‘Look, we’re s’posed to be earning a living, outside the Law, sure, but that’s just our way of thumbing our noses at the North and their goddamn Reconstruction, we ain’t s’posed to be robbing our own kind, Southerners I mean.’
His hand flapped vaguely at the girl but Brewster scoffed. ‘She ain’t Southern, you blamed fool! She’s Yankee trash! Moved in with her man and a carpetbag, aimin’ to fleece us Texans and a—’
‘She’s only one of a couple of thousand Yankees. But never mind, I’ve had me a bellyful. I’m pulling out, and I’m taking her with me.’
Brewster’s eyes narrowed. ‘Pull out if you want, though I’ll admit I’ll be mighty sorry to lose a man so handy with a gun, but she stays! Till I’m good and through with her.’
Buck merely shook his head and waited. Brewster’s face was hard. The others held their breath, to see these two squaring-off was something! Would it be guns or fists, they wondered. Either way it would be something to tell your kids about. Neither man would back down, they knew that.
Brewster spat, eyes narrowed now. ‘She don’t mean anythin’ to you!’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
Brewster laughed. ‘God-damn! Knight in armour on a big white charger, huh? Man, you best leave that hillbilly upbringing way behind or you ain’t gonna live much longer!’
‘Long enough to do what I said.’
Brewster hesitated, then shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think so.’
There was a collective sucking-in of breath from the others, including the wide-eyed young woman, as Buck’s Remington appeared in his hand in a flash of blue-steel. He was already striding forward as he drew and Cord Brewster’s gun was only halfway out of leather when the heavy Remington slammed him across the head and dropped him cold beside the woman who gave a small cry.
None of the others tried anything and Buck and the woman rode out, taking all the horses with them. He turned the mounts loose once they were out of the sierras and took the dishevelled, complaining woman within sight of the settlement at Rafter Creek. He had a few dollars and pressed them into her hand.
‘Ma’am, don’t look for your husband coming back – I don’t think you’ll ever see him again – I’m sorry for all that’s happened to you. I hope you make out OK.’
She curled a split lip and he thought she was going to spit in his face but all she said, with savage hate, was: ‘You Southern scum! We should have killed you all! Rid our world of vermin!’
He turned his mount and rode away, hearing her calling insults after him until he disappeared into the trees.
He hadn’t travelled ten miles before he spotted the dustcloud behind him. The damn woman must’ve set the Reconstruction Vigilance Patrol on him, Enderby thought bitterly. Well, he had sure stuck his neck out for that one!
They were relentless and he rode two horses into the ground trying to outrun them. He stole a third mount from a corral and it was only half-broken and he had trouble fighting it along the trails. It delayed him long enough for the Vigilance Patrol to get within rifle shot and he had to make a stand. He nailed two of them but one got round behind and he took a bullet in the back. The Yankee whooped and jumped down from his boulder, running in to finish the job. Buck Enderby was hit bad but he had enough built-in fight left in him to draw the Remington and shoot the Yankee even as the man cocked the hammer on his rifle.
Enderby didn’t recall much of how he got away from the rest of the patrol, but he found his way down out of the hills to an isolated ranch.
‘Lucky it was your place, Kim.’ Buck finished, reaching across to the bedside table for tobacco makings again. ‘You took me in, sent the Vigilance Patrol away when they eventually came looking, stuffing me into your root cellar behind all them shelves of preserves. I owe you plenty, Kim, and it’s about time I started to repay you.’
She nodded somewhat absently. ‘You’ve had it rough, Buck. I’m glad you told me. But how come you went away this time and stayed away for so damn long?’
He looked uncomfortable, built and lit his cigarette before answering. ‘Well, I got itchy feet like I had a few times before and told you I was going riding for a spell. Could see you didn’t like it, but you never tried to stop me, seemed to savvy how I was, I liked that, still do. I came across a couple of hard-cases who’d waylaid a man and woman on the trail, were tearing the clothes off her while the husband was on the ground, beat-up and unable to do much. He was trying but the one watching him just kept kicking him down, I needed a horse so I stepped in.’
