Duster (9781310020889)

by Roderus, Frank

  "Hey, Duster, you can't wash all that dust out of you that easy. There ain't water enough."

  "Careful there, Duster. If you muddy up the Nueces too much they's gonna be an awful lot of mad folks down river."

  "Don't it beat all now, boys? First we find 'im wallowin' in a puddle of dust an' now in a puddle of water. That boy likes to wallow."

  "Yeah, if we catch him rootin' for acorns with his nose, we'll lose a rider. Have to hang him up fer bacon."

  They run on like that for a spell. In the meantime, I got them sorted out. Where there'd been fifty of them a minute ago, they pretty soon whittled down to just Ike Partley and Split Emmons and Eben Dyer and Tommy Lucas. And of course that no-account Jesus who had turned on me just as soon as the others'd rode up. He was there laughing along with the rest.

  I started to get up. Then I remembered my horse was a good two-three dozen steps away, so I sat back down again.

  "Why ain't you gettin' out, Duster? You gonna set there soakin' up water until you squish when you ride?"

  There wasn't really any reason to feel so funny about it, but I did. "Aw, shoot, you guys just got no respect for a tired cowhand." I stood up then, and got to my horse.

  I was just standing there with my leggins and stuff in my hand, and somehow when I reached for my hat it fluttered right out of my hand and under Split's horse's nose. The way that animal acted up was enough to remind me that that particular sorrel always had been skittish. It didn't get wound up enough to pitch him off, but old Split was busy there for a minute or so. Long enough to keep the rest of them interested in him while I took my time about getting everything pulled on and buttoned and buckled.

  Once I had my dignity back it occurred to me just how many of them boys was right there beside the river. Unless I misremembered completely, every single one of our whole cow crowd was right here in one spot.

  "Hey, Ike. Did you fellas get so carried away wantin' to make light of me that you forgot to leave someone to watch the cows you've cotched?" I asked. "You better go a-flyin' or you'll lose 'em all."

  "Naw, amigo. I think maybe they could not catch cows without you an' me," Jesus said. He took his hat off and brushed the dust off hisself like he was all proud of himself and had to preen a little.

  "You boys ain't quite all that important," Ike said in that slow, easy drawl of his. "We managed to get things under control pretty good without you young'uns underfoot." He bore down awful hard on that word "young'uns" so as to set us in our place. "I'll show you later. Right now let's get these horses settled. We sure can use 'em."

  The rest of the bunch peeled their gear off their tired horses. Me and Jesus held the fresh ones in close until every-body'd roped out one he liked, then we moved all of them back upriver a ways and turned off around a little hill to where they'd left the remuda with the bell mare.

  The remuda was scattered out along both sides of a little hollow that had plenty of browse and a little creek crossing it at the far end on its way to join the Nueces. It had to be the same little stream we'd splashed across not long before we got to the camp on our way down from Fort Ewell. It was a good place to leave a bunch of horses. Not that they had much to worry about this bunch going anywhere. I don't know a whole lot about horses, but even I could see that these animals was worn down to a nub. They were even worse off than the horses Ike and the others had been riding when they found us. All of these in the remuda was stiff-legged when they moved, gotten that way by the thorns that stabbed deep when they went busting through brush after wild cow critters. They'd pick up long stickers jabbed hard into muscles or, worse, into leg joints. As long as they kept running and working it didn't seem to slow them none, but as soon as they cooled off they'd stiffen up and it'd take days for them to limber up again, longer before the thorns would work out far enough for us to find the ends and pull them out.

  We all of us hated cat's-claw. Its thorns was barbed on the ends and when a mess of it stuck into a horse we'd have to take a stick or the flat side of a knife blade to pry it loose.

  Worst of all, though, we hated the viznaga that we called devil's head. Many a time I've seen a cowhand get down off his horse in the middle of a cow hunt to dig out a viznaga down to the roots so he could kill it off. In time, I learned to do that myself. What earned the devil's head its name was that it grew low, just about right to slap a fetlock or lodge in a hoof even. And the thorns had little bitty barb hooks all along the length of them. You couldn't pull them out without them breaking off, and left alone in the flesh like they had to be they'd work themselves in deeper instead of backing out. If they got in a joint they could cripple the best horse there was.

