He even inspected the fish storehouse and noticed that its supplies had not been depleted. Nowhere were there any signs of a struggle or pandemonium, and Labelle knew all too well that deserting a perfectly habitable community, without rifles, food, or parkas, would be utterly unthinkable, no matter what circumstances might have forced the tribe to spontaneously flee.
Labelle scanned the borders of the village, hoping to ascertain in which direction the Inuit might’ve gone. Even though the villagers’ exit seemed to have been relatively recent, and hasty enough to leave food on the flames, he could find no trace of a single snowshoe or boot track marking their flight, no matter how hard he searched under the spill of the bright moon.
But then the wind shifted and his nose caught a scent that froze him to the bone, even through the chill he was already feeling. A smoky, carrion stench that reminded him of coming upon the body of a trapper who’d frozen to death in winter and whose body didn’t begin to thaw until spring.
Labelle followed a narrow, choppy path through the thick snow, into an overgrowth of brush and dead trees entombed in white. He saw smoke wafting up from what looked like some sort of natural depression in the ground. The smoke rose straight out of that shallow slice of ground, rooted in smoldering clumps that the fire hadn’t finished with yet.
Smoldering clumps …
Labelle got no farther. His legs gave out and he sank into a bank of snow thick enough to reach his neck. He wasn’t sure he’d ever move again, wasn’t sure he wanted to, until he heard a shuffling sound coming from the thickest part of the grove. Labelle knew the sound of feet crunching over hardpack when he heard it, though the wind and crackling flames disguised just how many sets were coming.
Labelle didn’t wait to find out. He pulled himself through the drifts, finally reclaiming his feet and dragging himself along.
The trapper quickly lost track of how long or how far he walked from there. He knew only that, as he made the trek, he was the whole time fearful of looking back to see what might have been coming in his wake.
He stumbled upon a remote outpost not long after dawn, sure to be rewarded for his persistence with food, warmth, and shelter.
“What are you exactly?” a ranger greeted him after responding to Labelle’s pounding on the door. He ran his eyes up and down the trapper’s ice-encrusted clothes and hair, then his face which was sheathed in a thin layer of it as well. “Please say a man.”
“I am that,” Labelle said, exhausted and picking at the ice frozen to his beard. “But what’s coming might not be.”
“What’s coming?” the ranger repeated, gazing over Labelle’s shoulder. “What say we get you warmed up inside?”
Labelle followed the ranger through the door, the blast of warm air hitting him like a surge from a steam oven. He could feel the ice crystals attached to his skin, hair, and beard turning to water, the flow from his clothes leaving thin puddles in his wake as he made his way to the fire.
The trapper’s gaze fixed on a telegraph machine as he peeled off his gloves. “Does that work?”
“Why?”
“Because we must get off a message to the Mounties,” Labelle said through still-frozen lips.
“Sure thing, soon as we get you warmed up with blankets, and fed right.”
“No!” Labelle barked, grasping the ranger’s forearm so hard it seemed the cold bled into him as well. “Now! Before it’s too late!”
The ranger yanked his hand away, stumbling backwards in the process. “Too late for what?”
Labelle peered through the closest window. The morning sun had melted away enough of the ice crust for him to see the path down which he’d come. “For us. Before whatever’s coming gets here.”
PART ONE
The depredations of your enemies the W. [Waco] and T. [Tawakonis] Indians and their hostile preparations, has driven us to the necessity of taking up arms in self-defense.… The frontier is menaced—The whole colony is threatened—under these circumstances it became my duty to call the militia to the frontier to repel the threatened attacks and to teach our enemies to fear and respect us.
—Stephen Austin, 1826, in Mike Cox, The Texas Rangers
1
EAST SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
“Nobody goes beyond this point, ma’am,” the tall, burly San Antonio policeman, outfitted in full riot gear, told Caitlin Strong.
“That includes Texas Rangers…” She hesitated long enough to read the nameplate over his badge. “Officer Salazar?”
“That’s Sergeant Salazar, Ranger. And the answer is yes, it includes everyone. Especially Texas Rangers.”