High Rider Part 5

John nodded. "Glad to hear it." He held out his hand, which hung in the air as Rufus hesitated. "The black don't rub off, Rufus, so you don't need to worry none about gettin' any on you. And by the way, there's a five hundred dollar bonus if you stay on."

Rufus shook John's hand but there was little in the gesture to say what was really on the man's mind. Nor was there a dramatic rise in his spirit over the increased bonus. "That seems fair to me," he said and left.

John still didn't know where he stood with Rufus, just that if he was to enjoy the point rider's expertise, he was also going to have to deal with the man's dislike of blacks. It would be interesting to see how it all played out. He believed-he hoped-that if worse spiralled down to worst, the rest of the outfit would side with him.

After the funeral, Homer and Rufus returned to camp while John and some of the crew joined Doc, Kate, and the Earp brothers at the Long Branch Saloon for drinks. Having fallen heir to Emmett's money belt, John paid for the round. Toasts went to Emmett, and to Wyatt for catching his killer. Another round followed and the more John drank, the more he wanted to get away from the whisky, the Long Branch, Dodge, and, most of all, the present company. The aura of danger encircling Doc also surrounded Wyatt, and the animosity between Kate and the a.s.sistant marshal was palpable.

Doc wanted them to stay longer, maybe play some cards and forget their troubles. John reckoned that the offer more or less summed up John Henry Holliday and Dodge City: no day was so sorrowful that you could not take time to dip into a man's pocket. He left the dregs of his drink. "Thanks for the invite, Doc, but it's time to go. Pepper'll be waitin' supper for us, and it's back on the trail first thing tomorrow."

To a man, the crew stood and joined him, and they walked out together. They rode back to camp at a gallop, racing like lunatics to forget for a while what Dodge City had done for their friend.

The weather remained hot, with late-afternoon thunderclouds building on one horizon or the other that never approached them. The spirits of the men were low but they improved daily. John rode ahead ten to fifteen miles each day to find good bed-ground for the cattle. On the fourth day out, Glenford Pounds, who was bringing up the rear with the remuda, said to John, "I don't know if the heat's making me crazy, but I have the sneaking suspicion we're being followed. Every once in a while, I get a glimpse of someone or something over those low ridges to the southwest. Usually it's a dust cloud that comes and goes but it's always in the same direction, so it's not likely elk or anything like that. Maybe Indians."

John was concerned. "I'll get Rufus to scout ahead tomorrow while I go poke around a bit. Maybe I'll see somethin'."

The following morning John rode out alone under a cloudy sky that provided a small measure of relief from the intense July heat. A little bit of rain wouldn't be a bad thing, he thought, although he would rather not have a thunderstorm bring it. The crew had plenty of water, but the land offered few places for the animals to drink and they always suffered the most. He pointed Cat due south, intending to ride that way for a mile or two before cutting west to pick up the trail of whoever or whatever might be following them. The ground was dry, and with the wind ceaseless for the past few days, it was impossible to avoid kicking up dust. On his westerly track, John came upon four sets of hoofprints, three side by side, one behind, of shod horses. Most likely three white men with a packhorse in tow, he figured. Turning north, he found where the riders had stopped for the night. In a deep swale, he saw cigarette and cigarillo b.u.t.ts and the ashes of a small campfire. He followed the tracks to high ground, but all that lay before him was the rolling terrain, the ridges not high, but high enough to hide a horse and rider between them. John followed the trail as it headed north, but after a while, it veered off to the west. He tracked it over a couple of miles, until further pursuit seemed pointless. Either whoever it was had gone or they had seen John coming and decided to deceive him. He turned Cat, nudged her into a canter, and caught up with the herd. He told the others what he had found, but no one quite knew what to make of it.

"Best keep an eye out," John observed.

It rained that night, a heavy drenching downpour that the dry land sucked in, unaccompanied by thunder and lightning, for which the entire crew gave thanks when they bedded down. Around 4:00 in the morning, a low rumbling and the sound of bellowing cattle awakened John. It was a stampede. He arose swiftly, rousing those who had not heard it, and they saddled up in pelting rain and rode for the herd, now a good mile away. By the time they arrived, whatever stampede there had been had turned into milling, bawling cattle, the animals having stopped on their own. The men came upon Duffy, who had been riding the last part of the night shift with Glen Pounds. He was agitated and excited.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n rustlers!" he exclaimed. "Caught Glen and me at opposite ends of the herd. They got it all riled up and cut out a bunch from the side. Don't know how many they got and I don't know where Glen is."

