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The Comancheros
Paul I. Wellman
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The Comancheros
Paul I. Wellman
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Texas Ranger Tom Gatling arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros. This is the lusty story of love and gunslinging violence in the young republic of Texas.
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Thema
LiteratureThema
WesternsELEVEN:
âI Think Theyâre the Bravest Men
I Ever Knew!â
1
âSuspicion will naturally turn on us,â was the first thing Blake Henrion said when Regret woke them and related what had happened.
âHow can they prove it?â asked Regret.
Gatling gave a short laugh. âThereâs always the bastinado.â
It was a chilling thought. Together they stepped out into the moonlight and strained their eyes into the chasm below, fruitlessly trying to see the body of the fallen man. That part of the canyon was occupied by empty corrals. Nobody in the village, evidently, had heard the crash of Estevanâs fall.
After a moment, Regret said, âLanny Henrion brought Eloise to the Palo Duro.â
âLanny? Explain that!â the captain demanded harshly.
âThat was what he was doing in Austin.â
âShe told you that?â
âYes.â
âWhereâs he now?â
âGoneâfor the present. Out on the plains somewhere with the Comanches.â
In the moonlight a powerful emotion of some sort twisted the captainâs bearded face. âLannyâso the boyâs mixed up inâthis,â he said, in a sort of whisper to himself.
As if he were suddenly very tired, he led the way back into the dark hut.
Gatling and Regret lit cigarrillos. Henrion stretched himself on his blankets. A long silence. After a time the captain gave a little exclamation, almost a groan.
âI half knew itâwhen Amelung mentioned Bernard Hare,â he said aloud. âHare was with Fess McFaddenâandâsome said Lanny was, too.â
âNobody never proved it,â said Gatling loyally.
âThis proves it! A thiefâa murdererâanything but aâa Comanchero! My brotherâmy kid brotherâGod!â
They could not say anything to comfort him.
âI blame myself. Only myself,â they heard him say presently. âHe was a good boy, Lanny was. A fine boy. I handled him wrong.â
âYou done everything a man kin doâyou was like a father to him,â said Gatling.
âI tried to beâand I shouldnât have. I was his brother. He didnât want me to be a fatherâtell him what was right and wrong, what he should and shouldnât doâââ
âSomebody had to.â
âItâs been on my mindâever since I saw him in Austin. I knew then he was goneâsomething God-awful had ahold of him. Itâs bothered me, night and day. But I didnât dream of anything as bad as this!â
Regret remembered Blake Henrionâs long, abstracted silences on their journey across the plains. This good man, this brave and honorable man, had been suffering, alone and secretly. . . .
âSome colts have spirit, some donât,â the captain went on drearily. âSome you can just hitch up, or saddle and break. But some must be taught differently, to get the best out of themâa good thoroughbredâs like that. If you try to handle him like some range plug, youâll break his spirit, or heâll break you. But if you show him the way easy, heâll learn better, and do more for you than any other kind of animal.â
He seemed to ruminate. âTrouble was, I didnât treat Lanny like . . . a thoroughbred.â He paused. âIâm just a kind of work horse myself, I reckon, and I couldnât understand he was a finer strain. You know him, Tom.â
âI shorely do.â
âHeâs got everything, hasnât he? Does everything well. And heâs afraid of nothing, and mighty pleasing to be around, and not a sneaking thing about himâââ
âThatâs right, Blake.â
âAnd I ruined him.â A groan, with agony behind it, was almost ripped out of him. âOh, God, Lanny!â
In this bitter grief words were useless. Gatling and Regret sat and smoked in silence.
Blake Henrion rolled over on his side. He spoke no more, but Regret, in all his life, had never felt more mortally sorry for a man.
All at once Henrion sat up. âTwo days . . .â
In the darkness they stared at him, not understanding.
âThatâs what Amelung said,â the captain continued. âIn a couple of daysâheâd know. About us. That has to be Lanny!â
âYou mean heâll be back in the Palo Duro in that time?â Regret asked.
âThatâs it! A Fess McFadden manâand heâd tell them whether Tom was lying or not. It means our timeâs already too shortâââ
âTo do what?â
âGet out of here. I was figuring that, give us just a little time, weâd have these people used to us. Then we could slip out some night, lift three horses, and get a long head start by morning. Riding for hell and liberty that way, and scattering, one of us had a chance to get through with the word for Sam Houston.â
He stopped. âBut nowâwell, thereâs just one hope for us. Just pray that Lanny doesnât come.â
There was no sleep for them that night. Every hour of the darkness Regret counted over in his mind. He saw the first false light before dawn. He saw the slow coming of day. He thought of Eloise and of his companions, and his despair deepened and darkened with the new and added complications of danger that seemed to draw their deadly network closer and closer.
About nine oâclock in the morning a great shout came from below, followed by the calling of many voices. It was almost a relief.
âTheyâve found your friend,â said Gatling.
Regret could not stand it. In a moment he was out on the edge of the cliff. Two hundred feet below the lip of the precipice on which the Casa Blanca stood, a growing crowd milled around the broken body of the man he had killed.
