Herrera left the remuda in charge of bis sons and accompanied Tarrant and Rufus into the tipi behind the chief. Its outfit was sparse, little more than bedrolls; this was a war band. The light within fell gentle after the glare outside, the air smelled of leather and smoke. The men settled cross-legged in a circle. Two wives left, posting themselves at the entrance in case of a task for them.
Quanah was not about to smoke any peace pipe, but Herrera had said it would be okay to offer cigarettes. Tarrant did while introducing himself and his friend. Deftly left-handed, Rufus took a matchbox from his pocket, extracted and struck a stick, lighted the tobacco. To have such a formidable-seeming man serve them honored both the principals.
“We have come a weary way in the wish of finding you,” Tarrant added. “We thought the Antelopes would be on their home grounds, but you had already left, so we must ask anyone we met, and the earth itself, where you were gone.”
“Then you are not here to trade,” said Quanah in Her-rera’s direction.
“Sr. Tarrant engaged me in Santa Fe to bring him to you, when he had learned I would be able to,” the trader answered. “I did pack along some rifles and ammunition. One will be a gift to you. As for the rest, well, surely you have taken many cattle.”
Rufus sucked in a sharp breath. It was notorious that New Mexican ranchers wanted stock and would buy without questions. Comancheros got small detachments of Indians to drive herds they had lifted out of Texas to that market, in exchange for arms. Tarrant laid a hand on the redhead’s knee and muttered in Latin, against the outrage he saw, “Stay quiet. You knew this.”
“Make your camp with us,” Quanah invited. “I expect we will be here until tomorrow morning.”
Hope quivered in Rufus’ tone: “Uh, you will spare them in yonder house?”
Quanah scowled. “No. They have cost us comrades. The enemy shall never boast that any defied us and lived.” He shrugged. “Besides, we have need of a short rest, as hard as we have fared—the better to fight the soldiers afterward.”
Yes, Tarrant understood, this was not really a plundering expedition, it was a campaign in a war. His inquiries had informed him of a Kiowa medicine man, Owl Prophet, who called for a great united thrust that would forever drive the white man from the plains; and last year such horror erupted that Washington’s attempts at peace came to an end. In fall Ranald Mackenzie took the black troopers of his Fourth Cavalry into these parts, against the Antelopes. Quanah led a retreat that was a running, fight, brilliantly waged—Mackenzie himself received an arrow wound—high up onto the Llano Estacado until whiter forced the Americans to withdraw. Now he was returning.
The stern gaze shifted to Tarrant. “What do you want with us?”
“I too bear gifts, senor.” Clothing, blankets, jewelry, liquor. Despite his remoteness from this conflict, Tarrant could not bring himself to convey weapons; nor would Rufus have stood for it. “My friend and I are from a distant land—California, by the western waters, which I’m sure you have heard of.” In haste, because that territory belonged to the foe: “We have no quarrel with anyone here. The races are not foredoomed to blood feud.” A risk that he deemed he should take: “Your mother was of our people. Before setting forth, I learned what I could about her. If you have any questions, I will try to answer them.”
Stillness fell. The hubbub outside seemed faint, distant. Herrera looked uneasy. Quanah sat expressionless, smoking. Time passed before the chief said, heavily: “The Te-janos stole her and my small sister from us. My father, Peta Nawkonee the war chief, mourned for her until at last he took a wound hi battle that got inflamed and killed him. I have heard that she and the girl are dead.”
“Your sister died eight years ago,” Tarrant replied low. “Your mother soon followed her. She too was sick with grief ‘and longing. Now they rest at peace, Quanah.”
The tale had been easy enough to obtain, a sensation remembered to this day. In 1836 an Indian band attacked Parker’s Fort, a settlement in the Brazos valley. They slew five men and mutilated them as was Indian wont, preferably before death. They gang-raped Granny Parker after a lance pinned her to the ground. Two of the several other women they violated were left with injuries almost as bad. Two more women they carried away, together with three children. Among these was nine-year-old Cynthia Anne Parker.