Black Hills (9781101559116)

by Thompson, Rod

  “Well, that’s mighty nice of you, Maddy,” Cormac answered him as he swung into the saddle. He and the little brown mare had gotten used to each other, and a couple of crow-hops of a morning and she would settle right down. This morning, he wasn’t really paying attention. “What part of Colorado you from?” he asked. “I was through Denver and Boulder a while . . .”

  All hell broke loose when he hit the saddle. That little brown filly exploded into an untamed piece of wild bronc moving all directions at the same time, with a strong itch to dump him and head out for the wild places. Getting almost perpendicular on the first buck, she followed it up by going sideways, sunfished a few times with her belly to the sky, and hit perpendicular with her second try. Unexpecting and inexperienced, Cormac lost one stirrup on the first jump, his quick-grabbed grip on the saddle horn with the sunfishing, and the other stirrup and all contact with the saddle when she hit perpendicular. He hit the dirt upside down and hard about ten feet away with all the breath knocked out of him while the horse took off hell bent for leather.

  Peals of laughter confused him as he fought for his breath and staggered to his feet. He stumbled to the rail-fence to sit down as the cowboys, still laughing, began mounting and moving out. “You all right?” asked Josh, walking up to him while choking back laughter.

  “I reckon so, but what the hell is so all-fired funny about me getting bucked off? And I wonder what’s wrong with my little mare? She and I was getting along right well, at least I thought so.”

  “Before you try again, you better check under your saddle first. Somebody probably put a burr under your saddle blanket.”

  “Why in the hell would they do that? I coulda broke my damn fool neck.”

  “They were just having some fun with the new guy. Don’t be too mad, you’ll get your turn later with some other new guy.” Cormac looked up as Maddy rode by laughing at him. Cormac had to smile when he pictured himself sailing through the air upside down. “All right, Maddy,” he called. “You got me this time.”

  When he got his breath back, catching his mare took some doing. She didn’t want to go through that again. Sure enough, when he raised up the back of the saddle blanket, he found a big ole sharp cockle-burr. “You better rest her for a couple days,” Josh called to him. “Her back is going to be sore, and we don’t want to make it worse.”

  Josh taught him how to splice a broken rope or braid a new one. To Cormac, Josh seemed to be taking care to teach him about everything, and he was a willing student. He learned fast.

  A month later, on the last day of the roundup, Josh figured most of the stock had been rounded up and had all the punchers looking harder and deeper back into the brush for any last holdouts. Cormac followed the tracks of fifteen or twenty head of cattle until they disappeared into a stream and he lost their sign. He figured they probably had already been brought back as there were horse tracks following them, brought to his attention by one having an odd-shaped hoof.

  That was the day he met Old Mossy. Old Mossy was five years old, the biggest steer in the bunch, and had never been branded. He had been spotted a few years back, but escaped into the brush after knocking down a rider and managed to stay hidden for a couple of years.

  On two other years’ roundup, he was able to dodge the rope and again escape into the brush. Another year, Josh had gotten a rope on him, but the wiley old steer went sideways, pulling the horse over and pinning Josh’s leg. Old Mossy spun back and only another rider turning him had saved Josh from getting gored, and probably killed.

  Cormac had made it a habit of counting the cattle when he found them before running them in. On the last day of the roundup, after counting the thirty-six cattle he found in an arroyo, he left them to ride around and get behind them. While riding through another narrow boulder-strewn arroyo with nearly vertical sides of steep sand and broken rock with occasional young Ponderosa Pines and a few outcroppings, he came face-to-face with the elusive steer.

  With murder in his heart, wild-eyed Old Mossy dropped one horn to a lance position and charged with about fifty feet between them and no room to turn around. Cormac’s only chance was to try to make the impossible climb up the side. He turned the cowpony into the hill and used his reins as whip on her rump and, for the only time in his life, wished he were wearing spurs.

