The Abilene Trail

by Dusty Richards

  After dark he dropped from the saddle and smiled at Hap in his white apron standing in the lighted doorway.

  “You damn near missed eating tonight.”

  He chuckled at his friend’s words and turned the unsaddled gray into the trap to roll his itchy back in the dust.

  “I’m ready. Steers are settled in out there,” Ben said.

  “Maybe they’ll get used to thunder then. I figure some of them steers never been in a thunderstorm in their life down there on the border.”

  “Has it been that long since it rained down there, you mean?”

  “Burned-uppest country I ever saw.”

  Ben poured himself a cup of coffee, noticing it was freshly made. “Pretty dry down there.” He blew on the steam. “Boys doing fine today?”

  “Sure, they’re hustling on them horses, and Digger’s got them mules so they whoa and go.”

  “I’ll take Toledo and Miguel to check cows in the morning if it ain’t raining.”

  “Good idea. But I doubt that you get to go.”

  Ben nodded. During the night he woke to hear the drum of rain on the shingles and the low growl of thunder off in the distance. He wondered about Mark and his crew, then turned over and went back to sleep.

  Chapter 16

  “I never encouraged him,” Jenny said. “He came by once and stopped to water his horse. Asked if he could buy some food, and I shook my head. To turn a hungry man away is against my raising. He acted polite enough.

  “So I fixed him a plate and he bragged on the cold food the entire time he sat on my porch and ate it. I guess I should have taken heed of that. I thought he was only being polite.

  “Then he came back again and I still was polite.” She shook her head and turned her lips inward to wet them. Then with a sigh she went on. “He asked me to the schoolhouse dance and I said no. He became quite bossy and I reached inside the door and brought out the shotgun.”

  “Mark said you had to drive him off.”

  “That wasn’t enough for him. I met him the next time he rode in and ordered him off the place. This time I gave him some birdshot to send him on his way.”

  “He hasn’t been back?”

  “No, he knows I wouldn’t use birdshot the next time.”

  Ben reached out and hugged her to his chest. “I’m sorry, Jenny. I didn’t want to upset you, but he’s mad at me over the whole thing, I guess.”

  “Oh, Ben, I’m so sorry.”

  “No, I’ll settle with Harold Coulter before I leave here.”

  “Sun’s come out,” she said, obviously to change the subject. “Let’s go out and see the rainbow. There must be one out there.”

  With her under his arm, they stood in the wet yard with water rushing off the ground in thin sheets and they searched the buttermilk sky.

  “There it is, Ben.” She pointed at the great arch.

  He hugged her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “We should go see if the pot of gold’s there.”

  “Yes.”

  Her sons came out of the barn and she pointed the rainbow out to them.

  “Everyone ready for lunch?” she asked her men.

  “Starved, ain’t you, Mr. Ben?” Tad asked, and smiled at them.

  “I can sure eat,” Ben agreed.

  “We about have the harnesses all oiled, and the saddles too,” the younger one, Ivory, reported.

  Ben nodded in approval. “First day it doesn’t rain you can come over and we’ll check cows together.”

  “That’s a deal. It’ll beat doing chores around here.”

  “Oh, surely you can get them done before you ride over?” he asked.

  “We sure can,” Ivory said as they washed up on the porch.

  When Ben returned to the ranch after sundown, the wind had switched out of the north and the clouds cleared to reveal all the stars. The three jaded horses tied to the hitching rack bothered him, and he swung down at the house.

  The sight of Mark’s hatless face in the light from the doorway knifed him.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Six guys rode up and started to stampede the steers by shooting off pistols.”

  “You know them?”

  “Think they were Coulters. I’m not sure,” Mark said with some effort. “Billy Jim got two of them with that rifle.”

  “Bill, you all right?” Ben asked, seeing him sitting at the table.

  “You said it wouldn’t be no Sunday-school picnic,” Bill said, and bobbed his head, looking upset.

  “Where are they?”

