The Trail West Read online

  “Aw, cripes,” Monahan muttered under his breath. “Well, we’ve come this far, General. I reckon we’d best see what’s got his knickers in such an all-fired twist.” He nudged the horse into a lope.

  Less than ten seconds later, he found out.

  Breasting the hill, Monahan heard the dog barking, wild and rapid. It was far ahead and down the other slope, racing along the wide flatland below and heading for a distant cluster of buildings at a flat-out run.

  Not much was left of the buildings. As General Grant skidded down the hill and hurried closer, Monahan could see wisps of smoke coming from what was left of the barn and a shed. They had fallen in on themselves in a black, smoky rubble.

  The house was only partially burnt, with a blackened hole in the roof. A dead longhorn shot full of arrows lay in the yard and a spring calf with a spear in its side had fallen just in front of the barn. It was already beginning to bloat.

  “Aw, damn,” Monahan whispered as he slouched in the saddle and slowed the General to a walk. There was no need to hurry, no matter what the dog thought. Monahan knew he wasn’t going to find anybody alive.

  The dog had disappeared by the time Monahan rode into the yard and dismounted. “Hello!” he shouted, just in case. “Anybody here?”

  No one answered but the breeze.

  He ground tied General Grant and reluctantly walked toward the corral. His boots scuffed the dust, raising little clouds. “Hello!” he called again. “Dog? Where’d you get to?”

  No answer.

  He found another cow—a milker—partially butchered on the other side of the barn, and a more grisly discovery out back.

  It was a man, or what was left of one. The rancher’s face had been mutilated beyond recognition, and his private parts and fingers had been cut off. Monahan swallowed hard and turned his head away, a surge of ancient hatred mixed with sorrow flooding his veins.

  The poor sod. Monahan hoped he’d been dead when those heathen bastards started whittling on him.

  He left the body where it was and started back toward the house, calling, “Dog? Blue dog!”

  A soft whine came to his ears when he was halfway across the yard, and he followed the sound into the house. It had been ransacked. Broken crockery crunched beneath his boots along with shards of dishes, bowls, and the pretty little things women liked to set around just for show.

  Blue gingham curtains had been ripped from their moorings and clothes had been scattered from their dresser drawers. Furniture was overturned and smashed. A pot of stew had burned to a solid cinder in the fireplace. Fueled by a straw mattress, fire had swept up one corner of the place and burned a hole in the roof, but it had gone no farther. Unlike the barn or the shed, the house was made of adobe and pretty near impossible to burn.

  In the opposite corner, the dog pawed gently at something behind an overturned easy chair, still whining softly. Monahan clenched and unclenched his fists for a moment. He had a good idea what the dog was fussing at, but he hated like hell to look. He’d lived west of the Mississippi for most of his grown life, almost forty-four years and he’d seen more than enough of what was left after Indians came marauding.

  Eventually, he took a deep breath and made his way through the rubble.

  A woman was hidden behind the chair. She was on the floor with her back pressed hard against the wall. There was a pistol in her hand and an arrow deep in her breast. She hadn’t been messed with, and that was a blessing, but her lifeless arm was curled about a little boy, maybe seven, maybe eight.

  His throat had been cut.

  The dog nudged the child with his nose and looked up at Monahan with a plea in his icy eyes.

  “I’m right sorry, feller.” Monahan’s words came out choked. “Hell of a thing.” He knelt beside the dog and, for the first time, put a hand on him. Unconsciously, he began to stroke the dog’s coat, comforting him the best he could. “Ain’t nothin’ to do now but bury ’em, boy,” he said softly.

  The dog turned slightly and licked Monahan’s hand. Then, with an enormous sigh, he stretched out his neck and rested his muzzle gently on the little boy’s chest.

  Monahan rose to find a shovel, his throat thick, his face hot, and his knees complaining loudly.

  4

  Several hours later, Monahan stood beside the three mounds he had made on the far side of the corral. Two were normal-sized, and one so small it broke his heart. The dog lay on top of it. He had not moved, not even to take the water in a pan Monahan had carried up from the well for him.

