Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) (30 page)

“If they’ve got any kind of brains at all, they’ll double-cross you, Wilbur, and you won’t get a dime, maybe end up in jail—or dead.”

He looked toward the stage rolling up, harness jingling, wheels creaking. The driver pulled back on the reins. “At least wait a while and think it over. Caldwell’s no place to go right now. There’s Indian war parties everywhere and the country between here and Territory is isolated and dangerous.”

The driver of the stage stepped down. “You for Caldwell, ma’am?”

She nodded, handing him her valise. “Sure am, mister. They tell me the fun and the good times never stop in Caldwell. And fun and good times is what I’m after!”

The driver took the valise, shaking his head doubtfully. “Well, they do say it’s a wide open, hell-raisin’ town.”

Molly let him help her up the step into the coach. “My ma always said I was bound for hell if I didn’t change my ways,” she laughed archly, flirting with him a little. “She said I’d never live to grow old, but I fooled her!”

The driver climbed back up on the stage beside the silent guard. She was the only passenger. Somewhere in the hot July Sunday morning, a church bell tolled the faithful to rise and come to services. But her area of town, the street of saloons and sinners, slept peacefully on.

Wilbur gripped the door, looking up at her. “Don’t go, Molly! Listen, well get married, go off somewheres when I come into my cut of that deal. . . .”

She yawned, weary of the little man who actually had tears in his eyes. “You make me sick,” she smiled cruelly. “I hated it when you touched me. I only let you make love to me cause they was such nice combs.” Molly reached up to touch the pearl ornaments. Then she leaned back in the seat as the stage pulled away, leaving Wilbur standing in the middle of the dusty street staring after her.

When she looked out the window, she saw the scrap of paper she had crumpled and thrown down, blowing along in the dust.
Damn men, anyway!
She hoped Maverick and Joe did have a go at each other, whatever their disagreement was. She was only sorry she wasn’t going to be there to see it.

Hours passed as the stage headed south across the flat plains from Wichita.
They were making good time, probably ten or maybe even twelve miles an hour
, she thought with satisfaction. Maybe she should have gone to Dodge or Newton instead. She could take a train to those towns. But no, she wanted to be where the action was and she’d heard it was at Caldwell on the Chisholm Trail. Tonight, she’d be singing and dancing in a new saloon, someplace where the fun never ended. Molly smiled grimly, remembering her ma.
She’d show her. She’d show her.

Molly leaned back against the seat, smiling in smug satisfaction. Yes, she’d made the right decision about leaving Wichita, about the message. All that talk about Indians was just that—talk.

The gunshot, as well as the sudden shout of the guard on top, made her jump. “Injuns! Injuns!”

She heard the driver crack his whip and the stage lurched forward as it picked up speed.

Alarmed, she leaned out the window, looking around as the coach swung forward crazily.

“Comanche! ” the driver shouted, cracking his whip. “Comanches!”

Molly’s heart beat in her throat. She looked off to the west and saw the mounted riders coming. Maybe it was just cowboys; maybe . . .

Their savage shrieks rent the air, echoing across the midday stillness. The pinto ponies galloped, gradually catching up to the moving stage. They were close enough to see the paint on their dark faces now.
Fiends straight out of hell,
she thought as the guard fired at them, firing again while the driver fought to control the team and keep the stage on the rutted trail.

As she gripped the window with white knuckles, looking around, she saw the war party gradually gaining on the running stage. She had a sudden memory of the things she’d heard of people committing suicide to avoid being taken alive, of men shooting their women to save them from being captured by the Indians.

Molly waved frantically at the guard as she hung out the window. “A pistol! Give me a pistol!”

He nodded, leaned off the swaying coach, and tried to hand a Colt through the window. But the coach jerked even as she reached for it with trembling hands. In that split second, she missed grabbing the pistol by inches and it fell, tumbling into the dust of the trail. The stage careened onward and the horror on the guard’s face as he stared back at her reinforced the terrible danger of it all.

The lathered horses plunged forward as the driver shouted, cracking his whip again and again. But still the war party gained on them. The stage bounced again and her hairpins loosened so that the velvet black locks cascaded down her neck to her waist. Dust rose off the trail in clouds, choking her and settling on her lips, on the scarlet traveling costume she’d been so vain about.

