It was dusty but still sturdy. Still had fight within it. Was still capable of bringing down a bird in flight.
Provided it was in the hands of someone who knew how to use it.
Colton wasn’t that man.
Oh, he was half Indian. A quarter Comanche and a quarter Choctaw. A rather odd combination by Native standards. But the Indians had been that way. They tended to stick to their own kind, only mixing with other tribes occasionally. Only others like them understood them; their heritage, their ways, their feelings.
The whites said they understood, but they didn’t.
How could they? They’d never been brought to near extinction by others who came in unannounced and uninvited, then arrogantly claimed the place as their own.
They’d never been herded into camps and forced to live under the invaders’ rules until their number was decimated and reduced to squalor.
The white man had never been lied to by the government time and time again.
Well, maybe in more recent times.
But the red man was used to it. The red man had seen the federal government break one treaty after another for more generations than he could count.
Colton dropped the point back into the red Texas dirt.
It was no good to him.
He hadn’t picked up a bow in twenty years. And even then he hadn’t mastered its use.
The old ways were lost on him. He’d become what the Indians sarcastically called an apple. Red on the outside but white on the inside. An Indian in appearance only. The term wasn’t used as a sign of affection.
He’d become more used to the white man’s ways than the ways of his people.
His father and his mother both grew up on reservations, although in two different states and with two different tribes. One in southern Oklahoma, the other in northern New Mexico.
Life on the res was difficult but the only thing they knew. Until they were old enough to move off they thought the life of the American Indian was to eat commodity cheese sandwiches and do crummy low-wage jobs waiting on the white man at the casinos.
Their heritage was strong enough to make them want to return to the old ways, but the old ways were lost. Gone forever, along with the knowledge that drove them.
The Native American these days had become little more than a white man with red skin.
And that saddened Colton.
Oh, he was much more capable than the typical white man in living off the land. That was why he stayed off the highways and moved overland. He could navigate by the sun and the stars and eat whatever protein the good earth had to offer him. Sometimes his nutrition came in the form of four legged animals, sometimes eight legged insects. Sometimes no legs at all. One of his favorite feasts was the rich white meat of the rattlesnake, and they were plentiful in this part of the country.
Sometimes he ate nothing but plants for days at a time, to clean out his system. Eventually, though, his body would grow weak and long for protein and he’d go back on the hunt again.
Everything he knew was self taught.
But as capable as he was, he knew he wouldn’t have held his own against the braves of old. They’d have kicked his ass and ground him into the dirt and then laughed at him.
Then they’d have cursed him for forgetting the old ways.
Colton had lived most of his life as a white man, but with a deep-seated need to learn about his roots.
Given a choice, he’d have preferred to live on the plains, off the land, off the grid.
But that was no longer possible.
When the sun acted up and sent its storms to the earth and knocked out the power grids, he was glad in a way.
For this was as close as he’d ever get to living the way his ancestors did.
While most of the world… the white world, was freaking out and killing themselves and the ones they loved, the red man mostly took the blackout in stride. They didn’t have much anyway, so therefore had less to lose. The white man had their foot at the throat of the American Indian for so long it was almost a joy to see the white man get his comeuppance.
Men like Colton, who was half white and half red, could have gone either way.
He chose the red way.
There was much more honor in behaving like a man. In knowing he could revive some of the old ways, and could not only survive but thrive, by living the way his forefathers did.
Let his white neighbors and friends cry out, then give up, then shoot themselves in the head.
Colton would survive.
There were times, since the power went out, when he was tempted to return to the easy ways of the white man. The last time was a couple of weeks before when, after two solid days of rain, he tired of being wet and crawled into the sleeper cab of an abandoned truck on a highway he was crossing.
He was only there for a few minutes, though. The closed-in space made him feel claustrophobic. The stench of too many unwashed bodies who’d shared the cab in recent days made his nostrils burn. The trash they’d left in their wake made him almost embarrassed to be human.
He left the cab, preferring the rain instead, and vowed to himself never to sleep in an enclosed space again. Even when the rain from the heavens was blocking his view of the stars and beating down upon his face as he slept, it was still the best way to live. It was where he was meant to be.
Colton did make one concession to the white man’s way of life.
He’d become a collector of material things.
Not all material things.
Just gold and silver.
He foresaw the time in the not-too-distant future when he’d start to slow. And then he’d settle down. He’d take a wife. A squaw. Someone willing to discard most of the white man’s ways as he had.
He’d have no children. Not in this world.
At some point he’d slow of old age. It would be harder for him to provide for his squaw and himself.
And there was a good chance he’d be killed at some point and she’d be left without him, for the world was much more violent in recent days than it once was.
At some point, whether he was with her or not, they’d need a cache of gold and silver to provide for their needs.
That’s what Colton was saving for.
