The Alamosa Trail

by Ralph Compton

  Jim had no idea how long it was before he looked around and saw, almost as white shadows in a field of white, the buildings and structures of Trailback Ranch. The horses headed straight for the barn. Jim opened the door and led them inside. Though cold in the barn, it was not quite as frigid as outside, and there was the added advantage of protection from the howling wind and blowing snow.

  Jim led the horses to their stalls. Then with hands so cold he could barely feel them, he managed to get their harness off and turn the animals loose in the stall. A few pitchfork tosses of hay, and the team was quite content, already forgetting about the ordeal they had just been through.

  Once the horses were secure, Jim braved the howling storm again just long enough to make it to the cookhouse. The cookhouse was toasty warm from the fire that blazed in the kitchen stove. It was so warm, in fact, that when Jim held his hands over the stove, the returning blood circulation caused intense pain.

  “Here,” the cook said, putting a pan of water down on a table. “Sit there and stick your hands in the water. You don’t want to warm them up too fast.”

  “C-c-coffee,” Jim said, stuttering against the numbing cold that still held him.

  The cook poured a big mug of coffee and brought it over to him. Jim thanked him with a nod, took a long, bracing, swallow, then looked around. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

  “Ever’one’s out lookin’ for Frankie and Cal,” the cook said. “They ain’t come back.”

  Chapter 2

  The snow continued for the rest of the day and far into the night. Jim waited in the bunkhouse, but the snow was so heavy and the wind so hard that even the bunkhouse offered only questionable protection against the blizzard. Snow was blowing in through the cracks between the boards and it piled on the floor, melting into puddles of cold water by the little potbellied stove that glowed red from the fire roaring inside. One by one the other hands returned to the bunkhouse so that, by dark, everyone was back but Cal and Frankie.

  Angus Brookline spent most of the day trekking between the main house, the cookhouse, and the bunkhouse. He was a good man who was sincerely worried, not only about his livestock, but also about the safety of his men. When he learned that two of his men hadn’t returned, he grew frantic.

  “You didn’t see them anywhere?” Jim asked.

  “Sorry, Jim. I know Frankie’s your cousin and all, but we never saw hide nor hair of ’em,” a man named Tennessee Tuttle said.

  “What about the line shacks?” Brookline asked. “Did you check them?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Brookline. We looked in every one of them,” Barry Riggsbee replied.

  Tuttle and Riggsbee were two of the hands who had worked on the ranch for nearly as long as Jim had. They were good friends to Jim and to Frankie and Cal, and Jim was sure they had done all they could do to find them. Despite that, he felt as if he should do something himself. He couldn’t just sit here in the bunkhouse and wait.

  Jim started putting on his heavy sheepskin coat.

  “What do you think you’re about to do?” Brookline asked.

  “I’m going out to look for Frankie and Cal,” Jim answered.

  “Don’t be a fool, Jim. It’s dark now. You won’t be able to find them in the dark,” Tennessee said.

  “They’ll die if they stay out there all night,” Jim said.

  “Son, I don’t want to sound harsh about this,” Brookline said. “But they might already be dead, and if they are, you’ll wind up getting yourself killed for no good reason. If they’ve figured out some way to stay alive this long, chances are they’ll be able to survive the night. Wait till morning. It’ll be light, and most likely the storm will have broken.”

  “Mr. Brookline’s right, Jim,” Barry said. “Ain’t no sense in you goin’ out there and dyin’, too.”

  Jim thought about it for a moment, then realized that their suggestion was wise. With a sigh of frustration, he shrugged off his coat, then went back to lie down on his bunk. He laced his hands behind his head, and thought of Frankie.

  Frankie was his first cousin, the son of his mother’s youngest sister. But Jim and Frankie were more like brothers than cousins, because Frankie had come to live with him when he was still a boy. Ironically, given the current snow-storm, it was a blizzard that had brought Frankie and Jim together in the first place.

