[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line (22 page)

Instantly Broken Leg was on the ground. He tugged at the pony's rein but received no response. The horse was dead. He pushed against the body until Buffalo Caller was able to pull his leg free.

"Quickly!" Broken Leg said. "Up behind me before more Texans come."

Buffalo Caller hopped, for the leg felt numb and threatened to crumple beneath him. He retrieved his bow and shield from the ground as well as the rifle the ranger had dropped. Broken Leg jumped onto his horse's back, then leaned down, arm extended, helping Buffalo Caller up behind him. Looking back over his shoulder, Buffalo Caller could see that the rangers and the warriors had become scattered over a broad area. Firing was sporadic. The fight was winding down to a draw, neither side a clear winner.

It was just as well. The stolen horses were badly scattered too, but as the warriors regrouped they could probably recover a substantial number. The young men had had the taste of battle they had wanted, so they would be content despite losing some of their horses.

Buffalo Caller was relieved to see no sign of pursuit. Several warriors had broken away from the engagement and were coming up behind. Jackrabbit was among them. The rest would probably be on their way shortly as they extricated themselves.

He asked Broken Leg, "The ranger you wounded ... did you see his hair?"

"For a moment. I thought I would have his scalp, but I only wounded him. It was more important that I rescue you."

"His hair was red."

"That I saw. I thought it was colored with clay."

"I have had bad dreams about a red-hair. He spoiled my medicine. He would have killed me had you not come."

"Perhaps it was your medicine that brought me."

Buffalo Caller had not considered it in that light. "Perhaps. I am glad you persuaded me to let you come, old friend. But for you, I would be with my grandfathers."

Broken Leg agreed. He would make much of it when they returned to the main camp and the boasting began. Buffalo Caller could not begrudge him the glory.

Broken Leg said, "My medicine was good today."

Buffalo Caller shuddered, the dreams heavy on his mind. "If ever I see a red-hair again, I hope you will be with me. His medicine is stronger than mine."

* * *

Rusty Shannon almost despaired of stopping the runaway horse. The heavy firing had frightened Alamo into a blind panic. Each stride brought excruciating pain, seeming to drive the arrow deeper into Rusty's leg. It had glanced off the bone. Blood flowed freely, warm and gummy to his fingers as he awkwardly holstered the pistol and grasped the shaft of the arrow. He struggled in vain, trying to pull it out.

The reins trailed on the ground, dropped along with the rifle when the arrow had struck. Reins could be a hazard. Looped, they could snag on a tree branch while a horse ran. If split, like these, a running horse could step on them, jerk his head down, and take a hard fall.

Through his pain, Rusty recognized that danger. He leaned forward, trying to grab a rein. Light-headed, he could not reach it without tumbling from the saddle. Yet he knew that at any moment Alamo could turn a somersault. Rusty stood a strong chance of being crushed beneath him.

He was aware of another horse closing from the left. He assumed the rider was a Comanche, come to finish him off. He felt helpless to defend himself, though he drew the pistol again. Blood on his hand made it feel sticky as syrup.

Tanner's shout relieved his fear. "Hold on, redhead. I'm comin'." Tanner pushed his horse up against Alamo and reached down, his bony hand grasping the reins. He dallied them around his saddle horn. "Got You." He slowly brought both horses to a stop. Alamo breathed hard, eyes rolling in the aftermath of fright. "Damn it, Rusty, you're bleedin' like a stuck shoat."

Blood had spread down Rusty's leg to the stirrup and the toe of his boot.

Tanner said, "I'll get you back to the rest of the bunch. Wouldn't want some stray Indians to catch us out here by ourselves and pick us off. Say, I'll bet that arrow hurts like hell."

Rusty's head seemed to spin. He was in some danger of falling from the saddle. He attempted three times before he managed to shove his pistol back into the holster. It tried to stick to his hand. "Damn right it hurts."

"We'll get it out soon's we can. Me and Captain Whitfield, we're pretty good at pocketknife surgery."

Pocketknife! The thought did not encourage confidence. But anything to lessen the pain.

Tanner said, "I seen you miss that Indian. You were so close, I don't understand how you kept from hittin' him."

