The Abilene Trail

by Dusty Richards

  Perhaps he was getting edgy. After he tied the flag up for Hap, he shoved the rifle into the scabbard, checked his cinch, and headed back for the herd in a short lope. He looked over his shoulder a lot and saw nothing out of place, but still, his gut instinct said to watch carefully. No one wanted to steal a herd in Texas, but a week’s drive away from a place to sell them wouldn’t be a bad deal.

  “Hap,keep that shotgun close. Have Lou tie the horses on a picket line, and break out the Spencers.” He reined up in camp.

  “You see trouble today?”

  “Three white men acted real interested in my business near the creek where I left the marker for you.”

  Hap rubbed his whiskered mouth on the side of his fist. “Damn, I thought we were going to get there unscathed, Ben.”

  “I may only be jumpy, but they acted like they were up to no good.”

  “We’ll be ready.”

  “Good, don’t take any chances.”

  “I won’t. You see that smoke in the west?”

  Ben nodded. He’d seen the black smoke at a good distance from them so far. “Prairie fire. There will be more of them, if it doesn’t rain.”

  “Hell, I was halfway enjoying being dry.”

  Both men laughed. And Ben rode on to talk to the boys with the herd.

  Sunset scorched the western skies. Bobwhites whistled, and even a whippoorwill began his calling. The camp bristled with rifles. Everyone listened. Digger was busy setting limb lines to catch catfish. His contributions made their meals more varied, and the others even helped him fillet them. The day’s heat evaporated.

  Miguel put his finger to his lip, took up his Spencer, and headed from camp, moving low for the trees beyond the fire’s light. Chip indicated that he heard something, and Ben took up a rifle and placed it over his lap.

  “Hello, the camp.”

  Ben nodded to the crew. “Hello, yourself. Door’s open.”

  “Guess them steers are yours?” a man in a suit said. Three men in cowboy gear came behind him.

  “Name’s Radamacher. My boys here and I wanted to come by and warn you.”

  Ben nodded, not offering to get up nor shake the man’s hand.

  Radamacher wore a brown suit and a derby hat—no ordinary drover. He looked more like a business-man than anything else, yet Ben didn’t trust his shifty eyes sizing everything up as he stood, arms folded, in the reddish-orange fire light.

  “Good. Being from so far away we could stand some warning,” Ben said.

  “Well, this cattle market has fallen apart,” Radamacher said, and his men nodded like the world had ended. “There’s been runs on the banks back east, and an army of unemployed and veterans have marched on Washington. Can I show you the article?” He reached into his coat and drew out a folded newspaper.

  Ben accepted it and unfolded the Saint Louis Chronicle. Headlines said what the man spoke about. The date of issue was Sunday, March 21, 1868. Ben shook his head ruefully. “Looks bad. What are you doing?”

  “Since cattle prices are so low and many herds are gathered around up here, I came out to offer to buy your herd. I know you’ve got lots of expenses and no doubt owe money. I have some markets in the Midwest, but they’ll only take fifty head a week, and at a much reduced price.”

  “Go on,” Ben said.

  “I can offer you four dollars a head in gold coin for your herd.”

  “That sure isn’t much.” Ben studied the man, who had dropped to squat, balancing on his dapper shoes. “Let me think on that, Mr. Radamacher.”

  “Well, there are several herds already up here I can buy, but you looked like an honest man, so I really felt I should offer you this first.”

  “I see.”

  Ben set the rifle aside and rose to his feet. The buyer threw his head back and stood. “You will find no markets in Abilene, sir. My offer can’t hold for very long. I assure you, sir, that you will rue the day you didn’t accept my generous offer.”

  “Sure, I will. Thanks for coming by.” Ben motioned to the toughs still in the shadows. “I’ll take my chances in Abilene, and anyone tries to take this herd can expect a bellyful of lead.”

  “I’m a reputable cattle buyer,” Radamacher said, as if offended by his words.

  “Still, you heard me. Don’t mess with me or my hands.”

  “Well, I can see that you’re too hardheaded to accept a genuine offer. I feel sorry for you when you have to winter your stock up here and take less next year than I offered for them. Like that newspaper said, the U.S. economy is in a shambles.”

