The Amarillo Trail

by Ralph Compton

  Al rode off while Paco called out to the flankers and began turning the leaders at the head of the herd. He stopped them. The cattle milled and began to graze while the western sky blazed a fiery orange, setting the distant scraps of clouds afire in a glorious sunset.

  “I found two dead cows,” Al said. “Thought they was ours at first, strays that might have cut loose during the night.”

  “And were they?” Jared asked. He saw that the herd was slowing, bunching up.

  “No, sirree,” Al said. “Them cattle was drowned and washed up by the river. Startin’ to stink to high heaven.”

  “Did you check for brands?” Roy asked.

  Al nodded. “I sure did. They was wearing two brands, both of ’em. And not the same neither.”

  “What do you mean?” Jared asked.

  “Well, sir, one of ’em bore a Slash B, and the other had a Rockin’ M. Both had trail brands. Looked like a Bar A, near as I could tell.”

  Jared whistled.

  “Rocking M is my brother Miles’s brand,” he said.

  “Come see for yourself,” Al said.

  “Roy, you tend to the drag,” Jared said. “I’ll be back.”

  Roy nodded and walked his horse to the rear of the herd just to keep the herd apprised of his presence.

  The dead cattle were bloated and gave off a stench of river water and decomposing flesh. Jared examined them closely and climbed back on his horse. He rode over to where Paco was holding the herd in check.

  “Them dead cows are from another herd,” he told Paco. “One belongs to my pa, the other to my brother.”

  “There are signs that a large herd passed here a day or so ago, Jared. Look at the ground.”

  Jared rode off a hundred yards or so and returned, his neck puffing up like a bull’s in heat.

  “You were right, Paco,” he said. “Some son of a bitch is sure as hell drivin’ a big herd, heading the same way we are.”

  “Not your pa,” Paco said.

  “I think Miles, more likely. We been double-crossed.”

  “How’s that?” Paco asked.

  Jared tilted his Stetson back on his head and scratched at the indentation in his hair made by the sweatband.

  A pair of mourning doves whistled by, following the course of the river, their gray bodies twisting in the air. Somewhere a bobwhite quail piped a territorial whistle and buzzards began to circle in the sky near the places where the dead cattle lay bloating with sun-warmed gases. Flies zizzed around the two men and the horses flicked at them with their tails.

  “I think my pa double-crossed me,” Jared said.

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, I know it sounds crazy, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “You think Miles is taking his own herd to Salina?” Paco asked.

  “Yeah, I sure as hell do. Along with some of our pa’s cattle. Might be Pa’s way of giving us both a chance to make some cash.”

  “Well, if that don’t beat all,” Paco said.

  Jared squared his hat. “Keep the herd moving until after sundown. Find a good place to bed’em down. We’ll get an early start in the mornin’, Paco.”

  “I’ll find us a good place to spend the night.”

  “Then we’re goin’ to run ’em like hell. I aim to beat Miles to Salina.”

  “He’s got a head start on you, Jared.”

  “It’s a long trail, Paco.”

  Jared rode off to the rear of the herd. The cattle started moving before he reached Roy. The distant sky reddened and the gilt-edged clouds began to fade into ashen loaves and puffs of cottony blossoms. There was a soft southerly breeze coming off the river and teal whistled past, blue wings and greenings, their wings whistling like diminutive flutes until they were specks on the paling blue of the sky.

  Some of the cattle began lowing as if seeking a place to drop their weight on rain-softened ground.

  Roy waved his hat at a steer breaking from the herd. He rode back to Jared, shaking his head.

  “He never said a word to me, Jared,” Roy said.

  “No, he wouldn’t. It was all done in secret.”

  “Your pa’s a deep man. He thinks too much sometimes.”

  “I’d like to beat Miles to Salina,” Jared said, “then see the look on Pa’s face when he counts out the money.”

  “I reckon Doc’s got his reasons,” Roy said lamely. He knew there was a rivalry between the two brothers, but he didn’t know how deep it really went. Very deep, he thought, and that could spell trouble if Jared tried to beat Miles to the railhead in Salina.

  Big trouble.

