North To The Rails Read online

  He had not ridden more than half a mile when he saw a rider emerge from a draw just ahead and stand waiting. It was Bone McCarthy.

  “Howdy, boss. You huntin’ comp’ny?”

  “Why not?”

  “I ain’t been up to you sooner because I figured you knew about them. I mean I saw your tracks back yonder.”

  “The Talrims? Yes, I saw them.”

  “I can’t decide what they’re after. They’re traveling too slow unless they’ve got somethin’ on their minds. Whatever it is concerns you or that herd. Every now and then they crest a ridge to study you.”

  Chantry had his own ideas about the reason for their presence. Somehow, he felt, French Williams had gotten word to them, and they were lying in wait for their chance to kill him. He might be mistaken, but there was the presence of Dutch Akin as an indication that Williams thought along such lines.

  “They’ve dogged your trail a couple of times.

  I’d ride careful, if I was you.”

  “Any sign of Sun Chief?”

  “Not hide nor hair.” McCarthy dug into his saddlebag for a strip of jerky and began chewing on it. “Chantry, you’re ahead of your time in this country—I mean, you not wantin’ to carry a gun. This ain’t the kind of world you came from, and it won’t be for a few years. Whenever a man enters a new country like this his way of livin’ drops back hundreds of years. You ain’t livin’ in the nineteenth century here, Chantry.”

  “You don’t talk much like a cowhand.”

  “That’s nonsense. Whoever said a cowhand was any special breed? Cowhands, like freighters, bankers, and newspaper editors, are apt to come from anywhere. They just like the life … as I do.”

  Chantry glanced at him. “Where did you come from, McCarthy?”

  “Ireland … where else? Twelve years ago I left there, but at the end of the War Between the States I went back for a few weeks, and got into trouble again.”

  “Again?”

  “The first time I was visiting a friend in Glenveagh and there was trouble over an eviction … I had to leave the country. I joined up with the French, as many a good Irish lad has done over the years, and after a bit I migrated to this country. I had two years in the war, then back there, and straight away I got into the Fenian troubles and was lucky to get out with a whole skin. Back here again, and two years fightin’ Indians with the Fifth Cavalry.”

  “The McCarthys are an old family, I’ve heard.”

  “Yes, some say we’re the oldest family in Ireland. We owned Blarney Castle at one time.”

  “How does it happen that sometimes you talk as if you’d been born in the West.”

  McCarthy shrugged. “Saves questions. A good many men do it, you’ll find. They just fall into the habit as I have, of talkin’ the western way. You put on a way of talkin’ when you change your clothes. It’s as simple as that.”

  They rode on, scouting the country. “By the way,” Bone McCarthy said, “back there at Clifton’s the day I met you there was a girl there.”

  “I saw her.”

  “Well, she saw you. And she’s been askin’ questions. Aside from the fact that you’re a handsome, upstanding man, why would she be so all-fired curious?”

  “I don’t know. She was a pretty girl, I remember that.”

  “I remember it too, but I’ve got an idea neither of us should. I’ve got a nose for trouble.”

  “She was asking questions?”

  “She was. She was askin’ the wrong questions, too. I mean, not questions a girl would ask who was interested in a man … but questions of somebody who wanted to know where you was goin’, what route you’d be likely to take, and how many hands you had workin’ for you.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Chantry commented.

  “It did to her,” McCarthy said dryly.

  Chapter Nine

  THE GIRL did not concern him. She would not be the first curious person he had encountered, and women had a way of asking questions about strange young men who are, or seem to be, unattached … and vice versa. Tom Chantry was more concerned with the Talrims and with worrying over when Sun Chief would reappear.

  The cattle had moved slowly. Water holes were scarce, and it seemed they came to them early in the afternoon when French Williams invariably suggested it would be risky to drive on and make a dry camp. Twice at least his claims had undoubtedly been correct, for they were followed by long, dry drives.

