The comancheros, p.1
The Comancheros, page 1
The Comancheros
Harvey Stanbrough
Novel 2 in the Wes Crowley Gap Series
StoneThread Publishing
http://stonethreadpublishing.com
To give the reader more of a sample, the front matter appears at the end.
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Comancheros (Wes Crowley Gap, #2)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
The Comancheros
Harvey Stanbrough
“Gentlemen, we’ve opened a new front. In addition to responding to the Comanches as best we can, we will now focus more on the comancheros. I don’t want one more woman to be taken south as a captive on my watch.”
Captain James Wilson of Company D, Texas Rangers, Amarillo
Chapter 1
Lounging in his hotel room in Childress, Texas, Rafe Wilkins flinched at the quiet knock on the door.
The woman alongside him murmured a quiet, “Hmm?” She stirred slightly but didn’t open her eyes, and somehow managed to nestle her head more deeply into his left shoulder. His left hand and arm tingled slightly from the blood supply being cut off.
The fingers of her left hand moved slightly on his bare chest, as if to verify he was still there.
Quietly, Wilkins said, “Sorry, darlin’,” and shifted just enough to reach up with his right hand. His gun belt was looped over the narrow iron post on the headboard. He found the butt of his Remington, closed his hand around it, and slipped it noiselessly from the holster.
He pointed the revolver at the door, cleared his throat and said, “Come in.” He cocked the Remington, the loudest sound in the world when it happens.
The woman stirred. “Rafe?”
“It’s all right. We got visitors.”
She made a cooing sound and nestled deeper again.
Wilkins watched as the doorknob turned tentatively. Apparently whoever it was had heard the hammer of the Remington being pulled back. When the doorknob stopped turning, the door moved only an inch or two into the room. The voice followed it. “Mr. Wilkins? Rafe Wilkins?”
“Who wants to know?”
“T-telegram, sir.”
“Telegram?” Wilkins frowned. He’d fallen for the ploy of a telegram once before, down in Brisco. That time a man had rapped sharply on the door, said, “Telegram,” then shoved the door open and began shooting.
Only Wilkins’ quick reflexes had saved his life. That time, as the doorknob squealed harshly, he’d grabbed his gun belt and rolled off the back side of the bed, taking the sheet and blanket with him.
In the ensuing, tangled mess, the man had gotten off three shots before Wilkins was able to find his revolver and return fire.
Fortunately, the man had fired at where he expected Wilkins to be, and all three rounds had plowed into the mattress. The fourth, which the man fired as a reflex just after Wilkins’ bullet had punched a hole in his chest, whined off the cast-iron bedpost and shattered the window above Wilkins’ head, raining glass down on him.
Afterward, he’d glanced at the body as he all but leapt into his clothes.
A few inches from the hole in the man’s chest was a marshal’s star. So why hadn’t the man brought a deputy or two? Probably trying to make a name for himself. The man who singlehandedly dropped Rafe Wilkins. Well, someday maybe, but not that day. And not that marshal. He didn’t deserve the honor anyway, shooting at an unarmed man in his bed.
Back in the present, he studied the door. “I can’t come to the door right now. Either drop it on the floor or bring it on in.”
“Y-yes sir.”
Having given the kid what he thought was an excellent alternative, Wilkins was surprised to see the door swing farther into the room. And there stood a kid, maybe 14 years old, in dark trousers, a white shirt, boots and a bowler hat. In his trembling right hand he gripped a pink slip of paper.
Wilkins gestured with his Remington. “Bring it here. What’s it say?”
The boy took a couple of tentative steps before he apparently heard the offer to read the telegram. He stopped took the note in both hands, and raised it up in front of his face. Maybe to stop the trembling, maybe so he wouldn’t see Wilkins’ finger tightening on the trigger. “S-sir, it’s from Paco. He says to meet him in an arroyo in five days. There there’s some numbers. I-I can’t make ‘em out.”
Wilkins gestured again, and the boy approached the bed and offered the telegram.
“Drop it on my belly and get out.”
“Y-yes sir.” The boy dropped the telegram, then turned and ran. At least he had enough wits about him to pull the door closed on his way by.
The woman raised her head and opened one eye. “What is it, Rafe?”
Wilkins glanced at the telegram. The numbers the boy alluded to were grid coordinates. Unless he missed his guess, they were solidly in No Man’s Land, north of the panhandle.
He folded the telegram and looked at the woman. “C’mon, get up. I gotta go.”
As she sat up on the back side of the bed, she said, “So it’s important?”
“Yeah. I gotta go see a man about a horse.” He laughed.
A little over a half-hour later, he rode out of Childress to the northwest.
*
Judging from the position of the sun, it was almost noon when Rafe Wilkins dismounted in front of a small, natural corral formed by the sudden end of a sandy, deep arroyo in No Man’s Land. He was right on time, despite a five-day ride up from the southeast.
