Buffalo Trail

by Jeff Guinn

  “If they shoot the leaders of the herd, won’t the rest of the buffalo turn in some other direction?” McLendon asked. After the others had a good laugh, Billy explained that the momentum of the huge herd was such that, no matter what, they’d keep on going in the same general direction.

  “That’s the odd nature of buffs,” he said. “You can shoot them by the dozens, and all that may happen with the others right around them is that they run a little in the same way that they’ve been going. They never scatter, never turn abruptly unless you make them as the Indians sometimes do. The Co-manch, for instance, get on their horses and try to run buffs over cliffs. They have their women waiting underneath to do the skinning. We could do that, too, but such falls often tear the hides too much. There’s greater profit in shooting them one by one and preserving almost all of the skins for sale.”

  • • •

  AS BILLY HAD PREDICTED, the first surge of buffalo reached his shooting site by mid-morning. Billy and Charley were ready, their Sharps Big Fifties in hand and small mounds of cartridges heaped at their feet. They fired methodically, pausing between shots. McLendon, stationed at the bottom of the hill with Bat and Mike McCabe, watched as buffalo almost a hundred yards away fell to the ground. The other buffalo simply moved around them. There was no real sense of panic or stampede. Sometimes the fallen buffalo writhed in agony. Then there would be the sound of a second shot and the beast jerked, then lay still.

  After perhaps an hour, the herd’s path swung slightly north and Billy and Charley moved to another hill. As soon as they did, McCabe, Bat, and McLendon rushed in to skin the two dozen or so dead buffalo. It was a tedious task. Each man took an individual buffalo. First, a razor-sharp skinning knife was used to make long cuts along the belly and up the inside of each leg. Then, after another cut across the neck, fingers were inserted along the cuts and, with a hard yank, the hide was loosened. A cut was made near the top of the hide and rope pushed through. The rope was pulled hard until the skin tore loose. By this point, the skinner’s hands would already be covered with gore, but there was more messy work to do. The hide had to be scraped and set aside while the rest of the buffalo were skinned. After that, the hides were loaded in the wagon, brought back to camp, and pegged out to dry. As soon as that was done, it was time to go back out to skin the next batch of buffs shot by Billy and Charley.

  There was no break for rest or lunch: each buffalo shot and skinned meant more money in everyone’s pockets. By late afternoon, McLendon was filthy and exhausted. At twenty-five cents per skin, he calculated that he’d made about six dollars; Billy and Charley had probably shot a hundred buffs between them, and both McCabe and Masterson were much faster skinners than he was. The money had been hard-won, but at least for the first time since leaving Dodge he’d earned a few dollars. To his vast relief, Billy and Charley were packing away their rifles. That was when Masterson said, “Move smartly, C.M. Billy’s done, and that means it’s our turn to do some shooting.”

  McLendon had forgotten Billy’s promise that, at the end of each day’s hunting, he and Bat had the right to each shoot five buffalo too. “I don’t know, Bat. I’m pretty weary.”

  “As you shoot your buffs, you’ll perk right up. See, I put two Sharps forty-fives in the wagon bed, along with cartridges. Haul ass, we’ve got our own set of hides to procure.”

  The shooting part was easy. Masterson and McLendon guided the wagon to a spot two or three hundred yards from where Billy and Charley had stopped shooting. They climbed out, got the rifles, aimed, and fired. A few minutes later, nine buffalo were either dead or kicking on the ground, and Bat snapped off a final shot and felled a tenth.

  “Yee-hah!” Bat crowed. “We are looking at a fistful of dollars, C.M. Come on, let’s peel those hides.”

  When they did, McLendon saw that two of his five hides were likely unsellable. One buffalo he’d felled had some sort of disease that left thick scabs all along its hide. Another had long scars creasing its skin from previous wounds, and when McLendon attempted to yank the hide loose, it tore in too many places. But three hides, he knew, would fetch three dollars each from Myers and Leonard back at Adobe Walls. Added to the six dollars or so earned from skinning Billy’s buffs meant that he was fifteen dollars closer to Gabrielle. Two or three more months with similar earnings would provide all the money he needed.

