The Bozeman Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “We may be neutral,” Duke said. “But the men Bob saw aren’t. We’re going to have to come up with some way of handling them.”

  “I guess the best thing to do is go see them,” James said. “Bob, you and Billy stay here with the herd. Duke, you come with me. You don’t sound quite as Southern as the rest of us do. Maybe the two of us can convince them, whoever they are, that we aren’t a threat.”

  As James and Bob approached the encampment, they were challenged by a sentry who suddenly popped up in front of them. He was wearing gray.

  “Halt! Who goes there!” the sentry shouted, holding his rifle leveled toward them.

  “The name is Cason, James Cason,” James said. “We’ve got a herd of cows near here, that we’re driving north.” He nodded toward the water. “We need to bring ’em to water. If I could just talk to your commanding officer?”

  Half a steer hung on a spit over an open fire, the smell of its roasting permeating the air. The soldiers were in good spirits as they contemplated the feast that lay before them. James and Major Waldron, the commanding officer of the little army unit they had encountered, were sitting on a log near the fire.

  “It was very generous of you to offer up a steer like that,” Major Waldron said. “My men haven’t eaten anything but beans, bacon, and hardtack since we left Arkansas.”

  “Glad to do it,” James replied. “We were having a hunger for beef ourselves, but it made no sense to kill a steer for just nine of us. It would be too much of a waste.”

  “How is it that you fellas aren’t in the war?” Major Waldron asked.

  “I’ve got kin on both sides,” James answered.

  Major Waldron got up from the log, walked over to the fire, and picked up a burning brand. Then, pulling the stub of a cigar from his pocket, he lit it, taking several long puffs. What he did next surprised James, because he pinched off the glowing end of the cigar, then returned the stub to his pocket.

  “I have to ration them,” he explained when he saw the surprised look on James’s face. “I don’t know when I’ll get another one.”

  “I imagine that might be difficult,” James said.

  Major Waldron returned to the log and sat down again.

  “Now, about you not wanting to fight against your kin. Well, I reckon most of us are in that same fix,” the major said. “But when you get right down to it, a fella has to go with his conscience, and fight for what he believes in.”

  “That’s the way I look at it too,” James said. “And my conscience tells me—”

  “You stay the hell away from her, Butler! I saw her first!”

  The loud shout interrupted the conversation between James and the army commander. When they looked toward the commotion, they saw two men in angry confrontation.

  “Well, hell, Dobbins, iff’en you ain’t man enough to keep her, you got no right to her,” Butler replied.

  “I’ll show you who is man enough,” Dobbins said, launching a roundhouse right at his adversary. His unexpected blow landed on Butler’s chin, and though it didn’t knock him down, it did drive him back a few feet.

  Butler rubbed his chin, then worked his jaw back and forth a few times. When he was certain nothing had been broken, he smiled at Dobbins, an evil and mirthless smile.

  “Fight, fight!” someone shouted, and the camp came alive as soldiers hurried to the scene.

  The expression on Dobbins’s face turned from anger to one of apprehension. He had just given Butler his best blow and Butler was able to shake it off as if it were no more than a mosquito bite.

  “What the hell is going on over there?” Major Waldron asked.

  Bellowing like a bull, Butler charged Dobbins. Dobbins turned and ran, chased not only by Butler, but by the laughter of the other men. That was when James saw Revelation Scattergood standing near the wagon.

  He wasn’t that surprised to see her, but he was surprised to see what she was wearing. So far on this drive she had worn nothing but men’s trousers and shirts. In addition, she had kept her hair pinned up under her hat.

  Now, Revelation was wearing a dress, and not just any dress. She was wearing a dress that flowed with her lithe body, displaying a womanly form that the trousers had managed to hide. In addition, her hair, which James now saw was the color of ripe wheat, fell across her shoulders in soft waves. This was the first time he had ever seen her like this and he had to admit, begrudgingly, that she was an attractive woman.

