The Tenderfoot Trail

by Ralph Compton

  The Indians were looking behind them now, and began to ride wide of the trail, some looping back toward the main body of the warriors. The Bloods had a dozen men dead or dying on the ground and were losing their will to fight.

  A few long-range rifle shots chased Garrett and Yates as they closed with the women, but there was no pursuit. The Bloods were milling back along the trail, and spirited arguments seemed to be breaking out between the young warriors and older, wiser heads, who did not deem this a good day to die.

  Finally the Bloods dismounted and began to gather up their dead. They would fight no more that day.

  Garrett slowed the black to a trot and tightened his arm around Jenny’s waist. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

  The girl nodded, clinging to him. “I’ll be fine.” She looked over at Lynette, who was lying over her horse’s neck. “What’s the matter with Lyn—” Then Jenny saw the arrow embedded in the girl’s back and let out a small, horrified shriek.

  Lynette Briggs, an eighteen-year-old small-farm girl from Ohio who dreamed of marrying rich and returning home a fine lady, died just as the day shaded into night, and the coyotes sang her requiem.

  A pall of grief hung over the surviving women. Jenny did her best to console them, one a pale, insipid blonde named Abbie Lane who had just turned nineteen, the other Paloma Sanchez, a pretty, dark-eyed girl with Mescalero blood in her. She was twenty-eight, older than the others, and she had an easy, knowing way around men.

  The fight with the Indians and Lynette’s death had left Garrett feeling drained. He sat near the women with a cup of untasted coffee cradled in his hands, watching the small flames dance in the buffalo-chip fire.

  But there was no grief in Temple Yates. He was spitting mad, the death of a girl he’d recently held in his arms apparently a matter of supreme indifference to him.

  He stood over Garrett, his thumbs tucked into his crossed gun belts. “Listen, cowboy,” he said, “we’re down to just three head o’ females and Charlie’s business deal is going downhill faster than a six-legged jackrabbit.”

  Garrett lifted hostile eyes to the gunman. “What do you want from me, Yates?”

  “Just this—you got to get more money out of those miners. Raise the ante. Tell them Charlie was double or nothing.” He jerked a thumb toward the three women. “When those rock rats see what Charlie’s offering, they’ll gladly pay more for their belly warmers. Hell, they got pokes full of gold and nothing else to spend it on except whiskey.”

  “Tell them yourself,” Garrett said.

  Yates shook his head. “Can’t do that, cowboy. I don’t know if Charlie told you or not, but me and him ain’t exactly welcome at Fort Whoop-Up. Charlie had a little misunderstanding with the redcoat police over selling whiskey to the Indians. And me, I got into a shooting scrape with a couple of miners, and if the Mounties catch me, they’ll hang me for sure.”

  “Handle your own dirty work, Yates,” Garrett said. “I want nothing more to do with you or Charlie Cobb. I’m taking Jenny to the fort because that’s what she wants, and then I’m done with it.”

  “You’re forgetting something, Garrett. There’s five hundred in the deal for you.”

  “I’m forgetting nothing. But I think my chances of collecting that money from Charlie are pretty slim.”

  Yates held himself for a few moments. Then he said, “All right, let’s try another tack. You up the stakes on the miners and maybe I’ll forget about killing you, cowboy. I can’t say fairer than that.”

  “Yates,” Garrett said, his voice slow and deliberate, his hand close to his gun, “you go to hell.”

  The gunman thought about it, thinking so hard Garrett could see his mind working. The young rancher tensed, getting ready for the draw. But the moment passed, as Yates finally let it go.

  “Garrett, the only reason I’m keeping you alive is because the damned Indians might not be finished with us. Well, that and the hope you might still change your mind about squeezing more money out of the miners. Maybe you just want to be coaxed, like.”

  Laying his coffee cup aside, Garrett rose to his feet and stood close to Yates, his hand on his gun butt, a wild recklessness spiking in him. “I’m not changing my mind about anything. Now get the hell away from me, Yates.”

  The gunman shrugged. “Your funeral, cowboy.” He smiled. “And I really do mean that. It will be very soon, you know.”

