Luke's Gold

by Charles G. West

  Cade had to think about it. He needed the money, and Kramer was offering him work right through the winter. But it was hard to shake the feeling that he was letting Luke down. However, with Kramer growing impatient for his decision, Cade took the offer, silently promising Luke that it would not destroy his promise, only delay it. “Good,” Kramer said. “If you’re as good as Hank says you are, then I’m sure Jack can put you to work right now breaking those horses.”

  Early the next morning, Hank and his sons prepared to start back home. Hank pulled Cade aside while Johnny and Ben were saddling the horses. He extended his hand, and Cade shook it. “Cade, I’m much obliged for your help. Them horses would have been a handful without you.” The wide grin on his face faded to a more serious expression, and he lowered his voice so the boys would not hear. “I appreciate what you did with little Ben. He told me he was fixin’ to shoot that Injun back up on the hill. He was scared to death, and he was some relieved when you let the Injun go.” Cade didn’t know what to say, so he merely shrugged. “Anyway,” Hank said, his voice loud again, “we’ll most likely be seein’ you again since you’ll be workin’ with Jack. Won’t we, boys?”

  “Yes, sir,” Johnny said and walked up to shake Cade’s hand.

  Ben hung back, looking undecided. Finally, he said what was on his mind. “I could stay and work with Cade. Me and Cade are partners. Ain’t we, Cade?”

  Cade shot a surprised look in Hank’s direction, and received a weary smile and a shake of the head in return. Turning back to Ben, he said, “We’re partners, sure enough. That’s a fact. But your pa needs you to help him. You’re too good a hand to lose.” When the youngster showed disappointment, Cade strode forward and shook his hand. “Like your pa said, I’ll be seein’ you from time to time. We’ll still be partners. You just be sure you take care of him and your brother.”

  Resigning himself to the inevitable, Ben smiled and said, “I will.” He jumped up to get a foot in the stirrup, then pulled himself up by the saddle horn. The three members of the Persons family turned their horses back toward the mountain pass.

  An amused spectator to the farewell, Jack Walker sidled up to stand beside Cade. Chuckling, he asked, “Horses and kids seem to take a likin’ to you. How about women?”

  “I don’t know,” Cade answered honestly.

  The rest of the week brought long days with the horses, breaking them in to be good working stock to herd Carlton Kramer’s cattle. After the first couple of days, Cade found himself in a contest of sorts with Jack Walker’s top man, a man named Bucky George, not much older than Cade. The competition, unintentional on Cade’s part, came about when the other men noticed the difference in the methods used to break the horses. Bucky was of the old-school method. He believed that brute force was necessary to initially show the horse that he was boss, and there would be painful consequences if the animal did not submit. To Bucky, breaking a horse meant breaking its spirit, a practice that was totally repugnant to Cade, and one he never saw the need to employ.

  Cade had learned from his father that a horse is by nature a frightened animal. In the face of danger, his instincts tell him to run. He feels safest when his feet are moving, or when he’s in the security of the herd, and feels that he has the herd leader to guard his safety. A horse is perfectly happy to be dominated by another horse, or a man, as long as he feels he is being protected and he can trust the man. Cade never made any comments about Bucky’s methods, but the rest of the men soon began to notice that the horses Cade broke were willing to do anything their riders asked. And, as was bound to happen, the day came when the two young men had a conflict.

  It was late in the afternoon, and Cade was working with a spirited little bay mare on a lead rope in a makeshift round pen. It was the last horse for the day. Finished with his chores, Bucky wandered over to watch. Unable to hold his comments for very long, he finally dispensed some unsolicited advice. “You know, Hunter, you’d break as many horses a day as I do if you didn’t pussyfoot around with ’em like that.” Cade ignored the criticism and continued to work the mare. “I’d have that mare ready to ride by now. The first thing I’d do is take an ax handle and get her attention, so she’d know who the boss was.”

  Bucky kept it up until several of the other men sauntered up to the pen, sniffing a fight in the air. There was a fair amount of curiosity about the new man who was so good with horses. His tendency to keep to himself was cause for speculation about a possible cautious nature, maybe even a fear of trouble. The attention only caused Bucky to increase his comments. “Somebody find me a limb or an ax handle and I’ll jump in there and show the poor bastard how to whip that mare into shape.”

