Red Trail

by John Shirley

  “Where the dickens you going?” Pug called, hurrying after him.

  “Just want to have a look,” Mase said.

  “I’m coming with you, boss!” Rufus said, running up behind them.

  “Just stay out of my way, then,” Mase said. “I want to see any tracks there might be.”

  “You think someone was up there,” Pug asked as they traipsed toward the cliffside, “and . . . done this a-purpose?”

  “I don’t know,” Mase said. “Could be. Kind of a big coincidence, that rock deciding to come loose while we’re camped right below . . .”

  “The cattle could’ve done something to shake it loose.”

  “They’re not butting that slope, Pug.”

  They reached the bottom of the cliff, which was clumped up with a mound of old rubble and eroded soil, spotted with prickly pear cactuses. Vinder was standing by the mound, staring up at the cliff, scratching his head.

  “You see anybody, Vinder?” Mase asked.

  “No, sir, boss—I heard the dang thing comin’ down, and it passed me by. About made me jump out of my boots! I was walking by right here on the way to the camp. Trying to see if anything more’s coming down—or anybody’s up there.” He shook his head. “Not a thing.”

  Mase held the lantern up over the ground, found an old animal trail and mountain goat tracks. “Could be some old ram knocked that chunk of rock loose . . .”

  “Haven’t seen any of the critters hereabouts,” Pug said, looking at the ground. “Those goat tracks are old.”

  Mase started up the thin trail over the mound, looking for footprints of a different kind. He found some scuff marks that did look like they might’ve been left by boots. And it looked like they went up from the camp. But the ground was steep there, and the soil had come loose, blotting out most of the markings. He couldn’t be sure they were the prints of boots.

  How could they be coming from the camp, after all? They’d have seen anyone sneaking through. There was scarce any room to get past the herd.

  He ascended a bit higher and saw a place where a shrub had been half pulled out of the cliffside. By a climber or some animal?

  Looking up the thin, zigzagging trail, he lost sight of it partway in shadow. It seemed to him that even one of his own men could have gotten up to those high rocks without being seen.

  Mase shook his head. Just didn’t seem possible that it could have been one of his hands. Must have been the rustlers.

  He turned and, half sliding, descended to the flat ground nearby. “Too dark up there to go any farther right now,” he said, returning to Pug and Rufus. “But somebody sure could’ve been there.”

  “You think it was that Fletcher bunch?” Rufus asked.

  “Could’ve been. Or maybe just a mountain goat. We’ll increase the watch tonight. I’ll join the first one.”

  He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep much tonight, anyway. . . .

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Forty-one days into the drive to Wichita.

  The canyon opened up that morning, becoming several times wider and offering patches of graze for the herd. Mase and his drovers felt like a man with claustrophobia released from a locked room as they drove the herd into the broader trail. The red cliffs were still surrounding them but farther off, and it was possible to ride swing on the herd now. Bawling and mooing, hooves clattering and thumping, the herd moved on to the north.

  But Mase had a fresh worry now. As he rode point, not far in front of the herd, he watched the hulking black rain clouds moving in from the northwest. He didn’t see any clear signs that there were flash floods in this canyon in the past, but it was raining a dickens of a lot this year. Mase wondered if he had taken too big a chance on the Red Trail. Maybe he was going to have to dig some graves soon for men who’d drowned, for men crushed by a panicky herd in a storm. At the same time, he was constantly scanning the cliff tops for signs of bushwhackers.

  Mase kept remembering that boulder flying past, those boot tracks on the game trail leading up the cliffs. Had they been boot tracks? He hadn’t been certain. He remembered, too, the errant bullet that had skinned his hip the night the rustlers had struck. Had someone been trying to shoot him in the back?

  And then he had Katie and Jim to think on. Were they safe? There had been that talk of Harning taking the ranch to court. Mase remembered Harning stopping him in the street one warm afternoon last year in Fuente Verde. The rancher had demanded to see the Durst Ranch deed.

  Mase had stared at him in astonishment. “What put it into your mind that you’ve got the right to make that demand, Harning?” he’d asked.

