A Vast and Desolate Land

by Robert Peecher

  By late morning the riders had covered nearly ten miles.

  "Look at how many more shrubs there are," Rab said. "The landscape is starting to change. The ground is starting to roll a little bit, and if I ain't mistaken, those look like some high hills out across the horizon."

  "What's that mean?" Fitz asked.

  "We're probably not much more than sixty miles from the ranch. Twenty miles or so, we'll come to some steep cliffs where we'll have to find a trail to get down them. That's when we're officially down off the Llano Estacado. Another twenty miles beyond that, and we should start to see the mesas and peaks up near Las Vegas. And when we see Starvation Peak, we'll be about fifteen miles from the ranch. But we'll catch the herd before we get to the ranch."

  They kept going at a trot for another couple of miles without seeing any sign of pursuit, though Rab remained convinced that the Comanche were still very close behind them.

  After some time, a shape appeared on the horizon in front of them.

  "Now what do you reckon that is?" Fitz asked.

  Rab leaned forward in his stirrups. "I reckon that's a rider."

  "One of our outfit?" Fitz asked.

  Rab started scanning the ground for tracks, but it was impossible to discern any specific track among all the prints left by the cattle.

  "I don't know," Rab said. "But I'm going to find out."

  Rab gave a call to the roan and squeezed the roan's sides with his knees. The roan began to push harder, his trot turning into a gallop.

  They gained quickly on the rider in front of them. His horse was fatigued, and the man wasn't even watching his backtrail.

  In short time, Cromwell was near to overtaking the rider, and Rab recognized both the horse and the rider. The horse was a big bay that O'Toole had been riding. The last time Rab had seen that horse, Cossatot Jim was stealing it to get away from the Comanche.

  ***

  O'Toole's bay was spent, and by the time Cossatot Jim heard Cromwell's pounding hooves over the wind, he couldn't get enough out of the horse to try to flee.

  When he heard the roan coming, Cossatot Jim whipped around in the saddle. The black face of the blue horse, the snarl on Rab Sinclair's face, and Cossatot Jim's blood went cold. He reached for the Yellow Boy in the scabbard, O'Toole's rifle, but he was too late.

  Cromwell charged up beside the bay and Rab reached out with both hands, grabbing Cossatot Jim's shirt at the shoulders. Rab rolled from his own saddle, his fingers tight in Cossatot's shirt, and both men fell heavily on the ground.

  Rab was to his feet first. Cossatot Jim still had hold of the Yellow Boy, but he was stunned from the fall.

  Rab stepped in and smashed his right fist into the bridge of Cossatot Jim's nose.

  The buffalo hunter's eyes watered up at the stinging in his face. He swayed for a moment on his knees, but then rallied and stood up. The rifle was still in his hands, so Rab stepped in again, grabbing hold of the rifle and twisting it so that it popped free of Cossatot's grip.

  Rab threw the rifle onto the ground well away from them.

  "What happened to the rest of my outfit?" Rab asked.

  "I don't know," Jim said. "They rode off one way, I rode off the other. I thought the Comanche got you."

  "They did. Me and Skinner Jake both," Rab said.

  "Serves you right for trying to hand me over to them," Cossatot Jim said. "Too bad they didn't kill you."

  "Yep," Rab said. "I reckon you'll feel that way about it."

  "So what now?" Cossatot Jim asked rubbing his nose.

  Rab stuck his tongue against his back teeth and cocked his jaw.

  "By rights I should hang you," Rab said. "But I figure we're about thirty miles from a good stout tree."

  Cossatot Jim glanced at the Dragoon that Rab wore on his hip.

  "So you going to shoot me?"

  "Nope," Rab said. "All I'm going to do is take back my property."

  "The horse?" Jim asked, glancing over his shoulder where the bay and Cromwell stood some distance away.

  "There's a band of Comanche about a two or three miles behind us. I reckon if they can't find a stout tree, they'll think of some other thing to do with you."

  Cossatot Jim looked back but saw nothing.

  "They're back there," Rab said.

  "Then maybe I'll just take your horse," Cossatot Jim said.

  "You won't take that hawss, or any other. You're at the end of the trail, Cossatot Jim."

