A Vast and Desolate Land

by Robert Peecher

  Bernard Swain nodded thoughtfully, his eyes fixed on the lone rider coming at him.

  "Let him come on," Swain said. "We'll see what he wants."

  Rab Sinclair rode the blue roan right up to the place where the four men had camped.

  Easy as you please, unconcerned with the strangers, he swung a leg over the roan and slid out of his saddle. All the while, that Yellow Boy never moved from its position in the crook of his elbow.

  "I was hoping I'd not missed coffee," Rab said.

  "Name's Bernard Swain. This here is Rude, and that's Mezcal Pete. I believe you know Mr. Cossatot."

  "I'm Rab Sinclair."

  "You're a long way from home, Sinclair," Swain said.

  "Yes, sir. I reckon we're all a long way from just about anything."

  Swain chuckled.

  "That we are. Is there something we can do for you?"

  Rab reached up to his saddle and pulled a tin cup down off a leather thong. "I was hoping you might spare a cup of coffee. It's been some days."

  Rab held out the cup.

  "Get that from our guest, Rude. Let's fill it up for him."

  The young man took the coffee mug and held it while Swain poured fresh coffee into the cup. He poured a cup for himself, too.

  "I'd be real surprised if you came all this way for a cup of coffee," Swain said.

  "That's right," Rab said. "I did not come here just for the coffee. I been tracking y'all for a couple of days now. You headed to Texas with them hawsses?"

  Swain watched Sinclair closely. He noticed how the man's eyes took in everything. Swain saw that Sinclair's eyes swept over the horses.

  "We are. Headed to Texas. You recognize any of the brands?"

  Rab grinned at him and took a drink from the coffee.

  "Lucky for you, I do not recognize any of those brands."

  Swain grinned back.

  "They's four of us and one of you. What would happen if you did recognize the brands?"

  Rab shook his head. "I ain't here to speculate on that. I come for Cossatot Jim."

  It was a tense moment. Rab knew that he'd find out now whether or not these horse thieves were willing to fight to protect one of their own. If Swain turned hostile or if his hand touched his gun or if he made a threat, then Rab knew he'd have to fight to get what he'd come for. But if Swain kept up the pleasant talk, if he stalled or even wavered, then Rab would have his man.

  "What makes you think you can just ride in here and take a man from us?" Swain asked, and that told Rab Sinclair all he needed to know. Swain wasn't going to fight, maybe die, for Cossatot Jim.

  "The man took a horse from me. And he's caused me other troubles, too. I think I can ride in here and take him because I don't think you're willing to get killed trying to stop me."

  "Now hold on," Cossatot Jim said. "I ain't just going to go with you."

  Rab's face turned to sudden fury.

  "If you open that stupid mouth to speak to me again, I'll break your jaw," Rab said.

  No one who heard him doubted his sincerity, and Cossatot Jim did not say anything else.

  Rab took another drink and set the cup down on the saddle. Cromwell stood so still that the cup did not tip one way or another.

  If there was going to be gun work to do, Rab wanted both his hands free to do the work.

  "I'm obliged for the coffee," he said. "Cossatot, you saddle up my hawss and let's get moving. We've got a fair piece to go today."

  Mezcal Pete took a step forward, and Rab Sinclair was surprised to see it happen. He figured Rude and Pete would follow Swain's lead, but evidently Mezcal Pete was his own man.

  "Now just hold your horses," Pete said. "This man rides with us now, and I ain't going to let you just ride up here and take him."

  Swain put a hand out to stop Rude from getting involved. That was enough for Rab to know that Swain and Rude wouldn't be backing Pete's play.

  "Don't do something you'll regret," Rab said.

  But Mezcal Pete did not get his nickname through sober thought.

  His right hand flinched and went for his gun. Steel cleared leather in a split second, but he was too slow.

  Rab Sinclair threw the Yellow Boy level with Pete and from the hip fired off one of the big .44 rounds. In the small space of the camp, even with the wind, the crack of the rifle sounded like a powder keg erupting, and Mezcal Pete stumbled backwards, tripping over the fallen bricks of the abandoned old hut.

