The Tenderfoot Trail Read online

  Table of 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

  PINNED DOWN

  A bullet ricocheted off the iron rim of a wagon wheel as Garrett ran to his rifle. He levered a round into the chamber, then turned and yelled at Annie, “Get back! Farther into the arroyo!”

  He had no time to watch if the woman had done as he’d ordered because the Indians had shaken out into a line and were riding fast toward the mouth of the canyon.

  Above him on the crest of the hill, Ready’s Henry hammered a shot, then another. One of the warriors threw up his hands and toppled backward off his pony. But the rest kept on coming.

  Garrett drew a bead on an Indian with red and black streaks of paint across his nose and cheeks. He held his breath and fired. The man jerked as the bullet hit; then he bent over the withers of the horse before slowly sliding to the ground.

  Ready was shooting steadily and with deadly accuracy. Another Indian went down, then another. Garrett fired, fired again, and missed both times. . . .

  SIGNET

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

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, July 2006

  Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2006

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

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  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.

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  THE IMMORTAL COWBOY

  This is respectfully dedicated to the “American Cow boy.” 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, allowing 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

  The barber snipped away the last errant curl that hung over the collar of Luke Garrett’s shirt, switched to smaller scissors, then carefully trimmed the young rancher’s sweeping dragoon mustache. That done, the man stepped back to admire his handiwork, nodded to himself and reached for a bottle of pomade on the counter. He vigorously rubbed the lavender-scented oil into Garrett’s unruly auburn mane, then combed the hair straight back from his forehead.

  “A little wax on the mustache, maybe?” the barber asked, his hands clasped together at the front of his chest as he gave a solicitous little bow.

  Garrett shook his head. “Let it be. I reckon I smell like a sheepherder’s socks already.”

  This entire operation had been watched, to his evident satisfaction, by Simon Carter, chief of the Fort Benton Honorable Vigilante Committee.

  “Stand up, boy,” Carter told Garrett. “Let’s take a look at ye.”

  The young man swung out of the chair and rose to his feet. Garrett was twenty-five years old that summer and stood a couple of inches above six feet. He was thin in the waist and hips, but wide across the shoulders, where it mattered most. Hard muscle bulged under the sleeves of his washed-out denim shirt and his hands were big and scarred from twenty years of working cattle. Garrett wore fringed shotgun chaps and wide canvas suspenders over his shirt, and his ten-dollar boots were handmade but much scuffed and down-at-heel. His eyes were hazel, but showed more ice green than brown when anger was on him, as it was on him now.

  “Satisfied, Carter?” Garrett asked, his voice sharp-edged as a slow-burning fury rode him.

  Carter tipped his chair against the shop wall, looked the younger man up and down, then beamed. “You look crackerjack, boy! I swear, it’s going to be a real honor to hang you.”


  Garrett rubbed his shaved cheeks and briefly glanced at himself in the mirror, where his eyes caught and held Carter’s. “Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a hanging,” he said.

  The vigilante nodded his agreement. “There are some might say that, but Simon Carter will send no man to hell without a shave, a haircut and a full belly. You’ll get beefsteak and eggs this afternoon, boy, an’ a mess o’ buttermilk biscuits if’n such is to your liking.”

  Carter looked his prisoner up and down again, eased his chair away from the wall, and his beaming smile grew wider. “Crackerjack!” he said.

  The vigilante nodded his satisfaction and asked the barber: “Don’t he look crackerjack, Sam?”

  “Crackerjack,” Sam said without noticeable enthusiasm. “An’ that’s why he’s gonna cost you a dollar, Carter.”

  “Tender your bill to the committee,” Carter said. “In triplicate, as usual.”

  The man called Sam swore under his breath. “And as usual I won’t see a red cent.”

  “It’s your civic duty to curry the condemned, Sam.” Carter smiled. “There are some might see it that way.”

  “Civic duty my ass,” Sam snapped. “A pat on the back don’t cure saddle galls or an empty wallet either.”

