Centennial (83 page)

On the first night out of Fort Sumner, Nacho prepared a chicken stew with potatoes and gravy, which Mr. Skimmerhorn pronounced one of the best he’d ever eaten, but Canby, Gompert and Savage refused it. “We don’t want no Mexican grub,” they complained. “We want real food,” so Nacho took down a Dutch oven, cut off six big steaks, two per man, put the oven in the fire, piled coals on the lids, and when the chewy meat was nearly black, served it to the grumblers:

“That’s decent food,” Canby said as he chewed the tough meat.

The same thing happened next night when Nacho served a kind of chili, hot and meaty and very tasty. Again Mr. Skimmerhorn complimented the Mexican, and again Canby and his colleagues complained that they didn’t come on no cattle trail to eat Mexican grub, and where were the steaks? Sad-eyed, Nacho decided to give them an extra ration of biscuits. He was especially good with biscuits, for which he kept a large crock of sourdough fermenting in the back of his wagon. He had started this crock working back in Jacksborough: flour, water, some sugar, a little vinegar, some clean wood ash and some salt. When it was well fermented he threw away about two-thirds—“To keep the crock happy”—and refilled it with flour and water.

Sourdough wouldn’t breed unless the temperature was just right, so on very cold nights Nacho took the crock to bed with him; on unusually hot days he kept it in the wagon wrapped in a wet cloth.

To make his biscuits he took from the crock a good helping of sourdough, mixed it with flour, water and salt, and pinched off nubbins, which he placed around the bottom of a Dutch oven, maybe forty biscuits to one baking.

Nacho’s biscuits were the best the men had ever eaten, and he told them his secret: “More coals on top than on the bottom.” He achieved this by placing his oven in dying embers and heaping upon the lid the liveliest coals he could find. In this way the biscuits came out brown and crisp on top, well done on the bottom and just about perfect inside. It was not unusual for him to bake eighty for a meal, so that each rider could have six or seven, but this night he outdid himself.

Knowing that the treat he had for them would be appreciated, he baked up three ovenfuls of biscuits, many more than a hundred, and told the men, “For that young bull Mr. Poteet traded, look what we got!” And he opened four jars of the finest sagebrush honey, dark and aromatic and tasty.

The men ate ravenously, and Canby said, “For a lousy Mexican, you are one great cook.” The chili and the chicken stew were forgiven. Men broke open the crusty biscuits, drenched the feather-light insides with honey and ate them like Christmas candy.

Two days later, as they were crossing the Pecos prior to the march into Colorado, Poteet allowed his herd to get separated. The first half was safely across the river and had started toward the low mountains that lay ahead, but the trailing half was having trouble negotiating the steep bank into the stream.

At this vulnerable moment Bufe Coker, well to the east chasing strays, looked across the Pecos and saw some twenty Comanche sweep out from behind a mesa, where they had been hiding, and launch an attack on the forward half of the herd.

For just a moment Coker sat transfixed, staring at the superb horsemen, checking to see how many had guns, how many lances, and he was stunned by the magnificence of these half-naked warriors. Quickly he recovered his senses and fired a warning shot from his LeMat, but the Indians ignored him, concentrating their attention on the forward half of the column.

Now Coker spurred his horse, galloping back to the rear of the herd, but what he saw there dismayed him. Jim Lloyd and Ragland had been helping at drag, and when they saw a skirmish developing on the north side of the Pecos, they drove their horses into the river, with Ragland yelling, “Here we come!”

Mr. Poteet, anticipating such foolhardy response, left the fight for a moment and bellowed, “Get back there and protect the rear!” They turned in midstream to find Coker cursing at them from the shore. “Our fight will be here,” he yelled. And as they scrambled back to dry land he shouted, “Bring the cattle in close. If they stampede, we’re finished.”

On the north bank a savage struggle ensued, with Poteet in charge and Canby firing like a machine as the Indians surged past in one attack after another. Mr. Skimmerhorn and Nate Person stayed up at point, drawing much of the Indian fire and alternately riding back to keep the startled herd from milling. “Sweet Jesus!” Nate yelled. “I sure wish we had Stonewall now.”

Coker, watching the fight, shouted to Lloyd, “That nigger can handle hisself,” but Jim was watching Mr. Skimmerhorn, noting the cool yet desperate way in which the northerner held off the Indians when they bore down upon him. “Everything he’s got is at stake,” Jim muttered as he watched Skimmerhorn reloading.

