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Walter glanced over the top of the fallen tree he was hiding behind to make sure the braves were still riding south, away from them. All that he could make out was a small cloud of dust in the distance, but he kept his body tight and watchful until the dust was no more than a far-off speck. He held his gun in his left hand, his right arm hanging limply at his side. Turning his eyes toward the girl crouched next to him he let out a long breath and shook his head. Then, one by one, he watched the bodies scattered on the ground in front of them for movement, and slowly holstered his pistol.
Of all the fool things he could have allowed to happen this had to be one of the most disturbing. He'd been caught off guard by a bunch of Comanches so young they probably hadn't even been allowed on their first raid yet. Him, Walter Jensen, a Texas Ranger for nearly ten years, and he goes and lets a handful of teenagers shoot an arrow into him. He'd only left his troop three years ago and as a trader he'd already grown this careless. The braves had jumped them from the trees just downriver and he'd only managed to shoot three of them before they'd lit out. What made it even worse was the fact that he should have been watching over the girl, keeping her safe until he could bring her back to whatever might remain of her family.
She was squatting there staring at him with eyes as a big as hoecakes. She hadn't cried though, which had surprised him more than a little. It had been his experience, limited though it was, that small girls cried about most everything. But then, maybe the Comanches had taught her not to cry. He wasn't sure he could believe they'd had her for no more than a couple of days, but if this was true it wasn't much time to teach her their ways. Then again, Comanches weren't very subtle teachers.
She was watching his face closely as if she expected him to explain what was going to happen next. Walter guessed that she was somewhere around nine or ten years old. She was skinny but those blue eyes and that long golden hair were enough to have caught the attention of whichever braves had taken her.
"You all right?" he asked.
Instead of answering, the girl lifted her arm and pointed at the arrow poking out of him.
"Now, you don't need to worry about that. I'll have that old thing out in no time at all," he said, and even managed to show a smile through his reddish brown mustache and beard. The girl didn't look too convinced. Hell, he probably scared her almost as much as the Comanches, wearing buckskins and a beaded breastplate like he was. With only God knowing when he'd last seen a barber and being so much taller than most men, he doubted he gave the girl much comfort, smile or no.
With his left hand Walter turned his wounded arm slightly and peered over his shoulder to inspect the arrow. It was jutting out at a bad angle, coming as it had from behind him and entering a few inches above the elbow. The arrow seemed to have cut off the feeling from where it had gone in to the end of his fingers because his right arm was of no use whatsoever. Blood had already seeped down his side and stained his leather pants to his knees. He'd have to stop the flow soon if he wanted to stay clear-headed.
"I believe you'd best go on down to the river and clean up a bit," he said in a friendly manner, not wanting to scare the girl further by his wrestling with the arrow in front of her. They were no more than thirty feet from the water but there were plenty of willow bushes to shelter her view from his activities.
She didn't move, just kept staring with round eyes.
"Those Indians won't be back any time soon. I'll be busy here for awhile but you can just call out if you need me."
So slightly he could just see it, she shook her head.
"Well, if you change your mind you just head on down to the water."
He gave her a minute longer to reconsider but she showed no sign of moving. With a nod of acceptance he reached across his chest to the back of his arm and gripped the arrow's shaft with his good hand. He could feel that it was in there solid. Holding his breath, he pulled with a steadily increasing pressure. He strained until his left arm was shaking and his face was crimson but the arrow didn't budge. Taking in some clean air and gritting his teeth he gently leaned the shaft back and forth. Sweat and blood poured out of him as if the two liquids were having a race to see which one could leave his body the fastest, but his latest efforts had no more effect than his tugging had. It felt like the arrow had been forged to his bone.
Taking off his hat and wiping his sweaty forehead with his sleeve, Walter paused to consider his choices. If he just gave the arrow one serious yank the tip had a good chance of slipping off of the shaft, and then some sawbones would have to dig around in there until it was found. He guessed he had little choice but to test the prospect of shoving the arrow completely through the bone. Walter braced his right arm tight against his body in a manner that would allow the tip to shove through and not hit his side, then he grabbed the shaft again. He pushed hard and kept it up until he was growling low in this throat. Refusing to quit he strained and shoved, his heels digging into the dirt and his whole body trembling. He fought until his strength gave out, but the arrow still held fast. Gasping to recover his breath he gave himself a moment before peering at the back of his arm again. He could see that his labors had done no more than increase the bleeding. It looked like the best thing to do was to break the shaft and get this girl to the fort before he passed out. He had just come to this conclusion when his attention was drawn back to the child.
