A Trail Too Far

by Robert Peecher

  Pawnee Bill, reclining on his elbow in the tall grass, craned his neck and tried to see for himself. But now the lone rider at the front of the wagon train was riding up to the men.

  "Howdy," Mickey Hogg called out. "That's a good looking horse, there."

  The man nodded. He was riding a blue roan with a black face, about as blue as Mickey Hogg had ever seen.

  "He gets me from one place to the other pretty well," the man said.

  "Bound for Santa Fe?" Mickey asked, conversationally.

  "We are," the man said. "Y'all?"

  "Yep. Headed to New Mexico Territory to see if we can't dig some gold out of the ground."

  The man on the horse was younger than Mickey would have expected.

  "You traveling with your family?" Mickey asked.

  "I'm a hired guide."

  "Kind of young for a guide, ain't you?"

  "I've got a surprising amount of experience," the guide said, a grin on his face. "Mind if I step down?"

  "You're welcome," Mickey said.

  The guide swung easily from the saddle. Mickey watched the way he moved. He was agile, and quick. His movements seemed smooth and careless, but Mickey realized right the man was careful and precise. He dropped the reins on the ground and the horse stood in place, munching some of the grass. The guide slid a tobacco pouch from one pocket and a pipe from the other. He filled the pipe and lit it, puffing on the pipe to get the tobacco going.

  "My name's Mickey Hogg."

  "Rab Sinclair," the guide said. "Y'all been traveling long?"

  "We started near here," Mickey Hogg said. "We were living down in a little town. I guess folks call it Spears Hollow, if you've heard of it."

  "Never have," Rab admitted.

  The guide eyed the buckboard wagon. "Think that'll make it all the way to New Mexico Territory?"

  Mickey Hogg laughed. "Well, we hope it does, anyway. You're the guide, what do you think?"

  Rab looked at the mule team and the wagon and shook his head. "I ain't real sure where Spears Hollow is, but I reckon y'all have done well to make it this far. You've got plenty of hawsses, though. You might decide to give up the wagon and mules and pack it to Santa Fe."

  Rab glanced over his shoulder as Martha Cummings' wagon rolled up behind him. He turned and walked over to the mules drawing the wagon and gave the lead mule a pat on the rump.

  "Keep it moving, Mrs. Cummings," Rab said. "Still too far to go to stop for a chat."

  Martha offered the men reclining in the glass a nod and said hello, but she did not talk beyond that. As each wagon came along, Rab repeated his instructions to keep moving. He tried to give Amos Cummings a meaningful look, a look that spoke a silent warning, but he wasn't sure if his meaning was taken. He offered no look of warning to Graham Devalt, but was pleasantly surprised when Graham did not begin a conversation with the strangers.

  When the wagons had all passed and Matthew Cummings was beyond the strangers with the livestock, Rab turned back to Mickey Hogg.

  "Y'all see them boys from Kentucky come through? Maybe yesterday or early this morning they would have caught up with you."

  "We did," Mickey Hogg said. "We surely did. They caught up and passed us yesterday in the afternoon. Kentucky boys, you say? I don't recollect if they mentioned being from Kentucky. Nice fellows, though."

  "Most folks you encounter on the trail are nice folks," Rab said. "Everybody just making their own way to a better life, minding their own business, mostly."

  "That's right," Mickey said. "That's what we're doing. Heading for treasures and better days. Minding our own business."

  Rab knocked the tobacco from his pipe and was careful to grind it into the ground with the heel of his boot. He stuck the pipe back in his pocket.

  "Well, Santa Fe ain't gettin' any closer with me standing here," Rab said. "Good luck to you folks."

  "Good luck," Mickey Hogg said.

  Rab swung himself back into his saddle and started off after the wagons. The buckskin and sorrel had both wandered a bit, and he had to go and collect them before he could get moving.

  Between the strangers and the wagons, Rab spoke to his horse.

  "I did not like the look of those men, Cromwell. I'll be relieved to put them behind us."

  But relief was not in sight.

  Immediately after Rab rode off, Mickey Hogg turned to his companions.

  "Six wagons loaded with all sorts of supplies," Mickey said. "If they ain't got everything we need, ain't nobody in all of Kansas got everything we need."

