[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line (10 page)

York said, "There's twice as many of us as there is of them. We ain't stoppin' for them, are we?"

Blessing raised his hand. "Let's see what they say about these horse tracks."

Mike drew his horse up beside Rusty. "If any trouble starts, young'un, you get out of the way. Your mother would never forgive me if I let you get shot. Especially by a United States soldier."

So far as Rusty knew, Mike had never retreated in his life. "If you don't run, I don't run."

The officer reined up and glanced first at York, then at Blessing, trying to decide which was the leader. Both had a formidable look, as if they were ready for the war to start. Blessing did not leave him wondering long. "Do you have business with us, sir? If not, we have business of our own."

The officer took on an imperious tone. "Are you aware that you are trespassing? You crossed over the reserve boundary some miles back."

"With good reason. Some of your wards butchered a woman back yonder, and they kidnapped a boy. Besides that, they've stolen a big bunch of horses and mules. We intend to get them back."

"None of our Indians are out. We have been making certain of that."

"Look at the tracks. They speak for themselves."

The officer gave the trail only a moment's attention. "If any of our Indians have a captive, we shall see that he is freed. If livestock has been stolen from you, it is the responsibility of federal troops to recover them. Now, gentlemen, you will turn around and leave!"

York leaned forward in the saddle and pointed a finger straight at the officer's nose. "We've come to free that boy and get our property back. And we intend to make some of your red pets pay. If you think you can stop us, you'd best count your soldiers and then count us."

The officer's face reddened, but he yielded no ground. "This is a federal reserve. You have no right to he here."

Blessing said, "It may be a federal reserve, but it's in Texas, and we are officers of the state of Texas, duly sworn. If your reserve Indians are not guilty, who is?"

"That must be determined. By us, not by you."

"You'll have to shoot us to stop us. It'll look bad in Washington, federal troops shootin' citizens who only want to get back what's rightfully theirs."

The officer did not answer. Rusty could see doubt in his eyes.

Blessing took silence as a positive sign. "All right, boys, let's go ahead." He turned his back on the officer and touched his heels to his horse. The rest of the volunteers followed. Rusty's mouth went dry as he saw the soldiers draw rifles. Blessing saw, but if he had misgivings he did not betray them. He kept riding, his back straight and stiff. After a few tense moments the officer shouted an order and the soldiers put the rifles back into their scabbards. He signaled for his troopers to follow the ranger volunteers. He spurred forward, pulling up abreast of Blessing.

"You are all under arrest, you know."

"The hell you say." Rusty knew both Blessing and the officer had been bluffing, and Blessing had made his bluff stick, at least for the moment. He could see how ludicrous the situation was, seven troopers trying to arrest a group of armed and determined Texans more than double their number. But he could not laugh.

Neither could Mike or Preacher Webb. Mike kept his voice low. "Stay close to me, young'un. Right now it wouldn't take but one fool on either side to spark a small war."

"What'll we do?"

"One thing we
won't
do is fire on federal soldiers. I fought beside them in Mexico. I won't fight against them."

Webb said, "Wise words, well put."

The passing of miles gradually drained away the tension. Rusty decided that neither Texans nor soldiers wanted a fight, except perhaps Isaac York. The officer calmed enough to begin a conversation with Tom Blessing, who explained to him the settlers' fears and frustrations.

The officer said. "I assure you we are not uncaring. We are doing our best to keep the reservation Indians contained. But at the same time we have a responsibility to protect them against harm from outside."

"You've already shown that you can't protect us. All we're after now is justice, and to get back that boy and our stock. We'd rather have you with us than against us, but we'll do what we have to no matter which way you go."

Blessing stopped his horse and looked at the ground. He rode a little farther and stopped again. "They've split off into several bunches. We can't follow them all."

Mike frowned at Rusty and Preacher Webb. "Ain't no way to tell what bunch took the boy."

Webb nodded. "It won't matter. Whichever trail we follow, it will soon disappear. I'm surprised they've let us track them this far."

