Texas Rifles (14 page)

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Authors: Elmer Kelton

BOOK: Texas Rifles
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At midafternoon Cloud squinted into the shimmering heat waves on the horizon and reined up quickly. “Hold it, Easter,” he exclaimed. “There's somethin' up yonder. Indians, maybe.”
Before he could stop it, his horse raised its head, ears pointed forward, and nickered. From ahead came an answering nicker.
If it's Indians,
Cloud thought with a stab of desperation,
our bread is dough!
There was no need to run, for the horses couldn't have done it. Besides, there was nowhere to go. Cloud blinked, trying to clear his eyes.
“It's not Indians,” he said at last, a thin whistle of relief passing between his cracked lips. “It's a bunch of mustangs, wild horses.”
As they came closer, he watched them carefully. They were taking their time, pausing to graze. “They've already been to water,” he said. “If they was just goin' to water they wouldn't be stoppin' along thisaway.”
The mustangs broke into a run as the two riders neared
them. They warily circled far around and paused on a rise to look back.
“Easter, all we got to do now is backtrack them. It won't be far to water.”
He rode with the rifle across his lap, for where there was a waterhole there might be Indians. He doubted that the mustangs would have watered had men been around, but he didn't want to ride in unprepared.
Ahead he could make out a grove of cottonwood trees, their leaves a welcome green against the brass of a hostile summer sky. From the way the horses picked up, Cloud knew they had smelled water. He felt his pulse quicken as they moved nearer the trees. His dry tongue touched parched lips, and all he could think of was a pool of clear, sweet water—deep and cool.
He held up his hand for Easter to stay back as he eased up to the water, hand tight on the rifle. He looked around, anxiously scanning the trees, the rim of the pool, the rolling prairie which stretched on beyond. Finally he nodded and said, “It's all right, Easter.”
Cloud stepped down and loosened the cinches. He dropped the reins and let his horse drink. He reached up and helped Easter down.
“There's a spring right over yonder,” he observed. “It'll be a little cleaner than drinkin' after the horses.”
Easter replied, “I'm too thirsty to let the horses worry me.” He took out the cups and dipped water from the spring, handing the first cup to Easter. He gulped down most of his without stopping for breath. For a moment a spell of weakness passed through him. Then a sigh escaped him, and he smiled.
“Never was nobody ever distilled a drink to match good, cool water.”
Easter drank thirstily. Cloud was tempted to warn her to go slow, but he figured she knew. When her cup was
empty, he took it and dipped it full for her again. “Just this one more,” he said, “then we wait awhile. People have died from drinkin' too much water.”
When they had finished for a while, Cloud led the horses away from the water and unsaddled them, staking them in the shade. They wanted more water, but he said, “Just you-all wait awhile, boys. You'll get back to it directly.”
He walked around the pool, still feeling dry and wanting more water himself, but knowing he had to hold back. He found where the pool drained off at the far end into a creekbed that meandered out across the prairie, probably to disappear a few hundred yards away. He heard a footstep behind him and turned.
Easter said, “This is the place I told you about. We've camped here several times. From here on, I know my way.”
Cloud nodded, sorrow drifting over him. “Then I expect you'll be wantin' to leave me now.”
“It's too dangerous for you to come any farther. You've already come too far, I'm afraid.”
“I wouldn't have done otherwise.”
She nodded, her eyes level with his. “I know.”
“I don't want to see you go, Easter.”
She nodded again. “Some ways, I hate to go. But I have to, and you know I have to.”
He took her hands. “You can't leave now. You're too tired, and your horse is too tired.”
“We'll rest the night. We'll go in the morning.” He felt the pressure of her hand. “You'll stay with me?”
“I'll stay.”
Taking his rifle, he walked off down the creek out of sight. Then he set the rifle down within reach and took off his clothes. He eased into the creek and gave a long sigh as he slowly sank his body into the cool water. He
sat where the creek was shallow, leaning back on his elbows with only his head out of water. There he sat a long time, soaking. There was a strange thing about going for a long time without water: the body seemed to sap itself of moisture, drying the skin, shrinking the man. Yet, when water was found, it did almost as much good to soak in the water as to drink it, for the body would absorb moisture like a sponge.
Cloud sat this way a long time, knowing Easter was doing the same up at the main pool, and not wanting to disturb her.
When at last he climbed out, most of his thirst was gone. He was fresher now, the weariness lifted from his shoulders. He tried whistling, but found his lips still a little dry for that.
