Cowgirl Trail

by Susan Page Davis

  Carlotta gave an amusing account of their morning drive while the women in her group filled their plates.

  As they settled down to eat, Poppy called out, “Somebody’s coming.”

  Along the road toward the ranch and Brady, several riders trotted toward them. Within seconds Maggie could tell most of the six wore skirts. The women in the camp set aside their dishes and gathered to greet the newcomers.

  “Hey,” Mariah Key, the leader, yelled as she pulled up on her compact pinto. “I heard you needed women to do a man’s job today.”

  Maggie grinned. “Glad to have you.” Mariah’s brother, John Key, had a ranch a few miles east of Brady. “I see your family’s well represented.”

  “Yes, Lottie and I are here for the day, and I can stay on if you need me. Lottie will have to go back tonight.”

  Lottie Key, Mariah’s sister-in-law, rode up beside Mariah and dismounted. “Hello, Maggie. Glad you’re home. John said I can’t stay away all night. He’s afraid the children will fuss.”

  Maggie and the others greeted the six newcomers. Dolores asked if they’d eaten. Most of them had, but they didn’t turn down cookies and coffee.

  When Maggie went to refill her cup and get dessert, Carlotta met her at the chuck wagon.

  “This is great,” Carlotta said. “We’ve got nearly as many hands as the men had.”

  Maggie grinned. “So we ought to get the work done in twice the time they would have.”

  “You mean half the time don’t you?”

  “I wish.” Maggie walked out to the fire. The women all turned toward her expectantly and stopped talking. Maggie addressed her cowhands. “Our morning tasks are done, and we have some reinforcements. Three ladies are only here from now until sundown, and I want to put everyone to the greatest use we can. Do I have two volunteers to stay here and prepare the branding fire? If you’re not adept at riding and you can’t rope at all, this might be a good place for you, though I must say everyone did their jobs admirably this morning.”

  Thyra and Rhonda raised their hands.

  “Thanks. The fire pit the men used for branding is over there.” She pointed to the ring of stones fifty feet away. “We’ll need a wood fire that will burn down to hot coals, about like you’d want for baking bread. Poppy tells me that in the bunch they rounded up this morning, there’s only one calf in need of branding. Maybe we should take care of that before the rest of us go out looking for more cattle.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Bitty said. “Some of us haven’t got much of a notion what to do.”

  “I don’t want to watch,” Lottie said.

  Mariah laughed. “Don’t mind Lottie. She’s softhearted.”

  “It’s all right, Lottie,” Maggie said. “We won’t make you do the branding, or even watch if you don’t want to. But the more of us who can handle each job the better, and the faster we’ll get finished.”

  “You can put your branding iron in my cook fire if you want, for this one,” Dolores said, “but after that, I want you out of my hair while I get supper ready.”

  Maggie walked to the other fire ring and selected the Rocking P branding iron that lay on the grass. She took it back and shoved the business end into the coals.

  “All right, I need someone who can cut cattle to help me get that little rascal out of there.”

  Carlotta volunteered and ran to fetch her horse. She and Maggie rode into the holding pen with the other women watching and cheering them on from outside the fence. Carlotta cut the calf out, away from its mother and the other full-grown cattle, and Maggie dropped a loop of her lariat neatly over its head. Instead of throwing it inside the pen, she coiled in half the length of her rope and led the balky calf to the gate. Poppy opened it, and while Carlotta held the other cattle back, Maggie led the calf toward the branding fire.

  “Those of you waiting here can catch the calves when they come in if you want,” she said. “Throw and brand them, and then let them go.”

  “What if they won’t leave their mothers?” Hannah asked.

  “If the mama is in good shape to keep producing, let them both go. We’ll see them again next year.”

  “Hey, Maggie, I think the branding iron’s ready,” Rhonda called from the cook fire, where Dolores was fanning the coals.

  “She’s pretty near orange,” Dolores said.

  Maggie led the calf closer. “Who knows how to throw a calf?”

  “Reckon I do,” Sarah said.

  “I’ll help you.” Mariah stepped up beside Sarah.

  “All right, everyone watch how they do it,” Maggie called, dismounting. “We want to make this process go as quickly and painlessly as possible, for the calves and for you.”

