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“I was just remembering a sad story I heard one time.” Mary paused in her mending. “A young wife had just come out from the East to join her husband, who had homesteaded a farm in Kansas. I imagine she’d been filled with horror tales about the Indians before coming. Anyway”—she shrugged and began stitching again—“she’d only been out here a couple of weeks. Her husband was out in the fields, and she was alone in their sod house. She heard someone ride up, evidently looked out the window and saw two Indians. She was probably certain that she was about to be kidnapped and raped, so she ran to the trunk and dug out her husband’s service pistol and killed herself.”
“And the Indians?” Lorna prompted.
“There’s the irony of it. They were friends of her husband. One had been educated in a school back East and had come to visit,” Mary said to explain her wry smile.
13
Day after day, the prairie undulated in front of the trail riders and wagons. The sun seared the grass to a shade of gold-brown while ten thousand hooves stirred up
choking clouds of dust. The only sounds that made themselves heard were the rattle and rumble of the wagons, the cracking of horses’ ankle joints, and the steady thud of walking hooves and the muffled clatter of horns banging into each other. It dulled the senses and the mind.
It was a season ripe to breed violent storms, boiling up suddenly and erupting in a fierce display of thunder, lightning, and rain. On those stormy nights—six different occasions during the drive through the Indian nation—it was every man in the saddle, trying to hold the herd. Twice the cattle stampeded, but they never ran in the right direction, which was north. In total, three days were lost rounding up strays, and the tally still came up short twenty-seven head, but no lives were lost.
Riding ahead, Benteen spotted a young buck antelope. He was far enough away from the herd that a shot wouldn’t spook the cattle. After a steady diet of “Pecos strawberries” and “overland trout”—the cowboy slang for bacon—fresh meat would be welcomed in camp. He dropped the antelope with one shot and gutted it on the spot, cutting off a hindquarter and leaving the rest.
Although they were surrounded by tons of beef on the hoof, cattle weren’t killed for meat. Too much of the carcass spoiled before it could be eaten, and the animal was too valuable at the marketplace and as breeding stock on the ranges. No cow or steer was butchered unless it was injured and unable to keep up with the herd.
With the antelope’s hindquarter tied behind the saddle, Benteen rode a little farther, until he reached the Cimarron River. The other side was the sovereign state of Kansas. His gaze picked out a buffalo skull on the opposite side of the river. It marked the cutoff trail leading to Dodge City. Every half-mile, there would be another skull, he knew from past experience. There weren’t any farms on the cutoff, no damages to pay for crops destroyed or fences downed, no fines for trespassing.
But the cutoff meant a dry drive, a murderous hundred miles over virtually waterless country. At their normal pace it would take roughly eight days to cover it. But in eight days, parched cattle could be dead or dying. That meant the pace would have to be doubled. They’d stop here, at the Cimarron, and rest for a couple days, then start the cattle out fresh.
Those two days seemed like heaven to Lorna. There was finally time and an abundance of water to wash clothes and lay them out in the prairie sun to dry, weighted down with rocks. She and Mary were even able to bathe in the river, one of them keeping watch for any errant cowboys while the other washed. The cowboys made use of the water facilities, too, and Benteen teased her for not skinny-dipping like he did, but she had been too modest to remove her chemise, even if Mary was the only one to see her.
Before they started out, everything that could hold water was filled. But there was only a remote possibility enough would be carried to make the hundred miles. It would have to be rationed. Benteen gave orders that no one but Rusty touch the water barrel strapped to the side of the chuck wagon.
Lorna thought her previous experiences on the trail had prepared her for anything, but she’d never gone thirsty before. The grueling pace that had to be set sapped her strength. By the second day, she’d been shown the trick of carrying pebbles in her mouth to stimulate the flow of saliva. The sun broiled down, bleaching the white skulls that marked the dry trail even whiter, until they seemed to glisten with ominous portent. There was no relief from the heat. Choking dust covered everything and sweat turned it to mud on Lorna’s skin and in her hair. That night the thirsty cattle started bawling, and she couldn’t sleep.
The heat on the third day was oppressive. Some of the cattle were going blind from the lack of water. Rebellion was growing in the ranks of the Longhorns, well broken now to the trail routine. The animals knew there was water in the Cimarron behind them and kept wanting to turn back, not trusting the riders herding them to take them to water up ahead. The drovers had their hands full, literally driving the cattle, beating at them with coiled ropes or buckskin poppers tied to rope ends.
When they stopped at noon on the fourth day, Lorna felt too weak to climb down from the wagon seat. The Arkansas River was still somewhere ahead of them. Her nerves couldn’t take much more of that piteous lowing from the parched herd. She half-fell to the ground and staggered, grabbing a wheel rim for support. Perspiration drenched her clothes, making the material stick to her body and turning the dust into rivulets of mud.
Rusty brought her a cupful of water, and she smiled a weak thank-you. Greedily she drank a mouthful and stopped, wanting to make it last. He eyed her closely.
“You’re lookin’ peaked. Better get some more salt.” His beard had grown into a full set of long white whiskers, grimy now with trail dust.
“I will.” Her dry throat rasped her voice.
It was surprising the difference one drink of water could make. Her legs were steadier as she crossed the cracked brown grass to the chuck wagon. The men would be breaking in shifts, two or three coming in at a time to eat while the rest stayed with the recalcitrant herd. The point men, Spanish and Jessie, were the first to come in. Neither waited for the coffee to boil, holding out a tin cup for Rusty to fill with the vile black liquid. Both were too tired to eat, waving aside Rusty’s offer of cold beans, to chew listlessly on some jerky.
As she licked at some salt, that bath at the Cimarron seemed a long-ago dream. Lorna wondered how any of them were finding the energy to take another step or go another mile. A bone-weary Jessie Trumbo was rubbing tobacco juice in his eyes, making them burn to stay awake. Why were they going through this hell? The answer was Benteen—and his determination to get the cattle through regardless of the cost.
Suddenly Lorna realized Mary hadn’t joined her. She glanced toward the Stanton wagon and saw the woman crouched in the scant shade provided by the rolled canvas roof. Something seemed to be wrong. Lorna forced her hot, tired body across the space to the Stanton wagon. It wasn’t until she was standing beside Mary that she discovered Mary was crying, dry racking sobs shaking her shoulders.
It seemed impossible. Mary was the strong one. She knew about hardship, deprivation, and the lack of creature comforts. Lorna hadn’t believed anything could reduce her friend to tears. She sank to her knees beside Mary, hesitantly touching her shoulder in concern.
“What is it, Mary?” she asked, but Mary only shook her head, unable to talk. Lorna was at a loss. She glanced at the cup of water she still carried. “Have a drink of water,” she urged. “You’ll feel better.”
She remembered how it had revived her. When Mary shook her head to refuse, Lorna forced the issue by pressing the cup to her lips. She tipped it, a few drops spilling onto Mary’s dress. Her heart twisted at the loss of even those precious drops.
“Drink,” Lorna insisted, not wanting any more wasted.
Mary managed a couple of sips, then turned her head away. The sobs had stopped, but she continued to draw in deep, shuddering breaths. Her lips were chapped and cracked from the lack of moisture, as were Lorna’s.
“Why are you crying, Mary?” She tried to coax the woman into talking. “Did you and Ely have an argument?”
“No.” Mary sniffed. “I … was just thinking.”
When no further word was forthcoming, Lorna prompted, “What were you thinking about?”
