Return to Red River

by Johnny D. Boggs

  At the Cimarron River, Mathew rode in to Red Fork Station. In the early 1870s, back when the river had been called the Red Fork of the Arkansas, a trading post had been established and called Red Fork Trader’s Ranch. It had kept growing over the years, and since the Red River War of 1874, it had resembled a military post. Stuck out in what had once been the middle of nowhere, it now served as a stop on a stage line that ran from Arkansas City, Kansas, to Fort Sill in the southwestern part of Indian Territory. Thus, it had mail, but, as in Spanish Fort, Mathew found no letters waiting for him. He hoped that meant no troubles in Dunson City.

  They watered the herd at Bull Foot Station, for a wolfer at Red Fork Station had told him the water was good there, despite the lack of rain. Then turned more west than north, following the Cut-Off to Dodge City.

  Two hundred miles to go. Twenty days, if they were lucky, maybe even sooner. A lot could happen in two to three weeks, but Mathew felt pretty good. Even when the riders came into camp that night.

  * * *

  There were three of them, young men on pinto horses. One held an old flintlock musket, and another carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. Those two kept their horses back a little, letting the Indian who looked the oldest of the three—and he probably had not seen his thirtieth birthday—nudge his skewbald closer.

  All three Indians dressed in a mix of cultures. The nearest one, the rider Mathew figured would do the speaking, wore a green coat, sleeves and collars frayed, that had gone out of fashion back when Sam Houston was president of the Republic of Texas. His hat was straw—the other two donned turbans—decorated with a deer-hair roach and turkey feather.

  “Evening,” Mathew said.

  “You are crossing Chickasaw land.”

  Well, Mathew would give the Indian credit for not wasting time, but he could use a geography lesson.

  He corrected the Indian. “We crossed Chickasaw country . . . weeks back.” Caddo Indians. Wichitas. Maybe even Arapahos or Southern Cheyennes. Those he might have expected, but not Chickasaws. And since crossing the Cimarron, they had been pretty much in the Unknown Lands. No one had a right to ask for a tribute, especially not the Chickasaws.

  “You took advantage of my addle-brained father.”

  Mathew looked past the speaker at the two others, both wearing silver armbands, glass beads, and ribbon shirts. The man in the green coat kept speaking, demanding fifty steers and three horses that could actually be ridden.

  “The horses your father got will be fine with a bit of rest.” Mathew knew that for a fact.

  “You lie.”

  Hearing men rising from their seats, Mathew motioned them to stay put. “Your father had manners.”

  “Fifty steers and—”

  “No.” Mathew’s hand gripped his holstered Colt. “We paid your father our tribute. This is not your country. It’s nobody’s. And you’ll be leaving our camp now.”

  This time, he let his men move about.

  Green Coat scowled, pulled sharply on the hackamore, and kicked the pinto into a lope. His two companions followed into the night.

  “Laredo,” Mathew said. “Put two extra men with the remuda. And four more nighthawking the herd.”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe you should have bartered with him a bit,” Groot said.

  “I would have . . . if he had any manners.”

  * * *

  Tom Garth hated to do it, but he knew he had to stay awake. Let his father find him asleep in the saddle while circling the herd, and he might get whipped, or buffaloed. So he spit tobacco juice into his hand and rubbed his eyes.

  And cursed. Bit his lips. Leaned back in the saddle. Moaned. It burned like blazes, and he thought he might go blind. His head shook. He blinked and blinked, and felt tears, mixed with tobacco juice, flowing down his cheeks. Relief swept through him. He could see. Not that there was anything to see, not at this time of night, but the rising sun made him feel that at least Groot had not blinded him with tobacco juice.

  Tom reined up quickly.

  Rising sun?

  “What the hell is that, Tom?” John Meeker Jr. had eased his night horse away from the lowing steers.

  “I don’t . . .” Tom blinked several more times. He leaned forward in the saddle. “. . . know.”

  “That’s west, ain’t it?” Meeker asked.

  The cattle began stirring, their bawling intensified. Even Tom’s horse began acting a little skittish.

  “It’s not . . . east . . . and . . .”

