The Amarillo Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “Exactly, Mr. Blaine. Now, if you will sign this contract, I will give you two hundred dollars to show Mr. Fenster’s good faith.”

  “Fair enough,” Blaine said again, and signed the contract.

  “Now I will sign it and Mrs. Blaine will sign as witness. Fair enough, Doc?”

  Blaine grinned to show that he now considered Mortenson an equal. After Ethyl signed the documents, Mortenson left them with a copy and stood up.

  “I really must be on my way,” he said. “Thank you both for your hospitality.”

  After Mortenson rode away, Ethyl sighed and looked sharply at her husband.

  Doc folded the ten twenty-dollar bills and slid them into his pocket before he looked up at Ethyl, who stood there like some store clerk on guard against a potential shoplifter. There was a steely look on her face that told him she was about to offer not only an opinion, but an edict.

  “Doc,” she said, “you really ought to drive them cattle to Salina yourself.”

  “I know. But Sunny Lynn—”

  “You think you can trust them two boys to get along with each other on a long cattle drive?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, that’s something I didn’t expect to hear. So you don’t trust them not to fight and maybe ruin us getting that money for our cattle.”

  “Neither boy is a-goin’ to know that both of them are drivin’ the cattle to Salina.”

  “How you aimin’ to manage that?” she asked, suddenly not so stern of face, or critical in nature, but genuinely interested in what he had to say. “You goin’ to lie to them boys?”

  “Not lie, exactly. I just ain’t goin’ to tell either Jared or Miles that I’m makin’ two separate drives. I’ll send ’em different ways at different times. So it’s likely they won’t meet up until they both hit the stockyards in Salina.”

  “Then they’ll get into it and likely try to kill each other.”

  “By then, it’ll be too late, and I’ll be there to pick up the money and give each boy his share. Which ought to make them both happy.”

  “So you are goin’ to Salina?”

  “I’ll be there on the first of June, Ethyl. Them boys won’t know they’ve been tricked till it’s all said and done, wrapped up neat like one of your fried pies.”

  “You’re takin’ a mighty big chance, Doc.”

  “That’s what life is about, Ethyl, takin’ chances.”

  She snorted her disapproval of the lame homily and glared at him. Her light hazel eyes flashed green, and then yellow, just like the start of a prairie storm when the sky changes color, the clouds darken, and the sunlight breaks into shattered fragments that fade into an ominous dimness before clouds devour the light and blacken into charcoal.

  “Life don’t mean you got to lie to our boys, Delmer.”

  There she was again, using his given name as if she were scolding a child.

  “I ain’t lyin’ to them boys, Ethyl. I just ain’t tellin’ neither of ’em the whole story.”

  “Hmmph. Deceit is the same as lyin’.”

  “I ain’t goin’ to split hairs with you, Ethyl. I’m just tryin’ to make the best of what might become a bad deal if’n I do it any other way. You got to trust me.”

  “I trust you, Doc. I just don’t trust them boys all that much. There’s bad blood between ’em and it ain’t goin’ to go away.”

  “All over a damned woman,” Doc said as he started for the door. He plucked his hat from the tree by the front entrance.

  “Don’t you go blamin’ Caroline, now.”

  “I ain’t blamin’ nobody. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  He walked out the door. Ethyl sagged. No good-bye hug, no kiss. That’s just the way Doc was. When he had something to do, he went ahead and did it, and nothing got in his way.

  She walked to the door and watched her husband ride off. He did not look back and she was glad she had thought to wrap some sandwiches and stuff them in his saddlebags while he and Mortenson were talking business. Doc probably knew she had done that for him. But she wasn’t likely to get any thanks for her thoughtfulness. Doc wasn’t insensitive. He just didn’t believe in wasting words. He’d show his gratitude in other ways, she knew. He might buy her a pretty bauble or bring her a bouquet of wildflowers he had picked on his way back home. He wouldn’t say anything, he’d just open her hand and put the gift in it and have himself a drink.

  She loved Doc for what he was, not for what she sometimes wished he would be.

