Eight
LANCING IN BELOW BRUSH HILL, THE INDIAN RAIDING party had struck out in an arc northeastward. Plenty of settlers in that direction, and plenty of horses. Good strategy for the Indians. Coming in from open country to the west, they could go out to the north without having to retrace their steps, without running head-on into aroused white pursuit.
The raid caught Barcroft’s company short, many of his men out on scout and patrol duty. He sent quick word to those he could reach in short time. The others he would have to do without. To those who could get the message, he set a rendezvous point so the rest of the company would not have to wait in camp. Two hours after the alarm was raised, the company was riding out in a column of dry dust, spurs jingling, saddle guns jostling in leather scabbards. Silent men sat straight, shoulders squared, a battle-eagerness in their faces.
Out in the lead rode Cloud and Soto, the Mexican led by his unerring instinct even though they hadn’t yet struck the trail. He knew which way it had headed—where they were most likely to cross it without riding unnecessary miles. He rode to it like a bee to the hive.
As the small company moved along, some of its men began catching up and falling in from other duty, adding strength. At the appointed rendezvous point, Barcroft called a short halt for rest. And while the men waited, others showed up as instructed.
Barcroft looked with Miguel and Cloud at the trail the Indians had left. “About fifteen of them, you think?”
Sí, mi capitán,” said Miguel. Cloud nodded agreement.
The captain glanced back over his men and nodded in satisfaction. “Fair match, then, I’d say. Let’s go.”
The Indian tracks were several hours old, but the Rifles were pushing their horses as hard as they dared, yet saving strength for a long chase if it developed.
At length the company came upon a spot where the Indians had reined up and milled around as if in conference, then had scattered. Cloud raised his chin and sniffed. “Smoke, Captain, I do believe.”
Barcroft took a long breath and replied, “You’re right. Let’s find it.”
They rode out, and the smell grew stronger. Cloud glanced at Miguel, then swung his rifle around in front of him on the saddle, where he could get at it in a hurry. He could see the smoke now through a line of brush which clustered along a summer-dry watercourse. Breaking through the brush, he and Miguel saw the still-crackling ruins of a cabin, the roof tumbled in among the charred sidelogs. They reined up to give the scene a long look from some distance.
“Been a spell since they left, I reckon,” Cloud commented in a moment. “We better look around; might still be somebody alive.”
Even as he spoke, he saw a movement in the brush at the other side of the cabin. He gave the rifle a quick jerk, freeing its leather thong from the saddlehorn. Then he let the rifle ease down again.
“By Ned,” he breathed. “A woman and kids.”
From out of the brush came a woman and several children, a couple of them boys of ten to twelve. The woman carried a baby in one arm, a rifle in the other. One of the boys also held a rifle. The woman walked up to the two advance scouts as the rest of the company broke out of the timber behind them. She looked them over a moment before she spoke.
“Howdy. Be you fellers Rangers?”
Barcroft spoke, “We’re the Mounted Rifles. It appears you’ve had some unwelcome company.”
“Well,” she replied slowly, “they wasn’t invited.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“No, sir, we taken to the brush in time. Husband, he was out cow-huntin’, and he ain’t got back yet. He’s goin’ to be some mad when he does git back. They got all the horses we had, ’cept the one he’s on.”
Barcroft said, “Do you have any neighbors you can go to?”
She nodded. “We got neighbors pretty close, only seven-eight miles. We’ll go over there soon’s my husband gits in.” She frowned. “You don’t reckon them national assassinators’ll be a-comin’ back?”
That was a name some people on the frontier had given the Indians because of the federal reservation that had afforded some of the marauders sanctuary between raids.
Barcroft said, “I doubt they’ll be back this way. They came in one direction, and I’d judge they’ll go out another.” He looked at her children, and Cloud could read the thought in the captain’s troubled eyes. “Just the same, ma’am, I’d take care. It would be wise of you to move to a settlement and stay there.”
She shook her head, much as Lige Moseley had done when the captain had made the same suggestion to him. “No, thank you, sir, we lived in one of them settlements once. There’s things worse than Indians.”
Barcroft shrugged. People like this, you couldn’t scare off. “It’s up to you. I wish we could stay and help, but we’ve got to keep moving.”
