The California Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “Long John,” he said quietly, “Indians.”

  Long John stood up, the bloody Bowie in his hand, and found himself facing no less than two dozen Indians. Long John drove the Bowie’s big blade into the creek bank and then returned the knife to his waistband. As calmly as he could, he untangled the leather tails of the bola from the buck’s hind legs and climbed out of the creek to face the Indians. They were afoot, which accounted for the fact he hadn’t heard them approach. Long John chose an Indian who looked like a chief, and spoke to him in Spanish.

  “Jefe?”

  “Jefe Tresosos,” the Indian replied. “Apache.”

  Chief Three Bears, and he spoke at least some Spanish. Long John sighed, and raised his right hand in a sign of peace. Three Bears returned the sign, only to have a brave rush forward, his lance aimed at Long John’s throat.

  “Gallo!” bawled the chief. “Ninguno!”

  The arrogant brave backed away, disappointed. Three Bears had turned his attention to the dead buck. Raising his eyebrows, he pointed first to the deer and then to Long John. The Cajun shook his head, held up the three-headed bola in his left hand, and pointed to Bo. The Argentine appeared to relax in the saddle, but his right thumb was hooked in his pistol belt, just above the butt of his Colt. Long John shook his head, motioning Bola across the creek. When the Argentine reined up, Long John handed him the bola.

  “Bo,” said Long John, “Three Bears wants t’ know how ye caught the buck. I’ll see kin I git ye a runnin’ hoss, so’s ye kin show ’im.”

  It was a bold move, and it might mean the difference between living and dying. Long John pointed to the brave who had been so quick with his spear, and then the Cajun spoke to Three Bears.

  “Caballo,” said Long John.

  “Caballo,” Three Bears repeated, turning to the spear-toting brave.

  When the surly brave had returned with the horse, Long John pointed to the Indian, then to the horse. This arrogant young fool’s Apache name was Rooster, but when Long John was done with him, he wouldn’t have anything to crow about. An Indian had a bizarre sense of humor. If Long John could make them laugh, he and Bo might yet ride away with their hair still in place. Rooster had brought the horse, but he refused to mount. He clearly did not intend to take orders from Long John, but when Three Bears repeated the order, he quickly reconsidered. When he was astride the horse, Long John spoke again.

  “Galope. Rapido.”

  This time the Indian obeyed. He kicked the horse into a fast gallop, Bo a few yards behind. The Argentine whirled the iron-balled device above his head a few times, and once released, it wrapped itself neatly around the hind legs of the running horse. The horse went down, and young Gallo took an ignominous tumble in the dirt. The rest of the Indians, including Three Bears, slapped their thighs and roared. But Gallo did not laugh. Around his neck, on a leather thong, he carried a Bowie. Whipping the big knife free, he came after Long John, his intentions clear. Nobody spoke, nobody attempted to stop him. Knowing the odds, Long John drew his own Bowie. If he refused to fight, he and Bo were as good as dead. While Indians revered a brave man and might allow him to go free, a coward was shown no mercy. But Long John faced a dilemma. He had a gut feeling that if he won this battle, killing this brash young fool, he would lose the war. The rest of the Apaches would leave him and Bo for the buzzards and coyotes. There was but one way Long John could win, yet sparing young Gallo a death thrust. He must disarm his opponent and count coup.

  Gallo paused. Long John was perfectly at ease, the Bowie rock-steady in his right hand, his gaunt face alight with a malevolent grin. He had been not quite twelve when he’d gutted his first man on the New Orleans waterfront, and Long John Coons had learned a trick or two since then. Gallo made his first thrust, and Long John slammed the flat of his blade against the Indian’s wrist. The Bowie fell to the ground, and Long John stood there grinning, waiting for Gallo to recover his weapon. There were grunts of approval from the rest of the Indians. The Apache snatched the Bowie with his left hand, proof enough that he had no grip in the other. Long John waited for his opponent to come to him, but Gallo clearly was not quite as confident with the Bowie in his left hand. He went through the motions, making some halfhearted thrusts and drawing some disapproving grunts from his companions. Finally he shifted the Bowie to his right hand and returned to the fight in earnest. Long John didn’t move quite fast enough, and one of Gallo’s thrusts nicked the Cajun’s right thigh, drawing blood. Flushed with that small success, the Apache tried again, and Long John was ready for him. When Gallo tried to split Long John’s belly with a sideways swipe, the Cajun seemed to fold in the middle, away from the Bowie. The Apache’s blade missed, but Long John’s didn’t. The flat of Long John’s blade slammed against Gallo’s head just above his left ear, and the Indian went down like he’d been slugged with a singletree. Long John returned the Bowie to his waistband, turned to Three Bears and raised his right hand in the sign of peace. The Apache chief looked at the fallen brave, then at Long John.

