Buscadero

by Bill Brooks

  “Was through here yesterday. Left yesterday. Did not seem to want to stay around once I asked him his business. Said he was on the search for a Texas Ranger and some prisoners. I didn’t believe his story a whole hell of a lot, but he was wearing a badge, just like you.”

  “Did he give his name?”

  “Said his name was Eli Stagg. Carried a big Creedmore. Could kill almost anything from a long ways off with a gun like that.”

  “Then I am on the right trail,” said Caleb Drew.

  “Would you like some of this coffee?”

  “I would. Is there a place I can get some breakfast?”

  “There is. I’ll go with you so’s we can talk.”

  They ordered eggs and fried ham, black beans and more coffee.

  “How’d this fellow strike you?”

  “As a man who didn’t mind killing much. But anymore, this whole dang territory is filling up with such low life.”

  “Well, I plan on tracking him down. He murdered a deputy of mine.”

  “You’d best shoot him in the back if you get a chance, or anywhere else. A man like that, I would not trust nor give any opportunity to.”

  “How’s the trail from here to Texas?”

  “It’s a good road, but bandits along the way. Camp off the road a good distance, and don’t light too many fires, and you should be alright.”

  “Well, I had better be on my way,” said Caleb Drew, draining the last of the coffee in his cup. “You have a fine little town here from what I see.”

  “It’ll do, I suppose,” said Cherokee Tom. “Not many places that’d hire a part Indian to run their law. That much I appreciate.”

  Caleb shook the lawman’s hand and headed for the door of the restaurant.

  “Marshal,” said Cherokee Tom. “You be careful where you bed down at night. They’ve got snakes in Texas big as your leg.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  They had walked for two full days without sighting a single living creature. The journey had been slow and arduous. Pete was weak from the loss of blood and the grievous wound, and they both suffered the lack of food. Their progress had been only half of what it should have been.

  They had gathered mesquite beans and pounded them with rocks and ate them. They had also found some banana yucca and gathered and roasted the fruit from that plant. And they had been careful with the water. But they could not ignore the fact that Pete Winter’s condition seemed to be deteriorating.

  He had considered sending Katie on alone in hopes of finding a ranch. But he knew that without knowledge of the land, she would most likely become lost and perish. As for himself, he now held little hope that he would survive. He had had two straight nights of feverish dreams, dreams that saw him attending his own funeral.

  He saw himself lying in a black casket wearing a black suit and white shirt and black cravat. He saw the casket being lifted into a glass-sided hearse that was pulled by four black horses through a town that he did not recognize. He saw the hearse climb a small barren hill where there was a graveyard. He saw a woman in a black dress crying, and when the wind lifted her veil, it was Katie Swensen. Henry Dollar was there too, standing next to Katie Swensen. The older lawman’s face was grim and full of sadness and he wore a dusty suit and held his battered old gray Stetson in one hand.

  That’s how the dreams went for two nights running.

  He knew that somehow he had to save Katie. She did not deserve to die in the middle of nowhere, with no one to mourn her passing. She was too young for that.

  He had tried several times to use his right arm, but without success. The bone had been shattered and if it healed at all, it would heal badly. He knew, and had known from the moment he had been struck by the Comanche’s bullet, that he would never again be able to use the arm. He avoided thinking about it as much as was possible, but was not always able to ignore the fact that he was, and would be, crippled.

  In spite of everything, Katie Swensen had not complained, nor shown any loss of resolve to find rescue. In addition to carrying her own weight, the canteen of water, and the extra pistol, she tended to him whenever they had rested, or bedded down for the night.

  She had slept close to him, using her body as a way to keep him from becoming chilled. She had forgone some of her own drinking of the water in order to dampen his fevered forehead, and allow him extra to drink, knowing that he was in greater need.

  They came to an arroyo and climbed down into it for the shade.

  After several minutes of rest, he said: “Katie, I’m sorry that this has happened.”

  “Try not to talk, Pete. There’s nothing you can say that will change our circumstances.”

  “That’s true enough,” he said. “But, if only I would have been a little more cautious, we might not be in this situation. I feel to blame and I want you to know that I am sorry.”

  “Sorry? Why should you be the one to feel sorry? It was my decision to have run off with Johnny Montana. It was my blindness that led me to stay with him through everything. I thought I was in love.” She laughed at the notion.

  “Pete, you just will never know how foolish someone can be when they think that they’re in love. Pray that nothing like love ever comes your way.”

  She closed her eyes and remembered her papa, remembered how often he would make her wishes come true. It seemed to her now that she had always relied on men to make her happy.

  She had relied first on her father. Later, it was the young suitors, boys really, who were willing to do anything for her, anything to make her happy. And then there was Johnny.

  She had relied most on Johnny to make her happy. And now, as she lay in the only shade for miles and in the middle of nowhere, she realized that she had never been truly happy, and that her reliance on men had always left her wanting.

  How strange, she though, that she was now in the most desperate situation of her life, and a man was relying on her—not for his happiness, but for his survival.

  She would save him, she promised herself. She would save him, or they would die together.

  “Katie...are you alright?”

  She opened her eyes.

