Matagorda (1967) (14 page)

"All right," Brunswick said, "we'll try it. We'll have to stay close to the buildings where we can, and hang onto each other."

Suddenly there was a tremendous blast of wind that ripped the few remaining signs from the buildings along the street, and sailed them before it. At the same moment a great rush of water tore by, ripping up a part of the boardwalk and filling the street with a deeper rushing torrent.

Now all lights were out. The town stood in darkness, all sound drowned out by the whistling roar of the hurricane. Somewhere a sound did break through, a sound of splintering wood; and then the wall of a building hurtled past. The corner hit the door of the hotel and smashed a panel before the force of the water tore it free and sent it on.

"We'll never make it now," the gray-haired man said solemnly.

"We can make it, Grain," Brunswick replied. "Let's wait until this spell is over."

"If it ever is," Mady said.

Jessica was silent, thinking about Tappan. He was out there somewhere in that roaring world of wind and water. He was out there moving cattle in all this ... or he was dead.

It was ten o'clock at night when the storm first came to Indianola, and by the time the full force of the wind was beginning to smash the town Tap Duvarney had his cattle several miles west of the town and was driving them hard.

To the east, out over the Gulf, lightning flashed intermittently, showing great masses of wind-torn clouds.

From out of the night, violence and the storm, and the vast thunder that rolled on and on, each enormous crash followed by another. From out of the night a moving wall of slashing rain, a wall of steel. The roof of clouds seemed only a few feet above the heads of the frightened cattle and the straining riders.

Tap Duvarney had turned to look back, and was appalled. He could see the storm coming upon them. At the bottom it was a ragged cloud and the steel mesh of the rain; above, the massed black clouds were laced with lightning.

"Look, Doc," he said. "Look at that and you can tell them you've seen hell with the doors open."

Belden's face was pale. "What do we do?" he asked.

"Try to hold them in a bunch. That's all we can do. It can't last forever."

Lawton Bean pulled up alongside them, his face strangely yellowish in the odd light.

"I wonder what's happening back there in town," he said. "One time when I was a kid I lived on Matagorda. I seen the sea break clean over the island. Dad and me, we made a run for it."

"You made it, looks like," Belden said.

"I did ... pa didn't."

Hunched in their slickers, they watched the backs of the cattle as seen in the flashes of lightning. The rain hammered on the animals until they were almost numb from the beating.

"We've got to get shelter," Tap called out. "Keep your eyes out for a good bank that will keep us out of the wind!"

They had been moving steadily with the cattle at a trot a good part of the time.

Tap thought for a moment of Lavaca Bay, which lay somewhere to the east . . . but that would be too close to the path of the storm. He yelled at Belden and Bean, then started along the flank of the herd. At the point, with steady pressure, yells, and lashes with coiled lariats, they edged the herd to the west.

The cattle needed no urging, seeming to realize that the storm was behind them, and that safety, if there was any, would lie somewhere in the darkness ahead.

Slowly, the riders bunched. Welt Spicer came around the drag to join them, followed by Jule Simms.

"You seen Lon Porter?" Simms asked.

"Lon? He's over with Foster," Belden replied. "Or should be."

"Well, he ain't. He come up to me just as we were headin' into town. Had a message for the Major."

"I didn't see him." Tap Duvarney edged over toward Simms. "Did he say what he wanted?"

"He was huntin' you. Seems they had no trouble with the cattle . . . most of them were already moving off the peninsula . . . just like they knew this storm was headin' in. Lon told us that, then took off for town, a-huntin' you."

They were bunched now in the doubtful lee of a cluster of cottonwoods, and for a moment there seemed a lull in the storm.

"The feelin' I got," Simms said, "was there'd been trouble below . . . some shootin', more'n likely."

Why hadn't Lon Porter found him, Tap wondered. He had been in the hotel or on the street much of the time, and it would not have been difficult to locate him.

They rode on after the cattle, closing in around them, keeping them bunched, until in the gray light of a rain-lashed dawn they circled them at last on a small piece of prairie shielded by brush, mostly curly mesquite and tall-growing clusters of prickly pear. Here and there were a few small clumps of stunted post oak or hickory.

The exhausted cattle seemed to have no desire to go further, and they scattered out, some seeking shelter in the brush, but most of them simply dropping in their tracks.

A few tried aimless bites at the coarse bunch grass, ignoring the sheets of rain and the wind. One clump of the mesquite and post oak had made a cove of shelter against the wind, and the riders rode in and dismounted.

Under the thickest of the brush they found a few leaves that were still dry, and they gathered some dead mesquite. After a brief struggle they had a fire going, half protected by a ground sheet stretched above it.

Jule Simms came up with a coffeepot, and soon there was water boiling. Lawton Bean, a limp cigarette trailing from his lips, hunched close to the small fire, nursing it with sticks. It gave off only a little heat, but it was comforting to see. The riders sat about, hunched in their slickers, staring dismally into the fire.

"How far did we come?" one of the men asked.

"Maybe twenty miles," Belden said. "We've been moving seven or eight hours, and faster than any trail herd ought to travel under ordinary conditions."

Tap got up and rustled around in the brush, where he found an old mesquite stump that he worried from the muddy ground, then some dead mesquite branches and a fallen oak limb. He brought them back to the fire and started breaking them up.

"Lon was a good man," Lawton Bean said suddenly. "He was a mighty good man. I crossed the Rio Grande with him a couple of times, chasin' cow thieves."

"You think he's dead?" Tap asked.

"Well . . . look at it. You surely weren't hard to find in that piddlin' town, but he never showed up. He didn't have much of a ride to where you were, and he was hale an' hearty when he left us. I figure somebody killed him."

