Stampede

by Len Levinson

  The ground shook beneath her feet as the horses bore down on her. She jumped back, and Roberto thundered past, hurling his lasso at Manuelo, who at the same moment tried to rope Roberto.

  Roberto’s lasso knocked off Manuelo’s sombrero, and Manuelo’s lasso didn’t even come close. They continued riding and winding in their lassos, to prepare for another run. A hand wrapped itself around Cassandra’s forearm. She thought it was Don Emilio again, and turned to give him a piece of her mind when she saw Slipchuck, a troubled expression on his face.

  “You best step back, ma’am. This ain’t no place to be a-standin’. If two men’re gonna kill each other, you might as well let ’em git on with it.”

  The two vaqueros charged again, heads down, lassos dancing in the air. Cassandra stared at them, wondering what was wrong with men that made them do these things. Strings of froth flew from their horses’ mouths as they closed the gap, and the two vaqueros were bent forward in their saddles, leaning toward each other, whirling the big loops through the air. When they were twenty yards apart they let fly.

  Roberto’s lasso dropped like a halo around Manuelo. An expression of panic came over Manuelo’s face, and a mad smile creased Roberto’s porcine features. He pulled the rope hard, spurred his horse, and Manuelo flew out of his saddle. Santa Maria, thought Manuelo as he fell to the ground. Pray for me at the hour of my death.

  Cassandra watched in horror as Manuelo hit the grass, bounced, and was dragged away at top speed by Roberto. Manuelo screamed in pain as he slammed into rocks and bushes, turning red as he was flayed alive.

  Roberto looked backward in his saddle, at his fallen adversary. He could stop his horse and let Manuelo up, but it would defile Manuelo’s honor. He must die, thought Roberto, all anger gone, and a tear in his heart for his fallen companero, but so it must be. I will wear that red shirt, amigo to the end of my days.

  Cassandra closed her eyes, but could hear Manuelo crashing through thorns and prickly pear, screaming horribly. She thought she’d go mad for a few moments, but the sounds diminished as Roberto rode farther away. She opened her eyes and saw Don Emilio in front of her.

  “I could never respect a man who’d let something like that happen,” she said to him.

  “You are a silly woman, and you know nothing of men, but you are very beautiful, and I love you with all my heart.”

  “You don’t have a heart,” she said, and stormed toward Truscott.

  “Here she comes,” Truscott muttered. “Lord Jesus help me.”

  She pointed her finger at him. “You’re supposed to be the ramrod, and I hired you to take my herd to Abilene, but that man was holding me against my will back there, and you didn’t do anything about it! In fact, if my memory is correct—you laughed!”

  “If you could see how funny you looked, you would’ve laughed too.”

  “I’m the boss around here, and you’d better get that through your thick skull! Next time I tell you to do something, by God, you’d better do it!”

  “Damn women!” Truscott exploded. “Never leave a man alone! Nag nag nag—that’s all they do, and there’s no gittin’ away from ’em! Wa’al I’ve had enough, you spoiled little bitch! You can go shit in yer hat and pull it down over yer ears! I quit!”

  Truscott walked back to his horse, and she couldn’t let him go. “Now just a moment—”

  “I got nothin’ to say to you! You ain’t got a goddamn brain in yer head, and I’m tired of you naggin’ at me!”

  Truscott reached his horse and pulled down the stirrups. Cassandra caught up with him and grabbed the horse’s bridle.

  “I’ll never get the herd up the trail without you. I’ll be ruined if you leave.”

  He looked at her hand and muttered something, uncertain of what to do.

  “Please,” she said. “I don’t mean to nag, but I’m not accustomed to seeing people kill each other.”

  “Git used to it,” Truscott said. “It’s all there is out here, and wait’ll you see Abilene. You gotta promise you’ll stay out’n my road.”

  “This is my herd, and you’re my employee. You’re supposed to do as I say.”

  “You hired me to ramrod this outfit, and that’s what I’m doin’. Just ’cause you don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’, that ain’t my fault. I think all of us’d be a lot happier around here if you’d stop pokin’ yer nose whar it don’t belong. Are you gonna leave me alone, or am I ridin’ out’n here, and don’t think I won’t do it!”

  He was a tough old bird, and she saw indignation in his eyes. She’d wounded his ridiculous masculine pride again, but couldn’t let him get away.

