“You have the spirit of a pioneer,” said Prudence. “Your grandfather would be proud of you, just as I am. When must you be in Abilene?”
“It depends on how long it takes our outfit to gather a herd and drive it there,” said Priscilla. “If they’re able to buy the cows, they can trail-brand them and probably reach Abilene sometime in August or early September. But if they’re having to rope them out of the brush, it’ll take them longer to get the herd together.”
“Well, let them manage without you as far as Abilene,” said Prudence, “and the two of you go home with me. John and Emily, is there any reason the two of you can’t come along?”
“No,” said Mathewson, “but I’ll have to return to New Orleans sometime in October, for Brawn’s trial for attempted murder. The first of the year, I’m taking a government job in St. Louis, and Emily and I will be living there.”
The day before the five of them were to depart for Louisville, there was a letter from Marty. It was five pages long, and Priscilla read it aloud. It was dated February 1, 1867, and went into some detail. Marty had overlooked nothing.
“Thank God he didn’t send a telegram,” said Priscilla. “We’d be broke. At least we know we can send them a letter to San Antonio.”
“That was a smart move,” Ten said, “getting the help of the Lipan Apaches. I’ve been some worried about our bunch, there in the brakes, especially when I think of what that last Comanche raid almost cost us. I reckon we got us a muy bueno outfit, and I’m goin’ to let them finish the gather and take the herd on to Abilene. Send Marty an answer, give him the Louisville address, and have him telegraph us when the herd reaches Fort Worth. From that, we can figure and know just about when they’ll be in Abilene.”
The letter Marty received from Priscilla was as long as the one he had written Ten. Marty gathered them all around the supper fire and read them the letter. They could feel her pride as she told them her natural father, John Mathewson, was alive and well.
“I’m so happy for her,” said Chris. “When she would look at Ten’s daddy, I could see the hurt in her eyes. Now she has a father of her own that she can be proud of.”
“She deserves a man like Ten,” Marty said, “because she’s got as much sand as he has. They’re trustin’ us to make this gather and finish the trail drive, and I aim for us to show up in Abilene with bells on.”
“They’re not pushing us,” said Lou, “and since the time is being left up to us, let’s hang on here until we get at least as big a herd as last time.”
“I aim to,” said Marty. “We couldn’t ask for better, with these Lipans working the gather. All we have to worry about is the Comanches on the drive north, and maybe a bunch of outlaws.”
“Kill dead lak hell,” said Charlie Two Hats.
It was the happiest, most restful time of Ten’s life, taking the long steamboat ride to Louisville. John and Emily were delightful companions, and so was Prudence Edgerton. Ten was at ease where the outfit was concerned, thankful for partners like Wes and Marty. The bad times in New Orleans were behind them, he had Priscilla well and happy, and the days ahead would be a time to remember. They had just left Cairo, Illinois, when Ten remembered something.
“When you were hurt,” he told Priscilla, “I was so rattled, I forgot to write or telegraph Jess. He was there only because Harvey Roberts remembered to send him a telegram. Once we get to Louisville, will you send him about the same kind of letter you sent Marty? He’s goin’ to think I forgot how to write.”
“No,” said Priscilla, a twinkle in her gray eyes, “he’s going to be impressed with how thoughtful you are. I mailed him a letter the day I sent Marty’s, telling him all that’s happened, and I gave him the Louisville address.”
“All that,” said Ten admiringly, “and you’re beautiful too.”
By July 1, 1867, Marty did a rough tally and found they had 7500 longhorns, including what the Indians had captured before Marty and the outfit had arrived.
“We’ll be here until September, at least,” said Marty, “if we shoot for ten thousand head.”
“Let’s get ’em,” said Wes.
Already they were twenty-five miles south of the Lipan village. There were few longhorns any closer. They were in the saddle sixteen hours a day, often dragging their day’s gather to a holding pen in darkness.
It was a wonderful visit for Ten, Priscilla, John, and Emily. Prudence was an excellent hostess, and despite the death of her husband, she still kept a decent stable of horses. Ten and Priscilla took to riding every day, keeping in shape for the long ride to the high country.
“But for you,” Ten told Priscilla, “I probably wouldn’t have come here. Now I’m going to hate to leave.”
“I’ll remember that,” said Priscilla. “However much I like the high plains, I’ll still want to come here. Grandmother thinks she’s going to live forever, but one day she’ll be gone, and so will this.”
September 3, 1867, Marty gave the order.
“Move ’em out!”
