Tracks to Yonder

The Drop Edge of Yonder

by

David Quirk

Smashwords Edition

Copyright (c) 2013 David Quirk

Cover Design by MotherSpider.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 1

The old Indian sat on his haunches, cross-legged, slap in the middle of the Smoky Hill Trail. He sat between deep ruts that a generation earlier had guided wagon trains over a cut-off to the Santa Fe Trail. He chanted his Death Song over and over. His life was down to its last hours, and what was left of it spilled from his quivering chest in a flood of incoherent words that only the Spirit World could divine. He could see the end of his life, but nothing beyond.

A thin ribbon of eggshell blue hung just above the eastern horizon, fired into color by the first burst of dawn. Everywhere else the sky was darkened by storm clouds and the lingering black of night. Some twenty yards north, running parallel to the Smoky Hill Trail, stretched a low, angled gradient that supported the tracks of the Union-Pacific Railroad. The tracks were the only conspicuous intrusion across the land. In every other direction sprawled a forever of bare, treeless swells, verdant and undulating, pockmarked by coulees and limestone ridges, purpled here and there with wild phlox. Land had never seemed so remote and unencumbered of a human presence, as if it were part of an eternity of time and space and solitude.

The wind was a figured bass that overwhelmed the old man’s weakened voice. It whipped his silvery pompadour into a wild frenzy and snapped at the tattered remnants of his breechcloth. Yet he was oblivious to the wind and the gathering clouds colliding above the Kansas prairie, and unaware of the buzzards hovering expectantly beneath those clouds. He just sat there on the trail, indifferent to all around him, chanting and staring west with eyes that could no longer see.

The Indian would not die alone this day. Rising above a low eminence some fifty yards behind him appeared a team of six oxen pulling a battered Butterfield Overland Dispatch freighter. Moments later an old cavalry ambulance, drawn by four sturdy mules, reached the top of the hill and rolled to a halt. Before the dust settled around the wagons an escort detachment of twelve men out of Fort Hays trotted into view. They drew up a respectable distance behind the freighter and ambulance. This escort was part of the 10th Cavalry, better known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Eleven of the men were Negroes, all buck privates, and they were led by a white sergeant.

Two men stirred in the freighter. Ignacio Cervantes, a slender vaquero clad in a dusty maroon charo suit, gathered the reins, set the brake and slipped off the seat. He tilted the brim of his dirty straw sombrero and wearily wiped his brow with the back of one hand. He nodded at the dying Indian.

You come with me, eh? he asked in halting English of the stout man seated beside him.

Asa Rollins merely nodded and clambered off the freighter without a word. His low-crowned, wide-brimmed hat marked him as a Texan, his wary manner that of a seasoned Plainsman. He wore a dirty woolen serape that hung down to his knee-high boots. He paused a moment to get his bearings. He cast a disdainful glance back at the escort, shrugged, and looked about. To the south his eye caught and lingered on a lone rider under a cutbank some two hundred yards off. The man and horse were barely visible. But Rollins saw the intruders, and his intense gaze narrowed under furrowed brows. Instinctively, he touched his right hand to the Colt revolver strapped at his waist.

Cervantes looked hard. He shook his head. The Injun, he asked, he not alone, eh?

Rollins paused a moment. He turned from the rider to the Indian uptrack. Alone as he’ll ever be, this’n, he said of the Indian, his soft drawl low and slow. He turned and pointed at the rider. That one yonder is Ballard. I can tell by the hoss he sets, a black and white paint. Ain’t no one but Ballard on that hoss.

Ah, said Cervantes, visibly relieved, the scout from Sublette Station. Today we keep our hair, eh? The vaquero laughed uneasily.

Rollins spat. I wasn’t counting on an escort, or Ballard hereabouts. I don’t care shucks for crowds. They’ll scare off our red brothers. I concludes Grey Wolf won’t be trading today. He winked at Cervantes. Rollins’ left eye was lighter than its mate, and it drooped in one corner for a chilling effect. Yep, reckon we’ll keep our hair, but we’ll break that Injun’s black heart. Business is business, and we’re paid to trade.