The midday heat seemed to engulf her, suffocate her. She felt dampness under her armpits, perspiration running between her breasts, down her back. She smelled her own sweat of terror as she clung to the window ledge, watching the Indians moving up relentlessly, shouting and screaming.

The guard fired again and a brave shrieked, clutched at the sudden splash of red on his chest, and tumbled from his running paint horse.

The wind caught her long hair, blowing it around her shoulders in a wild, black cloud. The warriors seemed to realize for the first time that she was on board and she saw their faces light up with lust and anticipation.

She shouted up to the guard. “Oh, God! Don’t let them take me! Don’t let them take me!”

He hesitated, looking down at her hanging from the window, and as she looked up at him, she read his thoughts. A shotgun was all he had. But she was a vain woman, though a brave one. She didn’t want her body mutilated even to protect herself from torture. She imagined a cavalry patrol finding her body with its face blown away.

Oh, no, dear God, she couldn’t bear the thought of that! Shaking her head at the guard, she retreated back into the coach and lay back against the cushions, panting and trembling. No, she’d take her chances with the Indians rather than have her beauty marred! Ma always had scolded her about vanity!

The braves rode at a gallop along each side of the stage. Now she could see their grinning, painted faces. She cringed against the cushions, hoping to avoid their stares, but the ugly one with the small, foxlike features gestured and fired arrows at the running stage horses.

The guard fired again, taking another brave from the saddle. The fox-faced one loosed an arrow from his bow toward the top of the stage, and then the guard screamed in agony, tumbled past her window, and hit the ground with a thud.

Horrified, she leaned out the window, looking at the prone form on the road behind them. Already, braves were dismounting running ponies, shrieking in triumph as they brandished skinning knives.

Even a shotgun blast in the face might beat what was waiting for her
, she thought as she cringed against the seat, trying not to look at the grinning, triumphant faces riding alongside. But she’d passed up that chance and now it was too late.

A galloping brave aimed an antique rifle upward and fired. The shot echoed and reechoed. The driver screamed, falling from the coach as the horses, given their head, galloped madly through the churning dust of the hot July afternoon.

And then she felt the coach hit a rock, careening on two wheels for a moment before it broke free of the running team, spinning crazily as she bounced around inside. She wasn’t going to survive the crash, she thought with giddy hysteria. She tried to hang on but she lost her grip as the stage rolled over and over.

But she wasn’t dead. Her eyes flickered open. Maybe it was all a nightmare. Maybe she’d wake up back at her room in the Red Garter; maybe . . . She looked up, trying to focus her eyes. It finally came to her that she was lying on the ceiling of the stage staring up at the floor. She moved her arms and looked down at her legs in the confused swirl of red taffeta and petticoats. She wasn’t hurt.

The door jerked open and the war-painted, foxlike face peered in, laughing in triumph as she screamed. Roughly, he reached in and dragged her kicking and screaming out of the overturned stage toward a waiting circle of warriors.

The warriors laughed, speaking to each other in their own language. They looked just like the painted demons from hell that Ma used to describe would get her someday.

It suddenly occurred to her that they were just men after all, and wasn’t she used to charming men? She stood up, smiled at them archly, and shook the wrinkles out of her clothes. “Any of you speak English?”

The sharp-featured one leered at her. “Me, Little Fox, I speak,” he tapped his chest.

For the first time, she noticed he wore a stained Turkey-red shirt and a little beaded necklace around his dirty throat. Now why did those things look familiar to her? One of the others wore yellow satin sleeve garters on his bare, dark arms. She almost laughed at the way he looked.

Did she have the courage? “I—I know what men want,” and she tried to smile at him. “Keep me for your woman. I’ll make you very happy.”

She paraded herself brazenly to the silent circle, shaking the magnificent long hair back. “Or let the soldiers ransom me for much food and guns.”

Ransom
. She thought of Annie Laurie and Joe’s frantic attempts to save her. Maybe if Wilbur did get rich, he’d ransom her. . . .