  "You see that woman driving the first wagon?" Pawnee Bill said. "She was a fine piece of woman flesh. I didn't get a look at the younger one walking on the other side of the wagons. How'd she look to you Mickey?"

  Hogg shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't get a good look at her. Must have been the first one's daughter, so I would reckon she ain't bad."

  "Let's saddle up and get after them," Mickey Hogg said. "This is what we've been waiting on. Did you get a look at the men with the wagon train? Boys and old, soft men. These ain't hard men. These are men who'll probably give us what we want if we just ask for it from behind a six-shooter."

  "What about that guide?" Dick Derugy asked. "He was young, but he didn't look soft to me. Boy had sand to ride up to a group like us and dismount and smoke his pipe like that. He wasn't a bit scared of us."

  Pawnee Bill had to agree.

  "I'll say this about him, too. He knew who we are. You could tell by the way he watched us, the way he kept them wagons moving. He sized us up in a hurry. And like Dick said, he wasn't scared a bit."

  "Maybe not," Mickey conceded. "But like you said, Dick, he was just a boy. What kind of men are we if the four of us can't deal with one boy? We kill him and the rest of 'em will all fall in line and do as they told."

  14

  Every time Rab turned in his saddle to look at his back trail, the four men with the buckboard wagon were back there.

  Rab knew that the wagon train had moved too long into the day without stopping. The livestock was accustomed to a nooning. The people were, too. Sore legs, tired from walking, had driven all of the people onto wagons so that no one was walking and the animals harnessed to the wagons were having to work that much harder. Matthew Cummings, the middle son, was again riding one of the saddle horses and driving the livestock. Matthew had picked up the knack for it and enjoyed the work, and he most often worked the livestock rather than driving one of the wagons.

  But the men following them made Rab uncomfortable so that he did not want to stop.

  Rab rode Cromwell over beside the wagon Amos Cummings was driving, and there he dismounted from the blue and walked along beside the wagon.

  "We have some trouble, Mr. Cummings," Rab said. "Them men we encountered a ways back, have you noticed that they are following us?"

  "There's only one trail cutting through here, and there's not but two ways to go on the trail. Are you surprised they are following us?" Amos Cummings asked.

  "It's a common practice that groups spread out on the trail," Rab said. "That away, livestock ain't competing for grazing, and come morning time you don't have to worry about your cattle and horses being mixed up with someone else's cattle and horses. It's good practice, but it's also good manners. It gives folks who don't know other folks a sense of security, if you see what I mean."

  "So you think these men lack manners?" Amos Cummings asked.

  "I think they could intend to do harm to us."

  "Harm to us?" Amos Cummings asked, a note of surprise in his voice. "I hardly think that the men who travel this trail are the sorts who would seek to do us harm, Mr. Sinclair. The men who make this journey are ambitious, enterprising men – not thieves and scoundrels."

  "Not every man is peaceful, Mr. Cummings," Rab said. "Not every man shares your thoughts about how to treat other men."

  "And you gathered all of this from less than ten minutes of talking to those men?" Amos Cummings asked.

  "I gathered
all this from less than ten seconds of looking at them," Rab Sinclair said.

  "So what do you want me to do about this, Mr. Sinclair?" Amos asked. "What do you expect me to do?"

  "We need to plan to guard the camp tonight. We should do what we can to circle these wagons and keep the livestock inside them," Rab said. "We should plan to have guards with guns ready to defend the camp."

  "Defend the camp?" Amos almost laughed.

  "These men may be real trouble, Mr. Cummings," Rab said again. "We should be prepared for them."

  "I did not set out on this journey because I am a man who lives by fear," Amos Cummings said. "And I've told you my feelings on violence."

  Rab chewed his bottom lip. "Yes, sir," he said. "You've told me your feelings on violence. But if you won't give thought to protecting yourself, you should give some thought to your sons and in particular to your wife and your daughter."

  "What does that mean?" Cummings asked. "What do you mean my wife and daughter?"

  Rab looked back over his shoulder and saw the wagon and the three riders in the distance. "Those men back there are the kinds of men who want very specific things, Mr. Cummings. They want the kinds of things that ain't in abundance out here. There ain't a lot of women in abundance out here."

