The Palo Duro Trail

Chapter 3

Dag leaned over from the saddle and grabbed Matlee’s forearm. He dug his fingers into the soft flesh of the muscle and pushed downward so that the rancher couldn’t draw his pistol.

“There’s plenty of death to go around as it is, Barry. You back off. Little Jake didn’t have nothing to do with what happened to Luke.”

“I told them two not to go out alone this morning,” Matlee said, relaxing his hand’s grip on the butt of his pistol. “Damned if I didn’t warn them both.”

“Ain’t no matter now,” Dag said, his voice as soft as the disappearing dawn. “Could have been me or you, Barry. Me ’n’ Jimmy was up and out awful early. Ten minutes sooner, we might have wound up like Luke there. Settle down, son.”

Matlee looked up at Dag and nodded like a man too numb to speak. There was a sadness in his eyes. It flickered like a shadow darting in and out of sunlight.

“Which way did the Comanches head?” he asked.

“North. Jimmy and I camped way north of you. They got a good head start.”

“How many head did they get?”

“I don’t know,” Dag answered. “I don’t think Little Jake knows either. He was pretty shaken up.”

“Ain’t enough we got rain comin’ tonight or tomorrow. Now we got Comanches stealin’ stock.”

“I don’t figger they got more’n one or two head, the way they lit out. Probably a single head and they got it butchered by now.”

“Shit fire, Dag, we’re in a stretch to come up with enough head to drive to Cheyenne and you picked a trail what ain’t no good no ways.”

Dag stepped out of the saddle.

“Are you backing out, Barry?” Dag asked.

Matlee hesitated. Deuce stepped forward and waddled his considerable weight over to where Dag and Matlee were standing.

“I’m pulling my herd out, Dagstaff,” Deuce said. “This is the kind of thing I worried about ever since you told me about this drive.”

“Deutsch, you’re making a big mistake. You have more at stake than the rest of us. Pulling your cattle out will leave me way short.”

“We’re just getting started with the roundup, and already a man dead we have, and cattle stolen right from under our eyes.”

“A few hungry Comanches, Deutsch, that’s all. We’ll probably never see them again. Besides, we’ll have enough men and cattle on the drive, we can hold off a Comanche raid.”

The other men, from the various ranches, including his own, gathered around, listening to every word. Dag didn’t look at them, but he knew they were probably just as skeptical as Deutsch, and he granted that they had good reason. The roundup was starting off badly. His idea had been to separate the cows with fresh calves and just take the hardiest cattle up the Palo Duro and then drift them to the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Deutsch had been the hardest to convince that the drive would be both successful and profitable.

Jimmy dismounted, as well, but Little Jake remained on his horse, looking down at the assemblage in abject wonder.

“You won’t drive a single head of Rocking D cattle on your wild-goose chase,” Deutsch said. “I will not risk it.”

Matlee cursed under his breath. “Dag, we ain’t got enough head between us to go all the way to Cheyenne and come up empty.”

“That’s true,” Dag said. “Deutsch, you promised. You accepted my offer. Are you backing out now?”

“I am. I said I would let you drive my cattle to market if you had sufficient head and there was no danger of loss.”

“There’s always a danger of loss in anything,” Dag said, realizing his argument was weak. But without Deutsch’s cattle, none of them would earn a cent. The contract called for thirty-eight hundred head of prime beef stock and he could not make the drive with less than four thousand head, factoring in losses along the way.

“I will not take that risk,” Deutsch said. “My cattle the drive will not make.”

When he was angry, Deutsch always put his English in German grammatical form. And he was angry. His face was puffed up and red as a sugar beet. The cords in his neck wriggled like writhing snakes and the veins stood out like blue earthworms.

“You’re awful quick to call this,” Dag said. “You’re hurtin’ almost as bad as the rest of us, and we can’t rub two nickels together. What you got up your sleeve, Deuce, besides an arm?”

“To Sedalia, in Missouri, we will drive my cattle, Felix.”

“The Shawnee Trail?”

“We call it the Sedalia Trail, but the same it is, yes.”

“You won’t get the price I can get for you,” Dag said.

“No. The thirty-five dollars a head we will get and that is enough for my herd. It is the safe way, sure.”

Dag looked down at the ground and began working the toe of his boot into the dirt, scraping a smooth spot as if clearing his own mind in that same way. He tilted his foot and scraped with the edge of his boot. Then he looked up, stared into Deuce’s eyes.

“Sounds to me like you already made up your mind before you came to roundup, Deuce.”

“I make my mind up now.”

Dag searched the faces of the men standing around them. He looked at one man, stared at him hard. The man was Sam Coker, Deuce’s segundo. Coker bunched his lower lip up against his upper, then shifted his gaze to another part of the landscape.

