The veterinarian didn’t have to be told twice. He took a giant leap, flopped belly down over the saddle, then spun around and properly got into the saddle. To his credit, he looked back to see if he could help his rescuer.
“Go, now, ride! Go!”
Mac flailed about, his fists bony cudgels that caused the crowd to retreat. He refused to give up the fight, even as his strength began to fade. Trying to make his way to his own horse became impossible when Wilson and another man blocked him. He ducked and weaved, then landed a good jab to the vet’s belly. A fist sunk wrist-deep caused Wilson to double over, gasping for air.
Mac felt a moment’s pleasure, then despair crushed down on him as hands pulled at his arms and yanked him spread eagle. The men who had gone after the pitch pot raced back to join the fray. Mac found himself held so he couldn’t move a muscle.
“Let me go! You heard Dr. Pointer. The Rolling J cattle are clean!”
“Lies, I tell you, all lies!” Wilson frothed at the mouth. Clutching his belly and half bent over, he started his peculiar war dance again. “String him up! He’s trying to murder us all with his sick cattle.”
Too many in the crowd believed him. Mac was yanked hither and yon, then dragged toward a scrub oak tree at the edge of town. From nowhere, someone produced a rope with a hangman’s knot tied in it.
“You have to give me a trial! This is murder.”
“He’s right. We have to give him a trial. I’m judge. What say you, gentlemen of the jury?”
“Guilty!” The resounding cry echoed through the night.
Mac watched the rope sail high over a limb and swing ominously. They tied his hands together and boosted him onto his horse.
“Hang him, hang him high!” The chant tore at his soul. Rough hemp abraded his forehead as they tried to slip the noose over his head.
CHAPTER 24
Mac jerked his head around to keep the noose from falling down around his neck. As he fought, he twisted his wrists to free himself from the sloppy job they had done tying his hands. He was able to pull his left hand free, but he couldn’t reach around to his right side and draw his gun.
Blood roared in his ears, but he heard someone in the crowd shouting a warning that he still had his gun. Writhing around failed to keep his head free. The noose dropped around his neck. He grabbed with both hands, getting his fingers between the rope and his throat as the horse bolted. Mac swung free, hanging on for dear life. He kicked and tried to work around to reach the hangman’s knot and loosen it so he could shuck off the rope.
Hands grabbed at his feet. He kicked hard and connected with a nose. Blood spurted. He kept swinging, fighting, and then he heard a distant thunder unlike anything he had ever heard.
Only he had heard this sound before—the night Billy Duke had died. The pounding of a cattle stampede was unlike anything else in the world. Jeers around him changed to screams of fear. The hands on his boots disappeared. He swung around and pulled hard, taking the strain off his neck. Although he still wasn’t able get his head free, he had the chance to reach behind him with one hand and find the handle of the knife sheathed at the small of his back. He drew it and slashed repeatedly at the rope above his head.
The strands of rope parted, and Mac crashed to the ground, only to face a new danger. Running hell-bent for leather toward him were a hundred longhorns. With a desperate spin, he got behind the broad trunk of the oak where they had tried to hang him. He barely reached safety. Horns flashed through the air inches away from him. Panting with fear, he pressed his back against the tree.
For a moment, he thought he was imagining the voice calling his name. Then he looked around and saw Flagg leading a riderless horse and shouting at him.
The words blurred under the roar of hundreds of hooves slamming into the ground, but Mac understood. Putting away his knife, he took two running steps and vaulted into the saddle as Flagg rode by. This wasn’t the horse he had ridden into town on. That didn’t matter. It was going to be the horse that took him out of town.
“Got here just in time!” Flagg shouted.
“I hope you brought the whole damned herd and that it smashes this town to splinters.”
“Only a couple hundred. Rattler’s moving the rest along the road outside town.”
“Damn.”