It would be a long time before Jim could forget what happened next. Seven Indians detached themselves and rode furiously right at the central core of white men, trying apparently to chop down Mr. Poteet, whom they spotted as the leader. He stood coolly firing his revolver as they approached, then took up his rifle, firing point-blank at the Indians and diverting their attack.

In a violent turn to the north, the Indians bore down on Canby, who kept firing with both hands. One Comanche with a vicious chop of his hatchet caught Canby on the right shoulder, tearing away cloth and skin down to the elbow. For one desolate moment Canby stood erect with a revolver in his right hand; then cloth and flesh and blood enveloped the hand and the revolver vanished. The Texan stared at his nearly severed arm and calmly said something to Savage, who was fighting beside him.

A band of Comanche now forded the river and spurred their horses to attack the rear guard. “Don’t fire too soon,” Coker shouted, and the three guardians waited until the Indians were well upon them. Then Coker and Ragland started firing furiously, and Jim heard the Confederate yelling, “Fire, Lloyd, fire!” And in a kind of daze the boy began using the pistol Canby had given him, thinking all the while of Canby’s arm. Twice more the Comanche bore down on Jim and might have killed him except that before the third charge, Bufe Coker rushed over, firing rapidly and killing two Indians. The rest fled.

The herd had been held together. No horses, no cattle had been lost. One Indian was dead on the north bank, three on the south, and suddenly Jim Lloyd realized that he had been at the center of the fight.

“Old Jim just stood there and fired like he was a veteran,” the cowboys said admiringly, and Jim said to Nate Person, “Boy, was I glad to see you comin’ back across that river,” and he pretended not to hear when Gompert told Mr. Skimmerhorn, “Did you see Old Jim blazin’ away at that Comanche chief? Hell, he couldn’ta been three feet away from you, Jim, when you killed him.”

The words blazed through. “I killed him?” Jim asked.

“I sure as hell didn’t,” Coker said. “I was busy with them braves.”

The young cowboys were turning the corpse over with their boots and Jim could see once more the chief’s face during that last charge: terrifying, very close. “I think Nate Person shot him,” Jim said. But he knew that he himself had fired the shot—had killed a man.

Canby’s arm was in pitiful shape. Nate Person thought it ought to be amputated right then, but Canby bellowed, “Christ, not my shootin’ arm.” Next day it began to fester, and even Jim could see that there wasn’t much chance to save it. They put Canby in the wagon and Jim rode with him for most of that day, fetching him water and lighting his cigarettes, and he told the southerner, “You better let ’em cut it off, Canby. It’s festerin’ bad,” but Canby said, “I might as well die as lose my gun arm.”

The column was now eleven miles to the east of Las Vegas, that wild, inviting frontier town, and the men begged Poteet to lay over and allow them a spree, but he said, “No. No leave in Las Vegas.” When the men asked why, he said, “We can’t leave the herd unprotected, and we’ve got to push on to the doctor at Fort Union.” He nodded toward the wagon, where Canby lay in delirium, and the men complained no more.

There was a saying on the trails: “If a man gets sick or wounded, only two things he can decently do. Get well or die quick.” It looked as if Canby would do the latter, for since he refused to have his arm cut off, it was poisoning his entire body. Two days later Mr. Poteet made up his mind. He told Nacho, “Lash your cooking gear to the backs of horses. I’m taking the wagon into Fort Union with Canby.” There an army doctor would know what to do, and Poteet and Skimmerhorn rode off, leaving command of the outfit to Nate Person.

On the second afternoon Poteet and Skimmerhorn returned to camp with the wagon, but without Canby. “The doctor took one look at the arm and said, ‘Off it comes.’ ” Poteet explained. “Canby fought like hell, and it took three men to lash him down before they could get the chloroform to him.” No one spoke, and he added, “We paid him off and he’ll go back to Texas.”

“His horse is here,” Buck said.

“We bought his horse,” Poteet said. Mr. Skimmerhorn paid him well,” and no more was said by anyone.