  Chapter 3

  Doc smelled the burning hair and hide a few minutes before he rode up on the branding corral, some two miles from his ranch house. The odor floated on the stiff breeze that still scoured the arroyos, rippled the waters of the tanks, and made the grass sway and flow like an emerald ocean. The scent gave him a good feeling. He knew that the gather was almost over and his calves would all soon bear the brand of the Slash B Ranch, increasing the size of his herd.

  Tad Rankin, his foreman, raised a hand in greeting as Doc rode up. He pulled the branding iron away from the calf’s left hip and stuck it back into the fire, resting the shaft on one of the stones in the fire ring. Two hands, Joadie Lee Bostwick and Curly Bob Naylor, released the branded calf and watched it wobble off where two other hands shooed it through the partially open pole gate, where it cantered to its waiting mother, tail wagging like a puppy dog’s.

  “Ho, Doc,” Rankin called out. “You been getting any younger since I saw you this mornin’?”

  “ ‘Bout as much as you got smarter since sunup, Tad. Give up the brandin’ for a second, will you?”

  Tad spoke to another hand nearby and walked over to the rails and climbed through. His lean body gave him plenty of room. He took off his heavy gloves and slapped them against his leg before tucking them in an empty back pocket. He spat out a stream of tobacco juice and shifted the wad in his mouth to the other side.

  Doc dismounted and looped his reins around a pole, then started walking some distance from the corral. Tad walked beside him, knowing the boss was going to give him orders or chew his ass out for something.

  “You got something on your mind, Doc?” Rankin asked.

  “I’m gettin’ together a drive to Salina over in Kansas Territory. But it’s a little complicated.”

  “We ain’t ready for no drive to Kansas right off, Doc. We’re nigh to the end of the gather and I can’t spare no men.”

  “Your men ain’t a-goin’, Tad.”

  “Pretty hard to make a drive ’thout’n no drovers.”

  “I’m makin’ two drives, Tad. I mean, my sons are. Puttin’ together three thousand head and five hundred of them will come from this herd. The biggest and the fattest.”

  “Oh, we can put five hundred head to pasture along the Canadian all right, and still have plenty to spare.”

  “We gotta move fast. I’m ridin’ down to Dumas this evenin’ to start Miles out and I want two hundred and fifty head driven down there come mornin’. Need to put trail brands on them afore you set out.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tad said. “We’re still puttin’ the Slash B on calves, Doc. Now I got to stop and trailbrand two hundred and fifty perfectly contented cattle and move them all the way down to Miles’s spread. Hell, why can’t he pick ’em up on his way out to Kansas?”

  “Because I don’t want him or his brother to know I’m sending two herds on the drive east.”

  “You got good reason to do such a tomfool thing, I reckon.”

  “You know why, Tad.”

  Tad sucked in a deep breath that was like a penny whistle the way it sounded. He nodded.

  Both Jared and Miles had fallen for the same woman, Caroline Vickers, back in school. She kept both boys guessing until they were all in their early twenties. Caroline was nineteen when she chose to marry Miles Blaine, who was twenty-one. Jared was twenty-three and thought he deserved to marry Caroline because he was the elder and had more land than either his father or Miles. He was furious and, before the weddin
g, which he refused to attend, he beat up Miles. It was a brutal fight, and when Doc broke it up, Jared vowed that he would someday get Caroline away from his brother.

  “How you goin’ to do that?” Ethyl had asked her son.

  “I’m going to kill Miles and then Caroline will have to come to me.”

  “They’ll throw you in prison, Jared. Maybe even hang you,” Doc had said.

  “Miles ain’t gonna know what hit him and I sure as hell ain’t goin’ to tell. I won’t be arrested for nothin’ and I’ll give the grievin’ widder a home she can be proud of.”

  “You’d better not talk that way, Jared,” his mother had said. “The Lord will strike you down if you even think about killin’ your brother.”

  Yes, Rankin knew all about Caroline and how she had kept both boys guessing until the last minute when she chose to marry Miles. That choice puzzled everyone, just about, until people began to look back and compare the two boys. Miles was easygoing and so adoring of Caroline, she could dominate him. He responded to her every whim. Jared, however, was aggressive, bossy, and demanded, instead of asked, for everything he wanted. And he wanted Caroline to worship him and obey his every command. People saw these traits in all three at church, pie socials, and dances. Jared was the jealous one and Caroline kept him dangling until she was staring spinsterhood in the face and chose Miles to be her husband.