Cervantes wiped the smile off his swarthy face. He turned to the freighter and lifted one corner of the canvas tarp covering the bed. Under it neatly stacked demijohns of trade whiskey were cushioned between bolts of colored cloth, gunnysacks of trinkets tightened by drawstrings and, incongruously, a layer of Bibles. Beneath this plunder lay ten crates filled with seven-shot Spencer repeaters. The vaquero reached between the layers and rapped the top of one crate. He smiled and pulled the tarp back into place. His expression was enigmatic.

The vaquero shrugged. He looked north toward the tracks. We wait, gringo. We let the wagon and soldiers pass, sí? Grey Wolf find us. We wait for Injuns and trade the whiskey and the guns. He laughed, Ah, and the cloth and Bibles! Grey Wolf bring us pretty robes, hides and the horses.

Rollins shook his head. He nodded back at the wagon and escort. His dark visage was half hidden by the brim of his black hat. When he lifted his face, always slowly and canted to one side, he revealed a scar under his left eye. Soldiers they ain’t about to leave us. Strength in numbers, the sarge he tolt me. The whole Kansas prairie and we run into an ambulance with an escort. Coulee country, right where that Injun said he’d be a-waiting for us. Mark my words, Grey Wolf won’t take kindly to soldiers watching him trade ponies for guns and Major Lawrence out of Sublette won’t take kindly to knowing it was us doing the dirty work.

Ah, mebbe, replied Cervantes, always another day to trade, eh?

The vaquero turned toward the cutbank. The rider was gone.

The scout called Ballard, he vamose.

Seems, said the Texan. He spat idly.

The teamsters stepped stolidly past the freighter and approached the ambulance. The four mules stood in stark relief against the cauldren of darkening, leaden clouds and the thinning sliver of blue above the eastern horizon. A lithe barefoot girl sat on the high wheeler mule. She held lightly to the mule’s harness with both hands. She wore a lace fringed linsey-woolsey dress that covered most of her long-limbed body. Dust and dirt covered everything else. A full head of hair, an astonishing red, fell in long curls below her shoulders. Her emerald eyes were striking and intense, wide apart and alert, and set in deep brows above a square jaw tight with determination.

Behind this girl, on the ambulance, sat a forlorn little figure in a frayed gray suit of homespun. The man wore a battered stovepipe hat. He held the reins with both hands and his left foot was set against the brake. Though short and bandy-legged with a turkey neck, the man’s face was strong yet spare. As he acknowledged the teamsters with a curt nod, the sergeant of the escort led his horse up to the front wheels of the ambulance.

The man wrapped the reins around the brake. He beckoned the sergeant with a movement of his eyes, looked at the teamsters and then put a finger to his lips. Hush, he whispered with a nod behind him. My daughter is attending to, ah, a woman’s matter. She will join us in a moment. He turned to the road and squinted at the man sitting in the middle of it. Who might he be? he asked in a clipped brogue.

Injun, Señor Parnell, said Cervantes, his voice barely audible against the hum of the wind. Beside him Asa Rollins drew his revolver and checked the loads. Old Injun, the vaquero continued. He about to die, eh?

The man called Parnell looked a question at the sergeant, a weathered non-com with a bushy mustache and a husky body. The sergeant answered with a resigned shrug.

How might you know? Parnell persisted. His deeply lined face was only partially hidden by a grizzled salt and pepper beard.

Cervantes crossed his arms and exchanged a telling glance with Rollins. Ah, Señor, the Injun brave die young in battle. This one, he is old and dishonored, of no use to his people. He cast his eyes upward where buzzards circled. Better he die now before the big birds they pick him to pieces, sí?

Parnell stiffened. No, he said firmly, and rose from his seat. Let me look at the man. I am a doctor.

