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[Continuing chapter 12; this is another long one, and concludes this week]
Wouldn’t it be funny, Ben McCulloch thought, if it turned out the one thing we inherited from the Mexicans was an inclination to revolution? He glanced at his companions, and his spirits sank that much lower as he remembered the news they’d brought. What possible difference could a wounded Irishman and a taciturn Virginian make when they were up against a mercenary army supported by nobody knew how many mutinous soldiers of Texas’s own army?
“So Secretary Travis is supposed to be watching for this Walker feller?” he asked John Patton.
“Assuming he got my message.” Patton’s soft Virginia drawl was already starting to slide into the broader Texan twang. Same thing that happened to me and Hank when we came down from Tennessee, McCulloch thought. “He may not have. I’d have expected the army to be waiting for Walker if he had.”
“Some of the army,” McCulloch said wryly, “was waiting for him, it seems.”
“That was the plan,” Patton said. “They hadn’t joined when we left Walker’s camp, so I can’t say for sure how many. But I know that Parsons is involved; I heard him talked about plenty.”
“Damn.” McCulloch thought about young Thistledown, and wondered what sort of trouble he’d sent the boy into. “Let’s just hope that Steele is smarter. His regiment’s dragoons; if he hasn’t joined Walker, he’ll be able to get to Washington faster than infantry could.”
“What exactly is waiting for us in Washington?”
That was Cleburne, the Irishman. An ex-soldier, apparently, and Patton didn’t seem to mind him—though he appeared not to know him much either. For all that, though, he was still an Irishman—and with a bad arm, too. “Don’t know, to tell the truth,” McCulloch said. “Not much of a garrison there; most of the army’s on the frontier fightin’ Indians. But a little help’s better than none at all. ‘Sides, if Patton here’s message to Travis didn’t get through, we’re all that’s preventing President Lamar from being taken completely by surprise.”
“Walker knows the army’s on the frontier,” Patton said. “That’s why he’s headed to Washington. Take the capital, and be well-established before anyone can come close enough to take him on.”
“Might not be too many people willing to do that, if he’s got much of the army behind him,” McCulloch said. “There’s more’n a few people in Texas who don’t much care for Lamar. Hell, far as that goes I’m one of ‘em. He was a better cavalry commander than a president. Still, you want to get rid of a policy you don’t like, you vote it out. That’s what we fought for ten years ago.” He spat out a stream of tobacco juice. “Damn, but this angers me.”
“Somebody up ahead,” Patton said quietly. “Look to your guns, boys.”
“What?” Should have been paying more attention, McCulloch thought. Serves me right for talking so much.
“Two men just left the trail up there. I saw them go into those trees to our left.” Patton pointed to a stand of trees and brush a couple of hundred yards ahead; there was still a bit of dust in the air, lit to a warm gold by the setting sun, where the horses had left the dirt track for the grass.
“What do we do?” John Patton asked quietly. “They’ve pretty much got the drop on us.”
“Spread out,” Cleburne said. “Come at them from three sides.” The Irishman drew a pistol, wincing as he did so.
“That’s the way,” McCulloch agreed. “Let ‘em know we saw ‘em. That way they’ll know that if they want trouble, we’re ready. You go that way”—he waved Patton to the left—”I’ll go up the middle, and Cleburne can come at them from the right. Everybody good with that?”
The others said nothing, but spurred their horses into faster motion. McCulloch waited a moment or two, until there was a good spread between the three of them; then he started moving forward, slowly, thumbing a cap onto the nipple of his single-shot pistol and cocking the hammer as he rode. He never liked having to use a gun; even in a place as wild as Texas could sometimes be, he usually found the authority of his badge gave him all the power he needed. These weren’t usual times, though.
“Don’t shoot. We’re coming out.” The voice was tired, dispirited, heavily Scots-accented. “Guess we rode the wrong way,” the unseen voice said to its companion. McCulloch slowed his horse to a stop about twenty yards from the trees. At this range, a pistol-shot was unlikely to hit him.
Two men on horseback emerged from the trees, slumped over their saddles and looking about as tired as McCulloch felt. How long have you boys been riding? he wondered. Not as long as me, I’ll bet.
Then he looked more closely, shading his eyes to keep the sun’s glare from obscuring the men.
“My God,” he said. “Secretary Travis—is that you?”
“Who’s that?” Travis asked.
“Ben McCulloch, sir. Texas marshal for the north-east counties. What the hell—pardon me—are you doing out here, and by yourself?”
“Thank you kindly,” the Scotsman said.
“Running for my life,” Travis said, sourly.
McCulloch spurred his horse forward, waving to Cleburne and Patton as he did so. When he’d reached Travis and his companion, he said, “I’ve got bad news for you, sir. We have to get to the president as soon as possible.”
“It’s not possible,” Travis said. “Lamar’s a prisoner.” Then he looked more closely at the other riders as they closed up, and pointed at Patton. “You’ve let me down, Mister Patton.”
“Damn,” the Virginian said. “You didn’t get my message, then?”
“I’ve heard nothing from you and Gibson since your telegram saying you were going to Richmond. That was almost four months ago. And where’s Gibson?”
“If you haven’t seen him, that’s why you didn’t hear about Walker’s filibuster. If he didn’t get in touch with you, it can only be because he’s dead.”
“Walker!” The Scotsman shouted triumphantly. “I knew it! That’s who’s behind this coup, Travis! That’s who’s pulling Reynolds’s strings.”
“Coup?” McCulloch, Cleburne and Patton all said at more or less the same time. This, McCulloch thought tiredly, just got a whole lot worse. And here I was thinking I was as low as I could get.
Next Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve
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