A Trail Too Far

by Robert Peecher

  "Thank you for the advice," Amos said.

  "You should give some thought to the other things I've said to you," Rab said. "I know what I'm talking about out here."

  "I'll give thought to it, Mr. Sinclair," Amos said. "Would you care to join us for supper?"

  "Thank you, but I'll make my own," Rab said.

  ***

  "I don't like him telling us what to do like he's the boss of this wagon train," Graham Devalt complained as the travelers sat around the fire. They did not continue to feed branches to the fire, saving what they had for cooking purposes.

  "He is very rude," Rebekah Bancroft agreed. "He told me yesterday that if I was smart I would put on a pair of trousers."

  Rachel Cummings laughed so hard she began to cough and had to cover her mouth with her hands. "Forgive me," she said. "He told me the same thing. How preposterous! I was riding one of the saddle horses for a spell, and he told me I should give up riding side saddle, put on a pair of britches, and ride the horse like a man. But he insists on calling it a 'hawss.'"

  Faith Bancroft, the ten year old daughter of Stuart and Rebekah, giggled heartily at the notion of a woman wearing britches.

  "It's too forward by half," Graham Devalt complained. "He should not address the women familiar, anyway. And he should certainly not be advising them as to their clothing. It's unseemly."

  Stuart Bancroft cleared his throat, hoping that at least his own wife would catch on that he was uncomfortable ridiculing the young guide. "He does seem to know his way about, though. It might be that he has very good reasons for advising the women to wear trousers."

  "Oh, Stuart, please," Rebekah said. "He's half savage. It's a wonder he hasn't encouraged us to strip naked."

  "Enough of that kind of talk," Stuart said harshly. "Not in front of the children. Mr. Sinclair may not be as refined as we are, but he seems to have a thorough understanding of this wilderness."

  Amos Cummings glanced out to the prairie where he knew Rab Sinclair had made his camp. There were no burning embers to mark the spot, and the moon gave off too little light for silvery shadows. But Amos realized he could see a glimmer of something, some darker shape. Then he realized it was one of the horses, probably the blue. It was a young horse, maybe even still a colt, but it stood by Rab Sinclair as he slept. Amos assumed he must have picketed the horse. He could not see any sign of the other two horses, no dark shadows standing nearby.

  "We should turn in," Amos said. "Morning comes early. Mr. Sinclair makes a valid point about the delays. We're not moving as fast as we should. We've packed the bare minimum to get us to Santa Fe. If we delay him and he runs out of supplies, we will be obliged to share what we have. And that could cause us to run low. We must make the most of every daylight hour."

  Amos stood up and walked away from the fire, but he touched his oldest son's shoulder when he did. He walked away from the wagons and the others, and Jeremiah, the oldest of the Cummings boys who was about the same age as Rab Sinclair, followed his father. When they had gone some distance and were out of hearing of the others, Amos said, "I want you to light a lantern or two and get Matthew and Paul to help you let the mules out from the corral. Keep the horses in it in case we have to round up the other animals in the morning. And tell your brothers that if Mr. Sinclair tells you to do something, none of you should offer him any argument but just do as he says."

  As they turned in a short while later, Martha Cummings spoke in a soft whisper to her husband. "Are you worried that we will run out of supplies? I noted what you said about sharing our supplies with Mr. Sinclair. I also saw that you had the boys turnout the livestock."

  Amos sighed heavily. "I don't want to say that I am worried about running out," he said. "Not yet. But I know there is some truth to what Mr. Sinclair says. He may be young, but he has made this crossing before. He does know more about it than we do. I am afraid we looked on this journey as a pleasure trip, but it is not that. Many men and women have perished on this journey. We might have approaching it too lightly. That's not to say that we have made a mistake. I still believe this is the best thing for us, and for our sons. Moving them to California may very well keep them out of a bloody conflict. But we should realize that the peril on this journey is just as real if we are not careful."

  "Should I wear trousers?" Martha asked, and Amos could tell by the tone of her voice that his wife was smiling.

  He chuckled quietly at the thought of it.

  "Perhaps you should," he said.