  “I think I see the problem,” James said quietly, his voice reflecting the sense of guilt he felt over being the indirect cause.

  Major Waldron also saw Revelation. “What the hell?” he asked in surprise. “Is that a camp follower? Where the hell did she come from? As far as I know there’s not a town within fifty miles of here.”

  “She’s with us,” James said. “She’s driving the chuck wagon.”

  “Hell’s bells, man, don’t you know better than to bring a good-looking woman like that into a camp full of soldiers?”

  “I didn’t realize I was,” James replied.

  “What do you mean? Didn’t you just tell me she was driving your chuck wagon?”

  “I mean I didn’t know she was good-looking,” James said, looking at Revelation as if he had never seen her before.

  In order to prevent any further outbreaks, Major Waldron ordered his men to break camp and prepare to leave. There was a lot of grumbling from the men, and some voiced protests from the Scattergoods, who had intended to turn a fair profit on the whiskey they had remaining.

  “I’m sorry if our arrival caused you any trouble,” James apologized.

  “It wasn’t that much trouble,” Major Waldron said. “Hell, men been fighting over good-looking women from the beginning of time. You can’t change nature.”

  “No, I suppose not. Why don’t you take the other half of the beef we slaughtered?”

  “That’s mighty big of you,” Waldron said.

  “We can’t keep that much beef without it going bad on us,” James said.

  “All right, thanks, I’ll get my quartermaster on it,” Waldron said. He called over a big, red haired captain, gave him the order to see to the half of beef, then came back to talk to James.

  “You say you are going up to Dakota?”

  “Yes.”

  “How are you going?”

  “Just head north, I reckon.”

  “There’s a trail I’ve heard about, a new trail laid out by a fella named John Bozeman. The Bozeman Trail. You ever heard of it?”

  James shook his head. “Can’t say as I have.”

  “It’s a shortcut that will save you a lot of time. You might want to try it.”

  “I will try it. Thanks for the information,” James said.

  Major Waldron stroked his chin for a moment before speaking again. “I ought to warn you, though, the Bozeman Trail goes right through the middle of Sioux Indian territory. And the Sioux aren’t known for their hospitality toward whites, if you get my meanin’.”

  “I understand,” James said. “We’ll be careful.”

  When the Confederate cavalry pulled out half an hour later, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ran alongside the departing column, holding up whiskey jugs, selling “one last drink” for a dollar, and finding takers. Major Waldron saw what was going on and ordered his men to proceed at the gallop, thus leaving temptation behind.

  “You fellas come on back!” Matthew called to the departing soldiers. He held the jug up. “You goin’ to have a long dry spell!” he shouted.

  When none of the soldiers answered his call, Matthew took one final drink himself, then corked the jug.

  “Well, that was twenty dollars, just as slick as a whistle,” Mark said.

  “Wisht we could run into some more soldier-boys,” Luke said.

  “We keep on goin’ north, the next soldier-boys we run in to is liable to be Yankees,” John suggested.

  “Don’t make no never mind to us,” Matthew said. “They all drink whiskey.”
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  The others laughed.

  James shook his head in disgust. They were driving thousands of dollars’ worth of cows to market, and the Scattergoods were concerned about twenty dollars’ worth of whiskey.

  “If Revelation hadn’t got them two boys to fightin’ over her, we could’a made us a lot more,” Mark said.

  Mark’s comment about his sister reminded James that he wanted to speak to her, to caution her against any future incidents of the kind she caused with her careless flirtation with the soldiers. He walked back to her wagon.

  “Revelation, just what did you mean by causing all that commotion before?” James asked, even before he peeked into the wagon. “Don’t you know that—?” James’s question died on his lips when he looked in, because he caught her changing clothes. The dress she had been wearing was now lying across a sack of flour. She was wearing nothing but a camisole and underdrawers. Her long shapely legs were bare.

  “Oh, excuse me!” James said, turning away from the wagon in embarrassment.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Revelation said, obviously unperturbed by the interruption.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Scattergood,” James said. “I didn’t men to intrude like that.”

