by Hazel Rumney
“You ain’t dying. Stop that sort of shit. I’m gonna save you like I did a lot of them soldier boys in the war. I never told you but I was a surgeon’s assistant. Shit, I saved plenty shot worse’n you.”
“You’re . . . you’re a piss poor liar,” Frank said, struggling with the effort to speak. “Why you never was no good at cards.”
“Well, you’ll see. You’ll damn well see. Now be quiet till I can get you patched.”
Frank raised a hand and let it fall on Jessie’s arm and weakly shook his head.
“Just roll me a shuck. I’d like one more before the passing …”
Jesse rolled a shuck and lighted it, then went to put it between Frank’s lips, but his mouth was slack, his face ashen, his eyes half lidded. He was gone.
Jesse drew the blanket up over him, for he never wanted to see Frank looking like that again, then stood and went to the doorway and opened it and smoked looking out at the great white wilderness.
Maybe now it was time. It wouldn’t take much. Just place those shotgun barrels under his chin and pull the trigger. Die quick or die slow, he told himself.
III
Spring came and Mr. Flaver was finally able to get up to the summer range and see what happened to his hired hands, and more, to his herd. He’d worried all winter when they hadn’t come down in the fall. From his window he’d seen the snowfall up high.
He came upon Jesse sitting in a chair out front smoking a cigarette, patches of snow still clinging to the ground in places. The corral was gone and so was the shed, and so was the privy.
He dismounted and came forth but Jesse didn’t seem to acknowledge him, like he was in a spell.
Mr. Flaver couldn’t remember which one was which, their names, so he said, “Frank?”
Jesse looked up. His beard was thick. He looked gaunt and hollow-eyed and almost uncomprehending of who Mr. Flaver was.
Mr. Flaver reached into his coat and pulled out a silver flask of whiskey and held it forth. An unsteady hand took it and drank from it and lowered it.
“I reckon you boys had it pretty hard lasting out the winter up here,” Mr. Flaver said. “Where’s the others?”
Finally, Jesse stood, said, “There ain’t no others. Just me. And I’d kindly like to ride down off this mountain, you don’t mind.”
“You mean they’re dead?”
Jesse just stared at him.
“Well, what about my herd?”
“I reckon some is out there somewheres,” Jesse said. “But they ain’t my cattle and this here ain’t my job no more.”
Mr. Flaver could see that the young man had gone nearly mad by the stare and voice. He determined that Frank or Jesse or whichever one it was, was lost in the head and no point fooling with such a man.
They rode back down the trail together. Mr. Flaver wondered what the young man had done with the bodies, knowing no grave could have been dug in such frozen ground. But he did not deign to ask. When they reached Askin, he wrote a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, keeping in mind they’d both been up there all winter. The young man took the check and put it in his pocket and walked out. Mr. Flaver watched from his window as the hired man headed for the railroad station, then heard the evening flyer’s whistle signaling its arrival. He knew the train would only stop for ten, fifteen minutes before pulling out again.
He’d send some men up to find his cattle, what was left of them, and ask they search for the bodies of the two men. And when the hands returned with a few dozen of the baldies that had somehow survived, they reported finding no bodies, but did find what looked like some human bones.
Mr. Flaver shook his head at the report knowing then why the young man had the look of madness about him. Desperate men with nothing to eat, it made sense they’d only find bones.
Mr. Flaver drank a whiskey and then another and told his young wife that night he was getting out of the cow business. She asked why.
“I just am,” is all he said. “I just am.”
Bill Brooks has written more than forty historical novels and is a full-time writer these days. He lives in Florida.
BARQUETTE OF THE XP
BY TIM CHAMPLIN
January 1861
Nebraska Territory
Today would be Neal Barquette’s last ride for the Pony Express. Only one more long dash on a series of ponies from his home station northwest to Fort Laramie—just over eighty-five miles—and then he was done.
As soon as the decision was made last night, he felt the tension snap as if he’d tripped the trigger on his cocked Colt. He slept soundly for the first time in more than a month.
Swinging open the door of the Mud Springs station, he stepped out into heavy cold. Whew! Must be around ten below, he thought, blinking away tears the bitter wind stung from his eyes.
