Duster (9781310020889)

by Roderus, Frank

  We pushed them like that until about ten o'clock in the morning, and even though it was still early in the day we were plenty hot and dusty by then. Since we were just going to Rock-port I guess it really didn't make much difference, but Ike pulled us down anyway and we stopped them alongside the river so they could rest and drink some if they were of a mind. If you push cattle during the heat of the day you walk the meat right off their bones, so what you do is drive them early in the morning, let them lay up at midday, and then let them drift along real easy late in the day. That's if you're in something of a hurry like we was, wanting to join up with Mister Sam Silas and get the drive over with and us home. There's a better way if you don't care none about time and want to have the cattle gain weight on the way. For that, you let the beeves get up and start themselves drifting in the morning—they'll do that once they're trail broke—then drive them for only an hour or so before the ten o'clock break.

  Anyhow, we pulled them up for a rest sometime short of noon. We'd been away from the river for a few miles but now we was back to it, so there was no worry about water for the cattle or for us.

  Once they seemed to be settled, I crawled down off my horse to stretch and let my legs loosen a little after the morning's ride.

  "Duster, how's about stirring up a fire for us?" Ike called out to me. "Jesus oughta be up to us in a minute or two with the packhorse."

  "Yes, sir," I hollered back. Not having actually been along on a drive before it hadn't occurred to me that we'd have time for lunch. Hunting cows like we'd been doing before we never had time for a nooning, what with the branding and all we had to do once we'd gotten together some cows to work on. Now, with the herd put up and on the trail—our piece of it anyway— we had time to rest ourselves while those old longhorns took it easy.

  I hustled up some dry sticks real quick and had the makings of a fire in no time.

  "Eh, muchacho, what you gonna do with that pile o' sticks?" Jesus asked when he brought the packhorse up.

  "Aw, I just been admirin' it. If I practice up real good I'll learn myself how to build bridges so's we can cross rivers without gettin' wet." For a minute or so there, I'd just been sitting on the ground waiting, not having any matches to light the fire with. "Whyn't you crawl down from that animal an' help me put us a lunch together?"

  "Hokay."

  Jesus ripped Tommy Lucas's nice, neat packs apart until he found a block of lucifers and tossed them over to me. Then, he burrowed into those packs some more. By the time I had the fire going, Jesus had found some more bacon—I think it was really jowl—and the makings of pan bread.

  I got a pot of coffee going and put the bacon on to fry, while Jesus took Ike's big spider and got to work on the pan-made corn dodgers. Between the two of us we got it done in hurry-up order, then Jesus stood and waved his big sombrero to call the rest of the bunch in.

  They seemed to be as hungry as us, for they come right in, squatting around on the ground while I passed the food. They pitched in right enough on the fried jowls, but when they hit those corn dodgers they really went to work.

  "My gosh, these here dodgers is good," Split said. "I ain't had chuck this fine since we left Digger Bill up on the Frio."

  "You ain't just a-woofin'," Eben said. "These is prime."

  "They are pretty fair," Ike admitted. "I didn't know you could cook so good, Duster."

  "Wasn't me that done it. Truth is, Jesus is the one fixed them dodgers. He ought to be the one gets the credit." Now, honest, I hadn't meant to put anything off on Jesus but the praise. But I guess he seen what was coming better than me, for his face fell from a smile right smack down to a frown.

  "Jesus, with a fine talent like you got with a little grease an' cornmeal, I guess what we oughta let you do is do the cookin' for us right on until we get back up with Mister Sam an' the rest," Ike told him. "You just hang onto that there packhorse, an' we'll take care o' them beeves, hear?"

  Jesus's face hit a new low then. I guess he'd been counting awful hard on me spelling him with the remuda. Now, it looked like he was stuck with the horses all the way north to Three Rivers.

  12

  ACTUALLY, IT WASN'T as bad as Jesus liked to make out. Every meal on our way north, he gave me the devil for sticking him with the horses and him figuring to be such a fine hand with cows. But it only took us four days to drive along the Nueces to Three Rivers where we was to meet Mister Sam Silas and the rest of the crowd.

