[Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line by Elmer Kelton Read Free Book Online Page B

nevertheless to try to explain. "The lad has people somewhere. He needs to be back with his own kind."
    The mare had risen to her feet and was walking shakily. Webb motioned toward the woman, then toward the mare. "You'd best be slippin' away while you can."
    She understood his motions if not his words. She hopped upon the mare's back. Crying, she made one last plea, holding out her arms. Shannon turned the boy away from her. She gave up and moved westward in the direction of the general runaway, though she kept looking hack at the boy in Shannon's arms.
    A volunteer rode up, eyes ablaze with excitement, sweat running down his face into a stubble of beard. His hands were bloody, but the blood did not appear to be his own. He pointed toward the fleeing woman. "Ain't you goin' to shoot her?"
    Shannon said, "I never shoot women without I have to."
    "Indian women make babies, and babies grow up to do murder. If you ain't goin' to shoot her, I will."
    Shannon set the boy down upon the ground and eased the muzzle of his rifle in the horseman's direction. "Do and you'll answer to me."
    The man's face went scarlet. "You wouldn't shoot me over a Comanche squaw.
    Shannon's voice was crisp. "I might. And then again, 'y God, I might just whip the hell out of you."
    The man lowered his weapon. "One day her sons'll come to take your scalp, and you'll wish you'd killed her before she bore them."
    "'They've got plenty of fightin' men left up yonder if you're bound on more killin'. Go get them ."
    The fight, what was still left of it, had swept on past. "I figure to." The volunteer looked down at the boy on the ground. "You takin' Indian boys to raise, are you?"
    "Look closer. He ain't an Indian."
    The rider's eyes reflected surprise. "Good thing he ain't, because I'd be of a mind to kill him before he has a chance to grow up and kill me and mine." He rode on.
    Shannon watched until the man was swallowed up in the dust. He turned back to Webb. "Yonder's a bunch of men gathered. Maybe there's a doctor amongst them. Your arm needs lookin' after."
    Webb carried a medical book in his saddlebags with his Bible and administered limited physical aid along his circuit because real doctors were scarce in settlements beyond the main towns like San Antonio and Houston. But he doubted he had the fortitude to set his own broken bone. He mounted, careful not to use the left arm.
    Shannon rode up to the small group of Texans. "Anybody recognize this young'un?"
    No one did.
    "What's your name, lad?" Webb asked.
    The boy did not reply. Webb repeated the question. "What do your folks call you, your daddy and mama?"
    The boy murmured, "Davy. Me Davy."
    "What do they call your mama? And your daddy?"
    "Mama. Daddy."
    He saw that further questions would yield nothing. The boy was too young to know his family name.
    Shannon inquired about a doctor but found there was none, at least not in this group. A young man with an upturned moustache and a German accent said, "Is best we bind that arm anyway, so it will not stay always crooked."
    Webb came near fainting as the German pulled the arm straight, then tore a long strip of blue cloth off a bolt that had fallen from a pack animal. He bound it around a temporary splint, a rough piece of live-oak limb. Webb broke out in a cold sweat, his body trembling. But he managed to keep his head as the young man hurried the task.
    "August Burmeister is not doctor, but the arm will not crooked be."
    Shannon was impressed. "Where'd you learn to do up a broken arm like that?"
    "In the old country, in Westphalia. I was a soldier in the army."
    "How come you to be in Texas?"
    "I did not like to be a soldier in the army. In the old country they tell of Texas. When they do not watch, I walk out to the niederland and the sea. On a boat I come to Galveston, to look for myself."
    "Hell of a sight you're seein' here." The sounds of battle trailed away to distant spotty firing. Shannon said, "We gave them a royal whippin', 'y God. There'll be