A Trail Too Far

by Robert Peecher

  Though he found that he longed to see Rachel, Rab felt a great relief at returning to the campsite and finding it empty. He did not want people. Not even Rachel. Not yet.

  He had seen it done, but Rab Sinclair had never before taken a man's scalp. It was brutal violence to do to a man, and he now regretted having done it. He was driven by an anger he'd never felt before. He had thought if he could not bring back Martha Cummings to her husband and daughter, he could at least bring back the scalps of the men who murdered her. But he knew the gesture would not be appreciated, and he left the scalps in their burlap sack out in the desert.

  He did not linger at the Point of Rocks. He camped one night to rest the horses and allow them to drink. He unburied his provisions and put the pannier on one of the horses he'd taken from Pawnee Bill and Mickey Hogg. With five horses he could ride hard for the next few days. He anticipated doing thirty miles a day, even in the heat of the grasslands, and he expected to catch the wagon train before it arrived in Santa Fe.

  On his third morning out from the Point of Rocks, Rab caught sight on the distant horizon of a low mound. At first it looked like nothing more than a distant cloud in the place where the sky touched the earth, but after an hour or so its gray form took on a distinct shape, and it might have been a tree. But an hour later of moving and Rab was no closer to it. That was when he was sure that it was Rabbit Ears.

  Any traveler along the Cimarron Cutoff longed to see Rabbit Ears Mountain. Emigrants allowed themselves to become convinced that the two high peaks rising out of the desert did resemble a jack rabbit, the lower mound the crouched body and the higher mound the perked ears, but in fact Rabbit Ears Mountain was not named for its appearance but for the Comanche warrior Rabbit Ears who was killed and buried in the vicinity of the mountain. But more important than what it looked like, Rabbit Ears was the landmark that meant the journey was finally ending.

  Rabbit Ears meant that the long, wide expanse of the barren plains would soon be broken by mountains and, more importantly, rivers. For those harassed by Indians, Rabbit Ears meant that Fort Union was six days away, four if you had to press it. Knowing the cavalry was so near did much to hearten many a weary and harried traveler.

  By the late afternoon of the third day, Rabbit Ears Mountain was in stark relief against the setting sun, and Rab knew his journey was fast approaching an end.

  On the fourth day he passed both Rabbit Ears and Round Mound, putting these first two landmarks since the Point of Rocks at his back.

  On the morning of the fifth day, Rab Sinclair watered his horses in the Canadian River.

  But now his provisions were all but gone. He was out of flour and coffee and had only a little of the Elk strips left in his saddlebags, and that meat was beginning to turn. It had not smoked long enough to preserve it, so he tossed the last of his food into the Canadian River.

  Rather than dropping south directly to Wagon Mound, Rab diverted from the Trail and followed the Canadian River. When he found a likely spot in a valley among the tall mesas, he ran a line in the river and managed to catch a decent sized carp that became his dinner. The river valley also offered better grazing for the horses, and Rab turned them out to allow them opportunity to graze. He camped here two nights.

  On the eighth day out from the Point of Rocks, Rab rode up out of the Canadian River valley and made west toward Wagon Mound, the landmark that resembled a high-topped shoe when viewed from the north. There were springs and creeks along the way here. The western horizon was broken with mountains and high ridges and mesas.

  Now a sense of peace came over Rab Sinclair.

  He had been two weeks without conversation except that which he had with Pawnee Bill or his horses. He'd not seen another living man for two weeks, except the two men he'd killed. He was worried, but not overly so, that he had not yet encountered the Cummings wagon train. If another wagon train arrived within a day or two of when he set out after Martha Cummings, they could be all the way to Wagon Mound by now. What he did not know was that when he left the Trail and followed the Canadian River, he had actually passed them by.

  On the ninth morning out from Point of Rocks, just east of Wagon Mound and not far from where he had camped that night, Rab encountered a cavalry patrol on its way to the eastern border of New Mexico territory to confront Comanche raiders who were on the war path there.

