the Shadow Riders (1982)

by L'amour, Louis

  Out there on Mission Bay he had his own ship, a fast vessel with eight guns, and he kept it ready for sea at all times. After all, a man needed a way out.

  He was here, he had come to love the ranch, and he had no plans to leave, but just in case, the schooner lay waiting. He called it, after the vessel in an old sea ballad, the Golden Vanity. There was no vessel in the American seas that could out-sail or out-maneuver her.

  If Ashford took the girls to sea, he would take in his anchor and let out some sail, and he could lay alongside of whatever ship they had within hours.

  Ashford led the way back to their horses. Mounting without a word, he rode toward the gate. The others followed, walking their horses.

  Kate held back, riding behind Ashford, unwilling to risk what might follow and feeling his shame.

  Martin Connery had made him out to be a fool, had shamed him before his own men, shown them he was inadequate. As she rode she was thinking ahead. The story of what happened inside would get around. One of those who was there would talk, and Ashford would lose control.

  For one wild, desperate moment she wished she had stayed behind, for when Ashford lost control the men he had commanded would become a rabble. The first thing on their minds would be the girls in that wagon. She had to get them away. They must escape. Nor could there be any delay. She would have to chance it at the first opportunity and just hope they could meet the Traven boys.

  Suddenly their pace was too slow. She had to get back. What could have happened while she was gone? Just suppose ...

  She did not want to suppose. She wanted only to be back, to see the girls again, to plan.

  Somehow they had to get away, and they had to get away now. She could already see the men hanging back, and Cutler and Hayden were whispering among themselves. And once, looking back, she caught their eyes on her. Suppose, just suppose, one of them decided to pull away from Ashford now?

  At the first sign of trouble she was going to use her spurs. She was going to get out of there.

  They were coming up to the shores of Mission Bay, ready to cut out around it. Suddenly, glancing off toward the Gulf, she saw a ship!

  Quickly, she glanced at the men. Hayden and Cutler were hanging back, deep in a whispered argument of some kind. Gushing rode somewhat abreast of her, yet closer behind Ashford. They had not seen the masts. Only topmasts showed through the trees, still some distance off.

  Quickly, she averted her eyes, praying they would not see it. Now she knew. She had to get away. She must get to the girls and get them away at once! At the very first opportunity, or even without opportunity, they must go! Where was Dal? And Mac? Where were they now?

  Inside she was so frightened she was almost ready to cry. There were still several miles to go and they were walking their horses!

  Desperately she fought to keep her composure, to keep her face from showing her fear and her worry. If only ...

  Mac Traven was waiting no longer. Bellied down in the sand at the edge of the forest, the Travens had been watching the wagons. With Ashford gone discipline had relaxed. Two of the men were down at the edge of the water, fishing. One stood on a rock, casting out into the water and slowly drawing his line in toward him. Two others were asleep under the supply wagon.

  Others were lying about the fire or talking. "Jack," Mac suggested. "You an' Jesse can't run as fast as us. You be ready to cover us. We're goin' in."

  "How you goin' to get away with that many women?" Jack protested. "It ain't sensible!"

  "I've a hunch our time is up. We've got to do it now, before the others get back. If shooting starts, shoot to kill. We've no choice, and that's a lot of thieves and murderers out there."

  He waited, using his field glasses. Suddenly, his eyes caught something. He lifted the glasses a little higher.

  The topmasts of a ship!

  Silently, he passed the glasses to Dal, then to Jack and Jesse. Now there was no question. They had to make their move.

  "Wait a minute," Dal suggested. From an inside pocket he took a small hand-mirror. Glancing at the sun, he tilted the mirror to catch the sunlight, directing it into the wagon through the opening, praying one of the girls would see it.

  Almost at once Mrs. Atherton got out of the wagon. He gave one quick flash into her eyes, then into the wagon again. One by one the girls got out.

  They were close enough so that in the still air her voice carried. "I'll make some coffee. Dulcie, you and Gretchen gather some wood."

  "There's a sharp woman," Jack said. "I'd hang up my hat for a woman like that!"

