[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line (7 page)

Rusty had trotted a hundred yards before it dawned on him that he was not armed. But it was unlikely the Indians still lingered. On a horse-stealing raid they tended to strike hard and get away fast.

He thought the chance of getting the mules back was about the same as finding a pot of gold down by the river. But he would not tell Mike so. He was as conservative with words as he was with the little bit of money that ever came into his hands. Visitors had spent the night at the Shannon farm and left the next day believing Rusty was deaf and dumb.

People not well acquainted with the family often assumed that Rusty had been born to it. Many did not know that Mike Shannon and Preacher Webb had taken him from the Comanches on the battlefield at Plum Creek. The minister had ridden many long miles and made a lot of inquiries before abandoning hope of identifying the boy. Mike and Mother Dora had regarded him as their own and gave him their family name, for he had none of his own.

The only thing markedly different about Rusty was his reddish hair, which had gained him his nickname. Mike always said red hair went with a name like Shannon anyway; it was the Irish coming out.

Hardly anyone except Mother Dora ever called him by the only name he had brought with him: David. She clung stubbornly to it, though everyone else had long since called him Rusty.

At times, when he lay half asleep at night, Rusty could almost remember his true mother—not so much what she looked like, for he could never quite conjure up her face, but something vague about the way she felt cradling him in her arms and the sound of her voice talking and singing to him. He remembered the warm and comforting feeling of love. It was not much, but it was enough to make him wonder, to give him a sense of loss, of something missed that he would never recover. It saddened him at times, even as he remained grateful for the Shannons. Had he been able to choose his parents, he would have wanted them in the Shannon image.

Still, he often wondered who he really was.

Though he made no claim to being a tracker, the broad trail led him to guess that the Comanches must have been riding or driving seventy-five to a hundred horses and mules. A lot of people besides the Shannons had been set afoot. But he found the two Shannon horses grazing calmly a hundred yards from the river. As Mike had said, the Indians had probably overlooked them in the dark.

Rusty walked up to the gentler of the pair, a black much favored by Mike. "Easy, Alamo, easy." He spoke softly until he could rub the animal's shoulder; then he grabbed a handful of glossy mane and swung up bareback. He guided the horse with his knees and gentle pats on the neck. "Come on, Alamo. You too, Goliad."

Mike Shannon was pleased as Rusty brought the two horses to the cabin and put them in the pen from which the mules had been stolen. "I was afraid we'd have to go afoot."

That would have been futile sure enough, Rusty thought, though he did not say so. The federal army's foot soldiers had never been able to catch up to any Indians, though they had worn out a lot of shoe leather trying.

Mother Dora left the dog run and came out, her steps careful and slow as if she were unsure of her footing. She did not often criticize her husband, however much she might deplore his fighting nature. But this time she said, "You're goin' off on a fool's errand, Michael. Even if you catch up to them, what'll you do? Get yourself killed, more than likely, and David with you."

Mike Shannon had never admitted defeat in his life, even if it faced him nose to nose. When his time came to die, he meant to go down fighting. "We'll come up with somethin'."

She asked, "How far do you think you can ride? What about that bad leg?"

"It's a long way from the heart. Saddle up, Rusty, then let's go get our guns."

In the cabin, Rusty fetched down from its pegs a flintlock rifle Mike had brought home from the war with Mexico. It was the only one the family owned. He handed it to Mike.

From a corner he took an old shotgun Mike had carried to Texas in 1836 in hope of using it on Mexican general Santa Anna, or
Santy Anna
, as Mike called him. He was just in time to be on hand when Sam Houston took that fancy gentleman's measure on the battleground at San Jacinto. Mike had felt cheated, getting to participate in only a single engagement, so one-sided that it was over almost before it began. He had to wait ten years for another full-blown war to break out. Mother Dora had reluctantly given her blessings and sent him off with a company of ranger volunteers to fight Mexico as his forebears had fought the British in two earlier wars.

Scouting for the United States Army, Mike and other Texans under command of Colonel Jack Flays had harried the enemy all the way to Veracruz and Mexico City. Rusty had heard him tell many a rousing tale, most of them more or less true, allowing for a little enthusiastic stretching of minor parts that otherwise would not have been so interesting. A faded and battle-worn U.S. flag hung in a place of honor on the kitchen wall.

