Red Trail

by John Shirley

  “Now I know Katie’d like her! You know, if you wanted, big brother, there’s something else you could think on, too—” He hesitated, then gave a small shrug and said, “Well, we can talk about that tomorrow.”

  Mase clapped Hiram on the shoulder and turned away, leading the three drovers back down the street.

  Hiram watched them stride away. His mind was on what Mase had told him about his run-ins with Joe Fletcher. The rustler boss just might not be willing to let loose of Mase’s herd. Might not care what Greer thought about it. Come to think of it, who knew how deep Greer was in Fletcher’s doings? Joe Fletcher had powerful connections around town. It came to Hiram then that his brother might be in far more danger in Leadton than he realized.

  He’d already warned Mase. But there was someone else he could warn. . . .

  Hiram set off the other direction, toward the Miner’s Delight Saloon, where Joe Fletcher liked to play cards.

  Fletcher wasn’t hard to find. He was in the back room of the Miner’s Delight, the high-stakes game. When Hiram came in, he found the place choked with cigar smoke. Sheriff Greer was there, peering at the cards in the pool of yellow light from a lantern hanging over the green felt table. Fletcher sat across from him. One of the players was Chas Winger, the slaughterhouse owner and the town’s mayor. He was a burly man in shirtsleeves, counting up his money as he considered calling a bet. Next to him was Rod Kelso, who scowled at Hiram but looked fixedly back at his cards.

  “Open a window while you’re standing there, won’t you, Durst?” said the sheriff, glancing up.

  Hiram went to the window, struggled with it, then got it halfway open. Cold air blew in, and cigar smoke blew out.

  “You plan to sit in on the game, Durst?” asked Fletcher, folding his cards.

  “Hoping to have a word with you, Joe,” Hiram said. “Outside.”

  Fletcher sniffed and said, “Boys, hold my spot for me.” He got up and led Hiram out the back door.

  They stood in the alley, where a couple of horses were tied up, the animals shifting impatiently as they waited for someone to take them to a barn where there was feed and shelter from the cold wind.

  “Colder’n I thought it’d be out here,” Fletcher said, hugging himself. He scrutinized Hiram curiously. “You have the air of a man on business, Hiram. Last time we spoke, you had your nose in the air. Something change?”

  “Yes and no.” He took a moment to think about it; then he said his piece slowly and in a low, flat voice. “Last time we talked, you asked me to help you steal a man’s cattle. That was none of my business, so I didn’t say anything about it to anyone. Only now it seems it was my brother you tried to rob. I’ve gotten to know you some, Joe. You’re not a man to let a chance go. You know Mase and his outfit are still around, and I calculate you got something planned for him.” He put a hand on the butt of his pistol and went on. “I’m here to say—don’t try it. I’ll warn him, Joe, and I’m going to find him and back his play. I’ll ride with him all the way to the Kansas border and maybe farther. I don’t care how many men you bring. I’ll hunt you down and kill you if you make a move against my brother. I’ll splash you all over like I did that fool Cleland.”

  Fletcher’s cheeks were burning, and so were his eyes. But he managed a sour smile. “You’ve got me all wrong. I’ve got nothing planned. Your brother has too many guns with him. I won’t risk it.” He put a hand on his own gun. “But, Hiram—don’t ever threaten me again. You won’t live to make good on it.”

  With that, Joe Fletcher went back into the saloon.

  Hiram shivered, maybe from the cold wind, and then walked out of the alley, thinking that if Joe Fletcher’s lips were moving, it was a good bet he was lying, which meant he was lying about not going after Mase again.

  Hiram walked out to the dirt road behind the buildings along the main street. There wasn’t much back here, mostly storage sheds and privies. He walked thoughtfully up the road toward the Stew Pot, deciding he wanted to see Queenie. He thought as he went that he would tell Mase in the morning, early though that might be, that Fletcher planned something—probably an ambush. He’d let his brother know he was going to ride with him at least to the Kansas border.

  Right now Hiram figured to get Queenie to go to the café with him, have some supper. He needed a woman’s company to ease his mind.

