Comanche Rose (17 page)

"Riding all right?" Hap asked her after a particularly nasty jolt.

"Yes," Annie lied. "I'm holding on."

"You'd better. My hip bones feel like they're hitting my ribs, and there's a whole lot more meat on mine than yours."

"You've never ridden an Indian saddle, have you?" she countered.

"No. That bad, huh?"

"Well, they're not padded—and they're made out of wood and bone."

"Yeah, I've seen some. Guess they've been toughening up their behinds since before they can walk."

"Yes."

"Cold?"

"No." She shifted her body uncomfortably on the hard wooden seat. "How long do you think it will take?"

"To reach Fort Richardson?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's not like on horseback. Alone on Old Red, I could make it in about twenty-four or twenty-five hours, if I didn't stop to sleep."

"That's a hard way to travel. I know. Comanches do that a lot."

"Yeah. I was usually going somewhere I had to get in a hurry. If I wasn't chasing somebody, I was carrying a warrant somewhere. Usually it was to make an arrest legal before a damned lawyer howled about it. I had a couple of boys that were a lot better following the intent than the letter of the law."

"Like Clay McAlester? I think I read a few things about that."

"He was just one of 'em. I had a Mexican I could count on most of the time, too—he's the fella that helped bury your husband. But both of 'em were real bad about wiring for warrants after they'd already dragged somebody in or killed him trying."

"But you must have enjoyed it," she pointed out. "You stayed with it a long time."

"Sixteen years—since I was eighteen. 'Course there were three years spent in the war, but I wasn't counting them."

"You don't seem that old, really."

"I'm thirty-seven."

"That still doesn't seem old. I'm thirty."

"At least you don't look it. If you'd wear that hair down on your shoulders, you'd look like a kid compared to me."

"Well, I'm not, though it's kind of you to say it. But you seem to miss it—being with the rangers, I mean."

"Yeah. Funny how a man doesn't know what he wants until he loses it. Then it's too late," he observed soberly. "There was a time when I used to dream of owning my own place, of running a few cattle and watching things grow."

"And now that you've got the time to do those things, you don't want to," she murmured. "It's hard to know what to wish for until you get it."

"Yeah. Now I dream of lying under the stars out in the desert, listening to the night sounds, wondering how close I am to whoever I'm tracking. Trying to figure out if those coyotes are animals or if it's the damned Comanches. Guess I'm a hard man to satisfy. Not easy to understand, huh?"

"I don't know. I think I've always wanted roots, something to cling to. But I was never very adventurous, not at all. All my dreams were centered on Ethan, the kids, the farm. I just took it for granted that that's the way it was meant to be."

"It is. People like me are just different, I guess. I never managed to settle down. I always thought I wanted to, but I never got around to it. Now I'm too old and set in my ways to be much good at it."

"You've got to have dreams, Captain. It's the dreams that keep us alive."

"I don't know about that. Sometimes I think they just give a body expectations that can't be satisfied," he mused. "Sometimes they never happen."

"There's a chance—until you're dead, there's always a chance," she pointed out reasonably. "You have to believe. I believe I'm going to see Susannah again, Captain—I believe it."

He held the equally strong conviction that she wouldn't, but he wasn't going to say it again. Not while it was all she had to cling to. By the time reality really set in, with any luck she'd be able to go on, to accept it. Even as he thought that, the irony of it wasn't lost on him. He wasn't doing much of a job accepting the change that had come to his own life.

"Yeah, well, I always believed by now I'd have a wife, a couple of kids, a house with all those gewgaws women stick in to make it a home—you know, quilts and doilies and flowers, things like that. Now I know it's not going to happen."

"Why not?"

"If I was cut out to be a husband, I reckon I'd have found somebody by now."

"Did you ever look?" Realizing how nosy that sounded, she apologized quickly. "I'm sorry. That wasn't any of my business."

"Yeah, I looked around from time to time. But I was always fixing my sights on women that wouldn't look back, I guess." Again he felt that twinge that came whenever he thought of Amanda. "Maybe I aimed too high. I always hankered after somebody real pretty, but they never hankered for a weathered saddle tramp like me." Afraid he'd shown too much of himself to her, he leaned forward, hunching over the reins. "At least you had what you wanted for a while," he said, pushing the burden back on her.

