The Palo Duro Trail

by Ralph Compton

  Dag was already turning his horse toward the canyon, nearly two miles distant.

  “When we get there,” Flagg said, “we’ll split up. You go south and I’ll go north.”

  “Watch out for prairie dog holes,” Dag said.

  And that was what they did, weaving their way in and out of the maze of earth mounds marking the dangerous holes. At the canyon’s edge, both men reined up. They each looked both ways, north and south.

  “I don’t see anything right close,” Dag said.

  “You holler if you find a break, Dag.”

  Dag turned left to the south and Flagg rode in the opposite direction.

  He did not have to ride far. He turned and saw that Flagg had not gone far either.

  “Jubal, down here,” Dag called. “I found a place.”

  Flagg turned his horse and headed back toward Dagstaff. Dag rode up to the place he had spotted. It appeared to be a long playa where dozens of flash floods had washed a fissure in the canyon walls. Perhaps a hundred yards wide, it sloped down into the canyon. He saw something else too, and it made his blood turn to ice in his veins. Dag waited for Jubal.

  “That’s a good spot,” Flagg said. “Wide enough, I think. We’ll just funnel the cattle down there and drive on past that prairie dog town and hope to hell we can find a place along the wall where we can get ’em up on top again.”

  “Jubal, look at those tracks.”

  Dag pointed and Flagg sat up straight in his saddle as if he had been struck by a wet mop across his face.

  “Be damned,” he said.

  “Unshod pony tracks,” Dag said, “and cow tracks. Maybe that same bunch of Comanches that ran off some of my cattle.”

  “Comanches or Kiowas or Apaches maybe,” Flagg said.

  “I don’t like it none,” Dag said.

  “We get down in that canyon and we’ll be sitting ducks for Injuns up on the rim.”

  “So what are we going to do, Jubal?”

  “Ain’t got no choice. I see there’s plenty of grass down there and water running beyond that little butte. See it?”

  Dag looked and saw a flashing ribbon of silver in the sunlight, just beyond a small butte. And there was plenty of grass. There might be something else down there too: Comanches or Kiowas or Apaches—maybe all three kinds of Indians.

  “I see it,” Dag said. “All right, we’ll send scouts ahead of us once we get the herd down there, if you agree.”

  “I agree. You wait here and look things over, Dag. I’ll ride back and turn the herd. This is a good place and the cattle don’t have to cross any prairie dog holes.” Flagg turned his horse and rode off to the east.

  When he was gone, Dagstaff felt very alone. But was he? He looked all around and listened. Only the sound of the wind sighing down the canyon. Palo Duro. The Spaniards had named it. It meant “hardwood,” and there were hardwoods in it—and cactus, lizards, rattlesnakes, armadillos, and roadrunners.

  He rode down the playa into the canyon, marveling at the exquisite beauty, with all the striated colors along the canyon walls, the greenery. It was like riding into an oasis, into a secluded paradise that was almost magical. It fair took his breath away.

  He rode past the small butte and looked at the stream. It was sluggish but moving. He wondered how far up it ran and when it would peter out. Be hell to get caught down here, he thought, if a big storm came up and rained into it. A flash flood in the canyon would wash away and drown everything in its brutal path.

  The pony tracks led north, up the canyon toward Amarillo—or toward a Comanche camp. He knew the Indians camped down in it and had heard tales of how well they could hide and fight off soldiers or rangers who went down there to hunt them. It gave him the willies to think that he was down here and everything so quiet, so innocent-looking.

  The canyon, at that place, was four or five miles wide and there was a bend to the north, where it narrowed some. Maybe, he thought, they were avoiding one danger with the prairie dog holes and riding right into an even greater one.

  Dag knew he was in an ancient world, and it was haunting, as if he had dreamed it all once, long ago. In the rock layers, he saw ages past, dirt piled upon dirt, rock upon rock, and the weather, over time, had sculpted the canyon and hidden it below the plain as if God had wanted to shield its beauty from all but the bravest and hardiest. It looked old and it smelled old, even with the new grasses and flowers of spring, the blossoms on the nopal, the delicate wires of the cholla, and the stately yucca with its pale yellow adornments. He heard a quail pipe in the distance and saw it sitting atop a yucca, warning its flock, a lone sentinel with a long view from its perch on the tallest plant.

