The Dodge City Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “We’re talkin’ twenty thousand head,” Aubin Chambers said. “Hell, we’ll be here till spring.”

  “Maybe you will be,” Dan said, “but I won’t. Let’s ride.”

  The first day’s gather proved Dan correct, as they found a fourth of the herd grazing along the Canadian. Before the day was done, the sun came out and began drying up the standing water left by the rain.

  “By this time tomorrow,” Dan said, “the varmints will be huntin’ water. Some of them will drift back to the Canadian, but we’ll have to search the creeks and streams to the north of here for the rest.”

  The four young horse wranglers had gone in search of the horse remuda, and found nearly all the animals grazing along a creek that emptied into the Canadian. Eagle, the Cheyenne, had a fondness for horses, and went with them. The second day after the rain, the weather had warmed up, and the riders and their mounts were sweating. The women took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and the sun, washing clothes and blankets. Dan stopped the gather an hour before sundown to allow time to drive the longhorns to the Canadian, where the rest of the herd grazed. Eagle rubbed down his roan and turned the animal loose with the rest of the horses. He then set off along the river, seeking the shallows upstream. The westering sun was still warm, and the water was pleasantly cool. Once there was a stand of willows between him and the camp, Eagle stripped and waded into the knee-deep water. Suddenly a twig snapped, and the Indian froze. Lenore DeVoe stood on the bank, not a dozen feet away.

  “Eagle,” said the girl. “Aguila.”

  “Aguila desnudo,” the Cheyenne said. “Licencia.”*

  “Ninguno,” Lenore said. ‘Vir Aguila desnudo en carreta.”

  The Cheyenne glared at her. The stubborn Tejano squaw would not leave. While his mind was in the spirit land, she had seen him naked in the wagon, and had followed him when he came to the river to wash. Angrily, he splashed out of the water, pulled on his buckskins, his moccasins, and finally the shirt Dan had given him. Then, leaving Lenore standing there feeling foolish, he stalked back toward camp.

  “Damn him,” Lenore said, kicking a rock. “He thinks I followed him here to see his naked body again.”

  She walked slowly toward camp, so engrossed in her thoughts she didn’t see Adeline DeVoe watching her. She also was unaware that Adeline had seen the Indian return just a few minutes ahead of Lenore. She said nothing to the girl. There would be time enough for that after Dan rode out for the first watch.

  After three days, more than half the herd was still missing. There was one other possibility Dan didn’t like to face, but it must be considered.

  “We’re less than forty miles from the North Canadian,” he said. “There’s a chance we’ll find the rest of the herd there.”

  “That don’t make sense,” Rux Carper said. “Why would they travel forty miles to water, when the Canadian River’s at their backs?”

  “Because they had standing water from the rain for a day and night,” Dan said, “and since then, the wind’s been out of the north. It might not make sense to you, Carper, but it does to a cow. If the wind brings the smell of water, you follow it, if it’s fifty miles.”

  “That’s gospel,” Monte Walsh said. “I’ve seen the bastards stampede toward the smell of rain when it was somewheres in the Rocky Mountains.”

  That drew a laugh, for it was something every man had experienced at one time or another. Then, with a sigh, they mounted and rode out, faced with yet another day of brush popping. Dan thought it unlikely the long-horns would be found along the Canadian, as it wound its way toward the southeast, but it was something they couldn’t afford to overlook.

  “Today,” he said, “I think we’ll finish up on the Canadian. We’ll cover both banks for ten miles to the east. That should account for any cows that have drifted back to water. The others have to be somewhere to the north, if not on the North Canadian, then along the creeks and streams to the south of it. Tomorrow we’ll move the camp and the cows we’ve gathered. No use in our coming back here every night, when we’ll be hunting cows somewhere to the north.”

  “Unless there’s no water closer than the North Canadian,” Aubin Chambers said.

  “If I’m any judge,” Dan said, “there’ll be runoffs from the North Canadian. These missing cows have found water somewhere, and I don’t think they’ve had to walk forty miles for it. If it’s too far ahead, I think they would have drifted back here. Tomorrow we’ll take what we’ve gathered and move a day’s drive to the north.”

