The Dodge City Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “My God,” Carper wheezed, “I was a dead man, but the Indian … he saved me. Why?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” Dan said. He rode on. There had been no more shooting. If there was more fighting, it had to be with the lethal Bowies. Dan could see a distant rider coming and reined up, unsure of the man’s identity. The other rider reined up, identifying himself.

  “Bowdre,” he shouted. “Hold your fire.”

  Dan waited until Bowdre reached him. Wolfs shirt was ripped from the collar to the waist, a thin trail of blood marking the course of the knife.

  “Two of the bastards outrode us,” Wolf said. “Heavy mesquite thickets at the other end of this canyon, and they’ve had time to find cover. We nailed nine of them, but includin’ the two he took out of the ambush, I reckon the Indian accounted for four. Three of our men are down.”

  “Bad?”

  “Bad enough,” Bowdre said. “Hiram and Sloan caught some lead, but nothin’ in their vitals. Cash took a cut from shoulder to elbow. He was bleedin’ like a stuck hog, but Palo and Skull was tendin’ to him.”

  “Let’s round up our mounts,” Dan said, “and get the wounded men back to camp. With Kirby and Monte, that makes five.”

  “I wish to God that was the worst of it,” Bowdre said. “There’s Spence’s boy, Gus. It’s hell on Spence, but it’ll damn near killed Amy.”

  “That’s the worst part about two of the varmints escaping,” Dan said. “We can’t be sure that one of them didn’t fire the shot that killed Gus.”

  Hiram Beard and Sloan Kuykendall had each taken a slug in the shoulder, Hiram in his left, and Sloan in his right.

  “Good news,” Sloan said, “is that we’re alive. Bad news is, won’t either of us be worth a damn on a cow hunt. Not for a good two weeks.”

  Cash Connolly leaned against his horse, his left arm hooked around the saddle horn. His right arm hung limp, swathed in bandannas.

  “Cut deep,” Palo said.

  “Those wounds need attention,” Dan said. “You men have lost some blood. Can you ride?”

  “I can,” Kuykendall said. “No bones broke.”

  “So can I,” Hiram Beard said.

  “I’ll manage,” Cash Connolly said. But he was weak, and it took three attempts before he was able to mount.

  Palo and Skull had managed to catch the rest of their mounts, and they rode back the way they had come, picking up Rux Carper and Aubin Chambers. Neither man had accounted for himself very well in the fight, and Dan suspected that was the reason for their silence. Nobody mentioned the stampeded horses. Without the rustlers driving them, the animals would soon stop to graze, and becoming thirsty, drift north to the river. The horses could wait, but the wounded men could not.

  “I ain’t so sure them two escaped,” Garret Haddock said. “Last I seen of that Indian, he was hot on their heels.”

  “He’s been more use to us than Chato’s whole damn bunch,” Skull said, “and he ain’t cost us nothin’ but a hoss, a knife, and a gun.”

  “He’s a fighting man,” Dan said, “but don’t sell Chato short. There has to be some reason for his riding so far ahead. We took some nasty blows tonight, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle. Except for Gus.”

  “God, yes,” Cash Connolly groaned. “I feel guilty, ridin’ in with just a cut arm, and the kid lying dead.”

  Dan said nothing, but he wondered how Rux Carper and Aubin Chambers felt. While Carper had made a poor showing, Dan suspected that Chambers had merely ridden into the canyon for show, and had not taken part in the fight at all.

  18

  While the wounds of Monte and Kirby hadn’t been critical, the death of young Gus Wilder had shrouded the camp with an aura of gloom, and the arrival of three more wounded men did nothing to dispel it. Amy Wilder was in shock, her empty eyes staring into the fire. The rest of the women moved woodenly about, boiling more water, seeing to the hurts of the wounded men. There was little the men could do except watch helplessly. While the Texans had taken a terrible toll, there was no undoing the damage the renegades had done. The very spirit of the outfit seemed about to wither and die. The wounded men had been brought near the fire, and sleeping fitfully, they often cried out in pain. Spence Wilder was lost in a sorrowful world of his own, kneeling by the blanket-wrapped body of Gus. Dan hunkered down beside a silent Denny DeVoe. Adeline took his cup, filled it with hot coffee from one of the pots, and returned it to him. Wolf Bowdre joined Dan, and after a few moments of silence, spoke.

  “My God, everybody’s got a bait of the whim-whams. , You’d think it was the end of the world.”

  “I reckon it is for Spence and Amy Wilder,” Dan said, “and it’s impossible for the rest of us not to share their grief. Any or all of the five wounded men might have died, and they still could. There’ll be three days of fighting infection before they start to mend.”

  “Yeah,” Bowdre said, “and it’ll be another week before they can ride, if then.”

  “That won’t matter, where the drive’s concerned,” Dan said. “We’ll be lucky if we’re able to gather the horses and longhorns by then. Tomorrow, I aim to go after the horses. After that, we’ll start gathering the cattle. They’ll be safe enough until the snow begins to melt. Then they’ll begin to drift, looking for better graze.”

  “I know it’s a painful time,” Bowdre said, “but we need to get everybody together for some talk. There’s a time for grief, but then you got to put it behind you and move on.”

