[Texas Rangers 04] - Ranger's Trail (11 page)

She leaned to him, and he put his arm around her. She said, “We won’t have a whip on the place, you and me. We’ll raise our children with love, like Mama and Papa did.”

Rusty remembered the kindness of Daddy Mike and Mother Dora, treating him as if he were their own. He said, “I can almost feel sorry for the Bascom boys. They weren’t raised up, they were just jerked up. Life’s too short to do it that way.”

From the direction of the barn he heard the snort of a horse, followed by the sound of hooves. He stood up and grabbed the rifle that leaned against the wall. “Stay put,” he told Josie.

He walked partway to the barn, pausing to listen. The horses were quiet again. Hearing no more from them, he returned to the porch. He said, “Just a little bitin’ match, I suppose. My dun horse never has quite got used to these here.”

Josie motioned for him to sit. “I guess even the horses are a little skittish. They seem to sense when things aren’t right.”

“
What you-all need is a couple of real mean dogs to keep watch on this place.”

From inside the house he heard a woman’s voice. The words were not clear. Josie said, “That’s Mama. I guess she needs me.”

Rusty grasped her hand for a moment. “I’m hopin’ she won’t be needin’ you too much longer.”

She smiled at him. “Don’t go away. I’ll be back.” She kissed him and went into the house.

Moments later he saw a flash from out in the night and heard the crack of a rifle. A windowpane shattered. Josie gave a cry that made Rusty’s blood run cold.

He raised the rifle and sent a wild shot in the direction of the flash he had seen. He heard Alice scream. “Josie! Josie!”

Rusty rushed into the house. In the lamplight he saw Alice holding Josie, trying to keep her from falling. Dropping the rifle, Rusty took three long steps and grabbed Josie. His hand against her back felt warm and sticky.

Josie looked up at him with stricken eyes. She gasped for breath. Rusty lifted her up and carried her into the room she shared with Alice. He placed her gently on her bed and found his hands red with her blood. “Josie!” he cried. “Josie!”

She found breath enough to whisper his name once. The light slowly faded from her eyes. He shook her, trying desperately to find life, but there was none.

He heard Alice sobbing. “Rusty, she’s gone.”

R
usty felt numb, kneeling beside the bed where Josie lay. He did not look up as James and Andy rushed into the room. Alice leaned her head against the wall and cried softly, her back turned.

James shouted, “Andy, blow out the light.”

The room fell into darkness. From the next room Clemmie called in a desperate voice, barely understandable, wanting to know what was happening.

James bent to touch his sister, then drew his hand away. “My God. They’ve killed her.”

Rusty heard Preacher Webb’s quiet voice, offering a prayer. Andy said, “I’d best see after Clemmie.” A moment later Clemmie gave a cry of anguish. Her voice seemed clearer then. “Help me, Andy. I’ve got to … got to go to my daughter.”

Still in shock, Rusty managed to push to his feet and make room for Clemmie. She limped painfully into the room, her arm around Andy’s strong shoulder. Webb moved to help her. She fell across Josie and wept.

James trembled, his voice breaking. “For God’s sake, how many more? First Pa and Billy. Now my sister.”

Rusty heard heavy footsteps on the porch. Evan rushed in. Though the room was dark, he immediately grasped the sense of tragedy. “They shot Alice?”

Andy was the only one who seemed to find voice. “No, they killed Josie.”

Evan sighed, “God help her.” He bent down for a look, then straightened. “I heard two horses runnin’ away right after the shots. We all expected them to come for Alice, but why Josie?”

Andy said, “They were out yonder a ways. They saw Josie in the lamplight and mistook her for Alice.”

Rusty had been too stricken to reason it out, but he judged that Andy was probably right.

Alice saw it, too. She turned, both hands to her mouth as she stared at Josie’s still form in the dim reflected light from the moon. “Then she died in my place. Why couldn’t it have been me instead?” She seemed about to collapse. James and Webb both grabbed her.