  He reached the back door of the Stew Pot—and then heard the sound of a gun cocking. He turned, his hand going to his gun, but the man standing in the shadows was already firing, and everything went red . . . and then deep, velvety black.

  * * *

  * * *

  It was another cloudless day on the Red Trail as Mase rode back into camp the next morning, but that cold wind from the north was still nipping at the drovers.

  “Everything okay?” Pug asked as Mase dismounted.

  Mase wondered how Pug had figured out something was bothering him. He prided himself on being tolerably stony faced. But Pug, a quiet man, was always watching, looking close. He knew.

  “Not sure,” said Mase, untying the bag of horseshoes on the saddle horn. He handed the clinking bag to Pug. “Went to get my brother, Hiram, for breakfast. He didn’t answer the door. It was unlocked—looked like nobody’d slept there.”

  “You sure you had the right room?”

  “I checked. They said he hadn’t come back last night. That bartender said it was surprising. Hiram was supposed to be on watch at the dance hall after suppertime, and not showing up isn’t like him.”

  “From what you told me, he’s always been a wild one. Maybe got into an all-night poker game. Hard to quit if you’re winning—or for some people if you’re losing.”

  “Maybe. Well, he can find me if he wants to.”

  “Did you ask in town about mail?”

  “I asked at the butcher’s shop and the sheriff’s. Nothing for us. Let’s get the herd moving. We’re heading for Wichita.”

  Pug nodded and stalked off, calling at the top of his lungs to the drovers, “Move ’em on! Let’s go! Head ’em north!”

  Mase tied his horse to a wagon wheel and went to the big coffeepot for a cup of Arbuckles’.

  Dollager looked up from cleaning tin plates. “You have your breakfast in town, sir?”

  “Nope.”

  “Full out of porridge, but I’ve got biscuits and bacon.”

  “That’ll do. You finish up there quick as you can, coosie. Get East Wind to help you harness up the oxen. We’re back on the trail.”

  As Mase ate, he thought about the trail ahead. The upper part of Crane’s map was sparse. It named a place called Chuckwalla Wash about four days north with a mark for a spring and a scrawl that might say “Shepherd’s Crook, high rocks, narrow.” Beyond that, the map was unmarked except for the line of the trail, trending northwest, but if his memory of what Crane had told him was good, it was a clear trail, with good grass, up to Morrisville, where it rejoined the Texas Road in Kansas, which would take them to Wichita.

  Mase finished his coffee, washing down a bite of bacon and biscuits. Then he remounted, setting out with Pug riding beside him to the drag of the herd so they could help get it moving.

  It was more than an hour before they got the entire herd up and grudgingly traveling north.

  Their route that day took them over a series of low, rolling hills for about five miles, then down into a shallow, flat-bottomed valley between two spiky granite ridges. The wind bit at them, stinging their noses and earlobes, but it was nothing compared to some real winter cold Mase had experienced on cattle drives. One drive that had started too late in the year ran into a series of blizzards and ice storms; the weaker cattle died, water barrels burst, and one of Mase’s good friends lost part of his nose to frostbite.

  On they went into the bitter wind, Mase pushing the herd harder than usual till the cattle bawled complaints. They were mor
e than two-thirds of the way through the drive now, and Mase was feeling a renewed sense of urgency. Some instinct whispered to him that he was needed at home—needed badly. Mase was a little more worried about Katie and Jim every day. Now his mind chewed over concerns about Hiram as well. Maybe he should have hunted up Queenie, seen if Hiram was with her.

  There was no use thinking about it now. Like as not, Hiram was doing just fine.

  * * *

  * * *

  A blaze of pain woke Hiram up. Everything was dark and fuzzy—except the pain. It was like a buzz saw in his chest. “Lord and hellfire, what is that . . . ?”

  “Lie still,” growled the doc. “That’s a bullet coming out of you.”

  “Clamp your teeth on this, honey,” said Queenie.

  He felt a strip of leather pressed between his jaws. He bit down and writhed as Dr. Teague dug roughly into him. He could smell brandy and coffee on the doctor’s breath; he could hear the man’s raspy breathing. The pain became shriller. . . .

