by Zane Grey
“Wal, I’ll fire yu when we get to Fort Worth,” rejoined Joe, coolly.
“Fire me!” cried Reddie, astounded and furious.
“Yu heahed me, Miss.”
“Then yu’ll fire the whole damn ootfit,” declared Reddie, hotly. “The idee! When I’ve not done a single thing wrong.... Tell him, boys. Deuce, Roy, Whit, Rolly — tell him.”
There were nonchalant and amiable remarks tending to the veracity of Reddie’s declaration.
“My Gawd! what a lousy ootfit!” ejaculated Joe, in disgust. “Less Holden — my pard — air yu in cahoots with her?”
“Shore, Tex,” replied Lester, with a laugh. “We jest couldn’t drive cattle withoot Reddie.”
“Yu too!” burst out Texas, deeply chagrined and amazed.
“Say, what kind of a foreman air yu — givin’ orders to yore hawse-wrangler through a third person?” flashed Reddie, scornfully. “I’m on this ootfit. I’m gettin’ wages. Yu cain’t ignore me.”
“Cain’t I?” queried Texas, in helpless rage. It was evident that he could not. More than evident was it that something inexplicable and infuriating was at work upon him.
“No, yu cain’t — not no more,” continued Reddie, carried beyond reserve. “Not withoot insultin’ me, Texas Jack Shipman.”
“Stop callin’ me Texas Jack,” shouted the driver.
“I’ll call yu wuss’n thet pronto. An’ I’ll say right now of all the conceited, stuck-up cowboys I ever seen yu’re the damnedest. Yu’re too proud to speak to poor white trash like me. So yu order me aboot through the boss or one of the boys, or even Moze. An’ I’m callin’ for a show down, Tex Shipman.”
“Boss, do I have to stand heah an take all this?” appealed Joe, turning shamefacedly to Brite.
“Wal, Tex, I don’t reckon yu have to, but I’d take it if I was yu’ an’ get it over,” advised Brite, conciliatingly.
Thus championed by her employer, Reddie gave way utterly to whatever complicated emotions were driving her. Like a cat she sprang close to Texas and glared up at him, her eyes blazing, her breast heaving.
“Yu can tell me right heah an’ now, in front of the ootfit, why yu treat me like dirt under yore feet,” demanded she, huskily.
“Wrong again, Miss Bayne,” drawled Texas. “Yu flatter yoreself. I jest didn’t think aboot yu atall.”
This seemed to be a monstrous lie to all except the pale-faced girl to whom it was directed.
“Tex Shipman, yu killed a man to save me, but it wasn’t for me particularly? Yu’d done thet for any girl, good or — or bad?”
“Why, shore I would.”
“An’ yu had yore doubts aboot me then, didn’t yu, cowboy?”
“Wal, I reckon so. An’ I — still got — them,” rejoined Texas, haltingly. He had doubts about himself, too, and altogether the situation must have been galling to him.
“Yu bet yu have!” flashed Reddie, scarlet of face. “Come oot with them then — if yu’re not yellow!... First — yu think I — I’m bad, don’t yu?”
“Wal, if yu’re keen aboot thet, I don’t think yu’re so — so damn good!”
“Oh-h!” cried the girl, poignantly. Then she gave him a stinging slap with her right hand and another with her left.
“Heah! Yu got me wrong!” yelled Texas, suddenly horrified at the way she took his scathing reply; and he backed away from her flaming assault. But it was too late. Reddie was too violently outraged to comprehend what seemed clear to Brite, and no doubt all the gaping listeners.
“I ought to kill yu for thet,” whispered Reddie. “An’ I would, by Gawd! but for Mr. Brite!... Oh, I’ve knowed all along yu thought I was a hussy.... Thet Wallen had... Damn yu, Tex Shipman. Yu don’t know a decent girl when yu meet one! Yu gotta be told. An’ I’m tellin’ yu.... Wallen was a dirty skunk. An’ he wasn’t the only one who hounded me oot of a job. All because I wanted to be decent.... An’ I am decent — an’ as good as yore own sister, Tex Shipman — or any other boy’s sister!... To think I — I have to tell yu! — I ought to do thet — with a gun — or a hawsewhip.”
Suddenly she broke down and began to sob. “Now — yu can go to hell — Tex Shipman — with yore orders — an’ with what — yu think aboot me! Yu’re dirt — under — my feet!”
