the Shadow Riders (1982) (2 page)

Dal opened his eyes to the fire and lay quiet, looking at it and feeling better than he had in weeks.

"Coffee smells good," he said, "and there's warmth in the fire."

"That's stored-up sunlight, boy," Mac said, smiling. "Through all its long years that tree was catching sunlight and storin' it away for this moment. What you see in that fire is something captured from the sun."

Carefully, Dal sat up, reaching for his boots. "I remember the fires back home when you or pa started them up of a morning. I never enjoyed them quite as much after I had to do the starting myself. I used to scrunch down in my blankets until the fire warmed up the room.

"I remember how we used to stand at the loop-holes peekin' out to see if there was Injun sign before we opened the door. And then we'd stand waitin' a bit and watchin' color come into the sky.

"Ol' Tennessee hound would scout the barn and corrals for us, and if there was an Injun around he'd let us know soon enough.

"By that time ma would have some bacon on, if we had any, or beef if we hadn't, an' by the time we got back to the house our breakfast was on an' ready. Man, I've thought of those breakfasts many a time durin' this war."

Mac saddled their horses and then returned to the fire for bread and jerked beef. They sat in silence, chewing, and then Mac said, "At least you've Kate to wait for you."

"She's waitin', I guess. We sort of taken it for granted, the two of us. I don't recall ever sayin' much about it, but we had it in mind."

"You've got to ask them, Dal. Women like to be asked. It never pays to take anything for granted."

They drank the last of the coffee, and Mac put out the fire, covering it with dirt from the floor. Then he offered a hand to Dal.

Dal said, "You mount up. I'm not as fit as I might be, but I can still climb into a saddle." Dal put a foot in the stirrup, hesitated, and then heaved himself into the saddle, but when he sat solid with his feet in the stirrups his face was white and sick.

Mac said, "As long as you're up there, you ride out first, but keep your rifle handy. I'll close the door behind us. Somebody else might need a dry place to sleep."

Mac Traven led the way, avoiding the road and trouble that might be waiting. If the man he'd killed had kin-folk they might be scouting the country by now. He led the way down a wooded lane where two wagon tracks were, and around the base of a hill and across a field into a stone-dotted pasture where thin grass grew over the roll of the hills. There were patches of blackjack brush and occasionally a cow.

By the time the noon sun was high they had a winding twelve miles behind them, and Mac was breathing easier. He glanced back at Dal, who was slumping in the saddle, riding more from instinct than knowledge of what he was about. Ahead there was a place where the trail dipped down into trees, and Mac could see the sparkle of running water.

It was almighty still, and there was nobody around a body could see. Mac helped Dal from the saddle and let him lie on the grass. "I'm sorry," Dal muttered, "right sorry."

Mac watered the horses and let them graze on the grass near the stream, then carried water to Dal, handing him a twist of jerky as he did so.

"We won't chance a fire and the smell of smoke," he said. "Have yourself some of this jerky and chew it well. Make it last, is what I mean. We've a long ride ahead of us."

"You holdin' anything? I mean, have you got money?"

"Mighty little," Mac said. "When we get along further we might shoot something to eat. Or maybe we can come up to some farm house where the woman of the place would feed us."

"You was always good at that," Dal said wryly. "Every woman you ever met wanted to feed you an' do for you."

"Sometimes I was lucky," Mac agreed, with a smile, "but you don't always find them when you need them."

When the horses were rested they mounted up and followed a muddy lane back to the main trail. Mac looked both ways and took off his coat and tied it behind the saddle. With his coat off Dal saw the tube slung from Mac's right shoulder and buckled to his belt so it wouldn't move around when he rode.

"What's that?" Dal wondered aloud.

"A Blakeslee Quick-Loader for my Spencer rifle. The Spencer carries seven shots, eight if you have one in the chamber. This Quick-Loader has tubes in it of seven cartridges each. They come in different sizes - seven, ten, and thirteen. I hear they made some that carried six tubes, too, but I never saw one. This one of mine has thirteen tubes."

"I'll be damned! When your rifle's empty you just shove in another tube?"

"That's right. We were trained to load 'em so we could maintain a fire of fourteen to fifteen shots a minute."

For three days they rode west and south, for three days each daybreak found them in the saddle, and for three days they saw no house and no trail and only occasionally crossed pony trails or the marks of wagon wheels.

By the fourth day Dal was building the fire, gathering fuel for it, and moving around, taking his time.

"Be good to be home," he said, looking off to the south, where the grass ran into the horizon.

"Pa will be getting along," Mac said. "He'll need help runnin' the place. Of course, Jesse's there."

"Maybe not," Dal said. "He was talkin' of war himself. You know how it is. When everybody else is going, he would want to go, too."

Mac turned in his saddle and glanced back along the trail. If anyone was following him because of the man he killed, by staying off the trail he might have avoided them. It did not pay to take an enemy lightly.

In any event there was much potential danger. During the War a lot of renegades had hung about the fringes of the War, using it as an excuse for looting, stealing stock, and brutalizing unprotected citizens. Now those renegades would be along the roads, robbing whomever they could.

The country was facing a difficult period of readjustment. With the War ended the men from the South would be returning home to a largely devastated land. The slaves on whom they depended for labor would be gone, and they would have no money to hire labor. There would be a shortage of food, a shortage of farm stock, and a lack of capital with which to restock and rebuild.

In the north the situation would be scarcely better, as munition plants would be closing down. Textile manufacturers would no longer have an army to clothe, and a lot of people were going to be out of work.

"We're lucky, Dal," Mac said. "We've got the ranch to go to. There will at least be beef to eat, and we can start building back. Texas didn't suffer much from the War, and with all of us working it shouldn't take long."