  On the drive itself all went well. The cattle were well broken to the trail, there was no friction among the riders, and nobody was troubling Chantry. His two victories over Koch seemed to have settled the matter of how much nerve he had, and the stampede caused by Koch had meant much additional work for them; they wanted no repeat performance.

  Hard though the work might be, it had settled into routine, and this, Tom Chantry knew, increased his danger. Routine had a lulling effect upon the senses, and he knew his security demanded that he be alert at any moment for whatever might come.

  Despite his impatience, he had to recognize that the short drives were having their effect on the cattle. Settled down after their stampede, the short days offered more time for grazing and they had gained weight. If nothing happened to change their present rate of progress and if the grazing continued to be good, the herd would arrive at market in excellent condition.

  Was this what Williams was thinking of? Or was it something else? Why was he moving so slowly? Was he, too, waiting for word from the railroad?

  There was no sign of Sun Chief.

  Bone McCarthy was close by, and several times, riding out from the herd, Chantry came upon his tracks, as well as those of the Talrims, who seemed to have been joined by a third person. The new set of tracks were those of a smaller, shod horse.

  Trinidad was not far ahead, and although it was only a small settlement it had already acquired a reputation as a tough place. In 1859 Gabriel Gutierrez and his nephew had come up from New Mexico with a herd of sheep. The men built a cabin on the south bank of the river and settled down there, grazing their sheep, hunting and farming a few acres of land. Others moved in, and the settlement was named for the daughter of Trinidad Baca, one of the first-comers.

  Was French Williams waiting for something to happen at Trinidad? Chantry told himself he was imagining things.

  “I got to hand it to you,” Williams said one night as they sat by the fire. “You’ve done your share. You’ve stood up to the work better than I figured you would. You’ve changed, too. These last days you’ve honed down and sharpened up considerably.”

  “Thanks. You’ve done your job, too.”

  Williams chuckled. “But we still haven’t reached Dodge and the railroad.”

  “Call it off if you want to,” Chantry replied carelessly. “I’ll pay you the going price for your herd on delivery at Dodge.”

  “You quitting on me? Trying to welch on your deal?”

  “You know better than that. Just trying to let you make a dollar. Don’t worry, French. When we deliver these cattle, I’ll be there to collect.”

  “You got any idea what’s ahead?”

  Williams studied him, his amusement apparent. “The Kiowas are out, and believe me, nobody is worse. They’ll give us bloody hell.”

  “And there’s been no rain, so we’ll have water trouble. And there are rustlers. You’ve told me all that.” Chantry leveled his eyes at Williams. “And don’t pull another Dutch Akin on me. I won’t stand for it.”

  “What will you do?”

  Chantry knew the hands around the fire were listening, but he did not care. “If anybody shows up hunting me, French, I’ll figure he was sent by you.”

  “And then?” Williams’ voice was low.

  “I’ll take your gun away and break your neck.”

  Williams laughed. “I’d kill you, Chantry. Nobody will ever put hands on me the way you did with Koch. Gun or no gun, I’d kill you.”

  “Better have your gun out when you see me coming, then. You’l
l never get a chance to draw it.” He got to his feet and walked over to the chuck wagon for the coffeepot. Coolly, he filled Williams’ cup and then his own, putting the pot down by the fire. “And while you’re at it, French, you’d better tell those Talrim boys to light a shuck. They might lead to some misunderstanding.”

  He looked at French, and suddenly he smiled. “I wouldn’t want to break your back and then find it was all a mistake. You tell them to light out, will you?”

  French Williams shook his head.

  “Chantry, if I wasn’t so set on beating you out of that herd, I could like you.”

  The next day broke cold and raw, with a long wind in their faces, and the cattle had to be forced into it. And the wind did not let up as the sun rose behind the low gray clouds.

  There would be water in the Picketwire where they would camp, and some shelter in the river bottom, if they were lucky. Tom Chantry rode the drag for a while, spelling a rider there, then he moved up into a swing position. After the noon break he took the grulla from the remuda and went scouting.