“We’ll make it all right.”
“Maybe we’ll recover your horses, ma’am. We’ll try.”
Moving out, they began to cross land that was vaguely familiar to Cloud. After a long time they broke out of the big thicket and came into sight of old Lige Moseley’s double cabin. Cloud’s heart quickened. The Indian trail led straight that way. They had hit Lige, too, sure as thunder.
The cabin was still standing, though Cloud hadn’t seen any sign of life around it. He held up his hand to slow down the rest of the company until he had a chance to ride in and show himself.
“If that old fire-eater’s still alive,” he told Miguel Soto, “he’s a crack shot. We don’t want him makin’ any mistakes.”
Lige’s dogs set up an awful racket as Cloud rode in alone. Lige Moseley stepped out from the corral, waving his left hand. His right hand was weighted down by a rifle big as a cannon. Cloud glanced over into the corral. Just as the last time, Moseley’s horses were safe inside.
The settler’s bearded face broke into a wide grin. . “Well, you boys come too late. Excitement’s done over.”
Looking around, Cloud saw little sign of battle. These raiders evidently had been smarter than the last bunch. They hadn’t tried to go up against Moseley’s solid walls. “Get you any Indians?”
Moseley shook his head. “Can’t say as I did. But we didn’t lose no horses, neither. Comanches has got to git up awful early in the mornin’ to steal anything off of this outfit.”
The rest of the company rode in after seeing it was all right. The captain, dusty now with whiskers beginning to darken his face, nodded at Moseley. Mrs. Moseley and the children filed out of the house to see the Mounted Rifles. The captain’s gaze dwelt a long time on the children, especially on a little girl of three or so named Joanna.
Same age as his was, Cloud thought.
Barcroft said, “It appears you’ve been lucky again, Moseley.”
“Ain’t just luck, Captain,” Moseley replied, patting his big rifle. “Keen eye down the barrel of one of these is better than luck. And keen eyes just naturally run in the Moseley family.” He pointed his chin at his wife and at the boy Luke. “You-all care to stop and rest yourselves a mite?”
The captain shook his head. “Can’t. The Indians lost a little time here, and they lost some at another place back down the way. If we don’t lose any we’ll be able to make some gain on them.”
Moseley agreed with a nod of his head. “I’m a right fair shot, Captain. I’d be tickled to go along and he’p you, if you’d care to have me.”
Barcroft shrugged. “Suit yourself. But what about your family?”
“Them Indians won’t be back. Besides, Luke’ll be here. He’s as good a shot as I am.”
While Lige saddled his horse, Samantha Moseley came farther out into the yard. She stood silently watching Cloud, her eyes soft with a longing she probably could not even understand.
The dogs followed for a way as the company rode out. Cloud turned once in the saddle to see if they had dropped back. He saw Samantha still standing there, watching him.
Miguel Soto glanced at Cloud, his eyebrows raised. “Pretty girl, that one,” he commented pointedly. “A most pretty girl.”
 
The Indian trail was not hard to follow. Besides their own mounts, there were the several extra horses the Comanches had picked up. An hour or so from Moseley’s, Cloud and Miguel, up front again, came across one of the Indian horses limping along painfully. Dirt was caked on its chest and along one side. It evidently had fallen and lamed itself, and its rider had transferred to one of the stolen horses.
“Still sweatin’ a little,” Cloud observed. “Them redskins ain’t too awful far in front of us anymore.”
Shortly afterward, he thought he heard the distant sound of gunfire, drifting in the north wind. He stepped out of the saddle and handed Miguel his reins. Then he walked out a little piece to listen, where squeak of saddle leather wouldn’t bother him.
He listened a minute or two, turning his head first one way, then the other, his face drawn into a deep frown. “I’d of sworn I heard it,” he said, shaking his head. He rode back to report it to the captain, then regained his lead with Miguel. “You ever hear anything, Miguel?” he asked.
The Mexican shook his head. “Maybeso you got better ears.”
“Or a better imagination.”
They were in and out of the brush for an hour before they suddenly came in sight of a single wagon, sitting at the edge of a big post-oak motte. Part of its canvas cover had been burned away.
Cloud sucked in a short breath. “Caught ’em a mover. Bet they didn’t leave much of him.”
