[Texas Rangers 06] - Jericho's Road Read Online Free PDF

see his chest rise and fall with his breathing, so he knew at least that Farley was not dead.
    The hostler had a fire going in a small iron stove in the front office, a steaming pot on its top. He told Andy, “Got coffee here.”
    “ Thanks, but I’m goin’ for breakfast.”
    “ You might want to take some coffee to your partner. By the looks of him as he staggered by here in the wee hours, he’s liable to need it.”
    “ His legs ain’t broke. Let him come and get his own coffee.”
    The hostler seemed startled at Andy’s lack of concern for Farley. “I thought you was Rangers together.”
    “ Rangers, but not together any more than we have to be.”
    After breakfast Andy brushed the black horse, then saddled him. Farley was sitting up but still on his blankets. He appeared to have trouble focusing on Andy. “Where you goin’ so early?”
    “ South, like we were ordered. You can catch up to me or not, that’s up to you.”
    Farley rubbed a hand over his bruised and swollen face. His knuckles were red, the skin broken. “I must’ve had fun last night. I just can’t remember much about it.”
    “ Last time I saw you it looked like you were comin’ out second best against a man who didn’t like Rangers.”
    “ It taken me a while, but I finally convinced him. It’s what happened afterwards that I can’t remember much about. The last I knew, him and me had a couple of drinks together, us and some policeman.”
    “ A couple?”
    “ Maybe three. I never let myself get drunk.”
    Andy tied his blankets behind the saddle and started to lead the horse outside. Farley called, “Ain’t you goin’ to wait for me?”
    “ No.” Andy mounted in the street and turned south to intersect the San Antonio road. He crossed the Colorado River on a wooden bridge and turned to look back northward toward the capitol building. Though he liked Austin, he never felt at ease in large cities. This one was home to maybe five or six thousand people.
    He was a couple of hours down the trail when he heard a horse coming up behind him. “Badger Boy! Wait up.”
    Farley pulled in beside him. “Damn it, you’d make a man kill his horse tryin’ to catch up with you.”
    “ Told you I was leavin’ soon after daylight.”
    “ You could’ve waited. I was sick this mornin’.”
    “ You look like a herd of cattle ran over you. For all I care you could’ve stayed in Austin.”
    “ I was just havin’ a little fun. Looks to me like I’ve earned it. Don’t get much chance when we’re out in the field.”
    “ It’s a good thing the major didn’t see you.”
    “ He knows that a man has to let off some steam now and again. Else he’ll blow up like a boiler with the valve stuck.”
    Andy remembered how Farley had let off steam in the early years after the war, provoking the carpetbag state police into one fight after another. He had been like a wolf luring dogs into chasing him, then turning on them in a fury of slashing teeth. They had learned to pursue him only at a safe distance. Now he directed his belligerence at lawbreakers for the most part. That made him useful to the Rangers, though he tended to act first and plan later.
    After a long, smoldering silence Farley remarked, “That’s a good-lookin’ black horse. Where did you steal him at?”
    Farley had never gotten past a bone of contention involving a sorrel horse his father had given to Rusty Shannon and that Rusty had passed on to Andy. Farley always contended that the horse was his own and that his father had no right to give him away.
    Andy said, “I always figured if you’re goin’ to steal a horse, you’d just as well steal a good one.”
     
    The wagon road south from Austin skirted the eastern edge of rough limestone hills where the Edwards escarpment rose out of the western portion of the coastal plain. To the east lay farming settlements along the Colorado and Brazos rivers. To the west, stock farmers and ranchers were freely expanding their