Ralph Compton Comanche Trail

by Carlton Stowers

  • • •

  So taut was the barbed wire strung that with each cut it gave off a pinging sound as it recoiled away from each post. As he walked along the fence, Taylor cut the strands while Barclay remained on horseback, shotgun across his saddle, keeping watch. Once there was a sizable hole in the fence, they would move on to create another opening through which the cattle could escape. Thad cut wires until his hands ached and the shears grew dull.

  It occurred to Barclay that Kole Guinn must be a man of great arrogance, so sure that none would dare steal his stock that he didn’t even bother to have his pastures watched over at night.

  “We’ve got to set the fires on the back side of the herd since it ain’t likely even cows are stupid enough to go runnin’ straight into the flames,” Barclay said as they rode onto the ranch. While they waited on the river he had fashioned torches from short limbs and dried moss, soaking them in the coal oil.

  In the darkness the riders could make out only silhouettes of hundreds of longhorns. In some areas the brittle grass was still so high that only the horns of the steers were visible. A curious few slowly rose as the horses passed, but most chose to ignore the predawn trespassers.

  “They got no idea how excitin’ things are gonna get here in a few minutes,” Barclay said. He handed a torch and a jar of coal oil to Taylor and pointed in the direction of another group of cattle. “Once you get behind that bunch, light your fires—spread ’em out at a good distance—then hightail it toward that opening you cut up the way. With luck we can be gone and hid before anybody gets here.”

  • • •

  As the flames reached into the darkness, the cattle stirred, listlessly at first, and then they began to move about aimlessly, snorting and pawing. Only when Barclay fired several pistol shots into the air did they began to move more swiftly, headed toward the fences. Soon a stampede was under way, the longhorns escaping through the openings, some even trampling fence that hadn’t been cut.

  Barclay saw Taylor riding in his direction, torch still in hand. “Time we take our leave,” he yelled.

  The shots had wakened the bunkhouses, and the hired hands, still in their long johns, rushed out into the cold night air. On the southern horizon, in the direction from which the shots had come, was an orange glow.

  “We got ourselves a fire,” Buck Lee yelled. “Everybody get your britches on and mount up.”

  Ruben de la Rosa ran toward the house to alert Guinn. He found him sleeping in his chair, the bottle perched on his chest empty and the fireplace faded to embers. He shook the rancher awake, he said, “Boss, we got troubles. There’s a fire burning down in the south pasture.”

  Guinn wiped his hands across his face. He’d been dreaming of a turkey hunt, and for a second he didn’t understand why his foreman was standing next to him.

  “Fire, boss,” de la Rosa said, raising his voice as if addressing someone hard of hearing. “And there were gunshots.”

  “Rustlers?” Guinn asked, awake and sobering.

  “Most likely.”

  By the time he had his boots pulled on, Guinn was alert and in command. “You’re sending the men to check it out?”

  Ruben nodded.

  “I’ll ride with them. Have a couple of the boys stay back and load water onto a wagon, then hurry along.” As Guinn spoke he glanced toward the staircase. Kate, awakened by the commotion, was standing at the balcony. Wearing a white cotton nightgown, her hands to her face, she looked frightened. Then Juanita appeared from her room adjacent to the kitchen.

  Guinn hurried toward the doorway and reached for his coat and rifle, Ruben at his side. “I’ll lead the men,” he said as he put a hand to his foreman’s chest. “I want you to stay here to watch over the women.”

  “But, sir . . .” De la Rosa’s argument faded into the night as Guinn bounded down the porch steps. One of the hands had already saddled his horse and held the reins out to him.

  • • •

  Barclay and Taylor quickly distanced themselves from the pasture and were hiding in a grove of trees when the wranglers appeared, whipping their mounts through the tall grass until they reached the fast-spreading fires. In the glow of the flames, only a few bewildered and bawling calves could be seen, the straggling remains of the herd.

