Kathy nodded and paused to catch her breath. “Just be nice to talk to another woman.”
“I bet it would,” Sam said and gathered his horse to put him up. The herd would be coming in there in a short while.
They rested a day in the vicinity of Camp Supply and reshod a few horses who needed it the worst or repaired some bridles and saddles. The outlaws’ saddles were distributed to those who needed them.
After spending a day or two thinking about the Comanche renegades, Sam came to the conclusion that they weren’t a part of the recent killings. He believed that outfits like Chicken Charlie’s were letting the blame for their actions ride on the red men.
Late in the day, Tommy Jacks, busy shaving with a straight-edge razor, asked, “How much further to Colorado?”
“Ten days. What is today?” Sam asked.
“Damned if I know. Must be near May first.”
“May twenty-seventh,” Kathy said, “unless I missed crossing a day or two off.”
“There you go,” Tommy Jacks said, washing his face with a towel. “Did I get off all the soap?”
“You did fine,” she said to him.
“We’re close to your schedule, ain’t we, Sam?” Tommy Jacks asked.
“Day or so behind, but we’ll get there by mid-June. If we can keep this flesh on the cattle going north, we’ll really be in good shape.”
“Sure ain’t many cattle on the trail. We saw signs of two herds of them crossing down at the Red River, but hardly seen any since. Any been by here?”
“Don’t know, but you’re right,” Sam agreed, thinking how they’d seen little trace of other herds.
“They all shipping by train?”
“Must be,” Sam said, thankful for another reason he wouldn’t have to go up the trail again.
The next day they moved north west across the Strip. They made camp around midafternoon and they strung the herd out along the shallow North Canadian River to water.
Three day later, Sam went out to the herd to check on Lacy Mayberry. The boy had complained of headaches and dizziness, but despite Kathy’s concerns over him falling out of the saddle, he went out to scout anyway. At Kathy’s insistence, Sam rode out to check on the man.
Lacy said he felt better and Sam thought he had more color in his tanned face. So, after checking with Tommy Jacks, Sam headed back for camp. With Jammer gone to scout the next day’s camp and the night hawk trying to get some sleep, Kathy was alone.
Sam came off the long slope and saw Kathy running toward him, holding her dress. Even at a distance, he could tell something was not right. He put spurs to Sorley.
“What is it?” he asked, reining up short of her and jumping out of the saddle. “What’s wrong?”
“That”—she gasped for breath—“that blue-eyed bastard got Sloan.”
“How?”
“Those three must’ve been hiding when you left. They rode in, swept up poor Sloan, killed his little dog, then rode out with him.”
“Damn.”
“Sam, I didn’t dare shoot them.”
He took Kathy in his arms and hugged her. “I’ll find him. Don’t worry. Sloan’s the toughest one here.”
“Oh, Sam, I’m so afraid. He can’t hear you call him even.”
“I’ll have to work that out. I’ll get your boy back.”
“Did they take him because he was different?” She pushed her hair back and used Sam’s handkerchief to wipe her wet eyes.
“Injuns are superstitious. They may have thought that he had powers.”
They hurried back to the chuck wagon. He could see Rowann had been crying, too.
“Pack me some jerky and crackers.” He went for a box of ammo and put it in his saddlebags. He checked the girth.
“What should I tell Tommy Jacks?” Kathy asked.
“Keep moving. Go around that hellhole town out there on the corner of Colorado and Kansas. I’ll catch up after I find Sloan.”
“Sam,” she cried, “I’m afraid they’ll kill him when he can’t talk.”
He shook his head. “No, they didn’t simply want a boy. They wanted a sign and saw something in him.”
“I know the boys will want to trail you.”
“Tell them all to stay with the herd. If I can’t do it, then there isn’t a way. Which way did they go?”
“West. Be careful. I don’t want you killed.”
Sam tied on a blanket with his slicker. Then he mounted. “Take them to Ogallala. I’ll be along.”
“May God ride with you, Sam Ketchem.”
He nodded and rode by red-faced Hiram, who had his hands clutched tight together. “Sam, find Sloan—please.”
