The Preacher's Bride (Brides of Simpson Creek) (9 page)

He moved around the base of the rock outcropping, dodging clumps of prickly pear and juniper, his ears straining for any sound.

And then he spotted the brown-and-white pinto, more of a pony than a horse, standing in front of a cedar brake. Its head was raised and nostrils flared as it watched Gil approach. Was it wild? No, it had a primitive sort of bridle with a feather dangling from the bottom of the nose piece.
An Indian pony.

Gil froze. Had the groan been uttered by an injured Comanche? Or worse, one who lay in wait, planning to lure him closer in hope of taking his scalp? All the stories he’d ever heard of Comanche atrocities flooded his brain. He had no weapon, not even so much as a pocketknife. Perhaps if he backed up now, he could reach his horse before the unseen savage jumped him. Was the Indian even now poised to spring out at him or onto him from the rocks above?

Lord, save me!

There were plenty of loose rocks on the ground. Perhaps he could hurl one at the red man, disabling his attacker long enough so Gil could reach his own mount and escape.

Then he heard the groan again. This time it was less muffled, as if the person groaning could no longer fully stifle it.

And it didn’t sound like a man’s cry—it sounded
younger.
And full of real pain.

If someone was injured, he had a duty to try to help.

Inching warily forward, listening for any hint of movement, Gil peered into the shadowy midst of the cedar brake, and spotted an Indian boy lying on his back, dressed in buckskin leggings, breechclout and moccasins.

At the sight of Gil, the boy yelped in fear, and in a motion too quick for Gil’s eyes to follow, yanked a knife from his belt and threw it at Gil.

The hastily thrown knife went wide to Gil’s left, and clattered against a rock, and Gil picked it up to prevent the boy from using it on him again. But it seemed the movement had cost the young Indian, for he clenched his teeth over a moan and seized his lower leg with both hands. He kept his eyes open and trained on Gil, obviously fearing attack.

He
was
injured. Gil could see now that the leg was bent at an unnatural angle. Now that he was closer, Gil spotted a scraped cheek and hand, and a forehead beaded with sweat. Had he fallen from his horse? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Gil had to help him. But first he had to convince the boy, who was perhaps eight, that he meant him no harm. The boy’s eyes remained wide, his hands curled into fists. He was ready to fight to the death.

“Easy, boy, I mean you no harm,” Gil said. He threw the knife some distance away, then held both hands palm up. Would the Indian understand the gesture, or even if he did, would he believe Gil’s sincerity?

The boy’s eyes remained glowing black coals in the shade of the trees. He remained poised to defend himself, even though the tense way he held himself obviously cost him more pain.

How was he going to convince the boy he only wanted to help? The boy didn’t understand English, and he sure didn’t know any Comanche, nor even the sign language some men who’d dealt with Indians knew.

Lord, if You’d like to give me the gift of tongues right now, I’d appreciate it. Just one tongue—Comanche—that’s all I really need.

He opened his mouth, but no Comanche words poured forth.

Did the young Comanche know about the symbol of the Cross? Gil pulled on the silver chain beneath his shirt. His mother had given him that necklace years ago, and he had never stopped wearing it. He held out the Cross pendant, showing it to the boy. The little Indian’s face remained suspicious.

Gil pointed to himself, then placed his hands together and bowed his head in an attitude of prayer.

Something flickered in the boy’s eyes, but Gil could not be sure it betokened understanding.

Silence stretched between them. This wasn’t getting anywhere. He could ride off, and hope the boy was found by his people. But the Indian was obviously in pain despite his attempts to put on a brave front, and what if his people didn’t find him before some predator did? Coyotes roamed these hills, and worse, cougars.

Gil sighed. He could not abandon the boy, even if it meant fighting him to help him.

He looked around and saw no one. Yet the gesture he was about to make would make him even more vulnerable should there be any Indians hiding amidst the rocks, brush and mesquite.

Lord, protect me and help the boy understand,
he prayed inwardly, and knelt on the ground, bowing his head and closing his eyes. With one hand he held up the Cross.