  Ben waved him off and the four men left.

  “What made you not do business with him?” Mark asked, looking off in the darkness after them. “Besides they were fish eyes.”

  “The twenty-first of March wasn’t on a Sunday this year.”

  “Huh?” Billy Jim asked.

  “That Saint Louis newspaper I’d never heard of, and I’ve never heard of any of them was dated Sunday, March twenty-first.”

  “How do you figure that, Ben?”

  “It was a phony newspaper printed to show me how bad the market was so I’d panic and sell to him.”

  “How did they do that?” Digger asked.

  Ben shook his head. “They can do all sorts of things, including print counterfeit money. Wouldn’t be no problem to print a dummy newspaper.”

  Billy Jim shook his head in disbelief. “Guess that’s why you’re the boss.”

  Ben nodded and went off to relieve himself. He hoped those men headed his warning. And the whole thing was a hoax. The night wind swept over his bearded face. Jenny, I’ll be headed home soon, God willing.

  Chapter 22

  Abilene, aside from the wooden framework of a two-story building going up, hardly impressed Ben when he rode in town wearing his new leather shirt under his rain gear. He saw dirt-roofed cabins, several freighter wagons, and oxen teams in the street. There were unballasted railroad tracks, freshly built shipping pens, and new Fairbanks ten-ton scales—but not much signs of any other progress as the steady rain drilled down on his slicker.

  He dropped off the gray and hitched him before a place marked Fine Foods. He beat the water off his hat on the leaky porch and pushed inside.

  A tall man with a full mustache, wearing a suit and Ben guessed about thirty years old nodded to him. “You must have just arrived?”

  “Ben McCollough, Kerr Mac County, Texas.”

  “Joe McCoy. Pleased to meet you, Ben.”

  “Well, Colonel, you’re the reason I am here. Your man Blair was down in Texas last fall and told me about this place. Followed his map, in fact.”

  “Have any trouble?”

  Ben shook his head. “One thing worried me: There’s rumors that the market is gone.”

  McCoy clapped him on the shoulder. “Those dirty buggers meet you down south and said sell to them? Market’s gone?”

  “Even had a newspaper said so.”

  McCoy narrowed his eyes and looked hard at Ben. “You didn’t believe them?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Fat steers sold for forty dollars today. How many of them do you have?”

  “Four hundred. Plus four hundred two-year-olds in good flesh.”

  “The twos should get you twenty-two if they’re good ones.”

  “Your man last fall said they needed steers, not cows, not heifers. I brought steers.”

  “Smart man. I think some drovers left home with all they had on the place and then they wonder why they can’t get them sold.”

  “You eaten?” Ben asked.

  “Yes, but help yourself, Ben. I’ll be talking to you. In fact, come by afterward and see Mr. Kane; he may want to look at your cattle.”

  “Scales?”

  “Yes. My new offices aren’t built yet. Good to meet you, and glad you didn’t believe those scoundrels.”

  “So am I,” Ben said. McCoy would never know how hard Radamacher’s first words had kicked him in the chest. All that way for nothing,
he had feared. A rascal was all he was.

  An hour later he talked to Orlon Kane in McCoy’s office, and the men discussed cattle prices.

  “This rain lets up, I’ll be out where you’re holding your herd. In the morning Ralston Farnam may be with me. He needs some feeder cattle for some Illinois farmers that the twos might fit.”

  Ben shook his hand and left for camp. It was the fifteenth of April and he might already have his herd sold. If he could be that lucky. Going back to camp, he understood what McCoy meant about mixed herds. There were cattle grazing in all directions—cows, calves, even, along with yearlings and old castrated bulls. They must have figured the market was so good that they could sell anything.

  That was the reason his old buyer in Mexico had complained so about Ben’s demand for steers only. It was a lot easier to grab anything and rustle it. He listened to a meadowlark’s shrill five-note call. Clouds were breaking up; the morning might bring one of the greatest days in his life.

  “What’re we doing?” Chip asked when he dismounted.

