Killoe (1962) (12 page)

Conchita was suddenly close by, standing half concealed by a wagon wheel.

My eyes fastened on the man in the lead. He rode a powerful bay horse, and he was a huge man. This, I knew at once, was Felipe Soto.

He rode up to the edge of camp and I saw him look carefully around. I do not know how much he saw, for we looked like a sleeping camp, except for the three of us standing there. Foley was across the fire from them, and Zeb on his horse some twenty feet off to one side. I was in the middle, and intended it that way.

My Patterson lay on the rolled-up blankets of my bed about a dozen feet off.

L "I look for Miguel Sandoval," the big man said. "Turn him over to me, and you will have no trouble."

Taking an easy step forward, I took the play away from him. "What do you mean, no trouble? Mister, if you want anybody from this outfit you've got to take them. As for trouble, we're asking for all you've got."

He looked at me with careful attention, and I knew he was trying to figure how much was loud talk and how much was real trouble.

"Look,
senior
, I think you do not understand." He gestured behind him. "I have many men . . . these are but a few. You have women here, and do not want trouble."

"You keep mentioning that," I said quietly, "but we're as ready as you are. We've had a mean drive, and we're all feeling pretty sore, so if you want to buy yourself a package of grief you just dig in your spurs and hang on."

His men started to
fan
out and Zebony spoke up. "Stand! You boys stand where you are or I'll open the ball," he said coolly. "If there's to be shooting we want you all bunched up."

Soto had not taken his eyes from me, and I do not know if he had intended to kill me, but I know I was ready. Whatever notion he had, he changed his mind in a hurry, and it was Zeno Yearly who changed it for him.

"You take the big one, Dan," Zeno said conversationally. "I want the man on his right."

Soto's eyes did not leave mine, but I saw his lips tighten under the black mustache.

They had not seen Zeno, and even I was not sure exactly where he was. They could see three of us . . . how many more were there?

There was no use losing a good thing, so I played the hand out. "Zeno," I said, "you've gone and spoiled a good thing. Between you and the boys on the river bank, I figured to collect some scalps."

Soto did not like it. In fact, he did not like it even a little. He did not know whether there was anybody on the river bank or not, nor did he like what he would have to do to find out.

He knew there must be men with the cattle, and that, had they seen him coming or been warned in time, they might easily be sheltered by the high bank and waiting to cut Soto and his men to doll rags.

"I regret,
senior
"--Soto smiled stiffly--"the shortness of our visit. When we come again there will be more of us . . . and some friends of ours, the Comanches. You would do well to drive Miguel Sandoval from your camp."

"There was a grave back yonder," I said, "of a Mexican we found and buried."

Soto smiled again. "A good trick . . . only we turned back and opened the grave.

There was no body."

He turned his horse and walked it slowly away from camp, but we knew he would come back, and we knew we were in trouble.

"All right," I said. "A quick breakfast and then we move out."

During the night several steers and a cow had managed to make the river, and rejoined the herd. There was no time to
estimate
the loss of cattle on the drive, although obviously several hundred head were gone.

We pushed on, keeping up a steady move, pausing only at noon to water in the Pecos, whose route we were following. One or more of us trailed well behind or on the hills to right or left, scouting for the enemy.

The earth was incredibly dry and was covered over vast areas with a white, saline substance left from the alkali in the area. Wherever there had been water standing, the ground was white, as if from snow.

Pa fell back and rode beside me. "We're outnumbered, Dan," he said. "They'll come with fifty or sixty men."

We saw not a living thing. Here and there were dead cattle, dried to mere bones and hide, untorn by wolves, which showed us that not even those animals would try to exist in such a place.
By night/all the-e was no grass to be found, so we brought the wagons together on a low knoll, with the cattle behind it.

There was a forest of prickly pear, which cattle will eat, and which is moist enough so they need little water. Half a dozen of us went out and singed the spines from bunches of pear with torches, and it was a pretty sight to see the torches moving over the darkening plain. But the cattle fed.

With daybreak, the wind rose and the sky was filled with dust, and clouds of dust billowed along the ground,
filling
the air and driving against the face with stinging force. The sun became a hall of red, then was obscured, and the cattle moved out with the wind behind them, herded along the course of the Pecos, but far enough off to avoid its twistings and turnings.

By nightfall the dust storm had died down, but the air was unnaturally cold. Under the lee of a knoll the wagons drew up and a fire was built.

Zebony rode in and stepped down from his horse. Ma Foley and Mrs. Stark were working over a meal. There was little food left, but a few of the faltering cattle had been killed, and some of the beef was prepared. The flour was almost all gone, and no molasses was left.

Zeno Yearly came up and joined us. There was a stubble of beard on his lean jaws, and his big sad eyes surveyed us with melancholy. "Reminded me of a time up on the Canadian when I was headed for Colorado. We ran into a dust storm so thick we could look up betwixt us and the sun and see the prairie dogs diggin' their holes."

Squatting by the fire, I stared into the flames, and I was doing
some
thinking. Pa was relying on me, with Tap gone, and I hadn't much hope of doing much. The herd was all we had, and the herd was in bad shape. We had a fight facing us whenever Felipe Soto and his Comancheros caught up with us, and we were shorthanded.

We had lost several hundred head and could not afford to lose more. And
fr
om what Conchita and Miguel said, we were heading into a country where we might find more trouble than we wanted.