  "You can't do this to me," Cossatot Jim said. "I'm a white man, dammit."

  Rab started to walk over to pick up the Yellow Boy, but Cossatot Jim drew a Bowie knife from his belt and charged.

  Rab Sinclair grew up wrestling and fighting for everything he ever got. His easy manner and the fact that he was slow to rile often gave folks who didn't know him the wrong perception that he wasn't much of a fighter.

  Cossatot Jim had felt Rab's fist against his face, so when he came with the Bowie knife he had an idea what to expect.

  Cossatot Jim thrust with the knife to throw Rab off his balance, and then swung a kick to try to knock Rab off his feet. The kick worked. Sinclair had backed away from the knife and his feet weren't set. Cossatot Jim's ankle caught Rab in the side of the knee, and Sinclair went down to the ground.

  Cossatot Jim lunged now, stabbing down with the knife. But Rab rolled to avoid the knife and then kicked out with a stomping motion from the ground.

  Rab's foot caught the buffalo hunter in the thigh, and the force of it made him stumble forward with his own weight.

  Now Rab sprang back up from the ground and rushed toward Cossatot Jim. Rab threw a heavy punch into the buffalo hunter's jaw with his right hand, and then followed that with a strike from his left.

  Two hard punches to the head, and Cossatot Jim was stunned. He stood with the knife but no will to wield it.

  Rab landed two more punches to the man's head, catching him in the left and then right side of head.

  Cossatot Jim dropped to his knees. He was dazed but not unconscious.

  Rab reached down and grabbed Cossatot Jim's wrist — the one holding the knife, and twisted the wrist back behind the buffalo hunter until he dropped the knife. Then Rab threw one more punch, this one into the back of Cossatot Jim's head.

  The punch bloodied Rab's knuckles, but it knocked Jim senseless, and he fell to the ground.

  Now Rab lifted the back of Jim's coat, pulling it up over his head, and Rab took the knife and shoved it through the tail of the coat and into the hard earth.

  Cossatot Jim wasn't trapped by any means, but in his dazed state the coat over his head and pinned to the ground was enough to keep the buffalo hunter from getting up.

  Breathing heavy from the exertion of the fight, Rab stumbled over to pick up the rifle he'd tossed to the ground, and then he went to the blue roan and took up the reins. He leaned his head against the roan's back just as Fitz rode up with the pony just behind him.

  "I seen riders to the east," Fitz said. "Maybe two miles back. Looks to be about ten or twelve Comanche. They're coming hard again, Rab."

  "I'm coming," Rab said, still struggling to catch his breath. "You go on, but I'm right behind you."

  Rab stepped into a stirrup and pulled himself into the saddle.

  Walking through the night with little food and no sleep had not left him fit enough for a fight. But he'd survived it, and he had what he wanted. He took up the lead from O'Toole's bay and led the horse in a quick trot to follow up behind Fitz.

  The Comanche were pushing their ponies hard, racing to try to catch up. They'd been following for a full day and night, now, and this was the first they'd come near to their quarry. They seemed determined not to let their quarry slip away again.

  O'Toole's bay was spent, and even though it was now relieved of the burden of a rider, the horse was forcing Rab and Cromwell to move too slowly. Rab reined in the blue roan and rode along next to the bay. He slid the Yellow Boy from it's scabbard and worked it in between a couple o
f straps on his own saddle, and then he took out his long Bowie knife.

  He hated to leave a trophy for the Comanche, but he didn't see where he had a choice.

  He slid the knife along the side of the horse and then sawed through the straps on the saddle. When it was loose, he pushed it off the bay's back, relieving the horse of the last of its burdens and giving the bay a little more room to breathe.

  "All right, now, hawss, I need you to run," Rab said.

  He urged the roan forward, and now the bay was keeping up.

  The Comanche could have the saddle.

  Fitz was up ahead, still well within sight. His horse and the pony were moving along at a good pace, though. All the horses on the trail drive came from Rab Sinclair's remuda, and he was proud to see the way the horses endured the difficult exertion.

