“Would you mind if I had a look?”
Polk smiled. “Not unless you ride off with ’em. That’s a fine hoss, and a pretty saddle.”
Hank turned away and mounted. “Obliged. Keep up the good work.” He trotted to the stables, dismounted, and took Wes James’s running iron out of his saddlebag. He slipped the iron rod up his sleeve so it wouldn’t look like a gun barrel jutting from his fist, and entered the stables on foot. He found two privates mucking out stalls under the glare of a corporal. The privates were probably being punished for fighting, for one of them had a busted lip and the other had one eye swollen shut.
“What do you want?” the corporal said as he stepped into Hank’s path.
“Captain Hank Tomlinson, Texas Rangers,” he replied, offering his hand as he almost unintelligibly coughed out the word “retired!”
The corporal refused the handshake and stood fast. “I ain’t got no orders to let nobody in here.”
Hank pulled a cheap cigar from the pocket of his jacket and almost put it to his lips, then offered it to the corporal instead. “I just need a quick look at the murder evidence—the claybank horse and the saddle. First Sergeant Polk said it was okay.”
The corporal accepted the cigar, shrugged, and stepped aside. He pocketed the stogie to smoke later and said, “The hoss is in that third stall on the right. The saddle is in the tack room past that.”
“Thanks.”
Hank looked over the stall door at the claybank first. A fine mount, indeed—tall and stout, with plenty of muscle in his hindquarters. He patted the claybank on the neck and went next door to the tack room.
The tooled cowman’s saddle was easy to pick out among the uniform McClellans of the cavalry service. It was well made, with plenty of artistic leatherwork. The saddle maker was out of Omaha, Nebraska, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Wes could have bought this rig secondhand from any odd saddle tramp.
The buckles to the flaps of the saddlebags were undone, and both pockets were empty. He assumed the Indians or the soldiers had rifled through the pockets, taking whatever they wanted. These were not store-bought saddlebags. They were custom jobs not made by whomever had crafted the saddle, for the scrolled tooling on the bags was different from that of the saddle. There was no maker’s stamp on the saddlebags. They were slightly oversized, and Hank could just bet that he knew why.
He took the running iron from his sleeve and dropped it into the nearside saddle pocket. Sure enough, it fit perfectly. However, he didn’t see or feel any indentions that the iron rod should have made in either saddle pocket had it ridden there mile after jolting mile as its weight settled it into a low spot to which it would naturally gravitate. But this didn’t necessarily mean that the running iron and the rig didn’t go together. He lifted the saddle pocket nearest to him and inspected the stitching along the back leather panel. There was a spot where the saddle maker seemed to have missed a stitch or two. Prodding at the spot with the running iron, he found that the rustler’s branding tool slipped right into a secret sleeve formed between two layers of leather.
Now Hank knew that if he wanted to prove that Wes James was a cattle rustler, he could point to that hiding place for the running iron and convince anybody in the great state of Texas. He wasn’t sure that meant a whole lot to his investigation. But he was starting to get a clearer picture of what had happened three evenings ago up on Shovel Mountain, and it didn’t involve poor old Crazy Bear, or any of his warriors.
One thing was becoming obvious: Jack Brennan had flown way off the handle when he launched the attack on Crazy Bear’s camp. The survivors of the attack would remember him. Hank mused that he wouldn’t want to be in Jack Brennan’s boots should the Comanches recruit a revenge party and raid the Double Horn Ranch.
23
JUST AFTER SUNDOWN, Jay Blue and Tonk came within earshot of the camp where the Wolf lay wounded. Jay Blue made the bobwhite quail whistle known to all Broken Arrow ranch hands. Hearing the whistle answered, Jay Blue and Tonk rode into the open. Jay Blue saw Poli stand from a clump of bushes and wave the two new arrivals over.
“How did my bobwhite sound?” he asked Tonk.
“Like a white man.”
They found Skeeter cooking the last of the beans. Jay Blue tossed him a can of peaches that made him as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. The Wolf was still lying on the ground, covered to his chin, exactly where Jay Blue had last seen him.