Then he saw movement at the wagon, and he got a glimpse of a man with a hat on, the quick flare of a skirt. “Looky there, Miguel. Them folks must of scrapped their way through it.”
He spurred into an easy lope, Miguel close beside him. He reined up just short of the wagon and took a quick look. He saw one gray-bearded man and two women—one old like the man, one young. The man had his left arm wrapped in a white strip of cloth, evidently torn from a woman’s underskirt. A blotch of red showed through it. The older of the women stood close, hand red with blood from the bandaging. The younger woman stood a little to one side, the clutch of fear still strong in her dust-smeared face.
Cloud dismounted, flipping his loop rein over his horse’s head and keeping hold of it. “You folks must’ve put up a dandy fight to’ve run them off.” He didn’t say it, but he thought it would have taken a lot to have discouraged a bunch of bucks if they had seen the young woman. “You didn’t lose anybody?”
The old man shook his head. “They got off with our team, but we got off with our lives.”
Cloud glanced at a rifle leaned against the wagon wheel.
“That the only gun you got?” he asked incredulously. “Don’t seem like one gun would’ve held them off long.”
“We had a pistol too. Wife used the pistol.”
Cloud glanced questioningly at Miguel. Three people with only two guns between them, and a prize like that young woman with her long brown hair. Didn’t seem reasonable.
He looked at the household goods piled in the wagon and said, “’Pears you folks was movin’ someplace.”
The old man nodded. “We was. But we can’t git far now without horses.”
The fear still lay live and fierce in the young woman’s face. “Ma’am,” Cloud said to her, “you don’t need to be scared no more. They’re gone, and I don’t expect they’ll be back.”
She tried to speak, but the words stuck in her throat.
“My daughter-in-law, mister,” the old man said quickly. “She got a bad scare. She’ll be all right.”
“Where’s your son?” Cloud asked.
The old man hesitated, “Why, he’s off in the army—the Confederate Army.”
“And you was movin’, just the three of you?”
“That’s it, that’s all there is to it.” The old man was plenty nervous, and so was the old woman. Cloud thought that was natural, considering what they had just been through. And yet …
Then he saw the tracks, a set of boot tracks that didn’t match the ones he saw around the old man’s feet. And Cloud knew.
There was somebody else with this wagon!
Barcroft rode up with the rest of the company. As was his way, he wasted no time with foolish questions. “Nobody killed?”
The old man shook his head. “No, sir, no damage except a little scratch on my arm, and the fact that them red thieves run off with our horses.”
Like Cloud, Barcroft found it hard to believe these three had stood off that raiding party alone. “How did you do it?”
The old woman spoke up for the first time. “We seen them Indians comin’ and knowed we couldn’t outrun them. We got our wagon up here and piled off and took out into that brush yonder. They didn’t try too hard to come in and git us. They just cut the team loose and left. They set the wagon afire, but we put the fire out before it did us much hurt.”
The captain looked at the young woman, and he gently shook his head. Watching him, Cloud knew the captain was thinking the same thing the scout had.
The captain said, “How about showing us where you made your stand?”
The old man argued, “Now, soldier, there don’t seem to be no reason for that. ‘Pears to me like you fellers would be most interested in gittin’ out after them Indians.”
“I’d just like to see how you fought them off.” Cloud could see suspicion in the captain’s eyes.
Then Miguel bent over and examined the foot tracks. “Capitán!
Catching Miguel’s eye, Cloud quickly shook his head. But it was already too late. The captain said, “What is it, Miguel?”
Miguel glanced again at Cloud and shrugged. “It is nothing, Capitán. We forget it.”
“You’ve found something,” the captain pressed. “What is it?”
Hemmed up, Miguel showed Barcroft the tracks. The captain said grimly, “I knew something was wrong here. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.” He turned to the old man and pointed out into the brush. “Who’s in there?”
Trembling, the old man said, “Nobody, sir, nobody. You’re mistaken.”
The captain declared, “There’s no mistake. You’re hiding someone. Who is it?” When he got no reply from the old man, he turned sharply to the young woman. “Your husband, perhaps? What is he, a deserter? A conscription dodger?”
Tears rolled down the young woman’s cheeks, leaving trails in the dust that lay heavy on her face. “Please,” she begged, “please.”