  He'd gone some distance farther when he looked over his shoulder and saw that the Comanche had come to a stop. Rab wheeled the roan and held the spot for a moment, watching the Comanche. In all, it looked to be maybe twenty of them, maybe a couple more than that.

  They'd found Cossatot Jim.

  It was hard to see from distance, but four or five of the Comanche had dropped down and were lifting the man up. Rab could not distinguish exactly what was happening, but it from a distance it appeared violent.

  "Haw!" Rab shouted, wheeling the roan. And again they were at a run, charging to catch up to Fitz and the pony.

  -26-

  "I know this country," Rab said. "I've ridden through here before. We're not far now."

  Rab Sinclair and Fitz followed a trail down into a canyon of cottonwoods. There, they found a small stream where the horses drank.

  Even Fitz, who still felt like a foreigner in the West, recognized that they were coming out of the Staked Plains. On the horizon he could see several tall mesas. The ground was more broken with boulders, washes, canyons and rolling hills. In a place like this a man like Rab Sinclair could hide, even from the Comanche. Since they had stopped at Cossatot Jim, they'd seen nothing of the Indians.

  Together, Rab and Fitz untied Skinner Jake, astonished to find that the man was still alive. Rab sacrificed what remained of his shirt to put new strips of bandage on the buffalo hunter's wounded feet. They gave him water by drenching a bandanna and then wringing it out onto his lips.

  "Ain't much else we can do for him," Rab said.

  "If we were doctors, we'd just cut his legs off below the knees," Fitz said. "At least, that's what they did in the war."

  The burned feet were grotesque, but as long as the man was still alive, Rab was willing to try to get him to the doctor in Las Vegas.

  "We'll camp here tonight," Rab said. "Come first light, we'll vamoose out of here."

  "How close are we?" Fitz said.

  "Judging from the tracks back yonder, I think Carlos spent most of the day moving the cattle down the trail leading off the Llano Estacado. If I'm right, they'll be camping about five or six miles from where we are right now."

  "Do you think the others have caught up to the herd?" Fitz asked.

  "I hope so," Rab said. "I've seen nothing that tells me if they're with the herd or not. My worry is that they're still out there on the Llano Estacado, trying to find me."

  "It seems more likely to me that they'd be trying to get you back than that they'd go to the herd," Fitz said.

  "Maybe," Rab said. "I've been thinking on that a good bit. Kuwatee and Vazquez are practical men. They'll see it as a small chance that they could safely get me back from the Comanche. They'd be apt to argue for catching back up to the herd, I think. O'Toole and Caleb, they'll probably push to go back and look for me. The worst situation would be if they separated and two went on and two went back."

  Fitz listened, leaning against a cottonwood.

  "If the four of them stuck together, that's safest for them. If they went back to the herd, that's best for us. It means tomorrow we're all back together. If they went back to try to rescue me from the Comanche, it could turn out poorly."

  "I judge it different," Fitz said. "I think you're right that Kuwatee and Vazquez are more practical, but I don't think they'll be thinking there's small chance of getting you out. My guess is they'll think you're capable of taking care of yourself."

  "Maybe," Rab said. "I doubt that. A man that gets captured by the Comanche doesn't often get hisself loose."

  "It happens," Fitz said. "I remember hearing a story about a woman who was captured with her son and daughter, and she and the girl were able to escape."

  "It happens," Rab said. "But it's uncommon."

  "But it did happen to you," Fitz said. "You did escape the Comanche."

  "With your help," Rab said.

  "Not much. I did little beyond adding to the chaos of those horses running through the camp. You did that, and all the rest, by yourself. My point is, all those others in the outfit are going to have the same opinion of you that I have. And that opinion is that if anyone is likely to escape the Comanche, you're the one to do it."

  "I don't know if that's true or not, but if that's their opinion and they went back and rejoined the herd, then that works for us."

  "It's their opinion," Fitz said. "We all hold you in pretty high esteem when it comes to surviving in a place like this. I doubt any of us would have signed on for this if someone else was leading the trail drive."

  Rab reached into his pocket for his pipe, but then thought better of it. Instead, he changed the subject.

  "I don't think the Comanche will find us down here, but I don't want my tobacco smoke to lure them into the canyon if nothing else does."

