Ole Devil and the Caplocks (10 page)

“How is he, Doc?” Ole
Devil inquired, having moved forward and stopped at the girl’s
side. His left hand gave her right bicep a gentle squeeze of
encouragement.

“He’ll pull through, but
it’s bad enough to keep him off his feet for a while,” Kimberley
answered, in the accent of a well-educated Englishman, without
taking his attention from his work. “Joe’s got a bad graze on his
forehead. The bullet just touched and glanced off. It knocked him
from his horse and stunned him, but he was lucky. Another inch, or
less— Lie still, sir.”

The last words were
directed at Brindley. Having opened his eyes, the old man was
stirring and tried to sit up.

“Goddamn it!” Brindley
gritted, as Kimberley enforced the request by pushing at his
shoulders. “Get your cotton-picking hands of fen—”

“
You
hush your mouth and do like he says, blast it!” Di yelped,
springing forward and dropping to her knees at the other side of
her grandfather. Spitting the words out almost breathlessly in her
anxiety, she continued, “This gent knows what he’s about and
there’s nothing you can do yet a-whiles.”

“That’s better,” Kimberley
went on, when his patient subsided more from agony-induced weakness
than through any desire to be cooperative. He indicated a bulky,
open saddlebag by his side, “I’ve got something in here will ease
the pain.”

“N—No—drugs for me!”
Brindley protested feebly and managed to focus his eyes upon his
granddaughter. “Damn it, Di-gal, they shot ole Whitey—”

“I saw,” the girl admitted
bitterly.

“Y—You—kn—know—what—that
means?” the old man demanded.

“If I don’t, you’ve sure
as hell wasted a heap of time raising me,” Di replied. “Which you
haven’t. So you just lie still while I go tend to
things.”

“Lemme come and—” Galton
put in.

“
I don’t
reckon you’d be a whole heap of help right now,” Di answered,
looking at the speaker. “So stay put, blast you. Ain’t nothing you
can do that I can’t, not’s needs tending to right now anyway. I’ll
see to things and the boys’ll tell me what’s
happened.”

“
Hell,
I’m not hurt all that bad!” the
cargador
objected, but his voice
lacked conviction and his attempt to force himself away from the
support given by the soldier’s knee achieved nothing. Giving a low
groan, he sank down again and raised a hand to his head. Trying to
speak lightly, he went on, “I feel like I’ve just woke up after a
night at Mama Rosa’s cantina. So I wouldn’t be a heap of help.
Damned if you wasn’t right, Di-gal.”

“
I
never figured’s I wasn’t,” the
girl pointed out, returning her attention to Brindley and wagging
her right forefinger in front of his face. “You do what the doc
here says, mind. And that goes for you, Joe Galton.” Having
delivered her instructions, she looked at Kimberley and continued
in milder tones, “Happen this pair of worthless goats give you any
trouble, Doc, treat ’em like I do when they make fuss for
me.”

“How would that be, young
lady?” the Englishman inquired, removing some of the contents from
his saddlebag.

“
Same
thing’s I do with the mules, which there’s not a whole heap of
difference ’tween ’em,” Di elaborated. “Whomp ’em over the head
with something heavy and’s won’t matter happen it gets
busted.”

“
By
Jove! That strikes me as being a sound piece of medical advice,”
Kimberley declared, darting a glance filled with approbation at the
girl. He could sense the deep emotional stress that she was
experiencing and felt admiration for the way in which she kept it
under control.

“Like they say,” Di
replied, straightening up. “You can do most anything with kindness,
‘less you’re dealing with mules —or men.” Her gaze swung to Ole
Devil. “You fixing to stand here jawing for the rest of the
day?”

“It’s a thought,” the
Texian answered. “But I wouldn’t get any peace from you if I did,
so I’ll go and do some work.”

“And not before time,” Di
sniffed.

