Chapter Twenty-three
“Latimer, you done good,” Buttons Muldoon said. “You played a man’s part this morning.”
“As it happened, there was very little risk to me,” Latimer said. “But thank you, I appreciate the compliment.”
“Did Hannah speak to you?” Red said.
The Englishman shook his head. “As far as she’s concerned, firing the Gatling wasn’t an act of atonement. In Hannah’s eyes, I still have a lot to prove.”
Buttons said, “Latimer, it takes a heap of forgiving and forgetting to restore a man’s reputation. It’s been nigh on fifty years since Moses Rose hightailed it from the Alamo, and Texas hasn’t forgiven him yet.”
Latimer smiled slightly. “Then I’ve got plenty of time to work on it, haven’t I?”
“Seems like,” Buttons said.
“What the hell . . .”
Buttons and Latimer followed Red’s gaze . . . to where Hannah Huckabee had just saddled a professor’s discarded horse and was preparing to mount.
“Hannah, hold up there!” Red yelled.
He reached her just as the woman stepped into the saddle. She wore her Colt and knife, and Mr. Chang handed her a rare Allen & Wheelock single-shot. 44 rifle, Sir Richard Owen’s personal long gun.
Red decided it was time to be strict and put an end to this female foolishness.
“Miss Huckabee, you are a passenger of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company, and I am its representative,” he said. “I forbid you to leave here without my permission.”
Hannah’s determined face did not change expression.
“I must find out what happened to Dahteste,” she said. “If she’s been harmed, or worse, I’ll go after Winter and I’ll kill him.”
“Then go after him with the rest of us,” Red said. “Me and Buttons will help you find him, and we’ll help you kill him.”
Hannah shook her head. “No, Red, this is something I need to do by myself. It’s a personal matter. If I don’t catch up with Winter, I’ll meet you in Fredericksburg.”
“Hannah, wait a moment!”
Blanche Carter hurried to the other woman. She held up a thin chain with an attached silver medal. “It’s St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. He’ll help protect you.”
Hannah smiled. “I’m sure he will, Blanche.”
Hannah sat a tall horse, and she bent low to let Blanche fasten the chain around her neck. “There,” Hannah said. “I feel safer already.”
Red was beside himself. He tipped his plug hat at a fighting angle and said, “No, this won’t do. I won’t have it. Miss Huckabee, the Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company, of which I am a representative, is better protection than a medal. I order you to get down from that horse, instanter!”
Hannah laughed, kicked her mount into motion, and called out over her shoulder, “See you in Fredericksburg, shotgun man.”
With wide, unbelieving eyes, Red watched Hannah Huckabee gallop into the distance, and he was thunderstruck. “Blanche, Buttons, she refused to obey a direct order from—”
“I know, a representative of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company,” Blanche said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Red said. “This has never happened before.”
“Shotgun man, you never met a woman like Hannah Huckabee before,” Blanche said.
Mr. Chang giggled. “Mr. Ryan try to tame wrong gal. Get kick in teeth.”
* * *
Red and the others used the rest of the morning readying the steam wagon for the trip to Fredericksburg. Texas Ranger Tim Adams, conscious but in pain, was settled on the seat beside Blanche, the tent was taken down, and everybody ate a quick breakfast of bacon and bread.
“We’re pulling out now, Adams,” Red said, taking back the sandwich that the ranger had refused to eat. “Once we get to Fredericksburg, the doctor will fix you right up, you’ll see.”
“I’m a burden to you and all the rest, Ryan,” Adams said. “You’ll make quicker time if you leave me here.”
“And that’s not going to happen,” Red said. “We’re all in this together, and we’ll stay together. That’s the Patterson and Son policy, all written down and legal.”
“I saw Hannah Huckabee leave,” Adams said.
Red nodded. “She’s gone after Dave Winter.”
“A tad overmatched, ain’t she?” Adams said.
“I tried to tell her that very thing, but she wouldn’t listen,” Red said.
Adams managed a smile. “Ryan, she’s an obstinate, headstrong girl. Best not to stand in her way. What a ranger she’d make.”
“Yeah, she would, she’d make a crackerjack ranger. That is, if she could learn to take orders.”
“Wait, Ryan, before you go, I have something to say,” Adams said.
“Say it. I’m listening.”
“You saved my life. I could’ve died out there on the grass.”
“Think nothing of it,” Red said.
“I owe you,” Adams said.
Red smiled. “Well, if you ever catch me robbing a bank, let me go with the loot and we’re even.”
“I can’t see you robbing a bank.”
“Me neither. But maybe I’ll call in the favor one day.”
“Anytime. I’ve never been beholden to a man before.”
“Like I always say, there’s a first time for everything,” Red said. “Now don’t wear yourself out with more ranger talk. We got a long trail ahead of us.”
* * *
Red mounted the American mare, and Buttons and the professors settled into the rear compartment in front of the blue pagoda where the Mexican and Mr. Chang were seated. The Gatling, which no one wanted to look at, was again stored in its compartment out of sight.
There was no question of burying the dead, bloody heaps of mangled men and horses where black flies already buzzed. Despite his misgivings on the matter, Sir Richard Owen agreed with Red to let nature run its course and leave it to the buzzards and coyotes to take care of the dead.
“Damn it all, Mr. Ryan, I feel responsible for all those deaths,” Owen said, his hands kneading a handkerchief. “After all, they were coming after my colleagues who were here because of the Bone War.”
“Dave Winter was responsible for the deaths of those men, Professor Owen, not you and not the Bone War,” Red said.
“And Miss Huckabee, what about her?” Owen said. “I gave her my rifle. I hope it helps.”
“Hannah is fighting her own personal war,” Red said. “I don’t know how that will turn out.”
“It will turn out well, I hope,” Owen said.
“Yeah, we all hope that it turns out well,” Red said.