Ralph Compton Comanche Trail (3 page)

For adventuresome settlers dreaming of a better life, the Osage Trail, extending westward from Missouri through Kansas and into New Mexico, was the route increasing numbers followed in search of prosperity. A steady caravan of wagons, loaded with meager belongings and high hopes, traveled the rutted and dusty pathway originally blazed by massive herds of migrating buffalo.

Now, with the Indians moved westward or onto the Indian Territory reservations to the south, the spacious plains of Kansas had become a new and welcoming frontier, offering pioneers free plots of land simply for the claiming.

Among those staking claim to a hundred-and-sixty-acre plot in an isolated region of Labette County was a large, bushy-eyebrowed German immigrant named John Bender. Older than most who had made the hard journey, he had arrived with his son and set about building a small cabin and barn, dug a water well, and planted a small orchard and garden before summoning his wife and daughter from the Michigan mill town where they had waited for word that their new home was ready.

Bender's wife, Kate, a lumbering, overweight woman who spoke little English, had immediately recognized that the untilled land her husband had claimed would hardly yield a living for the family. And it was she who soon devised a plan to improve matters. With the help of her grown daughter, Kate Two, she set about rearranging the interior of the small cabin, stretching the canvas from her husband's wagon across the middle and placing a table in the front half of the room, leaving only a small area in back for the family's living quarters. She instructed John to build a small row of shelves across one wall, and began canning the produce from the orchard and garden.

Soon a hand-painted sign hung above the doorway, visible to those traveling the Osage Trail, proclaiming that G
ROCERIES,
F
OOD, AND
L
ODGING
were available. Crude though it was, another way station for weary travelers was in business.

In time, a steady stream of settlers stopped in. Some purchased a meal, a few bought sacks of ground corn and canned pears, some only stopped to water and feed their horses. Occasionally an exhausted traveler would take restful advantage of a night spent in the Benders' barn.

And Kate Two, a pretty young woman who had not inherited her mother's girth or ill humor, would entertain guests. If a male traveler arrived alone, she would invite him to the bed in back of the cabin while the rest of the family excused themselves to the barn to tend the visitor's animals.

It was another talent, however, that most intrigued travelers. Kate Two claimed the mystic ability to communicate with the dead. For a dollar, the same price she charged for a visit to her bed, she would conduct séances once a meal was finished and the table cleared. With a flair for the dramatic,
her eyes would roll and her head would jerk as she reached out to passed loved ones and communicated their reassuring thoughts to mesmerized onlookers.

Along the Osage Trail, Kate Two was becoming something of a celebrity.

•   •   •

Thad Taylor had felt a growing sense of uneasiness as he traveled back southward, stopping to ask settlers and townsfolk if they might have seen his father. None, however, recognized the man in the picture he showed. It was as if Doc Taylor had simply vanished.

Thad spent a morning in the small settlement of Thayer, getting no positive response from shopkeepers or passersby. The town marshal was asleep in his tiny office when Taylor entered and roused him. He grumpily said he'd not seen the man in the photograph before, placed his booted feet back atop his desk, and was again snoring even before his visitor left. Down the street, an elderly gentleman, repairing the broken axle of a traveler's wagon, had suggested that he might want to make a stop at the next way station. “It's only about five miles down the way, where you meet up with the Osage,” he said, pointing southward. “You'll see it just 'fore you get to Big Hill Creek. Likely there'll be a number of folks to inquire to once you get there.

“If nothing else,” he added with a smile and a wink, “I hear tell you'll find a mighty pretty young lady living there.”

•   •   •

It was nearing noon when Taylor saw John Bender hoeing in the garden. “Young fella,” Bender called out as he tilted his hat back and wiped his brow with an oily bandanna, “it looks as if you're headed the wrong way. Most folks are traveling
west these days. Why don't you get down and come on into the house? You look like you could use something to eat and something to wet your whistle.”

