The Trail Ends at Hell

by John Benteen

  Kilpatrick shook his head. “Maybe I’m a damn fool. I had a kid brother, he wasn’t but sixteen when the both of us went out to join up. He was killed outside of Atlanta, where Hood was in command, but he was so much like you it makes me hurt to look at you. Goddamn it, Rio, you could make it and make it right! Forget your trigger fingers and try to remember what you’ve learned on this drive. I’ve lugged you along, put up with a lot— ”

  “Let me have my money and my Colts,” Rio said coldly. “That’s all I want from you, Kilpatrick. My money and my guns.”

  “You won’t reconsider? It’s only two more days — ”

  “Damn the two more days! I want my sixes!”

  Boyd Kilpatrick’s deep chest swelled with indrawn breath. “Come on over to the chuck wagon,” he said tiredly. “I’ll give you your time — two and a half months at thirty a month. But I’m not gonna give you your guns.”

  There was a long silence. The boy’s face, crested by a shock of brown hair over a high, tanned forehead, beneath a sweat-stained gray sombrero, was like a water-smoothed rock: it was hard, but without the sharp granite planes that formed Boyd Kilpatrick’s countenance. “The hell you ain’t! Those guns belong to me!”

  “Maybe so. But you don’t git ’em until this herd reaches Gunsight. They’re bound to have a marshal or a constable there. I’ll leave your irons with him. Then he can size you up and give them to you or not, as he pleases.”

  Rio’s eyes were two black coals in the night “Kilpatrick — ”

  Slowly and significantly, Boyd dropped his hand to the cedar butt of his own Colt. “Don’t buck up against me, Rio. Maybe you don’t know it, although you ought to have learned it by now, but the trail boss on a cattle drive has the say. He has as much say as any president or any king. If I say you don’t get your guns until we hit town you don’t get ’em. You collect your sixes from the marshal at Gunsight. I’ll turn ’em over to him first thing.”

  Rio Fanning bit his lip. His eyes narrowed. “All right,” he said at last. “I can’t take on your whole crew. But once you’ve laid my guns down in town and I pick ’em up again, you and me might have business.”

  Boyd Kilpatrick said, coldly and soberly, “Forget that, Rio. You don’t want to come up against me.”

  “I think I got reason. Besides — ” Rio’s eyes glittered. “Besides, you’re known all over Texas as the best trail boss and one of the best fightin’ men Texas ever whelped. If I go up against you and down you, my name will be known — ”

  “You won’t make no rep goin’ up against me. I’m a trail boss, not a gunfighter.”

  Fanning’s mouth twisted. “All the same, I owe you somethin’ — ”

  Boyd’s temper broke its leash. “Listen, you snot-nosed kid,” he rasped. “I’ve burnt more gunpowder than you’ve ever smelled. I was with Hood’s Cavalry before you could walk, and I come back to a place overrun with Carpetbaggers, Federal soldiers, and Injuns. I’ve fought all of ’em and made six drives up the trail to boot. I’ve seen Ellsworth, Hays, Abilene, and Dodge. I don’t make my livin’ from the gun I tote, but don’t you push me! You’re too goddamn young for me to want to kill!”

  “You won’t kill me,” Rio Fanning said with utter confidence. “I’ll kill you, once I get my guns back.” His eyes narrowed, his voice crackled. “Gimme my pay, Kilpatrick. I’m riding on ahead to Gunsight. Time you bring your herd in and lay down my weapons and I can pick ’em up, I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Boyd looked at him a moment in the darkness. Then he nodded gravely. “That’s your privilege,” he said quietly. “Come on to the wagon. I’ll check out your time.”

  Chapter Two

  Kilpatrick halted the big roan on the ridge crest, knee-deep in lush prairie grass. Swinging the animal around, he looked at the herd winding across the flat below.

  Four thousand Texas longhorns, choused out of the brush along the Rio, half of them neck-yoked to tame oxen before they ever learned to travel with a herd. Black, white, brindle; red, blue and spotted, that great snake of cattle encompassed all the colors of the rainbow as it made its leisurely way north. Strung out for miles, point, swing, flank, and drag riders whooping and shouting as they kept the beef moving, they made, Boyd thought, one hell of a sight. He felt a deep-rooted satisfaction that was like a shot of good whiskey. By God, this country was growing, and it had to have beef to feed it! There was more involved in ramrodding a northbound herd than just money; it seemed to Kilpatrick that he was a vital part of something bigger than himself. He took pride, deep pride, in being a cowman, as, an imposing figure in his apple-horn saddle, he swung the horse again, looked north.

