Paxton Pride (38 page)

“Don't know. What's About says they must have caught them unawares. It looked to have been over pretty quick, 'cause Cirilio was hit hard and plenty of times—nine or ten bullets in him at least. He didn't get to say any more than that it was Jaco before he died, and then they hit What's About from a distance, killing the horse at the same time. He managed to fall near the wagon and cut the good horse loose, then ride out ahead of them. They holed him up awhile back in that cedar brake over by White Eagle Pass. He made a break for it and that's when they got him in the side. Says he thinks they weren't far behind him.”

True walked to the window, looked out. “Damn,” he muttered. “After all this time.”

Vance headed for the door. “I'm bringing the men inside the gates.”

“Maruja?”

“She and Marcelina are out back in the compound now, with the mare. Got them in first. All the commotion got the mare worked up. Nothin' we can do until morning but wait.” He started out, stopped in the doorway. “You might check and see how Karen's doing with What's About. I'll send in Maruja to make coffee.” The door slammed behind him.

True stood unmoving at the window for a long moment, then opened it and reached for the shutters, pulling them closed. Five minutes later and all the others were shut and the house buttoned up against the night and what it might bring.

The night passed slowly for the men on the walls. Once the vague echo of distant gunfire rippled through the night but nothing followed and only silence ringed the adobe wall manned by PAX riders. For Karen the blurred hours passed without definition, counted by the ragged breaths of the youth in the bed, his face as white as the sheets and his legs twitching from time to time as in his dreams he ran and ran from the angrily humming, searching bullets. Somehow Karen hadn't passed out when Harley packed the hole in Billy's arm nor when he pulled the alcohol-soaked rag through the gaping wound in his side before stopping the rapidly oozing blood with a tightly-wrapped bandage.

She stayed awake in the chair by the bed, dozing only fitfully as she watched. Three times during the night he waked. Each time he wanted to get up and help outside and each time she convinced him he should stay put and poured as much tea into him as he could take before falling back into ragged slumber. The news of the Viegas didn't fully register on her until near dawn when she woke, shaking, from a half-dozing dream in which she saw Roscoe Bodine's hapless figure, life ebbing from him with the bright red fluid, his rough-hewn form growing horribly limp and sagging lifelessly. She sat straight in the chair, the horror of the vision still fresh in her mind. Cirilio Viega, his wife Rosa and the two older daughters, Remedios and Juana Maria. They had done so little to deserve death. So little? Nothing, in fact. Hard workers all, they had lived alone in the hills with none to help them against the cruel riders and the angry chunks of mindless lead. Full of laughter, grace and life, they now lay in dark splotches of blood, laughter, grace and life snuffed out and covered by the swiftly settling dust in the trampled dooryard. How utterly sad, how inexpressibly cruel and unjust.

Morning. The ranch hands had spent the hours alternating between the wall and the living room, gulping a cup of coffee and a sandwich made of
tortillas
and beef, catching a quick nap and then heading back out to relieve the watch. The night was the first truly cold one of the year, on the heels of the season's first blue norther, a wall of cold air from the north which had swept down the valley and plunged the temperatures from the high seventies to barely above forty in no more than an hour. Maruja and Marcelina bustled about cooking and making sure the men kept warm and well fed until somewhere around five when the mare foaled, taking Maruja out of circulation for long enough to make sure both mother and baby were all right. At about the same time, with the first hint of light in the east, Vance and Ted rode down the valley to search for any telltale sign of the brigands who had perpetrated the terrible even at the Viegas' and were surely in the vicinity. By the time the sky was fully light Karen was dozing peacefully in the chair next to Billy, whose breath now came easier and whose face had taken on a little color. Downstairs, red-eyed men stumbled in from the wind-swept walls and stood in front of the fires, stretched their hands to the warm tongues of flame and gulped steaming mugs of black coffee.

Karen wakened sometime during the morning and, embarrassed at having slept, hurried downstairs after making sure Billy was all right. The living room was empty, the men having gone out to check on the stock and buildings. She paused in the hall door a moment then headed for the kitchen, arriving in time to see Marcelina struggle in the door with a huge armload of wood. Maruja sat next to the stove, exhausted, ready to collapse after more than twenty-eight hours on the run. Karen took the Mexican woman by the arm, shook her gently and helped her to her feet. “Go on to bed for awhile, Maruja,” she said. “I slept some.”

