The Lone Texan

CHAPTER 47

DRUM RODE AS HARD AS HE COULD PUSH SATAN OVER land cold and dead with winter. When he did stop for a few hours' rest, he forced himself to think only of the count and the danger the boys were in. The memory of Will and Andy's mother all beaten and broken would have made him volunteer for the job, even if Hanover wasn't a threat to Sage. Knowing he was left no question of what had to be done.

When Drum reached the mission at Goliad, a Ranger, sleeping down by the Guadalupe River, was waiting for him. Captain Harmon had sent him with word that the guard, Luther Waddell, was released for lack of evidence. No witness could put him at or near either the raid on the Smith place or the robbery at Shelley's gambling house. Just being a guard for Hanover wasn't a crime.

"Cap had him followed," the Ranger reported to Roak. "He was seen walking into Shelley Lander's place. Then he disappeared. He's either still there, or he somehow slipped out after dark by boat."

"Why'd you ride so far to tell me this?" Drum asked as they walked along the outside of the mission chapel. Hundreds of men, fighting for Texas independence, had died here, shot by a firing squad. The McMurrays had told him once that their father was among the dead. His body lay in the mass grave beyond the mission walls.

Drum swore he could feel the ghosts walking beside him, even though it had been more than twenty years since the Alamo and Goliad missions fell.

“The cap thought you might stop here to spend a night or two. He wanted you to know Luther was free."

He didn't have to say more. This was a frequent relay point for Rangers, a place where they could pass messages without worry, a place where they could rest up if hurt or hide out if running from trouble. No one spoke of it, but Drum figured the Rangers considered themselves protected or at least watched over by the spirits of the brave buried here.

Pulling out a scrap of paper, Drum wrote three words on it. "Give this to no one but Captain Harmon. Tell him it's from me."

The Ranger glanced at the paper. "'I'm going in,'" he read. "That's the message?"

Drum nodded and stepped into the shadows of the mission. The young Ranger was still asking questions when Drum crossed the yard and rode away unseen.

He rode all night and slept in places where no one would find him. As he moved, he planned. Drum hated it, but he'd have to leave Satan and go in the back way. The horse was lucky to have made it once down the steep incline without breaking a leg; he'd never make it up. On foot it would mean an extra day, but he'd risk it. He'd also have to travel light: less guns, less supplies, less prepared.

By the time he reached the foot of the incline, he'd planned every detail. He slept off and on until sundown and then began the journey up the incline and through the caves to the outskirts of the outlaw camp.

It was almost dawn when he reached the edge of the back pasture. He knew he couldn't make it across before sunup. So he climbed into a tree and found a secure place to sleep until dark.

He almost laughed, remembering how he'd fallen out of trees a few times before he perfected this sleeping method. It wasn't comfortable, but it was definitely safer. Men hunting him tended to study the ground. He made a habit of leaving footprints heading away from the tree. The dried leaves still hanging to the branches offered him some cover, but the ones on the ground offered him an alarm system if anyone walked near.

Drum slept. In his dreams he couldn't push Sage to the back of his mind. She was with him, cuddled against his side.

The wind kicked up in late afternoon, and the air turned to freezing. Drum barely noticed the cold. His mind was full of what he had to do. He slipped silently down from the tree and moved as a shadow across the pasture.

When he reached the dark side of the barn, he stood and listened as he watched the house Daniel Torry had said looked as if it could be where Luther's wife and child might be staying.

Nothing. Not a sound. If she and the boy were inside, they'd gone to bed before dark.

Drum waited until all sounds died in the village, then he walked the shadows toward the big house. The count's house.

A guard sat on the corner of the front porch railing, his gun over his leg as he smoked.

Moving around back, Drum wasn't surprised to find the second guard asleep by the back door.

Silently, he slipped to the side of the house and climbed up to the second floor. People often lock their doors and windows on the first floor but rarely on the second. The third window he tried opened easily.

He slipped into the room, which was cold and dark. Furniture was scattered about among boxes. Crossing carefully, he opened the door and saw a lamp burning low outside the last door.

He walked down the hallway and opened the last door. The smell of a sickroom floated on the stale air as he looked in. A man, thin and pale, lay in the middle of a big bed. He looked asleep, but even awake, he didn't look strong enough to fight.