  Frankie was only twelve when his mother and father contracted pneumonia and died in the midst of a blizzard. It being midwinter, Frankie was snowed in and unable to go for help. The ground was too cold to bury them, so Frankie moved them to the barn and wrapped them in a tarpaulin. While the frozen bodies of his parents had waited in the barn for the spring thaw, Frankie spent the time just trying to survive.

  When some of the neighbors finally came to call that spring, they were shocked to find the twelve-year-old boy living there alone. He had cut his own firewood, hunted and cooked his own food, and even fought off an attack by a starving, frenzied pack of wolves.

  Jim could still remember the day he had gone up by train to get his young cousin. Taking in a twelve-year-old boy was quite a responsibility for a twenty-eight-year-old man, but Jim accepted the job. Frankie could have been trouble after surviving such an ordeal, but he was no trouble at all. Jim quickly became Frankie’s hero, and the boy grew to manhood working on a ranch, starting as a cook’s assistant, then an errand boy, and finally becoming one of the best hands on the ranch.

  As Jim thought about his cousin’s history, he grew less worried. Frankie was an exceptionally resourceful young man, and if he had been able to survive an entire winter as a twelve-year-old, then Jim was pretty sure he would survive the night. He didn’t know how, but somehow Frankie would make it through. The thought comforted him enough to allow him to go to sleep.

  The snow finally stopped during the night, and the next day dawned bright, with a crystal-blue sky. The entire world was covered with a mantle of white, and icicles hung glistening from the roofs of all the buildings. Trees and shrubs were changed into sparkling chandeliers of ice. It was exceptionally beautiful, though the beauty was deceptive because even in the rangeland closest to the houses, dark lumps could be seen lying in the snow. The dark lumps, Jim knew, were dead cows.

  Every hand on the ranch turned out, saddled his horses, and spread out across the range. Their mission was twofold. One part was to find Frankie and Cal; the other was to make an inventory of the livestock in order for Brookline to be able to determine how badly the herd had suffered. He would then have to report that fact to the absentee owners.

  Even though the snow was no longer falling and the wind was quiet, moving around was still difficult. The snow was up to the horses’ bellies and it took a terrible exertion for them to move about. The cowboys traveled in pairs, and they took turns riding in front, letting first one horse do all the work of breaking through the snow, then the other.

  They were shocked by the devastation they found. Everywhere they looked they saw frozen cows—many more dead cows than live ones. There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of motionless black lumps in the snow. It didn’t take long for even the newest and most inexperienced cowboy to realize the implications. Trailback Ranch was now a ranch without cattle. And a ranch without cattle needed no cowboys.

  Halfway through the day the inventory stopped being an impersonal job for their employer and became a harbinger of their own future. In one night they had lost their livelihood.

  Jim, Tennessee, and Barry found Frankie and Cal just before noon. It was Barry who saw the black mound in the snow. They had seen hundreds of such mounds since leaving the bunkhouse this morning, but there was something unusual about this one. Barry pointed to it.

  “What do you fellas think that is?” he asked.

  “Another dead cow, I suppose,” Tennessee replied.

  “I don’t know,” Barry said. “It looks different.”

  “Those are horses,” Jim said.

  “Horses? What are horses doing out here?”
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br />   “That has to be Frankie and Cal,” Jim said. He urged his own horse to gather as much speed as it could in the snow. The other two men did the same, and given the circumstances, they covered the two hundred yards rather quickly.

  When they got there, they saw that the horses were dead, but their positions on the ground weren’t random. The two horses were lying on the ground, almost perfectly aligned, back to back.

  “Look at that. These horses have been shot,” Tennessee said, pointing to wounds in the animals’ heads.

  Jim began scraping away some of the snow. Beneath the snow was a poncho, stretched across the two horses. “Look here,” Jim said. “They made themselves a shelter. Frankie! Frankie! Cal! Are you boys all right?”