  Three Rivers is where the Frio and the Atascosa join up with the Nueces. From there on down to the Gulf the river is called the Nueces. The Frio and the Atascosa really come together a few miles north of where the Nueces bends over to the east for the run downhill to the Gulf. Come to think of it, I don't know the proper name of the part after they come together and before they join the Nueces, but that whole little area in there we always called Three Rivers, and everybody always knew where we meant, so there wasn't any problem ever.

  There wasn't any corral built on our side of the river there, so late in the day Ike got us all together and bunched that little herd of cows for crossing over.

  I'd never helped take a herd over swimming-deep water before, so it was something brand new to me. Mostly, so I wouldn't be in the way, I tried to hang back in the drag where I always was anyway.

  Once the herd was bunched up tight on the west bank, Ike went himself to get the lead steer moving. I never have figured out what makes a whole herd of cows follow one or two leaders, but every herd has its lead animals. You start out with a bunch of critters that have just been caught and most of them never before had sight or smell of one another and inside of a day or two there'll be at least one animal up front and he'll stay there at the point as long as you drive that herd, whether you're just going to Rockport or up to Oregon country. And those cows don't seem to pay much mind to how they pick a leader either. You'd think it would be the biggest or the meanest or the oldest or something, but this lead steer of ours wasn't much over four years old and as skinny an old liver-and-white-speckled animal as ever I saw, and to top it all off he had only one nub of a horn—the other was gone complete—so he sure didn't get to be the boss by fighting for it.

  Anyway, Ike gave out with a loud "Ayeeeiiieee-yah" yell and choused that skinny steer down the little bit of bank along the river there, and the two of them splashed out into the water. In a couple more strides the steer and Ike's horse were both off their feet and setting out to swim, with Ike and the horse on the downstream side of the steer.

  The horse just rolled his eyes some, stuck his neck out and his nose up, and went to kicking. The steer didn't like it, and he tried to scramble back to a place where he could get something solid under his hooves, but just then, Ike laid a knotted rope on his snout to keep his head toward the far side, so the steer made do with a loud snort and a low bawl before he set down to some serious swimming. And Ike, right about then the water got to waist high on him, and he let out something of a squeal himself.

  "Hot dang, that's cold!" he hollered. Which didn't make much sense, I thought, but it's exactly what he said.

  "Come on, y'all," Split called out to the rest of us. "Move up, doggies. Aiiiii-ya-ya-ya."

  Split and Tommy was on the downstream side of the herd, too, and Eben was on the left—and me, of course, back at the drag.

  We all set to with whooping and yelling and loud whistles we made by stickin' a couple of fingers in our mouth, and we beat on our leggings with our ropes until they was under water and didn't do more than splash. The cattle bawled and blew air and tossed their heads around until the sounds of horns hitting against more horns was about as loud as pistol shots. But they moved while they was complaining about it, and in no time at all they was strung out in the water swimming as hard as they could after the leader.

  They looked pretty funny in the water, for longhorns aren't built for swimming as a permanent means of transportation, even if they do do it pretty good when they have to. About all we could see of one when he was s
wimming would be his horns sticking up all shiny wet and a pair of great big eyes rolling so hard they looked all white and huge, and then back of the head there'd be a swirl of water and sometimes, a way back, there'd be a ratty, soaked end knot of tail.

  They swam across real fine, most of them, and scrambled up on the far bank with a wild, happy lurch.

  About the last fifty of them, though, hadn't wanted to get into the water. I yelled and flailed my rope around and they finally did get started though they was maybe thirty-forty yards behind the rest.

  I splashed in behind them, all dumb and happy, and I found out Ike had been right. That water was almighty cold when it hit belt level. I wasn't much more than in good before I heard somebody hollering.

  "They're millin', Duster, they're millin'."