  Chapter 17

  Ethyl had to almost force Doc to finish his supper. She did this by threatening not to tell him what had happened to Caroline. As he finished the last of the food and drank a swallow of tea, he looked over at Caroline, whose head had drooped so low her chin rested between the twin globes of her breasts.

  “I ain’t gonna wait all night, Ethyl. What happened to Caroline? I got me a bellyache from gulpin’ down all that food.”

  Ethyl calmly cleared away the supper dishes while Doc sat there and stewed with impatience. Finally, Ethyl sat down and took Doc’s hand in hers.

  “Norm Collins and Skeeter Parsons brought her here in one of Miles’s wagons just before it started to rain,” Ethyl said. “They carried her into the house and I asked Norm what had happened to her. I thought she might have fallen off her horse.”

  “What did he say?”

  “They said that one of Miles’s hands had gone to the house after Miles left with his herd. He and Skeeter saw the man go in and later heard a lot of noise and screaming.”

  “Who went in the house?” Doc asked, although he thought he already knew.

  “It was that young whelp, Earl Rawson.”

  Doc kept silent, listening to her every word.

  “According to Skeeter, this Earl started drinking Miles’s whiskey and got into a fight with Caroline over something. He started beating her up. Skeeter and Norm came between Earl and Caroline. Earl started to fight with Norm, who knocked him down. Skeeter saw that Caroline was all bloodied and dazed. When neither he nor Norm could get any sensible answers out of her, they brought her here.”

  “What happened to Rawson?” Doc asked.

  “They don’t know. He run off and they never saw him again. They’re both out at the bunkhouse waiting to see what you have to say about it. I think they want to know what’s going to happen to Caroline.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “I tried. Doc, she doesn’t even know my name. And she doesn’t know she’s married to Miles. She’s just gone plumb dumb. I don’t know what to do.”

  “We’ll have to get her to a doctor. Maybe first thing in the morning.”

  “There’s a good one in Amarillo. Maybe he can tell us what’s wrong with Caroline.”

  Doc rose from his chair and walked around the table to Caroline. He leaned down and lifted her head. He looked into her vacant eyes.

  “Caroline, it’s me, Doc. I’m your father-in-law. Do you remember me?”

  Caroline gurgled and made grotesque sounds in her throat.

  “I don’t think she can talk at all, Doc,” Ethyl said.

  The rain continued to blow against the house, shaking all the windows. The wind howled outside.

  “I’m going out to talk to Norm and Skeeter,” Doc said as he let Caroline’s head fall back to where it was. “You need help getting Caroline to bed?”

  “No, I can handle it. I laid her out in that spare sleeping room when the boys first brought her in. I thought she might feel better if I gave her something to eat. But you can see how she is.”

  “Yes. It looks like that Rawson kid beat her up pretty bad.”

  “It’s just horrible,” Ethyl said.

  Doc put on his slicker and walked out to the bunkhouse. Lamps glowed inside and he could see the yellow and crystal rain striking the frame in broad sheets. The wind blew hard when he opened the door and men
cried out as wind and rain swept through the long room.

  He saw Skeeter playing cards with Randy Eckoff and Dale Walton. The men looked up when Doc approached.

  “Where’s Norm?” Doc asked.

  Skeeter stood up. His eyes were rheumy and he looked tired. His cuffs were still wet, as were his mud-splattered boots.

  “Norm went to tell Miles what happened with his wife,” Skeeter said. “I told him to wait until the rain stopped, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Do you know why Rawson beat Caroline half to death, Skeeter?”

  “Some argument, I reckon. When me and Norm got inside the house, he had Caroline down on the floor. He was drunker’n seven hunnert dollars, and was choking the poor woman.”

  “He say anything?”

  “He was callin’ Caroline a bitch and said he was a-goin’ to kill her.”

  “What happened then?” Doc asked.

  “Norm grabbed the kid and jerked him off’n Caroline. I thought she was already dead and got down on my knees and put my ear up to her mouth. She was breathin’, but just barely.”

  “And what did Norm do?”

  “Rawson started to fight him. Norm hit him in the mouth with his fist and Rawson run out of the house. Me and Norm got Caroline to breathin’ right again, but when we tried to talk to her, she just looked at us as if she had no brains at all.”

