[Texas Rangers 05] - Texas Vendetta by Elmer Kelton Read Free Book Online Page B

with a steel rod heated to a red glow. He also found his timber saw and a sledgehammer that belonged to him. He carried them back and placed them in the bed of the wagon.
    Gaskin protested, “You got no right to carry a man’s tools away. I’m liable to need them.”
    “Not unless you can get somebody else to use them for you. It’s too bad you don’t have four hands, Fowler. You could steal twice as much.”
    Gaskin stood up again, bracing one hand against his cabin. Rusty thought it was a toss-up as to which might fall first. Gaskin said, “You come on my land, you steal my tools, then you insult me to my face. If I wasn’t old and sick I’d whup you good and proper.”
    “Speakin’ of bein’ old, you’ve been playin’ on Shanty’s sympathy when the truth is that you’re younger and stronger than he is. I’m tellin’ you to stop it or else.”
    “Or else what? You goin’ to hit a poor old man?”
    Rusty clenched his fists. “I might. I sure as hell might.”
    He climbed into the wagon and clucked the team into motion. Gaskin followed in short, shaky steps, shouting his opinion of Rusty and all his ancestors. The dogs came out from hiding and barked from a safe distance.
    Gaskin had only a small field, for planting required work. But his corn stood tall, the stalks rustling in the wind. The hail did not seem to have touched him.
    Rusty looked up and said, “Lord, next time You send us a storm, I hope You have a better sense of direction.”
    Reaching home, he carried the tools down to the river. With an ax he cut a deep notch in a tree in the direction he wanted it to fall, then used the saw. When the tree was down, he sawed it into shingle lengths. He dropped several trees before he thought he had enough. Then he began splitting off shingles.
    In a couple of days he had a supply of them piled behind the cabin. He was on the roof, removing damaged ones when he saw a wagon and several riders approaching on horseback. He recognized Shanty on his mule. Tom Blessing loped ahead, one of his brothers spurring along behind.
    Blessing shouted, “Got a bunch of your neighbors here. We can’t do anything about the crop you lost, but we’ve come to help you put your roofs back on.”
    Rusty’s dark mood lifted. It was a custom in rural Texas communities that neighbors work together. If a man was sick or hurt, his friends came to do whatever work was necessary. If hard luck befell him, the neighbors pitched in to set things as nearly right as possible. No one could guess when his own time might come.
    Rusty climbed down the ladder and walked out to greet the visitors, shaking hands with each in his turn.
    Blessing smiled broadly. “You need some good news after all that’s happened to you. I saw Andy. He’ll be by to visit you in a few days.”
    Rusty grinned. That was good news. “His arm wasn’t broke, was it? He’s written me just one letter since he’s been in the Rangers, and it took up only half a page.”
    “He looked healthy to me. Him and Farley Brackett delivered a prisoner to me and had another they were fixin’ to take a little farther. Said he’d see you before he heads back to the Ranger camp.”
    Rusty’s grin faded. “He was with Farley Brackett?”
    “I know him and Farley don’t gee-haw too good, but I suppose he had no choice. A young man needs to learn how to take orders so he’ll know how to give them when his time comes.”
    Rusty said, “Farley wakes up every mornin’ with a dark cloud over his head. And he’s got a wild hair in him that pops out every now and then.”
    “Andy can think for himself. It’s good for him to learn how to get along with all kinds of people. Even somebody like Farley.”
    Two women rode on the wagon seat, the younger one driving. The older of the pair was Tom Blessing’s wife. Rusty had to look a second time before he realized the other was Bethel Brackett, Farley Brackett’s sister.
    Mrs. Blessing said, “Bethel and me are goin’ to fix