Ralph Compton the Empire Trail, page 14
Buchanan did not reply; his mouth was pressed tightly shut, every muscle tensed toward the left side of the wagon. He wished he could hoist the ribs onto his shoulders and raise them, as Atlas did the vault of the heavens.
“Here I go!”
The men heard Griswold say “Gyah!” to the horses and they made a futile attempt to move forward. When the wheel bumped against the ledge, they stopped. Griswold had a horsewhip in a holder near the brake. He retrieved it.
“Hold on back there! I gotta give the boys some coaxin’!”
Griswold simultaneously whipped the reins hard and cracked the whip in the air between the pintos. The snap got their attention and they tried to go forward a second time. The men inside felt a bump as, once again, the wheel hit the ledge but did not clear it. It started to settle back but Griswold used the whip again, this time striking the animal on the right. It nickered and pulled forward, this time succeeding in getting solid ground beneath the wheel. The rear wheel showed signs of wanting to eat through the ledge, but Griswold did not allow the weight of the cart to come to rest on it. He whipped the animal on the left, then on the right again, keeping them interested in moving ahead. In the rear, the two horses moved forward in their cliff-hugging line, adding an extra push forward.
The first wheel had enough traction and forward momentum now so that the three grounded corners immediately pulled the fourth along when it briefly left solid ground. It rolled easily back onto the ledge of the downward-sloping trail.
After a few heart-stopping moments, all four wheels were on solid ground and following the horses down.
“Wahoo! I actually have to put on the brakes now!” Griswold cheered.
The chuck wagon slowed but did not stop as the driver moved back to the center of the seat and kept careful watch on the ledge. Inside, Buchanan and Fremont moved from the ribs. They steadied themselves on the two water barrels—which were a godsend, adding needed weight to the wagon bed. They stepped on the one bare spot in the wagon, where Griswold usually slept. Surrounding them left and right were the low cabinets full of vegetables for stew and tins of condiments and coffee, sacks of flour, medical supplies, and other necessities, including a bundle of dry kindling in the event of rain, as well as the boards that usually hung on the ribs, where the cookie kept his utensils, pans, and pots.
No one other than Griswold spoke. Buchanan and Fremont were nearly too worn-out to remain upright, let alone have a conversation.
There was applause from López, who was waiting for Griswold. The Mexican was the only man who stayed behind to meet him. The others were in the mouth of the valley, torches stuck in the ground as they settled the herd in for the night.
Buchanan climbed from the back of the wagon, followed by Fremont. They looked out at the herd. In the limited firelight they saw a stream and rich grasses, and the cattle mooed contentedly at both.
“Soon as they’re set, let’s douse the fires,” Buchanan said. “If St. Jacques is out there, we don’t need to give him any help spotting us.”
Just then the rancher noticed Haywood standing by the herd. He wanted to thank the man again for his help on the ledge, although he knew that Haywood had most likely done it for himself—whatever his personal reasons were. If the man wanted to be alone, Buchanan would give him that. He was too hungry and too tired to think about it any deeper than that.
Griswold had settled the chuck wagon in an arbor of pine and dogwood, which was where the horses had been corralled. Buchanan could see the glow of a lantern through the canvas, heard him rattling around inside. The rancher walked over, climbed onto the seat, and looked in. Griswold’s back was to him as he poked through his gear.
“That passage made a real mess o’ things,” he muttered. “Reb needs liniment for sore arms and it’ll have to be beans for supper; that’s all I got time for. Mebbe some carrots.”
“I think the men will be happy for anything. I know I am. I’m also proud of what you did up there, Griz.”
“Aw, it’s just like the scales I love watchin’ at the apothecary. Gotta balance. Ya get unlucky, then lucky. Long as the first one don’t kill ya, it works out.”
“You need good people, and I’ve got ’em. You were a hero up there.”
Griswold turned then. Tears had cut clean tracks in his dirty cheeks.
“Griz? What is it?”