"If anybody killed Lon," Simms said quietly, "he's got me to answer to."

Lon might simply have got tired of the rain and taken shelter in a saloon. Yet he had a message so important he had ridden some miles to deliver it. To give up was not like Porter, and he was too recently from the army not to pay attention to duty.

"What do we do now?" Doc asked.

"You hole up and wait out the storm," Tap answered. "It's no use trying to push on in this. We've come to higher ground-"

"Not much higher," Bean interrupted.

"Probably thirty or forty feet higher," Tap said, "and we've come inland a good piece.

We'll hold them here and keep a sharp lookout for Munsons. We're not out of the woods yet."

"You think they killed Lon?"

"Who knows? I agree that he could have found me easily enough. The way I see it, he would ride to the stockyards, and if he didn't find me there he'd come on up the street. I'm going to look around the yards for him first."

They stared at him then. "You goin' back?" Spicer said. "You're foolin'!"

"Lon was riding for me. I want to find him, or find out what happened to him. I want no part of this Munson feud, but if they've killed a man of mine, that's something I'll take care of."

"I'll go along with that." Doc Belden got up. "All right, if you're going, let's go."

"I'll go alone."

"Now, that's foolhardy," Spicer said. "If anybody goes it should be me. I know them boys, every last one of them."

Tap did not move, but stared at the fire, considering the situation. "If Lon came running for me in this weather," he said after a moment, "there was trouble, real trouble. So you better keep a sharp lookout."

"You think the Munsons would move with it blowing like this?"

"Most of them wouldn't. They'd be more likely to sit it out in comfort, but that isn't Jackson Huddy's way. It would be like him to use this storm to end the feud once and for all. You see, because of the drive he's got all the Kittery outfit bunched up where he wants them."

Still Tap lingered. He was no more anxious than any other man to leave even the small comfort of that fire for the storm outside. He looked around at the campsite. It was almost surrounded by the wall of mesquite, prickly pear, and post oak, but on one side it opened on the small parklike area where the cattle slept. Seeking shelter from the storm, they had also found a position that could be defended if necessary.

It was a dawn of rain and dark clouds, so low they seemed scarcely higher than the brush, and above all was the sound of the roaring wind. There was no question of escaping the rain; one could only hope to avoid the worst of it. The wind drove through the brush, bending the stiff branches, bending even the stunted trees until it seemed they must break or be uprooted.

They huddled together a minute or two longer. "You watch yourself, Major," Belden said quietly. "This here is one helluva storm. I never saw its like."

Tap wiped the water from the horse's back, then saddled it once more. Welt Spicer came up, a small bit of rawhide tied over the muzzle of his rifle.

There was a minute or two when the horses fought against facing the wind; then reluctantly they started, bending their heads low, pushing against it, moving forward with straining muscles.

Chapter
Eleven.

Dawn came to Indianola with a weird yellow light, revealing the gray faces of the rain-hammered buildings, the dark, swirling water, ugly with foam and debris, rushing through the street. A lone steer, moss trailing from one great horn, came plunging and swimming along, a straggler from the herd, following blindly.

Somewhere up the street there was a crash as a wall gave way . . . more wreckage went by.

Jessica had risen from her seat in the old leather arm chair. "Mr. Brunswick," she said, "we've got to chance it. I think everything is going to go."

Reluctantly, he agreed. "All right." He looked around at the stunned, frightened people in the room. "We've got to get what blankets we can, and whatever food there is. There's no telling how long we'll be caught there."

"Major Duvarney will return," Jessica said. "He knows I am here."

"If he can," Brunswick responded grimly.

"Oh, no!" The words came from Mady in a low, tortured cry. Jessica looked out at the water. Something else was swirling there, hanging for a moment against the smashed boards of the walk. It was a body, the body of a man, and it needed only a glimpse to see that no flood waters had killed this man. He had been shot. . . shot in the back of the head, and one side of his head was blown away.

For an instant nobody moved, then Brunswick and Grain lunged for the door, catching the body before it could be washed away, and getting it onto the solid part of the walk. Huddled over the body, they searched it for clues, and then stumbled back inside, Brunswick holding a small handful of money, some water-soaked papers, and a gun belt.

"His family might need this money," Brunswick said. He straightened the papers. One was an envelope addressed to Lon Porter, in care of a hotel at Brownsville, Texas.

"Don't know him," he muttered.

"That man was murdered," Grain said sternly. "He was shot in the back of the head, at close range."

"There's twenty-six dollars here," Brunswick said. "Ma'am, will you see that this gets to whoever should have it? This letter here-I think you can make it out . .

. that might help some."

"Yes." She took the money and the letter. She was thinking that this might be one of the men Tappan had hired. Brownsville . . . Fort Brown . . . yes, she was sure of it.

Something else occurred to her.

Mady . . . Mady had come to Her room drenched to the skin and frightened, and there had been mud on her shoes. That was easy enough to get, even by crossing the street, but it had looked like the dirt from a stable or a corral. And Mady's sudden exclamation just now . . . was it only at seeing a man's dead body? Or was it because it was this particular man?

Jessica turned to look, but Mady had withdrawn and was working her way toward the back of the group, as if to avoid the accusing face of the dead man.

Jessica suddenly remembered their critical situation. "Mr. Brunswick," she said, "we've got to go. We've got to move right away."

Grain suddenly spoke up. "My God! We have prisoners locked in the jail!"

"Bill Taylor's in there," somebody said.

Just then two riders turned into the street, their horses almost belly-deep in the rolling water. Both men were bundled in slickers, and both had their hats tied under their chins, but she recognized Tappan at once.