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[Continuing chapter seven]
“Did you see them?” Bishop Polk asked. “You have to have seen them, man. You must have ridden right past them.”
“I did not.” Ben McCulloch was tired and saddle-sore. “I came up from the south, Reverend, from Crockett. If they’re following Austin’s old trail, they’re going to be due west from here until just before Buffalo, when the trail turns south.”
He turned to look at the bishop, who fairly bristled with eager bellicosity. “Besides, what does it matter? We’re not going after them until I know more about what’s going on.”
Bishop Polk shifted in his saddle and gestured to encompass the men who sat, or stood by their horses, waiting for this conference to finish. “I would not recommend your trying to dissuade this posse from discharging its legal duties, Marshal McCulloch. We know everything we need to about those men. They’re Regulators, assembled in violation of the law. They’ve killed at least two people in Bowie County and another four that we know about in Panola. One of them even shot a man down in the streets of Henderson in broad daylight.” Polk fixed a hellfire-and-damnation stare on McCulloch. “Peace in this part of Texas was paid for with too much blood, marshal. We do not propose to stand idly by and watch our peace and prosperity sullied by invaders from who knows where.”
“That’s precisely the question.” McCulloch turned to his younger brother. “Hank, where the hell do these people come from? What have you found out?”
“Ben, nobody knows nothin’ for sure,” Henry said. “I’ve heard rumors that they’s renegades from Indian Territory up Canada way, or that they’s Federal guerrillas come to punish us for sending the Texas Legion up to Tennessee. I can’t even get a fix on how many of them they is. Some say it’s a couple dozen. Some say it’s a couple hundred. I wouldn’t believe that, ‘cept it might explain why they been raiding farms.”
“They got wagons?” McCulloch asked.
“I heard that too. Haven’t talked to anyone who’s actually seem ‘em, mind.”
“God damn. ‘Scuse me, Reverend.” McCulloch took off his hat and scratched his head. His head ached and his scalp itched awfully, and more than anything he wanted to be able to sit in the shade and drink something cold while trying to make sense of this. The three dozen-odd men waiting in the clearing weren’t likely to give him that chance, though.
“Answer me this, Reverend,” he said. “If these men are Regulators, what are they doing in Bowie? That Regulator-Moderator business never reached here. And they’re moving west—every minute they get further away from your homes.
“So where are they going? And why are they here? Any one of you thought about that before you decided to show ‘em what’s what in East Texas?”
“They must needs be chastised, Marshal!” Polk’s hair was turning gray, and the color favored his stern face, McCulloch decided. It was easy to see how this man could have shifted from the army to the church without pausing for breath. “Everything beyond that,” the bishop said, “I leave in God’s hands.” Polk lifted a hand heavenward; McCulloch pulled it down roughly before the bishop had a chance to gesture the men forward with it. “Unhand me, sir!” Polk said. “Since you clearly do not propose to do anything to stop this flagrant violation of the law, it must be the citizens of these counties who take on that noble work!”
“For the love of God, Reverend, shut up. You’re not in the pulpit now. You’re not on a parade-ground, either.” Polk’s nostrils flared, and McCulloch shook his head. “Don’t say anything. I know all about your education at West Point and your Army career, and it don’t mean a thing out here, Reverend. Those aren’t soldiers behind you, man—they’re farmers and shopkeepers.”
He turned to his brother. “Hank, get up to that end of the clearing and block the road. I’m coming up in a second and try to talk some sense into these people.” Facing the bishop again, he said, “You’d be doing the Lord’s work, Reverend, if you helped me persuade these people not to get themselves killed until we know more about what’s going on. Why don’t you get your best riders and best shots to step forward? They can come with me and we’ll ride after these people, find out what they’ve got. Then maybe we can consider doing something about them.”
“Fortune favors the bold, marshal.” Polk shook his head. “I’ll not be part of pusillanimity when action is called for.”
“Then, sir, you are an idiot.” McCulloch turned his horse around and rode for the western edge of the clearing before the bishop could respond.
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Chapter Seven
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