The Black Jacks (15 page)

"Captain. . ."

"If you're going to give me flowers you might as well call me John."

She blushed and wondered if she was dreaming, and thought she ought to pinch herself, but then decided not to, because if she was dreaming it was the most wonderful dream she'd ever had, and she didn't want to wake up, ever again.

"I just wish . . ." Suddenly she lost her nerve and blushed furiously.

"I wish things could be different, too," he said, reading her mind. That was easy, because they were of the
same
mind. "But we can't always have what we want, at least not right away."

Emily's hopes were dashed. Sensing her dismay, McAllen pulled her closer.

"Emily, in time things
will
be different. Please try to understand. I made a horrible mistake. Now I must try to undo what I've done. If you could just see your way clear to . . ."

They heard someone coming through the trees, and McAllen let go of her hand, and she took a discreet step away from him as Braxton Torrance came into view. He frowned at McAllen, and then, as he glanced suspiciously at Emily and saw the high color in her cheeks and the bright, slightly dazed look in her eyes, his frown deepened into a scowl.

"I just come back from town, Captain McAllen," he said. "Thought I'd wander down here and make sure nothing was . . . wrong."

McAllen smiled. "No, nothing's wrong. I was just asking Emily not to go off alone for the time being. Until we know what the Comanches are up to."

"Don't you worry about her, Captain. You can count on me to watch out for her."

McAllen looked at Emily. She looked down at her wet feet, at the black river mud between her toes.

"You do that, Brax," he said quietly. "I don't want anything to happen to her."

"Neither do I," countered Brax. "I aim to marry this gal someday soon."

"Braxton Torrence!" exclaimed Emily, aghast.

He looked as innocent as a baby. "You mean you ain't told the captain how we plan to get hitched?"

"We've planned no such thing!" she cried, her eyes pleading with McAllen to believe her. But McAllen was impassive. In despair, she fled up the slope in the direction of the cabin.

Brax gave McAllen a long, speculative look. "I
am
gonna marry her, Captain," he said, with a trace of belligerence.

McAllen nodded. "Well," he said, and that was all. He turned away and followed Emily to the cabin. By the time he got there Emily had sought refuge in her room. McAllen settled down on the porch with Yancey. They shared a jug of corn liquor and McAllen fired up a Cuban cigar, and they waited for the Black Jacks to answer their captain's summons.

They arrived in twos and threes or alone, and it wasn't long before all of them were present and accounted for. Cedric Cole had left his ferry, and Will Parton his church. George Scayne had put his wife in charge of the store, and A. G. Deckard had done the same with his tavern. Dr. Tice was there, of course. The last to come were those who owned farms on the outskirts of town—they arrived on horseback or, in a couple of cases, in wagons. But within the hour they were congregated in front of Yancey's cabin, some standing, others sitting on their heels, all watching Captain McAllen with a grim and silent intensity. They knew what their captain had to say would be important. He would not have wasted their time if it weren't.

When he was sure all twenty-one of them were present, McAllen stood up and stepped to the edge of the porch.

"I guess by now you've all heard about the Council House fight. Well, it wasn't much of a scrape, really, as scrapes go. Thirty Comanche chiefs rode in to talk peace, and most of them never rode out again. There were two companies of Texas Rangers there, and when the shooting started they didn't waste any time—they got to work doing what they do best."

"How did the trouble get started, Captain?" asked Deckard, the one-armed tavern keeper.

"I'm not sure. I've heard a lot of different stories. And I don't guess it matters much now. What's done is done. There may never have been any real hope for peace with the Comanches. Maybe it was inevitable that we fight them to the bitter end. But the last thing we need right now is a war with them. And I believe that's what we've got now, gentlemen. A long and bloody war."

"United, the tribes of Israel were unbeatable," said Will Parton, the preacher. "Divided, they fell on hard times. You reckon all the different Comanche bands will join forces?"

"I do," replied McAllen. "If this doesn't persuade them to put their petty rivalries aside and fight together, then nothing will. I also assume they will strike before too much longer. They can't make war all through the summer. They've got to hunt the buffalo, so that there's food enough for their families come winter.

