Episode 9

Building an Empire

It was full morning by the time all the mule teams were hitched up to the wagons. The sunlight streaked through smoke from the guttering fire to reveal the still forms lying all around the campsite. All had been stripped of valuables, boots, weapons and clothing. The smell of cooked flesh hung in the bowl of land, rancid sweet smell of partly cooked tripe. It had the tang of pork to it, but all knew it wasn’t swine.

Ben spoke to Muñoz from the saddle. The Mexican let out a long yelp and waved his sombrero over his head. Whips cracked, leather creaked and the big wheels on the teamster wagons broke out of the dusty ground to roll over the rocks and form up into a column.

The Comancheros began the long trek back to their hideout. In the end, ten of them had been lost in the fighting. The dead lay unburied and forgotten among the teamsters and pistoleros, amigos and enemies indistinguishable from one another. Food for the ants and birds.

But the raiders were now rich with blankets, guns, horses and other supplies from the teamsters and guards that they had killed. The best prize however was the government bonded whiskey that Ben reckoned was intended as part payment for a treaty with the Kiowa up in Oklahoma Territory. He reckoned that that treaty and the absence of payment was the territorial governor’s problem now. The whiskey would serve his and his men’s purposes just fine and the peace betwixt the Kiowa and settlers be damned.

Ben rode over to where Joe was climbing onto the saddle of his own horse. He put out his hand to take the bridle and steady the roan for the younger man to swing a leg over. Ben’s grin was broad and relaxed now that the deed was done, and they were heading on back to their hideaway. The boy looked a sight in the black coat and vest over buckskins and a soiled linen shirt.

“You want to ride lead with me a while, Snakehand?” Ben said once the boy was seated.

“If that’s what you want, Ben,” Joe said.

“Come ahead,” Ben said and spurred his mount. They raced together along the line of wagons moving up an incline and out of the bowl of land. Through the pall of dust rising into the sky from the caravan a cloud of buzzards wheeled lower to fall on the bounty left behind.

* * *

They brought the stolen caravan into a pass after two days’ ride. The narrow cleft in the high rock walls led to a densely wooded depression surrounded on all sides by defiles. The camp was made up of rough cabins in a grass clearing surrounding a good spring of fresh water. The men settled the wagons in a neat row on one end of the farthest cabin next to the horse pen. The men beat the dust from their clothing and set about making themselves back at home. The Indians had already broken from the rest and scurried off to their place in the outskirts of the area. None of them, not even Ben, knew where in the blind canyon they made camp.

“Son, this is just the beginning. We are building an empire. For the both of us. I’m going to be king of this entire territory and you can be its pope,” Ben said and slapped Joe on the back. “All it takes is a little time, but we’ll do it. Mark my words, son. I can see it all now.” Ben swept his arms across the land before him.

Four weeks later the first man had died of the pox.