  Wearily, his shoulders and back aching something terrible, Monahan laid down his shovel, then took off his hat and held it over his chest. “Lord, I can’t rightly tell you these folks’ names, but I reckon you already know who they were. Seems to me they was good people. They had a right nice spread here, anyhow, and the dog sure liked ’em. Ain’t nothin like a dog for judging human nature, ’ceptin’ maybe you. I sure hope you’ll gather ’em into your arms and make ’em welcome on those streets o’ gold, and that you’ll take the hides off the ones what killed ’em so cruel. That’s all for now, I guess. Amen.”

  He settled his hat back on his head, and addressed the graves. “Hope you folks think I done right by you. I done what I could, anyhow.”

  He dipped two fingers into his pocket and tipped out his watch. Four o’clock. No wonder his belly was growling, for he’d forgotten lunch entirely.

  He bent and retrieved the shovel, his sore back complaining, and turned toward the dog. “You hungry?”

  When the dog didn’t move other than to twitch its ear, Monahan gave a little shrug and started for the house to scare up a butcher knife. He figured the dead steer in the yard wasn’t so far gone a man wouldn’t want to eat any of it. Shame to see it go to waste.

  He built a small fire in the wide, dusty yard about ten feet from the porch—didn’t seem fitting to make himself to home inside—and set his beans to soak. Then he made his way to the longhorn and carved out the tenderloin from one side. He rigged up a spit for the meat and set it aside while he seasoned his beans, set them on the fire, and made up a batch of biscuits.

  He sat back, staring across the yard and the corral at the graves and the sorrowful dog. The poor critter had stopped whining, anyway. He’d put up a holy fuss when Monahan had carried the child’s body outside, and put up a worse one when he’d gently lowered the little boy into the ground and started covering his blanketed form with dirt. He’d let out a weak moan when the other two bodies had been dragged out and buried, but that was all.

  “It’s all right, fella,” he’d said in an attempt to comfort the beast. “Stop your fussin’. Ain’t no other way.”

  The dog had been lying on the mound ever since the last shovelful had slapped into place.

  After a few minutes, Monahan went into the house. It bothered him, not having any markers. He figured maybe, if he searched deep enough, he could find a Bible with their names in it. That, or maybe a letter or a bill would tell him who they were. He would have settled for a surname.

  After some scavenging, he found what was left of the Bible. It was near the mattress, and the lists of names and dates of birth and death were burned up. Back behind the wash basket, where it had likely been shoved during the fracas, he found one unbroken bowl. It was chipped and glazed yellow and white, and somebody—a child’s hand, to look at it—had laboriously printed Blue on the side.

  It brought tears to his eyes, which he brusquely wiped away.

  He set the Bible on the window ledge, and carried the dog’s bowl outside with him, figuring to split the tenderloin with the dog once it was roasted.

  But he didn’t see the dog. It had left the grave. Monahan’s first thought was that it had swiped that big hunk of raw meat. But the meat was still on the spit right where he’d left it.

  “Blue?” Monahan called, scratching at his ear with the hand that didn’t have a yellow dog bowl dangling from it. “Blue dog! Where’d you get to, fella?”

  There was
no sign of him, not even a puff of dust on the horizon. Monahan shouted toward the corral, “Where’d that consarned dog get to, General?”

  The horse just stomped a hoof lazily and shook the flies from his neck.

  Monahan frowned in frustration. “Well, I’ll be jiggered.”

  An hour or so later, it was just starting to get dark. He was ladling beans onto his old tin plate beside a healthy slab of beef and a steaming biscuit, when he heard riders coming in.

  His first thought was the Baylors. But he heard too many horses, and jumped to the conclusion it must be Apaches, come back to get him, too. In the half second it took him to think those thoughts, he umped up and spilled hot beans down his leg.

  Silently cursing the burn, he scurried to the shelter of the house’s outer wall and pressed himself flat against it, his pistol drawn.

  Slowly, as the sound of slowing hoofbeats drew nearer, he inched toward the far corner and peeked around it. “Cripes,” he whispered in disgust, and holstered his gun. He brushed the last few beans off his britches, then stepped out and waved an arm at the riders.