The long drive to Abilene had begun, and as usual, the first few days were a cattleman’s idea of Hell. Hard as they tried, it was impossible to keep the herd bunched, and they were strung out for miles. Every longhorn in the herd seemed obsessed with but one desire: to return to the chaparral from which they’d been unwillingly taken. Their final tally had been 10,013 head. By the end of the third day on the trail, Lou expressed an opinion they all shared.
“Thirteen is an unlucky number. We should have caught one more cow, or turned one loose.”
Four days out of San Antone they were hit by an afternoon storm, and despite all their efforts, the longhorns stampeded, running south. They lost two days, rounding them up, and were still shy twenty-five of the brutes.
“We’ll count them as lost,” said Marty, “and move on.”
There were two more time-consuming stampedes before they reached Fort Worth. From there Marty sent the telegram Ten had requested, and on September 27, 1867, they left the fort, heading north. Without incident or delay, they crossed the Red, taking the Chisholm Trail and moving into Indian Territory.
Ten and Priscilla left Louisville on October 15. They left the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois, taking a steamboat north to St. Louis. From there they went by steamboat to Kansas City and took the train to Abilene. They were thoroughly shocked at the way the little town had mushroomed. There was the big, new hotel Joe McCoy had promised, a railroad depot, and a seemingly endless string of cattle pens that stretched out along the railroad track. In the office building McCoy had built, there were numerous little offices that had been assigned to various cattle buyers.
“Twenty-one dollars a head,” one of the buyers quoted Ten.
Despite McCoy’s widespread advertising, Abilene’s first year promised to be a lean one. So far there had been only three or four herds.
October 17, 1867. Ten saw the dust far to the south. Abilene had added a livery to its blacksmith shop, and Ten got a horse for himself and one for Priscilla. The first rider they saw was Charlie Two Hats, at point, and Two Hats cut loose with a whoop that startled some of the longhorns in the front ranks. Then Marty, Wes, Chris, and Lou discovered them, and there was a glad reunion.
With buyers on hand, they moved the longhorns directly into the cattle pens. McCoy’s barn stood ready, abundantly stocked to accommodate the expected herds. They sold at $21.50, splitting the herd among three buyers. Their final tally was 9875 head.
“Dear God,” shouted Chris, “we’re rich!”
“Let’s go to St. Louis again,” said Lou, “and buy for Christmas. We have the time, if we’re not going to Texas again until the spring.”
Jubilant over their success, Ten agreed. He paid Charlie Two Hats and his riders, giving every man a fifty-dollar bonus. He then instructed them to take the horse remuda and the pack mules and return to the Chisholm trading post.
When they reached St. Louis, they checked into the same hotel in which they’d stayed before. Ten, Mar
ty, and Wes went immediately to the bank and deposited their money. Despite their eagerness to reach St. Louis, they were soon tired of it. On the first of December they took a steamboat to Natchez, and there boarded another for Fort Smith.
Reaching the Chisholm trading post, Ten and his friends found Jesse Chisholm weak and sick. From the Cherokees attending him, Ten found the old man had been seriously ill during the summer.
“Jess,” Ten said, “why didn’t you send me word? You knew where I was.”
“It wouldn’t have served any good purpose,” said Chisholm. “You’ve had your troubles, and I wanted you and Priscilla to have some time together, without any worry hanging over your heads.”
Despite the gifts, the good food, and that they were all together, it was a gloomy Christmas, nothing like the one of the year before. Chisholm just couldn’t seem to regain his strength.
By late February, warm spring winds were caressing the cottonwoods, elm, and blackjack, and new leaves were beginning to bud. The greening meadows along the North Canadian were dotted with Indian lodges, as the plains tribes came together for tribal rituals and to trade for the white man’s goods. It had become an annual event, and despite Jesse Chisholm’s poor health, he insisted on being there. How else could he get the best of the season’s furs and robes? It was a balmy day, April 4, and a friendly Indian woman offered Chisholm a meal of bear grease and honey. It was an Indian favorite, and Chisholm ate directly from a small brass kettle. But the metal pot had poisoned the grease, and it was Jesse Chisholm’s final meal.
When word came, they were stunned. The Cherokee women began to wail, and when the shock wore off, Priscilla, Chris, and Lou joined them. But there was much to be done. Chisholm was to be buried beside the North Canadian, with all tribal honors. Burial would take place on the morning of the fifth of April.
