”

  “Of course,” said Dominguin blankly. “I’m known for my good nature.”

  Go-deen swallowed with some obvious difficulty.

  “You’re not going to kill me, Cousin Soledad? Maybe those two Wasicuns and that Slit Nose in the cart, but me, Frank Go-deen, your own flesh and blood? I’ll never believe it!”

  Dominguin continued to regard him with his unhooded stare. Finally, he nodded as though with a decision.

  “I’m a business man, Gordo. Why should I kill you or your friends when I can sell you?”

  “My God!” gasped Go-deen, shocked out of his perspiring pose. “You wouldn’t trade us to the Apaches with that poor white squaw over yonder? Wagh!”

  Dominguin smiled, shook his head, somehow managing to do so without altering his reptilian stare.

  “No, I wouldn’t do a heartless thing like that. Not with a brother of the mixed-blood. But I do have some other sources which will occasionally pay a pony or two for good healthy captives. I mean whites, naturally. As for the Slit Nose, I may have to throw him in for good will. It doesn’t hurt to be generous now and again; good for business in my trade, as a matter of fact.”

  “Brother,” sighed Go-deen, “God bless you. For a minute, there, I thought we were going to the Apaches for sure!”

  “No,” said Soledad Dominguin, blinking at last. “I could never be guilty of such a dreadful thing. You are going to the Comanches.”

  When Ben regained consciousness, the moon was straight overhead, and by the set of the stars, he was jolting due south in the carreta of Dominguin. On one side of him lay, or rather huddled, Big Bat Pourier, while Lame John hunched miserably on the other side. At the head of the cart sat Frank Go-deen, hands free but ankles collared by the same type of ancient Spanish leg-irons which the Comancheros had had fastened upon Amy Johnston. The cart was half full of stinking green buffalo hides; the night was hot, the quarters close. Ben almost fainted from the fetid odor of rancid fat and rotting meat before his head was well cleared. But Go-deen reached over and hauled him up to a half-sitting position against the sideboards, and Big Bat growled for him not, in God’s name, to lose consciousness again as he was hungering to hear a white voice. The thrice-damned François had been too busy whining for mercy of Dominguin every time the latter rode by, and the heathen Nez Percé hadn’t been able to say an understandable word in any tongue since coming to. Therefore, please, for the love of the good Christ, would not Petit Ben say something cheerful? Or even dismal? Anything at all. The immediate present sound of a friendly fellow Christian’s voice was of more importance to Baptiste Pourier than the possibility of his next breath being cut off. How else could a white man feel in view of what Dominguin and his enfant naturel had done with the woman and planned to do with them?

  “My God!” cried Ben, sitting straight up. “The girl! What did they—” He broke off, looking at Big Bat. “By God, they didn’t!” he said.

  “But they did, mon ami,” answered the other. “François tells me it was directly after Dominguin and his small playmates put us all to sleep.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” groaned Ben. “The poor thing.”

  “She’s gone,” rasped Go-deen. “Forget her. There’s no use even thinking of her any more. But we had better do a little thinking of ourselves—Dominguin is going to sell us to the Kwahadi.”

  Ben looked at him, shivering, but would not believe it.

  “No! What the hell good would we be to them?” he said. “It don’t make sense. They ain’t after men prisoners.”

  “Well,” explained Go-deen, “it depends upon what a man means by sense. Now what the Kwahadi mean by the word is one thing, and what we—but then it’s no matter; we’ll learn soon enough. Why hurry it?”

  “They will buy us to torture,” said Big Bat. “They won’t pay much, but anything is a profit for Dominguin after tonight’s disappointments.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ben scowled irritably. His head hurt something fierce, and his mood was for anything but long trips around the spring looking for water.

  “About showing some small gain in spite of great loss,” shrug
ged Big Bat. “You see, the Apaches came back and cut the agreed price in half. They said Soledad could take it or not, as might please his fancy. Naturellement, he took it. The alternative was even less attractive; they would have wiped out the whole camp, beginning with him and his four vultures.”

  “That’s hard to believe.” Ben frowned. “From what I know of Indians, their word is as good as the next man’s money. It ain’t like them to double-cross anybody.”

  Go-deen grunted unhappily.