“Well, he ain’t dead yet,” Jay Blue said.
Skeeter shook his head as he used a rock to hammer his knife blade through the top of the peach can. “He groaned in pain all last night. Then he started sweatin’ like a whore in church. He won’t wake up to eat anything, but we got him to swallow a little water.”
Jay Blue took the bottle of laudanum out of his saddlebag. “The doc said to give him some of this stuff. Help me prop him up.”
Skeeter pried open half the top of the peach can, but only had time to spear and eat one of the peach quarters from within before he put the can down on the ground to help Jay Blue. “Jesus Cristo, that’s good! I’m gonna sit down and eat that whole can this very night, and ain’t nobody gonna stop me.”
The four men gathered around the Wolf, elevated his torso, cradled his head, opened his mouth, and poured the medicine in. He spit some of it out, so Jay Blue poured in more until they were sure he had swallowed at least some of it.
“That ought to kill the pain or kill the patient.”
Suddenly the warrior coughed. His eyes fluttered and opened.
“I brought you medicine,” Jay Blue said, speaking slowly, holding the bottle in front of him. “And a horse.” He pointed at the extra mount.
The Wolf’s eyes followed his finger to the horse, but he only frowned, and groaned, and closed his eyes again.
“You’re welcome,” Jay Blue said sarcastically. He shoved the stopper back into the bottle neck, and the men let the Wolf lie back down.
The four men held a quick council, and decided there was no reason for Tonk and Poli to stick around when there was work to do back on the ranch. The two older men gathered their few things, wished the boys good luck, and left for the long night ride to the Broken Arrow Ranch.
“Let’s get that pack saddle off that mule and cook us up something better than beans,” Jay Blue suggested.
Skeeter looked longingly back at the can of peaches he had left on the ground, but decided they could wait a little longer to slide into his stomach.
The cowhands tied the horses at a picket line and led the mule closer to the small fire so they could see to unpack and sort through the provender Jay Blue had brought from the store. He presented Skeeter with some new clothes so he could get out of the grimy duds he wore, and they commenced to discuss the ghost arrows and the murder of Wes James, and Captain Tomlinson’s promise to find out who had really killed the drifter.
“Hey, guess who’s helping me?” Jay Blue asked.
“That’s easy. Me.”
“No, I mean back in town.”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“Hell, I don’t know. Mr. Collins?”
Jay Blue looked puzzled. “How could he help?”
“He’s the undertaker, ain’t he? He could be buildin’ us coffins.”
“No! Jane.”
Skeeter seemed disgusted. “How’s she gonna help?”
“People talk in a saloon. She listens.”
“You should have got one of the ugly girls to help. That pretty one ain’t got a brain in her head.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She’s helpin’ you, ain’t she?”
“What does that say about you?”
“Shut up.”
Distracted by their talk and their camp chores, they were suddenly alarmed to hear hoofbeats. They reached for weapons as they located the source of the noise. The Wolf, more dead than alive, had slipped out of his blankets, crawled onto the spare horse brought for him,
and was already fading into the dark, so weak that he could ride only by lying facedown along the horse’s neck.
“Shit!” Jay Blue shouted.
“I guess that medicine kicked in. Should we go after him?”
Jay Blue slipped his Colt back into the holster. “Chase a chestnut horse in the dark?”
“Should we fire our pistols and get Poli and Tonk to come back?”
“You want to look like that much of an idiot? We’d never hear the end of it. Anyway, he’s already gone.”
“At least he didn’t steal our horses.”
“Only because he was too weak to lead ’em, more than likely.” Jay Blue shook his head and couldn’t help but chuckle. “I thought I was a pretty tough hombre, Skeeter. But that rascal—the Wolf—brother, he takes the prize.”
Skeeter seemed strangely distracted. “Wait a minute. Oh, wait just a pinche minuto!”
“What?”
Skeeter stormed across camp to pick up the empty tin can. “The son of a bitch ate my peaches!”
Jay Blue started chuckling.
“He ate every doggone one!”