  “I promise I won’t put my nose where it doesn’t belong anymore,” she said. “If the men want to kill each other from now on, it’s fine with me.”

  She heard hoofbeats, and saw squat Roberto riding toward her, bouncing up and down on his saddle, and hanging from his hand was his lasso covered with blood and gore. His gaze was on a distant mesa far beyond the herd, where he saw something receding forever.

  “Party’s over!” Truscott said. “Let’s git to work!” He turned and walked toward Stone, thumbs in his belt. “Ready to ride?” he asked Stone.

  “Ready as I’ll likely be.”

  “Help ’im on his horse!”

  Tomahawk watched as the cowboys carried John Stone toward him, and it was the first time he’d seen Stone close-up since the light with the bear. Stone looked broken, with none of his usual spring and bounce, more dead than alive. Stone tried to raise his leg over the saddle, but it wouldn’t go. Slipchuck lifted his ankle, and finally Stone slid into the saddle. Pain shot through him as he landed. He looked at his shirt, but no blood showed.

  “You okay?” Slipchuck said.

  “I smell that fucking bear.”

  “We got him on our boots.” Slipchuck pointed to the soft greasy sheen on the tips of his tooled Mexican footwear.

  Truscott sat on his chestnut stallion and pointed toward the northeast. “Colton’s thataway! We’ll meet by the Double Fork tonight! Try to keep yer no-good worthless asses out of trouble!”

  Cassandra approached on her palomino mare.

  “Don’t take any chances,” she said to them, “and for heaven’s sake, don’t get drunk.”

  Slipchuck raised his nose in the air. “Ma’am, whatever makes you think we’d do that.”

  “Because you’re all drunkards, and everybody knows it, but you’ve got a job to do. Are we all clear on that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they replied sullenly.

  She looked at Stone. “Do you think you’ll be all right?”

  He managed a wink. “They say whiskey has medicinal properties.”

  An expression of exasperation came over her face, and she pushed the brim of her hat back. “Killing and drinking is all you know, but please stay sober until we get to Abilene, and then I promise I’ll throw a party with all the whiskey you can drink, and you can kill each other with dynamite, for all I care.”

  Slipchuck leaned on his saddle horn. “You sure you can afford that much whiskey, ma’am?”

  “You get my herd to Abilene, I’ll afford it.”

  “You got yerself a deal.”

  Cassandra had misgivings as she watched them ride away, with Slipchuck in front, and Blakemore and Duvall flanking Stone. They weren’t the most reliable bunch, but Slipchuck said he’d been in Colton before, and Truscott didn’t dare send Mexicans, because they could be shot on sight in this part of Texas.

  Cassandra watched John Stone slumped on his horse, and wondered if she’d made the right decision. The ride might open his wounds, but maybe a good doctor could save his life.

  The cowboys had moved a substantial distance from her, and Indians could attack suddenly and carry her away. She touched her heel to the palomino’s withers and trotted after the cowboys, her blond hair trailing in the wind.

  She thought of four depraved degenerated cowboys lying on the floor of a saloon in Colton, when something caught
the corner of her eye. Gouts of blood dotted the prairie like roses, and a lump that looked suspiciously like a man’s nose adorned the spine of a prickly pear cactus.

  ~*~

  Every motion of the horse caused misery, and when Stone’s mind wandered, he lost his grip on the saddle. His legs lacked the strength to hold on, so he clutched the pommel with his hands.

  “We can rest if you want,” Blakemore said, extending an arm to steady him.

  “Take your goddamn hand off me,” Stone said weakly. “If a man can’t stay on his horse, he deserves to die.”

  Blakemore removed his hand, and Stone felt himself sagging to the side. He reached for the pommel, but his reflexes were delayed, and he fell to the ground, where he landed head first and was knocked cold. The others stopped their horses and climbed down.

  They rolled him onto his back, his chest rose and fell with his breathing, and he had a new three-inch gash on his head.

  “This man won’t make it to town,” Blakemore said. “We’ll have to go back.”

  “Can’t go back,” Duvall said. “Need supplies.”

  “A man’s life is more important than supplies,” grunted Blakemore. “We can brang Stone back to the chuck wagon, then head on into Colton.”