Drum slipped his gun from its holster and moved inside.

Candles burned on both sides of the man, but the rest of the room was dark. A fire crackled in the corner fireplace. A teapot, giving off the smell of burned berries, sat on the bricks of the hearth.

Drum moved to the bed, knowing what he had to do.

"If you shoot him.” a voice came from the shadows, "half the men in town will be waiting for you when you step out of this place.”

Drum fought the urge to fire into the darkness. "Who are you?"

"I'm Myron, the count's butler.” He took a deep breath. "And I'm a prisoner here, Mr. Roak, just as you will be unless we are both very careful.”

A short, chubby man moved into the light. His clothes were worn but clean, and Drum noticed bruises fading on his face. He'd been beaten recently.

Myron must have known what Drum saw, for the man raised his head slightly. "He's been too weak to beat me for a week. He's left orders that I'm to be killed when he dies as if I'm not more than a pet to him.”

"How do you know who I am?" Drum remembered Sage speaking of Myron. She'd said he'd tried to help her. That fact was all that was keeping the butler alive right now.

"Luther told me you'd be coming." Myron smiled. "How is the little doctor?"

Drum wasn't here to pass the time of day. "If you know who I am, you know I've come here to kill him. Arresting him and getting him out of here would be impossible."

Drum watched the man in the bed, who showed no sign of waking. "What's wrong with him?"

Myron held his hands palm up. "I've been poisoning him for weeks. Just enough to make him weak, not enough to kill him. Luther said you'd come, and when you did, we'd have to be ready to go out a secret way with you.”

Drum frowned. "I don't take passengers.”

"You have to. When you kill him, I have to escape, and Luther says he can get his family out in the chaos that follows.” Footsteps sounded.

"That'll be the guard change at midnight. Step into the shadows."

Drum kept his gun on the door, but he did what Myron said.

The door opened, and the guard Drum had met weeks ago stepped in. "How's the count?" Luther mumbled as he closed the door.

"Drum's here," Myron whispered.

Luther's body stiffened, but he didn't go for his gun. "How'd you know I would come?" Drum asked.

Luther glanced around the room, trying to locate the direction the question had come from. "I knew the minute the count came up with the scheme to go after the boys. He might have been able to pull it off, but he wanted the doctor too, and I knew you'd never allow that. I also figured you wouldn't want her living with the fear of the count trying to kidnap her. So your only option was to come back here and end it all”

'And the price of your silence?" Drum asked.

"You take us with you. The next guard change is at noon. We've no time to waste”

Drum looked at the count. Killing a man in a gunfight or who was about to kill someone else was one thing. Killing a man in cold blood was something he'd never done.

"We take him with us." Drum knew it wasn't smart, but it was his only choice. "He'll stand trial for what he's done” He looked at the two men. "It's the only way I'll take you with me."

Luther nodded. "My wife and son are sleeping next door in a storage room. I'll go get them and be right back. They've been packed and waiting every night for a week”

Myron went to the fireplace. "We can tie him on a stretcher. He's lost so much weight, he won't be hard to carry. I'll give him a dose of tea that will keep him sound asleep”

Drum crossed to the windows. What he was about to do was crazy. He got in, he could get out without too much trouble, but it would be near impossible with others along.

Myron produced a lantern full of oil with the wick burning low. "I thought I'd put this by the front door. When anyone opens the door, it'll spill and cause a fire. That should give us a little more time."

"Good idea." Drum doubted it would help, but the little man was trying.

Just when he thought it couldn't get worse, Luther returned. He not only had his wife but three other women and several children.

"We can't take all of them," Drum said, not wanting to hear their stories. He could see it in their faces. They'd all been abused. "We can't”

A little boy moved under Luther's arm. Frightened eyes silently stared at Drum.

None of them moved or begged. Drum shook his head. "You all have to know, if you go with me there's a good chance you die. If they get within firing distance of us, we'll all be shot”

"We're dead already here," one woman said.

Luther and Myron were strapping the count to the stretcher and covered him with a dark blanket.

Luther whispered as he worked, "I'm the back guard tonight. No one will check on me until after first light. I figured out you released the horses in the pasture when you escaped before because that's the way you went, but I can't find any way out. I've crawled over those rocks for days”

"North," Drum answered. "Straight north over the rocks and into a small tunnel to a cave."

