Texas Drive (11 page)

One of Ted’s friends, a kid who couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, got shot through the belly. Ted knelt beside him where the blood on his uniform almost obscured the foot of intestines ripped through the wound by the minié ball. The kid kept screaming, and Ted could do nothing but slit the wound a little and stuff the intestine back. Then he sat there and held the kid’s head in his lap until he died.

All day and into the next, it continued. Men fell on both sides by tens and hundreds. He never did learn how many died. But the smell of the gunsmoke, so thick it hung like a lowering fog over the fields, was still with him.

And it was to get worse before it was over. A charge with fixed bayonets into a Federal camp, almost on the banks of the Tennessee River, was the last straw. Sweeping through the tents, firing at things that moved and things that didn’t, they burst open the camp, stabbing at wounded men who were too close to death to do anything but lie there and feel the cold steel again and again slice through their bodies.

And the men wielding the bayonets were men he slept and ate with, men he sang with at nights. They were his friends. They were just like him.

And it made him sick.

It was then he started to wonder. He didn’t sleep much for the next three years. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the kid holding his gut, then the eyes closing, as the kid died. One officer, his arm blown off by a Federal battery, stared at the bloody stump every night in his dreams, the uninjured hand waving in the air where the other arm had been, as if he couldn’t believe his arm was no longer there.

So damn long ago, he thought, so damn long ago that it must have been someone else asleep on that earlier hill. That was where it had all started. And this is where it had led.

And the pictures flashed through his mind one after another. Things he could not forget, and things he did not want to remember. Whenever it happened he tried to force himself to look somewhere else. There were so many things he remembered barely at all. Memories flitting just below the surface, like trout darting under sunny water, hiding in the glare, slipping into the shadows, teasing him with a curve here, a faint flick of a tail there. And as soon as he would cast for them, they were gone.

It would be better to remember nothing at all, than to remember only those things he could remember. Once in a while something would tease him. Some smell would carry him back to Alabama for a moment. His mother would be in the
kitchen, flour up to her elbows, a checkered apron knotted around her waist. But as soon as he tried to focus on it, it would be gone. It was like he were a criminal, teased by the things he couldn’t have. Pounding on the bars got him nowhere. He could look, but not touch.

And tomorrow would begin one more of those strings of memories he was condemned not to forget. Where it would lead was anybody’s guess. That it would end violently was certain. That someone would die was probable. That it might be Ted Cotton seemed like a blessing.

As he finally drifted to sleep, he felt like he were flying. His body seemed to lift off the ground. He felt the wind carry him along like the hawk he had been watching at sundown. He could see all the way to Mexico, and the tips of mountains he’d only heard about flashed in the sun.

Then everything went black, and he was falling. He fell forever, but he wasn’t afraid. He didn’t tense up, waiting for the impact of his body on the ground. He knew, without having to think about it, that it might never happen, and if it did, he knew it wouldn’t hurt.

He woke up just as the sun came up. Rubbing his eyes, he watched the red light in the east fade away. It grew white, and he could no longer bear to look at it. Even the water of the Arkansas turned white as milk.

As soon as he felt the sun’s warmth on his skin,
he walked downhill and rebuilt his fire. The last of his coffee went into the pot, barely enough to make a cup, but it would have to do. Gnawing on a hunk of dried beef, he waited for the coffee to brew, then washed the salty taste of the meat down with the scalding liquid.

Kicking the fire out, he saddled his pony and secured his relief horse to the saddle horn, using a longer rope than usual for the crossing. Swinging up into the saddle, he felt light, almost cheerful. Whatever lay ahead of him was something he had to confront. The sooner the better, he thought.

As his pony eased into the river, he braced himself for the first burst of current. The pony started to swim, straining to keep its head above the swirling waters. He could feel the animal reaching for the river bottom, its legs churning like windmills.

And when he got close to the opposite bank, the pony exploded out of the water, as if frightened of something beneath the surface. Ted looked back, wondering if he would live to cross it again. Then, as if Texas were someplace he never expected to see again, he turned away from the south and kicked the pony up the slope. He wondered where the herd had crossed, and tugged Rafe’s map from his shirt pocket. He’d examined it so many times, it was falling apart at the creases. Mud-stained, some of the pencil marks rubbed away by his fingertips, it could barely be read in spots.

