Bonds, Parris Afton (7 page)

"Son of a bitch!"

Anne sat up in bed. There it was again. The cursing,
now mingled with other voices. On bare feet Anne padded across the dirt-packed
floor. She had not slept at all, waiting tensely for dawn. But as she
cautiously drew back the bar and opened the door, she realized it was still a
good hour and a half before daylight.

Figures stumbled about in the dark, and Anne
recognized the tallest as belonging to Sam Houston. "Damn it to
hell!" he swore, turning back from the river bank. "Trust those two
Tonks to get themselves plastered!"

Another figure, hurriedly buttoning his breeches,
joined that of Houston's, and Anne recognized Colin. Both men were shirtless.
She blushed but could not refrain from calling out softly as the two passed near.
"What has happened, Mr. President?" Clad only in her high-necked
gown, she carefully kept all but her head hidden behind the door.

"Beg your pardon, madam," Houston said.
"I didn't realize my profanity was loud enough to disturb you."

Anne heard the humor in his voice, but her gaze went
past him to Colin. "That's all right, I was awake anyway."

"It seems our two Tonkawa guards―ah, fell
asleep on the job. And a panther scared the pack mules in all directions."

Anne shivered. A panther coming this close to the
settlement? "Is everything all right now?" she asked, when what she
really wanted to do was run to the safety of Colin's arms.

"Powers's recovered all the pack mules, Mrs.
Maren. But most of Donvan's baggage is missing―probably dumped in the
river somewhere." He turned to the Irishman. "I suppose this will
delay our trip, Donovan?"

Colin's fist slammed into his left palm. "All
my notes―correspondence―every bloody item gone!" She felt,
more than saw, Colin's glance fall on her, as if he realized that was not all
that was gone. The opportunity to take her with him was lost as well.

Colin, with Houston and Brant and the group's retinue,
departed that same day for the Texas capital, Houston's namesake. Colin wore
borrowed clothes, ill-fitting nut-brown homespuns that made Anne's heart go out
to him. Yet he had seemed unaffected by having to wear the shabby garments. She
knew that he was more distressed by the work that lay ahead of him. He would
have to return to Houston and there try to rewrite the missing documents. That
in itself would be a consuming task.

Yet his concern had been for her those few brief
moments they were alone that morning in her cabin. When she had held out to him
a woolen shirt of Otto's he had caught her hands, caring nothing that someone
might see them from the open door. His eyes, greener than the Irish
countryside, held hers. "What I find unbearable," he whispered in
that soft, magical brogue of his, "is that I must leave you alone with
that moralistic husband of yours. All else I can face ...but not that!"

"Don't, Colin. Don't say these things. It makes
it more difficult for me to stay here and watch you go. Better you had never
come. At least I would never have known what I missed."

His hands tightened on hers, hurting her. "I'll
find some way to take you away from here, I swear. I did not have a chance to
talk with Houston, but I've other contacts here. As God is my witness, Anne,
I'll leave no stone unturned until I have you at my side. Be patient,
darling."

But patience was not one of Anne's virtues. The days
crawled by agonizingly slowly, and were unbearably boring. She longed for even
the smallest distractions―Peter's bi-monthly arrival to court Johanna,
the sighting of a black bear down at the river, even the tediously dull
quilting bee at Zelda Jurgens' house. .

If only something would happen! Anything!

Anne cursed her words when something did happen. It
was totally unexpected coming so soon, not two weeks after Colin's departure.
The attack happened just before dusk, as Anne prepared to go to the reception
being held at the Vereins-Kirche in honor of the fiftieth wedding anniversary
of Professor and Lina Bern. Everyone else was already there, but Anne had told
Otto to go on ahead. She and Delila were busy trying to get Elise ready for her
first grown-up party.

The child twisted this way and that, trying to see
all sides of the lavender-pink organza dress of Anne's that Delila had remade
for the girl. "There now," Anne said, tying the pink ribbons about
the child's two braids. "You're as beautiful as a fairy princess."

