Centennial

by James A. Michener

  “Then what happened?” Seccombe asked.

  “Damnedest thing,” Zendt reflected. “Nobody blamed him for murderin’ those Indian women and children, but when he shot an unarmed man, carryin’ a surrender flag, in the back ...” He paused, as if trying to reconcile these contradictory attitudes. “I suppose people rejected Skimmerhorn because he broke the basic law of the west. You don’t shoot a man in the back—not even a Pasquinel.”

  “Those must have been terrible times.”

  “We survived.”

  “You stayed right here?”

  “This was my home.”

  They walked in silence for some distance, after which Seccombe said, with incredulity, “And you’d put our fortunes in the hands of Colonel Skimmerhorn’s son?”

  “I’d trust him with my life.”

  They found Skimmerhorn at home, a reserved, well-built man of twenty-nine, and Seccombe suspected that the obvious tenseness sprang from the fact that young Skimmerhorn could never be sure what strangers might say about his discredited father.

  “How’d you like to go down to Texas next month, hire a crew and bring two or three thousand head of longhorns up here?”

  “I’d like that,” Skimmerhorn said.

  “We’re risking a lot of money in this,” Seccombe explained, “and we need a man we can depend on.”

  “John’s your man,” Mrs. Skimmerhorn said in a flat Kansas voice.

  “I’ll pay for the cattle and the crew and give you thirty-five cents for every head delivered.”

  “I’ll go,” Skimmerhorn agreed at once. “Not accomplishing much here.”

  “How long will he be away?” Mrs. Skimmerhorn asked.

  “Down and back—seven, eight months.”

  “I’ll get Mrs. Weaver to stay with me when the baby comes,” she said.

  So three months later on a bright warm day in February 1868 John Skimmerhorn, leading two spare horses, rode into the cattle country of southern Texas and began asking how he might find an experienced trail boss to put together a mixed herd and drive it north through Oklahoma Territory and Kansas, then west to where Seccombe was putting together his ranch.

  He received discouraging reactions. One grizzled trail boss said, “I’ll take your critters as far as Abilene, but I’ll be damned if I’ll take ’em to Colorado.”

  “Why not?”

  “Last year the Comanche gave us a hell of a lot of trouble in western Oklahoma, and in Kansas them damned Pettis boys like to rob us blind.”

  “I just came down through that region. No trouble.”

  “You wasn’t trailin’ cattle,” the Texan pointed out.

  “If I’m willing to take the chance, will you?”

  “Nope. I’ll go as far as Abilene, and that’s it!”

  Skimmerhorn was unable to persuade any trained hands to risk the dangerous trek through the western parts of Oklahoma and Kansas. As one experienced man explained, “It ain’t only Indians and outlaws. It’s also them Kansas farmers. They got the crazy notion that Texas cattle spread disease. Hell, look at our longhorns! You never saw a healthier lot in your life.”

  A sense of frustration overtook Skimmerhorn, for all about him he saw an abundance of the very stock he wanted: long rangy cows ready for repeated breeding, lanky steers ready to put on fat once they got settled, hefty pre-potent bulls good for years of service in building a herd. Each morning he saw a thousand cattle he was eager to buy, and each night he climbed into his bedroll defeated, for he could find no one brave enough to drive those rugged cattle north through the dangerous country.

  One night after he had hobbled his horses and was preparing for a cheerless bed, he suddenly felt as though he were back in Minnesota before the Sioux uprising, before his father had become half mad over the loss of his family. He could swear he smelled the meat and onions his mother usually cooked for supper. Skimmerhorn was not a sentimental man; he had endured too much for that, but this imaginary smell of frying meat became overpowering, and he lost himself in a welter of memories, recalling scenes in Minnesota as he tried to fall asleep.

