The Independence Trail

by Lyle Brandt

  Why not?

  Catlin could find something to do in Santa Fe, maybe someone to hunt.

  Or would he maybe find himself a whole new life?

  CHAPTER ONE

  Saturday, April 5, 1873

  Waking to early-morning daylight and a rooster crowing, Arthur Catlin had to take a moment and remember where he was.

  A bunkhouse on the Bar X spread, with ten men on adjoining cots, all stirring into wakefulness. Another ten would just be rousing in a second bunkhouse on the property, some forty feet from where Catlin was reaching for his clothes and boots.

  Their boss, Bliss Mossman, occupied the big house with his wife, Gayle, and their late-life son just coming up on seven years old. The Bar X foreman, Sterling Tippit, had a three-room house off to himself, and Jared Olney—Mossman’s horse wrangler—lived in a smaller one behind the barn, adjacent to the paddock, so he’d hear if anything was troubling the stock at any hour.

  The last thing Catlin had in mind when he rode into Santa Fe was joining a cattle drive. He had some limited experience with livestock from his youth, working around his parents’ farm in southern Illinois, but nothing on the scale of driving some twenty-five hundred steers from Santa Fe northwestward across Kansas, to be sold at Independence, in Missouri.

  Thinking of it now, as fellow drovers started filing out to breakfast, Catlin wondered whether he had gone and lost his mind.

  The route they meant to follow didn’t put his mind at ease.

  Travelers called it the Cimarron Trail, cimarron being “wild” in Spanish. In theory, it spanned seven hundred and seventy miles between Santa Fe and Independence, with traffic passing both ways: herds trudging to market from New Mexico Territory, wagon trains of would-be settlers reversing that process westward. Part of the way was a “dry” route, sixty-some miles without potable water between the Wagon Bed Spring, which fed the Cimarron River, to the Arkansas River outside Wichita. Conestoga wagons carried barrels filled with water while it lasted, but a herd on foot would have to tough it out for up to five days without drinking anything, getting moisture—what there was of it—from grass and shrubs along the way.

  And if Wagon Bed Spring was dry when travelers arrived, that made things even worse.

  Catlin had never traveled over the Cimarron trail, but he’d heard stories of abandoned wagons, sun-bleached bones that might be cattle, horses, even humans. And not all of those who died along the way had passed from thirst.

  Hostile Indians were found along the way, as were mixed bands of Comancheros who sold guns and liquor to the native tribes illegally. When they were short on inventory or desired a bit of sport, those low-life raiders sometimes preyed on wagon trains, although they tended to prefer a solitary stagecoach or a smaller group of immigrants—one wagon, say, or maybe two—proceeding without company and poorly armed.

  If drought lay heavy on the land, or Indians were on the warpath, travelers each way might take a longer route, adding another hundred miles to their journey, thereby requiring more food, water, ammunition, and the like to make a go of it.

  A wild trail any way you looked at it.

  A trail herd and a wagon train moved at the same pace, roughly, covering on good days twelve to thirteen miles. “Good” days were those without a skirmish to be fought or rampant Mother Nature to be dealt with, wielding storms of sand, rain, lightning, snow, or sleet, depending on the time of year.

  While a herd spent no fewer than sixty-two days traveling, they could expect warm weather all the way, from mideighties through April to the high nineties or hundreds during May and June. That dropped at sundown, possibly as low as freezing, though in record years the mercury had plummeted to ten or twelve degrees. As far as normal rainfall, that might range between three-quarters of an inch per month to double that, but squalls could blow up out of nowhere, bringing thunder, lightning, or cyclonic winds that spooked the steers into stampeding.

  Always something new and different, the foreman had advised Catlin when he’d signed on. Not so much an adventure, he suspected, as a trial for men and animals alike.

  How many, man and beast, would manage to survive, it was still anybody’s guess.

  * * *

  * * *

  The Bar X hands had lined a trestle table in the farmyard well before full light encroached upon the spread. Catlin did not consult his pocket watch to check the time precisely, satisfied to know that it was earlier than he normally rolled out of bed to face another day.

