Until Darkness Disappears (A Saga of Texas)

by Will Cook

  Stopping, Jim Gary said: “There is nothing that looks so domestic as a woman hanging up her washing. Is everything all right, Emily?”

  “It’s a nice place to live,” she said. “One of the other children wanted….” She turned and looked at her own children. “Are they permitted to play with the others?”

  “Of course,” Gary said, and went on.

  Teddy and Jason Ivers were talking when Gary came up, and Ivers said: “Teddy claims there are some deer in Uvalde Canon.”

  “It’s a day and a half ride,” Gary said, “and no real promise of deer.”

  “By George, I’m game for it,” Ivers said, smiling. “Do you mind?”

  “A little hunting might do us all some good,” Gary admitted. He saw that Teddy was unarmed. “There’s a Forty-Five-Seventy repeater and a box of shells in my office closet, Teddy. Fetch it along for yourself.”

  The boy dashed inside, and Gary mounted up. Ivers, not accustomed to a Western saddle, had a moment of difficulty, but he swore under his breath and hoisted himself aboard.

  Teddy came back with the rifle and sprang to the horse’s back in one effortless leap, and Ivers said: “God, I’d give a hundred dollars to be able to do that!”

  “We’re both twenty years too late,” Gary said, and they rode out of the post.

  They moved southwest, riding steadily, and in the late afternoon they crossed a creek that cut between grassy swales in this rolling, hummocked land. There were trees for wood and shelter, and they made camp there. Teddy insisted on tending the fire and doing the cooking. He made pan biscuits and a stew with a thick brown gravy, and opened canned peaches for something sweet.

  Ivers ate like a man who couldn’t recall his last meal, then he settled back with his cigarette. “What was this country like twenty years ago?” he asked.

  “We wouldn’t be sitting here with a fire burning,” Gary said. “Not unless we were greenhorns and were fixing to be killed by Indians. If a man rode through this country well-armed and alert, he wasn’t bothered. But if he let down his guard just once, he never got a chance to do it again.”

  “It is difficult for an Eastern man to visualize a day-to-day danger,” Ivers said. “In my lifetime I’ve faced genuine danger three or four times, and I like to think that I met it squarely. But to be on guard constandy….” He shook his head.

  “It becomes a way of life,” Gary said. “People accept what they must, Jason. A determined farmer will plant his crop in die middle of hell if he’s a mind to.”

  They rolled into their blankets and let the fire die. Before dawn they were up, and Teddy was fixing breakfast. Before the sun was fully over the horizon, they were mounted and moving on. All that day they rode into broken land. The prairie with its grass and rolling hills was behind them, and they entered a sparse, dry, rocky country, full of draws and short cañons and ominous buttresses.

  Teddy rode ahead, his attention swinging from the ground immediately ahead to the ridges and back. Finally he said: “Deer here, Gary.” He pointed to the game trails that led westward into the higher rocks. “There’s a spring up there.”

  “Is that where we’ll camp?” Ivers asked.

  Teddy shook his head and pointed somewhat south. “No, game up there. We’ll camp and stake out the spring before nightfall. When it turns dark, the deer will come to the spring to drink and browse.” He pointed to his right where the trail climbed high. “We’ll wait there.”

  They made campalmost a mile from the spring. Gary set up the tents, and Teddy gathered wood for the fire but did not light it. They took their rifles and, with Teddy leading the way, climbed and worked their way across the broken land to the game trail. There was a gentle breeze blowing across the trail toward them, and they hunkered down in the rocks to wait. Ivers started to light a cigarette but thought of what he was doing and put it away. He grinned foolishly, and banged himself on the head with the heel of his hand, as though he were jarring his brains into action.

  The sun passed out of sight, and the sky remained a rich blue even while gray shadows built among the rocks. Then the blue faded, and the gray deepened. Teddy flicked a small stone with his finger and drew their attention.

  The does came up the trail first. It was the way of deer to let the females go first. They watched them come on, a step at a time, heads turning, ears flicking, nostrils plucking at the air for scent of danger. They passed on up the trail to the high spring.

