The Black Jacks (16 page)

"Then there will be a great battle," reasoned Red Eagle, "and we should take part in it."

"No. This is what we must do. Send the women and some of the men due west from here with the stolen horses. The rest of us will strike north along the Brazos River. We will hit hard and fast. The Texans will be gathering to stop Yellow Hand and the others. By the time they move against us we will have reached the Cross Timbers. There we will be safe and can turn for home."

Tall Horses nodded enthusiastically. "This is a good plan."

Red Eagle frowned. Like Gray Wolf he was a young war chief, and he saw Gray Wolf as his principal rival. He knew that the warriors tended to look more to Gray Wolf for leadership than they did him; they knew Gray Wolf was more levelheaded and had proven himself a better strategist in raids against the Utes. Besides, they believed Gray Wolf had been spared at the Council House by the Great Spirit for some special purpose. So Red Eagle swallowed his pride and agreed with Gray Wolf's plan.

And so, when the Comanche horde turned north, retracing their steps, leaving a ruined, smoldering Linnville behind, it was without the Quohadis, who slipped away to the northeast, a hundred strong after dispatching their women and about thirty warriors westward with the stolen stock and plunder.

As Gray Wolf had suspected, the Texans were gathering. Lafayette Ward and twenty-two men from Lavaca met Captain Matthew Caldwell and thirty-seven men at Gonzales. Together they rode on to Seguin and joined forces with another party of twenty men. Here they received their first reliable intelligence concerning the Comanches. The hostiles were following their old trail north. Caldwell decided to cut them off at Plum Creek. The Texans marched all day across prairie scorched by a grass fire, through a cloud of ashes that blinded and choked men and horses.

That night, Captain James Bird and thirty more riders joined them. Ben McCulloch and a handful of men also rode into camp; they had quit Tumlinson's group in disgust after Tumlinson lost his nerve and let slip an opportunity to strike at the Indians in the vicinity of Victoria.

Early the next morning General Felix Huston, late of the Texas Army, showed up, and Caldwell graciously surrendered command to him. This displeased many of the Texans, who knew Caldwell—Old Paint, they affectionately called him—had proven himself as an Indian fighter. Still, no one quit over it. Just before dawn, scouts rode in to report the Comanches three miles south and coming on. Almost simultaneously, a rider galloped in to announce the imminent arrival of Colonel Edward Burleson with eighty-seven Texans and thirteen Tonawas.

Felix Huston's command, now numbering nearly a hundred men, waited in the trees and thickets along Plum Creek as the new day dawned. They wondered who would be the first on the scene—the Comanches or Burleson. They did not have long to speculate. An hour later the Comanches appeared with their huge horse herd, on the open prairie west of Plum Creek. They paused to let their ponies drink from the creek hardly more than a half mile upstream from where the Texans lurked, undiscovered, in a thicket.

Deciding they could wait no longer for Burleson's force to arrive, the Texans mounted up and rode out into the open. The Comanche warriors formed a barrier, intent on delaying the Texans until their women and the horse herd could escape. The warriors' faces were painted red. Many of them wore buffalo headdresses. Their buffalo-hide shields were daubed with colorful symbols. The manes and tails of their war ponies were painted carmine red. The Texans could not fail to notice that some of the hostiles wore plundered white man's clothing—a stovepipe here, a clawhammer coat there. Nor did they fail to note the scalps dangling from some of the long red lances.

For a few minutes neither side advanced. Felix Huston could tell he was outnumbered three or four to one, and held his men in check. The Comanches screamed taunts at the Texans. Some performed exhibitions of riding skill up and down their line. Then a chief, conspicuous by his feather warbonnet and bone breastplate, rode forward. The Comanches cheered—only to fall abruptly silent as a rifle spoke from somewhere along the Texan line and the chief tumbled off his pony, shot through the heart.

Felix Huston looked at Captain Caldwell, who lowered his smoking rifle. "Charge them now, General!" said Caldwell. "Do it this instant and we'll have them whipped!"

Huston gave the signal. With a savage roar the Texans surged forward, guns blazing. At that moment Burleson and his men appeared, most opportunely, on the Comanche flank. The horse herd stampeded, and after a brief and bloody affray, the warriors broke, scattering, with the Texans hot on their heels.

