The Floating Outfit 10

by J. T. Edson

  Dusty was also pleased with the way the affair had been handled, he knew there was far more to the story than his pard told. He also was pleased that the Double T herd had been left alone. Knowing the Ysabel Kid and Kiowa, he quite expected that when Mr. Toon went out to look for his herd he would be finding it scattered all over the range.

  ‘Light back there and see if you find sign of anyone following us, Lon,’ Dusty ordered, ‘Kiowa, head out for the rims.’

  Thora watched the two men head off to obey their orders, then asked: ‘Couldn’t you have let them get some rest before you put them out to work?’

  Dusty grinned; the young woman had a whole lot to learn about the trail herd work and about trail hands. They wouldn’t miss the night’s sleep and would be very lucky if they reached Dodge without missing more than the one night in their bedrolls. Tarbrush was different; he would be out every night riding the remuda, and so he had to try and get his sleep in the daytime.

  The Kid rode the horse of his Comanche relay back, paralleling the line of the herd. He rode slowly and watched the ground, checking every bit of sign as he came to it. Once his sign-wise eyes saw where a coyote had chased a jackrabbit, in another place a couple of antelope had grazed their way along. He saw other signs, but none of them had been made by human or horse.

  On reaching the rim where they first caught sight of the herd, the Kid halted and stood up in the stirrups to look around. The range was still and, apart from the dust of the herd, there was no sign of life. He rode across the churned-up, hoof-scarred trail of the herd and, at a distance of fifty or so yards, started to ride parallel to it, headed back towards the herd.

  After covering about half-a-mile, the Kid came on proof that Dusty had been right. He found tracks of three horses where such tracks should not have been.

  The Kid swung down and remembered just in time that he wasn’t riding his big white. He held the reins of the Comanche war pony and bent to check the tracks. His first guess had been right; there were three horses here, but only one of them had been ridden.

  The watcher had been up to no good, that was clear to the Kid in a few minutes of tracking. A man didn’t keep to cover all the time if his intentions were honorable. This man stuck to every bit of cover he could find.

  The watcher had stopped his horse, then turned and ridden off at a tangent. The Ysabel Kid could read the reason for that. From here the man would get his first view of Kiowa, Salt and himself, and had pulled out rather than risk being caught.

  Taking the trail and following it, the Kid rode slowly and cautiously along. He was as alert as the man who trained the war pony and no less savage. If he found the watcher somebody was going to get badly hurt.

  The tracks ended in a rocky-bottomed stream. The watcher was smart enough to figure that he might be followed, so had taken this simple but effective ruse to slow his trailer. It was no great trouble, though a long matter, to refind the tracks. The Ysabel Kid would be able to pick out the hoof-marks of the three horses among a hundred others. All he needed to do was ride in ever-increasing circles until he found the sign again.

  That would take time, more time than the Kid could give at the moment—he had to report his findings to the trail boss. Dusty heard the Kid’s report and sat silent for a time, frowning as he tried to judge the implications. Like the Kid, he had all but forgotten the man with the three ghost cord broke horses. There was no real reason to connect the two. Many men owned a three-horse string, or mount—as the Texans called it.

  ‘Happen you or Kiowa’s best watch the back trail real careful for a spell, Lon. It might be the scout for a bunch of rustlers.’

  ‘Looks that ways. I don’t figger on it being anyone from the Double T, they’ve had their belly full of us,’ the Kid replied. ‘Want for me to follow him all the way if he comes again?’

  ‘Not if it’ll keep you away from the herd for too long.’ Dusty turned his paint and they rose towards the point. ‘Take over from Mark for a spell while we make a trail-count.’

  Thora joined them just in time to hear this. ‘You weren’t joshing me about counting the herd?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘But can they manage to count all these while the herd keeps moving?’

  Dusty watched the Kid heading for the point at a better speed and turned back to the woman with a grin. ‘They’re surely going to try.’

