Текст книги "The Black Jacks"

Автор книги: Jason Manning

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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."

"Then there will be a great battle," reasoned Red Eagle, "and we should take part in it."

"No. This is what we must do. Send the women and some of the men due west from here with the stolen horses. The rest of us will strike north along the Brazos River. We will hit hard and fast. The Texans will be gathering to stop Yellow Hand and the others. By the time they move against us we will have reached the Cross Timbers. There we will be safe and can turn for home."

Tall Horses nodded enthusiastically. "This is a good plan."

Red Eagle frowned. Like Gray Wolf he was a young war chief, and he saw Gray Wolf as his principal rival. He knew that the warriors tended to look more to Gray Wolf for leadership than they did him; they knew Gray Wolf was more levelheaded and had proven himself a better strategist in raids against the Utes. Besides, they believed Gray Wolf had been spared at the Council House by the Great Spirit for some special purpose. So Red Eagle swallowed his pride and agreed with Gray Wolf's plan.

And so, when the Comanche horde turned north, retracing their steps, leaving a ruined, smoldering Linnville behind, it was without the Quohadis, who slipped away to the northeast, a hundred strong after dispatching their women and about thirty warriors westward with the stolen stock and plunder.

As Gray Wolf had suspected, the Texans were gathering. Lafayette Ward and twenty-two men from Lavaca met Captain Matthew Caldwell and thirty-seven men at Gonzales. Together they rode on to Seguin and joined forces with another party of twenty men. Here they received their first reliable intelligence concerning the Comanches. The hostiles were following their old trail north. Caldwell decided to cut them off at Plum Creek. The Texans marched all day across prairie scorched by a grass fire, through a cloud of ashes that blinded and choked men and horses.

That night, Captain James Bird and thirty more riders joined them. Ben McCulloch and a handful of men also rode into camp; they had quit Tumlinson's group in disgust after Tumlinson lost his nerve and let slip an opportunity to strike at the Indians in the vicinity of Victoria.

Early the next morning General Felix Huston, late of the Texas Army, showed up, and Caldwell graciously surrendered command to him. This displeased many of the Texans, who knew Caldwell—Old Paint, they affectionately called him—had proven himself as an Indian fighter. Still, no one quit over it. Just before dawn, scouts rode in to report the Comanches three miles south and coming on. Almost simultaneously, a rider galloped in to announce the imminent arrival of Colonel Edward Burleson with eighty-seven Texans and thirteen Tonawas.

Felix Huston's command, now numbering nearly a hundred men, waited in the trees and thickets along Plum Creek as the new day dawned. They wondered who would be the first on the scene—the Comanches or Burleson. They did not have long to speculate. An hour later the Comanches appeared with their huge horse herd, on the open prairie west of Plum Creek. They paused to let their ponies drink from the creek hardly more than a half mile upstream from where the Texans lurked, undiscovered, in a thicket.

Deciding they could wait no longer for Burleson's force to arrive, the Texans mounted up and rode out into the open. The Comanche warriors formed a barrier, intent on delaying the Texans until their women and the horse herd could escape. The warriors' faces were painted red. Many of them wore buffalo headdresses. Their buffalo-hide shields were daubed with colorful symbols. The manes and tails of their war ponies were painted carmine red. The Texans could not fail to notice that some of the hostiles wore plundered white man's clothing—a stovepipe here, a clawhammer coat there. Nor did they fail to note the scalps dangling from some of the long red lances.

For a few minutes neither side advanced. Felix Huston could tell he was outnumbered three or four to one, and held his men in check. The Comanches screamed taunts at the Texans. Some performed exhibitions of riding skill up and down their line. Then a chief, conspicuous by his feather warbonnet and bone breastplate, rode forward. The Comanches cheered—only to fall abruptly silent as a rifle spoke from somewhere along the Texan line and the chief tumbled off his pony, shot through the heart.

Felix Huston looked at Captain Caldwell, who lowered his smoking rifle. "Charge them now, General!" said Caldwell. "Do it this instant and we'll have them whipped!"