  There were seven of them, and as far as he could tell, none of them looked like Baylors. Not that he knew what Dev or Alf looked like. But the man in the lead, a stocky fellow riding a flashy sorrel mare, wore a badge glinting softly in the late afternoon light. Monahan didn’t reckon that a Baylor—even a disguised Baylor using a summer name—would choose to ride with the law.

  The sheriff jogged out ahead of the others and stopped about ten feet from Monahan, surveying the scene. He took in the burned buildings, the dead steer, and the speared calf, and a frown came over his lined face. “Aw, hell and damnation,” were the first pained words out of his mouth.

  “That’s about the size of ’er,” Monahan said stoically.

  The sheriff dismounted, and Monahan offered his hand. “Monahan, Dooley Monahan. Just passin’ through. On my way to Phoenix.”

  The sheriff shook Monahan’s hand while the other men in his party rode into the yard, and stepped down off their horses. “Milton J. Carmichael,” he said wearily, momentarily doffing his hat to run thick fingers through his graying hair. “Sheriff over at Iron Creek. We got word a raiding party skipped the reservation. Army would take two, three days to get here, so we lit out of town. Been to four other spreads already and sent the folks to town.” He slid his hat back on. “This was the last one. Don’t suppose anybody’s alive.”

  It wasn’t a question and Monahan didn’t much like the way Carmichael had said it, but he answered anyway. “Wish like anything I could tell you different. I buried ’em out past the corral.” He pointed, scanning the distance once again for the dog. It was nowhere in sight.

  A young man, tall and slender, stepped up and squinted at him. “Mister Monahan?”

  It took him a moment to recognize the redheaded youngster as a fellow he’d worked with three or four winters past, up in Utah on the Circle D. The boy had hired on about two days before Monahan had gone up to the line camp and had moved on before he came down in the spring. He racked his brain for a name, finally saying, “Sweeney, was it?”

  “Yes sir, that’s me.” The boy seemed pleased Monahan had remembered. He stuck out his hand. “Butch Sweeney. Thought it was you, Mr. Monahan. Sure is fine to see you again. I’m just sorry it had to be . . . like this. If you know what I mean.”

  Monahan nodded curtly and shook the young man’s hand. “If you boys are hungry, I got plenty of vittles cookin’ if you don’t mind bein’ short of beans. Took the whole tenderloin outta that longhorn over yonder. ’Course, I was gonna give a chunk of it to the dog . . .”

  “Dog!” Sheriff Carmichael barked out derisively. “You mean to tell me that damned dog of Morgan’s lived through this?”

  Monahan found himself a tad ticked off, but he dug in his heels. “I reckon he did, though I’ll be skinned if I know how. Leastwise, he come lookin’ for help. Found me.”

  Carmichael stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

  “Brought me ten, maybe eleven miles down outta them mountains,” Monahan continued stubbornly, poking a finger over his shoulder. “Dang near bulldogged my horse to get me to follow him.”

  Carmichael crossed his arms. “Where’s he now?”

  Monahan shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. He was lyin’ over there on the little tyke’s grave. He’s gone now.”

  Quietly, Sweeney said, “He was just goin’ out to round up the yearlings.” They turned to follow his pointing finger.

  Sure enough, a small herd of six fat, half-grown, shorthorn steers was headed their way at a dust-churning trot. The dog was at their heels, barking. As they watched, the dog herded the cattle into the yard and tried to put them in the corral. Monahan had shut the gate when he’d put General Grant in there—and had hauled over some bales of half-burned straw to block the part that was busted down. He hollered to one of Carmichael’s men to open it and haul his horse out.

  The dog pushed the cattle through, waited till the gate was shut again, then went back to his post on the child’s grave.

  “I’ll be jiggered,” said Carmichael grudgingly.

  “Ray Morgan told me just last week how every afternoon, long about five, Blue would go out and get them shorthorns. Didn’t have to tell him or nothin’, just regular as clockwork.” Sweeney turned back toward Monahan. “He was feeding up these six, grainin’ ’em for some fancy restaurant down to Tempe.”

  Monahan was thinking it’d be a new one on him if Tempe even had a restaurant, let alone a fancy one, but he held his tongue. It had been a good while since he’d been down that way.

