him of his home. As a kid. Back in Ohio.” He swung down and looped his reins around a low mesquite branch.
“Probably quoted Tennyson,” Rule said with a wry smile, reining his horse and dismounting.
“Yeah, something about ‘the white flower of a blameless life.’ ”
Rikor pulled his horse alongside the wagon, jumped down and spun his reins around the wagon’s brake stick.
“Any folks we need to be tellin’?” the young man asked, staring at the casket.
Checker explained there were two brothers and a sister, all back in Ohio. Ranger headquarters had the addresses, he thought. He would get them when he was in Austin. Emmett glanced at Rule, who was tying his reins to a cottonwood branch, but said nothing.
“What about a lady? A wife?” Rule asked without turning.
“No wife. There was a lady he mentioned several times.” Checker twisted his chin and tried to recall the name. “Harriet. Yes, Harriet. I should write to her as well.”
Rule glanced at Emmett and decided this wasn’t the time to ask the Ranger if he knew the woman’s last name—and where she lived. Morgan bit her lower lip and looked away.
“Hand me the shovel,” Rule said.
“I’ll dig the grave.” Checker’s tone was thunder.
Sternly, Emmett told the Ranger that he wanted to share in the work. So did Rikor, almost apologizing. Rule said he did, too. It would be his honor. After a few minutes, they selected a level place between the two oldest cottonwoods. Checker dug for twenty minutes, then handed the shovel to Rule. The tall Ranger was pale and gasping for breath. The four men rotated the digging and completed the task quickly with Rikor doing most of the final dirt removal.
Standing around the freshly mounded grave with its wooden cross in place, Checker spoke first, holding his hat in both hands. “A.J., ride easy, my friend. I put your notebook with you. Figured you and St. Peter will have some things to go over. Like you always did with…me. You’re ready to see him…with a new suit…and socks.” He choked back the emotion.” His hands tightened around his hat brim. “You have my word I won’t stop until this evil woman is finished. Or I join you.”
With that he walked over to his horse and produced a small book of Tennyson poems. He flipped open the pages and read the first three stanzas of “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” “ ‘All in the valley of Death rode the six hundred… Someone had blunder’d; Theirs not to make reply…Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do or die… Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them…Into the jaws of death, Into the mouth of hell…Rode the six hundred.’ ” He put the book down to his side and knew he couldn’t read more.
Silence grabbed the small group until Rikor began to sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Morgan joined him, then Emmett and Rule. Checker tried, but couldn’t.
When it was finished, Morgan stepped beside the grieving Ranger and took his hand.
Rule glanced at his new friend and said, “Let us pray. O God, our Father, whose very breath gives life to the world and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze of the morning and the great thunder in the evening, whose very touch gives color to the sunset and the birds of the land; hear us now. Our voices are small, but steady, for we mourn the passing of our great friend, A. J. Bartlett.
“He is coming to you now. You will know him by his great brave heart, his love for his friends and his enjoyment of poetry. He comes to you without shame, with clean hands and without fear, but he leaves us with many tears. It was too soon, O Lord. We need your strength and wisdom to understand.
“Direct us to ride in strength. Your strength. Help us learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and every rock. Help us to remain steadfast against those who would destroy us. Ever give us the song of A.J.’s laughter in our hearts. We ask this in Thy name. Amen.”
Morgan’s face was laced with tears as she murmured, “That was beautiful, Rule.”
Checker took her to him and held her. Tightly. Letting his hat drop to the ground. Then he walked over to Rule and hugged him, then the others, patting each on the back. His eyes were filled with wetness.
It was Emmett who finally broke the spell of the moment. “Well, we need to be movin’. A.J. wouldn’t have wanted us a-mopin’ over him. No, he wouldn’t’a.”
Picking up his hat and returning it to his head, Checker said, “You’re right, Emmett. We need to ride.” He walked over to the cross and adjusted it. “Adios, my friend. I will miss you.”
Softly, Morgan said, “Let’s go to my place for some coffee and breakfast. We need it, I think. Mr. Fiss should be rejoining us soon.”
Checker turned and his face was hard. The words from his mouth were Comanche. A commitment to death to his enemies or to his own in trying. Only Rule understood and whispered the same Comanche promise.
Chapter Thirty-one
Six mules pulled the inbound heavy stagecoach from Austin along the rutted road. It was nearing noon on the day of A. J. Bartlett’s burial.
As the heavy vehicle rocked and bounced like a ship in a stormy sea, Sil Jaudon wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, brushed off dust from his coat sleeve and cursed softly in French. The other passengers had given up trying to keep dust from their clothes and sweat from their faces and had disappeared within themselves. The heavyset man laid his head against the leather-upholstered row with the wall of the carriage and shut his eyes. His third gun, carried in his belt in back, was causing him discomfort no matter how he sat, so he finally withdrew it and laid the gun on his lap, apologizing in French.
On his coat lapel was a Ranger captain’s badge. Already it had brought him much attention and the interest of one of the women passengers. The woman had a birthmark that covered most of her left cheek. She had approached him at the last stage station. He guessed she was a whore headed for Caisson. When he got to Caisson, the first thing he intended to do was eat; then he would take advantage of her offer.
Already he could envision a big steak and potatoes at Lourdeson’s, his favorite restaurant in Caisson. Lady Holt could wait. Besides, he already knew John Checker was dead; Sheriff Hangar’s wire had informed him. Of course, that would make Eleven Meade her favorite for the moment, maybe even more than Tapan Moore, her current lover.
So be it, he told himself.
Above the thunder of the road, the driver’s shouts to his team—and the crack of the nine-foot whip—were a constant reminder of the stage line’s emphasis on speed. When climbing aboard, Jaudon had noticed the stage was carrying express freight and mail, along with passenger luggage. Only three men passengers had been allowed to sit on top; there was no room for more.
Concerned, the driver and guard were exchanging thoughts about what they were seeing ahead. He caught part of the conversation. “Looks like a bunch of them. They carryin’ a flag. Never seen the like before.”
“Do you know ’em?”
“They ain’t soldiers.”
“It’s wide-open country, Buster. Nobody’s gonna try to hold us up here.”
“Maybe.”
“ ’Sides, I ain’t takin’ on no army. Must be twenty or so.”
“You just keep that scattergun pointed at that fella with the flag. I don’t like this.”
“You’re getting jumpy in your old age.”
“I’m a-gonna keep them mules a-goin’.” The driver snapped his long whip over the top of the team to reinforce his intent.
Gripping his hideout gun, Jaudon leaned out the window and saw one silhouette coming closer to the coach.
For the dramatic impact of the passengers, Jaudon flipped back his coat to reveal the two additional ivory- handled, gold-plated pistols carried in formfitting holsters at his waist. But he knew immediately it was Tapan
