Red Trail

by John Shirley

  She heard a horse’s hooves approaching from the direction of the creek. Curly. She noticed Adams and Pike looking in that direction.

  Glancing over, she saw Curly, rifle in hand, riding up to the water trough. He jumped down and crouched, rifle in hand, behind the water trough near the corner of the barn.

  Adams glared at Curly. “I don’t like that man over there pointing his gun at me.”

  “Curly—hold your fire! Just keep an eye on them!” Katie called out.

  “Yes, senora!”

  “Katie, are you going to send my family out to me, or am I going to fight my way in there?” Harning demanded.

  “They’re not here!” Katie shouted. “You put that gun down, and I’ll let you look! Only you! None of the others!”

  Harning bared his teeth at her. But then he turned and angrily jammed his gun into his saddlebag. He dismounted and stalked toward her.

  Katie backed into the house, stepped out of view, and lowered the rifle. “Come on in, Harning. You’ll be safe if you behave yourself!”

  The rifle was cocked and ready, and she was standing out of his reach as Harning came striding in, his boots creaking heavily on the wooden floors. “Gertrude!” he called. “Len! Mary!”

  He listened to the silence of the house and then rushed from room to room, looking for them. At last he returned to her, eyes narrowed. “Where’s this root cellar of yours?”

  “Back door out of the kitchen. There’s a porch out there where I do my washing. On your left there’s a trapdoor.”

  “How am I to go down there without you locking me in?”

  “Take the lantern on the back porch and light it. Shine the lantern in and have a look. You can see what’s there. Not much. A ladder and some shelves, a few gunnysacks.”

  He turned away, made his way through the kitchen as Katie followed behind. She glanced over her shoulder to see if the others were creeping in behind her. No one there so far.

  She followed Harning to the back porch, saw him peering down into the root cellar, lantern in hand.

  He shook his head and turned back to her. “They could be in the barn.”

  She sighed. “Your men might shoot me if I was to march you over there to look.”

  “They won’t. Your man is there.”

  She shrugged. “All right. Put down the lantern, head on back, and we’ll go over to the barn.”

  He hung up the lantern and walked over the dusty ground behind the house. Her pulse thudding, feeling the other men watching her from their horses, she came along after him around the back corner of the house toward the barn. She held the rifle down at hip height, pointed at Harning’s back. They got to the barn, and she let Harning look through it on his own. She waited, watching Adams, Sullivan, and Pike.

  Sullivan grinned at her. “Fine figure of a woman. Tough, too. You get tired of that husband running off to Wichita, you look me up, lady!”

  “Shut up, you damned fool,” Adams growled.

  Harning came out of the barn. “For God’s sake, Katie Durst—where is she?” he pleaded.

  Katie decided that what little she knew wouldn’t help him find Gertrude. “I got a letter from her. You can look at that. She went to Lavinia’s, but when your man got there, they’d already left. Lavinia took them to another town, a big one, where she has a friend. She doesn’t name the town. You won’t find them.”

  Harning sniffed and wiped sweat from his forehead. Then he said, “I believe you. But you’re still going to have to leave this house.”

  “The law isn’t with you, Tom,” she said, shaking her head sadly. His obsession had made him thickheaded. He just refused to see. “Just bunking your men on my land won’t make it yours.”

  “I’ve got a friend in the governor’s office. He’s going to fix it up for me. My lawyer says—”

  “Your lawyer’s taking your money in exchange for bad advice!” she interrupted sharply. “Get off my land, Tom Harning!” A hot fury was rising up in her, bringing her rifle up with it—she tucked it against her shoulder and sighted it on Harning’s face. He was just five feet away. “Go on! Back to your horse!”

  “You wouldn’t dare. Not with those men there.”

  She saw Marty and Gwendoline Smoles in a buckboard coming down the road from the gate now.

  “Don’t test me!” Katie shouted. “I’ve had enough, and I’m plenty mad!”

  Harning’s face reddened, but he looked into her rifle’s unwavering muzzle and turned away, walking stiffly to his horse.

  “You heard the lady!” Curly called out. “All of you, go!”

  Then she saw that Harning wasn’t getting on the horse. He was pulling his gun from his saddlebag. He was turning toward her—

  Curly fired, and Harning shouted in pain. Adams drew his gun, swiveled in his saddle, aiming at Curly—as Katie swung her rifle over and squeezed the trigger. Adams arched his back, his head snapping back, and his own shot went wild, smacking into the water trough. Harning was going to his knees, firing into the dirt as Curly fired at Andy Pike, who fired back, missing.