  Ike told me he'd had to turn a couple horses loose from the remuda to make it on their own, maybe with a wild band. They'd been crippled in a different way. Sollaoed, they called it. Wind broke. You never could tell how much a horse could give. Sometimes they'd be weaker than you figured or sometimes they just had so much heart they'd give more than they had it in them to spend on running and working in the heat. Either way they might be sollaoed, and once they had their wind broke it was like their lungs had just busted. After that, no matter how much they was rested or how good they was fed, they never would be good for anything more than a walk and not too much of that either or they'd just stand still and heave for air that didn't seem to do anything for them.

  These two Ike had turned loose had been sollaoed chasing cows. There wasn't anything else he could of done for them. They was both rough broke geldings, too ornery to give to a kid, like for riding to school, and no use for breeding. On their own in the brush they could find grass and mesquite beans and water enough to get along, and they could set their own pace; wouldn't even have to run if they didn't want.

  I was some worried they might be easy game for wolves— there was some of them supposed to be around—but Ike said those little prairie lobos like we had around us was afraid to tackle a growed-up animal. They hung around waiting for a calf to be dropped, hoping they could sneak in before the mama could hook them one with a horn. They wouldn't go after any growed-up animal unless it was already down off its legs and not able to get away. And the wolves wouldn't know these sollaoed horses couldn't run away from them, Ike said. That made me feel some better and I didn't worry about them anymore.

  I sure was still curious, though, about what they'd done with the cows they'd caught so far. I knew those horses didn't get so wore out with no cows to show for it.

  Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. "Ike, what in this world have you done with the cows you all've been catchin'?"

  Ike flashed a few tobacco-stained tooth nubs at me and leaned over from his horse to mine so he could slap me real hard on the shoulder. "I shore am glad you asked me that, Duster. The boys've been working awful hard while you young'uns went off takin' it easy." He spit and got a prickly pear dead center.

  "They's some old cow pens nearby where we can keep them critters behind a stockade wall. Don't know who ever built 'em, but you can find such pens here and there all over this country. A few fresh posts and a little green cowhide got things patched up real fine now."

  "Sounds good to me," I said. "I'll have to get a look at this pen tomorry."

  "Oh, I reckon we can do better by you young'uns than that. You see, there's got to be somebody riding the outside at night to keep the critters resting easy. It wouldn't do for them to get a smell of bear or wolf and try to bust loose. They might get it done. So, what we got to do is have a couple fellas slip along the outside an' sing a few Texas lullabyes. Sort of thought you could take the first half of the night and then let Jesus pick up the rest."

  "Nice of you," I said. I should of figured something like that would happen when I opened my big mouth. It seemed I never would learn. I headed on back to camp so's I could get a bite to eat while I had time.

  11

  THAT COUNTRY DOWN along the Nueces was cram full of cattle, cows wearing half the brands in creation and a whole lot with no br
and at all. We tore into them for fair, branding and turning loose the calves and she stuff, cutting and holding the young steers, and mostly keeping clear of the old mossy horns.

  It didn't take hardly any time for us to put a herd together, especially since there was so few of us to drive them through that rough country with no roads or proper trails. We couldn't handle many. Of the six of us, one'd have to handle the horses, too, so that left only five of us to drive beeves.

  We put up a herd of three hundred. Ike figured that would be plenty to keep us busy. He said he'd be happy if we could get two-hundred-fifty of them up the Nueces to where we was to meet Mister Sam Silas and the rest of the crowd. Figuring like that, Ike had us put only steers in the herd to be driven, and we took only our own brands. It was easy to do since so many of the cows down there was mavericks without a brand until we come along.

  By the time the herd was put together, not much more than a week after Jesus and me joined them, I counted thirty-two steers in the bunch of them wearing the DD brand. Most of them was from my every seventh share of the slicks, but a few of them was wearing old brands. Those brands had likely been burned on by my pa before he left home. It gave me something of a funny feeling seeing them.