  Adeline DeVoe had wrestled with her problem for hours the night before, without gathering enough nerve to confront Lenore. She expected the girl to become angry, sulking the rest of the night, and she didn’t want Dan dragged into the situation. At least not yet. Instead, she chose a time the next afternoon, while the riders were searching for the scattered herd.

  “Come on, Lenore,” Adeline said. “We’d better wash the rest of our blankets while we have the chance.”

  They found a place along the river where the water was shallow and the bottom was sandy. Once the heavy blankets were wet, it became a job for two people, just wringing the excess water from them. Finally the eight blankets were spread on the grass to dry, and the two women sank down to rest. With a sigh, Adeline said what was on her mind.

  “Lenore, from now on, when Eagle leaves the camp, I don’t want you going after him. For any reason.”

  “I’m almost seventeen,” Lenore snapped, “and I’m a woman. What I do is my business.”

  “As long as you live with me,” Adeline said, “what you do is my business, even if you’re forty.”

  “You don’t like Eagle,” Lenore cried. “You never have.”

  “That has nothing to do with what we are discussing,” Adeline said. “I know, just as everybody in the outfit knows, that the Indian finds a place to wash himself at the end of the day. That, I think, means that he takes off his clothes. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

  “I wanted to talk to him, Ma, and there’s always somebody else around. Anyway, I saw him stripped after he’d been shot, so what does it matter?”

  “You saw Dan stripped after he’d been shot,” Adeline replied, “but I don’t think it would be proper if you followed him for another look. Do you?”

  “That wasn’t why I followed him,” Lenore said, refusing to look at her mother. “He saved me from the stampede, and I … I wanted to talk.”

  “How? He speaks almost no English.”

  “I know some Spanish,” Lenore said.

  “So what did he say?”

  Lenore said nothing, still unable to face Adeline.

  “Well?” Adeline asked.

  “Oh, damn,” Lenore sighed. “He was angry. He said he was naked, and told me to leave.”

  “Ah,” Adeline said, striving mightily not to laugh, “and you didn’t.”

  “No,” Lenore replied, “and he … he thought like you did, that I was just a foolish squaw, there to see him naked. He stomped out of the water, put on his clothes, and left me standing there, feeling like a fool.”

  “A homeless savage,” Adeline said, “yet he’s more a gentleman than you are a lady.”

  Lenore said nothing, her face averted, but Adeline wasn’t finished.

  “You’re dead wrong about one thing, daughter. I do like the young Indian, Eagle. He’s a man. An honorable man, and I’d like to know him better.”

  A fourth day scrounging the breaks along the Canadian produced less than two hundred longhorns.

  “That does it,” Dan said. “Tomorrow we’ll take the drive north and continue our search there. We’re still missing a dozen head of horses, and they’re part of Chato’s bunch.”

  “If he’s somewhere to the north of us,” Rux Carper said, “he ought to know something about our missing horses and cows.”

  “They’re not his responsibility,” Dan said. “He made that clear before we took the trail. It’s all up to us.”

  A
few miles to the east, still camped on the Canadian, Chato had just had a report from a second scout. He now knew where the soldier fort was.

  “Ah,” Chato exulted, “soon we shall meet the Senor Montoya and his band of Mejicano asnos again. For the last time … ”

  *This stretch along the Washita is now known as the “Black Kettle National Grassland,” in memory of Chief Black Kettle and the Cheyennes who died there. George A. Custer and his U.S. Seventh Cavalry rode south from Camp Supply on November 23, 1868. On November 28, without warning, they attacked Black Kettle’s sleeping camp, killing every man, woman, and child.

  *Eagle naked. Leave.

  16

  Dan had their greatly reduced herd on the trail at first light, unsure as to where they would find water, but knowing there must be a source near enough to have attracted the elusive longhorns. Two hours from sundown they found it. A fast running creek angled in from the northwest, and there was a shout from the horse wranglers. The missing horses had been found.

  “Good graze and good water,” Dan said. “We’ll make camp here and use the daylight that’s left to hunt those missing cows.”

  “We ain’t likely to find ten thousand on this creek,” Rux Carper said.

  “I don’t expect to,” Dan replied, “but we have to start somewhere. Do you have any better ideas?”