‘You … killed them both?’ Kim asked, tightlipped.
‘No choice … I gave the woman a blanket and started to patch up the man: he was a hell of a mess, face a mask of blood. But he said he was a doctor and would manage, said if I was ever in Del Rio to look him up – Bryce Franklin he said his name was.’ Buck seemed far away for a moment. ‘Somehow felt good. I knew I’d saved some decent folk this time, even if they were Yankees.’
He shrugged. ‘I took the hardcases’ horses and, later, ran into some men in the hills, a Texas Ranger patrol. It was down near the Border and they were having trouble questioning some Mexicans about a gang of contrabandistas. I knew Spanish so I handled things for them and in the end they caught the smugglers red-handed. There was quite a gunfight and I got caught up in it. They said there might be a reward so I rode with them to Ranger Headquarters. Figured a few extra bucks would come in handy. I could start paying my way out here on your ranch, for one thing.’
Her face softened but he continued before she could speak. ‘Think they kind of flimflammed me out of most of the reward, if there ever was one, but I didn’t care, I was interested in the Rangers by then, the men having told me about ’em on the way back from the Border. They were keen to have me with them because I could use a gun pretty good as well as speak Spanish.’
He watched her face but it showed nothing much now.
‘They said if I was interested in joining, I’d have to see their Captain Cordell … I figured I had nothing to lose by finding out a bit more, so they took me in to meet the Captain.’ He paused again and looked steadily at her. ‘It was Cord Brewster.’
CHAPTER 3
RANGER
Kim Preece looked sharply at Enderby as he made his announcement about Brewster.
‘The same Brewster you gunwhipped for slapping that Yankee woman?’
He nodded. ‘Called himself “Nathan” Cordell.’ He smiled wryly. ‘So he would never forget my name.’
‘You hadn’t told him your real name?’
‘No – “Nathan” was what I used in the army, took it from my home County. It stuck afterwards but when I came here, one jump ahead of the Reconstruction Vigilance Patrol, I figured I might’s well revert to “Enderby”. No one knew me by that monicker outside of Tennessee.’
She nodded, watchful, as she asked, ‘And how did Brewster greet you at Ranger Headquarters?’
‘Sent the other Rangers out after they’d told him how I’d gotten involved, then gave me that old calculating stare and twisted smile I knew so damn well….’
‘Strange way for us to meet again, eh, Buck?’ Brewster said from behind his desk, turning a pencil end-for-end in his big left hand. He moved his head a little so Enderby could see the left side of his face. There was a scar there that slightly pulled up the corner of his mouth. ‘Put your brand on me with that Remington of yours, lost a couple of teeth, too.’
‘Long time ago, Cord.’
Brewster stared hard and long, then, slowly, that old engaging smile widened. He slapped the pencil down hard against the desk, making a sharp, gunshot sound. ‘Hell, yeah! You’re right, we’ve both come a long ways, I reckon. You still on the drift?’
Buck said he was, just happened on the Rangers interrogating that Mexican.
‘Still good in a gunfight, according to Brosnan. Can use a man like you.’
‘In the Rangers? Brosnan said there might be a reward for the capture of those contraba
ndistas. That’s really why I came.’
Brewster shrugged. ‘Mexes might’ve had something out on him. We operate on a shoestring, no rewards, not even regular pay.’ He gave Buck a sly look. ‘But a mighty fine hiding place for a man on the dodge.’
Enderby grinned. ‘So that’s how come you joined up!’ He indicated the wooden nameplate on the desk – Captain Nathan Cordell. ‘You didn’t waste any time.’
‘Rangers had been disbanded by the Reconstruction and Governor Davis formed the State Police instead. He’d given ’em a licence to raise complete hell, no questions asked, but you know Texans. The State Police became a hot potato politically and about nine years after the war, a feller named L.H. McNeely from Washington County set up a new Ranger force. Even got ’em supplied with brand new Colt .45s, but the rifles were old Sharps buffalo guns till they decided to buy their own Winchesters. Dedicated men, at the time I was looking for somewhere to hide for a while, the Rangers were glad to grab anyone who knew which end of a gun was which. I had no trouble making “Captain Of Troop”, not as fancy as it sounds. Still need good men, Buck. Pay’s terrible, worktime’s twenty-four hours a day and then some, but you get to smell gunsmoke and see places. And sometimes there’s a bounty to be picked up.’
