Free [Texas Rangers 02] - Badger Boy by Elmer Kelton

chief. Every man is free to come and go, to do what suits him as long as he don't hurt somebody else. We stay together for mutual protection against the Indians, the army, and the rangers." His eyes narrowed. "Especially the rangers."
    "You don't need to be concerned about the rangers anymore. There's not enough left to guard a jailhouse, much less to raid a brush camp. I'd worry a lot more about the Indians."
    "Worst they've ever done is make a try for our horses. Raidin' parties ride a long way around a camp as big as ours."
    Rusty had heard talk about a large gathering of brush men far west of Fort Belknap, near the ragged breaks that marked the eastern edge of the staked plains. He supposed the fugitives moved camp from time to time for security.
    Tanner muttered, "We've got ourselves into a dandy fix. We ought to've fought when we had the chance."
    Rusty said, "I'd've ridden fifty miles extra to stay out of their way. All we can do now is keep our eyes open."
    The brush men rode ahead but watched lest Rusty and Tanner turn and run. The situation reminded Rusty of two fighting bobcats locked in a sharp-clawed embrace from which neither dared try to break away.
    Tanner asked, "What'll we do when we get to wherever we're goin'?"
    "We'll dance to whatever tune the fiddler plays."
    Rusty smelled wood smoke before he saw the camp. A number of horses grazed on a rolling stretch of open prairie, accompanied by a slack-shouldered boy who appeared to be asleep in the saddle. Rusty's attention went to a long-legged mule. Recognition brought a surge of pleasure that for a moment shoved aside his concern over their trouble. "Yonder's old Chapultepec."
    Tanner said, "Looks like him, all right."
    The mule looked up as the horsemen rode past, but he went back to grazing.
    Tanner shrugged. "Didn't recognize you. I suppose old mules are forgetful, like old people."
    "He'd've noticed if I'd been ridin' Alamo. They always got along good together." Rusty thought about the deserter who had stolen the animal from the ranger camp. "Lancer must be here, too. I owe him a busted jaw for stealin' Daddy Mike's mule."
    James Monahan stopped and waited for Rusty to come up even with him. "You know that mule?"
    "My old daddy brought him home from the Mexican War. A deserter named Lancer stole him awhile back. Me and him are fixin' to talk about that."
    James frowned. "It won't be much of a conversation. Lancer is buried where we had our last camp." He pointed northwestward. "He was a hard man to get along with. Every time somethin' didn't suit him, he threatened to go fetch the rangers. One of the boys got a bellyful of it."
    Rusty said, "I'm goin' to want my mule."
    James did not reply. Rusty took that as a sign James was not sure he and Tanner would ever leave this place.
    He had seen ranger camps and army camps. This looked like neither. It was a haphazard scattering of canvas tents and rude brush shelters strung along the banks of a creek. Half a dozen campfires sent up their smoke, and the smell of roasting meat made him aware that he was hungry.
    Hell of a thing, Rusty thought, thinking about my stomach when I ought to be thinking about my hide.
    Tanner remarked to James, "It don't look like you-all's cup has run over with prosperity."
    "At least we ain't takin' orders from Richmond, or Austin either. We're still free men."
    Free seemed a questionable description. The brush men were free in the sense that they were neither in the army nor in jail. But their situation hardly met Rusty's definition of freedom. Hostile Indians roamed to the north and west. To the east, the Confederate government considered them traitors. The only relatively open course was to the south, toward a distant foreign border. Those willing to flee to Mexico had done so much earlier in the war. In a sense, those who remained here were confined to a huge prison without walls. They were refugees, hiding, moving periodically lest they be discovered and overrun.
    Almost