  Doc drew a breath and shook his head. “Then what?”

  “I went and got a wagon, one we used to haul wood in. Me and Norm lined it with blankets and pillars and carried her out there. We thought we ought to bring her here so’s you could see what Rawson done to her.”

  “Did she say anything? I mean the whole time you drove up here, did she tell you what happened?”

  “Nope,” Skeeter said. “Me’n Norm tried talkin’ to her every now and then, but she just lay back there in that wagon and moaned. She didn’t even cry, Doc. She just moaned like some hurt animal.”

  Doc swore under his breath. “We’ll use that wagon in the morning to take her into Amarillo. You going to stick around or go back to Dumas?”

  “I reckon I’ll stick around so’s I can find out how she is. No man ought to beat a woman like that.”

  “Did you know Caroline was messin’ around with Rawson?” Doc asked.

  The other men in the bunkhouse had gathered around the table and were listening intently to Doc and Skeeter. Doc could hear them breathing under the patter of rain on the roof, which was steady and hard.

  “I knowed they was somethin’ goin’ on twixt them too. Miss Caroline, she had Earl doin’ all kinds of chores for her, fixin’ one thing or another, and sometimes he’d stay in the house a long time and I didn’t hear no hammer poundin’. It was awful quiet them times.”

  “I saw him leave out the back door the day I came to get Miles to make the drive to Salina,” Doc said.

  “Yeah. He was supposed to be helpin’ with the gather.”

  “Did Miles know something was going on between his wife and Rawson?” Doc asked.

  “He never said nothin’, if he did,” Skeeter said. He paused, then continued. “I don’t think he knew or he would have fired that kid or killed him.”

  Doc sighed and clapped Skeeter on the shoulder. He looked at the other men, who were all looking at him.

  “Let’s keep this in the family for now,” he said. “But if any of you run across Earl Rawson . . .”

  “If we see him, what?” Dale asked.

  They all waited for Doc’s answer.

  “I ought to tell you to clap him in irons and bring him to me so I could beat him half to death with a pole.”

  “We could do that,” Randy said. “With pleasure.”

  Doc drew in another deep breath. The men could see that his mind was working.

  “Any of you see Rawson,” Doc said, “you shoot him on sight.”

  “We might beat him up first,” Skeeter said.

  “I wouldn’t mind if you did, Skeeter,” Doc said. “Good night, boys. One way or another, Rawson’s going to pay for what he did to my son’s wife.”

  “Hear, hear,” the men chorused as Doc walked outside into the rain.

  Doc walked slowly back to the house. He wondered what Miles would say if Norm caught up with him and told him what had happened to Caroline.

  He wondered too what Jared would say when he found out that the woman he loved was now little more than a vegetable, with no memory, no power of speech, no love left for anyone.

  He had never felt such a sadness as he felt now, a sadness for Caroline, for Miles, and even for Ethyl and Jared.

  That sadness, he knew, would rob them all of days or years in their lives. He felt very old when he went back into the house, a house so bleak and cold it seemed empty and useless, just like him.

  Chapter 18

  Clarence Ruggles bent to the plow. His muscles rippled in his suntanned arms. Sweat beaded up in the grimy creases of his forehead like sunstruck jewels despite the shade from the brim of his seedy straw hat. His hands gripped the plow handles and he bore down on them as the mule strained to pull him through a rock that had surfaced suddenly in the furrow.

  “Gee, Pete,” Clarence said, and tugged on the reins that were draped over his shoulder like elongated leather suspenders.

  He heard the screech of the iron against the rock, but the mule swerved from its path, and though the furrow was now crooked, it would surely do.

  The other fields that bordered the fallow one were already green with corn, milo, and wheat. This was the last big field to plow and plant. It was the largest, more than a square mile, and had not been plowed for a year. The dirt was hardpacked and the moldboard plow was so dull he knew he would have to sharpen it before he finished the field. The mule was sweating and its hide was streaked with blood drawn by the blowflies. It was hot and there was so much field left to plow, Clarence knew he would have to unhitch the mule and turn the plow over in order to file the blade to a necessary sharpness.

