The Trail West

by William W. Johnstone

  Butch came skidding up beside him, breathless and muttering, “Is he okay? Is he okay?”

  The boy was stirring, and Monahan nodded. “He’s fine. Gonna be fine and dandy.” He put a hand on Buckshot Bob’s shoulder and added, “That’s enough, Bob. You pump at him anymore, you’re gonna make him spit up his lungs.”

  Smiling like a madman, Bob turned the boy faceup, pulled him up, and crushed him to his chest. “Robbie, my Robbie.” He wept.

  Robbie’s arms came up to circle his pa’s neck and he began to weep, too.

  “Let’s get him back up to the house,” Monahan said.

  Buckshot Bob got to his feet, carrying the boy. They started toward the house before Monahan remembered the dog.

  “Take him on back,” Dooley said to Butch. “I’ll take care of the horses.” And the dog, he thought. As the others walked back to the house, he cast his gaze about for Blue, and found him not far from where he’d last seen him—standing over the place where he’d dragged the unconscious boy, his coat still dripping with muddy water.

  “Damned if you ain’t somethin’ else, dog,” he said quietly, shaking his head. For a moment, he wondered if it was some sort of shift in the eternal equilibrium of things. The dog had lost one boy scarcely older that Robbie, and he had just insured that Robbie kept on breathing—quite literally—for some time to come.

  He shook his head again and felt a chill shudder through him. Surely the Good Lord would strike him dead for even thinking . . .

  But the Lord didn’t strike him, and he pushed the thought—the whole business—from his mind, squatted down on his haunches, and held out his hand, repeating, “You’re somethin’ else, Blue.”

  Wagging its hindquarters, the dog came over to him, sat down, and held forth its wet paw.

  “What? You wanna shake my hand?”

  The dog waved its paw in the air, and Monahan took it and gave it a firm, pumping shake before he stood up again. “You better come on, Blue. I gotta get them horses, or else find ’em if they run off! And you, you old blue goose, we gotta dig you out from all that mud you’re dryin’ under.” He started toward the backs of the outbuildings with the dog, rear end wiggling, at his heels.

  17

  “Because, in my ‘sperience, most medical men are the honest sort,” Monahan said.

  It was the next afternoon, and he and Sweeney and young Julia and Blue were on the road again, traveling west, backtracking over the Mormon Trail. They had set out at six in the morning, and Monahan was just getting around to telling the others what had possessed him to leave Mae and Bob’s so early in the morning, especially when they were so grateful about the rescue of their boy they probably would have been happy to let them move in, permanent-like. As it was, a weeping Mae had stuffed a gunnysack full of food for the trail, and it clunked against Julia’s leg once for every strike of her horse’s left front foot.

  “Doesn’t mean he was,” Butch said doggedly. He hadn’t let up once he started in.

  “Don’t mean as how he wasn’t, either,” Monahan answered, probably extending Butch’s question and answer session for another half hour. But he was almost past caring.

  “Oh, stop it, you two!” Julia growled. “Honest to Pete!” She turned toward Monahan. “All he asked was why we cut out like that. Without talkin’ it over, I mean. I mean, he means. He meant. Oh, cripes! Now you got me all confused, too!”

  “Sorry, Miss Julia,” Monahan said with a tip of his hat. And for the instant, he truly meant it.

  “Then, can we stop and have lunch now?” she asked.

  “If we’re votin’, put me down for her side,” Sweeney jumped in. “I’m hungry!”

  “That stuff Mae packed up for us looks too good to put off eatin’ any longer!” Julia had herself set on it.

  “All right, all right,” Monahan said in self-defense, reining General Grant over to one side of the trail. The ground was littered with too much broken glass to veer all the way off, he figured.

  Those Mormons had sure been bottle slingers! he thought as he dismounted. When the sun was right, its light glittered off two endless lines of broken bottles—baby bottles, jars of fruit or vegetables, patent medicine, with an occasional broken mirror or lantern shade thrown in for variety—that bracketed the trail the Mormon wagons had worn into the land. There was enough glittering glass that if he could paint something on it to hold the light for a few extra hours, a man could travel in light all the way to California, even after sundown! That was sure one humdinger of an idea, wasn’t it? Smiling to himself, he scratched General Grant’s forehead.