As he issued the invitation, a young man who appeared to be close to Taylor's age peeked from the corner of the cabin, a grin on his freckled face. “Howdy, howdy, mister. Howdy, howdy,” he shouted, then broke into laughter as he began flapping his skinny arms. Then he disappeared.

“That there's my boy,” Bender said. “He's a bit touched, as you can see. But he's a hard worker and does what he's told, so I ain't complaining none.”

The inside of the cramped cabin had the odor of lard too often used, boiled turnips, and a faint metallic smell Taylor didn't recognize. Kate Bender stood at the woodstove, sweat beading across her forehead and a dip of snuff protruding from her bottom lip as she removed a pan of corn bread and placed it on the table. She ladled a cup of water from a barrel that sat near the doorway and handed it to the visitor.

“It vas jus draw from vell,” she said in broken English. “Maybe it still can be cool.” She motioned for him to sit at the table.

“You're more likely to feel some breeze if you sit on the side by the curtain,” her husband suggested.

Just before Thad took his seat, the canvas parted and Kate Two appeared. Her long black hair fell across shoulders that were exposed by a white peasant blouse, her blue eyes quickly settling on the visitor. “Can't say I've seen you here before,” she said. Her voice had a lilt to it, free of her mother's accent.

“Never been here before,” Taylor said as he sipped at the turnip soup, which proved to be foul-tasting.

“So, what is it that brings you this way?”

Taylor pulled the framed photograph from his pocket and pushed it across the table. “I'm looking for this man,” he said.

He looked so intently at the face of the young woman seated across from him that he didn't notice the quick exchange of glances between the elder Benders.

“Yes, I do recall him,” she said. “He stopped in a while back to water his horse and purchase a jar of Mama's peaches. A fine old gentleman, he was. We exchanged words for a bit and he seemed seriously interested in taking advantage of my gift.”

“And what gift might that be?”

“I, sir, am a spiritualist.” She smiled. “Blessed with the special ability to make contact with the departed.”

“You mean you talk to dead folks.”

“That's exactly right,” she said, ignoring his skeptical tone. “I felt there was someone he wanted me to reach out to, but he said he was already late arriving at his destination and took his leave. I urged him to stop in another time when he was of a mind. It was my opinion I would be seeing him again.

“Is it your fear that he might have run into deadly trouble with Indians? Maybe you'd like me to try to make contact with your friend.”

“I don't recall saying anything about him being a friend.”

Kate Bender began wiping crumbs of corn bread from the table and looked across the room at her husband. “Time for you get back to working,” she said. John Bender reached into his trousers pocket, pulled out his watch, and nodded.

Taylor's pulse quickened at the brief glimpse of the gold pocket watch. It looked exactly like one his father had carried
for as long as he could remember. His first thought was to rip it from the old man's hand and challenge him about the whereabouts of the doctor. Instead he took a deep breath and said, “Mighty nice-looking watch you're carrying.” He tossed two of Sister's dimes on the table.

Without reply, an ashen John Bender turned and was out the door, moving swiftly in the direction of the barn. The two women stood silently, their faces vacant stares.

“Fact is, I found that watch to be familiar-looking,” Taylor said, “and it makes me wonder a bit what else might have taken place here when my father visited.”

Though neither of the women responded, he was overcome by a feeling of uneasiness. The sweltering cabin suddenly felt cold and threatening. Would the old man return from the barn with a gun?

“I reckon I'll be stopping back again real soon,” he said as he quickly made his way out the door and mounted his horse.

He nudged Magazine into a trot and as he rode away he could hear a high-pitched voice chanting, “Howdy, howdy, mister. Howdy. Howdy,” then an insane laughter that was now far more chilling than amusing.

Taylor hurried back toward Thayer as storm clouds rumbled along the horizon. Something, he was certain, was wrong. Some manner of harm had come to his father during his stop at the strange way station he'd just visited.

He needed to talk with the marshal.

