Texas Drive (2 page)

Ted shook his head. “Thought I might have seen something up near the rim, but when I looked, there was nothing.”

“Nothing, hell,” Dawson said, getting to his knees. He tried to stand up, and Ted grabbed Dawson’s good arm and draped it over his shoulders.

The first howl came out of nowhere. High-pitched, quavering, it sounded as if someone were being torn apart. Ted almost dropped Dawson.

“The hell was that?” the wounded man asked.

“Comanche …”

THE BLOODCURDLING HOWLS
echoed off the canyon walls, bouncing back at them from a dozen directions. Ted half dragged Dawson toward the foot of the nearest wall. Working sideways, he found a crevice fronted by a pair of boulders and lowered Dawson to the ground.

“You stay here, while I try to get help. Don’t move, don’t even look out. Whoever nailed you can do it again.”

“You think I’m gonna stay here and let some Comanche devil slice my hair off, you better think again.”

“Tommy, don’t be crazy. I’ll get the others and we’ll smoke the bastards out.”

“According to Johnny, you don’t smoke nothin’ lately, especially not with no gun.”

“Johnny thinks he knows things he doesn’t.”

Dawson tried to get up, but Ted pushed him back, none too gently. “Stay down, dammit.”

It was quiet again, and Ted cocked an ear toward the rimrock. Off in the distance, he could hear one of the hands yipping at a stray, but that was the only sound. A hot wind riffled sand across the face of the cliff, and Ted looked up. He caught a glimpse of something moving far above him, but then it was gone.

“What is it? What did you see?” Dawson demanded, getting to his feet again. The strain was too much for him, and he leaned back against the rock, groaning. Through clenched teeth, he said, “You sure it’s Comanches?”

“How long you lived out here, Tommy?”

“Hell, not long.”

“Then don’t argue with me. I been here half my life, except for the war. I know what I heard. And Johnny and the others must have heard it, too. Just sit down and wait for me.”

Dawson was too weak to argue anymore. He sank down, his shirt scraping the rock and hiking up in back. When he hit bottom, he reached behind him with his good arm and pulled the cloth down between rock and skin.

“Don’t stand there gawkin’, go get Johnny and Rafe.” He tried to grin, but it didn’t work. His lips twisted back, showing his teeth like a mad dog, then he closed the teeth over his lower lip and let out a moan. “Damn, it hurts …”

Ted backed away from the crevice, keeping an eye peeled on the rim. He knew the gunshots had come from above and on this side of the canyon. What he didn’t know was whether the Indian had any help.

He couldn’t see his horse as he backed through the brush, and he was starting to get nervous. The yipping down canyon had died away. The silence had returned. His boots crunched on the dry sand.

Crouching to keep below the thick clumps of mesquite, he swiveled his head back and forth to keep an eye on both sides of the canyon rim. He heard something off to the left, a low muttering, and shifted the Colt nervously in his hand. The sweat on his palms made him feel like he was losing control of the gun. He shifted the Colt to his left hand for a moment to dry his right hand on his shirt.

When he found the horse, he shook his head. The big roan lay on the ground on its side. A pool of blood, already beginning to draw flies, glistened on the sand. The second bullet had pierced the saddle leather, and the horse was finished. It raised its head feebly, nickering once. Ted could see himself in miniature in the big eyes, then the horse lowered its head and lay still.

He jerked a brand-new Winchester carbine from the saddle boot, snatched at his canteen and draped it over his shoulder, then tugged at the saddlebags. He had ammunition for the carbine and his Colt in
the bags. The weight of the horse pressed down on one of the bags, and he had to lie on the ground, then brace himself against the animal’s flank with both feet and pull to get them free.

It gave way suddenly, and he sprawled backward in the sand. As he lay there, he spotted a figure high on the rim, beginning to climb down not thirty yards from where Dawson lay hidden.

Cursing under his breath, he got to his knees, levered a shell into the carbine’s chamber, and drew a bead. There was no question it was a Comanche. He could see the distinctive markings clearly as the Indian turned his head to one side, hugging the stone on his way down the wall. Like a brightly colored fly.