"But fairy princesses are not real,
Tante
.
I vant to be as beautiful as you are one day."

Anne smiled wistfully. "You will be―but
even more so, pet. Now let's hurry, or Mr. Maren will never forgive us for
missing his congratulatory speech he prepared for the Berns."

Elise made a face, but with Auguste tucked under her
arm, hurried to follow a grumbling Delila outside. "Mmmm, Lordy me,"
the black woman muttered just loud enough for Anne to hear. "That man
wouldn't be happy if the Good Lord Jesus Himself was a'sitt'n on the front
pew."

Anne opened her mouth to protest Delila's
disloyalty, but her words were drowned out by the blood-curdling yells that
sliced through the early evening tranquility. From the concealment of the
distant river's embankment suddenly poured vermilion-painted fiends.

"Run!" Anne screamed.

The Vereins-Kirche―a fortress in itself. There
stood safety. The great wooden door still stood open against the day's heat,
and the congregation's loud singing mocked her. The settlers could not hear the
screams of attack. Anne hoisted her skirts above her ankles with one hand and
dragged Elise by the arm with the other. But Delila's heavy bulk could not keep
up with the younger woman. "Delila," Anne panted, "hurry!"

The large woman stopped, planting her feet firmly.
"It ain't gonna do no good, baby. Ah just slows you down. Go on with you.
Now!"

Anne halted and tugged violently on the woman's arm.
"I can't leave you!" she cried. Past Delila's shoulder she could see
the Indians had already reached the fringes of the town square.

"I said git!" Delila pronounced in the
same unyielding tone she had used when she had been really angry at one of
Anne's childhood pranks.

Tears sprang to Anne's eyes. "No! You're coming
with us!"

The black woman's big hand lashed out, and Anne's
head jerked to the side with the impact. "You heard me, Miz Anne!" Delila
shoved the young woman and the child forward just as the lead Indian fell upon
her, tomahawk upraised. A big swipe of her hand sent him sprawling. "Teach
you trash some manners," she said, as Anne began to run, pulling Elise
along behind her.

Once Anne looked over her shoulder, and the old
woman was fighting off three of the savages. But crimson already streaked the
glistening black skin. And other Indians sprinted past her toward Anne and
Elise.

Tears spilled over Anne's cheeks as she pushed
herself faster, stumbling when Elise stumbled. Only a few more yards now.
Perspiration dotted her upper lip. Her breath came in aching gasps. Blood
pounded in her ears.

"Jesus, Lord take me!" Anne heard Delila's
scream, but did not turn to look this time. She could not―or she would be
unable to go on.

Stabs of pain cramped Anne's leg muscles. But safety
was just a few more feet away. Protection. Oh, dear God, no! Johanna―she
was pulling the door closed!

Then Elise broke free from Anne. "Auguste! I
dropped her!" The child was running back to where the corncob doll lay,
its dress a ghastly yellow against the green grass. And advancing on the child
was one of the Indians. The copper ring in his nose gleamed ominously in the
sun's dying blood-red rays.

"No!" Anne shrieked. "No!" She
ran back toward Elise.

The child stooped, scooped up the doll, rose. Then
the sharp-bladed weapon came burrowing down through the small skull. Anne
watched in petrified horror as gray matter flecked with scarlet spilled out on
the pink dress.

Then the flat of a tomahawks mashing against the
side of Anne's head came only seconds before her hysterical brain would have
itself willed her unconscious.

The Indian with the ring through his nostrils shoved
Anne before him, and she stumbled. "Ma-bequo-si-tu-ma," he grunted,
then grinned.

Anne scrambled to her feet. Her mind was numb. She
could think no farther than keeping out of the savage's reach. She was
grudgingly grateful that he wore no scalps at his belt. It seemed that she―and
the nine Indians she counted, some of whom did carry scalps―had been
trotting for miles, ever since. She regained consciousness to find herself
thrown over the back of her captor. But it could have been only for a few
minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour, for the sky was still a mauve gray and the
moon had not yet risen above the eastern horizon.