  The girls walked toward the woods, stopping to pick up sticks. Nobody seemed to pay any attention. Then one of the men under the wagons sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees, he was watching.

  Mac put away his glasses and put a reassuring hand on his belt gun, then passed it to Jesse. "You can use this," he said. "Remember, get the girls away."

  The other girls had scattered out, picking up sticks.

  The man under the wagon who had been watching crawled out. "You've got enough. Come on back!"

  "You want to get wood for tonight?" Dulcie asked. "If we do it you don't have to, and I'm tired of settin' in that ol' wagon!"

  One of the other men sat up. "Maybe she's lookin' for a walk in the woods, Charlie? Whyn't you see?"

  "Hell, the Colonel will come back. He'd raise Hell."

  "Suppose he does? I'm gettin' tired of just layin' around when we got all those women. I think ..."

  He started to get up, and Dulcie paused. "Just you set still! I'll be back." She walked into the woods as if going for a reason and Gretchen followed.

  When Dulcie was still ten yards from the woods she saw Jesse. "Come on," he said, low-voiced, "this is the time."

  "Hey, you! Come back here!"

  One of the girls suddenly panicked and started to run. A man lunged up from under a wagon, smashing his head against the under-pinning. Swearing bitterly, he held his head in both hands.

  The man who had first shouted at Dulcie now started after her, running. Happy Jack let him come. "This one's mine," he said. When the man was almost ready to reach out and grab Dulcie, Jack said, "Over here, Mister!"

  His voice was low and could not be heard beyond where the man skated to a sudden stop. He looked at Jack and he went for his gun. Jack fired and the man doubled over, and suddenly men were leaping up from all over.

  Mac Traven held his Spencer .52 in his hands, and he watched the girls coming, running toward him. Men started up, and several started coming toward them. Jack's shot brought them to a sudden stop as they realized there was more involved than just the girls.

  Mac threw his rifle to his shoulder and shot a man in the rear who was turning toward a wagon, obviously to pick up his rifle. Then coolly and taking his time, he shot three more without changing position.

  "Jesse!" Dal shouted. "Gather the girls an' get 'em away! Back to our last hide-out!"

  Dal was firing steadily, then reloading his pistol with an extra loaded cylinder he carried.

  Mac waved him back. "Let's get back into the woods!" Firing was general now. "Jack! Get the horses!"

  Mac moved along the edge of the woods. The fishing men had disappeared. Caught on the open beach, virtually without cover, they ducked and ran for any shelter they could find, dropping behind hummocks of sand, the wheels of the wagons, or anything else.

  Yet there were perhaps a dozen of them left, and some were skilled fighting men. Without direction they broke into a rough skirmish line and started for the trees.

  Happy Jack waited, studying the situation. The horses were in a rope corral running from one of the wagons, around a stunted pine, then on to the supply wagon and back to the first wagon. When all eyes were on the woods he stepped out quickly and knife in hand, slashed the rope. Instantly, he grabbed the nearest horse and riding Indian fashion drove the rest of them ahead of him into the trees, whooping and yelling,

  Dal caught a horse and Jesse another. Mac retreated,
pausing to slip one of the loaded tubes from his Blakeslee Quick-Loader into the butt of the Spencer in place of the empty.

  Ducking swiftly among the trees and herding several horses before him, he headed for their last hide-out. It was a matter of seconds now. They had to get the girls mounted and out of here before the attackers closed in.

  There would be no quarter now, for anyone. They would be killed on sight and the girls taken where they happened to be caught.

  Mac turned, feeing toward the woods, backing swiftly away.

  What about Kate? Where was Kate? What would happen to her?

  Chapter Fourteen.

  Kate's horse, feeling her excitement, had edged a little ahead, and they were almost to the small stream they must cross that emptied from a lake into Mission Bay. Beyond were some trees. Suddenly, ahead of them, there was an outburst of firing.

  Instantly, she pointed out across Mission Bay toward the wider waters of Copano Bay. "Look!" she cried.

