Finally, he slowed his horse to a canter. Running his horse to death wouldn’t do him any good. But he continued to follow the contours of the land, keeping to the low ground wherever he could.
His half-brother was an idiot, and apparently he’d gotten exactly what he deserved.
He shook his head. About all he could do now was get to Messina down on Wolf Creek and do some damage control. Let him know this was his brother’s mess, not his, and that his brother already had paid the ultimate price.
* * *
Just over ten minutes after Corporal Connolly had told them to meet him at the west edge of town in a quarter-hour, Wes and Mac led their horses, saddled and otherwise outfitted, out of the livery stable.
Mac looked at Wes as they mounted up. “You watch. We get out there, they’re gonna wonder if we’ve got a trip planned or somethin’.”
Wes glanced at Mac. “Well, then I guess maybe we’ll have taught them somethin’, huh?” He grinned and shook his head, then turned Charley toward the road. “Let’s go, Charley,” he said, and nudged Charley, who broke into a canter and turned west into the road.
Mac caught up with him soon and they rode in silence until they spotted Corporal Connolly and Jack Stilson. The two men waved, then turned their horses and led the two new Rangers away from town.
Wes glanced at Mac and pointed at the horses in front of them. He grinned. Both of the veteran Rangers’ saddles had a bedroll lashed to the back of it.
When they reached a narrow, dusty crossroad about three miles out of town, Corporal Connolly stopped. When the others had gathered around, he looked at Mac. “I don’t know how familiar you boys are with this area.”
Mac glanced at Wes, then said, “Not at all, really.”
Wes just shook his head.
Connolly nodded, then pointed in the direction they’d been riding. “Keep headin’ that way you’ll come to Tucumcari an’ then Santa Rosa over in New Mexico Territory. Santa Fe’s a ways farther down the same road, a little north.”
He shifted his horse around and pointed to the southbound road. “This one turns southeast a ways out there. It leads to a big ranch headquarters down at Hereford, an’ then on down to Portales in New Mexico Territory. It’s also a pretty direct route to a place called Roswell. Along in there’s where Mr. Chisum and Mr. Loving and Mr. Goodnight are raisin’ their cattle. Keep on the same headin’ an’ you’ll cross the southeast corner of the Territory an’ end up back in Texas down in El Paso.”
He shifted his horse around again and pointed him north. “Today we’re goin’ north about another two miles.” He pointed. “You can see those low hills in the distance there. We’ve got a shootin’ range set up out there. It’s on part of the Wiljohn Ranch.”
At the range, the men paired off. Mac and Stilson went to the nearby course and Wes followed Connolly to another course about a quarter-mile away.
As they started going through their paces, neither Mac nor Wes had any problems hitting the targets with their revolvers, and both of them grouped their shots really well.
Doing the same while riding through the course was a different matter. On his first pass on horseback, Mac hit four targets, but missed twice. The second time through, again he hit four targets—a different four—but missed two. He got the same results the third time.
He rode back to the beginning of the course with a grin on his face. “Well, I got ‘em all at one time or another.”
Stilson didn’t smile. He said, “It’s all right. We’ll keep workin’ on that.”
Mac frowned. “I thought it was pretty good.”
Stilson nodded. “It was. If that was six men out there, you’d have downed four of ‘em on the first pass. Anybody would agree that’s pretty good, but pretty good’ll get you a long, slim ditch in the ground. Thing is, how sure are you that one or both of the others wouldn’t have killed you?”
He shrugged. “‘Course it don’t matter to me personally, except I’d hate like hell havin’ to dig a grave in this heat. We’ll try it again a little later.” He turned, reached up and took his Winchester from the saddle scabbard, then turned again and tossed it up to Mac. “Here you go. Repeat the course with this.”
“Riding?”
“Yep.”
Mac just looked at him.
Stilson stepped closer to Mac’s horse. “You ever ride with your knees before?”
Mac shook his head.
