The Goodnight Trail Page 13

  “I figure we’re a hundred and twenty-five miles southeast of Waco,” said McCaleb. “Maybe a twelve-day drive if there’s no more Indian trouble and no bad stampedes. We’ll find Goodnight’s outfit along the Brazos, somewhere north of Waco.”

  “I hope there’s a store or trading post in Waco,” said Rebecca. “I’d swap a cow for a little piece of soap.”

  “It might take that,” said McCaleb, “and more. I look for just about everything to be in short supply, especially ammunition. I expect every town to be occupied by Union soldiers by now.”

  “I don’t know as they’d bother occupying Waco,” said Will. “It wasn’t that much of a town last time I was there. A pair of general stores, five saloons, a livery, a jail, a barbershop, and a whorehouse…”

  He blushed, remembering Rebecca. The others laughed.

  “I don’t care what it is,” snorted the girl, “if it has an honest-to-God bathtub. It wouldn’t hurt the rest of you to spend some time in it. The tub, I mean.”

  They bedded down the herd at midnight. McCaleb estimated they were at least twenty-five miles north of the Comanche camp, and while he expected no more trouble from that quarter, he had to be sure.

  “Brazos, ask Goose to scout our back trail. Starting tomorrow, we’ll be more concerned with what’s ahead of us. Once we leave the Trinity, we’ll be driving cross-country. To bed the herd down near water, we may be facing some sixteen-hour days. Maybe some dry camps if the next creek or water hole is too far away.”

  Goose returned, reporting no Comanches on their back trail. McCaleb thought the Apache seemed a little disappointed. They moved the herd out at dawn. Well-grazed and watered, they moved readily along, following their self-appointed leader, old brindle. McCaleb trotted his mount to the point position, riding alongside Goose. He held up his canteen, pointed in the direction they were traveling and then pointed to the Indian.

  “Agua,” said Goose.

  “Paradero agua,” said McCaleb.

  Without another word the Indian kicked his horse into a lope and was soon swallowed up in a stand of cottonwoods on the ridge ahead. McCaleb remained in the point position. To his surprise, Rebecca trotted her roan up next to his bay.

  “You’re supposed to be riding flank,” said McCaleb.

  “Will moved up to cover for me; the herd’s moving well and I wanted to see where Goose is going.”

  “To look for water,” said McCaleb. He said nothing more. She had something on her mind, but he had no intention of making it easy for her.

  “I rode all of yesterday and until we bedded down the herd last night,” she said, “standing in my stirrups. My legs feel like I’ve walked all the way.”

  “If I’d had a real quirt instead of that piddling strip of rawhide,” said McCaleb, “you’d still be standing in your stirrups this morning.”

  He expected that to set off her hair-trigger temper, but she fooled him; she laughed. He kept his head down, fighting a grin. Despite all his resolutions to the contrary, he looked at her and that was his undoing. There was laughter—and something else—in her green eyes, which was irresistible. He found himself laughing with her, yielding to the knowledge that it had taken her abrasive nature to spark his interest. While he would never forget the dark-eyed girl he’d married in New Orleans or her brutal murder, there was something within him yearning to let her go, to allow her to become the memory that was all she could ever be. He was no less determined to avenge her death if and when he could, but would even that vengeance cleanse his heart and mind? For five long years bitterness and hatred had sustained him, but he felt a release, a letting go. How long had it been since he had laughed? The sound of his own laughter seemed strange, unfamiliar.

  “I didn’t know you could laugh,” she said.

  “I’ve never had much to laugh about.”

  “McCaleb, I…I just want to say I’m sorry for…a lot of things. I was being honest when I told you I…that I didn’t know how to be a lady. Those things I said to you…I…oh, what can I do? I can’t unsay them, but will it help if you know why I…I said them?”

  He rode with his eyes straight ahead, as though fascinated by the ears of his bay. Finally he looked at her and nodded.

