outta horse meat tonight, but we’re servin’ some beef stew that I hope you’ll enjoy.”
“That sounds a little bit more to my taste,” Ben said.
“Doris!” Mabel called out. “Bring a couple of cups of coffee for Lem and his friend.” Thinking to check then, she asked Ben, “You do want coffee, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ben answered.
The cooking proved to be as good as Lem had claimed. The stew wasn’t skimpy on beef, and the cornbread was as good as he had ever tasted. For a brief while, Ben was able to forget the trouble he had just experienced with Billy Turner. He had never had much exposure to Lem Wooten before, so he was surprised by his sense of humor and his teasing of Mabel Rivenbark. Before the supper was half-finished, however, Lem asked about the two outlaws Ben had enquired about when he first hit town. “Did you find them fellers?” he asked even though he already knew about the arrests made in the Texas Rose. “So your partner went on with your prisoners, huh?”
“He took responsibility for the two men we arrested and he’s on his way to Austin with ’em,” Ben answered. “I gotta tend to something else tomorrow, so I decided to stay here tonight.”
“Well, I reckon they weren’t too hard to handle,” Lem said.
“No, they weren’t too hard to handle. He won’t have any trouble takin’ them to Austin.” The topic was something Ben didn’t want to discuss, and Lem finally sensed it, so the conversation got back to Mabel’s cooking. When they had finished, they walked back to the stable where Lem threw down some fresh hay for Ben’s bed before retiring to his little cabin behind the stable.
Ben spread his bedroll on the fresh hay Lem had provided, removed his boots, and made himself comfortable. He lay there for a while, listening to Cousin snuffle, unable to rid his mind of the incident earlier with Billy Turner. In his twelve years as a Ranger, he had certainly known there were Rangers who would kill for convenience, but this was the first time he had ever ridden with one. He was still working on it in his mind, whether or not to make a complaint to Captain Mitchell about it, or just let it ride, since Billy wasn’t in his company. He still hadn’t decided by the time he fell asleep.
CHAPTER 3
“Didn’t expect to see you back this way so soon,” Wilfred Tuttle said when Ben pulled up at the hitching rail in front of his store. “Did those two you and your partner were lookin’ for give you the slip?” He glanced back toward the path leading down to his store. “Where is your partner? He ain’t with you?”
“No,” Ben answered. “Billy ain’t with me. We found Kelly and Queen and arrested ’em. Billy’s takin’ ’em back to Austin, so I decided to come back this way, so I could have another one of Rosa’s fine breakfasts and pay you for what those two took.” His answer brought a grin to Tuttle’s face. Ben didn’t volunteer the fact that Billy had shot the prisoners down like a couple of dogs with rabies. “I’ll rest my horses, then start back the way I came yesterday.”
“I expect Rosa will be tickled to see you,” Tuttle said. “I’ll tell her while you take care of your horses.”
Ben purposefully took the occasion to enjoy a leisurely breakfast visit with Wilfred and Rosa before starting back to Austin. He needed to get his mind off Billy Turner.
* * *
It was past suppertime when he rode into Pritcher’s stable in Austin and left his horses in Fred Pritcher’s care. He had kept Cousin there for several years, since the stable was convenient to the rooming house he lived in. It had been two full days since he left Tuttle’s Store and he figured Billy would have arrived early enough to report in before Captain Mitchell left for the day. Hoping that would be the case, he intended to wait and report the next morning, a meeting he was not looking forward to. Mitchell was going to want a hell of a lot of explaining to account for him and Billy arriving separately. Ben wasn’t sure he could give him a satisfactory explanation. He would have to wait and hear what Billy’s version of the arrest was.
By the time he finished talking to Fred Pritcher, it was too late to get anything to eat at the boardinghouse, so he settled for some jerky from his packs, figuring that would hold him until breakfast.
* * *
After breakfast at the boardinghouse, during which, he exchanged idle but polite conversation with the other few early risers, he walked down to the F-Company Ranger headquarters. It consisted of one small office for Randolph Mitchell in the back of an annex to the courthouse. When he walked in, he found Mitchell coaxing a coffeepot to boil on the tiny iron stove in his office. The captain turned when he heard the door open. When he saw who it was, he just stared for a long moment while he formed his question. “Ben, what in the hell happened in Navasota?”
“What did Billy Turner say happened?” Ben responded.
“That ain’t the answer to my question,” Mitchell said. “Ben, you’ve been in this business for twelve years—the last four under my command in F-Company. I’ve never known a Ranger who was any better at the job than you. And I sure as hell never heard any report of you backin’ away from a dangerous situation.”
“I’ll ask you again,” Ben said. “What did Billy say happened? He brought the bodies of Big Foot Sam Kelly and Jack Queen back yesterday, didn’t he? He didn’t need any help from me to do that.”
“He didn’t bring their bodies. He just brought their weapons and their horses. Said they didn’t have any money on ’em.” He paused then and studied Ben’s face for a moment. “How did they die?” Mitchell asked.
“I expect that was in Billy’s report, wasn’t it?”
Mitchell hesitated. He could see that Ben wasn’t going to give his version of the confrontation with the two outlaws, so he finally answered. “Billy said him and you arrested the two outlaws in the Texas Rose Saloon. You started back to Austin and made camp about ten miles from Navasota. He admitted that you both were a little careless about packing their weapons out of reach but decided to let the prisoners go ahead and eat. He said he released them and both of you had your weapons drawn to guard ’em.” Mitchell paused, watching Ben’s face carefully before he continued. “He said Queen saw the weapons on top of their pack and made a try for one, so he had to shoot him down. Kelly made a move for the weapon and got his hands on it while you just stood there like you were frozen. So he had to shoot Kelly before he shot you. He said you were still actin’ strange after he killed both of the outlaws and didn’t hang around to help bury ’em—just got on your horse and rode off.”
Ben didn’t protest during Mitchell’s accounting of Billy’s report. He hadn’t planned to make much fuss about what happened to Kelly and Queen, as long as Billy just made a simple statement that the prisoners resisted and gave them no choice. But now that he heard the picture Billy had painted for Mitchell, depicting him as having been frozen with fear and forcing him to save his life, Ben couldn’t hold his tongue. “Sounds like Billy was havin’ trouble rememberin’ all the details of that confrontation, and I reckon I am to blame for that. I shoulda come back with him, so you could get a full report. I reckon Billy forgot the part about when he emptied the bullets out of those two handguns, then set ’em up so they’d be tempted to make a play for ’em. That was a little something he forgot to tell me until it was too late. Did he mention that Queen was shot in the back? ’Course, if he’d brought the bodies back, you coulda seen that for yourself. He was right about me standin’ there, facin’ Kelly after he got hold of that gun. I didn’t shoot him, and I kept tellin’ him the gun he had wasn’t loaded, but Billy shot him.” He paused then and studied Mitchell’s face for his reaction. “So now you’ve got two versions of what happened on that little creek bank the other night. I reckon it’s up to you to decide which one to believe. The reason I didn’t come back with him was because I just refused to ride with the lowlife.”
Mitchell was visibly relieved, having already found the charge of cowardice leveled against a man he knew to be