The Independence Trail

by Lyle Brandt

  And then, there was Jay Fielding. Or, rather, there wasn’t.

  Somehow, in the midst of conflict, he had disappeared, together with his dun, saddle and all. Only a fool would bet he’d fled in panic from the shooting, rather than precipitating it himself.

  While a couple of the Bar X hands prepared a grave for Berryman, his life snuffed out at age sixteen, Mossman addressed the drovers who weren’t tied up riding herd on the remainder of their stock.

  “You-all know me. I can’t and won’t sit still for this. I aim to get those steers back and to settle up for Tim, or else die trying. If I can’t do that, it ain’t worth going back to Santa Fe.”

  Some of the drovers started muttering at that, and Mossman left them to it for a minute, maybe two, before he spoke again.

  “I figure that my odds of doing it alone are slim and then some, but I won’t ask anyone to come along and join me after all you’ve been through up to now.”

  The mutters faded out to whispers then, Catlin ignoring them and waiting for the boss to finish up. He had a fair idea of what was coming, but he’d never claimed to be a mind reader. In fact, he was surprised when Guenther raised his lightly bandaged arm and said, “I’ll go along, boss, if you’ll have me.”

  “What about your arm, Jerry?” Mossman inquired.

  “I shoot right-handed, boss,” Guenther replied. “It shouldn’t slow me down none.”

  That raised scattered laughter and it seemed to crack the mournful mood.

  And thus encouraged, others started sounding off.

  “I’m in,” said Mike Limbaugh.

  “Yo también,” said Francisco Gallardo.

  “I missed out on the Comancheros,” Job Hooper pitched in. “I may as well try this bunch on for size.”

  “Thanks, all of you,” their boss said. “I was hoping to ride out with five and leave the rest on guard, but four should be all right.”

  “I’ll make it six,” Art Catlin said, already wondering what made him volunteer for his third shooting match since they’d left Santa Fe. Because he had no doubt that there’d be shooting, bloodletting, however it turned out.

  The very thing he’d sought to get away from when he joined the Bar X drive.

  Maybe I’m just a fool, he thought as Mossman smiled at him and said, “All right, then. Six it is. You volunteers arm up and we’ll get going soon as we’re finished with Tim.”

  Longwood, Kansas

  Jed Findlay’s head was achy and his dry throat burned as he rode into Longwood from the south and hitched his dun outside the Badger’s Tail. He went inside, ordered a shot of whiskey and a beer back from the sleepy-looking bartender, sipped a little of the brew to soothe his gullet, then tossed down the amber liquid fire.

  Better, although no one could have told that from looking at him.

  Findlay was bedraggled, unwashed from the trail, smelling of smoke and dust. Dark circles underneath his eyes bespoke a lack of sleep he hoped to remedy before much longer.

  Just as soon as he got paid.

  He had not ridden back to Longwood with the raiders but skedaddled out of camp before they struck in answer to the bonfire he had started. Galloping away, he’d heard gunfire and high-pitched screaming from the chuck wagon. That made him grimace as he thought of someone trapped inside that conflagration, but he knew it wouldn’t worry him for long.

  Whoever fried, his pain was likely over now, eclipsed by death—and when Jed thought about it, he decided there was no good way to die.

  Well, maybe short of checking out at the climactic moment with a pretty girl.

  Not likely in Jed’s case, if he were honest with himself.

  The second item on his list of things to do was getting clear of Longwood, pronto. But since Murray Glatman owed him money for a job now done, Findlay was staying put until he had the cash in hand.

  And if the town’s boss tried to cheat him out of it, there would be hell to pay.

  * * *

  * * *

  Bliss Mossman and his riders had no difficulty following the stampede’s trail from camp in a northeasterly direction. It occurred to Mossman that wherever his longhorns had dashed off to, at least they’d started moving in a rough beeline toward Independence, where he’d meant to take them in the first place.

  On the other hand, that knowledge didn’t help a bit.

  The good news about a stampede was how it flattened and disrupted turf, making the errant livestock relatively easy to pursue.

  The bad news: these steers hadn’t simply run away from lightning or a burst of thunder. They’d been stolen from him, and the youngest member of his trail drive cooked inside the chuck wagon by men heedless of who was slain or injured in the course of acting out their crime.

  And Mossman felt the same lack of concern for them.

  His first thought had been Comancheros, maybe even friends of those his men had dealt with back at Devil’s Crossing, but that didn’t quite add up. For one thing, rustling a thousand steers wasn’t the normal Comanchero stock-in-trade. And for another, even if they knew the thugs who’d died at Devil’s Crossing, how could they select the Bar X drive for vengeance, even if they cared enough to try?

  No, he’d decided. This was something else, beyond his personal experience.

  The nearest town in the direction they were headed, Longwood, hadn’t yet been settled when Mossman’s first herd had made its one-way trip along the Cimarron five years ago. It was a new addition to the landscape, barely two years old, from what he’d heard, and last year Mossman had deliberately bypassed it, thinking the herd would cause unnecessary problems for a small crossroads community.