  Right at first I didn't know what he had meant, but even as low as I was to the water then I could see across the backs and horns of the drag cows, and I saw right off that the front cows in my little bunch was trying to turn around and swim back. And they was trying to turn right into the ones swimming up from behind. Now, if you ever let a swimming longhorn get jostled in the water so it's not on top of its feet, you can count yourself a drowned steer, and it seemed as though we might have quite a few floating off upside down.

  "I'm coming, boys," I shouted, though it didn't do the first bit of good just making noise. I was still up in the saddle, and I kicked that horse's ribs for all I was worth—which wasn't much with my feet and legs under water. Mostly the kicking just seemed to raise a splash when I jumped up and down trying to kick harder. The water seemed to collect between the can tie and my bottom, and every time I'd move down, a gout of water would curl up to land all over my back. Still, it must of done some good for my horse got to swimming faster, and I guided him around the bunch of swimming beeves so I could reach the place where the ones up front was milling.

  It seemed to take an awful long time to get there, but the other boys were too far away and I had to try. I like to got sick when I saw a couple steers get out of balance and slip down under the water. I knew when they came up again they'd be drowned as dead as if they'd been butchered.

  "Hurry, Duster," somebody called.

  That made me feel sort of mad for I was already going as fast as I could, but I didn't say anything. I just bounced up and down some more and drummed my heels into my horse's ribs as hard as the water would let me. I'd seen one or two more steers go under by then.

  That horse was a pretty fair swimmer and a real good cow pony, and he gave it all he could once he knew where we was headed. When we got up to the front of the bunch he pushed right into the middle of them toward where a knot of steers was tangled up with about half of them headed right and the rest trying to get back where we'd just been.

  "Turn the black, Duster. That black one in the middle." I recognized it was Ike's voice, so I pointed my horse's head toward the black steer he was talking about.

  I was nearly to it when some miserable, one-eared steer that was so scared its eyeballs didn't show anything at all except yellow-splotched white tried to climb up onto my horse's withers to get out of the water. One minute I was riding fine and the next there was that steer trying to shove his nose in my lap.

  The horse went rolling over to the left with the weight of that steer's hooves trying to walk up it, and I flung myself off to the right with an awful splash.

  I grabbed hold of the nearest pair of horns I could reach, which happened to be on the black steer, and hauled myself astraddle of him like I was on a horse again. Off in the distance I heard somebody yell, "Ride 'im, boy, give 'im fits."

  The steer was still trying to get back on shore and with him wriggling so, I near fell off again. I grabbed hold of his other horn too then to save myself from falling, and my weight of catching myself like that turned his head. Another animal that was still swimming the right way bumped into his near shoulder and turned him some more, and before I knew what was happening we were straightened back around and swimming in the right direction.

  Getting that black out of the way was like pulling a plug. It unstopped most of the mill and pretty soon Tommy and Eben were there and got the rest of them pointed right. Me, I just rode that black steer on across the river and stayed up on him right onto dry land.

  "Duster, that there was the neatest trick I seen in years," Split said when I got across and had got off the steer and out of his way lest he take to trying to pitch me off.

  "I got to admit it's so," Ike said. "We thought we'd lost that whole bunch 'til you flang yourself off your horse and grabbed onto that steer that was causin' all the trouble. I'll tell Mister Sam about it for sure."

  "It took guts," Split said.

  I felt sort of embarrassed by all the praise, especially for something I hadn't meant to do. For a spell, I just stood there dripping water into muddy little pools on the ground by my feet. And right then I could see my feet real easy, the direction I was looking.

  As wet as I was and as low as the sun was by then, it was getting pretty cold except for two spots right behind my ears and they just got hotter and hotter. I didn't really need anybody to tell me what them spots looked like, but naturally somebody did. Old Split just couldn't leave it be.

  "Boy, you've lit up bright as a coal oil lamp in a fancy house ... an' about the same color too. Hey, Tommy, don't he blush as pretty as a fourteen-year-old gal gettin' looked at by her first beau? Shhh-oot, Duster, cain't you take a little bit of a compliment?"

  "It ain't that," I said, and I felt myself getting still redder.

