Tom Sandy had heard Rose get out of the wagon, and he knew that Tap was gone from his bed, so he followed Rose. If it hadn’t been for that old longhorn spotting something in the brush, Sandy would have unquestionably killed one of them, and maybe both.
He would have shot Tap where he found him. He said as much, and he said it cold turkey.
Tap was watching Sandy as he talked, and I thought that Tap respected him for the first time. It was something Tap could understand.
“What have you to say for yourself?.” Pa asked Tap.
Tap Henry shrugged. “What can I say? He told it straight enough. We were talking”—Tap grinned meaningly—“and that was all.”
Pa glanced over at Rose. “We’re not going to ask you anything, Rose. What lies between you and your husband is your business. Only this: if anything like this happens again, you leave the drive … no matter where we are. Tom can go or stay, as he likes.”
Pa turned his attention back to Tap. His face was cold. “One thing I never tolerate on my drives is a troublemaker. You’ve caused trouble, Tap, and likely you’d cause more. I doubt if you and Tom could make it to the Pecos without a killing, and I won’t have that, nor have my men taking sides.”
He paused, and knowing Pa and how much he cared for Tap, I knew how much it cost him. “You can have six days’ grub, Tap, and a full canteen. You’ve got your own horse.
I want you out of camp within the hour.”
Tap would not believe it. He was stunned, you could see that. He stood there staring at Pa like Pa had struck him.
“We can’t have a man on our drive, which is a family affair, who would create trouble with another man’s wife,” Pa said, and he turned abruptly and walked back to our wagon.
Everybody turned away then, and after a minute Tap walked to the wagon and began sorting out what little gear he had. “Sorry, Tap,” I said.
He turned sharp around. “Go to hell,” he said coldly. “You’re no brother of mine.”
He shouldered his gear and walked to his horse to saddle up. Ira Tilton got up and walked over to him, and talked to him for a minute, then came back and sat down.
And then Tap got into the saddle and rode off.
Day was breaking, and we yoked up the wagons and started the herd. The river became muddy and shallow. We let the cattle take their time, feeding as they went, but the grass was sparse and of no account.
We had been shorthanded when we started west, and since then we had buried Aaron Stark and lost Tap Henry. It wasn’t until the wagons were rolling that we found we had lost somebody else.
Karen was gone.
She had slipped off, saddled her pony, and had taken off after Tap.
Ma Foley was in tears and Tim looked mighty grim, but we had all seen Tap ride off alone, and so far as anybody knew he had not talked to Karen in days. But it was plain enough that she had followed him off, and a more fool thing I couldn’t imagine.
Pa fell back to the drag. “‘Son, you and Zeb take out and scout for water. I doubt if we will have much this side of the Pecos. There’s Mustang Ponds up ahead, but Tap didn’t say much about them.”
We moved out ahead, but the land promised little. The stream dwindled away, falling after only a few miles to a mere trickle, then scattered pools. Out on the plains there was a little mesquite, all of it scrubby and low-growing. The few pools of water we saw were too small to water the herd.
The coolness of the day vanished and the sun became hot. Pausing on a rise where there should have been a breeze, we found none. I mopped my neck and looked over at Zebony. “We may wish we had Tap before this is over.” He nodded. “Your pa was right, though.”
At last we found a pool. It was water lying in a deep hole in the river, left behind when the upper stream began to dry out, or else it was the result of some sudden, local shower.
“What do you think, Zeb?”
“Enough.” He stared off into the distance. “Maybe the last this side of Horsehead.”
He turned to me. “Dan, that Pecos water is alkali. The river isn’t so bad, but any pools around it will kill cattle. We’ve got to hold them off it.”
Suddenly he drew up. On the dusty earth before him were the tracks of half a dozen unshod ponies, and they were headed south. The tracks could be no more than a few hours old.
“As if we hadn’t trouble enough,” Zeb commented. He squinted his eyes at the distance where the sun danced and the atmosphere shimmered.
