Return to Red River

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Mathew’s legs will not work. Utterly fascinated, he stays where he is, watching, listening, waiting, anticipating.

  Yet he is unprepared for the speed, the noise, the shock on the Mexican’s face and the crimson splotch on his yellow shirt. Mathew has seen death before, but never this close. When the Indians attacked the wagon train, when his parents were butchered, he had been off chasing down a cow. A cow that now Dunson claimed as his own, much as he had claimed this land that they stood on at this moment.

  The rights of ownership of this land have led to the drawing of pistols.

  The Mexican is dead. Yet Dunson does not holster the massive Colt until he is absolutely certain.

  As an eternity of the echoes of that lone gunshot ring about in the boy’s ears, he hears Dunson mentioning something about a grave. The Mexican, whose speed has amazed Mathew, had not even gotten off a shot.

  Dunson turns, looks down at the boy.

  He can catch only snippets.

  “. . . a Bible . . . wagon . . . near . . . water buckets. I’ll . . . read . . . over him.”

  * * *

  It was Dunson’s Bible that Mathew held now as he stood in front of the cowboys, hats in hands, somber countenances, hardly moving, waiting for Mathew to read from the Good Book, Dunson’s book.

  He wondered if he could count the times Dunson had brought out that Bible, to read over the men he had killed. Probably not. It wasn’t like Dunson was some crazed gunman, like John Wesley Hardin, now rotting behind the brick walls of the Huntsville penitentiary, or Bill Longley, who had been hanged, legally, over in Giddings, Texas, in 1878. No, Dunson always thought he was in the right. Maybe, for much of the time, he had been. Mathew wouldn’t judge him, not now.

  For the first time, Mathew really looked at the Bible.

  THE HOLY BIBLE

  Containing the OLD and NEW TESTAMENTS:

  Translated out of the original tongues; and with

  the former translations diligently compared and revised.

  By HIS MAJESTY’S Special Command.

  Appointed to be Read in Churches.

  Turning the cover, he saw that it had been published by Cambridge University in 1844, a year before Fate had turned Mathew over to Thomas Dunson. “Printed,” Mathew read silently, “at the Pitt Press by John W. Parker, Printer to the University.”

  Bound in red morocco, tooled with beveled, gilted, and gauffered edges, with marbled endpapers. Mathew seemed to remember a blue silk page marker that had a gilt tassel, but that was long gone after more than forty years. He looked for some family history, a personal note, but he had looked many times since he had first fetched that Bible for Thomas Dunson to open after he had killed someone. He had never found anything to tell him anything about the man who had brought him up.

  No past. Just a few vague stories about Birkenhead and Liverpool and Mersey . . . and black porter for beer. No family.

  “Dunson,” Groot had told Mathew more than once, “was not born of woman.”

  And he remembered another time Dunson had read from his Bible.

  A score of years after the first rider for Don Diego Agura y Baca had been buried in the graveyard on what was now Mathew’s main ranch. It was on Dunson’s legendary drive to Kansas. Mathew had not known any of those men for long, but he remembered their names and, often enough, their faces. José Fernandez came from Matagorda. The one called Walker—“Just Walker,” he had told Dunson when he signed on—hung his hat in Lavaca, or so Groot told Mathew later. Joe Sudden. Mathew always wondered if that was the cowhand’s real name. Kelsey. If he had a first name, Mathew had long forgotten it. And Maler Rand of Guadalupe. Rand, tall, thin, never smiling. Carpetbaggers had taken his ranch up around Guadalupe after Rand had spent three years in a Yankee prison camp.

  They had been the first to rebel against Dunson, challenging the big bear’s authority just a few weeks on the trail. They had been the first to die.

  Dunson had killed three. Mathew had sent Kelsey and Sudden to their Maker.

  When it was over, Dunson had thanked Mathew for joining the fight—although Dunson had called out for Mathew’s help. He had told Mathew to have the dead men buried, and the next morning, Dunson had read over the men he had killed—good men, who probably had good sense, who wanted to try for Kansas instead of Missouri.

  This Bible. This very same Bible, only now it was in Mathew’s hands. And Mathew had not killed Milt Blasingame.

