The Black Jacks

Wrapped in misery, she gradually became aware of an altercation near one of the campfires, where about twenty Quohadis were gathered, some of them cooking cuts of horsemeat impaled on long green sticks and seared in the flames. Two Indians were shouting at one another—her captor and the warrior who had murdered the white woman and her infant forty-eight hours ago. Remembering how incensed her captor had been to find the woman and child killed in such a brutal, senseless ma

She could not know that Gray Wolf had called the warrior a coward for making war on defenseless women and children. That the whites murdered Indian women and children was no excuse. Was the Quohadi no better than the white man? His own wife, Snow Dancer, had been gu

As he walked angrily away from the campfire, Gray Wolf caught a glimpse of the fierce elation on Red Eagle's face. Red Eagle knew that Gray Wolf had destroyed his reputation by forsaking his responsibilities as a chief, especially while on the warpath. Few if any Quohadi warriors would ever again follow Gray Wolf, mused Red Eagle, who could not believe his own good fortune. His greatest rival for the loyalty of the Quohadi warrior class had figuratively cut his own throat, and over what? A dead white baby and its mother! Truly Gray Wolf had betrayed his true self. He was weak in spirit, and unfit to lead the Quohadis into battle.

That night Gray Wolf rode west, leaving the rest of the Quohadis in their camp, and taking Emily with him. Exhausted, she kept dropping off to sleep, jerking awake as she felt herself falling off the mule. Finally she did not awaken until her body hit the ground. The pain of the fall scarcely registered. She was wet, cold, and hungry. Her i

To her surprise, Gray Wolf did not make her get back on the mule. They spent the remainder of the night in a rocky draw. He gave her some pemmican, and she consumed it. Then she lay on the hard wet ground and went to sleep.

He woke her before dawn and they were on their way again. At least the storm had passed. About midday they crossed a wide river. Grasping his pony's mane with one hand, Gray Wolf held on to Emily with the other. The mule swam across on its own recognizance. She assumed the Comanche was afraid she might try to escape by letting the current carry her away. The thought had occurred to her, but she quickly discarded it; she doubted that she had the strength to fight the river and keep from drowning. But then, it was possible that he knew she was too weak to swim on her own and did not want her to drown.

Emily had no idea what river it was, but the fact that she was far from home was made manifest by the starkly different landscape. This country was arid and rocky and rugged, dotted here and there with dusty mesquite trees and wind-sculptured post oaks, the grass sparse and brown, the soil red and sandy. Clumps of prickly pear cactus were everywhere. It was a far cry from the grassy meadows and thick forests of the Brazos blacklands. This alien and inhospitable terrain did nothing to alleviate Emily's dull despair. Still, flying in the face of all reason and reality, she clung to the belief that Uncle Yancey and Captain McAllen would save her.

The day seemed to go on forever. A hot sun blazed in a colorless sky. The blanket did not cover very much of her body, and her flanks and arms were soon burned. Finally Gray Wolf stopped and helped her off the mule. She sank immediately to the ground, but he took her roughly by the arm and half dragged, half carried her down into a dry creek bed, leading the horse and mule. Emily could tell by the expression on his face that something was wrong. They reached a cutback and Gray Wolf pressed her back against the hard, fluted red earth, a hand clamped over her mouth. Emily's heart leaped against her rib cage. The sound of horses drifted out of the twilight's purple haze.

Minutes crawled like hours. The darkness deepened. Gray Wolf was watching the rim of the cutback overhead. Emily gazed over his shoulder at the far side of the dry wash, and it was there that she saw the shape of a horse and rider seemingly rise up out of the ground, silhouetted against the indigo backdrop of the western sky. She could tell it was a white man by the distinctive shape of his broad-brimmed hat. She gasped at the sight of him, even as she realized that the man could not possibly see her or her Comanche captor—the shadows that had gathered in the dry wash were blacker than the devil's heart.

Gray Wolf heard her gasp, felt her body go rigid, and he turned his head to look behind him. The sight of the rider not a stone's throw away gave him a start, but he didn't move an inch, his eyes narrowed to slits. The horseman rode on, seeming to sink back into the earth as he quit the high ground. Gray Wolf looked at Emily. She was gazing at the spot where the rider had disappeared, and the anguish in her eyes was apparent even in the gloom of twilight, and he experienced a twinge of remorse. He admired this woman's courage and stamina and intelligence. In some ways she reminded him of Snow Dancer. The memory of his dead wife was still agonizing, and it occurred to him that there was probably a white man who loved this woman as he had loved Snow Dancer, and who was suffering the same kind of agony.

Without fully knowing why, he removed his hand from the woman's mouth.

Emily stared at him in disbelief. They stood close together, and she thought she recognized a kind of calm resignation on his face—a face painted for war with traces of vermilion strokes across his forehead and beneath the eyes, strokes that had once been boldly delineated but now, after a rainstorm and a river crossing and many days on the warpath, were mere shadows of their former selves.

She could cry out for help—the rider was close enough to hear her in the stillness of the evening, and he wasn't alone; she was sure she'd heard several shod horses. Perhaps it was Uncle Yancey and Captain McAllen and the Black Jacks. Whoever it was, they could kill this lone Comanche and she would be saved. Her long, hideous ordeal would be over. She could go home.

But the Comanche knew all this, too—knew she could bring death down upon him with a single word. And yet he had removed his hand from her mouth. He was giving her permission to call out. Why? In that split second of decision Emily sought the answer in his dark eyes.

He did not want to live! Yes, that had to be the reason.

Emily had not really thought of him as a human being before, but of course he was, and at this moment, for whatever reason, he did not feel that life was worth all the pain of living. She had felt the same way time and time again during her captivity. She had endured the depths of despair which her captor was now experiencing.

She remembered how he had saved her from the Comanche who had tried to trade her for a horse or a jug of whiskey, who had stripped her naked and presented her to his companions as though she were a slave girl on the auction block. She was certain she had been spared from a fate worse than death. And she remembered how this warrior had reacted to the deaths of the white mother and her baby, and how he had raged at the murderer. And how could she forget that this man had fed her and given her water, all the while never striking her or even attempting to molest her during this horrible ordeal?