The Omaha Trail

by Ralph Compton

  As soon as the drovers saw the cattle moving onto the North Ninety, they turned back to where other men were laying on trail brands while others were riding through the herd and cutting out those cattle that were to be driven to Omaha. They separated the cows with calves and the seed bulls and moved them to other pastures.

  Paddy had set up a competition among the cowhands, both for the branding and the cutting. He separated the men into teams and told them they were to compete with one another. At the end of each day he would tally up the number of cows with fresh trail brands from each group, and the same with the cutters, counting the number of cattle they were able to bring to the branding fires and drive to Sunnyland.

  As a reward, each man in the winning group got a new silver dollar and a pint of whiskey.

  “That makes every man work harder and we get the jobs done faster,” Paddy told Dane.

  “Just be sure you don’t run out of silver dollars,” Dane warned.

  “Oh, I been exchanging paper for silver a whole lot of days,” Paddy said. “Takin’ it out of the camp funds.”

  “What in hell are the camp funds?” Dane asked.

  “You know, the money you give me for nails and paint and lumber and such. Always some left over because I know how to bargain. I believe the term the accountants use is ‘petty cash.’”

  “First I’ve heard of it.”

  “What you don’t know, Dane boy, sure as hell can’t hurt you none.”

  “You’re a slick one, Paddy.”

  “Oh, I have me ways,” he said.

  Paddy also gave a schedule to the two cooks, with Wu and his chuck wagon on the Circle K range, while Barney cooked for those who stayed in the bunkhouse overnight. Any ranch hand could find grub at either place, and the wagons stayed put. He wisely did not hold a competition for which cook the hands preferred since he was aware of how sensitive both Barney and Wu could be about the grub they prepared. But he watched and listened and declared to himself that between the two cookies it was a draw.

  Paddy drew Dane away from the other cowhands, out of earshot, to discuss a couple of other matters.

  Cattle were streaming into Sunnyland and out to the Two Grand spread, with riders guiding the cattle on both routes. The branding was continuing at a brisk pace, with two men checking the trail brands to see if they were adequate.

  “Something funny’s goin’ on around here, I think,” Paddy said. “Somethin’ you ought to know about.”

  “What’s that?” Dane asked.

  “I got a feelin’ yesterday that we was bein’ watched. I don’t know, it’s the kind of feelin’ you got in school when somebody behind you was starin’ at you. And when you turned around, sure enough, somebody was.”

  “I know what you’re talking about, Paddy. So, what did you see when you turned around out here?”

  “You know that bog over there, the one with the cattails and the blackbirds?”

  Dane glanced over to the edge of the pasture and saw the waving cattails and the redwings flitting among the reeds. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Well, when I looked over there, I thought I saw a glint of light, like when the sun hits a glass pane or one of them thingamajigs what tinkles when the wind blows.”

  “A wind chime?” Dane said.

  “Yeah, one of them. It was just a single shot of bright light, but then I thought maybe somebody’s standing amongst them cattails a-watchin’ us with a field glass.”

  “Did you go over there?”

  “Nope. I got a creepy, crawly feeling up my neck and then a cow got its head stuck in one of the ricks and was bawlin’ like crazy, so I had to help Cal and Steve turn the cow’s head so’s I could pull on its horns and free it up.”

  “I can walk over there now and take a look around.”

  “Would you? I didn’t see nobody, but it could be somebody’s mighty interested in what we’re a-doin’ here.”

  “I’ll check it out,” Dane said. “Go on back to work.”

  “One other thing, Dane,” Paddy said as he watched some of the riders chasing cattle on to the Two Grand.

  “Go ahead,” Dane said.

  “You got two cooks and two chuck wagons now. You figgerin’ on breakin’ up the drive into two separate divisions?”

  Dane took out his tobacco pouch and pinched off a wad and stuck it in his mouth. He chewed and he spat out the juice. “This is just between you and me right now, Paddy. Understand?”

  Paddy nodded. Dane spat again.