While the cattle circled nervously, the crew looked for Glen but could not find him. Even in the darkness, John could make out the churned-up trail of the stolen cattle heading west, but it was impossible to tell if Glen had followed. It would be daylight in an hour and the search for him and the cattle would have to wait until then. He guessed that the rustlers got away with fifty or sixty head.

While the men had coffee and breakfast, Duffy explained what had happened. He and Glen were doing their usual circuits around the herd when Duffy heard several loud pops, like blankets being snapped. The herd reacted to the sudden noise by stampeding. Glen had been at the front of the herd, the direction in which it had moved.

John asked for a volunteer to ride with him after the rustlers. Several men offered, including Duffy, Homer, and even Rufus. John chose Duffy and asked Rufus to take charge of the outfit.

"Have another look around for Glen, boys," he told the others, "and don't let those cattle out of your sight."

At daylight, he and Duffy got some biscuits and jerky from Pepper, filled their canteens with water, and rode out.

Duffy was angry. He had lost several beeves belonging to his friend Emmett on his watch, and that was a scab torn from a sore wound. He would ride to the ends of the earth to get them back and punish those who stole them.

"No place to hang 'em and it's too far to take 'em to either Dodge or Ogallala," he complained. "With any luck at all, we'll end up shootin' 'em."

Neither a hanging nor a shootout sat well with John, and he felt certain that they would not have with Emmett either. But if it turned into a gunfight, so be it.

The two men followed the trampled ground to the west, eyes on the misty distance, searching for signs of their quarry. They spoke little. The rain had slackened, but the clouds were low and visibility was poor. A wind blew out of the west. They loped on for seven or eight miles before John called a halt. In the absence of thudding hooves, the sound of bawling cattle drifted on the wind. They rode at a walk for a while as the sound increased in volume. Reining up on high ground, they scanned the dismal horizon but saw nothing.

"They ain't far," Duffy said. "We need to get around on the other side of 'em. They won't be expecting us to come from the west."

The men turned and moved with caution in a circuitous route, north, west, and south, using the sound of the cattle as a pivot point; it remained stationary, signifying that the herd was not on the move. If the rustlers had a lookout, neither man could spot him. John figured that they had heard in Dodge that the outfit was short a man and would probably cut its losses and carry on to Ogallala.

Once the sound of the herd was east of them, he and Duffy rode toward it, ears tuned to any changes. When the noise level seemed to indicate that the herd was just beyond the next ridge, the men dismounted, ground-tethered their horses, and made their way up the gentle slope toward some scrub brush at the top. They removed their hats and covered the last few feet on their elbows and knees. Hidden behind the brush, John peered out and surveyed the scene below.

Pulling his head back in, he said, "There's three men down there, maybe a hundred yards away, and it looks as if they're gettin' ready to move out. Be easier on us if we don't let 'em get mounted."

"Then let's get 'em now," Duffy said.

Wasting no time, they slid below the ridge crest, jammed their hats back on their heads, and retrieved their horses. Mounted, they drew their revolvers, moved slowly to the top of the incline, and roweled their horses into a gallop. Racing over the crest, John screamed at the top of his lungs and Duffy let out his version of a Rebel yell that sounded like a wolf howling with a scratchy throat. At the same time, they fired warning shots. The men below froze, rooted to the ground in surprise. The startled cattle pushed and shoved each other away from the sudden racket.

"Throw 'em up!" Duffy yelled.

The rustlers' hands shot into the air, mouths agape.

John and Duffy stopped a dozen feet away from the men. John barked, "Get your gun belts off and throw 'em on the ground away from you! I believe you boys've got somethin' that belongs to us."

No one denied the accusation since all the cattle wore the Flint Springs brand, faint but still visible. The holstered guns thumped on the sodden earth.

"Lady Luck's on your side today, fellas," John said. "If there was a hangin' tree within ten miles of here, you'd be swingin' from it. Get your clothes off!"

"Wait a minute, mister-" a tall, bulbous-nosed man protested, but Duffy's gun swung toward his stomach, the hammer c.o.c.ked.

