The Ellsworth Trail Read online

  “I knew Rivera better than Fuentes. He was a good, honest man. Fuentes, he was never no trouble. He did his work and he didn’t grumble none about it.”

  That night, the dead men were laid out beside two holes dug six feet deep. Jock nodded to Horky and Pablo Cornejo, the two chosen to lay the corpses in their graves. Horky picked Rivera up by the shoulders, while Pablo lifted his feet. Both corpses were stiff by then. They laid him gently in his grave, then did the same with Fuentes. Then they took shovels and began to put the dirt back in the hole where Rivera lay, while Ernesto Sandoval and Ed Purvis shoveled dirt on Fuentes.

  “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” intoned Jock as the men stood next to the graves, their hats in their hands. “Almighty God,” he said, “please let these boys into heaven and give them good horses to ride, some gold in their pockets and a soft bed to sleep in at night. We give these good men into your kind and merciful hands. Amen.”

  Many of the men muttered, “Amen,” as well.

  Quist, however, glared at Jock Kane with eyes so malevolent they might have been forged in hell on the devil’s own anvil.

  “Jock,” Quist said, “I’m calling you out, you sonofabitch. You good as killed those men yourself, and I aim to see you join them in the ground.”

  Jock looked away from the grave and straight into Quist’s eyes. The shoveling ceased and there was not a sound, not even a breath, among the men there.

  It might have been the longest moment in a man’s life, just then, with death hovering over them just as surely as two men lay dead in the ground.

  Chapter 22

  Jock fixed Quist with eyes that seemed to smoke like the fuse on a stick of dynamite. Jock turned slightly to square himself with the man who had accused him of murder. He did not assume a fighting stance, but showed Quist that he was ready if Quist wanted to open the ball and dance.

  “We just buried two men, Quist,” Jock said. “Do you want to make it a threesome?”

  “I just don’t like what you done, Kane.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You had us all double up. You said it would be safer that way. Now, we got two men killed, ’stead of one. Seems to me you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”

  “You’ve got a point, Quist. I thought it would be safer if we watched out for each other. I was wrong.”

  “Dead wrong,” Quist said.

  “Now, hold on,” Chad said. “Let’s not fight amongst each other over this. Lou, you back off. Jock, let’s let our tempers cool.”

  Young Mac’s eyes were like a pair of boiled eggs, bulging from their sockets. His mouth hung long and slack as if he were witnessing a pair of Roman gladiators from the arena itself. Jubilee stood next to his helper, the lower hem of his food-stained apron wadded up in his hands, the cloth soaking up his sweat. Dub Morley licked his dry lips, his eyes flickering with the firelight, like the eyes of a hungry cat. Horky’s eyes were still wet from weeping over his dead brethren. He crossed himself. His lips moved in a silent prayer to the Virgin Mary.

  “Lou’s right, though, Mr. Becker. Kane’s done put us all in danger with his fool orders.”

  Chad looked at Morley, the man who had spoken.

  “He did what he thought was right,” Chad said. “I agreed with him.”

  “And look what it got us,” Morley said. “Two more dead men.”

  “You stay out of this, Dub,” Quist said.

  Morley’s eyes glittered like polished agates. The sun sank like a stone in black water and the night sky sprouted stars. Flame shadows licked the faces of the men standing around the fire, giving their heads the look of hideous masks. They smelled blood, Jock knew, and one wrong move could see the air filled with flying lead. Quist was the man he had to back down, but the others were ready to take sides in a fight. He and Chad would be caught in the middle, like bugs in a spider’s web.

  “This is not the way, Quist,” Jock said. “Would you do Torgerson’s work for him? He wants to kill us all so he can get to Ellsworth before we do. Think about it.”

  “The way I see it, Kane, you’re the burr under our saddle. We can handle those two killers our way. Not yours.” Quist stood his ground, defiant, his arms bowed out away from his body, one hand hovering close to the six-gun in his holster.

  “Kane, your word don’t mean shit around here,” Quist said. “Three men are dead already. You’ve been a jinx on this drive, same as you was when you drove your own herd up to Kansas. Only you never made it. I’m getting the same feeling about this one.”

