Almay's Caddo companions

Almay's Caddo companions are two armed men who move with Almay from a public reading into a violent attempt to seize Johanna Leonberger. They first appear as shadowy observers and possible buyers, then become attackers on the road: using rifles and a handgun, they try to trap Jefferson Kyle Kidd in a ravine. Their retreat, driven back by Kidd's gunfire and Johanna's intervention, turns the threat they posed into a demonstration of the pair's resourcefulness under pressure.

Identity and Introduction

The men are initially seen beside a pale-haired stranger in the crowd at one of Kidd's readings. Kidd recognizes them as Caddos, though his first impression of their company is wary: he regards them as men with a disreputable reputation. When the gathering breaks up, they remain with the pale-haired man, later identified as Almay, and watch Britt Johnson as Kidd approaches him. Their presence links the public scene to the danger that will follow the journey.

The narration describes the two as Caddos who had drifted away from their tribal lands, gathering trouble along the way and acquiring a peculiar knowledge of what people might do or say under extreme duress. That knowledge fascinates them, but the account offers no names, personal histories, or independent objectives for either man. They are presented as a pair within Almay's company, defined chiefly by their shared involvement in his effort to take Johanna and by their later actions in the ambush.

Almay's Offer and the Threat

After Kidd finishes another reading, Almay introduces himself and asks how much Kidd wants for the girl. Kidd realizes that someone does want Johanna, but says he has not settled on a price or found a buyer. Almay then makes clear that the question is not an ordinary negotiation: he says the Army does not patrol the roads as it does near the Red River and threatens that he could intercept Kidd and simply take her. He presents his offer as fair and straightforward, while the two Caddos stand directly behind him.

The companions' place in this encounter is telling. They do not need to make a separate demand to make Almay's threat credible; their presence supplies its force. The men Kidd had noticed at the reading are now positioned as part of a plan to exploit the relative absence of patrols and seize a child being escorted south. The scene turns their earlier, watchful anonymity into a practical danger for Kidd and Johanna.

The Ambush

On the road, the Caddos attack Kidd from opposing positions around a ravine. He identifies two rifles and a handgun, with a rifle firing from his left and the other rifle and the handgun threatening him from the right. One man crosses between red-stone outcrops carrying a rifle, revealing that the attackers are trying to catch Kidd between lines of fire. Kidd recognizes the rifles as Henrys when he sees a heavy glove on one man's left hand, needed to handle the hot barrel and magazine tube.

Kidd answers the attack with his revolver. He fires at the man crossing the ravine and then shoots toward the rifle flash on his left; a yell follows, and the rifle is knocked from its owner's hand and wedged among the rocks. Kidd waits for the man to try to retrieve it, while another attacker attempts to mislead him with a hat held above a stick. The crossfire shows that the men are not merely following Almay as passive escorts: they are active participants in a coordinated attempt to kill or overpower Kidd and take Johanna.

Johanna's Intervention and the Retreat

Johanna does not remain behind Kidd's position. Barefoot and carrying a stove-lid lifter, she moves along the sandstone, using the rock for cover and levering at the base of a flat slab. She has hitched her skirt between her legs to move more freely. As she works, she identifies the attackers as Caddos and declares that they will die. Her familiarity with a gunfight is apparent in her actions, not simply in her words: she dislodges the stone, which tumbles down the slope, breaks against a boulder, and strikes a concealed man hard enough to bring him out of hiding.

Kidd reloads with shells packed with dimes. The overloaded shotgun sends the coins into the ravine, striking the attackers and tearing through their clothes and hats. The improvised ammunition is both a desperate weapon and a reversal of Almay's earlier attempt to put a price on Johanna: money becomes the force driving his companions away rather than a means of purchasing her. The men flee down the ravine. Johanna rises and sings a Kiowa triumph chant; the Caddos hear it as they reach the ravine's lower end near the Brazos River crossing, and they do not stop even to fill their canteens.

Narrative Role and Limits

The companions are not developed as individually distinct characters, and the narrative does not establish what ultimately becomes of them. Their importance lies in how they make Almay's threat tangible and turn the road south into an armed confrontation. Their knowledge of behavior under duress sits uneasily beside their own use of coercion: they observe human vulnerability, then try to exploit it through threats and crossfire.

The encounter also keeps the characters' identities distinct. Johanna answers these particular attackers as Caddos, while her chant expresses her Kiowa identity; the scene does not collapse the two peoples into one. Her quick, practical action and the attackers' eventual flight shift the balance of the scene. They arrive as a concealed force backing Almay's power to seize a child, but leave under the pressure of Kidd's defense and Johanna's own resistance.