There was only the creaking of the wagon that bore the blanket-wrapped body of Jesse Chisholm. That, and the mournful death song of old Ten Bears, a Comanche chief and longtime friend of Chisholm. The funeral procession stretched for more than a mile, as the plains tribes came to pay their respects to the only white man many of them had ever trusted. When the procession halted, some of Chisholm’s Cherokees carried the blanket-wrapped body to the open grave. The body was unwrapped, and the mourners walked slowly past, taking their last look. Ten Bears sat at the head of the grave until everybody else had gone. The old chief had been given a gold peace medal by Abraham Lincoln. Ten Bears wore the medal around his neck, on a leather thong. Now he removed the medal and, kneeling beside the body, slipped the leather thong over Chisholm’s head. He then placed the medal on Chisholm’s chest. When he stepped back, the body was again wrapped with the blanket, and then with a buffalo hide. When it had been lowered into the ground, dirt was shoveled into the hole and mounded. The grave was then covered with rocks. Finally a headboard was put in place, with Jesse’s name and date of death.
Ten waited until all the Indian mourners had departed. Marty, Wes, Lou, and Chris stood a respectable distance from the grave, waiting. They sensed Ten’s reluctance to leave. While he had shed no tears, they knew he was hurting. Priscilla stood beside him, tears streaking her cheeks. Ten took her hand, and she followed him to the grave. For a long time he said not a word, and when he finally spoke, his voice trembled.
“I was proud of you, Jess. I hope you knew. Vaya con dios, muy bueno companero.”
Their last day at the Chisholm trading post was a sad one.
“He’s a man that won’t be replaced,” said Marty. “What’s going to happen to all this, now that he’s gone?”
“I don’t know,” said Ten.
“Maybe there’s a will,” said Chris. “Perhaps he left it to you.”
“No,” said Ten, “he wouldn’t have done that. There are some who would have expected me to fill his shoes, or try to, and I couldn’t. He always allowed me to be my own man, to sink or swim. He never tried to force me to live in his shadow while he was alive, so he wouldn’t do it in death.”
“Then we’re still going to Texas for breeding stock,” said Wes.
“We are,” said Ten, “and from there to the high plains.”
April 7, 1868, they rode away from the Chisholm trading post for the last time. Ten and Priscilla led out, followed by Marty and Chris, and Wes and Lou. Charlie Two Hats and his Cherokee riders followed, leading the pack mules. From Texas they would ride to the high country, to the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and perhaps beyond. To whatever destiny awaited them.
EPILOGUE
Jesse Chisholm’s grave is on the north bank of the North Canadian River, near the present-day town of Geary, Oklahoma.
The old “LeBeau” mansion was built in the mid nineteenth century, in the Garden District of New Orleans, and is still in existence.
The Lipan Apaches take their name from Chief Lipan, who defied the Comanches, establishing a village on the Medina River, south of San Antonio. The Texas Rangers found the Lipans invaluable as scouts, and they are due some of the credit for Texas’ eventual conquering of the Comanches.
William Preston (“Wild Bill”) Longley, was born in Austin County, Texas, on October 6, 1851. He killed his first man at sixteen, and by the time he was seventeen, he was riding with the infamous Cullen Baker. At the time of his death, Longley had killed thirty-two men. He was hanged at Giddings, Texas, on October 11, 1878.
Ben Thompson was born in 1843, of English parents. When he was only thirteen, he shot and wounded a friend. In New Orleans he killed a Frenchman in a knife duel, the two of them fighting in a locked, darkened icehouse. Thompson joined the Confederate army, and later went to Mexico to join the Mexican army, under Emperor Maximilian. When Maximilian was executed in June 1867, Thompson returned to Texas, where he continued gambling and killing. When sober, Thompson was a kindly, soft-spoken gentleman. When drunk, he was arrogant, poison-mean, and deadly. He killed twenty-five men, and was himself shot to death in an ambush in San Antonio, Texas, March 10, 1884.
Abilene was the first of the cattle towns, and its success was due almost exclusively to the efforts of Joseph McCoy. In 1867 only 35,000 Texas longhorns were trailed to Abilene; in 1869 there were 300,000; and in 1871 there were 700,000.
This is a work of fiction, based on actual trail drives of the Old West. Many of the characters appearing in the Trail Drive Series were very real, and some of the trail drives actually took place. But the reader should be aware that, in the developing of characters and events, some fictional literary license has been employed. While some of the characters and events herein are purely the creation of the author, every effort has been made to portray them with accuracy. However, the inherent dangers of the trail are real, sufficient unto themselves, and seldom has it been necessary to enhance their reality.
THE CHISHOLM TRAIL
Copyright © 1993 by Ralph Compton.
Map on frontmatter by David Lindroth, based upon material supplied by the author.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
ISBN: 978-0-312-92953-4
* Trail Drive Series 2, The Western Trail
* Doughnuts
* Trail Drive Series #1, The Goodnight Trail
The Chisholm Trail Page 35