Dear Lord, please watch over him until I come back. She tucked the quilt about his shoulders.
“I’ll see you in a few days, Papa.”
She slipped out of the room and down to the kitchen. Dolores was already there, despite their late night and the extra work she’d put in.
“Good morning, querida. I have eggs and biscuits for you, and the coffee will be ready any minute.”
Maggie kissed her cheek. “Thank you so much. I know it’s going to be a comfort, having you along with us, but do you think we’re wise to leave Shep here alone with Papa?”
“The doctor says your papa needs to rest. We will let him do that. No one will bother him about payrolls and strikes and who will drive the herd to the stockyards. Si?”
Maggie smiled. “Si.”
“And when we come back, he will feel better, and we will work out what to do next.”
“I guess you’re right.” Maggie got a plate and filled it with food. As she sat down at the kitchen table, the back door opened and Shep came in.
“Mornin’, Miss Maggie.” He turned to Dolores. “I got all your goodies packed in sacks and tied onto the pack saddles. I wish you’d just let me take you out there in the buckboard.”
“No,” Dolores said. “Mr. Porter needs you here. We’ll be fine with those two extra horses.”
“Yes, Shep, don’t worry about it. We’ll get out to the camp just fine, with all of Dolores’s cookies and biscuits and gingerbread intact.”
“And I left plenty for you and the boss in that cupboard.” Dolores pointed to the big wooden cupboard that held many of her baking supplies. “If Mr. Porter feels like eating, you give him anything that he thinks would taste good. Don’t worry about giving him too many sweets.”
“Would I worry about something like that?” Shep scowled at her.
“Maybe I should stay here.” Dolores looked anxiously at Maggie.
“You do what you want. I’m sure we ladies can cook out there, but if you came it would free up one more person to help with the roundup—and I know our meals would go much more smoothly than if you weren’t along.”
Dolores pulled in a deep breath. “I will go.”
Maggie ate her breakfast, but Dolores scurried about, adding more things to a sack.
“Where you going to put that?” Shep asked as he filled his own plate. “I’ve got the loads all packed and balanced.”
“I’ll carry it behind my saddle,” Dolores said.
Shep was still sputtering when they heard horses approaching. Maggie rushed to the window. “It’s Carlotta and her friend Consuela, and someone else. Oh, I think it’s Sarah Bradley.”
“That girl,” Dolores said. “She’s in love with your cowboy, Tommy Drescher.”
“Really?” Maggie had known the rancher’s daughter for many years, but Tommy was one of the Rocking P’s newer hands, and she’d barely met him. But unless she was mistaken, he was the one who had angered Alex the morning she rode to the roundup camp. “Is it serious?”
“He rides over to their ranch every time he gets a day off,” Shep said. “Her father don’t like him, though.”
“I wonder why she’d work for us when Tommy’s striking?” Maggie turned away from the window.
“Maybe trying to earn a little something, since he won’t be.” Dolores shook her head and shoved a ladle into her sack.
“More likely to make her father mad,” Shep said.
Poppy Wilson rode up just behind the other three, and Maggie hurried to the door. She knew that a few of the girls who had attended yesterday’s meeting viewed the roundup as a lark or a way to shock their families. Thyra Reid, for instance. Her husband owned the feed store, and he was quite possessive of Thyra. Maggie suspected she’d joined the roundup crew as a show of independence.
Sarah had dismounted and met her at the bottom of the steps.
“Hey, Maggie! I see you have plenty of supplies packed. I brought some tinned fruit and a triple batch of biscuits.”
“Thank you, Sarah.” Maggie gave her a quick hug. “Hey, you’re packing iron.” She warily eyed the gun belt the girl wore.
“My pa says if we’re going to be out on the range with no menfolk, we’d best be ready to shoot a snake or two.”
Maggie turned to Dolores, who stood on the porch putting on a pair of worn chaps Maggie suspected Shep had donated.
