[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line (32 page)

His heart quickened at sight of the Shannon cabin. From afar it looked just as he had left it. Then he noticed smoke curling from the chimney. That struck him odd. He allowed himself a moment of fantasy that he would find Mother Dora there, cooking supper. He knew better, but the image brought him an inner glow before cold reality dashed it.

Preacher Webb had promised to look in on the farm once in a while to be sure the roof had not fallen. Perhaps he was there now. Rusty motioned to Geneva, who drove the lead wagon, her mother sitting beside her. "That's the place. Just pull up to the dog run so we can unload."

He rode beside the wagon until Geneva stopped the team, then dismounted and reached to help Clemmie down from the high seat. Setting her feet on the ground, she fell against him, weary and barely able to stand. Days of slow travel had put deep lines in her face and dark circles under her eyes. The trip had aggravated the wound in her side. It was good that she would finally be able to get some rest.

He watched her survey the cabin and tried to read what was in her eyes. He realized this was not an adequate substitute for the home she had lost. She said, "The place is goin' to need a right smart of cleanin' up."

Trash had accumulated and weeds had grown around the cabin, something Mother Dora would not have tolerated. The woodpile out back was too small for winter. Maybe he could talk the two schoolboys into staying an extra few days to replenish it.

He apologized. "It won't be what you've been used to, but the roof doesn't leak. At least, it didn't when I left. Come on in. Let's see who's here."

He stopped in mid-stride as a man slouched out of the kitchen and onto the dog run.

Fowler Gaskin!

Surprise left Rusty momentarily speechless. Gaskin looked as if he might have stolen his clothes from a scarecrow in a field. His dirty underwear showed through holes in the elbows of his shirt. A piece of twine served in lieu of a belt to hold his ragged trousers in place. His face had not felt a razor in ages, and his heard was stained with tobacco.

Rusty got over his surprise enough to ask, "What the hell are you doin' here?"

"I been livin' here." Fowler's questioning gaze roamed over Clemmie and Geneva and the youngsters. Rusty saw apprehension in the rheumy eyes.

"I never gave you leave ..." Rusty broke off, for Gaskin knew very well that he was trespassing. It was useless to tell him so.

Gaskin said, "You wasn't here, and I didn't know but what you might never come back. Fightin' Indians can get a man killed."

"But you've got your own place."

"We had a storm last spring. Taken off some of my roof. I had to have a place to live."

"You could fix the roof, you and your boys."

Eph and Luke were about as shiftless as their father, but at the least they ought to be able to repair a damaged roof and keep the rain off their heads, Rusty thought.

Gaskin said, "My boys are both gone off to the army. Fightin' for Texas and the Confederacy."

That did not sound like the Gaskin boys Rusty had known, but maybe the war had given them an unexpected sense of responsibility. More likely the conscription officers had come and taken them away whether they wanted to go or not.

Gaskin added, "My old woman died, and daughter Florey run off and got herself married. I been havin' to do everything for myself. It's hard, boy, awful hard."

For someone else, Rusty would have felt compassion. But Gaskin had never done much for himself and had done nothing for anybody else, so far as Rusty knew. "You'll have to gather up your stuff and move. These folks lost their home, and I've brought them here to live 'til they can do better."

Gaskin had the cowering look of a dog just given a whipping. "I don't know where I can go. My old house ain't fit to live in."

"You can find somebody to help you fix the roof. Doesn't look like it's rained around here lately or is fixin' to any time soon."

Gaskin hunched, his voice trailing into a whine. "I'd hoped you'd turn out better, but you're just like your old daddy was. He never had no pity on the poor and helpless. I'll bet Saint Peter gave him a cussin' when he got to the gates."

Rusty had tried to summon tolerance, but it evaporated. "I said go, Fowler."

"I'll have to fetch my team. They're down by the creek."

"Then do it. I'll pile what's yours out here on the dog run."

The old man mumbled to himself as he hobbled off in the direction of the creek where two mules grazed. Rusty realized he had not seen any Shannon cattle on the way in. There should have been some. He would not be surprised to learn that Gaskin had driven them off somewhere and sold them for whatever little he could get.

