The Abilene Trail

by Dusty Richards

  Chapter 6

  They were there in the morning when Ben opened the front door, ducked under the lintel to go out, and stretched his arms. A herd of horses were down by the creek, whining to his ranch stock. Rain Crow had delivered them. No telling about an Indian; he must have come in during the night sometime.

  “Rain Crow’s here with those horses,” he said over his shoulder to Hap, who was busy rounding up breakfast for his crew.

  “Figures,” Hap said from the doorway. Then, shaking his head, he went back inside to tend his pots and pans.

  “What’s happening, Ben?” Mark asked, looking bleary-eyed coming from the bunkhouse.

  “The horses arrived. They’re down by the creek.”

  “Yeah, I can see them. They going to be as wild as those mules?”

  “I sure hope not.”

  “Man, those dudes never give up. You can work them all day and they’ll still kick or bite you.”

  “They getting any better?”

  “Sure, Digger can turn them in a forty-acre patch. All they wanted to do that first day was run away.” Mark used his hands to shield his eyes from the spears of golden sunlight coming over the ridge. “Do we have to break them horses before we go to Mexico?”

  “No, the ranch horses should be enough for that operation. We can take a little feed along too. We’ll have room in the wagon for some grain that we won‘t have going to Kansas.”

  “Ben, can you advance Digger some money for a few clothes?” Mark asked.

  “Guess I better if he’s going to be part of this outfit.”

  Mark nodded as if in deep thought. “He’s tougher than a tree knot. Hear him? He’s around back right now chopping stove wood for Hap.”

  “He sure wants to do his part. And he can rope,” Ben said, adding that he’d find him some duds.

  “Yeah, I never would have believed that. His loops float out there so easy and land like bullets.”

  “They sure do. Get the rest of them up; we’ve got to pick and choose horses after breakfast. Then saddle a horse and go down there and tell Rain Crow that he and whoever’s with him can come eat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Morning,” Ben said, inside sipping his coffee when Digger came in with an armload of freshly split stove wood.

  “Morning, Mr Ben. Them hosses ours that I been hearing?”

  “Yeah, Rain Crow brought them. We’ve got to pick out forty head for the trip and get them broke before we go to Kansas.”

  “Lordy,” Digger said, dumping his armload in the box by the range. “Mules, horses to break. Why, this place’ll sure be hopping.”

  “How much longer we need to snub them mules to a horse?”

  “A few more days. Them mules, they ain’t lost that booger edge yet.”

  Ben smiled. “We sure need that booger edge off them before we leave on the drive.”

  “Damn right you do, if you want me to cook ya food. Where’s the rest of this outfit? Laying up? This ain’t Sunday,” Hap shouted, handing Digger a platter of bacon and eggs to set out.

  “I don’t know how many Rain Crow has with him, or if they’ll come, but I sent Mark to invite him.”

  “Hell, he may have a whole tribe with him. I’ll watch and make some more if’n I get low. These boys eat like lions and tigers as it is.”

  Billy Jim came through the doorway, his face gleaming. Miguel came next, and the sleepy-eyed Chip last.

  “You boys better get used to this. On the trail we’ll get up before daybreak,” Hap warned, rattling pans on the range.

  “I can hardly wait,” Chip mumbled as Billy Jim carried on a conversation with Hap.

  Ben got up and went for more coffee. He turned when he heard someone at the door. “Come in, Rain Crow. See you got here.”

  The boys’ heads all swiveled around to look at the hatless breed.

  “Big Ben, bring you plenty good horses.”

  “Are they broke?” Chip asked.

  The breed shook his head. Everyone laughed.

  No, they weren’t broken, and they’d dust down some of his cowboys before they were broken to ride. He hoped he had no wrecks. No way he could afford to lose any of them, as shorthanded as he felt. The vapors off the hot coffee softened the whiskers around his mouth as he chewed on his lower lip. Where to start first?

  Forty head of bangtails were selected from the fifty-some the breed trader brought. Their tails all brushed the ground, and he knew that his cowboys would soon use their pocketknives to whittle them off. Mostly he had bays, with a couple of sorrels, a few roans, three mousy-colored ones, two striped zebra duns, and three paints.