“All right. That’s all right. Just ride through the course a few times. Ride a little slow the first time and build up. Hold your reins loosely in your teeth. It ain’t to control your horse, but just so you don’t lose the reins or the horse don’t step on ‘em. Carry the Winchester with both hands to get a feel for ridin’ that way. Guide the horse with pressure from your knees.
“When you think you’re ready, ride through again at full speed. You ever need to shoot your carbine from the saddle, chances are you’ll be at a full gallop. When you want to shoot, put pressure on the stirrups, bring the carbine up, point an’ shoot quick. Don’t try to aim. You won’t be able to. The bullet’ll hit where you’re pointin’ when you squeeze the trigger.”
Over the next couple of hours, Mac rode the course five times without shooting, a little faster each time. The third time he rode the course while shooting, he hit every target.
When he got back, Stilson sent him through one more time.
Again, he hit every target.
When he got back that time, Stilson reached up for his carbine and Mac handed it to him.
Stilson said, “Okay, you wanna run it with your that Colt again?”
“All right.”
“Just remember, those are men out there. The only difference between them and you is they’re nervous.”
Mac rode the course, hitting five of the six targets.
When he got back, he said, “I missed the last one, but my horse stumbled.”
“And you were shot dead. Reload.”
Mac looked at him for a moment. He was on the verge of frowning, and then a light came into his eyes and he nodded. He finally understood. Excuses don’t matter when someone’s blown your spirit out through a bullet hole. Dead is dead. “Dead is dead, right?”
Stilson nodded. “Right. And until you’ve ridden the course and downed all six, you can’t know for a fact you can do it.”
Ah, lesson number two. Mac rode the course again, and he nailed all six targets. This time he didn’t ride back to Stilson, but paused at the start of the course and reloaded his Colt. Then he rode the course one more time. Again he hit all six targets.
Stilson nodded with approval. Quietly, he said, “Now you’re ready, Mac.”
On the other course a tenth of a mile or so away, Connolly was putting Wes through similar paces. Wes was a little cleaner with the Colt, hitting every target the first time through. To be sure it wasn’t a fluke, Connolly had him ride the course two more times. The results were the same each time.
As Stilson had done with Mac, Connolly passed his Winchester to Wes. “Can you shoot a rifle from the saddle?”
Wes nodded. “I think so.”
Connolly gave him the same basic instruction that Stilson had given Mac, then sent him through the course. The first time through he missed three targets. The second time, he didn’t miss any. Connolly had him repeat two more times. The results were the same, no misses.
Connolly nodded. “Looks like you’ve got a handle on this stuff. Far as I’m concerned, you’re ready.”
Wes grinned as he dismounted. “Thanks!”
Connolly just looked at him for a moment, then gestured toward a small outcropping of rocks low on the hillside. “Let’s sit over there in the shade for a bit.” When they were both seated, he said, “You’re pretty good at all this stuff, Wes. Pretty confident too.”
Again, Wes grinned. “Thanks.”
Connolly nodded. “Now I don’t know what the captain said to you about you goin’ off chasin’ after those Indian
s an’ I ain’t askin’. None of my business. But what is my business is makin’ sure you keep breathin’.”
He paused. “I got a feelin’ about you. I think you could be one of the better Rangers I’ve had the privilege to work with, but just one thing: don’t let your confidence get ahead of you.”
“Oh, no, I won’t.”
Connolly looked at the ground. “Well, that’s easy enough to say, but I lost two good men, experienced Rangers, just last week.” He looked at Wes. “One was through no fault of his own that I know of, but the other one died as the direct result of lettin’ his confidence get away from him.
“An’ no matter what else was goin’ on, that’s exactly what happened to you up there on Coldwater Creek. In this outfit, you have to follow orders. The guy givin’ the orders, sometimes he knows somethin’ you don’t know. Understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Now up there on Coldwater Creek, there wasn’t nobody to give you orders, an’ I understand that. But when that’s the situation, well, then you have to think as if you were givin’ someone else the orders. By that I mean, you have to think about the consequences.”
The look on Wes’ face showed he was focused on what the corporal was telling him. He nodded.
