Ralph Compton The Cheyenne Trail

by Ralph Compton

  Reese and Louella shivered in their bedrolls beneath the wagon. Next to them Checkers pulled the blankets up around his neck. The horses rubbed against one another to ward off some of the cold.

  It snowed all night. Slow, gentle flakes fell, but they did not melt. The wind blew drifts across the trail and up against the banks of the lake. The hands had to knock snow off some of the calves who were snuggled up next to their mothers, and a few times they had to brush snow off a steer that had gotten caught in a drift.

  It was still snowing the next morning when the sky paled under blankets of cottony clouds.

  Reese crawled from his bedroll beneath the wagon and stood next to the wagon. He saw the cattle all dusted with snow, looking strangely ghostly in the morning light.

  There was at least two inches of snow that had fallen. But there were drifts that were much deeper. Reese felt a wave of disappointment envelop him as he looked over the snow-dusted herd and saw his men riding here and there around the cattle.

  Men who had slept under the wagon stirred and crawled out of their bedrolls.

  Calvin was the first to walk over to Reese. Checkers was wrestling with his blankets, grumbling at the cold as he tried to extricate himself and crawl from under the wagon. Louella lay locked in sleep under Reese’s blanket that he had added to hers.

  “I didn’t get much sleep,” Calvin said. “Rode nighthawk most of the night.” He rubbed his hands together for warmth. He wore a heavy jacket, and his bandanna covered the lower part of his face.

  “I wonder how many calves froze to death last night,” Reese said. He rubbed his hands together too.

  “I didn’t see none. But them drifts can raise hob with the little ones.”

  Both men saw their frosty breaths spew from their mouths as they breathed.

  “Well, when you get warm enough to ride, you might check with the other hands. I expect we’ll lose a few head. Especially if this damn snow keeps fallin’.”

  “We got caught—that’s for sure,” Calvin said. “Caught out in the open without even a prairie dog hole to crawl into.”

  Checkers emerged from beneath the wagon. He kicked at the snow that filled the fire ring. There was still brush piled up next to it, rimmed with thin lines of snow.

  “Mornin’, Reese,” he said. He cupped his hands and blew on them. A frosty cloud of steam spewed from his mouth.

  “Good mornin’, Checkers. Think you can start us up a fire?”

  “I can start one up,” he said. “Just don’t know how long it will burn. That snow is colder’n a witch’s tit.”

  “Or a well digger’s ass,” Reese said.

  Both men laughed as others stirred beneath the wagon. Snow had blown underneath, and all shook off the accumulated flakes as they tossed their blankets aside.

  Lonnie and Tommy crawled from under the wagon as Checkers began to stack kindling in the snow-filled fire ring. Reese could hear his bones crack as he squatted.

  “You sleep good, Tommy?” Reese asked.

  “I wasn’t warm, if that’s what you mean. I slept some, but that wind blew snow on my face half the night.”

  “You have to cover your face with your hat,” Johnny said.

  “I tried that,” Tommy said. “Hat blew off and I just now found it.”

  Johnny laughed and frosty air plumed from his mouth.

  Checkers fumbled in his pocket and dug out a box of matches. He struck one and touched it to the thinnest branches of a dry bush. The wood caught fire and a feeble flame flickered. Its light bounced off the snow, and the snow beneath the kindling began to shrink as it melted.

  “I’d better ride out and check the damage,” Lonnie said. “I’ll bet my saddle’s stiff as a board.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Johnny said. “I ain’t gettin’ no warmer just a-standin’ here.”

  “Bring my horse over after you saddle up, Johnny,” Reese said. “I want to check on the herd too. Saddle’s still on him.”

  “Smart man,” Johnny said.

  He and Lonnie walked to where the remuda was quartered, near the lake, in the lee of the wind. They walked through falling snow, snow that swirled and clung to their jackets like cakes of white flour.

  Checkers had the fire blazing and added more brush and chunks of wood.

  As the fire grew higher, Reese and the others there warmed their hands. Snowflakes hissed as they fell into the flames. The wind fanned the fire and blew the flames in bright flares as it whipped across the prairie.

