Slocum and the Comanche Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  THE GIANT WHIRLED ...

  ... and swung a Bowie from somewhere inside his coat in a sweeping arc toward Slocum’s face.

  Slocum took a half step back, just beyond the reach of the deadly blade. He blocked its passage with his forearm, catching his assailant’s lightning move with his wrist.

  At the same instant, Slocum fired point-blank into the man’s chest ...

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  SLOCUM AND THE COMANCHE PRINCESS

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / February 1999

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1999 by Jove Publications, Inc.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17938-3

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design

  are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.

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  1

  When Slocum saw her for the first time, he was on his way to Fort Sill in the company of a cavalry patrol under the command of one still too young to realize the dangers. With forty troopers moving in a slow column behind him, Captain Boyd Carter had no idea that the men riding a string of wiry little ponies across the hilltop in front of them were the most feared of all Plains tribes, the Kwahadie Comanche. John Slocum recognized them at once by the single braid of black hair hanging down their backs and the pair of eagle feathers tied to fall carelessly across their shoulders.

  “Indians!” Captain Carter exclaimed, reaching clumsily for his pistol and jerking his horse to a halt.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Cap’n,” Slocum warned as the Indians rode slowly down the grassy slope toward the cavalry patrol. “Those aren’t just Indians. They’re Kwahadies. I’m sure they don’t mean us any harm or we’d already be in the fight of our lives. They’re lettin’ us see them, so they don’t want trouble.”

  “What the hell is a Kwahadie?” Carter asked tersely. He sounded angry, but he left his gun in its holster.

  Slocum sat his horse with his hands resting in plain sight on his saddlehorn, making it clear to the Indians he had peaceful intentions. “A Kwahadie is a Comanche, Cap‘n, the worst of the five bands when it comes to fighting and torture, but by the look of ’em we’re in luck today. This isn’t a war party. They’ve got a few women with ’em.” He noticed one girl in particular. She wore a deerskin dress, and the fringed bottom of her skirt was riding high on her slender, slightly muscular legs, which were clamped to the pony’s sides. Her long black hair framed an oval face with broad cheekbones. She rode with four other woman behind the Comanche men.

  “If they’re Comanches, they’re off the reservation illegally, Mr. Slocum, and my orders are to see to it that all Comanche and Kiowa Indians remain inside the boundaries. I intend to tell them so ... at gunpoint, if necessary.”

  “Aiming a gun at this bunch would be a mistake,” Slocum said as his eyes swept the hills, making a quick count of the warriors. “We’re badly outnumbered, and the Kwahadie men are carrying rifles. Your soldiers won’t stand a chance against them. You told me on the way up from Childress your men are raw recruits. Soldiers who don’t know how to fight Comanches won’t last very long. If it was up to me, I’d see what they want before I started a fight we can’t win.”

  “You appear to have too much respect for these heathens, Mr. Slocum. They are nothing more than half-naked savages with a few single-shot rifles. We have repeaters, the latest Winchester issue.”

  “Your boys won’t hardly get the chance to use ’em,” Slocum said, wishing he’d ridden alone into Indian Territory instead of seeking a bit of company in this empty land. The company he had so eagerly sought was on the verge of getting him killed if Captain Carter ordered his men to draw their rifles. Unless you had fought against the Kwahadies, it was hard to understand why this particular tribe had such a menacing reputation. “They may be half naked, like you say, and their guns may not be as good as the ones your men are carrying. But I promise you they’ll kill every man in your company before it’s over if you give the order to fire. I’m no coward, but I’m sure as hell not gonna hang around to see how it comes out. I’m bettin’ this Palouse stud of mine can outrun those ponies. I damn sure ain’t gonna help you fight Kwahadies. If you’re foolish enough to try it, you’ll do it on your own.”

  Carter gave him a cold stare. “Are you calling me a fool?” he asked.

  “Only if you start shooting at these Indians, Cap’n. Then I’m gonna call you worse than a fool, only you won’t hear me say it because you’ll be lying somewhere in all this grass with your belly slit open, your eyelids cut off so your eyeballs will boil in the sun, and your scalp tied to the stock of one of those old rifles. You’ll still be alive for a few hours, but you won’t hear much besides your own screaming. I’ve heard of a few men the Kwahadies sliced up who lived for two, three days.”

  Carter, a pink-faced youth of twenty-five or so with close-cropped red hair, gave the Indians a closer look. “I suppose we can find out what they want before I order them back to the reservation.”

  “There’s another mistake you’re making,” Slocum said, with his eye on the woman. “Kwahadies don’t follow orders. If I was you, I’d ask ’em real nice to go back where they belong, unless they’ve got a good reason for being here.”

