Centennial

by James A. Michener

  The dreadful routine was now broken. In the distant west appeared a column of dust, and as it drew closer it became a momentary vision of men on horses with a wagon, only to dissolve again into dust.

  “What the hell can that be?” Lasater asked, and everyone kept his attention on the dust, thinking that it must be Nate Person, but it was not.

  It was indeed a company of men, seven or eight perhaps, leading a wagon drawn by mules.

  “There’s no army unit around here,” Savage said.

  “Could it be the Pettis gang?” Skimmerhorn asked with real apprehension.

  “No, they wouldn’t range this far south,” Poteet assured him, but he, too, watched the approaching column with concern.

  “Move that remuda in closer,” he called to Canby, who rode out to warn Buck. “Get the wagon, too.” And Nacho headed his mules back toward the column.

  These precautions were unnecessary, for when the horsemen were close enough to be identified, they proved to be one of the strangest processions ever to cross the Llano. The man in the lead was a lean, sharp-eyed cattleman, thirty-two years old, named Charles Goodnight, the Christopher Columbus of the prairies. He had been everywhere, the first man to cross these plains with cattle, and now he was going home after having sold his herd at Fort Union.

  He knew Poteet. “You can make it,” he assured the cowboys. “Your cattle are in bad shape, but they can handle the mountain and then they’ll have water.”

  He impressed upon Poteet the necessity of keeping his water-starved cattle away from the alkali sections of the Pecos. “Only at Horsehead is the water good. Station your best men north and south and keep your critters away from the salts.”

  “What’s in the wagon?” Poteet asked.

  “Oliver Loving,” he said solemnly. “My partner and friend. Killed by Comanche.” He spoke briefly of Loving’s character and his knowledge of range life. “He made me promise one thing. Didn’t want his bones buried in a foreign land.”

  Goodnight’s men had flattened kerosene tins to make a metal covering for the wooden coffin in which they were transporting the body. They had then placed it in a spacious wooden outer coffin and filled the space between with charcoal, so that the body would ride easily.

  “We’ll bury him in Weatherford, Texas, the way he wanted,” Goodnight said, and he reassembled his men to continue their long march across the desert. “It’s easier,” he said, “when you don’t have cattle.”

  Before he left, Mr. Skimmerhorn asked, “You’ll be passing Tom Lloyd’s ranch, won’t you?”

  “Tom’s dead.”

  “I know. This is his boy.”

  Mr. Goodnight looked at the boy and said, “You must be about fourteen. Good age to be startin’ on the trail.”

  “What I had in mind,” Skimmerhorn said, “was that Mrs. Lloyd gave Mr. Poteet about two hundred longhorns...”

  “Two hundred and eighteen, less one that died this morning,” Jim said.

  “And we’re taking them to Fort Sumner to sell ... on consignment, as it were.”

  “No market at Fort Sumner. None at all. John Chisum sells ’em all they need.”

  Jim’s face showed his anguish at such news. His mother needed that money, but Mr. Skimmerhorn continued: “I’ve been watching these cattle. I’d like to buy them all-right now. And give you the balance of the money for Mrs. Lloyd.”

  “You’ve got yourself a bargain, sir. Didn’t catch the name.”

  “Skimmerhorn.”

  Mr. Goodnight hesitated. “You’re not old enough to have led the Colorado militia ...”He stopped.

  “At the Rattlesnake Buttes massacre? No, sir. That was my father.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it, sir. But if you want to send Mrs. Lloyd the money by me, I’d be honored by such evidence of your trust.”

  Skimmerhorn counted out the bills for the two hundred and seventeen longhorns, less the advance that Mr. Poteet had given, and Mr. Goodnight tucked it into his belt. Bidding the cowboys farewell, he headed his cortege eastward toward Fort Chadbourne.