  They were selected, then the rest turned out for Rain Crow and the two Indian boys with him to take with them. Ben paid the breed his money and thanked him.

  “Ben, you see . . . one from the saloon?” Rain Crow asked.

  “No, why?”

  “Someone say he looking for you.”

  “Thanks. I ain’t hard to find.”

  “He’s a Coulter. Harold Coulter. He’s a bad one. You watch for him.”

  “I will, and thanks for bringing the horses.” Rain Crow wasn’t afraid of much—he sounded like he had respect for this Coulter.

  “You have big time going to Kansas.” Rain Crow grinned. “Say they have prettiest whores in all the world up there.”

  “And the ugliest ones too, I’d bet.”

  “Yeah, them, too.” Rain Crow chuckled, waved, and rode after his herders.

  The crew gathered up at the pens and sat on the ground or squatted down to wait his words. Ben considered what must be done next. “Digger, you and Billy Jim are assigned to the mules. Drive them some more.”

  The two nodded, got to their feet, and went for the pen that held the braying mules.

  “We’ll need a good fire started and the branding irons from the shed. The rest of us will be branding horses. Miguel, you build the fire. Chip will be in charge of the ropes. Any questions?”

  They shook their heads, got up, and brushed off the seats of their pants to get ready to work. Things began to hop.

  Soon Miguel had the mesquite and oak ablaze. Chip swung the rope over his head after they cut down to four horses in the sorting pen. Mark fussed over getting the irons hot enough in the fire. Ben and Miguel were soon working manila lariats, tossing loops and recoiling them. The four horses backed into a corner and were all wary-eyed at the strange things happening.

  “These come from the Comanches?” Chip asked, firing a noose at one of the ponies. The rope hit the animal’s neck on the side, causing him to duck.

  “We ready to catch one?” Miguel asked.

  Ben nodded, and without effort the Mexican youth noosed one, caught the slack, and in a rip back on the slack, tightened it on the horse’s throat.

  Ben stepped in and gripped the rope, setting his boot heels in the dirt and fighting his way to the head slinger. Soon he threw his arms around the pony’s neck and it made three diving steps, but Ben’s weight soon stopped that action and the horse tried to back up. The animal’s butt hit the fence and Miguel caught his front legs. Both boys hauled back and tripped the horse until Ben was on his butt, holding the animal’s head.

  Then Mark and Chip tied three of his legs with a shorter hank of rope. The bay pony blew rollers out his nose and rose up, trying to see. Ben sat on his shoulder to watch Mark indicate the bay’s right hip with the smoking hot iron in his hands.

  “That’s the place.”

  A puff of stinking hair and burning smoke, and Mark rose up. “Look all right?”

  “Looks like saddle leather. That should work.” Ben undid the lariat around the pony’s neck. “That went smooth enough. Let’s do the next one. Tail him up.”

  The next one Chip roped, and when the rope went tight, the horse stopped trembling. Miguel went up the rope and rubbed him on the head.

  “This one’s about broke, Mr. Ben.”

  “Good. We needed some good news.” He laughed, and the crew
joined in. “Only thirty-eight more to break.”

  The day passed with some of the horses turning into hoof-flashing tornados; others showed they were at least rope broken. Bruised, tired, and weary, his boys looked up as Digger came by riding his drag, reining his mules, and Billy Jim on the mare behind him.

  “Whoa!” Digger shouted, hauling in the reins, and the mules stopped. Everyone nodded in approval. He clicked to them and they moved forward; then he swung them sideways to make them put their noses against the corral.

  “You got them trained just in time to help us ride these escapees from hell,” Chip said, and they all went to wash up.

  Hap was ringing the dinner bell like a new Christmas present. Ben felt better about the horse deal than he knew he should. They were a long way from broken horses, but maybe they’d get enough edge off them for the boys to ride them. Days under the saddle on the trail would do the rest.

  Martinez and the cattle were next—half a herd to bring home. In the morning he’d take the wagon to town and get the supplies Hap would need for the drive down there and back. He’d find Digger some clothes, too.