Then Anne saw where they were headed. Near a grove
of sycamores were hobbled a dozen or more Indian ponies. And two guards, tall,
dark Indians painted with war markings like the others, squatted, waiting.

"
A he
!" her captor shouted as they
joined the guards and pointed toward Anne. "Ma-be-quo-si-tuma," he
repeated, grabbing her hair that hung now in rat tails.

Inwardly Anne flinched, but she refused to let the
savages see her fear, and glared at the man who held her hair. Was that what
they had in mind―to scalp her? Why had they not done it back at Adelsolms?
Or did they plan on a slow torture―to enjoy her suffering the better?

There was further exchange of what seemed like
different levels of grunts to Anne before her wrists were bound and she was
thrown on her stomach across the back of a mustang. The pounding of her heart
slowed. At least death was not imminent. There might still be a chance for
escape―though in her heart she knew that there was nearly no hope of
escape. Too often she had heard the grizzly results when captives attempted to
flee their red tormentors.

They traveled throughout the evening and into the
night. The darkness washed away vision so that at times Anne could not see her
hand before her, yet the Indians moved unerringly forward. Always traveling
westward. Her ribs were bruised, and it hurt to draw a breath. Her throat
ached. Her stomach growled with hunger. And her clothes were still damp from
the soaking she had received when they had forded the Colorado River an hour
before.

At last, when orange-streaked with pinktinged the
sky in the east, the band of Indians halted before a slow-moving creek bordered
on both sides by rapierstraight cedar elms and hickorys. The Indian with the
ring in his nose, Pa-ha-yu-quosh Anne learned he was called, grabbed her by her
thighs and yanked her from the horse. Legs numb, she sank to the ground.
Pa-ha-yu-quosh laughed, a guttural laugh, but his obsidian eyes watched her
closely.

With gestures he indicated she was to drink from the
creek, and Anne needed no second urging. Half crawling down the grassy incline,
she lowered her head to the water and began to drink as noisily as the others.
The water was brackish. But that did not matter. She continued to drink even after
the Indians had stopped until Pa-ha-yu-quosh jerked at her hair, motioning for
her to rise. The Indians began to destroy all signs of the halt there at the
creek bed, and she realized with amazement that they planned to continue
without resting.

Brassy daylight reclaimed the sky, and the lowland
prairies yielded to gently rolling hills. This time the traveling was easier
for Anne, for Pa-ha-yuquosh allowed her to ride astride her pony, tieing her
wrists with leather thongs for security. Anne had never ridden bareback before,
and it was all she could do to stay on by clinging to the mare's matted mane.
However, it was not long before her thighs and buttocks ached.

She was miserable but clung tenaciously to the
knowledge that Colin would find a way to save her. Sometimes the Indians were
known to capture whites and sell them at the trading posts on the Red River in
far north Texas. As soon as word reached him of her capture, she knew he would
see to it that every town and village was alerted. Had not he told her his word
carried weight in the Texas Republic, that some way, somehow, he would find a
way to bring the two of them together? All she had to do was keep the image of his
face fixed firmly in her mind―and find a way to stay alive―until he
came for her.

The group diminished by five that afternoon―those
five, Anne learned, riding backwards as scouts, to see if the band was being
followed. The grass was not as high now, a fine curly mesquite grass.

They were crossing the LlanoEstacado, the Staked
Plains, which were dotted with huge buffalo wallows and Indian war trails that
stretched as far south as Chihuahua, Mexico. It was a place the white man dared
not travel.

The band stopped only once that day, near noon, at
an old pond. The waterhole was muddy, full of flies and bugs. Pa-ha-yu-quosh leaped
from his mount and helped Anne down this time rather than yanking at her as
before. Perhaps, she thought, he sensed the little strength left in her. She
looked up into the flat face with the wide, quivering nostrils, but it was
expressionless.