March, 2010

Issue #6

Last Rider: Coming Off the Trail
by J. B. Hogan

A chill rain fell lightly, but steadily. Mose Traven rode with his head down, water dripping and blowing off the broad brim of his worn, dirty hat. His thick-backed pony ambled along the mud-gravely path surrounded by scrub brush and young oak and elm trees. It was late afternoon, although nearly as dark as dusk, and Mose hunched in the saddle, wet and tired. There was no sound save for the soft thudding of the horse's hooves on the soggy trail and the animal's occasional snorting breath.

Mose had let his mind drift as he rode, so allowed it to fill itself up with images of the recent past that he didn't hear the first sound in the trees beside the narrow, beaten path. The noise was like heavier rain hitting the leaves, harder, closer, then followed by the cracking of what could have been mistaken for thunder - thunder rolling fast after the electrifying flash of close by lightning. The leaves splattered nearby, the air boomed.

"Hell fire," Mose cried out, understanding at last the meaning of the loud rain that snapped twigs on either side of him and caused his buckskin pony to snort in fear and jerk forward on the reins. With a sharp jab of his spurs against the buckskin's solid flanks, he drove the animal to the lead it sought on its own.

"Go, Buster," he urged, "get up."

He needn't have admonished the horse, for it galloped now in that horse's way of escaping a leg- or side-biting predator. It breathed heavily, ears pricked, legs pounding the earth with strong, powerful strides. In moments, rider and horse were far down the trail. Coming out of thick foliage and into a clearing populated by several large gray boulders, Mose spurred Buster towards the largest of the rocks and reined him in on its back side.

Leaping off the animal, Mose pulled a rifle from beside the saddle, worked the lever to cock and load it, and edged around the side of the rock to see who or what was behind them. A round hammered the stone near his face and he pulled his head back just in time to avoid a spray of loosened gravel from the rock surface. Looking back, he saw a thick scrub bush and quickly tied the horse tight to it. The last thing Mose wanted was for the animal to bolt in fear and leave him out there alone, on foot.

"Easy, boy," he told the horse in a gentle, calm voice, "I'm just goin' to go around this other side and try to see who's doin' the shootin'. You take it easy, now." The horse snorted low and looked a little wild-eyed but it settled down at the quiet talk.

Slowly, Mose moved up to the back side of the rock beyond the horse. Never give a shooter the same shot, he remembered his old sergeant from the 3rd Missouri Mounted Infantry saying right before the battle of Westport when he had just been a boy - a boy conscripted into an army and a war he shouldn't even have been a part of.

Easing himself around the boulder, Mose took a quick look in the direction from where the shots had come. He could see nothing in the gloaming. It was getting darker and he didn't want to be caught out alone come nightfall.

It was probably a Kiowa hunting party or, he hoped not, marauding Comanches. They seldom made it this far east, but there had been a big ruckus the past year between cattle drivers and the Indians out in the Texas Panhandle so he had tried to stay on his toes about the trouble and did his best to avoid Indians.

Mose had no quarrel with Indians and had no designs on their land, but he understood they wouldn't know that and might view him as just another thieving white man. As a personal policy, he skirted the tribes and their territory as best he could.

When there hadn't been a shot in several minutes, he began to think that whoever was out there might be trying to sneak up on him. He took a moment to survey his surroundings. Behind was more bushes and a couple of smaller boulders and beyond that a small drop off. It might provide enough protection so he could make a run in that direction and then swing back in a mile or so over onto the Ft. Smith trail.

Just as he was about to go back to the horse, he had a funny feeling, one that caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. Without warning several shots suddenly rang out and rock chips and dust flew all around him.

"Son of a …," he started to curse, then pressed his body close to the boulder and waited silently.

His breath came shallow but not fast. He had seen too much in the War Between the States, as he'd seen the not so distant hostilities recently referred to in a newspaper, to panic over a few stray shots. He just wondered who it could be. Certainly not the blue bellies. They would have no reason to be following a lone white man all the way into Indian Territory. It was probably some part-renegade Indians, or some desperado looking for a horse or a saddle, or both. He doubted that it would be Jack Hart.

