Matagorda (1967)

by L'amour, Louis

  They stared at him then. “You goin’ back?” Spicer said. “You’re foolin’!”

  “Lon was riding for me. I want to find him, or find out what happened to him. I want no part of this Munson feud, but if they’ve killed a man of mine, that’s something I’ll take care of.”

  “I’ll go along with that.” Doc Belden got up. “All right, if you’re going, let’s go.”

  “I’ll go alone.”

  “Now, that’s foolhardy,” Spicer said. “If anybody goes it should be me. I know them boys, every last one of them.”

  Tap did not move, but stared at the fire, considering the situation. “If Lon came running for me in this weather,” he said after a moment, “there was trouble, real trouble. So you better keep a sharp lookout.”

  “You think the Munsons would move with it blowing like this?”

  “Most of them wouldn’t. They’d be more likely to sit it out in comfort, but that isn’t Jackson Huddy’s way. It would be like him to use this storm to end the feud once and for all. You see, because of the drive he’s got all the Kittery outfit bunched up where he wants them.”

  Still Tap lingered. He was no more anxious than any other man to leave even the small comfort of that fire for the storm outside. He looked around at the campsite. It was almost surrounded by the wall of mesquite, prickly pear, and post oak, but on one side it opened on the small parklike area where the cattle slept. Seeking shelter from the storm, they had also found a position that could be defended if necessary.

  It was a dawn of rain and dark clouds, so low they seemed scarcely higher than the brush, and above all was the sound of the roaring wind. There was no question of escaping the rain; one could only hope to avoid the worst of it. The wind drove through the brush, bending the stiff branches, bending even the stunted trees until it seemed they must break or be uprooted.

  They huddled together a minute or two longer. “You watch yourself, Major,” Belden said quietly. “This here is one helluva storm. I never saw its like.”

  Tap wiped the water from the horse’s back, then saddled it once more. Welt Spicer came up, a small bit of rawhide tied over the muzzle of his rifle.

  There was a minute or two when the horses fought against facing the wind; then reluctantly they started, bending their heads low, pushing against it, moving forward with straining muscles.

  Chapter Eleven.

  Dawn came to Indianola with a weird yellow light, revealing the gray faces of the rain-hammered buildings, the dark, swirling water, ugly with foam and debris, rushing through the street. A lone steer, moss trailing from one great horn, came plunging and swimming along, a straggler from the herd, following blindly.

  Somewhere up the street there was a crash as a wall gave way … more wreckage went by.

  Jessica had risen from her seat in the old leather arm chair. “Mr. Brunswick,” she said, “we’ve got to chance it. I think everything is going to go.”

  Reluctantly, he agreed. “All right.” He looked around at the stunned, frightened people in the room. “We’ve got to get what blankets we can, and whatever food there is. There’s no telling how long we’ll be caught there.”

  “Major Duvarney will return,” Jessica said. “He knows I am here.”

  “If he can,” Brunswick responded grimly.

  “Oh, no!” The words came from Mady in a low, tortured cry. Jessica looked out at the water. Something else was swirling there, hanging for a moment against the smashed boards of the walk. It was a body, the body of a man, and it needed only a glimpse to see that no flood waters had killed this man. He had been shot… shot in the back of the head, and one side of his head was blown away.

  For an instant nobody moved, then Brunswick and Grain lunged for the door, catching the body before it could be washed away, and getting it onto the solid part of the walk. Huddled over the body, they searched it for clues, and then stumbled back inside, Brunswick holding a small handful of money, some water-soaked papers, and a gun belt.

  “His family might need this money,” Brunswick said. He straightened the papers. One was an envelope addressed to Lon Porter, in care of a hotel at Brownsville, Texas.

  “Don’t know him,” he muttered.

  “That man was murdered,” Grain said sternly. “He was shot in the back of the head, at close range.”

  “There’s twenty-six dollars here,” Brunswick said. “Ma’am, will you see that this gets to whoever should have it? This letter here-I think you can make it out . .

  . that might help some.”

