The Dodge City Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “We have an old wagon that could be patched up,” Adeline said, “and two mules. Perhaps I could drive to the other spreads along the river and talk to people. I can’t believe any of them will allow Ledoux to steal them blind without making some move against him.”

  “I hate for you to take the risk,” Ember said, “but the longer we can keep Ledoux thinking I’m dead, the better off we’ll be. All the spreads may not be friendly to us, and those that aren’t, we’ll have to count them as bein’ in Ledoux’s camp.”

  Eagle Pass, Texas. February 15, 1870.

  Daniel Ember resoled his worn-out boots, and Adeline had given him two pair of Levi’s pants and several flannel shirts that had belonged to Barnabas DeVoe. It was a mild February day and Dan was at the barn, working on the old wagon. Denny was with him and Lenore had just brought fresh water from the spring.

  “I think I’ll take Dan some fresh water,” Adeline said.

  “You do that a lot,” Lenore replied with a giggle.

  “Hush,” Adeline said.

  She was halfway to the barn when she saw the scarecrow of a man coming down the trail that led to Eagle Pass. His left arm was missing, his ragged coat sleeve flapping loose in the light breeze. There was something familiar about him, and as he came nearer, Adeline felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.

  “Oh, dear God,” she cried, dropping the water bucket. Barnabas DeVoe had come home.

  2

  When Daniel Ember and Denny heard Adeline’s startled cry, they left the barn on the run, and the scene that followed was painfully awkward. Barnabas DeVoe halted ten paces from Adeline, and with the wind to his back, she could smell the whiskey. That and the stink of a long unwashed body almost overcame her. DeVoe’s dirty gray hair trailed down his shoulders, and his beard was halfway down the front of his ragged shirt. His trousers were much too large for his wasted frame, and were secured with a length of rope. The uppers of his brogans had split, revealing his sockless feet. But what frightened Adeline the most was his eyes. In them was a look of madness, and they did not linger on her or the children. Instead, DeVoe fixed them on Dan Ember, and when he spoke, it was with a snarl.

  “Got you ‘nother man, huh? Whilst I’m away bein’ shot to hell, you had this sonofabitch sharin’ yer bed.” He took a menacing step toward Ember.

  “No, Barnabas,” Adeline cried, getting between them. “This is Dan Ember. He was hurt just before Christmas, and we took him in. It’s the truth. Ask Denny and Lenore.”

  “You lyin’ wench,” DeVoe shouted. His fist caught Adeline on the shoulder, and she would have fallen if Dan hadn’t caught her.

  “Damn you,” Denny shouted, “you leave my ma alone.” He brandished the hammer they’d been using at the barn.

  DeVoe looked at the boy as though he’d never seen him before. Then he returned his attention to Daniel Ember.

  “You,” he said through clenched teeth, “whoever you are, git the hell off off’n my place, an’ don’t come back.”

  Daniel Ember said nothing. Without a backward look, he walked away, taking the trail that led west to Eagle Pass.

  “Dan!” Denny shouted, running after him, “Dan!”

  Ember waited until the boy caught up to him.

  “Dan, don’t leave us,” Denny cried. “Something’s wrong with him. He wasn’t like that.”

  “Whatever he is, he’s still your daddy,” said Dan. “Give him time.”

  “Do you have to go?”

  “You heard him,” Dan said. “There’s no room here for me. Adios, pard.”

  Denny was so choked up he couldn’t speak. He watched Daniel Ember for as long as he could see him, until he disappeared in a stand of cottonwoods. Then he walked slowly back to where his mother and father still stared at one another. Lenore was biting her lip, her troubled eyes on the derelict who was her father. Again DeVoe spoke.

  “Git in the house, woman, and fix me some grub.”

  Adeline turned and walked toward the house. Anything was better than looking into the fearful eyes of this stranger who claimed to be her husband. Lenore followed her, and Denny had returned to the barn, none of them yet able to accept this change that had disrupted their lives. Adeline stirred up the fire, preparing to warm up what remained of the beef stew.

  “Damn him,” Lenore cried, “why did he have to come back now?”

  “Hush, daughter,” Adeline said. “He’s your father.”