Why was she pulling at her clothes? He shook his head to clear it some and realized she was tearing a long strip from the bottom of her dress.
"Here now," he said still breathing hard. Realizing her intention he said, "You don't have to do that. I've got a cotton shirt in my saddlebags."
She pulled the long strip loose from her skirt with a sudden tug, folded it, and set it down on a tuft of grass. She got up and walked over to where Flint was tied to a low tree branch.
Walter grew uneasy watching the girl get closer and closer to his horse. He leaned forward intending to gain his feet and get the shirt himself but his head went fuzzy and his vision blurred before he could even push himself up. With a grunt of disgust he sat cross-legged for balance and kept his eye on the girl. "Stay clear of his legs, now. He kicked a grown man over a corral fence once."
She approached Flint's head, looked him in the eye in a way that seemed to tell him she was there to help Walter, then ran her small hand from his neck over his shoulder and across his belly as she moved toward the saddlebags. Flint sidestepped only once before holding still, his ears forward. When the girl got to the saddlebags she reached up to untie them but Flint was too tall for her to get a good grasp on the laces. She looked around then climbed onto the branch Flint was tied to and pulled on the reins to bring the horse around to her.
Walter could hardly believe Flint's behavior. It was as though the horse thought he and the girl were old partners. Flint sidled up to the tree branch and held steady while the girl fiddled with the ties. When they were loose, she slid the saddlebags to the ground and went to retrieve them. With a determined effort she lifted the bags to her shoulder and stumbled under their weight back to him. Once there, she searched through the contents, finding the shirt right off but continuing to rifle through his goods like she expected to find something else. From her lowered brows Walter guessed she might have been disappointed by not finding any whiskey or other medicinal aids. Whiskey, however, was a dangerous good to carry when you visited Comanche camps on a regular basis and Walter had long ago forgone such comforts for the sake of his scalp.
In no time the girl had torn his cotton shirt into six long strips and was folding one of the sleeves into a square bandage. Walter closed his eyes for a bit hoping to clear his smoky vision, but he opened them with a jerk when the girl touched his left hand. She held up the canteen, which, judging from the cold sweetness of the water, she had just filled from the river. He drank deeply and handed it back to her.
"Many thanks. That water's right tasty," he said, and gazed at her pile of bandages. "Why that's just fine, just fine." He looked back at her face and tried to size up what she was capable of handling. "Do you think you can help me break off this arrow? You see, I'll wait to take it out 'til we're back at the fort but I need to bandage it good and tight, and I'd rather not have that shaft flapping around behind me while we're riding."
She turned those blue eyes of hers on him again and gently nodded.
Reaching for the sheath at his belt Walter slid his knife out. "I've been figuring the best way to go about it is to cut a notch on each side of the shaft first. Then I can break it off real easy and in just the right place, you see? I'll put my arm up on that boulder over yonder and you just cut out the notches for me. Can you do that?"
She stood up and helped him to his feet. He swayed slightly at first but walked steadily enough once he got moving. When they reached the rock the girl studied it carefully, looking from Walter's arm to the stone's surface and back again until she found a spot to her liking. She touched on the area where she wanted him to place his arm, eased him down, and held out her hand for the knife.
It was a Bowie, at least nine inches long, and it looked huge in her tiny hands. Walter's second thoughts didn't have much time to form before the girl was lifting his wounded arm and holding it in place. But just as he figured she was about to begin fumbling with the knife all too close to his skin the girl left him and wandered off to study the ground they had just covered. After picking something up and examining it, she returned to him and he saw that she had found a small piece of wood. He could feel her place the wood chunk under the arrow up against his skin, and marveled at the girl's gentleness when she began to cut into the shaft. In only moments she was signaling for him to turn his arm to the other side. He had to lean far backward and slightly sideways to get the angle right. This done, she repositioned the chunk of driftwood under the shaft and began again. Walter was growing doubtful that she had the strength to make the cuts deep enough to do any good, she was tugging so little, when he heard a soft "snap" and felt her release her hold on his arm.
