One Texas Night

CHAPTER 4

McCord walked half a mile before he found an old cottonwood tree with branches almost touching the ground. He pulled Anna into the cool shade where roots bowed from the earth, making a natural cradle for her.

Anna’s eyes fluttered open. She watched him, a mixture of fear and panic in her exhausted gaze, but she didn’t say a word.

“You all right?” he asked, feeling her face to see if she had a fever. “We about froze last night in the rain, and now it’s hot. I swear, Texas is the only place I know of where you can experience all four seasons within twenty-four hours.”

She didn’t act like she could hear him. McCord pulled his leather coat off her shoulders and spread it out on the ground, saying, “You’ll be safe in no time, Anna. I promise.” He tugged her arm, leaning her down atop his coat, with her head on her bag for her pillow. She didn’t fight him, but the stiffness in her movements told him she didn’t believe him.

“That’s better.” He patted her hip, liking the roundness of it on her slender frame. “Rest.” There was no telling how long it had been since she’d eaten. He’d seen her shoving food around on the tin plates when they stopped yesterday, but he hadn’t seen her lift a bite to her mouth.

He laid the back of his hand against her cheek. She was warm, but not burning with fever. When he began unbuttoning her traveling jacket, she moaned and shook her head.

“Easy now,” he said, thinking that was probably more something he should say to a horse rather than a woman. “I’m just going to make you comfortable, then I’ll watch the road for your brother.”

Her fitted jacket was tight across her ribs and he wondered how she’d stood it all night when they’d been climbing in the rocks. When he finished undoing the last button, she let out a sigh and closed her eyes. He couldn’t resist sliding his finger beneath the wool and feeling the warmth of her covered only by a layer of wrinkled cotton.

He brushed a few stray strands of hair away from her face. “You’re quite a woman, Anna. You collapsed before you complained once.” He pressed his lips against her cheek. “Sleep now, but remember that we’re not finished, me and you. Not by a long shot.”

She moaned something in her sleep and McCord brushed his fingers over her ribs. He liked the feel of her, the look of her; but most of all, he liked her spirit.

When he was sure she was sound asleep, he moved to where he could see down the road in both directions. If the army didn’t come soon, looking for the coach, the outlaws would be finished with the men at the station and realize what they were looking for was not in the mailbag. Thorn, the leader of the worthless gang, would be madder than hell and heading toward them.

McCord tugged the envelope from a slit in the lining of his boot. The letter Thorn was fighting so hard to get wasn’t in the mailbag. It never had been. The governor had trusted it to one Ranger. McCord had orders to burn it before letting it fall into the wrong hands. There’d been no need to ask—he knew he was expected to protect it with his life and deliver it to a Quaker who served as an Indian agent in this part of the world. This one document could change history, maybe end the Indian fighting years early and allow settlers and Indians to live in peace.

McCord knew without any doubt that he’d die before he’d fail. For the first time in longer than he could remember, his actions might save lives. He smiled, thinking he would do just that, even if he had to kill Thorn and all his gang to do it.

He moved away from Anna, fighting the need to lie down beside her, fearing that if he did, he’d frighten her even more than he had. He wanted her, but not tired and half asleep, at least not the first time. He wanted her awake and willing in his arms, and to reach that goal he knew he’d have to go slow, very slow.

Problem was, he had no idea how.

McCord frowned and turned his back to her, hoping his need for her would ease. For a man who’d counted his life in days and never looked too far in the future, going slow toward anything was not his nature. He’d been seventeen when he’d ridden with a posse that tracked raiders who’d burned a farm near his parents’ place. He’d killed his first man that night, seeing the bodies of the family they’d pulled from the fire and not the outlaw he’d killed. From that night on, McCord had always felt he’d been playing cards with the Grim Reaper, and one of these times he’d draw the short hand.

He glanced back at Anna curled in among the cottonwood roots. “Slow and easy,” he promised, proud of himself for taking the time to talk to her a little and not just leave her among the branches. It had been a long time since he’d comforted a woman.

An hour later, he heard riders coming and watched until he recognized the blue uniforms of the cavalry.

