Red River Ruse

by James Reasoner

  "I was wonderin' when you boys would get back," he said. "Have any trouble?"

  "A little," Cambridge replied as he swung down from the saddle. "We ran into your friend Seamus O'Shea."

  Maxwell grinned and reached for his pipe. "The old fella didn't try to part your hair with a bullet, did he? I should have warned you he can be a little touchy sometimes, until he gets to know you."

  Nacho had dismounted and began loosening the saddle on his horse. "That warning is a little late, Jake," he said. "O'Shea didn't take a shot at us, but that daughter of his poked a rifle barrel in the back of my neck. It didn't make me feel too good."

  The stationmaster looked more serious as he nodded and said, "So you met Dove. I didn't know whether she'd be around or not. She's sort of like the wind, comes and goes as she pleases. It's the Indian blood in her, I reckon. She can't stand to be cooped up in one place for too long."

  "We'd like to hear more about her and O'Shea both," Cambridge said.

  "Well, come on inside. I kept the stew and the coffee warm. You boys settle down to a surroundin' and I'll tell you about Seamus."

  Nacho and Cambridge took their horses to the barn behind the station building, unsaddled and rubbed down the animals, then went inside to take Maxwell up on the offer. As Nacho stepped into the station, he breathed deeply of the blended aromas of stew and coffee and smiled. He felt better already.

  When they were seated at the table with the food and drink in front of them, Maxwell fired up his pipe and began, "You could probably tell that O'Shea is an old frontiersman. He doesn't talk a lot about himself, but from what little he's said and what I've heard about him from other folks, I figure he was one of the first white men west of the Brazos. And he's damn sure one of the few white men who ever got along with the Comanch'."

  'The girl is half-Comanche, isn't she?" Cambridge asked.

  Maxwell nodded. "Dove's mama was the daughter of a Comanche war chief. The Indians didn't think too kindly of her when she got herself married to O'Shea. They made both of 'em leave, although O'Shea was welcome to come back for a visit now and then as long as he didn't bring his wife along. He made his livin' tradin' amongst the tribes."

  "He was a Comanchero?" Nacho breathed, recalling tales of those hated white and Mexican renegades who had supplied the Comanches with guns to raid the Texas ranchers.

  "Not then," Maxwell replied with a shake of his head. He puffed on the pipe for a moment, then resumed, "The Army wanted him to scout for them when they started tryin' to break the hold the Indians had on the frontier. But O'Shea wouldn't work against his wife's people, even though they'd made her leave. Reckon he wanted to do his best not to take sides. He was a white man, but he had a Comanche wife and a daughter by that time. Then some of those soldier boys got the idea O'Shea was betrayin' his own race by not helpin' them hunt down the Comanch'." Maxwell sighed heavily.

  Nacho leaned forward eagerly, caught up in the story, his supper momentarily forgotten. "What happened?"

  "O'Shea had a little spread not far from Fort Griffin. The commandin' officer called him to the fort one day and asked him again to sign on as a civilian scout. O'Shea turned him down flat, just like all the other times, and rode back home. But a handful of those troopers had overheard what O'Shea said to the colonel, and they followed him. Busted in on O'Shea and his wife and the little girl. Now, Seamus O'Shea is a pure-dee wildcat when it comes to fightin', or so I've heard, but he was outnumbered. Those soldiers beat the hell out of him and then molested his wife. The little girl tried to stop 'em, and one of the bastards took a swipe at her with his knife." Maxwell lifted his hand to his left cheek. "That's how she got that scar across her face. Laid her open to the bone. When the soldiers got through, they left O'Shea's wife there with him and the little girl. O'Shea was all busted up inside from the beatin' they gave him, and Dove had blood all over her face. Her mama thought they was both dead. She got O'Shea's Bowie and cut herself up, like those Indian women'll do when they're grievin'. 'Course, O'Shea wasn't dead, and neither was the girl. But Dove's mama sure was when she got through cuttin'."

  Silence fell over the big room as Maxwell concluded his story. For long seconds that seemed even more stretched out than they really were, neither Nacho or Cambridge said anything. Then, finally, the lawyer asked, "Is that story really true, Jake?"

