'Woodrow, we have to go back,' Augustus said. 'If they burned Austin, Clara might be dead.' Long Bill remembered the captive they had rescued, Maudy Clark, now demented. What if the Comanches caught Pearl and left her in the same state?
'Captain, let's go back,' he said.
Augustus looked across the emptiness they had just crossed--now they would have to recross it, riding for days and days in great anxiety.
'Lord, I wish I was a bird,' Gus said.
'I wish I could just fly home.' 'You ain't a bird, Gus,' Call said.
All the rangers, even Deets, seemed stunned by Ben Lily's news. An Indian force large enough to strike Austin and burn most of it was a calamity greater than they could immediately comprehend.
Call felt stunned, too. The first time he and Augustus had gone into the Pecos country, with a small surveying troop, nine Comanches led by Buffalo Hump had attacked them, killed three men, and captured their ammunition. None of the nine Comanches had been so much as grazed by a ranger bullet. If a thousand warriors had indeed come into the settlements, there might be little to defend, by the time they reached Austin.
'You ain't a bird,' he said, again, to Gus.
'We can't fly it--we'll have to ride it, and we don't want to wear out these horses, because horses won't be easy to find, on the way back.
Buffalo Hump's probably run off most of the horses from the ranches out this way.' 'I don't care about the dern horses, I just hope he ain't took my wife,' Long Bill said. 'Took her or kilt her. I don't think I can do without my Pearl. I should never have left her, not to come on no silly chase like this.' Augustus, though heartsick himself, saw the anguish on Long Bill's face and thought if he joshed him a little it might help.
'Now, Billy, don't worry,' he said.
'Pearl's too bossy to steal. She'd argue those Comanches to a frazzle. I expect she'll be there ready to boss you, when we get back.' The witticism had no effect. Long Bill looked no less anguished. The rangers sat in silence while Deets finished taking what he hoped was tender cuts of the bear meat.
'I guess Captain Scull will have to find his own way back,' Call said, looking south.
Then he turned his horse and the little troop began the long ride home, every man wondering what they would find when they got there.
Buffalo Hump took only one man with him when he went on to the Great Water. He took Worm, the medicine man. The glory of the great raid was over; the Comanches had harassed and murdered the Texans in town after town, and had even defeated a company of bluecoat soldiers who charged at them foolishly, not realizing how many warriors they faced. By then the Comanches were driving more than a thousand stolen horses; the bluecoats managed to separate off a few of the horses but then they had to leave them and flee for their lives. One soldier whose horse went lame fell behind--when his gun misfired Blue Duck killed him with a lance, a thing that would have made Buffalo Hump proud had Blue Duck not spoiled his coup by bragging about it excessively around the campfire that night. It was no great feat to kill a white soldier whose horse was lame and whose gun wouldn't shoot. Blue Duck also bragged excessively about his rapes.
Buffalo Hump had meant to take Blue Duck and a few warriors on to the Great Water, but after listening to Blue Duck brag he decided to leave the boy--let him fight his way back to the plains. He did not want such a braggart with him. Many of the warriors were still crazy for blood; they did not want to stop killing just to see water.
The morning after the chase with the bluecoat soldiers Buffalo Hump decided to leave the war party and go, alone with Worm, to the Great Water. The raid had been a fine triumph-- all the Texans knew again that the Comanche power was still great. The Texans were scattered and frightened.
They had their dead to bury, their wounded to heal. The bluecoat soldiers would come, in time, to the llano but it would not be soon.
Buffalo Hump spoke to some of the chiefs who had joined the raid with their warriors. He advised them to break into parties of forty or fifty and filter back up to the plains along the old trails. The whites, if they pursued at all --which he doubted--wd wear themselves out trying to decide which party to chase.
When Blue Duck saw his father preparing to leave, with only old Worm for a companion, he loped over and watched his father filling his quiver with arrows; Buffalo Hump had worked on the arrows most of the night, making sure that the arrowheads were tightly set.
'I will come with you,' Blue Duck said. 'You might need me.' 'No, you go with the horses,' Buffalo Hump instructed. 'Keep them together and travel fast.
Take them to the canyon and don't lose any.
I will come in a few days, with Worm.' Blue Duck was annoyed. He was a warrior now--he had killed a bluecoat--and yet his father treated him like a horse herder.
'What if the Texans trap you?' he asked.
'You will not get much help from that old man.' 'I will not need much help,' Buffalo Hump said. It wearied him to have to be always arguing with his son. The boy never accepted any command simply, as an obedient son should. He always had ^ws of his own to say about every request. Because Blue Duck was so rude, Buffalo Hump had to keep reminding himself that he was also brave--he was one of the bravest young men in the tribe.
He too had been brave and daring, when he was young, yet he had not been disrespectful. His own father was named Two Arrows--he had once killed the largest grizzly bear anyone had ever seen with only two arrows. Buffalo Hump would never have dared question anything Two Arrows told him to do. He seldom spoke to his father, unless Two Arrows asked him something. He would not have dared be rude, as Blue Duck was rude.
Blue Duck did not like being sent home with the horses. He sulked and pouted, and insulted two young warriors, hoping to provoke a fight.
Buffalo Hump saw it all, but he ignored it. He gathered his things, motioned to Worm, and left the camp. It was a relief to go. He had taken pride in being able, once more, to gather so many warriors that the whites could not stand before them; but now he felt the need to be alone, to move quietly across the land and just take care of