McCord stepped in the trail, his hand up, his gun pointed down.

One rider stood out among the soldiers. A young officer on the short side who sat a horse like a greenhorn. He had to be Anna’s brother, same black hair and dark eyes. Wynn remembered her telling the gambler on the stage that her brother was a new doctor who’d just been transferred to Texas before being sent to Camp Supply.

The Ranger decided he disliked the man on sight.

The short doctor, in a uniform that didn’t quite fit, half climbed, half tumbled from his mount and hurried to catch up to a sergeant heading toward McCord.

“Ranger McCord.” Sergeant Dirk Cunningham smiled and offered a friendly salute. “When we heard the stage was late and you might be on it, I headed out just in case you needed help.” He laughed. “You know, burying the bodies or hanging the outlaws. I’ve known you long enough to know if there’s trouble you’ll be the last one standing.”

McCord touched his hat in a two-finger return salute to a man he’d crossed paths with so many times over the years they’d become friends. “I thought you might be worried about me, Cunningham.”

The sergeant shook his head. “Not you. I followed you when we was dodging Sherman in the war. You’d fight a twenty-gun man-of-war with a tug boat and still come out ahead.”

The doctor finally reached them. Anna’s brother pushed his way forward. “If you were on the stage, where are the others? My sister should have been with the stage, unless she missed her connection. I swear, if there was a dog in the road, she’d stop to help it even if it meant missing the stage.” When both men just stared at him, the doctor added, “Was there trouble? Is anyone hurt?”

Cunningham took the lead. “Ranger Wynn McCord, this is Doctor Devin Woodward. You’ll have to excuse his manners—he’s worried about his sister.”

Wynn faced Dr. Woodward. “Your sister is all right, sir.” He turned back to his friend. “We were attacked by what looked like Thorn and about a dozen men, but we managed to make it to the station just as the rain hit.” Wynn met the sergeant’s gaze and they both knew they’d talk details later when they were alone.

“Oh, my God,” Dr. Woodward yelled. “Was my sister hurt? If she’s back at the station in pain, I’ll hold someone accountable. We have to hurry!”

“No.” Wynn turned back to the doc. “She’s asleep right now. I brought her with me when I escaped in the rain. I figured her chances would be better than at the station once the rain stopped. We followed the stream behind the station for a few miles, then climbed over those hills.”

Devin Woodward didn’t look like he believed the Ranger.

McCord added, “She’s quite a little soldier.”

“You let her leave with you!” Dr. Woodward turned his anger on the Ranger. “You dragged a woman out in a storm and across those hills? Good God, man, you could have killed her.”

McCord’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t drag her anywhere. Your sister is a strong woman who knows her own mind.”

“My sister is an idiot. If she’d had any brains, she would have married and not taken on nursing as her cause. She’s wasted her youth running from battle to battle during the war, and now will probably be my burden to bear for the rest of her life.”

McCord thought of hitting the doc. One good punch should put him out for a while. Anna looked to be almost in her thirties and Woodward appeared to be just past twenty. He’d been too young to fight. He couldn’t know how many men lived because of nurses who worked round the clock in roofless field hospitals and old barns turned into surgery stations. The doctors might have done the cutting and the patching, but it had been the nurses who bandaged and fought fevers and held men as they faced death.

Wynn looked toward the cottonwood and silently swore.

Anna, her back straight and his coat folded over her arm, walked slowly toward the men. The face that had shown such fire when she’d been mad at him, which was most of the time he’d known her, now looked stone cold, as if no emotion would ever reflect in her features. Only her eyes looked tired and sad, very sad.

“There you are!” Woodward shouted. “You had us all worried to death.” He didn’t move toward her but waited for her to join them. “I’d hoped to start setting up the infirmary today, but from the looks of you, we’ll have to put it off until tomorrow.”

McCord balled his fists. Just two punches. One to the doc’s face, leaving him unwilling to talk around a busted lip and a few missing teeth, and one to his gut to knock some of the wind out of him. Couldn’t he see that his sister had just walked through hell to get to him? Couldn’t he imagine how frightened she must have been, and how brave?

