The Ogallala Trail

by Ralph Compton

  He could see the lights at Earl’s house from where he and Jason rode through the bottoms. Running his horse wouldn’t save that boy’s life, so they made steady progress up the flats at a trot. Several horses and rigs were in the yard and Doc’s buggy was there. Good, Earl at least had some medical help. Sam dropped to his feet.

  “That you, Sam?” a woman asked, then came rushing out and hugged him. “Oh, what will I do without him?”

  “He still breathing?” He looked over Lupe’s head toward the lighted doorway and could see the figure of the middle Ketchem man coming outside.

  She swept the hair back from her face. “Yes, but the doctor says he may not live.”

  “Lupe, he’s a tough guy. He’ll make it.”

  “Oh, Sam, what will I do?”

  “You’ve got more religion than the rest of us. Pray for him.”

  “I see you made it,” Tom said.

  “What do you know?”

  “Someone killed Earl’s yearling colt. I guess he found it.”

  “The big buckskin one,” Lupe said, drying her eyes on a kerchief that Sam handed her.

  “I know the horse. He wouldn’t have taken a sack of gold for him. How did they kill the colt?” Sam asked.

  “Best I could tell, they choked him to death on the end of a lariat.”

  “But why?”

  “That’s what we’re all asking,” Tom said.

  “Steal him? Why would anyone choke a horse down till you killed him?”

  “Maybe they were just going to maim him,” Tom said.

  “What for?” Lupe asked.

  “Maybe Sam can answer that question.”

  Sam blinked at his brother’s words. “You thinking the Wagners were behind it?”

  “No proof.”

  “Come daylight we can go look at the tracks.”

  “They brushed a lot of them out.”

  “Not all of them.” Sam put his arm around Lupe’s shoulder to comfort her. “Let’s go see that boy.”

  If those sons a bitches wanted war, he’d give ’em both barrels.

  Chapter 5

  God called Earl Ketchem up yonder at thirty minutes past midnight that night. Twenty-four years old, husband, rancher and drover, he slipped away in his sleep. Doc Sharp shook his head at the weeping Ketchem women, Lupe and Karen, holding each other. Then, after carefully cleaning his glasses, he looked up at Sam and Tom. “I did all I could for the boy.”

  “We know that, Doc. It wasn’t your fault. I better go tell them folks outside,” Sam said.

  Tom agreed and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll stay here with them.” He meant the women.

  “Well, folks,” Sam said, standing in the lighted doorway, “our boy’s gone. He’s not in pain anymore. I’m sure he’s over that divide where the water’s cool and the grass is stirrup high. Thanks for coming. Reckon we’ll bury him up at the schoolhouse cemetery unless his wife objects.”

  “I could ride over and get that padre at St. Anne’s,” Jason offered.

  “No offense, Brother Quarry, but it might be best for Lupe’s sake if we asked him.”

  “I have no objection, Sam. I am here to comfort and help your people through this tragedy.”

  “I’ll get him,” Jason said.

  “We’ll have lunch here at noontime,” one of the women piped up in the darkness broken only by the doorway’s light.

  “We’ll all help you, Maude. My boys can go and tell the neighbors,” another said.

  “Has anyone sent for the law?”

  “I better go tell Whit Stuart,” someone spoke up. “That’s all right, ain’t it, Sam?”

  “Sure.” Sam gazed off in the dark and drew a deep breath up his nostrils. Why did he feel so sure this matter was his to handle—alone? If he’d only ended it with Harry in the Tiger Hole, maybe Earl would be alive. That buckskin colt hadn’t been choked to death by accident. He knew it and every man over sixteen in that crowd knew it. It was part of a festering feud that would only end in more death and suffering.

  “Tom,” he said softly when his brother came out and joined him, “take your wife and kids to Fort Worth after the funeral.”

  “I can’t run.”

  “Damn it,” Sam hissed. “I know you can’t, but I don’t want to bury them, too.”

