[Texas Rangers 03] - The Way of the Coyote (18 page)

"Andy?" Rusty squinted, trying to see better. It seemed to him that his vision was not completely recovered from several days' fever caused by the wound. "What do you suppose—"

Tanner said, "It won't be good news. Nobody travels this far to tell you somethin' you want to hear."

Rusty walked out to meet Andy as he neared the barn. Webb, Purdy, and Tanner followed him. Andy was riding an unfamiliar sorrel and leading Alamo. The black horse had never been used as a pack animal before. It was probably a wound to his pride, Rusty thought.

Andy drew rein but seemed reluctant to dismount. His dark expression indicated that Tanner had been right. Rusty asked, "What's wrong back home? Somebody killed?"

Andy said, "Not yet, but somebody ought to be." He swung a moccasined foot over the sorrel's back and dropped to the ground. He licked dry lips and looked toward the cistern at a corner of the house. "I sure need a drink of water. Used up my canteen a good ways back."

He drank two dippersful, then poured a third over his head. "Rusty, they've taken your farm away from you."

Rusty's first reaction was disbelief. "They can't do that." But doubt set in. He felt as if Andy had struck him with the butt of a rifle. "How could they?"

"The Oldhams came out with some papers that said they could. Told me if I didn't want a good quirtin' I'd better hit the trail in a trot. So I trotted." He rubbed a hand across his face. "I already had a taste of Buddy's quirt."

"What became of Shanty?"

"He went with Tom Blessing. We cleaned out the cabin, and Tom hauled off everything that wasn't nailed down tight. Said him and his boys would gather all your stock they could find and try to get them out of the Oldhams' reach."

"Good old Tom. I never had a better friend." Rusty glanced at Webb and Tanner. "Except you-all."

Andy said, "Wasn't nothin' we could do about the land, though. We couldn't move that."

Rusty felt a weight growing heavy and cold in his stomach. He told Andy, "You did what you could. That's all anybody could ask. Maybe there's somethin' we can still do about the land." At the moment he had no idea what that might be.

Andy said, "I asked Tom. He didn't know of anything. The law goes along with whatever the Oldhams want to do."

Tanner declared, "There's one thing we can do. We can shoot us a couple of Oldhams and tell the law they bit one another like rattlesnakes."

Preacher Webb watched with misgivings, probably wondering if Rusty took Tanner seriously. Rusty said, "Don't worry, Preacher. I found out a long time ago that a shootin' doesn't settle anything. It just muddies up the water."

Andy grimaced. "One more thing I hate to tell you. The Oldhams were followin' me, at least at the beginnin'."

"You reckon they still are?"

"I saw them turn back, but they might not have stayed turned back. They wanted you awful bad."

Tanner said, "If they're still comin', we ought to go and meet them. Nobody would ever have to know what went with them. Not many would even ask."

Webb pointed out, "That would not get Rusty's farm back. If the Oldhams disappeared it would revert to the government."

Tanner complained, "Every time I come up with a good idea, somebody shoots a hole in it."

Webb said, "You'd best go to the house, Andy. I expect you're hungry. We'll take care of your horses."

Rusty looked at the sorrel. It was unfamiliar to him. "Where'd you get him?"

Andy said, "Jeremiah Brackett brought him to pay for the roan his son took. He's a heap sight better horse than that roan was. You can be proud of him."

Rusty shook his head. "No,
you
be proud of him. He's yours."

Andy grinned, but the grin did not last long. "We'd better keep watchin' for them Oldhams."

* * *

Len Tanner came the next morning to warn of approaching strangers. Standing on the porch, eyes pinched, Rusty counted seven horsemen. "You don't reckon the Oldhams have fetched along a posse?"

Tanner grunted. "Might figure that's the only way they can drag you away from this place."

When the riders were close enough, Rusty determined that the Oldhams were not among them. A gray-bearded man of military bearing rode slightly ahead of the others. Something about him struck Rusty as familiar.

"Captain Burmeister!" he yelled.

The leader gave Rusty a moment's close scrutiny. "Private Shannon?" He shifted his gaze. "And Private Tanner, if my memory correct is."

