Buffalo Trail

by Jeff Guinn

  “He still fancies you, C.M.,” Isaac said.

  “He’s like your brother and Bat Masterson with their whores,” McLendon joked as he pried the dog loose and shoved him back down in the street. Maurice took the rebuff as coyness rather than outright rejection, and launched himself at the leg a second time. McLendon, who was nervous about going south and also on edge thinking of Gabrielle, didn’t have the patience to keep the determined animal at bay. “Isaac, I believe I’ll hitch a ride elsewhere,” he said. There was space on the bench of another nearby wagon, and McLendon asked the teamster at the reins if he might sit there. Receiving a nod in response, he climbed up. There was no time for immediate introductions. Billy finally had everyone ready, and hollered for them to move out. The wagons lurched forward over the bridge spanning the Arkansas River, and McLendon settled in for a long day. Billy had said it would probably take six or seven days to get wherever they were going in Indian Territory. Everything depended on finding just the right spot, which would include lots of water, good grazing, and proper sight lines for defense.

  Despite Billy Dixon’s problems getting everyone under way, McLendon thought that he was a good leader. Even during the first miles of the trip, there was a certain organization to the long procession. Billy, Bermuda Carlyle, and Mike McCabe, Billy’s head skinner, rode out in front, with Bat Masterson tagging along. The other riders were spread out up and down the wagon train. Jim Hanrahan rode on a middle wagon, making sure that all the drivers kept in tight formation. Fred Leonard and Tom O’Keefe, both armed with Winchester repeaters, brought up the rear. The procession kept up an even pace. It helped that there weren’t any hills or draws to speak of. Looking ahead, all McLendon could see was an endless mass of gray-green grass swaying in the breeze, and a few scattered trees. Because of the sameness up ahead, after a while there was little sense of actual progress.

  McLendon thought about Gabrielle, imagining how she might react when she received his latest letter. Perhaps she’d write back the very same day. Freight service between Dodge and the new south camp would be in place almost immediately, and Heath Lee had promised he’d send along any mail directed to McLendon care of Hanrahan and Waters’s saloon. It was going to be hard working for Billy, no doubt about it, but if he made the kind of money he was anticipating—surely fifteen dollars a day, probably twenty—by the end of the hunting season, McLendon could travel in style to Mountain View in Arizona Territory.

  He squirmed a little on the wagon bench. The hard wood plank was in itself uncomfortable, and there was an additional irritation. Just before leaving Dodge, Bat had talked McLendon into buying one of the new Colt Peacemakers. He traded in his old Navy Colt as part of the transaction. Bat said it was easier getting ammunition for the Peacemaker, and also it was a more reliable weapon in a fight: “If Indians come howling after your hair, you’d best be prepared to give a good account for yourself.” McLendon hated parting with the money—fourteen dollars for the gun, plus a small screwdriver that was included in the purchase for reasons that gun shop owner Zimmermann was unwilling to explain, took a considerable bite out of his current grubstake—but he couldn’t win Gabrielle back unless he survived his Indian Territory sojourn. He wore the gun now on a holster attached to his belt, and the handle poked into his midsection. He tried to push the holster to an angle where the gun lay flat against his hip, but he couldn’t manage it.

  “Shovit round front,” someone said, and McLendon turned to see the driver smiling at him. This teamster was a portly man with very bad teeth.

  “Beg your pardon?” McLendon said politely.

  “Shovit round front.” The words sounded somewhat familiar, as though the fellow was speaking an alternative form of English.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Youkin unnerstand.” The man dropped the reins and grabbed McLendon’s holster. “Shovit round front.” He yanked the holster along McLendon’s belt until the gun rested between his legs. So long as McLendon’s legs were slightly spread, the handle didn’t poke into him anymore.

  “Yew geddown, yankit back t’thuh sahd.”

  McLendon began to discern parts of words jammed together. “Yes. When I get down, I’ll return the holster to its original position. Meanwhile, this is much more comfortable. Thank you.”

  The driver nodded amiably. “Mirkle Jones,” he said, drawing out the s in his surname like a lingering z. “Good ta meecha.”