Huston gave the signal. With a savage roar the Texans surged forward, guns blazing. At that moment Burleson and his men appeared, most opportunely, on the Comanche flank. The horse herd stampeded, and after a brief and bloody affray, the warriors broke, scattering, with the Texans hot on their heels.

In the aftermath, eighty Comanche dead were located, many on the prairie, some in the creek, others in the thickets where they had tried in vain to elude their relentless pursuers. Only a handful of Texans had lost their lives, and a few more had sustained wounds. Of the four captives taken by the Comanches during the raid, three were recovered. The fourth, Mrs. Crosby, descendant of Daniel Boone, was killed by her captors.

Plum Creek was a decisive defeat for the Comanches. Satisfied with their work, the Texans disbanded, returning to their homes secure in the knowledge that they had taught the hostiles a lesson they would not soon forget. The great raid was over.

They had no way of knowing that on the very morning of the big scrape at Plum Creek, a force of nearly one hundred Quohadi warriors struck the settlement of Grand Cane.

Chapter Fifteen

The Comanches first appeared at the farm of Jellicoe Fuller, two miles south of Grand Cane.

When he'd first moved onto the section which Captain McAllen had deeded to him out of the republic's generous land grant, Fuller had turned over forty acres of partially cleared land with a bar-share plow and then, with an eye on the future, proceeded to clear approximately forty acres more closer to the river. This meant cutting down trees a foot or less in diameter and "deadening" the rest, which was accomplished by girdling the trunk all around to the depth of six inches or so. In the intervening years all of these trees had died. Windstorms had stripped them of most of their limbs, providing plenty of firewood for the Fuller family. This spring, with the corn already planted and sprouting, Jellicoe Fuller was tackling the big job of felling the dead trees and burning out the stumps. Now, at least, his fourteen-year-old son, Billy, was big enough to wield an ax and lend him a hand.

Billy was hacking away at a tree about thirty yards from where Jellicoe was building a slow fire in a hollow space carved out of a stump when the elder Fuller heard a sound resembling thunder. Perplexed, he looked up at a clear blue sky. Then the blood in his veins seemed to turn to ice. Picking up the percussion rifle that was seldom out of reach, Fuller called his son to him. His voice was calm but firm.

"Boy, you run on up to the house fast as your legs can carry you, put your ma and sister on the back of the plow mare, and light out for town like the hounds of hell are snappin' at your heels."

"What's the matter, Pa?" Billy was looking up at the sky, searching for thunderclouds.

"Just do what I tell you. Go, now."

Billy caught on then. He wasn't slow-witted. His eyes got wide. "Is it. . ."

"Run, boy. Run!"

Turning pale, Billy Fuller ran.

Jellicoe watched his son go, knowing he would not live to see Billy or his wife or daughter again. At least he had known the joys of married life and fatherhood for a few precious years. That was more than he'd expected or deserved. There was a time to live and a time to die, and when it came right down to it a man had very little say in the matter.

The thunder was getting louder. For once, mused Fuller, Captain McAllen had miscalculated. The Indians were coming from the south, not the west or the north. He could feel the ground vibrating beneath his feet. He moved as quick as his game leg allowed. A Seminole arrow with a poisoned tip had made a cripple of him—it was thanks only to Dr. Tice's quick work that he had survived. He and the rest of the Black Jacks had been chased through the swamps by a hundred howling red devils for three days, but nary a man had even suggested that Jellicoe Fuller was slowing them down and ought to be left behind. Now it was time to pay the boys back. He would do whatever he could to hold the Comanches here as long as possible.

Dragging his stiffened leg behind him, Fuller cut across the cornfield in the warm spring sun and reached the cabin just as the Comanches came swarming out of the woods in the direction of the river. Spotting Fuller, they cut loose with bloodcurdling war whoops. Fuller checked to make sure his family was on their way to Grand Cane. He was relieved to find the cabin empty, the plow mare gone. He had but one regret—that he hadn't been able to tell his wife and little girl good-bye.

