David Whitehead- Western Author - Comanche Reckoning

David Whitehead

Commando

Comanche reckoning

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By
BEN BRIDGES

Part I

Link Dayton was out back, chopping wood, when he heard the young boy shout, "Rider comin', Pa!"

He was a bulky man forty summers old, with a mess of black hair spilling from beneath his loose-brimmed hat and a shaggy black beard that covered a square and stubborn jaw. He sunk the axe into the stump nearby, straightened to his full six feet two, wiped his over-large hands on the bib of his stained coveralls and headed for the house.

Mary - a tired, prematurely-aged woman with auburn hair pulled back in a bun - was waiting for him when he entered the parlour. Dayton ignored her as he took the old Burnside carbine down from the brackets over the hearth.

"Link - "

"Hush, woman."

"But - "

He turned to face her then, and there was so much animation in his usually flat eyes that she fell silent.

"You know I can't be too careful," he said quietly.

Back on the porch, with the long gun held ready across his barrel chest, he watched the rider come ever closer. Behind him, his home - a small, poorly-maintained three-room dwelling built from rough-hewn logs - sat baking in the sun.

A moment later Timmy and the dogs came to join him.

"Go inside, son," Dayton said softly.

Timmy was ten years old and favoured his mother. He had a fine, delicate face that lacked Link?s heavy brow and bitter twist of lip. His eyes were big and blue, his nose small and freckled.

"Inside, I said."

Dragging his heels, the boy reluctantly did as he was told. He didn't understand, Dayton told himself miserably. And who could blame him? Out here in the hardscrabble land of the Panhandle, visitors were few and far between, and should have been welcome at any time. But they were never welcome on Dayton land. Never.

The only sounds now were the bleating of his sheep up on the north pasture, the clucking of the chickens pecking at the ground around the well, the closer buzz and whip of restless flies.

After a while, the rider trotted his dapple grey gelding into the yard. Studying him closely, Dayton saw a man on the sundown side of thirty, with a battered face, cauliflowered ears and striking blue eyes. He wore a plain cotton workshirt beneath a wolfskin jacket, and creased cords over low-heeled, spurless cowman's boots. Dayton also saw that he wore his sidearm in a specially moulded, low-strung holster.

The stranger tugged briefly at the brim of his tobacco-brown Stetson, a greeting Dayton acknowledged with a sharp nod.

"Somethin" I can do for you?" Dayton asked stiffly.

"Name's O'Brien," said the man on the dapple grey. "Mind if I climb down for a spell" Like to have a word."

Dayton frowned. "A word" What about?"

O'Brien said, "Comanches."

Dayton felt the blood drain from his face. "Are you " Is this some kind of trick? Did Bohannan put you up to this? Is that it?"

O'Brien took his hat off and slapped it against his thigh. Beneath the harsh Texas sun, his close-cropped hair was the colour of salt mixed with pepper. "Who's Bohannan?" he asked.

Dayton worried at his lower lip, wondering who this man was and how far he could be trusted. Finally, feeling the eyes of his wife and son burning into his back from inside the house, he made a nervy gesture with the barrel of the rifle. "Step down," he muttered, adding grudgingly, "I suppose you'll, ah, coffee an' cake with us?"

"Thanks."

O'Brien followed Dayton into the house and through to the kitchen, where Mary was already standing at the copper-lined sink, filling the coffee pot with beans and water. Timmy, loitering by the back door, watched the newcomer with open curiosity.

Introductions made, the men took seats at the scrubbed pine table, where Dayton locked eyes with O'Brien and said, "If Bohannan did send you here - "

"I'm here about Comanches, Dayton. I don't even know who Bohannan is."

"Well, speak your piece, then," said the shepherd.

O'Brien did. "I cut their sign this morning, about ten miles south of here," he reported. "There's a bunch of 'em, fifteen, twenty. And from all the busted glass I found, I'd say someone's been selling 'em bosa-pah."

Dayton looked blank.

"Firewater," O'Brien explained.

"But " Christ, there hasn't been any trouble with the Comanches for years. I thought they were all further north."

"So did I," O'Brien replied. "I was wrong."

Dayton fell silent then, turning O'Brien's words over in his mind. Finally, he licked his lips and said, "Did...did it look like they was headed this way?"

O'Brien shrugged. "No way of telling for sure where they'll end up," he replied. Glancing at the sheep-dotted pasture beyond the small kitchen window, he asked, "Do you run this place on your own?"

Dayton lost his far-away look momentarily. "Me, my wife. The boy helps out. It's not a large spread, as you can see. This house, the barn, a couple of shelter pens."

"Any neighbours who could send you a couple of their hands till this blows over?"

The shepherd's short, bitter laugh told O'Brien that he'd asked a foolish question. A mutton-puncher smack in the middle of cow-country could expect little in the way of help from his neighbours, and they both knew it.

"Better forget about that coffee, then."

"Huh?"

"You folks'll be a heap safer in town, leastways for a night or two, and the sooner you get moving, the better. There's a town about twelve miles east of here, isn't there? Place called Kingfield? We'll ride in together, if you've a mind."

"Mister, I ain't set foot off this spread in better'n twelve month, save to take my stock to market. I can't just up an' - "

"Maybe you didn't understand me,? O'Brien cut in. "There's about twenty Comanche bucks out there somewhere, roaring drunk and spoiling for a fight. And drunk or sober, they don't come any meaner than the Comanches."

"Now, it could be that they won't touch anywhere near your spread. Could be that they'll sober up and ride on back to the reservation. Or it could be that they'll come here with blood in their eyes."

Mary came forward at last. "Link!"

"It could happen, Dayton."

The shepherd turned his dark, flat eyes out to the scrubby pasture beyond the window. O'Brien watched his profile, the working of his jaw. "I'm beholden to you for bringin" the news," the big man said at length. "But I reckon you can understand the position. We live a hard life out here, an' bein' a sheep farmer hasn't made it any easier. Oh, we get by - just - but we've had to learn to do without other folk. Reckon we'll do without 'em now."