A River of Horns Read online

  A River of Horns

  Peter Grant

  Sedgefield Press

  Copyright © 2019 by Peter Grant. All rights reserved.

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  Cover image cropped from Trailing Texas Longhorns

  by Frederic Sackrider Remington

  Cover design by Beaulistic Book Services

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  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise – without prior written permission of the author and publisher, except as provided by copyright law in the United States of America.

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  This is a work of fiction. Some names, characters, places, and incidents are historically authentic: however, apart from that, everything about them is a product of the author’s imagination or is used in a fictitious manner. Thus, any similarity between them, or other characters, and actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to

  the doctors and nurses

  who recently helped me recover

  from a heart attack.

  This book could not have been

  completed without them.

  To Dr. Bruce Palmer, cardiologist,

  and the staff at

  United Regional Health Care System

  in Wichita Falls, Texas:

  Thank you!

  Contents

  1. July 1874

  2. Late July 1874

  3. Late September 1874

  4. October 1874

  5. November 1874

  6. December 1874

  7. February-May 1875

  8. June 1875

  9. June 1875

  10. July 1875

  11. August 1875

  12. August 1875

  13. September 1875

  14. October-December 1875

  15. March 1876

  16. April 1876

  17. May 1876

  18. June 1876

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Books by Peter Grant

  1

  July 1874

  The shot cracked out, white smoke billowing from the muzzle of the Sharps cavalry carbine. It kicked back into Walt’s shoulder, harder than it would have done with its original .52-caliber linen cartridge. A hundred yards downrange, a tin can bounced and rolled to the foot of the earthen berm behind it, and he grinned with satisfaction.

  He leaned the shooting stick against his shoulder, disengaging the hook on the stump of his left wrist from the iron eye screwed into it, then cradled the weapon in his left arm, passing the hook through its trigger guard to hold it securely. Opening the breech, he flicked out the big brass .50-70-450 cartridge case.

  “Looks like that’n’s a straight shooter, too, suh,” Samson Moses said from beside him, cradling another carbine in his arms.

  Walt glanced at his depot manager. The big black man had been through fire with him and for him, fighting outlaws in Missouri, Kiowas in Kansas, and Cheyenne in Colorado on their way to their new home back in 1866. Since then he’d educated himself by might and main, and risen to become Walt’s right-hand man in Ames Transport, the company he’d set up on arrival. Samson owned a quarter of it, thanks to all the hard work he’d put into making it a success. He and his wife had nursed Walt back to health after the murder of his first wife, Rose, and the loss of his left hand. Samson had run the company in his absence while he avenged her.

  “Yeah,” Walt agreed. “I reckon Sharps had a real good idea with this upgrade, swappin’ the old .52-caliber barrels for new ones chambered in .50 Government, an’ fittin’ new locks. Dunno why they haven’t sold more of them.”

  Samson shrugged. “Guess they can’t compete with repeatin’ rifles these days. Still, their single-shots fire a much heavier bullet than Winchesters, and over a longer range. They do fine for us in the Rocky Mountains, where bears are a problem but we don’t have to fight Injuns. How many conversion kits did you buy, suh?”

  “Forty. Carlos Gove warned me they might be shuttin’ down the line, so I placed my order through him just in time. He got me a real good price, too, only five dollars per kit on the last few the factory had. These five will make twenty-five carbines I’ve converted so far.” Walt gestured to the three weapons leaning against the buckboard wagon behind them. “I’ll tackle the rest of our Sharps as our teamsters return them to our armory, once they’ve earned enough to buy themselves repeaters. I’ll have a few kits left over. I’ll use them if I get my hands on a few more old carbines. If you find any in good condition, going cheap, buy ’em for us.”

  “Will do, suh. I’d ask why you don’t hire a gunsmith to do the conversions, but I reckon it’s like a hobby for you. Workin’ on guns helps you think through your problems.”

  “That’s not far wrong,” Walt admitted. “I learned gunsmithing during the war, and I’ve never lost the knack. I enjoy it.”

  “You made a good livin’ out of your gun shop in Leavenworth, on the way out here.”

  Walt smiled at the memory. He and Rose had lived in an apartment above the shop during the winter of 1865-66. Samson and Elijah, his late comrade, had worked for a transport company until they were ready to proceed with their journey in the spring.

  Samson lined the sights of his carbine on the last can, and pressed the trigger. The target bounced and rolled like its predecessors as he ejected the empty case. “This’n’s ready to go into the armory, suh,” he confirmed. “I’ll have the night watchman at the depot clean them all, then put ’em in the racks.”

  “Thanks. Check them tomorrow, to make sure he did it right. That’s enough for this morning. We can’t play hooky from our work for too long. Besides, I’ve got to see our lawyer at ten, to finalize that land sale.”

  They gathered up the rifles and ammunition, placed them in the back of the buckboard, and headed back to town.

  Henry Lee, the lawyer whom Walt kept on retainer for Ames Transport, the Rafter A and his own personal needs, was expecting him. His secretary showed him into the inner office as soon as he arrived. They shook hands, and Walt sat down.

