Until Darkness Disappears (A Saga of Texas)

by Will Cook

  “Don’t have to,” Hinshaw said, rising. “Give my best luck to the old man. He’s going to need it if he keeps sticking his neck out so far. Good bye.” He offered his hand, and Manners took it, then Hinshaw stepped out. Grady was waiting, and Hinshaw said: “Drive me back to my quarters, boy.” He grinned when he said it, and Grady’s sour expression broke, and he smiled, too.

  Chapter Ten

  Fred Early parked his automobfle near the bank of the river at a place where it bent sharply so they could see Laredo and the Mexican side and hear the soft whisper of water. The night was clear with only a part of a moon showing, but they could see the oldness of Mexico and the rawness that was still Texas.

  Early smoked a cigar, while Ella Sanders chattered on gaily about her experience on the train. Finally Early said: “My dear, in the past fifteen-minutes you mentioned Martin Hinshaw’s name eleven times. Have I a rival in this itinerant rodeo rider?”

  She laughed. “No, of course not. He’s . . . w el l. . . interesting.”

  “I am a fascinating man myself,” he said lightly. “Ella, when are you going to give up that ridiculous job at the hospital?”

  “Soon,” she said. “When we’re married. Fred, I’ve paid off the mortgage with that job. I’m proud of it.”

  “I’d be more proud,” he said, “if I had done it. How will I explain that I’m living in a house paid for by my wife?”

  “Do you have to explain it?”

  He shrugged. “I think life should have reason to it, cause and effect. A successful man has to explain more than… well . . . your gallant friend Hinshaw. He has to account to no one, Ella. Drift here, then drift somewhere else. You pay no more attention to him than you do a tumble weed.” He puffed on his cigar. “Call me old-fashioned if you will, Ella, but I’m not in favor of a young girl pursuing a nurse’s profession. One never knows who you’ll meet.”

  “Some good people and some bad people, Fred.”

  He frowned. “Selectivity of associates is man’s right,” Early said. “You were born to command servants, Ella, not to be commanded by some unwashed mother who has a fretful child and wants to be waited on because she’s paid her bill.” He threw away his cigar and got out and cranked the car. As soon as the engine coughed, he came back to the seat and manipulated the controls to keep it running. As he drove toward town, he said: “You must marry me soon, Ella.”

  This pleased her for she gave him a quick smile. “Why, Fred, you sound impatient.”

  “About some things I am,” he said. “I’m impatient to be more than I am so that, when I speak, men will accept that I am right and not debate with me. I’m impatient to have money, not to count or flaunt, but to be free from want. And I’m impatient to marry you so we can find happiness together.”

  “Fred, I thought you were happy now. I know I am. I don’t want to change what I am.”

  “Then why did you go to school to become a nurse?”

  “Because I was interested in it.”

  “And the job with the hospital?”

  She shrugged. “I just wanted to see more of the world, that’s all.”

  He shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t think you’re honest with yourself. We all want to change what we are. That’s why we leave home, to get away from what we’ve been. I suppose we’re all a little ashamed of our parents, that they weren’t more. I know there was a time when I no longer looked at my father as a father, and looked at him as a man who had simply thrown away all his opportunities. That was the day I made up my mind to get away, and I’ve never gone back.”

  “I wonder if that’s what Marty thought. He told me, you know . . . .”

  Early’s laugh was brittle. “I’m afraid, if you mention that huckleberry’s name to me just once more, I’m going to form an intense dislike for him.”

  “All right,” she said. “Except that I’ve invited him to supper tomorrow night.”

  “Oh, really,” Early said, but wisely said no more.

  He dropped her off at the house, kissed her good night, then drove to the main street. He parked his car in front of the saloon, and he was pleased when some loungers gathered to admire it. Early went inside, bought a drink, then turned to some men playing cards under a hanging corner light. Their clothes marked them as ranch owners, and not exactly poverty-ridden, either. Early’s position in the community was an invitation to join the game, and he did, betting with irritating caution.