  That wouldn’t work. It had to be oil lamps! If he could just set down a lit oil lamp every ten feet or so . . .

  “Wake up!” Julia at him.

  He blinked. Apparently he’d been daydreaming.

  Julia and Butch had dismounted and were staring at him with the most incredulous looks on their faces.

  Monahan cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

  It was enough. Sweeney still stared at him, but Julia held out a sack, its mouth open. “Ham, fried chicken, or boiled eggs. You choose.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Which do you want? We’ve got ham, fried chicken, and boiled eggs . . . and bread to make sandwiches.” She was looking at him like he was a ninny.

  Well, he supposed he was. “Fried chicken, if you please.

  “Best water the horses, boy,” he instructed, to give the young cowboy something to keep him from thinking any questions going on in his head. “Dog’s bound to be thirsty, too.”

  Sweeney let out a bland, “Right,” without looking at him. As he retrieved the canteens he looked back several times to see how Julia was coming along with the vittles bag. When he returned with the water, Monahan held out the General’s empty nose bag and Blue’s bowl and Butch filled both.

  It turned out he wasn’t the one Monahan needed to worry about.

  After she’d handed Sweeney a thick ham sandwich, given a couple of pieces of fried hen to Monahan, and pulled a couple of thick pieces of ham off the bone for herself Julia sat on the ground and said, “So, start from the beginnin’, Dooley.”

  She munched on her ham and stared at him like she thought if she stared long enough, he would eventually tell her what she wanted to hear.

  She was right.

  He pulled up some ground and sat down across from her, barely aware Sweeney had sat down and was listening intently. “All right. The reason we left first thing this mornin’ was that I was afraid if we didn’t, the reason for leavin’ would get lost in the shuffle.”

  “I’m lost right now,” said Julia.

  “Don’t blame you, missy. Let me say out more of it, and mayhap you can put the pieces together better ’n me. I’m a little confuddled on the details.”

  She narrowed her brows, but stayed quiet.

  “Reckon Butch has already told you about Buckshot Bob bein’ my livin’ memory for a few years of my life.” He took a bite of chicken.

  She nodded.

  He chewed for a bit, then swallowed. “I want you should keep listenin’ and he should keep on tellin’, ’cause if anythin’ should happen to ol’ Buckshot Bob, you’ll be the ones I’m lookin’ up every decade or so.” He stared at Julia. “Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked toward Sweeney.

  The young cowboy looked up from his sandwich. “Got it.”

  Monahan nodded, snorted out air, and took another bite of chicken. It was dang tasty, if you asked him.

  “All right. Well, now we got that settled . . . yesterday morning, when we had us that hurrah about young Robbie and the stock pond and ol’ Blue—”

  The dog barked at the mention of his name, and Monahan paused to smile and ruffle the speckled hair between Blue’s ears.

  He continued. “Anyway, while the doc was seein’ to Robbie, Butch and the driver was out on the front porch, talkin’ ’bout what was goin’ on out West. Driver ha
ppened to mention a little place—wide spot on the trail, more like—called Heber’s Kiss. Said he’d stopped there about a week, maybe a week and a half ago. Am I right, Butch?”

  Sweeney, having a mouthful of ham sandwich, nodded his head enthusiastically.

  “Anyhow, don’t nothin’ much go on out there. According to the stage driver’s story, the old man who owned the saloon passed on. It was natural-like, no bullets or Apache involved, but before he went, he give over his share in the Lucky Strike Bar to a feller just passin’ through town. His name was Vince George. And I recalled that I knowed a Vince George from way back. He was ridin’ with Monty’s Raiders when I joined up. He was the first one who beat my brains into a pulp.” Monahan took another bite of chicken and said, “I owe him.”

  Julia and Sweeney had stopped eating, and were staring at each other. He looked more than a little perturbed, and she appeared confused.

  Monahan squeezed his lips shut. He’d been expecting more from them. Anything at all would have been nice! Finally, he said, “What?!”

