1
Long John Coons stood an inch over six feet, without his hat and Texas boots. His Colt six-shooter was thonged low on his right hip, and his Bowie hung down his back beneath his shirt, Indian fashion, from a rawhide thong around his neck. While Long John’s mama was a Louisiana conjuring woman, his daddy had been a hell-for-leather Texan who had died at San Jacinto. Long John had his daddy’s pale blue eyes and his swiftness with Colt and Bowie.
In 1850 Gil and Van Austin, owners of land grants from the Bandera Mountains east to the Rio Colorado, had taken a herd of Texas longhorns to hungry miners in the California goldfields. Long John had been part of that historic drive. The Austins had been generous to their riders, paying them in cows because there had been little money in Texas in the years after the war with Mexico. More than a hundred of the cows sold in California had belonged to Long John. Near Fort Yuma, Arizona Territory, a band of Mexican outlaws had murdered Bo, Long John’s friend, and the vengeful Cajun had gunned down the gang to the last man. There had been a substantial reward, and that, combined with the sale of his cows, had allowed Long John to return to Texas with more than $12,000.*
Long John had bought several grants along the Colorado, some seed cattle from the Austins, and a few blooded horses from Clay Duval’s Winged M. Duval and his friends, Gil and Van Austin, had brought the famed Mendoza horses—along with five thousand Spanish longhorns—from Mexico in 1844.**
Suzanne, Long John’s Cajun woman, was twenty-five, half a dozen years younger than Long John. The two had met in California, and Long John had known nothing about the girl, but she seemed interested in him, and wished to return to New Orleans. But when they reached Texas, Suzanne had remained with Long John, and only when they’d had an occasional fight did the girl threaten to return to New Orleans. By the time Long John learned of her unsavory past, she’d become so much a part of his life that he found himself unable to part with her. Suzanne was a foot shorter than Long John, her eyes as black as her hair. Her temper equaled Long John’s, and there were times when she swore at him, and he at her. But on this day—the last day of March 1858—they rode in peace, bound for the Austin grants, near Bandera.
“You expect a lot of your friends,” Suzanne said, “asking them for riders to look after our place while we take a trail drive to Missouri. We may be gone for months.”
“Wal, hell,” said Long John, “it was them that made the offer. They come back from Californy with twenty times as much gold as I did, an’ they ain’t hurtin’ fer money. Fact is, they tried to lend me money till all this hell-raisin’ in Kansas an’ Missouri is done. But I ain’t the kind to run from a fight, an’ I ain’t in the wrong. So Gil an’ Van says if’n I’m hell-bent on fightin’ my way to Missouri, they’ll send me four er five riders to look after our spread whilst we’re gone. I aim to take ’em up on that, long as they’ll let me pay them riders fer the time they’re workin’ fer us.”
“After we’ve sold the herd and ridden back to Texas,” said Suzanne, “and that’s assuming we make it back alive, of course.”
“Yeah,” Long John said, ignoring her sarcasm. “They know we won’t have the money till we sells the herd. Clay Duval’s offered us extry horses fer the remuda, if’n we need ’em, an’ we do.”
“If something happens to the herd,” said Suzanne, “we’ll have to sell the spread to pay what we owe.”
“Wal, hell’s fire, woman, if’n we don’t at least try to git a herd north to market, we’ll be losin’ the damn place anyhow. By God, I’d ruther go down fightin’ than git shot to ribbons doin’ nothin’. I ain’t worryin’, ’cause I reckon ye’ll be doin’ enough fer the both o’ us. Anything else on yer mind?”
“Yes,” Suzanne said. “Those Indians, Malo Coyote and Naked Horse. All they have favoring them is that they rode in with Winters and Dupree.”
“Hell’s bells,” said Long John, “they’re Cherokees from the nation, an’ they ain’t after scalps. They’re good protection agin them damn Comanches, an’ they’re the best horse wranglers I ever seen. Why, a horse’ll foller them Injuns anywhere.”
“Yes,” Suzanne said. “Right out of Texas and into Indian Territory. Don’t you think these blooded horses Clay Duval’s promised will be just a little too much temptation for this shifty-eyed pair of Cherokees?”