  McLendon gave his own name, and they shook hands. Jones’s heavy paw was thick with callus, which McLendon suspected came from decades of handling wagon reins. “My pleasure, Mr. Jones. Thanks for letting me ride with you.”

  Jones grinned again. His teeth were very yellow and crooked. “Dahg humpt ya on t’other one.”

  “That’s true. Its name is Maurice and it’s had at my leg before. But now that I’m riding with you, Maurice can direct his romantic intentions elsewhere.”

  Jones chuckled companionably and then jostled along in silence. McLendon sneaked surreptitious glances at the hefty man, whose skin didn’t seem entirely white but wasn’t dark enough to mark him as a mulatto. His features didn’t strike McLendon as Mexican or Indian. He very much wanted to know Jones’s ancestry, but felt it would be rude to ask. Perhaps, he thought, he could inquire about the man’s name instead.

  “Mirkle,” McLendon said. “Now, that’s an unusual name.”

  “Niverherd uv anuffer.”

  “Me, neither,” McLendon said. He was catching on to Jones’s unique phrasings. “Can I ask how you came by it?”

  “Mumma. She uz old whin I come, dint espek havin a chile. So aftah, Mumma alluz called me her mirkle baby.”

  “Ah,” McLendon said, and amused himself with that until Billy Dixon called out for everyone to take a break and rest the wagon teams. They’d been on the trail for about three hours. While Mirkle Jones watered his horses, McLendon wandered off to a spot a few dozen yards away where many of the other men, including Bat Masterson, were relieving themselves. The men took turns pissing and standing guard. Even this early on the journey, they worried about Indians.

  “It’s a grand day, isn’t it?” Bat exulted as he and McLendon stood side by side, splashing the grass. “Adventure and riches, C.M., ain’t nothin’ like it. You ought to hop down off that wagon bench and get up on horseback, ride in front with Billy Dixon and me.”

  “Thanks anyway.” McLendon finished pissing and buttoned his pants. “I’m an adequate horseman at best, and better off on the wagon. Are we making good progress, Bat?”

  “I’ll say we are. Only mid-afternoon, and Dodge City is already almost out of sight.”

  McLendon looked back north and saw the grainy silhouette of Dodge on the apparently endless horizon. “It’s like we’ve hardly left.”

  “It’s a trick of the terrain, being so flat and all. I’ll bet we’re averaging four miles an hour. Keep it up, we’ll be deep in Indian Territory sometime tomorrow.”

  “Not exactly a comforting thought.”

  “The thing is, be vigilant but not afraid. We’ve a hundred guns in our party. The Indians would be wise to fear us.”

  McLendon shook his head. “Well, then, I hope someone tells them how they should feel.”

  On the first night, they stopped at a place Billy Dixon called Crooked Creek. There was water to refill barrels and canteens, and plenty of grass for the wagon teams and livestock. To McLendon, the expedition took on what seemed to be a party mood. Everyone was jolly, exulting about the great times ahead. Men gathered around a dozen different campfires, where they cooked bacon and biscuits, brewed coffee in battered tin pots, and exchanged tales of past adventures. McLendon found himself in a group that included Billy, Jim Hanrahan, Mirkle Jones, a dozen other hide men and their crew members, and Bat, who seemed determined never to be far from Billy’s side. Fannie, Billy’s dog, lay quietly at her master’s feet. Billy fed her bits of bacon, t
hen checked her paws for thorns and cuts. Brick Bond was in the group, too, which concerned McLendon, but even Bond seemed caught up in the spirit of good fellowship. He’d fought in the Civil War, for the South, and regaled the group for a while with stories of great battles. A couple of crewmen had served the Union, and they told war stories too. McLendon feared that Bond would take offense, but he didn’t. In contrast to all the arguments McLendon had heard back in Arizona Territory about the war and politics, the men around this campfire seemed content to recall the conflict as an experience worth remembering but not regretting.

  “They’re not at each other’s throats about North and South, Billy,” he whispered to Dixon.

  “Of course not. We’re all men out making our livings now. None of us give a damn about politics or who was at fault in the war. We just want to shoot buffalo.”

