“We’ll leave him alone for now, maybe bring him in for a talk if he is still with us in a few days.”
“Just tell me if you want him dead.”
“I will. For now, just lead us to your campsite.”
Mitch nodded, wheeled his horse around and headed back up the trail. As Rudy nudged the mules forward again, Jack’s eyes followed the rider as he disappeared into the sun. He dressed like an ordinary cowhand except for the calf-high moccasins he wore. Jack thought Mitch should be near forty now. The half-blood had scouted for several years with Jack’s Ranger outfit before joining Jack on the exodus to the ranch some fifteen years earlier.
Mitch kept his tongue tight about his past, but that was not unusual for Texas men. Jack had pieced together this much, though: Mitch was the child of a Comanche warrior and a captive white woman. He had lived with Comanches during early childhood but was young enough when his mother was ransomed that he was taken with her from the village, albeit not likely without a struggle. He would have been Comanche by that time. It did not matter. With horses to recover, Mitch Eagle Eyes had been an obvious choice for the mission.
“You didn’t tell me somebody was following us,” Rudy complained. “How long you knowed that?”
“Picked him up when I was still mounted, a few hours out of San Angelo. He was on that ridge to the southeast. I can’t read without my spectacles, but I do fine with the distance. No cause to get anybody stirred up.”
“Well, I’m stirred up you didn’t tell me.”
“You’re not happy unless you are stirred up about something.”
The wagon struck a pit in the trail that nearly bounced Jack off his seat and shot a sliver of pain up his lower back. He looked over at Rudy. “Did you do that on purpose?”
Rudy responded with one of his twisted toothless grins.
Chapter Seventeen
Jack was glad the little caravan had pulled off the trail early. He tried to climb down from the chuckwagon gracefully, but grace had vacated his stiff and aching bones. His feet hit the ground, and he straightened slowly. It annoyed him that Rudy, the old fart, was moving faster than he was, directing orders rapid-fire to Bram about setting up the chuckwagon for supper and getting a fire started. First day out. Jack figured he would work out the creaks after another day or two on the trail.
He retrieved Pokey from behind the chuckwagon where the gelding had been hitched after Jack’s dismounting. He led the horse to the stream for a drink and looked around the site while he waited. A shallow but fast flowing stream. Clean as a man would find in this part of Texas. They would collect the horses and mules downstream and replenish water supplies well above the critters.
As Mitch Eagle Eyes had promised, firewood was ample. A healthy stand of willows sprinkled with hackberry trees lined the stream, and the grass varieties should appeal to the mules and horses, not lush growth but adequate. Equine eating opportunities would be sparser as they moved on, but starvation was not a likely threat this time of year.
Jack led the bay along the stream’s edge toward a broad stretch of grass that followed the tree line, where Irish O’Toole, Possum Crowell, Mitch and, surprising him, Sierra, were attaching rope lines for four or five animals each to the trees. Other ropes attached to halters and tied to the line would give enough slack for grazing.
When Irish O’Toole saw him, he finished a hitch in the rope he was working on, waved at Jack and walked his way with a broad smile on his dark face. “Hey, Jack. I’ll take Pokey.” He took the reins from Jack’s hand and caressed the horse’s soft muzzle affectionately. Irish spoiled Pokey rotten.
“How is the young lady doing with the horses?”
“Just fine, Jack. She knows horseflesh, mules included. If she stays around, I’ll have to look over my shoulder to be sure she doesn’t take my job.”
Irish, the son of a Negro slaveowner and his mulatto wife, had enjoyed a tutored education exceeding that of most Southern whites. He could read and write proficiently and was a well-spoken man in his early thirties. He resided in one of the Lucky Five ranch houses with his wife, Rose, and their two sons. Rose had been born a slave on the O’Toole Texas plantation, but from her coloring, Jack surmised that a fair amount of white blood ran in her veins. It baffled him sometimes why some thought it important to identify folks by race. It didn’t take but a few generations for most people to have a little bit of everything in their blood.
As to Irish’s history, Negro slaveowners were not commonplace, but they appeared with enough frequency that they were not a particular curiosity either. Regardless, the outcome of the war had impoverished Patrick O’Toole’s family as well as those of his white neighbors. The nickname? Jack had never asked about the source but supposed it was somebody’s idea of a joke based upon the seeming incongruity between Patrick O’Toole’s name and the color of his skin—and it was likely there was an Irishman somewhere in his background.
“Your job’s safe, Irish. If she stays around, she will be bringing a big horse herd with her and along with it more horse work than you ever dreamed of.”
“I like that notion, Boss. We could make some money with horses at the Lucky Five.”
“Sierra gave me some numbers that made me think about that. Whether she stays or not, you and I need to talk about the horse business when we get back to the ranch. Maybe we could partner up on something like that.”
“You’re talking about my dream, Jack. You have been letting me foal a few of my own mares on the side, but I’ve got ambitions. I’d love to stick with the Lucky Five,
