Rebel Spurs | Page 3

"From Eastern ... Texas--" That much was true. All three animals had
been given the brand in the small Texas town where the wagon train
had assembled. And perhaps this was the time when he should begin
building up the background one Drew Kirby must present to Tubacca,
Arizona Territory. "All right, I'll go eat." He picked up his saddlebags.
"You'll call me if----"
"Sure, son. Say, I don't rightly know your name...."
"Drew Kirby."
"Wal, sure, Kirby, Tobe Kells is a man o' his word. Iffen there's any
reason to think you'll be needed, I'll send Callie along for you. Callie!"
At Kells' hail a boy swung down the loft ladder. He was wiry thin, with
a thick mop of sun-bleached hair and a flashing grin. At the sight of
Shiloh and Shadow he whistled.
"Now ain't they th' purtiest things?" he inquired of the stable at large.
"'Bout th' best stock we've had here since th' last time Don Cazar
brought in a couple o' hissen. Where'll I put your plunder, mister?" He
was already loosing Croaker's pack. "You be stayin' over to th' Jacks?"
Drew glanced up at the haymow from which Callie had just descended.
"Any reason why I can't bunk up there?" he asked Kells.
"None 'tall, Kirby, none 'tall. Know you want to be handy like. Stow
that there gear up above, Callie, an' don't you drop nothin'. Rest
yourself easy, son. These here hosses is goin' to be treated jus' like th'

good stuff they is."
"Croaker, also." Drew stopped by the mule, patted the long nose, gave
a flip to the limp ear. "He's good stuff, too--served in the cavalry...."
Kells studied the young man by the mule. Cavalry saddle on the stud,
two Colt pistols belted high and butt forward, and that military cord on
his hat--army boots, too. The liveryman knew the signs. This was not
the first veteran to drift into Tubacca; he wouldn't be the last either.
Seems like half of both them armies back east didn't want to go home
an' sit down peaceful like now that they was through wi' shootin' at
each other. No, siree, a right big herd o' 'em was trailin' out here. An' he
thought he could put name to the color of coat this young'un had had on
his back, too. Only askin' more than a man volunteered to tell, that
warn't neither manners nor wise.
"He gits th' best, too, Kirby." Kells shifted a well-chewed tobacco cud
from one cheek to the other.
He could trust Kells, Drew thought. A little of his concern over Shadow
eased. He shouldered the saddlebags and made his way back down the
alley, beginning to see the merit in the liveryman's suggestions.
Food--and a bath! What he wouldn't give for a bath! Hay to sleep on
was fine; he had had far worse beds during the past four years. But a
hot bath to be followed by a meal which was not the jerky, corn meal,
bitter coffee of trail cooking! His pace quickened into a trot but
slackened again as he neared the Four Jacks and remembered all the
precautions he must take in Tubacca.
In the big room of the cantina oil lamps made yellow pools of light.
The man in the painted vest was seated at a table laying out cards in a
complicated pattern of a solitaire game. And at one side a round-faced
Mexican in ornate, south-of-the-border clothing held a guitar across
one plump knee, now and then plucking absent-mindedly at a single
string as he stared raptly into space. A third man stood behind the bar
polishing thick glasses.
"Greetings!" As Drew stood blinking just within the doorway the card

player rose. He was a tall, wide-shouldered man, a little too thin for his
height. Deep lines in his clean-shaven face bracketed his wide mouth.
His curly hair was a silvery blond, and he had dark, deeply set eyes.
"I'm Reese Topham, owner of this oasis," he introduced himself.
"Drew Kirby." He must remember that always--he was Drew Kirby, a
Texan schooled with kinfolk in Kentucky, who served in the war under
Forrest and was now drifting west, as were countless other rootless
Confederate veterans. Actually the story was close enough to the truth.
And he had had months on the trail from San Antonio to Santa Fe, then
on to Tucson, to study up on any small invented details. He was Drew
Kirby, Texan, not Drew Rennie of Red Springs, Kentucky.
"For a man just off the trail, Kirby, the Four Jacks does have a few of
the delights of civilization. A bath...." One of Topham's dark eyebrows,
so in contrast to his silvery hair, slid up inquiringly, and he grinned at
Drew's involuntary but emphatic nod. "One of