  “I know,” Dan said. “I reckon we’ll have to bury Gus in the morning, and I don’t feel right, getting anything else ahead of that. A burying is a thing that’s got to be done, more for the sake of the living than for the dead. I aim to bring everybody together afterward. These folks are shocked, cut deep, but they’re whang-leather tough. We’ll pick up and move on.”

  It was a long night, the groans and incoherent mumblings of the wounded men making sleep almost impossible. The medicine chest that had belonged to Silas had gone up with the wagon, and all they had for disinfectant was the two gallons of whiskey Dan brought from Fort Griffin. There was just a little more than a gallon remaining when all the wounds had been treated.

  “Wolf,” Dan said, “take what’s left of the whiskey and conceal it in your wagon. We’ll need it for these wounded men when the fever takes them.”

  Dan hunkered down with Adeline and Lenore, wishing they had some privacy, some means of escaping the cries of the wounded. Lenore spoke to Dan twice before she got through to him.

  “Where’s Eagle?”

  “I don’t know,” Dan said truthfully. “Two of the rustiers outrode us and escaped into a canyon. I suspect he went after them.”

  “He may be hurt,” Lenore said. “I want to go look for him.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Adeline said.

  “That’s one Indian who can take care of himself,” Dan said. “He killed four of that bunch himself, knifing two of them after they were forted up to ambush us.”

  “My God,” Adeline said, “he’s a savage.”

  “It’s not savage, killing men who tried to kill him, to kill our riders,” Lenore said. “That’s noble and brave.”

  “He’s that and more,” Dan agreed, “and if he doesn’t ride in tonight, I think we’ll find him with the horses. We’ll go looking for them in the morning.”

  Soon as it was light enough to see, the riders took turns digging a grave for Gus Wilder. When there was a burying, everything else waited. Even first coffee. The ceremony was sad and brief. Dan read passages from the Bible, and then stayed to help Tobe Barnfield and Walt Crump fill the grave. There had been a significant change in the weather during the night, and after the bone-chilling cold, the west wind seemed almost warm. There were gray clouds piling up to the west.

  “There’s rain comin’,” Tobe predicted, “and it ain’t far off.”

  “Let it come,” Walt said. “It’ll git rid of this snow.”

  “That means we’ll ha
ve to gather the horses today,” Dan said, “and be ready to go after the longhorns tomorrow. The graze along the river’s been pretty skimpy, and as soon as they can see grass elsewhere, they’ll drift.”

  Breakfast was a silent affair, the tragedy and the burying strong on their minds. When they were done, Dan spoke.

  “There’s rain on the way, and with the melting of the snow, we’ll have to be ready to gather the herd. This morning we’re going after the horses. Or some of us are. Some of you will have to remain in camp. Wolf, Skull, Palo, Garret, Chad, and Walt, you’ll be riding with me. The rest of you—including the horse wranglers—will remain here, protecting the camp. Now those of you going with me, saddle up and let’s ride.”

  Reaching the slope where the fight had begun, they found the coyote-ravaged bodies of the rustlers Dan and Eagle had accounted for, but riding into the canyon, they discovered the other bodies were gone.

  “Espectro,”* Palo said.

  “They didn’t leave on their own,” Dan said. “They were dragged away for a reason.”

  Around a bend in the canyon a horse nickered, and Dan’s horse answered. He drew his Colt, as did his companions, and they rode cautiously on. They relaxed when Eagle’s roan rounded the bend. The Indian lifted his hand in greeting, and Dan responded.

  “Find hoss,” Eagle said when he had reined up.

  “Bueno,” Dan said. “All?”

  “All,” Eagle said, grinning. He then raised four fingers on his left hand and five on his right. “Bandido hoss.”

  “By God,” Wolf said, slapping his thigh with his hat, “if that don’t beat all. This muy bueno hombre’s been out here all night, roundin’ up the horse remuda, and he’s added the nine cayuses that belonged to the rustlers.”

  “Eagle,” Dan said, “you’ve done a night’s work. Let’s get these horses back to camp and roust you up some breakfast. I know of at least one torpe bonito squaw who’ll cook it for you fresh.”

  That drew a sheepish grin from Eagle and a laugh from the rest of them as they rode on into the canyon

  for the horses and mules they had expected to cost them a full day’s work.

  “Eagle,” Palo said seriously, “per’ap you ride out tonight, find cows for manana.”

  The Indian knew he was being hoorawed and laughed with the rest. Their early return to camp was unexpected, and it lifted everybody’s spirits. Dan gave the Indian full credit for spending the night gathering the scattered horses, and Lenore had two other women helping her prepare Eagle’s breakfast. The Cheyenne seemed amused with all the attention he was getting. The rain clouds swept in from the west and the rain began in the early afternoon. The canyon in which they were camped soon had a fast-running creek all its own.

  “Tomorrow,” Dan said, “we’ll start the gather. With five wounded men, we’ll have our work cut out for us. Some of you will have to stay and secure the camp. We’ll swap it out, each of you taking a day in camp. God knows, we’ll be a while gathering the herd, but we can’t move on until our wounded are able to ride.”

