The Chuckwagon Trail

by William W. Johnstone

  Worse, the gunfire spooked the small herd. They shifted around, thinking it over, and one finally panicked. The rest followed. The herd headed back for the Rolling J stock.

  “Billy! Billy!” Mac’s cries were drowned out by the thundering hooves that shook the ground and filled the air with kicked-up dirt and grass.

  He lost sight of the cowboys who had fired on him. He thought he heard distant warnings and more gunshots. Mostly, Mac heard nothing but the stampeding cattle and the thudding of his own horse as it galloped after the herd.

  It looked for all the world like he had started the cattle running in order to steal them. Reaching the far side of the herd, he kept his horse galloping, in spite of the danger. He remembered the horse that had stepped in a gopher hole. In the silvery half-light, only shadows danced along the ground. The unsure footing caused the horse to panic even more. It pounded ahead to the front of the herd.

  Mac looked around wildly for Billy but didn’t see him. Drawing his gun, he fired it in the air and yelled until he was hoarse. He had to turn the herd. For whatever reason, cattle would stampede straight ahead until their hearts exploded, but turn them and the urge to run died down. A few minutes after that, a frightened cow would be ready to graze again—or even go to sleep. When his gun came up empty, Mac worried that he had failed. Then another rider raced past him.

  “Billy!”

  “Get back to the herd! This ain’t gonna end good for anybody.”

  Billy Duke cut in front of the lead longhorn and used a whip on its head. The distraction from fear to anger caused the steer to turn. That slowed the stampede. Then Billy forced the small herd at almost a right angle to the original path. The cattle slowed and stopped.

  “You did it, Billy. You got them to—”

  Mac fell silent when he saw what Billy had noticed already. This small bunch of cattle was easy to turn. The gunfire and the approaching stampede had passed itself along to the much larger Rolling J herd. Like a giant, lazy wave along the Mississippi, the cattle stirred. Mac saw the rise in front ripple across the cattle as more of them came awake to the danger.

  The ground had shaken before with only a hundred head of cattle stampeding. As the entire Rolling J herd began to run, it felt like an earthquake.

  Mac had hoped never to see such an awesome, frightening sight as two thousand cattle charging madly across the prairie.

  But that was what he saw now.

  CHAPTER 19

  Moonlight gleamed off a churning sea of horns as the stampede built up speed. Mac started toward the herd, but common sense held him back. To ride in front of that moving wall of gristle and bone meant certain death. He kept his head down and cut off at an angle.

  Only then did he remember why the herd had begun its slow, unstoppable run. He looked around for the 23 riders, but they were nowhere to be seen. If their herd caught the scent of fear from the Rolling J stock, they had as much trouble on their hands as Flagg’s outfit.

  Mac sat straighter and tried to make sense out of the shadowy, unstable mass of cattle. They cried as if they were being killed. And some were. A stumble and fall meant being trampled to death. More than a few slowpokes became victims. Their carcasses were left behind as the mindless tide surged away.

  “Billy!” Mac shouted until his voice began to croak. Hunting for the other cowboy brought him only a sinking feeling as he saw how thoroughly the ground had been chopped up by thousands of hooves. The moonlight hindered more than it helped. Casting shadows made anything more than a slow walk difficult, if not downright dangerous.

  He rode in a zigzag pattern in the wake of the stampede, hunting for Billy Duke. When he didn’t find him, Mac snapped the reins and brought his horse to a canter. He wanted to gallop in the other direction, but the stampede required someone to head it off. He had seen how a few gunshots and some whooping and hollering had turned the smaller herd when it stampeded. But getting in front of the two thousand head herd was suicidal.

  In spite of that knowledge, Mac picked up the pace. He reached the rear of the herd more quickly than he thought he would. The cattle had already turned, curling around, but they weren’t slowing down. With his head down, he got the most speed from his horse that he could. Pulling even with the side of the herd, he took lariat in hand and began whacking the cattle to force them toward the center. This forced the longhorns running behind to slow and try to follow the one in front. This broke up the flow of the stampede, just a little.