  Maxwell shrugged. "Bits and pieces of it I got from Seamus himself, but most of the details come from other folks who lived around Fort Griffin at the time." He puffed on the pipe again and blew a cloud of gray smoke toward the ceiling. "That ain't all of it, though."

  "What about the Comancheros?" Nacho asked.

  "That's the part I was just comin' to. O'Shea was hit pretty damn hard by everything that happened, as you can imagine, and there's some say he went a little crazy for a while. But he was sane enough to take that girl to the fort and get the Army doctor to patch up her face. Made sure the sawbones did a good job of it, too—stood over him with a Henry rifle while he was sewin' up the cut. Then he left Dove with the preacher's family there in the town next to the Army post and took off. Next anybody heard of him, he was ridin' with a band of Comancheros in the Staked Plains. I figure what those soldiers did made him turn his back on the white man's world completely for a while. Seamus stayed with the Comancheros for a couple of years, then Mackenzie caught ol' Chief Quanah up there at Palo Duro Canyon and put an end to most of the fightin'. With the Indian wars over for the most part, there wasn't any business for the Comancheros. Some of 'em lit out across the Rio Grande or went over to New Mexico Territory. O'Shea wound up back here, and somewhere along the line, Dove got back together with him."

  Nacho frowned. "You're saying the man was an outlaw, that he rode with the Comancheros. Why hasn't he been arrested?"

  'That was a long time ago—"

  "Only ten years!"

  "And just because there were rumors that O'Shea was a Comanchero, that don't prove nothin'."

  "Jake's right, Nacho," Cambridge said. "The law would need solid evidence that O'Shea traded guns to the Indians, especially this long after the fact."

  Nacho stood up and paced away from the table, his features twisted with conflicting emotions. "If O'Shea was an outlaw then," he said without turning around, "he could be an outlaw now."

  "I suppose that's true," Maxwell admitted. "But nobody's ever accused Seamus of doin' anything wrong since he came to this part of the country. I reckon I know him as well as anybody hereabouts, and I think he just wants to be left alone."

  Nacho took a deep breath. "Comanches raided my father's ranch many times when I was a boy. None of my family was killed, but some of our vaqueros died, and the savages stole our stock until my father finally gave up. I . . . I don't see how anyone could have traded with them."

  "People have their own reasons for the way they live their lives, and those reasons don't have to make sense to us or anybody else," Cambridge said. "I've got to admit I'm a little more suspicious of O'Shea now that I've heard your story, though, Jake. He knows the country around here, and he strikes me as tough enough to ride herd on a gang of desperados."

  Maxwell nodded slowly. "Seamus is tough enough, all right. But I still can't believe it of him."

  Nacho turned to face the other two men again. "I think we should keep an eye on this O'Shea," he said harshly. "Maybe he will lead us to the men who stole that money."

  "We'll see," Cambridge said noncommittally. "Right now, you need to finish your supper and get some rest."

  Grudgingly, Nacho came back to the table, but the food was tasteless to him now. He had hated Comancheros for years, but he had never expected to run into a former member of that despised breed at this late date. He was more convinced than ever that O'Shea was tied in somehow with the outlaws who had held up the stagecoach. He felt righteous anger simmering inside him.

  But somehow, the face of the beautiful girl called Dove kept getting in the way . . .

  Chapter Eight

  The light
burning in the farmhouse window was a warm yellow glow in the night. Asa Graham leaned forward in his saddle and nodded to the other men sitting their horses next to him. "Let's ride on down there," he said.

  He was in his late thirties, a rangy, lantern-jawed man with long pale hair that hung below his flat-crowned hat. Like the other men, he wore a long duster, which was pushed back at the moment so that he could more easily reach the long-barreled Remington holstered on his hip.

  One of Graham's companions asked, "What about the masks? You want us to put them on?"

  Graham shook his head and smiled bleakly. "No need."

  The others all knew what he meant, and if any of them didn't like the idea, they didn't say anything about it. Slowly, with Graham in the lead, they rode down the hill toward the isolated North Texas farm.