  “Yes, I am going to split the herd in half. Well, almost. You’ll take the larger herd up the Missouri and keep right on going past Kansas City. I’ll ramrod the trailing herd, pick up the nine hundred head in K.C., and then join you in Omaha.”

  “Aye, begorra,” exclaimed Paddy. “It’ll be like ridin’ naked for me without you bein’ along.”

  “I’m going to take Len Crowell with me as trail boss, Paddy. He’s experienced and I’ll be along if he runs into trouble.”

  Paddy worked a piece of bare ground with the toe of his boot. Dane expectorated another stream of tobacco juice onto the shoots of grass that were now several inches high.

  “Might work,” he said. “We got good hands now, enough maybe for two herds.”

  “You’ll have about two thousand head to drive, Paddy. I’ll take the other thousand and by the time I get to Omaha, I’ll have nearly two thousand head after I pick up those waiting in the feedlot in Kansas.”

  “A heap of responsibility, Dane. More on your shoulders than mine.”

  “We can do it. I think it’s the best way. I won’t be but a few days behind you and we can always send riders back and forth if either of us gets into trouble.”

  “You worked out how far behind us you’ll be, Dane? I mean, how far would a rider have to travel to get a message to you, or back to me?”

  “You’ll have a day’s start on me, Paddy. I figure we’ll never be more than ten miles apart, unless you get slowed or I get slowed.”

  “That sounds about right to me,” Paddy said.

  “Fingers crossed,” Dane said.

  Paddy laughed and shook the dirt off his boot. “All right. When do we divide up the hands and tell everybody what we’re a-goin’ to do?”

  “Probably either the night before we set out or the next morning. I’m still going over my list to see who goes where.”

  “We’re goin’ pretty lean at that,” Paddy said.

  “That’s where ingenuity comes in,” Dane said.

  “Inja what?”

  “Ingenuity. Makin’ do with what you got. I know the men will earn their pay on this drive. We don’t want to lose any cattle and we don’t want any trouble with the herd. So you, and me too, are going to have to make sure the men riding flank and drag, as well as those riding point, know what their jobs are and stick to ’em all the way.”

  “I’ll make sure my men do what they’re supposed to do,” Paddy said.

  “Then, we don’t have anything to worry about, do we?”

  “I reckon not,” Paddy said, but Dane knew that his foreman was not entirely convinced.

  They didn’t have the number of men they really needed to handle two drives, much less one with three thousand head. It was going to be hard work all the way to Omaha and they might even get a deserter or two. He hoped not, but it was something that sometimes happened on long cattle drives. Men missed their wives and girlfriends, they got thirsty for hard liquor, and they got homesick. They were only human, after all.

  The real test of a leader was how he handled men. His job was to inspire them and instill pride and confidence in them so that they would stay on the job. Paddy had done that on the ranch. He would have to do it on the trail. A leader had to be prepared to help out and work alongside his hands while maintaining some distance and control. He hoped that he and Len could be an example to the men who worked under them and make sure they toed the line all the way upriver.

  He and Paddy parted company. Dane walked over
toward the marsh, at an angle so that he appeared to be going to another place on the edge of the pasture. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the birds fly up and down among the cattails. He looked for any odd glint of light. And he listened.

  When he got close, he walked around the edge of the marsh looking at the muddy soft ground for boot or horse tracks. On the opposite side, he saw where the mud was roiled as if some animal had wallowed there. Perhaps quail, he thought.

  No boot tracks.

  No horse tracks.

  He walked a few yards in back of the boggy marsh and climbed a small knoll.

  There, he saw two puzzling impressions in the grassy slope and on the top. The grass was flattened as if two bodies had lain there. Beside one of the bodies, the larger one, he saw two impressions on either side, as if a man had lain there and dug his elbows into the ground. Perhaps someone who had a pair of binoculars and was watching the gather.

  Dane lay down on the larger impression and dug his elbows in. He pretended he had something in his hands and he peered through the cattails.

