Ranger's Trail

by Darlene Franklin

  “I wish we did not need to speak of this hoodoo war at all.” Stricker looked out the window at the clear summer sky. “I pray that last night’s rainstorm has washed away the anger building up in our town.”

  “That is my prayer as well. But you don’t think it has.”

  Stricker didn’t respond directly. “Hoodoo. I should not use the word. It means bad luck, or what brings it. What is happening here is not a result of bad luck, but of willful violence, much of it among the people of my congregation.” He sank into the chair behind the desk.

  Probably some of the people singing so lustily in the service this morning were involved in the murder of Tim Williamson among others—perhaps even Derrick Denning. At another time, with someone else, Buck would’ve asked. But he wouldn’t ask a pastor to betray his own people. He waited for what the pastor would say.

  “I appreciate your—delicacy—in not asking to whom I refer.” The man’s face sagged, and he aged. “May I ask you a question?”

  Buck nodded. “I’ll answer, if I can.”

  “Do you know Scott Cooley?”

  Ah. The former Ranger. “By reputation only. They say he was a fine officer; he only left the Rangers because the governor cut back on the numbers.”

  “I have heard the same. But sometimes the death of a friend changes a man.”

  A friend such as Tim Williamson. But again Buck didn’t want to put words in the preacher’s mouth.

  “I have heard he is seeking revenge against anyone involved in the murder of Tim Williamson. That was a terrible day.” He shook his head. “I thought I had seen every inhumanity possible during the War Between the States. But then Mr. Williamson was ambushed and murdered. The men tried to hide their identities by blackening their faces.”

  Buck cleared his throat. “That’s what I heard.” He waited for what else the pastor had to say. Williamson’s death, as terrible as it was, was almost three months in the past.

  “They say Cooley has returned to the county. I fear for our people. For the people of my congregation, yes, but also for all the people of Mason. Of what further violence might do to us.”

  Cooley was back in Mason County? That was troublesome news. Buck waited a bit to see if the pastor had anything further to say, but he didn’t. Suppressing a sigh at the loss of a peaceful Lord’s Day, he stood. “I’ll inform Captain Roberts that Cooley is back in the area. We’ll bring him in and warn him against taking the law into his own hands.”

  “Will you?” The pastor’s bright eyes bore into his. “I pray it will be that easy.”

  So do I, Buck thought as he climbed on Blaze’s back and headed for the Ranger encampment. So do I.

  After the morning service, Henry Fletcher saw Reverend Stricker take Buck aside. How much the pastor knew, no one could tell for certain. The pastor hadn’t participated in any of the revenge killings of the past few months, but he knew enough to get a lot of people into trouble.

  “So that’s your cousin, the Ranger.” Johannes Schmidt spoke in a low voice meant for Henry’s ears only.

  Henry nodded.

  “Is he a friend of Cooley?”

  “This isn’t the place to discuss that question.” Lisel beckoned for Henry to join her at the waiting wagon.

  “Come to my place tonight, then. Don’t come alone.”

  “I’ll do that.” Henry donned the hat he had removed during the service and rode home with his family. By the time they had finished evening chores hours later, Buck still had not returned to the house. Taking care of Ranger business—but what? Unease rippled down Henry’s back. So far, the Rangers hadn’t demonstrated support for the Germans’ cry for help when Scott Cooley set out to get justice for his dead friend. He didn’t know his cousin Buck well enough to count on his help.

  He saddled his horse—a Morgan mare—and caught up with his father before he went in for supper.

  “You’re headed out?” Concern creased his father’s face. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “I’m taking Jeff with me. We’ll be careful.”

  Pa’s cool blue eyes settled on his eldest son. He placed his hand on his shoulder. “You must do as God leads you. Only be sure it is God’s voice you are listening to.”

  “I will do what I must to protect this family.” It was a familiar argument. “If Buck returns this evening, don’t tell him where I have gone.”

  “How can I?” A ghost of a smile played around his father’s lips. “You haven’t told me.”