CHAPTER VI
REDDIE PLUNGED AWAY into the gathering dusk as if she meant to leave that camp forever. Brite decided he would not let her go far, but before following her he took note of the group at the camp fire. Texas Joe stared after Reddie. The boys began to upbraid him in no friendly terms, when Pan Handle silenced them with a gesture.
“Tex, this is liable to split our ootfit,” he said, putting a hand on the cowboy’s shoulder. “It won’t do. We all know yu didn’t think Reddie’s no good. But she doesn’t know. Square thet pronto.”
Brite hastened after Reddie, and coming up with her just out of the camp-fire light he detained her with a gentle hand.
“Lass, yu mustn’t go runnin’ off.”
“Oh, I — I could run right — into the river,” she cried, miserable. “I — I was so — so happy.”
“Wal, it’ll all come right,” returned the cattleman, and put a kindly arm around her and led her to a seat on a near-by rock. Reddie was not proof against sympathy and she sank on his shoulder.
“Tell me yu don’t — believe it,” she begged.
“Believe what, lass?”
“What Texas thinks — aboot me.”
“Wal, I should smile not. None of the boys do. An’ I reckon Tex himself... Heah he comes, Reddie.”
She stiffened in his arms and appeared to hold her breath. Texas strode up to them, bareheaded in the dusk. Only his eyes could be seen and they gleamed darkly.
“Reddie Bayne, yu listen to me,” he began, sternly. “If yu wasn’t such a darned little spitfire yu’d never disgraced me before the ootfit. I — —”
“Disgraced yu?” she interrupted.
“Yes, me.... I swear to Gawd I had no idee atall thet yu wasn’t as honest an’ — an’ good as any girl. I meant yu was a queer, contrary, temperish, spiteful little devil. But only thet. Sabe? ... An’ I’m sorry I upset yu an’ I want to apologize.”
“Yu’re aboot six days too late, Texas Jack,” she burst out, defiantly. “An’ — an’ yu can go to hell, anyhow.”
He gave her a slow, strange glance as she lay with her head on Brite’s shoulder.
“Wal, I’ll have company, for thet’s where this ootfit is haided,” he replied, coldly, and stalked away.
Reddie raised to peer over Brite’s shoulder after the cowboy. She was not aware how she clung to Brite. But he felt the strong, little hands on his vest. Slowly then she dropped back, head and breast against him, where she all but collapsed.
“There!... I’ve — done — it — now,” she whispered, as if to herself. “I should have acted the — the lady....But I — I hate him so.”
Brite formed his own conclusion about how she hated Texas Joe. It also came to him, and stronger than formerly, how he had come to feel toward Reddie. This was the time to tell it.
“Lass, I reckon folks oot on the Chisholm Trail can have feelin’s the same as when they’re home safe an’ sound. Mebbe stronger an’ deeper an’ better feelin’s. Anyway, I’m goin’ to ask yu somethin’ particular. I’m alone in the world. No near kin. An’ I’d like to have yu for a daughter. How aboot it?”
“Oh, it’d be my dream come true,” she cried, ecstatically. “Oh, if only I’m worthy!”
“Let me be the judge of thet,” he replied, happily. “I have a ranch ootside Santone. An’ yu can make it yore home. All I ask is thet yu care a little for me.”
“I love yu now, Mr. Brite,” she whispered, generously, and hugged him. “Oh, it’s too good to be true.”
“Wal, then, do yu accept me as yore adopted dad?”
“I cain’t thank God enough,” she murmured.
“It’s settled an’ I reckon I’m doin’ some thankin’ on my own hook.
”
“Yu air so good an’ kind.... Oh, this ootfit is different. ... I wonder what he will say when he finds oot.”
“Who?”
“Thet cowboy.”
“Aw, he’ll have me to reckon with now. But, Reddie, we’ll keep it secret till we get to Dodge.”
Brite was unrolling his bed when he felt something fine and cold touch his cheek. Rain! He had been so preoccupied that he had not observed any change in weather conditions. The stars had grayed over. All the north appeared gloomy and black. Storms were the bane of the trail drivers. Texas was noted for storms, from the del norte of the Mexicans to the Pan Handle cyclone.
“Reddie, it’s goin’ to rain,” he called. “Fetch yore bed over under the wagon.”