  The look in Tom’s eyes would have melted a frozen lake. “They even try—”

  “Not try, Tom. They will, ’cause your family would be easy. They would be like that colt, not hard to kill.”

  “Gawdamn it, Sam. I can’t run.”

  “Take her and the kids up to her folks’ place until we know what’s happening.”

  Tom wet his lips and looked ready to fight him. “We can get them. We can get every mother son of them and not their colts, either.”

  “Get Karen and the children to safety first.”

  In defeat, Tom dropped his head. “You’re right, if that’s what this is. But what did one of us do to them?”

  “Cut a pinto bull.”

  “God help us” slipped from Tom’s mouth.

  Him and a lot more. Sam knew he was going to throw up. Holding his hand over his mouth, he rushed down the stairs and rounded the corner before he heaved up his heels. The dry ones followed as he used the side of the house for support. Sourness ran out his nose, and the violence of the upset shook him. If he never did another thing in his life, he’d have to find his brother’s killer. Earl lying up there on the white sheets reminded him of those two drovers who got shot up in Dodge. Their pale faces like Earl’s. Life leaking out of them. The strong smell of disinfectant filling his nose that night. He shuddered and gagged some more.

  A woman, Mary Gustoff, brought him a wet rag to wipe his face. “You better come around and sit down.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “No. You come sit on the edge of the porch,” the matronly woman insisted and guided him to the place. “Now there ain’t nothing wrong with you sitting. Land sakes, you’ve been through enough. That fight and now Earl. Things get more than anyone can stomach.”

  He nodded like a wooden Indian. His throat hurt when he tried to swallow. No use feeling sorry for himself. It was the others who needed comforting. Mary finally left him, and he saw the last of the well-wishers were coming out of the house.

  They’d need a coffin. Maybe they had boards enough in the shop. No, he’d get Raul to make it. The man was a good carpenter, and there were enough boards left over at the barn project. He rose to go and tell Tom his plan.

  “You’ll need sleep sometime,” his brother said, sounding concerned.

  “I’ll get some. Be back midmorning with the coffin. I think that everyone knows what to do. They’ve gone after a padre.”

  “Paw would die if he knew.” Tom shook his head ruefully.

  “I know Paw thought they was the devil’s spawn. But Earl choose Lupe and accepted her religion as his own.”

  “Course her church never recognized Earl.”

  “Don’t think it bothered him much. He told me she had hers and he had his.”

  “You couldn’t put that boy down when he wanted something to work.” Tom bit his lower lip and shook his head. “Had his whole life ahead of him.”

  “Cry if you can,” Sam said and hugged him.

  The task of building the coffin took Raul and his boys a few hours of hard work. But in the end, it looked more like furniture than a simple box. Sam was about to go hook up a team to a wagon when he saw the dust of a rig coming.

  Standing up and whipping her galloping horse was Etta Faye Ralston. She swung the rig around in a circle. Sam ran out and caught the horse’s head stall.

  “My God! My God!” she said and rushed to him. He let go of the hard breathing horse and caught her in his arms. “Oh, Samuel, I am so sorry. So sorry—” She wept on his vest.

  Lots went through his mind as he held her there in the midmorning sun. First, she was a real woman with her fine, ripe body pressed to him. Second, she wasn’t putti
ng this on. It was as if the unseen walls that kept her at arm’s length from him all these years had fallen away like cracked eggshells and in doing so revealed another Etta Faye Ralston. Third, he didn’t want to chase the new Etta Faye away.

  He laid his cheek on the top of her head and hugged her. “It was a bad deal. But Earl would want us to go on with our lives.”

  “How can I help you?” She looked up and her wet blue eyes pleaded with him.

  “I reckon we can load that coffin in the back and tie it down. It don’t weight much and we can drive over there.”

  “Sure,” she said and used her handkerchief to blow her nose.

