The Omaha Trail

by Ralph Compton

  Dane looked at Len. “I’d better ride on ahead, if that’s all right with you. I’ll take Joe Eagle with me.”

  “You’re the boss,” Crowell said.

  “Chub can stay here and help you with the herd. That all right with you, Chub?”

  “Sure, Dane. I don’t fancy ridin’ back all them miles.”

  “We’re probably just a shade under twenty miles,” Dane said. “I could be there before sundown if I leave pretty quick.”

  “Better get started, then,” Len said.

  “See if you can find Joe Eagle,” Dane said. Then, “Wait a minute. Here he comes now.”

  He saw Joe walk past the campfire and head their way. The entire camp was up by then. Men saddled their horses as the night herders continued their rounds. The herd was still bedded down, except for a few head that were up and grazing.

  Dane told Joe what Chub had told him and said he wanted to join Paddy.

  “You might have to do some trackin’, Joe,” Dane said.

  “Me go,” Joe said, and turned away to go after his horse and pack up his bedroll, rifle, and saddlebags.

  “I’ll get your horse, Dane. Reno?”

  “Yeah, Reno. I’ll pack up my gear. Tell Barney to pack some grub for Joe and me.”

  “Will do,” Len said, and walked over to the campfire.

  “He didn’t suffer none, I don’t think,” Chub said.

  “Get yourself some coffee, Chub,” Dane said. “Barney’ll get you breakfast pretty quick.”

  “I appreciate this, Dane.”

  “Hell, I’m glad you came and told me what happened.”

  “What’re you gonna do, Dane? There’s a passel of men. Seen their tracks over by a crick. Hell, they could pick us off one by one.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen if I can help it. Joe’s a good tracker. Do you know where Concho and his men went?”

  “Tracks showed headin’ for the river, upstream of the ford. I figger they’re long gone by now.”

  Dane patted Chub on the back. “Grain your horse and get yourself some coffee and grub.”

  Dane walked back to the supply wagon and rolled up his bedroll. He strapped on his pistol and lugged his rifle and saddlebags over to the fire.

  “I’ll have some of that shit you call coffee, Barney,” Dane said to Gooch.

  “It’s Arbuckles’ finest,” Barney said. “I saved the peppermint stick for you if you want it.”

  “You suck on it, Barney. Might help rid you of your foul breath.”

  “Now, now, me bucko, don’t you be raggin’ the cook this early in the mornin’. He might quit on you.”

  “Barney, if you ever quit cookin’ for this outfit, all my men would die of starvation.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Barney said. He poured coffee from a large blue pot and handed the tin cup to Dane.

  Dane felt the steam graze his face as he blew on the coffee. He took a sip and scalded his tongue. “Ouch,” he exclaimed.

  “You might want to fan it with your tongue ’fore you take another swaller,” Barney said, a mischievous smile on his face.

  “I ought to pour it down your gullet, you old coot,” Dane said.

  Barney laughed.

  “You’d have to hog-tie me and conk me out to do that,” Gooch said.

  “It would be a pleasure,” Dane said.

  Len brought Reno up. Dane handed him his bedroll.

  “Joe’ll be here in a minute,” Len said. “Barney, you got grub to give the boss and Joe?”

  “I got two sacks, one for each,” Barney said. He walked to the sideboard and held them up.

  “Good man,” Len said.

  “Don’t compliment him too much, Len,” Dane said. “His head is so swolled up he can hardly keep his hat on.”

  Barney laughed good-naturedly. Len smiled. He tied Dane’s bedroll behind the cantle.

  “I can slap those saddlebags on for you too, Dane,” he said.

  “Obliged,” Dane said, and handed the saddlebags to Len. Barney gave him a sack of food. Len stuffed that in one of the saddlebags.

  “Rifle?” Len said.

  “I’ll take care of the Winchester,” Dane said.

  Joe came up, leading his horse. He let the reins fall and the horse stood hipshot. Barney handed him one of the flour sacks.

  “Grub for the trail, Joe,” he said.

  Joe grunted.