  “I have a plan,” Jock said. “It’ll take some doing. I’ll need every man jack of you to pull it off. But we’ll get those boys.”

  “What’s your plan?” Dub Morley asked.

  “We’ll put it together in the morning,” Jock said. “Now, get to your herd or get some sleep if you’re not riding nighthawk. Quist?”

  Jock threw out the challenge and every head turned toward Quist.

  He shuffled his feet, staring down at the toes of his boots as he worried some dirt.

  “I reckon I can wait one more day,” Quist said. “But this plan better work, Kane. I ain’t going to cut you much slack.”

  “Fair enough,” Jock said, and turned away. The others sighed and walked to the fire or to their horses. The men with the shovels finished mounding up the dirt over the two graves.

  Chad drew Jock aside.

  “This plan of yours, Jocko. Is it going to work?”

  “I hope like hell it does, Chad.”

  The next day, Jock found the place he was looking for, having ridden off alone, leaving Cussler to find a noon stop for the chuck wagon. The place he chose was a spring-fed pond surrounded by trees. There was enough deadwood around to make a fire, and enough green wood to make smoke if he cut it from the water oaks. Satisfied, he rode back and started speaking to certain drovers he encountered, pulling them away from the herd without explanation. But he did not pick the men at random. He had thought about who he wanted to take back to the pond and his choices were deliberate.

  They gathered around the chuck wagon—Jock, Lou Quist, Dub Morley, Fred Naylor, Earl Foster, Julio Horcasitas and Ernesto Sandoval.

  “Don’t you want me to go with you, Jocko?” Chad asked.

  “Yes, I want you there, Chad. Now, here’s what we need to take with us.” Jock listed the items: two shirts, two pair of trousers, the two hats once worn by Fuentes and Rivera when they were alive, some empty flour sacks, a shovel, hatchets, a hammer, nails, a saw and, finally, two horses from the remuda. He did not explain why he wanted these items, but Jubilee supplied the flour sacks and tools.

  “Follow me,” Jock said, and the strange caravan set out while Mac and Jubilee watched them go, both scratching their heads.

  “He’s got something up his sleeve,” Jubilee said to Mac.

  “Yeah,” Mac said. “I sure wish I knew where they were going and what they’re going to do.”

  “We’ll find out in due time, Mac.”

  At the water hole, Jock put the men to work.

  “Dub, you dig two holes where I show you,” Jock said. “Big enough to sink some sticks in them.” He marked out the places for the holes. He had others gather firewood, both dry and green, and stack it near the two holes Dub was digging. Then he had Horky cut some straight limbs from mesquite trees, and cut the trunks of the smaller ones. He and Chad filled the flour sacks with dirt and tied them at the openings, leaving a loop in each knot.

  “What the hell is all this for?” Quist asked.

  “We’re going to set a trap for those two killers,” Jock said.

  “It don’t make no sense,” Quist grumbled.

  “It will,” Jock said. “Horky, stack that firewood high, deadwood at the bottom, green leaves and limbs on top.”

  When Dub finished digging the holes to Jock’s satisfaction, he and Chad nailed the straight limbs into crosses. They set the long ends into the holes, filled them with dirt and tamped them down. Then Jock put
the sacks of dirt atop the crosses. He put shirts on the cross bars of the Ts, and set hats over the sacks. Then he laid out the pants and he and Chad filled them with dirt so that they looked like legs.

  “Now all of you walk off a ways, look at those dummies, then come back.”

  Reluctantly, Quist and the others walked several yards away. Jock waved them to walk still farther away. When they were two hundred yards off, he waved them back toward the water hole.

  “Now,” Jock said, “tell me what you saw, Quist. What did those dummies look like?”

  Quist looked puzzled.

  “I reckon it looked like two men sitting down.”

  “Yeah,” Morley said. “Sort of.”

  “From a distance, if you saw those dummies sitting by a fire, you’d think they were a couple of drovers cooking a meal, wouldn’t you?” Jock said.

  The men all nodded.

  “Those dummies won’t really fool anyone, Kane,” Quist said.

  “We’ll see,” Jock said. “Horky, I want you to saw through the long part of the crosses. Not enough so that the limbs break, but enough so that they’ll break easy if, say, a bullet hits anyplace on the wood. Can you do that?”