  “Yeah,” Carper said. “Let’s just move on to the North Canadian, since we know that’s where our cows are.”

  “We don’t know that,” Dan said coldly. “Suppose we skip these creeks and when we reach the North Canadian we don’t find the rest of the herd? Do we then back-trail to the Canadian and search these creeks along the way?”

  “By God, Carper,” Wolf Bowdre said, “if you want to ride on to the North Canadian, go ahead. Dan’s right. We might not find more than three or four hundred head along this creek, but it’s more than we can afford to lose.”

  “I’ll amen that,” Sloan Kuykendall said. “What about the rest of you?”

  There was a shouted chorus of agreement and some harsh looks directed at Rux Carper. Then the riders set out to search as much of the area as they could before dark. There were many mesquite and scrub oak thickets along the creek, and to everybody’s amazement, the initial search produced more than four hundred head of longhorns. While it was still light enough to see, Dan, Wolf Bowdre, Chad Grimes, Cash Connolly, and Ward McNelly ran a tally.

  “Give or take fifty head,” Dan said when they had compared counts, “we have more than twelve thousand of them, and there may be more creeks before we reach the North Canadian.”

  The women of the outfit had long since divided themselves into two groups, taking turns cooking and cleaning up. When the meal was ready, the cooks then became servers, heaping the tin plates as the rest of the outfit passed along the serving line. Adeline DeVoe was serving each plate with a dried apple pie. On impulse, when Eagle reached her position, she placed two of the pies on the Cheyenne’s plate.

  “Gracias, Ma squaw,” the Indian said solemnly.

  The women on the serving line howled with laughter, and so did everybody else who heard. Those who didn’t hear were later told by those who had, and from then on Adeline had to answer to “Ma squaw.”

  “He’s heard Lenore call you Ma,” Dan said. “You should be flattered. Except for Palo, he hardly ever talks to the rest of us.”

  The only one who didn’t find the incident amusing was Lenore. She was still being taught Spanish by Nakita Elfego, and only Nakita realized and understood Lenore’s frustration.

  “He ignores me,” Lenore fumed. “What must I do to get him to notice me?”

  “In the night,” Nakita said, “per’ap you creep naked into his blankets.”

  “You’re no help, Nakita. I think that’s what Ma expects me to do.”

  “She think you be perra, per’ap you become the pera. Why, no?”

  “Because I’m not interested in him in that way,” Lenore said. “Not yet. I just want him to notice me, to admit that I exist, but what does the damn Indian do? He adopts my mother.”

  “Per’ap you don’ use right bait.” Nakita giggled. “His belly become more excited than his other parts.”

  Indian Territory, North of the Canadian. Thursday, December 1, 1870.

  Another day along the creek netted another two hundred head of longhorns, and the outfit again rode due north. Unfortunately, the rest of the streams they came upon were dry, running only after substantial rains.

  “Suppose we ride more to the northeast,” Wolf Bow-dre suggested. “Even if the herd drifted due north, they still might have come downriver a ways once they reached the North Canadian.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Dan said. “If we bear to the northeast, we’ll reach the North Canadian maybe ten miles nearer, and we can follow it all the way to Camp Supply. If we ride due north, after we reach the North Canadian, we’ll still have to ride downriver, looking for cows.”

  “Well, hell,” Rufe Keeler said, “let’s just take the drive northeast to the North Canadian, follow it north, and look for cows as we go.”

  “I’m for it,” Boyce Trevino said. “By reachin’ the river this far south, we’ll stand a better chance of finding the rest of the herd without back-trailin’, and we’ll have sure water all the way to Camp Supply.”

  “Unless somebody objects,” Dan said, “we’ll take the drive northeast to the North Canadian.”

  There were no objections. Only the crackle of the supper fires broke the stillness.

  “In the morning, then,” Dan said, “we’ll head for the North Canadian, and hunt for cows as we go. This won’t add more than ten miles to the distance we would have covered, and once we reach the river, we’ll have water all the way to within a few miles of the Cimarron.”

  “We don’t know for sure how far it is from here to the North Canadian,” Rufe Keeler said. “I reckon that could mean dry camp tomorrow night.”

