A Trail Too Far

by Robert Peecher

  6

  The small collection of buildings could not rightly be called a town or even a settlement.

  A store and a tavern, a cluster of sod houses all tucked down in a hollow under some cottonwoods near a creek is all it was. The place had no name that anyone used. It sprang up as a stop along the way to Colorado Territory for those off to seek gold. Abner Spears set up the place near a well-used trail to sell tools and supplies to gold seekers trying to get into the mountains. For a while he did good business, and he found travelers paid best for other services – repairing wagon wheels and offering fresh mounts made good profit, but nothing beat the business he did in always having something warm to offer for supper.

  But when Denver City began to thrive, the traffic into the gold fields of the mountains shifted north and the collection of buildings that wasn't exactly a town or a settlement began to suffer. Abner and his family and the few folks who still lived in the place managed to eke out a life trading with the Arapaho and the few white folks who sometimes passed through, but the heyday was over.

  And with the diminished prospects, a meanness had settled in to life around Abner Spears' little collection of buildings. The half dozen men who called the place home usually spent their days sitting and drinking.

  Pawnee Bill, Dick Derugy, and Chess Bowman fell in easily with the other men here.

  For a couple of days now, Bill and his two companions had put aside their thoughts of traveling to New Mexico Territory. They'd taken to drinking with Abner Spears and the others, and it was easier to sit and drink than to hitch the wagon and keep going.

  Mickey Hogg was among those men living in the hollow with Abner Spears, and Pawnee Bill had taken an immediate liking to Mickey. Crass and vulgar, Mickey Hogg was unapologetic. He drank and chewed, and he spoke his mind on issues ranging from women to Negroes to Injuns, and he had no love for interfering Yankee foreigners coming to Kansas to sway votes. He did not have the same animosity for interfering pro-slavers coming to Kansas from Missouri and Arkansas.

  "I've been living in this territory most of my life and come from Missouri," Hogg proclaimed in one of his many drunken speeches. "If I see a man from Pennsylvania or Ohio, why he's as foreign to me and as foreign to these parts as the King of Russia would be. And he deserves neither respect nor hospitality, and he'll get none of both. Some Yankee bastard wants to tell me how I can live and how I can't or what I can own and what I can't, that ain't none of his business."

  The saloon was nothing more than a sod hut, and the grease paper windows left the place dark. Only three lanterns burned – one at each end and one behind the bar. The bar was two old water casks set side by side with a couple of plank boards laid down over them. Everything about the saloon was cheap. But the nine men inside were a raucous and ornery bunch, made hard by the winds that whipped the lonely prairie and made irritable by the lack of womenfolk. Abner Spears' wife and a half-breed whore who worked in a lean-to out behind the saloon were the only two women who lived down in the hollow.

  Besides Pawnee Bill, Dick Derugy and Chess Bowman, a half-dozen others were drinking in the saloon. Abner and his son Waymond took turns as bartender, but both were also drinking heavily. Mickey Hogg was holding court. Abner's cousins Wesley and Earl Spears were in the saloon, and a rough man named Wallace was also drinking.

  Wallace had come to the hollow the previous summer and had built himself up a little hut up creek some. The rumor was that he had a squaw that he kept at his hut. He came to the hollow to drink and sometimes buy supplies. Abner and the other men figured he was running from the law. He always toted with him a Kentucky long rifle and two Colt Paterson five-shooters that he'd had in the war with Mexico. Wallace was a grizzled man, in his late thirties though he could have passed for fifty, and he'd hinted several times of having been with the Texas Rangers in the Mexican war back in '46 and '47.

  "What would you do about it?" Wallace spoke up, startling everyone.

  "What's that, old man?" Mickey Hogg asked.

  "If a Yankee, or the King of Russia, was to walk into this sod saloon right now and tell you that you couldn't own Negroes no more, what would you do about it?"

  Mickey Hogg laughed derisively. "Don't you ask questions unless you want to know the answer."

  "I'm askin'," Wallace said. "Every time I come in here for a drink, you're mouthin' off about what you'd do about this and what you'd do about that, but all I ever see you do is toss back drinks. So I'm askin' what you'd do about it. Let's say I'm the King of Russia. What are you going to say to me?"

