A Thousand Texas Longhorns

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Hannah rose, put his hat on, and led the bay back toward the Bozeman Trail. “You ever think we should have listened to those bluebellies at Laramie, took the long way to Virginia City?”

  “You ever been snowed in in the Rockies?” Story answered. “Without a cabin or dry wood?”

  “Nope.”

  “I haven’t, either,” Story said. “And don’t intend to.”

  Having turned north off the Oregon Trail, they followed Sage Creek. The country hadn’t changed much, but the Bozeman Trail had more fresh markers than the Oregon Trail had. Markers like this grave . . . the charred skeletons of wagons . . . and what was left of dead oxen, horses, and mules.

  Hannah mounted the gelding. “Well,” he said, “at least we haven’t seen any Indians.”

  “We will,” Story told him.

  * * *

  The first frost usually made Ellen Story smile, but this September morning just felt gloomy as she pushed the carriage, little Montana cooing underneath her blankets. She stopped at the newspaper office, opened the door, and came in, offering a quick “Good morning” and frowning when she turned to find an empty desk. On the other side of the office, the printer and one of the Post’s publishers, Benjamin Dittes, proofread a page. “Where is the professor, Mr. Dittes?” she asked.

  Dittes looked at the desk as if noticing the editor was not there for the first time, then he glanced at Patrick Walsh, who busied himself studying the proof. Finally, after drawing a deep breath, he turned back to Ellen. “He’s . . . sick, ma’am,” he said after exhaling.

  “Oh.” Ellen failed to hide her disappointment.

  The publisher managed a smile. “I’m sure that new wife of his is taking real good . . .” He did not finish.

  The baby laughed. Dittes grinned at the carriage. “How is Montana?”

  “A handful.” Ellen turned toward the printer, who did not look up. “Mr. Walsh?”

  Patrick Walsh raised his head slightly, and his eyes above the rims of his spectacles. “Missus Story,” he said.

  “How is . . . Dr. Beckstead?”

  Walsh turned toward Dittes, looked at the page he held, finally straightened, and told Ellen, “I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”

  “Does he not still share living quarters with you?”

  “No, ma’am. He’s bunking with Doc Sparhan.”

  “Oh. I passed the office, a couple of times.”

  “I don’t think either of those docs have been practicing medicine much, Missus Story.” Walsh returned to his page.

  “Well.” Ellen made herself look happy. “I look forward to reading the next edition on Saturday, gentlemen.”

  “Have you heard from your husband?” Dittes remembered he ran a newspaper.

  “Not since that letter from Julesburg,” she said. She turned the carriage around and opened the door. “Good day, gentlemen.”

  “Missus Story,” Walsh called.

  Ellen looked. “You being real close to the professor, it might be a good idea, ma’am, if you wanted to see him . . .” He swallowed. “To do it soon.”

  * * *

  For all John Catlin had heard about Dakota Territory and the Bozeman Trail, he figured September would feel like winter. Instead, sitting on the rumbling wagon, clammy hands gripping his Enfield rifle, sweat trickled down his forehead. And he had been sweating before Steve Grover said as he drove the wagon, “You see them?”

  “I see them,” Catlin said, and pried his fingers from the rifle to wipe his right hand on his trousers.

  Mounted on horses, a dozen warriors watched from a ridge to the east, silhouetted by the morning sun. Catlin looked to the west, wondering if more Indians might be there, and he studied the terrain, just in case those men might be trying to distract them from a real attack. All he saw were grass, rocks, a few cacti, hills, and mesas, so he focused on the ridge. The Indians began riding along the top, paralleling the caravan. The mesa ran another five hundred yards or so. If they left the high ground, would the Indians be harder to find in the rolling prairie?

  Clopping hooves caused Catlin’s heart to skip, and he whirled around. Riding at a hard trot and pulling a saddled horse behind him, Nelson Story reined up alongside the wagon.

  “You said you were infantry,” Story said. “How are you in a saddle?”

  “I’ve ridden,” Catlin said, “but I’m no horse soldier.”

  Story held out the reins. “Take this horse. Ride to the remuda. I’ve got Overholt and Collins already off their wagons. You help them guard the horses. Indians would rather steal horses than attack a train such as ours.”