  "That's enough of that sort of talk," Amos Cummings said. "I won't hear of it. How do you know these are not just men who are seeking a better life in the west – just like everyone else who travels this trail?"

  "They're on a buckboard wagon," Rab said. "That's a farmer's wagon, used for going to town to pick up supplies. And the supplies in the back of it are farmer supplies – flour enough to get them through the winter. Those mules pulling the wagon, those are not mules accustomed to nor prepared for a long journey. If I had to guess, I'd say that wagon, those supplies, and those mules are all stolen. I'd hate to hear of the shape of the farmer who had them a few days ago."

  "You're accusing those men of being thieves?" Amos Cummings asked.

  "I'm accusing them of worse than that," Rab said. "And I believe they intend to do worse again."

  "What can be done about it?" Amos Cumming asked. "What are you proposing?"

  Rab Sinclair knew what he wanted to do. He'd taken the measure of the men now following them, and what he wanted to do was put a rifle in every man's hand, allow the four men behind them to catch up, and then ambush them. Such things were done among the tribes. Pleasantries and courtesies and customs such as those followed by the white men were foreign and absurd to the people among the tribes. If an Apache's enemies were following him, he would not wait for them to prove they were enemies. He would turn and face his enemy.

  But Rab knew, too, that Amos Cummings, a man of peace, would never tolerate talk of such a plan.

  "I want you to understand that if you and your family are going to survive, you might have to be prepared to defend yourselves," Rab said.

  "I'll not use violence against these men," Amos Cummings said.

  "All right, Mr. Cummings," Rab said. "I'll not argue with you about it. But if that's the case, then I will expect you to do everything I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, and make sure your people do it, too."

  "And what are you going to tell us to do?" Amos asked.

  Rab looked up at the sky. The sun was still overhead. There was plenty of daylight left and many more miles to be made. Rab despised the idea of losing more time – so much had been lost already just through the slow pace of the oxen, the lengthy delays every morning. Even so, Rab's idea was to get his wagon train out ahead of those men, but to manage it he needed the wagons to stop now.

  "Stop here and make camp," Rab said.

  "It's too early to stop," Amos said.

  "Yes it is," Rab agreed. "It's much too early in the day to stop. But we cannot simply go on down the trail, stopping and camping as we normally would, and take no precautions at all."

  Amos Cummings chewed on it for a minute. He looked at the sun still high in the sky.

  "Mr. Sinclair, stopping now would be a mistake. You're the one who has stressed to us over and over the necessity of speed and not wasting a moment. What if we were to run into real trouble? A broken axle on one of the wagons, for instance. That could set us back a day. Or if some or all of the animals run off at night when we've turned them out. These are serious issues that could delay us by days, and both are very real possibilities. Yet here you are, asking me to voluntarily give up an entire afternoon of progress for no reason beyond your fears. I'll not do it."

  Rab took up the reins on Cromwell and, without breaking stride, hopped back into the saddle.

  "Then I'll bid you farewell here, Mr. Cummings. I wish you well."

  "You can't leave!" Amos said.

  "Those men intend to kill you and everyone with this wagon train, Mr. Cummings. You won't defend yourself with guns and you won't give me the ability to save you without 'em. So I'm going to ride on. I reckon I can outdistance these men without much trouble. And you can figure your own way, since you won't listen to mine."

  Rab started to ride away, but Amos called to him.

  "Very well, Mr. Sinclair! You've made your point. We'll stop now."

  Amos called to his middle son Matthew, who was mounted on one of the saddle horses. Matthew rode over to his father's wagon.

  "Pass the word to the rest of the wagons," Amos said. "We'll stop for the day up ahead."

  Rab rode ahead to help direct the wagons over to a flat space where they could make a decent camp for the night, and he moved the wagons into something of a circle, although with only six wagons they did not make an enclosed circle as a larger wagon train would have. But Rab wanted the wagons to form up as much of a circle as possible to create a small paddock for the animals. Tonight, he did not want them to get too far away from camp.

  While the others all started the work of getting camp set up, Rab helped Matthew to roundup the loose livestock. The other Cummings boys, Jeremiah and Paul, used rope to tie off a temporary paddock inside the half-circle made by the wagons.

