by T. T. Flynn
"I might try it." Brent chuckled.
"First you better look in them packs," Shorty said. "They got some U.S. Army uniforms. Tucker, you an' your Comanches. Maybe we've shot up Gin'ral Taylor's army. Hell of a note after comin' all this way to help out."
"When I see a red face painted an' skulkin' close, I start talkin' after the shootin'," Tucker growled. "Lemme look at them packs. Brent, find out from the girl."
She had moved away from Brent and was looking at him with close attention. Now she cast a glance of dislike after Tucker Mossby and waited until he was out of earshot.
"Please, senor. Of this I know nothing. I was a prisoner. See."
Rosita held out her hands, and now Brent noticed red chafe marks at her wrists where ropes had been tied tightly.
"How long were you with them?"
"Two days. I theenk they are Indians when they come to my camp. They keel my mozo."
"Where were you going?"
"To see my old nurse."
"Where does she live?"
Rosita shrugged. "Mi mozo, he tak' me. I don' know where we go."
"Where did you come from?"
"Matamoras," said Rosita after a moment's hesita tion.
"Get on one of those horses and come with me," Brent said grimly.
Rosita obeyed silently. Brent told Tucker and Shorty they'd be back quickly, and a little later he ordered Rosita to dismount at the gaping doorway of the cabin.
She looked, wide-eyed, at the bones out in the grass, and a gasp escaped her when they walked inside.
"This mean anything to you?" Brent asked coldly.
She was frozen and quiet as she walked about what was left of the bodies. She bent over the old woman's white hair and crossed herself. While Brent watched her without emotion, she stooped and touched one tiny, little blue cloth boot that had been on a baby's foot. A whimper escaped her, and she suddenly bolted outside.
He saw sobs shaking her as she ran to her horse. Brent followed more leisurely. She dashed tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. And then, handling the horse as only an expert rider could, she wheeled past the head of Brent's horse, snatched the reins with a lithe downsweep of her body, and bolted toward the trail, leading his horse.
"Come back here!" Brent shouted.
He lifted the rifle. There was still enough light to aim. He could have dropped her small figure from the saddle with one careful shot. But Brent knew he wouldn't.
He was angry and puzzled and helpless afoot as he watched her ride out of sight, and yet he held fire and let her go and started back afoot to face Tucker and Shorty.
"She throwed a spell on you," Shorty said with sly generosity. "Bet she'd 'a' done the same thing to me. Now wasn't she a purty gal, though? Enough to make a feller stand around with moon eyes an' no sense left in his haid?"
"You ain't learnt how to handle women," Tucker growled. "I seen her sizin' you up. Knowed she was set to hand you a trick, but I figgered you're old enough to start larnin'. Johnny, this bunch was renegade soldiers outta Taylor's army, or they been stealth' or killin' around the army. They ain't Mexicans. They're white men, an' it don't make sense."
"We might find out in Matamoras," Brent said. "Going to camp here tonight?"
"Why not?" Tucker grumbled. "We got to rest the hosses, an' we might get a live visitor we can holt onto an' question." Tucker spat. "If it's another woman, I'll handle her."
Two days later they rode off the scow ferry into Matamoras, near the mouth of the Rio Grande, and found the town a wild eddy of heat and dust and war in this summer of 1845. Taylor had won his battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. His Pittsburgh-built riverboats were running supplies up the river to the new base at Camargo. That night Brent, Tucker, and Shorty wandered around town and watched hell's broth boiling.
The twelve-months volunteers off the troop transports at Brazos de Santiago anchorage were running wild. Tequila, pulque, aguardiente, and raw Monogahela whiskey from the States were being guzzled on every side.
Brent watched with disgust as drunken privates whooped at passing officers. Grog shops were crowded; fandangos were bedlams of raucous music, bawdy songs, wild voices, furious fights. Gambling games were running everywhere.
"Well, we heerd they was fightin' on the Rio Grande," Shorty said. "Nobody said it was likker they was fightin'."
Tucker Mossby had stalked the streets with his silent tread, all expression hidden by his ragged black beard. He was a strange and rather savage sight in his greasy leather hunting shirt and wide-brimmed felt hat.
