For the most part, Fort Sumner was barren and depressing. Hundreds of Indians sat before their teepees, hunched in their blankets, expressionless faces turned to the morning sun.
“I feel so sorry for them,” said Rebecca. “Their eyes are so empty, it’s like they’re looking into…into tomorrow, and seeing nothing.”
“That’s the kind of feeling I get,” said Brazos, “but I couldn’t explain it that well. This regimentation’s made blanket Injuns of them forever; not worth a damn to themselves or anybody else.”
Finally they came upon two squat log huts a dozen yards apart. In front of each stood a sentry in Union blue, his rifle at parade rest. Will spoke to the nearest one.
“This is the Navajo guardhouse,” said the sentry. “The other is for the Mescaleros. Impossible to mix the tribes. That’s why most of ’em are in there—for tryin’ to kill one another, bein’ drunk, or both.”
Goodnight, Loving, and McCaleb spent almost an hour in the agent’s office negotiating the sale of the herd, and then were unable to sell it all. When McCaleb returned to the outfit, he told them what had been agreed upon.
“They’re buying all the beeves, two-year-olds and up, eight cents a pound. They’re taking delivery in the morning and we’ll be paid in gold.”
“That’s goin’ to leave us with three hundred unsold cows,” said Brazos. “Not much of a herd to trail all the way to Colorado Territory.”
“With Goodnight’s and Loving’s cut-outs,” said McCaleb, “there’ll be at least eight hundred, if not more. Loving believes John Iliff—a former Texan ranching in northern Colorado—might buy the whole bunch.”
“Don’t need three outfits to drive eight hundred trail-broke cows,” said Will. “One outfit can do it.”
“One outfit’s going to,” said McCaleb. “Soon as Goodnight and Loving talk it over, I’ll be gettin’ with them. We’ll decide then who takes the rest of the herd to Colorado.”
“Tell them we’ll finish the drive,” said Rebecca. “I want to go on to Colorado. It’s got to be better than Texas.”
But McCaleb didn’t meet with Goodnight and Loving. Goodnight rode into their camp after supper. He seemed a little reluctant to talk with everybody gathered around.
“Go ahead, Charlie,” said McCaleb. “None of these folks are thirty-a-month riders. Our stake’s about equal.”
“Bent,” said Goodnight, “I think highly of all of you. Because of that, Mr. Loving wanted me to talk to you. We’ve decided to go into the cattle business together, and one of us is going back to Texas to raise a bigger, better herd while prices are rock bottom. It would be a waste of time and money for all of us to drive eight hundred cows to Colorado. Tomorrow, when we’ve concluded the sale and collected our money, you’re free to take what’s left of your herd and head for Colorado. However, Mr. Loving is making you what I feel is a generous offer. He will take what’s left of everybody’s herd to Colorado and sell for the best price he can get. You and I and our riders will immediately return to Texas, using our money from this sale to build a bigger, better herd.”
“Since you and Loving are partners,” said McCaleb, “I can understand him driving the rest of your herd to Colorado. But why ours? That leaves us owing him. We’ve ridden a lot of trails together, Charlie, but I’m not one to lean on my friends when I can do for myself.”
“You’ll be repaying Mr. Loving in kind,” said Goodnight. “I aim to buy one thousand big steers for him and another thousand for myself. Buy a thousand of your own. You’ve got six riders and I have eight, including myself. Somewhere between here and Fort Belknap we’ll pick up Bill Wilson. That’ll give us fifteen riders. Without your outfit, I’d have to hire riders. Together, we can pay Mr. Loving back by helping trail his herd back here to Fort Sumner while he drives the rest of ours to Colorado. When Loving has sold the rest of our stock, he’ll return here and wait for us to bring the new cattle.”
“Maybe I’m talkin’ out of turn, Charlie,” said Will, “but by the time we get back to Texas, round up three thousand steers, and drive ’em back to here, there’ll be snow in the high country. Deep snow.”
“True,” said Goodnight, “but we won’t be going to the Colorado high country until spring, assuming that we have to go to Colorado at all. We’re talking about a herd of big steers—three thousand strong—two-year-olds and up. This is good cattle country. If we don’t sell them all at Sumner, we could establish a temporary ranch near here, grazing them until spring, and then drive them to Colorado. Why not winter here in New Mexico?”
“Charlie,” said McCaleb, “we need to study this awhile. When will Mr. Loving head out for Colorado and when will you start back to Texas?”
