[Texas Rangers 04] - Ranger's Trail (5 page)

“
Been doin’ some thinkin’, too,” he said. “How would you like to have a cabin of your own?”

“
What do I need a cabin for? There’s plenty of room in yours.”

“
Maybe not for long.”

Andy stared at him in puzzlement. “How come?”

“
I’ve been plannin’ a trip up to the Monahan farm. Been wantin’ to see how everybody’s gettin’ along.”

“
Especially Josie?”

“
Especially Josie. I’m figurin’ on askin’ her to marry me.”

Andy grunted. “It’s about time. She’s been askin’
you
long enough.”

“
Things weren’t right before. I never knew what the carpetbaggers might throw at us. They tried once to take the farm, and I was always afraid they might do it again. But things’ll settle down now that we’ve got a new governor.”

“
We’ve got two governors. We don’t know which one will win out.”

“
I’ve got a feelin’. Old Preacher Webb always said if you keep the faith, good things will eventually come to you.”

After a campfire breakfast of bacon and black coffee, all five rode up onto Congress Avenue to see if anything had changed overnight. A large group of men had gathered some distance below the capitol building. Rusty recognized several as former rangers with whom he had ridden at one time or another. Tom Blessing walked out from among them and hailed Rusty. He said, “Word has come from Washington. President Grant won’t order the troops to help Davis. Told him the election is over, he lost, and he had just as well yield like a gentleman.”

Rusty accepted that as good news, but not the ultimate answer. “He hasn’t given up though, has he?”

“
Not yet, but he must be feelin’ like a mule has kicked him in the ribs. He can’t call in the army. All he’s got backin’ him now is a bunch of his old state police and some officeholders who know they’re fixin’ to be out of a job.”

Rusty was still trying to absorb the fact that the troops were not to be involved. That meant they would not have used the cannon even if it had not been spiked. Last night’s wild sashay had been unnecessary.

Tanner had waked up with sore ribs and belly from the blow he had taken. He would hurt even more when it soaked in on him that he had taken the punishment for nothing.

Tom said, “We’re waitin’ for Governor Coke to show up and lead us on a march to the capitol.”

“
And if Davis won’t give up?”

“
We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

Richard Coke was tall and heavyset, his white beard neatly trimmed. He wore a suit well tailored to his bulk and projected a sense of dignity the way a governor of Texas was supposed to, in Rusty’s view. In a booming voice he shouted, “Let’s go.”

Flanked on either side by ex-rangers and Confederate officers Rip Ford and Henry McCulloch, he led the parade of determined men up Congress. In front of the capitol stood a line of well-armed Davis men, appearing just as determined. Coke acted as if he did not see them, never breaking stride. The defenders looked to one another for guidance, for someone to take the initiative and do something. No one did. The Davis men stepped back grudgingly, and the Coke procession marched into the capitol.

A tall, gaunt, defiant Davis awaited them in the hallway outside of his office. The door was closed. He stared sullenly at Coke.

Coke said, “Governor Davis, the new legislature has convened and canvassed the vote. They have declared that I am the rightful holder of this office. I respectfully request that you honor the wishes of the people of Texas.”

Davis glared, his gaze sweeping over the men who faced him. “I do not recognize the election as legitimate. But I see that the laws of the state have been trampled underfoot. The rule of the mob has prevailed.”

He strode past Coke. His opponents moved aside to let him pass. He did not look to right or left but focused his gaze straight ahead.

An audible sigh of relief arose from the men clustered in the hallway. One of Coke’s lieutenants tried the door to the governor’s office. “Locked,” he said. “Davis did not turn over the key.”

Another lieutenant said, “Break it open.”

Tanner and a couple of others put their shoulders into the task. The door splintered. Tanner stepped back, gripped his belly, and grimaced in pain.

Inside the office, Davis’s secretary of state still sat at his desk. The lieutenant who had tried the door said, “It’s over. You can leave.”

The man sat in stubborn silence.

The lieutenant said, “Some of you escort him outside.”

A momentary clamor arose as several in the crowd suggested throwing the man out the window, but Coke overruled the idea. “That is the way of the old regime. As of today Texas is steering a new course.”

Three men lifted the secretary from his chair and hustled him outside. Tanner did not volunteer to join them. He was still holding his stomach.

The people of Austin, and most of the visitors, celebrated far into the night. Rusty thought of the stable keeper. He wouldn’t be getting much sleep.

Tom Blessing sat on the ground near the Morris brothers’ campfire, chewing a piece of bacon. He told Rusty, “I’m ready to start home come daylight. You and Andy seen enough of the big city?”

Rusty glanced at Andy, who put up no argument. “I was ready before we came. But now that it’s over, I’m glad we were here to see it. It’ll be somethin’ to tell our grandchildren about someday.”

“
Andy’s too young to be thinkin’ about grandchildren. And you ain’t even married.”

“
I’m figurin’ on fixin’ that.”

Tom stopped chewing. He seemed a little perturbed. “You sure bein’ a ranger is a proper thing for a married man?”

“
I’m not a ranger anymore.”

“
But you could be again. Governor Coke says one of the first things he plans to do is reorganize the rangers. He’ll be lookin’ for men of experience.”

“
I’ve
had
plenty of experience,” Rusty said ruefully. “More than I ever looked for. I’m not sure I want any more like it.”

“
It gets in your blood, like sheriffin’ got into mine. You’ll want to study on it before you take to double harness.”

L
en Tanner stood with hands in his pockets to keep them warm. He watched as Rusty and Andy lifted blankets, provisions, and Rusty’s saddle into the bed of the wagon. The sun was just breaking over the eastern horizon, looking crisp and frosty through a thin blanket of gray winter clouds.

