Day of Independence by William W. Johnstone Page B

is one of them, and all by himself he’s a handful.”
    Weak and worn out as he was, the Ranger tried to make himself think.
    Finally he said, “Hacker won’t try to take Last Chance by force. He doesn’t have enough men to take on two score armed citizens who’ll fight to keep what’s theirs, even if they’re not professional gunfighters.”
    By nature, Ed Gillman was not a talking man, but a keen intelligence showed in his high forehead and alert eyes. “Frank, he wants to take all of it, by God,” he said. “This town, the fields, the tree groves, the ranches, the fur trade with Mexico... the whole kit and caboodle down to the last stalk of wheat.”
    â€œAnd cotton,” Cannan said. “Don’t forget the cotton. A man could make a killing growing cotton along this part of the Big Bend.”
    â€œIt’s thin, mighty thin,” Curtis said. “Who would work Hacker’s fields? His gunmen?”
    â€œMaybe he figures he can force the people of this community to work his fields,” Coffin said.
    â€œNo. As I said earlier, he’d have a war on his hands, and he doesn’t want that,” Cannan said.
    â€œThen I can’t figure it,” Curtis said, throwing up his hands.
    â€œMe neither,” Cannan said. “But I plan to study on it.”
    The Ranger closed his eyes again, pain and fatigue wearing on him.
    Curtis read the signs and said, with a tinge of bitterness, “You can think about it, Ranger, but you can’t get up out of bed and help us.”
    â€œNot for a few weeks or so,” Roxie said.
    â€œThen look on the bright side, Ranger,” Coffin said, smiling. “You’ll be up and about for our Independence Day celebrations.”
    As though the jolly undertaker irritated him, the mayor chose to be gloomy.
    â€œBy this Fourth of July we might all be dead or scattered to the four corners of the earth,” he said.
    â€œMother of God, don’t say that, Frank,” Gillman said. But the store owner’s worried expression betrayed him.
    Gillman knew it could happen.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    A severe drought in the southern-steppe growing zone of Chihuahua forced the Mexican farmers north, toward the desert country.
    Riding through sandy brush country thirty miles south of the Rio Grande, Mickey Pauleen learned from distressed peons that the drought was in its third year and that they were heading for the sky islands, hanging valleys in the mountains that stayed wet and cool enough to grow pines and hardwood trees.
    Although it was late in the planting season, many of the peons carried seed corn with them. If the high valleys were not dry as mummy dust, they could plant their corn and expect a harvest in the early fall.
    â€œAnd if there’s drought in the mountains, what then?” Pauleen asked a farmer, who was trailed by a pregnant wife riding a burro and seven children.
    â€œWe will eat the burro and our seed corn and when those are gone my family will starve,” the man said.
    This was good news for Pauleen.
    He reckoned he’d seen several hundred Mexicans already, and their presence in great numbers this far north would help Sancho Perez’s roundup.
    The bandit had several strongholds scattered around the desert country, but his permanent quarters was a hacienda located among a group of low-lying hills a few miles to Pauleen’s east.
    Pauleen slid the Winchester from his boot and laid it across the saddle horn. Then he swung his horse toward the hills and his eyes reached out across the sun-blasted yellow desert and hoped Perez was at home and not raiding into Texas or the New Mexico Territory.
    After a mile or so, three men appeared in the distance, horses and riders strangely elongated in the shimmer like gaunt knights in an old Gothic tapestry.
    Gradually, as they rode closer, men and horses slowly regained their proper proportions, and sunlight flashed on silver bridles