Sons of Thunder (Rule Cordell)

by Cotton Smith

  THE RETURN OF RULE CORDELL

  “Ya bother me, preacher, like an itch I cain’t git to.” Mason eased his rifle from his saddle and aimed it at Cordell without moving the weapon to his shoulder. “Lion Graham keeps a’tellin’ us that you really is Rule Cordell. Says he knew you in one o’ them Bible places somewhars. What ’bout that, preacher?”

  “Oh hell, Mason,” Lester said. “Who cares? More important, preacher . . . you hit me . . . in the face.” The narrow-faced Regulator studied the stoic minister with renewed suspicion. “I don’t like . . . getting hit . . . in the face.”

  “Wal, ya kin call it crazy if’n ya want—but now he’s a’wearin’ a flower an’ sportin’ outlaw-fast hoss flesh. Thar’s only one man I hear tell that liked wearin’ hisse’f a flower. Rule Cordell.” The blond Regulator cocked the hammer on his rifle. “Just who the hell are you anyway, preacher-man?”

  The narrow-faced man’s hand curled around the rifle across his saddle and added, “I think . . . you’d better pull your hands outta . . . your pockets . . . an’ get down.”

  “Sure, boys, anything you want.” Cordell leaned back and raised his pockets toward them, as if freeing his hands. Instead, orange blasts erupted from the coat. . . .

  Other books by Cotton Smith:

  SPIRIT RIDER

  BROTHERS OF THE GUN

  BEHOLD A RED HORSE

  PRAY FOR TEXAS

  DARK TRAIL TO DODGE

  RIDE FOR RULE CORDELL

  DEATH MASK

  RETURN OF THE SPIRIT RIDER

  THE WAY OF THE WEST

  SONS OF THUNDER

  COTTON SMITH

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2003 by Cotton Smith

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13:9781477837290

  ISBN-10:1477837299

  To Maggie, Sam, and Betty

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  This title was previously published by Dorchester Publishing; this version has been reproduced from the Dorchester book archive files.

  SONS OF THUNDER

  Chapter One

  Faint sounds of galloping horses caught the ears of the faithful inside the tiny church. Almost as quickly, the distant thunder went away. Just a cattleman working on the Lord’s Day, someone muttered with a knowing smile. But a few minutes later, the sounds came again. Louder and closer.

  Horses pounded to a stop outside the adobe warehouse a few miles outside of Clark Springs, nestled in the Texas hill country. It was a church only on Sunday. Barrels and boxes were pushed aside for worship services; long planks were stretched over boxes to make pews. James Rule Langford, part-time preacher, had started the church the year before; the rest of the time he trained horses on his small ranch.

  Both tasks gave him great joy. Better having services in a warehouse than a saloon, like many towns did, he told himself often. That was always followed by a chuckle and the observation that God wanted him to go where he was needed—and that would definitely be a saloon. Still, he much preferred this simple gathering place, in spite of having to make room for people each Sunday.

  Curses of dismounting riders and snorts of their agitated mounts tore into the comforting rhythm of worship. Shrill commands grabbed at the courage of every parishioner. Even the children realized it wasn’t late-comers to Sunday services and looked at their parents for reassurance. From a middle pew, Mrs. Tomlinson caught the young minister’s attention and mouthed “no vices,” a reminder of her weekly request that he give a sermon about vices. Her particular set included no use of tobacco or whiskey, no cardplaying, baseball, or reading books.

  Reverend Langford glanced at his best friend, Ian Taullery, sitting with his young wife, Mary, and their just-baptized baby son, Rule Christian Taullery. Typically, the tall handsome man with the well-groomed blond beard was more concerned about his appearance than anything else. He straightened his cravat, pulled on his vest, and picked a strand of hair from his coat sleeve. But his expression was easy to read. He thought the interruption was definitely someone’s fault. But nothing was quite perfect enough to suit him anymore. He mouthed “Regulators,” and Reverend Langford nodded.

  However, Mary Taullery’s panicked expression was easy to ignore. She had the same reaction to a hangnail as she did to a tornado: Everything was a sheer disaster; there were no degrees of concern. Anything out of her mouth came loudly. A whisper was an unknown form of communication. And only full-out dispair for anything that was viewed as a problem or a distraction. It was hard for the minister to understand what Taullery saw in her, except that she came from a wealthy family.

  Reverend Langford’s gaze quickly sought his beautiful wife, Aleta, seated next to the Taullerys. Her eyes made love with his and her smile was more reassuring than she felt. Her stunning figure was demurely presented in a light-blue print dress; her long black hair was tightly pulled back against her head and held in a bun at the back.

  She little resembled the brash hellcat with a quick pistol and a sharp tongue who rode with outlaws sought by every Federal trooper and state policeman in Texas. To the parish, she was the warm and caring wife of their minister and, according to the current gossip, born of Spanish nobility and educated at the finest European schools. Aleta would have laughed that wonderful deep laugh if she had heard such a tale. But she accepted with pride compliments about her teaching the community’s children.

