James Reasoner
James Reasoner is one of the most prolific authors of his time, having written more than 140 novels in multiple genres, as well as a bushel of short stories. The only reason he hasn’t received more recognition is that many of his novels were written under pseudonyms. However, his ten-volume Civil War series, which concluded with the book Appomattox, should earn him some of the respect and recognition he deserves. His most recent book, Draw, is a nonfiction account of some of the most famous gunfights in history. Here he writes about one Ranger—half Comanche—who tries to make amends for the past while riding for the famous “Rip” Ford and Old Company.
Of all the men I met while riding with the Texas Rangers as company surgeon, the one with perhaps the most interesting background was our scout, Roque Maugricio. Half Mexican, half Comanche, he had been carried off by the savages during a raid when he was but a young boy and was raised by them, ultimately becoming one of their war chiefs before leaving the tribe. During the time I knew him, he dressed in white men’s clothing—homespun shirt, whipcord trousers, cowhide vest, high-topped boots, and broad-brimmed black hat—and carried a white man’s weapons—a brace of Walker Colts, a pair of muzzle-loading rifles, and a heavy-bladed Bowie knife. He spoke English without a trace of an accent other than a faint Texas drawl. He was equally adept in the Mexican and Indian tongues. No one in the border country was better at reading sign, and no one was a more cool-headed fighter in times of trouble. None of the men who rode with him held any part of his heritage against him. In short, Roque Maugricio was one of the most highly valued members of the Old Company, that group of Rangers, young in years but old in frontier wisdom, led by Captain John S. “Rip” Ford.
So it should come as no surprise that when danger threatened Roque, the rest of the Rangers were ready to “go to war” on his behalf.
But I find myself getting ahead of the story.
The blue waves of the Gulf lapped gently against the piers across the street from the tavern in Corpus Christi where several of the Rangers had repaired for a drink. The company had ridden into Corpus from our permanent camp at the ruins of the abandoned rancho, San Antonio Viejo, in order to replenish supplies. We had been patrolling the South Texas brush country along the Nueces River heavily over the past few weeks, that spring of 1851, and were short on just about everything.
I had already picked up some medical supplies and put them in the wagon driven by our company sergeant, David Level. Probably I would have stayed with the wagon until we were ready to return to camp had not Doc Sullivan come along with several other members of the company and dragooned me into joining them.
Though I was the company surgeon, it was Ranger D. C. Sullivan who was known by the name “Doc.” It seemed to fit him better. He was slender, with hair so fair as to be almost white and prominent eyebrows of the same shade. His face nearly always wore a ready grin. He was the prankster of our outfit, ever ready for a joke of some sort, usually at someone else’s expense. Whenever the humor was turned on him, however, he bore it exceedingly well and laughed just as hard. His hands were big, and he could use them to draw and fire a revolver as fast as anyone I’ve ever seen.
“Come along and have a drink with us, you old sawbones,” Sullivan said to me as he took my arm and tugged me away from the wagon. “Might be a long time ’fore we get back to town.”
“I’m really not much of a drinking man,” I began, but Sullivan interrupted me.
“Damned if I don’t know it. Don’t you know that a fella’s got to have a certain amount of whiskey to keep his gut cleaned out proper? Hell, I’m surprised at you, bein’ a medical man and all. Fella’d think you never had no learnin’.”
Realizing it would be a waste of time to argue with him, I went along. But I told myself I would have only one drink. It would not do to have Captain Ford find the company surgeon in his cups.
Roque Maugricio was already at the tavern when we arrived, leaning on the bar and sipping a mug of beer. It was a measure of how highly thought of he was that he was allowed to drink openly, since of course he was half Comanche. No one seemed to take that into consideration, however. As some of those who fought alongside him put it, Roque Maugricio was a “white” man, no matter what the color of his skin.
Unfortunately, as we were soon to see, not everyone felt that way.
Roque was friendly enough but tended to keep to himself. He smiled when his comrades slapped him on the back but didn’t join in the general hilarity. In fact, he was about to leave when two men came into the tavern and braced him.
“Where you goin’, you damn red nigger?” one of them demanded.
The loud, offensive words put an immediate damper on the festivities. Doc Sullivan and I and the other Rangers turned to look at the newcomers. Both men wore buckskins and wide-brimmed hats and carried guns on their hips. I didn’t actually recognize them, but to my eyes, they were typical border hardcases, smugglers and outlaws, more than likely.
Roque said in measured tones, “I was just leaving.”
“Well, we say you ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
“That’s right,” the other man said. “We got a score to settle with you.”
Roque said, “I never saw you two before in my life.”
“Maybe not,” the first man said, “but we know you. You’re that greaser Injun, and we’re here to get justice for Alvin Callahan.”
Roque shook his head. “I don’t know any Alvin Callahan.”
From the bar, Doc Sullivan called, “Need a hand, Roque?”
The fact that there were several Rangers lined up along the bar made the two strangers glance nervously in our direction, but they seemed determined to go through with this confrontation anyway. And they began to look more confident again as Roque said, “No thanks, Doc, I can handle this.” He took another step toward the two men. “Like I told you, I don’t know you or Alvin Callahan, and I’m leaving.”
“Callahan was killed at Mirabella,” one of the men said. “Remember that?”
I saw the shock in Roque’s eyes. His face tightened. He remembered Mirabella, all right, that was certain.
“There’s five thousand dollars on your head, redskin, and we aim to collect.” The words came out of one man in a rush, and then he grabbed for the gun on his hip.
Roque Maugricio’s Walker Colts whispered from leather first. And then they shouted.
Both men managed to draw their guns and fire, but their shots were overwhelmed by the roar of Roque’s Colts. He thumbed off two shots from each weapon, the heavy bullets driving into the bodies of the would-be assassins and throwing them backward. Each of them landed with a crash on the sawdust-littered floor into which their revolvers had discharged. Though Doc Sullivan was the fastest man I knew, Roque Maugricio was right behind him when it came to gun speed.