He looked toward the girl and let his mouth drop open in surprise. She was holding the arrow's shaft out to him with a small, bloody hand. She wasn't crying, didn't even appear to be shaken. She just stood their calmly extending the stem of the weapon that had wounded him. When he didn't immediately take it from her she laid it in his lap and hurried back to where she had left the bandages. Returning quickly, she widened the tear in his buckskin shirt with the knife and placed the square patch of bandage over the exposed end of the shaft, now protruding about an inch out of his arm. Walter held the patch in place as she started binding it with the longer strips of cloth. He could feel the bite of the arrowhead increase as she tightly wound the bandage around and around his arm.
When she was finished she picked up the knife again and poked a small hole through the bandage so the shaft's end could ease through, relieving the pressure greatly. With the longer strip of material she'd torn from her dress she made a sling and gently folded his injured arm into it.
"Well, I'll be," said Walter with admiration and surprise. "You may not talk much, but you're mighty handy to have on the trail, little lady."
The girl cast him a quick look before lowering her eyes to the ground.
"Maybe someday you'll tell me who taught you how to doctor so good," he said, but she kept her head down, her face almost hidden by her hair.
"I guess if you can go get old Flint we'll be on our way."
She went to the saddlebags and took out some strips of jerky, brought him back a couple, and chewed on one as she lugged the bags back toward the horse. It wasn't until she'd handed him the dried meat that Walter noticed how late it was getting. He hadn't given any thought to how long it might have been since the girl had eaten before he found her and now it was well past noon. They'd be lucky to make it to the Ash Creek settlement by midnight. As much as he hated the thought of riding at night in his condition he hated the thought of being unconscious and leaving the girl to fend for herself more.
Once the saddlebags were secured and Flint was standing next to the rock the girl had used for her operation, she climbed atop the stone and onto the horse's back. To Walter's puzzlement the girl slid over the back of the saddle and sat waiting for him behind his blanket roll and on top of the saddlebags.
"No, now you'll be riding in front of me. It'll be much easier riding that way."
The girl looked at him squarely for the first time, almost as if she were measuring his ability as a rider. Then she shook her head and looked down at her hands.
"What if you fall off riding back there? You may have made a friend of Old Flint but he can't keep you on his back going across rough country."
She just kept studying her fingers.
Walter knew he didn't have the strength to move her. He was fighting hard just to keep his eyes open. He'd lost too much blood.
"All right, then. But you'd best hold tight."
The girl slid far back on Flint's rump to let Walter mount the best he could. The bleeding had slowed considerably but he felt the bandage tightening as his arm swelled. The pounding of his pulse added a rhythm to the ache as they left the riverbank and headed northwest across the hilly landscape.
To take his mind off his damaged arm Walter thought about what he'd been told about the girl at the Comanche camp. According to the old chief, Bull Bear, she and her younger sister had been stolen from a farm on Walnut Creek two nights earlier. The Indians had killed her parents, and when they'd realized the littler girl was sick they had wrapped her in a blanket and left her out on the plains to die. Walter knew about the many thousands of Indians who had died of Small Pox and Cholera and he wasn't surprised that they'd taken no chances with whatever illness the child had carried.
Bull Bear had wanted to keep this girl, though. He'd liked that gold hair of hers and had boasted that she worked hard for one so skinny. Trying to convince Walter, probably correctly, that he would be giving up a great many gifts from her perspective husband in a few years if he turned her over now, Bull Bear had been tough to bargain with. He'd settle for nothing less than Walter's seven-year-old packhorse and its entire burden. The animal had served him well, and there'd been supplies for over six months on his back. Walter had no idea how he was going to replace them. He didn't need much to get by but things like beans and flour and coffee came in mighty handy during a long winter. Walter reminded himself he'd been lucky to get out of the Comanche camp with the girl, old Flint, and his life.
As they rode he felt his eyes trying to close again so he asked the girl, "How long were you with the Comanches?"
No answer came.
"Did they take you from your farm?"
He felt her head against his back slowly nodding yes.
"Were you with them just two days, like they said?"
Again she nodded with her chin touching his back, and he felt a slight tremor run through her.
Walter wondered if the girl had seen her folks killed. Comanches weren't exactly delicate when it came to killing. He'd buried the butchered bodies of too many settlers in his day not to appreciate their thoroughness. The girl had probably seen it all, and what happened to her sister too.
"You ain't scared of me, are you?"
