What would Moseley's kind do when there was no longer a frontier? Cloud wondered. They were a breed apart, a breed for which civilization had little place once it had benefited from their sacrifice.
Moseley looked out the open window at the distant hill. “We sure gave John a whippin'. He won't forget us.”
Cloud frowned. “He won't, and that's a fact. They'll remember this place like a thorn in their foot. You watch, some of the young bucks are liable to be back one day, tryin' to even the score up.”
“Let 'em,” said Moseley. “We'll be rested and ready.”
Mrs. Moseley found out Cloud hadn't eaten anything all day but a little bit of broiled bacon and some dry, hard biscuits he carried in the “wallet” slung across the back of his saddle. She said, “Samantha and me, we'll fix you up somethin'. We're a mite short on flour, but you're goin' to have some fresh bread anyhow. We got coffee if
you can drink it without sugar. And there's enough venison to finish fillin' you up.”
Cloud protested at their cooking up all the flour when there were so many young ones around, but they did it anyway. Almost every time Cloud glanced in the direction of the girl Samantha, he found her covertly watching him. Her shy gaze would quickly cut away.
He felt sorry for her, a little. She was a nice-looking girl. Chances were her mother had looked like this, once. The girl could be pretty, perhaps, if she lived in a settlement where she could have good clothes and shoes and perhaps some bright ribbon for her blonde hair. It was her hair that caught Cloud's eye. Tied at the back of her head, it hung far down below her shoulders. It looked silky and soft, and he found himself wanting to reach out and touch it. If the girl had any vanity, living far out here away from other people, it must have been her hair. Cloud could tell that it had been brushed a lot.
He said to Moseley, “Your kids miss a good many things, not livin' near a settlement.”
Moseley shook his head. “They miss feamin' a heap of devilment. Ma, she teaches 'em to read and write, and they get all the schoolin' they need, just a-readin' from the old Bible.” Moseley reached up onto a shelf and took down a huge and heavy old family Bible. He set it down on the table in front of Cloud and opened the cover. “Got all the kids' names in here and the dates they was born. Two that died, they're in here, too. We had to bury them where they wasâno markers or nothin'. The only thing in God's world to show they was ever born is this here page in the old Bible.”
He paused, his mind running back into memory. Then he asked, “Are you an educated man, Cloud?”
Cloud shook his head. “Not much. Never had time for schoolin', or a place to go, either. I can read easy enough;
my mother taught me that. And I know figures.”
“That's a-plenty. Too much learnin' is just a handicap to a man out in this countryâputs him to yearnin' after things he can't have. Just know how to read, and know enough figures so them settlement sharpers can't skin you out of nothin'. No, sir, my kids don't git the chance to fool around the settlements there. Settlements, they got all kinds of wickedness and sinâthings a young girl like Samantha don't need to know nothin' about. Someday there'll be a young man come alongâman like I was a long time agoâand he'll marry her. She'll learn what else there is that she ought to know.”
He frowned then. “You married, Cloud?”
Cloud fidgeted. “No, sir.”
“Promised?”
“No, sir.”
Moseley eased again, an obvious thought playing behind his brown eyes. “You ought to have you a woman, you know. Woman's a heap of comfort to a manâhelps take the load off of his back.”
“Someday, maybe, when I'm settled down. A man's got no business marryin' as long as he's ridin' around over the country chasin' Indians. He needs to be able to provide her a home.”
“A town woman, sure. But you take a girl that's been raised up away from the settlementsâone that ain't a-goin' to throw a screamin' fit at the sight of a featherâone that don't mind pushin' a plow and choppin' the wood when her man's got to be goneâshe'd be a good wife for a man like you, Cloud. A good woman's the makin' of a man.”
He paused, watching Cloud for any sign that the message was taking hold. “You know, my girl Samantha's that kind.”
“Yep, I expect she is,” Cloud said nervously, wishing the subject would change.
Moseley's oldest son, Luke, pushed through the door, rifle in his hand. Cloud noticed that most of the kids had biblical names. “Riders comin', Pa.”
Moseley sat up straight, looking at his own rifle in the corner. “Indians?”
“No, sir, whites. Rangers or Minute Men or some such, I think.”