  “We brought their bodies in.” Mark shrugged and looked warily across the table at Ben. “Didn’t know what we should do with them. Dru said we had to take them to the law.”

  With a nod of approval to the unspeaking veteran seated at the end of the table, Ben surveyed the rest of the crew standing around in the candlelit room. “It’s the best thing to do. You did right. How about the steers?”

  “They never did much. They’re fine.”

  “Chip, in the morning you and the others take a turn at guarding. We’ll ride into town with the bodies. Any more of them get shot up?”

  “Yeah, but his horse fell and he got on behind someone else and they cut a trail,” Dru said.

  Ben could see the man’s hands were trembling and that he tried to hide them. “Hap, get Dru a drink. In fact, we could all use a shot of whiskey.”

  “Yeah, we’ve been snakebit,” Billy Jim said, looking around at the others.

  His humor drew some chuckles, and Ben gave him a nod.

  Past noon they reined up before Deputy Kilmer’s small frame house and dismounted heavily. The two corpses were wrapped in canvas and bound tight with rope. Each one was belly-down over an MC horse. Kilmer came out of the house with a frown at their obvious cargo.

  “Howdy, Ben; what’s happened?”

  “Some jaspers jumped my crew and got lead instead of my steers.”

  “Who are they?”

  “We think Coulters or their kin.”

  Kilmer removed his hat and scratched the thin hair on top. “Damn, they’ve lost their minds over this feud business.”

  “Lost their lives too,” Ben said.

  “You know them?”

  “Boys guessed they were all Coulters.”

  “Take them down to Yancy’s. He can hold them for a day. Then they go in the ground if unclaimed. Need to file a report. You shoot them, Ben?”

  “No. Billy Jim can tell you the details.”

  “Need you to come along and answer some questions. Ben, you come inside too. Damn, those fools have lost their minds.”

  Ben had to agree as he turned to Mark. “I guess you two can take them to Yancy’s. That be okay?”

  “Sure,” the lawman said, and Ben gave Mark and Dru a head toss to take the bodies away. “Tell Yancy I want their names, if he can get them.”

  “We will,” Mark said. And they rode on with the two bodies.

  After all the papers were filled out, Kilmer walked them to the front door. “I swear, Ben, that bunch is dumber than I don’t know what.”

  “You can understand I’m tired of messing with them.”

  “Ben, I understand. My hands are tied. I could bring them in for attempted rustling, but I doubt I could get it to stick for long. Bill, you take care, young man.”

  “I will, sir,” the youth said, and sprang into the saddle.

  “We’ll handle our part,” Ben said; then the two of them rode to the gun shop. He checked on the rifles; they hadn’t arrived.

  “I’m buying the beer, and we’re eating off the free lunch counter across the street, guys,” Ben announced when he came outside and all his hands were waiting at the hitching rail.

  Ben ordered the beer at the bar and looked over at Billy Jim studying the famous nude painting that hung on the wall over the mirror.

  “Never seen the lady before?” Ben asked.

  “Nope.” Billy Jim shook his head. “Second time I’ve ever been in a saloon. First
time was down there in Mexico.”

  “Lunch is on the counter,” Ben said, and they ambled over.

  “Well, stranger,” Milly said from the curtained doorway. “You’re getting to be a real stay-at-home kind of guy.”

  Ben looked at her. She wore her dress made of lace veils and leaned her shoulder against the facing. He nodded. “Good place to be.”

  After an “oh well” look at the tin ceiling tiles, she smiled big at the others. “You boys are working for the meanest boss in the county. I was you, I’d go find me a real job.”

  She tossed a strip of the lace over her shoulder and went off into the back with a harrumph of disapproval.

  “You know her?” Billy Jim asked, holding his heaping plate and looking at the dancing curtain she flipped going away.

  “Milly,” Ben said, looking hard at the dusty, stuffed bison head on the wall. Milly was good enough. Damn her, she could put a verbal knife in anyone. He could regret all he wanted—he’d learned all about her and her wanton ways. She was exactly what she wanted to be—a strumpet who used men for her own satisfaction.