Henrion and Gatling joined him. They saw Jack Amelung stride into the mob, and quickly examine the dead man. He glanced up at the cliff above him, and must have seen them peering down.
Presently, with many following, Amelung came up the path.
To them, as he passed, he did not speak. They followed the jostling crowd along the pathway toward the Casa Blanca.
There Amelung spent a few minutes in a swift survey of the ground. Regret was sure he noticed the jagged stone. Something else the man picked up, and put it into his jacketâthe knife that Estevan had dropped when the rock struck him.
Blear-eyed and gray, old Musketoon came to the door.
âWhat happened?â he rumbled.
âA man has been found dead,â said Amelung.
âWhere?â
âJust below hereâat the foot of these cliffs.â
âHow did it occur?â
âDonât know,â said Amelung slowly. âPerhaps he lost his footing in the dark and fell.â
But in that moment Regret encountered his eye, and in it was full understanding, or at least a guess so close that it amounted to the same thing. And it flashed over Regret that not yet was Jack Amelung ready to let Musketoon know that a spy had been placed to watch his house. On this slender circumstance hung their safety for the moment.
Knuckling his eyes, the old man went back inside. Amelung wordlessly led the Comancheros down the path back to their village. With a sense of suspended doom, Regret returned with Henrion and Gatling to their hut.
No use even to discuss what would happen now. The next move would come from Amelung, and they could only wait. They spent the time cleaning their revolvers.
2
About ten oâclock a Mexican went up the pathway past their hut at a run. In a few minutes he came back on his way to the town, and half an hour later they heard old Musketoon puffing down in the same direction. He stopped, as he saw them at their door.
âA good morning to you, messieurs!â he exclaimed. Evidently he was in the most jovial good spirits, and upon Regret he bestowed a grin of vast approval. âObserve me, Monsieur RegretâI do not limp? A miracle, for which I have you to thank!â
âIâm glad to hear this,â Regret said.
âYesterday, after you spoke to me about it, you remember that I dispatched my mozo down to the village for garlic. It is a comestible not commonly carried by us, but he succeeded in discovering a small bag of it. I consumed a clove of it at once, you observed, and felt immediate relief of the gout. Later I ate more. Last night I drankâbetween ourselvesâmore than was good for me. That would, ordinarily, cause an aggravation of my disability. But, voilĂ ! I skip like a fawn!â He attempted a skip, a clumsy fat manâs effort, and chortled. âWell, perhaps not exactly like a fawn. But at least without wincing. And though from the garlic I have a breath like a destroying angel, I am a happy manâand a man most deeply in your debt, Monsieur Regret!â
He expelled through his mustachios a breath so rank that it was all Regret could do to avoid stepping back from it.
Old Musketoonâs gratitude was received by Regret with complete astonishment. His suggestion of garlic appeared to have been a most fortunate inspiration. He was quite certain it had nothing to do with benefiting the goutâbut the Comanchero chief had experienced one of those unexpected periods of relief that sometimes come naturally, and now gave full credit to the garlic and Regret. For the momentâuntil the pain returned to his footâthey were in high favor.
âYou behold me going down to the council house,â old Musketoon continued. âA messenger has just brought word that a party of Comanche warriors, under the chief Iron Shirt, is coming in from a raid. I am on my way to receive Iron Shirt, who is a most important personage, if he is a savage.â
âIron Shirt?â said Regret, surprised. âWe encountered him on the way hereâin the Red River Valley.â
âYes, it was he who sent your party here, wasnât it?â
âButâitâs hard to believe. That was five hundred miles from the settlements. After we left him he must have ridden all that way, and then come back to hereâsay another thousand milesâhow is it possible in so few days?â
âDid you observe a peculiarity concerning Iron Shirt?â
âHe was wearing a shirt of iron links.â
âGenuine chain mail! And very old. Because of that the Comanches believe him invulnerable and invincible, even gifted with supernatural powers. He is the head and heart of the Comanche nation. As long as he leads them they cannot be defeated, for to him they owe both their remarkable Ă©lan in battle, and their organization which has never been achieved by them before.â
âButâeven soâââ
âIron Shirt rarely makes a raid in person,â went on old Musketoon. âRather he directs them, as a general, sending this party out on a feint, another on the true thrust home. These are the tactics that our friend Amelung taught him. When you encountered Iron Shirt he had two parties out, and was awaiting their return with his own strong following of warriorsâready to go to either of his advanced groups if they were threatened.â
The fat old rascal plumed his mustachios and grinned. âMost ingenious, donât you agree? I await eagerly the day when some rash company of the Texas Rangers, unacquainted with this stratagem, follows too far into the Comanche country, and is destroyed.â
Again he chortled. âNow, I must make my apologies. If you care to walk along the path past the Casa Blanca, it will bring you out on a promontory overlooking the lower valley. From it you will see the war party arrivingâa sight you may find worth the effort.â
A wave of his hand, and he was gone down the path without a limp, and whistling as lightheartedly as if he were a child on some innocent errand for its mother, instead of the bloodiest of businesses.
Henrion stared after him...