  There was a slight movement under the poncho, the remaining snow slid to one side; then the little piece of rubberized tarpaulin was lifted. Frankie stuck his head up and blinked a few times at the brightness of the sun.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when I would say this, but you three boys are about the pretti est sight I’ve ever seen,” Frankie said.

  “Frankie, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Frankie said. The smile left his face and he looked back down into the little sheltered area. “But Cal didn’t make it.”

  “Didn’t make it?”

  “He died during the night,” Frankie said.

  It took three months before they were able to round up all the cattle. This particular roundup was different from any roundup they had experienced before, however, because this time the cattle they were collecting were dead.

  The cowboys tied ropes to the legs of the dead cows, then pulled them to one of several central locations. Once they had them gathered they would pour kerosene on the bodies, then burn them. For several weeks the air smelled of charred flesh, not just on Trailback, but throughout the entire West.

  Most of the cowboys knew what was coming long before Angus Brookline told them. They could tell when he brought the table out and set it up for that last payday, that their jobs were over. Normally, there were broad smiles and wisecracks on payday, but not on this day.

  As they gathered around the table, Jim looked at these men he had worked with for the last few years. He had worked at several ranches over the years, but none better than Trailback. Even though Brookline was the manager and not the owner, he was a good man to work for. He knew cattle, he knew ranching, and he knew men. He hired only good, honest workers, and treated them well.

  Jim looked out at the cowboys who were awaiting their final pay. There were Frankie, of course, and Tennessee and Barry. Standing over by the fence were the only two brothers on the ranch, Hank and Chad Taylor. Standing near the two brothers were Ken Keene, Gene Curry, and Eddie Quick.

  As the cowboys stood around waiting to be paid, they talked to each other in low tones, almost as if they were at a funeral. And in a way, Jim thought, they were: the funeral of Trailback Ranch.

  As soon as Brookline had the table and his money box in position, he looked out over the outfit.

  “Boys,” he began. “I don’t have to tell you what’s comin’. I can see in your faces that you already know. I sent a cablegram to the ranch owners back in England, tellin’ them that you boys are the finest outfit I have ever had the pleasure of working with, and if they ever planned to get back into ranchin’, they couldn’t do any better than to keep you on.” Brookline sighed. “But they didn’t see it that way. They are not only letting all of you go, but they’re letting me go as well. This is the last payday for us all.”

  “What the hell, Mr. Brookline, why are they letting you go?” Jim asked. “They have to have someone to watch the ranch, don’t they?”

  “They’re sending someone out from New York to take my place,” Brookline said. “But he’s not comin’ out here to watch the ranch—he’s comin’ out to sell it.”

  “They must be crazy, selling a spread like this,” Chad Taylor said.

  “Yes, well, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about that,” Brookline said. Then, for the first time since coming out to set up the pay table, he smiled. “But I’m happy to tell you that I was able to get them to agree to a bonus for you boys, for all the hard work you did in roundin’ up the dead cattle and getting rid of ’em. You’re all getting ten dollars more this month than you’ve been getting.”

  Although the men were saddened by the fact that this would be the last time they would draw any money from Trailback, the twenty-five percent increase in their pay put them back in good spirits, and soon, it was almost like the paydays of old.

  Chapter 3

  After the final pay off at Trailback, the cowboys scattered in all directions, some going alone, others traveling in pairs or in large groups. Tennessee Tuttle joined Barry Riggsbee, and the two men rode off to New Mexico to look for work around Santa Fe. Jim Robison and his cousin Frankie headed for the ranchland around Ama rillo. The largest single group of cowboys to stay together was Hank and Chad Taylor, Ken Keene, Gene Curry, and Eddie Quick.

  After three days of riding on the range, they found themselves in the little town of Tarantula. Tarantula was like hundreds of other towns all across the West. Served by a railroad, it had two streets, one parallel to the tracks, the other perpendicular to them. The streets were dusty, filled with horse droppings, and lined with false-fronted buildings. As usual in such towns, the largest and most prosperous-looking buildings were the two saloons.

