“You might belong in Bedlam yourself. Hell.” Albavera waved the note in his hand. “Did you read that? He wants to form his own little country out of three Texas counties. He and those Rangers declared their independence, but I don’t think that’s the will of the people, especially the Mexicans your captain doesn’t regard too highly. What do you think Don Melitón’ll say to that?”
“You want to ask him?” Savage grabbed another bridle hanging on the fence.
With a snort, Albavera shook his head, and picked up the blanket and saddle to the late Lieutenant Wickes’s horse, carrying them after the sergeant.
“All right,” Albavera said when he had set down the saddle and blanket beside the brown horse. “What do you think your captain’s doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Some kind of political statement?”
Chance handed the reins to Albavera, and grabbed the blanket, set it on the brown’s back, made sure it was straight, then heaved the saddle onto the horse. He shook his head. “No. Captain never was much for politics.” He tossed a stirrup over the saddle, reached down and grabbed the girth.
“I guess I can see that.” He looked at the note again, shaking his head. “His language isn’t exactly that of Jefferson or Lincoln. You plan on doing like he says?”
“Some of it.”
“He did order you.”
“Uh-huh. But the captain always said orders were made to be ignored. Besides, I have my own notions.”
“Well, what do you think the governor, the army, and the citizens will do when they hear about Captain Savage’s demands?”
Chance pulled the latigo tight, tucked the end in the slit, then reached inside his vest pocket and withdrew a key. “Savage says payment must be made by the twenty-ninth. That’s four days.” He leaned against the saddle, staring off toward the south, watching the dust rise into the skies. He pictured Grace Profit, and wondered if she knew Savage was threatening her life. What was it Grace had said? Captain Savage believes in the sanctity of womanhood. Yeah, sure he does. He said he’d kill Grace and the prostitute from Terlingua, even a priest. Even soldiers of the U.S. Army.
Chance let out a haggard breath. He spoke in a whisper. “Or he’ll start killing the hostages he has at Fort Leaton.”
Albavera shook his head. “And you say he’s not crazy?”
Four days—until 5:00 P.M. Sunday the 29th. Chance looked up. The sun was directly overhead. Actually, three and a half days. He let out a muffled curse, and faced Albavera, fingering the small key he held in his right hand. “No way the Southern Pacific, the stagecoach company, or the state could make that deadline.”
“And the Army? Don’t forget, Savage says they have to vamoose, too.”
“Generally the Army wouldn’t stick its nose in this fight. It’s a civil matter. But Savage made it a military affair by taking some soldiers hostage. The Army will have to react, with or without a request from the governor. As soon as they find out what Savage has demanded, what he’s doing, troops will head down to Fort Leaton to get those boys of theirs back.”
Albavera swore and spit. “That might get Grace Profit killed.”
“Maybe.” Chance studied the key, then looked again at his prisoner.
“Well, do you plan on going to Sanderson, catching the train, and delivering this note”—Albavera waved the note in his fingers—“to your Ranger boss or Governor Ireland?”
Chance stepped away from the horse, and in front of Moses Albavera, who looked stunned as Chance took one of his hands in his own, and slid the key into the handcuff’s lock. “Eastbound’s not due till Sunday,” Chance said. “It’s four hundred miles from here to Austin. I couldn’t get to Austin by Savage’s deadline if I tried. Certainly couldn’t get word to Savage of Colonel Thomas’s and the governor’s response by then.”
“You could telegraph Austin from Sanderson. Wait for a reply. Providing Savage hasn’t cut those wires, too.”
Chance looked up, face-to-face, eye-to-eye with Albavera, his key still in the lock. Would Captain Savage have had the telegraph lines east of Sanderson cut, too? Had he ordered Chance to Sanderson knowing that? He looked down, turned the key. No, Savage wouldn’t send him on some forlorn hope. He needed Austin to know what he planned to do.
What he said he planned to do.
“That’s right,” Chance said. “That’s all I can do. Savage knows this. When Colonel Thomas gets that telegraph, he’ll blow his top. Likely send a company of Rangers, and plenty of Southern Pacific railroad detectives on a special train. They’ll storm Fort Leaton, with or without the Army’s help. Texas and the Rangers won’t make any deals. Not with Captain Savage. Not when they hear this.”