Nothing…
“I wonder what became of Tap?”
“I’ve been wondering if that Foley girl caught up with him,” Zeb said. “It was a fool thing for her to do.” He glanced around at me. “Everybody thought you were shining up to her.” “We talked some … nothing to it.”
We rode on. Sweat streaked our horses’ sides and ran down under our shirts in rivulets.
The stifling hot dust lifted at each step the horses took, and we squinted our eyes against the sun and looked off down over the vast empty expanse opening before us.
“If the women weren’t along…” I said.
We had come a full day’s drive ahead of the herd, and there was water back there, water for a day and a night, perhaps a little more, but ahead of us there was no sign of water and it was a long drive to Horsehead Crossing.
“We’ll lose stock.” Zeb lit a cigarette. “We’ll lose aplenty, unless somewhere out there, there’s water.”
“If there is, it will be alkali. In the pools it will be thick, and bad enough to kill cattle.”
Removing my hat to wipe the hatband, I felt the sun like a fire atop my skull—and I carry a head of hair, too.
Once, dipping into a hollow, we found some grass. It was grama, dead now and dry, but our horses tugged at it and seemed pleased enough.
From the rim of the hollow we looked again into the distance toward Horsehead.
“Do you suppose there’s another way to drive?” I asked.
Zeb shrugged. “It ain’t likely.” He pointed. “Now, what do you think of that?”
In the near distance, where the road cut through a gap in the hills, buzzards circled.
There were only two or three of them.
“First living thing we’ve seen in hours,” Zeb commented. “They must have found something.”
“If they found anything out there,” I said, “it’s dead, all right.”
We walked on, both of us shucking our firearms. I held the Patterson with light fingers, careful to avoid the barrel, which was hot enough to burn.
The first thing we saw was a dead horse. It had been dead all of a day, but no buzzards had been at it yet. The brand on the shoulder was a Rocking H, the Holt brand.
Topping out on the rise, we looked into a little arroyo beside the trail. Zebony flinched, and looked around at me, his face gray and sick, and Zeb was a tough man.
My horse did not want to move up beside his, but I urged it on.
The stench was frightful, and the sight we looked upon, even worse. In the bottom of that arroyo lay scattered men and horses … at first glimpse I couldn’t tell how many.
The men were dead, stripped of clothing, and horribly mutilated. That some of the men had been alive when left by the Comanches was obvious, for there were evidences of crawling, blind crawling, like animals seeking some shelter, any shelter.
We walked our horses into the arroyo of death, and looked around. Never had I seen such a grim and bloody sight. What had happened was plain enough. This was some of the outfit that had followed us from the Cowhouse–some of the bunch that had stolen our cattle, and from whom we had recovered the herd.
They must have circled around and gotten ahead of us and settled down here to ambush us when they were attacked. Obviously, they had been expecting nothing. They would have known they were far ahead of us, and they had built fires and settled down to prepare a meal. The ashes of the fires remained and there were a few pots scattered about. There were, as we counted, eleven dead men here.
Hastily, we rode up out of the arroyo, and then we got down and pulled out rocks and one way and another caved in the edge of the arroyo on the bodies to partly cover them.
“Wolves won’t bother them,” Zeb commented. “We haven’t seen any wolves in the past couple of days.”
“Nothing for them to feed on but snakes. According to Tap Henry, this country is alive with them.”
We turned away from the arroyo, both of us feeling sick to the stomach. They had been our enemies, but no man wishes that kind of fate on anyone, and a Comanche with time on his hands can think of a lot ,of ways for a man to take time to die.
Circling the scene of :he ambush, we found the trail of the departing Indians. There must have been at least forty in the band—the number could only be surmised, but it was at least that large.
Their tracks indicated they were going off toward the north, and it was unlikely they would attempt to remain in the vicinity, because of the scarcity of water. But they must have crossed this terrain many times, and might know of water of which we knew nothing. Judging from the arid lands around us, though, it was doubtful.
