Texas Drive Read online

  BILL

  DUGAN

  Texas Drive

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  Also by Bill Dugan

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  TED COTTON SAT under the only tree for miles around. His mouth tasted like dry grass, and he shook the canteen once before unscrewing the cap. It sounded about a third full, and he checked the sun, then tilted the gritty metal back and let a trickle of water wet his lips and tongue. The water was warm and tasted of metal. Swirling the water around with his tongue, he let it wash some of the dust away, then spat into the sand.

  Ted swallowed the second mouthful, shuddering at the unpleasant taste. His brother watched him, sitting against a boulder, trying to keep out of the sun.

  “You ought to be glad to have it,” Johnny said.

  “Hell, sometimes I think I’d rather die of thirst. How come everything in Texas tastes like sand?”

  “It ain’t Texas, Ted, it’s just this part of Texas.”

  “Big enough part, it might as well be the whole damn state.”

  “You got to get used to it all over again, that’s all.”

  “I get used to this, I guess hell won’t be a problem.” Ted took another swig of the bitter water, tried to swallow it without tasting it, and screwed the cap back on the canteen. “I guess I forgot just how bad things were back home.”

  Johnny ignored him, snatching a dry stalk of grass and scratching at the ground. He seemed lost in thought, and Ted let him alone. He knew his brother well enough to know when he didn’t feel like talking.

  Getting to his feet, Ted leaned back against the twisted tree, rubbing his back on the rough bark. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he stared into the mouth of Breakneck Canyon. It was almost two o’clock, and the heat rising up off the canyon floor made everything shimmer. The thick, thorny leaves of the tree brushed against his hat, and he stepped away from the gnarled trunk.

  “You sure them strays are in there?” Ted asked. He took a couple of steps toward the mouth of the canyon. “There’s Rafe,” he said, waving his hat.

  “About time,” Johnny said, groaning as he stood up. “Be nothing but bones we don’t get a move on.”

  “Those steers are too damn tough to die.”

  “You’re probably right, but that meat’s tough enough. Folks back east don’t want to cut their beef with a hacksaw.”

  “Folks back east ought to come on out here and get their own damn cows.”

  “You got a better way to make a living, I’d love to hear about it.”

  Ted waved his hat again, and this time the approaching rider waved back. In the cloud of dust kicked up behind Rafe, Ted could make out four more riders.

  “Seven,” he said. “That ought to about do it.”

  Johnny stretched his arms over his head. “We can’t do it with seven, we ought to try another business.”

  “Maybe we ought to do that anyway.”

  “Damn it, Teddy, quit bellyaching. Bad enough being out here in the middle of nowhere, without you moaning every damn minute.”

  Ted clapped the dust from the seat of his pants, but said nothing. He could feel his brother’s eyes boring into his back. He wanted to turn around, but knew they’d just have another argument. Johnny was right, anyway. He did complain too much. But there wasn’t a whole lot else to do.

  He felt Johnny’s hand on his shoulder. He looked at it, but didn’t turn around. Johnny squeezed, and Ted nodded. He understood. They always understood each other. Two years wasn’t much of a difference.

  Rafe was close enough to shout now, pulling back a little on the reins and letting his horse slow to a fast walk. “You lazy bastards still waiting for me? I thought you’d have all them cows rounded up by now.”

  Rafe grinned, letting his teeth show without moving his cheeks. It was the strangest smile Ted had ever seen. “You got to earn your pay, too, Rafe,” Ted said.

  “Pay, is it? I thought this was my hobby. Haven’t had two dollars to rub together since before the war.”

  “Hell, you never had two dollars even then,” Johnny said. “Not as long as whiskey was two bits.”

  Rafe slid from the saddle, coiling the reins tightly in one gloved fist. “You saying I drink a bit, Johnny?” There was that strange grin again.

  “A bit …”

  “Man gets thirsty out here, case you haven’t noticed.”