  This raid wasn't a matter of money; they had plenty of greenbacks. The last stagecoach robbery alone had netted them more money than all of them put together had seen in their entire lives. Most of the cash was still back at the hide-out, safely cached. They could have ridden into a town and bought anything they wanted.

  Graham said they were going to lie low for a while, though, and most of the time, nobody was willing to argue with Graham. The last man who'd tried had wound up with a knife in his belly. Graham knew the others were afraid of him, and he liked the feeling.

  They were running a little low on food, but with any luck, they would be able to replenish their supplies at this farm. Besides, Graham thought, these sodbusters had settled too close to the hide-out. A man in his business didn't have any use for close neighbors.

  A dog began barking as the riders reached the bottom of the hill and started toward the house. A moment later, a rectangle of light appeared as someone inside the clapboard structure opened the door. A figure was silhouetted in the doorway.

  Damn dumb farmer, Graham thought. A man that stupid didn't deserve to live.

  He had to give the sodbuster credit, though. When the man spotted nearly a dozen riders bulking up out of the shadows, he ducked back inside quickly and slammed the door. The light in the window vanished as the lantern was blown out.

  Graham lifted a hand as he and the others rode into the place's small, dusty yard. "That's far enough, boys," he said quietly.

  A voice came from one of the windows. "Damn right that's far enough. I've got you covered. Who are you, and what do you want?"

  It was doubtful the farmer could tell much about his expression in the dim light from a quarter moon, but Graham put a friendly smile on his face anyway. "Howdy," he called. "Sorry to come bustin' in on you like this. We're lookin' to water our horses."

  "Well's over there by the barn," the farmer replied. "You're welcome to use it. Just don't come any closer to the house."

  "Sure, mister, whatever you want." Graham laughed shortly. "Hell, the way you're actin', you'd think we were the James gang and I was old Jesse, come back to life."

  'This is a lonely country. A man can't take chances with his family."

  "We'll be on our way in a few minutes," Graham called back, trying to sound reassuring.

  He led the others over to the well. They dismounted and gathered around as one man began hauling up the bucket. In the cluster of men and horses, it was difficult to pick out individual figures in the darkness.

  "Ed, you and Jack go through the barn and slip around behind the house. The two of you ought to be plenty to take that sodbuster once you get inside."

  "Sure, Asa. Come on, Jack."

  The exchange was whispered, and there was no way the farmer could have heard it over the stamping of the restless horses. The two men Graham had picked for the job vanished through the open door of the barn into the darkness within. In a matter of moments, Graham knew, they would be breaking into the house from the back and disposing of the wary farmer. It probably wouldn't take but one shot, he thought.

  Two minutes later, a small war started inside the house.

  Graham jerked around as guns began blasting, hot and heavy. "Get in there!" he barked, sliding his own pistol from its holster. The rest of the gang turned and ran toward the house. A couple of them triggered off some shots, adding to the noise and confusion.

  Surging into the lead as the shooting died away, Graham lifted a booted foot and smashed it against the door. The panel flew open, slamming back against the wall. Graham went through in a low crouch, gun in hand. A lot of things could be said about him, but he was no coward.

  Just an outlaw and a cold-blooded murderer.

  The gunfire might have ceased, but the house was still noisy. A woman was screaming, a man cursed fervently in a choked voice, and somebody was grunting and groaning in pain. Graham put his back against the wall and lifted his pistol, hammering back as the other outlaws poured into the room.

  "Somebody get a light in here!" Graham ordered, then shifted quickly to one side just in case somebody tried to loose a shot at the sound of his voice.

  A second later, a lucifer flared into life as one of the outlaws snapped his thumbnail across its head. The man lifted the match, sending its bright, harsh glare across the room.

  Graham saw Ed and Jack, the two men he had sent in here, sprawled on the floor in bloody, loose-limbed heaps. He'd seen enough death to know that both of them were done for. So was the farmer, who had been driven into a corner by the slugs that had turned his shirtfront into a red ruin. He was sitting down, propped up by the walls, legs splayed out in front of him. A Winchester lay on the floor between those legs.