“An’ how you think about it is like this: What if they’d’a ambushed you with a lone warrior an’ he’d’a killed you with a knife or an arrow? Your partner wouldn’t have even known what happened to you.
“Or what if they’d’a captured you an’ tortured you? Or worse yet, what if they’d’a turned on you full force, an’ then you hightailed it back for camp an’ brought the whole damn mess of ‘em down on your partner?”
Wes paled. “I never thought about that.”
Connolly nodded. “I know. An’ it’s all right. We all have to learn, an’ there was no harm done this time. But although we all have to learn, out here we don’t have as much time to learn as the next guy does. What you learn right now might save your life a minute later.
“You know the old sayin’ ‘live an’ learn’? Out here it’s the other way around: learn and live. All I’m sayin’, turn it all over in your head. Think about everything you can think of that might happen before you decide to do somethin’ like that.”
“Yes sir.”
“Tell you one thing, I’m sure glad you didn’t meet that bunch face to face. I got a nasty feelin’ about that Four Crows. I think he’s gearin’ up to be worse than Iron Bear if that’s possible.”
“Yes sir, I’m glad we didn’t go face to face too. But... well, honestly, I got the strangest feelin’ when I saw him. Someday we will go face to face, I think. It’s hard to explain. It’s kind’a like that Injun and me exist for each other, sort of.”
Connolly nodded. “Believe it or not, I understand that feelin’. That’s kind’a the way I felt with Iron Bear. An’ the weird part is, I have a feelin’ that’s how he felt about it too. I think he always knew it’d either be me killin’ him or him killin’ me. Guess I just got him first. In a way, I’m kind’a sorry it’s over.”
Wes nodded. “I think I know what you mean. Not that I’ve been through it, but... sort of that I know I will an’ that’s all right.”
Connolly grinned. “Well, at least for now we’re both still here. Oh and listen, whatever your reason for not lettin’ your partner in on it when you decided to launch a personal attack on the whole damn Comanche nation, don’t do that again.”
“Yes sir, I won’t. Captain Flowers and me already had that discussion, and so have me an’ Mac. It won’t happen again.”
Connolly nodded again, then looked toward the other course. Stilson and Mac were mounted and heading toward him. “Well, here they come.” He stood, then glanced at Wes. “I’m really glad you boys decided to join up. I think we’re gonna be glad to have you.”
Wes stood up. “Thanks, Corporal.”
Connolly walked to his horse and mounted. Just as Wes put his left foot in the stirrup, Mac and Stilson rode up.
Stilson looked at Connolly. “You guys wanna go over to the Amarillo house? Maybe have a beer?”
Connolly said, “You guys go ahead. I need to stop by headquarters an’ see the captain. I’ll see you over there later or tomorrow mornin’.”
They all turned their horses and headed back into town.
*
Talbot rode through the evening without stopping except briefly a few times to water his horse. At around midnight he dismounted at the entrance to a deep, wide arroyo about thirty-five miles east southeast of Fort Perry and about twenty miles west of Indian Territory.
When the rains came, the arroyo would run off into Wolf Creek. The night was warm and humid and there was no breeze. The sky was full of stars.
His black hat was red-tan with dust, and it was white with sweat streaks around the bottom of the crown. In the dim moonlight, his black boots were scuffed to an eerie white along the outside. Even in the early morning, his off-white linen shirt clung with sweat to his back and chest. Beads of sweat glistened on his forearms below his rolled-up sleeves.
Holding the reins loosely in his left hand, he walked his horse along one edge of the sandy bottom. Every several steps he whistled a particular sound that was meant as a signal.
About thirty yards in, just as he began to repeat the whistle, came the distinctive click of a hammer being cocked near his right ear.
In fractured English, someone said, “Shh. Keep joo hands whay up there where I can see ‘em good.”
Talbot raised his hands to his shoulders. Quietly he said, “That ain’t necessary, amigo. Name’s Jade Talbot. I gave the right signal. I gotta see Messina. It’s important.”
“Sí, sí... sure, I onnerstan’, eh? Ever’body’s gotta see somebody, an’ iss always muy importante.”