  “You trustin’ him with all that money for a widow?” Savage asked, and Mr. Poteet said, “If you can’t trust Charles Goodnight, there’s no man on earth you can.” Then he interrupted himself to ask, “What’s wrong with that boy?” and he sent Mr. Skimmerhorn to where Jim Lloyd was standing beside his horse, looking at the disappearing column, his shoulders heaving in silent grief.

  “What’s the matter, son?” Skimmerhorn asked, and the fourteen-year-old boy mumbled, “I’ll never see my mother again ... nor my brothers.” Skimmerhorn said nothing, for he suspected that this would be so.

  They now led the cattle across the last bleak stretch of alkali flats and into the mountains, knowing that when the animals smelled the water ahead they would rush to it. But manipulating them over this final desert was bound to be difficult. The cattle were mad with thirst and could no longer be bullied. A steer cut off on his own, like the cow before him, and like her he died. The buzzards kept steady watch, floating in the cloudless sky, noting each faltering step.

  It was now that Stonewall proved himself invaluable; he was a kind of Old Testament prophet, leading his stricken cohorts to a better land, just beyond the mountains. Perhaps he, sooner than the others, smelled the distant water; at any rate, he kept the animals moving and disciplined those near him if they attempted to break loose.

  At the top of the pass, that strange cleft between hills so flat they might have been scraped across the top with a ruler, the cattle sensed that water lay below them in the distant valley and they surged forward with new hope. But as they did so it was the cows, not the bulls or steers, who took charge. Some extra responsibility for keeping life alive animated them, and rudely they shoved the males aside, pushing and knocking until they came to the head of the column, where only the patience of Stonewall kept them in order.

  On and on they pressed, mad for water and the continuation of life. Their gaunt necks reached out and their dust-filled eyes peered through the haze as their legs pumped mechanically, driven by the last surges of energy within their shrunken frames.

  “Keep up with ’em!” Poteet shouted to his men. “Keep ’em from the alkali.”

  The cowboys started at an easy canter, then found themselves pulled into a gallop by the running herd. Dust rose over the arid plains and buzzards. flew higher to escape it. Jim Lloyd, riding drag, had no problem keeping his charges moving forward. They were far ahead of him and it was all he could do with his tired horse to keep up with them.

  Now Nate Person rode back from the river, shouting, “Keep ’em to the south!”

  He and Poteet and Skimmerhorn moved to the right point to help Lasater force the stampede away from the bad water, and by skillful riding they turned the herd.

  “I think we’ve got ’em!” Poteet called, for the river was less than a mile away and they were headed in the right direction.

  But now a tragic thing happened. Stonewall, having safely brought the herd so far, smelled water and set out for the nearest source, which happened to lie north, just where the alkali was most concentrated.

  “Head him off,” Poteet yelled, but it was impossible to turn him. What was worse, the cows were following him and a great pressure developed from behind.

  “Stop him!” Person shouted. “Goddamnit, Lasater! Stop him!”

  Lasater, who was closest to the old steer, did not hesitate. Spurring his horse, he rode directly at Stonewall, intending to divert him, but the big steer simply ran down both man and horse, throwing both to the ground. Now only Poteet stood between the cattle and disaster.

  Without waiting, he rode hard at Stonewall, and again the big steer tried to run the man down, his old partner Poteet.

  When the trail boss saw what the steer intended he reined in his horse and waited till the big brute was upon him. Then, aiming his revolver carefully, he destroyed the wonderful. animal. With a last look of astonishment at Poteet, the steer stumbled forward and fell int
o the dust. Instantly Poteet spurred his horse away from the spot, and with help from Skimmerhorn, held the hesitant cattle and headed them for the good water.

  They surged into the stream past the skeleton horseheads and stood there for some minutes before drinking. Then, unlike the men who drank in foolish gulps, they took small sips, lowing as they did, until the whole muddy stream echoed with their joy.

