Ole Devil and the Caplocks (22 page)

Riding onward, von
Lowenbrau studied the Texians. Noticing the disciplined manner in
which they were behaving, he could not help wishing that the Red
River Volunteer Dragoons could be counted upon to act in such a
fashion. However, he put the thought from his mind. Bringing his
horse to a stop about thirty feet from the closest rifle pit, he
dismounted.

“Your men seem to have
recovered rapidly, Mister Blaze,” the major commented dryly,
leaving the animal and walking —marching in review would be a
better description—forward.

While advancing, von
Lowenbrau studied Rassendyll and made an accurate guess at his
reason for being present. Briefly, the Prussian wondered if he had
been the brains behind the preparations and bluff. It was possible,
but for one thing. All too well, from his own experiences shortly
after his arrival in Texas, von Lowenbrau knew the ruggedly
individualistic spirit of the colonists. They would never have
accepted the leadership of a newcomer in such a short
time.

“
Must
have only been a touch of the grippe, Major,” Mannen replied
blandly. “Anyways, they’re over it now, no matter what it was, so
I’m giving them a mite of training to stop them thinking about
it.”

“Is this your entire
command?” von Lowenbrau demanded.

“The rest of them are off
someplace with Cousin Dev—Captain Hardin,” Mannen replied, looking
and sounding exceptionally somnolent. “They should be back some—any
time now.”

“
And
until they return, this valuable consignment of arms has been left
with completely inadequate protection!” the Prussian barked, barely
able to restrain himself from bellowing at the redhead to wake up.
Then he glanced at Rassendyll as if expecting some comment. When it
did not come, he continued, “That won’t do. I’ll take it in my
charge.”

“Well now, Major,” Mannen
drawled and, although he seemed to be finding it difficult to stay
awake, he sounded both grateful and perturbed. “Grateful as I am
for you offering, I couldn’t rightly let you do that.”

“
I’m not
making a friendly request, mister!” von Lowenbrau warned, still
wondering why the other young man did not intervene. “I’m ordering
you to hand it over.”

While speaking, the major
made a beckoning motion with his lowered left hand. Seeing the
signal, Benn growled at the Dragoons to advance. However, conscious
of the menace from the rifles of the soldiers in the pits, he held
the pace to a walk and issued a warning that nobody had to even
look like raising a weapon.

“Isn’t there some rule or
other’s calls it mutiny if I don’t obey an order from a superior
officer?” Mannen inquired worriedly, raising his eyes to look at
the approaching Dragoons as if wishing to avoid meeting the
Prussian’s gaze.

“There is,” von Lowenbrau
confirmed with grim satisfaction, deciding that his task was
growing easier. “And the punishment for mutiny is
death.”

For all his feeling that
the burly redhead would yield to his demand, the major became
conscious of how the men in the rifle pits were reacting. None
seemed alarmed, or disturbed by the sight of his Dragoons riding
nearer. Instead, they seemed to be finding the affair interesting
and even amusing. There was something vaguely familiar about their
attitudes, but he was unable to decide what it might be.

“
And so,
Mister Blaze,” von Lowenbrau went on, as Benn brought the Dragoons
to a halt near his horse, “I am ordering you to hand over the
consignment to me. If you refuse, I will have to regard it as an
act of mutiny and you will suffer the
consequences.”

Without realizing that
some six miles to the northeast another threat had arisen to the
safety of the consignment of arms which had caused her husband’s
death, tiredness and the knowledge that she must allow her horse to
rest brought Madeline de Moreau to a halt.

Once her mount had
recovered its breath after the mad dash through the woodland, the
woman had mounted and pushed on with all the speed she could
muster. Using the training she had received from her husband, she
had continued to travel southwest. While she had known that the
most simple way to find members of the Mexican Army would be to
follow the coast road, she had also seen the objections to doing
so. The trail did not go into Santa Cristobal Bay, but went
sufficiently close to it for there to be the danger of meeting with
pickets set out by Ole Devil Hardin before he had left for San
Phillipe. He was too intelligent, damn him, to have overlooked such
a precaution.

What was more, before
Madeline could reach territory under Mexican control, she would
have to pass areas occupied by other Texian outfits. Probably they
would not molest her, but she would be expected to give an account
of her presence and had no wish to attract such undesirable
attention. There was no way in which she could be sure that Hardin
had not passed word of her activities. It would not have surprised
her if he had. So she was disinclined to take the
chance.

So Madeline had kept
moving across country. It said much for her physical condition that
she had got so far during the hours of darkness. Furthermore, she
might have counted herself fortunate that she was such a skilled
horsewoman and astride an exceptionally reliable mount. Exhausted
by the strain which she had been under, she had found herself
repeatedly threatened with dropping off to sleep as she was riding.
In fact, she had been dozing and almost fallen from the saddle
before she woke up and, taking the warning, concluded that she must
grab some rest.

Gazing ahead with eyes
glazed by fatigue, the woman located a place where she could
satisfy her craving for sleep. The terrain was once more fairly
dense woodland, with plenty of undergrowth. However, she was
approaching a clearing through which a small stream was
flowing.

If Madeline had been in a
more alert frame of mind, she might have heard and been alarmed by
certain noises from not too far behind her. Barely able to keep her
eyes open, she was only conscious of one thing. That she had found
a reasonably safe haven in which she could rest.

Entering the clearing and
finding it deserted, the brunette allowed her horse to reach the
bank of the stream before halting it and dismounting. Its pace had
been slow enough for the last hour for it to be able to drink
without harmful effects. Removing the bit, she allowed it to do
so.