  Finally a buck appeared, a great rocking chair of antlers on his head. Another, smaller man the first, came up the trail, and Ivers raised his finger and pointed to the first one, wetting his thumb and rubbing it on the front sight of his rifle to indicate which would be his shot.

  Jim Gary nodded, and Ivers cocked his rifle, holding the trigger down so as to make no noise. The buck raised his head to scent the air, and Ivers’s shot hit him in the neck, spun him, and dropped him. The boom of the express rifle bounded from hill to hill. The other deer leaped, turned, and raced off down the trail.

  Slowly Ivers got up and climbed over the rocks to approach the fallen deer. Teddy turned and worked his way back to their camp to get the pack horse, a canvas, and some rope.

  Gary joined Jason Ivers and said: “You’ve got yourself a trophy there, Senator.” He smiled and lit a cigar.

  It was fully dark by the time they packed the deer back to their camp. Gary went to the spring for water while Ivers and Teddy skinned the animal out and packed the meat. Teddy, thinking of the Comanche way, was all for roasting some of the shoulder, but Gary and Ivers, long steeped in the lore that meat had to cool and cure before eating, settled for pancakes, bacon, and coffee for the evening meal, content to wait until breakfast for their venison steak.

  They had a pleasant meal, and Ivers’s appetite seemed boundless, but finally he could hold no more. He sighed and sat back. “It must be the fresh air. I swear, Jim, I’d gain thirty pounds in no time in this country.”

  “You’d keep it worked off,” Gary said. “As soon as we get that trophy back to the post, I’ll get Corporal Rylander to work on it for you. He’s an excellent taxidermist . . . Lord knows where he learned it. The soldiers can come up with the damnedest talents at times.” He paused to light a cigar. “I suppose it’s because I don’t stop to consider that these men had lives and professions before they joined the Army. Sometimes it seems that I was born in it, and I have a tough time remembering what it was like out of it.”

  “Do you have a family, Jim?”

  “Yes, two sisters, both happily married now with families of their own. Once in a while I take leave and visit them.”

  “He used to send them part of his pay every month,” a voice said from the deep shadows away from the fire.

  Teddy came to his feet like a released spring, and Gary wasn’t far behind him. Ivers, startled, jumped right across the fire. Then the man stood up, and the firelight caught the pearl handles on his pistols. The man stepped forward, laughing softly.

  “Was I hostile, you’d have been my meat,” he said. He came into the light, smiling and extending his hand to Gary. The light shone on the polished badge pinned to his vest.

  “Guthrie McCabe!” Gary said. “What in hell are you doing out here?”

  “Following you,” McCabe said.

  “Senator, I’d like you to meet Guthrie McCabe, who was highly instrumental in the rescue of your wife. McCabe, Senator Jason Ivers.” Then he turned and took Teddy by the arm and drew him over, keeping his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “This is Teddy,” he said. “Now tell me how in hell you came across our trail?”

  “Came down on the train,” McCabe said. “There was some other folks aboard headin’ for Camp Verde. Met a one-armed captain at Morgan Tanks. He said you’d gone this direction for a few days, so I decided to trail you. Just keepin’ my hand in.”

  “Have some coffee?” Ivers offered, and McCabe took a cup. He was a tall man, and he wore boots with spike heels that made him even taller. His hat was wide-b
rimmed and had a tall crown, creased down the front, Texas-style. Across the front of his shirt dangled a heavy watch chain and a fob of gold, an immense nugget.

  “If you’ll pardon me for saying so,” Ivers said, “you’re exactly as I pictured a Texas Ranger to be.”

  “How’s that, Senator?”

  “Well, just like you are. I’d have been terribly disappointed if you’d been short and wore glasses and had a bald head.”

  “By golly, we’ve got ’em like that,” McCabe said. “I recall your wife well, Senator. A good woman. Lot of character there.” He appraised Ivers frankly. “I’m happy to see she got a good man. You look like you could hold your own. Can’t stand a man I’ve got to carry along. It’s tough enough to take care of myself.”

