Matagorda (1967)

by L'amour, Louis

  He was coming in low, and Tap jerked his knee up hard into the man’s face, smashing nose and lips. Catching him by the hair, he jerked him upright and swung a right into his belly. The man went down hard as Tap wheeled and caught a wild right on the shoulder from the first man, now on his feet. Tap looked at him and laughed, then he feinted and the man’s hands flailed wildly. Tap stabbed a left to the mouth, then three more as fast as he could jab. He feinted again, hitting him in the wind, and when he bent over gasping, a hammer blow on the kidney stretched him out.

  Calmly, Duvarney straightened his coat. Captain Wilkes was standing by the rail of the steamboat, watching. The tall, lean man who had apparently been with the two he had just beaten, looked on without emotion, or evidence of more than casual interest.

  “That there was mighty neat,” he said. “Looks to me like you’ve fought some with your fists.”

  “A little.”

  The man gestured toward the two on the dock, who were groaning now, and beginning to stir. “Don’t let that set you up none. They never was much account.” He started to turn away toward town, then paused. “If you’re huntin’ the man who owns that rig, you’ll find him yonder. You can tell any who ask that he just kept the wrong company.”

  “How does a man choose his company around here?”

  The tall man looked at Duvarney with cool, almost uninterested eyes. “He chooses any company he likes, just so it ain’t Kitterys. We don’t cotton to Kitterys.”

  “Afraid of them?”

  The man looked at him. “I am Jackson Huddy,” he said, and walked away up the street.

  Chapter Two.

  Duvarney watched Jackson Huddy walk slowly away and his eyes went beyond him to the weather-beaten frame buildings, the signs hanging out over the streets, the hitching rails. It looked not at all like a port on the Gulf of Mexico, but rather like a cow town in the Plains country or the Rockies.

  The two roughnecks were getting up. One, whose face had had a hard encounter with Tap’s knee, had a badly broken nose, by the look of it; the swelling had already almost closed his eyes, and his lips were a pulp.

  Neither of them had known anything about fistfighting. As for Duvarney, he had served a harsh apprenticeship when he made those two trips to the West Indies as a deck hand, to say nothing of two trips as a mate. In those days no man could hold down a job aft unless he could fight. He was expected to be ready and able to whip any man in the crew, and any three if necessary.

  Duvarney stood watching the two, but as they got up they backed off. He was wary of a shot in the back, but neither man seemed to remember that he carried a gun.

  When they had gone he glanced reluctantly at the stack of cotton bales toward which Jackson Huddy had gestured.

  With another glance up the street, Duvarney walked over to the bales. A man lay behind the pile, sprawled on his face, and there was blood in the dust where he rested.

  Duvarney turned him over. The man had been stabbed twice in the belly, the long blade striking upward. He was dead, the body not yet cold. On his holster was burned a Rafter K, the brand of the Kitterys.

  Returning to the buckboard, Duvarney made a space in the back for the body, then brought it over and laid it out in the back, covering it with an old tarp that lay there.

  In the buckboard was a nose bag for the horse and a sack of oats, as well as two sacks of groceries. He saw that the mustangs also carried the Rafter K brand.

  He stepped up to the seat and turned the buckboard around. He drove up the street, aware of the eyes that followed him. He drove to a sign that said Hardware, got down, and went inside. A small group congregated around the buckboard, and more than one of them lifted the tarp to look at the dead man.

  “Is there an undertaker in town?” Duvarney asked.

  The gray-haired man behind the counter shook his head. “Nobody will lay out a Kittery man,” he said “and Foster was a Kittery man. And there ain’t nobody will dig a grave for him, either. Nor pray for him.”

  “It’s that kind of town?”

  The man shrugged. “We live here, mister. We live here all the time, and that Munson crowd are here. I’m sorry, right sorry.”

  “Is there a Kittery lot in the cemetery?”

  “Two … maybe three of them.”

  “I’ll need a pick and a shovel.”

  “You’ll need more than that, mister. You’ll need a rifle.”

