by Andre Norton
So these were the famous Pima Scouts! No wonder they took their ease in the Tubacca plaza. Every man, woman, and child in those adobe buildings had reason to be thankful for their skill and cunning—the web of protection Rennie’s Pima Scouts had woven in this river valley.
“I’m Kirby, Drew Kirby.” He hastened to match one introduction with another. “This is my first time in the valley—”
“From th’ east, eh?”
“Texas.”
“Texas.…” Something in the way Fenner repeated that made it sound not like a confirmation but a question. Or was Drew overly suspicious? After all, as Callie had agreed last night, the late Republic of Texas was a very large strip of country, housing a multitude of native sons, from the planting families of the Brazos to the ranchers in crude cabins of the Brasado. There were Texans and Texans, differing greatly in speech, manners, and background. And one did not ask intimate questions of a man riding west of the Pecos. Too often he might have come hunting a district where there was a longer distance between sheriffs. What a man volunteered about his past was accepted as the truth.
“Rode a far piece then,” Fenner commented. “Me, I’ve been trailin’ round this here country since th’ moon was two-bit size. An’ I ain’t set my moccasins on all o’ it yet. Thar’s parts maybe even an Injun ain’t seed neither. You jus’ outta th’ army, son?”
Drew nodded. Apparently he could not escape that part of his past, and there was no reason to deny it.
“Iffen you be huntin’ a job—Don Cazar, he’s always ready to hire on wagon guards. Any young feller what knows how to handle a gun, he’s welcome—”
“Can’t leave Tubacca, at least for now. Have me a mare over in the livery that just foaled. I’m not movin’ until she’s ready to travel—”
“Must be right good stock,” Fenner observed. “Me, I has me a ridin’ mule as kin smell Apaches two miles off. Two, three times that thar mule saved m’ skin fur me. Got Old Tar when he turned up in a wild-hoss corral th’ mustangers set over in th’ Red River country—”
“I saw him when you rode into town. Good-lookin’ animal.”
Crow Fenner nodded vigorously. “Shore is, shore is. DonCazar, he’s partial to good stock—favors Tar, too. Th’ Donhas him a high-steppin’ hoss every hoss thief in this here territory’d like to run off. Bright yaller—”
“Saw that one, too. Unusual colorin’ all right.”
“He put a white stud—white as milk—to run with some light buckskin mares back ’fore th’ war. First colt out of that thar breedin’ was that Oro hoss. Never got ’nother like him; he’s special. Shows his heels good, too. They’s gonna race him out on th’ flats tomorrow if anyone is fool ’nough to say as he has a hoss as can beat Oro. Thar’s always some greenhorn as thinks he has—”
“Oh?” Drew wondered aloud. The black-and-gold horse was beautiful and plainly of good breeding. That he was also a runner was not out of the question. But that Oro could best Gray Eagle-Ariel stock on the track, Drew doubted. There were unbroken records set on eastern tracks by horses in Shiloh’s direct blood line. And the local talent that had been matched against Oro in the past had probably not been much competition. The Kentuckian began to speculate about a match between the gray stallion and the horse foaled on the Arizona range.
“Yep, we’ll see some race, does anyone turn up with a hoss t’ match Oro.”
One of the shirted Indians rose to his feet. With rifle sloped over forearm, he padded into the dark. Fenner’s relaxed posture tensed into alert readiness. His head turned, his attitude now one of listening concentration. Drew strained to see or hear what lay beyond. But the noise from the plaza and torchlight made a barrier for eye and ear.
Fenner’s rifle barrel dropped an inch or so; he stood easy again. Drew heard a jingle of metal, the creak of saddle leather, the pound of shod hoofs.
“Soldiers!” Fenner sniffed. “Wonder what they’s doin’, hittin’ town now. Wal, that ain’t no hair off m’ skull. Me, I’m gonna git Tar his treat. Promised him some time back he could have a bait o’ oats—oats an’ salt, an’ jus’ a smidgen o’ corn cake. That thar mule likes t’ favor his stomach. Kells, he ought t’ have them vittles put together right ’bout now. This mare o’ yourn what’s so special, young feller.… Me, I’d like t’ see a hoss what’s got to be took care of like she was a bang-up lady!”
He put two fingers to his lips and whistled. A mule head, attached to a rangy mule body, weaved forward to follow dog-at-heel fashion behind the scout.