"Shut up! This ain't no court of law where you get to tell your side of the story."

"You'll get no argument from me, mister," one of the other men said and began stripping. The others followed suit. John sensed their humiliation and it pleased him.

"Take it all off boys, even your underwear," he commanded.

Done, the men stood there with their tanned faces, necks, and hands, the rest of their bodies white as milk. It would have been laughable were it not for the seriousness of the situation. John ordered them to bundle their clothes up and put them in one of the canvas packs on the packhorse. He told Duffy, "Keep your gun on 'em and if anyone moves, shoot him." He dismounted and collected the discarded gun belts, did up the buckles, and slung them over the saddle horn of a rustler's horse. He then cut one of the thieves' ropes into short pieces and used them to bind each man's hands behind his back, pulling the knots tight. With a longer piece, he linked the men together, neck to neck in a rope chain, with about five feet between them. Finished, he pointed to the southeast.

"Dodge City's that way, boys. If I were you, I'd get there before you catch your death."

The rustlers hustled off as quickly as they could, jerking each other with the connecting ropes, stepping gingerly over the muddy ground and small protruding rocks. John and Duffy watched until the trio disappeared over the ridge.

Duffy grinned, clearly happy with the punishment meted out. "Reckon they've got a long walk in front of 'em. Not likely to be much fun in this rain."

John nodded grimly. "Rain's probably better than a scalding sun and mosquitoes. I expect right about now they'll be feelin' lucky that they got away with their lives. At least if they don't, they oughta."

It was early evening when John and Duffy returned with the stolen cattle, all fifty-four of them. The entire outfit might have had a good laugh over the rustlers' punishment were it not for the bad news: they had found Glenford Pounds, trampled to death by the frightened cattle. They guessed that his horse had stumbled and thrown him, before running off to escape the stampeding herd, because it had wandered into camp sometime later. The cattle had been milling over and around him for hours before the men discovered his body, and they buried him right away in a shallow grave, with a pile of rocks for a tombstone.

That was two men gone in less than a week and they were still two hundred miles from Ogallala. The entire outfit was despondent; perhaps even Rufus, who never showed much emotion about anything. As a result, the men were glad to get under way the following morning and pushed the herd hard until late in the day. With Pepper in the chuckwagon and Homer with the remuda, there were now only eight men left to control the herd, including John, and seven when he was off scouting. But just as a man can learn something by repeating it many times, the cattle had learned how to trail and did what was expected of them each day, as long as nothing unforeseen spooked them.

After his return from capturing the rustlers, John noticed a modest change in Rufus's att.i.tude toward him. The point man was by no means friendly, but he was not disposed to friendliness at the best of times. Even so, John felt that the tension between them had lessened. Rufus offered a casual word here and there about small things unrelated to work, and even better, a sleeping spot on the opposite side of the fire no longer seemed to be a priority for him. John had hoped for this sort of progress, yet the thought entered his mind that Rufus might have ulterior motives, and he wondered what they might be. Then he chastised himself for being so suspicious. Better to think good of a man than accuse him of nonexistent crimes. Duffy also noticed Rufus's apparent change of heart but said, "I still wouldn't trust him."

The weather continued foul, with sporadic rain every day for the next week, but their luck held and they encountered no more thunderstorms. North of the Republican River in Nebraska, they pa.s.sed a couple of drovers travelling in the opposite direction. They said that they were bound for Dodge City because it was more civilized than Ogallala.

"By 'more civilized,'" Duffy commented dryly, "they probably mean there's a better choice of wh.o.r.ehouses."

Two days later John scouted ahead and had to ride only seven miles before he reached the South Platte River, with Ogallala on the far side. He found an adequate bed-ground a few miles to the east and returned to the herd, feeling quite good about himself and life in general.

The following day, he rode into the town, a smaller version of Dodge, and enquired as to whom he should talk to about selling his cattle. He was told the best in town were the Bosler brothers, and he was directed to their office on Railroad Street. The brothers had government contracts to provide cattle to the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Indian Agencies, as well as contracts out west. They immediately sent a man to inspect the animals and offered John thirty-one dollars a head.