  The conversation was mostly about the rangers and the Mexican bandit being held in the stockade. In ten minutes Early had learned that a federal judge was coming in from El Paso to try the case, and the trial was set for next week.

  Miles Cardeen, one of the biggest ranchers in the county, said: “The clerk over at the hotel told me that that young Texas jack rabbit hauled off and whacked that ranger in the chops before they took him out of the hotel.” He bet. “Give me two. So I figured you can’t go wrong with a man who’s tough and modest. When he hit me up for a job, I hired him.”

  Fred Early glanced up. “That’s taking a chance, isn’t it, Miles?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  Early shrugged and studied his cards. “What do you know about him, really? I’d let him go before he brings you trouble.” He threw in his hand. “Especially now, with Vargas coming up to trial.”

  The game stopped, and they looked at Fred Early. One of them said: “I wouldn’t hire any stranger. He might be a spy for Vargas’s army. You never know, Miles.”

  “The last time Laredo was hit,” Early said casually, “Goheen hired a new swamper. I don’t think any of us can doubt now that he studied the town and passed the information on to the Mexicans. Look at the way they hit the bank and the express office and every other cashbox in town.”

  “Except yours,” Miles Cardeen said.

  “That’s right,” Early said. “Remember that I was suspicious. The man spent too much time walking around, wandering in and out of places. I told you before the raid that I was taking my cash and hiding it, and I did. The ones who didn’t listen lost plenty.” He put a match to his cigar. “We know a little about Vargas. He’s a smart man. We know damned little about Hinshaw. So play it safe. Pat him in the hind end with a boot and send him down the road. This whole business on the train could be a put-up job with Hinshaw in it all the time. Vargas swore he’d come back to Laredo and burn it to the ground. I look for him to keep that promise.”

  Miles Cardeen looked around at the others. “I guess I don’t really need another man. We ought to quietly pass the word around on Hinshaw. Nothing personal, you understand, but just to protect ourselves.”

  “That’s most sensible,” Early said, “Vargas has always employed some renegade whites to do his advance work. This is the best way. After all, what’s Hinshaw to us . . . just a drifter.”

  Early played a few more hands, had another whisky, men left the saloon. He paused on the walk for a moment, looking up and down the street. A crowd still gathered around his automobile, and he put up with their jokes, cranked it, and drove home. He lived alone in the better section of town, and a Mexican cleaning woman came in every afternoon and kept the house in order. Early put the automobile in the barn and locked it to keep the Mexican children from stealing all the brass off it. A man had to put up with those inconveniences when a large section of town was Mexican. One of Early’s dreams was to clean it out once and for all, push them all back across the Rio Grande where they belonged. He knew a lot of people who felt the same way. Important people, too.

  The housekeeper had left the hall light burning, and he went in, turning on the parlor lights. The hall clock struck the hour, and he went out and wound it, then returned to the parlor, sat in his favorite chair, and read the latest papers. He took them from several large cities and even had two Eastern papers mailed to him.

  Early read like a man killing time, a man waiting. When he heard a faint scratching on the wall, he got up, went through the kitchen to the dark back porch.


  A Mexican waited there. He said: “I have a message from Batiste.”

  “What is it?” Early asked.

  “He grows impatient for the rest of the shipment.”

  “Tell him I’m expecting some freight tomorrow or the day after. Look for my motorcar. The usual place. Don’t contact me until then. He’ll have the money ready?”

  “Si,” the Mexican said. “Batiste cannot wait long. A thousand men will march on the town, but we need more guns, more ammunition.”

  “You’ll get them. Watch for my motorcar.”

  He turned and went inside and picked up his newspapers. This time he read like a man with his business behind him and now ready to enjoy himself.

  Martin Hinshaw spent the night in Miles Cardeen’s bunkhouse, and at dawn he rolled out with the other hands and went to the watering trough to wash before breakfast. While he was combing his hair, the foreman came up and said: “Boss wants to see you. Use the back door.”

  Hinshaw frowned, then shrugged, and walked toward the house. As he approached the back porch, Cardeen came out. He came to the point.

  “I can’t use another man, Hinshaw. Sorry.”