In the aftermath, eighty Comanche dead were located, many on the prairie, some in the creek, others in the thickets where they had tried in vain to elude their relentless pursuers. Only a handful of Texans had lost their lives, and a few more had sustained wounds. Of the four captives taken by the Comanches during the raid, three were recovered. The fourth, Mrs. Crosby, descendant of Daniel Boone, was killed by her captors.

Plum Creek was a decisive defeat for the Comanches. Satisfied with their work, the Texans disbanded, returning to their homes secure in the knowledge that they had taught the hostiles a lesson they would not soon forget. The great raid was over.

They had no way of knowing that on the very morning of the big scrape at Plum Creek, a force of nearly one hundred Quohadi warriors struck the settlement of Grand Cane.

Chapter Fifteen

The Comanches first appeared at the farm of Jellicoe Fuller, two miles south of Grand Cane.

When he'd first moved onto the section which Captain McAllen had deeded to him out of the republic's generous land grant, Fuller had turned over forty acres of partially cleared land with a bar-share plow and then, with an eye on the future, proceeded to clear approximately forty acres more closer to the river. This meant cutting down trees a foot or less in diameter and "deadening" the rest, which was accomplished by girdling the trunk all around to the depth of six inches or so. In the intervening years all of these trees had died. Windstorms had stripped them of most of their limbs, providing plenty of firewood for the Fuller family. This spring, with the corn already planted and sprouting, Jellicoe Fuller was tackling the big job of felling the dead trees and burning out the stumps. Now, at least, his fourteen-year-old son, Billy, was big enough to wield an ax and lend him a hand.

Billy was hacking away at a tree about thirty yards from where Jellicoe was building a slow fire in a hollow space carved out of a stump when the elder Fuller heard a sound resembling thunder. Perplexed, he looked up at a clear blue sky. Then the blood in his veins seemed to turn to ice. Picking up the percussion rifle that was seldom out of reach, Fuller called his son to him. His voice was calm but firm.

"Boy, you run on up to the house fast as your legs can carry you, put your ma and sister on the back of the plow mare, and light out for town like the hounds of hell are snappin' at your heels."

"What's the matter, Pa?" Billy was looking up at the sky, searching for thunderclouds.

"Just do what I tell you. Go, now."

Billy caught on then. He wasn't slow-witted. His eyes got wide. "Is it. . ."

"Run, boy. Run!"

Turning pale, Billy Fuller ran.

Jellicoe watched his son go, knowing he would not live to see Billy or his wife or daughter again. At least he had known the joys of married life and fatherhood for a few precious years. That was more than he'd expected or deserved. There was a time to live and a time to die, and when it came right down to it a man had very little say in the matter.

The thunder was getting louder. For once, mused Fuller, Captain McAllen had miscalculated. The Indians were coming from the south, not the west or the north. He could feel the ground vibrating beneath his feet. He moved as quick as his game leg allowed. A Seminole arrow with a poisoned tip had made a cripple of him—it was thanks only to Dr. Tice's quick work that he had survived. He and the rest of the Black Jacks had been chased through the swamps by a hundred howling red devils for three days, but nary a man had even suggested that Jellicoe Fuller was slowing them down and ought to be left behind. Now it was time to pay the boys back. He would do whatever he could to hold the Comanches here as long as possible.

Dragging his stiffened leg behind him, Fuller cut across the cornfield in the warm spring sun and reached the cabin just as the Comanches came swarming out of the woods in the direction of the river. Spotting Fuller, they cut loose with bloodcurdling war whoops. Fuller checked to make sure his family was on their way to Grand Cane. He was relieved to find the cabin empty, the plow mare gone. He had but one regret—that he hadn't been able to tell his wife and little girl good-bye.

Standing on the porch, he watched the Comanches, who had paused at the edge of the woods. He figured there had to be nearly a hundred of them. What were they waiting for? What if they decided he wasn't worth the trouble and went right on around him to Grand Cane? That wouldn't do. Grimly, Fuller lifted rifle to shoulder and aimed at a knot of warriors he took to be leaders on account of their warbonnets. Squeezing the trigger, he fired and then stepped sideways out of the powder smoke to see if his aim had been true. He was gratified to see one of the Indians slump forward and then slide off his pony. Yelling like banshees, the rest of the Comanches surged forward across the cornfield.

