The Dodge City Trail Read online

  MEETING OF WARRIORS

  Suddenly they were surrounded by mounted Comanche warriors. Clay Allison spoke to them fluently. Finally one of the braves nodded to Allison, and he rode on, Dan following. As they progressed, Comanches seemed to appear from behind every bush and tree.

  They reached a clearing where the cook fire still smoldered, an early morning breeze fanning the embers. A young Indian stood before them, dressed in buckskin. Dan couldn’t believe that the young chief was the notorious Quanah Parker.

  With his hands, Allison made the buffalo sign, and then pointed to Dan. Quanah shook his head, raised both hands, spreading all his fingers. He then spoke to Allison.

  “He says all white men deserve to die,” Allison translated for Dan. “Just as Black Kettle and his people died under the guns of Custer and his soldiers.”

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks Titles

  by Ralph Compton

  THE TRAIL DRIVE SERIES

  THE GOODNIGHT TRAIL

  THE WESTERN TRAIL

  THE CHISHOLM TRAIL

  THE BANDERA TRAIL

  THE CALIFORNIA TRAIL

  THE SHAWNEE TRAIL

  THE VIRGINIA CITY TRAIL

  THE DODGE CITY TRAIL

  THE OREGON TRAIL

  THE SANTA FE TRAIL

  THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL

  THE DEADWOOD TRAIL

  THE GREEN RIVER TRAIL

  THE SUNDOWN RIDERS SERIES

  NORTH TO THE BITTERROOT

  ACROSS THE RIO COLORADO

  THE WINCHESTER RUN

  THE

  DODGE CITY

  TRAIL

  RALPH

  COMPTON

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction, based on actual trail drives of the Old West. Many of the characters appearing in the Trail Drive Series were very real, and some of the trail drives actually took place. But the reader should be aware that, in the developing of characters and events, some fictional literary license has been employed. While some of the characters and events herein are purely the creation of the author, every effort has been made to portray them with accuracy. However, the inherent dangers of the trail are real, sufficient unto themselves, and seldom has it been necessary to enhance their reality.

  THE DODGE CITY TRAIL

  Copyright © 1995 by Ralph Compton.

  Cover illustration by Bob Larkin.

  Map illustration on cover by Dennis Lyall.

  Cover type by Jim Lebbad.

  Map on p. ν by David Lindroth, based upon material supplied by the author.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  ISBN: 0-312-95380-1

  Printed in the United States of America

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / January 1995

  10 9 8

  Contents

  Author’s Foreword

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

  In March 1865 the military commander at Santa Fe sent troops to occupy a strategic river crossing in the southwest quarter of Kansas, which eventually would become Ford County. The post commander at Leavenworth dispatched a force against the Indians, with orders for his men to establish and garrison a post on the Arkansas. In April a detachment of cavalry founded Fort Dodge, and with Indian hostilities continuing for almost two decades, the fort became a bastion of safety on a barren prairie where pale buffalo grass stretched away to merge with the blue horizon. The site’s location —soon to become Dodge City—was ideal, with its proximity to the fort and its southernmost position on the Santa Fe Trail and to the vast buffalo ranges of the southwest. Speculators were quick to see the commercial possibilities, and a settlement soon arose to the west of Fort Dodge.

  In July 1872 nineteen individuals—some local merchants, some officers from Fort Dodge, and some army contractors—formed a corporation formally known as the Dodge City Town Company. It was their intention to develop the town, but the Town-site Purchase Act of 1867 denied them the 320 acres they sought. So large a tract demanded more occupants than the speculators could produce, so they had to settle for a modest eighty-seven acres, at a cost of $108.75.

  The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad reached Dodge on September 15, 1872. Already the fledgling town had become a mecca for buffalo hunters, and long before a depot could be built, business was booming. The first railroad office was set up in a boxcar, and dozens of cars a day were loaded with buffalo hides and meat. Incoming trains brought carload after carload of grain, flour, and numerous other provisions. The streets of Dodge were strung out with wagons, bringing in hides and meat, then loading up with supplies from early morning until far into the night. Meanwhile, conditions in earlier cattle towns had begun to worry railroad officials. By 1874 the Santa Fe had become concerned that the settling of the country around Wichita would force the cattle drives farther west. More and more they favored Dodge as a major shipping point. New regulations adopted by the military aided their decision. Stronger measures were being taken to curtail Indian depredations south of Fort Dodge which might discourage cattle drives trailing so far westward. With an eye for business, merchants in Dodge reduced their prices on liquor, cigars, tobacco, and other goods, while restaurants and hotels rushed to improve their accommodations or to build new ones.

  The herds of Texas longhorns came, driven by money-hungry Texans, weary of the ravages of reconstruction, eager for a good time. The whorehouses, saloons, and tinhorn gamblers were ready, willing, and able to accommodate them. The fast guns—men who walked on both sides of the law—came to Dodge. Those who wore a badge, in Dodge or elsewhere, were Wyatt Earp and William B. (“Bat”) Masterson. Famed killers included Doc Holliday, Ben Thompson, and Clay Allison. A drunken John Wesley Hardin fired through the wall of his hotel room one night, killing a man in the adjoining room who was snoring.