  “I’d made a fool of myself, McCaleb. Again. I deserved a quirting, or worse. I deserved whatever that Indian had planned for me, but you saved me from that. When you cut me loose, I truly thought it was him and I was going to make him pay dearly for whatever he did to me. I closed my eyes and just scratched and fought. When I found it was you, that I’d smashed your nose again, bloodied your face, I…I blamed you, like it was your fault I was in such an embarrassing mess. I said those…mean things…called you what I…those names because I…I hated what I’d done. I simply couldn’t bear having you think worse of me than you already did….”

  McCaleb said nothing.

  “It’s terrible to speak ill of the dead, McCaleb, but my daddy never cared what I did. I could have forgiven all his faults and weaknesses, but not that. Why do you think Monte was strutting around with a tied-down Colt, trying to be a man and not knowing how? Why shouldn’t I swear like a mule-skinner? My daddy didn’t care. My mother died when I was so young, I don’t even remember what she looked like, McCaleb, but do you know what I treasure, what I remember as though it was yesterday? She whipped me when I did wrong. She cared enough to punish me. Do you know what it’s like, growing up without anyone to care what you do, what you say, what you think?”

  “Don’t you reckon you’re a mite old to be looking for a man to take your daddy’s place, to be what he ought to have been?”

  She was silent for so long, he thought he’d gone too far. She reminded him of a deceptively calm outlaw horse just before it exploded. When finally she spoke, her voice trembled, but not with anger. She bit her lower lip as big tears rolled down her dusty cheeks.

  “I just…want someone…to care. Someone to care…what I do…what I say. You never seemed to…to notice me…unless I…did something so…so foolish…so childish…you had to…to punish me. My God, I felt like…like Lot’s wife after she’d been turned to a pillar of salt. I had to…to swear at you…disagree with you, scratch your face, knowing you thought me less and less a…a lady. I had to…to forsake…everything else…to get you to see me as…as a woman.”

  “I’ve never doubted you were a woman,” said McCaleb. “If I’d had any doubts about that, what you did yesterday would have put them all out to pasture. Since you’ve left nothing else to my imagination, why don’t you tell me the rest of it? And this time, tell me the truth!”

  She kept her head down, seeming intensely interested in her saddle horn. The tears dripped off her chin, splashing on the backs of her clasped hands.

  “I’ll tell you, then,” said McCaleb. “You’ve told me enough that I can get a handle on the rest. If it matters so much what I think, how I feel about you, I reckon it’s time you learned that I’ve never been as put out over what you’ve done as I have when you’ve lied to me.”

  She forced herself to look at him, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “Yesterday morning, you insisted on going upriver to take a bath,” said McCaleb, “knowing that Comanche was dogging us. And you knew why. You also knew that despite all you said about us staying away, that I’d be after you if you stayed too long. You planned for me to get impatient and walk up on you, but the Indian got there first. That troublesome Comanche fell into the trap you set for me.”

  “I wasn’t setting a trap for you,” she cried in anguish. “I…only…”

  “I reckon,” said McCaleb, “if I’d followed you, found you standing there jaybird naked, you wouldn’t have yelled your head off?”

  “No,” she said in a small voice, “no.”

  “That wouldn’t have bothered you,” said McCaleb, “but when I found you wearing only a blanket, tied belly down on an Indian pony, you tore into me like a wounded catamount when I cut you loose.”

  “I thought it
was him….”

  “That Indian hadn’t had a bath since the flood. I could smell the stink fifty feet away. So could you.”

  “What are you…going to do…with me?” So softly did she speak, he barely heard her over the thump of the horses’ hoofs and the plodding herd.

  “If you ever lie to me again—about anything—I’m done with you. You can swear, fight, anything. I’ll wash my hands of you for good!”

  “What about the…other?”

  “What you did,” said McCaleb, “don’t bother me near as much as the way you went about it. It was a damn fool thing to do, knowing we had that Comanche stalking us, knowing he had his eye on you.”

  “But we’d shot up their camp, killed so many of them…”

  “You never take anything for granted where the Comanches are concerned. You did accomplish one thing; you lured that troublesome Indian within our reach, but I’d never have allowed you to take that risk.”

  The sharpness had left his voice. She knuckled the tears from her eyes. She still didn’t look at him, and when she spoke, it was sadly, resignedly.

