The Tenderfoot Trail Read online

  Hope spiked in Garrett. “Where is Zeb? And how many cattle has he?”

  “He’s headed this way, should be here in a couple of hours or so, maybe less. You’ll be able to count ’em your ownself.”

  “Zeb’s a good man, but he’s driving fifty head. Could slow him up some.”

  “He doesn’t have fifty head, or at least he didn’t when I spoke to him.”

  “How many?” Garrett asked, anxiety spiking at him.

  “Less than thirty. Ready told me the herd is scattered all over hell and half of the territory. It seems once those cows took the notion to run, they kept on going. Your man says it will take weeks to round ’em all up, if ever.” Cobb hesitated a few moments, then said, “He also told me about the Red Angus bull.”

  “When he takes it into his head, Zeb is a talking man,” Garrett said, without bitterness.

  His dream of owning the bull and improving his stock had vanished like a fairy gift in the morning light. Deke Waters was not a patient man and he wouldn’t wait much longer. Garrett knew he had no time to put another herd together, even if he had the cows, which he did not. He was down to less than thirty head, and if he lost more on the trail he’d fall way short of the five hundred dollars he needed to buy the bull.

  Cobb was talking again. “Just as well I’m here,” he said, “because I can do you another favor.”

  Garrett shook his head. “I’m beholden to you, but you’ve done me favors enough.”

  “This favor isn’t one-sided, Luke. Fact is, it’s the reason I saved you from Simon Carter’s noose. I heard you were headed for Fort Whoop-Up and I decided you were the only man I could trust to take something precious of mine along with you.”

  “Cattle?” Garrett asked.

  Cobb smiled. “No, not cattle.” The man’s eyes glowed. “Something of greater value. I’m talking virgins, Luke. Five sweet virgin brides.”

  Chapter 5

  For a few moments, Luke Garrett sat too stunned to speak. He opened his mouth, his jaw working, but could not form a sentence. Finally he managed a single strangled word: “Brides?”

  “Mail-order brides, to be exact. Catalog brides as some call them, each of them pledged to wed a lonely and pining gold miner at the fort. Romance is in the air, my boy, l’amour du jour, as they say.”

  “But . . . but why me?”

  Cobb shrugged. “There was no one else at Benton I could trust. Luke, these little gals are the genuine article, not soiled goods, each one intact, if you know what I mean. And they need to get to Whoop-Up and their prospective husbands still in one piece.”

  “You busted me out of the juzgado for that? Why not take them yourself?”

  Cobb nodded and smiled. “A good question, that. Yes, in fact it’s an excellent question. The trouble is I can’t show my face at Fort Whoop-Up. A few months back I had a little misunderstanding with the Mounties at the fort, a minor disagreement over the legality of selling whiskey to the Indians. The upshot was that I was forced to make a dash for the border on a fast horse. Those redcoats are long on justice and short on mercy, so it was either make a run for it or end up as a cottonwood blossom, my boots a-swaying gently in the breeze.”

  “Cobb, I still don’t understand,” Garrett said, a puzzled frown gathering between his eyes. “I asked you before. Now I’ll ask you again—why me?”

  “That’s easy,” Cobb said. “I was close by when you drove your herd into the meadow near town. Right then and there, as soon as I clapped eyes on you, a fine, upstanding young rancher, I knew you were gold dust. You were the very man I needed to safely escort my lovely virgins along the Whoop-Up Trail with your herd. You were safe, Luke, safe. And that’s what made the difference.”

  Garrett tossed his cigarette butt into the smoky fire. “If you’d asked me then, I would have said no.”

  “Maybe,” Cobb said, “but then I would have told you my proposition.”

  “And that is?”

  Cobb looked uncomfortable. He shifted position and found under his rump a rock, which he looked at for a couple of moments, then threw away.

  “Luke, each of the eager, and let me say rich, grooms-to-be has agreed to pay two thousand dollars in gold upon the safe delivery of his bride to Fort Whoop-Up. That’s ten thousand total, and your cut will be five percent.” The man smiled. “I don’t know if you’ve studied your ciphers, Luke, but that’s five hundred dollars. Now how much is that bull you want so badly?”

  “Five hundred dollars,” Garrett answered.

