Wife Stealer Page 4

  "Which way do you go?" Black Moon asked.

  "That way," Ben said, and pointed north. "To Abilene."

  "I will go partway with you and we can talk of our bad luck."

  "Good."

  * * *

  In the dusk of the evening, the two men made camp on the bank of a steam, a tributary to the Pecos River coming in from the north. While Ben built a fire and began to cook buffalo meat, Black Moon caught grasshoppers for bait, and with a hook and line snagged two fair-sized bass. In the flickering light of the campfire, they ate hugely of the buffalo meat and topped it off with a fish for each. The remainder of the buffalo meat was cut into slices and hung over the fire to make jerky.

  "Why do you go to Abilene?" Black Moon asked.

  "To sell my horses."

  "They are Mexican horses. Valdes horses."

  "You know the Valdes brand?"

  "Yes, I know it. Once I went there and took two horses." He touched the scar of a bullet on the side of his ribs. "They gave me this. Still, I kept the horses."

  Black Moon fastened his eyes on Ben, and smiled, his scarred face twisting with humor. "You are a thief. I am a thief."

  "Sounds like it."

  Black Moon nodded at Ben's face and asked, "What bad luck caused that?"

  "A cannonball fired from an enemy's big gun hit me." Ben wasn't certain there was such a thing as luck. More likely things happen by the cold lottery of chance. "Do you think there is such a thing as luck?"

  "Yes," Black Moon said with conviction. "You had bad luck. But the cannonball missed other men so they had good luck."

  Ben shrugged. "How it came to hit me and not somebody else isn't important, not now."

  Black Moon regarded Ben for a moment in the light of the campfire. "Luck is important. Mine was very good for a long time. I had a pretty woman and she gave me a strong, handsome son. Then a friend, knowing I am a good hunter, asked me to go far off to the mountains and kill one of the great grizzly bears that live there. We found the bear and fought it. Before we can kill it, my friend is slain, and the bear's long claws did this to my face. That was very bad luck." Black Moon ceased talking, turning inward, remembering the fight.

  He spoke again. "When I returned to my village, my woman is frightened by my ugliness and will not come to my blanket and lie with me. Soon she sees a handsome man and goes to him. He should have sent her back to me. When he did not, I killed both of them.

  That made me an outcast among my people. I take Son Of Moon and go away. Now Son Of Moon has been taken from me and I have nothing. Except this face that I don't want. So you must believe there is bad luck."

  "I can understand why you believe it."

  "Would you like to have good luck with a woman?"

  "How? By hiding my face?"

  "I know a village that has many pretty women. We can go there and take two of them."

  "Whether they want to go with us or not."

  "What they want wouldn't be important."

  "Kidnap and rape, that's what you're talking about."

  Black Moon looked puzzled. "My mother was a Kiowa. My father rode into their land and killed two of their warriors and carried her off. I never heard her complain of what he did."

  Black Moon studied Ben for a moment to see how he was reacting to the proposal. "Perhaps it isn't the white man's way to steal a woman. Only another man's horse."

  Black Moon's eyes bore into Ben's with fierce intensity. "Do you want a woman? Want one badly enough to take her by force? To kill anyone who would try to stop you?"

  Ben knew he should be telling Black Moon that he wanted nothing to do with his proposal. Instead, a hot craving for a woman was rushing through him and he was actually considering the possibility of joining the man. A god-awful long year had passed since he had touched the soft, smooth skin of a woman, had enjoyed the full depth and pleasure of her body. He recalled the night spent with the last girl he had known, the beautiful redheaded Charlotte in Cincinnati, whom he had met when passing through that town on his way to join the Confederate Army. There would be no other women, not with a face that even men could not look at. The Llano Estacado was far from Cincinnati, far beyond the edge of civilization and the white man's laws. The laws that he had once enforced did not exist here. Do as Black Moon suggested, his body urged him. The tribes had been stealing each others' women for thousands of years. What did it matter that this time a white man joined in the theft?

