“Boz is only trying to reassure you, child,” I added. “Wouldn't want you, or one of us, to get hurt, now would we? Especially after everything that's already transpired this sad and fateful morning.”
Then, as though suddenly overcome by a power outside herself, the hesitant youngster appeared possessed of a steely calm that surprised both of us. She made a little show of sliding the heavy-bladed butcher's knife behind a thin leather strap tied around her narrow waist. Then, she held both skinny arms and empty hands out for us to examine.
“I've put the knife away” she said. “No knife. See?”
Boz and I both nodded.
Then, as if she had only just that moment managed to remember something long forgotten, she said, “Clementine. My name's Clementine.”
“Well, now, that's a right pretty name,” I said. “Yes indeed, that's right pretty.”
“Don't treat me like I'm stupid or helpless,” the girl snapped. “I've matriculated at Miss Hildegard Tyler's School for Young Ladies in New Orleans. Studied reading, writing, mathematics, history, philosophy, and debate. I'm smarter than most grown men, by a long shot.”
Couldn't help but smile at her feistiness. Said, “Why, yes, ma'am. Believe you likely are.”
“On top of that, my father taught me to ride like a Comanche Indian and shoot like Hickok by the time I'd turned six. The both of you should hit your knees tonight and thank a loving God I couldn't get my hands on a rifle, shotgun, or pistol. Both of you'd be as dead as a pair of rotten fence posts by now.”
Boz rubbed a spot on his chest as though feeling for an invisible bullet hole, then sucked in a heavy, ragged breath.
I wagged my head from side to side, like Bear did when he was tired. Made a patting motion at the teary-eyed girl, then said, “Calm yourself, child. Please. There's no need to get excited again.”
“And I do not like being called
child
. Don't mind
miss
, or
missy
, but don't care much for this
child
business,” the girl grouched. “My name's Webb. Clementine Webb. Fifteen years old, soon to be sixteen. Know there are some who don't acknowledge my age 'cause I look younger, but I'll have you know I am not a child.” She threw her thin shoulders back. “I'll go along with you and your friend, Mr. Dodge. But I'll keep the knife,” she said and fingered the blade's wooden handle.
I pitched a questioning glance at Boz.
He shrugged then nodded, as if to say, “What the hell? Was me I wouldn't give up the knife, either.”
“Well, all right, Clementine. That's fine with us. You keep the knife,” I said and motioned for her to follow. “You can tag along behind, if that'll make you more comfortable with the situation. Keep as much distance between you and us as makes you happy. We have horses waiting down by the river. Food and water, too. You can ride behind me, or my friend here, when we head out for the ranch. Let you choose which when we get back to our campfire. Does all of that work for you?”
A short-lived wave of irrepressible panic appeared to dart across Clementine Webb's youthful, painfully clinched face. Just as quickly, she regained control of her emotions again, then made little shooing motions at us and said, “Yes. Yes. That's fine with me. You two go on ahead. Lead the way. I'll follow.” She gripped the wooden handle of her only weapon, wiped a dripping nose on the back of her free hand, then added, “Try anything funny, either one of you, and I swear I'll cut you up. Filet the pair of you like pond-raised sunfish.”
We did an about-face, trudged out of the gulley, and headed for the river. From the corner of his grinning mouth Boz muttered, “Do believe she woulda made good on them threats, Dodge. Just mighta gone and turned you from a rooster into a hen, if'n you'da got close enough. Spunky little thang, ain't she? Have to admire that.”
“Spunky ain't the half of it, Boz. Given what she's witnessed this morning, got to figure the little gal's tough enough to hunt mountain lions with a willow switch,” I whispered back. Shook my head, then added, “ 'Course, she's going to need every bit of spunk, nerve, grit, and backbone available when the full weight of what's happened finally hits her. Yep, every single bit of it.”
11
“. . . AND KILL THEM, ONE AND ALL.”
LITTLE MORE THAN an hour later, Clementine Webb stood near the foot of her family's crude burial place. She clasped a cup of Boz's campfire Arbuckles in one trembling hand and absentmindedly held the half-eaten remnants of one of Paco's meat-stuffed tacos in the other.
