The Long Trail Home (12 page)

I prayed, but I can't trust you, Lord. You've given up on me and turned a deaf ear. I can't get out of it. I can never escape. It's like a bear trap. It gnaws the life out of me. My God, what I am going to do? Do I track down the only friend I have left? Do I shoot Kiowa? For what? So that I can have the horses? I can't bring them back to Rocklin. Lord, my life might not be very important to you, but it's the only one I have—and right now, it's a bewilderment.

A quick hike around the perimeter of the corral revealed that the remuda of horses had been kept bunched and driven straight due west, even though the windswept tracks were difficult to read, at least a day old.

Sam searched the tents three times but could not locate the shovel. He stepped off a grave, anyhow, fifty feet north of the largest of the cottonwoods. He dug it with a two-by-four six feet long and a large cast-iron frying pan. He lowered Rocklin's blanket-clad body and smoothed dirt over it, blending the grave site with the high plains.

With his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbow and sweat burning a track into his knife wound, he marched back to Rocklin's tent. In a small, black leather case he found papers, letters, and personal items that included a small, leather-bound Bible. Sam tramped back down to the camouflaged grave site. After reading aloud Psalm 23 and Revelation 21, he stared down at the dirt.

“Lord, I don't feel like praying. I don't think you want to listen to me, and I can't complain about that, because I haven't listened to you for years. But Mr. Rocklin treated me square, and I treated him square. Have mercy on his soul. In Jesus' name, amen.”

And have mercy on me and Kiowa, 'cause when I catch up with him, I don't think I'm goin' to want to pray.

He spent the remaining hours sorting through supplies and remodeling the old McClellan saddle into a packsaddle for the red roan mare. He built a small fire and cooked a little supper. He watched the stars come out, then disappear as a stiff wind whipped in from the west and storm clouds blew in.

Although he had spread his bedroll outside, the crashing thunder and vertical lightening strikes sent him to the bunkhouse tent. About midnight, the skies opened up and a deluge of rain blasted the tents and the dry, panhandle dirt. Then it hailed. For over a half-hour the roar of the storm sounded to Sam like a choir of angry knife blades dancing on the tent. When they began to slice through the canvas, he sat up, put on his hat, and wrapped the bedroll around his shoulders.

The hail turned back to rain, and—like a flash flood—the deluge melted the hail, except that inside the tent. Finally, as if taking its cue from a heavenly signal, all rain ceased at once.

The west winds picked up, and within minutes the clouds broke, the stars blinked on, and a half-moon appeared overhead. The wind died, leaving the air clean, fresh, almost cool. Sam opened both ends of the wall tent, tried to find a dry spot on his bedroll, and fell asleep with one hand on the receiver of the .50-caliber carbine.

It was a bright, beautiful, refreshing morning.

Clean air, no dust, and very little mud due to the dry soil, and a steady breeze. It dawned as a panhandle summer day at its best.

And Sam Fortune was depressed.

Extremely depressed.

He packed a hundred pounds of supplies on the back of the red roan, mounted Picket, then circled the horses by the recently dug grave.

“Well, Mr. Rocklin . . . ,” he tipped his still damp Stetson, “I trust the coyotes can't dig your bones, and others will let you lie in peace. I'm sorry about this place not workin' for you. I really wanted it to work. I prayed for it to work. The Bible says, ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,' but I'm afraid the prayers of an Indian Territory outlaw aren't worth much. You should have picked better friends.”

Fortune looked to the west.

“I guess . . . I ought to pick better friends too. I don't know what happened here, but I'm going to find out. I pledge you that, Mr. Rocklin. I won't rest until I figure it out.”

And I probably won't rest then, either.

Six miles west of the ranch, Sam lost all trace of the remuda. The combination of steady wind, followed by the deluge of summer rain and hail, returned the desertlike plains to a virgin condition.

OK, Kiowa Fox. Where did you take those ponies? Somewhere to sell them? Somewhere to sell them where you wouldn't be arrested?

That eliminates the I.T., Kansas, and most of Texas.