The air was heavy, draped with the promise of rain as it does only in the desert. The promise is often offered, but seldom fulfilled. Despite the thunderheads rapidly building in the west, chances were it would only mist, if that. In the meantime, the sun bore down, unwavering in its intensity.
The corral was bounded on three sides by twenty-foot dirt cliffs, rocks protruding from them here and there. The narrow mouth of the corral was closed off with a branch-and-brush fence constructed sometime in the past, probably by Comanches to hold horses from their raids. At present, it held only three other horses, all saddled and shod.
Reins in hand, he pulled aside one end of the gate, led his horse in, then secured the gate again on his way out. Much as he despised the man he’d come to meet, he didn’t want to keep him waiting any longer than necessary.
He turned south, per instructions, and walked about a tenth of a mile to the next opening, which led into yet another deep arroyo to the west. His boots dug into the soft, sandy bottom of the arroyo, flipping up small puffs of sand, and slipped on the occasional rock as he walked.
A tenth of a mile farther on, he spotted his objective: a small spot of shade, cast by a stand of mesquites clinging to the edge of the arroyo high above and running down the north wall before spilling into a wide puddle on the sandy surface below. Well, that and the three men crouched and waiting in the semicircle of shade. One was facing him, one was facing away, and the third sat with his back to the side of the arroyo. That would be Messina, in the deepest shade.
As he continued up the arroyo, none of the men looked around. The one facing him and the one facing away were both looking at Messina.
He didn’t recognize the man facing him, a brusque-looking thin man with a pinched face and at least a few days’ growth on his face. His sombrero hung down over his back by a chin strap that looked for all the world like someone had sliced his throat with a sharp but dirty knife.
And the one with his back to Rafe, his sombrero also hanging at his back, had dirty, stringy, dark-red hair. The kind only a man with a black-haired father and a red-headed mother could grow. He was certain he didn’t know that one either.
Which verified that he was right. The one still wearing his sombrero, the one with his back to the wall of the arroyo, must be Francisco “Paco” Messina, the man who’d sent the telegram a week earlier. He couldn’t see the man’s face clearly. His head was bowed, a stick in his right hand. He seemed to be watching his own efforts as he drew something in the sand.
Chapter 2
Wilkins had met Messina on more than one occasion, and never under pleasurable circumstances. Still, they had never gotten sideways with each other, and business was business. What was good for Messina generally was good for him. Well, within reason and as long as he remembered never to turn his back on the man.
As he approached, quiet thunder rumbled from the distant thunderheads in the west. He wondered briefly what was considered upstream in these arroyos. Even if it didn’t rain right here, a lot of rain upstream might mean a flash flood on this end.
But this was the location Messina had selected, so this was where they would meet. Still, he would keep one ear alert for the rumbling so und of rushing water. Wilkins clapped his hands once, making a loud popping noise, and grinned. “Paco, my friend, what’s—”
The bandito to the west, the one facing Rafe, looked up suddenly. Then he was on his feet, his revolver in his hand and leveled. The click as he cocked it snapped sharply over the sound of his boots on the floor of the arroyo. As the man with his back to Rafe stood too and turned, in a strong Mexican accent, the first man said, “Who are you?”
Rafe laughed and spread his hands to his sides, his palms showing. “Well now, who the hell do you suppose I might be? I’m walking up on your camp in the middle of nowhere with my revolver still in my holster. And I’m doing all that at the exact moment I was told to arrive. So who am I, boy?” He gestured toward the man’s revolver. “Put that ridiculous thing away. If I’d thought Paco was gonna let you shoot, you’d already be dead.”
The man still crouched with his back to the wall glanced up at the first man. “Sit down, Raldo.” He glanced at the other man and gestured with the stick. “Niño, you too. If he wanted to, this man could have killed both of you before you rose.” He bowed his head and went back to drawing in the sand.
The man called Niño settled into a crouch again. But the first man kept his gun pointed at Rafe. A sneer spread across his face. “I just don’t think anybody’s fast enough to—”
As he continue walking, Wilkins’ hand flashed to his holster. In one motion, he pulled his Remington , cocked it, and fired. White smoke stretched through the still air. The sound of the explosion slapping back off the face of the arroyo was all but deafening.
As Raldo jumped, sand spat up from directly in front of his right foot, and about the time it spattered his jeans, Wilkins’ revolver was already holstered again. “Like the man said, sit down, ‘Raldo’. You moron.”
His revolver still in his right hand, the man jerked his head down to make sure his foot was still intact. Then he looked up again, his mouth gaping, a madness in his eyes, and his finger tightening on the trigger.
Messina barked, “Raldo!”
The man looked at him, then glanced at Wilkins again. He angrily shoved his revolver into the holster and resumed his crouch.
Rafe moved past the second man and stepped into the shade. He removed his hat with his left hand, then grinned down at the man. “Good choice there, ‘Raldo,’ whatever the hell that stands for. I’d’a killed you before you made it through the squeeze.” He looked to his right. “Hey, Paco, as I was about to say, what’s so important that you couldn’t say it in the telegram? What’s goin’ on?”