John blanched. "Thirty-one a head? We heard forty down in Texas. We could of got that in Dodge and saved ourselves a lot of sweat and trouble." He wondered if the brothers were trying to gyp him because he was black. He wished that Emmett were here.

"That was down in Texas, son," the eldest brother said. "You're in Nebraska now, and if you can find a better deal around it would be the state's first miracle. The market's getting saturated and if you hold out too long we'll be offering even less."

The deal was not what Emmett had expected, but it still represented a lot of money and there was no need to be greedy. John accepted. The outfit drove the herd to a holding ground north of town and that done, John completed a transaction at the First National Bank of Omaha. He was able to send a fifty-five-thousand-dollar draft to the Coles and pay the crew and himself with the rest. Pepper got the chuckwagon as an extra bonus, and the crew divided the money from the sale of the remuda as well as the extra tack and weaponry, to sell or keep as they pleased.

Later, Duffy asked, "You still headin' north, John?"

"I don't see another direction that draws me. You goin' that way?"

Duffy nodded. "I'll throw in with you, if you like. It'll be a d.a.m.n sight better than the two of us ridin' alone in the same direction."

They had enough money to make more money, so they agreed that they would go to Montana first to see if there was any gold left in its creeks. They also had money to spoil themselves with Ogallala's whisky and women before they left, and they wasted no time in getting on with it. On their last night in town, they joined some of the crew, including Rufus, for drinks at the Cattleman's Rest, a rowdy watering hole providing nothing even remotely connected to "rest" unless it came in the form of pa.s.sing out on the sawdust-covered floor dead drunk.

John bought drinks for everyone but wanted to get an early start in the morning, so he and Duffy did not stay late. They made their goodbyes after a couple of rounds, shaking hands with everybody. Compliments on a job well done came from a few, and there were surprised looks when Rufus grasped John's hand.

"I reckon I was wrong about you, Ware," he said.

The words stumbled out but John did not doubt their sincerity. He knew how hard it must have been for someone with Rufus's background to make such an admission.

"I appreciate what you're sayin', Rufus." John smiled. "And I can see it ain't easy for you. But I gotta say that it ain't only me you been wrong about. It's most everyone like me. But I'm glad you took the time to say it."

Rufus nodded but said nothing. The rest of the crew absorbed the exchange in silence, then broke out in good-natured bantering and farewells.

Once outside, Duffy exclaimed, "Well, I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned! Just when you think you got a man pigeonholed . . ."

John was happy with the outcome, although he did not know quite what to make of it. But as Duffy had once said, it's hard to know what really goes on in a man's heart.

EIGHT.

Let the man see where he's goin'.

In the cool of the early morning, John and Duffy pointed their mounts northwest, leading a packhorse laden with provisions. They rode along the dried-up floodplain of the North Platte River, between the waterway itself and its gra.s.sy breaks, which consisted of patternless folded hills and bluffs rising perhaps fifty or sixty feet, cut through here and there with narrow valleys. Rope-like stream beds that saw water only during the spring runoff streaked some of the hillsides, and the dark green, stunted junipers growing on the slopes looked as if somebody had planted them helter-skelter to make the area look less desolate. Some of the draws were thick with them. The land had turned brown in the searing, arid heat, and the shrunken, turbid river, barely distinguishable from the colour of the terrain, looked more like a narrow lake as it flowed sluggishly toward its confluence with the South Platte. Though their surroundings looked unsuitable for supporting life, the pair spotted several mules and white-tailed deer, and felt confident they would not be short of meat during their journey.

The two men made the unlikeliest of companions, as physically different from one another as two humans could be: John tall, wide, and black; Duffy several inches shorter, narrow, and white. Beneath his Stetson, John's hair was short and grew in tight curls against his skull, while Duffy's tumbled onto his shoulders, a red waterfall streaked with white. One face was handsome, with a wiry black beard, the other weather-pounded and trenched, with a thick red one. And while John was in his early thirties, Duffy was old enough to be his father. But they were of like mind and that is the proving ground of kindred spirits.

