Trail to Cottonwood Falls

by Ralph Compton

  “Aw, hell, Ed, he was one sure good feller.”

  Ed nodded. “And three hard ones led by one named Roho, he’s a Messican, rides with a breed and a full-blood.”

  “That’s easy. They’re at a small place called Wichita up on the Arkansas.”

  “You sure?”

  “Hell—excuse me, ma’am. My maw’d washed my mouth out with lye soap, talking like that in front of a lady, but I’ve been sleeping with the hoot owls too long.” Freddie Lynn shook his head, took off his hat again, and with his fingers combed his too-long greasy brown hair back. “They was there three days ago. Tough bunch. Denned up in the La Paloma Saloon.”

  “They hung two of my cowboys, I guess for spite, when I was gone on business.”

  “Aw, damn. You better take lots of help with you. They’ve got a bad reputation. They say Judge Parker’s men won’t touch them.”

  “That tough, huh?” Ed wondered how he’d handle them. One problem—one ranger.

  Freddie Lynn nodded with a serious look written on his face. “I ain’t no gun hand, but I’d go with you. You gave me my first job coming up here, and I owe you.”

  “No, Freddie Lynn, you get back to Texas and bring another herd up the trail. Blocker’s got one waiting for you?”

  “He said he did.”

  “Rest up overnight in our camp. Ich and Shorty are riding swing for her. You’ll want to talk to them. The chuck outfit’s coming.”

  Freddie Lynn blinked at his words. “You said she?”

  “That’s the boss lady.” Ed hooked a thumb at her.

  “Ma’am, you got some of the best help I know of on the trail. I hope I can find that good a help down there for my drive back up here.”

  She smiled and laughed. “I wasn’t easy.”

  They spent the next few hours exchanging stories about things that had happened to them. How Freddie Lynn near froze to death wintering two thousand longhorns in southern Kansas. His experiences in snow and ice made them laugh until they cried.

  After Caudle arrived, they snaked him in all the wood they could locate. It was a big reunion after the herd was spread out and Shorty rode into camp with Ich and found their old compadre.

  “What will you do about them?” she asked when they were aside by themselves, drinking fresh coffee.

  He blew the steam off his cup and looked across the acres of the black-brown mass, with heads down, busy grazing. A few were lost and bawling for their own. He nodded at last, fully decided. “Ride up there and settle with ’em.”

  “I’m going too.”

  He looked sharply at her. “No way. Ich and the boys can get these cattle to Newton from here. You’re within a month of reaching your goal. Don’t be foolish.”

  “So I can go back to Texas and pay off the bankers and live like an old maid, rocking on the front porch.”

  “There’s plenty of deserving—”

  “I don’t give a damn. You ride out, I go along.” At a loss for words, he shook his head vehemently. “There’s no damn way.”

  “I’m sticking like a tick.”

  Her look melted away any arguing. Damn bossy woman, anyway.

  “When do you plan to go up there?” she asked.

  “In the morning.” He had to figure a way to get her to stay with the herd. That was all there was to it.

  “How long can the cattle graze here?”

  “You can move them north like a carpet each day.”

  “I can put Ich in charge, can’t I?”

  He shrugged and looked away. “Your herd. Your call.”

  Her eyes narrowed and a stern look filled her face. She caught him by the gallowses and jerked him close to her face. “Ride off without me. I’ll find you, damn it, Ed Wright. I’m going to Wichita with you, like it or not.”

  Ed nodded, set his cup on the fly and headed for the brush. If he ever had needed whiskey—Right then he needed a barrel of it. Why couldn’t he drill any sense in her pretty head? Thoughts of carrying her limp, dead body in his arms up some dusty street made him shudder under his shirt.

  He found a place to sit with his back to a walnut tree and looked off to the north in the warm sun. He hugged his knees and visions of whiskey passed through his thoughts. At a soft shuffle in the grass he about jumped, and Blondie squatted down by him.

  “I will ride with you.”

  He frowned at the youth. “You do a good job wrangling horses. Stay here.”

  “No, I tell them I would go.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  “Boss woman. She agreed and gave me a rifle.”

