the Shadow Riders (1982) (18 page)

"Everything is fine now. Dal Traven, Martin Connery. Dal and I are to be married." She turned in the saddle. "Major Mac Traven."

"The pleasure is mine. We were coming to see if all was well, and also, well, we here in Texas like to keep our beaches clean. We thought we might ride down and clean things up a bit. Odds and ends, you know."

"Some of those odds and ends," Dal said, "are drinking the whiskey they found in the supply wagon. I believe Ashford has gone off with a couple of the others."

"We shall see, shan't we?" Connery raised his hat again. "Hasta la vista!"

Chapter
Eighteen.

Happy Jack walked across the plaza to greet them as they rode in to Refugio. He was smiling. "Mac! Dal! Sure good to see you! I was figurin' you got chewed up down there an' I was goin' to have to come down an' pull you out from under those fellers!"

He held out a hand to Kate. "Good to see you, ma'am, I guess you folks been through it, but from what those girls tell me they'd never have made it but for you."

Mac glanced around the square. People were watching them, and these were good people. He wanted to visit no trouble upon them. "Are they rested? Can they travel?"

"They're itchin' for it, but how about you folks? You must have been goin' day an' night?"

"We'll make it. I'd like to go on to Victoria."

Dal protested. "Kate an' me, well, we ..."

"You can be married in Victoria just as well as here, maybe better. There's a lot of good German folk there, and they like marriages and such. Let's get out of here."

When Kate had gone off to see the girls, Dal said, "Mac? What's bitin' you? That's all over. Those folks are whipped, and when Connery gets through with them there won't be enough left to hide under your hat."

"Maybe. I say we get out of here, get some distance behind us. Some of those boys got away, and I don't know what Ashford's got in mind."

He tied his horse to the hitching-rail and went into the hotel. In Jesse's room he bathed and shaved, then trimmed his mustache. Happy Jack came in with fresh clothes. "Found a store open. You get shined up now." He paused. "You sure you want to start tonight?"

"No," Mac hesitated, "I guess not. It will give all of us some rest, which we can use. Anyway, I don't want to be on that road at night with all those girls. Get Dal an' me a room, Jack, and we'll bed down here for the night."

"Where are the girls?" Dal asked.

"Cottage down the street. Mrs. Atherton's with 'em, and I been sort of watchin' around, too."

"I'll just bet you have!" Dal said dryly. "I've seen you watchin' around ever since you first saw Mrs. Atherton."

"Somebody's got to look out for 'em." Jack was embarrassed. "Anyway, she's a widow lady. You told me so yourself."

It was a pleasant town, and people went about their business, only partly aware of what had been happening only a few miles away. Mac cleaned and reloaded his guns, checked the tubes in the Quick-Loader, then stretched out on the bed. "You boys rest," Jack said. "Me an' Jesse will keep a tight rein on things tonight. Besides, I've had me a talk with the marshal, an' he's put an extry man on, just as precaution. These are good folks, and they don't trifle around much."

In the small hotel things were quiet. From time to time people walked along the hallways, and there were subdued voices from the various rooms. Yet for all his weariness, Mac had a hard time felling asleep. For four years now he had slept with an awareness that he might have to rise at any moment.

"Four years?" he spoke aloud. "It's almost nine, if I count the Rangers, although there was a good night's sleep there, time to time."

Outside the cottage where the girls slept, Happy Jack tipped his chair back against the wall and got out a cigar. He struck a match, revealing a face seamed by sun and wind, and eyes alive as a boy's yet wise with years. His eyes swept the square, seeing nothing. This was an early-to-bed town, except around the saloons, but even they were quiet tonight. A few late drinkers or poker players were active, but Jack had no desire to join them.

"There's somethin' to be said," he had told Jesse, "for just restin', for just settin' an' watchin' the world go by."

"Aw, now, Jack!" Jesse protested. "There's mighty little of it ever got past you."

"Well, a man has to get around some." He changed the subject. "Mac was sayin' folks back east killed off almost all their cattle durin' the war, and now they're short of eatin' meat. I been figurin' on tryin' a drive, maybe a thousand head."

"How will you get across the Mississippi?"

"Swim it. How else? Hell, Jesse, some of those longhorns would swim the Atlantic if they knowed there was grass on the other side."

"If you or Mac decide to try it," Jesse said, "you can count me in. Only I'm not swimmin' no river that size. I'll let you an' the longhorns do it. When I cross a river that big I'll be in a boat."

One by one the lights went out, and the square lay silent, the last dust settling, the last creaks going out of the boards. A lone dog trotted up the street, headed home from somewhere, and a cat crouched near the water trough in silent patience. Often in the late hours rats came to drink or to hunt for scraps of food dropped by passersby.

Wind rustled the leaves, and Happy Jack's lids grew heavy. The lone dog, sensing his presence, came up on the walk under the porch and sniffed at Jack.

"Set down, boy. You wasn't goin' nowhere you just had to be, now was you? Set down, an' we'll enjoy the night together."

He scratched the dog's ears, and the dog lay down, watching the cat. He had chased that cat before, and twice was more than enough. He had learned about cats.