John had been prepared to make the journey north alone, but he was happy that Duffy wanted to join him. His newfound friend had more than a few stories to tell about the war and Emmett, and it pleased John to hear them. Duffy had been born in Ireland and brought to America as an infant by parents who sought a better life. The only place he knew as a child growing up was the East Texas town of Nacogdoches, about a hundred and seventy miles southeast of Fort Worth. His father had operated an inn and freight service, and Duffy's first job entailed tending to the chamber pots in the rooms and ensuring there was plenty of firewood on hand. He graduated from that to swamping on the freight wagons. While making a delivery to one of the several cotton plantations in the vicinity, Duffy saw first-hand how some of the slaves were mistreated. He had heard horrific screaming coming from the slaves' quarters, and when he looked over, he saw a slave frantically running around with his head on fire. "He had tried to escape and the owner had poured tar on the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d's head and set it on fire. I ain't never heard such a sound come from a man's mouth. The owner didn't want him to die though, so he let the slave use the primer bucket at the well to put it out. That son of a b.i.t.c.h wanted him to live and suffer." Duffy paused in reflection, before adding, "When the war come along, I knew which side I was on. You can't fight to give men the right to do somethin' like that."

After the conflict ended, he drifted north with Emmett, thinking that he might find work in Fort Worth or Dallas, but ended up staying in Waco, where the town was about to build a huge suspension bridge over the Brazos River. The project took four years to complete, and he connected with Emmett whenever his friend came to town for a "Cattlemen's a.s.sociation" meeting. Those rendezvous were always good times, as John well knew. When work on the bridge ended, Emmett got Duffy a job on a nearby ranch, and later Duffy joined him on the drive to the railhead in Abilene, Kansas. Afterwards, he returned to Waco and continued cowpunching for the same rancher. Emmett had shown up one day and, as usual, they had gone to Two Street for recreation. Later, while they soaked in hot baths, Emmett had said, "I'm thinkin' of puttin' together a herd to trail up Nebraska way. You interested in taggin' along?"

Duffy didn't have to think about it. "I won't say no if you're askin'."

"I'm askin'."

"And I ain't sayin' no."

They had put twenty miles behind them before they stopped for lunch at the edge of the North Platte. Since the river had shrunk considerably, John leaped down a three-foot embankment and crossed the reedy, dried mudflat to scoop out a pot of water. Duffy gathered juniper twigs from the hillside and got a fire going while John strained the water through a cloth brought for the purpose. Finished, he led the horses to the river for a drink while Duffy put coffee on to boil.

The satisfaction of that strong brew in that unfamiliar place, with the responsibility of the drive behind them and a positive future ahead, was immeasurable. Both men were buoyant, a feeling b.u.t.tressed by money belts stuffed with more cash than they had ever possessed in their lives. The possibility of making themselves even richer as miners was their main topic of conversation, and they decided that Virginia City, Montana, some eight hundred miles distant, would be their destination. They would follow the North Platte to its beginnings in Wyoming and get further directions there. They reckoned it would be comparatively easy on good horses, with no cattle to fret about.

Their coffee and biscuits finished, the men rolled cigarettes and smoked in silence. Finished, John moved to get up when his hat flew from his head-accompanied by the loud crack of a rifle shot from the hillside and the whine of a bullet. There was confusion for a second or two, the friends unsure of what was happening. But they shifted their positions enough that another shot missed them, burying itself in the ground beside John. Under attack, both men responded instinctively. About a dozen feet away was the low bank of the river and they tumbled over it onto hard-baked mud as more shots rang out and small explosions of dirt geysered up behind them.

Out of the line of fire, Duffy exclaimed, "Jesus Christ! What the h.e.l.l is this all about?"

Pressed tight against the bank on his belly, John shook his head in disbelief. "It's about someone wantin' to kill us. Indians maybe."

"That don't seem very Indian-like to me. Indians woulda rode down on us, shootin' and yippin'. We'd a been dead as the gra.s.s by now."

"Could be it's a hostile, on his own and hungry. Or maybe we've been mistaken for somebody else."

Duffy snorted. "You think there's another pair looks like us anywhere on this good earth?"

John voiced another thought. "Maybe it's someone who knows we had a big payday in Ogallala and wants it without workin' as hard as we did for it."

"Maybe. Meanwhile, we're in a fix and we need to find a way out."

John removed his hat and rose cautiously. Peering through the tufts of dried gra.s.s on the bank's edge, he caught a glimpse of a solitary figure on the bluff where the shots came from, moving to another hiding place. John ducked back down.

"It's an Indian," he said.