For the first time her response came without hesitation as the girl moved her head back and forth.
"Well, I'm glad you ain't. I'd hate to think someone could doctor me up so fine and still be scared of me."
Her arm came around his left side and she pulled the canteen strap off the saddle horn. Instead of taking a drink herself she uncorked the top and held it up to him.
"No, you go ahead first."
She lifted it higher.
"Well, if you don't seem more and more like a doctor ever' minute," he said and couldn't keep the smile entirely out of his voice. A little clumsily since he already had the reins in his one good hand, he took the canteen from her and lifted it, taking in a long couple of swallows before handing it back.
By mid afternoon the sun had gained its full strength and its heat added an overall discomfort to the torture of Walter's wound. His skin was so hot and sweaty that he felt like he could slide right out of his buckskins. He lowered his gaze to his pant leg and saw that blood had reached almost to the toe of his right boot. This struck him as a little amusing somehow and he let out a breathless laugh. With a grin on his face and his eyes closed he started humming dreamily.
The girl tapped his shoulder softly but he just kept humming until she tapped him harder. When he opened his eyes she was pointing at something ahead of them. Turning his attention in that direction he saw that they weren't far from a stream edged by a few cottonwood trees. His horse was already heading toward it at a quicker walk.
While Flint drank his fill and the girl refilled the canteen Walter stumbled into the shade like a drunken man and tried to examine his injury. The skin around the bandage was red and badly swollen. The sight was frightening enough to clear his head a little. He tried to untie the bandage but was making no progress at all when the girl came over to him and moved his hand away. As gently as possible she eased the knot out of the bandage and loosened the wrapping. Walter watched her face cloud with concern as she glimpsed the condition of his exposed arm. She quickly held the patch of bandage back over the wound to slow the bleeding that had started again, and raised her eyes to him.
"It's got to come out," he said for her. "And we have to burn the wound closed to stop the bleeding."
He closed his eyes again. He really didn't cared what she did to his arm. He just wanted to stay in this glorious shade and sleep for a month. He shook his head forcefully and pried his eyes open again.
"You think you can help me get it out?" he asked.
Once this question was out the girl didn't seem to be able to meet his eyes. She looked at the stream then the trees. She got up and went over to Flint, gathered up his reins, and tied him to a cottonwood.
Walter had just managed to keep his eyelids from closing long enough to see her return.
She hunkered down in front of him and nodded one short, firm bob of her head as she held her mouth in a tight line of determination.
"Good, then I'll just lie quiet for a spell. Once I catch my wind we'll give it a try."
But the girl made him drink some water and give his knife over to her before she'd allow him to lie down on his belly and shut his eyes. Even then she made him move to a place she liked better before leaving him in peace. He'd just rest a little while before building a fire and seeing about the arrow. If the arrowhead came off and stayed buried in his bone he didn't figure he'd be much worse off than he already was.
After a long while he vaguely felt something working at his arm but he ignored it. He was floating in an overpowering dream and his mind had drifted far from such concerns. The bothersome prodding stopped and started again, then ended, but Walter never left the dream. Without warning his arm was jarred with such force that he was wrenched back to semi-consciousness. Pain shot up and down his arm, drawing a loud groan from him. Somewhere deep in the back of his mind he told himself that he had been wounded but he didn't want to remember. He felt his arm being lifted high behind him and something tearing at the muscles as it slid through them. He jerked, rolled away from the torment, and opened his eyes. He forced his vision to focus as his head reeled.
No more than a small fire gave light to the darkness and it took him a moment to see the girl. She was sitting over a slab of driftwood into which the bloody end of the arrow had been imbedded. In one hand she held his knife, from the other she let a flat rock fall to the ground.
"Good girl," he breathed through thick lips. "Good, good girl." He let his body go limp again and waited to pass out from the pain and loss of even more blood. As the moments passed the ache in his arm began to ease a little and he felt the girl roll him back onto his chest and wrap something around his arm again. The dream was approaching once more and he welcomed its numbing comfort.