  Finally Cade could no longer ignore him. “You come in here with a limb and I’ll use it across your back,” he said in a voice soft but clear.

  This was what Bucky was waiting for. For several days, he had been building a jealous need to take some of the quiet coolness out of the new man. He climbed over the top rail and dropped down inside the pen. “I’ll whip any damn horse I think needs it,” he threatened, “and I’ll whip your ass, too, if I think you need it—and I think you just might.”

  Hearing the hoots and whistles of the spectators gathered around the pen, Jack Walker strode casually over to join them. He had been aware of the gathering storm that was bound to happen between the two ever since Cade signed on. Bucky was proud of his ability to break a horse, so it was natural that he didn’t take kindly to his reputation being challenged. Jack could have stopped the trouble right then and there, but he thought it best to let the young men settle it, as long as there were no guns. Besides that, he was kind of curious about the new man himself. He arrived at the rail just in time to hear Cade’s reply to Bucky’s threat.

  Before he said anything, Cade walked the mare over to the gate and handed the lead rope to one of the men. “Turn her out with the others if you don’t mind.” When the man took the rope and led the mare out of the gate, Cade turned to face his adversary, who was now posturing before his audience. “Now, I reckon you’re bound and determined to get yourself a lickin’. And if that’s what you want, I reckon I’d be obliged to give it to you.”

  Bucky could not repress a hoot of joy, and he started for Cade in a run, but was stopped before he reached the center of the pen by a gunshot that brought instant silence to the noisy mob. All eyes turned to see Jack Walker with his pistol still raised overhead. “Get rid of them guns first,” he ordered. Both combatants unbuckled their gun belts and hung them on the fence.

  Cade turned and took a stance, leaning slightly forward from the waist, his feet planted solidly and wide apart as he waited for the man charging into him. The two were of nearly equal size. It was hard to speculate on which could take the other. Bucky may have had the weight advantage, which could prove important if the fight turned into a wrestling match. Cade, on the other hand, was quicker, with split-second reactions, a fact that was not readily apparent due to his typically reserved demeanor.

  As expected, Bucky, headstrong and cocky, charged toward Cade like a runaway locomotive, intent upon running over his opponent, his head down like a battering ram. Cade remained immobile, watching his attacker until the last second when he deftly stepped aside and hammered Bucky with a right hand that, coupled with the force of Bucky’s charge, sent his surprised adversary to the ground. Spitting dirt, a result of landing face-first in the corral, Bucky scrambled to his feet, sputtering furiously. Lowering his head again, he waded into Cade, swinging both fists as fast as he could. Cade stepped back, baffled for a moment. The only target presented to him was the top of Bucky’s head, and he had no desire to fracture his hands hammering away at a hard skull. Bucky continued to advance, swinging wildly, his eyes on Cade’s feet. Realizing he was going to have to take some of the blows in order to straighten Bucky up, Cade stopped retreating and waited. He caught a left and a right on the sides of his face, but in exchange, he flushed an uppercut that caught Bucky squarely in the mouth
, causing Bucky to straighten up partway. When he did, Cade planted a right hand on the side of his jaw, putting his full shoulder behind the punch. The spectators lining the rails groaned in unison as the blow landed, causing Bucky’s head to snap to the right.

  Bucky went down on one knee and stayed there for a long second, trying to clear his head. Cade stood watching him. “You done?” he asked.

  “Hell no,” Bucky spat, his mouth bloody from the uppercut, aware that the entire crew was now watching to see what he was made of. Thinking to take advantage of his weight, he pushed up from his knee and charged again, this time with the intent to trap Cade in a bear hug and throw him to the ground. When he reached out to lock his arms around Cade, he suffered a series of rights and lefts to his stomach that caused him to double up, which gained him another devastating uppercut. Staggered, he stumbled backward, gamely swinging away as Cade pressed forward. For what seemed like minutes, the two exchanged punches until it became apparent that Bucky, though still standing, was out on his feet.

  “That’s enough!” Jack Walker shouted, and stepped between them. “Fight’s over. Now let that be the end of it.”

