The Rocking R Ranch

by Tim Washburn

  When the horse was topside and on firm footing, Emma changed her plan again. The wagons were her only real option for escape. She nudged the horse into a gallop and immediately regretted it. Every stride was torture, but she clamped her jaw shut and let the horse run, listening for more gunfire and hoping she could catch up to the wagons before they were too far away.

  She quickly picked up the wagon tracks and followed them, her brain buzzing with thoughts of freedom as she fought to stay on the horse. The rope they’d used to tie her on was behind her and inaccessible, and it didn’t take her long to discover that riding a running horse bareback across a long stretch of ground was much more difficult than riding a walking horse bareback from the barn to the river back home.

  Looking ahead, she still didn’t see any sign of the Indians or the wagons and she hadn’t heard any more gunfire. Could the Indians already be dead? It was too much to hope for. Feeling a burst of intense pain, Emma glanced down to see she was bleeding again. She tugged on the horse’s mane to slow him, but the horse continued to run. Trying again, she pulled with all of her strength and shouted, “Whoa, whoa!” and it had no effect. She doubted the horse understood English, but Emma was at her wit’s end and the pain was becoming unbearable. Switching tactics, Emma focused on controlling the horse with her legs. She squeezed her thighs as tight as she could and the horse thankfully—finally—slowed to a walk. She and the horse wouldn’t cover as much ground, but the relief from the constant bouncing was instant.

  Now that she understood how better to control the horse, she turned her focus to finding the wagons and her saviors. But the farther she went, the more doubt crept in. Should she turn the horse around and ride as hard as she could to get away? She hadn’t seen any hint of civilization in two days, and worse, she hadn’t seen any sign of water since the last time they stopped. How far would she get without water? Not far, she decided. Her best chance—her only chance—for escape lay with the men driving the wagons. Topping a small rise and looking ahead, her heart plummeted, and any hope of a rescue vanished in an instant.

  Emma rode forward slowly, and the scene told the story. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as the horse plodded onward. The four white men—her four liberators—were dead, their bodies acting as pincushions for a volley of arrows. All had been scalped and all had been mutilated. The savages had disemboweled two of the men, their entrails scattered upon the hard, barren ground. The other two wagon masters had fared no better. Their limbs had been chopped off and tossed about, the blood still draining into the earth. The scent of death was heavy in the still air and the savages’ lances dripped with blood.

  Emma’s horse came to a stop next to the other Indian ponies that were tied to the wheel of one of the wagons. Her four captors were covered in blood as they searched the wagons for plunder. Big Nose looked up and grunted. If he was surprised to see her there, he gave no indication. Emma sat her horse and cried, all hope of escaping vanquished. One of the other braves she’d named Shorty because of his diminutive stature, climbed down and began uncoupling the two teams of horses. The Indians were in a celebratory mood, laughing and talking to one another in their harsh language. Emma’s sadness quickly transitioned to anger. Swiping away the tears, her gaze swept across the ground, searching desperately for discarded weapons. If she could find a gun, she’d dismount and blast them all to hell. But to her deep dismay, there wasn’t a single weapon in sight—probably already scooped up by the Indians, Emma thought. To them, rifles and pistols were even more precious than captives.

  She began to wonder which was more important to the Indians—her or the contents of the wagon? She rolled that thought around for a minute as she glanced at the position of the sun, to get her bearings. With only a couple of hours before sunset, the sun was ahead of her and to her left a bit, meaning behind her was east and civilization, or as close to east as she was going to get. But how was she going to find her way? Follow your own trail, dummy. She decided that would work and wished she’d thought of it earlier.

  She swiveled her gaze back to the wagons. The Indians were leisurely opening crates and poking through the wagon’s contents, like they had all day to accomplish their task. Which they likely did, now that Emma thought about it. The savages weren’t paying any attention to what she might be doing and she might well be a tree if there were any within a hundred miles of where they were.

  Turning, she looked at the rope still attached to her horse and wished she had it in front of her for a handhold. If she was going to make her escape, she’d have to ride all out until either the Indians gave up or caught her, or an arrow pierced her back. But her success was also dependent upon her horse and if he faltered, what then? Emma’s thinking became clouded with a stream of negative thoughts. What if my horse does go down? I’d die for sure. No way a person could walk all the way back to civilization. Then another thought rowed across the stream of negativity and all of her thinking distilled into a single question—Do I want to stay and be abused by the savages for however long or do I want a shot at freedom? Emma scooted back on her horse until the rope was in front of her, and she began loosening the knot. When the rope was loose, she eased it forward and tied it tight around the pony’s girth. Now she had something firm and stable to latch on to.

  Glancing over at the wagons again, she checked the Indians’ progress. They were busy unspooling rolls of bright fabric like children on their first visit to the store. Emma looked longingly at a stack of blankets packed into the second wagon, thinking how much more comfortable her ride would be if she could get her hands on one, but she wasn’t willing to risk it.

  Emma took a deep breath, lazily turned her horse around, and then buried her heels in the horse’s ribs. The pony went from full stop to full gallop within seconds and Emma wrapped her hands around the rope and held on. Glancing back over her shoulder, dread raced down her spine when she saw Big Nose jump from the wagon and onto his horse. She turned back to the front and urged her horse on.