  Seven – Trail Count

  Thora watched the Texans riding towards the point of the herd. She followed and saw Mark and Billy Jack leave their places to ride ahead some two hundred yards, then halt facing each other about fifty yards apart. Turning, she looked back along the long, winding line of cattle and shook her head. It didn’t seem possible that any man could count all the animals as they walked by.

  Spurring her horse forward, Thora passed the herd and headed to where Mark now sat his horse, leg hooked round the saddlehorn and relaxed. In his hands was a long length of cord. Billy Jack sat hunched in his kak, looking, if possible, more miserable than usual. He too held a length of cord, the end trailing down.

  Dusty turned and yelled, ‘Thin the line!’

  The hands stopped crowding in on the herd. Slowly, the pace dropped and the cattle scattered until they were ambling along, grazing as they went. The trail crew still rode watchfully and were ready to handle any steer which showed a desire to head back to the Rocking H.

  Watching the herd approach, Thora wondered if Dusty was having a joke at her expense. What she had seen so far of the trail boss made her doubt this. She waited to see if the count could be made with any degree of accuracy. One of the reasons she had wanted to come on this drive, one she hadn’t mentioned to Dusty, Mark and the Kid—was that she meant to write a book about the trail-drive work. She had written one book, about her first year on the ranch, and it was bringing in useful money for her. This second book should do even better, for she knew how little the Eastern folks really knew about the skill needed to trail a herd of cattle.

  She watched Dusty and the Kid bring the lead steer through the gap between the counters. Mark pointed to the red steer and said, ‘One!’

  Sitting his horse Mark continued to count and point as the cattle went by. At one hundred, he tied a quick knot in the cord, without taking his eyes from the herd, or losing count. Thora sat behind him, trying to make her own count; but she lost it and saw that trail counting was far more skilled than she had imagined.

  Mark counted on. At one thousand, he threw a loop instead of a knot in the cord and went on with his counting. He did not know that he was being watched and was oblivious of the fact that Thora had headed up the line again. All his attention was on the moving line of cattle. As segundo, Mark was eager for his count. It not only let him check how many head he was running, but also gave him a chance to see if any of the herd was lame, or showed signs of distress at the travelling.

  The steers passed, each counted by Mark and Billy Jack as they went by. The segundo missed nothing; he picked out trouble-causers, nervous, sluggish cattle. In the early two thousands, he spotted a black steer with trouble in every inch of its body. There was a mean look about that steer, which would mean that he needed watching, or he’d stir up some bad trouble.

  There were muleys in the herd, Mark noted. That was to be expected if not desired. A muley cow, one which had lost its horns, was not in any great favor on a trail drive. In fact a muley was always trouble. The hornless steer, amongst its horned brothers, was forced to the edge of the herd on the march and chased from its bedding place at night by any steer which felt ornery. If there were many muleys, they tended to bunch together for protection and baulk at the slightest excuse. Also the muleys tended to lose weight faster and feel the heat more than horned stock. Taken all in all, they were not what Mark wanted to see in his herd. One good thing about them was that they wouldn’t last all that long.

  Mark counted on, the swing men passed him, then the flank riders. The line of knots grew in the cord and the third loop was formed. Th
en the drag men, masked with their bandanas, to keep the rising dust out of their nostrils, passed by. Mark could always feel sympathy for the drag riders. He had ridden on the drag himself, and expected to do so again. Of all the duties of trail herding, the drag was the most onerous. The drag man rode in churned up dust, while the other hands were out in the fresh air. On some drives the drag men were poor-quality cowhands, who couldn’t be trusted with any more exacting work. On this drive, there was no such disgrace. Every man, with the exception of Dusty, Mark, the Kid and Billy Jack, would take a turn at the drag.

  The herd passed by. Mark totaled up his line of knots before turning his horse and heading along the line. On the other side of the herd, Billy Jack was also riding to make his report. Neither man took any notice of their friends’ jeering comments on folks who had an easy life. The trail boss was waiting to hear the result of the count and a man didn’t keep him waiting. Not twice anyway.

  Dusty turned and saw the trail-counters coming, and waved a man up from the swing. He rode out and waited with Thora by his side. She was waiting to hear how close the count came to the number Ben had told her was in the herd.