  “Changed your mind suddenly, didn’t you?”

  “That’s the way I am,” Cardeen said. “I’ll pay you for the full day, though.”

  “Hell, never mind,” Hinshaw snapped, and returned to the bunkhouse to get his satchel. It was quite a distance to town, but he walked it and never gave it a thought. Anger could do that to him, block out the uncomfortable aspects of his life.

  He spent the day moving around, asking in every store for work, but the answer was always the same: there just wasn’t anything for him. In late afternoon he went into the saloon and bought a beer and, after that, a bowl of chili beans in a small restaurant, and, when he paid for it, he held his fortune in his hand, not enough for another night at the hotel.

  I’ll be damned if I’ll go on the bum, he thought and made up his mind before he reached the street. A man needed the dignity of work even if it was shoveling manure at the stable, and, when he got to the point where that was denied him, he was in trouble.

  The afternoon was hot. When Martin Hinshaw reached the Ranger Company Headquarters, he washed at the watering trough before going in. An orderly took his name and told him to wait. Ten minutes later Major Carl Manners came across the porch. His clothes bore the dust of travel, and he beat it off with his hat. With Manners was Bill Grady who grinned and said: “So soon?”

  “Funny,” Hinshaw said. “Major, is that offer still open?”

  Manners gave it a moment’s thought. “You’ll start as a private, Hinshaw. No favors, and you’ll make it on your own.”

  “I didn’t ask for anything special.”

  “Come into the office,” Manners said.

  Hinshaw bathed and shaved before leaving for town with the clerk who went in every evening to pick up the mail. He didn’t feel a nickel richer, yet he was conscious that again his life had a direction. At least for two years, which was the term of his enlistment. He got out of the buckboard on the main street, and, as he passed Fred Early’s store, he noticed the two clerks checking crates of newly arrived merchandise. Hinshaw walked on and, after asking directions, found Ella Sanders’s house, a neat two-story frame structure surrounded by shade trees.

  A man sat in the swing with his pipe and evening paper and looked Hinshaw over carefully as he came up the walk. The man said: “You must be Hinshaw. Ella spoke of you. I’m Joe Sanders. Pardon my not getting up, but I’m nearly crippled. Can’t get around much.”

  “Glad to meet you,” Hinshaw said. “I guess I’m early, but I had a chance to catch a ride and. . . . “ He let it trail off. “Nice place. Is Ella home?”

  “Out riding with Fred Early in his new-fangled motorcar,” Sanders said. “Sit a spell. I don’t see many people to talk to. They’ll be back soon.”

  Hinshaw sat on the porch railing and rolled a cigarette. “Is the town all set to hang the Mexican?”

  “They were all set to hang him the last time he was here,” Sanders said, “only they couldn’t catch him. They ought to take him some place else for trial. Feeling’s too high around here to ever find a jury who haven’t already judged him.”

  “From what I hear, he’s had it long overdue,” Hinshaw said. “He was bragging on the train about how many he’d killed.”

  “Somehow I can’t blame Vargas for getting himself hung,” Sanders said. “What else could the man do? He’s a Mexican, can’t read or write, so what’s left for him but to steal? Son, we make a lot of this ourselves. Give a Mexican a job so he can hold his head up, and you don’t have any trouble with him.”

  Early’s car putted down the street. They could hear it before it turned the far corner. It came on and stopped in front of the house. Early hopped down and helped Ella out, then secured the brake, and turned off the gasoline valve while she came onto the porch.

  When she saw Hinshaw, she smiled, then she saw the badge pinned to his shirt and clapped her hands in delight. “Isn’t that wonderful,” she said. Early was coming up the walk, and she turned to him. “Fred, this is Marty Hinshaw. He’s joined the Texas Rangers.”

  Early presented his hand briefly and said: “We’ll all sleep safer in our beds because of this.”

  Hinshaw frowned, thought of something to say, and held it back. Ella was taking off her hat and duster. “Why don’t you sit here and talk? I have supper ready to pop into the oven.” She hurried on into the house, and Early took the other chair on Sanders’s right.