Standing on the porch, he watched the Comanches, who had paused at the edge of the woods. He figured there had to be nearly a hundred of them. What were they waiting for? What if they decided he wasn't worth the trouble and went right on around him to Grand Cane? That wouldn't do. Grimly, Fuller lifted rifle to shoulder and aimed at a knot of warriors he took to be leaders on account of their warbonnets. Squeezing the trigger, he fired and then stepped sideways out of the powder smoke to see if his aim had been true. He was gratified to see one of the Indians slump forward and then slide off his pony. Yelling like banshees, the rest of the Comanches surged forward across the cornfield.

As Fuller reloaded, a dozen arrows seemed to sprout from the cabin wall behind him. He turned to go inside. That was when an arrow struck him high in the back. Gasping, he stumbled into the cabin, shut and bolted the door, closed the shutters on the windows, and lit a candle. He broke the shaft of the arrow in his back, hissing at the pain. The Comanches were all around the cabin now. In no time at all there were several at the door and windows, hacking at the stout timber with their hatchets and war clubs. There were a few more on the roof, trying to cut a hole through the cedar shingles. Resigned to his fate, Fuller smashed the lid of a small cask of black powder and set it on its side on the table so that some of the powder spilled out. Sitting at the table, he primed and loaded a Collier flintlock pistol and waited. Every breath was agony and he wondered if the arrowhead had punctured one of his lungs. Not that it really mattered.

He didn't have long to wait. The Comanches on the roof got in first. Fuller shot the first one dropping down through the hole, killing him before he hit the ground, using the Collier. He plugged the second one through with his rifle, and was reloading the long gun when the door came off its hinges and a swarm of them came through. He used the rifle like a club to drop one of them, and then turned to knock the burning candle into the powder cask as the rest of the Comanches closed on him, swinging clubs and tomahawks. Jesus, forgive me my sins, he prayed. . . .

The explosion disintegrated the cask, turning its wood staves and metal rings into shrapnel that killed Jellicoe Fuller and three of the warriors outright. Several other Comanches were wounded and stumbled out of the cabin as it began to burn.

By the time the Quohadis had regrouped and were on their way north along the river road, the Fuller cabin was consumed by flames and a pillar of smoke rose high into a clear blue sky.

Cedric Cole and his ferry were on the east bank of the Brazos, having just transferred Benjamin Sturgis and a wagon across the river from Grand Cane. Sturgis was a freighter who plied the route between Gonzales and Houston, and it was he who first saw the plume of smoke.

"Look there, Cole. What do you make of that?"

The ferryman took one look and said, "Comanche."

Sturgis turned as colorless as the canvas tarpaulin strapped down over the load in his wagon. "Good God, man. It can't be. The Comanches wouldn't come this far east."

"Wanna bet?" asked the laconic Cole.

Sturgis clambered up onto the wagon and whipped the team into motion, maneuvering his vehicle down the ramp he and Cole had just put in place. Once he was on dry land he checked the mules in their traces and looked back to see, much to his surprise, that Cole was already hauling on the towline to take the ferry back across the river.

"Cole! Where the hell are you going? If there are Comanches over yonder, you'd better stay . . ."

But it was obvious to him that Cole wasn't paying any heed. Shaking his head, the freighter whipped up his team again and drove the wagon up the embankment and down the road to Houston as fast as the mules would take him.

Billy Fuller's yelling brought Artemus Tice out of his office. He saw Jellicoe's boy sliding off of the old mare that also carried Nell Fuller and her three-year-old daughter. Billy's cries brought others from their homes and businesses, but it was Tice who reached the Fullers first.

"Calm down, Billy," he said firmly, nodding at Mrs. Fuller. "Good morning, Nell. What's happened?"

"I'm not altogether sure." Nell Fuller was making every effort to remain calm and in control, but Tice could tell she was more distraught than he had ever seen her. "I fear my husband is in grave trouble. He sent Billy in from the field to tell us to come to town straightaway."