  Cobb eased back, his smile stretching into a smug grin. “Well then, there you have it. Is that a great proposition or not, huh? You tell me.”

  The rain had stopped and the sun had begun its climb into a pale blue sky. Jays had begun to quarrel among the branches of the cottonwoods and a fish jumped at morning flies in the river, making a sudden plop.

  Garrett looked into Cobb’s eyes, the man’s shiftiness apparent by the way his gaze slanted quickly away and found something of great and immediate interest in his coffee cup.

  “You’ve been up that trail, Cobb,” Garrett said. “It’s two hundred miles of the roughest country on earth, and there are outlaws up from the Nations and hostile Indians every foot of the way. It’s no place for women.”

  “I think you and your hired man—what’s his name?”

  “Zebulon Ready.”

  “Ah yes, Zeb Ready. I think you and he will have nothing to fear from desperadoes and Indians. I saw how that old man handled his Henry, like it was a part of him. You did all right your ownself when you shot Johnny Gibbs off his horse in the dark.”

  Cobb lifted the coffeepot from the coals and gestured with it to Garrett. The young rancher extended his cup and the man filled it. “And think of the five hundred dollars, Luke. Hell, no, don’t think of the money, think of that Red Angus bull. Keep it in your mind.”

  Cobb settled the pot back on the fire. “And perhaps you might think, just a teeny bit, mind you, that the man asking a favor of you saved your life.”

  “I’m not likely to forget that, Cobb,” Garrett said, a testiness edging his voice. He thought things through for a few moments, then said, “Let’s wait until Zeb gets here and I see what’s left of my herd. I’ll give you your answer then.”

  “Seems fair enough,” Cobb said. “Though if there’s even thirty of those shorthorns left I’ll be very surprised.”

  As it turned out there were twenty-seven shorthorns in the small herd Zeb drove up from the south just before noon.

  “Sorry, Luke,” he said as he stood with Garrett and Cobb under the cottonwoods. “That’s rough country to the south of Fort Benton, and I swear some of those cows must have run clear to the Highwood Mountains.”

  “It’s not your fault, Zeb,” Garrett said, disappointment tugging at him. “Nobody but cattle know why they stampede, and they ain’t talking.”

  “What do we do now, Luke?” Ready asked as Garrett handed him a cup of coffee. “I know you’d set store on buying that Angus bull.”

  “Charlie Cobb here has made me a proposition,” Garrett said. “And right about now I’m inclined to take it.”

  Zeb threw Cobb a hard look. “Spoke to him this morning. Told me what had happened with the vigilantes and how he’d busted you out of jail afore you was hung. Don’t mean I trust him any. What’s he sellin’, Luke?”

  “Virgins,” Garrett answered.

  Ready choked on his coffee, his face stricken. “What the hell is they?”

  “Mail-order brides, Zeb.” Cobb smiled. “Five chaste and lovelorn ladies bound for their panting grooms-to-be at Fort Whoop-Up.”

  Turning puzzled eyes to Garrett, Ready said, “I don’t want to hear any more from him. You tell me, Luke.”

  “Cobb’s just about told all there is to tell,” Garrett said. “We take the brides with us to the fort, then collect two thousand dollars from each of the miners.”

  “Luke gets five hundred for his trouble,” Cobb said, finishing it for him. �
�Enough to buy the bull and with what he gets for the herd, he’ll have money to spare.”

  “Maybe enough for an artesian well, Zeb,” Garrett said.

  Ready stood quiet for a few moments, thinking. Finally he said, “Luke, there are two critters that are never welcome on the trail, a woman and a wet dog. But you’re the boss, and I’ll do as you say, even though I don’t like it none.”

  Cobb beamed and clapped his hands. “Then it’s settled. You boys head due east until you meet up with the trail and wait for me there. You can’t miss the Whoop-Up. Just look for the wagon ruts.”

  “What about the vigilantes?” Garrett asked.

  “They’ve lost interest in you by this time,” Cobb answered. “You spoiled a good hanging, Luke, but even so, Simon Carter and the rest don’t like to be away from Fort Benton for too long. The town can go to hell fast when there’s no law around.”