  Sleep wouldn’t come. The smell persisted, and he sat up. “That’s got to be meat frying!” he said, climbing out of the bedroll and putting on his pants. He looked about him but saw nothing. Then around the hump of a hill he saw the glow of a light, and when he came up to it he found a solitary Mexican, forlorn, bowlegged, dressed in very tight trousers that had no proper fly but only a baggy flap that tied with a string.

  He was hunched over a meager fire which heated one small pan from which issued the splendid aroma. “Ah, señor!” the man cried when he saw Skimmerhorn coming at him. “I not steal.”

  “Don’t worry,” Skimmerhorn reassured him. “What’re you cooking?”

  “Ah, señor. Some ends, only some ends.”

  The smell coming from the pan belied this, and Skimmerhorn moved closer. The Mexican was telling the truth. He had only some odds and ends of beef, but with them he had thrown in a few onions, some sage, a couple of peppers, until the resulting combination looked very enticing. Holding the pan up to Skimmerhorn, the kneeling man asked, “You try, señor?” He spoke with that singsong inflection Mexicans used, and his face was so open and round, so genuine in its invitation, that Skimmerhorn took a small chunk of meat. It was delicious.

  “Look!” he said. “I have some good beef.”

  The Mexican beamed. “With real beef, señor, we have a feast.”

  So Skimmerhorn ran for his meat, and thirty minutes later he and the Mexican sat close to a larger fire, sharing a banquet.

  “Who are you?” Skimmerhorn asked.

  “Ignacio Gómez, the man said, pronouncing his name most lyrically: Ig-NAZZZ-i-o GOOOO-mez.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m a cook.”

  “You certainly are. Where?”

  “No work.”

  “You want to ride with me? Tend the horses, do the cooking?”

  “Where you headed, señor?”

  “Who knows?”

  The Mexican smiled and said, “I move my things over to you.” But the only things he had were his frying pan, a dirty bedroll and a spavined horse. When he saw the three sound animals Skimmerhorn had, he cried, “Oh, señor. You have fine HORRRR-ses.”

  In the days following they rode aimlessly from ranch to ranch, asking if any Texans were willing to try the long drive north, and finding only disappointment. They did, however, eat well, and one night when Skimmerhorn came back to camp he found a luscious feast laid out; Gómez had traded his worn-out horse for two chickens, some chunks of beef and a bag of vegetables.

  “Ignacio!” Skimmerhorn protested. “You were robbed.”

  “My friends call me NAAAA-cho,” he said, and when Skimmerhorn tasted the stew he said, “Nacho, I don’t know how we’ll get our cattle north, but you’ll be the cook.” The first member of his crew had been hired.

  And then one day on the banks of the Pedernales a trail boss told him, “I hear tell there’s a man up in Palo Pinto County who thinks he has a way of gettin’ around the Comanche and the Pettis boys. Man named R. J. Poteet.”

  Skimmerhorn made repeated inquiries about Poteet, but most of the ranchers along the Pedernales had not heard of him. The one day Nacho rode back to camp with reassuring news: “Poteet? Big man. Knows cattle and how to drive ’em.”

  “How many days north?”

  “If we ride hard, seven, eight.”

  Even though that day was almost over, Skimmerhorn saddled up, and with Nacho trailing behind with the extra horses, set out for Palo Pinto. Toward nightfall on the sixth day he pulled up before a low-roofed clapboard ranch house. Without dismounting, he shouted, “R J. Poteet? You there?”

  No sound greeted this call, and he repeated it, whereupon into the frame of the open door appeared a spare man of medium height. About forty years old, he had a shock of uncombed sandy hair, tightly pursed lips and narrow eyes that glinted as he surveyed his visitor. He wore
a gun and very tight-fitting pants made of striped Mexican fabric, the legs tucked into the tops of his ornamented high-heeled boots. His thumbs were jammed into his broad silvered belt so that his elbows protruded in an awkward way.

  “I’m Poteet,” he said.

  “I’m Skimmerhorn. Down from Colorado. I want you to put me together a good mixed herd.”