  Garrett sat by the fire again. He glanced over at Yates, who had taken Paloma aside and was engaging her in earnest conversation. Garrett knew the gunman had been telling the truth when he said he was keeping him alive only because of the Bloods. But after the women were delivered to Fort Whoop-Up, his usefulness to Yates would be over. And then what? To Garrett the answer was obvious. Yates would call him out and kill him.

  It was as simple and direct as that, and as chilling.

  Jenny had been sitting with Abbie Lane. Now she got to her feet and came to sit beside Garrett. “Luke, you were right,” she said. “I’ll never do this again. All the killing and dying, it just isn’t worth it.”

  Hope flared in Garrett. “Then you’ll leave with me tonight?”

  The girl shook her head. “We’re so close, I want to finish what I started. Two hundred dollars won’t be much, but I can make it last.”

  Garrett opened his mouth to speak, but Jenny held up a hand. “No, please don’t, Luke. We’ve already said all that needs to be said on the subject.” She rose to her feet. “You saved my life today. That’s something I will never forget.”

  “I plan to see you safe back to Fort Benton.” Garrett smiled. “And I aim to convince you that a woman can be a rancher’s wife and a famous artist.”

  Rising to her feet, Jenny said, “Just . . . just you take care of yourself, Luke.” She stepped out of the circle of the firelight, took her place again beside Abbie and left Garrett puzzled.

  Why had she told him to take care of himself? It was almost like Jenny thought she might never see him again. Was that because of Yates—or something else?

  Garrett had no answers, only a sense of deep foreboding about a future he could not see or even guess at, a future that might offer him nothing but an unmarked grave in lonely country.

  No matter. All he could do now was play the hand he’d been dealt and hope the cards fell his way.

  Chapter 22

  The Sweet Grass Hills fell behind Luke Garrett as he and the others cleared the Canadian border and rode into the badlands of southern Alberta. The Milk River lay ten miles to the north, and they swung toward Verdigris Coulee where they planned to cross, riding through dry, barren country of eroded sandstone, weathered into craggy arches and cone-shaped boulders that the first trappers who visited the region named hoodoos.

  Clumps of sagebrush and juniper clung to the eroded walls of the surrounding coulees, home to rock wrens and prairie rattlesnakes. Evening primroses with large pink petals grew along the clay bottoms and the vivid yellow flowers of buffalo bean struggled to survive amid tumbled heaps of shale talus.

  A meadowlark sang its flutelike song as Garrett rode past and a white-tailed jackrabbit burst from under the black’s hooves and bounded away, bouncing over the grass like a rubber ball.

  The Blackfoot considered the badlands sacred, and Garrett rode high in the saddle, ready for trouble.

  It was not long in coming.

  The sun had climbed directly overhead when the Milk River came in sight, high cottonwoods lining its bank. Beyond the river a ridge rose three hundred and fifty feet above the flat, cut through by wide channels formed in ancient times by water running off melting glaciers. One of those channels was Verdigris Coulee. Garrett planned to cross the river at a point opposite the coulee, then loop to the east across the rich grasslands of the ridge all the way to Fort Whoop-Up.

  Jenny was riding beside him, Abbie Lane behind her, then, a ways to the rear, Yates and Paloma Sanchez. The day was scorching hot and every step taken by the horses lifted stifling yellow dust.
Sweat trickled down Garrett’s back and he squinted burning eyes against the glare, looking longingly at the blue ribbon of the river as it drew closer.

  Jenny was sketching the trees along the riverbank, humming tunelessly to herself, and Garrett followed her gaze to the cottonwoods, amazed at how well she had captured every branch and leaf. Suddenly a small flock of grasshopper sparrows burst out of the underbrush at the base of the trees, scattering dead leaves and a few drifting feathers.

  “Pull up, Jenny,” Garrett said as he yanked his Winchester from the scabbard.

  “What is it?” the girl asked, confusion in her eyes.

  Her answer came a split second later as puffs of gray smoke appeared from among the cottonwoods, followed by the staccato roar of rifles.

  Garrett’s black staggered and went down. The young rancher hit the ground hard, rolled clear of the horse’s flailing hooves and came up on one knee, his Colt already in his hand.

  Behind him he heard Yates yell, followed by the crash of the gunman’s rifle.

