[Texas Rangers 02] - Badger Boy (10 page)

"If it was me, I would. I'd carry her off someplace where nobody could find us, and I wouldn't turn her a-loose 'til we both had to come up for air. I don't know as I'd even wait for the preacher."

"A man would if he had any respect for the girl. Or for himself." Rusty would not admit to anyone that at times he entertained such fantasies about Geneva, with or without marriage. Usually he tried halfheartedly to suppress the images, then gave up the attempt and took pleasure in letting them run free. It was guilty pleasure, but pleasure just the same.

No, he would wait for Preacher Webb. But the preacher had better not be long in coming.

Rusty and Len Tanner rode a little ahead of the wagon that carried Captain Whitfield and Oscar Pickett. The captain hunkered down on the wagon seat, enduring his pain without complaint though it showed in his pinched face, his half-closed eyes. Rusty called back to him, "Hang on, Captain. We don't have far to go."

"I'm fine," Whitfield lied. "Just fine."

Ahead lay the timber that fringed the Colorado River. A dim twin-rutted trail led toward the nearest crossing that a wagon could ford without danger of floating downstream. Rusty had ridden there many times, usually with Daddy Mike, occasionally with preacher Webb, accompanying the minister on his circuit. It was pleasant to remember when he could keep from dwelling on the sad truth that those times were over and would never come again. Mike Shannon was gone, and age would be overtaking Preacher Webb. Rusty doubted that the minister could hold up to the rigorous pace he had set for himself in earlier times, carrying the gospel to the forks of the creek and beyond. Traveling that once had been a joy for him must now have become an ordeal. Yet Rusty knew Webb persisted, traveling more slowly and paying a price in weariness for every mile.

Rusty began to see mares and colts bearing the Monahan brand. The family had brought their horses down from the old place to Rusty's because of the certainty that they would quickly be stolen if left behind. No one had an incentive to steal cattle except an occasional one to butcher for beef. War had made horses scarce and valuable even as it resulted in an overabundance of unclaimed cattle.

He noticed several cows with calves bearing his brand. He had not been here to burn it on them, so he credited the Monahans. They had been looking after his interests as well as their own. It was a pity the cattle had no monetary value.

Sight of the fields helped lift his melancholy. They were green with growing corn, with forage for the stock. The Shannons' old double log cabin came into view. It was easy, seeing the place, to fantasize that Daddy Mike and Mother Dora would be waiting there for him as they had done so long. Rusty was tempted to put Alamo into a lope, but reality intruded. The pleasant dream was quickly gone. Familiar landmarks aroused old memories, one on top of another.

Rusty crossed a creek where he and Daddy Mike once had ridden with a band of local farmers trailing a Comanche raiding party. They had not managed to overtake the Indians; they rarely did. Farther along, Rusty had helped bury a murdered woman. The Comanches had taken the woman's small son, but no one had ever found a trace of him. He had disappeared like the Indians themselves onto the open plains of Comancheria.

Daddy Mike ... sometimes it was hard to realize that four years had passed since he died, yet at other times, remembering the uncounted miles Rusty had traveled since, the many rivers he had crossed, it seemed an eternity. The deaths of Daddy Mike and Mother Dora had left him with an acute sense of abandonment, of being alone in the world. That feeling of isolation had brought him to bond with the Monahans. They were not truly his kin, but they and Preacher Webb were the nearest to it that he knew. When he married Geneva he would become a part of their family. He needed that sense of belonging.

At the farthest end of the field, a man followed a mule and a moldboard plow. The distance was too great for recognition, but Rusty assumed this would be Geneva's grandfather, old Vince Purdy.

A girl was hoeing in the garden. For a fleeting few moments Rusty thought she was Geneva. He spurred ahead, then drew Alamo to a stop as he realized this was one of Geneva's sisters. The two younger girls had grown up during the war years. He had hardly known them the last time he had been here.

The girl saw the horsemen and the wagon. She dropped the hoe and climbed over the log fence that enclosed the garden. Lithe as a young deer, she raced barefoot to the cabin. She was shouting, though Rusty was too far away to make out the words.

