Comanche Moon (20 page)

When Buffalo Hump came into the big store in Austin, some of the warriors had found an old woman upstairs and had pulled her and had thrown her down the steps. Now they were dragging her through some white flour. They had killed the old man who owned the store with one of his own axes and had used the axe to chop open a couple of barrels of white flour. Some of the young warriors had never seen white flour and took delight in throwing it in the air and covering themselves with it. They also liked dragging the old woman through it while she shrieked.

Two of the young warriors outraged her while Buffalo Hump picked out a few hatchets and put them in a sack. Then he came over and waited for the warrior who was outraging the old woman to finish. The woman's husband was lying dead only a few feet away, while, outside, his warriors were setting buildings afire and killing people as they tried to escape the flames. Some warriors rode their horses into white people's houses and looted everything they could carry. Six Texans were shot down in the street and scalped where they fell. The people of Austin ran like chickens and the Comanches pursued them like wolves, killing them as they ran with lances, or arrows, or tomahawks.

The raid had begun just at dawn but now the sun was well up. Buffalo Hump knew it was time to leave. The young men would have to throw away much of the loot they carried; they would not be able to carry it if there was a fast pursuit. They had killed four rangers in one little house but had seen no soldiers.

When the warrior got off the old, flour-splotched woman Buffalo Hump stood over her and shot three arrows into her chest. He shot them with all the force of his bow, so that the arrows went through the woman and nailed her to the floor. The woman died immediately, but Buffalo Hump didn't scalp her. She was just an old woman whose thin hair was worthless.

He let his men take what baubles they wanted from the store, but told them to hurry. When he came outside he saw that some of his warriors had caught a blacksmith and were burning him to death on his own forge. One of them pumped the bellows and made the flames leap while the blacksmith screamed. The high flames set the man's hair on fire.

In the street a young man with no trousers was running, pursued by three warriors. They had stolen ropes from the big store and were trying to rope him, as a vaquero would rope a cow. But they were warriors, not ropers, and they kept missing.

Finally, unable to rope the young man, the warriors began to whip him with their ropes.

Then Red Cat joined the fun. He had stolen an axe with a long handle from the store. While the young man was fleeing, Red Cat swung the axe and tried to cut the young man's head off. The blow killed him but his head was still on his neck. The warriors dragged him around for a while, to make sure he was dead. Then Red Cat finished cutting his head off and they threw his body in a wagon, along with some other bodies.

Buffalo Hump saw an old man rolling around in the street--he was dying but not quite dead. He rode over and did what he had done with the old woman with flour on her: he shot three arrows into the old man so hard that they went through him and pinned him to the ground.

Buffalo Hump meant to do the same thing again, as they went south. At every farm or ranch he would put arrows through some Texan. He would leave them nailed to the floor, or to the ground.

It would be a thing the Texans would notice--a thing they would remember him by.

When Maggie was awakened in the first gray light by the high, wild cries of the Comanche warriors, racing into Austin, she didn't even wait to look out the window. Their war cries had been in her nightmares for years. She grabbed a little pistol Woodrow had left her for her own defense and raced barefoot down the stairs. The house she boarded in was on the main street--she knew they would catch her if she stayed in it but she thought she might be able to squeeze under the smokehouse behind it. An old sow had rooted under the smokehouse so persistently that she had dug out a shallow wallow under the back corner of the shack.

Maggie raced down the steps and, moments later, was squeezing herself under the smokehouse. There was room, too: the black sow was larger than she was. She clutched the pistol and cocked it to be ready. Woodrow had long ago taught her where to shoot herself, to spare herself torture and outrage.

Once Maggie had squeezed herself as far back under the house as she could get, she heard, from behind her somewhere, the buzz of a rattlesnake, at which point she stopped and remained motionless. The snake didn't seem close, but she didn't want to do anything to irritate it further.