  “Cross your fingers, and Toledo, burn a candle in the church. Buyers are coming in the morning to look at them. Both sets.”

  “Whew,” Chip said, and the others nodded approval.

  “What’s town like?” Billy Jim asked.

  “Dirt-floored saloons. It’s a tough-looking place, and fat, ugly women’s all I saw you’d be interested in.”

  “Why, I thought Abilene was a big city.”

  “A grubby hole so far. They’re building on it.”

  “Ugly fat women?” Chip asked, taken aback.

  “They may be hiding all the pretty ones, but the ones I saw you could smell across the street.”

  Mark laughed. “Guess we’ll have to go back to Mexico, Billy Jim.”

  “He ain’t forgot her either,” Chip added.

  “Least she wasn’t fat, ugly, and smelled bad,” Billy Jim said.

  “I take you back,” Miguel said.

  “Boys, I bought a bottle of whiskey to celebrate. Get your cups. In a few days you can go in and see the Sodom and Gomorrah of the plains.”

  Hap laughed and shoved a cup at him. “I’ll be ready. You selling the horses too?”

  “Never thought about it. They might be worth more here than back at home. We could cut out what we need to ride home on and sell the rest. How about your mules?”

  “We’d have to sell the wagon.”

  “You ain’t married to it, are you?”

  “Lord, no, I’d love for someone else to have them biting, kicking flea bags.”

  “We’d have to go home with some packhorses.”

  “Greasy-sack outfit, huh?” Hap raised his whiskey to the others. “Here’s to Texas, where us Rebs belong.”

  Ben looked up and saw Toledo riding in hard.

  “Señor Ben, those men came the other night are out by the herd.”

  “Radamacher?”

  “Sí. I counted several more too.”

  “Get the rifles, Hap. Catch your horses, boys.”

  In minutes they were armed, mounted, and hurrying for the herd. When they came within sight of them, Toledo pointed to the men wearing flour-sack masks. They were firing pistols in the air to spook the cattle. Ben rose up in the stirrups on the rocking gait of the gray, squeezed his knees to the fenders, and fired the Spencer. He levered in another cartridge, and then another. The rustlers veered off, but they had the cattle on the run.

  “Mark, you take some hands and get the herd back. Chip, you come with me. We’re going to end this bunch’s stealing once and for all.”

  He and the ex-ranger pushed hard. The rustlers disappeared over the ridge and out of sight toward the Smoky Hill river country. Tracks were plain in the mud, and in a few hours they led Ben and Chip to a good-sized soddy in the river bottom under some large walnut trees.

  A dozen or so spent, lathered horses stood around, hip-shot, still saddled. Ben and Chip, with several tubes of cartridges and their rifles, used stealth to get close in.

  “What’re we going to do next?” Chip asked, on his belly and parting the tall grass to better see the structure.

  “Someone’s coming outside,” Ben said under his breath, taking aim.

  Chip nodded.

  “Nobody’s out here,” the rustler shouted back toward the house.

  “Put your hands up,” Ben ordered, using an uprooted cottonwood tree for cover.

  The outlaw went for his pistol. The black smoke from the revolver fringed his face as the .50-caliber rifle bullet struck his chest and threw him backward six feet and onto his back.

  “You got one chance,” Ben shouted. “Come out unarmed. Hands in the air!” His order echoed back. There was no sign of anyone obeying him.

  A figure showed himself with a handgun. Chip’s Spencer barked and the shooter screamed, falling back inside. Then from the two windows a host of pistol shots answered him.

  Ben fired into the window on the left, with a tinkle of glass and the cries of a man hit. Chip’s barrage did the same on the right one. Another desperate outlaw charged out the door with a six-gun in each hand—he died a few steps from the opening, facedown in the dirt.

  “How many are left?” Chip asked.

  “Can’t be many.” Ben rolled over and saw Mark and Billy Jim coming down the slope.

  “Guess they got the herd slowed down,” Chip said, and turned back.

  “I didn’t figure they’d run far,” Ben said, turning his attention back on the soddy.

  “Herd’s fine,” Mark said, taking a place beside them. “They didn’t run anywhere.”

