Bitter Trail and Barbed Wire

by Elmer Kelton

  “And you, Frio? What’re you goin’ to do?”

  “I’m goin’ to Brownsville. I’ve got to scout around and see what’s happened. If I’m not back here by this time tomorrow, fire the cotton and head north. You’re on your own.”

  “Them Yankees will nail your hide to the fence.” There was no levity in Happy’s face now. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. You stay and see that the job is done right.” He touched spurs to the sorrel and said, “Adiós.”

  A little later he turned once and saw white smoke rising from somewhere to the north. Trammell’s wagon train, he knew. Bee had reached the well, and he hadn’t listened to Trammell as he had listened to Frio.

  There goes Trammell’s fortune, Frio thought, and he had not a spark of sympathy for the trader.

  6

  The south wind brought him the stench of smoke long before he reached the town. Dusk closed in. Through it he could see flames lick upward and drop again. Some of Brownsville was still burning. On his way in he had met refugees running north. Most of them could give him little information. No, they hadn’t seen the Yankees yet, but they were coming.

  There were more than twenty thousand troops, one panic-stricken old woman told him, half shrieking. They had been taken out of the Eastern jails and insane asylums just for this job. Their officers had given them whisky to make them mad drunk, and now they were coming to slaughter the town.

  Darkness caught him, and he knew he was lucky that it did. It would be a foolhardy stunt to ride into Brownsville in daylight, not knowing the whereabouts of the Union troops, not knowing the situation in the town. He could see a steady glow, probably from the cotton bales slowly burning away on the riverbank. Now and again, a fresh blaze sprang up. Occasionally he caught the sound of gunfire.

  If the Yankees were there, someone had remained to show them resistance.

  For the first time, a half-panicky thought struck him. What if it were not Yankees? What if the troops had not yet arrived? With the town wide open, defenseless, it would be like a magnet to all the motley border rabble from both sides of the river. It would give them an opportunity to pillage and burn with impunity, for there would be no law, no retribution.

  A fresh anxiety welled up in him. If Amelia was still there.…

  He spurred into a lope.

  At the first jacales he met a Mexican coming out from the direction of town. The Mexican turned off the trail and started to run.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Frio called to him in Spanish. “I won’t hurt you.”

  The Mexican came up uncertainly, ready to run at the first sign of treachery. Frio asked, “Have the Yankee troops arrived in Brownsville yet?”

  Sombrero in hand, the man replied, “No, señor, no yanquis. But there are many bandidos. It is dangerous to go into the town now.”

  “What of the people?”

  “Many have gone across the river.” His eyes rolled upward as he remembered. “Aiii, what a terrible sight, all the fires, all the people screaming.…”

  He told Frio how General Bee had dropped his siege guns into the river, how he had set fire to the fort and the supplies he had not been able to move. Despairing of getting all the Confederate cotton across the river, Bee had ordered his men to set ablaze all of it that remained on the north bank. Finally Bee and his troops had started out hurriedly to overtake their wagon train and put the abandoned town far behind them.

  The Mexican told of frightened townspeople struggling to get their most valuable possessions onto the ferries and flee across the river. There were so many that ferries and skiffs could not hope to carry them all. Desperate men paid exorbitant prices and still fought with fists and clubs to win places on the boats for themselves, their families, and their belongings. Household and store goods were piled high along the bank of the river. Fires from Fort Brown began to spread out into the town, setting the frame buildings ablaze. Finally the flames had touched a huge cache of gunpowder in the fort. The concussion knocked people to the ground, caved in the sides of nearby buildings, and hurled blazing debris high into the air. Some of it came down amid the piled goods awaiting the ferries, and the riverbank became a heartbreaking holocaust. Many a family lost everything they owned.

  The Mexican trembled as he told of the things he had seen. “Some of the people stayed on this side of the river, and now the outlaws have come to steal what has not burned. Bad men, señor—Mexicans, gringos, men with no country. More people will die tonight.”