  Pawnee Bill licked his lips. The tension in the small saloon grew palpable in the space of a breath. Everything suggested to Pawnee Bill this was bound to be some excitement, the first he'd seen since they took that wagon off the sod buster.

  Abner Spears felt it, too. Drunk though he was, he raised up a hand to intercede.

  "Boys, now, there ain't no call for disagreement."

  Abner couldn't even remember what was said, now. He'd only been half listening but he was full drunk. All he knew for sure was that both of these men were carrying guns.

  Mickey Hogg toted a double barrel scattergun with the barrels sawed short. Wallace toted those two Patersons.

  Dick Derugy and Waymond Spears were sitting either side of Wallace, and as one they both stood from their chairs and backed away from the line of fire.

  "Don't press me old man," Mickey Hogg said.

  Wallace intended to jump to his feet, but it was more of a scramble than a leap. He threw one of those five-shot Patersons as he stood, but the barrel was so long, and it got hung up on the table.

  A sober man would have been able to say that Wallace was faster on the draw, but he couldn't beat the table.

  Mickey Hogg, who seemed genuinely shocked that Wallace was moving, grabbed at the shotgun. He'd rigged up a hook on his belt that allowed him to swivel the gun but not easily remove it. Younger and maybe a little less drunk, Mickey Hogg got to his feet more easily than Wallace had, and he mule-kicked his chair to send it flying behind him. That gave him clearance to swivel up the double barrel scattergun.

  Mickey Hogg thrust his hip toward Wallace, cocking back both hammers, and he pulled both triggers.

  The shot from the two blasts spread out wide, but plenty shot from both barrels found Wallace. The older man's torso was shredded by the pellets. The force of it knocked him backwards and he stumbled over his chair and fell to the ground.

  "The king is dead!" Mickey Hogg yelled, dancing a jig. "Long live the King of Russia!"

  Pawnee Bill hooted in glee, and Dick Derugy and Chess Bowman both clapped their hands in time and joined Mickey Hogg in his dance.

  "Dammit and tarnation!" Abner Spears shouted. "Mickey Hogg, you take your good for nothing ass out of this saloon before I flog you. Waymond, check Wallace and see if he's dead."

  Mickey Hogg worked the shotgun out of its rig and ejected the two spent shells. He reached into his pocket and replaced them. The whole time he craned his neck to look past the table at the body on the floor.

  Abner Spears' son bent down on his knee and looked at the older man.

  "He's shot all to hell, pa," Waymond declared. "He's still breathing, but he ain't awake."

  Mickey Hogg's face cracked into a smile, and he turned around and walked out of the saloon. Pawnee Bill followed him, and Dick and Chess followed Pawnee Bill.

  "Drag him outside," Abner Spears said. "Drag him down to the creek a ways and leave him somewhere that we won't smell him."

  There was no doctor in the hollow and Abner Spears wasn't about to go digging in someone's body to try to remove lead pellets. A gunshot wound like this was probably fatal in New York City where an entire army of doctors might tend to the man, but down in Abner Spears' hollow, it was unquestionably fatal.

  Mickey Hogg was pleased with himself. This was the first real test of the rig he'd concocted for his scattergun. It was not innovative. The fact was, it was clumsy and inconvenient at all times
except a gunfight, but in a gunfight it had served. It was nothing more than a clip attached to his belt that swiveled at the end so that the barrel could always hang toward the ground. He'd put a metal loop into the stock near the trigger so that it could hang on the clip.

  "Did you see the look on his face?" Mickey Hogg asked. His teeth shone a dingy yellow behind his thick beard and mustache. "That old man couldn't believe it when his pistola hit the table. He knew he was done for then. Should have never tried to draw on me. Bam! Bam! I got him just like that."

  "That scattergun makes it hard to miss," Pawnee Bill said.

  "Bam! Bam!" Mickey Hogg said. "The King of Russia, dead down in a hollow on the Kansas prairie."

  A moment later Waymond Spears backed out of the saloon doorway. He had hold of Wallace's wrists and was dragging the dying man out of the saloon. Abner Spears followed them out.