“Wal, dammit,” growled Long John, “we got to trust somebody. With all the hell-raisin’ goin’ on betwixt here an’ Missouri, they ain’t that many riders hankerin’ to go on this drive. On other drives, they’s been riders shot, cows shot, an’ herds stampeded to hell an’ gone.”
“Any you think this bunch of riders we have can break through where others have failed?”
“At least they ain’t scairt to try,” Long John said. “Gil an’ Van reckons they’ll be a shootin’ war a-goin’ on in a year er two, and they ain’t no tellin’ how long it’ll last. We got to trail a herd north an’ git some gold whilst we can. Right now, it’s jist pro-slave an’ abolitionist hell-raisers, an’ a few ranchers scairt o’ tick fever. Nex’ year we may have the whole damn Union army atwixt us an’ that railroad in Missouri.”
Long John and Suzanne would be away at least three days, and young Stoney Winters had been left in charge. The outfit would begin rounding up the cows needed for the trail drive. Stoney was barely twenty-one, a year older than his saddle pard, Llano Dupree. The two riders, with Long John’s outfit less than a month, hunkered under an oak, awaiting supper. Facing them, sitting cross-legged, was Naked Horse and Malo Coyote.
“Jugar,” suggested Naked Horse, deftly shuffling a deck of cards.
“Like hell,” said Llano. “No way am I gamblin’ with you pelados. You damn Injuns has got more’n one way of scalpin’ a man.”
Stoney Winters laughed, and the pair of Cherokees grinned. They were a disreputable duo with whom Llano and Stoney had an uncertain alliance. The Texans had been riding from Omaha back to Texas, and just after crossing the Red, had sighted a Comanche camp. Sneaking close, they discovered that the Comanches, two dozen strong, were torturing Malo Coyote and Naked Horse. The captives were bound to trees, with dry leaves and brush heaped about them. There was little doubt as to their fate, once the Comanches had grown tired of the torture. But darkness was near, and Llano and Stoney had managed to free the unfortunate Cherokees, a deed they soon had regretted. The Texans, along with Malo Coyote and Naked Horse, had been forced to ride for their lives, pursued by the furious Comanches.
“We be companeros,” said Malo Coyote.
“I ain’t sure we need or want companeros like you and Naked Horse,” said Stoney Winters. “You thievin’ varmints was caught stealin’ Comanche horses. That’s enough to get a man hung, and you two was guilty as sin. If we’d of knowed that at the time, we’d have backed off and let them Comanches roast the pair of you alive.”
“Damn right,” said Llano. “I reckon there’s gonna be hell enough on the Shawnee, without you varmints addin’ to it. I know Long John’s damn hard up for riders, and I just hope when he comes down on the pair of you, he forgets you rode in with us.”
Suddenly there was a shot from the bunkhouse, the breaking of glass and the clatter of overturned chairs. Stoney lit out on the run, Llano at his heels. Malo Coyote and Naked Horse remained where they were. Llano held back, allowing Stoney to enter the bunkhouse first. Five chairs and the rickety table had been overturned, and glass from the shattered lamp littered the floor. Against one wall stood the three new riders Long John had hired. With them—seeming to have become a companion—was Deuce Gitano. Against the other wall, his right-hand Colt cocked and ready, stood the surly young man known only as the Kid.
“Long John left me in charge here,” Stoney said. “Kid, put away the gun.”
“This ain’t none of your affair, boy segundo,” said the contemptuous kid. “These thievin’ bastards teamed up to cheat me. That first shot was to get their attention. I don’t miss. Now, you buyin’ in or backin’ out?”
Stoney Winters seemed to stumble to the left, pulling his Colt as he went down. The Kid’s slug tore into the door frame where Stoney had been standing, while Stoney’s lead slammed into the cylinder of the Kid’s Colt. The remaining three shells in the cylinder chain-fired as the Colt was torn from the Kid’s hand. Unbelieving, the young gunman stared first at his mangled Colt on the floor and then at Stoney Winters.
“I’ll kill you for that,” he snarled at Stoney.
“You have another Colt,” said Stoney, holstering his own. “When you’re ready, draw.”
“My time, my place,” said the Kid. “It’s a long trail to Missouri.”
“It is,” Stoney said coldly. “Pull a gun on me again, and you won’t be seein’ Missouri.”
The tension was broken when Sky Pilot banged open the door to the cook shack, announcing supper.
“Come an’ git i...
