The man cut a Comanche arrow out of the mule’s flank after the fight at the tanks, but the festering wound would not knit.
Crossing the rain-swollen Nueces, the mule died under him and dumped his possibles into the churning red water.
He’d felt the animal falter as he spurred it down the bank, so he wasn’t surprised and managed to leap from the saddle, snatch up his powder and shot from the tree while he pulled his Walker Colt from his waistband. He waded ashore holding them aloft like holy relics.
But the man was afoot and it wasn’t two days before the half-breed Quanah and his band ran him down.
He managed to kill four of them before the Colt misfired. By then it was over.
The man spoke enough Comanche to understand what they had mind.
There was no comfort in this knowledge.
Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Quahada Comanche Indians, was the son of Peta Nocona and the white captive Cynthia Ann Parker. Among the Comanche, Quanah became an accomplished horseman and gradually proved himself to be an able leader.
The Quehadas refused to attend the Medicine Lodge Treaty Council or move to a reservation as provided by the treaty, so they became fugitives on the Llano Estacado. Beyond the effective range of the military, they continued to hunt buffalo in the traditional way while raiding settlements.
For seven years Parker’s Quahadas held the Texas plains virtually uncontested.
Great historical fiction. I had considered setting my own wee tale in the 19th century or earlier, but lacking sufficient historical perspective, settled on merely reporting on the ghosts of the past.
A grim tale and you tell it well.
Visceral and wonderfully written. Especially loved the grim but wry ending.
Thanks! Trying for a melding of McMurtry and McCarthy
Great “Wild West” piece. I don’t think I’d want to know beforehand what was in store for me.
Vivid and believable historical fiction. The staggering voice and sentence seem well suited to the subject matter.
Dear Josh,
Without the explanation, this story is tight and stands on its own. The bit of history is the icing on the cake or saddle on the mule, if you will. Well done…as I’ve come to expect.
Shalom,
Rochelle
A plainly spoken, grim end for your man. His toughness comes through – his ability survive only serving him up to a point. I feel sorry such a man would die like that but none of the history you convey so well was fair on anybody, Comanche or your mule rider.
A wonderfully crafted story, love the terse style, and the grim forewarning the man has of his grisly end.