  Across his saddlebow, he held balanced a Springfield repeating rifle — Rio Fanning’s carbine. In the saddlebags behind his cantle were Rio’s six-guns. He had paid the boy off and, not without a certain regret, had watched Rio saddle his personal horse, thunder away into the darkness, bound for Gunsight.

  Now, he thought, it all depended on what kind of law the town of Gunsight had. Boyd knew Earp and the Mastersons; he and Hickok had split more than one bottle. Not to mention his old time friendships with Dallas Stoudenmire and Bear River Tom Smith. He thought he knew as much about cowtown lawmen as anybody; and every one he had met so far was the sort of man he could sit down and reason with. If he turned over Rio’s guns to a decent lawman, then pointed out what a troublemaker the kid was, Fanning would have a hard time reclaiming his irons. Especially in a new, beef-hungry town like Gunsight, where the word of the trail boss of the first incoming herd would be like Scripture. If Gunsight had a good marshal, it might be possible to keep Rio’s Colts away from him. Boyd hoped so. He had killed too many men in his time to have any stomach for having to shoot down a nineteen-year-old kid.

  Well, that was something to worry about when they hit Gunsight. Meanwhile, with the herd in charge of Jess Ford, he was to ride ahead, see to the shipping pens and the cattle cars, stir up the buyers and start negotiations. And, beyond that, size up Gunsight in general, so he would know what kind of town it was that he was turning twenty thirsty, explosive, horny, Texas cowboys loose in. Boyd touched the roan with spurs, sent it loping across the brown flats, and, soon, be had outdistanced the herd.

  It was late that evening when Gunsight came into view. Once again, Boyd Kilpatrick checked the roan at the crest of a rise. Below him stretched a great, level flat, ripe with grass. The slanting sun struck cold blue gleams from the twin rails of the Kansas Pacific’s line, slicing across the untouched prairie, ending abruptly in a clutter of pens and chutes designed for the loading of cattle. Beyond that, there was only a red scar against the green, where mules and drag pans had graded for an extension of the road.

  But what Kilpatrick’s eyes went to was the town, sliced in two by the blue steel. To have been so new, it was surprisingly large.

  North of the tracks lay the business district and five blocks of homes, mostly the color of raw lumber, a few already painted white or blue. That, in itself, made Gunsight a fair-sized place for this part of the country. But what pulled Boyd’s gaze was the area south of the rails.

  That was where his hands would hit, and where they would spend their wages — the District. Every cowtown had a District — a hell’s broth of saloons, gambling dens, brothels and dance halls. What raised Boyd’s brows was the size of the district in Gunsight. It was twice as large as the respectable portion of town above the tracks.

  He turned his head, looked toward the tent city that housed the Irishmen and Cousin Jacks — Cornishmen — who did the dirty work that moved the railroad west. Of course, Gunsight had lived up until now off the wages of the railroad work crews. But that payroll alone could not support a Tenderloin of the size that Kilpatrick saw. Obviously, a lot of vultures — cardsharps, whores, pimps and con men — had flocked here and were waiting for the Texans to come, waiting to fleece them. Gambling, speculating, that in a few months Gunsight would make Dodge and Abilene look tame.

  Kilpatrick’s
wide mouth creased. Likely, most of the waiting buzzards of that District were the lowest of the low — the men and women who’d been run out of the shipping points further east, as those places had gained a measure of respectability. That, he thought, would make it tough. He took responsibility for his crew — most of them had been with him for years, on his repeated drives north. They were not only his employees, but his friends, almost his brothers. When be paid them off, he wanted them to have a fair shake for their money. He knew they’d drink, but he didn’t want them to drink poison whiskey; he knew they’d gamble, but he didn’t want them to go up against stacked decks. They’d have their women, too, and pay their fair price for the trail town harpies, but he didn’t want them rolled for all their wages while they snored in drunken stupor afterwards. In short, he wanted them to be able to have the blast they’d earned in three abstemious, dangerous months of pushing a herd, but he didn’t want them fleeced like lambs.

