Comanche Dawn (72 page)

“I have already said the prayers for the savages,” the friar replied. “The souls of those killed in the coming battle are prepared for judgement by God. I will pray for the soldiers as the attack begins.”

The men were all mounted now and ready. Lujan led them toward the brink of the riverbank. The moment the Comanche camp came into view, the captain drew his sword and shouted, “Santiago!”

The men repeated the familiar cry, their coarse voices bursting into the valley as their horses charged the Comanche camp. The Apaches followed close behind, yelping like barking coyotes, spreading across the valley as an undisciplined rabble. Padre Ugarte fell in after them, their dust gritting his eyes and teeth. He held his cross in one hand, his reins in the other. His heart pounded with hope and fear. He had served well, saved so many souls. And yet, he had sinned. Perhaps it was time to settle with God. He knew the Almighty would demand severe penance.

They were a long musket shot from the camp when suddenly a shrill cry rose among the hide tents. Comanche horsemen appeared from nowhere, some swarming from the camp, some rounding the first bend in the valley, some bursting from stands of timber that seemed too small to have concealed them. Lujan's men slowed their mounts to take better aim with their pistols. The Apaches stopped to dismount, for they preferred to fight afoot. But the Comanches only rode harder.

The soldiers took aim and waited, but just when the Comanches reached effective pistol range, they began to swarm, at first in one direction, like the winds of a tornado, then peeling off like minnows scattering at the shadow of a bird. One instant they were like bees, making individual attacks on the soldiers and Apaches, the next moment they became as one, like the waters of a whirlpool, drawing their enemies deeper into doom. Like hawks, each striking his own victim. Then like wolves, coming together in little packs to drag a foe into bloody death.

The pistols fired, and balls whistled everywhere, but Ugarte could not see that any had hit home. Swords sang from their scabbards as bowstrings thumped like drumming fingers. A second war cry rose from behind and Ugarte turned, wide-eyed, to see another hundred Comanches storming down the riverbank from the rear. Whence they had risen, he could not comprehend.

Swinging his leg over his mule, the friar let his shoes hit the ground as he clutched his cross and mumbled familiar prayers. He turned to face the attack from the riverbank, but to his surprise, the warriors parted to go around him, refusing to even look at him. It seemed they preferred to battle enemy warriors rather than slay a holy man. Ugarte felt relieved, which only made him feel ashamed.

When he turned back to the battleground, he spotted Acaballo, riding his fleet pinto pony into the vortex of the fight. The pony's mane streamed like hellfire, sun glinting on the sheen of the marvelous coat shaped by ripples of muscle. The creature was so nimble, and the rider so fixed to him, that Ugarte had to fight the urge to admire them.

Acaballo struck like a lion with his club, dashing aside an Apache who had dismounted to fight, breaking the arm of a soldier who drew his sword back to strike. And yet, the Comanche failed to finish his victims, paying no more heed to them than a farmer would to a shock of wheat his sickle had left behind. He seemed all the while to be searching for a particular victim. The pinto forever wove among the combatants, the rider swaying with his every turn as if each knew the other's thoughts. The pony seemed in particular to enjoy charging upon the Spaniards, for he would kick a hind foot at a soldier overrun, crane his neck to snap his teeth at a soldier passing by, and once reared to paw a soldier from his very saddle. It had been said that Acaballo's wretched warhorse hated Spaniards.

Now a veteran cavalryman angled in on Acaballo from behind, taking a lethal swipe with a blade that glinted like a diamond. Ugarte's heart swelled with joy—and a morsel of pity he could not suppress—as Acaballo fell to one side of his pony. Then, somehow, the Comanche rose again, unscathed, and bashed his club over the head of the soldier. How he had avoided the blow, remained horsed, and sprung so quickly in retaliation was an unholy mystery.

The soldiers began to fall, and their screams came like cries of heretics in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Ugarte felt his stomach wrench with nausea. He did not know what was holy any more. Where was God? Where was salvation?

Now the Apaches seemed more interested in mounting and gathering their dead and wounded than in fighting. Then the friar understood. Battle Scar's people were preparing to flee. All was lost. The last of the soldiers were trying to fight their way together, but each was swarmed under.