‘Thought you were only s’posed to work in Texas?’
‘That’s the notion. But you get on the trail of some hardcase and he crosses a State Line or the Border.’ He shrugged. ‘Just carry your badge in your pocket instead of pinning it on your shirt and keep your head down, we get our man, even if we have to break a few laws to do it.’
Enderby was interested, he had this restless, unfulfilled feeling he couldn’t shake. He had been happy enough at Kim’s place but every so often the wanderlust had itched too bad to be scratched by just riding into town for a night in the saloons. He had to travel, put some distance under his feet. And – he admitted silently – he had that Enderby streak in him that seemed to need conflict every now and again. Trouble-hunting, some called it. But his father used to say:
‘There’s a lot of enemies out there, boy. And once you’ve identified ’em, why wait for ’em to come to you? Go meet ’em and bury ’em, you’ll sleep easier.’
So he joined the Rangers. Kim had taught him to read and write a little, and he signed ‘Buck Enderby’ on the application form before he realized it. Brewster smiled.
‘So “Enderby’s” the real name, huh?’
Buck cussed himself but it was too late now. ‘Just like “Brewster’s” yours.’
Brewster’s smile faded. ‘Yeah. Well, that’s just between us. Hell, glad to have you with us, Buck. I can use that Spanish of yours…. You heard of Senator Pardoe?’ When Buck shook his head, Brewster added, mouth twisted bitterly, ‘Yankee, high up in the Reconstruction running the Lone Star State. Rich as all get-out, likely from carpetbagging in the early days after the war, but he’s a mighty powerful man. He helped get McNeely to form the Rangers again. Figures they’re his baby, you know?’
Buck waited, having no idea where this was going.
‘Got a boy – Renny – seventeen or thereabouts, spoiled rotten. Some woman trouble and one the Senator couldn’t cover up easy so he sent the kid down to Mexico where he has some cattle holdings. Kid got into trouble down there, too. Messed with a señorita, youngest daughter of a ranchero named Diego, who was promised to some silver-haired old hidalgo, another powerful man, and he didn’t like that gal bein’ spoiled for him. Made it pretty damn hard and risky to try to get the kid back to the States so he’s had to lay low. The men Pardoe sent down were good but not good enough, the kid’s stuck down there in some rat-ridden village and Pardoe has been putting the pressure on me to use the Rangers to get him out. He’ll pay a thousand bucks to the man who does it.’
Brewster stopped speaking, gave Enderby a quizzical look. Buck took his time, thinking how he could put that thousand dollars to good use.
‘You’d have to go down as an ordinary cowpoke,’ Brewster went on. ‘Can’t give you anything in the way of “official” assistance. But there’ll be a few contacts, which is why your Spanish will be so handy.’
Buck made up his mind quickly: he owed Kim Preece plenty. He knew she didn’t see it that way, but he had been brought up to always pay his way and this was a chance to do just that. Like it or not, he felt beholden to Kim and that thousand would help square things – in his mind, anyway. ‘Better gimme the details, Cap’n.’
Brewster smiled in that friendly way of his, but Buck didn’t notice the faint twist to the smile.
Maybe it was only from the scar left by the gunwhipping.
The village was in the Durango Region, called Gallatera. It was a known hang-out for men on the dodge, if they were headed south – most likely with US law breathing down their necks – they stopped for fresh mounts and grub. If they were headed north – maybe with Mexican law breathing fire on their tails – then they stopped to replenish supplies before the last long, dangerous run up to the Rio.
And there were others who more or less ‘lived’ there in Gallatera. They survived by preying on norteamericanos, whichever way they were going.
And there were those who, for a monetary consideration, would help these fugitives. At least, until the desperate men ran out of funds.
Then they were fair game, especially if there was a reward. If not, they would simply disappear from the face of the earth.
