A Tale Out of Luck (18 page)
He was pretty sure he could make it to that place without falling off. But would he find his band of beleaguered travelers camped there? Had any of them even survived the battle? He knew he was a dead man if he failed to find friends on this morning. He rode closer to the big bluff and saw smoke rising—from the fires of his friends, he hoped. The Colorado turned to the north here, and the Llano came in from the west. The smaller Llano would be easy to cross. He wouldn’t even have to swim his pony.
When he got to the near bank of the Llano, he heard the keening songs of the mourners and knew he had found the survivors of his band. They were probably mourning him, he mused. His vision began to blur, but as he rode his horse into the shallow river, he noticed the tops of tepees ahead and saw much more smoke than his small band of refugees should have made. All his people’s lodges had been left behind in the attack, so he could only assume that they had met up with some other Comanche people here. Perhaps they would even have a healer in this camp.
As he rode into the broad, level plain above the opposite bank, several warriors and boys spotted him. People rushed to him. He did not know the people of this band, but they knew to help him, taking the halter rope of the pony, holding him up on the back of the horse.
“I am the Wolf,” he said. It was all he could manage.
He was led into the camp, where his cousin, Crooked Nose, came running up to him, an astonished smile contrasting against his sad eyes. “Cousin! You live! I could not find you!”
“The others . . .” said the Wolf.
Crooked Nose’s smile melted away. “Our chief—your grandfather—was killed. And the other warriors. All killed. Some women were shot by the white men, but they are all alive.”
“And the children?”
“Safe.” Crooked Nose looked down with shame. “I could not carry the bodies of our brother warriors away when they were shot dead. I left them. I left you. I had to fight on the run, along with some of the women. I should have fought harder, Cousin. I should have died in battle.”
The Wolf was lowered from his horse by the hands of numerous warriors and women, and he was aware that he was being placed on a blanket, which was then lifted to carry him away—probably to the lodge of some old man or woman who knew the spirit secrets of healing. Crooked Nose trotted along beside him. The Wolf was lowered to the ground under a large pecan tree, its branches laden with nuts.
A woman brought water, and some pemmican made from tallow, dried meat, and some of those nuts that this band of True Humans had come here to harvest. With help from the woman, the Wolf drank, and ate some pemmican, though the small act of chewing the food almost exhausted him.
“The big white man who started the killing—who did he shoot?” he asked his cousin.
“I cannot speak his name, for he is dead.” They both knew the danger of speaking the names of the dead. “He was the one who played the eagle-bone flute.”
“Was he carrying a gun? The big white man said he saw a gun, just before he started shooting.”
“Maybe he was carrying that flute, but he did not have a gun. As I retreated, I saw his body lying dead. There was no gun.”
The Wolf’s scowl deepened. “It is well you did not die,” he said. “We have both been shamed by those white cowboys, and it is true that we deserve to die, but we have been spared for a reason. We have a chance to avenge what has happened.”
A spark of hope glinted in his cousin’s eyes. “What will we do?”
“Pray that I live, Cousin. For if I do, I am going to seek spirit medicine and raise a war party. We will take many horses and eat all the cattle we want. Some warriors may claim scalps. I want only one. The one from the head of that big white man who started the killing at our camp. I will not rest until he is dead. I have seen this as my duty in my visions. And anyone who tries to stop me will die.”
Crooked Nose was looking over him, smiling. “Yes, Cousin. That talk sounds good to my ears. Rest now. There is an old man in this band who can heal the worst wounds. He is coming to make medicine for you. I am going to make weapons.”
The Wolf wanted to stay awake long enough to get a look at this old medicine man, but he was so completely exhausted that he drifted off with the morning sun glinting through the branches, the autumn breeze cooling his brow, and the excruciating ache of his wound burning his insides like stones in a sweat lodge.
H
ANK AND FLORA
all but turned the house upside down looking for the old Black Cloud arrow Hank had collected decades before. In the search process, Hank took all the books off the bookshelves, dusted them, and replaced them. Flora unfolded and refolded all the blankets, quilts, and sheets. Hank ransacked cabinets and desk drawers, and rifled through armoires and cedar chests while Flora opened all the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle cases in the parlor, finding only instruments inside.