  Slipchuck looked at fresh blood oozing out of the new wound. “You’re right—this man’ll never make it to Colton.”

  John Stone opened his eyes like two gray curtains rising ever so slowly. “I’m not going to die,” he said. “We’re headed for Colton.”

  “Lord,” Blakemore said sadly, “have mercy on this man.”

  “What’re we waiting for!” John Stone gasped. “Tie me on my horse, and let’s go to Colton!”

  The speech weakened him, and he closed his eyes. They lifted him onto his saddle and tied his legs together with one length of rope, and his hands to the pommel with another length. Then they mounted up, and Blakemore and Duvall rode on either side of Stone, as Slipchuck led the way to Colton, somewhere out there on the endless prairie.

  Stone bent and twisted with every step Tomahawk took. His wounds felt torn open, and dizziness assailed him. The sun rose in the sky and baked the four riders as they plodded across a sandy basin that went on for several miles. On the other side of the basin, they came to a water hole.

  “We can break here,” Slipchuck said, “but keep yer eyes open fer injuns.”

  They climbed down from their horses, then helped Stone to the ground. He staggered bowlegged to the water hole, dropped onto his stomach, and plunged his face into the cool, clear water. A little tadpole swam beneath a rock, and he wondered how it got here, across all those hills, through so many valleys. He gulped water, washed his face, and lay on his back, letting the sun warm his face.

  “Water hole looks familiar,” Slipchuck said. “Think I been here before.” He looked around, sniffed the air, and said, “By the great pointy-toed Jesus!”

  He jumped to his feet, ran from one side of the water hole to the other, then disappeared over a rise. A few moments later they heard his voice. “Look at this!”

  Blakemore and Duvall drew their guns and ran after him, while Stone shuffled behind them, trying to pull his Colt out of its holster, but it was too heavy. He came to the top of the rise and saw Slipchuck standing with his hat off beside a pile of rocks.

  “Boys,” he intoned solemnly, “say hello to Guthrie. We was pards, but the injuns got him. I buried him here with me own hands, and it’s good to see him again after all these years.”

  Slipchuck got down on his knees and clasped his hands together in prayer, while Blakemore and Duvall watched cautiously for signs of Indians. Slipchuck murmured a silent prayer, then crossed himself and rose to his feet. “So long, Guthrie ole feller. I’ll stop by if I ever pass this way again.” He pulled on his battered old hat and suppressed a sob that sounded like a goose choking to death. “The man whose grave you’re lookin’ at,” he said to the others, “had a real talent that you don’t see every day of the week. He knew how to find the cheapest whorehouse in every town from the Mississippi to the Rockies, he’d head straight fer it, and I never seed him go wrong. Miss ’im with all my heart, because you know, sometimes you come to a town and they moved the whorehouse, and you don’t know whar the hell it is. Guthrie here could sniff ’em out like a coyote after a prairie hen. And I never saw a man who could cut a whore’s price in half so easy. He had the gift, you might say. He’d say her tits was too small, or her ass was too big, or she didn’t have enough teeth and she wasn’t wuth the full price. Goddamn, when they made old Guthrie here, they throwed away the mold.”

  “How’d he die?”

  “With the worse case of clap you ever seed, but that weren’t what killed him. It was an injun arrow, dipped in skunk piss. We best fill the canteens and git a move on. Want to be back to camp by nightfall!”

  They returned to the horses and tied Stone into his saddle. Then they rode northeast, heading toward Colton. Stone looked at Slipchuck, and realized Slipchuck had been everywhere, done everything, and was a walking breathing history of the frontier.

  Blakemore rocked back and forth in his saddle as he said, “That grave back there reminded me of the segundo. You fellers ever think about what happened to him?”

  Slipchuck looked Blakemore in the eye and replied, “Don’t talk about it, don’t think about it, and don’t dream about it, becuzz it ain’t fer us to know.”

  Slipchuck spurred his horse, and returned to his position as leader of the small band. They passed through a narrow defile with tall straight rock bluffs on both sides, an ideal spot for an ambush. No sunlight shone in the murky bottom, and they rode along with rifles in their hands.

  At its end was a rolling plain with bald knobs and buttes, and they plodded across it, sweat dripping down their faces, but it was easier than working the herd. They didn’t have to chase recalcitrant cows, and didn’t eat the dust of the drag. At one in the afternoon they came to the crest of a hill and saw a cluster of buildings in the valley with a stream running through it.