"I heard sumpin what sounded like thunder," said Billy.

"I am afraid—" Nell Fuller's voice broke, and she paused just long enough to regain her composure. "I am afraid it may be Comanches, Artemus."

It was at that moment that Tice heard the strange thunder. He knew right away what it was.

"Grab your guns, boys!" Tice yelled at the men who stood in the street. "Comanches are coming to call"

Billy Fuller grabbed Tice's sleeve as the doctor turned to enter his office. "My pa's dead, ain't he?"

"I reckon he is, son."

"Give me a gun. I'll fight."

"You make sure your mother and sister get on Cedric Cole's ferry." His tone of voice made it clear to Billy Fuller that no argument would be brooked.

When Tice came back out with a brace of pistols in his belt and his walking stick in hand, a dozen armed men had gathered in the street. Among them were Scayne and Deckard and Ainsworth and Will Parton. The latter had a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other.

"No time to fetch the others," said Tice. He meant those Black Jacks who, like Yancey Torrance, lived on the outskirts of Grand Cane. "They'll come to the sound of gunfire if they're able."

"Let us smite the wicked," said the preacher solemnly, "and we will fear not death, for the Lord God is with us."

Tice started walking down the street toward the south end of Grand Cane, and the other Black Jacks followed, fanning out on both sides.

Yancey Torrance and his son Brax were in the smitty when they heard an eruption of gunfire from Grand Cane. Yancey knew immediately what had happened. He dropped his mallet and snatched up a pair of rifles that had been within quick and easy reach ever since John Henry McAllen's speech about the likelihood of Comanche attack. One of the long guns he tossed to his son.

"Brax, you make certain Emily and your ma get to the ferry."

"But Pa! Let me go with you. I'm the best shot in Brazoria County. Everybody says so. You've said as much yourself. I can fight Indians, so why don't you ever let me—"

"Stop your whining and do what I tell you," snapped Yancey.

Fuming, Brax ran to the nearby cabin. It was Saturday, which meant his mother was at home rather than the little one-room schoolhouse on the other side of town. Mary Torrance stood in the doorway, wiping dough-encrusted hands on her apron. She could hear the shooting. Concern furrowed her brows as she watched her husband leave the smitty at a dead run, turning down the road into Grand Cane without a backward look.

"Is it Comanches, Brax?" she asked.

"Reckon so."

"Dear God in heaven," she murmured.

Emily appeared in the doorway behind her. "What's the matter, Aunt Mary?"

"Pa says I'm to get the two of you to the ferry," said Brax.

"Oh, I must take a few things with me," said Mary. She appeared to be in something of a daze as she turned to go back inside.

"There's no time for that," said Emily, taking Mary by the hand. "We'll come back home when it's all over."

Mary gave her a funny look. "There may not be a home to come back to."

Brax took his mother's other hand and tugged hard. "Come along, Ma. We've got to hurry."

He led them down into the trees by the river and turned south. Mingled with war whoops, the gunfire from the vicinity of Grand Cane was becoming more intense. Brax endured it as long as he could; finally he stopped and turned to the women.

"The ferry's right up ahead. You all can make it from here, can't you?"

"I should have at least brought the family Bible," said Mary.

"Where are you going, Brax?" asked Emily.

"I'm going to help Pa." Brax turned away. "Take Ma to the ferry, Em," he shouted over his shoulder as he loped up through the woods in the direction of town.

Major Charles Stewart was standing at the top of the veranda steps when McAllen came running up the slope of the bluff to the main house, Jeb and Joshua in his wake. The Englishman had been enjoying a glass of sangaree when he saw a plume of smoke about three or four miles south along the course of the Brazos. It was a fine clear morning and one could see quite a long way from the vantage point of McAllen's house atop the bluff. A few minutes later, Stewart thought he heard, very faintly, the crackle of what sounded like gunfire, carried on the northerly breeze. This had brought him to the top of the steps, much to the chagrin of Leah McAllen, who had been doing her level best to charm the dashing young major with her small talk and sultry glances. Now Leah sat at the table in a huff, pouting beautifully, resentful of whatever it was that had stolen Stewart's attention.

