Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (19 page)

      
When the white men opened fire, the small boy and his dog were the first ones Melanie saw hit. After that, chaos reigned and everything happened with horrifying rapidity. Men on horseback fired their six-shooters into the shrieking, milling Comanche. It was hard to miss at point-blank range. Their horses trampled the flimsy brush shelters and smashed anything in their paths. Most of the braves had still been asleep and came rushing at their attackers with whatever weapons they could grab upon leaping up when the shooting began. Few were able to reach guns or bows before they were cut down by bullets and rifle butts.

      
The carnage was completely indiscriminate. Melanie stood rooted to the ground as she watched men she had known in town, civilized white men, shoot women and children with the same unhesitating dispatch they employed on the fearsome warriors. One woman—really, she looked to Melanie’s keen eye to be little more than an adolescent girl—sheltered a baby with her body as Seth Walkman sent a .44 caliber slug ripping through her back. When she slumped lifelessly to the ground, Melanie could see the bullet had passed through her body and killed the infant as well.

      
Hiding behind a sharp outcropping of rock and using her horse as a shield, Melanie crouched and watched the holocaust exploding around her, praying she would not have to add to the wanton slaughter to protect her own life. In truth, she had little to fear, for the sleeping Comanche had been so thoroughly surprised the uneven fight was over in a matter of minutes. No one came near Melanie's hiding place, not even to steal her horse and escape.

      
The rangers and their militia had been devastatingly effective. In five minutes, not a man, woman, or child was left alive. When Laban Greer raised his fat fist and fired into the still moving body of an old woman thrashing on the ground, Melanie almost cried out, but bit her lip until it bled to stifle her useless protest. In the frenzy of their blood lust, these men would doubtless see to it that she shared the fate of the Comanche women if her disguise were detected.

      
Wanting to keep busy and attempting to drown out the ugly laughter and brutal comments of the men, Melanie followed the half-dozen riders who were sent to round up the villagers' horses. Known far and wide as the best riders and horse breeders on the plains, the Comanche possessed valuable mounts that could be sold anywhere across Texas.

      
As they left the village, Melanie ate trail dust, riding drag on their booty while the smell of burning brush and the acrid stench of roasting human flesh assailed her nostrils. Walkman had ordered the village and all its inhabitants fired. As dry as the weather had been the past weeks, the savage scene was quickly reduced to smoldering ashes.

      
When they neared the Greer ranch, which had large corrals to hold their captured livestock, the majority of the men went with the owner to see to their cut. A small handful stayed with Walkman and his rangers, who were headed to San Antonio, and several other of the ranchers split off to ride for their homes. The mission was accomplished. Still terrified of being discovered, Melanie stayed with the dusty, milling herd of Indian ponies until they neared the corrals. Then, when no one was watching, she quickly cut her horse into a small brushy swale off the trail and waited until everyone was gone. She rode for town by a circuitous route, as if pursued by demons, when in fact the real demons were ahead of her on the road to San Antonio.

* * * *

      
Clarence Pemberton's usual facial expressions ranged from boredom to sardonic ill humor, then back to boredom. But as he read the copy Melanie had just handed him, his world-weary countenance changed, his complexion going chalky white, eyes rounded in shock, and mouth pursed in concentration. After carefully perusing the lengthy article in its entirety, he took his glasses from their precarious perch on the tip of his nose and laid them very carefully on the desk. His light blue eyes pierced her gold ones and held them while he cleared his throat. “Every word of this is accurate,” he said. It was not so much a question as a statement of horrified incredulity.

      
“Right down to Laban Greer's shooting an old woman as she lay on the ground,” she replied quietly. “Even babies and little children and their puppies were cut down. The river was pink from all the blood—”

      
“I get the picture. Your prose style is startlingly graphic,” he interrupted. The look of repugnance on his face was not directed at her, but at the events her words chronicled.

      
“Will you print it?” She held her breath.

