[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line (33 page)

"Rusty Shannon. Didn't know you were anywhere around."

Rusty shook with him. Blessing's big hands were strong enough to crush rock, and Rusty feared for a moment that his bones were going to break. "Just a few days. Brought some folks to stay on my place 'til the war foolishness slows down."

"You been to my house? Sorry I wasn't there. Been to the settlement to get some supplies to carry my wife 'til I get back from my trip."

"Trip? To where?"

"Up north of here, town of Jacksboro. I've been workin' for the Confederate army, buyin' horses. Supposed to meet some dealers up there the first of next week." He made a circular motion with his hand. "How about turnin' around and goin' back to the cabin with me? Wife'll fix dinner."

"I'd better not. I found Isaac York there."

Blessing's smile died a sudden death. "Rusty, I hope you didn't ..

"No, I didn't. Not that I didn't study on it some. Hard as it was, I left him be. For now."

"I'm glad. Lord willin', you've got a long life ahead of you. You wouldn't want to do somethin' foolish and ruin it."

"I don't see that it's foolish to want to even up the score for Daddy Mike."

"You think another killin' would make the pain go away? It'd just make you hurt different, and worse. I've killed men because I had to, and it hurts when I think about it. It'd hurt more if I knew I hadn't had to."

Rusty had talked all he wanted to about Isaac York, for even hearing or speaking the name made him sick to his stomach. He changed the subject. "I can't find near all the cattle I ought to have. You know anything about them?"

"Can't say I do, exactly, but I've got suspicions. I think Fowler Gaskin and his boys helped themselves 'til the conscript men drug the boys off to the army."

"I didn't figure they went of their own accord."

"You never heard grown men bawl and carry on like them boys did, or cuss like the old man. He kept hollerin' 'til they was plumb across the county line. Said he'd starve to death without them boys of his to take care of him."

"He wasn't goin' to starve as long as one beef critter was left on my place. Did you know he'd taken up livin' in my cabin? I had to run him off so the folks I brought would have a place to stay."

"I told him several times he had no call to be over there, but he kept tellin' me it was only temporary. I'm sorry I didn't run him off myself, but I've been away a lot, workin' for the government."

"It's done now. Come over the first chance you get and meet the Monahan family. They're good folks." Briefly he told what had happened to the Monahan men.

Blessing sympathized. "Been a many a wrong done in the name of the war. Someday folks'll have to learn to put the wrongs aside and get on with livin' "

Rusty took that as a reference to his problem with Isaac York. "It'll be hard. I don't know if I can."

"You'll have to. Either that or go to the brush with blood on your hands. I don't think you've got it in you to turn outlaw. Mike Shannon taught you better than that."

"Daddy Mike was a fighter."

"So are you. And the toughest fight you face may be against yourself."

* * *

He brooded all the way home, arriving at dusk. He turned Alamo loose and walked into the kitchen, where Geneva was almost done preparing the family's meager supper. She smiled in relief. "I was afraid you wouldn't get back in time to eat with everybody else."

"I could smell your good cookin' for the last two miles. I wasn't goin' to miss it."

He tried to smile, but he could not quite make it convincing.

She sensed his uneasiness. "What's wrong?"

"I'd figured on stayin' a few days, but I can't. First thing in the mornin' I'm startin' back."

She stared at him, holding a skillet until the handle's heat forced her to set it down quickly. "But why?"

"If I stay here I'm liable to kill a man."

"That fellow York?"

"I saw him today."

"But you didn't kill him."

"Not this time. But next time I might. It's best I don't take the chance."

She made a step toward him. "I was hopin' ..." She broke off as her two younger sisters entered the kitchen. They left when they saw that supper was not quite ready. "What you need is time."

"I've been gone more than a year. Thought I'd put the worst of it behind me. But I saw him, and it all came back strong as ever."

"This is your home. You can't stay away forever."

"If I killed him, I'd have to. This way I'm just leavin' a few days quicker than I figured on. A few days don't make a lot of difference."

He saw a tear in her eye before she blinked it away. She said, "Everything is so uncertain in these times. A few days might be all we have."

