by Elmer Kelton
“Yankees?” he demanded of Frio.
“I didn’t ask to see their papers.”
Happy glanced over the preparations that had been made in a matter of minutes. He whistled his approval. “Say, Frio, if this here war lasts another three years, them mulateros are goin’ to learn.”
“They’ve learned a right smart already. It’ll be a tough outfit that whips this bunch now.”
Happy’s grin faded as he watched the dust. “Them yonder may be just the outfit that can do it. Jehosophat, how many are they?”
Frio’s mouth went dry. The dust was still too thick to allow him any sort of count. A hundred cavalrymen, at least. Maybe twice that many.
Seeing they had no surprise, the federals moved up boldly. They could tell the wagon train was prepared for a fight. Frio watched the commanding officer raise his hand and stop the men two hundred yards away. For a minute or two there was movement back and forth in front of the formation, a huddle of half a dozen riders. Presently one man moved out alone, approaching the wagon train. He held up a rifle with a large white handkerchief tied to the barrel.
Frio saw a couple of his teamsters leveling on the man. “It’s a flag of truce,” he called. “Don’t anybody shoot.”
He stepped between two wagons and watched the horseman approach in a leisurely walk. Frio squinted, wishing he had the glass with him so he could make the man out. He could tell the rider was a civilian, not in uniform.
Suddenly Frio spat. “I might’ve known it. That’s Tom McCasland!”
Frio waited until Tom neared the circle of wagons, then he moved out into view, the saddlegun in his hand. Tom stopped his horse ten feet away and looked down at him, a light breeze picking up the white flag and waving it. The breeze carried a strong smell of dust.
“Howdy,” he said evenly.
“Tom.” Frio’s voice was hostile.
“Been a while since I saw you last, Frio. How’s the shoulder?”
“Good enough that I don’t have to crawl through the brush anymore when the Yankees come.”
“Mind if I get down?”
“Do what suits you.”
Tom swung to the ground and stretched his legs. “Sure tired,” he said. “Been a long ride.”
“You could’ve saved it. You’re not goin’ to get anything here.”
Tom allowed himself a long, silent look at the circle of wagons, and at the teamsters who knelt purposefully behind the downed cotton bales, each one with a rifle in his hands. Tom said, “I’ll admit I didn’t expect to find you’d been drillin’ these men in military defense. I thought you were only freightin’.”
“Everybody has got to be a soldier of sorts these days.”
Tom’s eyes were solemn as they cut back to Frio. “Of sorts, but that’s all. Those men out yonder”—he pointed his thumb toward the Yankee troopers—“they’re real soldiers, trained for this kind of thing. Frio, we came to stop your wagon train.”
Frio’s mouth was grim, but he made no answer.
Tom said, “We will stop you, Frio. How we do it is up to you.” He swept his hand toward the soldiers. “We’ve got upward of two hundred and fifty men yonder. All well armed and well mounted. How many men have you got in here? Fifty at the outside. We’ve got you outnumbered by five to one.” He cast a critical eye at the teamsters he could see peering over the bales. “And I’d say we’ve got you outgunned too, man for man. My experience is that most Mexican teamsters can’t shoot.”
Frio said tightly, “You can find out mighty quick.”
“Give up, Frio. It’d be better all around. In any case, we’re not leavin’ here till we’ve taken these wagons. Give up now and there won’t be any blood spilled. Not by your men and not by those out yonder.”
Frio frowned, one eye almost shut. “Sayin’ I agreed, what would you do to my men?”
“Nobody would get hurt. Those from Mexico would be sent home on parole. The others—you included—would simply be detained until the war is over. Way it’s goin’, that shouldn’t be too long anymore.”
“And the wagons?”
“We’ll have to burn them.” He watched Frio’s face. “I’m sorry about this, Frio. I know you’ve got a lot of money tied up in this outfit. That’s somethin’ we can’t help. You can see for yourself, we have to burn them.”
Anger began to churn in Frio. “What does Florencio Chapa get out of it?”
Tom’s eyes widened in surprise. “Chapa? He’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
Derisively Frio said, “Don’t tell me you’ve gotten too much religion to ride with Chapa anymore.”