After an endless minute, he opened his eyes.

Gil couldn’t tell for sure if the boy looked less on his guard, but maybe...

Perhaps introductions would help. “Gil,” he said, pointing to himself.

“G-Geel,”
the boy mimicked. He turned his index finger toward himself and spoke, but the Comanche words were unintelligible to Gil.

“I’ll just call you Tad,” Gil said, making himself smile.
“Tad,”
he repeated, pointing at the boy.

The Indian boy wrinkled his nose, then shrugged. Apparently what the white man chose to call him didn’t matter.

Turning his back and praying the boy didn’t have a hidden tomahawk to throw, he walked slowly toward the Indian pony, who pricked his ears, but watched him come without alarm.

He took hold of the rawhide-thong bride and began to lead the pony forward. The boy let loose a spate of Comanche words. He pointed repeatedly to the pony, his eyes showing a different sort of distress.

Gil halted, looked back at the beast but couldn’t understand. Watching the pony this time, he led him forward a few paces, and then he saw that the pony was favoring his off front leg. Every time the pony put weight on it, his head bobbed downward.

The pony was lame. Had he put his foreleg in a hole, causing the boy’s fall? It was clear that he couldn’t bear the boy’s weight. Gil would have to put the boy up on his bay and ride behind him, letting the pony follow if he was able. Gil let go of the pinto’s bridle, then led his own horse forward.

If only he had something flat to make a splint to stabilize the leg, but he didn’t. There wasn’t even a branch on any of the short, shrubby trees big enough for his purposes. He would have to pray the boy wouldn’t pass out from the pain that moving his broken leg would cause. He prayed the bone wasn’t protruding through the skin—he hadn’t wanted to alarm the boy by cutting open the leggings to see.

He held out his arms, miming that he was going to lift the Comanche boy up onto the horse.

The boy nodded.

Gil steeled himself, then scooped his hands up under the boy, wincing inside as the boy gasped in pain. His shiny long black hair smelled of something pungent—hadn’t Gil heard Indians used bear grease on their hair? As he lifted the boy closer to his bay, the horse snorted and stamped, his nostrils flaring at the scary scent. Gil prayed he wouldn’t bolt, but his hands were full, so he couldn’t grab the reins.

“
Steady,
fellow,” Gil soothed. “The boy isn’t part bear, he just smells like one.”

The gelding stood obediently, although he rolled his eyes to indicate his displeasure.

As soon as Gil deposited the boy onto the saddle, Gil grabbed hold of the reins. Even though the little Comanche had his teeth clamped on his underlip to keep from crying out, Gil didn’t trust him not to try to run off with his horse. The Comanches were horse thieves par excellence after all.

After picking up his Bible and stowing it in the saddle bag, Gil mounted behind “Tad.” Then he wondered what he was going to do with the boy. His first instinct had been to return to town, but now he realized the impracticality of that. As kind as most of the townspeople were, how would they feel about the presence of a despised Indian in their midst? He didn’t doubt that Nolan Walker would be willing to doctor him, but what if Tad himself thought he was a captive, and fought to free himself, possibly worsening his injuries, or hurting someone else during an attempt to escape? Or the boy’s tribe might come looking for him. Gil couldn’t bring danger down on the Walker family. The boy’s tribe might misinterpret the situation and take their wrath out on Walker and his family—even the whole town.

No, he had to return the boy to his tribe. Somewhere in these hills, the boy’s family might even now be starting to worry about him. Gil pictured a mother fretting as the day faded into evening. Gil knew the right thing to do, but would he survive the attempt?

“Lord, protect me,” he prayed aloud.

Tad swiveled in the saddle and eyed him quizzically.

“Just asking the Lord’s blessing on my attempt to help you, Tad,” he said, as if the boy could understand him. “Now, you’re going to have to tell me where to take you.” Gil pointed to the hills in all directions, then looked questioningly at the boy.

As he had hoped, the boy understood perfectly. He uttered something in his guttural tongue and pointed northwest.