  Garrett reached into the pocket of his shirt, found a dollar and spun it to the barber. “Take that. It’s the only one they missed.”

  Sam caught the coin expertly and brandished it in Carter’s direction. “See that? A real gentleman, he is.”

  The vigilante was no longer smiling. “You held out on me, boy,” he said. “That dollar should have gone toward your keep.”

  “So what are you going to do about it, Carter?” Garrett asked. “Hang me?”

  Carter rose to his feet, a long, lank string bean of a man in a shabby black suit and cracked patent leather shoes. His dirty, collarless shirt showed what he’d eaten for his last ten meals and a battered silk top hat was tilted on his bald head. By profession, Carter was the town’s undertaker and it showed. He looked and walk-hopped like a seedy, molting crow.

  “Now you get buffler steak for your last meal, boy,” he said, his face flushed. “And maybe you won’t get any of them biscuits I was talkin’ about neither.”

  For a few moments Carter’s black eyes locked with Garrett’s. But gradually the man relaxed and his smile returned. “Nah, beefsteak it is. Damn it all, I like you, boy. I’m going to hang you, but I like you.”

  Garrett did not reply as he measured the distance between him and the vigilante, figuring his chances. He tensed, knowing that if he was going to make a play, it had to be now.

  But Carter read something reckless in the younger man’s eyes and the shotgun in his hands came up fast, the muzzles pointing right at Garrett’s belly. “Don’t even think about trying it, boy,” he said, his voice soft, without threat. “I’d cut you in half with this here Greener afore you took a single step.”

  “Buckshot always means a buryin’, that’s for sure,” the barber observed. “An’ nobody knows that more’n you, Carter. In your time you’ve gunned your share.”

  The vigilante nodded and smiled, as though Sam had fairly stated the case.

  Garrett glanced at the shotgun, rock steady in Carter’s hands. Dirty and unkempt the man might be, but the weapon was clean, a film of oil glistening the length of the barrels. The man’s fingers were white-knuckled on the triggers and Garrett knew that if he even developed a sudden eye twitch Carter would cut loose.

  Forcing himself to relax, the young rancher unclenched his fists and managed a slight smile. “When I got right down to it, I plumb lost my confidence.” He nodded toward the Greener. “Came on me all of a sudden.”

  “Wise decision,” Carter said, without humor. “Now get your hat. Time you was heading back to the jail afore you get any more of them bright ideas and step into a passel of trouble.”

  After Garrett collected his battered Stetson from the hook on the wall, the barber whisked a brush across his shoulders. “I’d say you’re welcome to come back, son. But on account of how by sundown you won’t be around no more, I’ll just”—Sam stuck out his hand—“say so long and good luck.”

  Garrett shook the barber’s proffered hand and stepped outside, Carter alert and ready behind him.

  The young man settled his hat on his head and briefly looked around, his nose lifted to air so thick a man might feel he could cut out chunks of it with a knife.

  It was still an hour from noon, yet the sun was already blazing hot in a sky the color of washed-out denim, ripening the stench of manure from thousands of mules, horses and oxen and from piles of stinking buffalo hides. In winter the streets of Fort Benton became seas of vile-smelling mud, impassable even for freight wagons, but now, that hot summer of 1876, dust was the problem. Despite the recent rain, the ground had dried quickly, and choking yellow clouds hung in the air, kicked up by wagon wheels and draft animals. The dust sifted into every nook and cranny of the town, lying thick and indiscriminate like powdered mustard on furniture from parlor pianos to saloon faro wheels. It found its way inside the wool shirts of men and the silk dresses of women, mingling with sweat, trickling slow and gritty down muscular backs and between soft breasts.

  A mile-long levee protected the town’s scattered shacks, stables and warehouses from the annual flood of the Missouri and down by the loading docks were tied the elegant steamboats that had plied the river this far but could travel no farther.

  Gold miners headed for Bannack, Virginia City or Last Chance Gulf had to complete their journeys overland.

  The town was the very center of a vast transportation hub. All the major trails in Montana, including those leading into Canada, intersected at Benton, and that was the reason why the town prospered in freight and shipping operations.

