“I recollect him. A troublemaker, a real bad ’un. He was just starting to make a name for himself when I went north.”
“He’s a big noise nowadays, Johnny. Got hisself a following among the young bucks of the tribe. Red Hand’s been raising holy hell for the last four years with no Army or Rangers to crack down on him. There’s some other smaller fry, but them two are the real hellbenders.
“But that’s not the least of it. The redskins raid and move on. But the white badmen just set. The county’s thick with ’em. Thicker’n flies swarming a manure pile in a cow pasture on a hot summer day. Deserters from both armies, renegades, outlaws. Comancheros selling guns and whiskey to the Indians. Backshooters, women-killers. The lowest. Bluecoats are too busy chasing the Indians to bother with them. Folks’re so broke that there ain’t hardly nothing left worth stealing any more, but that don’t matter to some hombres. They’s up to all kinds of devilments out of pure meanness.
“Hell, I got robbed right here on this road not more than a day ago. In broad daylight. I didn’t have nothing worth stealing but they took it anyhow. It’d been different if I’d had me a six-gun. Or a good double-barreled sawed-off.”
“Who done it, Luke?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. First off, I been living out at the old family place, what’s left of it,” Luke said. “Somebody put the torch to it while I was away. Burned down the ranch house and barn.”
“Yanks?” Johnny asked.
Luke shook his head. “Federals never got to Hangtree County during the war. Probably figured it wasn’t worth bothering with. No, the ranch must’ve been burned by some no-goods, probably just for the hell of it.
“Anyhow, I scrounged up enough unburnt planks and shacks to build me a little shack; I been living there since I come back. Place is thick with maverick cattle—the whole range is. Strays that have been gone wild during the war and now there’s hundreds, thousands of them running around loose. Every now and then I catch and kill me one for food. I’d’ve starved without.
“I had me some hides I’d cleaned and cured. I was bringing ’em into town to sell or barter at the general store. Some fishhooks, chaw of tobacco, seeds ...”
“And whiskey,” Johnny said.
“Hell, yes,” Luke said. “Had my old rifled musket and mule. Never made it to Hangtown—I got held up along the way. Bunch of no-accounts come up, got the drop on me. Five of them.”
“Who?”
“Strangers, I never seen ’em before. But when I seen ’em again—Well, never mind about that now. Lot of outsiders horning in around here lately. I ain’t forgetting a one of ’em. Led by a mean son name of Monty.”
“Monty,” Johnny echoed, committing the name to memory.
“That’s what they called him, Monty. Big ol’ boy with a round fat face and little piggy eyes. Cornsilk hair so fine and pale it was white. Got him a gold front tooth a-shining and a-sparkling away in the middle of his mouth,” Luke said. “Him and his crowd gave me a whomping. Busted my musket against a tree. Shot my poor ol’ mule dead for the fun of it. Busted my crutch over my head. It hurt, too.”
Luke took off his hat, pointing out a big fat lump in the middle of his crown.
“That’s some goose egg. Like I said, you always was a hardheaded fellow. Lucky for you,” Johnny said.
“Yeh, lucky.” Luke put his hat back on, gingerly settling it on his head. “While I was out cold they stole everything I had: my hides, my knife, even my wooden leg. Can you beat that? Stealing a man’s wooden leg! Them things don’t grow on trees, you know. That’s what really hurt. I walked from hell to Texas on that leg. Yes, you could say I was attached to it.”
“You could. I wouldn’t.”
“When I come to, them owlhoots was talking about if ’n they should kill me or not. Only reason they didn’t gun me down on the spot is ’cause Monty thought it would be funny to leave me alive to go crawling across the countryside.”
“Yankees?”
“Hell no, they was Southerners just like us. Texans, some of ’em, from the way they talked,” said Luke.
His face set in lines of grim determination. “I’ll find ’em, I got time. When I do, I’ll even up with ’em. And then some. That gold tooth of Monty’s is gonna make me a good watch fob. Once I get me a watch.”
He waved a hand dismissively, shooing away the topic as if it were a troublesome insect. “Not that I want to bother you with my troubles. Just giving you the lay of the land, so to speak. And you, Johnny, what’re you doing back here?”
Johnny Cross shrugged. “I came home for a little peace and quiet, Luke. That’s all.”
“You come to the wrong place.”
“And to lay low. The Border States ain’t too healthy for any of Quantrill’s crowd.”
“You wanted, Johnny?”
“Not in Texas.” After a pause, he said, “Not in this part of Texas.”
“You could do worse. Hangtree’s a big county with lots of room to get lost in. The Yanks are quartered forty miles northwest at Fort Pardee in the Breaks. They don’t come to Hangtown much, and when they do they’s just passing through. They got their hands full chasing Indians.”
“They catch any?”
Luke laughed. “From what I hear, they got to look sharp to keep the Indians from catching them.”
“Good, that’ll keep ’em out of my hair.”
“What’re your plans, Johnny?”
“One thing I know is horses. Mustangs still running at Wild Horse Gulch?”
“More now than ever, since nobody was rounding ’em up during the war.”
“Figured I’d collect a string and sell ’em. Folks always need horses, even in hard times. Maybe I’ll sell ’em to those bluebellies at the fort.”
Luke was shocked. “You wouldn’t!”
“Gold’s gold and the Yanks are the ones that got it nowadays,” said Johnny Cross.
Something in the air made him look back. A dust cloud showed in the distance east on the road, a brown smudge on the lip of the blue bowl of sky. Johnny reined in, turning the horse to face back the way they came. “Company’s coming,” he said.
“Generally that means trouble in these parts,” Luke said.
“Ain’t necessarily so, but that’s the way to bet it,” he added.
Johnny Cross unfastened the catch of the saddlebag on his right-hand side, reaching in and pulling out a revolver. A big .44 front-loading cap-and-ball six-gun like the ones worn on his hips: new, clean and potent.
“Here,” he said, holding it out to Luke. “Take it,” he said when the other hesitated.
Luke took it. The gun had a satisfying heft and balance in his hand. “A six-gun! One of them repeating revolvers,” Luke marveled.
“Know how to use it?” Johnny asked.
“After four years with Hood’s Brigade?” Luke said in disbelief.
“In that case I’d better show you how it works, then. I wouldn’t want you shooting me or yourself by accident,” Johnny said, straight-faced.
Luke’s scowl broke into a twisted grin. “Shucks, you’re joshing me,” he said.
“I am? That’s news to me.”
“You’re still doing it, dang you.”
Johnny Cross flashed him a quick grin, strong white teeth gleaming, laugh-lines curling up around the corners of his hazel eyes. A boyish grin, likable somehow, with nothing mean in it.
Sure, Johnny was funning Luke. Hood’s Brigade of Texans was one of the hardest-fighting outfits of the Confederacy, whose army had been distinguished by a host of fierce and valiant fighters.
Johnny turned the horse’s head, pointing it west, urging it forward into a fast walk.
Luke stuck the pistol into the top of his waistband on his left side, butt-out. “It’s good to have something to fill the hand with. Been feeling half-nekkid without one,” he said.
“With what’s left of that uniform, you are half-nekkid,” Johnny said.
“How many more of them ventilators you got tucked in them saddlebags?”