Chapter Nine

G
il and the Indian boy wound through the hills for the next half hour across meandering, nearly dried-up creeks, around limestone outcroppings and thickets of scrub and cactus. There was no trail—Tad seemed to use some inner compass to navigate.
I’m never going to find my way home,
Gil thought,
if I’m even allowed to leave.

The pinto had tried to follow them, but finally stopped and nickered plaintively as Gil’s bay continued picking his way between the rocks and cactus. Tad called something back to his mount. Was he telling him to make his way back to camp when he was able? Gil was sure the jolting ride had to be painful to the boy as well, but he never uttered so much as a whimper.

Then suddenly the gelding stopped stock-still and snorted. A heartbeat later Gil knew why, as three mounted Comanche warriors materialized from behind a rock outcropping.

Ice encased Gil’s backbone as the full force of their obsidian glares pierced him. In front of him, Tad called out in excited Comanche, pointing to his injured leg. Gil could only pray the boy was telling the braves the true story of how he came to be sitting with the white man on his horse.

If he did, it wasn’t evident from the way the murderous-looking savages jumped off their horses and ran to Gil and Tad. One warrior lifted Tad carefully from the saddle, then the other two lost no time in yanking Gil off his mount and onto the rock-strewn ground.

The Indians fell on him, fists flying, feet kicking.
Lord, help me!
he prayed, and then everything went black.

Sometime later, Gil was shaken roughly awake. He was still struggling to focus on their fierce faces when they hauled him to his feet.

There was pain in every bone of his body. His arms were bound tightly in front of him, the bindings linked to a rope held by one of the Indians. His feet were bare, his shoes having been appropriated by one of the warriors. The sight of the Indian wearing his shoes below long, bare legs would have been comical if Gil had dared to laugh.

He spotted his spectacles, amazingly unbroken, lying on the ground. Just then one of the Comanches saw them too and scooped them up. He perched them over his hawklike nose. Squinting through the lenses, he made faces that would have been comical to Gil if the situation had been different, but the others pointed and guffawed as if they found the sight hilarious.

Tad called out something, and the brave wearing his spectacles walked over to Gil and roughly shoved them into Gil’s pocket while his companions mounted. Apparently not wanting the white man to get the idea all would be well because of this favor, however, he slapped Gil on the side of his head.

The blow stung, but Gil was so intent on keeping his balance that he hardly noticed the pain. Then the Indian whooped and vaulted onto a paint horse who looked like a full-grown version of Tad’s pony.

I am with you always.

The words helped Gil temporarily stifle his fear. He searched for Tad, finding the Indian boy astride the bay and munching on Gil’s sandwich. Gil thought he saw a hint of apology in Tad’s eyes before the boy turned his face away.

So he would be walking while his captors rode, Gil thought grimly—
if they didn’t get tired of his slow pace and drag him wherever they were headed.
He realized it was likely that before the next sunrise, his scalp would decorate one of these braves’ lances, and his father and all the rest of the townspeople might never know what happened to him. Some would probably say he’d gotten tired of preaching and caring for his helpless old father and decided to light out for a fresh start far from Simpson Creek.

Would Faith think that, too?

Oh, Faith, I’m so sorry we never got to be together,
he thought, regret stabbing his heart.
Please, Lord, help her believe again, in spite of my disappearance.

* * *

Gil could not have said how long it took them to reach the Indian camp, for he was forced to run to keep up with the horses’ trotting. Doggedly he placed one foot in front of the other and tried to ignoring the lacerating pain of his bare soles running over rocks. Once the Indian holding his rope tried to run him into a clump of prickly pear cactus, but he saw it in time to leap over it.

His agility evidently earned him a measure of respect, for the Indians slowed their mounts to a walk. But their action only gave Gil more time to feel how much his abraded feet hurt.

It was probably just a taste of what he would experience before he died, Gil thought. He wished he’d obeyed his first instinct to take the injured boy into town to Dr. Walker’s instead of trying to take him home to his people.

No white man looking for the little encampment could have easily found it, nestled as it was in a deep arroyo.