  Two cooks—one from the house, named Sherman Toole, and Piney Rollins, who would man the chuck wagon once they departed, backed by teenager Tim Berryman, called “Little Mary” in his present role—served up breakfast to the hands. The menu they’d prepared included ham and bacon, biscuits and gravy, fried eggs, and tin mugs of steaming black coffee. No one complained about the fare or how much they’d received upon their metal plates.

  While he ate, Catlin surveyed the other hands who would be going on the drive with him, their boss, foreman, and Jared Olney. He’d been introduced to all of them over the past two days while they were getting ready for the trek to Independence, and he’d always been a quick study with strangers’ names.

  Beside him on his left sat Danny Underwood, roughly Art Catlin’s size but balding, though it was often covered by his hat. He had a port-wine birthmark on his jawline but pretended that he didn’t know it; he likely caught hell for years from other kids while growing up. He wore no pistol at the table but possessed a Springfield Model 1855 rifle that he carried in a saddle boot when mounted on his palomino stallion.

  Next to Underwood and to his left sat Zebulon Steinmeier, five foot six or seven, red hair graying at the temples and a paunch hanging over his belt. From seeing him around the spread, Catlin knew that he had a matching set of rifle and six-gun produced by the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. He rode a rose-gray gelding when at work on horseback.

  Next in line to Catlin’s left was thin Job Hooper, who pronounced his given name the way a preacher would on Sunday, reading from the Bible book of that same title, not confused with any ordinary job that Mr. Mossman or his foreman might assign. A First Model Schofield revolver rode his left hip, holstered backward, and when riding on his liver chestnut mare, he kept a Springfield Model 1871 rifle sheathed securely in a saddle scabbard.

  The next in line, still to the left, was Merritt Dietz, armed with a Colt Walker revolver and an Arkansas toothpick to balance out his pistol belt. He owned a seal-brown bay stallion and handled it with skill, despite his relatively hulking size at six foot five, pushing two hundred fifty pounds.

  The last two drovers on his left were Mike Limbaugh and Julius Pryor. Limbaugh was the youngest hand at table and the shortest, maybe five foot seven, with a Beaumont-Adams revolver on his hip. Rebels had favored that pistol, produced in England, during their revolt against the Union, though it hadn’t saved them fighting at close quarters. Limbaugh’s backup weapon for the trail was a Bridesburg Model 1861 rifled musket, used by both sides in the same conflict. His horse, a piebald mare, made Mike look even more diminutive than usual when he was saddled up.

  Pryor was tall and thin, with whipcord muscles and a weathered hide resembling tanned buckskin. His sidearm, a Remington Model 1858 revolver, resembled a Colt at first glance, but its cylinder included “safety slots” milled between chambers, preventing the six-gun’s hammer from resting atop a live cartridge that might be discharged accidentally. He owned a chestnut mare but got along all right with other horses from the Bar X herd.

  Working back along the table’s facing side, seated immediately to Bliss Mossman’s left, Catlin’s gaze fell on Nehemiah Wolford, owner of a grulla mare and Springfield Model 1863 rifle. His nose was bent from being broken once too often, and he often snuffled like a man fighting a cold.

  To Wolford’s left, wolfing his food and keeping quiet while some of the others chattered, Luis
Chávez was one of three Hispanic drovers chosen for the journey, stocky in a way that Catlin hadn’t often seen among his people, mouth nearly concealed by a walrus mustache. His hands seemed small compared to his physique in general, but Catlin knew that he could throw a lasso with the best of them, without hanging up on his Colt 1851 Navy revolver, whether on his feet or riding his cremello stallion.

  The drive’s other two Hispanic hands came next in line. Jaime Reyes carried a Colt Army Model 1860 revolver and kept a double-edged stiletto sheathed in one boot for emergencies, readily accessible while riding his smoky perlino mare. Thinner than his friend Chávez, he stood taller than Chávez by three, perhaps four inches.

  Next in line, Francisco Gallardo had no pistol showing but normally didn’t stray far from his six-shot Colt New Model revolving rifle. Like most long guns in common usage, that weapon had seen its share of service in the Civil War, despite an unfortunate tendency to spray a shooter’s forward hand with lead splinters on firing. Most days, Francisco rode a handsome amber champagne gelding.