Rollins twirled his revolver in one hand. This hombre’s past doctorin’, he said, his voice rising in irritation. He shook his head with conviction. No honor for an Injun brave who dies old. It ain’t their way.

What kind of Indian might he be, son? asked Parnell, undeterred.

Rollins rubbed the stubble on his chin. These parts, like as not Cheyenne. Mebbe Arapaho. He turned and squinted across the prairie. Dust devils swirled around the Indian, lifted into the air, and dispersed with gusts of the wind. Not much to go by with this one. For sure, he ain’t Comanch, thank God. It suits me fine, Parnell, if his skin is red. Soon enough, I’ll turn him into another good Injun.

Begging your pardon, son?

The sergeant drew his horse close to the wagon. He leaned off it and set a thick, burly hand on the ambulance seat. Square and stout, he had a rugged face set off by eyes permanently narrowed from years under the withering prairie sun. He looked Parnell in the eyes and slowly shook his head.

The teamsters chose not to respond. They left the ambulance and trudged past the girl on the mule, past their freighter and the team of oxen that pulled it, and up the road in the stiff-legged gaits of men uncomfortable off their horses. At length they reached the Indian.

Cervantes stepped aside, removed his sombrero and reverently crossed himself.

The Texan slipped behind the Indian, stooped low, stuck the barrel behind the old man’s head and squeezed the trigger.

* * *

The gunshot exploded with an awful finality. The old Indian jerked spasmodically and keeled over, head first, between the wagon ruts. His head struck the ground with an audible thud. A pool of dark blood began to spread like a red halo over the smooth hard pack beneath the man’s head. Bits of bone and brain pockmarked the ground, a grayish confetti that moments before had been a human mind,

The wind, out of the west, continued to pick up and blow through the great swells of primeval prairie grass. The grass rolled like great waves. Above them dust curled and eddied. The wind ruffled the dead man’s hair and his clout, as indifferent to death as it is to life.

Parnell leaped off the ambulance and scrambled up the road to Cervantes and Rollins. Upon reaching them, his shoulders sagged. He sighed, then knelt over the body and gently moved a handful of blood-stained hair off the entry hole.

Ah, the terrible times we live in, he muttered.

"Papa!"

Parnell and the teamsters spun around to look back at the ambulance. The men of the escort gathered around it and respectfully doffed their hats to the young woman peeking through the canvas canopy.

Papa, what’s happened up there?

She crawled out of the ambulance bed and into the seat. She canted her head from side to side and tried to see the heap that lay on the ground behind the men.

What on earth are you doing? she persisted.

The girl on the mule turned around. She set one hand on the mule’s rump and with the other hand gestured toward the men. She nodded.

They shot him, Mama, the girl said, simply, and slipped off the mule.

Parnell looked a question at Cervantes and Rollins. The Mexican shrugged. The Texan merely twirled his revolver and deftly slipped it back into his holster. He adjusted the gun belt around the serape and set his hands on his hips.

Parnell faced the girl and the woman. He dropped his arms to his waist, palms facing forward in a gesture of helplessness.

The mules hitched before the ambulance brayed nervously and stamped the ground. Their harnesses squeaked. The girl stepped to the front of the wagon. From inside it she could hear the racket of squawking chickens and, strangely, the trill of a bird. Around the ambulance the Buffalo Soldiers struggled to control skittish mounts excited by the gunshot, the rising wind and the darkening sky.

Wait there, girl dear, shouted Parnell. Just you wait there, Kate.

A hand tugged at Kate Parnell’s skirt. She turned in the seat and smiled down upon her daughter. They shared angular faces and inquisitive eyes that spoke more than words. But the mother’s eyes were hazel and her dark hair a deep, rich auburn. Her pale skin was clear. The barefoot girl looking up at her had a face mottled with freckles.

Kate Parnell put a finger to her mouth as she rose off the seat. Hush! I’ll be with you in a moment, Mara. Stay put, will you now, while I see what your Grand Papa is up to. Her voice carried a faint Irish lilt.

