The Badlands Trail

by Lyle Brandt

  With that, the boss clucked to his mare and headed for the chuck wagon to grab lunch on the move. Pickering finished his and wiped his fingers on his chaps, scanning the herd for any wayward steers.

  * * *

  * * *

  HEY, TOBY!”

  Bishop frowned unconsciously, hearing the voice of Graham Lott behind him, then put on his poker face before he half turned in his saddle, saying, “Hey, Rev.”

  “I don’t really go by that, you know,” Lott said.

  “What? ‘Reverend’?”

  “I never went to school for it, like some who come out with a title tacked onto their names.”

  “And yet you preach.”

  “Just got the calling for it, ten, maybe eleven years back now.”

  Bishop didn’t intend to ask him how that came about. “I suppose that happens.”

  “Did to me, at least. I thank God for it now, o’ course, but at the time . . . well, I’d be lying if I didn’t fess up to suspecting that I’d lost my wits.”

  “That happens, too,” said Bishop, softening his observation with a smile.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Lott. “I wasn’t nothing like Saint Paul, riding along one day and getting dumbstruck by the Lord.”

  You can say that again, thought Bishop. Dumbstruck is one thing you’ll never be.

  Instead, he answered back, “No thunderbolts and lightning?”

  “Just a wagon by the roadside, after some Apaches happened by in Arizona Territory,” Lott said. “Stole the horses, I suppose. A man was lying scalped where he’d died fighting them. Inside the wagon . . . well, let’s just say that his missus and their young ones fared no better.”

  “That’s a hardy thing,” Bishop granted. “Living it or seeing it, after.”

  “It changed me,” Lot said. “Don’t know how else to explain it. Rode into a little desert town the day after that mess. They had a tent revival going on. Turns out the preacher liked to pull a cork as much as quoting Scripture, but I took his words to heart and let the rest go by.”

  “Sounds fair. Whatever works for you.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you how you’re holding up. After . . . you know.”

  “The killings?”

  “If I’m prying, just say so.”

  “No prying to it,” Bishop said. “It’s nothing that I haven’t seen or done before.”

  “You have my sympathy,” said Lott.

  “Don’t need it. It’s not weighing on me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Bishop reined his snowflake Appaloosa up and turned to face Lott from his saddle. “We don’t really know each other, Graham, but I’m gonna guess you’ve never dropped the hammer on a man.”

  “And you’d be right. It’s not a goal I’ve set out for myself.”

  “I hope you never have to, but out here . . .” Bishop’s hand gesture swept the herd, the plains, the distant hills.

  “I can’t imagine how it feels,” Lott said, a quizzical expression on his face.

  “Like nothing,” Toby said. “I’m facing down a man, knowing it’s him or me and there’s no other way around it, I intend to make it him. I aim to stay alive. So far, it’s worked. And when it’s done, I don’t feel anything. Well, maybe some relief.”

  “And dreams?”

  “I have ’em, just like anybody else, but ghosts don’t visit me. Don’t go confusing me with Ebenezer Scrooge.”

  Lott’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve read A Christmas Carol?”

  “Saw it acted on the stage in Denver, the Platte Valley Theater, I think it was.”

  “I’ve never seen a stage play,” Lott confessed.

  “Won’t say it changed my life, but it was entertaining, even if you see the ghosts having a shot of pop skull afterward, at the saloon.”

  “The Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Be,” Lott said, and seemed to shudder for a second, maybe putting on an act himself. “It still gives me the creeps.”

  “Wait till you see it with your own eyes, dragging chains.”

  “No, thank you! I’ll leave that one on the printed page.”

  “Might be a good idea,” Bishop replied.

  “Right. Well, I’d best be getting back to work before I get a shout from Mr. Pickering.”

  “That wouldn’t do,” said Toby, offering a wave of sorts as Lott rode off.

  Afraid of ghosts in fiction, never faced a hostile enemy in combat. Watching Lott as he tried keeping the longhorns in line, Bishop could only wonder why he stayed out west at all.

  And come to think of it, his brain chided him, why do you?

  “Shut up,” he grumbled, noticing the Appaloosa’s ears prick up. “Not you, old boy,” he said. “Maybe I’m going loco, talking to myself.”

  * * *

  * * *

  THE AFTERNOON WAS well advanced when trouble struck again.

  In this case, trouble was a prairie rattler close to four feet long, brown markings on a lighter background causing some folks to confuse it with the larger western diamondback that rarely strayed this far to the northeast in Indian country. While it delivered smaller venom doses than its more notorious cousin—and less still than the eastern diamondback or deadly cottonmouth—the prairie rattler’s bite was dangerous enough to man and beast alike.

  This time, its target was a steer that failed to notice it while munching tallgrass, and it struck the longhorn on one cheek, exciting it and other steers around it into milling, lowing chaos. Bishop was the first drover to reach the scene and found the snake already lifeless, trampled into bloody tatters, but the damage had been done.

  He calmed the steers as best he could, with aid from other hands who got there after him. Bill Pickering was third to ride up on the scene, asking nobody in particular, “What’s going on?”