      
“I'm a newspaperman, and ghastly as this is, it's news. Of course, we must protect your anonymity. We'll run it under the Moses French name.”

      
“Of course,” she replied gravely as relief surged through her. The people of Texas would learn of this perfidy.

      
But the people of Texas had lived for generations with Comanche depredations. They were not disposed to shed sympathetic tears for the fate of one lone Comanche village.

      
The destruction rained on their own towns from Victoria to Linnville in the previous decade had hardened them to the fate of Comanches, even if the victims were women and children. Many citizens were inclined to be philosophical about the deaths, recalling the Council House killing of Comanche chiefs on the very streets of San Antonio, provoked by their refusal to relinquish a dozen white captives held by one southern Comanche band. The fault lay with both sides, but this was war.

      
Other readers were simply disbelieving. Civilized men, townsmen and ranchers they greeted on the streets daily, could never do what that eastern meddler Pemberton and his mysterious reporter Moses French said they did. Others like Lee Velasquez, themselves victims of Comanche attacks, were disgusted and furious with the graphic description of a battle reenacted on the Texas plains dozens of times each year. What use to describe the horrors both sides perpetuated? It would only end when every last Comanche was dead.

      
If the majority of the citizenry was disposed to scorn or ignore the
Star's
blazing condemnation, a vocal handful were of a more violent bent. Seth Walkman and Laban Greer, along with Zeb Brocker, Pike Miller, Marsh Tatum, and Jeff Jonas, had been mentioned by name in the article. Greer was at his ranch, above mingling with the saloon riffraff who were incited to riot by Brocker and Miller. Seth Walkman, as the head of the local rangers, stayed discreetly in the background while his lieutenants went from cantina to cantina gathering a mob the evening after the
Star's
hair-raising story broke. By dusk they had a sizable group assembled and were vocally calling for more “brave Injun fighters” to join them on the plaza.

      
Lee was on his way to have dinner with the Sandovals when he heard the ugly commotion. He assumed it was nothing but a drunken fight the local constabulary would handle. When he was greeted by Larena Sandoval at the door, Don José was with her, clutching a copy of the
Star
in his hand.

      
“I wish those foolish easterners would go home and leave Texas to deal with her own problems,” he said tightly.

      
“That's what all the shouting down on the plaza's about?” Lee asked in disgust. “I read Mr. French's inflammatory rhetoric.”

      
“Inflammatory is an understatement, ”
Don
José replied. “The fool is obviously as ignorant of the volatile nature of our so-called ‘militia’ as is his editor. They'll burn that newspaper office to the ground. I only hope the fire doesn't spread to other businesses adjacent to it.”
Don
Jose's normally genial face was harsh as granite.

      
“Father, what about the people who work there? Besides Mr. Pemberton, there's that frail old printer and Miss Fleming. Her parents are good friends of the Slades,” Larena said with genuine concern.

      
Lee stiffened. “It's late. Surely she's back at Obedience's boardinghouse by now. Devil take old man Pemberton and his printer, especially his ‘star reporter,’ Moses French!”

      
“I don't know, Leandro. Charlee told me the other day that Melanie often works late, finishing up her columns and then helping Amos Johnston set type. She said Mrs. Oakley was complaining that the girl had every towel in the place ink stained.”

      
Snorting, he said in disgust, “Yeah, that sounds like Melanie Fleming, all right. I suppose I'd better see if she's safely tucked under Obedience's wing.” Taking his fiancée’s fingertips in his hand, he saluted them lightly. “Please forgive me for delaying dinner, but I do feel an obligation to Jim and Charlee to see that the pesky girl's all right.” With that, he turned and quickly retraced his steps toward the Sandovals' stable and Sangre.