  Pike turned his horse to ride off toward the gate as Red Sullivan fired at Katie, the bullet cracking by her head. Curly fired at Sullivan, and he twisted in his saddle and slipped heavily to the ground.

  And Tom Harning fell flat on his face.

  There were the sounds of Pike’s galloping horse, Sullivan groaning, the horses neighing, and water spurting onto the ground from the bullet hole in the trough.

  But the guns were silent now as Katie stared around at the dead and dying.

  * * *

  * * *

  The afternoon was overcast, the clouds dark. Katie had some hope it might rain. It would be good for the garden.

  She kept hoeing, just to keep her mind on something. She still felt shaky from the gunfight, though it had been two days ago. Uncle Forrest would be back soon with news from the court. She was fairly sure she knew what that news would be.

  She kept slashing at the weeds, wondering when she was going to hear from Mase. He should have found some way to get word to her. She was feeling more alone than ever before. . . .

  “Pa!” Jim shouted.

  Katie looked up from the garden. Jim was running toward the gate where two riders were coming through. She knew Mase instantly from his posture on the horse, the outline of him. The other man, skinny as a rail, didn’t seem familiar.

  All this was totting up at the back of her mind as she walked toward him, slowly at first and then faster. Realizing she still had the hoe in her hands, she tossed it aside and ran after Jim.

  Mase galloped up to them, and she’d never seen anyone but a trick rider dismount so fast. He scooped Jim up in his arms, hugged him, and then held him with one arm as the other went around Katie.

  He was big and warm and strong and unhurt. He was back.

  After a time, she realized Mase was talking. Somehow, through a mist of tears and welling emotion, Katie understood that he and their new ranch hand, Rufus, were tired and hungry. He was asking if they could find something to eat in the house. And maybe a glass of brandy if they had any left. Taking his hand, she led him toward the house.

  “Rufus,” Mase said, “just take those horses to the barn, unsaddle them, and come on in the house.” Rufus took the stallion by the reins and trotted to the barn.

  Mase and Katie walked Jim on to the house on either side of him, not letting go of his hands.

  The men ate a late lunch at the dinner table. Katie sat across from them, gazing at Mase with a mixture of longing and suffused joy, and Jim sat close beside him, listening wide-eyed to Rufus. Between bites of chicken stew, Rufus was telling them the story of the drive. How Mase had saved his life at the Red River, how they’d built a bridge over another torrent. He told them of Vinder’s treachery, and how they’d had to face down the Fletcher bu
nch three times in all, and how the last time had ended. He spoke more softly of the sad fate of Harry Duff.

  “You blowed up a ridge, Pa?” Jim asked in amazement.

  Mase winced. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Was some risk to it. I don’t recommend you fool with dynamite, son. Mighty dangerous.”

  “Ma shot Clement Adams dead,” Jim said matter-of-factly, taking a piece of bacon from his father’s plate.

  Mase stared at her. “She what?”

  She’d told him that Curly had shot Tom Harning to save her. But she hadn’t yet gotten to the part about Adams.

  Katie took a deep breath and told him in detail about the confrontation. And the fight.

  “So many times we escaped fighting with them,” she said. “But this time he was just too . . .” She shook her head. “That man was obsessed, Mase.”

  He nodded. “I’m kind of wondering what some folks around here will say about Curly killing Harning. You know how some of them are.”

  “Oh, the Smoles gave their testimony. They both saw Harning pull his gun and point it at me. And they saw Adams about to shoot Curly. And Red Sullivan had his gun ready to go. So . . . along with my deposition, and Curly’s, why . . .”

  Katie remembered that when Jim had ridden up soon afterward, he stared at the bodies with his mouth open. For once, he’d had nothing to say. He’d seemed appalled. She wondered how the sight might affect him. She could talk that over with Mase in private.

  “What did the sheriff have to say about all this shooting?” Mase asked.

  “You know, he’s changed his tune. Maybe it was him seeing the deposition from Gertrude and that affidavit from Fuller. We sent Curly for him, and he came out in a buggy with the coroner. He just looked at the bodies, said he’d arrange for them to be picked up. He talked to Marty and Gwendoline. Then he said he didn’t think anyone would find fault with what we did. There was something about the way he said it—like he was admitting something without quite admitting it.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Hiram could feel it in the way Queenie held his hand that morning. There was a stiffness in her touch as if they were strangers.