Black Mesa . . . they don't care where the goods come from. But, they wouldn't buy the horses. They'd shoot Kiowa in the back and take them. He knows that.

He'd go somewhere where he wouldn't get arrested . . . or shot in the back.

And someplace where the women are real friendly.

“New Mexico!”

Tramperas . . . Cimarron . . . someplace along the Santa Fe tracks . . . he'll sell the horses and chase the women until the money is gone.

Or until I catch up with him.

Someday you will have to answer to God, Kiowa Fox. But until then, you'll answer to Sam Fortune.

About noon, Sam crossed Beaver Creek, not more than six feet wide and six inches deep. The water, muddied from the deluge the night before, was beginning to clear. A grassy area, no larger than twenty-five by fifty feet on the north side of the creek, had been recently grazed. On the bank of the creek, up on the plains, he spotted the tracks of at least a dozen horses.

“He's still got a day on us, Picket, but he doesn't know I'm back here.”
I wonder what he thinks I'm going to do? I was supposed to push in twelve hundred head. Wouldn't that have been a mess? No old man. No ranch houses. No horses. We would have had to turn around, drive them right back to Dodge City— and sell them. But you knew that, didn't you, Lord?

Sam figured he was straight south of Black Mesa when he dropped down beside McNeiss Creek so the horses could drink from a stream so narrow they could step across it. The creek flowed out of a narrow gorge no more than ten feet across and at least that deep.

Fortune studied the eroded streambed.
From up on the plains this little creek can't be seen, until someone rides right up to it. By ridin' single file, you could travel along without being spotted. On the other hand, if they spied you before you spied them, you'd be a sitting duck down here at the bottom of this barranca.

It's risky.

But so is ridin' straight up to a horse thief.

He turned his horses into the tiny narrow arroyo and rode up the creek.

For the next three hours, Sam Fortune followed the barranca. At times it rose up almost even with the flat plains. On the northern horizon, treeless mountains divided the light blue sky from the yellowish-red soil. The dead grass grew in scattered clumps. The occasional sage grew no more than a foot off the ground. There were no trees. No buildings. No roads. No people. No animals. And, there was no wind.

The only sign of life on the plains was the layers of hoofprints from the remuda being pushed along the plains north of the creek.

Late in the evening he climbed up out of the creek bed at the base of a treeless mountain range. Sam guessed he was close to the New Mexico border. Up against a rimrock, where the creek overflowed during runoff, grew a thick carpet of light green grass. He picketed the horses, pulled the saddle and pack, then inspected the treeless oasis.

At the base of the rimrock, the grass had been grazed down. On the north side of the meadow, tracks revealed the horses had galloped toward the hills.

Kiowa left here in a hurry! Maybe he spotted me. But there's not enough daylight to tell how old these tracks are. There's got to be an old campfire here someplace.

He returned to the creek, following the base of the rimrock. His boot rolled across a rock, and he stopped to retrieve a brass casing.

.45-70? Kiowa has his .44 and maybe Rocklin's '73 Winchester carbine, but that's a .44 also. This is a single-shot . . . a Trapdoor. . . . The army? Did Kiowa run across a cavalry patrol?

Fortune retrieved twelve more brass casings as he hiked along the rimrock. Near the creek he came across a shallow cave at the base of the cliff and a fire circle. The ashes were dead, but the dirt beneath them was still a little warm.

Several more .45-70 casings were scattered near the fire.

Whose camp was this? Did Kiowa come across a Trapdoor single-shot? Did someone come up on him by surprise, or did he come up on them? Someone chased someone. From the looks of the brass, there were several Trapdoor rifles.

He hiked back to the pack supplies, pulled out the block of yellow cheese, then broke off a chunk.

Nothin' ever gets any simpler. Kiowa is too Indian to stumble onto troopers by mistake. Besides, the army has never been known to camp in a discreet fashion.

Fortune set up his camp away from the cave, next to the creek where it washed down the mountainside. He led the two horses up the narrow cut and staked them out so they couldn't be seen from most parts of the meadow. He didn't build a fire, but perched himself on the Texas saddle, his back against the base of the rimrock. Cheese, crackers, and jerky lay on a rock next to him.