Barcroft turned to his men. “Dismount and fan out. We’ll push through that brush until we find him.”
Miguel eased up close to Cloud. Quietly he said, “I’m sorry. I speak before I think.”
“Can’t help it now.”
They moved out in a walk, a ragged line of men filtering through heavy brush. Cloud could hear the young woman sobbing behind them. She was following. He turned once and told her, “Ma’am, you better go back.”
She kept coming, and he let her alone.
A jackrabbit jumped up and skittered away, and half the men in the group jerked their rifles up in sudden reflex before they realized what it was.
Then a man somewhere ahead of them shouted, “Stay back, all of you! We’ve got rifles here!”
Cloud saw a movement. It wasn’t one man; it was two!
“Stay back!” the voice shouted again. There was a shot that clipped the leaves out of a post oak above Cloud’s head. Then came the sound of a quick struggle and a second man saying sharply, “Put the gun down. It’s no use.”
Two men stood up in plain sight, their hands in the air. Cloud broke into a trot toward them. He was one of the first men to reach them. Behind him came the young woman, crying, “Don’t shoot them! Please don’t shoot them!” She dodged in front of Cloud and threw her arms about one of the men, sobbing. The man lowered his chin and pressed his cheek to her hair, his hand gently patting her back.
Barcroft moved up to them and said solemnly, “You’re under arrest.”
“What for?” one of the young men asked.
“Desertion, possibly, or flight to avoid conscription. Whichever it is, we’ll find out.”
The woman turned her face toward the captain. “What’ll happen to them?”
Evenly the captain said, “They fired upon a Confederate company. I’d say they’ll likely hang for that.”
She cried out, “No!” and clung tightly to her husband.
The younger of the two men said, “I was the one fired the shot, not him. Besides, I didn’t shoot at nobody. I just fired over your heads. Hoped I’d scare you off.”
It was easy to tell that the two men were brothers, both in their twenties, both tall and strongly handsome with the broad shoulders of men who know well the ax and the plow.
“What happens to you will be up to a military court,” Barcroft said.
Seward Prince growled, “Unionists, I’d bet, the both of them. Hangin’d be just about right, if you was to ask me.”
Curtly Cloud said, “Nobody asked you.”
The Rifles walked back out to the edge of the timber, with the two men in front of them and the young woman leaning tearfully against her husband. The old couple stood slumped helplessly, hopelessness in their tired, grieving faces. They sat down on their wagon tongue, and the old man pleaded:
“Captain, it weren’t none of their fault. I was the one made them run. It’s this damned war. It’s not our war. We didn’t ask for it, and we don’t want no part of it. I got no slaves and don’t want none. I say if these rich landowners and slave men want a war fought, let them fight it theirselves, and leave us poor folks alone!”
Cloud thought he could see sympathy in the captain’s face, which surprised him a little. But he knew the captain was not one to be swayed from duty, even by sympathy. The captain asked, “Where were you going?”
“We was tryin’ to git to Mexico.”
“That’s a long way.”
The old man nodded. “It is that, but we had nothin’ much else but time anyway. We wasn’t goin’ to hurt nobody. We was just tryin’ to find us a neutral ground. Is that a sin, Captain?”
The captain slowly shook his head. “Too bad, old-timer. If your boys had stayed out in plain sight, we never would have thought much about it, might not even have asked any questions. But they hid, and that changed things. When they fired on us, that sealed the warrant. We’ll have to take them with us.”
The people were silent a moment. Then the old man asked, “And what about us? What’re we goin’ to do?”
The captain had no answer. Lige Moseley spoke up quietly: “I got a cabin south a-ways. Back-trail us, and you’ll find it. If we don’t git your horses back from the Indians, maybe I can swap you a couple. There’s lots of things me and my family needs, and maybe you got some of it we can trade you out of.”
While the two young men said their tearful good-byes to the family, the captain had a couple of packhorses stripped so the prisoners could ride them.
“You’ll have to go bareback,” he said to the pair, “but that’s the best we can do. And we’ve got to take you with us because we can’t spare anybody to stay back and guard you.”
Lige Moseley frowned. “I’d guard them, Captain.”
