The End of the Trail

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The End of the Trail

A Powder Valley Western

Brett Halliday writing as Peter Field

1

The little narrow-gauge engine puffed and churned triumphantly up the last long grade and came to a hissing stop opposite the bleak and unpainted station of Sanctuary Flat on the western slope of the Continental Divide high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

This was the end of the line for the pigmy train. At Sanctuary Flat, it turned around and made its laborious way back across the Divide and down the eastern slope to a junction with the main line at Pueblo.

Today, the entire train consisted of two cattle cars and a caboose. It was early autumn in the high country, and there was little incoming railroad traffic to Sanctuary Flat. The brakeman jumped down from the rear steps of the caboose, followed by the single passenger who had made the trip that day.

Nate Morris set his battered valise down beside the caboose and thrust his hands deep into the slanting pockets of his belted mackinaw. He was a tall, stringy man with a big mouth that looked as though it would smile easily, and cold gray eyes that seemed to belie the indicated softness of his mouth. He wore an old black Stetson and Levis thrust into the tops of high-heeled boots, giving the appearance of a man more at home on the range than in the caboose of a narrow-gauge train.

It was cold here in late afternoon at the lower end of the wide, high-rimmed mountain valley. Already the sun was low above the jagged western peaks of the Cochetopes, and there was the promise of a near-zero night in the biting air.

There were empty, wooden, cattle pens along the track ahead, and the two cattle cars had been exactly spotted so their wide doors were opposite unloading chutes leading down to the pens.

Three men were waiting on the chutes, and as Nate Morris watched, they began pushing a wooden platform across to one of the car doors while the brakeman waited to open it as soon as they were ready to unload.

A dull, thunderous, rumbling roar came from the interior of the two cattle cars. It was a curious and elemental and somehow frightening sound. It reverberated out into the silent valley, and was caught and flung back by the towering peaks on both sides until the very earth seemed to shake in response to it.

Morris stooped to pick up his valise, and sauntered forward along the tracks. He stopped beside the first loading pen and watched as one of the doors was pushed open.

The men on the platform jumped aside hastily as a huge bull trotted out of the interior of the car into the bright, cold sunlight. His head was up and his red-rimmed eyes rolled wickedly while he bellowed his deep-throated hatred of the jostling confinement he was leaving behind him. He was built low to the ground, with a heavy round body like a barrel, deep-chested and thick-necked, with a pair of short, viciously-sharp horns pointed directly forward. He paused on the platform to sniff the cold air, and then trotted disdainfully down the sloping runway into one of the wooden pens. A cowboy ran after him to drop heavy bars into place, shutting him into that particular pen and away from the others.

Nate Morris's eyes followed the big animal admiringly, and his lips formed a low whistle of appreciation.

He turned back and saw a big man grinning down at him from the edge of the platform. “Some hunk of meat, eh?” the big man said genially.

Morris nodded. “More T-Bones there than I ever saw in one piece before.”

“Turn the other one out,” the big man directed the two cowboys who were helping him. “Then we'll open the other car.” He leaned down and put one hand on the platform, leaped easily to the ground beside Morris. Though broad-shouldered and heavy-waisted, he landed as lightly and as lithely as a cat. “Stranger to Sanctuary Flat?” he asked.

Morris nodded. “Just pulled in on the train.”

“Thought you must be when I saw your eyes buggin' out at that bull. I run the TB ranch here on the Flat. Name's Henderson.”

Morris put out a thin, calloused hand. “I'm Nate Morris.” He was watching with interest while the cowboys stayed outside the cattle car and cautiously reached in between the siding slats to dislodge wooden bars that separated the car into two compartments. “Got another one like him in there?”

“Two in each car. Shippin' 'em in for fall breeding,” Henderson told him expansively. “Have to keep 'em separated so's they won't tear each other up,” he added with a deep, rumbling laugh. “And that'd be mighty expensive.”

“Prize stuff, eh?”

A second huge bull charged out from the cattle car. His momentum carried him across the platform where he collided with one of the wooden gates. It creaked perilously, but held against his weight, and he let out a maddened rumble before trotting down the incline where he lowered his head to paw the ground and bellow out his challenge to his fellow in the other pen.