  Next to him, Jerome Guenther was slow to speak, encumbered by a stammer, and quick to take offense if someone mocked him or he only thought they were. Big-knuckled hands were scarred from fighting, though he’d faced no trouble on the Bar X spread so far. His rifle was a Springfield Model 1868, and Guenther backed it with a Colt Model 1862 Pocket Police revolver. His horse, a black gelding, was smaller than some of the drive’s other mounts but still bore Guenther’s corpulent form easily.

  Across from Catlin, catty-corner, sat Bryce Zimmerman, owner of a blue roan gelding and a sixteen-shot Winchester Model 1866 rifle. He was moon-faced and bearded, with arms that seemed longer than normal at first glance. He’d lost most of the little finger on his right hand but it didn’t stop him eating crispy bacon two strips at a time.

  Last up, seated across from Catlin, was Linton McCormick, who wore a Gasser M1870 revolver—another foreign pistol, standard issue for the Austro-Hungarian cavalry, chambered for 11mm Montenegrin cartridges. Catlin could only guess where he acquired those in his travels stateside, but he’d wasted none of them so far on practice or the shooting contests other drovers staged for fun. His horse, a dun gelding, was getting on in years but still had life left in him yet.

  To Catlin’s right sat foreman Tippit, who faced their employer at the far end of the table, across twenty feet of swiftly disappearing food. He was a larger man than Mr. Mossman, heavier, but never forgot to treat the Bar X boss with absolute respect, an attitude he’d passed down to the other hands.

  It was a mixed bag, but they’d worked together well so far during the short time since Catlin had joined the team. As to what kind of strain they’d have to bear over the next two months and change, Catlin supposed New Mexico would put them to the test.

  * * *

  * * *

  Any way you looked at it, the territory was a work in progress. Sprawling over 29,640 square miles at present, it served up deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes, and forests to delight explorers and encumber travelers. Of course, since politics determined the size and shape of U.S. territories, any measurements were fluid until statehood was achieved, whenever that might be.

  As everywhere in North America, the Indians came first, though their date and point of origin was as yet unknown to modern scholars. In the 1540s, Spaniards arrived to steal the land from its original inhabitants, enslaving some and killing many more, searching in vain for the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola glimpsed (or imagined in delirium) by a conquistador, Álvar Cabeza de Vaca, whose supposed sighting of boundless wealth got him promoted to rule a massive chunk of South America the Spaniards called New Andalusia. In his absence, other Spanish nobles tried to settle the region Cabeza de Vaca had barely survived, importing farmers and battling natives including the Apache, Navajo, and Comanche.

  Meanwhile, New Spain rebelled against its absentee rulers in 1521, its upstart royals renaming their appropriated home away from home the Mexican Empire. Another 280-odd years elapsed before Thomas Jefferson secured the Louisiana Purchase from France, doubling the United States in size. He sent a party under Lieutenant Zebulon Pike to explore the acquisition’s southernmost reaches, but they were arrested and deported by Mexican troops before they’d completed their mission. That insult festered until 1846, when, irritated by events in Texas, America created the provisional government of New Mexico on land stolen from the original thieves.

  Congress officially created the Territory of New Mexico in September 1850 but statehood remained elusive, boundaries drawn and redrawn over time, ceding part of New Mexico’s land to Texas, lopping off close to half of the region’s landmass to create the Arizona Territory in February 1863.

  By then, the Civil War had been in progress for the best part of two years, with two more yet to run. Pro-slavery forces declared the creation of a Confederate Arizona Territory, which was eradicated with General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in April 1865. Since then, four governors had presided over New Mexico Territory, Michigan native Marsh Giddings the latest in line for that thankless job. He hadn’t been in office long before heated campaigning for New Mexico’s seat in Congress sparked rioting at Mesilla, killing five persons and wounding fifty before U.S. Cavalry troops quelled the mayhem. Now war was brewing in Lincoln County between competing merchants and ranchers, with Giddings seemingly unable to keep order.

