The Chuckwagon Trail

by William W. Johnstone

  Mac touched his right hip and found only denim. Very few of the cowboys rode with their six-shooters, and Flagg had ordered him to leave his in the chuckwagon. Carrying an extra three pounds of iron all day wore a man down, especially one not used to carrying a gun. The rifle snugged in a saddle scabbard would do if he needed a weapon.

  Mac slid the rifle out and worked the lever to cock it before getting off his horse and walking up to the wagon. All he heard were expected sounds—and the horses neighing some distance away. The breeze died down, and the prairie turned downright quiet. He dropped to his knees and looked under the chuckwagon in case anybody was hiding on the far side.

  Nothing. In spite of the loneliness of the camp, he made a complete circuit, on guard the whole way.

  “I’m scaring myself for no good reason.” He lowered the hammer on the rifle and stashed it back into its sheath. Humming as he worked, he got the saddle off, put the horse in with the others, then turned to the chore of fixing a big meal for a passel of hungry cowboys.

  He took the lid off a barrel of flour and scooped out some into a pot. He started to get a second scoop, then stopped. While he hadn’t worked long as a trail cook, he had developed certain instincts. Using his finger, he poked at the flour in the barrel and moved it around. The sun turned crystals in the flour into diamonds. He licked his finger and scooped up some of the sparkly bits.

  “Salt.” He spat it out. “Somebody’s dumped salt into the flour.”

  He started pawing through the barrel and saw someone had done a damned good job of mixing in salt to ruin the flour.

  Maybe he hadn’t been mistaken earlier about seeing someone sneaking around and heading into the woods. They could have reached camp long before him and ruined the flour. He started checking the rest of the larder for signs that there were troubles worse than salt in flour.

  CHAPTER 12

  “What are you doing?” Flagg stared at the almost empty barrel as Mac shook a burlap sack filled with flour. White dust fluttered down a little at a time.

  “Somebody’s trying to keep us from delivering the herd,” Mac said, then explained what had happened.

  “You never got a clear sight of whoever was in the woods?”

  “I don’t even know if what I saw wasn’t a wolf or coyote. It could have been a man riding a horse. I only caught a glimpse. If he rode real hard he’d get back to camp enough ahead of me so he could do this.”

  “Is that working?” Flagg stood on tiptoe and looked into the almost empty barrel.

  “Not too good,” Mac admitted. “I keep trying to think of other ways to separate out the salt from the flour, but this seemed to be the best. The flour’s a lot finer than the salt, but the burlap’s too coarse. It lets both through.”

  “This is a waste of time.” Flagg rubbed his stubbled chin, pushed his hat back to scratch his head and finally said, “We’re not more than five miles from a settlement. Get on in and buy more flour.”

  “I can use most of this since I bake by adding salt. Only I can’t control how much salt’s in it, and everything might taste salty.”

  “Northrup.” Flagg’s voice was flat and angry.

  “I suspect him, too,” Mac said with a shrug, “but we can’t prove it.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Flagg. “Who’s going to arrest him for what he’d only deny? No marshal worth his salt would look at this as anything other than a prank.”

  “You made a joke,” Mac said, amazed. “Not a particularly good one . . .”

  “Didn’t know I did. Get the food fixed for the men, then cut out a couple heifers and get into town. Sell them for what you can and buy more supplies.”

  “It’ll be faster if I take a couple of horses as pack animals rather than driving the chuckwagon.”

  Flagg nodded and went off. Mac didn’t miss how the trail boss kept touching the butt of his Colt, then moving his hand away. Mac figured he was thinking the same thing. If Northrup ever happened to come into range, he was likely to get himself shot. Putting salt in the flour was hardly enough reason for murder, but Mac would lie like a trouper to get Flagg off with the law if he did put lead in Northrup.

  That idea bothered him. He was honest, and lies didn’t come easy to his lips. Telling lies had gotten him into trouble more times than he cared to remember, but he spoke his mind. Remembering the truth was easier than building a house of lies and trying to keep them all straight. He hadn’t earned any special place in Micah Holdstock’s esteem for that trait, either, since he was one of the few who didn’t suck up to the man just because he was rich.