  “I’ve prepared the deed of sale,” Lee said as he slid a document across the desk. “It’s in standard form. To summarize, you’re buying two thousand acres of property further up the Wet Mountain Valley from your ranch, half of it grassland, half wooded, none cultivated, with no improvements to the land. The purchase price is five thousand dollars in cash. You got a very good deal there, Mr. Ames; I’ve seen land near there go for double that price per acre.”

  “Yeah, but that’s improved land, with buildings. I can’t use half this property until I’ve cleared the trees from it. I’ll get onto that in the next year or so. After that, I’ll use it for grazing, haying, and maybe to grow a mixed alfalfa and oat crop for horse feed.” Walt was scanning through the deed of sale as he spoke. He frowned, and pointed to a paragraph. “This doesn’t say ‘all rights and appurtenances’. It lists specific rights that are transferred with the property, but they don’t include mining or mineral rights.”

  The lawyer looked surprised. “But, Mr. Ames, there are surely no valuable minerals in what is, after all, basically pasture land. Why worry about them? Mr. Elben simply listed those rights when he came to me to draw up the deed of sale, and I included them.”

  “It’s the principle of the thing. If I buy land, I want any and all rights that go with it. If I don’t get them, I don’t buy it. My title deed for the Rafter A specifically gives me all rights, without exception, and I want this deed to do the same. In fact, after seeing this, I want it to specify, in writing, that I have all mining and mineral rights.”
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  Walt could hardly tell the lawyer that the man who stole the Rafter A’s land from its original owners, by strong-arming them out of it, had made sure to arrogate all rights to himself in the deeds of sale he’d had them sign. Parsons had later included those rights when he combined all the properties into one larger unit, and registered it in the name of a bearer share corporation. After his attempt to steal horses from Ames Transport, and Rose’s murder at the hands of his men, Walt had hunted him down and killed him. He’d kept Parsons’ ill-gotten ranch land for himself, with the tacit approval of the authorities, as compensation for the time, trouble and expense he’d incurred in running down a criminal whom the law had not been able to catch.

  “I’ll have to re-draft the bill of sale, then, and ask Mr. Elben to sign the revised version,” the lawyer warned. “We won’t be able to conclude the transaction this week.”

  “That’s all right. If Elben objects, tell him the deal’s off. I won’t buy his land unless I get all rights with it, and that’s final – and I’m not paying anything extra for them, either.”

  Walking back to Ames Transport’s freight yard, Walt was sure that Elben would not be happy about his insistence on getting all rights with the property. He could understand the man’s reasoning. Silver had been discovered at Rosita in the Wet Mountain Valley, not far from his land, in the early 1870’s, although not in large quantities. If the vein should prove to extend further towards the Wet Mountains, Elben’s land might gain in value; so he probably thought it worthwhile to retain the mineral rights against that possibility. Walt was not prepared to play that game. He would buy the land with all rights, or not at all. Since he was the only prospective buyer who had cash on hand, if Elben wanted the money – and, by all accounts, he needed it badly – he’d have no choice but to comply.

  Walt returned home that evening to find that Nate Barger, manager of his Rafter A horse ranch, had arrived. By prior arrangement, he would stay in their guest room for a few nights while enjoying a break and the bright lights of Pueblo – such as they were. It was still primarily a working town, rather than a more cosmopolitan city like Denver.

  “Nastas is back, along with some more of his Navajos,” Nate informed him, “Sam Davis came with them. They got in two days ago. They’re settling down to work with the estancia folk, trainin’ all the horses you brought back. They’re havin’ fun.”

  “How many did Nastas bring?”

  “A dozen, some of ’em new folks. Some o’ those who went to Mexico with you wanted to stay with their families for a while. Nastas says he wants to take everyone home by November, before the winter sets in.”

  “All right. When you go back, tell Sam he can come in and sign on with Ames Transport anytime. Samson will start usin’ him right away. He’s a good man.”

  Sam Davis, a former Buffalo Soldier and corporal, had been one of those who’d helped Walt hunt down his first wife’s killers, a few years before. He’d expressed an interest in working on the wagons again, rather than on the ranch, to which Walt had been happy to agree.

  Nate nodded. “That he is. I’ll tell him.”

  They enjoyed a delicious supper of oyster stew, made with canned shellfish and served with oyster crackers from New England. Better methods of food preservation and the advent of the railroads had greatly improved the Western diet. Colleen and Agustina, their cook, had concocted a New Orleans-style roux as a base for the stew, and added spices to make it a wonderfully savory dish. Nate found it so tasty that he went through three large helpings, and insisted on calling Agustina to the dining room to congratulate her in person. “It’s great!” he proclaimed, kissing his fingers in an almost Continental gesture of approval.

  She blushed. “Thank you, señor, but you should also thank the señora. She helped make it.”

  “Oh, I will!”

  While the maid cleared the table, they adjourned to Walt’s study, a spacious room with armchairs spaced around a bearskin rug before a large fireplace. A roll-top desk stood against the opposite wall, flanked by two large gun display cabinets. Nate walked over to one of them, his attention caught by a nickel-plated Colt 1860 Army revolver fitted with ornately decorated, solid silver Tiffany-style grips. It was mounted on two pegs. A black leather holster decorated with silver rosettes lay on a shelf beneath it.

