The Long Trail Home (7 page)

“You're holdin' sixes and twos and an ace of diamonds,” Kiowa reported.

“They're just guessin',” one of the gamblers groused.

“Well, they guessed right.” Rocklin turned his hand over.

“We didn't know these cards was rigged. How do we know this cattleman didn't mark them?” the man to the left of Fortune whined.

“Because he's losin', that's why. But this is your lucky day,” Fortune added. “I brought a fresh deck over.” He slapped the blueback cards down on the table.

“We ain't goin' to play if we're insulted like this!” The third gambler rose to his feet.

“In that case all the money goes to the man over there,” Sam pointed at Rocklin. “If you refuse to play with a new deck, you forfeit all the winnin's to the man who's left. That's the rules.”

“I ain't never heard that rule,” the gambler beside Fortune muttered.

Kiowa shoved his revolver into the man's shoulder blade. “You heard it now. What's it goin' to be? You goin' to play fair or forfeit?”

“I don't have to put up with these insults. I'm leavin',” the third man said.

“Good choice,” Kiowa answered.

The three men backed to the front door but paused by the bar. “We'll be waitin' outside for you,” one declared.

“We'll be right here visitin' with Mr. Rocklin about breakin' some horses,” Fortune replied.

The older man with his back against the wall surveyed them. “You know my name? I don't know yours.”

“That's Kiowa Fox, and I'm Sam Fortune.”

“Sam Fortune!” one of the gamblers gasped. He and the others backpedaled to the door. “You're Sam Fortune?” another exclaimed.

“Boys, we promise to see you when we come out.” Fortune called out, “Now, go on.”

“You ain't goin' to see me,” the man with the waxed mustache mumbled. “Not if I kin help it.”

Fortune and Fox scooted their chairs with backs to the wall, along each side of Rocklin.

“Are you really Sam Fortune?” he asked.

“Yes sir.”

“And you two want to break some horses?”

“The man at the merc said you had thirty-five to break in three weeks and would pay us two dollars a head, plus the two top picks, and all the grub we need while we're camped up in Public Land,” Sam bartered.

Rocklin stacked the worn blue chips scattered in the center of the table. “That wasn't quite the arrangement . . . but I owe you something. You've got yourselves a deal. But how do I know you aren't going to just up and steal the whole remuda?”

Kiowa took a blue chip off the table and rubbed his hands together. The chip disappeared. “You'll just have to trust us, Mr. Rocklin,” he said. He reached into Rocklin's vest pocket and pulled out the blue chip.

Rocklin held out his hand. “I believe a man's only as good as his word. Mr. Fortune . . .” Rocklin offered his hand.

Sam paused—then he took Rocklin's hand and shook it. “You've got yourself a deal.”

“I'll drive you up there in my wagon, but I'm not staying. I've got a herd to meet out on the Canadian River. But I am a little concerned how we're going to get out of town without being bushwhacked. You didn't exactly make friends with those men.”

“They won't be any trouble today,” Fortune replied. “That type won't face you in daylight. They'll sneak up in the dark and shoot you in the back. We don't have anythin' to worry about.”

“Until it gets dark,” Kiowa added.

CHAPTER THREE

Along San Francisco Creek, Public Land,

in the Oklahoma panhandle

The gritty, yellow dirt ground into Sam Fortune's cheek and stacked up against his closed left eye. When his chest slammed into the corral floor, his shirt ripped at the elbow. His spur hung in the stirrup for just a moment. It felt like his left leg would be jerked off at the hip. He landed full force on his shoulder. His left hand pinned back so savagely he would have screamed, but his lower lip rolled back and spooned bitter, dry dirt into his mouth.

Panicked hooves thundered in circles around him. Sam spit out the dirt and rolled to his back, trying to catch his breath.

“Are you jist goin' to lounge around all morning or are we goin' to get to work?” Kiowa Fox called out from the top rail of the fifty-by-one-hundred-foot corral.

Sam Fortune sat up and examined the blood and dirt on his elbow. “Don't you have any respect for the dead?”

Kiowa jumped off the rail and retrieved Fortune's hat. He waited for the tall bay stallion to canter by, then he strolled out to the middle of the corral. “This sure is fun, ain't it? You want me to help you to your feet?”

“No, I thought I'd just sit here and enjoy the sunset,” Sam replied.

“The sun ain't goin' down for another six hours.”

“I'll wait.”

Sam struggled to his feet, brushed dirt out of his sandy blond and gray hair, and then jammed his hat back on. “I reckon that bay is broke. What do you think?”

A smile swept across Kiowa's face. “You know, they say bein' an outlaw is dangerous business. But honest work can kill a man too.”

They jogged over to the rail as the frightened horse with the dark mane, tail, and legs danced and snorted at the far end of the corral.

“Remind me not to choose that stallion when we finish this job.”

“I don't know, Sammy, there's one good thing about the bay—no one would ever steal him from you!”