He hesitated, telling himself he would wait for a better shot. The Comanche straddled an outcropping, seeming to balance for a moment, then dropped two or three feet, scrabbling at the wall with his feet. Watching the Indian over his gun-sight, Ted felt a strange detachment, as if the descending brave had nothing to do with him.

Moving to one side, to get a better look, he re-sighted. It was a clear shot, dead on, and he started to squeeze the trigger. He felt his finger curl, then stop. He got up and started to run toward the wall. Another Comanche, then a third and a fourth, appeared on the canyon rim.

All three started shooting at him. He heard the bullets sing past him, snapping twigs and brittle
leaves. They slammed into the sand and whined off the rocks. The climbing Indian dropped another three feet, as if he were not part of what was happening above and below him.

Ted dove behind a boulder and fired once at the Indians on the rim. The bullet chipped hunks of red stone free, and they cascaded down the wall, just to the Comanche’s right.

As Ted charged toward the base of the cliff, the Indian on the wall spotted him. Ted started to move faster, but the Indian was faster still.

The Comanche pushed away from the wall and dropped out of sight, still forty feet above the canyon floor. Ted was close enough to hear the Comanche grunt when he hit, and picked up speed. Behind him, he heard hoofbeats, but there was no time to look. Gunshots cracked through the thick air, and splinters of rock began to rain down, skittering across the rocky face of the cliff like stone spiders.

Ted could no longer see the Indians above him, but they were returning fire at the charging riders behind him. The Comanche from the wall reappeared, limping now, and Ted broke toward the left, trying to head him off before he found Tommy. The brave stopped long enough to fire once, then dodged behind a rock.

Hitting the ground, he lay there panting for a moment, trying to catch his breath. He couldn’t see the Comanche, and with the ruckus behind him,
there was no chance of hearing him, either. He got to his feet and raised the carbine, but there was nothing to shoot at.

He could see the boulders where Dawson lay now, but there was no sign of the Indian. The firing above him had stopped, but a howl echoed through the canyon, and he turned to see more than a dozen Comanches on the far rim. They opened up all at once. He dove to the ground again, but the Indians weren’t shooting at him. The hoofbeats had stopped, and Ted knew Johnny and the other hands had dismounted. They started shooting at the Indians behind them, and Ted turned his back. He saw the Comanche now, poised on a boulder.

Ted snapped a shot from the Winchester, but it missed badly, and the Indian jumped to another rock. He teetered a moment, and Ted could see the blood streaming from a bad gash on the Comanche’s thigh.

He fired twice more, the second time just as the Indian dropped out of sight. The bullet slammed into the wall, waist high where the Indian had been. Ted scrambled through the heavy brush. A thorn ripped his right sleeve from the elbow to the cuff as he charged past. He closed on the crevice. The Comanche stood there, straddling Dawson, who held one hand up in front of his face.

Ted took a step forward, then froze. The Indian sensed him and turned. For a moment, he stood
still, his painted face hovering over his shoulder, as if waiting to see what Ted would do. Footsteps sounded behind him, and he turned to see Johnny charging toward him.

“Shoot him, dammit, what are you waiting for?”

The Indian, released by the shout, raised his right hand. Ted could see the knife as it caught the setting sun, glittering like gold for a split second. He fired as the arm started down. Johnny brushed past him, emptying his revolver at the crouching Comanche.

The knife slid from his fingers and clattered on the stone. Dawson cried out as Johnny charged into the crevice, with Ted on his heels.

“Bastard,” Johnny shouted, grabbing the Indian by the shoulders and hurling him backward. His head slammed into a rock and Johnny dove on him. He jerked the brave’s head up and slammed it again into the rock, then again, and a third time.

“Stop it, Johnny! He’s dead, stop it …”

Ted grabbed at his brother and tried to tear him away, but Johnny turned and swung at him. He snatched at the knife and plunged it into the Comanche’s throat, ripping the blade sideways, then plunging it in again.

Ted wrestled him away from the dead Comanche, but Johnny flung him aside. Panting, his right hand covered with blood, he stared at his brother.

“You damned coward. He could have killed Tommy. Why didn’t you shoot him?”

“I did, dammit. I did shoot him.”

“What the hell took you so long?” Johnny pushed past him and headed back across the canyon floor. He didn’t look back. Dawson lay there moaning. He stared at Ted with confusion and disappointment in his eyes. Then he shook his head and turned away.