  The little mustang was game and gave it her all, but the slope was impossible. Her hooves were digging a groove into the hill, causing a chain of events with a most unlikely conclusion. The dirt being pulled away caused a minor landslide that, in turn, caused some dirt and a rock on the lip of the ravine five feet above the ravine floor to fall. A rock that was lodged under the front of a twelve-inch boulder slipped, causing that boulder to then roll off the edge of the arroyo upon which it had been sitting and under which the steer was just passing. The boulder bounced off Old Mossy’s head, knocking him colder than a Dakota icicle, as Cormac would tell it in later years.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Cormac said to his pony. He could see from the steer’s sides swelling regularly that it was still breathing. An idea for a little fun occurred to him. The steer had fallen to his side, leaving a small amount of room between itself and the arroyo wall.

  Cormac urged the little pony forward to step over the steer’s front legs, and then his back legs where the arroyo was slightly wider, just wide enough to get the horse turned around. Keeping a close eye on the steer, Cormac put his noose over the steer’s horns and snugged it down tightly around their base, tied the other end of the rope to his saddle horn, picked up a handful of rocks and a large stick, poured some water from his canteen onto the steer’s face, and waited behind Old Mossy for him to come out of it, which didn’t take long.

  The steer regained consciousness and staggered to its feet, standing head down and spraddle-legged until he regained his balance. Once he began showing signs that his mind was back in the game, Cormac hit it across the rump with the stick, yelled “Hiyah!” and then ran for his horse. The steer lunged forward and hit the end of the forty-foot rope as Cormac hit the saddle, and they all charged forward simultaneously.

  Standing in the stirrups, Cormac yelled and kept yelling while throwing rocks at Mossy’s rump, and they shot up and out of the arroyo at full speed. Running flat out, the steer was hightailing it straight at the branding corral where the men were working the irons in and out of the blazing fire.

  Cormac let out his Rebel yell to get their attention, then as the steer saw the fire and swung to the right side to go around it and the pen, Cormac hauled back on the reins and slid the pony to a stop on his haunches just as the steer hit the end of the rope. It was like snapping the end of a whip with the steer swapping ends, going tail end forward, and spinning around in a half circle toward the fire and the men with the branding irons.

  Unfortunately for Old Mossy, running the lead end of the rope forty feet in front of Cormac, when he spun, he was going too fast to keep his balance and his feet got tangled up, falling him onto his side not ten feet from the branding fire. Before he figured out what had happened to him and reacted to the situation, four cowboys were all over him and their combined weight made it impossible for him to get up. A fifth cowboy, carrying the branding iron, was right behind them and laid it into him. Old Mossy bawled as the smoke and stench of burning hide filled the air, and the cowboy holding down the front grabbed the rope off his horns and rolled aside. The others followed, letting old Mossy get to his feet. He bawled some more, and took off for the bushes, making a running pass at a cowboy on the way.

  “How the hell did you do that?” Josh wanted to know as the others gathered around when Cormac rode in. Everyone had agreed to not tell him about the loco steer just to watch the fun.

  “What do you mean? I found that old boy and didn’t think you boys would be able to get him down and keep him down long enough to brand him, so I reckoned I’d just run him in and drop him by the fire for you. I just threw my rope around his big ole horns and drug him out of the bushes, pointe
d him in the right direction, and hit him with a stick a few times to get him moving, and just run him on in. Was that all right?” he asked with feigned wide-eyed little boy innocence. “Did I do something wrong boss?”

  “No! Hell no! But you’re lucky that crazy old steer didn’t take in after you. He coulda killed you like he tried to kill me.”

  “Him? Nah! He tried gettin’ ornery at first, and him and me, we had us little talk, and I told him he shouldn’t oughta be actin’ that way and showed him the error of his ways, and he just came on along like a good fellow. Like I said, I had to hit him with a stick a time or two, but he weren’t no real trouble.” It occurred to Cormac that the others had known about the steer and intentionally not told him, like they hadn’t told him about the burr under his saddle, and now Maddy was standing right there, ready to listen to every word he was saying. Okay, fun’s fun, and turnabout’s fair play.