"I say," said Stewart, as McAllen arrived, "I could swear I heard the sound of firearms."

"I think it's coming from town." McAllen was in his shirtsleeves, having been down at the mill.

"You know," said Stewart, pleased, "once you've heard that sound you can't really ever mistake it for anything else."

McAllen turned to Joshua. "Horses," he said, and the half-breed was beating it around the house for the stables. "Jeb, you know what to do."

"Yessuh." Jeb saw Bessie in the doorway. "Go fetch Roman. We gots to get down to the landing."

"Lawdy, lawdy," said Bessie, and hurried back inside. McAllen and Stewart followed her.

"Miss Leah," said Jeb.

Leah was still at the table. "Oh, fiddle. I shall stay right here. I shan't go traipsing off to the river to climb into one of those filthy old boats. I've got a brand-new dress on." She wore a snow-white crinoline with a daringly low-cut bodice and a scarlet ribbon accentuating her slender waist.

"Miss Leah, if I have to I'll carry you down there."

"You'll do no such thing. If you lay one filthy black hand on me, you will regret it for the rest of your life."

McAllen had emerged from the house, a pair of five-shot .36-caliber Colt Patersons under his belt.

"Damn it, Leah," he growled. "You get moving. Now. Or I'll help Jeb hog-tie you."

Leah was shocked. To be spoken to in such a way was an outrage! She tried to manufacture a few tears. Her husband did not look amused, so she dispensed with tears and stood up and raised her chin to a defiant angle.

"Very well, then," she said, with a nice blend of haughtiness and wounded dignity. "I'll go, though I think it's silly running like rabbits from a few dirty savages. I warn you, John Henry, if anything happens to my furniture or my clothes, I'll . . . I'll . . . well, I don't know what I will do."

Stewart emerged from the house, buckling on his saber.

"Where do you think you're going?" McAllen asked him.

"With you, of course. I've had some experience fighting aborigines, you know."

McAllen scanned Stewart's resplendent uniform. "You make a splendid target, Major."

"Charles, please don't go," said Leah. She glanced crossly at her husband. "Really, John Henry, you can't let our guest come to harm."

Joshua arrived with Escatawpa and his own horse—for several days now McAllen had taken the precaution of keeping the horses saddled to save time in the event of a sudden raid. Now, impatient to be off, he got aboard the gray hunter. Stewart had followed him to the gate in the hedge of Cherokee rose.

"If you're coming, Major, you can ride Joshua's horse."

"Thank you." Stewart took the reins from the half-breed and swung gracefully into the saddle.

"You mustn't go," exclaimed Leah, who had pursued the Englishman off the veranda. "You simply mustn't."

Stewart smiled. "Oh, but I must, Mrs. McAllen. I wouldn't miss it for the world." He was bored, though he decided it would be tactless to say so. The conquest of the beautiful Leah Pierce McAllen had entertained him for a day or two, but it had soon become evident that she was his for the asking. He would sample her charms when it suited him. For now he was in desperate need of some other kind of excitement, and this Comanche raid, if indeed that was what this turned out to be, would fit the bill nicely.

McAllen didn't waste time waiting for his wife to demonstrate the same concern for his welfare that she had for Major Stewart's. He turned Escatawpa and started down the lane at a gallop. Stewart followed. Joshua was already sprinting for the stable again; by the time McAllen and the Englishman had reached the river road, the half-breed was in hot pursuit, riding a third horse bareback. Leah stood at the gate until the riders were out of sight.

"Don't worry, Miss Leah," said Jeb, standing nearby. "Cap'n McAllen's gotten into plenty of Injun scrapes and come out without a scratch."

She peered suspiciously at him, detecting a trace of sarcasm in his voice. But Jeb's features betrayed nothing.