  “It could,” Dan said, “but I doubt it. I can’t imagine it being more than fifteen miles, and by starting early and driving hard, we can make it.”

  The evenings while Dan rode the first watch had become difficult for Adeline DeVoe, and likely, she suspected, even more difficult for Lenore. After supper was done, there was little to do except sleep, and Adeline was always awake until Dan returned at midnight. After Lenore’s embarrassing rebuke by Eagle, and the Cheyenne’s overtures toward Adeline, mother and daughter had little to talk about. This night was no different.

  “I have to go to the bushes for a while,” Lenore said.

  “You shouldn’t be going alone,” Adeline told her. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No need,” Lenore said. “Nakita Elfego will go with me.

  Adeline sighed. It was obvious she wasn’t wanted, and she was damned if she would follow the girl, whatever the danger. Let the Comanches or the Kiowas have her. Lenore had become friendly with Nakita Elfego, but Adeline doubted the two would be together tonight. Lenore had used that as an excuse to escape her for a while. She had stopped short of warning Lenore not to go near the herd or the horse remuda in the dark. Lenore knew better.

  Once free of Adeline, Lenore didn’t go near the Elfegos. She didn’t mind spending some time with Nakita, but not tonight. Eagle spent his nights with the horse wranglers or with the riders who circled the herd. Tonight he had ridden out with the first watch. The herd was bedded down on the other side of the creek, and three-quarters of a mile beyond was the horse remuda. Lenore began walking along the creek, unsure as to what she intended to do, knowing only that she was sick of the strained relationship between herself and her mother.

  All I want, she told herself, is to be alone for a while, to walk along the creek. Maybe I’ll see the riders as they circle the herd.

  Liar, her conscience said. You’re looking for the Indian.

  All right, damn it, she said to the voice within, I’m looking for Eagle. What can it hurt if I stand on this side of the creek and watch for him?
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  You won’t leave it at that, said the troublesome voice. You were told to stay away from the herd, from the horse remuda.

  But as she neared the herd, she could see only a dark mass. She could be sure it was the drowsing herd only because a restless cow bawled. The night was so dark she was unable to see any of the circling riders. Suppose she crossed the creek and went closer, so she could see better? The trouble was, she had no idea how deep the creek might be. Her feet were bare, and she wore only a flannel shirt and Levi’s. Feeling reckless, she skinned out of her Levi’s and draped them around her neck. Wearing only the flannel shirt, she stepped into the creek. She caught her breath, for it was much colder than she had expected. But she continued, and finally she had to lift the tail of the shirt to keep it dry. She was about to climb out on the opposite bank when a strong hand caught her arm. She swung her fist as hard as she could and had the satisfaction of feeling it connect with a nose and mouth. But it cost her. She lost her Levi’s in the swift running creek, and she felt the buttons pop off her shirt as her attacker seized the front of it. He dragged her out of the water and she drove a knee into his groin. That allowed her to break loose, but her antagonist caught the back of her shirt. Leaving him with it, she went head first into the creek, naked.

  “Eagle,” somebody shouted, “what’n hell’s goin’ on?”

  “Cow in creek,” the Indian said, thinking fast.

  Lenore could barely move her arms and legs in the cold water. The Indian found one of her ankles and dragged her out on the bank.

  “Th-Thank you, Eagle,” Lenore said through chattering teeth.

  “Damn desnudo squaw,” the Indian said. He took to massaging her wet, half-frozen body with his big hands. He said nothing as he worked some feeling back into her. Finally he seized her, turned her belly down across the roan, and mounted behind her. He then crossed the creek, trotting the big horse toward the canvas shelter where the unfortunate Lenore would have some explaining to do. Lenore tried to slide off the horse before they were close enough for Adeline to hear the hoof-beats, but the Indian held her fast. The moon had risen, and combined with the starlight, the night wasn’t nearly dark enough to suit Lenore. Eagle reined up before the shelter, and releasing his grip on Lenore, allowed her to slide off the horse. There was a chill wind now, and her legs were almost numb again. She landed ignominously on her bare behind, only to find Adeline staring at her in total amazement. The Indian offered the only explanation he considered necessary.