  Tommy rubbed his hands over the fire. “Maybe I’d better get my horse,” he said. “I just don’t know what to do or where to go to help with the herd.”

  “You can ride around it and see if any of the cattle are in trouble,” Reese said. “Look for cattle stuck in snowdrifts or floundering to get up from their beds.”

  “I’ll do that,” Tommy said. He rubbed his hands one last time and then walked over to the remuda. The wagon with the kegs of grain stood horseless nearby. Lonnie was feeding his horse with a coffee can full of corn and oats.

  A fellow named Chuck Norcross drove the feed wagon, and his partner, Jeremy Coates, took care of the remuda while they were on the trail. But they were seldom seen, since they stayed well behind the herd and only showed themselves when the drive made camp.

  The wrangler and the hauler were still inside the buckboard with its rigid canvas top, the side tarps pulled down to shield them against the wind and the snow.

  “Go ahead and sleep, Jeremy,” Lonnie said. “We can get our own horses.”

  Coates made a sound from inside the buckboard. Johnny laughed as he sought out his own horse. His was still under saddle too. He caught up his horse and then went after Reese’s. “I’ll get him, Lonnie,” he said. “Reese don’t care who brings him his horse.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll do it,” Lonnie said.

  Tommy rode off to circle the herd with Johnny. Lonnie led Reese’s horse to him.

  By that time, Louella had awakened. She sat up sleepily and rubbed her eyes. “Is it morning already?” she asked Reese, who stood by the fire.

  “Yep,” he said. “And we’ll be movin’ out soon. Better get yourself some grub when Checkers gets around to cookin’ it.”

  “I’m settin’ water for the grits on to boil now,” Checkers said. “But that coffee’s about ready to drink.”

  “I’ll have a cup before I get the herd moving,” Reese said.

  “Better have two,” Checkers said. “It’ll be mighty cold on the trail. Even with that wind at your back.”

  “One’s enough,” Reese said as Louella humped out of her bedroll and crawled on all fours from under the wagon.

  She stretched when she stood up, and yawned. “Ooh,” she said. “It’s cold and it’s still snowing.”

  “Not a good day for a cattle drive,” Reese said. “You stay in the wagon or you’ll freeze to death.”

  “I will,” she said.

  Reese drank his coffee and hugged Louella. Then he rode off to the farthest point of the herd, where he saw Ben Macklin, one of the older hands, kicking snow from a drift that had pinned one of the yearling calves under its weight.

  “Need any help, Ben?” Reese asked.

  “Naw. This little critter just fell asleep in the wrong place. Third one I’ve hauled out from under a pile of snow this mornin’.”

  “I’m going to make one loop and then get the herd movin’,” Reese said. “You got time to get yourself a bowl of grits and some coffee.”

  “I could eat one of these beeves,” Ben said. “If they was cooked.”

  Reese laughed. He beckoned to Johnny, who was riding up on the outer right flank. “Johnny, roust these cattle in about ten minutes, unless you want some grits and coffee.”

  “Naw, I’ll get me a sandwich after the herd gets mov- in’,” Johnny said.

/>   Tommy rode some distance behind him, then cut into the herd.

  Reese thought that was enterprising of the young lad.

  He watched as Tommy got some of the cows up, then pulled on the horns of a steer that had its rump stuck in a snowbank.

  “That kid might make a good cowhand one of these days,” Ben said as he rode toward the head of the herd.

  “He’s green, but he’s comin’ along,” Reese said.

  Half an hour later, the entire herd was back on the trail. The snow kept falling and the wind blew at their backs.

  Later, the chuck wagon passed them, and Louella leaned out to wave at Reese. He waved back and bent his head as he rode left flank along a line of white-faced cattle with brown bodies.

  The sun was a washed-out glow in the morning sky. The sky was as gray as slate, the clouds low and lumbering like wallowing beasts.

  Reese sighed. It was going to be a long, hard day without much progress. When, he wondered, would it stop snowing and the sun come out? There was no sign that it would ever stop, and the sun seemed to get dimmer every minute.

