The Badlands Trail

by Lyle Brandt

  “The shooting spoiled our chance,” said Fire Maker. “We had our line around its neck when—”

  “When you left a second clue behind.” Tall Tree made no attempt to mask his disappointment. “Iron Jacket? Great Leaper? What of your mission?”

  “No longhorn,” said Iron Jacket. “But at least we left no clues behind.”

  “As if they needed any more, with two ropes and an arrow. We may just as well have left a sign.”

  “We will do better next time,” Old Owl offered.

  “It could hardly be much worse.” Tall Tree relented then, deciding he had scolded them enough. Whatever their mistakes might have been, he needed their cooperation in order to proceed. “And we will try again,” he said.

  “How soon?” asked Fire Maker.

  “At least four suns and moons,” Tall Tree replied. “They will not have forgotten us by then but let them think the shooting frightened us away. White men are foolish. They prefer to think good things await them, what the Mexicans call optimismo. They would rather run away from danger than confront it, as the Sioux found out at Little Big Horn.”

  He saw no reason to remind them of what happened after that great victory, when Crazy Horse surrendered in Nebraska and was foully murdered there, while Sitting Bull retreated all the way to Canada, his army dwindling pathetically along the way. Of the other war chiefs present at the fall of Custer, Two Moons was defeated eight months later, in Montana, while Phizi—Gall—followed Sitting Bull’s road north to Canada and still resided there today.

  Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

  Tall Tree reckoned he might be killed sometime within the days or weeks ahead, but when it happened, as he knew it must one day, he would not be shot down while running from his enemies.

  * * *

  * * *

  THORNE AND ODOM carried Lott’s corpse back to camp, with Bishop following behind them at a slow pace, leading their two horses. Mel Varney had a piece of canvas laid out near the chuck wagon, his two pallbearers setting Lott on top of it, then rolling him inside and tying off the ends with twine, and finally leaving him there, a giant hand-rolled cigarette, while Varney stoked the campfire.

  Bishop wasn’t sure about the fire, considering there might be raiders skulking in the dark with bows or even firearms, but he kept that observation to himself. The blaze—and fresh, hot coffee to go with it—had been ordered up by Mr. D, presumably after he’d weighed the risks against keeping his drovers on alert until the break of dawn.

  As if they could have slept now, or would perhaps sleep for nights to come.

  Bishop retreated from the campfire with his Appaloosa, found a spot where Compañero was content to graze awhile, and stood by with his Winchester in hand. Though still on edge and likely to remain so, Toby thought the night felt different somehow—nothing that he could put his finger on, but safer, if that term ever truly applied to any trail drive.

  Something told him that the raiders had retreated for the present, but he couldn’t take that to the bank with any confidence. Withdrawing might have been a ruse, a wily stratagem, and he wasn’t about to make himself a human sacrifice by letting down his guard.

  Hence standing well off from the fire, trusting the chill to help him stay awake. When Compañero had consumed his fill of grass, Bishop would walk him thirty feet out to the babbling stream they’d camped beside and let the stallion slake his thirst.

  If Compañero felt like dozing then, Bishop would stand guard over him, the same as he was doing for their camp. Tomorrow, still four hours off, would be a long, hard day for everyone, and no mistake.

  When he was younger, at a time like this—and there had been a goodly few—Bishop had tried to puzzle out the steps he’d taken, leading him up to the brink of danger. Introspection had its place, but he’d abandoned that technique during the Mason County war, when death was all around him and his only choices were to forge ahead or turn tail and get out.

  At one time or another in the midst of that, he had done both.

  The Hoodoo War was settled now, from what he understood, although to no one’s final satisfaction. Lawmen and the threat of prison had dictated its conclusion—for the moment, anyhow. As for some future generation picking up the feud where it was dropped, Bishop supposed only a fool would bet against it.

  No slight or injury was ever truly laid aside, forgotten and forgiven. Most people weren’t built that way, to turn the other cheek and love their neighbors as they loved themselves.

  Better to strike first, while the iron was hot. Or, as some others liked to say, dig two graves when you set out looking for revenge.

  His Appaloosa whickered softly, telling Bishop he’d consumed enough grass for the moment, and they moved off to the creek, Toby at full alert. That done, they doubled back to camp and settled into watchful waiting for the first gray light of dawn.

  * * *

  * * *

  BILL PICKERING WAS carrying another length of plaited buckskin rope when he found Gavin Dixon near the fire and showed it to him.

  “Found this hanging off another steer, along the south end of the herd.”

  “Same as the other one,” Dixon observed.

  “I’m damned if it’s not redskins, boss. White renegades could use a bow all right, but I don’t see ’em taking time to make a rope, hoping to throw us off the scent, when they could buy or steal one easier.”

  “Saying you’re right—and I agree you likely are—where would we find ’em now?”

  “No telling. Maybe miles away, if they were spooked enough.”

  “They draw first blood, then cut and run?” Dixon was clearly skeptical.

  “It’s how they fight, most times,” said Pickering. “The way I read it, they came in for beef and weren’t expecting anyone to catch ’em at it. Killed the preacher as a reflex when he called them out.”

