Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(37)
“Nature takes care of its own,” she continued.
“What was that, Ela?”
“Something my grandfather told us last night.”
“You think your grandfather can shed some light on that man’s murder?” Caitlin asked her.
“I think he knows this land is watched over and protected by a force you can’t possibly imagine. I think he knows man’s presence is tolerated only so long as we live by the land’s rules. And I don’t think he has any interest in talking to you.”
“Tell you what, Ela,” Caitlin said, turning her tone more conciliatory. “Why don’t you go tell your grandfather that the great-great-granddaughter of Steeldust Jack Strong wants to have a talk with him? I’ve got a feeling he’ll welcome the opportunity.”
31
BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS
Dylan and Ela led Caitlin and Cort Wesley through the center of the reservation toward the more rustic outskirts where Ela’s grandfather made his home. As was the case on many contemporary Indian reservations, the contrast in the living accommodations was striking: from mansions claiming large parcels of land for themselves, to more modest ranch-style homes, to trailers and dilapidated shacks that looked lifted from old black-and-white pictures, right down to the barren ground from which they’d sprouted.
A handful of cases over the years had taken her to other reservations, all dealing with crimes committed off Native American land, when the Rangers had been called in to assist the efforts of the tribal police. She saw none of those officers in evidence now. Their entire number was gathered closer to the entrance, more to keep watch on the protesters, it seemed, than to protect them. Cort Wesley had said none of the tribal policemen had so much as moved a muscle when the work crew launched its attack yesterday. Hardly surprising, given that they were likely beholden to the elders whose deal with Sam Bob Jackson to sell off mineral rights to the land put them squarely at odds with those for whom that land was sacred.
To that point, Caitlin reasoned, the Comanche reservation sat on some of the most pristine, bucolic land the state of Texas had to offer. She wondered if Stephen Austin and the others behind the deal understood that, during the post–Civil War years when the land was deeded to those Comanche willing to lay down their arms and accept peace with the fledgling state of Texas. The Quahada Comanche under the great chief Quanah Parker, on the other hand, had refused to accept the terms of the 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty. As a result, the U.S. Army, along with the Rangers, including Caitlin’s great-grandfather William Ray Strong, had spent years practically exterminating them in battles that remained shrouded as much in folklore as in fact. Parker himself finally surrendered at Fort Sill, in 1875, a year after Jack Strong’s encounter here, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether that timing had been more than coincidental.
The fact that this tribe continued to live off the land was well documented and was exemplified by the lush, rolling fields of crops, corn most notably, with plenty of other crops grown in smaller patches. Judging by the tree growth and younger landscaping, she imagined many of the mansion-like homes dotting the reservation had usurped land on which acres of crops had once sprouted.
“You like the homes of the to’sarre, Ranger?” Ela asked Caitlin, following her gaze.
“That’s what we call the Natives behind the land deal,” Dylan elaborated. “It means ‘black dog.’”
“We?” Cort Wesley repeated.
The developed portion of the reservation ended abruptly, extending a bit farther into the untouched land where the wildlife refuge took hold. It was on these grounds that Ela’s grandfather White Eagle lived, on land unspoiled and unchanged since the time of his ancestors. Sure enough, their trek brought them up to a hump that settled onto a narrow strip of earth perched against a pond fed by a churning waterfall. A man with a hunched back and stooped frame stood in the spotlight of the sun, between matching elm trees, hands clasped behind his back and flowing hair tossed about at the whims of the wind.
He had the look of a man who’d once been tall, now shrunken by the ravages of time and age. He wore trousers stitched out of some kind of hide, moccasins, and a leather vest over a tattered woolen shirt, in spite of the heat. Drawing closer, Caitlin could see that the furrows and wrinkles crisscrossing his face were so thick that the sun turned it into a patchwork road map of dark avenues carved through the light. She let herself imagine that if a man from the nineteenth century really were still alive today, this was what he’d probably look like.
“Caitlin Strong,” the old man said, through lips that seemed not to move, his jawline utterly slack.
Caitlin felt Cort Wesley tense just to her right. Something about the old man knowing her name seeming to activate his defenses. She watched Ela advance, approaching White Eagle.
“Grandfather, this is the—”
“I know who she is and what she is,” White Eagle said, never taking his eyes off Caitlin. “I feel like it’s 1874 again and I’m looking at a different Strong.”
“I’m sorry to intrude, sir.”
“I’m not a ‘sir.’ Sir is a white man’s term. Call me White Eagle, just like your ancestor once did. I’ll call you eckawipe. Means ‘first woman,’ since you are the first woman Texas Ranger—at least the first one to truly last and make your name. Come and sit with me.”