  With a frown on his face, Sweeney asked, “Is that why you brung her along? Revenge? When she could have stayed back at Buckshot Bob’s and got the benefit of some book learnin’?”

  Monahan had brought her along because . . . well, because she was there. And, much as he hated to admit it, he was used to her. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he snapped, “You wanna be the one to take her back?”

  Sweeney started to say something he was most likely going to regret, but Julia beat him to it. “I don’t care whether he wants to or not. I’m stayin’ with you and Blue. So there. I feel like I gotta get my revenge on somebody, and it don’t much matter who. This Vince George is as good a candidate as anybody.”

  While Sweeney’s mouth hung open at her clipped words, she turned to him. “And don’t you go questionin’ Dooley Monahan! This is his trip, and I’m along for the ride just like you are.”

  Sweeney closed his mouth with a click.

  “So, how you gonna recognize him after all these years?” she asked, twisting back toward Monahan. “By my reckonin’ it’s been twenty or so years since you seen him.”

  “Oh, I’ll know him,” Dooley said with assurance. “You will, too. He’s got a long scar upside his face.” He drew an imaginary line with his finger from his cheek, up through his eye, through his eyebrow, and past his hairline. “He got cut bad in a knife fight, and once you seen it, you won’t forget it. Got a way about him, too. Acts like a scofflaw.”

  She snorted. “Never met a feller who didn’t.”

  “Well, you met me!” Sweeney stopped his canteen halfway up to his mouth. “I ain’t no outlaw.”

  “I said, ‘acts like,’ not that you were one,” she insisted.

  “All right, children,” Monahan said, hoping to belittle them into silence. “Enough.”

  Interestingly, he got the loudest yelp of protest from Sweeney. “Don’t go callin’ me that!” he cried, hopping to his feet. “Just ’cause I’m younger than you don’t mean I’m some child. Hell, everybody’s younger than you!”

  Too late, he realized his insult and cringed, fearing the worst.

  But Monahan just laughed until his sides hurt. “Boy howdy, Butch, you have surely got some bark on you!”

  That night, they found a small area where Monahan felt it was safe to lead the horses off the road a ways, and they made camp. Sweeney told Julia the story of Monahan’s life—he was up to the part with the alligator—and she listened while making supper. It was a makeshift stew with chunks of leftover ham and chicken and vegetables Mae had included in the bag.

  As for Monahan, he lay on his bedroll, hands clasped behind his head, drifting in and out of sleep. He thought he was too excited about his impending meeting with Vince George to relax, but found excitement had been replaced by a calm inner surety. Things were finally going the way they were supposed to, and he was finally feeling . . . justified. Whether it was right or not, it was justified, by God!

  Three days away from Monahan’s position, the Baylor boys had stopped for the day, too. Dev washed his dirty clothes in the nearby creek and was setting the coffeepot on a flat rock near the fire when Alf suddenly exploded. “Gawdammit!”

  Dev heaved a sigh before he glanced over.

  Alf sat across from him, his right hand cradling his left, while he quietly swore a blue streak into the night.

  Softly, Dev asked, “Hurt yourself, there, Alf?”

  Alf stared out at the ground before him, scowling. “Damn knife. Playin’ mumble peg.”

  Dev shook his head almost imperceptibly. “Lemme see your hand.”

  His brother pulled the hand closer in to his chest. “No.”

  Dev shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, fine. If you don’t care if you get blood poisonin’, I guess I don’t neither.” He went back to staring at the coffeepot.

  Alf had been asking to get knocked upside the head for the last three nights. He’d been talking in his sleep—that weird sort of jabber, on and on . . . and two of those nights he’d wakened Dev in the middle of the night with tirades on everything from the lousy job the blacksmith three towns back had done, to why he was certain if a man got on a boat in California and sailed straight west he’d land in London, to how cheddar cheese got to be yellow when it was made from white milk, just like Swiss. The sweat of mice was his answer, to which Dev could think of absolutely nothing in the way of a counter.