“That right, Coker?” Dag asked. “You didn’t know anything about this change of plan?”

“I go with what Mr. Deutsch says.” Coker still avoided Dag’s gaze.

“You were going to use us all to help you with roundup, Coker, and all the time you and Deuce had no intention of honoring our agreement.”

Coker sucked in a breath.

No one spoke a word.

Dag looked back at Deutsch, an expression of contempt on his face. His eyes narrowed to dark slits.

“All right, Deuce, you called it. That’s my chuck wagon there. You and your hands clear on out of here. You’ll get no help from me with your damned roundup.”

“But we have always done roundup together,” Deutsch protested. “Who is to regulate?”

“I’ll regulate our cows. You regulate your own. Now clear out.”

Coker stepped forward, a scowl on his face. “Dagstaff, you’re violating the law of the range here.”

“You’ve got a nerve, Coker. Deutsch backed down on his word. Out here a man’s word is the law.”

“You’re not leavin’ us out, Dagstaff,” Coker said. “We got as much right to check cattle as you do.”

“Yeah? Well, not anymore, Coker. Pack it up.”

Coker’s rage surged up so quickly nobody there was prepared for it. He balled up his fists and rushed toward Dagstaff. He drove a fist into Dag’s face, knocking him backward. Blood spurted from Dag’s nose and he reeled under the impact. Then all hands erupted and joined in the fray. Coker drove in for another blow, but Dag shook off the pain and slammed Coker with a roundhouse right that caught him in the left jaw, staggering him.

Deutsch went after Dag, a fist cocked to hammer a blow to his face. Dag moved his head and Deutsch’s fist grazed his chin, knocking his head back slightly. Dag drove a fist into Deutsch’s paunch, saw the man quiver and absorb the blow as he expelled air from his lungs.

Fists flew from every direction after that. Men yelled and pummeled one another with flailing arms. There was biting, clawing, and kicks to the groin as the fight turned into a wild melee. Matlee squared off with Coker and the two exchanged punches. Blood squirted from noses and ears. Dag grappled with the heavier Deutsch, who was trying to wrestle him to the ground. Breathing heavily, Dag drove a fist into Deutsch’s groin. The man grunted in pain and doubled over. Dag hit him with a powerful uppercut, but the two went down, rolling away from the center of the fight, both men lashing at each other with their fists and open hands.

Jimmy Gough smashed Coker with a straight right to the throat. Coker gasped for air, and a wheezing sound issued from his throat, while his lips started to turn blue. Jimmy felt someone climb on his back and turned, trying to shake the man off. He felt arms wrap around his neck. He drove an elbow into his attacker’s gut and heard a groan. He shook himself free and stepped away, drawing his pistol.

Jimmy fired into the air.

“That’s enough,” he yelled. “I’ll shoot the next man that throws a punch.”

The men stopped fighting and looked at Gough, whose eyes blazed like red-hot coals.

Jimmy swung the snout of his pistol toward Coker. “You’ll be the first to die, Coker,” Gough said. “Now you heard Dag. Clear out, or you’ll join Luke draped over your own saddle.”

“Don’t shoot, Jimmy,” Coker said. “We’ll go, but you watch your back, hear?”

“So you’re a back shooter, eh, Coker? Well, if you want to call it, call it now. I’m ready to open the ball, you son of a bitch.”

The ensuing silence told Dag that the fight was over—unless somebody made a terrible mistake and called Jimmy out. He could see that Gough was ready to shoot the first man who made an aggressive move. He dusted himself off, slapping his trousers and shirt.

“All right, Jimmy,” Dag said, “you made your point. Let’s drop it. No more threats, Coker. Just pack up and ride off. Deuce, you get your men out of here. Barry, get one of your men to take Luke back home. We’ve had enough grief for one day.”

Deuce nodded, swiping a sleeve across bloody lips. “You pay for this, Dagstaff,” he said, huffing for breath. “By God, you pay dear for the trouble you bring.”

Dag drew his pistol. He aimed the barrel at Deutsch and cocked it. In the silence, men sucked in their breath and froze in their tracks. Off in the distance a meadowlark trilled.

“We go,” Deutsch said, and turned to Coker. “We go back, Coker. Tomorrow the roundup we will make.”

Dag watched as Coker and his men gathered their cups and mounted up in sullen silence. Matlee took the reins of Luke’s horse from Little Jake, who had sat his horse watching the whole thing, dumbfounded at the sudden eruption of violence.

Deutsch and the men of the Rocking D rode off to the east, into the glare of the sun.

Dag let the hammer down on his pistol and holstered it. Jimmy slid his own pistol back into its holster and let out a long breath.

No one spoke for a long time, as if they all were wondering what to do next, as if wondering who had been right, who had won, who had lost.