Chapter 1

MAJOR TAPPAN DUVARNEY rested his hands on the rail and stared toward the low sandy shore. It was not what he had expected of Texas, but whatever lay ahead represented his last chance. He had to make it here or nowhere.

He listened to the rhythmic pound and splash of the paddle wheels and looked bleakly into the future. Behind him lay the War Between the States and several years of Indian fighting with the frontier army; before him only the lonely years at some sun-baked, wind-swept frontier post, with nothing to look forward to but retirement.

When the war had broken out he was a young man with an assured future. Aside from the family plantation in Virginia, his father owned a shipping line trading to the West Indies and Gulf ports—four schooners and a barkentine, and good vessels all.

Tap Duvarney had made two trips before the mast on the barkentine, had taken examinations for his ticket, and had made two trips as third mate, one aboard a schooner, the other on the barkentine. His father wanted him to know the sea and its business from every aspect, and Tap liked the sea. He had taken to the rough and rowdy life in Caribbean ports as if born to it.

The war changed all that. His sympathies and those of his family were with the Union. He had gone north and joined up. Renegades had burned the plantation buildings and run off the stock; one schooner had been lost in a hurricane off this very coast, two others had been confiscated by the Confederacy and sunk by Union gunboats. The barkentine had disappeared into that mysterious triangle south of Bermuda and left nothing behind but the memory. The last schooner, beat and bedraggled, had burned alongside the dock when the war came to Charleston. Tap Duvarney returned from the war saddled with debts, his father dead, his home destroyed.

There seemed only one thing to do, and he did it. He went back to the army and a series of frontier posts. During the nine years following the war he fought Indians from the Dakotas to Arizona. He managed to keep his hair, but picked up three scars, one from a knife, two from bullet wounds.

Finally, his father's estate had been settled and he emerged from the shambles with a bit more than seven thousand dollars.

It was then he heard from Tom Kittery.

CAPTAIN WILKES STOPPED beside him now on his way to the pilot house. Duvarney knew that Wilkes was worried about him, and genuinely wished to help. The captain was a good man who had served on one of his father's ships.

"You'll find Texas a fast country, Major. Do you have friends here?"

"One…so far as I know. I met him during the war."

"You haven't seen him since? That's quite a while, Major. Is that the man you've gone into partnership with?"

Duvarney thought he detected a doubtful note in Wilkes's voice, and he was not surprised. He was a bit doubtful himself from time to time.

"I know the man, Captain. Whatever else he may be, he's honest…and he's got guts. I go along with that."

"The cattle business is good," Wilkes said. "Indianola has been the biggest cattle-shipping port in Texas for a good long time, so I've had a good deal to do with it. I may know your partner."

"Kittery…Tom Kittery. Old Texas family."

"Kittery, is it? Yes, he has guts, all right. There isn't a man in Texas would deny that. And he's honest. But speaking as a friend, I'd never leave the ship, if I were you. Come on back to New Orleans. You're a good man, and you know the sea. We'll find something for you there."

"What's wrong with Kittery?"

"With him? Nothing…nothing at all." Wilkes glanced at Duvarney. "I take it you haven't heard about the feud?"

Wilkes paused, then went on. "You're walking right into the middle of a shooting war…the Munson-Kittery feud. It has been going on since 1840 or thereabouts, and from the moment it is discovered that you are associated with Kittery you'll be a prime target."

"I know nothing about any feud."

"You say you knew Kittery during the war? He may have thought the feud was a thing of the past because it seemed to be over. Until the Kittery boys left for the war there hadn't been any shooting for several years.

"In the years before the war the Kittery faction numbered some of the toughest, ablest fighting men in Texas; so the Munsons laid low and played their music soft. And when the Kittery boys went off to war, the Munsons stayed home.

"Even so, they kept quiet until Ben was killed at Shiloh. That started them stirring around a bit, but it wasn't until Tom was captured—reported dead, in fact—that they began to cut loose.

"They ran off a bunch of Kittery cattle, then burned a barn. Old Alec, Tom's uncle, rode out after the Munsons and they ambushed him and killed him. After that they really cut loose. They killed two Negro hands who had worked for the Kitterys for years, and burned the old home—one of the oldest houses on the coast.

"Cattle were beginning to be worth money, and the Munsons thought they were rich on Kittery beef. Only somebody stampeded the biggest herd one night and ran them into the Big Thicket. Well, you don't know the Thicket, but finding cattle in there is like hunting ghosts. The Munsons never were much on hard work, and rousting those steers from the Thicket would be the hardest kind of work. So the steers, and a lot of other cattle, are still in there."

"Maybe those are the cattle I bought," Duvarney commented ironically. "It's my luck."

Copyright © 1958, 1986 by Louis & Katherine L'Amour Trust