We had started back toward the herd when we saw those other tracks. We came upon them suddenly, the tracks of two horses.
“Well, she caught up with him,” Zeb commented, indicating one set of tracks. “That’s Tap’s paint.., and those other tracks belong to that little grulla Karen rode off. I’d know those tracks anywhere.”
They had come this way … after the massacre in the arroyo, and they were headed due west. Before them lay the eighty miles or so to Horsehead Crossing… had Karen taken any water? They would need it.
We camped that night by the deep pool in the river bed—the last water of which we knew.
Chapter Four.
The deep pool was gone. Where the water had been was now a patch of trampled mud, slowly drying under the morning sun.
“All right, Dan,” Pa said to me, “I’m no cattleman, and I have the brains to know it. You take the drive. I don’t need to tell you what it means to all of us.”
“There’s eighty mile,, or close to it, between here and Horsehead.” I was speaking to them all. “But as we get close to the Pecos we may come up to some pools of water.
I’ll have to ride ahead, or somebody will, and spot those pools before the cattle can get wind of them, and then we’ll have to keep the herd upwind of that water.
“It’s death if they drink it. Water in the pools is full of concentrated alkali, and they wouldn’t have a chance.
“This is a mixed herd, the toughest kind of all to drive. From now on, anything that can’t keep up will have to be left behind—any calves born on the drive must be killed.
“You know the best day we’ve had was about fifteen, sixteen miles. On this drive we will have to do better than that, and without water.
“The first night out, we will go into camp late and we’ll start early. From that time on every man jack of you will be riding most of the day and night.”
“I can ride.” Conchita McCrae stood on the edge of the group. “I’ve worked cattle since I was a child. We want to pull our weight, and Miguel isn’t up to it yet.”
“We can use you,” I replied, “and thanks.”
Nobody said anything for a few minutes, and finally it was Tim Foley who spoke. “There’s no water for eighty miles? What about the Mustang Pools?”
“We don’t know, but we can’t count on them. Maybe there is water there, but we will have to think like there wasn’t.”
Pa shrugged. “Well, we have been expecting it. Nobody can say we weren’t warned.
What we had best do is fill all the barrels, jars, everything that will hold water, and we had best be as sparing of it as we can.”
Zebony led off, his long brown hair blowing in the wind, and after him came the brindle steer, still pointing his nose into God knows where, and then the herd.
Ben Cole and Milo Dodge rode the flanks; and behind them, Freeman Squires and Zeno Yearly.
Turning, I walked my horse back to where Tim Foley was getting ready to mount the seat of his wagon. His wife sat up there, her eyes fastened on distance.
“Everything all right, Tim?”
He turned around slowly. “No . .. and you know it isn’t. Karen’s gone, and you could have kept her, Dan.”
“Me?” It was not at all what I’d expected from him. “Tim, she wouldn’t have stayed for me. Nor for anyone, I guess.”
“We figured you two were going to marry,” Tim said. “We counted on it. I never did like that no-account Tap Henry.”
“Tap’s a good man, and there was no talk of marriage between Karen and me. We talked some, but there weren’t any other young folks around … just the two of us. And she fell hard for Tap.”
“He’ll ruin her. That is, if she isn’t lying dead out there already.”
“She’s with him. We found their tracks. She caught up to him and they are riding west together.”
This was no time to tell them about the massacre. I had told Pa, and some of the boys knew, because I wanted them to look sharp … but it might only worry the womenfolks.
If I had a wife now, well, I’d tell her such things. A man does wrong to spare womenfolks, because they can stand up to trouble as well as any man, and a man has no right to keep trouble from them, but this was Tim Foley’s wife and Aaron Stark’s widow, and there was Rose Sandy.
The wagons rolled, their heavy wheels rocked and rolled down into the gully and out on the other side, and we moved the cattle westward. Dust lifted from the line of their march, and the rising sun lit points of brightness on their thousands of horns.
