[Texas Rangers 02] - Badger Boy (16 page)

At last Colonel Dawkins stepped down from the small back porch and strode out to where the woodpile had been. He challenged Pete, "You think you're mighty smart, but you're making a fool of yourself."

"The hell I am. I saw you myself, buryin' a whole bucketful of Yankee money. I figure by rights it's mine because of all the work I done around here for nothin'."

"You're several months too late. I already dug it up."

Pete felt as if an ax handle had struck him across the stomach. "What did you do with it?"

"I gave it to the cause. The Confederacy needed it to buy guns in Mexico.

Pete wanted to believe his father was lying, but he knew instinctively that he was not. Though the old man would not have spent that money on himself or any of his family, he would squander it on a lost cause. "You fool! You damned old fool!"

Triumph glowed in Caleb Dawkins's eyes. "When I saw the men start digging, I knew why you wanted to stay. You weren't content just to steal horses from me. You were going to steal my money, too. Well, now there's nothing here for you except a lot of hard work. So, when are you leaving?"

Pete gritted his teeth. "That'd tickle you plumb to death, wouldn't it? But this country owes me, and one way or another I'm goin' to collect. If not from you, then from anywhere and anybody I can." He turned angrily on Jethro. "Fill that hole up before somebody falls in it."

Scully said, "It looks like a grave to me."

The colonel walked back into the house. Pete kicked a clod of dirt and broke it into a dozen pieces.

Scully said, "Seems like there ain't much use in us stayin' around here."

"At least we got a roof and beds and somethin' to eat. And I've found out the old dog barks loud but ain't got any teeth left. So we'll stay. Even a blind hog finds him an acorn now and then."

"We ain't blind hogs."

"So there's no tellin' what acorns we may find."

E
very day or two, tired and hungry ex-soldiers stopped by Rusty's farm. Most had not been released officially. They had simply declared themselves finished with war and had struck out on their own without a by-your-leave. They were ragged, hungry, and afoot, too proud to ask outright for a meal but grateful for anything offered. Some were making their way to homes farther along. Some had found that they no longer had a home and were looking for a place where they might start afresh. Open country to the west offered land almost free for the taking if a man were willing to accept the challenge of low rainfall, few neighbors, and the risk of Indian raids.

No matter where they came from, the refugees carried essentially the same reports. Hard times had fallen upon Texas with a vengeance. Confederate money would buy nothing, and Yankee money had long ago been spent. Commerce, what little there was, had to be conducted on a barter basis. Local governments were for the most part in a state of collapse.

Rusty gave what he could to the transients, grateful not to be among them. The cabin was reserved for Clemmie Monahan and her two younger daughters. Rusty and Grandpa Vince Purdy slept beneath a shed out beside the barn. Soldiers were welcome to spend the night beneath that roof. If they were too tired to go on, they were given welcome to stay and rest.

At least there was food. The spring-planted garden was yielding vegetables. Beef was plentiful and without monetary value because cattle had run free and mostly unclaimed during the war, multiplying without limits beyond those imposed by drought and the available grazing.

Rusty listened with interest to the soldiers' stories. They reminded him of tales Daddy Mike Shannon had brought home from the fighting in Mexico. Names and faces were different, but the recent war seemed much the same as the one before, bloody, frightening, and often maddeningly futile.

"Seemed sometimes like the generals was just playin' a game, and they used us soldier boys like checker pieces," said one veteran, his face scarred by an exploding shell. Using a broken-off stick, he drew a circle in the dirt at his feet and punched a hole in the center. "This here'd be a gun emplacement. We'd run the Yankees off from it, then they'd build up a little stronger and chase us back. We'd drive them away again, like a bunch of schoolboys playin' tag. Then the officers would decide we didn't need the position anyway, and they'd move us someplace else. Long as we cost the Yankees more than they cost us, the generals seemed satisfied. I never seen many of
them
bleed."

"Hell of a way to run a war," Rusty sympathized. "It was a lot that way with us rangers and the Indians. We'd cut them off and chase them back across the Red River. Then they'd get together and come again when they were ready. Nothin' ever got settled for good. Still hasn't."