  “Jenny, get away from here!” Garrett yelled. He didn’t wait to see what the girl did next. He hammered shot after shot into the trees, then rose to his feet and backed off, reloading his Colt as he went.

  Suddenly Yates was beside him, working his Winchester. “Who the hell is it?” he yelled.

  Garrett shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  A bullet cut the air next to Garrett’s left ear and another kicked up dust at his feet, but he held his fire. The range was too long for revolver work. What he needed was his rifle.

  He made a dash toward his dead horse, but bullets were thudding around him and one put a neat hole in the crown of his hat.

  “Forget it!” Yates yelled. “They’ll be coming after us!”

  The gunman swung his horse around and galloped after Jenny and the other women.

  Garrett gave a momentary glance at his rifle in the scabbard, but decided the risk was too great. Whoever the bushwhackers among the trees were, they now had the advantage. Bullets were splitting the air perilously close to him.

  He turned and ran after Yates, and saw Jenny riding toward him.

  Waving his outstretched arms in her direction, he called out, “Get back!”

  The girl ignored him. Her horse was running flat out in a fast gallop, a shredding ribbon of dust streaming away from its hammering hooves. Jenny wrenched her mount to a skidding stop, white arcs showing in the animal’s eyes as its head came up, fighting the bit.

  “Behind me!” Jenny yelled.

  Bullets were kicking up dirt in vicious spurts around them as Garrett holstered his Colt and leaped onto the horse. Jenny kicked her mount into a gallop and they hightailed it across the flat, searching shots buzzing after them like angry hornets.

  Yates had swung off the trail and was forted up on the steep bank of a dry wash that angled toward the river. His rifle was out in front of him, his eyes squinting into the distance. Jenny hit the wash at a run. Her frightened mount balked at the bank and reared, kicking up a shower of sand and gravel. Garrett slid off the animal’s haunches and landed on his feet. He reached, grabbed the reins and manhandled the horse down the slope of the wash, then helped Jenny dismount.

  “Who the hell are they?” Yates yelled. “Are they Indians?”

  “Don’t know,” Garrett said, taking a place alongside the gunman. “But I get the feeling we’ll find out real soon.”

  Eight mounted men emerged from among the cottonwoods a few minutes later. To a man they were shaggy, bearded and unkempt, dressed in greasy buckskins, but the sunlight winked on rifle barrels that were clean and oiled.

  “Yates,” Garrett said, without turning, “remember those wolfers you said wouldn’t come after us? Well, they’re coming after us.”

  The gunman nodded and spat, a note of grudging admiration in his voice. “Them ol’ boys don’t buffalo worth a damn, do they?”

  Yates turned his head and looked down the wash at the women. “When the shooting starts, you three hold on to the horses real good. We may have to come a-runnin’.”

  The wolfers rode forward, then stopped just outside of rifle range. A man on a tall roan left the rest and walked the horse closer to the wash. When he was about thirty yards away he stood in the stirrups and yelled, “Temp, I’m comin’ in under a flag o’ truce.”

  “I don’t see no damn flag,” Yates called back.

  The wolfer sat back on the saddle. “Hell, then just imagine I got one.” He rode closer, stopped and this time in a normal voice said, “Name’s Bill Tetley an’ I got a proposition for you boys, and it’s fair and square as ever was.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Yates said.

  “Us ’uns ain’t borrowing trouble, Temp,” the wolfer said. “And we got nothing agin’ you fellers, even though you gunned Thetas an’ them.” He shrugged. “Hell, let bygones be bygones—that’s what I always say.”

  “I said to speak your piece, Tetley,” Yates snapped. “We got faith in rifles here and we aren’t sitting on our gun hands.”

  The wolfer nodded. “So be it. What we want is the women, just like Thetas promised us. That’s saying it plain and straight-out an’ no mistake.”

  “And if we give you the women, what then?” Yates asked.

  “Why then you ride away from here free as birds.” The man smiled, showing a few rotten teeth. “Hell, me and the boys, we’ll be too busy to notice, like.”

  “Tetley, the price for the women is twelve thousand dollars,” Yates said. “You got that much?”

  The wolfer shook his head. “Sure don’t. We don’t have a tail feather ’atween us an’ I guess that’s a shame for you.”