“I’m going to, Hiram. I’m going to.”
Chapter 34
Hour later, Sam found the Indians’ old campsite. Cold ashes from a small fire, several hoofprints—two of the horses, no doubt stolen, were shod. The vast rolling country broke into some hills to the west. If that was their destination, then fine. He hoped that they stopped somewhere and gave him a chance to catch up. The iron shoes left good tracks he could follow without getting off his horse—maybe it was a trap.
The wind came up and whipped the short grass and a few flowers hard. Sam paid it little mind. There was a reason for the Indians’ madness, he told himself over and over. It wasn’t simply to kidnap a small boy.
Sam studied a mesa, wondering if one of the kidnappers was up there peering down at him, but the red rocks looked unscaleable. He rode on. The hills were scattered; the pass between them led upward. A few mesquite bushes dotted the short grass.
The tracks went through a gap with mesas on both sides. Sam reached the top of one of the mesas as the bloody sun began to set. From that vantage point, he tried to see any sign of the kidnappers.
The notion that they might travel after sun down niggled at Sam, but he needed patience to find the Indians and not overrun them. He would choose the place to fight, and not let them. In the morning, he would start across the next basin. He hoped it had a water course in the middle to provide some water for him and Sorely. He ate some peppery jerky, and when the moon rose, he caught his horse and rode down toward the middle of the great basin. He found pot-holes of water in the streambed that bisected the land.
After a few hours’ sleep, he was on the way. The tracks led westward in the peachy light of dawn. He had no idea if the men he sought had camped or ridden all night. But the horse biscuits he found were fresh ones. That and the half-moon depressions of horseshoes kept him going.
By midafternoon, Sam was in some broken country. He was going uphill when Sorely grunted and stumbled. A shot rang out. With barely time to shake his stirrups, he realized they’d shot his horse out from under him. Sprawled on the ground, he could hear the throaty moans of his dying horse. Not daring to move, he knew the shooter could not see him as long as he stayed low.
A few bullets whined over his head. One hit the horse like a hard-thrown rock striking a ripe pumpkin, but Sorely was already dead. The bitter alkali taste of the dirt was on Sam’s lips when he wet them. He wondered how he could get to his rifle in the scabbard. When he looked back, he could see it.
Sam began to slither on his belly. Would the shooter see him once he got alongside the dead horse? No shots came, so he crawled over and jerked the .44/40 out of the holster and then rose to look.
He could see someone under an unblocked hat. The man wearing it was jumping bushes. Sam located him in the iron sights and squeezed the trigger. The runner threw his hands up and sprawled facedown.
Sam waited. Where were the other two? He only saw one horse, a quarter mile away. He hoped he had not scared the pony. It was either capture him or walk. But was the sniper dead or only playing possum?
When he reached the body, the man on the ground didn’t move and Sam didn’t try him. He searched the country to the west for any sign that others might have come back. Nothing. Next he set out to capture the paint. Despite trailing reins, the spotted horse snorted at h
im several times and spooked away.
“Easy, easy,” Sam coaxed and finally set the gun down, thinking the smell of the rifle might have the animal upset.
The paint still evaded him. It went a few yards and then turned back to look and snort softly at Sam. Then the reins tangled around some sagebrush. Sam took two easy steps, and his fingers closed on the leather lines. The whole time he talked softly to the paint and patted him. Relieved, he pressed his forehead against the fork in the western saddle, no doubt stolen from some cowboy.
Where did the other Indians go?
Chapter 35
The Indians were still riding shod horses and must have been herding some spares. Sam squatted beside a pothole in a dry streambed and studied the tracks. Two days since the man had shot Sorely and met his own demise. Sam’s supply of jerky was getting low. He had no idea where he was, but suspected the men had cut back south into Texas—maybe they were headed for their band, if they had one.
One thing pleased him. The boy’s tracks were in the dust. So he was still alive. Sam’s eyes were so burned by the sun and wind, plus the lack of real sleep, they ached in the sockets. His belly felt on fire, and the bad water didn’t help him.
