The Palo Duro Trail

by Ralph Compton

“I think not,” Deuce said.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about putting your herd in with ours for the drive to Cheyenne, Adolph. We’re leaving day after tomorrow.”

  “Maybe you will not,” Deutsch said. “I am closing my trading post. Supplies, we will not sell you, Felix.”

  “Why? Don’t you want to supply us with staples, make money for yourself?”

  “You know damned well why, Dagstaff,” Coker said, his fury spilling over.

  Laura, perhaps hearing the venom in Coker’s voice, entered the room, forcing a cheery air.

  “Coffee will be ready soon,” she said brightly.

  “We won’t be staying for coffee, ma’am,” Coker said, “thanking you all the same.”

  Deutsch nodded at Laura, half stood up, out of politeness, but sat down again right away.

  “We go now pretty soon,” Deutsch said.

  Dag could smell the coffee and he knew the two guests could, as well. This was as close to rude as he had ever seen Deutsch around a woman, and he wondered what was eating the man.

  “Deuce,” Dag said, “maybe you’d better tell me straight out why you rode over here tonight. Was it just to tell me you weren’t going to sell me supplies tomorrow?”

  “No,” Deutsch said. “I come to tell you, Mr. Dagstaff, that away with this you will not get.” Dag knew that the “Mr.” was thrown in because Laura was standing there. Deuce even glanced sheepishly at Laura when he said it.

  “Get away with what?”

  Before Deutsch could answer, Laura spoke up. “Perhaps I should leave,” she said. “If you’re not going to stay for coffee, Mr. Deutsch . . .”

  “Yes, Laura, go on,” Dag said. “Mr. Deutsch is leaving.”

  Laura left the room. Dag heard the coffeepot clang on the iron stove, and then it was silent as Deutsch glared at him. His bruises were still showing on his face and Coker had some new scars on his nose and cheekbones.

  “What am I supposed to have gotten away with?” Dag asked.

  Deutsch’s face twisted into a grimace that quickly became florid with hate. His eyes bulged, and his neck swelled like that of a bull in the rut. His thick lips protruded from his face as he struggled to find the words to express his anger.

  “This morning, my top hands, Manny Chavez and Don Horton, drew their pay. I can’t make the drive without replacing them.”

  “And you blame me, Deuce? Hell, I didn’t hire ’em on, and I don’t think Matlee did either.”

  Coker stood up. “You’re a damned liar, Dag.”

  Then Deutsch stood up too. Both men’s hands hovered over the butts of their pistols like fluttering hawks.

  “You can see I’m not armed,” Dag said. “And I’m not lying. I don’t know anything about Manny and Don drawing their pay at the Rocking D. I wouldn’t mind having them on my drive. Hell, I was hoping to have your cattle along to fill out the herd—you know that.”

  “Felix is not armed, but I am.”

  All heads turned to look at Laura, who was standing just inside the front room, with a shotgun at her shoulder. As Deutsch and Coker stood there, frozen with surprise and shock, Laura thumbed back both hammers.

  Click. Click.

  Chapter 6

  Laura had the shotgun aimed directly at Deutsch and Coker. The sound of the hammers clicking back to full cock was followed by a thick silence.

  “I killed a copperhead this morning,” Laura said.

  Deutsch swallowed hard and Coker’s mouth opened as his jaw dropped down.

  “We were not going to shoot your husband, Laura,” Deutsch said.

  “You looked like you were, Adolph,” she said.

  “No, no, no,” Deutsch said. “To beat him, only, I was wanting, eh? For to pay what to me he has done.”

  “Felix didn’t do anything to you,” she said.

  “Laura, put the shotgun down,” Dag said. “Deuce, you and Coker back off. Sit down and let’s talk this out.”

  “I’ll put it down when they sit down, Felix,” Laura said, a muscle moving along her jawline, her eyes narrowed, a look of determination on her face. Deutsch blanched and sat down quickly. Coker sucked in a breath, but kept his mouth shut. He too sat back down on the divan.

  Laura lowered the barrel of the shotgun and snicked the hammers back down to half-cock.