"Alamo was faunchin' around too much." Rusty did not know how anyone could make a good shot from the back of a running horse.

"Maybe you've taken a case of buck fever. You ever shoot at anybody before?"

"Been tempted, but I ain't done it." Rusty hoped the interrogation would stop. He hurt too much to think straight.

"Captain'll want to know. Just tell him about the horse. You don't have to say nothin' about buck fever."

Rusty did not want to feel resentful of his friend, but he could not help it. "Did
you
kill any Indians?"

"Brought down a horse. Set an Indian afoot and it's almost as good as killin' him. Except he'll be back to shoot at you another day. But if it wasn't him it'd be another one. The world don't seem to run short of Indians."

It did not seem to run short of unnecessary conversation, either. Rusty tried to close his mind to Tanner's rambling. He realized Tanner was talking in an effort to bring his own excitement under control. "Yes, sir," Tanner said, "we scattered us some Comanches."

"But they're gettin' away. Looks like they've still got most of their horses." Rusty could see that much through eyes pinched with pain.

"Well, me and you can't be held responsible. We're just followin' orders. I don't hardly know who we're workin' for anyway, the state of Texas or the Confederate States of America. Ain't neither one paid us lately."

Since Texas had joined the Confederacy, its affairs had descended into confusion and controversy. State officials in Austin quarreled with national officials in Richmond over the financial responsibility for protecting the frontier. Most recently they wrangled over a new Confederate conscription law that threatened to strip the outlying settlements of the already deficient manpower needed for their defense. Texas officials resisted the law and as yet were refusing to enforce it in the western counties. Confederate authorities in Richmond saw Indians as a distant problem easily ignored while Yankee soldiers were pounding rifle butts against their doors.

Tanner led Alamo while Rusty gripped his saddle with both hands. Shock was setting in. He felt himself in danger of slipping to the ground. Tanner had to catch him and ease him back into the saddle. The ranger never stopped talking.

"Hang on, pardner. I see some of the boys gatherin' just ahead yonder. If you fall now you're apt to break that arrow off, and we won't have enough left to grab ahold of."

Rusty tried to focus on the rangers ahead, but it was like looking at them through a fog. He did not recognize the one who rode out to meet him until the man spoke and he knew the gruff voice to be Captain Whitfield's. The former sergeant had been promoted after August Burmeister's departure.

"Bring him over here under the tree, Tanner. We've got a couple others to patch up, but at least we didn't get anybody killed."

Rusty felt himself being lifted from the saddle. Though the men tried to be gentle, there was no way to move him without causing the arrow to cut deeper into the flesh. They laid him on a blanket. With the point of a knife, Whitfield ripped a long slit in the leg of Rusty's trousers. His hands carefully explored around the shaft. "It's gone most of the way through. I can feel the point stickin' out just a little on the underside. If we try to pull back on it, the head is liable to break loose and stay in there. Best thing is to shove it on through."

Tanner's voice was uncertain. "That's liable to hurt a right smart."

"But it'll be over with before he can holler. You-all hold on to him."

Rusty cried out in agony as Whitfield's strong hands pushed the shaft, and the arrow cut the rest of the way through the leg. He must have fainted for a moment, because when he became conscious again, he saw Tanner fingering the bloodied arrowhead.

Whitfield said, "Now to pull out the shaft. Hold him again."

Rusty felt a sharp pain, then the ground dropped away from under him. He was conscious of something being poured into the wound and wondering how anything wet could burn with such ferocity. Then there was a flash of fire, and consciousness left him altogether.

He had no sense of time, but he was aware that the sun was going down when he managed to open his eyes. He heard Tanner's voice. He seemed to have heard it all during the time he had been unconscious, but he supposed that was hallucination. He felt a hard throbbing in his leg and a sense of severe burning.

Tanner was saying, "About time you quit lazin' around and woke up to your responsibilities. You goin' to sleep your life away?"

Rusty looked down at his leg, wrapped with cloth. "What did you-all do, set me afire?"

"We cauterized that wound. Ain't but one way, and that's with hot steel." Tanner drew a bowie knife from a sheath on his belt, opposite the pistol he carried. "Heated this 'til it glowed red. Probably took all the temper out. It won't be much account from now on."