  When the stories were told and the coffee was gone, McLendon thought that everyone would turn in. Instead, Mirkle fetched a fiddle from his wagon and began playing a sprightly tune. To McLendon’s absolute astonishment, most of the grizzled hunters and crewmen jumped up to dance. Some of them formed couples and whirled arm in arm. Even Billy stood and bounced a little, though he rebuffed Bat when Masterson tried to dance with him. McLendon stood but didn’t dance. He felt a bit uncomfortable.

  When Mirkle stopped sawing on his fiddle, Jim Hanrahan recited a poem as the others listened. Then one of the skinners sang a mournful song about being alone on the prairie. When he was done, Hanrahan said, “Well, I guess that’s it for tonight. Some of you others will step up tomorrow.”

  “What’s that mean?” McLendon asked Bat.

  “Rule of the hunting trail. Everybody has to take turns entertaining. That includes you, C.M. You better start thinking of an appropriate performance.”

  “Hell, Bat, I don’t think I know any poems, and I sure can’t sing.”

  “Refusal’s not allowed, so come up with something. Ever’body else will.”

  All around, McLendon could hear singing, and a few other fiddles. Someone was wailing on a harmonica, which the hide men called a French harp. But soon the night grew quiet. Billy posted guards—everyone would take a nightlong turn sometime on the trip south, he said—and the remaining travelers rolled up in blankets by the campfires or under the wagons. McLendon knew he wouldn’t sleep, so he volunteered to join Bat on guard duty.

  “What am I looking for?” he asked.

  “Just any movement out of the ordinary. I don’t expect any Indians. We’re not that far south. If there’s to be trouble, it won’t come now. That’s why we’re wise to pull first night duty. Stay alert all the same.”

  “I will.”

  “That’s good, because I’ve had a long day and not much sleep last night, what with saying good-bye to some of Dodge’s finest working girls. Nudge me if you have occasion, but not otherwise.”

  “But Billy said we’re all supposed to stay awake.”

  “Well, don’t tell him, then. I’m a light sleeper and will snap to instantly, should circumstances so require.”

  It seemed to McLendon that Masterson didn’t take guard duty seriously enough, but Bat was asleep before he could debate the point.

  • • •

  BY LATE MORNING of the second day, they reached the Cimarron River. Billy called a halt and walked up to the riverbank, staring down into the water. McLendon jumped down from Mirkle Jones’s wagon and joined him.

  “This is commonly called the Dead Line,” Billy said. “When we cross over, we’re truly in Indian country. I notice a couple of the boys have thought about it some and are pulling their wagons around to return to Dodge. If you’re of a mind to do something of that sort, now’s the time. After this, you can be certain that the Co-manch and their other red brethren will be watching every move, eager to pick off anyone who strays.”

  McLendon reflexively looked around. “I said I’d come work for you and be loyal. I’m not turning back.”

  Billy chuckled. “You want to, though.”

  “I want the money more.”

  “Because of your girl. I swear, she must be delightful. Well, take a piss and eat a cracker. Getting across here won’t be easy, and we’ll need every available man in the water helping guide the animals.”

  “It doesn’t look very deep.”

  “It isn’t, but it’s not the water itself that’s the problem. The sand underneath it is soft and shifty. It can suck something down without a trace. A box of tools tips in off a wagon, we’re like to never find it. Horse puts a hoof wrong, it’s in up to the withers and done for if we can’t pull it out. Trick is, take off your boots and keep your feet moving at all times.”

  It took almost three hours. One of the cattle got stuck in the sand and couldn’t be extracted. Old Man Keeler, coming along to be cook in the Myers and Leonard store, took a long knife and cut the bellowing animal’s throat. He tried to hack off some meat but was stymied by the river’s soft sand bed and constant current.

  “Waste of good beef,” he complained. He rinsed the blood off his knife and plodded to the far bank.

  The men were still in reasonably good spirits that night, but the overall mood was subdued from the day before. Everyone gathered around campfires to eat, dance, and sing, but this time guards were posted as soon as the expedition stopped. McLendon managed to avoid having to entertain, and also tried to quiz Mirkle Jones on his ancestry.

