Hard Texas Trail

by Matt Chisholm

  The fall hurt his back so agonizingly that he cried out. He stayed on his hands and knees, near to tears of rage and helplessness. He cursed feebly, raging at the elements and himself.

  Then some truth came to him through his hands. He knew that the earth under his hands wasn’t the earth he had been walking for so long in the rain. He ran his hands over it, exploring it.

  Suddenly, there was hope in him. He got to his feet. He knew that he was on a trail. He waited with immense patience for the next flash of lightning. It seemed a long time coming. When it came, he could see the wagon ruts full of water, the hoofmarks like small ponds.

  He started forward.

  He walked for an hour and by the time that was up, he knew that he was so weak that he couldn’t go much further. But the rain stopped and that was something to be thankful for.

  He would have pulled off to the side of the trail and slept then, but he heard a sound. It was so much the sound he needed that he couldn’t credit that he had heard right. It was the soft whinny of a horse.

  He knew that Jody and George would have let out the horses in the corral to fend for themselves. He also knew that at least some of them wouldn’t go far. He could also be entirely mistaken in his locality, but he thought that he was near his own home.

  He went on another couple of hundred yards and turned off along the short side-trail. Now he knew that he was home for sure.

  It wasn’t long before he was stumbling up the stoop step, resting for one moment against the jamb of the door and then entering the house. His mind warned him that the men could be waiting for him here, but he went to the table by instinct, found the tinder and flint and got light going. There was a tallow candle on the table and he lit it. He held it high and looked around. Home had never looked more beautiful.

  He was shivering with cold. He thought of the girl. The boys were with her. He couldn’t go another step like this. He looked for pa’s whisky, but he couldn’t find it. He went to ma’s cupboard in the kitchen and saw that it had been ransacked. He knew then that the men had been here. They were well ahead of him.

  He couldn’t go after them till dawn. There wouldn’t be any sign in this rain any road. But he should be with Sarah. What he thought was his duty and what he was capable of fought each other. He carried the flickering candle into his room and stripped off his wet clothes. Now he was home and now he could see the bed waiting there for him, he felt stronger. He got into dry clothes, wrapped himself in blankets and lay down on the bed. He had no sooner laid down his head than he was asleep,

  It was the whinny of a horse that woke him.

  He came suddenly and completely awake. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and knew that, though his head was pretty clear, he was as weak as a new-born calf. He pulled his boots on and looked around. Outside it was a sunny clear day. He walked into the kitchen, found some food and stuffed it into him. There was no time for making coffee, so he washed the food down with water.

  He went out into the yard and there he saw the most welcome sight he had ever seen in his life.

  Right there in the middle of the yard was a horse. It was a strawberry roan they all called Rusty. It wasn’t the best horse ever. Just an oldish horse the girls used to ride. Clay had to smile at the sight of the gelding. The animal was so used to home that it didn’t see why it should go and find food for itself. It had come in to be fed.

  Clay walked to the barn and called it. It came trotting to him and he fed it. Then he searched around and came up with an old saddle of his father’s and, after he had found a blanket, he saddled Rusty. That left him pretty weak and he had to sit down for a while.

  He thought about Sarah and wondered what his parents would think when he arrived in Colorado with her as his wife. Then he pictured her dead, gunned down by Blessed. The thought was unbearable and it drove him to his feet. There wasn’t a minute to be wasted. He walked back to the house and collected some supplies and tied them to his saddle horn in a sack. Then he found a single-shot rifle that had belonged to his father and slung that from the saddle with a strip of rawhide. That made him just about ready and he climbed slowly and weakly into the saddle. He rested there a moment, feeling like hell, and wondered if he was going to be able to stay there.

  He set off south with his eye open for sign, but the rain had washed out any sign there ever had been. Rusty settled down to a steady trot and every step seemed to take Clay’s spine up through his skull. He gritted his teeth and kept on going.

  When the rain came, Blessed’s patience broke. He raved like a crazy man and for a while Witney thought he’d gone out of his mind. The gunman was tempted to throw the whole thing in. He didn’t fancy hunting down men like the Storms in this country with a madman for a companion.

  They halted and put on their slickers. There was no shelter to be had, so they crouched at the bole of a tree and waited out the rain, dozing miserably through the hours of darkness when sheer exhaustion dampened Blessed’s rage. Even so when dawn came, both men were at the lowest ebb of their spirits. They had to dangle the carrot of the money to be gained by their going on before their mental eyes to encourage themselves.

  Blessed had never felt more wretched in his life. Mentally and physically, he was in bad shape. He had had a poor night’s sleep and, in spite of his slicker, he was soaked to the skin. When light came, there was no means of lighting a fire and they could not even comfort themselves with hot coffee. They ate a cold breakfast and washed it down with water from their canteens.

  ‘Christ,’ Witney said, ‘we’re up the creek without a paddle, all right.’

  If he had been optimistic, Blessed would have been pessimistic. He retaliated with hope.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘We had a bad time. When the sun comes up, we’ll feel better.’

  ‘That won’t tell us what direction to go in,’ Witney said. ‘We’re lost, man. We couldn’t even find our way back to San Antone.’