  Ironically, insofar as the Texas trail drives were concerned, the railroad was alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. As the rails moved west, so did the farmer, and with the advent of barbed wire came the fences. One by one—Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita—they were tamed by encroaching civilization, until only Dodge remained. Those who walked her streets have proclaimed her the greatest of them all, the queen of cattle towns. Those of us who have walked there in spirit—through the pages of western history—can only agree.

  PROLOGUE

  Uvalde, Texas. December 16, 1869.

  He rode a rawboned gray mule, and if appearance meant anything, they were fit company for one another. The mule bore scars of rope or whip on its lean flanks, was missing half its right ear, and traveled at a shambling gait as though it cared not where they were going or if they ever go
t there. The rider had no saddle, guiding the weary mule with a makeshift rope bridle. While he was but twenty-nine, Daniel Ember looked and felt ten years older. His hair, once the color of wheat straw, was almost white. His eyes, once a friendly blue, had become slits of blue ice. His haggard face had the look of a man who had been to hell and back, maybe more than once. A red flannel shirt hung loose on his gaunt frame, while his gray Confederate trousers were all but threadbare at the knees. There was a hole in the crown of his hat, and countless rains had drooped its brim like the wings of a sick bird. But on his left hip, butt forward, he carried a Navy Colt revolver in a thonged-down holster.

  It had begun to rain, and he tried to hunch deeper into the flannel shirt. Through the holes in the soles of his boots, a chill wind found its way to his sockless feet. His left knee ached and there was a stiffness in his left shoulder, reminding him of the wounds that had kept him in a Yankee hospital for a year following Lee’s surrender. Now he rode the same dusty trail that had led him away seven long years ago, and the multitude of tracks told him it had been used regularly. Somebody had spent an almighty lot of time at his old place, and might still be there. He slowed the mule and the tired animal staggered. Ember sympathized with the beast, and dismounting, led the mule. Whatever lay ahead, he’d feel better facing it afoot. Before he was within sight of the cabin, a horse nickered and he could hear voices. Because of the spreading oaks, he saw the barn before he could see the house. To his amazement, he found the barn had been enlarged and a horse corral had been added. Two men had come out of the barn, and seeing him approach, had mounted and ridden to the cabin. Dismounting, they stood in the yard, thumbs hooked in their pistol belts. While they had made no hostile moves, there was no welcome in their eyes, and tension flared like prairie lightning. Ember halted, dropping the mule’s rope halter, freeing his hands. The significance of it wasn’t lost on the hard-eyed pair, and one of them spoke.

  “You got business here, mister?”

  “I have,” said Daniel Ember coldly. “This is my place.”

  “It ain’t no more,” said one of his antagonists. The other man laughed.

  “Who’s claiming it, and by what right?” Ember demanded.

  “I am,” said a third man, who had stepped out on the porch. “I am Burton Ledoux, and I bought this place last year by paying the taxes. Now you just leave the way you come in, and we’ll forgive you for botherin’ us.”

  “This is my place,” Ember repeated, “and I’m taking it. You coyotes can mount up and ride, or make your play.”

  “Jared, Slade,” Ledoux shouted, “cut him down.”

  But Ember had anticipated the move, and his Colt was blazing before the two men cleared leather. Only one of them got off a wild shot, and it struck Ember’s gaunt mule in the head. The unfortunate beast dropped in its tracks. Burton Ledoux had scrambled back into the cabin, and Ember could hear him shouting orders to unseen men. There was a commotion at the barn as shouting men came on the run in response to the shooting. Daniel Ember had but one chance. Holstering his Colt, he sprang into the saddle of the horse belonging to one of the dead men. Heading south, he kicked the big black into a fast gallop. Behind him there were gunshots, but he was soon out of range.

  “I want him caught and gunned down,” Ledoux bawled to the rest of his outfit.

  “He’s headed for the border,” a rider said.

  “Well, by God,” said Ledoux, “it’s fifty miles, and there’s a dozen of you, so take extra horses and ride him down in relays. Don’t give him the time to rest his horse for even a minute. This Rebel scum killed Jared and Slade, and if we don’t make an example of him, there’ll be no controlling the rest of them. Now ride,”

  They rode, led by a Cajun giant known as Black Bill. He had killed men with the lethal blacksnake whip coiled on his burly right arm, and as he rode, his lips skinned back in a wolf grin of anticipation.

  Ahead, Dan Ember slowed his horse to a slow gallop, sparing the animal. Bitterly, he considered his situation. He had gunned down two men, but damn them, they had given him no choice, and if that wasn’t enough, they could string him up as a horse thief. He rode on, knowing his only chance lay in reaching the border and Mexico, knowing he hadn’t a prayer. When his horse played out he would be forced to take a stand, selling his life as dearly as possible.

