Counterfeit Lawman

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The first bullet sang past Ike’s head, high and to the right. The slug kicked up a tiny mountain of dirt halfway up a rain-caked dune. Ike leveled his pistol, again aware of how he shook inside, but his hand was rock steady. His finger drew back, then relaxed when he got a good sight picture of his target. He let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he held in his lungs.

“Corporal! Hey, it’s me. I’ve got your lieutenant with me. He’s hurt pretty bad.” He waved to draw the man’s attention to his words.

“It’s a trick. Don’t listen!”

Ike wasn’t able to identify which of the bluecoats riding alongside the corporal shouted that fearful warning, but he hoped it made no sense to the others. Even if the Apaches spoke English with a decided Texas drawl straight out of Houston, this wasn’t the kind of trap they sprang.

“Hold your fire. Don’t you dare fire, Private Watson. The rest of you, hang back and let me parley.” The corporal stopped a dozen yards away.

Ike took the risk of being filled full of holes by the anxious soldiers. Hands in the air, he stood and stepped forward.

“See? It’s me.”

“Where’s the lieutenant?”

“Behind me a ways. He’s cut up pretty bad. He passed out before we got back to the railroad tracks. He needs a doctor right now.”

The corporal edged forward a few more feet. He lifted his carbine and pointed it into the night sky. Ike breathed easier now.

“Where’d you get the horses?”

“Two Indians weren’t using them anymore,” Ike answered. “Look real close. This is the same one I rode before the ambush. You recognize it, don’t you?”

The corporal squinted and nodded slowly. “And I recognize you.”

“Did you take care of the war party that chased you off?” Ike intended to keep the corporal talking until he was completely sure he didn’t face any danger. Ike didn’t blame him for being so skittish after all the patrol had been through the past few hours.

“We turned the tables and set an ambush for them,” the corporal said. “Where’s the sergeant?”

“I don’t think he made it,” Ike said. “And the lieutenant’s not going to, either, unless you get him some help. Is there a corpsman with you?”

“We can get him back to Fort Davis. The captain’s not exactly a doctor, but he’s purty near as good. He worked as an assistant all through the war.”

The corporal barked orders. Two privates reluctantly obeyed. They dismounted and went to their commander, fearful of both the lieutenant and Ike. Finally, one dropped down and rolled the officer over.

“It’s him, Samuel.”

“Who’d you think it’d be?” snapped the corporal. “He’s wearing an officer’s uniform. How many others out here are wearing an officer’s uniform?” The corporal cursed long and loud. The private shot to his feet and belligerently shoved out his chin.

“You watch your tongue,” the private called. “You ain’t got but two stripes. Orderin’ us around don’t mean a thing.”

“Gentlemen, please,” Ike said, stepping between them. “How do you intend returning to Fort Davis as fast as possible? A life depends on it.”

“He never done us any favors.” For an instant, Ike thought the private was going to spit on his prone officer.

“I’m a deputy Federal marshal,” he said loud enough for them all to hear. “I may be a civilian, but I outrank the lot of you.” Ike felt his heart hammering harder at such a bald-faced lie. “See? Here’s my badge.” He thrust Yarrow’s badge up for the corporal to see. “The Indians have shot your patrol up something fierce. It’s time to get back to your post and recover. An orderly retreat means you have to see that your commanding officer stays alive. Do you understand me?”

“Is it true, Samuel?” A rider drew even with the corporal. “He’s a US Marshal?”

“I’m a deputy Federal marshal,” Ike barked before the corporal had a chance to answer. “You will address me by my proper title. Now get him lashed down over a horse. There is no time to waste.”

The corporal snapped out orders and let Ike step away. He felt a glow of success. Ordering around the soldiers felt natural.

Natural if he pretended he was Deputy Yarrow.

The lieutenant moaned as his men hoisted him over the captured Apache horse. Ike justified his lie, knowing the officer had a chance at survival now. A slim one from the look of his wounds, but it was better than if a fugitive from a Houston shylock had tried to help. Ike swung up and took the reins in hand. The tremors he had felt inside now transferred to his demeanor. If he had quaked like this when he ordered around the soldiers, they might have left him for dead in the middle of the West Texas desert.

He followed the patrol, letting them scout ahead. Somewhere in the cold desert night the Apache war party roamed. A half hour into the ride, Ike’s hands stopped trembling, and he felt more confident.

The corporal came back and rode beside him.

“We’re less than a mile from the railroad, sir.”