  A tingling played up and down Frio’s back. He started to touch spurs to the sorrel. The Mexican said, “Do not go. It is not safe there.”

  “Is it safe anywhere?” Frio asked him. He put the sorrel into a lope. As he rode, he drew the saddlegun and gripped it in his right hand, ready. Moving down Elizabeth Street he came into the heavy dry smell of smoke. It pinched his nostrils, burned his eyes. He coughed, gasping for fresh air. A gust of clean wind came from the south, clearing his lungs.

  The fires had not touched the upper end of the street. He could see looters at work in abandoned stores, frantically pulling goods down from the shelves, searching out the things they wanted. He heard someone challenge a pair of men who came out of a store, their arms loaded. The two dropped their loot and attacked the man who had spoken to them. They beat him to his knees with their gun barrels. Frio rode in and fired the rifle once in their direction. The two men broke into a run, disappearing down a dark alley. One of them paused a moment to snap off a wild shot that missed Frio by a considerable distance. The slug struck a brick building across the street and whined away. The beaten man staggered inside the store.

  Keeping to the shadows, Frio put the sorrel into a long trot down the street toward the McCaslands’. As he rode, his anxiety swelled and grew. The farther he went, the brighter danced the flames ahead of him. Much of that part of town nearest the fort was either ablaze or already burned. The stench was heavy. His lungs ached from breathing the smoke.

  Every few moments he heard a vagrant shot, or two or three. Somewhere, here and there, people were defending their homes, their stores.

  He reached the McCasland block. His smoke-burned eyes peered through the eerie firelight for the store with the high false front, the empty balcony that Meade McCasland had disliked so much. He saw it, and his heart leaped. It was ablaze. From out in the street, three men knelt and fired into the flames. Inside, someone fired back.

  Frio shifted the rifle to his left hand, with the reins, and drew his six-shooter. He spurred the sorrel into a hard run and headed straight for the three men, firing as he rode. For a moment they held steady and returned his fire. Then one of them slumped. The other two grabbed him and pulled him into the darkness of an alley. Frio fired after them until he realized he was wasting his ammunition. He might need it before he was through here.

  The sorrel was dancing wildly at sight of the flames. Frio jumped to the ground beside a dropped bundle of clothes he saw in the street. He picked a shirt from among the garments and tied it across the horse’s eyes, blinding him.

  “Amelia!” he called. “Meade!” Over the crackle of the flames he heard no response. “Amelia!” he called again.

  From inside the blazing store he heard her answer. “Frio! Frio!”

  He moved the horse along the side of the building where the flames had not yet reached. He tied the blindfolded animal across the street and then tried the door. It was bolted from inside. On the ground he saw an empty wooden packing crate. Using this, he smashed a window and crawled inside. He found himself in the living quarters.

  “Amelia!”

  He heard her answer from up front, in the store. She was locked in. He twisted his body and struck the dividing door with his shoulder. The latch section splintered, and the door fell open. The blistering heat slapped him across the face.

  He saw her framed amid the crackling flames. She was sobbing aloud as she tried vainly to pull a man’s body across the floor ahead of the rapidly gaining fire. The boy Ch
ico huddled in a corner, eyes wide in fear.

  The fallen man was Meade McCasland, and Frio could tell he was hard hit. But there was no time to think of that. There might not even be time to get him out of the building before the blazing ceiling came crashing down upon them. Frio grabbed Meade from behind and half lifted him up, dragging the old man’s heels as he hurriedly started backing out.

  “Get out, Amelia, Chico! Out the door, quick!”

  Chico unfroze and bolted out the door Frio had smashed. Amelia hung back, her hands cupped almost at her mouth, her eyes swimming in tears.

  Frio got Meade McCasland through the door. A moment later the ceiling caved in. Now the living quarters were beginning to burn. “We’ve got to get clear,” Frio cried. “We’ve got to get to the street.”