“We’ll wait until after July fourth and have a good feed. I figure we’ll move out on the fifth or sixth.”
“By the fourth,” said McCaleb, “we’ll know what we aim to do.”
After Goodnight departed, there was a long silence. McCaleb spoke first.
“The gold we collect for today’s sale won’t last forever; neither will the trail drives. I aim to eventually take a herd to Colorado, but when I do, I want the biggest and best steers; animals that could bring thirty dollars a head in the mining towns. If there’s one of you—or all of you—that’s had enough of trail driving, then we’ll divvy up after the sale.”
“Leave my share in the pot,” said Monte. “I want to be around for that big drive to the mining towns. I’d as soon be dead and in Hell as to go back to the nothin’ life I had before this drive.”
“Charlie made some good points,” said Brazos. “There ain’t nothin’ in Texas to hold us. I spent four years in the Rangers and come out with sixty dollars, and that was ’fore the state was broke. I’ll stick around.”
“I’ll stay,” said Will. “I reckon the sooner we can get back to Texas and trail out another herd, the better off we’ll be. The time’s coming—and soon—when the trails will be glutted with herds. There’s already trouble in Kansas because of tick fever. The Shawnee trail will be closed by the end of this year. We’d best cash out while we can.”
“Brazos,” said McCaleb, “talk to Goose and see how he feels, if you can get through to him.”
“Oh, all right!” snapped Rebecca. “I’ll go along. It’s just that I don’t want to be stuck in this godforsaken part of New Mexico forever.”
The following day, they met with the beef contractor and left his office with eighteen thousand dollars in gold, roughly a third of it in McCaleb’s saddlebag.
“Mr. Loving will take the chuck wagon,” said Goodnight. “It would slow us down. I’m told we can get saddle mules at Santa Rosa, forty miles northwest of here. You ride the mule for endurance. In case of Indian attack, you swap the mule for your fastest horse—which is on a lead rope—and outrun the red devils.”
Oliver Loving moved out at dawn. The Goodnight and McCaleb outfits would depart at dusk, traveling at night.
They had but one minor skirmish with the Comanches and lost one pack mule. July 22, seventeen days after leaving Fort Sumner, they were back on Elm Creek range.
“Now,” said Goodnight, “we’ll go to Weatherford, settle up with Moon and get the supplies we need. Then we’ll pitch camp near Belknap and begin buying big steers. I want to head out to Fort Sumner by mid-August.”
That night, One-Armed Bill Wilson rode into their camp. Bill was an older version of his brother Charlie. McCaleb expected Wilson to regale the outfit with details of his escape from the Federals, but the one-armed rider kept his silence. He greeted Rebecca as though he’d never seen her before. Goodnight had no questions; Wilson’s presence attested to the success of his escape.
McCaleb bought a dozen horses and a 1025 steers, most of them two-year-olds. They used a simple 6 trail brand. Despite Goodnight’s enthusiasm for eventual wintering in New Mexico, he limited his and Loving’s herd to twelve hundred head. It was a move he wouldn’t regret.
August 10, 1866, they lined them out to the southw
est, toward the Upper Concho, determined that this drive would be less costly than the first.
Emilio lamented the chuck wagon’s absence, and after a few biscuitless days, so did everybody else. They were dependent on pack mules. Five of the hardy little beasts they had brought from New Mexico now carried their provisions and extra ammunition, while a sixth mule bore two water kegs. The rest of the saddle mules traveled with the horse remuda.
“We should have bought more steers,” said Rebecca, “while they’re only seven dollars a head.”
“We’d need to hire more riders,” said McCaleb, “and we don’t know what market’s ahead of us at Fort Sumner. I feel better having some of our stake in gold.”
“I’ve never seen a more skittish bunch of brutes in my life,” said Will, a week southwest of Fort Belknap.
“Me neither,” said Brazos. “No thunder, no lightning, no rain, not even a dust devil, but we’ve had a stampede every night. These damn fools are gonna run themselves down to skin and bones. We’ll need all winter to put some meat on ’em.”
Not only did the nightly stampedes continue, but in the middle of the afternoon a miles-long herd of buffalo split the drive. Terrified, half the cattle went pounding along the back trail, hell-bent for Fort Belknap, while the rest lit a shuck toward Horsehead Crossing. The trail riders spent the rest of that day and part of the next recovering their herd. Some of the bison mixed with the steers and had to be driven out. A pair of particularly troublesome young buffalo bulls refused to leave, and Will shot them, providing hump steak and broiled tongue for supper.