Sullivan and the other Rangers had drawn their weapons as well, but they weren’t needed. The two men on the floor were dead. Sullivan stared wide-eyed at them and demanded, “Roque, what in blue blazes was that all about?”
Roque holstered one gun, began reloading the exploded rounds in the other. Without looking up from the grim task, he answered Sullivan’s question. “That was the past come to call,” he said.
When Captain Ford heard about the shooting, he summoned his scout to explain. I accompanied Roque to the hotel, where the captain met him in one of the back rooms.
Captain John Salmon Ford was tall and slender, with white hair, a closely trimmed white beard, and the most piercing eyes of any man I ever knew. It was said he could look right through a man, especially an evildoer. Doc Sullivan, who had a penchant for nicknames that the captain shared, had dubbed him “Rip,” for a pair of reasons. One had to do with the captain’s record keeping and his habit of marking “R.I.P.” on reports concerning the deaths of Rangers or other upstanding citizens. The other was that when it came to trouble, Captain Ford “ripped” right through it, according to Sullivan. He had been a doctor, newspaperman, and politician before being awarded a captaincy in the Rangers, and he was the finest natural commander of fighting men in Texas since the days of Sam Houston.
“Now, what’s all this about?” he said as he sat at a table and turned that intense gaze of his on Roque.
The scout shrugged. “Couple of yahoos drew on me, Cap’n. Figured I’d better shoot ’em.”
Ford clenched a fist and banged it on the table. “Damn it, Roque, don’t get all closemouthed on me. Why did those bastards want to kill you?”
“From what they said, I reckon there’s a bounty on my head.”
The captain sat back, openmouthed. “A bounty,” he repeated.
“Yes, sir. Five thousand dollars.”
Ford let out a whistle. He looked at me for confirmation, and I said, “Yes, sir, that’s what one of the, ah, dead gentlemen mentioned before the hostilities commenced.”
“Well, I’ll swan,” Captain Ford said, shaking his head as he did so. “Who would be foolish enough to put a bounty on the head of a Texas Ranger?”
“It’s not because I’m a Ranger. It’s because I’m part Comanche.” Roque hesitated, and I saw he did not want to talk about this. The captain’s steady regard forced him to go on, however. “You ever hear of a place called Mirabella, Cap’n?”
“A little village down on the Rio, on the Texas side, isn’t it?”
Roque nodded. “That’s right. There are a few ranches nearby, but that’s all. About ten years ago, not long after the settlement was founded, the Comanch’ raided it. Burned down about half the town.”
“I don’t recall that,” Ford said.
“I do. I was there.” Roque’s face was as hard as stone. “I led the war party that attacked Mirabella.”
The captain and I couldn’t help but stare at him. We had ridden with Roque Maugricio, fought side by side with him on dozens of occasions. More than once, his expertise as a scout had saved the entire company from disaster. So we tended to forget that there had been a time in his life when he had fought on the other side of the conflict.
“Well,” Captain Ford said after a moment, “that was a long time ago.”
“Some people have long memories,” Roque said. “I don’t know who Alvin Callahan was, but according to those two bounty hunters, he died at Mirabella, and my guess is that someone who cared about him put the bounty on me.”
Ford leaned forward in his chair. “I won’t stand for a Ranger being hunted like a common criminal,” he declared.
“In the eyes of some men, that’s what I am. Nothing but a murderin’ redskin.”
“By God, a man can change! In the past few years, you’ve served Texas faithfully, Roque, often at great risk to your own life. You’ve earned a second chance if anyone ever has.”
“I would have liked to think so,” Roque said.
Ford shoved his chair back and stood up. “We’ll ride over to Mirabella, the whole company of us, and—”
“No, Cap’n.”
The quietly spoken negative took the captain by surprise. Rip Ford was not accustomed to being told no by anyone, let alone by one of the men who rode for him. Roque Maugricio had always possessed a proud, independent streak in his personality, though, so his declaration did not come as much of a shock to me.
“I’m requesting a leave of absence,” Roque went on. “I’ll go to Mirabella and see if I can straighten all this out.”
“You ride in there alone and there’ll be a bull’s-eye on your back,” Ford cautioned. “Besides, you’re a member of the Old Company. This is Ranger business.”
Roque shook his head. “No, Cap’n, it’s personal. I won’t drag the rest of the boys into it.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll resign from the Rangers first, before I let that happen.”
I knew what such a decision must have cost him. The Rangers were as close to a home and family as the scout had. He had spent most of his life trapped between the two worlds of red man and white, fitting into neither, until joining the Rangers. For him to even contemplate resigning was almost beyond belief.
“Damn it, don’t do that,” Captain Ford growled. “If it means that much to you, I reckon you can go. You’d better be mighty careful, though. You’re the best scout I’ve ever had and am likely to have. If anything happens to you, I won’t be a happy man.”
“I just want to try to set things right, Cap’n. As soon as I’ve done that, I’ll ride on back to San Antonio Viejo.”
“We’ll be waiting for you,” Ford said as he shook hands with Roque. “Vaya con Dios, my friend.”
“He done what?” Doc Sullivan said, even though I knew he had heard me quite well.
“Roque has ridden to Mirabella,” I said again. “He believes he can find whoever has placed the bounty on his head and get it lifted.”
“He’s lost his fool mind,” Sullivan said. “He won’t do anything ’cept get hisself killed.”
“Well, that seems the most likely outcome to me, too,” I admitted, “but he was insistent, and evidently Captain Ford didn’t feel that he had the right to deny Roque permission to leave.”
