The Independence Trail

by Lyle Brandt

  Who even cared?

  “Well, that beats all,” Findlay allowed as Underwood concluded his dull narrative at last.

  “And no more ever came of it,” Danny said, nodding. “That’s the kind of boss he is.”

  “I’m hoping he might take me on full-time, if I fit in all right.”

  That was a total crock, of course, but Findlay was adept at selling lies to gullible strangers.

  “Don’t do him wrong,” Danny advised, “and you should have a decent shot.”

  “That’s good to know. Speaking of which, I’d better get back on my rounds.”

  “Same here.”

  “I’ll see you later,” Jed allowed. “And thanks for the advice.”

  Turning from Wolford, Jed rode on toward Guenther, hoping he’d wrap up the hymn before Findlay was close enough to speak without raising his voice. In fact, the song concluded prematurely, as if Guenther had forgotten the last stanza and refrain.

  Guenther heard Jed approaching, half turned in his saddle, raised a hand in greeting. “How’s it going?” he inquired.

  “Beats working as a whorehouse bouncer,” Findlay said.

  Another job he’d never done, although he’d visited some brothels in his time. He watched Guenther, alert for any signs of being put off by Jed’s humor, but nothing surfaced.

  “Takes all kinds, I guess,” Jerome replied.

  “It does that,” Findlay said, then launched into the spiel he’d used with Danny Underwood, probing for any weakness in the herd’s security or lapse in loyalty to Mossman from his drovers.

  Any weak link was an edge over his prey, something to use against them when the time was ripe.

  While they were talking underneath the stars, casting about to watch for straying steers, Findlay was judging Guenther, from his height and heft to the man’s choice of weapons: a Springfield Model 1868 rifle inside a saddle boot, a Colt Pocket Police revolver holstered on his left hip for a cross-hand draw.

  The weapons gave Guenther six shots in all before reloading, and that chore would take some time, particularly if the drover’s hands went shaky under fire. Jed likely wouldn’t get to pass that information on before the raiders struck, but every observation might be of value later.

  When they had passed a quarter of an hour talking quietly, Findlay rode on, circling the drowsy longhorns, counting horses in the camp’s remuda. He was passing the chuck wagon when someone on the inside—either Piney Rollins or his “Little Mary”—killed the only lamp still showing. After that, by campfire light, Jed scanned the drovers sleeping under blankets, hats over their faces. And imagined them roused out of dreamland by night riders whooping, hollering, and firing guns.

  Nothing Jed hadn’t seen before, but every time was still unique in some small way, human responses being unpredictable until you saw them acted out.

  By which time it was normally too late.

  Findlay had no intention of participating in the raid himself. He’d been employed to scout and infiltrate the trail drive, which was enough dirty work for what he stood to earn. Granted, he would not hesitate to kill, either in self-defense or if he’d been retained for an assassination, but participating in a free-for-all with thirty-odd armed men wasn’t Jed Findlay’s stock-in-trade.

  Another thing he did not plan to do was make any friends among the Bar X drovers, from their boss on down the line. Jed could be amiable, even charming, when it served his purpose, but he wasn’t cultivating any soft spots for the cowboys who would hate him—maybe even seek to kill him—once his lies and motives were revealed.

  He had a few days yet before that fuse burned down to detonation, and beyond that . . .

  What?

  Likely another settlement, another game, either a solo fraud or outright robbery, depending on what he discovered on arrival and his judgment of potential allies.

  But he wouldn’t think about that now, with one job still a week or more from playing out. Distraction of the Bar X team was crucial, but it could prove fatal if Findlay became embroiled in it himself.

  After a while, he’d found, the pigeons all seemed to resemble one another—not in race, or even sex, but through inherent weakness and a willingness to be deceived. Most of them couldn’t see a trap closing around them until it was sprung, and then, sometimes, a crucial difference might be revealed.