  “And the cattle?” Catlin asked.

  “Indians like horses better than beef. Besides, they know my drovers are armed.”

  Catlin lowered the rifle into the box and took the reins. When Grover started to pull back on the lines, Story barked, “Don’t stop. Keep moving, and pick up the pace.” He turned to Catlin. “Get on from there. And take that Enfield.” He spurred his horse and rode down the line to the trailing wagons.

  “I hope that hard-ass is right,” Grover said. “If they hit us, it’ll be the horse herd, not me.” Without looking away from the road, he grinned.

  Catlin just handed Grover the Enfield. “Hold this for me till I get on this beast . . . And if I break my neck, write Ma and Pa.”

  * * *

  “Tommy,” Nettie Dimsdale whispered. “Ellen’s here. Ellen. Ellen Story. Hey, handsome. How are you feeling? Ellen Story’s here. Do you feel like talking to her? Would you like me to sit you up?”

  From the doorway, Ellen heard Thomas Dimsdale mutter a hoarse “No,” and his wife stepped from the bed, nodded grimly at Ellen. “He probably won’t be able to talk more than a few minutes,” she whispered, and walked out of the bedchamber. Her eyes looked as though she had been crying for weeks.

  Ellen summoned some strength, made herself smile, and walked to the bed that reeked of urine, blood, rot, and opium. Moving her skirt, she sat on the stool and reached up and took Dimsdale’s cold, feeble hand in her own. “Good afternoon, Thomas,” she said.

  His gums had receded, his face held no color, and his eyes dulled. The hair was slick from sweat, thin, gray, and his drooping mustache looked absurd, as though someone had pasted a theatrical mustache on a skeleton.

  Dimsdale drew in a shallow, ragged breath that pained Ellen.

  “Is Nelson home?” he whispered.

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Any word?”

  He would always be a newspaper journalist. That made Ellen feel somewhat better. “Not since the last letter. With Bozeman’s Trail being what it is, I doubt if I shall hear from him till he walks through our door.”

  “Tell him . . .” His eyes closed, and stayed closed, and Ellen made herself look at the blanket covering his chest, saw it rise and fall in shallow, struggling breaths. When his eyes opened, his right pointer finger moved toward the bedside table.

  Ellen found the bottle and brought it off the table, then looked for a spoon.

  “Just.” Dimsdale swallowed. “Pour some in . . .” He grinned again.

  After he had swallowed a bit of the medicine, he sank into his pillow. “Tell Nelson . . . I am sorry . . . I didn’t get . . . the story of the . . . century.”

  “You’ll write it,” she told him, and repeated, “You’ll write it.”

  “Maybe,” he said, and fell asleep.

  She corked the laudanum, returned it to the table, looked at the poor, dying man, and left the bedroom. Nettie stood staring at the fireplace.

  “He’s sleeping,” Ellen told her.

  She didn’t appear to hear.

  “Do you need anything?”

  Nettie shook her head.

  “If you do, please call on me.” Not wanting Nettie to see her cry, Ellen found her shawl and darted for the door, but once she had it opened, Nettie’s voice stopped her.

  “How long have you been married?”

  She turned, but Nettie kept staring at the fi
re. Ellen had to think, wet her lips, and replied, “Four years . . . on the twenty-eighth.”

  The head bobbed, but did not turn. “Four and a half months,” she said. “Do you ever wonder?” Now she turned, fresh tears flowing down her young face.

  “Wonder . . . what?”

  “What it will feel like to be a widow?”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Conversation, curses, clinking glasses, and balls rolling across felt stopped shortly after Ellen Story stepped inside Sabolsky’s billiard hall. When she started waving a handkerchief over her nose, men promptly snuffed out cigars in ashtrays or tossed them into spittoons. Stepping out of the gray haze, Reuben Sabolsky took off his hat, which prompted those standing with shot glasses or pool cues to use their free hands to remove their hats or caps.

  Someone whispered something, which prompted a sharp rebuke from a nearby pool player: “Shut your trap, Timmons, or I’ll shut it for you.”

  Sabolsky shouted at the patrons in a thick Polish accent, turned to Ellen, said, “Ma’am,” and for the moment, appeared to have forgotten any more English.