  Rab dropped the lever on the Yellow Boy and had the barrel directed at Cossatot Jim before he could move.

  The thunder of the rifle, splitting the silence of the Llano Estacado, acted as a signal.

  Off in the distance, behind Rab Sinclair, Bernard Swain saw three riders coming like demons from out of the haze of the horizon.

  "I figured you wasn't as alone as you made out to be," Swain said.

  "Anything can happen before they can get to us," Rab Sinclair said. "If you want to try me, now would be your time."

  Swain held up his hands to show his empty palms.

  "No, sir," he said. "I ain't interested. You take what you come here for."

  "But he shot Pete," Rude said.

  "A thousand dollars splits better two ways than it does three ways," Swain said. "Don't you worry about Pete."

  Rab nodded to the stolen Yellow Boy beside Cossatot Jim's stolen saddle.

  "Rude, if you'd be kind enough to get that rifle and slide it into the scabbard on my saddle, I'd be obliged," Rab said. Then to Cossatot Jim, "As soon as that rifle is clear of your saddle, you get my hawss saddled up and you climb up on him. We're going to ride on out."

  As they galloped near to the camp, Vazquez and O'Toole split off to ride around to the flanks. Kuwatee rode directly toward Rab, reining in a few yards away.

  Cossatot Jim saddled the horse he stole from Sinclair's remuda, and he climbed up into the saddle. Now Vazquez rode over near him.

  Rab gave Bernard Swain a nod.

  "Bury that man I killed," Rab said. "You'll find a skeleton in that hut. Might as well bury the bones while you're digging holes. Then take these hawsses and get on to Texas. Hawss thieves get on the wrong side of me, but right now I can't prove that you're what I think you are."

  Swain nodded. "Any time you want coffee, come and see me, Sinclair. I don't intend to ever find myself on the wrong side of you."

  -17-

  Skinner Jake kept walking all through the morning with the sun at his back.

  And through the morning, his conscience began to wear at him. Without company, he found that to think clearly it helped to talk to himself.

  "A man comes out here with an outfit, he should stick with that outfit," Skinner Jake told himself. "Cossatot Jim fixed hisself good. He made his own bed, and he's lyin' in it now. But that don't change the fact that I come out here with a company, and what kind of man am I if I'm the only one among that company who walks back out again?"

  He kept going, one foot in front of the next. There was no other way for a man walking through the Llano Estacado. If he was going to get anywhere, a man had to just keep putting one foot in front of the next. It wasn't the sort of thing he could give any thought to. He just had to keep walking.

  But Skinner Jake had plenty of other things he had to give thought to. Like Cossatot Jim.

  "Them Injuns is going to roast him like a stuck pig."

  "Whatever they give Ol' Jim is going to be worse than what any of the others suffered."

  "It ain't like it was anyone else's fault. Cossatot Jim could have left that squaw all alone."

  "Ain't no man deserve to be given over to the Comanche, not without the opportunity for a fight."

  "It ain't right to just leave a man you rode with to his fate," Skinner Jake said to himself. And here he found a convincing argument.

  "If a man rides with you, you count on him to stand up for you. And if he don't, you'd rightly call that man a backstabbing, worthless, scoundrel. So what am I if I leave Cossatot Jim to his fa
te? Ain't I a scoundrel if I won't stand with a man who rides with me?"

  One foot continued on in front of the other, and the morning sun was warm on the back of Skinner Jake's neck.

  The walk out from the wagon in the middle of the night had been cold and brutal, but except for the walking the day was proving to be pleasant. The sun warmed him. The morning wind and the brightness of daylight gave him a good feeling.

  "I shouldn't make no decisions without getting some sleep," Skinner Jake admonished himself. "Still, they's right and wrong here, and I know it's wrong to abandon a man I rode with."

  After some time, Skinner Jake stopped walking.

  He looked out across the plain in every direction. As far as the eye could see, nothing changed. It did not matter how he quickened his pace. Nothing changed.

  A kind of desperation began to overtake him.

  "There ain't even no guarantee that I'll get off this blasted plain. I'm as like to die out here as I am to find my way to a town."