  But now it seemed his missing steers were on their way directly toward that settlement, being guided by the men who’d stolen them. What that meant, only time would tell, and Mossman saw no point in making bets against himself as to the way it would play out.

  Expect the worst, he thought, and life will rarely let you down.

  * * *

  * * *

  Back at the Bar X campsite, Sterling Tippit wasn’t thrilled with being left in charge of eight cowboys and half a herd of steers.

  Granted, as foreman of the spread and on the yearly trail drives, he would typically stand in between the boss and working hands, making decisions without running back to Mr. Mossman for permission, but today, looking around, that job felt more like punishment than a promotion.

  What, for instance, was he meant to do if Mossman and the men he’d taken with him never made it back? Should Tippit carry on with the surviving steers and drovers to the Independence stockyards? Did he even have legal authority to sell the longhorns that remained?

  Worse yet, what would he tell Gayle Mossman and her son?

  Tippit was not the kind of man who panicked under pressure, and had not reached his breaking point as yet, but he knew well the risks of traveling uncharted territory, taking on responsibility that normally belonged to his superiors. In war, that might result in decorations or a battlefield promotion, but he wasn’t in the military, just a cowboy who was butting up against the limits of his personal experience and duty.

  Everyone Mossman had left behind in camp was glum this morning, nerves on edge and tempers frayed. Hands lingered close to guns as the remaining drovers went about their normal tasks, watching for strays and minimizing any further stress upon the stock. No one could say what obstacle they might encounter next, assuming they moved on, or what would happen if they turned the herd around to go back home.

  Maybe financial ruin, for a start.

  Tippit had seen the bank in Santa Fe where Mr. Mossman kept his savings, but he’d never passed its doors, knew nothing of how much money his boss had gathered over time. They talked about buying supplies as needed, and the market price of steers, but nothing beyond that. Tippit knew how the ranch worked, understood that one b
ad year could leave it hanging by a thread, but that was never meant to be his personal responsibility.

  But now, if Mr. M was riding into trouble that he couldn’t solve with five guns at his back, there would be misery enough to go around, and then some.

  When the drovers came to him with questions now—when would their boss return? where had he gone? How long were they supposed to wait for news?—Tippit could only say that he had no idea.

  And how much longer could he get away with that, before the drovers started to desert, as Julius Pryor had done?

  They had no stake in the Bar X beyond the wages they’d been promised once the herd was sold in Independence. None of them were boss material or cared to be. If it became apparent that their leader wasn’t coming back, why would they wait around indefinitely to protect his property?

  In the short term, with the chuck wagon in ashes and no coffee served that morning, much less breakfast, Mossman’s drovers could not be expected to remain on watch and starve, or do their best against another raid while stomachs growled and their strength failed.

  Long term . . . well, Tippit didn’t even care to think about that now.

  The hell of it was that he didn’t have a choice.

  Longwood, Kansas

  The town was nothing special from a distance, and Art Catlin found that drawing closer to it didn’t change that first impression. It wasn’t the smallest burg he’d seen—say twice the size of Devil’s Crossing on the border between Ford and Hodgeman counties—but it was drab and weary-looking, likely nothing its inhabitants had any cause to celebrate.

  As they approached it in midmorning, Catlin counted half a dozen shops, a livery, and a saloon. There was no church and nothing that he thought might be a school for any children living thereabouts. Art reckoned, from the look of it, that Longwood’s citizens had slim hopes of prosperity and likely focused more on living hand to mouth.

  Arriving at the town’s outskirts, Art saw that he’d been wrong about one of the structures he’d mistaken for a store. It housed a marshal’s office on the ground floor and what looked to be an office overhead. A sign out front identified it as the Longwood Justice Center, telling Catlin that its occupants were prone to ostentation.

  Opposite that building stood the Badger’s Tail Saloon and bawdy house, positioned as if staring down the local law.

  Or were the two sides working in cahoots, perhaps?

  The one thing that he didn’t see was any further sign of longhorns in the neighborhood.

  “No sign of any cattle,” said Job Hooper as they passed a sign that read welcome to longwood.

  “Couldn’t say for sure,” Bliss Mossman answered. “With the state their main street’s in, a herd could pass right through and out the other side without leaving a trace.”

  Eyeing the unpaved thoroughfare, such as it was, Catlin had to agree. The dirt was weathered, beaten flat by wagon wheels and horses’ hooves, baked in the early summer sun. In autumn, he supposed that rain would make a swamp of it, the town prepared to freeze in winter under snow and ice.

  “Reckon we’ll have to ask around,” Mike Limbaugh said.

  “Or not,” Catlin replied as two men wearing badges stepped out of the marshal’s office, studying the new arrivals. One of them, the apparent man in charge, waved them across the street to join him where he stood, his deputy beside him, on a sidewalk made of wooden planks.

  “You look like cattlemen to me,” the marshal said.

  “And you have a discerning eye,” Mossman replied.

  “Climb down and come inside, why don’t you?” said the town’s mouthpiece. Then, to his deputy, “Alonzo, go and fetch the judge, the mayor, and Mr. Crull.”

  Before dismounting, Mossman asked, “You always call the big guns in before receiving a complaint, Marshal?”

