Bloody Trail

by Ford Fargo

  Blackfeather had taken the first watch, and he’d be coming for Spike in a couple of hours, so Spike knew he should be grabbing some shuteye rather than using up the last of his tobacco—but it was a habit, a smoke before turning in. And, hell, tomorrow might be his day to cross over The Divide like a few of the posse already had, should they catch up with Danby and his dirty dogs. Especially if they were outnumbered as much as Spike suspicioned they might be. He was no expert tracker, but the tracks they followed seemed to be made by the better part of a dozen riders, and who knew how many there may be when the gang reached their destination?

  Many of the men in Wolf Creek still held deep-seated grudges against those who’d carried the colors of Lee and Jefferson Davis, and Spike didn’t hide the truth that he had—in fact, he carried them as a badge of honor, still wearing a butternut kepi to shade his eyes, a kepi with a polished brass Davis Guard medal prominently displayed above the eye shade. The medal was won when a small force of forty-one men turned a fleet of five Union gunboats at Sabine Pass, and saved the day.

  Spike had overheard a couple of the boys, Rob Gallagher and Red Myers, badmouthing his kepi earlier on this trek, before the ambush, when they’d slowed to a walk to rest the horses, and gigged his steel gray up alongside Rob Gallagher.

  “You two got something against my cover?”

  The young man sneered at him. “How come you got to wear that by-God insult to every God-fearing man in town?” Rob asked.

  Spike’s eyes narrowed, and his voice rang low and hard. “We got a job of work to do, but I still got time to slip off this animal and make you lisp through some missing teeth.”

  The young man reddened, then kicked his horse into a trot, as did his trail pard, Red Myers. Spike had taken up a position three horse lengths behind them, content to mind his own business should others not stick their nose into it. Spike couldn’t hold a grudge against the tanner Red Myers—he’d gotten his brains blown out at the ambush, after all—but Gallagher, the store clerk, had made it all the way to Indian Territory now, and still seemed to have a chip on his shoulder about Spike’s Confederate past.

  They’d settled into darkness with only a few clouds marring the clear night, and the stars splattering the open portion of the sky—at least, what could be seen through the red oak canopy. Innumerable stars that seemed to be saying “count us, we dare you to try.”

  Spike Sweeney leaned against the rough tree trunk and re-lit the carved meerschaum pipe he was never without—he’d traded a sailor out of the pipe, which was adorned with carved head of a full-maned African lion as its bowl. If this manhunt went on much longer, he’d be out of pipe tobacco, and that would be one hell of a note. He’d be better stocked at this point, of course, if he hadn’t loaned a couple of bowls full to the Scottish doctor, Munro, on the night after the ambush—but he didn’t begrudge it. He’d enjoyed sitting and smoking with Munro, swapping war stories while the doctor’s patients slept. Spike was partial to fellow soldiers and meerschaum smokers, no matter which color uniform they’d worn in the war.

  He imagined pipe tobacco, here in the territories, would be hard to come by. Maybe he’d find some Indian tobacco he could trade for, if they came upon some friendly folks who’d left their war paint at home. Finally he knocked the dottle out of his pipe, bagged the meerschaum, and lay his head down on his saddle and its pillow of a folded saddle blanket, pulling the kepi he always wore over his eyes. The smell of horse-lather was soothing to him, after so many years having it as a constant companion.

  It seemed he’d barely gotten his eyes closed when he felt a toe nudge his calf. He pushed the kepi back to see Charley bending over him, a finger to his lips.

  “I done got the creepies on my backbone,” he bent low and whispered. “Either Danby and his boys done doubled back, or we got others out there. Crickets keep quietin’ down—an’ you got to be up soon anyhow.”

  Spike knew by the burned down campfire and high moon that he’d been asleep a while. Pulling on his boots, he arose, hooked up the trouser belt that he’d loosened, grabbed one revolver out of its saddle holster, shoved it into the belt, and palmed the other. He moved close to Charley and spoke quietly. “You want I should wake the others?” Rob Gallagher, Billy Below, and Derrick McCain were sleeping hard, two of them snoring loud enough to announce the camp to someone two hundred paces away.

