He wore a sunbleached maroon shirt, black jeans and good boots. A pair of guns were strapped to his hips. Good guns.
Luke noticed several things right off. Johnny Cross had done some long, hard riding. His clothes were trailworn, dusty; his guns, what Luke could see of them in their holsters, were clean, polished. Their inset dark wooden handles were smooth, well worn with use. A late-model carbine was sheathed in the saddle scabbard.
The chestnut horse was a fine-looking animal. Judging by its lines it was fast and strong, with plenty of endurance. The kind of mount favored by one on the dodge. One thing was sure:
Johnny Cross was returning to Hangtree in better shape than when he left it.
The Cross family had always been dirt-poor, honest but penniless. Throughout his youth up till the time he went off to war, Johnny had worn mostly patched, outgrown clothes and gone shoeless for long periods of time.
Johnny Cross handed the other a canteen. “Here, Luke, cut the dust some.”
“Don’t mind if I do, thanks.” Luke fought to still the trembling in his hands as he took hold of the canteen and fumbled open the cap. The water was as warm as blood. He took a mouthful and held it there, letting the welcome wetness refresh the dust-dry inside of his mouth.
His throat was so dry that at first he had trouble swallowing. He took a couple of mouthfuls, stopping though still thirsty. He didn’t want to be a hog or show how great his need was. “Thank you kindly,” he said, returning the canteen.
Johnny put it away. “Sorry I don’t have something stronger.”
“That’s plenty fine,” Luke said.
“Been back long?”
“Since last fall.”
“How’s your folks, Luke?”
“Pa got drowned two years ago trying to cross the Liberty River when it was running high at flood time.”
“Sorry to hear that. He was a good man,” Johnny said.
Luke nodded. “Hardworking and godfearing . . . for all the good it done him.”
“Your brothers?”
“Finn joined up with Ben McCullough and got kilt at Pea Ridge. Heck got it in Chicamagua.”
“That’s a damned shame. They was good ole boys.”
“War kilt off a lot of good ole boys.”
“Ain’t it the truth.”
The two were silent for a spell.
“Sue Ellen’s married to a fellow over to Dennison way,” Luke went on. “Got two young’uns, a boy and a girl. Named the boy after Pa. Ma’s living with them.”
“Imagine that! Last time I saw Sue Ellen she was a pretty little slip of a thing, and now she’s got two young’uns of her own,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “Time sure does fly . . .”
“Four years is a long time, Johnny.”
“How was your war, Luke?”
“I been around. I was with Hood’s Brigade.”
“Good outfit.”
Luke nodded. “We fought our way all over the South. Reckon we was in just about every big battle there was. I was with ’em right through almost to the finish at the front lines of Richmond, till a cannonball took off the bottom part of my leg.”
“That must’ve hurt some,” Johnny said.
“It didn’t tickle,” Luke deadpanned. “They patched me up in a Yankee prison camp where I set for a few months until after Appomatox in April of ’65, when they set us all a-loose. I made my way back here, walking most of the way.
“What about you, Johnny? Seems I heard something about you riding with Bill Anderson.”
“Did you? Well, you heard right.”
Hard-riding, hard-fighting Bill Anderson had led a band of fellow Texans up into Missouri to join up with William Clarke Quantrill, onetime schoolteacher turned leader of a ferociously effective mounted force of Confederate irregulars in the border states. The fighting there was guerrilla warfare at its worst, an unending series of ambushes, raids, flight, pursuit and counterattack—an ever-escalating spiral of brutalities and atrocities on both sides.
“We was with Quantrill,” Johnny Cross said.
“How was it?” Luke asked.
“We gave those Yankees pure hell,” Johnny said, smiling with his lips, a self-contained, secretive smile.
His alert yellow-eyed gaze turned momentarily inward, bemused by cascading memories of hard riding and hard fighting. He tossed his head, as if physically shaking off the mood of reverie and returning to the present.
“Didn’t work out too well in the end, though,” Johnny said at last. “After Bill’s sister got killed—she and a bunch of women, children and old folks was being held hostage by the Yanks in a house that collapsed on ’em—Bill went off the deep end. He always had a mean streak but after that he went plumb loco, kill crazy. That’s when they started calling him Bloody Bill.”