  "I'll go with you," Ben said. "How far away is this place?"

  "Two days if we ride from sunup to sundown."

  "We have nothing else to do but ride."

  SIX

  "Hold on, Evan, there's another section of corduroy coming up ahead," John Davis called from the driver's seat of the surrey.

  "Slow the horses down and take it as easy as you can," Evan called back from where he lay on the pallet in the bed of the vehicle. He groaned at the thought of the jarring that he must again endure as they pounded over the logs of the corduroy road. He uncorked the bottle of laudanum and took a swallow.

  The two men were on the military road that ran west from Vicksburg to Monroe, Louisiana, some eighty miles distant. They were still on the floodplain of the Mississippi River and the road was frequently forced to cross swampy ground. To provide a means to pass over these watery, muddy areas, the road-builders had felled trees from the dense stand of oaks and birches and walnuts and cut the trunks into lengths that were laid side by side crosswise on the road. Dirt had been thrown upon the logs to provide a somewhat smooth surface. The dirt had been mostly washed away by recent storms, and for yards at a time the round logs were exposed.

  The surrey rolled onto the corduroy section of road. Frequently a wheel fell into the hollows between the logs and Evan was given a rough shake. The seepage of blood into his mouth increased, and he coughed and spat over the low sideboard of the vehicle. "Almost off the corduroy," John called. "Just a few feet more and there's dry ground as far as I can see through the woods."

  "That's damn good," Evan replied.

  The right front wheel of the surrey fell into a hole and landed a foot down with a crash. The sudden, unexpected movement flung Evan crashing against the sideboard. With the surrey towed on by the horses, the wheel immediately bounced up out of the hole. Evan was thrown hard in the opposite direction.

  His lung exploded, and fire burned and raged within his chest. Blood came pouring up from his lung and into his mouth. The fall had ripped open his wound.

  "Sorry, Evan, I didn't see that last log had rot away," John said.

  "Stop, John, stop! I'm bleeding bad."

  John pulled the horses to a halt as the surrey rolled off the corduroy. He sprang down from the driver's seat to the ground and ran limping to Evan.

  "What do you want me to do?" he asked quickly.

  "Put me on the ground. Hurry."

  John reached into the bed of the surrey and lifted Evan's thin body. He carried him a few steps to a big oak tree, and kneeling, placed him gently on the bed of leaves that had collected there.

  "Damn, Evan, I sorry," he said, his face taut with worry.

  "A bad road isn't your fault."

  "What else can I do for you?"

  Evan spat bright-red blood. Then looked at John. "Nothing. This is just between God and me now."

  The words brought a bloody froth to Evan's lips. He shuddered, coughed, and spat blood out onto the leaves. He felt an icy chill. He was going to live. He had come to death's threshold half a score times in the weeks since he was wounded and he had made somewhat of a peace with death. Still, he didn't want to die. He didn't want to die!

  He must do something to save himself. But what? You 're a surgeon, so think. Think.

  His right lung was filling with blood. The left must be kept free so he could breathe. How could he accomplish that?

  He saw the mat of leaves upon which he lay was thicker nearer the tree, and thus there was a down sloping surface in a direction away from its tr
unk. Evan twisted around until his head was lower than his feet. He rolled to lay on his right side with his cheek against the ground.

  Evan knew the blood leaking from the wound in his right lung would overflow into his left. Should that happen, he would drown in his own blood. He pulled air into his open lung, and then forced it vigorously out to carry the blood up into his throat and onward to his mouth. Then he spat it onto the leaves. He breathed, coughed, and spat again.

  Evan held his position on his right side and concentrated on two things, breathing air in and out, and spitting blood.

  The minutes passed as Evan fought his battle. He felt his strength draining away, his senses fading. The huge blood loss was weakening him. He struggled against the blackness that hovered on the borders of his mind.

  * * *

  John squatted beside Evan and listened to his ragged, wet breathing. Every breath sounded as if the man was strangling. The ground near his face became horribly splattered with blood. John had failed to protect the man who had saved his leg when all the other surgeons had wanted to cut it off. That failure was a heavy weight to bear.