  Sighing, Mathew turned to read from the eighth chapter of Romans. And when he had finished, after he had passed the Bible to Groot, to return the Good Book to its canvas sack and rest in the chuck wagon, Mathew thought of something else.

  He spoke, softly:

  “Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,

  Beloved from pole to pole!

  To Mary Queen the praise be given!

  She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,

  That slid into my soul.”

  Never had he considered himself a man of letters. He could probably count on one hand the number of letters he had actually written. Books to him were ledgers or tally books. Yet once, while Tess was away shopping in San Antonio, and the boys, not even eight years old back then, lay asleep, he had gone to the library and actually pulled a leather-bound book from the shelves. Dickens and Dumas and Lord Byron. Twain and Longfellow and Shakespeare. He called his office a library. It held fifteen books, none of which he had ever cracked a spine. But on that night, he had slid out something by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, sank into his chair with his glass of Scotch. He had read. And he had remembered.

  Battered hats returned atop heads damp with sweat, but the faces remained stoic.

  Mathew picked up the spade. “Go on,” he said, his voice as if coated with sand. “I’ll do this . . . alone.”

  Slowly, the men returned toward the coffee and the wagon and their bedrolls. All but one. Mathew looked up and started to tell Joey Corinth to go on with the others, but the words stopped in his throat. With the death of Milt Blasingame, Joey Corinth was now the only black cowhand left on this drive. Usually, men of color would make up a third of the trail hands. Ex-slaves, hard workers, Mathew had found those men among the best he had ever trailed with. The Mexican vaqueros were more than adept, too. It was the white men, the ex-Confederates—men like Mathew himself—that caused most of the trouble on a drive.

  His head tilted to another shovel lying in the mound of dug-up earth.

  “Go ahead, Joey,” he said. “But I’d put on gloves first. The handle of a shovel is a lot harder than the leather on a rein.”

  * * *

  “You checked the axles?” Tom asked. He offered his father a cup of steaming, black coffee—made from Arbuckle’s, not burned grain or charred acorns.

  Mathew peeled off his gloves, stuck them in the pocket of his chaps, and held the cup carefully. “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  He sipped the coffee. He stared at Bradley Rush, who sat on his soogans, hat pushed back, coffee cup within easy reach, reading from a volume of Shakespeare—or so he had heard Rush tell Joe Nambel. The book was too far away for Mathew to confirm.

  “And?” Tom repeated.

  His eyes locked on to his son. “You think Groot lied. Or that Laredo imagined things?”

  “No, sir. I—”

  “They were cut.” Again, he studied Bradley Rush, who had ridden with Dunson. He shook off that thought, that nagging suspicion. Hell, Mathew had hired Rush because he . . . well . . . trusted the man. He had told Jess Teveler to keep riding, because he had never, and would never, trust a man like Jess Teveler. This was Texas. This was the West. Men came, and they left their pasts behind them. They could reinvent themselves. By thunder, Mathew had known cowhands who change their names each spring, more than they might change their shirts. Bradley Rush had done nothing to harm Mathew. He had left his gunslinging past back in Houston and turned into a literate, soft-spoken, hardworking cowboy.

  So if Bradley Rush had not sawed those axles .
. . ?

  On the other hand, Bradley Rush had not ridden into Dunson City on that night.

  “Ah,” Mathew said, and sipped more coffee.

  “What?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing.” He moved toward the chuck wagon, where Groot was setting batter for tomorrow’s breakfast.

  Some of these men Mathew knew. Some he didn’t. Who else? Chico Miller? Mathew sniggered at the thought. Not that he trusted the banker more than he could throw him, but he could not picture that fat, miserable crook crawling on the dirt with a handsaw and sweating for the minutes it would take him to saw two axles not quite in half.

  “Well . . .” Tom began.

  “Tom,” Mathew said. “Those axles could have been sawed a long time ago. Could have been an accident. Could have been a mistake. Axles could have been bound for firewood but got sold instead. We might never know. We lost a good man today. That’s something you might want to remember. This isn’t some storybook. It’s real life. But in one way, we’re lucky. We are. Not Milt Blasingame. You think. You think how things might be if those axles didn’t break until a week from now. Or two weeks. Maybe even three. We’d be in a lot worse shape then, with no way to get a spare wagon unless we were near a big enough town. And no Miguel Martinez to take over as a driver.”

