[Texas Rangers 04] - Ranger's Trail (28 page)

“
Let’s go someplace, even if it’s wrong. I don’t like it here atall.”

Andy could understand that. “Which way?”

“
Back out of this timber to where we can see somethin’.”

Andy pointed his horse south, where open country showed through the trees.

Farley said, “I felt the devil’s breath on my neck. It had the smell of brimstone.”

Andy waited for Farley to thank him but soon concluded it was going to be a long wait. Instead Farley said, “You’ve got a reputation as a good shot. Wasn’t no reason for you to’ve missed that Indian.”

Andy would not admit that he had done so on purpose. He wondered if the Comanche might have missed for the same reason. “It’s hard to hit a target when you’re whippin’ through the timber.”

“
Especially when it’s a Comanche. Friend of yours?”

Andy did not reply. He reined up at the edge of the trees, hoping to see the other rangers. He heard continued firing at some distance and wondered how Rusty was doing. He wished they had not become separated in the excitement of the skirmish.

He heard a running horse and whirled around. A Comanche warrior was almost upon him, arrow drawn back. His mouth was open, making a war cry meant to chill the blood of an enemy. By instinct more than calculation, Andy fired. The arrow drove into his shoulder, knocking him back against Farley. He would have fallen had Farley not held him. Shock was instant. Andy’s head reeled. His stomach turned over.

He was aware that the Indian had fallen from his horse and lay in a twisted heap. His face was turned upward, his dying eyes open. Andy recognized him. He was from Steals the Ponies’ band.

Andy’s meager breakfast came up. He felt himself slipping from the saddle. Farley pulled him back. “Don’t you fall, boy. You’re liable to drive that arrow plumb through. I don’t want two dead Indians on my hands.”

Through a red haze Andy saw several rangers ride out of the timber, driving some of the reclaimed horses. Half a dozen Indians came out in an effort to head them off. They quickly spotted Andy and Farley and moved toward them. More Indians appeared behind, blocking escape.

Farley reloaded his pistol. “Hang on. We’re fixin’ to ride like hell.” He put the horse into a hard run straight toward the half dozen warriors. He fired one shot after another, as rapidly as he could pull the trigger. He shouted at the top of his lungs.

“
Out of the way, you dog-eatin’ sons of bitches!”

Andy felt consciousness slipping away, yet he found enough resentment to murmur, “Comanches don’t eat dog.”

He was aware that the Indians were surprised by Farley’s audacity. They pulled apart, letting him pass between them, then shooting at him in vain. Incongruously Farley laughed aloud. He fired once more and brought a man down.

Farley pulled up. The rangers circled protectively around him and Andy. Andy heard Rusty’s worried voice. “Lift him down. We’ve got to get that arrow out.”

Someone said, “The horses are gettin’ away.”

“
To hell with the horses.”

Several hands eased Andy from the saddle and lowered him onto his back in the grass. Andy could see swirling images of the men through a reddish haze. He felt his shirt being ripped open.

Rusty said, “A couple of you hold him down. I sure hope that arrowhead ain’t barbed.”

Andy felt a sharp pain as Rusty tested the shaft, trying to determine how deeply the arrow had penetrated. Rusty said, “Grit your teeth, Andy. This won’t be any fun.”

Andy started to say, “I’m grittin’,” but the words never quite made their way out. Instead he gave a sharp cry as Rusty gripped the shaft and jerked it free. Andy felt as if he were spinning backward, sinking into a bottomless well that blazed with flame, then went dark. The hurting diminished, and he was briefly at peace.

Rusty examined the arrow. He said, “The point is broken off. I’m afraid it may still be in there, too deep to dig for.”

Andy’s sense of peace was shattered by searing pain as Rusty cauterized the wound with a red-hot knife blade. Andy was aware of a sharp smell of burning flesh. He knew it was his own.

Rusty said, “Sorry. I had it done to me once, and I know it hurts like hell. But out in the field there’s no other choice.”

Consciousness slipped away again. Andy could hear, but he was not sure what he heard was real. It might be a dream. He thought he heard someone say, “Maybe we can fix up some sort of drag, like the Indians do.”

Rusty said, “Too bumpy a ride. Liable to kill him. Let’s cut down a couple of those small trees. We’ll make a stretcher.”

Andy had a sense of floating on air. It took some time for him to realize that the rangers had rigged a makeshift stretcher with blankets and poles. He was being carried between two horses. The ends of the poles were tied into stirrups on each side.

He hoped the horses were gentle enough not to spill him. He had a feeling he would break like an eggshell. The wound in his shoulder felt as if a fire were burning in it. His mouth was so dry that when he ran his tongue over his lips he felt no moistening.

Rusty rode alongside him. Seeing that Andy had awakened he said, “Lay still. Else you’re liable to get the blood started again. We like to’ve not got it stopped in the first place.”

Andy had no intention of moving. It hurt too much. He was being jostled enough by the horses that carried him.

Andy found voice, though it was weak. He felt choked. “I killed a Comanche.”

“
You didn’t have a choice. He was set on killin’ you.”

“
But I knew him. He was one of my people.”

“
Maybe he knew you, too. That didn’t stop him from comin’ after you. Farley said—”

“
Farley.” Speaking the name came hard. “If I hadn’t gone to pull him out of a tight spot I wouldn’t have had to kill anybody.”

“
That’s one way of lookin’ at it. Another way is to realize that Farley saved your life, too. He held onto you and got you out of there.”

“
Where
is
Farley?”

“
Helpin’ drive the cattle. We got them back. Some of the horses, too.”

“
Anybody killed?”

“
Not on our side. Couple of boys were wounded a little but not as bad as you. Can’t say about the Indians.”