“
I don’t see why you want to take the wagon,” he said. “You’d get there a lot sooner if you rode horseback.”

“
Josie’ll be wantin’ to bring all her things,” Rusty said.

“
How do you know she’ll even come? You ain’t asked her yet.”

“
She’ll come.” Rusty looked toward a new single log cabin standing halfway between the older double cabin and the livestock pens. “I hope you don’t mind finishin’ the roof on Andy’s cabin.”

“
I got nothin’ better to do. And Shanty’s comin’ over to help me build the chimly.” Shanty was a former slave who lived a few miles away. Age had bent his slender frame, but his hands were still those of an artisan. “We’ll have the place ready for the button to move in by the time you-all get back.”

Andy had been torn about making the trip. He wanted to stay and help finish the cabin, but Rusty had persuaded him that the Monahans would be eager to see him. They had come to look upon him as a member of the family.

Andy saddled Long Red and tied Rusty’s dun horse behind the wagon. “Reckon we got it all?”

Rusty said, “If we don’t, we’ll do without it.” He shook Tanner’s hand and climbed onto the wagon seat.

Tanner said, “Tell that cute little Alice girl I said howdy.”

Rusty grinned. “We’ll tell her.”

“
And watch out for Indians. They may not all know they’re Andy’s friends.”

“
I doubt they’ll come far enough south for us to see them. They’ve got their hands full fightin’ buffalo hunters.”

Rusty had heard talk that large numbers of hide hunters had filtered down onto the Texas high plains from Kansas during the fall and winter. They had decimated the herds farther north in Cheyenne country. Now they were invading the Comanches’ best hunting grounds. The Comanches were not feeling generous.

The news had disturbed Andy. His first thought was of his Comanche family and how the buffalo slaughter would affect them. “I thought there was a treaty that said the hunters couldn’t come south of the Cimarron River.”

Rusty said, “The treaty was with the federal government, on federal land. The federals have no right to make agreements about Texas land.”

“
I doubt that Steals the Ponies knows where the line is or that he would give a damn. Land is land. The Comanches figure they own all of it they’re strong enough to hold.”

“
That’s what counts, bein’ strong enough.”

Rusty had not tried to argue Texas’s case. Andy had strong feelings where Indians were concerned. Trying to alter his views was like trying to stop a flowing river with a leaky bucket.

Andy looked back as they started away. He said, “I like my cabin, but a good tepee would serve me just as well.”

“
You won’t feel that way when you’ve got a blaze goin’ in the fireplace on a cold night. I hear the reservation Indians have started buildin’ houses.”

“
Yes, but a lot of them put up tepees beside their cabins. They like to sleep next to Mother Earth. She gives them their strength.”

“
I’ve spent a lot of my life sleepin’ on the ground. All I got from Mother Earth was rheumatism and a likin’ for an honest-to-God bed.”

They crossed the Colorado River at a ford. The water was higher than it would be in spring, when winter-dormant vegetation came back to life and sapped much of the underground moisture before it had a chance to seep into the river. Rusty pushed hard to keep the team moving forward briskly enough that the current would not pick up the wagon and carry it away.

He had ridden this trail many times, going to or from the Monahan farm or in the course of his ranger duties. Andy had ridden it, too, once when he was almost too young to remember. On that first trip he had traveled northward as captive of a Comanche raiding party. He had ridden again as a half-grown boy, this time heading southward to join his adopted brother as a participant in a horse-stealing foray. Fate in the guise of a fallen horse and a broken leg had dropped him back into the white world. There he had remained, though not willingly at first. He had never completely relinquished the heritage of his Comanche years.

Some people considered him unreconstructed, a streak of the savage locked forever in his heart. Andy had found he could use such people’s attitude against them, keeping them at arm’s length as a measure of self defense. His friends accepted him as he was. He was not troubled by what others thought.

Andy rode alongside the wagon, talking at intervals, then silent for long stretches. He was especially quiet after they made the first night’s camp. Rusty recognized the dark moods that came over him now and then and did not push him for conversation. As they hitched the team next morning, Andy asked, “We goin’ by the grave?”

Rusty had suspected this had been heavy on Andy’s mind. “We can if you want to.”

“
I reckon I want to.”

The grave was above the north bank of a small creek, just off the wagon track. At one end of a stack of stones a wooden cross had fallen to the ground. Rusty moved the wagon a little beyond and stopped. He got down, but he stood back, letting Andy have his time alone.

Andy dismounted and removed his hat, his head bowed. After a while he wiped a sleeve across his eyes, then straightened the cross. He pulled off a small wad of dark hair. “Buffalo,” he said. “They knocked it over, scratchin’ their itch.”

Many of the stones lay scattered. Andy placed them neatly back over the mound. “Someday,” he said, “I’m comin’ back and puttin’ a fence around this.” When he was satisfied with the appearance of the grave, he straightened. Rusty joined him, hat in his hand.

Andy said, “I wish we had Preacher Webb with us. He’d know the words to say.”

Rusty nodded. “He already said them, when we first buried her here.” He shuddered, remembering.

Andy bit his lip. “I can’t quite remember what my mother looked like. I sort of remember her voice, but I can’t see her face in my mind. I like to think she was pretty.”

“
I expect she was, but she’d been poorly treated by the time we found her.”

The memory chilled Rusty. It had been his first time to ride with the rangers, though they were little more than a loose band of local militia at the time. They had trailed after marauding Comanches who had killed several settlers and swept away all the horses they could find. They had kidnapped a small boy and his mother. The rangers had found the mother here, dead. The boy had disappeared. He was not seen again until Andy turned up years later, left behind in the wake of another Comanche raid.