Comanche Moon (71 page)

Slow Tree had let him go, but Blue Duck would not let him go if he caught him now.

So when Captain Call came to him and said that the rangers were going after Blue Duck, Famous Shoes immediately made ready to go with them.

Four days later Captain Call, Captain McCrae, eight rangers, and several sheriffso were hidden in a clump of timber near the south bank of the Red River, waiting for Famous Shoes to find the renegades and let them know how many fighting men they would have to face.

Famous Shoes easily found the renegades' camp, but he soon saw that Blue Duck wasn't there. He knew this news would displease Captain Call and Captain McCrae, and he was right.

"Who is there, if he ain't?" Augustus asked impatiently.

"There are twelve men and some women--they are cooking a horse," Famous Shoes said.

"Ermoke is not there either. He is a man who rapes whenever he can." "Where the hell is Blue Duck?" Gus asked. "I hate to waste time on the chiggers he left behind. The sheriffso can handle them." "Gus, we're here--we might as well help the sheriffso do this job," Call said. "Maybe some of the men know where he went." "Blue Duck has gone west and he is in a hurry," Famous Shoes said. "He took four horses and two men." "That's it, let's go get after him," Augustus said.

Call looked at the sheriffso, all local men. They did not look happy at the prospect of being left to fight a dozen renegades. All were poor men--probably they had just agreed to serve as sheriffso because they feared starvation if they tried to continue as farmers or merchants. Money was short and jobs scarce in Texas at the time.

"No, let's help the sheriffso round up these outlaws," Call said. "The sheriffso would be outnumbered if we leave." In the event, the renegades in Blue Duck's camp didn't fight at all. One man did raise his rifle when the rangers came charging into camp, but he was immediately shot dead. Then ten dirty, half-starved men threw up their hands --the twelfth man managed to wiggle out of the back of a tent into some reeds by the river. He escaped that day but was killed two days later in Shreveport, Louisiana, while trying to rob a hardware store.

Once the renegades were disarmed Deets was given the job of tying them. Jake Spoon, before he left, taught Deets what he knew about knots. Call and Augustus were ready to hand the prisoners over to the sheriffso, but the sheriffso balked.

One of the sheriffso, whose name was Kettler, pointed to a grove of oak trees not far from the river.

"We can't be putting the county to the expense of raising no jury," he said. "It's planting time. The men need to be in their fields. I ain't asking them to take off just to try a bunch of bad 'uns like these men.

"Your nigger there is good with knots," he added.

"We'd be obliged if you'd wait long enough for him to tie the hang knots." Call looked at Augustus, who shrugged.

"I expect they're all horse thieves, at least," Gus said, pointing to the sizable horse herd grazing nearby.

"All right," Call said. "If they're with Blue Duck I've no doubt they need hanging." None of the doomed men said even a ^w in their own defense, and none of the slatternly women followed the little procession to the oak grove. The women seemed numbed by the morning's events--they sat in dejection near one of the smouldering oak grove campfires.

"I hope you'll at least take these women with you, Sheriff Kettler," Call said. "I imagine some of them were captives. They'll starve if you leave them." "We won't leave them," the sheriff promised.

When they got to the oak grove they discovered that there was no one tree with a limb strong enough or low enough to hang all the men from. Deets, who rarely betrayed any sign of nerves no matter how dangerous the conflict, looked uncertain as he searched among the oak trees for a suitable hanging tree. He had never tied a hang knot and was conscious that the eyes of the several hard sheriffso were upon him. He was being asked to hang white men, ten at that. He knew he had to do it, though; besides worrying that he might not get the knots right--the lariat ropes he had to work with were of uneven strength and texture--he had already begun to worry about the fact that he would soon be setting ten ghosts loose, ghosts that might pursue him and work spells against him. None of the ten condemned men had made any effort to plead for their lives. They stood silently among the sheriffso and rangers, looking like whipped dogs.

"Here's one good stout limb," Augustus said.

"It ought to hold four of them, at least." "I'd make that three," Sheriff Kettler said, looking at the limb in question with a practiced eye. "If you hang men too close together they're apt to bump into one another while they're swinging." "What would it matter, if they're swinging?" Augustus said.