  Henry and Jeff rode hard for about forty-five minutes to reach Schmidt’s ranch, in the far corner of the county. Horses crowded along the porch rail. He went to the door, ready to give the knock in the prescribed manner, but before he could, it opened. “Come in. We’re nearly all here.”

  Henry removed his hat and followed Schmidt into the room. Members of the German community filled all the chairs and leaned against the walls. A few had taken a seat on the floor. The August heat was oppressive in the crowded room, in spite of the stone walls that usually kept the room cool in the summer and freezing in the winter. Henry wiped his bandanna across his forehead. Several men nodded a greeting.

  “Don’t know that it’s a good idea for you to be here, Henry. Your cousin is one of them Rangers.” Adolph Hinke spoke from the chair by the fireplace.

  “Henry is here at my invitation.” Schmidt spoke with authority. “It might be valuable to have someone close to the Rangers in our midst. We will discuss that later.”

  After the remaining stragglers arrived, Schmidt called the meeting to order. “I know several of us hoped the worst was behind us when no violence marred the end of the court session last month.”

  Nods indicated the men’s agreement.

  “What about Henry Doell’s death?” Hinke challenged. “He was a good man.”

  “That was a regrettable but unrelated incident,” John answered. “But the latest news is cause for alarm. I have a confirmed sighting of Scott Cooley back in Mason County.”

  Around Henry, the men shifted uneasily. “Was he here when Doell was killed?”

  Henry couldn’t see the speaker.

  Schmidt shook his head. “I don’t think so. But we need to be extra careful. Some of us more than others.”

  Henry sent up a word of thanks that he had been absent when Williamson had met his maker. Cooley had no reason to come after him. Unless he was misinformed … Reason didn’t make a difference with what was going on in Mason County.

  “Fletcher?”

  Henry blinked. “Yes?”

  “Any ideas of what is happening with the Rangers?” He shook his head. “My cousin keeps his own counsel.” “Be careful what you say to him.”

  “He could be a valuable resource to us. His mother is my father’s sister. He understands better than you think. I don’t think he’ll assume Cooley is in the right just because he used to be a Ranger.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.” Hinke scowled. “He’s only half German, after all.”

  Henry stared down the accusatory stares. But the warning had been delivered—no doubt about it.

  His only question was, should he tell his cousin?

  Leta woke up earlier than usual on Monday morning and slipped out to the barn to see if Andy had bedded down with the animals rather than disturb her rest in the night. But she found no sign of his presence. Only Daisy and Elsie, the milk cows, and the two horses remaining after Andy had taken the gelding, greeted her early entrance with gentle snorts and lowing.

  She looked at the rafters overhead. “Sorry I’m not doing a better job of taking care of him, Ma.” She had breathed easier when the last court session came and went without Andy taking off. But now he had disappeared, again. When he did this, he claimed he was off checking on the herd. Leta didn’t believe him, but aside from chaining him to the bedposts, she didn’t see how she could keep him at home.

  Maybe she should refuse to let him come back. If Andy thought he was old enough to wander around on his own, maybe h
e didn’t need the security of knowing he could always come home. Showing up and taking off made a bad impression on Ricky. As it was, he didn’t want to go to school, “just like Uncle Andy.”

  But neither could Leta shut the door on her brother, her only remaining family. She had promised her mother on her deathbed to take care of her brother. Part of Derrick’s appeal lay in his stability, his ability to provide a normal home for her family. Normal, that was, until Derrick died. This local war had not only robbed her of her husband, but also of the dream she had harbored for a small place to call her own. If only she could identify the men responsible for Derrick’s death.

  Worrying about Andy wouldn’t get the day’s chores done. Grabbing the tin pail, she milked Daisy, emptied the fresh cream into a crock, and then took care of Elsie. After pouring all but a small amount for breakfast into the crock, she balanced it in her arms and carried it to the cold spring.

  A yawning Ricky was pulling on his waist overalls when Leta reentered the cabin. “Where’s Uncle Andy?”

