The Chuckwagon Trail

by William W. Johnstone

  A hilltop presented a good spot for him to survey the land. He took out a crumpled piece of paper and used the stub of a pencil to sketch out the way two streams meandered around and where the best feed would be. The Rolling J didn’t have to graze the herd on already overgrazed land. Slowly turning in a full circle, he completed his crude map, then stared toward the west. Curls of white smoke rose from a wooded area. People were camped there, and from the amount of smoke reaching for the sky, it was a large number.

  Mac caught his breath when he spotted four riders heading toward the trees. Shielding his eyes with his hand and squinting, he got a better look. His heart jumped a little when he realized the riders were Indians.

  From what he knew of the tribes, these were Comanche. After a few minutes, they entered the woods. No gunfire or other commotion resulted. They had rejoined a larger group. From what he knew of the Lords of the Plains, he reckoned more than fifty Indians were camped not four miles from where the drive had to travel.

  He turned and looked farther east, wondering if they could skirt the Indian encampment by going miles and miles in that direction. The rolling hills there would slow their progress. Worse, getting through those hills required more scouting than simply standing on a hilltop and sketching out a map. He had found the best trail. With another herd maybe a day or two ahead of them, they risked not showing up in Abilene in time to get decent prices for their stock. They couldn’t afford to delay.

  Leaving the chuckwagon parked at the foot of the hill down by a creek worried him, but he had to get back to tell Flagg what he’d found. Making the decision, he unhitched a horse and jumped aboard. Riding bareback would have scared him only a few weeks ago. Since then, he had ridden horses in every possible way. He bent low and tapped his heels against the horse’s flanks to get the most speed possible from it. It had taken him hours to locate the best spot to pitch camp, but it took less than an hour to find the leading longhorns in the herd.

  “Where’s Flagg?” he called to Rattler, who was riding point. “I got something real important to tell him.”

  “He’s on the other side of the herd. What’s the problem?”

  “Stop the cows. Don’t go any farther until Flagg tells you.” Before Rattler could question him further, Mac spotted Flagg and rode his tired horse as fast as he could for the trail boss. He skidded to a halt beside Flagg. Words poured out of his mouth as he breathlessly tried to let the older man know what he’d found.

  “Slow down. Take a breath. Then tell me what’s got you so fired up.” Flagg rested his hands on the horn and leaned forward in the saddle, looking calm enough to give Mac strength. If anybody would know what to do, it was Flagg.

  He spilled the whole story in one long rush, then gasped for breath.

  “Fifty?” Flagg looked and sounded skeptical. “That’s a powerful lot of Comanche this far north. They don’t tangle much with the Five Civilized Tribes.”

  “But,” Mac said, “are we even in Indian Territory yet? I tried to figure it out and couldn’t.”

  “We are. Not by much, but we are. That stream we forded a couple of days ago was the Red River, and that’s the border. You say another herd passed that way a day or two earlier?” Flagg stroked his stubbled chin. “That’s likely the H Bar H herd. Compass Jack knows this country like the back of his hand. If anybody’s beat us this far, it’ll be him.”

  “But the Indians! What do we do about them?”

  “It might be a hunting party. Could be a war party, but you would have heard about it if it was.”

  “Me? How?” Then Mac settled down and thought. “In the town. They would be all abuzz if the Comanche had a war party raiding the countryside.”

  Flagg nodded once, lost in thought. He spat, then took the reins in hand and got his horse walking.

  “We keep on going. They might not be Comanche. Could be Creek or Fox or Seminole, this part of the country. Maybe Sac. We don’t know.”

  “But what if they are hostiles?”

  “All the more reason to keep going and for you to get back to the chuckwagon. If we lose what supplies are left, we’ll have to give up on the drive. Ain’t heard of it happening too often, but some outfits have lost their chuckwagon and just quit right there on the spot”

  “I won’t let that happen. That’s my chuckwagon!”

  “Glad you feel that way, Mac. Now ride on back and get supper fixed. We’ll be along with the herd before you know it, if the trail’s already blazed for us.”