  The meal went well. Mac had several wranglers help him clean up and then pick out three horses to use as pack animals. Figuring which cattle to cut out was a chore beyond his skills.

  Rattler chose three heifers for him, then drove them over to the camp.

  “You think you can handle ’em all right, Mac? You do all right with horses, but cows got a mind of their own. Unfortunately, it ain’t much of a mind, but they scare easy.”

  “I’ll do what I can. If I’m not back to fix dinner, send out a rescue party.”

  “I’ll ask Flagg if I ought to drive the chuckwagon ahead. I’ve never been much of a scout, but the land’s pretty flat hereabouts.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to find where you make camp rather than just come back here.”

  “Straight on north, five miles,” Rattler said. “If you hurry, you might be able to get back by sundown.”

  Mac checked his watch and shook his head. He wasn’t sure how he could be that quick, but spending the night in some town whose name nobody knew didn’t appeal to him, especially when there was another meal to fix.

  “I’ll hurry. That might run all the meat off the heifers’ bones, but I’ll make do.”

  The first mile along the trail into town proved the hardest. By the time the second mile had vanished under his horse’s hooves, he had the knack of herding the cattle. As Rattler had suggested, he had no trouble with the horses and reached the town after less than an hour on the trail.

  Not knowing where to go, he rode directly to a general store he spotted almost immediately and called to the proprietor. A smallish man with a big bushy mustache came out, his hand hidden under his apron.

  “What can I do for you, mister?” he asked with a wary frown.

  “I need to sell these fine cows and spend all the money on supplies from your store. Where can I get top dollar?” Mac saw the sudden change in the man’s expression. He had worded it exactly right. If he didn’t get top dollar for the heifers, the storekeeper came out on the short end of the stick.

  “The town’s butcher. A little ways down the street. Let me talk to him and see what he can do.” The man squinted and sized up the cattle. “You with a herd?”

  “The Rolling J ranch’s herd out of Waco.”

  “Them ain’t diseased cows, now, are they? Texas fever?”

  “Splenic fever? No, sir, they are healthy. Not a one in the herd’s shown any sign of splenic fever.” He emphasized the proper name to keep the man from attaching blame to every cow from Texas. Calling it Texas fever was a trick ranchers in Kansas and Nebraska used to make Texas cattle less attractive to buyers. Somehow the name had come to be used this far south into Indian Territory.

  “Good. Good.” The store proprietor moved his hand from under his apron. As Mac had thought, he clutched a six-gun against the wild Texas cowboy who had blown into his town unexpectedly.

  The notion that he was someone to defend the town’s honor against appealed to him in an odd way. That meant he was more of a cowboy than a drifter. He belonged with the trail crew, no matter that he was only the cook.

  He herded the cattle down the street, following the storekeeper to a butcher shop. Twenty minutes of dickering got him a hundred and fifty dollars. The butcher started to hand it to him, but Mac shook his head and pointed to the storekeeper.

  “I said I was going to spend the money on supplies. Give i
t to him. He’ll let me know when I’ve chosen that much in flour, potatoes, and whatever else he might have in stock.”

  “I’ve got some carrots. You have much interest in onions and peaches?”

  During the next hour, Mac and the storekeeper haggled over the prices as the supplies piled up on the store’s counter, but eventually he had three horses laden with enough foodstuffs to keep the outfit well fed until they reached Abilene.

  “Anything else you need, son?” The proprietor stood on the boardwalk, looking pleased as punch. He had earned a good day’s income off the Rolling J and sounded expansive.

  Mac thought about it for a second, then said, “Actually, there is something more.”

  “Terbacky? Chaw or for smokin’? Give me a minute or two and I can get you a bottle or two of firewater.”

  Mac shook his head to those offers. “That penny candy on your counter. The peppermints. I reckon the men would enjoy having some candy.”

  “Wait a second.” The man went into the store and returned with a large brown-paper-wrapped parcel. “That ought to be enough to take care of everyone’s sweet tooth.”

  “Much obliged.”

