[Texas Rangers 03] - The Way of the Coyote (10 page)

"But it was given to him."

"Whatever that little place amounts to, Shanty made it so with his own muscle and sweat. His master was drunk more than he was sober."

Brackett shrugged away further argument. "I see I am not going to sway your opinion, and certainly you are not going to sway mine. I know nothing about the burning of that darkey's cabin. You'll have to take my word on that."

Rusty did not want to believe him, but something in Brackett's eyes told him he spoke the truth. He asked, "What about your son Farley?"

"I regret to say that Farley was in jail last night. Some altercation with a state policeman."

"You wouldn't have any idea who did burn Shanty out?"

"Ideas do not stand up in court. You have to show proof."

"Not always, not in a Yankee court." Rusty decided upon a flanking approach. "It has the look of somethin' Fowler Gaskin might do, him and his dim-witted nephew." He watched in vain for anything in Brackett's expression that might reinforce his suspicion. He decided the farmer must be a good poker player.

Brackett said, "Fowler Gaskin is a lazy, ignorant lout, and no confidant of mine."

Rusty nodded. "At least there's
somethin'
we can agree on. It's a mystery to me why good men die young while reprobates like Fowler Gaskin live on and on."

"Perhaps it is because the Lord wants no part of him, and hell is already filled up with Unionists."

Rusty said, "Those who fought for the Union side were honest in their opinions."

"They were wrong. And if you sympathized with them—which seems to be the case—then you were wrong."

"Looks like we've about used up our conversation." Rusty put his foot into the stirrup.

"Wait a minute." Brackett raised a hand. "It's about dinnertime, and you're miles from home. You're welcome to stay and eat with us."

That caught Rusty by surprise. "You're invitin'
me?
"

"I have never turned a hungry man away from my door, be he white, black, or somewhere between."

"I'd figured myself lucky if I got away from here without bein' shot at."

"I even fed the tax collector, though he made me sell off more than half of my farm so I could keep the rest."

"That's a second thing we can agree on. I don't like the governor's tax men either."

A bell clanged at the house. Rusty saw the black man stop the mules in the middle of a row and begin to unhitch them. Brackett said, "That's Bethel, letting us know that dinner is about ready."

Brackett had evidently walked to the field. Rusty saw no horse for him to ride. The plowman rode one of the mules and led the other, but Brackett made no move toward the second mule. Either he did not like to ride mules or he would rather walk than ride beside the black.

To keep from outdoing the host, Rusty also walked, leading Alamo. Brackett showed an interest in the animal.

Rusty admitted, "He's gettin' up in years, and I wouldn't take him out anymore if I was called on to chase Indians. But he's still the best horse I ever had just for ridin' the country and workin' stock."

Brackett gave Alamo a look of approval. "You can tell a lot about a man by the horse he rides."

Rusty, by the same token, had always been able to overlook at least some faults in a man who took good care of his horses.

Brackett's daughter stood on the porch, one hand shading her eyes as she watched for her father's coming. Brackett stamped his boots against the bottom step, dislodging a little field dirt. He said, "I brought company for dinner."

"I figured you would. I set an extra plate." She motioned toward the open door. "You-all go on ahead. There's a fresh bucket of water and some soap on the back porch."

Brackett led the way. Rusty saw a black woman and a white one in the kitchen. He surmised the white woman was Mrs. Brackett, but she did not turn to greet him. He heard Bethel say, "They're here, Mama." He heard no acknowledgment. Perhaps Mrs. Brackett did not care for company. Or, from what he had heard, she no longer cared for Mr. Brackett.

Bethel was pleasant through the meal, passing food around the table, asking Rusty if he needed anything else. Mrs. Brackett took her place at one end, but Rusty soon realized she had not once looked toward her husband. She had probably been a handsome woman in a younger, happier time, but her face had frozen into a bitter, pinched expression. She kept her attention focused on her plate and the food immediately in front of her.

He caught Brackett glancing at his wife, pain in his eyes.

Bethel made polite small talk, seemingly oblivious of the wall of silence that stood between her parents. But the forced quality in her voice told Rusty she was achingly aware of it.