  The cattle moaned and groaned like old men in an infirmary.

  His horse blew jets of vapor into the air, and their hooves made no sound on the snow-flocked ground.

  Chapter 21

  Silver Bear handed one of the Winchester rifles to Yellow Horse.

  “You have shot the fire stick before,” he said.

  “Yes. I shot one of these. It hurt my shoulder.”

  “You know how to make it bark,” Silver Bear said.

  “I can make it roar like the angry bear,” Yellow Horse said.

  “I too have made the fire stick talk,” Iron Knife said. “It was called a ‘Yellow Boy’ by the soldiers at the fort. They laughed when I got knocked down the first time I pulled its little tail.”

  “Did you hit anything?” Silver Bear asked.

  “I hit a pumpkin,” Iron knife said. “I blew it to pieces at the fort, the one they call ‘Laramie.’”

  “Good, Iron Knife,” Silver Bear said. “I give you the other rifle.” Silver Bear picked up the other rifle and gave it to Iron Knife.

  “I will shoot many White Eyes with this fire stick,” Iron Knife said.

  “There are bullets in those iron boxes,” Silver Bear said. He pointed to the strongboxes inside his lean-to. “Carry them in your pouch. I will use my bow to kill the White Eyes.”

  “Hunh,” grunted Yellow Horse and Iron Knife.

  “When do we go to kill the White Eyes?” Black Feather asked.

  “We go now,” Silver Bear said. “Tell the women to pack the camp and the food. Tell the braves to place the travois on the ponies.”

  “There is much snow,” Iron Knife said.

  “We drive the cattle in front of us. They will trample the snow.”

  “Why do we go after the white man now?” Yellow Horse asked.

  “I have given this much thought,” Silver Bear said. “If we kill the White Eyes their cattle will run away like the buffalo. And the cattle will cover the land like the buffalo. There will be many cows and they will be our buffalo. They will feed our people like the buffalo.”

  Yellow Horse thought of cattle roaming the prairie, making calves, multiplying like the buffalo. “That would be a good thing,” he said.

  “It would be what the Great Spirit would want for his people,” Black Feather said. “And the white men would leave our land. They would dry up like the leaves that fall from the trees in the moon of falling leaves.”

  “Death to the White Eyes.”

  The women began to pack their goods and take down the lean-tos. They scurried like prairie dogs to load the travois after the men had attached them to some of the ponies.

  Within hours, the Cheyenne and their friends, the Lakota and the Crow, left the deserted and empty camp. They drove the dozen head of cattle in front of them and headed south as the snow continued to fall.

  The snow covered their tracks and there was no sign that they had ever been in that place.

  None of them looked back.

  Chapter 22

  Reese could not see much through the heavy snowfall. The cattle were breaking the trail, but they struggled in the drifts. And he saw no sign that the snow would stop during those morning hours.

  The land was cold and white. There was no longer any glimmer of a yellow sun. The land was bleak and peaceful.

  He rode far off on the right flank of the lumbering, floundering herd that was curtained by falling snow. He could see the cattle, but their shapes were distorted and ghostly in the shroud of light and snow.

  Calvin rode point some distance ahead of Reese, and Checkers was ahead of him, leaving wagon ruts in the snow as he and Louella rolled over an ermine carpet. Somewhere on the other side of the herd, the remuda was following the feed wagon, making its own trail on virgin snow.

  Behind him on the rear flank, Lonnie was holding the herd to the trail, while Johnny was on drag, with the easiest path of all as the herd trampled the snow into frozen mush.

  Reese gnawed on a bone of hardtack biscuit mainly to keep his lips from freezing. The wind blew at his back and he could feel its chill through his coat. His face was raw and reddish from the cold and wind, and his eyes burned from the strain of staring at so much whiteness.

  Reese was surprised half an hour later when he saw the dim outlines of a cabin. As he rode closer, he saw smoke rising from its chimney. There was a man outside with a shovel. And under a covered shelter, a horse whickered as he rode up.

