The Black Jacks (21 page)

It was nearly dark when McAllen and the Black Jacks reached the creek where Gray Wolf had turned east rather than west. Once it was clear that the Comanches had not crossed the stream but followed its course, McAllen assumed, as Gray Wolf had hoped he would, that the Indians had turned to the west. The lanterns were lit, despite the fact that by the sign it was obvious that the gap between hunter and hunted was being closed. They traveled a mile along the creek, with riders on either bank searching for the place where the Quohadis had quit the water. Joshua stayed in the creek, going on foot in advance of the others, holding a lantern aloft, kneeling now and then to reach into the water. Puzzled, Tice watched the half-breed for a while and then turned to McAllen, who rode alongside.

"What is he doing, John Henry? I can't make head nor tails of it."

"With shod ponies you could expect some marks on the stones in the creek bottom. But since Comanche ponies are unshod, he's looking for overturned stones."

"Now how in heaven's name could he tell if a stone had been turned over?"

"In most cases, the top side will be smoothed by the water. The bottom will be rougher in texture."

"Well, I'll be," said Tice.

A few minutes later Joshua turned and shook his head; McAllen called a halt, dismounted, and spoke in hushed tones to the half-breed. Joshua answered with hand signals, some of which Tice could not figure out. Finally McAllen called the Black Jacks together.

"Doesn't appear the Comanches came this way," he said. "We've been thrown off the track."

Matt Washburn couldn't believe his ears. "They wouldn't have turned east, Cap'n."

"Maybe they did, for a spell, just to throw us off."

Muttered curses filled the deepening darkness.

"Here's what we'll do," said McAllen. "Joshua and I, with Yancey, Brax, and Cedric, will go on ahead. We'll ride due north a ways and hope to cut their trail. The rest of you make camp here. We'll be back before first light and, with any luck, we'll be after them again by daybreak."

In an hour's time they had crossed the Quohadi trail; the Indians were heading west again, having left the creek somewhere to the east of where they had entered it. A lantern was no longer needed; the full moon had risen early and they could see the sign clearly. It was fresh, and McAllen thought the Comanche horses were on their last legs. The Indians would have to stop soon. He decided to follow the trail a few miles before turning back toward the creek where the rest of the Black Jacks were camped.

They had gone two miles when a shot rang out.

Blossoms of fire—muzzle flash—came from a thicket to their right. Brax cried out when a bullet smashed his ankle; Cedric Cole's horse went down, shot dead, but Cole was nimble enough to jump clear. McAllen was out of the saddle with a Colt Paterson in either hand, blazing away as Yancey and Cole helped Brax to cover. Joshua ignored the hot lead buzzing around him to gather up the horses. One, Brax's mount, got away.

"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!"

The shout came from the thicket, and McAllen saw a glimmer of white floating to and fro in the moon-silvered darkness. He stopped shooting, and a moment later the shapes of two men were distinguishable from the black background of the thicket; one of the men was carrying a flag of truce—white cloth tied to a ramrod.

"Who the hell are you?" rasped McAllen.

"Name's Daniel Strother," said one of the men. "This here's Tom Coplan. We thought you was them Injuns at first—until you started making smoke with those revolving pistols. Far as I know, them Comanch' don't have such weapons. Thank the Lord for small favors."

"Where are you from?"

"Columbus. Two of our neighbors spotted a war party not too far southeast from here. The Comanch' chased 'em, but they got away." Strother peered speculatively at McAllen's black shell jacket. "Are you John Henry McAllen, by any chance?"

"I am, and you're a pack of fools, shooting at people before you even know who they are."

Strother wore a sheepish expression. "I reckon we are that, and we've paid the price of our folly. One of our own is shot dead."

"Good God," breathed McAllen, realizing that the fatal bullet must have come from one of his own Colts.

"It ain't your fault," said Coplan. "Are any of your men hurt?"

"One, but I think he'll live. The dead man, did he have kin?"

"Wife and family," said Strother.

McAllen's guts churned. "I suggest you men go home."

Strother nodded. "We will. At least we know you and your Black Jacks are on the job, Captain. Those Injuns will get their comeuppance. Did you know that a big bunch was whipped at Plum Creek by Captains Caldwell and McCulloch?"