"Yes. But not nearly long enough. It was only five years, Captain. I only had him five years."

"A body can put a lot of living in five years."

"We did. And I loved almost every minute of my life then. Ethan. The kids. The house. The farm. I can even remember walking down the furrows, just looking at the corn coming up, thinking that was the way God meant people to live, that that was why He gave us the land."

"Yeah, but you were meant to live like that." He stared westward toward the mountains for a time, then mused aloud, "There's something about pitting your mind against a Comanche and coming up the winner that I can't get from a cow or a row of corn. Same thing about outlaws— they test you, they make you think, they make you use everything you've got before you get 'em. When you kill one of 'em, you know you've rid the world of something evil, and you know what you did was good. And you know you got 'im because you were better, faster, and smarter. It feeds a need in you. Don't guess that makes much sense to a woman, does it?"

"I don't know—maybe. You're the first lawman I've ever visited with, so I've never thought about what the life was like. My people were all shopkeepers and farmers."

"Rangers are a different breed, ma'am. Most all of 'em I've known need to walk on the edge of the crevice, looking down, wondering how close they can get without falling off."

"The danger makes it exciting," she said matter-of-factly.

"Damned right."

"Well, if that's what you really want, maybe when your leg is finally healed, you can go back to the rangers."

"No. I kinda burned my bridges when I left." Rather than get into that, he straightened up and half turned to her. "I reckon we ought to be there sometime Sunday. I'd like to say you'd be in time for church, but I can't promise it."

"That's rather longer than I expected," she admitted, somewhat disappointed.

"It's more'n a hundred twenty miles between Sill and Fort Richardson. Then you've got to get to Griffin—and from there to your place on the San Saba."

"Isn't Fort Griffin out of our way?"

"Well, it's not a straight line down, that's for sure, but there's supply roads to follow," he explained.

"Oh."

"Yeah, so there's probably another three days to Griffin, then maybe two or three more to the San Saba, making for about eight or nine days in a wagon, providing the weather holds and the animals stay healthy. If not, it'll take longer."

"I see.

"And you'll need a couple of days to rest your backside both places, so you'd better figure for that, too. What does that make it, about two weeks?"

"Yes," she responded without enthusiasm.

He cast a sidewise glance her way. "If the place is still standing after three years, it'll be there waiting for you two weeks from now, I reckon."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way," she said quickly. "I just want to get there. I just want to see it."

"I know. But there's going to be times when I've got to rest m'leg."

She was being selfish, and she knew it. Ashamed, she tried to look at the journey from his side. "It's hurting, isn't it? Doc Sprenger said you need to stop often."

"It's going to hurt some whether I'm sitting, lying down, or walking on it. I just don't want to make it worse, that's all."

"I'm sorry."

"Wish you'd quit saying that. If it's not your fault, don't apologize. Just because I was griping a couple of minutes back, it doesn't mean I want pity, Mrs. Bryce."

"I wouldn't call it pity, Captain Walker."

"What was it?"

"Sympathy. There's a difference."

"Damned if I know what it is," he retorted.

"All right, it's not exactly sympathy, either, then. Maybe I should have said it's concern. Surely I can be concerned for your health, can't I?" she reasoned.

"Well, if I were you, there's other things I'd worry about more. Like rivers, for instance. We've got the Red between here and Richardson, and there's the Brazos north of Griffin, and after that come the Colorado and the San Saba. This time of year a river can be a mite contrary. Sometimes you've got to float the wagon and swim the oxen over. And sometimes they balk at going."

"I don't swim very well—not at all, Captain Walker," she admitted. "I've always been afraid of deep water. Even when the Comanches made me go across, I was terribly afraid of the water."

"That's why I brought the mule. It'll swim for you—a damned sight better than one of those little Comanche ponies, to my way of thinking. A mule's stronger."

"I'll never forget trying to cross the Pecos."

"The Pecos is a damned mean river."