The war had cost this family dearly, but it had cost others just as much. He pondered the wide contrast—and the parallels—between the Bracketts and the Monahans.

Mrs. Brackett arose from the table before the others had finished. She picked up her plate and utensils and disappeared into the kitchen. Brackett stared after her, saying nothing.

Uncomfortable, Rusty pushed back his chair. "I'm much obliged for the good dinner, but I'd best be headed home." He started to pick up his plate, but Bethel signaled him to leave it.

She said, "I'll take care of it, Mr. Shannon. You needn't bother."

He sensed that she was sparing him another meeting with her mother. Or perhaps it was her mother she was sparing.

Brackett said, "Come back any time, Shannon. You're welcome here so long as you don't bring up politics."

Bethel followed Rusty out onto the porch. In a quiet voice she said, "I hope you'll pardon my mother's behavior. She hasn't been the same since my brothers died. She blames Papa for that." She looked intently into his face.

"It's odd, but you look a little like them, especially John, the oldest. I think my mother saw that."

He twisted his hat in his hands. "I'm sorry about your brothers."

"We still have Farley." She looked away as if mention of the name brought sorrow. "He follows after calls that the rest of us can't hear."

Riding away, he felt sympathy for the Brackett family ... Mrs. Brackett, driven inward, still unable to reconcile herself to the loss of two sons. Bethel, trying to bring even false cheer into a house that had no cheer at all. And Jeremiah Brackett ... Rusty felt that he could bring himself to like the man, even granted that he had some unreasoning attitudes.

His thoughts turned to Bethel's comment about her brothers, and the fact that Rusty resembled them a little. Could it be ... no, surely not. No one had ever been able to determine who Rusty's real parents had been. It was taken for granted that they had fallen victim to the great Comanche raid. It was probable he had blood kin somewhere, kin who did not know he existed.

But the Bracketts? No, the chance was too slender to contemplate. He probably resembled a lot of people. For most of thirty years he had lived without knowing who he was. He thought it unlikely that he would ever know.

He wished he could. Occasionally he awoke from a dream in which he could almost see the faces of his real mother and father, could faintly hear his mother's voice singing to him. At such a time he felt adrift, alone in a world of strangers.

A
ndy Pickard sat on his moccasined heels in the shadow of his horse, his attention focused on an open spot where the grass was thin and short. Chopping weeds in the garden, Shanty had eyed him awhile. Finally, laying down his hoe, he moved through the open gate and walked out to join Andy.

He asked, "Where'd you leave Mr. Len?"

"Me and him found that lost milk cow of Tom Blessing's. She'd had a new calf. Len took her home. I don't expect he'll come back tonight."

"And Mr. Rusty?"

"Out lookin' for a couple of strayed horses."

Shanty bent to see what was holding Andy's attention. "What you studyin' so hard, boy?"

"Ants."

Puzzled, Shanty asked, "What's to look at with an ant? One looks the same as another. I don't pay them no mind long as they ain't crawlin' up my britches leg."

"These are fightin' a hell of a war."

Shanty frowned at the word
hell
, but Andy had taken to using it so casually that there seemed little chance of breaking the habit.

"It's passin' strange," Shanty said, "how easy it is for a young feller to learn words he ain't supposed to say, and how hard for him to learn the gospel."

Andy pointed. "They're killin' one another by the hundreds."

Shanty's interest quickened as he braced his hands against his thin knees and leaned down. "I see what you been lookin' at. Dead ants layin' all over. They're just like people. This whole country to share, and they fight over one little bitty piece of ground."

"I remember a medicine man tellin' about watchin' a big ant war one time. Said it went on from daylight 'til the sun went down. Said he saw more dead ants than there was stars in the sky."

"That's a lot of ants."

"He said it was a sign from the spirits. The winnin' ants was Comanche, he said. The losin' ants was the Texans. Said pretty soon the Comanche nation was goin' to rise up and take back everything the white men stole, clear to the edge of the big water. Then everything would be like it was in the old days when the Comanches drove the Apaches out."

"I don't reckon he said when that was goin' to happen, seein' as it ain't yet?"