Ted wanted to say something, but he couldn’t find the words. He turned to follow Johnny back into the chaparral. With the carbine dangling from one hand, he ran straight up. The Comanches on the rim spotted him and started firing. He ignored the slugs whistling past him, kicking up spouts of sand on either side.

Just ahead, he could hear the hands firing sporadically at the rim. By the time he reached the other hands, the Comanches on the rim had started to break off the attack. Once the surprise failed, they weren’t interested. Johnny and Rafe and the others chewed at the rimrock until their guns were empty.

Johnny turned as Ted finished reloading his own weapon. “What the hell are you doing here? Why didn’t you stay with Dawson?”

“I thought I was needed here.”

“Yeah, well … It’s over.” Johnny spat into the dry ground, grinding the damp spot under the toe of one boot. “No thanks to you, neither.”

“Let him alone, Johnny,” Rafe said.

Johnny glared at the older man. “Rafe, butt out. This is family business. Understand? This is between me and Ted.”

“I only meant you should …”

Johnny interrupted him. “I don’t give a damn what you meant, Rafe. I know what you meant, but I don’t give a damn.”

Rafe shrugged his shoulders. “Have it your way, son.”

Without another word to his brother, Johnny shouted to the hands, strung out in a crooked line among the thickets. “Back to work, you lazy bastards. We got some beeves to round up.”

Rafe watched him as he stalked away, then turned to Ted. “That boy’s heading for trouble, Teddy. You keep an eye on him, will you?”

Ted nodded. “If he lets me.”

“Don’t pay that no mind. He didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“The hell he didn’t, Rafe.”

TED COTTON SAT
on the front porch, hacking at a cottonwood branch as thick as his wrist. The sun was sinking as Johnny pushed through the rusty screen door out onto the porch.

He looked at his brother for a long time without saying anything. Ted continued to slice curls off the cottonwood without acknowledging his brother. In the evening quiet, the only sound was the whisper of the steel through the soft wood and softer bark. Each curl fell into his lap as he rocked, occasionally pushing himself with one leg braced against the porch railing.

Johnny dropped to the top step and leaned against the column of bleached wood holding up the roof. He tugged one heel under him and stretched the other leg across the top of the steps. He lit a cigarette, then tossed the match away with
a snap of his wrist. Ted glanced at him, and at the tight stream of exasperated smoke swirling away on the breeze.

“You ain’t gonna say anything at all, are you?” Johnny asked.

Ted didn’t answer right away.

“Because if you ain’t, then maybe you ought to just listen. Sit there and hack at that damn wood and listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t want to be here no more.”

“This spread?”

“Texas.”

“I thought you liked it here.”

“I thought you was my brother.”

“I am.”

“Don’t seem like it. Don’t seem to me like any brother of mine, any son of my daddy for that matter, would’ve done what you done yesterday.”

“Which was …?”

“Stand there and watch a goddamned Comanche come within a cunt hair of slitting your best friend’s throat. That ain’t no brother of mine done that, I swear.”

“I killed the man, didn’t I?”

“What? Oh, hell yes, you killed him. Just about barely, though. I didn’t come along, maybe you wouldn’t have done it even then, which as it was was almost too damn late for Tommy Dawson.”

“That what he said?”

“No, that ain’t what he said. Tommy ain’t said nothing at all about it. That don’t mean he ain’t thinking about it though, I guarantee.”

Ted whittled for a while before answering. “Where you going to go?”

“I get another couple hundred cows, I believe I might take ‘em on up to Kansas, see can I find someplace I like better’n here.”

“You want me to go with you?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Sounds to me like you wish I wasn’t your kin. That bein’ so, maybe you’d like it just fine if I was to stay here.”

Johnny sucked on the cigarette, looked at it in disgust, and tossed it into the yard. “Don’t go stupid on me, Teddy. You’re my brother. Nothing can change that. I wouldn’t mind if something was to change you, but I can’t help that. Hell, I don’t know, maybe you can’t, neither.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means. It also means I got to be sure you can pull your own weight, you come along with me. It means I got to be able to tell Tommy and Rafe they don’t have to worry if you’re along and we run into some goddamned redskins.”