  • • •

  BILLY AND HIS CREW hunted from the same camp for three more days. The herd kept drifting by and they kept shooting. There was no particular challenge to it. By the end of the last day, they broke camp not because of a lack of targets but because the wagon bed was overflowing with hides.

  “We’ll take these back to sell at Adobe Walls, re-kit ourselves, perhaps stay overnight, and then return promptly to the hunt,” Billy said. “I believe we’ll set up next a bit farther west, just for variety’s sake.”

  It was a merry ride into camp. Charley Armitage sang some more songs, and normally grouchy Mike McCabe regaled the others with stories of whores in far-flung frontier towns. Along the way they met Sam Smith and his crew, who’d enjoyed similarly good hunting.

  “I believe the size of this herd exceeds any that we set eyes on around Dodge,” Smith said. “We may run out of bullets before we even begin to thin this excess of buffs.”

  “Probably not, but if our luck holds, this migrating herd may satisfy our needs for several more seasons,” Billy said. “Perhaps the hide business has some future after all.”

  The good moods lasted right up to the moment when they presented their hides to Fred Leonard for purchase and learned he’d pay two dollars apiece.

  “Goddamn it to hell, Fred, in Dodge we were getting three dollars and sometimes three twenty-five!” Bat bellowed. “How can you in good conscience offer us just two?”

  “Calm down and think it through,” Leonard said. “I got freight costs here that make my blood boil. The goddamn teamsters, once word spread about the arrival of the buffs, promptly upped their rates for hide transport back to Dodge. They know these hides are worthless unless they’re brought up to the railroad in a timely fashion. They charge me more, I got to pay you less. Nothing personal, it’s just business.”

  Bat blustered some more before Billy told him, “I hate what Fred’s telling us, but I understand why. Stand down, Masterson. We’ll just have to kill that many more buffs to make up the difference. You and C.M. can increase your end-of-day shoots from five buffalo to eight, all right?”

  “I’m not entirely mollified,” Bat said. “Perhaps my temper will cool further with the aid of some beer in Hanrahan’s saloon. Are you buying?”

  Billy sighed. “I expect that I am. But there seems to be a considerable bustle about the place, so you may have to wait in line a bit before wetting your whistle.”

  Almost all of the hunting crews out in the field had chosen the same afternoon to come in and sell their first loads of hides. As they drank beer and bitters and, in a few cases, Jim Beam bourbon, the men bitched about Fred Leonard’s miserly purchase prices and enthused about the number of buffalo in the oncoming herd. McLendon was both pleased and worried by widespread speculation that the hunting season might extend into early fall, September or maybe even the first week of October. He’d figured on the season ending sometime in August. He didn’t want to wait any longer to go to Gabrielle. Every day he delayed meant that much more opportunity for Joe Saint, his rival. He had, of course, promised Billy Dixon to stay for the entire season. He wondered how Billy might react to an early resignation. Well, time to think about that later.

  Everyone was three or four drinks into it when J. W. Mooar came in. He ordered a round for the house, boasting that he’d just concluded the best five days of hunting in his entire career.

  “I told Freddy Leonard that I’d have two twenty-five per hide or else his head would feel the force of my fist,” Mooar said.

  “And did you get the tw
o twenty-five?” Jim McKinley wanted to know.

  “Well, Freddy’s head is intact and I’m standing drinks for this mob. What do you think? Of course, I got my two twenty-five.”

  “Shit,” Bat said. “Fred told us that two was as high as he’d go.”

  “Well, next time act the man, Masterson,” Mooar said. “Try using your backbone as much as your mouth for a change.”

  Later, McLendon passed Leonard on his way back from the outhouse. He asked, “Fred, why did you pay J. W. Mooar a higher rate than the rest of us?”

  “What do you mean? He got two dollars a hide, just like you.” By then Mooar and his crew had already ridden out of camp, and McLendon decided that telling Bat would just cause trouble. He kept the information to himself.