  With fresh horses on lead ropes, the Ledoux riders gained on their quarry, and soon Ember could see them coming/Eventually they would get him, so there was no sense in riding his horse to death. Ember began looking for a place to make his stand. But they denied him even that. His pursuers split up, flanking him left and right, and shot him out of the saddle. Warily, they approached, but their caution was unnecessary. Ember lay facedown, his unfired Colt in his hand.

  “We tote him back to the ranch?” a rider wondered.

  “You can if you want,” said another. “With all that lead in him, he ain’t goin’ nowhere. Besides, Black Bill ain’t done with him.”

  The burly Cajun had dismounted and was shaking the coils from the deadly blacksnake whip. He seemed not to notice when his comrades rode away. They had all seen Black Bill perform, and none of them had the stomach to witness it again.

  “One day,” said a rider with a shudder, “we’re gonna have to kill that crazy sonofabitch. He ain’t human.”

  Slowly, methodically, Black Bill applied the whip to the helpless Daniel Ember, ripping the clothing from his body. When he was finished, he regarded the bloody mess with satisfaction, mounted his horse and followed his companions.

  There was no sound except distant thunder and the sigh of the rising wind. Buzzards circled in the darkening sky, harbingers of death awaiting their grisly time. When the rain began, the bloody mass that was Daniel Ember shuddered with the chill, and what might have been a final groan of agony was lost in the rumble of thunder… .

  1

  Eagle Pass, Texas. December 17, 1869.

  An hour before first light, thirteen-year-old Denny DeVoe awakened to the sound of rain pattering on the cabin’s shake roof. He crawled out of the old straw tick, seeking to avoid waking his mother and sister, only to stub his bare foot against the leg of a chair. “Damn,” he grunted. His sister Lenore giggled.

  “Densmore DeVoe,” said his mother sternly, “you watch your tongue. Your daddy would have taken a strap to you for that kind of talk.”

  “Ma,” the boy said tiredly, “he ain’t comin’ back. You know he ain’t. He’s been gone since ‘sixty-one, and come spring, the war will have been over for five years. Leave him rest, and let me be the man of the house. Ain’t I been bringin’ in meat since I was seven?”

  “You have,” Adeline DeVoe sighed, “and I’m proud of you, but you’re still just a boy. I don’t like you riding north alone. Why can’t you do your hunting along the river?”

  “Because the Mex border patrol keeps all the game scared off,” Denny said hotly. “They’re staked out, just waitin’ for some reb to try and sneak across the border. Then they’ll shoot the poor bastard.”

  “Denny!”

  “Sorry, Ma,” the boy said, not sounding sorry at all. “I aim to get us a deer. I found tracks around a spring a few miles north.”

  Sixteen-year-old Lenore laughed at his self-confidence, while his mother only sighed, but all of it was lost on young Denny. He had found his clothes and worn boots, and dressing in the dark, his mind raced ahead to the sign at the spring and the anticipated deer. Wearing an old flop hat that had belonged to his father, Denny headed for the log barn.

  The mules, Banjo and Fiddle, heard him coming. There was no saddle, for that and their only horse had gone to war with Barnabas DeVoe. Denny bridled Banjo, and the animal balked, not wishing to leave the barn for the cold rain and chill wind. Denny appreciated the mule’s reluctance. He wished he had brought his coat, but chose to go on without it. A return to the house would invite further fussing from his mother. A canvas sheath kept his rifle dry, and that’s all that mattered. It was a May
nard carbine for which Barnabas DeVoe had paid twenty-five dollars in 1859. The weapon was .35 caliber, with a folding back sight. It was only thirty-seven inches long, with a twenty-inch barrel, and had an effective range of thirteen hundred yards. It weighed just six pounds, and was one of the first to fire metal case cartridges. Barnabas DeVoe had bought a thousand rounds and presented cartridges and carbine to young Denny on his seventh birthday. Now, as he rode the unwilling mule into the rainy predawn darkness, Denny DeVoe couldn’t help thinking of his father, and a lump rose in his throat. He swallowed hard. Despite the bitter words to his mother, he wanted to believe that Barnabas DeVoe was alive and would return.

  Denny rode on, as yet unable to see, a little on edge as a result of his mother’s fears. In the predawn darkness, with the continuing rain, he had to depend on the surefootedness of the mule, and had it not been for the animal, he wouldn’t have found what was left of Daniel Ember. Banjo’shied, reared, and Denny slid over his rump.

  “Damn you, Banjo,” he said. He. threw his weight on the bridle, but Banjo refused to move. Shucking his rifle, Denny moved cautiously ahead, and immediately fell over something. He went to his knees, and to avoid sprawling belly down in the mud, flung out his left hand. But his hand didn’t touch the muddy ground. Instead it rested on the back of a human head, in sodden hair. Heart in his throat, Denny lunged to his feet and backed hastily away. He had stumbled over a dead man! But after the initial shock, reason took over and he realized what must be done. Whoever the poor soul had been, he deserved a decent burial, and that meant riding back to the cabin for a spade. That, he thought gloomily, would result in yet another lecture from his mother over the danger of his riding alone.