A muzzle-loading horse pistol usually rested on a set of pegs beneath the rifle, but it was missing. A greasy-whiskered neighbor named Fowler Gaskin had borrowed it weeks ago. Gaskin was notorious for borrowing first one thing and then another, sometimes asking, sometimes just coming and getting. He was also notorious for not bringing anything back. If the owner wanted it, he had to go and get it ... if Gaskin hadn't misplaced it somewhere or sold it to somebody. A couple of weeks ago he had borrowed Mike Shannon's best mule, Chapultepec. He hadn't asked but had chosen a time when the menfolk were elsewhere. He led the animal out of the corral and told Mother Dora, "I need the borry of your mule," then had shouted "Thankee!" back over his shoulder as he rode away bareback. The bridle had been Mike's, too.

It might just be that the Indians had missed the Gaskin place, Rusty thought. If so, the Shannons still had one plow mule after all. They could team him with Alamo if they had to, though it would hurt Mike's conscience to hitch the black to a wagon or plow. Especially alongside a mule.

Indian raids were no longer commonplace along this section of the Colorado, though they still occurred with regularity farther west. Texas had been a state in the Union for more than ten years now. Federal troops guarded the frontier, but most were infantry, restricted to guard and garrison duty and ill equipped for pursuit of the Comanches' light cavalry. Several times Mike had enlisted in the state's volunteer ranging companies for limited periods. Horseback, they moved faster than the federals, were burdened with less equipage, and did not have to answer to every pip-squeak bureaucrat misled into an over-appraisal of his own importance.

Rusty had no clear recollection of ever having seen a Comanche close up, though faint and confusing fragments of memory sometimes came to him unbidden, so elusive he could never grab hold of them. He knew Indians had carried him away from his original home, and he was aware that he had stayed with them a short while. Mostly he remembered being bewildered and frightened, not able to understand.

Mike checked the rifle and the shot pouch that went with it. "Mother, we'll drag that dog off before we leave. He'll be stinkin' before long."

The dark circles beneath her eyes seemed heavier this morning, and her hair had never looked quite so gray. "I wish you wouldn't go. You're not as young as you think you are. How far do you think you can travel?"

"I rode many a mile and crossed many a river durin' the war."

"That was ten years ago, before a Comanche bullet ruined your leg. There are lots of things you used to do that you can't anymore."

Fearing the two were about to plunge into a full-blown argument, Rusty stepped out onto the dog run to avoid being a witness. He saw riders approaching and shouted, "Company comin'."

Mike hobbled out with the rifle cradled in his arms, ready for use. "Hard to believe they'd come back for more. They already took more than enough."

"It's white men," Rusty said. "Looks like Tom Blessing in the lead."

Mike squinted, uncertain. His eyesight was not as keen as it used to be.

Blessing had often served as a captain when the state treasury got a few dollars ahead and the governor called ranger companies into service. Several times Rusty had watched Mike ride away with Blessing and others in search of Indians or bandits or to put down one of the foolish but bloody feuds that seemed always brewing in the older settlements of Texas. A year ago Mike had gone off under command of Captain John S. "Rip" Ford on an expedition against hostiles. The rangers and federal troops had been aided by friendly Indians to whom the Comanches were longtime enemies. They had devastated a large village, but Mike had come home with a wounded leg that would have been amputated had he not resisted with his shotgun and threatened to shoot anyone who touched him.

Rusty was aware, from stories he had heard, that Blessing had been present when he was recovered from the Comanches at Plum Creek. He had always felt that he owed his life to Tom Blessing, Mike Shannon, and Preacher Webb. He was pleased to see Preacher Webb riding just behind Blessing. Every man was armed. It was plain that they were trailing the Indians.

Blessing's pale blue eyes were a major contrast to his fierce black beard speckled with gray. He had a deep, booming voice that bespoke authority. "Mike, I judge by the tracks that you-all had visitors last night."

"We sure enough did. "tried to clean us out of horse and mule flesh, 'y God. Me and Rusty was fixin' to take up their trail."

Blessing seemed more amused than surprised. "Just the two of you?"

"Didn't figure on Dora goin'."

"Mind if we join you?"

"Me and Rusty'd be tickled for the company, long as you don't get in our way."

Rusty's heart leaped with excitement at the thought of riding with the volunteer rangers. He had long wanted to, but Mike had always said he was too young. Mike easily forgot how young
he
had been when he set out for Texas on his own.