  When he did that, he had a full view of the hay ricks, the path the riders took when they drove the branded cattle onto Sunnyland, and the path they rode when they drove cattle onto Two Grand.

  “Now, why would someone care what we were doing here?” he asked of himself as he rose to his feet. He worried the wad of tobacco around in his mouth and walked a few yards away and spat.

  Then he walked in a series of semicircles well behind where he had found the impressions. He looked down at the ground and saw two sets of boot tracks coming and going to that spot. Two men, he reasoned, spying on them. But who? And why?”

  He kept widening his search and then saw a pair of old pecan trees with some of the bark rubbed off. Before he had bought his land, a sodbuster had set up a tent and tried to grow an orchard. There were a few pecan and peach trees and the remnants of a vineyard.

  There were lots of horse tracks around the two trees and he saw specks of corn and oats ground into the dirt. Whoever had come here to spy on his men had brought feed bags for their horses. So they had stayed a fairly long time, he figured. Why two men? And not just one?

  He followed the tracks and saw that they had come from town and headed back that same way. Dane walked back to the little knoll and looked down at the two outlines of men lying on their stomachs. One was longer, taller than the other. One was thinner than the taller one.

  He let his mind roam over what he was seeing.

  Two men, he thought. No, a man and a boy.

  Then it struck him. The smaller impression might have been made by a young slender man. There was only one who came to mind.

  Randy Bowman.

  And, he wondered, why had Randy Bowman been there with the man who had the field glass? There was only one answer to that question. Randy knew all the men who worked on the Circle K. He could have been there for only one reason, to point out to the older and larger man who each man was.

  Including himself.

  Dane spat the tasteless cud of the tobacco into the marsh.

  Throckmorton was behind this, he was sure. The banker had sent a man to watch them and Randy to point out who was who.

  The larger man was probably an assassin. Someone Dane did not know. But someone who now knew who he was and what he looked like.

  That could only mean one thing, Dane realized. He was a marked man.

  Throckmorton meant to kill him so that he could not pay off his mortgage on the ranch. It was a chilling thought.

  Dane walked back to his horse, the back of his neck prickling just as Paddy’s had been when he had seen that glimmer of light in the bulrushes.

  Someone had been watching him. Someone who meant to kill him, either here on the ranch or out on the prairie during the drive.

  And this, this horror, he would tell no one. This was his cross to bear and his alone.

  But from then on, Dane would be on guard. He would watch his back and be prepared.

  He looked all around when he mounted Reno and saw nothing but grass and cattle, men at work.

  It was just about time to start the drive north. Another day, two at the most, he decided.

  Every day and every night, the grass grew higher and thicker.

  Chapter 14

  Concho Larabee sat in Throckmorton’s office, an unlit cheroot in his mouth. Throckmorton counted a stack of greenbacks. He plucked each bill from one pile and placed each one on another pile. He did this twice while Concho chewed on the cheroot and watched the banker as if mesmerized.

  “I got ten men, Earl, and I’m takin’ the kid.”

  “Kid?”

  “Randy Bowman. He’s a good spotter and he might be useful.”

  “He’s still wet behind the ears,” Throckmorton said.

  “We’ll dry ’em out for him right quick. He’s got good eyes, he follows orders, and he tells me he can shoot pretty straight.”

  “That’s up to you, then. Pay him out of your own pocket.”

  “I’ll pay for the first ten days, Earl. After that, you pay him, say, twenty bucks a month.”

  “You think it’ll take you more than a month to turn that herd back and put Kramer six feet under?”

  “I figger the herd won’t move more’n ten or twelve miles a day and I was goin’ to wait until they’ve crossed the border into Kansas.”

  “Do you know what track Kramer’s taking?”

  “North to Kansas, then east to Kansas City is all I know. Kramer didn’t give me no map.”

  “That’s not funny, Concho.”

  “You hired me on, Earl. Let me do it my way. There’s plenty of open prairie and he’s got to foller creeks and rivers. With that many head he ain’t goin’ to move real fast.”