  The boys tied up in front of the first saloon they saw, then went inside. The saloon was crowded, but there was enough room for them to step up to the bar and order a beer.

  “We’ve got to be careful about how many of these we buy,” Hank said. “Seein’ as how we’ve got no job, we’d better take care of our money.”

  “Somethin’ will turn up,” Eddie said.

  “What if it don’t?”

  “Somethin’ will turn up,” Eddie said again. “It always does. I’m lucky that way. And as long as you boys are with me, you’ll be lucky, too.”

  “Ha!” Ken said. “If you ain’t as full of shit as a Christmas turkey.”

  “Wait a minute, fellas,” Hank said, interrupting the banter. He nodded toward two men who were standing at the other end of the bar. “Listen to what those hombres over there are talkin’ about.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, Cannonball is the fastest horse I’ve ever seen,” one of the men was saying. “He can outrun jackrabbits, coyotes, wolves, and any horse that’s ever been borned.”

  “You ain’t tellin’ me nothin’. I’ve seen him run,” the other man replied. “How much money have you won with that horse now?”

  “Near on to a thousand dollars, I reckon, but I can’t get nobody to race him anymore.”

  “Do you blame them? Betting against Cannonball is like a body throwing their money away.”

  Hank, Ken, Eddie, and Gene looked over at Chad.

  “You hear that, Chad?”

  “Yeah, I heard it.”

  “Well, what do you think? You think Thunderbolt can beat him?” Thunderbolt was Chad’s horse.

  “I don’t know,” Chad answered. “I’ve never seen this fella’s horse run.”

  “Come on, Chad. You know Thunderbolt can beat him. You raised that horse from a colt. He’s faster than greased lightning.”

  “And you’re the best rider there ever was,” Gene said.

  “What do you say, Chad? If I can get you a race, will you take him on?”

  “We’re going to have to risk some money,” Chad said.

  “With you and Thunderbolt there ain’t no risk to it, far as I’m concerned,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah, I’m with Eddie. I’m willing to kick in my money,” Ken said.

  “It’s all up to you now, little brother,” Hank said. “Shall I get us a race?”

  Finally, Chad nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Get us a race.”

  Hank smiled, then turned toward the two conversationalists at the far end of the bar. “Hey, m
ister!” he called.

  “You talking to me?”

  “If you’re the one with the fast horse, yes, I’m talking to you.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “What would it take to set up a race?”

  “You got a horse you think is pretty good, do you?”

  “We do.”

  “And someone to ride it?”

  “My brother here,” Hank said, indicating Chad.

  The man at the other end of the bar took a look at Chad, saw that he was considerably smaller than the others around him, then laughed.

  “We’re talking a horse race, mister, not ponies. You sure he can handle a full-grown horse?”

  “Better than anyone you’ve ever seen,” Hank replied. “Now I’ll just ask you one more time. What would it take to set up a race?”

  “All you have to do is put your money where your mouth is,” the owner of Cannonball replied.

  Within an hour, word of the impromptu race had spread all over town. Nearly everyone was outside watching, lining both sides of the street. The course was laid out so that the race would start in front of the saloon, go all the way to the far end of the town, then continue on for about another quarter of a mile out of town to a prominent tree at the point where the road made its first turn. The horses would go down as far as the tree, then come back into town, with the finish line being right back where they started, at the saloon. The riders were informed that there would be two men positioned down at the tree to make certain that the riders went far enough. Each rider could pick his own man for that position. Chad chose Ken Keene to represent him.

  The boys were so confident that Chad would win that they bet every remaining dollar that they had.

  “If Thunderbolt doesn’t win, we’re going to have to kill and eat him,” Hank teased.

  Although most of the townspeople were rooting for Cannonball and his owner, Jasper Blake, it turned out that the unbeaten Blake was not a particularly well-liked man. As a result, many in town secretly wanted to see him lose, and a few even bet their heart, rather than their mind. Still, the vast majority of townsfolk didn’t think the new horse actually had a chance to win.