“You at Lawrence?” asked Luke.
Lawrence, Kansas, was a longtime abolitionist center and home base for Jim Lane’s Redlegs, a band of Yankee marauders who’d shot, hanged and burned their way through pro-Confederate counties in Missouri. In retaliation Quantrill had led a raid on Lawrence that became one of the bloodiest and most notorious massacres of the war.
“It wasn’t good, Luke. I came to kill Yankee soldiers. This business of shooting down unarmed men—and boys—it ain’t sporting.”
“No more ’n what the Redlegs done to our people.”
“I stuck with Quantrill until the end, long after Bill split off from him to lead his own bunch. They’re both dead now, shot down by the bluebellies—I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that to yourself,” Johnny said, after a pause. “The federals still got a grudge on about Quantrill and ain’t too keen on amnestying any of our bunch.”
“You one of them pistol-fighters, Johnny?”
Johnny shrugged. “I’m like you, just another Reb looking for a place to light.”
“You always was good with a gun. I see you’re toting a mighty fine-looking pair of the plow handles in that gun belt,” Luke said.
“That’s about all I’ve got after four years of war, some good guns and a horse.” Johnny cut an involuntary glance at the empty space below Luke’s left knee.
“Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” he added quickly.
“Hold on to them guns and keep ’em close. Now that you’re back, you’re gonna need ’em,” Luke said.
“Yanks been throwing their weight around?” Johnny asked.
Luke shook his head. “’T’ain’t the Yanks that’s the problem. Not yet, anyhow. They’s around some but they’re stretched kind of thin. There’s a company of them in Fort Pardee up in the Breaks.”
“They closed that at the start of the war, along with all them forts up and down the frontier line,” Johnny said.
“It’s up and running now, manned by a company of bluebelly horse soldiers. But that ain’t the problem—not that I got any truck with a bunch of damn Yankees,” Luke said.
“’Course not.”
“What with no cavalry around and most of the menfolk away during the war, no home guard and no Ranger companies, things have gone to rot and ruin hereabouts. The Indians have run wild, the Comanches and the Kiowas. Comanches, mostly. Wahtonka’s been spending pretty much half the year riding the warpaths between Kansas and Mexico. Sometimes as far east as Fort Worth and even Dallas.”
“Wahtonka? That ol’ devil ain’t dead yet?”
Luke shook his head. “Full of piss and vinegar and more ornery than ever. And then there’s Red Hand.”
“I recollect him. A troublemaker, a real bad ’un. He was just starting to make a name for himself when I went north.”
“He’s a big noise nowadays, Johnny. Got hisself a following among the young bucks of the tribe. Red Hand’s been raising holy hell for the last four years with no Army or Rangers to crack down on him. There’s some other smaller fry but them two are the real hellbenders.
“But that’s not the least of it. The redskins raid and move on. But the white badmen just set. The county’s thick wit
h ’em. Thicker ’n flies swarming a manure pile in a cow pasture on a hot summer day. Deserters from both armies, renegades, outlaws. Comancheros selling guns and whiskey to the Indians. Backshooters, women-killers. The lowest. Bluecoats are too busy chasing the Indians to bother with them. Folks ’re so broke that there ain’t hardly nothing left worth stealing any more but that don’t matter to some hombres. They’s up to all kinds of devilments out of pure meanness.
“Hell, I got robbed right here on this road not more than a day ago. In broad daylight. I didn’t have nothing worth stealing but they took it anyhow. It’d been different if I’d had me a sixgun. Or a good doublebarreled sawed-off.”
“Who done it, Luke?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. First off, I been living out at the old family place, what’s left of it,” Luke said. “Somebody put the torch to it while I was away. Burned down the ranch house and barn.”
“Yanks?” Johnny asked.
Luke shook his head. “Federals never got to Hangtree County during the war. Probably figured it wasn’t worth bothering with. No, the ranch must’ve been burned by some no-goods, probably just for the hell of it.