Maruja shook her head. “I will stay. The men will be back. They will need …”

“You've been taking better care of those men than they ever do themselves. Go on now. I'll make sure the coffee pot stays full and come wake you later.” She led the indomitable woman out the door and across the courtyard to her room, saw her to bed and left again, a new look of determination on her face as she returned to the kitchen to face Marcelina. “How is the foal?”

“He is fine,” she finally answered.

“You're tired too. Go up to the back bedroom and take a nap in the chair so you can listen in case Billy wakes up. I'll be busy down here.”

Marcelina, tired as she was, shook her head defiantly. “I will stay,” she said, turning to put some more wood on the fire.

“You will do as I tell you,” Karen answered firmly, spinning the girl around. The two women glared at each other, each waiting for the other to relent. Karen suddenly relaxed, indicated the living room. “The men will be back soon. There is enough trouble for them outside. Now is not the time for women to fight in the kitchen. Go. He needs someone near him. I can pour coffee.”

Marcelina started to speak, thought better, turned and stalked out of the room. Karen sighed and moved to the stove.

Vance and Ted returned late in the afternoon. The bandits had evidently left the area and headed west, probably trying for the border before the norther dumped snow on them. They brought word a cavalry detachment had made camp at the mouth of the valley. With the easing of tension the hands filed out of the living room and returned to the bunkhouse, save for Billy who was kept upstairs. Karen managed another brief nap and when she came downstairs for dinner Vance and True were at the dining room table, involved in a lengthy discussion. She heard her name mentioned before she entered the room, which fell silent as soon as the men saw her.

Vance rose and took her by the arm. “Karen.…”

“Making decisions for me again?”

“I'm afraid decisions like this were made for us,” True interjected.

“A detachment of the Frontier Battalion is returning to San Antonio with their wounded,” Vance explained as he seated her. “I'm sending you with them.”

“But why?” Karen asked, amazed at her own dismay.

“The ones who stay are going after Jaco and they want Ted and me and some of the other PAX boys to go with them. It will be a long scout and safer for you in San Antonio.”

“But you said the bandits had ridden off. Surely.…”

“The place will be short-handed. They rode off all right, but we can't see any further than the tracks before our eyes. With the cold they might turn and come back. Any one of a dozen Comanches I can think of might decide it would be a good time to pick up some free horses and extra grub for the winter, not to speak of a woman. I can't take the chance.”

“But my place is here,” Karen argued, for the first time almost believing herself.

“There's more to think about than ourselves. We have a child to consider and I can't count on the ranch being protected, not with the place so short-handed. We'll leave barely enough to handle the work as it is.”

“What about Maruja and Marcelina?” she asked, trying hard to put no emphasis on the latter.

“They're frontier women. They're used to it,” Vance explained matter-of-factly.

Karen colored at the implication of her own Ineptitude. “I am perfectly capable, Mr. Paxton, of taking care of myself. However, since you wish to be rid of me I will return to San Antonio, and perhaps even farther, should I find the way.” And with a flounce of her skirt she rose from the table and stalked angrily from the room.

Vance stared after her. “What did I say?” he asked innocently.

True shook his head in reply. The wrong thing, son,” he growled. “You said the wrong thing.”

Karen sat primly next to the driver, the ranch hand named Brazos. The last twelve hours had been more exhausting than she cared to think. The immediate anger at Vance had diminished slowly as she paced her room, and by the time most of her good clothes were packed she had made herself think things out. Perhaps the trip was best. There was a lot she didn't know, more perhaps than she cared to admit. Elizabeth had lived through incredible and hair-raising adventures by the time she was Karen's age, but then Elizabeth was better prepared, expected danger and knew its varied aspects. Later when Vance came to the room they talked for almost two hours and then made love, tenderly, quietly. When Karen waked in the middle of the night and lay watching the man sleep beside her, the core of anger still remaining shriveled with his every breath. It was true he was concerned about the child, but for the first time she felt he was truly concerned about her, too. Falling back to sleep she let herself dream of how nice it would be to visit the city, if only for a week or two.

