The Amarillo Trail Read online

  Paco and Al ran over. They were hunched down to lessen their value as targets. They fell to their knees beside Jared and Miles.

  “Is he alive?” Paco asked.

  “Yeah, but just barely. He’s hurt bad,” Miles said.

  “Let’s get him into the chuck wagon,” Al said. “See if we can’t bandage him up.”

  They knew that Cookie carried bandages, medications, salves, and liniments inside the wagon.

  “Be careful,” Miles said when Al took Jared by the legs and Paco lifted his upper body up. They took short steps and ran to the chuck wagon, Al pushing Jared as he would a wheelbarrow and Paco stepping backward. Miles ran alongside while bullets kicked up dirt clods all around them and tore furrows in the earth. They dodged cattle running toward the river until they reached the island where the chuck wagon was parked.

  Miles scrambled into the back end and cleared a space for his brother, knocking aside bags of sugar and flour, tins of coffee and tobacco. There were blankets and pillows in the center where Cookie had slept during the night. He stuck his head out through the hole in the canvas.

  “Give me his shoulders, Paco,” Miles said, and reached for his brother with outstretched arms.

  Al got underneath Jared’s back and pushed upward. Paco climbed up and slid through the open end and helped Miles pull Jared inside the wagon. They laid him on the floorboards. Al climbed in behind them, his face drawn, his brows furrowed in worry.

  “How is he?” Al asked.

  “Let’s get some pillows and blankets under him,” Paco said.

  He and Miles shoved every soft piece of dry goods they could find under Jared.

  “I’ll light a lantern,” Al said.

  “Be damned careful you don’t set the canvas on fire,” Paco warned.

  Al struck a match and lifted the chimney of a lantern that had been hanging on one of the braces. Light filled the inside of the wagon.

  Miles looked at his brother’s face. Jared’s eyes were closed and he had no color in his cheeks. Miles felt something squeeze his heart again and an emptiness crept into his stomach, a stomach fluttering with the dusty moth wings of fear.

  “I-is he alive?” Miles whispered to Paco.

  “He breathes,” Paco said. “Hold that lantern up high, Al.”

  Paco began to run gentle fingers under Jared’s shirt where it had been torn by a bullet. He felt blood and his fingers came away sticky with it. He saw the shoulder wound and found a bullet hole in Jared’s leg. He felt around to the other side and touched another hole where the bullet had exited.

  Paco sat back on his haunches.

  “See what Cookie has in that medical box behind you, Miles. The one with the red cross on it.”

  Miles turned and saw the wooden box. He pulled it to him and set it between his legs. He lifted the latch and Al held the lantern over it so that all three men could look inside.

  “There’s bandages in there,” Miles said, “and tins of salve and I don’t know what all.”

  A head appeared at the rear of the wagon. It was Will Becker. “Need any help?” he asked.

  “You know anything about gunshot wounds, Will?” Paco asked. “About medicines?”

  “Some, I reckon. What you got?”

  “Climb in here and take a look at this medicine box,” Paco said.

  Will stuck his rifle just inside the wagon, leaned it upright in one corner. He climbed in and looked first at Jared, then at the medicine kit in front of miles.

  “I wish Doc was here,” Miles murmured.

  “Your pa?” Paco asked.

  Miles nodded.

  “Is he really a doctor?” Al asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Miles said, then looked at Will, who was rummaging through the medical kit.

  “Where’s Jared hit?” he asked Paco.

  “Three places, near as I can tell,” Paco said. “He’s got a hole in his right leg, a rip across his chest, and his shoulder looks like it was hit with a garden trowel. Don’t know if any bones is broke.”

  “Let me see,” Will said. He scooted around and looked first at Jared’s shoulder.

  “I seen wounds like this before. Bullet chewed up the meat, but missed the bone, I think.”

  He looked at the hole in Jared’s legs.

  “Give me that tin of Dr. Pettibone’s All-Purpose Salve,” he said to Miles. “Bullet went clean through. We can pack the hole plumb through and wrap a bandage around that leg.”

  “Can you do it?” Miles asked, his voice trembling with emotion.