  “All right, hand me down one of those Winchesters, and I’ll want about five hundred rounds of ammunition.”

  “Five hundred rounds? That would fight a small war.”

  “You can pass the word for me that I have no part in this feud, and I want no part in it; but if they ask for any kind of trouble they can have it.

  “You can also pass the word around that I am going to bury this man, and that I am asking for no help. I will read over him myself.”

  The storekeeper was silent, putting the order together swiftly. When Duvarney paid him, he said, “Don’t think we’re unfeeling. This fight has been going on for nearly forty years now, and a lot of good men have been killed. Nobody wants to get involved any more. It’s their fight, so let them have it.”

  “All I want to do is bury a man.”

  “You won’t do it. They won’t let you.”

  The crowd moved back for him when he put the pick and shovel into the wagon beside the body. They stood back even further when he loaded the ammunition and a few items in the way of food. Then he got up on the blackboard and spoke to the team. They started with a rush.

  At the cemetery he drove the buckboard through the gate and closed it after him.

  He scouted among the graves until he found the Kittery lot; then he peeled off his coat, which he put over a tombstone beside him, one of his guns hidden beneath it.

  The other he left in its holster. The Winchester he leaned out of sight near the buckboard. Then he went to work.

  He worked swiftly down through the top soil for a good two feet. Then it became slower work, but he kept on. He was a strong man, in good condition, and used to hard work, but he realized that he would be lucky to finish before dark. He had the grave less than half dug when the riders began to come. He slipped the thong from his six-shooter and continued to dig.

  There were three of them. All the horses wore the Circle M brand of the Munsons.

  Within a few minutes there were four more, then others, some of these hanging back, obviously come to see the fun.

  “You diggin’ that grave for one or two?”

  Duvarney ignored it, managed three more spadefuls of dirt before the question came again. He straightened up, leaned on his shovel, and looked at them. He was waist-deep in the hole with a parapet of dirt thrown up in front of him. Three large tombstones formed almost a wall along his route to the buckboard.

  “I asked was you diggin’ that for one, or two?”

  The speaker was a wide-hipped, narrow-shouldered man with a narrow-brimmed hat.

  “For one,” Duvarney replied. “You’ll have to dig your own, if you want one.”

  Somebody among the spectators snickered, and the man turned sharply around. The snickering stopped.

  “When you get that grave deep enough, you’ll find out who it’s for. We aim to bury you right there.”

  Jackson Huddy had ridden up, and he was watching and listening. Duvarney leaned on the shovel. “You boys aren’t very smart,” he said. “I’ve got a lot more cover than you. I figure to get three or four before you get me … if you ever do.”

  For a moment that stopped them. He had only to drop to his knees to leave only head and shoulders in view. There was no cover for them outside the fence, and a man at that range should do pretty well. Nobody spoke, and Duvarney resumed his digging.

  Suddenly the man with the narrow-brimmed hat started to crawl through the fence.

  “Shab,” Huddy was saying, “you come back here. That man is buryin’ the dead. There’ll be no botherin’ him. Anyway, he ain’t a K
ittery.”

  “That’s a Kittery man he’s buryin’!”

  “Leave him be. I like a man with nerve.”

  There was no more talk, but nobody walked away.

  Slowly, Duvarney completed his digging; then he wrapped the body in the tarpaulin and placed it in the bottom of the grave. He filled in the grave, while the men stood quietly. After that he went to the buckboard for his carpetbag and took out a Bible.

  He removed his hat, and began to read, and when he had finished the funeral text he had chosen, he sang Rock of Ages.

  His voice was fairly good, and he managed to sing it well. Here and there a voice joined in. When he had finished the hymn he picked up his tools and went back to the buckboard, then returned for his coat. As he lifted it his right hand gripped the six-shooter. He brought it up, and walked back to the buckboard and placed the coat and the pistol on the seat. As he started to get up he lifted the rifle from where it had been hidden and with an easy motion swung to the seat.

