Sidewinder (10 page)

Miss Cornelia Waterhouse was a serious-minded young lady who had the misfortune to be very pretty, very shapely and very attractive to members of the opposite sex. So much so that she often found difficulty in persuading young men of her true nature. Certainly the young officers at Fort Sorrel failed to appreciate her and showed little desire to join in sober discussions as to the country-wide implications of the treaty council.

Being serious-minded, Cornelia felt compassion for the mass of humanity less fortunate than herself in the matter of worldly goods and social position. Her heart went out to the poorer classes and she wanted to help them achieve better conditions in life.

At times, it must be admitted, she wondered if perhaps her efforts fell on barren ground. Attending a social function organized by a friend’s father for his workers, she overheard a number of comments on her motives for being present, few of which were complimentary, However, her select group of intensely intellectual friends explained that such often happened and laid the blame on bosses’ spies making trouble and preventing the other workers from seeing the light. Which hardly made up for her having heard at least three different members of the crowd asking ‘why the hell doesn’t she go back to her own kind and let us have our fun?’

Nor had her efforts to integrate the white and coloured workers met with any better success. In fact one white worker had the audacity to remark that she might advocate allowing an unlimited number of negroes to come North in search of employment as their presence could not affect her in any way. Fortunately such bigots were few and far between for Cornelia, like most intellectual do-gooders, hated to have to face the truth.

All in all, she felt grateful when her father brought her along with him to the treaty council. He held his seat in Congress on the strength of the workers’ votes and her views on a number of matters proved embarrassing; which may have accounted for his offer.

To Cornelia the trip offered an opportunity to study conditions in Texas and make the acquaintance of the down-trodden Indians. After the first night at the Fort, she found herself at a loose end. Her father was already involved in the first of the party policy rows which would plague the council. Having heard enough the previous night to warn them off, even such young officers who had no specific duty that morning avoided the girl and she did not trust Texas-born, Southern-raised Dusty Fog, Mark Counter or Temple Houston. So she walked alone from the Fort and towards the Comanche camps.

During dinner in the officers’ mess the previous evening, before he went out to deliver a stirring address to the assembled chiefs, Dusty Fog had mentioned that any member of the party who wished to visit the Comanche would receive courtesy and be safe among the
Pehnane
. Suspecting that Dusty must have an ulterior motive for his suggestion, the girl ignored perfectly sound advice and directed her footsteps towards the tipis of the
Kweharehnuh
. Muffles, her poodle, bounded along before her for she had not felt it safe to leave the little dog in a position where that brutal Temple Houston could allow his savage hound to attack it.

To reach the
Kweharehnuh
camp, Cornelia had to pass through a large patch of wooded country, but found a fairly wide track and followed it. Going ahead of its mistress, the poodle caught a scent of interest and went to investigate it. Cornelia let out a cluck of annoyance and followed her dog, calling to it. Passing through a clump of bushes, she came face to face with two white men. A Western-raised girl or even one born in less favourable circumstances back East, would have taken one glance at the men, noted their menacing attitudes and got the hell out of it. Cornelia saw only a tall, unshaven man in range clothes and one of medium height who wore a town suit of sober hue.

‘Hello,’ she said brightly, but felt a little disconcerted by the way the taller man scowled at her. ‘My dog came—’

‘How long have you been around here?’ the bigger man growled.

‘You have to excuse Mr. Higgins, my dear young lady,’ his companion said in a much milder tone, ‘Your appearance startled us.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Cornelia apologised. ‘But my little dog — Muffles, Come here!’

The latter command rapped out as Muffles darted between the two men and around the trunk of the flowering dogwood tree under which they stood. Knowing that obedience was not the poodle’s greatest virtue, Cornelia swooped after it, round the trunk and found the dog standing hopefully licking the top of one of several stone jugs which had so far been hidden from her view. Some instinct caused the girl to turn around and she found the men approaching her. A feeling of near panic bit into Cornelia at the raw fury on the big man’s face. Yet Higgins’ companion filled her with a greater horror as he spoke. While his voice remained the same, it held undertones of menace.