Henderson nodded in answer to Morris's question. “Cost two thousand each at auctions back east.” There was a deep note of ringing pride in his voice. “And we've got the cows to mate with 'em, too.” He flung out his arm toward the high valley, silent and secluded here in the very heart of the Rockies. “Finest grazin' in the world. Winter a calf here from birth and you'll get a breed that can stand anything. What'd you say your business was?”

“I didn't say.” Nate Morris smiled thinly and shrugged his thin shoulders. “I heard about your breeding experiments in Pueblo and dead-headed a ride up to have a look-see. I run a spread in Wyoming,” he added.

“Glad to have you,” Henderson told him. “Got to see about unloadin' them other two bulls now.” He strode forward to the next car, shouting anxiously, “Don't rile 'em up, Slim. Take it easy there …”

Nate Morris picked up his valise again and circled around the loading pens. The town of Sanctuary Flat lay just in front of him. It consisted of two buildings besides the station. Both were low, sprawling structures built of untrimmed native logs. Half a dozen saddled horses stood in front of the two buildings. The one nearest the station had an old weathered sign over the door that said CAFE. The other had swinging doors at the entrance, but no sign.

The sun slid down out of sight behind the westward peaks as Morris walked toward the two buildings. The chill in the air seemed immediately and indefinably strengthened. It cut through a man's heavy mackinaw and into his very bones. A low-lying haze lay over the wide valley stretching northward from the railroad track, giving it a bleak and forbidding appearance. Behind him, a dull, rumbling roar welled up from the throats of the four bulls that had come in on the train with him. It reverberated through the desolate valley, filling the still air with an awesome tumult.

Morris pushed open the door of the cafe and went in. It was quite dark inside with no lamps lit yet, but comfortably warm from a big stove in the corner. He set his valise down by the stove and warmed his hands while his eyes adjusted themselves to the dim interior.

Two men sat together at the horseshoe counter. They turned their heads to give him a long searching look of rude hostility. He got out the makings and rolled a cigarette, was lighting it when a door opened from the rear and a woman came out balancing a tray on the upturned palm of her right hand, shoulder high.

She was tall and slender, and the enveloping apron couldn't hide the lithe grace of her body. She gave an impression of leashed vitality and unusual physical strength as she moved along behind the counter. Her brown hair was piled on top of her head in small ringlets, giving her a sort of queenly look; her face was reposed and beautiful. She looked about twenty-five, but Nate Morris guessed she was ten years older than that. Her eyes were sad, but the corners of her mouth quirked upward in defiance of that sadness.

She set the tray on the counter beside the two men and efficiently slid the steaming dishes out in front of them. They ordered coffee and she went back to the kitchen, to return with two steaming cups. When they were served she came to the front of the counter and leaned her bare forearms on it to look at Nate Morris.

She had round, firm-fleshed arms, and strong, blunt-fingered hands. She said, “Good evening, stranger,” and her mouth smiled at him though her eyes remained somber. Her voice was low and grave but it pulsed with that same impression of vitality that he had noted in the beginning.

He dragged off his Stetson and answered her smile, coming forward from the stove. “I'm Nate Morris. Is there a room hereabouts a man could rent for the night?”

She said, “There isn't any hotel.” She hesitated before adding, “I have some rooms in the back that I rent out to the train crew. There's an extra one …”

He said heartily, “That'll be fine.” He sat on one of the high stools in front of her and asked, “Could I have a cup of coffee?”

She nodded and went back to the kitchen. He turned his head slowly to follow her with his eyes. He wondered who she was and what she was doing in Sanctuary Flat. It was a remote and unhappy jumping off place. There was no way in or out of the valley except by the erratic narrow-gauge railroad that ran whenever there was a shipment to be moved. She brought his coffee and said, “I'll show you the room whenever you're ready.” She moved to one side and leaned on the counter again, gazing pensively out through a window at the swift-gathering dusk in the valley.

The two men finished their dinners and filed out, each silently laying a silver dollar in front of her on the counter as they went by. They were young and looked like ordinary waddies, wearing spurs and leather jackets and open-holstered guns.

The bellowing of the bulls down in the loading pens came through the doorway when they opened it to go out. The woman seemed to shiver slightly, and Nate Morris saw a pulse throbbing in the clean line of her throat.