  The the food wadded up in his mouth. He needed a fresh perspective. An image of Jenny, pushing back an errant wave of hair, smiling at his approach, took all the sourness away. Thank God he had Jenny, and she would be his wife one day next fall. Good enough. He washed the rye bread, German sausage, and hard cheese down with the foamy draft beer.

  Chapter 17

  Barrels of flour, baking powder, rice, beans, sugar, salt, pepper, dried chili peppers, a roll of canvas, two spools of new rope, harness repairs, dried apples, raisins—the list went on and on. Hap even named the mules: Matthew, John, Luke, and Cyrus. Cyrus because they already had a Mark, he said. The days began to lengthen and the wild oats were making the steers’ hides sparkle.

  Ben dropped in to see Jenny. Her sons ready to look after the MC mother cows and calves in his absence, he and Jenny went walking through her blooming peach orchard. The pink blossoms made the trees look like bouquets.

  “You leaving next week?” she asked quietly.

  “Figure we have one more frost. Always get a cold snap to test the peaches, don’t we?”

  She sighed and then agreed. “Yes, we usually do. But I hope I have enough of them put up to make you pie for the rest of the year when you get back.”

  “I’d sure not complain.”

  “You never complain much for a man.”

  “Don’t do much good. Can’t fix it, ride on.”

  “Ben, I’ll be praying for you.”

  “Jenny, that’s good. Those boys and I will need all the help we can get. But we’ll make it.”

  “So that you come back to me.”

  He hugged her shoulder. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”

  “I wasn’t worried about wild horses.” She laughed and they walked on in the warming sun.

  There was no sign of the Coulters. The notion that no one had heard anything about them niggled Ben. It was like they had vanished off the edge the earth, but he knew better, and the feud issue wasn’t over.

  All the steers bore a fresh bar behind their left shoulder as the trail brand. Ben figured with the tally at eight hundred and sixty he should get there with eight hundred, if they didn’t have too many stampedes or losses crossing flood-swollen rivers. His tally book showed two had died, and fifty were left on the ranch with his MC brand on them, either too small or not suitable for the trail drive.

  Digger was due back from San Antonio. He promised to find someone to help Hap and to wrangle horses. So when Ben saw the familiar sombrero of the black cowboy appear coming across the meadow with someone else on a small horse, he figured his wrangler had arrived.

  “Mr. Ben, sir, this here be Lou Song.”

  “Howdy, Lou Song,” Ben said to the Asian youth, who nodded, looking pleased, sitting on his thin bay horse. Dressed in threadbare clothing, he wore a skull-cap and had a short queue. The boy was hardly five foot tall, and Ben wondered how good he’d be at horse wrangling.

  “He the horse wrangler?” Ben asked.

  “Lou Song is a good hand with hosses. He ain’t afraid to work either.”

  “Me pleased if you hire me, Mr. Ben.”

  “Digger says you can handle horses and help Hap. It’s fine with me.”

  “Good deal. When we start work?”

  “Right now, we’re loading, Digger can show you a bunk. We’ll be moving out in a few days.”

  Digger dropped out of the saddle and readjusted his chaps and pants. “I guess I never thanked you for buying me these clothes in Mexico, Mr. Ben.”

  “Oh, how is that?”

  “Well, they treated me a lot different in San Antonio when I was barefooted and in overalls.”

  “I bet they did.” Ben laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. He’d bet that pistol-toting, black cowboy did draw some respect.

  So his army of misfits prepared for the final day. Neighbors dropped by to wish him luck, and ladies left pies and cakes. A few even hinted to try to find out his intentions toward Jenny, but all they got out of Ben was, “She’s a mighty fine lady, and anyone gets her will be proud.”

  Men warned him about the treachery they’d face in the Indian Nation. Others spoke of late snows in Kansas that might wipe out the herd, leaving this early. Ben heard of a monster story for every day he figured they’d be on the road to reach Joe McCoy’s shipping pens.