The soldier's eyes seemed haunted, his hair and beard grayer than his years would justify. Rusty blamed the war for that.

Clouds had built, black and threatening. Lightning streaked. A loud clap of thunder startled the soldier so that he ducked and whirled around. Sheepishly he apologized. "I didn't go to act like an old woman. I still see Yankees under every bush."

"They haven't found us out here yet." But they would, Rusty knew. It was only a matter of time before the Federal government would send soldiers and civilian regulators past the forks of every creek, to the end of the last wagon track.

The soldier worried, "When they do, they ain't apt to look kindly on us old rebel boys. Especially after what happened to Lincoln."

It was said that Lincoln had been urging leniency toward the beaten Confederates. Now, in the bitter aftermath of his assassination, it was widely speculated that the proponents of vengeance would take over, that the Southern states were in for harsh retribution.

Rusty said, "Nothin' much we can do except wait and see. I just hope the war doesn't start all over again."

"I ain't waitin' to see. I'm travelin' west 'til I can soak my sore and achin' feet in the Pacific Ocean. And if I can catch me a boat, I may go all the way to China. Everything around here has been stood on its head. You know you got a neighbor that was a slave? Face blacker than the ace of spades, and now he owns a farm."

"That'd be Shanty. Sure, I know."

"I spent last night at his place. Treated me kind, he did. Even said 'sir.' But I was glad to get away from there without any trouble. I know some hard-headed old boys back home who wouldn't hold still for such as that. I wouldn't want to be there when they come callin'."

"Everybody around here has known Shanty for years. They won't bother him."

"Maybe you don't know everybody around here as well as you think. I ran into an old man on the road, name of Gaskin. When I told him where I'd spent the night, he fell into a cussin' fit."

"Fowler Gaskin is all wind. Nobody listens to him."

"Well, you know your neighbors. I don't. If I was that Shanty, though, I'd sleep with one eye open."

Rusty remembered Tom Blessing's misgivings when Isaac York had dictated his will.

Maybe I'd best go talk to Tom the first chance I get, and make sure there's nothing going on that I haven't heard about, he thought.

* * *

He had known the Monahan family would not remain indefinitely. They had come seeking refuge from Caleb Dawkins's violent fanaticism. That danger had ended with the war. For a while Clemmie had been saying they should soon return to their own farm to piece together whatever remnants they could find of their past lives. Each time Rusty saw her step out onto the dog run and look hopefully to the northwest, he knew she was looking for her son James.

It was raining the night he came. Rusty had been watching the darkening clouds during the afternoon, fearing they might pass over without shedding a drop, or at least more than a light shower. But weather was unpredictable. Drought or flood, anything was possible. The farmer's life was always subject to the vagaries of wind, rain, and sunshine.

Coming in from the field, he saw the two girls harvesting vegetables in the garden, holding them in their aprons, carrying them to baskets set at the end of the rows. Sometimes their sudden appearance caught him off guard and gave him a start, making him think of Geneva. Especially Josie, who looked the most like her older sister. Josie came to meet him at the garden gate, her long hair blown by the wind.

She said, "Looks like we're fixin' to get a frog-stranglin' rain. We thought we'd better gather what we could."

"I'll pitch in and help you."

Josie smiled. "We'd like that."

An hour or so later they were seated at the supper table. The cabin door had been closed against the damp wind that came with the rain. It was suddenly flung open, and James Monahan stood there, his clothes dripping water. Lightning flashed in the sky behind him, making him look like some malevolent apparition.

Clemmie jumped up so quickly she overturned her chair. She kicked it aside in her eagerness to reach her son. Shouting with joy, she threw her arms around him, oblivious to the fact that his clothing was soaked. The girls hugged him when their mother stepped back. Old Vince Purdy grabbed James's hand and pumped it vigorously.

Clemmie said, "We been prayin' for this day."

James said, "I wish you'd prayed for dry weather. My wagon like to've bogged down, and I'm wet to the hide." His gaze drifted to Rusty. A little of his old reserve remained, but he shook Rusty's hand. "I do appreciate you givin' the folks a place to live for so long."

