Centennial (84 page)

Assembling his men, he told them, “This herd will never go over that pass. I will not be made a fool of.”

Skimmerhorn argued that the cattle were here, ready to go, and he felt sure that Mr. Seccombe would understand and be willing to pay the two hundred and ninety-five dollars. “Not while I’m trail boss,” Poteet snapped, and that discussion was closed.

Calling Nate Person to his side, he said, “Nate and I are goin’ to scout this whole state till we find a pass north. Bring the cattle east after us.” Again Mr. Skimmerhorn demurred. “Why not camp here till we’re sure we’ve found a pass? Then, if there is none, we can still use Wootton’s ...”

“Mr. Skimmerhorn!” Poteet shouted. “I am in command! Take those cattle east to the volcano! Now!”

In a fury he rode eastward with his black guide, and together they probed all the high country leading in to Colorado, finding nothing. His temper in no way abating, he ordered Person to ride back and see that the cattle kept moving eastward while he proceeded to the various mountains, probing, testing and still finding nothing.

Nate told the cowboys, “The old man’s in such a rage. At this rate we could go all the way east to Kentucky!”

“Stay with him,” Skimmerhorn said. “He’ll work out something.”

So the black man rode back, but it was two days before he could find Poteet, for the wiry Texan had ridden far into Colorado over a rocky pass that cattle could not possibly use. Nevertheless, when Person met him riding south he was grinning.

“We’ve got it, Nate,” he exulted. “On the way in I found nothin’, but on the way back, a smooth, level turnpike. And we’ll tell every cattleman in Texas about it. We’ll break that old bastard’s heart.”

They rode back to where the herd was approaching Capulin, that splendid volcano, dead for nine hundred thousand years, a perfect peak except for one side knocked off during the last eruption. He directed the men to bring the cattle up past the west side of the volcano, heading them due north, and as the last of the strays passed into Colorado, Mr. Poteet turned west toward where Raton Pass stood far in the distance and shouted, as if the old robber could hear him, “To hell with you, Dick Wootton!”

At the end of the first full day in Colorado they came to the Picketwire, the western river with the most delicate name. It was properly El Rio de Las Animas Perdido en Purgatorio. In Coronado’s time three difficult and greedy Spanish soldiers had revolted and struck out on their own to find the cities of gold. Sometime later the main body of explorers came upon them, naked and riddled with arrows, and one of the priests explained solemnly, “God struck them down, using Indians as his agents, and for their disobedience their souls remain in purgatory.”

The River of the Souls Lost in Purgatory! French trappers had shortened it to the Purgatoire, and practical men from Indiana and Tennessee, adapting the sound to their own tongue, called it Picketwire. It was not a difficult river to cross, and three days later they reached the stream they had been seeking, the Apishapa, whose name was far less romantic in origin than the Picketwire. It was a Ute word meaning
stinking water
and it was well named, for the water had an unpleasant taste, but it was potable and it led toward the end of the trail.

Poteet was quite willing to follow the Apishapa, because this kept the outfit well east of Pueblo and Denver—two hellholes where cowboys were concerned—and they were on this safe eastern course when Nate Person came riding back in some excitement. “Santa Fe Trail!” he shouted. “Dead ahead,” and when they came to a rise they looked north and saw it. Heading west along the ancient trail was a procession of some magnitude: first came a detachment of cavalry. then seven wagons, followed by horses and livestock, and finally guards bringing up the rear. It was a recapitulation of the west, of all the wagons that had passed this way since Spaniards first developed the road, and the young Texans, who had seen nothing like it before, watched with delight as the procession crossed their trail.

Mr. Poteet rode ahead to ask the cavalrymen why they were escorting the train, since the Comanche were so far to the south, and the captain in charge said condescendingly, “Kansas outlaws.”

“Not this far west, surely.”

“They’ve been driven out of Kansas,” the captain said. “Last month they raided into New Mexico.”

“The Pettis boys?”

“Yes.”

“Hell,” Mr. Poteet said in disgust. “I thought we were safe.”

