It was morning before they were able to return the herd to the camp, and there, Cade found an anxious Arabella and Maggie, worried about the men and the herd.
“I am so sorry, Cade,” Arabella said. “But all of our fuel, the cow chips, the wood, it is all so wet that we could not get a fire started for breakfast, or even for coffee.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Cade said with a reassuring smile. “It could’ve been much worse. We were very lucky.”
Indian Territory:
Hey, Turner,” Kilgore said. “You ‘n Smith is ridin’ drag today, ain’t you?”
“Yeah,” Turner said, disgustedly.
“How’d you two like me ‘n Toombs to ride drag for you?”
“Wait a minute. Are you a’ sayin’ you want to eat all this dust?”
“Yeah, we’ll do it.”
“I don’t understand. Why the hell would anybody in their right mind want to do that?” Turner asked.
“On account of I’m ridin’ swing, right next to Carter, ‘n the sonofabitch don’t never shut up. At least, back here, nobody is always talkin’ to you.”
Turner laughed. “That’s ‘cause there’s so much dust you can’t hardly breathe neither.”
“You’ll trade places with us?”
“Yeah, only it ain’t a trade. When it comes your time to ride drag again, we ain’t a’ tradin’.”
“All right,” Kilgore agreed.
Half an hour later, with the dust so thick that he couldn’t be seen by anyone else, Kilgore left, leaving Toombs to ride drag alone. He rode off to find a Cherokee named Sam Feather, a man he had done business with the year before, when he had brought the Rocking D herd through.
“I can’t get as many to you this year as I did last year,” Kilgore said. “I ain’t in charge.”
“How many?” Feather asked.
“I think I can get you fifty head.”
“I will take fifty.”
“How much?”
“Five dollars a head,” Feather said.
Kilgore nodded in agreement. “I’ll bring them to Blackjack Coulee in a half hour.”
Kilgore returned to the herd, and under the cover of the dust, cut out fifty head of cattle, just as they were passing Blackjack Coulee. He was met there by Sam Feather, who paid him two hundred fifty dollars for the delivery of the cows.
18
The Red River was considerably higher than it had been when Cade crossed it the year before. There was a ferry available to take the chuck wagon across, but it was going to be somewhat more difficult to get the cattle over. Goliath balked at the water’s edge.
“I can get ‘em across,” GW said.
Cade thought back to another young cowboy, Andy Miller. Because of an accident at this very crossing, a once vibrant young man would never again be able to walk.
“I don’t know, GW.” He didn’t want anything like that to happen again.
“I know I can do it, Mr. McCall, if you’ll let me try.”
He knew he was going to have to do something; he couldn’t just leave the herd stranded.
“All right,” Cade said, reluctantly, “and if you get Goliath started, there’ll be fifty dollars for you.”
“Yes, sir,” GW said as a big smile crossed his face. He began looking around. “The ladies are already out of sight, aren’t they?”
“They are, but why does that matter?” Cade asked.
“You’ll see.”
GW began stripping down to his underwear. “Here, Troy, bring these with you when you come across.”
As the others watched, GW mounted his horse then rode up alongside Goliath, prodding him into the water. When the lead steer got into the water, a few of the others, reluctantly, began to follow. Within a few moments, the cattle began piling up at the edge of the water, because Goliath had stopped in mid-stream.
“That ain’t a’ goin’ to work,” Mo Bender said. “Them cows ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“Look at GW!” Troy said. “What’s he doin’?”
The others watched as GW got off his horse, and stepped out onto the cattle, which were now crowded so close together that they resembled a raft of logs. Walking across their backs, he straddled Goliath, and urged him toward the far bank. Once the steer began moving, the other cattle began moving as well. GW rode Goliath on up the bank, then urged him to the side, out of the way of the herd, which was coming across in a steady stream. Here, he was able to transfer from the steer to his horse, which had swum across with the herd.
“Timmy, you think you can get the horses across?” Cade asked.
