The Abilene Trail

by Dusty Richards

  “Martinez, get hold of yourself. I came down here to buy cattle, not mess around and party. I’ve got business at home. Now these cheap cattle aren’t worth half what those big steers were.”

  “But these ones cost much more money.”

  “You never paid the catchers any more.”

  “More expensive—oh, you don’t know—”

  “Damn it, I’ll pay you a dollar-fifty a head.”

  “Two dollars.”

  “A buck-fifty.”

  “Take them day after tomorrow?”

  “No, today—I’ve sent Mark after the crew.”

  “Today!” Martinez searched around as if looking for help besides the barefooted boys dressed in shorts despite the cold wind, sitting on their skinny horses waiting for his orders.

  “Solano isn’t here,” Ben said. “He’s off robbing stagecoaches.”

  Martinez blinked at him in disbelief. Ben looked away smothering a grin. He knew more about the man’s partner than he did.

  “Get down to cases. A dollar and a half a head.”

  “Ben,” the man cried. “I must go eat something. My stomach hurts so. I have to have two dollars. No less or I lose my life; it is at stake here. I owe so much money.”

  “I’ll only pay that for sound ones; you throw in the culls.”

  Martinez made a face and crawled up into the buggy seat looking pale as a ghost. “I am sick; you’ve made me sick to my stomach.”

  “I’m making you rich.” Ben looked off to the north, hoping for sight of his crew. He intended to be long gone before the bandits returned.

  Martinez at last sent one of his young herders to find him some food. Holding his stomach, he groaned as if in pain. “Stealing my cattle. I may never, ever recover from this.” More moaning. “Who will you buy cattle from then?”

  “Salano?” Ben said, and booted his horse off to look some more at the herd. He’d had a belly full of Martinez and wouldn’t be standing around there if he didn’t absolutely need this bunch. Reining Roan through them, he tried to spot the weaker ones. There would be some. If he could make a mental note of the bad ones’ description, he could cut them at the counting point.

  Where were those boys?

  The crew arrived and the counting began despite Martinez’s efforts to divert them. Ben pointed out the bad ones, and Digger either roped and dragged them aside or Mark cut them back and drove them to the side bunch.

  Ben also noticed that Mark was learning to heel-rope the steers that Digger caught, so the black youth could get his head rope off the cattle easier. His cattle counter, Billy Jim, sat his horse, and nothing distracted his counting of the passing animals.

  Martinez sat rejected in the buggy, feeding his face on the enormous amount of food a fat woman delivered to him. Ben had no time for him. The boys were doing a good job and things were going smoothly—so far. Inside of an hour, they’d be across the river and trailing the herd north. But he’d better get this business over with and not count his chickens until they hatched.

  “Four hundred fifty-six good ones,” Billy Jack reported when the last steer danced by him.

  “How many culls, Mark?”

  “Thirty-seven.”

  Hap handed him the sack of gold coins from his saddlebags. Ben nodded. “Get them moving; I can catch up.”

  “Four hundred fifty-six is my count. What did you get?” Ben asked.

  Martinez shook his head as if it made no difference.

  “Thirty-seven culls.”

  “Pay me.”

  “Nine hundred and twelve dollars,” Ben said, and dismounted to count out the coins.

  “I am ruined. No matter,” Martinez said, and shook his head.

  “Next time you make a deal, you better know your expenses.”

  “Next time? There will be no next time.”

  “That’s your business,” Ben said, and began making stacks of the coins on the floor of the buggy: nine of a hundred, then twelve dollars more. He pulled the drawstring tight on his canvas sack of money.

  “Señor?”

  Ben turned.

  “May God be with you all the way to Kansas.” Martinez made the sign of a cross.

  “We’ll need him,” Ben said, and booted Roan for the river

  At the river’s edge he watched several of the steers jump off into a few inches of water, land, then, shock-faced, wade on across. They didn’t know what a river meant—they came from down in the real Mexican desert.

  “Help, help, I’m drowning!”