Kate lifted her skirt and sprang off the wagon. She walked boldly toward her father. Her steps were rapid and direct. She held a pale blue poke bonnet in one hand and resolution on her square shoulders. Her thick and buoyant hair, sorely in need of a brush, fluttered like a spinnaker in the snapping wind. The men of the escort could not take their eyes off her. The woman’s stride was pleasing, like the gait of a well-bred mare.

She wore a shapeless gingham skirt that underscored, rather than muted, her slender frame. A man’s checked shirt, several sizes too large, hung limply from her square shoulders. She tossed her head back and tied the simple bonnet over it in a gesture that brought attention to her face rather than covered it.

Upon reaching Parnell, the teamsters averted their eyes as she studied the crumpled body.

Might there be more? she asked in a matter of fact tone, looking about.

Surprised, Cervantes scratched the stubble on his chin. He looked in every direction. He tried to see what could not be seen over the endless reach of the prairie. And he tried to hear what could not be heard above a wind that now hummed a malignant moan.

Mebbe, Señora.

Cervantes faced Kate Parnell. He saw a slender woman, straight and hard-boned. Her pale face was spare and severe, a study of hard planes and sharp angles. Yet her piercing eyes, set deep under prominent brows, were lit by warmth and tenderness. The eyes lent a sweet gamin’s demeanor to an otherwise cold face. They revealed a shrewd intelligence and a daring spirit. Instinctively, the vaquero removed his sombrero with the reverent grace of the Mexican. He bowed slightly, chivalrously.

Mebbe, he repeated. Up here Cheyenne. Past Sublette be the Arapaho. And down there, he added, ominously, a finger pointed south, the Comanch.

If we’re lucky, Miss, said Rollins, we won’t see any.

And how might you know? Kate’s words were direct and skeptical. This man did not drop out of heaven.

Cervantes smiled uneasily. He pointed a gnarled finger skyward. Tiers of fat gray clouds with dark bellies moved inexorably from the west across a sky that had darkened into an immense cauldron. Rain angled sharply in the near distance. The early morning air turned cooler and held palpable traces of moisture. Intermittent flashes of lightning defined a naked ridgeline against the gathering gloom. Each flash was followed by distant thunder that rumbled a little closer and a bit louder with each violent clap.

Down track a soft puff of white smoke surfaced above the wind-blasted prairie. It separated into sequenced bursts, steady and methodically spaced, and presently a distant racket drew closer to herald the approach of a train.

The Parnells, the teamsters and the cavalry escort paused to watch the mechanical leviathan grow into a percussive iron monster of pulsating pistons and churning wheels.

As the train roared past its engineer leaned out of the locomotive cab. He waved one gloved hand broadly in greeting, and pulled the whistle’s lanyard with the other. In rapid succession the engine pulled past followed by a tender, five flatcars and a Pullman. The flatcars were burdened with stacks of ties, rails and the attendant track gear.

The deafening screech startled the oxen, mules and horses. The Buffalo Soldiers waved their hats and cheered. The rush and clatter of the eight cars over the iron rails annihilated all of ten seconds. Then the train rumbled past the wagons and surged into the jaws of the advancing storm.

Kate’s heart pounded as she witnessed this sudden burst of speed made visible. It stunned her in its abrupt appearance from out of nowhere and its advance into the middle of another nowhere. Faces in the engine cab and the Pullman passed her in blurred images. The thunderous noise took her breath away. As rapidly as the train burst upon them, it vanished just as quickly and left her feeling like a derelict still lost in the middle of a vernal prairie.

Mother of God, gasped Kate, turning back to Cervantes.

Do not you worry, eh? Cervantes gestured with his hands moving in reassuring arcs before his chest. Rain coming soon, mean weather, as you gringos say. He nodded west at gray sheets of rain slanting from the clouds down to the horizon. Already wet up the road, sí? Mebbe Sublette City wash away. He laughed. Rain bad medicine for Señor Injun. He sit in his teepee.