But Renny Pardoe was a special case.
He was being hidden from men who would drag him back to the old hidalgo, one Don Alvaro Balboa, for whatever reward he would pay. The men hiding Renny wanted money too, and would see that no harm came to the boy until they were sure they could take him back across the Rio and claim the thousand silver dollars offered by Senator Pardoe.
There were three hard-eyed, gun-hung Mexicans who watched over Renny Pardoe – Señors Ruiz, Mantello and Corzo. Each was a man feared in his trade and all of them had known the fearsome dungeons of the Region’s notorious prison, Negra Sanctuario – Black Sanctuary. Some Mexican’s idea of a joke, although legend had it that the prison was built on the site of an old monastery where the monks had dressed all in black, even to a mask over their faces, an outlawed sect that had fled Spain just ahead of the Inquisition’s executioner.
The monks had offered sanctuary to any traveller, outlaw or pilgrim, but the monastery didn’t last long.
Renny Pardoe’s ‘sanctuary’ was in a cold, dirty adobe building on a rise just to the southwest of Gallatera’s main plaza and the collection of shanties and crumbling houses that made up the village.
He was fed, lousy food by even a pig’s standards, but better than nothing when you were starving. He wasn’t really ill-treated – they shared an occasional whore with him – but it was no hotel. None of the three caballeros who guarded him took the least scrap of notice of his tantrums, content to wait until it was safe to move. Then another man arrived, said his name was Temprano, that he had received instructions from Renny’s father to bring his son home safely at all costs – and the reward would be increased to two thousand silver dollars.
The bigger bounty interested the bodyguards, of course, but they did not see that they should share this with Temprano who showed no sign of moving out after delivering his message. He had the look of a gunfighter and deep down, they were afraid of him.
So they planned to murder him, using a whore to divert his attention, but held back because Temprano had hinted that he knew the plans for moving Renny Pardoe safely. Until the trio knew these plans, they couldn’t kill Temprano. But word filtered from the town that men were gathering down there, gringos and Mexicans, who were planning on a concerted move against the sanctuary.
For, now, a counter-offer had been made by the Don Balboa – five thousand pesos to the man who turned over the norteamericano violator of women to his men….
To Señors Ruiz, Mantello and Corzo, that sounded like a better deal than two thousand American dollars.
But f
irst, Temprano had to be eliminated and they began making plans to do this.
And into this hotbed of festering treachery and potential murder, rode Ranger Buck Enderby, carrying his badge pinned to his undershirt and his tuned Colt .45 in the greased and angled cross-draw holster.
It was a hot and sultry afternoon with threatening thunderheads blotting out the sun and bringing down early dusk to the Durango hillside.
He found his way out to the adobe on the rocky slope where Renny Pardoe was supposed to be guarded. His welcome was a rifle shot from behind some boulders and the bullet sang past his ear.
It was Ruiz who did the shooting, with an old Henry, and he levered in a fresh shell swiftly, intending to bring down the horse. But it looked a good one, a sturdy chestnut gelding, and Ruiz decided he could use such a fine mount. So he would shoot the man first. He shifted aim and stopped….
Because the strange rider was no longer in the saddle.
Ruiz was bewildered, half stood to look into the small boulder field beside the trail. He did not notice that the Winchester ’66 rifle was missing from the saddle scabbard, but he may have known an instant before Enderby’s slug slammed into his chest and knocked him sprawling. Ruiz dropped the Henry, sobbing in pain, tasting blood. He fumbled at his revolver but by that time, Enderby was standing over him, the smoking muzzle of the rifle only inches from the Mexican’s distorted face.
‘You got Renny Pardoe inside?’ Ruiz only gasped and spat blood. Enderby prodded him roughly with the rifle. ‘You hear me, mister?’
Ruiz nodded, but his head was limp on his neck and his eyes were rolling up. Enderby knew he didn’t need to waste another bullet on him. He threw the Henry and heavy old revolver into the boulders, got the chestnut under cover and made his way up the rest of the slope, dodging from rock to rock. He knew he was being watched from the adobe.
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