  “Why mixed? If you’re sellin’ beef, steers’ll trail better.”

  “I’m not just selling. We’re starting a ranch.”

  “How many you thinkin’ of?”

  “Two, three thousand.”

  “We can get ’em.”

  “Can you get them north?”

  Now Poteet considered carefully. “You know that if we tried to push them through western Kansas, we’d be lucky to keep half the herd. I’ve tried that.”

  “What can we do?”

  Poteet studied the northerner, trying to gauge his courage. “That all depends on you,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is another way, but I wouldn’t force it on you.”

  “What way?” Skimmerhorn asked evenly.

  “Two years ago a man called Goodnight did a hell of a thing. Headed two thousand critters far south of here, dead across the desert, then swung them north to Colorado and Wyoming.”

  When Skimmerhorn looked perplexed, he added, “That way, his greatest risk was nature, not Indians or robbers, and the worst came right at the start.”

  “Could it be done again?”

  “It could.”

  “What are your terms?” Skimmerhorn asked.

  “Eighty cents for every animal delivered. I pay the crew, you supply the horses.”

  “How long before we start?”

  “A week to ten days, way the weather’s shapin’.”

  Neither man had moved from his original position, Skimmerhorn astride his horse, Poteet framed in the doorway, and now the former said, “Poteet, you’re the man I’ve been looking for. Tomorrow we’ll start putting the herd together. Pick your men and we’ll head north.”

  “We could start buyin’ tonight,” Poteet said.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Who’s the Mexican?”

  “Nacho. He’ll be the cook.”

  “Not on my trail,” Poteet said firmly, and ignoring Skimmerhorn, he stepped down to face the Mexican and launched into a furious barrage of Spanish, which Nacho answered in kind, until Skimmerhorn feared that a fight might ensue, but at the end of a protracted exchange Poteet came back to the porch and said, “He’ll be the cook. That one knows what he’s doin’.”

  In Spanish he directed Nacho inside to help Mrs. Poteet cook supper for eight, then he and Skimmerhorn set out to visit neighboring ranches, and long after dark they returned to the Poteet ranch with five lean, poverty-stricken men who were glad to partake of a free meal.

  As the men filed in he introduced them formally to his wife, and before the meal was served he placed a bottle of whiskey on the table.

  “I’m offerin’ four dollars a head, cow or steer, but I reserve the right to reject ten percent of what you offer. And I could use some good bulls too.” Here he banged the table, adding, “I don’t have to warn you that I won’t take cows about to drop calves. On the trail I have in mind we can’t fool with ’em.”

  “What trail you thinkin’ of?” one of the men asked.

  “The way Goodnight went.”

  The men looked at each other, and one asked, “Llano Estacado?”

  “The same.”

  Awed silence, then a man named Lem Frater asked in a quiet voice, “You’ll risk it without water to Horsehead Crossing?”

  “We’ll make it to Horsehead Crossing,” Poteet said firmly, but one cowman turned to Skimmerhorn and asked, “Stranger, have you any idea of the Llano Estacado?”

  “It’s a trail that Mr. Poteet says avoids the Comanche and the Kansas outlaws.”

  “It does that,” the man agreed, “but it has one stretch of seventy miles—”

  “Eighty, ninety,” Poteet broke in quietly, and all turned to look at him as he twirled his whiskey glass, took a deep swig and said, “It’s an agonizin’ trail, the one I have in mind. You start by goin’ two hundred miles out of your way. South of New Mexico. And to get there you drive your cattle over a long stretch without one drop of water.”

  Skimmerhorn thought of a dozen questions, but stifled them. He must get his cattle north, and the only man he had met so far with any idea as to how to do it was R. J. Poteet. If he said that Texas cattle could cross an eighty- or ninety-mile stretch without water, he said it with reason.

  “You payin’ in cash?” Lem Frater asked.