  He gathered the reins with his left hand, his right holding the Winchester. He drove to the gate, and when he reached it he pointed the Winchester at the nearest man, smiling as he did so. “Friend, I’d be pleased if you’d open the gate for me.”

  The man hesitated for a moment, then he walked over and opened the gate, standing back with it until Tap Duvarney had driven through.

  “Thank you,” Duvarney said. “Thank you very much.” He glanced at Huddy, still sitting his horse, and regarding Duvarney with an enigmatic expression. “And thank you, Mr.

  Huddy. It hurts no man to respect the dead.”

  He spoke to the team and they moved forward down the road, but at the point where the road to the cemetery reached the main trail he turned sharply and took the trail south from town.

  There was no sound behind him, but he did not turn his head to look back. He had a straight quarter of a mile before there was any cover, and despite the bouncing the buckboard was giving him, he could be hit by a good shot. He held the good pace at which they had started, wanting as much distance as he could get. He had no doubt he would be followed, and a buckboard leaves a definite trail.

  When he had two miles behind him he drew up, and with a wry grin he loaded the rifle.

  “You damn fool,” he muttered. “Forgetting a thing like that can get you killed.”

  The sun was down, the breeze cool off the Gulf, which lay some distance off on his left, beyond Powderhorn Lake, close by. He had a good memory for maps and charts, as a result of both his early training at sea and his years in the army. To go south he must first go inland, find the Green Lake road, and let it take him past the head of San Antonio Bay. Beyond that there stretched a wide piece of country, but between here and there he knew of no place to hide.

  The twin tracks of the trail were plain enough, even at night, so he pushed on. The paint mustangs seemed to be glad to be moving and he held them to a good trot, which seemed to be the pace they liked. From time to time he drew up to listen for sounds of pursuit.

  He was under no delusions about Jackson Huddy. Whatever else he might be, the man had a code of ethics of his own, and only that had prevented a bloody gun battle in the cemetery. He was sure that under other circumstances Huddy would never hesitate to kill him … if he could.

  He had studied the charts in Wilkes’s wheelhouse and had a fair understanding of the country, so after a while he took a chance and left the trail, cutting across toward Green Lake. By day they would find his tracks, of course, but by then he hoped to be far away.

  Several times he drew up to give the mustangs a brief rest, but they seemed tireless and impatient to keep going. Give them their heads, he thought, and likely they’ll take me right where I want to go.

  It was well past midnight when he saw the shine of water on his right. That would be Green Lake. The mustangs were tired now, trotting only when they started down a slight grade … which was rare enough. But they had held the pace well.

  The last miles before daylight were weary ones, but he kept the team moving until they reached the breaks of the Guadalupe.

  The sky was gray with morning when he turned off into the trees and found a hollow screened from the trail. Here he unhitched the team and led them to water, and after that he picketed them on a patch of good grass not far from the buckboard.

  Then, a gun at hand, he drew a blanket over him and went to sleep.

  It was high noon when the sun woke him, shining through the leaves of a cotton wood tree. For a minute or two he lay perfectly still, listening. Then he sat up.

  The horses were not twenty yards off, heads up, ears pricked.

  Duvarney came up off the ground like a cat, thrust his six-shooter into his belt, and reached for his gun belt and his other pistol. As he belted it on, he listened.

  The horses were looking back the way he had come.

  He got the team and brought them back. Not wanting the jingle of trace chains to warn anyone of his presence, he tied them to the buckboard. Taking his rifle, he worked his way through the trees and brush to a place where he could watch the tracks he must have left.

  He recognized the girl before he could make out any of her features. It was Mady Coppinger.

  She was riding in a buckboard driven by a stalwart Negro. Two riders followed close behind. As they drew nearer he could see that the Negro’s features looked more like those of an Indian. He was a lean, intelligent-looking man with watchful eyes.

  He drew up as he neared the place where Duvarney had turned off. “I’m thinkin’, ma’am, that he wouldn’t have gone no further than this. That team will be plumb wore out by now. You want I should find him?”

