The Trail Ends at Hell

by John Benteen

  Boyd Kilpatrick held the old man for one frozen second longer. Then cold reason dissipated the rage that gripped him. He hooked another chair out from the table and slowly, almost gently, eased Gault down onto it. The old man sat heavily, not looking at the younger one. Instinctively, he reached for the bottle, but Boyd whisked it out of his grasp.

  “All right,” he said with a softness that, to anyone who had known him for a while, would have been a danger signal. “All right, Gault. I didn’t trail four thousand critters all this way to listen to a drunk. Suppose you tell me what you mean.” Over his shoulder, he snapped to the bartender: “You got any black coffee, bring him some, on the double.”

  “Don’t need no coffee.” Gault spread veined, splotched bands on the table, stared at them. “Jus’ gimme ’nother drink, I’ll tell you all about it. Remember now. Remember writin’ you that letter. Wrote you another one, too, but reckon you’d already started up the trail.” He gestured shakily. “Sit down. Sit down, hava drink. This is gonna take a spell to explain.” He sucked in a long, shuddering breath. Then he said, “Come to think of it, maybe I will take that black coffee.”

  The bartender was already coming with it. He set it down before Gault and the old man raised the cup with both hands, sloshing a great deal. He drank long and deeply, set it down again, and then, with visible effort, pulled himself together. Somehow, in that instant, Boyd got a glimpse of the man he had once been — strong and capable.

  “That letter,” Gault said, voice steadier. “It was written in good faith. Wrote it when I was agent for the railroad, while Gunsight was still bein’ built. Sent it to all the trail drivers we had any record of havin’ shipped for — you, Shanghai Pierce, people like that...”

  He raised his head. “I had a kinda dream, Kilpatrick. There was a town growin’ here on railroad land, and as their agent and a cattle buyer, too, I dreamed of a new kind of cow town. You take Dodge, Abilene, Wichita, those places ... they’ve had their day, they’re burnt out. I figured on learnin’ from their mistakes. Those places, there’s always been a kind of war goin’ on between the Texas trail herders and the townspeople. The Texans want to have their fun and the townies want to pick them clean as a whistle — and they’ve grown to hate each other. I figured that if I could build a new kind of town here, a place where the Texas cowboys could come in, raise hell, all right, but get a square shake when they did it; a place where, instead of a few cattle buyers havin’ the market sewed up, they’d have to bid against one another for the herds and the drovers would have a prime market; a place where — ” He broke off, drank some more coffee. “I don’t know,” he finished. “Just a decent place where cowboys could howl without gettin’ hurt, cattlemen could sell their beef at the best prices, the merchants make a fair profit, and, eventually, no matter what happens to the cow business, the foundation be laid for a permanent, real, prosperous city. Thass — That’s what I had in mind.” His slack mouth warped itself wryly. “It didn’t work out.”

  “What happened?”

  Gault laughed bitterly. “Jordan’s what happened. Tully Jordan.” He made a helpless gesture. “That an’ John Barleycorn.”

  “I don’t get it. Who’s Tully Jordan?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough, I’m afraid. He’s been chased out of every trail town east of here, him and Trask ...” He drained the cup. “We built the town,” he went on in a flat voice. “Decent people came here, seeing an opportunity and, I’m afraid, on my say-so. I have — used to have — a lot of friends. They came, invested their money, elected me mayor. Then Jordan and Trask showed up. Jordan’s a smart man, a smooth talker. More than that, he knew about my weakness.” Gault touched the bottle. “This. I used to have a bad case of this when I was a young man. Then I gave it up. Never touched a drop. As long as I didn’t take the first drink, you see ... But after that first one, hell, I can’t stop ... Anyhow, Jordan found out about that some way. I ... he was clever about it. He ... managed to get me back on the bottle. Damned if I know how to this day, but he could talk a coon down out of a tree when he sets his mind to it. He nudged up to me, good friends, all that, next thing I knew, I was killln’ a pint a day with him, then a quart … After a while ...”

