The Searchers

by Alan Lemay

  “This here is Sol Clinton,” Amos told Mart. “Lieutenant in the Rangers. I side-rode him once. But that was long ago. I don’t know if he remembers.”

  Sol Clinton looked Mart over without to-do, or any move to shake hands. This Ranger appeared to be in his forties, but he was so heavily weathered that he perhaps looked older than he was. He had a drooping sandy mustache and deep grin lines that seemed to have been carved there, for he certainly wasn’t smiling.

  “I’m that found boy the Edwards family raised,” Mart explained, “name of—”

  “Know all about you,” Sol Clinton said. His stare lay on Mart with a sort of tired candor. “You look something like a breed,” he decided.

  “And you,” Mart answered, “look something like you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Stop that,” Amos snapped.

  “He’s full of snakehead,” Mart stood his ground. “I can smell it on him.”

  “Why, sure,” the Ranger conceded mildly. “I’ve had a snort or two. This is a dance, isn’t it? Man can’t haul off and dance in cold blood.”

  “Mind your manners anyway,” Amos advised Mart.

  “That’s all right,” Sol said. “You know a trader calls himself Jerem Futterman up the Salt Fork of the Brazos?”

  Mart looked at Amos, and Amos answered him. “He knows him, and he knows he’s dead.”

  “Might let him answer for himself, Amos.”

  “Sol was speaking of us riding to Austin with him,” Amos went on stolidly, “to talk it over.”

  Mart said sharply, “We got no time for—”

  “I explained him that,” Amos said. “Will you get this through your damn head? This is an invite to a neck-tie party! Now stop butting in.”

  “Not quite that bad,” Clinton said. “Not yet. We hope. No great hurry, either, right this minute. Best of our witnesses broke loose on us; got to catch him again before we put anything together. Most likely, all we’ll want of you fellers is to pad out a good long report. Show zeal, you know.” He dropped into a weary drawl. “Show we’re un-restin’. Get our pay raised—like hell.”

  “I guarantee Mart Pauley will come back to answer,” Amos said, “same as me.”

  “I guess the same bond will stretch to cover you both,” Sol Clinton said. “I’ll scratch down a few lines for you to sign.”

  “It’s a wonderful thing to be a former Ranger,” Amos said. “It’s the way everybody trusts you— that’s what gets to a man.”

  “Especially if you’re also a man of property,” Clinton agreed in that same mild way. “Amos put up a thousand head of cattle,” he explained to Mart, “that says you and him will come on into Austin, soon as you finish this next one trip.”

  “Aaron Mathison told me about this,” Amos said. “I couldn’t believe he had it right. I got to believe it now.”

  “They know about this, then. They knew it all the time....”

  “I stayed on to make sure. There’s nothing more to wait on now. Go and tell the Mathisons we’re leaving.”

  “Stay on awhile,” Sol Clinton suggested. “Have a good time if you want.”

  Martin Pauley said, “No, thanks,” as he turned away.

  He went looking for Laurie first. She wasn’t dancing, or anywhere in the barn. He went out to the barbecue pit, where some people were still poking around what was left of a steer, but she wasn’t there. He wandered down the horse line, where the saddle stock was tied along the length of a hundred-foot rope. He knew some of the women had gone over to Mose Harper’s house, a passel of young children had been bedded down over there, for one thing. He had about decided to go butt in there when he found her.

  A couple stood in the shadows of a feed shelter. The man was Charlie MacCorry; and the girl in his arms was Laurie Mathison, as Mart somehow knew without needing to look.

  Martin Pauley just stood there staring at them, his head down a little bit, like some witless cow-critter half knocked in the head. He stood there as long as they did. Charlie MacCorry finally let the girl go, slowly, and turned.

  “Just what the hell do you want?”

  A weakness came into Mart’s belly muscles, and then a knotting up; and he began to laugh, foolishly, sagging against the feed rack. He never did know what he was laughing at.

  Charlie blew up. “Now you look here!” He grabbed Mart by the front of the jacket, straightened him up, and slapped his face fit to break his neck. Mart lashed out by reflex, and Charlie MacCorry was flat on his back in the same tenth of a second.