He folded his legs and propped the .50-caliber Sharps carbine across his lap. To the east he watched the mountain's shadow stretch for miles as the sun set behind him.

He was still in that position, his chin on his chest, stars tossed about the July sky, when Picket whinnied. Sam jumped straight up, found both of his feet sound asleep and promptly fell flat on his face in the grass and dirt. He had pushed himself up on his knees when he heard the thunder of horse hooves from the north.

The remuda . . . someone's bringing them back to the meadow.

Staying low, Sam snuck back up the barranca where his two horses pranced and strained at the picket ropes. The remuda approached the base of the rimrock, not more than fifty feet from his position. He could see their silhouettes but not who, or how many, herded them.

When Picket and the red roan settled down, he eased forward out of the barranca and hunkered down along the base of the rimrock.

If I had been chased out of this camp once before, I wouldn't go right back and build a fire in the cave. I'd . . . I'd come over here where the creek tumbles out of the mountain. If I got pinned in, I'd make a break up the mountainside and probably hold off any who tried to follow.

Fifty feet away he heard the jangle of spurs.

That eliminates Indians and the boys in blue.

A shadowy figure approached, carrying a saddle over his shoulder. Sam strained to see if there were others. The saddle blocked any outline of the man's face. He waited, carbine at his side, finger on the trigger.

The man came within ten feet, threw down the saddle, and grabbed for his holstered revolver. This time Sam had no doubts about the silhouette.

“Don't pull it, Kiowa, I've got the Sharps pointed at your belly!” Fortune barked.

“Sammy? Oh, man, when I caught a whiff of that tonic water, I figured it was a lawman. You got yourself shaved in Dodge City, I take it.”

“That was three days ago. Drop your gun belt, Kiowa.”

“Well, that's strong stuff. You didn't happen to bring some gals back with you, did you? . . . What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

Kiowa's holster dropped to the grass. “Sammy, this ain't funny.”

“Neither is ridin' back to the ranch findin' Rocklin dead and you and the horses gone. Light a match.”

The flare of the sulfur match revealed Kiowa Fox's chiseled, brown face and piercing black eyes. “You think I killed Rocklin? He died of that snakebite.”

“He had two bullets pumped into his chest at close range. Sit down.”

“Sammy, this is crazy.”

“Do it!” Fortune snarled.

“Oh, I'll do it . . . I'll do it because I didn't kill Rocklin. We both know that I could run away in the dark and you wouldn't shoot me. We both know Sam Fortune couldn't shoot Satan in the back, especially if he were unarmed. I can't believe you'd come after me like this.”

“And I can't believe you think I wouldn't come after you.”

Kiowa sat down in the dark, cross-legged, and pushed his hat back. “Don't that prove I didn't do it? I knew you gave your pledge to Rocklin. That meant I would have to kill you, too, sooner or later. I wouldn't have let you sneak up on me, if I was set to kill you.”

Kiowa glanced back over his shoulder. “Sammy, I've got to ask you a favor. Let me sit over there against the rimrock next to you. You can stick the carbine in my ribs if that's the way you feel, but there just might be some Black Mesa boys after these ponies, and I don't want to get shot in the back.”

“Black Mesa boys? Carryin' .45-70s?”

“Yep, and that's what saved me. I could squeeze six rounds from Rocklin's carbine for every one of theirs. McClellan saddles, trapdoors . . . they must have ambushed the boys in blue.”

“Start from the beginning, Kiowa, and make it believable. I've got a lousy feeling in the pit of my stomach about all of this. Tell me what happened when I was in Dodge City.”

“Did you push the cattle out to the ranch already?” Kiowa asked.

“I found out that Rocklin's cattle had been sold, and the crew went back to Texas.”

“You mean, there's no crew and cattle waitin' for us to bring the remuda?”

The case hardened steel trigger felt cold on Fortune's finger. “Nothin' there but a fresh grave.”

“I knew you'd bury him.”

“You still have told me nothin'.”

“If there's no ranch to go back to, we can push these horses down to Tramperas or even La Cinta and sell them.”