Cloud and Moseley walked out the door and stood waiting. There were twenty or twenty-five men in the bunch. They rode tired horses, and the riders' shoulders sagged with weariness. But most of them held rifles or shotguns balanced across their saddles, ready for instant action.
Riding out in front was a dark-skinned man Cloud took to be a Mexican. Almost even with him came a tall, lean, somber-looking rider who quickly caught Cloud's eye. Instinctively he knew this was the leader. His bearing showed it without any questions asked. Cloud remembered what the colonel had told him when he had handed him his orders.
“Aaron Barcroft is the captain. You'll know him when you see him, for there's not another that looks quite like him. He's a tall, nervous whip of a man, with black eyes that bore through you like an auger. You'll think he's the grimmest man you ever saw, and he probably is; he's had some grim things happen to him. He'll drive you till you hate him, but you'll always respect him, for he drives himself harder than any man.”
Captain Barcroft rode up to within four or five paces and stopped. He took one long, unhurried glance about the place and seemed to miss nothing.
“I see you've had trouble,” he said. “Anybody hurt?”
Moseley said, “Nobody but Indians.”
Barcroft said, “We've trailed that band since yesterday.
They had a sizeable bunch of stolen horses with them. Now we find those horsesâmost of them, anywayâscattered out in that brush. What happened?”
Moseley explained in colorful detail what Cloud had done, adding a little fiction for good measure.
Barcroft's black eyes dwelt heavily on Cloud. Unaccountably, there was annoyance in them. “Who are you?” Barcroft demanded.
Cloud told him. He handed Barcroft the letter the colonel had given him. “I been huntin' you, Captain. I'm supposed to join your company.”
Barcroft didn't take time to read the letter. He shoved it in his pocket. His voice had a sting to it. “I'm not sure why you're here, Cloud. From what you did, I gather you might be one of those who joins the Rifles looking for glory and adventure. Well, you'll get little glory here. Or maybe you've come to the frontier to get out of going against the Yankees. If you have, you'll find a steel knife and a stone arrowhead can kill you just as dead as a Yankee cannonball. Might even be slower and more painful.
“I'll warn you right now, this is no place for the lame or the lazy. If you go with this outfit, you'll ride sometimes till you're so weary you can't see. Then you'll get off and fight and climb back up to ride some more. You'll go on short rations and tighten your belt and suck on a pebble because you had no water. You won't enjoy it. No one does.”
Angering, Cloud said, “I've fought Indians before, and I ain't huntin' no glory! What I did here today I did because it looked like the only thing.”
Barcroft said gruffly, “It might have been better if you hadn't. Those Indians didn't know how close we were. If they'd stayed here a while longer, we would have caught up with them. We could have wiped them out. As it was, you ran them off. They'll be hard to catch now.”
Lige Moseley's face flushed red. He shoved into the exchange. “Sure, you might've caught them. But it might've been a shade late for me and my family. Besides, between us we dropped three of them, and Cloud scattered their horses. What the hell else you want?”
Barcroft eyed him coldly. “I didn't ask you, but now that you've spoken out, I'll tell you something. You're a fool even to be here. You're miles from any kind of help. Your very presence is a temptation to any stray band of braves that passes through.”
“It's a free country. I can settle where I want to.”
With bitterness Barcroft said, “And endanger that family of yours? No man's got a right to do that. You load up and move back to where it's safer.”
Moseley said, “I been stopped a few times, Captain, but I ain't never been pushed back. I don't start now. Not for the Comanches and not for you!”
Moseley's family had stepped out and stood lined up behind him now. Barcroft looked at them. Particularly he looked at Mrs. Moseley and at the little girls. Cloud thought he could see pain in the captain's eyes.
Barcroft shrugged. “I can't force you, Moseley. I would, if I had the right. If you don't move back, you're a fool. Too many men have gone off to war. Too many families have pulled back to safer ground. Don't you know those who stay will be a better target than they've ever been before? You're staying because of pride, and pride can be a good thing in its place. But look at your womenfolks, your kids, and ask yourself which you value the mostâyour pride or their lives.”
Moseley said, “You got a family, Captain?”
Barcroft was slow in answering. His voice dropped a little. “No ⦠no family.”
