The Ysabel Kid (2 page)
“Mister,” the small man on the paint looked Collings over with a cold, icy disgust the Lieutenant hadn’t seen since his first year as a plebe at West Point, the look a senior cadet gave to a junior who made silly suggestions. “When a Comanche Dog Soldier lights out like that not even a Texan can catch up with them. Likewise we know where they’re going. If we try to inflict further lessons on them, where they’re going they’ve got friends who’ll inflict it right back again.”
Handiman studied the small man who appeared to be in command of the riders. That other hand had called him “Cap’n,” it must be either a nickname or used in a mocking sense. If he was giving orders it meant he was in all probability one of Ole Devil’s kin. That would explain why they took his orders. There could be no other reason why grown men would obey so insignificant a youngster.
He wasn’t a tall man, this leader. Nor could he show such a commanding figure as the tall, heavily built General. His black J.B. Stetson hat was thrust back to show his curly, dusty blond hair. His face was handsome enough, a young face with grey eyes which looked hard at a man and met the gaze without flinching. Around his throat was a tight rolled bandana of red silk, the ends hanging long over his dark red shirt. The jean overalls were faded and the cuffs turned back, hanging loose over his expensive, fancy decorated boots. Around his waist was a hand-tooled gunbelt with a Confederate Army buckle and in the holsters of the belt were the matched brace of bone-handled Colt revolvers he’d used so well; they looked out of place on so young a frame, for the rider did not look older than sixteen or so. That paint stallion, too, was as fine an animal as it had been Handiman’s pleasure to look on. Yet the small young man did not look as if he should own or be riding so fine a creature.
The small man twisted in his cow horned, double girthed Texas range saddle and spoke to the others. “You bunch head back there to the herd. Uncle Devil’ll likely be fit to be tied if we haven’t finished branding and earmarking them by tonight.”
The other riders did not appear to object to this young man giving them orders but that was understandable. If he was kin of Ole Devil Hardin and the old timer told them to work under him then they would work. Ole Devil was the owner of a temper which was, to say the least, sulphurous and a flow of language that would not disgrace the best efforts of a thirty-year top-sergeant of Cavalry who’d been learning from a bullwhacker. That same temper and language would be turned full loose and with all his power on the head of any man who tried to make a fool of anyone Ole Devil chose to act as his deputy.
The small rider turned his attention back to the two Army officers after he’d watched the other men headed back in the way they’d come. His eyes were neither friendly nor subservient as he watched them and asked: “You wanting something in these parts?”
Handiman could hardly expect this coldness and lack of hospitality on the part of the young man. The war had been over for a year and although the rest of Texas was writhing under the heel of the reconstructionists, the Rio Hondo country was left strictly alone. Handiman was no even tempered mild mannered man himself. The Army was not an easy school and did not tend to breed mild mannered saints. However, for once in his life he held down the anger which boiled up in him. It would do neither him nor President Grant’s business any good to bawl out this small youngster who appeared to be quite a favourite with Ole Devil Hardin if his position of trust was anything to go by.
“We’ve come to visit Ole Devil,” he explained.
“That’ll make his day,” there was a mocking note in that soft-drawled voice.
Lieutenant Collings’ face turned red with anger. He’d been just too young to fight in the war but was full of the propriety of and the superiority of an officer in the Union Army when dealing with a Southerner. “This is General Handiman,” he snapped angrily. “You ought—”
“Spread’s that way. I’ll ride along in with you and make sure you don’t get lost,” the Texan replied, he looked around, glancing back in the way the buggy had come. “You lose many men?”
“None,” Handiman answered, silencing his aide’s angry outburst before it could even start. “We came alone.”
The small Texan glanced at Handiman’s face and looked around again. It was not the usual thing for a full General of the Union Army to travel around in Texas without a sizeable escort. Particularly if he was coming to the OD Connected on the business the Texan suspected.
“All right, we can get going then,” there was still no friendship or even any interest in the voice.
Handiman nodded to the aide who clucked to the team and started them forward at an easy walk. Handiman watched the young man riding alongside the buggy and tried to decide which of the three Rio Hondo families he belonged to. It was hard to say for the Hardin, Blaze and Fog men were all tallish men and this small, unassuming young man didn’t feature any of the clan Handiman knew.
The trail made a long, looping curve round the foot of the slope and at the far side Handiman found himself looking over a fair sized herd of cattle held by fast moving riders. Near at hand was the chuckwagon set up with a tall, grizzled old-timer just preparing food for the hands. At the far side of the herd, where much of the activity was taking place, the smoke from the branding fires rose to be dispersed by the wind before it cleared the rim.
The scene was one of feverish activity, cattle moved restlessly while the cowhands spun and raced their horses round oblivious of dust and noise. It was a scene that would be being repeated across the Texas range as the great cattle herds were gathered for the spring round-up.
