Bannerman the Enforcer 3 Read online

  “What’s that again, Governor?”

  “I said, the Texas Queen—that’s Rupe’s boat—has already left Port Arthur on the Gulf and is making its way upriver to Tyler’s Landing. I’ll meet it there, as planned.”

  Yancey nodded. “Whatever you say. I might get a chance to look into what Nathan Cross is up to while we’re there. He’s sure got something cooking.”

  “You figure he sent this Brodie after you to dry gulch you?” Cato asked.

  “Not much doubt, Johnny. There’s something about those old coins that Cross is interested in. And not just because he’s a collector ... By the way, I think I might’ve lost one of ’em during the brawl.”

  “What did Summers’ daughter think about them?” asked Dukes, and at Yancey’s puzzled look, explained, “She’s studying history at the new university. I met her at the reception after I opened it.”

  “Well, she was pretty broken up by the news about her father when I found her at her lodgings. She just took the coins and hardly glanced at ’em. Guess they didn’t mean anything to her.”

  Governor Dukes nodded. “Of course, she would be grief-stricken. I just thought that if there was any significance in the coins, she might have known what it is.” He stood up and Yancey and Cato got to their feet too. “Well, gentlemen, I have one more official reception this evening, which I’d like both of you to attend, and I think tomorrow we might start out for Tyler’s Landing. Or maybe we’ll make it the following day. I’ll see what sort of a wing-ding this is tonight.” He winked and smiled faintly, his longhorn moustache twitching with the movement of his lips. “It’s being given by local ranchers and I hear that they make a mean corn mash in these parts!”

  Yancey and Cato smiled and left the room. As they walked along the passage towards their own quarters, Yancey asked:

  “How’s his health been?”

  “Worryin’ the hell out of Doc Boles,” Cato said with a grin. “He’s been dancin’ and drinkin’ and I wouldn’t even like to guess what else at all these functions and driving poor old Boles loco. Seems he’s doin’ everythin’ the doctor says he shouldn’t be doin’ ... and thrivin’ on it!”

  Yancey laughed. “I can see the doc tearing at his hair! Maybe he’s been restraining the governor for too long and this little kick over the traces has done him the world of good.”

  “Somethin’ sure has. Kate’s gonna get a surprise when she hears about it, too. Sometimes she’s as bad as Doc Boles in not lettin’ him do things.” He let his words trail off as he saw Yancey’s sober face. “Ah, come on, pard, quit worryin’ about Cousin Rupe, will you? He don’t stand a chance with Kate.”

  Yancey looked at him soberly as they stopped outside the door to their quarters. “I wish I had your confidence, Johnny.”

  “Hell, you take my word for it ... I mean, what’s he got goin’ for him compared to you? He’s taller and he’s better-lookin’, and he owns lumber mills and a fleet of paddle-wheelers and a mansion in the bayous, a house in New Orleans, and another down on the Gulf ... He’s fought a few duels and walked away from all of ’em and he’s got a charm that has grandmothers swimmin’ flooded rivers after him, but what else has he got that you ain’t got? Nothin’, pard, nothin’!”

  Yancey smiled despite himself, knowing Cato was trying to help him get things in perspective by making a joke about it. Only thing was, most of the things Cato had said about Rupe Harwood were true.

  ~*~

  The huge paddle-wheel churned the muddy waters of the Sabine to milky froth and thrust the bows of the Texas Queen through the waters like a knife-blade. The river this close to the Gulf was wide and discolored with all the discharge of the waters from way upstream, deep in the body of Texas. The left bank was in the Lone Star State and the right was in Louisiana, a deep, dark, lush green.

  Standing on the foredeck by the heavy-duty winch he had installed especially for this voyage, Rupe Harwood turned to Kate Dukes where she leaned on the rail, watching the river slide turbulently past the black-painted hull. He slapped a hand against the derrick boom beside the oil-glistening donkey-engine.

  “This winch should serve a double purpose, Katie,” Harwood said, smiling as she turned and the wind caught her long brown hair and whipped it back from her face. “We’ll use it going upstream to clear a channel of logs and sunken obstructions and then, if the cattle transport idea is feasible, we’ll use it to load the more stubborn beeves aboard ... Hitch ’em up in a sling like a woman’s corset! Should be quite a sight, eh?”