  “Sure, I plugged a few like this in the war. Mud and ground-up roots work just as well.”

  “What about the shoulder?” Paco asked.

  “I can clean it with alcohol, then put this salve on it and wrap it real tight. Ought to work.”

  “What else?” Miles asked.

  “It’s that chest wound that bothers me most,” Will said. “It don’t look like much, but a bullet might have grazed his heart, or maybe scratched a lung. It’s a funny-lookin’ wound and hard to see if they’s a bullet still in him or what.”

  Miles felt his heart plummet like a lead sash weight.

  They heard cattle close by and some of them rubbed against the wagon. The wagon rocked and swayed on its wheels until the hands outside moved them back into line. Rifles continued to crackle and men yelled out warnings and threats. Sunlight streamed past the openings in the canvas and Miles could see cattle and drovers milling across the river.

  “Did he take in any water when you dug him out of the river, Miles?” Will asked.

  “I got to him pretty quick. But I don’t know.”

  Will pushed on Jared’s belly. Nothing came up his throat or gushed from his mouth.

  “He seems all right,” Al said.

  Will finished bandaging Jared’s shoulder. The wagon reeked of the foul-smelling salve.

  “I don’t know what to do about that chest wound,” he said. “I’m kinda afraid to touch it much. We got to get Jared to a doctor. Quick as we can.”

  “I wonder if there’s one in town,” Miles said.

  Will shook his head. “Ain’t even a horse doctor in Great Bend.”

  “Damn,” Miles said.

  “I guess we can find one in Salina. Get someone to watch Jared and spoon him soup. He might make it.”

  “You think Jared’s got a chance, Will?” Miles asked. His voice seemed far away, in someone else’s body. He was choked up with emotion.

  He didn’t want Jared to die. No matter how bad things had been between them, he didn’t want his brother to die out here on the prairie, far from home, far from Texas.

  He closed his eyes and let the tears come. He felt a hand on his shoulder, but didn’t know who had touched him. He grabbed Jared’s hand in his and squeezed it. He wanted to feel the life in it. He wanted to feel the life in himself.

  Chapter 32

  The firing on both sides of the river seemed to be dying down when Paco and Al stepped down out of the chuck wagon.

  Will and Miles stayed with Jared. Will went through the medicine box and got the bromides he needed for when Jared woke up.

  “You need us, Miles, you just yell out,” Paco said as he poked his head back inside the wagon. He grabbed his rifle from the corner where it still stood.

  “What are you going to do, Paco?”

  “I’m goin’ to run cattle across and shoot every damned one of them sodbusters,” he said.

  Roy met Al and Paco when they walked back to their horses.

  “How are we doing, Roy?” Paco asked.

  “Them bastards are still tryin’ to kill us and our cattle. But we took a passel of them out. I’m ready to ride acrost and finish the job. How about you?”

  “How many head made the crossing, do you reckon?”

  “Pert near two thousand, I figure. Just look at’em all, will you?”

  Paco and Al saw the cattle streaming past the farmers’ camp, but there was no way to count them.

 
“So, another fifteen hundred head maybe,” Paco said.

  “Thereabouts,” Roy said.

  “Let’s run some more across and keep goin’ until we shoot every one of them sodbusters,” Paco said.

  Riders came to the river, drove cattle in, and once they were headed for the other side, rode back for more. Paco, Al, and Roy rode back to the herd and cut out twenty head and drove them into the river between the two herds already wading across. They headed straight for the landing.

  Men across the river lay flat on the ground. They seemed to have plenty of ammunition and they were picking off cattle and shooting at cowhands with a vengeance.

  “We’ll use our pistols,” Roy said. “We’ll be close enough and they’ll be easier to reload.” They sheathed their rifles and plunged into the river behind the small bunch of cattle, hunkering over their saddles so as to present smaller targets.

  The air sizzled with bullets traveling in both directions. When a bullet struck a rock, it caromed off in a keening whine. A bullet struck one of the whitefaces in the horn and made a dull thud. Blood gushed from the horn. The steer dipped its head and plowed on, bellowing its rage and pain.