I eased up beside the Webb girl and quickly noted that, while she made no sound, a river of salty tears flowed from her swollen eyes. Muscles around her lips involuntarily trembled and twitched. For all her previous displays of nervy, self-possessed grit, the scruffy teenager appeared as though teetering on the knife-edged precipice of emotional collapse.
Then, to my stunned surprise, our newfound ward cast the half-filled cup of coffee and unfinished taco aside and dropped to her knees atop the crude grave in a quivering, sobbing heap. “I want to see my little brothers again,” she screeched, then clawed at that pile of rocks and fresh-turned earth like a wild animal. “I didn't get to see them when I came back before. Sweet Jesus, I need to see them one last time.”
For several painful seconds I stood rooted to the ground. Shocked and dumbfounded by the abrupt, poignant, and powerful turn of events. Then, as gently as I could manage, I lifted the struggling girl off the grave, held her at arm's length, and said, “There's no seeing any of them again, Clem. They're all gone. In your heart you know it's true. We told you as much on the way back here. Understand as how it won't be easy, but you've got to turn this all loose. Give the whole horrible mess over to God. Put these tragic events on his shoulders. Let him handle them. Trust me, it's the best way.”
The Webb girl wrung her hands together, then ran shaky fingers through her hair. Sounded nigh on unearthly, eerie, when she cried out, “Oh, God. I can't see 'em again. I can't see 'em again. Not ever. Not ever.”
“No, darlin'. Not ever,” I said.
“But my brothers. My poor, innocent, little brothers.”
“I know, Clem. I know.”
I placed a reassuring arm around the weeping orphan's narrow shoulders. She leaned her full, delicate weight against me. Grabbed the front of my vest with both hands and buried her face in the safety of my waiting chest. A strange, strangled, sobbing rumbled up from somewhere deep inside the grief-stricken child. Pain, the likes of which I'd not seen or felt in years, flowed between us and shook me to the soles of my run-down, stacked-heeled riding boots.
I stroked the beautiful Clementine's heaving shoulders as she sobbed and said, “I know it's difficult for you, darlin'. Simply isn't anything harder than dealing with the senseless death brought on by sheer wickedness. But you've got to buck up.”
The girl's racking sobs grew louder. Her grasp on the lapels of my vest grew more pronounced. I thought, for a moment, she just might twist the garment to shreds.
In the manner of a concerned parent, I drew her closer and caressed one shoulder. Said, “Seen more than any man's share of senseless brutality during my life, child. Been forced, by time and circumstance, to bury some of my own family in years past. Several of them perished at the hands of an evil skunk named Slayton Bone in a sorry act of violence some years back. That particular brand of vicious, gun smoke-laced, unexpected death just isn't ever easy to take. 'S what makes me certain the passage of your parents and brothers is especially difficult for one of your tender years. But you must trust me when I tell you that the shock will pass, and eventually the pain will lessen. Won't go away, but there'll come a time when this tragedy will move to the back burners of your wounded memory.”
Clementine coughed and smeared a runny nose across the front of my vest from pocket to pocket. Her childlike action left a snotty, tear-stained, snail-like trail.
I placed one hand on the sobbing girl's cheek. “Don't you worry, young lady. My friends and I will find the men responsible for this shameful deed. We'll search them out, discover why they would be party to such a shocking endeavor, and make certain they never commit a heinous act such as this again.”
Clementine tilted a tear-streaked face up and stared into my tense, pinched countenance. She jerked at the vest with a talon-like grip. From behind bloodshot, rheumy eyes, and with tears pooled in the corners of a quavering mouth, she said, “Is that a promise? Do you swear it, Ranger Lucius Dodge?”
Tried not to let any hesitation creep into my voice when I placed a hand on each of Clementine's skinny shoulders and said, “Absolutely. As God is my witness. The animals responsible for what occurred here, on the banks of Devils River this sad morning, will pay for what they did. And, by God, they'll pay dear.”
Eyes closed, the Webb girl tossed her head from side to side, as though trying desperately to clear a confused mind and wounded soul of a spider's web of unwanted thoughts, horrific images, and the pain lying at her bare feet. She latched onto my forearm with an iron-fingered grip that belied her youth and childish, rail-thin scrawniness.