  “Yes.” She took the money and the letter. She was thinking that this might be one of the men Tappan had hired. Brownsville … Fort Brown … yes, she was sure of it.

  Something else occurred to her.

  Mady … Mady had come to Her room drenched to the skin and frightened, and there had been mud on her shoes. That was easy enough to get, even by crossing the street, but it had looked like the dirt from a stable or a corral. And Mady’s sudden exclamation just now … was it only at seeing a man’s dead body? Or was it because it was this particular man?

  Jessica turned to look, but Mady had withdrawn and was working her way toward the back of the group, as if to avoid the accusing face of the dead man.

  Jessica suddenly remembered their critical situation. “Mr. Brunswick,” she said, “we’ve got to go. We’ve got to move right away.”

  Grain suddenly spoke up. “My God! We have prisoners locked in the jail!”

  “Bill Taylor’s in there,” somebody said.

  Just then two riders turned into the street, their horses almost belly-deep in the rolling water. Both men were bundled in slickers, and both had their hats tied under their chins, but she recognized Tappan at once.

  She stepped to the door and Brunswick tried to restrain her. “Wait! We’ll join hands!

  We can make a human chain, and the first ones who get to the courthouse can help the others.”

  “We’ll have help,” Jessica said. “There’s Tappan Duvarney.”

  He rode up, facing his horse into the current. He saw her, started to speak, and then he saw the body of Lon Porter.

  Instantly he swung to the hotel porch, which tilted badly under his weight, water sloshing over it. He bent over the body, turning the injured head gently with his fingers. Then he looked up. “Did anybody see this happen? Who shot him?”

  Nobody answered, but involuntarily Jessica looked at Mady, whose face was taut and pale. Mady’s stare was defiant, but she said nothing.

  “His body floated down here,” Brunswick said. “He must have been shot somewhere east of town.”

  “He was looking for me,” Duvarney responded. “Somebody did not want him to see me, or else killed him because he was herding Rafter K cattle.”

  “We were going to make a try for the courthouse,” Grain said. “I’ve got to go to the jail. If you could-”

  Tap stepped back into the saddle and took down his rope. He shook it out. “Grab hold,” he said, “and hang on.”

  People rushed to catch the rope, but Welt Spicer was doing the same thing. Just then four riders turned into the upper end of the street.

  “Look out, Major!” Spicer spoke quickly in a low tone. “Those are Munsons.”

  “Let’s go!” Duvarney shouted to the crowd. “Let’s go and keep moving!”

  Grain, also mounted, was riding toward the jail. Tap caught a glimpse of him, and then could pay no more attention, for he needed every bit of his awareness. His horse started well, but the footing was bad; once the horse slipped, going almost to his knees, and it was only Tap’s strength on the reins that pulled him up.

  Half the people clinging to the rope were elderly. The wisest ones had managed to take a turn of the rope around their arms, for even if it was pulled taut and caused pain, it would at least hold them.

  Only two persons were still at the hotel when Tap looked back. One was Bob Brunswick, and the other was Jessica. He almost pulled up when he saw her there, but she waved him o
n, and he lifted a hand and then spoke to his horse. “Steady, boy,” he said.

  “Steady now.”

  A barn door went swinging by, narrowly missing the horse’s legs. Tap squinted his eyes against the rain and stared ahead. At the corner, where two currents met, there was a swirling whirlpool. Somewhere along here the street was lower than further back … but where?

  The four riders were coming nearer. He reached back and under the guise of straightening the rope, slid the thong from his pistol butt.

  He felt the drive of the rain, and knew the sea was rising, rising with the wind.

  He looked back along the black swirling river of the street, and saw the collapsed buildings, the gutted stores, all torn and spoiled by sea and wind. His hat brim flapped against his brow; the wind tugged at the drawstring that held his hat in place, and flapped his slicker against the flanks of the horse.

  “Steady, boy. Take it easy now.”

  The rocks that had washed from the makeshift foundations were slippery, mud coated, and mud was deep in the street. He held to the side of the street for doubtful shelter from the wind. Always his eyes looked ahead, watching the wreckage as it hit the whirlpool at the corner, studying the currents, to move with them when crossing.