"I've called you all here to go over the plans we made a long time ago, in case of an Indian attack in force on the settlement. The most important thing is to get the women and children across the river on Cedric's ferry. The Comanches would have to go fifty miles north to find a place to ford the Brazos, so if our people can get to the east bank they should be safe enough. That means we must make sure we have warning in time to get this done. I also suggest caching some weapons and food across the river. If worse comes to worst, there may not be a Grand Cane to come back to when it's all over."

"That's a good idea," said one of the Black Jacks, and a murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd.

"They'll come from the west or the north," surmised McAllen. "They always do. So keep your eyes open and your weapons close at hand. Our job will be to hold them up long enough for our people to get across the river."

The men nodded. They knew without asking that if it was humanly possible, McAllen would join them as soon as he got his own people at the Grand Cane plantation across the Brazos to safety.

That was all McAllen had to say. Most of the Black Jacks went back to their work. A few lingered awhile to talk things over. McAllen declined Yancey's invitation to stay for dinner. He was sorry to see nothing more of Emily, but he thought it the wiser course to take his leave. Reluctantly, he mounted up and rode back to the plantation.

Taking Jeb aside, he told his overseer that in all likelihood there would be a Comanche raid, and soon. This was all he had to say; Jeb knew what to do in that eventuality. There were several boats down at the landing, and the overseer was well aware that it was his responsibility to get all the slaves—and Mrs. McAllen—down to those boats and to the other side of the river. The captain and Joshua would be busy trying to hold off the Indians if there was an attack on the plantation.

McAllen found the big house empty, so he walked out back to the kitchen. Bessie and Roman were there, Bessie stirring up a delightfully aromatic stew in a big iron kettle suspended from one of the hooks in the fireplace. As usual the two were bickering. McAllen would have thought something wrong with them if they were getting along.

"I declare, Marse John," said an exasperated Bessie, "I doan know what I'm gwine do with dis ol' man. I found him out in dat garden dis mornin', jis' workin' away. He gwine work hisself to death. Doan he know he's older'n Moses?"

"You had better take things easy for a spell, Roman," advised McAllen, even though he knew it was a waste of breath.

"Then I be's good for nothin', Marse John. And dat won't do. Nossir, dat won't do."

"If something happened to you, who would Bessie nag?" asked McAllen. "Have either of you seen Leah?"

Bessie and Roman exchanged wary looks.

"She be's off with dat Englishman," said Bessie, disgusted. "Mark my words, Marse John." She waved the wooden ladle at McAllen. "Dat man ain't no gennelman. He be's nothing but trouble. You oughts to run him off dis place."

McAllen smiled. "No, I can't do that. The general wants him taken care of. So we must make him feel right at home."

"Oh, he be's making hisself right at home," said Bessie, caustically. "Doan you worry none 'bout dat."

"And don't
you
worry, Bessie. Everything is working out just fine." McAllen sat down at the rough-hewn table in the middle of the kitchen. "Now, how about some of that stew?" he asked cheerfully. "I'm starving."

Bessie stared at him. What in the world had gotten into the captain? It was bad enough that Miss Leah did the things she did in Austin and Galveston and all those other places, but now the shameless hussy was cutting eyes at another man right here under her husband's roof! And here was the captain acting like he didn't have a care in the world! Bessie shook her head. "Beats all I ever seen," she muttered as she ladled some stew into a big crockery bowl.

Chapter Fourteen

After the Council House fight, weeks passed with no sign of the Comanches, and some Texans began to think the Indians had been, in Lamar's words, chastised so severely that they had decided to leave the settlements alone.

Tucker Foley and Dr. Joel Ponton of Lavaca were the first to find out otherwise.

The two men were traveling together, having left Columbus bound for Gonzales. A large party of Comanche warriors jumped them, killing Foley and gravely wounding Ponton. They chased Ponton for several miles before giving up. The doctor reached his home and raised the alarm before passing out from loss of blood. Adam Zumwalt and thirty-six men set out to find the hostiles. That same day, the mail rider en route from Austin to Gonzales crossed the Indian trail at Plum Creek. He galloped hell for leather into Gonzales. "I ain't never seen the like," he gasped, wide-eyed. "Must be a thousand of them red devils. They left a trail a half mile wide. I swear, this ain't no ordinary raiding party. I'd swear it on a stack of Bibles, boys. How come ya'll lookin' at me thataway? No, dammit, I aint been drinin'!"