  “No. …” She hesitated, then turned to one of the riders following. “Harry, do you think Huddy will follow him?”

  “Huddy? No. He won’t foller, but Shabbit will. Shabbit and those boys Duvarney whupped down to the dock. They’ll be after his scalp, an’ you can bet on it. Huddy won’t do anything until Duvarney declares himself.”

  “We should find him and warn him.”

  Tap Duvarney made no move to leave the shelter of the brush. He did not know these men, and although they seemed to be riders from the Coppinger outfit, he did not want to chance it. His attention was on the girl. Mady was lovely, no question about it, and the figure that filled out the dress she wore was something to think about … or for Tom Kittery to think about. She was his girl.

  Besides, Tap had a girl. Or he had one when he left Virginia.

  The Negro spoke. “Ma’am, I think it best we leave him alone. I’ve been watching his trail, and he’s a cautious man. The way I see it, going into the brush to hunt for him might prove a chancey thing.”

  “Caddo’s right,” Harry agreed.

  Caddo spoke to the horses and they moved out. Harry turned slightly in his saddle and glanced back at the pecan tree under which Duvarney was crouched. Had something given him away? Some bird, or perhaps a squirrel? Some movement he had not seen or felt?

  When their dust had settled he harnessed the horses and emerged from the copse where he had been hiding. At the point where he went back on the trail he got down and wiped out the tracks as best he could, then drove on. An Apache would have read the sign without slowing his pace, but these men might not be as good at reading sign.

  The air was fresh and clean, and the mustangs, rested after their morning grazing and rest, were prepared to go. They were tough, wild stock, bred to the plains, and only half-broken. Duvarney drove on with only an occasional backward glance, holding to the trail followed by Mady Coppinger.

  Somewhere to the south he would find Tom Kittery and whatever was left of his seven thousand dollars. He had already made up his mind about that. He would take whatever money was left and ride out, writing off the rest of it as a bad investment.

  He had no part in the Kittery-Munson feud, and he wanted none. No mention had been made of it when they had discussed the buying of cattle for a drive north.

  Having no
knowledge of exactly where Tom Kittery might be, Duvarney decided just to drift south, scouting the country as he went. He had supplies and ammunition enough, and the terrain was easy for buckboard travel, being generally level or somewhat rolling, with good grass and clumps of trees. Along the rivers there were oaks and pecans, as well as dogwood, willow, and redbud.

  Taking a dim trail, Tap drove down toward Blackjack Point, following the shore of the peninsula whenever possible. On the third day after seeing Mady Coppinger, he was camped near some low brush within sight of the sea. He had made a small fire of driftwood and was brewing coffee when he heard a rustle behind him.

  He reached for the coffeepot with his left hand, drew his six-shooter with his right.

  Moving the coffee a little nearer the coals, he straightened up, then took a quick step back to his left, which put him into the deep shadow of a pecan tree, gun ready.

  There was a chuckle from the brush, and Tom Kittery stepped out, followed by two other men, “See? I told you,” Kittery said. “Ain’t no catchin’ him off-guard. I never knew such a skittish hombre.”

  Tom Kittery looked good, but he was thin. He was honed down by hiding out, worn by constant watching, but humor glinted from his eyes as he stepped forward, hand thrust out in greeting.

  Chapter Three.

  Man, you are a sight to behold! Look at him, boys. This here’s the on’y man ever took me. Captured me alive an’ on the hoof, and I’d never believed it could be done!

  And then he smuggled me right by some renegades that would have strung me up like a horse thief for being’ a Johnny Reb. And him a Yank!”

  “Hello, Tom,” Tap said. “It’s been a while.”

  Kittery grinned at him. There was genuine welcome in his eyes, and his hand clasp was firm and strong. “I’ve thought of you a good bit, Tap. I surely have.”

  “Have we got a herd?”

  Some of the smile left Kittery’s face. “Sort of. I’ve got to talk to you about that.”