The captain smiled. “That’s a kind offer, Moseley, but I don’t know you that well. Being a friend of Cloud’s, you might even share a little of his Unionist feeling, for all I know.” Despite the smile, Cloud could tell the captain was dead serious. “No offense, but I like to know my guards.”
Moseley turned his palms upward and shrugged.
They moved out again, quickly leaving behind them the wagon, the old man and the women. For as long as the raiders remained in sight, the trio watched motionless—three tragic statues standing in the grass.
 
The Indian signs were fresh now. Captain Barcroft signaled Cloud and Miguel to speed up. But darkness came, and the Indians had not been caught. Reluctantly, Barcroft called a night halt. The men ate supper and stretched out to rest. Barcroft had the prisoners’ hands tied to the trunks of trees, and set a special guard to watch over them through the night.
Long before daylight, the men were up. As soon as they could see tracks, Cloud and Miguel were out a-horseback, far in the lead of the company.
Before long they came to the place where the Indians had camped. The ashes were still warm. Cloud nodded in satisfaction at Miguel, and the pair moved out. It wasn’t hard now to keep the company at a strong pace. If anything, it was hard to hold them back.
Late in the morning Cloud and Miguel rode into sight of the Indians. They reined up quickly and gave the Indian sign to the company behind them. Barcroft spurred forward in a lope. He took a long look, then signaled the men to spread out and charge. The sound of pounding hoofs carried ahead to the Indians. Cloud could see the alarm rush through the bunch like the sudden sense of danger spreads through a herd of buffalo. The Indians pushed their horses into a hard run.
Way ahead of them lay a stretch of timber. The Indians made for it. Cloud spurred hard, the captain riding right along beside him. Glancing at Barcroft, Cloud could see the man’s grim anticipation. Truly, here was a man who hated with all his soul, who took a fierce pleasure in seeing Indians die.
Realizing they could not make the timber, the Indians did a strange thing. They stopped and turned around, letting their stolen horses go. They formed a rough line and came running straight back toward the Rifles. Lances bristled. Cloud could see bows swung into readiness. He caught the glint of sunlight off a rifle barrel.
Most of the Texans drew their pistols, for this was going to be sudden and mean—and close up. With the pistol they would have six shots instead of the one they could get from a rifle.
One of the two prisoners pulled up beside the captain. “For God’s sake, sir, give us a gun so we can defend ourselves.”
Barcroft said something unintelligible, then there was no more time, for the Indians were upon them. The Indians fired first, arrows sailing ahead of them, flame blossoming from stolen guns. A Rifleman’s horse went down, and Cloud heard a man shout in pain as an arrow plunked into a leg.
The Texans hauled up on the reins—most of them—and fired back with their pistols. A couple of Indian horses went down, and an Indian was chopped off of his mount as if he had run into the low limb of a tree. The rest of the Indian force passed by and went on beyond, carried by the momentum of the rush.
Suddenly, then, Cloud could see that the Rifle force had been scattered. The captain was far out to one side. The Indians wheeled their horses around and came back for another desperate try. An early shot from one of them brought the captain’s horse down. Cloud saw the animal fall, saw the captain’s gun sail out into the grass. The captain tried to slip out from under the animal, but he could not move. He was pinned.
Cloud yanked his horse around and spurred out toward the captain. But the oldest of the two prisoners was closer. He raced to the captain’s side and stepped down from his horse, letting the mount run on without him. The prisoner grabbed up the captain’s fallen gun and threw himself to his belly in the grass, beside Barcroft.
A handful of Indians, seeing the two men down, peeled off from the rest and swept down toward the pair. Cloud saw the prisoner grab the captain’s rifle out of the saddle scabbard, even as he handed the captain the pistol. Leveling the rifle over the dead horse, the man took careful aim and fired just as the nearest Comanche drew a bow into line. The Indian rolled in the grass and went limp as an empty sack.
By the time Cloud got there and stepped off beside the captain, the Indians had hauled up. Cloud fired once, bringing down one of the horses. The Indian, left afoot, reached up for help and got it from one of his friends. He swung up behind another Indian and rode away.
It was a rout now, the remaining Indians abandoning the stolen horses and everything else in an effort to get to the timber.
Most of the Rifles followed after them awhile, managing to bring down one more. They stopped short of the timber, for that was likely to be like a beehive.
