The Texans (6 page)

“Maybe he knows the difference between Comanches and Wichitas.”

“I guess you're going to tell me next that he can talk.”

“He just ain't learned yet.”

The Prussian sheathed his saber and sat up a little straighter where he could see past Odell to the edge of the village and the prairie beyond. “By
Gott
, Herr Odell, that's what I love about this Texas. There's nothing wrong with a country where men brag most on their horses and guns.”

* * *

T
he Wichitas were leaving camp in a long, shambling line. The buffalo were returning south in numbers, and the Wichita grass houses were being exchanged for hide tepees carried on travois behind their ponies. The crops were harvested and put away, and the whole village laughed and shouted, excited to be leaving for the fall hunt.

Odell checked his gear one last time and hung his Bishop rifle from the horn of the saddle he'd traded one of the Wichitas out of. None of the tribe rode saddles except for a few of the squaws riding Indian-made, high-backed wooden rigs that looked more like packsaddle trees. He was afraid to ask where they had gotten a Texas-style rig, but he was glad to have it. His water bag was full and Crow was ready to travel, but he didn't mount yet. The Prussian had already climbed on his Kentucky horse and was watching the village leave. Odell wasn't especially fond of the man, but he still found it hard to part with him.

“You'd best be careful going home. That leg of yours ain't right yet,” Odell said with his back to the Prussian.

“I think I'll be all right. I haven't forgotten the way back.”

“Well, you'd better travel by night. A man alone is easy pickings for any Indian laying for him.” Odell swung into his saddle. He felt a little foolish giving the Prussian advice for traveling through hostile country. The truth was, he pitied any savage that had the misfortune to tie into that mean-ass foreigner.

The Prussian rode up alongside him and looked long into his face. “Herr Odell, you are the one who should be careful. Many a man has found his grave out here, with nobody the wiser or even to know where his body rots.”

Odell lifted his rifle and laid it across his thighs. “I'll be back home come winter, or maybe spring. Don't you forget that, and you be sure and tell Red Wing just what I said.”

The Prussian gave him a thin smile. “I think you'll die out here and I'll have Red Wing all to myself.”

“Don't get your hopes up too high, 'cause I'll be back on Massacre Creek before planting time.”

“So long, Herr Odell.” The Prussian turned his horse and started southeast.

Odell watched him for a long time, but the Prussian didn't look back. When the man was out of sight, he kicked Crow forward after the Wichitas. What might have well been the only white man for hundreds of miles wasn't gone for more than a few minutes, and Odell already felt lonely. He thought about just what a predicament he was putting himself into and wished he could have talked the Prussian into going with him. That sword would come in handy if he caught up with those Comanches.

He loped along in the dusty wake of the village on the move and studied the western horizon with a little bit of dread and an equal measure of hunger to see what lay out there. For all he knew he might already be as good as dead, but he couldn't bring himself to quit, no matter what was ahead of him. The stubborn streak that ran down the center of him wanted vengeance, but his heart wanted to turn around and race Crow back to the girl he'd left behind. He kept telling himself that she would be waiting for him when he finally made it home. He owed his Pappy a little more effort, and the hurt in him needed more miles to spend itself. Odell should have paid heed to his own advice and reminded himself that life never tolerates too much planning, especially in a place called Texas.

Chapter 8

T
he breeze through the open window shutters was cool but not uncomfortable. The winter had been a long, cold one, but spring was finally at hand. Honeybees buzzed among the tiny wildflower blooms, the trees were budding and bursting, and the pollen dust danced thickly in the sunlight before the window. It seemed as if the whole world had decided to turn green at the same moment, and it was enough to make the birds sing.

Red Wing sat at her piano and tried to focus her attention away from the open window and on her music. The complexity and richness of the sounds possible from the instrument never ceased to amaze her, and she thought it the greatest gift her mother had ever given her. There seemed to be notes and melodies for whatever moods or emotions might possess her, and her nimble fingers and natural talent involuntarily pulled songs from the piano as magically as mist rising from the ground on a foggy morning. At such times her eyes became blind to the sheet music before her, and she was lost in the ringing lift of music that poured from somewhere within her. There had been no such music in her life among the Comanche camps. She had been only a child in that former life that became more vague by the year, but what little she could remember had been harsh and without music.

But her heart was not in the music on that beautiful spring morning. The notes she played sounded flat and off-key to her, no matter how hard she tried, and she couldn't seem to shake the melancholy from her soul. She shivered beneath her shawl despite the sunny morning. It was as if the winter wouldn't leave her bones. It was going to take a lot of time and sunshine to warm her again.

