The Goodnight Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “That could destroy him quicker than forty-rod whiskey,” said McCaleb. “He’ll likely end up shootin’ his way out of some saloon or die trying. They’ll gun him down, not for lack of honesty, but because he’s an Indian.”

  It was Oliver Loving and four of his riders who made delivery of the first two hundred beeves from the Goodnight-Loving herd. McCaleb’s outfit was restless after six weeks of virtually no activity, and he decided it was time for a visit to Santa Fe. On Friday, October 26, as they prepared to ride out, Goodnight had some advice for them.

  “You can always take your herd on to Colorado in the spring, but since you’ll be that close to Fort Union, why don’t you call on the beef contractor and see if there’s a market for your herd? Fort Union is headquarters for this military district. You can always go back to Texas in the spring, buy an even larger herd, and trail it to Colorado before snow flies.”

  “If there’s that much potential at Fort Union,” said McCaleb dryly, “I wonder why Mr. Loving didn’t make himself a deal there, instead of dribbling two hundred head each month until spring?”

  Goodnight chuckled. “I’ll tell you a secret. Mr. Loving wants the beef contract for Fort Union; maybe even for this entire military district. As you know, our glorious Congress, with its Reconstruction Act, has declared that no beef contracts are to be let to Rebs. However, Mr. Loving has learned that early next year there’ll be a new head of the quartermaster’s department at Fort Union. Colonel Charles McClure, a man Loving knows and has dealt with before, will be in charge. Due to the urgent government need for beef in this district, McClure has had this foolish law set aside. Loving aims to be in Santa Fe next August to bid on those beef contracts. He’s confident he’ll get them, so we’re going back to Texas and raise the largest herd yet; maybe five thousand head. If their need for beef is that great and the price is right, why not dispose of your present herd and buy an even larger one in the spring? Colorado will still be there.”

  They rode into Santa Fe on Sunday afternoon, and if Saturday night’s din had lessened, there was no evidence of it. While there were a few tents—mostly saloons—the town had an air of permanence. Some of the buildings were slab-sided with false fronts, but others were brick, including a two-story hotel. There was a main street, several side streets, and even a few cross streets. While the streets were dirt—dusty in dry weather, muddy in wet weather—there were boardwalks along most of them. Next to the bank stood the Condor Saloon, and directly across the street was the Five Aces. There was the Broken Spoke, the Snake Head, the Pecos, and others so unpretentious they had only a crude wooden sign reading WHISKEY.

  “Goodnight was talking sense,” said Brazos. “Maybe we ought to look up this jaybird who’s got the Fort Union beef contract now.”

  “I reckon it won’t hurt to talk to him,” said McCaleb.

  “While you’re doing that,” said Monte, “I aim to visit the saloons and watch some real gamblers play.”

  A dog followed the riders, barking until a chorus of others, unseen, had joined in. They reined up in front of the Ganadero Hotel.

  “I aim to sleep in a bed tonight,” said McCaleb, “before I forget how.”

  Goose halted at the door, refusing to enter. Fancy upholstered chairs lined the lobby and a worn but clean red carpet covered the floor. Winding wooden stairs led to a second floor. Patient as Brazos was, Goose took some convincing.

  The desk clerk was a short little man, not even as tall as Rebecca. He had watery blue eyes, wore glasses, a wilted suit, and there wasn’t a single hair on his head. He looked right past McCaleb, his eyes fixed on Goose. The Indian returned the stare. Furious, the little man turned on McCaleb.

  “Why is he…that savage…staring at me?”

  McCaleb chuckled. “He thinks you’ve been scalped, and he’s wonderin’ how you healed so clean, without any scars.”

  Brazos, Will, and Monte slapped their thighs and roared. Rebecca laughed until she cried. To McCaleb’s everlasting relief, Goose misinterpreted their mirth and grinned. He thought they were laughing at the little man with no hair.

