Young Ole Devil (19 page)

‘
We?’

‘
I had
a man with me, sir. But I sent him back to warn the General that
there’s a spy at his headquarters.’

‘
You
did right there,’ Brindley praised. ‘It’s something he should know.
Are you sure that’s why they jumped you?’

‘
Near
enough, sir,’ Ole Devil replied. While speaking, he had continued
to watch his host’s face. The examination was not particularly
fruitful, for the leathery features were showing as little of
Brindley’s feelings as Houston’s had during the earlier stages of
the interview in his office. Which did nothing to make him more at
ease as he realized that he was approaching the point where he
would have to admit he had already placed the old timer’s
granddaughter in considerable danger. However, he also guessed that
it would be advisable to let Brindley learn about the incident from
him. The four who got away were waiting and jumped me just after
I’d met Di.’

‘
They
try
red
hard to do it?’ the old man growled.

‘
Hard
enough, sir,’ Ole Devil confessed and, without elaborating upon the
incident with the bear, described the fight that had followed the
quartet’s arrival. He finished by saying, ‘I’m sorry it had to
happen, sir, but Di had to kill the last of them—’

‘
You’d
rather he’d’ve killed you, or her?’

‘
No,
sir, but—’

‘
That
fancy rifle of your’n was empty, way you told me, and she’d got
your pistol?’

‘
Yes,
sir.’

‘
Then
somebody had to stop that jasper and she was the one best suited to
do it, I’d reckon.’

‘
I’m
not gainsaying that, sir,’ Ole Devil replied. ‘But
Di’s—’

‘
I’ve
never figured she was a
man
_y
no matter how I’ve raised her,’
Brindley interrupted and his harsh tones were strangely gentle.
‘Boy, Di had to burn down a Comanche buck when she was fourteen.
Eighteen months later, she blew half the head off a drunken
Chicano’
s’d got the notion of laying hands on her. ’Tween then ’n’
now, she’s been in three Injun attacks and done her share to finish
’em. Maybe that wouldn’t be counted lady-like, nor even proper,
back in the U.S. of A., but Texas’s a long ways different I’ve
reared her to know how to defend herself. So I’m not holding it
again’ you ‘cause she’s had to do what I taught her.’

‘
Thank
you, sir,’ Ole Devil said sincerely.

‘
Do
you reckon there’s more of them varmints?’ Brindley inquired, with
the air of getting down to business.

‘
I’m
not sure, sir,’ Ole Devil answered. ‘If there are, I’d have
expected them all to be along after the first try had failed. The
wounded man would know for sure, but he’s in no condition to answer
questions.’

‘
Maybe
you didn’t ask him the right way,’ Brindley suggested.

‘
Maybe, sir,’ Ole Devil conceded. ‘But I think we’ll get
more out of him when he’s rested, in his right mind, and has had
time to think about his position.’

‘
Huh!’
the old man grunted, but did not pursue the matter any further.
‘Way I see it, we don’t have too much time to get to Santa
Cristobal Bay.’

‘
No,
sir.’

‘
So
how’re
you
planning to handle the mule train?’

‘
I
once tried to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs, sir,’ Ole
Devil drawled, having detected another challenge. ‘She took a
hickory-switch to my hide. One thing about me, I learn fast and
easily—and it sticks once I’ve learned it.’

‘
What’s that mean?’ Brindley asked, although his attitude
suggested he knew and approved.

‘
I’m
just the General’s messenger, sir,’ Ole Devil replied. ‘If he
hadn’t considered that you were competent to handle the collection,
he’d never have suggested that I came.’

At that moment, the kitchen door was opened
and Di entered. She was carrying a tray, with a sugar basin, milk
jug and two steaming cups of coffee.

‘
Where’s Mr. Galsworthy?’ Brindley wanted to know when the
man did not follow his granddaughter into the room.

‘
Just
now gone,’ the girl replied. ‘Said to tell you “Good-bye and thanks
for listening.” Reckoned he’d head over to Gonzales and see if
there was any other way he could get his gear shifted east. When do
we pull out, Grandpappy Ewart?’

‘
How
do you know we will be?’ the old man demanded, accepting the cup
which—having set the tray on the table—she was offering to
him.

‘
Five
hundred rifles, say ten pounds apiece; which I’d sooner go over
than under,’ Di remarked, half to herself and ignoring her
grandfather’s question as she passed the second cup to Ole Devil.
Hooking her rump on the edge of the table, she screwed up her eyes
and was clearly doing some mental calculations. ‘Take ’em out of
their boxes ’n’ wrap ’em in rawhide, we could manage twenty-six to
a mule. Be better at twenty-four though, which’ll mean using
twenty-one knobheads
^xix
for ’em. Another twenty to tote the
ammunition. Fifty ought to be enough. Which’s lucky, ‘cause that’s
all we’ve got on hand.’ Her gaze
flickered to the younger of her audience.
‘What do you say?’

‘
You
put the sugar in,’ Ole Devil drawled. ‘But you forgot to blow on
it.’

‘
That
mean you agree, or you don’t?’ Di challenged.

‘
I’d
say that the agreeing to how it’s to be done stands between
yourself and your grandfather,’ Ole Devil countered. ‘What I could
do, sir, is go to in to Gonzales and ask Colonel Gray if he can let
us have enough men to act as escort to the Bay.’

‘
Why’d
we need them?’ Di asked, just a trifle indignantly.

‘
Those
four renegades could have friends,’ Ole Devil pointed out. ‘And if
they have, we’ll most likely have them to content with.’

‘
I
don’t recollect’s how Grandpappy Ewart’n me’s ever needed to ask
Lawyer Gray to do our fighting for us,’ the girl protested. ‘Nor
anybody else, comes right down to it.’