Her fingers paused over the piano keys as she spotted the travelers coming along the creek. She rose from her stool and walked out the front door to stand with her mother at the edge of the porch. She placed an arm around the shorter woman's waist and pulled her to her side. Her mother leaned into her and sighed but kept her gaze on the party of men riding to the house. Red Wing studied the parched, hollow cheeks and the deep lines etched at the corners of Mrs. Ida's dry blue eyes. It was plain to all that she had once been a lovely woman, but time and the sun had not been kind to her and she looked far older than she really was. The news of her husband's death that the Prussian had brought home the previous fall seemed to have aged her ten more years in the span of the winter.

Bud, Red Wing's oldest brother, had spotted the riders, and had left his plow mule in the field he was working to come to the house. Mike, the youngest Wilson boy, followed closely on his heels, his bare feet padding through the fresh-turned furrows of earth. When they reached the porch, Red Wing handed Bud his rifle, and he turned to wait the riders' arrival with a cautious look upon his face.

Red Wing felt a little sick to her stomach for no good reason at the sight of the nine riders, and it wasn't even the fact that most of them were Indians. She knew more about Indians than most of her family, and at a glance she recognized three of them for tame Delawares dressed in white men's clothes, and another for a Waco by the cut of his buckskins. A small sliver of her was still Comanche, and she had no fear of them. Her ancestors had outfought and out-traded them for better than a century. Three others in the party were white strangers to her, but it was Colonel Moore and the wild Indian beside him that caused her fear. She knew them both, and instinctively, she felt something awful about to descend upon her, just like she did when the clouds turned black and thunder sounded in the distance. Those two men had done her a favor once, but their arrival still felt like a bad omen.

“Hello, Mrs. Ida,” the tall man in the lead said through his long whiskers. His horse was white as his beard and he pulled him to a stop just in front of where Bud stood off the edge of the porch.

“Hello, Colonel.” Mrs. Ida's voice sounded as scared as Red Wing's pounding heart.

“I heard the bad news in Austin, and I'm sorry about your man. He was a good'un,” Colonel Moore said.

“Yes, he was.” Mrs. Ida's eyes darted back and forth between the colonel and the Indian beside him. “What brings you and that Indian to these parts?”

Red Wing knew the warrior at Colonel Moore's side by more than name, as did many in the Republic of Texas. He was Hashukana, Can't Kill Him, to the red man, and the whites knew him simply as Placido. He was a Tonkawa warrior chief of great renown, and many a Texan fighter's right-hand man in scraps with the Comanche. Placido had fought with the likes of Old Paint Caldwell and Colonel Burleson. Most Texas Indians ran to the short side, but Placido was taller than almost anybody Red Wing knew, except for Odell. The thought of her sweetheart made her even sadder.

Red Wing had to make herself stand her ground when all that she really wanted to do was to flee back inside the house. The sight of Placido made her hackles rise for no good reason, other than somewhere in her childhood she had been trained to hate the Tonkawas. Despite the fact that it had been the colonel and Placido who had cared for her so tenderly while bringing her to her new home years earlier, she couldn't help the revolt she felt at the sight of an ancient Comanche enemy—wolf people and man-eaters, never to be trusted.

“Hi, Bird Woman,” Placido grunted and grinned at Red Wing's mother.

“Hi yourself,” Mrs. Ida said with no love in her voice.

While a woman who constantly complained about the uncivilized nature of the frontier, Mrs. Ida Wilson was a salty sort herself, despite all the ladylike manners she preached to Red Wing. She could quote Shakespeare lines and John Locke's philosophy from memory, spit Bible verses out as if she had written the book herself, and tell you the thousand and one things a proper lady should or shouldn't do with effortless abandon. She knew how to hold a teacup properly and was proud of her genteel upbringing in South Carolina, but the frontier had long since affected her in ways she would never recognize nor admit. She had become a settler's woman over the years, and her tongue was as sharp as a skinning knife. The friendly Indians had aptly come to call her Bird Woman for her talkative ways and scolding chatter.

“Who else have you got with you?” Mrs. Ida asked Colonel Moore.

Colonel Moore ignored the other Indians who had dismounted behind him and were tying their horses to the corral fence. He motioned the three white men with him forward. “These men with me are here on Sam Houston's orders. He's given them a mission that he thinks is important.”

“That's not much of a recommendation, even if Sam was sober.”

The colonel let that remark slide, although he was fond of the young republic's president. Old Sam was the hero of the Battle of San Jacinto and a hell of a Mexican fighter, but when in his cups he could be a little unpredictable about making governmental decisions. He had everybody west of the Brazos mad over his moving the government from Austin to Houston. The republic was flat broke and besieged on all sides by Mexican armies and hostile Indians, and there was a lot of talk going around about Texas giving up its independence and joining the United States. Drunk or sober, Sam Houston had his own plans about seeing Texas through difficult times, and he didn't necessarily care who he made mad implementing his wily schemes.

“He was sober as Sunday the last time I saw him,” Colonel Moore said.

“Hello, Mrs. Wilson. May I introduce myself?” The youngest of the three white strangers doffed his straw planter's hat in a sweeping wave. The rows of polished brass buttons on his blue military jacket shone in the sun like crystal.