  Fitz nodded and grinned. "You embarrass easy, Sinclair."

  "How's that?" Rab asked.

  "A man says that others think highly of you, and you're quick to change the subject."

  Rab shrugged.

  "I reckon I don't put much stock in what others think of me," Rab said. "If I'm going to a place, I like to know how to get there. If I'm fighting a man, I like to beat him. If someone's planning to burn my feet to the bone like they did to that poor damn fool unconscious over there, I'd like to stop them."

  Fitz chuckled. "That's what I'm talking about. Everyone knows what kind of man you are. You win your battles."

  The shadows in the canyon were almost complete now with the sun low on the horizon and little light finding its way in through the cottonwood canopy. A chill haunted the air, but the wind spared them because they were deep enough and low enough in the canyon.

  "You take first watch?" Rab asked.

  "You need the sleep worse than me," Fitz said.

  "Watch the hawsses, especially Cromwell," Rab said. "He'll doze on his feet, but he'll be alert. If he blows or snorts or gets fidgety in any way, you wake me fast and grab up your rifle."

  "You trust the horse's instincts?" Fitz asked.

  "I do," Rab said. "Especially that hawss. A hawss is a frighty animal. He can't do naught but run if he's attacked. And so he keeps a pretty good watch for himself. I've ridden through desert and prairie and mountain forests with that hawss and slept like a baby every night because I trusted him to wake me up if trouble came. And I'm still here today."

  "You sleep," Fitz said. "I'll watch the roan."

  Rab pulled his buckskin jacket tight around him and made a pillow out of his saddle. He laid the Yellow Boy rifle beside him so he could find it quick if he needed it, and he covered up with the horse blanket.

  Skinner Jake moaned some in his sleep, but he never woke up all through the night. The horses stayed calm.

  ***

  The nearest trail down off the Llano Estacado was not the same one that Carlos used to move the cattle.

  In the south, a man could walk off the Staked Plains and never realize he had left the tableland. But in the north, west, and east, the Llano Estacado ends abruptly with steep cliffs. In the north, the cliffs drop down into the Canadian River valley. In the east and west, the escarpments drop three hundred feet or more, and the change is sudden
and dramatic.

  Carlos had to follow a trail that was large enough and with an easy enough slope that the cattle could be persuaded to move down it.

  But Rab and Fitz, with Skinner Jake now tied to O'Toole's bay and the Comanche pony following, found a switchback trail that the horses could easily maneuver.

  And now they were transported to a place wildly different from that which they had come. Off the Llano Estacado, they were surrounded by juniper bushes dotting every hillside and a few tall pines, cliffs and rocky outcroppings. The grass here was greener.

  "Feels like home," Rab said.

  They followed a path used by deer and other animals down to the south until they found the trail that the cattle had taken. The path was easy to discern, though the vegetation was not as wholly destroyed simply because it was more plentiful here.

  "We're still another twenty miles to my ranch. Carlos will have to camp one more night. But we'll catch the herd today, and I wouldn't doubt if Evangeline isn't there with fresh provisions and a couple of extra hands," Rab said.

  "We may not make it to them," Fitz said.

  "How's that?" Rab asked with a chuckle.

  "No joke, Rabbie."

  Fitz was looking back over his shoulder, and when Rab took a look behind him he saw what Fitz had seen. A score of Comanche were behind them, riding down off the Llano Estacado on the same path the cattle had taken.

  "What do we do here?" Fitz asked.

  "Ride like hell," Rab said.

  Both men urged their mounts to a hard gallop, and the bay and pony followed.

  Though they'd had a night's rest, the horses were on the verge of exhaustion. Cromwell, the fittest of the remuda, was beginning to out-pace Fitz's gelding so that Rab felt inclined to slow his run.

  They pushed on like that for more than a mile with the Comanche slowly closing the distance.

  And then, up ahead, Rab saw what he'd been hoping for.

  On a high hill directly in their path, Rab saw a rider he immediately recognized as Evangeline. She was mounted on a piebald that hadn't been part of the remuda, which meant she'd not only brought a wagon but also had fresh horses. Almost surely that meant she'd brought at least a couple of hired hands.