  Amelia hurried ahead of him and unbolted the back door. The furnace heat seared Frio’s lungs as he knelt and worked Meade’s limp body up over his back so he could walk upright and carry the wounded man. Frio went out first, pistol in his hand. The girl and the little boy followed him. Across the street, where Frio had tied the sorrel, the flames had not yet reached. Bent over by Meade’s weight, Frio struggled across and gently laid the man down on a porch. Then, in the crazy dancing light of the blaze, he knelt to examine Meade’s wound. He found his hands sticky with the old man’s blood. Frio tore open Meade’s shirt.

  Just then Meade gasped and went limp. Frio lifted a wrist and felt for the pulse. There was none. Slowly, gently, he folded the old storekeeper’s arms. He turned back to Amelia.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Her hands went over her face, and her shoulders trembled. Frio stood up and took her into his arms. The little boy knelt beside the old man and sobbed brokenly. Across the street the flames swept through the rest of the building. The roof seemed for a moment to buckle, then it went down with a roar that sent sparks high into the air. The sorrel danced in fear, for he could hear and smell even if he could not see.

  From down the street, Frio heard a man’s voice calling: “Dad! Amelia!” He heard a horse running, and he saw the figure break into sight. The man slid the horse to a stop and for a moment appeared on the verge of rushing into the blazing hull of McCasland’s store.

  “Dad!” he called again. “Amelia!”

  Frio shouted, “Over here, Tom!”

  Tom McCasland came running, leading the horse. He let the horse go, and it went to Frio’s sorrel. Tom grabbed Amelia. “Amelia, are you all right?”

  Then his gaze dropped to the floor of the porch. He choked, “Dad!” and knelt quickly. He touched the hands and knew without having to ask. His body trembled as he slowly, lovingly moved his fingers over the quiet, still face. Finally he asked, “How did it happen?”

  Frio said, “Looters. I just got here myself.”

  Amelia McCasland forced herself to speak. Her voice was thin. “Dad wouldn’t leave. Said this was his home. Said he hadn’t ever run in his life. He didn’t think the Yankees would hurt us. He didn’t count on this.” She looked across the street at the death throes of the building that had been home. She cried a moment, then controlled herself. “With dark, the looters came. He tried to run them off with a rifle. They threw a lighted lantern through the window, then shot him as he tried to beat out the flames.”

  Tom choked. “If I had known … If I had had any idea … I was out at Brazos Santiago, where the troops were landing. I thought sure you-all would cross to Matamoros before the trouble started.”

  Frio said, “Where are the Yankees at, Tom? Have they got here yet?”

  Tom shook his head. “They’ll get here, but it’ll be a while. There’s a storm out on the gulf. They’re havin’ a hard time gettin’ the transports unloaded.”

  “How many troops?”

  “Seven thousand seasick soldiers.”

  Frio took hold of the girl’s arms. “Amelia, we’ve got to move. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go, but we’ve got to get away from here. Some of those looters will be around again. They’d better not catch a woman out in the street.”

  She nodded woodenly and knelt to look at her father again. “What about Dad?”

  Frio said, “I reckon we’ll have to leave him to Tom.”

  Tom said, “Yes, Frio, I’ll take care of Dad. But you’re not goin’ anyplace.”

  Frio turned quickly and found Tom McCasland holding a pistol on him. “Tom, what is this?”

  “I’m placin’ you under arrest, Frio. I’m goin’ to hold you till the Union troops get here.”

  Frio swayed. He would have expected almost anything but this. “Tom, we’ve been friends for so long.…”

  “That’s why I’m doin’ it. Leave you free to ride up and down in the chaparral and somebody’ll kill you sure. Because you are my friend, Frio, I want to see you live. I want to put you away in some safe Union prison camp till this war is over. I want to see you stay alive to marry my sister and be the father of her children.”

  Frio’s voice held an edge of steel. “Do this, Tom, and you’ll never be my friend again.”

  “I’ve got no choice. I want you to live, even if you hate me for it. Now ease that pistol out of the holster and drop it.”

  “You wouldn’t really kill me.”