She didn't want to kill herself, either. It would mean the end not only for herself but for the child inside her too. She knew what happened to women the Comanches took, though. Only yesterday she had seen poor Maudy Clark, sitting on a chair behind the church, looking blank. The preacher was letting her sleep in a little room in the church until they located a sister in Georgia who might take her in. Her husband, William, had come one day in a wagon, taken the children, and left without speaking a ^w to Maudy. He had simply ridden away, as if his wife had ceased to exist: and his attitude was what most men's would be. Once fouled by a Comanche or a Kiowa or any Indian, a woman might as well be dead, for she would be considered so by respectable society.

Maggie didn't know that she could be befouled much worse by an Indian than she had been by some of the rough men who had used her; but, then, there were the tortures: she didn't think she could stand them.

She clutched her pistol but otherwise didn't move. The snake's rattling slowly quieted-- probably the rattler had crawled off into a corner. Slowly, very deliberately, Maggie squeezed herself a few more inches back. Then she put her face down; Woodrow had told her Comanches were quick to spot even the smallest flash of white skin.

Outside, the war cries came closer. She heard horses go right by the smokehouse. Three Indians went into the smokehouse, just above her-- she heard them knocking over crocks and carrying off some of the meat that hung there. Something that smelled like vinegar dripped onto her through a fine crack in the floor.

But the Comanches didn't find her. Two braves stood not far from the hog wallow for a moment, but then mounted and loped off, probably to seek more victims. They didn't fire the smokehouse but they fired the rooming house. She could smell the smoke and hear the crackle of flames. She was afraid the rooming house might fall onto the smokehouse and set it on fire, but didn't dare come out. The Comanches were still there-- she could hear their victims screaming. Horses dashed by and several more Comanches came into the smokehouse. Maggie kept her face down and waited; she was determined to hide all day if need be.

Then she heard a scream she recognized: it was Pearl Coleman screaming. Pearl screamed and screamed. The sound made Maggie want to stop her ears, and turn off her mind. She didn't want to think about what might be happening to Pearl, out in the street. At least Clara Forsythe was safe--married and gone to Galveston only five days before.

Maggie concentrated on keeping her head down; and she waited. Woodrow had warned her specifically not to be too quick to come out, in the event of a raid. Some of the Comanches would hold back after the main party left, hoping to snatch women or children who were brought out of hiding.

Maggie waited. One more Indian did come into the smokehouse, perhaps to snatch a ham or something, but he was there only moments. Maggie peeked briefly and saw the warrior's horse spill out turds, right in front of her.

The warrior left and Maggie waited for a long time. When she finally began to inch out, she thought it must be noon, at least. When she finally did come out, so did the snake that had buzzed at her earlier. The snake glided through a crack in the lower board and was soon under a bush.

Many of the buildings along the main street were burning; the saloon had burned to the ground.

Maggie inched around the building, but soon decided there were no Indians still in the town.

Several men lay dead in the street, scalped, castrated, split open. She heard sobbing from up the street and saw Pearl Coleman, completely naked andwith four arrows sticking out of her, walking around in circles, sobbing.

Maggie hurried to her and tried to get her to stop weaving around, but Pearl was beyond listening. Her large body was streaked with blood from the four arrows.

"Oh, Mag," Pearl said. "They got me down before I could run. They got me down. My Bill, he won't want me now ... if he gets back alive he'll be ashamed of me and put me out." "No, Pearl, that ain't true," Maggie said. "Bill won't put you out." She said it to cheer Pearl up a little, but in fact there was no predicting what Long Bill would do when he heard of his wife's defilement.

She liked Long Bill Coleman but there was no knowing how a man would react to such news.

At that moment, through the drifting smoke, they saw three men with rifles coming cautiously up the street. The sight of them brought home to Pearl the fact that she was unclothed.

"Oh Lord, I'm naked, Maggie .

what'll I do?" Pearl asked, trying to cover herself with her bloody hands. It it was only when she saw the blood on her own hands that she noticed an arrow in her hip. She put her hand on the arrow, which was only hanging by its tip, and, to her surprise, it came out.

"You got three more in your back, Pearl," Maggie said. "I'll get them out once I get you inside." "Why, I'm stuck like a pincushion," Pearl said, trying to cover herself with her hands.

