Trail to Cottonwood Falls

by Ralph Compton

She smiled smugly as if to say I could have told you that.

  He went outside and waited for Unita’s return with sheet, scissors, and comb. He’d need to go by and check on Jorge and his own ranch. Good man, but it was still his place. Jorge and them boys could run it for months while he was gone on drives, so they’d make it for another week. Then he’d be strong enough to ride over there. Ride over and get his own damn horse.

  His belly was doing better—not on fire, either. Maybe Rosa knew what to do.

  “You have any Durham bulls?” Unita asked as she set down the chair for him.

  “No, but I have some half bloods.”

  “More beef on these longhorns wouldn’t hurt.”

  He agreed. Two hundred apiece for those purebred bulls sounded like highway robbery—but he might have to consider buying some of them.

  “How many big steers you have?” he asked, to make conversation as she nipped away at his hair.

  She stopped as if considering his words. “Close to a thousand.”

  “Whew, that’s a lot.”

  “Too many?”

  “No, but that’s lots of steers.”

  “I sent four hundred up last year with Jim Bob McGregor. He got there with two hundred seventy three and split the proceeds fifty-fifty.”

  “Fifty-fifty?”

  “That was after his expenses.”

  “So you got?”

  “Thirty-two bucks a head.”

  He nodded. McGregor was a crook. He closed his eyes and thought about being drunk.

  “What do you think?” She broke into his emptiness.

  “He ever say what happened to the ones he lost?”

  “Drowned crossing rivers, stampedes, rustlers. He’d had it all, he said.”

  “How many of his cattle made it, since he lost a third of yours?”

  She tapped the closed scissors on his shoulder, which was covered in hair clippings, and looked deep in thought. “I never asked. Why?”

  “Sounds like you might have taken all the loss and little of the gain.”

  She shrugged and went back to work. “I at least had money to pay the help and my bills.”

  “Sure, but he made a damn killing.”

  “You mean McGregor? I guess I did good for a woman running a ranch.”

  He nodded.

  “There, you look less like an Injun.” She swept off the sheet and shook it on the edge of the porch. He gazed at her backside. He could visualize a shapely woman under that dress.

  “What do I owe you?” he asked.

  “No charge. How’re your ribs?”

  “I’ll live.”

  She agreed and went back inside. He ambled around to the stack of wood. Needed something to take his mind off getting drunk. It was all he could see, think about, or consider. His tongue longed for it. His back molars felt ready to float away.

  So using his left arm and a hand ax he went to splitting firewood for the cookstove. It was hotter outside than he had thought. Sweat soon began to run down his face. He wasn’t as handy with his left arm, but his right he kept tucked to his side to ease the pain. Not satisfied with the sharpness of the ax, he went to the grindstone and found he could not crank and hold it with only his left hand. So, prowling in the shop he found a whetstone and wedged the ax head so he could use the stone on it one-handed.

  Sharp enough at last, he went back and split more. At noontime Unita came out and called him in for lunch, and nodded in approval at the large stack of ready stove wood. “Rosa will think you’re muy grande.”

  “I may need to borrow a horse,” he said, sipping some beef-stock soup.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Oh, to see about Jorge over at the ranch.”

  “If it don’t blow in a rain, I’ll drive you over there.”

  “I’m not an invalid.”

  She shook her head like she was his mother. “You split some firewood one-handed. That don’t make you well.”

  “Wasn’t nothing wrong with me to start with.”

  “No, you were simply trying to kill yourself.”

  “That’s my business. I guess that was my right.”

  She drew her shoulders back and shook her head. “No.”

  “No, what? I don’t have a right to go blow my head off?”

  “No.” Final word, and she left him at the table by himself. He finished his soup and thanked Rosa from the door. No sign of Unita so he went to the shed. It wasn’t any problem to shut his eyes, despite the nagging pain in his side, and he napped all afternoon. The boys coming in woke him up.