  He batted away a lone mosquito that was hovering over Evan's face. The day was ending and soon the insects would be out in full force. Evan's face was a bloody specter, and the blood would draw the insects by the thousands. He must be shielded from them.

  "Hang on, Evan. I'll be right back." John wasn't sure the man heard him. He rose and pulled his jackknife.

  He cut slender lengths of willow and returned to Evan. The willow stems were bent into a bow and shoved into the ground so that they made an arch above Evan. Over this framework, John stretched a piece of netting he had obtained from the Army stores in Vicksburg.

  He unhitched the horses from the surrey and staked them out on picket ropes to graze. He returned and sat down beside Evan. Immediately he recognized the man's breathing was weaker, the strangling sound more pronounced.

  "Don't die, Captain," John whispered.

  He sat in the darkness and listened to the man struggle to live. Around him, the mosquitoes came and sang their vampirish songs.

  SEVEN

  In the dark before the dawn, when man's vitality is at its lowest ebb, death came for Evan. Unconscious and never knowing of the raging battle, he fought death to a standstill. With the dawn, the blackness in Evan's mind lifted and one by one, his senses flicked back to life.

  His breath made a raspy sound in his throat, yet never had the air tasted more sweetly. He thought he might even be breathing a little with his damaged lung. Maybe, just maybe, the lung had pulled free from its unnatural adherence to the ribs. He felt himself drawing back from death and the gulf widening between living and dying.

  He opened his eyes and found he still lay on the leaves beneath the oak tree. Light came in through netting stretched over an arch of limbs above him. That would be John's work.

  He lifted a hand that felt immensely heavy and pushed the netting aside. The sunlight was at a low angle, and that told him he had lain under the tree all night. Not far away, John slept on a blanket with his head covered by netting. John came awake and sat up at the sound of Evan's movement. A big smile swept over John's face.

  "By God, Captain, you made it," John said happily. He had always thought the captain was the kind of man who would fight to the last heartbeat.

  "Would seem so. I can breathe better now than I could yesterday."

  "Damn glad to hear that. I felt bad about running the wheel into that hole."

  "Forget that. You might have done me a favor. Hand me a canteen. I'm awfully thirsty. I've lost a lot of blood and must have water to rebuild it."

  "Do you want something to eat?" John asked. The captain looked like a skeleton man.

  "Maybe later. What do you say to us resting here for a few hours?"

  "Whatever you want, Captain—I mean Evan." John picked up a canteen and handed it to Evan. "We're both crippled up but we're alive. We'll get to El Paso when we get there."

  * * *

  Ben and Black Moon lay on the bluff and spied on the Comanche village of seventy tipis strung along a creek below them. Black Moon had led them to this location for this was the village of Black Moon's wife, the woman he had slain. Ben thought the man had returned to this particular place to take revenge upon the people for the unfaithfulness of his wife.

  Through his spyglass, Ben surveyed the Comanche encampment. Downstream a quarter mile or so, half-grown boys watched over a herd of at least three hundred horses. Upstream from the village, in the flat ground between the creek and the foot of the bluff, was a thick stand of trees. In the afternoon of the sweltering July day, most of the people were lazing about and talking in the shade of several trees growing among the tipis. Five boys were laughing and playing in the creek. He saw no lookouts to call warning of an attack by enemies.

  "Men coming from the north," Black Moon said.

  Ben put his spyglass on the men. Six horsemen with twice as many packhorses were approaching the village.

  "Hunters," Ben said. "They've got buffalo quarters hung on the pack animals."

  The hunters crossed the creek and came into the center of the village. The women quickly gathered to share in the meat. Ben heard an argument begin between two women, apparently about the equality of the division. One of the men called out sharply and the women fell silent. In a surprisingly short time, the meat had been divided and carried away.

  "The women will go for wood now to cook," Black Moon said. He nodded in the direction of the woods. "We can catch two of them there."