  Actually, he was only supposed to fee guiding the people, giving them something to cling to, but in effect he was hauling them along through the water, for many were too weak to do more than struggle feebly. Water had soaked their heaving clothing and weighted them down.

  A cry rang out behind him … somebody was down. He drew up, giving his horse a chance to breathe. A woman had lost hold of her valise and her cry was one of anguish.

  No doubt the valise contained those keepsakes that a woman holds of most value, and she let go her hold on the rope and grasped frantically for it.

  Instantly the swirling waters swept her from her feet. She struggled, came partly erect once more, then was knocked down by a piece of wreckage.

  A tall, fine-looking man, roughly dressed and unshaved, broke from his shelter near the side of a house and caught her sleeve, helping her up. Looking past her, he saw the valise had brought up against a step, and he struggled across the street, almost breast high in the center, retrieved the valise, and brought it back. With one arm around the white-haired woman, he helped her on toward the courthouse, holding the handle of the valise in the other hand.

  “That’s Bill Taylor,” somebody said. “Grain must have let them out of jail.”

  Duvarney headed his horse for the courthouse steps. Turning in the saddle, he glanced at the Munson riders. Two of them he knew, the two on the wharf at Indianola on that first day. They were looking at him, and the grin on their faces was not pleasant.

  “Go ahead, Majuh,” one of them said. “You get free of what you’re doin’. We can wait.”

  Four of them … and there was just Welt Spicer and himself.

  It was to be a fight this time, storm or no storm. Duvarney watched them sitting there in their saddles, water washing their stirrups, making no effort to help. Taylor had been a feudist, too, imprisoned for the killing of Sutton and Slaughter on a steamboat alongside the dock in Indianola; but Taylor was a gentleman and a Texan.

  The Munson crowd were a rabble; few of them now were even of the family, most were just a gang gathered together, fighting for whatever they could win.

  “Better get inside,” Duvarney said to a man who stopped at his stirrup to thank him.

  “I’ve got to go back after Brunswick and that girl.”

  “She gave up her place,” the man said. “She stepped aside.”

  “She would,” Duvarney said; “she’s got the backbone to do it.” And to follow him here, to leave a comfortable and beautiful home … she had come here to this and, knowing her, he knew that she would have no regrets.

  He turned his horse as Welt closed in beside him. “Well, here it is, Major. We’ve got our fight, whether we want it or not.”

  “If they killed Lon Porter,” Tap said, “I want it.”

  He swung his horse and rode toward them. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jessica standing with Brunswick on the end of the boardwalk. He wanted to go to them, but if he did he would expose himself to the fire from the Munsons … and he knew they would wait no longer.

  He rode right at them, his horse buck-jumping through the water. Welt had kept a little behind and on the right, working toward their flank, and they didn’t like it.

  “Which of you killed Lon Porter?” Tap spoke mildly.

  “That gent over back of the corral who was huntin’ you?” one of them asked. It was one of the men from the wharf who spoke. “I missed out on that. Didn’t git there soon enough. Know what he was fixin’ to tell you? We hit ol’ Tom Kitt’ry t’other day an’ knocked him for a loop … scattered his cows, shot up all those folks he had with him. Ol’ Tom’s either dead or hidin’ in a swamp somewheres. Maybe he’s drowned by now.”

  “We come after you,” the other one said. “We heard tell of’ Jackson had staked you out for hisself, but that ain’t fair. We figured to owe you somethin’ for that mix-up down to the dock.”

  “Now, look, boys.” Tap’s voice was still mild.

  He went for his gun.

  Both Munsons had been holding guns under their slickers, drawn and ready, but they were talkers, and they wanted to tell him what they had done, and what they planned to do.

  Duvarney’s gun came up fast, the hammer coming back as the gun barrel swung up; then the hammer dropped and he was thumbing it in a steady roll of sound. The tallest Munson grabbed his stomach, swinging his pistol to bring it to bear, but the gun would not fire. Evidently Tap’s bullet had hit the hammer or the trigger of the gun as Munson held it across his stomach under the slicker, and the gun was jammed.