  “Anytime you’re passing by, come on in, and I’ll see that you’re fixed up with whatever you need.”

  Mac led his small caravan of packhorses out of town and was a mile away before he realized with a laugh that he hadn’t even heard what the place was called.

  He settled down and reached a fork in the road, the one leading back in the direction he had come from the noonday camp. The other angled off to the northwest. Where Rattler had driven the chuckwagon was something he had to find out, but taking the new road sent him in the proper direction and shortened the time it would take him to get down to using some of the flour and potatoes for the evening meal.

  He had ridden almost an hour and started thinking he ought to look for either the herd or wagon tracks when he heard hooves pounding behind him. Mac turned in the saddle.

  He went cold at the sight of three masked men galloping after him. He reached to pull out his rifle, but he was too late. A lariat spun through the air, settled over his head and around his shoulders. He yelped as he was pulled from the saddle and hit the ground hard. Arms pinned at his side, all he could do was bounce along, dragged by the outlaw who had roped him as surely as any dogie waiting to be branded.

  “Got the packhorses?” one of the men called.

  Mac craned around to see who answered. He thrashed furiously when he recognized the thief. The mask concealed his face, but nothing hid Thumbs Fontaine’s hands as he reached for the reins of the pack animals.

  “String the little peckerwood up,” Fontaine said. “He deserves it.”

  “By his neck?”

  “That’d be fine with me, but it ain’t what the boss said. We want to send a message.”

  Kicking and struggling, Mac was hoisted into the air over the limb of a big oak tree. He swung around at the end of the rope, caught in the wind as much as by his own attempt to get free. Each of the outlaws rode past, close enough for their horses to bang into him as they let out exuberant whoops. The impacts sent him back and forth like the pendulum on a regulator clock. The rope cut cruelly into his upper arms. When his hands started going numb, he stopped fighting and started thinking.

  He could die from being strung up like this, no matter what Fontaine had said. As he worked his right hand to the middle of his back while he still had some feeling in it, his fingers brushed over the hilt of the knife sheathed there. Carefully, he drew it and pinked himself a couple times but got the blade under the rope. Now the swinging helped move the rope across the keen edge.

  Mac dropped suddenly when the rope finally parted. He landed on his face in the dirt. When he struggled to his feet, the outlaws were long gone with his supplies. Staring at the knife, he slowly returned it to the sheath.

  “It saved me just like it killed Holdstock,” he muttered. Cursing as he walked, he headed out to get back to the herd, not sure what kind of reception he would get from Flagg and the others.

  * * *

  “You’re for certain sure it was Fontaine?” Flagg looked like a thunderstorm ready to pour down all over the countryside.

  “His thumbs gave him away. I recognized the voices of the others, too. They left with Northrup. I swear, I didn’t see them in town, but they must have seen me and decided to rob me.”

  “The loss of the supplies isn’t as bad as losing more horses.”

  “But the cows!”

  “We’ve got most of the herd left. Three don’t matter. We haven’t had the big losses to weather or rivers like we’ve had some years.”

  “I got fifty a head for them.”

  “You done good, but we’re not likely to return to the town and get that kind of money again,” Flagg said.

  “The butcher’s got three heifers hanging in his store he needs to sell,” Mac said, realizing what Flagg meant. He had flooded the market with top-quality beef. If they waited around a week or two, they might get that much per head again.

  However, he knew Flagg wasn’t about to stop for anything now.

  “I can feed the men with what we’ve got in the chuckwagon,” Mac went on. “It won’t be as fancy as before, but they won’t starve.”

  “Yeah, right,” Flagg said, hardly listening. “There’s no marshal who’d track down road agents for such a small theft. If Northrup had robbed a bank or stagecoach, they’d have a posse out in nothing flat. But a drover getting robbed of flour and horses?” He shook his head. “I’ve got a big score to settle with him.”

  “We’ve got a score to settle,” Mac corrected. “This is three times they’ve done me dirty.”