  Al picked targets and fired his double-action Colt at any head that popped up on the other side.

  Roy saw a man trying to put more green wood on the fire, while another stood by with a horse blanket to make smoke.

  “They keep tryin’ to send a signal to the Kiowa we heard about,” Al said.

  Roy shot the man with the blanket, who twisted in a circle before he went down. The other man stopped putting wood on the fire and reached down for his rifle.

  Paco shot him in the side. The man dropped to one knee and Paco shot him again from fifty yards away, his bullet ripping into the man’s lower jaw and shooting it away.

  “Pretty damned good shootin’, Paco,” Roy said.

  “I practice a lot,” Paco said. He spurred his horse and the animal splashed ashore behind the cattle and near the ferry raft. He slid to his left and hung tight to the saddle horn until Puddin’ was on level ground. He was glad now that he had swapped horses with Jared, although his own had probably been shot or drowned when Jared was hit.

  The sodbusters saw the riders coming up the bank and cattle heading their way, a phalanx of white-faced beasts.

  One of them yelled, “Let’s get the hell out of here, boys.”

  As Paco, Roy, and Al rode down on the remaining farmers, they turned to fire as they backed away from their camp and the river.

  “Drop your weapons,” Roy shouted to them.

  But the farmers did not. Instead, they raised their rifles to their shoulders and took aim at the approaching cowhands.

  That was a fatal mistake.

  Roy, Al, and Paco shot almost simultaneously. The men screamed when they were hit. They fell and tried to shoot back. Those who ran away stopped and fired their rifles. Riders with the cattle cut them down as Paco, Roy, and Al dispatched the others, showing no mercy.

  Finally, guns fell silent. Paco reloaded his pistol and his rifle.

  “Is it over?” Roy asked.

  “If no Injuns come ridin’ up,” Al said.

  “Better reload, just in case,” Paco said.

  The three men joined the riders who were driving the herd away from the river. More cattle waded across at the ford and Paco rode back across to check on Jared and Miles. He found Cookie and told him to drive the chuck wagon across to the other side.

  “Is the fightin’ over?”

  “Yep, but you got a hurt man in your wagon. I want you to head out for Salina after givin’ us all grub for the trail.”

  “Who’s hurt?”

  “Jared Blaine,” Paco said.

  “Damn.” Cookie brushed himself off and walked back to the chuck wagon. He looked inside and saw Jared lying there, flanked by Will and Miles. “I got to get grub for the trail. Then we’ll head for Salina, get your brother to a doctor.”

  Miles just nodded. He was still too numb to speak. Jared was breathing hard and Will thought he might have swallowed some water when he fell into the river.

  “If he gets the pneumony,” Will said, “you know he breathed in some of that river water. But I’ll tell you now, Miles, I saw the whole thing. You got to your brother just in time. You saved his life.”

  “If he lives,” Miles said.

  Cookie drove the wagon across the river without incident. He stopped beyond the herd that was still being rounded up by the hands and started piling beef jerky, hardtack, tins of beans and apricots on the sideboards.

  Paco saw to it that all hands filled their saddlebags.

  “You might all be eating rabbits before we get to Salina,” he told them. “That chuck wagon is now an ambulance.”

  Cookie looked at the map Miles showed him.

  “I can find my way,” he said. “We’ll make tracks.”

  “Thanks,” Miles said. “Just don’t bounce around too much.”

  Will said nothing. He was worried that a bullet, or a piece of lead, was still somewhere in Jared’s chest. If so, the shrapnel could work its way to Jared’s heart or shut down his lungs. He had seen men die long after being shot and judged to be cured by army surgeons. Jared was still unconscious and had begun to develop a fever. There wasn’t enough heat on his forehead and face to worry about, but it was not a good sign.

  Roy and Paco met after the entire herd had crossed the river.

  “Looks like we got more trail bosses than ranch bosses, Paco,” Roy said.

  “I figure we got less than fifty miles to Salina. No use splitting up the herds.”

