[Texas Rangers 04] - Ranger's Trail (14 page)

Newley brought himself to look at his mother for only a moment, then he cut his eyes away. “Do we
have
to kill Alice?”

“
Get them silly romantic notions out of your mind. You know it’s her that’s at the root of all our trouble. It’s like she’s cast a witch’s spell over this family. Trouble will keep throwin’ its shadow over our door ’til we’ve got rid of her.

“
Now go carry your baby brother into the house. I’ll be washin’ him while you and Lacey dig a proper grave. We’ll send him to glory in style. And when the time comes, we’ll send Shannon to hell.”

Looking back in the rosy glow of sunup, Rusty saw that the wagon wheels were cutting deep tracks through the winter-brittle grass. The days were warming, but the nights still brought chill enough to delay the green-up. Riding Long Red alongside the wagon, Andy looked back with concern. “Even a blind Apache could follow our trail.”

His Comanche upbringing had given him a dim view of the Apache. The Comanche considered himself superior to all other beings, especially the Apache.

Alice sat on the wagon seat beside Rusty. He had not spoken to her and had hardly looked at her since they’d left the Monahan farm about midnight. Dense clouds had hidden the moon. He had counted on darkness to hide their leaving.

He said, “There’s other tracks besides ours, freight wagons and such.” He had left his weary dun horse at the Monahans’, trading for a bay to take its place. It was tied to the rear of the wagon.

James had said of the horse, “He’s a good one. Come to a chase, he’s about as fast as anything I’ve rode in a long time. Got some wild spirit left, though, so you have to stay awake and watch him. Now and then he’ll bog his head and pitch for no cause except he wants to throw you off. You’ll like him.”

Andy kept looking at the back trail, not convinced that no one was following. He glanced at Alice from time to time, his face troubled. Out of her hearing, he had expressed to Rusty his concern that people might question the propriety of her making this long trip with two men. Rusty had said, “You can be her chaperon.”

Andy’s Indian upbringing had subjected him to a lot of speculative gossip over the years. “I don’t care when it’s just me,” he had said. “I’m used to it. But folks will mean-talk a woman whether she deserves it or not.”

“
Maybe she does deserve a little of it.” Rusty immediately regretted what he said and was glad nobody except Andy had heard. Andy had too much honor to repeat it.

Alice looked back from time to time. “It’s goin’ to be tough, not knowin’ how Mama is gettin’ along.”

Rusty had fought against his resentment toward Alice and tried to keep it out of his voice. “Your mother isn’t much bigger than a banty hen, but she’s got a will like iron. If she makes up her mind to get on her feet, that bed won’t hold her for long.”

He could see some of Clemmie’s strength in Alice, though she still had a young woman’s voice. He wished she had employed that will against Corey’s entreaties and had not gone off with him in the first place.

Perhaps caring for Mrs. Blessing would help keep Alice’s mind off of her mother. He remembered a strong nurturing instinct in Clemmie and her two oldest daughters. Geneva had stayed close by Rusty years ago while he recovered from a bad arrow wound incurred in ranger service. Later, Josie had nursed him after he took a bullet in the back. He hoped Alice possessed the same instincts, though he had seen nothing to convince him that she did.

They took a long noon rest. Rusty slept despite pain from the old wound. He was still weary after his long search for Corey Bascom. He suspected that Andy did not even try to sleep, watching their trail for sign of pursuit. Moving on, Rusty felt better for having had a little rest. Andy’s shoulders drooped a little.

Rusty said, “You ought to’ve slept while you had a chance.”

Andy’s answer was curt. “Somebody had to watch.”

“
They don’t even know we’re gone.”

“
Maybe not. And maybe they do. That old woman has got an evil spirit sittin’ on her shoulder. For all we know, it’s tellin’ her everything.”

Rusty frowned. He had tried for years to turn Andy away from notions left over from his life with the Indians. They still cropped out from time to time. “What does an evil spirit look like?”

“
It can look like anything. Most of the time you can’t see it, but you can feel that it’s there. Did you hear the owl last night, just before we left?”

“
There’s been owls around the Monahan place for years.”

“
Not like that one.”

One owl had always sounded like another to Rusty, but he knew owls were a symbol of ill fortune, sometimes death, to the Comanche people.