Talbot’s belt tugged at his right hip as the man tried to take his revolver from his holster without removing the hammer loop first. A moment later he corrected that oversight and took Talbot’s Remington.
Talbot said, “Look, you know who I am?” Talbot thought he might be able to spin around and take the guy out while he was shoving Talbot’s revolver behind his gunbelt. He had just tensed his shoulders and hips to do that when he felt the barrel of the man’s gun at his back.
“Oh sí, sí, joo are señor Talbot. Ain’t that right? See? I remember good.” The man tugged at Talbot’s belt again just behind his left hip. A moment later he was fitting Talbot’s knife into his scabbard alongside his own.
“Look, I understand you’re just doin’ your job here, but I really gotta—”
“Shh, shh, shh... iss okay... sí, I know, I know... joo gotta see Messina. But joo forgot the mos’ importan’ thing.”
“You don’t understand. I got news about those Winchester repeating carbines we were gonna—”
Then there was something like a collision and a blinding light flashed from a point inside the back of his head. It filled his cranial cavity, momentarily illuminating the back of his eyeballs, and then everything went dark.
The man laughed. He nudged the inert form with his boot. “I do’n forget, señor Talbot... I remember good. Pero joo forgot something... joo gotta see Messina, pero Messina, he do’n gotta see joo.”
*
When Talbot woke up, Paco Messina was crouched in front of him alongside a small campfire, his forearms balanced on his knees. The firelight illuminated Messina’s face and his own. The heat reflected off his skin.
In Messina’s right hand was a revolver. In his left was a small branch he’d pulled out of the fire. It was an inch and a half in diameter and about a foot long. The end nearest Talbot’s face was glowing with over an inch of ember cut at a sharp angle.
“Jade Talbot, eh? Do I remember you, Jade Talbot?”
“Hey, Paco. Of course you should remember me. We’ve worked together a couple of times. And we were supposed to—” Talbot started to rise, but he could lift only his head. His wrists and ankles were tied to
stakes in the ground.
Paco waved one finger side to side and grinned. “Eh eh eh. You might be a bad man, my friend. First we talk, then we decide what to do with you. For now, you are only the man who came into my camp in the middle of the night demanding to see Messina.”
Talbot frowned. “Is that what your idiot guard said? Guy’s a moron. It wasn’t like that. I had news.”
“News, eh?”
“Yeah, news. Big news. Look, it would have been easy for me to set up camp out there somewhere, wait for sunup, and then ride in. But I came straight to you with news that I figured couldn’t wait.”
A couple of Messina’s men had wandered over to listen.
Messina grinned broadly. “Yeah? So what happened?”
Talbot flushed. “Whaddya mean, what happened? I dismounted, like we’re supposed to, I gave the right signal like we’re supposed to, and one of your idiot guards waylaid me anyway. That’s what happened.”
A few more of Messina’s men gathered nearby.
“Can you do it now?”
“Do what?”
“Give the signal.”
Talbot frowned. “Sure, I guess.”
“Do it.”
Talbot wet his lips with his tongue, then repeated an approximation of the signal he’d whistled the night before. It was a little different, lying flat on his back.
Messina cocked his head and frowned as if in thought. “Again?”
Talbot repeated the signal.
Messina looked at him. “Yeah, yeah, when you are right, you are right, señor. That is the signal. So what happened again?”
“Some idiot guard—”
“No no. I mean what happened earlier? What is the news that was so important you were going to wake me?”
“Remember we were working a deal? My brother is a sergeant over at Fort Perry. Do you remember that? His name’s Earl McGaffey. I told you about him. He was gonna work it out so we could raid the armory there and bring you a shipment of brand new Winchester repeating carbines, remember?”
Talbot continued, relating an abbreviated version of what had happened at the fort. “So my idiot brother—”
Messina grinned. “It seems you are surrounded by idiotas, sí o no?”
“Yesterday and last night it sure seemed like it.”
Messina gestured with the stick. “Please, go on.”
“My idiot brother had decided to take the repeaters directly to the Comanches. He decided to cut you out of the deal.”