Viva the Brazos Kid! by Frank Longfellow

Author:Frank Longfellow [Frank Longfellow]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780709095989
Publisher: Robert Hale
Published: 2011-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Sheriff Delaney’s posse was not a happy one. They had been wandering in a wilderness for days now without catching any trace of the fugitives they sought. Even Yellow Dog seemed to be stumped by the elusiveness of their prey. Some of the more rebellious of the group began to grumble aloud at the parlousness of their position. They were getting further and further from home, with little to show for their pains except weary limbs and diminishing supplies of both coffee and patience. Unsurprisingly, those who had been most vocal in calling for a speedy pursuit in the aftermath of Hal Jenkins’s untimely demise were now at the forefront of the faint-hearts who wanted to call the whole thing off and return home. They suddenly remembered that they’d never much liked Hal, or that brother of his who had got killed in the stick-up. Wasn’t he the town drunk, who never had a dime to his name and was always harrying respectable citizens such as themselves for the price of a drink? Such are the vagaries of the human memory, that we choose to remember those things which suit us according to our present wants and needs. The men were tired now and discouraged; this Brazos Kid was like some kind of illusion who vanished just as you thought you had him in your grasp. They doubted if they’d ever get him; likely he was long gone, maybe even dead, and they were merely wasting their time in chasing a phantom.

Experienced in human nature as he was, Sheriff Delaney was not blind to what was going on. The surliness of the men in getting up in the morning for another hard day’s riding, the silences at mealtimes instead of the usual joshing and banter, the ill-humoured grumbling at trifling mishaps were all warning signs. He knew that there was trouble coming but kept his own counsel. It would be better to let the thing boil up of its own accord, in his view. That way he could clearly identify with the chief troublemakers when the time came and, if necessary, get rid of them.

As for himself, despite being twice the age of most of the rest of the men in the posse, the lawman was enjoying himself in his own grim way. He was a man of action and chasing bad men came naturally to him. This was a lot more challenging than his usual humdrum duties as sheriff in a small township and he relished the excitement of the hunt and even the hardships he had to endure along the way in order to track down the object of his quest. Being on the trail was no burden to him – in fact, it reminded him of happier, youthful days when he had pursued errant Indians under General Phil Sheridan. Those heady days were now long gone but the memory of the camaraderie and common purpose that had pervaded those campaigns still lived with him and came back to him now like a ghostly echo.

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