  There were deer tracks and coyote tracks and the heavy track of a wolf. A lizard splayed itself on a rock that caught the sun, the rays warming its cold blood. Its eyes blinked at Dag and its head moved slightly, a quick motion that suddenly froze. Snake tracks crossed the playa, then disappeared among the rocks.

  Dag drew a deep breath and wondered how long he dared linger in that solemn old place, where the breeze whispered secrets in a language he could not understand. The raw beauty of the place was intoxicating and he knew the real danger was that a man might go down into it and never return, never want to return.

  Dag turned his horse and rode back up the playa to the world he knew, the vast plain stretching as far as the eye could see. He rolled a cigarette, lit it, and let the smoke warm his throat and burn his lungs. There was peace here too, but it was another world, wide-open, as big as the blue sky above him. He could see a long way there, but he knew he could not see as much.

  After a time, he heard the lowing of cattle, the growls of thirsty animals that could not yet smell water. He looked to the south and saw Flagg waving to him; behind Flagg, the herd streamed at a brisk lope, with cowhands yelling at them, waving their hats at the slow ones and at the ones that drifted away from the herd.

  Dag had long since finished his cigarette, but the tobacco taste still lingered. He rode toward Flagg and saw Caleb Newcomb and Manny Chavez riding behind the other man, turned the herd toward the opening in the canyon.

  “Like the boy rabbit said to the little girl rabbit, Felix,” Flagg said, “ ‘This won’t take long.’ ”

  Dag laughed. “You got here right quick. Them cattle are plumb parched.”

  “Well, they’ll have water and I can send out scouts once we have ’em down in the canyon. You go in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “See anything?”

  Dag took a breath. “Naw,” he said. “I didn’t see a damned thing. It’s pretty quiet, so far.”

  Flagg looked at him in disbelief, but let it go. He had seen that same look on the face of a man watching a burning sunset or a fiery dawn and, sometimes, in a church when the spirit gripped a man clean down to his socks.

  Some things, he knew, a man kept to himself.

  Chapter 15

  The thunderheads had drifted away by late afternoon, when the last of the herd filed down into the canyon. And there wasn’t much shade in the canyon. The cattle had been watered, and they were grazing north up through the wide and winding wonderland that was the Palo Duro. Flagg sent riders ahead and one to ride the eastern rim, three men in all. They had been gone for some time and Dag had ridden back and forth along the line of cattle, which now numbered more than fifteen hundred head. He knew that Flagg had sent Jorge Delgado and Little Jake Bogel to ride point, while Ed Langley rode the rim.

  Matlee was not there, nor were any of his men, which irritated Dag. But something else irritated him even more. He kept looking for the man, but he had not seen him all afternoon. And it began to worry him. Finally, he rode up to Flagg at the head of the driven herd and asked him, flat-out, “I don’t see Don Horton anywhere, Jubal. Did he drift off or desert?”

  Flagg chuckled. “No, I sent him off with Barry Matlee.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, you heard Matlee at breakfast. He said he was going outlawin
’ and wouldn’t come back until he had at least a hunnert head to drive back.”

  “So?”

  “So, after that, Don came up and said he’d like to ride with Matlee, maybe show him some old cowhand tricks.”

  “Well, if we run into anything serious, Jubal, we’re sure as hell short of men.”

  Flagg turned his horse and halted him, looking Dag square in the face. “You don’t like the way I run this outfit, Dag?”

  “Hey, hold on, Jubal. No need to get your dander up, son. I’m just nervous, is all. Has nothin’ to do with the way you ramrod.”

  “Just so we’re clear on that, Dag.”

  “Christ, you’re touchy, Jubal.”

  “It’s turnin’ to a long day, Dag. You better ride back up the rim where we come in and look for the chuck wagon.”

  “You tell Fingers where we were headed?”

  “Didn’t have time. But I’m thinkin’ we’d best keep him and the wagon up on the flat. It’s mighty rugged and uneven ground down here.”