  "Mr. Sinclair also told me that I should be wearing trousers. And he said that I should wear a wide brimmed hat. He said all of the women were risking sunburns and exposure if we did not start wearing men's clothing."

  "I have noticed these last two days that your face and shoulders are very pink," Amos said. "Are you burning?"

  "A little. Not enough to complain about it. But so is Rachel, and Rebekah, as well."

  "Go through the boys' clothes tomorrow," Amos said. "The boys all have spare hats. See if you cannot find for the women trousers and shirts."

  Martha was silent for a while, and Amos thought perhaps she was falling asleep.

  "He is a little rough, and very young," she said, surprising her husband. "But I think we can trust him to look out for our best interests."

  Amos nodded, though his wife could not see the silent affirmation.

  "I think that's true," he said.

  The bedrolls were uncomfortable, not at all what Amos and Martha Cummings and their children were accustomed to sleeping on. But all of them worked so hard during the days and walked so far, that by the time they bedded down in the evening they would have been able to sleep on a bed of nails.

  8

  At sunup, Rab Sinclair had already rounded up his two horses and also the mules and oxen of the wagon party.

  "We could have managed that," Amos said, seeing Rab leading the last two mules into the rope corral.

  "Yes, sir," Rab said. "It wasn't difficult at all. None of them strayed far. But I appreciate you doing what I asked of you."

  Martha Cummings called over to Rab. "Mr. Sinclair, would you care for a cup of coffee?"

  "I'd be obliged, ma'am," Rab said.

  Rab had already noticed that Martha Cummings was wearing a pair of her oldest son's trousers and one of his cotton shirts. All of the women this morning had dressed in men's clothing and wore men's hats with wide brims that covered their faces from the sun.

  "I have nothing but honey to sweeten it," she said.

  "Honey is good for much more than puttin' in your coffee, ma'am," Rab said. "I'll be happy to take mine with nothing in it if it means saving the honey."

  "What other purposes would you put honey to?" Stuart Bancroft asked.

  "Good for sealing and healing wounds," Rab said. "You get a big wound, a knife wound or falling on a sharp rock or something severe like that, and the Indians all pack it full of honey. Tends to heal it up good as new."

  "That will be good to remember," Stuart said. "Honey goes in a wound."

  Martha Cummings, for a woman old enough to be his mother, was very attractive. She had soft blonde hair and pretty green eyes. Her eyes were very green. Her face was a bit thin, and it showed her age some, but the wrinkles were in the right places to suggest she'd done a lot of smiling in her life. She had a pretty smile with white teeth.

  "I hope you won't mind me saying, but your new outfit ain't nearly as fetching as what you was wearing before," Rab told her. "But I think it'll add quite a bit to your comfort."

  Though her cheeks were plenty pink from the sun the last few days, Rab was sure he saw her blush.

  "I don't mind you saying so at all, Mr. Sinclair," Martha said. "Tell me, did you know your mother at all?"

  "Not to remember her. She died, or left, when I was just a pup, so I never did know her to remember."

  "You have a darker complexion," Martha Cummings said. "Was your mother an Indian woman?"

  "I always figured she must have bee
n," Rab said. "Pa told me once that she was part Cherokee, so I figured she wasn't full-blooded."

  He started to say something about his father's preferences, but then remembered that Martha Cummings had reprimanded him before when he was free with that kind of talk, so Rab said nothing more about it.

  As he drank his coffee, Rab watched the men packing supplies and putting them back in the wagons. As they loaded the wagons, the canvas covers were pulled back, and Rab noticed that each of the wagons had heavy wooden boxes that did not look familiar to him. He stepped over to the back of one of the wagons and looked at one of the boxes. He lifted a corner and felt that it was tremendously heavy.

  "What's in these boxes here, Mr. Cummings?"

  "Those are books, Rab," Amos Cummings said. "The one thing a professor cannot do without is his books."

  Rab lifted the corner of the box again. "Must have a million words in them books," he said. "They're mighty heavy."

  "Knowledge is not gained lightly," Amos Cummings said with a smile.

