Rebel Spurs | Page 4

nature's gifts to our fair
city is the hot spring. Hamilcar!" His hand met table top in a sharp slap.
The Mexican jerked fully awake and looked around. From the back of
the cantina emerged a middle-aged Negro.
"Yes, Mistuh Reese, suh?"
"Customer for you, Hamilcar. I would judge he wants the full treatment.
This, Mister Kirby, is the best barber, valet, and general aid to comfort
in town, the sultan of our bath. Hamilcar, Mister Kirby would like to
remove the layers of dust he has managed to pick up. Good luck to you
both!"
Drew found himself laughing as he followed Hamilcar to the rear of the
building.
Topham had reason to be proud of his bath, Drew admitted some time
later. A natural hot spring might be the base of the luxury, but man's
labor had piped the water into stone-slab tubs and provided soap and
towels. To sit and soak was a delight he had forgotten. He shampooed
his unkempt head vigorously and allowed himself to forget all worries,
wallowing in the sheer joy of being really clean again.

Hamilcar had produced a clean shirt and drawers from the saddlebags,
even managing to work up a shadow of shine on the scuffed cavalry
boots, and had beat the worst of the trail dust from the rest of the
traveler's clothing. Drew had re-dressed except for his gun belt when he
heard a voice call from the next cubicle.
"Ham--Ham! You git yourself in here, 'fore I skin that black hide--"
"Johnny!" Topham's voice cut through the other's thickened slur. "You
soak that rot-gut out of you, and mind your tongue while you do it!"
"Sure, sure, Reese--" The voice was pitched lower this time, but to
Drew the tone was more mocking than conciliatory. Drunk or sober,
that stranger did not hold very kindly thoughts of Topham. But that was
none of the Kentuckian's business.
"Yore hat, suh." Hamilcar brought in the well-brushed headgear, much
more respectable looking than it had been an hour ago. The cord on it
glistened. Army issue--brave gold bullion--made for a general's
wearing. Drew straightened it, remembering....
Sergeant Rennie of the Scouts, in from an independent foray into
enemy-held Tennessee, reporting to the Old Man himself--General
Bedford Forrest. And Forrest saying:
"We don't give medals, Sergeant. But I think a good soldier might just
be granted a birthday present without any one gittin' too excited about
how military that is." Then he had jerked the cord off his own hat and
given it to Drew. It was something big to remember when you were
only nineteen and had been soldiering three years, three years with a
dogged army that refused to be beaten. That hat cord, the spurs on his
boots, they were all he had brought home from war--save a tough body
and a mind he hoped was as hard.
"Mighty pretty hat trimmin', that, suh," Hamilcar admired.
"Mighty big man wore it once." Drew was still half in the past. "What
do I owe you more'n the thanks of a mighty tired man you've turned out

brand new again?" He smiled and was suddenly all boy.
"Foah bits, suh. An' it was a pleasure to do fo' a gentleman. It truly was.
Come agin, suh--come, agin!"
Drew went down the corridor, his spurs answering with a chiming ring
each time his heels met planking. Worn at Chapultepec by a Mexican
officer, they had been claimed as spoils of war in '47 by a Texas
Ranger. And in '61 the Ranger's son, Anson Kirby, had jingled off in
them to another war. Then Kirby had disappeared during that last scout
in Tennessee, vanishing into nowhere when he fell wounded from the
saddle, smashing into a bushwhackers' hideout.
On a Sunday in May of '65, back in Gainesville, when Forrest's men
had finally accepted surrender and the deadness of defeat, a Union
trooper had worn those spurs into church. And Boyd Barrett had sold
his horse the same day to buy back those silver bits because he knew
what they meant to his cousin Drew. Now here Drew was, half the
continent away from Gainesville and Tennessee, wearing Anse's spurs
and half of Anse's name--to find a father he had not known was still
alive, until last year.
The Kentuckian was sure of only one thing right now, he was not going
to enter a town or a stretch of country where Hunt Rennie was the big
man, and claim to be Rennie's unknown son. Maybe later he could
come to a decision about his action. But first he wanted to be sure.
There might well be no place for a Drew Rennie in Hunt Rennie's
present life. They were total strangers and perhaps it must be left that
way.
There was no