  "Mickey Hogg, you ain't welcome back in this saloon. You ain't welcome in my store. And you ain't welcome in my town. Come sunup, you need to move out."

  Mickey laughed in his face.

  "This ain't no town," he said. "And it ain't no place for me to stay. I was leaving anyway."

  Abner turned back into the saloon.

  "What you goin' to do?" Pawnee Bill asked.

  "I don't know," Mickey Hogg said. "Maybe go into Denver City. Maybe go into the mountains. They say there's still prospecting that's payin' off."

  Pawnee Bill took a drink from the beer he'd toted out of the saloon with him.

  "You could ride with us," Bill said. "We'd be happy for the company."

  "Where are you bound for?" Mickey Hogg asked.

  "New Mexico Territory."

  "Leaving at sunup?" Mickey asked.

  "We can," Pawnee Bill said.

  "I guess there ain't no difference between Colorado and New Mexico," Mickey Hogg said. "They's both territories, anyway. I'll ride with you."

  7

  "Do not grease them animals," Rab Sinclair said to Matthew Cummings, the middle son of Amos and Martha. "Wash the animals, grease the wheels."

  "My father told me to grease them," Matthew said.

  Rab Sinclair was idly smoking his pipe, sitting on the back of the sorrel. The small wagon train had stopped for the afternoon, having made only ten miles that day.

  They were now seven days out from Independence, and the wagons were slowing Rab Sinclair's pace.

  "I ain't one to tell a boy not to do what his pa told him to," Rab said. "But you ought not to grease them animals. When we stop for camp, you wash them with water, maybe a little soap every other day. Brush 'em down some. Take care of them live stock better, and they'll move us along faster. Leave off the grease, and don't mention it one way or t'other to your pa. And if he says anything to you about the grease, you have him come and talk to me."

  Matthew stood for a moment, indecisive. Rab Sinclair was a guide and nothing more. He did not work around camp, he barely lifted a finger to help with anything along the trail. For seven days he had camped alone, away from the wagons. He took his meals by himself on his own fire. On the trail, Rab Sinclair talked to his horses more than he spoke to his traveling companions.

  "Here, if I do it for you, then you won't have to explain to your father why you didn't grease the stock."

  Rab Sinclair swung his leg over and slid down from his saddle. He took up a bucket of water and a brush and began washing an ox with water. He then brushed the ox. He went on doing it, moving from one ox to the next, until Matthew Cummings decided at last to give up with the grease and help him.

  "Keep them clean with water and soap, brush them, and it will help them to avoid sore necks. If they ain't sore, you'll get more work out of them. They'll move faster and take the harness easier. The grease don't help keep down the sores. It's mistreatment, is what it is. Grease holds dirt, and dirt rubs the skin raw when the harness is on. Oxen are big, dumb animals, and they're slow enough on their best day. When they're sore and raw, they go slower. You move too slow on the prairie, and you die."

  After some time, Amos Cummings came by.

  "I thought I told you to apply grease to the animals," he said to Matthew.

  "I told him to stop," Rab Sinclair intervened, though he did not look away from the mule he was washing. "Wash these animals, do not grease 'em."

  Amos started to argue, but then thought better of it. Instead, he said to Matthew, "When you're done here, put them into the corral. Your brothers have finished roping it off."

  "I wouldn't do that neither, Mr. Cummings," Rab said. "You need to turn out the oxen and the mules. Let them roam this night. We're coming through too late in the season and the good forage is all gone. You put these animals in that corral and they won't feed enough. The oxen and mules ain't getting enough to eat because you only turn them out at noon and then round 'em up after an hour or so. You need to leave them out all night."

  "I'm not so sure that's a wise idea," Graham Devalt said, overhearing the conversation. "If the oxen and mules wander at night, we could be all morning trying to round them up."

  Rab stopped washing the mule. He dropped his brush down into the bucket of water. He dried his hands on the front of his trousers, and then he produced from his pocket a pouch of tobacco and his pipe. Rab leaned easily against a nearby wagon and filled and lit his pipe. Rab had an easy, natural way about him, a manner that was learned from so many years living among the various tribes. He was unhurried and could not be baited into a disagreement. But beyond that, Rab Sinclair knew the subject he spoke on, and he knew that he was right.