The officer overheard. "They did it because they wanted you to follow. It's a Comanche trick to make you believe our reservation Indians were responsible."

Isaac York argued, "Ignorant savages, they're not smart enough to figure out a scheme such as that."

"You've not seen them from my vantage point. Just because they cannot read books does not mean they lack native intelligence. They are as smart as any of us."

"You sayin' it don't make it so," York retorted. "Ain't no two of them got the brains of a white man."

Exasperated, the officer went silent.

Blessing chose a trail that seemed the largest. "We'll follow this one and see where it takes us."

It did not take them far. It led to a stream that the officer said was a tributary to the Clear Fork of the Brazos. There it vanished. Tracks were visible to the edge of the water, but none appeared on the other side. Blessing divided the detail, sending half upstream and half down. The soldiers also split, half following one group of Texans, half the other. The officer remained with Blessing.

The search was futile. The point of exit could not be found.

Isaac York fumed. "Crafty bastards. Let's go back and follow one of the other trails."

Blessing shook his head. "Wouldn't be of no use. It'd end up just like this one. When they want to, Indians can disappear like dust after a whirl-wind."

"We can't just up and quit. Let's search every village on the reservation 'til we find them."

"We're out of grub, and we've just about rode our horses down. Besides, do you think seven soldiers are all there is? The lieutenant can go and fetch however many he needs to stop us. And he will."

The officer's eyes were fierce. "You can count on it."

For a moment Rusty feared he was about to see York go into a fit like the one they talked about at the settlement. York said, "I'll go by myself if I have to. Just me and Shanty."

The little black man pulled in beside him as if to give weight to the threat.

The officer said grittily, "I'd have you in irons before the sun is down."

Blessing turned to look grimly over his men. "That won't be necessary. We're goin' home ... unless you've still got a foolish notion that we're under arrest."

"I bow to reality. But I warn you once more: This reserve is protected ground. Trespass again and you will face the full might of the United States Army."

Blessing looked up the stream in the direction the trail had led. "Damned little might you've ever shown against hostile Indians."

The officer promised, "We'll search the reserve for the boy and for your stock. But I believe they are beyond the reserve now, bound for Comanche country."

Blessing's voice was bitter. "Believe what you want to, but you'd better find that boy. Otherwise we'll be back, and you and your army can go to hell!"

Rusty expected the soldiers to accompany the Texans across the reserve boundary, but they did not. The officer said, "I'll get reinforcements and some Indian trackers. We'll follow up on the trails." He led his troopers away.

York watched them. His voice was sour. "Ain't nothin'll come of it. Them soldiers couldn't find an elephant in a hog pen."

Rusty had a gut feeling that the captive boy would never be found. "What'll they do to him?"

Mike Shannon stared to the north, where the Indians had probably gone. "They'll make a Comanche out of him or they'll kill him."

"That's what they'd've done to me, isn't it? But you and Preacher Webb got in their way."

Mike's face showed despair. "I'm afraid there ain't nobody goin' to get in their way this time."

The volunteers had ridden north like a military unit, heads high, driven by a stern determination. Retreating southward now, they straggled without order, shoulders hunched in an attitude of failure. The mood was contagious. Rusty felt an emptiness that went beyond hunger. He had eaten nothing since yesterday noon.

"We didn't accomplish a thing," he lamented to Mike.

Mike only grunted. "It ends up this way more often than not. Many a time I've ridden a hundred miles after Indians and never seen a feather. But we've got to try or we'd just as well pack up our wagon and go back to wherever we came from."

Preacher Webb added, "There's no shame in losin', provided you made an honest effort. There's shame only when you give up before you start."

Rusty heard Isaac York raise his voice. "Yonder's a pair of tepees."

They stood three hundred yards away, within easy water-carrying distance of the stream.

Blessing said, "Probably just a family or two out huntin' for meat. The ones we're after wouldn't camp where they're so easy found."

"They're Indians, ain't they?" York put spurs to his horse and set him into a run. Behind him the black man Shanty tried vainly to catch up. He had no spurs. He did not even have shoes.

