[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line (6 page)

Shannon rode in close, drawing a pistol because he had not had time to reload the rifle. He gave the woman a hard look. Webb feared for a moment that he might shoot her.

"Spare her," Webb said.

"Less'n she makes a move toward you." He frowned. "Got your arm busted, looks like. Better let me carry the boy. White, ain't he?" He leaned down and drew the lad up in front of him in the saddle.

The woman pleaded in words Webb did not comprehend, though her expression told him she did not want to give up the child. Knowing she would not understand, he felt compelled nevertheless to try to explain. "The lad has people somewhere. He needs to be back with his own kind."

The mare had risen to her feet and was walking shakily. Webb motioned toward the woman, then toward the mare. "You'd best be slippin' away while you can."

She understood his motions if not his words. She hopped upon the mare's back. Crying, she made one last plea, holding out her arms. Shannon turned the boy away from her. She gave up and moved westward in the direction of the general runaway, though she kept looking hack at the boy in Shannon's arms.

A volunteer rode up, eyes ablaze with excitement, sweat running down his face into a stubble of beard. His hands were bloody, but the blood did not appear to be his own. He pointed toward the fleeing woman. "Ain't you goin' to shoot her?"

Shannon said, "I never shoot women without I have to."

"Indian women make babies, and babies grow up to do murder. If you ain't goin' to shoot her, I will."

Shannon set the boy down upon the ground and eased the muzzle of his rifle in the horseman's direction. "Do and you'll answer to me."

The man's face went scarlet. "You wouldn't shoot me over a Comanche squaw.

Shannon's voice was crisp. "I might. And then again, 'y God, I might just whip the hell out of you."

The man lowered his weapon. "One day her sons'll come to take your scalp, and you'll wish you'd killed her before she bore them."

"'They've got plenty of fightin' men left up yonder if you're bound on more killin'. Go get
them
."

The fight, what was still left of it, had swept on past. "I figure to." The volunteer looked down at the boy on the ground. "You takin' Indian boys to raise, are you?"

"Look closer. He ain't an Indian."

The rider's eyes reflected surprise. "Good thing he ain't, because I'd be of a mind to kill him before he has a chance to grow up and kill me and mine." He rode on.

Shannon watched until the man was swallowed up in the dust. He turned back to Webb. "Yonder's a bunch of men gathered. Maybe there's a doctor amongst them. Your arm needs lookin' after."

Webb carried a medical book in his saddlebags with his Bible and administered limited physical aid along his circuit because real doctors were scarce in settlements beyond the main towns like San Antonio and Houston. But he doubted he had the fortitude to set his own broken bone. He mounted, careful not to use the left arm.

Shannon rode up to the small group of Texans. "Anybody recognize this young'un?"

No one did.

"What's your name, lad?" Webb asked.

The boy did not reply. Webb repeated the question. "What do your folks call you, your daddy and mama?"

The boy murmured, "Davy. Me Davy."

"What do they call your mama? And your daddy?"

"Mama. Daddy."

He saw that further questions would yield nothing. The boy was too young to know his family name.

Shannon inquired about a doctor but found there was none, at least not in this group. A young man with an upturned moustache and a German accent said, "Is best we bind that arm anyway, so it will not stay always crooked."

Webb came near fainting as the German pulled the arm straight, then tore a long strip of blue cloth off a bolt that had fallen from a pack animal. He bound it around a temporary splint, a rough piece of live-oak limb. Webb broke out in a cold sweat, his body trembling. But he managed to keep his head as the young man hurried the task.

"August Burmeister is not doctor, but the arm will not crooked be."

Shannon was impressed. "Where'd you learn to do up a broken arm like that?"

"In the old country, in Westphalia. I was a soldier in the army."

"How come you to be in Texas?"

"I did not like to be a soldier in the army. In the old country they tell of Texas. When they do not watch, I walk out to the
niederland
and the sea. On a boat I come to Galveston, to look for myself."

"Hell of a sight you're seein' here." The sounds of battle trailed away to distant spotty firing. Shannon said, "We gave them a royal whippin', 'y God. There'll be a trail of Comanche bones all the way to the mountains. They'll study long before they ever come this far again."