  “Now,” Dag said, “why in hell do you blame me for your hands quitting, Adolph? I swear I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Jubal Flagg you have hired, no?”

  “He’s going to be my trail boss, yes. But he’s not due to ride in until tomorrow.”

  “Well, this morning, he was at my ranch. And to my men, he was talking. And then my two best hands—they did leave with him. From me this is stealing.”

  Dag sat back in his chair. Laura moved around the end of the divan and stood next to Dag’s chair, both hands still gripping the shotgun.

  “So you see,” she said, “my husband didn’t have anything to do with those men leaving, Adolph. You shouldn’t accuse someone without proof.”

  “Then you will send my men back?” Deutsch asked.

  Dag sat there, staring at Deutsch, mulling over this new situation. He knew how valuable both Manny and Don were; both were exceptional cowhands. Manny was a top-notch vaquero who had grown up with the wily longhorn, and Don knew cattle so well, he could almost read their thoughts. Both men seemed to have a rare kinship with the longhorn. They treated the animals with respect, but they also commanded obedience and trust from their charges when herding, branding, doctoring, and everything else they did with cows.

  “I’ll tell you, Adolph, at another time maybe, or another place, I might have sent Manny and Don packing the minute Flagg brought them up to me. But you went back on your word with me. You broke a promise. Whatever’s happened since then, you’ve brought on yourself. I can use those two men, and evidently Flagg and I think alike. Flagg is the best cow-man who ever forked a horse, and if he picked those men to come with us on our drive north, I trust his judgment. You, I don’t trust. In fact, I don’t even like you. So you and Coker get your asses out of my house right now, or I may tell Laura to dust you off with that scattergun, after all.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Coker said, and started to rise from the divan.

  Laura lifted the shotgun, aimed it at Coker from the hip, and pulled back both hammers to full cock.

  Click. Click.

  “We go now,” Deutsch said, his face paling beneath the bruises. “Sam, you come.”

  Both men got up slowly.

  Dag stood up.

  “First, I give you a little something, Felix. Maybe you think you won this one battle, eh? But the good cards I still hold.”

  As the two men passed by Laura and Dag, Deutsch reached into the inside pocket of his coat and drew out an envelope. He handed it to Dag. Then he and Coker marched out through the front door, leaving it open behind them.

  Laura walked to the door; she watched the two men mount up and ride away. She closed the door and latched it tight. She lowered the hammers on the shotgun and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What did Deutsch give you?” she asked, as she came up to her husband, the shotgun pointed at the floor.

  “I don’t know.”

  Dag opened the envelope. There were papers inside, which he drew out and glanced at hurriedly. He riffled through the first three and then came to the last, which was written in a different hand and very short.

  “What is it?” Laura craned her neck to look at the papers in Dag’s hand.

  Dag swore and handed her the sheaf of papers.

  “Oh, my,” she said. “That devil.”

  “He’s got me over a barrel now,” Dag said, “that damned Deutsch.”

  “You? Us,” she said. “We’d better talk this over, Felix.”

  “Yeah. That makes the drive even more important now.”

  She leaned the shotgun against the wall and took Dag’s hand. She led him to the divan, where the
y both sat down. She reached over and turned up the wick on the lamp.

  “You know what happened, don’t you?” he said.

  “It looks as if Adolph bought our mortgage from Elmer McGee. This morning. Elmer’s always been fine if we’ve been a little short on the mortgage payments, or late.”

  The first three pages contained a reference to Dagstaff’s original contract with McGee, a description of the property, and terms of the mortgage. It also divulged that, for a certain sum, McGee transferred ownership of the mortgage over to Adolph Deutsch. To the Dagstaffs, it was a devastating document.

  “I know. Did you read Adolph’s note?”

  “Glanced at it.”

  She held the last page up to the lamp, leaned over, and read it.

  “Adolph says that if we miss next year’s payment, or if we are short, he will foreclose on our property,” she said, her tone sober, laden with a deep sadness.

  “He means it too, sugar,” Dag said. “Deutsch will be all over us like ugly on a bear if we’re a minute late.”

  “Can we do it?” she asked, her voice soft, pleading.

  Dag sighed as he drew in a breath and let it out. “I don’t know. It all depends on how the drive goes, how soon we get back. It depends on a lot of things.”

