“What’ll I do now?” Billings demanded. “I’ve been set afoot.”

And we ought to leave you that way, Rusty thought. It’d do you a world of good, walking back to Belknap. “There’s several Indian ponies runnin’ loose. I’ll try to catch one for you.”

“Then don’t just stand there talking.” Billings arose shakily and limped to where the Indian lay. He picked up a painted bull-hide shield. With the Comanche’s own knife he cut a leather thong from around the warrior’s neck and removed a small leather pouch. Rusty knew it would be the Indian’s medicine bag, containing sanctified articles supposed to protect him from harm. They had brought him no luck today.

Billings cut two eagle feathers from the warrior’s braided hair. “Too bad he wasn’t wearing a headdress. That would look good hanging on my wall.”

Rusty reflected that Comanches did not often encumber themselves with full headdress on a hasty raid like this one appeared to be. Billings stuck the feathers into his hatband. Rusty hoped they were infested with lice. “I’ll see about catchin’ you a horse.”

Sergeant Forrest said, “I’ll go with you.”

Billings reacted with fright. “Don’t go off and leave me here alone.”

Rusty worked up a little saliva and spat dust from his mouth. “If any Indians show up, just lay down and play dead.’

Riding away, he told the sergeant, “I almost wish I’d left him and that Comanche to sort things out for theirselves.”

“Don’t expect gratitude. If anything, he’ll resent you more than he already does.”

“After I pulled his bacon out of the coals?”

“He’s a proud man, though God knows he has little to be proud about. To him you’re an inferior, and you’ve made him beholden to you. That’ll itch at him like a case of the mange.”

Slowly the rangers gathered. Captain Whitfield was the only casualty. He had taken an arrow in the hip. The wound did not appear deep enough to cripple him permanently, but his ride back to Fort Belknap would be grueling punishment. Blood poisoning was always a possibility.

The captain tried to cover the pain with a forced smile. “At least we’ve scattered them to hell and gone.”

Rusty pointed to the dead warrior. “That was the leader, I think. I was hopin’ to take him alive so we could use him to make the others turn back.”

Whitfield pressed a bloodied neckerchief against his hip. “We set half of them afoot. Ain’t much they can do but give up the game and go back where they came from.”

Typically when Comanches split they regrouped at some previously agreed-upon gathering point. Rusty could see three Indians half a mile away, moving north. Two were on horseback, a third walking.

Whitfield said, “Let’s back off a ways and give some of them a chance to come get this one. Then we’ll follow them so close they can’t do anything except return to the river.”

“We?” Rusty asked. “You’ll do well just to get back to camp.”