The Goodnight Trail

by Ralph Compton

  He pointed to Goose, to the tracks, and then across the river, where the two-day old trail led. The Indian nodded, took his Spencer and waded across the waist-deep Brazos. Sunset was near; with darkness approaching, it would be a short trail, easier followed afoot. His nose to the ground like a hunting wolf, the Apache was soon out of sight.

  They kept their supper fire small, concealing it in a fire pit. There was no wind, and the branches of the cottonwoods that lined the Brazos would dissipate the smoke. Goose didn’t return until after dark, and he brought bad news.

  “Comanch’ bastardos,” said the Indian. “Matar.” He pointed due west, then held up three fingers.

  “Muerto?” questioned McCaleb, holding up three fingers.

  “Muerto,” repeated Goose.

  Realizing his limited Spanish was inadequate, the Indian hunkered down and brushed away the dead leaves. Pointing to the river, he then drew a line representing it. He drew a square a short distance from the west bank of the Brazos, and within the square made three side-by-side vertical marks. From the square he drew a line back to and across the river, representing the trail he had followed.

  “Casa,” he said, pointing to the square he’d drawn.

  “Muerto en casa?” asked McCaleb, holding up three fingers.

  The Indian nodded. He then drew a series of lines fanning out from the square, pointing west. He again held up two fingers.

  “Three dead,” said McCaleb, “not more than two or three miles west of here. Happened just a little while after they crossed the river. Goose says two-day old tracks lead away from the house, to the west.”

  “Some of us will be riding over there in the morning, then,” said Will. “They’ll need burying.”

  “Yes,” said McCaleb, “it’s the least we can do. We’ll lose another day, but those poor souls likely have kin somewhere who need to be notified. We can take the news to Waco. It’s the nearest town; somebody there’s bound to know them or know of them.”

  It was a grisly scene. They found the bodies of the man and his wife in the three-room cabin. Their son—in his teens—lay on the ground outside, near the front steps. They had all been scalped and mutilated. The men’s privates had been cut off and stuffed in their mouths. The woman’s breasts had been hacked off and a stake, made from the splintered leg of a kitchen chair, had been driven through her lower belly. The three of them, naked and mutilated, were bloated horribly. The boy had been further mutilated by coyotes or wolves, the flesh having been torn from his arms and legs. The stink was unbearable. With bandannas over their noses and mouths, the men threw feed-sack sheets and threadbare blankets over the bodies. Each was rolled in bedclothes, like a cocoon, and one at a time the macabre bundles were lowered into their graves.

  McCaleb left Will and Brazos to fill in the graves while he searched the cabin. Going through the family’s meager possessions, he found little that would be helpful in reaching their next of kin. There was only an old letter with an Ohio postmark. Will and Brazos returned to the house. Will swung open the sagging back door and beckoned to McCaleb. The bushes and brush behind the cabin were startlingly white, like they’d been through a snowstorm. Feathers! Thousands, maybe millions, of white feathers!

  “Fool Comanches ripped the feather beds open,” said Will. “They even hauled the poor woman’s home-canned goods out there and busted every jar.”

  “This kind of thing,” said Brazos, “makes me want to give up hunting cows and go hunting Comanches. I’d like to track down every one of the murdering sons and roast them alive over a slow fire.”

  “We may be tangling with them before we reach the Pecos,” said McCaleb. “When they rode out of here, they headed west. Once we join Goodnight, we will be taking the trail west. I found very little to identify these folks. Not a sign of a weapon; not even a pocket knife. There’s nothing more we can do except take the news to Waco. Let’s ride.”

  Before the trees hid it, they paused, looking back at the desolate little cabin. Nobody spoke. It was something each of them had experienced before, but it never got any easier.

  It was dusky dark when they bedded down the herd just south of Waco. The sun had set red behind a cloud bank, and the wind blew cold from the north, bringing to them the persistent yipping of a dog. Except for the Indian, they all relaxed. Goose seemed more apprehensive than ever. Was it the proximity of town, of people, or was it something else? McCaleb watched and wondered. They would approach the town cautiously.

  “In the morning,” he said, “will be soon enough to ride into Waco. Three of us will ride in and three will stay with the herd. Will, I want you with me; you spent some time here before joining the Rangers. Might be some folks here who’ll remember you.”