“No need to worry yourself, Sachem—I’ll be fine—but I was mighty afeared up there. Mighty. My wife, Abi, she used to say it was cussedness, not courage, that made me brave. I think she was right. My heart was beatin’ so hard up there, I thought it’d hop out my mouth and dance a jig.”
“We were all frightened.”
“Yeah, well, y’all been to war, you and Fremont. You learned how to face it like men. I just whoop and holler like a boy with a slingshot facin’ a bear.”
“You’re the one who got us back safe. You did that, not me and not Will.”
“I didn’t know what I was doin’! When I whipped them horses . . . for all I know, they mighta run off the cliff. I got lucky. I got the good turn on the scales.”
“I don’t see it that way, and, besides, the fact that we’re here to talk about this is all thanks to you. I suggest you listen to me, to the men, not to Abi when we pat your shoulder and praise your bones to the stars.”
Griswold sniffled back his upset. “Thank ya, Sachem. Thank ya.”
“You earned it. Now—get some beans warming, unless you want a rebellion out there.”
“Them? They’re almost too tired to walk, let alone fight.”
“You ever know a fight they wasn’t too tired for?”
The cookie smiled and shook his head, then went back to gathering his utensils and muttering about how there was no rest for him, ever, anywhere.
Buchanan went out, grateful to be there, with these men. Now he had to rally his own energies so he could inform the arm-weary Mitchell—whose turn it was to take first watch—that he would swap nights.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Way I figure it, the Double-D riders will be close enough to smell you sometime late tomorrow.”
Buchanan was standing with one foot on a boulder, the rest of him leaning across it, his rifle over the same knee. He did not chew tobacco as a rule, but he did so now to help himself not just stay awake but alert. He did not have a good mental picture of his surroundings, having seen them only from afar, and after that by short-lived torchlight. He could hear the stream but had no good idea how wide it was. And he stood back from the fire he had lit with the last of the torches. He did not think St. Jacques would be out there—not yet. But not finding Haywood or their tracks, he might have sent riders ahead in several directions, looking to pick up the trail. If so, he did not want to be a target.
Not that a gunshot would necessarily be directed at a man. Stampeding the cattle in the dark could be even more deadly, which was why Buchanan had the men bed down on a small rise to the west. Like floodwaters, raging steer chose the path that was easiest.
The rancher was surprised when, shortly after the men had settled in, with all but a few of them asleep and snoring, George Haywood walked up to him. The tracker had stayed to himself after the drive had reached the valley, eating his own jerky and making his own small campfire with a flint from his saddlebag. He had worked harder than any man during the mountain crossing; if he was tired, his solidly planted footsteps and erect posture showed none of it.
The man’s appearance here was unexpected. What he had to say was not.
“My thinking took a similar path,” Buchanan said. “Figured he might even send an advance party.”
Haywood shook his head. “Man’s eager but not hasty. Whatever force St. Jacques has, he’ll want ’em together. He’ll figure you dropped a man or two behind to try and skirmish. Pick his riders off, retreat, repeat.”
“I thought about doing that myself. But I can’t spare the men and I wouldn’t risk ’em like that.”
“His man Flynn is a good tracker. He’ll pick us up and then they’ll make tracks. I was actually going to suggest waiting and taking down some of the ledge, but I don’t think he’ll come that way.”
“No, Dawson’s got maps, too. Without cattle, St. Jacques’ll come through the woods we couldn’t cross. Lets him out about a mile north of here, close enough to trail us and wait for us to be jammed in the bottleneck at the end of the valley.”
“What’s out there?”
“The desert and sea of the Inland Empire.” Buchanan’s bent leg was stiffening and he stood to stretch it. “Anyway, I just want to say again how much I deeply appreciate what you’ve done for us.”
“I did it for me,” Haywood said.
“You’ve made that blue sky clear every time I brought up my gratitude. That’s fine. You being stubborn won’t change me any.”
Haywood stood still in the darkness.
“You come over to tell me you’re considering rejoining him?” Buchanan asked.