  “You once said I was brash as a St. Louis whore; now that I’ve lived up to your low opinion, are you going to ignore me again?”

  Again she studied her saddle horn, afraid to look at him. The silence dragged on. Finally, impatient and half angry at his lack of response, she lifted her eyes and her heart skipped a beat. There was a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eyes.

  “Rebecca Nance, after you chucked that blanket away, I couldn’t ignore you if you were a St. Louis whore! You’ve plumb got my attention. Are you satisfied?”

  “Ah reckon Ah am,” she said with a timid smile. “Ah reckon Ah’ll do until you can find you a lady.”

  He took a pair of piggin strings from his belt and began slapping the rawhide thongs against his thigh. When he spoke, he still wore the grin.

  “Ah reckon Ah’ll have me a lady, time we get to Denver,” he said, “even if you have to stand in your stirrups every jump of the way.”

  They drove the herd until after dark to reach the creek Goose had found. The banks of the stream were heavily wooded, and they bedded down the herd on an open plain where the graze was better. Far to the west there was an occasional flicker of lightning, showing gold behind a cloud bank.

  “Likely another storm by tomorrow night,” said Brazos. “This time we can’t run them up against the high bank of the Trinity.”

  “Maybe they won’t spook that easy,” said Will. “So far they’ve been a steady bunch. They’ve had time to get used to the trail since that run to the river.”

  “They’ll run,” said McCaleb, “if the lightning strikes close by. Sometimes it don’t have to strike; just let it take to the ground in balls of fire as big as wagon wheels, bounding about like tumbleweeds. Until the worst is over, we’ll all stay in the saddle on stormy nights. Quiet nights like tonight, when the herd’s resting easy, we’ll ride in teams of two for three hours at a time.”

  “I’m ridin’ with Goose,” said Monte.

  “I got to ride with Brazos,” said Will, “elsewise I don’t get any sleep. I have to sleep when he does or his god-awful singin’ keeps me awake; sounds like a moose in pain.”

  McCaleb knew what they were doing. A cowboy sense of humor was never very subtle. They would fight to the death for him against hostile Indians or outlaws, but they’d laugh their heads off as he stumbled to his feet, bruised and bleeding, after being piled by an outlaw horse. Perfectly aware of his stormy relationship with Rebecca Nance, they would seize every opportunity to pair him with the headstrong girl. He grinned in the darkness. The joke might be on them!

  “The herd’s so quiet,” said Rebecca, “can’t we dismount and sit for just a while on something softer than a saddle? My bottom’s still sore in a place or two.”

  “Not bad,” chuckled McCaleb, “when all I had was a piggin string.”

  “First impressions are the truest; the first time I saw you, I said you were a bullying bastard.”

  “Still got some of that salve in my saddlebag,” said McCaleb, “but I reckon we’d best save that for more serious wounds.”

  They had taken the first watch, and by the stars McCaleb judged they had two more hours. They sat on a mossed-over oasis beneath a huge red oak, their backs against its trunk. Their ground-hitched horses cropped grass nearby. Somewhere an owl hooted.

  “McCaleb, what are you going to do when we get the herd to Colorado?”

  “Sell, if the price is right; hold them if it’s not. When we sell, I might come back to Texas, put some money into breeding stock, drive them to Colorado and start a ranch. It’s new range. That’s what Goodnight plans to do.”

  “You have lots of confidence in him, don’t you?”

  “His ideas are sound. That’s why we’re driving through eastern New Mexico Territory to Colorado. Texas is broke, and Texans don’t have anything to sell except cows. Northern trails will soon be glutted. There’ll be no graze along the trail and none at the end. The range will look like its been hit with a grasshopper plague. Herds will have to be sold on the spot, for whatever they’ll bring. Charlie believes we can throw our herds on this Colorado range and hold them for a year, if need be, until the price is right. For a few years—until the Yankee radicals in Washington get tired punishing us—I reckon a ranch in Colorado wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “If Texas is occupied by Federal troops, what does that mean to us? Will we be allowed to just…go?”

