“Mr. Balleen,” he said, “I got somethin’ to tell you. It’s been eatin’ at me all night.”
“Yes, what is it, Tommy?”
“That Vernon Avery. I think he was in cahoots with them Injuns. He was helpin’ them.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Avery didn’t know who he was. He was a breed, half Injun, half white.”
“I didn’t know that,” Tommy said.
“I guess he made his choice. He could have lived as a white man, but he chose to throw in with those Cheyenne.”
“That why you didn’t bury him or them other Injuns?”
“They didn’t deserve a proper burial, Tommy. Let ’em rot or get eaten by buzzards and wolves.”
“That seems kind of cruel to me,” Tommy said.
“Life is cruel sometimes, Tommy.”
Tommy shuffled his feet and looked down at the ground.
Reese patted him on one shoulder. “See you on point, Tommy. All you have to do is scout ahead. Follow the compass settings Johnny gave you.”
“I will.”
“See you,” Reese said. He watched as Tommy climbed into his saddle and rode off. He saw him take out his compass and begin to figure out the route.
Luckily, he had ridden point with Johnny, so Tommy knew what to do. But Reese vowed to check on him once the herd got moving again.
They had already lost time and Reese was concerned that bad weather would overtake them by the time they got to Wyoming Territory. He looked at the sky and saw only white clouds floating in a blue bowl. Perfect.
He and Louella rode back to the chuck wagon. When Checkers pulled out, he waved good-bye and she waved back.
Reese was short of hands now. He just hoped those few he had left could control the herd. He didn’t want any more mishaps or attacks.
Soon the herd was on the move again. Like some rolling river, the cattle streamed across that far southeastern corner of Montana. Mostly prairie, it was scarred by arroyos, dry creek beds that threatened to become raging rivers in heavy rain when flash floods flourished all over the country.
“Rough country,” Lonnie said to Reese as they rode right flank. “One bolt of lightning could scatter this herd all over creation.”
“Don’t tempt God, Lonnie. We’ve got blue skies and fair weather.”
“Yeah, right now we do.”
“And from the looks of those skies, for many days to come.”
“You trust that kid on point, Reese?” Lonnie asked. “It’s a pretty big responsibility.”
“It isn’t a matter of trust. Tommy has a compass and he’s been on the drive long enough to know how we run things.”
“I don’t know. A kid like that. He gets to daydreamin’ and might lead us into a box canyon.”
Reese laughed. “I’ll ride up and check on him a little later,” he said. “He’s big enough to wear britches, he’s big enough to ride point.”
“If you say so, Reese. That’s a mighty big responsibility. Kid’s still wet behind the ears, you ask me.”
“Tommy got baptized last night, Lonnie. Baptized in blood. That’s a heavy weight for a kid to carry. Killing a man.”
“Hell, it was only a Injun. That don’t hardly count.”
“A man is a man, no matter if his skin is white or red.”
“Funny to hear you say that, Reese. You hate Injuns as much as I do.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t see their worth, Lonnie. Look, the Cheyenne were on the same land where I set my ranch. We whites took it away from them. I’m not sayin’ it’s right. I’m just sayin’ it’s the natural course of things.”
“You have a funny way of looking at what happened to the Injun,” Lonnie said.
“Well, when Silver Bear asked me to give him some of my cattle, I was stingy and mean to him. That’s somethin’ in my craw that don’t taste real good. If I had given him some cattle, he might not have caused me so much trouble. Caused me to lose some good men.”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have given them redskins the time of day.”
“They were starving, Lonnie. I could see their ribs. I was heartless and cruel.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a change of heart, Reese.”
“Maybe. I certainly got a lot to think about. Seein’ Silver Bear dead like that got me to thinkin’. Thinkin’ real hard about what was right and what was wrong.”
“And do you think you were wrong to turn Silver Bear down when he begged for free cattle?”
“I don’t know. It’s not an easy question to answer. I could have shown him some human kindness.”
“But the Injuns is our enemy,” Lonnie said.
“Yes. And we white men made them so.”
Lonnie was quiet for a while. Reese could sense that he was thinking about their conversation. So was he.
When he saw Silver Bear lying dead in the firelight the night before, he had thought of the kind of life the warrior had left behind. Reese had never thought of the Indian except as some kind of pest, like a weed that had to be jerked out of the ground and stomped back into it.
Now he thought of a proud man with copper skin who must have been a family man. He must have been a hunter, a provider of food for his family. And then, over time, his main source of food, the buffalo, had been taken from him. He had been reduced to some kind of beggar, no longer able to provide food for his family.
Still, Silver Bear had stolen some of his cattle. Now he hoped they would provide food for his family in the remaining months of winter. Perhaps that would help compensate for Silver Bear’s death in some way. He hoped that it would, because no matter how much he hated Indians, he saw their worth and respected their dignity in the face of adversity.
He wondered how he would feel if people from another land and another culture invaded his land and took it away from him.
He knew how he would feel. And he would fight to the death to defend what he claimed was his.
That was all Silver Bear had done, but not as he might have. He stole cattle, yes, but Reese was convinced that he only killed white men in self-defense.
