The Palo Duro Trail

Chapter 16

Two more days of driving through the canyon, until they were well past the prairie dog town. Now Flagg was looking for a place to drive the cattle back up on the flat. The water was just trickling through the canyon and the cattle were beginning to grumble. The men had hit patches where the grass was scarce and at night Flagg ordered men to cut off prickly pear, scrape the spines off, and feed them to the weakest cattle at the rear. It wasn’t enough, but it kept the herd from running off at every bend where they could smell water.

Up on the flat, Dag could smell the urine and cowpies when the wind was right. At mealtimes, the crew halted by a game trail leading down into the canyon, where the men could walk up and get their grub. At night, Dag, Jo, and Fingers sat by the fire, talking beneath the stars. They’d had no trouble avoiding the prairie dog town, although once or twice, the two men had had to take shovels and fill in holes that the mules might drop a leg into. They managed, though, to stay ahead of the slow-moving herd.

Matlee showed up on the third day, with more than three hundred head of cattle, the hands branded well into the night and the next morning before all were turned into the herd.

“We’re gettin’ there, Dag,” Flagg said.

“Yeah, real slow though.”

“We still got a long ways to go before we hit the Red, and they’s ranches on both sides of the canyon—and lots of gullies and brush where the wild ones can hide.”

“I saw a bunch of my men riding out this morning,” Dag said. “Hunting outlaws?”

“Yep. And Matlee’s boys are hard at it too. We also picked up a few head in the canyon that just joined up with us. Lonesome, I reckon.”

Dag chortled. “Every little bit helps,” he said.

“Well, we don’t need as many hands and there’s plenty of wild cattle in this part of Texas. We’ll make do.”

“Sure, Jubal.”

It wasn’t until the next day that Dag had a chance to talk with Matlee. He had come in late the night before, to the chuck wagon and used the cookfire to heat the irons. He and his men branded sixteen head and ran them down into the canyon to join the herd, which was bedded down for the night. There was much lowing and the whinnying of horses as the strange cattle mingled with the growing herd.

“I haven’t seen Horton about,” Dag said. “He didn’t come in with you?”

“Naw, Don said he was going to scout ahead the other day. Haven’t seen him since.”

“He have grub to do that?”

“He didn’t ask for none. So I guess so. How come you want to know about that?”

Dag told him about the chuck wagon break-in some four or five days before.

“Mighty peculiar,” Matlee said.

“Yeah, ain’t it, though?”

“Are you thinkin’ Horton stole that grub?”

“Well, put two and two together, Barry: Horton’s gone, and he didn’t ask you for no grub. If he knew he was goin’ to be ridin’ off by hisself, all he had to do was ask Fingers for some extra chuck.”

“I see what you mean, Dag.” Matlee lifted his hat and scratched his pate. “Don’t make no sense, you put it that way.”

“No, it don’t. Unless Horton was huntin’ somethin’ else like.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Maybe me. When Jo and I went fishin’ a few nights ago, somebody took a shot at me or her at that catfish pond.”

“First I heard of it.”

“Yeah. I haven’t told anyone. But Jo said he was watchin’ me all the time, and before you and your boys lit out, he was eyein’ the chuck wagon, seein’ what all Fingers put away and where he put it. You take three or four suspicions like that and you got a whole passel of evidence. Maybe circumstantial, but evidence none the damned less.”

“Boy, Dag, you better, by God, be sure before you accuse a good cowhand like Horton of such shenanigans.”

“I’ve been studyin’ on that some, Barry, the past few days.”

Dag pulled the makings from his pocket and handed the sack to Matlee. Matlee took the tobacco and Dag fished out the papers and handed those to him. Barry rolled a cigarette, licked it tight, and stuck it in his mouth. He handed the makings back to Dag, who rolled a quirly for himself. Then he struck a match and lit Matlee’s cigarette and his own.

The two men, deep in thought, pulled a few puffs from their cigarettes.

“So, Dag, what do you figure?” Matlee asked.

“I never had no quarrel with Don Horton. Barely know the man. Flagg said he’s worked many a gather with the hombre and vouches for him. I ain’t seen nothin’ to make me feel different.”

“Maybe he’s not the jasper who took a shot at you, Dag.”

“Might not be. But as I said, I got to thinkin’, what with all these suspicions rollin’ around in my head, and then I went back to a time just before we left on this drive.”

“And?”

“And Deuce come over to the house and raised pure Cain ’cause he said I stole Horton and Manny from him when I didn’t know a damned thing about it. He went and bought the papers on my spread and threatened to take my land and house if I didn’t make my payment next year.”

