bothering with. No, the ranch must’ve been burned by some no-goods, probably just for the hell of it.
“Anyhow I scrounged up enough unburnt planks and shacks to build me a little shack; I been living there since I come back. Place is thick with maverick cattle—the whole range is. Strays that have been gone wild during the war and now there’s hundreds, thousands of them running around loose. Every now and then I catch and kill me one for food. I’d’ve starved without.
“I had me some hides I’d cleaned and cured. I was bringing ’em into town to sell or barter at the general store. Some fishhooks, chaw of tobacco, seeds . . .”
“And whiskey,” Johnny said.
“Hell, yes,” Luke said. “Had my old rifled musket and mule. Never made it to Hangtown—I got held up along the way. Bunch of no-accounts come up, got the drop on me. Five of them.”
“Who?”
“Strangers, I never seed ’em before. But when I see ’em again—Well, never mind about that now. Lot of outsiders horning in around here lately. I ain’t forgetting a one of ’em. Led by a mean son name of Monty.”
“Monty,” Johnny echoed, committing the name to memory.
“That’s what they called him, Monty. Big ol’ boy with a round fat face and little piggy eyes. Cornsilk hair so fine and pale it was white. Got him a gold front tooth a-shining and a-sparkling away in the middle of his mouth,” Luke said. “Him and his crowd gave me a whomping. Busted my musket against a tree. Shot my poor ol’ mule dead for the fun of it. Busted my crutch over my head. It hurt, too.”
Luke took off his hat, pointing out a big fat lump in the middle of his crown.
“That’s some goose egg. Like I said, you always was a hardheaded fellow. Lucky for you,” Johnny said.
“Yeh, lucky.” Luke put his hat back on, gingerly settling it on his head. “While I was out cold they stole everything I had: my hides, my knife, even my wooden leg. Can you beat that? Stealing a man’s wooden leg! Them things don’t grow on trees, you know. That’s what really hurt. I walked from hell to Texas on that leg. Yes, you could say I was attached to it.”
“You could. I wouldn’t.”
“When I come to, them owlhoots was talking about if’n they should kill me or not. Only reason they didn’t gun me down on the spot is ’cause Monty thought it would be funny to leave me alive to go crawling across the countryside.”
“Yankees?”
“Hell no, they was Southerners just like us. Texans, some of ’em, from the way they talked,” said Luke.
His face set in lines of grim determination. “I’ll find ’em, I got time. When I do, I’ll even up with ’em. And then some. That gold tooth of Monty’s is gonna make me a good watch fob. Once I get me a watch.”
He waved a hand dismissively, shooing away the topic as if it were a troublesome insect. “Not that I want to bother you with my troubles. Just giving you the lay of the land, so to speak. And you, Johnny, what’re you doing back here?”
Johnny Cross shrugged. “I came home for a little peace and quiet, Luke. That’s all.”
“You come to the wrong place.”
“And to lay low. The border states ain’t too healthy for any of Quantrill’s crowd.”
“You wanted, Johnny?”
“Not in Texas.” After a pause, he said, “Not in this part of Texas.”
“You could do worse. Hangtree’s a big county with lots of room to get lost in. The Yanks are quartered forty miles northwest at Fort Pardee in the Breaks. They don’t come to Hangtown much and when they do they’s just passing through. They got their hands full chasing Indians.”
“They catch any?”
Luke laughed. “From what I hear, they got to look sharp to keep the Indians from catching them.”
“Good, that’ll keep ’em out of my hair.”
“What’re your plans, Johnny?”
“One thing I know is horses. Mustangs still running at Wild Horse Gulch?”
“More now than ever, since nobody was rounding ’em up during the war.”
“Figured I’d collect a string and sell ’em. Folks always need horses, even in hard times. Maybe I’ll sell ’em to those bluebellies at the fort.”
Luke was shocked. “You wouldn’t!”
“Gold’s gold and the Yanks are the ones that got it nowadays,” said Johnny Cross.
Something in the air made him look back. A dust cloud showed in the distance east on the road, a brown smudge on the lip of the blue bowl of sky. Johnny reined in, turning the horse to face back the way they came. “Company’s coming,” he said.
“Generally that means trouble in these parts,” Luke said.
“Ain’t necessarily so, but that’s the way to bet it,” he added.
Johnny Cross unfastened the catch of the saddlebag on his right-hand side, reaching in and pulling out a revolver. A big .44 frontloading cap-and-ball sixgun like the ones worn on his hips: new, clean and potent.
“Here,” he said, holding it out to Luke. “Take it,” he said when the other hesitated.