It was about five-thirty in the afternoon. Never before on the trip had they camped at such a beautiful spot, with low mountains to the north, dark-blue piñon trees everywhere, and to the west the high snow-covered peaks of New Mexico. It was a valley of protection and peace, and while Nacho Gómez began putting his gear back in the wagon Mr. Poteet turned to Nate and asked, “Are you well rested?” The black man said he was, and Poteet said, “Men, we’ve had a hard trip and Canby’s misfortune weighs upon us all. With Mr. Skimmerhorn’s permission I have brought you a change of diet.” And he uncovered six bottles of whiskey.

As the men cheered, Poteet added, “Mr. Skimmerhorn has agreed to guard the remuda. Mr. Person and I will watch the herd.” Forgetting even Nacho’s good cooking, the cowboys opened the whiskey bottles and sat about the fire till midnight, drinking and telling more and more outrageous stories with less and less clarity until one by one they fell asleep.

Through the night Mr. Poteet and Nate Person rode guard, and as they passed each other in the darkness the black man said invariably, “Evenin’, Mr. Poteet,” and Poteet said softly, “Evenin’, Nate,” and they rode in this manner till two o’clock, when Poteet said, “My horse is weary, Nate. I’ll ride in and fetch a replacement,” and when he returned, Nate asked, “Are they givin’ that boy whiskey?” and Poteet said, “Three things a man’s got to learn to handle—a gun, a glass of whiskey and a girl. He don’t learn by readin’.” And they rode through that starry night, thinking of poor Canby with his arm gone, and of dead Comanche and of their good luck so far. And whenever they passed, Nate said, “Evenin’, Mr. Poteet,” and he replied, “Evenin’, Nate.”

At dawn the hands awakened from their stupors, as sorry a lot as ever proposed to herd cattle, and Mr. Poteet said, “We’ll move north,” and Nate said, “Mr. Poteet, I like good whiskey just like anybody else,” and Old Rags said, “Well, there ain’t none left,” and Mr. Poteet glared at the gangling young man and said, “Nate, I am sorry,” and went to Mr. Skimmerhorn’s sleeping bag and produced a half-full bottle, handing it to the black man.

Nate guzzled a huge drink, blinked his eyes and told Jim Lloyd, “That is good.” He took three more real belts, then became glassy-eyed and looked around for a place to lie down. Mr. Poteet guided him to the wagon, helped him in and took away the bottle, and all that morning Nate rode inside, his mouth agape like a stranded sunfish.

Six days later the herd reached Raton Pass, that high and difficult route from New Mexico to Colorado, and there, blocking their way, stood Uncle Dick Wootton, one of the wildest pioneers of the west. He had done everything, traveled everywhere. His name appeared in the lists of the earliest trappers attending the rendezvous in western Wyoming, and now in his later years he had come upon what he called “a good thing.”

By chicanery so devious that no one had yet deciphered it, he had cajoled the territorial governments of New Mexico and Colorado into allowing him to build, with Indian and Mexican labor, a rude passageway through the mountains, following Raton Pass and making of it a toll road, which he guarded with a gang of toughs carrying Winchesters.

“Ten cents a head,” he told Nate Person, who was scouting ahead.

“Were bringin’ a lot of head,” Person explained.

“Then you’ll pay a lot of ten centses,” the old reprobate replied.

Nate rode back to tell Mr. Poteet, whose thin lips tightened, making his jaw muscles stand out. He said quietly, “Mr. Person, I’ll borrow your extra gun, if I may.” And off he rode.

His meeting with the old robber was conducted with high formality, as if heads of state were discussing tariffs. Poteet said, “You know, Uncle Dick, ten cents a head is too much.”

“It’s my road,” the old man said, “and that’s my charge.”

“But I’m bringin’ through two thousand, nine hundred and fifty head.”

“We’ll do the countin’. You do the payin’.”

“For that number it oughtn’t be over six cents a head.”

“For any number it’s ten cents.”

“Uncle Dick, you’re being downright unreasonable.”

“I’m bein’ downright practical,” the old trapper said. “I built the road. You’ll pay for usin’ it.”

“You miserable son-of-a-bitch!” Poteet cursed. Then, reviling him Texas-style, he threatened to put him out of business.

“You can’t talk to Wootton like that,” one of his henchmen said.

Drawing his guns, Poteet said, “One of you makes a move—just one—and I’ll blow this miserable old bastard to hell.”

The men backed off, and Poteet kept his guns on Wootton and said, “I’m goin’ back down that pass and find me another way through these mountains.” He cursed the pirate for a full minute, thrust his guns back in their holsters and rode back down the pass.