Rusty shrugged. "The whole outfit might've dried up and blowed away if they hadn't been here. They took good care of things while I was away."

"I'm glad you got past the brush men all right. Some of them turned kind of peevish when they found out you'd slipped away."

"How was that Oldham boy when you left camp?"

"Alive but not kickin' much. His brother wanted me to tell him where you live. I told him I thought it was somewhere over on the Trinity River." That would be a long way from the Colorado.

"Thanks. I don't want any more trouble with them. I wasn't lookin' for the trouble I already had."

Clemmie did not know what they were talking about, or care. She demanded of her son, "The war's been over for a right smart while. Where've you been all this time?"

"Up at our old place, helpin' Geneva and Evan build you a new house. It's finished, Mama, and waitin' for you." He looked at his sisters and grandfather. "For all of you, any time you're ready to go."

Clemmie clasped his hands. "We've been ready for the longest time." She looked apologetically at Rusty. "This place has been good to us, and Rusty's been more than generous. But it ain't the same as home."

"The new house ain't as fine as the one Caleb Dawkins burned down, but it'll keep the rain off of your head."

She asked, "Is the old cabin still standin', or did Caleb Dawkins go back and burn it?"

"It's still there, such as it is. Geneva and Evan been livin' in it." James peeled off a wet jacket and hung it on a peg. "Have you heard from Geneva lately?"

Clemmie shook her head. "Ain't been any mail since I don't know when."

"She's in a family way. Goin' to make a grandmother of you before the snow flies."

Rusty swallowed hard, then walked out onto the dog run, watching rain pound the hard-packed ground and run-off water move in small brown rivulets down toward the swelling creek. He stopped beneath the edge of the roof and felt the wind-blown spray wetting his face. He shook, suddenly cold, and wished the rain could wash away the grief that came with the slow dying of old dreams.

He was still on the dog run, sitting on a bench, when James finished his supper and came out to join him. James stood beside him, looking out into the rain.

Rusty said, "Back there in that brush camp you could've told me Geneva was married."

"I never got around to it. We had other things pressin' on us, remember? And pretty soon you were gone."

"I never thought but that she'd wait for me."

"She hadn't heard from you in a long time. For all she knew, you were dead."

"I wrote to her. The letters never got through."

"You ought to've found a way to come and see her, even if you had to desert the rangers. But you didn't, and Evan came along, lookin' like he was fixin' to die. Geneva cared for him like a nurse. You know how it is, a man and a woman together so much. You weren't here, and he was. Nature just took its course."

Rusty doubled a fist. The war, the damned war. It had cost everybody far too much.

James argued, "Evan works hard, he loves her, and he makes her smile. For a long time she didn't have much to smile about."

"The war was hell on everybody, even those who never went to it. Sooner or later, it came to
them
."

An old bitterness pinched James's eyes. "The Monahans sure suffered their share."

"It may be hard on Clemmie, goin' back where so many sorrowful things happened."

"It'll pass. She's got a will like an iron hammer." James started toward the kitchen door but stopped. "Your feelin's for Geneva will pass too, if you'll let them."

Rusty felt a deep ache. "I'd figured on askin' her to marry me."

"When a man really wants to do somethin', he'd ought to go ahead and do it. Time has a way of takin' things away from you if you wait too long."

"So I've found out."

"I used to lay awake nights, thinkin' about killin' Caleb Dawkins. But I decided that was too quick and easy for what he done, so I'm lettin' him wait and sweat over what I'm goin' to do and when I'm goin' to do it."

"What
are
you goin' to do?"

"Nothin', just let him worry himself to death. That way the revenge will last longer."

James went back into the kitchen side of the cabin. In a little while Josie came out. Her shoulders were slumped, her eyes downcast.

Rusty said, "I thought you'd be happier, seein' your brother."

"He's come to take us home."

"That's what you've been waitin' for, isn't it?"

"It's what Mama's been wantin', and Alice and Grandpa. But I like it here."