Strong Cold Dead (11 page)

“It's what I call him,” Ela said finally, hoping that would be the end of it.

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“He claims he's my
father's
grandfather—great-grandfather, actually. How's that?”

“Besides the fact it would make him, like, over a hundred and fifty years old?”

Ela shrugged. “Everyone calls him White Eagle, Isa-tai in our language. You want to know if I believe he's really that old somehow? He's supposed to be a shaman, and they're only born once a century.”

“What happened to whoever was supposed to replace him in the twentieth century?”

“That would be my real grandfather. The bottle got him. I'll show you his grave sometime. Guess fulfilling the tradition was too much for him.”

“Yeah, living forever takes its toll.”

Ela gave him that look again. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Who's next in line?” Dylan asked, instead of responding. “As in, in the twenty-
first
century.”

“You're looking at her.”

*   *   *

Ela's grandfather, as she called him, lived on a ridge up a steep slope near the reservation's northwest boundary, where it joined the bulk of the protected wildlife refuge. The Comanche had been deeded their parcel of land long before anyone had thought of these lands that way. Back then, people tended to take the land for granted, unspoiled by the specters of oil and gas rigs pluming the ground. If Dylan had his bearings right, continuing for a brief stretch along one of the nature paths he spotted cut through the woods would have taken them to the challenging switchbacks off the refuge's Rimrock trail. But the clearing up ahead pushed aside thoughts of that or anything else.

The first thing he saw was a waterfall, its suds sweeping down a mansion-sized husk of jagged stone that looked like an appendage of the land. The waterfall flowed into a pond lapped with light currents that glistened in the moonlight. It was a true Texas moment for him, one of those times when he happened upon something that reminded him of the state's prehistoric beauty. It was what he missed most about going to college in the big, bad Northeast, where normally the only sights were people, and no journey to another destination brought any surprises with it. Dylan knew people around his age who were proud of the fact that they'd never left Texas, and moments like this made him wonder if they had things right.

White Eagle's room-sized log cabin sat perched at the edge of the pond. Outside, in an elegant circular assemblage of stones and rocks, he'd built a fire, which was crackling and sending embers wafting off into the night. The breeze carried those embers out over the pond, where they cut slivers out of the moonlight's shine for a moment, until the surface of the still water claimed them.

Dylan felt Ela take his hand, more a practical gesture than a romantic one, since the ridge trail was uneven and strewn with loose stone that could cause a bad misstep in the darkness. She tried to let go when the spray of the firelight reached them, but Dylan held on because he liked the feel of her grip, as soft as it was strong. He knew both Caitlin and his dad had their doubts about her, but they'd never seen her working with the kids born autistic or learning disabled, thanks to fetal alcohol syndrome. They didn't appreciate the fact that a girl this close to graduating and getting to live her own life would put it all on hold because those kids needed somebody to give them the same chance Ela herself had gotten.

Dylan squeezed her hand tighter, spotted what looked like a cave high up in the rock face, just out of the waterfall's reach, a doorway-sized opening accessible by a ledge wide enough to accommodate a man willing to walk with the stone face bracing his shoulder. He thought he spied a flickering, shadowy shape inside the mouth of one of the caves, until the moon slipped behind a cloud and it was gone.

Then a second structure in the clearing claimed his attention. He took it for an old-fashioned outhouse, except it was built of logs heavier and thicker than those forming the cabin. He spied what looked like a door latch brightening in view in the firelight, making him think it was more likely a storage shed. Except he thought he heard something clanging inside it, followed by the muffled exchange of voices. Before he could discern any words, a shape stepped out before Ela and him, seeming to take its form the night.

“Welcome, Granddaughter,” greeted White Eagle.