  The last morning in our camp on the Nueces, Ike rousted us out early—'bout four o'clock. I'd had the early night watch again and I was still awful tired. One minute I was laying there snuggled down deep in my soogan. It felt warm and nice pulled over me. I guess I was about half awake; probably I'd heard Ike getting up though I didn't realize it right off.

  The night air was cold on my face, but I didn't mind. It just made the rest of me feel that much warmer under the soogan, and I wriggled a little to feel that warmth on my shoulders and backside. There was a few sharp sticks or rocks under my right hip, but they didn't gouge at me too bad being as they were padded some by the soogan between me and them.

  I laid there all toasty warm, and not thinking for a minute about where I was I had my mouth all set for some of Ma's fresh biscuits and a big glass of milk cooled off from the night air. We always set the pail from the evening milking outside, under the dogtrot roof, so it would cool for morning. I thought I could hear Ma building up the fire.

  I opened my eyes, thinking to tell my brother Tom to go out and fetch the pail in, but instead of him I seen Tommy Lucas hunkered down next to me ready to shake me out, and on beyond him was Ike Partley stirring up the fire.

  I set up and rubbed my eyes and instead of Ma calling for the kids to get up I heard Eben Dyer cussing at Jesus and old Lickety-Split who kept kicking at his feet to make sure he got awake. Eben is probably the hardest man in this world to get up in the morning. He'll wake up just enough to quit snoring but he draws the line there and won't budge the least bit unless you keep at him with a toe or maybe a hat full of water if you have enough to spare.

  As big as Eben is, it's a good thing he don't get mad easy. He'll raise a fuss sometimes, and he'll cuss something awful of a morning, but he's just funnin' when he does it. If there's a rock handy on the ground he may pick it up and chunk it at who-ever's trying to get him up, but with a rock he always misses and it must be on purpose because if his hand closes on a nice, big clod of dirt you're sure to get hit square between the shoulders when you try to get away. I think Eben is hard to get up on purpose. It always starts our day off good trying to think up ways to get Eben out of his blankets quick. And I've noticed he never has any trouble getting up in the middle of the night to stand his watch on the herd.

  Anyway, I pulled my shoes on, put my hat on my head, rolled my soogan up, crawled into my leather, and I was set for the day.

  Ike had the fire going by then and the smoke smelled real good on that cold morning air. By the time I got over there he had dumped some coffee into a pail to boil and had put some thick slices of bacon into the big old iron spider he carried strapped on top of the packhorse. I hadn't noticed being hungry before, but once I caught the smell of that bacon my mouth began to water. I could feel it sure, though up to then I'd always thought that was just a thing folks said for a way of talking. More than likely it'd happened to me but I just never noticed it. Hungry as I all of a sudden was, there just wasn't no way not to notice it then.

  I sat down on the ground there next to Tommy—he didn't look to be much more awake yet than me—without saying anything, just waking up sort of, until Ike decided the bacon was burned enough to be done and handed the spider over toward us.

  We each of us picked a piece out with our fingers. I heard Tommy grunt a little, but I never let on how hot it was even though for a second there I thought the grease had burnt through until it hit bone. Still, it tasted fine.

  The rest of them came over and sat down, and the six of us cleaned up on a whole bunch of bacon and coffee too.

  It still wasn't full light yet by the time we was finished and set into loading our gear on the packhorse, and I guess nobody felt awake enough to be talkative, for we sure was a quiet crowd. The air still felt a mite nippy with morning chill but it smelled fresh and was real pleasant with the only sounds being from feet shuffling around on the ground or a cinch strap snapping home when someone would pull the girth up tight on his night horse.

  I got my stuff rolled together and then tried to help Tommy Lucas load everything on the packsaddle. Not that I accomplished much. I've heard folks say you can tell how long a man's been in the West by how he rigs a packhorse, but I don't believe that. I've lived all my life in Texas and can't put up a pack tight enough that it won't jiggle apart inside of five miles.