  Bishop pointed to where the snake lay curled and torn.

  Pickering scowled and said, “Goddammit! What’s the damage?”

  “This one,” Boone Hightower told him, pointing. “Got a bite there on the left side of its face.”

  Pickering took a closer look and Bishop saw his shoulders slump. “I see it now. We’ll have to cut him out.”

  Ironically, they would have had less trouble if the snake had tagged a person. With a human victim, certain measures could be taken—for an arm or leg, a tourniquet, and maybe sucking venom from the wound—but with a steer bitten around the head, all bets were off. A tourniquet around the neck would strangle it, and who could drain a longhorn’s facial bite without the likelihood of being gored?

  No, Pickering was right. The steer’s left cheek was swelling as they watched, the pain from it increasing exponentially. It wouldn’t be much longer till the steer—hurting, disoriented, maybe blind in one eye, with its balance suffering—would start to run amok, and that way lay disaster for the herd.

  Cutting a steer out of the group was dicey, and especially with a longhorn already suffering. Step one was lassoing its head, no easy job itself with horns spanning an easy seven feet. Once Bishop and Deke Sullivan had managed that, one sitting off to either side, the tension in their lariats preventing the longhorn from charging one horse or the other, Pickering rode on ahead to clear a path through other ranks of animals, leading the dead steer walking westward, out of line.

  When that was done, no further injuries to show for it so far, they needed distance from the herd, waiting and watching as the drive moved on without them. The delivery of gunshot mercy they intended could have spooked the other steers and set them running blindly from the pistol’s echo, injuring who knew how many more with sprained or broken legs, more gouged by horns, maybe taking a horse and rider down with them.

  Bishop put no faith in bovine intelligence, but as the other longhorns topped a grassy rise and started down the other side, he could have sworn the bitten long
horn—dazed and hurting as it was, venom encroaching painfully upon its eyes and brain—sensed what was coming next.

  The animal let out a low and mournful cry, cut short when Pickering’s Colt New Line revolver punched a .41-caliber hole between its wide-spaced eyes. Its legs folded and it collapsed, the sudden pressure on its lungs from impact with the ground driving a windy grunt up from its throat.

  Bishop knew there would be no beef on their plates tonight. Mel Varney wouldn’t risk it, with the rattler’s venom coursing through the longhorn’s bloodstream, powered even now by the last slow contractions of its dying heart.

  Such waste.

  They left it to the vultures and coyotes, riding back to join the herd.

  * * *

  * * *

  THAT’S TWO,” SAID Gavin Dixon.

  “Yes, sir. Not so bad, all things considered, after traveling this far,” Bill Pickering replied.

  “One steer a week?” The boss stopped short of shrugging. “Could be worse, I know, but every steer we lose means cash out of our pockets at the end. At this rate, if it holds, figure another half dozen to go.”

  “Both incidents were unpredictable,” said Pickering.

  “I know that. Just like snow in April. Just like rustlers making off with the remuda.”

  “We came out ahead on that, boss.”

  “Horse-wise,” Dixon countered, “after killing six men and risking some of ours.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Don’t bother me,” the trail boss said. “Same way I generally wind up in the hole at poker.”

  “But you’ve never had a losing year.”

  “Not since you signed on, anyway.”

  “I ain’t no good-luck charm,” said Pickering, and hoped he wasn’t blushing in the shade cast by his hat.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Dixon replied. “Don’t sell yourself short, Bill.”

  The foreman glanced away, uncomfortable with effusive praise, and something on the distant skyline drew his eyes. “Oh, Lord,” he muttered, without being fully conscious that he’d spoken.

  “What?” asked Dixon.

  “Off there to the west, sir. I believe that’s talking smoke.”

  White puffs rising from elevated land, created by the manipulation of a blanket over open flame with fuel handpicked for smoking, green wood being best. Pickering knew it was the Indian equivalent of Morse code, used to send brief messages about subjects ranging from epidemic illness to victory in battle to the charted progress of an enemy.

  “Dammit! You’re on the money,” Dixon said. “How far off would you say that is?”

  “A couple miles, at least. Say close enough to see the herd but too far off for counting heads.”

  “That’s too damned close for comfort. Can you tell the tribe from that?”

  “No, sir. It ain’t like marking on a lance or arrow.”

  “But there’s gotta be someone on the receiving end.”

  “Agreed. No point in sending signals otherwise,” said Pickering. “A scout, then, or a few of them.”

  “With the main party somewhere else. Not answering?” the boss inquired.

  “Can’t say. If they’re behind that rise, another two, three miles away, we likely wouldn’t see it.”

  Pickering knew that was the main drawback with smoke signals. If your friends could see them, so could any enemies with eyes. As for the meaning of those random puffs . . . well, that was anybody’s guess who didn’t hold the key to a translation.

  “Looks like double guards at night for the next week or more,” said Dixon.

  “Yes, sir,” Pickering acknowledged. “I’ll go spread the word.”

  * * *

  * * *

  SUPPER WAS ON the glum side, despite Varney and his helper baking up two apple pies for a surprise dessert. Bishop enjoyed it, but he stayed out of the conversation unless someone spoke to him directly, then kept his responses short and noncommittal.

