The Trail West

by William W. Johnstone

  “But—”

  “That’s enough,” Monahan said crisply, signaling a halt to the proceedings, and Sweeney stilled his tongue. Monahan dug a hand into his possibles bag and pulled out his own dinged tin plate and a fork, as well as Blue’s chipped bowl. “Iffen them beans ain’t ready, I’m gonna eat ’em anyway,” he muttered, scooping a soupy ladleful into the dog’s bowl to cool.

  Blue had given up tossing his rabbit skin around—which was just as well so far as Monahan could tell, for the hide had become a tattered, unrecognizable, muddy lump—and came to sit beside the fire. He eyed his bowl and hungrily licked his chops.

  Monahan shook the spoon at him. “You just hold off until I say,” he warned. “That there’s too hot for dogs. ’Sides, I’m gonna put some rabbit in it for you.” He turned toward Sweeney. “You got a plate?”

  “Guess I know where I rank around here,” Sweeney said sheepishly. With a smile, he held out his dish.

  Long after Monahan was asleep with the dog stretched out beside him and snoring softy, Sweeney stared up at the stars. Damned if it wasn’t something, his meeting up with Dooley Monahan and actually riding along with him! He was Frank James’s cousin! All right, it was a second cousin and by marriage to boot, but Sweeney didn’t much worry about the details.

  He’d tried to pump Monahan for more information about the Baylor brothers, and why they were dogging him. After all, if those mean no-accounts were on Monahan’s trail, he wanted to know the reason why. Not that he actually wanted to tangle with them, no sir. But it would be an interesting story to add to Monahan’s legend. Sweeney was all for interesting stories.

  However, every single time he broached the subject, Monahan either changed it or ignored him. It seemed the old cowboy was embarrassed by talking about the Baylors. Any man who had done the things he had done and known the people he had known ought to be more convivial. Why, he ought to be downright eager to share stories! At least, that’s the way Sweeney looked at it.

  He hoped Monahan would open up after they got to know each other a little better. Riding with a famous man who knew celebrated people—and was sort of related to at least one of them—was a long stretch from growing up an orphaned kid, kept practically a slave by fat old Fess Wattlesborg at his lonely place up in the mountains.

  Sweeney could picture the sign out front of the shack. HOOCH AND EATS AND TRADE—WATTLESBORG’S ROAD.

  The “road” was a narrow trail not wide enough for two horses abreast, and it was snowed in three-quarters of the year. Oh, he could just hear Wattlesborg. “Clean them stalls again, you lazy little peckerwood, and do it right or you’ll get a right proper lickin’! Here I took you in outta the kindness o’ my heart, and you ain’t once showed me the proper gratitude!”

  It had seemed to Sweeney, still heartsick over the loss of his folks, that he could never clean the stalls right. Nor did he rub down Wattlesborg’s roan mare good enough to suit him, or cut enough firewood, or treat the customers right—when they had customers for the rank mash Wattlesborg brewed and the venison steaks he sold to trappers and the occasional passerby at two bits a plate, or in trade for pelts. Wattlesborg was a hard man indeed, fat and tall and strong and nearly always sozzled and looking for trouble.

  Sweeney had spent four long years, from the age of twelve until just after his sixteenth birthday, either bloody and bruised and curled on his pallet from one of Wattlesborg’s punishments. Either that, or facing up to a new beating.

  But come his sixteenth year, Sweeney had been blessed with a growing spurt, going from five-foot-six to six feet tall in less than eight months, and one day he’d finally owned the courage to hit Wattlesborg back.

  He guessed he’d been madder—and Wattlesborg drunker—than he thought, because the man didn’t hit him back. When Sweeney up and slugged him, he went down in the straw in a surprised three hundred and fifty pound heap.

  And Sweeney had kept on slugging.

  Wattlesborg was still breathing when Sweeney left the barn. He supposed he’d given the fat man no better or worse than he’d ever given him. Better, maybe, because the beating was administered with his own righteous bare knuckles instead of a rake handle or a harness strap or a club plucked from the woodpile, the instruments of punishment Wattlesborg usually favored.