  Heartened by his success, Mac kept up his work. Soon enough, entire segments of the herd had collided with slower-moving cattle, and the stampede stalled and finally became nothing more than the brutes milling about. Mac kept riding because he had only stopped a few hundred, and thousands more still ran wildly into the night.

  He saw others from the Rolling J doing much the same as he had done, but their efforts were less successful because they tried to turn greater numbers. Joining the efforts of a cowboy he recognized as being from San Antonio but for whom he had never done more than serve a meal, Mac got a few of the frightened cattle to stop. But his arm felt ready to fall off. He touched the gun at his side and remembered he had already exhausted it on the earlier stampede when he was with Billy Duke.

  “What do we do?” he shouted to the other cowboy, but the pounding hooves drowned out his question.

  Everything happened with lightning swiftness. His companion’s horse stumbled and fell, sending its rider flying. Mac saw his work with the herd wasn’t slowing the run. Turning his tired horse, he came around. The cowboy wasn’t hurt, but his horse had broken a leg.

  “Gotta do this. Hate it ’cuz he was a good horse.” The cowboy put a single bullet through the horse’s head.

  “Here,” Mac said, dropping to the ground. He handed over his reins. “You know what you’re doing. I don’t.”

  “Ain’t gonna do much until the leaders wear themselves out. But all I can do is try.” The cowboy took the reins and stepped up. “You watch yourself. You bake real good biscuits.”

  With that he disappeared into the night. Mac wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not, but he took it as one. He had his place in the outfit. It just wasn’t in the saddle trying to herd cattle. Plodding along, he tromped through the field torn up by the stampede. More than one cow lowed in pain, legs broken just like the cowboy’s horse. Mac stopped by one pain-wracked animal. He drew his S&W, broke it open, and ejected the spent brass. Fumbling around in his pockets, he found six cartridges, closed the gun, and took a deep breath. His first shot failed to kill the cow. With a better grip on his emotions, his second round put the animal out of its misery.

  Mac ran out of bullets before he got back to the chuckwagon.

  He sat for a few minutes, dead in body and soul. Then he searched for more ammunition, reloaded, tucked a handful of cartridges into his coat pocket, and saddled another horse. The distant noise had died down. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he had to find out. He rode into the dawn and saw dozens of fallen longhorns. One had dug its horn into the ground and been carried up and around by the rush of the cattle behind, breaking its neck. By the time Mac reached the small knot of wranglers, he had become deadened to any feeling for the animals.

  Then he found reason to let his shock expand and totally encompass him.

  Flagg stood beside two bodies stretched on the ground. Both were covered by slickers. Mac dismounted and walked forward slowly. Boots sticking out from under one of the raincoats looked familiar.

  “Billy Duke?” His voice, already hoarse from shouting, came out in a barely discernible croak.

  “Afraid so. And the other’s Huey Matthis.”

  Mac didn’t know Matthis beyond serving him meals three times a day. The men tended to become tightknit, small circles of friends hardly known outside their own personal circle. But first and foremost, they had been riders for the Rolling J ranch.

  “What happened with the herd?” Mac saw dozens of cattle milling around, hunting for tufts of blue gr
ama to graze on but disturbed by the coppery smell of blood that descended on the land like an evil fog.

  “They ran into a river and turned. That was all it took for two men to break the stampede.” Flagg’s eyes darted to the bodies on the ground. “They saved a half dozen others. This is a damned shame.”

  “About the stampede,” Mac began. He was responsible for Billy’s and Huey’s deaths. He had gone with Billy Duke on a fool’s errand. If they hadn’t gotten caught by the 23’s night herders, gunfire wouldn’t have spooked first one herd and then the other.

  “We don’t talk about it. Not ever,” Flagg said. “I’m not superstitious, but putting some things into words makes them happen again. We can’t afford that. First off we bury them.”

  “Here?”

  “Where they fell is as good as any other.”

