Page 19 of Follow the Lonesome Trail

The Man with the Long-Barreled Gun

Emily Hayse

S he stared out at the last vestiges of the sunlight as it streamed between the slats in the southern corral.

The south corral was the last one to get the sun—it, and the high edges of the surrounding canyon.

There was already a hungry kind of cold setting in on the evening breeze, the kind that promised an early winter.

Something she could not afford.

“That’s the last of them, ma’am,” came a gravelly voice at her elbow.

At the foot of the porch stood Teller, her ranch foreman.

He pulled his hat off respectfully as she turned to him.

His gray hair was plastered to his head with sweat, even with the cold coming on.

The fact that he was here, before dark, told her there weren’t many to get.

“Thank you, Teller.” She smiled. The sinking disappointment in her stomach wasn’t going to show. Teller knew as well as she did what this meant, but she was not going to crack in front of him.

The herd was thinning by the day now, cattle just disappearing off their range.

It almost made her want to ask about fencing, that newfangled barbed wire that could be ordered in now by catalogue.

She put that notion out of her head. Frank had always been against it, saying it was a danger to cattle, that their instincts took care of them right and proper, that it was taking away the dignity of the land to range it in with twisted metal.

That, and there was no way she could afford it right now.

“We’ll find more, ma’am,” offered Teller. “There’s still the Fork Bend Valley. Cattle, they get caught up there by the last nice bits of grazing. Don’t want to leave.”

“Isn’t the Fork Bend near Bar S land?”

He didn’t answer.

She lifted her gaze away from the man and up to the golden sunlight painting the towering rim of the canyon above.

“Well,” he sighed, “I should make sure the horses are put up. Me and Hughes, we’ll start early tomorrow. Maybe even be gone a day or two, make sure we really check the range along the river.”

“Be careful.”

“Of course, ma’am.” He replaced his hat and pulled at the worn brim.

The wind picked up over the hills, sweeping across the corrals, licking up curls of dust into the still sunlight.

This place was so beautiful—and so desolate.

“Henry! Addie! Come in and help with supper, it’s getting dark!”

From behind the house came her two children—Addie dark-haired like her father, Henry light like her. Both covered in the dust they were playing in.

“Did they find the cattle?” Henry shaded his eyes.

“A few.”

His young face wore too much of the worn world. He looked out into the fading sun, solemn. “Don’t worry, Mama. They’ll find more.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him.

He leaned over his saddle horn and surveyed the land before him. A loose band of cattle grazed below them, in and around the mesquite. Patches of dark, flattened weeds showed they’d only gotten up recently—they’d bedded here.

“This ain't our land anymore,” he observed quietly, leaning over to spit into the dirt.

“What of it?” His partner looked at him, a scowl coming over his face.

“Just saying.”

“Well, keep it to yourself, Comanch.” The partner turned his horse away and spurred it down the hill.

He followed him down the hill. The cows were a mix of steers and nursing cows—about a third of them had stretched out bags with dried foam on them and large calves wandering between them. Every one he saw had a dollar with an L branded on their flanks. None of them were Bar S that he could see.

A crooked-horned cow lowered her head in challenge as he passed her; an empty threat. His pony didn’t suffer fools.

He headed on past, turned as he saw his partner was starting to circle the cows.

“These ain’t ours, either, Hank.”

“It don’t matter, some always get caught up in the roundups. It’s no big deal.” His partner waved him off.

“But we can leave these be. They’re all Lucky Dollar.”

Hank made like he hadn’t heard him.

“I’m going up beyond,” he continued, “Just to take a look. Then we should head back before we get shot at.”

“We ain’t getting shot at, didn’t you hear? Frank McKinley’s dead, his widow’s all by her lonesome.”

“Who’s Frank McKinley?”

“I forgot you weren’t here. Ran the Lucky Dollar. The Lucky Dollar, it ain’t lucky worth dirt now.”

“So the widow’s alone?” He squinted off towards the hills—he didn’t much feel like looking Hank in the eye just now.

"Yeah, I mean, she got maybe a man or two left, but they ain’t staying long neither.”

“Hm.”

He pushed his horse on, past Hank, past the grazing cows.

“Where you goin’?” Hank bawled after him.

“North.”

He rode past the low mesquite and up towards the hills above the river.

