[Texas Rangers 02] - Badger Boy (27 page)

Badger Boy did not know if he had rebroken the bone. The pain was excruciating. He lay helpless, unable to push up from the ground far enough to gather his legs under him. He wanted to cry out in agony but would not allow himself the weakness.

A shadow fell across the moonlit pen. Looking up, he saw the outline of a man with a rifle or shotgun.

"No shoot! No shoot!" he called.

The voice was Shanty's. "Andy, is that you layin' there? What in the Lord's good name you tryin' to do?"

Shanty knelt at Badger Boy's side. "You done taken all the wrappin' off. Wouldn't surprise me none if that leg is busted plumb in two again."

That was Badger Boy's fear, too.

Shanty stood up and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Mr. Rusty! Preacher! You-all needed out here by the barn."

He started to help Badger Boy to his feet but thought better of it. "We better leave everything like it is 'til the preacher man looks at you." He shook his head, showing disapproval. Tryin' to skedaddle, wasn't you? I figured some Indian was tryin' to take Mr. Tanner's horse. Guess I wasn't all that far wrong."

Badger Boy hurt too badly to try to decipher all Shanty said. He knew the gist of it.

Rusty, Webb, and Tanner all arrived at the same time. Webb picked up the fallen splints and leaned them against the fence, then carefully ran his hand up and down Badger Boy's leg. Badger Boy winced. He tried not to make a sound, but an involuntary groan escaped him.

Webb said, "Maybe the bone held together. It's God's mercy if it did. Let's carry him back up to the cabin. Real careful now. That bone's as flimsy as an eggshell."

Rusty demanded, "What did you do it for?"

Badger Boy ground his teeth together in an effort to fight down the pain. "No want to go with uncle. Want to go home."

Tanner tried to make light of it. "Don't you know they hang horse thieves?" Badger Boy had surmised that Tanner stole the bay from the bluecoats, but he hurt too much to appreciate the ironic humor.

* * *

Badger Boy lay awake most of the night, the leg throbbing, allowing him no mercy. Webb had wrapped the splints around it again after satisfying himself that the bone had not broken anew. He had said, "The Comanches raise their boys to be tough. Anybody else, that leg would be in two pieces."

Badger Boy was unable to hold breakfast in his stomach. After a couple of tentative bites, he quit.

Webb said, "We'd best be about gettin' you cleaned up."

Badger Boy would much prefer to bathe in the creek, but the splints and his injured leg precluded that. He took his bath out of a tin pan, slower and less satisfying. Done, he put on a clean shirt that Rusty brought him. It was much too large. The sleeves were considerably longer than his arms, so he had to roll them up. The tail of the shirt reached past his knees. He had seen boys at Blessing's cabin wearing long shirts and nothing else, no trousers, not even a breechcloth. To him it still looked like something for a woman, not a man.

"Why uncle come?" he asked. "I no know him, he no know me."

"You're blood kin," Shanty said. "Everybody ought to be with their blood kin."

Badger Boy had seen no one else whose face was black like Shanty's. "You got blood kin?"

Shanty seemed taken aback. "Someplace, I expect. I was sold away when I was just a young'un. But you got a chance to be with your own folks now. You'd ought to be happy."

Badger Boy would be happy only when he got back with The People. Since last night's failure, he knew it would be somewhat longer than he had expected. Now that he had grudgingly accepted his situation, he began to feel some curiosity about the man who was his Texan father's brother. Brothers often looked much alike. He wondered if seeing his uncle would help him remember his Texan father's face.

"When uncle come?"

Rusty stood on the dog run, shading his eyes. "I see Tom Blessing on horseback, and somebody in a wagon. Let's get Andy out here in the daylight." They moved him to a chair on the dog run, the splinted leg extended straight out. Rusty gave Badger Boy a quick inspection. "Now, you be on your best behavior, and smile."

Badger Boy could not smile on command. He had to feel like it, and he did not feel like it. Anxiety put his stomach in turmoil. His uncle was coming to take him away, farther than ever from the Comanche stronghold. Hampered by his leg, Badger Boy would not be able to put up much resistance. His hands shook. He tried to hide his nervousness by folding them together.

