[Texas Rangers 05] - Texas Vendetta (2 page)

Chastened, Andy tied the mule.

The cabin was still dark as the two Rangers circled around to come in behind the milk shed. They left their horses in a clump of trees. The cow stood outside the gate, waiting in bovine patience for the grain that awaited her in the stanchion. She turned her head to watch the men approach on foot. She seemed to know they were strangers and drew away. She did not go far because she had not yet nursed her calf or had her morning feed. Hogs in a nearby pen grunted but quickly settled back down. Andy’s nose pinched. He never had gotten used to the smell of pigs. Horses disliked them, and so did Comanches.

Presently he saw lamplight in the cabin window. A man came out carrying a bucket.

Farley said, “That’s Leach. He’s meaner than a boar hog with the hives. Be ready for real trouble.”

“You don’t figure on shootin’ him, do you?”

“Not without he gives me cause. But if he gives me cause I sure won’t take a chance with him.”

Andy’s hands were tense on his rifle. He could handle a pistol, but a rifle felt steadier and seemed to carry more authority. He could not see if Leach was armed. The man’s face was featureless in the dim light of early dawn, but Andy could see that his body was broad and muscular. He looked as if he would be hard to handle in a fight.

Farley whispered, “He’s got a six-shooter in his boot. Get set. It’s liable to be a hell of a scrap.”

Farley waited until Leach opened the gate for the cow to enter the lot. He stepped out into the open and said, “Hands up. We’re Rangers.” He shoved a pistol forward, almost in Leach’s face.

Leach wilted and raised trembling hands. “Don’t shoot. For God’s sake, Ranger, don’t shoot.”

Farley seemed let down by the lack of resistance. “You’re harborin’ a fugitive. We got a warrant for Joseph Bransford’s arrest.”

“Go help yourself,” Leach said in a quavering voice. “He’s in the cabin. Only please don’t shoot. I’m a married man. My wife depends on me.”

Disgusted, Farley told Andy, “Cuff this cowardly son of a bitch to the fence post.” He turned back to Leach, waving the pistol in his face. “If you holler I’ll blow a hole in your brisket.”

Fear gave Leach’s voice a high pitch. “I won’t make a peep.”

Andy said, “That was easy.”

Farley did not hide his disappointment. “Bransford is apt to come at us like a mad bull. Be ready to shoot him.”

“What about the woman?”

“Don’t worry none about her. She’ll wilt like bluebonnets in June.”

A wagon stood in front of the cabin. Farley placed himself behind it. He motioned for Andy to take cover behind a dug well ringed by a circular rock structure about three feet high, with windlass and wooden bucket on top.

Andy thought it would be more effective to burst into the cabin and take Bransford by surprise, giving him no time to put up resistance. But Farley preferred confrontation in broad daylight, where he could see his target and have plenty of room to move around.

Farley shouted, “Joseph Bransford, listen to me. We’re the Rangers. There’s ten of us, and we’ve got this cabin surrounded. Come out with your hands up or we’ll burn the place and roast you like a pig.”

Andy heard a woman’s angry shout from inside.

For emphasis Farley fired a shot that showered splinters from the upper part of the door. He called, “Let the woman come out first. We got no paper on her.”

The woman came out waving a heavy chunk of firewood. She made straight for Farley, cursing him for twelve kinds of egg-sucking dog. She was tall and broad and looked as if she could wrestle a mule to its knees. As Farley raised his arms for defense, she struck him twice. Startled, then stunned, Farley almost went to his knees. He raised his arms, trying to fend off her blows.

“Damn you, Badger Boy, do somethin’.”

Farley’s hat rolled on the ground. His head was bleeding.

Andy twisted the firewood from her hand and cast it away, but she closed in enough to leave deep tracks of her fingernails upon Farley’s whiskered cheek.

“Get this civit cat off of me.”

Andy got an arm around the woman’s wide waist and dragged her away from Farley, only to have her turn on him instead. He managed to grab her strong hands and pull them behind her back. He handcuffed her to one of the posts that supported the windlass. She cursed until her voice went hoarse.