He squinted east down the beaten trail that snaked through brown bunch grass. Two hundred yards away, it disappeared into a swale in the prairie. “Huh! Empty as my belly,” he muttered. “Five hours late already. What’s holding you up, Johnny, m’boy?” Even if I could leave right now, I’d be past midnight getting to Fort Laramie.
“Ah, but this day it makes no difference,” he smiled, fingers pressing against the envelope inside his deep shirt pocket that contained his carefully crafted letter of resignation. He’d be handing it over to Division Superintendent Jack Slade by this time tomorrow. What a relief to lay down this burden and free himself to look for another job where no one knew him and he could start afresh. Months of being ridiculed and ostracized by his fellow riders would be over.
One wrong move had proved his undoing. Late last spring, Neal refused to take the mail on his assigned route when it was learned Indians had massacred several horse tenders and the keeper and had burnt the next station in eastern Utah. To him, it made no sense to risk his life for a bunch of letters that could just as easily be delivered a day or two later when the danger was past.
But the incoming rider, Rod Finley, had snorted his disgust at this fear, grabbed a fresh horse, and continued east, carrying the mochila of mail past the burnt buildings and dead bodies. He arrived on a lathered pony four hours later at the next home station, having outrun a half-dozen Indians.
But word of Neal’s cowardice had quickly spread along the route and his life with the Central Overland California Pikes Peak Express Company turned sour from that day. He was reassigned east to the Mud Springs station near the North Platte River.
“If the Paiutes make your knees knock, you’ll get the willies for sure when you run up on the Sioux,” Finley had taunted him. “Not only will they lift your hair, they’ll flay you alive and practice other nasty tortures I can’t even describe.”
Two other riders later failed this test of honor as well. One had been fired, and the other quit three weeks later after his life had been made miserable by ridicule.
The riders Neal didn’t know well simply ignored him once he began riding back and forth between Mud Springs and Fort Laramie. He was treated as if he didn’t exist. Most station keepers dealt with him only when it concerned work.
Hostlers were usually friendlier. On the whole, they were a pretty rough bunch, some former outlaws. But perhaps they accepted him as a social outcast, similar to themselves. Neal was fairly sure Ramon Diego, the half-breed hostler at Mud Springs, mistook Neal’s weathered face and black hair as belonging to another mixed-race youngster who’d only gotten the riding job because he was short, wiry, and athletic. In conversations, Neal revealed he was of Basque origin and had grown up on a grassland sheep ranch a day’s ride from Mud Springs. But he was certain Diego had no idea what a Basque was. Diego, himself, Neal learned, was the son of an Arapaho father and a captive Mexican woman.
Neal took a last look down the trail. With no rider in sight, and shivering in his shirtsleeves, he retreated to the warmth of the Mud Springs station and latched the door behind him.
“It’s mighty near dinnertime, Al,” he said to the broad back of the stocky station keeper
who was bent over the hearth poking up the fire. “I expected to be outa here before daylight. Reckon I’d best get some food in me before I leave.” He didn’t favor starting a run on a full stomach; the rhythmic surging of a galloping pony tended to make him queasy. Considering he was already an object of derision, motion sickness was not something he admitted to.
Alonzo Smith only grunted as he continued jabbing the coals with an iron poker. Sparks showered up the clay chimney. The mixture of dead cottonwood and dried buffalo chips made for a hot fire but gave off a strange odor in the low-ceilinged room.
Smith stood, red-faced, and leaned the poker against the wall. “I wrapped up a bacon sandwich for you.” He nodded toward the table. “This here antelope stew is about done.” He swung the iron pot back over the fire and lifted the lid with a thick glove to stir the steaming concoction.
The aroma made Neal’s stomach growl. But he ignored the invitation to eat. As far as he knew, nobody at this station had been able to go hunting for antelope recently. His nose had caught the tang of chili peppers. The fiery pods were a staple in Smith’s cooking—especially when he wanted to disguise the flavor of groundhog.
“What time is it, anyway? Johnny shoulda been here by daybreak at the latest.”
“Hell, Neal, after eight months, you know all the things that can bust a schedule,” Smith retorted. “The Pony doesn’t run on a timetable like the New York Central.”