  “Nope, if we come on some two-legged critters, gunfire will waken them soon enough. If it’s a bunch of four-legged coyotes making the crickets nervous, then no reason. You head out that way—and, Johnny Reb, don’t be shooting me should we come back together.”

  “I never kilt no one didn’t need killing, Charley. You try and do the same.”

  Charley faded away, and Spike moved in the direction Charley had indicated. They were moving into a dogwood thicket at a forty-five degree angle. Spike knew the trickle of a muddy creek was only twenty yards into the copse, as he’d watered Hammer there and filled his canteen earlier. Moving quiet was not an easy task, but he toed his way along, having to push brush away as he did so. He’d long ago learned, hunting Texas whitetail and feral hogs, to move a few steps—no more than five—then wait and listen. It was a hunter’s habit that had served him well during the war. A man doesn’t hear the enemy moving if he’s moving himself.

  It took him several minutes to make the creek, which was hardly more than a muddy wash, but it was fifteen feet or more of width in the middle of the thicket that was brush free. His first step into the clearing made him pull up short and kneel, as his heel sucked at the mud, and made far too much noise for comfort. On his haunches, he eyed up and down the creek bed.

  Patience had never been his long suit, but hunting, men or animals, had taught him his compulsion for moving had to be quelled. Soon, he made out a slight movement up the creek, in the direction he thought Charley must be, and hunkered down even lower and watched and waited. Clouds moved away from the moon, and dim light flooded the creek-bed.

  Almost as soon as the clouds moved, Spike made out the shape of a man—only a shadow in the tangle of dogwood—and, as quickly, he caught the glint of metal, then a gurgle, and the man slumped to the mud and muck. For the count of three, sucking sounds came from the body, and the arms flailed. Then Spike realized that while the man was watching him, Charley had slipped up and put a smile in his throat from ear to ear. He could see Charley wiping the blade on his trousers, then re-sheathing it. To Spike’s surprise, it seemed that he’d made out a pair of feathers as the man had fallen—an Indian?

  The scout made a hand-signal to him to keep moving across the creek, and disappeared.

  With a dark streak of blood coloring the creek beneath his strides, he crossed, doing his best to quiet the sucking sound of his boots pulling out of the mud before and after he was in the six-inch-deep stream. In a hundred feet or so, after a half-hour of toeing forward, he came to the edge of the thicket. Charley gave him a low whistle from twenty or more paces away, and he moved, quietly and carefully, to his side.

  “Who was he?” Spike asked in a low tone.

  “Kiowa. And he wasn’t alone.”

  “So, where are the rest of them?”

  “Skeedaddled. See that,” Charley pointed to the ground.

  Spike kneeled and studied the edges of some prints, but couldn’t make out what it was. He arose and shrugged.

  “Cattle. Looks like a band of Kiowa wandered over the Cimarron and rustled up a couple of dozen head of beef. I’ll bet they think we’re doggin’ their trail.”

  “So, now we got to worry about a band of savages—pardon the description.”

  “Hell,” Charley said, “they are savages.” He offered a tight smile, then continued. “They’ll take your hair sooner than sit down to a back strap off’n one of those beeves.”

  “You left one ol’ boy lay back there.”

  “I did, and I imagine when they get wind that one of their own have gone missing—odds are, there’ll be hell to pay. We ain’t heard
near the end of it.”

  “Maybe we’d better stand a double watch the rest of the night?”

  “Sounds right, I’ll take another two hours along with you, then we’ll wake Gallagher and Billy, and let McCain sleep. We’d all better make sure our powder is dry come dawn.”

  “We better high tail it back. The rest of his band could have flanked us and hit the camp.”

  They made their way back to the creek much faster than they’d come, dragging the dead Kiowa behind rather than leaving him to be found. No one else stirred, nor had the band of Kiowa taken the scalps of the sleeping men.