  “Good. Those buzzards are inside, but they may be carving their way out the back. Chip, you and Billy Jim want to head around there?”

  “Sure,” Chip said, and, running in a crouch with Billy on his heels, he skirted the house.

  In minutes there were more rifle shots. Ben rose. “Time to close in.”

  The two raced to the side of the soddy. Gunsmoke boiled out the door as Ben rested his shoulder against the thick, matted roots that made the block wall. Wounded men moaned. He drew a deep breath, set down the rifle, and took out his Colt.

  “Give up or get ready to die!”

  “We give up. Coming out.”

  Ben gave an exhale of relief. “Hands high, and get out here.”

  “We’ve got the back, Ben,” Chip shouted.

  Mark moved in and disarmed them as they filed out, hands high, grumbling, some of them bloody from wounds.

  “Two in here are dead,” Chip said, and he came out coughing on the thick smoke.

  Billy Jim followed him out, equally choking on gunsmoke. “Bad in there. Whew.”

  “Mark, gather ropes and horses.”

  “I’ll help,” Billy Jim said.

  Chip lined the four outlaws against the wall of the house.

  “What’re you going to do with us?” the hard-faced older one asked.

  “Why, hang you, of course,” Ben said.

  “Figured so,” the outlaw said.

  Despite the rustlers’ angry protests, Ben and his men tied their hands behind their backs, mounted them on horseback, dropped nooses over some thick limbs of the cottonwoods breaking their dormancy with a shower of new green leaves.

  Each outlaw was in a saddle; only the wind in the tree-tops and the sniffling of one of the rustlers could be heard. Ben swung his coil of lariat and busted the older one’s horse on the butt and then three others followed suit. The rustlers danced their final set and one of them released his bowels.

  Ben never looked back; he headed for the gray. Justice was served. Except Radamacher. He’d make him pay too, before it was all over.

  Out of breath, Billy Jim caught up with him. “Less and less like a picnic,” he said, and caught his horse.

  Ben agreed.

  Chapter 23

  The two buyers came in a buckboard. They drove out to a high point with Ben, Chip, and Mark. The multicolored longhorns spread across the brown-grass prair
ie occasionally lifted a head out of curiosity to look in their direction.

  “How many culls?” Kane asked.

  Ben nodded at Mark to speak.

  “Four hundred and six good steers in the big ones. Twenty more are not as good. They aren’t bad, but might limp some.”

  “I don’t need anything but good steers,” Kane said.

  “Four hundred six, then, that we can deliver, sir.”

  “I’d give thirty-five dollars apiece for them.”

  Ben stood looking off to the south. He hadn’t ridden across the face of the earth to be robbed. He shook his head. “I’d take forty-two and not check with anyone.”

  “Whew,” Kane said, and made an angry face at him.

  Ben slapped his chaps with the ends of the reins. “Mr. Farnam, are you interested in the two-year-olds?”

  “Yes, you have how many head?” the thinner man asked, taking off his fancy hat and scratching the nearly bald crown of his head.

  “We can deliver four hundred ten head,” Mark said to Ben’s nod of approval.

  “They all as uniform as I see?”

  “Here, take Roan and ride through them,” Ben offered. “These cattle aren’t crazy.”

  “I noticed. Those corn farmers hate wild cattle.”

  Ben held out the reins for the man, who refused with a head shake.

  “I’d bid twenty-three dollars apiece on a close cull.”

  “Make it twenty-five and I’ll throw in the ten,” Ben said. No need to be greedy. That was ten thousand. He could turn his back on the rest and ride home a richer man than he expected. Kane wasn’t through either.

  The bays hitched to the buckboard snorted in the grass and shifted their weight, making the harness jingle. A steer bawled, and the cry was taken up by the strong south wind that whipped the grass tops like ocean waves.

  “I think you’re probably the best cattleman I’ve dealt with,” Ralston said. “No heifers in there?”

  “Not that’s ours,” Ben said.

  “We haven’t seen one,” Chip said, and grinned. “We’ve looked them over a lot.”

  Mark chuckled to himself and nodded. “We’ve sure seen them all.”