[Texas Rangers 02] - Badger Boy (4 page)

He was on or near what once had been Texas's Indian reserve on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River. The state and federal governments had set it up in the 1850s in hope of curbing Indian raids and encouraging the horseback tribes to become peaceable farmers and stockmen. Many of the less warlike had accepted, realizing they were about to he trampled under by an unstoppable horde of white settlers. But many Comanches and Kiowas had remained unrestrained and unreconstructed, invading and plundering the settlements at will. Rightly or not, frontier settlers blamed reservation Indians for much of the raiding. Their persistent protests eventually forced abandonment of the reserve. Its residents were given a military escort to new reservations north of the Red River shortly before war began between the states.

Rusty had been present at the removal, serving as a volunteer ranger. The haunting memory still lay heavily upon his conscience. He regretted the sad injustice of haste that did not allow the reservation Indians time to harvest their crops or even to gather their scattered livestock. They had tried the white man's road in good faith, only to be dispossessed because of acts committed by other Indians. Rusty understood why many formerly peaceable ones had later taken to raiding south of the river, or at least aiding and abetting those who did. Even so, it had been his job for most of four years to thwart them the best he could.

When he finished eating, he kicked dirt over the fire to smother it. It might have been seen despite his precautions. To sleep here was to court trouble. He rode another mile in the dusk before coming upon a narrow creek. It seemed a likely place to spread his blanket. He staked Alamo where the horse could graze within reach of the water.

He tried in vain to sleep. Heavy in spirit, feeling cut adrift from all he had known, he lay looking up at the stars and thinking of so much forever lost to him. His mind ran back over the long years to Daddy Mike and Mother Dora Shannon, the couple who had taken him in, a lost child orphaned by Indians, and had raised him as their own. He remembered a pleasant boyhood on the Colorado River farm so far from here in both time and distance. It still belonged to him by inheritance although it had been a long while since he was given leave to visit there.

He thought of Geneva Monahan, who had moved to that farm with what remained of a war-torn family, seeking refuge from the dangers of their own place nearer the frontier. It had been the better part of a year since he had last received a letter and much longer since he had seen her. He pondered his risk in traveling there to visit her and to look again at the farm the Shannons had bequeathed to him.

Finally, he thought about the years he had patroled the frontier. He thought of the comradeship, the shared perils and disappointments and occasional small victories. That it had come to an abrupt and unexpected end left in him a sense of emptiness, of work left hanging, incomplete. He had had no time to formulate plans. The most urgent consideration had been to remove himself from the conscription officers' reach. Where to go from here was the major question. He faced several alternatives, none of them to his liking.

He pulled the blanket around him, hoping morning would bring him an answer. But the question continued to nag him. He could not sleep. He got up, finally, and started toward the creek for a drink of water. Alamo snorted, acknowledging his presence.

The sight of distant firelight stopped him in mid-stride. He thought first it might be a lantern in some settler's window, but he dismissed that idea. The only cabins he had seen since leaving the ranger camp had been abandoned, their owners electing to move away from the Indian danger. No, this was a campfire. Two possibilities came to mind: brush men or Indians.

The brush men, a combination of outlaws and fugitives from military service, tended to congregate in out-of-the-way places and in numbers that kept them relatively secure against attack by either Indians or civil authorities.

Rusty stared at the distant fire and considered his options. The law be damned; he had never felt any moral obligation to pursue conscription dodgers for benefit of the Confederacy. Now that he was no longer part of the company, brush men were none of his business.

Indians were another matter. This far south of the Red, an Indian campfire almost certainly meant trouble brewing for someone. His safest course would be to saddle up now and be far away by daylight.

He told himself this was none of his business either. He no longer had any ranger obligations, no oath to live up to. If the Indians moved toward the settlements, someone else would probably find their trail. Only by purest chance had he seen this fire in the first place. Had he not been obliged to leave camp he would not have traveled this far west. If he rode away now no one would be worse off than if he had never been here.