  Ashford turned his head, saw the masts and sails of a ship, heard the firing, and was distracted only an instant. Kate leaped her horse into the stream, crossed it quickly, and turning at right angles, slapped the spurs to the horse and raced for the woods.

  A rifle came up. "No! No! Take her alive! Don't shoot!"

  Gushing grabbed his sleeve. "Colonel! The camp! We're being attacked!"

  "It's the Travens! Go in fast and we'll get 'em!"

  They went over the beach and up to the wagons at a dead run. The horses were gone, four dead men lay on the ground and three others wounded, one of them moaning for help. From inside the woods they heard an occasional shot.

  Ashford pulled up at the wagons. "Gushing, see what you can do for that man. Hayden, Cutler ... try to catch up some of the horses. They've been stampeded." A glance into the girls' wagon told him they were gone. Well, they wouldn't get far. He had too many men.

  They started for the woods, and he ordered them back. "There's enough out there now. Get some coffee, get something to eat. If they come up empty you're going to have to go out."

  Butler came toward him, explaining. "Came right out of nowhere, Colonel. Sudden attack. Some of the boys were fishing, an' ..."

  "I left you in command, Butler. I depended on you."

  "Yes, sir. I am sorry, sir, but I was having trouble with some of the men. They wanted the girls."

  Kate ... that damned Kate! He should never have trusted her, not for a minute. Yet he had not trusted her, just been a little careless.

  He got down from his horse and looked around with a sudden feeling of emptiness, of loss. It was not Kate. It was simply that everything was getting away from him, and that damned Connery had seen it. Who was he to be so sure of himself? What had he ever done?

  One of the soldiers had pulled a log up alongside the fire, and Ashford went now and sat down. He took his hat off and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. What had ever possessed him to kidnap those women, anyway? Nothing but trouble and more trouble. Trouble with his men, bringing the Travens down on him, and giving Connery the opportunity to make a fool of him.

  He had to think ... think! He had the hat, and there was a rabbit in there somewhere, if he could just lay hold of it. Somehow he could bring victory from ... he started to say defeat but shied from the word. He could yet win. He had to win.

  Butler came up to him with a cup of coffee. "Here, sir. You're tired, sir, and you haven't eaten."

  He accepted the coffee. "Thanks, Butler, you're a good man."

  Butler turned sharply away and stood for a moment. No, damn it, Butler thought, he was not a good man! A loyal man, maybe, but nobody in this outfit was a good man.

  He had been a good soldier. He had fought hard, but when the Confederacy lost, he lost, and he should have gone home like the others instead of following this wild-goose chase. Again, it was that sense of loyalty carried too far that had brought him here. Being loyal was not enough. One had to be loyal to the right cause, the right person. How many men and women, Butler wondered, had been trapped into trouble and even crime out of a sense of loyalty?

  Or was it an unwillingness to recognize evil in one's friends?

  He remembered once when he was a boy he and several other boys had been egged on by the one who was their leader into abusing a smaller boy. He hadn't wanted to but lacked the courage to say no. Was it the same now?

  Butler walked away toward the sea, watching the ship, which had grown large on the bay as it drew nearer. What kind of a man was he, anyway?

  What had happened down there at Connery's ranch?

  Whatever it was it had shaken Ashford, and they had obviously been unsuccessful. Gushing would tell him, if he asked.

  Was he going to ask? After all, what difference did it make? This was over, anyway. They had played out their string and there was nothing left.

  A horse ... what he needed was a horse.

  Two miles back from the coast Mac and Dal Traven rode up to where Happy Jack and Jesse had stopped with the girls. "Move out," Mac said. "Don't wait a minute longer. Right over there is Refugio. You know it, Jack. Take the girls there and find shelter for them, a home or a hotel, somebody who will put them up."

  "What about you?"

  "Dal an' me have got to find Kate. She's out here somewhere. That outfit's going to Hell in a handbasket. They're falling apart, and as they do, they'll get meaner.

  "Don't waste time, Jack. There's the Mission River. Don't try to follow it - it's too crooked. But if you keep it in sight it will take you right to Refugio."