“Then how can you tell me what's best for mine?”
Barcroft said, “I know, Moseley. Believe me, I know too well.”
He pulled his horse back. “Come on, Cloud, if you're joining up with us. We'll catch fresh horses out of that timber and go on after the Indians.”
Cloud said, “Right, sir.” He started to salute, but he didn't know for sure how proper it would be. He'd never been in a military outfit before. He let the salute drop, and Barcroft didn't seem to notice.
Cloud paused a moment to shake Moseley's hand. “Take care of yourself, Lige. And maybe you ought to think over what the captain said. Sure, he's an educated feller, but it sounds to me like he makes sense.”
“I ain't movin',” Moseley spoke calmly. “Anytime you're ridin' through, you'll find us here. Be sure you stop; we'll be tickled to see you.” He glanced back at his daughter. “And don't forget what I told you about a man needin' a good woman.”
“I won't forget,” Cloud promised. He swung into his saddle and found Captain Barcroft already leading out. Cloud fell in at the rear of the company and looked back once, waving his hand.
The girl Samantha waved back.
W
AVING HIS HAND IN A CIRCULAR MOTION, CAPTAIN Barcroft called to his men, “Fan out and catch fresh horses. Leave the ones you have. We'll round them all up when we come back.”
He moved hurriedly, yet without excitement.
It didn't take long. Some of the men formed loops in their stake ropes and cast them over horses' heads. Others, who couldn't rope, rode up beside loose horses and dropped the end of the rope over an animal's neck, then reached down and caught the rope end from beneath and drew it up, making a loop. Most of the men took some care in their selection of remounts. A few had no real idea what to look for.
Watching a few like these, Cloud thought he could understand the captain's bitterness over some of the new men. These were not frontiersmen. Men like these were the shirkers, here to keep out of war.
Cloud left his sorrel and caught a good-looking brown that had strong legs and a deep chest and looked as if it could hold out in a long run. He knew the brand on its hip. It belonged to a ranch far to the south and east. Quite a circle these Comanches had made.
In moments the men were mounted. Barcroft signaled to the Mexican, who struck out in the lead, following the trail of the Comanches.
Cloud looked around him as he rode, appraising these other members of the Texas Mounted Rifles. There was no uniform. Every man dressed as suited himâor more likely, as he could afford. Money was scarce in Texas, and always had been. Some wore homespun, some wore store cloth. A few wore buckskin. Some had high-topped, flat-heeled boots, and several wore shoes.
Cloud had seen a copy of the orders setting up a regiment of the Rifles. It required that each man should have a Colt six-shooter, if possible, plus a good double-barreled shotgun or short rifle “if convenient.” He was supposed to have a half-gallon tin canteen, covered with cloth, and a good heavy blanket to sleep on.
Every man Cloud saw had a pistol on his hip. And as per orders, each carried either a shotgun or rifle across his saddle. The rifle was good for distance, but a shotgun was unbeatable in close combat. The state didn't furnish the armament. In this outfit a man brought his own weapons or didn't join.
A grinning young man with rust-red hair edged over next to Cloud and stuck out his hand. “Guffey's my name. Quade Guffey.”
Cloud took his hand. “Sam Houston Cloud.”
Quade made no remark about the name. It was not unusual for boys in that day to be named after General Sam. “Captain there, he gave you a pretty stiff initiation
speech, but don't let it worry you. You get used to him after a while.”
“You do?”
“Yep, and then you hate him even worse.”
The riders passed the horse Cloud had dropped out from under one of the Comanches. Minutes later they went by the spot from which he had stampeded the herd. Cloud rode off to one side to look. He found a spot of blood where the buck had fallen, but the body was gone.
One less hole for Lige's boys to dig.
The men settled into a long trot, occasionally pushing the horses into an easy lope for a way, then pulling them down again. The Indians had a long start. But they had been pushing their horses hard when they left. The mounts would inevitably tire. By conserving their own horses all they could, the Rifles had a better chance of catching up.