  The men were rugged veterans, but they were still astonished to find a lone traveler so far off the Trail. The cavalry did not stop, but a captain approached and spoke with Rab.

  "You know you're riding through Comanche territory?" the captain asked.

  "I was following the Trail and provisions ran out. So I dropped down the Canadian River to do some fishing."

  "You see any sign of Injuns?"

  Rab shook his head and too advantage of the pause to fill the bowl of his pipe. As he puffed on the pipe he said, "Haven't seen a soul in a few days."

  "You packing the trail alone?" the captain asked.

  "I was guiding in a wagon train, but we were separated," Rab told him. "About two weeks ago. I'm hoping they joined up with another wagon train and might be waiting for me at Fort Union."

  "Coming down the Cimarron Cutoff?" the captain asked.

  "That's right."

  "Most trains coming down the Cut don't stop at Fort Union, but we haven't seen anyone come from the Cimarron in a month or more."

  "How many days out from the fort are you?" Rab asked.

  "Just one day. We left yesterday and camped at Wagon Mound overnight. On your own, if you push you can be to the fort today and in Santa Fe in five days."

  Rab gave the captain a wave and urged on the horses he was pushing so that he could make the fort before sundown.

  ***

  Rab sold three of the four horses he took off of Pawnee Bill and Mickey Hogg to the army at Fort Union. The wagon train was not there and had not come in and left, so Rab rode on to Santa Fe.

  He spent two days searching the town, visiting the hotels and riding out to the camps near the city. Though some wagon trains had come in over the last couple of weeks, no one had seen the Cummings party wagon train or any other group that came through the Cimarron Cutoff.

  Rab camped outside of town where he could see the Trail as it curved south around Elk and Bear mountains, the southernmost mountains of the Sangre de Cristo range, that lay to the east of Santa Fe. The Trail dropped southwest from Wagon Mound to circle south of the mountains, and then it curved west and north up to Santa Fe.

  When he could find no evidence that the Cummings party had arrived either at Fort Union or Santa Fe ahead of him, Rab hoped that he had passed the wagon train when he left the Trail and followed the Canada River.

  There were few other explanations, and none of them were good. It was unlikely they had been attacked by Indians. Indians would not have taken the wagons. He would have found evidence at the Point of Rocks of Indian attack. The other possibility was that they went on their own without a guide and were lost somewhere in the desert grassland.

  His third day at Santa Fe, a stagecoach came in from Las Vegas, just on the east side of Bear Mountain. When he saw the coach coming along the trail, Rab saddled Cromwell and followed the coach into Santa Fe. There he questioned the jehu.

  "We passed a wagon train on the way here, not far out of Las Vegas. They'll be in Santa Fe in three days," he said.

  Rab returned to his campsite among the pines on a hillside, and he spent the next couple of days resting and wondering how he would tell Rachel about her mother and Amos Cummings about his wife.

  Early in the afternoon of the third day, Rab saw them. They had joined a large wagon train with more than a dozen wagons, a real wagon master and a guide. Rab recognized the guide, though he did not know the man by name. The Cummings party had attached itself at the back of the larger train. Stuart drove the front wagon, and Rachel drove the wagon behind him. Amos Cummings was driving the next wagon. Rebekah Bancroft was driving a wagon. Jeremiah look
ed healthy in the driver's seat of the next to last wagon, and the oldest of the Bancroft boys was driving the last wagon. Paul was driving the livestock by himself, and Rab was glad to see the sorrel and the buckskin both looked healthy.

  He had imagined a fond reunion with Rachel. In these days camped on the hillside waiting for the wagon train to come in, Rab thought maybe she would look up from the road and come dashing up the hillside and run into his arms. But she did not look up and see him and she did not dash into his arms. The news he bore was enough to keep him from running down the hillside.

  Instead, he watched the wagon train pass. They were nearly done with their journey, but there was work yet to complete. Rab decided not to interfere with that work. Rachel was needed to drive the wagon. They would camp in the flats south of town, only a couple of miles away, and it was enough that he would join her there.

  "All right, you old blue hawss," Rab said. "Are you ready to go and see Miss Rachel?"