  “Ain’t see this one before,” he commented.

  “That was Enrique Sandoval’s gun,” Colleen said, real pride in her voice. “I asked the Guardia Rural to give it to me, as a memento of how Walt saved all of us from that bandido.”

  Nate flashed a grin at Walt as he turned back to the display case. “You’re buildin’ up a nice little collection of your enemies’ guns. You’ve got those two single-shot sleeve pistols you took off them riverboat gamblers back in ’65, an old Dragoon Colt from that man who said he rode with Bloody Bill Anderson, Hunting Wolf’s rifle from a year later, Parsons’ revolver after we hunted him down a few years back, and now this one. Who’s next, I wonder?”

  “I’ll be just as glad if there’s never a ‘next’,” Walt assured him fervently as he poured two glasses of whiskey. “Bullets travel both ways, after all, and I’ve already collected enough of them in my own body not to want any more!”

  He glanced at his wife, eyebrows raised in inquiry, but Colleen shook her head. “It wouldn’t be good for Junior here,” she said, patting her stomach, which was beginning to show her pregnancy. “I’ll have to wait until he or she arrives before I can indulge again.”

  “Do you know when, ma’am?” Nate asked as he accepted his glass and sat down.

  “The doctor says probably late November or early December.”

  “How do you feel about becomin’ a daddy?” Nate said jocularly to Walt.

  “It’s a scary thought, I’ll tell you! I guess I’ll have to do like Colleen, an’ take it one day at a time. We ain’t the first new parents, and we likely won’t be the last.”

  “Uh-huh. One o’ these days, if I meet the right woman, I might be in your shoes.”

  Colleen giggled. “Or the wrong one.” Both men laughed.

  They made more small talk for a while, relaxing in each other’s company, until Nate came around to the point of his visit. “I’ve been thinkin’ over what we talked about last week. That’s a heck of a generous offer, and I’d like to take you up on it.”

  Walt grinned in satisfaction. He’d offered Nate a promotion to be his personal representative in a joint venture with Tyler Reese, a Texas cattleman. They planned to establish a big cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle, as soon as it was opened to settlement by the removal of Comanche and Kiowa warriors. That was likely to happen within a year or two, given the increasingly hostile reception the Indians were giving to intruders like buffalo hunters and settlers.

  Walt had just made a great deal of money buying remounts in Mexico for the Army, in preparation for the expected fighting. While there, he’d met and married Colleen, and brought back her late father’s entire breeding herd of exceptionally high-quality horses. Don Thomas had done his best to breed true to the original Spanish line brought across the Atlantic by the conquistadors. They were now the core of Walt’s own breeding program on the Rafter A.

  “That’s great!” Colleen said with a beaming smile. “Walt’s been working too hard on setting all this up, and trying to run Ames Transport into the bargain. I’m glad he’ll have you to share the load.”

  “Who do you recommend to take over your job as ranch manager?” Walt asked.

  “Oh, Jaime, of course. He was Don Thomas’ segundo in Mexico, and knows the Spanish horses better’n anybody.”

  “You told him that I’m going to give Colleen a free hand to look after the Rafter A, while I concentrate on Ames Transport for now?”

  “I sure did. He got real excited about that. Apparently he was used to workin’ with you at your father’s estancia, ma’am. He’s lookin’ forward to more o’ the same.”

  “I’m glad,” she acknowledged. “Jaim
e would be my choice for manager, too.”

  “Write to him an’ tell him that,” Walt suggested. “Nate can take the letter back with him. Tell Jaime he’ll take over on the first of next month, and his pay will go up to a hundred dollars a month. That’ll please him. Nate, I’d like you to move to Pueblo as soon as Jaime’s taken over the reins. I’m going to use you as a general supervisor and troubleshooter for the rest of this year, while we get everything organized. Your pay goes up to a hundred fifty a month as of the first. It’ll go higher once the cattle venture gets goin’.”

  Nate flushed with pleasure. “Thanks, boss.” He knew the extra fifty dollars a month would make him the highest-paid employee in any of Walt’s enterprises. “You’re still plannin’ to postpone the draft horse project?”

  “I am. We’ve got too many demands on our time an’ money over the next few years. Cross-breeding Percherons with Morgans to make a better work horse for the Rocky Mountains is still a good idea, I think, but we won’t be able to give it the attention it needs. We’ll wait until the cattle ranch is established, and the breeding program for the Spanish horses is bringing in enough money to support the Rafter A. Once both are supportin’ themselves and they don’t need so much of our attention, we can think about other ideas.”

  “Works for me.”

  Nate sipped his whiskey as he looked around the room. “I see you got some o’ your trophies out o’ storage.” A bighorn sheep’s head flanked the fireplace on the left, with an impressive elk head, antlers flaring, on the right. The bearskin rug on the floor had the grizzly bear’s head still attached, mounted with its mouth open, teeth gaping threateningly.