  Well, whatever happens, at least I tried.

  CHAPTER 25

  Back at the ranch, Abby was pacing the front porch of her sister’s house, having no idea her older daughter was on the ride of her life. The same thoughts circled through her mind over and over again like an endless loop. And it was hard not to think those thoughts when everything she’d heard about Indians and their captives was one long horror story. Abby had no appetite and could barely summon enough will to continue functioning. Rachel was working hard to make sure Abby stayed engaged, offering encouragement or reassurance that all would be well in the end. But Emma was her daughter and the bloom of life had been about to unfurl to a whole new world for her.

  A fresh set of tears began to wind down Abby’s cheeks and she wondered if Emma’s chances for a normal life had been snuffed out. How would she ever find joy again when she’d been victimized by some of the vilest savages on the planet? Abby then made a vow to herself that when Emma returned, she would do all she could to help her daughter heal even if that meant leaving her husband and ranch life behind.

  Wiping her cheeks, Abby stepped off the porch and headed for her parents’ house. Her mother wouldn’t be able to make everything magically disappear, but she was the emotional rock that everyone in the family leaned on. As Abby shuffled across the sunbaked ground, her feet kicked up clouds of red dust that hung suspended in the still air. Sweat trickled down her back and her worn dress clung to her like a wet blanket.

  However, she noticed none of this.

  She did glance toward the corral to see her son, Wesley, helping with the branding, but even that barely registered. In the back of her mind she knew she had to buck up and get on with it, despite Emma’s predicament. But that was much easier said than done. Abby sighed and pulled her long hair off her neck and tied it with a strip of leather she wore around her wrist for such purposes.

  Loss and despair were not new sensations for any members of the Ridgeway clan. Abby and Isaac had lost two
children in back-to-back years. Her third child, John, died at six months old, unable to survive the harshness of the frontier. And while she was still grieving for John, disaster struck again after the birth of their fourth child, also a boy, whom they christened Charles. And his death was more painful than John’s only because he lived long enough to establish a personality, laughing and cooing until the night he died at the age of nine months.

  Yes, despair was not new for Abby, but with Emma it felt like someone was clawing her insides out. People often said there was a certain affinity mothers had for their firstborn and it was no different for Abby. How Isaac felt she did not know, and she hadn’t seen him since Emma’s abduction. He certainly hadn’t rushed home to console her or to reassure their children that their father was going to make everything all right again. No, he’d just done what he was told to do and that angered Abby. If she thought of him as an object, she expected he’d be a tree—a person could touch it and it was always there, but other than its ability to survive, the tree was devoid of any real expressions. A person can’t converse with it, argue with it, or interact with it in any form other than by touching it. And, Abby thought, that pretty much summed up her husband.

  Stepping onto the front porch of her parents’ house, Abby paused to take a deep breath. Inside would be laughter, joy, and happiness. That’s just the way it was at her mother’s house. And it had always been that way, other than the few times Frances had allowed sadness to linger for a day or two. But, never any longer than that. Life was too precious and short to dwell on the past, was what her mother always said. Abby eased open the door and stepped inside. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table playing some type of card game with Percy and Mary’s two boys, Chauncey and Franklin, and Abby’s youngest, Amelia. Her mother spotted her and rose from her seat. She ruffled Franklin’s hair on the way past and stepped up close and wrapped her arms around her daughter. Abby sagged against her mother, trying to let the tension and worry drain from her body, but it was a lost cause.

  Frances, who refused participation in any type of pity party, said, “Want to play cards with us?”

  Abby gave her mother a final squeeze and stepped back. “Maybe I’ll just watch.” Abby glanced at her nephews at the table and asked in a whisper, “How’s Mary?”

  Frances shook her head. “No change.”

  Abby nodded. She walked around the table, giving each child a hug, and took a seat. Her mother returned to her seat and resumed the card game. They were playing slapjack and it wasn’t long before they were back to laughing and having fun. In addition to the games, Frances would intersperse funny stories and it wasn’t long until Abby was sucked into the fun.

  Abby marveled at her mother’s strength and resolve. She never once bitched or complained about much of anything, and her only knock was that she was as stubborn as a ten-year-old mule. Abby remembered a few years ago when her father wanted to sell a portion of the ranch to a group of Irish investors. Frances put her foot down hard, and her father quickly overcame his urges. And her mother knew the ranch business, Abby thought, probably better than her father and she was never shy about nosing into negotiations over cattle or horse prices, much to the other party’s chagrin. What her mother and father had, Abby often surmised, was a real and true partnership, which was fairly unusual, given the time. Abby had interacted with other couples over the years and in a majority of those relationships the women played a subservient role to that of their husband’s. But not in their home while growing up. Yes, her father would often grumble about it until, days later, when he would grudgingly agree that his wife’s instincts had been spot on.

