Ralph Compton Comanche Trail by Carlton Stowers

emerged from the tree-sheltered trail. Word had already spread that strangers were being brought along, and several gathered to see who they might be. “Ain’t Indians,” one boy whispered to another. A woman standing over a large kettle making lard stopped her stirring to watch the arrival. Big Boone sat silently on his porch, arms across his chest, his thick fingers interlocked as he watched a bantam hen and her chicks peck at the hardened ground. A large Mexican sombrero shaded his eyes.
    Taylor and Barclay were led to Stallings’s cabin and told to dismount. Thad had been surprised that his traveling partner had willingly agreed to hand their weapons over when they were stopped.
    â€œI’m guessing your purpose here ain’t to be bringing my mules back,” Stallings said. “Though I appreciate the gesture, truth is I got no use for the stupid animals. Or the men who was riding them when I sent them on their way. I hope you boys seen to it they didn’t get far.”
    Barclay nodded.
    â€œThey made the poor decision of getting drunk and trying to steal from me,” Stallings said. “If they hadn’t been kin—cousins, I’m told, though I ain’t sure I ever believed it—they’d never have left these hills. Being generous in my old age, I sent ’em riding out on those broke-down mules with a warning never to come back.
    â€œI’m guessing that they tried to rob you as well and are most likely now dead. If I’d had a say, you would have stripped ’em buck naked and barefoot and sent ’em walking among the wolves.”
    He nodded to one of his men, who hurried to the porch to help him to his feet. The simple effort stirred a wheezing deep in Stallings’s chest.
    Barclay’s eyes had not left his face. Big Boone steadied himself against a cedar post that held a corner of the porch roof in place and returned the stare. “Should I recall knowing you?”
    â€œI reckon not,” Barclay said.

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    He had been even younger than Taylor, tracking the buffalo herds across the northern plains of Kansas. On the hunt for months, killing and skinning the lumbering animals, spending the last hours of daylight scraping and salting the hides before stretching them to dry in the next day’s sun. It was a hard and lonely undertaking, which Barclay endured only by focusing his thoughts on the money his efforts would bring.
    One night, as he sat near a small campfire, bone-tired and dreaming of the time he could return to St. Jo as a man of means and marry Jolene Cavanaugh, half a dozen men rode into his camp, guns drawn. He’d not even had time to reach for his rifle before one of the riders’ horses was spurred tolunge toward him, its sharp hooves cutting into his flesh and snapping his collarbone. He was beaten and knocked unconscious by the time the robbers gathered his hides and rode away, leaving him for dead.
    Before passing out, Barclay saw that the leader, sitting astride a big bay, wore a sombrero, his long black hair hanging well below his shoulders. He laughed as his men pounded and kicked the hunter.
    Before his swollen eyelids closed and he began to vomit, Barclay had heard one of his attackers call the leader’s name. Boone.
    For several days he was near death. Had it not been for a spring near his campsite where he sipped water and bathed his wounds, he would not likely have found the strength to retrieve his rifle and position himself against a tree trunk where he could watch for any further attacks from man or beast. There were days and nights—he couldn’t recall how many exactly—of fevered dreams and a constant ringing in his head. Finally his body healed and his mind cleared.
    His first thought was to immediately seek revenge against those who had robbed him. Then, as the rage subsided, his focus returned. He had come to hunt buffalo and collect their