  “Good, then she’s not going.” He felt relieved. That was settled.

  “No.”

  “No? What the hell do you mean, no?”

  “She says she’s going.”

  “Why are you going along?”

  “I could be dead in Mexico. You and her treat me like I am your son.”

  Ed shook his head. “You could be killed. These men are killers.”

  Blondie rubbed his palms on his pants and nodded. “I am like her. I am going.”

  So he’d have a beautiful woman and a Comanche captive kid tagging along. He never should have said a word to anyone, just ridden up there and settled it. She’d known anyway. If only he hadn’t given away all that damn whiskey acting like some kind of reformed preacher. Oh. God help me.

  Chapter 28

  Wichita’s few false-front buildings sat scattered under the buttermilk sky across the shallow and wide Arkansas. A couple of saloons, a two-story cathouse, and three businesses marked the place on the trail. Many a cattle outfit lost a hand or two at the outpost in passing, either to the charms of some dove or the derringer of some gambler in a crooked card game. Others’ bodies would be found downstream, facedown in the dingy Arkansas—killed for whatever was on them.

  Ed knew from the buttermilk sky that it would be sure to rain before nightfall. He’d thought about going in after sundown, but decided that crossing the river that late might be dangerous. He put Blondie in the lead and sent Unita into the water after him. He and the roan brought up the rear.

  A quick check behind and he sent the roan after them. The crossing proved easy and the horses shook hard on the far side. The spray caused him to smile at her and then shake his head in disbelief over what he was doing there; then he booted the roan up to Blondie.

  “Remember, the Indian may be outside.”

  “You ever seen him?”

  “No, but a dove told me their names. Roho is a loud Mexican with a mustache. Hatchet is a shifty-eyed breed, and she figured Warlock was a Comanche, though some said he was an Apache. But she claimed he wasn’t one because she knew them.”

  Blondie used his fingers and repeated their names. Then he nodded. “I will be in back.”

  “These men are killers. If you must shoot, shoot to kill them.”

  Blondie nodded, resting the rifle butt on his right leg, and booted his paint up behind the buildings. Ed sat the roan and wondered what else he should have told him. Nothing. Then he realized Unita sat Star and was beside him.

  “You hitch your horse at the store. Take the shotgun and start down the boardwalk. Don’t shoot less you have to. Don’t go past that second saloon.”

  She nodded. “I suppose you’re going to wade in there.”

  “I suppose someone needs to.”

  Visually upset, she shook her head in disbelief. “Ed, damn it, be careful.”

  “I will,” he quietly promised her and booted the roan up the empty street. Three horses stood hip shot in the bloody light of the setting sun at the rack. They were the only ones in sight. A swamper came out of the first saloon and tossed a pail of slop water in the dust. He gave Ed a hard look as he rode past and spat tobacco off the boardwalk, then went back inside.

  He slipped off the roan and dropped the reins a yard or so from the hip-shot horses at the rack. The roan would be there later. The huge horn of the Mexican saddle on one of the winter-poor, long-haired broncs t
old him enough. The killers would be inside. Probably all three. Ed stiffened his spine and shifted the Colt on his waist.

  He stepped through the batwing doors and let his eyes adjust to the dim candlelight and went to the bar. In the back of the smoky room he saw a sombrero’s outline, and a man rose to his feet with the sound of chair legs scraping the floor.

  “What’s your brand of pizzen?” the bartender asked Ed.

  “Whiskey—got any good kind?”

  “Hell, no, but I got some.”

  Ed nodded that that would do. “Set the bottle up.”

  He could hear the ring of the sombrero wearer’s spurs jingling as he came from the back. With the left side of his hip to the bar, his holster and gun hand were open. He could see the man’s approach in the back mirror and poured himself some liquor in the glass.

  “Ah,” the mustached one said. “Senor, you must bring the cattle, no?”

  Ed never answered him. He wished he had a better idea where the other two were back there. He’d seen one silhouette, but wasn’t sure if there was another. Then Roho bellied up to the bar and ordered a cigar.