Handiman looked around him. It was difficult with the churned up dust to see any of the riders on the herd plainly but one thing he was sure of. Ole Devil Hardin was not there with the men. This in itself was unusual and something Handiman wasn’t expecting, for Hardin lived by the maxim of never telling a man to do what he couldn’t do himself.
“Isn’t Ole Devil out here?” he asked.
“Nope,” The Texan was watching the herd work too, listening to the distant cry of “More straw,” as some brander shoved his branding iron into a fire which was not blazing enough to meet his approval.
“Never thought he’d be at the house when there was work out here to be done with his herd,” Handiman remarked, for there was .no need to conceal the fact that he knew Ole Devil really well. It might change this small youngster’s attitude if he knew that the Yankee General was an old friend of the family.
Once more the young man turned in his saddle and looked back along the trail in a suspicious manner. Handiman wasn’t sure if this was natural caution or if the Texan thought Handiman did bring an escort and had either sacrificed or lost all of them to the Comanches, or they’d run away. Handiman wondered why the Texan expected him to bring an escort on a peaceful visit to an old friend.
“Ole Devil ill or something?” Handiman asked as the Texan showed no sign of explaining the rancher’s absence.
“You mean you haven’t heard?” the Texan’s face almost showed surprise as he started the paint forward again.
“Heard what?”
“Ole Devil came off a bad hoss. Got piled and hurt bad.”
There was a sudden cold feeling came over Handiman’s stomach as he looked at the small young man. “Is he hurt bad?”
“Tied down in a wheelchair. He’ll likely never walk again.”
CHAPTER TWO
GENERAL HANDIMAN gripped the sides of the wagon, clutching until the knuckles showed white. It was a bitter pill to swallow, coming all these miles, wasting valuable time and then finding the one man he thought could help him crippled and tied to a wheelchair. Grant would be furious at the delay and the men who thought the Secret Service a waste of money would have further proof that they were correct.
The small Texan did not carry on speaking, he just held the paint to an easy walk, his cold, unfriendly eyes constantly checking on the back trail. Handiman was also in no talkative mood, even though he was curious to know who the young man was. He sat hunched in the seat looking mean and angry. From the corner of his eye he saw his aide open his mouth to say something, then close it again, the words unsaid.
They were still silent as the ranch came into view as they topped a rim. Handiman looked down at a place he would never forget, the place where his career met with its most outstanding failure. That was all this trip would be accounted in the records. He’d delayed the start of the Mexican business to come down here and obtain Ole Devil Hardin’s help. The help would not be forthcoming now, could not be if the old man was crippled.
The ranch house was a long, two-storey stone building which looked strong enough to be, and was, a fort in times when the Comanche raiders came sweeping down in search of war. At the right flank of the house stood the bunkhouse and cookshack, effectively covering one side of the house while being covered by it. At the other side, also stone built were the stables, store-sheds and a large building used as a dancehall when the guests of Ole Devil’s Christmas turkeyshoot came. At other times it served as a repository for saddles and other various gear. Out beyond the ranch, backing right up to the Rio Hondo stood the blacksmith’s shop, its forge sending up smoke as a man worked in it. In front of the building were three pole corrals, the one at the right with a snubbing post in the centre and empty, the other two with a scattering of horses and ponies. The main remuda would be out with the herd and the other saddlestock grazing on the range.
The reason for the ponies became clear as the buggy came nearer, it was holiday time in the Rio Hondo country and the children from the various families of the clan were out at the spread. A dozen or so boys ranging from eight to thirteen were playing in the empty corrals but they stopped and ran to climb the fences and watch the buggy coming nearer. Then as the small Texan brought his horse to a halt they swarmed over the rail with yells of delight and crowded round, asking to be allowed to walk the big animal.
The small man laughed and tossed the reins to one of the older boys, then told two more to attend to the visitor’s rig. This did not meet with approval from any of the youngsters and Handiman managed to grin at some of the comments about their having to take care of horses for a couple of damned Yankee blue-bellies. Yet they obeyed this small man without further question. That would be because they knew be was Ole Devil’s favourite. The eagerness to walk the horse came from the Rio Hondo boys’ love for fine animals and the paint was all of that.
“Ole Devil’s just come on the porch,” the Texan told Handiman, indicating the house with a jerk of his head. “I surely hope you know what you are doing.”
“I reckon I do,” Handiman answered. He was still at a loss to explain the young man’s attitude. He did not look old enough to have been in the War and gave the impression of being too intelligent to bear a grudge against a soldier who’d only done his duty by fighting for his beliefs.
“Dustine!” Ole Devil’s voice was the same as when Handiman last heard it. Hard, sharp and meant to be obeyed instantly. “What the hell are those blue bellies doing here.”