  Then he felt an inner pop, and the worst of the pain ebbed away.

  “There it comes,” muttered Teague. “One inch higher you’d had it plumb through your heart.”

  “Where am I?” Hiram asked. It hurt to talk—every word hurt separately.

  “My room,” said Queenie. “Sally found you this morning out back, just lying in the dirt. You got a crease in the head—cut right along the side of your thick skull there, Hiram. Me and the girls bandaged you up. The doc was . . . Well, we couldn’t find him till about an hour ago. Who shot you?”

  “Couldn’t see his face,” Hiram said. “Shape of him—thought it was Greer, maybe.”

  “What! The sheriff?”

  “Maybe . . .” He ground his teeth at the pain. “. . . has a . . . deal with Fletcher.”

  “And he left you for dead!” Queenie burst out. “He was pretending he was all surprised, hearing about it this morning!”

  “Not sure . . . it was him.”

  “I don’t want him talking now,” said the doctor. “And I don’t want to hear any more about this nohow. Don’t ask me to repeat any of it anywhere. I don’t want to be found shot in any alley. Now—you drink this down, Hiram. . . .”

  Hiram felt a bottle thrust between his lips, and syrupy liquid, sickly sweet with a nasty aftertaste, gurgled down this throat. He coughed, spat some of it out. Knew it was laudanum. “No more of that . . . I got to—”

  “Just lie still and heal up, Hiram,” Queenie said, kissing his forehead. “I’ll keep watch over you.”

  “Have to . . . Mase needs . . .”

  But the laudanum was doing its work. He sank away into a muffled, cottony world of shadow-veiled dreams. . . .

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was sixty-five days into the drive as Mase rode back to the herd. He had been scouting north, and it was his guess they’d be out into the open range south of Morrisville in a day, two at the most. It was the cusp of evening; twilight was upon them, drawn over them by the long fingers of shadows stretching from the spiky gray ridges to the west. According to Dollager, as he’d spooned out the noon meal, the ridges looked like “the broken battlements of a bombarded castle.”

  Now Dollager was at work on the evening meal. East Wind and Harry Duff had gone out when camp was called and caught three grouse and two jackrabbits. The cowboys were sitting on the ground nearby, plucking and skinning.

  Jacob and the other drovers were out making sure the cattle were settling in. All except Vinder, Mase saw, as he rode in behind the cowboy. Ike Vinder was drinking coffee and talking at Duff, who was just finishing cleaning a bird. Duff seemed to be trying to ignore him.

  “I just think we all should’ve had a spell in town, not just two men,” Vinder was saying. “Hell, we’ve been on the drive for a long damn time, and it seems to me—”

  “Seems to me like your big mouth’s about to get you in trouble once more,” said Duff, winking at Mase.

  Vinder turned and blanched, seeing Mase looking sharp at him.

  “You enjoying your coffee, Ike?” Mase asked dryly.

  “Boss! I was just— I was going to ask the coosie if he needed more wood for the fire. There’s a dead tree over yonder.” He put the coffee cup on the ground by the pot. “I’ll just head over—” He started to walk away.

  “Hold it right there.”

  Vinder reluctantly turned back to Mase. “Boss . . .”

  “If you’ve got complaints to make, Vinder, why don’t you make ’em to me?”

  Vinder looked away—Mase saw his fists clench and knew the aging cowboy wanted to answer back. “Just say it to me right out, Vinder. Or do you prefer to grouse behind my back?”

  Vinder cut him a cold look. “A man’s got a right to let out a growl now and then! It’s a long drive and for scant pay!”

  Mase raised his eyebrows at that. “You didn’t say anything about the pay when you signed on.”

  “It was hire on or give up eating. I was broke!”

  “Go get that wood. Then you find a horse and get out on the herd. You’re taking two watches tonight, back to back! Now get!”

  Vinder’s jaw muscles worked; then he stalked away from the camp into the thickening darkness.

  There was silence as Mase drank some water, ladling it from an open barrel. Then Dollager said, “East Wind, save out the hearts and livers of those unfortunate creatures. I can use them in my cooking!”