  “I don’t know what to expect. I won’t be surprised if the South-haters in Congress haven’t come up with some laws earmarked especially for us. I reckon we may get some idea of what’s been done when we reach Waco. With or without Goodnight, I’d not hesitate to take a herd to Colorado Territory. But I believe—and he agrees—that combining our herds will improve our chances against whatever we encounter: Union troops, outlaws, or Indians.”

  “Since you were Rangers like Goodnight, why didn’t you, Will, and Brazos go partners with him?”

  “Wouldn’t have been fair to him,” said McCaleb. “He already had the makings of a herd dating back to before the war, while we had nothing. With his natural increase, he’s likely got a herd, if he can round ’em up. Charlie Goodnight’s as close as a brother, and never, during my four years with the Rangers, did we face any situation we couldn’t handle. But we don’t always agree on everything; I feel a bit easier, more my own man, sided by Will and Brazos. They feel as strong about Goodnight as I do, but in some ways he’s a lone wolf. So am I. But for his sake as well as ours, we’ll trail together. We’re facing lots of unknowns, and we’ll be stronger facing them together.”

  He felt her shudder. Her hand had found its way to his shoulder without his being aware of it. Again there was a loosening of the band of hate and bitterness that had so long gripped his heart. They were of the same mind at the same time, and seemingly, without any conscious effort on the part of either of them, their lips met. He drew away first, and she spoke, softly.

  “What are you thinking?”

  He laughed. “I’m thinkin’ this is the closest I ever got to you without endin’ up cougar-clawed and bleeding.”

  “Do you want me to scratch your face and smash your nose, just so you can feel more natural with me?”

  He failed to respond as she had hoped, and she could have bitten her tongue. Why hadn’t she said something more in keeping with this newly discovered gentle mood of his? She still sat close to him, her hand in his, but he might as well have been in Waco. Despite his apparent acceptance of her, there was still a gulf between them, an uneasiness of which they were both aware. It seemed they had nothing to talk about, and the silence grew long and painful. The one thing she yearned most to ask, she dared not. She was uncertain as to how far she could go without risking the little she had won. But had she won anything? There was a nagging suspicion that her kiss, rather than drawing him closer to her, had instead triggered painful memories of his dead wi
fe. Even now, as he sat beside her, she feared that he was retreating into those dim, lonesome corridors of the past, seeking to sustain a memory of that which was lost to him.

  “I reckon we’d best mount up and finish our nighthawkin’,” he said.

  The interlude was over, and after the prolonged silence, his words had startled her. She felt let down, unsatisfied, but what had she expected of him? He got up and took her hands, helping her to her feet. The movement seemed to have brought him back to her, and her heart leaped at his reluctance to let her go. Suddenly he drew her to him and took her breath away with a hard kiss. When he spoke, it was almost a whisper in her ear.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Rebecca Nance; you’ll take some gettin’ used to.”

  The darkness hid her smile. And her tears.

  Dawn broke with a patch of blue sky overhead and ominous gray clouds bumping shoulders from horizon to horizon. Sunrise was limited to a faint pink glow in the east, while a west wind brought the unmistakable feel of rain.

  “I purely don’t like them clouds,” said Brazos. “That’s ‘Indian sign’ cloudy all around, and when them clouds meet in the middle, it’s Katy-bar-the-door. For sure we’ll get wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, and I won’t be surprised if there’s sleet, snow, and hail throwed in.”

  “I look for it about midday,” said McCaleb. “It’s close enough that I’d bed them down and wait it out if we had any kind of shelter, any chance of preventing a stampede. But we’re on open range and one place is as good as another. At least we’ll have daylight in our favor. We’ll move ’em out and hope we find us a canyon before the thunder and lightning starts.”

  They came upon dry creek beds and buffalo wallows, but nothing suitable to shelter them from the impending storm. At first the rumble of thunder was so distant it was almost imperceptible. As it drew closer, in keeping with the horizon-to-horizon cloud formation, it seemed to come at them from the four corners of the earth. A spectacular golden blaze of lightning sprang to life on the western horizon, zigzagging its way in giant steps to the east before flickering out.