“I reckon you know the answer to that,” Frank replied quietly.
“Yeah, I reckon I do, and I’m sorry I asked it.” Tolliver pushed his chair back. “We’ve talked a lot, and now we got a lot to think about. I’m gonna turn in. Doc, you and Bob will stay the night since it’s so late?”
“Yes, and we’re much obliged.”
“Frank, you can have the same room you did before,” Tolliver went on.
Frank came to his feet. “Thanks. I’ll admit that I’m a mite tired. I’ll turn in as soon as I’ve seen to my horse.”
“Some of the boys could do that,” Tolliver offered.
“No, thanks. I want to handle it myself.”
Tolliver nodded, and Frank went out to take Stormy over to the barn and find an empty stall.
He was unsaddling the Appaloosa when a footstep made him turn, his hand dropping to the butt of his gun. Ben Tolliver stepped forward in the shadowy barn, his hands held out empty to show that he wasn’t a threat.
“It’s just me, Mr. Morgan,” the young man said. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Frank grunted. “About Carmen, I’ll bet.”
“Is she all right?” Ben asked anxiously, keeping his voice pitched low so their conversation wouldn’t be overheard.
“She was fine when I left the hacienda,” Frank assured him. “As far as I know she still is.”
Ben heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you for not saying anything to my pa. He just wouldn’t understand.”
“Pretty soon he may have to,” Frank said bluntly. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep your secret much longer.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve got a letter for him from Don Felipe Almanzar asking for a meeting between the two of them six days from now in San Rosa, so that they can hash everything out and put an end to their feud.”
Ben’s eyes widened in surprise. “That’s impossible! Don Felipe would never agree to such a thing. Neither would Pa.”
“It was my idea,” Frank said, “but Don Felipe came around to my way of thinking.”
Ben shook his head, obviously unable to comprehend what he was hearing. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.”
Frank put a hand on his shoulder and said, “This could be just what you and Carmen need, Ben. If your fathers agree to get along again, or at least to not hate each other, there’s no reason the two of you can’t admit how you feel. There wouldn’t be any reason to keep it secret anymore.”
“That would be . . . wonderful,” Ben said, his voice a little awed now. “But they’ve hated each other for so long—”
“For no good reason, just a prideful misunderstanding,” Frank pointed out.
“Yeah, but it’s hard to believe it could ever happen. Did you say anything about it to my pa?”
Frank shook his head. “Not yet. He had enough to do tonight, what with this problem with the Rangers. Maybe we can get that settled, and then we’ll see about patching things up between him and Don Felipe.”
“That might be best,” Ben agreed. “But there are those rustlers, too, and the Black Scorpion....”
“The Black Scorpion never was your enemy, Ben. You might as well get that through your head. And I’m convinced the Rangers are behind all the rustling, although I can’t prove it yet.”
“Those men who jumped me and Pa, that evening when we first met you . . . do you know who they were?”
“I know who they weren’t,” Frank said with conviction. “They weren’t working for Don Felipe, and they weren’t the Black Scorpion’s bunch.”
“Then who . . . ?”
“Maybe some of Wedge’s friends,” Frank suggested. “With some recruits from below the border to make it look good, so either Almanzar or the Black Scorpion would get the blame.”
That idea had slipped fully formed into Frank’s brain, but he saw that it made sense and tied right back in with his speculation that there was a connection between Wedge and Estancia.
“Tell me,” he went on, “had your father had any trouble with Wedge before that evening?”
“Well, sure,” Ben said. “In fact, Pa was the first one around here to start talking about how Wedge was coming down on folks too hard, like he was trying to take over or something.”
“So Wedge might have gotten the idea that your father was starting to stir up trouble for him. He wouldn’t have wanted Cecil to rouse the whole border country against him.”
“Like we’re trying to do now.”
Frank nodded. “Exactly. What Wedge was worried about is starting to come true. But a couple of weeks ago, he thought he could nip the problem in the bud by getting rid of your pa and laying the blame for it on either Almanzar or the Black Scorpion.”