  The women watched in fascination as Sarah walked up to the bleating calf and leaned over its neck. She grabbed it and threw her weight against it, knocking the calf off its feet. As soon as it hit the ground, she placed one knee on its neck to prevent it from rising. Mariah leaned on the calf’s hindquarters and held its legs down. The calf writhed but couldn’t get up.

  “Good job,” Carlotta yelled.

  Maggie, meanwhile, had run to the fire. She took the branding iron and carried it quickly to where the calf lay panting in the grass. He looked bigger down here than he had from the back of her horse.

  “Hold him steady,” she told Sarah and Mariah.

  Maggie circled the calf and eyed its flank, wondering if she could do this right. If she didn’t hurry, the iron would be too cool. She hauled in a deep breath and pressed the hot Rocking P symbol to the calf’s hip.

  The spotted calf lowed desperately, and Maggie wanted to drop the iron. But she knew you had to keep it there long enough to singe off the hair and permanently mark the skin, though not so long that you burned through to the tissue beneath. She swallowed hard, counted mentally one-two-three as the calf struggled, and pulled the iron away. The brand was a touch blurry, but definitely recognizable. Mariah and Sarah jumped up. The calf leaped to his feet and crow-hopped away, blatting.

  The other women erupted in cheering. Maggie straightened, feeling a little queasy.

  “Here you go,” Celine said, holding out a tin cup full of liquid.

  Maggie took it and gulped down the lukewarm water. “Thanks.” She wiped the sweat from her brow. Then she took stock of the talent she had before her and split up the women who were going to ride out searching for more cattle. Four groups of three or four women rode out together with instructions from Maggie on where to search. All pledged to return to camp before dark.

  Poppy, Nancy, and Bitty rode with Maggie, and even though the “town” women were less adept than Maggie, they were able to locate and drive in two dozen cattle. Among them were three calves and a yearling not yet branded, as well as a steer with the Lazy S brand.

  Maggie was pleased to find that two other teams had come in, and nearly forty more cattle shifted about in the largest holding pen.

  “I’m afraid we brought in a few that have already been worked,” Sarah told her after Maggie’s cut was secure in the pen, “but we got two mavericks and one calf from this year’s crop branded.”

  “Good work,” Maggie said. “How many of them look good for the drive?”

  “Maybe twenty.”

  Sarah, Thyra, and Rhonda set about preparing to brand the calves. With each calf the women improved their technique. When they turned the last one loose, Dolores banged on a kettle with her ladle.

  “Come and get it!”

  “Carlotta’s not in yet.” Maggie looked anxiously toward the line of hills to the east.

  The sun was nearly set, but she thought she could make out a dust cloud hanging near the base of the hills.

  Mariah came and stood beside her. “That’s got to be them.”

  “I think I’ll ride out and meet them,” Maggie said. “They must be exhausted.”

  “Well, Lottie, me, and Thyra need to head home as soon as we eat. If we can come back tomorrow, we will.”

  “Than
ks so much for your work today,” Maggie said. Mariah grinned. “We enjoyed it.”

  She went to get her dinner plate. Maggie searched the distant range again. She was sure now—someone was coming, and from the amount of dust they raised, there had to be quite a few animals on the move.

  She walked past the chuck wagon on her way to the remuda of horses. “Dolores, I think Carlotta and the others are heading in with their cut. I’m going to go see if they need help.”

  “We’ll have plenty of chow when you’re done,” Dolores said.

  Maggie threw her saddle on a horse that didn’t have sweat stains and rode out at a lope. The others were scarcely a mile out from camp, and she was soon close enough to recognize the riders. Carlotta waved at her, then bolted off on her pinto to head off a rebellious steer.

  Maggie moved in to help control the herd. As they approach the camp, Bitty ran to hold the gate for them. As soon as the cattle were all inside the pen, the women who’d brought them in went to unsaddle and get their supper.

  “You’ve got almost fifty head,” Maggie said to Carlotta. “That’s wonderful! Where did you find them?”

  Carlotta smiled. “We had about a dozen that we found in a canyon between the hills. We’d started back when we met up with some of my father’s vaqueros. They said they’d seen quite a few Rocking P cattle on the Bar-H range, and they would get them for us. We were only a mile away, so we went along slowly while they rode back and brought out your cattle. But then it took us a long time to get back here with so many.”