“Dolores, should I take a gun along?” She hadn’t fired one in ages, but Papa had taught her to handle a revolver and a rifle in her teen years.
Dolores shrugged. “If you want.”
Shep came around the back end of one of the packhorses. “I put your father’s shotgun on the packsaddle, Miss Maggie. Right here.” He touched the stock that jutted from a saddle scabbard. “You want a handgun too? Might not be a bad idea.”
“Put it in my pack,” Maggie said. “I don’t want to wear it.”
“Awright. I’ll get one out of your pa’s office.” Shep went inside.
While they exchanged greetings and last-minute instructions, three more women rode up. Shep brought out a holstered revolver and two boxes of cartridges.
“Reckon all your pa’s belts are too big for you, Miss Maggie, but you can run your belt through this holster when you want it.” Shep nodded toward Maggie’s middle, where she had a comfortable old leather belt at the waist of her split skirt.
“I wish I’d thought to bring a gun,” Carlotta said.
Poppy Wilson looked over her trim ensemble, which included silver conchos on her hatband and short silver spurs. “You won’t need one. If a rattler sees you, he’ll be so dazzled he’ll forget to strike.”
“At least you look like a cowpuncher,” Bitty Hale, the postmaster’s wife said, adjusting the shapeless felt hat she wore. “Some of us have to use sidesaddles.”
“Who cares?” Sarah said. “We are going to have so much fun!”
Maggie hoped they wouldn’t be disillusioned when they realized how much work the roundup would entail.
“Miss Maggie,” Shep said in a low voice, “there’s one other thing we haven’t talked about.”
“What is it?”
He glanced toward the knot of horsewomen and tugged her a few steps away.
“Have you gals thought about who’s going to castrate them mavericks?”
Maggie stared at him for a moment. She hadn’t given it a thought. Blood rushed to her cheeks. “Well, no, not really.”
Shep nodded. “That’s one thing maybe I shoulda brought up sooner. I don’t want to embarrass ya. Now, if Dolores wanted to stay here, I could go with ya and do the dirty work, so to speak.”
Maggie looked toward Dolores, who was laughing with the other women as Carlotta helped her adjust her stirrups.
“I don’t think you could talk her into staying home now, Shep. She’s set on going.”
He let out a mournful sigh. “Well, now, that Sarah Bradley might jump right in and do it. Her and John Key’s sister. But if you want to drive ’em home as is, so to speak, I can take care of ’em here later on, I suppose. But usually the cowpokes do it at the camp and let ’em loose again.”
Maggie considered that. It would be a burden on Shep to have to do the messy work alone here at the ranch and then drive the calves back out to the range.
“How about this,” Shep said. “When you think you’ve got all you’re goin’ to have, send word and I’ll come out and help you. Whoever fetches me can sit with your pa if he’s not up and about by then.”
They left it at that. Within a half hour, nearly a dozen women had gathered. Several of them rode sidesaddle. Most of the younger women and the others who came from ranches wore divided skirts and rode astride on stock saddles. All had their bedrolls and a few extra clothes and provisions.
“One thing’s for sure,” Poppy Wilson said, after they’d compared what they’d brought, from Sarah’s double batch of johnnycake to her stash of pickles and jelly, “we’re going to eat well on this campout.”
�
�Do you think any more are coming?” Maggie asked Carlotta.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. A couple of girls who can’t come are going to keep spreading the word in town and to the ranches. But I don’t think we should wait any longer.”
“All right.” Maggie turned to the others. “Ladies, let’s get to work.”
Throughout the hour-long ride to the camp, Maggie’s companions kept up a cheerful chatter. In her mind, she went over the tasks they needed to accomplish and tried to decide which women were best suited to each. She hoped they would not be sorely disillusioned when they saw the working conditions. Lost in thought she wondered if she was leading them into a foolhardy errand. They stopped twice to wait while women adjusted their bundles or tightened their cinches, but they arrived at the camp without a mishap.