"No, I hadn't heard." The news was small consolation for McAllen. He was thinking about a faceless widow woman and fatherless children.

Strother and Coplan returned to the thicket. McAllen checked on Brax. He took a long look at the boy's ankle and then pulled Yancey aside.

"You and Cedric take him back to camp so Artemus can tend to that leg."

"There'll be no saving the foot," declared Yancey.

"I'm sorry."

"Maybe it's God's plan," replied Yancey flatly. "Brax let Mary and Emily down and he's got to pay for that."

"What's gotten into you? We all make mistakes. When are you going to forgive him?"

"It's myself I'll never forgive."

McAllen saw them off—Cole, Yancey, and Brax, Torrance father and son riding double. Then he and Joshua resumed following the Comanche trail.

Hardly more than a mile farther on they came to a wooded ravine. The ground was an open book to Joshua—it told the whole story. The Comanches had been here a short time ago. They had departed in haste. McAllen figured they had heard the shooting. He had been close to Emily! It made him sick to think just how close. But what was done was done. The chase would continue.

Chapter Twenty

When Roman knocked on the door, Leah McAllen flew out of Major Stewart's embrace like a bird escaping from its cage. "Just a moment!" she gasped, her tone frantic, and she was trying to rearrange her clothing as the door swung open and the old black man tottered in, bearing the Englishman's dinner on a tray. It all happened in the blink of an eye, and Leah was rattled by the knowledge that she had very nearly been caught
in flagrante delicto.
Her heart was racing, her cheeks hot, and she realized, belatedly and with dismay, that some of her lip rouge was smeared on Stewart's face. The major was smirking; he seemed to find it amusing that she was so flustered, and he took his own sweet time wiping the damning evidence from his impossibly handsome face.

"I told you to wait a moment," Leah snapped at Roman, infuriated.

Roman wore a seamless look of innocent surprise. "I's old and deaf, Miss Leah. Reckon I didn't hear right."

"Old and deaf and perfectly useless," said Leah spitefully.

The insult had no apparent effect on Roman. He pretended not to hear it, and put the tray on a table next to the bed where Stewart lay. "Here's your dinner, Major, suh. Bessie she say you gots to eat it all, or answer to her."

"Thank you, Roman. I will eat every bit of it, I promise. I'm famished."

"Yassuh. Will there be anything else?"

"Get out," muttered Leah.

"Yessum." Roman shuffled out of the room and closed the door very gently behind him.

"Oh!" exclaimed Leah, furious. "That insufferable old man."

Stewart was chuckling now.

"How dare you!" she cried. "Are you laughing at me? Do you realize they are spying on us?"

"Why do you care what they think?"

"It's what they tell John Henry when he returns that matters, you reckless fool."

"So suddenly you care what your husband thinks."

Her green eyes shot daggers of emerald ice at him. "I doubt even
he
would tolerate this kind of thing under his own roof."

"You're simply nursing me back to health. I find your kisses a miraculous curative." He reached out for her. "Come here and give me another."

She danced out of his reach with a sultry and coquettish smile touching ruby lips parted slightly to reveal just a glimmer of white teeth.

"No, I don't think I shall kiss you, sir, since you have laughed at me."

Stewart shrugged. "Well, then, I suppose I'll just have my dinner instead."

He took a cup of tea from the tray, but she struck it from his hand and threw herself on top of him and kissed him passionately—then bit his bottom lip so hard she drew blood. Stewart bucked her off with such a violent reaction that his leg wound gave him a shot of pain that robbed him of breath. Now Leah was the one laughing as he wiped blood from his mouth, and the sight of her, one of the most beautiful women he had even seen, lying there on the bed, made the anger in his eyes dwindle while the desire within him soared, and he crushed her body with his. This time her lips were pliant and willing. Leah closed her eyes and surrendered herself to him, her heart racing.

Suddenly Stewart rolled off her and, sitting on the edge of the bed, took a napkin from the tray and tucked it into the collar of his linen nightshirt. "I really am starving," he said, "and this smells delectable. Um, some of Bessie's famous stew. She really is quite a good cook, you know—"

"Oh, you!" Indignant, Leah jumped off the bed and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Stewart tried not to laugh so loud that she would hear him from the hallway, but he couldn't help it.