“On this trail you’re never safe,” the captain said haughtily, as if he were addressing a lowly private, and rode off toward Santa Fe.

That night Poteet warned the hands that they were heading into dangerous country. “Worse than the Comanche, because these men abide by no rules. They’re outlaws and they’re killers.”

“Who are they?” Jim Lloyd asked the younger cowboys, and Gompert said, “Confederates. Like Old Coker and his damned McClellan saddle.”

“They’re men who fought and lost,” Coker snapped. “Just like me.”

“How did they get to Kansas?” Jim asked.

“How did Old Coker get to Texas? They walked till they got a chance to steal some horses.”

“They’re killers now,” Coker said.

“If they come at us, Coker, will you join ’em? You’re a Confederate.”

“So’s Poteet. You think he’ll join, ’em?” And so the younger men joshed and argued as they headed for outlaw country.

The Apishapa emptied into the Arkansas River in a valley that showed great promise of becoming good agricultural land. “A man could raise crops here,” Savage said approvingly as the Crown Vee cattle headed for the lush grass that lined the bottomlands.

“This is the last good drink the stock get till they reach the Platte,” Skimmerhorn warned, and the men allowed the animals to graze and take it easy for a day.

Crossing the Arkansas was the most difficult feat on the trail, for this river ran dark and swift and was cut by sand banks which presented special problems. Mr. Poteet and Nate spent half a day trying to calculate where the safest spot would be, and they finally decided upon a relatively narrow area some miles east of the Apishapa, and there they led their cattle into the cold, fast-running water.

It was a lively crossing, with two horses being swept downstream when they lost their footing, and no sooner were they recovered than a cantankerous steer they called Mean Red decided, in midstream, to head back for the south shore, and he took half a hundred steers and young bulls with him. They ran into the bunch being brought across by Jim and Coker, and there was a frightful milling in mid-river, with weaker animals going under, and all of them bawling and slashing about with their monstrous horns, and Mr. Poteet on shore shouting, “Kick that red steer in the face! Turn him around!”

What should have required forty minutes consumed four hours, and tempers were totally frayed when the herd finally assembled on the north bank. Eleven cattle had drowned in the panic. “Some cowboys!” Poteet lashed out. “You, Coker! When you saw that red steer messing things up, why didn’t you shoot him?”

“You told us not to use our guns,” Coker snapped back. Poteet’s face reddened and he was obviously ready for a fight, eager for one, perhaps, and it was clear that Coker would accommodate him, but Mr. Skimmerhorn broke it up by saying, “We were lucky to make it without losing more than we did,” and Poteet walked over to the remuda and gave Buck hell for not having the horses in shape.

“He’s worried about the Kansans,” Lasater said, “And so am I.”

Soon Poteet came back and unrolled Canby’s bed things. He had been guarding them against the day when he met the one-armed man somewhere, but now he passed out Canby’s guns. A second revolver to Jim Lloyd. One to Coker, the others to the swing men. He gave one Winchester to Nate Person and the other to Mr. Skimmerhorn. The .22 he kept for himself.

“Some people have deceived themselves by trying to buy the Pettis boys off ... giving them a share of the cattle,” he said. “We won’t.”

Four men rode guard that night, and next day Poteet moved the remuda and the cook wagon to the left flank. He posted an extra guard on the right flank and the day passed without incident, but shortly after dawn on the second day north of the Arkansas, all hell broke loose.

A band of sixteen Kansas outlaws led by the two Pettis boys swept in from a nest of low hills and launched a full-scale attack against the cattlemen. The Kansans had fine horses, which they handled well. Driving straight at the cattle, they tried to cut the herd in half. If this tactic succeeded, they could shoot the men tending the rear portion and make off with many cattle and horses. But Bufe Coker greeted them with such heavy fire from his LeMat that they had to swing well south of the rear, which put them on the left flank, where they had a free run at Nacho Gómez and the remuda.