  “The claim they made was that Dominguin did the double-crossing, not them. They said they bargained for a pure white woman, and he delivered them a damned mestiza, a mixed-blood. They said she didn’t even look half white but that they were honest men and would give half a price for her. This was because of her extra fine body and the fact she looked strong and was not afraid when they examined her. They said Mano Roto—that’s Broken Hand, the Mimbreño who wants her—likes his women tough and mean as cats in heat. They thought your Amy Johnston had that look about her. So they took her.”

  “Yes, and that,” continued Big Bat, grinning as hugely as though he had just heard the Seventh Cavalry Band playing “Garry Owen” over the near hill, “brings us to la pièce de résistance; a natural child of my own genius. Voilà tout! It was wonderful, simply wonderful!”

  “No doubt of that,” grudged Ben, holding his injured head as the cart jolted bangingly across a prairie dog town. “But tell me about it anyhow; I’m already as sick as I can get.”

  “But of course it was the poke of gold, mon ami, the money which I provided to offer for the good woman’s life. You see, I awoke in time to witness the weighing of its precious contents.”

  “Somehow, Bat, it don’t depress me you losing your poke at this stage of the game. Weighed against all the good we done poor Amy Johnston, it might as well have been six pounds of wet sand.”

  “Oui! Almost to the ounce, mon cher! Sacristi! I thought the half-breed son of a dog was going to choke. I surpassed myself even for me.”

  “You mean,” asked Ben, slow to grasp it, “that it was sand in that poke? My God, you could’ve got us all killed.”

  “Oui, but in place of that, voilà! I have got us all saved. What? You don’t believe it? Listen to Baptiste. Do you think Dominguin would still be bothering to haul us down to the Kwahadi if there had been gold in the bag? Ah, no, not at these prices. As it is, we have a chance to breathe through the rest of the night, and who knows what good fortune tomorrow may bring?”

  “Goddam it,” said Go-deen, “why could I have not been born with an empty head like the rest of you? Here we are six hours north of Quanah’s camp, and the talk is of good fortune greeting the sunrise. Eeh, Jesus!”

  “Quanah’s camp?” asked Ben uneasily. “Ain’t he the one what—”

  “The very one, Petit Ben,” answered Big Bat cheerfully and before he could finish. “But don’t worry about it; Baptiste Pourier will think of something.”

  “Sure he will.” Go-deen scowled. “Like what? Another six pounds of wet sand?”

  “Zut!” exclaimed Big Bat. “You have no sense of humor.”

  “But you do, is that it?”

  “Exactement.”

  “Yes,” said Go-deen acidly, “‘exactement’ like Soledad Dominguin … Sonofabitch, I wish I was back home on Milk River, running fat cow or down on the Popo Agie chasing Shoshoni squaws.”

  The night wore on, the captives talking guardedly of escape but finding no holes in the Comanchero arrangement. Up on the driver’s seat of the carreta, the old mother of Dominguin sat hunched against the morning chill. With her, ox whip in one hand, rifle in the other, rode one of the four lieutenants. Directly behind the tailgate of the creaking cart, two others of the lieutenants followed on horseback. Leading the cart, and the nightlong exodus of the Comanchero camp, rode the remaining lieutenant and Soledad himself. It was plain the half-breed buffalo hunters were in a hurry. When, after the first fruitless hours of escape plans and Comanche guess talk, Ben asked the old crone why her tough son was in such a rush, Andrajosa Dominguin croaked a disquieting reply.

  “Because, hijo,” she said, “he wishes to be far from that fire back there by the first daylight. You know, niño, that no one, not even we Comancheros who trade with them, are beloved of the Mimbreño Apaches. They are dangerous to everyone. Not even the Lords of the South Plains are easy in their company.”

  “Mother,” said Ben, “who are these ‘Lords of the South Plains?’ The name calls up a memory in me, although I will swear I do not know why. Por favor, madrita, quién están?”

  “Why, they are the Comanches, por supuesto. And don’t think to get around me by calling me ‘little mother’ either. There is nothing I can do for you or would if I might. You know that Soledad is half Kwahadi and half Sonora Mexican. Well, I am his Kwahadi half, comprende?”

  “No!” said Ben. “You, a pureblood Comanche? With such a fine face and figure for your years? Nonsense!”

  “Give me that whip, Alvarez,” he heard her say to the driver. And then ducked belatedly as she cut at him with a backhand swipe of the heavy thong. “I will not miss next time,” she promised. “See that you try no more of your clumsy yanqui tricks.”