Jay Blue laughed out loud.
“He drank all the juice!”
Jay Blue slapped his thigh and guffawed.
“It ain’t funny!”
Hank had left Fort Jennings about sundown and had ridden back to the east. The going was slow until the moon rose, then he quickened his pace to a trot. He was entertaining visions of sleeping in his own bed, but he still had one more call to make before heading home.
He approached Jack Brennan’s Double Horn Ranch headquarters with caution. The gang of cowboys who worked for Jack were a trigger-happy lot, and he didn’t intend to provide them with any target practice if he could help it. So he held back in the brush for a good while, looking over the rattletrap buildings and sagging corrals. The bunkhouse was dark, and all seemed quiet. A lantern light glowed from a cracked window in Brennan’s adobe house.
Brennan had bought this place years ago from a Mexican rancher who some said had been bullied into selling cheap. That old ranchero had built the adobe walls thick for protection against Indian and outlaw raids. Brennan had let the place run down, but the thick adobe walls would still stop a bullet. At length Hank noticed an orange speck glowing on the front porch of the adobe, and knew that Brennan was having a smoke in the fresh night air.
“Hello, Jack!” he shouted.
A mean dog scrambled off the porch and started barking and growling all the way out to Hank’s position in the brush.
“Who’s that?” Brennan demanded.
“Hank Tomlinson.”
“What do you want?”
“Just a visit.” The dog was now nipping at the hooves of Hank’s mount, making the horse dance.
“Shut up, dog!” Brennan shouted. The cur backed off, its complaints tapering off to a low growl. There was a pause, then Brennan shouted, “Well, ride on in, I guess.”
Hank rode to the porch, but stayed on his horse as the dog was still growling and Jack didn’t see fit to call it off. By the glow of moonlight, the retired Ranger’s alert eyes noticed a Colt revolver lying across Brennan’s thigh. The weapon was already cocked.
“Expecting trouble?” Hank said.
“Always. You’re too late for supper, or I’d invite you to git down.” Brennan picked up a jug of whiskey and took a long pull from it.
“I’m not hungry,” Hank said.
“Drink?”
“No, thanks. Where are all your hands?”
“In town gettin’ drunk, most likely. What did you come here for, Hank? It ain’t like you to visit.”
“I wanted to talk to you about Wes James.”
“Who?”
“The dead man you found.”
“Oh. Is he still dead?” He took a draw on the cigar, the ember briefly illuminating a dangerous glare in his eyes.
“What do you reckon he was doin’ up there on Shovel Mountain?”
“He was lookin’ at the inside of a buzzard’s beak when I found him.”
“Did you notice the fire?”
Brennan looked to his right, then his left, as if he might see a flame somewhere. “I thought we were talkin’ about Wes James.”
“I found a burnt-out fire near the spot where his body fell. A brandin’ fire.”
Jack shrugged. “I didn’t notice. I guess I was just a little distracted by the maggots crawlin’ around the part in his hair.”
“Yeah, that was some part, alright,” Hank had to agree.
“What’s your point, Hank? And why the hell do you even give a shit?”
“Wes James was a mavericker, at best. Most likely a rustler. The sign showed that he was branding a long yearling when the murderer killed him.”
“Then the son of a bitch deserved to die.”
“Whoever killed Wes didn’t kill the yearling he was brandin’.”
“So what?”
“Those Comanches on Flat Rock Creek were starvin’. They would have killed and butchered the beef. They didn’t kill Wes James. Somebody else did.”
Jack laughed and picked up the whiskey jug again. “You’ve taken some loco notions in your time, Hank, but that one beats all.”
Hank mulled that last statement over a moment. “What kind of loco notions have I taken, Jack?”
“Spendin’ all your money buyin’ up land on a free-range frontier. That’s crazy. How ’bout adoptin’ that half-breed boy, when you already had your hands full raisin’ your own? Or sleepin’ alone in that big rock house, when you know you could have that fine piece of woman flesh in your bed.”
“Go easy there,” Hank warned.