  ‘Cheer up,’ Blessed said. ‘Just think of the money.’

  Witney thought of the money and the thought didn’t do much for him right then. But, sure enough, when the sun came up and he started to dry out, he found that he was feeling more hopeful. He started to put his mind to their problem. He thought over what he knew so far of the Storms’ movements.

  When they left the water, they were going directly in an easterly direction. By crossing the rock back there, they would think that they were fairly safe from being followed. Therefore it could well be that they were headed directly for their objective. So the only thing that he and Blessed could do was to go on in an easterly direction and trust to luck. There wasn’t a single thing else they could do.

  He said this to Blessed and the bearded man agreed.

  ‘We’ll find them,’ Blessed said, ‘or they’ll find us. Either way we have to move fast.’

  Two against two, Witney thought. The odds weren’t bad and he’d won in the past with worse.

  They pushed on, going as directly east as the terrible brush would allow. How they were ever going to find their way out of this country, neither knew. They would face that problem when they came to it.

  They had traveled for nearly two hours when suddenly the high brush stopped. Before them was about a half-mile of thickets that came no higher than a horse. If they attempted to cross that, they would be visible to anybody watching for them. North-east of them on the far side of this sweep of brush was rising ground, what looked to be a square mile of jumbled rocks.

  Blessed said: ‘That would be a good place to hide out. Good cover and a good view. Wouldn’t you pick a spot like that, Witney?’

  ‘Maybe I would at that,’ said the gunman.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ Blessed said, ‘work your way around to the south on foot and take a look.’

  Witney dismounted and drew his rifle from the saddle-boot. He tied his horse in good cover and set out. Blessed dismounted and stood eyeing the rocks. He started to have misgivings. It seemed more than possible that,
if he killed the girl here, he might not be able to prove her death. If he carried her body into town, the finger of guilt might be pointed at him. Yet he had to prove her death beyond doubt. He wished he could smoke. It seemed ridiculous that he should be nervous of men who were not even in sight. Yet he told himself the Texans had sharp eyes and they might spot his smoke.

  He was too edgy. Anybody would think that he had never killed before.

  Witney was gone a long time. He reached his glass from his saddlebags and played it on the rocks.

  Something moved.

  His heart pounded.

  Something moved between himself and the rocks. He lowered the glass and played it over the low brush. After a short search he found what he wanted. A horse moved slowly across his line of vision. It was a small bay animal. As he watched, it raised its head and stared south.

  It had spotted Witney. Trust the mustang stock with its sharp eyes, ears and nose.

  He searched further and found a second animal. A dun this time. That meant there were men near surely. They didn’t look like wild ones.

  He raised the glass to the rocks and kept it there, searching patiently.

  Suddenly a man loomed into his enlarged vision.

  Blessed was excited. This was one of the Storms. The dark one who had come after him back there near the house. At last he had the girl. Where was she?

  Another man appeared. This was the younger one. The girl had to be here. Maybe they had told her to stay under cover. That was it. The men were looking around. Maybe the alertness of the horse had alarmed them. Blessed shrank back into deeper cover. He hoped to hell that Witney was keeping himself out of sight.

  The younger Storm walked back into the rocks and disappeared. The other stayed where he was, running his eye over the country below him.

  Blessed seemed to watch him for a long time. He wished that Witney would return. It was time to plan their next move. They had a daytime of light ahead of them. Time to get in close for the kill. They’d shoot the two men and the girl this would be all over.

  Where the hell was Witney?

  Blessed’s impatience increased.

  He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the sound of a shot.

  It came from his right. So that could only mean that Witney had fired it. Or had somebody shot at Witney. Blessed was suddenly alarmed that Witney had been shot and he, Blessed, was left alone in this country.

  He put the glasses back on the Storm boy.

  The fellow was behaving in a peculiar way. He walked in a crazy circle, his hands to his head.

  The truth came to Blessed - Witney had shot him.

  The fool - the Goddam fool. He had given everything away now. The whole element of surprise had been thrown away. Blessed fell back on his habit of going into a violent paroxysm of rage.

  Storm suddenly fell from sight among the rocks.

  Blessed was torn by indecision. Should he advance on the rocks as fast as he could go and finish it? There was a lot of open country between himself and the rocks and he could get himself shot. God damn Witney all the way to hell.

  Soon there came a crashing in the brush and Witney appeared, disheveled but triumphant.

  ‘I got one of ‘em,’ he exclaimed. ‘You see that, I got one of ‘em.’

  ‘I saw it,’ Blessed shouted. ‘You stupid sonovabitch. What good do you think that’s done? They know we’re here now. I planned to jump ‘em and finish ‘em.’

  At first Witney was taken aback. Then he got mad too.

  ‘You wanta watch who you’re callin’ names,’ he said. ‘I cut down the odds, didn’t I? There’s only one gun up there now. I got him in the head. He’s most likely dead now. It was the best shot of my life.’

  Blessed simmered down. Things could have been worse. Witney was right, of course. He had whittled down the odds. Anyway, they had to make the best of what they had.