Andy closed his eyes. He kept seeing the man he had killed. It was a face he knew. He did not want to remember the name, but it came nevertheless. The warrior had been known as Bugling Elk. He had had a piercing voice that could reach far across the prairie. Andy recalled hearing his war cry just before the warrior loosed the arrow. That cry would echo in his mind again and again, perhaps for the rest of his life.

He turned his head to one side.

Rusty said, “Hang on. I know it hurts.”

It was not the wound that hurt most.

After long hesitation Rusty said, “There’s somethin’ else. It’s good news in a way. It’s also bad.”

“
How can it be both?”

“
We found a sorrel horse amongst those we got back from the Indians. He’s your Long Red.”

It took a moment for Andy to grasp the ramifications. “What about Scooter?”

“
We’d have to figure that the Indians got him.”

Andy wanted to cry, but he was too old for it.

C
orey Bascom studied the cards he had dealt himself, then looked across the table into his adversary’s eyes. He searched for a flicker of emotion that might betray the quality of the cowboy’s poker hand. He saw a fleeting disappointment, quickly covered. He bet and the cowboy folded, as had two other players before him.

Corey had smiled little since learning of Alice’s death. He did not smile now, smothering a momentary elation over winning. The penny-ante bank out at Brownwood had not been as flush as expected, and a four-way split had left him only a few days’ traveling money. Since coming to Fort Worth he had more than doubled his stake, however. The lamp-lighted poker tables in Hell’s Half Acre had been good to him. They usually were.

In recent years Fort Worth had become his favorite place to go for liquor, women, and some rewarding poker. Here trail outfits on their way to Kansas resupplied for the long trip that still faced them. Their cowboys grabbed a last chance to see the elephant and buck the tiger before beginning the last long leg of their trip north. They often stopped again on their way home.

For a man better than average at manipulating the pasteboards, it was a good place to pad out his roll so long as he did not pit himself against the real professionals from places like Chicago and Kansas City. The district’s rowdy action had long offered temporary relief from his family’s stifling influence. Though Bessie Bascom was his mother, and he had the affection for her a dutiful son should, she often rubbed him raw like burrs in his underwear. An occasional visit to Hell’s Half Acre was akin to a safety valve on a steam boiler.

It had been several weeks since he had left the family, bitter that Lacey had shot Alice on his mother’s orders. He had to leave, for had he stayed he might have killed Lacey. The temptation had been strong. His bitterness had only deepened since. For a time he had lost his grip to a point of feeling suicidal. He had provoked a fight with a gambler whose skill with a gun he knew was superior to his own. The son of a bitch had clubbed him to the floor with the heavy barrel of a Colt Navy revolver but had left him alive. Perhaps he had recognized Corey’s brief madness for what it was and chose not to take advantage of it.

The close encounter with death had been shock enough to revive Corey’s desire for life. He had wandered without purpose, always aware that local law enforcement might be on the lookout for him because of past offenses. Here in this raucous section of Fort Worth he felt relatively secure. Its peace officers were not inclined to be foolhardy. Some had a financial stake in the prosperity of Hell’s Half Acre, exacting a percentage of the take as protection money. Several were known to own a substantial interest in some of the district’s illicit enterprises. They were selective in their diligence as keepers of the law. Others who had no financial ax to grind were nevertheless aware of their own mortality and did not arbitrarily poke at hornets’ nests.

Before he met Alice, Corey had invested enough in commercial female companionship to have bought a small ranch. Since her death the notion had repelled him. Odd, he thought. He had never expected one woman to take such a hold on him that he lost interest in all others. He had tried a couple of nights ago to break Alice’s spell by going upstairs with a darke-yed raven-haired beauty who affected a French accent and claimed to be from New Orleans. To his dismay he had not been able to get past her doorway.

He had never thought about ghosts enough to believe or disbelieve. Now he wondered if Alice’s ghost might be riding on his shoulders.

Well, that New Orleans queen was probably just from Arkansas, anyway. Fort Smith, more than likely.

A rough voice demanded, “You goin’ to play or just daydream about it?” The other players had shoved back from the table, but the cowboy evidently had not yet lost all of his money. Corey felt honor-bound to oblige him and see that he did not leave here overburdened. He ordered the cowboy a fresh drink and resumed the game.

As his pile grew and the cowboy’s shrank, Corey became aware that a couple of men were watching him with more than casual interest. Their clothes were threadbare and dirty, as if they had been sleeping beneath a porch or in a haystack. He knew the breed on sight: two-bit footpads and pickpockets, feeding on the fringes of the real action like dogs prowling under a table in search of scraps fallen to the floor.

He sensed also that they had picked him as a target. Unless he stayed and played until dawn, he eventually had to leave the lamplight and venture out into the darkness. There they would pounce on him like coyotes on a rabbit.

Well, boys, he thought, you may be coyotes, but I ain’t no rabbit.

The cowboy threw in his final hand with a gesture of disgust. “You just cleaned my plow.”

Corey gave him back five dollars. “Never like to see a man leave the table dead broke.” The cowboy hesitated. Pride told him to refuse. Practicality told him to take it. He took it.

Corey cast a quick glance at the two thugs. They were still watching him. He said, “Cowboy, step over to the bar and I’ll buy you a drink.”

Once there he said in little more than a whisper, “How would you like to earn some of your money back?”

“
How? There ain’t much I know to do except on horseback. I just proved I ain’t no poker player.”

“
This won’t take any skill. All you have to do is go out that door and start walkin’.”

Suspicious, the cowboy said, “I was fixin’ to do that, anyway. What’s the catch?”

“
Don’t look behind you. Look in the mirror back of the bar. See those two ginks yonder in the corner? One’s got a black wool hat. The other one’s wearin’ a cap he probably stole off of a railroad conductor.”