“If I don’t go back . . . well, it’s like I said before. I’m throwing my life away. At least, the life I want.”
“What’s that?”
“My own spread. Dawson has said he’ll set me up long as I sell to him.”
“I did that when I started. Ain’t a bad way to go about it.”
“Except that I don’t like serving anyone but me. But running from him because I crossed his purpose—that’s a lifetime sentence. If and when you get back, you’ll find that out.”
“Maybe, but Dawson ain’t the same as St. Jacques. Oh, he wants what he wants. But what he wants most is not just to be the biggest cattleman in the Southwest but to be the only one. I can help give him that by getting out of his way.”
“Oranges?”
“And horses. Maybe a man has to change things when his life is at a halfway point.”
“Then . . . what would’ve been the point of all this?”
“You gotta prove you can do something before deciding not to. A part of me still wants to open the market in Mexico. But maybe my wife’s right. That’s a man just being a man. What’s been growing more is the need to show your bosses they can’t push smaller spreads around. More power he gets, the more he’ll need to be reminded of having lost one.” Buchanan put his leg back where it had been and leaned on it. He was tired down to the marrow.
Haywood came nearer. “This has been new for me, too. What was ‘right’ was always what put more miles between who I was—what I was—and where I want to be. I was born a slave. Got my name from the first two tasks set before me: feeding horses and chopping wood. Took my first name from the first president, since by escape or some other means I intended to be the first free man on the plantation. I had no right to grow or discover anything, except a faster way to a whipping. Not even love. Just catching the eyes of a woman was a moment of hope and humanity, but it was gone like one of those yellow butterflies I watched in the field. I envied them, Mr. Buchanan. By my soul I did. Now I’m free and for the first time in my life I am facing an honest-to-God choice.”
“I’m sorry to be the cause of that. Mr. Haywood. I truly am.”
“You know something else? You’re the first man I’ve met who ever called me Mister Haywood. That doesn’t make this easy.”
“‘This’ meaning your leaving, or ‘this’ meaning . . . what, a Judas kiss?”
Haywood was silent again but his eyes gleamed in the campfire. “I mean I’m going to ask again, sir. You got a lot to lose out here—almost did, without even making a Confederate cent. I’m leaving. Any chance I can carry word to St. Jacques that you’ll at least talk with him?”
Buchanan was quiet. “Tell ya my problem, friend. My tired brain’s for doing what you say, but my rancher’s heart is against it. I’ll have to go with the heart on that one.”
“That’s your final answer? If I wait a spell—”
“I gotta be able to look at my men and at my own refection in Big Salt Creek. That’s my answer.”
“I understand.”
“But thanks for asking.”
“Don’t move, Haywood!”
The barked command came from behind Buchanan and he spun, rifle in hand. The voice had been low, twisted, angry to the point where he had not recognized it as Will Fremont’s.
“That means you, too, boss,” the newcomer said, stepping into the firelight. Will Fremont ignored Buchanan and held his Spencer rifle on Haywood.
The rancher was surprised to see him, though not to have been blindsided by him. The unease of the horses was one of the things the night watch counted on, and they knew Fremont. He made a point of not leveling his gun at the trail boss. The men would have backed Fremont on this. It would have ended the drive here and now. But he also had no intention of accepting this insubordination.
“Lower the rifle, Will,” Buchanan said.
“Uh-uh.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I heard enough of what was said to know all I need to know. This valley is good for the ears. We all heard. I woke everyone in case I needed ’em.”
Buchanan turned toward the others, who were clustering like moths around a campfire. “Okay, you heard!” he said, loud enough for his voice to carry across the camp. “What do you intend to do?”
“Boss, I know this man’s done some good turns, but they don’t make up for the bad. Even though I didn’t like it, I was content to let him be. But not to let him leave.”
“He can do more for us with the Double-D men than here,” Buchanan said. “He could have slunk away. He didn’t have to tell me he was thinking of going.”