  Blessed said: ‘All right. So we’ve scared the pants off ‘em and they’ll most likely run for it. We have to stop ‘em. They’ll be slow. They have a dead man or a wounded man and there’s the girl. My guess is, they’ll try and escape east for the main trail. Get on your horse and ride a wide circle south. I’m going around through that high brush to the north and get in as close as I can. When you’re between them and the main trail, you dismount and work your way forward on foot and get in close too. And see where you put your shots. I don’t want to be shot by my own side.’

  Witney untied his horse, got into the saddle and rode away south. Blessed put the glasses once more on the rocks and took a look. Nothing stirred. He reckoned the other man had dragged his brother back into cover. He mounted and rode north. He had the feeling that they were going to have this all wrapped up in short time.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jody stood up.

  George said: ‘Where you goin’?’

  ‘Just going to take a look around.’

  The three of them had been crouched in the mouth of the cave, the cave where Pa, Uncle Mart and the Negro, Joe, had hidden out when they were kids. They should have felt safe here, but some instinct in Jody warned him that they would be fooling themselves if they thought they were out of danger. For the first time in his life, Jody felt responsible. In his keeping, he had his brother’s girl. There was more to it than that, for he held Sarah in high regard himself. She was a kind of woman he had never met before. Something about her brought out a side to his character that he had never suspected before. He felt that he had to think for the three of them.

  He thought back over the trail they had taken to this spot and wondered if it could be followed. Of course it could be followed, he told himself. Unless you wiped out sign, any trail could be followed.

  He looked at the girl. She seemed calm. None of the anxiety that touched him seemed to touch her. When they had ridden away from the house, after Clay had ridden out, her eyes had showed her fear. But now she seemed to have regained possession of herself.

  He walked away from the cave, out into the rocks from which he had a commanding view of the country. The heat was less at this time of the year, but still it was considerable. The rays of the sun seemed to bounce off the earth-hugging low chaparral that swept away in all directions to the dark line that was the higher brush.

  Suddenly, his attention was caught by the bay horse below him.

  The animal was alert. Something had alarmed it. Its head was up and it was staring south, its ears forward.

  Softly, Jody called: ‘George.’

  His younger brother came and stood beside him. He didn’t need telling. George was never slow. He saw the bay and he got the message.

  ‘It could be anybody,’ he said.

  ‘Act natural,’ Jody told him. ‘Get Sarah back in the cave.’

  George turned and went back to the cave.

  ‘What is it?’ the girl asked.

  ‘One of the horses is actin’ up,’ George told her. ‘Get back in the cave. Don’t be scared now. It could be nothing.’

  The girl’s eyes came wide. She crawled back into the cave without another word. George picked up his rifle and crawled forward on hands and knees. He hugged the rocks and looked south.

  ‘For Chrissake git down,’ he told Jody.

  ‘I don’t want ‘em spooked,’ Jody said. ‘If they want Sarah, they’ll Indian up to do the job. We’ll be ready for ‘em.’

  George’s heart started to beat with excitement.

  He kept his eye on the country.

  After a minute or so there came a distant pop and he knew that a gun had been fired.

  He heard a sound behind him and turned.

  Jody was walking in a tight circle with his hands to his head. A low moaning noise came from him. Before George could get to his feet and go to him, he had fallen. He rolled and kicked feebly, still clutching his head and giving out that low moaning sound. George crawled to him and saw the blood coming out between his fingers. Alarm blossomed in the boy. Jody could be dying. The man who had fired
that shot could be running in on the cave.

  ‘Sarah,’ he called, ‘for God’s sake.’

  She came to the low mouth of the cave on hands and knees.

  ‘Keep down,’ George told her. ‘Give me a hand with Jody.’

  She was terribly alarmed.

  ‘What happened?’ she demanded in a kind of dazed horror.

  ‘He’s been hit in the head.’

  She came to them on hands and knees, pulling Jody’s hands from his head. His eyes were closed tight and his face was screwed up in agony.

  ‘Drag him into the cave,’ George ordered.

  They took him under each armpit and started to drag him. He was still kicking his heels in a kind of frenzy. When they got him inside the cave, George didn’t know what to do. He had to try and save Jody; he ought to be back there in the rocks prepared for an attack.

  ‘Stop the bleeding,’ he said. ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘Sure I can do it,’ Sarah said. She started tearing strips off her petticoats. Jody was gripping his head again and throwing himself about from side to side. George thought he ought to hold him still, but he knew he should be ready for the attack.

  He crawled back to his rifle and stared out through the rocks.

  Nothing moved.

  He stayed there, alert, hearing Jody’s moaning going on and on. Something flashed to the west as the rays of the sun touched metal. George fixed his attention on the spot.

  His sharp eyes caught movement. A horseman was moving slowly through the tall brush, going south. The sun flashed again and he knew that somebody was watching the rocks through a glass. He lifted his rifle and prepared for a shot, but the flashing stopped and a few moments later, he saw slight movement in the brush. This time there was a rider going north. There wasn’t much doubt about it - they were preparing to come at them from two sides.