  “I don’t know much about my forebears, Mr. Jones,” he said. “I was orphaned early on the streets of St. Louis and so never heard family history. But what of yourself?”

  Old Man Keeler had baked huge, crusty biscuits in a Dutch oven and slathered them with honey before he passed them around the campfire. Jones had one jammed in his mouth, rendering his speech even more incomprehensible.

  “Ahm fruh Loozyanna,” he said. A few wet crumbs popped free past his lips. “Kree-ole.” McLendon wasn’t certain of the term, though he’d heard the word before. Whatever race or culture it described, he felt that he liked it, if its people were all as friendly and kind-spirited as Mirkle Jones. He bid the bulky teamster good night and rolled up in a blanket near the fire. The combination of fresh air and a long, hard day wore McLendon down sufficiently so that he slept most of the night.

  • • •

  ON THE THIRD DAY, they saw their first Indians. The land was broken up now by banks of hills, and suddenly Bermuda Carlyle whistled shrilly and pointed ahead toward a far-off crest. Everyone stared in the direction. Seated on the bench of Mirkle Jones’s wagon, McLendon, squinting, made out the figures of three men on horseback. From such distance, he couldn’t discern many details. They leaned comfortably forward on their mounts, like hunters determining if recently sighted prey was worth pursuing. McLendon couldn’t tell if they wore feathers in their hair. Both had something long and narrow in their hands—lances? Rifles? He wasn’t certain. The Indians didn’t try to disguise their presence. They remained stock-still as the long procession of whites passed about three-quarters of a mile east from where they watched.

  “Figure a few us of should ride over there, run ’em off?” Fred Leonard asked Billy. “Arrogant bastards is what they are.”

  “Nope, it wouldn’t do any good,” Billy said. “Those are just the ones we can see right now. There are bound to be more in the vicinity. You’ve not yet spent much time out in this country, Mr. Leonard. There will always be Indians about. We need to remain vigilant so that they only watch rather than attack us.”

  The sight of the Indians made McLendon so nervous that he didn’t wander off with the other men to relieve himself during trail breaks. Despite the pressure from his bladder, he stayed on the wagon bench the entire day, occasionally checking his Colt Peacemaker to reassure himself that it was loaded. He doubted he could hit any Indian he shot at, but he wanted to be ready in case he had to try. That night, Billy made a point of reminding everyo
ne that the Indians were unlikely to attack such a large, well-armed party. But McLendon noticed that Billy also assigned the most experienced hide men and crew members to guard duty. Nobody sang or otherwise entertained around the campfires. The company was on alert.

  • • •

  NO ONE SAW OR HEARD anything suspicious that night. The next day, Friday, they moved forward warily. Billy sent scouts ahead; they periodically reported back that there were no Indian sightings, even at a distance. Still, everyone in the wagon caravan remained tense. Even Bat Masterson seemed anxious. During a short trail break, he passed McLendon a canteen of water and said, “We’re smack in no-man’s-land now.”

  McLendon gulped the water. It was warm, much like the slight breeze. Everyone said the weather now was warmer than usual, in contrast to the harsh winter just concluded. But McLendon had spent time out in the high desert of Arizona Territory and knew what real molten heat was like. “What do you mean, ‘no-man’s-land’?”

  “We’re far enough away from Dodge and any Army posts so that we’re on our own. We get into something with the Indians, we’ll have to fight our own way out of it.”

  “You knew that all along.”

  Bat took a long drink from the canteen. “What we know in town and what we feel out here are two different things. I’ll be glad when we get where we’re going and put up some buildings with stout walls. Billy says it’ll be maybe three, four more days. And then we can— Jesus Christ, look over there.”

  McLendon looked. A hundred yards to the west, on a low ridge where nothing had been just moments before, stood a half-dozen Indians. Each held a lance in one hand and the reins of a pony in the other. Most of them had bows and quivers of arrows slung over their shoulders. There was paint on their faces and bodies, yellow and blue mostly. All around him McLendon heard metallic clicks as the hide men and their crews cocked rifles.

  “Stand easy but watchful,” Billy called. “Probably just some young bucks looking for a handout.”