  Mark was the first to arrive. He lifted his hat to Thora with exaggerated politeness, then said: ‘At an off-hand guess, I’d say three thousand, two hundred and thirteen.’

  Billy Jack cut round in front of the herd and came back to the trail boss. He could not have heard what Mark said, of that Thora was certain. Her smile died as he drawled, ‘Three thousand, two hundred and twelve.’

  Thora looked startled, her eyes taking in each unsmiling face. Dusty nodded in agreement with the count. Ben had told him there had been a tally of three thousand, two hundred and thirteen. The Rocking H crew had not been idle to keep the herd at the correct figure. Dusty had been expecting that there would have been a few strays, or even a few odd cattle which had sneaked in to join the herd.

  ‘Bet you missed that dun muley in the eight hundreds,’ Mark told Billy Jack. ‘He went by with two big steers on each side of him.’

  ‘Saw him,’ Billy Jack answered mournfully. ‘Tell you where you went wrong. There was a zorilla in the two thousands; he busted back and got pushed in behind us. I bets you counted him twice.’

  Before Thora could ask the questions which welled into her head, the two men had returned to their places at the point. She turned her attention to Dusty. ‘Did they really count the herd?’ she asked. ‘Or did you tell them the number just to have fun with me?’

  ‘They did, and I didn’t,’ Dusty answered. He knew that many of the things cowhands did and regarded as ordinary, appeared wonderful to the eyes of a greener.

  ‘Could they count any number of cattle that way?’

  ‘Why, sure.’

  ‘What was the biggest herd you ever saw counted?’

  ‘Well now,’ Dusty frowned as he thought back, ‘reckon it was six thousand, seven hundred and sixty-one head. The first round up we made at home after the War. That was the first herd we brought in.’

  ‘Who counted it?’

  ‘My cousin, Red Blaze.’

  ‘Alone?’

  Dusty looked uncomfortable, he seemed to be blushing under his tan, ‘No, ma’am, I helped.’

  Kiowa came riding hack at a fast gallop and halted his horse by Dusty’s.

  ‘Water ahead there, Cap’n,’ he growled. ‘Ain’t but a lil bitty river, ain’t but hardly swimming water.’

  ‘Good.’ Dusty was once more the self-assured trail-boss. ‘We’ll water the herd there, then push across. How about a bed ground?’

  ‘Couple of good places over the other side. The Kid’s headed out to make a pick.’

  Thora turned. She had not noticed that the Kid had headed out as soon as he left the point. Even now she could see him crossing the river. ‘Ben and the hands always talked about the trouble they could run into when they had to cross water.’

  ‘Depends on the river. That one won’t give us much trouble,’ Dusty replied, then turned his attention to Kiowa: ‘Take over the point, and tell Mark to come back here.’

  Mark rode back and joined Dusty. ‘River ahead, amigo,’ he remarked. ‘We’ll be watering the herd there, I reckon.’

  ‘Can’t think of a better place. We’ll thin the line down a mite, then try and bring them in in bunches. Many muleys along?’

  ‘Fifteen at most, fair average for a herd this size.’

  ‘What’s wrong with muleys?’ Thora asked. ‘I heard Ben and Sam talking about them. Sam said you might find them some use.’

  ‘They’re trouble all the way,’ Mark replied. ‘See, cattle are some like humans. In every bunch there’s a bully; and, being a bully, he likes to pick his man. That means the bully goes for a muley that can’t fight back. When it happens at night, you get trouble. They stir the herd up and the night-herd has work on. Get it happening on a stormy night and you can end up with a stampede. So, as soon as we can, we eat the muleys.’

  ‘Eat them?’ Thora stared at the two young men.

  ‘Sure.’ Mark pointed back to the chuck wagon. ‘Ole Salt isn’t going to be able to head for town when he wants fresh meat, so he has to get it from the herd. He can either take good stock that’d likely get to Dodge and sell, or he can take him a muley that happen wouldn’t make it anyway. ’Course that might not make sense to a real smart Yankee like you, but it surely does to a half-smart Texas boy like me.’