  Jake felt the weight of the rifle in his hand, and the lead bullets in his possibles bag.

  And now he sat down on the sandy ground, leaning the Sharps against himself.

  "I'd be a better man if I at least tried to do something to help a man I rode with," Skinner Jake told himself. "I reckon it don't matter much if the fix Cossatot is in is one of his own making. We still rode together in the same outfit. And that outfit was attacked by Comanche. And here I am, the last one left if they hand over Cossatot Jim to the Comanche."

  Now Jake began to see something else in his mind.

  Five riders on the open plain coming toward him.

  The Sharps rifle balanced against his shoulder.

  He saw himself shooting and reloading the rifle. Dropping one rider, and then the next. The others would likely drop down out of their saddles, but with that Sharps rifle, Skinner Jake knew he could pick them off from a good distance.

  Saving Cossatot Jim from the Comanche might prove an impossibility, but saving him from them four cowpunchers, that was an opportunity that might be worked out.

  Skinner Jake sat for several more minutes, continuing to weight the options in his mind.

  But the decision was already made. All he really needed to do was admit it to himself.

  After some time of contemplation, Skinner Jake stood up and turned to face the morning sun. And then it was one foot in front of the other, walking back the way he'd come.

  -18-

  Carlos set a faster pace than they'd taken at any point so far in the trip from Texas.

  Like Carlos, Miguel and Jorge now had their rifles in scabbards strapped to their saddles. The loss of almost all the guards necessitated that the vaqueros be prepared for anything.

  Sancho drove the wagon far ahead, watching for trouble but also hurrying to get forward. The men were all eager to get these steers off the Llano Estacado, and eager for the safety of their own beds in their own homes.

  "Damn place has become aggravatingly crowded," Fitz said to Carlos.

  "Si, it has," Carlos said. "Who would have thought when we set out that there would be so many people in such a terrible place?"

  Fitz scanned the horizon. A single man walking along the empty plain should be a simple thing to see, but since morning they'd had no sign of Skinner Jake.

  "You don't think that fool buffalo skinner went back to try to help Cossatot Jim, do you?" Fitz asked.

  "He would get himself killed if he did," Carlos said. "No, senor, I believe he walked west. But he will walk fast than our critters will, and we won't likely see him again."

  After the war, Fitz had come to the West with the army. But he did not stay with the cavalry for long. Many of the skills of the Western man still eluded him. He wasn't a tracker, though few white men could do it as well as Rab Sinclair. The Indians, though, seemed to be born with a knowledge for tracking.

  "If I could track worth a damn, I'd try to follow him," Fitz said.

  "He has that rifle and ammunition," Carlos said reasonably. "A buffalo hunter, if he saw you coming, would put you down from a mile away. It is what they are good at."

  Fitz nodded. "Maybe so. But I feel like I've failed at the one task Rab left for me."

  "He left you to guard the herd," Carlos said.

  "But what if Skinner Jake goes back? What if he tries to help Cossatot Jim?"

  "There was no love lost between those two," Carlos said.

  "Maybe not. But they rode together. Men ride together like that, and even if they don't like each other they might feel obliged."

  "If he goes back he will cause trouble," Carlos said. "But Rab wants his cattle across the Llano Estacado and in his own pastures. That's what he left us to do."

  "I reckon," Fitz said, but he wasn't sure.

  Left as the only guard on the herd, Fitz rode in wide circles, watching out across the plains for any sign of trouble. As they neared the edge of the Llano Estacado, the possibility of rustlers or bandits increased. But as he rode around the herd, Fitz kept a watch for a lone traveler on foot.

  Skinner Jake was the joker in the deck.

  Fitz didn't like it none that Rab Sinclair was going to trade Cossatot Jim for Caleb. Handing a white man over to the Comanche, even a scoundrel like Jim, felt wrong to Fitz. If the man had earned a sentence, he should get that sentence in a court and from a judge. At least, that's the way Fitz saw it.

  But he understood why Rab made the decision he did. The Comanche would surely kill Caleb in Cossatot Jim's place. And by rights, Rab Sinclair could hang Cossatot Jim himself after the buffalo hunter rode off on one of the horses from the remuda.