  "I reckon if I was to suggest to you that we leave these books, that would be something you'd be against?" Rab asked.

  "I would be," Amos Cummings said, the smile dropping from his face. "I'd be very opposed to that."

  Rab nodded but made no argument.

  "We should be gettin' on," he said. "I smell rain coming."

  They were not more than a couple of hours on the trail when Rab Sinclair rode up ahead. He'd seen clouds in the distance and wanted to see if they were now coming toward the wagon train. A small hill ahead offered an excellent vantage point. He was riding the buckskin. Cromwell was up ahead of him with the sorrel, and the sorrel was carrying the pannier.

  As he hit the top of the rise, Rab saw that indeed they would soon be in the midst of a downpour, but what worried him more than the rain was what he saw when he wheeled the buckskin to ride back down and warn the wagon train of the coming rain. Off in the distance behind the wagon train Rab Sinclair saw four riders. They each had spare mounts, and they were moving quickly, closing the distance on the wagon train.

  Rab's Hawken rifle was in a scabbard on the pannier. He carried on his gun belt a six-shot Colt Dragoon revolver. He had all six cylinders loaded with greased balls, but he had not put any percussion caps on the nipples.

  Rab squeezed his knees against the sides of the buckskin and urged the horse at a gallop down the road to meet the wagons. As he descended from the rise down to the wagons, Rab lost sight of the riders. That meant the riders probably had not yet seen the wagons, though they had certainly seen him.

  Amos Cummings was driving the lead wagon while both Martha and their daughter Rachel walked beside it.

  "We'll be getting rain soon," Amos Cummings said. "It should knock down some of the trail dust, though, so it is not completely unwelcome."

  "There's no reason for alarm, Mr. Cummings, but I want you to be aware that there are four riders at a distance behind us. It would be a good idea to have the womenfolk get inside the wagons and drop down the curtains so that they cannot be seen. If you have any kind of rifle or revolver in your wagon, now would be a good time to see that it's loaded and keep it near to hand."

  Rab spoke loud enough for Martha and Rachel to hear him, and neither of them hesitated in climbing up onto the wagon and crawling into the back. It happened that luckily, at that moment, none of the women were driving a wagon. Amos Cummings' sons Jeremiah and Paul were both driving a wagon each, Stuart Bancroft was driving a wagon, and Stuart and Rebecca's two sons were driving the next to last wagon. The boys were young, but they'd been eager to pitch in and learn throughout the journey from Ohio, and they were competent to manage the mule team. Graham Devalt was driving the last wagon in the line, and this worried Rab as much as anything.

  Rab rode down farther along the line and gave the same warning to Stuart Bancroft.

  Only Matthew Cummings was mounted on any of the horses. He was pushing the livestock up ahead of the wagon train. Rab hurried over to him next.

  "Matthew, I want you to ride over beside your father's wagon and stay close to him. If any of the livestock stray, we'll get them later. Do not leave your father's wagon."

  Rab looked one more time at the sorrel, his Hawken rifle in its scabbard on the horse. The Hawken was good for just one shot, but it was a powerful gun and accurate at distance. He'd have felt more comfortable having that with him if things went wrong, but there was no time to get it. Rab Sinclair's chief concern was to get to Graham Devalt in the last wagon before the four riders caught him up. So he urged the sorrel back down the line of wagons. As he went, he gave a word of caution to each of the drivers.

  "We don't know who these people might be or what interest they might have in us," Rab told Amos Cummings. "It's best to slow but don't stop your wagon and let them pass as fast as possible. Let me talk to them, and other than a pleasant greeting you should say nothing."

  He gave a variation of the warning to the Cummings boys and to Stuart Bancroft and the two young Bancroft boys.

  But he was more stern in the warning he gave to Graham Devalt.

  "I know you've got a quick wit because you're university educated," Rab said to him. As he spoke, Rab worked his revolver to put caps on all six of the nipples, and he left the gun on half cock. "But not all men on the plains can appreciate your humor. Hold your tongue with these men and allow them to pass without giving offense. Only speak a pleasant greeting to them. Do not tell them where you are from or where you are bound. I'll do all of the talking."

