The Trail

by M L Dunn

  “We’re looking for the ones that stole this man’s child,” Jonas said gesturing at Caleb.

  “Oh,” Sweet Time said. “I heard about that. The Nokoni, means wanderer. Some of Big Bear’s braves the way I heard it. I’m sorry that happened.”

  “We could use your help finding them,” Jonas told him.

  “I doubt I’d be much help.”

  “You’re friendly with them. You speak Comanche.”

  “It’s been some time.”

  “We’ll pay ya.”

  “Not sure I’d ever get a chance to spend that money,” Sweet Time said shaking his head.

  “You’ve traded with them before.”

  “Things ain’t like they used to be and besides they ain’t got much worth trading for anymore.”

  “His child’s worth trading for,” Jonas said pointing at Caleb.

  Mr. O’ Hara glanced at Caleb. “Well, I do wish ya luck with that.”

  “What do I need to say that would convince you to help us?”

  “Nothing comes to mind.”

  Jonas looked at Caleb. “I guess we’ll have to do this ourselves,” he said shrugging his shoulders. He started back toward his horse, but winked then. He gathered up his reins and began to turn his horse around, but when it was pointed Joe’s direction – Jonas suddenly slapped the horse causing it to bolt.

  Joe jumped to avoid being trampled and Jonas, following just after the horse, rushed him, lowering his shoulder and crashing into Joe like he was a locked door he wanted through. He bounced off him some, but he’d hit Joe hard enough to topple him backwards. Jonas grabbed hold of his shotgun, pulled his pistol with his other hand and placed it under Joe’s chin.

  “Let go of it before I give you a blow hole,” Jonas told him and Joe released his grip on the shotgun. Jonas ordered Joe to stand up while the sheriff held his Colt on Mr. O’Hara and his son, neither of whom had made any attempt to arm or defend themselves.

  Jonas walked over to the wagon. “We won’t be needing you big fellow,” he told Mr. O’Hara’s offspring. “Climb down there,” he said poking him in the belly with the shotgun.

  The young man glanced at his father, who indicated for him to obey and the boy slowly climbed down from his perch.

  “Just what are you planning?” Mr. O’Hara asked.

  “I told you already. I’m planning on finding them Comanche,” Jonas answered. “You’re gonna help me,” he said pointing a finger at Sweet Time. “We’ll let you sit this one out,” he said to the younger O’Hara. “Or you can come along; it’s up to your pa. I don’t really care.”

  “Maybe you should head on back to Dodge,” Mr. O’Hara told his son. “You can make it there by tomorrow night. It’ll be okay,” he said handing his boy his hat.

  “You can accompany him if you’d like or you can come along with us peaceful like,” Jonas turned around and told Joe. Joe also looked at Mr. O’Hara for some kind of direction, but Sweet Time didn’t say anything and finally Joe said he would go with them.

  “I want your word you won’t try to help Sweet Time escape,” Jonas asked.

  “Okay,” Joe said like the idea would never have occurred to him.

  “Sheriff wouldn’t hesitate to shoot ya,” Jonas warned him and Joe glanced at the sheriff.

  “You don’t act like you’re paid to uphold the law,” Sweet Time said to the sheriff.

  “They don’t pay me much.”

  “Still, what you’re doing is wrong.”

  “Hard to say.”

  “This isn’t the way to go about this,” Mr. O’Hara told the men holding guns on him. He wanted to talk them into reclaiming the child some other way, but he knew he was their best hope and thus he was having difficulty sounding very convincing.

  “Start getting your things together,” Jonas ordered Mr. O’Hara’s son. “Unless you want him to come along with us.”

  “No,” Sweet Time said, giving up on talking them out of kidnapping him. “Patrick, you go on and go. Sally ’ell look out for ya.”

  Mr. O’Hara reached in his pocket and pulled out some coins and dropped them into the boy’s hands like into a wishing well and then Jonas helped the boy collect his belongings from out the back of the wagon. They placed some food and clothing and other items in a sack and the boy hooked a finger through it, while Jonas looped two canteens over his shoulder.

  “You got a weapon?”