  “Them bushwhackers are still up there,” Harley Miner said. The lean-faced rancher squatted on his boot heels beside Ben. “They jumped the McEntosh boys near some springs and horsewhipped Denton. Took the whole herd. Them boys came back busted. Lost everything. Ben, it’s a terrible risk you’re taking.”

  “We aren’t going in that Baxter Springs country. Going west. Some part-Cherokee named Chisholm has a trading post on the Arkansas Fork. We cross the river there. That’s miles west of those bushwhackers, and McCoy’s man is plowing a furrow right now down from Abilene to show us the way. I have the letter in my pocket.”

  “Yeah, but those deals are never like they’re told.”

  “I don’t know about the forecast price of steers. I’m certain they embellish that some, but cattle aren’t worth nothing here.”

  “Still, I admire your nerve. God be with you, Ben McCollough. You may be on the right track for all of us.”

  Ben nodded, and the two shook hands. Harley departed with his wife in their buckboard.

  “You reckon if all these folks had any sand in their craws they’d get off their butts and head a bunch north?” Hap asked, joining him.

  “It’s the unknown, Hap. Trail gets cut in, it will be like Columbus when he came here. They say his men thought they’d fall off the end of the earth. Now look—folks go all over on the ocean.”

  “That’s us sailing over the sea of grass.”

  “You’re right. How’s the new boy working out?”

  “Good, he can handle horses. Never seen one of them celestials could do that. He knows lots about cooking, too.”

  “I figured Digger knew we didn’t need anyone couldn’t pull his weight.”

  “I hate we hired that Dru, though,” Hap said. “He don’t fit. Nothing but a drunk drying out. Grouchy as a damn bear, too.”

  “Too late now. He’ll do his work. Don’t expect that fresh face and willingness you get from the boys.”

  “I damn sure won’t get it from him,” Hap said, and headed back for the house.

  Ben saddled the gray for his last trip over to see Jenny before he left. He rode him by the house, told Hap he’d be back, and left in a high lope. The trip over proved uneventful, and he found her in a rocking chair sewing on her wedding dress.

  She rose at the sight of him and ran to hide it.

  “Hope it won’t be bad luck,” she said, coming outside. “It’s supposed to be bad luck for the groom to see the dress before the wedding.”

  “That’s for young people.” Ben chuckled, swept her up in his arms, and ki
ssed her. He felt sick even before he took his lips from hers. How he would miss her warmth and fine spirits—but then, too, the knowledge that she was waiting for his return would hasten the days.

  “You and the boys be careful,” he told her. “No word from anywhere about those Coulters does not set well with me. They’re out there. Don’t take chances.”

  “He won’t hurt me. I showed him it was over.”

  “Be careful,” Ben whispered in her ear.

  “For you I will,” she said, and hugged him tight.

  Cattle bawled and the riders came in from all directions, bringing in the stragglers to the main herd and shaping them to move out. In the predawn’s pinkish-purple light and cool air, a jumper felt good to Ben as he worked Roan moving cattle. Hap and Lou Song were rolling.

  Those two were already on the move with the half-broken mules and the remuda of loose horses. They’d set up camp that night at Willow Crossing, ten miles north.

  Five days from that morning they’d cross the Brazos above the town of Waco, if they had any luck. North of Fort Worth and the Trinity he aimed to put some more weight on them in the tall-grass prairie, if someone hadn’t burned it off. There would be some strong grass up there. His slick steers looked and acted good. The six weeks of grazing and herding had solved lots of the problem of mixing cattle and hitting the trail—that unsettled business about who was the kingpin in this crowd had been long ago decided.

  He never forgot they still were wild animals drug out of the brush to be branded and castrated as calves—some even later in life than that—then rounded up after playing deer for a few years in the thorny thickets of Mexico. Still, as they lined out in a string over a half mile long, he felt good. They were headed for Abilene. Col. Joe McCoy, get the gates ready.

  His swing riders learned how to make the serpentine delivery so the cattle didn’t push the leaders in the river, but spread them out down the bank by forming a parallel bunch to the riverbank.