The iron manacles dropped to the dirt.
“The Army’ll help,” Albavera said. “I don’t hold most of those soldier boys in high regard, not when it comes to poker, faro or anything else like that, but they aren’t yellow. Those Army boys will want Savage’s hair.”
“That’s right. Savage knows that as well.”
Albavera began rubbing his wrists. He stepped back, studying Chance, not quite sure what to make of all that. “You think you know your captain pretty well, eh?”
“I don’t think. I’ve ridden with Captain Savage for seven years. He calculates everything. He knows what Colonel Thomas will do, knows what the Army will do. And he’s not crazy enough to think he could actually form his own little country and kick out the United States Army. He knows the S.P. will never agree to his toll charges, or whatever the hell he called it in that stupid letter he wrote. Nor will the stagecoach companies that run along the old Butterfield trail. He’s not crazy.”
“He sure fooled me.”
Chance handed the reins to the brown gelding to Albavera. “I’m riding to Fort Stockton. I’ll tell the commanding officer there what has happened.”
“Isn’t Fort Davis closer?”
“Yeah. A little. But I don’t want to meet up with Don Melitón or his men. I’ll tell the commander at Fort Stockton, and he’ll send a galloper to Fort Davis. Both posts will send a lot of troops south to Fort Leaton.”
“Am I going with you?”
“No. I want you to ride to Sanderson. Send that wire to Colonel Thomas in Austin.”
With a wry grin, Albavera asked, “What makes you think I’ll do that? This isn’t my fight.”
“Sure it is. ‘No niggers allowed in Savage.’ Remember?”
The grin turned upside down into an angry scowl. Albavera’s eyes hardened. “Yeah,” he said, barely audible. “I’m not likely to forget that.” Louder. “You trust me?”
“I don’t have a choice. I have to alert the Army. And I have to get word to Austin. I can’t do both.”
“Suppose I go to Sanderson. Suppose I send your telegraph. Then what?”
“I don’t care.”
Albavera chuckled. He rubbed the brown’s neck. “Do I get to keep this fine little gelding?”
“I’ll give you a bill of sale if you want. Won’t be legal, but I’ll do it.”
“Not what I’d call a fair trade, Ranger Chance. Your captain stole my Andalusian.”
“It wasn’t your horse. You stole that stallion at Fort Stockton. That’s why I can’t send you there. But Sanderson . . . It’s just a short ride south to Mexico—after you send that telegraph.”
He took Savage’s note, and shoved it in his vest pocket. “I’ll need this to show the C.O. at Fort Stockton. You need me to write down Savage’s demands for you to give the telegrapher?”
“I got a good memory, too, Ranger Chance. I can remember.”
“William E. Thomas, colonel, Texas Rangers, Austin.”
“Got it.”
Chance pulled the Smith & Wesson from his back, offering it butt forward to Albavera, who stared at the small pistol.
“Like Captain Savage said, Don Melitón won’t think to have his men there. That’s a bit off his range, anyhow. But Savage knows I’ll have to go to Sanderson to sen
d that wire. No choice in the matter. He cut the wires here. Closest telegraph office is Sanderson. He wants me to send that wire. He knows I won’t take the train. Knows there’s not enough time, that I’ll have to wait for a reply from Austin. But after I send that telegraph, he’ll want me—or whoever sends that telegraph—dead.”
“Why would he want you dead? If he wanted you dead, he could have killed you today.”
Chance shook his head. “He needed me to send that telegraph. Needed me to deliver a message. But once that’s done, he’ll want me dead.”
“Why?”
Chance grinned. “He knows me. Knows what I’ll do. Same as I know him.”
“So he’ll have a couple of his Ranger boys waiting for you—or rather, me—in Sanderson?”
“Just one. He only has fourteen men. He can’t afford to spare more than one. For whatever it is he’s planning.”
“Which is?”
Chance shook his head. “I don’t know.”
With a heavy sigh, Albavera took the double-action .32 and stuck it in the pocket of his buckskin jacket. “This isn’t a fair trade, either. This little popgun . . . I’m not sure it would kill a fly. Now, with Miss Vickie, when I hit somebody, that body stayed down.”