As Fuller reloaded, a dozen arrows seemed to sprout from the cabin wall behind him. He turned to go inside. That was when an arrow struck him high in the back. Gasping, he stumbled into the cabin, shut and bolted the door, closed the shutters on the windows, and lit a candle. He broke the shaft of the arrow in his back, hissing at the pain. The Comanches were all around the cabin now. In no time at all there were several at the door and windows, hacking at the stout timber with their hatchets and war clubs. There were a few more on the roof, trying to cut a hole through the cedar shingles. Resigned to his fate, Fuller smashed the lid of a small cask of black powder and set it on its side on the table so that some of the powder spilled out. Sitting at the table, he primed and loaded a Collier flintlock pistol and waited. Every breath was agony and he wondered if the arrowhead had punctured one of his lungs. Not that it really mattered.

He didn't have long to wait. The Comanches on the roof got in first. Fuller shot the first one dropping down through the hole, killing him before he hit the ground, using the Collier. He plugged the second one through with his rifle, and was reloading the long gun when the door came off its hinges and a swarm of them came through. He used the rifle like a club to drop one of them, and then turned to knock the burning candle into the powder cask as the rest of the Comanches closed on him, swinging clubs and tomahawks.
Jesus, forgive me my sins,
he prayed. . . .

The explosion disintegrated the cask, turning its wood staves and metal rings into shrapnel that killed Jellicoe Fuller and three of the warriors outright. Several other Comanches were wounded and stumbled out of the cabin as it began to burn.

By the time the Quohadis had regrouped and were on their way north along the river road, the Fuller cabin was consumed by flames and a pillar of smoke rose high into a clear blue sky.

Cedric Cole and his ferry were on the east bank of the Brazos, having just transferred Benjamin Sturgis and a wagon across the river from Grand Cane. Sturgis was a freighter who plied the route between Gonzales and Houston, and it was he who first saw the plume of smoke.

"Look there, Cole. What do you make of that?"

The ferryman took one look and said, "Comanche."

Sturgis turned as colorless as the canvas tarpaulin strapped down over the load in his wagon. "Good God, man. It can't be. The Comanches wouldn't come this far east."

"Wanna bet?" asked the laconic Cole.

Sturgis clambered up onto the wagon and whipped the team into motion, maneuvering his vehicle down the ramp he and Cole had just put in place. Once he was on dry land he checked the mules in their traces and looked back to see, much to his surprise, that Cole was already hauling on the towline to take the ferry back across the river.

"Cole! Where the hell are you going? If there are Comanches over yonder, you'd better stay . . ."

But it was obvious to him that Cole wasn't paying any heed. Shaking his head, the freighter whipped up his team again and drove the wagon up the embankment and down the road to Houston as fast as the mules would take him.

Billy Fuller's yelling brought Artemus Tice out of his office. He saw Jellicoe's boy sliding off of the old mare that also carried Nell Fuller and her three-year-old daughter. Billy's cries brought others from their homes and businesses, but it was Tice who reached the Fullers first.

"Calm down, Billy," he said firmly, nodding at Mrs. Fuller. "Good morning, Nell. What's happened?"

"I'm not altogether sure." Nell Fuller was making every effort to remain calm and in control, but Tice could tell she was more distraught than he had ever seen her. "I fear my husband is in grave trouble. He sent Billy in from the field to tell us to come to town straightaway."

"I heard sumpin what sounded like thunder," said Billy.

"I am afraid—" Nell Fuller's voice broke, and she paused just long enough to regain her composure. "I am afraid it may be Comanches, Artemus."

It was at that moment that Tice heard the strange thunder. He knew right away what it was.

"Grab your guns, boys!" Tice yelled at the men who stood in the street. "Comanches are coming to call"

Billy Fuller grabbed Tice's sleeve as the doctor turned to enter his office. "My pa's dead, ain't he?"

"I reckon he is, son."

"Give me a gun. I'll fight."

"You make sure your mother and sister get on Cedric Cole's ferry." His tone of voice made it clear to Billy Fuller that no argument would be brooked.

When Tice came back out with a brace of pistols in his belt and his walking stick in hand, a dozen armed men had gathered in the street. Among them were Scayne and Deckard and Ainsworth and Will Parton. The latter had a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other.