Andy said, “For all we know, that owl could’ve been the old woman herself, watchin’ us. There’s some people can do that, you know, turn themselves into somethin’ else. I knew a medicine man once who could turn himself into a wolf.”

“
Did you see him do it?”

“
No, but I talked to people who said they saw him go into a cave, and a wolf came out. He could howl like one. I’ve heard him start, and wolves would answer him.”

“
That doesn’t prove anything. I’ve known a few white people who could do that. It helped them hunt down wolves.”

Andy said nothing more for a while, his feelings wounded a little. Argument over such matters was pointless. Neither he nor Rusty would change his mind.

Alice had held quiet for the most part. Finally she said, “This far south, do we need to worry about Indians?”

Rusty suspected Andy’s talk about spirits had prompted her to wonder. “You never stop watchin’ for Indians, wherever you are. But the odds are that most of them are still in winter camp north of us. The way the country is settlin’ up, they’re bein’ crowded off of a lot of their old stompin’ grounds.”

Andy broke his silence. “And losin’ their buffalo to the hide hunters. Damn shame, people killin’ buffalo for the skin and leavin’ the meat to rot. What do they expect the Indian to do?”

Rusty said, “I expect most would like to see the Indians all evaporate, like a puddle of water in the sunshine.”

Andy’s voice became strident. “Well, they won’t. They’ll take just so much crowdin’, then they’ll raise up and fight.” He sounded as if he wished he could join them. Over the years there had been times when Rusty feared he might do just that. But Andy had left enemies as well as friends in the Comanche camps. Going back would be fraught with risk.

Alice took in a sharp breath and pointed. “If there aren’t any Indians around here, what’s that yonder?”

Rusty saw a dozen horsemen moving toward them out of the west. He knew at a glance that they were Indians.

Andy said, “Next time I talk to you about owls, maybe you’ll listen.”

Rusty did not waste time with argument or denial. He said, “We’ll head for that buffalo wallow yonder. Maybe they haven’t seen us.”

Andy said, “They probably saw us before we saw them. Anyway, that hole’s not deep enough to hide us.”

It would give them a better defensive position, however, if this meeting turned into a fight. Sometimes a good position and a show of weapons would turn away a hunting party that was out mainly for meat and not for scalps. A war party would be something else.

He took the wagon into the dry-bottomed wallow and stopped. “Help Alice down,” he told Andy. “She’s too good a target up on this wagon.” When Andy had done that, Rusty said, “Look in my saddlebag. You’ll find that Bascom boy’s pistol. Give it to her.”

Worriedly Andy said, “We don’t want to kill any of them unless we’re forced to. Some might be friends of mine.”

“
Then they’d better act friendly.”

Alice checked the pistol’s load. She appeared more determined than frightened. Rusty asked her, “You sure you know how to shoot that thing?”

“
Mama taught me to shoot before she taught me how to sew. Said every country girl ought to be able to use a gun because there wouldn’t always be a man around to do it for her.”

The wallow was not deep enough to hide even the wagon, but its shallow bank would provide cover for a person lying on his stomach and sighting a rifle up over the edge. Rusty said, “Andy, your eyes are sharper than mine. Are they wearin’ any paint?”

Andy observed them a minute before answering. They had stopped a hundred yards out and seemed to be considering their options. “I don’t see any. Probably just out huntin’.”

“
But they wouldn’t pass up three scalps and four horses if they thought they would come easy.”

Andy’s expression indicated he didn’t like what he saw. “I’m afraid that’s just what they’re thinkin’. They act like they’re fixin’ to give us a try.” He handed Rusty his rifle. “I’m kin, of sorts. I’m goin’ out and see if they’ll parley.”

Rusty thrust the rifle back at him. “You don’t look like anybody that’s kin to them. They’re liable to kill you before you can tell them you’re a cousin.”

Andy refused the weapon. “If they’re bound to kill me they’ll do it anyway. Three of us ain’t got a chance against them all.” He climbed up out of the wallow and paused to add, “Told you about that damned owl.”

He moved toward the Indians, his hands in the air to show he was unarmed. Rusty held his breath. An old image flashed into his mind: the sight of Andy’s dead mother many years ago, butchered in the cruelest manner. He made up his mind he would not let that happen to Alice. If he saw they were about to be overrun, he would put a bullet through her head.