“Well now,” Dolores said as they trotted into the area between the chuck wagon and the holding pens. “This doesn’t look too bad. The boys left everything tidy.”
The cattle milled about in their pens, and the extra horses trotted back and forth fitfully in the corral, whinnying and tossing their heads.
“Those horses, they are glad to see us, no?” Carlotta said.
“Yes, and we need to water them right away.” Maggie turned and surveyed her crew. Most of the women had dismounted and were stretching. “Ladies, our first order of business is to unload our gear. Everyone will please pile her things behind the chuck wagon, out of the way. There will be some time at nooning when you can decide where you want to sleep, but we need to do some work right away.”
The women gathered around Maggie, who remained astride her horse.
“Just tell us what you want us to do, Maggie,” Sarah said stretching her arms over her head.
They’d discussed a division of work the day before, but only half the women had been at the meeting. Maggie pulled a piece of paper and the stub of a pencil from her skirt pocket and consulted the notes she’d written then.
“We need three crews. I need half of you—the ones who can ride well and rope if needed—to herd this cut of cattle back to the ranch. I’m making Carlotta the head of that group, because she can outride any cowpuncher in Texas.”
The women all laughed.
“I don’t know about that,” Carlotta said, “but I think we can do this.”
“Pick five more women to go with you,” Maggie said.
“Can I pick you?”
“I think you can.”
Carlotta nodded and faced the other women. “All right, I choose Maggie, Sarah, Hannah, Nancy, and Consuela.”
“Very good,” Maggie said. “We’ll meet with you over near the gate to the big holding pen in ten minutes. Now, for those left in camp, Dolores will be in charge here while we’re gone.”
Dolores flushed but said nothing. The others nodded solemnly.
“Poppy,” Maggie said, “I believe you’re pretty good with horses. You and three others will be responsible for getting the remuda watered. Those horses are vital to our job, but it’s going to take some work. The water’s about a half mile away, and you can either harness a team and haul the water in barrels with the chuck wagon, or you can string the horses together and take them to the source.”
With about thirty extra horses to take care of, that would be a major job, especially since the horses were parched and would no doubt be hard to handle on the way to the stream.
“I’ll leave the details up to you, Poppy. You’re a smart girl. But remember—safety is more important than efficiency.”
Poppy nodded.
“And Dolores, I’ll let you pick one lady to help you set up the kitchen area, get a fire going, and prepare for lunch. Use this fire pit for cooking, and please keep a pot of coffee and one of hot water for tea going all the time. That fire pit over there”—she pointed to one about fifty yards away—”is the one the men used for their branding fire. We’ll do the same. Now, if anyone finishes their task before Carlotta’s group returns, feel free to ride out and look for bunches of cattle. Keep in mind that the closest ones you find are probably culls from the ones the men already brought in and worked over.”
“I’ll choose Celine to help me, if nobody objects,” Dolores said.
“I’d like that.” Celine, the young wife of the Herreras’ vaquero Franco Martinez, joined Dolores with a smile on her face. “I’ll do whatever you want me to, but those longhorns, they make me nervous.”
Dolores patted her shoulder. “You and me, we’ll cook up a good dinner, si?”
A few minutes later, Maggie and Carlotta and the rest of their team were on their way to the holding pens. The cattle lowed piteously and shuffled about.
“It’s going to be wild when we let them out,” Maggie said. “Is everybody comfortable with their horse?”
The women nodded.
Carlotta said, “All right then, I will open the gate on this pen. Let’s get a couple of you on each side, so that when they come out you can start steering them home. We want to go directly back to the Porters’ ranch and put them in the pasture as quickly as possible.”
Maggie took the side away from where the gate would swing, with Nancy Jeffers, whom she considered to be one of the least skilled riders in the group, and Sarah Bradley, a rancher’s daughter who knew what was what. On the other side, with Carlotta, were Hannah Ervine, who’d grown up on a ranch, and Consuela Rigas, Carlotta’s friend.