We were on our way back to San Antonio Viejo, riding behind the wagon carrying our supplies. Captain Ford and several other Rangers were out in front of the wagon, while Doc Sullivan and I and a few others had dropped back. Everyone was alert. While the Comanches seldom ventured this close to Corpus Christi, it wasn’t unheard of for them to raid in the area. Nor was it likely that anything except the largest war party would attack a group of heavily armed Rangers, but it was impossible to predict what notions the savages might get in their heads. Watchfulness was ingrained in the Rangers.
“Remember that fight over on the Nueces ’bout six months ago?” Sullivan said. “One of Carne Muerte’s braves had a bead on me and would’ve dropped me, sure as shootin’, if Roque hadn’t got him first. Way I see it, ol’ Roque saved my life that day. Weren’t the first time, neither. That’s why I got to do it.”
“What are you getting at, Doc?”
Sullivan squinted over at me from the corners of his eyes. “If I tell you, are you gonna run to the cap’n and start squawkin’?”
I managed to look offended as I said, “Have you ever known me to betray a confidence?”
“Nope, but I know you and the cap’n are close.”
“I may not approve of your actions,” I said, “but as long as they don’t endanger the rest of the company, I won’t say anything to Captain Ford.”
“Good,” Sullivan grunted. “’Cause I’m goin’ after Roque and lend him a hand. I know how to get to that Mirabella place. Thought I’d ride out tonight, after we get back to camp.” He looked directly at me. “Now, you gonna keep your word?”
“Of course,” I said. “For one thing, I intend to go with you.”
Sullivan’s pale eyebrows lifted. “You?” he said. “You’d go agin the cap’n’s orders?”
“It’s been only two months since Roque Maugricio saved my life down in the desert between here and Brownsville, remember? If he hadn’t found me, I would have died of thirst in that wasteland.”
Sullivan rubbed his jaw and grinned. “Yeah, I recollect you gettin’ lost. Ol’ Roque saved your bacon, all right. But you’re a sawbones, not a fightin’ man.”
I patted the stock of the rifle that stuck up from the boot on the side of my saddle. “I can handle a weapon if necessary,” I assured him. “And I ride every bit as good as you.”
“You’re a fair hand with a horse, that’s a fact. Not as good as me, of course, but I ain’t goin’ to waste my breath arguin’ with you about it. Still, you’re the company surgeon. What if there’s trouble and you’re needed at camp?”
“You know the captain doesn’t plan any patrols for at least a week. The chances that the company will be attacked while in camp are quite small. My services shouldn’t be required at all.”
“Maybe not,” Sullivan allowed. “Well, I guess if you got your mind made up, there ain’t nothin’ I can do to stop you.” He grinned as he added, “Besides, the cap’n thinks mighty high of you. When he finds out we done gone after Roque, maybe he won’t be as likely to throw me to the wolves if you’re part of it, too.”
“We can only hope,” I said.
Mirabella was about halfway between Brownsville and Laredo. Sullivan and I rode cross-country toward the border that night after slipping away from camp. Morning found us far out in the brush country. The landscape was flat and covered with mesquite for the most part, broken up by stretches of sand and the occasional creek. The country was not well suited for agriculture, but it supported the hardy, longhorned cattle that roamed freely over it. In those days there were no fences, of course; the ranchers ran their stock on open range, with only their brands to mark them. Most of the men who tended the cattle were Mexican vaqueros; the Americans who worked on the ranches sometimes called themselves “buckaroos,” a corruption of the Mexican word.
It was a vast, lonely land, and if we were to encounter a group of Comanche raiders, our only hope would be to outdistance them. Our mounts were strong and well rested, so we thought we would have a good chance to escape trouble if it came our way.
But as it turned out, instead of trouble coming after us, we were the ones who rode up on it.
The first indication that something was amiss was the sudden popping of gunfire somewhere ahead of us. One shot, perhaps even two, could be dismissed as someone killing a snake. Several shots might be required to bring down one of the wild, dangerous pigs that roamed the brush country. But a veritable fusillade such as the one that came to our ears that morning could mean only one thing: somewhere nearby, men were trying to kill each other.
Doc Sullivan and I galloped our horses toward the sound of the shots. The frequency of the reports lessened slightly, but the battle continued. We came into view of several men riding in circles around a dark shape on the ground. They were shooting at it, clouds of smoke puffing into the air with each blast.
Sullivan reined in and pulled a spyglass from his saddlebags. He put it to his eye, squinted through it for a moment, and then exclaimed, “That’s Roque, by God! His horse is down, and he’s hunkerin’ behind it for cover!”
Once Sullivan had said that, I could make out some of the details with the naked eye, such as the shape of the horse, which apparently was dead. I saw smoke coming from behind the animal’s corpse, too, and knew that Roque was putting up a fight. I would not have expected any less from the scout. The men attacking him looked to be white, probably the same sort of ruffians as the two who had foolishly accosted him at the tavern in Corpus Christi. The odds were even higher against Roque this time. There were four of the attackers.
Doc Sullivan let out a whoop, jammed the reins between his teeth, drew both of his pistols, and kicked his horse into a run. He raced toward the mounted men, holding his fire until he was within range for the Walker Colts.
The attackers were not so patient. They opened fire as soon as they became aware that they were under assault from an unexpected quarter.
I drew my rifle and galloped after Sullivan, guiding my mount with my knees. I knew better than to try to draw a bead on any of the men from horseback. The odds against making an accurate shot under such conditions were astronomical, at least for someone with my level of skill with firearms. Sullivan was a different story. When he finally began to blaze away, two of the men pitched from their saddles immediately.
I hauled back on the reins and dropped from the saddle, hitting the ground even before my horse stopped running. After stumbling forward a step, I caught my balance and brought the rifle to my shoulder. I pulled back the hammer and sighted on one of the remaining attackers. I drew a deep breath, steadied the sights, and fired.