“The Union washed its hands of Chapa when he tried to torture you. The government doesn’t countenance that sort of thing, even in war.”
Frio pointed to a figure sitting on a horse, far off at the edge of the chaparral. “Then what’s he doin’ there?”
Tom turned quickly, mouth open in surprise. “That can’t be Chapa!”
“It is. We been seein’ him off and on all day.”
In disbelief Tom said, “But we haven’t seen him since…” He broke off, understanding suddenly coming into his face. “We hired some Mexican scouts who offered to spy out your wagon train for us. We had no idea Chapa was behind them.”
Frio snorted. “You expect me to believe that, Tom, after all you’ve done? Promisin’ nothin’ would happen to us if we give ourselves up to you.… I’ll bet you got a deal with Chapa to turn us over to him for his help. Me, anyway.”
“No, Frio, I swear we don’t!”
“Then what’s he doin’, hangin’ around out there like a buzzard?”
Tom shook his head, completely at a loss. “He hates you, Frio. Maybe he just wants to watch us destroy you.”
Frio stared hard at Tom McCasland, his eyes narrowed. He found himself wanting to believe Tom. It didn’t seem likely that Tom was renegade enough to turn him over to Chapa. Not on purpose. But maybe Chapa had some idea for getting his hands on Frio anyway.…
Frio saw a movement off to the north, out of Tom’s range of view. A rider was coming fast, pushing his horse as hard as it could go.
Tom said, “The major gave me ten minutes to talk with you, Frio. Time’s playin’ out.”
Frio’s eyes were still on the horseman. For some reason he felt a fresh surge of hope. He would play for time—all the time he could delay. “You won’t get away with this, Tom. For all you know, Santos Benavides may be comin’ right now. Those Yankees of yours are no match for him.”
Tom shook his head. “No luck, Frio. We sent a small force to lure Benavides west. He won’t be around to help you.”
Still unseen by Tom, and unheard because of the rattle of harness and chain and the movement of the mules inside the circle, the horseman rode straight toward the Union column. Frio watched the man slide to a stop in front of the federals. Pandemonium struck among the blue-clad troopers. The half dozen men at the head of the column milled indecisively, looking north.
Frio glanced north and saw a column of dust rising, uptrail.
The federals began turning their horses around. In a moment they were in retreat, moving south. One Union officer remained momentarily, waving his hat at Tom and shouting. But Tom’s back was turned to him, and the officer’s voice, along with the sound of retreat, was lost in the noise closer at hand.
Frio watched without expression until he saw the officer give up and pull away, afraid to come any nearer for the time he would lose.
Tom said, “Time’s up, Frio. What’s it goin’ to be?”
A harsh smile broke across Frio’s face. “Maybe you better take a look behind you. Then you tell me.”
Tom turned. The color left him momentarily as he saw that he had been abandoned. He turned back and found that Frio had raised the muzzle of the saddle-gun. It was pointed at Tom’s chest. Frio said triumphantly, “There’s a cloud of dust in the north yonder. Maybe that’s what made those good friends of yours ride off and dump you in our lap.”
&nbs
p; Tom saw the dust. Disbelief was in his eyes. “It can’t be Benavides. The spies told us.…”
Frio said, “The spies were wrong. Unless…” The idea hit him suddenly, and he felt an elation he hadn’t known in months. “Rip Ford!” he exclaimed. “Bound to be! Rip Ford and his column, comin’ south to retake the border!”
Tom still held the rifle in one hand, the white handkerchief tied to the barrel. The weapon was empty, but it would have done him no good now if it had been loaded. He dropped it. Shrugging, he said with a fatalism he had learned from the Mexicans, “So now we’ve swapped places, Frio. ’While ago I was givin’ you my terms. Now you can give me yours.”
Frio nodded grimly. “That time after they shot Blas, I told you I’d kill you one day.”
Tom swallowed. “I remember. So now’s your chance. Do it and get it over with.” He squared his shoulders.
Frio studied him awhile, his hands tight on the rifle. “With you just standin’ there helpless? That may be the Yankee way of doin’. It’s not mine.”