Both men struggled for breath. Farley raised a hand to his head and then looked at it. He saw blood. “Damn you, boy, how come it took you so long?”

“I thought you said she was goin’ to scream, faint, and fall down.”

Farley gave him a look that would wither weeds. He dragged a sleeve across his sweating face and fired a shot through the open door. “You comin’ out, Bransford, or do you want to fry like a slab of bacon?”

A shaken man appeared in the doorway, hands above his head. “I give up. You don’t need to shoot no more.”

The woman turned her fury on him. “You ain’t no brother of mine, you snivelin’ coward. There ain’t but two of them. You could’ve got them both.” She looked around with wide eyes. “Where’s my husband? What you done with my man?”

Farley was too choked with anger and embarrassment to answer. Andy said, “He’s down at the shed, holdin’ on to a fence post. Ain’t done his milkin’ yet.”

The Rangers had just one set of handcuffs apiece, and those were both in use. Andy tied Bransford’s hands with a leather string cut from his saddle. He drew the binding down tightly enough that Bransford complained about the circulation being cut off.

Farley said, “Ain’t near as tight as a noose around your neck. You’re lucky that farmer didn’t die. Now, where’s the money you took off of him?”

The woman said, “Don’t you tell them nothin’, Joseph. That money’s ours if you’ll just keep your damn-fool mouth shut.”

Farley tapped the muzzle of his pistol smartly against Bransford’s upper teeth. “Bad advice can get a man killed. Tell me where that money’s at or I’ll scatter your brains for the chickens to peck on.”

Andy hoped the prisoner would see that Farley was not bluffing.

Bransford was eager to tell. “It’s in there,” he said, pointing to the cabin. “Come and I’ll show you.” Andy followed him while Farley remained outside, wiping blood from his forehead. Bransford pointed his chin toward a wooden box beside the iron stove. “It’s at the bottom.”

Andy said, “Stand back yonder and keep your hands high in the air.” He dug the stove wood out of the box until he found a canvas sack. He could tell by the feel that it was full of paper. Coins clinked together in the bottom when he shook it.

He demanded, “Is it all there?”

Bransford was trying not to cry. All that effort and nothing left to show for it. “Just spent a little on whiskey. And I left a few dollars with a woman over to Fort McKavett.” He was trembling with fright. “What you Rangers goin’ to do with me?”

Andy said, “Farley is plumb sore that you didn’t put up a fight. But if I can keep him from killin’ you, we’ll take you to camp. Then I expect they’ll send you to Colorado County to stand trial.”

“What you reckon they’ll give me?”

“Ten to twenty years, the captain said.”

Bransford mumbled, “Ten to twenty years. Seems like an awful long time for no more money than I got.”

“You shot the man you took it off of.”

“I wouldn’t have if he’d given it to me right off like I told him to.”

Andy motioned for Bransford to walk outside ahead of him. The prisoner avoided his sister’s smoldering eyes. He stared at the sack, his expression solemn. “Looks like by rights that money ought to be mine, seein’ as I’m goin’ to give up ten to twenty years payin’ for it.”

Farley shook his bleeding head in disbelief. “We sure got a sorry class of criminals these days. At least the Indians gave us an honest fight.”

Andy said, “I’m takin’ that as a compliment.”

It was as much of one as he expected to receive from Farley.

A couple of horses grazed a few hundred yards away. Andy rode out and brought back the better of the two, a grulla gelding, for Bransford to ride. The woman fought the cuffs that held her against the well. “That’s my husband’s horse.” She resumed cursing as the three men went down to the shed.

Bransford pointed out his saddle, and Andy put it on the horse for him. “Mount up.” When Bransford was in the saddle, Andy fetched up his own and Farley’s horses. He unlocked Leach’s cuffs and transferred them to Bransford.

Leach rubbed his raw wrists, his face twisting. “You damned Rangers think you run the world.”

Farley said, “We do, and we’ll be back to get you the first time you let your foot slip.”