  “That’s so. And it might be hell getting it out of here, especially if a flash flood was to come roarin’ down the gorge.”

  “I’ve noticed a lot of game trails streaming down off the flat, on both sides, so I’m thinkin’ I’ll draw up the herd come this evenin’ where the men can ride or walk up one of them trails and get their grub.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea, Jubal.”

  “See? I do know what the hell I’m doin’, sometimes.”

  “Let’s not be scratchin’ that itch no more, Jubal.”

  “Fair enough, Dag.”

  Jubal clucked to his horse and nudged its flanks with his spurs. Dag turned his horse and rode to the edge of the canyon wall, where he could retrace his steps and get back up on the flat. Fingers would wonder where in the hell everyone went, and it would be bad if he rode into that prairie dog town.

  Dag headed up the playa to the plain and went two miles, to where the old cattle trail would have been, had they driven straight to the prairie dog town. He stopped Nero and the horse blew its nostrils and began to graze while Dag looked to the south. He saw the single large speck on the horizon and stood up in the stirrups and waved his hat. Then he sat back down in the saddle and waited, watching as the speck grew larger, then dissolved into several separate specks. He stood up, straight-legged, in the stirrups, held on to the horn, and waved his hat again. This time, two men waved hats back and he knew it was Jimmy and Little Jake bringing on the remuda. Dust smudged the sky above the horse herd, the haze shimmering rust and brown in the glow of the sunlight.

  Off to the left of the remuda, Dag saw another speck, but larger. He knew that was the chuck wagon, flanking the sixty-odd horses, and it was raising dust of its own. Dag tautened the reins and ticked Nero’s flanks with his spurs and rode off toward Jimmy and Little Jake.

  “Boy, we must be a-ways behind that cattle herd,” Jimmy said. “I ain’t seen no dust since we topped that last rise. We had some trouble with a couple of the horses. It was turning into a prizefight and they had to break it up and separate ’em. What brings you out this way, Dag? Didn’t run into anything harder than a rock, did you?”

  Jimmy was sweating and his light shirt looked almost black.

  Dag turned Nero and rode alongside him. “There’s a dog town up yonder, Jimmy. So you can turn your remuda to the west. ’Bout two miles away, there’s Palo Duro and the herd’s down in the canyon.”

  “Be damned,” Jimmy said.

  “You’ll find a playa where a flash flood opened up a path into the canyon. Just run ’em down there and you can’t get lost less’n these nags can climb walls straight up”

  “Dag, don’t you be talkin’ about these fine breeds that way.”

  Both men laughed.

  Jimmy turned to Little Jake on the other side of the herd and yelled at him.

  “We’ll turn ’em here and head west, Little Jake. Look lively, son.”

  Little Jake grinned. The two men smiled at each other.

  “I’ll catch up to you by and by, Jimmy. I’m going to talk to Fingers and bring him over next to the canyon.”

  “You takin’ the wagon down in there?”

  Dag shook his head. “Nope. Just going to ride shotgun for Fingers along the top edge of the rim. We’ll likely see you round suppertime.”

  “You ride careful, Dag,” Jimmy said. He touched a finger of farewell to the brim of his battered felt hat, which had a dark band of sweat around the lower part of the crown, where the moisture had dropped through. The band was caked with dust.

  Dag turned his horse and rode toward the chuck wagon, which was looming ever larger as it approached.

  Jo was the first to wave from the seat of the wagon. Her father waved when Dag was still some distance away. He felt a trip hammer rhythm in the region of his heart when Jo waved. It surprised him because he had not been thinking of her in any special way. But there were flutters in his stomach and his pulse raced. She was a beautiful young woman, of course, but that didn’t explain his reaction to seeing her. No, there was something else beneath it. She stirred feelings in him that had long been dormant. He would have to watch himself, he vowed silently, as he rode up to the wagon.

  “Somethin’ up, Dag?” Finnerty said as Dag rode alongside.

  “We’re drivin’ the herd up the Palo Duro, Fingers, but there’s a prairie dog town like you never saw up ahead and you’ll have to turn west to keep out of the worst part.”

  “Big town?”

  “Huge.”

