Ride for Rule Cordell

who runs the land office there. He can be the witness and make sure the paper is in order. We’ll take it to Caisson. After we find your friend.”

Emmett chuckled in spite of the seriousness of the moment. “I’d sure like to be thar when that awful woman hears the news.” He found himself saying, “Yu’re gonna like John Checker, boy. The two o’ ya are cut from the same tree.”

Rule nodded and stood as well. “Let me get my war clothes on.” He put an arm on Emmett’s shoulder. “After we find Ranger Checker, we’ll figure out our next step. All right?”

His comment was far more confident than he felt. Why wouldn’t John Checker have caught up…if he could?

At the other side of the table, Rikor struggled against the lack of sleep, but wanted to show his maturity. His eyelids blinked rapidly as he resisted the urge to shut them for just a minute.

Stiffling a yawn, he finally asked, “Should we get our wagon out of sight? You want us to put our milk cow in your barn?”

“Good idea, Rikor,” Rule said, walking toward the bedroom. “We’ll take care of it before we leave. You’ve done plenty, son. Maybe you should stay behind and get some sleep. We’ll be back in a couple of days.”

The young man shook his head negatively and asked the questions hovering over the room like vultures. “What if John’s…dead? What’s going to happen to our ranch?”

Softly, as if it were a song, Bartlett said, “ ‘Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.’ ”

Rule stopped in the doorway to their main bedroom. “Tennyson, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yes, he’s rather a favorite of mine, I must say.”

“I like ‘If God be with us, who can be against us?’ Romans, chapter eight, verse thirty-one.”

Bartlett smiled. “Hard to trump that, I suppose.”

“Rikor, your ranch is going to be yours for a long time,” Rule added. “Why don’t you pick out some horses while I get ready? Everything in the big corral is saddle good. Twenty saddles each—and slicker and rope broke. Aleta did the final polishing, so they handle good—and can run all day.”

Bartlett nodded.

Emmett tried to smile.

“Be real quiet, mio love, the boys are in the bedroom. Sleeping,” Aleta urged.

“I will.”

Inside his bedroom, Rule dressed quickly in a black broadcloth suit and white collarless shirt. On the bed, Andrew and Hans were soundly sleeping. Beside the bed was a handmade, waist-high cabinet, accented with hand-carved flowers. Once it had been a strange display of guns when he first began his new life as preacher, leaving the vestiges of the war and the lost time as a renegade gunfighter behind. The placement of pistols and rifles had been a measured one, almost ceremonial.

Now the guns were kept in his closet, high enough to avoid the curious hands of his children. He stepped past the half-century-old cabinet now displaying a Bible. Beside the book was another gift from Moon. An eagle feather fan.

Inside the closet, on a high shelf, were seven .44 revolvers of mixed origin and a five-shot, Dean & Adams pistol. Two of the big pistols were settled in holsters with their bullet belts wrapped around them. Another brace of pistols were silver-plated and pearl-handled. They were Aleta’s guns. Stacked on each side of the cabinet were two Henry rifles, a Winchester and a shotgun. All were cleaned regularly.

He strapped on one gun belt, checked the .44 revolver and reholstered it. A short-barreled Colt was shoved into his waistband, then the Dean & Adams pistol into his back waistband. Carrying four or five pistols was something he had learned in the war; it always seemed comforting.

Into his mind sneaked an ugly memory. It was a few days before he left for the war and he had caught his father, the Reverend Aaron Cordell, hiding money from the donation plate. His mother had long since left the clutches of this terrible man. The evil preacher spun toward his young son, spitting righteous phrases that meant nothing and raising a silver-topped cane to strike him. The look in Rule’s eyes had stopped him.

Later, his father ridiculed Rule’s leaving to fight for the Cause; the evil man showed up once more in his life, siding with the Regulators. That Sunday had brought many surprises and much pain. His best friend died, trying to protect him. His mother, long gone from his life, appeared in church to ask for his forgiveness. His father ran—and hadn’t been seen again. An entire congregation stood up and shouted they were “Sons of Thunder.” He announced to them that he wasn’t James Rule Langford, he was Rule Cordell—and they didn’t care.

He recalled a strange Indian woman, Eagle Mary, telling him, “You are thunder. You are lightning. You are the storm to clean the land. Nanisuwukaiyu. Moon is watching over you.”

He shook his head to clear away the awful cobwebs.

After putting on his riding coat, he grabbed a Winchester from the rifles, then stopped. Laying it against the wall, he went to his drawer and withdrew a small stone earring.

A medicine stone from Moon. A piece of Mother Moon herself, the old man had said.

He slipped the leather thong over his ear and let the stone settle beneath it. Nodding approval to himself, he left the room. The tiny symbol had gotten him safely through the war, the anguish of postwar Texas and his earlier fight with the Regulators. He had only spent one day with the dying Comanche shaman, but it was enough to give him much to remember. God was everywhere and in everything. Seeing miracles in everyday things. Resurrection was not uncommon; a man just had to look for it. Just as every man could be his own priest. The highest calling was to care about others.

In that strange encounter, they had become as father and son.

Without thinking about it, he touched the small medicine pouch under his shirt; the shaman told him that it carried the medicine of the owl, the moon’s messenger. Yes, Moon had watched over him.

Aleta was waiting in the main room; the others were outside, selecting new mounts.

“Hasta luego, mio love,” she said. “I know you must do thees. Eet ees family. Hurry back to us.”

“I will.”

“I see you wear the strength of Moon.” She glanced at the stone earring. “That ees good.”

“Yeah. I thought it would help bring me back quicker.”

They kissed and held each other tightly.

She stepped back and her hand touched his cheek. Her words were of war. “You must geet them off balance. Attack where they don’t expect eet. You must become a son of thunder. Again.”

From her pocket, she withdrew a slim stem of what had once been a rose. Without asking, she pinned it to his long coat lapel. “Theez weel bring you back pronto.”

The rose stem had long ago been a rose given by the widow of General Jeb Stuart to his officers at his funeral. He had worn it through the rest of the war and into his nightmare in Texas, refusing to take it off long after the petals had fallen away.

“I didn’t know you had this. Where—?”

“Adios, mio love. Ride hard and come back to us soon.”

Chapter Seventeen

Ranger Captain Hershell Poe sat behind his desk in Ranger headquarters and reread the governor’s directive. It was the sixth time he had read about the firing and arresting of Captain Harrison Temple, the subsequent release of the entire Special Force of forty Rangers and the appointment of Sil Jaudon as the new captain with the authority to hire his own Rangers for that group.

He and Temple were equals, although some perceived Poe to be the superior officer. Temple was a fighter leading a squad of fighters; Poe was a politician managing a squad of fighters. A considerable difference. Temple never did understand the need to pay attention to the winds of politics. Or the newspapers. He attracted men like John Checker and Spake Jamison, who would rather charge than discuss.

“Just like that,” he muttered. “I should have seen it coming.” He knew Governor Citale was easily encouraged