He tried to convince himself as he saddled Alamo. He mounted and turned the horse southward. He rode a hundred yards and stopped, looking back toward the fire. He felt a compulsion to know. Were they really Indians? And what could he do about it if they were?

He followed the creek westward, holding Alamo to a walk to lessen the sound of his hooves and to avoid stumbling into deadfall timber that might make a noise. When he was as near the fire as he dared ride, he dismounted and tied the horse to a tree. He moved on afoot, stopping often to listen. He smelled the smoke and meat roasting over glowing coals. He saw figures moving about.

His skin prickled. These were Indians, right enough. He counted at least eight and reasoned that others were beyond the firelight. For a moment he entertained a wild notion of firing into their camp and giving them a scare that might make them retreat to the reservation. He abandoned that as a bad idea. In all likelihood they would swarm over him like wasps disturbed in their nest. Taking his hair might only increase the warriors' desire for more, because enemy scalps aroused a competitive spirit. Symbolizing manhood and fighting ability, they were trophies sought after and prized.

The Indians had posted no guard. This was a basic flaw in the Comanche approach to war that Rusty had never understood. He did not know if it was a sign of arrogance or simply a false sense of security. They did not normally like to fight at night, and perhaps they felt that no one else did either.

He drew away from the camp and returned to his horse. His skin still tingled with excitement. "Old feller, we wouldn't want to run into those boys in the daylight."

Prudence told him to head south, but he hesitated. The honorable thing—the responsible thing—would be to double back to the ranger camp and sound an alarm. Perhaps enough men remained there to head off this band as they had done the last raiding party, forcing them to retreat north of the Red before they could strike outlying farms or ranches. But he would be riding into the clutches of the conscription officers. It was a foregone conclusion that they would want him for the Southern army.

The image of Daddy Mike flashed into his mind—Daddy Mike and a Union flag proudly draped on the wall of the Shannon cabin. Back in the 1840s, Mike had campaigned to have Texas brought into the Union. He had fought for that flag in Mexico. He had sworn that nothing would ever cause him to fire upon it, though his passionate rhetoric had led to his being declared a traitor to the Confederacy.

Daddy Mike's fierce patriotism had been burned into Rusty from the time he was old enough to grasp the meaning of the flag. He would rather face prison, or worse, than fight against the Union to which his foster father had proudly given full allegiance.

But Rusty thought of the Haines woman and the little girl. Other settlers would likely fall victim should these raiders not be turned back. Innocent blood would stain his hands if he rode away, taking care only of himself. Even before he decided at a conscious level, he turned Alamo eastward, going back the way he had come.

Perhaps the conscription officers had not yet arrived. Perhaps he could deliver his message and steal away before anyone had a chance to stop him. Perhaps ... But more likely they would grab him like a wolf grabs a lamb.

He gritted his teeth and put Alamo into a long trot.

R
usty judged that it was near noon when the Fort Belknap settlement loomed up ahead. All along he had hoped he might encounter a friend and impart his information, then slip away without actually entering camp. Unfortunately he saw no rangers or anyone else he knew well enough to trust. Some residents of the settlement had no liking for the rangers, who interfered with their chosen work of stealing reservation horses and running liquor to the same Indians they stole from. He would have to take his chances.

Len Tanner's legs always looked too long for the rest of him. Ambling out of the open corral, leading his horse, he spotted Rusty. Surprise yielded to regret. "I thought you'd got clean away."

Rusty sensed the answer before he asked, "The conscript officers here already?"

Two of them, fixin' to take most of the company away. Me included." His eyes were solemn. "What in the hell did you come back for?"

"I ran into Comanches. The captain needs to know."

"He won't have enough men left to do much about it. They're just waitin' for the last patrol to report in so they can pick over the rest of the outfit."

Rusty flared. "Strippin' the frontier companies ... I don't know how they expect the settlers out here to hang on against the Indians."