  “Rooms for the night,” said McCaleb. “We’ll need four. Adjoining.”

  “I, uh…we’re full,” stammered the desk clerk.

  McCaleb looked around the lobby. A grizzled old man—probably an ex-cowboy or rancher—was grinning at them.

  “Pardner,” said McCaleb, “he thinks this place is full. Is it?”

  “They ain’t a soul on th’ secont floor that I know of.”

  McCaleb turned back to the sweaty little man behind the desk. He spoke softly but his voice had an unmistakably dangerous edge.

  “I misunderstood you; I reckon you mean all the rooms on this floor are full. We don’t mind the second floor. Four rooms. Adjoining.”

  Without a word, the clerk took four keys from somewhere beneath the counter and placed them before McCaleb, who gathered them up and signed the register as “McCaleb and outfit.” When they reached the second floor, McCaleb looked at the numbers on the keys. He handed one to Rebecca, one to Monte, and a third to Brazos. He had taken the first room for himself and had given the fourth to Will and Brazos. Rebecca’s room was next to his own, while Monte and Goose occupied the room adjoining hers. If there was trouble, he looked for it to involve Rebecca or Goose.

  Goose was as reluctant to enter the hotel room as he had been to enter the hotel itself. McCaleb kicked his door shut and dropped his saddlebags on the bed. He grinned when it sagged under their weight. Straw tick. He turned back the blankets and sheets, finding them clean. There were two pillows, each with a pillowcase. Unusual for the time and place. The toe of his boot clanked against something under the edge of the bed. A chamber pot with a lid; even more unusual. An ancient dresser set against the wall, its surface scarred by untold years of cigarette burns. Before it was a single ladder-backed, cane-bottom chair, and upon it sat a chipped granite wash pan and an equally chipped granite pitcher full of water. On the wall above the dresser hung an oval mirror, a crack running from top to bottom. Next to the room’s only window was the fire escape—a forty-foot length of rope.

  Downstairs, despite ancient furnishings, the hotel strove for some degree of elegance in its dining room. McCaleb avoided it, choosing a little place on a side street that proclaimed its business in the simplest of terms. On a footlong piece of lumber, in big black letters was a single word: EATS. They ordered steak, fried potatoes, biscuits, and coffee, completing their supper with dried apple pie. They drew some curious stares but that was all. Goose was on his best behavior. Despite some of his uncivilized customs, the Apache loved food, and in that respect had adapted well to the ways of the white man. They looked out the front window at the courthouse. It stood just across the street from the café, an impressive two-story brick building that also housed the jail.

  “My God,” said Will, “the Texas state pen at Huntsville ain’t forted up like that; it’s just plain old adobe. I purely don’t trust a town with a fancy brick jail.”

  “Good planning on somebody’s part,” said McCaleb. “None of us may live to see it, but one day New Mexico will be a part of the United States. This may become the capital city. There’s already talk that the Santa Fe will build a railroad through here, following the old Santa Fe Trail.”

  “I’d like to visit the stores and shops,” said Rebecca. “I need some things and it’s nobody’s business what they are. How much money can I have?”

  “Owoooo,” howled Monte. “There goes our stake!”

  “Fifty dollar limit on personal things,” said McCaleb. “For everybody. But we return to the hotel first. I’m not about to open this saddlebag out here where others can see.”

  With the state of Texas under carpetbagger domination and the economy on its knees, the only safe place for their gold—still more than $3500—had been in McCaleb’s saddlebags. They went wherever he did, and he was careful not to expose or divulge their contents.

  “I’m headin’ for the fir
st barbershop I can find that offers hot baths,” said Will. “Then me and Brazos will likely mosey over to the Five Aces. Sign out front says they got billiard tables, and I’d like to shoot a few games if I ain’t forgot how.”

  McCaleb looked questioningly at Monte. He immediately became defensive and his response was about what McCaleb had expected.

  “I aim to watch some of the poker games, if there’s any being played. I’ll take Goose with me.”