  “They might be chasin’ those cattle all the way to Mexico,” Barclay said as he watched the frantic activity through his field glasses. “First, though, they got to figger out what to do about puttin’ out the fire ’fore it takes the whole pasture.”

  Taylor had already turned Magazine and was moving farther into the shadows of the tree line. Barclay followed. As the rode they could hear the clattering of the water wagon hurrying to join the others.

  While his men pounded the burning grass with dampened burlap sacks, Guinn found a spot where the fire had burned down and forced his horse through the lingering heat and smoke, following the escape route of his cattle. When he reached the fence, he dismounted and carefully examined several of the smoldering cedar posts. He swore loudly when he found the cut wire.

  • • •

  The sky was turning early-morning gray as Barclay and Taylor reached a small rise from which they could see the dim outline of the ranch house.

  “I wish we could have gotten here while it was still dark,” Barclay said.

  Somewhere in the distance a rooster crowed.

  “We riding in or approaching on foot?”

  “Depends,” Barclay said as he pointed toward the stone entrance to the ranch. “A man who ain’t got sense enough to keep watch over his cattle might not feel any need for a lock on his gate. If we can pass through, I say we ride. That’ll allow us to make our exit quicker.”

  “By what we seen back in the pasture, it appears everyone’s gone.”

  “Not everyone, I hope.”

  Kate Two had dressed quickly after Guinn left and was pacing the kitchen as Ruben sat at the table, drinking coffee. He was still angry at being ordered to stay behind.

  “What’s wrong?” Kate said.

  Ruben didn’t bother to look up. “I never hired on to stand guard over no women,” he said.

  “What’s happening out in the back pasture? Indians? Rustlers? What?” Something, she felt, was not right. Why set a fire if stealing cattle was your intent? She knew it was not the Comanche way, and doubted even the most simpleminded of thieves would risk calling such attention to themselves.

  She looked at de la Rosa with contempt. “I imagine,” she said, “that your boss would be most disappointed to learn that you’re carrying out the duty you’re assigned by sitting here drinking coffee, with not even a firearm within reach.”

  In his haste to alert Guinn, Ruben had quickly pulled on his pants and boots before rushing to the house. His pistol was still back in the bunkhouse.

  “I’m gonna go fetch it right now,” he said.

  “If you see an extra rifle,” Kate Two said, “I’d appreciate your bringing it to me.”

  Ruben laughed. “You’ll find plenty of guns back in the boss’s office. He collects ’em. Just be careful you don’t go shooting yourself.”

  • • •

  As they slowly approached, Barclay held up a hand, signaling Taylor to stop. They watched as a figure left the house and walked in the direction of the bunkhouse. “Don’t look like the Bender woman,” Barclay said. “It appears there’re more folks here than we expected.” For a few moments he pulled at his beard. “Guess we’ll need to split up and take our chances. I’ll check out the bunkhouse and you go to the house. Remember the advice I gave you when we rode into that Indian camp a while back?”

  “To not be bashful about defending myself,” Thad said.

  “That applies in this case as well.”

  Moving quietly, Taylor looped Magazine’s reins around the hitching post and made his way up th
e steps. The only light he could see came from the kitchen. He looked through a window and saw a Mexican woman standing in front of the stove.

  As he entered he pointed his Colt toward the woman with one hand and placed a finger over his lips with the other. She burst into tears. Thad rushed to her and placed a hand over her mouth. “Lady, I ain’t gonna hurt you,” he whispered. “I’ll remove my hand if you promise to be quiet. Who else is here?”

  Her whole body was shaking. “Lo siento . . . No hablo inglés.”

  Taylor guided the woman to a chair. “Sit,” he said. “Por favor.” He looked around the room for something he could use to tie her up with. There was no need. Her chin was already dipping toward her chest. She had fainted.