That’s why he was doing what his forefathers called shitwork. Doing for the white man what the white man was unwilling to do for himself.
That was why Colton spent his days traveling from one place to another.
To kill men he didn’t know, for men he knew no better.
To capture a few more gold coins or silver bars to add to his treasure chest. To provide for himself and his squaw in their old age.
It wasn’t the noble life his ancestrial warriors knew.
But then again, how noble could he be when his blood was half white?
He ripped the skin from a rattler he’d taken a couple of hours before and strung it between two forked sticks over a fresh fire.
He’d fill his belly, then lay himself down in the dirt for a good night’s sleep.
At first light he’d strike out again, advancing ever closer to his next assignment.
The place of his next killing job.
A little town called Blanco.
-40-
Life went on in the tiny Texas town for another week or so. Red continued to improve day to day, and was now able to walk down the stairs each morning to the den, where she entertained friends and well-wishers.
She was still weak and seemed in a daze much of the time. But she was slowly coming back with the tender loving care of her friends.
Luis and Jesse Martinez dove headfirst into the project to fill the old market’s warehouse, mostly because they weren’t yet comfortable visiting the bank. They were almost certain the bank was being watched, at least during the daytime hours. And in the wake of the town’s response to Red’s collapse, they wanted to be careful not to be seen as allies of John Savage.
A lynch party, blinded by rage, might not stop at lync
hing just one man if they thought he was heavily involved with others.
Jesse finally got antsy early one evening and said, “This is stupid. If we wait until the town finishes simmering down we could die of old age. What happens if Savage drops dead of a heart attack, there in his bank all alone?”
“I didn’t know you cared enough about him to worry.”
“I don’t moron. I’m more worried about what happens to us. If he drops dead before we collect all his treasure we’ll be poor the rest of our lives. That might be good enough for you, but it ain’t for me.”
“So what are you proposing we do?”
“I’m going to go over to the bank. I’m gonna knock on the door and I’m going to tell Savage we’re coming to call on him in the early morning hours. I doubt anybody’s gonna be up at two or three in the morning. And look at the sky. It’s overcast as far as you can see in all directions. It’s gonna be a dark night.
“I’ll tell Savage we want to be paid for all the loads we’ve been hauling, and want to give him his treasure and get our cut. I’ll tell him it’s gonna be dark and nobody will be able to see us come and go.”
“You think he’ll agree to see us?”
“I hope so. I think so. Hell, if he’s in any hurry to get the treasure he sent us after he will.”
“And then what?”
“Then we’ll go over to Mrs. Montgomery’s boarding house and buy us each a good home-cooked meal. I’m tired of eating catfish from a skillet and rabbit stew. I want a chicken fried steak with all the trimmings.
“And while we’re there we’ll tell anybody who’ll listen that we went to Savage’s bank to make a withdrawal. From our bank account. We’ll tell them he gave us a couple of one ounce silver ingots, and that’s where we got the silver to pay for our food.”
“Why you wanna tell them that for?”
“In case somebody sees me at the bank, talking to Savage. If word starts getting around town that I was associating with Savage, I want somebody to stand up for me and say it was just an innocent bank transaction. That I was there making a withdrawal and nothing more.”
“That’s a good idea. But that’s not what I was talking about.”
“What then?”
“I meant after we meet with Savage and give him back his treasure. And get our cut. What then? Do we shoot him and take the whole thing? That’s enough to live on for a long time.”
“No, not yet. That may be enough for awhile, but I don’t want to settle for that. I want enough to live on our whole lives. I want to play this one straight up, but I also want to watch for a couple of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like this whole thing about his buried treasure just don’t add up to me. I think he’s sold us a line of bull.”
“How so?”
“I don’t think he’s the treasure burying type. I don’t think he’s been out of town in years. Hell, he’s scared of his own shadow. I just don’t see him out on the highway lugging two bags heavy with gold and silver.”
“Doesn’t matter how it got buried. Whether he hid it or somebody else did, we need a map to find the rest. How do we work that?”
“I don’t know. But I think if we play it smart and watch for certain things we’ll find out.”
“What kind of things?”
“Brother, you’re dumb as a rock, you know that? What in the world would you do if I wasn’t around to do your thinking for you? How in hell’s bells would you get by?”
“Hey, I got my own ideas about what to look for. I just want to see if your ideas are the same as mine. That’s all.”
“Uh, huh.”
“Well, you gonna tell me or not?”
“Look. I don’t think he buried this treasure. Remember he knew what mile marker to send us to. But he didn’t know exactly where he treasure was located. He said to look around for it.
“Wouldn’t you think that somebody who buried something as valuable as that would know damn sure where he left it? I’d have known right down to the exact spot. There wouldn’t have to be no damn guesswork.”
“Yeah. That was my thinking exactly.”