As soon as the gap between the gate and the post was wide enough, the cattle poured through. Maggie, on Duchess, did her best to head off those that wanted to head for the open range. Sarah and Carlotta managed to get the leaders going in the right direction, but Duchess was too slow to do the job well. Maggie loped after a group of six meandering steers and knew she’d never catch them. To her surprise, the inexperienced Nancy galloped past her, rode right in front of the charging steers and cut them off. The two of them were able to direct the six back into the herd still escaping from the pen.
Once the main part of the livestock was headed toward the ranch, the others willingly followed. While Carlotta and the others went on with them, Maggie and Sarah opened the second pen and let out the smaller group of cattle penned in it.
“How many cattle have we got in this cut?” Sarah yelled.
“About three hundred,” Maggie said, going by what Alex had told her the evening before.
The two bunches blended into one herd. They hadn’t gone far before Poppy and her team rode up behind them, each leading several horses from the remuda strung together with lariats. Maggie saw the chance to rest Duchess and make use of a fresh cow pony.
She rode up to Sarah and said, “I’m going to see if I can swap horses.”
Sarah nodded, and Maggie rode off to join Poppy and the others with the remuda. “After you water them, I want a new mount,” she yelled to Poppy.
Poppy nodded. “Go on with the cattle and I’ll bring you one after they drink.”
“Go quick,” Maggie said. “The cattle have to cross the stream, and they’ll make a mess of it. Go upstream a little from the crossing.”
It only took her a minute to catch up with the herd. She rode at the back, eating dust and urging the stragglers to catch up.
The cattle all but stampeded into the shallow water and shoved each other as they vied to quench their thirst. They spread out down the length of the stream for a couple of hundred yards. Maggie stayed on the near side of the stream to head off any who finished drinking and tried to go back the way they’d come. She’d been at this task for about ten minutes when Poppy trotted toward her from farther upstream, leading a feisty-looking pinto.
“He looks rarin’ to go,” Maggie said.
“He’s spirited,” Poppy agreed, pulling the gelding up alongside her mount. “I hope he’s not too much of a handful for you. He was so pretty, I admit I picked him for his looks.”
Maggie laughed and hopped to the ground. “You have to be careful of that—with horses and with men. I can’t wait to try him out. Not that I don’t
love Duchess, but she’s past her prime, and I don’t think she’s quite up to this game.” She flipped her stirrup up and hooked it over the saddle horn as she spoke and set about untying the leather strap. As soon it the cinch was free, she pulled the saddle and blanket off Duchess and carried them over to the pinto.
“Hold him close,” she told Poppy. In a couple of minutes, she had Duchess’s saddle and bridle on the pinto and had transferred the lead rope to Duchess. “Thanks a lot. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
She swung into the saddle and set off after the herd that was now moving slowly away from the stream. She helped Hannah and Consuela drive the last of the cattle up the far bank of the stream. The pinto responded to her hand and leg signals so well, she almost lost her balance when he pivoted to head off an errant steer.
“You’re something!” She patted the horse’s withers. Since she didn’t know his name, she decided to call him Speck.
It took three hours to get the herd to the north pasture. Maggie was exhausted, and some of the women, especially the older ones like Nancy and Hannah, looked ready to fall out of their saddles.
“Well, the men might have done it faster,” Carlotta said, “but we didn’t lose one critter.”
Maggie smiled. The women had put all their stamina into chasing and heading off the rebellious animals that wanted to leave the herd and go back to the open range.
“Tomorrow will be easier,” she said. “We’ll get more efficient as we go.”
She was tempted to ride a little farther to the ranch house and check on her father, but she restrained the impulse. They’d been gone only about five hours, and she needed to make the most she could of this day.
They returned to camp shortly after noon. Dolores and Celine had dinner ready and had served the women who had watered the horses and begun rounding up more cattle. They had only put twenty new animals in the pens, but it was a start.
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