“I don’t know why he left
England,” Ole Devil remarked to the girl as they were walking
through the bushes. “But he’s a damned good doctor.”

“I could see that, or
you’d have heard me yelling,” the girl stated and glared at the
dead horse. “Goddamn it Devil if—”

“I’ll be talking to Maxime
about coming away from the train,” Ole Devil promised and, in spite
of the gentle way that he was speaking, his face became even more
Satanic.

“It wasn’t his fault, damn
it,” Di protested, realizing that her comment had been
misinterpreted and her sense of fair play demanded that the error
must be corrected. “You put those boys you sent under Grandpappy
Ewart’s orders and it was him, not ole Charlie Maxime’s said they
should head back to the bay and try to trap the renegades a-’tween
us.”

“Yes,” Ole Devil conceded.
“But—”

“
There’s
no son-of-a-bitching ‘but’ about it!” the girl interrupted. “What
in hell’s use is it you giving a feller orders to take orders from
somebody, then expecting him to pick and choose which of ’em he
takes?”

“You’re right,” Ole Devil
admitted, his lips twitching into a smile that he did not feel like
giving. Again he gave Di’s arm a gentle squeeze, for he shared
Kimberley’s feelings about her. “And saying what should have been,
or laying blame, isn’t going to change what happened. It’s how
we’re affected and what’s going to need doing now that counts.
First, though, we better find out how it came about.” He raised his
voice, “Corporal Anchor!”

“Yo!” responded a
medium-size and thickset soldier, rising and ambling swiftly toward
his superior.

“What happened?” Ole Devil
inquired, acknowledging the other’s salute.

“
I don’t
know, Cap’n,” Anchor replied. “We heard shooting’s we was coming
back. But by the time we came into sight, it was all over. Ewart
and young Joe Galton were down and the fellers who’d done it had
lit out like the devil after a yearling. So Charlie Maxime sent me
with Doc Kimberley and half of the boys to stand guard, then went
after ’em with the rest.”

While the brief
conversation was taking place, a tall, well-made and
middle-aged
Tejas
Indian approached from where he and his companions were
attending to the mules. Dressed in buckskins and knee-high
moccasins like the rest of the mule packers, he had on a
high-crowned, wide-brimmed black hat with an eagle’s tail feather
in its band. He was armed with a big knife on his belt and had a
“Plains” rifle across the crook of his left arm. There was
something dignified and commanding about him and he showed none of
the servility or debauchery which characterized many of his tribe
who lived and worked in close contact with Mexicans or Anglo-Saxon
colonists.

The same applied to all of
Brindley’s Indian employees, even Waldo, the aged cook, who
occasionally went on a drinking spree. All had avoided the
“civilizing” influence of the missions. Tough, hardy and capable,
the old man, his granddaughter and
cargador
treated them with respect
and they reciprocated by being loyal and hardworking.

“
How
Ewart ’n’ Joe?” the man asked in a guttural voice. “I see white
feller know what him doing and tell him take them in bushes in case
bad hombres come back.”

“
They
will both be all right,” Di answered, speaking
Tejas
fluently.
“What happened, Tom?”

“We were tricked,” replied
Tom Wolf, the chief of the mule packers, reverting to his native
tongue.

“Tell me about it,
please,” the girl requested.

Keeping his face
impassive, but speaking with a vehemence that was obvious to Ole
Devil even though he did not understand the language, Tom Wolf
complied. He could speak passable English, but felt—as did Di—that
he could make a more thorough explanation in his own tongue. So Di
listened and translated for the young Texian’s benefit.

According to Tom Wolf,
Sergeant Maxime had not been to blame for leaving the mule train.
The non-com had been reluctant to do so, but Brindley insisted. On
the face of it, the decision had been correct; or at least
justifiable under the circumstances as they had known them. There
was nothing suspicious about the way that the two strangers had
divulged their information. In fact, it had come up in what seemed
a natural manner. They claimed to have seen a woman, who looked to
have been in a fight, leading a group of men towards the coast. Not
having cared for the appearance of the party, they had kept out of
sight and made their examination with the aid of a telescope. On
coming into view of the train they had concluded that—as its escort
were soldiers—they would be advised to ride over and give a
warning. They were, they had said, on their way west to join
Houston and the Republic of Texas’s Army.

