[Texas Rangers 02] - Badger Boy (3 page)

"He's got guts, paradin' himself that way."

"Ain't your fault he's got more guts than good sense. Shoot him."

"'Too easy. I'd take no honor in it."

"Honor, hell! There wasn't no honor in them killin' that woman and little girl."

The warrior brought his pony a little closer. Tanner became more agitated. "Looks to me like he's askin' for you to do it."

"He's darin' me to come out and meet him in the middle ground. I'm not a schoolboy. The only dares I pay attention to are the ones I give myself." He knew if he killed the young Comanche the others would turn back and do their damndest to kill
him
. They would stand a good chance of getting it done. The price would be one ranger for one Indian. There were already so many Indians, and so pitifully few rangers.

"We bloodied them some and spoiled their party. Won't do any harm to leave them somethin' they can brag about when they get home."

Home might be the broad and mysterious high plains of Texas, the land known as Comancheria, where the wild bands still roamed free. Or it might be a reservation set aside north of the Red River shortly before the war began between the states. It was under Federal jurisdiction, which meant that any Texan who strayed upon it and managed not to be killed by hostile Indians was subject to arrest as a Confederate belligerent unless he could convince the authorities that he was trying to escape Confederate service. In that case they were likely to impress him into the Union Army. Rusty saw no net gain in that. Though he did not want to fire upon the United States flag, he would not like to fire upon fellow Texans either.

He wished the only thing he ever had to shoot at was meat for the table.

Some men with more courage than scruples periodically invaded the reservation to steal Indian horses. That fanned Indian anger at all Texans and made them more eager than ever to raid south of the Red River. Some of these horse thieves were brush men, fugitives from Confederate conscription. They used aversion to the war as an excuse, but many would have been outlaws whether there had been a war or not. It was in their nature. They seemed indifferent to the misery their forays brought upon fellow citizens.

* * *

Rusty's horse stood relaxed in the camp corral, enjoying the brushing his owner gave his black hide. Rusty stood upwind so the breeze would not carry dust and loose hair into his face. Both horse and rider had been granted a rest after days out on patrol. Rusty examined Alamo for sign of scalds or saddle sores, a hazard when a horse was used long and hard. Out here a man took care of his mount before he took care of his own needs. Everything was too far away for walking.

Len Tanner paused in brushing his own horse and gazed to the east. He pointed with the brush. "You don't reckon that'd be a paymaster comin' yonder?"

"I think they've lost the map to this place." Rusty walked to the rail fence for a better look. He wondered if the rider would make it all the way into camp before his mount collapsed of fatigue. The animal was thin. The state provided little money to pay for grain, so horses had to subsist on whatever grass they could find. Only recently had showers begun to fall after two years of drought across most of Texas.

Half of the company had deserted during the winter and early spring. Rusty could not blame the men for saddling their horses in the dark of night and stealing away. They had not been paid in months. Confederate script found little favor among the merchants of nearby Fort Belknap town anyway, even those few who still boasted about their continuing enthusiasm for the Southern cause. The last time Rusty had been sent away to buy horses for the outfit, he had felt like a thief. The rangers had authority to take the horses with or without the owners' consent, paying with promissory notes on the state government. The paper was worth more than the promise. People could save it and write letters on the back.

Tanner said, "Maybe we ought to go see what's happenin'."

"Captain Whitfield'll call if he needs us." On patrol, Rusty was nominally in charge. Anything and everything was his business. In camp, Captain Whitfield was in command, and nothing was Rusty's business unless the captain saw fit to make it so. Whitfield was a large man who carried a navy Colt on his hip, a bottle of whiskey and a Bible in his saddlebag. He was accomplished in the use of all three.

The new arrival dismounted wearily in front of the captain's tent and tied his horse to a post. He leaned against the horse, stamping his feet to improve blood circulation in tired legs. His clothes were as ragged as those of the Fort Belknap rangers. Rusty thought he recognized him as a ranger from another company.

Tanner leaned against the fence, watching. "He don't look like no paymaster. A paymaster would steal at least enough to buy him a decent suit of clothes."