“Well, go catch him and tie him to the snub post. I'll give it another try, soon as I wash a little of this alkaline dirt out of my mouth.”

“The only thing more bitter than the dirt is the water,” Kiowa scoffed. “I can't believe that Rocklin actually wants to ranch out on these high plains. Nobody else wants to live out here.”

“I think that's the point. It will be wide open for a long time.”

Kiowa Fox stared across the thin, brown grass of the treeless plain. “Sammy, did you ever figure that maybe God made some territory jist for himself and didn't intend for it to be settled?”

“If you were the Almighty, with the power to do anythin' you please, would you create a land that looked like this just for your own backyard?”

Kiowa began to laugh. “Nope. I'd make me some tall mountains, green trees, clear lakes, big fish, abundant game, cool breezes, . . . and a dark-skinned woman with long, black hair and dancin' eyes.”

Fortune examined the wound on his elbow. “Sounds like you're needin' a trip to town.”

“We've been out here two weeks. That's the longest I've ever been honest in my life.”

When Kiowa smiled the sun reflected off his gold teeth. “Six more horses and we're done.”

“Seven, unless you don't aim to mount that bay again.”

“Snub him up. Meanness can buck me off, but only death can keep me from crawlin' back up in the saddle.”

“You're stubborn enough to be part Comanche. Not Kiowa, mind you, but at least Comanche.”

Rocklin's San Francisco Creek ranch consisted of a framed, empty barn without siding, three large wall tents with raised wooden floors, a four-rail corral, and six cottonwood trees.

One of the trees was dead.

The white tents formed a line, south of the barn. While at the ranch, Rocklin stayed in the first one. He furnished the middle one as a cookhouse, but it was too June-hot to cook indoors. The tent closest to the creek served as the bunkhouse.

But there were no bunks.

Just two bedrolls and various saddles, bits, and bridles.

With campfire flames as light, a shirtless Sam Fortune examined the wounds on his chest and arms. His lower ribcage on the right side sported a bruise the exact shape of a hoofprint. Every time he coughed, sneezed, or laughed, pain retold the incident.

Kiowa Fox peered up from the frying pan. “You're covered with dried blood and bruises. You used to look lean and tough. Now you just look beat up, like a herd of buffalo ran right over the top of you.”

With a wet sack Fortune tried to dab the dirt and sand out of his elbow wound. “Kiowa, did you ever hunt buffalo?”

“When I was little, my uncle took me north. We had just crossed the Platte when we came upon a herd the size of Nebraska. It would have been easier to count the stars than to count them.”

“Did you kill a few?”

“Not a one. We got chased off by the Sioux and Cheyenne. But I saw them, and I know what it feels like when they shake the ground. How 'bout you, Sam?”

“I never saw the big herds: four or five hundred is probably the extent. They make quite a rumble. I can only imagine tens of thousands of them.”

Kiowa flipped the pork chunk over and set the big pan back on the coals. “It was a sight to see when they panicked and ran. Their heads were down, tongues hangin' out, puffin' the wind in and out like steam engines. And when they jumped up to run, they started spankin' themselves with their tails. Up and down, up and down . . . just as hard as you'd quirt a horse in a race. But the big herds are gone.”

“Remember that time we got into a scrape with Ned Christie? I lit shuck for the north country and came across a pile of buffalo bones stacked thirty foot high by the U. P. tracks,” Fortune said. “I guess they're payin' twenty dollars or better a ton for bones.”

“The day will come, Sam Fortune, when kids got to go to the zoo to see a buffalo, or a mountain lion, or a wolf, . . . or a coyote.”

“Oh no—coyotes will outlive us all.”

Kiowa stared out across the plains into the dying daylight. “When do you reckon Rocklin will be driving that herd in here?”

“In the next five days. Depends on what condition it's in. He'll need them watered and grassed before he runs them on this dry stuff.”

“You figure we'll have the horses all broke by then?” Kiowa scooped a hunk of meat and a coffee cup full of red beans onto a blue-enameled tin plate and handed it to Fortune.

Shirt still off, Sam scooped up his beans with a knife. “Depends on how the bay bucks out in the morning. If he's snuffy again, I'll have to start all over.”

Kiowa stabbed his entire piece of fried pork with his hunting knife. He held it like a drumstick and gnawed off a bite. “When we pick our horses, you goin' to take the buckskin?”

“So far—he's the smartest one I've seen. You still like the big black you call One Sock?”

“He's a little rank, but he can outrun a posse.”

“No fear of a posse out here.” Sam set down the plate and slipped on his dirty, torn shirt.

“You should have bought yourself another shirt in Antelope Flats.”

“This one isn't more than a couple of months old. Besides, I was broke, remember?”

“You live rough, Fortune.”