“It would have worked, too, if you hadn’t come along when you did.”
Frank smiled thinly, thinking of the attempt on his life earlier in the night. “If our theory is true,” he said, “then I reckon I’ve been a thorn in Wedge’s side right from the start.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t just kill you when you went across the border with him after the Black Scorpion.”
“I reckon he was just biding his time. If I hadn’t gotten separated from him and his bunch of gunnies, I doubt if I’d have made it bach across the Rio Grande alive.”
Ben sighed “It’s sure a complicated state of affairs, isn’t it?”
“It is, at that,” Frank agreed.
But he knew that sooner or later there would be a showdown, and nothing untangled a mess of knots like gun smoke and hot lead.
Though an air of tension hung over the border country for the next couple of days, there were no outbreaks of violence. It was a lull, like the eye of a hurricane, but Frank knew that such respites never lasted. Trouble seldom if ever went away on its own.
As Cecil Tolliver had predicted, his wife Pegeen was happy to see Frank. Visitors were always welcome on the Rocking T, and Pegeen was the sort to seize any excuse for some extra cooking and baking, happily bustling around the ranch house kitchen with her daughters Jessie and Debra.
Frank didn’t say anything to Cecil Tolliver about the proposed meeting between him and Don Felipe Almanzar, and neither did Ben. Frank had found more trouble here on this side of the Rio Grande than he had anticipated, and he hoped to be able to wait for a better time before springing the idea of a truce on Tolliver.
During those two days, according to the plan worked out with Doc Ervin, the physician was traveling around the area, ostensibly on medical calls, but actually he was telling the other ranchers to come to the Rocking T after dark on the second night, so they could try to figure out what to do about Nathan Wedge and the renegade Texas Rangers. Some of the men from San Rosa would probably attend the meeting, too.
Tolliver had chosen one of the cowhands, a fresh-faced youngster named Hardy, to ride downriver to Laredo and send the letter that Tolliver had written to the governor of Texas, outlining the situation and asking for help. Frank had helped Tolliver with the letter and was convinced it would draw the results they wanted. The question was whether or not help would arrive in time to keep Wedge from taking over completely. Hardy had set out at night, on a fast horse, hoping to escape notice in case Wedge was having the ranch watched.
So all they could do was to bide their time and wait for the meeting. Around noon on the second day, Frank sought out Cecil Tolliver and made a suggestion.
“Why don’t you see if Pegeen and the girls would be willing to go into San Rosa and visit Roanne for a few days?” Frank said as the two men stood beside one of the corrals.
Tolliver frowned. “You really think that’s necessary?”
“I’m convinced Wedge has already tried to kill you once, Cecil. If he got wind of this meeting, he might see it as a chance to wipe out all his opposition at the same time.”
“I trust Doc,” Tolliver said stubbornly. “He’s a sly old bird. He won’t let Wedge know what’s going on.”
“I tr
ust Doc, too, but there are other people who know about the meeting now, and I don’t know how careful all of them will be. It’s just a precaution, but I think it’s a good idea.”
Tolliver sighed. “What you say makes sense, Frank, but you don’t know that woman of mine. If she thinks I’m tryin’ to get her out of harm’s way, that’ll just make her more bound and determined to stay.”
“Maybe you can tell her that she needs to go in order to get your daughters to go. Appeal to her maternal instinct.”
Tolliver scratched at his close-cropped beard. “Aye, could be you’re right. But I still think Pegeen will outsmart me somehow. She always does.”
To his surprise, Pegeen agreed to go into San Rosa with Jessie and Debra and put up no argument about it. She didn’t allow any protests from the young women, either. By the middle of the afternoon they had one of the ranch buckboards loaded with enough bags for a visit of several days. The women kissed their husbands good-bye and then drove away, trailed by a couple of well-armed cowboys who would escort them to the settlement and then return to the Rocking T. Frank had considered going along himself, so that he could see Roanne again and check on Dog, but decided against it. If there was any trouble at the meeting that night, he didn’t want to risk finding himself cut off from it.