  “Back in Dakota,” Cormac went on, “my pa taught me how to handle situations like that. He said when you run across a feisty old bull or mean horse, you just walk right up in front of him and look him in the eye and say ‘now look here, you old steer. You ain’t as mean as you think you are. If you don’t settle down I’m just going kick you in the butt a few times until you do.’ Once they know you ain’t skeered of them, nine times outta ten, they’ll just settle right down.”

  Let ’em try that on some loco steer and see what happens to them, he thought with an unsmiled smile. What do you think of that, Pa?

  Josh said it was time to start wrapping up for the day, but Cormac told him that just before finding old Mossy, he had found some other cattle in a wash he wanted to bring in. “I’ll ride with you,” Josh offered. When they found the wash and looked down at the cattle bunched in the bottom, Josh said, “Good find. Looks like about twenty-five, maybe thirty head.”

  “No . . . it’s, ahh,” said Cormac, remembering he had already counted them and hesitating slightly for show. In storytellin’, his pa had told him once, timing was everything. “There is . . . ah . . . thirty-six, actually.”

  “Okay smart-guy. We’ll see,” answered Josh.

  As they drove the cattle out of the dry riverbed and confirmed the count was exactly thirty-six, Josh looked at Cormac strangely. “How in the hell did you count them so fast?”

  “Oh, I didn’t count them,” Cormac answered seriously, shaking his head. “I just counted their feet and divided by four.”

  “Oh, to hell with you,” Josh said as he spurred his horse away from Cormac. He knew he had been joked. Maybe I’m turning into Pa, thought Cormac happily as he watched Josh ride away.

  CHAPTER 10

  Stepping outside after helping clean up their dining room after supper, Cormac made himself a smoke. He heard a chuckle from the shadows of the night behind him. “Had a little fun with my boys today, did you?” Mr. Haplander came out of the night smoking a cigar.

  “I just did what I was told, sir. Josh told me to bring in all the cattle I could find, and that’s just what I did.”

  “It’s all right, boy, I know my hands, and I’m sure there was more to the story, but a stick? You hit Old Mossy with a stick?”

  “Yes, sir. I surely did.”

  Mr. Haplander chuckled again.

  “Glad to hear you’re making a place for yourself, son. I figured you would when I hired you. Sounds like everything is going all right for you, then?”

  “Yes, sir. I think I can safely say that to be true. Thank you very much for the job.”

  “I noticed when you got here you were only wearing one gun.”

  “Yes, sir. I had only worn the other one because I was riding shotgun on the stage. Wearing both of them makes me feel like I’m showing off like a tinhorn gambler.”

  “Very wise, young man, very wise indeed. I’m proud of you. I haven’t told anyone about what happened in Colorado, and I won’t.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Mr. Haplander put out his cigar in the dirt. “Good night, boy,” he said, and walked into the house.

  “Good night, sir.”

  Mr. Haplander went into the house smiling. Laurie had been out of the room when Josh had told the story of Old Mossy earlier during dinner, and after she returned and could overhear, Mr. Haplander asked Josh to repeat it for him. Anytime there were good things that could be said about Cormac, he always made sure she overheard them. “He’s quite a man,” he added to Josh at the conclusion, for Laurie’s benefit.

  Mr. Haplander was hoping she would take an interest in Cormac instead of some of the other men with whom she was always flirting, before she got herself in trouble. She was too damned good looking for her own good, the spitting image of her mother when he first met her. He smiled at the thought. Oh yes, he definitely had to find her somebody worthwhile and be quick about it.

  Cormac Lynch filled the bill nicely. He was a strong, hard-working, fine young man with courage, convictions, and principles that reminded him of himself when he was younger. He just had to be very careful and not get caught. Laurie was every bit as stubborn as her mother and had the same temper. If she suspected anything at all, it would be all over: so far, so good.