Sam sipped his coffee then plucked up his plate. “And I'm goin' to sleep rough. That floor's goin' to be harder than ever on these old bones tonight. What I'd give for a feather mattress.” He scooped more slightly gritty beans into his mouth with the knife.

Kiowa waved his pork slice, still speared to the end of his knife. “What I'd give for a feather mattress and a—”

“Forget it, Kiowa.” Sam held his side and tried to keep from laughing. “There isn't a woman around for a hundred miles.”

“I wonder if Rocklin's drovers know that. This might be the most isolated ranch on the plains. I can't imagine anyone wantin' to live out here. This is the kind of place where they build a prison.”

Sam surveyed the first stars that had begun to flood the night sky. “I might just sleep outside tonight. That tent gets too hot, anyways.”

“You complainin' about my snorin'?”

“Would it do any good if I did?”

“Nope, but I'm sleepin' in the tent. It's difficult to dream of beautiful women when scorpions and snakes are crawlin' over you all night.”

“You gettin' soft, Kiowa?”

“Yeah, and you're gettin' old, Sammy. . . . Probably nothin' we can do about it, neither.”

With an old-style Texas, iron-horn saddle for a pillow, Fortune propped his back toward the dying embers of the campfire and stared across the dark shadows of the cottonwoods at the distant, dry lightening storm. Every two or three minutes he twisted, bent, and stretched to keep his side from cramping.

The .50-caliber carbine with twenty-two-inch barrel lay beside him. Whenever he flounced for a more comfortable position, his hand slid down to the grip and fingered the trigger.

It doesn't make any sense.

No matter what happened in the Black Hills, you just don't mail a Sharps off to Indian Territory in hopes that a wayward son will wander by and spot it.

I haven't had an address I was proud of in years.

If Daddy died, then this belongs to Todd. He's the oldest. The favorite. The one who shadowed Daddy around the ranch. The one I never could be like. Taller. Stronger. Smarter. The Coryell County ranch was going to be yours, Todd. I wonder how you ever got over losin' that.

I never did.

Or they could have sent the carbine to Robert. Why didn't they send it to him? It would have looked good on that prancing cavalry horse. It's anyway as good as a trapdoor. Robert's the perfect soldier. For every rule I broke, he kept two. Just like Mama. He was her little trooper from the day he was born. Everything was cut and dry; black and white; right and wrong. Bobby, life isn't that simple—except for you. I'm glad you're happy with your Jamie Sue, . . . and no tellin' how many children. You named the first after Big River Frank. Must be more by now. Bobby, I bet you've got their faces scrubbed and their hats on straight, and you're marchin' them around that white picket-fenced yard. You got 'em signed up to West Point yet?

Fortune picked up the carbine and held it gingerly at his shoulder. He aimed it for the southern night sky. He sighted in each flash of lightening as if it were a target. The huge Sharps hammer wasn't cocked, so he squeezed the trigger at each flash.

Daddy, no wonder you liked this old gun. It fits comfortable in the hand and packs a wallop. That's fine if you're huntin'. But if you're the one bein' hunted, . . . well, I need more than a single-shot.

. . . When Rocklin pays us off, I'm goin' home to Coryell County. Aunt Barbara and Uncle Milt will still be there. They'll tell me what happened to Daddy. I'll slip in late some night, get caught up on the news, and slip out by daylight. Maybe I'll ride by the ranch. At least I can pull some weeds from Mama's grave.

A sudden pain at the base of his back caused him to sit straight up and stretch his arms out.

I think maybe I'll retire from breaking horses. This is a job for kids. All the Fortune boys are over thirty. . . .

Dacee June's twenty-one? She could be married. Heaven help the boy she marries. She was only ten when I left home the last time. Ten, but actin' sixteen.

Fortune let out a deep sigh and tried to find a comfortable spot on his side.

That's the trouble with not sleepin': A man becomes melancholy. Maybe I ought to be like Kiowa—just think of women at night . . . instead of kin. But most of the women I've known have been like Ladosa and Piney, good-hearted women who have to live with a lifetime of bad choices.

I need to sleep.

For about a month.

When he finally sat up straight, the green prairie grass around him stood a foot tall. The sun barely peeked over the western hills and the mild wind swayed the grass like gentle waves lapping the shore of a mountain lake.

The lady sitting on the blanket beside him had a wide-brimmed straw hat pulled low to shade her face. Her legs were tucked beneath her, covered by her dark blue dress. In her lap a small Bible lay open. She was reciting a verse and did not look at him.

“‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.'”

“Mama?” he gasped.

“Well, you decided to wake up! I trust all of that watermelon didn't give you a stomachache. Sammy, go check on Daddy and your brother.”

“Eh, . . . where are they?”

She waved to the north. “You know! See if they need any help. Take Daddy his carbine.”

He scooped up the Sharps and meandered through the thick prairie grass toward a knoll to the north. Even before he crested the ridge, he could feel the ground begin to shake. He heard a roar like a hundred trains race straight at him.