  “Tad, I’ll expect those two hundred and fifty head in Dumas in two days.”

  “Three,” Rankin said.

  “Three, then, but I’ll be back and you’d better have another two hundred and fifty head ready for the trip to Jared’s up in Perryton.”

  “I can do that, Doc.”

  “I’m off, then. I expect you to carry out these tasks. As the contracts I signed said, ‘Time is of the essence.’ I got to deliver three thousand head to Salina by June first. If we beat that deadline, the price goes up a dollar or two.”

  “This time of year, I don’t know,” Rankin said. “Them rivers can be powerfully brutal. You might lose a few head and you might lose some time. And if them two boys meet up, you got a shit pile of trouble.”

  “Miles will start out first. He should get plenty of ground between him and Jared before Jared even leaves the barn.”

  “You hope.”

  “That’s how I’ve got it figgered, Tad.”

  With that, Doc walked back to his horse with Tad and climbed into the saddle. He waved good-bye and rose off to the south, toward Dumas.

  He knew Miles would come through and get together a herd. Jared might be harder to convince. They had all made a cattle drive or two, one to Wyoming, another to Colorado. They hadn’t made much money and lost quite a few head on both those drives.

  It wasn’t Miles he was worried about as he rode across his spread toward the main road between Amarillo and Dumas. It was Caroline. She wanted Miles under her thumb and she’d fight him all the way as she had done in the past. When Miles was gone, she had no control over him and she was a jealous woman.

  Buzzards flew in lazy circles in the sky. He knew what they were eyeing and sniffing out. A wolf had gotten one of the yearling calves a few days before, and the scent of decomposing beef was still in the air. Nature held sway in the far reaches of his ranch and there was nothing he could do about it. In the past, he had fought off marauding Apaches, cattle rustlers, wolves, and mangy coyotes. The land wasn’t the problem; it was ownership of the land that brought responsibility and guardianship. What he had must be protected. He looked on his ranch as a garden in olden times, like Eden. There were dangers lurking in every shadow, along every creek, and in every gully or arroyo. Men tended the land and its crops of hay and cattle, but he had to tend to his men. There were gray hairs for every challenge he had faced, every setback he had overcome.

  As long as the Easterners demanded beef, he would thrive, he knew. Next year, he could put together his own large herd and drive them to the railhead. That would pay off his mortgage so he and Ethyl could finally enjoy the fruits of their labors. Then his garden would become another Eden and he would be its god.

  Chapter 4

  As Doc had expected, Miles wasn’t at the ranch house when he rode up the following afternoon.

  Caroline walked out onto the porch, the shadow of a frown on her still-beautiful face. She wore a green-and-gold gingham dress, with a green ribbon tied to her flowing straw locks of hair, dabs of rouge on her fair cheeks, and ribbons of rose lipstick on her full and pretty mouth. She looked as if she had just thrown on her dress. One side of the hem was higher than the other. And he also thought she had just tied her hair up with the green ribbon and hastily dabbed on her makeup. The dress was slightly wrinkled as well, as if she had just retrieved it from a clothes hamper.

  “Well, howdy, Doc,” she said, forcing a warmth that wasn’t there. “What brings you down to these parts?”

  She almost never called him Daddy or Pa or Dad. He was always Doc to her except when she wanted something from him and Ethyl. It was something both he and Ethyl resented, but they had never spoken to Caroline about her lack of respect for her father-in-law. For that matter, she called Ethyl by her name, always. It was never Ma or Mother, as if both he and Ethyl were necessary evils, unwanted appendages to a man she wanted all to herself, without forebears or relatives.

  “Came to talk to Miles, Caroline. Where can I find him?”

  “What about?” she said, ignoring his question.

  “Business.”

  “What business?”

  “I’ll let Miles tell you about it after I see him. Where can I find him?”

