"I know your heart is bleeding," continued Spotted Tail. "No matter how many white men you kill, it will always bleed, until the day you die. You know this is true, Gray Wolf. That is why you intend to die in battle, so that you may join Snow Dancer in the next life. And that is why you have given up your son."

Spotted Tail was one of the few Comanches who remained committed to peace. Thanks to nearly fatal wounds suffered in a battle with the Utes, Spotted Tail's left arm dangled uselessly at his side, and he would walk with a severe limp until the day he died. These handicaps meant he would never again take the warpath, which suited him well enough, for he had acquired a strong aversion to war. Gray Wolf did not despise him for this, as others did. In fact, he was glad that Spotted Tail was a pacifist. That meant he would always be there to guide his son through life.

"I know my son will want for nothing while he is in your keeping," said Gray Wolf. His voice broke, and he turned quickly away. From the skin lodge came the cry of the infant child, and the sound wrenched painfully at his heart, and his eyes burned with sternly fettered tears.

When he reached the council and took his place in the circle, he bleakly scanned the faces of the assembled chiefs. So many familiar faces were missing! So many Quohadi leaders had perished at the Council House! Most of all he would miss the great Maguara, so valiant in war, so noble in peace, so dedicated to the welfare of the Antelope band. Most of those present today were young war chiefs, resplendent in battle array. Ironically, most of the ones the Texans had killed had been those most committed to peace.

The subject brought before the council for its consideration was the waging of war against the Texans. This time Gray Wolf knew there would be no chance of a lack of unanimity. The souls of even the few old patriarchs who remained burned for retribution. There could be no other course of action. The Comanches had been wronged. Turning the other cheek was not part of their creed.

Gray Wolf's brother, Running Dog, who had also earned the status of war leader, and who wore the buffalo-scalp bonnet, rose to speak his mind. The white devils had lured them into a trap, and they must be made to pay for this treachery, he said. The Penatekas and the Tanawas had declared war upon the Texans. The Quohadis must not dishonor their dead by failing to do the same. No mercy must be shown the whites. No man, woman, or child must be spared. For every Quohadi who had fallen at the Council House, a hundred whites must perish. The land must run red with Texas blood.

Red Eagle spoke next. He vowed he would not rest until he had tasted the hearts of a hundred Texas men. He would crush the skulls of a hundred white infants beneath his heel. He would cut open the bellies of a hundred white women so that they could not produce any more of their vermin. By the end of his tirade, Red Eagle was ranting like a lunatic, and he had worked many of those who heard him into a fever pitch, so that their angry shouts rang out for some time after Red Eagle sat down.

Soon it was Gray Wolf's turn to speak. Being one of the few to have survived the ambush at Bexar, he was looked upon with something akin to reverent awe, for clearly the Great Spirit had spared his life for some great purpose. The Quohadis believed this purpose must be that Gray Wolf was destined to lead them to victory against the whites.

"Red Eagle will wage war as he sees fit. So will Gray Wolf. But Gray Wolf will not make war against women and children. That is the way of the white man. I choose to fight like a Comanche instead." The veiled insult of his words made Red Eagle fume, but Gray Wolf paid the warrior no heed. "If we hope to defeat the Texans, the Comanches cannot wage war as they have in the past against their other enemies. The Quohadis must join forces with the Penatekas and all the other bands. Somehow we must put aside our differences. If we do not, we cannot win. The Texans are too many. Together, we must strike swiftly. We must cut a path of blood and fire from here to the great water in the south. We must do this soon, for then we will have bought precious time, and if we do not hunt the buffalo before the coming of the snow, our people will starve in the winter months. Then, early in the spring, we will join the other bands once more and strike again, in strength.

"Even so," he warned, "this is not enough, for while we fight the Texans, the Utes to the north and the Apaches to the west will try to lay waste our villages. They will try to steal our horse herds and our women. We cannot fight in the east and the west and the north all at the same time. There is only one thing we can do. We must try to make peace with the Utes and the Apaches."

This drew a gasp from the lips of some of those present. "But how can we do this?" asked Running Dog. "They have been our enemies since the time of our fathers' fathers, and even before."

"There is only one way," replied Gray Wolf. "We must make them see that unless the Comanches can defeat the Texans, their lands will be invaded by the whites in the years to come. It is in their best interests to leave us alone, or they will soon find themselves faced with the same enemy that threatens us now.

"Gray Wolf has only this left to say. He had hoped for peace with the Texans. Now he sees that there can be no peace. The Texans are without honor. Their word cannot be trusted. He knows now that they must be destroyed, or the Quohadis will not survive. Gray Wolf will fight them until the last drop of blood runs from his veins."

The council deliberated briefly. All could discern the wisdom of Gray Wolf's suggestions, and on that very day riders were dispatched west and north, bearing the peace pipe to the Utes and the Apaches.

Within a month's time, all the Comanche bands had agreed to unite in one great and devastating raid. They would number their warriors in the hundreds, the largest force they had ever assembled for war, and it was agreed that they would strike early in the summer.

Chapter Eleven

Major Charles Stewart, of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, stood at the rail of the steamer Chalmette as she entered Galveston harbor, gazing at the somewhat shabby port on the fringe of civilization—and liked what he saw. Civilization bored Stewart. His appetite for adventure was insatiable. And, from what he had heard about the Republic of Texas, he was confident of finding plenty of excitement here.

The pilot had come aboard, and the Chalmette was under way at full steam past the bar at the harbor's entrance. The island had been named in honor of the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Galvez. In the early days it had been inhabited by Karankawa Indians, who were reputed to be cannibals. Whether that was true was of little consequence now, since the Americans had long since exterminated the coastal tribe.

Of more interest to Stewart, since he had tangled with Malaysian pirates during his sojourn in the Orient, was the fact that Galveston Island had long been a haunt for Caribbean freebooters, the most notorious being Jean Laffite. After being routed out of his Barrataria stronghold on the eve of the Battle of New Orleans, Laffite had established a new base here under the Spanish and then Mexican flags, calling it Campeche. Laffite had remained for half a dozen years before being "cleared out" a second time. Rumor had it that he had gone next to Yucatán, reputedly dying there of natural causes.

Stewart was of the opinion that he had been born a century too late, else he, too, would have been a pirate, roaming the Seven Seas in search of loot, and giving Laffite some competition. As a lad growing up in Celbridge, twelve miles west of Dublin, he'd often pretended to be Sir Francis Drake, whom he considered something of a pirate regardless of his knighthood. The Spaniards had certainly thought so! In three years of raiding 'round the world in the Golden Hind, Drake had returned to London with the holds of his stout ship brimming with stolen Spanish treasure. Queen Elizabeth's cut of the booty had been 163,000 British pounds. Stewart had always aspired to that kind of life—daring exploits, fabulous wealth, a knighthood, and death in an exotic land. He disliked Merry Olde England with a passion, and so had made the world his oyster.