“Well, it just ain’t here,” Hank finally admitted, stomping into the parlor from his most recent foray through the china cabinet in the dining room.
“Do you play all these instruments?” Flora asked.
“I play
at
’em all.”
“Where’d you learn?”
“I learned the guitar from a freedman down the road from the family farm in Tennessee when I was a boy. I’m a pretty fair hand with a guitar after all these years. Those other instruments are for the boys, and anybody who visits and knows how to play one.”
“You’ve got three fiddles,” she declared.
“Have I only got three? It’s a wonder I don’t have half a dozen. I’ve bought many an instrument from broke Rangers and cowboys. Got a weakness for ’em I guess.”
“The instruments, or the men?”
“Both, I reckon. Anyway, that arrow isn’t here, Flora, and we’ve wasted half a day lookin’ for it.”
“I wouldn’t say it was wasted. We just got some spring cleaning done a few months early, that’s all. Let’s go outside and see if your men did any better.”
“Well, they’d have come runnin’ if they’d have found it,” he groused, “but I guess we can go see what they did find.”
Hank had put all the ranch hands to work at first light, searching the barn, the bunkhouse, the cook shack, and all the other outbuildings. When he and Flora went outside to check on them, they found that the men had straightened up a lot of clutter but had failed to find the grisly old souvenir.
“No luck, Poli?” Hank asked his foreman.
“A little.”
“What do you mean, a little?”
“We found a jug of whiskey in the hay loft that nobody will own up to.”
Long Tom Merrick and Beto Canales came sauntering up about then, mainly to get a closer look at Flora.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a false wall in one of these buildings, would you?” Flora asked, knowing that almost every Southerner who kept arms had built such a contrivance after the war, when wild rumors held that the conquered Confederacy would be completely disarmed.
“Did you check all the hidey holes?” Poli asked Long Tom Merrick.
“Yep,” Tom said, taking a tally book from his shirt pocket. “I inventoried fourteen Winchesters, a dozen Colts, nine Hawken rifles, seven shotguns, three cavalry sabers, and a six-pounder cannon. But nothin’ with a feathered caboose.”
“A cannon?” Flora said.
“I guess I’ve got a weakness for things that go
bang
, too,” Hank admitted.
“It’s just a little cannon,” Long Tom added.
Hank pulled his watch from his pocket. “Damn,” he said, his frustration in the wasted time clear in his voice. “We’d better get to town. I have some telegrams to send.”
Hank didn’t travel much by three-spring buggy, but he had to credit Flora’s rig for handling a lot better than any buckboard or freight wagon he had ever driven. He hardly felt the bumps at all. She sat on the seat beside him as they trundled toward Luck. Hank held the reins, driving the horse that drew the light buggy. His own saddle horse trailed along behind.
“I like this buggy,” he admitted. “I wish things were different right now. We could just be out for a picnic down by the river.”
“When we get beyond this little bit of trouble, you can take me for a picnic anytime, Hank. Just make sure it’s in a private spot. Picnics make me frisky.”
“Flora, honey, I could make a list of things that make you frisky.”
“You don’t have enough paper and ink.” She snuggled against him as they drove at a trot around a sharp curve. “Do you mind my asking about the telegrams you intend to send?”
“Course not. I aim to wire all the brand inspectors I know between Nebraska and Mexico. I need to find out everything I can about this WJ brand—like when it was registered, where, how many head of WJ beeves have been sold . . .”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
Hank shook the reins and tapped the flagging buggy horse with the whip. “I don’t know yet. But sometimes when you go looking for an old arrow, you turn up a jug of whiskey, if you know what I mean.”
“A lucky find.”
“Precisely, Miss Barlow.”
When they arrived in Luck, Hank dropped Flora off at her saloon. She sent Harry out to put the horse and buggy away, and Hank walked next door to the livery barn. Flora had told him that the heifer with the WJ brand had been ordered kept there as evidence by Lieutenant Matt Kenyon of the State Police, also known as Max Cooper, crime journalist for the Austin
Daily Statesman.
Hank found the heifer standing in the corral, eating hay, and walked around to her left side to view the brand. Now that he was beyond the reach of the haystacks and the kindling-dry barn wood, Hank took a cigar from his pocket, struck a match on a cedar corral post, and lit the stogie.