  “Gallo hijo,” he said, raising his right hand. “Partir pronto.”

  Bo was already splashing across the creek, leading Long John’s mount and the extra horse they’d brought for the deer carcass. The slain deer the farthest thing from their minds, Long John and Bo wasted no time mounting. But their elation was short-lived. Three Bears wasn’t quite ready for them to go. Looking at Long John, he shook his head. He then turned to two of his braves and pointed to the deer carcass. While Long John and Bo looked on in amazement, two of the Indians lifted the deer carcass out of the creek and lashed it to the back of the nervous packhorse. Three Bears raised his right hand and spoke to Long John and Bo.

  “Partir en paz,” he said.*

  They needed no urging. Bo leading the horse bearing the deer, they rode out at a slow gallop. Gallo was on his knees, glaring at them. Once they were safely away and sure there was no pursuit, they slowed their horses.

  “You did not know Gallo was the son of Chief Three Bears?” Bola asked.

  “Wal, hell no.” Long John grinned. “How could I of knowed that? My ma is a conjurin’ woman, an’ she allus said fer me t’ shy away from cards an’ wimen. She should of included Injuns, I reckon.”

  Despite the twenty-mile drive facing them, Gil was feeling good about the progress they were making. He had given the order to move the herd at a faster pace, and the longhorns had responded.

  “Is good,” said Ramon. “Good water, good grass las’ night, and they run better today.”

  “I reckon we’ve got the hang of it, Ramon,” said Gil exultantly. “The only way we can make a longer drive to water is to begin each day’s drive after a night of good water and good graze. We don’t know this country, and it’s lookin’ more and more like we’ll have to figure at least twenty miles a day from one waterin’ hole to the next.”

  The herd had been on the trail three hours when Long John and Bo caught up. When they had stopped to rest their horses, they’d taken the time to bleed and gut the deer. The carcass had then been covered with a piece of canvas they’d taken for that purpose. Expecting them, Gil had ridden back to drag, and was there when Long John and Bo caught up. Gil raised his hand in greeting, grinning at them. It was an apology of sorts, for his sour response the day before.

  “No trouble, I reckon,” said Gil.

  “None t’ speak of,” said Long John. “We went fer a deer, an’ we got one.”

  Bo said nothing, matching Long John’s good nature.

  “The herd’s behavin’ itself and movin’ at a good lope,” said Gil. “Me and Ramon’s got things under control up front. Bo, I expect you’d best keep that led horse back here. We can’t risk havin’ that deer carcass spook the horse remuda. Long John, you stay with the drag too. That’ll make us a mite heavy at this end, but we’ll need more riders here. With these longer drives to water, we’ll be pushing ’em harder. When they begin to tire, don’t let ’em lag. Keep ’em bunched, the ranks tight, so they don
’t slow down.”

  Gil rode ahead to the horse remuda, and Rosa trotted her horse alongside Long John’s. Her eyes were on the three-inch slash in Long John’s trousers and the dried blood on his thigh.

  “You have been cut,” she said.

  “It do look like it,” said Long John, “but they’s thorn bushes in these parts what can rip a man like a knife.”

  Rosa dropped back until she was riding next to Bo, and when she didn’t speak, neither did he. He rode with his eyes straight ahead, apparently fascinated by the ears of his horse. His face told her nothing.

  * Trail Drive Series #4, The Bandera Trail

  * Depart in peace.