  Tommy Lucas, though, could fling stuff over his shoulder toward a pack saddle, waggle a rope over it with his eyes closed, and still come out with an outfit a blind mule could carry all day and never lose a thing. He was that good. I enjoyed watching him, though I can't claim I learned much from it.

  He must of appreciated me trying to help, though. When he was all done he smiled at me and asked, "Them fellas find you?"

  Now, that surprised me. Not so much that I didn't know what fellows he was asking about, although I didn't, but that he'd asked at all. If there is one thing Tommy Lucas is not, it is talkative. He'll enjoy a prank as much as anyone and laugh right along with the rest. Sometimes he'll even joke some then. And he'll work his share or more. But that man might go better than a day without opening his mouth except to eat, yawn, or spit.

  "Fellas?" I asked. "I don't know who all you mean so I'd have to reckon they never found me. When was they looking? Who were they?"

  Tommy shrugged. "Jus' before you got back. Tough lookin' pair. Lookin' for you 'n Jesus." He added, "Didn't tell 'em nuthin'."

  "I sure don't know who they could of been. We never saw anyone coming down here from Fort Ewell. I guess they didn't say who they were or anything like that, or what they wanted us for."

  Tommy shook his head no.

  I started to ask him if there had been anyone else around when they came, thinking maybe someone else might of talked to them and would know more about what they'd wanted. I didn't bother to ask after I thought about it. Anyone else would of mentioned it inside of a day or two, so Tommy had to of been alone when he talked with them fellows, whoever they were.

  I sure hoped they didn't need to find me too awful bad, for I knew they wouldn't have got much help from Tommy. He said little enough to us and just about nothing at all to anyone else.

  At first I was worried it might be a message that Ma was sick or something, but then I realized it couldn't be that because they would of left word. And anyway, Tommy had said they was looking for me and Jesus so that wouldn't make sense.

  I couldn't figure out who it might of been and for a while I studied on it. I couldn't work it out any way I tried and eventually I gave up. If they wanted me bad enough they'd find me, and if they didn't then it wasn't about anything important enough to worry over.

  Anyway, we got the outfit ready to move and were in our saddles plenty early. Ike gave the lead rope of the packhorse to Jesus whi
ch meant he'd have to haze the remuda along after us that day. It had turned out the new Mex horses would stay to a bell mare so it wasn't much of a job, especially with cattle moving as slow as they do, but still no one liked to herd the remuda. It was counted as being a second-rate sort of job, and I have to admit I was feeling a bit prideful that I hadn't got the remuda that first day driving.

  Later on, I almost wished that I had. Sometime after this, when there was a market for cattle as beef, some smart cowman figured out that you could make the most money on a trail herd of three thousand beeves, counting the wages you paid for cowhands against the losses in animals lost, killed, or stole along the way and driving them with a crew of a dozen or maybe a few more riders. But that was up on the grass plains. I'd bet they never figured to push steers through Texas brush country when they said three thousand.

  The five of us had a gosh-awful time with three hundred cows going through that big thorn thicket we used for range. We'd ride along slow and easy and everything pleasant, and all of a sudden some stupid longhorn would shove his nose up in the air and twitch his nostrils and then, bam, he'd be off at a run to bust loose from that herd so's he could go where he darn well pleased. Or one would get tired of going in the direction we wanted and he'd turn and roll a horn down ready to gouge with and then come running straight at us so we'd have to do some fancy slapping at his eyes with our ropes to change his mind. Or we'd ride up over a little rise in the ground and find that whole bunch of cows had decided to follow along the easy way up a little hollow instead of walking up that next rise.

  And to make it all worse, of course, we had to do all this in brush as high as a man a-horseback in some spots and with dust so bad we couldn't see from one end of that little herd to the next and with noise all around so we couldn't hardly think with cattle bellowing and horns clacking together and with us hollering until we got hoarse and snapping our ropes against our leggins to make more noise. It was something all right, but I wouldn't of missed it for anything, and to come right down to it, it was more than just the thirty cents a day!