Is that so? Well now, do you want to wait here until he comes out? retorted Kate.

The teamsters exchanged wry, impressed smiles. Cervantes touched a hand to his forehead, mouth and heart. He bowed once more to the woman.

Oughtn’t this old sod be buried? asked Parnell. He rose from the body and stepped beside Kate. We can’t be leaving him here to feed the vultures.

Then best you be quick about it, Parnell, warned Rollins. Them darkies from Fort Hays can help. We’re a decent ride east of Sublette Station and the town. Ten miles, mebbe, more or less, and I hanker to put a roof over my head so’s I can dry out once this storm blows over.

* * *

The keening wind wailed a somber dirge to accompany the crude burial. Three of the Buffalo Soldiers, sweat-stained from digging a shallow grave, dusted their tunics and returned to their horses. Sergeant Paddy Arbuckle, in command of the escort, issued a mock salute to the Parnells, who stood side by side at the head of the grave. They watched Mara Parnell prop a bleached buffalo skull on a sheared remnant of a railroad tie to mark the site. She attached the skull to the tie with a rawhide strip and drove it deep into the sandy soil.

A decent enough headstone, Arbuckle said to Dr. Parnell, for a wretched savage.

We observe life’s departure in many ways, Mr. Arbuckle. This will do.

Time to go, Papa, said Kate, one arm around Mara’s shoulder. She took her father’s hand. She led them to the lee side of the Army ambulance, a relic from the Civil War, their eyes on the soiled fabric of the canvas canopy. It was well worn, stained a dirty yellow with beeswax, and ventilated with rents and holes. Facing them were faded red letters six inches high with the words DR. ANDREW PARNELL’S CELEBRATED CIRCUIT AMBULANCE AND APOTHECARY. From the back hoop swung a fragile cage on whose perch sat a canary. Its incessant trills poked shrill notes of optimism into a pessimistic wind.

Mara climbed over the back gate and plucked the cage off the canopy. A girl of ten, she stood a foot shorter than Kate, and seemingly as frail. She handed the cage to her mother and jumped to the ground. Young though she might be the girl was not faint-hearted. She scrambled around her elders and led them to the front wheels. She stepped aside as Parnell climbed aboard and untied the reins from the brake. She watched intently as he leaned off the seat and offered her mother a hand.

As Kate settled in next to Parnell, the cage in her lap, Arbuckle dismounted and lifted Mara onto a mule’s back as if she were a small bucket of water. Mara scowled at the sergeant, clutched the harness and stared straight ahead.

Arbuckle nodded curtly, with a playful wink at Mara, and remounted. He drew his horse ahead of the mule team to lead the escort, which idled around the wagon. The eleven men under his command sat on the sorriest collection of spavined, hipshot nags in Kansas.

Parnell brooded upon the sight before them. The empty reaches of Kansas had received them into its bosom. He saw a moonscape of rolling, treeless swells that folded into forever beneath the blackened curtain of a storm-tossed sky.

Jesus, Joseph and Mary! exclaimed the good doctor. Have we been exiled to hell, girl dear?

Kate answered with a light, but nervous, laugh as she gazed upon the land. No, Papa. The devil doesn’t want this kind of land down there. Unless I miss my guess, I’d say he exiled it to Kansas.

Parnell threw back his head and laughed. Aye, I was given to wonder. It’s a peculiar place to call our new home!

Arbuckle overheard. He laughed loudly. If I owned Kansas and hell, Doc, I’d rent Kansas and live in hell!

Parnell smiled briefly, but his brows creased with concern as he watched the soldiers check the loads on their revolvers. Arbuckle felt for the carbine in his saddle scabbard as he scanned the horizon on both sides of the Smoky Hill Trail. His eyes met Parnell’s.

It’s just a precaution, Doc. This is no street in New York.

Parnell nodded. To Mara on the mule he