  With the roundup completed, the next morning Josh sent Cormac to work in the mine. Horse and Lop Ear were happy he didn’t have to leave them in the corral again. The other miners lived in Virginia City or the surrounding area. Other than Lucas, Cormac was the only one working both the ranch and the mine. He didn’t understand why, but it made him feel kinda special. Lucas wasn’t a talker. It was a quiet, but pleasant ride with little conversation other than as they were leaving.

  “Why you taking her for?” Lucas wanted to know when Horse followed them out of the corral.

  “She don’t much like bein’ left behind.”

  “What difference does that make? She’s just a horse.”

  “Horses have rights, too. I can throw a saddle on her any time of the day or night. I can ride her up the side of a mountain, or into a raging river or a freezing blizzard, or ask her to run her heart out for me, and she will. She’ll literally run herself to death for me if I ask her to. Whatever I want her to do, she’ll do, as will Lop Ear. I think that has earned them a few rights to how they want to be treated. We three gottin’ kinda used to travelin’ together.”

  “Well, it’s certainly fun to watch.”

  The Flying H silver mine was an intimidating sight. The big hole in the ground held up by some wood beams was not a place into which Cormac looked forward to going.

  “It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” Lucas Haplander told him when he hesitated. Family resemblance ran strong in the Haplander family. The boys had the same bulbous noses and wide-set dark eyes of their father, and Laurie’s face was a younger mirror-reflection of her mother. The men were tall, wide-shouldered, and strongly built, hard-working ranchers and miners, while Laurie and her mother were medium-tall with abundantly filled-out figures, although Mrs. Haplander was becoming somewhat pear-shaped with age. The teenage boy, Marcus, threw the whole plan off-kilter. He was short like his mother and sister, strong-chested and thick-necked like his father with a strong purposeful walk, for all intents and purposes like Old Mossy, with an attitude to match. If something didn’t get out of his way, he would walk through it or over it and didn’t much care which. He seemed to have no assigned responsibility and popped up here and there as he, or someone, deemed fitting.

  In Cormac’s mind, Marcus just didn’t seem to fit the Haplander mold, but then Cormac didn’t understand all he knew about the man/woman having children thing, and what he did know wasn’t much. Living on an isolated farm with no contact with the other kids his age, his sexual knowledge was limited. Peeking under the blanket at Lainey had got him to wondering about it with some unfamiliar thoughts and feelings, but he wasn’t making much progress on figuring it out. Watching Laurie bounce around the ranch kept bringing it to mind.

  Stopping at the miner’s shack, Lucas came out with a cap with a metal piec
e attached to the brim and a tin box.

  “This is a miner’s cap you can use until you get your own. The metal piece is for the candleholder when we get inside.” Holding up a tin box with the soot-blackened bottom, and a tin cup affixed to the top; he removed the lid to show two trays inside, one on top of the other. “This is a miner’s lunch pail I’ll loan you.

  “Duffy will put up a lunch for you. The bottom layer will be filled with coffee that you can heat in the cup over a candle, and the trays will usually hold sandwiches or some kind of Irish stew. Duffy makes an Irish stew to write home about.

  “The men aren’t due here for another thirty minutes. While we’re waiting, let me show you the mine.” With an uneasy feeling of trepidation, Cormac followed him into the blackness. The floor took a downward slant as soon as they entered, and they walked around a cart that Lucas explained was for bringing ore to the surface.

  As they left the influence of the light flowing in from the entrance, Lucas took down some candles from a box on a shelf carved into the wall. He gave Cormac one new candle and two stubs to put in his pocket for emergencies.

  He showed Cormac how to fasten the bent-spike candleholder to his cap-bracket. “The spike can be driven into one of the timbers to hold the candle when needed.” Lucas led the way into the mine.

  “A mine is a passageway to the pitch-black bowels of the earth where absolutely no light of the sun ever reaches. If we want light in a mine, we have to create it.