Duffy took off his hat to have a look, but the soil about two feet from the edge of the bank exploded as the sound of another shot rolled down the hill. They dropped to their bellies again.

"Don't look as if he has plans of leavin'," John said.

"Well, he ain't gonna come down here unless he's got a death wish. Maybe he'll try to wait us out, fool us into thinkin' he's gone. But I think we can get the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. We got a good bank for protection, so if I go upriver and you go down, we can maybe get up in those hills and squeeze him from two sides. Make sure you know what you're shootin' at. I don't need two people gunnin' for me."

John didn't need any further prompting. The sooner they got moving, the better chance they would have of getting their a.s.sailant. The river curved both ways to their advantage, and John began crawling downriver on his belly over the dry, cracked mud, hugging the bank. He wished that he had his rifle, but it was still in its scabbard on Cat, who, with the other two horses, had galloped off. He had only his sidearm, which would have to do. It meant getting closer to the shooter, but it also meant that he would know what he was shooting at. He kept as close to the bank as his big frame allowed, hoping that the Indian, not seeing any movement, would bide his time and wait for the right opportunity to bag his quarry. Then again, he might also have sneaked around to a gully and be making his way down to the river to get them from the side. John kept that thought handy and glanced behind him every few seconds.

He reached a spot where a dry, narrow stream bed joined the river and calculated that he had gone far enough to be out of the shooter's sight. He peered over the riverbank. He could not see where he figured the shooter was; the slope of a small hill was now between them, but the stream bed ran down a crease between two hills and would provide a route to the top. He watched for two or three minutes, his eyes sweeping as much of the breaks as he could see. When he detected no movement, he drew his pistol, took a deep breath, and rolled onto the bank. Scrambling to his feet, he ran for the crease. It was no more than sixty yards away, yet it seemed twice that distance. Though John had always considered himself fleet of foot for his size, his feet had never seemed as heavy as anvils before. He felt vulnerable every step of the way, but he reached the crease without incident and began picking his way up the rocky incline, one eye on the terrain below his feet and the other on the land above. The heat in the sun-soaked ground radiated up around him and beads of sweat rolled from his temples.

He heard the snake before he saw it, and stopped as if he had run into an invisible wall. Merely looking at the loathsome creature made his knees tremble and he wanted to shoot it. Afraid to risk the noise, he picked up a rock and heaved it at the reptile. Struck a glancing blow on the head, the rattler slithered behind a boulder. John winced at the sound of the rock clattering over the ground. He listened for a while but could hear no other sound. He continued to the top of the crease, giving the wounded reptile a wide berth, not knowing what he feared more, a bullet or an encounter with a snake. The crease ended in a small basin with a sc.u.m-coated pool at its centre. He skirted the water and crept on his belly the short distance to the basin's rim.

From his vantage point, he could see the river and the undulating landscape of the breaks. He saw no movement and reckoned that he was about two or three hundred yards from the Indian's position and behind him, if the Indian had stayed put. Below and to his left, a shallow cut studded with junipers ran in the general direction that he needed to go, so John hurried down the slope and slid the last few feet. He moved slowly, careful of where he placed his feet, on the lookout for the gunman and snakes. The excitement he felt tempered his nervousness. He was as much the hunter now as he was the hunted, and that made all the difference.

The crack of a gunshot nearby startled him and he instinctively ducked behind a juniper. Who had fired it? Duffy, he hoped, because it sounded more like a pistol than a rifle. There was no answering fire, but seconds later, he heard a horse whinny off in the distance, followed by the sound of hooves on hardpan. He scrambled to a spot where the cut petered out, about forty feet above a wide draw running at angles to it. Looking down, he saw an Indian fleeing on horseback. He decided not to shoot, because it would have taken a lucky shot to bring him down. More than likely, he would have hit the horse and he did not want to kill or maim an innocent creature. Duffy appeared across the draw, waved, and began descending into it. John scrambled down the gra.s.s-covered slope in front of him and met his friend at the bottom.

Duffy's eyes were wild with excitement. "I dunno," he panted, "but I think I mighta hit him. Came out above him as he was about to mount up and got a shot away. You were right, a G.o.dd.a.m.ned renegade Indian!"

Examining the tracks, they saw that the horse was unshod. John also spotted several drops of blood. There was more blood a few yards farther on.