  Ellen coughed slightly. “I am looking for Dr. Beckstead. Dr. Seth Beckstead.”

  Sabolsky realized he held an unlighted cigar in his other hand, and dumbly handed it to the burly miner at the closest billiard table. His mouth opened, closed, and kept repeating that operation for five or six seconds.

  “I was told he frequents this establishment,” Ellen said firmly, and coughed. Tears welled from the potent smoke.

  An Irish voice in the darkness called out, “Take her to him, Rube.”

  Sighing, Sabolsky motioned with his hand, and Ellen followed him, weaving through the gawking men, young and old, her eyes burning, until the rear door opened, and Sabolsky tilted his head down the alley. Outside, the moon, not full but close, bathed light, and Ellen saw the figure among the trash.

  “Most he drink,” Sabolsky said. “Sometime he drink, fight. Tonight he fight. You friend, tell him not come no more. No man I want killed here.” She stepped around him without another word, and heard the door close.

  * * *

  Once his eyes fluttered open, Ellen tossed the blood-soaked handkerchief among the beer bottles and busted crates. Dr. Seth Beckstead did not notice her at first, for he was too busy rolling over, throwing up, before collapsing in his own vomit. He groaned, laughed, turned to his side, and lay on his back, wiping the filth off his face with his torn shirtsleeve.

  “Seth,” she tried.

  He heard, froze, and eventually sat. “Well.” He fought another wave of nausea. “Good morning . . . good . . . evening, Ellen.”

  “Professor Dimsdale needs medical attention,” she told him.

  He laughed. “I told you I could do nothing . . .”

  “Seth,” she begged. “He needs help.”

  “Find a doctor.”

  “Yes.” Face flushing, she rose. “There is a new one in Nevada City.” When she walked past him, he lunged, grabbed for her skirt but missed, and rolled into busted bottles, cursing from the cuts the shards made.

  “I told you,” he yelled to her back. “All I know how to do is cut men to pieces.” He laughed and lay back on the refuse. “I haven’t saved a life in years. Ellen. Ellen, if you ever see that heartless bastard you married, thank him for me.” Another cackle. He found a beer bottle, shook it, tossed it behind him, where it shattered. Ellen walked steadily, with a purpose. “Before he lynched some ruffians, I told him he must let me amputate the limb of one of the wounded miscreants,” Beckstead said. “I must amputate, I pleaded. And when he told me there was no need, that the man would be dead directly, I protested.” The laughter resumed. Ellen saw the main street just a few steps ahead. “But deep down, when he did not listen to me, damn his soul and mine to hell, I could have kissed him.” He coughed, spit, and rolled over, now sobbing. “Could have kissed him. Could have kissed him. What a fool I was to come here. What a fool to become a surgeon. What a fool to fall in love . . .”

  Reaching the corner, she turned back to the wastrel. When he stopped gagging and rolling amid the trash, she said, “I thought, as a doctor, you took an oath.”

  He rose, again wiped his bloody face, and said, his voice suddenly quiet, but steady: “Drunk and wretched as I am, Ellen, the best physician in the world could do nothing for the professor, I regret to say. Like there is nothing to be done for me.”

  She turned the corner, did not stop, did not look back.

  * * *

  “Fill every barrel, every canteen, every bottle we have, every flask,” Story barked. “Filled to the brim, and then drink your fill.” He pointed northwest. “It’s sixty miles to Fort Reno, and unless it rains, we might not see any water till we hit the Powder.”

  Holding his dust-covered hat, Jameson Hannah wiped the sweat off his forehead with his arm, and barked, “You heard the man. Get to it.” After pulling the hat back on his head, he nodded at Story. “Sixty miles? No water? Honest?”

  Story had uncorked his canteen, and now submerged it into the stream. “Yes,” he said. “Maybe a shallow pool here and there. Maybe just sand.”

  “Didn’t know there was desert in Dakota Territory.”

  Rising, Story corked the canteen, and slung it over the horn on his saddle, and wiped his face with his moist hands. “It’s not desert. It’s just dry.”