  “I reckon so, Pa,” Tom said. “But I also reckon that Milt Blasingame would be in a lot better shape.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  When the moon, maybe at three-quarters full, rose, Mathew roped his night horse from the remuda, saddled it, and rode out to the herd. The day had been hot, yet the night cooled off considerably, and he realized just how pretty this country could be. He had been having some doubts. This close to town—not that Dunson City was much of a town, or that near, actually—he had wondered if maybe he should have hauled Milt Blasingame’s body into town. To be buried in the church cemetery, if Milt was Catholic, or in the town boneyard.

  No, he decided. He had done right.

  Milt Blasingame had said, more or less, that a bedroll instead of a casket, and the prairie instead of a cemetery was good enough for him. And with the moon shining, the sky clear, El Huerto del Borracho seemed peaceful, pleasant, even beautiful.

  The cattle turned restful, far from worn out after only four miles walking today. The breeze came out of the north and west, but Mathew felt no scent of rain, no threat, and the skies remained clear for now, so those thunderheads seen earlier in the day remained distant. Threats, yes. But distant threats.

  Even the coyotes did not howl. Respect for the late Milt Blasingame? Mathew wondered. Or perhaps they were back in Dunson City, tormenting those Olde English Bulldogges of Chico Miller’s.

  Alvaro Cuevas, singing a soft Mexican ballad in his native tongue, rode up toward Mathew, who reined in the liver chestnut gelding he had named Dollar.

  “Buenas noches, patrón,” Cuevas said.

  Mathew nodded. “And to you, Alvaro.”

  He gestured toward the cattle. “Seem all right tonight.”

  “Sí. Eso me agrada.”

  Mathew had to grin at that. “It pleases me as well,” he said.

  Both men detected the noise at the same time. Faint. Jingling. Maybe the rubbing of leather. And hooves on the ground. Mathew stood in his stirrups for a better look, while young Cuevas turned, stretching his thin neck like a turkey. Alvaro Cuevas had been blessed with good eyesight, and he had to be thirty years Mathew’s junior, so he pointed first.

  Mathew saw it then. He felt easier now. Glancing at the moon, he figured it to be nine or ten o’clock. A wagon, driven by four mules, had appeared on the rise. A man on a dun horse rode alongside it.

  “That would be Miguel Martinez and Yago Noguerra,” Mathew said. He could not stop the sigh of relief that exploded from his lungs.

  “Bueno,” Cuevas said.

  “It is good.” Mathew sank back into the saddle and nodded at the night herder. “Someone will spell you around midnight. Be careful. Keep singing that pretty song.”

  He did not spur Dollar, though he wanted to, but knew better than to risk spooking a calm herd of three thousand longhorns. Mathew eased his way from the cattle, rode back to the remuda, and unsaddled the liver chestnut. He placed his saddle among the line of others, the saddle blanket atop it to dry in the night air, and walked back to the glow of the campfire as the horseman and the Abingdon farm wagon pulled up into the camp, the traces of the wagon jingling.

  “By . . . golly . . .” Mathew heard Groot’s voice as he walked from the horses. “I’ll be gol durned.”

  When he rounded the wagon, Mathew stopped—almost in midstride. He expected to see Miguel Martinez and Yago Noguerra. Turned out, he was only half-right.

  * * *

  “You could say, ‘I’m glad to see you, Tess.’” After setting the brake, Tess Millay stepped down from the big wagon. It was a bit of a fall, but she landed on her feet, knees bent, and came up without any loss of balance or dignity.

  Mathew Garth said something else.

  “Or you could take the Lord’s name in vain, I suppose,” Tess chided.

  “What are you doing here?” Mathew said.

  “You needed a hoodlum wagon. There it is. You needed a driver. Here I am.”

  “I asked for Miguel. Miguel’s a boy,” Mathew snapped.

  “I’m a woman. If you haven’t noticed.”