‘You shouldn’t have seen those, young lady,’ he told her mildly,

‘We can’t let her go, Bristow!’ Higgins pointed out, ‘I — I don’t understand!’gasped the girl.

‘I do.’

Never had Cornelia expected to feel pleasure at hearing the voice of a rich Southerner, or to experience delight at seeing one of the Confederate States’ war heroes. Yet those two words and the sight of Dusty Fog and Mark Counter standing in the background gave her the most pleasant experience of her life.

On returning from tending to their horses, Dusty and Mark had seen the girl leaving the Fort. From the direction she took, and remembering certain remarks she made the previous evening, the Texans guessed at her destination, While she would be safe under Long Walker’s care, the girl had to reach the chief first and Dusty recalled his experience at the hands of the
tuivitsi
. Should anything untoward occur to the girl in the
Pehnane
village it could cause repercussions that might affect the whole council. So the Texans followed Cornelia at a discreet distance and knew they had done the right thing when she headed not to the comparative safety of the
Pehnane
but towards the tipis of the
Kweharehnuh
, the least friendly band present.

Before the Texans could catch up with her and suggest that she went to the
Pehnane
village, Cornelia disappeared among the bushes. On following her, Dusty and Mark needed only one glance at the stone jugs to know what Bristow’s words meant.

At the sound of Dusty’s voice, the two men with Cornelia swung around, While Higgins’ right hand went towards the gun holstered at his side, his left closed on the girl’s arm and started to draw her towards him. Through horrified eyes, Cornelia saw Dusty’s left hand begin to move. Somehow, she could not guess how, the small Texan held a Colt, its barrel med towards her and flame tore from its barrel.

Seeing Higgins’ move, Dusty did not dare hesitate. If the man once pulled the girl before him, he could use her as a shield or hostage. So Dusty drew and fired in the only way he could, for an instant kill. Lead ripped into Higgins’ head and slammed him backwards; his gun half-drawn and left hand jerking away from the girl’s arm.

Thinking that both the Texans might be concentrating on Higgins, Bristow made a move in the direction of his gun. He froze as he found out his mistake and saw the right side Colt scooped from Mark’s holster in a move almost as fast as the one with which Dusty ended Higgins’ life. While he faced a hanging charge for his actions previous to the arrival of the girl, Bristow lived by the old saying that while there was life there was also hope. Should he try to complete his draw in the face of the blond giant’s obvious mastery of the gun, he would have neither hope nor life for long.

‘Throw it away!’ Mark ordered and Bristow obeyed, tossing his gun aside in a careful manner that gave no offence to the watching Texan.

Cornelia stared first at Dusty, eyes on the Colt which dribbled smoke in his right hand. Then she looked down at Higgins, seeing the blood which trickled from the hole in his forehead.

‘You — you killed him!’she gasped.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ agreed Dusty flatly.

‘You killed him!’ repeated the girl, her voice rising a couple of notes.

This time Dusty ignored her, his eyes on Bristow as he and Mark drew closer to the man. ‘All right!’ Dusty growled.. ‘How much of it have you sold?’

‘What’s that supp—,’ Bristow began,

Dusty knew a number of legal ways of interrogating a suspect but time did not permit him to use them. Around lashed his free hand in a slap which caught the man’s face and spun him around to crash into the tree trunk. Bristow could not hold back a croak of pain as Dusty’s knuckles caught him and he knew that his troubles had only just begun.

Having served as Dusty’s first deputy, Mark knew that the small Texan did not normally employ such tactics to gain information. He also knew why Dusty acted in such a manner and heartily approved of it under the circumstances. Those stone jugs contained enough concentrated trouble to blow the whole peace council into the air and stir up a good-sized Indian war. With that in mind. Mark holstered his Colt and stepped forward. He caught Bristow’s right wrist in his big right hand, forcing the arm up behind the man’s back in an agonizing manner, Nor did Mark content himself just with that. Steel hard fingers clamped hold of the back of Bristow’s head and forced his features savagely against the hard bark of the tree.,

‘Where’s the rest of your booze?’ the blond giant demanded. Horror twisted Cornelia’s face as she watched the agony contort Bristow’s struggling body. With her head full of hatred for Southerners and ideas about the sanctity of human life, she ignored the fact that Dusty saved her life. Probably she did not know just how grave her danger had been when the Texans put in their appearance, All she knew was that Dusty had killed one man and now seemed set to torture another.