In spite of her tiredness,
Madeline knew that there were things which she must do before she
dared to succumb to sleep. First, she had to make sure that her
mount would still be available when she woke up. Removing the
cloak-coat, she laid it on the ground without removing the
“Pepperbox” from its pocket. Then she took a set of hobbles from
her saddle pouch and applied them to the pasterns
^l
of
the animal’s forelegs. With that done, she removed the rig. There
was one more essential task to be attended to, she told herself,
and she would do it as soon as she had set her burden
down.

“Well dog my cats, Nippy,
you was right,” declared a hard masculine voice, coming from the
bushes through which the woman had passed on her way into the
clearing. “It air that high-toned Mrs. dee Moreau.”

“Only she don’t look
nowheres near’s high-toned now as when her and that stinking mac
was treating us like dirt,” answered a second set of male tones.
“Nor when her damned fool notions was getting some of the boys
killed.”

Letting the saddle slip
from her fingers, Madeline stared at the speakers. Even if she had
not recognized their voices, the words would have informed her that
they were members of her husband’s band of renegades. Not that she
took any pleasure from finding them striding toward her. Rather the
opposite. In addition to insulting his memory by referring to
Randolph as a “mac,” which meant a pimp, they had been two of the
more vocal malcontents in her party before the disastrously
abortive ambush. Nor, judging from their comments and expressions,
were they coming with friendly intentions.

Bending, the woman
snatched the upper of the brace of pistols from the holsters on her
saddle horn. Knowing how capable she was, the men started to run
toward her. Even as her brain began to scream a warning, she cocked
and raised the weapon to aim at Nippy. However, although she
realized the futility of the gesture, she could not stop herself
from snatching at the trigger. The hammer fell, but there was only
a click. In her haste, she had selected the pistol with which she
had tried to kill Ole Devil Hardin.

Letting out a shriek of
combined rage and fear, Madeline flung the empty weapon at Nippy.
She missed, but was already grabbing for its mate when she saw each
man’s face registering alarm and fright.

Something passed through
the air close above the woman and struck Nippy between the eyes
with considerable force. His head snapped to the rear and he
pitched over backward. Bouncing off after the impact, the missile
proved to be a sturdy piece of curved wood.

An instant after the
renegade was hit, there was a different kind of hiss and the second
man, trying to stop running, gave a convulsive jerk. With his hands
rising to claw ineffectually at the fletching of the arrow which
had buried itself in his chest, he spun around and
collapsed.

Looking over her shoulder
with her fingers closing on the butt of the loaded pistol, Madeline
did not know whether to be pleased or terrified. While they had
rescued her from the renegades, her fate at the hands of the two
Indians across the stream might not be different from that which
Nippy and his companion had intended. It could, however, result in
a quicker death. Nippy’s killer no longer held a weapon, but the
second brave was already reaching for another arrow from his
quiver.

“Don’t kill her!” yelled a
voice in Spanish.

Another man appeared,
striding from behind a bush. At the sight of him, Madeline
straightened up without drawing the pistol. Although she did not
know to which regiment he belonged, the newcomer was an officer in
the Mexican Army. His black Busby, which had lost part of its
Quetzal’s tail feathers’ plume, and light green Hussar-type uniform
suggested he served in a volunteer unit. There was an air of
breeding about him which she found comforting. Such a man would be
more willing to honor her identification pass from
Presidente
Antonio Lopes
de Santa Anna than either of the Indians.

“
Gracias, señor,”
Madeline said, also
employing Spanish. “I can repay you for saving
me.”

Five minutes later, Major
Abrahan Phillipe Gonzales de Villena y Danvila of the Arizona
Hopi
Activos
Regiment had solved the mystery which had brought him back
accompanied by a small party of braves who had been sent to locate
him. He knew why two members of the Texas Light Cavalry were so far
from their regiment’s last reported position.

~*~

“Dang it all!” Mannen
Blaze almost wailed, in a sleepily petulant tone, after Major
Ludwig von Lowenbrau had delivered the ultimatum. “It looks like
one way or the other I’m forced and bound to become a mutineer and
get shot. Because Captain Hardin, who’s my superior officer,
ordered me to hold on to the consignment until he comes
back.”

“Damn it, man,” the
Prussian thundered, all his military background and upbringing
revolting at such a display of stupidity from an officer. “I’m a
major and that’s senior to a captain. So, in Captain Hardin’s
absence, I’m countermanding his order and assuming authority
for—”

“Excuse me for
interrupting. Major,” the redhead put in, exuding a slothfully
apologetic aura. “But before you can countermand an order in
Captain Hardin’s absence, he had to be absent—doesn’t
he?”

“Of course—!” von
Lowenbrau commenced, before he could stop himself. “What do you
mean, damn it?”

“It’s just that I can’t
see how he can be absent,” Mannen explained, “when he’s walking
down the slope behind you.”

Looking over his shoulder,
the Prussian let out a guttural and explosive oath in his native
tongue. Unnoticed by the rest of the Red River Volunteer Dragoons’
contingent, three men were advancing on foot and had almost reached
them.

Von Lowenbrau recognized
all the trio. At the right, carrying a strange-looking rifle, was
the man who had departed during the night. Apparently he had partly
told the truth about his reason for going. On the left, with an
arrow nocked to the string of the remarkably long bow he was
carrying and armed with two swords, was Hardin’s “Chinese”
servant.

However, the Prussian’s
main attention was focused upon Tommy Okasi’s employer. Unshaven,
showing signs of having ridden hard and fast, clearly very tired,
Ole Devil Hardin still contrived to stride out with a smart, almost
gasconading, swagger. Unlike his escort, he had no weapon in his
hands.

Suddenly, von Lowenbrau
realized what the attitudes of the Texians in the rifle pits had
reminded him of. It had been the look of men who knew that somebody
they disliked was shortly to be given an unpleasant shock.
Obviously they had seen their captain coming even though their
other officer had not.