  Some folks rolled over, blamed themselves for being duped, and paid up without any argument, but others . . . well, you never could reliably predict what anyone might do. A person previously judged as weak, even defenseless, might turn fighting mad when cornered, throwing caution to the winds.

  And anything could happen then, unless a fellow was prepared. A rough-and-tumble childhood had taught Findlay to strike first if it was required, and to keep his guard up at all times.

  Failure to keep that lesson foremost in his mind was tantamount to suicide.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Wednesday, June 4

  Art Catlin sat across the campfire from Jay Fielding, eating scrambled eggs and sausage on the morning of the new hand’s second full day with the Bar X herd. From what he saw and heard, Fielding was getting along well with other drovers, seeming anxious to fit in with them and pull his weight.

  The sole exception was Nehemiah Wolford, who looked askance at Fielding when the new man wasn’t watching, clearly trying to remember where and when he’d seen Fielding before, if it was true their paths had even crossed.

  Art wasn’t horning in on that, had no desire to stir up dissension in the Bar X ranks. If Wolford got his thinking sorted out, Catlin assumed he’d do the right thing and report any potential problem to the foreman or to Mr. Mossman. That would be the only reasonable play, and Catlin couldn’t see himself precipitating any heat between the two men when he didn’t have a clue what Nehemiah might be fishing for.

  When they were thrown together on the job, by day or night, Catlin had seen no evidence of any ancient feud between them, nothing to suggest that Fielding viewed Wolford with anything but cordiality. Art had observed them talking now and then, mostly at meals, when Wolford masked whatever feelings of uneasiness were dogging him. He’d even seen them laughing once, over some comment Fielding made, and Catlin wondered whether Wolford had decided just to let his fragment of a fading memory evaporate.

  It didn’t look that way this morning, though.

  As Wolford finished off his eggs, he cast a final sidelong look at Fielding, frowned, then rose and took his plate and silverware back to the chuck wagon. Without a backward glance, he moved toward the remuda and prepared to saddle up his grulla mare.

  Business as usual . . . except, not quite.

  Reluctantly, although the last thing that he needed was an extra job, Catlin decided that he’d have to keep an eye on both men for a while, in case whatever Wolford was attempting to recover from his memory broke free and prompted him to act somehow.

  And what would happen if that came to pass?

  It might be nothing. Then again, it could be hell on wheels.

  Art’s only other choice, as far as he could see, would be to have a word with Mr. Mossman or his foreman. But to say exactly what?

  If pressed, he couldn’t say. In fact, Art didn’t have the ghost of an idea.

  Stay out of it, a small voice in his head cautioned. Mind your own business.

  Words to live by, normally . . . but there were times when doing nothing might result in injury or worse.

  So, he would wait and watch as best he could, hoping that he was wrong, that Wolford drew a mental blank and ultimately gave up rummaging around a lifetime made of memories.

  Again, Art told himself if it was something serious, remembering what happened shouldn’t be a problem. He would just let nature take its course, without a prod from anybody else, much less himself.

  Catlin had seen enough trouble, brought muc
h of it upon himself by going into harm’s way voluntarily, and working for the Bar X was supposed to be a change of pace, maybe the start of a new life.

  Out with the old, in with the new, and no distractions, please.

  He was a cowboy now, at least in the short term, and if he never had to fire another shot in anger that would be ideal.

  Longwood, Kansas

  “Too early for a shot of whiskey?” Murray Glatman asked.

  “Never,” Marshal Bert Whitesell replied.

  The men sat facing one another across Murray’s desk, inside his second-story office at the Badger’s Tail, Longwood’s saloon and brothel. It was Glatman’s place, featuring poker, dice, and a roulette wheel in addition to the girls and liquor. Other men might hold official titles in Longwood—the marshal, Mayor Harding, Justice of the Peace Butler—but no one who had spent more than a couple days in town doubted that Murray Glatman called the shots.

  And lately, he’d been branching out.