  “My brothers and sisters, join our voices in glorious tribute to the Lord with ‘Let Us Gather at the River.’ You’ll find it on page twenty-four of the fine new hymnals, thanks to the generous contribution of Ian and Mary Taullery,” Reverend James Rule Langford announced, trying to drown out the cursing and heavy-booted advance on the wooden steps leading to the parish door. His shoulders rose and fell in anticipation of trouble, swaying the black robe given him by the congregation.

  The minister’s dark eyes studied the congregation in front of him as if willing them courage with his gaze. Langford’s chiseled face gave no indication of concern. Instead, a warm smile harvested his countenance, an act of sheer will. Lying on his chest was a simple silver cross, held around his neck by a long leather cord, a wedding gift from Aleta. He touched it unconsciously.

  Under the Christia
n cloak was a different kind of spiritual symbolism: a tiny buckskin pouch, also on a leather thong, a long-ago gift of spirit medicine from an aging Comanche shaman before the young soldier left Texas for the War. The medicine pouch had been good enough to protect him from the haunting memories of his evil minister father—and the piercing reality of Union bullets—and guide him back to God. A God his own minister father never saw or wanted to.

  His fingers slid from the cross to the comforting pouch and back again as he burst into song. He hoped his own enthusiasm would comfort the tense faces in front of him. Joining the singing with gusto, Taullery opened the right side of his tailored, three-piece suitcoat, indicating to his minister friend that he wasn’t armed. Reverend Langford frowned at the suggestion that he was even thinking of a gun, not the lack of a weapon itself. His devotion to bringing the Word to the prairie was as fierce and committed as his earlier devotion to the Confederacy and its dashing cavalry leader, General Jeb Stuart.

  He had no intention of returning to the man of the gun he had once been. No matter what. His life now was Aleta, horses, and this would-be church. No one else in the congregation—or the little community itself, for that matter—knew their preacher was actually Rule Cordell, the former Confederate cavalry hero and Texas pistol-fighter. If asked, all would have said the outlaw Rule Cordell was killed in a Union army ambush a year before, along with the deadly Johnny Cat Carlson and his wild band of Rebel warriors.

  Part of the story was true: Carlson and his men were cut down. Rule Cordell had already left the gang, finally realizing they were fighting for themselves and not for Texas or the rebirth of the Confederacy. Excited Federal troopers mistook the body of another guerrilla for the famous gunfighter and the story spread.

  Aleta, too, had been a part of the gang and Johnny Cat’s woman, leaving to find the man she loved and saving Cordell’s life in the process. Taullery’s too. Cordell’s announced death was a blessing, allowing him to disappear into Reverend James Rule Langford. He kept “Rule” as a middle name to cover any inadvertent use of that name by friends.

  For all of his friends and former comrades in arms, it was a time of aching sadness. The soul of Texas was empty and her lands occupied by Northern conquerors who ruled with gun and greed and unrelenting vindictiveness. By Eastern newspaper accounts, the War had been over some two years back and the country was well on the way to mending itself whole again. Texas hadn’t heard that news—and would have spit at the words if it did.

  But spitting wouldn’t help anyone now. Both Rule Cordell, now known as Reverend Langford, and Taullery recognized one voice in particular. Cutting through the door were the shrill demands of Captain Alfred McPherson Padgett. The arrogant leader’s militia served as the carpetbagger governor’s enforcement arm. Known as the “Regulators,” the state police served authorized hell to the state, beset with postwar destruction, poverty, and grief. Sadly, they had replaced the Texas Rangers, who had been forced to disband after the War.

  This was in addition to what was left of Sherman’s army stationed along the Rio Grande. Originally a force of 51,000, it was now reduced to a much smaller size. Supposedly, the show of Union force, right after the War ended, was to put a preemptive end to any designs the Mexican government might have on Texas soil. Most Texans saw the real motive: to have an at-hand force ready to pound any sign of Confederate resurrection into the ground. Even now, the governor was an appointed puppet of Sherman, all courts were military, and all positions of authority taken by Yankees or their sympathizers.

  Reverend Langford knew the battle for attention was already lost. Aleta, Ian and Mary Taullery, and Widow Bauer, on the front row, were the only people singing as the fifty-some parishioners turned in unison to see who would be coming into the adobe-walled building. Fear had already told them it was Regulators.

  “‘Shall we gather at the river . . . the beautiful, beautiful riv—” The planked door burst open, and even Aleta stopped singing. Her flashing dark eyes went to the back and then returned to her husband. Reverend Langford paused a few words later. His clear voice echoed off the gray walls and slipped between the candlelit shadows. A vanguard of timid sunlight led the dozen men with rifles pouring inside. Some were dressed in remmants of Yankee uniforms; one wore Confederate trousers; the rest were in long coats and vests. Three were Negroes. A shiny state police badge was the only visible thing this string of armed men had in common, other than holstered revolvers and brandished rifles. They filed along the back of the church, leaving open the doorway for Captain Padgett’s grand appearance. Outside, another dozen state police stood at the ready.

  Mary Taullery stage-whispered, “My God, it’s Regulators! Ohmygod, Ian, what’s happening?”

  Taullery quieted her. “It’ll be all right, Mary. Be quiet.”

