[Texas Rangers 03] - The Way of the Coyote Read Online Free

come for him?"
    "Several of them were itchin' to cut his throat. We had to leave there in a hurry."
    "What could a kid like him do to make them that mad? It's not like he would've killed anybody."
    "That's the whole trouble. He did."
    James blinked, staring hard at the boy.
    Rusty said, "He did it to stop one of them from killin' me."
    James's expression turned to approval, something Rusty had found that he did not give lightly. "Then I reckon he'll do to keep." He surprised Andy by gripping his hand. "You're not the first who's had to come runnin' to help Rusty Shannon out of a tight spot. He's got a knack for fallin' into holes he can't climb out of by himself."
    Rusty said, "I've pulled you out of one or two." He nodded in the direction of the herd. "What're you doin' with those cattle? You couldn't swap the whole bunch for a sack of tomcats."
    "Not here, but we're figurin' to take them where they are worth somethin'. We're gatherin' as many as we can, me and Granddad and Evan Gifford. Come spring I'll get some help and drive them to Missouri. They ought to fetch a bucketful of Yankee silver."
    Rusty admired the spirit. Some people were content to sit around and bemoan what the war had cost them. James Monahan was not. Even if the plan did not work out as hoped, it was better to be busy doing something constructive than to idle away the coming winter indulging in self-pity and recriminations.
    James said, "The boy's goin' to need a lot of learnin'."
    "I'll school him the best I can."
    "Teach him all you know. That oughtn't to take long."
    "Mainly what I know is rangerin', and I'm a fair hand with a plow. I'll teach him what Daddy Mike taught me."
    "You think you can turn an Indian boy into a farmer? I can't see you bein' content to stay on a farm yourself, not for the rest of your life. You've spent too much time on horseback."
    "There's no call these days for rangers, so I'll be a farmer."
    "The day the call ever comes, you'll drop that plow like it was on fire."
    Rusty did not argue the point, but he could not foresee that call coming anytime soon. To the authorities his ranger service branded him a Confederate, though a strong reason for his being in that service had been his loyalty to the Union. To have declared that loyalty at the time could have caused him to be lynched, as James Monahan's Unionist father and brother had been lynched early in the war.
    James said, "If you're not in a hurry, you're welcome to ride along with us to the farm. These cattle move slow, so we'll be out another night."
    Rusty looked back. He saw no one. "It'll do our horses good to slow down."
    "Won't hurt you none either. You look like a hundred miles of washed-out trail." James turned toward the cattle. Rusty and Andy followed.
    They came first to Vince Purdy, James's grandfather, a Texan carved out of the old rock of revolution and the Mexican War, bent now from years of labor and hardship but stubbornly refusing to let anything break him. His knotty old hand still took a steely grip that threatened to crack Rusty's knuckles. "I'd given up on you," he said. "Figured the next time I seen you we'd both be playin' a harp."
    "I can't even play a fiddle."
    Purdy's pale eyes fastened on Andy. "Couldn't you find his people?"
    "We found them, but we couldn't stay. It's a long story."
    The old man looked southward. "We'll have plenty of time to hear it before we get these cattle home." Several had their forelegs hobbled with rawhide strips so they could not run. "They're wild. They want to turn and go back to where we brought them from."
    Like Andy, Rusty thought. "It's a wild country."
    "It won't always be. I'd give a lot to be a young man again ..." Purdy stared off toward the horizon, his aging eyes reflecting youthful dreams still alive and stirring.
    The other man was Evan Gifford, married to James's sister Geneva. Rusty had wanted to marry Geneva himself but had waited too long to ask her. Seeing Gifford always stirred up an aching sense of