‘Stop!’ she screamed. ‘Release him or I’ll have you arrested.’ Like most of her kind, she professed the gravest distrust of peace officers yet did not fail to invoke the law’s protection when needing it. However, her words might never have been said for all the notice the Texans took. Mark relaxed his hold of Bristow’s head long enough to repeat the question and, on receiving no answer, once more forced the crushed, damaged features against the trunk.

Cornelia let out a gasp, turned and stumbled blindly back towards the path with her poodle following. In her distraught frame of mind she did not notice that she ran away from the Fort instead of towards it. Rounding a corner, she found herself faced by a trio of armed Comanche
tehnap
.

Once again Cornelia’s inexperience showed, Any girl raised in the Texas range country would have known from the antelope hide clothing, as opposed to the more usual buckskins, that she faced
Kweharehnuh
Comanches, Not that a Western girl would have wasted time worrying about which band the men belonged to on noting their general attitude and the thing one of the bucks held in his hand. Lacking a basic knowledge of such important facts, Cornelia did not see her danger until too late.

Letting fall the stone jug he held, the centre buck of the party sprang at the girl. As he caught her and began to drag the coat from her shoulders, Cornelia received a face-full of his breath, It almost made her gag and she breathed in the fumes of a raw whiskey the like of which she had only smelled once before; when she and her friends went to picket a detachment of police who destroyed a cache of illegally brewed ‘red biddy’ back East. Terror filled her and she began to scream.

Bow on its top-knot or not, the little poodle gave a growl and sprang to its mistress’ aid and sank sharp teeth into the Indian’s ankle. With a bellow of rage, the
tehnap
jerked his leg and sent the dog flying. One of his companions held a bow and, even though drunk, notched an arrow to the string in fast time. Even as he started to aim at the dog, the bowman heard the sound of approaching feet and swung to face the fresh menace. At his side, the third Comanche brought up his Winchester carbine ready for use.

On hearing the girl’s scream, Dusty and Mark realized that she had left them and guessed what she had run into. At the same moment Bristow gave a low moan and went limp in Mark’s hands1 Releasing his hold, Mark turned and dashed after Dusty in the direction of the scream. As soon as they had gone, Bristow raised his bloody face from the ground. Groaning a little, he rose and darted into the bushes,

Bursting into sight of Cornelia and the Indians, Dusty and Mark missed death by inches. A bullet fanned by the small Texan’s cheek, so close that its eerie ‘splat!’ sound almost deafened him; but did not put him off his aim. Firing on the run, Dusty shot the bowman an instant after an arrow winged its deadly way through the air. Mark felt the arrow brush his trousers as it passed between his legs just below the crotch. In echo to Dusty’s shot, he cut down on the third Comanche, and his bullet drove home just as the brave worked the Winchester’s lever, spinning him around then tumbling him to the ground.

Thrusting the girl aside, the last buck snatched out his war weapon, a Dragoon Colt taken from a dead soldier’s body after a long-forgotten brush with the cavalry. He looked as mean as a winter-starved grizzly bear and dangerous as a pit full of stirred-up rattlesnakes as he lunged forward, Dusty and Mark knew that a drunken Indian could not be reasoned with. So they did not try. Two Army Colts roared at the same instant, their bullets converging on the Indian, slamming into him and throwing him back to his heels. Even then he still retained his grip on the Dragoon and tried to use it. Without a single hesitation, acting in the manner of a trained lawman faced with the same situation, Dusty shot again and a third time. It took both bullets to finish the
Kweharehnuh
. The Dragoon clattered from a lifeless hand as the Indian crumpled and fell to the ground.

At the same moment Cornelia let out a gasp and slid down in a faint. For the first time since their arrival, Dusty and Mark gave the girl attention. Not much though, for they realized the seriousness of their position. As usual Dusty thought fast and rattled out his summing up of the situation.