  He took his clean one out of his hip pocket, and gently as he knew how, dried around her eyes. Her reaction was a smile and the dullness in her eyes turned to sparkles.

  “Thank you. I must look a mess.”

  “Etta Faye, you never look a mess.”

  She blinked at him. “Oh, you don’t know. Sometimes I am a regal mess.”

  He swept her up and carried her to the side of the rig. When her feet were on the floor, he carefully righted her. The look in her face surprised him. It wasn’t one of her usual indignation, but like that of a little girl taken back by something that awed her.

  Raul helped Sam load the coffin and then tie it down securely.

  “You and your boys better come. They’ll have lunch ready by the time we get over there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure?” Sam frowned at him. “Funerals are for his friends. Earl counted you as his friends.”

  “Earl did—but the others?”

  “Won’t no one say anything to you. You are my guests.”

  “Gracias, senor. He was a good man. We will be there.”

  When Sam climbed on and took a seat, he turned, and Etta Faye nodded in approval. But something else struck him. She was holding his arm like she was part of him. He didn’t mind at all. He only worried that she might wake from her dream, bolt upright and revert to the Miss Ralston he once knew.

  He clucked to her horse. Damn, Earl would have said, “I told you so.”

  Chapter 6

  The schoolhouse needed a few windowpanes replaced and a whitewashing on the outside, and the inside still bore the staleness of being closed up for so long. It had been swept clean by some children under adult supervision. All the cobwebs they could reach were gone and the benches lined up.

  The padre went first and his Latin sounded like a simple song. Sam knew several people would not come inside while he preached. But Karen and Lupe were in the front row on their knees. Raul and his boys were in the second row, also on their knees. Sam, Etta Faye, Tom and Tom’s two little children were in the next row. Over his shoulder, Sam could see many of the valley folks seated on the benches with their heads bowed. When the mass was over, the padre spoke softly to Lupe; then he went to Sam and Tom.

  “Be seated, my sons. What you have done for her today is a very worthy thing. God will reward you, for I know I came today to a house divided. May God bless you and keep you.” He bowed, made the sign of the cross, nodded to them and went out of the schoolhouse, his black robes trailing behind him.

  Brother Quarry went to the front and asked everyone to stand and sing “Jesus Is Calling.” In his deep voice, he led the hymn. Then he read from the Bible and asked everyone to come forth and be saved.

  At last, Sam joined Tom and the others. They carried the coffin down the aisle and past the mourners on the porch. They went through the open gate by several white limestone markers that bore the names of earlier pioneers. There, on a high spot, was the fresh grave, and soon the box was lowered into the hole.

  Standing between Tom and Karen, Lupe cried. Her plaintive sorrow tore at Sam’s heart and crushed it underneath his breast bone. Emotions ran high as people walked by to pay their final respects. Sam and Etta Faye were the last to leave. Looking down on the box, he could still smell the fresh-cut pine boards. God be with you, little brother. You have not died in vain.

  He hurried Etta Faye from the site. She had broken down in tears, and he wanted to somehow shield her from more anguish.

  Friends and neighbors offered condolences. Whit Stuart rolled his hat around on his hand until the others had gone.

  “Miss Ralston,” he said in a cold, polite voice, then looked at Sam. “I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, Sam, but I must warn you. This is not the old days. The State of Texas does not hold with lynching and vigilantes. They’re criminal offenses.”

  “So is murder. You heard what Doc said: shot in the back, probably by a rifle.”

  “l heard all that. But I also know your reputation. Leave the law to me.”

  “What is that reputation?” Etta Faye asked sharply. “He just put his youngest brother in the ground. If you’re the law, why aren’t you out looking for his killer right now?”

  “Everything in due time, Miss Ralston.”

  Sam shook his head at her. Stuart would not do anything. He served warrants that folks swore out. It wasn’t his fault—he was only preserving the law.

  As Stuart tipped his hat and left them, Etta Faye squeezed Sam’s arm. “Sorry I lost my temper.”