Flagg laughed, bent low over his horse’s neck, and lit out after the small herd that had scattered the vigilantes so willing to stretch Mac’s neck. Mac joined the trail boss and worked his way around to the far side. With the cattle between them, they did their best to steer back toward the main road. They merged their cattle with the main herd and kept moving, though at a slower pace now.
“Can we get across the state line tonight?”
“We’re gonna try, Mac, you can bet that we’re gonna try.” Flagg fell back to bring up the rear of the herd and keep stragglers from getting captured by anyone from the town.
Mac rode around and did what he could. The times he had ridden herd stood him in good stead. He knew how to bring back those wanting to take off on their own. As he swatted at the lumbering beasts, the lariat he held reminded him of the noose that had been draped around his neck. The cattle returned to the main herd and moved along at a decent clip.
Far behind the herd he heard gunfire. Flagg tangling with a few brave souls coming from the town, Mac thought. He started to join the trail boss in his defense of their trailing cattle, then decided his current mood would only cause someone’s death. They had tried to murder him. He wanted justice. Plugging a few of the men would do nothing to ease his anger, even if it might keep other drovers farther behind the Rolling J herd from suffering a similar fate.
Realizing his need to vent his anger would only result in death, he galloped forward to put more distance between himself and the settlement. The thought that one bullet through Dr. Wilson’s worthless skull could save lives later kept haunting him. Then Rattler began slowing the herd to a steady walk. Mac caught up with his friend.
“Glad to see you decided to do some work tonight, Mac.” Rattler grinned ear to ear.
“Where’s the chuckwagon? You didn’t try to make more coffee on your own, did you? You’ll poison everyone, including yourself.”
“I don’t know who’s drivin’, but the wagon’s in the lead. Caleb might have taken over the chore.” Rattler drew rein and turned half around in the saddle. “You hear that?”
“Gunfire,” Mac said. “I reckon Flagg is having it out with those crazy bastards from the town.”
“That might be, but there’s a powerful lot of shooting. Listen.”
Mac’s fury from before rekindled. Flagg’s six-gun would have run out of bullets after the first volley. The reports kept coming. He counted fifteen in the span of a few seconds. It sounded as if a major battle had erupted behind them.
“I’ll see what’s going on. You’re right. All that can’t be Flagg.”
“And it ain’t stoppin’. If they got him, why’d they keep on shootin’? The last time I heard that much gunfire was at the Battle of Palmito Ranch when we whupped the Yankees good and proper.”
The words faded as Mac raced back to support Flagg. He passed the rear of the herd, then realized more cattle lay in front of him. He skirted them so they could catch up with what he had thought were the stragglers in the herd. He spotted Flagg up ahead.
“What’s wrong?” Mac came to a halt beside the trail boss. Flagg reloaded his Colt and didn’t look over. “Won’t they ever give up?”
“There’s another herd moving through, almost overtaking ours. The damned vigilantes opened fire on them and killed a handful. That set off a fight between them and the cowboys in the other crew.”
“Another bunch of cattle?” Mac craned around. The animals he had passed were nowhere to be seen. They had either stampeded off the road or had joined the tail end of the Rolling J herd. “What should we do?”
“If anyone points a gun at you, shoot him. We can keep the vigilantes bottled up long enough
for Rattler to drive the herd into Kansas.”
“What about the other drovers?”
“If they shoot at you, return fire. But I don’t think that’ll be a problem with the jackasses from that settlement shooting into their herd.”
Mac waited, his S&W clutched in his hand. More than once he had to wipe sweat off his brow, in spite of the gathering cold. He glanced up at the sky and estimated that it was well past midnight. It might even be dawn in a couple hours. He had trouble telling because of the clouds moving in to obscure the sky and turn the land into an inky nightmare of indistinct shapes.
“The other herd’s veered away from the road and heading due north. Let’s make tracks.” Flagg holstered his iron. Mac did the same and galloped alongside.
“Who are they? The other herd?”
Flagg shook his head.
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t care. They came along when we needed a diversion. They did us a favor, so I wish them luck and hope they didn’t get too shot up, but I saw a couple dozen head of cattle brought down.”