Evening fell. The arm throbbed, and Webb knew he was running a fever. He and Shannon shared a camp with the Blessing brothers and a small gathering of volunteer rangers in the service of the republic. Nearby, another group sang and shouted. The Tonkawa scouts who had accompanied the white men on their punitive strike were celebrating victory. Webb wondered how one tribe could be induced to aid the "Texans in their fight against other Indians. The only answer he could see was that they did not consider themselves to be of the same people despite the fact that white men regarded them that way. The Tonkawas, a small and vulnerable tribe, saw the Texans as allies in their long struggle against domination by the stronger and far more numerous Comanches.

Shannon went over to watch but did not remain long. He came back, looking a little pale. "They're roastin' meat over yonder."

Webb was aware of that, for it smelled good. He assumed the Tonkawas had cut up one of the horses or mules killed in the fight.

Shannon asked, "Did you notice that some of them dead Comanches had their limbs chopped off?"

Webb had not. His broken arm had taken precedence over other considerations.

Shannon said, "Right now them Tonks are feastin' on the haunch off of a Comanche. They've got a couple of hands and a foot roastin' on the coals."

Webb thought at first that Shannon was joshing him, but his friend's expression was serious. Shannon said, "They invited me to join them. I said I was already full."

The Tonkawas had a reputation as cannibals, eating flesh from their enemies in ceremonial rites. This trait they shared with another coastal tribe, the Karankawas, who had been implacably hostile to the first settlers and by now had been hunted almost to extinction. It was said other tribes held Tonkawas and Karankawas in contempt for their consumption of human flesh and gladly killed them on sight.

Webb shuddered. He wished he had not smelled the roast on the Tonkawa fire. "Praise God they're our friends and not our enemies."

"Me and you wouldn't suit them much as enemies. We'd be too tough and stringy to eat." Shannon turned his attention to the rescued boy with the reddish hair. "What we goin' to do with him, Preacher?"

"Nothin' we
can
do except ride back over the trail the Indians left and ask if anybody knows him."

"Chances are that the Comanches killed his folks when they stole him."

Webb felt his throat pinch with pity. He had considered that probability. "If we can't turn up his family we'll have to find somebody who'll give him a good home."

Shannon seated himself on the fallen trunk of a lightning-struck live oak and lifted the youngster up into his lap. "Davy, is it? Nice name. He'll be a good-lookin' young'un when he gets his face washed. That rusty-colored hair means he'll be a fighter someday. Reckon he's Irish?"

Webb was pleased that Shannon was warming to the boy. "All I know is that he's not Comanche."

"He'll be needin' a woman's care. My Dora'd be right pleased to keep him 'til we find his own folks."

"And if we don't find them?"

A fly buzzed around the boy's face. Shannon brushed it away. "Dora always wanted a big family, but as you know, she ain't been able to bear. She'd take this young'un as her own and be glad for the chance."

"I'd keep him myself, only I've got no wife to see after him. I couldn't take him on the circuit with me, and I couldn't leave him."

"Then it's settled. This boy'll be good company for Dora. We'll treat him like he was born to us and give him a good Christian raisin'. That's a promise, 'y God."

Exhausted, the red-haired youngster drifted off to sleep in Shannon's arms. The Irishman smiled.

Webb tried to smile too, but his arm hurt too much.

COLORADO RIVER, 1859
.

Rusty Shannon realized the morning was off to a bad beginning when he stepped out onto the open dog run of the double log cabin and saw that the mule team was not in the corral. He had personally penned them last night so he could get a daylight start in the field. They had included a big gray mule named Old Zach, one of a pair Daddy Mike Shannon had brought home from the Mexican War. The mule was smart as paint, but it had never learned to untie a knot in a rawhide string or push open a heavy gate that always dragged the ground and strained a man's muscles to lift and move it.