“Deuce is a devil. A hard man in a trade.”

“So what if, before Horton left, Deuce offered him some money to rub me out so’s I couldn’t make that payment?”

Matlee let out a low whistle and shook his head. “Well, Deuce is a mighty hard man and he has the scruples of a dog in heat. I sure wouldn’t put something like that past the son of a bitch.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Well, I reckon you just got to keep your eyes peeled, Dag. And watch your back.”

“Yeah,” Dag said, feeling an emptiness in the pit of his stomach.

The days passed with no sign of Horton. Flagg told Dagstaff that it was time to run the herd out of the canyon and back on to the plain.

“We’re just movin’ too slow and there ain’t enough grass to fatten the cows no more.”

The herd had swelled even more with many of the hands riding out at night and during the day to scout for outlaws. Dag wasn’t keeping an exact tally, but he knew they had close to three thousand head, which was encouraging.

“ ’Sides,” Flagg said, “I been seein’ Injun sign.”

“You have? Tracks?”

“Tracks. Some old, some more recent like.”

“Well, we know there are Comanch’ and Kiowa huntin’ this canyon, livin’ in it.”

“Yesterday, I saw what looked like mirror flashes up ahead of us. Could have been the sunshine glancin’ off rocks, but I don’t think so.”

“We got plenty of men, Jubal. They might think twice before comin’ at us.”

“Stealin’ is in a redskin’s blood. I doubled the nighthawks when we bedded the herd down, just in case.”

“Good idea,” Dag said.

The next morning, Flagg found a place where the canyon wall to the west dipped low and the slope wasn’t so steep. He ordered the outriders to bunch up the herd while he ran the lead cow up the slope. The herd followed in a steady stream of horns and cowhides, the cows lowing like a bunch of grumbling stockyard beeves going to slaughter.

There were plenty of grass on the plain and creeks running well. Prairie flowers grew as far as a man could see, and the moon rose like an alabaster planet every night, growing full again.

And still Dag saw no sign of Horton. Nor did Flagg see any more signal mirrors flashing in the sun, if that was what he had seen in the first place.

Matlee was scouring the country with his men, bringing in some cattle every time he came back; the branding irons were kept hot, it seemed, all day long and into the night.

At the chuck wagon one evening, when many of the hands from both ranches were finished with supper, sitting around, jawing and smoking, Finnerty spoke to Jimmy.

“You didn’t bring your git-tar, Jimmy?” Fingers said.

“Naw, Fingers. Figgered the remuda would take up all my time. And it do.”

Finnerty laughed. “I brought one, just in case.”

“Just in case what?” Gough asked.

“In case your fingers got to itchin’. Want to play us a tune or two?”

Jimmy smiled. “You read my mind, Bill? My fingers have been plumb lonesome for a set of wire strings.”

“This’uns got catgut.”

“That’ll do.”

So Finnerty brought out the worn Mexican guitar. Jimmy tuned it like a master and began to play “Buffalo Gals.” Jo stood next to Dag and some of the men began to join in on the chorus. When he livened up the music, some of the men started dancing the jig like drunken fools.

Jo turned to Dag. “Dance with me, Felix?”

“Onliest way I could dance them jigs was if I dropped a lighted cigarette butt down in my pants.”

She laughed and took his hands in hers. “I’ll show you,” she said, and whirled him into the center of the dancing circle of man. The hands started clapping time to the music as the two pranced like an old married couple. Jo was smiling and Dag looked as if he were experiencing a hair-raising ride on a runaway mustang.

Jimmy saw the two dancing, and he played a slow piece the next time around. Dag protested, mildly, when Jo held on to him, but the two looked right graceful there under the light of the moon and glow of the fire. After that, others wanted to dance with Jo and she obliged them, much to Dag’s relief. But watching her with the others made him a little green with jealousy, and he wondered again why Jo stirred up such feelings in him.

It might have gone on like that a while longer, but the music stopped with a startling abruptness when they heard gunshots from far out on the plain. Then they heard loud shouts in English, followed by the chilling, high-pitched screeches that sounded too much like war cries.

“Son of a bitch,” Flagg said. “Boys, strap on your irons and grab your horses. We got big trouble.”

Jo looked at Dag with alarm; her eyes flared and got smoky with fear. Dag got up and went for his horse.

“Felix, be careful,” she said.

But he didn’t hear her. All he heard was the shrill, tongue-trilling cries of Comanches on the warpath. And when he got to Nero and was putting him under saddle, the horse was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

And Dag’s stomach, when he stepped into the saddle, was swarming with flying insects feeling exactly like fear.