  The headquarters of the rich merchant princes who helped Benton thrive were clustered around Front Street, outfits like Garrison and Wyatt, Car-roll and Steel, E. G. Maclay and Company and the Diamond R Transportation Company. Between them these firms employed three thousand men, four thousand horses and twenty thousand oxen and mules to haul goods in and out of the town.

  The loud and profane men who jostled their wagons past Garrett on the street were for the most part professional bullwhackers and mule skinners, although Benton also had its share of wolfers, miners, gamblers, whores and whiskey traders.

  Here and there, usually seen lounging outside the town’s dozen roaring saloons, were men of a different stamp. Lean, blue-eyed men wearing belted Colts, they looked at nothing directly but saw everything. Such men were few in Benton, but their presence was always noted, their movements closely observed.

  Luke Garrett felt the muzzles of Carter’s Greener dig into his back. “Get moving, boy,” he said. “You’ve seen enough. And walk real relaxed and easy.” The vigilante’s voice dropped to a conversational tone and the younger man could hear his smile. “Two things you should learn about me, son—I got faith in shotguns and I don’t never trust a dead wolf until he’s been skun.”

  Without turning, Garrett nodded. “I’ve learned something about you already, Carter.”

  “An’ what’s that?”

  “You don’t ever need to worry about biting off more than you can chew. Your mouth is a whole lot bigger than you think.”

  Behind him, Garrett heard the vigilante cackle. “Dang it all, Luke, but I like you. Whooee, but you’ve got sand, boy.”

  The two men walked past the gallows built near the jail, a simple platform of pine boards six feet high surmounted by a T-shaped gibbet with iron hooks screwed into the underside of each end of the crossbar. Red, white and blue bunting had already been draped over the front of the platform in anticipation of Garrett’s hanging.

  Carter saw the younger man’s head turn to look and he said, “Haven’t had a double hanging in near a twelvemonth. Always draws a big crowd. But don’t you worry none. A nice-looking young feller like you will bring plenty out to watch.”


  “Thanks,” Garrett said. “That cheers me considerably.”

  “Bad thing about a hanging is you never quite know how it’s going to go,” Carter said as they reached the jail. “I’ve seen two-gun hard cases who claimed to be all horns and rattles go weak at the knees an’ cry like babies when the time came for them to take their dose of rope medicine.” He shook his head. “No, sir, a hanging is one dang thing you just can’t practice for.”

  He motioned to Garrett with the shotgun. “Now you step over there to the side of the door and don’t move a muscle.”

  The vigilante pushed the muzzle of the Greener into Garrett’s belly and removed a large iron key from his pocket. He turned the key in the lock and the bolt clanked back. Without moving the shotgun muzzle an inch from its spot just above the buckle of Garrett’s chaps, he swung the door wide and nodded toward the opening. “Now get inside—and don’t be trying no fancy moves.”

  Garrett stepped into the jail and the door slammed behind him. Carter’s face appeared at the small barred window cut in the heavy oak. “I’ll bring your supper around four. That’ll give you a quiet hour to eat afore we hang you.”

  The young rancher turned. “Thanks, Carter. You’re all heart.”

  Garrett’s sarcasm was lost on the man. “Me, I always try to be a bit nicer to prisoners than is called for,” he said. “But I don’t take no guff either.”

  Before Garrett could answer, the vigilante swung on his heel and walked away, his choppy, crow-hopping steps kicking up little puffs of dust around his patent leather shoes.

  Garrett watched the man go, then sat on the edge of the bunk. The narrow bed with its filthy straw mattress represented the extent of the jail’s furnishings. The jail itself was a single room about twenty feet long by half as much wide, built low and sturdy of heavy pine logs. To discourage escape attempts, the floor was concrete. The roof was a shallow, inverted V of pine beams and rough wood shingles topped by a layer of sod. A tiny window barred with iron was cut high in the wall opposite the bunk, through which angled a ray of sunlight where flickering dust motes danced.