Trail to Cottonwood Falls by Ralph Compton

Author:Ralph Compton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Chapter 17

The coach seats were leather-covered and filled with horsehair, and gave little padding for his butt or back as he slumped under his blanket and tried to sleep. A picture of Mrs. Schaffer remained in his thoughts, of when he gave her a final hug in the cold gray light of the alley. She had waved to him as she mounted the seat beside the lanky marshal for the trip home.

He’d be in San Antone in four days, if he survived. No word around Fort Smith of the Bradys’ whereabouts, though Wade had promised to send him any news he heard about them. Only able to doze until a pitch of the coach awoke him, he wondered what was happening in Texas. How many had signed on with a woman to take their cattle north?

He decided to stop over a night in Fort Worth when the stage reached there. Down in the livestock market district, where some local slaughter operations were carried out, horses, mules, and cattle were bunched for the trail north. Nearby, an element of tough thugs, gamblers and riffraff gathered in the saloons and brothels. There might be someone down there knew something about the Bradys. He watched the winter brown hills when the temperature warmed enough to put up the canvas covers and let some of the rank body odor out of the cramped coach. A stew of sweat, cigars, and bad whiskey mixed with infrequent farting made the air inside the coach resemble a raw outhouse and saloon combination. Then a drummer got sick and didn’t get his head out the window soon enough, and the sourness of puke only stacked on top of the rest. He’d damn sure be ready for Fort Worth.

He was grateful there were none of the opposite sex on board this trip. His slovenly companions were mostly salesmen with small sample suitcases, and plenty of pints of whiskey in their boot vamps—original bootleggers, ’cause any whiskey in the Indian Territory was illegal. They also pissed close to the coach when the stop was made in the absence of any females. This saved them from a trip to hell into the violent-smelling, foul places called “facilities out in back” by the better-spoken drivers and crappers by the rest.

Food was never good at such stopovers, and every fifteen miles or so they changed horses at one of these outposts. One look at the scruffily dressed, unbathed help, fly-specked tables, and grease-smeared plates turned most away, but for the iron-stomached ones. Ed kept to his diet of jerky from his pocket, only drinking some of the bad coffee, so he didn’t have to sip on the larva-infested water available. At least in the hot coffee they could no longer swim.

It rained the last day of the trip to Fort Worth. The muddy ruts were deep and made the coach swing hard on its leather hangers. The tossing around of the passengers added to their upset stomachs and the vomiting grew worse. So

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