Tom Blessing trotted ahead. The other man hauled up on the lines and stopped a team of mules that pulled his wagon. Blessing dismounted to greet his longtime friends first, then turned to Badger Boy. "Got somebody who's traveled a long ways to see you. Andy Pickard, this here is your Uncle Jim, come to fetch you home."

It was the white man's way to shake hands, but Badger Boy did not want to. He did not want anyone to see how his hands were shaking. He managed a noncommittal nod to the man who climbed down from the wagon and approached him.

Uncle Jim stopped a bit short to give Badger Boy a critical study. He did not speak directly to his nephew. "Can't say I see much of my brother in him. Maybe a little around the eyes. I'm afraid he's taken after his mother a right smart more."

Preacher Webb offered, "I remember his mother. She was a handsome woman." Most women looked handsome to old bachelor Webb.

"If you like them skinny. I always liked to see a good stout corn-fed woman myself. They can usually outwork a skinny woman two to one."

Webb seemed a little put off. "If a workhorse is all you're lookin' for."

"Just bein' practical, Preacher. Life is hard in this country, and a weak woman can't tote her share of the load. Good looks wear off pretty soon. Strong hands and a strong back, that's what a Texas woman needs."

Badger Boy listened intently, trying to understand. He stared at Pickard's face, hoping to see something that would bring back a memory of his father. The voice had a faintly familiar quality, but he saw nothing in the face to bring patchy old images back into focus. He gathered that his uncle was saying something unfavorable about his mother. Though he barely remembered her, he felt a rise of indignation.

No Comanche would insult his own mother or allow anyone else to do so. His face warming, Badger Boy tried to think of the Texan words to express his disapproval. All that came to him was Comanche, and he used that in an angry voice.

Pickard narrowed his eyes in disapproval. "He's speakin' Comanche. How come you-all ain't taught him to talk civilized?"

Rusty's voice was sharp. "It's comin' back to him a little at a time. He can talk some when he wants to."

"And how come he's still got those Indian braids in his hair? I'd cut them off first thing. He may still
be
a heathen, but he don't have to look like one."

Webb said, "We've tried to cut his hair. He won't let us."

"Since when do you let young'uns set the rules? If he gave me any sass I'd quirt the heathen out of him. And I'd start with that hair." He stepped closer to Badger Boy and pulled a skinning knife from a scabbard on his belt.

Badger Boy feared his uncle meant to stab him. He recoiled, wishing for a weapon. Pickard caught one of the braids. Badger Boy realized he meant to cut it off. He jerked free, then lunged at Pickard's throat. He knocked Pickard's hat off before the splinted leg betrayed him. He fell forward, his hands striking the ground first, his chin following an instant later. He was stunned.

He heard Rusty's angry voice. "Back off, Pickard. Leave the boy alone."

"You saw how he came at me. Damned savage, that's what he is."

Webb lifted Badger Boy to his feet and helped him fit the crutches beneath his arm. "The boy's still confused. The Indians have had him since he was little."

Pickard's face was flushed with rage. "There was murder in his eyes. He's past all salvation. Keep him around white folks and he's apt to kill somebody."

Rusty said, "You've got to give him time."

Pickard picked up his hat and dusted it against his leg. "Time for what, to do murder? He'll never change. Maybe we'd all be better off if you'd shot him in the first place and put him out of his misery."

Tom Blessing seemed to swell up even larger than his natural large size. "We'll have no talk about killin'. And this boy is your own kin!"

Pickard pointed. "Look at him. He ain't white anymore, he's got the killin' heart of a Comanche. If he ever was any kin of mine, he ain't no more."

Anger flared in Rusty's eyes. "I've changed my mind. I'm not lettin' you take him with you."

"I don't
want
to take him with me. Think I'd let him slit the throats of all my family? Or maybe ravage my daughters? And even if he didn't, what would my neighbors think, me keepin' a wild savage and callin' him kin? I'd probably have to chain him up like a dog."

Fists clenched, Rusty moved close enough to breathe in Pickard's face. "Then maybe you'd better get in your wagon and go back where you came from."

"I'll do more than that. I'll tell the bluecoat army about him. I'll tell them to come get him and put him on the reservation where he belongs. He'll never be nothin' but a wild Indian."