There was no mistaking the voice and the accent, or the gray mustache turned up on the ends in the Prussian military style. Rusty and Tanner had served in a ranger company headed by Captain August Burmeister before the war began. After long service to Texas, Burmeister remained loyal to the Union and vocally opposed secession. He resigned at the outbreak of the conflict and rode north in hopes he could join a Federal army unit.

The old captain dismounted painfully, his legs stiff. He extended a gnarled hand, knuckles swollen with arthritis. "The time has been long, but no handsomer you are, either of you."

Rusty quickly surveyed the other six men. They had the grim and determined look he associated with those who enforced law. "Are you a state policeman now?" he asked.

Burmeister shook his head. "I am of a special ranging company set up by Governor Davis. Not rangers of the old kind, exactly, but also not state police. We are sent to the frontier to do what we can about the Indians."

James Monahan and Evan Gifford had walked out from the corral. Rusty introduced them to the captain, who remembered James from before. James said, "We hear about Indian trouble in other places, but there ain't been any around here lately."

Burmeister said, "Settlers have reported a raiding party not far from here. Comanches, they think. They have with them some stolen horses."

James pressed, "How close to here?"

"Reports say not far. A little south."

Andy had come out to listen. Rusty noticed that he seemed ill at ease. "Blood brothers of yours, Andy?"

With reluctance Andy said, "They could be. I ran across some Comanches on my way up here. They were the reason the Oldhams turned back."

Burmeister demanded, "You saw that? When, and how far from here?"

"Three days ago, two days' ride."

Rusty asked, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I figured they were on their way out of the country anyhow."

James declared, "They could be anyplace. And if you saw one bunch, there could be others."

Evan looked around quickly. "The pony's gone. Where's Billy?"

Tanner said, "The wagon team didn't come for feed last night. Vince said him and Billy was goin' out to find them and bring them in."

James's eyes narrowed with concern. "We'd better go fetch them back. If there's Comanches prowlin' about, we don't want to have anybody out there."

Evan did not wait. He ran to the corral to throw his saddle on a horse. Rusty started to follow, but James stopped him. "You're not in shape to ride. You and Preacher stay and look out for the womenfolks."

Rusty knew James was right. He did not argue.

Andy said firmly, "I'm goin'."

Rusty watched as Andy saddled the sorrel horse. "I wish you'd told us about the Indians," he said.

"They treated me good. I was afraid if folks went chasin' after them somebody was apt to get killed, white and Comanche both."

"I still wish you'd told us."

"This colonel, is he a good man to follow?"

"As good as ever won a commission."

James finished saddling. He told Rusty, "With any luck we'll be back in a little while. No use sayin' anything to Mama and them. It'd just get them all roused up. We can tell them about it when we've got Billy and Granddad back home."

Rusty watched them ride out ... James, Evan, Andy, Tanner, and the cowboy named Macy, who had made himself a home here since soon after the end of the war.

Turning, he saw that Preacher Webb had his head down, whispering a prayer.

A
ndy hung back a little, stricken with remorse. Hindsight told him he should have mentioned running into the Comanche party, but at the time it had seemed prudent not to do so. Horse Runner and the others had said they were on their way home. Whatever damage they had caused was over and done with. It could not be undone. Andy had seen nothing to be gained by setting off a pursuit that might result in casualties for both sides.

One of Burmeister's men quickly picked up the trail left by Purdy and Billy. Burmeister told James, "When we see that your people are safe, we will go on and try the Indians to find."

James said, "That wagon team has always been inclined to stray off, but they don't generally go far."

Because Tanner had put in lengthy service with Burmeister before the war, he took advantage of the opportunity to renew an old acquaintanceship. Riding beside the captain, he talked of his experiences and Rusty's in the intervening years. Tanner's natural tendency was to go into considerable detail, repeating some parts for emphasis and adding modest embellishments from time to time in the interests of a better story.

Burmeister told Tanner that after leaving the ranger post near Fort Belknap he had ridden up into Kansas and offered his services to the Union Army. His long years as a ranger had given him solid experience in campaigning. He had put this to use in training troops.