The sergeant stepped past McCord and moved to Anna. “Are you all right, ma’am? Ranger McCord told me what an ordeal you had last night and I’m surprised you’re still standing. May I be of some service to you?”

McCord saw her glance at the stripes on Dirk’s sleeve before answering, “Thank you, Sergeant. You are kind.”

Dirk Cunningham might be an old fighter, but there was enough Southern gentleman in him to know how to treat a lady. They left the doc standing in the trail as they moved to the troops still in their saddles.

“I need three good men to go with me back to the station and check on things.” McCord fell into step on the other side of Anna. He could hear the doc following, asking questions and demanding answers, but no one listened.

The sergeant nodded. “I got two good boys you’ll know, and a Yank who can shoot a flea off a rabbit’s ear at a hundred yards. He’s just a kid, so keep him out of any close scraps if you can, but he’d be good at lying low and covering your back.”

McCord understood what Dirk wasn’t saying as much as what he was. The “good boys” were Texans, probably ex-rebs, who could take care of themselves. The kid, a Private Clark, was green, but his skill could come in handy.

Cunningham helped Anna onto one of the extra horses the men had brought along. There was no time to say anything to her as McCord closed his hand over hers when he handed her the reins. He’d have to do his talking to the sergeant. “Take care of her, Dirk. She’s a real trooper.”

The sergeant nodded, understanding the Ranger’s compliment. He turned to the doctor. “Awaiting your order to ride, sir.”

Dr. Woodward straightened as if just remembering that he was the one in charge. “Go ahead, Sergeant. Start back. I’ll have a word with the Ranger first and join you.” When he faced McCord, the Ranger was already moving toward an extra horse and the three men waiting for him.

“I have a few questions,” Woodward demanded.

McCord swung up on his mount. “Well, I’m all out of answers.” He did wonder why so many folks seemed to be starting conversations with him lately with that statement. “Why don’t you ride back to the stage station with us and maybe you’ll find your answers?”

“I think I’ll just do that.” Dr. Woodward climbed on his horse. “I plan to ask the other passengers if you forced my sister to go with you, and if you did, sir, I’ll have you know, I plan . . .”

McCord didn’t listen to more. He and the three soldiers were a hundred yards ahead of the doctor before he could get his horse moving. The soldiers stayed right with Wynn, enjoying the entertainment of watching the little doctor try to keep up with them.





When they reached the station, McCord could read all the answers in the tracks, but he said nothing. He waved Clark, the sharpshooter, in from where he’d been hiding in case they’d been riding into a trap, and they all waited for the doctor.

The soldiers stayed on guard while McCord let Dr. Woodward storm into the stage station first. Two minutes later, he ran out and threw up at the side of the porch. “They’re both dead!” the doctor said.

One of the soldiers swung from his horse and read the ground as easily as he might a headline in the paper. “Looks like there were ten or more of them. I’m guessing they came in fast.” He scratched his head. “No shells in the mud, so they didn’t come in firing.”

McCord stood at the door and looked in. “The driver and station manager were already dead by the time Thorn and his men rode in.”

“How do you know that?”

“There’s half a dozen spent shells scattered among the cards by the table. One man who was here last night is missing. A gambler who called himself Frank Sanders. My guess is he shot the others, waited for a while to make sure I didn’t come running from the barn, then lit out with the mailbag. I heard a horse traveling fast sometime before dawn.”

Dr. Woodward wiped his mouth. “If this gambler killed those two, why did the gang ride in?”

McCord shrugged. “Maybe they thought the gambler left something behind. Maybe he took something they wanted. If so, they’re after him and not us.”

“So if we go after the gambler, we might just find this Thorn bandit everyone talks about.”

McCord nodded.

Dr. Woodward straightened and tried to pull himself together. “The flaw in your plan, Ranger, seems to be we have no idea where this gambler went.”

“I don’t have to go after him,” McCord answered. “I know where he’s headed.”

Woodward frowned. “And where might that be, Ranger McCord?”

“Camp Supply. Two people saw him and now know he’s part of Thorn’s gang. He’ll be heading to try to permanently silence me and your sister.”