With that taken care of, the men settled down to wait again. Frank suggested that they do something useful to pass the time.
They cleaned their guns.
32
High, patchy clouds blew in with the twilight, obscuring some of the stars and forming streaks across the brilliant orange moon as it climbed into the sky. An hour after dark, wearing a Stetson he had borrowed from Darrell Forrest, Frank Morgan stood in front of the largest barn on the Rocking T and looked up at that moon, feeling its pull on him. Tidal forces were at play within him, forces that urged him to move on. They were part of the restless nature that had given him his nickname, and they were at odds with the part of him that longed for a respite from all the trouble in his life, for a peaceful place to settle down and grow old....
But he no longer truly believed that he would ever find such a place, and he had already lived for more years than he had any right to expect, given his reputation. He looked around at the men gathering tonight at the Rocking T and knew that there was a fundamental difference between them and him. They were the ones who had homes and families and lives that really meant something. They were the bedrock, the stuff that lasts.
He was the lightning bolt, the flash that was there and then gone, but with tremendous destructive force that was sometimes needed to start a cleansing fire and sweep away all the deadwood, so that new life could grow and continue the endless cycle.
Frank smiled faintly, telling himself he wasn’t really the sort to wax poetical. Then he turned and went into the barn, which was lit by lanterns hung at intervals along the walls.
Between thirty and forty men were in there: all the ranchers from up and down the river, including Howard Longwell, his arm in a sling, who had gotten out of bed over his wife’s objections to come here tonight; Doc Ervin and half-a-dozen men from San Rosa, one of them the former marshal Walt Duncan, who had been relieved of his position by the Rangers; and several tejanos, Mexican by heritage but whose families had lived and farmed on the Texas side of the river for generations. At times in the past there had been friction between the gringos and those of Mexican ancestry, but tonight they were all Texans and they all wanted to find a solution to the threat represented by the Rangers who had gone bad.
The Rocking T punchers had piled some bales of hay at the front of the barn to form a platform. Cecil Tolliver climbed up onto it and raised his hands for quiet, calling, “Settle down now, boys. Settle down.”
The room had been filled with talk, but it quieted in response to Tolliver. The men all looked up at him, waiting to hear what he was going to say. At the rear of the group, Frank propped a shoulder against one of the beams that held up the barn roof and listened as well.
“Y’all know why you’re here tonight,” Tolliver began. “For weeks now, ever since the Rangers under Captain Nathan Wedge rode into the area supposedly to enforce the law, things have been getting worse along the border. All of us cattlemen have lost stock to rustlers. Gangs of gunmen ride unmolested through the night, shooting and terrorizing. Bandidos from below the Rio Grande have raided our ranches and our settlements. Smugglers bring across opium and gold and take back guns, and nobody bothers them. And if anybody says a word about it to the Rangers, trouble comes down hard on his head!”
Shouts of agreement came from the men.
“Lately, though,” Tolliver continued, “things have gotten even worse. Walt Duncan, who’s done a good job for years as the marshal in San Rosa, got his badge taken away from him by Captain Wedge. Accordin’ to the Rangers, Walt just ain’t needed anymore. And Heck Carmichael at the telegraph office isn’t allowed to send a wire unless the Rangers approve it first. Likewise, he can’t deliver any message that comes in until Wedge or one of the other Rangers has seen it. Buckshot Roberts, at the San Rosa Sun, can’t print his newspapers any more without the Rangers lookin’ over his shoulder to see what he’s gonna say. That just ain’t right!”
Again, shouts rose to the barn rafters.
“Now, though, they’ve gone too far. You all know Howard Longwell.”
The men in the crowd murmured in agreement and looked at Longwell, who stepped forward beside the hay bales.
“Three nights ago,” Tolliver said, “some of Wedge’s men rode out to Howard’s ranch to take some of his horses. When Howard told them they couldn’t do it, one of the bastards shot him!”