Somebody out along the line started up a song, and somebody else took it up, and glad I was to hear them, for they needed what courage they had for the long march that was ahead. , The cattle lowed and*called, the dust grew thicker, and we moved on into the morning.
Sweat streaked their sides, but we moved them on. Every mile was a victory, every mile a mile nearer water. But I knew there were cattle in this herd that would be dead long before we came to water, and there were horses that would die, and perhaps men, too.
The way west was hard, and it took hard men to travel that way, but it was the way they knew, the way they had chosen. Driving increases thirst, and the sun came hot into the morning sky, and grew hotter with the passing of the hours. The dust mounted.
Twice I switched horses before the morning was over. Working beside Jim Poor, I handled the drag, with Pa off in front with Zebony Lambert.
And when at last the cool of night came, we kept them moving steadily westward until at last we camped. We had made sixteen miles, a long drive. Yet I think there was a horror within us all at what lay ahead, and Conchita looked at me with wonder in her eyes. I knew what she was thinking.
We were mad.., mad to try this thing.
We cooked a small meal and ate. We made coffee and drank, and the cattle were restless for water and did not lie down for a long time. But at last they did.
The burden was mine now. Carefully, I looked at the men, studying their faces, trying to estimate the limit of their strength.
It was late when I turned in at last, and I was the first awake, rolling my blankets and saddling the dun. Zeno Yearly was squatted by the fire when I came up to it.
He gestured at the pot. “Fresh made. He’p yourself.” Filling my cup, I squatted opposite him. “I ain’t a talking man,” Zeno commented, out of nowhere, “so I’ve said nothing about this. Especial, as Tap is your brother.”
Swallowing coffee, I looked at him, but I said nothing.
“This here range Tap located—how come that grass ain’t been settled?”
“Open country. Nobody around, I reckon.”
“Don’t you be mistook. That there range was settled and in use before you were born.”
Well, I couldn’t bel
ieve it. Tap had told about that range out there, free for the taking. Yet Zeno was not a talking man, and I had never known him to say anything but what proved true.
“Tap found it for us,” I protested. “He left a man to guard it.”
“Tolan Banks?”
“You know him?”
“I should smile. That’s a mean man, a mighty mean man. I heard Tap call his name, and I said nothing because I’m not a gunfighting man and wanted no part of Tap unless he brought it to me. That Tolan Banks is a cow-thief and an outlaw.”
,.:” So there it lay. We were headed west across some godawful country, running risk of life and limb, thinking we were bound for fresh and open range, and now I found that range belonged to somebody else and we would be running into a full-scale range war when we arrived.
E; They say trouble doesn’t come singly, and surely that was true of ours. So I drank coffee and gave thought to it, but the thinking came to nothing. For all I could see was that we were committed, and we would arrive faced with a fight—and us with starving, thirsty cattle, and folks that would be starved also. I “Zeno, you keep this under your hat. This is something I’ve got to study about.
Seems to me, Tap should have known better.”
Zeno put down his coffee and filled his pipe. He was speaking low, for fear we would be overheard. “Meaning no offense, but it seems to me that Tap Henry is a self-thinking man. I mean, he would think of himself first. Now, suppose he wanted that land, but had no cattle? To claim land in this country you have to use it … you have to run cows on it.
E “So what better could he do, knowing you folks were discontented and talking the West? I think you will ride into a full-fledged range war, and you’ll be on the side of Tolan Banks … which puts you in a bad light.”
“It isn’t a good thought,” I said. “I don’t know this Tolan Banks.”
“Like I say, he’s a mean man. He will fight with any sort of weapon, any way you choose, and he’s killed a lot of men. Some folks say he was one of that Bald Knob crowd, up there in Missouri. On that I couldn’t say, and it seemed to me his wife sounded like Georgia to me.”
Killoe (1962) Page 7
