Stands a Ranger

by Cotton Smith

  At first, Carlow could see Silver Mallow grinning at him from behind every tree, every rock, and every swell in the land. Whenever his mind gave an alert, the Ranger’s right fist tightened around the readied hand-carbine held across his lap. Gradually his mind assured him the outlaw leader was more likely to ride hard for Presidio, change horses, and head for the Rio Grande. That’s what he would do if he were Mallow.

  Of course, assuming an enemy was going to do something was an invitation to death. Still, it made good sense. He eased the hammer down but left his thumb poised on its lip, holding the gun in front of him. Bea’s buckskin stretched out and began eating up the miles. Carlow let the strong horse run, preferring speed to the slower pace of tracking. Wind in his face relaxed him as the land flew by. He tried to concentrate, alternating his attention between looking for possible places for an ambush and watching the faint marks of Mallow’s own fast-moving horse. The outlaw was also running hard, from the looks of the hoofprints.

  On both sides of the trail, rich grama grass had invited cowmen and sheepmen to build good herds, and they were rapidly doing so. To the distant west, the green was stopped abruptly by the gold of hay fields and, next to it, a lighter shade of green from vegetables growing in long-cultivated soil. To the east, rolling sand-loamed plains controlled the world as far as he could see. Late afternoon was everywhere. The threat of more rain later in the day lay in a string of gray clouds waiting for reinforcements.

  Above, a raven yelled at him for crossing its land. Running several yards behind the buckskin, Chance answered the challenge with a fierce bark, and the bird flew away, screaming obscenities. Carlow laughed, and the jolt shot a pain through his head. His forehead rolled into a frown to control the renewed ache. But it served to remind him of how close he had come to dying. Just the day before. And how lucky he had been. He rolled his shoulder out of habit, not pain—but its tightness served as a further indicator of what he might face again. Once more, he was vigilant.

  Ahead was a slight rise, a narrow shelf of land created by belching within the earth that left a permanent scar on the prairie. Directly ahead, the incline was protected only by a stunted catclaw tree with its recurved thorns. Even the worst Texas sun couldn’t limit its life, and today the sun was negotiating with the thunder. The catclaw tree belonged there. Likely the soil around the shelf was alkaline. Catclaw growth seemed to favor such an awful birthplace. It didn’t matter that there was no water in sight, either.

  A man could see a long way from this slightly elevated position. He reined up. Dismounting, he holstered his hand-carbine, leaving a bullet in the chamber but the hammer down, like a readied pistol. The buckskin could use a breather, and so could Chance. Carlow chuckled to himself; so could he. The head wound was continuing to remind him of its presence with an unrelenting tom-tom pounding. He stood and took a deep breath. It was difficult to reconcile what he knew of the region with what he saw. Everything looked peaceful.

  Of course, the Red River War was over and the Comanche War Trail was becoming a dust-covered memory. But Mescalero Apaches were slipping away from the Fort Stanton reservation in the Sacramento Mountains of southern New Mexico and raiding settlements throughout this border region. He was happy not to have been assigned the task of finding them. That was the Army’s job. It would have been too painful to go after friends of Kayitah’s. Desperadoes from New Mexico also had sought Texas, but most had gone on to El Paso. Carlow knew the Rangers would be facing that wickedness soon, if the local law couldn’t handle the situation. And he knew they couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.

  He had heard thieves were even using the abandoned army post of Fort Hancock as a headquarters, some ninety miles from El Paso. Last year, one of the worst, Henry McCarty, becoming better known as “Billy the Kid Bonney,” broke out an outlaw friend from the El Paso jail, and there was no telling where they were headed. None of those problems was his concern at the moment.

  Silver Mallow was his problem, and his alone. Captain McNelly would decide what his concerns were. He accepted that. It was an honor to be given the assignment.

  A striped whipsnake slipped from what slight shadow the tree-bush gave and slithered toward a bootshaped rock several feet away. Bounding up the incline, Chance ran after the moving reptile.

  “Hey, Chance, let the little fella alone.”

  With his tongue hanging out, Chance slid to a stop like a roping horse with a taut lariat pulling on a wild calf. Grinning, Carlow took off his hat and filled it with canteen water. The buckskin emptied it quickly, and he added more. Halfway through the refill, the horse quit drinking and turned away, satisfied. Carlow knelt, poured the hat crown full again, and held it for Chance to enjoy.

