[Texas Rangers 04] - Ranger's Trail (7 page)

Rusty considered a while before he offered, “What if I was to go and look for her? Maybe I can find out if she’s all right and bring her home if she’s not.”

Josie’s eyes flickered with momentary hope that quickly gave way to doubt. “I always felt like there was somethin’ a little dangerous about Corey. Nothin’ I could put my finger on, nothin’ he ever exactly said or did. Just a strong feelin’. He might hurt you.”

“
There’s been others tried.”

“
What if he doesn’t want to be found? What if Alice wants to come home but he doesn’t want to let her?”

“
I’ll just have to persuade him.”

Misgivings were strong in her eyes. “It’s too much to ask of you, Rusty.”

“
You’re not askin’. I’m offerin’.”

“
I wouldn’t want you to put yourself in harm’s way for this family.”

“
I’ve been in harm’s way most of my life. And you-all and Andy are the nearest thing to family that I’ve got.”

“
At least talk to James. And to Evan. They worked with Corey. They’ll know the most about him.”

“
I’ll do that. It’s best you don’t say anything to Clemmie. If I don’t find Alice, she’d just be hurt all over again.”

Josie remained on the porch while he walked toward the dusty corral where James and Evan were working with a young horse, sliding a saddle blanket along its back, getting it used to the strange new feel. Geneva Gifford stood outside the fence, watching them. Her son, Billy, and a young daughter were beside her. Turning as Rusty approached, she extended her hand. She attempted a smile but could not quite bring it off. She said, “Billy told me you and Andy had come. I guess you’ve seen Mama.”

“
I wish I’d known sooner.”

He could never look at Geneva without feeling a sense of loss, though he had gradually come to terms with that loss a long time ago. He had taken comfort in the fact that her marriage was a good one. She had a husband who was worthy of her. Childbearing had matured her. She carried more weight than when he had courted her, but she was still handsome.

She said, “I saw you on the porch with Josie. Did you ask her this time?”

Geneva had always been able to read him as if his thoughts were written across his face in block letters. He replied, “She said no. On account of her mother.”

“
You can’t blame her.”

“
I told her I’d try to find Alice.”

“
I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“
It’s the only idea I’ve got.”

James released the horse and walked over to the fence. Geneva told her brother, “Rusty says he’s goin’ to look for Alice.”

Rusty’s relationship with James had always been shaky. Ranger service had put him at cross-purposes with Josie’s brother more than once. The end of the war had brought them to a truce, but earlier disagreements had left a lingering aftertaste like burned coffee on the tongue.

James demanded, “What’s Mama say about this?”

Rusty said, “She doesn’t know. It’s best to leave it that way.”

James frowned. “In other words, you’re not sure you can do it.”

“
All I’m sure of is that I’ll try.”

James said grimly, “I wanted to go myself, but Mama wouldn’t hear of it. She thought I’d more than likely shoot the son of a bitch. And I would’ve, if he gave me any excuse.”

Rusty pointed out, “He did marry her, at least. He is Alice’s husband.”

“
A son of a bitch, just the same. A good rider but rough on horses. Used his spurs too much. A man rough on horses is apt to be rough on a woman, too.” He motioned, and Evan came over to the fence, carrying a coiled rope. “Evan worked with him as much as I did. His opinion is the same as mine.”

Geneva told her husband what she had told James. Evan said, “I was always uneasy while Corey worked here. I suspicioned that he planned to steal some of our horses. I never thought that he might steal Alice instead.”

James said, “I never was plumb sure that Corey Bascom was his real name. Wouldn’t surprise me if he borrowed it someplace.”

Most of the aliases Rusty had come across seemed to be simple names such as Smith or Jones or Brown, not unusual enough to be memorable. “You have any idea where he came from, or where he might’ve gone with Alice?”

James and Evan glanced at one another. James said, “All we know for sure is that Alice sent her mother a letter from Fort Griffin sayin’ she had got married.”

Evan added, “He told me one time that his family had a stock farm over east someplace. I think he mentioned the Clear Fork. But I guess there’s several of those in Texas.”

Rusty said, “He could’ve meant the Clear Fork of the Brazos. It flows past Fort Griffin and spills into the main Brazos farther east.”

James grunted. “That’s a long ways from here. But if it was closer I’d’ve gone after Alice no matter what Mama said.”

Evan asked, “You want somebody to go with you?”

Rusty caught the misgivings in Geneva’s face. “There’s no need in that. You-all have got enough to worry about right here.”

Geneva looked relieved. She reached through the fence and clutched her husband’s arm. Evan did not argue the point.

Geneva bit her lip. “One thing, Rusty. If you find Alice, don’t give her the notion that she caused Mama’s stroke. There were so many things that piled up … the stroke might’ve come even if Alice hadn’t run away.”

James said, “And maybe it wouldn’t. Alice hasn’t exactly been a sweet little angel. Maybe she
ought
to feel guilty.”

Rusty shook his head. “It’s not my place to blame her
or
to forgive her. I’ll just see if she wants to come home and bring her if she does.”

James added, “And don’t kill anybody you don’t have to. Mama wouldn’t like it.”

R
usty tightened the cinch on his dun horse in the frosty light of the winter sunrise. Andy led Long Red to where his saddle rested on the top rail of a fence. The sorrel’s breath made a small cloud in the crisp air.

Rusty demanded, “What do you think you’re doin’?”

“
Fixin’ to go with you.”

“
I want you to stay here. Make yourself useful to the Monahan family.”

Andy lifted his saddle from the fence. “You don’t know what you may be ridin’ into. You’re liable to need help.”