Although Brindley had
dispatched his military escort, in the hope of trapping the
renegades, he did not accept his informants at face value. After
they had ridden away, he told Tom Wolf to follow them. If they were
working in cahoots with the woman and her band, such a possibility
had been anticipated. Certainly they had neither turned back nor
acted in a suspicious fashion up to the time that the sound of
shooting from the rear had caused the
Tejas
chief to give up his
observation and return.

Like the soldiers, Tom
Wolf had arrived too late to participate in the fighting. Nor, much
as he had wished to do so, was he able to go after his employer’s
assailants. Instead, he had remained with the mules and left the
other task to Sergeant Maxime. In addition to attending to his
duties, he had learned how the attack had taken place. The mule
train was approaching the stream when a packer had seen a number of
riders on a rim about half a mile to the south.

While the newcomers had
behaved in a menacing fashion, they were only acting as a
diversion. Four of their number had been concealed in a grove of
post oaks less than a quarter of a mile to the north. As the
exposed group approached, but before they had come into range of
the defenders’ weapons, the hidden men opened fire to hit Brindley,
the
cargador
and
the gray mare. Having done so, they withdrew and the threat of a
charge, which was not launched, by their companions prevented the
packers from giving chase.

“
The men
would have gone after them when the others rode away, but I stopped
them,” Tom Wolf concluded. “I could see the soldiers coming and
knew we must look after Ewart, Joe and the
mules.”

“You acted with wisdom,
Chief,” declared Ole Devil, to whom the words had been directed in
English. “I don’t doubt the courage of your braves, or that you
would have preferred to avenge the shooting of your
friends.”

“Do you want us to make
camp here, Di?” asked the Indian, but the girl could see he was
appreciative of and relieved by the young Texian’s
statement.

“It’s all we can do.” Di
sighed, anger clouding her expressive face. After Tom Wolf had
turned to go and give the necessary orders, she swung toward Ole
Devil. “Goddamn it, even though they didn’t scatter the mules like
they was hoping, they couldn’t have done worse to us than they
did.”

“They did just what they
meant to do,” the Texian answered.

“You mean all they was
fixing to do was down Grandpappy Ewart and Joe?” the girl
demanded.

“That was the idea, but
they were told to shoot the bell mare as well,” Ole Devil replied.
“Whoever planned the ambush must have been around mules enough to
know that, especially with a well trained team like this, they’d
bunch and balk, but wouldn’t scatter under fire, particularly with
old Whitey down. From what you’ve told me, they won’t move without
her to lead them.”

“They won’t,” Di
confirmed, realizing what her companion was driving at.

Being hybrids, resulting
from the crossing of a male donkey with a female horse, mules were
only rarely capable of breeding. For all that, they tended to find
the company of a mare irresistible. It was a trait which packers,
handling large numbers of the animals, turned to their advantage.
The mules would follow a mare all day without needing to be
fastened together and, apparently soothed by a bell fastened around
her neck, were content to remain close to her all night instead of
requiring tying when on the trail.

“So, by dropping her,
they’ve prevented us from collecting the consignment,” Ole Devil
continued. “There weren’t enough of the renegades to tackle the
train, especially if their amigos didn’t manage to persuade at
least part of the escort to leave it. Even with all of Sergeant
Maxime’s detail headed for the bay, they wouldn’t be willing to
risk their lives making a straightforward attack. They’re fighting
for what they can get out of it, not because of patriotism, and
wouldn’t take too many chances. I’ll say one thing, though,
Madeline de Moreau must be very persuasive to get them to do as
much as they did.”