I had taken an oath to preserve life, but this was, after all, Texas. Sometimes a life has to be ended in order to save other lives. So I felt a strange mixture of elation and sadness when I saw the man who was my target topple from the back of his mount. The fourth man, who appeared to have been wounded by Sullivan’s fire, whirled his horse around and raced away at top speed, abandoning the fight while he still drew breath.
By the time I remounted and rode on ahead, Sullivan had reached Roque’s side. Though Roque’s horse was dead, the scout moved around like he was unharmed. Together he and Sullivan checked the bodies of the fallen men.
“This one ain’t dead,” Sullivan called as he knelt beside the man I had shot. He grinned up at me. “You just winged him.”
It was an accurate description. The man’s right arm had been broken by the bullet. I bound up the wound and then splinted the arm, ignoring the curses rained upon my head as I did so.
Roque drew his Bowie knife and knelt on the man’s other side. “After all the trouble the doctor went to patching you up, it’d be a damn shame to have to kill you now,” he said as he rested the edge of the blade against the man’s throat. A tiny trickle of blood appeared. “Why’d you jump me?”
The man was pale and nervous, as well he should have been, but he still possessed a core of defiance. “For the money, of course,” he said. “Don’t you know there’s a bounty on your head, Injun?”
“Who put it there?” Roque asked.
“Cass Callahan. Owns the Diamond C, not far from Mirabella.”
“Why?”
“Because you killed his pa, ten years ago! Filthy Comanch’—”
The man stopped as Roque pressed harder with the knife.
“Better be careful,” Sullivan said. “You’ll slice his head clean off.”
“No,” Roque said. “Not until I’m ready.” His dark eyes bored down into the man. “So Callahan sent out word that he wanted me dead, did he?”
“That’s right.” The bounty hunter licked his lips. “There’s men ridin’ in from all over. Callahan figured you might come after him when you found out what’s goin’ on, so he told everybody to come to Mirabella. If you ride in there, Maugricio, you’ll find thirty or forty rifles pointin’ at you. They’ll all be tryin’ to kill you first and claim the money.”
A rare look of concern appeared on Sullivan’s face. “Thirty or forty guns? Dang, Roque, that’s more’n I figured on.”
“You and the doctor can return to camp,” Roque said flatly. “I didn’t ask you to come along. You know I didn’t want anybody else getting mixed up in this.”
“You better turn around, too,” Sullivan said. “The sawbones told me ol’ Rip offered to take the whole company over there to Mirabella. You better take him up on it.”
Roque shook his head. “No, this is my problem, my past. I’ll handle it…alone.”
“Well…not hardly alone. If you’re gonna be stubborn about it, I reckon we’ll just have to go along to see that things are done legal and proper-like.”
Roque finally took the knife away from the wounded man’s throat. The man closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Roque stood up and said, “No. I don’t want the two of you with me.”
“You ain’t got no choice in the matter. We’re your friends, and we’re goin’.” Sullivan looked at me. “Ain’t that right?”
I knew that if Roque rode into Mirabella alone, he would have no chance. He would probably be dead within moments. But if he were to be accompanied by two men who were known to be Texas Rangers, the bounty hunters might hesitate before cutting him down in cold blood.
“What is it, exactly, that you intend to do?” I asked him, ignoring for the moment Sullivan’s question.
“I want to talk to this Cass Callahan. I don’t reckon there’s much chance he’ll listen to reason, but I’ve got to try. I want to make him see that things have changed since the days I rode with the Comanches.”
“There is a chance that you are responsible for the death of the man’s father,” I pointed out.
Roque’s face was as hard and bleak as stone. “A good chance, I’d say. And I’m as sorry for that as for everything else I did back in those days. I’ve been trying to atone for all of it, for years now. But I reckon some things can’t ever be forgiven…or forgotten.” He drew a breath. “Leastways, if Callahan is bound and determined to settle the score, he and I can have it out, man to man. There’s no need to bring a bunch of bounty hunters into it.”
“It’ll probably come to that,” Sullivan said. “I don’t figure he’ll be the forgivin’ sort.”
“Then so be it.” Roque looked down at the wounded man. “Get him on a horse and send him on his way. I’ll see if I can catch one of those other horses to replace the one they killed.”
The shape the wounded man was in, he represented no immediate threat. We sent him riding off toward Corpus Christi. As Sullivan watched him go, he said, “That fella will circle around and try to get to Mirabella before us, I reckon, so he can warm Callahan that we’re comin’.”
Roque swung up into the saddle of the horse he had caught and nodded in agreement with Sullivan. “That’s what I figure, too, Doc, but it doesn’t really matter. The one who got away will take care of that.”
“And you don’t mind, do you? You want Callahan to know you’re comin’.”
“Callahan already felt like I would come after him, unless those first men he sent after me got lucky enough to kill me. He wants a showdown. I’m just giving him one, that’s all.”
Sullivan picked up the reins and clucked to his mount. “Well, let’s go. It’s still a long ride to where we’re goin’.”
As we rode, Roque told us about how the four men had lain in wait for him and ambushed him as he rode toward Mirabella. “They were hidden in the brush. My horse must’ve caught wind of their horses, because he shied a little. Reckon that saved my life. Horse caught the first volley, rather than me being blown out of the saddle by it.”
“You’re lucky you were able to stand them off until we got there.”
Roque nodded. “Lucky for me, maybe, but not for you boys. You’d have been better off if I was dead when you got there. Then maybe you would’ve turned around and gone back to camp.”
“Turn around, hell!” Sullivan exclaimed. “We’re Rangers, son. We’d have ridden right on to Mirabella and cleaned out that rat’s nest. Callahan’s got to learn he can’t put a bounty on a Ranger, no matter what the hombre might’ve been or done a long time ago.”
