Long Way to Texas by Elmer Kelton

Author:Elmer Kelton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2010-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

At daybreak David scanned the northern horizon for a sign of wagons. Seeing none, he let the Townsend people out of the cellar so they could go about their preparations for breakfast, and whatever else they needed to do. He warned that none were to go beyond the yard.

Soon Luther Lusk, sleepy-eyed from a long tour of guard duty, brought a young Mexican ranchhand into the house at the point of a rifle. “Buckalew,” he said gruffly, “you’ll want Hernandez to give this hombre a lecture on the dangers of not payin’ attention. He slipped past the outhouse and was headed over the back fence.”

David eyed the Mexican carefully. “You didn’t hurt him?”

Lusk lowered the rifle. “Surprised him, is all. He fell off of the fence and landed on his belly instead of his feet. He didn’t lose nothin’ but his dignity, and most of his breath.”

“I don’t want to hurt any of these people. They don’t know anything about our war.”

“They know enough about it to try to help the Yanks.”

David had Hernandez ask the Mexican why he tried to get away.

To get word to the Yankee wagon men, he said.

“Why?” David asked. “You don’t owe anything to the Yankee soldiers.”

The Mexican replied that he owed much to el patrón, Owen Townsend.

“He asked you to get word to the wagon people?”

He had asked all of them, the Mexican said, to get away if they could and carry a message north.

David ate his breakfast—what there was of it—nervously and in a hurry, not knowing when a guard posted uptrail would come loping down to the house with news that he had sighted the wagons. But breakfast went by and then the noon meal. In the daylight, David and Mitchell kept only a minimum number on guard, letting as many men as possible rest and catch up on sleep lost to long hours on duty last night, as well as perhaps putting a little on account for the hours they would likely lose in the nights to come.

He made it a point not to interfere more than necessary with the Townsends and their people, though keeping them confined to the house and yard was undeniably a major interference. David looked in occasionally upon Pete Richey. Pete seemed to spend most of his time asleep, or at least half asleep. David supposed this was good; he wasn’t sure.

Martha Townsend sat in a straight chair not far from Pete’s cot. Her shoulders were slumped. David saw her eyelids gradually close, then come suddenly open as she caught herself. She looked accusingly at David. “Did you ever try to sleep in a closed-up cellar?”

David had no comfort to offer her.

Two hours into the afternoon, the rider he had expected loped into the yard. David stepped out the door in time to see Hufstedler rein up and twist his body half around in the saddle, excitedly pointing back behind him. “They come, herr leutnant. Those Yankees, they come.”

Noley Mitchell trotted up. “How many, Dutch? How far away?”

“Ten wagons that I count for sure.

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