The riders ride back from the stockade, enter San Marcos from the west, and turn south on the San Antonio - Austin road. The ride around seven miles, then the deputy turns west onto a two-ruts wagon wheels road through post oaks, scrub foliage, and green and tan grass that covers this part of Texas.
This is the road to Stringtown, which probably none of y'all have heard of. It gits its name from the way the formers strung their formsteads for four miles, on the strip of land lying along the strip between Purgatory Creek and the Balcones cliffs .
I guess you can call it a town, because it got a post office-general store beside one of the formhouses.
The group rides another three miles or so and the deputy stops his horse in front of a gate. Longhorns and the newer breed hereford whiteface cattle, and mixes of both, graze behind rail fences on either side of the trail. Beyond are, farmhouses, barns and sheds most in good repair. Some not as much as others.
The deputy says,
This is the one, if I'm not wrong. Mr. Charlie, if you wouldn't mind, would ya dismount and open the gate and let everbody ride through, and replace it when yer done? I shore would appreciate it, this once. We'll take turns doin the honors.
Beyond, the riders see a little farmhouse with gray plank walls in need of painting, in the yard, an old wagon frame missing two front wheels sits on four gray bark-covered oak posts, and behind a barn with part of the visible part of the roof with a hole that from a section that has collapsed in. Fairly sorrow-looking longhorn cattle graze on short, possibly overgrazed grass.
Y'all don't draw no guns fer now, the deputy says.
We''ll ride up peaceful. Stay 10 yards behind me and don't dismount. I don't expect no shootin, but when you enter anyone's property in Texas, ya never know. Be ready to dismount quick, git low, and take cover. Any of y'all who were pickets, videttes, or dragoons durin the war know how to do it. Jist watch out, cause yer in Texas now, and repeatin fararms, and ye ain't got no company nor regiment officer to tell ya'll what to do. Yer independent posse now, come to recover yer own horses.
The small man in big shoes who introduced himself as Gideon McLaury complains.
Deputy Mr. Riney, if that's them, then they got my Colt double action, and my handy lil derringer. And all ya give me is this ole Navy cap and ball revolver and powder, caps, balls, and wax enough fer one reload. Which would take ten minutes of careful work to do. If'n I was playin poker or faro, I wouldn't bet on these odds. Them jaspers might be shootin ma own guns back at me! And I'd be shootin back with ole Hays County jail cap and ball revolver!
The mounted deputy draws a breathe, exhales, and answers without looking.
Ya can suit yerself, Mr. McLaury. Ya can play the hand ya've been dealt, ar ya can fold. It's yer horse, not mine. By the way, are ya any kin to a Phineas McLaury? Who also sometimes calls himself Phil W. McFinn? That man has earned a reputation as a cold-blooded killer. Shot a bald man in Dallas, jist to see if his head would deflect a bullet. It's said. The slight and somewhat exciteable and edgy man on his thin old Army surplus horse answers,
I reckon there are plenty enough people named McLaury and McFinn in Texas and the surrounding states and territories.
The lawman doesn't turn his head or say a word.
He just looks ahead with both hands on the horn of his saddle. You all look like yer ready enough. I don't expect no shootin. But ya'll remember what I said. Be ready. Mr. McLaury, if you don't you will not ride behind Mr. Paladin, and Mr. Paladin, you'll extend the same courtesy. Mr. Sebastian, ya can ride, but I'd appreciate it if you'd not git jumpy. Well, les's go. The deputy starts trotting his big, strong mare, bay with a white blaze and and white stockings, toward the run down, need of whitewashing, and pretty much otherwise decrepit farmhouse.
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