  9

  May 2, 1850. Southwestern New Mexico Territory

  From El Paso west to the continental divide, southern New Mexico had been much like the Texas plains. In fact, the eastern two-thirds of the territory had once been part of Texas, until Mexico had ceded the western portion to the United States in 1848. As the trail drive moved farther west, the air became clear and dry, and as Gil had expected, the plains gave way to wooded, mountainous terrain. The longhorns, driven hard since first light, had begun to tire. By the sun, it was near noon.

  “They’re startin’ to lag on us, Ramon,” said Gil. “I’m goin’ to ride back and talk to the riders. From now to sundown we’ll have to fight the herd for every mile.”

  Gil found the drag riders doing their best, swinging doubled lariats against dusty flanks. The longhorns bawled their discontent, but they kept bunched and kept moving.

  “That’s the way,” Gil said. “We’re pushin’ ’em harder than they’re used to, and they’re tired. But not near as tired as they’re going to be. We’ll have to do as well from now to sundown as we’ve done so far. If we don’t, it’s dry camp.”

  Gil rode ahead to the horse remuda to find that Mariposa and Estanzio had returned.

  “Find water,” said Mariposa. “Fi’teen mile, mebbe.”

  Ramon and Gil dropped back, allowing Mariposa and Estanzio to again take control of the horse remuda and the packhorses.

  “Ramon,” said Gil, “you take the left flank and I’ll take the right. The herd’s so strung out, the flank riders have more than they can handle. We’ll ride the length of the herd and back again, taking up the slack. It’s the cows in the middle ranks that are draggin’ their feet. Let’s get in there and burn some backsides.”

  Lower and lower the sun slipped toward the western horizon, until finally, in a burst of crimson, it was gone. Bats and swallows flashed across a graying sky, and the cry of a night bird was melancholy in the twilight. Blue shadows crept over the land, and awakening stars blinked sleepily from far away. One of the horses in the remuda nickered. Tired as they were, the lead steers lurched into a trot, and the rest of the herd followed. There were triumphant cowboy yells from some of the riders. There was water ahead!

  “It ain’t as plentiful as yesterday,” said Van, “but by the Eternal, it’s enough.”

  “Gon’ be dark ’fore we kin git supper,” said Long John. “We still goin’ t’ have them venison steaks?”

  “Damn right,” said Gil, “even if we have to dig a fire pit. My hat’s off to every one of you, for proving we can drive twenty miles in a day, and to Bo and Long John for gettin’ the deer. Let’s unload the packhorses and get on with the grub.”

  It became the most memorable day they’d had on the trail. Their camp was in a secluded valley, and at some time in the distant past, a rock slide had created an enormous fire pit that shielded their supper fire. They roasted and ate huge amounts of the venison, and Rosa vowed to cook the rest of it before it spoiled. By the light of the fire, over cups of hot, black coffee, they studied the government map.

  “If this map’s even close to bein’ right,” Gil said, “we’ll soon be in Arizona. I figure it at no more than fifty miles.”

  “There be more water in Arizona?” Ramon asked.

  “More rivers,” said Gil. “The San Simon flows almost along the border between New Mexico and Arizona. West of there, maybe fifty miles, we’ll cross the San Pedro, and beyond that, I’d say twenty-five miles, is Cienega Creek.”

  “How’d a creek git in there?” Long John asked. “Thought they wasn’t countin’ nothin’ but rivers.”

  “I don’t know,” said Gil, “but it’s on here as a creek. Just a few miles east of Tucson.”*

  “There is a town?” Rosa asked.

  “Mining town, I expect,” said Gil. “There’s been some silver strikes in that part of the territory. If we continue the way we’re headed, we’ll go within hollerin’ distance of Tucson.”

  “If it’s a mining town,” said Van, “they should have money. Why don’t we sell ’em a few steers? We still have forty-one hundred.”

  “We’ll stop there,” Gil said, “and ask about the country ahead. I’d not object to selling them some beef, if they don’t want too much. Our best market is still the goldfields, but it might be to our advantage not to reach California broke. We’ll be mighty low on grub by then, and I don’t aim to be pushed into selling the herd until we’ve made our best deal. It just might be worth our while to sell a few head in Tucson, if the price is right.”

  “Many horse need shoe,” said Estanzio. “Need stop, fix.”