  While they rounded up the livestock, Rab kept his eye on the wagon and three riders in the distance. As he thought they would, Mickey Hogg and the others stopped when they saw the wagon train stop.

  As Rab pushed in the last of the mules, he wheeled Cromwell over to where Amos Cummings was trying to explain to Stuart Bancroft and Graham Devalt why they had stopped so early in the day.

  "I'm going to ride over to those men back there," Rab said. "When I get to them, I want you to hitch up one of the wagons and move it – move it over yonder there. As best as you can, make it look like you're doing it for some purpose. Set up the campfire near it and prepare your supper on the back of it. But when you move it, make as much noise as you can. Bang your pots and pans together, get the mules worked up so they're baying, shout at each other. As much noise as you can scare up."

  "We will not participate in foolish games," Graham Devalt said.

  "Mr. Cummings?" Rab asked, ignoring Devalt.

  Amos nodded. "I don't understand the purpose of all of this, Mr. Sinclair. But I'm willing to go along with it for some ways."

  Now Rab turned and rode his back trail, back to where Mickey Hogg and the other three men had stopped.

  He rode up near the camp and reined in his horse.

  "Howdy," Rab said.

  "We're getting to be like old traveling companions," Mickey Hogg said with a laugh.

  All four of the men eyed Rab suspiciously. They'd done nothing, really, to make camp.

  "Surprised to see y'all stop back here," Rab said. "Quite a bit of daytime left for moving on."

  "You stopped," Dick Derugy said.

  "We pushed on pretty hard yesterday," Rab said. "We thought it would be best to stop early today and give the livestock some rest."

  "That's what we're doing, too," Mickey Hogg said.

  "Mind if I join you for a spell?" Rab asked.

  "Oh, sure," Mickey said. "I guess we should have invited you
. Forgot our manners."

  Rab swung himself down out of his saddle. "So y'all have decided to stop for the day, too?"

  "That's right," Mickey Hogg said. "All this traveling and not feeling like you're getting anywhere can wear on a man."

  Rab looked out to the west and back to the east.

  "Scenery don't change much," he said. "Most of the time, just from courtesy, folks don't stop so close to someone else's camp. On the Trail here, folks tend to spread out more than this."

  "We making you nervous?" Mickey Hogg asked with a smirk.

  Rab lit his pipe and smoked it in silence for a few moments. Then he shook his head.

  "Not making me nervous, no," he said thoughtfully. "There's a reason for it."

  He held the bowl of his pipe and he used the tip to point.

  "There's all this grass out here, plenty of grass for grazing, but you know how livestock is. They'll munch a bit here and then wander a ways and munch a bit there. Next thing you know, our hawsses is all intermingled with your hawsses, our cows is intermingled with your cows. If we're planning to move out before sunup – which we are – then it makes it awful challenging to get the right hawsses and the right cows in the dark. And oftentimes, this late in the season, the good grazing along the trail is all eat up. If you look around with a big sweeping view, looks to be plenty of good grass through here. But if you get to walking around and really start looking, what you see is that the grass really ain't as plentiful as it first appears. So folks traveling on the trail tend not to camp within sight of each other. That away, their stock don't get all mingled up and if the grazing is pretty well eat over, there still ought to be plenty."

  Rab held his tone level and his manners easy. He showed these four men that he was plenty comfortable coming into their camp and advising them, even if he was younger than they were.

  "It makes good sense for us, and it makes good sense for you, too."

  Mickey Hogg's face showed anger. Mickey wasn't a man accustomed to being told what to do by anyone.

  "So are you trying to tell us that we should move on?" Mickey asked, a challenge in his tone.

  "Not at all," Rab said evenly. "No, sir. I don't see that it causes any harm for you to be here and us to be there, not for one night. We're going to corral up our livestock, so there won't be any worries about intermingling, and we've got some boys in our train who can collect grass for the animals. No, one night won't make a difference. I just thought I'd mention it to you for the future. I know y'all said you ain't been on the trail before, and you're bound to encounter others, too. Some folks won't be as friendly about it as we are. So it's just a word of caution to you."