  “But I’d wound you. I’d cripple you if it meant keepin’ you alive. Drop the pistol, Frio.”

  Frio dropped the pistol. It clattered on the porch. Amelia McCasland stared at it a moment. Then she picked it up. She swung it around to point at her brother.

  “Now, Tom, you drop yours.”

  “Sis!”

  “Drop it, I said.”

  Stubbornly Tom held his ground. “What’re you doin’ this for, Sis? I’m only tryin’ to help you and Frio.”

  “Whatever Frio wants, that’s what I want. If he wants to be free … if he wants to keep fighting … then that’s what I want for him. Drop the gun.”

  “You’re my sister. You wouldn’t kill me.”

  “Like you told Frio, I’d wound you. I’d cripple you if I had to.”

  Her voice was rock steady. She meant it, and Tom knew she did. He shifted the pistol around in his hand and gave it to Frio butt first. “You’re makin’ a mistake, Frio. This was a way out for you if you’d just taken it.”

  Frio said, “The war’s not over yet, Tom. As long as it’s still on, I’ll do my part as I see it.” He jerked his head toward the two horses. “I reckon we’ll have to take your horse.”

  Grudgingly Tom said, “Help yourself. There’s nothin’ I can do.”

  Frio and Amelia moved toward the horses. Amelia wore a housedress with long skirts that were going to make it difficult for her to ride astride. “Can you manage?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “I’ll have to.”

  He gave her a footlift onto Tom’s horse and looked away as she pulled the skirts up. When she was in the saddle, he turned to his sorrel. He pulled away the blindfold and mounted. “Come along, Chico,” he said to the little boy and swung him up behind the saddle. Chico’s arms went around Frio’s waist, taking a death grip.

  Amelia had a last look at the gutted store and at her father lying on the porch, his one remaining son standing with shoulders slumped in sorrow. Tightly she said, “Take me out of here, Frio.”

  They moved away from the flames, away from the terror that was Brownsville on this, the blackest of its nights.

  7

  Water was always the first consideration of those adventuresome men who turned to cattle-raising in antebellum Texas. They could find grass almost anywhere—free grass—but water was often a rare commodity. The early Mexican rancheros in lower Texas settled wherever they located living water, or where they could dig shallow wells and find a dependable supply. If grass ran out, cattle could still survive for a time on dried mesquite beans and the many kinds of brush. If water played out, death was as certain as a change in the moon.

  Frio Wheeler and Tom McCasland had bought their land from crusty old Salcido Mendoza, who had fough
t against Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War. Media Mejico—half Mexico—the natives called the region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. Mendoza could see to his disgust that it was inevitably becoming gringo country. He didn’t want to live here anymore and be forced to rub shoulders with contentious, pale-eyed adventurers from the north, not when he could move south of the Rio and find land that would remain forever puro Mejicano.

  A warm feeling always came to Frio when he rode out of the brush and gazed upon this headquarters, scattered without plan or form below the never-failing spring. The improvements weren’t much to look at, but they belonged to him: Mendoza’s old rock house that was Frio’s living quarters—the few times he was ever able to sleep there anymore; the smaller stone house in which Blas and María Talamantes lived; the shady brush arbors, the several brush jacales that Mendoza had built for his help, all of them empty now because war had left the ranch without labor; the far-flung brush corrals, built—like everything else here—of materials that the land itself had yielded up.

  When Frio and Tom had come to their last violent quarrel over the war and had broken their partnership, they had split their holdings down the middle. They had drawn for high card, and Frio had won this headquarters.

  Frio had had little time for sleep since the burning of Brownsville. Shoulders sagging in weariness, his face grimy and bearded, he turned in the saddle and looked back at his jolting wagons, trailing along far behind him. The mules were dry and tired but still straining against the harness. Dust hit the rear wagons. Amelia McCasland rode on the one in the lead, beside a leather-skinned teamster. She sat hunched, numb from grief, near exhaustion. Her face seemed to have thinned. The weather had turned cold, and blue fingers held a blanket around her shoulders.