Ike perked up. The soldier had called him sir, as if he were in command. A simple denial would clear things up, but Ike wasn’t about to do that. He enjoyed the notion of being in charge. Finally, for once in his life, he had respect, and the soldiers obeyed his commands. That was a new feeling. He liked it.

“I’d heard that Apaches didn’t go out at night,” he said.

“They’re all scared of snakes. Ever’body knows that, but these? These are Mimbreños and ain’t feared of nothing.”

“Especially cavalry patrols,” Ike said under his breath.

“From the way they’re prowlin’ about, they’re lookin’ for something. I got my own ideas, but nobody agrees.”

“What are they after, Corporal?”

“Like the rest of us. Freedom. They don’t want to be penned up on a reservation and have to beg to be let off it.”

Ike considered that and found no fault with the logic. He hadn’t expected the corporal to hold such an opinion. And then, on reflection, what other could he give?

“ ’Til they get ever’thing straightened out, though, we got to cut them down whenever we see them.” The corporal muttered under his breath and added, “Just like they got to shoot us whenever they spy us.”

“Tracks!” came the call from ahead. “We’re at the railroad again.”

The corporal issued new orders. Ike was aware of how the soldiers took in what the man said, then looked at him for approval. Since it fit with his intentions, all he had to do was nod knowingly. This was good enough for the soldiers to begin riding alongside the railroad tracks.

The going was easier here than cutting across the desert. Cinders and gravel provided a better path than rain-hardened sand where horses’ hooves broke through the crust and then sank into shifting sand.

“Sir,” the corporal said after a few miles. “If we cut off that way across the desert, we’ll get to the post before sundown.”

Ike squinted since the clouds had blown away. From his guess, it was less than an hour until sunrise. They had made good time in the dark, thanks to easier going along the railroad easement.

“The tracks go to Marfa. That’s where I’m headed.” Ike knew the train with Schofield and his rifles was long gone. He felt a small pang as he mentally added, and Lily. Still, he felt an obligation to let the law know what danger lay ahead if—when—the railroad owner peddled the guns to the Comancheros. These soldiers were too shot up to worry over gunrunners.

“It’s out of our way. I can send along a private to keep you company, if you like, sir.” The corporal’s tone told Ike all he needed to know. He wanted to keep what remained of his patrol together and not split it further. Sending a private along on such a mission proved risky—the soldier might keep on riding and never report for duty again.

“I can ride faster on my own,” Ike hastily explained. “You have to go slow or risk injuring the lieutenant more.”

“I’m glad you understand, sir. But if you like, stay with us ’til we get to the post. From there, Colonel Grierson’ll be glad to send an entire patrol to escort you to Marfa. It’s not that far from the post. A day’s ride.”

“Get on the trail, Corporal. Give my regards to your commanding officer. Colonel Grierson, is it?”

“Benjamin Grierson, sir.” The corporal paused, then said, “You might have saved more of us than just the lieutenant, sir. Thank you.” The non-com saluted Ike, then put his heels to his horse’s flanks and rocketed away, bellowing orders as he went.

The remnant of the patrol veered away from the tracks and were swallowed by the night in a few minutes. Ike watched until he sat alone in the early morning. Fingers of false dawn sought to infect the eastern sky, but enough of the storm remained to keep the light at bay for a while longer. He picked up the pace. His pony trotted along, content to maintain the quicker gait. The Apaches had trained the horse well.

Ike drifted as he followed the tracks, snapping awake only when the sun warmed the side of his face. He wiped away the beginning of a river of sweat. For the first time he wished the rain clouds would sweep across the land again. This way the heat built, and the sun baked the side of his face. More than once during the day he let the horse have its head and seek out water. The pony’s unerring sense of where to find small pools of sweet water impressed him, but drink as he might, he wasn’t able to stop his belly from grumbling. It had been a long time since he’d eaten, and the pitiful small amount of water hardly slaked his thirst. Better to let the horse drink its fill since his life depended on reliable transport.

During the heat of the afternoon, he found a thick-leafed bush and slept fitfully while the horse nibbled at weeds and sage and anything else it could find. By twilight, he rode on, wondering if the soldiers had returned to their post and if the lieutenant had survived the trip. From the amount of blood the officer had lost, Ike doubted it.

And he doubted he’d ever catch up with Lily again. He thought a great deal about her. He had been smitten by women before, but they had never returned his affection. He snorted, thinking the only reason Lily seemed interested was the badge he carried in his coat pocket.

The badge belonging to a real Federal marshal.

“Maybe she sensed I was acting and was attracted to the performance. She’s got to be quite an actress herself,” he said as he rode along. The pony turned its head at his words and fixed him with a big brown eye that seemed to mock him.