  “You were trembling,” he said.

  “I was just thinking about everything, about how strangely things turn out.”

  He came to her and placed his good arm around her shoulders.

  “I know things look terrible bad, I won’t lie to you about that. But, I think if we can last another day or two, we’ll come up on something.” They both knew that it was more brave talk than reality, but neither acknowledged it. Nonetheless, it felt good to her to have him hold her.

  He felt her warmth and softness against him, as he had for the past few nights when she lay close to him. It was the greatest comfort to wake up and have her there, just as it was now to be holding her.

  He felt the brush of her hair against his face. He lightly kissed her cheek. It seemed a natural matter to him, one that he could not resist any longer.

  She turned her face to him. Her eyes searched his face. Her mouth was suddenly soft and sweet against his own. He had never had a woman kiss him before. He had kissed a few, but had never had one kiss him. The comfort of it overwhelmed him. He kissed her back and she let him.

  “Pete—” She rested her head against him and placed one hand on his chest. And for a long time, neither of them said anything.

  “Seems funny,” he said at last.

  “What does?”

  “Seems funny that with everything that’s happened, that this would too.”

  “I wish that I had never met Johnny Montana,” she said. “It should have been you that I met and fell in love with.”

  “Hush,” he whispered. “There’s no need for regretting something that has already happened. I guess we’d all change things in our lives if we could go back and do it over.”

  “I know. But, I made a damn fool of myself over that man and I don’t know if I will ever forgive myself. He used me and I let him and I fe
el ashamed.”

  “I know you do, Katie. But the good Lord dido’t make any perfect people—including me and you. We’ve got enough to face without facing the past.”

  She sat up and searched his face. “Pete, you can never know the kind of shame I feel about what I’ve done.”

  “That’s where you are wrong, Kate. I know what it’s like to feel shame, the kind you’re talking about. I carry my own shame.”

  She stared at him with disbelieving eyes. “You are just trying to make me feel better about myself,” she said.

  “No, I’m not. What you did, you did because you thought you were in love and it was right to stick by the man you loved. I did something far worse, I helped hang an innocent man. And I did it because I was being high-minded.”

  She could see the pain in his face, the way his eyes looked off to somewhere.

  “Why, Pete? Why would you do something like that?”

  It was something that he had not spoken of but once since it had happened. It still haunted him.

  “I was young and hot-tempered. I rode with a group of vigilantes before I joined the Rangers. I thought we were doing the right thing—I always thought of myself as doing the right thing. It was a time and place when there were lots of horse thieves and cattle rustlers, and a big rancher named Wilkens blew hot air into my head about clearing the land of such trash.

  “At that time, there wasn’t any law to speak of, not in that part of the country. As it turned out, we caught a fellow we were sure was a cattle rustler. Wilkens gave the man a kangaroo court and then we hung him. We had caught him butchering a beef. Found out later from one of of Wilken’s line riders that the steer had died on its own and he had given the man permission to butcher it for his family—they were squatters. Nothing but starving squatters. The man had a wife and six children...” His voice trailed off.

  “The worst of it was,” he continued, “I never told what happened to the man that raised me and gave me this job. I always felt too ashamed to talk about it. The only other person to know besides you is a man named Henry Dollar. He’s a ranger too, but more like an older brother.”

  “I’m sorry that something like that happened to you,” she said. She stroked his cheek and held him close.

  “I’m sorry too, Katie. It is something I will always have to live with. It was Henry Dollar who taught me that a man’s mistakes can just as easily cause him to become a better man as they can to destroy him. He was right.”

  “He sounds like a wise man.”

  “More than that, Katie, far more than that.”

  She kissed him again.

  “What will become of us, Pete?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But, I’m going to do everything in my power to see that you make it to safety.”

  She sighed and said, “Safety from this place will only mean going back to Arkansas and standing trial for my crimes. I am not so sure I want to be rescued, Pete.”

  He made a decision then and there, one that went against the grain of everything he believed in, everything he and sworn himself to.

  “I won’t let it happen, Katie. I won’t let you go back to Arkansas.”

  “Pete, you can’t make that decision. You’re a lawman, don’t break your trust for me.”

  It was at that moment that a miracle came churning out of a tunnel of dust.

  They heard the thing before they could even see it. It was a rattling, clanging, banging apparition that seemed to rumble up out of the very earth itself.

  “What is it, Pete?”

  He hushed her so that they both could listen and watch above the embankment of the arroyo.

  Through the shimmering waves of heat rising up off the floor of the prairie, the thing came lumbering into view. The nearer it drew, the louder it became. Finally, they could plainly see it to be a wagon. A wagon with a white canvas top.

  “A pilgrim’s wagon,” said Pete.

  Hanging from the wagon were an assortment of pots and pans glinting in the sun. They clanged and banged and rattled against one another with every jostling step taken by the team of mules that pulled the wagon.

  A hundred yards distance, they could see that the team was being driven by a man—a woman sat by his side. Atop all the noise that the clanging pots and pans were making, the man was bellering a song—either that or he was cussing out his mules in a steady litany.

  “Damndest looking salvation I have ever seen,” said Pete, grinning at her.