Rusty trotted out to the pen and saw the gate slumped half open, dead weight against its leather hinges. Leaning down to pick up the rawhide strip, he saw that it had been cut. He became aware of moccasin tracks, and his heartbeat quickened. Instinct made him look up, his gaze sweeping the open ground between the cabin and the river. His stomach, warm and full from a breakfast of coffee and cornbread, honey and venison, seemed to do a quick turnover.

"Daddy! Daddy Mike!"

He had taken to calling his foster father
Dad
; it sounded more mature. But in a moment of excitement he reverted to the name he had used since boyhood.

He started back toward the cabin in a hard run. Mike Shannon limped out of the kitchen onto the open dog run, one arthritis-knotted hand raised to shield his eyes from the rising sun. His graying whiskers had not felt a razor in a week or more. His thick gray hair was disheveled, for he had not taken time to use a comb. He combed his hair only for company, and he had no reason to expect any.

"What's all the noise, young'un? Fox been amongst the chickens again?"

Rusty was too old to be called
young'un
, but he supposed Mike would hold to the habit as long as he lived. No one knew Rusty's age, exactly. The best guess was that he should be a year or so on the far side of twenty.

"Indians, Dad. Indians got the mules."

Mike Shannon snorted. "Ain't seen an Indian here since . . ." He did not finish the sentence. He had seen a lot of Indians in his time, most of them over the sights of a rifle. He had been in so many skirmishes that they tended to run together. When he began telling about them, one incident often became mixed with another. He contended that the fine details did not matter so much as the innate truth and spirit of the story. Even a village idiot could cite dry facts.

Michael Shannon hobbled out to meet Rusty and accompany him back to the corral. He had come home from the Mexican War a dozen years ago with two mules and a sense of duty fulfilled. But he had gone off on an Indian campaign a year or so ago and came home with a wounded leg that still pained him every day. He had had to lean heavily upon Rusty to work this farm that the state of Texas had awarded him for service. Texas had little cash to pay its volunteers, so they often went unpaid despite the best intentions of governor and legislature. But it had land aplenty. It sometimes settled its debts with real estate.

Mother Dora came out onto the dog run, arms folded as if they were cold, thin shoulders slumped. She had been ill of late for no specific reason that met the eye. Preacher Webb was the nearest thing to a doctor within a day's ride, when he was not off to some distant point carrying the Scriptures to the farthermost settlers. Webb knew a lot about poultices and potions, but he could not fathom what was wrong with her. Country women tended to age rapidly on the frontier. An old saying declared that Texas was heaven for men and horses but hell for women and dogs. She had simply worn her self out, for a woman's work began before daylight and did not end until she crawled into bed, exhausted.

Rusty asked no foolish questions. He preferred to figure things out for himself or leave them alone. He handed Mike the cut string. "Look at the moccasin tracks."

Mike said, "Them thievin' rascals." A hint of admiration crept into his voice. "Snuck up here in the night, 'y God, and got off with them mules without us hearin' a thing." He squinted at Rusty. "You
didn't
hear anything, did you?"

"No, sir. I'd've raised a holler." For a fleeting moment Rusty wondered if Mike might think he heard but was scared to do anything about it. Mike should know him better than that. Rusty never went looking for a fight but did not run from one if it came looking for him. He had learned from Mike that skinned knuckles heal, but wounded pride just festers.

It struck Rusty that the family's brown dog should have raised a ruckus. It never let so much as a raccoon approach the place at night without sounding an alarm. Sometimes, lacking anything else to bark at, it just barked at the moon. He found the dog lying in the grass, an arrow driven deeply into its body. It might have barked a little before it was struck, but no one in the cabin would have paid attention if the racket stopped quickly.

Mike tugged at the arrow. It was too deeply embedded to be pulled out easily. He examined the shaft. "Comanche."

Comanche
was a word that sent a chill up a man's back. It traveled up Rusty's and down again.

Mike grumbled, "A fool dog he was, but good company." He wasted but a moment in regret. "We're not rich enough that we can afford to furnish work stock to the Comanche nation. Ain't but one thing to do, and that's go after them, 'y God."

"Afoot?" Rusty asked.

"I saw our horses grazin' down by the river just at sundown. Maybe them redskin thieves missed them in the dark. You go see."