  “I’ve heard you’re homesteading without a deed, is what,” said Harning, scowling.

  “The devil we are!” Mase told him. “You get a judge to tell me I’ve got to show you, and then I’ll do it.”

  And Harning had indeed gone to court. Judge Murray, who was a lick too friendly with the big local landowners, had played along, and Mase had brought in the deed. Harning had scarcely looked at it. “Why, anyone could have cooked up that paper!”

  “Looks legal to me,” Murray told him a little regretfully.

  Harning had snorted and stomped out of the courtroom. . . .

  Mase shook his head. What would such a man be putting Katie through with her all alone back home?

  * * *

  * * *

  The gate to Durst ranch was an eighth of a mile away from the house. But the land between was flat and largely empty, and the day was bright and clear, so Katie could see the buggy stopping out there. The horse looked like one of the tall, high-stepping horses that the Circle H favored for its buckboard and buggy.

  Curly, who was looking after the cows and their calves with Jim and Hector, had tied the gate shut with leather straps to discourage Harning’s men from riding up to the house. Whoever was in the buggy seemed to be considering whether they should try to open the gate.

  Katie had ridden with Jim along the fences this morning, and Bonnie was still tied up at the water trough nearby. Katie climbed into the saddle and rode out at a canter toward the gate.

  As she got closer, she made out Gertrude Harning alone, standing by the gate. Mrs. Harning was wearing an ankle-length lavender dress with puffy sleeves, and a matching hat and gloves. Gertie waved, and Katie waved back. She could see into the buggy now. Harning wasn’t there.

  Feeling more relaxed since it was only Gertie, Katie reached the gate and dismounted. “Hello, Gertie. Would you like to come for some tea?”

  “I would at that, Katie. I thank you.”

  Katie went to the leather straps, took a couple minutes unknotting them, and then opened the gate. “Just bring the buggy on down.”

  She remounted, and in a few minutes, Gertie was sitting at the kitchen table, and Katie was using the pump at the sink to fill the teapot. She’d already lit the kindling in the stove, and the water was soon heating up.

  “Gertrude, how are Mary and Len?” Katie asked as she took her best china cups and saucers from the cabinet.

  “Oh, they’re hale enough,” Gertie said, shifting uneasily in her chair. “And certainly they’re full of beans and vinegar, always rushing. I do get Len to the school—it’s a long ride for him, but he goes. But that boy needs a tutor. He’s got a quick mind but doesn’t take to reading easily. Mary’s a scamp and a bit of a tomboy.”

  “I was a bit of a tomboy myself,” Katie said, putting out the china, along with spoons and the sugar bowl—after she made certain there were no ants in it. “I’ve considered sending Jim to the school—maybe next year he might go. It would be good for him to learn how to be mannerly with a teacher. He doesn’t much see folks except for us on the ranch, and he’s what my mama would have called unpolished.”

  Katie badly wanted to ask what had brought Gertie here, but she held herself back. Their hus
bands being at odds, social calls between the two ranches simply did not occur. They knew each other only from church and the occasional chance encounter at the milliner. Today, a certain pensiveness in Gertie suggested she was here on a personal errand.

  An uncomfortable silence grew as Katie watched the tea water seething. Gertie glanced around the kitchen.

  “It’s a nice bright kitchen,” Gertie said at length as if searching for a compliment.

  Katie smiled, stirring the tea in the kettle with a wooden spoon. She’d seen the Harning ranch house and knew it to be two stories and five times the size of her four-room home. “I insisted that Mase put two windows in the kitchen. I will not abide gloom in a room where I must spend so much time.”

  She poured the tea and sat down across from Gertie. “Well, Gertrude, I am glad you’ve come.” She passed over the sugar bowl. “But I must say it’s your first time here. Was there anything bringing you today?”

  “Why, I thought . . .” She took a deep breath and said, “I don’t quite know how to explain, Katie.” She gave Katie a look that was almost imploring. “Can I confide in you discreetly?”