  “You have the men lined up?” Glatman inquired.

  “All set, ready to go,” Whitesell replied. “Has Findlay figured out his signal yet?”

  Their scout had grudgingly agreed to infiltrate the cattle drive if possible. No word from him since Sunday told Glatman that Jed had pulled it off and planned to stay in character until he judged the time was ripe to move against the herd.

  “He couldn’t work that out until he had a closer look,” Glatman advised the town’s marshal. “Says whatever he decided on should be unmistakable. The boys are ready when that happens?”

  “Only overnight,” Whitesell reminded him. “They can’t risk being spotted in the daytime.”

  “Night it is,” Glatman confirmed, sipping his whiskey from a coffee mug. “How many guns lined up?”

  “I handpicked eight. They’ll be outnumbered two to one,” the lawman said, anticipating Glatman’s question, “but with Findlay on their side and night to cover them, it ought to be all right.”

  The town’s boss gave him hard eyes. “‘Ought to be’ sounds wishy-washy, Bert. It doesn’t reassure me.”

  “Mr. G, you know the score. I can’t go with ’em. Same thing with Alonzo, just in case it falls apart at the last minute.”

  “And again, I’m losing confidence.”

  “Hold on, now. I ain’t saying something will go wrong, you understand. I passed around those extra armbands that you gave me, so the men are covered if they need ’em.”

  “And their story is . . . ?”

  “Just like you laid it out. Trespassing onto private land, and I—well, we—help bargain down the charge. Arrange for payment of a fine in lieu of outright confiscation or a trial that ties ’em up until they miss delivering on time.”

  “That’s if one of your men gets caught alive.”

  “Exactly. One of ’em gets kilt, he can’t do any talking, can he?”

  “I sure as hell hope not,” Glatman replied, half smiling.

  “And if they get clean away—which I intend—the other story plays out smooth as silk.”

  That story put the blame on rustlers who’d allegedly been plaguing Longwood and its environs for a while now, but the lazy kind who’d rather ransom back a herd than try to sell the steers themselves, either at Independence or in Mexico, with all the risks that might entail.

  “You’ve dealt with that as well?”

  “Sure did. Monty McCauley and his kin sit on the herd. Mayor Harding claims he’s carried out negotiations, fronting Longwood’s money as a favor, since it’s more than what the trail boss should be carrying. Judge Butler calls on Mr. Crull to draw up an agreement that will reimburse the town. Trail boss signs off on it, and either me or Markland rides to Independence with ’em, making sure the townsfolk get paid back in full for their good deed.”

  Whitesell ran through the tale as Murray Glatman had conceived it, laying down chapter and verse. It might appear transparent to outsiders, but it was the kind of thing that could happen, particularly in a small town where the founders wanted to protect their reputations as men of integrity. Good Christian men who’d help a stranger out when he was down and asked no more in compensation than their rightful due.

  And after paying off the stooges he’d manipulated, pocketing the lion’s share himself, Glatman imagined he could use a long vacation. He was thinking San Francisco, confident his skills could make him richer still on the Barbary Coast, with its dance halls, casinos, saloons, and brothels. Although he’d never been there, Glatman liked the sound of it, imagined it would feel like coming home.

  “More whiskey for the road, Marshal?” he asked.

  * * *

  * * *

  Jed Findlay was already tired of cow-punching.

  He didn’t let that show, of course, by any word or gesture, any wry expression on his face that would betray ingratitude for being hired with sunshine promises of meager pay on some uncertain future date.

  Findlay had mastered feigning patience as an adolescent, from a master who’d recruited him as an apprentice and a part-time whipping boy. His tutor’s name was Ezra Wright, a confidence man from St. Louis who’d alternated between lectures and beatings until the day when Findlay wouldn’t take it anymore and left him with his throat slit, minus his bankroll.

  From there, Jed’s life had been a roller-coaster ride of holdups, swindles, and the like that kept him hopping and left other bodies in his wake, but he had no complaints.