  “I . . .” He stopped. The men in the camp stared, eyes wide, mouths open. He turned his rage onto Yago.

  “I told you . . .” But that was as far as he got.

  “And here are a few words you told me, Mathew Garth,” Tess said. “You said that I have Janeen and Juan. John Bellamy. You even said, ‘This ranch will take care of itself.’ And you said, ‘Do what you think’s best. You’re usually right.’”

  Mathew stifled the curse. He steadied himself. Drew a breath, held it, exhaled.

  “You think this is right?”

  “I figured it saves you wages, and that’s a good thing. I think Juan Quinta can handle things for three months. And certainly no one would dare to cross Janeen Yankowski. I know how to drive a team. And I want to be close to my sons. You’re stuck with me, Mathew.”

  “Like hell. This is eight hundred miles. Three months. I want you to go home.”

  “I once left Memphis for Nevada with a man called The Donegal. Remember? That would have been longer than a trail drive to Dodge City.”

  “And you never made it to Nevada,” Mathew pointed out.

  “Do you wish I had?”

  He stopped, shook his head.

  Tess took advantage of his silence. “You know I can handle a team. I drove the Conestoga from Abilene all the way to Red River Station,” she said. “I rode with Dunson from the Nations into Kansas.”

  “I . . .” He found no words. Oh, he had plenty of reasons. He could point to a fresh grave, adorned with a few wildflowers Joey Corinth had found, and a crude cross made from the spokes of one of the busted wagon wheels. Plenty of reasons, solid reasons, irrefutable. Yet no words. And despite every argument that came to mind, he could not deny that he loved to see her.

  The moonlight seemed to find her face, accenting it. Her tan skirt was long and full, beneath which he saw just the hint of her white petticoat with the floral designs on the edges. Her blouse was garnet, full sleeved, with black and tan lapels. The three-buttoned jacket she wore was plaid tattersall, with a V-neck, deep French cuffs, and narrow tan band. He could see that she wore gloves, a gray color, or maybe navy, and her hat was straw, shallow brimmed, trimmed with a red ostrich plume and green ribbon bow. She even carried a riding crop.

  “This isn’t a Sunday picnic, Tess,” he said. “You got a trunk in the back for the rest of your wardrobe for the next three months?”

  “The wagon bed is empty, Mathew,” she said, and those eyes turned harder. “Till we fill it up with what had been in Milt’s wagon. Are we going to stand here all night arguing?”

  He was about to try that, but then
came a shout.

  “Ma!” Tom yelled.

  “Ma!” Lightning echoed.

  The boys, soon to be eighteen and twenty, acted as if they were ten years old again. They raced out of the darkness—they’d probably been answering nature’s call—and swept their arms around their mother.

  Groot snorted.

  Laredo Downs went back to drawing a map in the sand for Teeler Lacey to study.

  Bradley Rush broke out his harmonica and began playing “Grandfather’s Clock.”

  “Put your horse in the remuda, Yago,” Mathew said. “Joe, I’ll help you with the team of mules.”

  The harmonica wailed. Someone began singing. A few others joined the chorus.

  “Ninety years without slumbering.

  Tick, tock, tick, tock.

  His life seconds numbering.

  Tick, tock, tick, tock.

  It stopped short—never to go again—

  When the old man died.”

  “Any reason you don’t want me to go on this drive?” Tess asked.

  Most of the men had gone to sleep, except those night-herding, and Groot, who rarely slept. Mathew sat at the dying fire, Tess across from him.

  “Well, I’m past fifty years old,” he said. “That means you are . . .”

  “I think,” she said, “that you know better than going there, Mathew Garth.”

  He grinned.

  After taking the last pull on his cigarette, Mathew flicked the butt into the fire. “Well, then. I can name a few other reasons that won’t injure your pride. The Pecos River, for one. The Colorado. The Brazos. The Red. The Canadian. The Arkansas.” He pronounced the latter, Ar-KAN-sas, like the Kansans. “Then I can get to hailstorms. Stampedes. Lightning strikes. Lead. Sunstroke. This isn’t Memphis, Tess. It’ll make the streets of Memphis look like a church social.”