“Yes, sir. Uh, I don’t have to take off my clothes do I?”
Cade laughed. “I expect that’s up to you.”
“I’ll help you,” Troy said, and the two took the horses upstream from the cattle. The horses didn’t balk, and took to the river easily.
“All right, men, into the river with you,” Cade said. “You don’t plan to sit around and let these boys do all the work for you, do you?”
It took half an hour to cross the river and they did so without losing so much as one animal. About a mile beyond the river, with the sun gradually drying the cowboy’s wet clothes, Jeter pointed to three Indians who were sitting on horseback, observing the approaching herd.
“I wondered how long it would be before our friends contacted us,” Jeter said.
“Friends? You mean you know them? There won’t be no trouble?” GW asked.
“That depends on what you call trouble,” Cade said with a little chuckle. “They represent the Choctaw nation. The one in the middle is Charles Pitchlynn. Like Jeter and me, he fought for the Confederacy during the war. The only difference was I was a sergeant, and Pitchlynn there, was a captain.”
“A captain? Are you tellin’ me there was Indians that was made officers?”
“This one was,” Cade said. “And his pa was a colonel. Colonel Pitchllynn is some sort of bigwig in Washington now. Come with me.”
Cade rode up to greet the three Indians. “Hello, Charles.”
“Hello, Cade,” Pitchllynn replied. “I wasn’t sure I would see you with a herd this year. I heard about the hurricane you had down in Galveston.”
“It was quite a storm,” Cade said.
“With as many places reporting by telegraph as there are, you would think there would be a better system of warning those who are in the path of such storms,” Pitchllynn said.
“Damn, I ain’t never heard no injun talk like you do,” GW said.
Pitchllynn looked at GW. “That’s because I am from one of the five nations that you call, ‘civilized’, though I hasten to add that my people had a civilization on this continent for well over a thousand years before any of your people arrived. Tell me, Cade, who is this impressionable young man?”
“This is GW Jones, one of my cowboys,” Cade said.
“Jones, you say? Clearly, that has to be an alias.”
“No, I ain’t no alias, I don’t even know nobody named alias,” GW said. “It’s like Mr. McCall told you, my name is Jones.”
Pitchllynn laughed.
“All right, Charles, what’s it going to cost me to pass through, this year?”
“Twenty–five cents a head,” the Indian replied.
“Ouch! It was only fifteen cents last year.”
“Yes, and thirty cents a head when you reached the Cherokee nation. But William Ross and I have spoken, and we have come to an agreement. He is lowering his charge by five cents; we are increasing our charge by ten cents. It is only going to cost you a nickel more to get through the territories this year than it did last year. And, we will provide you with guides to help you find water and grazing.”
“All right,” Cade said, “that sounds like a fair enough deal to me. You can help with the head count. I think, at the moment, we have two thousand, one hundred eighty cows.”
Pitchllynn closed his eyes as if in thought. “Five hundred and forty-five dollars,” he said.
“Dayum! You ciphered that all up just in your head?” GW asked amazed by what he had heard.
“Yes,” Pitchllynn replied. “Schooling is a wonderful thing, young man. You should get all of it you can.”
“I suppose you saw my chuck wagon,” Cade said. “You didn’t give them any trouble, did you?”
“No, on the contrary, we had a wonderful conversation in French. I was surprised to see that you were using women as cooks. I must say, however, that the ladies were most delightful.”
“One of them is my wife,” Cade replied.
Pitchllynn smiled. “So, you married since you were here last year. Well, congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Cade drew some money from his saddlebag and began counting out the agreed upon price.
“By the way, I feel I must warn you to be on the lookout,” Pithllynn said as he accepted the money.
“On the lookout for what?”
“There are some renegades, Comanche, mind you, not Choctaw nor Cherokee, who have been causing some trouble. Chief Ross and I have both put our police in pursuit of them, but so far they have managed to elude us.”
