Ralph Compton The Cheyenne Trail Read online

  OPEN FIRE!

  Mullins saw them first. There was no time to grab his rifle and put it to his shoulder.

  Three Indians in plain sight. Their faces were hideous with war paint. And they had Riggs under their guns, his rifle scabbard empty, his gun belt and pistol wrapped around the waist of one of the Cheyenne.

  Mullins pulled the trigger of his cocked pistol. Fire and lead exploded from the barrel. One of the Indians, Black Feather, lurched with the impact of the bullet through his abdomen. His pony had started to turn away when Mullins fired again at the same warrior.

  “Don’t shoot,” Riggs yelled.

  Too late.

  Yellow Horse fired his rifle.

  Ralph Compton

  THE CHEYENNE TRAIL

  A Ralph Compton Novel by Jory Sherman

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin. com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright ©The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2014

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-0-698-14406-4

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Excerpt from DOUBLE-CROSS RANCH

  THE IMMORTAL COWBOY

  This is respectfully dedicated to the “American Cowboy.” His was the saga sparked by the turmoil that followed the Civil War, and the passing of more than a century has by no means diminished the flame.

  True, the old days and the old ways are but treasured memories, and the old trails have grown dim with the ravages of time, but the spirit of the cowboy lives on.

  In my travels—to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona—I always find something that reminds me of the Old West. While I am walking these plains and mountains for the first time, there is this feeling that a part of me is eternal, that I have known these old trails before. I believe it is the undying spirit of the frontier calling me, through the mind’s eye, to step back into time. What is the appeal of the Old West of the American frontier?

  It has been epitomized by some as the dark and bloody period in American history. Its heroes—Crockett, Bowie, Hickok, Earp—have been reviled and criticized. Yet the Old West lives on, larger than life.

  It has become a symbol of freedom, when there was always another mountain to climb and another river to cross; when a dispute between two men was settled not with expensive lawyers, but with fists, knives, or guns. Barbaric? Maybe. But some things never change. When the cowboy rode into the pages of American history, he left behind a legacy that lives within the hearts of us all.

  —Ralph Compton

  Chapter 1

  Reese Balleen stared at the western horizon with apprehension. His wind-weathered face, tanned the color of red ochre, bore a worried look. And worry had etched furrows in his forehead and wrinkles around his pale blue eyes.

  He turned to look at his foreman, Argus Dewitt, a lean, whip-thin man whose face was equally tanned, burnished the color of the sun-struck pair of buttes that rose in the prairie like ancient monoliths of some lost civilization. He sat astride a dappled gray gelding, a .45 Colt on his hip.

  “A rider,” Reese said. “From where? No ranch out thataway.”

  “It ain’t just one rider,” Argus said. “Old Cheyenne trick. There’re at least four ponies in single file.”

  Reese cursed under his breath. “Is it that damn Silver Bear? He’s getting on my nerves.”

  Reese was a tall man, a shade over six feet, with black hair, blue eyes that looked black, a hatchet face, an aquiline nose, and thin livery lips. He too wore a six-gun, a converted Remington .44 that was now a caplock survivor of the War Between the States. He had been a captain in the Confederate army and had served under Lee himself until he was found guilty of adultery with an enlisted man’s wife and was sent to command a company of misfits under the command of Quantrill.

  He had staked out more than one thousand acres in Wyoming after the war and driven off the Cheyenne after raiding their camp and shooting a number of their old men, women, and children. He was not a friend of the red man, but had gotten away with his slaughter because there were no survivors.

  “Hard to tell at this distance, Reese. But way yonder, behind ’em, I see smoke from that mesa where all them buffalo bones is scattered.”

  “Smoke?” Reese said.

  “Yeah, smoke signals. Like the Cheyenne are talkin’ to some others way far off.”

  “I don’t like it none,” Reese said.

  “They had a bad winter, boss. And old Silver Bear is a renegade. No damn reservation for him.”

  “I know,” Reese said. He chewed on his lower lip, a habit from childhood when his family had lived in Kansas, near Guthrie.

  “I count five ponies,” Argus said. “All single file. Don’t see no paint, though.”

  “So it’s not a war party,” Reese said.

  “More like a palaverin’ party. No lances, no saddles. Just five men wearin’ feathers.”

  “You got good eyes,” Reese said.

 
“Yeah, for Redskins.”

  Reese laughed.