‘
I’m
not gainsaying
that?
Ole Devil assured her. ‘It’s one of the reasons why I
didn’t bring men from San Antonio. But seeing how important our
mission is and that we don’t know for sure what we might run up
against—’

‘
We’ve
got a feller close by’s could maybe help us on
that?
Brindley pointed out, with the air of
having solved their problem.

‘
Yes,
sir,’ Ole Devil agreed. ‘If you want to go and question
him-’

‘
Way
he is, it wouldn’t do a whole heap of good,’ Di warned. ‘I thought
we’d decided to leave him until morning.’

‘
Sure
we did,’ Ole Devil conceded. ‘But if you want us to-’

‘
I’ve
not seen anything to make me think you pair don’t know what you’re
doing,’ answered Brindley, to whom the words had been directed. ‘So
I’ll go along with it.’

‘
Anyways, sir,’ Ole Devil drawled, not a little impressed by
what he knew to be a compliment. ‘I’ll look in on him while I’m
attending to my horses. Which I’d like to make a start at, if
that’s all right with you.’

‘
Go to
it,’ Brindley authorized.

‘
Can I
take it that you’ll collect the shipment for me, sir?’ Ole Devil
asked as he came to his feet.

‘
You
can take it,’ Brindley confirmed. ‘We’ll talk out the details over
supper.’

Leaving the house, accompanied
by Di, Ole Devil noticed
Galsworthy riding along the trail through the
gathering darkness. Ignoring the departing man, they went to the
barn. On unlocking and opening the storeroom, they found their
prisoner was laying on the bed. Mucker was covered by a blanket and
apparently sleeping.

‘
Shall
I wake him?’ Ole Devil inquired.

‘
I
wouldn’t, was I you,’ the girl answered. Tellers I’ve seen took
like he was when they’d been hurt got over it better if we let ’em
sleep.’

‘
That’s what I’ve found, too,’ Ole Devil agreed and closed
the door.

On their arrival to carry out
the interrogation the following morning, Ole Devil and Di learned
that they had been in a serious error regarding
Mucker
’s
condition. Going in to rouse him, they found that he had been
stabbed through the heart with a thin-bladed weapon—and had been
dead for several hours.

‘
Son-of-a-bitch!’ Diamond-Hitch Brindley ejaculated, taking
an involuntary step to the rear as she stared at the lifeless body
on the bed. ‘How the hell did this happen?’

‘
I’m
more interested in who did it,’ Ole Devil Hardin answered, studying
the wound and taking note of the small amount of blood which had
oozed from it. ‘Because he sure as hell didn’t do it
himself.’

‘
None
of
our
boys’d do it!’ Di declared.

‘
I
never thought they had,’ Ole Devil assured her.

‘
Galsworthy!’ the girl spat the name out.

‘
What
about him?’ Ole Devil inquired, although he had been considering
the handsome man as a possible suspect.

‘
It
must have been him!’Di stated.

‘
How
did he know about this feller?’ Ole Devil challenged.

‘
I—I
told him!’ Di admitted and, as the young Texian swung to face her,
took on the attitude of defiance which he remembered from the
previous afternoon. ‘Hell, the walls of our place’re so thin that
he could hear what you and Grandpappy Ewart was saying. So I
figured on stopping him listening
and reckoned he’d be interested in hearing about them four fellers
jumping us.’

‘
And
as soon as you’d mentioned this feller, he said he’d be going,’ Ole
Devil guessed.

‘
Not
straight
after,’ the girl contradicted. ‘He finished his coffee,
then asked if I reckoned Grandpappy’d do what the General wanted
and I told him it was likely. So he said he’d head for Gonzales and
see if he could make other arrangements.’

‘
You
weren’t to know what he was planning, Ole Devil drawled. ‘I’ll say
one thing, though. If it
was
him, he s a cool son-of-a-bitch. He must have come
straight over here, let
himself in, killed
and covered this feller up and left, all within about five
minutes.’

‘
We’d
best go tell Grandpappy Ewart,’ Di sighed.

‘
What’ve
you got to tell me about?’ Ewart Brindley’s cracked tones inquired
from outside the storeroom.

Turning, the
girl and Ole Devil saw the old timer approaching across the barn.
They stood aside and let him through. Then, after he had looked at
the corpse, he turned his cold gaze upon them.

Although
the young Texian met Brindley’s scrutiny, he was far less at ease
than showed on the surface. The previous night had done much to
cement the amicable relationship that had been developing. Over
supper, Di had told of how she had been saved from the bear. As he
had been receiving the old man’s gruff thanks, Ole Devil had sensed
that the matter had cut deeper than heart-felt gratitude. Unless he
was mistaken, Brindley had been impressed by the fact that he had
not attempted to use the rescue as a means of attaining his ends.
Nor had his prestige diminished when, after having eaten and made a
fruitless search of the renegades’ bedrolls—which had been fetched
from the barn by two of the hired hands who had said that the
prisoner was still sleeping—he had spent an enjoyable evening in
the company of his host and hostess. He had taken a lively and
genuine interest in their arrangements for transporting the
shipment, while also making it plain that he considered it was
their concern and he would be merely an official passenger. In
return, they had questioned him about the bid for independence and
the state of affairs to the west. As they were supporters of
Houston’s policies there had been no cause for controversy between
them.

All in
all, Ole Devil had gone to spread his bedroll on the floor of the
guestroom with a sense of achievement. His diplomatic handling of
the Brindleys had, he felt sure, established the grounds for
complete co-operation based on a mutual liking, trust and respect
for each other’s abilities.