"Aughhhhh!" he screamed as the scalding knife was jammed into the wound and moved first one way then another. His reflexes would have forced his body to recoil from the agony but his arm was tied down to something heavy that prevented him from moving. He clenched his fist and dug his boots into the dirt in an effort to keep still. He could smell his own flesh burning and choked down the vomit that rose in his throat. He fought to keep from twisting and prayed she'd take the knife out before he yelled out again. When the blade was at last pulled free he drew in great gulps of air and tried to steady his wildly bucking muscles. His arm felt like it was still on fire. After a few interminable moments, when he could breathe a little more evenly, he perceived a soft crooning sound not far away.
He strained to open his eyes again and there was the girl no more than six feet away. She was sitting with her knees up close to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them. Tears were making their way down her cheeks as her shoulders shook and she rocked back and forth. She was watching him through her tears.
He knew he couldn't sit up yet but he tried to speak. His voice didn't come at first. He swallowed twice and managed to say, "Now, now."
She cried even harder and moved very close to him.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, then she gave in to her weeping completely and Walter surrendered to the blessed heaviness that forced itself upon him.
She was sleeping right up next to him when Walter awoke an hour or so later. It was still full dark but she had kept the fire going. His blanket was draped over them both and their heads were resting on his saddlebags. She stirred when he moved and said, "Sleep." And in spite of the terrible pain he obeyed her.
The first thing Walter felt after the torture from his arm the next morning was the blanket sliding off of him. By the time he'd brought his unwilling body into a sitting position the girl was crouching in front of him with the canteen and a handful of wild raspberries.
He hesitated then looked down at his injury. She had slit his sleeve, washed the wound and the bandages, then rebound the wound. It felt like a war was going on inside him but when he tested his arm he was relieved to learn that he could move the fingers of his right hand again. He showed her this triumph, nodded his thanks, and accepted the water and berries. Then he simply sat and studied her. He remembered that she had spoken during the night.
At last he said, "Will you tell me your name?"
It took a moment or two before she said just above a whisper, "You mustn't laugh."
"No, ma'am," he assured her.
She quietly sighed, and said, "It's Glory."
A smile crept to Walter's face and he waited to speak until she was looking at him. "Miss Glory, I'd be the last man alive to laugh at so fitting a name."
Not more than a shadow of a smile appeared on the girl's face.
"You used the flat of my knife and a rock to hammer that arrow out last night."
Glory nodded.
"However did you know to do a thing like that?"
"My Uncle Jeb's a doctor and my pa&" she blinked twice and wiped at the sudden tears, "my pa was a carpenter," she finished then let her chin drop.
Walter looked at the top of her bowed head, a view of her that troubled him more and more each time he saw it. She couldn't lock the world out by not looking at it. He slowly chewed on a few more berries before he asked gently, "Why did you say you was sorry last night after doing me such a good turn?"
Glory's voice changed from one of sadness to one of shame. "It took so awful long for me to do it."
"Why, that don't&" Walter started.
She interrupted with a burst of emotion that greatly surprised him even as she kept her eyes fixed on the ground. "I was scared! I was scared I wouldn't hit it hard enough, or the arrowhead would break, or it would come loose of the shaft."
Walter waited while she fought to regain control. When she was a bit calmer she added, "I was purely glad when it went clean through with just that one whack."
"I'm purely glad it did too," Walter admitted. He reached out and lifted her chin until she was looking at him. "You're a fine girl, Glory. I've known few in my life as fine as you."
She pretended not to have heard him. Rising, she went about cleaning up the camp as Walter finished his meager breakfast. He stood up unsteadily, drank some more water, and plodded carefully to the stream. As he headed back to camp he could feel how little strength he had left but he forced his feet to keep moving. Glory was waiting for him with Flint standing over her like a guard.
She insisted on sitting behind the saddle again and when Walter gave her a questioning look, she said shyly, "I can't keep you from sliding off if I'm in front of you."
He hid his smile. This little slip of a girl thought to keep him from falling out of the saddle. He looked into her face and said in a serious tone, "Thank you, Glory."
She didn't say a word for a mile or two. At length she said, "I could sing some, if you want."
He had nearly dozed off but roused himself at this. "Yes, singing is just what we need," he said in a voice so weak it hardly sounded like his own.
Glory commenced with an old church song in a sad, reedy voice that seemed to move out ahead of them as Flint walked along, his ears cocked to this new sound. As she sang, Glory tightened her arms around Walter just a little and gently laid her cheek against his back. When that song quietly ended, she started in on another.
*~*~*~*~*
Copyright © 2002 Christine Echeverria Bender. All rights reserved.
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