The bartender came to the door of the saloon and threw a bucket of dirty water into the street, glancing over where Happy Jack sat. Wise in the ways of trouble, he had seen them all come and go, lumberjacks, track-workers, cattle-drovers, cowboys, sailors, river-rats. Every wrinkle or line on Happy Jack's face he could match with another, for the years had marked his cheeks with experience, with laughter, with tears, with anger and with sadness, until there was left only a vast patience. He would have liked to walk over and sit on the stoop with Jack, not necessarily to talk, just to sit there and share the night and the years with him. They had been through it, even if not together. The bartender remembered how it had been from the Bowery to Charleston to Mobile and New Orleans, and how it had been in Cincinnati and Louisville and St. Louis and even Frisco. He walked back inside and took off his apron, then blew out the last light and crossed the floor in the dimness to enter his own small room at the back. People often asked him why he did not marry, but he had been married twice and all that his wives had done was spend his money and complain about his hours, and he could do that for himself. It was a matter of quiet pride that he always poured an honest drink and never short-changed a drunk. He liked to talk a little with a few chosen people, but he never gambled. He had watched it too long from behind the bar, and he had known too many short-card experts and their like. He had put aside a little for the future, but it had all come from honest earnings, and that was how he wanted it. His name was George Hall, and they called him Jersey George. He had a brother named Sam whom he had not seen for years and hoped he would never see again.

When his cigar was down to a stub Jack opened his eyes and rubbed it out on the board at his feet, then ground the end of it under his toe. A man couldn't be too careful about fire. These towns were mostly built from plank, and they'd go up like a tumbleweed if you touched a match to them. Along the street at intervals there were barrels of water for fighting fire, just in case. Behind one of those barrels, across the square, a man was crouching. The old dog pricked up his ears, scenting for indications.

"I seen him, old fella. You jus' set quiet now an' let him do his nosin' around. No use shootin' him. I'd just wake up all these nice folks."

Reassured, the dog stretched his nose out on his paws, but he kept his eyes on the shadowy, distant figure behind the barrel.

Happy Jack dozed a little, but his eyes caught the movement when the man left, and his ears caught the pound of racing hoofs in the distance. The man had left his horse on the edge of town, and the pound of those hoofs was a far-off thing.

"Damn fool," Jack told himself. "Why, I bet half the men in town heard him leave. Nobody runs a horse at this hour unless he's up to something."

Lying on his back in his bed the bartender heard it and knew that the kind of man who would go running from a place in the night without due cause was the kind who would never learn. He wouldn't live long enough. If he made that mistake, he would make others.

The rider reached the fire on Mission Creek. "It's all quiet," he said. "Nobody around but one of them Travens. The old one. He's settin' on the porch, sleepin'."

"He won't be asleep," Bolt said. "He's one of them ol' Injun fighters."

"We'll wait until they are on the trail," Frank said. "Buck, you're good with a rope? D' you reckon you could take one o' them out of the saddle without him yellin'? I mean, he'd be the last one in line?"

"It's a chancy thing but I'd say I could."

A man sleeping by the fire sat up suddenly, looking around. "Where's the others? Haven't they come in yet?"

There was a long silence, and irritably, he looked around. "Didn't you hear me? Where are they?"

"They won't be comin', Hob. We left there just in time."

"What's that mean?"

"That Connery feller? The one they said used to be a pirate? Seems he didn't like folks messing with his niece, so he rode up from his ranch and he found the boys at the wagon, just stirrin' around, I guess."

Hob stared. "So?"

"He hung 'em. All four. He hung two of them to a tree and the other two to propped-up wagon tongues."

Hob stared from one to the other, prepared to believe they were joking. Finally he said, "Just like that?"

"It's like those fellers on the ship said. He doesn't waste around."

"I don't, either!" Frank said.

"We'll hit that bunch when they're all strung out. There'll be three, four of them, but there will be nine of us."

Nobody said anything, so he added, "We'll have all those women, we'll have their horses, whatever money they are holdin', and their guns. Then we'll just take out for the west. I got me a cousin over on the Neuces who is makin' a fortune stealin' cattle on both sides of the border. We can join up with him or start our own outfit."

Back in town Jesse came around the corner of the cottage. "All right, time for a change. You go rest those gray hairs."

Happy Jack stretched. "There was a fella lookin' us over from behind the barrel. I reckon that's all he was doin', but none of that bunch have much sense, so keep your eyes open."

Morning came with a low gray sky and a slight wind blowing in from the sea. Before the sun was fairly in the sky they had moved out upon the road, with Dal leading off.

As they were mounting up, Mrs. Atherton went inside the hotel. The old man who ran it was standing behind the counter watching them. "I am Mrs. Atherton," she said. "I have no money with me, but I have a small ranch near the Trinity. I would like to buy a gun."

The cool old eyes regarded her thoughtfully. "Looks to me like you've got about all the protection you need."

"They are good men. The very best men, but one does not know what will happen. If I have a gun it might make all the difference."

"Can you use a gun?"

"I can. My father rode with Rip Ford and Jack Hays. He taught me."

"That's good enough for me." He reached under the counter. "This here's a gambler's gun. Derringer, they call it. And this here shoots just two bullets. You got to be fairly close to be sure of scorin', but I reckon if you have to shoot, that will be it. You can pay me when you're of a mind to."

"Thank you, sir."

Dal led off at a good fast trot and held it for the first quarter mile, then eased up, glancing back to let the thin column close up.

Kate rode up beside him. "You're worried," she said. "Something's bothering you."

"Look, I'm not going to be happy until we get you back where you came from. That bunch of renegades are trouble, lots of trouble.

"Most of them are gone ... scattered! I don't know what happened to Ashford. He rode off with two or three of his friends, but he's a bitter man. His plans all went awry, and we're to blame.

"The rest of that lot are scattered around, none of them far from here, and they're all full of meanness and looking for a way to get even. So keep your eyes open. Anything can happen, and if it happens it will be between here and Victoria!"

"How far is it?"

"It would be a rough guess. I'd say forty miles, and we're goin' all the way through, no matter what!"

Kate turned and looked back at the thin line of the girls, Jesse, Happy Jack, and bringing up the rear, always in the place of danger, Mac.

She felt a sudden shudder of fear. They were ... she knew they were near.

And tomorrow was to be her wedding day!

Chapter
Nineteen.