  It took a while for the boy to spit out that his gun lay in the back of the wagon. The younger O’Hara, not like his father, did not speak well and stuttered. Jonas’ attitude toward the boy softened a little at hearing him talk this way. He went and found the gun and breached it to see if it was loaded, saw it was empty and stuck it in the boy’s hand. He spotted some shells and stuffed them in the boy’s pockets.

  “Why, why can’t I, I go too?” the young man asked.

  “I think you’d be better off back at the fort,” Jonas said, “Sally will look out for ya,” he added looking at Mr. O’Hara, who nodded at his son.

  “Exercise thrift with that water,” July told the boy.

  “I, I will.”

  “It might be a month or more before we get back,” July said, “but we don’t mean your pa or Joe no harm.”

  “Can you find your way back?” Jonas asked.

  “Easy.”

  “Stay out of sight,” Jonas said. “Coming across a fellow your size alone out here makes people jumpy.”

  Caleb thought Jonas was probably more concerned for the boy though than anyone he might come across.

  “I will.”

  The boy turned and waved a big hand at Sweet Time from underneath his possessions. “Bye pa.”

  “Bye son. Everything will be all right,” Sweet Time said. “Don’t follow us.”

  Mr. O’Hara’s son started down the road with steps that were plodding and deliberate, and he seemed not coordinated enough to walk and look back over his shoulder, for every time he glanced back at them he had to halt to do so.

  “It’s best he goes on back,” Jonas said. “Ride my horse,” Jonas ordered Joe, pointing at it where it had run off to. Jonas climbed up next to Mr. O’Hara and told him to move over. “I’d better drive if were gonna find his child before she’s a grandmother.”

  “What makes you think I can find them Comanche?” Sweet Time asked, looking through the back opening of the wagon at his son who had ventured very little so far.

  “I figure they’ll spot this travelling circus you call a wagon,” Jonas said, watching Joe having difficulty trying to mount his horse. “Your job is to make nice with them when they do.”

  “Well, I can see that ain’t your job.”

  Looking back, Caleb noticed the boy had failed attempting to redistribute the weight he was carrying and had dropped most of his things.

  “Why couldn’t ya let my boy take a horse?” Mr. O’Hara asked.

  “I couldn’t spare one and anyway a strong minded horse might take him where it wanted to go rather than the other way around,” Jonas said, thinking the boy didn’t look like much of a horseman.

  “He wouldn’t ride it anyway, but he don’t like to be alone,” Sweet Time said. “A horse would keep him company.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about your boy,” Caleb reassured Mr. O’Hara. “We didn’t see any other riders since Fort Dodge. He should make it there okay.”

  “I ain’t worried about that. He’s got a knack for seeing other people before they see him,” Mr. O’Hara said. “He saw you coming. He said you looked like trouble. I should have listened to him.”

  “I’m sorry for forcing you along,” Caleb said. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

  “I realize you’re scared for your child,” Mr. O’Hara said, “but you might end up costing us all our lives, including your own. There are other ways to go about this.”

  “You’re our best shot,” Jonas argued. “Even if you like it or not, but maybe this will help you feel better about joining us,” Jonas s
aid pulling a slip of paper out of his shirt pocket. He handed Mr. O’Hara it.

  Mr. O’Hara looked only a little more enthused when he finished reading it.

  “What’s it say?” Caleb asked.

  “It says the colonel at Fort Dodge is willing to pay $125 reward to any person that the corporal here deems …”

  “I deem,” Jonas interrupted poking himself with his finger.

  Mr. O’Hara continued, “…as having contributed substantially to the rescue and return of Matilda Evans.”

  “Oh,” said Caleb.

  “How old’s your child?”

  “Mattie’s seven.”

  “That’s fortunate,” Mr. O’Hara said. He told Caleb the Comanche might be rough on her when she first arrived among them - they was known to whip children if they didn’t follow orders - but then most likely some family would take her in. “If she ain’t afraid to do some work and don’t cry much she’ll be fine till we can buy her back,” Sweet Time said.

  “Mattie’s use to work. And she don’t cry easily.”

  “Then she’ll be fine.”