  He was up on the bounce, and they went at it. They were at it for some time.

  They had no prize ring out in that country; fights were many but unrehearsed. These men were leathery and hard to hurt, but their knuckle brawls were fought by instinct, without the skill they showed with other weapons. Mart Pauley never ducked, blocked, nor gave ground; he came straight in, very fast at first, later more slowly, plodding and following. He swung workmanlike, slugging blows, one hand and then the other, putting his back into it. Charlie MacCorry fought standing straight up, circling and sidestepping, watching his chances. He threw long-armed, lacing blows, mostly to the face. Gradually, over a period of time, he beat Mart’s head off.

  They never knew when Laurie left them. A close circle of men packed in around them, shouting advice, roaring when either one was staggered. Amos Edwards was there, and both of MacCorry’s fellow Rangers. These three stood watching critically but impassively in the inner circle, the only silent members of the crowd. Neither fighter noticed them, or heard the yelling. Somewhere along the way Mart took a slam on the side of the face with his mouth open, and the inside of his cheek opened on his own teeth. Daylight later showed frozen splotches of bright red over a surprising area, as if a shoat had been slaughtered. Mart kept on moving in, one eye puffed shut and the other closing; and suddenly this thing was over.

  The blow that ended it was no different than a hundred others, except in its luck. Mart had no idea which hand had landed, let alone how he did it. Charlie MacCorry went down without notice, as if all strings were cut at once. He fell forward on his face, and every muscle was slack as they turned him over. For a couple of moments Mart stood looking down at him with a stupid surprise, wondering what had happened.

  He turned away, and found himself facing Sol Clinton. He spit blood, and said, “You next?”

  The Ranger stared at him. “Who? Me? What for?” He stood aside.

  A dawn as cheerless as a drunkard’s awakening was making a line of gray on the eastern horizon. Mart walked to their mules after passing them once and having to turn back. Any number of hands helped him, and took over from him, as he went about feeding their animals, so he took time to take the handkerchief from his neck, and stuff it into his cheek. The sweat with which it was soaked stung the big cut inside his cheek, but his mouth stopped filling up.

  Charlie MacCorry came to him. “You all right?” His nose showed a bright blaze where it had hit the frozen ground as he fell.

  “I’m ready to go on with it if you are.”

  “Well—all right—if you say. Just tell me one thing. What was you laughing at?”

  “Charlie, I’ll be damned if I know.”

  Watching him narrowly, Charlie said, “You don’t?”

  “Don’t rightly recall what we was fighting about, when it comes to that.”

  “Thought maybe you figured I cross-branded your girl.”

  “I got no girl. Never had.”

  Charlie moved closer, but his hands were in his pockets. He looked at the ground, and at the cold streak of light in the east, before he looked at Mart. “I’d be a fool not to take your word,” he decided. Charlie stuck out his hand, then drew it back, for it was swollen to double size around broken bones. He offered his left hand instead. “God damn, you got a hard head.”

  “Need one, slow as I move.” He gave Charlie’s left hand the least possible shake, and pulled back.

  “You don’t move slow,” Charlie said
. “See you in Austin.” He walked away.

  Amos came along. “Stock’s ready.”

  “Good.” Mart tightened his cinch, and they rode. Neither had anything to say. As the sun came up, Amos began to sing to himself. It was an old song from the Mexican War, though scarcely recognizable as Amos sang it. A good many cowboys had replaced forgotten words and turns of tune with what ever came into their heads before the song got to Amos.

  Green grow the rushes, oh,

  Green grow the rushes, oh,

  Only thing I ever want to know

  Is where is the girl I left behind....

  Well, it had been sung a good many thousand times before by men who hadn’t left anything behind, because they had nothing to leave.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  They angled southwest at a good swinging pace, their animals fresh and well grained. At Fort Phantom Hill they found the garrison greatly strengthened and full of aggressive confidence for a change. This was surprising enough, but at Fort Concho they saw troop after troop of newly mustered cavalry; and were told that Fort Richardson was swarming with a concentration of much greater strength. Southwest Texas was going to have a real striking force at last. They had prayed for this for a long time, and they welcomed it no less because of a sardonic bitterness in it for those to whom help had come too late.