The kidnappers knew by this time that their man wasn’t returning to them, and if they’d seen Sam in the distance, they must know he’d taken the paint horse. Sam worried about the faraway herd and what Tommy Jacks was doing. He trusted the lanky cowboy, but his foreman was crossing unknown ground for him. They should be close to the line and turning north by this time.
The country began to give way to deep gorges and the tracks went across the crest to it all. There were small playas with bad water, but he and the paint drank it. He even spooked ducks off the surface some. He’d shoot one to eat, but didn’t want them warned. Late that evening, he stole some fresh-laid eggs out of a duck’s nest and ate them raw.
Sam slept only a few hours that night, then moved on. The next day he saw the two men. They milled around on their mounts across a mesa top as if they might charge him. Something was wrong. They no longer had the herd of horses. Where had they stashed them? Where was Sloan? Was this a trick to get Sam out in the open?
Easing out of the saddle, he wondered if his sea legs would carry him. They did. He slipped rope hobbles on the paint. He needed the horse to carry him out of there if he survived. He checked the chamber of his rifle. It was loaded.
The Indians were waving lances or rifles over their heads and spinning their ponies around beyond the range of anything but a Sharps .50 caliber buffalo gun. They were building their own nerve and hoping to unnerve their enemy.
“Here I am, you sonsabitches. Let’s get this over with,” Sam said in strange, dry voice he barely recognized as his own.
Kneeling down, he waited, rifle butt to his shoulder. If that blue-eyed Indian wanted to test his immortality he had better get to riding toward Sam. Suddenly the two Indians came at a dead run for him. Their shrill screams shattered the silence. Hooves drummed the ground. The sounds of the straining horses were loud in Sam’s ear. Both charging men rode so low set on the backs of their horses, Sam could barely see them.
Sam aimed for the left horse’s head. That rider had a rifle—Sam needed him out of commission worse than the one with the lance. He squeezed the trigger, and eye-burning gunsmoke swept across his vision. The horse went nose down and did a cartwheel. Sam couldn’t see what happened to the rider. He reloaded the lever-action and swung it to his right. He fired and more smoke flew in his face. The other horse went down, but the rider leaped through the air and landed on his feet.
The blue-eyed Indian never quit his forward charge. Sam could see the red and black stripes across his face. He read the anger, the hatred in the man’s features as he ran full-out toward him. Animallike sounds coming out of the Indian’s mouth gave Sam goose bumps. The Indian’s powerful, brown chest was covered in porcupine quills, which rippled as he ran with deliberate strides. His white shaft was poised above his head; eagle feathers trailed behind the flint point. Sam centered the iron sights and pulled the trigger.
With a thud, the lance stuck in the ground beside Sam. The lance vibrated as the force exerted to throw it was absorbed by the sod. Stopped in midstride, the blue-eyed Indian threw his empty dark hands skyward; a second shot blew him off his feet and onto his back.
Sam reloaded and stood up. Where was the rifle-toting one: dead, injured, or waiting for his chance to strike.
Sam paused, then poked the Comanche with the rifle. Nothing. His blue eyes were already glazed over. He would look at the cloudless sky until the buzzards picked those blue eyes out. Sam Ketchem wasn’t going to close them; he walked on.
The sorrel horse was dead, lying on his side. A Rafter H brand was on his hip. Some rancher was missing a good pony. Before Sam reached the bay horse, he swapped his rifle to his left hand and drew his Colt. The animal’s pained labored breathing sawed at Sam. A bullet to the brain stopped the misery.
Facedown on the ground lay the last of the three kidnappers. Sam wanted to bring him back and demand to know what the men had done with Sloan. Had the heathen bastards killed him after all? Sam pounded the rifle butt on the ground.
“Rot in hell, you bastards!” he shouted into the wind.
Then the brown shirt at his feet stirred as if awakened by his words. The Comanche rolled over and sprung to his feet, brandishing a huge knife. The Colt in Sam’s hand belched fire and smoke again, again and again as the bullets drove the Indian backward. The Colt clicked on an empty chamber, and he threw it aside. Then he used the rifle butt to smash in the Comanche’s face.