"Might as well git back to the corral," Tucker said. "Tomorrow we can turn them Army uniforms over an' fine up. From the looks of this town of Taylor needs us." Tucker spat. "I ain't surprised now at anything we run onto back there in the brush. Git some of these rascals out on the loose an' they'd try anything."
"Let's look into another cantina or two," Brent suggested. "Here's one ahead that's more lively than any we've seen."
All evening it had been this way, Brent leading them into the noisiest spots. They had had two drinks and let it go at that. In each place Brent had looked around and found his chance to ask quietly for a dancer named Polly. He had not told Tucker and Shorty about that. He had said little about the girl who called herself Rosita. But she had been on his mind, and he had kept thinking of the dying man, who had said Polly was dancing in Matamoras, and a rooster must be watched. He kept thinking of the bodies back in the lonely little clearing, and the tears Rosita had dashed from her eyes as she rode recklessly away from the muzzle of his gun.
Brent led the way into the noisy crowd that filled the wide, low-ceilinged adobe building. Tucker's powerful hand closed on his arm.
"Look!" Tucker said, pointing with his chin and black beard. "What devil turned her into an angel an' put her dancin' here?"
In the reeking haze of lamplight and tobacco smoke a girl was dancing on a raised platform at the end of the long room. Two squeaking fiddles, a guitar, and a small thumped drum made fast and wild music that was muted by the clamorous crowd.
The girl did not seem to mind. She might have had a fine orchestra at her feet and magic music in her heels and toes. One forgot her shabby black dress and the solid pink shawl of fringed silk she deftly handled. The delicacy of her features, the fire of her movements held Brent.
She had now a dancer's graceful slenderness, and her short hair was a curly halo about her head, and her small hands were incredibly expressive. Tonight before this drunken riff-raff she was like fine champagne, fired with life, with promise.
Brent had to look twice to make sure he was seeing right over the heads of the crowd. And then he was sure of it, as Tucker had been at first sight. The dancer was Rosita, the brown tint covering all her bare arms now, and the boyish side of her lost in this exciting, graceful girl.
Brent began to push through the crowd toward her. Dark, ragged Mexicans were making the music. They looked brutish and sullen in contrast to the gay girl dancing on the platform.
"Yo amo," Rosita sang in clear Spanish, "I love, love..."
Most of the volunteers were ignorant of the language. A few civilians in the place-scouts, teamsters, sutlers-understood. Encouraging yells came from several of them.
A big, rough-bearded man shouted: "I'm the rooster ye're lookin' to love, purty gal! Here I come!" He leaped on the platform and caught her arm.
Rosita lost step and tried to pull away. The stranger whooped, pulled her toward him, and Brent broke through the last watchers and jumped up on the platform, also.
The fiddles were still sawing and the drum was sounding lamely as Brent dropped a hand on the man's arm and said coldly: "The lady was waiting for me."
Rosita's eyes went wide with astonishment as she recognized Brent. In good English she panted: "He has many friends here."
The stranger wheeled on Brent. Rosita twisted away as he released her.
"Fust come gits her, you fool!"
A big fist struck fast and h
ard while the man was still speaking; it hit Brent's cheek and rocked him. It hurt.
But Brent was grinning with a quick and savage surge of released tension as he smashed the man's bearded face in a fast return. He hit with trail-hard, corded muscles that drove the big stranger reeling.
"Fight fer the slut, will ye?" the man bellowed. He crouched and snatched a Bowie knife from under his coat. "I'll cut you into chunks!"
Tucker Mossby's warning shout rang out: "Look sharp, Johnny! Back down here!"
They had left their guns at the corral, on advice that armed civilians were inviting trouble if they walked among the drunken troops at night. Knives were another matter. Brent had a hunting knife, but he let that stay out of sight and hurled his hat fully in the bearded face. While the big stranger was blinded for an instant, Brent caught his wrist above the Bowie blade.
The man yelled angrily, tried to snatch the knife with the other hand. Brent smashed knuckles to his mouth. The man quivered, stiffened, bellowed wildly, and staggered back, clapping a hand to his side.