  Beyond the Colorado they turned toward the setting sun, through a country with nothing man-made to be seen in it. So well were they moving that they outrode the winter in a couple of weeks. For once, instead of heading into the teeth of the worst weather they could find, they were riding to meet the spring. By the time they rounded the southern end of the Staked Plains the sun blazed hot by day, while yet the dry-country cold bit very hard at night. The surface of the land was strewn with flints and black lava float; it grew little besides creosote bush, chaparral, and bear grass, and the many, many kinds of cactus. Waterholes were far apart, and you had better know where they were, once you left the wagon tracks behind.

  Beyond Horse head Crossing they rode northwest and across the Pecos, skirting the far flank of the Staked Plains—called Los Llanos Estacados over here. They were reaching for New Mexico Territory, some hundred and fifty miles above, as a horse jogs; a vulture could make it shorter, if he would stop his uncomplimentary circling over the two riders, and line out. Their time for this distance was much worse than a week, for half of which they pushed into a wind so thick with dust that they wore their necker-chiefs up to their eyes.

  When finally they crossed the Territory line, they didn’t even know it, being unable to tell Delaware Creek from any other dry wash unfed by snows. Dead reckoning persuaded them they must be in New Mexico, but they wouldn’t have known it. Where were the señoritas and cantinas, the guitars and tequila, Amos had talked about? He may have confused this lately Mexican country he had never seen with the Old Mexico he knew beyond the lower Rio Grande. Without meaning to, probably, he had made the Southwest sound like a never-never country of song and illicit love, with a streak of wicked bloody murder interestingly hidden just under a surface of ease and mañana. The territory didn’t look like that. Nor like anything else, either, at the point where they entered it. There wasn’t anything there at all.

  But now the wind rested, and the air cleared. The country recovered its characteristic black and white of hard sun and sharp shadows. Mart dug Debbie’s miniature out of his saddle bags to see how it had come through the dust. He carried the little velvet box wrapped in doeskin now, and he hadn’t opened it for a long time. The soft leather had protected it well; the little portrait looked brighter and fresher in the white desert light than he had ever seen it. The small kitty-cat face looked out of the frame with a life of its own, bright-eyed, eager, happy with the young new world. He felt a twinge he had almost forgotten—she seemed so dear, so precious, and so lost. From this point on he began to pull free from the backward drag of his bad days back home. No, not back home; he had no home. His hopes once more led out down the trail.

  For now they were in the land of the Comancheros, toward which they had been pointed by the loot of Dead horse Bend. Here Bluebonnet must have traded for the silverwork and turquoise in the spoils; here surely he would now seek refuge from the evil that had come upon him in the north.

  That name, Comanchero, was a hated one among Texans. Actually the Comancheros were nothing but some people who traded with Comanches, much as Mart and Amos themselves had often done. If you were an American, and traded with Comanches from the United States side, basing upon the forts of West Texas and Indian Territory, you were a trader. But if you were a Mexican, basing in Mexico, and made trading contact with Comanches on the southwest flank of the Staked Plains, you were not called a trader, but a Comanchero.

  During the years of armed disagreement with Mexico, the Comancheros had given Texans plenty of reasons for complaint. When thousands of head of Texas horses, mules, and cattle disappeared into the Staked Plains every year, it was the Comancheros who took all that livestock off Indian hands, and spirited it into deep Mexico. And when great numbers of breech-loading carbines appeared in the hands of Comanche raiders, it was the Comancheros who put them there.

  Of course, Amos had once traded some split-blocks of sulphur matches and a bottle of Epsom salts (for making water boil magically by passing your hand over it) for some ornaments of pure Mexican gold no Indian ever got by trading. But that was different.