“I think he’s got some kind of treasure map. That somebody else buried the treasure and somehow he got the map from them. And that the map ain’t very specific. It’s close, but not exact. That’s what I think really happened.”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“When we’re in his office I want to watch for some specific things.”
“Yeah, me too. But you go first. Tell me what you want to watch for.”
“I want to watch his face when we dump the bags on his desk. He said he had an inventory of what was buried, but I don’t think he has a clue.
“If it’s more than he expects, we can see it on his face.
“If it’s less than he expects, we can see that on his face too.
“Either way, if we see surprise that’ll strengthen our belief that it wasn’t really his treasure. That somebody else buried it and all he has is a map to its general location.
“And if he doesn’t try to inventory it or count it to make sure it’s all there we’ll know for sure.”
“Damn right. Without a shadow of a doubt. That was my plan too.”
“Sure it was.”
“Um… what else do we need to watch out for?”
“We’ll take our cut and then tell him we’re ready to go after the next batch.”
“Yeah…”
“And then we’ll watch him close. If he goes off to another room to consult his map, we’ll follow him in there to get a look-see. If he has to go get something out of a closet, you can damn sure bet that’s where he hid the map.”
“What if he says he has to check his vault? It has a time lock on it, you know.”
“Shoot, I’ve never believed him when he said his vault has a time lock. I think he just says that so people will think he can’t open it after hours.”
“Well, what if the map is in the vault?”
“Then he won’t open it while we’re there. He’ll tell us to come back later to get the directions to the next batch of treasure. And that’s how we’ll know for sure the map is in the vault.”
“Okay. But I’m confused. How does that get us the map?”
“It doesn’t. But it’ll get us the next batch of loot. And it’ll tell us for sure he doesn’t have a clue how much treasure is buried out there. And that’ll make it easier to give him just half of it from now on.
“Either way, we’ll get rich.”
“Brother, you’re a genius.”
“Good thing one of us is.”
-41-
It was a bit cool on the afternoon Jesse chose to contact John Savage at the bank. In previous days those residents with screen doors had their front doors opened and windows raised to allow breezes to circulate air through their homes.
On this particular day, though, those doors and windows were shut tight.
Of course, that was no guarantee some of the residents weren’t watching through their windows out of boredom or vigilance. But at least they were less likely to be outside to notice Jesse Martinez stealing around the corner of the shuttered real estate office and up the bank’s steps.
Jesse and Luis knew of Savage’s penchant for taking long afternoon naps. Before the run-in with Red Poston they’d visited him a couple of times in the afternoon and had to pound on the bank’s door several times to roust him.
It was easy to tell he’d been sleeping by his disheveled appearance and heavy eyelids.
Back then it was no big deal for citizens to visit the bank, either to beg for more time to catch up with their mortgage payments or to ask to withdraw some of their money in gold or silver.
Such requests were never honored, Savage insisting he had no such silver or gold but offering to make withdrawals in now-worthless paper currency.
But people still went to the bank to ask.
These days, though, after the dust
-up with Red, any visit to the bank was risky. Nobody wanted to be viewed as being an ally or even sympathetic with the crooked banker.
Everybody knew that Tad was going to visit him twice a day, but knew he was there at the behest of Mrs. Montgomery. So nobody held that against him. Nobody faulted Mrs. M either, for they knew she was a kind-hearted soul who was doing what, in her mind, was what God would have wanted.
Anybody else was taking a risk of being branded as a Savage ally and potentially being caught up in any lynching party that might be drummed up in the future.
Jesse had his story in order ahead of time in case he was asked: the brothers were out of precious metals and needed some to purchase a new horse for their wagon. They had money in Savage’s bank and wanted to withdraw some of it. Savage first said he didn’t have any, but gave them a couple of ounces of silver when they made it clear they weren’t leaving empty handed.
It certainly sounded plausible.
Of course the best thing would be for nobody to see him approach the bank.
He waited until he saw Tad Taylor leave the bank and walk up the street toward the boarding house, and waited a few extra minutes.
Long enough for Savage to finish his dinner, but not too long. He didn’t want the old man to stretch out on the couch to crash.
He knocked on the door, hoping he’d get a quick answer so he didn’t have to knock louder.
There was no immediate response.
“Mr. Savage, it’s Jesse Martinez.”
From the other side of the door he heard, “What do you want, Jesse?”
“We’ve been waiting for the right time to come and see you. Waiting for the heat to die down a bit.
“We’ve got the bags we dug up alongside the highway. We want to meet with you to give it to you and take our cut, and to collect our silver for the eight loads we’ve hauled in.
“We want to come back tonight. The skies are overcast. It should be dark. We want to come back after midnight when nobody will see us coming in.”
He wasn’t sure what he expected, exactly.
No Help From Austin: Red: Book 5 Page 13
