[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line (19 page)

Tanner grinned. "You've got to kill a high class of criminal to get ahead. Poor folks never carry anything worth confiscatin'."

He pointed to a nearby tent, the canvas old and badly stained. Rusty suspected it leaked like fishing net, should rain ever chance to fall.

Tanner offered, "I'll help you carry your stuff."

There was not much of it, but Rusty accepted the offer, grateful for the welcoming manner. "What all does the company do?"

"Mainly just patrol, watchin' for sign of Indians comin' into the country. Most of the time it's dull and tiresome. Now and then we get a little excitement, like today when we thought we was about to do battle with a bunch of Comanche horse thieves. That one flickered out like a candle in the wind. Most of them do."

"What about Captain Burmeister? You get along with him all right?"

"Dutch? Sure. Don't let his way of talkin' fool you. He can't help it if he don't talk good like me and you. He came from someplace over in Europe ... Westphalia, he calls it. I don't know just where that is; I ain't been further than San Antonio myself. I just know that he was a soldier over there a long time ago, and he took French leave—snuck off and left them."

"I don't suppose he's ever snuck off and left this outfit."

"Never. A man smart as he is could be set real pretty by now if he'd put his mind to it. He's spent too much of his life volunteerin' and not enough takin' care of his own interests. Acts and thinks a little too much like a Yankee for some people's tastes, but he'd charge hell with a bucket of water. And most every man in this outfit would follow him into the fire."

Inside the tent Rusty saw several bedrolls spread on the ground. Tanner pointed to an open spot. "There's your bed."

"My bed?"

"You wasn't lookin' for a cot, was you? This ain't exactly the Monger Hotel. The rangers get bed and board from the state. It gives them ground to roll out their bed, and it lets them eat all the game they can shoot for theirselves."

"Mighty generous."

"Ain't as bad as it sounds. We get a payday now and again when the politicians in Austin don't spend it all first. Ain't much to waste it on anyway ... had whiskey, slow horses, loose women ugly as mud."

"But you're makin' it a better country to live in."

"Ask your Tonkawa friends about that. The way we've treated them, they might not agree."

Two rangers came riding in from patrol, one carrying a deer carcass tied behind his saddle. Tanner hailed them. "Looks like fresh venison again tonight. I'd give a month's pay for a bait of good salt pork."

Rusty had left some hanging in the smokehouse back home. The Gaskin family had probably sneaked over and stolen it all by now.

Tanner introduced him to Jim and Johnny Morris, brothers who had brought in the deer. They had the same ragged appearance as Tanner, though Jim wore a new buckskin shirt that seemed out of place with his frayed and patched woolen trousers. Tanner raked charred bits of wood from a shallow pit and coaxed a few sparks into blazing life amid a small pile of shavings.

He hung a coffeepot from a steel bar over the fire and melted deer fat in a skillet, preparatory to frying the meat. "I'm no more than a fair to middlin' shot, but I'm a pretty decent cook when I've got somethin' to work with."

Jim Morris commented, "He fixes a pretty fair possum."

Not all the rangers Rusty had seen around camp were as lank as Tanner, but none ran much to fat. He could easily see why.

As they finished the fried venison, Captain Burmeister walked over from his tent. He carried a notebook and pencil. "I must have information for Austin so you will be paid. Perhaps."

He ran his finger down a short list of questions, beginning with name and birth date. Rusty explained that he did not know his birth date or even his birth name, reminding Burmeister that he had been picked up on the battlefield at Plum Creek.

Burmeister said, "It makes no difference. A few men in this company know their true name but use another. I am at peace with it. Now I must ask—"

Tanner interrupted. "Pardon, Dutch, but look what's comin'."

Rusty turned as he heard horses approaching camp. Burmeister squinted, then uttered a few words of German that by their tone suggested profanity. Rusty quick-counted ten horsemen. He knew the man at the center and thought he recognized a couple of others.

"Caleb Dawkins," he said.

Burmeister gave Rusty a surprised look. "You know the colonel?"

"Met him. He spoiled a good supper a few nights ago."

"For me he has spoiled several. But he is a citizen. We must show respect." Burmeister walked out to receive Dawkins. His voice was edged with irony. "To what, Colonel, owe we this pleasure?"