“You’re a good friend, Doc.” Roque looked at me. “Both of you are. Damn fools, of course, to get tangled up in this mess with me.”
“Ain’t arguin’ about that,” Sullivan said with a grin.
We didn’t run into any more bushwhackers or even see anyone else until we reached Mirabella that evening. The settlement perched on the north bank of the Rio Grande. It had one main street and a couple of cross streets. The second-largest building in town was the general store that served the ranches in the area. The largest was the lone saloon.
We made sure we were all wearing our badges in plain sight. They were handmade emblems, stars in circles cut from Mexican pesos. No matter what happened, no matter whether we lived or died, the men who waited for us would not be able to claim truthfully that they were unaware we were Rangers.
Roque angled his horse toward the store. It and the saloon were the only buildings where lights burned. The rest of the settlement was oddly dark. Many frontier folk “went to bed with the chickens,” but it seemed to me that there should have been some lights showing in Mirabella. It was as if, save for the store and the saloon, the town was deserted.
We swung down from our saddles and tied our mounts at the rail in front of the store’s long, raised porch. Roque led the way up the steps. We went to the door, opened it, and walked inside. Our footsteps seemed to echo from the high ceiling.
One man stood behind the counter at the rear of the long room filled with shelves full of merchandise. He wore an apron over his rough clothing and had his hands underneath the counter. “Howdy, gents,” he called to us as we came toward him. “Something I can do for you?”
“Where is ever’body?” Sullivan asked. “’Cept for this place and the saloon, the whole blamed town looks empty.”
“Lots of men over at the saloon,” the storekeeper said. He licked his lips. “You boys are Rangers?”
“I’m Roque Maugricio,” Roque said. “Name mean anything to you?”
The man licked his lips again. He had a long, sandy mustache, and his face was burned the color of old saddle leather. He said, “I heard of you,” and then his hands jerked up quickly and swung a shotgun from under the counter.
Roque was ready for him. The right-hand Colt came out and up and flame exploded from the muzzle. The man with the shotgun was thrown back by the bullet striking him. His back rammed the shelves behind him, causing them to collapse and dump goods on top of him as he fell. The shotgun clattered to the floor, unfired.
“I figured he was waiting for us,” Roque said as the echoes of the shot faded. “No storekeeper spends enough time outside to be burned that dark.”
A soft groan drew our attention. Doc Sullivan drew his guns and investigated, opening the door to a small room in the rear, where he found an elderly man who had been struck over the head and tied up.
We brought the man into the main room of the store, freed him from his bonds, and helped him sit on a cracker barrel. I examined the lump on his head and informed him that in my professional opinion, he would be all right except for a headache.
“Figured as much,” the old man said. “This noggin o’ mine is pretty hard. Fella like to bent his gun barrel when he walloped me with it, I reckon.”
“Who are you?” Sullivan asked.
“Stanley Edmonds. I own this store.”
Roque inclined his head toward the dead man behind the counter. “And who was he?”
“Hell, I don’t know his name. He was just one o’ those snake-blooded killers Cass Callahan’s brought in to murder some fella.” Edmonds’s eyes lit on our badges. “A Ranger, I hear tell.”
“I’m the one they’re after,” Roque confirmed.
“Well, then, I’m sorry for you, young fella, because there’s a whole mob o’ them hardcases over to the saloon. Ain’t no way even three Rangers can handle them.”
“We’ll see about that,” Sullivan said.
“Where are the townspeople?” Roque asked.
“Pulled out, headed up to Laredo. When the mayor and the rest of the folks in town got wind of what Callahan was plannin’ to do, they tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen to reason. He was bound’n determined to settle what he figured was a blood debt with the fella he blames for his pa’s death. Seemed to most folks, though, that what he was really doin’ was declarin’ war on the Texas Rangers, and they thought that was a damn fool thing to do. They was afraid the whole town’d get shot up, so they left until it’s all over.”
“Except for you,” Roque said.
“I got a damn sizable investment in this store,” Edmonds said. “I figured to stay and guard it. But then, one o’ Callahan’s gun-wolves came ridin’ into town earlier and said you was on your way, and one o’ the other fellas got the bright idea of pretendin’ this was his store. He figured you might come in here before you went to the saloon, and he’d get first crack at you that way.” Edmonds laughed harshly. “He was right, I reckon, but the only bounty he collected was in lead.”
Sullivan rubbed his jaw. “The fellas over in the saloon must’ve heard that shot. How come they ain’t rushed over here to see what happened?”
I answered that one. “They know that if Roque had been killed, the man who did it would have come forth to claim his reward. Therefore, they know that Roque was victorious, and they’re waiting for him to come to the saloon.”
“It’ll be forty to one if you go in there, son,” Edmonds said to Roque.
Sullivan drew himself up and said, “Forty to three, you mean.”
“Only thirteen and a third to one,” I added.
Edmonds looked around at us and shook his head.
“What about Callahan?” Roque said. “What sort of man is he?”
“What do you mean, what sort is he? He’s a vengeful son of a bitch, is what he is! Who else would bring in a bunch of killers from all over the Southwest, just to settle a score with one man?”
“He won’t listen to reason? He won’t accept an apology?”
Edmonds stared. “Hell, no! Things’ve gone too far for that.” He frowned, though, and after a moment continued, “Thing of it is, in every other way, Cass ain’t a bad fella. Not a bad fella at all. Always deals fair in business, and he treats the folks who work for him mighty decent-like. Some of the vaqueros who work out on the Diamond C got their whole families with ’em, and Cass sees that they’re took care of. Raised up a pretty good boy, too, name of Dan.”
“Did you live here when the Comanches raided the town, ten years ago?”