Mrs. Ida grunted and huffed, but was obviously pleased with the pompous show of chivalry and grand manners. “That's a silly thing to ask.”

“I'm Will Anderson, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.” He put his hat back on his head, straightened his jacket, and touched up one corner of his well-groomed mustache. He was young and obviously very considerate of his appearance.

“That must keep you awful busy. I guess these other two fellows are colonels or commissioners too?” Mrs. Ida pointed to the men lingering slightly behind and to the right of Anderson. She had lived long enough in Texas, and the South in general, not to be surprised at so many titles.

“No, ma'am, I'm just plain Tom Torrey, Indian Agent.” A small man in thick-lensed, wire-rimmed glasses and a stovepipe hat held up one nervous hand to them as manner of identifying himself. He had a bookish look about him and appeared out of place and worried to be sitting on a horse, as if he feared he might fall off at any moment.

“What about you?” Mrs. Wilson focused on the fourth man.

“H. P. Jones, at your service.” He too doffed his hat, but not in such a dramatic a manner as had Colonel Anderson. He was a stout, portly man with a thin goatee and mustache below his round, flushed cheeks. He wore a buckskin jacket with military patches sewn onto the shoulders and a red sash girthed his waist and held in his prominent belly.

“I guess you're a general and are running this errand Sam has you all on?”

“No, he's just a militia captain and along for the show,” Colonel Moore said. Red Wing thought he seemed awfully impatient with all the small talk.

“Well, Sam must really have you doing something he thinks is important to have sent so many of you on this journey,” Mrs. Ida said.

“President Houston considers their mission very important,” Colonel Moore said.

“What about you? Are you bossing this deal?”

“No, I was just to guide them here, and then I'll go back home.” When he received no answer from her, he frowned and rubbed painfully at his lower back as if he'd been in the saddle for a long time. “Mind if we get down and have a talk with you?”

“I thought talking is what we'd been doing.”

“We've important matters to discuss with you, and a cool sip of water and a chair would be welcome,” Commissioner Anderson said.

“Well, get down, but I don't know how I'm going to keep all of you straight in my head. The man in the funny hat I can remember, but there's too many of you other important types.”

“Never mind me. I need to go talk to our guides and interpreters.” H. P. Jones seemed glad to have a reason to excuse himself. He rode over to where the Delawares and the Waco squatted in the shade of a live oak beside the corral.

Colonel Moore, the commissioner, and the man in the stovepipe hat dismounted and came up on the porch. Mrs. Ida took a seat in a wicker-bottomed chair and offered the remaining two to her visitors. Anderson and Moore took the chairs and the man in the glasses and tall hat sat on the edge of the porch. Placido stayed on his horse, his face bland and as inscrutable as ice. Red Wing was sure that if he smiled his face would break into pieces. He seemed oblivious to their conversation, but she thought she detected a slight twinkle in his eyes when he glanced at her.

She turned away from him and stood behind her mother with both her hands on the back of the chair. She realized that the newcomers were all looking at her, and the look on Colonel Moore's face made her even more uncomfortable than the Tonkawa had. She fought down the urge to run once more.

“Why, Red Wing, I had no idea just how much you've grown and how beautiful you've become,” Colonel Moore said.

Red Winged tried to smile. “Thank you.”

“Quite beautiful,” Commissioner Anderson muttered like the observation bothered him.

“Just what have you come for? From the sound of it, I'd say it has to do with Injuns,” Bud Wilson said as he leaned up against a porch post with his rifle cradled in the bend of his elbow.

Colonel Moore looked down at the oak boards beneath his feet for a moment and then passed a look to Commissioner Anderson. He rose and walked over to the water barrel at the end of the porch and took up the dipper there. He stood quietly with his back to them and the dipper dripping and poised halfway to his mouth.

Commissioner Anderson cleared his throat and looked uncomfortably at Red Wing before saying to Mrs. Ida, “I'd think it best if we spoke in private.”

“Commissioner . . .” Mrs. Ida started.

“Call me Will. It will save you some confusion with so many men of rank present.”

“What have you to say that my daughter should not hear? I assure you that she's no wilting lily and is quite levelheaded and capable of listening to men's talk without fainting or becoming confused by any complex revelations you seem to feel you possess,” she snapped.

Commissioner Anderson winced. “I assure you that isn't the case. Perhaps you should hear me out and then maybe you can relate what I have to say to her yourself.”

Mrs. Ida locked eyes with him for a long moment in a test of wills and then turned to Red Wing. “Go for a walk, girl, and let me hear this silly man out.”

Red Wing started to protest, but the fear and premonition that was steadily growing in her took the out that was offered. She passed a glance to Bud, and he gave her a slight nod as if to say that he would listen for her. She gathered her skirt and left the porch with her chin a little higher than normal. She wasn't about to let them see her concern, and she was glad the folds of her dress hid her shaking hands as she walked away.