  Mr. O’Hara spoke of purchasing Mattie from the Comanche like it was a foregone conclusion and Caleb felt his spirit lifted. Mr. O’Hara also said he was encouraged to have heard from the Kickapoo that she was still with the Comanche when they’d stopped among them.

  “If they were going to bash her head in with a rock they would have by then I suppose,” Mr. O’Hara said and Caleb supposed this was meant to encourage him.

  “I’ll pay you for any supplies we use,” Caleb said wanting to change the subject then.

  “Nice of you to offer.”

  “What were you going to Colorado for?”

  “I trade regular with the miners there, bringing them in supplies and such, helping them haul their loads ta Denver.”

  Caleb learned that a few inquiries helped lighten Mr. O’Hara’s mood. Mr. O’Hara talked a lot for a kidnap victim and Caleb, for one, was fine with that. He learned more about Mr. O’Hara in an hour that he had the last couple of years about Sheriff Ford. He acted upset that they’d diverted him from Colorado, but it was obvious he didn’t mind too much. He soon was whistling Bonnie Blue Flag and another tune that Caleb did not recognize.

  “Comanche ain’t gonna be interested in most of this stuff I got,” Sweet Time said flipping his thumb at the back of the wagon. He mentioned he had not been among Big Bear’s people in some years now, but he was confident they’d welcome him again. Sweet Time educated Caleb that most traders who ended up losing their scalps to the Comanche did so because they got greedy or lustful. Caleb earned that most Comanche did not care for whiskey, but you could still trade it to them for them to trade to other bands.

  “Whiskey’s like currency out here,” Mr. O’Hara claimed flipping his thumb at some jugs in the back of his wagon. “Ammunition too.”

  July was happy to hear that Sweet Time carried liquor and mead in his inventory. Sweet Time said he had long since given up the stuff himself, but knew no decent trader would be caught without it. Besides the inventory of liquor there was a half full box of Spencer rifles, blankets, denim and wool clothing, flour, canned items, hardtack, salted bacon stored in boxes, dried fruits, tools, boxes of ammunition and a few other items. Caleb spotted a pair of army field glasses and asked if he could see them.

  Mr. O’Hara handed him them. Caleb was sure that if any Indians were in the vicinity they were certain to notice the wagon. Looking now through the field glasses he did not spot any. The wagon made its way over the prairie much like a ship at sea, its white cover flapping like a sail, but was instead pulled by eight mules. Mr. O’Hara claimed the beasts of burden all had different personalities, and together made a fine team if not a fast one. They were not easily spooked by sounds in the night or lightning storms and they wouldn’t fall sick if forced to drink from poor water sources out here on the plains. Caleb later found their different dispositions really were just different points along a line between meanness and laziness.

  Soon Jonas found he did not care for the big wagon’s pace. It grated a person the same way waiting for a young child to form a complete sentence can, and despite the even look of the plain, the ride was jarring and uncomfortable on the wagon’s seat. Before long Jonas returned the reins to Mr. O’Hara and took his horse back from Joe.

  “I don’t want to see this wagon turning around,” Jonas told them.

  “I doubt we could run off from ya in this wagon,” Mr. O’Hara pointed out.

  “You might be fixing to shoot it out with us.”

  “I’ll let the Comanche or some outlaw do that. They’re likely to if they notice that’s an army uniform you’re wearing,” Mr. O’Hara said. “And you should stick that badge where the sun don’t shine on it,” he yelled to the sheriff riding nearby. “We’re likely to run across persons out here who don’t always show the same high regard for the law that you do.”

  July unpinned his badge and put it inside his pocket.

  Jonas rode about a mile ahead while Sweet Time and Joe drove the wagon behind them headed south. They did not travel much further that day before stopping and making camp.

  “I think we got enough blankets and clothing and ammunition and such to trade with,” Sweet Time remarked to Joe, who was stirring a pot of beans and bacon. “I suppose we could make this trip profitable if we could trade for some pelts and buffalo hides. If we don’t lose our own that is.”

  “Miners can be just as unpredictable as Comanche, depending on how their luck’s been,” Jonas said reaching for some coffee and biscuits.