  Graham Lott had settled in beside him, uninvited, but it hardly mattered. Even he was more subdued than usual, a reticence to speak that clearly went against his grain.

  At last, the pie behind them, Lott could tolerate the lack of gab no longer. “So,” he said to Bishop, “now it’s Comanches.”

  “Looks like it,” Toby granted.

  “Do you figure it’s a war party?”

  “I wouldn’t know. It was a good move, doubling the guards.”

  “I’m on the second watch,” Lott told him, sounding hopeful that they might be thrown together.

  “First for me,” Toby advised.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out which tribe it is. Weighing the odds of whether we’re in trouble, or its just some hunters signaling their village.”

  “Since the reservations started up,” Bishop replied, “officially, we’re in the neighborhood for Cherokee from here on to the border. If a raiding party’s off their reservation, though, it could be any one of six or seven others. Then you’ve got the smaller plots mapped out for tribes the army doesn’t count as ‘civilized.’”

  “And any one of ’em could have it in for us,” Lott said, clearly discouraged.

  “In for us, or out for beef,” Bishop allowed. “From what I hear, the vittles on a reservation aren’t worth writing home about—that is, if any of the relocated tribes still had a home.”

  “I guess it’s no surprise they hate us, eh?”

  “Some do, beyond a doubt. Same way that one of us would feel if Uncle Sam showed up on our doorsteps and told we were moving out to the Mojave Desert or he’d kill our kin and make us watch.”

  “Reminds me of President Jefferson,” Lott said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Not talking about Indians, but slaves from Africa. He said, ‘I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever.’ Something like that, anyhow.”

  “Never stopped him from owning slaves himself,” Bishop observed.

  “Sounds like he was a complicated man.”

  “Most are, you peel enough layers off the onion.”

  * * *

  * * *

  BISHOP WOUND UP sharing the first shift on guard with Odom, Gorch, and Abel Floyd, the Circle K’s horse wrangler. All of them were on alert; Mel Varney was keeping coffee on for anyone who needed it to keep his senses sharp.

  As if the risk of being killed and scalped—maybe the other way around—wasn’t enough to keep a man from dozing on the job.

  Bill Pickering professed doubt that any raiders would attack tonight, but after Willow Grove, Mr. Dixon was taking no chances. Better safe than sorry, as they say.

  Dividing his focus between the longhorns and the outer darkness that surrounded them, Bishop wondered if the smoke signals observed that afternoon meant anything to them at all. It might have been some solitary hunter sending word back to his village that he’d lost his horse or was returning with a fresh-killed deer for supper.

  Might have been, but Toby knew they couldn’t take that chance and let their guard down. If a raiding party struck, its members would be out for beef or white man’s blood, maybe a bit of both.

  It was a gamble, and a man who couldn’t sleep with one eye open ran a risk of never waking up at all.

  Time always seemed to lag on watch, and this night more than usual, when any night bird’s call could be a painted enemy communicating with his fellow braves. In fact, Toby knew time was passing as it should, although wan moonlight wouldn’t let him prove that by his pocket watch. He scanned the night until his eyes grew tired of it, then circled by the chuck wagon to grab a cup of hot jamoke strong enough to keep his senses keen.

  On his way there, Bishop passed by Curly Odom, sitting with his Colt revolving carbine clear of saddle leather, butt plate braced against h
is meaty thigh. He raised a silent hand in greeting to Bishop but kept his gaze focused on nothing, way off in the night.

  Toby rode on to the wagon, lamplit from within. The only sound intruding on his consciousness was the normal and expected, sleepy susurration from the herd, as of some single giant creature slumbering in peace.

  But if awakened suddenly, alarmingly, that beast could run amok in nothing flat, not pausing to determine if a threat was real or just the remnant of a fever dream. A single whooping red man could accomplish that, or whirring rattles on a viper’s tail.

  And if that happened, God help any cowboy standing in its way.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DAY EIGHTEEN OF the cattle drive, with six more yet to go at least before they crossed into Missouri. The longhorns were marching on toward an appointment with their executioner with a blue sky and warm sun overhead.

  Did any of them understand that trail’s end really was the end for them?

  Doubtful. In fact, Bishop presumed it was impossible.

  There’d been no repetition of smoke signals since the first time they’d been spotted, six days back. A man with less experience might have drawn comfort from that fact, but Bishop had too much experience under his belt to take a sanguine point of view.

  Granted, the message they had seen less than a week ago, untranslatable by white men’s eyes, might have pertained to something entirely unrelated to the longhorn drive.

  It might have, sure. But Toby Bishop wasn’t buying it.

  Whatever the intentions of whoever sent that airborne message, he assumed it had something to do with Gavin Dixon’s herd. A warning of their presence on some reservation’s hunting grounds? If so, the land had not been posted against trespassers.

  Were members of some nearby village worried that the drovers would attack them without cause? While this was not impossible, given the history of white men versus red, it seemed illogical that cowboys would desert their herd to raid a native settlement that wasn’t even on the map, risking their jobs and lives to boot.