  “Why would Elmer do such a thing? He’s always been the nicest man, ever since we bought this land from him.”

  “Elmer’s a businessman. He’s got holdings in Amarillo, San Antonio. He was a banker, you know. Before he went into dairy ranching, raising cotton. Lord knows, he’s rich as Croesus.”

  “But why would he sell our mortgage to Adolph? He must have had a reason.”

  Dag tried to summon up all that he knew about Elmer McGee. Just before the war, he had bought up a lot of old Spanish land grants all along Palo Duro Canyon. Like Dag, he had ridden with Colonel John Salmon Ford, old Rip Ford, in the Cavalry of the West. Elmer had been wounded before the last battle at Palmito Hill and had gone back to Amarillo. While in the cavalry, he told Dag that he’d sell him land for a good price after the war and he had done just that.

  “All I can think of is that Adolph has something on Elmer, and he forced the sale of that mortgage. You know Adolph is a very shrewd businessman. He’s got that trading post, which he took over after the one at Quitaque went under. He sells mercantile and other goods to all the ranchers around here. Adolph’s probably richer than Elmer by now.”

  “I still think Elmer should have told us first.”

  “I would have thought so, hon,” Dag said, “which makes me think that Adolph has something on Elmer.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Maybe. You know Adolph sold cotton during the war, and Elmer raised a hell of a lot of cotton. Maybe Elmer sold to the wrong side a time or two.”

  “No, Elmer wouldn’t do that, would he?”

  Dag looked at Laura, a tenderness in his eyes. He could see that she was on the brink of tears, almost ready to break down and cry on his shoulder. She was good with the money, but she took disappointments pretty hard.

  “He might,” Dag said. “If he was pushed hard enough—or, if he had something else at stake, something that Deutsch knew about. A lever that Deutsch knew how to operate for his own benefit.”

  The two looked at each other with a sudden flash of understanding.

  “Let me see those papers again,” Dag said.

  She didn’t hand them to him, but held on to one side of the papers, while Dag turned the pages. On page three were the signatures.

  And there, next to those of Elmer McGee, and Adolph Deutsch, was the notary stamp. The signature was H. McGee. And beneath the stamp and the two signatures were those affirmations of the two witnesses, Sam Coker and Helga McGee.

  “That little bitch,” Laura said.

  “We should have known,” Dag said. “Elmer married Helga, and she’s very close to her father, Adolph. Elmer adores her.”

  “And Helga adores her father,” Laura said.

  “Yes, the little bitch.”

  They both laughed. But the laughter faded quickly.

  Laura pored over the papers again. “I feel betrayed,” she said.

  “You can’t blame Elmer, Laura. Helga is a beautiful young woman and Elmer is older than I am. He probably doesn’t have that many years left. I know that wound he got in the war has worn him down. He doesn’t eat right; he doesn’t sleep well. Helga is the light of his life.”

  “His miserable life,” Laura said bitterly. “Oh, people!”

  “People will disappoint you, hon, more often than not.”

  “I’m very worried now about the drive to Cheyenne. You’re short of cattle and it’s so far away.”

  “Laura, I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to lie down and play dead because of Deutsch’s treachery. I’ll make the drive. I’ll find the cattle we need. And I’ll be back in time to pay off the mortgage.”

  “Pay it off?”

  “Every cent of it.”

  “I love you, Felix,” she said. They embraced and she squeezed him hard against her.

  That night, they made love as if it were their last night on earth. They were like two lovers in ancient Pompeii, with the volcano Vesuvius rumbling in the background just before it erupted and buried all in the town alive.

  Chapter 7

  Jubal Flagg, along with Manuel Chavez and Don Horton, rode up to the herd late the next afternoon, to find Dag and his men holding the herd on a patch of grass only two miles from where the cattle had been on the previous day under Barry Matlee’s supervision.

  “I want this herd to start moving as soon as the sun sets,” Flagg said, as he stepped down from his horse Ranger, a tall black Missouri trotter that had been gelded.

  “But Matlee and his cowhands won’t be back until tomorrow,” Dag said.