"Kate will be there," Dal said. "I never knew I could miss anybody so much."

Mac glanced back again. Four Confederate soldiers had come into sight, one man riding, three walking, probably taking turns with the horse. Ahead and on the right there was a farm. Smoke rose from the chimney, but the corral was empty.

Dal was looking better as they got further away from the low country near the river. The air was better, and if nothing happened to change things he would be himself again.

Mac thought about Kate. Kate was quite a woman, although she and Dal had never actually become engaged. If Dal had been reported dead, what would she do? Wait a decent interval and find herself another man. Had Dal considered that?

The trail ahead dipped into woods along the creek. Mac Traven carried two pistols, the one in his holster and a spare in his waist-band, but it was the Spencer he preferred. Army issue was .52 calibre, and it packed a wallop. He slid the Spencer from the saddle scabbard and held it in his hands as they rode into the woods.

They were seeing fewer soldiers now. This was Indian country, and those Indians who had fought on one side or the other lived further east.

On the next morning Mac killed a deer in the river bottom, and they held up a day to smoke the meat, eating venison steaks while waiting for the smoke to do its job. "We're gettin' close," Dal said. "I remember the time we rode north a buffalo huntin' an' camped by this same stream."

"If we're lucky we'll make it some time tomorrow."

Yet when afternoon came great thunderheads were piling up in the sky ahead of them, and they could hear a distant rumble of thunder.

"Rain," Dal said irritably. "We could do without that!"

Mac pushed on ahead. Unless they got under cover in a hurry they were in for a soaking. He topped out on a low rise and saw a roof-top ahead and off to one side of the dim track they were following.

The clouds were over-head now, and he could see a broadening white streak along the horizon. When that reached them it would be raining. "Come on!" he yelled and charged down the slope, Dal following.

There was a corral with the gate bars down, the corral empty. There was a small barn and a log cabin. No smoke came from the chimney, but there was a stack of cut wood against the near wall of the cabin.

No tracks led into the place, which only meant nobody had been there since the last rain. He swung down. "Dal? You take the horses while I scout the cabin."

Dal caught the reins of Mac's horse and started toward the barn.

Mac hesitated, then rapped on the door. The sound echoed hollowly, but there was no response. He tried the door, and it gave under his hand. He stepped inside. "Anybody home?" he asked, but the room was empty.

A fire-place, a bed, a bench, and one chair. Cooking pans, polished and clean but dust covered, hung in place. There was a table covered with oil-cloth and the remains of a candle that had burned down to only a pool of melted wax, and little of that except what had dripped down to the mantle.

There was a door to another room, covered with a hanging blanket. He looked around again, listening for Dal.

Somebody had been living here. He looked again at the curtain and spoke aloud again. "Anybody home?"

There was a roll of thunder, closer now, and he heard running feet outside. Then the door burst open. It was Dal. He ducked inside just as the rain came, and it came with a thundering roar.

Dal glanced around, then he glanced at the blanket-curtain. "You been in there?"

"No ... not yet. What's in the barn?"

"Three head of good horses, half starved. I forked some hay for them."

Reluctantly, Mac crossed to the blanket, gathered the edge as Dal drew a pistol.

Abruptly, he drew back the blanket.

There was a window at the side, and there was a bed, a chair, and a large chest for storing clothes. And in the bed there was a child ... a girl.

She was sitting up in bed, clutching a rag doll. Her hair was touseled and blond.

"Hello! Are you my Daddy?"

Chapter
Three.

Mac Traven was startled. "Me? No, missy, I'm afraid not. Don't you know your own father?"

"No, sir. He went away to war when I was small. Mama said he would be coming back soon. She said the War was over now."

"She was surely right about that. Where is your mama?"

"She's gone. Some bad men came and took her away. I didn't think they were bad men at first because they wore those gray uniforms," she pointed at Dal, "like he does. But they took mama away. They dragged her."

"And they just left you here? Alone?"

"Mama didn't tell them about me. I don't think she did. She was afraid, and I think she knew they were coming, because when she came in she was all scared and everything. She said some bad men were taking women away and that if they came here I should keep very still and wait, that papa would come."

"How've you been getting along?" Dal asked. "Have you been eating?"

"Oh, yes! There's milk. There's some left, anyway. And there's cheese mama made, and bread she baked for papa."

"How long have you been here alone?"

"See?" she pointed at a calendar. "I scratch off the days. It is four days."

Dal looked around. "Snug cabin." He glanced at the little girl. "Is it all right if we stay here tonight? We're going home."

"You can stay. I wish you would. At night sometimes it is scary. I think about wolves an' Indians an' ghosts an' such."

"What's your name, honey?" Mac asked.

"I'm Susan. I am Susan Atherton."

Dal glanced at Mac, then at her. "Jim Atherton?"

"Yes. Did you know him?"

Dal's face was pale and he turned toward the fireplace. "I knew him in passing, sort of. I mean I never knew him well."

Dal started for the door. "I'll fetch some wood. Mac? You want to help me?"

Outside, Dal said, "Mac? We've got to take her with us. We'll have to take her home. Jim Atherton's dead. He was killed by a sharpshooter, last day of the War."

"What about this business? Men in gray uniforms carrying off women? That doesn't seem like any Southerners we know."

"There's all kinds." Dal thought a moment. "Could be Colonel Ashford. He was headed this way, but I didn't think he'd bother women-folks. Always seemed a gentleman." He paused. "He wanted me to come with him and keep on fightin'. The War may be over for you an' me but it ain't over for Ashford. When Lee surrendered he was fit to be tied. Called him a traitor, a coward, whatever he could think of."