“Bill Carter didn’t. Remember?”
Albavera laughed. “Damn, Ranger, you and your memory. But do you remember Fort Stockton?”
Rubbing his throat, Chance nodded. “Yeah,” he said, his voice lacking any emotion. He walked to the gate, opened it.
Albavera leaped into the saddle. “You think this horse’ll get me to Sanderson?”
“He’ll have to.” Chance led the sorrel out, grabbed the Winchester, shoved it into the scabbard.
“Good luck, Ranger Chance,” Albavera yelled as he loped out of the corral, and hit the road that ran east, parallel to the railroad tracks.
“Good luck,” Chance said, and thought to add, “Moses.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They didn’t head to Presidio.
Two miles south of Marathon, once Hec Savage was certain they weren’t being followed, a tall, barrel-chested Ranger with a sugarloaf sombrero, left the group, and took off at a high lope east. He rode that strong gray Andalusian stallion, the horse Dave Chance had been riding.
The only place he could be going, Grace Profit figured, was Sanderson. The same town where Chance was to catch the train, and then deliver Savage’s demands personally to the Ranger colonel in the state capital.
Two other riders, one named Eliot and the other called Taw, cut out a short while later. They rode northeast. Back to Marathon? Grace wasn’t sure.
That pared the group down to three—Savage, Doc Shaw, and a third Ranger called Newton—and for a moment, Grace wondered if she might risk an escape, but decided against it. She couldn’t get away, and besides, Linda Kincaid might need her.
After another mile, Savage turned his gray horse off the road and led his command west, then northwest, through the Del Norte mountains, and across the desert flats. No sound, except the clopping of hooves and the rustling of the wind. Savage put his gray into a hard trot, and they followed, Grace cringing, gripping the horn, trying to stand in the stirrups and lessen the jarring her spine took. The bay horse she rode was hell on her back.
At least she wasn’t riding a sidesaddle. Shortly after they had left Marathon, Savage had apologized that he had no sidesaddle to offer her, but Grace didn’t mind. Hell, she hadn’t ridden sidesaddle since she was fourteen. She was a pretty good rider, but, damn, she hated a trot, and the bay had no easy gait.
They rode most of the afternoon, trotting and bouncing in the saddles, until Grace thought she’d either fall off the bay, or throw up from all the torment her stomach, let alone her back, kept taking. They’d slow down, walk their horses for ten or fifteen minutes, and start trotting again.
She lost track of time. They kept riding.
For November, the day had turned warm. The clouds had moved off, the sun burning her face, neck, and hands. She hadn’t thought to wear a hat—hadn’t expected to be going for a long ride—and no one had offered her his headgear, not even a bandana to turn into a bonnet.
By mid-afternoon, the top of her head felt like a burned hotcake.
They slowed their horses again, letting them walk across the stone-filled prairie. To the north, she could see the southern edge of the Glass Mountains, and wondered if that’s where Captain Savage was taking her. Or beyond there. To . . . Murphyville?
Her horse stopped. A moment later, she heard its urine spraying the rocks.
Doc Shaw rode point, Hec Savage having spurred his gray to check their back trail. She heard a horse loping behind her, and Savage called out, “How you faring, Grace?”
He reined in beside her, holding out a canteen. She wasn’t too proud to accept. Smiling, he watched as she drank greedily. She would have kept right on drinking had he not taken the canteen from her worn hands. “Best go easy on that, girl.” He corked the canteen, and wrapped the strap around his saddle horn. “I’ve been meaning to apologize for torching your saloon.” He pulled off his hat, and wiped his brow. “Had to do it.”
“For serving bad whiskey,” she said.
“Nah. You know better than that, Grace. Your whiskey had nothing to do with it. Besides, I think it’s pretty good hooch. But I had to let everyone know I mean business.”
“After ten or twelve years, Hec, I think everyone in West Texas knows you mean business.”
He laughed. Leaning over, he slapped the bay’s rump. The horses started walking again. “What would you say if I offered to buy you a new saloon? One without canvas walls. Maybe a fancy mahogany back-bar. You could serve the finest whiskey and wines, good beer, even sell some expensive cigars. What would you think of that, Grace?”