  Kate smiled and nodded, enjoying the breeze in her face as the paddle-wheeler chugged on. Rupe’s handsome face was boyishly excited at the prospect of this new venture and she knew it wasn’t the thought of making a fortune that had brought him here, any more than it had been in pursuit of her ... something she knew she would have trouble convincing Yancey of—

  His last letter had plainly showed he was concerned at her spending so much time in Rupe’s company ...

  “Should be a lot of fun, all in all,” Rupe Harwood said from behind her, startling her out of her thoughts, and she smiled up at him as he slipped a protective, slightly possessive, arm about her shoulders. “A lot of fun, Katie.”

  “That’s mainly why you’re doing it, isn’t it, Rupe? For the fun. You’re not worried about the profit.”

  “Oh, it’ll be profitable, if I can convince the cowmen to use my boats,” he said off-handedly. “But I think it’s a good idea, Katie, or at least, one worth trying ... So, I’m trying it.”

  She laughed. “You’re just an overgrown boy!”

  “Well, someone once said that ‘happiness is the realization of a boyhood dream’. And I’ve had many boyhood dreams and I’m a man who believes in the pursuit of happiness. So what else could I do? After all, Uncle Gus was skipper of a cattle boat on the South American run and I always wanted to be like him ... I guess this is as close as I can come just now but, later on, who knows ... ? The South American market may open up again when all those revolutions are settled.”

  “You’re a dreamer and a doer, Rupe,” Kate told him. “That’s a rare combination.”

  “Like beauty and brains,” he told her, looking levelly at her and bringing a flush to her cheeks. “Eh, Cousin?”

  Kate didn’t answer. She turned away to look out over the rail again. The muddy river water surged by and the stern-wheeler’s engines throbbed beneath her feet. Every turn of those thudding pistons took her that much closer to Tyler’s Landing and her father.

  She hoped Yancey would be with him and wasn’t off on some dangerous assignment somewhere. It seemed a very long time since she had seen him, and there was an ache inside her for his company.

  But it was Rupe Harwood’s arm that was about her waist.

  ~*~

  Julie Summers was an obviously independent girl, in her mid-twenties, and she wore her hair in a severe style that pulled it straight back from her smooth forehead and kept it in place with a blue ribbon. She was a studious girl, who had taught village school back in Tyler’s Landing, before going on to higher studies at the university. She looked prim and did, in fact, wear shell spectacles for reading. These were folded in their beaded buckskin case in her valise now as she allowed Cato to hold a chair for her and she sat down opposite Governor Dukes’ desk. Yancey pulled back the drapes a little further to allow more light in and Dukes screwed up his eyes, wincing a little. Cato, too, turned his head to avoid the brilliant sunlight and Yancey smiled to himself. He knew both men were hungover from the cattlemen’s wing-ding last night. He had turned-in early after putting in an appearance, the aftermath of his brawl catching up with him about supper time. Consequently, he was feeling much more chipper than the other two men in the room and Julie Summers looked from him to the other two, observing their reactions. Her lips tightened slightly but she did not comment.

  “And what can I do for you, Miss Summers?” Dukes asked, leaning an elbow on the desk edge and cupping a hand so that it shielded his eyes f
rom the glare. He shot Yancey a bleak look but the big Enforcer seemed not to notice, clattering his chair as he dragged it across to sit down by one corner of the ornate desk. “I’m sorry to hear about your father ... I didn’t know him personally but his reputation had reached me in Austin. If there’s anything I can do to help smooth the way for you, just say so.”

  “Thank you, Governor, but that won’t be necessary,” the girl said crisply. “I can manage my affairs quite well, but I’ve come to see you on behalf of the State of Texas.”

  She waited expectantly and wasn’t disappointed. All three men showed surprise and she looked at each of them in turn.

  “Ah, I’m not sure I understand you, ma’am,” Dukes said slowly.