  “It is.”

  “And tell Rattler to disregard whatever you told him.”

  “How’d you know—never mind.” Mac touched the brim of his hat in acknowledgment of the trail boss knowing him that well.

  He turned his horse’s face back in the direction he had just come. By the time he got to the chuckwagon, he knew that stretch of trail better than any other. Every inch of the way he had been alert for Indians, waiting to be ambushed by Northrup’s men, or just hunting for spots to graze the herd. He didn’t see any hostiles along the way and was grateful for that.

  The noonday meal was less elaborate than he usually fixed, but from the way the cowboys gobbled it up, he hadn’t lost anything in how he prepared it. As Mac finished cleaning, Flagg rode up and dropped from his horse to stand nearby.

  “You up for an adventure?” the trail boss asked.

  “That’s all I’ve been having.” Mac rubbed his arms where the ropes had cut into him. “What do you have in mind?”

  “You and me are going to take a ride. Who do you trust to drive the wagon?”

  “Any of the men who have been teamsters in the past, I suppose.”

  “Rattler drove a freight wagon for a spell down in San Antonio before he signed on with Mr. Jefferson,” Flagg said. “Let him drive on, if the road’s as clear-marked as you say.”

  “Where will I be?”

  “Since you know where it is, riding with me to scout that Indian camp.”

  Mac’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “In broad daylight?”

  “That’s what makes it an adventure. I need to know why they’re here and what tribe they are. Comanche are bad news. A local tribe is another matter.”

  “What if we’re not back before nightfall? Who’ll feed the men?”

  “Better hope we get back by then, or they’ll set to feedin’ themselves.”

  “Now you’re scaring me.” Mac had to laugh in spite of what he was about to do.

  Flagg found Rattler and gave him his new orders, then he and Mac rode out. They angled west for a few miles, to a spot Mac calculated to be due south of the Indian camp. Tension thickened inside Mac as they headed toward it in silence.

  Flagg motioned for him to dismount when the woods began to thicken. The undergrowth made riding more difficult unless they followed game trails.

  “We’ll go on foot,” Flagg said quietly. “Walk soft. If it’s a war party, they’ll have sentries watching.”

  Mac walked on pins and needles, trying to step where Flagg did since the trail boss moved silently. He was concentrating so much on what Flagg did that he ran into him when the trail boss stopped suddenly.

  “Down.”

  Mac sank to the ground and wiggled ahead until he peered around a thick sweet gum tree. He caught his breath at the sight of the Indian camp. Counting softly, he got to thirty men. There might be a few more scattered around, but he was confident that was most of them.

  “Not as many as I thought,” he whispered.

  “Still plenty,” Flagg said, equally quietly. He put his finger to his lips to shush Mac.

  For an hour, they watched those in the camp go about their business. Mac looked for a squaw or child but saw only braves. He didn’t know enough about ornaments or the way they wore paint on their cheeks and decorated their horses to know which tribe he was spying on. About mid-afternoon a band of five braves rode in, whooping and hollering. They passed within a dozen yards of where Flagg and Mac hid in the thick brush.

  He g
ot a good look at some of the horses herded by the Indians and caught his breath. Surprise made him rise up slightly.

  “That’s a Rolling J brand! They stole our horses!”

  Flagg pulled him back down and clamped a hand over his mouth. Simmering with anger, Mac watched as the Indians strutted around, pounding their chests and obviously boasting about how they had stolen the horses. Ten head was hardly going to stop the trail drive, but it made it all the more important to be sure the horses were rotated properly to keep from tiring them out. More horses increased their options. Fewer made it more difficult, just as the loss of the food had.

  “So, what are we going to do about those thieves?”

  “Not much we can do,” Flagg said. “Let’s go back and find the herd. The quicker we get out of this country, the better.”

  “Are they Comanche?”

  Flagg nodded.

  “Are they on the warpath?”

  “Raiding.” Flagg tugged at Mac’s arm to get him heading back to where they’d tethered their horses.