  "You don't need to tell me. I know Refugio."

  Mac turned sharply. "Jack? You haven't been in trouble there, have you? I mean you can go into town?"

  "You make it sound like a feller's been in trouble wherever he goes. No such thing. I got friends in Refugio, and it's a right nice little place."

  When they were gone, Dal turned toward his horse. He stopped beside it, sat on a log, and began to clean his pistol. "Kate's a good woman, Mac. She's the best."

  "You get that gun ready, Dal, and we'll go find her."

  He sat down on a log and leaned his head back. If he could sleep! Just for a minute ...

  Kate Connery had skirted some marshy ground and found herself pushed further north and a bit west. She walked her horse into the woods, looking for a place to hide. She was sure they would come looking for her, but ... shots, a lot of shooting off toward the wagons.

  Finding a small knoll she rode up it, and from among the trees she could look off in the direction from which she had come. She was in time to see the last of the detachment racing off toward the fighting.

  So she was alone. Yet could she be sure? They might have sent somebody after her.

  She got down and led her horse into the deepest, darkest patch of woods.

  What now? The Travens were out there now, and one of them was Dal. When she had believed Dal was dead she had turned away from all men for over a year, then Frank Kenzie, who was a good, decent man, had started coming around, hat in hand, to see her. She liked him. He was nothing like Dal, neither as exciting nor as strong, but what was a girl to do? Dal was dead. At least, she had believed he was dead.

  Sort of.

  She could never quite believe it, and that was why she had shied from actually marrying Frank. Now Dal was back, and she might have lost him. By this time he would know about Frank.

  The distant shooting ended, and there was only silence.

  What should she do? Standing beside her horse, she tried to picture the situation. Shooting at the wagons could only mean the Travens had made an attack or attempted one. To go there now would mean she would be riding right into trouble. The Travens would have their hands full, and there was no way she could help. If she only had a gun!

  Like many another western woman she had been shooting since childhood and had often hunted so her family could eat. There had been no convenient stores where food could be bought. Out where she lived people grew their own corn, ground the
ir own flour, made their own molasses, and gathered from the forest, as had the Indians. Several times she had helped to defend their cabin against Indian attacks.

  Yet she had no weapon. Dal had always said that if somebody wanted to kill a person lack of a gun would never stop him. There were too many other weapons just lying around a house or barn.

  Looking around she found a stick, not over three feet long. It was part of a broken branch, and she stripped away the smaller twigs. She liked the feel of it in her hands. At least, she felt better.

  What had happened? She was restless and worried, and never one to stand still. She had always done things, not waited for others.

  Think ... what could have happened? The Travens had made an effort to rescue the girls. That was more than likely. They had succeeded or they had failed. They might have been killed. On the other hand, they might have escaped.

  Suppose they got the girls away from Ashford. What then? Neither Mac nor Dal was apt to keep the girls in the woods, where an attack might recapture them. So they would send them away to a safer place.

  Refugio or Victoria, and Refugio was closer. Who would go with them? Jesse was still not quite recovered from his wound, so it would be him.

  If they got the girls safely away with either Jesse or Happy Jack guarding them, Dal and Mac would come looking for her.

  The girls would have told Dal that she had gone off to the Connery ranch with Colonel Ashford. At the fight near the wagons, Ashford and some of his men had come racing in, but where would they think she was? They had two alternatives. She had either been killed or left at the ranch. There was a third, of course, which was the actual one. She had escaped.

  The renegades would come looking for the Travens and for her also. And the Travens would be looking for her.

  They would ride south toward Mission Bay, and she must try to intercept them.

  This was the land formerly held by the cannibalistic Karankawa Indians, and deep within the forest one might still find remains of ancient fires, and sometimes bones, but they had been primarily fish-eaters.

  The forest itself covered thousands of acres of mixed growth, scarred by long-ago fires. Closer to the beach the trees grew more stunted, and there was piled-up debris left from bygone storms that had broken over St. Joseph's Island and the peninsulas to wreak havoc on the inner shores.