  And that, he thought, was something else he was going to have to talk to the marshal of this place about. The lawmen of such a town set the tone. If he wanted to make it a place where Kilpatrick’s men could get a fair shake, he could do it. It was, Boyd thought, up to him to see that the lawman gave his cowhands the freedom of the town and made sure that they got something for the money they would blow when he paid them off. If he sided with the vultures, that made a big difference.

  Well, the first man to see was Isaac Gault, who had written him the letter. Then he’d brace the marshal. He touched the roan with spurs, sent it loping toward the town.

  ~*~

  The horse snorted at the white plume of steam billowing from the work engine on the west; but he held it tight-reined as he rode into the District. Holding it to a single-foot, he scanned both sides of the wide, dusty street, and his mouth thinned. By God, this was the lousiest place he’d seen in a long time. It seemed that every haggard whore and gun-draped tough run out of the places further east had hit Gunsight. The women crowed at him and the men watched him with narrowed eyes as he jogged down the thoroughfare that bore the name on scribbled signs: Railroad Street. If, he thought, Rio Fanning wanted action, he would find it here. There were plenty of hardcases for him to brace.

  Then the roan reared.

  What startled it was the thunder of gunfire from Boyd’s right. Two Colts, blasting inside a saloon. Almost immediately afterwards, as the skittish horse came down, a pair of swinging doors slammed, and a man came backing into the dusty street, holding a .44 in his right hand, clutching his belly with his left. Kilpatrick stared at the red oozing between his fingers.

  The man was gut-shot. And yet, built like a bull, black-bearded, he refused to go down. He brandished his pistol, and his voice was an anguished roar, like the moan of a buffalo hit too far behind the hump. “Goddamn you, Trask,” he hollered, “I ain’t dead yet! Come out and fight like a man with balls on!”

  Kilpatrick backed the roan, getting out of range, riveting his eyes on the swinging doors through which the black-bearded man had plunged. They flapped, and then their motion died.

  With his life oozing out of him, the big man sank to his knees. “Trask!” he bellowed. “I said, come out and fight while I can still shoot.”

  Still the doors were motionless. The blood kept running out; and as it flowed, the big man’s strength ebbed. He held the .44 pointed at the doors for a moment longer; then his arm trembled, fell. Suddenly the gun dropped into the dust. The great shaggy head, like a buffalo’s, slumped. “Trask — ” the man grated. “Come out — ” His voice died, fading into a faint, anguished moan. Then he was beyond fighting, helpless, as the life ebbed out of him into the dust.

  Suddenly the swinging doors clashed.

  A man came out, all in black, slouch hat tilted on a mane of yellow hair that fell down to his shoulders, red lips twisted under a long, drooping, matching mustache. Along with the marshal’s badge on his black frock coat, Kilpatrick’s eyes saw the twin holsters set backside to on his lean hips, arranged for cross draw, mark of a show-off gunman, the dangerous kind. Trask held a long-barreled Colt in each hand; smoke curled from the muzzle of the right one. He looked at the helpless man on hands and knees, whose life ebbed into the dust; and then the full lips beneath the flamboyant mustache curled. “Well, Kane,” Trask said quietly. Then, like a man taking target practice, he lined his left hand gun.

  The street was absolutely silent for a long second. Boyd stared, frozen in the saddle.

  Then the roar of the Colt made the roan jump.

  Boyd gathered rein as the body, nearly headless, flopped limply, belly down, and lay still. A kind of sigh went up from the crowd that packed the sidewalks.

  The man called Trask, with a dazzling gesture, holstered his guns. Smiling coolly, he looked around. “Let that be a lesson to all of you,” he said loudly. “Now, somebody clean up this trash.” Then he turned, went back into the saloon.

  Full of morbid curiosity, the onlookers clustered around the thing in the dust. Kilpatrick put the roan in motion, circled it widely, went on up the street. Now, though, he carried Rio Fanning’s carbine so it could be put to instant use. This was a hell of an introduction to Gunsight, but at least it told him in a hurry what sort of place it was — wide open. Whatever law they had here, it was the kind that left it to a man to carry his own protection on his hip. All right, he was used to that. It just meant that he and all his men would have to be on guard the whole time they were here.