Vance, Ted and six of the other PAX riders escorted the wagon to the cedar brake where a ragtag party of men met them. Karen couldn't believe such a motley group masqueraded under the prestigious sounding name of a Frontier Battalion. Sixteen strong—an unlikely number for a battalion—they were dressed in ragged riding clothes without a hint of a uniform among them. Ten of the riders split away from the main body and drew off to the west. Most of them bandaged and all armed to the teeth, Karen couldn't imagine any group of bandits looking more fierce. The group assigned to accompany her to San Antonio numbered six, two of whom were too badly wounded to sit a horse so would ride in the wagon with Karen and Brazos. The other four were wounded too, but capable of riding. The PAX riders went to join the ten men of the battalion as Vance guided his horse to Karen's side. “You take good care of her, Brazos.”

The cowboy nodded. “Don't you worry none, Vance. This here'll be a stroll compared to what you boys is liable to run inta.”

Karen shot a worried look toward her husband. Lost in the frenzy of repacking and the seesawing emotions of the last few hours, she had forgotten the very possible danger waiting for him to the west. What if he …? Vance leaned over and took her hand, kissing it as Brazos and the soldiers looked away discreetly. “You have the note for Jared Green?”

“Yes. Vance, I …”

“They'll be delighted to have you as a house guest.” He grinned. “And if they're not, you tell me. He owes me.”

“Vance, please be careful. This all sounds so dangerous.”

“You do what Brazos tells you. I'll be all right. And I'll come get you in a couple of weeks.” He smiled, doffed his hat in a gallant gesture and wheeled his horse away, galloping off toward the receding line of men disappearing to the west.

The trip was nerve-wracking but uneventful. Brazos and the men on horseback treated her as if she was the precious charge of each individual and Karen reciprocated by tending, as best she could, the two badly wounded men lying in back, neither of whom complained in spite of the horrible pain. When they neared San Antonio Brazos gave up his place on the buckboard to one of the others, took the frontierman's horse and rode ahead to deliver the note Vance had given him for Jared Green in order to give the banker's household at least a few hours' notice of Karen's arrival. He rejoined the party as they were coming into town, resuming his place on the wagon.

They rumbled into the heart of the city. Brazos swung the team north and they crossed the San Antonio again, following St. Mary's Road out of the town proper.

“Where are we going?”

Brazos indicated the limestone bluffs overlooking the main sprawl of the city, rising north east of the river. “Travis Park,” he said as they drove along the western edge of a broad open field dotted with scraggly bare cottonwoods and leafless mesquite, from which still hung dried seed pods imitating the sound of waterfalls as the October wind gusted through them. After the vastness of the empty prairie the park seemed forlorn, despondent and yearning to join with the great expanse of earth surrounding the city, to be free of fences and roads and houses and people.

The homes around them changed in character. Clean and tidy, built with fitted limestone blocks and cedar, many were painted white with blue trim in contrast to the dingy earth-colored excuses for shelter in the southern sections of town. Even the smallest and most unpretentious betrayed the effect of hours of loving labor and maintenance. “Germans,” Brazos explained. “Mostly from up around Fredericksburg. Moved on down this way for the business, I reckon. Most of them are pretty good folks, though a mite standoffish for my taste.”

Karen shaded her eyes and looked at the homes on the bluffs. They reminded her of Georgetown and her father's manor, but though they were undoubtedly grand structures for the likes of San Antonio and the frontier, they were smaller in every way compared to the ones she had known back east.

They pulled up at a gate of wrought iron and filligree on which hung a freshly painted, elaborately bordered sign. “Green Hill,” it read, rather more ostentatiously than had Karen commissioned the work. The wagon turned and went up the drive to a two-story manor of limestone and cedar from which, to Karen's surprise, a butler emerged to greet her and inform her Jared and Bertha Green were absent for the afternoon but would return shortly, that she was welcome, her luggage would be taken care of and would she please be so kind as to enter.