Then Ugarte saw
Capitán
Lorenzo Lujan, still horsed, arrows protruding from his leather armor. The captain broke off a shaft that inhibited his sword arm, and continued to slash with his weapon. His use of the steel and the horse rivaled even the incomprehensible maneuvers of the Comanches, and he swatted them aside like insects.

The Apaches raised a cry, and began to move away from the battleground. Ugarte located Acaballo. The Comanche chief seemed torn between the two enemy parties, as if he did not know which to fight, for the Apaches and Spaniards were parting ranks. Would he attack the soldiers, who were all but finished anyway? Or would he pursue the Apaches, who were about to escape?

The wind shifted, and Ugarte caught the odors of death—blood mixed with the sweat of horses, the vomitus of dying men, the foul bile of punctured guts. His own stomach seemed to close in on itself, and he bent forward to vomit, yet could not tear his eyes away from the horrible scene.

Acaballo's pinto ascended the riverbank like a soaring bird, closing quickly on the poorer mounts of the Apaches. The warrior screamed and the Apaches parted in fear. Only one turned back to face the Comanche chief, and that one was Battle Scar. The old Apache chief raised a sword he had taken from a Spanish soldier. Just before he clashed with Acaballo, he dropped from his mount. As the beautiful pinto charged upon him, Battle Scar dodged a blow from the war club, rolling in front of the pony. As the pinto leapt over him, Battle Scar wielded the Spanish sword, hacking at the legs that passed overhead.

At first, Ugarte thought the blade had missed. Then the horse stumbled and squealed, landing on his shoulder, spilling Acaballo. A Comanche warrior came to Acaballo's aid. Then another, and another. The pinto kicked, rose, limped piteously, his head nodding with every stride. Battle Scar was back on his war pony in an instant, leaving the field of battle with the rest of his men—even the dead and wounded, who had been fought for beyond reason.

A cry of victory rose from the valley, and Ugarte saw Lujan being dragged from his pony, arrows sticking out of him like banderillas from a bull in the fighting ring. Acaballo gathered the reins of his wounded war pony and handed them to one of his warriors to hold. Mounting another pony, he galloped down the riverbank, charging upon the captive, Lujan. Fray Ugarte himself ran toward the soldier. It was time. The savages would not see him cower.

The warriors stepped away from Lujan, and he fell. Acaballo shouted orders, and the warriors began stripping the leather armor and the clothes from the captain. Elsewhere, across the battleground, Ugarte witnessed the warriors committing ghastly atrocities upon the bodies of dead Spaniards. The women were running from the camp with knives, trilling victory songs, and the friar knew they would hack the bodies of the poor soldiers like butchered swine.

As he reached Lujan, Ugarte could see only one hand moving, the captain seeming to search for his sword. He was naked, facedown. The warriors saw the friar coming. They moved away from him, as if they feared him. Lujan was dying, his blood gathering in rivulets that trickled down the slope of the riverbank. Acaballo had cut a pair of heavy leather reins from the bridle of a dead Spanish horse. His eyes glared first at the friar, then at the captain. Now he descended on the naked body and began lashing it with the reins, the leather popping hideously against the white flesh. Lujan did not even flinch, for he was already dead.

Feeling his fear swarm about him in a dizzy haze, Fray Gabrielle Ugarte removed his robe and began chanting his prayers, standing naked like the crucified Christ, still clutching his silver cross, trying to face his penance with courage, for he had heard much of horrible
Indio
tortures.

Acaballo ceased to lash the dead body with the reins. He spoke to his men. One answered and stepped forward. Acaballo spoke again, and the warrior fell upon the body of Lujan with a knife. The warrior seemed to make a grand ceremony of slashing the scalp and peeling it off.

Victory cries rose and drowned out the singing of the friar. The pinto stallion lay down on the ground where Battle Scar had wounded him. Ugarte felt his voice climb several pitches too high.

“Enough!” Acaballo shouted, raising his hand to silence the friar. “No one will harm you, Black Robe. Save your death song.”

Ugarte's throat clenched, killing his song. He felt relief again, and the shame that came with it. “Why do you spare me, Acaballo?”

“I understand the medicine of the Black Robes. I will not make you more powerful by killing you. Instead, you will carry the story of this battle back to the Metal Men. I want war with Battle Scar's people, but not with yours. Tell the governor his soldiers must not attack my people for no reason.”