"It's no pleasure for me, Burmeister. I have with me my son and several other men who just lost a large number of horses to raiding Indians. They barely escaped with their lives."

Rusty was certain now. At least one of the riders had been with Dawkins when he had threatened Lon. He turned his attention to two more who moved up almost even with the colonel. They had been among the thieves who had stolen horses from the Tonkawas. One was the young man called Pete, who had urged the point rider to kill Rusty and move on. The other was the point rider himself, who could have shot Rusty but chose not to. The point rider's eyes met Rusty's and locked on them. Recognition was immediate, and so was sudden fear. The young thief surreptitiously shook his head, silently pleading that Rusty not give him away.

Burmeister said, "We saw but one band. They were Tonkawas with federal escort. They had just recovered horses stolen by white renegades."

Rusty studied Dawkins, wondering if the colonel knew the truth or if the thieves had duped him. Nothing in the man's expression gave a solid indication either way.

Dawkins said, "Did you have anything more than their word that the horses they took had been stolen?"

"The word of a federal officer."

"Federal officer!" Dawkins spoke the words like a curse. "I had rather trust a gypsy horse trader." He turned to the young man beside him, the one called Pete. "That wouldn't be the same Indians you told me about, would it, son?"

The reply was so quick it overlapped the question. "No sir, Papa, the ones that chased us was sure as hell Comanches. And the horses they took was mine, bought and paid for over east. We wouldn't lie to you."

The young point rider looked again at Rusty, silently begging. The one called Pete carefully avoided Rusty's gaze. That he had recognized Rusty was almost certain.

Dawkins said firmly, "I assume you intend to pursue the matter, Burmeister?"

"Patrols are out. They will find the trail if one there is, and we will pursue. "Tell me where it happened."

Pete proceeded to offer an ambitious lie. He placed the raid well to the east of the point where Rusty had encountered first the outlaws, then the Tonkawas. He was vague and uncertain when Burmeister asked him to describe the horses, their number and their brands. His excuse was that he had just recently bought them from a number of farmers and had not yet had time to become familiar with the individual animals.

The ranger had to maintain appearances, though the sarcasm in his questions made it clear that he saw through the hoax. He said, "Whoever took the horses, they are by now across the river. There it is forbidden for my men to go. Your friends can go to the federal officers and make a complaint."

Rusty knew that was a polite way of closing the matter, for going to federal authorities was the last thing either Dawkins or the horse thieves would want to do.

Dawkins seemed vindicated by the rejection. "I told my son you would give him no satisfaction. You so-called lawmen helped the federals protect Washington's pets while they were on the Brazos reserve, and you have no stomach for facing them now."

Burmeister's ire began to rise. "Always the rangers are in the middle. The settlers said it was the Indians we protected. The federals said we were with the settlers against the Indians. You are free to complain to Austin or to the federal authorities. I stand not in your way."

"I will not talk to any federals, and I can see I'm wasting my time talking to you. You're a foreigner anyhow."

"How long is it you have been in "Texas, Colonel Dawkins?"

"Twelve years. I'm proud to say I came from Mississippi."

"More than twenty years I have been here. So who is the foreigner?"

"At least I can speak proper English. There'll he changes after the election. When Texas is free of the Yankee yoke, you and your whole damned command will have questions to answer. I suspect it is infested with unionists."

Burmeister took an angry step toward Dawkins, then stopped, his feet planted apart in a challenging stance. "We have no more to say, Colonel. You are free to go."

"Hell yes, I'm free, and I intend to stay that way. I don't have to ask your permission to come or to go. But you'll wish you'd never seen me."

"That is my wish already."

Dawkins made a point of being slow to turn away, as if allowing the full weight of his disdain to settle upon Burmeister and the men around him. Pete remained beside him, and the young point rider was quick to follow, as if afraid Rusty might be about to turn the rangers loose on him.

Rusty wondered why he hadn't. It would have been easy to have pointed a finger. His hunch was that Dawkins did not know what his son had been up to. It would have shut him up in a hurry if Rusty had told. But Rusty had been dissuaded by the desperation in the young point rider's eyes. He remembered that the thief could easily have killed him but had not.

