The Omaha Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “Or swimmin’,” Whit said.

  Paddy shot him a scouring look of displeasure. “No more jokes. This is serious work. You boys take your flanks and make sure none of the herd breaks out and tries to cross in this deep fork of the river.”

  The two men rode off.

  Paddy called out to Steve, who was holding the lead cow at bay as she lowered her head and pawed the ground, making noise in her chest and throat.

  “Head ’em out, Steve,” Paddy said, “but keep ’em away from the river until you see a stack of stones. I’ll lead the way.”

  “Okay, boss,” Steve replied.

  Paddy rode toward the river and then cut south. He looked behind him and saw the herd began to move. Steve and Cal Ferris turned the leaders so that they were on a more or less parallel course to the Canadian.

  Paddy began to breathe normally.

  “Now,” he said, “if nothin’ happens to spook the herd, we’ll make the crossin’.”

  He patted his horse’s neck as it craned its head to look at the surging river winding its way to some unknown destination.

  He slowed his horse and kept looking back. Steve and Cal were doing their jobs. The cattle were rolling big brown eyes at the river, but were following the riders and the lead cow.

  The real test would come, he knew, when he drove the herd into the river at the ford Bill had found for them. If the following herd didn’t scatter and think they were smarter than their leaders, they would cross all right. If they did scatter, they’d have a mess on their hands. The river was strong enough to wash a cow downstream if any strayed into deep water.

  Paddy said a silent prayer and rode on, looking for the stone cairn.

  Chapter 23

  When Concho saw the first herd being held off from crossing the Canadian River, he made up his mind and came to a decision.

  Lem sat his horse alongside Concho, staring at the stalled herd, which he could not see very well. His horse pawed the ground and whickered. It kept turning its head to look back at the other horses, which were dipping their noses in the creek, blowing bubbles with their rubbery noses, and slurping water into their thick-lipped mouths.

  The men following him had been grumbling for several days. They were not used to being idle on the trail of a large cattle herd. They could be idle in town because there was whiskey to be had, and women as well. They could pass the hours playing cards or shooting craps. But the trail was a lonesome existence. They had been told that they were on a mission that would line their pockets with hard coin.

  Concho let the binoculars fall to his chest and turned to Lemuel, who had ridden to this spot with him. They were on a brush- and tree-covered hillock that gave them both cover and a clear view of both cattle and drovers, along with the chuck wagon and supply wagon.

  The other men in his surly band were all lounging about fifty yards away by a small creek, lying or sitting under the shade of some poplar trees.

  “Randy,” Concho called, “come on over here for a sec, will you?”

  Randy arose from the creek bank. He had a piece of hardtack in his hands that was half-eaten. He left his canteen lying where he had been sitting and ran to Concho’s side.

  He looked up at the outlaw, a questioning look on his features, eyebrows wrinkled like a pair of humped caterpillars.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Concho removed his hat and slipped the binoculars over his head and handed them down to the young man.

  “Who’s that man ridin’ toward the tail end of the herd?” Concho asked.

  Randy fitted the glass to his eyes and scanned the herd until he saw the man riding slowly along the near flank. He recognized him instantly. It was a man they hadn’t seen before, but Randy knew who he was.

  “That’s Tolliver,” he said. “Harvey Tolliver. I wonder why we’re just now seein’ him.”

  “Ha,” Concho snorted. “Because he’s the jasper I been seein’ damned near ever’ day ridin’ circuit on the herd and starin’ out over the country with a damned spyglass. Lookin’ for us, most likely.”

  “A spyglass?” Randy said as he handed the binoculars back up to Concho.

  “Yep, one of them long telescopes what can make a man’s eyes see damned near into next week.”

  “I didn’t see no spyglass,” Randy said.

  “No, you don’t,” Concho said. “A few minutes ago, I saw that Tolliver hand it over to Paddy up at the head of the herd. And then the trail boss sent two men up to the river. They ain’t come back yet.”

  “Paddy’s probably lookin’ for a ford acrost the Canadian,” Lem said. “One went west, the other’n to the east.”