With his own horse and rope, Cloud managed to pull the captain’s dead horse over and free Barcroft. The captain stood up shakily. The young prisoner loosened the cinch and got the captain’s saddle loose.
That done, Cloud walked back to Barcroft and asked, “Everything all right, sir?”
Barcroft was rubbing his leg. “I guess. There doesn’t seem to be anything broken.” He glanced at the prisoner. “I was in a bad spot for a minute,” he said to the man. “If you hadn’t come when you did, they’d have ridden over me, more than likely. And they wouldn’t have left much.”
The prisoner was trembling a little now, the nervous aftermath of the quick battle. He didn’t say anything.
The captain observed, “It might have been better for you if you’d let them get me.”
When the young man said nothing, Cloud put in, “Captain, it just goes to show you the kind of man he is. He couldn’t let a thing like that happen to you, even if standin’ back might’ve given him a chance to go free.”
Barcroft said evenly, “Cloud, you should know better than try to change my mind.”
“Wasn’t tryin’ to change nothin’, Captain. I was only thinkin’ maybe this might make you show some extra consideration.”
“Damn it,” Barcroft argued, “I’m a soldier. I can’t allow personal feelings—personal gratitude—to stand in the way of my duty.”
“Can’t you, Captain? Ain’t nobody knows about these boys but us. What other people don’t know won’t hurt them none.”
The captain said sharply, “I already feel badly enough about this. Don’t make it any worse for me.” Turning away, he said to Miguel, “Take a few men and go bring that bunch of stolen horses up here. Some of us need remounts.”
He walked on out across the grass, halting just once to look back.
Cloud said with satisfaction, “It’s eatin’ at him. That’s a good sign.”
The older prisoner said, “Truth of it is, Mister Cloud, I wasn’t really thinkin’ much about the captain when I done it. I could see that gun lyin’ out there, and I didn’t have one. I wanted that gun. I didn’t care about the captain.”
Cloud held down a grin. “For God’s sake, don’t you tell him that!”
Later that afternoon they came back by the abandoned wagon. Footprints showed the old man and the old woman had gone on to Moseley’s, as suggested. The captain let the two brothers hook their recovered horses to the wagon and drive it. The company camped for the night at Moseley’s place.
Several times Cloud saw the captain looking at the two brothers and their family. With Lige Moseley, he discussed the uncertainty he could see in the officer’s face.
“Lige, I think he’s about made up his mind. Only question is, how can he do it and get by with it. You got a couple of extra horses you’d be willin’ to swap to that old man—a couple of fast horses?”
Lige Moseley pulled at his whiskers. “I don’t want you gittin’ the idea I go along with your Union leanin’s, ’cause I don’t. But I kind of took a likin’ to them two boys.” His white teeth showed in a smile. “I just might have a pair of horses, sure enough.”
Presently the captain came over to Moseley. “Mister Moseley, yesterday you offered to guard our prisoners. I have a lot of tired men needing rest. Would you still consent to do it—to guard them tonight?” While Lige considered, the captain added pointedly, “Now, I wouldn’t want you to go to sleep. Of course, you being a civilian, I couldn’t do anything to you if you did. You would stay awake, wouldn’t you?”
Lige grinned. “Sure, Captain. You can count on me to do what’s right!”
 
Next morning Lige and Elkin walked up to the captain just at daylight and shook his shoulder. The captain turned over on his blanket and raised up on one elbow, blinking.
Lige said, “Captain, I’m afraid them two prisoners has gotten away!”
“Gotten away?” Barcroft asked with little show of surprise. “Now, I wonder how they did that?”
“Reckon I went to sleep, Captain, even after the promise I made you. Tireder than I really thought. Boys taken a couple of my horses and headed south. Must’ve gone sometime early in the night.”
Elkin asked Barcroft, “Should we go after them?”
The captain shook his head, a shadow of a grin about him. “They have too much of a lead on us now. There’d be no use in it.”
Elkin began to understand, humor playing in his eyes. “We could notify some of the companies to the south of us.”
The captain looked at the smiling Cloud, then cut his gaze back to Elkin. “Yes, I guess we could. I’ll write a letter to Austin—first time I think about it.”