  If he ever needed a drink it was then. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he scrubbed his smooth-shaven face in his callused hands. Where did Unita keep that whiskey she doled out like it was gold dust every morning? There’d not be a chance of him snooping around and finding where she had it stashed. Either she or Rosa were in that kitchen every waking hour.

  He ate chicken soup and drank goat’s milk without an argument. His fiery belly and the upset were finally gone. Maybe he could try real food soon—not soon enough for his part, but he was feeling better. Or his stomach felt settled, anyway. Oh, what he’d give for a drink.

  The next day he spent at the shop, firing the forge and pounding out some iron bands to hinge the main corral gate, to replace leather straps. Unita came down at noontime.

  “You’re overdoing it,” she announced, looking over his handiwork.

  “You a doctor?” he asked, motioning for her to use the bellows.

  “I’m yours.”

  He drew out the last strap and began to shape it over the anvil, with the hammer in his left hand, the sound ringing like a great bell. Then he reinserted it in the red-hot coals and wiped his sweaty face on his sleeve.

  “That enough?” she asked, and stopped pumping.

  He nodded. His head felt dizzy. He put down the hammer and dropped his butt back against the bench. Things began to swim and his knees buckled. Her shrill scream was the last thing he recalled. He woke up in the shed, on the cot. The boys must be coming in. What had happened to him at the shop? He rolled over and went back to sleep. More bad dreams. Dreams of boys dying in stampedes—trampled to death. Those long horns shining in the bright sun above the muddy, stained river, horses and riders bobbing in the water, crossing another swollen river, and a tornado swept down to drown them all.

  “Wake up. Wake up, you’re having a bad nightmare.”

  Seated on the edge of the bed, Unita was holding him up against her firm breasts, real familiar like, and pressing a cup to his mouth. He could smell it—whiskey. Ah, at last.

  Chapter 3

  A week at her place, and his head felt clear anyway. The sore rib hadn’t healed but the binding was off. He could eat some real food—not a lot, but half rations anyway, and keep it down. The burning in his belly—the goat’s milk worked on it, or he gave it credit for helping improve that condition. Rosa beamed and told him he must keep drinking it. He shook his head—no way was he milking a damned goat every day for the rest of his life.

  Unita loaded a picnic lunch and he hitched her buggy horse. He drove and they headed for his place. He’d been two days without a drink of anything, save the dang milk and coffee. He wasn’t past wanting it, but he was living without it.

  On the drive to his place they made small talk about when they’d have a first frost. She hoped her green beans in the garden made it before the cold killed them.

  He found Jorge’s wife, Tina, at the jacal with the two toddlers. The short, pregnant woman came out and spoke to Unita. Tina told him Jorge and the boys were cutting firewood in Blanco Canyon, but she could ring the bell and fetch them. He agreed and they waited. The two women were busy visiting and he went around to inspect things. He found nothing wrong and circled back.

  Jorge rode in and they talked about the ranch, the cattle, and how they were doing. Squatted by the corral, they had a good visit.

  “She is some woman,” Jorge said as if impressed by the sight of t
he widow, and nodded in approval.

  Ed sucked on his eyetooth and finally bobbed his head. “She don’t need a man. She’s getting on plenty fine the way she is.”

  Jorge gave a knowing smile, like he didn’t believe none of it.

  “How’s my old stud horse, Ten Bears?”

  “Fine. Raphael checked on him and the mares a few days ago.”

  “Good. We better get back. You need anything, Mr. Lorain at the store in Banty will fix you up. I don’t know how long I’ll be over there.”

  “We are fine,” Jorge assured him.

  “Good.” Ed’s side caught in a sharp pain when he went to stand, and it reminded him of his beating at Tyler’s hands. He owed that dude a good whipping the next time they met. He might get a chance to pound that foulmouthed Crabtree too.

  He caught his breath, pushed in on that side, and tried to hide the pain. But Jorge saw it and nodded like he understood. They shook hands and walked to the jacal. Ed hugged Tina, and the two women talked all the way to the buggy. Loaded, he promised Jorge he’d see him in a short while.