  He had files in the thin sleeves of his overalls. He unhitched the plow and tilted it on its side. He removed the files from his pocket and sat down, straddling the plow. He started with a rattail file and bore down on it as he raked the sharp edge of the plow. Metal began to gleam as the dirt and dull metal flaked into dusty filings. When he had exposed the entire blade, he switched to a flat file and began to hone the blade to a fine edge. His even strokes were methodical and he could feel his muscles flex and ripple in his arms. His sleeves became sodden with sweat and his hands grew slippery as if they were bathed in oil. Finally, the plow edge was sharp to the touch, and he slipped the files back in his pocket.

  He left the plow as it was and walked up to the road to the barn, every muscle in his body aching, his legs rubbery, his footfalls uncertain. He had graded the road with a two-by-twelve weighted down and pulled by Pete so that it was smooth and wide. It bordered that field and the others that lay beyond.

  The sun stood straight up in the sky when he slipped the traces next to a watering trough.

  “Pete, you can rest while I eat my dinner. I’ll bring you back some oats.”

  The mule tossed its head and its floppy ears bounced up and down like a harlequin’s tassels. Clarence tied the reins to a post next to the trough.

  He walked along the edge of the field toward the barn. He could see both his house and the nearby barn, but they were small and just barely poked above the horizon. Clarence owned a large farm that he and his sons had homesteaded before the war. Their houses stood empty beyond his own. Now that they were both dead, he and Floybel, his wife of thirty years, were wondering if they should hire help or sell off some of their land.

  He thought of his sons often. They had been very dear to him, both born in Virginia while he fought with Lee, first at Manassas Junction and, later, at Gettysburg. He sired one before he went off to fight for the South, and the other while he was home on leave. After Gettysburg, with a broken heart, he and Floybel journeyed westward with sons
Branford and Stanley. He homesteaded 160 acres in Kansas, bought more adjoining land; then when his sons were young men, they homesteaded more acreage, married, and they all worked the farm.

  Two years before, both his sons had been killed in a fight with Texas cattlemen who drove their herd onto Ruggles farmland, trampling crops, fouling the creeks, and tearing up their peaceful existence. Stanley had been shot by a trail boss who hailed from Quitaque, Texas, and came north along the Palo Verde Trail. Branford, in a rage after seeing his brother brutally shot, went after his brother’s killer on foot. One of the cowmen broke out a lariat, roped the young man, and then rode off at a gallop. He dragged Branford, who kicked and screamed while trying to slip the rope from around his waist. The rope just got tighter and Branford’s screams dwindled to short whimpers and finally ceased. His clothes were ripped and torn and so was his face. The cowhand who had roped and dragged him slipped the rope off, coiled it back up, and attached it to his saddle. The herd moved on, leaving the two Ruggles boys dead. Floybel was inconsolable.

  Clarence buried his sons in a plot some distance from the house and planted box elders and maples for shade. He put fresh crosses on their graves every year. He made them out of wood and painted them white, painted their names in black so that they always looked fresh. The boys’ wives stayed on for another month and then went back east and sent greetings at Christmas for a year or so, then stopped corresponding altogether.

  Both women had remarried and Floybel cried herself to sleep every night for more than a year.

  Since then, other cattlemen from Texas had tried to cross their farmland, but Clarence fought them off. He enlisted the help of distant neighbors. These men helped him shoot the lead cattle and turn the herds away. It gave Clarence little satisfaction to shoot and kill cattle, because he still grieved for his sons. But he harbored a deep hatred of cattlemen and Texans. Each time he made the new crosses for his sons’ graves, he wept quietly and his rage boiled up in him.

  Now he was left with a large farm that was becoming too much for him. His joints ached and he had difficulty getting out of bed in the mornings. Floybel was showing her age too, and much of her former good nature had been wiped away by the deaths of her sons. She still grieved and there were nights when she couldn’t sleep and walked the floors of the house, moaning and beating her chest, pulling her long, graying hair. Clarence would find clumps of her hair on the floor in the early morning when he arose to milk the cows with cracked fingers, every joint a painful reminder of his arthritis.