In spite of the protection of the sleeve of my heavy, bib-front shirt, Clementine Webb's dagger-sharp fingernails gouged through the material and into the skin beneath. I stared down into the girl's emotion-etched face. Could physically feel her boring gaze, as it augured into my very soul.
She popped up on tiptoe and pulled my hatless head down to her level. In a croaky, emotion-choked voice that sounded like cold spit on a red-hot stove lid, she whispered into one ear, “Will you swear it? Will you swear before God and me, Mr. Dodge? Swear that you'll ride down the men who brutally murdered my family. Swear to me that you'll run the scum to ground like rabid dogs . . . and kill them, one and all.”
“Well, I . . .”
“Swear it,” she hissed.
“Already promised, Clem. We'll do what we ...”
She jerked on my arm so hard I came nigh on to losing my footing. She twisted the sleeve of my faded shirt into a blood-blocking knot with her bony, child's fingers and glowered up at me like a thing crazed, demented. Then she threw her head back and moaned as though her soul was being tortured.
I drew myself up with the implacable Clementine Webb still attached to my arm. Stared down into twin pools of hard-edged vengeance. “We're working on catching the folks what done this foul act as we now speak, darlin'. Have a man out looking for them at this very instant. But there's some things I need to know . . .”
Didn't get a chance to finish my thought. The sound of horse's hooves slopping their way across the shallows of Devils River brought everyone's attention around to the west.
Clementine released my arm, then grabbed on to my pistol belt and moved slightly behind me. From beneath my protective arm, she flashed a gaze filled with death-dealing lightning bolts at the new arrival.
I rubbed my elbow, then pointed. “In fact, that's my man coming now, Clem. Hairy beast lopin' out front's Bear.” The girl's grip tightened. I patted her hand and added, “No need to worry yourself. Ole Bear wouldn't hurt a flea.” Then, to an unhearing world in general, I said, “Not 'less Glo first told him he could, anyways. Then it's Katy bar the door.”
12
“. . . BLEW THE WHOLE TOP OF THE MAN'S HEAD OFF . . .”
GLORIOUS JOHNSON ROOSTED atop a broken, leafless cottonwood limb Boz dragged to a convenient spot near our sputtering campfire. Wisps of gray-black smoke swirled above the heap of sticks and logs in an angry, spiral-shaped, cyclonic cloud.
Elbows propped on bony knees, flop hat pushed away from a sweat-and-dirt-stained face, Johnson sipped at his battered, tin coffee cup. Said, “Yah, suh. I'm certain, Mistuh Dodge. Ain't no doubt in my mind a'tall. Them murderin' skunks what done fo' these poor folks is headed south and east.”
“Del Rio?”
“Yah, suh. 'Pears they'll eventual end up in Del Rio fo' certain sure.” Glo glanced at the cowering girl who peeked from beneath my arm and added, “Sorry, miss, don't mean no disrespect fo' yore poor departed family members or nuthin' by mentionin' murderin' skunks and such. Sad to say, but that's just the way things has turned out, you know?”
I patted the girl on the shoulder. “Her name's Clementine, Glo. Clementine Webb,” I said.
Glo touched the brim of his hat, nodded, and tried to smile. “ 'S my pleasure, missy. Sorry we has to meet under such tryin' circumstances.”
Clementine, who still kept to the safety and protection of a spot slightly behind and to one side of me, gave a dull nod of the head, but offered nothing else by way of reply. The largest part of her attention, at that moment, appeared focused on the dog. Bear sat at her feet and wagged his knotted tail like a happy puppy as he nuzzled and licked at her hand. The creature appeared totally entranced by the girl.
Surprised by the animal's somewhat less-than-usual response, I allowed myself a wide grin, gave the girl's shoulder another tap, and said, “Seems you've made a new friend, Clem. Not many folks as can say that.”
Glo tossed away the last few drops of the up-and-at-'em juice left in his cup, then said, “Them boys gonna end up in Del Rio
,
or Ciudad Acuna, sooner or later. But right now, 'pears to me as how they's headed nigh on straight for Arturo Mendoza's Cantina over in Carta Blanca. Should hit the Sonora-Del Rio road there, then hoof it south, once they's finished gettin' red-eyed, rubber-kneed, and whiskey weary.”