  At any rate, he had been too tired to put up much of a fight, although he finally told Alf, “When we get to the coast, you can get on a ship and sail west. Just make sure to ask what happened to Asia and Europe once you get to London.

  As he watched his brother cradling his hand, Dev hoped Alf had finally done something with fatal consequences to himself, if only so he’d shut the hell up.

  After a few minutes of silence, Alf said, “Dev? Would you look at it now?”

  Dev sighed, then held out his hand. “Give it here.”

  Alf did, and Dev turned it over, searching through the grime. He found one small wound—a little blood blister which looked to have been caused by a too-close association with the dull edge of Alf’s pocketknife. He let go of the hand. “You’ll live,” he said, grudgingly.

  “Ain’t gonna git poisoned blood?” Alf asked.

  “No. You clean them squirrels you shot this afternoon?”

  There was a long pause before Alf said, “No. Sorry.”

  “Well, sorry don’t get us fed. Best get ’em cleaned, and now.”

  After another long pause, he mumbled, “I meant I was sorry ’cause I ain’t got ’em.”

  Dev narrowed his eyes. “What’d you do? Lose ’em along the trail someplace? You beat everything, you know that, Alfonse? Just everything! What you propose we have for our dinner now?”

  Alf looked down and shrugged. Dev knew he was suitably cowed. Best to call a halt before he got his back up. “All right. I reckon I can just make extra biscuits.”

  “We got enough honey?”

  Dev shook his head and growled under his breath. His brother Alf beat all!

  Later, while Alf was scraping at the bottom of the honey jar, Dev checked his laundry drying on the nearby bushes and announced, “Come mornin’, we’re going south.”

  Alf looked up. “Why come?”

  “Thought you’d be happy. You’re the one who wanted so bad to stop goin’ west.”

  “I wanted to go north, not south!”

  Dev nodded. “So you did, so you did. But I don’t think Monahan went that way. My money’s on the south. Maybe the south of Arizona, not California.”

  “Aw, damn!” Alf said with a scowl. “That’s a whole territory we gotta backtrack!”

  “Not the way I got it figured. You just calm yourself, Alf, and lemme take care of it.” The truth was he wasn’t certain where to head, but he knew it wasn’t to the north, and it sure wasn’t toward the west. At least not any farther than they’d already traveled. He figured Dooley Monahan was
close by, holed up in some little smidge of a town where there were hardly any people. That fit southern Arizona the best. Well, about all of Arizona if you wanted to get right down to it, but since they were closer to the southern part, he was sticking to his story.

  Besides, he’d like to get the killing of Monahan over and done with while he still had clean clothes.

  “You sure?”

  “Sure as anythin’. Go ahead and eat that last biscuit, Alf. I ain’t hungry anymore.” Actually, Alf had just polished off the last of the honey, and Dev had the capacity to eat only so many dry biscuits.

  “Why, thanks, Dev!” Alf scooped it up.

  When the hoot owls had come out to serenade and the bats had swarmed out of their caves to catch flying insects on the wing, Alf, who was supposedly asleep, suddenly sat up. “You reckon Jason left us anythin’? Like, in his will?”

  “Jason? He probably didn’t have no will.”

  “You can’t be sure though, can you?”

  Dev turned over to face him. “I can’t be sure about anythin’, but you knew him as well as I did. And he wasn’t the sort to go makin’ out a will.”

  “But—”

  “Just go to sleep, Alf.”

  18

  Morning found Monahan, Sweeney, and Julia still on the Old Mormon Trail, slowly taking them west toward California. Monahan mused as he rode. He hoped the kids would keep repeating his life story, or at least the chunk Buckshot Bob held for him. It was real exciting, once he’d divorced himself from it and made it seem like someone else’s life.

  Once they got to the Colorado River, Monahan had it in his mind they’d turn south and follow its banks past Yuma, to where Heber’s Kiss was supposed to be. He’d never been there, but he’d heard a few hands speak of it over the years. It was supposed to be a pretty dismal place, all told, with a combination store saloon, practically no populace, and no law to speak of.

  Just the sort of place Vince George would end up leading him to, he thought. Some no-account, sun-bleached corner of hell.