Wichita Crossing

Chapter One

Post–Civil War Texas

Ace Carter listened to Finn Hayes and Clyde Morris joshing each other as they got a cookfire going. The evening was dry and hot. The heat burned through thick trees with enough brush to hide a good rattler or two.

The heat didn’t bother Ace. He was sitting on a log resting close to the Washita River.

The river was shallow, but flowing pretty steady.

Small islands of dirt protruded out of the water here and there.

Wasn’t likely many fish were around waiting to be caught.

Still, being near the river tempered the heat some.

“You ain’t ever fought a Comanche hand to hand, Finn,” Ace heard Clyde exclaim as he fussed with the cookfire. “Your backside would be darker than my whiskey bottle if you had!”

Finn was a scrawny man with straggly red hair, but he could handle a horse well enough and had worked a few good years as a swing rider before being hired on, a decent position.

He ain’t as smart as Finn. He rode drag. He’s good on horseback, though, and he’s honest enough. Just looks plumb dumb. Reckon he is, in a lot of ways. At least he’s got Finn to watch after him.

“Done so!” Clyde shouted, his voice thick and slow. “I was riding alone, Finn. Two of them injuns came at me! Scared me awful bad. Shot one dead… Scared myself half to death doing it, too. The other one rode off.”

“Is that so?” Finn asked. “Where at?”

“Near White Deer Pass, way outside of Fort Worth, when we were riding for Mr. Mayberry. The boss sent me to track some cattle that got free from us, remember?”

Finn looked up at Clyde with eyes that had a good bit of patience and compassion in them.

Yeah, Finn watches after Clyde pretty good. They ain’t brothers, but they might as well be. Reckon Finn would die for Clyde if needed.

“Now that you mention it… reckon I do. You were gone a good day. But wasn’t Harry Green supposed to have been riding with you?”

“Aw, Finn, Harry done stopped in Fort Worth and got himself a whiskey bottle. I wasn’t wanting to get the boss man mad at me, so I rode on alone.”

Finn finally got the cookfire going. “Well, I’ll be a pile of turnip greens, Clyde! How come you never told me this before?”

“’Cause I probably messed up my britches and felt ashamed to say so,” Clyde laughed—a silly, clumsy, laugh that was innocent.

“Only reason I’m tellin’ you now is because we might run into some injuns.

Tell you what, injuns sure scare me something fierce.

I ain’t never draw my gun out so fast… surprised even myself. I ain’t fast on the draw like you.”

“Aw, we ain’t gonna run into no injuns, Clyde. Besides, railroad is about to shut down this trail. Probably be the last time we run cattle on the Chisholm Trail.”

Ace listened. Finn is right. Railroad hauls cattle much better and faster than a man can. Cheaper, too… and safer.

“Hey Ace, you want some coffee when I get some going?” Finn called out.

“Nah.” Ace wasn’t in the mood for coffee.

Dallas is watching the herd downriver with that new guy, Brandon. Strange fella. Keeps his head low all the time. Dallas vouched for him, though. We can drive the cattle with just the four of us. Wouldn’t hurt to have another hand. Henry is tight, though. Don’t like to pay out for extra hands.

Sitting alone came naturally to Ace. Finn and Clyde were tighter than ticks.

That was good. A fella needed a pal that he could trust with his life.

Trusting didn’t come easy for Ace. Not at all.

He made it a point to keep folks at a good distance.

Deep in his heart, though, he cared about people.

‘Work hard and do right by folks’ was his motto.

At times, he wanted to be more like Finn and Clyde—just a regular guy who could sit around a cookfire, joking around and drinking coffee.

Just ain’t my way. War changed me. Saw too much death.

Ace locked his eyes on the river. Dallas would be moving the herd upriver in a bit.

I’ll ride down and help. Herd is tired from the heat. Needed to ride on ahead and find a good spot to camp for the night. Dallas can handle the chore. They ain’t too far away. All he has to do is fire off a warning shot if he gets into trouble. Water is deeper down that way. Herd is cooling off.

Henry Ashford had hired Ace to drive a herd of cattle to Wichita, Kansas.

“Herd ain’t that big, Ace,” He’d explained, nodding toward a dry brown field standing under a thirsty sky.

“About four men or so can take the herd up the Chisholm Trail. Railroad wanted to take every penny I got to haul that small herd.”

“About fifty head?”

“Seventy-eight,” Henry had clarified. He was a big man, like Ace. Gruff, mean as a bull, and stingy.

Ace stood two inches taller than Henry. He kept his black hair cut short but let his beard grow out some. Not much. He trimmed his beard every month or so. His body was lean and fit, always ready for a good fight if it arose, but he carried the look of a man who knew what a sore back was.

As rough as Ace was and had to be, he cared for folks more often than not.

Henry was stringy with his money—but Ace understood.

The man’s wife had run off on him. His son had been killed by the Comanche.

Outlaws had attacked him on cattle drives.

The railroad was taking over everywhere.

At the age of fifty, Henry had to make sure he had money to live on.

“I can run the herd up to Kansas for you.”

“Heard good things about you. Wayne Slate said you were the best scout he ever hired.”

“Know the trail, is all,” Ace had answered, chewing on a piece of dry straw as he eyed the herd. “Moved most of ’em already?”