  All of them were beaned up, coffee filled, and mounted as the sky to the east began to color up. They’d left the corpse of the Kiowa brave in as presentable a position as possible for a man with a wide crimson smile from ear to ear and the front of his backbone showing through his gaping sliced throat—his old percussion rifle and knife lay across his chest as if he were ready to take a long trip to meet his Maker. Spike and the other three had talked hard to keep Charley from taking the man’s scalp, figuring it might anger the band less. They only hoped that driving the small herd of beeves on was more important to the band than waiting for their missing compadre to show up. They hoped, but doubted it.

  Charley took up the point, since he was doing the tracking, with Billy Below, Derrick McCain, Rob Gallagher following. Spike Sweeney rode drag, figuring himself the most experienced of those who’d fought in a group. He knew to watch his back trail and flanks almost as much as ahead.

  Then the outlaws’ trail disappeared, hidden under that of several unshod horses and a couple of dozen beeves. Charley reined up and let the others come alongside.

  “We’re still on the outlaw trail, but we are also riding into double trouble. Watch careful and help me spot if these trails split. Let’s hope they do, and we can fight shy of following the Kiowa.” He pointed to each of them in turn. “And ever’ damn one of you watch for ambush. This thick cover would hide a herd of buffs.”

  They all were relieved when they pulled up into some low hills and the cover thinned to spotted post oaks—at least, until they spotted a dozen Kiowa quietly sitting their mounts on the skyline a quarter mile ahead.

  Billy Below had to call out to Charley, as the scout was concentrating on the trail. “There’s a thunder pot load of trouble up ahead.”

  Again, Charley pulled rein and waited for the others to come even.

  “Five against a dozen ain’t good odds,” Billy said quietly when he reined up.

  “Rotten, fact is,” Charley said. “Won’t do much good to run—we been pushin’ these horses too hard. I’m going on up alone to parlay. And that’s not all of them, as they would have some watching that herd they rustled, wherever they got ‘em hid out. You boys get your ready on.”

  Billy looked at him skeptically. “You ain’t thinkin’ of changin’ sides are you?”

  Charley stared him down, then said, “Well, Billy boy, if I do, then the odds will be some worse, won’t they? If you don’t know which way my stick floats by now, you never will.” He nudged his horse forward and left them all to wonder, then he turned back and spoke over his shoulder as he rode away. “’Course, your hair would look just fine on my coup stick.” He laughed, and gigged his horse into a lope.

  Spike couldn’t help but laugh as well, but it was short-lived and nervous. He looked the country over as Charley moved away, then spoke up. “There’s a little thicket up the hill a ways—there,” he pointed, “with some admirable rocks for cover. There’s a green spot there, maybe a little spring or seep. Should it come to that, break for there.”

  “Who made you straw boss?” Gallagher muttered.

  Spike eyed him carefully, then said in a low tone, “Tell you what, young fella, you ride on out of here hell for leather on that beat up nag of yours. Maybe you can lead them away from the rest of us, and while they’re taking your hair, eatin’ your liver, and divvying up your folderol, maybe we can sneak out unmolested.”

  Gallagher reddened, but said nothing more.

  “The rocks it is,” Derrick McCain agreed. “Maybe we should wander that way?”

  “Let’s see how it plays out with Charley. We don’t want to make those folks nervous while Charley is parlaying with them. We got three hundred or more paces on ‘em, should we make a run for it. That should give us time to get hunkered down and tucked behind cover a’fore they get on us.”

  They sat their mounts casually as Charley reached the band. It soon became obvious by the hands flying with sign talk that the parlay wasn’t going well. However, in moments, Charley spun his horse and trotted back to join them— followed by two Kiowa braves. The braves reined up twenty paces back.

  Charley wasted no time instructing them. “Take half the supplies out of the panniers and load what you can in your saddle bags. I’ve given them the mules and what we can’t haul.”

  “The hell you say,” Billy Below snapped, and Derrick McCain and Rob Gallagher chimed in.

  “Hold on,” Spike said. “You want to give them your hair or a couple of butt ugly mules and some dried meat? Get the ammunition, for sure.”