  “It’s not quite the same without Shadow, is it, boy?” He patted the wild animal. “He needed to rest. I was hard on him. You want some more?” He added water to the hat.

  Chance finally stopped and licked his hand.

  “Thanks, bud. Me, too.”

  After two long swigs from the canteen, Carlow returned it to his saddlehorn along with the other. He withdrew Bea’s food sack from his saddlebags. It smelled as delicious as when he’d received it. Inside the sack, neatly wrapped in a cloth napkin, was a mound of fried sausages cut into eating wedges. He popped two into his mouth and let the savory juices take over. He tossed a morsel in the direction of Chance, who swallowed it whole.

  “You’re supposed to chew it first.” Carlow laughed, tossed him another, and examined the sack further. Under the sausages was a thick layer of beef slices. He ate one and tossed another to Chance.

  In addition to a half-dozen biscuits and two apples was a fat wedge of a fresh apple pie, delivering a tantalizing aroma of cinnamon and sugar. He took a large bite of the pie, smiled, and muttered, “Thank you, Bea.”

  A scorpion sauntered along the rock lip of the hillside. Carlow watched casually, more interested in the food. Certainly Mrs. Von Pearce’s promise was no empty boast. After a few minutes of concentrated eating, he shared more meat with Chance, along with pieces of a biscuit, then cut up an apple for the buckskin. A cup of coffee would be nice, but he didn’t want to take the time. He started to wipe his fingers on his long coat but thought better of it and rubbed them on his leggings instead. They were already streaked with the memories of many trails. He offered water again to both animals, drank a few swallows himself, and remounted.

  Immediately his thoughts galloped back to the Von Pearce ranch as he nudged the buckskin forward. Was the Comanche wrangler just interpreting events and people incorrectly? That was possible, even likely. Charlie Two-Wolves had an Indian’s limited understanding of the white man’s world. He might have decided a friendly doctor was an evil white shaman. Certainly he had no reason to trust many white people. And the encounter at the Von Pearce pond may have been the simple misunderstanding Bea said it was, maybe even a courtesy granted, but seen by Two-Wolves as a warrior’s stand.

  Missing cattle may have been only the normal drifting that occurred with grazing, but the Comanche counted them as stolen. The cut-off hand was obviously necessary surgery to save a man’s life. Stories of the physician’s wife were nothing more than campfire gossip. Or someone pulling Two-Wolves’s leg. The warrior may not have wanted to accept the fact that Comanches could, indeed, have killed some neighbors. There were still a few wild bands roaming the country.

  Carlow granted himself all of those possibilities. But one of Two-Wolves’s statements clung to his mind. He had said there were only five Cradle 6 cowhands with the Von Pearce herd. That number had been immediately refuted by Bea. How could Two-Wolves have misread ten cowboys as half that many? He seemed savvy enough to recognize riders would be working the hills and valleys for strays. Surely he hadn’t just ridden out to the main herd, seen five men, and immediately assumed the others had left for good. Or had he? Why would he think a medical doctor, of all people, was involved? And his description of the man’s wife left him imagining a snaggle-toothed woman in black, chanti
ng at the moon.

  If so, the young Ranger was back where he started: the Comanche warrior saw trouble where he didn’t understand. Surely that was so. For a moment, Carlow saw Two-Wolves’s eyes and remembered there was ever a sadness in them. How could there not be after all he had been through? Then it came to him: Two-Wolves was hiding. Of course he was.

  Most of his fellow Comanches were forced onto the reservation. He didn’t go. Nor had he joined any of the Comanche war parties frantically searching for a way to bring back the past. He had gone to the Von Pearce ranch to disappear. That’s why he initially thought Carlow had come for him. No wonder the man saw trouble everywhere.

  The buckskin loped easily as Carlow returned his at tention to the widening trail ahead. Silver Mallow’s horse tracks disappeared into layers of hoofprints and wagon tracks leading toward Presidio. The small settlement blossomed against the yellow horizon. As soon as he determined Mallow’s move or found him, Carlow would seek out this Dr. Remington Holden and his wife to see for himself what kind of people they were. That would settle the matter. In his own mind, anyway.

