The Omaha Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “Take me there,” he said.

  Steve wheeled his horse and clapped spurs into its flanks. The horse exploded into a run with Paddy right on its heels.

  The two men did not speak. When they reached the tail end of the herd, there was no need for words there either. Cal stood over the body of Harve Tolliver, his hat off, holding the reins of his horse.

  “Good God,” Paddy said.

  “He’s deader’n a doornail,” Cal said. “Shot square in the chest.”

  Paddy saw Tolliver’s horse standing several yards away, its head drooping, its tail switching. It stood hipshot, with one rear foot cocked toe down as if to brace its leg.

  He saw the small hole in Tolliver’s chest, the blood spatter on his striped shirt, the pool of blood under his body. The blood was already turning black and coagulating.

  Tears welled up in Paddy’s eyes.

  “My damned fault,” he wailed. “I sent Harve back here. I sent him to his death, sure as if I’d pulled the trigger meself.”

  “Paddy, come on,” Steve said. “You didn’t have any more to do with this than I did. You weren’t even here. And neither was I.”

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Paddy said, and crossed himself as if he had just entered a Catholic church.

  “I feel bad about Harve too,” Steve said. “And so does Toomey. Don’t you, Chub?”

  Chub’s eyes were wet too. He nodded and looked away from Tolliver’s body. He looked out over the prairie. He looked along the horizon, then set his gaze in one spot.

  “There’s a crick over yonder,” Chub said. “I saw it shinin’ when we rode by here. And look, there’s a little hill there with trees. Men could have been watchin’ us, just waitin’ for when Harve was alone. And then, bang.”

  Paddy drew himself up and wiped his eyes. “Chub, why don’t you ride over there and see if you see any horse tracks?”

  Chub mounted up and headed toward the small hillock.

  “Steve, it looks to me like Harve was shot by somebody up ahind him,” Paddy said. “Not from way over there. Why don’t you walk back and see if you see any horse tracks that oughtn’t to be there?”

  “Well, shoot, I reckon I can do that,” Steve said.

  Paddy raised his arm and pointed to a line leading directly from the tail end of the herd to the southern horizon. “Just walk along that general line. Look real hard.”

  Steve walked away.

  Paddy turned toward the river.

  “Lester,” he shouted as loud as he could. “Lester, bring that supply wagon back down here.”

  He didn’t know if Lester Pierson heard him, but he thought he saw the tail end of the supply wagon just sitting there. He waited and watched to see if the wagon would turn and come toward him. A few minutes later, the wagon did turn and he saw Lester swing the team to head his way.

  Paddy picked up Tolliver’s crumpled hat and put it over his face. Harve’s eyes were frosted over and staring up at the sky, frozen from the moment of death. Paddy began to weep again, sniffling and bellowing low in his chest.

  The wagon rumbled up and Paddy wiped his eyes with his bare hand.

  “What’s goin’ on, boss?” Lester said as he hauled in on the reins, stopped the wagon, and set the brake.

  “Are you blind, Lester? Looky there on the ground.”

  “Who is it?” Lester asked.

  “Harvey Tolliver.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “He’s dead, you dumb bastard. Now get down off that wagon and grab a shovel. Go through Harve’s pockets and get his personals, money, change, whatever’s in ’em.”

  Lester swore under his breath. He climbed down from the wagon seat and walked back to rummage through the wagon bed. He picked up a shovel and walked over to Tolliver. “God, he is dead, ain’t he?”

  “Go through his pockets,” Paddy said.

  Lester knelt down and laid the shovel beside Tolliver. Gingerly, he patted Tolliver’s pockets, then slid his hand in. He pulled a small pocketknife out of one of them, two quarters from another. There was a bandanna stuffed in a back pocket and a worn empty wallet in the other. His shirt pockets contained a sack of makings in each and papers in one, matches in another. He laid the items out.

  “Bundle ’em all up in his bandanna and tie a knot in it, then hand it to me,” Paddy said. “Then find a soft bare spot and start diggin’ a hole six foot long and two foot wide. I’ll get the boys to spell you when they get back.”

