A Tale Out of Luck (15 page)

“Put ’em on the ranch tab, son.”

Jay Blue slapped Hank on the shoulder the way a horseman would pat a favored mount. “I’ve got my own tab.” He tipped his hat to Miss Flora and headed for the door.

“Come get me before you leave,” Hank ordered. He saw the boy wave an acknowledgment of the order as he strode out.

“Anyway,” Hank continued, leaning in close to Flora again. “I’ll tell you this much about it. Years ago”—he jutted his thumb toward the doors Jay Blue had just set to swinging—“long before
he
was born, there was a string of murders by a renegade Comanche. There were certain men that he
hunted
.”

Flora rolled a tumbler of brandy elegantly between her fingers. Her features looked beautiful as ever, but her brow had just become quite serious. “What men?”

“Rangers. And not just any rangers, but four men from a specific company. My company. This renegade killed three of my best friends.”

Flora gasped. “Why, Hank? What did he have against you and your friends?”

“It’s a long story. I don’t even want to dredge it up if I don’t have to.”

Flora was curious, but respectful. “This renegade—what was he called?”

“We never knew his real Indian name but we dubbed him Black Cloud, because that’s the way he hung over us, waiting to strike like lightning.” Hank threw half a shot of whiskey past his teeth, shook off the old memories, and composed himself. “Anyway, Flora, this buck had a certain way of making his arrows. The craftsmanship was the finest I ever saw. The markings in red and black paint were typical Comanche designs, but he always used the exact same patterns. You could tell the same hand had made all the arrows. The dogwood was straight as a guitar string; the feathers trimmed just so, fastened expertly with sinew; the war points were filed from barrel hoops, weighted just right, sharp as razors. He was an artist. He had a flare. A signature.”

“Whatever became of him?”

Hank smiled. “I went huntin’ for
him
. We had a fight way up on the Concho. He put one of those arrows in me.” Hank flinched and rubbed the shoulder where the old wound still galled. “But I shot him up pretty good, and he rode off wounded. I was bleedin’ bad enough that I couldn’t chase him down. But he was never heard from again after that, and I always figured he’d died of his wounds.”

“But you think he’s back, don’t you? You think the arrows found in Wes James’s body were made by Black Cloud.”

Hank gritted his teeth. “I’m not sure yet. It was so long ago, Flora. The arrows
could
be the same. I got a hunch the moment I laid eyes on ’em. But . . .”

“What?”

“There’s a way to be sure. I kept the arrow he shot into me, but I’ll be damned if I can remember where I put the thing after all these years.”

“I do that all the time. Last week, I found a hundred dollars I had squirreled away in a snuff jar so that I wouldn’t forget it. Well, I forgot it.”

“Exactly. Maybe I
wanted
to forget where I put that damned thing. But if I could find it now, I could compare it to the arrows Sam pulled out of Wes James, and I could be sure of what we’re dealing with here. I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember where I put it.”

“I’ll help you look.”

Hank put his sandpaper palm over Flora’s soft knuckles, and smiled at her. No woman had graced his home since the death of his wife. Emilie’s portrait was still on the fireplace mantel. “Thank you, Flora, but I need you here. You might see or hear something funny.”

She looked a little disappointed, but quickly covered it. “Funny, like that stranger at the bar?”

“He looks a little funny, alright, but not as funny as his horse.”

Flora smiled. “Well, you know I’ll help you any way I can. And, speaking of overhearing things . . . I hate to tell you this, Hank, but you may be too late to learn anything from Flat Rock Creek.”

“What do you mean?”

“I gather from talk in the saloon that a group of yokels rode out there while you were gone and picked up all the souvenirs they could carry away in their saddlebags and spring buggies.”

Hank snorted his chagrin. “Doesn’t take the buzzards long to smell death, does it? I’ll have to put off lookin’ for that old arrow Black Cloud stuck in me. I better get out there, sniff around before all the sign gets too cold.”

Flora turned her hand and interlaced her fingers with Hank’s. “Be careful. If it is Black Cloud . . .”

“I know. If it’s him, he’s come for me.”

By the time Jay Blue finished purchasing his mustanging supplies, Tonk had woken from his nap to help him secure the provender on the pack saddle. Then Jay Blue went to the saloon to tell his father he was ready to ride.