Little Fox advanced on her, fingering the beaded necklace he wore. “You saloon girl? You sleep with buffalo hunters?”

“I sleep with any man who wants me.” Was that what this brave wanted to hear? He came so close she could smell the dirt and sweat of his dark skin, the rancid bear grease smeared on his swarthy body. He smelled of the smoke of a thousand campfires.

“Buffalo hunters rape my sister, kill her.” He fingered the necklace again with long arms. “We get them”—he patted the front of his red shirt—“make them beg and beg to die!”

Someone in the band translated and the warriors laughed, moving in closer. She realized abruptly that Little Fox stared at her silver and pearl hair combs.

She took them off and held them out. “You like? You can have!”

He took them with a sneer, putting them in his soot-black braided hair. The hot sun gleamed on them.

She tried to smile invitingly. After all, a man was a man, and if she pleased him, he would let her live, maybe let Wilbur ransom her.

He said something in his language, reached out suddenly, and caught the bodice of her dress. He ripped it to the waist so that her full breasts were visible. The other laughed and shouted encouragement.

Molly had to force herself not to cringe, not to show fear as his dirty hand caught her breast, squeezing cruelly.

“Buffalo hunter’s woman!” He spat it at her, and she saw the anger, the livid hate in his dark eyes.

He struck her with his fist so that she stumbled backward and fell. Her mouth filled with her own blood, lying on her back as he jerked aside his loincloth and stood looking down at her, scorn and hate in his eyes.

With his big knife, he cut her dress, stroking his hard, erect manhood as he looked at her. “I treat buffalo hunter’s woman like they treat my sister!” And he fell on her as the others watched like a pack of silent, hungry wolves.

He bit her breasts, raped her brutally while she lay there sobbing, choking on the blood from her torn lip. He stank of old grease and smeared her with his sweat. His breath reeked of rotten raw liver.

This can’t be happening,
she thought wildly as he finished with her, but she didn’t fight him. Bill Slade had treated her this way, too. And for money, she’d taken on white drunken hunters and brutal cowboys. The only gentle man she had ever known was Joe McBride and he’d never made love to her.

If she pleased him, maybe the brave would set her free. She didn’t fight him, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look into his insane ones.

He rode her to a climax, grunting like any male animal in satisfaction. Then he stood up and gestured to one of the others. One by one, they fell on her, raping her savagely, biting her breasts and lips, bruising her with their hands. Several of them rolled her over and rode her from behind.

She tried not to think, to feel. She thought instead about how hot the dirt was beneath her bare body, about how the sun would darken her white skin she’d been so vain about.

When the last one of the dozen finished, Little Fox took her again as did most of the others, until her skin was smeared with the stink of their seed, the greasy sweat of their dark bodies.

All the time, her heart thumped with such fright that they grinned as they squeezed her breasts and made rude comments in their language.

Finally, Little Fox said, “I tire of this. It grows late. We must leave to go to the canyon to the south were we wait to meet Quanah.”

She stood up, pulling her torn clothing around her, trying not to become hysterical.
She’d be forty years old tomorrow and she was going to live to be an old woman in spite of what Ma said.
“You can trade me to soldiers, to
Comanchero,”
she stammered. “They’ll pay good money. . . .”

He seemed to grin with relish at her terror. “Move fast,” he gestured to the southwest. “Woman slow us down.”

“Oh, but I won’t!” She babbled, “I ride fast. And I’ll warm your blankets at night!”

He smiled slowly as he advanced on her, and she remembered thinking how ridiculous he looked in a buffalo hunter’s Turkey-red shirt, her pearl and silver combs in his black hair. He took out his knife and one of the warriors laughed, gesturing with a lance that had hair hanging from it.

Molly stared at the hair, stared and stared as Little Fox advanced on her. She turned to run but she was surrounded by the ring of silent predators.

“No!” she shrieked. “No!”

“For my dead sister!” She saw the sunlight reflect off the blade as it came down toward her eyes.
He’s going to stab me!

She tried to twist away from the sudden pain as the knife struck twice. The sudden darkness was agony and she screamed and screamed as she fought him.