  The man who was shoveling snow away from the doorstep of the small log cabin looked up and waved to Reese.

  Reese waved back. He reined up to talk to the man.

  “Howdy,” Reese said. “Didn’t expect to see any folks out this way.”

  “Line shack,” the man said. “Stuck here when it snowed.”

  “My name’s Reese Balleen. That’s my herd you see yonder.”

  “I heard ’em a while ago. Name’s Kelso. Earl Kelso. Where you headed?”

  “Cheyenne, the Flying U.”

  “Oh yeah, Chip’s spread. Long way to go. How many head?”

  “Near a thousand.”

  Kelso was a muscular man in his thirties, with long hair that was black as pitch. He had a three-day shadow of beard stubble stippling his jaw, and his eyes were a pale blue, close-set and straddling a nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once. He wore a mackinaw coat and Reese saw the tip of his pistol holster sticking out.

  “You work for a ranch hereabouts?” Reese asked. “I mean you’re in a line shack way out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Yeah, I work for Jasper Mullins. He has a spread, the Crooked M.”

  “Cattle?”

  “Horses, mostly. He’s light on the cattle right now.”

  “Hard times?” Reese asked.

  “Hard enough. Cattle all got sick and died on him. Pinkeye and black leg.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Reese said.

  “That’s the way it goes sometimes.”

  While the two were talking, Lonnie spotted them and rode over. A look of recognition flashed in his eyes when he saw Kelso.

  “Howdy, Earl,” Lonnie said.

  “Lonnie. I see you got yourself a job.”

  “You workin’, Earl?”

  “If you call this work, yeah,” Earl said.

  Reese wondered if the two men were friends. He detected an air of hostility in Lonnie’s tone and Kelso looked as if Lonnie was the last person he wanted to see.

  “Didn’t expect to see you way out here,” Lonnie said.

  “I didn’t ’spect I’d be here neither,” Earl said. “Damn snow. If I didn’t shovel, I’d likely get locked into this godforsaken cabin.”

  “Yeah, well, I got work to do, Earl.�
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  “That’s a lot of beef,” Earl said, and there was something in his eyes that ticked off warning alarms in Reese’s brain.

  But as Lonnie rode back to shepherd the herd, Earl slid his shovel into the lump of snow at his feet and tossed snow to one side.

  “I’ll be goin’ too,” Reese said.

  “Luck on the drive,” Earl said.

  Reese touched fingers to the brim of his hat and turned his horse. There was something in Earl’s tone that didn’t sound right to him. Did the man mean good luck or bad? When Reese looked back, Earl was back to his shovel and seemingly without any further interest in Reese, Lonnie, or the herd.

  A while later, Lonnie rode up to Reese on the front flank.

  “That feller you was talkin’ to, Kelso,” Lonnie said. “Know who he is?”

  Reese shook his head. “He said he worked for Jasper Mullins. Never heard of him either,” he said. “Said the ranch was the Crooked M.”

  “Crooked M is a good name for it. Mullins is no better’n Kelso. They’re both horse thieves.”

  “He said they raised horses and some cattle.”

  “Ha,” Lonnie exclaimed, “only horses they’re raisin’ are probably stolen. I wouldn’t trust Earl Kelso as far as I could throw one of these steers.”

  “You know him from somewhere?”

  “Denver. When I worked on the Lucky Day Ranch for Roy Davis. He and Mullins used to hang out at the Hitch Rail Saloon on Curtis Street. We’d go in there on a Saturday night and whoop it up. Them two had a gang that made everyone nervous.”

  “What do you mean?” Reese asked.

  “Oh, just rumors, like they all was robbin’ pilgrims on the road from Pueblo and had ’em a spread in the mountains where they kept the horses they stole. We’d see ’em at auction every now and then, and some of the brands on those horses looked like they had been altered with a runnin’ iron.”

  “Any proof?” Reese asked.

  “One of their gang was caught red-handed and hanged there in Denver. I forget the feller’s name. But he was thick as a tick on a dog with Kelso and Mullins. I seen him in the saloon with them two.”