Trail to Cottonwood Falls

by Ralph Compton

  Chapter 20

  Water ran out of the ground everywhere in the bright morning sun. Dry washes belched with creeklike flows on their ride up there. He dismounted near the cedars where he first saw them and handed her the reins. Any tracks or sign were melted away. The moisture squished out of the sod at every step. It had been a great rain but it had also erased the signs of his attackers.

  “Nothing?” Unita asked.

  “Nothing here.”

  “What next?”

  “Check on the boys, go by Banty to see if we can learn anything, and then back to your place.”

  “I’m ready.” She grinned big.

  He felt better when he found the boys crosscutting firewood. They’d seen nothing, but after sweeping their hats off to Unita, they promised to be on the lookout.

  Ed shook his head at their gallantry and reined the roan around. They headed for Banty. After eating a cold-cut sandwich in Lorain’s store, he brought Ed a letter postmarked Fort Worth. He opened and read it.

  Dear Ed,

  Yesterday, three men rode thru here asking about yu by name. One was a breed, I never catch his name, one was an Injun and the other a messikin called his self Roho. They sure looked like killers to me. Not the Bradys, but they was sure asking for Ed Wright. I thought yu should know.

  Nell

  “What is it?” Unita asked.

  “It’s from a waitress I met in Fort Worth when I was coming back and looking for the Bradys. I told her to send me word if they showed up.” Waitress sounded respectable enough for Nell.

  After she read it, she handed it back. “Who are they?”

  “First that I heard about them.”

  “You may have a bounty on your head.”

  He agreed. But how would they know him? The only way was if someone over in San Antone way told them he rode a roan horse with lots of mane. Maybe he should change mounts, just to be careful. Did they work for the Bradys? Maybe time would tell.

  Back at the Bar U ranch they started to get ready in earnest. They caulked the wagon box to keep out as much water as they could fording rivers. It wasn’t perfect, but anything helped. Unita and Rosa helped them sew up a new canvas cover for the rig. All the bows looked good, and the hardware solid. They painted the undercarriage yellow after going over it for any cracks or separations, then gave the wagon box two coats of red paint. It looked spiffy, and then Rusty, who was the best sign painter in the outfit, made a neat Bar U on each canvas side.

  He also scripted Bar U Ranch, Banty, Texas, on both sides of the wagon. The boys found a Texas flag and a U.S. flag, one for each side of the driver’s seat. And then they started asking about the cook’s job. Who would Unita hire? His food had to be as good as hers and Rosa’s, even if they didn’t go—good food was important on a task like this one.

  Shaved, bathed, and dressed up, Ed pulled the buggy around in front for the drive to the Banty Christmas Ball. He stepped down, adjusted his new hat against a gale of late-afternoon wind, and escorted Unita from the house to the buggy under the cheers of the crew.

  The crew had their horses saddled to ride into town for some Saturday-night libations at the Minnie Ha Ha Saloon. No doubt some dove, or two maybe, if the boys were lucky; these females would have the busy windfall of being there for the populous and profitable preholiday trade.

  Ed drove the single-footed bay horse, recalling how his earlier buggy rides had about killed him. This afternoon, with the elegant Mrs. Nance on his arm, he felt like they were riding a gliding bird. Dressed in a new blue gown the millinery in Banty had turned out for her, she looked like a bride. He had to admit the new blue silk bandanna she gave him early for Christmas looked mighty nice around his chicken neck.

  Nothing could spoil this evening. Everyone, except the single ranch hands who found the saloon’s attributes more tempting than the ball, would be there. When they entered the spacious schoolhouse, the fiddle players were tuning up, along with guitars and accordions. Unita rushed her cake over to add to the long table built along the back side of the building. The raw boards were covered with white linen table-cloths, and heaped with food and sweets.

  Billie came over and shook his hand. “My, my, they’ve done got a real crowd, huh, Sarge?”

  “I don’t think we’ve seen half of them yet.”

  “I guess not.” Billie grinned.

