“Fall in creek, Ma squaw. Bonito pero torpe.”*
With that he rode away. Adeline returned to their shelter and came out with a blanket. Gratefully, Lenore wrapped herself in it and stumbled into the shelter to escape the night wind. Adeline got more blankets, spread them over Lenore and began rubbing her feet. Finally she took a tin cup, went to the distant coffeepot, and returned with a steaming cup of coffee. Lenore took it, holding it in both hands, savoring the warmth. When the cup was empty, she put it down. Only then did she speak.
“I know what you’re thinking. You might as well say it.”
“If you know what I’m thinking,” Adeline said, “then there’s no point in me saying it.”
“Oh, damn it, Ma, scream at me, take a switch to me, do something. “
“You want me to punish you so you’ll feel better,” Adeline said. “Well, it was you who told me you’re a woman, so you’ll not get out of it with a switching. I don’t know what you did, how you did it, or why you did it, and I don’t care. All that concerns me is that you may have caught your death from dunking yourself in the creek. I don’t suppose I dare ask what became of your clothes?”
“He said I’m pretty, Ma.”
“As well as clumsy,” Adeline said, “and he had to see you stark naked to reach that conclusion.”
Lenore was silent, and despite the girl’s transgressions, Adeline smiled in the darkness.
The North Canadian. Saturday, December 3, 1870.
By Dan’s estimate the drive to the North Canadian— driving northeast—was about twelve miles. It was too
late in the day to begin a cow hunt, but to their surprise, almost a hundred head of their missing cattle had come to the river to drink.
“That’s a good sign,” Dan said. “Tomorrow we’ll brush-pop both banks of the river, working our way northwest.”
“There’s a chance some of ‘em may have drifted downriver,” Walt Crump said. “It’d be easier, ridin’ down there a ways now, than to have to double back.”
“It would, for a fact,” Dan said. “Suppose we take Walt’s suggestion, and maybe four of us ride downriver another five miles or so? Do any of you object to that?”
“I don’t,” Wolf Bowdre said. “There’s a chance we’ll ride this river all the way to Camp Supply and still be missing more cows than we can afford to lose. I’d say let’s cover another five—or even ten—miles downstream, so that we’ll know we don’t have to back-trail.”
“That gets my vote,” Skull Kimbrough said.
“And mine,” other riders shouted.
“So be it,” Dan said. “At first light I’ll take Wolf, Skull, and Walt, and we’ll ride as far as we have to, just to be sure we’re not leaving any of our cows downriver. The rest of you will ride northwest. Any cows you gather, drive them back to camp, to the rest of the herd. We’ll do the same. One more day and we should be ready to drive on to Camp Supply, rounding up our herd as we go.”
Knowing that the soldier fort was only sixty-five miles to the north, Chato led his band northwest, bypassing the trail drive by many miles. One of Chato’s lieutenants, Delgadito, listened as the renegade chief explained his tactics.
“We ride beyond the soldier fort,” Chato said, “and there we wait for the Senor Montoya and his perros.”
“But what of the Tejanos and the vacas? We have agree to protect them.”
“We do protect them,” Chato said impatiently. “Why you think Montoya and his bastardo perros follow? They seek to kill the Tejanos, to steal the vaca and the caballos. To do these things, they must kill us, but they dare not until we are beyond the soldier fort. There, we will be waiting for them.”
“Ah,” Delgadito said, “the ambush, no?”
“Si,” Chato said. “We leave them for the busardo and the coyote to pick their bones.”
To the south there was some disagreement between Santos Miguel Montoya and Burton Ledoux.
“Damn it, Montoya,” Ledoux said, “the drive has turned to the northeast, while you and your men have gone to the northwest. Would you be kind enough to tell me just what the hell you have in mind?”
“The Tejano herd have stampede, senor,” Montoya said, “and the Tejanos look for them along the river. How many times I tell you we do nothing until the drive is beyond the soldier fort? We follow Chato and the Mejicano Indios. You may follow the Tejanos and their cows to the soldier fort if you wish, but we do not.”
