Steeldust Jack dismounted stiffly, careful not to put too much weight on his bad leg, and held his hands in the air, watching a half dozen Comanche warriors, their faces streaked with traditional war paint, emerge from the nearby forest line, where a cluster of small log homes dotted a landscape shaded by sprawling maple and evergreen trees. Only a few tepees, likely for ceremonial purposes, were in evidence, placed not far from a series of large cooking pits, from which gray smoke rose in preparation for the tribe’s next meal.
Steeldust Jack noted that the youngest Comanche warrior wasn’t wearing any war paint or carrying a bow like the others. He walked ahead of them, his muscular shoulders seeming to sway with the wind, heading straight for the Ranger as if they were the only two men here.
“You are not welcome on this land,” the young brave said, stopping a few yards before Steeldust Jack. “You must leave.”
Steeldust Jack shielded his eyes from the sun. “You the chief?”
“The chief has no call to speak with the white man. I am Isa-tai, White Eagle in your language.”
“Well, I’m Jack Strong, Texas Ranger in your language.”
Isa-tai bristled at that. He didn’t look all that much older than Steeldust Jack’s son, William Ray, who’d just joined the Rangers himself, at seventeen, and had been assigned to the newly formed Frontier Battalion. Strange for a father to be jealous of his son, but that’s the way Jack Strong felt, and he couldn’t help it. The truth was, he’d have been much happier fighting Indians than investigating a killing that might have taken place on their land. But duty was duty.
“You have no business here, Ranger.”
Isa-tai had eyes so dark that the Ranger was pretty sure they were black, with hardly any white mixed in. His bronzed face was angular, with ridged cheekbones and smooth skin that was free of the scars Steeldust Jack was used to seeing on the Comanche he’d done battle with over the years. Isa-tai’s raven hair was clubbed back, the way all braves wore it, with what looked like a bone looping through it and poking out from the top.
“And authority here, either,” Isa-tai continued.
“Is what I heard true? That you folks here are immortal, that you’re gonna live forever?”
“Not if the white man can help it. This land was given to us in peace and we have kept it in peace. We ask only to be left alone, and for the white man to keep to himself, just as we do.”
“All the same, I was hoping you could help me with something.”
“I’m a medicine man. But if you’ve come for healing, you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“I come about a man just outside your land here who’s way beyond healing.”
“A white man?”
“Yes, sir. Got himself killed in an especially bad way.”
Isa-tai flirted with a smile. “There’s no bad enough way for a white man to die.”
Steeldust Jack felt the other braves closing in on him from the rear. Their steps were too soft to discern through the breeze, but the cast of their shadows betrayed their motion. He made sure to hang his right hand well off his Colt, so as not to spook them.
“I was wondering if there were any bear in these parts.”
“A bear didn’t do it. You already know that,” said Isa-tai.
“You telling me what I know now? Are we having a language problem here?”
The braves behind Jack Strong fanned out, enclosing him in a circle, with Isa-tai still directly before him, looking up.
“You don’t know what you’re looking for, taibo.”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Isa-tai looked about, seeming to sniff the air. “You should go. It’ll be dark before you know it.”
“I ain’t afraid of the dark.”
“It’s what the dark breeds that you should be afraid of.”
“This all have anything to do with those rituals I heard about? None of my business, I know, and none of that dead fella’s business, either. But if, by some chance, he trespassed with an intent to do harm and got clipped before he could do so, that’s a case I can make on your behalf.”
“We don’t need you to do anything on our behalf, Ranger. We do for ourselves here, in harmony with nature and the Great Spirit. If you suspect this dead man’s fate involved his trespass, I suggest you take it up with him.”
“Maybe you could introduce me to this Great Spirit of yours. I haven’t exactly seen him about lately.
If Isa-tai was amused at all by Steeldust Jack’s attempt at levity, he didn’t show it. “That is because you see only the world before you, not around you.”
Steeldust Jack swept his gaze about the braves encircling him. “You trying to tell me something?”
“A warning.”
The Ranger’s hand edged closer to his Colt. “Don’t test me.”
“Not from us. You have nothing to fear here, other than your own ignorance.”
“Pretty smug talk.”
“Heed the lesson of the taibo who lies dead.”
Steeldust Jack resisted the temptation to get right up in Isa-tai’s face. “You want to give me that again in English I can understand?”
“This is our land,” Isa-tai said, his spine stiffening.
“Understood.”
“All that lies on and beneath it belongs to us.”
“Now you’ve lost me again.”