“Sure did. I’m one o’ the founders of Mirabella, I guess you could say. I knew the whole bunch. Cass was a young man then, but full-growed, with a wife and a young’un about eight years old. That’d be Dan. Alvin always planned to turn the ranch over to Cass, but when Alvin was killed, Cass had to go ahead and take over then. He did fine, but I reckon he never got over his pa dyin’ that way. Then a year or so later, Cass’s wife passed on sudden-like, and he got even more bitter. He couldn’t do nothin’ about that—can’t take revenge on a fever that comes outta nowhere and strikes somebody down—but he started figurin’ on how someday he’d even the score for what happened to his pa. When he heard that the Comanch’ war chief who led that raid was a half-breed who’d gone over and joined up with the Rangers…well, I reckon you know the rest of it after that.”
“Thank you,” Roque said quietly. “I appreciate you telling me about the man.”
“Knowin’ that don’t change anything,” Edmonds pointed out. “Callahan still wants you dead, son. Ain’t nothin’ you can do to change that. You and your friends might be able to get on your horses and ride out of town before they can stop you, though.”
“If I run away, I’ll be looking over my shoulder for Callahan’s hired killers for the rest of my life,” Roque said. “I’ve tried to leave my past behind me. I won’t invite it to follow me around with a gun.”
“I don’t know of a thing I can say, then, that’ll help you.”
Roque patted the old man on the shoulder. “Better lie low for a while,” he advised.
“Oh, I will, don’t you worry about that. Soon’s I drag out the corpse o’ that hydrophobia skunk you plugged.”
We turned toward the door. Roque said over his shoulder, “If you’d just blow out the lamp, too, so they can’t see us against the light when we step out…”
“Sure thing, son,” Edmonds said.
One more thing occurred to me. I asked, “You said one man rode back into town earlier, after ambushing Roque?”
“That’s right.”
“Did he have a splint on a broken right arm?”
“Nope. He’d been creased a time or two, I think, but no broken bones that I saw.”
“What’s it matter?” Sullivan asked me.
“I was just curious. It seems the man I wounded must have gone on to Corpus Christi as we suggested, rather than doubling back.”
Sullivan was right; it didn’t matter. If there was gun-play, as there was almost sure to be, I couldn’t be worried about such things as whether or not I’d be facing a man I had already wounded.
Edmonds blew out the lamp, plunging the store into darkness. Roque and Sullivan and I moved to the front of the building. Roque opened the door. If anyone were watching from the saloon across the street, as seemed likely, they had probably noted the movement of the door, even with the light out.
“We’ll go out low, and in a hurry,” Roque said. “There’s a water trough to the left. You two get behind it. I’ll head for that rain barrel at the corner.”
“You reckon they’ll open up on us just like that?” Sullivan asked.
“Don’t know, but there’s a chance they will.”
Sullivan nodded and looked at me. “You ready?”
My hands were sweating slightly as they clutched the rifle. But I managed to say, “I’m ready.”
“Let’s go,” Roque said.
We left the store as swiftly as possible. Roque went first, followed by Sullivan and then myself. As Roque had predicted, the men in the saloon opened fire as we darted through the shadows. Glass crashed in the front window of the store as bullets shattered it. I threw myself off the porch and landed hard on my belly as I stretched out on the ground behind the water trough. More bullets thudded into the thick adobe sides of the trough, which was about six feet long. Doc Sullivan lay immediately to my left. “Keep your head down,” he warned.
I didn’t waste the breath it would have required to tell him that I had no intention of lifting my head.
The men in the saloon continued the barrage for what seemed like hours but was surely only minutes. When I looked along the street, I could see the rain barrel where Roque had intended to take shelter, but from where I was I could not see if he was safe or not. Finally, the shooting died away, and I heard a man in the saloon shouting, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”
Sullivan lifted his head slightly. “Hey, over there!” he called. “You jugheads know you’re shootin’ at the Texas Rangers?”
The spokesman for the gunmen ignored that question. He shouted, “Maugricio! You hear me, Maugricio?”
“I hear you.” Roque’s voice was strong, and I felt relieved at the sound of it.
“You’re the only one I want, Maugricio,” the man said, which seemed to confirm his identity as Cass Callahan. “The other two can get on their horses and ride away.”
That was not exactly possible at the moment, considering the fact that our mounts had panicked when the shooting started, jerked their reins loose from the hitch rail, and bolted up the street, but I knew what Callahan meant.
So did Doc Sullivan. He said heatedly, “Go to hell, Callahan! You shoot at one Ranger, you shoot at all of us!”
“This is none of your affair,” Callahan warned.
“You won’t be thinkin’ that when Cap’n Rip Ford and the rest of the Old Company ride in here and string up the lot of you for murder!”
That gave them pause, make no mistake about it. Captain Ford’s fame had spread throughout the border country, and no one doubted that he was capable of extracting rough justice when the spirit moved him. Even from a distance, I heard concerned muttering from the other men in the saloon.
But Callahan had been nursing his hatred for too long. It had grown to consume him. He shouted, “Ten thousand! Ten thousand dollars to the man who kills Roque Maugricio!”
That commenced the ball once more. A deafening thunder arose as the men in the saloon opened fire.
They would have kept it up all night, or until their ammunition ran out, whichever came first, if they had not been distracted. At first I didn’t see what caused the shooting to taper off and then stop completely, but when I heard the horrified shouts and curses, my curiosity got the better of me and I had to disregard Sullivan’s warning and lift my head. Beside me, he was doing the same thing, and as he saw what was in the street, he choked out an exclamation.
“My God, what’d they do to that poor fella!”
The man was tied onto the back of his horse. He swayed slightly as the animal plodded along the dusty street. Dark streaks of blood were etched on the horse’s flanks, but the blood came from the rider, not the mount. He had been scalped and mutilated and was nude so that the hideous injuries could be plainly seen.