  “I hope one of ’em ain’t the sheriff,” said Will. “He’s likely to lock me in the juzgado on general principles.”

  “Take Rebecca with you,” said Brazos. “She’s been doing the cooking, and if there’s anything to be had, let her choose. Includin’ the two hundred we took from the Baker gang, we got better than three hundred dollars in gold coin.”

  “Hard as the war’s been on everybody,” said McCaleb, “I doubt we’ll find anything to buy, even with gold. Times being what they are, we’d best keep that gold out of sight for a while.”

  McCaleb, Will, and Rebecca rode into Waco when the sun was an hour high. It was an unimposing little town strung out along the Brazos River. The first buildings they came to—log huts—had been boarded up.

  “The jail’s at the other end of the street,” said Will. “Can’t see it from here. Street kind of follows the curve of the river. The old storekeeper Daugherty might remember me; he knew my pa.”

  The store was a big, square slab-sided building whose false front had once been painted white. The paint had peeled, taking with it most of the once-imposing black foot-high letters that had spelled “Daugherty and Sons.” An old hound lay under the roof overhang that served as a porch. He opened one eye as though considering announcing their arrival, decided they weren’t worth the effort, and stayed where he was.

  The old man sat in a rocking chair by a potbellied stove. His spittoon was a gallon bucket, and the brown splotches on the floor were mute testimony to his inaccuracy. He showed no surprise, greeting Will as though only days had elapsed since they had last met.

  “Howdy, Will. Been ten year since I seen you. Your mammy and pappy still livin’ up t’ Mineral Wells?”

  “Yeah,” said Will. “How’re things with you, Virg?”

  “Gone to hell in a hand basket. Lost both m’ boys in the war. Nothin’ keepin’ me here, ’cept I’m too damn old an’ stove-up t’ ride out.”

  The nearly bare shelves attested to the truth of what he had said. His pitifully small supply of merchandise was either homemade or home-grown.

  “Virg,” said Will, “this is Benton McCaleb and Rebecca Nance. We have near ’bouts a thousand longhorns from the Trinity River brakes. We’re going to Fort Belknap and from there to Colorado Territory, with Charlie Goodnight. We’re almighty short on supplies, especially ammunition.”

  “Wisht I could he’p you, Will. Most of all, by God, wisht I was able t’ saddle up an’ ride alongside ye. Cain’t offer you nothin’ ’cept some good advice. Git away from here quiet as you can, take them cows an’ cut a wide swath around this town. We got our own deetachment of blue-bellies. The tall hog at the trough is a second lieutenant named Sandoval. Besides him, there’s a sergeant an’ five privates. But that ain’t the worst of it. We got us a bran’ new appointed sheriff.”

  “That’s terrible!” said Rebecca. “Can they do that?”

  Daugherty seemed to notice Rebecca for the first time. He combed his fingers through his thinning gray hair and shifted his tobacco to his other cheek. He spat, missed the can, and then he spoke.

  “They can an’ they have. Some Federal judge made th’ appointment. What does he know, sittin’ on his fat haunches in New Orleans?”

  “Who is this ap
pointed sheriff?” questioned McCaleb.

  The old man again shifted his cud of tobacco, fired a stream at the can and missed. Then he turned to McCaleb.

  “He’s a no-account, whiskey-soaked son of a bitch—beggin’ your pardon, ma’am—named Shag Oliver. He’s so poison-mean he’d kill a dog just to see it die. Compared to him, the soldiers ain’t half bad. Was him I had in mind when I said you ought to of took your herd an’ moved on.”

  “We’ve met,” said McCaleb, “and from your description, if he’s changed, it’s for the worse. Unfortunately, we have some information that’ll have to be turned over to him if he’s sheriff, appointed or not. I reckon a dozen miles south, maybe two miles west of the Brazos, we buried a man, his wife, and their son. Comanche killings.”

  “That’d be the Mathisons. They was a standoffish family. He was right good at findin’ an’ cuttin’ bee trees. Brung in a dozen quarts of wild honey onct, an’ I traded him out of it. Still got three fourths of it.”

