Ralph Compton - The Alamosa Trail

“Let’s go home, horses,” he said. Then, trusting in the horses’ ability to find their way back, he hung on to the tail of one of them and followed, step by foot-weary step, moving almost as if in his sleep, as the team plodded on.

Jim had no idea how long it was before he looked around and saw, almost as white shadows in a field of white, the buildings and structures of Trailback Ranch. The horses headed straight for the barn. Jim opened the door and led them inside. Though cold in the barn, it was not quite as frigid as outside, and there was the added advantage of protection from the howling wind and blowing snow.

Jim led the horses to their stalls. Then with hands so cold he could barely feel them, he managed to get their harness off and turn the animals loose in the stall. A few pitchfork tosses of hay, and the team was quite content, already forgetting about the ordeal they had just been through.

Once the horses were secure, Jim braved the howling storm again just long enough to make it to the cookhouse. The cookhouse was toasty warm from the fire that blazed in the kitchen stove. It was so warm, in fact, that when Jim held his hands over the stove, the returning blood circulation caused intense pain.

“Here,” the cook said, putting a pan of water down on a table. “Sit there and stick your hands in the water. You don’t want to warm them up too fast.”

“C-c-coffee,” Jim said, stuttering against the numbing cold that still held him.

The cook poured a big mug of coffee and brought it over to him. Jim thanked him with a nod, took a long, bracing, swallow, then looked around. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“Ever’one’s out lookin’ for Frankie and Cal,” the cook said. “They ain’t come back.”

Chapter 2

The snow continued for the rest of the day and far into the night. Jim waited in the bunkhouse, but the snow was so heavy and the wind so hard that even the bunkhouse offered only questionable protection against the blizzard. Snow was blowing in through the cracks between the boards and it piled on the floor, melting into puddles of cold water by the little potbellied stove that glowed red from the fire roaring inside. One by one the other hands returned to the bunkhouse so that, by dark, everyone was back but Cal and Frankie.

Angus Brookline spent most of the day trekking between the main house, the cookhouse, and the bunkhouse. He was a good man who was sincerely worried, not only about his livestock, but also about the safety of his men. When he learned that two of his men hadn’t returned, he grew frantic.

“You didn’t see them anywhere?” Jim asked.

“Sorry, Jim. I know Frankie’s your cousin and all, but we never saw hide nor hair of ’em,” a man named Tennessee Tuttle said.

“What about the line shacks?” Brookline asked. “Did you check them?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Brookline. We looked in every one of them,” Barry Riggsbee replied.

Tuttle and Riggsbee were two of the hands who had worked on the ranch for nearly as long as Jim had. They were good friends to Jim and to Frankie and Cal, and Jim was sure they had done all they could do to find them. Despite that, he felt as if he should do something himself. He couldn’t just sit here in the bunkhouse and wait.

Jim started putting on his heavy sheepskin coat.

“What do you think you’re about to do?” Brookline asked.

“I’m going out to look for Frankie and Cal,” Jim answered.

“Don’t be a fool, Jim. It’s dark now. You won’t be able to find them in the dark,” Tennessee said.

“They’ll die if they stay out there all night,” Jim said.

“Son, I don’t want to sound harsh about this,” Brookline said. “But they might already be dead, and if they are, you’ll wind up getting yourself killed for no good reason. If they’ve figured out some way to stay alive this long, chances are they’ll be able to survive the night. Wait till morning. It’ll be light, and most likely the storm will have broken.”

“Mr. Brookline’s right, Jim,” Barry said. “Ain’t no sense in you goin’ out there and dyin’, too.”

Jim thought about it for a moment, then realized that their suggestion was wise. With a sigh of frustration, he shrugged off his coat, then went back to lie down on his bunk. He laced his hands behind his head, and thought of Frankie.

Frankie was his first cousin, the son of his mother’s youngest sister. But Jim and Frankie were more like brothers than cousins, because Frankie had come to live with him when he was still a boy. Ironically, given the current snow-storm, it was a blizzard that had brought Frankie and Jim together in the first place.

Frankie was only twelve when his mother and father contracted pneumonia and died in the midst of a blizzard. It being midwinter, Frankie was snowed in and unable to go for help. The ground was too cold to bury them, so Frankie moved them to the barn and wrapped them in a tarpaulin. While the frozen bodies of his parents had waited in the barn for the spring thaw, Frankie spent the time just trying to survive.

When some of the neighbors finally came to call that spring, they were shocked to find the twelve-year-old boy living there alone. He had cut his own firewood, hunted and cooked his own food, and even fought off an attack by a starving, frenzied pack of wolves.

Jim could still remember the day he had gone up by train to get his young cousin. Taking in a twelve-year-old boy was quite a responsibility for a twenty-eight-year-old man, but Jim accepted the job. Frankie could have been trouble after surviving such an ordeal, but he was no trouble at all. Jim quickly became Frankie’s hero, and the boy grew to manhood working on a ranch, starting as a cook’s assistant, then an errand boy, and finally becoming one of the best hands on the ranch.

As Jim thought about his cousin’s history, he grew less worried. Frankie was an exceptionally resourceful young man, and if he had been able to survive an entire winter as a twelve-year-old, then Jim was pretty sure he would survive the night. He didn’t know how, but somehow Frankie would make it through. The thought comforted him enough to allow him to go to sleep.

The snow finally stopped during the night, and the next day dawned bright, with a crystal-blue sky. The entire world was covered with a mantle of white, and icicles hung glistening from the roofs of all the buildings. Trees and shrubs were changed into sparkling chandeliers of ice. It was exceptionally beautiful, though the beauty was deceptive because even in the rangeland closest to the houses, dark lumps could be seen lying in the snow. The dark lumps, Jim knew, were dead cows.

Every hand on the ranch turned out, saddled his horses, and spread out across the range. Their mission was twofold. One part was to find Frankie and Cal; the other was to make an inventory of the livestock in order for Brookline to be able to determine how badly the herd had suffered. He would then have to report that fact to the absentee owners.

Even though the snow was no longer falling and the wind was quiet, moving around was still difficult. The snow was up to the horses’ bellies and it took a terrible exertion for them to move about. The cowboys traveled in pairs, and they took turns riding in front, letting first one horse do all the work of breaking through the snow, then the other.

They were shocked by the devastation they found. Everywhere they looked they saw frozen cows—many more dead cows than live ones. There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of motionless black lumps in the snow. It didn’t take long for even the newest and most inexperienced cowboy to realize the implications. Trailback Ranch was now a ranch without cattle. And a ranch without cattle needed no cowboys.

Halfway through the day the inventory stopped being an impersonal job for their employer and became a harbinger of their own future. In one night they had lost their livelihood.