  Besides, he had no business worrying about such things as Bea Von Pearce’s possible predicament. There were only a handful of hours left before darkness and rain took charge and finding Silver Mallow would become even more difficult.

  His assignment was to find and capture Mallow. His only assignment. Kileen often warned him about straying from duty. Of course, the hulking Irish bear of a man was usually drunk when he told him. And that was against all Ranger rules. Superstitions and rules seem to slide around a bit with Kileen, changing and reshaping themselves to fit whatever point he wanted to make at the moment.

  In spite of that, he was an enormously effective lawman and a fighter of considerable savvy, greater courage, and immense fighting skill. As a younger man, Ranger Aaron Kileen rarely passed up a chance to earn money prizefighting. He brought his sister and her small son from the New York docks to the Texas prairies on what he earned with his bare-knuckle fists. “Thunder,” or “Old Thunder” as his fellow Rangers usually addressed him, had been a state policeman since the awful Davis administration. So had McNelly. In fact, Kileen’s association with the Ranger captain went back to the War of Northern Aggression.

  It was Kileen’s insistence, years later, that led to Carlow’s invitation to join the Rangers. There was certainly nothing holding him in the small town of Bennett, Texas, where he grew up. Except the likelihood of his getting into trouble if he stayed there. His mother had died from the fevers, leaving her teenage son to find his way in a town that hated the Irish and all they stood for. A teenage son who would rather fight than eat—and usually did.

  Something had happened in his uncle’s past, something he wouldn’t talk about. It had happened in New York not long after Carlow and his mother arrived from Ireland. Something so bad it had forced his uncle to change his name from Lucent to Kileen, the name of their village across the sea. He wouldn’t say why, when his young nephew asked, only that it wasn’t his business and that he should not tell anyone of his real name.

  Carlow’s hand went to the silver chain and Celtic cross worn under his shirt, which often happened when he was thinking of his mother. This small emblem was the only thing that remained of her, besides his memories. It was also his only tangible connection to his father. He took a deep breath, shook off the reminder that Mallow also wore a silver necklace, and relocked the sweet yesterdays into their place.

  His mind returned him to the curiousness of this Dr. Holden, whoever he was. He had no illusions about the innate honesty of most physicians. They were only men, some misguided in their arrogance, some genuinely caring about others, and some who seemed to think cutting off a limb was the answer to everything. Most did other things besides doctoring. Barbering. Running a drugstore. Even being undertakers. Being a physician didn’t pay too well, it seemed to Carlow. Dr. Holden might well be raising cattle on the side.

  Actually, the best person he’d ever met for helping people get well was his uncle’s sometime girlfriend, Angel Balta. She may have ridden the outlaw trail earlier in her life, but she certainly knew how to make a medicine that worked. At least with bullet holes. She had healed him after the Mallow ambush. She and Kileen. She had even called him mi hijo, her son. He remembered her fondly and hoped his uncle would return to the woman soon.

  His shoulders rose and fell. He’d better pay attention, entering town. Presidio was no bigger than Bennett and nowhere near the size of towns like San Antonio, El Paso, or Houston, but it was big enough for a man to disappear. His attention was quickly drawn to two young women prancing along the planked sidewalks like queens of Texas. For an instant, he wished he had changed shirts as he glanced down at himself. At least his long coat had dried, as had his clothes.

  Parasols matching oversized hats kept the lateafternoon sun from reaching the women’s painted faces. They eyed him, and he touched the brim of his hat in passing. One woman winked. Both seemed disappointed when he rode on, but accelerated the motion of their backsides to erase the rejection by attracting other menfolk on the sidewalk.

  Down the middle of main street, he rode past Harrison’s Bank, the Grand Texas Hotel, Willard’s Fancy Dry Goods store, a harness dealer, and a barbershop. Riding on, he saw a small warning sign in the watchmaker’s store window: “No Irish. No Coloreds. No Mex.” He tried to smile but couldn’t.

  The Holden Apothecary, promising every kind of sundry and patented medicine, appeared busy. Likely, this was the doctor that Two-Wolves had talked about. Carlow would visit the city marshal first to get information, then probably the saloons. But he would return to the drugstore if he didn’t learn anything promising.