  It was still cold, and he wore a buckskin jacket over his blue wool shirt. He went directly east, riding warily. Twice he came upon pony tracks; each time they were several days old. He held to low ground, climbing the ridges only to peer over the crest, showing himself as little as possible. He was uneasy, and after a bit he took his rifle from its scabbard and held it in his hand.

  The wind was raw. He turned up the collar of his jacket, tucked his chin into it, and pulled his hat low. He was studying the ground, then suddenly looked up to see he had ridden right into the bend of an elbow of hills. He must either skyline himself by crossing the ridge or follow along the side until he could reach the cattle trail. It was the country ahead he wanted to see, but caution told him the longer way was best.

  He had turned to ride along the side of the hill when he glimpsed a notch, almost at the bend of the elbow, a small gap by which he could get to the other side of the ridge without showing himself on top of it. He swung his horse toward the notch.

  His horse scrambled up the last few feet. At the opening of the notch he could see only that it was a sort of cleft in the ridge that seemed to lead all the way through. Old tracks told him the buffalo used this route, so it must go all the way through.

  He walked his horse into the gap, traveled about a hundred yards, then suddenly rounded a low shoulder of the hill and emerged on the other side.

  He never heard the shot, but he felt the blow. It was as if somebody had struck him suddenly across the side of the head with a whipstock.

  He knew he was hit, he felt himself falling, he remembered the necessity of clinging to his rifle. He hit the dirt, smelled the dust that rose, and then he neither felt nor heard anything but the vague sound of his horse.

  Cold … icy, teeth-chattering cold. It was cold that brought him to consciousness, it was cold that opened his eyes.

  It was night … cold and black, and there was a smell of rain in the air, and a distant rumble of thunder. He was lying sprawled on the earth, the smell of dust and parched grass in his nostrils. He started to move, a spasm of pain went through him. He lay still, wanting no more of that.

  He had been shot. He had fallen from his horse. He had been shot sometime in the middle of the afternoon, but if anybody was looking for him they could scarcely find him here.

  A spatter of rain struck his shoulders. Shelter … he must find shelter. He risked the pain, and tried to sit up. On the third attempt he made it.

  He was still at the cleft of the hills where he had been shot. He felt around him for his rifle … it was gone.

  His knife? Gone. He felt then for his money, but it was gone, too. It was only then that he realized how cold his feet were.

  His boots were gone.

  Gingerly, he touched his head, which throbbed with a dull, heavy beat. His hair was matted with blood. He got to his knees, then shakily to his feet. He looked around slowly, blinking against the pain.

  His horse was gone, too. He remembered then that he had heard it running off. It might not have gone far, and he called out. There was no sound in answer, no sound and no movement but the falling rain.

  He staggered to the lip of the cut and looked around, but it was too dark to see anything.

  The herd would be ahead and to his left. Taking a careful step at a time, he moved slantingly down the hill, toward the northwest. He stumbled over a rock and fell. When he got heavily to his feet, he realized that the butts of his palms were bloody, skinned in the fall.

  Whoever had shot him, had left him for dead— or if not dead, sure to be dead soon.

  He fell three times before he reached the bottom of the slope, and by then his socks were worn through and his feet were hurting. He peered about, trying in the distant flashes of lightning to see something he might use for shelter, but there was nothing.

  First of all, rain or no rain, he needed some protection for his feet. Fumbling in the debris at the foot of the rocky slope, he found a jagged piece of rock, and removing his buckskin jacket he sawed off the sleeves a little above the elbows. He slipped these over his feet and used thongs made from the long fringes, knotted together, to tie the sleeves around his ankles.

  Putting on his coat again, he moved out, walking carefully, trying to avoid the rocks and the patches of prickly pear.

  A dark line ahead warned him of trees, and he went even more slowly, wary of Indians who might be camped there. Under the cottonwoods he stood close to a tree trunk and listened to the falling rain and the rustle of water in the creek bed, but he could hear no other sounds.