  “If that pet steer of Morgan’s was still fresh enough for you to butcher it out,” Sweeney went on, “I reckon the Apache swarmed ’em late in the day. The dog woulda been out after the shorthorns then. Don’t know as how they woulda even rode in here with that old shepherd-dog around.”

  Carmichael, who was still staring at the dog, scowled. “Damn thing’s meaner than a cornered wolverine. Should’a been shot years ago.”

  Monahan opened his mouth to say something in the dog’s defense, but Sweeney beat him to it. With a sad half smile, the boy said, “Old Blue ain’t mean, Sheriff, just picky. He was awful fond o’ that young’un.”

  Carmichael sniffed. “Still say he’s a dangerous old cur. Ain’t to be trusted.” Absently, he gave a rub to his butt. “Well, I reckon we oughta get some markers made for Ray and Lizzie and little Adam. Any lumber left that ain’t burned?”

  “Reckon there’s a few pieces of the barn worth usin’,” Monahan replied. “Pulled them bales o’ straw out, anyhow. The ones blockadin’ the corral.” Carmichael, a man to whom he’d already taken a solid dislike, was beginning to wear awfully thin.

  “Monahan?” the sheriff said. “If you can get near that dog without gettin’ bit, you’d best move it off a ways while the boys work.”

  5

  It was dark before Butch Sweeney had a chance to settle beside the fire and wolf down some grub. The Hopkins brothers and Sheriff Carmichael had finished off Monahan’s tenderloin between the three of them, but Pete Jenks had sliced off a decent cut of meat for himself and Sweeney. There was plenty to go around.

  It felt kind of funny, eating Ray Morgan’s pet steer like that. Ray had named the old longhorn Freddie, and kept him in the near pen. He was tame as a house cat. But the steer had been fat enough, all right, and was dead and past caring. Freddie was also tender to the tooth, having been shut in the pen for so long with no need to exercise. Sweeney ate heartily, despite his misgivings.

  While he ate, he watched Dooley Monahan. The man sat close enough to the others so as not to seem outright antisocial, but far enough away that he didn’t have to listen to them, or engage in conversation. He was older and leaner and more bent than Sweeney remembered him, but just as tough. He’d only spoken to Monahan twice, and that had been three and a half years ago. However, he wasn’t a man you could easily forget.

  He was a long dr
ink of water, maybe two or three inches taller than Sweeney’s six feet. His short, sandy hair had more gray than color, his coffee-brown eyes had a watery look to them, and the miles showed on his liver-spotted hands and face. Cowboying surely put extra years on a man.

  Monahan had been a tough old bird when they met on the Circle D. The first time Sweeney had laid eyes on him, the man had saved his life.

  Sweeney shoveled another bite of old Freddie into his mouth, then shook his head. Monahan didn’t appear to remember pulling him out of that long-ago corral, and out from under the hooves of a crazy, fresh-caught bronc that was dead set on killing him. Sweeney supposed when a man got to be Monahan’s age—which was, in itself, a feat for any cow man, what with busted bones and the cold and the heat and the sheer cussedness of the profession—he’d probably already pulled so many idiot kids’ fat out of the fire that one more didn’t stand out.

  But Sweeney remembered, all right.

  He looked toward Monahan again. After carrying a bowl of meat to the dog once they were finished with the markers, he’d sat down, ignoring them all and staring into the darkness. Old Blue was still out near the graves. His eyes—two small, glowing dots of pale red in the gloom—showed every once in a while, when he turned his head toward the campfire and the men. It sort of gave a man the spooks.

  Sweeney shuddered and turned his attention to what Sheriff Carmichael was saying. “Morgan had a brother over to New Mexico, near as I can recall. Come morning, I figure we should go out and round up what’s left of Morgan’s herd. Push ’em closer to Farley Delaney’s place. Delaney can watch ’em till I hear what the brother wants done with ’em.”

  Oscar Wilkes spoke around a mouthful of meat. “What about them Apache, boss?”

  Carmichael snorted derisively. “Them cowards are long gone. Probably halfway to Mexico by now. We won’t see no more trouble from ’em.”