  Among the men who had assembled curiously at Mac’s return on foot, Rattler said, “Yeah, Flagg. Mac’s right. We all have a stake in this. Northrup’s stealin’ from all of us.” The lanky cowboy raised his voice. “I say we bed down the herd and track those sons of bitches down and do what’s right. They strung up Mac here. I say we string them up, only with the ropes around their dirty necks!”

  A cheer went up from the rest of the crew. More than one suggested even more drastic measures that would make an Apache blanch in fear.

  “Hold on! Quiet!” Flagg bellowed loud enough to cause the cattle to begin lowing. “Settle down. Nobody’s going after Northrup and his band of vipers.”

  “But, Flagg, we got to. They stole our food. They tried to hang Mac! They can’t do that to our cook!”

  Mac felt a little pride at how much support he had among the crew, then he turned somber, realizing he had caused this. If he hadn’t let himself get robbed, there wouldn’t be talk of a posse and lynching Northrup and his men.

  “We’re not vigilantes,” Flagg said with his usual dour solemnity. “We’re cowboys. We’re wranglers working for Mr. Jefferson. Our job’s not to see Northrup kicking his last dance at the end of a rope. We are hired to deliver Rolling J cattle to Abilene. And that’s what we’re going to do, not go chasing off around Indian Territory.”

  Another voice came from the crowd. “We can’t let them get away with this.” Whoever spoke got a murmur of agreement.

  “I was the one they robbed,” Mac said, “and I don’t like it. Not one little bit, but Flagg’s right. After we deliver the herd, then we can think about taking on Northrup.”

  He listened as the argument bounced around the assembled cowboys and slowly died out. The initial blood fever had passed.

  “But what about eatin’?” Rattler asked with a stricken look. “We’re gonna starve ’fore we get to Abilene.”

  “I won’t let that happen. I know a few tricks I haven’t shown you yet. You won’t go hungry. You’ve got my promise.”

  Mac had no idea what he was going to do to keep that promise, but he’d think of something.

  After a moment, Rattler shrugged and said, “Hell, you ain’t pizened us yet.”

  “Yet,” another cowboy said. “He ain’t pizened us yet. This
’ll give him a chance!”

  Laughter passed through the outfit, then the men began drifting away, some for night herd and others to bed down. Mac heaved a sigh.

  Flagg caught his eye, winked, and then went off to be sure everyone knew their increased duties. That one look made Mac puff up with pride. He wasn’t a complete waste. He even hummed to himself as he cleaned up and finally spread his bedroll under the chuckwagon and went to sleep. Dawn came early for him . . . dawn, breakfast, and scouting ahead for the trail for the herd.

  CHAPTER 13

  Every muscle in Mac’s body ached. That was becoming an all too common occurrence.

  He stretched, regretted it, and rolled onto his side, thinking to grab just a few minutes more sleep. The sounds around camp roused him. He was the axle around which the entire trail drive turned now. Without food, the cowboys couldn’t work. And not only did he have to feed them, he had to show them the trail for the herd to follow.

  Pushing himself up, he arched his back like a cat and felt better when the spine cracked. He rubbed his arms where the rope had been when Fontaine and his henchmen hung him up like a side of beef.

  He fed the men, packed the chuckwagon, and waved to Flagg as he left to scout the trail. Not for the first time, he wished the trail boss rode alongside, giving him hints about how to actually blaze the trail.

  Twenty minutes into his day after breaking camp, he made a disturbing discovery.

  Another herd had already come this way.

  “This is the Shawnee Trail,” he told himself. “Of course other herds will follow the same route to take advantage of cattle having come this way before.”

  He snapped the reins and turned his team into a route running alongside the cut-up grass. More than once, he found where the herd ahead of the Rolling J had watered from streams.

  The grass might be well cropped, but there was still plenty for another herd. This was the promise of the Shawnee Trail rather than heading out across Indian Territory on a new road.

  He tried to decide if they were actually out of Texas yet or if they had more miles to go. That didn’t matter, other than measuring how long they had left on the trail. But with the work done for him today by the earlier herd, he pressed on, found where they had set up their camp, did a quick calculation and decided the Rolling J herd could make another few miles before dark. This might be a fifteen-mile day.