  “I can’t blame Lott.”

  “No, sir. Same thing I would’ve done, but maybe shoot first, then start hollering.”

  A nod from Dixon. “What’s your thinking on them trailing us from here?”

  “It could go either way, boss. Since they made off clean, nobody killed or hurt on their side, they won’t have a grudge to settle. On the other hand . . .”

  “They didn’t get the beef,” Dixon filled in. “Unless we’ve lost a steer or two we still don’t know about.”

  “No way to get a head count in the dark,” said Pickering.

  “And I don’t wanna spare the time tomorrow either,” Dixon said. “We’d just be sitting ducks. Breakfast, then plant the preacher and move out.”

  “Yes, sir. Just as you say.”

  “Maybe save time. Pick out a spot and get a couple drovers started on the grave, since no one’s sleeping anyway.”

  “I’ll see it’s done. You want a marker for him, boss?”

  Dixon responded with a question of his own. “When Lott signed on, what did he tell you about family?”

  “None living, as he told it. Way out here, they couldn’t find him anyhow.”

  “Forget about the marker, then. I don’t want savages to dig him up and take his scalp.”

  “One less delay,” said Pickering.

  “Same thing with building up a rock pile,” Dixon said. “We’ll keep it simple, yeah?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Mel Varney was already planning breakfast at the chuck wagon, not that the same meal every sunrise took much in the way of culinary strategy. Pickering fetched two shovels and a lantern from the wagon’s gear and walked back to the fire with them, asking the drovers clustered there, “Who wants to get a start on putting Graham in the ground?”

  To his surprise, six hands went up at once. He chose Melville and Sullivan, two of the larger hands, and led the diggers off to find a good spot for the murdered preacher’s grave.

>   CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A QUICK BREAKFAST BEGAN their twenty-second day out from the Circle K, immediately followed by the funeral of Graham Lott. Without the preacher, no one volunteered to speak over his grave as Isaac Thorne and Paco Esperanza filled it in, so Mr. Dixon did his best.

  It wasn’t much and seemed to make him cringe a little as he voiced a memory from bygone Sunday school. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he said. “We didn’t get to know Graham that well, but he was affable and kept the faith. Whatever’s waiting for him, I suppose he earned it.”

  Bishop wasn’t sure about that last part, but the words were out now and there wasn’t any way to edit them. Nobody else appeared to see the ambiguity, but Mr. Dixon frowned a little as he wrapped it up, as if dissatisfied himself.

  Varney and Rudy Knapp had the chuck wagon packed up by the time the earth was tamped down over Lott’s remains. That done, it took the best part of an hour for eleven hands to get the herd and its remuda moving north. The longhorns, maybe grateful for a longer morning break than usual, were docile as they started out, but handling nearly two thousand steers still ate into the day.

  And while he couldn’t swear to it, Bishop supposed staying alert for hostile red men trailing them slowed down the other hands a mite, dividing their attention from the task at hand.

  How long until that pressure started fraying nerves, spawning quarrels and dissension among men whose best hope for survival lay in wholehearted cooperation?

  One more thing that Toby didn’t care to gamble on.

  Ahead of him, he spotted Mr. D and foreman Pickering riding together, seeming deep in conversation. Bishop could imagine some of what they had to say, mainly the obvious, wondering whether they could stay ahead of any trackers till they reached Missouri’s southern border, wondering if that would even make a difference.

  It might, of course, but then again . . .

  Crossing a line drawn on a piece of paper meant no more to renegades of any race than spitting in the wind. By definition, they were on the wrong side of the law wherever they set foot, geography being the least of their concerns.

  Fort Leavenworth in eastern Kansas was the nearest military base of any size, complete with cavalry, artillery, and a substantial settlement established in the late 1820s to protect the Santa Fe Trail. Call it the best part of two hundred miles due north from where the Dixon herd would pass on its trek to St. Louis. Running into troops that far from home would be a fluke and offer little succor in their hour of trial.

  Which meant they had to deal with any problems on their own, the way they had at Willow Grove. The clear-cut difference: red hostiles—unlike white outlaws—wouldn’t seek refuge in a town along the route of travel, where they could be hunted down and brought to book. Likewise, while they’d be passing through established counties, each with an elected sheriff, finding one meant deviating from their course to reach the nearest county seat, then likely hearing that the top lawman had his hands full with local brigands and didn’t regard pursuing hostile Comanches as part of his assignment’s purview.

  They were on their own and roughing it, as Mr. D and all the rest of them had known from the beginning.

  Holding on to what they could with what they had.

  Tall Tree rode out before his fellow warriors, starting with a good hour’s head start on his manchado pony, estimating that the white man’s herd would be at least that far ahead of him in turn.

  There was no rush to overtake them with the sun climbing a blue sky; quite the opposite, in fact, so long as he could chart their route of travel, once they’d crossed into Missouri. It was farther to St. Louis than to Kansas City, both prime markets for disposal of their steers, but with the current state of banditry throughout the state, it might be wise to take the longer road and shy away from trouble on the western border with Kansas.