  All that was simmering one hundred sixty miles due south of Santa Fe, while Bliss Mossman and his Bar X spread were unaffected by the bloodshed yet to come. Though unaffected by the Lincoln County conflict, Mossman’s spread required close watching in a territory rife with bandits, rustlers, and hostile red men. Catlin knew there’d never be a “good” time for his present boss to travel more than seven hundred miles from home, taking along half of his hands, leaving his wife to raise their son and ride herd on the men he left behind.

  But if he didn’t go—or if he failed to reach the Independence stockyards with the steers he raised this past year—the Bar X would soon go broke, dry up, and blow away.

  What it came down to in the end was no real choice at all.

  * * *

  * * *

  With breakfast done and cleared away, the drovers scrambled to their horses that were standing by. Bedrolls had already been stowed aboard the chuck wagon, less weight for mounts to carry on the trail.

  The Bar X specialized in longhorn cattle, bred for hefty weight, intelligence, and even disposition, although handling them still required determination and a fair degree of courage. Though not the fattest bovines, and known for their lean beef, longhorn bulls still tipped the scales between fifteen hundred and twenty-two hundred pounds, with the cows weighing anywhere from eight hundred fifty to thirteen hundred. Thick hooves could crush flesh and bone during a stampede, but the horns that gave the breed its name were the real danger, measuring eight to ten feet tip to tip.

  A longhorn might not plan to gore you or another steer at any given moment, but the risk was ever present. A four-foot horn could easily impale all but the stoutest men, and on a long trail drive, with no physician in attendance, any major wound to man or horse could be life-threatening.

  On the plus side, longhorns—even bulls—were relatively placid, rarely taking umbrage to the point where they would charge a man deliberately. They also consumed a wider range of grasses, weeds, and other plants than many breeds, a bonus on a long drive with its end point at a slaughterhouse where every pound was money on the hoof.

  Mr. Mossman’s hands would earn forty dollars a month and “found”—the grub served up by Piney Rollins and Tim Berryman—with no cash in their hands until the herd was sold in Independence. Catlin had an edge on other drovers, still holding about a thousand dollars of the payoff he’d collected for the Grimes brothers, but with nowhere to spend it on the trail.

  There were no creature comforts on a drive. Bedrolls meant sleeping on the ground and open
to the sky above. Tents weighed too much and took up too much space to bother with. Inclement weather was a cross they’d bear if it caught up with them, whether they wound up drenched with rain, pelted with sleet, or quaking in unseasonable snow.

  In that respect, the men had no advantage over the livestock they’d pledged to guard.

  As necessary, hands would swap out horses from the drive’s remuda. Bar X horses were adept at herding and pursuing cattle, but the private mounts brought to the drive by part-time hands would have to learn that skill while on the job.

  While steers and horses lived mostly on grass, the trail boss and his men would pass their meals with salt pork, bacon, beans, and bread, washed down with coffee. There would be no beef unless a longhorn died or had to be put down along the trail.

  At an ideal pace, the herd would cover ten to twelve miles daily, cattle grazing as they went, meant to keep up the weight they’d started at as much as possible. They’d drink when water was available—from creeks, streams, possibly a lake somewhere along the way—without retarding progress overmuch. Drovers would keep them pointed toward the northeast, marking Independence as their goal, and watching out for any hazards that arose.

  Those could be natural, like cliffs and gullies, rivers that the longhorns couldn’t cross without assistance in the face of rushing currents, rockslides, and the like. Four-legged predators included cougars, bears, gray wolves, coyotes—maybe even foxes if the smaller canids felt like nipping at a steer’s legs, though they’d likely get trampled into jelly for their pains. As the herd progressed, a changing cast of venomous reptiles would threaten men and animals alike: coral snakes and several breeds of rattlers in New Mexico, more rattlers all the way through Kansas, and copperheads and cottonmouths depending on proximity to water.

  Even the smaller animals—like rodents, living off of seeds and insects as they mostly did—could cost the herd in steers and dollars at their point of sale. Gophers and prairie dogs dug burrows that could lame a steer or horse, snapping a pastern, cannon bone, or knee, requiring that the animal be spared from further suffering by point-blank gunfire to its brain. In that case, with a steer, there would be beef at mealtimes while it lasted. With a horse, only the landscape’s native scavengers would benefit, while Mr. Mossman bore the loss.