Geneva helped her mother into the cabin. She turned back at the door. "We wouldn't want that old man put out in the cold on our account."

"You don't need to feel sorry for the likes of Fowler Gaskin. If he could be sold for his true worth, he wouldn't fetch six bits."

The kitchen was a mess. Rusty could well believe that Gaskin had lived here for months. It would have taken that long to accumulate so much grease and filth. Mother Dora would be appalled if she could see what had become of her home. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had no idea the place would need so much cleanin' up."

He smelled something simmering on the stove. Squirrel stew. For a moment he felt hungry, but he quickly recovered, remembering how dirty Gaskin's hands had been. When Fowler Gaskin died, it would not be of food poisoning; he must be immune to that or he would already have gone to his reward. Rusty removed the stew from the stove and carried it out onto the dog run. "You don't want to eat that. It'd kill anybody but a Gaskin."

He crossed over the dog run and into the bedroom side. The blankets had a rank odor. Evidently they had not been washed or sunned since Gaskin had been here. Rusty rolled them and dumped them outside, along with a suit of Gaskin's clothes he found draped across a chair. Wherever they had been worn, he assumed it had not been to church.

He propped open the one window to let the chill wind draw through. He returned to the kitchen and told the women, "I'm afraid you may have to sleep outdoors another night or two. It'll take awhile to give this place a decent airin'."

He walked to the barn as Gaskin drove the mules into a pen. Gaskin brought out a set of harness. Rusty stopped him as he started to put it on the first mule. "Wait a minute. That looks like mine." He examined the harness and saw he was right. He carried it back into the barn and found an old, badly patched set he did not recognize. "That'd be yours."

Gaskin grumbled but made the change. Rusty did not want to help him harness up, but he was so tired that as he watched the old man fumble around, his patience quickly wore through. He finished the job himself and hitched the mules to Gaskin's old wagon to hasten his neighbor's departure. He watched closely to see that Gaskin did not carry off more than he had brought with him. He allowed the blankets to go, though he recognized some as having belonged to Mike and Dora. He would never want to use them. They would forever carry Gaskin's scent, in Rusty's imagination if not in reality.

Leaving, Gaskin hollered back over his shoulder. "I hope you wind up in hell someday, because that's the only place you'll find any friends."

Rusty grunted, "It'd be my luck to find him there ahead of me. Then I'd know for sure that it was hell."

Geneva studied him critically. "You don't seem to have much patience for a poor old man down on his luck."

"I've got all the patience in the world for folks who have a run of bad luck that isn't their fault. Like you-all. But Fowler Gaskin? He's too lazy to scratch when he itches."

After supper he started up the hill toward the oak grove that shaded the small family cemetery. Geneva stepped from the dog run. "A little late to start out huntin'."

"I'm not. I'm goin' up yonder to pay my respects to the folks."

"Mind if I walk along with you?"

Rusty was pleased at the prospect of her company. "You sure Clemmie's all right?"

"She's takin' her rest." Geneva walked out to join him, and they started up the long slope. He took her arm to give her support on the steepest part of the climb. He liked touching her.

She said, "I'm sorry I never got to meet your mother and father."

"So am I. You'd've liked them, and they'd've liked you." It was on the edge of his tongue to add,
They'd've been tickled to have you join the family
. But that would be premature. He had not seriously toyed with the idea of asking her, and he probably would not until the uncertainties of the war were behind them. "There was no way to know what calamities might be thrust upon them without any doing of their own. People had little control over their own destinies in such a time.

Rusty had already told Geneva something of Mike and Dora. She watched him pull weeds from around the markers. Someone had put a carved stone over Mike's grave, fairly well matching Dora's. Preacher Webb's doing, most likely, or perhaps Tom Blessing's. He would remember to thank them.

She said, "Your father died because of his beliefs, like mine."

"A lot of people are doin' that these days. Seems like there ought to be a better way—more talkin' and less fightin'."

"That's easy to say, but would you be content just to talk to whoever killed your father?"

Old anger arose in him. "No, I guess not. I still want to kill him. I suppose that makes me a hypocrite."