We're even now
, he thought.
Next time I catch you in the wrong, I don't owe you a thing
.

Tanner stood slouched and looking like a scarecrow with hands in his pockets, his ragged buckskin jacket open and flapping in the wind. He said, "That Dawkins is a peculiar son of a bitch, ain't he?"

When the riders had pulled away, Burmeister faced Rusty. "I believe among those men were the very thieves the Tonkawas chased. Did you not recognize them?"

Rusty did not want to lie, but neither did he want to betray the point rider. "I never saw most of them very close. I didn't care to accuse somebody and turn out to be wrong."

"Next time, accuse. If a man is innocent, we can turn him loose. If he is guilty ..." He left it at that.

* * *

If Rusty had hoped distance would lessen the pain of Mike Shannon's death, his first night in the ranger camp proved the hope to be futile. Long before dawn he awakened out of a violent dream in which he saw Daddy Mike lying dead beside the woodpile. Standing over him was a drunken, laughing Isaac York, a smoking rifle in his hand. Though in his dream Rusty held a pistol, he was unable to raise it. His arm hung stiff and useless at his side. Crying in frustration, he struggled but was unable to move. Isaac York drifted away like a wisp of smoke stolen by the wind. The opportunity to kill him was gone.

The rest of the night Rusty lay with his eyes open, listening to the snoring of fellow rangers. Moonlight filtered through the thin canvas so that he could see the forms of the others sleeping on the ground. He turned onto his right side, then his left, his stomach and his back, trying in vain to be comfortable. The ground was hard and unyielding. After a long time he began hearing a rooster crow somewhere in the distance. He turned back his blanket and found his hat, then his trousers. He had slept in his shirt because his shoulders were cold. He pulled on his boots after shaking them to be certain no unwelcome tiny visitor had crawled into them during the night.

Tanner sat up and stretched, yawning and blinking his eyes. "I ain't heard the call yet."

"Me neither, except for a rooster. Go back to sleep."

"Too late now. You've done woke me up." Tanner had stripped down to long underwear. He hobbled to the front of the tent and peered through the flap. His thin legs reminded Rusty of a spider. "It'll be daylight directly anyhow. You want to start the coffee?"

"Just as well. I've got nothin' better to do."

"We'll be headin' out to ride the line this mornin'. I hope you've rested enough to make a long sashay."

"I wasn't sent here to rest."

"What
was
you sent here for? You kill somebody or somethin'?"

"I was sent here so I
wouldn't
."

Tanner's jaw dropped. "You want to tell me?"

"It's not somethin' I like to talk about." He thought about it, though, whenever his mind was not occupied with the urgencies of the moment.

Tanner sat on his bedroll and tugged at his bootstraps until his feet found bottom. "You'll not likely kill anybody up here unless it's Indians, and probably not even them. I'll bet I've been up and down that line a hundred times, and damned few trips did I see as much as a feather."

"That's all right with me. I've got no grudge against any of them except maybe the Comanches."

"I heard what you told Captain Burmeister about them stealin' you when you was little. You'd be a Comanche yourself today if somebody hadn't rescued you. A redheaded Comanche. Now wouldn't that he a sight to behold?"

Burmeister's long-ago service as a soldier made him try to maintain some semblance of military order in the ranger company, though Rusty quickly saw that the men did not consider themselves soldiers. They submitted to morning formation and roll call, but their notion of standing at attention was decidedly informal. Some chewed and spat tobacco. A couple smoked black and odorous cigars. Company sergeant Whitfield, chunkily built but muscular as a blacksmith, impatiently read the roll as if he considered it a waste of time better spent on more fruitful activity. Some of the men talked among themselves or looked at the sky as if appraising the chance for rain or snow. The roll call was indeed unnecessary except as a faint stab at military routine because the sergeant and the captain both knew who was here and who was out on the line.

The sergeant said, "All present and accounted for except one, Dutch." He frowned as if he had bitten into a sour apple. "Private Haskins is absent without leave again. But I already told you that." Whitfield's tobacco-stained moustache, heavy and unkempt, lifted and fell with each word he spoke. It was in sharp contrast to the captain's moustache, neatly trimmed, its ends upturned.