by Zane Grey
* * * * *
Next day, halfway to Sand Creek, Texas Joe stood up in his stirrups and signaled the news of buffalo. Day after day this had been expected. Somewhere north of the Canadian the great herd would swing across the Chisholm Trail.
Soon Brite saw the dark, ragged, broken lines of buffalo. They appeared scarcely to move, yet after an interval, when he looked again, the straggling ends were closer. Texas Joe halted for dry camp early in the day. What little conversation prevailed around the fire centered on the buffalo.
“Nothin’ to fear drivin’ along with the buffs,” vouchsafed Bender.
“Thet’s all yu know.”
“Wal, mebbe they’ll work back west by mawnin’.”
“But s’pose they keep on workin’ east — acrost our trail?”
“Trail drivers never turn back.”
“An’ we could be swallered up by miles of buffalo — cattle, hawses, chuck-wagon, riders an’ all?”
“I reckon we could.... Boss, did yu ever heah of thet?”
“Of what?” asked Brite, though he had heard plainly enough.
“Ootfit gettin’ surrounded by buffalo.”
“Shore I have. Thet happens often. Stock grazin’ right along with the buffalo.”
“Ahuh. Wal, what’d happen if the buffalo stampeded?... Thirty million buffalo all movin’ at once?”
“Hell, cowboy! It ain’t conceivable.”
“I’ll bet my last cigarette it happens.”
So they talked, some of them optimistically, others the opposite, all of them reckless, unafraid, and unchangeable. Morning disclosed long black strings of buffalo crossing the trail ahead.
All day Brite’s herd had shaggy monsters for company, short lines, long thin strings, bunches and groups, hundreds and twos and fours of buffalo, leisurely grazing along, contented and indifferent. Sand Creek offered a fine camp site and range for cattle. The mossy-horns appeared as satisfied as their shaggy brothers. They bedded down early and offered no trouble. The guards slept in their saddles.
All next day the trail followed Sand Creek. The drivers were concerned about the booming of needle guns to the east and south. Hunters on the outskirts of the herd or trail drivers coming! That day a long, black, thick line of buffalo crossed behind Brite’s herd, and turning north crept along parallel with it. This line had no break. Behind and to the west the black wave, like a tide of broken lava, rolling imperceptibly, slowly augmented and encroached upon the cattle herd. How insignificant and puny that herd of six thousand long-horns now! It was but a drop in the bucket of the Great Plains.
But the west and north remained open, at least as far as eye could see. Brite thought he had crossed directly in front of the mass of buffalo. They might travel that tranquil way for days; and again the whirl of a dust-devil, the whip of a swallow on the wing, might stampede them into a stupendous, rolling avalanche.
Sand Creek merged into Buffalo Creek, a deep, cool, willow-bordered stream where all the luxuriant foliage of the prairie bloomed. Texas made camp at the point where the creeks met.
“We’ll rest up heah a day or two,” he said. “Somebody knock over a buffalo. Rump steak would shore go great.... Reddie, do yu want to kill a buff?”
“No. I’m too tender-hearted,” she replied, musingly. “I see so many cute little buffalo calves. I might shoot one’s mother.”
“Tender-hearted? — Wal, I’m dog-goned!” drawled Texas, mildly. He had greatly sobered these late days of the drive and seldom returned to his old raillery. “We-all had it figgered yu was a killer.”
“Aw, I don’t count redskins, greasers, stampeders — an’ now an’ then an occasional cowhand.”
“I savvy. But I meant a killer with yore gun — not yore red curls, yore snappin’ eyes, yore shape thet no boys’ pants could hide.”
Reddie promptly vanished physically and vocally into the empty air. That was all the pleasantry in camp on this night.
“I wish thet Hash Williams had stuck with us,” Texas mused.
“But, Tex, what the hell difference does it make now?”
“Wal, a lot, if we knowed what the pesky buffs would do.”
“Ump-umm! I say, since we gotta drive on, to keep goin’.”
“But mebbe the buffalo might drift by.”
“What? Thet herd? Never this summer. They are as many as the tufts of gramma grass.”
“What yu think, boss?” queried the foreman, showing that he needed partisanship to bolster up any of his judgments.
“Wait till mawnin’,” advised the cattle-owner.