  They all looked at him in doubtful silence, especially Rebecca. In a burst of anger he flung his hat to the floor.

  “Hell’s bells,” he bawled, “how can I get in trouble just watching?”

  He stalked out and down the hall, Goose following. Brazos turned to McCaleb and spoke quietly.

  “You want me and Will to follow them?”

  “No,” said McCaleb, “he’ll know why you’re there, and we’ll never hear the end of his bitching. If he aims to be a man, keep himself forked end down, he’s got to start somewhere. In a way, he’s facing the same trial as Goose. I’m as concerned as much for one as the other, but I don’t aim to wet nurse either of them. Let a man lean on a crutch long enough and he won’t be able to walk without one.”

  It was almost dark when McCaleb and Rebecca returned to the hotel. A sign on the wall behind the desk said BATHS AVAILABLE, and Rebecca asked the clerk. He was an older man, and he replied without even looking up.

  “Two dollars. Tub, water, an’ towels brought to your room.”

  She expected a chuckle or a jibe from McCaleb, but he remained silent. The same bath could be had at a barbershop for four bits, but there was no privacy. He suspected the hotel had few takers at two dollars a throw, but a woman had no choice. McCaleb let Rebecca into her room. Before locking his own door, he rapped on the doors of the other two rooms. There was no response. He stretched out on the bed, not even removing his boots. After a while he heard a clanking in the hall and voices. Rebecca’s bath—or at least the tub—had arrived. Bored, he got up, stepped out into the hall and knocked on Rebecca’s door.

  “Go away; I’m taking a bath.”

  He tried the knob and it wouldn’t turn. He put his key into the lock and it clicked open. He turned the knob and went in. Rebecca was lying in an elongated tin tub, a froth of soapsuds in her hair. She sat up and looked at him.

  “Do you always walk in on women who are bathing?”

  “Only those I’ve seen bathing before,” he said. He closed the door behind him, took the ladder-back chair and tilted it under the knob.

  “Some hotel,” she snorted. “Why bother with locks at all, when one key unlocks every door?”

  McCaleb grinned. “Saves a pile of money on locks and keys. I reckon that’s what the chair’s for. What’s that stuff you’ve got all over your head?”

  “Something besides lye soap. The first scented, civilized soap I’ve seen since leaving Missouri. Take the rest of that bucket of water and pour it over my head. Slowly.”

  He did. She stood up and he caught his breath. He had almost forgotten just how beautiful she was. Not trusting himself, he turned to the single window. Suddenly, from up the street where he couldn’t see, came a trio of shots. He flung the chair away from the door.

  “Wait!” shouted Rebecca. “I’m going with you!”

  “You’re staying right here,” he snapped. “This time, put that chair under the knob!” He slammed the door behind him and thundered down the wooden stairs. Brazos and Will came charging out of the Five Aces. Otherwise the street was deserted, attesting to the frequency and acceptance of violence in the town’s saloons. They split up, each going to a different saloon. Will discovered the scene of the trouble and with a shout brought Brazos and McCaleb to the Condor Saloon.

  “My God,” said Brazos, “three men down.”

  One of them had been slashed across the chest, his white ruffled shirt soaked with blood. A second victim’s shirt had been ripped away, revealing a gory slash on his left arm from shoulder to elbow. The third man sat against the wall groaning, his right arm hanging at an uncomfortable angle. Two other men sat hunched in chairs, their heads in their hands. A leather-thonged Bowie lay on the floor, and McCaleb knew it belonged to Goose.

  “Keep your hands off that knife!”

  The voice belonged to a big man whose most prominent features were the badge pinned to his vest and the cocked Colt he held on Benton McCaleb. McCaleb stepped back, stumbling over one of the broken chairs that had resulted from the brawl.

  “The knife belongs to one of my outfit,” said McCaleb. “Where is he?”

  “On the way to jail, along with his two friends.”