  “This is army business, Mr. Slocum,” Carter snapped. “I won’t let a civilian tell me how to do my job.”

  Slocum shrugged. “I was only trying to keep you and your men alive, Cap’n. But if you’re of a mind to die today, then by all means give those Kwahadies a good dose of army business. I won’t be here to see to burying you and your troopers. Forty graves is too much digging for a man who ain’t inclined to use a shovel in the first place. Let the buzzards pick your bones. Tonight the coyotes and wolves will clean up w
hat’s left, and by tomorrow there won’t hardly be any sign of what happened here. Maybe a few bloodstains on the grass.”

  The young captain swallowed, still watching the Indians as he too counted them. “There are only forty or so,” he said, but with less conviction now. “With repeating rifles, I say we stand a good chance of defeating them. I won’t take any guff off of a savage, no matter what variety they may be. If they won’t go back to the reservation peacefully, I’ll order my men to draw and shoot to kill.”

  Despite the seriousness of their situation, Slocum chuckled softly. “You may get that order out of your mouth, but getting it accomplished is gonna be a little tougher. Before your men can get their rifles out, half of ‘em will have bullet holes in their fancy new uniforms. The other half will last a little longer ... maybe long enough to fire one shot before the Kwahadies cut them down. Of course, like I told you, I won’t be here to see it. I’ll hear it from a distance, from the other side of those hills yonder, ’cause I’m gonna ask this stud for all the speed he’s got. Like you told me just now, this is army business and I ain’t a soldier. No sense in me hanging around to get killed if it’s none of my business.”

  A thick-chested warrior riding at the front of the Indians gave the sign for peace. Captain Carter sat motionless with a puzzled look on his face.

  “He gave you the sign for peace, Cap’n,” Slocum said.

  “I don’t understand Indian sign language. I’ll speak to him instead.”

  “He won’t understand English.”

  “Then how shall I tell him to ride back to the reservation?”

  “I don’t reckon you will, not in words they understand. If you want, and if you’ll promise there won’t be any shooting, I’ll translate for you.”

  “Do you speak Comanche, Mr. Slocum?”

  “Some. Sign language is universal among Plains tribes. It’s how they communicate with other tribes when they don’t speak the same tongue. I’ll have to use a little of both,” he said as the Comanches rode closer, within a hundred yards of the front of the column.

  Slocum gave the sign for peace and then the sign for “I speak true words.” Then his gaze wandered to the girl again. A beaded necklace hung between the swells of her large breasts. They strained the front of her dress, and her hard nipples made tiny peaks where they swayed back and forth with the gait of her gray pony mare.

  The Comanches halted, spreading out to form a ragged line that blocked the soldiers’ path. Then their leader began using more sign talk, watching Slocum carefully each time he made another series of movements with his hands.

  “He says his people are hungry, Cap’n. The meat they gave ’em at Fort Sill had worms in it, and it made the children sick. They decided to go hunting for deer or the last of the buffalo, the ones white hide hunters haven’t killed. He says the women and children are starving. They have nothing to eat.”

  Carter turned to Slocum. “The meat rations had worms?” he asked.

  “That’s what he told me, and he signed for true words. You’re new out here, Cap’n Carter. You and your green troopers are about to find out just how bad the army treats reservation Indians. It’s enough to make you sick. The older ones starve themselves so the children can eat because the Indian agent won’t give them enough food for everybody. The old people make this sacrifice so the children won’t die.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Carter said, but he could see that the rib bones were showing on most of the warriors. “They do look a little on the skinny side, however.”

  Slocum took a deep breath, casting another glance at the beautiful Comanche maiden. “If you want my advice, and if you have any compassion for starving kids and women, you’ll let ’em hunt for whatever they can find. Nearly all the buffalo are gone these days, but Kwahadies are good hunters. They’ll find a few deer and go back to the reservation with the meat so their people won’t starve.”

  “Colonel Dudley wired us our orders when we got off the train in Fort Worth, that if we ran into any Indians on the way up to Fort Sill, we should order them back or kill them.”

  Slocum heard less conviction in Carter’s voice now. “You’re the one who has to live with your conscience, Cap’n. When you see conditions at Fort Sill, you’ll understand. A bunch of crooks got the beef contracts at the fort. I’ve been there half a dozen times and I’ve seen it before. Most of the beef is too rotten to eat, and what flour they get is moldy. It’s a damn shame to treat human beings the way these people are treated, and once you see it for yourself, you’ll be glad you didn’t start a fight with this bunch. Let ’em go. All they’re doing is what any man would do if his children were hungry.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Carter replied, chewing his lower lip. “You can tell them about those two old buffalo bulls we saw back at the river. I won’t order them back to the reservation after what you’ve told me, only I want you to ask them to give me their word they’ll come back when they’ve found something to eat.”