  He was sitting up in bed, and she was sitting on a wooden chair beside it. She was gazing at the window, her eyes focused on some unknown place far beyond the garrison at Morrisville.

  “You made up your mind, Amaryllis?” he asked.

  “I did,” Queenie said.

  “I guess I know already because you’re so slow to tell me.”

  She gave a sad nod. “I’m going to New Orleans. Start the business there. I just . . . cannot become a rancher’s wife. Children and keeping house and working in a barn—it’s not in me to do it, honey. I wish it were. It would break my heart to fail you, Hiram.” With that, she squeezed his hand and drew hers away from him.

  She didn’t want to break his heart? Would be hard to do, he reflected. His heart felt like a lump of lead within him. “I guess . . . I knew that. I was hoping . . .” He didn’t say the rest: that he was hoping she loved him enough to put up with that kind of life, anyway. But that just wasn’t Queenie. “Anyhow, I’m powerful glad you came up here to see me. You’ve been a tonic for me. Just the sight of you.”

  Queenie’s eyes filled with tears; her lips trembled. She stood up, clutching her purse to her, her voice husky as she said, “I have to go now, honey. There’s a stage. I’m taking it east and south.” She cleared her throat. “You don’t have to be a rancher, Hiram. You could meet me there. You could come into the business with me. . . .”

  He took a deep breath. Could he? Would he fit in, working at her dance hall in New Orleans? They might well prosper.

  But would he be happy there?

  * * *

  * * *

  It was midway through July when Gertrude Harning came back to the Circle H Ranch. She was there two days before she came to see Katie and Mase, prompted by a note that Mase had sent her.

  She had taken over the Circle H, hired new hands, and gotten tutors for her children. Her late husband’s herd had been merged with another herd going north, and sold for good money.

  Mase had sent her a note offering to buy one fifth of her land, adjacent to his own. She felt comfortable selling to Mase, she said. Because—she looked at Katie when she said it—“I am grateful to my good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Durst.”

  Gertie seemed happier than Katie had ever seen her. For some women, Katie reflected, becoming a widow was a glorious liberation.

  On a hot afternoon a week later, Mase was at work erecting the new fences around the property he’d bought from Gertrude. Jim was there doing small jobs. Hector was doing bigger ones while Mase, Rufus, and Curly worked together setting posts. It was hot, sweaty work, and after a time, Mase declared a break in the shade of a nearby oak for water and some of Katie’s oatmeal cookies. He was about to suggest they get back to work when Jim pointed off toward the north.

  “Now, who’s that, you suppose, Pa?” he asked.

  Mase looked and shook his head. “Don’t know.” Then he went to his horse, got the spyglass from the saddlebag, and had another look. “By God! What do you think, Jim! It’s your uncle Hiram!”

  Hiram galloped up to them, dismounted, and shook hands all around. “Who’s this man here?” he asked, looking at Jim in a puzzled way as if he didn’t know who he was.

  “Why, I’m Jim, Uncle Hiram!”

  Hiram grinned. “Can it be? As big as you are? Lordy!”

  Mase chuckled. “Hiram—have you seen Katie?”

  “Who do you think told me where to find you?”

  “How you feeling? How’s that wound?”

  “Hardly remember I had it. I’m fit as a fiddle, Mase.”

  “Maybe we should go on back to the house. You can rest and have a drink, and . . .”

  “What! You’re in the middle of all this work here, and the day is young, little brother! Now, let me ask you this—am I your partner on this ranch, or am I not?”

  “That’s what we talked about, and that’s how it is!”

  Hiram pulled two leatherwork gloves from his back pocket. He tugged them on, smiling. Then he said, “Well, what are we standing around for? Let’s get to work!”

  About the Authors

  Ralph Compton stood six foot eight without his boots. He worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist. His first novel, The Goodnight Trail, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was the USA Today bestselling author of the Trail of the Gunfighter series, the Border Empire series, the Sundown Riders series, and the Trail Drive series, among others.

  John Shirley was born in Houston and now lives in Vancouver, Washington. He is the author of numerous novels and books of short stories, and won the Bram Stoker Award for his collection Black Butterflies. His novels include the Specialist books (under the name John Cutter), The Brigade, Bleak History, the A Song Called Youth trilogy, and a novel of Wyatt Earp as a young lawman, Wyatt in Wichita. He has also written television, movies, and songs.

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