When he had put his clothes on again, he walked on down the creek, looking for game. To his surprise, he came upon a small group of buffalo. Nearsighted, they had not seen him. He knelt in the protection of the brush and took careful aim on a fleshy young cow, leveling his sights on her lungs. From experience he knew that was the best place to hit a buffalo. Squeezing the trigger, he saw the dust puff as the bullet struck where he had aimed it. The cow's hind legs folded. She swayed on her forelegs a moment, slinging her head, then fell heavily on her side.
Shying away from the shot, the other buffalo trotted off, then turned to look back. In a moment they caught the smell of blood and broke into a run that left a fog of dust. When they were gone, Cloud walked out and slit the cow's throat. He waited for her to die, then cut away a hind quarter and threw it over his shoulder with the hide still on it. Back bent under the weight, he carried it to the spring.
Easter had already started a fire. Cloud said jokingly, “Behold, the mighty hunter brings meat to camp,” somewhat
as he had heard it bragged a couple of times in the camp of friendly Tonkawas.
He could tell by a quick frown of disapproval that she didn't appreciate it. She evidently thought he was making fun of Indian ways, and he knew he
had
been, a little.
She said, “I saw the buffalo run, and I knew you wouldn't miss.”
He hung the hindquarter from a tree where Easter could slice it. While she set about fixing supper for them, he watered the horses again, then hobbled and staked them on the grass. The man and the woman ate silently, their eyes dwelling upon each other, and sadness in both.
By the time they had finished eating and putting the camp in order, it was dark. Cloud laid out his saddle and spread his blanket. He sat on it and stared off into the darkness, wrapped in thought. Easter watched him a while, then moved to him and sat down beside him.
“What're you thinking, Cloud?”
“Thinkin' I'll never see you again. It's a bitter thought, Easter.”
Leaning to him, she said, “There'll be another woman, Cloud. Just keep looking and you'll find her.”
He shook his head. “You're the one I want, Easter, the only one I've ever really wanted. Don't you have any of the same feeling for me, any of it atall?”
Easter's hand lifted slowly and rested on his shoulder. She turned her face up, her lips parted as if to speak. He touched her cheek and found it wet with a tear.
“Kiss me, Cloud,” she whispered.
He pulled her close. Her lips were warm and eager, her hands pressing against his back. He held her that way a long time, crushing her as the powerful want boiled up in him like a thunderhead.
“Cloud,” she whispered, “we won't think about tomorrow. Let's think only of now—of
us!”
C
LOUD WAS THE FIRST TO LEAVE THE SPRING. RIDING south with the morning sun just breaking across the prairie, he paused a moment to look back. Over his shoul-ier he saw Easter sitting on her horse at the spring, watching him go. He lifted his hand, and she waved back at him. Then she turned her horse about and disappeared.
Cloud clenched his fist and felt his throat go tight again.
“Well, I tried,” he murmured. “But a white woman is stubborn enough, and I guess a Comanche is worse.”
He touched spurs to the horse and angled southeastward, toward the settlements. He tried to put his mind on other things, like the old days before the war when he ran his own cattle on open grass to the east—not easy times, out enjoyable times when a man had freedom. He thought of old friends he had known, many of them gone now to the battlefields of Virginia. He thought of the Texas
Mounted Rifles, of Aaron Barcroft and Quade Guffey and Miguel Soto.
But try though he did, he could not push Easter from his mind. Again and again she came back to him until he gave up and let her take over. He remembered how he had first seen her, running like a deer, turning on him in defiance. He remembered her as he had seen her that day she went into Brush Hill, bewildered, trying not to show her fright. He remembered his own awakening to the magic of her and wondering if she felt any of it for him. Most of all he remembered last night, when she had shown too late that she loved him just as he loved her.
Too late! Many a time in his life he had wanted something, or had thought he wanted it—a horse, cattle, land of his own. But now he knew he had never wanted anything before the way he wanted Easter Rutledge.
He rode with his head down, blind to everything but the sorrow in his heart.
After a long time he knew he had to think of other things. Easter Rutledge was in his past now. He had to forget her—or
try
to.
A movement on a rise made him snap to attention, grabbing instinctively at the rifle, jerking it half out of the scabbard before he realized that what he had seen was only a few antelope, running to get ahead of him. He watched them cut in front of him and cross over from his left to his right.
Wake up!
he told himself roughly.
Life ain't over, but it could be if you don't keep your eyes propped open. They could've been Indians just as easy as antelope.