  “Well, he’s been at the gather for a week and I think he’s branding the newborns.”

  “Can you give me some direction? North, south, east, or west?”

  She was beginning to irritate him and he didn’t want a fight with her before he talked to Miles. Nor afterward either, for that matter. He was tired and sore from the long ride to Dumas and he knew Miles would want him to spend the night. If there was any fighting to be done, it would be before, during, or after supper. Or maybe all three.

  “Oh, all right,” she said. “If you aren’t going to tell me what you want to talk to Miles about so unexpected like this, he’s probably at the north tank. It’s a good stretch of the legs for you, Doc. Miles didn’t come home last night because he’s working so far from the house.”

  “It’s a two-hour ride,” Doc said. “I’ll just water my horse and fill my canteen at your well, if that’s all right?”

  “Why, of course,” she said. “You go right ahead, Doc.”

  She turned and left the porch, walked back inside the house. Doc didn’t miss her at all. He rode to the well and dismounted. There was a water trough next to it, and he let his dun horse, Sandy, drink. He slipped the wooden canteen from his saddle horn and cranked the bucket down into the well. He heard the wooden pail splash when it hit the water. He jiggled the rope and heard the gurgle as the bucket sank and dipped into the water. He cranked the bucket back up and poured water into his canteen until it reached the top. He corked the canteen and poured the rest of the water into the trough.

  Sandy slurped the water with its rubbery lips, dipping its muzzle in and out of the water, blowing and snuffling through its nostrils.

  Doc felt that someone was watching him. He could almost feel a steady gaze on the back of his neck. Caroline? No reason for her to watch him. Unless she was anxious for him to leave. She probably was, but why? He walked around the trough until he had Sandy between him and the house. He peered over the horse’s neck and saw a curtain move. The movement was very quick, as if someone had been standing at the window with the curtain open and then released the cloth.

  Again, he thought, Caroline?

  Why all the secrecy? She had every right to look out through the window. No need to conceal herself behind a curtain.

  Doc pulled Sandy around and put a boot in the left stirrup. He hauled himself up into the saddle and started riding away from t
he house. He kept his gaze straight ahead until he topped a small rise, then bent down as if adjusting his boot in the stirrup and stole a sidelong glance at the house.

  That’s when he saw the back door open and a young man step outside. The man tucked in his shirttail and ambled off toward one of the outbuildings without glancing back at Doc. Doc straightened up and rode on. He knew who the man was, for he had sent him to his son a month ago, when Miles needed another hand for spring roundup.

  The man’s name was Earl Rawson. He was nineteen years old and hailed from Denver, or so he said. One thing for sure, he wasn’t working cattle. And he’d bet that Miles didn’t know that Caroline was cheating on him.

  Maybe, Doc thought, his sons weren’t the only two men Caroline had played with before she had married Miles. Maybe some of the stories about her had been true. Ethyl had believed them. He had not. But when it came to knowing what was in a woman’s heart, he would have to defer to Ethyl. She had the instincts of a she-wolf when it came to predatory females. And Ethyl had never liked Caroline or trusted her. She hadn’t wanted either of her sons to marry her.

  “That woman has a mattress stuck to her back,” Ethyl had said. “I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw a wagon full of anvils.”

  What he had just seen might prove that Ethyl was right. Or maybe Earl had just carried a load of kindling inside the kitchen for Caroline’s cookstove. Hell, he shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Not now. Not when he had so much riding on Miles getting cattle to Salina. Maybe he would go so far as to tell his son that he should take Rawson on the drive. No use leaving a wolf in the henhouse while he was away.

  There was the faint smell of sage and bluebonnets, the tang of lespedeza and alfalfa mixed with the scent of sweet clover as he approached the branding corrals. Carey Newgate was prodding a gangly-legged calf through the chute back to its mother, faint tendrils of smoke rising from the fresh brand on the dogie’s hide. Miles was inside one of the corrals, pulling the branding iron from the cherry red coals while two other men held another calf down, one stretching out its hind legs, the other pinning down its neck while he had a choke hold that twisted the animal’s neck. The calf’s eyes were wide with fear, but it was pinned down by experts.