“That’s my horse you put Joseph on. His is that jug-headed bay out yonder.”

Farley had no sympathy. “You just traded. They’re probably all stolen anyway.” He mounted his horse and poked the muzzle of the pistol in Leach’s direction. “Come on back up to the cabin. We ain’t plumb finished with you.”

When they reached the dwelling Andy leaned down from the saddle and handed Leach the key to the handcuffs that restrained his wife. “Turn her a-loose, then give me the cuffs and the key.”

Farley argued, “We ought to just leave her thataway. While her man filed those cuffs off of her, she’d have time to study on a woman’s proper place.”

“You want to pay the captain for the cuffs?”

“I reckon not. But watch her close when you turn her loose.”

Fortunately the woman seemed to have used up most of her fight as well as all the profanity she knew. She stood in fuming silence, trying to kill Andy and Farley with the hatred in her eyes. Leach handed Andy the cuffs and key.

As the three rode away the woman shouted, “Our old daddy’s turnin’ over in his grave, Joseph, you givin’ up so easy. You better ride way around this place when you come back.”

Farley turned in the saddle. “Lady, he ain’t comin’ back.”

Andy said, “Some lady.”

Farley took a final glance at the cabin. “That place would look a hell of a lot better if we’d left it in ashes.”

Bransford said, “You’d really burn it down with me in it?”

“I had the matches in my hand.”

Andy remarked, “Thought we were goin’ to have her fix us some breakfast.”

Farley shook his head. “She’d poison us.”

They fixed their own when they got back to where they had left the pack mule tied.

Andy asked Farley, “How’s your head?”

“If she didn’t break my skull, she bent the hell out of it. And you just stood there watchin’.”

“I jumped in as fast as I could.” Andy saw that Farley had no interest in his side of the story. “First water we come to, we’d better wash the blood off of your face. I’ve seen butchered hogs that bled less.”

Farley gingerly felt of his head. “Look, it’s enough that we bring the prisoner in like the captain told us to. There’s no reason we’ve got to tell him about that woman.”

Nearing camp, the three riders came upon the company horses scattered to graze on an open flat. They were watched over by two Rangers taking refuge from the sun’s heat by shading up under a live-oak tree. The end of the long ride lifted Andy’s spirits. Fatigue seemed to slip from his shoulders. The prisoner had been sullen and quiet, slouching in the saddle. Andy could understand, given the likelihood that he faced a long prison sentence. Farley had spoken little. He carried his hat on his saddlehorn, for it had been painful to wear over the knot swollen on his head.

The sound of gunshots made Bransford sit up in alarm.

Andy tried to calm him. “Just some of the boys at target practice.” The captain provided an ample supply of cartridges, encouraging his men to sharpen their marksmanship. Cartridges were one of the few things besides food that the Rangers were not obliged to furnish for themselves. Even food was supplemented by whatever game they could shoot or fish they could catch.

The company camp had been established on the bank of the wide, clear San Saba River. Tall pecan trees sent roots deep into the mud and cast a cool shade over a row of canvas tents. To this company of Rangers it was home. It was an easily movable home, its location subject to the region’s changeable law enforcement needs.

Earlier, the frontier batallion had busied itself primarily with keeping hostile Indians out of the settlements or chasing those who managed to get in despite the long picket line of Ranger outposts. Now that task had been largely eliminated by a relentless army push against the warring Plains tribes. A concentrated military offensive, moving in from three directions, had forced most of the Indians to give up the fight and repair to the questionable mercies of the reservation. Except for occasional limited outbreaks, the Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes had been put out of action.

Apaches still roamed the far western part of the state and prowled rough hills down along the Rio Frio and upper Nueces, but the most destructive of the Indian raids were over. Of late the Rangers had turned their attention to the criminals who infested the state, especially its less settled portions, where escape was often fast and easy. Nowhere were they worse than in the limestone hills west of San Antonio, where dense cedar brakes and deep, rugged canyons offered sanctuary, where water and game were plentiful and a man could live off the land if the climate elsewhere became too hot.