  “Well, that don’t make no difference right now,” Concho said. “I done made up my mind.”

  Randy stood there, wondering if Concho was through with him. Neither man on horseback looked at him, and he started to chew on the hardtack, trying not to make any noise.

  “You have?” Lem asked.

  “We ain’t goin’ to wait until Paddy gets that herd up to the Verdigris. This is a better place.”

  “To do what?” Lem asked.

  Concho let out a long breath and then sucked more air into his nostrils. “From here to Kansas, we’re goin’ to start pickin’ Paddy’s men off. One by one.”

  “What?” Lem said.

  “You heard me. No use waitin’. By the time he gets to Kansas, he won’t have so many drovers if we pick ’em off along the way. By the time he crosses into Kansas, we can just jump him and take ’em all out and turn that herd back toward the mission.”

  “That’s a hell of an idea, Concho,” Lem said.

  “And the first one I’m going to drop is that Tolliver. He’ll be at the tail end of the herd, likely, and it’ll take the rest of them a while to find him. Then they’ll bury him and start losin’ sleep at night.”

  “Where’d you get that idea, Concho?”

  “Back when I rode with Quantrill, we was guerillas. We’d see a column of Yankees and start pickin’ ’em off from the rear of the column. Caused a hell of a lot of confusion, I can tell you. We rode in and rode out nobody catched us.”

  “Guerillas, huh?” Lem scratched the side of his head just above his right ear.

  “Yeah, guerillas. Like ghosts, we was. Night riders. We’d hit a town, shoot everybody what came at us with rifles or shotguns, then light a shuck before half of ’em was full awake.”

  “What if they see us? Then what?”

  “They’ll see maybe some fire and smoke. Hear the rifle. But by that time, we’ll be someplace else.”

  “Might work.”

  “It’ll work. I declare, you’re about as sharp as a cow’s tit sometimes. I could pick off Tolliver from here and by the time he hit the ground, we’d all be miles away.”

  “Ain’t no need for you to scorn me, Concho. I was just wonderin’ out loud.”

  “Yeah, well, you got to use that cotton in your head you call a brain. It’ll work. Trust me.”

  Lemuel didn’t reply. A long time ago his pappy had told him to watch out for the man who said “trust me.” “When a man says that, boy, it means you can’t trust him as far as you could throw a sack full of iron anvils.”

  Concho looked down at Randy. Randy froze with the hardtack stuck to his mouth.

  “You can go on back to where you was, Randy,” Concho said. “Ain’t nothin’ goin’ to happen just now.”

  Randy took the bread from his mouth and walked back to the creek. He was bursting with information for the others, but he knew he’d better not take any thunder from Concho. He would keep what was said a few minutes ago to himself.

  “When you goin’ to take down that drover?” Lem asked.

  “We’ll wait until Paddy takes the herd to the ford. Once them cattle start movin’, I’ll drop him.”

  “Hell, it’s a good five hunnert yards to where that herd is grazin’,” Lem said.

  “I’ll get closer, but I bet I could put out his lamp from here.”
>
  Lem’s eyebrows arched, but he didn’t say anything. He had never shot a deer that was more than forty or fifty yards from the muzzle of his rifle. And the men he’d shot had been a hell of a lot closer. Less than ten feet, most of them. Some so close the muzzle blast set their shirts on fire.

  “You stay here, Lem, and keep an eye on the cattle. When they start movin’ you call me.”

  “Sure, Concho. But my horse is mighty thirsty.”

  “Just wait here,” Concho said.

  He turned his horse and rode over to the creek.

  There, he told the men of his new plan.

  “So, every day we pick off another drover, clear to the Kansas border. I guarantee you’ll all get a chance to draw blood.”

  “I’d rather spill it than draw it,” cracked Skip.

  “Skip, one of these days your damned mouth is going to get you into a heap of trouble,” Concho said.

  “It already has,” Skip said.

  Some of the men laughed.

  Randy felt a tenseness building inside him, in his muscles and tendons. These men were talking about killing other men and none of them batted an eye. They gave him the inward shivers, even under a hot sun.