A glad cry went up from the cluster of tepees as one of the inhabitants spotted the riders. In return the braves uttered shrill cries and brandished their lances, pointing at their captive. They broke into a trot again, forcing Gil to stumble after them, nearly blinded by the sweat pouring into his eyes.

Lord, be near me, whatever happens.

The horse whose rider held Gil’s rope stopped so suddenly that Gil could not halt his forward momentum and crashed ignominiously into the dust. He heard the warriors whooping and dancing their horses around him, shrieking things in their incomprehensible tongue that probably didn’t bode well for him. It probably counted as quite a show in the Comanche culture, though. Gil, from his position nose-down in the dust, saw Comanche women inching forward on moccasined feet.

The presence of females didn’t make him feel any less doomed—it was known on the frontier that Comanche females tortured even more cruelly than their male counterparts. The women pointed at Gil and called back to the mounted braves.

In the midst of all the clamor, Tad was once more lifted gently down from the bay. Gil saw an expression of distress twist the boy’s face as the warrior began to carry him away; he pointed at Gil and let loose a flood of protest, pulling on the man’s braid, but the latter ignored him. Then Gil was dragged toward an upright post, and he forgot all about the Indian boy as he was punched, elbowed and jabbed while a pair of the savages bound him securely.

Lord, this would be a good time to send some help...

* * *

A timid knock summoned Faith to the door just as she and her parents were about to go to bed. She found Maude standing on the front step, looking anxious and fearful in the light spilling from the doorway.

“Maude, what on earth? What’s happened?” she demanded, hearing her father and mother come back down the hallway to stand behind her.

“Gil hasn’t come home, Faith,” the other woman said, plucking at the neckline of her dress. “He rode out about noon, saying he was going to work on his sermon in the hills...” She gulped air, then went on. “At first I assumed he’d decided to pay a call or two afterward and got invited to supper, but finally I commenced t’ getting worried. I’ve tried not to let on to his father I was alarmed, and waited till he fell asleep to come tell you, but—oh, Faith, what if something’s happened to Reverend Gil out there?”

Faith felt fear closing icy fingers around her throat.

Her father, who’d come to stand behind her, said, “Maude, he probably stopped for a drink of water at some ranch house and some lonely ranch family wouldn’t take no for an answer about his staying for supper.” His voice was encouraging. “Or maybe his horse went lame and he had to stop somewhere for the night to rest his mount.”

“I imagine it’s something like that,” her mother put in.

Faith tried to look convinced for the sake of the frightened spinster in front of her. “You look tired, Maude. Go on home and I’ll take over at the parsonage till Gil comes home.”

Maude hesitated, but her shoulders sagged with weariness. “All right, but only if you’ll tell me the moment you hear something.”

Faith agreed and sent Maude on her way, then threw her shawl around her shoulders. “Something must have happened,” she said to her parents. “I don’t think Gil would linger at anyone’s ranch, not with his father in the condition he is.”

Her father sighed. “Maybe not, but it’s full dark and there’s only a sliver of a moon in the sky. It’s not like we can send a search party out till morning.”

Faith sighed, knowing he was right. “I’ll come home as soon as I can,” she told her parents, as she accepted the lantern her father handed her.

* * *

To Gil’s surprise, the Indians left him tied upright to the post as they went about their business. Half-naked children stared at him curiously from a safe distance, pointing and whispering. Some eventually became emboldened enough to run up and pinch him, then run back to their playmates, laughing.

Nearby, squaws tended cooking pots. Savory aromas wafted toward Gil, tormenting him, but he was offered no food or water.

As the sun left its zenith in the sky, its rays found their scorching way to Gil’s face. Salty sweat stung his cuts and abrasions. Did they mean to leave him here until he died or were they postponing the torture till later? The presence of a nearby stack of brush was not reassuring.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.
He’d learned the verse in his childhood, and now it encircled his heart. Incredibly, he dozed, exhausted by pain and apprehension, until the pain of his rawhide bindings cutting into his arms woke him.