  “Only two of them belong to my outfit,” said McCaleb. “Who’s the other?”

  “Clay Allison, that troublesome bastard from Las Animas. Too bad your boys don’t watch the company they keep.”

  “I want to talk to my riders,” said McCaleb. “Now.”

  “They been took to jail. You’ll hear the charges against them and their testimony in court. Tomorrow mornin’, nine o’clock. Now unless you’re payin’ customers, vamoose.”

  CHAPTER 18

  No sooner had they stepped out onto the boardwalk when down the street, her still-wet hair flying, ran Rebecca. She was also barefoot, not having taken the time to pull on her boots. She didn’t bother with questions; she saw the answer in the grim set of their faces and the anger in their eyes.

  “Tell me,” she pleaded. “Tell me!”

  Quickly McCaleb told her the little they knew.

  “We must get them out,” she cried. “Can’t they go to court tomorrow without spending the night in jail?”

  “No,” said McCaleb. “Somebody’s pressing charges. Saloon owner himself, probably. I get the feeling this town don’t think too highly of Clay Allison and they’re railroading him. Monte and Goose got sucked into it somehow, likely because they sided Allison. From what I saw, five men got hurt, three of them bad.”

  “I reckon you sized it up pretty well,” said Brazos. “That badge-toter was mighty handy, like he knew just when and where hell was going to bust loose. They likely planned to buffalo Allison, drag him into the alley and maybe kill him. When Monte and Goose bought in, that queered their scheme. They might set up one man and murder him, but not three; not when two of them are strangers and the rest of their outfit’s in town.”

  Suddenly McCaleb stiffened. His saddlebags! He had run from Rebecca’s room, leaving the door to his own unlocked! He took the stairs two at a time and ran down the hall. He paused, his lungs burning, before his closed door. He drew his Colt, stepped to one side and turned the knob. The door swung open. McCaleb holstered his Colt and stepped inside. The saddlebags—with the remainder of their gold—were gone! There were footsteps in the hall. Disgusted with his negligence and sick at heart, he turned to face them. He hadn’t cried since that long ago day in East Texas when he had buried his young wife, but he felt like it now. They saw the misery in his eyes. Rebecca, forgetting—or not caring—that Will and Brazos stood right behind her, threw her arms around him, crying.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Bent. You were afraid for Monte and Goose. You just forgot. It wasn’t your fault!”

  There was no condemnation from Will or Brazos. They knew he felt like a prize fool and didn’t add to his misery and humiliation. They simply kept their silence, each of them aware of what this might mean. He thought he knew. He pulled himself free of the sobbing Rebecca and turned to the comrades with whom he’d ridden so many trails. His voice choked, he spoke.

  “I took out fifty dollars for all of us. They’ve robbed Monte and Goose. How much do the two of you…have left?”

  “Somethin’ over forty dollars,” said Will.

  “Same with me,” said Brazos. “Maybe a little more.”

  McCaleb took an eagle and two double eagles from the pocket of his Levi’s. Thank God he hadn’t spent anything! Suddenly the girl’s eyes went wide, her thoughts racing ahead to the trial the next morning
.

  “Their fines!” she cried. “They’ll be fined more than we can pay!”

  Will moved into the room taken by Monte and Goose, so Rebecca would have protection on each side. McCaleb doubted that any of them slept. It wasn’t even light when he got up to answer a knock on his door.

  “I’m going crazy just waiting,” said Rebecca. “I have thirty dollars left; do we dare go to that café across from the courthouse and get coffee?”

  “We might as well,” said McCaleb. “If we’re short, we’ll be so far short, a little breakfast won’t make any difference.”

  They didn’t have to wake Will and Brazos; they were already awake. It was still so early, they had the little café to themselves. McCaleb recognized the old rider doing the cooking as the one who had embarrassed the hotel desk clerk into renting them rooms on the second floor. The wizened old fellow brought their coffee to the table and McCaleb spoke to him.