Comanche Moon (23 page)

"Stick your feet over near the bars and I'll cut you loose," Tudwal offered. "Then I'll do your hands. You won't be able to catch no pigeons with your hands tied like that. You'd starve in ten days, which ain't what he has in mind. When he hangs a man in a cage he expects him to last awhile." "I have never cared much for squab," Scull said. "I suppose I can learn to like it, if there's nothing else." "A Mexican we hung off this cliff caught an eagle once," Tudwal said. "But the eagle got the best of him--pecked out one of his eyes." "I notice you blink, sir--what happened?" Scull said. "A sparrow get you?" "Nothing. I was just born ablinking," Tudwal said.

The insult, as Scull had feared, didn't register.

"But you weren't born in Mexico," Scull said. "You sound to me like a man who was probably born in Cincinnati or thereabouts." Tudwal was startled. How did the man know that?

He had, in fact, been born on the Kentucky River, not far from Cincinnati.

"You're right, Captain--but how'd you know that?" Tudwal asked.

"I suppose it's your mellow tone," Scull said. He smiled at the man, hoping to lull him into a moment of inattention. The cliff they were about to lower him over seemed to fall away for a mile. Once they lowered him his fate would be sealed. He would hang there in space, with half of Mexico to look at, until he froze or starved. He didn't relish hanging there for days or weeks, surviving on the occasional bird he could yank through the bars. Ahumado, an old Mayan come north to prey on ignorant people, white and brown, had not proved susceptible to Harvard charm; but Tudwal, the blinking man, did not seem overly intelligent. If he kept talking he might yet fool him into making a mistake. He had obediently held his feet near the bars and Tudwal had freed his ankles.

His wrists came next, and there lay the opportunity.

Tudwal looked puzzled when Scull mentioned the mellow tone. Actually, the man had a nasal voice with little mellowness in it.

"Yes sir, I've been sung to often by Ohio maidens--some of them may not quite have been maidens at the time. The whores in the fine town of Cincinnati have lullabied me to sleep many times.

Have you heard this old tune, sir?" He struck up the old ballad of Barbara Allen:

In London town where I was born There was a fair maid dwelling ...

Tudwal nodded. Someone far back in his life had once sung that song, a grandmother or an aunt, he was not sure. He forgot, for a moment, that Captain Scull was about to be dangled to his death. The song took him away, into memory, into thoughts of his mother and his sister, when he had led a gentler life.

As Scull sang he held his hands close to the bars so that Tudwal could cut the rawhide thongs. He sang softly, so that Tudwal would lean forward as he cut. The moment the bonds parted Scull grabbed Tudwal's wrist and whacked it so hard against the mesquite bars that he broke it.

The knife fell into the cage: he had one weapon. Then he caught Tudwal by the throat and pulled him close enough to the cage that he could reach with the other hand and yank the man's Colt pistol out of its holster. Now he had two weapons. He would have preferred to conserve bullets by strangling Tudwal, but the man was too strong. Before Scull could get his other hand on Tudwal's throat he twisted away, forcing Scull to shoot him dead, the sound echoing through the Yellow Canyon.

The four dark men who had been waiting to lower the cage immediately took their machetes and trotted away. Ahumado was still back at the crater, where the feast was being held, waiting on his blanket; he would have heard the shot.

"There, you Cincinnati fool, I warbled you to death," Scull said.

His situation had improved dramatically. He had a knife and a gun, and five bullets. On the other hand he was in a flimsy cage, on top of a five-hundred-foot cliff, and he was naked.

The bindings that held the mesquite cage together were hardened rawhide. Scull began to hack at them but the knife was dull and the rawhide hard as iron. Tudwal's horse stood near. If he could cut himself free he might have a chance, but the rawhide was so resistant and the knife so dull that it might take an hour to free himself--and he didn't have an hour.

"You goddamned fool, why didn't you sharpen your knife?" Scull said. "Not only did you have a Cincinnati voice, you had a goddamned weak Kentucky brain." It annoyed him. He had worked a miracle, killed his captor, and yet he wasn't free.