He could not fault a man for defending his life. Except Silver Bear was in the act of taking things that did not rightly belong to him.
There was just no answering all the questions in Reese’s mind. And the more he muddled over Silver Bear and his tribe, the more uncertain he became. It was no longer a question of who was right and who was wrong, but who was alive and who was dead.
Reese was glad he was alive. But he was not glad that Silver Bear was dead. It was as if something important had been taken from the land. Like, perhaps, the last buffalo. If someone came along and killed it, there would be an emptiness that could never be recovered.
That was how he felt about Silver Bear now that he thought of that starving Cheyenne warrior. In a way, Silver Bear was among the last of a dying breed. Reese hadn’t killed them off, but his fellow man had taken away everything the Cheyenne cherished, the land, the buffalo, the mountains with their beaver streams, the rivers with their fish.
Reese felt a strong sense of guilt, and more than that, he felt a deep shame for what his people had done to the Cheyenne, the Sioux, the Arapaho, the Ute, and the Kiowa.
He looked over at Lonnie, who seemed to be ruminating about something, just as he was.
“What’re you thinkin’, Lonnie?” Reese asked.
“Oh, nothin’.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Both men knew that this wasn’t the truth. Something had happened last night, and both men were deeply affected by it.
Now they faced a long stretch on the trail. The buffalo trail was no longer there to guide them. There was only a compass and the stars and a lot of lonesome land.
Reese felt the loss of something. Something important
. But he did not yet know what it was. Still, he carried that loss with him as the herd trampled through a corner of Montana, headed for Wyoming Territory.
He rode along almost in a stupor with his thoughts and his ultimate confusion.
Life was a wonder. But it was also a tough school that was not for sissies.
“I guess I’ll ride up to see how Tommy’s doin’ on point,” Reese said after a while.
“You can’t run away from your thoughts, can you, Reese?”
Startled, Reese looked sharply at Lonnie. “No, I guess you can’t. But I’m goin’ to try.”
“Tommy can’t help you, Reese. It’s somethin’ you got to work out yourself.”
‘I know.” He touched a finger to the brim of his hat in farewell to Lonnie. He rode to the head of the herd and beyond, to where Tommy was on point.
His stomach, by then, had knotted up like a starched clump of manila rope.
“So long, Silver Bear,” he said to himself.
And his words were like a prayer.
Chapter 42
Tommy turned in the saddle to see Reese approaching. He raised his hand in greeting. “Howdy, Mr. Balleen,” he said.
“Tommy, why don’t you just call me Reese? When I hear Mr. Balleen, I think people are talkin’ to my old pap.”
“Yes, sir, Mr., uh, Reese.”
“How’s it goin’, Tommy?”
“All right, sir. At least it’s gettin’ warmer. Warmer than it was.”
“Yes. We should have fair weather ahead.”
“I hope so,” Tommy said. He looked up at the sky. Then he pulled out his compass again. He watched the needle swing and then settle on numbers in a quadrant. Satisfied with the reading, he put the small brass compass back in his pocket.
“How do you like riding point?” Reese asked.
“It’s all right. Kind of lonely, though. I wonder how the herd is doin’.”
“It’s going just fine. What you want to watch for when you’re out in front like this is any riders on the horizon, any dangerous places, like gully washouts and such. Then you let the lead man know what’s ahead.”
“I saw a bunch of antelope a while ago. They looked at me, then ran off. Pretty sight.”
“You’ll probably see more pronghorns in the days ahead,” Reese said.
“I hope so. The way they run off, graceful and all, got my blood to pumpin’.”
“You’re liable to see a lot of wild animals out here, Tommy.”
“Boy, them antelope were a sight to see, I tell you.”
The two were silent for a few moments as they rode along through high grass and over broken land full of wrinkles and humps.
“I been thinkin’,” Tommy said. “’Bout Johnny and them Injuns.”
“Yes?”
“Why do men die like that? Or why does anybody have to die?”
“Good questions,” Reese said. “Some men die because they made a mistake. Johnny was in the wrong place at the wrong time. So were the Cheyenne.”
“I know they all died, but I was wonderin’ why other people die. They get sick and die, or somebody murders them. It seems a cryin’ shame.”
“Yeah, it is. Sickness claims people. That’s life. People are born and they die. In fact, nobody lives very long. Our time is short and there’s no explaining it.”
“It just don’t make no sense to me. Why people have to die.”
“That’s the way of the world, Tommy. That’s why you live each moment as if it were your last. You never know when the Grim Reaper is going to come for you.”
“Whew. It’s a caution.”
“Don’t worry about it. Chances are you’ve got a long life ahead of you. You’re still young and have a lot of living yet to do.”
“I hope so,” Tommy said.
They rode until the sun was midway across the sky, and that’s when they saw Checkers and the chuck wagon. He was parked on the rim of a deep arroyo.
Louella limped over to the fire and waved as Reese and Tommy rode up.
“Thought I’d better stop here,” Checkers said. “Don’t know if you want to drive them cows through that arroyo.”
“I’ll take a look,” Reese said.