  “Miss Scattergood, is it?” Revelation asked, a moment later. “When did you start calling me Miss Scattergood? You’ve been calling me Revelation for the entire drive.”

  “I guess I just never thought of you as a woman before,” James said.

  “And now?” Revelation asked, obviously flirting with him. “How do you think of me now?”

  James cleared his throat. “I think you could be a troublemaker,” he said. “I would appreciate it if, in the future you, uh . . .” He turned back toward her.

  “Yes, Mr. Cason?” Revelation asked. Bending over to pick up her trousers, she presented a generous spill of breasts above her camisole. “If I would what?”

  Closing his eyes, James turned away again. “If you would make a less obvious display of your, uh, gender.”

  Revelation chuckled, amused by James’s discomfort. “I will do what I can, Mr. Cason,” she said.

  Chapter Eleven

  With the Golden Calf Cattle Company, mile 450,

  Saturday, July 19, 1862:

  The herd crossed into Indian Territory going as far as the Canadian River without encountering any difficulty with the Indians. They saw them often enough, but they were never in groups of more than three or four and they gave no sign of hostility.

  But when they made camp on the Canadian, Luke and John sneaked out after everyone else was in bed. The next morning the two Scattergood brothers were brought into camp, in irons, escorted by Indian Police who had arrested them for attempting to sell whiskey.

  After some negotiation, the Indians agreed to accept ten cows as payment for the fine.

  “Bob, Billy, cut ten Scattergood cows out of the herd,” James ordered.

  “Wait a minute,” Matthew protested. “You can’t do that! If you’re goin’ to pay these heathen ten cows, it’s got to come out of everyone’s herd equal.”

  “Everyone didn’t try and sell whiskey to the Indians,” James said.

  “All right, even so, it was Luke and John that done it, not me ’n Mark. You got no right makin’ us pay for what they done.”

  “You are all in this together,” James insisted.

  “Well, I don’t intend to just stand by an’ let you take ten of our cows.”

  “Oh, I think you will,” Duke said easily.

  “What have you got to do with this conversation?” Matthew challenged.

  “Like James said, we’re all in this together. Now, I didn’t try and sell any whiskey to the Indians, so if we’re goin’ to have to pay them off, we aren’t paying them with any of my cows. I’m pretty sure Billy and Bob feel the same way. That leaves your cows.”

  Though Duke was speaking quietly, his challenge was open and direct. And in some strange way, the fact that it was soft-spoken, made it all the more frightening.

  “Yeah, well, it don’t seem in no way right to me,” Matthew said, but his tone of voice indicated that he wouldn’t carry his protest any further.

  To the surprise of James and his friends, the Scattergoods generally held up their end of the bargain, each of them working as hard as any of those in James’s original party. What wasn’t a surprise to them was the fact that Revelation was working the hardest of all.

  When the drovers were finished with their supper, they would sit around the campfire, smoking their pipes, telling stories, and stretching weary muscles. While they were relaxing in such a way, Revelation, who had already put in a full day’s work, would be cleaning up from supper. Later, when the men would crawl wearily into bedrolls, reeking with their own musk, Revelation would still be up, making preparations for the next day’s meals.

  Then, when the drovers awakened the next morning, the air would be permeated with the rich smell of coffee brewing, bacon frying, and biscuits baking. That was because Revelation, who didn’t go to bed until about an hour after the last drover had drifted off to sleep, also rose an hour before anyone else. And finally, even before the herd began to move, Revelation would have the wagon loaded, the team harnessed and the wheels rolling as she forged on ahead, looking for the next campsite.

  The hardest part of the drive was to get the cows moving each morning. The campsites were picked where there was plenty of grass and water. In addition, there would be an occasional tree or an overhanging bluff to provide some respite from the sun, so the cows were reluctant to leave. Every morning they showed all intentions of staying right where they were.