  He raised his beardy face, looked at Kilpatrick with tortured eyes. “All right,” he said. “I’m a drunk again. Can’t help it. I got to have it, a sickness ... I don’t care about nothin’ any more except the booze. That’s what he used against me. Got me fired from the railroad, took my job hisself. Got me kicked outa office for public drunkenness, got hisself elected. And my marshal — ” He sighed. “I had a good marshal, a real lawman. Clem Tatum, maybe you’ve heard of him, was Masterson’s deputy over in Ford County. Honest, tough, the kind of man Bear River Tom Smith was before they killed him. But ... somebody put a load of buckshot into him one night from a dark alley. Then that damned Wayne Trask was appointed — him and his fancy gun rig.”

  “Wait a minute,” Boyd said. “Trask. He wears his guns set for cross draw?”

  “That’s him. A hell of a way to carry iron — but he’s fast as a copperhead with those Colts. And he wants to be ... famous. You know. Like Hickok, Earp, Masterson ... The only way he knows how to git that way is to kill people. As many people as he can, while he hides behind that badge ...”

  “He killed one today,” Kilpatrick said. “I saw it. A man named Kane.”

  “So he finally got Bud.” The bartender spoke up.

  “Bud?” Kilpatrick turned.

  “Bud Kane. He was a hunter for the railroad, shot meat for the crew. A good man, only tough as a boot and proud as a turkey cock. Trask has wanted to notch him up for a long time, but he couldn’t crowd Bud into a fight, nag him as he might.” Gault shook his head. “I reckon he finally pushed Bud into a corner he couldn’t get out of. Bud was well known, now that Trask’s killed him, his reputation will jump right up. It’ll be in the Dodge and Wichita and Hays papers ...”

  “Okay,” Boyd said. “I’ve got some of the picture now. Jordan and Trask have taken over the town. I reckon during the three months I’ve been on the trail. What I’m worried about is selling my herd. I’ve got the best beef that’s come up from Texas in years, so fat they can hardly walk. It’s premium stuff and I’m entitled to a premium price and I figured on getting it here.”

  “You would have, until Jordan got himself made agent for the railroad. The buyers were here, waiting, until then. But he rousted them out of town. Harassed them one way or another, but the worst way was his control over dispatch of cattle cars. As railroad agent, it falls on him to order the cars. It didn’t take long for all the other buyers to realize how he could freeze them out. He’s the only one that can get cars to ship any beef in.”

  “I see,” Boyd said thinly. “That makes him the only buyer in town.”

  “Right. So you either take whatever price he offers you, or you trail east to Dodge.”

  “Goddammit,” Boyd snapped, “Dodge’ll be pressed down and runnin’ over with cattle right now. The market will be on the bottom, the grass will be all gone, I’m on the hook for an extra month’s wages to my men already and — ” He stood up, face hard. “I can’t go to Dodge.”

  “That’s what Jordan’s counting on. I ... I got to have another drink, Kilpatrick.”

  “Take it and be damned!” Boyd rasped.

  “I probably will. All the way down.” Gault drank long and deeply from the bottle. Oddly, it seemed to steady him, sober him. “Look, Texas. When I was mayor, when I still believed in Gunsight, I wrote letters to every big Texas drover ... But I’m sorry, now. I’m sorry you came here on my advice. After I saw the way the wind blew, I wrote more letters, tellin’ everybody the situation — ”

  “Which we’ve all missed,” Kilpatrick said. “Hell, Gault, I didn’t come here on the strength of your letter alone. I checked with the railroad — ”

  “I know. Everything was true at the time. Everything’s different now.”

  “And I’
m in a hell of a bind. I laid my reputation on the line by taking this herd to Gunsight. If I sell such prime beef at a loss, I’m finished down in Texas.” Boyd shook his head. “I don’t understand it. Seems like your plan for Gunsight was a sound one. Seems like Jordan would have sense enough to carry it out.”

  “He don’t care nothing about the town. All he cares about is money — a quick killing. Your herd’s here already; likely there’ll be two or three more, anyhow, before the word gets around. You’ll have to sell out on a distress market, and so will the others. Jordan’ll make a profit of ten dollars a head minimum, over and above a fair one. End of the season, he’ll be a rich man and Gunsight and everybody in it can go to hell as far as he’s concerned. On top of which, he’ll take in a pile of money from his saloons, whore houses, and crooked gamblin’ layouts.”

  “I see.” Boyd bit his lip. “So that’s the way it stands, eh?”