“You’re getting blind, you old goat,” Handiman yelled back before the Texan could speak. “And the War ended in sixty-five.”
Ole Devil Hardin leaned forward in the wheelchair and squinted, then he gave a yell back. “What the—By cracky, it’s you Philo. Come on up here.”
Handiman walked across the open space followed by his Aide and the small man. The General took his time and looked his old friend over. The face was the same, sharp, tanned and aristocratic. Coal black eyes piercing and level gazed, a hooked nose and a hard, grim fighting man’s mouth. The Confederate General’s coat hung loose over his wheelchair. Only the tartan blanket round his legs showed that he was crippled and would never walk again.
Behind Hardin stood a small, smiling man with an Oriental cast of features which made the cowhands think he was Chinese. He was Tommy Okasi, Ole Devil’s servant and he insisted that he was really Nipponese, whoever that might be. Ole Devil found him in New Orleans, where a clipper-ship brought and left him. The small man came back west with Ole Devil and settled down in the Rio Hondo where his small size and Oriental mein might have found him being bullied if he hadn’t been well versed in a strange fighting technique which rendered helpless even the biggest and strongest men.
“Get some burgundy, Tommy,” Ole Devil ordered as he shook Handiman’s hand and looked his friend over. “Didn’t recognise you with all that shining brasswork, Philo, and you’re getting as fat as a hawg.” He glared at his servant who hadn’t moved. “Where’s the burgundy?”
“Betty San told me no burgundy for you in daytime. She make me one time sick Nippon feller she hears I give it to you.”
“Betty’s back East,” Ole Devil barked back. “She’ll never know.”
The small Texan came up on to the porch after the others and sat on the rail, swinging his legs idly. He looked Handiman over for a long moment then remarked, “I thought it was strange, a full-blowed Yankee general coming here looking for Cousin Wes and without an escort.”
Handiman got it now, although his aide was still puzzled. It explained the young man’s animosity and his careful surveying of the range as he rode alongside the buggy. Handiman laughed: “You thought I was hunting for Wes Hardin?”
Then Collings got it. John Wesley Hardin, Ole Devil’s nephew, was being hunted by the Army for killing a drunken negro who attacked him. The young Texan thought this was what brought General Handiman here and so showed caution and escorted him to the ranch to prevent him going anywhere he shouldn’t. Collings scanned the range and wondered if even now Wes Hardin might be watching them over the sights of a rifle, primed and ready for trouble.
“Didn’t really think you’d be fool enough to try it alone,” the Texan went on. “But like Uncle Devil always says—”
“I can imagine, son,” Handiman interrupted, his tones more friendly now. Then he turned his attention back to Ole Devil. “You being stove up this way puts me in a hell of a spot.”
“How come?”
“I’ve been sent from Washington by Sam Grant. He wants you to do something for him, something real important.”
“Well now, does he?” Ole Devil’s frosty black eyes glinted at the thought of President U.S. Grant wanting his help so badly as to send the head of his Secret Service after it. “Old Sam must be getting pretty close to the blanket if he’s sent for me to help him.”
“We needed you badly,” Handiman agreed as he looked down at the blankets covering Ole Devil’s lower regions. “How did this happen?”
Ole Devil jerked an expressive thumb to where the boy was leading the big paint stallion round in front of the corral. “See that paint there. Finest piece of hossflesh I’ve bought in years, a real good hoss. Young Dustine here handles it real well. I tried.”
Handiman looked with renewed interest at the small young man. He might be young and not look much at all but he must be a horseman if he could trim and break the mount which threw and crippled the South’s greatest horse-master, Ole Devil Hardin.
“It leaves me in a hell of a hole,” Handiman remarked, wondering if he should tell Hardin why he’d come here and yet not wanting to say too much about it in front of his aide and the small man.
“Best tell me about it then,” Hardin answered.
Handiman coughed and looked at the small Texan who still lounged on the rail. “How about showing Mr. Collings here round the ranch house?” he asked.
“Sorry, I just came in to see you didn’t get lost. I haven’t time to act as guide for your boy,” the Texan swung down from the porch and jerked his hand towards the door. “Get Tommy to show him into the study, the guns might interest him. I’m going to the cookshack, Uncle Devil, Jimmo sent his louse in after breakfast and hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him since.”
Handiman offered his cigar case to Ole Devil and watched the young man walk away, then directed Collings to go and look over the collection of firearms which decorated the walls of Ole Devil’s study. Then with the porch cleared and the cigars going started to tell what brought him here. Ole Devil sat back, relaxed and enjoying his smoke, but he was listening with care and attention. When the talking was done he gave his opinion:
“Bushrod won’t come back.”