  Ben whirled Roan around. Dru Nelson was in the river downstream from the ford, flailing water with his hands and his feet like a paddleboat.

  Chip rode down the sandy bank, headed for him. Then he reined up his horse and shook his head before he started back out. “Stand up, asshole. It’s only waist-deep where you’re at.”

  The boys obviously had no love for the ex-soldier. He’d have to make his own way to Kansas, from the sounds of things. When Ben glanced back, the thoroughly soaked Nelson looked bedraggled, leading his horse and wading for shore.

  It would be long trek, too.

  Chapter 14

  With night guards—and armed ones—they made the trip without incident or sign of the bandits. Ben felt relieved coming off the grade for the home place. The wagon rattled along and the team of horses within sight of the home corrals picked up speed.

  “You ready for those mules?” Ben shouted over at Hap.

  “Hell, no, but I’ll need them.” Hap gave a wry scowl at him.

  “Digger says they’re ready to pull the wagon. Him and Billy Jim are going to hook them up in the morning.”

  “Bless them two. You know,” Hap yelled over the harness jingle, pounding hooves, and the wagon’s familiar knocks and rattles, “you are damn lucky to gather up that many kids and them make a crew.”

  “We are, Hap. We really are.”

  “I can handle things; you still got a couple hours’ daylight—why don’t you ride over and see her?” Hap asked.

  “I better clean up first.”

  “Don’t take long.” Hap laughed as he rode on. “Tell her I said howdy. I kinda miss taking her deer and eating her pie.”

  Ben waved that he heard him and loped for the house.

  When he came outside in his clean clothes, the boys already had Roan brushed and saddled. They all sat around and nodded when he told them to listen to Hap; then he mounted Roan and started out.

  A half dozen hats sailed underneath him and the gelding began to crow-hop, bucking, kicking, and jumping. Ben managed to head him for the gate, pulling leather and reins. The men’s hurrahs were loud and full of laughter. They did it on purpose. He’d teach those pups a lesson or two.

  “Damn it, Roan, quit!” But the horse didn’t stop humping his back until Ben let him run.

  He crossed Dry Creek and started up the wagon tracks cut into the brown grass. Busy considering where to move the herd for more grass, Ben looked up in time to see someone rein his horse back in the cedars. Cold chills ran down the sides of his face, and he turned Roan off into the dense evergreens. Was it one of Coulter’s men? The man carried a rifle. Ben dismounted, hitched Roan to a bough, hung his spurs on the horn, and started uphill on foot with the .44 in his fist.

  Maybe he was getting paranoid. No, this bunch of hardheads needed a lesson or two. There was no way he intended to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for the next one. He’d heard about these family feuds—wiping out everyone on both sides in back-shooting episodes.

  He paused to listen. Above him he heard the impatient horse stomping around. He moved swiftly, coming around the curtain of cedars and behind the horse and rider.

  “Get your hands up and drop that rifle.” The Colt in his hand was cocked and ready.

  “Huh?”

  “Drop it or die!”

  Seconds ticked by, as if the man wanted to consider his chances of whirling around and firing. Then his shoulders slumped and he dropped the rifl
e and raised his hands.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sam.”

  “Sam Coulter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get off that horse.”

  “Go ahead and shoot me. Get it over with.”

  “Couter, I don’t know what your trouble is, but if you ain’t got any more to do than sit and wait to ambush me, you need something to do.” Ben jerked his handgun out of the man’s holster and stuck it into his waistband.

  “Huh?”

  He guessed Coulter’s age as early twenties. He had blue eyes and light-colored hair that came to his shoulders and needed a currycomb taken to it.

  “Take off those boots. Maybe a barefoot walk home will convince you I mean business.” Ben searched around. No telling where the others were.

  “You think that’ll stop us?”

  “Next time wear your best suit.”

  “Huh?”

  “ ’Cause I’d hate for the county to have to bury you in those rags. Get those boots off.”

  Ben waited until he had them off. “All right, which way are you going?”

  “South.” Coulter pointed in that direction, looking confused, standing in his holey gray socks.