  “That’s the way it stands, Kilpatrick. I’m sorry, but — ”

  Before he could finish the sentence, the swinging doors slammed. Instinctively, Boyd whipped around, hand dropping to his Colt. Then his fingers spread, relaxed, as he stared at the girl. In her fury, she was lovely.

  Her hair was the color of copper, piled in luxuriant abundance on her head; her eyes, emeralds set in ivory, flamed with anger. Beneath the tight bodice of the gingham dress, full breasts swelled; the fabric hugged a slender waist, flared out into fullness above rounded hips. Just inside the door, feet wide-planted, she looked from Kilpatrick to Gault and back again, with a gaze that could have melted an iron bar.

  Then she let out a breath, eased off. “There you are,” she said in a full, rich voice. “I should have known.” She looked at Boyd. “Did you buy him that bottle?”

  “I bought him that black coffee,” Kilpatrick said and indicated the cup.

  “Then he got the bottle on credit, and you’re the one I have to deal with.” She turned to the barkeep.

  He stepped behind the counter. “I’m sorry, Miss Stewart. But he paid cash.”

  The girl looked at Gault, and her breasts rose and fell. “I guess I’d better check the money in the sugar jar. All right, Dad. What — ”

  Gault got unsteadily to his feet. “Don’t fuss, honey. I’ve been talking business. Kilpatrick ... what’d you say your first name was?”

  “Boyd.”

  “Boyd Kilpatrick from Texas, this is my daughter, Stewart Gault. Funny name for a girl, but her mama, God rest her soul, insisted. Old family name, you know. Stewart, honey, Mr. Kilpatrick just brought in the first herd from Texas.”

  The girl looked at him with eyes that were keen and intelligent. “You fell for his letters, eh?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kilpatrick said. Maybe it was because he had been on the trail so long, but it seemed to him that she gave off a kind of fire, an electricity, like the lightning that played around a steer’s horns on a sultry night. He had never been so affected by the sight, the presence, of a woman.

  “Then I’m sorry. He meant well when he wrote them. Dad — ”

  “Honey, don’t make me come home right now. You go on back to the house, fix some supper. Maybe Boyd’ll come home, eat with us.”

  “No, thanks,” Boyd said. “I’ve got a herd to see to.”

  The girl’s eyes were bold as they ranged up and down his big frame. Then she smiled faintly. It was a marvelous smile, driving the anger out of her eyes, lighting her whole stunning face. “Maybe another time, Mr. Kilpatrick.”

  His gaze met hers. “I’d like that, Miss Stewart.”

  Quickly the green eyes shuttled away. She sighed. “All right, you’ve got your bottle. Finish it. If you’re not home at suppertime, I’ll keep something for you in the warming oven. Nice to have met you, Mr. Kilpatrick. Luck with your herd. You’ll need all of it you can get.”

  Then, before Boyd could answer, she turned and went out.

  Somehow, the room seemed strangely empty as the doors flapped behind her.

  Gault made a gusty sound. “She’s more like her mother than her mother herself. Fine girl. That’s ... how I got started on the bottle, Kilpatrick. My wife died giving birth. It’s a lonesome thing when you love a woman and she ain’t there with you anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Kilpatrick said, his eyes still on the doors. “I’ve never been married.” Then he turned. “Right now, my mind’s on cattle. Four thousand head I’ve got to figure out something to do with.”

  “There ain’t nothing you can do,” Gault muttered.

  “I can talk to Tully Jordan,” said Boyd. “Where can I find him?”

  “The Waterhole, down across the tracks. But, be careful. Trask ain’t the only gunman he’s got. He’s got a whole crowd of ’em under his thumb. That’s how he’s cinched up his control over Gunsight.”

  Kilpatrick rubbed his chin. “You know something, Gault? I’ve got twenty pretty tough boys of my own. If Jordan wants to come crossways of me, he’d better be prepared to take the consequences.”

  Gault shoved back his chair. His muddy eyes flickered. “What are you talkin’ about, Boyd?”

  “I don’t know, yet,” Kilpatrick said. “All I know is that I’ve come a long ways with a lot of cows I aim to sell at a good price. If I can’t do that in Gunsight the way it is, well ... maybe the thing to do is to change Gunsight.” Then he picked up Rio Fanning’s carbine and went out.