  Jim Lloyd and Coker found Lasater stretched out unconscious, but Mr. Skimmerhorn, who listened to his heart and felt for broken bones, told them, “He’ll be all right.” Now Ragland called, “Poteet’s missing,” and everyone tried to reconstruct where the boss had been.

  “He was riding like hell when we turned the cows back,” Skimmerhorn said, and they spread out. Canby found him back down the trail a bit, toward the bad water. He had dismounted and was standing beside Stonewall, and as the younger Texans rode by in their search, Canby motioned them away, and they left him there, each cowboy with his own memory of that splendid steer.

  The Pecos was a preposterous river. For the past five weeks these men had dreamed of the moment when they would lead their cattle down to it, and for the last three waterless days it had been an obsession. Now here it was, about eighteen feet across, as shallow as six inches in some parts, only a little deeper in others. There wasn’t much water, but it kept flowing. Two hundred cows would crowd into the good part and drink like siphons, and minutes later the water would stand at the same level. Jim Lloyd tried it, and it was brakish, tasting of alkali even at the good part. Farther up you couldn’t keep the water in your mouth, let alone swallow it.

  “Hell, I could jump that,” Ragland said, and he stepped back, hunched up his shoulders and pumped his legs like pistons on one of the new steam engines. With a snort he sped across the even upland, tore down the steep bank and gave a mighty roar as he leaped into the hot air brooding over the river.

  He would have made it, too, except that he found no secure place from which to take off. He fell two feet short, landed with a resounding splash, fought to maintain a foothold and fell backward in the water. For the rest of the trip, cowboys at night would slap their legs and ask each other, “Remember when Old Rags said he could jump the Pecos? Hell, he missed by a mile!” Henceforth he would be Old Rags, the highest compliment a cowboy could pay another. It would never be Old Gompert or Old Savage and certainly not Old Buck. That would be inconceivable.

  The men led the cows across to the western bank, then camped for three days till everyone recovered, but as they were about to move out, the wrangler, who had his horses to the north, shouted, “Calvary!” Like all Texans, he pronounced this word in its biblical form. Any soldier on horseback was calvary.

  It was a detachment from Fort Sumner, riding out to scout the Mescalero Apaches, who were on a rampage through central New Mexico. “We want you to drive up the east bank,” a lieutenant shouted.

  “Is there grass over there?” Poteet asked.

  “Not good, but if you stay over here they’ll steal your horses. Keep a sharp eye on your remuda.”

  “Much fighting?”

  “Nope. Just raids. If you shoot, they shoot.”

  When the cavalrymen finished their coffee they disappeared to the south, and Poteet laid plans to keep the remuda closer to camp, with extra men to help guard it. “An Apache can steal your blanket while you’re sittin’ on it,” he warned, “but they’re not goin’ to get our horses.”

  With loud huzzahs the men brought the Crown Vee cattle back to the east bank, no great feat, and started them north. It was a curious trail the land bordering the river was loaded with cactus, barren of grass and blistering hot. In order for the cattle to feed, she cowboys led them about six miles away from the river, but for them to drink, they had to come back to one of the potable spots, and in this zigzag fashion they stumbled north.

  “I’ll put this land up against the worst in Texas,” Lasater said.

  One night Ragland asked abruptly, “Is it true, Lasater, that you was mighty near hung?”

  “Yep.”

  “How come?”

  “Me and O. D. Cleaver was fixin’ to hold up a bank in a place called Falfurrias ...”

  “They ain’t no such place as Falfurrias,” Ragland said.

  “North of the border,” Lasater replied. It was important to him that the men acknowledge the truth of his claim. “You know Reynosa, where we used to pick up the Mexican herds? You cross the river to Hidalgo, which isn’t much, and come due north and you hit Falfurrias.”

  “Yeah,” Savage agreed. “About halfway to San Antonio.”