Brennan laughed. “Now, don’t Ranger-up on me. My point is you have a funny way of lookin’ at the obvious, that’s all.”
“What is the obvious, from your point of view?”
“That’s simple. The convenient murder of good ol’ Wes James gives us all the reason we need to kill every goddamn Comanche between here and Indian Territory. Those Indians had the dead man’s horse! They killed him, and they got what they deserved in return on Flat Rock Creek.”
“Did Major Quitman get what he deserved?”
“Quitman was an idiot.”
“Word is you started the killin’ at Flat Rock Creek by shooting an unarmed Indian boy.”
Brennan eased his hand along his thigh until his finger touched the grip of his cocked pistol. “That’s a goddamned lie.” His voice sounded cold as a spade digging a grave. “I shot in self-defense.”
“The Comanches won’t see it that way. They’re liable to be coming back for you, Jack.”
“Any flea-bit Comanches come for me, I’ll give ’em some of their own medicine.”
Hank had listened to all he needed to hear for right now. “The next light moon’s liable to tell the tale, Jack. You take care.”
Brennan only grunted, but as Hank reined away, he said, “Hey, Ranger. I hear your boy and that half-breed kid, Skeeter, went out huntin’ the mare you lost. You sure they’re not scalped by now?”
“I found ’em. They’re alright.”
Jack shook his head. “You shouldn’t ought to let a couple of runts like that go stumblin’ around in the wilderness.”
“I taught them well. They’ll be fine.”
“You hope.”
Hank ignored the belligerent tone. He urged his pony to a trot and got the hell out of there, with the dog snarling at his mount’s heels.
Hank arrived at the Broken Arrow before midnight and whistled the descending notes of the screech owl to signal the night guard, Long Tom Merrick, who answered the quavering call. Hank met Long Tom at the corner of the smokehouse. He knew Tom liked to sit there on guard because of the view of the grounds the spot afforded. The moon, three nights past full now, was still plenty big enough to illuminate the grin on Tom’s face.
“You got company,” he said. “She’s up at the big house, waitin’ for you in the parlor.”
“
Flora?”
Tom nodded.
“Must be news from town,” Hank said in a businesslike tone.
“She looks like good news to me.”
“Quit grinnin’ like a possum, and see to my horse for me, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
When Hank opened the door, he smelled the flowery scent that always gave him a hint of thrills to come. But, this time, the aroma made him uneasy. Flora had never visited the Broken Arrow Ranch. No woman, in fact, had set foot in this house since the death of his wife eighteen years ago. When he stepped into the parlor, he saw the lamplight illuminating the shapely curves of Flora Barlow as she stood to greet him. She could take a man’s breath away. But, with the next blink, he saw the portrait of his departed Emilie hanging on the parlor wall, and suddenly felt very uncomfortable having both women in the same room.
Flora read his eyes. “She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, Hank.”
Hank’s eyes darted from the portrait, to Flora. “Thanks. I mean, not that I deserve the credit.” He tried to regain his composure. Rationally, he knew there was nothing wrong with Flora’s being here. In fact, he should have invited her out here long ago. That made this meeting doubly awkward. He felt as if he were failing both women somehow.
“She was from Germany?”
Hank nodded. “She was a countess over there, but she renounced her title when she immigrated here. She chose democracy over royalty.”
“I’m sure you miss her.”
Hank pulled his hat from his head. “It was a long time ago.”
“I’ve heard that you rescued her.”
Hank shrugged. “She was married. Her husband was killed, and she was carried off by some renegade Wacos and Kickapoos. I tracked ’em down, killed ’em all, and rescued Emilie. We were married not long after that. Her maiden name was Blumenthal, so we named our first born Jason Blumenthal Tomlinson.”
“Jay Blue.”
Hank nodded. “She died in childbirth with our second. The baby didn’t make it, either.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Like I said, it was a long time ago.”
Flora picked up a crystal tumbler of whiskey and glided across the parlor to place it in Hank’s hand. “I found the bourbon,” she said, almost apologetically. “I know this is a surprise, Hank, but I felt I had to come here.”
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