“You and Skeeter have got to stick together, son. I don’t want anybody out there ridin’ around alone. It’s too dangerous right now.”

“Yes, sir, I know.”

“Now, of an evenin’, find a thicket somewhere and make your camp on the south side of it—”

“I know, so if a blue norther should happen to blow in, we’ll have a windbreak.”

“Right. And, at the end of a day on the trail, if you come to a river, or even a creek—”

“I know, go ahead and cross it, and camp on the other side, in case a flash flood makes the creek rise overnight. You’ve taught me everything, Daddy. Don’t worry.”

Hank allowed himself to smile at his son. He gave him a hug, then said, “Now get the hell out of town, you saddle tramp, but take a little Luck with you.”

Jay Blue reached down, scooped up a parcel of dirt from the street, and sprinkled it into his shirt pocket. “I always do.” He mounted and nodded at Tonk.

Hank watched his boy ride out of town with Tonk, the pack mule following behind, and thought about the day he decided that a town at the confluence of the Pedernales and Colorado would save him a lot of miles riding into Austin for supplies. He had a main street surveyed out of land he owned, staked out lots, dug a well to prove sweet water could be had, and advertised the lots for sale cheap in the Austin newspaper.

“What are you gonna call it?” Jay Blue had asked. “Tomlinson?”

“No, son,” Hank replied. “I’m going to name it after a lady.”

“My mama?”

“In a way, yes. She was the luckiest thing that ever happened to this ol’ Ranger. She was my Lady Luck. I’m gonna call the town Luck, Texas.”

They were standing on what would soon become Main Street. “Well, then,” Jay Blue said, “looks like we’re sure enough in Luck now.”

Hank laughed. “Wherever you go, you’re either in Luck or out of Luck, son.”

Watching his son—now grown up and riding away—he prayed for the former. He wasn’t a very religious man; he rarely prayed, thinking it selfish. Yet now—silently but sincerely—he asked for the safety of his only blood son.

Feeling the daylight fast slipping away, Hank stepped into Gotch’s livery stable and saddled a fresh mount Gotch provided. Riding out of the livery, he was surprised to see the stranger from the saloon, sitting on the bald-faced sorrel gelding, waiting for him in the street.

Hank squinted curiously. “Can I help you with something, mister?”

“I believe you can,” the man said, a touch of arrogance in his voice.

“Well?”

“You can guide me to the place where the dead man was found.”

Hank frowned. “What makes you think I’d know where the dead man was found?”

He shrugged. “You’re Captain Hank Tomlinson.”

“And just who might you be?”

“You may have seen the name Max Cooper in the newspaper. I’m a writer for the Austin
Daily Statesman
.”

Hank nodded. “The statewide police beat. I’ve read your stories with interest.” He looked at the gun belt. “Since when do newspaper reporters carry?”

“Just a precaution. I’ve heard about the Indian trouble. So, would you mind guiding me to the crime scene?”

Hank shrugged. He had to admit he liked seeing his own name in print. “Why not? Just so happens I’m heading that way for a look-see myself.”

“So, you
do
know where the man was murdered?”

“Not exactly, but I know from hearsay it was on the top of Shovel Mountain, and the top of Shovel Mountain is not that big. We’ll find evidence.”

“I’d be obliged.”

They rode straight toward Shovel Mountain at a fast trot. Hank had to admire the way that flaxen-maned gelding covered ground. Still, four white socks? A bald face and a glass eye? Deep down that sorrel had to be loco.

“You find those Smiths reliable?” Hank asked.

Cooper shrugged. “They’re light and fast. They load easier and quicker than a Colt.”

“Fast, maybe, but they won’t stand up to rough use on the frontier like a good ol’ hog-leg Colt.”

“I’m not much of a frontiersman,” Cooper admitted. “I cover crimes in the settlements.”

“Have you ever used those things?”

“I was a police officer in San Francisco, California, for six years. I found occasion to use them.”

Hank nodded and quickened the pace. They didn’t speak again on the ride to Shovel Mountain. Surmounting the flat top of the landmark, Hank pulled rein, glad for his horse’s sake that the climb was over.

“We’ll crisscross the mountaintop in a grid pattern,” he suggested. “It’s a standard search technique.” He was gratified to see Max Cooper pull a pencil and a notepad out of a pocket. He could already see his own quotes in black and white.