•   •   •

Brantley Thorntree was slight and bony, half a foot shorter than the man who had already interrupted his morning sleep once that day. An unruly beard hid much of his face, and his clothes hung on him like a scarecrow's as he rose from his
chair on the boardwalk in front of the jail. Only the deep growl of his voice hinted at the authority one might expect of a lawman.

“Mighty short trip,” he said. He looked westward toward the approaching cloud bank. “I reckon you've come to seek shelter before the storm arrives.”

“Truth is, I'm in need of your help,” Taylor said as he dismounted.

“Come have a sit and tell me what's troubling you.”

Taylor recounted his journey and its purpose, ending his story with the fact that he was certain the watch he'd seen in John Bender's hand belonged to his missing father. “Marshal, there's something strange going on down at that foul-smelling place,” he said, his words coming more rapidly. “Seems to me everybody there is half-crazy or worse. There's a dim-witted son and a sister who claims to have special powers to talk with dead folks. The old woman barely speaks the language and the old man, he seems to just do whatever pleases her.”

“They's a lot of strange folks moving out this way these days.” The marshal spat into the street. “Can't say what you're describing is all that unusual, though I have heard tell of the pretty young woman who offers a variety of special favors. Not that I know about them firsthand, mind you.

“Let me think on it,” he said. “Can't do nothing till this storm clears anyway. Best you hurry on down to the livery and get you and your horse a dry place to stay the night. My old bones tell me we got us a frog-strangler coming our way.”

•   •   •

The storm hit with a vengeance. Loud claps of thunder rattled the walls of the stable where Taylor lay, head resting on the
saddle he'd removed from Magazine. Though he was weary and distraught, rest evaded him as his horse nervously paced the small stall. Outside, the sky had blackened long before sundown, and the rain beat against the roof with a roar.

He could not rid his thoughts of the scene that had played out at the way station.

Or of his father. Was it possible that an educated man like him could have believed the claims of a young woman boasting powers to reach out to those who had passed? Had he, in desperation and sadness, been convinced that, for a dollar's price, he might hear the comforting words of his wife one more time? And, if so, had it led to yet another family tragedy? What, he wondered, would he say to Sister upon his return if his dark concerns proved true? If there was real truth to the dreams she'd told him about?

The questions raced through his mind late into the night.

There was a squeak of the hinges on the livery door and a figure appeared, a lantern flickering at his side. Rain dripped from the brim of his hat and down the slicker he wore. “You in here, boy?” It was the voice of Marshal Thorntree.

“I figured the thunder was most likely keeping you awake,” he said. “Me, I don't get much sleep nights, no matter what the weather. I reckon that's why you caught me snoozing earlier in the day. We need to do some more talking.”

Taylor rose, brushing hay from his pants, but made no response.

“Truth is,” the marshal said, “you ain't the first to come to me with a concern for lost kinfolk. People been disappearing along the trail now for some time. I didn't give it much mind, thinking there was all manner of explanation. Maybe they lost their pioneering spirit and turned back or fell ill or got
themselves killed by savages who still take leave of their reservations now and again.

“I never made no connection to the Bender place till you brought it to mind. But now that I've thought on it, seems all the bad things I've been hearing about took place down that way.” He cleared his throat and shook rain from his hat. “Anyways, as soon as this storm passes, I'm gonna deputize me a few men here in town and go down there for a look-see and some conversation with those folks.”

“I'll be wanting to go along,” Taylor said.

“In that case, consider yourself rightfully deputized.” With that he turned and walked back into the watery night.

The driving rain, the likes of which eastern Kansas had seldom before seen, continued for two days.

•   •   •

Four men were already waiting with Marshal Thorntree when Taylor arrived in front of the jail to finally begin the morning ride to the Benders' place. Though a clear blue sky greeted them, the three-day storm had left the street a chocolate quagmire. Standing pools of rainwater made the street look like a stagnant riverbed. There were no wagons or buggies in sight and few other people aside from idle shopkeepers stirred.