  Tall Tree had little interest in the conflicts between white men. Anything they did to thin their own numbers was fine by him. But even as a party with no interest in the cause of white-on-white mayhem, he understood the feuds that had survived long rancor over slavery, relieved in theory—although not in fact—by the conclusion of their Civil War.

  A wild-eyed zealot called John Brown had led his sons and bloody-minded stragglers in a private war against slave-owning farmers spanning three long years before Brown spent his force and lost his life with an attack on Harpers Ferry, where a U.S. arsenal was housed. Brown had led a force of twenty men, one-quarter of them former slaves, to storm the arsenal nearly nineteen years ago, in mid-October 1859. Opposed by officers who later led the Rebel army and marines, Brown saw half of his men shot down, including two of his own sons. The rest were captured, Brown and half a dozen others hanged for treason while slave traders cheered.

  Tall Tree considered it a tragedy that either side had triumphed in the War Between the States. He would have liked to have seen them wipe each other out, the plague of their invasion excised from the continent from sea to sea.

  Granted, he’d never seen an ocean for himself, but when he pictured it in his imagination, there were only red men and their families lining the beach, ready and able to repel whatever white invaders faced them next.

  It was a shame that he would never live to see that day, but while he lived, Tall Tree would do his best to pave the way for others who would follow him. Another Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull, perhaps, but wise enough to shun surrender and fight on until red men across the continent were joined as one against their foes and killed them all or drove their fleeing spawn back to the lands from which they’d come.

  If that occurred someday, however far off in the future, Tall Tree reckoned he would not have lived and fought in vain.

  For now, though, he had limited ambition. With his small war party, he would strike the white men by attacking what they valued most: their property and wealth. The more steers he could rustle from the herd he was pursuing, turning them to food or profit for his people, the louder it would make his adversaries squeal. And when they squealed, the troops in blue would come.

  That would be Tall Tree’s time. Not throwing precious lives away to storm the white man’s forts against mass guns, but waiting to waylay them in the countryside, where native stealth trumped set piece strategy taught in their distant military schools.

  He could devise another Little Big Horn massacre, but on an even grander scale. Why not? That clash in Dakota Territory proved white troops were vulnerable, sometimes led by officers who valued reputation over training and sound tactics. If he could rally enough red men and lay the perfect trap . . .

  Tall Tree dismissed that train of thought as premature, watching for any snares his enemies might have prepared for him as they rode north, driving their herd in front of them.

  Claiming a long-term victory demanded patience, planning, and resolve.

  Tall Tree would make that journey one step at a time.

  * * *

  * * *

  AN HOUR ON the road assured Bill Pickering that Mr. D’s longhorns were none the worse for last night’s wear and tear. By this time during last year’s cattle drive, they’d lost a dozen steers during a risky river crossing, so the foreman reckoned they were points ahead so far.

  Unless they wound up being robbed and massacred.

  Which, Pickering admitted to himself, was still entirely possible.

  Most days he tried to ride up front, helping to lead and steer the herd, but since the raid last night and the death of Graham Lott, he’d found a spot back toward the herd’s west flank, not eating too much dust, but still in a position to surveil the ground they’d covered since breakfast. He didn’t keep a gun in hand but was prepared to grab his Winchester or Colt New Line revolver at the first sign of pursuers on their trail.

  Their enemies already owed one life for Lott’s, and in his present mood, Bill Pickering would just as soon kill all of them to end the nagging
threat.

  Distracted as he was, Pickering noticed Mr. D approaching only when the boss was within twenty yards, his brindle mare trotting along at a fair pace. When he was close enough to speak without raising his voice, Dixon inquired, “All clear back here?”

  “So far, sir,” Pickering replied. “I’ve got my eyes peeled, though.”

  “Maybe we got lucky. Scared ’em off last night.”

  “Do you believe that, boss?”

  “Nope. But I wish I did.”

  “Me too. I can’t help thinking they’ve still got us in their sights.”

  “Unlikely that they’d come at us in daylight, though.”

  “Agreed, sir.”

  Dixon frowned. Said, “You know you can call me Gavin when it’s just the two of us, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Force of habit,” Pickering replied. “This way, I don’t get used to slipping up.”

  “You’ve never let me down, Bill, and I don’t expect you ever will.”

  “I hope not, anyway.”

  “Won’t happen. You’re too good at what you do.”

  “Thanks. But we’re looking at a new day now, with hunters on our trail. I couldn’t even guess how many of ’em there might be.”

  “We’ll know that when they show themselves,” Dixon replied. “And then we’ll deal with ’em. No mercy once it’s started.”

  “No, sir. Still sorry that I had to stay behind when you went off to Willow Grove.”

  “As I recall, that was my order.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Well, nothing. We came through all right, I’d say.”

  “You did, and that’s a fact.”

  “That Toby Bishop seems to have a knack for it.”

  “But doesn’t love it, like some do,” said Pickering.

  “That’s true. Helps keep him on the sunny side of sane.”

  “It’s good to have him on our side.”

  Dixon nodded and wheeled his horse, called back over his shoulder as he rode away. “Keep on it, Bill. You’re doing fine.”