  Cobb nodded toward the dying fire. “You can keep the coffeepot and what’s left of the grub. I’ll have plenty more supplies in the bridal wagon.” He smiled at Garrett. “Well, buena suerte, mi amigo. I’ll meet you on the Whoop-Up the day after tomorrow.”

  After Cobb was gone, Ready kneeled by the fire and poured himself more coffee. Then he looked up at Garrett and asked, “Luke, you trust that feller?”

  The younger man grinned. “Yup, I’ll trust him until we collect the money from the miners. After that, only about as far as I can throw a ninety-pound anvil.”

  The sun was dropping low in the sky as Garrett and Ready drove their small herd into a wide coulee off the Whoop-Up Trail. Recent rains had fed the grass growing along the bottom of the arroyo and the cattle and horses found plenty of graze between stands of prickly pear and a scattering of cholla.

  As Ready made camp, Garrett mounted the rangy buckskin he’d saddled that morning from the remuda and headed east at a trot, swinging to the south only when the muddy Marias River blocked his way and the distant purple peaks of the Bear Paw Mountains came into sight.

  Riding through gently rolling country, the young rancher was only a couple of miles from the Missouri River when he looped to the west and rejoined the trail.

  He headed back toward the arroyo, scattering a small herd of pronghorns that had come close to the trail to graze, and rode up on the camp just as darkness was falling around him and the coyotes had begun to talk.

  He had seen no sign of vigilantes, or any other humans, a fact that greatly eased his mind.

  Zeb Ready had coffee on the boil as Garrett unsaddled the buckskin and stepped up to the fire, put together by the old man using scraps of drift-wood that had been washed into the arroyo during some recent flood.

  “See anything?” Zeb asked, handing Garrett a steaming cup.

  “Not a thing, except for some antelope.”

  “Glad they’re around. We may need to hunt for meat if Cobb doesn’t get here on time. Salt pork’s almost gone, and so is the coffee.”

  But Charlie Cobb showed up the next morning.

  He rode along the trail ahead of a four-wheeled, canvas-covered beer wagon, drawn by three yoke of oxen. A red-faced bullwhacker in dirty buckskins walked beside the team, his rawhide whip cracking.

  Garrett and Ready had been watching Cobb and the wagon since they’d spotted the dust cloud churned up by the wheels in the distance. They rode out of the coulee to meet them. Cobb threw up an arm and the bullwhacker halted the plodding oxen.

  “Well met!” Cobb exclaimed. His eyes slid to the coulee. “And you found a hiding place. Excellent choice, right in the middle of grizzly country. Did you lose any cattle?”

  “Nary a one,” Ready snapped, his growing dislike for Cobb obvious.

  If Cobb noticed he didn’t let it show. The man waved a hand toward the bullwhacker, who was standing by the wagon lighting his pipe, his deeply lined face sullen.

  “That fragrant creature goes by the name Jacob McGee,” he said. “In lieu of wages I’ve told him he can sell the wagon and oxen after my brides are delivered at the fort.” Cobb winked at Garrett. “Of course, if you want to keep the money for yourself, Luke, well”—he looked pointedly at the Colt on the young man’s waist—“I think you know what to do.”

  Garrett let that pass and his eyes traveled over the wagon. “Where are the women?”

  “Inside, and no doubt anxious to meet you. Though I must warn you, they are shy, timid creatures.”

  But a strident female voice from the wagon immediately put the lie to Cobb’s statement. “Hey, Charlie, get your low-down, thieving rump over here!”

  Cobb had the good grace to flush red as he glanced from Garrett to Ready. “That’s Annie Spencer. She’s like a mother hen to the rest of her little brood.”

  “Hey, Charlie! Don’t make me come the hell out there after you!”

  “Be right back,” Cobb said quickly, his eyes worried. “I’m on my way, Annie!” he yelled. He waved a hasty hand and rode to the wagon.

  “Virgin brides, huh?” Ready said and spat.

  “Could be them timid virgins are just a might tetchy this morning,” Garrett offered.

  Ready did not reply, but the exasperated sidelong glance he threw at the younger man was answer enough.

  Chapter 6

  A tall, angular woman in a black dress climbed down from the wagon. She held a glass with three fingers of bourbon in her hand, and wore a sour expression on her face.

  Cobb turned and waved to Garrett. “Luke, come and meet the charming Miss Annie Spencer.”