By the time he and Tanner reached the cabin, Clemmie Monahan stood on the dog run. She was a small, thin woman of perhaps ninety pounds, so slight that she looked as if a high wind could sweep her away. Rusty knew from experience that her appearance was deceiving. She had a will of pure steel and a backbone to match it. Her two younger daughters stood on either side, beaming with delight. Rusty struggled with his memory a moment before he recalled that the older of the two was Josie. The younger was named Alice.

Clemmie had taken it badly when Rusty had arrested her son James long ago for an attempt on Caleb Dawkins's life in revenge for Lon and Billy. She had mellowed in the years since, and he hoped she had put the incident behind her. That she greeted him with a thin smile gave him hope.

"You-all get down and come in," she shouted.

Rusty dismounted and removed his hat. "Clemmie," he said by way of greeting.

"Rusty," she answered. Neither seemed to know much more to say at first. While he tried to decide how to continue the conversation, he stared at the two girls, hardly believing the change. Josie looked a great deal like her grown sister and appeared to be about as old as Geneva had been when Rusty had first met her. Alice was a pretty girl of fourteen or fifteen.

Josie declared, "I told them it was you, Rusty. I recognized you from as far as I could see you."

He was glad she could not read his mind and know that he had had trouble remembering her name.

He said, "I expect you-all have heard that the war is over."

"We heard," Clemmie responded. "Now maybe the menfolks will be comin' home ... them that survived." She coughed away a catch in her throat. "I'm right glad to see that you're one of them, Rusty."

Tanner was on the ground, stretching his long legs. Pickett had brought the wagon up near the cabin's dog run. He and Tanner helped the captain to the ground.

Rusty looked past Clemmie, hoping to see Geneva somewhere. "You remember Captain Whitfield, don't you? And Len Tanner? This other feller is Oscar Pickett."

"I remember them all. Welcome, gentlemen, to our house." She glanced back quickly at Rusty. "I should've said, 'To Rusty's house.' It's his, not ours."

"It's yours as long as you want it," Rusty said. He gave the girls a second looking over. "My, but you two have changed a lot in a year."

Josie smiled, looking even more like Geneva. "It's been longer than a year." She studied him up and down. "You're thin. Haven't you been eatin'?"

"When I could. Been times I couldn't."

Clemmie made a sweeping motion with her hand. "Then we'd better get busy and fix you-all a good dinner. Come on in."

Captain Whitfield limped, each step bringing pain. Clemmie frowned. "What's happened to you, Captain?"

"A Comanche had nothin' better to do than to put an arrow in my hip, is all. It's healin', thank you."

"It'll heal quicker once we put some food into you."

Rusty watched her stir up a blaze in the fireplace. He could not hold the question any longer. "Where's Geneva?"

Clemmie looked up in surprise, her expression slowly turning to one of regret. "I guess you never heard."

A cold knot suddenly built in Rusty's stomach. "Heard what?"

"She's up yonder at our old place. Her and her husband."

Rusty caught hold of a chair. "Husband?"

"She's married. Been married since winter."

* * *

Pete Dawkins poked at the campfire with a dry stick, his backside prickling with impatience. Somewhere in the distance he heard a bugle, but he gave it no attention. He had heard far too many bugles since he and his friend Scully had been hustled unceremoniously into the Confederate Army. There had been no hands to play stirring martial music, no pretty women waving at the departing soldiers. They had been marched out of Austin in the middle of a driving rain without fuss and feathers and with damned little if any showing of respect. It was almost as if they were prisoners, not soldiers.

The truth was that he and Scully would have been prisoners had they not become soldiers. Pete's hardheaded old daddy had been responsible for that. All on account of a few horses. Hell, the old man had lost more to colic than Pete and Scully had taken. He would probably have considered them stolen by the Indians and have forgotten them had it not been for the nosy damned rangers and that army horse buyer in cahoots with them. What was his name? Blessing, that was it. Tom Blessing. And the rangers. One of them he had encountered before and had gotten to know better than he wanted to. Rusty, they called him. Shannon, that was the last name. Rusty Shannon. He did not know the ranger captain's name, but he would remember that face and that bushy mustache if he lived to be a hundred.