  “I’ll help,” Mac said, feeling even guiltier. “Flagg, I have to tell you something.”

  “No.” Flagg fixed him with his ice-cold stare. “You won’t say a damned word.”

  “But—”

  Flagg took a quick step and bumped his chest against the cook’s. He glared at Mac. His nostrils flared like a bull pawing the ground and getting ready to charge.

  “No.” He shoved Mac away, causing him to stumble. “Everyone’s going to have twice the work as before. These two are dead and a half dozen others are so banged up they can hardly ride.”

  “They can ride in the chuckwagon.”

  “No, Mac, they will ride in the chuckwagon. You’re going to tend to them ’til they’re healed enough to get back to the herd.”

  Mac looked down at the slicker-covered shape that had been Billy Duke. A faint morning breeze caused the slicker to flap just a mite, as if the body beneath was trying to come back to life. Mac felt sick and looked away.

  “He had family in Waco. His wages ought to be sent to them. A wife, boy, and a pa who’s in a bad way.”

  “When we get to Abilene, you take care of it.”

  That was additional punishment for the calamity he had caused, Mac supposed.

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” he murmured. He wasn’t sure if Flagg overheard. The trail boss turned away and barked orders to get the cattle bedded down in one herd instead of stragglers spread over half of Indian Territory.

  Mac began digging and took longer than expected when he hit a layer of red clay almost as hard as rock. He scraped and chopped and finally dug down below it. Both men would rest easy here, safe from being dug up by hungry animals. He had heard a man had to be buried six feet under because coyotes could smell a decaying body if buried any less deeply. Mac knew nothing about that. Billy and Huey would be under clay that even the most determined animal would have trouble clawing through.

  He fashioned crosses for them and used his knife to scratch crude names into the wood. As he drove the crosses into the ground, he heard men all around him. Tears in his eyes, he saw everyone in the company, including Patrick Flagg, had come back.

  “Go on, Mac. Say a few words.”

  “I’m not a preacher. Fact is, I never spent much time in church, so I don’t know what to say.”

  “Do it,” Flagg ordered with a lash in his words.

  Mac drew in a deep breath, then said, “Dear Lord, accept these two good men. Their lives were full of trouble and pain, but they died doing honest work. They saved others who rode alongside. Bless them.” Mac wondered if this was enough, then decided it had to be. Looking down from Heaven, seeing everything, God knew what had happened and would accept Billy Duke and Huey Matthis for what they had tried to do before dying.

  He hoped Billy’s rustling wouldn’t count too much against him. Mac swallowed hard. When his time came, he hoped it wouldn’t count against him, either.

  Returning to the chuckwagon, he fixed breakfast for the men. It was quiet, somber, and none of the joshing went on that he had come to expect. For that he was glad.

  As he cleaned up, Flagg came to him, looking worried.

  “We got a problem, Mac. That river stopped the stampede good and proper, but it also put us miles off the Shawnee Trail. I don’t know where to ford the river here, and if we did, we’d have to cross back if we got ourselves caught in an oxbow. Every river we ford costs us a few more cattle.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “I’m riding with the herd along the river. I want you to cut across country and find out if we can stay on the west side of the river. We’ve lost so much time, we’d need to make up a week or more to get to Abilene before some of the other herds.”

  “The H Bar H?”

  “Compass Jack’s got us beat, no matter what. I don’t begrudge him that because he’s a good man. The others beating us to the railroad makes my hackles rise.”

  “You want me to drive the wagon?”

  “Let Rattler do it. He got his leg all bunged up. Him and the others who got injured last night have to ride in the wagon anyway. You take a horse and do the scouting.”

  “Flagg, I want to tell you something about what—”

  “Quit lollygagging and ride. I said we have a week to make up, and I mean it. Go, go!”

  Flagg shooed him away like he was only an annoying fly. Mac found a horse in the remuda, saddled it, and reflected on how he had his choice of tack now. They had gone through so many men that less than half their original company remained. If they lost any more men, finishing the drive might not be possible.