  "You don't have to do what I suggest," Rab said. "But your animals are giving out. We're still on a decent trail here. This is a good road we're traveling. In a day or two, this road will run out and we will find ourselves traveling through tall prairie grass, flatlands that are wet in some low places and difficult for oxen and mules to pull wagons through. But already, your animals are slowing down. Our second day out, after spending much of the first day on crossing the river, we made twenty miles or better. We did that again the next day. But we've gone less each day since. Today we didn't do more than ten miles. It's too early in the journey and the road is too good for the animals to be slowing down."

  "If you're worried about slowing down, how fast do you think we'll go if some of the livestock wanders away?" Graham Devalt demanded. "We could be two hours rounding them up in the morning. We would lose two hours of traveling time."

  Rab nodded thoughtfully, puffing on his pipe.

  "You make a point," Rab said evenly. "It's not just the slowing down. You work those beasts too hard without giving them room to graze, and they'll stop going at all. If you're worried about them wandering too far, they'll not do that. You've had them walking ten or fifteen or twenty miles during the day, pulling the wagons. They ain't interested in wandering. But they will want to graze."

  Amos Cummings listened to both sides of the argument and decided to split the difference.

  "How about this, why don't we corral the mules and horses, but we'll let the oxen roam. If they do well, we can do it every night when we stop. That leaves more grazing in the corral for the horses and mules, and it gives the bigger stock more room to graze." Amos thought this was an equitable conclusion to reach.

  "You're also overloaded," Rab Sinclair said. "You've got the wagons too heavy. You're doing right by making sure someone is always walking, but you've still got too much weight in the wagons. You're not feeding the animals enough and you're making them pull too heavy a load. You need to see what can be left here."

  Amos smiled, but he shook his head. "I assure you, Mr. Sinclair, we were very careful to pack only the things that we needed. The wagons are not overloaded."

  Graham Devalt couldn't explain it, but he was perturbed at being told what to do.

  "Look, Sinclair – I know you think you're smarter than all the rest of us because you've lived with Indians, but these animals did just fine all the way from Ohio to Kansas. We corralled them, and t
hey carried the same weight they carry now. We came a long way without your help."

  "That's true enough," Rab agreed. "But you came all that way on good roads where there were supply stores and hay barns, and any needs you had could be seen to. And it could be that I misunderstood what Mr. Huntsdale told me, but I believe he explained to me that you were late in your arrival to Independence."

  "Your only role out here is to show us the direction. We don't need you to look through our luggage or care for our animals. We're perfectly capable."

  Rab shrugged his shoulders as he puffed his pipe.

  "That's true enough, Mr. Devalt," Rab said. "But I have a problem. I'm packing, which means that everything I have to survive from Independence to Santa Fe is in the panniers on my hawss. That ain't much in the way of supplies," Rab said. "I have to make this trip as fast as I can before I'm stranded out here without food enough to eat. A wagon train is going to take eight weeks or more to get to Santa Fe. But a man packing, he can do it in 10 days or two weeks less than that. But if you slow me down, it makes it harder on me to survive the journey. I'd rather not leave you to find your own way, but if the choice becomes my life or guiding you, I'll ride on."

  "You were paid to guide us!" Graham Devalt said, his voice full of outrage.

  "If I have to leave you, I'll send Mr. Huntsdale his money back, and you can take it up with him."

  Graham Devalt spun on his heel and walked away, back to where the women were getting out supplies to begin cooking on the fire that Stuart Bancroft was building. He had good flames already started and was now adding branches from the possum belly under one of the wagons.

  "Tomorrow you should have your sons pick up any prairie coal that we pass," Rab said.

  "What is prairie coal?" Amos asked.

  "Dried buffalo droppings. They may have to spread out some away from the trail to find them. The trail has been well traveled already this season," Rab said to Amos Cummings. "Prairie coal burns as well as branches. Toss 'em in the possum belly up under your wagon. We'll run out of wood to burn soon enough."