We got close, for the Kiowas weren’t expecting trouble—and they had their jaws full of meat. We cut loose with our six-shooters and stampeded horses and cattle right out of there. One Kiowa had a dead aim on me when Jim cut him down. We saw his rifle fly high, and then he hit the ground and rolled over.
Three miles north of there we rolled the stock into a tight bunch and looked them over. Eight of the cattle were mine. We also had four Indian ponies, having lost the others somewhere out on the grass.
We pushed on then, keeping the cattle to a steady trot for a couple of miles, then slowing them to a walk for a mile or more, and then to a trot again. They would be ga’nted up some, but we wanted to leave those Kiowas behind.
The four riders were still trailing our herd, and it was still about five days ahead. By the time we reached the Salt Fork we had gained two more days by almost running the legs off our stock.
Jim had been studying the tracks around the camps whenever we came to them, and he figured only five of the old men were able to ride, which meant that two wounded men must be riding the wagon.
The night after we swam the Salt Fork in flood. Jim squatted over the fire and sipped his coffee until I’d finished eating. “I think we have great trouble, amigo. I think I know the track of one of the horses of those who follow the herd—the horse and the rider as well. He is what they call a Bald Knobber … a bad man. His name is Andy Miller.”
The name meant nothing to me but I’d not spent much time in this part of the country. “Is he the man on the black horse?”
“No. He rides what the Mexicans call a grulla—the color of a mouse. He has killed some men, that one.”
This was pretty country seen at a sorry time. The blackjack leaves were crisp and brown, and they clung to the branches in spite of wind and rain. The trail was fresh, and we rode now with our guns loose in our holsters, momentarily expecting trouble.
My headaches had dulled, but towards evening they grew worse. But I was never inclined to coddle myself, and figured it was better to be up and doing.
We fought shy of cattle herds. Nearly every day we saw cattle, or the dust from moving herds. We held to low ground when we could, but the country was opening out around us, growing flatter as we went on, and concealment was impossible. This meant the four riders must stay even further back of the herd.
Abilene was not far away. We were closing in on the town, and that also meant the day would soon be here when we must face up to our trouble.
“You don’t have to take cards,” I said to Jim. “This here is my game.”
He did not speak at all for a time, then he said, “You belong anywhere, Otis Tom?”
“I can’t say that I do. I’ve got kinfolk around, but I never really met up with them. There’s a girl I cotton to, but she’s beyond me. That is, I’ve nothing to offer her. No, I can’t say as I belong anywhere.”
“Me neither.”
We turned in after that, and after I’d been lying there a while, staring up at the stars and contemplating, I said to Jim, “Can you read?”
“Sure,” he answered. “A Moravian missionary taught me. As a matter of fact, I’ve had eight years of good schooling.”
Well, now. Somehow I’d never thought of an Indian reading, but then I recalled hearing that before Jackson and Van Buren moved them west the Cherokees even had their own newspapers, written in their own language, a language written out by Sequoyah. The Moravian missionaries had done good work among the Indians from the earliest times, and many of them were very intelligent folks.
This Indian, come to think of it, was the first friend I’d ever had, and in a lifetime a man is lucky if he has one good friend.
He’d had a good bit more schooling than I had had, and more than likely from better teachers. Schooling for me meant riding over the mountain a-horseback, and I’d gone five or six years, but pa taught me a good bit at home, for he was something of a reader when he had time.
In those times there were a lot of educated men in the West, and many a night I’ve sat up in saloons or bunkhouses and listened to the talk of cities and of other countries, of wars and weapons, of writing men and of music, and of many other things.
I lay there thinking. If I could sell my cattle in Abilene and pay my note, I could buy some fine clothes and take time to read up on some of the things folks talked about; and then of an evening when men talked together, I might take part and put in a word or two. It was something to think on.
Chapter 4
For fifteen miles, before we got to Abilene we saw cattle all about us. They were well scattered, grazing on the good grass that was broken up here and there by fenced farms where crops were or had been planted. We counted maybe six to eight good-sized herds and half a dozen smaller ones.
On the farms there were corrals and lean-to barns, with sod houses for the most part; but here and there somebody had built a frame house out of shipped-in lumber. By some of the houses trees had been planted, and some had flowers around, but most of the places were bare-looking, and without any fixing.
Abilene itself wasn’t much. The Drovers’ Cottage was the first thing we noticed. A good hotel, with the best wines, whiskies, and cigars, it had been built by Joe McCoy. He’d had the foresight to see it all, to begin it all, and then he’d had the bad luck to lose most of it.
There was Henry’s Land Office the Metropolitan Hotel, both of them two-storied brick buildings, and across the street was a bank. Right beside the boardwalk at Henry’s Land Office was a well; so we pulled up there and looked the street over. Jim had himself a drink, and then I took one from the tin dipper.
“You think they’re here?” he asked.
“Some of them will be holding the cattle, but the rest will be in town.” I wiped my hand across my mouth. “I want to get my hat back.”
“You take it easy,” he said. “D’you know who’s marshal here?”
“No.”
“Bill Hickok. Wild Bill.”
Everybody knew about Hickok. He was a tall, fine-looking man who had been a sharpshooter and a spy during the War Between the States, and he had worked for a stage line. He had killed Dave Tutt and a few others, and nobody who knew him underrated his skill with a gun.
If you came into town and minded your own affairs you had no trouble. Hickok, they said, was inclined to live and let live. But the idea was, just don’t start anything, and above all, don’t talk big about how good you were with a gun and don’t talk about treeing the town.
“I don’t want trouble,” I said, “least of all with him.”
We cleaned up at the trough near the Twin Livery Stables, listening to Ed Gaylord talk. He was a friendly man, and nothing happened without his hearing of it.
“You ride in with a herd?” he asked.
“We came up the trail with one,” I said, “but I got dry-gulched back down the line. I’m looking for the herd now—a man named Noah Gates is ramrodding it.”
“They came in last night,” Gaylord said.
Jim Bigbear was leading our horses back to a stall. Gaylord jerked his head at him. “Looks like an Indian.”
“Shawnee,” I said. “Used to scout for the army. A good cowhand and a damn good man.”
“All right,” Gaylord said mildly. “I only commented.”
“I want folks to know,” I said quietly. “He’s with me.”
“Are you somebody?” Gaylord studied me coolly. “Should I know you?”
“Mr. Gaylord,” I said, “there’s no reason why you should know me. If you ask if I’m good with a gun, I’ll tell you honest, I’m as good as the next man. But I don’t figure to make my way with a gun. I figure to buy and sell cattle, and maybe land. I say there’s no reason why you should know me—but you give me five, ten years. Then you ask that question, and folks will think you’re crazy.”
He chuckled. “Well, you’ve told me, boy. And I kind of think that five or ten years from now I won’t have to ask that question.”