A squad of blue coats was riding in—an officer and six men. They threaded their way to the cantina where the officer dismounted and went inside. The troopers continued to sit their saddles and regard the scene about them wistfully.
“Looks like a duty patrol,” Fenner remarked. “Maybe Cap’n Bayliss. He’s gittin’ some biggety idear as how it’s up t’ him t’ police this here town. Does he start t’ crow too loud, Don Cazar or Reese Topham’ll cut his spurs. Maybe he sets up th’ war shield an’ does th’ shoutin’ back thar in front o’ all them soldier boys. In this town he ain’t no gold-lace general!”
“Troops and the town not friendly?” Drew asked.
“Th’ soldiers—they ain’t no trouble. Some o’ ’em have their heads screwed on straight an’ know what they’s doin’ or tryin’ t’ do. But a lot o’ them officers now—they come out here wi’ biggety idears ’bout how t’ handle Injuns, thinkin’ they knows all thar’s t’ be knowed ’bout fightin’—an’ them never facin’ up to a Comanche in war paint, let alone huntin’ ’Paches. ’Paches, they know this here country like it was part o’ their own bodies—can say ‘Howdy-an’-how’s-all-th’-folks, bub?’ t’ every lizard an’ snake in th’ rocks. Ain’t no army gonna pull ’em out an’ make ’em fight white-man style.
“Don Cazar—he goes huntin’ ’em when they’ve come botherin’ him an’ does it right. But he knows you think Injun, you live Injun, you eat Injun, you smell Injun when you do. They don’t leave no more trail than an ant steppin’ high, ’less they want you should foller them into a nice ambush as they has all figgered out. Put Greyfeather an’ his Pimas on ’em an’ then leg it till your belly’s near meetin’ your backbone an’ you is all one big tired ache. Iffen you kin drink sand an’ keep on footin’ it over red-hot rocks when you is nigh t’ a bag o’ bones, then maybe—jus’ maybe—you kin jump an Apache. Comanches, now, an’ Cheyenne an’ Kiowa an’ Sioux ride out to storm at you—guns an’ arrows all shootin’—wantin’ to count coup on a man by hittin’ him personal. But th’ ’Pache ain’t wastin’ hisself that way. Nope—git behind a rock an’ ambush…put th’ whole hell-fired country t’ work fur them. That’s how th’ ’Pache does his fightin’. An’ th’ spit-an’-polish officers what come from eastward—they’s got t’ larn that. Only sometimes they ain’t good at larnin’, an’ then they gits larned—good an’ proper. Hey, Kells!”
They were at the stable and Fenner lifted a hand, palm out, in greeting to the liveryman. “Here’s Ole Tar wantin’ his special grub—”
Drew went on to Shiloh’s stall. Reese Topham, the Spaniard Don Lorenzo who had been in the cantina last night, the stout Mexican Bartolomé, and Don Cazar himself were all there before him.
“Here he is now.” Reese Topham waved a hand at Drew. “This is Mister Kirby, from Texas.”
“You have a fine horse there, Kirby—the mare, too. Eastern stock, I would judge, perhaps Kentucky breeding?” Rennie asked.
Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, not lie directly.
“Yes, Kentucky.” He answered the first words his father had ever addressed to him.
“And the line?”
To be too evasive would invite suspicion. However, the Gray Eagle get was in more than one Kentucky stable.
“Eclipse.…” Drew set back the pedigree several equine generations. Shiloh tossed his head, looked over his shoulder at Dr
ew, who entered the stall and began quieting the stallion with hands drawn gently over the back and up the arch of the neck.
“The mare also?” Don Cazar continued.
“Yes.” The Kentuckian’s answer sounded curt in his own ears, but he could not help it.
“This Eclipse, amigo,” Don Lorenzo turned to Rennie for enlightenment—“he was a notable horse?”
“Sí, of the Messenger line. But a gray of that breeding—” Don Cazar’s forefinger ran nail point along his lower lip. “Ariel blood, perhaps?”
Drew busied himself adjusting Shiloh’s hackamore. This was getting close. Hunt Rennie had lived in Kentucky over a year once. He had visited Red Springs many times before he had dared to court Alexander Mattock’s daughter and been forbidden the place. His visits to the stable must have familiarized him with the Gray Eagle-Ariel strain bred there. On the other hand, horses of the same combination were the pride of several other families living around Lexington.