Judging by his face, maybe he really had been born in the nineteenth century. It was not skin so much as a dried patchwork assemblage of wrinkles and furrows, crisscrossing each other in a battle for space across his parchment-like flesh. His coarse, gray-white hair was clubbed back in a ponytail. He stood eye to eye with Dylan, his hunched spine and bent knees having stolen at least six inches from the height of his youth. He smelled of mesquite and pine smoke from the fire and boasted the whitest teeth Dylan had ever seen in a man.

“And this would be the young man you've spoken of to me,” White Eagle said, staring more
through
Dylan than at him. “You told me he was white.” The old man worked a finger through the night, in front of Dylan, as if he were tracing Dylan's face in the firelit air. “You look Comanche. You have any Comanche blood?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You look Comanche, because you have the warrior's glow about you. No stranger to death already, are you?”

“I've seen my share of it,” Dylan admitted.

“Your mother?”

“How'd you know?”

The old man did that thing with his finger in the air again. “It's written on your face, plain as day for those who can read it. Looks clear as the words in a book to my old eyes.”

“We need your advice, Grandfather,” Ela broke in.

White Eagle turned his whole head toward her. “I've been watching you stand against the
posah-tai-vo,”
he said, looking briefly back at Dylan. “Means ‘crazy white man.' Warrior's blood runs through you as well, Granddaughter. The spirits have chosen well for my successor.”

“We can't beat them, Grandfather. Everyone's against us, even my father. He says our people deserve to enjoy the spoils of our land, that we made a mistake not building a casino or making cigarettes, like other tribes, when we had the opportunity. He says this may be our last chance to right this wrong.”

“And you don't agree with him, Granddaughter?”

“I've studied what such deals have done to other tribes. Made them richer, but not better, while poisoning their land. The White man's money is the devil, but the elders don't see it that way. The elders believe we've suffered long enough.”

Dylan watched the old man nodding along with Ela, as if her words were a recording he'd heard already.

“This happened once before, you know,” White Eagle told them both.

“We heard a little about that today,” said Dylan.

White Eagle started forward, his feet sheathed in ancient moccasins shuffling atop the ground. “Then let us sit by the fire so I can tell you some more.”

 

21

B
ALCONES
C
ANYONLANDS,
T
EXAS; 1874

When Steeldust Jack rode to where the scream had come from, with White Eagle and the other braves just behind him, he found a man holding a Comanche girl by the hair. She struggled against the man, and he yanked her head farther back until her eyes were facing the sky.

“Whatcha all think?” he said to five other men, who had their pistols out by then. “Should I scalp her or what?”

The man grinned and held his bowie knife up to catch the sun. Dismounting, Steeldust Jack's mind worked fast, matching the clothes and holsters of these men to that of the body found just outside the reservation. And matching their demeanors to the kind of gunmen placed in long supply by the destruction wrought by the Civil War, bitter and hardened men turned into nomads. Many had become bushwhackers and criminals, offering their well-seasoned and practiced gun hands to anyone who had need and could pay.

But there was something different and unsettling about this lot, starting with the quality of their clothes and the fact that their Colts were shiny and new—practiced with on the range rather than in the genuine battles they'd left behind in their pasts, but not their souls.

Steeldust Jack took a step forward, careful not to place much weight on his bad leg, and peeled his coat back to reveal his own more weathered Colt, making no move to draw it yet. “You can let the girl go now,” he said calmly, feeling the braves take up position behind him, holding in place reluctantly with bows and arrows held at the ready which didn't seem to bother the gunmen at all.

The head gunman yanked the young Comanche woman in closer. “Who says?”

“The Texas Rangers.”

“Oh, so you're a lawman.”

“Nope. Told ya, I'm a Texas Ranger.”

“What's the difference?” another of the gunmen asked, a trail of tobacco juice following the words out of his mouth.

Steeldust Jack rotated his gaze among all six of them. The way they held their pistols already cocked told him they were hardened gunmen, no stranger to triggers, with the exception of one who looked no more than fifteen. Steeldust Jack's biggest fear at that point was that the Comanche behind him would let loose with their arrows, thereby catching him in the certain crossfire to follow.