“
I doubt it. If I do I’ll go to the local law. You stay here.” Rusty mounted and rode away, looking back. Andy stood with the saddle at arm’s length, watching him.

“
You stay,” Rusty hollered back.

He had ridden half a mile when he heard a horse coming up behind him. He stopped and turned the dun around as Andy approached. He said, “I told you I’m goin’ by myself.”

“
And I’m goin’ by
my
self. I just happen to be travelin’ the same direction you are.”

Rusty wanted to be angry with him but couldn’t. “As I remember it, you trailed after your Comanche brother once when he told you not to. Got yourself in bad trouble.” That had been the time Rusty had found him lying helpless, his leg broken after his horse fell.

“
I was just a kid then.”

“
By my lights, you’re still a kid.”

“
But too big for you to whip. Are we movin’ on, or do we just sit here and talk?”

Rusty saw that neither reason nor threat would change Andy’s mind. He had a stubbornness that Daddy Mike Shannon would have appreciated. “I guess we can argue and ride at the same time. Come on.”

He carried supplies rolled up in a blanket tied behind the cantle of his saddle. Andy had brought nothing but an extra blanket. Rusty knew they would have to be sparing of his coffee and flour and bacon. He said, “Keep a sharp eye out for game or we’ll be awful lank by the time we reach Fort Griffin.”

“
You don’t know what hungry is ’til you’ve ridden with the Comanches. They can go for a week on a chunk of sundried meat the size of your hand.”

“
I’ve done it, but I never liked it.”

Fortunately Andy’s sharp eyes picked up some antelope that afternoon, and his keen marksmanship brought one down. Antelope would never replace beef in Rusty’s opinion, but it was better than fat hogback.

Preacher Webb had told him about an army chaplain he had met in Fort Griffin. “When he wasn’t ministerin’ to the soldiers he was takin’ the gospel to others that needed it. The good Lord knows there’s a lot of them that need it around Fort Griffin. The ground over there is soaked in whiskey.”

Andy asked, “Is Fort Griffin really as bad as Preacher makes out?”

Rusty said, “From what I hear, one minister isn’t near enough.”

It was not much of a village. Its main clientele was soldiers stationed at the post on a flat-topped hill just to the south. It catered also to ranchers and farmers of the area and to freighters passing through. Whatever resentment the old Confederates might harbor against Union soldiers, they were never averse to profiting from them.

Rusty had found from experience that a saloon was a good place for information, though sometimes it required a modest investment in goods from behind the bar. He tied the dun in front of a crudely constructed frame building and told Andy, “You don’t belong in there.”

Andy smiled. “Neither one of us does. Looks like a place where you could get your head stove in for two bits.”

“
Or maybe less,” Rusty agreed. “You stay here while I go ask a question or two.”

Andy moved his head in a manner that said neither yes nor no. But he took a position out in front, by the door, where he could hear what was said inside.

The saloon keeper reminded Rusty a little of the stableman in Austin, middle-aged, thin, a red-tinged face indicating that he was quite familiar with his stock. He gave Rusty a piercing study as if gauging his ability to pay. “What’s your pleasure?”

“
Depends on what you’ve got.”

The barman waved his hand toward a row of bottles along the wall behind him. “You see it. Different bottles, same whiskey. Whichever one you take, you’ll wish you’d taken somethin’ else. But there ain’t nothin’ else.”

Rusty liked a little whiskey when it came handy, but he had never felt any addiction to it. “I’ll trust you. Just pour me one.”

The whiskey seared his throat as it went down. He almost choked.

The barman said, “Told you.”

Rusty had no wish for another drink. When his throat stopped burning he said, “I’m lookin’ for a preacher.”

“
You ain’t dyin’. My whiskey ain’t
that
bad.”

“
The preacher I’m lookin’ for would’ve married a young couple a while back. I’m hopin’ he can give me an idea where they went.”

“
Probably the chaplain up on the hill. Regular preachers usually take a look at this town and decide it’s beyond salvation. Young couple, you say? Name wouldn’t be Bascom, would it?”

Rusty stiffened. “That’s right, Corey Bascom. You know somethin’ about him?”

“
Enough not to be talkin’ much. He brought a young lady to town with him and got the chaplain to tie the knot. Spent the night camped on the river. Some of the boys thought about goin’ down and givin’ them a shivaree but decided against it. Them Bascoms are mean all the time. They get
real
mean when they’re riled up.”

“
Do you have any idea where they went from here?”

“
The family claims land to the northeast. I doubt it’s recorded at the courthouse, but who with any sense is goin’ to challenge them?”

“
How would I get there?”

“
You know where the settlers forted up against the Indians durin’ the war?”

Rusty remembered the place. It had been named Fort Davis in honor of Jefferson Davis, disregarding the fact that a military post by the same name existed in mountains far to the west. It had been populated a relatively short time, affording protection to civilians against the Comanches and Kiowas while so many of their young men were away to war.

The barman frowned. “I hope you ain’t got trouble on your mind. Them Bascom boys can give you more of it than you can handle. And old Bessie Bascom … she’s the devil’s stepmother. You a lawman?”

“
Used to be a ranger. I’m not anymore.”

“
You’d better not let them know you ever was. They’re a grudge-holdin’ bunch, and they got a grudge against any kind of law.”

“
I’m just lookin’ to be sure the girl’s all right. She needs to know that her mother has taken down sick.”

“
Just the same, you tread softly around that bunch. There ain’t a preacher amongst them.”

The barkeep drew a crude map on the back of an outdated fugitive poster originally circulated by the state police. The description on the poster fitted the man himself. He cautioned, “Now, don’t you let them Bascoms know I told you how to find them. I was lucky to live through the war. I don’t know how much luck I got left.”