They had given up cowboying for mule skinning the year before and concluded they had made a bad mistake. Then a tallboy named Jim wandered in alone. He had been with a wagon train but had lost interest in getting to Oregon.
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“Yes, I can whip a mule as good as anybody else,” Hugh said.
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“I didn’t want to either,” Allen O’Brien admitted. “If we had gone in the trees we might not have come out.” The mules had run three miles before stopping, but because the plain was fairly smooth, the wagon was undamaged. The same could not be said for Lippy, who had bounced so hard at one point that he had bitten his tongue nearly in two. The tongue bled for hours, little streams of blood spilling over his long lip. The remuda was eventually rounded up, as well as the cattle.
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“I don’t know what it is,” Po Campo said. “But it’s something mules don’t like.” Only the two pigs were relatively undisturbed. A sack of potatoes had bounced out of the fleeing wagon and the pigs were calmly eating them, grunting now and then with satisfaction.
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Call looked and saw that the mules were dashing off back toward the Powder, Lippy sawing futilely on the reins and bouncing a foot off the wagon seat from time to time.
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He was riding the Hell Bitch, but for long moments he imagined he was riding old Ben again—a mule he had relied on frequently during his campaigning on the llano. Ben had had an infallible sense of direction and a fine nose for water. He wasn’t fast but he was sure. At the time, some men had scoffed at him for riding a mule, but Call ignored them. The stakes were life or death, and Ben was the most reliable animal he had ever seen, if far from the prettiest.
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“You have not been very thirsty then,” Po said. “I once drank the urine of a mule. It kept me alive.” “Well, it couldn’t taste much worse than that Ogallala beer,” Needle observed. “My tongue’s been peeling ever since we was there.” “It ain’t what you drink that causes your tongue to peel,” Augustus said. “That’s the result of who you bedded down with.” The remark caused much apprehension among the men, and they were apprehensive anyway, mainly because everyone they met in Ogallala assured them they were dead men if they tried to go to Montana. As they edged into Wyoming the country grew bleaker—the grass was no longer as luxuriant as it had been in Kansas and Nebraska. To the north were sandy slopes where the grass only grew in tufts. Deets ranged far ahead during the day, looking for water. He always found it, but the streams grew smaller and the water more alkaline. “Near as bad as the Pecos,” Augustus said.
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“Could you drive for us, Captain?” Clara asked, handing him the reins to the little mule team before he could answer.
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“He’ll never get the hang of it,” the mule skinner said. “It sounds like a dern mule whinnying.” “I just bought this accordion,” Lippy said. “I’ll learn to play it by the time we hit Montany.” “Yeah, and if them Sioux catch you you’ll be squealing worse than that music box,” the mule skinner said.
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He was sitting on the steps of the saloon with the big rack of elkhorns over it, trying to squeeze out “Buffalo Gal” to an audience of one mule skinner and Allen O’Brien. The Irishman was wincing at Lippy’s fumbling efforts.
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They found him standing outside a saloon looking very disappointed. “There’s only one pia-ner in this town, and it’s broke,” he said. “A mule skinner busted it. I rode all this way in and ain’t got to hear a note.” “What do you do about whores?” Jimmy Rainey asked. He felt he couldn’t bear much more frustration.
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Augustus paid him no more attention. The girl, after a moment, sat down, though she kept glancing nervously toward the gambler. A big mule skinner shoved him unceremoniously off the table, and he was now on his hands and knees, still trying to get his breath.
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Augustus hit the man in the chest so hard that he was knocked back onto the next table, amid three or four mule skinners. The mule skinners looked up in surprise—the gambler had the wind knocked out of him so thoroughly that he waved his arms in the air, his mouth open, afraid he would die before he could draw another breath.
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“Now, Nellie, leave us be,” the gambler said. “We were about to go have a game.” Before the girl could answer, one of the mule skinners at the next table toppled backwards in his chair. He had gone to sleep with the chair tilted back, and he fell to the floor, to the amusement of his peers. The fall did not wake him—he sprawled on the saloon floor, dead drunk.
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“You look like a man who could tolerate a game of cards,” the gambler said. “My name is Shaw.” “Two-handed gambling don’t interest me,” Augustus said. “Anyway, it’s too rackety in here. It’s hard work just getting drunk when things are this loud.” “This ain’t the only whiskey joint in town,” Mr. Shaw said. “Maybe we could find one that’s quiet enough for you.” Just then a girl walked in, painted and powdered. Several of the mule skinners whooped at her, but she came over to where Augustus sat. She was skinny and could hardly have been more than seventeen.