  Worse, perhaps, because Sweeney had huffed and puffed and finally managed to drag the senseless Wattlesborg right up behind that old mare of his. The roan had obliged by lifting her tail and dropping a steaming pile of fresh manure right on Wattlesborg’s chest, and she followed it up with a long hot stream of piss. He guessed the roan had a few scores to settle with Wattlesborg, too.

  Afterwards, he took off through the snow on foot. Not the best idea for a kid whose britches hit him mid-calf and whose sleeves didn’t come close to his wrists. Not the best idea when it was still winter in the mountains, and the snowdrifts were deeper than he was tall. But he hadn’t wanted to steal Wattlesborg’s horse and give the man a solid excuse to follow him.

  He had made it to civilization with a little help from a crusty old rock-breaker who found him near the base of the San Francisco Peaks, half frozen to death and mewling for his long-dead mama. At least, that was what the rock-breaker had told him once he thawed out.

  Sweeney spent the next few years on the wander, sweeping floors and clerking, emptying spittoons, and delivering telegrams. The pay wasn’t much and the jobs were boring, but nobody tried to beat him senseless, and Wattlesborg had never come looking for him. Leastwise, not that he knew of.

  When he was nineteen and working at Trimble’s Mercantile up in Bonny Fir, he all of a sudden got it into his head that he was born to be a cowboy. It was a dang fool notion. He’d never been close enough to a live cow to put his hand on it, and he’d never been able to afford a horse, let alone ride one. At least, not since he was twelve.

  But he’d had an empty place in him, a vacancy created by parents gone to Jesus, or perhaps by those four lonely, aching years with that stinking pile of suet, Wattlesborg. That empty place had needed filling. In retrospect, he supposed it was the romance of the sound of spurs that finally did it, the manly jingle and clank of them on Trimble’s scarred wood floor.

  Exactly three weeks later, Monahan had pulled him out from under that bronc.

  Oh, he’d learned to ride and rope, all right, but he hadn’t filled the empty place. And since then, nearly four years of drifting hadn’t filled it, either. He supposed he’d always feel the hollowness.

  Sweeney turned on his side and studied Monahan and the dog. Monahan slept tidily, with his arms folded over his chest, his hat pulled over his eyes, and the blanket all tucked in around him, neat as a pin. Not Blue. The dog had rolled over on its back and lay belly-up, its feathery legs spread, its lower jaw and throat turned skyward, its lips flopped back to reveal pink gums and teeth broken long ago, probably by some cow’s well-placed kick.

  “If that ain’t a picture of comfort, I ain’t never seen one,” Sweeney whispered, his eyelids drooping.

  He’d never imagined Ray Morgan’s old cow dog would go with anybody else, no matter that Ray was dead. Ray had told him Blue had wandered into his place a few years back and made himself to home. Morgans never knew where he came from.

  “Bet that dog could tell me a few good stories, too,” he muttered, and pulled his blanket closer, hunkering into it against the cold. “Everybody around here’s so damn closemouthed you’d think they was statues,” he grumbled, and let his eyes drift closed.

  7

  “He camped here, all right.” Dev Baylor stood up and brushed at his knees, scowling at the fresh grass stains. Unlike his brother, he was careful about his clothes, and tried to keep them clean and pressed, a difficult task when a fellow was on the trail of a murdering, back-shooting coward. Keeping his duds tidy would be even more difficult when they finally caught up to Monahan.

  He imagined there would be quite a lot of blood.

  Dev paused to run a finger down one side
of his well-groomed mustache, and curled his fingers to follow the line of the goatee, trimmed perfectly that morning, as it was every morning. The man admired himself above all else, and didn’t skimp on self-grooming.

  Sweeping back a black duster, he cocked a fist on his hip and speculated, “A night ago. Maybe two. Hard to tell on accounta all this grass.”

  “Jason woulda knowed,” said Alf, by far the slower of the duo. In his stained overcoat, he stood a few yards away, bent at the waist and sweeping the deep, dewy grass from side to side with long, scarecrow arms.

  “Jason’s dead,” said Dev.

  “I knowed it. You don’t need to go remindin’ me all the time.” Alf peered down into the grass again. “I’m still thinkin’ it’s a wolf,” he muttered before he stood erect and smiled.