“They must have known the town was crazy if they tried moving during the night.”
“They’re in the same pickle we are, being late along the trail. Maybe they wanted to make up for lost time.” Flagg shook his head. “Or, as you say, they knew the trouble waiting for them along the road past that damned town.”
“What was that town’s name?” Mac slowed as Flagg did to give their horses a chance to catch their breath. “I never heard.”
“Piss Pot. Shithole. I know what I call it, and don’t care what their name is.”
That suited Mac just fine.
* * *
“Polecat Creek,” said Flagg as they crossed a stream several days later. “We’re getting closer to Abilene.”
“Then there’s nothing much to worry about now, right?” Mac started whistling a jaunty tune as he rocked along on the chuckwagon seat, but he stopped when he saw how Flagg suddenly looked irritated. “What’s wrong?”
He gazed ahead across the Kansas prairie, with its patches of colorful sunflowers. Goldenrod spewed pollen into the air, making both man and beast sneeze, but the large green balls of Osage oranges were downright lovely. Traveling over this mostly treeless land had its drawbacks, but Mac had stocked up as much as possible on firewood and stacked it in the chuckwagon. The vast herds of buffalo had left dried chips behind. Those burned with smoky heat, but they would do to fix meals when the firewood ran out.
Flagg grunted. “Indians. Osage. The Comanche still raid this far north. And every time it looks like we’re getting easy passage, something goes wrong.”
“Do you think we’ll have trouble crossing any of the rivers?”
Flagg shook his head.
“The Chikaskia River might give us some trouble, but this late in the year that’s not likely. Before we get to the Arkansas, we’ll camp at Skeleton Creek.”
“That sounds ominous. Is it?”
“Skeletons as far as the eye can see.” Before Flagg could describe it in greater detail, Rattler came galloping up, waving his hat above his head to attract attention. “Now what’s he want?”
“Boss, we got a band of Osage wanting a few cattle for passage. They claim this is their land. What should we do?”
“I’ll handle it. If we had any tobacco, that’d satisfy them more than a few head of our cattle.” Flagg looked expectantly at Mac.
“Sorry, no tobacco. The men might have some among them, but I didn’t stock much, and what I did was lost back in Indian Territory.”
“I thought as much. Keep scouting, Mac. We’ll catch up. It won’t take long to get those Indians paid off.”
Mac watched Flagg and Rattler ride away, then turned on the seat to watch where he was going. He shielded his eyes to get a better view of the prairie. Almost any direction was flat and clear enough to give decent passage. Using the sun, he got his bearings. The West Shawnee Trail curled up almost due north to Abilene. He felt good about reaching this point, and from the flat prairie he got a good view of any trouble ahead.
The faint breeze blowing across the land brought with it heavy clouds from the northwest. He aimed straight north and let the horses set the pace. More often than not, they spotted prairie dog holes that could break a horse’s leg when Mac didn’t. Only when they were rushed did such disasters occur.
Rocking gently from side to side as the wagon found ruts left by prior travelers, Mac felt drowsy and almost dropped off to sleep once or twice. He forced himself to stay awake by leaning over the wagon edge now and then. Less than two miles from where Flagg had left him, he saw how the ground had been cut up by the passage of another herd. On impulse, he secured the reins and jumped down to study the dirt rims of a few hoofprints.
He had gotten good at estimating when another horse or longhorn had passed. The sides of each print were only slightly crumbled from wind. There hadn’t been any rain to erase the tracks. From prior experience and listening to what some of the better trackers among the cowboys claimed, he knew that another herd had passed this way less than a day ahead. The flat land reduced visibility to about three miles.
Not for the first time, he wished there were hills as there had been in Indian Territory to climb. Good visibility then had been twice what it was in the flatlands. He didn’t worry about watering the cattle. This close to Abilene, there was a sense that reaching the railroad had become a race. At least that was the impression he got from Flagg.