Mose waited. And waited. It was completely quiet again. He waited. Ten minutes, fifteen. Finally, he carefully peered around the boulder again. Nothing. No shots. Nothing. It was as if there had never been anyone there to begin with. He waited ten minutes more.

Cautiously then, he untied Buster and mounted him slowly and smoothly. Still nothing. With a low clucking sound he moved the horse away from the boulder, towards the bushes and the drop off behind. He only looked back once. When he reached the bottom of the drop off, he reined the horse tight and dug in his spurs. With a snort the animal bolted, ran hard.

Mose guided Buster across the wet ground, through scattered small bushes to the original trail. Still nothing. On the smoother ground of the trail, he slowed the horse to a canter and then finally to a walk.

Whatever or whoever had been out to get him no longer seemed to be there. There was a phantom-like quality to the experience that made Mose shudder in the saddle. Spurring Buster on briefly to hurry around another blind bend in the trail and to get himself completely out of rifle range, Mose continued on to Ft. Smith.

The dirt streets of Ft. Smith were empty and cast in shadow when Henry Hallow saw the rider come into town. The man first appeared at the head of the main, muddy street and, between sessions of puffing up his billows, Henry watched his slow progress toward the livery stable to the side of which Henry maintained his small blacksmith shop. As the man neared Henry's place he saw the livery stable sign and headed his mount towards it.

"Good evenin', young man," Henry said with a smile when the man pulled up in front of the stable.

"Evenin'," the stranger replied.

Even in the fading light, Henry could make out the man's features and noted a countenance that bespoke long months on the trail, a life - like so many of late - of deprivation and little human contact. The rider was a man of mid-twenties appearance, medium height and build, light brown hair - too long not cut - and a face highlighted by high cheekbones, a ruddy complexion hiding under the stubbly growth of a week or so, and light, pain-filled eyes. Henry guessed in a moment that this was a man who had seen more than his share of experience in his young life.

As befit a man of the trail, the stranger wore weathered but quality chaps over his dusty pants and above his very well worn boots. He had on a gray shirt, tattered at one shoulder, a dirty, once blue dust kerchief around his neck, and a big brimmed, cowboy hat. He had clearly seen much of the world but other than an obvious weariness seemed a decent enough type.

"You the stable man, too?" the stranger asked.

"Yes, sir, I am," Henry replied, pausing in his work. "Lookin' to put your hoss up for the evenin' are you?"

"I am," the stranger said, dismounting from the sturdy buckskin. "Easy, Buster," he told the animal as it skittered a bit when Henry tossed his hammer down and it banged off a stray piece of wheel rim on his working table.

"Sorry, mister," Henry said.

"It's okay," the stranger said, rubbing the horse's neck. "Buster's just tired. And maybe a little nervous."

"Somethin' happen to you all out on the trail?" Henry asked.

"Some place around here a man could bed down?" the stranger asked, ignoring Henry's question.

"Well, sir," Henry said, the only place for that is over at the hotel across the way and down a couple of buildings. See there by the sheriff's office?"

"How much for keepin' my horse overnight?" the stranger asked, not looking in the direction of the hotel or sheriff's office. Henry noted that reluctance.

"Fifteen cents?" Henry said doubtfully, never sure what a fair price to charge was.

His wife Mary always said "twenty-five cents for the horse and a dime for oats, never less," but Henry believed in basing the price on the appearance of the person asking. This fellow didn't look like he would have a lot of money, though you never could tell.

"How about a place to eat?" the stranger queried.

"Hotel again," Henry said, "but they charge four bits for supper."

"Hmm," the stranger mumbled, rubbing the stubble on his solid chin.

"You know," Henry said, not knowing what made him do it, "you could eat with my missus and me. If you wanted to, I mean. We have enough to share."

"I wouldn't want to put you out none," the stranger said.

"Mary would be happy to add another plate," Henry said, not knowing if she really would or not. There was something about this young man, in his demeanor or the way he held himself proud but humble somehow at the same time that told Henry he was not an outlaw, not a bad man.

"Join us, please. I'm ready to quit for the day anyway."

"It would be right neighborly of you," the young man said, a small smile improving his tired features.

"Well, come on then," Henry said with conviction. "Let's get your buckskin set up and we'll see about getting' something to eat."

