Bitter Trail and Barbed Wire

by Elmer Kelton

  Happy nodded. “They’re poor devils with their bellies half empty and the pants hangin’ off of their seats. But we owe them a lot.”

  They sat awhile in silence. Frio stared into the dwindling fire, his mind wandering aimlessly down a dozen different trails. Happy brooded, chewing his lip. Frio began to notice, for it wasn’t like Happy to worry much.

  “You got somethin’ on your mind, Happy?”

  Happy shrugged. “Been worryin’. Guess I caught that from you, like some contagious sickness. Probably just foolishness anyway.” His eyes met Frio’s a minute. “Did you notice anything unusual today?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t really see nothin’, just kind of felt it. Had the feelin’ somebody was out in that brush watchin’ us. Trailin’ along.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “Because like I said, I didn’t see nothin’. Just a feelin’, a foolish notion, maybe. Way you been lately, you’d make anybody a little jumpy.” Happy waited for some reply and didn’t get it. “You haven’t said anything, Frio. You think I’m just lettin’ my imagination run wild?”

  Frio shook his head and came as near smiling as he had in weeks. “No, Happy. I just think you’re finally gettin’ some idea of what a man has to suffer through when he’s an owner.”

  It was a chilly night, the stars icy crystals sparkling against a black sky. Frio huddled by the fire, gazing into the coals, remembering. It seemed he was doing a lot of that lately during the long nights when he was unable to sleep, and when he was too tired or in too much pain to stalk around camp worrying the guards. He thought back on how he had left Amelia McCasland at the ranch.

  He hadn’t wanted to do it. When Natividad de la Cruz had returned with a wagonload of contraband supplies and a couple of men Hugh Plunkett had sent, Frio had tried to talk Amelia into taking María and Chico back to either Brownsville or Matamoros.

  “There’s nothin’ left out here for you now,” he had said, pointing to the charred ruins. “Not even a roof over your heads.”

  “We’ve got help,” Amelia had answered. “We can put up a brush jacal. It’ll be enough to keep us warm and dry.”

  “You’ve got no guarantee the Yankees won’t come back and try again. Anything we build, they’ll burn down.”

  “Then we’ll build another, and another. You said you were through running, Frio. So am I. I’ve made up my mind: Right here is where I’m going to stay.”

  Frio had known enough stubborn people to recognize the signs. He knew there was no point in arguing with her. So he had the three Mexicans put up a pair of rude brush huts, one for the two women and the boy, the other for Natividad. De la Cruz was to stay and do what he could to keep the ranch together. That wouldn’t be much, Frio had feared, for you didn’t find many men like Blas Talamantes. Still, Natividad would try, and he would be some protection for the women. Maybe when this war was over there would still be enough of the cattle left so that Frio could start fresh and rebuild.

  As soon as he could stay on a horse, Frio had told Amelia he was going to rejoin the wagon train. She had nodded in resignation and made no protest, for she knew something of stubborn people too.

  She said, “You told me that the next time you went to Matamoros you would take me along. You said you wanted to marry me.”

  Frio had not tried to look into her eyes. “I did, and I meant it. But things have changed now, Amelia. When Tom led the Yankees out here and shot Blas, that altered everything. One day I’ll have to kill him. You might not want to be married to me then.”

  Amelia had said tightly, “Do you really have that much hate in you, Frio?”

  Frio had reached up to touch his bad shoulder and said, “I reckon I do.”

  “Go then,” Amelia told him. “Do whatever you have to. When it’s over, I’ll still be here.”

  * * *

  THE FIRE HAD burned low. One of the teamsters brought an armload of dead brush and dropped it near the glowing coals. “Con permiso, patrón, I will build up the fire.”

  Frio pushed himself to his feet and backed away a step. “Go ahead.”

  The Mexican began to lay wood on the smoldering fire. Flames started to build, licking around the dry mesquite and catclaw limbs. The dancing light brightened, framing Frio and the teamster against the darkness.