Messina didn’t glance up. He only gestured with the stick. “Please sit, señor Wilkins. We have things to discuss, the four of us.”
Rafe pulled his Remington again, sat cross-legged on the sand just inside the edge of the shade, and laid his revolver on his lap, the barrel pointing at the midsection of the man who’d drawn on him. He nodded at Messina. “Ready when you are.”
Messina only looked at him for a moment, then gestured with his chin to the man to Rafe’s right. “Niño, tell him what you saw.”
Niño Alvarez nodded, then looked at Rafe. “Rangers. There were Rangers all over the place. They rode north from Amarillo, and—”
Rafe laughed. “Rangers? That’s what this is about? Hell, they ride north all the time. And west and east. They have regular patrols, usually two or three days each, and they—”
Without looking up, still drawing with the stick in the sand, Messina said quietly, “This was different. They followed the railroad tracks to the northwest.” He gestured toward Niño with the stick. “Tell him.”
“It is true. The Rangers rode along the railroad tracks and they were studying the ground.”
“So? Maybe they were lookin’ for arrowheads or somethin’.”
Niño shook his head. “No, señor. I saw them with my two eyes, and I followed from a distance to the east. They rode hard, almost all the way to Mosquero Junction.”
Wilkins wagged one hand. “Probably lookin’ for signs of Comanche activity. An unshod horse leaves a different print than—”
Niño said, “No, señor. They rode hard and they looked only for what they could see in passing from horseback.” He paused and glanced at Messina. “Shod horses.” He looked at Wilkins again. “They were looking for wagon tracks or fresh sign of the passage of a lot of shod horses.” He paused again and glanced at Messina, then back to Wilkins. “I think they were looking for places where we load the women on the train.”
Wilkins frowned. “How far away were you? And if they made it all the way to Mosquero Junction—” He paused. “Wait, are you saying they did that in one day? How’d you keep up?”
“Yes, in one day. I was a half-mile to the east, but I had this.” He held up a telescope. “And when I first saw them they were already several miles north of Amarillo. I thought I was alone in the desert, and then there they were.” He touched the telescope. “This showed me the glint of the badges of the two men east of the tracks, and I spotted two more, only specks in the distance on the west side of the tracks, but they were riding just as hard.”
He shrugged, “So I faded farther to the east and rode hard myself all the way to the Mosquero-Plumas road. When I reached the road, I was certain they would have made camp already, so I followed the road to the west. And just as I came over a low rise, a lone man rode up to the junction. He got off his horse and looked carefully at all the tracks there for a while, then mounted again and rode back to the south.
“Again I followed from a distance. The telescope was no good in the dark, but as I thought he would, he reined-in at a small camp. He was one of the Rangers. There were four of them.”
The one called Geraldo, over from New Mexico Territory, smirked. “And it was dark. So why didn’t you just kill ‘em?”
Messina looked up and scowled. “Are you so complete a fool as that, to believe one man alone could take on four Rangers and survive?”
Raldo spread his hands. “He had a carbine, right? And there were only four of ‘em. And it was dark, Paco. And he knew where they were but they didn’t know where he was.”
Messina looked down, dragged the small stick back and forth through whatever he’d drawn, and shook his head. When he looked up again, he tossed the stick away. “Perhaps the next time we happen upon four Rangers—or even one—I will ask you to show me how to do that.”
Wilkins looked at Raldo and laughed. Then Niño started laughing.
Raldo remained silent, studying his boots.
Paco was wondering how this man had gotten the recommendation of the marshal in Santa Fe. Well, time for that later.
Chapter 3
The whistle blew a second time, seeming to lose air as the train slowed and chugged into the station at Amarillo.
As Ranger Wes Crowley stepped down from the passenger car, for a moment he clung to the hand rail and glanced along the platform.
The station itself was the same whitewashed wood, the sign along the top reading Amarillo in sun-faded black letters on a whitewashed board. The platform was the same too, scuffed planks with the same boot-polished, well-worn paths: one from the far end curving into the door, and another curving away from the door to the near end where passengers boarded whatever train they were leaving on.
He grinned. What had he expected? All of that was as it should be. He’d only been gone for only a little over two weeks, even though it felt like a year had passed.
A few passengers, the men in suits and the women in dresses, a few of those carrying parasols against the overbearing sun, were already milling about and queueing up to board for Dalton and points north and west.
But there were no Rangers among them.
Well, good. He thought Captain Garcia might have sent a telegram from Brownsville to let Captain Wilson know he was on his way back, but apparently he hadn’t. And that was good enough. He was tired, and he’d lost a good man down in Brownsville. He wanted to put Charley in the stable, then get a bath and a shave and some rest. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to go see the captain.
He released the hand rail, turned away and walked back along the train to the first stock car to retrieve his horse. His boots kicked up little clouds of dust that hovered in the still air, then settled.