Andy sensed that Shanty was not taking the prediction seriously. "It's bad luck to make fun of a medicine man. They say some can turn a man into a crow or a bullfrog, even a snake."

"You ever seen it done?"

"No, but I've heard tell."

"I don't reckon you know a medicine man who can turn a black skin white? If I was white, maybe I could live over at my own place and not have to burden nobody."

Andy brushed away two ants that started to crawl up on his moccasins. "No tellin'. Medicine men have a lot of power. They know how to reach spirits nobody else can talk to."

Shanty frowned. "Listen at you, talkin' about spirits and such. Preacher Webb'd be mighty disappointed. He's taught you all about the Good Book and tried to help you put away them heathen notions."

"Who's to say they're all wrong? I expect Preacher Webb is closer to the Lord than anybody I know, but when I was with The People I saw things he nor no other white man could explain. Not everybody talks to the Lord the same way. I'll bet before your folks was brought to this country they talked to Him different than what you do."

Shanty mused. "When I was a shirttail young'un, before I was sold off, I remember my granddaddy tellin' about a far-off place way across the water. Said
his
daddy was a king before the slave catchers come. Said he fought the chains and took many a bad whippin', but he never did give up the notion of bein' a king. Died claimin' he still was."

"Then by blood rights you'd ought to be a king yourself."

"King of what? A little old dirt farm that I dassn't even go to unless I got somebody with me?" Shanty pointed to the ground. "If I was an ant—if my people was ants—they'd be the ones gettin' whipped yonder, the ones with their heads bit off. And I'm afraid your medicine man was wrong about which ones was Comanche and which was white. It's the Comanches that's losin'. Or fixin' to."

Andy noticed his horse beginning to paw the ground and realized ants were climbing up its legs. He brushed them off and led the horse out of harm's way. "We ought to be smarter than ants. Looks like we could figure out some way to divvy up the land and not fight over it."

"That's been tried. Never did seem to work. There's too much difference in the way white folks and Indians look at things. I remember once the government started a reservation up on the Brazos River. Folks blamed a lot of the Indian raids on tribes from there. Maybe they was right and maybe not, but it didn't make no difference. The Indians was forced off of the reserve and pushed up north of the Red River. Even the peaceable ones."

Andy said with a touch of pride, "The Comanches I was with never let the white men put them on a reservation in the first place. They still run free."

Shanty's brow furrowed. "I hope you ain't thinkin' you'd like to go back and run with them."

"The notion strikes me sometimes. I've got no kin here that wants me. I ain't forgot the time my uncle came and looked me over. Said even though I was a Pickard, like him, I was too savage to live with his family. He went off and left me."

"Folks here have treated you good ... Mr. Rusty and Mr. Len, Tom Blessing, and them."

"That makes it hard, in a way. Every time I take a notion I'd rather be Comanche, Rusty or somebody does me some special kindness. Then I don't know whichaway to turn."

"Don't forget that it was Indians who killed your real mama and daddy."

"I was too little to remember much about that. Mostly I just remember that the Comanches gave me a good life." He grimaced. "I guess it's easier bein' an ant. They always know which tribe they belong to."

Shanty straightened his back and groaned at the pain the move brought him. "Everybody wants to live to get old, but it sure don't come cheap." He turned his head and stared off down the wagon road. "We got company comin'. He's runnin' like he had Indians chasin' him."

Andy did not recognize the rider at first. "Looks like he's pushed his horse about as far as it can go."

Shanty nodded. "A man don't abuse an animal that way without he's got reason."

The bay labored for breath, sweat lathering its hide. Andy thought the horse might go to its knees when its rider brought it to a stop. The man slipped from the saddle and almost went down from fatigue. Andy judged him to be about Rusty's age, though his eyes were hard in a way that Rusty's never were. A scar cut through the whiskers on one side of his face, all the way up to the corner of an eye. Andy guessed he had probably earned it in a fight. It was a scar a Comanche warrior would envy.

The visitor paid no attention to Shanty. He acted as if the black man were invisible. Laboring for breath, he said, "This is Shannon's place, ain't it?"