  “No,” Lenore said. “My daddy died in the war. Mama, that man, whoever he is, is mad. I … I couldn’t look into his eyes. He looked right through me, as though I wasn’t there. He drove Dan away, and I … I liked him.”

  “So did I,” Adeline said. “Perhaps too much.”

  “Mama … ” The girl blushed.

  “What is it, daughter?”

  “Is he … going to sleep in your bed?”

  It was Adeline’s turn to blush. “Lord, daughter, I just don’t know. If he chooses to, then what choice do I have?”

  “I won’t let him,” the girl said hotly. “I’ll sleep with you just as I have since he left. He’ll have to throw me out.”

  “Bless you, daughter,” Adeline said.

  While she was ashamed of her negative feelings toward this man who was legally her husband, her fear and revulsion overcame her shame. But she dreaded the night and the consequences it might bring. In the larger of the cabin’s two rooms—where the cooking and eating were done—there were two bunks. One was Denny’s, and the other had belonged to Lenore, before Barnabas DeVoe had gone to war. Would Barnabas take the extra bunk, or force his way into her bed? Adeline wondered. Her thoughts were interrupted by DeVoe’s entry into the cabin. Without a word, he kicked a stool near the table and sat down. Adeline took the pot of stew from the fire and set it on the table along with a long-handled, homemade wooden spoon. She then brought a tin cup of springwater. DeVoe took one swallow and poured the rest on the floor.

  “Damn you, woman, bring me some whiskey.”

  “There is no whiskey,” Adeline said, “and if there was, I’d pour it on the ground before giving it to you.”

  He flung the tin cup as hard as he could, and it narrowly missed her head. Adeline retreated to the bedroom she shared with Lenore, and found the girl white-faced and trembling. The two of them remained there until they heard DeVoe go out. Shortly afterward Denny came in.

  “He’s settin’ on the porch, Ma, lookin’ off toward the river,” Denny said. “What are we gonna do?”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Adeline replied. “He’s your father, and he’s the head of this house.”

  Barnabas DeVoe sat on the porch the rest of the day, staring vacantly toward the Rio Grande. He seemed not to hear when Adeline timidly invited him to supper, and when Adeline and Lenore retired to their bed, he was still sitting there. Far into the night he entered the cabin, and Denny lay awake in the darkness, hardly daring to breathe. DeVoe ripped away the sack curtain that covered the doorway to the room where Adeline and Lenore slept, and they could see the shape of him in the darkness. Suddenly he laughed.

  “No need to hide from me, woman. You’re trash. I ain’t one to take another man’s leavings.”

  He turned away and flopped down on the extra bunk in the outer room.

  “Mama,” Lenore said, “why does he think you and Dan—”

  “I don’t know,” Adeline whispered. “I think something that happened during the war has affected his mind. He’s not himself.”

  For five days the uneasy situation continued, and on the afternoon of the fifth day, a horseman rode along the river trail. Burton Ledoux reined up in the yard and, without waiting to be asked, dismounted. Barnabas DeVoe sat on the porch, saying nothing. Ledoux spoke.

  “I’m Burton Ledoux, the Federal tax assessor from San Antonio. I’m here about your taxes, Mister … ”

  “Barnabas DeVoe,” the one-armed man snarled. “You and your taxes be damned, and I catch you on my place again, you Yankee bastard, and
I’ll kill you. Now git.”

  Without a word, Ledoux mounted and rode away. Adeline and Lenore peeked fearfully around the edge of the door. DeVoe hadn’t moved from where he sat on the porch.

  “Ma,” Denny said, “he shouldn’t of done that. You know what they done to Dan. They’re likely to come back tonight and burn us out.”

  “Perhaps,” Adeline said, “but we have no money for taxes. Whatever Ledoux does he would likely have done anyway.”

  But the night passed without incident, as did the following day, and the uneasy solitude itself got to them. Barnabas DeVoe sat on the porch as usual, ignoring the call to supper. Whatever had unbalanced his mind hadn’t dampened his caution, for he had taken Denny’s carbine and leaned it against the wall behind him. There was no moon, and the riders came just after dark. Reining up in the shadow of an oak, one of them issued a command.