  Graham Devalt narrowed his eyes in contempt.

  "I think I'm perfectly capable of performing rudimentary communications with strangers," Graham said.

  "Keep 'em rudimentary and brief," Rab warned.

  And he looked over his shoulder and saw the men coming over a rise. They would catch up in just a moment. The thing that worried Rab Sinclair right away was that the men split along the trail, two coming on right side of the wagon train and two on the left side.

  "Howdy friends," Rab Sinclair called to the two men riding up on the right side of the wagon.

  "Howdy," one of them said, but if there was a friendly note, Rab could not detect it.

  Rab tried to get a read on the men. All four were shaggy haired men with full beards. They wore the homespun clothes of men without much wealth. Their spare mounts all carried heavily laden panniers.

  "Bound for Santa Fe?" Rab asked.

  Three of the men rode on, and to Rab's relief they pushed their horses to a gallop to get beyond the wagon train. But one of them reined in and walked his horse next to Rab's. The man had a rifle in a scabbard and a revolver on his hip, but Rab noticed the revolver had no caps in place.

  "We're bound for the gold fields in New Mexico Territory," the man said. "Come from Kentucky. Been a hell of a long journey already."

  "Five more weeks, maybe a bit less, and you should be there," Rab said.

  "You familiar with the trail?"

  "I've made the trip before," Rab said.

  "A man could get lost easy on these grassy plains," the man said. "Is the trail clear all the way to Santa Fe?"

  "You should manage," Rab said. "You'll find stagecoach relay stations along the way, too. We've been passed by the stage twice already, one coming and one going."

  "I reckon this is the better way to do it," the man said. "Stages get awful cramped on a long haul."

  "No question," Rab said.

  As they were walking, and his concerns had abated, Rab took his pipe from his pocket and lit it with a match.

  "What about Indians? I've heard they can be troublesome."

  "Just take a firm hand," Rab said. "Be straight with them that you ain't going to trade nothing and that you want nothing, and they'll leave you be, most times."

  The man nodded once. "Obliged to you. I'd better catch up. Them boys have gold fever already, and they ain't waitin' on me."

  Rab puffed on his pipe, relieved that the moment was nearly over. But
that's when Graham Devalt spoke up.

  "Did I hear you to say that you come from Kentucky?" Graham asked.

  "That's right," the man said.

  "Which way will Kentucky fall if this nonsense of secession catches hold?" Graham asked.

  "Nonsense?" the Kentuckian asked, and there was a tone to his voice that Rab Sinclair did not like.

  "Of course it's nonsense," Graham said. "We are Ohioans, and abolitionists."

  The Kentuckian snarled and spat at the wheel of Graham's wagon. "I'll tell you this one thing, and then I'll bid you a farewell. An Ohioan ought not to try to tell a Kentuckian how he should live. If there is trouble coming, it will be caused by the meddlesome nature of those who think it is their place to inject themselves into the affairs of others. And that's a fact."

  The man spat one more time, and then he snapped his reins and pushed his horse on ahead to catch up to his three companions and the spare mounts.

  Rab shook his head at Graham Devalt but said nothing. He rode on up ahead to Amos Cummings' wagon.

  "We ought to stop after we get down the other side of this rise," Rab said. "It's early for a noon rest, but we can let this weather pass, and I can ride on up ahead and be sure these men have gone on."

  ***

  Rab Sinclair unloaded his pannier from the sorrel and shifted his saddle to Cromwell. He picked the buckskin and sorrel and left the others in the wagon train to see to their own animals and to make a camp for weathering the rain.

  He put his Hawken rifle in the scabbard on Cromwell, and then he rode on up ahead.

  He had to ride a full mile before he caught sight of the four Kentuckians off in the distance. They were pushing their animals hard along the trail, but no harder a pace than the animals could endure. Satisfied that the Kentuckians posed no threat, Rab wheeled the blue and rode back to the wagons. His return journey saw the first of the rain, and it came down in a torrent. Though he wore a slicker, the rain seemed to easily find its way under his hat, down his neck and into his shirt. It blew up under the slicker so that his trousers were soaked.