  “He’s still gone. So it’s just you and me today. It’s time I get out there and count the cattle.”

  Ricky buried his face in the frothy cream. When he lifted his face, he had a white beard. “That’s boring.”

  “It’s important. That’s where we get money for things like sugar and cakes.”

  Ricky giggled. “So if we have enough cows will you make me a cake?”

  Leta ruffled his hair. “I’ll think about it. Let’s get going. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.” Usually she assigned this duty to Andy, but too much time had passed since she had inspected the herd for herself. Soon they’d have to brand the calves. She would need to hire some extra help for that. She thought about the limited funds waiting in a jar above the stove. They went out faster than they went in. If they didn’t have a successful season, she didn’t know if the bank would agree to extend their loan.

  Take therefore no thought for the morrow. Outside the window a sparrow hopped on the windowsill, a bite of seed in its beak. God cares more for you than for that sparrow. Don’t worry. She repeated that to herself so often, sometimes she thought she worried about not worrying. Going around the corner behind the curtain that hid her bed from the rest of the cabin, she changed from her nightgown to an old pair of trousers. She wasn’t going to run into anybody riding the range, and if she had to do a man’s work around the ranch, she’d rather do it in the ease of men’s clothes.

  Ricky giggled as he always did when he saw her in trousers. “You look funny, Ma.”

  “It’s only so I can chase after any calves that run away.” She lifted a coil of rope down from the wall, suppressing the shiver that ran down her spine whenever she remembered how rope was used in Derrick’s death. She packed together bread and some peach jam and filled two canteens. “You ready to go, cowboy?”

  An oversized shirt dangled over Ricky’s belt, and his trousers rode up on his leg. She needed to lengthen his trousers before he went off to school. “I’m wearing one of Uncle Andy’s old shirts. He said I could.”

  “That’s fine. Let’s just tuck it in.” She suited her action to her words. “So it doesn’t get in the way.” She grabbed two hats and headed out the door. The day didn’t seem so bad after all. A day’s ride with her son under the Texas sky. What more could she want from life?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GALVESTON NEWS

  September 7, 1875

  Wohrle was shot six times and then scalped.

  Leta bit her tongue to keep from repeating her question to Ricky. He had given her the details on the location from the hill as he remembered them. Her son was alert enough for a six-year-old, but she couldn’t expect him to memorize all the particulars of the layout of the ranch.

  Down in the valley where Andy had reported three dozen–plus head of cattle two weeks ago, she only counted half a dozen stragglers. Maybe the herd moved on, stampeding during the lightning storm a few nights back. Or maybe human hands caused the disappearance.

  Maybe she was in the wrong place. She studied the landmarks. A grove of elms stood behind her. The rock outcropping that looked like a rooster loomed overhead. The narrow strips of land on either side of the stream disappeared into the mountains. As far as she could tell, this was it.

  Ricky rode his horse around in a small circle, arching his back and calling, “yeehaw!” Leta kept an eye on him while she rode in a slightly larger circle, scanning the ground for any signs of what had happened. Large areas of grass were trampled, which could’ve happened while the herd foraged in the pasture. If she looked farther afield, she might spot movement in a particular direction.

  But not with her son riding with her. As always, she had a gun with her, but she hadn’t expected trouble when she set out from the cabin that morning. Anger soured her stomach. Anger, and tension that came with a sense of danger. Her operation was too small to warrant the attention of rustlers, and the land wasn’t anything special. All the best parcels had gone to the Germans who received land grants two decades before.

  Germans. Hot anger pounded through her veins, replacing the shame she used to feel for judging people on the basis of their origins. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

  Ricky stopped riding in circles. “I’m hungry.”

  “That’s good, because it’s time for us to eat.” They might as well enjoy the food she had packed. Then they could bring the remaining cattle back to the barnyard to protect them from whatever predator—human, animal, or otherwise—had made away with the rest of the herd. “We have peach jam sandwiches.”

  As Leta had expected, her son wolfed down two thick sandwiches in huge chunks. They both finished the water in their canteens and rode to the stream for a refill.