  “Ida Mae here?”

  “Oh yes, and you’re supposed to polka once with her. I get my feet all tangled up doing that dance.”

  “Tell her to be ready.”

  “Good. She said that would be the best gift I could give her.”

  “I won’t forget.” Ida Mae might not be the prettiest gal in the country but she could sure polka.

  “See you,” Billie said, and went on.

  Unita joined him and casually held on to the crook of his arm as they spoke to various men and women from around the community. Ed had not spoken to Frank Hogan since that day in San Antone, and understood the man was mad at him for signing up some of the others. Hogan’s association with Crabtree didn’t endear him none in Ed’s book, so he’d ignored the man. Obviously that was coming to a chilly climax as Hogan stepped over and removed his hat.

  “Howdy, Mrs. Nance. Ed.”

  “How are you, Frank?” she asked.

  “Fine, busy getting ready. I guess like you all are.”

  “Yes, we’re very busy. Grass will be here before we know it.”

  Hogan nodded to her. “If Ed don’t mind, I’d ask you for a dance later.”

  “Fine with me,” Ed said, feeling the distant air of the man.

  “I’ll be honored,” she said, and smiled.

  “Good,” he said, sounding relieved, and nodded, then made an awkward exit.

  “Frank and you?” Ed asked softly.

  “Nothing serious. He’s come to call on me before. Frank’s a good man. He’s not my man.”

  Ed nodded and she gave him a threatening look in return. Then, in a low hiss, she said, “He’s not your competition.”

  With his palms turned up, he surrendered, and she only fumed more until he laughed softly, then leaned over and lightly bumped his forehead to hers. His move broke her mood and she looked at the tin-square ceiling for help, then smiled. “Ed Wright, I swear at times you’re ornery.”

  “I won’t deny it.”

  Later he whirled Ida Mae around the dance floor and she beamed as the accordion player squeezed out a Bavarian polka. Round and round they went, dancing through the other couples until the song ended and they both gasped for their breath.

  “My lands, Ed, you get better at it each time.”

  Ed thanked her, knowing that she wouldn’t lack partners the rest of the night after the stand backs saw how well the woman could dance. She might not be the prettiest woman in Banty, Texas, but she was the dancingest one. A bow-legged cowboy cut her off going back to the bench, asking her to shuffle the next one with him.

  “She really can dance,” Unita said, impressed.

  “Next one’s yours.”

  “Polka?”

  “No, waltz, I’d say. Eck’s got his fiddle out.”

  “Good,” she said and took his hand, ready to slide. The soap chips on the floor had helped and he whirled her away.

  “You never married?” she asked.

  “Only girl I ever asked told me I didn’t belong to her church and she couldn’t leave her town.”

  “Foolish, wasn’t she?” She threw her head back as he swung her around to the music.

  “Might have done me a favor.”

  “You must have been disappointed.”

  “I was—at the time.”

  “You ever see her again?”

  He shook his head and drew her close. “She’s like a dust devil that went through my life, away now and gone.”

  As if satisfied, she nodded, and they danced on.

  Between dancing and snacking the night whirled away too. Hogan came over and took his dance with her. A little
rigid in his movements, he swung her around the floor. Ed only occasionally glanced at them, busy talking cattle prices to Wamp Kaiser.

  He was consuming some of Unita’s layered chocolate cake when Frank brought her back and thanked him.

  “You’re welcome,” Ed said, and looked at her as Hogan disappeared. “Well, he say anything?”

  “Said he was sorry. He would have taken my cattle north and that I didn’t need to get you.”

  “What he meant was you didn’t have to put up with a drunk to get your cattle sent to market.”

  A frown crossed her brows. “Maybe. I wasn’t impressed. I can make my own decisions.”

  “Maybe you should have this time?”

  “Ed Wright, we better dance. I hate to argue in public.”

  He chuckled and took her hand with his other in the center of her back, and they went spinning away. Lots of woman inside that blue dress. Lordy, she could take his breath away just standing there. It was even more heady to him to have her in his arms and swing her around the dance floor to the music.