Blessing called in vain for York to stop.

Mike said, "We'd better go after him. Ain't no tellin' what he's crazy enough to do." He put his black horse Alamo into a lope. Rusty and Blessing and the others followed.

Rusty saw two women scraping flesh from the hide of a deer. Three children played nearby until they heard the horses and saw the oncoming riders. They fled into scrub timber alongside the stream. The two women screamed. An elderly man stooped to come out through the open flap of a tepee. He motioned for the women to run, then pushed himself as erect as his age would allow and waited for the horsemen.

York shot him.

One of the women turned back and hurried to the fallen man. She knelt at his side, then pushed to her feet and rushed at York, screaming at him and shaking her fists.

He shot her, too.

By then the rest of the Texans arrived. Blessing shouted in a rage, "Goddamn you, Isaac York, put up that pistol!"

York said, "I ain't through yet. There's still more of them."

Mike Shannon drew the old pistol he had brought home from the Mexican War. "Put it away, or 'y God I'll shoot you!"

York gave Mike a look of pure hatred. "They're gettin' away. I saw a boy amongst them young'uns."

Blessing said, "I saw him, too. He was an Indian boy. Put up the gun, Isaac."

York resisted. He looked down at the dead man. "There's one good Comanche. He'll never kill another white woman or steal a white boy."

Mike said, "These're not Comanches. Take another look."

York shrugged, unmoved. "Makes no difference. They're Indians. One or another, they're all alike." He started to ride after the others.

To Rusty's surprise, Mike Shannon spurred up beside York and pulled him from his horse. The two men landed together in the grass and began to fight. Blessing stepped in to separate them. "That's enough. Both of you, back away."

Shanty placed himself protectively in front of York. York was shaking and shouting incoherently. Rusty quickly dismounted and gripped Mike's arms. "No more, Dad. It's over with."

Preacher Webb stood between the dead man and the wounded woman. He removed his hat and began a prayer in a voice almost too low for Rusty to hear. "Lord God, forgive us all."

Blessing's face was scarlet. Rusty thought he looked as if he were about to go into a spasm. "Isaac, there's no tellin' how much trouble you may have got us into. Bad enough killin' the old man, but shootin' a woman, too?"

York trembled in the aftermath of rage. "They killed a white woman. I hope this one dies. She won't be birthin' no more babies to grow up and kill white folks."

Blessing saw the futility of argument with York. "If the troops heard the shots they'll he comin' to see what happened. We'd better put the reservation behind us as quick as we can." He waved his hand and set off southward in the lead, putting his horse into a long trot.

When the Texans departed, the other woman and the children emerged from the timber and set in to wailing. Rusty felt a chill.

Darkness lingered in his foster father's face. ''Mike Shannon said, "Young'un, we did accomplish somethin' after all. We killed a defenseless old man and maybe a woman. Ain't that somethin' for a ranger to be proud of?"

As Mike and Rusty turned off toward the farm, leaving the rest of the volunteers, Tom Blessing said, "You-all consider yourselves still sworn in. If things go the way they're pointed right now, I'll be needin' you."

Mike did not wait for Rusty to react. "Just holler any time. But next time leave Isaac York to home."

Rusty was not sure he would want to go again, not if the next mission turned out as this one had.

* * *

Preacher Webb brought the call. He rode up to the cabin one morning, his grim expression indicating he carried a message of importance. He delayed its delivery until he had inquired about Mother Dora's health.

Mike's worried eyes reflected the burden he had carried lately. "I'm afraid the medicine ain't helpin' her. Most days it's all she can do to get out of bed. Me and Rusty been doin' the cookin' and all."

Webb entered the cabin. He returned in a few minutes with a deep frown. "I wish we had a sure-enough doctor to see after her. Isn't much I can do that I haven't already done."

"You've done your best, Preacher." Mike grimaced. "The rest is up to the Almighty."

Rusty feared the Almighty was looking somewhere else. But he would not say so where the minister could hear.

Webb said, "These are dark days. I suppose you've heard the talk that Texas may pull out of the Union?"