Stampede

by Len Levinson

  Truscott cleared his throat and shot Cassandra a sharp look. He was telling her to get on with it, because there was work to be done. She clasped her hands in front of her face and said, “Dear Lord, please accept these four men into Your loving care, and give them the peace of Your mercy. They were good men, and I don’t understand why You had to take them, but we accept Your judgment, O Lord.”

  “Throw ’em in the ground!” said Truscott, and then turned to Cassandra. “Want to talk to you,” he mumbled.

  She gazed into his sunburnt features. He shuffled his feet, cleared his throat, looked her in the eye, and said, “You got more balls’n most men I ever met. You’re okay in my book.” He turned abruptly and walked away. “Let’s git saddled up, boys! We got work to do!”

  Cassandra felt dazed. Ephraim appeared behind the chuck wagon, and Cassandra walked toward him with a new swagger in her gait. “Ephraim, do you think you could put John Stone in the wagon, where he’ll be out of the sun?”

  “Sure thing, Mrs. Cassandra. I’ll do it right now.”

  “Watch him carefully, and if he needs anythin’, please get it for him?”

  “Don’t you worry none, ma’am. I’ll take care of him as if he were my brother.”

  “I appreciate all you’ve done, Ephraim. If it weren’t for you, he would’ve died long ago.”

  “Just doin’ my job, ma’am.”

  Ephraim watched the sway of her hips as she walked away. He’d heard that Cassandra’d shot a rustler. There was more to her than they’d ever dreamed back at the Triangle Spur. He lifted Stone in his arms, carried him to the chuck wagon, and laid him inside next to newly purchased sacks of beans, flour, and coffee. Then Ephraim returned to the back of the chuck wagon, and filled a pot with water. He placed the pot over the fire, and looked at cowboys riding toward the herd.

  When the cowboys were gone, he returned to the wagon and pulled out his beat-up old carpetbag. Opening it, he pulled out four small leather pouches and laid them on the table. He took a pinch of powder from each of the pouches and dropped them into a cup, then poured water in. The powders dissolved, becoming invisible. He carried the cup into the wagon and kneeled beside John Stone.

  “You white piece of shit,” he said. “You’re too dumb to die.”

  He touched the tip of the cup to Stone’s lips, and tilted some of the liquid into Stone’s mouth. Stone twitched, and a second later opened his eyes to half-mast. Above him, he perceived Ephraim through layers of gauze.

  “You …” Stone said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Thass right, it’s me, Massa John.”

  Stone remembered the gun battle. A rustler held him in his sights when Ephraim appeared.

  “You saved my life,” Stone murmured.

  “Don’t git no ideas ’bout that,” Ephraim said quickly. “Ain’t nobody gonna kill you, you sickly son of a bitch, ’cept me.”

  He held the cup to Stone’s mouth, and Stone swallowed it down. It tasted like ordinary water, and moistened his dry throat.

  “You ain’t gonna die,” Ephraim replied, “because I ain’t gonna let you. I has to save your ass, if’n I wants to kill your ass.” He leaned over Stone and looked into his eyes. “I gots the power, Massa John.”

  The liquid dribbled over Stone’s tongue. Every swallow was a battle through the lump of pain in his throat, but he got it down.

  “You jest go to sleep, Massa John. And when you wakes up, we gonna have us some fun. I’m gwine give you your rotten life back, and then I’m gwine take it away again, just like that!”

  Ephraim snapped his fingers, laughed, and crawled out of the chuck wagon, to get more powders from his medicine bag.

  ~*~

  A small group of cattle grazed peacefully in the hot morning sunlight. Licking the salt off her lips, Cassandra counted twenty-seven. She rode forward to see if they carried the Triangle Spur brand.

  Sweat plastered her shirt to her body, and she stank to high heaven. She approached the cattle, and they looked at her wearily. They carried the brand of the Triangle Spur on their left haunches, and were worth nearly six hundred dollars in Abilene. She heard hoofbeats behind her, and wheeled her horse. Don Emilio Maldonado rode down the incline, his big sombrero hanging on his back, his black hair glistening in the bright sun. Cassandra remembered his grip on her arms when the two vaqueros dueled with lariats, and now she was alone with him, but she was armed. She lowered her right hand toward her gun.