It came to him then that where there were antelope, water probably was not too far away. He hadn't given much consideration to water yet, for the canteen was full and the morning heat had not yet begun to make him thirst. But he realized how important it might be if he
could find water up here, could remember it and make a decent enough rough map so that others might also find it. That spring back yonder was a good starting place. He knew the direction he had been riding and how long it had taken him to cover the ground. Now, if he could find the water … .
He watched the horizon, and he watched the ground at his horse's feet. He watched for wild-animal trails that might lead him to water, and finally he found one: an old buffalo trail. It hadn't been used in a long time. He couldn't be sure whether to go up it or down it. He took a chance and rode down it awhile. Presently another old trail cut in and joined it. Eventually the trail he followed joined another, which had been used recently by animals. He stopped to study the signs. Buffalo, antelope, a few horses.
The latter worried him. Mustangs, probably, but how could he know?
He came upon the seep unexpectedly and found himself alone there. No Indians. Relieved, he dismounted and loosened the cinch to let the horse drink. Now that he saw the water, Cloud felt thirsty himself. He knelt above the horse and drank as closely as he could to the point where the water seeped out. It had a tang of gyp that made him wrinkle his nose. But it was wet, and its taste was not nearly so bad as the mudhole he and Easter had found on the way up here.
Water like this was hard on men's bowels when they weren't used to it. Many a time Cloud had boiled a strong tea out of cottonwood bark to cure diarrhea. It wasn't the best medicine—it was almost as bad as the ailment—but it was often the only one to be had. Here there weren't even any cottonwoods.
He had been afraid either he or Easter would sicken on
the muddy water they had been forced to drink. Luckily they hadn't.
After that stuff, nothing can kill me now,
he thought wryly.
Riding again, he thought how glad Aaron Barcroft would be to get his hands on a map that would guide him to the waterholes and lead him up onto the open prairie of the lower plains.
But,
came a chilling thought,
he'll probably be even gladder to get his hands on me!
Up to now Cloud had not given much consideration to the captain. There had been Easter to worry about, her problem to be solved. Purposely Cloud had shoved aside any thought of what the captain might do. Now he could no longer ignore Barcroft.
At best, he'll court-martial me. At worst, he'll hang me!
He felt of his throat, and gooseflesh rose on his skin. Damn! The man just might do it. Fact of the matter, he was more likely to than not.
He's got a back stiff as a poker,
Cloud thought.
He's not much given to compromise when he believes he's in the right. He took a woman's baby from her when he thought it was the proper thing to do. He's been through enough hell of his own that no matter what the other man might be tangling with, it looks tame to the captain.
So,
he considered,
if I ride back there now, it'll be my neck.
Desertion, Barcroft would call it. And delivering a white woman into the hands of the Indians.
Lord, how could I expect him to figure it otherwise?
Maybe the Lawtons could talk to him. Cloud pondered that, then shook his head. Nobody'd ever been able to tell him much. Cloud had seen the captain really unbend only once, when he rigged the escape of the young conscription-dodgers after one of them saved his life. And that
had been a weak moment. Later, given time to think, he might not have done it.
If I'm smart, I'll just keep right on riding. I won't stop for Barcroft or anybody.
A man could ride south into Mexico and just sit there till the war was over. Lots of them were doing it. He might have to be a little careful about meeting people on the way down—might even have to tell some outrageous lies.
Bet a feller could make himself a living out of cattle or something down in Mexico and have something to bring out with him when the war was over.
He had heard there was a little trouble down in Mexico, too; some kind of ruckus with a bunch of Frenchmen. He wondered what business a Frenchman had in Mexico any way. But no matter, an American could stay clear of that if he tried.
Mexico! Man, that was a long way to go—a long way from Easter Rutledge. But what difference would it make, when he could never see her again anyway? Wouldn't matter if he went twenty miles or a thousand, she was lost to him. Maybe she would be easier to put out of mind if he knew she was far away.
Well, sir, that was the thing to do—head south and not stop till he pulled up to dry the muddy water off of him on the far side of the Rio Grande.
But a worry tugged at him. Conscience first, for he would be leaving the frontier service at a time when it desperately needed men. Still, he would rather leave it this way than at the end of Barcroft's hang rope. Second, there was the idea that any knowledge he might gain of the waterholes, the plains route, would be lost with him if he left. No telling what it might be worth to somebody else to know what Cloud was finding out up here on the lower edge of the high plains.
Well, there was one way to fix it. He'd go by Lige Moseley's and draw a map. He'd let Moseley pass it on later, when Cloud had time to get far enough south so that he no longer had to worry about pursuit.