Call found the proceedings an irritant.

Time was being wasted. If only the outlaws had put up a fight they could have shot several of them and not had to proceed with such a lengthy hanging. Finally three limbs were selected. The men were put on borrowed horses; Deets carefully tied the hang knots just as he had seen Jake do. Two limbs held three men each and another limb held four. The sheriffso grouped the men carelessly, so that the tallest man ended up hanging from the lowest and weakest limb. His toes, when he bounced on the rope, were less than an inch from the ground.

Deets, despite his conviction that a passel of spells would soon be unleashed against him, did a careful job. None of the knots failed. The heavier men died instantly, while the lighter fellows kicked and swayed for several minutes.

Only the tall man occasioned much of a wait.

At the end of ten minutes he was still alive.

Call, impatient, wanted to shoot him, but knew that would be improper procedure. Finally the man ceased to kick, but, by the time they were ready to ride off, the limb had sagged so much that the tall man's toes rested on the ground.

"I thank you for obliging me," Sheriff Kettler said to Call and Augustus. "This has saved the county a passel of expense." "Don't forget the women," Call said, as they rode away.

Famous Shoes, too, was impatient--he did not understand the Texans' preference for hanging.

If they didn't want to torture the men, why not just shoot them? It would have been much quicker.

As they rode away Call observed that Augustus seemed unusually melancholy.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked.

"It's gloomy work, hanging men in the morning," Augustus said. "Here the sun's up and it's a nice day, but they won't get to live it.

"Besides," he added a little later, "I get to thinking that, but for luck, it could have been me hanging there." Call was startled by the remark.

"You--why would it have been you?" he asked.

"Ornery as you are, I don't think you deserve a hanging." "No, but for luck I might have," Augustus said, turning in his saddle to take one last look at the grove where the ten bodies hung.

At night Famous Shoes ranged far ahead of the rangers, who could not push their mounts any harder without putting them at risk. It was the night of the full moon--the prairies were almost as light as day. The tracks of the men they were chasing had not changed direction all day. Blue Duck and the two men with him were heading northwest, into the deepest part of the llano, a course that puzzled Famous Shoes. They would soon be on the long plain of New Mexico, where there was no water. Even the Antelope Comanche had to be careful when they travelled there; he had heard that sometimes the Antelopes had to cut open a horse in order to drink the liquids in the horse's stomach. That they could do such things was the reason they had not yet been conquered by the whites. So far the bluecoat soldiers lacked the skills that would enable them to attack the Antelopes.

But Blue Duck was not of the Antelope band.

He raided in country where there was plenty of water. He would be foolish to think he could continue across the llano and not get in trouble. Besides, there was no one in that country at all--no one, at least, to rob or kill. Of course, there was Quanah and his band, but they were poor, and, anyway, if Blue Duck came near them, they would promptly kill him and his companions.

And yet, the tracks didn't turn. They pointed straight into the longest distance of the llano.

Famous Shoes thought that perhaps Blue Duck meant to go to Colorado, to the settlements, where no doubt there were plenty of people to rob. But if he meant to go to Colorado he could have gone along the Arkansas River, where there was plenty of water.

Late in the night Famous Shoes went back to the rangers. Although the tracks of Blue Duck and his men were plain, he had learned that it was not wise to assume that the Texans would see what to him was plain. The Texans--even experienced men such as Captain Call and Captain McCrae--had curious eyes. He could never be confident that he knew what they would see, when following a trail. Often they took incorrect routes which had to be corrected with much loss of time.

In such dry country Famous Shoes did not want to risk having the rangers go astray. When he came, the rangers were just finishing their brief breakfast. Famous Shoes saw to his surprise that Pea Eye Parker had his trousers off--one of his legs was an angry red. Deets was studying the leg carefully, a big needle in his hand.

"Bad luck," Call said, when Famous Shoes approached. "He knelt on a cactus when he went to hobble his horse. Now his leg's as bad as if he had been snakebit." When Famous Shoes was shown the cactus in question, he agreed with the captain's assessment. The thorns of the little green cactus were as poisonous as the bite of a rattlesnake.