  “Miners ain’t much for roasting people they’ve become annoyed with,” Sweet Time argued. “That’s why I prefer them - that and they speak mostly English. Army has stirred up the Comanche like a beehive these past few years. They ain’t as easy to deal with as they used to be.”

  “You’ll think of something,” Jonas told him.

  “I do prefer the easier traveling out here on the plain than the climb towards them miner camps, but it would be nice if there were more of us. Maybe you could kidnap a family or two to help us if we come across some,” he suggested.

  “Why’d you try to desert?” the sheriff unexpectedly asked then.

  Jonas turned around to see the sheriff was fiddling with his pistol, causing the chambers of his gun to slowly click past the hammer, which caused a soft metallic clicking sound like the combination to a safe.

  “I got a letter,” Jonas said sitting down with his dinner. “No one in our unit could read so I had to get one of the lieutenants to read it to me. The letter was from my brother inviting me to join him in New Mexico. He’d traded for some land out there and was planning to raise horses on it. Said he could use my help and with the letter there was a map of where to find him. He laid out on paper his idea of what he figured the area from Santa Fe over into Texas must look like. He’d drawn some mountains and streams on it and such and had a little X marking the spot where I could find him. Of course I couldn’t join him just then.”

  Jonas tasted the coffee and told Joe it was good and then continued. “A month later turns out the Ninth is ordered down to Fort Stockton in Texas. We’re were to follow along the Santa Fe trail part of the way there and one day taking out the map my brother had sent and looking at it I noticed we was passing through some of the outlying area he’d drawn. There ain’t nothing like a map for causing a man to pick up and relocate,” Jonas explained. “Thinking on it day after day, I finally decided I’d sneak away and one night I did just that. Well, I wised up a couple of days later and returned to my company.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t have you shot.”

  “Well lucky for me not every white man thinks like you do. They sent me back to Fort Dodge for the colonel to decide what to do with me and he figured six months hard labor without pay was punishment enough since I’d come back on my own.”

  “You might be surprised to learn I’m a deserter too,” July said. “Of course
it was from the Confederate Army and no one cares anymore.”

  “I do find that surprising. Since you promised to shoot me if I was to run off.”

  “Well,” July said friendly-like, stepping closer to the fire. “They’d a shot or hung me if they’d caught me. They’d a just kept running me out there till I’d stopped a bullet. The difference now is,” July said, jabbing a finger towards the corporal, “you have something I lacked.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A reason for risking your life - his child,” July said swinging his finger toward Caleb. “So I expect you to keep the promise you made the colonel. I know a soldier’s life ain’t easy. I imagine being a black soldier would be even tougher.”

  “I ain’t asking for your pity.”

  “Well, I about to envy you,” July said. “Where’s that map of yours now?”

  “Colonel’s got it, but I don’t need it no more. I got it in my head,” Jonas said tapping himself with his finger there. “But don’t you worry. I ain’t going nowhere.”

  The sheriff, contrary to what many around the county thought, enjoyed conversation, except when Mr. Havel was part of it. Mr. Schott’s ranch hands and the local store proprietors felt comfortable enough to approach the sheriff in the saloon or about town, but the farmers did not feel welcome around him, especially the more recent immigrants, although since hiring Tom Durrant, people had begun to notice that he did not spend as much time in the saloon as he used to. July knew he sometimes let his tongue slip, but he did not think any of his remarks were as harsh as those his father had directed towards him and his mother, towards his siblings. The things his father said were still out there, floating around, occasionally passing close in orbit to July’s thoughts before spinning off again, sometimes for years, but always returning like the fiery meteor they were.

  July knew he had a bad habit of severing relationships ever since he’d left his parent’s home in Illinois at sixteen. Although his role about the county was about the same as a scarecrow’s in a cornfield – to warn interlopers to move on, July liked it there. Much of his time was spent following cowhands, drifting back to Texas, into the saloon to let them know he was there to answer to if they got out of line in Sunfield. He did the same when issuing permits to itinerant peddlers, warning them they’d better not take advantage or the local citizenry. There were a few bullies around who thought they were tough, but July had shown them what tough really was capable of. Soon after being hired as sheriff, he demonstrated he meant business when he used an axe handle to punish a man who had slapped the town’s bartender.