  Long after midnight, wrapped in blankets, he drove the buggy horse toward home, with her sitting close to him in the cocoon and him occasionally stopping—so the horse could catch his breath, and he could kiss her. They were intoxicated by the time he stopped at the front yard gate.

  “I’m going to put you in the house and then put him up.”

  “Oh,” she said, and snuggled against him. “I may stay right here all night.”

  He looked out at the corrals and sheds in the starlight. No, his own life wasn’t settled enough to take a wife. It wasn’t what his brain wanted to do, it was what he felt obligated to complete; find Dave Ivy’s killers. Besides, dread gnawed at his innards over rolling out for Kansas. He closed his eyes tight at the notion.

  “I can wait for you,” she said, sounding serious.

  “Wait? You ain’t waiting for much.”

  She clutched his vest in both hands and shook him with amazing strength. “Yes, you are—to me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He grinned. “I won’t argue.”

  “Good,” she said, and climbed down. “Go sleep in your cold shed.” Under the cloak of blankets, she went through the gate and he laughed.

  “Darling, you really look beautiful mad.”

  She turned and glared at him in the pearly light. Then she smiled and melted away the cold air seeking him out. A kiss on her lips and she told him good night.

  He waited till she was inside the front door, then he drove the horse to the corral. A short while later he climbed under his pile of blankets and cussed his own stubbornness, drawn in a ball, waiting for his body heat to warm the shell.

  Chapter 21

  Christmas came and he gave her a woolen cape the millinery had made for her. She could wear it on the early part of the drive. It would be cold many of those first days going north. She swirled around in the cape and smiled at him.

  Rusty had shot a couple of wild turkeys, and the women stuffed them with sage and corn bread dressing that Ed recalled was like his mother’s when he was a youth. Yams, green beans, gravy, and biscuits topped out the noon menu, and they all ate till they were about to burst. Then she gave the crew their pocketknives and Rusty a silver watch.

  They all had small trinkets for her, to go on a shelf with the others. A small bear, a hand-carved mule with packs that Don Don had made for her, an elephant, some chickens, and longhorns made up the individual presents. She acted impressed by each one and they joined her “herd.”

  The boys chided Rusty about his timepiece, and the joke was to keep asking him what time it was. He took all that in stride, and they drifted off to town or the bunkhouse as the afternoon waned.

  Ed sat in a straight-back chair with his elbows on his legs and stared at the flames licking at the logs in the fireplace.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Unita said.

  He straightened and stretched, making a place for her on his lap. “You’d not get much.”

  “I like to hear what you’re thinking,” she said, seated on his legs and blowing on her coffee.

  “I wonder if those bushwhackers are still in the country. I’ll wander over to the ranch and be sure the boys are all right. It’ll take Jorge and Tina a week to make the trip back from Mexico. I better check on them boys.”

  “Can I go along?”

  “Reckon you can behave?”

  She shook her head at him in dismay.

  “My paw asked me that every time I wanted to go to town with him.”

  “And I bet you promised to behave every time.”

  “I did, and every time I got into something after we got there. If nothing else I got into a fistfight and came home skinned up or with a black eye. One time I was riding a wild billygoat on a dare and got thrown into a corral and split my head open. That time I was sore on both ends when Paw got through with me.”

  She laughed aloud and shook her head. “Ornery doesn’t even cover the subject.”

  He tried to dismiss it but didn’t win. “We can go up there after breakfast.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “I don’t want them back shooters harming you is all.”

  “Think they’re still in the country?”

  “No telling.” He hugged her tight and put his head to the side of hers. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

  She looked hard at the cup, ready to sip it. “You won’t.”

  No sign of any ambushers on the ride over to his place. He carried a Winchester on his knee and she’d stuck a double-barreled shotgun in her boot. No dogs were about when they rode in. He stuck a hand out for her to stay and slipped off the bay horse, the rifle cocked and ready. No sign of anyone. He undid the latch, then used the rifle’s muzzle to open the bunkhouse door. The boys’ blanket rolls were gone, and maybe they hadn’t come back. Unita was waving to him from the house and he looked around warily as he ran over there.