"The thorn's under the kneecap," Augustus said.

"Get it out," Famous Shoes said. "If you get it out he will soon be well, but if you leave it in his leg he will never walk far again." "Go to it, Deets--otherwise Pea will have to retire," Gus said.

When Deets finally succeeded in coaxing the tiny tip of the cactus thorn out of Pea Eye's leg, he and all the other men were surprised that such a tiny thorn could produce such a bad inflammation. But Famous Shoes was right. In ten minutes Pea Eye declared himself fit for travel.

Famous Shoes took a little coffee and made a thorough inspection of the rangers' horses.

What he found did not please him. Only five or six of the horses looked strong enough to go where Blue Duck was going.

"If you know where he's going, I wish you'd tell us," Call said, although he knew it was probably unwise to put a direct question to the tracker. Famous Shoes had never ceased to madden and frustrate him. Sometimes he would speak as plainly as a white man, but, at other times, no amount of questioning would produce any but the most elliptical replies.

"I don't know where he is going unless it is to Black Mesa," Famous Shoes said. "I don't know why he would want to go there. It is where the Comanches used to go to pray, but I don't know if that is why he is going." "Doubtful. He don't strike me as being a man of prayer," Augustus said. "I never heard of Black Mesa. How far away is it?" "It is a mesa where the rocks are black," Famous Shoes said. "I have never been there--there is no water in that country. His men have only one horse apiece. They will die if they try to follow him." He looked around at the rangers, hoping that Captain Call or Captain McCrae would understand what he meant, which was that they should send most of the men home. He thought either of the captains would be a match for Blue Duck: he saw no reason why they should take eight rangers into the driest part of the llano and try to keep them alive.

Call and Augustus immediately took his point, which was that they too had more men than they could hope to keep alive.

"There's only three outlaws," Call said to Augustus. "I'd say that Pea and Deets are all we need. We better send the rest of these men home while they can find their way." "If they can find their way," Augustus said.

"We're way out here in the big empty. They might just ride around in circles until they fall over and drop." Call knew there was a chance that Gus was right.

Few men were truly competent at navigating the deceptive, featureless plains. Even experienced plainsmen sometimes lost confidence in their judgments, or even in their compasses. Some familiar-looking ridge or rise in the ground would tease their memories and tempt them to rethink their course, often with serious or even fatal consequences.

Augustus looked around. It was a beautiful spring day; the sweep of the long horizons was appealing, and yet, except for the arch of the sun, there was nothing in sight that would suggest direction. Some of the men had already become nervous, at the thought of being left with no guide.

"These men hired on to ranger, Woodrow, let 'em ranger on back home," Gus said. A few minutes later, six nervous, apprehensive men, under the nominal leadership of Stove Jones, were trotting away to the southeast, toward the distant rivers and the even more distant settlements. Call, Augustus, Pea Eye, and Deets kept one pack mule. More important, they kept Famous Shoes.

While the men who were being sent home were saddling up and dividing the few supplies, Famous Shoes walked a few hundred yards to the north, to smell the wind. It disturbed him that he could not sense where Blue Duck was going, or what he might do. Why the man would simply plunge into the llano, far from any route where travellers went, puzzled him--and it was while he was walking around in puzzlement that the owl flew out of the ground. A great white owl, with wings as wide as a man's arm spread, suddenly rose right at his feet, in his face. The owl flew from a hole in the ground, near a ridge with a few rocks on it. That the owl flew so near his face frightened Famous Shoes badly--s badly that he stumbled as he tried to run back to camp. His heart began to pound; he had never been so frightened, not even when a brown bear tried to catch him on the Brazos once.

The owl that flew in his face went up high and glided over the rangers--it was snow white.

Of course Famous Shoes knew that little brown owls sometimes went into prairie dog holes to catch snakes, or to eat the young prairie dogs--but this was not such an owl. This owl had been snow white, though it was not winter and there was no reason for a white owl to be rising out of a hole on a ridge. Captain Call and Captain McCrae looked up at it, and then it flew so far that Famous Shoes lost it in the white sunlight.