  Mac was glad he was with Flagg. The man never lost track of where he was. With Comanche raiders nearby, hunting for an hour to find the spot where they’d left their mounts would have been worrisome.

  When they reached the horses, Mac waited for Flagg to mount, but the trail boss didn’t.

  “What’s wrong?” Mac asked, still quietly even though they had put some distance between themselves and the Indian camp.

  “Listen. More horses coming. Lots of them.”

  “If a second raiding party stole more of our horses, the entire drive might be in jeopardy,” Mac said.

  Flagg leaned his head to one side as he listened, then said softly, “That’s a bigger herd. Maybe twenty horses.”

  “We have to steal back our horses.”

  Mac wouldn’t have thought it was possible to surprise Flagg, but the older man stared at him, mouth gaping.

  “What the hell are you saying, Mac?” Flagg asked when he found his voice.

  “You said it yourself. The drive won’t be possible with forty head of horses gone. Let’s steal them back.”

  “From a bunch of Comanches? That’s worse than poking a wasp nest with a stick. It’s more like sticking your thumb in a grizzly bear’s eye.”

  “I’ve done worse.”

  Flagg looked at him for a moment and then laughed. He slapped Mac on the back and said, “I just bet you have. What do we do? Just ride in and take our horses back?”

  “Why not? You distract them, and I’ll get the horses.”

  “So you want them shooting at me while you sneak around?” Flagg scowled. “Reckon that makes some sense. I can outride you, and getting shot at doesn’t bother me like it once did.”

  Mac wondered what Flagg meant by that, but with the sun dipping down, this was the time to act.

  “Circle around and make a ruckus. I’ll be ready to go for their remuda.”

  “Remember, Mac, horses are money to them. You’re robbing the bank, in a manner of speaking. No man likes to have his bank account stolen.”

  “And no man likes to have his horse stolen.” Mac patted his horse’s neck, then swung into the saddle. His rifle pressed into his knee, but there wasn’t any call to draw it. What he had to do was best accomplished by being sneaky, not noisy. The last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself. He started to offer his rifle to Flagg, but the trail boss had already ridden off, meandering through the trees and hunting for the trail used by the Comanche to reach their camp with the stolen horses.

  Mac waited, then made his way directly to the camp, waiting when he reached the edge of a clearing. In the twilight, he made out a few campfires here and there, getting the layout of where the Indians were. He sucked in his breath when he heard more horses approaching, only these came from the north.

  As he wondered about those hoofbeats, he heard a single gunshot. Then came a thunder of hooves and more gunfire. This awakened the camp. Indians sprang up in places where he hadn’t even thought anyone was. They raced to their horses and mounted quickly, riding out, whooping and hollering. Two more gunshots rang through the evening, more distant. He hoped that meant Flagg was hightailing it away.

  With his breath seemingly frozen in his throat and his heart hammering in his chest, Mac rode directly to the rope corral the Comanche used for their stolen horses. He gathered bridles and tugged at a few. The ones with Rolling J brands followed him immediately. The others, the ones most recently put into the corral, hung back. On impulse, he rode alongside one of those animals and looked at the brand.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said softly. “That’s an H Bar H brand. Their herd can’t be much ahead of ours.”

  He had his hands full with the small herd of Rolling J horses, but a sudden wild impulse struck him. With his lariat out and used liberally on the rumps of all the horses, he got them moving from the corral, both Rolling J and H Bar H branded horses. If he was going to retrieve his own mounts, he might as well do the same for Compass Jack Bennett and his stolen horses.

  Mac moved the horses away from camp. Just as he began to think he was going to get away scot-free, an Indian let out a bloodcurdling shriek somewhere close by. Mac jerked in the saddle and looked around to find the brave.

  Then he knew exactly where the enemy was. The Comanche pounded up on foot and launched himself like a Fourth of July rocket straight for Mac. The Indian’s strong arms circled his horse’s neck, twisted, and brought both horse and rider to the ground. Mac kicked his feet free from the stirrups and flung himself aside so the horse wouldn’t land on him. His feet hit the ground. He stumbled, almost fell, then caught his balance and swung around. His hand went to his hip, but he had left the Smith & Wesson back at the chuckwagon.