  Lester did as he was asked and handed the bundle to Paddy. Then he walked around with the shovel. He rammed the blade into the soil where no grass grew and finally found a large enough bare spot so that he could begin to dig Tolliver’s grave.

  The sound of the shovel striking dirt and gravel made Paddy wince as he shielded his eyes with one hand and looked for Chub. Chub was not in sight, but he saw Steve wandering around a spot some hundred yards away. Steve squatted down and examined something on the ground. Then he walked on a line that seemed to lead to the small hill. Halfway there, he turned and started back toward Paddy.

  “What did you find, Steve?” Paddy asked when Steve drew near.

  “Looks like you were right. There are tracks of two horses about a hunnert yards straight back, and when I follered them a ways, they came and went from that little hill over yonder. That one where you sent Chub.”

  “So maybe they was watchin’ us from there and when it come time, they rode up behind and shot Harve.”

  “Looks that way. Them two horses walked out there and then, on the way back, they went lickety-split back to where they come from.”

  “Well, let’s see what Chub’s got to say about that when he gets back. Meantime, you spell Lester on that shovel, Steve.”

  “Sure thing, Paddy,” Steve said. He walked over and spoke to Lester, then took the shovel from him. He cut a rectangle and started shoveling dirt as if he were on a road crew.

  Clang, clang, scrape, scrape, clump, clunk, as the shovel did its work. To Paddy it was an annoying sound, but a necessary one. They had a drive to make and he had to take steps to see that his men were protected or could protect themselves. In the open prairie they were all naked targets for any bushwhacker with a rifle.

  He saw Chub riding back and he let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he had been holding so long in his chest.

  Chub rode up and swung himself out of the saddle. “Yep,” he said as he walked up to Paddy, pulling his horse along behind him, “they was a passel of them over at that crick. Some stood on that hill and could see the whole herd for quite a spell.”

  “How many?” Paddy asked.

  “Hard to tell. I saw where they pissed and ground out their quirlies when they was done smokin’. And places where they lay down and bent the grass, left marks in the dirt.”

  “Good job, Chub.”

  Chub looked over to where Steve and Lester stood. Steve was wielding the shovel and Lester was breaking up clods with his boot heels.

  “You gonna bury Harve here?” Chub asked.

  “Have to, I reckon. We got to keep the herd movin’.”

  “Them men what was over yonder all rode off toward the Canadian. I followed their tracks a ways and that’s where they was headed.”

  “Likely, they’ve already crossed,” Paddy mused. “We can expect to see them again.”

  “What’re you gonna do, Paddy?”

  “One thing, Chub. I want you to ride back to the chuck wagon and tell Wu to give you trail grub.”

  “What for?”

  “I want you to ride straight back and find Dane and tell him what happened here today.”

  “You want him to come and help us?”

  “I ain’t givin’ him no orders. Let him decide what he wants to do. But you tell him we got rustlers a-trackin’ us, and there’s goin’ to be more killin’s, sure as I’m standin’ here grievin’ for Harve.”

  “How far back is Dane?”

  “Maybe ten miles, maybe twenty. Just find him and tell him I s
ent you. You can tell him to look for that stone cairn where it’s safe to take the herd across.”

  “You want me to stay with Dane?”

  “Do whatever he says. Now light a shuck, Chub, while there’s still daylight to burn.”

  Chub mounted his horse and took off at a gallop.

  Paddy walked over to look at the grave.

  “How deep you want it, Paddy?” Steve asked.

  “Two foot at least. Then we got to get back to the herd.”

  “That ain’t deep enough,” Lester said. “Coyotes’ll have him dug up before mornin’.”

  “Put some rocks on the mound when you finish up,” Paddy said. “And get back to the river when you’re finished. Quick as you can.”

  “Ain’t we gonna say no words over him?” Lester asked.

  “Say all the words you want when you put him in the ground, Lester,” Paddy said. “He sure as hell ain’t gonna hear you.”

  Paddy walked to his horse and rode toward the river.

  He hated death. He hated funerals. He hated to lose a man and he felt guilty about Harvey.

