Bruce Forrest, Texian
Ride the Firewind
by Gutherie Hodges

A Preview

Bruce came to a heavy wooden door and passed through to a narrow stone stairway. As he climbed he counted carefully the steps until he came to thirty, then he put his hand on a certain part of the wall that looked like all the other stone. When he pushed on that section, it swung inward to reveal a small dark room.
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Bruce would remember that scene for the rest of his life. His father lying on the floor, red blood staining the back of his blue wool jacket and running off to form a puddle on the floor. The flames in the fireplace, the flickering candles in their stands making shadows on the old grey walls that reached up into blackness- too tall to be lighted from below. And the two pirates in gaudy clothing, black hair on their heads and their faces, looking down at Thomas.
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Bruce clung to an upright and watched the wild disarray. He could see almost nothing through the solid grey sheet of rain, but he thought the other men were as helpless as he was. Suddenly the entire ship ran into something solid with a jolt that ripped Bruce loose from the post he was holding and slammed him into the rail. The next thing he knew he was in a nightmare of deep water strangling and fighting to get to the surface.
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He was surrounded by what could only be the Indians he had heard so much about. Dusky skin with a slight tinge of dark red and clothes made of leather. Bruce fumbled out his knife and tried to push himself back into a standing position from the half crouch he had slid to during the night.

“You’ll not take me easy though you be so many!” he croaked in his half delirium. He brandished the knife and glared at them.
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On the second day, the horse approached the feed and water, keeping a wild-looking eye on Bruce all the while. His muscles were taut and braced to run if this man-enemy made the slightest move toward him, but Bruce sat quietly, only crooning to Firewind in the old tongue.
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He drew his knife and held it with the blade up. All those years of practice had prepared him for this moment. His readiness to fight and the ease with which he handled his knife seemed to surprise Barking Fox. He crouched lower and came on with his knife far out to the side.
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He had passed by large sections of ground rooted up by javelinas, and he didn't want to be where those vicious wild pigs or hungry cougars could come up on him during the night. This was also an area infested with rattlesnakes. They hunted at night and might be attracted by his body heat to curl up beside him.
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In wild confusion the running horse skidded around the mare and came to a lurching halt as the rider pulled her around. “What do you think you are doing?” she cried out in anger. “Why did you ride out in front of me?”

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and she was very angry.
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Bruce was amazed at all the food being made ready for that big day. Six fat calves roasted over fires all the night before and more big iron pots were boiling than he could count. Ditches with coals in them were arranged to bake potatoes, both sweet and white, and ears of corn.

He helped set up long tables and bring in wagonloads of logs and stumps so that everyone could find a place to sit down.
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They ran around the building in time to hear an excited old man yell out, “Harbison Bank robbed! Four men! Got no telling how much money! Shot the teller! Left town going west!”

Captain Hodges spun around to see that Bruce and Dude were there. “Go get ‘em, boys!”
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When a call for action came it was one that almost turned Bruce’s world upside down. A man nearly rode his horse to death to get to the headquarters so the Rangers could follow the trail while it was hot.
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They pulled up to let their horses breathe a few minutes and water at a clear spring that came out from under a limestone rock. The men drank deep of the cold water and filled their canteens again.

“It’s beginning to look to me like they really are heading for Comanche Nation territory.”
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Bruce saw in his mind Tatiana weeping as she filled food sacks for them, and he knew well that the old squaws kept up chants by turns all the time that their warriors were gone on hunts. He felt an inner warmth to know that they were chanting for him while he tried to rescue the girls.

“Tell Tatiana Old Tree will bring Singing Wind back to her wigwam,” Bruce promised as he clasped Custaleta’s forearm in farewell.
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A bullet passed so close to his head he felt it tweak the top of his hat. A second shot followed almost instantly, but he and Dude had already dropped from the horses and scrambled sideways into some low sparse brush.
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Between his teeth he took one thick limb of the brush he had been holding on to and braced himself that way while his hands wrapped the rawhide strip around the rock from several directions and tied it carefully. He caught the little tree with his hand again and began to swing the rock across the space and into the brush on the other slope.
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Bruce began to drone in a low voice some of the old Gaelic war chants he had learned. The unknown language and unusual behavior made the brave back up a step and look all around. Maybe the sinister signs on the rocks at the waterhole seemed more real to him at this witching hour.
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Dude eased forward and peered from a safe distance at the black pit. “I can’t see anything down there! Can you?”

Bruce laid down and reached into the hole with his torch, but he still could not make out what it was like. The torch flickered as though it were in an updraft of air.
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Keeping to the shadows he moved back far enough to make out a man’s shape against the lightness of the sky. He was sitting on the dome of the rock.
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The renegade Indians had milled around the rocks in sullen unease. They wanted to scoff at them, she could tell, but the strange signs obviously meant something sinister to them.
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Spitfire gave a lunge that carried her halfway over the back of a horse in front of her, and her rider fell off under the rearing wild-eyed horses. The man leading the procession was overrun with frightened horses. Shots continued in a steady barrage.
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It was very cold and his head was throbbing. Something sharp was poking him in the side. When he tried to move his arm was stiff and numb. Finally he pushed with one foot and felt himself falling.
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Captain O’Toole’s eyes were opened wide and his expression solemn. He bowed his head. “Oh, the evil of it all! That such a one should rob and murder the very one who took him in as a homeless orphan! Murder first the father then the son! May the Good Lord cause a cat to eat him and the Devil to eat the cat!”