“What would they do with the cattle, once they stole ‘em?” GW asked. “Are they going to drive them up to market?”
“They aren’t after cattle, young man,” Pitchllynn said. “They’re after horses. If they can steal ten or twenty of your horses, they can take them over to the western part of The Nations and sell or trade them.”
“Thanks for the information,” Cade said. “We’ll keep our eyes open.”
After they made camp that night, Petey Malone, Art Finley, and Boo Rollins began singing. When they started the drive, Muley Morris had been one of the singers, but since his death at the Lavaca River, in the aborted cattle raid, the three remaining singers had to carry on without him. It was obvious that they missed Muley’s rich baritone voice, but the remaining three were good enough to provide entertainment for the others.
Cade and Arabella were sitting in their usual place, on a blanket against the wagon wheel, but Jeter and Maggie weren’t sitting in their normal spots.
“What happened to Jeter and Maggie?” Cade asked.
“They’re over there,” Arabella said, pointing into the darkness.
“Over where? I don’t see them.”
Arabella laughed a throaty little laugh. “That’s the whole point, silly. You aren’t supposed to see them.”
“Oh, are they . . . uh . . . ?” Cade started, but he didn’t finish his question.
“You mean you don’t know? I know you’re very busy, but I can’t believe you haven’t noticed what’s going on between Jeter and Magnolia.”
Cade chuckled. “I’ll be damn. I wonder if anything’s going to come of it.”
“Oh, Cade, why do you say such a thing? Jeter’s not going to break Magnolia’s heart, is he?”
“That’s quite a question, isn’t it? But, no, I know Jeter pretty well, and I don’t think he has it in him to break a woman’s heart.”
With the Circle JMT Herd:
Wichita, Kansas was located just above where the Little Arkansas River joined the Arkansas River. The town, just recently incorporated, was ideally situated on the Chisholm Trail, eighty-five miles south of Abilene. The only thing the town lacked was a railhead, and the city fathers were actively wooing the railroad executives to bring a line through Wichita. In an attempt to make the town more respectable, the new mayor had ordered the U.S. Marshal to clamp down on the lawlessness that accompanied the drovers who came up the trail from Texas.
But those who made their living off the rowdiness that came with the cattle trade moved their establishments across the Arkansas and formed the community of Elgin. Within weeks, the town was wide open, with six saloons, one dance hall and three houses of prostitution. Elgin had no illusions of becoming respectable. They bragged that if someone was in need of the law, they could go to Wichita, but if they wanted to have fun, they should come to Elgin.
When Dan Frazier stopped his herd just south of Wichita, he gave half the men the night off to go into town. The other half were told they could go in the following night.
Night had fallen by the time Amon Kilgore and Fred Toombs rode out of camp. They didn’t bother going into Wichita, but went straight to Elgin. The main street was a contrast of dark and light. Those few establishments that sold viable services—a mercantile, a blacksmith—were closed and dark, but the saloons were brightly lit and they splashed pools of light out onto the sidewalk and into the street. As the two men rode down the street, they would pass in and out of those pools of light so that if anyone saw them they would be seen, then unseen, then seen again. The footfalls of their horses made a hollow clumping sound, echoing back from the false-fronted buildings as they passed them by.
By the time they reached a saloon that seemed to be the most lively, the night was alive with a cacophony of sound: music from a tinny piano, a strumming guitar, an off-key vocalist, all augmented by the high-pitched laughter of women and the deep guffaw of men.
“What’s it going to be?” Kilgore asked. “Whiskey or women?”
“Can’t we get both at the same place?”
“Sure, you can get a woman at the saloon, but you have to buy ‘em drinks, ‘n it winds up costin’ you more,” Kilgore replied. “Why not just spend our money and take our pleasure? It seems to me like we only got one night, and I’d rather ride a whore I know than down a drink.”
Toombs smiled. “Now you’re a talkin’. Lead me to this here woman you know.”
“Look behind you.”