  • • •

  THE NEXT TIME that the Dixon bunch came in to sell hides around the end of the first week in June, they found Adobe Walls swarming with newly arrived crews. Word had reached Dodge about the monster herd to the south, and most of the hide men remaining in western Kansas left at once. McLendon knew some of the newcomers. Antelope Jack Jones, Anderson Moore, and Blue Billy Muhler were mainstays among the Dodge City hide men. They’d worked together for years and had no ambition beyond killing as many buffalo as possible.

  “It’s a man’s trade, C.M.,” Jones said. “These last months up in Dodge, waiting and praying for the buffalo to come, and then every day, nothing—why, you can’t imagine it.”

  “Actually, I can,” McLendon said. “We had the same experience here.”

  “Maybe for a while, but now you got a different result. I’m gonna kill me a hundred buffs a day, and shoot ’til the barrel of my rifle melts.”

  McLendon was astonished to see Mirkle Jones packing his wagon to join another hunting party. Hide men Joe Plummer, Dave Dudley, and Tommy Wallace had coaxed the portly Creole into joining their crew.

  “You’re a teamster, Mirkle, and you can make steadier money freighting hides back to Dodge than hauling them back here to Adobe Walls,” McLendon said. “Have you really thought this through?”

  “Ah bin gettin’ tard a tha ushewl,” Jones said. “Ah wahn me sum advenchoor.” He brandished his fiddle. “Doan worry. Ah’ll play fah ya plenny in da daze ahid.”

  • • •

  IN ALMOST EVERY WAY, at Adobe Walls there was cause for optimism. Though the price of individual hides wasn’t what had been expected, there were still so many to sell that profits were guaranteed for everyone involved. Tom O’Keefe couldn’t keep up with blacksmith tasks—every crew had wagon wheels that needed refitting and horses that threw shoes. The merchants did a brisk daily business. Besides necessities—bacon, beans, coffee, and canned foods for the trail, lead and gunpowder for bullet making, shirts and denim jeans to replace torn clothing—the hide men and their crews had plenty of money for luxuries and the urge to spend it when they came into camp. Candy, brand-name liquor, and top-quality tobacco were in constant demand. Old Man Keeler at Myers and Leonard and Hannah Olds at Rath and Company couldn’t cook enough meals to satisfy crews that arrived ravenous after days out on the hunt. There was some grumbling about a lack of whores. Bat Masterson and Shorty Scheidler were the most constant complainers. Andy Johnson, who ran the Rath store, told McLendon that he was thinking of adding a few whores’ cribs behind his shop, then importing a half-dozen girls from Dodge.

  “They could bring five dollars a turn, easy,” Johnson said.

  “Last night Bat told me that he’s so desperate, he’d pay a hundred dollars for a woman,” McLendon said.

  “Well, then, maybe I’ll charge six. The problem will be finding acceptable whores willing to rough it out here. The diseased ones would come readily, but I doubt the boys would thank me if their peckers fell off.”

  • • •

  ON JUNE EIGHTH, Jim Hanrahan and some teamsters returned from a trip to Dodge with fresh supplies and news that was possible cause for concern.

  “Maybe seventy-five miles out, a bunch of Indians came at us,” Hanrahan said. “I guess there were a dozen. Looked like Kiowa. We had enough guns to drive them off. It seemed more like they were testing us rather than mounting a serious attack.”

  “It looked pretty damn serious to me,” said Billy Tyler, one of the teamsters. “Any time an Indian looses an arrow or bullet in my direction, I feel properly threatened.”

  “If it’s just an isolated incident, I don’t think it’s anything of real consequence,” Hanrahan said. “We still haven’t seen any Indians in this camp’s vicinity.”

  Billy Dixon, standing next to McLendon, said that he’d pass the word about the attack to everyone in the area.

  “We all need to be alert anyway,” he said.

  “Try not to raise unnecessary alarm, Billy,” Hanrahan cautioned. “Some are too jumpy to begin with. You know how, with that comet, a few of the more superstitious boys thought it was a sign from God that we were in the wrong place and ought to leave pronto. I’m glad it burned out after a few nights. Hey, we’re all doing well here. As for you and me, this partnership is particularly profitable. Don’t be messing things up with too much Indian talk.”

  “No life is worth any amount of money, Jim.”

  “I know. I know.”