  “You tell me tonight how many head you’re deliverin’ tomorrow, and you go home with ten percent of your cash. You get the rest when I see the cattle.”

  The men were eager to inform Poteet of their numbers, for they had not seen real cash for many years, but at this moment Mrs. Poteet, a thin, hard-faced woman, entered with a heaping platter of steaks, followed by Nacho Gómez bearing gravy, potatoes and a loaf of freshly baked bread.

  “He knows how to cook,” Mrs. Poteet said as she placed the food on the table.

  There were only eight chairs, which meant that Nacho had no place to sit, so he supposed he was meant to eat in the kitchen, but Poteet pulled out a box and said in Spanish, “You sit here,” and Lem Frater said, “A Mexican? At table?” and Poteet said, “At this table, yes.”

  The steaks were cooked Texas style, which meant they were practically inedible. With the best beef at hand, and the best steaks cut from it, the Texans never let the meat age or become tender in any other way. Cutting it from the fresh carcass, they plopped it into a hot pan and kept it over the coals interminably, according to the ancient Texas law: “If it’s brown it’s still cookin’, and if it’s black it’s almost done.”

  “Mighty fine steaks,” Frater judged as he gnawed away at the hard and tasty beef.

  “Thank you, Lem,” Mrs. Poteet replied. “He baked the bread,” she said, pointing to Nacho.

  “If he can cook that good,” Frater said, “I wisht I was goin’ north with you.”

  “I want you to,” Poteet said. “Early tomorrow mornin’ you ride north to Jacksborough and round me up about fifteen hundred head.”

  “I better stay here tomorrow,” Frater protested. “I’ve got to make my count.”

  “I’ll count for you,” Poteet said, and no one at the table thought it improper that one man should offer to serve as both buyer and seller, for if you couldn’t trust R. J. Poteet, you couldn’t trust anybody.

  So at dawn Lem Frater beaded north to the town of Jacksborough while Poteet and Skimmerhorn moved swiftly to the local ranches inspecting cattle and making their selections. By midafternoon they had picked out and paid for thirteen hundred head plus eighty horses. On the way back to the home ranch Poteet explained, “I’d like to carry north about twenty-eight hundred head, and twelve cowboys includin’ you and me and the Mexican. For each man I’ll need twelve horses.”

  “So many?”

  “We’re takin’ the hardest trail in the world,” Poteet said simply. “We won’t skimp on the horses, because we’ll be ridin’ like you never rode before.”

  Next morning he began the selection of his crew. He needed nine additional men who could be trusted with serious responsibility, and he knew of only two, Nate Person and a man called Mule Canby. Trailing an extra horse, he led Skimmerhorn to a mean log dugout along the banks of Pinto Creek, where a man, his wife and three children were trying to eke out a living. They were black and had once been slaves in South Texas; freedom had brought them little beyond an abandoned shack and squatter’s rights to a miserable plot of land which barely provided the vegetables on which they subsisted.

  Tossing one of the children a paper bundle, Poteet said, “The missus cooked up more steak than we could handle, Dora Mae. Where’s your pappy?”

  The child grabbed the pa
rcel, smelled it and broke into a joyous smile. “Mom!” she shouted. “Meat!”

  From the door to the dugout appeared a very thin black woman with flashing white teeth. “Thank you, Mr. Poteet,” she said effusively yet with dignity. “The children will love you for this.”

  “There’s enough for you too,” Poteet said. “Where’s Nate?”

  “He’s grubbin’ for Mr. Goodly.”

  “You send Dora Mae to fetch him,” And while the little girl ran to the Goodly place, Poteet asked Mrs. Person how things were going.

  “Not bad,” she said cheerily. “We got the children dressed and Nate gets work here and there. When you and Mrs. Poteet gonna start bringin’ me your washin’?”

  “One of these days,” Poteet answered.

  Nate Person now ran up, out of breath. “Sorry not to be at home, Mr. Poteet.”