Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (37 page)

      
The younger man, too, was soaked with perspiration as he rode near the head of the string of rangers. They had made a dry camp the night before and were badly in need of water. Markham and his friends were certainly leading them on an exhausting chase through some of the wildest and most desolate land of west Texas, land that even Slade, a lifetime resident, had never seen.

      
Quincy Laber, a heavyset, tall Tennessean, rode up next to Jim and Lee. “Yew two fixin' ta give th' rest o' them boys heatstroke afore they git a chance at th' Comanch?” His twangy Tennessee accent matched the devilish gleam in his eyes.

      
Laber never seemed to mind dust or heat, going thirsty, or being shot at. He was one of the original San Antonio minute men who had responded over the years to the tolling of the San Fernando church bell when it was the tocsin for Indian raiders. Carrying only saddle, bridle, and blanket, provisioned with sugar, salt, and coffee, they set out heavily armed to fight and live off the land as they moved in fast, deadly sweeps across south central Texas.

      
Slade had gone on his first ranging expedition with Laber and had always appreciated the older man's patience with a green boy. “If I didn't know better, I'd swear you like eating dust and cactus, you old sidewinder,” he told Laber easily.

      
Laber let fly a thick burst of tobacco juice and laughed. “I niver seen me any livin' body in sech a rush ta ketch up with his Maker. Me, I'm jist here fer th' scenery. Right interestin' sights, too. Kinda open 'n bare.”

      
“You mean no signs of Markham's friends,” Slade supplied in a level voice. “You suppose he's onto us and leading us on a false trail?”

      
“Naw. Beecher ‘n thet Cherokee pal o' his'n woulda knowed right off th' minit thet tenderfoot tried any fancy stuff.”

      
“I agree,” Lee said to Quincy. “That Cherokee scout is the best tracker in west Texas.”

      
“His name,” Jim said gently to Lee, “is Solomon Tall Chief. I just want to find Markham and his friends. The sooner we get this settled the better.”

      
Lee looked oddly at Slade, as if sensing his undercurrent of urgency. “I have my own reasons for wanting to find Comancheros. Any Comancheros,” he added broodingly.

      
“Niver yew fear, neither o' ya. We'll git them bastards,” Laber vowed softly, blinking back the film of sweat and dust from his eyes.

      
The string of weary riders filed silently along the trail toward the setting sun, twenty men on a mission of death.

* * * *

      
Death also stalked the low-lying thickets along Salado Creek that day. September eighteenth. Jack Hays and his hand-picked scouts lured General Woll and his men from the city into an ambush. However, before the Texian commander, Matthew Caldwell, could bring up his reinforcements and spring the trap, the crafty tactician Woll recognized the precariousness of his position and withdrew. Almost simultaneously with the clash at Salado, another detachment of Woll’s force under Colonel José Maria Carrasco had engaged Captain Nicholas Dawson's volunteers in a brutal hand-to-hand encounter a few miles away, killing all but fifteen of the fifty-three Texians who had been rushing to the Salado. Texian losses were terrible, but the Mexican Army also suffered significant casualties. Among the dead was Captain Vincente Cordova.

      
When Woll's exhausted troops returned to San Antonio, it was after midnight. The city was breathlessly still, its citizens awaiting their return or hoping for deliverance.

      
Tomasina Carver knew the army's return signified nothing since they would so shortly be leaving for good. However, when her maid came in early the next morning with news of the battle, she had some reason for rejoicing.

      
“Dona Tomasina, it is such a pity, so many brave soldiers wounded. I heard the groaning all the way across the plaza this morning. And so many killed. Why, that handsome Captain Cordova—”

      
Tomasina spun on her heel, barely catching what Dolores was saying until then. “What did you say about Captain Cordova? Is he...is he dead?”

      
At Dolores's doleful nod, a sudden exultant sense of freedom surged through Tomasina. She fought revealing it and made some simple commiserating remarks to her servant, then turned to leave. She had much more time to plan now. Yes. It would all work smoothly, beautifully.