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He went into one that had a huge rack of elk horns over the door and a clientele consisting mostly of mule skinners who hauled freight for the Army. None of the Hat Creek outfit was there, though he had seen a couple of their horses tied outside. They had probably gone straight to the whorehouse next door, he concluded. He ordered a bottle and a glass, but the boisterous mule skinners made so much racket he couldn’t enjoy his drinking. A middle-aged gambler with a thin mustache and a greasy cravat soon spotted him and came over.
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They rounded up Wilbarger’s horses and unhitched the two mules that had been pulling the little wagon. Augustus wanted to take the white rabbits, but the cage was awkward to carry. Finally Deets put two in his saddlebags, and Augustus took the other two. He also sampled the patent medicines and took several bottles of it.
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“He’s bloody today,” Roy said, going over to the mules. “If we run into any more sodbusters, it’s too bad for them.” Jake’s happy mood was gone, though the day was as sunny as ever. It was clear to him that his only hope was to escape the Suggses as soon as possible. Dan Suggs could wake up feeling bloody any day, and the next time there might be no sodbusters around to absorb his fury, in which case things could turn really grim. He trotted along all day, well back from the horse herd, trying to forget the two blackened bodies, whose shoes had still been smoldering when they left.
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“Get them mules, boys,” Dan said. “No sense in leaving good mules.” With that he rode off.
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Jake hardly knew what to think. He had just seen two men shot in the space of seconds. He had no idea why. By the time he got near the tent Dan Suggs had drug a little trunk outside and was rifling it. He pitched the clothes which were in the trunk out on the grass. His brothers rode over to join the fun, and were soon holding up various garments, to see if they fit. Jake rode over too, feeling nervous. Dan Suggs was clearly in a killing mood. Both farmers lay dead on the grass near their mule team, which was quietly grazing. Both had bullet holes in their foreheads. Dan had shot them at point-blank range.
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With his mind made up, he felt cheerful—it always gave a man a lift to escape death. It was a beautiful sunny day and he was alive to see it. With any luck at all, he had seen the end of the trouble.His good mood lasted two hours, and then something occurred which turned it sour. It seemed as if the world was deserted except for them and the horses, and then to his surprise he saw a tent. It was staked under a single tree, directly ahead of them. Near the tent, two men were plowing with four mules. Dan Suggs was riding ahead of the horse herd, and Jake saw him lope off toward the settlers. He didn’t think much about it—he was watching the tent to see if any women were around. Then he heard the faint pop of a shot and looked up to see one of the settlers fall. The other man was standing there, no gun in his hand, nothing. He stood as if paralyzed, and in a second Dan Suggs shot him too. Then he trotted over to the tent, got off his horse and went inside.
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“It sounds like Ellie to me,” Jennie said. “When Ellie gets enough of a place, she jumps in the first wagon and goes. I remember when she went to Abilene I didn’t have no idea she was even thinking of leaving, and then, before it was even time to go to work, she had paid some mule skinners to take her, and she was gone.” “I got to find her,” July said simply.
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He rolled over, wondering if somehow one of the mules had got in a kick—it wouldn’t have been the first time he was surprised by a mule. But when he looked up and blinked the dust out of his eyes he saw an angry old man with a long sandy beard standing over him, gripping a ten-gauge shotgun. It was the shotgun that had knocked him down—the old fool had whacked him across the shoulder blades with it. The man must have been standing behind the wagon.
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There was no more danger of that. When Luke’s fever broke, he was so weak he could barely turn over. Zwey went off and hunted, as he had been doing, and Elmira drove the wagon. Twice she got the wagon stuck in a creek and had to wait until Zwey found her and pulled it out. He seemed as strong as either of the mules.
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I’ll shoot him while he sleeps.” “I’ll tell him that,” Elmira said. “Maybe he won’t sleep. Maybe he’ll kill you, while you’re at it.” “What have you got against me?” Luke said. “I mostly treat you nice.” “You knocked me off the wagon,” she said. “If that’s nice treatment I’ll pass.” “I only want a little,” Luke said. “Only once. We’re still a long ways from Nebraska. I can’t go that long.”The next day he caught her off guard and shoved her back in the wagon by the hides. He was on her like a terrier, but she kicked and scratched, and before he could do anything the mules took fright and started to run away. Luke had to grab the reins with his pants half down, and when he did Elmira grabbed Zwey’s extra rifle. When Luke got the mules stopped, he found a buffalo gun pointed at him.
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