"Thank you, sir," the young man said, "Mr. ...."

"Hallow," the blacksmith said, wiping his right hand on the black leather apron he wore before extending the hand in greeting, "Henry Hallow. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Moses Traven," the young rider introduced himself, "of Missouri, and other parts. My pleasure to meet you, too. And you done met Buster here. We've traveled a fair piece together the two of us."

"I suspicioned as much," Henry said with a nod, "I reckoned that you had."

After a big supper of beef, beans and biscuits, Mose made the Hallows accept two-bits from him just for their kindness.

"Oh, no," Henry had protested, but Mose could see the missus didn't mind. Spending money was hard to come by, he and the lady both allowed, so he left the coins on their kitchen table.

Henry insisted then that Mose spend the night free in the stable. There was a good spot up in the loft and plenty of clean hay. Mose took the blacksmith up on the offer.

"Better stick around," Henry said as the men walked back to the stable.

"Why come?" Mose wondered.

"Hangin'," Henry said, shaking his head. "Judge Corey's gonna hang some boy from the Territory come over and killed a drummer. It'll be a big crowd for that one."

"Never seen a law-caused hangin,'" Mose remarked.

"Stay a few days," Henry reiterated. "You'll see one."

When Henry went back home, Mose climbed up to the stable loft, found some good hay, and spread his bed roll down. It was pretty comfortable, a heck of a lot more comfortable than the ground that had been his bed during the cattle drive he'd just left.

Lying there in the stable, looking up through a hole in the roof at the star-filled night sky, Mose couldn't help but recall the events that caused him to leave the drive with a month left before they reached Baxter Springs trailhead.

It was that damned Jack Hart that caused it all. Hart was related to Charlie Wilcox, the cattle owner and trail boss, and even though he was just a flank rider, Hart thought he was in charge of the herd all the time Wilcox was out front scouting for water and that night's bedding down spot. In particular, Hart bullied one of the two teen-aged boys that rode drag on the mixed herd of ragged Mexican cattle and free ranging Longhorns that Wilcox had scrounged up down around San Antonio.

Mose had joined the drive at its beginning in San Antone, a fool's venture taking the old Shawnee Trail - which was being used less and less - up past Dallas, through the Territory to the trailhead at Baxter Springs. Wilcox knew it was a tricky proposition, what with the concern for Texas tick fever, unruly Indians, and the trails all running to the west now, but he allowed it was good for at least one more shot.

Following a couple of years in Mexico with Jo Shelby and his Confederate Iron Brigade escapees down on the Hacienda Carlota, and several more roaming Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and the Indian Territory, Mose knew all about last shots. He was glad to sign on for a dollar a day - even riding drag for a couple of weeks until Wilcox moved him over to a flank.

Jack Hart tried to bully Mose at first, too, but that didn't play. Not after Mose threatened to crack his .36 caliber Navy revolver over Hart's head. Instead, Hart took out his natural meanness on the two boys eating dust behind the herd. He especially singled out Tommy Robison, a good-tempered, hard-working boy.

By the time they had got near to Dallas, Hart was making the boy's life miserable. He would short-change Tommy on watch, bark at him for things the kid hadn't even done, and just generally push the boy around day and night. When Wilcox let several of the crew go into Dallas to blow off a little steam, Hart pushed his bullying to the breaking point.

About a half dozen of the boys, including Mose, the two teen-aged boys, Chuy the Mexican cook, a couple of other cowpokes and Hart, went to a saloon to loosen up a bit and knock off some trail dust. Mose was sitting at a table, joking with the young boys, when Hart tried to start a fight with Tommy Robison.

"Get up, you soft-headed piss ant," Hart growled at the bewildered boy.

"I don't know why you on me so much," Tommy said, shaking his head.

"Stand up," Hart ordered.

"No, sir," Tommy replied.

"On your feet or I'll bust you where you sit," Hart sneered.

"Ease up, partner," Mose intervened. "Have a drink with us. We're all on this drive together."

"Ain't talkin' to you," Hart countered, not even looking at Mose. "Shut your hole and stay out of my way."

"Best walk a bit easy there," Mose warned Hart.