“You gonna buy that on what you make as a Ranger?”
He shook his head.
“Then maybe that hundred thousand you’re extorting from the Southern Pacific.”
He studied her, curious.
“I was sitting at that table, Hec, when you were writing your letter. I can read upside down. Even someone with as lousy penmanship as you.”
He looked ahead. “Likely, you wonder where we’re going.”
She brushed her hair off her face. “I figure you’re taking me wherever your men took Linda Kincaid. I mean, you’re following the same trail they did.” She pointed at a pile of horse apples near a broken stem of a long-dead ocotillo.
Savage reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the makings. “You missed your calling, Grace. You should have been a scout instead of a peddler of forty-rod whiskey.”
Actually, that had been a guess. Oh, she had seen the dung here and there, and the occasional print of a horseshoe, but she wasn’t certain Linda Kincaid had come that way. She remembered the note Savage had written, his articles of secession or whatever he had called them. He had said Kincaid, and others, were being held in Fort Leaton. But they weren’t going to Fort Leaton. She wanted to ask if those soldiers, that priest, and the others were prisoners down near the Rio Grande, but decided she had better not press her luck. She had been serving whiskey in saloons long enough to know when a person wanted to talk, and when a fellow just wanted to drink.
Savage had talked himself out.
A match flared. Cupping his hands, Savage lit the cigarette he held tightly between his lips. He rode silently beside her until he had finished the smoke, then pitched it to the ground. He told Grace, “We’d best cover some territory,” and spurred the gray into another backbreaking trot.
They were climbing in elevation, heading toward Cathedral Mountain, a limestone ridge, almost like a flat-topped mesa, except for the chimney, or cathedral-like point that shot out on one edge. Rising close to two thousand feet over the flats, it sloped down toward the foothills that surrounded the peak.
The grass had thickened, and Grace could make out the live oak, piñon, and juniper. Her horse, along with the others, snorted, a
nd picked up the pace. They smelled water.
Before crossing Calamity Creek, they stopped to let the horses drink their fill. The water flowed richly, cooly, and turned the desert into an oasis. That far north, fed from streams and its headwaters near the dead volcano called Paisano, the creek ran year-round. Farther south the stream became intermittent as it wound its way deeper into the Big Bend, through the Santiagos, eventually flowing, when there was water, into the Rio Grande.
Willows, soapberry, and cottonwoods grew along the banks. Birds sang. Floating overhead, a red-tailed hawk watched the travelers with suspicion. Across the rocks that lined the far bank of the creek scurried a lizard. Cliffs rose above the creek, offering shade.
Rugged country, but lovely.
Grace tried to find her bearings. They were a few miles south of Murphyville. On Don Melitón Benton’s range. Still, she couldn’t figure out where Savage was taking her.
When the horses had slaked their thirst, Savage kicked his gray into a walk, and the others followed, traveling along the creek, northwest, through the canyons, toward Cathedral Mountain.
A few minutes later, she saw the turkey buzzards circling overhead. Ewes and rams scattered, and at first Grace figured the buzzards were after a dead sheep, but after they had gone another mile, she realized her mistake.
The sheepherder, a white-bearded Mexican in muslin rags, lay on a flat boulder stained by a lake of dried blood, his eyes staring sightlessly at the buzzards overhead. The front of his shirt was also stained with blood that had seeped from three bullet wounds in his chest.
A dog lay beside a cairn of rocks, having bled out from a belly wound. Beyond that, she spied a young boy, barely in his teens, shot in the back, apparently as he tried to run away.
Sheep scattered, running frantically toward the rocks, their bleating sounding like a fingernail being scraped across a blackboard.
The Rangers rode on silently, barely glancing at the corpses, ignoring the pitiful cries of the sheep. Grace had trouble holding down the water in her stomach.
When they reached a clearing, they turned away from Calamity Creek, and Grace saw the compound—several buildings and a couple corrals. A couple men, sitting in the shade, rose from their chairs, rifles held in the crooks of their arms.
West Texas Kill Page 14