  Meeker finished for him. “Too early for the sun to come up anyhow. Hell, there ain’t even no gray skies. Just that . . . glow.”

  The wind blew harder.

  “You smell somethin’?” Meeker asked.

  Tom sat ramrod straight in the saddle.

  “Oh . . . God.”

  * * *

  “Up. Up. Get up.”

  Mathew jerked the woolen blanket off Tess and tossed it aside, reached down, jerked his wife to her feet. She blinked. He slapped her.

  “Up,” he said, and shoved her toward the chuck wagon. Groot caught her before she fell, leaned her against the front wheel, and kept walloping the triangle with the cast-iron rod.

  Tess blinked, and Mathew started to help Joe Nambel and Teeler Lacey harness the mules to the Studebaker. A shout stopped him. Mathew turned, saw Laredo Downs, already mounted, although wearing only boots, hat, and undergarments.

  “Which way should we take them?” Laredo shouted above the chaos.

  “They’ve already started,” Mathew said. He had to hurry to catch the reins of Dollar, which had pulled free of its picket. The horse reared. Mathew cursed, pulled hard, ignoring that still-aching leather burn on his palm. When the horse started turning around, Mathew kept up with it and somehow swung into the saddle. He kept pulling the reins hard, keeping the horse turning in a circle.

  “Wind’s blowing from the northwest,” he said. He could barely hear himself. “Groot, damn you, quit that infernal noise.”

  The clangs stopped. The noise didn’t. Cattle bawled. Horses whinnied. Birds screeched.

  “Firestorm like this,” Laredo was saying, “those winds can shift.”

  Mathew could smell the smoke. Now he could even see it. The orange wall of flames brightened the northern skies. He watched as Reata and Lightning helped Tess into the chuck wagon. Then they practically threw Groot into the driver’s box. Mathew looked at the mules.

  Would they be fast enough?

  “Get mounted!” Mathew yelled. “Now. We need to catch up to that herd. And outrun that fire.”

  He kicked the liver chestnut, which had finally stopped turning, and pulled hard on the reins to stop the frightened gelding near the wagon.

  “What . . . ?” Tess stopped. She knew. She had seen prairie fires before.

  “Tom?” she called out.

  “He’s with the herd. Warned us. Went back.”

  “Lightning?” Tess asked.

  Mathew had trouble keeping the gelding from breaking into an uncontrollable gallop. “He’s . . .”

  “No!” Tess’s head shook. “Did lightning start the fire?”

  The wagon lurched forward, kept moving. Groot lashed out with the blacksnake whip, cursing, screaming, the noise popping as the whip popped over the ears of the mules.

  “No,” Mathew answered. “Chickasaws.”

  His horse turned around again, and then he gave Dollar its head. Let the panicked gelding carry him into the night.

  The air felt thick with smoke. The ground shook from the hooves of the frightened cattle. Mathew glanced back at the camp. He could see the fire, Groot’s breakfast fire, still burning. They had not had time to put it out. Not that it mattered. Not with the hell dashing toward them.

  He rode.

  Mathew had ridden this country many times, but rarely this fast, this time of night. One wrong step, and he’d be killed. He knew that. The horse could snap its leg in a prairie dog hole, send him sailing into the grass and rocks.
If he was lucky, the fall would break his neck. Otherwise . . .

  Fire? That . . . that put the fear of God into anyone.

  He could see. Flames illuminated the night, and the dust from the stampeding cattle, the galloping horses, blown by the wind, resembled the sparks that shot across the sky, landing ahead of the blaze, starting new fires.

  Mathew closed in on the herd. The earth shook. He yelled. Yet all he could hear was the roar of the fire. Like fifteen thousand furnaces in locomotives. He rode. Hell closed in on him.

  Smoke circled all around him, choked him. He could almost feel the soot as it caked his face. Sweat poured down his face, burned his eyes, soaked his shirt. Sweat . . . from the heat . . . or his own fear? No longer could he look at the inferno, for it would blind him. Lower in the saddle, forward, he leaned. He tasted the smoke, the bile. Dollar plunged ahead.