Webb said, “Hold tight, Alice. Some things we are not given to understand. It was not your fault.”

“
But it was.” She made a weak effort to break free of them, then fell back against the gaunt Webb. “If I hadn’t been addle brained, if I hadn’t run off with Corey, …”

Webb said, “You couldn’t have known it would lead to this. You couldn’t have known what Corey was capable of.”

Corey. The name ignited a flame in Rusty’s brain. Bessie Bascom had vowed that her sons would take an eye for an eye. The flame built into wildfire. He said, “Corey Bascom will die for this.”

Webb said, “You’re in shock, Rusty. Wait ’til you have time to think straight.”

“
I’m thinkin’ straight enough. Corey Bascom killed her. I’m goin’ after him.”

Andy moved to his side. “Not by yourself. I’ll go with you.”

Webb showed no more inclination to argue. He bowed his head, his voice breaking. “I prayed for Clemmie, and I prayed for Alice. I never thought to pray for Josie.”

James placed his hands on Rusty’s shoulders. “Josie was my sister. I’ve got as much interest in Corey as you have. But let’s don’t go off half cocked. We need to see her buried first, with the proper words said over her.”

“
And give Corey a long start? No, I know where he’ll go first. I’m not givin’ him time to go any farther.”

Evan said, “You and Andy may not be enough against that bunch. I’ll be ridin’ with you.”

Rusty argued, “You’ve got a wife and family to think about.”

“
This family took me in when I was near dead and gave me a life again. Josie was my wife’s sister, and like my own. I’m goin’.”

Rusty felt too beaten down to protest more.

Evan said, “But first I’ve got to break this to Geneva. She’s at the house with the kids, probably worried to death. Tellin’ her will be as about as hard a thing as I ever did.”

Andy said, “I’ll go catch up our horses.”

James relighted the lamp and turned to Rusty. “You’ve got your mind made up to go. Nothin’ I can say will stop you?”

Rusty found it painful to speak. “I can’t do anything to help Josie now. But I can do somethin’ about Corey.”

“
Then I’ll throw some grub together for the three of you. You’ll need it.”

Corey Bascom expected his mother and brothers to return home soon, but they did not show up until near noon of the day after his arrival. He walked to the barn to meet them as they rode in. They were dusty and weary, but his mother had a stern look of triumph about her.

He asked, “What kept you-all? You ought to’ve been home yesterday.”

She fastened accusing gray eyes on him. “We stayed around and finished the job you ought to’ve done for yourself.”

Alarm quickly stirred in him. “What do you mean?”

“
I mean your sweet little Alice girl ain’t goin’ to do no talkin’ to the law or anybody, not ever again.”

He felt as if his skin were afire. “What did you do?”

“
Me and your brother Lacey went back and took care of her.”

Corey’s jaw dropped. For a moment he could not move. He could only look at her in disbelief. But he knew he had to believe. He felt a fool for not having realized she might do it. She was fully capable of killing anyone who stood in the way of her and the family. He remembered that years ago she had stalked and shot a witness in Arkansas just before the grand jury was to convene and bring an indictment against old Ansel for stealing hogs.

He trembled. “But I loved her, Ma.”

“
Love!” She spat the word. “Love is what you give to your family, not to some calf-eyed little tart. All your thinkin’ lately has been below your belt or you’d have seen what had to be done and done it yourself.”

Grief and fury rose together, swelling and spilling over. “Damn you, Ma!” He drew back his hand and slapped her, hard. He had never done it before.

She recoiled in disbelief, then brought up her quirt. She lashed him about the face and shoulders until he grabbed the limber leather end and jerked it out of her hands. He flung it aside and strode beneath the shed where his saddle sat astraddle a rough log rack.

“
Where are you goin’?” she demanded.

“
As far from you as I can get.” He turned burning eyes toward his brothers. “From all of you.” He took a rawhide reata and cast a loop around the neck of his black horse.