  “Start running. You don’t run fast enough, I intend to shoot you in the foot.”

  “I’m leaving!”

  Ben watched as he holstered his own Colt and drew Coulter’s out. Taking careful aim, he fired a round after the fleeing bushwhacker that kicked up dust to the right and drew more speed from him.

  Crying and groaning, Coulter disappeared off the hillside. Ben picked up the rifle, jammed it in the boot, climbed on Roan, and led the bay horse behind. He didn’t want Coulter to have a chance to ride. He’d turn the animal loose before he got to Jenny’s and the pony should go home. The firearms he planned to keep.

  He needed to know more about the Coulters. If they were that dead-set on revenge, he needed to convince them otherwise or eliminate them. Most of all he worried about Jenny and her boys while they were gone north with the drive. She didn’t need any trouble either.

  He set the bay horse loose a few miles short of her place. Without his bridle and with a hard lash on his butt, the bay tore out for parts unknown. Coulter would be lucky to have a saddle left.

  “Ben, you’re back.” Jenny rushed out carrying her skirt and hugged him when he rode up to her house. “Did you have any trouble?”

  “No,” he said, smelling her clean hair and still wondering how to handle the Coulter mess. Damn, he needed to do something.

  “I’ll have supper in an hour. The boys will be in from chores. Can you stay?” she asked.

  Ben stayed longer than he intended. Jenny’s company had grown to have a settling effect on him. Somehow, with her, he felt free—the worries of the cattle drive, the Coulters’ threats, all flew away, and his money worries even evaporated.

  Her boys in the loft asleep, she sat upon his lap in the straight-backed chair. He wondered where she had been all his life as he hugged her and they kissed sweetly. Their intimate closeness aroused him, but he knew that he could contain it—until he returned. Then the image of the blue-eyed Coulter with his long mane and scraggly facial hair made him want to shudder.

  Chapter 15

  The next morning Ben spoke to his crew. “I want to warn you: Somehow I’m embroiled in a feud. Harold Coulter, any of you know him?”

  Mark nodded. The others shook their heads.

  “Anyway, he and his brothers are out to kill me. They’ve shot at me from ambush, and yesterday one of his brothers was waiting to back-shoot me on the creek road. All I know that I ever did to them was toss Harold Coulter aside when he was drunk.”

  “They’re a mean bunch,” Mark said. “That Harold bothered my maw until she got out the shotgun.”

  “He did?” Ben frowned. That was the first he’d heard anything about her and Coulter.

  “She didn’t want nothing to do with him.”

  “I understand,” Ben said. Maybe that shed some light on the matter; he’d never spoken to her about Coulter. Perhaps this whole feud was more over Jenny than the bar incident.

  “Boys, we need to divide up forces. Mark, you choose three hands. Move the herd west, easy-like. Keep them off those German farms out there. Take a packhorse and some food. I’ll be by to check on you if you have troubles, and I’ll send replacements in a week. Chip and Digger have the horse- and mule-breaking detail.”

  “I’ll go with the herd,” Dru said.

  Ben nodded. “Who else, Mark?”

  “Billy Jim.”

  “Whew,” the full-faced youth said in relief. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  “Toledo, you and Miguel help Chip with the horses. We need lots of that salt taken out of them. Any questions?”

  “Mr. Ben, when we leaving for Kansas?” Toledo asked.

  “Early March, when the grass begins to green up. My daddy always said spring moved north fifteen miles a day. That’s about our speed.”

  “Yes, sah.”

  Ben went back to the house for another cup of coffee. He shouted to Mark, “Take along this rifle I got yesterday. There’s a carton of cartridges for it in here, too.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  Ben nodded, then went in for his coffee and a talk with Hap.

  “I’ve got the panniers filled for them. Billy Jim can probably cook anything they need. That boy’s going to make a hand,” Hap said, rolling out pie dough.

  Ben searched around to be certain they were alone. “Yeah. Mark told me this morning that Coulter tried to court his mother and she ran him off with a shotgun.”