  His eyes searched for a fire, or some evidence of human life, but there was nothing. He worked his way among the trees until he found a place where several bigger ones were grouped together in such a way that their entwined branches made a sort of shelter.

  Here he leaned against a tree trunk and closed his eyes with weariness. After a moment he opened them, and his eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, saw a fallen limb from one of the cottonwoods. He went to it and, huddling there in its partial shelter, he leaned back against the tree, and slept.

  Around him the rain fell softly, steadily. Overhead the cottonwoods rustled. In the hollow of a tree not twenty yards away a squirrel peered out at the rain for a moment, listening, then tucked its bushy tail around it once more and went back to sleep. … In a saloon in Trinidad a cowhand on the drift lighted a cigar and glanced at his cards. “I’ll take two cards,” he said.

  More than a thousand miles to the east a girl in a white dress with lace at the throat looked down the table at her father and said, “Pa, I haven’t heard from Tom. It isn’t like him.”

  Earnshaw looked up, and said quietly, “I hope everything is all right with him. I have written to him, telling him what has happened here. Everything depends on him now.”

  She was a gentle-appearing and lovely girl, but in the coolness of her eyes now and the set of her chin there was something that reminded her father that she came of pioneer stock. “Pa, I want to go west,” she said. “I want to go to him.”

  “That’s impossible. He’s out on the range.

  From what I hear it’s very wild country.”

  “He may need help.”

  “What help do you think you could give? You are

  a single girl, and we have no friends there, no one to whom you could go. It would be unseemly.”

  “Nevertheless, I want to go.”

  “Wait. We will hear from him.”

  Chantry awoke, shaking with a chill. He was wet through to the skin, without shelter, without food, without fire. He had lost blood, and he was very weak. He had no shoes, only the crude moccasins made from his sleeves.

  He struggled to his feet and clung for a moment to the trunk of the cottonwood. He was shaky and uncertain, but he knew he must move, he must get on. A faint light under the trees indicated that daylight was not far off. He picked up a broken branch from the ground. It was almost straight, a
nd was about seven feet long and almost two inches in diameter. Using it for a staff, he started to walk. For the first time he realized how sore his feet had become, but step by step he went through the cottonwoods to the far side.

  By now the herd would be moving, or about to move. To overtake it in his present condition would be impossible. He had left the herd by riding east, and at a rough guess he must be about fifteen miles from Trinidad.

  The clouds were low, the light still dim, and there were no landmarks visible. Fisher’s Peak or the Spanish Peaks would have given him direction, but they were out of sight behind the clouds. Yet there was something he could go by.

  Leaning on his staff in the partial shelter of a tree, he furrowed his brow against the throbbing in his skull, and thought of the Purgatoire, called by cattlemen the Picketwire. It lay ahead of him, crossing his line of travel had he been with the herd. The creeks in this area flowed north into the Picketwire, so the nearby creek would be flowing north, or in that general direction. To reach Trinidad he must turn at right angles to the flow of the creek and keep it at his back, and so go west.

  Nobody would be looking for him. Williams had everything to gain and nothing to lose if Chantry never turned up again, or if he failed to be riding with the herd when it reached the railhead.

  His body was chilled through, but he started on weaving a slow way among the trees. He managed a dozen steps before he stopped, then another ten. Ahead of him he could see the bank that marked the edge of the river bottom; once he climbed that bank he would be in the open, without any shelter at all.

  Yet he could be no wetter than he now was, and not much colder. His only hope lay in keeping moving. Ten steps … then five. The buckskin on his feet would not last long. There was one thing to be thankful for: no Indian was fool enough to be out in the rain.

  He came to the small bluff that marked the river bottom, and blinking his eyes in the rain, he looked for a path, and found it. Slowly, slipping and tugging at his staff, he climbed the bank.

  Now for the first time he felt the wind. It went through him with icy fingers, probing at his strength. Clinging to the staff, he plodded on, turning occasionally to be sure the line of trees was at his back.