  Frio saw a flash from out in the brush and at almost the same instant felt an angry tug at the sleeve of his coat. Unprepared, he staggered backward in surprise. His foot caught on the little pile of wood, and he fell just as the rifle crashed again. Later he knew that this fall had saved his life, for the bullet thumped into the sideboard of a wagon behind him. The fall jarred the wounded shoulder, and a paralyzing agony gripped him.

  But if Frio was caught unprepared, Happy Jack and the Benavides militiamen were not. Almost as soon as Frio went down, he heard four more guns open up, aimed at the last flash from the darkness. The ambusher fired a third time, and the camp rifles roared again.

  Out in the brush a man screamed. Still lying on his side, the shoulder throbbing, Frio heard a crackling of dry limbs in the darkness. Guns in hand, Happy and the three militiamen sprinted out toward the bushwhacker, half a dozen teamsters close behind them. Frio heard one of the militiamen cry out sharply in Spanish, “Do not touch that gun!”

  The reply was a weak cry for mercy. Presently the militiamen came back into the firelight, carrying a wounded man. Frio had regained his feet, although he was shaking a little from surprise and pain. They laid the wounded man down by the fire. Happy returned, still looking off into the darkness. “Far as I can tell, he was by himself.”

  The ambusher was Mexican, and he was dying. Frio could not remember ever having seen the hombre before. In Spanish he asked, “What did you do this for? Did the yanquis pay you?”

  The Mexican’s teeth grated in agony. He shook his head. “Not the yanquis … Florencio Chapa. He said he would pay…” The man cried out in pain. Shock covered his face with cold sweat. He would be dead in a minute. “Chapa said he would give me … much silver … to kill the man Wheeler … for the terrible thing he has done to Chapa.”

  “For what I did to him?” Frio said sharply.

  “You have not seen him,” came the weak reply. “Few have seen him since…” The man groaned as the pain grew more intense. “It is a terrible sight … a terrible sight.…” The voice trailed, and he was gone.

  Happy Jack stood solemnly staring down on the ambusher he had helped to kill. At last he looked up at Frio. “Appears you’ve got more enemies than the law allows. I’m still glad I’m not an owner!”

  14

  Spring. Drought still clung stubbornly to the land. The brush leafed out green, for this was desert growth that had survived similar droughts periodically for thousands of years and had met Nature’s strict law of selectivity. The plants that couldn’t survive had died out in times so remote as to be beyond the memory of man.

  Except for those scattered spots that had been fortunate in receiving the small spotted showers so characteristic of Texas droughts, there was no grass. It would appear to have died out. But Frio knew from past experience that it was merely dormant, waiting for rain to bring it springing fresh and green from bare ground.

  The drought worked severe hardship on Frio and the other freighters who moved their wagons ever so slowly along the twisting trails from San Antonio to the Rio Grande and then down to Matamoros. They still had to carry feed for the mules, and this took up space that otherwise could have been devoted to cargo. In that respect the Mexican outfits with their ox teams and high-wheeled carretas had an advantage. They would make the oxen live largely off prickly pear, the thorns burned away. But the mule teams were still the fastest. Frio figured what he lost in carrying capacity he made up for in time.

  There was a consolation. If the drought was hard on these men who rode the long trails for the Confederacy, it was far harder on the bluecoats who ventured out on horseback from t
he rebuilt gates of Fort Brown. Even with the Texas Unionists they had enlisted, the federals had not overcome the disadvantage of being strangers to the land. After all these months, they were still tied largely to the river. They could not stray farther from it than the water supplies they carried would allow. Moreover, the near-dry Rio Grande prevented them from making effective tactical use of the steamers. Had the river been flowing full, the big boats, bristling with Yankee guns, might have penetrated upriver past Reynosa and Rio Grande City to Mier, that bloody-historied town with a name still black as sin in the remembering eyes of Texas.

  Frio rode straight in the saddle again. The pain was gone, and only a trace of stiffness remained in his left shoulder. He could use the arm for almost anything except heavy lifting. He had plenty of men to do that for him. Though still spare from constant riding, he no longer had that gaunt look that he had carried so long. He seldom smiled, but he was no longer a terror to the men who rode alongside him. They could talk with him man to man, and he would stop to listen. He knew when the teams were tired and needed rest. He still made good time on the trail, but he didn’t kill men and mules to do it.