  Slocum began giving sign talk to the Comanche leader, every now and then sneaking a quick look at the girl. She was staring at him. He thought he could see the hint of a smile on her face.

  When he’d done the best he could to convey Captain Carter’s message, he signed for an end to their talk.

  The Comanche closed his fist over his heart.

  “He’s saying thanks, that he is glad you have a pure heart so his people won’t die of hunger.” As Slocum spoke, his eyes wandered briefly to the young woman.

  “Did they promise to go back to the reservation?” Carter asked.

  Slocum knew the Indians would go back on their own, but to satisfy the captain he said, “They sure did.”

  Suddenly the Comanche leader gave Slocum several quick motions with his hands, inclining his head toward the girl.

  Slocum signed that he understood. He had just been warned that the girl was the daughter of a Kwahadie chief and she was another man’s property.

  “Suvate,” he said, a Comanche word with several meanings, including an agreement that it was over, the way he was looking at the girl, yet Slocum found himself wishing for a way to get to know her, to speak with her alone. She was one of the most beautiful, shapely Indian maidens he’d ever seen, and his lustful side was struggling with his better judgment.

  “Column forward!” Captain Carter cried, signaling his men to move on.

  Slocum forced his eyes away from the girl and heeled his Palouse forward.

  2

  The little town of Cache in Indian Territory was close to Fort Sill. It was a city of tents and clapboard buildings, saloons and whorehouses, gambling establishments and general mercantiles. Slocum left the company of Captain Carter and his troops as soon as the fort was in sight, silently thankful that there had been no run-in with the Kwahadie Comanches. Army officers like Carter were a part of the problem in what was sometimes called the Indian Nations north of the Red River, and when green soldiers were combined with dishonest Indian agents it created even more ill feeling between red men and white. Beef was the prime commodity. Various Indian tribes—the Comanche bands, the Kiowa, and the Arapaho—were crowded together on barren land like caged animals. For nomadic people, staying in one place was punishment enough. But to be fed spoiled food by the so-called Great White Father in Washington was an even larger disgrace, causing unrest among the more warlike tribes.

  Slocum reined his stud to a halt in front of a saloon at midday. He craved good whiskey, but he was certain that it couldn’t be found in a place like Cache, where pure corn squeezings were flavored with tobacco juice and ginger and colored to resemble the good stuff from Kentucky and Tennessee. A late fall wind swept down Cache’s Main Street, sweeping fallen leaves of every color and shape into swirling clouds. He tied off the Palouse and climbed onto a porch of sagging planks. Despite the chill in the air, he opened his coat so he could get at his Colt .44 if the need arose.

  Pushing through a pair of batwing doors, he found the place empty of
patrons. A sign above the false-fronted building read THE WAGON WHEEL, and by all appearances the wheel had stopped turning right at that moment.

  A stocky bartender eyed the gun in his cross-pull holster. “We don’t allow no firearms in here,” he said. “You have to check that pistol with me till you’re ready to leave.”

  Slocum carried a .32-caliber bellygun inside his shirt, but the notion of being without his Colt didn’t sit well. “I’m only interested in buying a bottle of your best whiskey. Then I’ll leave to find a room for the night.”

  A woman with flaming red hair emerged from a door behind the bar while Slocum was speaking, distracting his attention from the barkeep. She wore a low-cut green velvet dress that revealed the tops of her milky breasts. Her pretty face was lightly freckled. She smiled when she saw Slocum.

  “Don’t matter I don’t reckon,” the barman said, “seein’ as we ain’t busy.” He noticed Slocum staring at the girl. “This here’s Fannie. You can keep your gun fer now. A shot of our best is two bits a glass.”

  “How good is your best?” Slocum inquired without taking his eyes off Fannie’s ample bosom.

  “Tolerable. Indian Territory ain’t exactly the place to find honest whiskey, mister. Cowboys an’ soldiers can’t tell the difference when they’re thirsty. But I’ve got a bottle of French brandy hid under the bar, if brandy’s more to your likin’.”

  “The brandy sounds good. How about if I buy Miss Fannie a glass?”

  Fannie nodded, smiling. “I’d be happy to share a glass of brandy with you, stranger,” she said, coming around the bar to reveal more of her figure. She had a tiny waist and the hourglass swell of her hips was mighty inviting to a man who’d been on the trail for six lonely days.