Tanner said, "I hope you wasn't with none of them Yankee outfits that kept tryin' to invade Texas." A few had succeeded, mainly along the lower Rio Grande, but others had been beaten back after paying a heavy price for their effort.

"Nein. Texas was too long my home. I asked not to raise arms against it."

"How come now you're servin' Governor Davis's carpetbag government?"

"The word
carpetbag
I do not like. An outsider I am not. The word
reconstruction
is better. It means to build back, to fix what is broken."

"Some are breakin' more than they fix." Tanner told what he knew about the confiscation of Rusty's farm.

Burmeister listened with interest. He said, "Too often those who stand first at the trough are those who did not the work or the fighting."

The tracker, forty yards out in front, raised his hand as a signal for a halt. He turned back, his expression grave. "Captain, you better come."

Andy did not like the look in the tracker's face. Neither did James and Evan, for they spurred out ahead of Burmeister. Andy trailed with the rest of Burmeister's men. He heard James shout in dismay and jump to the ground, then kneel beside a body.

Evan cried out in anguish, "Where's Billy? For God's sake, somebody find Billy."

Andy knew whose body it would be, though James and Evan and Tanner blocked it from his view.

Burmeister raised a hand. "Everybody else stay back. We must study the tracks."

Evan called out, "Billy! Billy, where are you?"

James covered Vince Purdy's bloodied face with his neckerchief, but not before Andy saw that the scalp had been taken. He felt stunned. His throat was blocked so that he could barely breathe. Misery settled over him like a suffocating blanket.

If only I had said something, he thought.

He had brought the Oldham trouble upon Rusty by something he had done. He had brought this trouble to the Monahans by something he had not done.

The tracker and Burmeister moved ahead of the others, searching the ground for a sign. Tanner joined them, for he had shown himself to be better than average at reading tracks. They conferred among themselves, then rode back to where James and Evan knelt beside Purdy's lifeless body.

Burmeister said, "I fear the boy is taken."

Tanner said, "There's his bootprints where he jumped down to see about Vince. And here you can see where they drug him a little ways. Then the prints stop. They must've put him back on his pony." Tanner looked at Andy. "They've taken him the same way they took you once, and like they took Rusty a long time ago."

Andy's eyes burned. For a while he wished he had let Tonkawa Killer finish him years ago.

Evan jumped to his feet, trembling. "We've got to catch them. We've got to get him back." He rubbed a hand across his eyes. "My God, how can I tell Geneva?"

James folded his grandfather's arms across the thin chest. "There ain't no easy way, but you've got it to do. Take Granddad home and tell her." He checked Purdy's pockets. "They even took his watch."

Evan said, "I can't go home now. I've got to find my boy."

James accepted his brother-in-law's decision. "All right, I'll go and help you." He turned to the cowboy Macy. "You take Granddad home. It'll be up to you to break the news to Mama and them. Andy, why don't you go with him?"

Andy had already made up his mind. He felt a heavy weight of guilt for what had happened. "You'll need me if there's parleyin' to be done. I can talk to them."

"I wish you'd parleyed with us about the Indians you saw."

Andy saw blame in James's eyes, or thought he did. He could understand that. James could not blame him half so much as he blamed himself.

Burmeister detailed one of his special rangers to go with Macy. "When you are done at the Monahans', you will go to the neighbors. Warn them. Tell them Indians prowl about."

The ranger made a poor excuse of a salute. "Yes sir, better to do it a little late than not do it at all." He looked straight at Andy. Andy looked at the ground.

Burmeister pointed his finger at the tracker, a gesture so small that Andy almost missed it. The tracker made a nod equally small and turned to pick up the tracks. Burmeister said, "Private Tanner, it comes back to me that you were better than fair at trailing."

"Yes sir, I was middlin' good."

"Then go forward and help Smith." He nodded toward the tracker. "Do not however get in his way. You are good, but he is better."

Tanner accepted this with an ironic smile, taking no offense.

Burmeister waited until Smith and Tanner were fifty yards ahead, then put his horse into an easy trot. The rest followed his example without his having to give an order. Burmeister beckoned Andy with a quick jerk of his head. "Ride beside me. We will talk."