“He shouldn’t be thinking at all, except what a bunch of snake bellies he works for. I don’t care what he says about reforming. He gives them one more gun and he knows how we work and where we’re goin’. How do you know that wasn’t what he was sent for in the first place?”
“It wasn’t. I believe that.”
“Dammit, boss, he had his guns! Reb checked the chuck box just now, found ’em in his bedroll. I wondered why he didn’t use it since he’s been here. He’s been plannin’ his leave-takin’ from the moment you took him.”
“I knew about the guns,” Buchanan said.
The trail boss looked as though he had walked into a tree. “You . . . knew?”
“Mr. Haywood told me. I didn’t like it at first, an armed Dawson man in our camp. But he helped us after that. Far as I’m concerned, he’s proved his good intentions.”
“Then you’re the only one. You and Deems. He’d forgive Herod, I think.”
“Isn’t that what we’re taught?” Haywood asked.
“You don’t get to speak, mister, unless it’s to tell me your epitaph. You bloody snake, makin’ ready to shoot us, then findin’ a way to become friends with the boss so you can mosey away. I took a vote among the men and you ain’t one of them.”
“A vote on what?” Buchanan asked. “All they agreed on was to let him stay.”
“Stay, yes. Go, no. Go with his guns, a double no.”
“What do you propose?” Buchanan asked. It was the only play his whipped mind could think of.
“We tie him to his horse and take him with us. If we need a hostage, we got one.”
“Having me as a prisoner won’t change St. Jacques’s plan one bit,” Haywood said.
“For the love of God, don’t make me shut you up,” Fremont threatened, holding the rifle tighter.
“Dammit, Will, he’s right,” Buchanan said.
Lit by the fire, Fremont’s expression was wounded, like he’d been shot. “Boss, don’t you take his side over ours. Not after all these years.”
“That isn’t what I’m doing, Fremont—all of you!” he shouted, looking past the trail boss. “This fuse got lit almost a year ago when we tangled with Dawson’s boys. You named me the men involved and I reported that to their boss. George Haywood was not one of them. He’s had his guns since yesterday, could’ve left anytime. Could’ve shot men, horses, anytime. I tell you, if you do this now, we will all be wounded by it, every one of us!”
“He came to try and talk you outa the herd, no different than in the flatlands,” Fremont said. “Failing that, he and his boss will do what they did then: take ’em at gunpoint.”
“We will not let that happen!” Buchanan assured them. He turned to Haywood. “I do not believe that this man will either.”
“Not if his hands are bound behind his back,” Fremont said.
Haywood fixed his gaze on him. “That will not happen to me again. You will have to shoot me first.”
“I can oblige you,” Fremont said.
For the second time in too short a period, Buchanan’s tired brain and his proud heart were in conflict. He knew he should not hammer a wedge between himself and his men. He also knew there was a matter of frontier justice before him. Once again he went with his heart.
Setting his rifle against the rock, Buchanan put himself between his trail boss and George Haywood. He faced Fremont, both faces leaping in the light. The ruddy animation was an illusion; both men could not be more set or somber.
“I will not allow this man, who is unarmed, to be shot.”
“Then arm him or tie him up,” Fremont said. “There ain’t no third choice.”
“Do what he says, Mr. Buchanan,” Haywood said.
“I am running this drive, not you and not Fremont. Will? You gonna go through me to take him?”
Reb Mitchell said from the side, “He won’t have to, boss.” The man was holding his six-shooter. It was aimed at Haywood’s side.
Buchanan remained where he was but turned to face Mitchell. The former Confederate did not lower his gun.
Just then, Buck Griswold strode into the group. “Ya cain’t get heatstroke at night, but ya’ll clear lost your minds! Fremont, holdin’ a gun on the Sachem? Aimin’ to shoot a man who helped me get up that first slog, then cut a path for me out of a mountain? And not with dynamite but with his own hands! Ain’t we better than the Dawson gang, or are we the same kinda creature?”