  Something was intrinsically wrong with Alf’s smile, always had been. Even after so many years, Dev wasn’t used to it. Probably never would be.

  “I’da liked to see that! Him all tore apart and screamin’ and such.” Alf continued as if all their problems were solved and the slate was wiped clean. He dug two fingers into a pocket of his filthy vest, happily announcing, “This calls for a tune!”

  Before Alf had blown two wavering notes on his harmonica, Dev snapped, “Put that stinkin’ thing away, Alf!” The poor idiot could be downright moronic, even on his good days.

  Dev was thinking he never should’ve broken him out of that asylum back in Arkansas. He should have just left him there to rot to a ripe old age, with three squares a day.

  After all, Alf had said he kind of liked it there. Somebody had taught him to play the mouth organ.

  Dev sighed, wishing he could get his hands on the music teacher for five minutes.

  He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of his brother in the loony bin and had busted Alf out. Back then, he had another brother to help keep an eye on Alf. Another brother some peckerwood cowhand named Dooley Monahan had seen fit to cruelly murder while the brothers had split up, waiting for the uproar to die down over that unpleasantness outside Salt Lake. Now he was stuck with Alf, God help him.

  With a pained expression on his narrow face, Alf lowered the harmonica. “You just ain’t got no joy in you, Dev.”

  “Listen, Alf,” Dev said slowly, waiting a moment until he was certain he had his brother’s full attention. “It weren’t no wolf. It was a dog. Them tracks are too round for a wolf. Plus which”—he pulled himself up slightly—“the dog was here at the same time Monahan was.”

  “Was too a wolf,” Alf said stubbornly.

  Dev ignored him, knowing if he didn’t he would go as batty as Alf. “And here. See? Some of Monahan’s boot marks are right on top of that dog’s, overlappin’ like. And sometimes it’s vice versa.”

  Alf started to raise a question, and Dev hurriedly added, “Means the other way round.”

  Alf’s face wadded into the same expression—you’re not gonna tell me no different or I’ll get me a blade and carve up your mama—that had been his trademark since he was five. “You think you’re real smart, don’t you, Mr. Smarty?” Alf’s eyes narrowed and fists clenched.

  He had already carved up and killed their mother—and daddy—some years ago. The way the brothers had seen it, it wasn’t that much of a loss.

  In another minute he’d start stomping his feet. Either that, or pull a blade.

  Dev closed his eyes for a moment and muttered, “Give me strength.” He turned toward Alf again with forced cheeriness. “Why, you woulda seen it yourself, Alf, if you’d been over here! You was just lookin’ in the wrong spot, that’s all.”

  “Oh,” Alf said slowly, drawing the word out to three syllables. He brightened. “A little mouth organ music, then!” He began to blow out “Camptown Races.” It was the only tune he knew, and he played it very badly. For some reason, he couldn’t play the high note at the end of the phrase, “Gonna run all night,” and had to stop and sing out the word night instead, every time.

  The reason for this eluded Dev, but then, a lot of things about Alf eluded him, even the name of the song. He could never remember the name. “Camptown Races” or “Camptown Ladies.” Jason had been better with him.

  Squinting against the assault on his ears, Dev shouted, “Let’s move out!”

  Alf nodded, never taking the harmonica away from his lips, and hopped from foot to foot, dancing a jig over to his horse. As they rode out of the beaver meadow, birds fled the sound of that caterwauling mouth organ in great, rising flocks.

  Dev hoped the dog stayed with Monahan. A man and a dog would be a whole lot easier to track than a man alone. His tracking skills weren’t the best, anyhow. He needed all the help he could get. Hand-to-hand fights, a little rustling, a little stage robbery: those were his strong suits. A hand-to-hand fight with a knife was the best. It stirred a man’s blood, especially when he knew from the start that he was going to win.

  Despite his less than superior tracking skills, it was the closest they’d been to Monahan. At least, he hoped it was Monahan. He hoped he hadn’t got off the track somewhere, and they hadn’t taken to trailing a whole different fellow entirely. It had happened about six or eight months ago, up in Utah.

  When they’d finally found the man they’d killed him anyway, just because they were so damn mad about wasting two whole months. Well, he was, anyway. Alf had killed him just for the sport of it.