  “It’s quite simple, really.” She opened the top of her valise and rummaged around inside. Dukes looked at Cato and Yancey and both men shrugged slightly, shaking their heads: they were no wiser than he was. The girl brought out a small pouch with a rawhide drawstring, opened it and spilled the contents onto the governor’s desk. Yancey immediately recognized the old Spanish coins he had brought to the girl from Tyler’s Landing. The gold escudos glinted brilliantly amongst the dull silver of the cobs and reàls. She glanced at Yancey. “You know, of course, that these were found on my land ... my father’s ranch, where the Sabine River cuts through it. I don’t know exactly where but I’m sure Ike McCabe will be able to show us the place.”

  “Us?” Dukes asked, frowning.

  She smiled fleetingly. “Well, myself and one or both of these gentlemen,” Julie Summers said, gesturing casually towards Yancey and Cato.

  “Ma’am, I still ...”

  “It’ll be vastly easier if you allow me to tell my story, Governor, and keep your questions until after I’ve finished. I’m sure you’re a very busy man and don’t wish me to take up any more of your time than necessary.”

  “Well, ma’am, I never said that, but I would like to … ”

  “Of course, you would. You’d all like to know what on earth I’m talking about and what I’m doing here.” She hitched her chair closer to the desk, settling herself more comfortably, very businesslike and certainly in control. “As you know, I teach history at the new university and I have been working on a thesis for my doctorate and it concerns early Texas. By ‘early’ I mean way, way back when only the Indian roamed this continent, but, during my research I read much of general interest to an historian like myself, and I came across a lot of material concerning the birth of the state of Texas.”

  “You mean when we seceded from Mexico, ma’am?” cut in Governor Dukes.

  “Yes, yes,” she said a trifle impatiently. “But I won’t bore you with a lot of facts and figures. Only one period concerns us right now and that is the year 1836, after Sam Houston had defeated Santa Ana and the peace treaty, ending the war with Mexico, was signed at San Jacinto. But there was a garrison of Mexican soldiers who refused to surrender, in a fort of Nacogdoches, here in Eastern Texas. Houston sent a troop of soldiers under a Colonel Burden, to smoke them out and break this last piece of resistance. But when Burden reached the fort he found it abandoned. The Mexicans had looted their own churches and missions of all the gold and silver accumulated there; some reports say that Santa Ana had been so short of money to pay his men that he had raided the old storerooms of the ancient mint, the Casa de Moneda, in Mexico City and dispatched mule-train loads of old silver coins minted by the Conquistadores and never sent home to Spain.”

  “I’ve heard those stories,” Yancey said. “Always figured they were just legends. Texas is full of tales of lost treasures. The lost pay-train of Santa Ana is one of the most famous.”

  “I am not talking about the pay-train of Santa Ana,” Julie Summers told him crisply. “Merely some chests of old reàls and escudos that were on their way to his troops in the north before the peace treaty. Don’t ask me how they came to be in Nacogdoches, but I suppose some of his men, seeing defeat was inevitable, made off with the money. They might well have been the hard core of resistance in the fort of Nacogdoches ... In any case, Colonel Burden’s troops chased the fleeing Mexicans north into the Spanish Peaks and, to lighten their load, they ran some of their cannon off the high trails and dropped them into the Sabine River to stop the Texans from getting them. To cut a long story short, there was a battle to the death in the hills and the Mexicans were wiped out, only a few badly wounded men surviving, and Houston returned these to their own country when they could travel. But the stolen money was never found.”

  “Mebbe because it never existed,” Cato suggested.

  The girl turned cold eyes on him. “It existed all right ... Over the years, several Mexicans have searched for that treasure on my father’s land. He fought off some of the invaders and one man whom he wounded, I tended at our house. He was an old man, frail, and he eventually died. In fact, he’s buried on our land on a knoll overlooking the Sabine ... But before he died, he told us how he’d been one of the men to loot the Nacogdoches mission. The payroll money had been left there by some of his countrymen. He didn’t explain who or why or how, only that it was there. He was dying. He had no reason to lie, and he was very lucid. He told my father and me that the money had been stuffed down the barrels of the two cannon and sealed in there before they had been pushed off the cliffs into the river. Some more of the money was buried in a cave with another cannon. They blew in the mouth or sealed it by rolling a rock across, or something, he was never quite clear about that ... But the point is, the treasure does exist, and here’s the proof.”

  She pointed to the old coins lying on the desk. The men said nothing, knowing more was coming. Julie picked up one of the old cobs of silver.

