The Ysabel Kid Read Online Free Page B

want him back this badly?”
    “They want him back that bad.”
    Dusty whistled as he thought over the concessions made in that letter. He looked at the letter, then at his uncle. Ole Devil reached out a hand, took the letter and read it through. He folded the paper, put it back into the envelope once more and grunted: “It won’t be easy.”
    “It won’t,” Handiman agreed. “Juarez won’t know who you are and his men have a nasty way of shooting gringos first then asking questions. The French may know we’re sending a man, and if they do they’ll move heaven and earth to stop you reaching Bushrod Sheldon.”
    “That figgers,” Dusty replied, although he didn’t appear unduly alarmed at it.
    “Do you speak French or Spanish??’
    “Speak saddle Mex and a mite of French, can get by in either.”
    “Good, it’ll be a help. Now Washington is trying to arrange for a man to go along with you as far as the Juaristas, I’d like you to go with him. There was a mixup over this and I don’t know who he is, or anything about him. He will be in Brownsville, Cameron County until the end of the week or so, waiting to contact the Juarez men. I’d like you to locate him and go with him.”
    Dusty wasn’t too keen on this idea. He would much prefer to go alone, or if he needed help to take his now retired Top-sergeant, Billy Jack, or his cousin Red Blaze along. They were men he could trust, tried and found not wanting in either brains or courage.
    “I’d rather go it alone,” he replied for both Red and Billy Jack were needed here in Texas.
    “The man won’t go far with you. Only to the Juarez men,” Handiman replied. “Will you do it?”
    Dusty looked at Ole Devil. The old man nodded imperceptibly and Dusty said, “Sure. I’ll head for home and pick up some gear I’ll need.”
    “Come back for dinner, boy,” Ole Devil called as Dusty stepped from the porch and walked away. “We’ve got things to talk over.”
    Hondo Fog, Sheriff of Rio Hondo County, watched his son riding towards the house in Polveroso City. He noted Dusty was afork a speed horse left behind when the crew took the remuda as being too fast for cattlework. So Hondo went along the path through the flower garden and opened the gate.
    “Ole Devil fired you, son?” he asked.
    “Could call it that,” Dusty replied as he swung down from the saddle and tied the horse up. “He wants me to head south of the border for him.”
    Hondo Fog asked no questions, but he knew that Mexico was no place for an ex-Confederate officer to be riding these days. The sheriff made quite a contrast to his son, for Hondo Fog stood well over six foot tall, was wide shouldered and powerful looking.
    They entered the living room and Hondo hung his Confederate officer’s hat on a peg, then turned and looked down at his son. Before he could ask any questions the door opened and Mrs. Fog came in. She was a tall, plump, smiling woman with the black eyes of a Hardin, yet softer and gentler than Ole Devil’s.
    “You look hungry boy,” she said. “I won’t be sorry when young Betty comes back from the East. She makes Jimmo serve up better than his everlasting son-of-a-gun stew.”
    Dusty grinned. His cousin Betty made other things happen at the ranch when she was there. She was only his age, just under twenty, but she ruled that spread with a rod of iron.
    “I have to head back as soon as I can, maw,” he replied. “Just came to collect some of my gear. I’d like my uniform packing in my warbag.”
    “Uniform?”
    “Yes’m. That’s the way I’m going to have to handle this.”
    “Sounds real important, son,” Hondo remarked, knowing that the OD Connected were in the middle of their spring roundup and that Dusty was the roundup captain.
    “Some,” Dusty agreed, taking a chair and as his father sat down telling him of his mission. “Could be bad if General Bushrod won’t come back.”
    “Could be,” Hondo was an old campaigner and full fed up with the