  Rolling prairie swept out before them, seemingly as endless as the sky, the browning grass waving like ocean waves, broken up by islands of rocky hillsides of sandstone and sage, and at the end of the ocean, the distant purple outline of the Rockies, which looked like it would take forever to reach. No antelope, no birds, no Indians. No trees, no prairie dogs. The Dry Fork of the Cheyenne meandered through this Spartan country like a weaving drunk, but cowboys and teamsters obeyed Story and began kneeling on the banks or wading into the shallow water. Others ran to the rocks to relieve themselves.

  Connor Lehman dipped his hat in the water, dumped it over his head, and put the hat on his head, then barked orders at his men. “When your team has cooled off, take them downstream and let them drink. While they’re cooling off, get our water barrels filled.”

  “We’ll rest them here,” Hannah told Story, “take them through the country slow and steady.”

  “No,” said Story. “We’ll move them hard and fast. Twenty miles a day.”

  Hannah stepped back and looked at the wagon boss for help.

  “Story.” Water dripped off Lehman’s face and fingers. “That can’t be done.”

  “It will be done. Three days, no more than four, we need to be at this new post, this Fort Reno.”

  Hannah wet his lips. “If it’s Indians you’re worried about, we haven’t seen—”

  “I’m worried about Indians, I’m worried about winter, I’m worried about lots of things,” Story said. “Right now I’m worried most about getting across Thunder Basin and the Pumpkin Buttes to the Powder River. Once we get there, I’ll worry about something else.”

  “An oxen can’t make twenty miles a day for three days, Story,” Lehman said.

  “And cattle can’t cover that much ground, either,” Hannah said. “Especially when there’s no water to be had.”

  “I say it will be done,” Story said. “By God, we’ll do it.”

  Lehman glanced at Hannah and started to speak, when someone shrieked from the rocks on the other side of the river. Hannah drew his revolver, and Story stepped back toward the bank.

  A boy sprinted, stumbled, came up, holding his right arm. José Pablo Tsoyio hurried across the stream and raced toward the fallen kid. “It’s . . .” said Boone, who had been kneeling in the stream, letting the water cool his feet. Now Boone splashed across Dry Fork.

  “Sibrian,” Story whispered. He scanned the rocks for Indians, for anything. The cook reached the young wrangler, lifted him into his arms, and ran back, meeting Boone along the way. When Boone offered to help, the cook did not stop, reached the stream, crossed it, and laid th
e boy in the closest shade he could find on the bank.

  “Madre de Dios.” Tsoyio stared at José Sibrian’s left forearm. “He has been bitten . . . by a rattlesnake.”

  * * *

  That evening, after Tsoyio had cut Sibrian’s arm and sucked as much blood and poison as he could manage, after the teamster named Rogers had given the wrangler a little brandy, after Constance Beckett had held his hand and kissed his forehead good-night, Story found Luke Beckner at the campfire.

  “Preacher,” Story said. “What the hell are you doing here, sipping coffee and talking horseshit with Stubbings and Melean?”

  Beckner looked for help, found none, and Story went on: “You’re a man of the cloth, aren’t you?”

  “Mr. Story, I know some scripture, I’ve read the Good Book cover to cover a dozen or more times but . . .”

  “Get off your ass, damn you, and get over to Sibrian. Pray for him. That’s your job for tonight. It’s your job for as long as it takes. And I’m holding you and your damned God accountable.” Story turned, went back to his horse, mounted it, and rode out to night-herd.

  Luke Beckner blinked, glanced at Stubbings, Melean, then at others who stared at him, and quickly rose, went to his saddle and bedroll, found the Bible, and walked to the Studebaker where the cook sat with the young wrangler.

  PART IV

  Autumn

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Little Montana squalled no matter what Ellen tried. The baby didn’t want to eat. Her diaper remained dry. She would kick and bawl when Ellen tried to rock her; she fidgeted when Ellen tried to hold her. And now someone knocked on the cabin door. Probably, Ellen thought as she laid the baby in the cradle and crossed the rug, someone complaining about the noise—likely all the way from Summit.

  The door opened, and color drained from her face. Patrick Walsh, printer for the Montana Post, stood solemnly, hat in hand, head bowed.

  It wouldn’t be Nelson, she thought. The new editor would come for that, along with the mayor and a group of women. “Missus Story,” the Irishman said. “He has gone to Glory.”