Badly as Aaron Barcroft might hate Cloud after this, he would be glad to get the map. And he wouldn't be ashamed to use it.
Maybe if I leave them this much, the rest of the bunch won't think too bad of me.
It took longer to get back than it had taken to ride out, for Cloud and Easter had been pushing hard at first. With little to go on but instinct, but with full faith in that, Cloud headed as straight for Moseley's as he knew how. He made a dry camp, then found another waterhole. It was muddy, and he could almost smell the gyp in it. He didn't drink any of it, but in a tight place he could have. So could anyone else.
Not far from Moseley's, he came across the tracks. His heart jumped as he stepped down for a look. Plenty of them—riders and loose horses—headed northwest. And from droppings he could tell the trail was not more than a few hours old—perhaps as little as one or two.
The short hair lifted at the back of his neck. Indians! It wasn't that he had any real way of knowing, but a man developed an instinct for it sometimes, like a dog. He wondered how he had been lucky enough to miss them, for their trail was almost parallel to his. There was just enough divergence that somewhere back yonder they had passed one another, unbeknown.
He thought then of Lige Moseley. If these Indians hadn't changed direction, they had come right by his place. A worry built in him, putting a burning knot in the pit of his stomach. This wasn't any little raiding party. This had been a large band of warriors, enough of them to accomplish just about anything they set their minds to.
He spurred into an easy lope. He backtrailed the Indians, watching all the while for sign of captives or white victims along the way. At length he came upon a dead horse and stopped for a look. Moseley's brand! A chill passed through Cloud. He swung back into the saddle and spurred again, no longer sparing his horse.
A spot of color ahead of him caught his eye. Even before he got there, he knew what it was. His horse shied away as wind caught in the cloth of a skirt and rippled it gently. Heartsick, Cloud stepped to the ground and walked up to the still form of the girl, lying limp in the grass, arrows bristling from her breast. Choking, he knelt a moment with hat in his hand, his eyes burning with tears.
Samantha!
He swayed, the shock hitting him in the stomach like the kick of a mule. He remembered Samantha as he had seen her before, her pretty eyes filled with curiosity—with a vague longing—as she watched him, her long blonde hair hanging about her shoulders.
Somewhere up yonder a Comanche brave carried that hair now as a trophy.
Cloud found himself murmuring a prayer. Then he looked about for something to cover her body. Finding nothing, he took the slicker from behind his saddle and used that.
“I'll be back, girl,” he said.
He rode on, his heart heavy as lead, for he knew what he must find now at Moseley's. He rode into the clearing and saw the vague drift of smoke being carried southward by the wind. The cabin was only half burned, for the Indians had not done a good job of setting the fire. In the grass around the house Cloud could see several patches of blood.
“They didn't take you easy, old-timer,” he breathed.
He found Lige Moseley—what was left of him—beside
the corral fence, his body riddled with bullets, cruelly hacked and slashed.
They hated him, Cloud knew. They took it out on him this time.
Mouth drawn tight, Cloud walked on to the cabin. In the front yard by the door lay the oldest boy, Luke. Mrs. Moseley lay in the doorway. Carefully Cloud stepped over her and walked inside the smouldering cabin. In a moment he was out again, retching.
The Indians hadn't missed a thing. Moseley's escape tunnel had not helped his family this time.
Blinded, Cloud leaned against the wall of the cabin and buried his burning eyes in his arms. He clenched and unclenched his fists, praying one moment, cursing the next. Finally he sat down heavily upon the ground, shaking his head and swallowing the huge lump that choked him.
“Lige, Lige … what an awful price to pay!”
He wondered then how many others had paid this price for the right to try to build a home, the right to move out and claim a raw land and try to make it grow. How many had died on this one raid?
“Lige,” he spoke then, looking toward the still body of the old man, “I was fixin' to run off to Mexico. Fixin' to run off like a cur dog and let you-all do your own fightin'. Shameful thing for a man to figure on, ain't it?” His face twisted. “Well, I ain't goin' to do it now. Somebody's got a lot to pay for, and I'll do my best to collect it, I promise you that!”
He got to his feet then, fists tight, color high in his face. “I swear to God, Lige, I'll stay here and fight!”
It occurred to him that he had not tried to account for all of the Moseley children. He had taken one look, then had fled. Now, he knew, he had to go back and take count, to be sure whether all were dead, or if possibly some were
missing. He forced himself to the door. There he hesitated a moment, stiffened his back and went in.

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