“Well, a lawman, by nature, is answerable to the law. A Ranger's answerable only to Texas. But this ain't Texas here. Not really.”

“Coulda fooled us,” said the second speaker. “Then what is it?”

“Indian land by the law, as provided by the United States government.”

“Thought you weren't answerable to the law, Ranger.”

“I'm not. But I am answerable to the government of both the country and the state. And the word of both says you've got no place upon the land on which you're currently standing.”

“Somebody should've told that to our dead friend, who looks like someone put him through a meat grinder,” said a third gunman.

“And we ain't leaving,” added the man with knife in one hand and girl's hair in the other, “'til these Injuns give up the one of their stinking kind that done it.”

“It's my job to find the man who done it, whether that's here or somewheres else,” Steeldust Jack told them all. “So why don't you boys get yourself gone and let me go about my business and find out who killed your friend?”

“'Cause it's our business too, Ranger,” the knife wielder said, touching the tip of his blade to the young woman's throat firmly enough to make her wince.

Steeldust Jack saw a trickle of blood running down her neck. He realized she was far more girl than woman, probably no more than thirteen. Her dark eyes, leveled on him once more, were filled with fear and a desperate plea for help. It made him think of someone holding his own daughter in a similar spot.

“Maybe you should tell me exactly what business it is brought you here in the first place,” he said.

The man who'd done the most talking, the one Jack Strong now took to be the leader, took a few steps ahead of the rest. “Tell you what. Why don't you ride yourself out of here and let us serve as your deputies?”

“Fine by me, so long as you boys go first. I'll be right behind.”

The leader made a show of poking a finger in the air five times, one for each of his men. “Seems there's six men here standing against you and them Injuns who won't be standing long once the lead starts flying.”

“Five men,” Steeldust Jack corrected, gesturing with his eyes toward the kid. “One of you looks like he still wears his diapers.”

The kid stepped forward, hand ready on his gun. “You wanna see how fast I am?”

“In my experience, son, any man needs to say that ain't nearly as fast as he thinks he is.”

“I already killed tougher men than you.”

“You shut your hole, Jimmy Miller,” the leader said, angling himself in front of the kid. “Boy spoke out of turn, Ranger. I smack him upside his head or shoot him myself, it's still five against one.”

“You as good with measuring as you are with counting, friend?”

“Huh?”

“Fifty-two feet.”

“What?”

“Fifty-two feet—the distance between us when I stopped. I know it real well, 'cause it's how far I was away when the Texas Brigade took Devil's Den. Had a bullet in my leg, so that's where I stayed for the charge. Down to the last of my ammo, so I didn't dare miss. And know what? I didn't.” Steeldust Jack squared his shoulders to face all six figures at once. “Fifty-two feet. Same distance I am to you.”

“Six of us, Ranger. Means you don't get to miss even once.”

Steeldust Jack didn't flinch, blink, or breathe. “Did I mention how many times I reloaded at Devil's Den? You boys wanna have at it, let's do this. But I was sent here to do my job, without call for who's involved. And it's my job to find who killed your friend, whether they reside on this reservation or not.”

“Well,” another of the gunmen started, “we're here to do a job too, and these damn Injuns are in the way. That's the whole of it.”

“And what job would that be, exactly?”

“Keep your mouth shut, Elmer, or I'll shit down your throat.” The leader holstered his pistol and took off his hat. “Name's William Brocius. But folks know me better as Curly Bill. Maybe you've heard of me.”

“I've heard of a gunfighter by that name,” said Steeldust Jack. “Heard he can shoot jackrabbits blindfolded and can snuff out a candle with a perfectly aimed shot.”

Curly Bill bowed his head slightly, never taking his eyes off Jack Strong. “That'd be me, Ranger.”

“Maybe you'd like to tell me who you're working for, so I can have a conversation with him instead, since you're here to do this job and all. Get a notion of what might bring six gunfighters like yourselves to these parts.”