Then, with a moment to breathe, he remembered another of Papa Franklin's fine sayings: "Haste makes waste." He looked more closely at the jointure of the wrappings. He didn't need to hack the cage apart--if he could just break the wrappings at one corner of the cage he could squeeze out and run. He still had five bullets; it seemed good policy to sacrifice one or two of them to free himself. He immediately tested the decision and was well pleased with the result: two bullets and the wrappings blew apart, and he squeezed through and stood up.

His fighting spirit rose; by God, he was out! He squatted briefly over the body of Tudwal, but found only two more bullets, in a pocket of the man's dirty tunic. But the man at least wore clothes; Scull hastily stripped him and pulled on his filthy pants and tunic. They were too large, but they were clothes!

The paint horse stood not thirty feet away. Its ears were up--it looked at Scull nervously. Steady the yardarm, light on the throttle, Scull told himself. Haste makes waste. He had to approach calmly and slowly; he could not afford to spook the skittish animal. Without the horse the dark men would soon run him to earth.

The fact that he wore Tudwal's clothes was an advantage. The man's smell lingered in the filthy garments; he could plainly smell it, and no doubt the horse could too.

"Bible and sword, that's good of you, boy," he said, walking slowly toward the horse. "Be a good nag now, be a good nag. You're an ugly nag but I'll overlook that if you'll just carry me to Texas." The horse pawed the ground once, but did not retreat. Scull came on, steadily, and soon had the bridle rein in his hand. In another moment he had Tudwal's rifle out of its scabbard and was in the saddle. Then, to his intense annoyance, the horse began to crow-hop. Scull had no skill with broncos, as the Texans called bucking horses. He had to grab the horse's mane, to keep from being thrown, and in the process, to his intense vexation, dropped the rifle.

Finally the crow-hopping stopped but by then Scull was not sure where the rifle was--he saw a line of men on the horizon and knew that he had no time to search for the gun. He sawed the reins until he had the paint pointed north, and then urged him into a dead run. I'm gone, he thought--I'm gone.

But then he heard the whirl of bolas as the dark men rose up from behind a low ridge. The running horse went down hard--Scull flew a good distance and lit on his shoulder. As he rose, more bolas were flying at him. One wrapped around his legs. He quickly shot two of the dark men but a third dashed in and hit him on the head with the flat side of a machete. The sky swirled above him as it might if he were on a fast carousel.

This time Ahumado supervised the caging.

The three other cages were pulled up and the pecked-at corpses in them flung over the cliff. Scull was put in the strongest cage.

He was dazed from the blow to his head and made no resistance. Ahumado let him keep the clothes he had taken from Tudwal.

"I have no one to put in these cages," the old man said. "You will be alone on the cliff." "It's a fine honor, I'm sure," Scull said. His head rang so that it was a chore to talk.

"It is no honor--but it means that many birds will come to you. If you are quick you can catch these birds. You might live a long time." "I'll be quick but you ain't smart, se@nor," Scull said. "If you were smart you'd ransom me. I'm a big jefe. The Texans might give you a thousand cattle if you'd send me back.

"Your people could live a good spell on a thousand cattle," he added.

Ahumado stepped close to the cage and looked at him with a look of such contempt that it startled Inish Scull. The look was like the slice of a machete.

"Those are not my people, they are my slaves," Ahumado said. "Those cattle in Texas are mine already. They wandered there from Jaguar's land, and Parrot's. When I want cattle I go to Texas and get them." He stopped, and stepped back. The force of his contempt was so great that Scull could not look away.

"You had better try to catch those fat pigeons when they come to roost," the old man said.

Then he gestured to the dark men, and turned away.

The dark men put their shoulders against the cage and nudged it outward, over the lip of the great cliff.

Slowly the men who stood at the post began to lower it into the Yellow Canyon. The cage twisted a little, as it was lowered; it twisted and swayed. Inish Scull held tightly to the mesquite bars. The height made him dizzy. He wondered if the rope would hold.

Far below him, great black vultures soared and sank. One or two rose toward him, as the cage was lowered, but most of them pecked at the remains of the corpses that had just been thrown off the cliff.

Augustus McCrae, brokenhearted because of Clara's marriage, resorted much to the bottle or jug as the six rangers proceeded west in search of Captain Inish Scull. It was vexing to Call--damn vexing. He was convinced they were on a wild goose chase anyway, trying to find one man in an area as large as west Texas, and a man, besides, who might not appreciate being found even if they did find him.