  “I don’t give a damn,” Flagg said. “This herd is moving tonight. Barry can catch up with us. We’ll leave a wide enough trail.”

  “We’re not out of grass here.”

  “No, but you want to build this herd up, Dag, and we’re going to start tonight. I want you to give me two of your dumbest cowhands, right after dark. They’ll come with me, Don and Manny.”

  “What do you aim to do, Jubal?”

  “I’m going to teach them something, and then they can teach the rest of your hands. We’re, by God, going to build the damnedest herd that ever left the Caprock, and drive the sons of bitches up the Palo Duro.”

  Flagg was an imposing figure. He stood a shade over six feet tall, with shoulders that were as wide as an ox yoke. Square-jawed, clean-shaven, he had dark brown eyes that were like twin gun barrels. His face was chiseled to a lean hardness that matched the rest of his body. His tan was deep, weathered like the soil that lined the Palo Duro Canyon, dark as old bronze. He wore a crumpled, weather-beaten felt hat and carried a Colt .44/40 on his hip. A big Sharps Yellow Boy rifle jutted from the scabbard attached to his saddle. And Dag knew he had two other pistols in his saddle bags, a Smith & Wesson .32, a belly gun, and another Colt .44, which matched the one he carried.

  He wore a light blue chambray shirt, heavy duck trousers, and a red bandanna around his neck. A string to a sack of makings dripped from his shirt pocket, and he constantly chewed on a twist of strong tobacco, which he could spit, when chewed, with accuracy for a distance of at least ten feet. He took a pocketknife from his pants pocket and cut off a chunk of twist and slid it into the side of his mouth as he looked at the cattle grazing all around them.

  Three riders circled the herd at a leisurely pace, while other hands worked on their tack and began to shake out bedrolls.

  Flagg spat a plume of tobacco. “They won’t need those bedrolls tonight, Dag,” he said. “And you tell Fingers to feed ’em light tonight and be ready to move ten miles ahead of the herd right after he’s served the vittles. We’ll breakfast at the Foster ranch come morning.”

  “You give me a lot of orders, Jubal.”

  “That’s what you hired me f
or, Dag. Did you bring the cash?”

  “Yep,” Dag said. “Scratched up all I could. Had to have Laura empty her cookie jar.”

  “Give me some now, then.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty or sixty ought to do it for now.”

  “What for?”

  “I’ll be buying some cattle along the way, just so we stay within the law.”

  Dag counted out sixty dollars and handed the bills to Flagg. Jubal folded them and stuck them in the left front pocket of his trousers.

  “Now hop to it, Dag. I want to see those two men I’m going to ride with tonight.”

  Dag thought of whom he might tell to go with Flagg. He had a pair of fairly new hands he thought would fit the bill.

  Jimmy Gough was still wrestling with the growing remuda. Gough had brought in a dozen horses that morning, then had left to bring in a half dozen more. Matlee was supposed to bring more in the morning, but they still needed to find more that could make the long trip. Dag wanted at least sixty-five horses, and they all had to be sound, freshly shod, with good bottoms and none lame or otherwise afflicted. The men were close, but needed a few more, which Matlee had promised to bring the next day. Jimmy was putting on hobbles with the help of the two men Dag had in mind to go with Flagg.

  “Jimmy,” Dag called, “can you spare those two new wranglers helping you?”

  “Them two ain’t horse wranglers by any stretch of the imagination. You can have ’em both, Dag. One of ’em’s classy as a pig on ice and t’other is a pure fumble-fingered fool. Neither one of ’em understands two words of English.” Jimmy turned to face the two boys, who were down on their knees trying to set hobbles on the same horse. “Pancho, you and Cholo go on over yonder with Mr. Dagstaff. Vete pronto allá.”

  The two boys muttered something in Spanish, but Dag couldn’t hear it. They walked over as if they had all the time in the world. Their pants and shirts were covered with sweat, and the sweat had caked the dirt that clung to their clothing.

  “Dag, are these two wetbacks cowboys?” Flagg asked.

  “Sure, Jubal. They’re young, but they’re good with cows. They’re just not too good with horses yet.”

  “Can they ride without being tied on with rope?”