  Horky nodded. He got the saw, knelt down and began to saw at the bottom of a limb that served as the longest part of the cross.

  Jock looked over the scene himself, walking around, checking the stack of wood. The men watched him as if observing some arcane ritual that made no sense to them.

  “Now,” Jock said, “we light the fire, hide out, and wait.”

  “For what?” Quist asked.

  “Maybe for a couple of rifle shots,” Jock said. He pointed to the southeast. “They’ll be coming in from that direction, I reckon. They’ll see the smoke from the fire and want to investigate. Then they’ll ride up and see those two hobbled horses, two men sitting by the fire and figure it’s an easy way to make money.”

  “What if they come from another direction?” Chad asked.

  “We’ll be north of this, out of sight, but ready to ride. If they shoot and think they’ve killed the two dummies, they’ll want to retrieve the shirts for proof of their kill. We’ll ride up, surround them and . . .”

  Jock touched the coiled lariat on his saddle as his voice trailed off. Nobody asked the next question.

  When Horky was finished with the sawing, Jock ordered them all to head north and ride until they could no longer see the fictitious campsite, nor be seen by anyone beyond that point.

  “I’ll light the fire and join you shortly,” Jock said.

  When all the men were out of sight, Jock rolled a cigarette. He lit it and then touched the match to the shavings he had put at the bottom of the pyramid of wood. The shavings caught and soon the fire was blazing. As it licked at the leaves and green branches, smoke began to spiral upward. Satisfied, Jock mounted his horse and rode away. He hoped they would not have to wait long for his trap to work.

  The men sat their horses and looked at the smoke rising in the sky. There was no breeze, no wind, and the sky was blue and cloudless. They fingered their rifles, and once in a while Quist looked at Kane, with that cigarette dangling from his mouth, a picture of calmness while everyone’s nerves were jangling like a brass wind chime. Nobody spoke. Everyone listened.

  Jock did not look at any of them, nor did he look at the column of smoke in the sky. Instead, he stared at his horse’s ears, which were like two sharp cones rising from its head. The horse would hear approaching riders long before he or any of the men would. And then he would know whether or not his plan was going to work. The only sounds were the switching of the horses’ tails and the soft drone of flies avoiding the swatting brooms.

  Chad looked at Jock. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jock put a finger to his lips, then cupped his ear.

  Chad nodded.

  A few moments later, Jock’s horse whickered low in its throat. Its ears stiffened, then twisted one way, then another.

  Jock sat up straight. He eased his rifle from its scabbard, then looked at the others. They all pulled their rifles from their sheaths and laid them across their pommels. Hours seemed to pass in the space of a few seconds.

  There was the whip-crack of a rifle. Then, another. Then, a split second of utter stillness in an eternity of silence.

  Chapter 23

  D.F. was the first to spot the smoke. He reached over and punched Clutter on the arm.

  “Looky there, Randy.”

  “Yeah, D.F., smoke. A long ways off, though.”

  “What you reckon it is?”

  “Maybe Becker’s got him a running iron. Curt said this morning he was missing some cattle.”

  “Boy, I’d like to catch them boys rustling Cross J cattle.”

  “About all you’re likely to catch is a dose of the clap, D.F.”

  “Oh, come on, Randy, don’t make fun of me.”

  “It’s hard not to, D.F.”

  They rode toward the smoke. It was only a thin tendril in the distance and it would take them a good half hour to reach it on horseback. D.F. was excited, but Randy was worrying his lower lip, sliding inside his mouth and wadding his tongue up against it as if it were a wad of tobacco.

  “What was you and Abel talking about last night, Randy?” D.F. crowded his horse in close to Clutter’s.

  “Nothing much.”

  “Yeah? You was talking a real long time.”

  “Abel found out we was on the bounty. I reckon Curt must have told him.”

  “So, did he want in on it?”

  “Naw, he just asked me not to shoot his brother Jock in the back.”

  “I thought he and Jock were on the outs.”

  “They are, I reckon.”

  “So, why’d he ask us not to put Jock down?”

  “He said he wanted to do it hisself.”