“The soldiers had reason.”

“What reason?”

“The girl. The girl! My—”

Acaballo straightened, holding his chin arrogantly high. “I spoke to Sunshade. She does not wish to return to the Spaniards. She told me about you, Black Robe. I know why you have come for her.”

“You know nothing, savage.”

Acaballo began to pace closer to the friar, still holding the bridle reins in his hand. “The power of the Black Robes is strange. A Comanche warrior who lies with a woman becomes strong, unless the woman is bleeding and unclean. But a Black Robe who lies with a woman becomes weak, and the Great Creator punishes him. You are weak, Black Robe. You wish me to make you strong by torturing you and killing you. You have coupled with a woman. Sunshade is your daughter. She told me.”

Ugarte looked at the ground, felt the tears of his shame welling up in his eyes. He gritted his teeth in frustration. “Will you not strike me? Do you forget how I whipped you?”

Acaballo dropped the reins in his hand. “I have taken your daughter as my wife. That is my vengeance.”

The Comanche turned and walked away from him, and Ugarte felt foolish, standing there naked. The rest of the warriors went with their leader. They had wounded to tend to, and perhaps two or three dead to mourn. They disregarded him as if he were nothing more than a dog from an enemy camp. Ugarte had no choice but to pick up his robe, track down his mule, and start the long journey home. His shame was almost more than he could bear. He prayed that perhaps some other savage nation would stumble upon him before he returned to Santa Fe, and duly punish him for his sins.

65

Jean L'Archeveque winced at
the smoke that stung his eyes as he fanned the coals of his cook fire. He wished for an eagle wing but had to settle for the broad, flat brim of his hat. Finally a flame broke through the smoke, and he stacked a few cottonwood branches strategically, to keep the fire flickering until he returned to cook the buffalo meat he had butchered yesterday.

He turned away from the fire and waited for the ghostly images of the flames to melt from his eyesight. When he could again see clearly in the predawn gloom, he began to make his way through the camp of Spanish soldiers, Pueblo scouts, and Apache allies, weaving among smoldering fires, passing Lieutenant-Governor Pedro Villasur's blue tent, and cautiously approaching the horses and mules picketed at the edge of camp. The eastern sky glowed with the promise of another sultry day, as stars clung tenuously to the west. Already, the air felt warm and muggy, as well it should in August on the plains.

He stopped, so as not to spook his mules, for they watched his approach with apprehension, their heads high and ears forward. Jean might have expected them to be gentle as house cats after two months on the trail, but frontier mules could revert to heathenism at the slightest provocation. Perhaps they had snuffed an old lion track or a snake skin down in the tall grass of the river bottoms. They were tied to a picket line stretched between cottonwoods, but Jean knew they were strong enough to set back and break something. Mounted guards were tending most of the expedition's horses and mules up on the grassy riverbank, but Jean had tied his animals to facilitate fitting the pack saddles this morning. Soon the guards would be herding the loose animals into the river bottom, breaking the pleasant calm of the sleeping camp.

As he stood still to let the mules settle down, he noticed that the river seemed to be making more noise than it had last night when he retired, and he wondered if rain had fallen upstream, causing a rise. Probably not. Dawn just had a way of amplifying things.

Lieutenant-Governor Villasur and Fray Ugarte had argued last night about what to name the river, for no Spanish party had ever camped upon its banks. Villasur wanted to call it El Rio Del Bosque, in honor of the governor. Ugarte preferred to name it for a saint or a pope. As far as Jean was concerned, the river already had a name. The
Pani
called it Filthy Water, for it was often made rather foul by large herds of buffalo. It ran purer than usual this morning, but Jean could think of other places he would rather be.

The secret trade he had begun with Governor Del Bosque years ago had made him wealthy in land, gold, and influence, but sometimes led to inconveniences like this. He thought perhaps he should have sent his son, Juanito, on this expedition. The young man had become quite an entrepreneur, and had even begun to understand
Indios,
but still knew virtually nothing of the wilderness. It would have been dangerous to have sent him, and so Jean L'Archeveque, a newlywed at forty-nine years of age, had decided to make the trek himself.