Toombs turned in the saddle. “Well I’ll be damned. The Happy Cowboy.” Toombs laughed. “Think the women in there can make us happy?”
“I guarantee you, they can.”
The two men dismounted and tied off their horses at the hitching rack.
“How’d you come to know about this place, Amon?”
“I was by here last year,” Kilgore said.
“Are they purty?”
“When you ain’t seen a woman since Fort Worth, it don’t make no difference what they look like,” Kilgore said.
“Amon Kilgore!” a woman called out when the two men stepped inside. “I was hopin’ you’d be back this year, but ain’t you a little early?”
“Hello, Suzie,” Kilgore said, as he reached out to squeeze her breast. “I ain’t trail boss this year, so I’m just moseying up the trail. Ain’t got a care in the world, cept thinkin’ about you all the way.”
Suzie laughed. “That’s a big one. But ain’t it sweet of you to say it.”
Toombs cleared his throat.
“Oh, I forgot. This is my partner, Fred Toombs. Can you take care of him?”
“You want me to take care of him?” Suzie asked, a quizzical expression on her face.
“No, dammit, you know what I mean. Set him up with a good girl, but not quite as good as you. I don’t want to hear him brag about his woman all the way to Abilene.”
“There’s no one that can top me,” Suzie said. Then she laughed. “That is except you, Amon.”
Kilgore took Suzie in his arms and swung her around. “Let’s get these introductions over in a hurry.”
“All right, all right. Girls, come over here!” Suzie called. “I’ve got somebody I want you to be nice to.”
As the six young women approached, all were wearing practiced smiles. The smile on the face of one of the women fell away, and she stared at Toombs as intently as he was staring at her. Then the smile returned, not the wide, flirtatious smile, but a smile that was shy, and hesitant.
“Hello, Billy,” the young woman said.
“Tennie,” Toombs replied.
Kilgore looked over in surprise. “What the hell? I thought you’d never been through here before.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then how is it that you ‘n this whore know each other? And how’d she know your real name?”
“She’s my sister,” Toombs replied in a matter of
fact voice.
19
Four days later, as the Circle JMT herd was stopped for lunch about twenty miles north of Wichita, Dan Frazier confronted Kilgore.
“We’re short sixty-two cows since our last head count,” Frazier said.
Kilgore took a bite of his biscuit that was left over from breakfast. “That happens,” he said, nonchalantly.
“It doesn’t happen to me,” Frazier said.
“What do you mean, it don’t happen to you? You just said you’re short sixty-two cows.”
“The point is, it’s not normal,” Frazier said. “Yeah, we lose a few cows now ‘n then, but sixty-two? We’ve not had a stampede to speak of, nor a bad river crossing, but still we’re sixty-two short. That’s the biggest loss we’ve had since we left San Antone.”
“What you tellin’ me for?”
“I’m tellin’ you ‘cause I think, when you were ridin’ drag, you just happened to cut some of ‘em out.”
Kilgore set his plate to one side. Gone was the nonchalant attitude.
“That ain’t true. And even iffin it was true, what would I have did with the cows?”
“Sold them, I expect.”
Kilgore stood up and with narrowed eyes, he pointed toward the trail boss. “Look here, Frazier, you got no proof me ‘n Toombs did that.”
Inexplicably, Frazier smiled. “I thought he might be in on it, thanks for tellin’ me.”
“Dammit, Frazier, I didn’t say no such thing. ‘N like I said, you got no proof.”
“You don’t understand, Kilgore. I ain’t got time to be takin’ you to court over this, so I don’t need any proof. It’s just enough that I think that’s what you did, ‘n so, that’s why I’m firin’ you. I’m firin’ both of you.”
Frazier reached into his pocket and pulled out two ten-dollar bills. “Here’s the wages for both of you.”
“Wages! Ten dollars apiece is that what you call wages? For all we’ve done for you?”
“You should count yourself lucky that I don’t take both of you back to Wichita ‘n turn you over to the marshal.”
The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set Page 35