I never would have recognized him had it not been for the splint I had fashioned and strapped to his right arm earlier in the day. It was still in place.
I thought surely the man was dead. But to my horror, as the horse finally came to a stop between the saloon and the store, a grotesque, bubbling groan came from the wretch. His mouth moved, but nothing comprehensible emerged. I realized then that the ones who had tortured him had also ripped out his tongue.
No matter. The mere sight of what had been done to him was enough to tell us who was responsible.
“Carne Muerte,” Sullivan breathed.
Dead Meat. The fiercest Comanche war chief from one end of the Rio Grande to the other. The Old Company had crossed swords with him, so to speak, on several occasions in the past. In each of those battles, the Rangers had dealt out more damage than they received, but still, Carne Muerte had slipped away each time, only to return and bedevil us again.
Someone in the saloon yelled, “Lonzo! My God, look what they done to Lonzo!”
“Callahan!” Roque called sharply. “Callahan, listen to me!”
After a moment of silence, Callahan said grudgingly, “Go on, Maugricio.”
“That’s the work of Carne Muerte. He’s sent us a calling card, and that can mean only one thing: he’s going to attack the town, probably in a matter of minutes.”
“You don’t know that,” Callahan said.
“Yeah, I do,” Roque insisted. “You’ve got a lot of men here. We can fight off the Comanches…but not if we’re busy trying to kill each other.”
“It’s a damn lie!” Callahan said. “How do we know you’re not responsible for what happened to Lonzo, you filthy savage?”
“I ride with the Rangers. You know we wouldn’t do this.”
“He’s right, Cass,” another man said inside the saloon. “Maugricio’s half Comanch’. He’d know Carne Muerte’s handiwork, and he’d know what it means.”
“No!” I heard the rage in Callahan’s voice. He didn’t want to give up the dream of vengeance he had nurtured for so long. He didn’t even want to postpone it. “It’s a trick, I tell you!”
The tortured man groaned again.
“Damn it, somebody’s got to put him out of his misery!” And with that, a man rushed from the saloon with a pistol in his hand and raised the weapon as he approached the horse, obviously intent on putting a bullet through Lonzo’s brain.
With a whisper of sound, followed by a deadly thud, an arrow came out of the night and struck the man, piercing his chest. He screamed, dropped the gun, and clawed at the shaft as he fell to his knees and then pitched to the side, dead.
With that, there could no longer be any doubt. The battle was on.
As rifles began to crackle and arrows hissed through the air, Doc Sullivan came up on his knees and shot Lonzo through the head, putting an end to the man’s suffering. Then Sullivan twisted and began firing down the street with both guns, aiming at the figures that flitted through the shadows.
Some people say an Indian will not attack at night, but in truth, an Indian will fight when it best suits his purposes to do so, day or night. In this case, the darkness was friendly to Carne Muerte and his band of warriors, because it had allowed them to sneak all the way into town unobserved, so that they were among us before we knew it. Hearing a rush of footsteps, I rolled over and saw a Comanche charging toward the water trough where Sullivan and I lay. The rifle in his hands bloomed fire, but the hastily aimed bullet splashed into the water. I thrust my rifle at him and pulled the trigger. Flame leaped from the barrel, and the Comanche was so close that it almost touched his chest. He flipped backward as if he had run into a wall.
I started reloading as the roar of gunfire continued all around me. When I looked up, I saw an Indian running toward the saloon, brandishing a torch. Sullivan snapped a shot at him and knocked him off his feet. The torch sailed through the air but landed in the street, falling short of the saloon.
My rifle was ready again. I raised myself to my knees and drew a bead on some movement I spotted on the roof of the saloon. Knowing that no one in that position could be up to any good, I fired, and a second later was rewarded by the sight of a limp, war-painted figure toppling off the roof to plunge into the street. The Comanche warrior landed, in fact, on the still-blazing torch, and when he didn’t move, I knew he was dead. His body extinguished the torch, but not before the flesh burned enough to put a stink in the air.
I dropped to the ground and began to reload again. Beside me, Sullivan let out a whoop of pure battle joy as he finished emptying his Colts. He crouched and began reloading as well.
“Seen Roque?” he asked me, raising his voice over the roar of guns.
“No.” I glanced toward the rain barrel but still couldn’t tell if Roque was there or not.
He wasn’t. I knew that because in the next heartbeat, he came rushing along the porch, guns blazing as he fired into a knot of warriors charging us. Roque dropped to a knee at the end of the water trough. An arrow tugged at the sleeve of his shirt as it went past him. He triggered again and sent the Comanche who had fired the arrow spinning off his feet.
I heard the crackle of flames and looked toward the saloon. The Indians had managed to set it on fire somehow, after all. The windows glowed a garish red as the flames showed through them. Men came boiling through the door, slapping the batwings aside as they were forced to flee the inferno. Some of them fell victim to the bullets and arrows of the Comanches, but most of the defenders managed to reach other cover. Killers they might be, but they were also tough, battle-hardened men, swift with their guns and swift on their feet when they had to be.
By attacking Mirabella on this particular night, Carne Muerte had perhaps bitten off more than he could chew, as the old saying goes.
One of the men from the saloon tried to dash across the street. He made it only halfway before he tumbled off his feet. Whether he had been wounded or had simply tripped, I didn’t know. But he seemed stunned by his fall, and as one of the Comanches rushed toward him, I assumed that his misfortune was about to prove fatal.
Roque Maugricio surged up out of his crouch and aimed his pistols toward the onrushing warrior. Both hammers fell on empty chambers. I heard Roque curse as he flung the revolvers aside and then grabbed his Bowie knife from its sheath. He charged into the street to intercept the Comanche and protect the fallen man.