  “Just one a day, Concho?” Will asked.

  “Enough to make them worry about where the next bullet’s comin’ from,” Concho said.

  “What if they don’t have no more drovers to get ’em across the border into Kansas?” Lyle asked. He chewed on a blade of grass he had plucked from the creek bank, sucking out the juices from its root.

  “We’ll make sure we leave that Mick bastard a skeleton crew.”

  The men all wore blank looks on their faces.

  “Get it?” Concho said. “A damned skeleton crew.”

  Skip was the first to laugh and he was joined by all the others. Some of them whacked each other on their backs. Even Randy tittered a quiet little laugh of his own.

  “When?” Logan said.

  “Soon,” Concho said. “They got to ford the Canadian, and once that herd starts movin’, I’ll sneak up ahind it and shoot the man on drag out of his saddle.”

  “Then what?” Logan asked.

  “Then we all scatter like leaves in the wind and tomorrow Skip will get the second shot.”

  They all looked at Skip. He sat up and raised a fisted hand.

  “Hooray for me,” he said.

  “And if you miss, Skip,” Concho said, “you’ll get a slug in the back from my Colt .45.”

  “I don’t miss,” Skip said.

  “You missed breakfast once or twice,” Lyle said, and the men laughed again.

  “All right,” Concho said. He dismounted and let his horse drink from the creek. “Nothing to do now but wait. But when you hear my rifle shot, be ready to move. We’ll find a place to cross the river and be waitin’ on the other side.”

  “It’s about time we got to do somethin’,” Will said. “I been itchin’ to get me a cowpoke and see him holler and kick like a stuck pig.”

  “Should be fun,” Concho said.

  Randy cringed inwardly. They were talking about men he had known, men he had spoken to, and men whose horses he had groomed and shoed. He was beginning to feel sick.

  One of the men, Mitch, noticed that Randy’s face had gone bloodless. The kid looked sick, he thought.

  “What about Randy here?” Mitch asked. “Does he get to bushwhack one of them drovers? Maybe the Mex wrangler?”

  Concho looked at Randy, then back at Mitch.

  “If he wants to, the kid can shoot old Paddy when we rustle that herd. I can put him real close. What do you say, Randy?”

  All were silent as they looked at Randy. He looked as if he were about to vomit.

  “I ain’t never shot nobody,” he said. His voice came out of his mouth in a thin, high squeak.

  The men laughed and Randy felt himself shrinking with shame.

  “Never mind,” Concho said. “Randy’s been a big help to me and if he bears a grudge against any of them waddies, he’ll get his chance to sling some lead.”

  That seemed to satisfy the men, and they began to fill their canteens or build smokes.

  Concho sat down and looked at the sun-shot waters of the creek as it laced between the green banks. There were sparkles and diamonds in the tiny wavelets, and upstream, birds chirped and dived at their shadows, twittering and darting up and down, chasing each other, and alighting to sip from the stream.

  It was a beautiful day that afternoon.

  But the pall of death hung in the air and Randy wondered if the men were as keyed up as he was. If they were, it was for different reasons.

  He was afraid. Deep down inside him he was afraid.

  And he dreaded the sound of that first shot from Concho’s rifle.

  It would mean the end of something and the beginning of a whole lot of other things.

  He wished he could run away and never see Concho or any of these men again.

  He wished he had the courage to do just that.

  But he knew he didn’t. He was trapped. He had ventured into a deep dark cave and he couldn’t get out.

  Poor Tolliver, he thought.

  He was in a cave too, and he didn’t know it.

  Only Tolliver would never get out alive.

  And, maybe, neither would he.

  Chapter 24

  Dane watched as Joe Eagle rode well ahead of the herd and finally disappeared from view. He was riding point for Len, nearly a quarter mile from the lead cow with its clanking bell. The cattle were on good grass and foraging along the trail as they headed toward Sweetwater.