She shouted, “Corey Bascom, you turn that horse a-loose. You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“
How are you goin’ to stop me? You goin’ to shoot me, too?”

Bessie made a gesture at Lacey. Lacey came at Corey with clenched fists. Corey did not wait for him to strike the first blow. He hit Lacey first in the stomach, taking his brother’s breath away, then a second time to the jaw. Lacey went down on his knees and spat blood.

“
That’s for Alice,” Corey said. “I ought to kill you.” He saddled his horse and rode away, not once looking back.

Lacey pushed to his feet, rubbing his aching jaw, wiping blood on his sleeve. Newley, who had been morosely silent since the shooting, watched his older brother’s departure with concern. “He ain’t fixed for travelin’, Ma. He didn’t take so much as a blanket, and no grub at all.”

Newley was a fool, she thought, concerned only about Corey’s comfort. Because he, too, had a weakness for Alice, he could not see or chose not to see the threat she had presented to them all. She said, “He’ll come draggin’ back when he gets hungry enough.”

“
Maybe not. He looked awful mad.”

“
Then he’ll have to take care of himself. He chose that girl over family.” She spread her fingers against a face still reddened and burning from Corey’s slap. “First time one of you boys ever raised a hand against me. I don’t know why the Lord has let the world come to this. Folks are losin’ all sense of right and wrong, the way it looks to me.”

Bessie recognized Rusty Shannon and the boy Andy on sight. She did not remember the name of the third rider, though she recalled that he had backed the Monahans when the Bascoms had made their first try at recovering Alice.

She looked around to be sure her three remaining sons were close by and armed. They were. She had put years of training into preparing them for a hostile world, though they had fallen short of her expectations in many particulars. Especially the weak-willed Newley, and now Corey. She stood waiting, the quirt in her hand.

Rusty Shannon had a look of death about him. He reined his dun horse to a stop. The boy Andy pulled a long-legged sorrel in beside Shannon. The third man drew up on the other side, a shotgun across the pommel of his saddle.

Shannon’s furious gaze swept over the Bascoms. “Where’s Corey?”

Bessie said, “You can see for yourself, he ain’t here.”

“
You say he’s not, but you could be lyin’.”

Bessie felt a quick indignation. She never lied except when it seemed expedient. This time she didn’t have to. “He’s gone away. What do you want him for?”

“
For killin’ a woman.”

Bessie felt gratified. She had been a little concerned over the slight possibility that Alice might have survived the bullet, though Bessie had seen the blood gush when it struck her in the back. Lacey’s aim had been true.

She asked as innocently as she could, “And what woman would that be?”

“
Josie Monahan.”

Bessie felt as if a bullet had struck
her
. She struggled to control herself lest Shannon read the dismay she felt. “
Josie
Monahan?”

“
That’s what I said.”

Bessie began to shake in spite of a determined effort to take a grip on her emotions.

Shannon seemed to read her thoughts. “I guess you thought it was Alice. But Corey shot the wrong woman.”

Bessie’s mind raced as she considered the implications of the mistake. Shannon was clearly in a killing mood. It was a good thing Corey had left. Shannon was prepared to kill him or die in the effort. But there was another complication. Alice might or might not have talked before, but her sister’s death would make her eager to tell everything she knew about the Bascoms.

Shannon stared at her with a severity she could not handle. She looked away from his blazing eyes. He said, “I’m askin’ you again, where’s Corey?”

Newley said, “Corey didn’t—”

Ma cut him off short. “Shut your mouth, Newley.”

Andy brought his rifle to bear on the brothers, and Evan followed his lead with the shotgun. Andy said, “We’ll keep these boys off of your back if you want to go search the house.”

Without answering, Shannon rode close to the picket house and dismounted, keeping the horse between himself and the dwelling. Rifle in hand, he walked to the door and kicked it open. He rushed inside.