  His veracity established, Lasater said, “Me and O. D. was camped six miles south of Falfurrias, sort of scoutin’ out the place, and we figured the sheriff and most of the men would be out of town on Thursday afternoon—somethin’ doin’ to the north—and we rode into town easy-like, but they hadn’t gone. The sheriff spotted us and shouted, ‘Catch them swine!’ and they did, and somebody yelled, ‘Let’s hang ’em,’ and somebody else yelled, ‘We can’t hang ’em. They ain’t done nothin’,’ and this danged old sheriff shouts, ‘We can hang ’em for what they was gonna do,’ and danged if they didn’t haul us out to the edge of town and start to string us up when a young feller who musta been either a lawyer or a preacher interrupts in a loud voice cryin’, ‘This is unconstitutional and against the law of God,’ and the sheriff says, ‘You know danged well these two was gonna rob the bank. You seen ’em scoutin’ the place the last three days,’ and they tightened the rope, and the young feller draws his gun and says, ‘Then you gotta hang me too, because I’ve scouted that danged old bank many a day.’ So they let us go, and I got just one word for you fellers, ‘Stay away from Falfurrias,’ because down there they hang you for what you’re thinkin’.”

  “How come you took to robbin’ banks?” Ragland asked.

  Lasater stared at the fire and offered no explanation, so Ragland continued: “You goin’ back to it when we’re done?”

  “I sure ain’t plannin’ to,” Lasater said, and Jim Lloyd, sitting near him as he said these words, saw the strange look on his face, as if the older cowboy knew that no man was complete master of his fate, and that sometimes a man found himself caught up in the robbing of a bank when that had not been his intention at all.

  It now became difficult to find potable water, for the Pecos became loaded with alkali, and the water holes, which were frequent in the area, could not be used, because they were passing through land claimed by John Chisum, greatest cattle baron in the west. He was so determined to hold on to what he had grabbed that he designated a few holes for the use of his own cattle and directed his men to salt the others.

  Some years ago Chisum had accomplished in New Mexico what Seccombe was trying to do in Colorado: by purchasing six hundred strategic acres with water he had established his iron rule over another six million. He considered all this land his and was ready to shoot anyone who dared trespass upon it with intention of staying. His own land would support at best twenty cows; he ran upward of forty thousand on land that rightfully belonged to the general public, but if one of that public tried to build a cabin anywhere on the vast reaches, or tried to water his cattle at a Chisum well, he faced the barrel of a gun.

  “We’re now on John Chisum land,” Poteet warned the men as they moved north. The range, farther than a man could see in ten days of travel, was Chisum’s because he said so. Scores of good men would die before this unique theory of land ownership could be successfully challenged.

  After the cowboys had learned to grapple with this problem of no drinkable water in the Pecos and none in John Chisum’s wells, they were confronted with another trying situation. For some time the older hands had noticed that two or three of the cows were growing distressingly fat, and one morning they woke to find that one of them had thrown a calf. They looked at Jim.

  When Mr. Poteet heard of the matter he said, “Well, Jim. The drag takes care of the calves. That’s the rule.”

 
; “How?” Jim asked.

  “You kill ’em.”

  “I what?” Jim asked, his face turning white.

  “Tell him, Nate,” and Person took Jim and Coker aside and said, “Every outfit that trails cows has this problem. Calves. They can’t possibly keep up. You’d lose cow and calf.” He shook his head and told the drags, “It’s your job to kill ’em.”

  “But how?’ Jim pleaded.

  “Some shoots ’em. Some bangs ’em over the head with a club.”

  “But I ... Before the boy could speak Person left, taking Coker with him.

  Jim went to where the cow was suckling her newborn, and one look at the white snout and the eager lips of the calf as it found the teat undid Jim completely for his task. He touched his revolver but could not take it from his holster. He looked about for a club and was gratified when he found none. Finally, in despair, he lifted the calf and took it from its protecting mother, who followed him almost to the camp.

  “I can’t kill a calf, Mr. Poteet. I raise ’em.”