“Boys,” said Goodnight, “we’ve made history. Bill and Charlie Wilson just run a tally and we didn’t lose a steer!”
Reaching the Staked Plain—the dread Llano Estacado—they drove the cattle only at night. They reached and crossed the Pecos in record time, avoiding the devastating loss they had suffered on the first drive. They reached Pope’s Crossing, again fording the Pecos without difficulty.
“I wish we could just take our herd on to Colorado,” said Rebecca. “Once we reach Fort Sumner, we’ll have done our part in helping to deliver Loving’s herd.”
“There’ll be snow in Colorado by the time we reach Sumner,” said McCaleb, “but I don’t aim to give these steers away, even if we have to dig in and hold every blasted one until spring. Like I told you, I’ve never had a better friend than Charles Goodnight, but when it’s time to cut the cards, I aim to draw my own, play my own hand. Will and Brazos will side me, if it comes to that.”
“So will I,” said the girl, “and so will Monte. I suppose Goose would be the only one in question. I haven’t been able to figure him out.”
“I have,” said McCaleb, grinning in the darkness. “He’s left-handed.”
September 15,1866—after thirty-five days on the trail—they reached Fort Sumner. Oliver Loving anxiously awaited them with good news. He had sold the remnants of their previous herd to J. W. Iliff, a rancher on the South Platte river, in eastern Colorado. Again they had been paid in gold. But things had changed drastically at Fort Sumner and they faced a long winter with virtually no market for their beef. Rebecca sneaked a furtive look at McCaleb, but he appeared not to even see her. He looked grim, but no more so than Charles Goodnight….
For the first time, McCaleb began to see why Oliver Loving had taken it upon himself to trail the remnants of the first drive to Colorado. In August government beef contracts were let at Fort Sumner, and Loving had wanted to be present from the start. While he couldn’t bid, he wanted to be the first to dicker with whomever became the beef contractor for the next twelve months.
“Roberts and the Patterson boys lost out,” said Loving. “They were cut down like dogs by some jasper named Andrews. He’s agreed to supply Sumner with beef at two-and-a-half cents a pound, on the hoof.”
“Why that’s…that’s impossible,” roared Goodnight.
“It’s quite possible,” said Loving. “From what Roberts and the Pattersons have told me, these are cattle driven over the comanchero trail, cattle stolen in Texas by the Comanches and sold to New Mexican traders along the Canadian.”
“That,” said Goodnight, “is an insult to every Texas cattleman. These Union scoundrels won’t buy from Rebs, but they’ll cut our throats by accepting our very own Texas cattle, stolen by the Comanches and run through a swindling middleman!”
“It’s not all bad news,” said Loving. “There are more honest buyers at Lincoln and Fort Bascom. They’re still paying eight cents a pound. Trouble is, we’ll have to share their contract with three other herds. The Patterson boys, Jacob Roberts, and Franklin Wilburn all got their tails in the same crack as we do. Once a month, for six months, we can send a hundred head to Lincoln and a hundred head to Bascom; twelve hundred head in all. We’ll make our first delivery October first and our last on March first, freeing us to return to Texas for a larger herd.”
He had forgotten about McCaleb’s outfit, but Goodnight hadn’t. He was very much aware of the murderous looks directed at Oliver Loving. McCaleb was the first to speak, and his words were directed more to his own outfit than to Goodnight or Loving.
“Charlie, we’ve about decided to just dig in until spring and trail our herd on to Colorado. I don’t aim to be at the mercy of somebody else’s beef contract, and I reckon I’m talkin’ for the rest of the outfit.”
Loving, aware that Goodnight had been embarrassed by his apparent callousness, tried to lessen the impact, but only made it worse.
“There’s a new beef contractor at Fort Union, near Santa Fe,” said Loving. “He might be interested.”
It was 140 miles to Santa Fe, nearly twice as far as either of the locations Loving had arranged for himself and Goodnight. For a long minute nobody said anything; again it was McCaleb who broke the uncomfortable silence.
“Maybe we’ll ride over there and look into it. It won’t displease me if we graze these cows right here until spring. This is good range; these steers will be fatter and in better condition than they are now.”
When Goodnight and Loving rode away, McCaleb’s outfit decided they weren’t all that put out over the possibility of wintering in New Mexico and then driving north in the spring. Brazos summed it up.