Shaking from his spent rage, Sam hunched his shoulders to regain his bearings. He closed his burning eyes to shut out the devastation and death on this field of battle. Where was Sloan?
Strong winds swept his face and dried the wetness on his cheeks. How could he go back without the boy? How could he face Kathy and not be able to tell her where her boy was?
Sam located his Colt under a bush and reloaded the weapon. He reset the rig on his hip. Then he found the paint busy grazing; he undid the hobbles. For a long time, he looked at the war lance. If he ever made it back to Texas, he’d like to have that as a reminder of his days in hell. He booted the Winchester in the scabbard, then pulled the lance out of the ground with both hands.
Maybe he could find some tracks to lead him to the horse herd and learn what the Indians had done with Sloan. Once more he shut his eyes and tried to bring some sort of resolution in his own mind to the whole episode. Nothing but the wind answered him. He mounted the paint and set out to follow some tracks that led off into a deep canyon. From the top, he stood in the stirrups and peered down into the depths. He had no idea where the other animals were stashed or if Sloan was even with them. Then he saw some horses coming around the side of the mountain. They walked single file. Sam squinted to see them better. Someone rode the broad-built horse in front. Sam’s eyes widened and he let out a shout of joy. Hatless, his fine blond hair tousled by the wind and riding the stud horse with no bridle or saddle was Sloan.
Chapter 36
“The herd, you mean? Ah, they was through here, oh three, four days ago,” the trader said, standing on the porch of his outpost. The bearded man wore filthy buckskins, and in his belt, he carried a knife big enough to slay elephants.
“I need a few things—” Sam began.
“That’s a Gawdamn stud horse that boy of yours is on?” The man spat tobacco in the dust, looking shocked at what he saw.
“Yeah, that’s Sloan McCarty and his horse.”
“Why he ain’t got a rein or a saddle on him. Boy, how you do that?”
Sam stopped, ready to go inside to get them some food to carry with them. “Sloan can’t talk.”
The trader scratched his unruly shoulder-length hair. “That beats all. That jack’s a buffalo pony, ain’t he?”
Sam nodded. “Sloan stole him from a renegade Injun with blue eyes.”
“I k
now that murdering sumbitch. No way that little boy ever stole nothing off him. “Whatcha know about that damn Injun anyway?” the trader asked, following Sam inside the store.
A small hat in his hand for Sloan, Sam turned to the man. “He and two bucks that ran with him are dead.”
“You bring his scalp with you?” When Sam shook his head, the trader said, “I don’t believe you. That sumbitch has been shot at and never once hit. He’s got that medicine—”
“You ever see his lance?”
“Yeah.”
“I have it strapped on that paint under my left stirrup. It’s all wrapped.”
“Holy cow, mister. Then you must have killed him.” The man was dazed. “Boys, get over here.” He went to waving at the half dozen buckskinners and former enlisted men playing cards around a table. “This guy killed that blue-eyed heathen Injun.”
“Mister”—a barrel-chested man, who stood well over six feet tall, stuck out a hand twice as big as Sam’s—“that worthless murderer killed my best friend last year.”
“Nice to meetcha, laddie,” a toothless small man with an Irish accent said.
“That renegade kilt the Hoffman boys last year and got Murray King last winter not three miles from here,” the barrel-chested man said.
After a drink of firewater from the trader’s stock, Sam found some crackers without worms or weevils, some dry cheese and a sack of candy for Sloan to eat on the way. He also bought six cans of tomato juice and some fruit.
“Put your money away, mister. You ain’t going to pay for nothing in here. Got that boy’s name, but never did catch yours,” the trader said.
“Sam. Sam Ketchem of Frio Springs, Texas. That was my herd came through here a few days ago.”
“That your woman with them?” a buckskinner asked, wiping his whiskery mouth on the back of his hand.
“No, that’s Sloan’s mother.”
“No offense intended, but she was a powerfully pretty lady.” A row of bearded faces all bobbed in agreement with their man’s description of Kathy.
The Ogallala Trail Page 20