  “I’ve been cowboy enough to eat drag dust all the way from South Texas,” Adeline DeVoe said, “and I’m sick of being stuck here in camp. Since some of our men are wounded, I’ll take the place of one of them in gathering the herd.”

  “So will I,” Fanny Bowdre said.

  There were a dozen others clamoring to ride, even the grief-stricken Amy Wilder. Dan laughed. It was exactly what they needed, some challenge to take their minds off yesterday’s tragedy.

  “You’re on,” Dan shouted. “You’re a bueno bunch of Tejano cowboys, the lot of you.”

  The rain didn’t let up until dawn the next morning. The women of the outfit had worked themselves out a schedule where half of them cooked and the rest worked the gather. Even with five wounded men, Dan still had more than twenty riders, half of them women. After a bout with fever, hung over from whiskey, the wounded riders began their recovery. With all his fighting skills, Dan tried to leave Eagle in camp as much as possible, and to his amusement, the Indian seemed content to-stay there only on the days when Lenore was one of the women doing the cooking. The rest of his time he spent with the horse remuda or in chasing cows out of the brush. Adeline mentioned it to Dan at the end of a day she and Lenore had spent helping with the cooking.

  “Sooner or later,” she said, “we’re going to reach Dodge. What do you reckon this Indian is going to do?”

  “Damned if I know,” Dan replied, “but I have my suspicions. I think he’ll be going wherever Lenore goes. I’m not sure he knows what’s expected of him where she’s concerned.”

  “That’s what frightens me. Will my daughter end up hunched over an open fire cooking rabbit stew, with a child tied to her back?”

  “Somehow I doubt it,” Dan said. “While this hombre thinks and fights like an Indian, he learns fast, adapting to the white man’s ways. Remember the first time you saw him eat, using his fingers? I doubt he’d ever seen a knife and fork in his life, and now he has better manners than some of the men in the outfit. He’ll make one hell of a cowboy, if we can just get the little varmint to take to a double-rigged saddle.”

  After a week of rest, the wounded men had healed enough to ride, but it took twelve days to gather the scattered longhorns. The warming trend had continued, quickly melting the snow, luring the hungry cattle away from the river toward better graze. In one way, it was far easier than dragging the ornery animals out of the brakes, but in other ways it was more difficult. Without the snow hiding the grass, the longhorns scattered, forcing the riders to cover miles of prairie, rather than concentrating their efforts along the North Canadian.

  “One thing in our favor,” Hiram Beard said. “Once we finally get all the varmints together, they won’t be half starved.”

  It was true, and there was jubilation in the camp when they finally recaptured 20,350 of the brutes. It was enough, and Dan called the gather a success. They had come into this poor camp in a blizzard, still missing several thousand head as a result of the stampede. Now, with the exception of a few cows, the herd was as whole as it had been prior to the disastrous stampede.

  “Tomorrow,” Dan said, “we take the trail north to Camp Supply.”

  “I know we been told not to expect much from this soldier fort,” Walt Crump said, “but I’d like to suggest somethin’ that would put new life into our horses.”

  “If it’s within our reach,” Dan replied, “I’d favor it. Speak up.”

  “Workin’ cows is hell on horses,” Walt said, “and grass just ain’t enough. Us, we eat plenty of beans, but we got to have some meat to go with ‘em. If there’s any grain—especially rye—at this fort, I’d favor tradin’ some cows. A hatful of rye once a week will do wonders for a horse.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Wolf said, “them soldiers we met to the south carried some grain behind their saddles.”

  “Rye,” Walt said. “That’s what brought it to mind.”

  “We’ll see if they have any to spare,” Dan said. “We’ve been on the trail goin’ on four months, and there’s no denying it would help our horses.”

  North to Camp Supply, Indian Territory. Saturday, December 24, 1870.

  After breakfast, Spence and Amy Wilder spent a few minutes at the lonely grave where they would be leaving Gus. Amy then mounted the box of the second wagon, following the Bowdre wagon as Fanny took the lead. Eagle, now one of the horse wranglers, was with the remuda as it moved into line behind the wagons.

  “Move ‘em out!” Dan shouted. There was a popping of lariats and the shouts of riders as the longhorns again took the trail north. Dan estimated they were a little more than forty miles south of Camp Supply. Driving along the North Canadian, there would be sure water for the journey. Dan figured they had traveled almost fifteen miles the first day. His watch was quiet, and when he returned just after midnight, he found Adeline and Lenore awake and waiting for him.

  “Do you know what today is?” Adeline asked.
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  “Lacking four days, it’s our fourth month on the trail,” Dan replied.

  “It’s Christmas,” Adeline said.

  “Blast it,” Dan said, “I forgot to ask you what you want.”

  “You could have asked me,” Lenore said. “I know what she wants.”

  “Oh … How do you know?”

  “Because it’s the same thing she wants,” Adeline said, “but she can’t lure that damn Indian away from the horse remuda.”

  Dan laughed at the two of them, rolled into his blankets and was soon asleep.

  They arose to a cloudless sky. The days were unseasonably warm with sun, but the nights were cold, and dawn found a thin sheet of ice along the eddies in the river.