  • • •

  BILLY’S CREW SPENT that night in Adobe Walls. McLendon stayed up late. He’d just figured out why screwdrivers were sold in tandem with the Colt Peacemakers. The six-gun’s trigger guard was held in place by a series of small screws that gradually loosened. They periodically needed tightening, especially after long days in the saddle or other spells of physical activity. So McLendon wielded his screwdriver in a corner of Hanrahan’s saloon, squinting in the light of a flickering candle. Hanrahan sat in the doorway smoking a cigar. Everyone else was outside, sleeping under wagons or in blankets spread out on the ground. In this warm weather, it was too stuffy in the buildings to sleep inside.

  There was a quiet crunch of boots on pebbles. McLendon, bent over his gun, heard J. W. Mooar, who’d come into camp late that evening, speaking softly to Hanrahan.

  “Indians, like you said. They didn’t jump us, but they were watching.”

  “Kiowa? This is somewhat south for them.”

  “Shit, these were Comanche.”

  “Keep quiet about this. We can’t have everybody running off.”

  “If I do, what’s in it for me?”

  “Two twenty-five a hide instead of two. I’ll pay the extra two bits out of my own pocket.”

  “Four bits, not two.”

  “You’re a bastard, Mooar.”

  Mooar chuckled. “Never said I wasn’t. But I’ll keep mum.”

  • • •

  ON THE MORNING of June ninth, as the Dixon crew prepared to head out again, McLendon told Billy what he’d heard. Billy looked troubled and said, “All right. Let me take this into consideration. I know it sounded bad, but likely Jim Hanrahan’s trying to look after everyone’s best interests. Still, let me go have a quick word with him.”

  A few minutes later, Billy was back. “It’s as I thought. Jim doesn’t feel there’s reason to get everybody bothered. We’re all making good money, and if one Indian attack far from here and one glimpse somewhat closer is the extent of it, then we’re not in any particular danger. Hell, we knew the Indians had to be around somewhere. Jim said he knows what J. W. Mooar is like: he’d exaggerate those Comanche he saw until we all thought there were a thousand red men about to descend upon us. So he’s going to pay Mooar a few pennies extra for hides to keep his trap shut. He hates the additional expense, but in the end it’s good business. Rest easy, C.M. If we’re reasonably watchful, there’s probably no cause for concern.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  The tribal alliance was unwieldy from the start. The Kiowa and Cheyenne chiefs indicated to Quanah at the sun dance that if their tribes joined in the great atta
ck, their warriors would first have to return to their home villages and prepare themselves for war. Arrows had to be fashioned, knives honed, war paint mixed, and all available ammunition collected. When properly equipped, the Kiowa and Cheyenne would come back south and meet Quanah and the fighting men of the People along the Canadian near the white hunters’ camp. This was why, after Quanah suggested it was the wish of the spirits, Isatai delayed the assault on the white hunters’ big camp until the next full moon.

  But as soon as the allied tribes departed for home and the People returned to their various villages, Quanah realized that he had made a mistake. Almost immediately, most of the Nokoni men changed their mind about participating. One told Quanah, “Those other tribes aren’t our equals. It was disgusting to hear you address them as brothers.” Half of the Yamparika who promised to return never did. Nobody among that branch of the People ever had the stomach to fight well anyway, Quanah thought sourly. They were cowards. At least the Nokoni stayed away out of principle.

  Word reached him from the north that many Kiowa were having second thoughts. Quanah immediately rode to see Lone Wolf and Satanta. The problem, they told him, was not that the Kiowa men didn’t want to kill white men. They did, very much. In fact, the Comanche sun dance had so inflamed the fighting instincts of the Kiowa braves that they couldn’t wait until the next full moon. Several war parties had already formed with the intent of finding and attacking any white wagon trains or smaller hunting camps that appeared vulnerable.

  “You can’t allow that,” Quanah protested. “We want the hunters in the big white camp to think that they are in no danger from us. That way, when we make our attack, they’ll be surprised.”

  “If our young men want to fight, they will, even if it isn’t what you want them to do,” Satanta said. “Talk to them if you want. I don’t think you can change their minds.”