"It's two men, Woodrow," Augustus reminded him. "Famous Shoes is with him." "Was with him--t was a while ago," Call said. "Are you too drunk to notice that time's passing?" They were riding through the sparsely grassed country near the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos, well beyond the rim of settlement. They had not even come upon a farm for over a week. All they saw ahead of them was deep sky and brown land.

"I ain't drunk at all, though I would be if there was whiskey to be had in this country," Gus said. "I doubt if there's a jug of whiskey within two hundred miles of here." "That's fine," Call said. "You were drunk enough to last you while it .was available." "No, Woodrow--it didn't last," Gus said. "Maybe Clara didn't really marry.

She likes to joke, you know. She might have just been joking, to see what I'd do." Call didn't answer. The conjecture was too foolish to dignify. Augustus had lost his girl, and that was that.

The other rangers were jolly, though--all except Long Bill, who had not expected to leave his Pearl so soon. Imagining domestic delights that he was not at home to experience put Long Bill in a low mood.

Young Jake Spoon, though, was so jolly that he was apt to be irritating. The mere fact that he had survived two weeks in the wilderness without being scalped or tortured convinced him that rangering was easy and himself immortal. He was apt to babble on endlessly about the most normal occurrence, such as killing an antelope or a cougar.

The weather had been warm, which particularly pleased Pea Eye; he did most of the camp chores with will and skill, whereas young Jake had adequate will but little skill. The third morning out he girthed Gus's young horse too tightly.

Gus was too hung over to notice; he mounted and was promptly bucked off, a circumstance that didn't please him. He cussed young Jake thoroughly, plunging the young man into a state of deep embarrassment.

Deets, the black man, was the happiest and least troublesome member of the troop. Deets liked being a scout far better than he liked being in town, the reason being, Call suspected, was because in town there were always men who might abuse him because of his color.

"Why are you so dern hard to convince, Woodrow?" Gus asked. "I've known you forever and I've never been able to convince you of a single thing." "No, you've convinced me of one thing for sure," Call said, "and that's that you're foolish about women.

"I expect Clara turned you down because she knew you were too fond of whores," he added.

"Not a bit of it!" Gus retorted. "She knew I'd give up whores in a minute if she'd marry me." Nonetheless, the thought that what Call said might be true made Augustus so unhappy that he wanted to get down and beat his head against a rock.

They had only been in Austin two days: what happened with Clara happened so fast that, when he thought back on it, it was more like a visit in a dream than something real. He wanted to believe that when they returned to Austin again, things would be as they had always been, with Clara in her father's store, unmarried, waiting for him to rush in and kiss her.

Long Bill Coleman rode up to the two captains in hopes of getting some things clarified. He had quickly come to regret his gallantry in allowing himself to be conscripted for the new expedition. Adjusting to the racket of domestic life was hard for him, after a long trip; it might have been a little quieter had Pearl not insisted on keeping her chickens in the kitchen, but Pearl couldn't stand to be parted from her chickens; so there was the racket to contend with, on top of which Pearl was a fervent woman who liked to make up his absences by lots of fervor--an overwhelming amount of fervor at times, in fact.

Thus Long Bill was subjected to conflicting feelings: part of him wanted Pearl and her fervor, while another part longed for the peace of the prairies.

For the moment he seemed to have the peace of the prairies, though there was no guarantee that the peace would hold. Several times, moving west along the rivers and creeks, they had struck Indian sign--enough Indian sign to make Long Bill nervous. His opinion of the matter, now that he was too far west to do much about it, was that he ought to have stayed with his wife. The chickens, after all, could be tolerated; better chickens than Comanches.

"Shut up, Bill--I don't know where we are and neither does Woodrow," Gus said, when he saw Long Bill riding up, an interrogative look on his face.

"I never asked a question," Long Bill pointed out.

"No, but you were about to--I seen it in the way you was holding your mouth," Gus said.

"I just wanted to know when we give up on finding the Captain," Long Bill said. "I got chores to do at home." "You're a ranger and that comes first," Gus said tartly. "Your wife's big and stout. She can do the confounded chores." "Well, but she's got a baby in her--t will slow some women down," Long Bill said.