Roque may have been a hair slower with his six-guns than Doc Sullivan, but nowhere in the border country of Texas was there a deadlier fighter with a knife. Cold steel responded to the scout as if it were part of his own arm, hooked into the nerves and muscles of his body. Firelight flickered on the broad blade as it thrust and slashed. The Comanche was armed with a knife, too, and the blades rang like bells as they came together. Though the struggle raged up and down the street around them, these two men might as well have been alone in some primeval world as they did battle to see who would live and who would die. It was a thrilling combat, and I found myself forgetting to breathe as I watched it unfold. Once I lifted my rifle to my shoulder, thinking to shoot the Indian, but I realized that in the uncertain light, as fast as the men were moving in their high-stakes dance, I stood just as good a chance of hitting Roque. I lowered the weapon.
I heard Roque grunt in pain as the Comanche’s knife cut him, low on the left side. The warrior bore in, trying to press his momentary advantage. Roque slashed backhanded at him and forced the man to leap away or be cut deeply. The scout went on the offensive then, his blade moving so swiftly I could scarcely follow it. The Comanche counterattacked, slowing Roque’s charge and then turning it back, forcing Roque to retreat.
For one of the few occasions during the time we rode together, I saw Roque Maugricio do something less than graceful. His clumsiness was no doubt caused by his wound. Still, I was shocked to see him trip over the leg of the man he was trying to save. I let out an involuntary cry of alarm as Roque toppled backward and the Comanche rushed in to deliver the coup de grace.
Roque’s foot shot up, caught the Indian in the stomach, and sent him flying through the air above Roque and the fallen man. The Comanche landed well, however, rolling over and coming up ready to attack once again. But Roque was on him in an instant, thrusting his blade past the man’s guard and into his chest. They were face-to-face, only inches separating them. The Comanche struck at Roque’s back with his knife, tearing vest and shirt and gashing the skin, but Roque’s blow had been a mortal one and already the warrior was losing strength. Roque ripped his Bowie free, and I swear I heard the blade rasp on bone as it came loose from the Comanche’s body. Roque shoved the dying man away and reeled to his feet, blood dripping from the knife in his hand. He reached down with his other hand and helped the fallen man to his feet.
So enthralled had I been by the life-and-death struggle unfolding before my eyes, I had not taken notice that the shooting had diminished. I heard a different sort of thunder then, the pounding of hoofbeats, and Doc Sullivan pounded me on the back and let out a whoop of exultation. “It’s the Rangers!” he cried. “It’s Old Rip!”
True enough. A sizable contingent of the Old Company, led by Captain Ford, had swept into Mirabella and was in the process of putting the Comanches to rout. I wondered if Carne Muerte would get away, or if this time he would fall in battle. I was willing to wager that somehow he would give the Rangers the slip.
The fight didn’t last long. The Rangers chased the remaining Comanches across the Rio Grande as the survivors of the raid limped out from their cover. The saloon still burned, but the buildings on either side of it were constructed of adobe, and it seemed unlikely the fire would spread to them. Roque stood in the middle of the street with the man he had saved, and as Doc Sullivan and I approached, we heard him ask, “Are you all right, son?”
Before the man could answer, another man rushed up to them. “Dan!” he shouted. “Oh, my God, Dan!” He threw his arms around the young man on whose behalf Roque had interceded.
“Reckon that’d be Cass Callahan,” Sullivan drawled.
I had never seen the man before, but as I looked at his hard-planed face in the firelight and then studied the features of the young man he embraced, I saw the family resemblance. I was convinced they were indeed the Callahans, father and son.
“I’m all right, Pa,” the younger man said. “I’m all right, really, thanks to this fella.”
Cass Callahan turned slowly toward his son’s savior. “Maugricio?”
“Yeah,” Roque said. His left arm was pressed tightly to his side where the Comanche’s knife had cut him. The bloodstain didn’t appear to be dangerously large. I was confident Roque would be all right if I could give him some medical attention.
“Still want to pay ten thousand bucks for Roque’s head, Callahan?” Sullivan asked harshly.
Slowly, Callahan shook his head. The man appeared somewhat numbed by everything that had happened. He stared at Roque for a moment and then said, “You took my father from me, and I’ll always hate you for that, Maugricio. But you gave my son back to me. I got to call it square.”
Roque nodded. “Fair enough. And for what it’s worth…I’m sorry about what happened ten years ago. I’d change it if I could, but I reckon nobody can do that.”
Callahan returned the nod and started to turn away, but Doc Sullivan said, “You better make sure all those gunnies know there ain’t no more bounty to be had around here, mister. Anybody else comes after Roque, the Rangers’ll be comin’ to call on you again.”
“No bounty,” Callahan repeated. “I’ll make sure they all know.”
He started to lead his son away, but Dan Callahan balked. He turned back and held out his hand to Roque. “Thank you.”
Roque wiped the blood from his knife on his trousers and then shoved the blade back in its sheath. He shook Dan’s hand. “You’re welcome,” he said.
The Rangers rode back into town then, having splashed across the Rio Grande a short distance to make sure the Comanches were going to continue their flight. Captain Ford trotted his favorite mount, Old Higgins, up to Roque, Sullivan, and myself. He reined in and leaned forward in the saddle.
“I figured I’d find you boys here,” he said with a stern frown. “Did you really think I’d let my best scout and my company surgeon go gallivanting off into trouble and not come after them?”
“Hey, Cap’n!” Sullivan exclaimed. He jerked a thumb at Roque and me. “You mean to say you was all worried about them two, but not about me?”
“I can always find another damn fool,” the captain growled, but I could tell he was trying not to let a grin creep onto his weathered face.
Roque picked up the guns he had thrown aside and holstered them. “Let’s get back to camp,” he said. “One thing about Texas, there’ll always be another chore for the Rangers.”