“Anyhow I scrounged up enough unburnt planks and shacks to build me a little shack; I been living there since I come back. Place is thick with maverick cattle—the whole range is. Strays that have been gone wild during the war and now there’s hundreds, thousands of them running around loose. Every now and then I catch and kill me one for food. I’d’ve starved without.
“I had me some hides I’d cleaned and cured. I was bringing ’em into town to sell or barter at the general store. Some fishhooks, chaw of tobacco, seeds . . .”
“And whiskey,” Johnny said.
“Hell, yes,” Luke said. “Had my old rifled musket and mule. Never made it to Hangtown—I got held up along the way. Bunch of no-accounts come up, got the drop on me. Five of them.”
“Who?”
“Strangers, I never seed ’em before. But when I see ’em again—Well, never mind about that now. Lot of outsiders horning in around here lately. I ain’t forgetting a one of ’em. Led by a mean son name of Monty.”
“Monty,” Johnny echoed, committing the name to memory.
“That’s what they called him, Monty. Big ol’ boy with a round fat face and little piggy eyes. Cornsilk hair so fine and pale it was white. Got him a gold front tooth a-shining and a-sparkling away in the middle of his mouth,” Luke said. “Him and his crowd gave me a whomping. Busted my musket against a tree. Shot my poor ol’ mule dead for the fun of it. Busted my crutch over my head. It hurt, too.”
Luke took off his hat, pointing out a big fat lump in the middle of his crown.
“That’s some goose egg. Like I said, you always was a hardheaded fellow. Lucky for you,” Johnny said.
“Yeh, lucky.” Luke put his hat back on, gingerly settling it on his head. “While I was out cold they stole everything I had: my hides, my knife, even my wooden leg. Can you beat that? Stealing a man’s wooden leg! Them things don’t grow on trees, you know. That’s what really hurt. I walked from hell to Texas on that leg. Yes, you could say I was attached to it.”
“You could. I wouldn’t.”
“When I come to, them owlhoots was talking about if’n they should kill me or not. Only reason they didn’t gun me down on the spot is ’cause Monty thought it would be funny to leave me alive to go crawling across the countryside.”
“Yankees?”
“Hell no, they was Southerners just like us. Texans, some of ’em, from the way they talked,” said Luke.
His face set in lines of grim determination. “I’ll find ’em, I got time. When I do, I’ll even up with ’em. And then some. That gold tooth of Monty’s is gonna make me a good watch fob. Once I get me a watch.”
He waved a hand dismissively, shooing away the topic as if it were a troublesome insect. “Not that I want to bother you with my troubles. Just giving you the lay of the land, so to speak. And you, Johnny, what’re you doing back here?”
Johnny Cross shrugged. “I came home for a little peace and quiet, Luke. That’s all.”
“You come to the wrong place.”
“And to lay low. The border states ain’t too healthy for any of Quantrill’s crowd.”
“You wanted, Johnny?”
“Not in Texas.” After a pause, he said, “Not in this part of Texas.”
“You could do worse. Hangtree’s a big county with lots of room to get lost in. The Yanks are quartered forty miles northwest at Fort Pardee in the Breaks. They don’t come to Hangtown much and when they do they’s just passing through. They got their hands full chasing Indians.”
“They catch any?”
Luke laughed. “From what I hear, they got to look sharp to keep the Indians from catching them.”
“Good, that’ll keep ’em out of my hair.”
“What’re your plans, Johnny?”
“One thing I know is horses. Mustangs still running at Wild Horse Gulch?”
“More now than ever, since nobody was rounding ’em up during the war.”
“Figured I’d collect a string and sell ’em. Folks always need horses, even in hard times. Maybe I’ll sell ’em to those bluebellies at the fort.”
Luke was shocked. “You wouldn’t!”
“Gold’s gold and the Yanks are the ones that got it nowadays,” said Johnny Cross.
Something in the air made him look back. A dust cloud showed in the distance east on the road, a brown smudge on the lip of the blue bowl of sky. Johnny reined in, turning the horse to face back the way they came. “Company’s coming,” he said.
“Generally that means trouble in these parts,” Luke said.
“Ain’t necessarily so, but that’s the way to bet it,” he added.