Rosita was circling back of him, a small dagger in her brown-stained hand. The stranger turned his bleeding mouth to the crowd and his yell was hoarse.
"Will ye see Ben White knifed dirty? Company A! Yer sutler's knifed from the back!"
Brent thought the girl had stabbed with her dagger. Then the stranger held up a bloody dirk, man-size, deadly. He was staring at it dazedly as an uproar broke out around the platform and spread through the big room.
"Help Ben White! They're killiri Ben White! A Company! C Company! Git our sutler! Tear down this dirty hole!"
An empty whiskey bottle grazed Brent's head. He caught the Bowie knife off the dusty boards where the sutler had dropped it. He turned to find Tucker Mossby standing on the platform edge, slugging at men who were trying to climb up. Shorty was doing the same.
More bottles began to hurtle through the air. Brent jumped to help Tucker, who was kicking at hands trying to seize his legs. A wall lamp was knocked out of its bracket. Another bottle broke one of the ceiling lamps.
Brent felt a hand on his arm. He whirled to slash with the Bowie knife and he met Rosita's breathless voice.
"This way, before they kill you. Quick! The door!"
Once more Brent noticed that she was using English as well as he could speak it. Rosita had thrown the pink silk shawl over the bearded sutler's head. The man was tearing it off and still holding the knife that had stabbed him.
A bottle struck a large brass lamp hanging over the platform. Glass scattered as the light flickered out. Another bottle hit Brent's shoulder with terrific force. In the murky dimness the crowd was turning into a mob of rising temper. Brent caught the faint glint of a bayonet flying toward him, point first. He barely dodged it.
"Quick," Rosita panted, tugging at his arm.
"Get out of here!" Brent told her harshly. He swung around and called: "Tucker, Shorty! This way!"
Rosita waited at the side of the platform until they started toward her. With quick grace she slipped toward a narrow door in the back wall, near the platform.
The last of her shabby orchestra was scuttling out the door. A lanky private tried to cut her off and snatched at her arm. Rosita's smaller dagger threatened him. He looked and saw Brent's Bowie knife and Tucker Mossby's wild black beard coming, and he dived back into the safety of the crowd.
They reached the door and crowded out into the black night. Brent heard Shorty trip over something and swear lustily. A moment later Brent went hard into a solid log wall, and swore himself.
"This way!" Rosita's voice cried behind him. "Here, senor, give me your hand! Quick!"
Her small hand groped and clung tightly to his wrist. She pulled him to the left as men boiled out into the darkness after them. Tucker Mossby clapped a hand to Brent's shoulder and followed.
Behind them the pursuit fell over boxes and ran into the log wall. Angry oaths laced the darkness. Brent sensed that he was being led through a low log shed and out a door in the back. Rosita hurried him along a filthy alley where big rats scampered, and they came out into a narrow, winding side street where an occasional curtained window gave out faint light.
"Hurry," Rosita panted.
Tucker Mossby ranged up on the other side of her. "Lady, did you knife that drunken fool?"
Rosita laughed shakily. "Palo, the drummer, threw eet. He ees ver' good with knife."
"Where we going?" Shorty asked.
Tucker answered grimly. "We're gonna go to a quiet spot an' talk with this gal. There's a heap of questions fer her to answer. I aim to ask 'em."
"In here," Rosita said hastily.
She groped at a dark door, opened it, and urged Brent past her into the unlighted interior. Tucker and Shorty followed him, and the door closed.
"This your place, lady?" Tucker demanded.
Rosita did not answer.
"Outside!" Brent blurted. "She's tricked us!"
They had the street to themselves when they bolted out. Shorty laughed under his breath. "Tucker, what was it you aimed to do? Handle her like a squaw?"
"I never seen the beat," Tucker said with grudging admiration. "Let's git back to the corral. I've had enough for one night."
Brent said nothing. But as they groped into one of the wider streets where there was more light and they could ask their way to the corral where they would sleep near the horses, Brent slowly rubbed the wrist Rosita had gripped.