  Leaving San Antonio on this trip, Frio had heard news that did more for his spirit than any amount of medicine: At last Rip Ford was about to head south. This forceful Confederate officer would have a good command with him—tough soldiers, expert horsemen. No one knew exactly when Ford was going to start or what route he would take. That was being kept secret. That he was going to move, though, was no secret. Ford wanted the federals to know it. He wanted the new General Herron in Fort Brown to sit and brood over it, as Confederate officers had brooded about the Union’s coming.

  Ford’s campaign would be waged with nerves as much as with guns.

  * * *

  HERE ON THE wheel-rutted trails of the algodones, stray units of bold federal soldiers had been fighting their own war of nerves. With them rode attached irregulars—mostly renegados—to strike sporadically at the wagon trains. The raids were scattered and completely unpredictable. Usually the riders set fire to as many wagons as they could, then faded back into the chaparral. This they had learned from their enemy Benavides. If they met determined opposition, they most often melted away and saved their strength to use against some weaker train.

  Two abortive attempts had been made against Frio’s wagons. Both times the Yankees had drawn back quickly, recognizing that Frio’s train was too big for them, his men too ready to fight. Frio had drilled his men like soldiers in the art of defense.

  He would have admitted that these federals showed good sense. They knew when to strike and when to run.

  Today something was wrong. He had smelled it from the beginning, and a vague uneasiness had plagued him all day. This morning he had met a pair of Texas-Mexican militiamen on the trail. They had told him Benavides had gone upriver to head off a detail of bluecoats who somehow had penetrated beyond Rio Grande City and were a threat to the western trails. Later in the day Frio had spied a horseman sitting far off in the distance, watching the train across a clearing in the brush. He had sent one of his outriders to investigate, but the man had faded away before the outrider came close to him.

  A Union spy, Frio had been sure. Somewhere out here there must be a Union striking force, or there would have been no need for a spy. He had deployed the outriders and had ordered Happy Jack to fall well behind and watch for any sign of attack from the rear. This way the train probably could be warned in time to circle up for a fight.

  At the midday rest, Happy Jack had ridden in unhappily, looking back over his shoulder. “Frio, I seen a man a while ago. He was just a-sittin’ there on his horse, watchin’ me from a couple or three hundred yards. I turned to ride in his direction and he just sort of melted. He was there one minute, then gone the next, hidden in all that brush.”

  Frio had handed the young man a cup of coffee and watched him take it as eagerly as if it had been whisky. “Did he have a uniform on?”

  Happy Jack shook his head. “No, his clothes was Mexican, and so was the riggin’. Kind of a fancy outfit, seemed like at the distance.” He looked up, his eyes solemn. “Frio, I never did get close enough to be sure, but just by the way he sat there, the way he looked, I’d swear and be damned that it was Florencio Chapa!”

  A chill passed through Frio. He touched the nearly healed shoulder with his hand. “Chapa wouldn’t be out here by his lonesome.”

  Happy Jack frowned and flipped the dregs out of the cup. “No sir, he wouldn’t. I’ll bet you a pretty that he’s got him some bandidos waitin’ out yonder. Or he’s spyin’ for a bunch of Yankees and hopin’ to see them kill you too dead to skin.”

  The chill came again. Something strange had developed about Chapa. From talk Frio had heard last time he was in Matamoros, nobody ever saw the bandido anymore. Oh, he seemed to be around, all right; he left his tracks. But he was keeping himself out of sight. What business he had in town, he sent someone else to do, sometimes the gringo Campsey, sometimes his own Mexican lieutenants.

  There was trembling talk of a masked Chapa, riding through the dark streets of Matamoros at night, evil as a black wolf and hiding his face from the world. Some of the Mexican people were sure Chapa had been revealed as an incarnation of the devil, that his presence had become a curse upon the land where he walked, that if he took off his boots his feet would leave a cloven track and nothing would ever grow there again.

  Frio had never counted himself a superstitious man, but when a man lived among people who were prone to superstition, some of it was bound to rub off on him. Sometimes he could almost feel the presence of Chapa. It was an eerie sensation, a malevolent presence that made the hair stiffen on the back of his neck.