  “My God, we’ll all be killed.”

  “Dammit, Mary, that’s enough. Shut up.”

  Like a king expecting adulation, Captain Padgett entered the hushed room in a wheelchair. One stray sunbeam curled back to dance on the shiny wheel rims. A rail-thin militiaman was assigned the task of pushing, and, clearly, it was taxing the limit of his strength. Beaded-cuff gauntlets in Padgett’s fist slapped at trail dust on his still legs. Captain Padgett studied the filled church with obvious relish, his beady eyes flashing hatred.

  A tall man with well-trimmed, graying mustache and sideburns, the Regulator leader was outfitted immaculately in a uniform of his own design, adorned with gold buttons, piping, and epaulets. His face was a hatchet, now puffy from excess of food, drink, and little exercise. Two gold-plated, pearl-handled revolvers in matching beaded holsters hung from the chair, one over each wooden arm.

  On the second row, a one-armed former Confederate, still wearing faded and patched buttermilk pants, whispered to the farmer next to him that he’d never seen so much gold on a man in his life, “’ceptin’ one of them fanciful foreign prince fellers.” The farmer squinted his reaction and coughed to relieve the chuckle that wanted to follow in spite of the fear in his belly.

  Three rows in front of them, a heavyset townsman responded to his wife’s hushed question that Padgett had been injured by Rebel gunfire during the First Battle of Manassas and hated everything Southern for what they did to him. She then wanted to know how he traveled with his men. Rolling his eyes at the continuing questioning, the husband dutifully responded that a special wagon had been built just for Padgett and paid for out of tax funds. A grimace trailed the statement.

  Oblivious to the danger of being overheard by the Regulators, she wanted to know what kind of “special wagon” it was. Keeping his eyes on the armed men spreading out behind the last pews, he told her it was a buckboard with sides reinforced by heavy planks to make a movable fort. Men could stand behind its “walls” and shoot through rifle holes. A fold-down ramp allowed the wheelchair to be pushed into the wagon bed. Once there, the wheels were bolted into place. Near the driver’s seat, a Gatling gun was mounted on a raised platform, where a militiaman was stationed. The fearsome weapon could be pivoted and fired in all directions, including over the head of the driver and a team of eight matched black mules. “A war wagon,” she said. He shook his ahead in agreement, and a shiver followed.

  “Gentlemen, this is a house of worship. We welcome strangers to our service. You are invited to leave your guns outside, remove your hats and join us. We are singing the hymn on page twenty-four of the hymnal, ‘Let Us Gather at the River.’ Perhaps you’ve sung it before—in your own churches.” Reverend Langford stood in the center of the opened area beyond the line of rough-hewed plank pews.

  Long brown hair covered his ears and touched his white collar, the only remaining sign of his earlier wildness. Even the Cheyenne stone earring had been removed. His evenly moderated voice belied the desire to attack the intruders with his bare fists. He hadn’t yet tried to restart the congregation’s singing and knew it would be futile at the moment. Fear painted their faces, mixed with traces of bitterness and touches of a
nger. All were justified emotions, but none would matter to Padgett and his men.

  “Shut up, Bible-thumper,” Captain Padgett bellowed, and waved the fistful of gloves in Langford’s direction. “We aren’t here for any of your windies. We’re here to arrest a traitor to the United States.”

  Padgett’s eyes examined the scared expressions turned toward him, as well as the backs of those few parishers defiantly choosing to face the minister. He didn’t see the hatred that crossed Langford’s face and disappeared into his mind once more. Aleta’s whispered “Be careful, Rule” reached him, but he didn’t acknowledge the warning. Interruptions like this were familiar stories throughout Texas.

  Chapter Two

  It seemed like every week Regulators arrested civilians without cause and took their homes and lands. Innocent men were shot or hanged. Northern revenge expressed itself in destroyed ranches and burned buildings, confiscated herds and stolen crops. There wasn’t much one man could do to stop this mindless destruction, especially not a man whose only weapon now was the Good Book.

  Slipping through the door and taking his place beside Padgett was a gray shadow of a man wearing wire-rimmed spectacles. Reverend Langford knew who he was immediately. So did others in the church, as indicated by the gasps. Lion David Graham. His reputation as a killer of men had murmured its way through Texas. His name was mentioned in the same hushed sentence as were Clay Allison, Cullen Baker, John Wesley Hardin, and the late Rule Cordell. During the War, he had been a Union sniper; in the years following, he hired out his gun to anyone who could pay. It had been rumored that Padgett had recently employed him to assist in his regulatory duties. Here was proof of the awful thought.

  Unlike the others with the Regulator leader, Lion Graham wore no badge on his gray, three-piece suit with matching derby. A short cape rested on his shoulders. Around his waist was a gray silk sash holding two black-handled revolvers. His countenance matched his clothing; a gray pallor to his skin reminded many of death. A black goatee and thin eyebrows set off a razorthin face with a carrot for a nose. It was said he rarely smiled, never drank or smoke, and didn’t like women. There was one particularly harsh tale about him putting a man’s eyes out with bullets at point-blank range—while laughing hysterically.