  “From the reign of Philip the Fourth of Spain,” she said. “He ruled from 1621 till 1656 ... the date of the coin. This ‘M’ with the small ‘o’ above it is a mint mark from the Casa de Moneda, in Mexico City, the same one that Santa Ana was said to have raided for pay for his men. Coins minted by—or under—the Conquistadores were struck with crude, hand-held dies by Indians who were no better than slaves.” She put it down and picked up the gold escudo. “A much later coin, struck by more sophisticated methods and sharper dies. The date is 1776, the same as the date on two of the silver eight reàl pieces. The money had been out of circulation for over a hundred years, Governor, and yet it turns up in very good condition, in the Sabine River in Texas, a thousand miles from where it was minted or would have circulated ... I know the Conquistadores made sorties into land now part of Texas, but they did not explore this part of Texas, at least not anywhere near the times we’re interested in. So we have the problem of how did these coins get there?”

  “Surely there are many possibilities,” the governor said, straightening in his chair. “Travelers, missionaries, even Indians who raided and killed the Conquistadores’ exploring parties ...”

  “Only possibilities, Governor,” she told him confidently. “I have a much more convincing theory. I believe those coins were washed out of the barrels of those cannons jettisoned by the fleeing Mexican troops in 1836. We already know the battle took place in the Spanish Peaks and the men who came to look for the cannon were trespassing on Bar S Bar land, so we know the section of river where the cannon were dumped must be close by ... I think whatever was used to seal that money into the cannon barrels has either jarred loose or dissolved and allowed some of the money to spill out. The river has washed it down ... and it may not have washed very far.”

  “Or it may have travelled for miles,” Cato said.

  She shook her head. “I doubt it by the look of these coins. They haven’t been subjected to much abrasion from river stones or gravel. I think they came from fairly close to wherever they were picked up.”

  “Well, even if that’s so, ma’am,” the governor said slowly, “what is your purpose in coming here? Are you asking me to authorize a treasure hunt for this money?”

  She gave him a cold look. “Of course I’m not, sir. The treasure is of secondary
importance. The guns are the main thing, Governor. They are guns of Texas. A part of our heritage, pieces of our history! They were fired in war for they were captured at the Battle of Boone’s Ferry by the same Mexicans who dumped them in the Sabine ... Governor, I feel you owe it to the people of Texas to try and recover those guns and restore them and allow them to go on display at our new university in Dallas, monuments to our past glories.” She hesitated. “I’m asking you, Governor!”

  Chapter Five – Trouble on the Sabine

  The trouble with travelling all over the state on official business was the retinue that the governor had to take with him. Lester Dukes was a man who hated formality but he would adhere strictly to whatever tradition called for on certain occasions. And at times, he gave in to pressure from his advisors on matters of security.

  But, at other times, he threw the rules out the window and dug in his heels and said to hell with it and did things his own way.

  And that was how it was going to be now, Yancey thought, as he saw Dukes shaking his head slowly at all the special arrangements being made for his trip to Tyler’s Landing. The secretary reading them out, noticed the tightening lips and the negative movement of the leonine head and his voice trailed off.

  “Forget all that hogwash,” Dukes said shortly, indicating the secretary’s papers. “I’m moving into a hotel in Tyler’s Landing. I’ll be taking you along, Yancey and John, and two Special Duty Rangers who can act as bodyguards when Yancey and John are otherwise occupied. This is an unofficial trip and I aim to keep it that way.”

  “But, Governor!” the secretary, Jordan, protested. “The security! I understand feelings are running high among the cattlemen because of the Texas Queen. Men fear they will lose their jobs if the ranchers use the river instead of making trail-drives. Some ugly situations could develop … ”

  “I’ll have the two Rangers and Yancey and John,” Dukes said, taking the secretary by the arm and leading him reluctantly towards the door. “There’s a telegraph station at the Landing. If we need any help we’ll send for it ... Now quit worrying so much, Jordan.” He gave the man a brief smile as he pushed him out the door and closed it after him. He shook his head slowly as he went back across the room to where the amused Yancey was standing. “Poor old Jordan. Worries himself sick.” He sighed. “Still not sure how I let myself be talked into this by that damn Summers gal.”