When Mr. Poteet and Skimmerhorn saw what was happening, they rode breakneck to help, but their support was not needed, for Nacho had unlimbered his Third Dragoon and stood before his cook wagon, feet apart, with the deadly weapon at his shoulder. His aim was not good: one volley went over the heads of the Kansans, a second into the dust beneath their horses’ hoofs. But he created such a racket and waved his carbine with such fury that the Kansans decided to leave him alone. Before they could get to the remuda, Poteet and Skimmerhorn were throwing showers of lead, and the invaders swung in a wide curve to the head of the column, where Lasater waited grimly.

For about forty minutes the fight continued in this manner, and miraculously no one was killed, neither outlaw nor cattleman. Twice Jim Lloyd caught a glimpse of the Pettis boys, mean-looking mustached men wearing suspenders and derbies, who waved their pistols as they rushed past. They were killers, and Jim knew that if the cowboys wavered even a little, the Kansans would override them and shoot them all.

It looked as if the Texans had won a victory, for the outlaws were withdrawing to the east, but then the younger of the Pettis boys wheeled his horse about, gave a mighty shout and led a final charge, right into Jim Lloyd, killing his horse and wounding Jim in the left arm.

Cokes saw that Jim was defenseless, and before a new attack could gun the boy down, he spurred his horse right at the oncoming Kansans and exploded his LeMat shotgun into the men’s faces. There was a fountain of blood, a human head flying in bits over the landscape, a horse galloping madly with a tottering driver, and finally a body falling to earth not far from the cook wagon.

After the Kansans withdrew, the weary cowboys sat on the ground, breathing heavily as each man reloaded. Mr. Skimmerhorn had hurried to Jim Lloyd and found him loading his two revolvers, while blood ran down his left arm in a trickle. His bravery was reviewed at the campfire. “Old Jim just stood there and took the full charge. Why in hell didn’t you fire at ’em?” He said, “I was too scared.”

Coker did not join in the discussion. He was shaken by the killing of the outlaw and finally confided to Ragland, “I have killed my brother.”

“Jesus,” Ragland told the others. “The Confederate killed his own brother,” and Mr. Poteet left what he was doing and went to Coker and asked, “How can you say he was your kin?” and Coker said, “Any man who fought northern tyranny was my kin,” and he dug a grave at the foot of a small hill and buried the outlaw, raising above his head a flat piece of wood from the cook wagon, on which he scratched:

HERE LIES

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER

NAME UNKNOWN

KILLED IN FAIR FIGHT

BY A BEAUREGARD LEMAT

OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

For two nights Coker could speak with no one and then on the third he said at the fire, “I won’t go back to Texas. I’ll take my pay and keep movin’. I hear Australia’s a good place.”

Such talk created gloom in camp, for as they approached the end of the trail, each man wondered what he could find to do next. Lasater, wishing to halt such speculation, turned to Coker and asked, ‘How’d you get that gun, Coker?” and the Confederate said, “Same way’s I got the saddle.”

“And how was that?” Lasater probed.

“It was in the Shenandoah Valley. Stonewall Jackson was dead and they were pressin’ us on all sides, and there was this Confederate colonel we were followin’ and he had this real good pistol which he was always polishin’, and we all knew about it ’cause it could fire nine ordinary bullets, and then a sawed-off shotgun, all in this size.” He passed the deadly weapon among his companions and they marveled at its complexity and its deadly concentration of fire power. It had two barrels, a small one for bullets and a very large, blunt one for the buckshot.

“I kept pretty close to the colonel, figuring he was bound to get hit sooner or later, and each time we attacked the Yanks, I kept urgin’ him on, ‘Go to it, Colonel! Move up closer!’ And he kept makin’ a hero of hisself and I kept on his heels, and after a while I noticed that a man from North Calinky was doggin’ him too, and I could see he had his eye on the LeMat, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a North Calinky man. They got no character, no courage and when the colonel was finally hit, the North Calinky man jumped for the LeMat, but I had the presence of mind to forget the revolver and attend to the competition. I swung the butt of my gun around and just about knocked his head off, and only then did I stoop down to pick up the LeMat.”

“And the McClellan saddle?”

“About the same. A Yankee colonel lookin’ for glory, so we let him through and a Georgia man shot him and his horse fell practically in my lap, so I took the saddle.”