With that, Montoya stalked angrily away. Loe Hager-man said nothing, but the antagonistic Black Bill turned on Ledoux.
“For three damn months I been layin’ out in the brush eatin’ beans and drinkin’ bad coffee. Now I aim to stop by that soldier camp for a bait of decent grub and a shot of whiskey.”
“Go ahead,” Ledoux said. “You heard Montoya. Him and his bunch won’t be going near the fort, nor will Chato and his men. So you go waltzing right in there, and you’ll be mighty easy to remember. Montoya aims to ambush the Mejicanos and then the Tejanos. That kind of killing won’t go unnoticed with the army sending out patrols. We’ll follow Montoya, bypass the fort, and I don’t want to hear another damn gripe out of you.”
Loe Hagerman grinned, earning for himself a murderous look from Black Bill. The trio rode on, following Montoya and his bunch.
At dawn Dan took Wolf, Skull, and Walt, and the four of them rode along the North Canadian to the southeast, while the rest of the outfit followed the river upstream.
“I’ll come off like a damn fool for suggestin’ this,” Walt said, “if we waste all day and ride in with no cows.”
“It’s a good idea, whether we find any cows or not,” Dan said, “because we aren’t sure where the cows are. If we moved on without searching this part of the river, there’s always a chance we’d have to come back, and that would take even more time.”
“Damn right,” Wolf said. “It always takes longer when you don’t do it right the first time.”
“It’s some aggravatin’ not findin’ any tracks,” Skull said, “but there was plenty of rain after the stampede.”
Despite the lack of sign, they began finding remnants of the scattered herd. First there were only a few cows, but the number grew as they followed the river southeast.
“We’ll leave these bunches where they are,” Dan said, “and ride on until they run out. Then we’ll drive the final bunch upstream, adding the others as we go along. I think we’re going to do surprisingly well.”
And they did. Well before sundown, Dan and his companions drove eleven hundred head of the missing longhorns upriver. The rest of the outfit rode in with another nine hundred head.
“It’s time for a tally,” Dan said. “Tomorrow we’ll take the herd upriver, adding to it as we go. We shouldn’t be more than four or five days south of Camp Supply, and we’ll have sure water all the way, so we can devote our time to gathering cows wherever we find them.”
Wolf, Dan, Walt, Skull, and Palo ran individual tallies and then compared their totals. By the time they were finished, supper was almost ready. Dan announced the results.
“All of us agree on 17,300. That means there’s twenty-seven hundred still loose, and that’s if we settle for twenty thousand. Before the stampede, we had an extra five hundred and fifty.”
“That’s still too damn many to lose,” Boyce Trevino said. “I say we find every blessed one of ‘em before we quit.”
“I’ll buy that,” Skull Kimbrough said, “as long as we find ‘em along the North Canadian, between here and Camp Supply. If we don’t find ‘em there, we got nowhere else to search.”
“That’s how it stacks up,” Dan said. “We’ll have to take what we find along the river, on the way to Camp Supply, and let that be final.”
Breakfast was usually a hurried affair, while supper was just the opposite. Riders lingered over coffee, while the women who had done the cooking for the day had their own suppers. On the days when Adeline and Le-nore weren’t part of the group doing the cooking, they took t
heir supper with Dan. This was such a day, and to the surprise of them all, Eagle joined them. He said nothing, hunkering down with his tin plate in one hand and eating with the other. His first few meals he had eaten with his hands, but he had since developed a remarkable dexterity with knife and fork, simply by observing the others as they ate. He never seemed to get enough coffee. When he put down his tin cup, it was almost empty. Lenore took it to the nearest coffeepot, refilled it, and returned it to him.
“Gracias,” the Cheyenne said.
Dan winked at Lenore, who could scarcely contain herself. It was the first time the stubborn Indian had spoken directly to her without insulting her. When he had finished eating and had drunk the rest of his coffee, he took the tin plate, cup, and eating tools to the huge iron pot where they would be washed.
“I was startin” to wonder what you’d have to do to get that hombre to say something to you,” Dan said. “Getting thrown in front of a stampede didn’t work.”