  But there was no use in blaming himself. Harvey could have been shot while he was scouting with the telescope. What happened just happened, that’s all.

  Now it was his job to see that nothing like that ever happened again.

  Chapter 27

  Concho and his men found a deserted and crumbling cabin a few miles from the river. The house had been constructed of native stone and inferior logs. The fields around it showed signs of having been plowed some years before, but nothing was growing there, not even prairie grass.

  Once they had made the inside of the abandoned cabin halfway inhabitable, Concho sent two riders, Will and Skip, back to check on Paddy and the herd.

  “Will, you see what them boys did with Tolliver, and, Skip, you see about the herd, if they got all the cattle across the river and where they’re headed.”

  Randy found a stick and started to whittle on it with his pocketknife while the men produced a bottle of whiskey that they passed around in celebration.

  Concho bragged about his kill, and his men congratulated him. They all seemed eager to draw blood themselves.

  The talk made Randy sick to his stomach. Here was a man who had sneaked up on a defenseless cowhand and shot him dead. Harvey never had a chance. It was a cowardly murder in Randy’s mind, not something to brag about. Tolliver had never done Concho, or any of the other men in his band, any harm. Yet Concho had taken his life without batting an eye.

  Randy continued to whittle on the stick. His strokes were savage now and the shavings piled up on the bare floor of the derelict cabin.

  He was tired of hearing Lem say that Tolliver “…fell like a sack of taters.”

  “Damned if he did,” Randy said to himself. “He dropped like a defenseless man shot in the chest.”

  There was a brick fireplace that had begun to crumble, filled with bricks from the chimney that were turning to rubble from wind and water. The place stank of rat droppings. One of the men had chased a rattler out when he first stepped in. But most of the roof was still overhead, made with froed shingles and patched with pieces of tin from large lard cans that had been flattened and cut to fit. It was not a pleasant place, but it was shelter from the winds that came in the night and blew cold across the prairie.

  A couple of hours later, the two men Concho had sent out returned with their stories.

  Randy set aside his whittling to listen to their reports.

  Will spoke first.

  “Cattle’s all crossed the river,” he said. “There’s a fresh mound on the flat with rocks piled all along the top.”

  “Fresh dirt?” Concho asked.

  “Yep, that’s Tolliver’s grave all right. Only hump of soil I seen along the path them cattle took.”

  “Maybe we ought to go back and read from the Good Book for poor old Tolliver,” Lyle cracked.

  “You shut your flap,” Concho snapped. Then he turned to Skip. “You get a good look at the herd, Skip?” he asked.

  “Old Paddy had the cattle all lined up along the Canadian fillin’ their bellies with water. The hands took ’em away in small bunches and got the herd movin’ again. Kind of on a northeast path, I’d say.”

  “I reckon they’ll head for the border,” Mitch said.

  “More rivers to cross,” Concho said, musing aloud.

  “What do we do next, Concho?” Logan inquired.

  “We get some shut-eye,” he said, and took another swig from the whiskey bottle before he passed it on to Lyle.

  “No, I mean tomorrow and maybe the next day.”

  “First thing I’m gonna do is sic Randy on that lead cow, the one clanging that copper bell. You can do that, can’t you, Randy?”

  Randy, startled, looked at Concho, wondering if he was serious.

  “What?” Randy said.

  “You can shoot a cow, can’t you?”

  “I never shot one, but I reckon I could.”

  “Then, that’s your job tomorrow. Or next day. Paddy will have to find himself another leader of that herd. It’ll give him fits.”

  Randy’s stomach churned, both with fear and the thought that he was going to have to prove himself by killing a cow.

  “What about us?” Lyle asked. “We goin’ to shoot cows?”

  “Tomorrow, somewhere along the trail, we’ll pick another man to take down,” Concho said. “We’ll drop one a day, so that by the time Paddy crosses into Kansas, he won’t have much control over the herd. He won’t have enough hands to take him clear up into Nebraska. When we finally rustle the entire herd, we won’t have to wade through a lot of rifle fire.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Mitch said.

  Lyle grinned and took a drink.