  “Haw,” D.F. cackled, slapping his leg in glee. “You know why, Randy?”

  “Yeah, I know why.”

  “Why?”

  “Cause Abel is scared shitless of Jock.”

  “That’s right. Abel says Jock will kill him on sight because of what Abel done to that pretty little wife of Jock’s.”

  They drew closer to the smoke.

  “Curt wants it that way,” Randy said.

  “What way?”

  “Torgerson figures he might have a run-in with Jock Kane and he wants to sic Abel on him.”

  “Whooee. I’d pay money to see that,” D.F. squealed.

  “You’d pay money to see two dogs get hooked up, D.F.”

  “No, I’d throw water on ’em, Randy.” D.F. thought that was a funny answer and he laughed at himself.

  Randy was silent, looking at the smoke. They were close enough now, and could smell it. Randy spotted the fire by the water hole and reined up. D.F. put his horse beside Randy’s and looked, too.

  “Damn,” D.F. said, “there’s two of ’em right there, and they got their backs to us.”

  “Yeah. I wonder what they’re doing way out here. I don’t see no cattle.” Randy pulled his rifle out of its scabbard.

  “Hell, they’re probably hunting strays and got hungry or something. Or—maybe they ain’t X8 hands. What then, Randy?”

  “Hell, they got shirts on, don’t they?” Randy said.

  D.F. hefted his rifle, then cocked it. “Let’s put ’em down,” he said.

  “You take the one on the right, D.F. I’ll take the other’n.”

  Both men readied their rifles, then brought them to their shoulders. They took aim. Randy fired first. Then, a split second later, D.F. shot. They watched both figures move, one falling over on its side, the other face-first.

  “Got ’em,” D.F. said.

  “They sure fell funny,” Randy said, squinting his eyes.

  “Hell, they fell, didn’t they? Let’s go get their shirts. Boy, I can feel fresh money burning a hole in my pocket.”

  The two men rode up to the water hole at a gallop. Both had their rifles at the ready in case one or the
other of the shot men were still alive.

  As Randy reined up, he saw movement off to one side. D.F. saw something on his right.

  In moments, the two men knew they had made a mistake.

  “We done stepped into shit,” D.F. said.

  “Just drop those rifles, boys,” Jock said.

  “We all got a bead on you both. One twitch and you’re dead men.”

  “Don’t shoot,” D.F. said, dropping his rifle.

  “Well, damned if it ain’t Jock Kane,” Randy said. Then he let his rifle fall to the ground.

  He looked at the two dummies, then back at Jock.

  “D.F.,” Randy said, “looky there, would you? We done shot two scarecrows.”

  D.F. looked at the piles of limp clothing and his eyes widened.

  “We been hoodwinked, Randy,” D.F. said.

  The men of the X8 rode up and removed the pistols from Randy and D.F.’s holsters.

  “Keep your hands in the air,” Jock said.

  “What you aiming to do, Kane?” Randy asked.

  “You boys will hang from that water oak yonder,” Jock said.

  “For what? Shooting a couple of damned scarecrows?” Randy sounded indignant.

  “Yeah, we ain’t done nothing,” D.F. said.

  “Horky, tie their hands behind their backs,” Jock ordered. “Quist, you help him.”

  “You can’t do this, Kane. We’re innocent men. You ain’t got no cause.”

  “Clutter, you’ve killed three of my men, you and Fogarty. Now you’re going to hang.”

  “Prove it,” Randy said.

  “I don’t have to, Clutter. I caught you trespassing on X8 land. Trying to steal two horses. And I’m the law here.” Jock pulled out the makings of a cigarette as he stared at the two outlaws.

  “This ain’t nobody’s land,” Randy said. “And we weren’t stealing no horses.”

  “Witnesses saw you both shoot my men dead. Say your prayers, boys. Chad, shake out a couple of ropes.”

  Randy’s face drained of color. D.F., his hands tied behind his back, leaned over and vomited. Some of it spilled down his shirt. Horky made his horse sidle away from the mess and the smell.

  Chad shook out his lariat and Fred Naylor strung his rope out, and began making a hangman’s loop. Quist finished tying Randy’s hands behind his back with leather thongs.