* * * * *
Certainly the morning brought to light fewer buffalo and wider space, yet to east and south and west the black lines encroached upon the green. Only the north was clear.
“Point the herd!” ordered Brite, driven by fears and hopes.
“I was gonna do thet, anyhow,” drawled Texas Joe. “We can only die once, an’ if we have to die let’s get it over. This dyin’ by days an’ hours is like tryin’ to win a woman’s love.”
If Joe had but known it — if he could have seen the light in Reddie’s eyes as Brite saw it — he would have learned that that could be attained by the very things he thought so little of.
* * * * *
So they drove on and the buffalo closed in black all around them. Herd, remuda and riders occupied the center of a green island surrounded by rugged, unbroken waves. This island was a couple of miles long by about the same in width, almost a circle. It kept that way for hours of suspense to the drivers.
Long-horns had no fear of buffalo. Brite remembered how the mossy-horned old bulls bawled and tossed their mighty horns at sight of buffalo coming close. But to the vast herd these cattle and horses were grains of dust under their feet.
About noon there came a change. Something quickened the buffalo. Brite felt it, saw it, but could give no solution. Buffalo were beyond understanding.
“Oh, Dad, I heah somethin’ behind!” called Reddie, fearfully.
“What?”
“I don’t know. It’s like the wind in the pines.”
Brite strained his ears to hear. In vain! The noonday hour was silent, oppressive, warm with the breath of midsummer. But he saw Texas halt his horse, to turn and stand in his stirrups, gazing back. He, too, had heard something. Brite looked behind him. The buffalo were a mile in the rear, ambling along, no longer nipping the grass. The shaggy line bobbed almost imperceptibly.
“Dad, I heah it again,” cried Reddie.
Pan Handle rode around the rear of the cattle, to gallop ahead and join Texas. They watched. Other cowboys turned their faces back. Something was amiss. The cattle grazed along as if buffalo were not encompassing them. But the little Spanish mustangs evinced uneasiness. They trotted to and fro, stood with pointed ears, heads to the south. They had the heritage of two-hundred years of prairie life. At sight of them Brite’s heart sank. He tried to stem the stream of his consciousness and not think.
“There it comes, stronger,” declared Reddie, who had ridden to Brite’s side.
“What yu make of it, lass?”
“Like low thunder now.... Mebbe a storm brewin’.”
The sky, however, was cloudless, a serene azure vault, solemn and austere, keeping its secrets. Miles back, low down over the black horizon of shaggy, uneven line, a peculiar yellow, billowy smoke was rising. Dust clouds! Brite would rather have been blind than have been compelled to see that.
“Look! Dust risin’!” cried Reddie, startled. She pointed with shaking hand.
“Mebbe it’s nothin’ to worry aboot,” said Brite, averting his eyes.
“An’ heah comes Tex. Look at thet hawse!”
The foreman swerved in round the rear of the herd to meet the three riders who rode toward him. After a short consultation one of these galloped off to the east, to round the herd on that side. Texas then came on at a run.
He reined in before Brite and Reddie, who had stopped involuntarily. Texas Joe’s face was a bronz
e mask. His amber eyes were narrow slits of fire.
“Heah anythin’, boss?” he queried, sharply.
“Nope. But Reddie does. I see some dust rollin’ up behind.”
“Stampede!” flashed the cowboy, confirming Brite’s suspicion.
“Oh, my Gawd!” burst out Reddie, suddenly realizing. “We’re trapped in a circle.... Jack, what will we do?”
“It’s been comin’ to us all this drive,” replied Texas. “An’ I reckon now it’s heah. If thet stampede back there spreads through the whole herd we’ve got about one chance in a thousand. An’ thet chance is for our cattle to run bunched as they air now, square an’ broad across the rear. Ride behind thet, Mr. Brite, an’ good luck to yu.... Reddie, if the buffs close in on yu, take to the wagon. A big white heavy wagon like ours might split a herd thet’d trample over hawses.”
“Oh, Jack — don’t go — till I—” she flung after him. But Texas only turned to wave good-by, then he rode on to meet Moze. That worthy was coming at a stiff trot. They met, and Texas must have imparted alarming orders, for the negro put the team to a lope that promised shortly to overtake the remuda. Texas wheeled back to the left.