* * * *

      
That same day, late in the afternoon, Solomon Tall Chief rode back toward the column of dusty riders who inched their way in a widening arc from south to north around San Antonio. He headed for Jim Slade, the commander of their mixed band of volunteers and meagerly paid rangers.

      
“See anything ahead that might give us a clue, Solomon?” Slade signaled the men to stop while he and the scout talked.

      
The tall, raw-boned Cherokee's impassive face was covered with grime, but his dark eyes were brilliant with the excitement of his discovery. For such a large, lanky man, he unfolded himself from his mount with surprising grace and squatted on the hot prairie soil to mark a crude map in the dust. “Markham is here.” He indicated a spot with a stalk of Spanish dagger he had just cut from the surrounding brush. “Four, maybe five miles south. He has moved in a circle, just as you guessed he would.”

      
Slade nodded, pushing his wide-brimmed hat back on his head. “He's moving in an arranged pattern, arcing back and forth until they intercept him, when they think it's safe. So what's the story, Solomon? Have Iron Hand's scouts spotted us or not?” Slade asked, already suspecting the answer from his friend's demeanor.

      
“They wait here, Iron Hand and thirty, maybe forty braves.” He used the stalk to indicate another place just to the north of the first. “Here is the San Marcos, here the English and his friends, here the Comanche. They meet tonight, I think.” He looked expectantly up at Slade who was studying the crude map in the dust.

      
“They'll stay and whoop it up for at least a day or two. Give us time to scout the site and pick our best way to hit them. Any suggestions? You know the river in that area better than any of us.” Slade waited.

      
The Cherokee grunted and made a few more marks, speaking as he drew. “Here is the river plain, wide open, maybe thirty, forty yards across on the west side. Good campgrounds, easy ford, plenty firewood, shallow water. Here on the east side, a high bluff, maybe forty feet up.”

      
“They'd put sentries there for sure. How are the north and south ends of the valley?”

      
“Narrow here.” Tall Chief marked the north end. “Here, open, low brush, no cover,” he said of the south.

      
Slade scratched his head. “Seems like we've got to get up that bluff and knock the sentries off, real quiet, then bottle up the north end of the river valley. If we hit them from the north and east and they try to scatter south and west into the open with no cover, we can pick them off from the bluff before most of them get away. Especially if we can rout the horses.”

      
The Cherokee nodded. “We better. There are two of them to our one, at best. Tonight, you come with me and we look at the exact place where they feast. It should work.”

* * * *

      
The noise of the drums and the bark of drunken laughter carried across the prairie. Lying on his belly with the cold, gritty sand of the riverbed chilling his bones, Slade listened and watched the activity upriver. It was a cloudy night, with the moon appearing in sporadic bursts to illuminate their progress, yet slowing them; for when it came out full, they had to lie behind the inhospitable cover of stray cactus, Spanish dagger, and scrub mesquite. When they got to the river, the willows were a merciful relief from tearing thorns.

      
Watching the campfíres, Slade spotted Markham and two other white men, far more crudely dressed than the obviously uncomfortable Englishman.

      
“Looks like he has a fence post up his ass,” the Cherokee whispered, echoing Jim's thoughts about the dandified spy, who was doubtless loathing every moment of this exchange with the savages.

      
Grunting in grim amusement, Slade said, “Inconsiderate of me to have killed his stand-in, now, wasn't it?” He looked up at the bluff rising steeply on the other side of the narrow river. “We hit them at daybreak. They ought to be good and drunked up, sleeping it off. I imagine most of the powder and shot for those Brown Bess flintlocks is still in the packing crates.”

      
The next morning the sun rose quickly, sending its warm gold shafts to strike the cold flatness of the prairie, bringing the desert's night coolness to swift, searing heat. In charge of the men taking the bluffs, Laber gave several terse hand signals and the men spread out.