  ~*~

  The Waterhole, below the tracks, was twice the size of the other saloon and crowded with customers. Shoving through the swinging doors, Boyd Kilpatrick halted, sizing up the place. Dance hall harpies in low-cut dresses that showed off most of their breasts, short skirts that concealed little of their legs, circulated in profusion. The men they conned into buying drinks were the dregs of any trail town — tough, gun-hung, members of the frontier underworld; he had seen their like often enough before. A few of them raked their eyes over him curiously as he made his careful way to the bar. Boyd bellied up to the mahogany.

  Almost before he had touched it, a girl was at his side. He smelled strong perfume, stirring after months on the trail, and when he looked down at the pale slopes of big breasts rising above the deep-sliced neckline of her fancy dress, he felt a desire that was totally involuntary. Nevertheless, when she put her hand on his arm, asked, softly, seductively: “Buy me a drink feller?” he shook his head.

  “Not now.”

  “Maybe you’d rather do something else first. You look like you been ridin’ long and hard. I could take some of the edge off of you ...”

  “Later,” Boyd said, realizing for the first time how much he needed a woman. Strangely, after all that time on the trail, desire had died in him; and it was not this painted harpy who’d really aroused it again. It was, he thought, the girl in the other saloon, Stewart Gault. He could still feel that kind of electricity she’d given off.

  “Aw, come on, cowboy. I’ll give you the best time you ever had.”

  “Get the hell away,” Boyd rasped.

  She curled her lip, muttered an obscenity, drifted off. The bartender came up. “What for you, friend?”

  “Tully Jordan. I want to talk to him. Somebody told me I could find him here.”

  “Tully? Yeah. He’s in the back room. Only he’s with Trask now. You’ll have to wait.”

  “I didn’t come here to wait.” Boyd’s temper had about reached its limits. “You go back there and tell Jordan a man with four thousand longhorns to sell is out here and wants to see him.”

  The bartender’s pale brows went up. “Trail herd? You brought in a trail herd?”

  “You’re goddamn right,” Boyd rasped.

  “Hell, yes. Hang on, friend.” The man vanished through a door behind the bar.

  Almost instantly, he came back. “Come on through here.” He gestured toward the split in the bar. “Tully’ll see you right away.”

  “Big of him,” said Boyd thinly, and he followed the man.

  The bartender pushed open the door. “Boss,�
� he said, “here he is. Go in, friend.” And he stood aside.

  Boyd entered a room set up as an office. There was a roll-top desk against one wall, a table in the center, a sofa against the other wall. And as he passed through the door, the two men at the table arose and came forward. Trask he recognized, in the black hat and coat; the other one had to be Tully Jordan; and Boyd Kilpatrick, with his years of experience in war and Texas and the roughest trail towns of the West, did not need to be told which was the most dangerous of the two. He forgot Trask, as Jordan came toward him with his hand out, saying his name.

  “Tully Jordan ...” He was as tall as Boyd and apparently the same age. His shoulders were as broad, his chest as deep. His face was pale, but startlingly handsome, gray eyes like Boyd’s own set on either side of a straight, flawless nose above a wide, good-humored mouth. Somehow, Boyd had imagined him wearing a suit, complete with vest, watch chain and derby, like most of the powers in Western towns, and he was surprised to see that Jordan was dressed in comfortable range clothes: they were neat, pressed, and obviously tailor-made, but there was nothing pretentious about the double-breasted gray flannel shirt, the California pants, the bench-made boots, or, for that matter, the Colt slung low on a cartridgeless belt about the slender hips. Jordan could have been a cowboy or a rancher temporarily in the chips; and what dismayed Kilpatrick was that, even as the man smiled at him, he found himself, wary as he was of Jordan, liking the man.

  “I’m Boyd Kilpatrick.” He told Jordan about the herd approaching town. The keen gray eyes lit.

  “By God, Kilpatrick, that’s good news! The first herd for Gunsight! Hell, that’s a real event! We’ll roll out the red carpet! Welcome to town! We’ve waited a long time for this and now the place is finally on the map! You name it, Texas, and you’ve got it — the town of Gunsight is yours!”

  Kilpatrick shook a hard, firm hand, then dropped it warily. He fought again against this instant liking he’d taken to Jordan. “All I want’s a good price for my cattle,” he said.

  “A good price? Man, you’ll get the best price anybody in Kansas is paying!”