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

immediately Rusty and Tanner were surrounded by more than a dozen men. He knew his rifle would be useless. At best he might shoot one man before the rest swarmed over him. Tanner's expression said he was still willing to fight if Rusty gave him the sign. Rusty shook his head.
    Somebody demanded, "James, where'd you find these rangers?"
    Rusty did not know the speaker's name, but he remembered the face from among the men who used to loaf around the dramshops at the Fort Belknap settlement. He looked about, hoping to see other familiar faces. Surely some of the men he remembered deserting from the rangers would be among this group.
    Clyde Oldham pointed to his brother and said Rusty had shot him ... shot him down in cold blood. Someone grabbed Rusty's rifle, jerking it from his hand before he could react. Tanner tried to hang on to his, but two men dragged him from his saddle, landing on top of him as he hit the ground. They took his rifle and his pistol.
    Rusty felt hostility radiating from the men who surrounded him. He was reminded of the hatred Caleb Dawkins and other Confederate zealots had shown toward the Monahan family, hatred that had culminated in two hangings. His pistol was still in its holster on his hip, but if he tried to draw it he would not live to pull the trigger.
    It would be useless to argue that the army had become too small and too weak to indulge its time searching the wide Texas wilderness for a poverty camp like this. It was likely that most of these men had hidden out through a major part of the war. Many had probably suffered during the early period when fanaticism had inflicted injustice upon those whose loyalties were suspect. They would not easily believe that the long war had sapped the energy and resolve of even the most extreme, like the hangman Caleb Dawkins. Most Texans now simply wanted to put the conflict behind them and rebuild what they could from the wreckage of war.
    James stood in front of Rusty's horse. "You'd just as well get down. I'll see that nobody does anything to you."
    Though hostility was strong in the faces Rusty saw uplifted toward him, the men seemed willing to accept James's leadership. James extended his hand. "Just for safety, maybe you'd better give me your pistol."
    Rusty grasped it stubbornly. "I believe I'll keep it."
    He expected an argument, but James made what in other circumstances might be regarded as a faint smile. To the men around him he said, "Leave him hold on to it. He knows better than to try and do anything." To Rusty he added, "I'll give you ranger boys credit for guts, even if not good sense."
    Rusty was surprised to see a couple of women and half a dozen children in the camp, families uprooted by the war.
    James said, "First thing, we'd better see what we can do about Buddy."
    Young Oldham was carried into a tent and laid down on some blankets. James went to his knees beside him and gave the wound a closer examination. He loosened the tourniquet to let the blood flow. It had slowed considerably from before. His face was grave as he looked up at Clyde Oldham. "Ain't nothin' holdin' that arm together but a little skin. The bone is busted into a dozen pieces. It needs to come off."
    Oldham's voice went shrill. "Amputate? But what can he ever do with just one arm?"
    "Live, maybe. Otherwise, he ain't got a jackrabbit's chance. If I was you, Clyde, I'd go out yonder and find somethin' to drink. You don't want to watch this."
    Oldham's stricken gaze fastened on Rusty for a moment before he walked away from the tent. A friend put an arm around his shoulder and said, "Come on, Clyde. You need a shot of whiskey."
    James beckoned to Rusty. "You did the shootin'. It's your place to do the cuttin'."
    Rusty had treated bullet and arrow wounds, but he had never cut off an arm or leg. James held the blade of a skinning knife over a campfire, then handed it to him. Sweat trickling down his face and burning his eyes, Rusty severed what remained of the arm.
    Young