“A racing line of high blood,” Don Lorenzo said thoughtfully. “Sí, this one has the pride, the appearance. You have raced him, señor?” he asked Drew with formal courtesy.
“Not on any real track, señor. During the war there were no races.”
“He wasn’t a cavalry mount?” Don Cazar looked surprised.
“No, suh. Too young for that. He was foaled on April sixth in sixty-two. That’s why they called him Shiloh.”
There was a moment of silence, broken by a hail from the door.
“You there—Rennie!”
Drew saw the involuntary spasm of Don Cazar’s lips, the shadow of an expression which might mean he anticipated a distasteful scene to come. But the quirk disappeared as he turned to face the man in the blue uniform.
“Captain Bayliss.” It was acknowledgment rather than a greeting, delivered in a cool tone.
“I want to see you, Rennie!” The officer stamped forward a step or so, to stand in the full light of the first lantern. He was of medium height, and his blue blouse had been cut by a good tailor, though now it was worn. He was a good-looking man, though jowly about the mouth, above which a closely cropped mustache bristled. His color was high under a pink skin which in this hot country must burn painfully. And there was the permanent stamp of uncertain temper in the lines about his prominent eyes.
CHAPTER 4
“So, you see me, Bayliss,” Don Cazar returned evenly. “There is some trouble?”
Bartolomé shifted from one foot to the other, his spurs ringing. Don Lorenzo’s expression was one of withdrawal, but on the round countenance of the Mexican was open dislike.
The sun-reddened skin flushed darker. “All right, Rennie!” the captain exploded. “If you want it straight, that’s the way you’re going to get it! You’ve been hiring Rebs again!”
Once before Drew had seen explosive anger curbed visibly by a man who knew the folly of losing control over his emotions. It had been on a hilltop back in Tennessee, with the storm clouds of January overhead. General Bedford Forrest, watching men driven to the limit by necessity and his own orders, had looked just that way when he had rounded on Drew, bearing news of yet another break-through by the Federals. Now it was this Anglo wearing Spanish dress and standing in a dim stable, reining temper to meet the open hostility of the captain.
“Captain Bayliss.” The words sounded as remote as if the speaker bestrode some peak of the Chiricahuas to address a pygmy in a canyon below. “I know of no law which states that I may not employ whom I choose on my own land. If a man does his job and makes no trouble, his past does not matter. I am as ready to fire a former Union soldier as I am a Confederate—”
“I tell you again: I’m not going to have Rebs around here passing on information to Kitchell!”
“And I say once again, Captain, that men who ride for me do not in addition ride for Kitchell.”
“Sí—!” Bartolomé’s face was as flushed as Bayliss’ now. “We do not help those bandidos. Do they not also raid us? Two weeks ago Francisco Perez, his horse comes in with blood on the saddle. We ride out and find him—shot, dragged with the rope. That is not Apache trick, that, but the work of Kitchell and his snakes!”
“Peace, amigo.” Don Cazar’s raised finger silenced his man. “Bartolomé is right, Bayliss. Kitchell is beginning to nibble at the Range. He has not many sources of supply left. Soon he will either have to cross the border to stay or make some reckless raid which will give us a chance at him.”
“These damned Rebs around here will keep him going! You can’t tell me they don’t back him every chance they get. And I’m warning you, Rennie, if you hire any man you can’t answer for, he’s going to the stockade and you’ll hear about it from the army!”
“And you also listen, Captain. I will not be dictated to, and the army had best understand that. I do not want Kitchell in this country any more than you do. He has made a boast of being Confederate leading what he terms Mounted Irregulars. But to my knowledge he never held a commission from the South, and he is nothing but an outlaw trading on the unsettled state of the territory. That is recognized by every decent man in Arizona. And that covers those you call ‘Rebels’ as well as former Union men.”
Bayliss was silent for a long second, and then he jerked his hat farther down on his peeling forehead. “You’ve had notice, Rennie, that’s all I have to say. I’m going to clear all the Rebs out of this section. Then we will be able to get at Kitchell, and the army will settle him for good and all!”
“Bayliss!” The captain had half turned, but Don Cazar’s call halted him. “Don’t you try harassing any of my riders. They mind their business and will not make any trouble as long as they are left in peace. If there are any problems in town, Don Lorenzo Sierra, here, is the alcalde and they must be referred to him.”