  Fitz's objection, though, wasn't so much that the Comanche would kill Cossatot Jim. Fitz's objection was the manner in which they would do it. Comanche justice meant torture, the worst kind of death.

  ***

  Sancho Biscuit rummaged through the provisions in the back of the wagon.

  "Not enough jerky, not enough beans. They've gone into the water casks."

  "It's just two men," Carlos said reasonably. Miguel and Jorge and Fitz were all still out driving cattle, but Carlos had reached Sancho's wagon. "They can't have taken that much. One of them went on foot."

  Sancho growled angrily. "Sinclair and the others took a fair portion, too," Sancho said. "And we never brought enough. But Sancho Biscuit won't starve. I'll get the first of what comes out of every pot, and if there is not enough left for the rest of you then that will be your problem. Then you can decide how much they have taken."

  Carlos smiled but left the older man to do his grumbling. Instead of continuing to argue, he said, "Fitz is very bothered that Skinner Jake escaped."

  "I am very bothered, too," Sancho said. "He took very much of the jerky."

  "He worries that this man might do something to interfere with them getting Caleb back," Carlos said.

  Sancho rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  "If that man goes back near those Comanche he would be a fool," Sancho said. "The Comanche will kill him."

  Carlos nodded thoughtfully. "This is true. He would be a fool to go back to the Comanche. But was he a fool when he sneaked away from us in the middle of the night?"

  "Very foolish," Sancho said.

  "So he might also be foolish and go back to try to help his friend."

  Sancho stopped and thought about it.

  "Maybe," he said. "He spent much time in the wagon complaining about the other one, Cossatot Jim. 'All his fault,' he said. 'Cossatot Jim done all this,' he said. But then I see the two of them talking, and they seem like good friends. So maybe he will go back and try to help his friend."

  Carlos stayed silent for a moment.

  "And if he goes back and tries to help his friend, what will happen to Rab and the others?"

  Sancho shrugged. "Maybe nothing. Or maybe nothing good. Rab Sinclair can take care of himself, but he won't expect this man to turn back up."

  "That is what I think, too," Carlos said. "Should we send
Fitz back to warn Rab?"

  Sancho shook his head. "He will need provisions," he said. "He will have to take more of what little I have."

  Carlos nodded. "I will talk it over with Fitz. I will see what he thinks. If he thinks he should go back to warn Rab, we will see if we can keep him from taking too much of your stores."

  Most of the steers were grazing near the camp now, and Carlos watched as Miguel and Jorge pushed in the last of the strays.

  Through the night the herd would shift some, stretch out over a larger area in search of better grass. But if they finished the day with the cattle gathered together, the cowpunchers would have less territory to cover in the morning to start off the cattle moving. The faster they could get the cattle moving the next day, the farther they would get.

  For a drover, the worst thing was a day where the cattle wouldn't move and not enough ground was covered. Days like that meant one more day added to the end of the trail drive.

  As he watched, Carlos realized that Fitz was nowhere near them. He was far out on the horizon, and Carlos knew he was looking for any sign of Skinner Jake.

  Jorge was the first into camp, and he brought his appetite with him. Sancho gave him two pieces of flat bread and scooped beans and meat onto his plate.

  Miguel soon followed him in.

  But Fitz was still out riding to the south.

  "He'll not find anything out there," Carlos said, as much to himself as anyone else. "If he is worried about Skinner Jake, the best thing to do is go back and try to find Rab Sinclair and warn him."

  It was nearly full dark by the time Fitz rode into camp. Sancho had kept the fire going to be sure that Fitz had warm food eat.

  Carlos picketed his horse for him to give Fitz time to eat his supper.

  "How many days out from Las Vegas are we?" Fitz said when Carlos walked over.

  "If we push hard, we should be off the Llano Estacado in two days," Carlos said. "Three days at the farthest."

  Sancho, cleaning out the skillets, stood nearby at the back of the wagon.

  "What are you thinking?" Sancho asked.

  "I'm thinking of riding back," Fitz said. "The others can't be more than thirty miles behind us. And if Skinner Jake has turned back, Rab needs to know it. He could foul up everything."