"I've got a wagon out back. If we stay on the road, well leave no trail until we have to leave the wagon and start climbing."

"Good enough” Drum looked at the women. "Everyone including the children carries water."

They moved silently down the back stairs and out into the night. Once the stretcher was loaded, the women crowded into the wagon, and Myron took the bench with Luther.

"I'll meet you at the rocks," Drum said. He didn't need to explain that he didn't trust either man. He knew he could run straight across the pasture in half the time Luther could circle around. That gave him a few minutes to set up more lanterns in the house, the storage rooms, and the laundry. The buildings were so close together, there was a good chance that if one burned, others would catch as well.

Luther nodded and headed down the back alley toward the north.

Drum climbed to the roof and watched the house for a while to make sure no one saw the wagon leave, then he climbed down and ran toward the pasture.

The wagon was there when he arrived. He looked at Luther. "I'll move the women in and come back for you. Meet me up there," he pointed a hundred feet above, "after you get rid of the wagon”

Luther agreed. "I'll leave it in the barn with a lantern propped against the door."

Drum led the women as Myron and one of the older boys carried the stretcher. The climb wasn't easy, but no one complained. It took him two hours to get them into the cave and go back for Luther.

The count hadn't moved. Luck seemed with them.

Luther was waiting when Drum returned, hidden in the rocks but watching the pasture. "I didn't think we'd make it this far," he said. "Until now, I figured this was suicide. I'm thinking we might have a chance.”

They hurried back to the cave. He'd taken the women deep enough so that they could light a fire. When he saw them, he froze. They weren't asleep, as he'd thought they would be, but circled around the stretcher as if in prayer.

Myron stood when he heard Drum. "The count's dead," he said. "I must have killed him with too much sleeping potion.” Drum walked closer to the body.

"No," a woman whispered. "I killed him. I stabbed him when we were in the wagon. He had my husband killed a month ago and told everyone not to feed me but to let me starve."

"No” Another woman raised her chin. "I killed him. I held his mouth and nose so he couldn't breathe just like he did my baby's."

"I poked a needle in his heart," an older woman said. Drum frowned. "How many of you killed him?"

All the women raised their hands. "Well, I can't take you all in. What do you think, Luther?"

The guard lifted the body and tossed it into a cavern in the floor of the cave. "He died in an accident” Luther said matter-of-factly.

Drum didn't have time or want to argue. "All right. We have to get to the other end of the cave before we stop for the night. Then we'll rest and move at dusk again."

Everyone stood.

As they moved silently through the cave, Drum planned what he would do once they got past the slope. He'd circle back and pick up Satan and disappear. Now, that wasn't going to be easy.

They slept the day away. Drum walked back far enough to see the fires. It looked like the lanterns had done their job. Half the settlement seemed ablaze.

That night, with only the moon for light, he showed the women how to move down the slope. Several tumbled and rolled, but not one complained. Drum headed them east toward Galveston with Luther in the lead, while he backtracked to get Satan. When he caught up with them, he was surprised at the progress they'd made.

Drum scouted ahead, moving them by day when there was cover and by night when they were in open country. He also rode away from them to hunt game and managed to have a deer or rabbits skinned and waiting by the time they made camp.

Luther and he took turns at guard, but Drum rarely slept. The small band was following the same path he and Sage had traveled, and that knowledge made him ache each night for her. During the days, he did his job, but he felt something he'd never felt deep in his gut. This was the last time, the last mission. When he made it back to Sage, he'd never leave again.

By the time they reached Galveston, all were too exhausted to even talk. They made quite a sight walking into town, dirty and thin. Drum turned them over to the captain's care and checked into the same hotel room he'd shared with Sage in what seemed like a lifetime ago.

He closed his eyes, remembering how they'd both slept that night and how she'd been afraid to walk through the hotel lobbies so late. He'd kissed her before dawn that night. Really kissed her for the first time.

Finally, he slept, lost in dreams of his wife.

At daybreak, he cleaned up and went to have a talk with the captain.

By noon the next day, he headed home, no longer wearing the Ranger badge on his shirt.