  “Want some coffee, Joe?” Dane asked.

  “Coffee good, yes,” he said.

  Barney poured him a cup and one for Len as well.

  “I don’t know how good it is,” Dane said. “I think Barney grinds up mesquite beans covered in cow shit.”

  “I always wash the mesquite beans first,” Barney joked. “One of these days, I’m gonna make coffee with chili beans to see if you notice the difference, Dane.”

  “I probably wouldn’t. Your coffee’s so damned hot a man can’t taste it.”

  The sky was losing its blackness. There was no daylight yet, but Dane knew it was coming. He finished his coffee and handed his empty cup to Barney. By then, the other hands, most of them sleepy-eyed, were gathering around the fire and Gooch was pouring hot coffee into their cups. Some of them rolled quirlies and lit them.

  “Cattle are restless this mornin’,” Maynard said. “They was coyotes on the prowl last night.”

  “Maybe they smell the river twenty miles away,” Dane said.

  “If’n they do, they’d make good bloodhounds.”

  The men laughed.

  “Well, boys,” Dane said, “Joe and I are lighting a shuck to meet up with Paddy O’Riley. Chub can fill you in on what happened and why he’s here.”

  Joe threw down his cup and mounted up. Dane got aboard Reno. The two men rode out, past the head of the herd and into the birthing dawn as the sky began to pale and turn a dusky blue.

  They waved good-bye and got answering waves from the hands around the campfire.

  Dane felt as if he were leaving home. He was glad Joe was with him. He would have someone to talk to on the long ride to the river and beyond.

  “Len tell you what happened to Harve Tolliver, Joe?”

  “Him tell.”

  “Concho left tracks. Think you can find him and his men?”

  “Can find, sure. Tracks stay long time.”

  “Of course, I don’t know what we’ll do when we do find them.”

  “Shoot,” Joe said. “Kill.”

  “We’ll be outnumbered.”

  Joe snorted. “Hunt. Like turkey. Pick off one, then another.”

  “Yeah, we’d have to sneak up on ’em.”

  They talked no more as the sun painted the sky in the east. Painted it a bright and radiant crimson, painted it with fire. The stars and the galaxy of the Milky Way disappeared and the sky turned the color of a robin’s egg, a quiet pastel blue.

  “That red sky bothers me, Joe,” Dane said.

  “Red sky. Big storm come.”

  “Yep. That’s the old sayin’, ‘red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.’”

  “Much rain. Big wind,” Joe said. “Tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, maybe tomorrow. The sky looks clear, except for those long clouds in the east.”

  Joe said nothing and the two men rode on as the land lit up like a stage set, soaking up all the shadows and glistening on the beads of dew that clung to the prairie grasses.

  Joe studied the ground and pointed out Chub’s horse tracks. Dane nodded.

  He was glad Joe was riding with him. He was a tracker, after all. And if anyone could find Concho on that vast plain that stretched into Kansas and beyond, it would be the Cherokee.

  Concho, he thought, was as good as dead when they caught up to him.

  Chapter 29

  Randy lay on his stomach next to a jagged tree stump. It was still dark and rocks dug into his knees and upper legs. Ants crawled over his hands, and the rifle was covered with them. Red ants. Somewhere nearby was an ant hill and he couldn’t see
it. He didn’t dare move either.

  This was where Concho had brought him and told him to stay hidden and wait for the head of the herd to pass by as soon as it turned daylight.

  “You’ll hear that bell a-clankin’ and when you see that lead cow, you take aim and put a bullet right behind its left leg where it jines the ribs. You’ll get it in the heart. It may run and jump for a hunnert yards or so, but it will be a killin’ shot. You got that? Just like a deer, Randy, only slower.”

  “Yeah.” He shivered, even though he wore a sheepskin-lined denim jacket. He could smell the cattle and he heard them lowing in the distance, far off to his right.

  Concho had planned all this, he knew.

  Randy also knew that Lyle was going to pick off another drover after he shot the lead cow. If he shot the lead cow.

  He didn’t want to do it, but he knew that Concho would have killed him if he had refused.

