Authors: Harry Sinclair Drago
Trigger Gospel
By
SINCLAIR DRAGO
Author of “Desert Water,” “Guardians of the Sage,” etc
.
M. EVANS
Lanham ⢠New York ⢠Boulder ⢠Toronto ⢠Plymouth, UK
M. Evans
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Copyright © 1935 by The Macaulay Company
First Rowman & Littlefield paperback edition 2014
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN 13: 978-1-59077-487-8 (pbk: alk. paper)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesâPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For
EDWARD A. DUCKER
Justice of The Supreme Court of Nevada
Whose feet have trod the lonely cañons and wind-swept rimrocks, where a man's best companion is himself.
Contents
W
HEN
Dodge City was the end of steel for the whole South West, the thundering hoofs of a million Texas longhorns carved deep into the prairie sod of Oklahoma the trail that old Tascosa Cummings and his little X Bar X spread followed this long, hot July afternoon.
Thirty years had passed since the last of the great trail herds had come bawling up from the Panhandle. Those ghostly legions of longhorns and the brawling, reckless men of that all-but-forgotten day lived now only in the memories of such old-timers as himself. Even the trail, packed down with their sweat and blood, had been all but effaced by the jungle-like growth of native bluejoint grass that grew saddle-high on the rolling plains between the North Fork of the Canadian and the Cimarron.
And yet, Tascosa, riding at the head of his outfit, followed it without conscious effort as it uncoiled its tawny, rutted ribbon to the north. He had nothing to say, but the old trail stirred vagrant emotions in him, and he screwed his long, thin, weather-beaten face into a flinty squint that almost hid his faded blue eyes.
“Almost gone,” he told himself sadly. “She ain't waiting to be ploughed under. Another year or two and there won't be nothin' leftânary a sign to say this was once the hell-roarin'est boulevard on earth.”
The blotting out of the old Texas trail was but one of many evidences of social decay that he professed to see in the Oklahoma that had grown up under his very nose, so to speak. Seventy, if he was a day, a product of the era of the free-range when men roamed the plains high, wide and handsome, he had only a withering contempt for the nester who was satisfied to dig in on a little two-by-four patch of a hundred and sixty acres of government land and call it a ranch, and he had but little more respect for the new generation of cowmen, boxed off with barbed wire, who spouted newfangled nonsense about improving the blood strains of their stock and doubling the weight of a steer.
He now expressed his disgust for the pack of them with a grunt that was as eloquent as it was profane. He spat out the cud of tobacco that had served him for hours.
“Progress! Improvements!” he snorted fiercely. “Damn their souls, that's what's ruinin' this yere country. They got her all broken down in the loins already with their town sites and lightnin' rods. Gittin' so a man can't turn around this side of the Nations or the Strip without stumbling over somebody. If it keeps on it'll soon be a crime to even pack a gun here.”
Considering that at the moment Oklahoma was overrun with outlaws; that Bowie, a division point on the Rock Island Pacific, was the only town west of Kingfisher; that there was not a foot of made road nor a doctor, preacher or lawyer (working at his trade) in ten thousand square miles of territory; that to all practical purposes the six-gun was still the popular arbiter of right and wrong, made it appear that Tascosa was unduly apprehensive.
Of course, it was a subject on which he was not only biased but in certain quarters held to be just a little cracked. Certainly he was a disreputable old hooker, dirty, lawless and as full of guile as a Kiowa halfbreed. In the way of the old days, he wore his hair long, and at those rare moments when he removed his battered Stetson, he looked like nothing so much as a scrawny, tobacco-stained old eagle.
His X Bar X brandâalways called the old Sawbuck âhad not decorated a steer's hide in ten years. His chuck wagon was his ranch house. And yet he was prosperous, for he made a business of bidding on the government beef issues to the tribes down in the Nations. With a signed contract in his pocket, he would start looking for cattle. Sometimes he went incredible distances, but he usually succeeded in doing business on his own terms before he closed. The long drive to one of the agencies followed. He had to be there on time, hell or high water, and he always was. Then lazy days until it was time to repeat the operation.
It was a nomadic, care-free existence that suited him better than anything else he could have devised. Its lack of restraint, its breath of danger and excitement, the dash of hard work and the sure promise of long periods of ease made it something utterly desirable in other eyes than his, and he had drawn unto himself half-a-dozen men cut after his own patternâhardriding, two-fisted fighting men who could lick three times their weight or numbers with fist or gun as the occasion demanded.
They were on their way up from Anadarko and the Kiowa country now, heading back to Bowie. Behind them, well back out of the dust their ponies were kicking up, rumbled the wagon, with Maverick Williams, the cook, asleep on the seat and seemingly certain to be pitched out on his face at every jolt. Skull Creek was their destination for the night. They had been rambling along since dawn, and when Tascosa flung up his hand a few minutes later and signaled that the creek was in sight, they answered with a sharp yip of satisfaction and spurred up to where he waited at the top of the rise. Below them, off to the right a few hundred yards, a dense tangle of willow and wild cherry marked the course of the Skull.
“Thar she is boys!” Tascosa declared. “We used to drive right down to the stream years ago; but it sure looks as though a twister had torn things up around here just recent. Suppose you all spread out and find a way to git the wagon down. Me and Little Bill will jest follow the old trail to the bottom of this yere slope and see what that little draw looks like.”
“Well, come on, let's ramble,” Little Bill jerked out. “The shadows are gettin' long.”
He was a little runt of a man, not over five feet four even in his high-heeled boots, and the rangy claybank gelding that he rode, at least three hands higher than any horse in the outfit, made him appear even smaller than he was. His hands and feet were as tiny as a woman's. It was an incongruous touch, for although he was still under thirty there was something in the depths of his hazel eyes and the reckless set of his mouth that said he was a human buzz-saw when aroused. Shrewd, habitually alert, he had made himself Tascosa's lieutenant and over others, his elder brother Luther included, who had been riding for the Sawbuck for years. Without waiting for old Tas, he sank his knees into his big horse and started down the trail. His brother Luther and the others struck off across the slope. The old man had to use his spurs to overtake him.
“Say, what's the rush?” he demanded crustily.
“I ain't aimin' to go pokin' around no creek bottom after dark,” Little Bill answered. “We might run onto some folks that prefer their own company.”
“Dark? Why the sun's an hour high yet!”
“It won't be if we don't find water here and have to go on to the Cimarron.”
“Right,” old Tas acknowledged gruffly. Experience had taught him that Little Bill was usually right, even though he made a virtue of never admitting it.