But Reddie was in the land of dreams. Brite took his long slicker and, stepping across to where Reddie lay, spread it over her bed. Brite experienced a new sensation — a warm wave of joy at realization of his new responsibility. Hearing voices, he went over to the wagon. The boys were moving their beds under it. The wind had quickened, blowing a fine, chilly mist in Brite’s face.
“Wal, boss, our luck has changed,” spoke up Texas, grimly. “We’ve shore been too damn lucky. Now it’s comin’.”
“What’s comin’, yu gloomy geezer?”
“A norther, first off. I don’t know what after thet.”
“It’s a late spring. We could have a norther even this late,” replied Brite, ponderingly.
“Moze, where’n hell air yu?” called Joe.
“I wuz under de wagon, Mars Joe, till I got rolled oot,” answered Moze.
“Wal, yu roll oot farther an’ pack all the dry wood yu got in the caboose.”
“Yes, suh. Ise done on de way.”
“Where’s yore ax? I’ll split some more wood. Boss, we might as wal use thet extra tarp for a wind an’ rain break. Moze has one over the wagon. Lawd! I do hate the wet an’ cold.... Hadn’t yu better wake Reddie an’ call her oot heah?”
“I spread my slicker over her,” replied Brite, pleased with the solicitude in Shipman’s voice. “She’ll be all right unless it pours.”
Texas went off, muttering to himself. Soon the ring of the ax attested to his occupation. Moze was having his troubles putting wood in the canvas that had been stretched under the wagon for such purpose. The cowboys were in his way.
“Moze, let ’em sleep,” suggested Brite. “We’ll put up the extra tarp. Yu can lay the wood under thet till mawnin’.... Heah. Tie one end of the tarp to the hoops of the wagon an’ peg down the other.”
“Reckon dat’ll save dis black chile’s life.”
Texas came up staggering under a load of wood which he deposited very considerately without making a noise.
“Boss,” he said, “if thet wind comes stronger with rain we’ll have a driftin’ herd. An’ I’d shore hate to have them drift south. Bad for us.”
“It’s kind of northwest, Tex,” replied Brite, holding his hand up.
“Jest as bad, ‘cept a norther lasts three days. Mebbe it’s nothin’ much. We’ll know in a couple of hours. Which I’m gonna use sleepin’.”
They rolled in their blankets in the shelter of the stretched tarpaulin. Texas dropped off into slumber by the magic of youth. Soon Moze snored like a sawmill. Brite did not feel sleepy. The warmth of his blankets told him just how cold the air had grown. He lay there resting and listening. The wind moaned steadily, weirdly, and whipped in chilly gusts under the wagon, flopped the canvas, and swept away mournfully. Coyotes barked about the camp. Somewhere out there in the black, windy void the great herd would be stirring uneasily in their beds. The old mossy-horns would be bawling. And the guards would be singing to them. What a singular and tremendous movement this was — the driving of cattle herds north! Lying there, Brite seemed to have a vision of what magnitude this business would attain, how it would save Texas and pave the way for an empire. No doubt old Jesse Chisholm had seen that vision first of all the pioneers. These cowboys who were driving up the Trail by hundreds — or those of them who survived the hardships and perils — would see the day their prosperous ranches owed all to this heroic beginning.
These pondering thoughts might have merged into dreams, for all Brite knew, but they were disrupted sooner or later by the thud of plunging hoofs and a ringing voice.
“All oot. Herd driftin’.”
When Brite sat up, Texas Joe was on his knees, rolling his bed.
“What time, Deuce?” he called.
“After midnight. Cain’t see my watch. Colder’n hell!”
“Rainin’ much?”
“Not yet. Mixed with sleet.”
“Sleet in June! Wal, I forgot aboot it bein’ Texas.”
“Tex, we’ll need lanterns. Cain’t see yore hand before yore face.”
“Moze, air yu awake?”
“Yas, suh, I reckon I is.”
“Air the lanterns filled? An’ where’ll I find them?”
“All ready, boss. Settin’ inside the front wheels where I keeps them every night.”
Brite got his heavy coat which had served as a pillow, and while putting it on he advised the drivers to don their warmest.
“Reddie Bayne!” yelled Texas.
No answer! Joe yelled again, with unnecessary peevishness, Brite thought. Still no sound came from Reddie.
“Must be daid. Never knowed Reddie to be hard to wake.”
“I heah hawses,” spoke up Deuce.
Soon Brite followed the others out from under the shelter into the yellow light of the lanterns. Brite was about to go over to awaken Reddie when a pounding of hoofs preceded a dark, ragged bunch of horses coming into camp.