  The bullet had glanced upward, inflicting a wound … Tap could see the blood, bright crimson before the rain hit it, even as he fired his second and third shots.

  His second shot caught Munson in the chest; the third was directed at the second Munson. He heard guns hammering, knew Spicer and the others were fighting. He saw the tallest Munson drop, heard the whiff of a bullet by his face, and saw the second weaving in his saddle. Even as he shot, he saw that these men were not fighters, they were killers, an altogether different thing. It is one thing to shoot a man from ambush, or when outnumbering the enemy; it is quite another thing to stand up face to face with a man who also holds a gun, and will shoot.

  Tap turned toward Spicer, but Welt had been smarter than he, for Welt had stayed off some thirty yards and used his Winchester. In the driving rain, at thirty yards he was not a good target for hasty six-gun shooting. He had shot his first man, cold-turkey, and had his Winchester .44-40 on the other when the man threw down his gun and lifted his hands.

  “You all right, Welt?” Tap asked.

  “Sure. You?”

  “Hold that man, Welt. I want to talk to him.” He walked his horse slowly through the water, keeping to the side where it was not more than stirrup-deep, and rode to where Jessica stood. Her face was very pale, her eyes unnaturally large.

  “You came to a rough country, Jessica,” he said.

  She looked up at him, holding up her skirt in one hand. “My man was here,” she said simply.

  Chapter Twelve.

  He bent over, offering his hand, and, gathering her skirt a little more, she stepped a toe into his stirrup, and he seated her before him.

  “Tappan … those men … the ones you shot? Did you kill them?”

  “They fell into four feet of water, Jessica, and I am not wasting time looking for them. When I got off the ship, two of them were on the dock and picked a fight with me simply because I was a well-dressed stranger. Now they’ve brought me into a feud I wanted no part of. What happened to them ceases to be my concern.”

  They had reached the steps of the courthouse, and he let her down gently, water swirling only inches from the step. “Better stay inside,” he said. “I thi
nk we haven’t seen the worst of it.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He smiled at her. “First, I’m going to get Brunswick over here. Then Welt Spicer and me will ride back to our cattle. Will you be all right?”

  “Of course, Tappan. Don’t worry your head about me.”

  He bent over and kissed her lightly. “I’ll be back,” he said.

  Welt Spicer took the lead. The rain had eased a little, and there seemed to be a lessening of the wind. Duvarney was sure what they had seen was only an outer edge of the storm, and the worst was yet to come. This was not the eye of the storm, but one of those curious gaps in the wind, an island of calm in the midst of fury … or relative calm, for rain still fell, and the wind still blew. He also knew there was little time to do what must be done.

  There was no better place to stay than the courthouse. It was a strongly built structure on higher ground, and so was above the rising water, and it seemed able to withstand the wind.

  Welt dropped back beside him. “Major, you’d better start considering Jackson Huddy.

  You’ll have him to contend with.”

  “I know.”

  He had been thinking a lot about Huddy, and knew what he must do, if he could. He must find Huddy and force him into a fight. If given time, the man would surely plan an ambush and kill him in his own time, on his chosen ground. The only way to fight such a man was in the way he did not want to be fought-in the open and man to man.

  To do that, he must stay on Huddy’s trail, find him, and either push the fight, or stay with him until Huddy had no choice.

  It was easy enough to consider such a plan, but it was something else to bring it to a conclusion. It was like serving a bear steak. First you had to catch a bear)

  “Hey!” Welt exclaimed. “Look over there!”

  On a low ridge off to their left was a dark mass of cattle and horses. At least twenty acres of the long ridge and its flanks were above water, and they could see several riders around a fire.

  Duvarney turned his mount toward them. “If they’re friendly, maybe we can get some fresh horses.”

  They could see that there were three men and a spindling boy of fourteen or so. One of the men stood up, waiting for them.