  He laughed, his teeth showing white beneath his thick black mustache. “Are you planning to shoot me, Señora Whiteside?” he asked, mischief in his eyes.

  “I will if I have to.”

  “I heard you came here alone, and La Señora should never go anywheres alone, because of the Indians.”

  “No Indian’ll get me, because I’ve got a fast horse.”

  “Do not be so sure, señora mio. The Indians—they have fast horses too. First they will tear off your clothes, and every brave in the tribe will have you until they’re too tired, and after that, if you are still alive, you will become a slave, and work day and night at filthy jobs for the rest of your life. Please do not let that happen, señora, because that would trouble me very mucho. Come, I will help you with these cattle.”

  Cassandra and Don Emilio got behind the longhorns and swung their lariats through the air. Don Emilio said something in Spanish, and the hot dusty cattle moved sullenly toward the main herd. She looked at Don Emilio, and he sat easily in his saddle, slamming his lariat on the haunch of a longhorn. When the cattle were moving along steadily, Don Emilio eased his horse toward Cassandra. They were alone on a vast plain, and the sun was directly overhead.

  “Señora, may I have a word with you, please?”

  She looked at him coldly, hoping that would make him keep his distance. “What’s on your mind, Don Emilio?”

  “I am not good with words, señora, because I am only a poor caballero. I apologize for the other day, when I held you tightly against me, but I could not help myself. I know I behaved badly, but I swear on my mother I will never do it again. I am telling you this because I want you to become my wife, señora. You may meet men richer than I, who have read more books, and maybe even a few who are more handsome than I, though I doubt it”—he laughed—“but you will never find one who will love you better than I. I will protect and cherish you with all my heart forever.”

  There was silence, and the breeze whistled through the sage. “That was a beautiful speech, Don Emilio,” she replied. “How many girls have you said it to?”

  “I offer you my heart, and that is how you answer. You are a coldhearted gringa, and sometimes I wonder why I love you so.”

  “How many?”

  He shrugged. “A few.”

  “More than ten?”

  “It is possible,” he said curtly.

  “I’m flattered by your offer,” she said, “even though you’ve made it to numerous other women, but I can’t think about men right now. If I don’t get this herd to Abilene, I might as well be dead.”

  “I will get your herd to Abilene as long as there is breath in my body, señora. Then, will you consider my offer?”

  Cassandra couldn’t imagine marrying a Mexican vaquero who lived in the wild brush country, but she said, “When we reach Abilene, I’ll give you my answer.”

  ~*~

  The fragrance of simmering beans wafted across the campsite, and Stone opened his eyes. He saw a dark figure in white robes above him, the angel of death beckoning.

  A cold sweat broke out on his forehead, because what if all those stories were true? Hell might really be hell, and he’d roast on a spit in an oven till the end of time for his selfishness, lust, cruelty, and faithlessness. Something touched him, and he looked up at the angel of death towering above him. Dizziness filled his brain, and he thought his time had come. He closed his eyes and wheezed, as the black night swamped over him yet again.

  Not far away, hidden by a clump of sagebrush, a lobo watc
hed the strange spectacle. He’d been looking for scraps of food, and stumbled upon Ephraim and Stone. Ephraim, dressed in white robes, chanted and rocked from side to side as he poured powder on Stone’s wounds. Picking up a bone and a gold chain, Ephraim sang a strange old African song.

  The lobo shook his head in confusion. It sent a shiver up his spine and made his fur bristle. With a low growl of distaste, he crept away through the underbrush.

  ~*~

  When Cassandra returned to the campsite that evening, the fragrance of Ephraim’s stew came to her nostrils. The Negro cook sat by the fire, stirring his big cast-iron pot. Cassandra pulled the saddle off her horse and carried it near the campfire, dropping it on the spot she’d sleep that night. The aroma of the stew drew her to the fire. Her stomach was so empty she had cramps.

  “When do we eat?” she asked.

  “Jest a few minutes more, Mrs. Cassandra,” Ephraim replied.

  “How’s John Stone?”

  “Restin’.”

  Cassandra climbed inside the chuck wagon, and saw Stone lying on the floor, wrapped in swathes of tattered white cloth. Ephraim followed her in, and crouched beside her on the hard floorboards.