  Johnny ignored the bait and tugged his own horse toward him with a jerk of the reins. He swung into the saddle, looping one long leg up and over and letting his weight find a comfortable spot in the well-worn leather. Looking at his brother, he said, “You coming, Ted?”

  Ted nodded

  “Ted’s no fool,” Rafe said “He knows what’s what.”

  Johnny waved to the other hands, who were hanging back a little and watching the exchange with amusement. “You boys all ready?”

  Dan Harley shook his head. “I guess.”

  Turning to his brother, Johnny said, “You coming, or not?”

  Ted nodded, then climbed onto his mount. “I’m coming.”

  Johnny wheeled his pony and nudged it toward the mouth of the canyon. Ted brought up the rear, as he always did. It was part reluctance and part habit. Either way, it was where he was most comfortable. Even before the war, Johnny started calling him Drag Rider, after the last man in a trail drive, and Ted had come to like the name, sometimes even going out of his way to provoke his brother by dragging his feet even more than usual.

  As they pushed through the broad mouth of Breakneck Canyon, its layers of deep red stone bleached to a dull copper by the brilliant sun, Ted looked up at the rimrock. Huge slabs of red stone seemed to hang on either lip. If he stared at them too long, they wavered, as if the least breeze would send them over and crashing down into the rocky floor far below.

  Narrowing his eyes to slits, Ted searched the rim. He felt as if he had missed something, as if there was something he should see up there, but the harder he stared, the more slippery everything became. In the shimmering currents rising off the canyon floor, everything looked as if it were melting, like a candle too close to the fire. Rough edges were smoother, the crags on the canyon walls mortared over with a translucent glaze.

  The men ahead of him started to fan out, spreading toward either wall. The canyon slimmed down to a bottleneck, then opened wide. Boulders and thorny brush littered the sandy floor. It was a toss-up which one was harder on the horses and men. The rocks made every step an adventure, but the chaparral and tornillo ripped at their chaps, gouging long furrows in the leather.

  Ted knew four men who had lost an eye to the metal hard tornillo thorns, some of them three inches long and sharp as ice picks. Each man picked his own way, knowing the stray cattle could be anywhere, hiding among the boulders or at the end of long channels in the thick brush. The longhorns ate anything, including the thorns, and a spooked steer could send horse and man sprawling into the thicket. Getting out intact was out of the question. Getting out alive was a matter of luck and, to some, a favor from an indifferent God.

  Johnny raised the first steer, a rangy bag of hide and bones. The animal raised its head, its nostrils twitching spasmodically. Whatever he was trying to scent, the ste
er made up his mind in a hurry. With a bellow, it charged out of the rocks, making straight for Johnny’s horse. The long horns swung from side to side, dipping like a seesaw, and Johnny narrowly avoided the attack. He spiked himself on some tornillo, one thorn piercing his chaps and snapping off in his calf.

  It was going to be a long day.

  Four hours later, they had almost a hundred head, all milling in the makeshift corral, raising their heads every time another steer or cow was added. The cows were easier, two for one, because the calves followed wherever the mother went.

  Rafe worked harder than the other hands, harder than anyone but Johnny, and Ted watched him wheeling his horse like a man possessed. The little pony looked too small for so big a man. But it was a chopper, used to turning on a dime, and knew the cattle business as well as any man Ted had ever seen. The sun was starting to slip when Rafe finally took off his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

  “Reckon you can talk that brother of yours into some chow, Ted?” he said.

  “It’ll be the first time, if I can,” Ted said. He smiled, but Rafe knew he wasn’t kidding.

  “Shouldn’t be so hard on him, son. He only does what your papa taught him to do.”

  “Papa’s dead, Rafe.”

  Rafe nodded. “I know that.”

  Ted, feeling he’d made his point, didn’t say anything else. He kicked his mount, going easy on the spurs, and went off in search of Johnny. Five minutes later, he found him, tugging a reluctant cow behind him on a short rope. Johnny rode on past, nodding his head. “You lookin’ for me?”