  The wagon came on, directly toward the arroyo. Pete and Katie struggled up the embankment and toward the oncoming contraption.

  The driver of the wagon, a fellow whose beard was long and bushy enough to store supplies in, hauled back on the reins and brought the mules to a stiff-legged stop.

  Next to the man was a dark-skinned woman as plump as a bullfrog. She had a moon face and narrow eyes. It was plain to see that she was Indian.

  “Hullo and high hell!” called out the driver as he eyed them both. “Looks like you got yourself plum lost and busted up. A bad combination for these parts!”

  Pete had been fully prepared to commandeer the wagon if need be.

  “I’m a Texas Ranger on legal business,” said Pete to the inquiring gaze of Bushy Beard. “We’ve run into some trouble a while back—renegade Comanches. We could use your help.”

  “Seems like you must have gotten the best of them!” shouted the teamster.

  “How so?” asked Pete.

  “Well, you ain’t murdered!” Bushy Beard cut loose with a great laugh that exposed a wet hole of a mouth. When the spasm passed, he leveled a more serious look and said, “It does look like they got your horses, though. Them Comanch, the one thing they love almost as well as riding horses is eatin’ them.”

  “No sir, they didn’t get our horses,” said Pete. “I shot them for breastworks.”

  “Well then, you denied them all the way around, good for you, son,” said Bushy Beard handing the reins to the woman seated next to him before climbing down from the wagon.

  “I’d say,” he said, coming close to examine the Ranger’s wounded shoulder, “that you’re in need of some of Sister McKnight’s medical care and maybe a swaller or two of her Sorrowful Plains Elixir. That’s Sister McKnight, sitting up there in the wagon.”

  The woman’s moon face remained stoic throughout the introduction.

  “She’s my wife, travelling companion, cook and confidant, and mother of several children, all of which have growed and turned wild and are scattered from here to the great ocean. She also makes the only curative known to revive man and beast alike and comes with a money back guarantee. She’s part Apache and part Arapaho, but mostly Apache—too bad because it sometimes gives her more of a temper than is tolerable. But she’s a good woman all around and knows most things I do, and a few I don’t. Ain’t that right darlin’?”

  The stolid features of the woman gave way slightly to a coppery smile showing few teeth.

  “My name is Billy Bear Killer, at least that is what she calls me,” he said, jutting a thumb back over his shoulder toward Sister McKnight.

  “My true name is Marion Brewster, but that ain’t no sort of name for a plainsman, like I am. Especially so, if you are married to a woman that is part Apache and part Arapaho. You can just call me Billy.”

  Pete extended his good hand to the solid beefy grip of the teamster.

  “I’m Pete Winter, this is Katie Swensen, and we are glad as we can be to make your acquaintance.”

  “That shoulder of yours looks gruesome,” said Billy Bear Killer, taking it upon himself to examine the wound. “I’d say it’s best you climbed up in back of the wagon and have Sister McKnight practice her medical abilities on it. You’ll feel much better once she has.”

  The Ranger looked down at Katie with eyes that fought off tears.

  “Mister, I’d appreciate it if you could find some grub for Katie.”

  “Well sir, grub is just exactly what I had in mind. This looks like a good
a spot as any to set down stakes for the night. Looks to be a purty sunset if those clouds stay off to the west like they are now. I’ll prepare a fire, and soon’s Sister’s had a look at you, we’ll put on the feedbag, and you can tell me more about them Comanches you run into.”

  Pete watched as Sister McKnight lowered her ample bulk down from the wagon and came and took him by the hand and led him to the back of the wagon. Wordlessly she motioned for him to climb in the back and lay down upon the quilts that were spread there.

  Outside, he could hear Billy Bear Killer tell Katie: “Here’s some lye soap and fresh water, I reckon you’ll want to freshen up some for supper.”

  Then, he heard Billy Bear Killer begin his singing once more as he undid the traces of the team of mules. The teamster’s voice was like faraway thunder rolling out across the prairie.

  It was as soothing as good liquor, as sweet as rain.

  Chapter Twenty

  Eli Stagg maintained a steady pace for three days running on his journey southward. He did not trust lawmen—injun, or otherwise—they were snoopy. As far as he was concerned, that half-breed lawman might have let his suspicions cause him to to some checking with Ft. Smith. If that was so, then it would be plain as a spinster’s face that there wasn’t any Eli Stagg held in the employ of the U.S. Marshal’s office.

  It was lonesome, ugly country, as far as the bounty hunter could see. The only spark of color was the bluebonnets that dotted the low rolling hills. The days turned hot and humid, and once he had to hole up because of a terrible downpour. And if that were not enough, his mount had turned up sore-legged to the point he had had to dismount and walk the animal for a day until he reached a small Mormon settlement and was able to buy a bottle of liniment to rub on the horse’s foreleg.

  Seemed like the farther away from the Ozarks he got, the more inhospitable the land became. It was not a place he would ever care to live, he told himself.

  Caleb Drew was glad he had bought an extra mount in Ardmore. By changing horses every few hours, he always kept one of the mounts fresh and was able to maintain a good steady pursuit of his quarry.