  “We goin’ into the canyon?”

  “Nope. Might not get out. And if a flash flood happens down in there, you’d turn this wagon into a rowboat.”

  Finnerty laughed.

  “It’s good to see you, Felix,” Jo said. “Are you going to escort us?”

  “Yes’m,” Dag said, and mentally kicked himself for being so formal with a girl he’d known for most her life.

  Jo frowned.

  “Am I a‘ma’am’ now, Felix?”

  “No’m—I mean, naw, Jo, I just—”

  “Just what?” she teased.

  Finnerty looked at both of them and smiled. “You just got your tongue all tangled up, didn’t you, Dag?”

  “I reckon,” Dag said lamely.

  “Daddy, Felix can speak for himself.”

  “I know that, darlin’. I’m just trying to make the man more comfortable, is all. You bat them pretty eyes of yours at men and they lose their senses.”

  “Oh, Daddy, stop it.”

  When Dag didn’t say anything and she could see that he was feeling somewhat uncomfortable, she turned to her father. “Daddy, tell Felix about what happened last night.”

  “Oh, yeah. Mighty peculiar,” Finnerty said.

  A short silence, except for the clank and tink of pots and pans inside the wagon, the muffled scrape of tools loosened by the jarring motion of the wagon over rough terrain.

  “What do you mean, Fingers?”

  “Sometime last night, someone broke into the chuck and stole food.”

  “What food?”

  “Mostly stuff that won’t spoil for a time: jerky, hardtack, coffee beans, some salt pork, and bacon, a few peaches in airtights. Well, one or two, I guess. Didn’t hear ’em ’cause I was sleepin’ some ways away, you know, and the mules was unhitched.”

  “Who do you figure?” Dag asked.

  “Dunno. Could be anybody.”

  “What about you, Jo? Any ideas?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything either. Whoever stole the chuck went about it awful quiet-like.”

  “So nobody you can name? Either of you?”

  “Coulda been one of the hands or an Injun,” Finnerty said. “They took enough grub to last ’em maybe a week or so.”

  Dag pondered these revelations. Anyone in the outfit wouldn’t need to steal grub. He would just have to ask Fingers for a handout and the cook would have been happy to supply whatever was asked.

 
“Did you pass out grub to Matlee and his bunch?”

  “Sure,” Finnerty said. “Hardtack and jerked beef. He said they’d be out for a while. He took coffee beans and some other stuff. Said he’d shoot quail or jackrabbits if they ran short of meat. Nobody had to steal nothin’ from that outfit.”

  They were all silent for a while. They reached the rim of the canyon and Finnerty turned the wagon north.

  “I’m going to ride up ahead and look for bad dog holes,” Dag said. “Just follow me.”

  “Felix,” Jo said, “before you go, I do have one man in mind that might have stolen the food last night. I can’t prove it and I may be way wrong.”

  “Who might that be?” Dag asked.

  “Well, I noticed one man in the early evening pay a whole lot of attention to Daddy when he packed up after supper and I put the dishes and utensils away. He kept glancing over as he sat by the fire, smoking a cigarette and belching.”

  “All right, who was that?”

  “Don Horton,” she said.

  “Horton?”

  “Yes, I know that’s not much proof of anything, but he was mighty interested in the wagon, all of a sudden like.”

  “Thanks, Jo. Time will tell,” he said, then rode away from the wagon.

  Horton again. The man might be up to something. He bore watching. But if he did steal so much food, not wanting anyone to know he took it, what did that mean? What in hell was he planning to do?

  Dag wondered if he would ever know. But he had a strong hunch that he would. And maybe he wouldn’t have to wait long for Horton to play out his hand and reveal his cards.

  Chapter 16

  Two more days of driving through the canyon, until they were well past the prairie dog town. Now Flagg was looking for a place to drive the cattle back up on the flat. The water was just trickling through the canyon and the cattle were beginning to grumble. The men had hit patches where the grass was scarce and at night Flagg ordered men to cut off prickly pear, scrape the spines off, and feed them to the weakest cattle at the rear. It wasn’t enough, but it kept the herd from running off at every bend where they could smell water.