Ben McCulloch led twenty-four men to Big Hill, where he joined forced with Zumwalt's bunch. Together, they found the Comanche trail. The mail rider hadn't been exaggerating by much. The hostiles were headed south and east and there were a lot of them. McCulloch calculated three or four hundred at least.

The next morning they were joined by another posse, this one from DeWitt County, led by the noted Indian fighter John J. Tumlinson of Cuero. Captain Tumlinson now took command of a force numbering over one hundred riders.

"If they keep to their present course," said Tumlinson, "they will run smack into Victoria."

"They wouldn't attack a town that size," said Zumwalt. "Would they?"

McCulloch was already in the saddle. "We'd better go make sure." He was grim, realizing that the Comanches were a day ahead of them, and that if the hostiles did intend to strike Victoria there was nothing he and the rest of Tumlinson's Texans could do about it.

The Comanches killed thirteen people at Victoria, including seven Negroes, a Mexican, and a German traveler. They would have added a Frenchman to that tally had he not climbed an old oak tree and hidden himself in the Spanish moss that festooned the branches. The Indians roared through Victoria like a whirlwind of death and destruction and continued southward, toward the Gulf. Along the way they took a Mrs. Crosby and her infant daughter captive. It was said that Mrs. Crosby was Daniel Boone's grand-daughter. Boone's daughters had been captured by Shawnee Indians in Kentucky, and the frontiersman had fallen into Indian hands once or twice himself. Bad luck with Indians seemed to run in that family.

The following morning the Comanches appeared on the Victoria Road on the outskirts of the seaside village of Linnville. Like well-drilled cavalry the warriors fell into a half-moon formation and rode at full gallop into the settlement, with the wings of the formation encircling the village on both sides. There was no escape except by sea, and many of Linnville's terrified inhabitants leaped into lighters and other small craft and found refuge in the bay, where they helplessly watched the systematic looting and destruction of their homes.

The Comanches took their sweet time, lingering in Linnville for hours, burning one house at a time. Cattle and pigs were slaughtered in wholesale lots. Only horses and mules were spared—by this time the Indians had a herd of more than six hundred stolen ponies and knobheads. Some of the horses were laden with plunder, some of which was of no practical use to the Comanches—clothing, quilts, china, silverware, mirrors, rugs, spittoons, boots, stovepipe hats, and much more. Some of the warriors donned white man's clothing; the adorned their own horses with bright ribbons and calicoes taken from stores and residences. In the process they killed five men: three whites and two slaves.

Gray Wolf, war chief of the Quohadis, remained aloof from this orgy of destruction and looting. He was not pleased with the way things were going. This was not what he had envisioned, and when Yellow Hand, the Penateka chief, and several other Comanche leaders, came to him with their decision to end the raid, he was angered.

"We have killed many Texans," said Yellow Hand smugly. "We have stolen hundreds of their horses and destroyed two of their villages. The murder of our chiefs in Bexar has been avenged. It is time to go home."

"Yellow Hand is wrong," was Gray Wolf's blunt response. "We have accomplished nothing. All this will not stop the Texans from invading our land. We must fight and win a battle."

Yellow Hand shook his head. "The Penatekas are going home."

"If you go," said Gray Wolf, "the Quohadis will not be going with you. Our raid is not finished."

"Do what you will. The Penatekas are turning back."

"Do not return by the way we have come," advised Gray Wolf. "Separate into small groups and scatter to the west."

"We will stay together," said Yellow Hand. He was not inclined to take the advice of a Quohadi. Besides, there was greater security in numbers.

Gray Wolf shook his head and rode away. He located Red Eagle and Tall Horses and called them to his side to inform them of what had happened.

"Yellow Hand is a fool," he added. "The Texans will expect us to return the way we have come. They will be waiting. So far we have moved too quickly for them to catch us, but when Yellow Hand and the others turn north they will find many Texans in their path."