  “I could go some more,” Bucky protested lamely, fully aware that he had received the worst of it.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t need no more,” Cade said. “Come on, let’s go clean this mess up.” He turned and started toward the creek. Without further protest, Bucky followed right behind him while the spectators parted to make a path for them.

  Kneeling side by side on the bank of the creek, they washed the blood from their faces; the only sound heard was the wincing when an open cut was splashed with the dark creek water. When they finished the cleanup, they both sat back on their heels and studied each other silently. Finally, Bucky stuck out his hand and said, “No hard feelin’s.”

  Cade smiled. “No hard feelin’s,” he responded, taking his hand. “Let’s go get some supper.”

  That was the end of the conflict between the two young men. Without meaning to, the fight had served as an unofficial initiation for the new man. The rest of the crew adopted a less reserved attitude toward Cade, but the thing that amazed them most was the friendship that developed between Bucky and Cade. For Cade’s part, initially, there was no desire to have any enemy on the crew, so he was not prone to carry a grudge. Bucky, on the other hand, had gained instant respect for the toughness Cade had shown. During the following weeks, when the horses were driven east of the mountains to work Carlton Kramer’s major herd of cattle, the two young men seemed to have forgotten their differences. Before the end of winter, Bucky was seeking out Cade’s help with hard-to-break horses, using many of Cade’s gentler training methods. Jack Walker laughingly confided to Carlton Kramer that Cade Hunter had not only trained over three hundred unbroken horses, he had also trained Bucky George. The result, he said, was a more dependable remuda.

  For Cade Hunter, the winter and following spring were a time of peaceful respite from the violent past that had seen his friend murdered and men killed by his own hand. He found there was something healing in the long days and endless hours in the saddle, especially in the Montana winter when cattle froze to death and horses went lame. There was no room left in a man’s mind to dwell on anything beyond a cup of hot coffee and a warm place to bed down for the night.

  Spring found Jack Walker and his men up on the Musselshell, helping with the spring branding of the new calves. When summer came, the cattle were moved back closer to Three Forks, and Cade had a reunion with Hank Persons and his sons. Hank had managed to round up a new herd of horses, and he and the boys, with the help of a new hired hand, drove them down to sell to Carlton Kramer.

  It was early evening when Hank arrived at Coyote Creek. He brought the horses in at a fast lope over the last mile, then cut them off and turned them in toward the corrals. Cade stood by the corral, laughing at Hank’s grand entrance, and while the horses were milling about, stamping and snorting, he walked over to greet him as Hank stepped down from the saddle. “Howdy, Hank. You think you raised enough dust?”

  “Howdy, Cade,” Hank replied, grinning from ear to ear. “I didn’t wanna bring ’em in and have nobody notice us.”

  Cade heard his name called and turned to see young Ben Persons riding up to meet him. “My goodness,” Cade teased. “Who’s this, Hank, your new hired hand?” Then he feigned a look of surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned. Is that you, Ben?”

  “Hey, Cade,” Ben replied with an embarrassed grin.

  “I swear, he’s grown a foot,” Cade said, turning back to Hank. “What have you been feedin’ that boy, Hank?”

  “He has growed some, ain’t he?” Hank replied, smiling with pride. “I reckon it’s his mama’s cookin’.” When Cade looked surprised by the remark, Hank explained. “My wife came home early spring.” He paused to aim a brown stream of tobacco juice at a scurrying black beetle, missing by a generous foot. “I figured she might. Ted Randell run off and left her before the winter set in for good. She’da come with us on this drive, but she’s carryin’ another young’un in her belly.” With Cade unable to reply with any response that seemed fitting, Hank continued. “Got me a new hired hand,” he said, pointing to the Indian helping Johnny settle the herd down. “Full-blooded Shoshone.” Then he spat again and winked at Cade. “My wife ain’t got no use for Injuns.”

  They were joined in a few moments by Jack Walker who had just taken a turn around the herd Hank had delivered, looking over the stock. “There’s a few scruffy-lookin’ nags in there, but most of ’em look pretty good, Hank. You sure you ain’t stole some of these from somebody’s ranch?”

  Hank laughed. “I don’t know that I care to answer that question,” he joked. “But I swear, it may come to that. Damn horses are gettin’ scarce in these parts.”