"You don't like it, get up," Hart spat back.

"Suit yourself," Mose said, sliding his chair back.

"Don't, Mr. Traven," Tommy said, reaching an arm towards Mose.

"It's alright, Tommy," Mose told the kid.

He stood up and faced Hart. Hart squared to face Mose.

"You gonna regret this," Hart said.

"Could be," Mose allowed.

Hart made a move as if he might go for his sidearm, but before he got anywhere near his belt and holster, Mose drew his .36 and backhanded the barrel against the side of Hart's head. It made a loud, thwacking sound. Hart went down in a heap.

"Let's get him out of here and back to the herd," Mose told the boys. "He ain't likely to be none too happy when he comes to."

From that day, Hart seethed with anger towards Mose. So much so that Mose had to watch his back all the time he worked the herd. Once, Hart nearly snuck up behind him, but Mose sensed something and turned around in time to draw down on his adversary in a Mexican standoff.

Then, after the drive had crossed the Red River and were up into the Territory, Hart and Mose had it out. They went head to head, fist to fist, around the campfire just as Chuy was getting supper done. It was a bitter fight and he took his lumps, but Mose got the better of Hart. The next day, Charley Wilcox let Mose go.

"I'm sorry, Traven," he told Mose, "you're a damned good man, but I can't have this on the drive. Jack is family, even if he's trouble, and I gotta go with that. I hope you understand."

Mose took the sixty dollars Wilcox offered him and with a quick goodbye to the crew, turned east and headed for Fort Smith.

"This ain't over, Traven," were the last words Hart said to Mose as he rode out of camp.

"Good luck, Mose," the boy Tommy had called out. Mose waved his right arm in farewell without looking back.

Remembering the unfortunate end of the drive, Mose finally drifted off to sleep in the stable beside Henry Hallow's blacksmith shop. Before he even realized he had slept, something woke him. A sound in the stable below.

Mose lifted himself up on his elbows and peered over the loft. It was still dark but there was a slight hint of the first gray of pre-dawn. Buster snorted and moved nervously in his stall. Mose thought he saw the figure of a man down below.

"Who's that?" he called out. "What is it?"

The boom of a sidearm was his answer and before Mose could move, the loft slat next to his bedroll exploded upwards, spraying bits of wood all around. Grabbing his .36, Mose returned fire but could only shoot at the shadows below. Two more rounds ripped into the floor of the loft and Mose replied again, then moved away from his bedroll.

Feeling for his boots, Mose picked up the right one and moved to the back of the loft where he could peer down into the stable. All was silent for a moment. With a slow motion, Mose heaved his boot onto the loft floor in front of him. It landed with a solid thud. The moment it did, the shooter below fired off two rounds in the direction of the sound. Mose saw the flash of fire from the attacker's pistol. He fired two rounds above and slightly to the left of the flash. There was a low moan, then silence again.

Mose waited a full moment, continued to peer down into the shadowy stable. Nothing. He carefully climbed down the loft ladder, heard the sound of people coming towards the stable, walked cautiously towards the front of the building. Even in the graying light, he could hardly see and bumped into a heap on the floor. It was a man.

As Mose bent down to the man, someone opened the door of the stable and let in enough light to identify the shooter, who now lay in a pool of his own blood. It was Jack Hart from the cattle drive. He had tried to make good his word. He had tracked Mose down and tried to kill him. Mose shivered to think how close his adversary had come to fulfilling that task.

"Lower your sidearm, son," Mose heard a voice say. "Step back from there and drop it."

Mose looked up to see a man wearing a marshal's badge. The marshal held a long-barreled .44 pointed right at Mose. Mose laid his pistol down and stepped back.

"Get your gear," the marshal said, "I gotta take you in."

Judge Corey waited to hear Mose's case until the day of the scheduled hanging. Wanted to give Mose a fair hearing, he said, learn the particulars of the case. Liked to give everyone a fair trial, he said, thought the sound of the gallows would be likely to produce the truth of the case.

Mose told his side of the shooting. The judge, who was hardly older than Mose himself, listened with something that was maybe like interest. Half the time, Mose wasn't even sure what the judge was talking about, wasn't sure his honor was all there, all the time. He was sure the judge could do as he darned well pleased.