  “The cat, she got your tongue?” Roho started to turn, but his eyes flew open at the sight of the pistol in Ed’s fist.

  “Roho?”

  “Sίί—”

  The Colt bucked in Ed’s hand. The bullet struck the outlaw in the forehead, and the deafening explosion made Ed’s ears ring. Percussion from his shot put out the candles. A cloud of acrid, eye-burning gun smoke filled the room, dark save for the light coming in the front doorway.

  A chair scraped the floor and someone rushed across the room. On his knee at the bar, Ed aimed his Colt toward the back of the inky saloon, expecting the one on the move to crack open a back door when he did not shoot.

  “Bartender,” Ed ordered. “Run out the front door with your hands in the air, or get ready to meet your maker.”

  “Don’t shoot.”

  “She won’t if you keep your hands high.”

  The back door opened then and Ed fired at an outline. Two rifle reports from outside cut the figure down. Ed’s eyes were seared by the gun smoke and watering. He could hear Unita outside, ordering the bartender to get facedown in the street.

  “Blondie?” Ed called out in Spanish. “You see the Injun?”

  “He’s out here.”

  “Then we’ve got them?”

  “Sίί.”

  He rose on sea legs, used his left hand on the bar to steady himself, and headed for the light from the open back door. The heavy weight of the cocked Colt in his right hand, he walked across the gritty floor and used his boot toe to nudge the breed sprawled on his back. His blank, open eyes staring at eternity told him enough. Like Roho, he’d hang no more innocent ranch hands.

  Blondie squatted a few yards from the back door.

  “Where is the—” Ed saw the facedown body of the third one with his braids exposed and the back of his skull bashed in until pink-tinged brains leaked on the dust-soiled black hair.

  With a head toss for Blondie to join him, Ed headed back inside. He could hear Unita calling to him.

  “I’m coming, Boss Lady,” he said, and headed through the door.

  “You all right?” she asked, out of breath and about to collide with him.

  “Sure, and so is Blondie.” He came back inside with a wave to his man.

  “What should I do with him?” she asked.

  The saucer-eyed bartender stood behind her, his hands reaching for the clouds. Ed about laughed. “Uncock the scattergun. We’ll save him to set two more glasses up, have us a drink and try to scare up some food.”

  She put the shotgun on the bar, and drew her head up as if her entire back was stiff. “It’s over?”

  “Yes—all over. What’s your name?” he asked the bartender.

  “Gustoff.”

  “Gustoff, I’m going to give you ten dollars to dig a hole and toss all three of them in it.” He slapped the gold coin on the bar.

  “One grave?”

  “One’s enough for that worthless trash. Watch you don’t step on him,” Ed said to Blondie when he joined them and had to step over Roho.

  Ed poured them each two fingers in the glasses and put the cork back. “We won’t need that anymore. How much we owe you for the whiskey?”

  “Nothing. Nothing.”

  Ed raised his glass. “Here’s to lots better times—God, I hope so.”

  He watched Unita blink, swallowing hers, and then her arm encircled his waist and hugged him to her. Damn that felt good.

  “Blondie, it’s been a long day. Thanks.”

  Stiff lipped, Blondie nodded. “You need me, you call.” Then he downed the last of the whiskey in his glass like it was water.

  They rejoined the herd the next afternoon. Caudle looked up from his cooking and the campfire smoke swirling around his knees and the bottom of his apron. “Well, you find ’em?”

  Ed nodded and dropped off the roan. He looked over at Unita as she swung down. She must be tired. They’d made a whirlwind ride up there and back. Blondie never stopped in camp. He went out and sent back the puncher who had been looking after his remuda.

  Ed took Unita’s horse and went to unsaddling. She quietly thanked him and headed for her tent to freshen up before the evening meal.

  “Well, well, damn it are they dead?”

  Ed looked at Caudle and nodded. “They won’t kill no one else.”

  “Have a hard time?”

  He stopped unlacing the wet latigos and looked at them. “Caudle, it ain’t ever easy killing men, even worthless ones like them.”