She came into his arms. Old Vince Purdy walked in, stopped in surprise, then quietly withdrew.

Embarrassed, Geneva asked, "What do you suppose he's thinkin'?"

"The same as I am, I reckon. That it's high time I get myself back to Belknap."

* * *

He expected a stern lecture from Captain Whitfield about his having stayed away longer than planned, but the officer seemed glad to see him. He mentioned that he had lost a couple more men who decided to join the Confederate army, and only one replacement had as yet shown up.

"How we're expected to hold this line, I don't know," Whitfield said. "If the Comanches and Kiowas ever take it in their heads to come across in numbers like on the Linnville raid, there's no tellin' how far they might go. There have been rumors about Kansas Jayhawkers up in the territory, agitatin' for them to do just that."

Rusty had been hearing rumors about Jayhawkers and union activists ever since the war had started, and nothing of the kind had ever come to pass. The people who started such rumors were doing about as much to demoralize the frontier as the Comanches could.

He said, "The Indians don't need anybody from outside to agitate them. They've got reasons enough of their own." He thought especially of the Tonkawas, exiled in the midst of their enemies after long and helpful service to Texas.

Whitfield asked, "You hear any talk about horse thieves down where you went?"

"Didn't talk to many people, but Indians haven't penetrated that far in a good while."

"I'm not talkin' Indians. At least, I don't think so. Seems like there's been a mild epidemic around the settlements over east, horses turnin' up missin'. Most people blame Indians, but we haven't found that much Indian sign."

Rusty remembered that somebody had run off a number of the Monahan horses the night the Monahan house had been burned. And Caleb Dawkins had complained about missing horses after James Monahan's retaliatory raid, though Rusty was sure James had not taken them.

Whitfield said, "The army's buyin' all the horses it can get and not askin' many questions. It's not likely it's buyin' any of them from Indians. As I see it, it's white men doin' the stealin'."

"Anybody in particular?"

"There are some people around Belknap I wouldn't trust with a blind mule. Or else it's some of the renegades in the brush, waitin' out the war. They're a mix of conscript dodgers and wanted men."

Rusty wondered if he was thinking of James. "Even if they snuck into the settlements and did the stealin', those men from the brush couldn't afford to be seen. Somebody would have to help them sell the horses to the army.

"That is the way I figure."

Rusty remembered what Tom Blessing had said when Rusty met him driving his wagon. "I've got a friend back home buyin' horses for the government. He told me he's fixin' to meet some horse dealers up thisaway."

Whitfield's interest quickened. "Did he say where?"

"Town of Jacksboro." Rusty's trips along the frontier line had never taken him quite as far as Jacksboro, but he knew in a general way where it was.

Whitfield's big moustache made several contortions while he thought over the situation. "Might be interestin' if we just happened to be passin' through when those horses come in."

Defensively Rusty said, "Tom Blessing is as honest as anybody you ever met."

"Blessing? I remember that name. Seems like I even rode with him a time or two."

"He used to be a friend of old Captain Burmeister. He wouldn't be a party to horse stealin'."

"Not intentionally, but if he lives way down on the Colorado River he probably doesn't know the people at Jacksboro, or around here either. He has to take them at their word."

"For that matter,
I
don't know anybody over there."

"But I do. They've had a right smart of Indian trouble since Jacksboro got started. Nobody's apt to get suspicious if we make a
pasear
over that way lookin' for fresh Indian sign."

Whitfield took Rusty, Tanner, and the Morris brothers. They set up camp west of Jacksboro, a small farming and stock-raising town of modest log and lumber houses, hard hit in the past by Indian raids and surviving hard times on the most tenuous basis. From afar, the rangers watched Tom Blessing arrive on the second day with his wagon, a saddle horse tied behind. He raised his tent beside a set of log corrals.

Rusty said, "I'd like to go and say howdy. I've known him as far back as I can remember."

Whitfield shook his head. "I don't doubt your friend's honesty, but he might say somethin' to flush our quail. Last thing we want to do is to attract undue attention. We're out here lookin' for Indians, remember?"