  Throckmorton reached into the cash box and took out another bill and added it to the counted stack.

  Concho stroked his chin and stared at the pile of greenbacks.

  “Here’s money you might need to spend before you leave and extra for expenses on the way. I’ll pay you and your men when you get that herd back here and show me proof that Kramer is out of the way.”

  “Fine with me,” Concho said. He reached across the desk and took the bills from Throckmorton’s hand. He folded them in half and slid them into a front pocket of his denim trousers. He patted them flat and crossed his legs.

  “Do you know when Kramer’s pulling out?” Throckmorton asked.

  “I reckon tomorrow or next day. He’s got cattle on what Randy says is the Two Grand Pasture, two thousand acres, and they’re crammed in there like sardines. We can’t get too close no more, ’cause Kramer found out where we was a-watchin’ him on what Randy calls Sunnyland.”

  “Kramer’s not stupid, Concho. You should have been more careful.”

  “Hell, we was well hid, but I saw him walk over to that slough and tramp around lookin’ for our tracks. He found where we had stashed our horses and spent a lot of time lookin’ at where me’n Randy was a-lyin’ whilst we watched what them cowpokes was doin’. At least now I know what Kramer looks like and I got his foreman, Paddy O’Riley, tagged. I figger I’ll have to take him down first. Cut off the head of the snake.”

  “Sounds to me as if you’ve got your scheme pretty well planned,” Throckmorton said.

  “Yep, I reckon I do. Won’t be hard to foller that herd, and when they bed down at night, me and my men can ride on ahead and pick the spot for our ambush.”

  “You can’t mess up, Concho.” Throckmorton looked at the sign up his door. “And you will be well rewarded.”

  Concho stood up and moved the cheroot to the other side of his mouth, pushing it with his tongue. The cigar irritated Throckmorton. To him, it showed a lack of respect on Concho’s part.

  “And so will you, Earl,” Concho said. “See you in a month or so.”

  “Good luck,” Throckmorton said.

  “I got my luck right here,” Concho said, and patted the butt of his pistol.

 
Then he left Throckmorton’s office and nodded to Miss Watson as he stalked past her and walked to the front doors of the bank.

  Randy was loading up a sulky with bags of groceries when Concho approached the general store on foot. He waited until the young man was finished and the buggy pulled away from the store. Then he walked over and grabbed Randy by the collar before he could reenter the store.

  “Hey,” Randy said, surprised. He looked at Concho when he turned around, and his jaw dropped an inch.

  “You want to go with us, kid? There’s cash in it for you.”

  “Where?” Randy asked, still somewhat bewildered by his abrupt encounter with Concho.

  “You know. Me and some other men are goin’ after that herd of cattle from the Circle K.”

  “You’re goin’ to steal it?”

  “You better not use that word ‘steal’ a whole hell of a lot, kid.”

  “No, sir, I won’t. You want me to help you?”

  “I want you to be my spotter. You’ll get fair wages, and maybe learn a thing or two. Won’t be easy. You’ll have to grab grub outen your saddlebags and do some night ridin’. I’m going to count on you to keep track of two men.”

  “Two men?”

  “That foremen, Paddy, and Dane Kramer.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t be askin’ too many questions, kid. Now, do you want to go with us or not?”

  “Sure,” Randy said.

  “Okay. Now you go in there and tell Christianson you’re quittin’ and draw your pay. Don’t tell him nothin’ else, hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Randy said.

  “Then I want you to saddle up and ride out to the Circle K and watch out for when they start the drive. Then you wear out leather getting back to me at the Prairie Dog. I’ll be waitin’. Me and my men will be saddled up and ready to ride.”

  “I’ll do it, Mr. Larabee,” Randy said.

  “And you might as well get used to callin’ me Concho. We’re going to be saddle pards.”

  Randy’s face brightened.

  “I’ll do everything you want me to do, uh, Concho,” he said.

  “I figger that herd’s goin’ to be movin’ late today or tomorrow. You find out and let me know. I’ll have trail grub for you when you get back.”