Chapter 7

The fact that my wife was pregnant did not keep me from making scouting trips with the cavalry whenever they rode out. Actually, that was no less than once per week, and sometimes more often than that if the situation warranted it. Fortunately, the Indians were now mostly interested in making sure that their families survived the winter, so the raids dropped off and food gathering picked up.

At this time, the main interest of the Army was just to keep the Indians from shooting at Whites. There was not the strong push for moving them to reservations, yet, so, if the Comanches were quiet, then the Army left them alone. Yeah, everybody knew that there would be more fighting when the weather changed to spring, but the bosses in Washington were more interested in saving money and/or getting re-elected than they were in saving lives. Therefore, the Comanches were pretty much ignored when winter came.

Honestly, the weather in that part of Texas can be pretty rugged in the winter. The cold winds blew like they came all the way from the Arctic Circle, and they might have for all we knew. We were just as happy as the Indians not to have to go out into that weather, so things kind of slid along for the winter months.

Sally got bigger and bigger in the belly, and I was afraid for her, but the local midwife insisted that she was progressing normally, and I shouldn't worry. Now, that was ridiculous! How could a caring husband not worry? Well, we had a great Christmas season. I was able to find some stuff to decorate our home, and Sally said that she really appreciated that.

Finally, the baby was born. He was a fine example of babyhood, at least, that was what the midwife said. I really didn't know that much about it, so I took her word for it. Sally came through OK, and that was what I was really most concerned about. Oh, yes, I'd had kids in my former lives, but that did not keep me from worrying. Sally named our son John, Jr., and we agreed to call him Johnny. OK, so I'm a softie when it comes to kids, but I was a doting father from the first moment he was shown to me! Sally saw the way I looked at him and made me promise not to buy him a .44-40 for his first birthday!

The first trouble with the Comanches came the first week of June. We all wondered what had taken them so long to get started this year, but we were happy for small favors. Later on, we found out that there had been a lot of fighting along the Red River and "our" Comanches had been distracted by that.

I was on one of my regular solo patrols when I spotted the first sign of trouble. There was a plume of smoke coming from the site of a homesteader's cabin, so I stepped on the gas to see if I was in time to make a difference. Well, I made a difference, all right!

There were eight Comanches gathered around a woman who was the star of a rape party. A naked young girl, less than 10 from her lack of breasts, was tied to a hitching post and seemed to be waiting her turn to be the second act in the festivities. A dead man was lying to one side, and had died in combat from the fact that he did not looked like he had been tortured.

The Indians were supremely confident, as evidenced by the fact that everybody was involved in the party, and no one was acting as a lookout. I took advantage of this by riding up to within 100 yards and jumping down from my horse. I had my Winchester and a full pouch of additional ammunition, so I was ready to eradicate the homestead of Indians.

They still had not reacted as I lay down into the prone shooting position and opened up on the bastards. I shot the one who was currently penetrating the poor victim and got another one before they could locate me. Ha, the tables were turned! The Indians jumped for their rifles that were propped against the cabin wall and ran for their horses. I managed to drop two more before they had reached their horses. That peep-sight was doing wonders for my shooting accuracy.

They jumped on their horses and rode away, but not before I put a bullet into one of them. The wound was not immediately fatal, but he should die of gangrene before long. I don't know what they thought, but the Indians wasted no time in getting the hell away from me.

I remounted and rode quickly to the woman. Dammit, she was dead. She had probably died during the last rape; however, her daughter appeared to be in good enough physical condition, though I could not speak for her mental or emotional state.

The girl saw me stand up and walk toward her, away from her mother. "Please, Mister! Please help my mother!"

"I'm sorry, Honey, there's nothing that I can do for your mother. What's your name? Please let me help you."

The little girl got out, "I'm Jane," before she crashed into a flood of tears. This little girl was tough! She was crying a flood of tears of sadness, but there was nothing hysterical about her. I cut her bonds and held her in my arms as I let her cry. She cried for about 15 minutes, and the next thing she said was, "I was ta be next, wasn't I?" I didn't answer, but there was really no point in saying anything—the girl knew exactly what her fate had been until I showed up.

"Thank ya, Mister. I sure do appreciate ya killin' as many of them Injuns as ya did. When I gits big enough, I'm gonna kill the rest of 'em!"

There was nothing for me to say for that comment, so I changed the subject. "How old are you, Jane, and where can we find you some clothes?"

"I'm nine years old. All of my clothes are in the cabin. Maybe some of them ain't burned, yet."

We went into the cabin and looked, but it was in a mess with almost everything reduced to rags or ashes. We did manage to find a large enough piece of blanket for me to cut a serape for her to wear. We used a piece of cloth to make a sash, but that was the best we could do for clothes for Jane. When Jane told me that there were no relatives she knew of, my only recourse was to take her to the fort. Maybe Sally could find somebody to adopt her.

Jane was small enough to ride in my saddle in front of me. We carefully pulled the tail of her serape between her legs to protect her crotch, but there was nothing else I could do to make her ride any easier. It was going to take two days to get to Fort Hayes at the rate we had to travel to conserve my horse and make Jane's ride as comfortable as possible. With no support for her feet, she was going to have a very sore pussy by the time we reached the fort, but there was nothing that we could do about that.

That night, Jane helped with the camp chores, but she insisted on sleeping with me in my bedroll. Hell, it was a chilly night, and I really didn't have enough blankets to make her a decent bedroll, so shut up and get off my case. She was a frightened little girl, and I was the only support she had.

We reached Fort Hayes the next afternoon, and, by then, I felt that I had known Jane for years. We talked about many things on our slow ride back to the fort, and I got to know a lot about that little girl. For one thing, she was nine years old, going on 40! She knew exactly what had happened to her mother and father, and was relieved that her father had died before the Indians had caught him. She was just sorry that her mother had not been so lucky.

I dropped Jane off with Sally before I made my report to Maj. Kreiker. Only a few words were necessary to energize Sally's maternal instincts, and she gathered Jane into her arms as I lifted the girl from the saddle. The two were already talking as Sally took Jane through the front door.

Maj. Kreiker wanted me to guide a patrol to try to catch those marauding Indians before they could cause more trouble, and I agreed without a second thought. Lt. Simms was going to lead the patrol, and we would start out the first thing tomorrow morning. He dismissed me, and I hurried back home to see how Sally was coping with Jane.