  “Your boys smoke cigars?” Then she pointed to the short butts that littered the porch around the hammock.

  “No. But whoever sat there must have been here for a day.”

  “Waiting, weren’t they?”

  “They might well have been.”

  He opened the door and frowned at the upset condition of the house. It had been ransacked, with flour all over the floor. Cabinets had been torn down. What were they looking for? Tina and Jorge lived there, and they had little money.

  “What were they after?” she asked.

  “Any damn thing they could find, which in this case wasn’t much. I better ride to Juan’s and see that the two boys are all right.”

  “You think they might have hurt them?”

  “I don’t know.” He let out a great sigh. “But I never imagined they’d bother the place.”

  “Poor Tina,” she said as they went out to the horses, “she’ll have a real mess to clean up when she gets home.”

  He agreed with a sharp nod. Those outlaws better find a hole to hide in, ’cause he was on the prowl for them. On the way out he pulled the door shut behind himself, storming mad as he went to the bay horse.

  They left at a short lope. A weak winter sun warmed the land as they rode for the small community south of his ranch. Past noon they looked down at the small bell tower crowned with a cross and the surrounding adobe jacals of San Juan. He checked his .44 and reholstered it, still seething mad about the mischief at his place. He turned and nodded to Unita as they rested their sweaty horses. The hard-breathing bay stomped around, impatient to be on his way again.

  “Do you know where they will be?” she asked.

  “No telling.” He tightened his grasp on the horn and stiffened his arm to rock in the saddle. Hard for him to believe that those Bradys had sent assassins all the way down there to kill him. But he’d gone damn near to Kansas to look for them. Maybe they were simply outlaws out to rob him—too many things unanswered.

  “Maybe—” He looked off at the brown hills in the west. Th
en he shook his head in surrender. There was no way he’d talk her into staying up there. “Keep an eye out and ride a few feet behind me in case I need to shoot to the side.”

  “Think they’re here?”

  “I’m too dumb to know, but they might be. I’ll check the cantina.”

  Despite the cold, half-naked, brown-skinned children stopped playing in the dusty street and looked in silent awe at the two riding past them. Several sharp-eyed Latino women pushed aside their blanket doors to observe them. Even the cur dogs sought shelter under a carreta or back in a space between the adobe building to bark at them. No horses or burros at the cantina rack. He dismounted and the north wind swept up enough dust to cause him to turn his back to it.

  “I’ll be right out,” he shouted at her and, bent over in the saddle, she nodded.

  He fought the latch and the flimsy door to pull it open. The flickering candlelight was dim inside and, though he didn’t expect an ambusher in there, he was ready for anything. Behind the bar a short, mustached man in an apron nodded to him.

  “I am looking for my men—Ramon and Raphael.”

  The man shook his head. “I have not seen them, Senor.”

  “They didn’t come here for Christmas?”

  The man’s slow head shake made his stomach roil. Something bad had happened to them. Nothing would keep them away—nothing but death. He stepped up to the bar and ordered a drink.

  The man poured him one. “I wondered where they were when they did not come to the baile on Christmas Eve. But no one has seen them.”

  He put two bits on the bar and downed the liquor in one breathtaking swallow. Hell, it would take gallons to drown his losses. Then he remembered Unita outside in the rising wind. “You have any food?”

  “Sίί, some enchiladas?”

  “My lady is outside. We have not eaten.”

  “I will have her fix you both some food. Bring her in. No one in here will offend her.”

  He nodded and set the glass on the bar. Pulling his hat brim down, he went outside and forced his way to where she huddled on Star. “Get down and come inside. He’s got food and we can get out of this wind.”

  Off the horse, with one hand to keep on her cowboy hat, she turned to him. “Have they seen the boys?”