  He did not hurry. He took his time to saddle the blue roan. He could not explain it, but he had a raw feeling about going to her.

  He smoked his pipe for a bit and packed his pannier and loaded it on the bay horse, the one he had kept of the four horses he'd taken off the two men. The bay was the best of the horses. It ran along with Cromwell pretty well and never had to be dragged or led. He thought he would probably sell the horse in Santa Fe once he was reunited with the sorrel and buckskin. Those had both turned out to be fine horses, and he would not sell them off.

  The pannier packed and Cromwell mounted, Rab descended the hill and followed the road toward Santa Fe. When he crested a hill overlooking the flats, he rode down to where Paul was picketing the animals.

  "Rabbie!" Rachel called to him when she saw him, and she tossed down a camp chair she was holding and ran toward him. Rab urged Cromwell forward and galloped the distance, and when he came up to her he leapt from the saddle and scooped her up in his arms at a run.

  Rachel's face was bright with a smile, but the smile quickly fell and her expression turned dark as she realized what it meant that Rab was alone.

  "My mother?" she asked, and Rab set her down from the embrace and took a step away.

  "I was too late getting to her," Rab said.

  Amos Cummings saw his daughter's shoulders drop. He saw her fall into Rab Sinclair's arms in a sob, and he knew the answer to the question that had burned in his heart for these past few weeks. Stuart Bancroft saw, too, and knew that his sister was dead. Jeremiah and Paul both went to their father to offer some comfort to him.

  "I took her body back to the Point of Rocks, and I buried her there beside your brother," Rab said.

  Rachel, crying into his chest, nodded her head. "That was the right thing to do."

  She wept a bit longer. Rachel, more than any of the rest, had held onto hope that Martha Cummings would survive. Her hope was in Rabbie Sinclair and her belief that he was invincible in his element.

  "Was she dead when you found her?"

  "She was."

  "I do not want to know any more than that," Rachel said. "I do not want to know where you found her or in what condition her body was. You have told me the things I wanted to know. But I have one more question for you. Did you kill those men who did that to her?"

  "I did," Rab said, and unbidden the vivid recollection of their screams as he scalped them alive came into his mind.

  "Do not tell my father that you killed them," Rachel said. "He is so torn with grief, and I am afraid the guilt would be too much for him."

  Rab pressed his lips against Rachel's hair. As he did, she spoke a prayer into his chest, holding him tight in her arms.

  "Lord in Heaven, I pray that you take into your bosom the soul of my mother to be with her son, and to be there waiting for her husband and children for the time when we come to join you. She was a kind and beautiful servant to You while she was on this earth, and I pray that she now enjoys her Heavenly reward. And Father, I pray for your servant Amos Cummings, whose soul suffers the loss of this good woman more than we can know. And I pray, too, for Mr. Sinclair. I pray that in Your blood you will wash the sin of blood from his hands, that you will ease his conscience and give him peace that he was Your instrument of judgment on this earth."

  It had been many years since anyone had ever prayed over Rab Sinclair, and no prayer he'd ever heard from his Scotch father sounded so tender and heartfelt. And Rab found that through Rachel's prayer there was some easing of the vicious memory.

  "I'm obliged to you, Rachel."

  33

  The Cummings party remained in Santa Fe for two weeks. They grieved and they prepared. They bought new provisions and sold two of the wagons. They found a wagon master who was leading a train to California and bought in with him.

  Through those two weeks, Rab and Rachel stayed together every day. They walked in the streets of Santa Fe and hiked a short distance up the mountain to the east of the city. They rode Rab's horses out around the town.

  But not once did Rachel talk about what it would be like when they were married nor how many children they would have.

  The raw feeling Rab had never went away.

  The afternoon before the wagon train was set to leave for California, Rachel and Rab rode a trail up along the banks of a narrow mountain stream.

  They took with them a picnic for their supper, and they ate beside the stream in a spot where they were also overlooking the town and the flats where the wagon waited for the next journey to begin.

  Rachel was uncommonly quiet, and Rab did not have the voice for words.