  ~*~

  All the way through the rough section, until the roan crossed the tracks, Boyd watched both sides of the street, looking for Rio Fanning. The kid should be in town by now, and Kilpatrick had not forgotten his threat. If the boy had managed to get his hand on an extra gun somehow —

  But there was no sign of Fanning, and then, past the railroad, Boyd was in the more respectable section of town: stores, cafes, a few offices. He saw a squat, low building made of cottonwood logs, its windows barred, a crudely lettered sign over its door: Marshal & Jail. Putting his mount up to a hitch rack, he swung down, tried the door and found it locked. When he hammered on it, there was no answer. Boyd turned, saw a saloon across the street — the only one on the block. Likely it had been set up to give the decent folks a place to have a drink without getting mixed in with the rough crowd. The bartender could tell him where to find the mayor, Isaac Gault. Carrying the carbine, he crossed over, entered the place.

  The single room was long, narrow, and dim, almost deserted at this time of day. An old man with a week’s beard sat in a collarless wreck of what had once been a white shirt and dealt himself a hand of solitaire at a table in a corner. From time to time, he took a pull at a bottle, disdaining the use of a glass. The bartender was busy swatting flies. At the slam of the swinging doors, he turned, stared at the tall man in the battered sombrero, the clothes smeared with trail dust, and the bull-hide chaps. Then he went behind the mahogany. “Yes, sir. What’ll it be?”

  “Best bourbon, double shot,” Boyd said. He took off his hat, ran his hand through his sweat-dampened mane of black hair, laid the carbine on the bar, and then rolled a smoke as the man poured. The whiskey was good, his first drink in months, and he savored it, waiting for its pleasant explosion in his belly. Then he said, “Maybe you can tell me where to find the mayor.”

  “Tully Jordan?” The man’s mouth twisted in his moon face. “Yeah, he’ll be down in that dive of his below the tracks — place called The Waterhole.”

  Boyd’s brow furrowed. “Jordan? I thought Isaac Gault was mayor.”

  Instead of answering, the barman let his eyes flicker across the room. Slowly, Boyd turned. The wreck of an old man at the table in the corner laid down his cards, reached for the bottle again, batted his eyes at Kilpatrick. “No,” he said in a thin, shaky voice. “No, I ain’t mayor no more. But I’m Isaac Gault. Who’s lookin’ for me?”

  Kilpatrick stared incredulously, and he could not help the sinking feeling in his belly. Was this beardy drunk the founder of Gunsig
ht, the man whose persuasive letter had given him the idea of bringing the herd miles out of the way to a new town? Boyd picked up the carbine, strode across the room, looked down at the bleary-eyed card player.

  Gault looked back, slack-lipped, trying hard to focus. Then he said thickly, “You’re from Texas. You got Texas written all over you.”

  “Hell, yes, I’m from Texas!” Boyd snapped. “My name’s Kilpatrick and I got four thousand longhorns road-branded Two Rail bound for town, and it’s on your say-so, on account of a letter I got from you. What do you mean, you aren’t mayor anymore?”

  Gault didn’t answer immediately; he seemed to have trouble digesting this. “Trail herd? You have brought in a trail herd?”

  “Yes, by God, I’ve brought in a trail herd! It’ll be here come sundown and — ”

  He broke off. As if he had lost interest, Gault dropped his eyes. Fumblingly, he played a black jack on a red queen. Then he shook his head almost sadly. “Oh, thass too bad,” he said. “Thass really too bad. You mean you come all the way from Texas with four thousand cows? Thass a real shame.”

  Suddenly rage flared in Kilpatrick. His hand whipped out, seized the slack of the old man’s dirty shirt. The chair fell over as Boyd jerked Gault to his feet. “Damn you, what do you mean, it’s too bad?”

  Gault showed no fear. He just batted his eyes rapidly. His hand was on the one with which Boyd clutched him was cold, like clay or wax.

  “Iss just a shame,” he said, slurring the words, “because you come to the wrong town. You cain’t get no price for your cows here. Unless you wanta sell ’em at a loss, you’d better turn around and take ’em east to Dodge.”

  Chapter Three