  “Rafe thinks we ought to knock off for a bit, get something to eat. Sun’ll be down soon, anyhow.”

  “Rafe works for me.”

  “That means no, I take it?”

  “It means what it means.”

  Ted watched him move away. Johnny’s shirt was dark from collar to tail with sweat, a film of sandy dust sticking to the damper places like a thin mud pack. Even the blood-stained right leg of his dungarees wasn’t enough to slow him down.

  Ted started after his brother, and Tommy Dawson, one of the temporary hands, fell in beside him. “Hot,” Tommy said.

  Ted nodded. Something, he wasn’t sure what, distracted him, and he turned in the saddle. Just off his left shoulder, up among the rocks, something had moved.

  He slowed a bit, letting Tommy slide on past him, and stared at the steep face of the canyon wall. Standing in the stirrups, the horse shuffling restlessly under him, he probed the purple stains where shadows had already begun to soak into the rock. He was sure he’d seen something, but the wall was motionless. An eerie quiet filled the canyon.

  Ted shook it off, dropping back to the saddle and clucking to the pony. Tommy Dawson was twenty yards ahead now, just a dusty black hat on a pair of broad shoulders. The thornbushes picked up a hint of red from the sun, etching the tan shirt with a lacy network. Then Tommy was gone.

  Ted blinked, then he heard the shot. High up, somewhere behind him, it popped, almost like a loud handclap, then echoed off the wall. He spun in the saddle, instinctively searching for the spot where he’d seen the movement. Like before, he saw nothing. Pushing his pony, he charged after Dawson. As he rounded the clump of mesquite bushes, he saw the cowboy on the ground, curled in a ball.

  Tommy’s horse was long gone. Dawson moaned as Ted jumped from the saddle. Something slammed into his saddle and he turned just as another shot echoed among the rocks.

  “Tommy,” he shouted, dropping to his knees. Already, he could see the dark red stain high on Dawson’s left shoulder. A dark hole just off the shoulder blade seeped blood, and a trickle ran down into the dry sand.

  He rolled Dawson over, and the cowboy groaned. One hand lay plastered to the front of his shoulder, and Ted could see the blood oozing between Dawson’s fingers, filling the cracks in his skin.

  “Sonofabitch,” Dawson moaned. His clenched teeth almost obscured the words. Ted tugged a dusty handkerchief from his back pocket and stuffed it between Dawson’s fingers and the wound.

  “Can you get up, Tommy?”

  “Dunno.” He tried to sit, wincing as the shoulder moved, and Ted realized the bullet must have broken some bone. “Hold your arm as still as you can.” He unknotted Dawson’s neckerchief and fashioned a rough sling, looping it under the forearm and reknotting it around Dawson’s neck.

  “Who done it?” Dawson asked. “You see the bastard?”

  Ted shook his head. “Thought I might have seen something up near the rim, but when I looked, there was nothing.”

  “Nothing, hell,” Dawson said, getting to his knees. He tried to stand up, and Ted grabbed Dawson’s good arm and draped it over his shoulders.

  The first howl came out of nowhere. High-pitched, quavering, it sounded as if someone were being torn apart. Ted almost dropped Dawson.

  “The hell was that?” the wounded man asked.

  “Comanche …”

  2

  THE BLOODCURDLING HOWLS echoed off the canyon walls, bouncing back at them from a dozen directions. Ted half dragged Dawson toward the foot of the nearest wall. Working sideways, he found a crevice fronted by a pair of boulders and lowered Dawson to the ground.

  “You stay here, while I try to get help. Don’t move, don’t even look out. Whoever nailed you can do it again.”

  “You think I’m gonna stay here and let some Comanche devil slice my hair off, you better think again.”

  “Tommy, don’t be crazy. I’ll get the others and we’ll smoke the bastards out.”

  “According to Johnny, you don’t smoke nothin’ lately, especially not with no gun.”

  “Johnny thinks he knows things he doesn’t.”

  Dawson tried to get up, but Ted pushed him back, none too gently. “Stay down, dammit.”