  Abby was spurred from her reverie by a knock on the door. A moment later, her niece Amanda stepped into the room. Her cheeks were tear streaked, her hands were trembling, and her voice tremored when she asked her grandmother to come outside. Abby stood and followed, knowing that Amanda’s mother—her sister-in-law Mary—had reached the end of the trail.

  Outside, Amanda burst into tears again. Abby reached out her right arm and Frances her left, and they pulled her into a tight embrace.

  “Papa told me . . . to let . . . to let Ma have . . . have all the . . . laudanum she . . . she wanted,” Amanda blubbered.

  “Your papa was right,” Frances said. “You didn’t do one thing wrong, honey.” With her free hand, Frances gently cradled Amanda’s face in her hand and looked her in the eye. “You. Did. Nothing. Wrong. Your ma was sufferin’ somethin’ terrible. She’s now free of all of that.”

  Amanda nodded and sobbed. Eventually the crying slowed to a stop, and Amanda dried her eyes. She took a couple of deep breaths then whispered, “What am I going to tell my brothers?”

  “They knew the end was near,” Abby said in a soft, quiet voice. “But we’ll go in and tell them together. Is that all right?”

  Amanda nodded again.

  “Good,” Abby said. “We’ll make it through this.” As the three headed inside, Abby wondered if the words sounded as hollow to them as they did when similar words were told to her. Then thoughts of Emma’s capture crashed down on her and she had to hold on to the doorframe to keep from sagging to her knees.

  CHAPTER 26

  Cyrus’s stomach convulsed when they stepped out of Chief Kicking Bird’s tent and into a pack of Injun dogs who were sniffing around an old squaw who was scraping the rancid meat off the inside of a buffalo hide. He worked hard not to gag at the smell, hoping not to offend their host. Kicking Bird shouted something in Comanche and the dogs scampered away, their tails between their legs. That helped to quell Cyrus’s urge to vomit.

  The chief and Goodnight conversed for a few more moments and Goodnight turned to Cyrus and said, “The chief wants to know if you brought him any presents.”

  “Well, hell,” Cyrus muttered. “What’s he want?” he asked Goodnight.

  Goodnight shrugged. “I guess anythin’ you got extra.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing I ain’t got and that’s any more patience.”

  “Easy, Cy. He’s helped you out. Got any coffee or sugar?”

  “Yeah, I got a little,” Cyrus said.

  “Give it to him. You can stop at the trading post and get some more before headin’ out.”

  Cyrus mumbled a curse word or two, walked over to his horse, and untied the flap on his saddlebag. He was mildly surprised to find his horse was still there, knowing that the Injuns would steal a horse right out from under you. He pulled out the remainder of his coffee and sugar and returned to Goodnight’s side. “Do I gotta kneel, too?” he asked out of the side of his mouth.

  “No. Just hand it to him so we can get the hell out of here,” Goodnight said.

  Cyrus handed the parcels across and the chief took them and offered a small bow before passing them on to one of his squaws. Cyrus and Goodnight shook hands with Kicking Bird and headed back to the wagon. Cyrus looked around the camp, hoping to steal one more glance of Topen, Kicking Bird’s beautiful daughter. Cyrus could never imagine himself coupling with a squaw, but her looks sure got his loins buzzing, despite the circumstances of their visit. Then the sudden thought of Frances going after his private parts with a butter knife obliterated all thoughts of Topen. Cyrus and Goodnight climbed aboard the wagon and Goodnight started the team forward. There was no way Cyrus was going to mount up and ride away from their current location—he liked what was left of his hair too much.

  Goodnight and Cyrus talked cattle, cattle prices, and the difficulty of ranch life as they lumbered back toward the main trail. Fortunes were presently being made in the cattle business and all it took was a few thousand head of cattle, a dozen cowpunchers, and the will to drive those cattle north to the new railhead in Ellsworth, Kansas. Cyrus and his crew had driven three thousand cattle—mostly steers—north last year and he cleared $37,000 after expenses. His hope was to do it again this year, but that all depended on the outcome of their search for Emma.

  “You know this feller Quanah Parker?” Cyrus asked. />
  “No, but I hear he’s a wily and tough redskin,” Goodnight said, steering the wagon around a patch of muddy ground.

  “Ain’t they all? You’d think bein’ a half-breed would take some of the fight out of ’im.”

  “He might be a half-breed, but he was raised Injun. Killin’s all he knows.”

  “I’ll show him a thing or two about killin’ if he’s got my young’un,” Cyrus said. “I’ll put a bullet right ’tween his eyes even if he’s half-white.”

  “He’ll have a bunch of Injuns with ’im.”

  “Don’t matter.”

  Goodnight arched his brows in surprise and said, “How many men you takin’ with you?”

  “Ain’t the number of men that matter.”

  “Well, hell, Cyrus. You draggin’ that war wagon of yours along with you?”

  “Damn straight. I only need one man on the Gatling gun and another on the cannon. A couple of rounds with them guns and the Injuns’ll be begging me to quit.”

  “I’ve gotta say, you’re pretty wily yourself.”

  “Probably not wily enough. I’d pay you well if you wanted to act as a guide for us.”

  “Can’t, Cyrus. Got stuff I gotta do before headin’ back north.”