“Maybe not, but the weather’s dry, and there ain’t nothing betwixt here and Julesburg that would slow him down. The trail’s froze hard and no hills from the South Platte up this way. No hostiles out in January. The Sioux likely gone into winter camp . . .” His voice trailed off as Smith turned his back and busied himself washing some dirty pans in a bucket of water.
If the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express was going to move the mail from St. Joe to Sacramento in a flat ten days, Barquette and his fellow riders would have to somehow make up for every hour wasted here. But then, he realized again, it was irrelevant to him.
Smith turned around, wiping his wet hands on a dirty towel. “Could be anything,” he continued the conversation—“a rider stopping for an hour at Fort Kearny to thaw out. Maybe one heaving his guts out after downing some bad grub. Could be a pony threw a shoe or stepped in a prairie dog hole. With stuff like that going on all the time, it’s a wonder Russell, Majors, and Waddell can keep any kind of schedule at all.”
To take the edge off his hunger, Neal helped himself to a thick slice of drying bread and plucked a limp piece of greasy bacon from the skillet on the stove.
He was wearing long johns under his heavy canvas pants and chaps, and a wool shirt. The blazing fire was making it uncomfortably warm, so he stepped outside again without his coat to clear his head of smoke and to examine the weather. The wind had subsided a bit, but the low pewter-colored overcast and the heavy cold jangled a silent alarm in his head. Growing up on the northern plains, he’d seen it all too often. If he’d been paid recently, he’d bet a month’s wages snow would begin before dark.
Fidgeting, he reentered the building, anxious to be off ahead of the coming weather. Smith didn’t seem concerned. He was snug here where it was warm and dry. With plenty of food and firewood, he could ride out any blizzard. Melting snow or breaking the ice in the nearby spring would provide water. As a middle-aged man in charge of this lonely home station at Mud Springs, Smith didn’t have to bother with hazards of the trail. The station keeper and hostler could fort up in this log and sod shelter. Their job was to focus on supplying food and a spare bunk, keeping the horses healthy, grain-fed, and ready for the riders from east or west who could arrive at any hour of the day or night.
The heavy door burst open and Ramon Diego entered, admitting a gust of brittle air that stirred the smoke in the room. “Unsaddled the pony for now while we wait.” The hostler shoved the door closed and strode to the plank table, his shiny, greasy buckskins trailing a miasma of woodsmoke and horse sweat. Swinging a leg over a low bench at the table, he rubbed his calloused hands. “Al, gimme a bowl o’ that stew. The hawk’s on the wing out there today, for sure.”
“Hell, get it yourself. Your legs ain’t broke.”
Diego looked up sharply but didn’t reply. He simply got up and dipped up a bowl. “I smell bread.”
“Five minutes,” Smith said, opening the slide of the small oven built into the side of the brick fireplace.
How these two disparate characters managed to get along for months on end was a mystery to Neal. At least they had overnight riders bunking with them to provide a diversion from their own prickly personalities. And Neal knew from experience that Diego, a dark, whip-thin man, was one of the best hostlers on the line, who had a knack for handling horses—almost as if he were one of them. On occasion, he even earned extra money gentling wild mustangs when the company ran short of good horseflesh. His tangled black hair was held in place by a blue headband; a whiskerless face showed his Indian heritage. It mattered not that he bathed only in warm weather in the nearby springs and trailed a perpetual nose-wrinkling odor on the air behind him. He was a valued employee.
On the other hand, Alonzo Smith, former clerk at an Arkansas land office, managed to maintain some decorum of civility in this wilderness. At least weekly, he heated water, stropped his straight razor on an old surcingle, and scraped off graying whiskers. He even washed his clothes whenever possible.
“Better warm up your belly with some o’ that hot coffee,” Smith said, gesturing at the blackened pot that hung by an iron hook just inside the fireplace.
Neal gave a dismissive wave. “I’m wound up enough already.” Truthfully, without something to cut it, the black stuff was like drinking acid. Al never made a fresh pot; just added to it day by day as needed.