Rusty went back to brushing Alamo. He could feel the ribs without pressing hard. The horse needed a month's rest on grain and green grass, but he was no more likely to get it than Rusty was to receive the pay rightfully due him.

Presently he saw Captain Whitfield walk to the mess tent and ring a bell that was normally sounded at mealtime. It was only the middle of the afternoon. Rusty jerked his head as a signal to Tanner, but Tanner had already dropped his brush in a wooden tack box and was on his way to the corral gate, burning with curiosity.

Reluctantly Rusty laid his brush aside. More Indians, he thought. He had not caught up on sleep since the last skirmish.

The company was down to a fraction of its normal strength because of desertions and a shortage of men willing and able to put up with the privations of frontier service. Of those still in the company, more than half were out on patrol.

Whitfield was middle-aged and broad of hip. He would probably run to belly if ranger rations were not perpetually meager and duty hours long. As it was he probably would not render out two pounds of fat. He tugged at a bushy, unkempt mustache while he watched seven men amble up in no particular hurry and cluster around him. Two squatted on their heels. Army officers had admonished Whitfield several times about his company's lack of military order, but he paid no more attention to them than to the buzzing of flies around the corrals. He considered it absurd to require the men to stand in a straight line or at attention. All that mattered was that they listen to him, whether he was giving orders or reading to them from the Book.

Whitfield had formerly been a sergeant and had taken over the company soon after the outbreak of war. He had inherited the captaincy when the former commanding officer, August Burmeister, had ridden north to join the Union Army. Rusty had never heard Whitfield express favor for either side in the conflict. He suspected that, like himself, Whitfield had chosen frontier service rather than take up arms against the Union. The compromise gave ease to a conscience torn between two loyalties.

Whitfield's eyes were troubled. "Boys, I've been brought some bad news."

Tanner asked, "We've lost the war?"

"Not yet, though it looks like the end is upon us, praise the Lord. Reason I've called you together is to tell you the conscription officers are on their way again."

Rusty saw nothing new in that. Conscription officers had come several times before, trying to persuade younger rangers to resign from frontier duty and join the Confederate Army. They usually left with a recruit or two.

Whitfield said, "The war has taken a bad turn, so they're grabbin' everybody they can get. Frontier service won't keep them from takin' you now if you're halfways young and not too crippled to walk or ride a horse." His gaze fastened on Rusty. "I know some of you never did have strong feelin's for the Richmond government."

Whitfield had read Rusty's mind a long time ago.

The captain said, "The position I'm in, I can't be givin' you advice. Anybody wants to leave before the conscript officers get here, I ain't stoppin' him. Just don't take any horse that don't belong to you." He stood a moment to let the message soak in, then strode back to his tent.

A tingle ran up Rusty's back. He listened to a rising buzz of conversation around him.

A young ranger said, "If they want me that bad, I reckon I'll go. War ought not to last much longer anyway."

Another responded, "They'll have to chase me plumb to Mexico."

Rusty listened to the two men argue, but they were no help to him in making up his mind. He walked to Whitfield's tent and found the captain sitting at a table, where a Bible lay open. In violation of standing orders, Whitfield was pouring whiskey from a bottle into a streaked glass. He looked up.

"Have a drink, Shannon?"

"No, thank you, Captain. I want to keep my mind clear."

"Mine is too damned clear already. I don't understand what Richmond is thinkin' of. There's women and children dyin' out here because they ain't left enough fightin' men to protect them. Now they want to take even more for a war they're fixin' to lose anyway."

"Those people back in Richmond never saw a Comanche. They don't realize the problem."

"The Book tells about times of tribulation. Lord help us, we're damned sure livin' in one." Whitfield took the contents of the glass in one swallow.

"Captain, I need to tell you ..."

"Don't. Don't tell me a thing. What I don't know, I can't answer for. Just do whatever you feel is right and don't allow anybody else to sway your judgment."

Rusty rarely let anyone do that. "If the conscription officers find most of the company gone, they're liable to bear down hard on you."

Whitfield snorted. "What can they do? I'm too old to be sent to the army. They can't fine me because I'm as broke as the rest of you. I doubt they'd shoot me. So what's left except to send me home? I'm ready to shuck it all and go back to the farm anyhow."

