Free [Texas Rangers 01] - The Buckskin Line by Elmer Kelton Page A

read and could talk at length on subjects totally foreign but fascinating to Rusty. Moreover, he withheld his sermons for the pulpit. His best preaching was done by example, living the kind of life he urged upon others. If the man had any vices beyond a little affinity for horse races and a bachelor's way of staring wistfully at good-looking ladies, Rusty had not seen it.
    He had long marveled at the man's stamina. The minister would sometimes ride until fatigue dulled his eyes and he could barely stay in the saddle. Yet once Webb reached his destination and found a crowd waiting to hear him, his shoulders straightened and his weak voice took on the power of the Word.
    "The Lord never gives us a job to do without He gives us the strength to carry it out," Webb often said.
    His left arm was crooked, having healed that way after being broken by an Indian club at Plum Creek, so Rusty had been told. The arm was always subject to the miseries when weather changed, but the minister never let it handicap him if work needed to be done.
    He and Mike and Rusty caught up when Blessing's men stopped for a noon rest. The trail was still plain. Rusty thought, though he did not say so, that it was a mistake to pause while the Indians rode on. But the pursuers' mounts could only be pushed so far and so fast. The Indians could switch to fresh horses from among those they had taken. Blessing's men had to make do with what they had. If a mount gave out or went lame, its rider was out of the chase.
    The ranger captain walked out to meet the three incoming horsemen. "Better get down and let your mounts blow a little." He waited for Rusty to dismount. "Your daddy has been sworn in so many times there don't seem any point to it. But I'll swear you in if you want me to. You'll not likely see a dime of state money, but at least you can put in a claim ... for whatever that's worth."
    Rusty had not even considered that he might be paid. Mike had always told him that a man owed it to his neighbors and to his country to serve when duty called, and he should never ask about reward. "You just ask what they want you to do. It's your way to pay for the privilege of livin' in Texas and the United States of America."
    Rusty had been no more than seven or eight years old at the time, but he remembered how joyfully his foster father had celebrated when Texas gave up its status as a free republic and became a state in the union. Mike had declared, "If it hadn't been for my daddy comin' over from the old country when he did, we'd still be in Ireland today, workin' a shriveled-up potato patch and starvin' to death, 'y God."
    Indeed, the Shannons had come near starving a time or two when they first broke out their present farm. But determination and helpful neighbors had allowed them to survive.
    Rusty told Blessing, "I don't worry about pay, but I'd take it kindly if you made me a ranger, even for a few days. So would Daddy Mike, I think." His foster father had always been proud of the times—some short, some long—he had served in a ranging company.
    Blessing administered a brief oath that officially made Rusty a member of his company for whatever time his service might be deemed necessary. He stated that Rusty was obliged to furnish his own firearm and horse and was to be paid a daily allowance from the state treasury should such monies be available. "The state insists on the first part," Blessing said. "It's a lot more flexible as to the last. I'm sorry I can't give you a badge to wear, but I don't have one myself. Badges wouldn't impress a Comanche much anyhow."
    From Mike's stories, Rusty knew the rangers did not stand on ceremony. They had no official uniform, no official badge, not even an official title. They were most often called simply rangers or ranging companies, minutemen, and sometimes spies. Their rules were mostly made up as they went along, based on common sense and the realities of the moment. The main requirement was that they do the job or