  “I reckon we’ve avoided him as long as we can,” said Will. “His highness is headin’ this way.”

  Shag Oliver had changed very little, except for the gap where McCaleb had removed three of his upper teeth, and the size of his ponderous belly, which now seemed bigger than ever. He came stomping in, his little pig eyes glittering in fiendish anticipation.

  “Well, now, if it ain’t Mr. High-and-Mighty himself,” said Oliver with a smirk. “Got me a score to settle with you. Downright obligin’ of you to show up, seein’ as how I got a nice empty jail waitin’ fer you.”

  He struck what he considered a threatening pose, his hand on the butt of his Colt. McCaleb made no move. He spoke quietly, calmly.

  “Oliver—”

  “That’s Sheriff Oliver to you!”

  “Oliver,” said McCaleb deliberately, “yesterday, a dozen miles downriver, we buried a family killed by Indians. Mr. Daugherty tells us they were the Mathisons. This old letter is the only thing we found that might help locate their next of kin.”

  Oliver snatched the letter from McCaleb’s hand. Swiftly he drew and cocked his Colt.

  “Indians, huh? How do I know you didn’t kill ’em yourself? I reckon I’ll lock the three of you in the hoose-gow till I figger what I can charge you with. Git going!”

  “Sheriff,” said Virg Daugherty, “you can’t jail a lady.”

  “Haw, haw,” chortled Oliver, “an’ why not? What’s jail to some saloon slut—”

  Until the day he died, Virg Daugherty never tired of telling about the day when Benton McCaleb bested an outlaw sheriff who had the drop. McCaleb’s left hand drove Shag Oliver’s gun hand toward the ceiling and the Colt sent a slug harmlessly through the roof. McCaleb then snatched his own Colt from its butt-forward position on his left hip, and with all his strength laid its barrel just above Oliver’s left ear. The blow would have felled a full-grown grizzly. The building shook and the stove pipe jumped loose where it had joined the potbellied stove. Shag Oliver lay flat on his back. The hound on the porch, startled out of his slumber, began to bay. Soot from the disconnected stove pipe began to sift down and Rebecca sneezed.

  “I reckon,” said Will, “we might as well get back to the herd. Sooner or later we’ll have to kill this jaybird. But if he’s the Union army’s pet coon—”

  “Don’t blame that on us. We had nothing to do with his appointment.”

  The young second lieutenant stood in the open door, the inquisitive old hound behind him.

  “I’m Lieutenant Martin Sandoval. I believe I’m due an explanation.”

  McCaleb again recounted, as briefly as he could, their burying the murdered Mathison family. He told of Oliver’s unfounded accusation, of the threat of jail, and finally, the insult to Rebecca.

  “You did nothing to provoke him, then,” said Sandoval.

  “Not today,” said McCaleb. “Four years ago I stopped him from beating a horse. He promised the next time we met, he’d kill me. This was the next time. I had no idea he was here. We’re driving a herd of longhorns north and had hoped to replenish our supplies here.”

  Shag Oliver sat up, blinking his eyes. His hand went to his holster, and finding it empty, he began looking furtively around, seeking the missing weapon. Lieutenant Sandoval spied the fallen Colt, retrieved it and stuck it under his belt.

  “Damn you,” bawled Oliver, “gimme that pistol! I’ll gut-shoot that bastard if it’s the last thing I ever do!”

  “Then I’ll personally see that it’s the last thing you ever do,” snapped Sandoval. “I’m in charge here. My commander-in-chief is the president of the United States. He outranks the Federal judge that appointed you. I’ll have no more trouble!”

  “They’re Rebs!” snarled Oliver. “Th’ law says they ain’t even supposed to have guns. Mebbe I’ll turn you in, kid, fer not doin’ yer duty.”

  “That’s not fair!” cried Rebecca. “If the government takes our guns, we’ll be at the mercy of every murdering Indian and outlaw in Texas! You won’t do that…will you?”

  “He’s right about that,” said Sandoval. “The Reconstruction Act of 1865 authorizes me to confiscate weapons.”

  “You ain’t even in the United States,” growled Oliver, “an’ mebbe we won’t never let you back in. Them cows ain’t gonna do you no good if you can’t get ’em out of Texas. Johnny Rebs can’t leave th’ state. Tell ’em, sojer boy!”