If it hadn't been for them he wouldn't be here. He would still be in Texas, raiding the reservation north of the Red River for Indian horses and making himself wealthy enough that someday he could snap his fingers in Old Colonel's face and tell him where he could go.

And what in the hell was he still doing here anyway? Word had come days ago that the war was over. What was the use in having an army if there was no longer any war to fight? But the officers were waiting for specific orders from higher authorities. They had not allowed any soldiers to leave.

Scully stared at him from the other side of the small fire. "You tryin' to poke them coals to death? You look like you're fixin' to cloud up and rain pure vinegar."

"Just thinkin'."

"They can court-martial a soldier for thinkin'. You're supposed to leave the thinkin' to them and do what they tell you to."

"Right now they're thinkin' I'm goin' to stay here and act like a good soldier, but they're mistaken. I'm fixin' to up and leave this outfit. I'm goin' back to Texas."

"They shoot deserters."

"That was when there was still fightin' goin' on. They got no reason to keep me now, and no reason to hunt for me if I'm not here when they call the roll in the mornin'."

Scully looked around furtively to be sure no one was listening. "Would you take me with you?"

Pete hesitated in answering. He felt he could make better time alone, looking out for no one except himself. On the other hand, Scully had always been useful so long as he had Pete around to do most of the thinking for him. If anything, he was a better hand than Pete when it came to handling horses. It was as if his mind were on about the same plane of intelligence as theirs.

"I guess you can go provided you keep up. I ain't waitin' for you if you fall behind or get yourself into any trouble."

Scully's reply was curt. "The only trouble I ever got into was by followin' you."

True, they had a good thing going back home when they were gathering Indian horses from the reservation and selling them in the Texas settlements to farmers or to the Confederate Army. But they had come up short after one trip up north of the river, and Pete had seen no harm in adding a few of the old man's horses to the mix. Caleb Dawkins was already richer than one man had a right to be.

Pete knew Old Colonel's temper, for he had felt the lash of it many times, growing up. But he never gave a moment's thought to the possibility of getting caught, or of Caleb Dawkins giving him and Scully a choice between the army and the state penitentiary.

Choice hell! About like choosing between getting shot and getting hanged.

If it had been anyone except Dawkins's own son, the outcome might very well have been the rope. Old Colonel was hell on hanging people. Like them Union-loving Monahans.

Scully asked, "If we left right now, how far you reckon we could travel before daylight?"

"Eight or ten miles if we hustle. A right smart farther if we was a-horseback."

Two horses were tethered on the picket line, out beyond the light of the company's several small campfires. They belonged to the captain and the lieutenant, the only men in the company allowed to ride.

Scully said, "Are you thinkin' the same thing I am?"

Pete nodded. "The officers have ridden far enough. We ain't been paid, and we ain't goin' to
be
paid. The least the army owes us is a horse apiece."

He and Scully gathered up what few belongings they had, including their rifles. Pete led the way to the picket line. He drew a bowie knife from his belt, ready to cut the rope.

His blood went cold at the sound of a gun hammer being cocked. A voice demanded, "Who goes there?"

He saw the dark shape of a guard just in front of him, too near to miss if he fired a shot. Pete shivered.

"Who are you?" the guard demanded again. Pete recognized the gruff voice of a company sergeant.

"Just me," Pete said weakly. "I was lookin' for the latrine. Guess I got turned around in the dark."

"Well, you just turn around again. Already been two men tried tonight to take the officers' horses. The next one I'll personally shoot, and I'll bury him in the ditch we dug for the latrine."

Pete backed off, bumping into Scully. His fear gave way to frustration as he retreated. It had not occurred to him that other men in the camp were considering desertion, just as he was, and that they had caused a stiffening of the guard detail.

Scully whispered, "What'll we do now?"

"We'll walk. Sooner or later we'll find somebody careless with his horses."

He found the road that led west. Anger made his stride long and purposeful. His mind went back to the black day that the rangers had caught him and Scully with stolen horses. He wished he had Rusty Shannon here right now. He would gladly beat him within an inch of his life, then shoot him in the belly. Maybe someday.