"I'll buy you another, if we ever get paid."

Tanner shrugged. "We're liable to be old and gray by then." He reached into his pocket. "Here's you a keepsake. You may want to use it for a watch fob." He handed Rusty an arrowhead. Rusty knew it was the one that had gone through his leg.

"I don't have a watch."

"Maybe you won't be a poor man all your life."

Captain Whitfield stood over Rusty, hands on his broad hips. "I hope you shot the Indian who put that arrow in you."

"I didn't hardly even see him. I was tryin' to shoot another one, but my horse kept dodgin'."

"I don't know that we killed any of them. We bloodied them a bit and got back a part of the horses they stole. The price was a little high, though. We've got two wounded besides you. Your leg is the worst."

The leg throbbed and burned as if a fire blazed inside it. Rusty felt as if it were about to fall off. He had a bad moment as he mulled over the thought of losing it. "How bad do you reckon it is?"

Whitfield's face creased. "Bad enough. We need to get you someplace where people can take proper care of you."

Tanner suggested, "The Monahan farm is down yonder a ways. I'll bet they'd put him up."

Rusty asked, "Monahan? Is that Lon Monahan?"

Tanner nodded. "You know him?"

"Met him on my way up to Fort Belknap, is all. Can't say I know him real well."

"They're a hotbed of unionists, him and his family, but otherwise they're good folks."

Whitfield growled. "Look around you, Tanner. This company itself is a hotbed of unionists. Most who don't favor the union have already left to join the Confederate army. You're one of the few who haven't."

Rusty knew Tanner's loyalty was to the Confederacy. He remained confused about his own. He could not in good conscience support last year's secession, yet he understood Texans' frustrations with the union. "I wouldn't want to cause the Monahan family any trouble."

Whitfield said, "You wouldn't add a speck to the trouble they've already got. You might even be a help to them."

"The shape I'm in? I don't see how."

"There's been agitation against the Monahans. Wouldn't take much to stir the hotheads into somethin' real mean. Havin' a ranger stayin' there might calm the waters."

Rusty had heard ugly stories about mob violence against unionists farther east in the state. "If it came to trouble, I don't know how much help I could be. This bad leg. . ."

"You represent the authority of the state of Texas. Most people will respect that. Those that don't ... well, you might have to shoot one or two of them." His eyes narrowed. "Speakin' of which, are you real sure you were tryin' to kill that Indian? There's some who flinch when it comes to actually pullin' the trigger."

The thought startled Rusty. He had not considered that his own reluctance might have caused him to miss. The Indian had been pinned down, helpless, an easy target.

Too easy, perhaps. That might have been the trouble.

Whitfield said, "It's no disgrace to hate havin' to kill. I've got no use for a man who kills because he likes to do it. I'll fire him out of my company quicker than a jackrabbit can jump."

Rusty considered, then said, "It was my horse. Kept faunchin' around." But now that the question had been raised, he could no longer feel completely sure.

Whitfield started to turn away but stopped. "Maybe your life didn't depend on it just then. But you'd better be sure you can do what you have to when your life
does
depend on it. Otherwise, you're dead."

Tanner rode south to the Monahan farm. Two days later he returned to the camp at Belknap with Lon Monahan, his son Billy, and a wagon. Monahan climbed down over the right-hand front wheel and tied the lines to the brake. He walked to Rusty's tent and ducked to enter through the open flap. "Looks like you got yourself a little too close to the Indians. Didn't anybody ever tell you that they bite?"

"I guess I wasn't thinkin'."

"Soon's Tanner came and told us, we sent for Preacher Webb. He's near as good at healin' the body as at healin' the soul."

"It'll be good to see him. It's good to see you, Mr. Monahan."

Tanner gave Rusty a critical study. "You're lookin' mighty drawed."

Tanner had looked "mighty drawed" to Rusty ever since they had first met. He had barely enough flesh to hold his bones together. "The worst day I ever had, I looked better than you do. But you look pretty good to me right now, you and that wagon."

Monahan nodded at his son. "You hurry and spread a couple of blankets in the wagon. We'll do good to make it to the farm before dark tomorrow.