[Texas Rangers 04] - Ranger's Trail by Elmer Kelton Page B

Make yourself useful to the Monahan family.”
    Andy lifted his saddle from the fence. “You don’t know what you may be ridin’ into. You’re liable to need help.”
    “ I doubt it. If I do I’ll go to the local law. You stay here.” Rusty mounted and rode away, looking back. Andy stood with the saddle at arm’s length, watching him.
    “ You stay,” Rusty hollered back.
    He had ridden half a mile when he heard a horse coming up behind him. He stopped and turned the dun around as Andy approached. He said, “I told you I’m goin’ by myself.”
    “ And I’m goin’ by my self. I just happen to be travelin’ the same direction you are.”
    Rusty wanted to be angry with him but couldn’t. “As I remember it, you trailed after your Comanche brother once when he told you not to. Got yourself in bad trouble.” That had been the time Rusty had found him lying helpless, his leg broken after his horse fell.
    “ I was just a kid then.”
    “ By my lights, you’re still a kid.”
    “ But too big for you to whip. Are we movin’ on, or do we just sit here and talk?”
    Rusty saw that neither reason nor threat would change Andy’s mind. He had a stubbornness that Daddy Mike Shannon would have appreciated. “I guess we can argue and ride at the same time. Come on.”
    He carried supplies rolled up in a blanket tied behind the cantle of his saddle. Andy had brought nothing but an extra blanket. Rusty knew they would have to be sparing of his coffee and flour and bacon. He said, “Keep a sharp eye out for game or we’ll be awful lank by the time we reach Fort Griffin.”
    “ You don’t know what hungry is ’til you’ve ridden with the Comanches. They can go for a week on a chunk of sundried meat the size of your hand.”
    “ I’ve done it, but I never liked it.”
    Fortunately Andy’s sharp eyes picked up some antelope that afternoon, and his keen marksmanship brought one down. Antelope would never replace beef in Rusty’s opinion, but it was better than fat hogback.
    Preacher Webb had told him about an army chaplain he had met in Fort Griffin. “When he wasn’t ministerin’ to the soldiers he was takin’ the gospel to others that needed it. The good Lord knows there’s a lot of them that need it around Fort Griffin. The ground over there is soaked in whiskey.”
    Andy asked, “Is Fort Griffin really as bad as Preacher makes out?”
    Rusty said, “From what I hear, one minister isn’t near enough.”
    It was not much of a village. Its main clientele was soldiers stationed at the post on a flat-topped hill just to the south. It catered also to ranchers and farmers of the area and to freighters passing through. Whatever resentment the old Confederates might harbor against Union soldiers, they were never averse to profiting from them.
    Rusty had found from experience that a saloon was a good place for information, though sometimes it required a modest investment in goods from behind the bar. He tied the dun in front of a crudely constructed frame building and told Andy, “You don’t belong in there.”
    Andy smiled. “Neither one of us does. Looks like a place where you could get your head stove in for two bits.”
    “ Or maybe less,” Rusty agreed. “You stay here while I go ask a question or two.”
    Andy moved his head in a manner that said neither yes nor no. But he took a position out in front, by the door, where he could hear what was said inside.
    The saloon keeper reminded Rusty a little of the stableman in Austin, middle-aged, thin, a red-tinged face indicating that he was quite familiar with his stock. He gave Rusty a piercing study as if gauging his ability to pay. “What’s your pleasure?”
    “ Depends on what you’ve got.”
    The barman waved his hand toward a row of bottles along the wall behind him. “You see it. Different bottles, same whiskey. Whichever one you take, you’ll wish you’d taken somethin’ else. But there ain’t nothin’ else.”
    Rusty liked a little