  “This is your growin’-up party, Randy boy,” Concho had told him earlier that morning. “You do this and the whole gang will think you’re a man. And you will be a man.”

  “I don’t know,” he had said. “Killin’ a cow ain’t my idea of what a man should do.”

  “Would you rather kill a man in the morning?”

  “No, no,” Randy had said. “I ain’t ready to go that far yet.”

  “Well, you stick with me and you will be. And right soon.”

  Randy’s teeth chattered in the chill. He clamped them down tight and looked at the eastern sky. It was still dark as a sea of pitchblende. The birds were quiet too, and he hadn’t heard a coyote in ten or fifteen minutes, at least.

  He felt all alone.

  He almost laughed at that thought.

  He was alone.

  And lonely for something he couldn’t put into words. He didn’t really have a home of his own. When he was working on the Circle K, that had felt a little like home. Except that he had been ashamed of himself for being so secretive and deceptive, not only to Dane Kramer, but to all the men in the outfit. He was nothing but a liar and a spy. Now he wasn’t even a spy. He was caught up in something that scared the hell out of him.

  He listened to the cattle. They did not seem to be stirring and he didn’t hear any hoofbeats or the clank of that copper bell.

  He thought he heard one of the nighthawks humming some old song, but whatever it was soon faded and though he strained to hear a man’s voice, a horse’s whinny, or a mooing cow, he heard not a sound.

  And the silence deepened around him. He brushed away gravel under his legs, but it was no use. Little stones and grains of sand still dug into the flesh of his calves and he felt something crawling on his neck. He slapped at it, then cringed at the sound.

  He stared into the darkness. He tried to see the darker shadows of the bedded-down herd, but he saw only blackness on the ground, the horizon. He looked up at the stars and they seemed so dim and far away that their light was not strong enough to illuminate either the terrain or the cattle.

  Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Faint sparks way off in the distance. Had he imagined that he saw the flashing lights of fireflies? Or was there something else? He struggled to see where the sparks had been, but, again, there was only the deep dark of night.

  There it was again. Small orange sparks. A shower of them, maddenly brief.

  Moments later, Randy saw something that made his heartbeat quicken. A small flame where the sparks had been. He let out a breath that he had held for several seconds.

  The flame grew larger, lashing into the darkness, orange and red, and a faint tinge of blue. He could not hear the crackle of the fire, but he could see it. And as he watched the flames grew larger and stronger, there were more sparks rising above the fire, burning embers that winked out almost as soon as he saw them.

  A sign of life, he thought.

  The fire fascinated him, even though it was far away and he could not feel its warmth. It told him that the camp was stirring, that the cook was building a fire to cook breakfast for the hands, make coffee, and warm the hands and bodies of those who came to it from their damp bedrolls. Randy felt his heart quicken and there was a pang of regret that he could not walk over there and partake of the companionship of men he had known when he worked on the Circle K.

  He took his gaze away from the fire and looked at the eastern horizon. There was no sign yet of the dawn to come.

  Ten minutes went by, then ten more, and the flames from the campfire wavered and broke up as shadows passed between the fire and Randy. Shadows of men and now and then, he heard a snatch of conversation, words that traveled on the high air but could not be understood.

  Still, Randy waited and grew colder as the fire seemed to grow more distant. He felt a dampness on his face and realized it was dew. There seemed to be a fine, invisible mist in the air as he strained to hear what the cowhands were saying. He thought he heard someone laugh, and once, he heard what sounded like the clatter of a plate and eating utensils. He felt lonelier than ever as the night clung to the land and the cattle stayed bedded down.

  Then the distant whicker of a horse jangled Randy’s senses and he saw a faint flicker of pale light appear on the eastern horizon. The light grew longer and wider, and he looked up to see stars slowly disappear in a blue vapor, as if they were being wiped out by an unseen hand.

  Distant clouds on the eastern horizon turned to ash, then seemed to burst into flame as the sun spewed more light on the sky. A few minutes later, those same clouds turned a fiery red and orange and all of the stars were gone and the sky had turned a pale blue that grew deeper and bluer by the minute.