      
Lee felt his fingers tighten on the cold handle of his knife. He had volunteered to take out the Comanche sentry at the northeast end of the bluff. The climb was steep and tortuous in the dim predawn glow. It had taken him several hours to get into position, since he had to be careful not to make the slightest noise. He was the youngest member in a brigade of seasoned veterans and was anxious to prove himself to them, to himself, and to the memory of Josefina. Most of all for Josefína, his sister who had been so brutally murdered all those years ago. His parents and older brother had been killed quickly, but his sister had been raped and tortured first. He still heard her screams of anguish in his nightmares sometimes.

      
As he maneuvered into position, Lee watched the squat, powerful-looking Comanche survey the river basin below his vantage point. The savage stood in profile, one of Markham's .75-caliber Brown Bess muskets in his thick, dark hands. Lee felt the sweat roll down his temples and down between his arms and torso. He felt the sour, choking taste that was nature's blend of fear and hate, well leavened with the keen nervousness of anticipation. He was ready.
 

      
Now!

      
The Comanche turned and looked out to the southwest. In one panther-quick lunge, Lee was across the space between them with his knife flashing in the pink dawn light. The musket made a small thud as it hit the rocky soil, released from the nerveless fingers of the man who crumpled to the earth beside it, one soft, bloody gurgle forming on his lips as his windpipe was cleanly severed. The dying Comanche had dragged Lee down with him. Kicking the body out of his way, the youth crawled to the edge of the bluff and signaled Laber. Several men quickly climbed up to join him in preparation for the fireworks.

      
Below on the river plains, Ashley Markham's head throbbed wickedly from good French cognac, not that hideous rotgut swill the others had drunk. He had brought his own private stock and kept it hidden from Yates and Slocum, not that the filthy scum would discern the distinction between fine brandy and cheap whiskey any more than would the Comanche.

      
He was penitent for his overindulgence last night, but one had to do something to bear the stench of the savages and endure the heat, dirt, and inedible food. He swore and scratched several mosquito bites with one hand, taking an oath never to camp by a low-lying riverbed again. The others seemed impervious to the blood-sucking horde; but their body odors probably were natural repellents, he surmised pettishly. Yes, this was definitely the last excursion in Texas: Godforsaken pisshole of carnivorous insects, gale-force winds, and dust clouds sufficient to choke a camel. The Sahara, he concluded grimly, would be a preferable assignment.

      
Just then he heard the high-pitched screech of a Texian “yeehaw” and the thunder of horses coming down from the narrow, brushy ravine to the north. They were under attack! Cursing, he dove behind several bales of blankets and cheap calico brought for the Comanche squaws, clawing for his gun, only to realize it was back in his saddlebag across the clearing. Because it was a new Colt, he had been afraid it would be stolen. Damn! He had slept away from the savages and Comancheros, loath to hear their inebriated snores or be urinated upon by staggering drunks.

      
He crouched and took inventory of the fight. As Iron Hand furiously directed his raiders to scramble for their ponies, the band of Texians thundered across the flat, sandy riverbed, splashing water as their horses crossed the shallows. The Comanche ponies scattered in neighing terror at the yelling and shooting. Few of the braves could catch a mount as the chaos erupted on all sides of Markham's makeshift shelter. The Comanche made a fight of it, zigzagging between rocks and brush, shooting and clubbing at the men on horseback. The Texians galloped among them, cutting them down in cool efficiency with bullets and rifle butts.

      
As soon as Yates showed his bright red head, he was picked off by a shot coming from the bluff across the river. His body lay half submerged in the shallow stream, coloring the water pink as his life ebbed away with the current. Slocum was in the thick of the melee clubbing at a ranger to get his horse. Markham could see the puffs of smoke and glinting rifle barrels on the bluff as he crawled toward his saddlebag and his Patterson Colt. Once the five-shot revolver was in his hand he felt much better. With cool calculation he looked for an avenue of escape without exposing himself to the deadly fire from above.

      
As he was eyeing one lone rider at the periphery of the battle and considering his chances of killing the man and taking his mount, Markham saw Jim Slade in the thick of the action, directing men to move left and right, cutting off retreating Comanche. No mistaking that tall half-breed on the big buckskin!