Read Online [Texas Rangers 04] - Ranger's Trail by Elmer Kelton - Free Book Online Page A

keeper’s map was vague. It showed a wagon road leading away from the ruined fort, but Rusty found there were several. He asked, “Which one do your Indian instincts tell you to take?”
    “ I’m afraid my guardian spirits stayed back at Fort Griffin. I’m not hearin’ anything from them.”
    Rusty chose one at random. “Let’s try this.”
    A couple of miles proved it to be a bad choice. The road showed no sign of recent use. It disappeared where heavy rain had washed it away, taking a deep cut into the topsoil. Rusty decided to strike due east, hoping he might intersect a trail showing more sign of recent travel. He did, after a time, and followed it until he came upon a farmer breaking sod with two mules and a moldboard plow.
    He asked if they were anywhere near the Bascom place.
    The farmer eyed him suspiciously. “You a friend of theirs?”
    “ I don’t even know them. I’m just carryin’ a message.” He saw no need to burden the man with details.
    “ Well, if you don’t know them, and they don’t know you, it might be better if you don’t find them.”
    “ The message is important.”
    The farmer hunched his shoulders as if to say he had given fair warning. “You follow this road another mile or so, then take the first wagon trail that forks off to the right. Stay with it ‘til you get to a long picket house with dirt coverin’ on the roof. Better holler good and loud before you ride in so you don’t surprise anybody. Them Bascoms don’t like surprises. Don’t like neighbors much, either.”
    Rusty thanked him for the information and the advice. He glanced at Andy as they resumed their journey. “Aren’t you glad you came with me?”
    Andy smiled. “Beats plowin’. They sound like interestin’ folks.”
    If it had not been for Clemmie, Josie, and Geneva, Rusty would not have undertaken this mission. Alice had made her bed, and it might do her good to lie in it a while. She resembled her two older sisters in appearance but not in personality. If anything she was prettier, and she was filled with fun-loving spirit. This in some respects had been to her detriment. It had brought her more adulation than was healthy from starry-eyed boys and young men of the area. As the baby sister she had been petted, sheltered, and catered to more than the others. Too young during the war years to realize fully what was going on around her, she had not had to develop the toughness and steadiness of purpose that marked Geneva and Josie. Much had come easily for her. Rusty could imagine how the dashing manner of a handsome stranger could have turned her head.
    In due time he and Andy came to the picket house the farmer had described. Rusty paused for a long look. “I don’t see but one horse in the pen. Maybe most of the family is gone somewhere.”
    “ That’s just as well. They sound like the kind of folks you’d want to meet one at a time.”
    The farmer had said the Bascoms did not like neighbors. To Rusty that meant they were probably into some kind of business that did not welcome observation. The chaotic years that followed the war had spawned much of that kind of industry. The state police, often more involved with politics than with law enforcement, had done relatively little to stem such offenses as bank robbery and horse and cattle theft.
    He said, “If we ever get the rangers back, this whole country is due for a big sweepin’ up.”
    Andy asked, “Do you figure on joinin’ them?”
    “ Like Tom Blessing said, the rangers is no place for a married man.”
    “ You ain’t married yet.” As an afterthought Andy added, “Neither am I.”
    “ You’re too young to be a ranger.”
    “ How do you know? I don’t even know how old I am. If I told them I’m twenty-one they’d never know the difference. For all we know, I may be twenty-one.”
    “ You’re some short of that.”
    “ We don’t have to tell them so.”
    Rusty had not suspected that joining the rangers had even crossed