  Then he felt those strong arms that had bulldogged his horse do the same to him. He was twisted around and slammed down hard. Somehow, he ducked his head, and the Indian lost his grip. Spinning, he faced his foe. The Indian reached for the knife sheathed at his waist. Mac duplicated the other man’s attack. He dived, arms circling a sinewy neck. He jerked around and sent the man stumbling. The Comanche’s knife slipped out of his hand.

  They faced off a few feet apart, the knife on the ground between them. Mac started to grab the knife. So did the Comanche. They collided, exchanged blows, and bounced apart, the knife still in the dirt.

  “Those are our horses,” Mac panted. “You’re a thief.” He wondered if the brave understood English. There wasn’t any recognition on his face. Mac hadn’t intended to do anything but distract him from circling, feinting, trying to grab the knife without being knocked down.

  Without really thinking about what he was doing, Mac let instinct guide him. The Indian dived, scooped up the knife, and stumbled to get back to his feet. Mac snared the wrist holding the knife as he reached behind his own back and found the knife he carried there. It slid easily from its sheath.

  Just as easily, it went into the Indian’s chest, angled up, and punctured his heart. The Comanche was dead before he hit the ground.

  Panting, Mac stared at the knife he had pulled free from the other man’s body. It had taken more than one life now. First blood had been in the hand of someone else as it was drawn across Micah Holdstock’s throat.

  “You showed it what to do, Leclerc,” Mac said bitterly. “I know you did.”

  He plunged the knife into the ground to clean off the blood, used the sharp blade to cut off a beaded strip woven into the Comanche’s hair, and then sheathed his knife.

  He looked around and saw that the horses hadn’t mindlessly stampeded. Instead, they milled around, his horse emerging as their leader. Running hard, he overtook the animal, grabbed the saddle horn, and pulled himself up. It took some work, but he got the herd of close to fifty horses heading in the direction where he hoped the Rolling J herd had bedded down for the night. He was going to have one hell of a story to tell.

  He hoped that Flagg was there to listen to it and then tell his own tale
of daring.

  CHAPTER 14

  Mac hadn’t ridden a mile when he knew he was in more trouble than he could handle. The faint gunfire as Patrick Flagg decoyed the Comanche away had long since faded in the distance. He worried that the trail boss had been caught or, worse, killed.

  He knew how loco this plan was, and how many things could have gone wrong with it. Having Flagg lead an entire pack of warriors away was the most dangerous part of it. If anyone could have done it, Flagg was the man. but dying for a herd of horses was flat out wrong.

  “Whoa, get back to going east.” Mac called to the horses, as if they understood or would obey if they did. He checked the stars to be sure he still followed the route he had taken originally and saw that the horses had veered away to the north.

  For whatever reason, the horses had taken it into their heads to go in the wrong direction. Riding around, Mac cut off the leading horse and forced it toward the east. The animal carried an H Bar H brand. He wondered if one of the Rolling J horses would be better at the front of the herd. Twice he tried to get one of his outfit’s horses to lead, and twice he failed.

  How the horses chose their leader wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on. He got antsy when he realized every failure to keep them running gave the Comanches a chance to come after him.

  They would kill Flagg, discover they’d been robbed, and come after the thief with blood in their eyes. That was what he knew would happen if he didn’t get the horses back to the Rolling J crew. Only with the twenty or so riders left to fight the Indians could he hope to make this daring theft work.

  The horses angled back northward, away from the route Mac wanted. Galloping to the front of the herd again, he used his lariat to whip the horses from their chosen route and more toward where he guessed the Rolling J would bed down for the night. Then, above the thudding hooves and whinnying horses, he heard something that struck fear into his heart. More hoofbeats, a lot of them, coming up fast behind him. Mingled with the sound came shouts from angry throats. Indian throats.