Angry shouts, now.
Tolliver leveled an arm and pointed at Frank, still standing at the back of the crowd. “If our friend Frank Morgan hadn’t come along when he did and ventilated those so-called Rangers, the buzzards likely would have killed Howard and Doris and stole all their horses.”
Well, his involvement in that affair was out in the open now, Frank thought with a grim smile. But things had gone so far that there was no longer any point in trying to conceal what had happened.
“Howard’s gonna be all right,” Tolliver said, “but who knows what sort of deviltry the Rangers will try next?”
Despite the general mood of agreement in the room, one of the men spoke up, saying, “It sure pains me to hear you talkin’ about the Rangers like they’re outlaws or somethin’, Cecil.”
Tolliver nodded solemnly. “I know it. It pains me to say such things, Sam. All of us remember what it was like in Texas after the war, when the Yankee carpetbaggers came in and took over and tried to force their way of livin’ on us. They had their damned State Police, and they were the worst bunch of crooks to ever call themselves lawmen! It wasn’t until the carpetbaggers were booted out and the State Police dissolved that the Rangers could come back and be real lawmen again. I know all that.”
Despite the coolness of the night, Tolliver was sweating. He pulled a bandanna from his pocket and mopped his face before going on.
“But just because the Rangers, by and large, are an honorable, straight-shootin’ bunch, that don’t mean that some of ’em can’t go bad from time to time. I blame Wedge. He must’ve decided a long time ago to cross over to the owlhoot side, and he took his time drawin’ men who felt the same way to him and gettin’ them into the Rangers, too. And when they were ready, they rode down here with badges pinned to their chests, knowing that we’d never suspect just what polecats they really are. It took us some time to figure that out, but by God, we know it now!”
Another man yelled from the crowd, “But what are we gonna do about it?”
“Hang Nathan Wedge from the nearest tree!” came an answering shout. Several men roared their approval of that suggestion.
Cecil Tolliver raised his hands over his head again. “Hold on, hold on!” he rumbled. When relative quiet had settled in, he said, “I know that most of us lived through a time when the only
real law was what a man packed on his hip and the only justice was a hang rope! I ain’t sayin’ that it’s always been for the better, but things have changed since then. If we fight the Rangers, it’s likely to look to everybody else in the state like we’re the outlaws, not Wedge and his bunch! What we need is some real law in here, and that’s what I’ve asked the governor to send us. There’s a letter on the way to him right now, tellin’ him just how bad things are down here.”
“How long is that gonna take?” a man demanded.
“Yeah, what if Wedge has wiped us all out before the governor gets around to doin’ anything?” another rancher added.
“That’s why we’re havin’ this meeting tonight,” Tolliver said. “For the time bein’, I think we should all send our womenfolk into San Rosa. Wedge is less likely to try anything really bad as long as there are a lot of people around. You little ranchers, fellas who run one-man layouts, maybe you ought to think about gatherin’ all together at one of your spreads and fortin’ up there.”
“I can’t do that!” one of the men protested. “I can’t just abandon my ranch!”
“It wouldn’t be permanentlike,” Tolliver pointed out. “Just until Wedge is dealt with.”
“Yeah, well, that sounds fine and dandy, but what if he burns down my house and barn and rustles all my stock while I’m gone? What then, Tolliver? You gonna stake me to start over?”
“Now hold on,” Tolliver said, and Frank could tell that he was trying to keep the meeting from getting out of hand. Frustration was an insidious thing. These men knew the situation was bad but they didn’t know what to do about it, and that might lead them to do the wrong thing, just so they could take action of some sort.
“I still say we gotta fight!” a man yelled.
“Dadgummit, hush up!” Tolliver bellowed. “This ain’t gonna solve anything—”
Frank lifted his head as he heard a faint popping sound over the angry hubbub in the barn. He frowned and straightened from his casual pose, turning toward the wide-open barn doors. As he moved closer the sounds became clearer, and he recognized them for what they were.
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