Johnny Cross unfastened the catch of the saddlebag on his right-hand side, reaching in and pulling out a revolver. A big .44 frontloading cap-and-ball sixgun like the ones worn on his hips: new, clean and potent.
“Here,” he said, holding it out to Luke. “Take it,” he said when the other hesitated.
Luke took it. The gun had a satisfying heft and balance in his hand. “A six-gun! One of them repeating revolvers,” Luke marveled.
“Know how to use it?” Johnny asked.
“After four years with Hood’s Brigade?” Luke said in disbelief.
“In that case I’d better show you how it works, then. I wouldn’t want you shooting me or yourself by accident,” Johnny said, straight-faced.
Luke’s scowl broke into a twisted grin. “Shucks, you’re joshing me,” he said.
“I am? That’s news to me.”
“You’re still doing it, dang you.”
Johnny Cross flashed him a quick grin, strong white teeth gleaming, laugh lines curling up around the corners of his hazel eyes. A boyish grin, likable somehow, with nothing mean in it.
Sure, Johnny was funning Luke. Hood’s Brigade of Texans was one of the hardest-fighting outfits of the Confederacy, whose army had been distinguished by a host of fierce and valiant fighters.
Johnny turned the horse’s head, pointing it west, urging it forward into a fast walk.
Luke stuck the pistol into the top of his waistband on his left side, butt-out.
“It’s good to have something to fill the hand with. Been feeling half-nekkid without one,” he said.
“With what’s left of that uniform, you are half-nekkid,” Johnny said.
“How many more of them ventilators you got tucked in them saddlebags?”
“Never enough.”
“You must have been traveling in some fast company, Johnny. I heard Quantrill’s men rode into battle with a half-dozen guns or more. That true?”
“And more. Reloading takes time. A fellow wants a gun to hand when he wants it.”
Luke was enthusiastic. “Man, what we couldn’t have done with a brace of these for every man in the old outfit!”
“If only,” Johnny said flatly. His eyes were hard, cold.
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A couple of hundred yards farther west, a stand of timber grew on the left side of the road. A grove of cottonwood trees.
East, the brown dust cloud grew. “Fair amount of riders from the dust they’re kicking up. Coming pretty fast, too,” said Luke, looking back.
“Wouldn’t it be something if it was that bunch who cleaned you out?”
“It sure would. Any chance it’s somebody on your trail, Johnny?”
“I ain’t been back long enough.”
Luke laughed. “Don’t feel bad about it, hoss,” he said. “It’s early yet.”
Johnny Cross turned the horse left, off the dirt road into the cottonwood grove. The shade felt good, thin though it was. The Texas sun was plenty fierce even at the start of spring. Sunlight shining through spaces in the canopy of trees dappled the ground with a mosaic of light and shade. A wild hare started, springing across the glade for the cover of tall grass.
Johnny took the horse in deep behind a concealing screen of brush. “We’ll just let these rannies have the right of way so we can get a looksee at ’em.”
Luke was serious, in dead earnest. “Johnny—if it is that pack that tore into me—Monty is mine.”
“Whoa, boy. Don’t go getting ahead of yourself, Luke. Even if it is your bunch—especially if it is—don’t throw down on ’em without my say-so. They’ll get what’s coming to ’em, I promise you that. But we’ll pick the time and place. Two men shooting off the back of one horse ain’t the most advantageous layout for a showdown.
“I know you got a hard head but beware a hot one. It should have cooled some after four years of war,” Johnny said.
“Well—it ain’t,” said Luke.
Johnny grinned. “Me, neither,” he said.
The blur at the base of the dust cloud sweeping west along the road resolved itself into a column of riders. About a dozen men or so.
They came in tandem: four pairs in front, then the wagon, then two horsemen bringing up the rear. Hardbitten men doing some hard traveling, as indicated by the trail dust covering them and the sweat-streaked flanks of their horses. They wore civilian clothes, broad-brimmed hats, flannel shirts, denim pants. Each rider was armed with a holstered sidearm and a carbine in a saddle-scabbard.
Massacre of Eagles Page 26