Hank searched the mesa until he found himself looking over the ashes of a burned-out fire. He got down and dropped his reins, knowing the well-trained saddle pony Gotch had provided him with would stay put. He went ahead on foot up to the charred circle of ground. Cooper dismounted, tied his sorrel to a cedar sapling, and followed.

“Stay right behind me, Mr. Cooper. That way, you won’t trample any evidence.”

“As you wish,” Cooper replied.

Hank stood over the site of the small fire. “Here’s the question, Mr. Cooper: Why a fire? Why here?”

“You tell me,” Cooper suggested.

“My guess: a branding. Wes James claimed he was a mavericker.”

“So I’ve heard,” Cooper said, scribbling.

Hank pointed. “Here are Wes’s boot prints.” He could virtually see Wes rise from his squat by the fire. “He walked to the left. There—that’s where it happened!” The blood had turned black, staining the stalks of grass that were still flattened from where the body weighed them down. Next to the blood-caked ground, he found another area of pressed-down grass too large to have been made by the body of a man. “There was a long yearling thrashing around here, roped and hogtied.”

“A long yearling?”

“A year-and-a-half-old calf,” Hank explained to the citified writer. “Now look over here, the length of a lariat away. You can see the hoof prints of a big, strong mount. He’s well trained at roping, digging in deep to keep the rope taut.”

“The claybank,” Cooper said.

Hank glanced at him. “You’ve done your homework.”

Cooper shrugged. “I asked around. What are these tracks over here?”

“Wagon wheels. Jack Brennan and his men from the Double Horn Ranch drove a buckboard up here to pick up the body.” He walked carefully back to the place where the body of Wes James had been scalped. “There’s not much sign left behind by the scalper,” he said, “other than the blood of his victim.”

“Why is that?” Cooper asked, taking out a pocket knife to whittle on his pencil point.

“There are still men on the frontier who know how and where to step in order to create little or no footprint.” Now he concentrated on the last boot prints that Wes James left on this earth. One had stood on grass, and didn’t tell much. But the other—the right foot—had pivoted in some dirt. “He turned to his right,” Hank said, thinking aloud. Hank put his own sole on Wes’s boot print, and turned, the way Wes had. He heard the thump of the bow string, felt the tingle in his chest where Wes had taken the first arrow. He experienced part of what Wes had felt at this moment, and the feeling was not a good one.

“You alright?” Cooper asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You grabbed your chest. Are you having pains?”

Hank frowned at the reporter. “Hell, no. I’m as healthy as your bald-faced pony.” He pointed toward the nearest trees in front of him. “The first arrow came from right there. An easy shot for an expert archer.”

He bade Cooper to follow him to the place where the slope began to drop away from the flat top of the hill, and the line of trees began. The ground there was strewn with large slabs of rimrock between which the trees had taken root. “The murderer left no footprints,” he lamented. “He might as well have been a ghost.”

Hank walked back to the place where Wes had died, noticing that Cooper had stayed behind, looking for evidence, as if he’d find something. Again, Hank stood in the last tracks of the dying man, feeling that he had overlooked something. Looking around his feet, he saw that some of the grass beside his right boot had briefly caught fire. He squatted and probed his fingers around the charred grass, and felt something. Cold iron. He lifted the short rod from the grass where it had lain hidden. A running iron.

“Paid the fiddler, didn’t you?” He was speaking to Wes.

“What was that, Captain Tomlinson?” Cooper shouted from the slope.

“Nothin’.”

Like any cowman, Hank knew a running iron when he saw one. Men had been lynched all up and down the frontier simply for possessing one. Sure, they’d claim that they were maverickers, and didn’t like carrying around a bulky branding iron when a sleek running iron fit so much more handily into their saddle pockets. But that was always a pretty sorry excuse, and even more pitiful as a last statement choked out past the tightening grip of a hastily tied hangman’s noose. A drifter carrying a running iron was probably a brand doctor. Everybody in cow country knew that.

So, Hank had to wonder: If he reported this running iron, would any investigator come to look into this crime at all? The death of a murdered cow thief? So what? Who would care? Would the newspaper even print the story? He looked up and saw Max Cooper stalking back toward him, so Hank slipped the running iron up his sleeve, unsure as to whether or not he wanted the reporter to know about this little bit of evidence at this particular moment.