Neal popped the last of the bread and bacon into his mouth and then dipped up a gourd of drinking water from a bucket near the wall. It was cold and tasted faintly of algae.
“Al,” he said, changing the subject, “how long’s it been since we got paid?”
The station keeper’s broad face went blank. “Hmm . . . if I recollect, it was the first or second week of October.” Then, he arched his eyebrows at Neal. “You gonna start complaining about that again?”
Neal shook his head. “Just wondering.”
“What’ve you got to spend it on out here, anyway? There’s plenty work to keep you busy, roof over your head when you need it, and food.”
“I’m grateful for that, sure enough,” Neal said, hastily. “It’s just that . . . well, my father thinks I’m having a grand old time off riding for the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express and making good money. I haven’t been able to send him anything for weeks. He’s likely wondering what’s become of me. That sheep ranch will be mine someday, and if I don’t help him keep it, well . . . there won’t be nothing for me to go back to.” Neal didn’t repeat the name other riders were beginning to dub the company—the COC&PP stood for “Clean Out of Cash and Poor Pay.” Smith, loyal to his employer, thought the name disrespectful.
“I figured you joined the Pony to get away from tending all those smelly woolies.”
“Well, I . . .” He stopped suddenly and cocked his head. A faint drumming of hooves on hard ground could be heard. He sprang to the door and jerked it open. Diego was right behind him.
A horseman could be seen in the distance, rising and falling, coming on at speed, urging his mount down the home stretch like a jockey—exactly what Johnny Frye had been before hiring on with the Pony. Neal grabbed the field glasses from a shelf just inside the door. The undulating figure snapped into focus. It was Johnny’s small frame hunched over the animal’s neck and flying mane.
Neal bounded back into the room, shrugged into his hip-length sheepskin coat, and wrapped the long wool scarf around his head and neck, then jammed on his wide-brimmed hat. Lastly, he pulled on his lined leather gauntlets and went back outside.
Ramon was already leading t
he saddled pony out of the stable.
Neal ran a hand over the XP brand on the dun’s flank. The animal quivered with excitement, muscles rippling under the smooth hide. Diego held the bit as the pony fiddle-footed, apparently knowing what was coming.
An explosive clatter of iron-shod hooves on frozen ground, and the bay came plunging in, distended nostrils snorting steam like a locomotive. Johnny Frye slid lightly to the ground while the horse was still moving. He yanked the leather mochila off his saddle and tossed it to his relay.
“What happened?” Neal yelled, grabbing the reins of the dun and flinging the mochila over the small saddle. Horn and cantle thrust up through slots in the leather to hold it in place.
“Train was late from Saint Louie to Saint Joe. Busted a cylinder head. They had to wait on another engine.”
Neal nodded. “Figured it was something like that.” Johnny was too good a horseman to be the cause of the delay.
Diego had snatched up the loose reins of Johnny’s exhausted bay and was walking to cool him down while Frye headed for the door of the station.
Neal grabbed the saddle horn with both hands. With a quick hop-step, he vaulted into the saddle without benefit of stirrups. He knew this pony; the dun needed no touch of spur. As soon as the animal felt his weight, he bolted ahead as if shot from a giant spring. He was at full gallop within a few strides.
Neal’s toes sought the stirrups and he settled into the surging motion. Next swing station was Courthouse Rock and then on to Chimney Rock, the giant spire that was a landmark for wagon trains.
Long hours spent tending his father’s flocks with a border collie on the upland summer pastures near the Black Hills had strengthened Neal’s natural affinity for solitude and nature. Carrying the mail also provided hours of solitude to contemplate a variety of things. Riding a fast horse on a beaten trail didn’t require much concentration, and his mind wandered.
But today his thoughts were jerked abruptly to the here and now by the breathtaking cold. The pony’s speed was whipping a twenty-mile-an-hour wind directly into his face, bending his hat brim upward. He looped the reins over the horn and, balancing easily to the rhythm of the galloping pony, adjusted the wool scarf to cover his nose and lower face, then jammed the hat down, pulling the cord tighter under his chin. Breathing through his nostrils without the scarf made his nose feel stuffed up. But it was only the hairs inside his nose freezing. When it was that cold, he had to protect his lungs.