He rode through the night and into the day, beginning to despair of ever reaching Marfa. He had long since given up hope that he would see Lily again. The train would be all the way to El Paso by now. Or even farther if it went on across Arizona to the coast.

At noon, the sun hammered down directly on the top of his head. He pulled the hat brim down as far as he could over his ears to protect his neck and face from the savage rays. Even so, he felt the heat cooking his brain. Ike had never experienced sunstroke before but realized the visions on the horizon were either mirages or hallucinations. He was in such a condition that it didn’t bother him that, if it was sunstroke, he was dying by inches.

He rode along the tracks, marveling at the detailed hallucinations. So many of the hallucinations waved to him. Others stared. A few pointed. When a young boy drew back with a slingshot and sent a rock sailing past his head, Ike snapped out of his trance. These weren’t imaginings of an overheated mind. They were reality. He shook his head and heard distant sounds.

“. . . Indian horse, but he ain’t no Injun.”

It finally came to him that he had reached Marfa. In spite of the heat and lack of water and food, he had arrived in the town. And then his heart sank. The mirage ahead proved he was still dreaming. The caboose looked solid and real. He sucked in a deep breath. The smells causing his nostrils to flare were what he expected of a town, of a rail yard. The sulfur and soot and burnt metal made his head spin.

He turned and called to a man wearing a tall striped hat who trudged alongside the tracks, “What is this place?”

“Marfa,” came the reply. The worker pushed his hat back. “I know you. You’re the fellow who shot the train robber we had back outside Eagle Pass.”

“You’re the same engineer?” Ike’s heart raced. “Why are you still here?”

The engineer shook his head sadly.

“The Apaches done tore up the track north of here. We decided to lay over ’til the cavalry gave us the all clear.” He shook his head a little faster. “I’m all for steamin’ out when the tracks are replaced. I’ve got a schedule to keep, and I’m already days late. Days! What’ll the home office think of me and how I run my train?”

Ike looked up at the train. Ahead of the caboose were the three freight cars, and ahead of them Schofield’s Pullman and three passenger cars before the coal tender and engine.

“You unload any freight?”

“No reason. It’s all goin’ to Franklin. None of the passengers have left, neither. If you want to go to El Paso or Yuma or the coast, you got no reason to leave here.” The engineer wiped his mouth with a swipe of his oily sleeve. All he did was smear soot. “Not got nuthin’ ’gainst Marfa, but the only reason it exists is for me to take on water and coal.”

“I made a little detour, but you’ve got all your passengers back.”

“Minus the train robber you smoked. I hope Mr. Schofield gave you plenty of a reward for that.”

“This isn’t his train,” Ike said, hoping the engineer would give a bit more information.

“A private train running on Southern Pacific tracks. That’s not too unusual. Just ain’t my druthers, but it is Mr. Schofield’s private train.”

“You work for Mr. Schofield, then?”

“That I do,” the engineer said. “Ain’t quite sure why we’re headin’ north. I prefer the San Antonio–Houston run.” He winked broadly. “I got me a sweetheart in Houston. You ever been there?”

Ike wanted nothing less than to revisit his time in Houston.

“You know anywhere I can sell this horse?”

“All marked up with war paint, ain’t it? Not my bailiwick, as they say. You might ask the depot manager. He’s a local. Lived here most of his life. Heard tell that he deals in all kinds of products that come through the station, if you follow my meaning. The Southern Pacific doesn’t care about him runnin’ side businesses, even if they’re on the shady side.”

“He’s in the depot?”

“Last I saw, and that wasn’t more ’n ten minutes back.” The engineer worked a switch back and forth, making sure that it worked smoothly. “All oiled. Time for me to squirt some oil into the wheel bearings. Good seein’ you back aboard. What with them Apaches prowlin’ along the tracks, another gun will ease the passengers’ worries.”

Ike suspected the engineer cottoned to the idea of someone else among the passengers to defend the train, too.

The engineer went off singing “Somebody in the House with Dinah.” Ike appreciated the man carrying the tune well. This made him long to hear Lily’s sweet voice again. He trotted alongside the train, noting as he passed that the freight cars were still sealed. The engineer had been right about the contents not being unloaded.

Ike dismounted outside the station and climbed the platform steps. His body protested every step, but when he saw Lily in the depot ticket office, the aches and pains disappeared. He rushed forward, only to come to an abrupt halt.

Schofield and his henchmen huddled together in furious discussion at the far side of the room. The way Kinchloe pointedly looked in Lily’s direction revealed the subject of their argument as surely as if Ike were close enough to spy on every word.