  “Of course, Gertrude! I am many things—but no gossip!”

  Gertrude sighed. “There is a great distance between myself and my husband. I feel as if I have fallen into a trap in marrying him. Is that wicked to say?”

  Katie shook her head. “It’s scarcely a novelty. I’ve known many a woman to feel the same. I’m lucky to have found Mase.”

  “A woman normally takes her husband’s part. But I cannot always do so. I know that Tom is on the—on the wrong side of the fence in this matter between him and your husband. I know, too, that he’s hired a man who seems to do little but laze about, waiting for an order to use his gun. That man . . .”

  “Clement Adams?”

  “Yes.” Gertie’s eyes widened. “You’ve met him?”

  “He came here with Andy Pike and that Sullivan. Adams came out with some pretty sharp warnings and pointed a gun at my hired man. I think if things had gone a whisker different, he might have killed Curly on the spot.”

  Gertie closed her eyes and compressed her lips. “Mother Mary, preserve us!” Then she looked at Katie with a new determination showing in her eyes. “Katie. I am sorry!”

  “No harm was done.” Except to my peace of mind, she thought. “But it made me wonder how far your husband would go!”

  “I don’t know myself,” Gertie said, almost whispering. She took a sip of the tea and then said, “But, Katie—I am afraid for you. And for your husband.”

  Katie leaned toward her. “Is there something you want to tell me about that, Gertie? Something particular, like?”

  “I . . . cannot. I don’t want to lose my children. . . .”

  “Lose your children!”

  “I cannot explain fully. But, Katie—I am looking for ways to help you. And while there are certain kinds of testimony I dare not give—the time might come when there are other things I can speak of. Yes, and to a judge! The moment would have to be right. But I want you to know that if I can help you . . . I will. For I cannot rest at night for fear of what Tom might do. And not only to you and Mase . . .”

  They drank a little tea in silence, Katie giving thought to how she might persuade Gertie to reveal more.

  But then Gertrude gave out a soft little moan, pushed her tea cup away, and stood up.

  “I thank you for the hospitality. It has been a joy. Perhaps we can talk again after church sometime. If we have something to say on this matter . . .”

  “Gertrude—wait.”

  “I cannot. I cannot trust myself to . . . not yet, Katie.”

  She went to the door, almost too rapidly for courtesy, opened it, and turned back just long enough to say, “If I can help—I will. I do want you to know that. God bless you now!”

  Then she almost ran to her buggy, urged the horse into motion, and drove quickly away from the house.

  * * *

  * * *

  In the late afternoon, Mase shot a small pronghorn antelope up the trail. He let its carcass bleed out and tied it over his stallion’s rump. He figured on handing it over to Dollager.

  Mase rode back to the herd, smelling rain in the air. He knew the storm was coming. He looked up at the sky and saw the lowering dark clouds and was surprised they hadn’t yet cut loose.

  He rode up to the chuck wagon and saw the oxen released from their yokes grazing contentedly nearby. Dollager had already stacked up a good deal of wood within a fire ring and had the sense to drape a large piece of canvas over it in case the rain started. But where was the cook? Mase cut the antelope loose, dropping it close to the fire circle, and rode toward the herd.

  The cattle were settled down in a circular field of grass scattered with coneflowers and sumac shrubs, with here and there a cluster of Jerusalem artichokes. Close to the herd, Dollager and East Wind were sawing into the large spiky wild plants. Beside them was a leather bag stuffed with other greens.

  “I brought you an antelope, coosie,” Mase said. “What have you there?”

  “Jerusalem artichoke. Grows wild about here but I hadn’t noticed till East Wind pointed it out,” Dollager said. “He has also shown me the uses of prickly pear, which I shall use in a goulash, and rock cress.”

  “Was a time before I started with you, I’d had-a died without the prickly pear,” said East Wind, sawing away with a serrated knife.

  “Best start on the meal soon, for it’s going to rain,” said Mase.

  East Wind nodded. “Rain for true and certain. Big rain.”

  “Right you are, Mr. Durst,” Dollager said, tossing artichokes into the bag. “Come on, East Wind. You can assist me.”