"I ought to hang you for murder," Judge Corey said. "For murdering your partner."

"He tried to kill me," Mose reminded the legal man, "and we wasn't 'xactly partners."

"Mose ain't no killer," Henry Hallow interjected from his seat out in the crowd. The judge rapped on his table with a wooden mallet.

"Did you see the shootin'?" he snapped at Henry.

"Uh …, no, sir," Henry admitted.

"Then shut your mouth or I'll throw you in jail, too," Judge Corey said. Henry shut up.

"Marshal," the judge switched his focus, "is the defendant indigent."

"W..what?" the marshal asked.

"Does he have any means of support?"

"I don't catch your meaning, sir."

"Does he have any money," the judge sniffed, shaking his head, "for cryin' out loud?"

"You got any money?" the marshal asked Mose.

Mose thought of the twenty dollar gold piece stowed in a little pocket at the back of his saddle that his Mexican girlfriend Maria had stitched up for him. There was also another twenty in paper bills under the worn out sock in his left boot. He had about seventeen dollars and some change in the pocket of his pants.

"Some," Mose admitted.

"Produce it," the judge ordered.

"What?" Mose asked. This judge talked like a crazy man sometimes.

"Let's see it," the judge sighed. "You frontier types are really dense."

When Mose was slow to "produce" his money, the marshal reached in his pockets for him. He handed the money to the judge.

"This is all?" the judge asked. Mose was silent. "Seventeen dollars and three bits? I ought to hang you just for this insult."

A man standing to one side of the judge leaned forward and spoke quietly in the barrister's ear. The judge grimaced.

"I know. I know," he acknowledged, "we have to get on with the real hanging."

"All right," he said, after a short pause and addressing Mose directly, "let's finish this up. I fine you this seventeen dollars and such for … for discharging your weapon inside the town limits. Case dismissed."

"You're takin' my money?" Mose asked.

"I suggest, cowboy," the judge said, with a wry smile, "that you should count your lucky stars I've got more work to do today than bother with a two-bit cowpuncher like yourself. This is your fine, now get out. Go. You're free to go. Get out of my courthouse. And let this be a lesson to you."

Without another word, the judge rose and stomped out of the courtroom. The marshal led Mose outside and walked him back to the stable, Henry Hallow tagged along beside.

"You're clear to go, son," the marshal told Mose. "I recommend you get your gear together and ride on." He held out his hand to Mose.

"I take your meaning," Mose replied, shaking the marshal's hand.

"Good luck to you," the marshal said, then turned and walked away.

"Whew," Henry Hallow said to Mose when the marshal was gone, "that was a close one."

"They took my money," Mose said, straightening a saddle blanket on Buster. "They didn't give a damn that somebody got killed one way or another."

"Yep," Henry said, "that's how old Judge Corey works."

"Old judge," Mose laughed, tossing his saddle onto Buster's back, "that boy wadn't any older than I am."

"You ain't gonna stick around even for just a bit?" Henry asked. "There's still that hangin' later on."

"Hell, if that crazy judge don't decide to rob me instead of tryin' me," Mose said, cinching the saddle down, "it could be my neck getting stretched up there today, too. And for killin' a lowdown scoundrel what was gonna kill me."

"I could use some help with the blacksmithin'," Henry suggested.

"I appreciate that, Henry, and you and your missus' hospitality, too, but I don't believe this place is right for me. I best be movin' on like the marshal said."

"Where to?"

"Don't know. Sedalia maybe. If there's work."

"Well," Henry said, looking down at his grimy boots, "I reckon it's goodbye, then, Mose."

"I reckon so," Mose said, adroitly lifting himself into the saddle.

Buster snorted and shook his head. He was ready for the trail. With a gentle heel to the horse's flanks, Mose turned the animal to the left out into the dirt main street of Ft. Smith.

"Take care, Mose," Henry called after Mose's retreating figure.

Mose waved his right arm in goodbye without looking back. With a light tug of the reins, he guided Buster to the north, towards the Boston Mountains, and Fayetteville beyond, on to the Missouri border. He'd had all he wanted of Ft. Smith. He doubted he'd be back.

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