Brite and Reddie drove the remuda to the rear of the herd, just back of the riders. Soon Moze came lumbering up. Then all accommodated their paces to the movement of the cattle and maintained their position. All of the seven guards now rode at the rear of the herd.
As soon as this change was established Brite took stock of the buffalo. Apparently the immense green oval inside the herd was just as big as ever. But had it narrowed or shortened? He could not be sure. Yet there was a difference. On all sides the buffalo line bobbed at a slow walk. All still seemed well. Brite tried to get his nerve back. But it had been shaken. A terrible peril hung over them. At the last word he did not care particularly about himself, though the idea of being ridden down and pounded by millions of hoofs into a bloody pulp was horrible, but he suffered poignantly for Reddie, and her lover, and these tried and true men who had stood by him so loyally. But God disposed of all. Brite framed a prayer for them, and then like a true Texan prepared to fight to the last bitter gasp.
This enabled him to look back to make out what to expect and how soon. No change in the buffalo. But that yellow, rolling cloud had arisen high, to blot out the sky halfway to the zenith.
All of a sudden Brite realized that for a moment or perhaps longer he had been aware of a filling of his ears with distant sound.
“Reddie!” he yelled. “I heah it!”
To his amazement, the girl had gravitated toward Texas Joe, who had ridden around the remuda to approach her. They met, and his forceful gesture sent Reddie back alongside the wagon.
There was no more need for words. Still Brite’s stubbornness refused to yield to the worst. Had not some vital, unforeseen chance saved them more than once on this fatal drive? “Quien sabe?” he muttered through his teeth.
On each flank the buffalo had markedly changed in aspect. Where before they had wagged along, now they bobbed. Far ahead the forward mass had not yet caught this acceleration. From behind, the low roar gradually increased. Brite’s mustang snorted and balked. He had to be spurred. All the horses betrayed a will to bolt. The remuda pranced at the heels of the herd, held in on each flank by the riders.
That state of action and sound stayed the same for moments. It was Texas’s strange throwing up of his hands that acquainted Brite with a transformation. The buffalo had broken into a lope. An instant later that low roar perished in an engulfing sound that would have struck terror to the stoutest heart. The gap between the rear of the herd and the oncoming buffalo began rapidly to close. Louder grew the roar. On each side of the cattle, far ahead, the buffalo closed in, so that the shape of a great triangle was maintained. It would be impossible for the cattle to mix with the buffalo. An impenetrable, shaggy wall moved on all sides.
Before the advancing mass behind had caught up to Brite the nimble-footed long-horns broke into a swinging lope. That seemed well. It evened matters. The remuda appeared less likely to bolt. Moze kept the chuck-wagon rolling at their heels.
Above the steady roar of hoofs all around swelled a sound that swallowed it — the deafening thunder of the stampede in the rear. It had started the herd into action. But now its momentum forced the buffalo ahead again to break their pace. Like a wave rolling onward in the sea it caught up with the cattle, passed through the buffalo on each flank and raced forward to the leaders.
Brite realized the terrible instant when the stampede spirit claimed the whole mass. He felt the ground shake with his horse and his ears cracked to an awful rumble. It ceased as suddenly. He could no longer hear. And as if of one accord, the long-horns and the horses broke into a run.
Brite looked back. A thousand hideously horned and haired heads close-pressed together formed the advance line fifty yards or less behind him. Only gradually did they gain now. Before this moment the pursuing buffalo had split to go on each side of the cattle herd.
For miles the fleet long-horns evened pace with the shaggy monsters of the plains. And in that short while the circle closed. Buffalo raced cows and did not win. The wicked long-horned bulls charged the black wall of woolly hides, to be bowled over and trampled underfoot.
The conformation of the land must have changed from level to grade. Brite’s distended eyes saw a vast sea of black ahead, a sweeping tide, like a flood of fur covering the whole prairie. No doubt it was the same on each side of him and for miles behind. Even in that harrowing moment he was staggered by the magnificence of the spectacle. Nature had staged a fitting end for his heroic riders. Texas Joe, on one side of the chuck-wagon, Pan Handle on the other, rode with guns belching fire and smoke into the faces of bulls that charged perilously close. Moze’s team was running away, the remuda was running away, the six thousand cattle were running away. But where? They were lost in that horde of bison. They were as a few grains of sand on the sea shore.