  “Good Lord, yes,” Van said. “All our horses are overdue, and we have only enough shoes to reshoe them all once. We purely can’t make it from Tucson to the gold-fields without extra shoes. That’s reason enough to sell some beef. We’ll almost have to.”

  “Mebbe there be no shoes to buy,” said Vicente Gomez.

  “It be mining town,” said Juan Padillo, “there be horses.”

  “Mules,” said Long John. “Hosses ain’t wuth a damn in a minin’ camp, ’cept fer ridin’. Silver minin’, that’s mule work.”

  “We’re wasting time talking about it,” said Gil. “We’ll just have to see what we can or can’t do, once we get there. Right now, we need a first and second watch for the night.”

  Gil and Rosa were on the second watch, and for a change they weren’t at odds with one another.

  “If there is no sale of beef at Tucson,” said Rosa, “I have the gold. It is almost for certain the horses will have to be shod again before we reach the goldfields.”

  “I know that,” said Gil. “But for the extra weight, I’d have brought more shoes.”

  “Why did you not bring a wagon?”

  “Two good reasons,” said Gil. “First, we had plenty of horses, no money, and the wagon yard don’t sell on credit. Second, I didn’t know how rough the country would be, or if a wagon could even make the journey. You’ve ridden the trail all the way from Bandera; how would you have gotten a wagon over some of the rough country we’ve had to cross?”

  “I suppose it would have been difficult.”

  “Difficult, hell,” said Gil. “Impossible.”

  “I have the gold, then, if you need it.”

  “Keep it,” said Gil, “and keep quiet about it. Bein’ a mining town, you can count on Tucson havin’ outlaws. The very last thing you want to do is go flashing a fifty-dollar gold piece.”

  Mariposa and Estanzio rode out at first light, again seeking water.

  “If that map’s right,” said Van, “and we’re fifty miles out of Arizona, we may have to go all the way to the San Simon tomorrow, before we reach water.”

  “We’ll make our fifteen miles today,” said Gil, “and see what Mariposa and Estanzio come up with for tomorrow.”

  Gil had the herd moving at first light, and again the riders pushed the longhorns hard. When Mariposa and Estanzio had not returned at noon, it looked like bad news for the next day. The longer the Indian riders were gone, the farther they’d had to ride for water. It was well into the afternoon when Mariposa and Estanzio returned.

  “Find river,” said Estanzio. “It be far, much miles.”

  There it was. The San Simon was thirty, perhaps thirty-five, miles west, a near impossible o
ne-day drive. But what choice did they have? After their twenty miles the day before, the fifteen they must travel this day seemed short. They pushed on, reaching the small stream before sundown. They had barely finished supper when Mariposa pointed to the west.

  “Riders come,” said the Indian.

  There were two of them, and their horses were heaving, totally spent. The men wore range clothes and sweat-stained flop hats. They were Mexican, and so much alike that Gil immediately suspected they were brothers. But what set this pair apart was their bus-cadera gun rigs. On a frontier where most men were armed with one pistol and maybe an extra cylinder, these hombres wore a tied-down pistol on each hip. The lead rider had a lawman’s star pinned to the left pocket of his shirt, and it was he who spoke.

  “I am Neomo Zouave,” he said, “and this is Alfredo, my deputy. We are in pursuit of robbers who murdered a man in Tucson, and we are in need of fresh horses.”

  While the man wore a badge, nothing he had said rang true. No frontiersman—especially a lawman—rode his horse to death. Not only had these horses been ridden to exhaustion, they had been stolen and mounted hurriedly, for the stirrups needed letting down. Gil cut his eyes to Estanzio, and while the Indian said nothing, his expression said much. He and Mariposa had just returned from a thirty-mile westward ride, and they had seen no riders and no tracks. If anybody was running from the law, it was this pair of Mexican gun throwers. Gil had his thumb hooked in his belt, just above the butt of his Colt. Coldly, deliberately, he spoke to the Mexican wearing the star.

  “Whatever these robbers did in Tucson,” he said, “I think they also bushwhacked a sheriff and his deputy along the trail. Now, just usin’ a thumb and finger, you coyotes lift your pistols free and let ’em drop.”