The captain favored Rennie with a last glare and was gone. Tobe Kells spoke first.
“That one’s chewin’ th’ bit an’ gittin’ ready to hump under th’ saddle. This business of tryin’ to run out th’ Rebs, it’ll cause smokin’!”
“He has no right to give such an order,” Don Cazar was beginning when the alcalde interrupted:
“Compadre, for a man such as that your talk of rights means nothing. He is eaten by the need to impress his will here, and that will bring trouble. I do not like what I have heard, no, I do not like it at all.”
“You know what may be really eating at him this time, Hunt?” Topham spoke from where he was leaning against the wall of Shadow’s box stall. “Johnny was throwing his weight around again last night. Had a set-to in the Jacks with a trooper. Unless the kid quits trying to fight the war over again every time he sees an army blouse—or until he stops pouring whisky down him every time he hits town—there may be shooting trouble. There’re some equal hot-heads in Bayliss’ camp, and if Johnny goes up against one of them, a scuffle could become a battle.”
“Yeah, an’ that warn’t all Johnny was doin’ last night.” Kells shifted his tobacco cud from one cheek to the other. “Iffen Kirby here hadn’t been to hand, Johnny would have skinned th’ Trinfan kid with his quirt—jus’ ’cause he dropped his purse outside th’ Jacks an’ th’ kid followed him to give it back. Johnny’s meaner than a drunk Injun these days. That’s Bible-swear truth, Rennie.”
“To lose a war makes a man bitter,” Don Cazar said slowly. “Johnny was far too young when he ran away to join Howard. And after that defeat at Glorieta, the retreat to Texas was pure hell with the fires roaring. It seems to have done something to the boy—inside.”
“Johnny wasn’t the only boy at Glorieta. From what I’ve heard most of them weren’t old enough to grow a good whisker crop.” Topham’s voice had lost its detached note. “And he sure wasn’t the only Confederate to surrender. Hunt, he’s got to learn that losing a war doesn’t mean that a man has lost the rest of his life. But the way he’s been acting these past months, Johnny might just lose it. Bayliss’ tongue is hanging out a yard or more he’s panting so hard to get back at you. That cap
tain has heady ambitions under his hat, maybe like setting up here as a tinpot governor or something like. If he can discredit you, well, he probably thinks he’s got a chance to rake in the full pot, and it’s a big one. Get Johnny back on the Range, Hunt—put him to work, hard. Sweat that sour temper and whisky out of him. He used to be a promising youngster; now he’s turning bronco fast. All he seems to have learned in the war is how to use those guns of his to lord it over anyone he believes he can push around. And someday he’ll try to push the wrong man—”
Don Cazar was staring ahead of him now at Drew and Shiloh. But Drew knew that Hunt Rennie was not seeing either man or horse, but a mental picture which was not too pleasing.
“He’s just a boy.” Rennie did not utter that as an excuse; rather he said it as if to reassure himself. Then his eyes really focused on Drew, and he changed the subject abruptly.
“Kirby, when the train comes in we sometimes set up a race or two. Any thought of trying your colt against some of the local champions?”
“Oro perhaps?” Drew counter-questioned.
Rennie laughed. “Oh, so you’ve been talking, Fenner?”
The scout came away from where Tar was still very audibly munching his treat. “Didn’t know as how th’ younker had him a runnin’ hoss, Don Cazar.” He inspected Shiloh critically. “But that thar sure looks a lotta hoss. ’Course maybe he ain’t used t’ runnin’ out here whar th’ ground ain’t made all nice an’ easy fur his feet. But I dunno, I dunno at all.”
“Anyway he’ll give Oro stiffer competition than he’s had in the last two races. Unless that Lieutenant Spath up at the camp tries again with that long-legged black of his,” Topham added. “What about it, Kirby? You willing to match Shiloh?”
“He’s green, but, yes, I’ll do it.”
Drew’s motives were mixed. His pride in the colt had been pushing him toward such a trial ever since he had heard Fenner speak of Oro. In addition, as the owner of a noted horse, he would take a place in this community, establish his identity as Drew Kirby. And in some way he could not define, this put him, at least in his own mind, on an equal footing with Don Cazar.