  Washing up outside the house in the pans set out by Hap, the crew talked about the new horses and the names they chose, like Screw-tail, Shotgun, Socks, Big Bob, Sleepy, Damn Near Broke, Kangaroo, Darter, and so on. Lathering hands and forearms, then faces, then rinsing themselves, and they dried on the towels hung over the pegs and sauntered inside, bringing the cook up to speed on what happened that day.

  “I’m going to town in the morning,” Ben announced. “I’ll mail letters and buy tobacco, and I’ll even kiss any pretty young lady that’s missing any one of you.”

  His words drew smiles from the crew. He heard no requests and wiped the corner of his mouth, then headed for the line filling their tin plates with food.

  “Mr. Ben, you can kiss a pretty one and tell her you did it for me,” Billy Jim said from behind him in the line.

  “Oh, no, I want to kiss your girlfriend, not find you one.” He turned and noticed he’d embarrassed the youth.

  “Maybe you’ll find one in Mexico,” Mark offered.

  “Plenty pretty ones down there,” Chip assured him, turning back from topping his full plate with two soda biscuits.

  “I don’t speak enough Spanish to get her name,” Billy Jim said.

  “Aw, love don’t take no language,” Chip assured him. “It simply happens.”

  Ben could swear to that. He’d talked less to Jenny than to any woman in his life. In east Texas, he recalled at Billy Jim’s age courting Myra Cole. They danced on Saturday night and during breaks they walked in the woods holding hands and kissing. Then, heavyhearted after the dance, they parted each time, and she went home in the family wagon for church on Sunday—Lutheran church. He was Baptist,when he went. Her folks didn’t approve of her paying attention to such a boy who didn’t go to Mass.

  Then she told him her father had told her she must marry a man ten years older. A man with four small children whose wife had died of a burst appendix. Tears streamed down her smooth face when she told Ben there was nothing he could do, and she ran off after telling him not to follow her.

  He saw her months later in town, her belly swollen with her first pregnancy. She smiled at him when he removed his hat and blocked her way. Her eyes mirrored how tired she was.

  “Ben McCollough, how nice you look.”

  “So do you,” he said quickly, feeling an unseen hand at his Adam’s apple threatening to choke off his air. Damn, four kids to tend and her own bogging her down. He fought back the tears that threatened.

  “God be with you,” he said, and hurried on, lest he shot her unthinking husband or did something worse. Up on the Brazos, three months later, the news came to him that she had died in childbirth. The whole thing was like the wind in the cottonwoods; it swept over him and was gone. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore.

  Beth Day, a young widow, stole his heart about the time the war started. He was torn between his obligations to Texas and to her. But she needed someone to run her ranch, not someone to run off to fight a war over succession, states’ rights, and slavery.

  “You don’t even own a slave,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “You ride out of here, Ben McCollough, I swear its over between us.”

  He finished cinching his horse and nodded that he’d heard her. If she could forget him that easily, he guessed the missing him wouldn’t last very long. He mounted his horse, tipped his hat, and headed for Austin to sign up for the army.

  After that he took up with painted ladies and doves. The last time he was serious was with Millescent Burns in Teeville. She never was serious about him, and he decided his one-sided attraction was finally over one day and rode out of town, convinced that he would never have a wife. He’d sure wasted a lot of time on Millescent.

  At Hailey Hanager’s funeral, someone during the supper on the church grounds introduced him to Mrs. Jenny Fulton. She wiped an errant wave of honey-brown hair back, curtsied, and nodded politely.

  “I guess your man’s running cows too,” Ben said, not thinking that anyone that beautiful might not be married.

  “He was killed in the war,” she said, and lowered her gaze.

  “You and these boys—”

  “We have a few cows and calves.” Her eyes met his, and he saw the determination in them.

  “I can ever help, you send word. I’m sorry—I never knew about any widows in the country.” He shook his head.

  “Thanks, Mr. McCollough.”

  “Ben, Mrs. Fulton.”

  “Jenny, Ben.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Jenny.”