  “Hell, I was just asking.” He stalked off to rattle his Dutch oven lids and complain out loud about asking a simple question and expecting a simple answer.

  Ed lifted the saddle and pads off the roan, and the nose-burning smell of hot ammonia escaping the horse’s back stung his nose. Nothing simple about killing either.

  Chapter 29

  Maybe his life simply grew easier. They’d crossed the broad Arkansas wide of Wichita, and never lost a steer or rider. Ed had seen that Crabtree’s outfit was about to catch them, so he pushed east some to let them pass. He wanted plenty of graze while they arranged a sale, and it spared their herd from getting mixed with any of the others, a thing he dreaded for all the hard work involved in separating them.

  Cattle settled on some good graze, though the new grass was still short up there. He and Unita headed for Newton the next day. Ed considered the truth of a cattle drive was in the receipts. He rode with her into the tent city set up on the newly staked-out streets. Every pickpocket, tinhorn, con man, demi-monde, and other professional women from Abilene had descended on the small community beside Cottonwood Falls and the fresh boards and posts smelling of pitch in the shipping pens Joe McCoy had built over the winter along the new spur siding of the Atchison-Topeka Railroad.

  He rode the roan up the crowded street with her, looking for two men he’d never met or seen that he knew about. If they were in Newton he’d find them. Shots rang out and his hand struck his gun butt in reflex as he swiveled around in the saddle, searching for the source.

  “It’s only some drunk,” she said to settle him.

  He could see the shooter by then. In a red silk shirt, pants tucked in his knee-high boots, he stood outside a tent and whooped, waving his hat in one hand and shooting holes in the sky with the other. If Newton didn’t hire Wild Bill Hickok or his equal at once to put the rowdies down, they’d take this tent city over. No sign of law anywhere around—Newton would be wide open without some tough men behind badges to keep them in line.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking this place will be pure hell by the time the herds arrive up here.”

  “I hope we are gone by then.”

  He agreed and they rode on. Schroeder Commission Company had hoisted up a freshly painted sign on two tall posts and he pointed to it. It was in a smaller tent than the nearby
dance hall.

  He found Les Schroeder inside unpacking his office.

  “Well, Ed Wright. How’s Texas?”

  “Last I seen of it, fine. Meet Unita Nance. She’s got about two thousand steers to sell. How’s the market?”

  “Ten cents a pound, if they have those new scales done. Joe McCoy said they’d be working this week.”

  “Can’t get twelve cents for some good ones?”

  Les looked at him and grinned. “Hard man to trade with. I’ll check the telegraph in an hour. You staying at the Cattleman’s Hotel?”

  Ed shook his head. “We were going back to the herd after we found someone needed our herd at twelve cents.”

  “Aw, give me a chance. You never brought a bunch of culls with cows mixed in with them up the trail. I’d like to buy them and see how stout those pens Joe built this winter are. I was down here in January getting this site and I never figured then he’d do it. But he has.”

  Ed nodded. “They sure need some law.”

  “Law?” Les laughed. “They can’t keep a marshal. They quit after the first night.”

  “They need to hire a Wild Bill.”

  “There ain’t many like him. You want the job?”

  “Not for what they must pay.”

  “You were a Texas Ranger, right?”

  “Mister,” Unita interrupted, “we came to sell cattle, not pin a badge on Ed. Besides, he has a place down in Texas now that needs him.”

  Les blinked at her. “Yes, ma’am. I’m going to the telegraph office, and will be back here in a short while with an answer on the cattle from my boss in Chicago.”

  He produced a bottle of whiskey and some tumblers, and set them on his desk. “Here, help yourself while I run down there and check the telegraph. Have a seat.”

  “Thanks,” she said, looking at the canvas camp folding chairs and nodding.

  Ed flopped on one when Les left them alone. He watched her go to the open flap and stand in the sunlight. Then she turned back and looked at him.

  “You weren’t serious about wearing a badge here, were you?”

  “No. I want those Bradys brought to justice and then I’d be satisfied.” He dropped his gaze to his dusty boots and shook his head in deep concentration. “No. No, a marshal’s job doesn’t appeal to me.”