  Ben looked at the Comanche and saw his eyes had the menacing look of an animal of prey. Did his eyes have the same expression?

  "All right, let's go," Ben said.

  They took up their rifles and crawled back from the lip of the bluff. Out of sight of the people below, they went parallel to the creek until opposite the woods. Finding a gully that would hide them when they crouched low, they descended to the woods and hid in a dense brush thicket.

  "We take only the prettiest," Black Moon said. Ben nodded. He felt deep misgivings about what they planned. Could he really do it? Had he misled Black Moon, and now at the last minute must he back away from doing the deed?

  "One comes, but she is ugly," Black Moon said. A squat, broad-faced woman was walking toward them, now and again stooping to pick up a dead limb that had fallen from the trees. She veered off around the thicket where the men hid, and was soon out of sight. A woman and two little girls of six or seven came into view. The woman was scolding the girls, telling them to stop chattering and gather wood. Other women, often with children, wandered past. Then the woods became empty.

  None of the women were acceptable, and Ben was relieved. The decision of whether or not he would steal a girl didn't have to be made.

  "Our luck has changed," Black Moon whispered in a pleased voice.

  Two young women dressed in buckskin skirts and bright red blouses had come into view and were walking slowly toward the men. Both were very pretty and hardly more than girls. They were talking and laughing, and occasionally picking up a piece of wood as they ambled closer. They were much more interested in their conversation than in wood gathering.

  Comanches did little trading with the whites, so Ben judged the red blouses meant the boyfriends or husbands of the women had been on a raiding party, either south to Mexico or north to one of the American settlements. The women who had owned the garments before, were they now dead?

  "I want the one on the right," Black Moon said.

  Ben said nothing. He wondered why Black Moon had chosen that particular girl since she was the least pretty of the two.

  He focused totally on the girl on the left. She moved with easy grace, the skirt swinging and caressing her legs. The mounds of her young breasts pressed against the red blouse that was cinched in with a leather belt. Her hair was as black as a slice of midnight. The perfect oval face was constantly animated in a delightful way by her thoughts and reactions to
the words of the other girl. Now that Ben saw the prize that was within his grasp, his reluctance to steal a woman evaporated. He would certainly do it, gladly do it. A woman was glorious in her beauty; however, her beauty was a very great danger to her.

  "Don't let them make a sound," Black Moon said.

  Ben knew Black Moon was ready to act, and so he quickly looked around for anyone who might see them. The woods were empty within the area he could see.

  "Ready?" Black Moon said.

  "Let's do it."

  Black Moon leapt from the thicket. He crossed the few paces separating him from the girls with a burst of speed that left Ben in the rear.

  Ben increased his speed and rushed upon his girl. Her eyes widened in surprise. In an instant her expression was one of pure terror. Her mouth opened to scream. Before the scream could come, Ben sprang upon her and bore her to the ground. The jarring impact upon the earth tore the breath from the girl in a hissing burst of air.

  Ben dropped his rifle, clamped his hand over the girl's mouth, and straddled her. Swiftly he gagged her with his bandana and tied her arms and legs with lengths of rawhide. He swung the girl's slender body across his shoulder, her head on his back, and held her there by the legs. He scooped up his rifle from the ground and left that hazardous place at a run.

  As swift as Ben was, Black Moon was equally swift. They ran through the woods carrying their trophies. The girl kicked, and squirmed, and pounded Ben on the back with her bound hands. He hardly felt the blows as he bent all his strength on the race, and on hoping the kidnapping had not been seen and pursuit begun too soon.

  Ben broke from the woods and entered the gully leading to the top of the bluff. He was now ahead of Black Moon. He charged up the steep grade with the girl. He reached the top of the bluff with his breath a hoarse saw in his throat. He ran on with the girl bouncing on his shoulder.

  He heard Black Moon's thudding footfalls close behind, and a strange feeling came over him. It was grand to do something dangerous with a man who was equally strong and daring, and almost as ugly.