  “Thank you for the compliment,” Ivers said, “but there is something about this land that makes me feel like a little boy. And a mighty inexperienced one at that.”

  They sat down around the fire, and Teddy went to get McCabe’s horse and bedroll. He came back a few minutes later, put the horse on the picket with the others, and squatted by the fire.

  McCabe was talking. “So it seems that Llano Vale went all the way to New Mexico Territory after this fella. There was a shooting… don’t know the right of it . . . but there was a girl on the train who said Vale was dead and that her pappy did it.” He shrugged and helped himself to more coffee. “Likely you’ve picked up another stray, Jim. But you always was a do- gooder.” Then he laughed and turned to Jason Ivers. “Tell me about Washington politics, Senator. I’ve always had a strong desire to be President.”

  The commissioner at Fort Reno wired Washington for instructions. He had a problem that he wanted solved, but there seemed to be no solution at all because Lieutenant Carl Beeman wouldn’t budge an inch. Beeman insisted on bringing charges against Bert Danniel and the civilian cowboys who had been in Frank Skinner’s employ, and there was no argument that would sway Beeman. He felt that damage had been done and that the only way to stop it was to get convictions and clear up the reservation politics.

  Exhausting his arguments against Beeman, the commissioner then wrote a lengthy letter to Major Jim Gary, asking that Beeman be recalled and placed on other duties, so that these charges could be gracefully dismissed before the federal government got on its high horse about it. As the commissioner put it, no great good could come of a trial. True, the guilty would probably all go to jail, but the whole Indian Affairs system would be disturbed and come under attack, which would work a hardship on the Indians and on the citizens who built their economy around the Indian agency. Which was a nice way of saying that people were just not going to stand still and lose all that easy money.

  It was Gary’s policy to decide things for himself, but he invited Jason Ivers to read the letter. The thing had been in Gary’s stack of mail when he returned from the hunting trip.

  Ivers studied the letter carefully, then laid it on Gary’s desk. “Are you asking for an opinion, Jim?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll have to talk politics, then,” Ivers said, lighting one of his endless cigarettes. “I don’t think there’s a politician in Washington who is personally getting rich in office. However, there are a lot of them-who augment their salary by taking advantage of legislation, or of a situation. First, you must understand, Jim, that a man has to be able to afford to go into politics. It is not the thing for a poor man. Let me put this on a personal basis, if I may. My family made their money in the barrel-making business, or at least Grandfather did. My father expanded considerably, first to making furniture, and then he added another plant that made pots and pans and silverware. During the war, the barrel factory worked ten hours a day straight through, filling government orders. The furniture factory made rifle stocks for the government, and the canteens turned out by the other plant ran into the hundreds of thousands. My family, Jim, got rich off the war.”

  “That doesn’t sound political,” Gary said.

  “It does, because Father had… as they say… friends in high places.” Ivers smiled. “We made money, and the workers made money, and everybody profited by it. I don’t think you’ll find anyone back there who thinks it was bad. My first venture into politics was running for county supervisor, and I spent six hundred dollars of my own money to run and lose. But I came awful close to winning, Jim, and that shook a lot of people. Then when I ran for assemblyman, I only had to spend five hundred dollars. The party paid for the rest. I won that, served with some distinction in the state, then entered the national senatorial race. But because I ran as an independent, I paid for that myself, nearly twenty-five hundred dollars. So you see, it takes money to be successful in politics.”

  He paused to take a final puff on his cigarette and crushed it out in Gary’s ashtray. “Once I got in, it became a matter of balancing out two things. What I could do for the good of the people nationally, and what I could do for the folks back home who elected me. One must always think of the next election, Jim. You have to be in office to do any good. That might mean supporting something that you know is not quite right. I’m sure the territorial representative from Oklahoma is losing sleep over the fact that a lot of attention is going to be drawn toward his province. Jim, every territory wants to become a state even though there isn’t a particular move toward that goal. Within the framework of politics, the territorial governor is trying to make his territory worth admission to the Union. I would venture to say that he is doing the best that he can with what he has, and Lieutenant Beeman, in his righteous crusade, is going to kick the bottom out of the apple cart.”