  “Come out here, DeVoe. We got business with you.”

  DeVoe responded with a blast from the carbine, and there was a cry of pain. But it became DeVoe’s final act. A dozen guns roared out of the night, and the only sound was that of the riders galloping their horses south along the river trail.

  “They killed him, Ma!” Denny cried. “The bastards gunned him down!”

  “Light the lantern, Denny,” Adeline said, her voice shaking.

  Denny found the lantern, raising its globe with a shriek. All the coal oil they had was in the lantern, and they used it sparingly, when they had to.

  “Ma,” Denny said, “you and Lenore stay inside. I’ll go look.”

  “No, son,” Adeline said, “this is more of a burden than you should have to bear alone. I’ll go with you.”

  “I’m going too,” Lenore said. “I have the feeling this is the start of something terrible, and I won’t be able to hide from it.”

  Barnabas DeVoe had fallen with his back against the wall, and he might have been sleeping. With shaking hands Denny stretched him out on the porch.

  “Dear God,” Adeline cried when Denny had unbuttoned the bloody shirt, “he’s been shot seven times.” It-was a futile gesture, seeking a pulse, and she released the lifeless, bony wrist.

  “Ma,” Denny said, “you and Lenore go on back in the house. Just bring me somethin’ to cover him. I’ll stay here with the gun until morain’, so’s the varmints don’t get at him.”

  Adeline and Lenore lay awake until far in the night before drifting into troubled sleep. Young Denny remained with the body of his father until first light. He then took the spade from the barn and began digging a grave under a big poplar near the river. Wrapping the wasted body of Barnabas DeVoe in a blanket, Adeline and Denny lowered him into the grave. Adeline read from the Bible, barely making it through the Twenty-third Psalm. Finally the three of them broke down and wept for the gentle man who had left them in 1861 and had never returned….

  Denny had filled the grave, returned the spade to the barn, and gone to the house. The meager breakfast was a silent affair, nobody eating except Denny. Lenore hadn’t fully recovered from her weeping, and it was her cry that broke the painful silence.

  “Now what are we going to do? They won’t leave us alone.”

  “I’m taking one of the mules and riding after Dan Ember,” Denny said. “If we have to fight, then let’s build an outfit that can win.”

  “Denny,” Adeline said, “you’re the man of the house now. You’ve just made your first decision, and it’s a good one. Just be careful, son. Tell Dan we have to fight, so he won’t be hurting us. Ask him to come back to us.”

  With regret, Daniel Ember had left the DeVoe place and headed for the little town of Eagle Pass. All he had was the clothes on his back and his Colt, and now he would have to risk Burton Ledoux discovering he was alive before he’d had an opportunity to organize any opposition. But one thing hadn’t changed. He still was determined to destroy Burton Ledoux, if it cost him his life. He hoped the little town of Eagle Pass would be insignificant enough to have been overlooked by Union soldiers and carpetbaggers, and to his relief, he found that to be the case. The doors and windows of what had once been the town hall were boarded up. The only other buildings were the mercantile and the combination blacksmith and livery. Dan tried the livery first. On a board above the door, in crude black letters, somebody had painted: Ab Jenks, prop, Jenks was a big man, gone to fat, and friendly enough.

  “Hell, pardner, I don’t need no help. Ain’t had a payin’ job in weeks. If I had anywhere to go, and could afford to go, I’d close up and leave. You might try old Silas Hamby, at the mercantile. He’s got a ranch, and neither of his two boys has come back from the war.”

  “God knows I could use some help at the ranch,” Hamby said when Dan approached him, “but I can’t afford to hire anybody. But that may not make any difference. That new Federal tax man from San Antone was here, and he’s doubled my taxes. I may lose the place.”

  “Don’t worry about the pay,” said Dan. “I’m just back from the war, and I’d be satisfied with grub and a place to sleep. I was born and raised south of Uvalde, and when I came home, I didn’t have one. They’ve already taken my place.”

  Silas Hamby looked Daniel Ember over carefully, his old eyes lingering on the tied-down Colt with the polished walnut grips. Ember waited patiently, his fierce eyes and haggard face a picture of defiance.