“You want to give me a gun and us two shoot it out?”
“I’d rather do it that way than this.”
Tom shook his head. “I raised my hand against you once, Frio. I won’t do it again, not this way.”
Frio lowered the muzzle a little. “Then I reckon we’ll just have to hold you and turn you over to the Confederacy.”
Tom nodded soberly. “They’ll kill me for you, and your hands will stay clean, is that it? You know they’ll hang me.”
Frio hadn’t had time to consider that. The thought shook him. “Don’t you think you’ve earned it?”
“By your lights, I suppose I have.”
“Not by yours?”
“I did my duty as I saw it. It was bitter sometimes, but I did my duty the way you did yours. I don’t want to hang, Frio. That’s no fit way for a man to die.”
Frio just stared at him, uncertain what to do.
Tom glanced toward the approaching dust. “Frio, if you want me dead, then for God’s sake be man enough to shoot me! Don’t leave me to hang!”
Frio still stood there trying to decide, his mouth dry and bitter. Once he might have squeezed the trigger without a qualm. Now, holding the power of death in his hand, he could not move. What he had taken for hatred against Tom he knew now had been a deep hurt, and a vengeful anger. Here, in the face of this mortal test, anger drained away. His hands trembled. His stomach suddenly went cold with the realization of what he might have done.
He stared into the anxious face of Tom McCasland and tried to find there the look of an enemy. Instead, despite all that had come between them, he saw only the face of an old friend.
He lowered the saddlegun. “You came under a flag of truce, Tom. I’ll honor that. Now get on your horse and clear out of here, fast.”
Tom’s eyes were wide, as if he was afraid he hadn’t heard right.
Frio said simply, “Damn it, man, I said get on that horse and ride!” He glanced toward the dust. He could almost make out the individual riders. “Don’t go south after them Yankees. Ford’s men’ll catch you. Go west into the brush. Drop south later and swim the Rio.”
Tom swung into the saddle. His horse sensed the excitement and began to prance, wanting to run. Tom held the reins up tight. “What are you doin’ this for, Frio?”
Frio shouted, “How the hell do I know?” He reached down and picked up Tom’s empty rifle with the handkerchief tied to it. He pitched it to him. “Ándele!”
Tom skirted the circled wagons and moved into a lope, heading toward the nearest brush. That was to the west. Frio stood slump shouldered and watched him disappear.
Happy Jack Fleet moved up beside Frio to watch the dust-veiled horsemen coming out of the north. “Frio, you done the right thing.”
Frio shook his head. “I don’t know, Happy. I swear, I just don’t know.”
* * *
THE VANGUARD OF the Texas column rode up in a lope, dust an impenetrable fog behind it. Only the two officers at the head of the group wore what could be recognized as a Confederate uniform. The rest of the men wore civilian clothes or a mixture of civilian with uniform—whatever they had been able to scratch up for themselves. This outfit didn’t stand on ceremony.
Pulling his horse to a stop, one of the officers took a quick glance at the circled wagons. His face fell on Frio. “You had trouble?”
Frio pointed his chin south, toward the thinning dust left by the retreating Union troops. “We came almighty close to it. Yankees. They went yonder.”
The officer said, “We’ll catch them, don’t you worry!” He shouted an order and spurred his horse. The company fell in behind him, shouting in a bloodthirsty eagerness. This would be their first contact with the enemy, if they could catch up. It would be a real horse race.
The Texas troops galloped away, their dust sweeping across the circled wagons and setting some of the teamsters to coughing. Happy Jack grinned. “If they overtake them Yankees, there’ll sure be some whittlin’ done.”
The second body of riders trailed just a little way behind. Leading them was an officer in a dust-gray uniform, sitting straight and proud in the saddle. He reined in at the wagons, his crow-tracked eyes sweeping the circle, taking in the defense preparations in one quick glance that told him all he really needed to know. Colonel Rip Ford asked, “Whose wagons?”
Frio stepped forward. “Mine, Colonel. Frio Wheeler.”