“Heah she is! Dog-gone!” Deuce Ackerman called.
In the windy gloom Brite espied Reddie on foot, leading half a dozen horses by halters. The long slicker glistened wet in the lantern-light.
“Where’d yu get them hawses?” queried Texas.
“I had them tied oot heah.”
“Ahuh. So yu can see in the dark, same as a cat?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Reddie, meekly.
“Wal, I shore hate to admit it, but yu beat holler any hawse-wrangler I ever seen,” concluded Texas, gruffly.
“Thanks, Jack,” returned Reddie, sweetly.
They bridled and saddled the horses. Texas mounted, and calling for one of the lanterns he headed away from the wind.
“Deuce, yu fetch the other lantern,” he called. “Moze, hang right heah till we come back. Have a fire an’ hot drinks, for we’ll shore need ’em.”
Brite and the others followed, soon to catch up with Texas. The horses were unwilling to go and rubbed close together. Texas lifted his lantern.
“Thet’s Reddie’s black, ain’t it?” he queried, sharply.
“Yes, I’m heah,” replied Reddie.
“Wal, yu go back to camp. This won’t be no job for little girls.”
“Jack, yu go where it’s hot. I can stand the cold.”
“Stop callin’ me Jack,” he retorted, testily. “Or I — I’ll box yore ears. An’ I tell yu to stay in camp.”
“But, Texas, I’d be afraid in camp withoot yu-all,” she returned, seriously.
“Wal, come to think of thet, I reckon yu’re right.... Deuce, where’n hell air we haidin’?”
“Darned if I know. I shore had a time findin’ camp. Took me half an hour.”
“How far oot was the herd?”
“Coupla miles, I reckon.”
“Spread oot to the right, Deuce. An’ go till yu can just see my light. Rest of yu hang in between.... Hell, but it’s nasty!”
A stiff wind was blowing at their backs. It carried fine rain and sleet, that could be distinctly heard by the impact and the rustling in the grass. The darkness appeared inky black. And Texas’ lantern shone fitfully upon weird spectral figures of horses and riders. When they had covered a distance of two or three miles Texas and Deuce began to yell to locate the guards with the herd. No answering yells rewarded t
hem. They went a couple of miles farther, and then the line, with Texas at one end and Deuce at the other, began to sweep in a circle. The situation grew serious. If the herd took to drifting badly, the few guards could not hold them, and they might stampede, or at least travel many miles. Mossy-horns were as limber and enduring as horses when they wanted to go.
“Hold on, fellars,” ordered Texas, at last. “I heahed somethin’. Mebbe it was only a coyote. But I’ll pile off an’ get away so I can heah shore.”
Leaping off, he stalked apart from the horses, his light swinging to and fro in his hand. Then he pealed out a stentorian yell. Brite listened, but could hear nothing. After a short silence Texas called: “Yep, I was right. I got an answer.”
He hurried back to his horse, and mounting, led somewhat to the left. “Reckon I cain’t keep thet direction long. But we’ll stop an’ yell till we locate them.”
By this method Texas Joe found the other guards and the herd at last. But the guards were on the far side of the herd, which was drifting with the wind. Texas called for Brite and Reddie to follow him, and for the others to follow Deuce, who would circle the herd from his end. Time and time again Texas’ light fell upon stragglers of the herd, evidently far behind the main body.
“Wal, the drags air good for somethin’,” said Texas. “An’ thet in a storm.”
Answering yells became frequent and louder. Soon Texas led his followers round in front of the herd, where they encountered Pan Handle and Rolly Little.
“How aboot yu, Pan?” shouted Texas.
“They’re driftin’, Tex, but not bad,” came the reply.
“Where are the other boys?”
“Sometimes near, sometimes far. Now I can heah them an’ again I cain’t.”
“Oh, ho, ho! Oh, ho, hell!” sang out Texas. “Line up all. Take yore medicine, boss. Yu will buy cattle at twelve bits a haid. Reddie, heah is where we make a man oot of yu.”
The drivers faced the wind and the oncoming herd. A bawling mass of cattle showed a square front to Texas’ lantern. They were not ugly and probably could have been wholly halted but for the crowding from behind. Back a hundred yards, the light and the yells and singing of the drivers had little effect. So there was no hope of stopping them. The best that could be done was to retard their advance, to prevent a possible stampede, and give way before them.