“Railroad charges by head. Moved all that I could pay for. Just got them seventy-eight stragglers left. They’re good beef, though. I’ll get a pretty decent price for them.”

Ace nodded his head. “I’ll give you a fair price to move them up the trail, then.”

“Figured you would. Got the look of an honest man.”

Ace huffed to himself. I didn’t charge Henry as much as I should have. No need to. He’ll put in a good word for me. A good word goes a long way… at least it did in the old days. Railroad is shutting down all the cattle trails. Not much need for scouts anymore.

Movement caught Ace’s eye. He was on his feet faster than a striking snake. “You there, in the trees—get out here before I fill you full of lead!”

When Ace whipped his gun out, Finn and Clyde drew their guns and ran down to him.

A dirty-looking man carrying a bag full of what looked like digging tools stumbled out of the trees, looking real hungry. “Ain’t no threat to you, mister. Just following the river down. Trying to find my mule. Rattler struck at it. Took off running on me.”

“We saw a mule about two miles down,” Clyde told the man in his slow way. “Animal was standing way off from the river, grazing.”

Ace scanned the man. No gun belt. No rifle. Just a drifter. Lot of them around. They come out here to find riches and end up eating dirt. “About to make supper, if you’re hungry,” he said, putting his gun away.

“Thank you all the same, but I best find my mule. Had some property… sold off. Moving back toward Arkansas. Got some family there. They’ll take me in and give me some work.”

“Ace, mind if I ride this fella downriver and help him get his mule?” Clyde asked.

“Thank you all the same, best not,” the stranger said quickly, shifting his bag of tools on his shoulder. “I ain’t worth the trouble.”

Ace eyed the man’s bag more carefully. He spotted two bulges in the fabric near the bottom of the bag—likely bottles of rotgut whiskey, judging by their rounded shapes.

He’s a whiskey hound. Probably spent more time drinking than he did working. Plenty of his kind around. He’s more anxious to fill his belly with whiskey than grub.

“Got some cattle downriver cooling off in the deeper water. Make sure you don’t cause no trouble,” Ace warned.

“Mister, about the only trouble I cause is with my singing when my gut is full of whiskey.” The man shifted his digging bag again and then walked on.

“Aw, he’s just a whiskey-rider,” Finn grunted as he put his gun away. “He ain’t heading to Arkansas. Most likely he’ll end up in Abilene. Why, we ain’t even to the Oklahoma Territory yet.”

Ace watched the drifter walk on downriver before sitting back down. “You two get to fixing supper. Dallas and Brandon will be hungry.”

“That new fella sure is strange,” Clyde told Ace. “Wears his hat all funny and never looks you in the eye. Talks real funny, too. Right, Finn?”

“Yeah, but Dallas says he’s okay. We’ve known Dallas a good many years, Finn. He was around when we were learning to pee on the backside of a barn the right way.”

“Reckon so.” Clyde shrugged. “Well, let’s go get the beans to going. Sure wish we had a chow wagon. Remember how Ol’ Josh use to cook? Boy howdy, he could fry up some chicken livers.”

“Aw, Clyde, we’re running a small herd. Ain’t no needed to be worrying about having a chow wagon. We got plenty of supplies. Just hard pulling them packhorses behind us, is all.”

Yeah, we got plenty of beans and coffee and flour. Got some fruit and jerky, too. Should be an easy ride up the trail.

Ace tried to settle down a bit. He didn’t like drawing his gun unless he intended to kill.

Fighting in the war had caused him a great deal of bad dreams. At times, he could still hear the cries of wounded men and the echoes of rifle and cannon fire.

He could smell gunpowder and blood and raw earth being tore up by cannon fire.

Only thing that kept me going during the war was the thought of Belle. Only she wasn’t waiting for me when I got home.

Ace closed his eyes. The image of a beautiful redhead with a cute button nose gripped his mind. “I’ll be waiting for you, Ace. You come back to me alive, you hear?” she’d said, he voice as sweet and caring as spring honeysuckle.

And when I came back from the war, she was gone. I guess I can’t blame her. She didn’t know if I was alive or dead. Two years is a long time to wait without knowing. Two years of blood and death. And in the end, I know we were betrayed. We were whipping the Yanks. We had them beat.

Ace’s right hand began to shake. The sour, bitter rage that had carved itself into his heart during the war returned without warning.

Drawing his gun did that. Every bullet he shot took his mind back to the war—to battlefields covered with dead and dying, some so thick with the dead he couldn’t walk across them.

Everyone I cared about is either dead or scattered into the wind. Fellas I fought in the war with…

Ace couldn’t finish his thought. He forced his hand to stop shaking and looked over his shoulder at Finn and Clyde. Yeah, they were good fellas, but he didn’t need them.

Don’t need nobody. Best to keep riding the trail alone. That’s my way. Only way I know.

“Finn!”

“Yeah, Ace?” Finn called back.

“Gonna ride downriver and check on Dallas and Brandon,” Ace told him. “That drifter ain’t likely to cause trouble, but I want to make sure he don’t.”

“Fire off a few shots if you need us, Ace. We’ll come running.”

Ace walked to a strong, dark brown Quarter horse tied to the line Clyde had run. “Come on, Fetch, let’s go make sure everything is good downriver.”