“She has a way about her,” Adeline said innocently.
Dan laughed, and Lenore became embarrassed. Dan had said nothing, but Lenore almost knew Adeline had told him about Eagle bringing her in belly down across his horse, jaybird naked. Lenore was on the serving line at breakfast the next morning, and instead of the usual two biscuits, she gave Eagle four. He said nothing, but closed his left eye in a slow wink.
“Hai,” Nakita Elfego said, having witnessed the act, “Lenore bait Injun with biscuits.”
Everybody within hearing laughed, Adeline the loudest of all, but Lenore didn’t care. At least he knew she existed, and she thought he might be on the brink of seeing her as something more than a clumsy squaw.
Along the North Canadian. Monday, December 5, 1870.
The outfit took the trail at dawn. Now that Silas was gone, Fanny Bowdre drove the lead wagon. The wranglers had become adept at handling the remuda, and the horses took the trail readily. The lead steers were driven into line, and the rest of the herd followed. Accompanied by Eagle, Dan rode well ahead of Fanny Bowdre’s wagon. Any of the missing cows Dan and Eagle flushed out, they would drive near enough for the flank and swing riders to simply run the strayed animals in with the moving herd. It worked extremely well. Some bunches of cows Dan and Eagle discovered were large enough to run in at the tag end of the herd. Dan tried to keep a tally in his head, but soon gave it up, as the cattle became more numerous. It began to look as though they might recover all the missing longhorns, and wishing to know their progress for the day, Dan halted the drive early enough for a tally. For that purpose, he had left the herd strung out along the river for a mile. He sent Monte Walsh, Tobe Barnfield, Ward McNelly, Rux Carper, Cash Connolly, and Chad Grimes to run the talley. When it was finished, all the riders brought the herd into a bunch, where they would be bedded down for the night. Dan announced the results of the count at suppertime.
“We added another fifteen hundred head, bringing our total to 18,800.”
“Another day like today,” Kirby Wilkerson said, “and we’ll have ‘em all.”
“We may not have another day as good as this,” Wolf Bowdre said. “We’re quite a ways from where that stampede started, and there’s a limit to how far longhorns will run from a storm. I’d say these brutes we’re finding now hit the river quite a ways south of here and just grazed their way north, along the river.”
“That may be the case,” Dan said. “We did a good search downriver, so I think tomorrow may be the end of the gather.”
“Riders comin’,” Denny DeVoe shouted as he galloped his horse downriver, “and this bunch don’t look like Texas Rangers.”
There was an even dozen of them. They rode in from the east and looked like anything but lawmen. They rode good horses, every man wore a Colt, and most of them carried saddle guns as well. They reined up fifty yards from the (tying supper fire, apparently awaiting an invitation to advance. But they didn’t get one. Dan didn’t like the looks of them, and went to meet them on foot. He didn’t have to ask for backup. Wolf Bowdre walked to his left, Monte Walsh to his right, and other riders were behind him. The lead rider sat with one leg hooked over his saddle horn, a gone-out cigarette dangling from his lips. He wore range clothes, as did all the others. Dan and his companions halted a few yards away, waiting.
“I reckon,” the man said, “you ain’t invitin’ us in.”
“You’re right,” Dan said. “I’m not.”
“That could be tooken as downright unneighborly.”
“Take it any way you like,” Dan said, “and unless you got some mighty convincing reason for being here, the bunch of you turn around and ride out.”
“I’m Mitch Rowden,” the stranger said, “and I ain’t used to bein’ talked down to. Fact is, me and my riders come by to do you a favor. I don’t know where you’re takin’ them cows, and it don’t make no difference. We got a kind of insurance business. For, say, ten cents a head, we can guarantee you that you’ll git where you’re goin’. Elsewise, come dark, some coyotes could just scatter them cows to hell an’ gone, if you git what I mean.”
The roar of the Colt seemed unnaturally loud, and Rowden’s hat leaped from his head. Dan didn’t return the weapon to its holster. Instead, he walked a step nearer, and when he spoke, his voice was cold, flint-hard.