  "Aw, come on now, li'l schoolgirl," Split kept on. "You kin come off'n a horse an' wrestle a swimmin' steer, you kin sure keep from goin' all aflutter when somebody whispers purty words to you." He flapped his hands around in the air and got a pretty fair response, even from Tommy.

  I had liked aplenty getting that praise from Ike, and to tell the truth I guess I wouldn't of spoken up except that I knew if I let old Split run on any further I might find myself trading in the name Duster for one I'd like even less. "It ain't that, I told you."

  "Then whyn't you tell us so's we can share it?" Eben put in.

  "I'd ruther not."

  "Aw puhleese, li'l schoolgal." That was that darned Split again.

  I went to slap my hat down on the ground and came up with nothing but hair. To top off everything else I'd gone and lost my hat back there in the water somewhere. "It's just that things ain't always what they look."

  "Like them red ears of yourn? They really ain't red?"

  "Oh, da ... da ... darn it if you just got to know, you'all seen me jump off that horse and wrestle that ole black steer over here, right? Well, dang it, I fell off that horse more'n jumped and lit sorta close to that steer and ... oh, shoot." They was peering at me real close. "Well, anyways, I cain't swim a lick."

  "You was just hangin' on," Split howled. "You an' that ole steer was just hangin' on to each other."

  I wished he'd laugh so hard he'd fall off his horse and bust his head.

  "Split, you fetch yourself back across and help Jesus bring the horses over. He's coming up to the crossing now. Tommy...Eben...you two get them cows bunched and settled down again. We don't want to lose them now we've got 'em across. And Duster, you an' me'll go downriver a ways and see if we can find any of them drownded steers we lost coming over. Their hides are still worth something."

  I was some grateful to Ike for busting us up. And he was right—the hides would be worth something if we could find them. Ike had caught up my horse when he climbed out of the water without me, so I got back on him and set off.

  Besides, maybe I could find my hat somewhere down the river.

  13

  MISTER SAM SILAS and the rest of the boys come up to us two days later with a herd of more than six hundred scraggly steers and a few old cows too wore out and worthless to calve again. We was glad to see them, and pitched in to help them get across the river.

  I was gladder than most, for I hadn't fou
nd my hat, and I'd been hoping someone in the main bunch might have an extra he could spare. It was awful hot going bareheaded and, besides, I felt nekkid without something on my head. A body just naturally put on a hat as soon as he was old enough to wear britches, and I wasn't used to being without one.

  As it turned out, there wasn't a spare hat to be had, so in the end I had to talk Digger Bill out of a piece of old sacking to tie around my head. It was better than nothing, and since I didn't have to look at myself ever I used it the whole time we was on the drive to Rockport.

  That first night after the rest of them caught up to us, Mister Sam Silas called a meet with the owners on the drive, and he stopped to talk with me a minute and invited me personal to come sit with them. He could of sent word with just anybody else, of course, but Mister Sam Silas was like that. There wasn't anything standoffish about him even if he was the biggest cowman around.

  After supper, most of the boys, even Ike, settled around some spread blankets to pike some monte and swap some lies, and the owners gathered around the cooking fire where the coffeepot would be close. There was Mister Sam Silas, of course, and Charlie Emmons and B.J. Hollis. Eben sat in to represent Mister James Thorn who had stayed back at Dog Town. And there was me. I noticed nobody at the fire represented Mister Silvus MacReedy, though Crazy Longo and a couple of the Mexican hands worked for him. Still, Mister MacReedy and Mister Sam Silas was awful close, so I figured Mister Sam was probably representing the both of them. Not that it would of been my place to say anything anyway. I sat off to one side and kept my mouth shut.

  Once everyone had a full cup of coffee, Mister Sam Silas opened things up. "I've been over the tally sheets today—the one I made up and the one Ike gave me from his gather—and I wanted to let everyone know where they stand before we set out for Rockport. That way, if anyone wants to cut down on the number of beeves with his brand we can put them back across the river before we make our drive. We tried to bring along only the scrub cattle, but there may be some you'd want to turn back anyway."