  Thora sniffed disdainfully. She realized that Mark was joshing her and felt pleased; it proved the men liked her. ‘At least we won the war,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Sure,’ Dusty agreed. ‘By forging our money.’

  ‘Well, if you were only half-smart and let us, that was your fault.’ Thora whirled her horse and headed along the line before either of the men could think of an answer to this jibe.

  Dusty whooped and slapped his big pard on the shoulder. ‘That told us, amigo, Cousin Thora’s making a hand.’

  ‘She’s making a Texan,’ Mark corrected, paying her the greatest compliment he could think of.

  Dusty and Mark headed back to the point of the drive. They were watching the water and calculating its distance from them. There were other factors to be watched at the same time. The wind was blowing across the herd and there was little or no chance of their winding the water. With the cattle in the present condition, that wouldn’t be too dangerous; but, with a thirsty herd, it was.

  The hands were tense and alert now, more than at any other time. Every man watched his opposite number, and also glanced ahead to see any signs Dusty might be giving. It was tricky business watering three thousand head of cattle. The herd first had to be moved just right, not too bunched or too scattered. When the leaders went down to water there must be no rush, or they would be pushed across before they drank their fill.

  Dusty pulled out to one side of the herd and waved Thora to join him. They sat watching the hands working the herd. Thora could see from Dusty’s relaxed gaze that that all was as he wanted it.

  ‘Uncle Charlie Goodnight always told me that the two most important things in trailing cattle are grazing and watering, and watering the most important of all.’

  Thora had not realized that Dusty was related to the old Texas trail-drive master, Colonel Charles Goodnight, although she had heard of the old-timer. Almost everything that was known about trail driving was part of his findings.

  Dusty had served his apprenticeship with Goodnight in the early drives after the war. Three times, he had ridden with Goodnight, the first two as a hand, the last as segundo. It had been a hard school, but the finished product showed it had been well worth it.

  Dusty watched the men headed back for the remuda to get fresh horses, and called to Dude: ‘Stay back with the remuda for a piece. See that the button can handle it.’

  Dude waved a cheerful agreement and headed on back to the remuda. Handling the horse herd was not the work for a skilled man, but Dude knew better than argue with his trail boss. He knew why Dusty wanted him back
there. Little Jackie was fresh to this kind of work and might make a mistake. With a herd new to the trail, this could be dangerous. Little Jackie would get help, today; from then on, he would be on his own.

  Every man got himself a fresh horse from the remuda; they all knew that a fresh animal could mean all the difference in the highly exacting and very difficult task of watering three thousand, or more, head of half-wild Texas cattle.

  The cattle were still moving along at an easy walk, but the hands came in to cut the first three hundred or so from the rest and move them towards the gentle banks of the stream. The herd couldn’t just be allowed to come down with a rush, as the first cattle would be forced over before they could get their fill. Each separate bunch had to be brought in upstream of the last batch, so they all got clean water.

  The lead steer and the rest of the first bunch were brought down and slowly allowed to get to the water. The riders waited until their cattle had drunk their fill, then moved them across. Even as the leaders started to swim, the water from above came down muddy as the second group were brought in.

  Thora rode with the men, allowing her horse to work the cattle and doing her share. She came up behind one of the hands just as he cut loose with a string Texas oaths hot enough to singe the hair of a bull buffalo. The hand stopped in mid-stride as he saw Thora was behind him; his face turned red and he headed his horse into the water again.

  Thora realized that her presence might be an embarrassment to the men at such times. She knew that they cursed to relieve their feelings under the strain of working the cattle. To stop them cursing would not help their work any. She wondered how she could get around this problem and decided to ask Dusty to pass the word round that she—

  A steer bellowed near at hand. She whirled round and saw the animal was down in the muddy water and floundering wildly. Jerking her rope from the horn, Thora headed into the water. She slipped out the noose and flipped it, from close range, over the head of the steer, then threw a quick dally round the saddlehorn. From then on the matter was taken out of her hands. The trained cow horse she was riding turned and headed for dry land, hauling the steer behind him.