  “Make yourself to home,” Silas said. “I close at six, and we’ll ride out to the place. Something’s got to happen. Maybe it’ll be for the better.”

  Denny DeVoe had no idea how he was going to find Daniel Ember, but he knew that somehow he must. The nearest town west of Eagle Pass would be Del Rio. Denny had never been there, but he had heard that it was fifty miles or more, a formidable distance to a man afoot. That left only Eagle Pass, with nobody from whom a man could beg a meal, unless it was from Silas Hamby. Old Silas had lost both his sons to the war, and he seemed to feel a kinship to the DeVoes, for they had lost a father. In his haste to be gone, Denny hadn’t asked the advice of his mother, and now he must rely on his own judgment. Certainly he would have to tell Silas about his father having been gunned down, but how could he justify his search for Dan Ember without betraying Dan’s secret? Silas would be hit hard by the increased taxes, and he should be one of those desperate ranchers to whom Dan wished to appeal, but could they trust Silas Hamby? This was Daniel Ember’s plan, and Denny desperately needed Dan’s advice. Denny tied the mule to the hitch rail and reluctantly entered the store. “Come in, Denny,” Silas said. “Your pa was by here last week, and he looked poorly. How is he?”

  “We buried him this mornin’, Mr. Silas.”

  The news hit Silas Hamby hard, especially when he learned how Barnabas DeVoe had died.

  “I feared it would come to this,” Silas said. “Is there anything I can do, Denny?”

  “No, sir,” Denny replied, “unless you can help me find Dan Ember. He was helping us fix up our place, but Pa didn’t like him, and … and Dan left. I need to find him, Mr. Silas, because them Yankee bastards that killed Pa will be back, and ... and there’s nobody but me. ...

  “I think I can help you with that, Denny,” Silas said. “When I close the store, you can ride out to my place and stay the night.”

  Daniel Ember seemed surprised to see Denny, and greeted him warmly. Denny wasted no time in telling his story, and for a long moment after he became silent, Ember said nothing. When he finally spoke, it was to Silas.

  “I reckon you just lost a hand, Silas.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Silas said, “I can’t say I regret it. This is somethin’ that’s touchin’ us all, Dan, and something’s got to be done. If I ain’t gettin’ out of line with my tongue, I’ll back you if you’re aimin’ to fight this Burton Ledoux.”

  “I’m aimin’ to do just that,” Dan said. “Let me tell you why, and then I’ll tell you what I aim to do. I’ll need your help and that of as many other Texans as we can gather.”

  For half an hour Daniel Ember talked, and wh
en he had finished, old Silas slammed his fist against the table. Then he slapped Dan on the back, roaring his approval.

  “You’re Texan to the bone, by God. I knowed it when I laid eyes on you. I’ll back you till hell freezes. When and how do I start?”

  “You can start by loaning me a horse and saddle until I can pay you,” Dan replied.

  “You got ‘em,” Silas said. “What else?”

  “Get word to every rancher you can trust,” Dan said, “and get a commitment from them. You’d better get a vow of silence too. Until he have enough of a gather to set up an armed camp, Ledoux’s killers can pick us off one at a time, just as they did Barnabas DeVoe. We’re going to need riders too, and I don’t mean just the ranchers themselves. Tell them to hire hell-for-leather Texans who’ll work for forty and found, to be paid at the end of the drive. Promise a bonus of a hundred dollars for every man who finishes the drive.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear!” Silas shouted. “What else?”

  “For as long as we can get by with it,” Dan said, “we’ll keep the herd split, on individual ranches, but with a common brand. Then when we have at least ten thousand head, we’ll bring them together in a common herd with a twenty-four-hour-a-day guard until we can drive them north to market. Have every rancher riding with us brand his cows with a circle star, the sign of the Texas Rangers.”

  The following morning, with Silas Hamby’s support enthusiastically assured, Dan Ember and Denny DeVoe rode back to the DeVoe place. Silas had mounted Dan on a big black, with a double-rigged Texas saddle. With just such a need in mind, Silas had hoarded ammunition, and in an old saddlebag, Dan now carried a thousand rounds for his Colt. From his limited supplies, Silas also sent other needed provisions neither Dan Ember or the DeVoes could have afforded.