  “I see,” Gary said. “You are suggesting, then, that I respond favorably to this appeal?”

  “I’m suggesting that you consider it strongly,” Jason Ivers said. “It took me some time, Jim, to understand that I was not capable of righting every wrong I came upon. Redress is the province of God.”

  “That’s certainly a safe attitude,” Jim Gary admitted. “Thank you for your views. It will help me decide.”

  Jason Ivers left Gary then. For a time Gary sat at his desk, idly tapping his pencil against the top. There was no doubt in Gary’s mind that Ivers was right. Profits from Indian deals were substantial, and certainly a good deal of the economy was based on this profit. Gary could not quarrel with profit. He found nothing wrong with this motive, yet he drew a distinction between fair and reasonable profit and out-and-out swindle.

  He could visualize the political discomfort a trial might induce, but he could also visualize a continuance of the things that had precipitated the trial. In his mind, there was one thing outstanding about corruption. It always got worse when left unchecked.

  Only last did he consider Lieutenant Beeman. A betrayal of faith now would certainly affect Beeman’s attitude toward his chosen career. Although Gary understood that the man would know disillusionment, there was no reason now, other than pure political consideration, to nullify his considerable effort.

  Gary drew paper and pen across the desk and wrote two messages, the first to the United States commissioner at Fort Reno.

  Right Honorable Elwood K. Butler

  Federal Bldg.

  Fort Reno, Oklahoma Territory

  Dear Sir:

  Your message at hand, and contents duly noted. It is to my regret that this situation causes you concern and embarrassment, and I cannot believe that it existed with your knowledge. However, since a continuance of the situation can only bring discredit upon you, and since Lieutenant Beeman has conducted himself within the framework of his orders, I see no alternative but to proceed with the charges as outlined in the arraignment.

  James Gary

  Major, U.S. cavalry

  The other was to Lieutenant Beeman in Fort Reno.

  Lieutenant Carl Beeman:

  My compliments on your duties well done. Storm clouds brewing. Suggest you don poncho for foul weather. If you need assistance, wire immediately.

  Gary

  He called in the order
ly and sent for the signal sergeant who promised to have the messages on the wires in ten minutes. Then Gary lit a cigar and contemplated what he had done.

  Lieutenant Flanders interrupted his thinking. He knocked, then stepped inside. “Sorry to disturb you, Major, but the young girl who came on the post day before yesterday wants to see you. She was here yesterday and….”

  “Of course,” Gary said. “Do you have any particulars on her?”

  “Her name is Frieda Schneider, Major. Other than that she hasn’t said much.”

  “Show her in,” Gary said, and laid his cigar aside. Flanders went out and in a moment or two opened the door again and ushered in Frieda Schneider. She seemed nervous and looked around quickly before taking the chair Gary offered.

  “I hope you’re comfortable, Frieda. Is there anything we can do for you?”

  “ I . . . I wish you could find out what happened to my father.” She pressed her hand against her cheek. “He’s not my real father. After he killed that man, he told me that he had been with some other men who had chased Indians, and they found me on the prairie. He took me home with him because they were going to hurt me.”

  Gary made some notes as she talked. “Did he say how long ago this was?”

  “About sixteen years.”

  Gary asked her other questions, made more notes, and finally got out a file from the cabinet and began to check one thing against another. Then he called in the lieutenant.

  “Mister Flanders, send a wire to the sheriff at Pope’s Wells, New Mexico Territory, and find out what happened to George Schneider. And find Teddy and tell him to come to my office.”

  “Yes, sir.” He saluted, and went out closing the door.

  “Now, I think we’ll soon learn the best or worst of it,” Gary said. “But I want you to think back. Think hard and see if you can remember anything from your childhood.”

  “Sometimes I’ve had dreams,” she said. “Papa says they’re just wishes.”