  Sometimes the drovers would have to shout, probe the animals with sticks, and swing their ropes to get the herd underway. Eventually their efforts would pay off, and the herd would begin to move. Then, once the herd was underway, it would change from three thousand-plus individual creatures into a single entity with a single purpose. The inertia they needed to overcome to get the herd moving in the first place, now worked in their favor as the cows would plod along all day long at a steady clip, showing no inclination to stop.

  There was a distinctive smell to a herd this size. The smells came from sun on the hides, dust in the air, and especially from the animals’ droppings and urine. The odor was pungent and perhaps, to many, unpleasant. To James, however, it was an aroma as familiar and agreeable as the smell of flour and cinnamon on his mother’s apron.

  It had been a long, hard journey so far, and they had even farther to go. But as far as James was concerned, there was no place in the world he would rather be than right here, right now.

  Revelation Scattergood’s cooking skills had been a pleasant surprise. Though she dressed, rode, and worked as hard as any man, she showed a woman’s touch in the kitchen. Often she would surprise the men, who were used to trail grub, with something a little special.

  Tonight it was apple pie, and as she served everyone supper, James noticed that she had given him an extra-large piece of pie.

  “No, this is too large,” he said, holding his tin plate back toward her. “I don’t want to cheat the other men.”

  “You aren’t cheating them,” Revelation said. “I’m giving you my piece.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Maybe it’s because I like the way you stood up to my brothers,” Revelation said. She smiled. “Or, maybe it’s because I like you,” she added.

  “Well, I, uh, I appreciate it,” James said, not knowing what else to say.

  Over the next several days, it became obvious, even to the others, that Revelation had her sights set on making James Cason her man. James tried to ignore it as much as he could, but Bob, Billy, and Duke wouldn’t allow it. They found every opportunity to tease him.

  “Bob, you got a suit and tie?” Billy Swan asked one day, when the four of them were together.

  “Yes, I have a suit and tie.”

  “What about you, Duke? You got one?”

  Duke shook
his head. “I’ve never owned one,” he said. “What would I need one for?”

  “Why, for the wedding,” Billy answered.

  “What wedding?”

  “The wedding between James and Revelation,” Billy said. “Way things are looking, they’ll be getting married soon as we get back to Texas, and I reckon we’ll be wanting to go.”

  “Ha!” Bob said. “The way things are going, they’ll be getting married before we get back to Texas. Probably in the next little town we come to.”

  “Well, in that case, I won’t be needing a suit after all, will I?” Duke asked. “All I’ll need is a pair of clean denim trousers and maybe a new shirt.”

  Everyone but James laughed.

  “That’s about enough of all that,” James said.

  “You may as well face it, James. That girl is in love with you.”

  “All I can say is, you boys have a very active imagination,” James said. “She’s just being nice, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh. You just keep telling yourself that,” Billy said. “That’s how it works, you know. Women are a lot smarter than men when it comes to things like that. A woman will set her cap for a man and the next thing you know, she’s got him throwed, hog-tied, and branded before he knows what hit him.”

  Snorting in disgust, James rode away from the others as their laughter followed him.

  Mile 645, Thursday, July 31, 1862:

  They reached the Arkansas River after seven weeks on the trail. The lead animals bawled and refused the ford at first, but the drovers forced them in. Then, once the herd was started across the water it again became one entity, with all the trailing cows following without protest.

  With his leg hooked across the pommel of his saddle, James sat astride his horse on the south bank and watched as the stream of animals moved down into the water. Their hooves made clacking sounds on the rocky bank of the river, and their longhorns rattled as they came in contact with each other.

  He could see the ribs on each cow as it plunged into the water, and he was struck with how lean they were. It wasn’t so much that they weren’t getting enough to eat, as it was that they were trail-lean. They had literally walked all the pounds off of them. At this rate they would reach Dakota with nothing but tough and stringy animals. He wasn’t sure how much they would be able to charge for such animals, or even if anyone would be interested in buying them.