Cloud soon found himself riding near the lead. It was not his way to bring up the rear. Barcroft glanced at him, appraising Cloud and his equipment. But the captain had nothing to say. He glanced toward the sun every so often, measuring the rate of its descent. Cloud knew what the man was thinking. They'd better catch those Indians before dark. Give the Comanche horses a few hours of rest and they would be as fresh again as the ones the Texans rode.
The tracks freshened. The Indians were slowing down. The Rifles came upon a horse, its throat cut. Exhausted, and killed by the Comanches so the white men couldn't get any use from him.
A little later the Mexican up front signaled and pointed to the ground. Riding up, Cloud saw the stiffening body of the Indian he had shot. It lay in the buffalo grass, abandoned by tiring Comanches who could no longer carry it.
“Crowding them,” Barcroft said matter-of-factly to
those near enough to hear him. “They're getting desperate when they leave their dead.”
He raised his hand and gave the signal for a speedup. Then he spurred into an easy lope and overtook the Mexican scout before the scout knew of the order.
To the west, the sun was rapidly sinking into a latticework of dry summer clouds, pretty to look at but devoid of rain. The pursuit had broken out of the brushy country and onto the open grassland that rolled for mile upon unbroken mile, toward the faraway escarpment of the Llano Estacadoâthe Staked Plains. Here and there a scattering of mesquites stood in low areas where the rainwater tended to run together, and the shadows of these trees were lengthening, reaching across the grass prairie like grasping fingers.
Ahead lay a creek, lined with brush. Barcroft raised his hand for a slowdown while the scout moved out to look it over. He was almost to the scrubby oaks when a rifle exploded. The ball missed the scout and sang by the men behind him. The Mexican spurred his horse sharply to the left, hitting the brush a hundred yards upstream from the source of the shot. Cloud could hear pistol fire.
Barcroft veered the command sharply to one side, upstream from the scout. When he hit the brush, he reined downstream and spurred out. Thus the Texans outflanked the Indian rear guard. Ahead of him Cloud saw the Mexican scout on one knee, aiming a six-shooter. He fired once, then the Rifles swept by him, yelping, and the scout almost lost his horse in the excitement.
Four warriors had been left in the creekbed to slow the pursuit. Two of them fired rifles, then threw the rifles down and began to run. Two others stood their ground, loosing arrows as quickly as they could pull them from deer-hide quivers and draw the bows. Cloud heard a horse
go down, the rider cursing as he slid on his belly through the grass.
The Indian stand was hopeless. The troops swept over the warriors like a storm wave breaking over a lakeshore. Within the span of thirty seconds, all four Comanches lay dead. A couple of young recruits were gathering up bows and arrows as souvenirs. More practical, a pair of older men recovered the Indians' two rifles and relieved the bodies of shot and powder.
Barcroft turned in the saddle and looked back upstream. Here came the Mexican scout. He was flanked by two other riders who had held back from the battle and now rode in white-faced and shaken.
Barcroft gave his first attention to the Mexican. “Are you all right, Miguel?” The Mexican nodded. Then Barcroft faced the other two. They seemed to shrink, even before the captain spoke to them.
“What were you doing back there? Why didn't you stay up with me?”
One of the men stammered. “W-w-we thought we'd better help Miguel.”
“He didn't need any help. You were trying to stay back out of the fight!” Face cloudy, Barcroft shook his fist at the two. “There's one thing in this world I hate worse than a Comanche, and that's a coward. Next time we're engaged, I'm going to see to it that you two are right up in front, or I'll shoot you myself! Is that clear?”
The two only nodded and looked at the ground.
Barcroft turned away from them. “Anybody hit?” he queried. One man had a flesh wound; nothing serious. A couple of men were out catching an Indian mount for the man whose horse had gone down. The Mexican scout was on the ground with a Bowie knife, grimly scalping the dead warriors. He held up a bloody scalp and shook it. It jingled.
“Looky there, Captain,” one of the other men said, “got little bells tied in it. Ain't that the funniest thing you ever seen?”
Cloud didn't see much funny in it and turned away.
“Come on,” Barcroft said impatiently, “we've lost time enough.”
As scout, Miguel Soto was supposed to take the lead, but Barcroft was crowding him now in his restless haste, staying close behind him. Cloud rode almost abreast of the captain. He could see excitement building in Barcroft's face nowâan eager anticipation.