  “It doesn’t matter much anyhow,” Garrett said. “We aren’t selling. The women stay with us.”

  “Is that the cowboy?” the wolfer asked.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “You should have stayed on the ranch, boy. A sight safer that way.” The wolfer leaned forward in the saddle. “One more time, Temp. Give us the women and you can ride clear.”

  “No deal,” Yates said, “unless you can pay for them.”

  The wolfer shook his head. “Well, I’m right sorry to hear that. Now I guess we’ll just have to kill you boys an’ grab them little sage hens our ownselves.”

  Yates nodded. “I guess that’s about the size of it, except you won’t be around to see it happen.”

  Shock and fear showed on the wolfer’s face. “Now lookee here, Temple, I got me a flag o’—”

  The man never completed the sentence because Yates rapidly worked his rifle and put two bullets into his chest.

  Yates watched the wolfer slide off the side of his horse; then he turned to Garrett and grinned through a gray drift of gunsmoke. “I’d say that feller had nothing under his hat but hair. Ah well, one down, only seven to go.”

  “Uh-huh, and now the fat’s really in the fire,” Garrett said. “Here they come and they’re burning the breeze.”

  The remaining seven riders had shaken out into a loose line and were riding hard for the wash. Here and there a rifle flared, and bullets kicked up plumes of sand around Garrett and Yates.

  The gunman was firing steadily and already he’d emptied a saddle. But the range was as yet too far for a six-gun and Garrett held his fire.

  One of the wolfers split from the others and looped to the west, then rode straight for the wash, his rifle banging.

  “On your left, Garrett!” Yates yelled.

  “I see him.”

  Garrett fired at the man, missed and fired again. The wolfer, a huge redhead with a thick beard down to his waist, kept coming. He jumped his horse into the wash and charged at Garrett, his rifle to his shoulder. The wolfer fired and missed, but his horse slammed into Garrett and the young rancher crashed against the sandy wall of the wash, spun and fell on his back.

  The man drew rein on his mount and swung the animal in Garrett’s direction. He threw his rifle to his shoulder again just as Garrett fired from the grou
nd, aiming his Colt at arm’s length. But it was another wolfer who took Garrett’s bullet. A rider had just charged past Yates and jumped his horse into the sandy floor of the wash, whooping like an Indian. Hit hard, the man threw up his arms and plunged out of the saddle, hitting the ground with a tremendous thud. Garrett had no time to see if the wolfer was alive or dead. The big redhead was now clear for a shot, and he and Garrett fired at the same time.

  The wolfer’s bullet grazed Garrett’s cheek, drawing blood, but the man was hit square in the middle of his chest. He gasped and reeled in the saddle, cursing. But he recovered quickly and kicked his horse into a run, charging toward Garrett, holding his rifle in front of him like a pistol. The young rancher grasped his Colt in two hands, raised the gun to eye level and fired.

  Hit again, this time the wolfer left the saddle and fell across Yates’ legs. The gunman swore and kicked the body away from him. Then he rose to his feet and emptied his rifle in the direction of the river. Garrett thumbed fresh cartridges into his Colt and scrambled up the bank of the wash.

  Two dead men lay sprawled on the ground a few yards in front of Yates’ position, their horses grazing with their reins trailing. The other wolfers, one hurt and slumped over the saddle horn, were riding fast toward the river.

  Yates slid down the incline of the wash and ran to his horse. He swung into the saddle and his mount was already at a gallop when he hit the slope and charged after the fleeing wolfers.

  Garrett looked around him. Both of the men he’d shot were dead, and only a smoke-streaked stillness remained. Jenny and the other two women were unhurt, but they were staring at him with wide, frightened eyes. He knew how he must look to them, a wild thing covered in sweat, blood and dust, thin red trails from his cut cheek trickling down his unshaven chin.

  Garrett ignored the women and took off his hat. He used the back of his gun hand, still clutching his smoking Colt, to wipe sweat from his forehead, then settled the hat on his head again.

  He walked to the prancing horse of one of the dead wolfers, a leggy, mouse-colored grulla, caught up the reins and whispered calming words into its ear. The animal, liking the sound of the man’s voice, settled down and Garrett stepped into the saddle.