  “You pull something back there?” Unita asked as they drove out the lane.

  “It only caught.”

  “Give me the reins. I can drive.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  In the end she won. He sat back in the bench seat in a slight crouch where the pain wasn’t bad and took the road bumps with clenched teeth.

  “Maybe you need to see Doc.”

  “All he’ll do is bind me up. You’ve been doing that fine enough.”

  She looked at the buggy top and about laughed. She’d done all the rest, including dragging him out of the Shamrock when he was passed out. Strange, how he could almost smell the sourness of that old bar and the sawdust on the floor. Be good to be back there drinking with Big Mike. Mike never drank, he just listened.

  “Everything was fine at the ranch?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts of getting drunk.

  Ed nodded. “Jorge is a good man.”

  “You’re lucky to have him.”

  “I am. Aren’t you about tired of nursemaiding me?”

  “Why?”

  “My ranch is doing fine. I have a powerful thirst. Why don’t we end this whatever and I go back to San Antone?”

  She looked over at him with a scowl. “And you have a catch in your side so bad you couldn’t ride a horse there.”

  “Give me a few shots of whiskey. I’ll make it.”

  She flicked the horse to make him keep on single-footing. “I’m not giving you any more whiskey.”

  “I may need it.”

  “What for?”

  “My side is really hurting.”

  “It’s hurt before. You’re tough. Should we stop up here pretty soon and eat the lunch I brought?”

  “Suits me.”

  She halted in the next creek crossing to let Brandy, her buggy horse, drink, and then she drove him up on the flat. He climbed down, stood for a minute to let the pain subside, then put his hands on his hips and strained against the sore right side. Walking back and forth, he hoped to escape some of it, but it felt like he had a hot Comanche arrow in his side.

  She spread a fine patch quilt on the ground and began to unpack her things. He watched her, hypnotized by her movements and by the lithe way she turned as she set things out. When she looked up at him he felt his face heat like he’d been caught indecently spying on her. He didn’t want her to think that of him. To be truthful with himself, since the war the only females he’d been around were doves. Hadn’t been any “woman” in his life in a long time. No one to court—that was all over with him.

  The dark-eyed Mexican girl, Margaretia, he had met down on the border after the war and her beauty stole his heart. But when he proposed, she told him she could never leave her family at San Jose on the Rio Grand, or marry someone outside her church. That had been shortly after the war—five years ago, maybe longer? No, seven? After that he’d given up looking for a respectable woman to marry—he sure didn’t need one.

  “Cold chicken?” she offered, and brought him back to the sunny fall day beside the small creek.

  He grinned hugely and sat down on her quilt. He’d never before been on a real picnic with a good-looking woman. Might never happen again. Better savor every minute of it. “I sure will.”

  “This was my grandmother’s quilt. See the wagon-wheel design?”

  He nodded and made a face of disapproval at her. “Ain’t it awfully nice to just sit on?”

  She wrinkled her nose to dismiss his concern. “I have a feeling she won’t mind.”

  He paused before taking another bite of the tasty chicken. “Why’s that?”

  “My grandparents came from Arkansas to Texas. Grandpa fought with Sam Houston. He came home crippled and never was right again. She ran the Bar U until my father was old enough to take over.”

  Ed nodded. “Your father was killed by Mexican bandits. I remember that from my ranger days. They never were caught.”

  “No, never did catch them. So my mother and grandmother ran the ranch. Grandmother hired Sam as the foreman and later we married.” She looked off at the cedar- and live oak-clustered hillside. “I almost knew, the day when he rode off to war—he’d not come back.”

  “Too many didn’t come home.”

  “Yes, and some of the sorry ones made it back unscathed.”

  “Ain’t no justice in this life.” He went back to eating cold chicken.

  “I want to go over and see a man at Bourne who deals in mules. The trip will take two days—”

  “You need mules for what?”