  Mart had always heard the Comancheros described as a vicious, slinking, cowardly breed, living like varmints in unbelievable filth. These were the people who now seemed to hold their last great hope of finding Debbie. The great war chiefs of the Staked Plains Comanches, like Bull Bear, Wild Horse, Black Duck, Shaking Hand, and the young Quanah, never came near the Agencies at all. Well armed, always on the fight, they struck deep and vanished. Amos was certain now that these irreconcilables did business only with the Comancheros— and that the Flower had to be with them.

  Somewhere there must be Comancheros who knew every one of them well. Somewhere must be one who knew where Debbie was. Or maybe there isn’t, Mart sometimes thought. But they’re the best bet we got left. We’ll find her now. Or never at all.

  First they had to find the Comancheros. Find Comancheros? Hell, first you had to find a human being. That wasn’t easy in this country they didn’t know. Over and over they followed trails which should have forked together, and led some place, but only petered out like the dry rivers into blown sand. There had to be people here someplace, though, and eventually they began to find some. Some small bunches of Apaches, seen at a great distance, were the first, but these shied off. Then finally they found a village.

  This was a cluster of two-dozen, mud-and-wattle huts called jacals, around a mud hole and the ruins of a mission, and its name was Esperanza. Here lived some merry, friendly, singing people in possession of almost nothing. They had some corn patches, and a few sheep, and understood sign language. How did they keep the Apaches out of the sheep? A spreading of the hands. It was not possible. But the Apaches never took all the sheep. Always left some for seed, so there would be something to steal another year. So all was well, thanks to the goodness of God. Here were some guitars at last and someone singing someplace at any hour of day or night. Also some warm pulque, which could bring on a sweaty lassitude followed by a headache. No senoritas in evidence, though. Just a lot of fat squaw-like women, with big grins and no shoes.

  Once they had found one village, the others were much more easily discoverable—never exactly where they were said to be, nor at anything like the distance which was always described either as “Not far” or “Whoo!” But landmarked, so you found them eventually. They made their way to little places called Derecho, Una Vaca, Gallo, San Pascual, San Marco, Plata Negra, and San Philipe. Some of these centered on fortified ranchos, some on churches, others just on waterholes. The two riders learned the provincial Spanish more easily than they had expected; the vocabulary used out here was not very large. And
they became fond of these sun-sleepy people who were always singing, always making jokes. They had voluble good manners and an open-handed hospitality. They didn’t seem to wash very much, but actually it didn’t seem necessary in this dry air. The villages and the people had a sort of friendly, sun-baked smell.

  They looked much happier, Mart thought, than Americans ever seem to be. A man built a one-room jacal, or maybe an adobe, if mud was in good supply when he was married. Though he bred a double-dozen children, he never built onto that one room again. As each day warmed up, the master of the house was to be found squatting against the outer wall. All day long he moved around it, following the shade when the day was hot, the sun when the day was cool; and thus painlessly passed his life, untroubled. Mart could envy them, but he couldn’t learn from them. Why is it a man can never seem to buckle down and train himself to indolence and stupidity when he can see what sanctuary they offer from toil and pain?

  But they found no Comancheros. They had expected a spring burst of fur trading, but spring ran into summer without any sign of anything like that going on. They were in the wrong place for it, obviously. And the real Comanchero rendezvous would be made in the fall at the end of the summer-raiding season. They worked hard to make sure of their Comancheros by the end of the summer—and they didn’t learn a thing. The paisanos could retreat into a know-nothing shell that neither cunning nor bribery could break down. A stranger could see their eyes become placidly impenetrable, black and surface-lighted like obsidian; and when he saw that he might as well quit.

  Then, at Potrero, they ran into Lije Powers. They remembered him as an old fool; and now he seemed immeasurably older and more foolish than he had been before. But he set them on the right track.

  Lije greeted them with whoops and exaggerated grimaces of delight, in the manner of old men who have led rough and lonely lives. He pumped their hands, and stretched eyes and jaws wide in great meaningless guffaws. When that was over, though, they saw that there wasn’t so very much of the old man left. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks had fallen in; and his worn clothes hung on a rack of bones.