  It was quiet again, and Ted cocked an ear toward the rimrock. Off in the distance, he could hear one of the hands yipping at a stray, but that was the only sound. A hot wind riffled sand across the face of the cliff, and Ted looked up. He caught a glimpse of something moving far above him, but then it was gone.

  “What is it? What did you see?” Dawson demanded, getting to his feet again. The strain was too much for him, and he leaned back against the rock, groaning. Through clenched teeth, he said, “You sure it’s Comanches?”

  “How long you lived out here, Tommy?”

  “Hell, not long.”

  “Then don’t argue with me. I been here half my life, except for the war. I know what I heard. And Johnny and the others must have heard it, too. Just sit down and wait for me.”

  Dawson was too weak to argue anymore. He sank down, his shirt scraping the rock and hiking up in back. When he hit bottom, he reached behind him with his good arm and pulled the cloth down between rock and skin.

  “Don’t stand there gawkin’, go get Johnny and Rafe.” He tried to grin, but it didn’t work. His lips twisted back, showing his teeth like a mad dog, then he closed the teeth over his lower lip and let out a moan. “Damn, it hurts …”

  Ted backed away from the crevice, keeping an eye peeled on the rim. He knew the gunshots had come from above and on this side of the canyon. What he didn’t know was whether the Indian had any help.

  He couldn’t see his horse as he backed through the brush, and he was starting to get nervous. The yipping down canyon had died away. The silence had returned. His boots crunched on the dry sand.

  Crouching to keep below the thick clumps of mesquite, he swiveled his head back and forth to keep an eye on both sides of the canyon rim. He heard something off to the left, a low muttering, and shifted the Colt nervously in his hand. The sweat on his palms made him feel like he was losing control of the gun. He shifted the Colt to his left hand for a moment to dry his right hand on his shirt.

  When he found the horse, he shook his head. The big roan lay on the ground on its side. A pool of blood, already beginning to draw flies, glistened on the sand. The second bullet had pierced the saddle leather, and the horse was fin
ished. It raised its head feebly, nickering once. Ted could see himself in miniature in the big eyes, then the horse lowered its head and lay still.

  He jerked a brand-new Winchester carbine from the saddle boot, snatched at his canteen and draped it over his shoulder, then tugged at the saddlebags. He had ammunition for the carbine and his Colt in the bags. The weight of the horse pressed down on one of the bags, and he had to lie on the ground, then brace himself against the animal’s flank with both feet and pull to get them free.

  It gave way suddenly, and he sprawled backward in the sand. As he lay there, he spotted a figure high on the rim, beginning to climb down not thirty yards from where Dawson lay hidden.

  Cursing under his breath, he got to his knees, levered a shell into the carbine’s chamber, and drew a bead. There was no question it was a Comanche. He could see the distinctive markings clearly as the Indian turned his head to one side, hugging the stone on his way down the wall. Like a brightly colored fly.

  He hesitated, telling himself he would wait for a better shot. The Comanche straddled an outcropping, seeming to balance for a moment, then dropped two or three feet, scrabbling at the wall with his feet. Watching the Indian over his gun-sight, Ted felt a strange detachment, as if the descending brave had nothing to do with him.

  Moving to one side, to get a better look, he re-sighted. It was a clear shot, dead on, and he started to squeeze the trigger. He felt his finger curl, then stop. He got up and started to run toward the wall. Another Comanche, then a third and a fourth, appeared on the canyon rim.

  All three started shooting at him. He heard the bullets sing past him, snapping twigs and brittle leaves. They slammed into the sand and whined off the rocks. The climbing Indian dropped another three feet, as if he were not part of what was happening above and below him.

  Ted dove behind a boulder and fired once at the Indians on the rim. The bullet chipped hunks of red stone free, and they cascaded down the wall, just to the Comanche’s right.

  As Ted charged toward the base of the cliff, the Indian on the wall spotted him. Ted started to move faster, but the Indian was faster still.