  “I wanted to buy a couple of teams to pull the chuck wagon.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?” He tossed the bare chicken bone away and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. No way he was being any part of that operation.

  She wet her lower lip as if uncertain, then spoke. “I wanted to hire you to negotiate a deal on them.”

  He rubbed his palms on the top of his legs. “Why not just leave me off at San Antone?”

  Her blue eyes narrowed with anger. “I’ll go by myself.”

  She began to pick things up. Then, looking furious at him, she handed him a piece of chocolate cake. “I forgot this.”

  “You can take me back to my place,” he said, getting to his knees.

  In her fury, she tackled him and he saw stars. Flat on his back, he could barely see her drawn-back fist ready to hit him as the pain from her sitting astraddle him . . . hurt deep. Damn . . . He caught his breath from the lightning in his side.

  She slipped off and sat on the quilt beside him. Not saying a word.

  “I hurt you?”

  He made the hard effort to sit up and shake his head. “Hell, I couldn’t even whip—”

  “Whip me?”

  “Right.”

  She straightened her dress tail over her bare calves and never looked at him. “Can I help you up?”

  “No, I’ll make it.” He rolled over and pushed off his knees to stand. He took what was left of the piece of cake in his right hand. For a long moment he looked down at the blue circle pattern in the quilt—they called them wagon wheels. Then, all businesslike, she swept it up, shook out the dry grass and dirt, and folded it.

  The sweet cake gummed in his mouth, but it tasted delicious. He hobbled to the buggy while she loaded the blanket and the basket. On the seat he let the hurting subside and looked up into her worried gaze as she sat beside him.

  “I didn’t hurt you on purpose.”

  “I know.” They never said another word all the way back to her place.

  It gave him plenty of time to think. If he didn’t get well enough to pull out soon, he’d crawl away on his belly. What she had on her mind for him to do, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—didn’t want to and wasn’t going to do. He wasn’t about to go on no damn cattle drive to Kansas.

  Jarred by every bump of the buggy seat as she hurried the horse homeward, he held himself with
his arms and clenched his teeth. Her tackle had sure tore his ribs up again. He needed a drink.

  Chapter 4

  Ed watched her drive away the next morning without a word to him. He guessed she was going after mules. In fact, they had not said more than a few words to each other since the picnic episode. The trip to his place had sapped his energy and so after their return he slept through supper. Rosa woke him in the dark and brought him some food. She lit a candle.

  “You must eat,” she scolded, and he sat up and ate for her.

  The sight of Unita’s buggy disappearing the next morning gave him a twinge of guilt. It wouldn’t have hurt him to have gone along with her and helped her dicker for the mules. It was a matter of who was the most stubborn one. He still couldn’t get over the fury in her when she tackled him. She was a lot more powerful than he ever imagined she was. Why, she could have whipped Tyler and Crabtree by herself.

  The boys rode out after breakfast, and he drank another cup of coffee. Wondering where she kept the whiskey, he ambled out to the woodpile to take his mind off of it and tried to split firewood, but even busting up the small pieces jarred him. He went up to the bunkhouse and found some Police Gazette magazines and read about some Ohio ax murderer. Maybe after lunch he’d saddle a ranch horse and try to ride a few hours. He had to get his strength back . . . A little whiskey and he wouldn’t hurt half so bad. He dreamed about the stuff at night, and all his day-dreams drifted back to it. He had to have a drink.

  Unita returned late the next day and the boys ran out to take the four mules on leads that trotted in behind the buggy. She swept the hair back from her face and got ready to get off the seat. She looked Ed in the eye. “You going to see how bad I got took.”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  He offered her a hand down. His effort made his side catch, but he never let on. She nodded and he stepped aside. Lots of woman there. He followed her over to the mules and wondered if her stony manner ever melted.

  The ranch hands were busy examining her purchases when he mouthed the first one. Don Don held the lead.

  “How old is he, Ed?” Don Don asked.

  “Six.”

  The cowboy nodded in agreement. “He stands good on his feet.”