Santa Fe Passage by Clay Fisher

Author:Clay Fisher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2019-01-18T17:03:47+00:00

10

New wagon scout Kirby Randolph found his big hands full that bright May morning following the Kiowa attack at Walnut Creek. First things were taken first.

Left over from the out-of-season blooming of the mountain man’s four-wheeled flowerbeds were half a dozen injured mules and three still-crawling savages. These were quickly singled out and shot, the mules first, as befitted their prior places in the hearts of the skinners. Next, the train’s minor wounded were cared for. With the exception of Uncle Thorpe, these amounted to nothing more serious than lance slashes and arrow scratches, abraded skulls and powder burns. But the former had taken a razor-headed war arrow squarely through the bone and cartilage of his right knee.

While Cal and Huff held the old man’s arms, Kirby cut the head of the arrow off behind the knee and pulled the shaft out from the front. Uncle Thorpe winced, got up, hobbled a few steps, and allowed he was as good as new. Kirby, watching the way he put his teeth in his lip when he said it, reckoned the oldster wasn’t well just yet.

With Thorpe on his feet, the rest of the train was brought across the creek, the guns reloaded on the pack mules, fires set and coffee boiled. After that, Tuss was planted shallow, without a reading, and the wagons stretched out and got to rolling.

Sam, heading the train, the late afternoon sun slashing into his squinted gaze, anxiously searched the prairie ahead. Kirby should be back. He’d been gone all of four hours. The wagons would have to be halted and corralled up before long. Dammit now, why did a body Sam’s age have a wetnose like Kirby to fret over? Suddenly the old man stopped frowning, started grinning. The south wind, coming up the trail from out of the low swale which hid its next mile, was packing the most elegant voice in Sam’s world.

Kirby, cantering up out of the swale a moment later, broke his song to shout at the scowling graybeard, “Hey! Stretch them out, old hoss. We got clear rollin’ two mile ahead to the purtiest campin’ ye ever see’d!”

Waving the teamsters to pick up their pace, the young scout pulled in alongside Sam, spending the next jogging hour in telling about the growing beauty of the country beyond. When he had run down, Sam thought a minute, then asked, “Ye didn’t see nothin’ of the Kioway? It seems damn peculiar they ain’t tailin’ us.”

“I ain’t said they ain’t,” replied Kirby. “I allow they are. I jest ain’t see’d no sign of it, thet’s all.”

Sam scowled. “Anything else strike yer rovin’ eye? I mean exceptin’ how all-fired purty the country is?”

“Wal, yeah. Country’s powder-dry up ahead. Ye kin raise dust enough to choke a short dog by spittin’ in the trail.”

“Wal?”

“Wal, thar’s plenty buffler, too. I seen loads of sign and two, three big herds, fur off. They was all driftin’ south, not grazin’ much and not beddin’ none. Hard to tell from the distance, but appeared to me they was bein’ drove.

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