“I’d agree with you if it wasn’t for this letter from Grant. I hoped that you could take it and talk to him.”
“I might at that,” Hardin agreed. “You say you’ve got that letter from Grant with you?”
“Sure,” Handiman patted his pocket where the thick letter for Bushrod Sheldon bulged it. “It gives so many concessions that it only needs one more to say the South won after all.”
“All right then,” Ole Devil replied. “I’ll get it delivered for you. “Tommy!” This last was in a yell which brought the servant from the house. “Go get Dusty.”
Handiman watched the small servant hurrying across towards the cookshack but didn’t connect anything yet. He shook his head: “Bushrod won’t listen to anyone except you.”
“Won’t he?” Hardin replied stubbing out the cigar. “He’ll listen to the man I send. He’ll listen because I’m going to send him a message and a letter. And anyway he’d listen to the man I’m sending.”
The small Texan came back with Tommy Osaki, looking even younger with his hat in his hand. “You needing me, Uncle Devil?” he asked.
“Hold hard, Devil,” Handiman snapped, hardly noticing his aide had emerged from the house and was standing behind him. “This is a dangerous and very important mission and—”
“I know that,” Ole Devil snapped back. “That’s why I’m sending Dusty here. Do you think I’d be sending my segundo right in the middle of the spring round-up if it wasn’t? Was it less important I’d get one of the Blaze twins to go.” Then he stopped and a grin creased his face as he watched Handiman’s face. “Reckon I must have forgotten to introduce you. This is my nephew, Dusty Fog.”
Handiman’s cigar fell from his hand, his mouth dropped open and he stared for a second at the small man. He’d heard that name before, so had his aide and it was the latter who spoke:
“Captain Dusty Fog of the Texas Light Cavalry?”
“Retired,” the small man replied.
The name meant something to both of them, yet neither would have ever connected it with this small insignificant looking man. It meant that here stood one of the South’s supreme trio of raiders, ranking with Turner Ashby and John Singleton Mosby. It mean hard riding, hard hitting men striking like Comanches and disappearing again before the Umon forces could organise either defence or pursuit. It meant even more. This small, young man caused more than one professional Yankee soldier to curse impotently and wish he was fighting a more conventional opponent.
Things were more clear now to Handiman. Back there when that cowhand called Dusty Fog “Cap’n” it was respect and not derision. Handiman should have known that those reckless sons of the saddle never gave their respect to a man for who his kin were but for what he himself was. It was the same with the young boys out there. It was respect for their hero which prompted them to crowd round and ask to be allowed to handle his horse.
“I owe you an apology, Captain Handiman remarked as he held out his hand. “I didn’t recognise you. But you’ll do the job if any man can.”
“What job is that?” Dusty asked, looking from his uncle to the General.
“I want you to go into Mexico and bring back Bushrod Sheldon,” Handiman explained. “You’re the only one who could do it now Ole Devil is out.”
“I’ll try, but I know Bush Sheldon. He’ll not come.”
“He’ll come when he reads this letter from President Grant.”
“I’d sooner take him smallpox. It’d make me more popular with him,” Dusty growled.
Handiman smiled, this young man certainly knew Bushrod Sheldon. “You’d better read the letter,” he said and passed over the envelope.
Pulling open the flap Dusty opened the large sheet of paper and read it through. At the end he looked at Handiman and asked: “They want him back this badly?”
“They want him back that bad.”
Dusty whistled as he thought over the concessions made in that letter. He looked at the letter, then at his uncle. Ole Devil reached out a hand, took the letter and read it through. He folded the paper, put it back into the envelope once more and grunted: “It won’t be easy.”
“It won’t,” Handiman agreed. “Juarez won’t know who you are and his men have a nasty way of shooting gringos first then asking questions. The French may know we’re sending a man, and if they do they’ll move heaven and earth to stop you reaching Bushrod Sheldon.”
“That figgers,” Dusty replied, although he didn’t appear unduly alarmed at it.
“Do you speak French or Spanish??’
“Speak saddle Mex and a mite of French, can get by in either.”
“Good, it’ll be a help. Now Washington is trying to arrange for a man to go along with you as far as the Juaristas, I’d like you to go with him. There was a mixup over this and I don’t know who he is, or anything about him. He will be in Brownsville, Cameron County until the end of the week or so, waiting to contact the Juarez men. I’d like you to locate him and go with him.”
Dusty wasn’t too keen on this idea. He would much prefer to go alone, or if he needed help to take his now retired Top-sergeant, Billy Jack, or his cousin Red Blaze along. They were men he could trust, tried and found not wanting in either brains or courage.
“I’d rather go it alone,” he replied for both Red and Billy Jack were needed here in Texas.
“The man won’t go far with you. Only to the Juarez men,” Handiman replied. “Will you do it?”