Interlude: Wildcat Rides Again
Night, April 11th, 1879. Blackthorn, Texas. Good Friday.
Later, when they told the tale, they said it went like this: that the Ranger rode into Blackthorn on a speckled grullo barely darker than her duster, bloodied but straight in the saddle, a blanket-wrapped little girl curled tight to the Ranger's body and a small boy clinging behind.
There'd been an attempted massacre, she'd said, and given the girl into the arms of the priest with a quiet word that turned him pale and sent him hurrying to do his best. The Injuns had taken to crucifyin' folk.
It was the boy who told them how Ranger Hawkins had touched his wrists and kissed away the pain, and showed them the almost-healed scars.
'She done made it better,' he said, and Ranger Hawkins smiled despite the blood matting the dark gold hair that escaped her white hat, and told the people that God weren't none too happy with the forces that beset them, and He had sent His angels and a power to her hand to help them. She told them how to hold off the Injuns who were rendered immortal by magic, and how she'd seen off a demon, and passed the tooth of a cougar to the grieving parents of a little girl slain by the darkness about the town, saying it was from one of the Dust Adders that had brought the wounded in behind her, brought to heel by Ranger Hawkins in Blackthorn's time of need. The man Murphy confirmed this, that they worked together on the Indians' hill, and that the Ranger could tame monsters.
And the people, seeing that she could work miracles and might yet deliver them from their enemies, would praise her, but Ranger Hawkins said: 'This power I show is the LORD's: y'all turn your attentions unto Him, for it is His hand that will save you. As for the rest, I'm jes' doing my job.'
Then the ranger stood watch over the people of the town throughout that harrowing night. Shooting, explosions, and shouting. Jericho Cantrell taking shots at one of the immortal Indians just outside city hall. Gus Shaw gathering the Dust Adders together to attack Evans, who he claimed was off to the ranch to slaughter cattle because he'd gone mad. The explosion that destroyed the church, and the Dust Adder pulling the body of Gus Shaw back to the hall, saying he'd been taken down.
It was a wild few hours. But now it has calmed down. Evans and his deputies has left town, as far as anyone could tell. The Dust adders hadn't liked it, but Wildcat and Cantrell had managed to convince them that they were needed to protect the people, not chase after the Marshal.
That was when the people started looking to her. They wanted her to find the rogue and stop him. Murphy's wife had come over to her, and begged her to find out what had happened to her husband, who had gone off with Carl to discover where the rest of the Comanche Band was up to and had not returned.
She was a hero to these people now. And they wanted her to hero on just a little more...