"It just shows you're human. I have the same feelin's toward Caleb Dawkins, but I know I'll never kill him. Somebody else may, but I won't. And if you try hard enough, you can get past the notion of killin' the man who shot your father."

"It'll take a lot of tryin'."

* * *

He did not want to delay his return to the ranger camp longer than necessary, but he disliked leaving the Monahans such a mess to clean up for themselves. He decided a couple more days should do no harm, considering how much time he had already lost in recuperation and in the trip here. Few Indian incursions had been discovered in recent weeks. He persuaded the two boys to stay, too. They could ride back together when they had the Shannon place in better shape, the woodpile replenished, and Rusty's cattle accounted for.

It was the latter task that brought him suddenly and unexpectedly face-to-face with Isaac York. He had hoped to avoid any such meeting. But after a wide sweep failed to turn up half as many cattle as he thought should be there, he decided to ride over to Tom Blessing's place and ask if Blessing knew anything about them. He had yearned to see at least a few old friends anyway, and Blessing was at the top of his list along with Preacher Webb.

Riding up to the Blessing cabin, he saw a face he knew well, the black man Shanty. Isaac York's slave sat on a bench beside the door, soaking up the winter sunshine. Rusty reined to a stop and considered turning back. But stubbornness demanded that he not retreat. He tied his reins to a post.

Shanty stood up, his face troubled. "Mr. Rusty. You back to stay?"

"Just another day or two. Came to see Tom Blessing."

Shanty jerked his head toward the door. "He's gone someplace. Mr. Isaac's inside, waitin' for him. You ain't come for trouble with Mr. Isaac, I hope."

"Didn't know he was here 'til I saw you. I wouldn't have come if I'd known."

"I've told you before, it wasn't Mr. Isaac killed your daddy."

The old man's honest eyes told Rusty that he believed what he was saying. But Shanty was a slave, and it was unlikely York would have told him anything that might later incriminate him. "I didn't come for trouble, and there won't be any unless he starts it."

"He won't start nothin'. Mr. Isaac's a sick man. He looks different than the last time you seen him."

The door opened, and Isaac York stepped outside. "Tom," he said, then stopped, dumbfounded at the sight of Rusty. "Heard talk and thought Tom had come back." He stood awkwardly, one foot on the step, one on the ground. He made no move to extend his hand, nor did Rusty.

Rusty felt paralyzed. It had not entered his mind that he might find York here.

Though Shanty had warned him, he was surprised by York's gaunt, pallid look. The man appeared to have shrunk. His eyes seemed sunk back into his head and surrounded by darkness.

Looks like the whiskey is finally about to get him
, Rusty thought. But he sensed that the problem was deeper than simply drink.
Maybe his conscience is grinding him down
.

York appeared frozen in place. "I ain't armed."

Rusty's rifle was on his saddle. "I'm not either. This is Tom Blessing's farm. I've got no wish to bloody his ground."

York eased a bit. "I never did want a fight with you. What happened to your daddy, that wasn't none of my doin'."

Rusty did not believe him, but he was determined to let the matter rest for now. Someday when the time was right he would call for an accounting, if nature did not beat him to it. York's look indicated that he might not be long for this world.

"Tell Tom I came by. He'll understand why I didn't stay."

He swung into the saddle. He felt the rifle beneath his leg. It would be easy to draw it from the scabbard and shoot Isaac York where he stood. He had to struggle to keep himself from reaching down. But York was not armed. Killing him under these circumstances would be murder, as brutal as the murder of Mike Shannon.

Another time, then. Another place. He turned Alamo around and rode away. He would not allow himself to look behind him, though his back itched with anxiety. It would be easy for York to step into the cabin and fetch out one of Tom Blessing's rifles, to shoot Rusty from behind as Daddy Mike had been shot. To turn and look would be to admit fear, and that he would not do, not for the miserable likes of Isaac York.

He felt a rising of confidence after he had ridden two hundred yards and strong faith after three. York was not going to shoot him. He wondered why.

A mile from Blessing's cabin he saw a wagon coming toward him, Tom Blessing's familiar figure perched on the seat. By this time Rusty's pulse had slowed back to normal. He raised his hand in greeting. Blessing sawed on the reins and stopped the wagon. A huge smile spread across his face.