  “Come into my store tomorrow,” Fred Early said. “I’ll sell you a pair of pearl handles for your pistol. All the rangers wear them, you know.”

  “What’s your beef against the world?” Hinshaw asked. “Or don’t you like Texas Rangers?”

  Early shrugged. “They leave me unimpressed,” he said. “I would suggest that the flaw lies in their recruitment policies.”

  “You never come out and say a thing,” Hinshaw said. “Scared to, or don’t know how?”

  He was pleased to see the flat light of temper in Fred Early’s eyes. Early said: “My fiancee’s goodness of heart is often greater than her judgment. Inviting you here for supper was a mistake. You can correct that by leaving.”

  Hinshaw glanced at Joe Sanders. “Is that what you think, too?”

  Sanders shook his head. “Son, something’s started here that’s not my business. You do what you want.”

  “Mean that?” Hinshaw asked.

  “I do,” Sanders said.

  He came off the porch rail, had Early by the shirt front, and jerked him out of the chair before Early could set himself. Then Hinshaw’s fist chopped through a short arc, and he lifted Early over the rail and into the lilac bushes. Early fell hard and stayed there, not out, but not ready to get up, either.

  “You pick a good fight,” Hinshaw told him. “But that’s all.” He glanced at Sanders. “Guess he’s right. I’ve got no business at your table.” He started off the porch, then hesitated. “Try and tell her I’m sorry and at the same time that I ain’t. Does that make sense?”

  “Perfectly,” Sanders said and watched Hinshaw hurry down the walk. Then he looked at Early. “Get out of there, Fred. You look silly.”

  Ella came out as Fred Early climbed out of the lilac bush and brushed himself off. There was a spot of blood on his mouth and a swelling that would grow.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Well, someone say something!”

  “Maybe a little too much was said already,” Joe Sanders replied.

  Early shot him a glare, then said: “It seems to me that no further proof is needed that my judgment of Hinshaw was substantially correct. I’m sorry, Ella, because I don’t enjoy proving you wrong.”

  “Just what have you proved, Fred?”

  “That’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? The man struck me in the face. He’s hardly the kind one invites to supper.”

  “Fred, he doesn’t strike people withou
t a reason,” Ella said. “I’m not trying to excuse it, but by the same token I don’t want to see this warped out of shape.”

  Early knew that he wasn’t going to get anywhere. He said: “Perhaps it would be better if I didn’t stay for supper. Your judgment had been questioned, and your pride hurt and ”

  “My pride has not been hurt,” she snapped. “But you’re right, Fred. Perhaps it would be better if. . . .” She let it trail off. “Damn it, my supper’s ruined.”

  “Good night,” Early said. “I’ll come around and see you tomorrow, Joe. There are quite a few papers for you to sign. Orders, receipts, and the like. Ella, this is the first day of your vacation, and you’re tired from your trip. Perhaps if I called later in the week, when you’re rested, you’ll be more reasonable.”

  He nodded and went on down the walk. After he cranked up his car and drove away, Ella and Joe Sanders watched him. Ella said: “For a man I’m likely to marry, I understand him very badly. Pa, what are the things you sign? I don’t understand this . . . this partnership you have with Fred Early.”

  “I’ve explained it a dozen times, honey,” Joe Sanders said.

  “No, you’ve just told me that you loaned him a thousand dollars of your insurance money, and, as interest, he made you a one-fourth partner. That seems pretty generous, Pa.”

  “In some ways, Fred’s a generous man,” Sanders said. “When you have a business like Fred’s, there’s a lot of paperwork connected with it. I must sign two hundred letters a week. He’s a smart businessman, Ella. A mail-order business isn’t limited to the income around town, and shipping stuff here and there is harder than it sounds. When Fred first talked about a partnership to me, I tried to explain that I’d gone to work at twelve and had never been much for reading and writing, but he said a clerk could do all that as long as someone else tended to the signing. I’ve been a help to Fred. Gives him more time to tend to other things.” He reached out and patted her arm. “Sorry about the supper, honey.”