  “You want it, you get it, straw boss,” Rob Gallagher groused, and sat unmoving.

  Spike, thinking it no time for long drawn out discussion, dismounted and headed for the mules. Derrick McCain leapt off his animal, dropped the reins, and followed. In moments they had the panniers half unloaded, then Spike took up both lead ropes and led the animals to the waiting braves, who took them up and without looking back, trotted away, yelping in triumph.

  Spike remounted and reined over beside Charley. “Did they ask about their chum?”

  “Nope, and I sure-as-hell’s-hot didn’t bring it up. I did get a peek at a fresh scraped hide one of them had thrown over the rump of his horse. It had a Crown-W brand. Old man Sparkman will be spittin’ sparks when he figures out he’s missing two dozen or more head of prime beef.”

  Spike shook his head and smiled wryly. Ward Sparkman owned the largest spread in the vicinity of Wolf Creek, and he was a hard man, not having built the biggest ranch in the area by handing stock over to every passing band of Indians. The Kiowa could have chosen easier prey. Spike knew Sparkman well, having done lots of work for him—most of the Crown-W spread was in Taylor County, and Sparkman’s house was twenty miles southwest of Wolf Creek. Spike knew that the old man would chase this band to the ends of the earth had they driven off one of the geese he kept in a pond near the house, much less two or three hundred dollars worth of stock. And they left a trail wide as a St. Louis street. These Kiowa would rue the day…

  “They did sign where the outlaws were headed,” Charley said, “and where I can pick up the trail east of here. Seems they saw a passel of them, eight or so, only yesterday. Let’s get what we can stowed in our saddle bags and pound trail before these dirty Kiowa go to missing their man and ride back to find him.”

  Spike was feeling good about what Charley had accomplished. They rode on at a lope until they picked up the trail of shod horses again, then had to walk their horses before they collapsed. They made camp early on the crown of a low hill.

  “I don’t see what the hell we’re stoppin’ for,” Gallagher said, “when we’re so close to those killers we can almost smell ‘em.”

  “I reckon that’s why I’m a cowboy and you’re a store clerk,” Billy Below said with a grin. “If we don’t rest these hosses we’ll be walkin’ through the Nations. And as long as they’re resting, we might as well do the same.”

  “They’ve got horses, too,” Charley added. “And they’ve already slowed their pace considerable, their tracks tell me that. They probably figure they’re home free in Indian Territory and no posse can follow ‘em—plus, so far as they know, Wes Hammond and the others that lagged behind to ambush the posse either wiped us out or sent us packing back to Wolf Creek, and are bringing up the rear now for the main group. So they’ll be restin’ their horses tonight, same as us, and we�
��ll set out in the morning in a much bigger hurry than they’re in. I figure we’ll close in on ‘em sometime late tomorrow.”

  “God willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” Spike Sweeney said. “And these creeks don’t look like they’ve rose in a long spell.”

  Billy laughed at the comment, but Gallagher scowled and walked off.

  Spike shook his head, and spoke in a low voice so that only Billy could hear. “That boy’s showed a lot of pluck on this trip,” he said. “I don’t reckon none of us would’ve expected him to handle his self as well as he has. But he sure as hell has a burr under his saddle.”

  “Yeah,” Billy agreed. “It ain’t like him, neither, I’ve always knowed him to be good-natured. Of course, everybody’s good-natured around me, on account of I’m so blamed charming. Maybe all this shootin’ and gettin’ shot at is too new to him.”

  Spike grunted. “Wish I could say the same.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Spike rolled up as the first light turned the eastern sky to brass, and noticed that Charley had already done so. The scout’s gear, including his saddle, was piled ready to pack on the back of his mount, but he was nowhere to be seen. Spike went ahead and poked up the fire. They’d soaked beans overnight in a pair of canteens, so Spike dug out a pot he knew Charley carried and got the beans to cooking while he carved some fat slices of bacon and, using his skillet, got them to browning and spittin’ fat. The other men were slow to rise, and Spike saw no reason to hurry them, as the beans weren’t done and Charley was still down the hill somewhere.