  Argus had been a scout for the army under Fetterman and killed a lot of Sioux and Northern Cheyenne before coming to work for Reese. He had lived for a time with the Crow, and rumor had it that he had a squaw and maybe a half-breed kid somewhere up in Montana.

  The band of Indians got closer, so close that now Reese could see the eagle feathers in their hair and make out that there wasn’t just one man but at least three others. He wondered why they were trying to conceal their number by riding single file. It was an old Indian trick, according to Argus, who knew about such things.

  “We ought to shoot ’em all for trespassing,” Reese muttered, and stroked the stock of his rifle in its boot.

  “I don’t think that would be wise, Reese,” Argus said. “That smoke means there are more of them than these few.”

  “You’re right, of course. It was just a thought.”

  “Uh-oh,” Argus said as the Cheyenne ponies separated and fanned out until there was a line of five distinct riders. They appeared to Reese as if they were in a battle formation. He kept his hand on his rifle stock, just in case.

  But one of the Cheyenne raised his arm and displayed the open hand of greeting as the small phalanx came to within twenty yards and halted their ponies. The Indians were wearing only loincloths and carried bows, instead of rifles. Each had a quiver of arrows slung over his back.

  “Silver Bear,” Reese said. “You’re trespassin’ on my land. State your business.”

  The brave next to Silver Bear spoke to the man Reese had addressed. His name was Yellow Horse and both Reese and Argus knew him to be the Cheyenne’s interpreter because he spoke English.

  Silver Bear spoke words in his language to Yellow Horse.

  “Silver Bear comes in peace,” Yellow Horse said. “He wishes to have cattle from your herd.”

  Reese looked at all the Cheyenne as they sat their ponies, wide-eyed and mute. They were all skinny. Their ribs were showing through their bronzed skins.

  “Does Silver Bear have money to buy my cattle?” Reese asked.

  Yellow Horse shook his head. He did not ask Silver Bear the question in his native tongue.

  “Our people are starving,” Yellow Horse said. “We ask for cattle to feed our people. You have many cattle and we have no buffalo to hunt.”

  “That’s not my problem,” Reese said. He scowled as Yellow Horse mulled over the meaning of Reese’s words.

  “He means,” Argus said, “that the buffalo are not his worry.”

  Yellow Horse translated Argus’s words in his own language.

  Silver Bear folded his arms across his chest and looked down at the two men. Then he spoke as Yellow Horse and the other braves listened.

  Yellow Horse translated Silver Bear’s words into English.

  “Silver Bear tells you that he and his people are starving. You have cattle. He has nothing. He has no buffalo to hunt and the antelope are few. He wants only some cattle to feed his people. Five cattle. Winter is coming and he wants to live to see another spring.”

  “So Silver Bear wants cattle, does he? And he just wants me to give him five head. Well, I ain’t gonna do it. I don’t give a damn if he and his people starve to death. Let him learn the way of the white man and raise his own cattle, till his own ground, like we do.”

  Yellow Horse translated what Reese had told him. Silver Bear scowled and let his arms fall from his chest. Then he spoke to Yellow Horse in Cheyenne.

  “Silver Bear says that if you will not give him cattle, he will take them. He will return with more braves and take the cattle.”

  “Tell him to go to hell,” Reese said, and his face contorted in anger.

  Yellow Horse spoke to Silver Bear. Then all of the Cheyenne turned their horses as if to leave.

  But first, Yellow Horse spoke again to Reese.

  “Silver Bear will keep his promise,” he said. “He will return and take the cattle he needs. He warns you that to keep his people alive, he will kill any white man who rises against him. His true name is Silver Sky Bear, and he believes the sky people will return and kill all the Long Knives.”

  With that, Yellow Horse spun his pony around and joined the others.

  Reese watched them ride away and swiped a hand across his forehead to wipe away the rime of sweat above his eyebrows.

  “That ain’t the end of it,” Argus said.

  “What do you mean?” Reese asked.

  “I mean we got trouble. Big trouble. That Silver Bear means business.”

  “I don’t give a damn about them Redskins,” Reese said. “If they try and steal any of my cattle, they won’t die of starvation.”

  He looked up at the sky as the riders diminished into small black dots on the horizon. There were long, thin clouds that drifted against the blue-gray tatters that floated like streamers from a distant battleground.

  And Reese thought of war in that solitary instant. He wondered if there really were sky people. If so, they were beyond his comprehension.