We were almost out of grub, and there was no use hunting. Whatever game there had been around here had drifted out, and all we could do was keep driving ahead.

Our horses had come out of it better than most, for many a herd crossing the Horsehead had wound up with most of the hands walking, their horses either dead or stolen by Indians. Abo
u
t all a man could do was go on; but I had found that many a problem is settled if a man just keeps a-going.

It wasn't in me to sell Felipe Soto short. He was a tough man, and he would come back. They did not want any talk of Comancheros or of the Palo Duro Canyon to get around . . . there already was opposition enough from the New Mexicans themselves.

"We'll push on the herd," I told Zebony. "We should reach the Delaware soon."

It was amazing how the water and the short rest had perked up the cattle. There had been little grass, but the prickly pear had done wonders for them, and they moved out willingly enough. It was as if they, too, believed the worst of the trip was past. Knowing something of the country that lay before us, I was not so sure.

We closed up the herd and kept the wagons close on the flank. Zeno Yearly and Freeman Squires fell back to bring up the rear and do the scouting. Pa led off, and part of the time was far out ahead of us, scouting for ambush or tracks. The rest of us kept the herd closed up and we moved ahead at a steady gait.

Toyah Creek, when we reached it, was only a sandy wash, so we went through and pushed on. As we traveled, we gathered the wood we found where wagons had broken down and been abandoned, for there was
nothing
along the trail for fuel but buffalo chips and occasional mesquite, most of which had to be dug out of the ground to final anything worth burning.

The coolness disappeared and again it became incredibly hot. The heat rising from the herd itself, close-packed as it was, was almost unbearable.

Conchita rode over to join me.

"We have talked, Miguel and I," she said. "You protected us, or we should have been killed."

"It was little enough."

"We did not expect it. Miguel . . . he did not expect to be helped, because he is a Mexican."

"Might make a difference to some folks, not to us. When we first came into this country--I mean when Pa first came--he would never have made out but for help from Mexican neighbors."

"We have talked of you, and there is a place we know--it is a very good place. There is danger from Indians, but there is danger everywhere from them."

"Where is this place?"

"We will show you. It lies upon a route used by the padres long ago. By traders also.

But there is water, there is good grass, and I think you can settle there without trouble." "Where will you go?"

"To my home. To Miguel's mother and his wife."

"He did not mention a wife. I thought maybe . . . Miguel and you . . ."

"No,
senior
. He is married. We are grown up in the same house, but we are friends only. He has been a very good brother to me,
senior
."

"Like Tap and me," I said. "We got along pretty good."

All through the day we rode together, talking of this thing and that. The cattle moved steadily. By nightfall we had twelve miles behind us.

There was a chance the dust storm might have wiped out miles of our tracks, and that might help a little. But in the arid lands men are tied to water, and they must go where water is, and so their trails can be found even if lost.

Ira Tilton was out on the north flank of the drive as we neared the last stop we would make along the Pecos. From that point we would cut loose and drive across country toward Delaware Creek.

Toward sundown he shot an antelope and brought it into camp. It was mighty little meat for such a crowd of folks, but we were glad to get it.

We were of no mind to kill any of our breeding stock which we needed to start over again, and the steers we needed to sell to the Army or somebody to get money for flour and necessaries to tide us over the first year. We were poor folks, when it came to that, with nothing but our cattle and our bodily strength for capital.

That night when the firelight danced on the weathered
f
a
c
es of the
c
owhands, we sat close around the fire and we sang the songs we knew, and told stories, and yarned.

There was a weariness on us, but we were leaving the Pe
c
os, and no cowhand ever liked the Pe
c
os for long. i Firelight made the wagon shadows flicker. Ma Foley came and sat with us, and the firelight lit the gold of Con
c
hita's hair to flame, to a red-gold flame that caught the light as she moved her head.

. I Rose Sandy came to the fire, too, sitting close to Tom, and very quiet. But I do not think there was censure among us for what she had done, for nobody knew better than we that the flesh was weak.

Pa-was there, listening or talking quietly, his fine-cut features looking younger than he was.

"We will find a place," he said, "and we will settle. We will make of the Kaybar a brand we can be proud of."

There was hope in all of u
s
, but fear too. Standing up at last, I looked at Con
c
hita and sae rose too, and we walked back from the fire together. Miguel stood by his wagon, and when we passed him, he said, "'Vaya con Dios.'" Freeman Squires shook me out of a sleep and I sat up and groped for my hat. It was still ... the stars were gone and there were clouds and a feeling of dampness in the air. Stamping into my boots, I picked up my gun and slung the belt around me, then tucked the other behind my belt.

Then I reached for the Patterson, and as I did so there was a piercing yell far out on the plains, and then a whole chorus of wild Comanche yells and the pound of hoofs.

The cattle came up with a single lunge and broke into a wild stampede. I saw Free Squires riding like mad to cut them off, saw his horse stumble and go down and the wave of charging, wild-eyed cattle charge over him.

And then I was on one knee and shooting.

A Comanche jumped his horse into camp and my first shot took him from the saddle.

I saw Pa roll out of bed and fire a shotgun from a sitting position.

In an instant the night was laced with a red pattern of gunfire, streaks of flame stabbing the darkness in the roar of shooting.

Zebony Lambert ran from the shelter of a wagon, blazing away with a six-shooter.

I saw an Indian try to ride him down and Zeb grabbed the Indian and swung up behind him and they went careering off into the night, fighting on the horse's back.