Or was it the sound of horses trotting into the arroyo that had awakened him? As he opened bleary eyes, he attempted to focus on two Indians on horses pulling up in front of him. A pair of mangy-looking dogs barked at the new arrivals until they were hushed by a sharp command from a squaw.

The two men were older than the braves who had brought Gil here, and obviously important men, for one of the braves came at a run, his head bowed at a respectful angle. He called out something as he came.

Both men looked displeased at the younger man’s words. The one closest to Gil gestured at him and peppered the brave with what sounded like questions. The other man leaped from his horse and disappeared among the cluster of tepees. Could this be Tad’s father, going to see to the welfare of his injured son?

The man who remained looked stern, and snapped some command at the young brave.

The young brave pointed at Gil, looking indignant, and replied with spirit, but there was a certain element of respect in his tone, as well. Perhaps the mounted man was the chief?

The older man snapped something at him. Glaring at Gil, the brave approached, clutching a knife in one hand.

Did he just tell the brave to slit my throat?
Gil wondered, and hoped his death would be quick, if so. He closed his eyes.
Lord, watch over Faith. And Papa.

The young Indian didn’t go for his throat, however, but bent behind the post to slice Gil’s bonds.

His sudden freedom, coupled with exhaustion, sent Gil reeling toward the older Indian. Before he could commit such a trespass, though, he was yanked none-too-gently upright by the younger Indian.

The older man uttered another command, and the brave’s hands gentled as he transferred Gil to him. Amazingly, Gil felt himself being encouraged to lean on the older Comanche as they walked between tepees until finally they stopped at one of them. He lifted up a flap in the tanned hide and gestured for Gil to go inside. Gil did as he was bid, but the other man did not follow him.

As soon as his eyes adjusted to the murky light within, he spotted Tad sitting on a pile of buffalo skins, being tended by the older Indian who had jumped from his horse. Gil saw that he had splinted Tad’s leg with some flat pieces of stiff leather and was now tying the final knot to hold the splints in place.

Tad called some sort of greeting to him, then turned back to the man, gesturing first to Gil and then to the man whom Gil was becoming sure was the boy’s father. Was he performing an introduction? Gil wasn’t sure of that, but he figured he should not sit without being invited to do so, so he concentrated on keeping his balance as waves of dizziness washed over him.

Finally the Indian turned to Gil. “Sit, white man,” he said.

Gil felt his jaw drop in astonishment at hearing English from the Comanche, but the other man made no move to explain. He made a clumsy job of lowering himself to the earthen floor, but the other man appeared not to notice as he called something in a voice designed to carry outside the tepee.

The Comanche turned back to him. “I am Makes Healing,” the Comanche said. “I am the medicine man. I am grateful to you for trying to bring my son home. His name in your tongue would be Runs Like a Deer. Thanks to you that will still be true, after some moons have passed.”

“I am Gil Chadwick,” Gil said, following the other man’s lead by giving his name first. “I was happy to help your son.”

Makes Healing considered Gil’s words, his black eyes unreadable. Then he said, “You took a great risk to help my son. You have not been rewarded for your kindness by our young warriors.”

Gil nodded, resisting the urge to complain about it.

His restraint seemed to please the man, for he smiled faintly. “You will be better treated now. We will give you food and drink.”

As if to prove the truth of what he said, a squaw entered the tepee then, carrying a crude wooden bowl full of chunks of meat that Gil had smelled cooking earlier. She set it before Gil, along with a hollowed gourd full of water.

“Eat. Drink,” Makes Healing told him.

Gil lost no time in seizing the gourd and relieving the parched dryness of his throat. “Thank you,” he said, before dipping into the stew with his fingers. He guessed the meat was buffalo, and it was seasoned with some unfamiliar flavoring, but the roasted chunks of meat were actually quite tasty.

How soon did he dare ask to leave? From the light coming through the smoke hole at the top of the tepee, it was dusk. His father and Maude Harkey must be getting worried at the very least. Would Maude notify Faith? Then she’d be worried, too.