When the buffalo filled all the gaps, dust obscured Brite’s vision. He could see only indistinctly and not far. Yet he never lost sight of Reddie or the wagon. Any moment he expected the wagon to lurch over or to lose a wheel in one of its bounces, and to see Moze go down to his death. But that would be the fate of them all.
Only the remuda hung together. Except Pan Handle, Texas, and Reddie all the riders were surrounded by buffalo. Brite’s stirrups rubbed the hump-backed monsters; they bumped his mustang on one side, then on the other.
Bender on his white horse was a conspicuous mark. Brite saw him forced to one side — saw the white horse go down and black bodies cover the place. Brite could feel no more. He closed his eyes. He could not see Reddie sacrificed to such a ghastly fate and care to endure himself.
The hellish stampede went on — a catastrophe which perhaps a gopher had started. A violent jolt all but unseated Brite. He opened his eyes to see a giant bull passing. Yielding to furious fright, Brite shot the brute. It rolled on the ground and the huge beasts leaped over or aside. Sometimes Brite could see patches of ground. But all was yellow, infernal haze, obscuring shadows, and ceaseless appalling motion. It must have an end. The cattle could run all day, but the terrorized horses would fall as had Bender’s.
Yet there were Reddie and Texas, sweeping along beside the wagon, with buffalo only on the outside. Farther on through the yellow pale, Brite made out white and gray against the black. A magenta sun burned through the dust. Sick and dizzy and reeling, Brite clung to his saddle-horn, sure that his end was near. He had lived long. Cattle had been his Nemesis. If it had not been for Reddie ——
Suddenly his clogged ears appeared to open — to fill again with sound. He could hear once more. His dazed brain answered to the revivifying suggestion. If he was no longer deaf, the roar of stampede had diminished. The mustang broke his gait to allow for down grade. Rifts of sky shone through the yellow curtain. A gleam of river! Heart and sense leaped. They had reached the Cimarron. All went dark before Brite’s eyes. But co
nsciousness rallied. The terrible trampling roar was still about him. His horse dragged in sand. A rude arm clasped him and a man bawled in his ear.
* * * * *
Brite gazed stupidly out upon the broad river where strings of cattle were wading out upon an island. To right and left black moving bands crossed the water. The stampede had ended at the Cimarron where the buffalo had split around an island.
“How — aboot — Reddie?” whispered the cattleman as they lifted him out of the saddle.
“Heah, Dad, safe an’ sound. Don’t yu feel me?” came as if from a distance.
“An’ — everybody?”
“All heah but Bender an’ Whittaker. They were lost.”
“Aw!... I seen Bender — go down.”
“Boss, it could have been wuss,” said Texas, gratefully.
“Oh, Dad! — Did yu see me go down?” cried Reddie. “I got pitched ahaid — over my hawse.... Thet cowboy snatched me up — as if I’d been his scarf.”
“Which cowboy?” queried Brite.
“Texas — Jack.... Thet’s the second time — shore.”
“Boss, we’re stuck,” reported the practical Texas, brushing Reddie aside. “Some of our cattle went with the buffalo. The rest is scattered. Our remuda half gone.... But, by Gawd! we’re heah on the Cimarron. When these cussed buffs get by we’ll round up our stock an’ drive on.”
Before dark the last straggling ends of the buffalo herd loped by. Meanwhile camp had been made on high ground. Two of the riders were repairing the wagon. Moze was cooking rump steak. Pan Handle labored zealously at cleaning his guns. Texas Joe strode here and there, his restless eyes ever seeking Reddie, who lay on the green grass beside Brite. The outfit had weathered another vicissitude of the Trail.
* * * * *
It took Brite’s remaining riders four days to round up five thousand head of cattle. The rest were lost, and a hundred head of the remuda. And the unbeatable cowboys kept telling Brite that he had still five hundred more long-horns than the number with which he had started.
Trail herds crossed the Cimarron every day, never less than two, and often more, and once five herds. The rush was on. Good luck had attended most of the drivers. A brush with Nigger Horse, a few stampedes, a bad electrical storm that caused delay, hailstones that killed yearling calves — these were reports given by the passing drivers.