Webb and Tanner and Blessing all moved toward Pickard. He backed off, his hands raised defensively. His eyes cut from one man to another. "Four against one ain't a fair deal."

Rusty growled, "The others are stayin' out of it. It's just me and you, if you want it that way. The boy's no animal to be put in a cage."

"That's just what he is, an animal."

Badger Boy was amazed that the two men would threaten a fight over him. He had not understood all that was said, but he knew his uncle meant him no good and Rusty had come to his defense. That did not seem logical inasmuch as his uncle had a blood tie to him. This reinforced his long-held acceptance that Texans were a strange lot. Trying to make sense of them could give a man a headache.

Tom Blessing pushed between Rusty and Pickard. His was a formidable presence when he was aroused. "Now, men, you're liable to do somethin' you'll both hurt for tomorrow." He took a vise-like grip on Pickard's shoulder. "Mr. Pickard, I think you'd best get in your wagon and start home. It's a long ways to San Felipe."

Pickard stomped toward the wagon and climbed up onto the seat. "That boy's a menace. My advice is that you send him back to them wild Indians where he belongs. Or give him to the Yankee army. They've probably got a place for the likes of him." He whipped the mules into a trot.

Tanner gave Badger Boy a look of pity. "Might be better he was back with the Comanches."

Rusty shook his head. "Don't say such a thing where he can hear it. You'll give him more notions like he had last night."

"He's still got them. It don't take a smart man to know what he's thinkin' when he stares off to the north and shuts you out like you wasn't there."

Rusty turned to Tom Blessing. "You don't really think the Yankees would take him away and force him to the reservation, and him white?"

"There's no tellin'. They might. Or they might try to turn him into a bluecoat Indian scout."

"He's just a young'un yet."

"There was many a young'un killed in the war. In any case they won't bother askin' me or you what we think. They didn't ask me my feelin's when they took my sheriff's job away; they just slammed the door. We're a defeated enemy."

Rusty fixed a worried stare on Badger Boy. "Andy Pickard, I don't know what we're goin' to do with you."

Badger Boy wondered, too.

Preacher Webb walked up beside Rusty. "That boy doesn't seem half as disturbed over this as you are."

"He's too young yet to know how it can hurt, not havin' any kin in the world. But I know."

Rusty walked halfway out to the shed and stood awhile, staring at nothing in particular. When he came back, he appeared to have come to a difficult decision. "Tanner's right. You'd be better off runnin' free with your Comanches than penned up with strangers on a reservation. Soon as you're fit to travel, I'll take you."

Webb said, "He won't be able to ride for a while yet."

"We'll wait 'til he can."

"You can't take him all the way back to the Comanches. They'd almost surely kill you."

"How else can I get him there?"

"You can take him as far as the Monahan farm, and maybe as far as the Red River. He can make the last part of the trip by himself."

Rusty frowned, studying the proposition. "In the long run this may be the wrong thing to do, but in the short run I can't see any other way. Bein' a captive on the reservation would be like dyin' an inch at a time."

"Sometimes you have to get through today the best you can and trust tomorrow to the Lord."

Rusty looked toward his field. The crops were almost all in. "Won't be much for somebody else to take care of if I'm gone for a while. Len, you've got nowhere to go. Wouldn't you like to winter here?"

Tanner shrugged. "It's better than campin' in some brushy draw when the northers come down. But hadn't you rather I'd come with you?"

"I'd rather you were here, watchin' over the farm."

Shanty said, "I ain't in no hurry about movin' back home. I can stay here with Mr. Tanner and look after my own place just the way I been doin'."

Rusty nodded his gratitude. "I don't know how long I may be gone."

Tanner said, "It won't matter. This place'll be waitin' for you when you get back. Me and Shanty won't let old Fowler Laskin tote it away."

* * *

In another week Webb removed the splints. Test your weight real careful and trust in the crutches."

Badger Boy was delighted. He found that he could move the knee a little. Though it caused pain, it was a welcome pain. He had feared that the leg might remain stiff forever. "Pretty soon no more crutches."

"Don't get in too big a hurry. Rome was not built in a day."

Badger Boy wondered who Rome was.

Shanty and Tanner both grinned to see Badger Boy without the splints. Rusty was not smiling. If anything, he appeared regretful. "Why you not glad for me?" Badger Boy asked.