  Nobody ever claimed that life outside the law would be a cakewalk, but it suited him.

  Today, as they were drawing near to Longwood and the climax of his latest operation, Findlay wondered if the whole thing was about to fall apart on him and vanish like the contents of a newfangled flush toilet—what some people called a “monkey closet”—that he’d read about in luxury hotels back east.

  And in particular, he was worried about one Bar X cowboy whose name and face he couldn’t manage to recall.

  That wasn’t like Findlay. Over the years he’d honed his memory for names and faces that might come around to haunt him somewhere down the road. Rich men he’d cheated out of money, bank tellers he’d left alive, the relatives of people he had murdered for one reason or another, be it contract killing or simple expedience.

  But now . . .

  He couldn’t place Wolford, despite their relatively close association since Findlay had joined the cattle drive. The drover’s face evoked no memory, nor did his voice.

  Still, he’d caught the bent-nosed cowboy watching him—no, make that staring at him—more than once, frowning as if he thought he should remember Findlay but he couldn’t pin it down in terms of time and place.

  At first, Findlay had tried to let it go, hoping that Nehemiah would get over it, but now the clock was ticking on his biggest payday ever, and damn it, he had to know.

  Except he couldn’t bring it up himself, in case . . .

  In case of what?

  Veering off course to stop a pair of longhorns straying from their charted course, Jed reckoned he would have to wait and see.

  * * *

  * * *

  No troubles so far?” Sterling Tippit asked.

  “No, sir,” Jay Fielding answered. “Not a one.”

  “The other men are treating you okay?”

  The new man bobbed his head in the affirmative. “I’ve got me no complaints.”

  Wish I could say the same and mean it, Tippit thought, but kept that to himself. Instead, he said, “So, you won’t mind the second shift tonight, with Wolford and Chávez.”

  Not really asking, making it an order, but without the snap to it.

  “Suits me, sir,” Fielding said.

  “Good man.”

  Riding away from him, Tippit was pleased with how their new hire had been working out so far. They shouldn’t be much longer on the trail, in cas
e the work was getting under Findlay’s skin, but if he wasn’t lying, if he was as content and easygoing as he seemed, Tippit would not have been surprised if Mr. Mossman tried to keep him on.

  Whichever way that went, it was no skin off Tippit’s nose.

  If things ran smoothly over the duration of the cattle drive, he would be satisfied.

  But if they didn’t . . .

  It was Tippit’s job as foreman to make sure the drovers stayed in line and carried out the tasks assigned to them, on time and as required. Some might complain from time to time, but that was only natural, especially for workingmen denied venal pleasures of the flesh for weeks on end. Sterling wasn’t required to serve as their confessor or their nanny, only as a ramrod keeping them in line.

  Passing the chuck wagon, he called to Piney Rollins, “What’s up for tonight?”

  “Mulligan stew,” the cook replied, “using some rabbits that we caught over the past couple of nights.”

  “Those cottontails that I keep seeing since we hit this stretch of prairie?”

  “Maybe not the same ones, but their kin,” said Rollins. “And I’m thinking maybe apple pie for after.”

  Tippit smiled. “Vents in the crust,” he said, “to let off steam.”

  “The way your momma used to do it,” Piney said.

  “Better, I hope,” the foreman answered back. “She couldn’t make a decent pie to save her life.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Piney’s grin said otherwise.

  “My grandma, now,” Sterling went on, “she knew her way around an oven, no two ways about it.”

  “So, you still came out all right.”

  “Can’t rightly answer that,” Tippit replied. “I’m not done yet.”

  With that, he turned his blood bay mare away and went in search of strays or drovers who were slacking off.

  If he was lucky, Tippit would find neither, and the day could finish winding down in peace.

  How many more, until they reached the reeking Independence stockyards? Six or seven if their luck held out.

  And if it didn’t . . . well, then, who could say?