“I reckon we’re somewhat beholden to Loving for selling the rest of last year’s herd in Colorado, but from here on, I’d as soon not have him making any deals for us. We got more’n a thousand big steers, there’s plenty of grass and water, the river’s full of fish, we got plenty of grub, with more to be had, and we ain’t broke. Once we get settled, why don’t we ride to Santa Fe? I’ve heard it’s some kind of town.”
“I wish we could,” said Rebecca, “but what about the herd?”
“Goodnight’s and Loving’s riders can look out for our herd,” said Will, “and when they’re driving to Bascom or Lincoln, we’ll return the favor.”
“That’s all that’ll make this place bearable,” said Rebecca. “When can we go?”
“Let’s hold off until Goodnight and Loving return from their deliveries on October first,” said McCaleb. “Then they’ll owe us.”
Remembering their hollowed-out wall in the faraway box canyon on the Trinity, they looked for and found a similar campsite on the west bank of the Pecos. An enormous rock ledge overhung the river, and a dozen feet below it was a level surface that extended back into the river bank almost like the mouth of a cave. With tools from Goodnight’s chuck wagon, they widened the precipitous trail until they could ascend or descend safely, even in the dark.
“You’d best keep your eyes and ears open for flash floods.” Goodnight chuckled. “I’ve already had to haul your carcass out of one.”
McCaleb laughed. “I remembered that, and that’s why I checked out the highest level the water’s ever reached. It gets high enough to worry us, and your soddy will be just a mud hole with you sittin’ in the middle.”
The other outfits preparing to winter in New Mexico—including Goodnight’s and Loving’s—had s
imply burrowed into hillsides, building crude dugouts with sod roofs.
“I’ve never seen a soddy in my life that didn’t leak,” said Will, “when it rained long enough and hard enough. When she starts to leak, you ain’t too far from havin’ the whole damn roof come down on your head. First good storm and we’ll have the lot of ’em grabbing their soggy blankets and tryin’ to squeeze in with us.”
Goodnight and Loving had made one move that McCaleb’s outfit had been quick to follow. They had pitched their winter camps almost fifty miles south of Fort Sumner, seeking the best graze for their stock and avoiding the possibility of overcrowding by those who had settled ahead of them. Charles Goodnight was plainsman enough that he never underestimated the Indian threat. Despite the proximity of the other herds and the nearness of Fort Sumner, he established three watches, with two pairs of night riders circling the herds from dusk to dawn. McCaleb, no less cautious, grazed his herd adjoining theirs, supplying two riders for each watch.
Oliver Loving’s outfit, as salty and aloof as ever, kept mostly to themselves. Goodnight’s riders, however, were as friendly a bunch of cowboys as McCaleb could recall. Slowly, Emilio and Donato Vasquez established a friendship with Goose, and the Apache’s vocabulary—in Spanish and halting English—began to grow. Bill and Charlie Wilson, flamboyant and inclined to recklessness, were the gamblers in Goodnight’s outfit. Their answer to boredom was poker, and they soon found willing converts in young Monte Nance and the Vasquez boys.
“Monte,” pleaded Rebecca, “I wish you’d leave the cards alone. You know that was Daddy’s weakness. It ruined him.”
“He was an old fool who’d gamble with borrowed money,” snarled Monte. “He’d bluff or raise on a pair of deuces; that’s what ruined him. Now get off my back!”
McCaleb could say nothing, but he secretly agreed with the girl. Never in his life had he known a gambler—honest or otherwise—who hadn’t come to a bad end as a result of his dexterity or the lack of it. Monte Nance was rapidly becoming as much a card sharp as either of the Wilson brothers, and they took an obvious delight in the growing skill of their disciple. Bill and Charlie took to riding first watch for Goodnight’s outfit, and then spent the rest of the night playing poker. Donato and Emilio Vasquez were adequate poker players themselves, and when the Wilsons weren’t playing, the Mexican riders usually were. The game never seemed to end. Monte and Goose continued riding night watch together and the inevitable happened. Goose learned enough words until he began to understand this time-consuming game the other riders seemed to enjoy. Rebecca and McCaleb rode in at dawn, ending the third watch, and found the Apache carefully studying a deck of cards. He had them correctly divided into suits. Rebecca looked hopelessly at McCaleb. What could they do? By the end of the third week in October, to the delight of just about everybody, Goose stumbled into the nightly poker game. Brazos and Will chuckled and even Goodnight was amused.
The Goodnight Trail Page 25