  Chapter 2

  Reese and Argus rode to the vast north pasture of Lazy R near Bismarck, North Dakota. The grass was already sparse under a sky smeared with long dusky clouds like leftover banners after a parade. There was an early chill in the air, rising from the north like some wintry breath of warning.

  Cattle were scattered in all directions, their white faces bobbing up and down as they grazed on the last of the summer grass.

  The two men heard a piping whistle as they crossed through a bordering stretch of prairie and saw a prairie dog abandon its sentry post and disappear into a freshly dug hole.

  “Them prairie dogs are comin’ onto my land,” Reese said. “You got to get rid of ’em, or we’ll lose pasture right and left.”

  “We’ll smoke ’em out, Reese,” Argus said.

  Reese surveyed the pasture where his cattle grazed. He saw bunches of whitefaces all the way to the horizon. “What do you figure, Argus, better’n a thousand head of whitefaces?”

  “Oh yeah,” Argus said. “And a good crop of calves this spring.”

  “Chip wants to buy at least one thousand head from me, and now is the time.”

  “Why now?”

  “I’m worried about Silver Bear stealin’ cattle. Once he starts, he won’t stop.”

  “Well, you need to generate some cash—that’s for sure. What’s Chip payin’ per head?”

  “Twelve dollars.”

  Argus whistled. “That’s a goodly sum, Reese. Might get more at the stockyards in Salinas, but from one ranch to another, it ain’t bad.”

  “No, and it’s a standing offer. You make the gather and then we’ll drive ’em down to Cheyenne.”

  “It won’t be easy this late in the year, what with winter comin’ on. It’s a hell of a drive clear to Cheyenne.”

  “It’s got to be done. And quick.”

  “I’ll get right on it, Reese.”

  Reese grunted in satisfaction.

  Leo Chippendale owned the Flying U near the foothills west of Cheyenne. The two had served in the war together and both had grown up on farms with cattle raising as the principal form of income for their parents. After the war, Chip had staked out land in Wyoming, while Reese had gone up to North Dakota. But the two had kept in touch and after pinkeye had wiped out most of Chip’s herd, he was desperate to restock the Flying U and had asked Reese to sell him at least a thousand head of his Herefords. That had been a month ago, and at first, Reese hadn’t wanted to thin his own herd that much.

  But Silver Bear’s threat had changed his mind. And, as Argus had told him more than once, he needed the money. He was cash poor and needed more horses and a chance to buy some yearlings at a good price.

  “How soon can you finish the gather, Argus?” Reese asked as the two rode on over yellowing grasses
and more signs of the prairie dog incursion. They rode to the creek that bordered the north pasture and let their horses drink from the flowing waters of Antelope Creek.

  Argus looked up when he heard a horse nicker in the distance.

  He saw a rider weaving his way through a large bunch of Hereford cows and calves. Heading their way.

  “Here comes Roy Bledsoe,” Argus said to Reese. “I sent him off this morning to track down those strays that went missing yesterday.”

  “Looks like he’s carryin’ something,” Reese said.

  “Yeah. Somethin’ dead, looks like.”

  Bledsoe rode up to them and threw down the animal that was draped just behind the pommel. The animal was dead. It was a bobcat.

  “Found this critter in that gulley with the missin’ cattle,” Roy said. “He was tryin’ to bring down one of the new calves. Calf’s got scratches all over its face. I shot the bobcat.”

  “What about the runaways?” Argus asked.

  “George and Johnny drove ’em back up to the ranch house. Penned ’em up for a few days to teach ’em a lesson, maybe.”

  Argus laughed.

  “You can’t train cows like dogs,” Argus said.

  “I think you can,” Roy said. “I remember one old Guernsey we had what was always gettin’ into the chicken feed, knockin’ down the door of the henhouse. We took a rooster to her what pecked her nose and cackled like it was the end of the world. Little old Bessie never went near that henhouse again.”

  Both Argus and Reese laughed at Roy’s odd little story.

  “Go ahead, Argus,” Reese said. “Tell him.”

  Argus knew what to tell Roy.

  “We got to make another gather, Roy. Whole herd. And get a tally on ’em.”

  Roy looked up at the sky and across the creek at the trees. “What for? It ain’t spring no more. Calvin’s over with the cattle and they’re all branded.”

  “Reese is sellin’ off the herd. We got to drive ’em clear down to Cheyenne.”

  “Cheyenne?” Roy exclaimed. “Why, they ain’t no railhead in Cheyenne, just tracks goin’ past it to somewhere else.”