"Just turn around ... those men don't see us yet," Maggie said. "I'll run in the Forsythe store and borrow a blanket for you to cover with." Pearl turned around and hunched over, trying to make herself as small as possible.

Maggie ran across the street but slowed a little as she came up the steps to the Forsythe store. The windows had all been smashed--a barrel of nails had been heaved through one of them. The barrel had burst when it hit, scattering nails everywhere.

Maggie, barefoot, had to pick her way carefully through the nails.

As soon as she stepped into the store she felt something sticky on one foot and assumed she must have cut herself on a nail; but when she looked down she saw that the blood on her foot was not hers. There was a large puddle of it just inside the door of the store. The display cases had all been smashed and flour was everywhere.

Horse blankets, harness, ladies' hats, men's shoes had been thrown everywhere. The brown Pennsylvania crockery that Clara had been so proud of had been smashed to shards.

Maggie knew she had stepped in a puddle of blood, but it was dim in the store. She didn't know whose blood it was until she picked her way through the smashed crockery and scattered merchandise and then suddenly saw Mr. Forsythe, dead on the floor, his head split open as if it had been a cantaloupe.

Beyond him a few steps lay Mrs. Forsythe, naked and half covered with the white flour that had spilled out of the barrels. Three arrows had been driven into her chest, so hard that they had gone through her, pinning her to the floor.

Maggie felt such a shock at the sight that she grew weak. She had to steady herself against the counter.

For a moment she thought her stomach might come up.

Seeing the naked, spraddled woman with the arrows in her chest made her realize how lucky she was; and how lucky Pearl was, and Clara herself, and all the women who were still alive.

She herself wasn't even injured--she had to help those who were. It was no time to be weak.

Maggie picked her way back to where the blankets were--instead of taking one blanket she took three. One she carefully put over Mrs. Forsythe--the three arrows stuck up, but there was nothing she could do about that. The blanket didn't cover her well--it left the poor old woman's thin legs exposed, which seemed wrong.

She went back, took another blanket, and used it to cover Mrs. Forsythe's legs. The men would have to deal with the arrows when they came to remove the bodies.

Then she put a nice blanket over Mr.

Forsythe's split head and went outside to help her friend. One of the men with rifles was standing on the porch when she came out.

"How about the Forsythes?" he asked, peering in one of the smashed windows.

"They're both dead," Maggie told him.

"She's got three arrows shot clear through her." Then she opened the other blanket, picked her way through the nails, and wrapped the blanket around Pearl, who was still hunched down in the street. The three arrows were still in her back, but at least she was covered decently as Maggie walked her home.

As soon as Inish Scull saw the horse in the distance he hid under a little shelf of rock and waited. The horse, still a long way off, seemed to be alone. Scull took out his binoculars and waited for the horse to come round a little closer, for the animal did not seem to be moving or grazing naturally. It moved slowly, and looked back over its shoulder frequently, odd behaviour for a lone horse in empty country.

More than an hour passed before the horse was close enough for Scull to see that it was dragging a man behind it, an unconscious man and an Indian, securely tied at wrists and ankles and attached to the horse by a rawhide rope.

There was nothing to see on the vast spare desert except the one horse, walking slowly, dragging the man. Somebody had obviously wanted the horse to drag the man to death; that somebody, in Scull's view, was probably Ahumado.

Famous Shoes had talked much about Ahumado's cruelty to captives. Being dragged to death by a horse was about as mild a punishment as Ahumado allowed anyone, if Famous Shoes was to be believed.

When the horse was only one hundred yards away, Scull crept down to take a closer look. As he came near he saw that the tied man's body was just a mass of scrapes, with very little skin left on it.

Scull watched the southern horizon closely, to be sure there were no clouds of dust in the air, such as riders would make; he also watched the bound man closely, to see if he was merely feigning unconsciousness. It seemed unlikely that a man so skinned and torn could be capable of threatening him; but many a fallen Indian fighter had been fatally lulled by just such reasonable considerations.