  What if the trail turned out to be a wrong one? Hell, Dev reckoned he’d let Alf kill whomever it was they’d trailed, and his dog, as well. The gall of some people, making him think they were somebody else and wasting his precious time!

  He mounted his horse, straightened his jacket, smoothed his trousers, and rode at a lope into the trees, catching up with Alf. Sometimes he lost the track but always miraculously—to his mind, leastwise—Alf found it again. Things were better when Jason was alive, a lot better. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’d tracked like a goddamned bloodhound.

  Slowly, they picked their way down the mountain, with Alf enthusiastically playing that sorry harmonica—and stopping far too often to sing a high, cracked, “Night!”

  Dev hunched in his saddle and scouted the trail, fretting over the new wrinkles he was putting in his shirt.

  Far to the south, the panting dog waited patiently on a rocky creek bank at the bottom of the steep-sided canyon. The morning was clear and bright and crisp, the canyon was wide, and the creek was shallow and fast and sparkling.

  Monahan and Sweeney were only halfway down from the northern rim, leaning back in their saddles and hanging on for dear life as their horses skittishly navigated a rocky slide, leaving their path something less than vertical, but not much. There hadn’t been another way around—not unless they wanted to waste a day.

  Monahan and General Grant hit the bottom at last, and the horse came up out of the half squat he’d assumed for the entire trip. He snorted in complaint and shook his head, his bridle jingling. Sweeney and the strawberry roan weren’t far behind.

  “Seems to me somebody real smart oughta build a bridge over this thing,” Sweeney complained. “I wouldn’t mind payin’ a toll.”

  Monahan dismounted to make sure General Grant hadn’t skinned his hocks on the slide down, and Sweeney got down to check his roan, whose name, he had informed Monahan, was Chili. The General still had all of his hide, and Monahan patted him on the rump. “Good fella.”

  “Chili’s fine, too, in case anybody’s interested.” Sweeney pulled down his canteen and took a long drink. “Where was I? I mean, when I got interrupted by this here mountain we had to skitter down?”

  Monahan grimaced. “Ain’t you tired of talkin’, boy? Seems to me you’d want to give your throat a rest.” He knew if they followed the canyon for about four miles, there was an easy place to get out along the southern rim. Another day in the saddle, and they’d be at Tom Sykes’s place, and the kid could use up his jawing at the other hands.

  If somebody didn’t shoot him first.

>   Monahan clucked to the General and led him down to the river to drink. Sweeney and Chili followed. The dog stood up, barked, and wiggled his butt at Monahan’s approach. He sure was an eager cuss, all right. He’d made it down that slope in slap time, and seemed to enjoy every minute of it, like it was a game made up just for him.

  In fact, Monahan didn’t believe he’d ever known a dog to be so dad-blamed joyous about everything. Except for the time when they’d been at the ranch, of course. Blue had been downright pitiful back there, and Monahan couldn’t fault him for it, not a bit. But he’d be skinned if that critter didn’t have a natural smile on his chops most all the time!

  Sweeney’s roan had finished drinking, and after he refilled his canteen, he ruffled the dog’s fur and mounted up with a creak of leather. He looked down at Monahan. “Don’t know why you’re still lookin’ for those Apache. And don’t tell me you ain’t. I got eyes, and I see you lookin’ behind every bush. Carmichael figured they took off with half a butchered steer in their packs, and leadin’ a live milk cow to boot.”

  Monahan suddenly found himself thinking about milk cows. His ma’s milk cow, to be exact. The one he was supposed to bring home so many years ago. Had she ever gotten it, he wondered. As quickly as it had come, the thought vanished from his mind.

  “Took the horses in the barn, too, three of ’em,” Sweeney was going on. “They’re halfway to Mexico by now.”

  “Maybe.” Monahan stepped up into his saddle with a complaint of saddle leather and joints, the joints being his. Actually, he’d pretty much decided those Apache had headed south, and in a considerable hurry. He was more worried about the Baylor brothers. He had one of those crawling feelings again.

  “Well, then, why’re we taking this roundabout way?” Sweeney insisted. “We coulda gone through a town or something by now, for cryin’ out loud! I coulda had me a beer!”