  “I wouldn’t touch him, if n I was you,” Ephraim said.

  “What’ve you done?”

  “He was shiverin’, so I covered him up.”

  “Where’d the cloth come from.”

  “It’s mine.”

  “I never saw it before. What do you use it for?”

  Ephraim looked uncomfortable.

  “I just asked you a question.”

  “My religion,” he said reluctantly.

  “What religion is that?”

  “The religion of my people.”

  “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I sho’ do.”

  “Let’s pray silently for a few moments, shall we?”

  Ephraim bowed his head dutifully, and Cassandra clasped her hands together. She asked God to save Stone’s life, then jumped down from the wagon and walked toward the fire, as Ephraim took one last look at Stone. “You’re in God’s hands, but you’re in my hands too, you white son of a bitch.”

  The cowboys lined up with their tin plates, and let Cassandra go first. Ephraim filled her plate with stew, dropped two biscuits on top, and she sat next to her saddle, devouring the food hungrily, forgetting her New Orleans manners.

  It was her first good meal since the last stampede, when all the food had been destroyed. Ephraim’s stew was as good as anything she’d ever eaten in a New Orleans restaurant, the biscuits surpassed her mother’s, and the coffee was thick and black, just the way she liked it. She scraped her plate clean, then returned to the pot and filled up again.

  On the way back to her saddle, she noted a big black longhorn steer walking toward the campsite. He paused a few feet from the fire and mooed at Ephraim, who threw him a biscuit. The longhorn lowered his head and gobbled up the flaky sphere in seconds. His horns were unusual, one twisted forward and the other backward.

  “Mr. Truscott,” said Cassandra, “what’s that steer doing here?”

  “That’s Old Ben,” said Truscott, his mouth full of stew. “Ain’t you met Old Ben yet?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You got nearly three thousand head of cattle,” Truscott explained, “and every one of ’em is follerin’ Old Ben here. Don’t ask me how, but on every drive, there’s one steer who’s the leader, and Old Ben is it for this herd. Every morning we don’t move until Old Ben here moves.”

  Truscott walked toward Old Ben, holding out his hand in friendship. Old Ben looked with big round bloodshot eyes at the lanky foreman as Truscott patted his head.

  “It always pays to be pals with Old Ben,” Truscott said. “Throw me one of them biscuits, willya, cookie?”

  Ephraim tossed a biscuit to Truscott, who held it in his stiffened hand. Old Ben lowered his head and extended his lips gingerly around the biscuit, plucking it away. Truscott stroked Old Ben’s ear and grinned. “Me and Old Ben, we’re pards, ain’t we, Old Ben?”

  “What about when we get to Abilene?” Cassandra asked.

  “Old Ben’ll be first in the railroad car, and when he gets to St. Louis, first in the slaughterhouse, and they’ll all foller him.”

  Old Ben nudged Truscott’s leggins with his big black nose.

  “No more for you,” Truscott said. “You’re supposed to eat grass. The biscuits is for us.”

  Truscott returned to his plate and resumed his meal, and Old Ben watched from afar for several minutes, then turned and rumbled back toward the herd.

  “When I was a kid, on my first drive,” Truscott said, “I actually saw the leader try to git into bed with the ramrod, busted half his ribs. You cain’t git too friendly with ’em, boys. Got to show ’em who’s boss.”

  Cassandra finished the meal and drained her cup of thick black coffee. Now all she wanted was bed. She washed her plate and cup in the bucket of water, then stopped by the basin and splashed water on her face and hands.

  She walked back to the campfire, and in the distance a coyote howled, his stomach full of dead rustlers. The men sat around the flames, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, and she couldn’t go to bed as long as they were awake. She was determined to show them she could do anything they did.

  She sat by the fire and looked at the dancing flames. Beside her, Truscott pulled a plug of tobacco out of his shirt pocket and bit off a piece, then held out the plug to her. “Want some?”

  Most cowboys chewed constantly, spitting everywhere, their mouths ringed with brown tobacco juice. “Don’t mind if I do,” she said.

  She took the plug from Truscott’s hand and dug her white teeth into it, but it was like tree bark. She growled and worked her jaws, and finally a piece fell off into her mouth.