  “Well, kiss my toe.” Hap shook his head. “She ever tell you that?”

  “No, but I’ve never mentioned my problems with him. Didn’t want her upset.”

  “I could never figure how a man that drunk felt all out of place over you tossing him aside.” He sprinkled more flour on the dough through his fingers and then rolled it flatter. “Just didn’t make sense.”

  Ben walked to the window and watched Mark and Billy Jim saddling the packhorse. “You remember Dru being that sour when we were in the army?”

  “No, he’s became an old drunk since he came home. His wife said she thought he was killed and ran off with another guy while he was gone. Wouldn’t come back either after he located her.”

  “He wasn’t the only one lost his wife over the war.”

  “Guess it strikes us all different.”

  “I guess,” Ben said, finishing his coffee. “I’ll help the boys move this new herd out with the rest of them.”

  “Ride careful, and watch out for them Coulters.”

  “I’ll be back late tonight, unless things go well.”

  “Hey, they must have those mules hitched to the wagon, from all the commotion going on,” Hap said, clapping the flour off his hands and heading for the open door.

  Both men stood outside. Digger was on the seat, lines in his hand. A cowboy apiece held on to each mule’s head.

  “Let ’em go!” Digger shouted.

  The mules took off in a stiff-legged trot, then tried to run. But Digger’s feet jammed against the dash and rearing back on the lines was holding a portion of their haste down.

  “Don’t ruin my wagon!” Hap shouted through cupped hands, then shook his head. “Never heard a word I said.”

  “He did,” Ben said, and headed for the pens to get a horse for himself.

  Clouds coming spoke of rain. Things were greening up every warm spell; Ben felt good about the coming drive. Why, it would be over before he knew about it. The steer weren’t exactly what he had in mind. Half should do well—the smaller end would be harder to sell unless they grew like rank weeds between then and when they got there. Some tallow on all of them would help.

  In the afternoon warmth, he spotted a big reddish-brown steer hike up his back leg and toss his head as far as he could reach to lick a spot on his back. The hair curled under the animal’s tongue, and Ben sm
iled. A sure sign cattle were on the mend was when they licked themselves and the hair curled. He headed for the smoke of Billy Jim’s fire.

  “How’s things going, Billy?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  “You ain’t ready to quit, are you?” Ben asked, squatting down on his boot heels.

  “Naw, not me.” The youth shook his head and stirred rice in boiling water.

  “Good. Hap says you’re a good cook.”

  Billy about blushed. “I got a question to ask.” He looked all around to be certain no one else was within hearing range.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The first time you ever went in one of those cat-houses, afterwards did you keep thinking you should go back and marry her?”

  “Yeah.” Ben shook his head. “But you can’t. She won’t, and that’s life.”

  “Been a bothering me a lot. I’m proud you answered me.”

  “I’ve had the same feelings myself. It’ll wear off in time.” Ben clapped him on the shoulder. Millescent had torn him up worse than any woman on earth, and he had been a grown man by then.

  “You must of had fun?” Ben said.

  “Oh, man, that Miguel knew all of them, ah, doves, and he showed us a real good time.” Billy Jim’s face glowed and he checked on the coffeepot. “Want some before you ride back?”

  “No, I better get back. Good luck. Keep an eye out for trouble.”

  “We’ve got that Winchester right over there,” Billy Jim said, and went back to stoking his fire.

  With the sunset at his back, Ben headed back for headquarters.

  The steers acted calm enough once the fighting and jostling was over between individuals in both herds to see who was top steer and the rest under him sorted out their order.

  Eight weeks and they’d be moving out. He could hardly wait, and yet dread filled his mind of the things unplanned, things not yet thought of to do before leaving. The time would pass fast enough. He needed to take Jenny’s boys out and introduce them to his cow-calf herd scattered in the hills. They should have no trouble—most would be calved—save bringing back to his home range some wanderers. So far the mother cows had stayed clear of the big herd and kept to themselves, a fact he appreciated. Cutting anything out of the steers would be a tough job.