  So periodically he sent Hap over with a fat deer he shot and dressed for her. The best thing he ever did was hire Mark to help at the past spring’s roundup. The youth made a good hand, and Ben knew he deserved to go up to Kansas if his mother could spare him.

  “Mr. Ben, mail this please, sir.”

  Ben looked up and took the envelope from Chip. “Be glad to.”

  He watched the older hand walk out the door into the twilight. He wondered who Sonja Van Dam was at a San Antonio address. No telling. Chip could be writing anyone—a love, a dove, a cousin; he’d probably never tell, either. Ben shook his head. He’d better get a bath and clean up before he went to bed. He’d hate to show up in town like some dodger riding the chuckline.

  Ready for bed, he tossed some wood on the fireplace coals. The room had the chill of fall inside. Where was Hap? He usually had it warm enough in there to cook a fellow. He turned an ear. Someone was singing and playing a guitar—it must be Miguel. He went to the open door and bent over to listen to the music.

  The boy could sing those Spanish ballads. He shook his head and yawned. Working this crew was harder than doing things himself. He’d best go get the hot water in the tin tub and bathe; maybe he could stay awake that long. Kansas, Kansas, I’m coming. Fast as I can, Jenny.

  Chapter 7

  Ben stuck his Spencer in the wagon box and climbed up. The two bays were dual-purpose animals: They were stout enough to haul the wagon and could be used as saddle ponies on roundup. Mark held them by the bridles and waited for his signal to release them. Ben, standing in front of the spring seat, searched around for his crew.

  “Take your time breaking them to tie and lead. Chip can ride any that act broke, but everyone be careful; they’re still full of piss and vinegar.”

  They waved that they’d heard him, but he knew they wouldn’t listen. The competition was about to begin for the bronc-buster title. It would be high, wide, and handsome. Why, at that age he’d much rather have ridden a good bucking horse than a Ferris wheel he’d once seen in San Antonio. If only he were a small mouse in one of those boys’ vest pockets for that day. Things would get rowdy. He clucked to make the bays trot—he wanted to be back before dark.

  He passed the Logan place and was winding up through the cedars to get up on the mesa when a shot splintered the top of the sid
eboards behind the spring seat. If the shooter had been a little better, Ben knew he’d been pushing up daisies.

  In response he shouted at the bays and went to throwing them the reins. He needed out of this brushy mess before the bushwhacker took another potshot at him. At the top of the ridge he’d have this back-shooter out in the open, if he wanted to go after him.

  The cedar’s boughs rushed by. The ruts and rocks threw Ben from side to side, but he managed to stay on the spring seat. Another shot cracked above the clatter of wagon, charging horses, and harness. At last they crested the flat top. Then he hurried eastward, shouting at them to run, glancing over his shoulder for any sign of pursuit. Rain Crow had told him to watch out for Coulter. Was the angry drunk after him? Someone wanted him dead. He had good evidence in the splintered sideboard. He drew up, used his foot on the brake handle, and reined the horses down to a walk.

  The Spencer close by, he was ready in this open brown grassland for a fight. He bet the coward wouldn’t come out. He let the horses stand and catch their breath. With the brake set and the reins tied off, he searched the western horizon. No shooter. That was all right. His time would come.

  In Teeville he stopped off at the lawman’s house and reported the shooting to deputy Robert Kilmer. Kilmer had heard that Harold Coulter was putting out talk about “getting” Ben.

  “Well, he must have tried today,” Ben said.

  “I see the hole. He got close,” Kilmer said, looking at the damaged sideboard. “I’ll watch for him.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said; then he drove over to the store. Hap’s list included two hundred pounds of flour, two big cans of baking powder, twenty pounds of sugar, two gallons of molasses, two hundred pounds of dry frijoles and a hundred pounds of rice, a gallon of vinegar, a case of canned tomatoes, and one of peaches, two lard tubs, some sides of fatback, raisins, and dried apples. If he saw anything else he wanted to eat he would be sure to throw it in too.

  Mrs. Whitaker was busy sending the hired boys after things to fill his list.