Chapter 3

The Indian woman, girl, really, had a bloody crotch, so it was obvious what the Comanches had been doing to her. Otto's stomach turned over when he say how badly the girl had been treated, and he resolved to get her away from the Comanches. His current position had him at a little higher elevation than the Indians' camp, so he could see all around the area. He looked carefully, but he could not see any Comanches, so he figured that he could take the chance of going down there to rescue the girl.

Still, Otto didn't want to do anything to attract attention, just in case he had missed seeing a Comanche who was still around the camp. He worked his way very carefully over to the girl and made sure that she could see him before he touched her. He wanted to make sure that she saw that he was a White man and not one of her Comanche tormentors. He put his finger to his lips in the universal sign to be quiet, and he bent down to cut her loose with his bowie knife. He had just loosened one of her arms when she yelled in Spanish, "LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!"

He didn't take the time to look, but immediately rolled away from the girl and pulled his knife around to offer some defense from the Comanche warrior he knew had to be approaching him. The Comanche had his tomahawk out and raised to strike when Otto rolled. The blade of the hatchet cut into the ground in line with where his head had been; Otto would have been dead if the girl had not warned him!

Otto dragged the blade of his knife across the arm holding the hatchet and cut a deep gash. There was no way to tell what tendons and such had been severed by the cut, but the Indian turned the tomahawk loose with a grunt of pain. He was using his left hand to reach for a knife sheathed at his waist when Otto's knife found a place in the Indian's belly. The 12-inch blade of the monster knife went about half its length into the Indian and seemed to stick. The Indian had to know that he was dead at that point, but he had no intention of going quietly.

The Indian tried to roll to one side and bring his own knife into play, but Otto grabbed his wounded right arm in a vise-like grip and would not let him escape. The Comanche tried to bring his left arm around to stab Otto, but the girl grabbed his wrist and held on enough for Otto to break loose from whatever was holding his knife blade and jerk it up to cut a long incision across the Indian's belly. Otto was able to roll away as the man's guts started to spill out onto the ground. This distracted the Comanche long enough for Otto to align himself the hit the Indian a mighty blow in the side of the neck with the cutting edge of his knife and nearly cut the Indian's head from his body. The Indian was dead at last, but now they had other problems.

There was no way that Otto could conceal the effects of the fight; there was enough blood scattered about that he would never be able to clean it up before other Comanches returned to the camp. His only hope was to finish cutting the girl loose and have them both escape before the situation became untenable.

Otto wiped the blade of his knife on the Indian's breech cloth and finished cutting the girl loose. As soon as she was loose, she snatched up the man's knife and scalped him. She was not going to let him escape to the after life as a whole person. She wiped off the knife and looked around. Calmly, she said, "I need some clothes."

There was a pile of blankets nearby, so Otto took one of them and cut a slit in the middle of one. He draped this over the girl's shoulders with her head poking through the slit. He cut a strip from another blanket and handed it to her. "Use this as a belt until we can get you something better to wear."

The girl followed directions and then slipped the knife that she had confiscated under her improvised sash. "Now what should we do? I cannot run far because my crotch is so sore. Leave me if you must. I can kill myself with this knife, now, if I have to."

"No need for that. Grab 3 more of those blankets and follow me." Otto led her back the way he had come to the other water hole and had her lie down on her back behind the wall of rocks he had built the day before. Once she was reasonably comfortable, Otto told her what he was about to do. He raised the blanket she was wearing away from her crotch and gently washed the dried blood and semen off her. She tried not to, but she could not help grimacing in pain every time he touched her. She said that the man that Otto had killed had just finished raping her a few minutes before he had shown up; she had been crying from the pain.

She said that she had been raped too many times to count, and she had been dry much of the time, so her flesh had been badly torn in the process. She hoped that she would not scar so that she could never have a baby. Otto sympathized, but said that he did not have the skill to know how to answer her implied question.

He asked and was told that her name was Fawn. Her family had been on an outing when they were attacked. He father had fought bravely, but had been killed by the Comanches. She didn't know what had happened to her brother, but her mother had been raped to death by the Comanches before they started on Fawn. She was probably alive simply because the Comanches had exhausted themselves during the assault on her mother, so they didn't have much energy left for her. She expected that she would have died that night.

They were talking when Running Bear returned to camp with two rabbits and several lizards. He saw Fawn and ran to her, embracing her in a hug that Otto feared might break the girl in two. "Fawn, I thought that you were dead! I was sure that you would be killed by those Comanche bastards. I am so glad to see you alive!"

Fawn returned the hug just as forcefully and said, "Running Bear, I am so glad to see you. I, too, thought that you were dead. Otto just rescued me from those bastards before they could kill me. I am lucky to be alive!"

Otto let the reunion run its course, then said, "I was not able to hide our trail leading back here. We are sure to be attacked today, tonight, or tomorrow. Do you two want to take your chances staying with me, or do you want to try to escape. I honestly don't know which to advise."

The three talked about the options and the prospects, and the two children decided that they would be better served by staying with Otto. His guns were more likely to save them than anything the two children could do.

Otto welcomed them and suggested that they start getting ready for the fight they were bound to have. He instructed the two children to prepare the meat that Running Bear had brought in while Otto did what he could to improve their fort. He was able to add about 6 inches to the height of the wall with rocks that he was able to find close by. By this time, the sun was setting and Otto wanted the cooking fire extinguished before it got dark, just in case the Comanches hit them early in the evening.

Fawn did the cooking, she was quite adept at the chore. Running Bear stood guard, while Otto tried to get as much sleep as he could as a precaution against a possible night attack. Once they had eaten, they extinguished the fire, and the two children lay down to sleep. They had agreed that Otto would stand the first watch, since that was when the Comanches were most likely to attack, if they came that night. About midnight, he would rouse Running Bear to stand guard. After 3 hours, he would rouse Fawn, and 3 hours later, she would wake Otto. In any case, Otto was to be roused if they saw anything suspicious, no matter how trivial.

The two children lay down and were both asleep in only a few minutes; they were both exhausted. Thankfully, nothing untoward happened that night, so they all got a lot more sleep than they expected. Otto was awakened by Fawn at about 6:00 AM and she lay down to sleep. Less than an hour later, the Comanches put in an appearance.