  Chapter Ten

  People scurried along the sidewalks and across the rutted street, intent on their day’s business. A farmer’s wagon rattled past him, and the farmer gave him a nod, which Carlow returned. A patrol of Union soldiers followed a few minutes later. From their saddle swaying and loud talking, it was apparent they had spent the better part of the day at the saloons on the other end of town.

  One inebriated soldier spotted Chance trotting alongside Carlow’s horse and jumped in his saddle. He shook his fuzzy head and said, “There’s a wolf! A wolf!”

  Halfheartedly aroused, the two Union troopers nearest to him looked around but saw nothing because Carlow had already gone by. He couldn’t get either of them to look back at the horseman they’d just passed, and they laughed at his inability to hold his liquor. Mimicking him, the taller trooper yelled out, “Look, look! There’s a green horse!” Most of the patrol joined in the whiskeyed chortle that followed.

  Reining up, the young Ranger stopped at the hitching rack in front of the city marshal’s office, squeezed between the Louis R. James Realty office and an alley.

  “Stay, Chance. Beside Buck here. I’ll be back in a minute.” He pulled the badge from his pocket and pinned it to his vest, just inside his coat lapel. He gave the badge a quick shine with his cuff, tugged on the curled-up brim of his hat, and entered.

  “Aftuh-noon, Range-uh, this hy-ar’s a ree-al surprise. Thought yo-all boys was a’chasin’ Mex rust-lurs down on thuh Ree-O.” The heavily drawled greeting came from a large man with outsized ears, slicked-back hair, and a crumpled suit that only made his narrow shoulders appear even more so.

  Marshal Laetner Dillingham made no attempt to get up from his chair behind a desk laden with papers. Or to extend his hand. Carlow could see the gunbelt at the man’s ample waist. A walnut-handled Colt rested high in a fitted holster.

  It was difficult not to focus on the man’s ears—Carlow was certain they had wobbled when the sheriff spoke.

  The young Ranger straightened his back. “Afternoon, sir. I’m Time Carlow of Captain McNelly’s Rangers. I’m after the outlaw Silver Mallow. I believe he’s in Presidio. Only a few hours ahead of me.”

  “Well, howdy, Range-uh Car-low, Marsh-hul Laetner Dillingham hyar. Thuh law in Pre-sid-eeo. But
I reckon yo-all already knew that.” He chuckled at his response, and his ears definitely wiggled.

  Carlow tried to stare at the crowded desk. “Nice to meet you, Marshal Dillingham.”

  “Sil-vuh Mal-low, huh. Heard o’ him. Nasty bastard, from what I been a’readin’. Yo-all leadin’ a possee after him, huh?” The marshal’s excessive Southern drawl was delivered in a high, lilting voice that didn’t fit his huge frame. Especially not his leaflike ears.

  “No posse. Just me.”

  Marshal Dillingham stared at Carlow for a moment and shook his head, which made his ears wiggle more than usual. “Seems like thar should’a be a mite more o’ yo-all.”

  Carlow wasn’t interested in the man’s opinion, only in any information he might have about Mallow’s whereabouts. When he asked where the outlaw might try hiding, Marshal Dillingham rubbed his chin, causing his ears to bounce, and announced that it depended on what Mallow wanted. He might be in one of the saloons, the sporting house, the general store, or the livery.

  “Could be, he’s skee-daddlin’ fer the Ree-O.” Dillingham smiled and folded his arms.

  “You want to help me find him? He shouldn’t be hard to spot,” Carlow said. “His face is swollen, black and blue, from fighting a Ranger before he was arrested. He’s wounded too. Cracked ribs and a burn along his gun shoulder.”

  “Oooh, that’d be yurn busy-ness. Sil-vuh Mal-low ain’t done nothin’ wrong hy-ar. No o-ffense, Rangeuh boy.”

  Carlow turned to leave, disappointed in the lawman’s lack of interest. He would try the livery stable first; Mallow might have remounted and kept moving. At least the lawman had offered that possibility, one that hadn’t occurred to him. A thought hit Carlow, and he turned back and asked about Dr. Holden and his wife.