But he was close now, and in a day or two, he’d no longer need it at all. There were no maps leading to Ralph Conlee. He’d have to find the bastard on his own.

But he was ready.

He
would
find him.

THE FIRST TASK
was to find the herd. According to Rafe, the hands were going to camp in the area until Ted decided what to do. Rafe had negotiated permission from the sheriff, on the condition that the beeves be kept under close guard and not allowed to wander freely. The farmers had been unhappy with the decision, but they had agreed. Conlee’s raiders had visited more than a little grief on them, and Rafe thought they harbored the secret hope that somehow, working with the cattlemen, they could rid themselves of the scourge once and for all.

A mile from the river, Ted hit a road and headed west. So far, he had seen no sign of human life, no fences, no tilled fields, no buildings of any kind. There was only the road, which started on the eastern horizon, in the middle of nowhere,
and stretched out toward another nowhere in the west.

When he’d gone four miles, he spotted a plume of smoke ahead. It appeared to be just off the road, and he broke his pony into a trot. A half hour’s ride brought him in sight of a chimney. As he continued on, a roof rose above the flat ground, hovering like a platform in the air. Slowly, the roof rose and the house beneath it appeared. Ten minutes later, he could see a fence, running straight off the road, and he galloped toward it.

Turning into a narrow lane, lined with split rails on either side, he approached the house, not knowing quite what to expect. A barn, fifty yards from the house and surrounded by trees on three sides, sported a large railed pen, in which he could see half a dozen horses.

Beyond the barn, a fenced field contained more than two dozen head of the strangest-looking cows he’d ever seen. Instead of the long, lean lines of the Texas longhorns, these animals were blocky, more like buffalo than cows at all. Reddish brown with white faces, he thought they might have been built to the blueprint of a child’s crayon sketch.

He entered the broad yard, slowing his horse as much out of uncertainty as courtesy. A figure appeared in the barn doorway. The man ducked inside for a moment, then reappeared with a shotgun and ran toward the house. By the time Ted reached the hitching post by the porch, the man was
planted in the doorway, the shotgun none too casually aimed in his direction.

“Howdy,” Ted said. “Mind if I get down?”

“Depends on what you want.”

“Information, mostly. And some fresh water.”

“Water we got. Information, maybe.”

Ted slipped from the saddle. “Mind if I tie up?”

“Long as you don’t knot it.”

Walking toward the porch, Ted held out his hand. “Name’s Ted Cotton.”

“Cotton?” The man seemed to relax a little. “Texas, right?”

Ted nodded. “That’s right. How’d you know?”

“You Johnny’s brother?”

“I was, yes.” Ted swallowed hard.

The man on the porch shook his head and let the shotgun rest on the floor, butt first. “That was a damn shame, Mr. Cotton. I sure am sorry.”

When Ted didn’t answer, the farmer said, “Kevin O’Hara’s my name. Come on inside. You must have had a long ride. Seems like Rafe didn’t leave that long ago.”

“You met Johnny, then?”

O’Hara nodded. “I did. I wish things could have worked out different. But …”

“They will,” Ted said. “I can promise you that.”

“You don’t mean you’re gonna take Conlee on, do you?”

Again, Ted was silent. O’Hara turned to step through the door and held the screen open for Ted
to follow. Inside, Ted saw a large room, with a big wooden table and a coal stove in one corner. Half a dozen chairs lined the table, three on either side. “Have a seat, Mr. Cotton. Let me get Millie.”

O’Hara disappeared through a doorway hung with a blanket, and Ted could hear low voices beyond it for a moment. O’Hara reappeared and pulled a chair out from the table. “Have a seat. Millie will be right out.”

O’Hara dropped into a chair, and Ted sat across from him. The farmer looked at him directly, as if he were trying to place him in memory somehow. “You favor your brother a bit. He was bigger, but…”

Ted shook his head. “It’s alright. I don’t mind talking about it.”

O’Hara sighed. “I should have seen it comin’, but everybody here was so worked up about your herd, all we could think about was ourselves.”

“I gather Conlee is a problem for you folks, too.”