"Yes, it certainly is—mean, that is," she agreed.

"It just sort of lies there under those steep banks, waiting like a snake to get you. If you got over that one, you'll get over the rest of 'em a whole lot easier."

"I hope."

"Yeah, we ought to make it to your place by the middle of December, no later than the twentieth, anyway. I'll get you settled in, chop some wood, maybe take you into town for some supplies. You know, see you fixed up for the winter before I go on. Maybe you could play me a couple of Christmas carols on that piano before I head out."

She hadn't really given any thought to Christmas. She'd be spending it in an empty house, surrounded by things certain to bring back memories of Ethan and her children. Like the piano he'd struggled to bring back from Austin for her. And as much as she wanted to be home, she was suddenly afraid she couldn't stand that part of it.

"My ma used to play the piano," he went on. "Even though we were Baptists, she like those old Martin Luther hymns. Ever play 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our God?"

"Yes."

"She used to sing some old Scottish ballads, too," he recalled. "Don't suppose you know 'Barbara Allen'?"

"Yes."

"I'd sure like to hear 'em again. It's been a long time."

It didn't seem like much to ask, not after he'd gone to the trouble of getting her home. "I'll try to play them for you," she promised. "I may not be very good at it, though—and I don't know if the piano's kept in tune all this time."

"I got a tin ear, anyway," he allowed. "I'd just like to hear the words with the music."

"You won't have much time to get to the Ybarra, will you? Do you think you'll make it for the holiday?"

"No. It doesn't matter all that much—wouldn't be the first time I was out on the road then. Matter of fact, I've probably spent more Christmases out than in, if I was to count 'em up. Since most of the boys had kinfolks, I tried to cover for em." He shrugged. "Things like that don't mean much to me, anyway—leastwise not since my ma died."

"But don't you want to be at the Ybarra?" she asked curiously. "At least Clay McAlester will be there."

The image of Amanda came to mind, and for a brief moment he felt the regret. Before she'd married Clay, he'd had some hope there, enough to make a damned fool of himself. No, as much as he loved both of 'em, he didn't care much about seeing them together at Christmas.

"It doesn't matter," he maintained stubbornly.

"You don't have any family at all?"

"No. Just Clay—but he's got a wife now, and there's a baby on the way. Oh, they'd want me there, no question about it, but it's not the same. Don't get me wrong—she's a fine girl, and I wish I'd been as lucky as he is, but now there's a big house, fancy stuff all around—everything's a whole lot different." He stared off, seeing nothing. "I'm real happy for him," he said finally. "A tot of folks never thought he'd amount to much, and he showed em."

"Like the newspapers," she murmured.

"Yeah, like the damned
Austin Republican,"
he agreed. "If I had a dollar of every lie they printed about him, I'd own half of Texas."

"They thought he was pretty rough, didn't they?"

"Yeah. And they weren't too happy with me, either. They never understood what the rangers faced—and the state police, too, for that matter."

"Well, at least they didn't call you an Indian-loving savage."

"I'd be about the last person anybody'd say that to," he countered. "Leastwise, if he wanted to live, anyway, But Clay had his reasons for liking 'em. Hell, the Comanches raised him. Me, I'd as soon crawl on my belly through a ravine full of rattlesnakes as be within smelling distance of a Comanche, or a Kiowa. Only place I want to see one of 'em is down the barrel of a rifle."

"But you came to Bull Calf's camp, Captain," she reminded him. "I thought God had answered my prayers when I saw you."

Before he could explain anything, one of the front wheels hit something, and the force sent the wagon into a deep rut that threw her against him. He grabbed her and braced her with his body as the wagon bed teetered, then came slamming down with a bone-jarring crack over the axle. Her first thought was that they'd wrecked, but the wheels kept turning, and the oxen plodded ahead as though nothing had happened.

"You all right?"

She righted herself within the circle of his arm. "What was that?" she asked shakily.

"I don't know—-a rock or a stump probably." Easing his arm from her shoulders, he transferred the reins between his hands. "Guess I wasn't watching what I was doing," he muttered.

"Well, I didn't see it coming, either."