The following day Rusty saw a cloud of dust. Lack of rain had left the grass short, the surface dry. Anywhere an animal walked, it left a tiny dust trail slow to settle behind it. The size of this cloud indicated many animals. He limped to the captain's tent to let Whitfield know, but the officer had already seen. He held a spyglass to his eye and focused it.

"Looks like twenty horses, give or take a few." He folded the glass, a transient smile lifting his moustache. He was not given to smiling often. "We'll wait 'til they get them penned, then mosey down for a look."

The captain seemed cool and calm. Rusty was not. Whitfield moved slowly and deliberately, as if he had all day. Rusty felt his stomach tightening with tension. Whitfield admonished him, "Never get in a hurry when you don't have to. A man in too big a hurry makes mistakes he can't afford. Let the other man be the one who makes mistakes."

The volunteers had their mounts saddled and were sitting on them, waiting, when Whitfield finally got ready. He nodded. "Leave us go and look at some horses."

Their approach went unnoticed until they had almost reached the corral. Tom Blessing had his back turned. He was examining a gray horse's teeth and asking about the animal's age. When the man beside him answered, Tom said, "His teeth tell it different. He's a sight older than that."

Tanner's horse took a notion to neigh at those in the corral. Blessing turned, eyes widening in surprise, then smiling as he recognized Rusty. "Rusty Shannon, you're about the last man I expected to see here so far from home."

The man beside him turned. Rusty recognized Pete Dawkins and somehow felt no surprise. Dawkins's face fell as his gaze swept over the rangers. Nearby, a rope in his hand, stood another man Rusty was sure had been with Pete the day they were trying to escape with the stolen Tonkawa horses.

Rusty said, "Howdy, Tom." He left it to Whitfield to advance the conversation.

Whitfield looked straight at Pete. "You are Colonel Dawkins's son, aren't you?"

Pete's only answer was an affirmative nod. He had the look of a coyote with his foot caught in a trap.

"I would assume these are some of the colonel's horses you've brought to sell?" A few bore the Dawkins brand.

Pete managed a weak "Yeah, part of them. Bought the rest from farmers around."

"I assume you have bills of sale."

Pete looked toward his horse. The man with the rope began walking toward the fence where his and Pete's mounts were tied outside. Pete said, "Got the papers in my saddlebag. I'll fetch them for you."

He climbed over the fence near his horse. Rusty heard him say something to his companion. Quickly they jerked their reins loose and swung into the saddle. They spurred the horses into a dust-raising hard run on the wagon road that ran through Jacksboro.

Tanner drew his rifle and aimed. Whitfield said, "Don't shoot. You might hit some innocent person in town."

Tanner lowered the rifle. "From what I've heard, there ain't no innocent people in this town."

"A few. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt."

"Them boys are gettin' away."

"I think we all know where they're goin'."

Tom Blessing stood gaping. "I'm just guessin', but I'd have to figure the government won't be gettin' these horses."

Whitfield said, "Not unless the government encourages horse thieves. Johnny Morris, you stay here and take charge of these animals. The rest of you, follow me."

Rusty told Blessing, "Sorry to bust up your trade."

"You-all may need a witness. I'll saddle up and go with you."

Whitfield did not have to say where they were going. Rusty knew long before he saw the big house where Colonel Dawkins lived. Several of the Dawkins farmhands stood silently watching the rangers ride into the yard.

Rusty studied one face after another, uneasy. One order from Caleb Dawkins and none of the rangers might leave here alive.

Whitfield asked an elderly black man, "Is the colonel at home?"

"Yes sir, up at his house."

Whitfield stopped and studied the house before he dismounted. "Shannon, you come with me. Tanner, Morris, Mr. Blessing, you-all stand watch out here. You may have to cover our leavin' if things don't go well."

Rusty had a pistol on his hip, but he had always trusted the rifle more. He drew it and walked to the captain's side. They ascended the few steps up to the long veranda.

A man stood just inside the doorway that led into a hall. Caleb Dawkins, who had always looked seven feet tall, seemed smaller than Rusty remembered him. His broad shoulders sagged. His face appeared the gray of riverbank mud, his eyes dull and dispirited. His voice lacked the deep resonance Rusty remembered. "Come in, Captain. The men you seek are here."