  His face was wan and haggard from lack of sleep, and the furrows in his forehead seemed deeper and more wrinkled. He had patrolled the far outskirts of the place where the herd had bedded down for the night, riding with slowness and caution, listening to every sound, from the mournful songs of the whip-poor-wills to the wild yips of coyotes and the yap of farm dogs and the hoot of barn owls.

  He knew Concho and his men were somewhere out on the prairie. But they were invisible. He did not know where they had gone, except he knew they had left town. Were they following Paddy with the first herd? More than likely. But he couldn’t chance any of those outlaws sneaking up at night and cutting out part of the herd or shooting his men as they tended the cattle or slept in their bedrolls.

  And where now, he wondered, was Joe Eagle? For the past two days, Joe had just disappeared, ridden away without telling either him or Crowell where he was going. Was he also looking for Concho? Unlike Dane, Joe was sleeping at night. Dane was out like some owl-hooter, hunched over in the saddle to present as little silhouette as possible, looking, listening, riding wide circles over uneven ground, careful not to let Reno step in a gopher hole or stumble into a prairie dog town and break a leg.

  Dane rubbed his eyes. He knew they were red from lack of sleep. The land ahead shimmered under visible waves of heat, and he saw puddles of water shining like small lakes. Mirages, of course, but they seemed real, and sometimes he could see what looked like a man on horseback in the middle of the phantom mirror, a rider that evaporated after a few seconds and left an empty view of land stretching to the distant horizon.

  He looked back, just to erase the dancing images of watery roads and tilting ponds. The herd was far behind him, still moving, the cattle snatching grass or chewing on their cuds as they plodded blindly behind the leader. He thought he caught a glimpse of Crowell on his horse, riding just ahead of the brown waves of cattle in a long, wide line behind him.

  He put a chaw of tobacco into his mouth, hoping it would help keep him both alert and awake.

  Moments went by that seemed like hours, and then he saw a rider in a distant mirage. At first he thought it was only an illusion, but this time the rider did not disintegrate into mist before his eyes. He kept coming on until Dane realized that it was Joe Eagle returning from wherever he had been.

  Joe raised a hand in greeting.

  Dane lifted his hand and
touched spurs to Reno’s flank, propelling the horse forward at a trot.

  They met this side of the blinding mirage. Joe reined up and so did Dane.

  “Where you been, Joe?” Dane asked.

  “Me track. Look for Concho.”

  “And did you find him?”

  “Find track. Many tracks. Two, three days old. Horse tracks.”

  “You think that’s Concho and his men?”

  Joe turned his horse and rode a few feet. Dane followed.

  “You come,” he said. “Me show tracks.”

  He rode alongside Joe for another half hour. Then Joe turned his horse to the left and they both rode out onto empty prairie.

  Finally Joe reined up and halted his horse. He pointed to the ground.

  “There track,” he said.

  Dane looked down. He saw the tracks of several horses. Joe dismounted and Dane did the same.

  Joe knelt by the tracks and pointed to those that were most clear.

  “See sides of tracks. Wind blow edges. Two days, three. They ride slow.”

  Dane looked at the tracks closely. He could see where grains of dirt had fallen into the flat impressions made by the horseshoes. The sides were crumbling and the earth was dry. He nodded.

  “Come,” Joe said, and climbed back into the saddle.

  To Dane’s surprise, he reversed direction and rode across the path the herd was taking. He rode on for another fifteen or twenty minutes and then raised an arm to point.

  Dane looked at the ground ahead. It was churned up and there were places where grass had been cut by teeth, leaving small clumps of dirt in little piles. And there were loose blades of grass lying helter-skelter in several places. They rode on and Dane saw the unmistakable hieroglyphs of cloven hooves. These, he knew, were the tracks of the herd Paddy was taking north.

  Dane looked back to the spot where they had seen the horse tracks.

  “Concho is following Paddy’s herd,” he said to Joe.

  Joe nodded. “Him watch. Him yonder.” Joe pointed to the north. Dane knew what he meant.

  “That means Paddy might be jumped by Concho and his men,” Dane said.

  “Concho bad. Him hunt. Ten men. Maybe this many.” Joe held up ten fingers, closed both hands, and then held up two more fingers.