"That's gov'ment for you ... talk big about how much they care, then go off and leave you to fight the wolves by yourself." Tanner looked uneasily toward the headquarters tent. "Tell me what you want the captain to know, then fog it out of here before they see you."

Captain Whitfield stepped from his tent, a well-fed middle-aged stranger beside him. The stranger wore a Confederate uniform, nicely tailored though begrimed from travel.

Rusty caught a sharp breath and held it. "Too late. That'd be one of the conscript officers, I suppose."

Two steps behind that officer came another man wearing a badly weathered Confederate coat with sergeant's stripes. The left leg of his civilian trousers was folded and a wooden leg strapped into place at the knee.

Tanner looked as if he had contracted colic. "Head man, walkin' with the captain, calls hisself Lieutenant Billings. Acts like he owns the world. Sergeant's name is Forrest. Been to war and got his leg shot off."

Despite the wooden leg, Forrest's back was straight and unyielding as if he had been a soldier all his life. Rusty summoned up his defenses, for stern military types always made him ill at case. Like Captain Whitfield, he had never understood or seen good reason for strict military discipline.

He feared he was going to dislike the sergeant.

Captain Whitfield's eyes revealed misgivings as he approached Rusty. "Back from patrol a little early, aren't you?"

Whitfield knew very well that Rusty had left with no intention of returning. Covering up for me, Rusty thought gratefully. "I came across a Comanche war party last night. They camped better than half a day's ride west of here."

"How many?"

"I counted eight, but it was dark. I'm guessin' twelve or fifteen."

Whitfield turned to the army officer, frowning. "This is what I've been tryin' to tell you, Lieutenant. Time you take most of my men, I won't have enough to face a small war party, much less a real invasion."

"I have my orders. The army doesn't ask for opinions. It says `jump,' and all we can do is ask `how high?' "

Bitterly Whitfield said, "I'd like to put that Richmond bunch out here on the picket line and let them fight off Indians for a while. They'd see for themselves that Yankees aren't the worst thing we've got to worry about."

The recruiting officer stared at Rusty, his eyes probing so hard that Rusty felt the man was reading his mind. "You said you saw the Indians more than half a day's ride from here. Isn't that a long way to be scouting by yourself?"

Stiffening, Rusty fished for a good answer. "We're short-handed." He suspected the officer sensed the truth and was trying to coax an admission of desertion. The day that happened, hell would have six inches of frost on the ground and the fires would be out.

Captain Whitfield put in, "Better one man than no men at all. And that's what it's gettin' down to."

Sergeant Forrest spoke for the first time. "How do we know these are hostile Indians?"

Whitfield replied, "Since they were removed from the Texas reservations, any Indians found inside the state's boundaries are considered hostile."

"They might just be hunting buffalo."

"This time of the year they'd go out onto the plains. They wouldn't come down this way to hunt ... not for buffalo."

The lieutenant demanded, "When did you say that last patrol is due in?"

They should've been here already."

"Good. We want to start back toward Austin as soon as possible."

"Can't you wait 'til we see about those Indians?"

"War does not await the convenience of anyone. We have no time for running after a bunch of bow-and-arrow savages."

Rusty felt compelled to retort, "You would if they raided
your
place and killed some of
your
family."

Billings demanded, "What's your name, ranger?"

Rusty drew himself tip army-straight. "David Shannon. Folks that know me call me Rusty."

"Well, David Shannon, I don't for a minute believe you were scouting out there by yourself. I believe you were running away to avoid conscription."

Rusty did not meet the lieutenant's eyes. He had never considered himself a convincing liar, though he had known many occasions when a lie acceptably told was far preferable to the truth. "Captain Whitfield knows. He's the only man I report to."

"You'll be reporting to
me
as soon as we start back to Austin. Don't you forget that."

Rusty knew he had been trapped the minute he rode into camp. He unsaddled Alamo and began working off his frustration by vigorously brushing the sweaty black hide where the saddle had been. The lieutenant started back toward the headquarters tent, his stride victorious.