  She passed the plug back to Truscott, and it tasted sweet. Now she could understand why they liked it. It reminded her of an apple, but then suddenly something harsh and terrible slid down her throat, and she thought she was choking to death. Her eyes bugged out of her head and she coughed violently. Truscott leaned toward her and slapped her back.

  The tobacco shot out of her mouth and landed in the fire, where it sizzled treacherously. Cassandra got to her feet and clasped her hands around her throat, staggering from side to side as she gagged and hacked. Somebody threw her a canteen, and the cowboys laughed as she gulped the water down. She stopped coughing, and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Then she threw the canteen back.

  Truscott winked. “Don’t never put nothin’ in yer mouth if’n you don’t know what it is.”

  “Disgusting,” Cassandra said. “Don’t know how a person can chew it.”

  “Look how purty it makes yer teeth,” he said. He drew back his gums, and in the light of the fire, his teeth were brownish yellow.

  ~*~

  Cassandra felt herself being shaken. She opened her eyes and saw Diego above her, his hand on her shoulder.

  “Night duty, señora.”

  Cassandra drew herself to a sitting position, and her mind was heavy with exhaustion. She couldn’t see how she’d ever make it to Abilene on a schedule that permitted so little sleep. Longingly she remembered her big feather bed back at the Triangle Spur, where she’d slept peacefully through every night.

  She rolled her blankets and carried them to the chuck wagon, placing them beside John Stone, who lay in his white cocoon, his features shadowy in the dimness. The big coffeepot sat on the blackened embers of the fire, and she poured herself a cup of the thick tepid liquid. Sipping, she looked at her cowboys sleeping in their blankets. A single spire sat on the distant horizon, illuminated faintly by the moon. It’s beautiful, she thought. I love this land.

  One cowboy wasn’t asleep, and he was the segundo, sitting on a rock, a rifle in his lap. Cassandra finished her coffee, washed the cup in the basin, and headed for the remuda. Her night horse was her favorite palomino mare, Petunia. Raising he
rself into the saddle, she pulled Petunia’s head gently toward the herd, and together they began their journey to the plain where the longhorns were sequestered for the night.

  In the distance she saw the herd gleaming in the moonlight. She thought of Old Ben, who’d lead them into the slaughterhouse, and they’d most likely wind up on the plates of New Yorkers and Bostonians, or other people who lived in the East. At one time she’d envied those fancy people, with their opera houses, symphony orchestras, and exquisite restaurants, but not anymore. They lived opulent, but cramped lives, whereas she possessed the grandeur of a great land, with mountains that made the greatest cities look like petty squalid piles of trash.

  She came to the edge of the herd, and the longhorns watched her warily. They still were jumpy from the many frightening experiences they’d endured since leaving the peaceful range near San Antone, so she sang them a plaintive lullaby that her mother taught her when she’d been a child. Her light soprano voice floated over the cattle and reverberated off the mountains, as the cattle lowed in the distance, and stars sparkled in the sky.

  A figure rode slowly toward her out of the night, and her voice caught in her throat. Embarrassed, she sat straighter in her saddle as Slipchuck approached, for he was on night duty too, riding around the herd in the opposite direction.

  He touched a long bony finger to the brim of his ruined cowboy hat. “Evenin’, ma’am. Could I have a word with you?”

  She pulled back the reins of her horse. “What’s on your mind, Slipchuck.”

  He sniffed, spit a wad of tobacco juice, and appeared nervous. “I don’t know how to say this, Mrs. Whiteside, but my ’sperience has taught me it’s a strange world, and you never know what might happen. I been havin’ me some thoughts about you, and thought I’d bring ’em out into the open and air ’em out, if you know what I mean. Now, I’ve seen it happen that there’s some young women, such as yerself, who sometimes like the older man. Now I ain’t sayin’ you’re feelin’ that way about me, but if you are, I’d be right proud to accommodate you. I know I’m old enough to be yer daddy, but when my daddy got married, he was nearly my age, and my momma was thirteen. I’m still strong, I can shoot the eye out of a gnat at fifty paces, and I’m still good at other things too, if you git my drift. So if you’re havin’ any thoughts like what I’m talkin’, we can git married in the next town, and the ramrod can be the best man.”