The colonel stared, recognition coming into his eyes. He was a medium-tall man, this Rip Ford, with hair and short beard now mostly gray. He was still a year short of fifty, but the gray made him look older than he actually was, and some people with about as many years had grown accustomed to calling him “old” Rip Ford. Indeed, this man had lived more in those forty-nine years than many people could in ten lifetimes. Doctor, Ranger, legislator, trailblazer, newspaperman, soldier—he had been all of these things and still was. Often ignored by the higher-ups in government and military, made subordinate to men whose talents were far less than his own, Ford nevertheless had become something of a legend in his own lifetime among the people of Southern Texas. Some looked upon him almost as a latter-day Sam Houston. They believed Rip Ford could do anything he put his mind to, and they would remember him long after many of those who outranked him were forgotten.
“Frio Wheeler,” Ford said in a quiet voice, beginning to smile. He extended his hand. “With all this dust in my eyes, and those whiskers on your face.…”
He came out of the saddle with a slow, stiff motion, for the ride had been long, and he was plainly weary. “Yankees try to take you?”
“They told us to give up our guns and our wagons. I never had a chance to answer them. They saw your dust and hightailed it south.”
Still smiling, Ford said, “What was your answer going to be, or do I need to ask?”
The good nature of the officer eased Frio’s coiled tension. “I was fixin’ to say we wouldn’t give up our guns, but they were welcome to what was in them.”
Happy Jack had been eyeing the colonel with a youthful awe. He spoke up confidently, “We could’ve whipped twice as many, Colonel, and never broke a sweat.”
Ford slumped wearily upon a wagon tongue and glanced southward. “We’ll have to go in a minute. If Captain Adams catches up and engages them, he’ll need help.” He peered at Frio with strong interest. “I’ve kept up with you, Frio Wheeler. I wish I had you in my command. But you’re doing us more good where you are than you could in a uniform.”
“I’d be right proud if I could ride with you, Colonel. I’d sure like to be there when you go back into Brownsville.”
“Maybe that won’t be long, Frio. I’m going to nibble at the fringes first, giving Herron trouble at his outposts, cutting off his patrols. I’ll scatter my forces so he’ll never know whether I have six hundred men or six thousand. I’ll grind him down until he’ll be glad to shake the dust of Brownsville from his feet.”
Frio said again, “I’d
like to be there when that happens.”
The colonel stood up, bone tired and hating to leave. “Maybe you can, Frio. Maybe you can.” He remounted his horse. “Good luck. And keep the wagons moving.”
The teamsters waved their sombreros and cheered while Ford’s long column passed by, moving into a lope, setting the choking dust aswirl. A warm elation rose in Frio. These men of Ford’s were the hope of Southern Texas. Not a praying man, Frio nonetheless lowered his head and whispered, hoping God would hear.
* * *
OUT IN THE edge of the chaparral, grim eyes observed from beneath a broad black sombrero. They had seen the whole thing—the Union approach and retreat. They had widened with surprised interest as Tom McCasland rode free and disappeared into the west. Now they watched in hatred as Frio Wheeler led his wagons once more out upon the trail.
The man wore a black neckerchief over his face. He had allowed it to slip a little. Before turning back into the mesquite where a couple of his men waited, Florencio Chapa pulled the dusty neckerchief back up to cover all but his eyes. No one must ever see his face again. No one, perhaps, but Frio Wheeler. And that would be the last thing Wheeler ever saw on this earth!
15
Rip Ford was tightening the noose. Beneath a hot summer sun, his scattered men slowly approached the city of Brownsville from the north and the west. Not once since he had ridden down in April had all his troops ever come together at one time. Not once had Union intelligence been able to get even a fair approximation of Ford’s strength. It seemed that everywhere the Union general Herron turned, the Texans were waiting for him. Herron had withdrawn his outposts one by one under Ford’s unrelenting pressure, until now he had only Brownsville, and the thirty miles that stretched eastward toward the sea. He had five thousand federal troops at Fort Brown, or deployed eastward along the narrow-gauge railroad he had been building to carry supplies upriver from Brazos Santiago. For all Herron knew, Ford had that many men or more out in the dense bosques, awaiting only the order to move in and kill.
