out on the plains, shootin those dumb buff, had its boring side. I left that Comanche girl at the ranchero, and she took up with a older vacqero whose wife had passed. that didnt matter, cause of a lot of the res indians were sneakin off to hunt buff, or to hunt buffalo hunters. we always had camp followers, and fewer and fewer of our visitors was trying ta paint the tomahawk. after that second Adobe Walls battle, most of the indians came beggin and not warrin.

a indian woman came into camp, and we couldnt get rid of her. i think she was tonkawa, cause of she walked around with her tattooed tits hangin out when it was hot, but she swore up and down she werent. she just never said what it was she come from. she was smart not to claim as tonkawa cause of them tonkawa ate a Comanche chief a whils back, and the Comanche always hated them the most after that. she spoke american, spanish, comanche, french, apache, and damn near bout anything else we run across. she played the fiddle, she called her self Mariah, and she doctored bettern then she played the fiddle and that was muy bueno. she scared the shit outta the other indians, and outta Skinny John and Pierre and Domingo and Rosy. the indians thot she was a medicine woman, and them boys from the crew said she was a witch. she reminded me of that voodoo woman from new orleans. like as, she werent real pretty, but when you seen her you just wanted to lay her down in the prairie grass right then and there. John the Mick, and Big Abe kept trying to get her in the back of the wagon, but she would just tease them somethin unmerciful.

Mariaah also flirted outrageous with me. I didnt reckon she had set her cap on me, cause of I had my hands full with a mexicana we had ransomed from a kiowa warparty. that mexicana had got it into her head that I was a hero, even though we didnt even fight that particular bunch of kiowa, just give em fresh horses for their worn out ones, and for their captives. I am ashamed to say I was enjoyin her rewards too much to argue the point much.. If you never get a chance to spend a cold march night under the Texas stars wrapped up in a buff robe and a mex woman, then you should be ashamed of a life poorly spent.

Big Abe and Skinny John proved themselves to be slickern owl shit. When a goddammed yankee patrol would come by, they come up with cav uniforms and say they was with the 9th or 10th, dependin on who the goddammed yankees were with, and assigned to protect us as we was huntin buff for this or that general. hell, one time or three they requisitioned a wagonful of supllies from a army supply train. I bout died laffin the first time they pulled that trick. I spect they had learned to walk sharp when they could get whipped for givin a jackass a crosseyed look. I seen from the niggers that rode with their masters in The War that they didnt always talk that gibberish coulnt nobody understood, just when when they was around jackasses. never heard it from our boys til that first time. some lootenant from the 4th was providin us difficulty, and they gulled him with that slave talk, damn near ten years after the War. He jist sat there with a slackjawed goddamn yankee look on his face while they gibbered at him. Later on in austin, one of the old slaves told me they had a made up language to fool some of the masters. said they could understand it each other, but the masters jist got mad and let them be after listenen to it.

then the worst thing that could happen to me happened. the dumb horse Id been ridin started at somethin and started a one horse stampede. cept he didnt stampede far, jist to a gully which he run right into and broke his damn fool neck. that would have been fine as far as I liked cept the dumb sonofabitch broke my shoulder and my jaw and my leg and some ribs whils he was killin him self. none of the crew saw what scairt the crowbait sonofabitch. to make things all that damn worse, he broke my saber. Id had that saber for moren fifteen years and a dumb horse broke it. Ida probably spent all day after that just shooting that horse some more, but I was kinda passed out. I aint that bad a horseman, but that mexicana gal was tryin to show me her tits without the others seein, so I wasnt payin as close attention as I ought.

By Pearson Scott Foresman [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I woke up a coupla times after that, but that Mariah had me filled up to the rim with laudanum and had me wrapped up like a coccoon. everything had a cottony discombobulated look to it. when I finally woke up to something that wasn't a dream, I was in austin. Mariah had took me there.

Across the Rio Grande my boys and homeward we are bound
No one on this buffalo range will ever more be found
Go home to your wives and sweethearts, tell others not to go
To spend the summer pleasantly on the range of the buffalo

John Stevens:

We got the word that Wallace was laid up in Austin. I rode up that way and made the acquaintance of Miss Mariah. Wallace was a fool to think this woman was Tonkawa or any othe kind of Indian. While I myself did not inspect her bosom for tattoos, their presence would not have made Mariah Indian. I suppose she was Creole of some sort, and she had refined manners when she chose to display them. I was honored by her comportment towards me, but I did see her respond forcefully in whichever manner she thought most effective when crossed...several times. Despite her straightforward approach at demand, my guess on the matter is that she was brought up in a household of quality. She did not strike me as the kind of woman that would traipse around the Plains with a crew of buffalo hunters, but like those tattoos, I did not see all there was to this woman.

It was a good thing that she had been there. His injuries would have been his death if not for the surgical skill she gave him at the time. His horse had rolled over him more than once, and had ended up on top of him. He was pitiful to look at even a month later, so bad had been his injury. She took great care of him, and she seemed to have a strange attachment to him, as more of a school mistress to a beloved but particularly naughty schoolboy than as a lover to her man.

She had booked a fine house to convalesce Wallace. When I offered to make provisions for Wallace's care, she accepted courteously. However, I had the feeling that she had the appropriate funds available at her convenience. Yes, there was much more to Miss Mariah than met the eye.

Wallace was close to being on his deathbed, as he had developed pneumonia, but despite that, his main complaint was that the horse had broken his saber. He would not shut his mouth on the matter when not doped into Morpheus's bliss.

The Story So Far

Part One, in which Wallace Stevens returns home from the Civil War, then joins the Texas Rangers.
Part Two, wherein our desperado steals a Comanche princess and deserts the Rangers.
Part Three, in which Wallace attempts to return home again yet to put himself into more trouble.
Part Four describes the shootist's adventures as a hired gun in Mexico.
Part Five, wherein Wallace reminisces over his favorite weapons.
Part Six returns the gunman to New Orleans, where he joins a buffalo hunting crew.
Part Seven in which Wallace reflects on killing and the War.
Part Eight relates the tale of buffalo hunting and the last of the buffalo Indians.
Part Nine, wherein Wallace reflects upon his life with the fairer sex