head.
“That’s why we had us another revolution here in Texas this past spring, Jonah,” Lockhart said, a wry smile below that bushy black mustache. “Bunch of Rangers went in and threw that copper-backed Davis right out of office—put in a good man, Richard Coke.”
“First Democrat since the war,” Johns declared.
“If there’s only about three hundred of us—what’s the army doing now?” Jonah asked.
Pettis shrugged, his jaw muscles working like the current of a river, and said, “Mackenzie’s down on the border, told to chase the Kickapoos back into Mexico.”
“And all the while—up here the devil goes on the prowl!” added Deacon Johns.
Lockhart gazed steadily at Hook. “Isn’t that the reason you joined us, Jonah? Instead of signing up with the army?”
“The army chases Injuns a lot. They don’t always find what they go after,” Jonah admitted. “I’ve seen enough of that with my own eyes to know it’s the truth.”
“The Gospel, that is!” Johns exclaimed.
“So you took the oath because you know the Rangers find what they go after,” Coffee said.
Jonah gazed around the group sitting with their feet to the last glowing of the low flames. Most of the rest from the other fires had come over to join the circle. “I fought in the war. Fought Injuns in Dakota Territory too. I know good men when I see ’em. I took you fellas to be good men what didn’t give up.”
“That’s why I decided to sign you on, Jonah Hook,” Lockhart replied. “From what I’ve come to know of you— you’re a good man who doesn’t give up.”
“Besides,” crowed Deacon Johns, “you’re a good southern boy!”
Lockhart nodded, waiting while some of the rest quietly hooted their approval. “There’s a lot to be said for all that Texas gave to the Confederacy during the war, Jonah. Why, when hostilities broke out back east, even General Con Terry, an old Ranger himself from the days of the revolution, organized his own damned regiment of former Rangers and frontiersmen.”
“They was called Terry’s Texas Rangers,” Coffee said with admiration.
“From Bull Run clear down to Appomattox—Rangers fought agin the Yankees,” Johns added, just as proud.
“By Appomattox, Terry’s regiment had lost nigh onto eight of every ten who had mustered into the general’s bunch,” Wig Danville said.
“God bless their souls,” Johns said, removing his hat to place it over his heart as he gazed up into the night sky.
“God bless the Texas Rangers,” Niles Coffee repeated.
Lockhart knelt by the dim glow of the embers and consulted his big turnip watch, its gold turned as red as a Spanish doubloon. Standing, he slipped it back into a vest pocket. “Time for second watch to relieve our pickets.”
Hook watched a handful of men off into the darkness without a grumble, only the faint crunch of their boots fading on the flaky ground.
“You always prefer last watch, Jonah?”
He turned back to Lockhart. “Don’t mind rising early—not at all.”
“How about when there’s snow on the ground?”
Hook smiled. “Just gets me an early start on the day.”
Lockhart nodded with a grin of his own. “That’s the sort of man we have in the Rangers.”
“I’m waiting to find some sign, a trail—track down a village … anything: that’s what I’m waiting on,” Jonah replied.
“You travel light and lean as this bunch does—you’re bound to come up with some Comanche sooner or later.”
“Can’t be soon enough for me.”
“Remember what they say about good things coming to all those who wait. Good night, Jonah.”
He watched the company commander turn and move off into the dim light toward his bedroll. “G’night, cap’n.”
The next morning after the men had wolfed down a cold breakfast and loaded the company’s two pack mules, Lockhart had Sergeant Coffee hold roll call as the Rangers stood by their mounts. June Callicott, a man as homely as blue sin and skinny as rack-bone crowbait, stood beside Jonah, waiting through inspection.
“Full moon was two nights back, men,” the captain began, striding the front of his company. “Most of you know what that means. We can figure the savages were out in force.”
“Comanche moon,” Callicott whispered from the corner of his mouth.
Ever since last spring Jonah had heard the term mentioned enough: the full of the moon when the Kiowa and Comanche and Cheyenne, too, all timed their biggest raids to take advantage of the light while they plundered and pillaged at night, able to escape before many of their thefts were discovered, before any pursuers would take up their trail.
“With that sobering thought in mind,” Lockhart went on, “we best be about covering our assigned territory —more closely now than we have for the past three weeks. I’m doubling the outriders, hoping we can cross some sign between the headwaters of McClellan Creek and the far end of the Palo Duro.”
“With the captain’s permission?” John Corn inquired.
“What is it, Corn?”
“We gonna work down to the Palo Duro on the double, sir?”
“I figured we would,” Lockhart replied.
“Thank you, Captain. Pleased of that because we all know the red bastards cross and recross this country by the same trails they use whenever they been out raiding.”
“But this time there’s something more afoot than just plain raiding, Private Corn,” Lockhart said, coming to a stop near Corn and Hook. “This time the stories say the Comanche have gone and held a sun dance. Their first ever.”
“Godless heathen fornicators!” grumbled Deacon Johns. “Praying to the sun! The wrath of God lies barely sleeping, boys—hid from the days of Abraham himself, and them red-baked sinners got the power to awake the wrath of the Almighty, they do. Hell ain’t half-full yet!”
“I say let hell open up and swallow all them red bastards!” growled Harley Pettis.
When they were done, Lockhart looked back at Private Corn. “This time the bands are gathering up. That tells me the hostiles in our assigned territory aren’t going to be content with raiding for a handful of horses here or a dozen cows there.”
“What do you figure is on the wind, Captain?” Jonah asked.
“I think what we have staring us in the eye is out-and-out war, Private Hook,” Lockhart answered. “Nothing less than a full-scale uprising.”
35
“RIDER COMING IN, Captain!”
Up ahead of Jonah Hook one of the Rangers pointed into the distance. North and east, in the general direction Lamar Lockhart had been pushing them for the past three days. It was a land of steep-side arroyos sloping down in garlands of red and yellow rimrock, a country of hard-running creeks come spring’s runoff dance, bottomless canyons, scrub pine and cedar stands on every knobby sandstone outcrop, all scratched up like turkey tracks with shallow, shadowy gulches. Out here in all this immensity, Jonah figured the space inside a man seemed a lot less crowded.
Into the brutal light of that summer afternoon more of them were pointing now, murmuring among themselves as Lockhart threw up an arm and ordered a halt.
“Whoever he is, that man’s tacked his poor beast into a lather,” Deacon Johns said. He sat the saddle beside Jonah in their column of twos, the short gray whiskers that ran around the edges of his gaunt jaws bristled,