* * * *

      
A rock came sailing through the window, spraying the floor of the
Star's
office with glass shards. Amos Johnston bent his gray head as he kicked at the sharp-edged piece of stone, sending it rolling across the floor. “I think they're getting nasty, Miss Melanie. You head out that back door real quick while I—”

      
“Oh, no, you don't, Amos. If you and Mr. Pemberton stay, I stay. After all, it was my story that caused that trash to come here in the first place.” Melanie stood her ground in front of Amos while Clarence Pemberton peered through the glass window of the front door.

      
“Exercise judicious behavior for once in your disaster-prone lives, both of you,” the old editor said. “Amos, while I go out to calm them, you and Melanie slip out the back before those Neanderthals recall there is an alleyway along Commerce Street.”

      
“We wanna talk ta thet Frenchie feller,” one nasal voice hiccupped.

      
Another more strident one yelled out, “Give us Moses French er we'll do ta yer newspaper whut them Comanch done to Noah Parker's ranch house.”

      
Melanie braced her feet and shook off Amos's hand. “See, they want Moses French. When you can't produce ‘him,’ what do you think they'll do to you?”

      
“Better an old man than a young woman,” Clarence said with surprising calm.

      
“Make that two ole men. Now you all git!” Amos said, attempting to mimic a southern black's accent.

      
“Not on your lives! Do either of you have something so un-New Englandish as a gun in this place?”

      
“Balderdash! Of course not. What would you have me do, place my sights on the ringleader and shoot him between his beady little eyes?”

      
“Something like that—only, given your aim, I'd better be the one handling the shooting. If only I'd brought my rifle with me,” Melanie fumed, “or even my pepperbox.”

      
Another rock came sailing through the window, punctuated with several stray bullets. The flickering glow of the mob's torches cast eerie shadows across the wreckage of the
Star's
glass-strewn office.

      
“I'm going out and face them down,” Pemberton said.

      
“With what—withering sarcasm? Somehow I don't think it'll work.” Melanie quickly grabbed the old man's arm. Looking past him, she yelled through the broken glass, “Brave Texians all—throwing rocks and shooting at two old men and a woman! You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

      
“Thet French feller's th' one whut's got him first claim on bein' ashamed,” the whiskey-hoarse voice of Jeff Jonas croaked out.

      
“I hear you, Jonas, and I see you Zeb Brocker—you and Pike Miller. The Texas Rangers ought to be real proud of your day's work—yesterday and today!” Melanie was abruptly grabbed from behind by steel fingers and whirled around to confront Lee Velasquez's furious face.

      
“Will you shut that loud mouth of yours before they storm this place, you little hellion?” he ground out, shoving her into Pemberton's arms. “All three of you stay back!”

      
“You can't. They'll—” Melanie's protest stilled as Lee vanished through the front door, slamming it behind him.

      
“This the way you rangers keep law and order, Miller, Brocker? Where's your boss, Walkman? If he's too big to bother with a couple of old men and a girl, how about someone who knows how to fight back—Texas style?” Lee's voice dripped with scorn but carried across the crowd with chilling impact, every syllable cutting like a lash.

      
“Yew an Injun lover like them Yankees, Mex?” one drunkenly weaving drifter slurred.

      
“I don't talk much about loving—or killing,” Lee said quietly as his right hand rested lightly on the gun at his hip. His left hand caressed the hilt of his bowie knife as he stood poised and waiting.

      
The implication was clear to most of the men in the crowd who had heard the stories about how he had slit two rangers' throats and collected scalps in the
Apachería
of New Mexico.

      
Watching the confrontation, Melanie shivered at the implacable stance of the man confronting the mob. “He'll kill that drunk if the fool doesn't let up,” she whispered to Amos. The tension grew to crackling proportions as Zeb Brocker shoved the drunk out of his way and planted one boot on the edge of a watering trough near the front of the
Star
office. His narrow-set eyes blazed at Velasquez as he dared the slim
Tejano
, “You got a real mean reputation, for a greaser. But I been shootin' greasers an’ Injuns for years, Velasquez.” His hand rested on his six-shooter.