  He set out to scout the trail Flagg wanted. Not crossing the river would save them a day or more. He knew how the trail boss worried they would find a bend in the river and have to cross twice. With the wind in his face and warm sun on his back, he set out to find the best route possible. The Shawnee Trail had proven a good course for them, but he had no idea how to find the already blazed trail again, except by pure luck. As he rode, he worried about coming across the 23 herd.

  Flagg had to know about his part in causing the stampede. Billy had paid with his life. Flagg’s punishment had been even crueler. Mac wanted to confess. Instead, he had to let the guilt fester inside. All he could do was try to learn from it and make things right again by doing the best job possible.

  With the crew being so shorthanded, he wondered if he would ever sleep again this side of Abilene. Cooking, scouting, riding night herd, he had more than any two men would handle. It would only get worse the longer they were on the trail. He yawned, stretched, and tried to get comfortable in the saddle. Finally deciding the more he ached, the easier it would be to stay awake, he bounced and bobbed and let the horse’s gait jolt him constantly. After a couple miles, he settled down and found a more comfortable seat.

  Punishing himself served no purpose and only made it more likely he would make a mistake. Riding atop a hill, he rubbed his eyes clear of sleep and carefully studied the lay of the land. It was good country, with rich earth and clumps of trees scattered around to provide wood for the buildings he spotted. A decent-sized farmhouse sat on a level patch of ground not a mile off. Behind it rose a red-painted barn.

  Mac found himself grinning in memory. His pa’s farm had looked like this. He imagined the sound of chickens in a coop and maybe pigs oinking as they rolled around in their pen, waiting to be slopped. Huge swathes had been cut through forests to make way for farmland. Driving the herd through a nester’s farm would bring out the guns and recriminations, but it was late enough in the year that some of the crops had been harvested. Those fields might benefit from a herd tramping through, breaking up the earth as good as any disc harrow and turning under weeds to serve as fertilizer for next spring’s crops.

  He rode down the slope toward the farm. Barren fields stretched as far as he could see. Perfect for a herd to tromp through, all he needed was the farmer’s permission.

  So intent on gauging distances and directions, he didn’t hear them come up on him.

  “I swear, mister, I will shoot you out of the saddle if you move a muscle.”

  He moved more than a muscle. He was so
startled he jumped a foot and caused his horse to shy. Mac turned and saw a farmer with a rifle clutched in his hand and two strapping young boys alongside.

  “Just go on an’ plug him, Pa,” one of the youngsters urged. “It’ll save us a passel of trouble if he don’t go get the rest of his gang.”

  “Whoa, wait, don’t go doing what your boy says.” Mac raised his hands. “These are your sons?”

  “Are,” the farmer said. He dressed in bib overalls, heavy boots, a denim shirt, and a straw hat so tattered along the brim it did little to protect his face from the sun.

  “I’ve got a business proposition for you.”

  “Ain’t gonna bring your filthy cows through my property.” He lifted the rifle and sighted along its barrel. From Mac’s vantage, it looked as if he peered down a bore the size of a shotgun.

  “Easy now. Your crops are in. We’d be willing to swap a prime heifer or two for passage.”

  “Nope.” The nester tucked the rifle into his shoulder as if he anticipated a heavy recoil when he fired.

  “You people done ruined more’n one of our fields with your cattle,” one boy said. “We been told all about how you destroy everything in your way, and he wouldn’t lie to us.” He glanced at his father for encouragement. As far as Mac saw, the farmer said and did nothing, but the boy took heart in that. “You’re next thing to criminals for what you do to good farmland. You deserve eternal damnation.”

  “Those fields haven’t been touched,” Mac said. “I used to work on my family’s farm up in Missouri, and I can appreciate your concern. I—”

  “Git.”

  The farmer motioned with his rifle for Mac to ride on.

  “You don’t want to shoot me. I’m not armed, except for my rifle, and it’s sheathed. We can discuss this and come to—”