  “Colton,” Slipchuck said. “Right on the nose. I said it once I said it a hundred times—if a man can see the sun, he can find anythin’ he wants.” He turned around in his saddle and looked at Stone. “How you doin’, pard?”

  Stone wanted to say he was all right, but was unable to get the sound out. He felt as if an elephant had danced on him, and his bones were crushed to jelly. He wanted to lie down and close his eyes.

  They descended the incline, and Colton was four unpainted shacks, weathered and gray. Stone imagined a glass of whiskey sitting on a bar, and licked his lips mindlessly. Sometimes a glass of whiskey could do a man a world of good. There was no main street, and one of the buildings wore a sign that said:

  PERSEVERANCE SALOON & GENERAL STORE

  God Helps Them

  That Helps Themselves

  “Just remember, boys, we ain’t here to git drunk,” Slipchuck said.

  “One little drink won’t hurt nothin’,” Blakemore replied.

  “Mebbe one,” Slipchuck told him, “but that’s all. We gave our word to Mrs. Whiteside, and we can’t let her down.”

  They stopped in front of the saloon, and Blakemore and Duvall helped Stone off his horse. There was a hitching rail, but no sidewalk. Slipchuck opened the front door of the saloon.

  A thin man with slicked-down black hair came from behind the bar and held out his hand. “Howdy, men—glad to see yez. Name’s Handy—Milam Handy. Ain’t seen a soul all day. What can I do fer yez?”

  “Need supplies,” Slipchuck said.

  Stone limped to the bar and dropped heavily onto a stool. “Whiskey,” he croaked.

  Handy looked at him. “That man looks like he’s ’bout ready to give it up.”

  “Fought a bear, and the bear won,” Slipchuck said. “Give us all a drink, and by the way, you got a sawbones ’round here?”

  “Dr. Weatherford, but he rode out this mornin’ fer the Bar Z, and ain’t come back yet.�
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  Stone watched the glass in front of him fill with whiskey. His tongue hanging out of his mouth, he reached for the glass, raised it with a trembling hand, and carried it to his lips. He sipped, and it tasted like turpentine. A wave of dizziness struck him, and he spotted a table against the wall. He staggered toward it and dropped onto a chair, not spilling one drop through the entire arduous journey.

  Slipchuck handed the list of supplies to Handy. “How soon we git this stuff?”

  “Take an hour or two to put it together.”

  “How far you say the Bar Z was?”

  “Couple hours due north.”

  Slipchuck upended his glass, poured the contents down his throat, sighed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “We might as well try to find that sawbones, and leave Johnny here. You’ll be all right, won’t you, Johnny?”

  Stone gazed at his glass. “Be just fine.”

  Slipchuck turned to Handy. “You’ll look after him till we git back?”

  “No trubble ’tall.”

  “If he wants another drink,” Slipchuck said to Handy, “give it to ’im, but only one more, hear?”

  “I’ll take care of this man as though he were my own son,” Handy replied stentoriously.

  Slipchuck slapped Stone on the shoulder, and Stone thought his shoulder would fall off. “Be back in a while, Johnny old boy. Don’t fall in no shit.”

  “Won’t be no trouble here,” Handy said. “Hardly nobody ever stops.”

  Slipchuck, Blakemore, and Duvall walked out the door, leaving Stone alone with Handy. Stone stared at his three-quarters full glass of whiskey for a few seconds, thinking it was all his and no one could take it away. He raised it carefully to his lips and drank it down in three gulps. The whiskey hit him like a sledgehammer, and the room spun. His head fell forward to the table and he was out cold, making gurgling sounds in his throat.

  Hardy went off duty an hour later, and such was his haste to get home to his dinner, he forgot to tell his replacement to look out for John Stone. The new bartender’s name was Crenshaw, and when he saw Stone sprawled over the table, thought he was just another drunken cowboy, and Crenshaw had seen a million of them. Sitting behind the bar in a dirty white apron that covered his ample girth, he read a torn and wrinkled three-year-old newspaper, while Stone muttered and mumbled unintelligibly, his bearded cheek resting against old food stains and cigarette burns and the name of a woman, Frisco Sal, carved crudely into the surface.