  “Whitesell’s the name. And answering your question, no, not as a rule. Thing is, I know what you’ve come looking for. We need to have a talk.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Mayor Harding cleared his throat and looked around Bert Whitesell’s crowded office. Nine men exceeded any number that he’d seen inside that room before, five of the drovers short on chairs, with Deputy Alonzo Markland stationed outside the front door.

  “I guess you wonder why I’ve called you here,” said Harding, after they had all been introduced to one another.

  “I might be,” Bliss Mossman replied, “except you didn’t call us here. We came to ask about some cattle stolen from my herd last night, a few miles out of town.”

  “A point well-taken,” Harding said, feeling a tinge of blush rise in his cheeks. “Let’s start by pardoning each other for misspeaking, shall we?”

  “Come again?” the trail boss said.

  “Granting that you weren’t summoned here, but would have been in time, it’s my task to inform you that your steers were not stolen.”

  The drover’s shifted nervously, and Harding felt tense beads of sweat accumulating under the stiff collar of his dress shirt.

  “You-all may have another name for it around here,” Mossman said. “But when a bunch of men with guns show up at midnight, stampede half my herd while throwing shots around and burning my chuck wagon, that’s theft to me.”

  Harding cleared his throat again, felt foolish doing it, before he said, “In fact, we call it confiscation.”

  “You had best explain that, Mr. Harding,” Mossman said.

  “Landowners hereabouts have suffered damage from herds crossing private property, mistaking it for open range.”

  “Nothing was posted,” Mossman told him.

  “Be that as it may, the land is held in private hands. Its owners have complained to Marshal Whitesell more than once.”

  “About my herd?” Mossman challenged.

  “And herds in general,” Harding replied. “Last night, a confiscation was performed, pending a legal resolution of the trespass, and a special deputy was wounded in performance of his duty. That offense, all by itself, could lead to prison time.”

  “What deputy?” Mossman demanded. “All we saw was men on horseback, firing in the air around midnight, stampeding half of my longhorns. None of the raiders bothered to identify themselves as lawmen, and they wounded one of my men, too. You want to see Francisco’s leg? He’s standing right behind me.”

  “The deputies complain of being fired upon before they had a chance to speak,” said Harding. “Am I right about that, Marshal?”

  “Right as rain,” Bert Whitesell said.

  “I don’t accept that,” Bliss Mossman replied.

  “Unfortunately, your acceptance of the law is neither here nor there.” Turning to Odell Butler, Harding said, “Judge, if you don’t mind weighing in on this?”

  * * *

  * * *

  Butler understood what Harding and the other town officials were expecting him to say. He also realized that if he failed to play his part in the charade, the consequences might be dire. That said, it still required a nearly Herculean effort for him to respond as Longwood’s justice of the peace.

  “I understand our visitor’s confusion,” he began, “but as the law now stands, his violations are clear-cut. We have trespassing for a start, which calls for reparations at the very least. Concerning Marshal Whitesell’s injured deputy, that matter is more serious.”

  “I’m not a lawyer,” Bliss Mossman replied, “but I do know that seizure of a person’s property requires an order from a court with legal jurisdiction.”

  “Which I serve as justice of the peace,” Butler replied, drawing a folded piece of paper from an inside pocket of his frock coat. “And this is my order for seizure of the property at issue, to wit, livestock.”

  Butler saw no need to mention that he’d finished writing out the order over breakfast that morning, backdating it to make it seem legitimate.<
br />
  Mossman perused the writ and slid it back across the table toward its author. “Am I right in thinking that you’re Longwood’s justice of the peace?” he asked.

  “Yes. As I have just explained, sir.”

  “Then I take it that your jurisdiction is restricted to the town itself?”

  Butler resisted grimacing despite a sudden clenching of his ample stomach. “I’m afraid that I don’t take your meaning, Mr. Moth . . . er, that is, Mossman.”

  “Well, you have a county seat at Alma, forty miles or so northwest of here. Wabaunsee County has a sheriff and a district court as usual?”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “And they would have proper jurisdiction over matters such as this.” He made a careless flicking motion toward Butler’s court order with two fingers of his left hand. “And since these so-called deputies came out ten miles or so from town to grab my cattle, it appears to me that neither you nor Marshal Whitesell has a whit of jurisdiction over anything that may have happened well beyond the town’s limits.”

  At that, attorney Tilman Crull chimed in, giving Butler a chance to breathe. “That question might be in dispute,” he said, “but a petition to the district court would mean an average delay of—what’s your best guess, Marshal? Ten days, more or less?”

  “Could be a couple weeks,” Whitesell replied. “Of course, we’d have to hold the cattle till it all got sorted out.”

  Mossman was silent for a long moment, eyes shifting from one adversary to the next, his anger palpable. At last, he said, “But let me guess, now. You-all have a plan to make the problem go away?”

  “That’s most perceptive of you,” Harding said. “And yes, we do.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Art Catlin had one hand resting on the curved butt of his Colt Dragoon, prepared for anything, as Mr. Mossman said, “All right, I’m listening.”