  When she had descended from the horse, leaning over the stream, Leta got a prickling sensation on the back of her neck that someone was watching them.

  Buck could tell when Leta sensed his presence. She had entered the glen with no more concern for stealth than a rooster greeting the morning, but she had grown more cautious as she made ever-widening circles around the pasture. Now she straightened from the stream, reaching for the rifle waiting on the saddle, and her eyes darted around her surroundings. She said something to the boy and pulled him behind her.

  He decided to declare himself before she started shooting. He rode Blaze out of the elms with a bustle of noise. “Mrs. Denning. It’s me, Buck Morgan, the Ranger.”

  She held her rifle on her shoulder, aim steady. “You shouldn’t scare a body like that. You’re liable to get hurt.” He attributed the anger in her voice to fear. “What are you doing back on my land?”

  “I didn’t know this was on your ranch.”

  “It’s a long ways from the Ranger camp.” She kept the rifle trained on him.

  “Would you mind putting down your weapon? It’s hard to give a straight answer when you’ve got a bullet aimed between your eyes.”

  “And I won’t miss, either.”

  “I’m sure you won’t.” He dismounted and raised his hands away from his own gun.

  She responded by lowering her weapon. “I’m sorry for greeting you that way. I can’t be too careful out here.”

  Buck’s grandmother, Oma Nadetta, acted like the bear she was named after when someone threatened anyone in the family. Oma and Leta looked nothing alike, but they both would fight with tooth and claw to defend their own. Both of them all female in spite of the men’s trousers Leta wore today. He felt heat rising in his cheeks, and he turned away.

  A mistake. Wariness returned to her features. “You still haven’t told me what brings you back out here.”

  Buck didn’t have a satisfactory answer to give her. He just knew that he had to come back after the sermon on Sunday. “Let’s just say I don’t want to be a Pharisee.” He bent over and tipped his hat to the boy. “Howdy there, Ricky.”

  “What’s a fair-see?” The boy’s face scrunched in concentration.

  “A religious leader
, kind of like a preacher, except he liked preaching about the rules more than showing people God’s love.”

  “Oh.”

  Leta studied Buck as if weighing his motivations. Buck gestured across the pasture. “What brings you out so far from the cabin today?” “Checking on my cattle.”

  Cattle? Buck hadn’t seen more than half a dozen head munching peacefully at a slight distance. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She looked him up and down. “Since when do Texas Rangers offer to help ranchers with their work?”

  “Since they have a day off now and again.” He rested his hand on Blaze’s saddle. “I couldn’t help but notice you had a few things that need doing around the ranch. Well, I happened to grow up on a ranch, and I thought maybe I could help. That’s all there is to it. And since you’re short-handed since your brother’s not here—”

  Leta’s eyes flashed. As if she was ready to tell him she had everything perfectly well under control or that Andy was somewhere else on the ranch. To her credit, she swallowed her pride. “Did you notice any sign of cattle wherever you rode from? A large herd, I mean. Not a steer here or there.”

  He thought about the ground he had ridden over. “Nothing obvious.”

  Her lips thinned. “Then there’s not a lot you can do to help.”

  She was more stubborn than an Indian on the warpath. Buck didn’t think she’d like him mentioning the problems he had noticed here and there, things a man with a hammer and some nails and muscles could fix. Maybe he should work on things away from her sight. If she knew about his efforts to help her, she’d feel obligated to refuse.

  Buck decided to make one more effort. “Do you have any colts that need to be trained to the saddle?” He didn’t like to brag but … “My family runs a horse ranch. I’m a fair hand at breaking horses.” The best in the Morgan family, but she didn’t need to know that.

  The boy tugged at his mother’s sleeve and whispered in her ear when she bent down. She straightened and studied Buck, matching him stare for stare, while silence stretched between them. He’d never known a woman who could keep so quiet. At length she nodded. “Ricky’s Pa promised him a horse of his own when he started school, and we have a colt just about old enough.”