"You've been a good officer. I'm proud I got to serve with you."

"Get you some grub out of the mess tent. You can't travel far hungry."

"Just a little salt, a little flour. I can probably scare up enough game to keep me in meat."

"I wish I could trade you out of that good black horse, but you'll need him worse than I do." Whitfield extended a large, rough hand.

Rusty went to the tent he shared with Tanner and several others. He rolled his bedding and his few clothes—a woolen coat, an extra shirt no less patched than the one he wore, a pair of trousers with one knee out. His small war bag held his razor and a few incidentals.

When he had first come to Belknap from the Shannon farm down on the Colorado River, he had brought considerably more with him. He had led a pack mule named Chapultepec, which his foster father, Daddy Mike Shannon, had brought home from the Mexican War. The mule was old now, but not too old to suit a deserter named Lancer, who had ridden away on him a couple of months ago.

This was one of the few times Rusty had ever seen Len Tanner looking solemn. "Where do you figure on goin', Rusty?"

"Ain't had time to figure. I just want to be gone before the conscription outfit shows up." He was reluctant to part with his longtime friend. He had few friends anymore and no family at all. "I'd be right pleased if you went with me."

Tanner considered. "I've thought about lightin' out, but like as not I'd either run into the conscript officers or the Comanches. The army might not be so bad. Maybe they'll feed better, and pay us to boot."

"I wouldn't bet a wore-out pocketknife on that."

"You can't cross the Red River onto the Indian reservation. They'd give you a Comanche haircut before your horse dried off. Some folks have run away to Mexico, but that's a far piece from here."

"I'd be a lost child in Mexico. All the Spanish I know is a few cusswords Daddy Mike brought home from the Mexican War. Reckon I'll just drift west and hope nobody is interested enough to trail me."

"You're liable to come up against some of them brush men hidin' out in the thickets. They'd as soon kill a ranger as look at him. Instead, why don't you slip down to that farm of yours on the Colorado River and marry that Monahan girl?"

Rusty warmed to the thought of Geneva Monahan. The truth was that he had already considered that possibility, but he chose not to tell Tanner. He did not want to cause his friend a conflicted conscience should the authorities press him with questions. He reached out his hand. "Be careful, Len. Don't let some Comanche lift your hair or some Yankee sharpshooter bring you down."

"Nobody's ever killed me yet."

* * *

He built a small fire in the bottom of a dry buffalo wallow, hoping it could not be seen from a distance. He did not need it for warmth but only for broiling a slice of hindquarter from an antelope his rifle had brought down. He made a poor sort of bread dough by mixing a bit of flour with water and a pinch of salt, then curling it around a stick to hold over the coals. He wished for coffee, but the war had made it scarce. Most Texans were substituting parched grain or doing without. He did not even have grain.

Before it was good and dark, when he was through, he would kill the fire. He doubted that conscription officers would be so bold as to prowl about this far from protection. There was always a risk that Comanche eyes might discover the flames, though he had seen no sign of Indians.

While he waited for his simple supper, the full weight of his situation settled upon him like a heavy shroud. He had not felt so achingly alone since he had buried Daddy Mike beside Mother Dora and turned his back on the Colorado River farm where he had spent his growing-up years. The ranger company had been a family of sorts, though its members came and went. Almost the only constants had been Len Tanner and Captain Whitfield.

His thoughts drifted to another family far away, and to the wisp of a girl named Geneva Monahan. Someday, if peace was ever allowed to settle over the land, he intended to marry her just as Tanner had suggested. Then once again he would have a family of his own. From here, and for now, that seemed a long time off.

He had ridden west from camp, intending to confuse anyone bold enough to trail after him. Tomorrow he would find a place where hard ground or thick grass should lose his tracks, then he would turn southward. To travel much farther west would take him to the escarpment marking the eastern edge of the staked plains, still the hunting grounds of free-roaming Comanche and Kiowa bands. To venture onto those broad plains alone was to flirt with death, either to wander lost and succumb to thirst or to be cut down by arrow or lance.