  They ate with almost no conversation between them. And when they had finished, Rachel took Rab by the hands and looked him in the face.

  "I have to talk to you," she said.

  "I don't want to hear what you're going to say," Rab said.

  "Rabbie, I have to say it."

  Her eyes were swollen and red. This journey had brought too much sadness.

  Rab twitched his lips. He squeezed her hands and slid his hands out from hers so that he could fish his pipe and tobacco pouch from his pocket.

  "Well, if I have to hear it, I'll listen while I have a smoke," he said, and he made some effort to smile at her.

  He lit the pipe, and though he held the bowl in one hand, he resumed holding both of her hands in the other.

  "I have never known a person like you, not even a little bit like you. And there is nothing about you that I do not love. Your courage and your wisdom. The things you have done and seen and the things you can do. You're like a real life Natty Bumppo. You're wild and scary, but tender and kind. And you are the handsomest man I ever have seen."

  Rab blew smoke out the side of his mouth so that it would drift down wind and away from her.

  "Those are all nice words, and I'm glad to have them. But I have this raw feeling that ain't what you intend to tell me," Rab said.

  "It's so hard to say," Rachel said. "And I want you to know it pains me to say it as much as it pains you to hear it. You must know that. But Rabbie, I cannot stay here in Santa Fe with you."

  Rab closed his eyes and nodded his head. "I know that."

  "My poor father is heartsick. He has lost a son and a wife. And I have a duty to him. He needs someone to look after him. His faith is shaken, and he is suffering from terrible guilt. He believes all of what has happened was his fault because he brought our family west."

  "It ain't enough that he has Jeremiah and Paul to look after him?" Rab asked.

  "It's not the same," Rachel said. "My father is hurting, and men are not capable of tending to the injuries of the heart and the pain of the soul in the way that women are. Those are the wounds that need a tender touch, a softness and kindness that will only come from a woman. Surely you understand that. If it had only been Matthew and if my mother was there to care for him, then yes – a thousand times, yes! – I would stay here with you and go with you wherever you go. But he lost the woman who could nurture him back. And poor substitute that
I am, I am all he has. My place has to be with my father."

  Rab knocked the fire from his pipe and crushed it below his foot. He let go of Rachel's hands and put his hand on the back her head. He pulled her forward slightly and kissed her forehead.

  "I should get you back," he said. "You'll need to rest tonight. The train you're with is large enough that you ought not to have to worry about Indians, but you're traveling through Apache country and they can sometimes be unpredictable."

  Rab walked over to Cromwell and reached into one of his saddlebags. He drew out an elaborately carved pipe, the one Stuart Bancroft had returned to him.

  "Like as not, it won't do no good with Apache. But if you are attacked, and you have the opportunity, show them this pipe. Some among those people know that it belongs to me, and they might let you be because of it."

  Rachel took the pipe from his hand and looked at it. It was a beautiful piece of woodworking.

  "I don't want to take something that's special to you," Rachel said.

  "You already are, Rachel Cummings," Rab said, and though he did not intend it, the words landed sharp and stung Rachel's heart. "You're taking the thing that is most special to me. You might as well have the pipe, too. Maybe one day, if I ever get over to California, I'll see if I can find you to claim it back."

  The End

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for coming along this journey with Rab Sinclair, Rachel, and the rest of the Cummings Party.

  I hope you enjoyed this Western novel, and if you did enjoy the novel I’d be obliged if you’d leave a review at Amazon.

  If this is your first time reading one of my novels, or if you’ve read them all, I hope you’ll click here to visit my website and sign up to receive my newsletter. In the newsletter I’ll send out information about new projects and new releases, and it’s a great way to keep track of what I’m working on next.

  You can also click here to follow the Robert Peecher Novels page on Facebook.

  While Rab Sinclair is not strictly a character in a series, I do intend to write about him from time to time. An older Rab Sinclair is featured in the novels Trulock’s Posse and The Glorieta Grudge (both also available at Amazon), and I’m sure he’ll make appearances in other novels in the future.