  He saw ants crawling on the backs of his hands and he shook them off, jiggling his fingers. He knocked ants off his rifle and blew two off his stock. He saw the anthill a few feet away and snuggled closer to the rotting tree stump. Bugs crawled out of the pulp and climbed up and down the gray husk that had been stripped of its bark a long time ago.

  Then Randy heard hoofbeats and he saw the silhouettes of riders pass by the fire. There was the distinct sound of clanking pewter plates and the rattle of empty coffee cups. The land lit up and he felt naked and exposed as the shadows shrank and he could see green grass sprinkled with the tiny opals of glistening dew.

  He lifted his rifle and seated it against his shoulder just to see if he could do it. He knew that his life depended on him shooting that lead cow.

  What he didn’t know was what would happen after that.

  Would Concho ride up with his horse and help him get into the saddle so that they both could ride away before anyone shot at him? He didn’t know. Concho had said nothing about how he could escape.

  Perhaps, Randy thought, Concho had meant for him to die after he shot the belled cow.

  Randy shuddered with the thought that he might die. Die the way Tolliver had died, with a bullet in his heart.

  The fire went out and Randy thought he heard the faint hiss of water as it doused the flames. He heard men shooting to get the cattle moving.

  Then he heard the clank of the cowbell.

  He raised himself up on his elbows for a better look and saw the herd, part of it. He saw the humps of the cows’ backs and they were moving forward, away from where he saw the roof of the chuck wagon. He heard the cattle bellowing and mooing, the neigh of horses, and the shouts of the men urging them on.

  Then he saw the first white faces and the sea of horns, the bobbing heads of cattle. The clank of the cowbell grew louder.

  He waited, the rifle nestled snug against his shoulder. He had a Sharps carbine and it felt like a lead sash weight in his hands.

  The cattle moved closer and he could see them better. Ahead of the herd, there was a man riding point. The man looked over his shoulder every now and then to see if the herd was following his path.

  Randy did not recognize the point rider, but he saw him light a cigarette as he rode and figured out that it must have been Skip Hewes. He thought he saw some strands of straw-colored hair pok
ing out from under the man’s hat. He was the right size and bulk and the way he sat his horse reminded him of Skip when he had seen him riding on the Circle K a thousand years ago.

  Then the lead cow came ambling into view. It swayed from side to side, and every time she moved her forelegs, that bell clanged. He lined up his sights, holding the front blade sight on the cow and lining up the rear buckhorn. He knew he would have to lead her a tad. He had shot deer before and they were either standing still or stepping cautiously through the woods, a step or two at a time. The cow wasn’t moving fast, but it was moving. He waited until it had come parallel to his position and then lined up his sights just behind her left front leg, about midway up her rib cage. He swung the barrel just a tad and held his breath.

  He squeezed the trigger and felt the rifle butt buck into his shoulder. Smoke flew from the muzzle and he heard a thunk. As he stared through the haze of smoke, he saw the cow stagger and stumble. She jumped a half foot and let out a mournful bellow. He could not see where he had shot her but knew she had been hit. She ran for a few yards, then chased her tail in a circle until she dropped.

  Skip turned around and saw the lead cow go down. He turned his horse on a dime and raced to where the cow had fallen. She lay on her side. She kicked her legs a few times and then lay still, her bell silent.

  Randy shrank to the ground, flattening himself and his rifle.

  There was yelling from the other hands, and a pair of riders rode out to where the cow lay dead.

  Then all three began looking around. Skip looked straight at the stump. Randy looked up without moving his head to see if there was any smoke hanging over him. It had all dissipated and he held his breath, hoping no one would see him.

  “Where’d that shot come from?” Paddy yelled from farther away on the herd’s left flank.

  Skip pointed in Randy’s direction.

  “Come from over yonder, I think,” he shouted back at Paddy.

  “Well, get on it, Skip. And you boys too,” Paddy shouted.

  Three riders turned their horses and started riding slow toward the tree stump.

  Randy recognized Skip, but not the other two.