When Roman entered the kitchen, Bessie was kneading a mound of sourdough for biscuits. Flames licked at the blackened bottom of the Dutch oven hanging on an iron hook above the big fireplace, and it was warm in the room; perspiration beaded her moon-shaped face as she worked. She was humming an old spiritual tune
"Roll Jordan Roll,"
but when she saw the scowl on Roman's face she stopped short.

"Now what's got into you?" she wanted to know.

"Dat woman, she's a devil chile," declared Roman, shaking his head.

"You mean Miss Leah."

"It jis' ain't right, the way she be carryin' on."

"Hmph." Bessie planted a fist on each beefy hip and looked askance at Roman. "And jis' what you gwine do about it? I'll tell you. You ain't gwine do nuttin', you hear me?"

"It jis' ain't right."

"Who tole you ever'thing gwine be right in dis ole world?"

"Marse John he deserve better."

"Well, if he deserve better den he'll get better. Doan you think he know what kind of woman he married to? Sure he do. And he'll take care of things in his own way and in his own time. Now you jis' keep your mouth shut, ole man. Doan go stickin' your nose into business what ain't none of your concern." As she spoke, Roman was edging over to the Dutch oven, sniffing the air like an old hound dog, and Bessie added, "And keep your grimy fingers out my stew, else I'll knock you upside de head."

Jeb appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Rider comin'. It ain't Marse John, though." With that he was gone.

Jeb arrived at the front of the house just as the rider checked his horse at the gate in the hedge of Cherokee rose. The newcomer was a big, burly man wearing a leopardskin vest under his broadcloth coat. Steely gray eyes peered at Jeb from beneath a broad-brimmed planter's hat.

"I am Sam Houston," announced the rider. "Come to see Captain McAllen."

"He ain't here, suh. He gone after dem Comanches."

Houston nodded, sweeping his gaze across the house and the sugarcane fields below the bluff. "Yes, I heard you've had some trouble. Well, then, is there an Englishman here by the name of Stewart?"

"Yessuh, he's here. They took a Comanche arrow out of his leg a few days back."

Houston swung out of the saddle and handed the reins to Jeb. "I would have a few words with Major Stewart."

"I wish I could have brought my wife along," said Houston. "She would have liked to have made your acquaintance, Major."

They sat in the downstairs parlor, Houston in a chair facing Stewart and Leah McAllen, who were seated at opposite ends of a mohair sofa. Stewart had managed to dress for the occasion—he wore the uniform of an officer in the Royal Scots Fusiliers—but the effort to do so had worsened his already weak condition. Houston had sent Bessie upstairs with word that he would not mind at all if Stewart chose to stay in bed during their meeting, but the major would have none of that. "I have come halfway around the world to meet General Houston," he explained to Leah, "and I shall accord him the honor he merits by presenting myself to him in a condition befitting the occasion."

"I regret missing the opportunity to meet Mrs. Houston," replied Stewart gallantly. "I am the poorer for it. And what of my good friend Dr. Smith?"

"He wanted to come with me, but I persuaded him to remain in Galveston to look after my Margaret. I did not bring her, on account of the Comanche trouble."

Stewart indicated his leg. "I've had a taste of that brand of trouble, General. They are quite extraordinary fighters, aren't they?"

"Which is a lesson Lamar will learn," rasped Houston. "But at what cost? How many Texans must die before he learns it?"

Roman brought them their drinks—a sangaree for Stewart, a mint julep for Leah, and an orange bitters for Houston. Houston accepted the glass with a sigh. Now more than ever, with the frontier aflame and a rigorous political contest ahead of him, he felt the need for a good stiff drink. But he would not break his word to Margaret. Sam Houston never went back on a promise.

"I have," he said with a rueful smile, "taken the pledge, as they say in the temperance leagues."

"Mebbe the gen'ral like a seegar," suggested Roman.

"Indeed I would, Roman! One of John Henry's fine Cuban smokes. I have not, thank God, forsworn the weed per humo, as they say."

As Houston was lighting his Dosamygos, Stewart gazed speculatively at the hero of San Jacinto. "Captain McAllen has informed me you intend to challenge Lamar for the presidency. Since your victory is assured, perhaps you will be able to make peace with the aborigines."

"I doubt that. They're madder than hornets now. And my victory is by no means assured, sir. The campaign will be hard fought."