  He slowly made his way into the main part of the house, squinting into the darkness as he went. In the dining room he let his free hand run across the smoothness of the large table, then moved through another door toward the faint glow of the fireplace. He was careful to avoid the empty bottle lying on the floor. After every few steps he stopped and listened but heard only the rhythmic ticking that came from a grandfather clock located against a far wall. There was a faint odor of stale cigar smoke and whiskey mixed with the aroma of the coffee that wafted from the kitchen.

  Taylor moved along walls filled with paintings of majestic longhorns and mounted heads of deer. He stopped for a moment to look at a huge portrait of a young Texas Ranger wearing a white hat, a gold star pinned to his chest. There was a proud, almost boastful, smile on the subject’s face.

  As he climbed the stairway the house grew even darker. He could barely make out the row of doors along the upper hallway, each one closed. As he gently turned the knobs and entered each bedroom, he felt a combination of relief and disappointment when he found them empty and unused.

  Opening the final door, his Colt pointed into the darkness, he was unaware of any movement. As his eyes adjusted, he could see that it was smaller than the other rooms. It had only a bed and a small chest. A quilt was rumpled into a heap and on the floor lay a discarded nightgown. The drawers of the chest hung open. Atop it in a small silver dish were several women’s rings. The faint scent of lilac lingered.

  From downstairs came the crashing sound of breaking glass.

  “She’s here,” Taylor whispered.

  He made no effort to muffle the sound of his boots against the polished wooden stairway as he rushed down the stairs and into the main room. Looking about, he saw an open door to a room he’d not checked. In Guinn’s office he found things strewn about, the drawers of his massive desk open. The glass front of a gun case had been smashed, shards sprinkled on the floor. Taylor didn’t bother to determine what might be missing from the collection of firearms. He knew that Kate Two was now armed and aware of his presence.

  He returned to the kitchen. The Mexican woman lay on the floor, blood smeared across her forehead. She was barely conscious. She raised herself on one elbow and, with a shaking hand, pointed.

  Taylor ran to the door. Across the way was the barn.

  • • •

  Kate Two had instinctively known from the moment Ruben had arrived to alert Guinn of the fires in the pasture that a danger far greater than burning grassland and stampeded cattle was nearby. She was certain it had something to do with her and the men who had been tracking her.

  She knew it was time to leave.

  After Ruben left to retrieve his sidearm, she had entered Guinn’s office and frantically searched for the key to his gun case. Unable to find it, she hurled a chair into the glass and chose a rifle that was so polished and well oiled that it looked as if it had never been fired. There was a box of shells in a drawer at the bottom of the shattered showcase.

  In the kitchen, Juanita had regained consciousness and was slowly getting to her feet. Without a word, Kate Two swung the butt of the rifle against the housekeeper’s face and she fell to the floor. Kate Two ran to the barn to saddle her horse. With everyone distracted, she hoped to distance herself far from the ranch before anyone knew she was gone.

  She retrieved a saddle from the tack room and began to search the stalls for her horse. Then she stopped. Though time was short, it occurred to her that the old housekeeper and Ruben, both blindly loyal to their boss, could not be left as witnesses to her departure.

  She turned toward the house.

  • • •

  Barclay cursed the growing light of day as he kneeled behind a watering trough, watching for signs of movement in the bunkhouse. His bad leg throbbed and the foul smell of smoke and coal oil lingered in his nostrils as he aimed his shotgun at the doorway. His plan was simple. As soon as anyone came into view, he would shoot.

  Inside, de la Rosa, alerted to activity up at the house by Juanita’s scream, peered from a darkened window to see a man crouched and moving toward the bunkhouse. He appeared to be carrying a shotgun. If he was to carry out his boss’s wishes, he needed to be at the house. But his path was blocked by an unknown enemy.

  His choices were few. He could remain in the bunkhouse until it was light enough to clearly see his target and hope that his aim was good. Or he could take advantage of the night that remained and escape through the back door, which opened onto a path leading to the privy. Even if he did that, the open space to the ranch house would make him an easy target. Sweat began to bead across his forehead.