  Sam pushed his hat forward and scratched the back of his head. “Looked good on you.”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  “I better see about Lupe’s plans. I’m going to ask her to go to her parents in San Antonio. She’s not had time even to send them word. Things happened so fast.”

  “Will she go there?”

  Sam looked around. Jason, Raul and his boys were filling the grave. Folks were leaving in their wagons and buggies. “She needs to go down there until we know what this is all about.”

  “You think her life is in danger, too?”

  “She’s a Ketchem.”

  “Oh, my, Samuel, you think this is a family feud?”

  “I do.”

  “How will you survive?”

  “Etta Faye, I will survive. The Wagners are the ones who better be buying funeral clothing.”

  She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. “Perhaps I better drive home before dark.”

  The coldness in her tone told him enough. She had removed herself from him. In an instant, she had gone back inside her shell. The look in her eyes was one of aloofness and disdain. He took off his hat and beat it against his leg. Nothing he could say would change her. For a brief few hours, he had seen another side of her, which he liked. But that real caring woman was not the same woman he helped on the seat, handed the reins to and thanked. Standing in the dusty road, he watched her rig disappear, and as she went, she took a piece of him with her.

  Sam found Tom, Karen and Lupe on the schoolhouse porch. The two Ketchem children ran about playing tag.

  “Tom says I must go to San Anton’.” Lupe looked at Sam with her big brown eyes. “This place is mine, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is yours. The court may give you a guardian, but it is yours.”

  “Why must I leave it?”

  “Because the Wagners killed Earl. They’ll kill others of us, if we don’t stop them.”

  “But why me?”

  “You’re a Ketchem.”

  “When can I come back?”

  “I hope in a few months.”

  She straightened and nodded. “I will do as you say, but I want to live here. This is my home.”

  “And you will, I promise.”

  “Earl once said you were like a rock, Sam. I know you are.” She dropped her head and fought back more tears.

  “Why did Etta Faye leave?” Karen asked.

  “Said she needed to get home before dark.”

  “Oh,” Karen said in a know-it-all woman’s way.

  Sam spent the next day packing shingles with Raul and his crew. It was one of those hard jobs that took no thinking. He’d shoulder a bundle of shingles bound in cord, carry it up a ladder and dump it on the freshly covered surface. His roofers scurried across the next edge, nai
ling down row after row. His barn would soon be a reality.

  Of course, rains had not been frequent. But one afternoon, clouds began to rise in great columns and thunder rolled across the land. Soon the shift in the wind sent Sam and his workers scrambling off the roof.

  Lightning zigzagged across the sky and thunder growled like a lion overhead. Under the shed portion of the barn, out of the rain, Sam smiled at the sheets of water that ran off the eaves. His face was washed by a fine mist. The new barn would be a comfortable place for his saddle horses when it was completed.

  “You put in window glass?” he asked Raul over the rain.

  “Sure. Why?”

  “I need some replaced at the schoolhouse and I’m not very good at it.”

  “I can do that when I fix the roof.”

  “I’ll pick some panes up next trip to town.”

  Raul nodded and they both ducked at a loud boom of thunder. Sam still planned a workday for the schoolhouse, but whatever he had completed beforehand was that much less to do then.

  The rain soon passed down the bottom and they went outside in the cooler, fresh-smelling air.

  “Be too slick to go back up there,” Raul said. “I can make some doors for those stalls inside and fix bunks in the tack room.”

  “That would help,” Sam agreed, grateful for the offer. “You’re a lot better carpenter than I am. I’ll leave you boys, I need to ride over to Tom’s and see if the women are packed.”

  “You expect more trouble?” Raul asked with a frown.

  “Shooting Earl was only the start.”

  “No way to stop it?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “That is very bad business.”

  “Bad business.”

  Sam went to saddle Sorely. In a few minutes, he rode over the hill. Close to the schoolhouse, he met Jason Burns on the road.