Gotch Dunnsworth had been forking hay in the stables when he spotted Hank at the corral out back. He came to join the visitor.
“Howdy, Captain.”
“Gotch,” Hank said without diverting his eyes from the heifer.
“That State Policeman said the government would pay the feed bill for that brindle.”
“Good luck.”
“Yeah. That rustler had some nerve, doctoring your brand.”
“Yep. Those scabs look about three days old to you?”
“’Fraid so,” Gotch mumbled.
“He had a touch. I’ve seen amateurs make a mess of a poor brute’s hide. Some don’t even have sense enough to burn the original part of the brand over again to disguise the doctorin’. This Wes James was a professional.”
“Professional scoundrel,” Gotch growled.
“Now, Gotch,” Hank chided, “no need to speak ill of the dead.”
“You talk about him like an old friend,” Gotch said.
He put his hand on Gotch’s shoulder. “Wes and I are gettin’ acquainted. He’s gonna help me get to the bottom of all this.”
Gotch shook his head and scowled. “If you say so, Captain.”
“Did you ever see him around town?”
“He stabled that claybank of his in the livery once’t or twice’t. Bought me a whiskey over to the saloon. Claimed he was headed west to maverick.”
Hank pointed the stub of his cigar at the brindle heifer. “Apparently, he liked to maverick already-branded stuff.”
Gotch shrugged. “Easier to find than slicks.”
“
Easy
can get a man into trouble.”
“Yeah, but even an honest mavericker would have made good target practice for them Indians up on Shovel Mountain.”
“Those Indians didn’t kill Wes, Gotch.”
“Damn, Captain! If you pin this on the Indians, you’re home free! Otherwise, you’re making yourself the prime suspect. The State Police have got it out for your Ranger ass.”
“Gotch, I never pinned anything on a man in my life, red or white, black or brown.”
Gotch sighed and stalked back toward the stables, shaking his head.
“Come around to Flora’s place when your chores are done, Gotch. I’ll stand you to a whiskey.”
“Now you’re talking sense again,” he said as he disappeared into the barn.
Hank smoked his stogie and watched that brindle heifer eat her hay for a while, then walked through the alley and up the side street to Main. He finished his cigar while strolling down to Sam Collins’s general store, which also served as the telegraph office. Along with everything else he did for the town of Luck, Sam had learned Morse code to become an agent of the Western Union Telegraph Company.
Sam’s twelve-year-old son, Sam Junior, was sweeping the floor when Hank walked in.
“You missed a spot, Junior,” Hank said, smiling and nudging the boy in the ribs.
“Thanks, Captain Tomlinson.” Sam Junior grinned at the local hero.
“How are your lessons goin’ at school?”
“I get all A’s.”
“Good. That way you won’t have to push a broom for a livin’ your whole life.” He looked up at the store owner. “Howdy, Sam. Is the wire up today?”
“Up and workin’ fine, Hank.”
“Put on your Western Union hat for me, will you? I’ve got several telegrams I need sent.”
“Sure thing, Hank.”
W
HEN JAY BLUE
rode with Skeeter and the pack mule to Jubal’s canyon corral, he found Jubal Hayes inside the large cedar pen with the Steel Dust Gray, making him walk around in circles.
“You’re a brave man, climbing in there with that killer,” Jay Blue said.
Jubal climbed out over the rails. “I ain’t brave, but I ain’t foolish, either. We had a good, long talk before I ever set foot in his house.”
“Talk?” Skeeter said, as he began unloading Jubal’s supplies. “You talk horse?”
“Yeah, I talk horse, coyote, and hoot owl. I talk wolf, mountain lion, and red-tailed hawk. I can even talk javalina, chachalaca, black bear, and leopard cat. And I don’t
speak
no rattlesnake, but I
do
understand what they say.”
“I just speak Spanish and Texan,” Skeeter admitted.
Jubal lent a hand unpacking the supplies. “Did you boys deliver the things Luz wanted?”
“We left the rest of the supplies at your cave and got here as quick as we could,” Jay Blue reported.
“And Luz is okay?”
“Yes, sir,” both boys said.
“No Indian trouble?”
“Not exactly,” Jay Blue replied. He then began telling Jubal the long story about finding the Wolf wounded.