  Then he saw another figure carefully moving in the direction of the barn, gun in hand. Ruben was unable to make out his face but immediately knew who the man was when he saw the hat was far too large for his head.

  “I told Buck we should have left ’em dead,” he said to the empty room.

  • • •

  By the time Taylor reached the barn, his heart was racing. Daylight was fast arriving. He could see his partner in the distance, gesturing toward the bunkhouse. Inside the barn, it was still dark as a cave. He pressed himself against the side of the building and listened. The only sound was made by the stirring of the horses. Thad took a deep breath and called out, “I know you’re in there, and I’ll not be leaving until you come out and show yourself.”

  The response was a rifle shot that buried itself into the wall above him, sending splinters of wood flying. Taylor ducked and raced through the doorway, reaching the cover of a stack of hay bales before a second shot came from the darkness.

  “Who are you?” a woman’s voice called out.

  As she spoke, Ruben burst out of the back of the bunkhouse and ran toward the house. Barclay stood and raised his shotgun to his shoulder. De la Rosa stopped and fired his pistol. At the same time Barclay squeezed the trigger of his weapon.

  Both men fell to their knees. From his hiding place, Taylor heard a second shot from Barclay’s shotgun. Then silence. “You okay out there?” There was no reply.

  “You don’t remember me?” he yelled into the darkness of the barn. “We met up back in Kansas where you once lived with your crazy family. I’ve come a far distance to make you pay for what you done.”

  Kate Two lay prone in one of the dark stalls. She had no idea who her adversary might be. She responded with another shot that buried itself into one of the hay bales just to Taylor’s side. She knew she had the advantage of invisibility. The gray light that had begun to filter through the doorway of the barn gave her an advantage. She could occasionally see the tip of the man’s hat. She would need to be patient.

  “If you’ll toss aside your rifle and show yourself,” Taylor said, “I might decide not to kill you.” He fired a flurry of pistol shots into the darkness and heard the high-pitched sound of an animal in pain. A saddle horn brushed against Kate Two’s leg as the wounded horse fell beside her.

  “I don’t know you.” She fired another shot that hit his shoulder. When she heard him cry out, Kate Two jumped to her feet and ran in his direction.

  The pain felt as if a hot branding iron had been pressed
against his back, momentarily knocking his breath from him. His vision blurred and nausea overwhelmed him. He looked up to see the woman pointing a rifle at him. Blood began to soak his shirt.

  Kate Two looked down at the man, trying to recall having seen him before. After a moment she nodded. “It was you who came looking for your father, the simple old doctor who wished to reach out to his dead wife.”

  “And for that you killed him?” Taylor slowly got to his feet, showing no concern for the rifle pointed at him.

  She laughed. “It was more the fact that he had money we wished to relieve him of, as I recall.”

  “He would have given it to you without your killing him.”

  “But that would have taken the fun from it.”

  “And what of Brother Jerusalem?”

  She sighed. “Such a tiring fool. I wearied of his company quickly, listening to him praying for my soul and quoting scripture. For my own peace of mind I shot him while he slept, and I delighted in burning his Bible.” She aimed the rifle. “Speaking of which, it might be a good time for you to say a short prayer.”

  Taylor lifted his gun with an unsteady hand. He was pointing the Colt, hoping to squeeze the trigger before she fired, when a thundering blast came from the doorway.

  Kate Two’s face suddenly turned raw and bloody. Torn flesh embedded in her hair, and bits of teeth spewed from where her mouth had once been. Her body convulsed. She was still gripping the rifle when she sank to the dirt floor.

  Thad turned to look at Barclay. Whiffs of smoke still rose from the barrel of his shotgun. The front of his shirt was stained with blood. Taylor ran toward him. He said, “You shot bad?”

  “Reckon I am,” Tater said, his voice weak, the words labored. “Not as bad as that other fella, though. I give him what was coming after the beatin’ we was given.” He attempted a smile as his eyes rolled upward. “Best I get off my feet.” His knees buckled.