  The young rancher ignored Ready’s muttering and rode toward the wagon. He swung out of the saddle and touched his hat to the woman. “Right pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  For her part, Annie ignored the pleasantry, looking Garrett up and down from his battered hat to the toes of his scuffed, down-at-heel boots. She made a face and turned to Cobb. “Don’t stack up to much, does he?”

  Cobb grinned. “I guess that’s what Johnny Gibbs thought.”

  “Johnny is a mucho hombre,” Annie said, her brown eyes alight, remembering.

  “Maybe so,” Cobb said, “but Johnny ain’t with us no more. Garrett here killed him.”

  “Then Johnny got it in the back,” Annie snapped, a frown gathering on her lined face.

  “As a matter of fact he did,” Garrett said defensively. “He was trying to rustle my cattle. I was shooting in the dark at a man on a galloping horse. I’d no idea where the bullet would hit.”

  “That’s your story, cowboy.” Annie took a deep pull on her bourbon, her eyes like ice over the rim of the glass. “And I guess you’ll stick to it.”

  Annie Spencer was tall and thin with wide, bony shoulders. Her body was all sharp corners and had width but no depth, like the Queen of Spades on a playing card. Garrett guessed she was in her late twenties, but her eyes were old and knowing, a woman who had been used and abused by men and had now run out of any trace of affection or compassion for males, or for anyone else.

  Her eyes still on Garrett, she nodded toward Cobb. “Did he tell you why he can’t make the trip to Fort Whoop-Up?”

  Garrett saw a sudden tangle of masked emotions in Cobb’s eyes, one of the more obvious a shifty uneasiness. “Annie, I told him,” he said quickly.

  “What did he tell you, cowboy?” the woman asked Garrett, her smile thin and cynical.

  “He said the Mounties are after him. Something about him selling whiskey to the Indians.”

  Annie nodded. “That much is true. Ol’ Charlie is a whiskey trader from way back and the Mounties would love to hang him, but there are few of them and they’re spread mighty thin. You’re not afraid of the Mounties catching you, are you, Charlie? Tell the cowboy the real reason.” She waited a few moments, but Cobb said nothing, looking down at his feet. The toe of his right boot dug into the dirt.

  “Cat got your tongue, Charlie?” Annie asked. “Then I’ll tell it.” Her frosty eyes slanted to Garrett. “I got to hand it to Charlie. He isn’t scared of much. But one man scares him—I mean, sc
ares him real bad. Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

  “Who is he?” Garrett asked. “An outlaw?”

  “You could say that. His name is Weasel and he’s been out for the past three months.”

  “Don’t know the man,” Garrett said.

  “You might get to know him real well on this trip, cowboy. Weasel is a Crow war chief, and he’s been raiding all over the Whoop-Up Trail. Caught four miners north of the Milk River a few weeks ago and lifted their scalps, and the latest we heard he’d murdered a settler family over to Pondera Coulee. Weasel’s got maybe, twenty, thirty young bucks with him, and they’re painted for war.”

  Annie motioned to Cobb with her glass. “Weasel blames Charlie and another whiskey peddler by the name of John Healy for destroying his people with their rotgut.” She smiled. “He wants your hair real bad, Charlie, don’t he?”

  Anger flared on Cobb’s face. “Hell, Annie, you should lay off the bourbon in the morning. All you’ve done is talk Luke out of taking the job.”

  “Cobb, I told you I’d take the job,” Garrett said. “I won’t go back on my word.”

  Annie shrugged. “Weasel has nothing against you, cowboy. Maybe he’ll let us be.”

  Reassured by Garrett’s assertion that he would stand by his promise, Cobb twisted his lips in a malicious smile. “Annie, why don’t you tell Luke about Thetas Kane while you’re at it?”

  For the first time, Garrett saw real emotion in the woman’s eyes, a knot of fear and something akin to panic. “I don’t want to talk about Thetas Kane,” she said, her thin body shuddering. “Thetas Kane is dead.”

  “So they say.” Cobb’s smile was malicious as he twisted the knife. “So they say. But then, who knows?”

  “Who is Thetas Kane?” Garrett asked, feeling a quick pang of sympathy for the woman.

  Annie shook her head. “Cowboy, that’s something you don’t want to know.”