Another five miles brought him to a meandering creek without more than a few saplings for shade. That bothered him less than the lack of firewood. The earlier trail drive had used whatever wood there had been. He parked the chuckwagon, hobbled the horses, and let them graze on the buffalo grass and drink from the stream while he took a burlap sack and hunted for buffalo chips.
An hour of hunting built a pile almost three feet high. He had cooked a few times over dried dung and had a feel now for how long each chip would last. The evening meal, along with breakfast, was easily taken care of. The cowboys could add to the pile if they wanted to keep a fire burning all night. As chilly as it got on occasion, many of them would be happy to range out farther than he had on foot and fetch back a dozen or so chips for their own nighttime fires.
He started a fire, began working on dinner, and had it ready when he sighted the leading steers. They scented water and came faster now. Flagg and the rest of the outfit made no effort to slow them. They were saddle weary and wanted food and rest as much as the longhorns wanted water.
“You got food for us, Mac? Damnation, but you are what they call efficient.” Rattler dropped to the ground, rubbed his aching rump, and led his horse to a rope corral Mac had built between three saplings. If the horses thought about it, they could break free. Being near the water, they weren’t likely to go far.
Inside of an hour, Mac had fed the entire crew. One by one, they turned in their plates and spoons. Rattler was the only one to complain about the meal.
“Damned biscuits taste like buffalo droppin’s.” That said, he found a mount, saddled, and went out for a two-hour patrol around the perimeter of the herd. Mac cringed when he heard the man begin singing to the cattle.
“We made good distance today. This part of the trip lets us get fifteen miles or better. You think you can make it that far before stopping to fix supper, Mac?” Flagg picked his teeth with a thick-bladed knife.
“As easy going as it was today, there shouldn’t be any trouble getting at least that far tomorrow before I stop.”
“There’ll be trouble. I feel it in my bones.”
“Indians?”
“You mean the Osage? Not them. They were happy to get anything I was willing to hand over. I gave them ten head. That’ll keep their village fed for a month or longer. They might even have enough to tide them over when it gets cold.”
“It does do that,” Mac said, remembering the Missouri winters. Those here in Kansas couldn’t possibly be milder.
Mac tensed. He didn’t remember telling Carson or Flagg where he had been before he came to Waco. With Leclerc’s men dogging his footsteps, he wasn’t going to let it slip he had ever been near New Orleans. A quick pat of his coat pocket made a crinkly sound. The wanted posters he had taken in Waco and Lewiston still rested there. If he had any sense, he would use them to start a fire, but something made him keep the incriminating evidence of being a fugitive.
As long as he had them in his pocket, neither Flagg nor anyone else could see them. Making it this far north ought to have let him outrun the long arm of the law.
“I need to go tell Rattler to sing on key,” Mac said. “He’s getting on my nerves. Who knows what he’s doing to the cattle.”
“They don’t seem to mind. Who knows about a longhorn? They might like his singing.” Mac had to laugh at Flagg’s reply.
He packed everything and laid out what he would need for breakfast, took his bedroll, and crawled under the chuckwagon to sleep. Being a scout had some advantages. Because he had to range so far ahead and fix the meals, he hadn’t been sent out on night herd in a few days. Flagg’s anxiety about reaching Abilene had grown, and he wanted the route to be the best Mac could find.
With the land as flat as it was, Mac knew he would have them sailing right on into the railhead in a few days. A week at the outside. With that thought tantalizing him, he slipped off into a light sleep, only to awaken a short time later.
“What a dream,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m even dreaming of trains.”
He sat up, banged his head against the bottom of the chuckwagon, and rolled out to get to his feet. He cupped his hand behind one ear to listen better.
“A freight train. I did hear a train. We must be closer than I thought.”
Then he recognized the sound. More than once growing up he had heard this same noise.
“Tornado!” The yelled warning mingled with that of a half dozen other cowboys. They heard the roar, too, as the twister came toward them.
The Chuckwagon Trail Page 22