Chapter Eleven
Comanche
The sun overhead sizzled and the dry, arid land below gave up nothing except radiated waves of endless heat. The Comanche drove their female prisoners across miles and miles of endless hills and deserts. They rode their ponies ahead or alongside the shambling line of prisoners and showed no mercy for the white women captives, but they wanted to keep them alive, so the forced marches were moderated and food and water provided at the rest stops along the way back to the camp.
Sara and the others were bound together in a single file, leather thongs holding their hands behind their backs and wearing an uncomfortable but effective head harness, collar and gag combination. The Indians used the thongs skillfully. A thin, twisted length of the well-cured buffalo hide was