  “I can’t wait,” he said as he passed the bottle to Mitch and dragged a sleeve across his mouth.

  Randy lay back on his bedroll and closed his eyes. But he couldn’t plug up his ears. He listened to the men talk about killing as if they were going to regular jobs in town or building fences.

  And tomorrow he was going to have to kill a cow.

  It all seemed senseless and cruel to him as he dropped off to sleep.

  Chapter 28

  Dane felt a strong hand on his shoulder. His upper body shook and he was wrested out of the dream. He lay in his bedroll under the supply wagon where he had spent the night. He opened his eyes and saw Len Crowell’s face a few inches from his.

  “Rider comin’ from the north,” Len said. “Hear him?”

  Dane arose on one elbow and listened.

  He heard galloping hoofbeats way off in the distance.

  “I got two boys on it, but you’d better come see. I’m just about ready to get the herd movin’ anyway.”

  “Be right with you, Len,” Dane said as he climbed out of his bedroll and threw the blanket off his boots. Out here, a man slept with his boots on. Every man had to be ready to tackle a stampede or trouble of any kind.

  It was still dark, but the sky was lightening some when Dane walked with Len in the direction of the hoofbeats.

  “You can hear sounds a long way off at night,” Len said.

  “I know.” Dane rubbed the sands of sleep from his eyes. “He’s getting closer.”

  “Be here right soon,” Len said.

  Out of the darkness rode a man whipping his horse’s flanks with the trailing ends of his reins.

  A few yards away, Gooch was stirring the morning campfire with an iron poker. Dane smelled the steamy aroma of Arbuckles’ coffee, with its faint tang of peppermint. He stepped outside the glow of the fire so that he could see in the darkness. Gooch sent showers of orange-red sparks into the air as he knocked a faggot against one of the rocks in the ring around the pit.

  “Coffee’s ’bout ready, Cap,” he said to Dane.

  “Set out an extra cup, Barney,” he said. “We might have company in a couple of shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  “Eh?” Gooch said,
but Dane and Len had already stepped into the darkness beyond the fire.

  “Here he comes,” Len said as the rider came dashing up on them.

  “Ho the camp,” the rider yelled.

  “Why, that’s Chub Toomey,” Dane exclaimed. “Hey, Chub,” he called out, “where’s the fire?”

  Chub jerked on the reins and his horse skidded to a stop a few feet from Len and Dane.

  “There’s a fire all right,” he said as he leaped from the saddle almost before his horse had fully stopped. “We got trouble, Dane. Big trouble.”

  Chub was short on breath and his words came out like puffs of wind-borne syllables spewed from a burning chest.

  “Slow down, catch your breath, Chub,” Dane said. “How long you been ridin’?”

  “Half of yesterday and all blamed night,” Chub said. “Feelin’ my way in the dark and followin’ the polestar till I seen your cook fire. Then I laid the leather to old Whistler here and he ’bout left me in the dust.”

  The horse was winded too and snorting steam and dew through its nostrils, its chest heaving. A yellow rope of sweat girded its lower neck and there was froth at the corners of its mouth.

  “Paddy send you?” Dane asked.

  “Whew. Let me get my breath if there’s any left.”

  Dane and Len looked at Chub. His face and clothing were covered in a sheen of sweat. He looked plumb tuckered to both men.

  “Yeah, Paddy sent me. Harve Tolliver was kilt yesterday. Shot in the chest. We buried him.”

  “Know who shot him?” Dane asked.

  Chub shook his head.

  “Bushwhacked,” he said. “He was by hisself, ridin’ drag. Nobody saw who shot him.”

  “Where did this happen?” Len asked.

  “Up on the deep fork of the Canadian. We was makin’ the crossin’. Some of us heard the shot. Next thing, we saw Harve just a-lyin’ dead.”

  “Did you get the herd across the river?” Dane asked.

  “Far as I know. Warn’t many left to cross when I lit out to find you.”

  “Did Paddy want me to come and help him?” Dane looked up at the sky. It was still very dark, but the night was on its last legs, he figured.

  “I ast him that. He said it was up to you. He just wanted you to know that Harve got kilt.”