  The horse leaped, almost unseated Mathew, and landed on its forefeet, gathered itself, kept running. Mathew looked back, and thought he saw a downed steer. The horse had jumped over it, likely saving Mathew’s life, for he had not even seen the downed longhorn blocking his path.

  His sweat dried. His skin burned. The wall shot right toward him, carried by a wind that kept changing directions because of intense heat. Glancing back, he saw the fire racing across the rolling prairie. Yet flames licked closer to him, and the roaring reached his ears.

  Swirling, roaring towers of flames, like hundreds of tornadoes all on fire, raining sparks and embers, producing winds like the breaths of dragons.

  The chuck wagon? It must have made it. Groot could handle a team. Lightning? Tom? Laredo? Teeler? He had no way of knowing.

  The wall of flames almost touched him, swallowing him whole, when suddenly he felt warm water splashing underneath him, cooling his legs, his feet, and he understood. He was crossing a stream.

  A respite, though. That’s all it was. The fire could easily leap across this mere trickle of water. He had to ride, push the gelding harder. Catch up . . .

  That’s when he understood something. He had not seen any rider or steer since Dollar had leaped over the dead or dying one. He had no idea where he was. But he knew he had to keep riding. Ride . . . or perish.

  Then he felt Dollar going down, taking him to the hot earth as the gelding’s heart burst.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Smoke wafted in the stillness of morning like fog over a black world. Mathew sat, leaning against the dead gelding. He had removed bridle and saddle, which rested nearby, drying in the sun. On this side of the creek, bluestem—except for the crushed path left in the wake of longhorns, horses, mules, and a chuck wagon—waved in the breeze. Yet across the creek, a black, scorched earth stretched as far as he could see.

  Mathew Garth had no idea how far the prairie fire had spread, or how many cattle he had lost. Or men. He had considered taking saddle and bridle and following the trail of crushed grass and trampled earth, but decided to wait. Someone from his crew would come looking, and here he had water and a good view in case anyone came through the ash and soot.

  Around midmorning, Mathew heard hooves clopping behind him as he lay on his stomach, drinking water from the creek and washing his face. He came to his knees, turned, and recognized both riders. He pushed himself up and let out a sigh of relief.

  “Pa!”

  Both riders sent their horses into lopes and covered the remaining sixty yards.

  The horses turned skittish, though, at the smell of burned grass, the black world beyond the creek, and the gelding Mathew had run to death. After dismounting the roan, Lightning handed the reins to Reata, and walked to Mathew.

  “You all right?”

  “Now,” Mathew said. “The herd?”

  Lightning jerked his thumb over his back. “Five miles I reckon. Maybe six. Got them turned and milling. Ain’t done no head count. Well, we hadn’t, before we took off to see about you and . . .”

  Mathew’s heart skipped. His stomach knotted.

  “And?” he asked.

  “Joe Nambel’s missing, too,” Lightning said.

  Mathew turned and stepped into the shallow creek. The smoke had begun to dissipate, and he crossed the water and knelt on the banks, pushing his hands a few inches above the smelly soot and ash. “Anybody see Joe?” he asked. “During the commotion?”

  “Not since camp.” The ex–buffalo soldier, Reata, answered.

  Mathew rose and crossed the water again. Nambel had helped hitch the mules to Groot’s chuck wagon. He had swung into the saddle, galloped off to the herd. What color of horse had he been riding? Dark. Mathew couldn’t see it well, or recall it.

  “Damn,” Lightning sang out. “Look at that . . . the grass . . . it’s all . . . gone.”

  “Big fire.” Reata whistled. “We was lucky.”

  And Joe Nambel? Mathew sighed again. Old Joe. He had been on that first drive with Thomas Dunson, had worked for Dunson, on and off, since before the war. And after the war, after that first drive to Abilene, Joe Nambel had worked, on and off, for Mathew. Always restless, Nambel would drift into Mexico or maybe find some other ranch in Texas. Once, he had even married a widow and tried clerking in El Paso—Franklin, the town had been called back then—but she had kicked him out because of his drinking, swearing, and spurs.

  “Reata,” Mathew said. “I want you to take Lightning back to camp.”

  “I’m riding with you, Pa,” Lightning said.