  “No,” said Sandoval, “I’m going to tell you something, mister. It was Mr. Lincoln’s dream that the Union would again be one nation, and it will be. He wanted to build, not destroy. Legally, we can confiscate your arms and confine you to the state during the period of reconstruction, but you can get around both these restrictions with one simple act.”

  “I reckon,” said McCaleb, “you’re going to tell us what that is.”

  “I am,” said Sandoval. “You must take an oath—in writing—that you will never again take up arms against the United States of America.”

  “We never done that in the first place,” said Will. “We was fightin’ Comanches and outlaws on the north Texas border.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Sandoval, “Texas did secede and take up arms. You are Texans, so you’ll have to take the oath. I’m headquartered at the jail. I’ll join you there shortly, and the three of you can sign. Then return to your herd, and have the rest of your riders come in and sign. When you’ve done that, take your herd and move out. I want no more trouble.”

  “Take a couple of quarts of wild honey with you,” said Virg Daugherty.

  Sandoval didn’t follow them immediately. McCaleb reckoned Shag Oliver was just low-down enough to grab a rifle and shoot him in the back, and he suspected Lieutenant Sandoval had the same opinion of the “sheriff.”

  When McCaleb, Will, and Rebecca returned to the herd, Brazos, Monte, and Goose rode in to take the oath. The Apache was allowed to sign with an “X”, and Sandoval witnessed it.

  They crossed the herd to the west bank of the Brazos, bypassing Waco. Scarcely three miles north of town they found more Indian sign, just hours old. More than fifty unshod horses had crossed the river, heading east. It was still early afternoon, but McCaleb halted the drive. With that damn many Indians in a bunch, all of them obviously of one mind, you could bet your last pair of clean socks they planned to raise some hell.

  “Still two hours till dark,” said Brazos.

  “I know it,” said McCaleb, “but I want Goose to trail that bunch. If they keep riding east, fine. But they could swing wide, double back to the south and come at us from behind. Or they could ride a day to the north and be lying there waiting for us. I don’t like Indian surprises. They always end up being the hair-raising kind.”

  Goose didn’t return until almost sundown, so they bedded down the herd for the night. The wind was from the south, and they were still near enough to Waco to hear the yipping of the town dogs. Goose hunkered down and drew his familiar map. One long line represented the Brazos, while a circle on the east side marked th
e town. Then east of Waco, paralleling the river, he drew many lines which passed the town and continued south.

  “Comanch’,” he said. “Muchos.”

  “They can’t be doubling back after us,” said Will, “or they’d have cut back toward the river between here and Waco. What do you make of that?”

  “Wouldn’t bet my saddle,” said McCaleb, “but I have a strong hunch. It’s three-hour watches, two riders at a time. When you do roll in your blankets, picket your horses and leave them saddled.”

  “Sandoval and his boys may have a fight on their hands,” said Brazos.

  “It’s not our fight,” said Rebecca. “They ran us out. Besides, we’re low on ammunition ourselves.”

  “Sandoval was decent to us,” said McCaleb grimly, “and if he needs help, then I aim to do what I can. We saw what was left of that Mathison family. Knowing what the Comanches do to white women, I won’t allow it to happen without a fight. If you don’t think it’s our fight, then think awhile on this: there are fifty or more warriors in this band. If they’re able to buffalo the town, they’ll come after us.”

  Supper was eaten in silence.

  “First watch,” said McCaleb. “Who wants it?”

  “Me and Goose,” said Monte.

  “Then I reckon me and Brazos will take the second,” said Will.

  “I don’t like the third watch,” said Rebecca sullenly.

  “Then sleep,” said McCaleb. “I can handle it alone.”

  When Will woke McCaleb for the third watch, McCaleb was amused to find that the girl was up, had gone after her roan, and had brought his bay as well.

  “I thought you didn’t like the third watch.”

  “Shut up, McCaleb. Just shut up!”

  In silence, for what McCaleb judged was an hour, they circled the herd in opposite directions. Finally, at the point where they met, she spoke.

  “McCaleb.”

  He acknowledged her query by reining up, but said nothing. He could see her pale face in the starlight.