He rode over to the rim and looked down into the arroyo. It was choked with brush and rocks. It looked like so many he had seen that were gouged out by flash floods. He rode back to the wagon and dismounted.
“We can go around it, I reckon,” Reese said. “Might lose a few head if we run ’em in there.”
“That’s what I was thinkin’,” Checkers said.
Louella limped over to Reese and put an arm around his waist. He hugged her and kissed her on the forehead.
Tommy, who had also dismounted, blushed.
“Missed you,” she said. “And it’s such a beautiful day. Got warm enough for me to take off my coat.”
“Yeah, it’s a dandy day,” Reese said.
Checkers put more brush on the fire and set out his pots atop a grill he had set on top of some strategically placed stones.
In the distance, they heard the rumble of cattle as they traversed the rough ground and waded through tall grass.
“How come the cattle didn’t stampede last night with all the gunfire?” Tommy asked as he stood by the fire and took off his heavy jacket.
“I suppose because most of them were asleep,” Reese said. “They could have stampeded, but I’m mighty glad they didn’t.”
“What makes a herd stampede anyway?” Tommy asked.
“Depends on their mood, I guess. A rifle shot at the wrong time can send a herd off in all directions. Sometimes thunder. Or something they see that scares ’em. There’s no certain reason for a herd to stampede.”
“Remember, Reese,” Louella said, “one night when there was lightning and thunder and the cows got scared and started running around in circles? Took you and your men two days to round them all up, and some of them you never found.”
“I remember,” he said. “Something spooked those cattle that night. And they scattered far and wide like dead leaves blown by the wind.”
“I nearly got kilt in a stampede once,” Checkers said. “Warn’t pullin’ no wagon, but leading a herd from one place to another and a rattlesnake come after me. I drew my pistol and shot at it. Herd took off like a pair of bridegroom pants on weddin’ night. Took me a good day and a half to find all of ’em. But find ’em we did.”
“Yeah, there’s no tellin’ what will spook cattle,” Reese said.
Over the horizon, the lead cow appeared. Then more cows followed until all they could see were the approaching cattle.
“Here they come,” Louella said.
“Yeah, and we have to stop ’em before they run down into that arroyo. I’d better tell Lonnie to hold ’em up.” He got on his horse and rode out to meet Lonnie, who was riding alongside the leaders.
As he rode, he wondered how he and Lonnie were going to stop an entire herd from running down into that dangerous arroyo. They’d have to turn the herd back onto itself. And it would not be easy. The cattle were moving at a pretty good clip.
It might become a longer day than Reese intended. For Lonnie was struggling to hold back his horse and maintain control over the herd.
Reese took off his hat and waved it at Lonnie.
But Lonnie was too busy to wave back.
Then the lead cow bolted away from Lonnie and took a different tack. The herd followed blindly and Reese knew they were in trouble. He had to head off that lead cow and turn her back onto the herd.
Lonnie didn’t move fast enough. The cattle turned on him and he was rocked nearly out of his saddle.
A moment later, Lonnie was surrounded by a sea of cattle.
Reese saw that he was trapped and would not be able to help him. He spurred his horse to h
ead off the lead cow, and his horse stepped into a gopher hole.
Reese heard the snap of a leg bone as it broke. Suddenly he was tossed from the saddle, and his horse lay on its side, its eyes wide and bright with pain.
There were lights in his head after it struck the ground. The world and the sky spun out of control as the herd rumbled toward him with their cloven hooves as sharp as knives.
Chapter 43
Lonnie fought to control his horse. The horse reared up and neighed. Its neigh was high-pitched, like a woman’s scream. It clawed the air with his front hooves as cattle brushed past, gouging his sides with their horns.
He heard the bone snap on Reese’s horse and knew it had probably broken a leg. He saw the horse go down and Reese get thrown from the saddle.
And Reese didn’t get up.
“Damn you, hoss,” Lonnie yelled as he jerked his reins back and forth. He tried to gain control and ride out of the herd before he got into more trouble. He knew how dangerous cattle were, and that lead cow had spooked at something she saw ahead or around her. She had bolted and the herd had followed her like blind lemmings.
“Hold on, Reese,” Lonnie shouted. “I’ll get out of this mess in a minute.”
Reese heard Lonnie, but he was temporarily dazed and unable to move. His horse was moaning in pain and kicking its hind legs. Reese sensed that his horse was attempting to rise and stand up. But he knew that if the horse did manage to stand, it would be on only three legs.
Lonnie’s horse fought its way out of the herd. It whinnied and kicked both hind feet to rid itself of cattle pressing it from behind. The cattle in front of the horse began to separate. But they all still followed the cantankerous lead cow as she bolted away from the main herd.
Reese struggled to rise. He was groggy and dizzy. He pushed against the saddle and slid away from his downed horse. He managed to roll over on his stomach. Then he pushed himself up with both hands and pushed backward until his feet were planted. Slowly he pushed up and stood on wobbly legs.
Lonnie rode up a few seconds later.
“Looks like your horse broke a leg, Reese,” he said.
“Yeah. Lonnie. Get them cows rounded up before they run too far. I’ll get me another horse to ride.”
Ralph Compton The Cheyenne Trail Page 18