  “Unless I am to watch the herd,” East Wind said, looking up at Mase inquiringly.

  “A good meal is what I want,” said Mase. “You can butcher that antelope.”

  Mase rode off to the tail end of the herd to find Pug and Jacob mounted up and running a couple of stray yearlings back into the bunch.

  “How’s the trail look up ahead?” Pug asked, reining in beside him.

  “Wild and rugged and starting to narrow some. And there’s a river up there—a narrow one but deep looking. Looks like it’s only there part of the year.”

  “Can we swim the herd over, you think, boss?” Jacob asked, rubbing his chin.

  “Maybe. If it doesn’t start raising hell after the rainstorm.” He looked up at the sky—just in time to get fat drops of rain right in the eyes. “Damn it!” He wiped his eyes. “Here it comes, and the herd will get twitchy, Pug. Let’s circle round ’em, keep ’em contained till it lets up some.”

  The rain became steady, lashed by a rising wind, and soon became a deluge as the men circled the herd, Pug calling out all the drovers except East Wind to help, shouting at them to put on their slickers. Heads bowed against the steadily drumming rain, they called out reassurances to the cattle, and drove the few bunch quitters back to the herd.

  The rainfall kept coming, sheets of it sweeping over them; the herd was jumpy, and it was continual work to hold it in place. Every drover had to change horses at the remuda after a couple hours, the animals exhausted by the constant activity and the endless weight of the riders. The men were drooping in their saddles, muttering to themselves—the drumming of the rain on their hats was making them as twitchy as the herd. Mase was watching the ground, afraid the camp would be washed out. They might even get a flood surge. But the ground was slanted enough that it shed the water downhill from them, though sometimes it came up past the hooves of their mounts.

  After almost four hours, the rain let up, becoming a wind-whipped drizzle, and Mase started taking men off the herd, sending them to the chuck wagon for rest and food. With the rain’s letup, Dollager had started the fire but he was still cooking, so at first the cowboys only got hardtack
with blackstrap and salted beef. Mase tried to send all the men in, while he kept watch on the herd, but Rufus refused to go till Mase had his turn.

  Mase thought about giving Rufus a stern order but decided against it. He didn’t want to discourage loyalty or self-sacrifice in a young man.

  Limp with fatigue, Mase rode into camp, just as the goulash was being served out. It was late for supper, but the men were glad to get it. Antelope meat, spiced with salt, pepper, and prickly pear, filled out by rock watercress, the edible parts of the artichokes, wild onions, and the few remaining potatoes. Mase was amazed at how good it was.

  “Coosie, you sure have outdone yourself,” he said.

  Everyone looked at him with astonishment. Mase rarely gave out shiny compliments.

  Dollager chuckled. “Glad to be of service, milord.”

  “It surely is fine vittles,” said Jacob, nodding.

  East Wind finished his meal and said, “I’ll go out and relieve Rufus.” He didn’t ask for permission. He just jumped on Jacob’s mule—they had an understanding about that—and cantered out to the job.

  “He’s run off with your mule again, Jacob,” Ray observed.

  “Why,” said Jacob, grinning, “she’s taken a shine to him. He’s a good ’un, that Injun boy. Haven’t ridden with a better.”

  Ray nodded. “I expect that Mase figured right on him after all. And he helped us out with that Cloudy Moon. But of course he can cowboy—them Indians learn to ride and rope pretty young. I knew one was still a papoose who used to ride a foal and catch rabbits with a string—”

  The men groaned and shook their heads. Then they laughed.

  The next morning dawned clear and blue, and Mase declared they’d have a morning for drying clothes, mending, and grooming. Some of the men needed a shave and a haircut badly; he was sorry he hadn’t made a rule about grooming, since long hair and beards increased the risk of lice in the camp. Cleaning up was good for morale, too.

  Dollager discovered that he was expected to be the camp barber. Shears in hand, he took up the additional post cheerfully enough, explaining, “Why, I was company barber in India before I was a cook.”