  “I saw one little mare in there that I might take for my daughter,” Jack said.

  “That little dun with the white stockin’s?” Hank promptly replied.

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” Jack said. “Elizabeth has been complainin’ about ridin’ that old bay that her mother, God rest her soul, used to ride. I told her I’d pick her out one when we got a new bunch in.”

  “I ain’t surprised that little mare caught your eye. She looks like she’s already broke, don’t she? But she’ll fool you. She’s got spirit.”

  “I’ll have Cade work with her,” Jack said. “He’ll get her broke in right.”

  It didn’t take Cade long to polish the rough edges and have the horse as gentle as a lamb without knocking any of the spirit out of her. She took to a bridle right away and only registered minor objections to the saddle the first time. Soon she was a proper horse for a young lady. Jack wouldn’t allow any of the crew to use her for work, and only rode her occasionally himself. He planned to deliver the mare to Elizabeth in two weeks’ time, when he returned to escort his daughter to Deer Lodge where she had been invited to live with the Kramer family.

  Carlton and his wife had always been fond of Elizabeth Walker, and she had often spent summers with them when she was a child. With Elizabeth now grown into a precocious young lady, Cornelia Kramer thought she needed the proper guidance of a woman. “Living up there in that cabin with no one to take charge of her womanhood but an old Indian woman,” Cornelia railed, “it’s a wonder she hasn’t run off with some wild young man already.” In fact, White Moon, the old Indian woman, was very protective of Jack Walker’s daughter. She had been like a mother to the child when Elizabeth’s real mother died in the hard winter of ’71. But White Moon, who was Jim Big Tree’s mother, was now getting too old to take care of the young lady. For that reason, and none other, Jack was happy to move his daughter to Carlton Kramer’s headquarters in Deer Lodge. It was an opportunity for Elizabeth to become schooled in the genteel ways of the moneyed class. It was a twist of fate, however, that caused the young lady’s path to cross with that of Cade Hunter.

  “He’s a mean one,” Bucky George warned, “and if you ask me, he ain�
��t ready to ride.”

  “Hell, you got a saddle on him,” Jack responded.

  “Yeah, but you don’t see me settin’ in it,” Bucky replied.

  Jack eyed the sleek stallion for a long moment. Dark and powerful, the blue roan leader of the herd Hank had brought in twitched his ears nervously while he eyed Jack in return. Bucky had been saving him for last. Stallions were hard to work with as a rule, and this one was more determined to resist than the younger bachelors in the herd. “He probably just needs a little more ridin’ to take the rank outta him,” Jack decided.

  “I just don’t think he’s ready to buck out yet,” Bucky said. “I’m still usin’ a hackamore on him. He just don’t wanna take a bit. I was fixin’ to ask Cade to work with him some, but I believe that horse is too ornery for him to do much good.”

  This was surprising talk from the usually boastful Bucky George, and it caused Jack to make an unwise decision. “Hell, I ain’t ever seen a horse that couldn’t be broke,” he said. “Hold his head. I’ll see what he’s got.” He put his foot in the stirrup and prepared to mount.

  “I wouldn’t, Jack,” Bucky warned as he held the bridle.

  Exercising extreme caution, the foreman threw his leg over and settled his seat in the saddle. Nothing happened for a long moment, and Jack exchanged bemused smiles with Bucky, who had fully anticipated an explosion. It was coming, however, building up inside the defiant stallion like a volcano about to erupt, until it surfaced in one hellish fury. Jack’s seat was thrown fully three feet from the saddle, his legs flying out to the sides like wings. He might have departed the equine tornado right there had it not been for his boots jammed firmly in the stirrups.

  A considerable amount of time had passed since Jack Walker had personally saddle-broken a wild horse. It was a job that a man of his authority and age assigned to younger men. The attempted ride had begun as a show of mastery, but had rapidly transitioned into a fight for survival as Jack hung on to the saddle horn, bouncing high out of the saddle while the furious stallion bucked around the corral. Crashing against the rails of the corral, the horse tried to rake its rider off, an exercise that failed only because Jack’s boot was now jammed almost through the stirrup. When that was unsuccessful, the horse suddenly quit bucking, dropped to the ground, and rolled on its side, pinning Jack’s leg under it.