Moments before sundown they spotted the Indians, strung out in a long, tired line. There were more than Cloud had supposed when he had first looked down at Moseley's, and he was doubly glad he hadn't fired into them instead of merely running off the horses. The Indians saw the pursuit and began whipping up their horses. At the distance Cloud knew most of the stragglers were squaws. Some of the bucks began dropping back to protect them, but some were trying to get on out ahead, even at the expense of the squaws.
Most Comanches took pains to protect their women and children, but once Cloud had seen a warrior pull a squaw down off a horse and take it for his own getaway. They could be as cold-blooded about it as some white men.
Ahead lay a stretch of oak timber.
“Spur out, men,” Barcroft shouted. “If they make that brush, and dark coming on, we'll lose them.”
He used his leather quirt. The riders with the best horses began pulling forward in a ragged line. Those on poorer mounts, and those who didn't really want to be in the thick of it, began falling back. Barcroft looked behind him, searching out the men who had held back in the last skirmish. “You twoâHolmes, Ulbrichâget yourselves
up here and fight! Spur up, I tell you, or I'll have you shot!”
Somehow the two got extra speed out of their horses.
Their mounts fresher, the Rifles rapidly closed the distance between themselves and the Indians. A few of the newer men wasted a long shot or two that picked up dust far from the Comanches.
Barcroft shouted, “Hold your fire till you can hit something.” He used the quirt some more.
One of the warriors stopped his horse suddenly, reined about and raised a rifle. It spat fire. The man named Ulbrich screamed and tumbled from the saddle. Barcroft didn't even look back. Pistol in his hand, he bore down on the Indian and pulled the trigger. The Indian fell. Galloping by, other men fired at the Comanche, making sure he was dead.
From here on it was an easy butchery until the lead Indians got into the brush and scattered like quail. One fell, then another and another. Spurring past, Cloud looked down at one broken body and realized it was a squaw. Regret gripped him, but he knew there was no sense in worrying about it. In a running fight, it was sometimes hard to tell a squaw from a buck.
As Moseley had said,
she just ortn't to've been there.
The sun was gone, the dusk quickly deepening. The troops were far into the brush, and firing had stopped. The Indians had vanished. His horse sweat-lathered and breathing hard, Barcroft called out, “Assemble! Pass the word, assemble!”
Cloud reined in beside the captain and took the opportunity to reload his six-shooter. His breath was short from the hard run, and his heart was thumping from the excitement. He looked at the captain and saw the man's chest heaving. Barcroft was almost out of breath, yet there was exultation in his face. Pleasure showed in his black
eyes as he looked down upon the body of a Comanche warrior.
The Mexican scout dismounted and said, “With your permission,
Capitán
?” He had his knife out and ready.
Barcroft said, “Help yourself.”
Something cold passed through Cloud as he watched. Barcroft caught the look. “Bother you, Cloud?”
“Can't say as I like it.”
“Indians scalp their victims, or don't you know?”
“They're savages. We're white men.”
“We're fighting a savage foe, Cloud. If we're to survive, we need to become as savage as he is.”
“Can't say as I accept that, Captain.”
Firmly Barcroft said, “
I
accept it, and I'm the captain here.”
Cloud glanced sharply at him but said nothing more.
The men gathered and took count of each other, anxious to know if friends had made it through all right. Only one man was lostâUlbrich. He wasn't much of a loss, Cloud heard Quade Guffey remark. It had been a one-sided fight. Barcroft eyed his men with satisfaction. He turned to the scout Miguel. “How many would you say got away?”
Miguel Soto shrugged. “Ten, maybe. Mostly squaws. The bucks, they try to fight and we pretty much kill.”
“Do you think the survivors are heading for an encampment, a rendezvous of some kind ahead?”
“Quién sabe, mi capitán?”
Soto shrugged again. “Somewhere up yonder, more Indians come together, I think. Most of the time these bands they split up to make the raids. Later they meet somewhere in this open country, where the white man don' go. The little bands they make one pretty good-sized band. They sing and dance and celebrate. Then they all go home together.”
“And where is home?”
“Far. Very far, yonder,” he said, pointing northward,
and a little west. “Up there, no white man ever go.”