Some of the Comanches raised their bows. At least three had rifles or shotguns. Andy began making sign talk, and Rusty caught remnants of his words as he spoke. The Indians surrounded Andy. For a few moments he was out of sight. Rusty checked his rifle again. It felt slick against his sweating hands.

Alice said nothing. She held the pistol ready, the hammer cocked back. Her jaw was set like Clemmie Monahan’s.

Andy emerged from the circle of Indians. He walked slowly and confidently toward the wallow. The Indians followed at a respectful distance, offering no overt threat. Andy signaled from fifty yards that everything was all right and motioned for Rusty and Alice to lower their guns. Rusty did, but not by much.

Andy stopped at the edge of the wallow. “Told you it was better to talk than to fight. Turned out I know a couple of them. We used to play at stealin’ horses together.”

“
They’re past the age for play-actin’. They look like they mean business.”

“
They’re huntin’ for buffalo. First thing they wanted to know was if we are, too. They thought maybe the wagon was for haulin’ hides. Seems like there’s a lot of white hunters workin’ the buffalo range north of here. It’s got the People pretty mad.”

“
Tell them those hunters are mostly out of Kansas. We’re Texans.”

“
They don’t like Texans, either.”

Two of the Comanches ventured up close enough to look down into the wallow.

Rusty warned, “Don’t let them see fear, Alice. If they’ve got mischief on their minds it’ll encourage them.”

The pair focused their attention on her. She still held the pistol cocked and ready, though she diverted the muzzle a little to one side. She looked cocked and ready, too, if they made any direct move toward her.

Andy said, “It’s all right, Alice. It’s not often they see a white woman up close.”

She said nothing. Rusty suspected she knew her voice would be shaky, and she did not want to reveal that she was frightened.

Andy said, “They asked for tobacco, but I told them we don’t have any. They’d settle for some sugar. You don’t find much of that in a Comanche camp.”

Geneva had bagged sugar and coffee and salt for use on the trip to the Colorado River. Rusty said, “Give them the sugar, Alice. We can do without it.” He liked sugar in his coffee when he could get it, but more often than not he had to drink it straight. He did not consider that a hardship. Through the war years he had gone for long stretches without even coffee.

Some sugar granules clung to the outside of the bag. An Indian wet his finger, ran it through the sugar, then touched the finger to his tongue. He broke into a broad grin.

Andy said, “Alice, you’ve made a friend for life.”

The one holding the bag spoke a couple of words that Rusty assumed were the equivalent of “thank you,” then reined his horse around and set off toward the rest of the party in a long trot. His companion followed but did not catch up to him.

Alice finally found voice. “Are they goin’ to eat it right out of the sack?”

Andy said, “Sure. Hasn’t everybody done that?”

When Andy had first returned from the Comanches he gorged himself on hog lard and raw sugar. The lard evidently made up for some nutritional deficiency. Sugar had been a new and exciting experience. At the time it was still scarce even in the Texas settlements.

Andy went on, “They don’t seem as fearsome when you just see one or two up close, do they?”

Alice looked at him askance. “They look scary enough for me.”

“
You have to get used to them, is all. They’re people just like everybody else, except a little different.”

Rusty burned to be on his way, but he was hesitant about leaving the dubious shelter of the buffalo wallow until the Indians were out of sight in a direction other than south. He watched them pass the sugar sack around. Apparently there was some dissatisfaction over the fairness of the division, for the last man angrily threw the empty sack at the one who had offered it to him.

Andy said, “See what I told you? They’re just like everybody else.”

Not until the Indians were out of sight did Rusty motion for Andy to help Alice back onto the wagon. “They may be friends of yours, Andy, but we’re travelin’ ’til after dark tonight.”

Andy said, “I’d worry a lot more about them Bascoms than about my Comanche kinfolks. Them Bascoms ain’t civilized.”

They paused briefly at the grave of Andy’s mother. The marker was down again, buffalo tracks all around it. Even if Andy carried out his vow to build a fence around the site, Rusty knew the buffalo would not respect the fence any more than they respected the marker. They would rub their itchy hides against it until they knocked it down. If the Kansas hunters kept moving south, that problem would be eliminated over time. He would not mention that to Andy, however. It would just raise the young man’s hackles.