  “Well, if you put ’em in my stew, don’t tell me ’bout it,” said Duff.

  Mase got back on his horse and rode out to find Pug and have a look at the herd. As he went, and as the sun sank below the ridge, it struck him that there was a strange feeling in the air tonight. He felt like something or someone was watching him as he rode along.

  The rustlers? Or something else?

  * * *

  * * *

  You’re a damn fool if you do this, Hiram!” Queenie snapped as—grimacing with pain—he stepped into the saddle. “Hell’s bells, it’s getting dark! You’ll get lost out there!”

  “There’s a moon. That herd’s tracks can’t be missed.”

  “Get down off that horse this minute, Hiram Durst!”

  “Can’t do it. Wasn’t for that damned laudanum, I’d have gone days ago.”

  They were outside the livery, Hiram sitting on his restless horse now, buttoning up his overcoat against the chill of the coming night. He could feel the wound in him, piercing and angry, just under his rib cage on the left side. His head throbbed under its bandage.

  Queenie stood close to the horse, one hand on the cantle. “Send someone else, Hiram!”

  “There’s no one else I can trust. Move on out of the way, my sweet Amaryllis Jones. I’ll see you soon’s I can get back.”

  “Why, riding that horse on the trail the way you are now, you’ll die before you get back!”

  Hiram reached down, gently pushed her out of the way, and spurred his horse into the street. “See you soon, Queenie!” he called.

  He cut into an alley to take the back road and avoid passing in front of the sheriff’s office. He wasn’t sure it had been Greer who’d shot him. He hadn’t seen the gunman’s face, nor a badge. The sheriff hadn’t come to finish the job as he lay sick either. But then, Queenie had made sure she or one of the Stew Pot girls had been with him the whole time.

  Every clop of the horse’s hooves sent a streak of pain up through him. He’d healed some. But not enough. And he knew it. But when he’d woken up this afternoon, he’d taken the laudanum bottle and tossed it out a window. Kind of wished now he’d brought it along.

  Somehow, he’d get to Mase. He figured he could catch up with the slow-moving herd in a couple days if he rode fast enough. He had to warn Mase . . . and stand by him.

  Or die trying.

  * * *

  * * * />
  Mase woke sometime after midnight, feeling that something was wrong. As he sat up, it came to him that the cattle were fidgety, and at the back of his mind, he thought he’d heard a wild cry in the night as he slept, something chillingly feral. Had it been a dream?

  He pulled his boots on and was in the saddle within a minute, riding to the herd, looking for the night watches. He could see East Wind in the moonlight on the western side of the herd, drifting along on the mule. Something about his posture spoke of wariness.

  Mase heard that call again from the darkness, off to the east. A yowl, a scream—a panther’s hunting scream.

  Mountain lions roamed western Oklahoma, and there could well be one come down from the ridge. It would have scented the herd and already be hunting down a manageable steer.

  Coming to the eastern side of the herd, Mase looked around in puzzlement. Where was Ike Vinder? He should have still been out here since Mase had given him back-to-back watches.

  Mase rode around the southern end of the herd, moving east—noticing cattle getting nervously to their feet now—and spotted Vinder. He was drooping in the saddle, looked to be sound asleep, about a hundred yards from the cattle.

  “Damn cotton-brained son of a—” Mase muttered, riding hard over to the cowboy. “Vinder!”

  He had to call out three times before Vinder straightened up in the saddle, looking around.

  “What the devil you doing, Vinder!” Mase demanded, riding up to him. “There’s a panther out there!”

  “A what?”

  “A cougar, a mountain lion! What do you think you’re about, sleeping in the saddle?”

  “I . . . two watches out here . . . just closed my eyes for a second . . .”

  “Why, your horse carried you off! Look where you are! Hell—just come on!”

  Mase galloped back to the herd, Vinder close behind him. They circled around to the eastern side, and Mase slowed, looking at the ground and peering off into the night. He noticed that the herd was squeezed in on this side as if they’d moved away from something to the east.