  “On what? You have two horses. I’m borrowing yours.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He moved past Lightning and held out his right hand. Reata let him take the reins to Lightning’s roan gelding. “You get back to camp, get another horse from your string, and come back with two or three more of the boys.”

  Reata cleared his throat and pointed across the creek. “You gonna ride ’cross that?”

  “As far as I can,” he said. “Ground’s cooling off a mite.” He had exaggerated. Mathew honestly didn’t know if he could coax the roan across that burned earth. “I need y’all to hurry.” He wanted Lightning and Reata gone before he attempted to cross the blackened prairie.

  * * *

  The stench of burned beef turned his stomach.

  Mathew swore he would never eat another steak.

  He had pulled two spare shirts and underwear from Lightning’s saddlebags, ripped them in quarters, soaked them in water, and tied them over the hooves and fetlocks of the roan, securing them with strips of rawhide around the cannon of each leg.

  It helped a little, not completely. Often, when the gelding started crow-hopping, Mathew would get the roan under control, dismount, and lead the horse for several rods. The first two or three times he had felt the heat rising through the soles of his boots and through his socks. Knowing the horse must’ve felt the burning sensation, too, he had watered down the cloth padding on the gelding’s feet. He had to keep a firm grip on the reins as he guided the frightened horse across hot earth and around the grisly remnants of dead cattle and other animals.

  A deer. Or something resembling a deer. Rabbits. Rats. Unrecognizable remains. Once he held his breath as he came to what at first he thought was a horse. No, one of the spare mules. No saddle. No body nearby.

  He looked back. He could still see where the creek flowed, though far in the distance, and the contrast between green and tan grasslands and the charred remnants of prairie proved startling.

  Buzzards and ravens began circling.

  A few times he came to spots where coals and embers glowed with a fire that did not want to die. He cut wide berths around those. By then, no water remained in his canteen—which he had removed from his saddle—and Lightning’s container had maybe a quarter left.

  Oddly enough, he came to patches of grass, untouched by flames, some no wider than a square yard, but others big enough for him to rest his burning feet and let the roan cool down and graze on grass not reduced to charcoal. He could not explain how a fire had bypassed these spots, but it gave him hope. M
aybe, just maybe, he would find Joe Nambel in such an oasis, smiling, sipping whiskey from a flask, and joking, “What took you so long to get here, Mathew?”

  A forlorn hope.

  He found Joe Nambel a half hour later.

  Well, he could only assume it was Joe.

  The size fit. The blackened spurs and rowels looked like those Joe had always been partial to. The gruesome remains of the horse near him in a pile with four dead steers could have been from Nambel’s string. The saddle and bridle had been burned completely, except for the silver and metal buckles and the snaffle bit.

  What was the story? Mathew wondered. The one Joe Nambel had brought up at camp . . . days ago. A lifetime. It had been . . . when? Hell, before they had even crossed the Washita. He pressed his fingers to his temples, as if that would bring back that distant memory, make it clearer.

  “Remember . . .” Joe Nambel had started. Something about the Chickasaws . . . one of the Five Civilized Tribes . . . The last part came to Mathew instantly, as if Joe were sitting around the fire, coffee cup in hand, beaming a tired smile.

  “. . . damn if they wasn’t after our scalps that time. Remember?”

  “I remember,” Mathew said, and looked at what once had been a damned good cowhand.

  “They had been following the wagon train and our herd for days. Kind of cut short that visit we had planned. Real coffee. Pretty girls. The Donegal and his faro layouts in the backs of Conestogas. Not that we would have stayed long. Not with Dunson somewhere behind us. So we stampeded the cattle. That was a gamble. That they’d keep running north. That it would bring the braves out into the open. That Tess and her friends and The Donegal would be able to follow us in their wagons. Crazy. Just plumb crazy.”

  He leaned his head back, took off his hat, and cut loose with that wild yell of one of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s boys. A rebel yell. Well, he hadn’t eaten since supper, felt tuckered out, and scared. So, to Mathew’s ears, that rebel yell sounded just like it had back at Brice’s Crossroads . . . at Shiloh . . . at skirmishes that had never been named and never remembered.