  On the other side of the room, near a door that probably led into the kitchen, lay a boy in his late teens, the side of his head shot away. His fingers were still loosely clenched around the butt of an old Dance Brothers .44 revolver. Another boy, a little younger than the first, was on the other side of the doorway, curled up in a ball, gunshot from the look and sound of it.

  A woman was crouched next to the body of the farmer. The sobbing and wailing came from her. A girl about twelve was kneeling beside her, eyes wide and staring, her fingers plucking idly at her mother's sleeve.

  In the far corner was another man, also sitting propped up against the wall. Both shoulders were bloody and bullet-smashed, but that didn't stop him from trying futilely to pick up the Colt he had dropped. He was the one cursing. Graham looked from him to the woman and saw the resemblance. They were probably brother and sister.

  So, the house had contained the sodbuster, his wife, the brother-in-law, and the three youngsters. Ed and Jack had walked in on four males, all of them armed and willing to put up a fight. No wonder such hell had broken loose. The two outlaws had done good to do as much damage as they had before they went down.

  The outlaw holding the match let out a curse and shook his fingers as the flame reached them. Darkness dropped down over the room again. Graham snapped, "Strike another light!"

  Quickly, one of the gang complied, and the scene hadn't changed when the second match flared up. Graham spotted a lamp sitting on a small table. Miraculously, it hadn't been broken by a stray bullet during the melee. He ordered the man with the match to light the lamp, and a moment later, its bright glow filled the room.

  "That's better," Graham said. "I'm good with a gun, but even I need a little light to shoot by." He turned to face the wounded man, who still couldn't make either arm work in his attempt to retrieve his pistol. Graham lined the Remington on his forehead and fired. The man's head bounced off the wall behind it as the slug drove through his brain.

  That started the woman screaming again as she crouched beside her dead husband. Graham strode across the room and slapped her, hard, jerking her head around. She gasped once and then fell silent.

  "We'll be takin' your food," Graham told her. "You got any whiskey around here?" When she didn't answer, he repeated the question in a harsher tone and lifted his hand again threateningly.

  "In . . . in the kitchen!" she babbled. After a second, she choked out, "Why . . . why did you do this? Why did you have to kill them?" />
  Graham shrugged. "Don't reckon we had to," he said, although they all knew differently. "Your men started the shootin'. All we want is food and whiskey and any money you've got. You got any money?"

  "Under the loose floorboard . . . in the kitchen." The woman looked over at her daughter and sobbed.

  Graham could understand why. The girl's eyes were as empty as could be. All the shooting and killing had done something to her head.

  "Better that way," Graham said quietly. "She won't know what's goin' on."

  The woman looked up at him, horrified realization in her eyes. She desperately dove for her husband's gun, but Graham easily kicked it away from her desperate fingers. As bad as it had been so far, the ordeal wasn't over.

  An hour later, they rode away from the farm with a fresh stock of supplies, two partially empty bottles of whiskey, and eight dollars. Behind them, flames began to climb toward the Texas sky, consuming the farmhouse and the dead within.

  * * *

  There had been nights in the past when Jake Maxwell had not been able to sleep, especially during the months following his wife's death. He had found himself staring up at the darkened ceiling of the room they had shared in the stage station, playing out in his mind the memories of his life with her, sometimes until gray light crept in with the dawn.

  Tonight he wasn't remembering his wife. He was thinking about another woman altogether.

  Sandra . . .

  The night before, after he had taken her into his arms and kissed her, his sleep had been disturbed, too, but then it had been dreams that bothered him, sinful dreams he didn't even want to think about now. This was different. He was staring at the ceiling again, wide awake, wishing that there was some way Sandra could come to him again, even though that was the last thing either of them needed.

  Because Maxwell was awake, he heard the slow, steady hoofbeats and the soft creak of wheels turning.

  Somebody was driving a vehicle of some sort down the trail toward the station, he realized as he sat up in his bunk and listened to the sounds. There was no stage due tonight. Maxwell swung his feet to the floor, stood up, and went into the main room. From the window near the front door, he could see down the road to the south.