“Any coyotes comin’ near this herd will be shot dead or hung from a limb for buzzard bait, if you get what I mean. Now ride, the lot of you, and keep ridin’.”
Wolf Bowdre’s Colt roared, and to Dan’s left a rider pitched out of his saddle, dropping his half-drawn weapon.
It was enough. The rest of them reined their horses around, careful to keep their hands clear of their weapons. One of the riders had caught the reins of the riderless horse. The fallen man was left where he lay, and the rest of them rode out.
“Damn it,” Wolf Bowdre said, “where’s Chato and his bunch when we need ‘em?”
“They’re likely scouting ahead,” Dan replied. “We’re not much more than thirty miles south of Camp Supply, and I doubt Chato expected this kind of trouble, with the military so near. For that reason, I’m not sure we can count on them tonight, and maybe not until after we’ve passed the fort. They’ll be shying clear of the soldiers. Tonight I think we’ll all ride watch. We’re gathering cows from the last stampede, and I don’t even want to think about the possibility of another.”
“Me neither,” Skull Kimbrough said. “Let’s take our Winchesters and cut them varmints down before they get within hollerin’ distance of our cows.”
His response was quickly echoed by the others. Dan stripped the dead man of his Colt, pistol belt, holster, and a Bowie knife. These he presented to Eagle.
“Gracias,” the Cheyenne said, pleased.
“Kirby,” Dan said, “you and Sloan drag that dead varmint off in some arroyo and cave some dirt in on him. Then we’ll saddle up and wait for that bunch of coyotes. It’ll be a long night, and when we break for coffee, we’ll do it two at a time. Nobody rides away from the herd without the rest of us knowing. If we don’t know you’re gone, when you return, you could be shot by mistake. Ride careful, all of you.”
*Pretty but clumsy
17
It was a long night, with no sleep for any of the riders. Most of the women were awake as well, and those who had guns kept them close at hand. But nothing disturbed the serenity of the night. Far to the west there was an almost constant blaze of lightning, and the wind grew noticeably colder. Even the stars seemed to withdraw, as the storm grew in intensity, and the first cold rain began three hours before dawn. The six wagons had been lined up in pairs of two. With canvas stretched from one to the other, there was a dozen feet of shelter between the two. There was then room for three cook fires and for the outfit to hunker out of the rain and eat. Despite the possibility of attack, Dan had those who were to do the day’s cooking begin the breakfast almost two hours before first light.
“I want the herd moving as soon as it’s light enough to see,” Dan told
the riders. “I look for this rain to change to snow sometime during the day, and we’re in a poor position to weather a storm.”
The wind and rain swept in out of the north, and with the herd trailing along the North Canadian to the northwest, it was purely hell with the lid off. The longhorns wanted to turn their backs to the storm, to drift with it, and their every move was dedicated to that end. Dan rode from one end of the herd to the other, encouraging the riders, and then rode upriver, ahead of the drive. There had to be a canyon somewhere to hole up and weather the storm. The wind and rain were bad enough, but when it changed to snow, forcing the longhorns into it would become impossible. While this was new country to them all, Dan had heard of these winter storms that swept down from the Rockies, dropping the temperature to zero and below across the plains of Kansas and Nebraska. Already his hands and feet were numb, and the fierce wind tugged at his tied-down hat, forcing frigid fingers beneath the scarf that protected his ears. The terrain became more rugged and the river widened, its banks becoming higher, but there was no overhang. Willows and underbrush crowded the river banks, offering sanctuary for the longhorns, but Dan rode on. Eventually he found what he was seeking. A broad canyon cut away to the south, a spill-off from the river when the water was high. Now, however, there was but a narrow stream, and while the canyon walls had no protective overhang, they were high enough to provide some shelter from the storm. Trouble was, there was almost no graze, not even enough for the horses for more than a day. But it would have to do. Already there were big, wet snowflake mixing with the rain. Dan rode back the way he had come until he met the first wagon, reining his horse around until he rode alongside it.
The Dodge City Trail Page 23