The Brazos corral, newly named and newly owned by a stolid German named Luntz, out of the Texas settlements, was surrounded by wagons and carts and filled with more wagons. Horses, mules were tied around three sides, and the fourth side was a low-roofed shed open in front and bedded with clean dry grass for drivers and riders to sleep on. Luntz held up a smoky lantern at the gate and scanned their faces. "I light you," he mumbled, and led the way with the lantern to the end of the shed where the packs they had brought to Matamoras had been left. "Here," the German said, and he backed off. "I haf your veapons. The shentlemen will shood if you run."
"You men are under military arrest!" a crisp voice said. "Squad, close in!"
"Arrest, hell!" Tucker blurted angrily. "Who's arrestin' me fer what?"
"Tucker! Be careful!" Brent warned sharply.
Tucker had already whirled like a wrathful shadow and knocked down a strange figure that stepped in and caught his arm. But other figures rushed out of the shadows with muskets held ready. Tucker went down fighting under a wave of blue-clad figures, any one of whom might have orders to shoot if resisted.
This obviously was military arrest. Brent held his temper as hands seized him, and appealed to the young officer in charge.
"It's all a mistake. Tell them to hold him until we can talk."
"Orders," said the young lieutenant briefly when they were marched into a dim patio and ordered into a cell-like room, unlighted save by the feeble patio lanterns that showed guards with fixed bayonets slowly pacing.
He was a callow young officer with a blond mustache. He swaggered a little in his brave blue and gold. There was a military snap to his orders and his curtness to prisoners.
"Captain Blandon will see you men in the morning," he said. "All guards have orders to shoot if prisoners try to escape. Corporal, lock them in."
A solid wooden door slammed shut. Orders were snapped outside, and they were alone with a scant barred window high up at the front and another at the back of the room.
"Well, you, jined up, Tucker." Shorty chuckled in the absolute blackness through which they could only grope.
Tucker's lurid opinion lasted for some moments Then Tucker groaned, swore again. "01' Giri ral Taylor hisself was the onliest one of his army that wasn't piled on me. Johnny, what you make of all this?"
"Might have been that fight tonight in the cantina."
"All this fer a fight that wa'nt no shucks, anyways?"
"The sutler was stabbed. He may be dead. If he is, we'll be blamed for it."
"I wonder i
f Gin'ral Taylor hangs 'em or shoots 'em fer a killing," Shorty mused. "I bet your old neck'll stretch like a tom turkey's, Tucker, when the rope goes tight."
"We'll know in the morning," Brent said. "I'm going to sleep."
In the morning they were given salt meat, coffee, corn pone, a bucket of water to wash in. Tucker looked as usual, save for a slight limp where a musket butt had smashed his leg.
But Brent missed the shave he tried to take each day, and the hard dirt floors of the room, without even a blanket, had not left him any too limber when they were ordered, blinking, into the sun-flooded patio, and marched under guard to a bare-walled room at front.
"How's your neck feel this mornin', Tucker?" Shorty asked as they were ordered into the room.
Tucker snorted. Brent was sober, watchful as he stepped into the room. Chairs, a table near a window, several battered brass spittoons were the furnishings. An Army captain sat at the table, scanning papers, and, when Brent looked at the man, his eyes narrowed watchfully, and yet with some hope.
This young captain had a lean, professional look. His blue uniform was dusty; even his face and brown mustache were dusty, and he sat relaxed as if muscle and bone and spirit were tired. His eyes had a heavy, tired look that steadied into estimating interest as he regarded them.
"Close the door, Sergeant. We'll not be disturbed ... except on urgent orders." When the closing door left the high-ceilinged, white-walled room quiet and cool, the officer said: "I'm Captain Blandon. Your names, please."
He had a pleasant, not unhandsome face beneath the dust and weariness. He wrote their names with a firm, flourishing stroke, and regarded them thoughtfully.
"What're you men doing on the Rio Grande?"
"Come to fine up," Tucker grumbled.
"When did you get to Matamoras?"
"Crossed the river when the sun was half down," Tucker answered irritably. "What's all this fer, Cap'n?"
"Did you speak to anyone yesterday about enlisting?"
"Hell, no! We aimed to look around a bit afore some young squirt got a right to order us around."