It was clear that the cows had come this way; the grazing was picked low and there were tracks everywhere.

Here and there the trail hinted that a few steers had peeled off from the rest of the bunch and gone their own directions—he’d chase those down by and by.

Half an hour down the trail, he spotted a couple riders coming his way. Cattlemen.

He chirped to his horse and went down to meet them. He wasn’t on Bar S land anymore, and with that came the responsibility to declare one’s intentions.

It was an older gentleman and a skinny fellow chewing an unlit cigarette, both riding Lucky Dollar horses.

“Howdy.” The older of the two touched the brim of his hat.

He gave them a nod.

“You out gathering cows?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re riding Bar S.”

“Mhm.”

“Seen any of our cows?”

“Sure. Downriver a ways.”

That didn’t seem to be the answer or tone they were looking for.

“Anyone riding with you?”

“Yeah, but he’s downriver a piece.”

This seemed to satisfy them. They pulled the brims of their hats and rode on down the direction he’d come.

He waited for them to go on a ways, watching them.

They hadn’t seemed worried he was on their land. Almost like they’d expected it. Something was off about the whole thing.

He glanced up at the sky. There was time, almost half a day to get over the hills before darkness fell.

Instead of turning towards Bar S land, he whistled to his horse and pressed on.

They were asleep. Little tousled heads tucked above the homespun, worries erased for a brief time.

In the stillness of the house, she could hear their quiet breathing.

This was the hardest part. Watching the cares of the world steal over these little faces, the reality that the world was a hard and cruel place taking their innocence piece by piece.

It was only a matter of time before she’d have to make the decision.

How she would tell them that they were leaving their only home, leaving their father for good, she didn’t know.

Gently, she reached out and moved Addie’s hair out of her sweet face.

Addie gave a long sigh and pushed at the place where the hair had been, then settled deeper into sleep.

She stepped outside. The night air was cool, sweeping softly across the space between her and the corrals. The bunkhouse was dark—it was just Teller and Hughes now, and they were both out on the trail tonight. And soon the decision would be made, by her or by them, to end that too.

She went out beyond the buildings, beyond the corrals, to a lonely little stand of trees where a single headstone stood.

The pale moon illuminated the words: Frank McKinley, 1845—1879.

Father, Husband . So simple and impersonal for what they stood for, but they were all she had now.

Her hands smoothed over the rough stone as if she could touch him through it. She closed her eyes.

“Frank, I don’t know what to do.”

The night was silent in reply.

“I mean it, Frank. I am so alone. I don’t know who to trust—if there is anyone to trust—and I don’t want to give up. I don’t. But—I don’t know if we’ll survive the winter. And the children—”

Tears filled her eyes. One fell hot down her cheek.

“I just want you back. For one moment.”

Loneliness washed over her like a river in thaw. She knelt down and pressed her head against his stone.

“God, please,” she whispered. “Help us.”

He struck a match on the towering rock at his elbow and lit the cigarette between his lips. His pony flared its nostrils and flicked its ears, but it was used to this nightly ritual now. The moon was bright tonight, illuminating the whole canyon below.

Tucked into the flat-bottomed floor of the canyon stood a modest ranch outfit. A homestead, bunkhouse, barn, corrals. About forty or fifty head bunched into one corral. A couple shifted here and there. Stomped, tails switching.

Another thing caught his eye: movement by the stand of trees, just beyond the homestead.

It was a woman on her knees, her hand upon an upright stone, her forehead leaned against it, hair pale in the moonlight, every line of her body dejected.

In the stillness of the night, he thought he could hear words, just snatches.

He watched until the cigarette was gone; he put out the stub against the rock. It felt almost wrong.

Yet he couldn’t look away.

Now she stood, smoothing back her hair, bracing her shoulders as she turned back to face the house.

There was something so beautiful and strong about the way she stood. Defiant, almost, though there was no one to see her and no one for her to stand against.

She must have kids. He knew no one alive who cried in the dark, away from the house, and pulled themselves together that completely unless they had someone to protect.

It was the way of it. Even he, without a family, knew that.

He watched as she went back to the house, saw the smoke change in its rise from the chimney—she must have put a little more wood on the fire.

The night had a chill, sure. Something was brewing on the wind.

He backed his horse up and turned back the way he came.