  Ben laughed and told her decidedly that he was no Yankee, whatever he might be, and that for some reason he did not pretend to understand he was honestly interested in the Comanches. At this she peered hard at him and nodded.

  “Yes, that may be so. I find myself interested in you for some reason I cannot explain, also. Could it be that you have Kwahadi blood?”

  “Well,” grinned Ben, “nothing is impossible, as the steer said to the heifer. But I doubt it very much. It just seems that I’m plain interested in Indians.”

  “Talk Spanish if you want to talk to me,” directed the old woman peevishly. “And remember I am a lady; no more of your poor jokes, you hear me?”

  “Yes, mother,” said Ben, straightening his smile, “a thousand pardons. How far is it now to this camp of the Kwahadi?”

  The old woman looked up at the stars, then over to the east where the horizon was paling visibly. She held up a bony forefinger, sampling the quickening breeze.

  “Maybe an hour,” she said.

  “Mil gracias,” replied Ben and fell silent.

  After an impatient moment, Big Bat, who did not understand Spanish, said, “All right, all right; what did you learn? You intend keeping it to yourself? I caught a little of it with my French ear but heard nothing of any great sense.”

  “Neither did I,” said Ben. “The old lady is pureblood Comanche and wanted to know if I was a breed. Thought I looked a little Kwahadi, I reckon. I like that, with you two black-skinned sons sitting here alongside.” He looked at Frank Go-deen with the jibe, but the Milk River breed was not amused to be included.

  “I always said you didn’t act pure white to me,” he growled. “Nor look it either. You’re mixed some way. So’s Bat; he can’t fool me. He’s a dirtier color than I am, and the Sioux hate his guts. That’s a sure sign.”

  Big Bat returned the growl compounded.

  “It is the good thing for you, métis, that my hands are tied behind me. Otherwise—”

  “Sure,” interrupted Go-deen undaunted, “otherwise I wouldn’t have said it. Shut up. You and Brother Ben make my buttocks ache with your eternal blabbering.”

  “This cart is making mine ache,” said Ben. “I’ll damn near be glad to get out and be stretched by the Kwahadi.”

  “You think you make fun, don’t you?” asked Go-deen. “Let me tell you that you do not. That is precisely what the Kwahadi will do to us when they take us out of this wooden coffin with wheels.”

  “Eh?” said Ben. “What’s that?”

  “Hang us up by our thumbs,” said Frank Go-deen, and they all fell silent after that.

  The sun was an hour down. A full da
y had passed for the captives in the camp of Quanah, the half-white Kwahadi. It had been a long day, a merciless day; a day spent stretched by the thumbs from a Comanche waiting pole could scarcely be called less than these things.

  Fortunately, it had not been a hot day, the wind bringing in a summer rain just as the rising sun was becoming intolerable. Yet the sheer exhaustion of the ordeal and the paralysis of pain set up in shoulder, elbow, wrist, and spine by the hang of their bodies against the thumb bonds was overwhelming. Adding to their misery, Go-deen developed uncontrollable dysentery from his gorging of half-raw buffalo liver the night before, and his helpless condition drew the blue-green bottle flies by the tens-of-thousands to swarm over the four men on the stretching wrack. With the stones and dirt thrown interminably by the Comanche children and the spittle of the squaws, augmented by occasional voidings of an old warrior upon them to draw the laughter of his wrinkled cronies, the captives were again bordering the unconscious when darkness and another cool shower momentarily revived them.

  Momentarily was the exact word.

  With full night, the actual, the active, torture would commence. Dominguin had sold very cheap—five ponies and a Sonora mare with a mule foal—and the ceremonies would not be elaborate. Even so, and even with the victims in such poor physical condition to start, there would be something doing until nearly midnight, especially if they drew it out waiting for Quanah to get back from a horse raid on the Texas settlements along the Concho River, as had been indicated would be the case. Unless, of course, the damned white men died too quick or the Nez Percé Indian collapsed prematurely from the beating Dominguin’s coyotes had given him. Actually, the Sioux breed seemed the only good chance to go through a decent course, and even he had worn himself pretty well out by crying all the day for mercy when he had not been so much as touched yet. Well, that was just the way things went on some days. And, after all, Dominguin hadn’t exactly gotten wealthy on the deal.

  So speculated the hard-faced loungers about the hanging wrack, as they waited for the fires to be built up and lighted and the fun to begin.