Preacher Webb moved forward, looking relieved. "Thank the Lord that the Indians were after stock more than scalps."

Blessing said, "They took some scalps to the east of here, though. Killed most of a family, stole a woman and a boy."

"A boy?" Mike Shannon said. He glanced at Rusty. Rusty guessed he was remembering Plum Creek.

Blessing said, "Last time I saw you, Mike, that leg was still in bad shape. You sure you're ready for a long ride?"

"My God I'm always ready. You never seen me lag behind like some people." He directed his gaze to howler Gaskin, sitting on Mike's mule Chapultepec.

Gaskin held a hand behind his right ear, trying to hear better. He was thin as a slab of bacon, his face ruddy with tiny red veins threaded across it, his ragged old vest spotted with tobacco juice and remnants of past meals. He took more sustenance from a jug than from a plate.

Rusty said, "Dad, there's Chapultepcc. They didn't get him."

Gaskin growled, "I wish they had. He's the roughest-trottin' mule I ever rode. Looks like you-all could keep a better one around for your neighbors to borry."

Ordinarily Rusty was careful to speak respectfully to his elders, but he had no respect for howler Gaskin. Neither did anyone else around here that he knew of. "You didn't ask, you just came and took him. We could've told you he's a plow mule, not a ridin' mule."

He figured Gaskin would have no stomach for a close view of the Indians. At the first sign of a feather he would probably find out just how fast Chapultepec could run, in the opposite direction.

Blessing seemed to figure that way too, for he gave Gaskin a chance to turn back. He managed deference, but it was clearly a strain. "It's apt to be a hard ride, Fowler. At your age I'm sure you'd rather be at home watchin' over your family."

Gaskin did not watch over his family very well under the best of circumstances. He and his wife and daughter Florey barely tolerated one another, and Gaskin did not even like his two sons much. Neither did Rusty. Eph and Luke Gaskin used to lie in ambush, waiting to chunk rocks at him when he came into range. Usually they scampered as soon as Rusty began hurling the same rocks back at them. His aim was better. The Gaskin boys were too lazy to practice, but Rusty was not. Lately the brothers had outgrown rock-throwing but still baited him and threw insults.

The whole family was a lean and hungry lot, looking to reap where others had sown.

Gaskin seemed torn. Rusty suspected he had come this far only because someone had shamed him into it.

A tall, angry-looking man named Isaac York pushed his horse against the mule Gaskin rode. "Go back, Fowler, and leave the fightin' to people who know how to kill Indians! You'd just be in the way."

Though Gaskin was a man of little pride, and for good reason, that little made him stubborn enough to refuse. "I've come this far. I'll go the whole hog." He spat on the ground and gave York a look of defiance. Rusty was surprised that he could rouse up that much gumption.

Mother Dora said, "I wish you wouldn't take David. He's just a boy."

Blessing gave Rusty a quick study. "Maybe you haven't looked at him close, Miz Shannon. Rusty's a man."

Rusty warmed at Blessing's acceptance. He had waited a long time for it.

Blessing said, "We're goin' on, Mike. When you're ready, you can lope up and catch us."

Pulse racing, Rusty watched the men ride away, Gaskin trailing behind on the mule. The faces were known to him, and most of the names. They were neighbors, friends of Mike's, farmers and tradesmen from the settlement five miles downriver. Each had his own life and his own interests, but in times of challenge the community pulled together. In that way it had survived the poverty of the early years, the pressure from Indians and from Mexico.

Though that country had relinquished formal claim on Texas after the Mexican War, many people on both sides of the border had never acknowledged the treaty. They regarded Texas as Mexican territory and sometimes raided north of the Rio Grande to bolster their point. This, in turn, invited retaliation by Texans, who felt no compunctions about raiding into Mexico, often less from patriotism as from expectation of personal gain. Even up here on the Colorado River, far north of the Rio Grande, settlers could not feel secure against the border troubles. Only a few years ago a Mexican army had invaded all the way to San Antonio, capturing the district court in session and taking Texan prisoners back to Mexico. There had been hell to pay over that incident and the retaliations that followed. Always ready for a scrap, Mike Shannon had ridden off on a punitive expedition. Wisely, he had stopped at the Rio Grande. Some who crossed the river had paid with their lives.