“Problem? Oh, yeah, you could say that, but it don’t go half far enough. He’s got everybody on the border for two hundred miles in either direction shaking in his boots. Good reason, too.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s a savage, worse than any Indian. The man has no shred of human decency or compassion. He doesn’t just take what he wants, he kills who he wants, and tortures people for the fun of it. Why, not three months ago he …”

O’Hara stopped when he heard footsteps just beyond the suspended blanket. “Here’s Millie.”

A slender young woman, her sandy hair pulled back in a bun, stepped through the doorway and smiled. “Mr. Cotton,” she said, “would you care for something to eat?”

“No, thanks, I just …”

“Come now, you must be hungry, and it must be weeks since you’ve had any decent food.”

“Don’t want to be any trouble, ma’am.”

“No trouble, I assure you.” She didn’t wait for him to argue any longer. Turning her attention to the stove, she got a fire going under a huge iron cauldron. “I made this soup this morning. I just have to heat it up.”

O’Hara watched her fondly. “No point in arguing with Millie. She gets a fire under her, there’s no turning back. You’re bound to eat something whether you want to or not.”

Ted smiled. “I guess I better get my bib, then.” He laughed. “Now, Mr. O’Hara, what were you about to tell me?”

Millie canted her head slightly. O’Hara noticed and shook his head. Signaling with his eyes that he didn’t want to talk in front of Millie. “No need to bother about that right now. Plenty of time to talk. Listen, I got to finish up in the barn. Care to give me a hand?”

“Man ought to earn his keep,” Ted said, pushing back a chair.

The men walked outside and O’Hara glanced back once or twice at the house, as if to make sure that Millie hadn’t followed them.

Once they entered the barn, he turned to Ted. “I don’t want Millie to hear any of this. She’s already nervous about being out here. What I’m gonna say would just make things worse.”

“It’s that bad, is it?”

“Worse. The sheriff’s a good man, but we might as well be without the law. Conlee and his animals know nobody will help Tom Mitchell. They can go anywhere and do anything. Not just around here, but all up and down the border. There’s not enough law. The army don’t seem to care. Maybe it’s too much trouble for them, or maybe they worry too much about the wrong kind of savage. I don’t know. But what I
do
know is that Conlee has to be stopped. But I don’t know how.”

“He will be.”

“Can you count on your hands?”

“I don’t know.”

O’Hara seemed surprised at the answer. “They seemed to worship your brother. I would have thought …”

“They did worship Johnny. But they’re not so sure about me.” Ted debated whether to tell O’Hara about the last few weeks in Texas, before Johnny had come north with the herd, but decided there was no point in it. “Johnny was always the boss. Cowhands are funny. They don’t transfer
loyalty so easy. Just because you’re related to the boss doesn’t make you the boss. You got to earn their trust. I haven’t. Not yet, anyway.”

“I wish I could tell you folks around here would pitch in, but I can’t.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Will you pitch in?”

“I don’t think so.”

Ted shook his head. “No wonder Conlee gets away with murder.”

“Look, Ted, you have to understand something. Conlee is like a force of nature around here. He was here before I got here. He’ll be here long after I’m gone, most likely. But as long as I’m here, I got to
be
here. You can just saddle up and ride away. You get him riled up, he won’t chase you but so for, because he knows this area, and he knows the people. It makes him feel secure. But if you get him riled up, he’ll take it out on somebody, whether you’re here or not. That means me and folks like me. Our whole lives are here. We
have
to stay.”

“If you call it a life, letting somebody like Conlee keep you scared of speakin’ your mind, scared to stand up for yourselves, then I guess you’re welcome to it.”

“Look, Ted, I can understand you being angry, disappointed even, but that’s the way it is. I’d be lyin’ if I said it wasn’t. But look at it from our point of view. Hell, it was your brother he killed,
among others. If Johnny couldn’t beat him at his game, how can you expect a bunch of farmers to do it. Hell, I never even saw a gun until we packed up to move out here, much less own one. Even now, I don’t know whether I’d trust myself to use it. I can stand up to any man in a fair fight, with my hands. But that’s not what this is. This isn’t hands, and it sure as hell ain’t a fair fight. Unless you get that through your head, we might as well get your headstone ready, right next to your brother’s. Because that’s what it’ll come to.”