  “Nope. Be a waste of time. Cattle are all goin’ to the same place, and what we’ve got is three brands.”

  “Doc said he would meet us in Salina,” Paco said. “Know what day it is?”

  “I figure we pretty much used up the month of May. Maybe less’n a week left of it.”

  “That would mean we will beat the deadline.”

  “Yup. A dollar more a head.”

  “Maybe two,” Paco said.

  “Did you figger how many head we lost back there?”

  “No. Twenty or thirty, perhaps,” Paco said.

  “More than a dozen, I figger.”

  “The head count will be close.”

  The cattle moved at a good pace. The trail to Salina was well marked. Paco sent Curly Bob ahead to scout for Kiowa or more farmers with shotguns or pitchforks. They saw a few farms along the way and curious children walked out to stare at the cattle and throw rocks until they were chased off by the outriders.

  They had lost two men in the fight at the river. Joadie Lee and Bernie James. They could have lost more, Paco reasoned, but the decision to start crossing the river while it was still dark had probably saved a number of lives.

  Mainly, he told Roy, they had lucked out because Jared had shot the leader, Pete Boggs, and killed him.

  “He was the bastard,” Paco said.

  “Yeah, that man didn’t have no quit in him, for sure.”

  They bedded the herd down late at night. The men gnawed on jerky and cold beans, apricots. There was no hot coffee, but nobody grumbled. They knew they were close to Salina and there would be payday and soft beds at the end of the trail.

  Paco and Roy saw to it that the hands kept their optimism at a high level.

  Two days later, on the third day after leaving the river crossing, the herd came in sight of Salina. The outriders whooped and hollered to see the buildings and townspeople riding out to see them.

  They cheered even louder when Doc Blaine rode up to Paco, Roy, and Al with a wide grin on his face.

  “Howdy, boys,” he said. “You’ll be happy to know that it’s the twenty-eighth day of May and that means we’re going to get fifteen dollars a head for these fine cattle you brung.”

  “Ain’t that the goin’ price in Abilene?” Roy said.

  “Sometimes, sometimes,” Doc said.

  “How is Jared?” Paco asked.

&nb
sp; Doc’s chest swelled with a deep breath. “I don’t know yet. I got him a sawbones and he was awake when I left him. Miles is stickin’ to him like seed ticks on a bull’s balls.”

  “But you think he is going to be all right,” Paco said.

  “That boy has more gumption than a Tennessee snake oil drummer,” Doc said. “I’m countin’ on him to pull through.”

  None of the men mentioned Caroline’s name, but she was on their minds. They knew from Norm Collins what Earl Rawson had done to her.

  “Just follow me to the stockyards, boys,” Doc said, and turned Sandy toward town. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Mr. Albert Fenster’s face when he saw over three thousand head of Texas cattle fill up the corrals at the railhead.

  He had heard about the fight at the river crossing from Miles and Will.

  But it was Jared he was worried about and he would not linger long at the yards. Just long enough to get a final tally and present his bill of lading to Fenster.

  He rode to the stock pens like a conquering general, his head held high, Sandy prancing like a parade horse in a single-footed gait. If Jared pulled through and his sons shook hands in a show of filial friendship, his triumph would be complete.

  And this night, he knew, Salina, Kansas, would know that good men from Texas were in town with their pockets full of money and the widest grins in Kansas on their faces.

  Chapter 33

  Dr. William Aiken, a surgeon in his late forties with graying muttonchop sideburns, close-set pale blue eyes, a prosperous paunch, and small delicate hands, listened intently to Jared’s heartbeat. He moved the stethoscope over the heart on either side, then to Jared’s back. He finished his examination and let the instrument dangle against his white coat.

  “Far as I can tell, Mr. Blaine,” he said, “your heart is sound.”

  Aiken ran a finger over the healing wound on Jared’s chest. He had removed the few stitches around one section of the wound a few moments before.

  “I feel fine, Doctor,” Jared said. “No pain.”

  “You were lucky,” Aiken said. “A small fragment of the soft lead bullet lodged in your top rib. It appears that the bullet itself was deflected, or it might have torn out your lung.”