“I thought I detected a hint of Virginia in your voice, sir,” Frank said.
“Were you in the war?”
“I was ... but that was a long time ago.”
Tolliver clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Indeed it was. After supper, I’ll break out a bottle of brandy I’ve been savin’, and we’ll drink to old times. They weren’t the best of times, but they made us what we are.”
“I reckon that’s true enough,” Frank agreed. Almost three decades had passed since the end of the war, but it remained the single biggest event in most men’s lives.
A man couldn’t spend all his time looking backward, though. As the women left Frank, Tolliver, and Ben in the parlor, Frank steered the conversation back to the here and now by saying, “I suppose you’ve had your hands riding patrol at night, trying to stop the rustling.”
Tolliver nodded. “Damn right I have. All it’s gotten me is one puncher shot dead and another laid up with a bullet-busted shoulder.”
“So the rustlers don’t hesitate to shoot?”
“Not at all. Anyway, this is a big spread. It’d take an army to cover all of it at night.” The frustration was easy to hear in Tolliver’s voice. “But I can’t just call in my men and throw the ranch wide open to the damn wide-loopers.”
Frank shook his head. “No, you can’t do that,” he agreed.
“If you have any ideas, Mr. Morgan,” Ben said, “we’d be glad to hear ’em.”
Tolliver got a cigar from a box on a table next to a heavy divan and jabbed it toward Frank. “What I ought to do is hire some gunmen and ride across the Rio to wipe out Almanzar. I’ll bet our rustlin’ troubles would stop then!”
Ben frowned darkly, and Frank got the feeling that the young man didn’t care for his father’s idea at all. Ben wasn’t the only one. Pegeen had come back into the room with her sister in time to hear her husband’s angry pronouncement, and she said, “You’ll do no such thing, Cecil Tolliver! You can’t take the law into your own hands, and besides, you don’t know that Don Felipe is behind the rustling.”
Tolliver stuck the cigar in his mouth and chewed savagely on it for a moment before he said, “When we first come out here, Peg, there wasn’t no law but what a man could carry in his own fist. We did all right in those days.”
“We all nearly got killed more than once, fighting off Comanches and outlaws,” she snapped. “You leave such things to the Rangers.”
Tolliver just made a sound of disgust. He took another cigar from the box and offered it to Frank, who slipped it into his shirt pocket. “I’ll save it for later, with that brandy,” he said.
“Good idea. I got to gnaw on this one now, though, to keep from sayin’ things I hadn’t ought to say.” Tolliver crossed his arms and glared at the world in general.
His wife dared his wrath by saying, “I still need those supplies. Come morning, Cecil, you’ll have to go back to town to replace the ones you lost.”
“All right, all right,” Tolliver muttered around the cigar. “But I’m takin’ more of the boys with me next time, and if Almanzar sends his gun wolves after us again, they’ll get even more of a fight than they got this time!”
Debra and Jessie came out of the kitchen carrying trays with cups and saucers on them. Steam lifted from the coffee in the cups, and Frank smiled in appreciation of the delicious aroma.
The coffee tasted as good as it smelled. Frank sat in a comfortable armchair and sipped from his cup. A time or two, he caught Roanne watching him with undisguised interest. He wondered if she was married or a widow or had never been hitched. An unmarried woman of her age was considered an old maid out here, but there was nothing old about her. To be honest, the boldness of her gaze wasn’t very maidenly either. Frank returned her looks with an interest of his own. She was a mighty attractive lady.
They hadn’t been sitting around the parlor for very long when a sudden rataplan of hoofbeats welled up outside. A large group of riders was approaching the ranch. Tolliver and Ben set their cups aside and stood up quickly. So did Frank. No shouts of alarm had sounded from the ranch hands, but these days, no one was taking a chance. With his hand on the butt of the Colt at his hip, Tolliver strode to the front door. Ben and Frank were right behind him.
As the three men stepped out onto the porch, they saw a group of about twenty-five men entering the ranch yard. The rider in the lead was a big, barrel-chested man with a raw-boned, hawklike face and a shock of white hair under a black Stetson. The last of the fading light revealed a badge pinned to his coat. Frank recognized it as a star set inside a circle, the emblem of the Texas Rangers.
“Captain Wedge!” Tolliver called out as the newcomers reined in, confirming the guess Frank had just made. “Good to see you and your boys. Could have used you around a little while ago.”
The Ranger captain swung down from his saddle and curtly motioned for his men to dismount as well. “Why’s that, Tolliver?” he asked as he turned to face the rancher.
“Because my boy an’ me were jumped by a gang o’ Almanzar’s gunmen from across the border. If it wasn’t for Frank Morgan here, Ben an’ me would probably be buzzard bait by now.”
Captain Wedge turned his dark eyes toward The Drifter and repeated the name. “Frank Morgan, eh?”
Frank knew there was no point in denying anything. It came as no surprise to him that a lawman had recognized his name. He said, “That’s right.”
“Heard of you,” Wedge said with a curt nod. “Don’t think there’s any paper out on you right now, though.”
“There never has been except on trumped-up charges that were proven false,” Frank said.
Wedge nodded again. “Pretty much what I figured. Heard too that you’ve given the Rangers a hand now and then.”
“I’m a law-abiding man,” Frank explained. “I do what I can to help when I’m called on.”
“Good to know.” Wedge turned back to Cecil Tolliver. “What’s this about you and the boy being attacked by Almanzar’s riders?”
“They jumped us while we were comin’ back to the ranch from San Rosa,” Tolliver said. “We’d been to town to pick up some supplies. A whole bunch of ’em came on us suddenlike, yellin’ and shootin’. We tried to get away and make a fight of it at the same time, but our buckboard turned over. Then Mr. Morgan rode up and took a hand in the game. We knocked down enough of the bastards so that the rest of ’em turned tail.”
“Sounds like you’re lucky to be alive,” Wedge said.
“That’s the way I figure it too.”
The Ranger captain frowned. “How do you know the men who jumped you work for Almanzar?”
“Who else would have it in for me?” Tolliver demanded. “Almanzar and me been crossways with each other for a long time.”
“What about the Black Scorpion?”
Tolliver looked surprised at Wedge’s question. “What about him?”
“Could the men who attacked you have been part of the Scorpion’s gang?”
Ben put in, “That thought crossed my mind too, even though I’m not sure I believe in the Black Scorpion.”
“He’s real enough,” Wedge said.
Tolliver shook his head stubbornly. “I didn’t see no sign of any masked man leadin’ the gang. They were just a bunch of border toughs, the sort of hardcases Almanzar hires to make life miserable for me.”
“The reason I ask is, the men and I have been trailing the Black Scorpion since yesterday. He and his gang raided a ranch on the other side of San Rosa. They were coming in this direction and it seems logical to me that they could have run into you and your son.”