  “Well,” he said to Happy, “if it was Chapa, I expect we’ll hear from him soon enough. We’re coverin’ mostly open country this afternoon. I’ll string the wagons out two abreast and keep them closed up.”

  Happy Jack quietly ate his dinner, his eyes on Frio most of the time. Finished, he put away his plate and said with a gravity that was rare in him: “Frio, you’re an owner, and it ain’t my place to be tellin’ you what to do. But I’d give you a little advice: Let me ride out front and you stay up close to these wagons. If it is Chapa, and he gets you cut off from the bunch, he’ll take you like a hawk takes a pullet. Won’t be enough left of you to even hold a funeral.”

  Frio placed his hand on Happy Jack’s shoulder. “Thanks, Happy. But I never ask anybody to do anything for me that I wouldn’t do myself. I’ll take the point same as I always do.” Happy’s eyes showed the young man’s worry. Frio added: “I promise you this, I’ll see everything that moves. I won’t miss even a jackrabbit.”

  Frio took the point when the wagons strung out again. Gradually the brush thinned and the country opened up. Seeing less chance of being cut off unawares, he began gradually easing farther and farther out in front, the saddlegun across his lap, ready to use.

  Moving along at the wagons’ pace, he let himself think of Amelia McCasland, riding the ranges herself now like any cowboy, supervising Natividad de la Cruz and a couple of other vaqueros Frio had managed to find across the river. María Talamantes, her time no longer far away, was doing most of the woman work around the place. Amelia was busy a-horseback, seeing that Frio’s brand was burned on every unclaimed, unmarked animal she came across. There were a lot of them, for the hard winter had caused untold thousands of cattle to drift southward across the Wild Horse Desert from drought-stricken ranges above. Many had died of starvation, but a great number had somehow survived, gaunt and shaggy specimens of brute endurance that had survived by eating prickly pear—thorns and all. They were scattered from the Nueces to the Rio Grande, waiting to be claimed by whoever had the fastest horses and the longest ropes.

  They hadn’t married yet, she and Frio. There hadn’t been time. But whenever Amelia spoke, it was always we or us, and Frio liked the sound of it. “We’re going to come out of this thing standing on both feet
, Frio,” she had told him the last time he had seen her. “Nobody but God will ever know who all those cattle belong to, and He will give them to the one who claims them. They’re going to be ours, as many of them as the vaqueros and I can brand.”

  A couple of times Yankee patrols had stopped at the ranch, hoping to catch Frio there. On both occasions they had started to burn the new brush jacales, but Amelia’s stubborn defiance had stopped them cold.

  Frio remembered wondering, a long time ago, if she was strong enough to be a rancher’s wife in this backward country. The thought was ridiculous to him now. Amelia McCasland had a will of iron.

  * * *

  FRIO SAW THE one man first. Stopping his horse, he reached into his saddlebag for the spyglass he always carried. It wasn’t enough to bring the man up sharply. Frio couldn’t recognize him. But that chill played up and down his back. Instinct told him this was Chapa. Lowering the spyglass and looking around, he saw dust farther to the right. He focused the glass on that and made out riders, coming up from the south. Sunlight touched something metal. A saber, likely.

  Frio reined the horse around and put the spurs to him. Running hard, he drew his pistol and fired it twice, into the air. He waved his hat in a circular motion over his head. The teamsters in the lead saw him. They were already circling the wagons when he got there.

  The Mexicans cracked their whips, shouted excitedly at the mules as they moved into their allotted places and drew the wagons up close for a defense. Jumping down, they freed the mules from the wagons but left them in harness. A narrow space remained between the last two wagons so the outriders could come through. Shouting, moving in a hurry and stirring lots of dust, the teamsters tumbled cotton bales down from the wagons and dragged them into line to serve as a breastworks.

  Happy Jack was the last man into the circle, bringing up the rear. He jumped to the ground, saddle-gun in hand, and turned his horse loose in the middle. Three men dragged a cotton bale into place to plug the gap. Happy had seen the dust of the approaching riders.