  “That was nice of them,” Maggie said. “We’ve got a few of theirs, but not many. We have more of the Bradleys’.”

  “Oh, and that mustang Consuela is riding threw a shoe.”

  “Great.” Maggie grimaced. “I don’t think we have anyone along with blacksmithing skills.” She had cleaned her horses’ feet ever since she’d learned to ride and had even trimmed a few, but she’d never learned the art of shoeing. They always had plenty of men around who could do it, and it was very hard work. As a girl, she hadn’t cared to delve into it.

  Carlotta shrugged. “We’ll have to rest that horse until we can get him shod.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow or the next day, maybe we’ll take the herd in, and we can take the horse back to the ranch then. If Shep can’t shoe him, he can take him to the blacksmith in town. I’m not even sure who’s been doing the farrier work for Papa lately.” Before Maggie had left with her mother, they’d employed a cowboy who took care of those duties, but she hadn’t seen him when she helped with the payroll yesterday. He must have moved on while she was away.

  “How are you doing?” she asked Dolores as the cook loaded her plate.

  “Oh, my bones are tired, but I expect yours are feeling worse.”

  Maggie smiled. “You’re right, I’m played out.”

  Thanks to her daily rides since she’d come home, her legs weren’t as sore as they might have been. Her arms were another story. Twirling a lariat, throwing calves bigger than she was, and holding them down had her feeling bruised and weary.

  “Hey, Maggie,” Hannah called. “Come sit down, lady. You look beat.”

  Maggie went to her and settled on the grass between her and Bitty.

  “I may be tuckered out, but this is the most fun I’ve had in ages,” Bitty said.

  “I’m so proud of everybody.” Maggie opened her biscuit and slathered it with apple butter. “I did a quick estimate, and I think we brought in around two hundred cattle today. That’s not counting the ones we let loose again. I mean two hundred to sell.”

  “Yay!” Sarah applauded, and the other women joined in.

  “Hooray for the cowgirls!” Hannah yelled.

  Carlotta came and sat down facing them. “I really think we can do this, Maggie. I admit I had my doubts at first.”

  “Well, we might not have brought in as many as the men would have,” Bitty said, “but I think we did pretty good.”

  “We did.” Maggie took a bite of her biscuit. She would have to cull the cattle carefully in the morning, when the light was good, to make sure they took only the ones her father would want to send to the stockyards, but for the first time she was sure they could do a creditable job. She smiled at Carlotta. “What did your father say about you coming out here?”

  Carlotta shrugged. “He was a little skeptical.”

  Celine said, “I think my Franco was more upset than Señor Juan.”

  “Well, my papa didn’t come right out and say that we couldn’t handle it,” Carlotta told them, “but I could tell he was thinking that.”

  “Was he upset that you’re taking a man’s job?” Hannah asked.

  “No. In fact, he felt bad that he told Maggie’s papa he couldn’t send any men over. But most of them are off on the drive now anyway.”

  Maggie bit her lower lip. They’d be latecomers at the stockyards, and they might get lower prices. She hoped the money wasn’t drying up by the time the Rocking P cattle got there.

  How they would get to Fort Worth was still unsettled. She hadn’t given up all hope that the cowboys would be back to work by then. But if not …

  She looked around at her band of lady cowpunchers and wondered how many of these women would be willing to leave their families for a month or more of dangerous work on the trail.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Alex and Nevada laid out their bedrolls on a bluff overlooking a creek. They didn’t camp too close to the water, or they’d have been trampled by loose livestock going to drink at dawn.

  Nevada built a small campfire, and Alex took from his pack two tins of beans he’d bought and peeled off the labels so they wouldn’t catch fire. He opened the lids and set the cans down inside the edge of the fire ring. Neither of them had a proper coffeepot, so Nevada put water in his little tin pan and stirred in a spoonful of ground coffee.

  They let the beans and coffee simmer while they tended their horses and stashed their saddles under some juniper branches in case it rained. After a half hour of rotating the cans now and then, Alex pulled them out, using his riding gloves for pot holders and squinting against the smoke.

  “Not half bad,” he proclaimed after the first spoonful.

  “Not as good as Stewie’s,” Nevada said.

  The coffee wasn’t really potable, but Alex didn’t want to insult his friend their first night out, so he drank his share and spit out the grounds.

  “What you planning to do tomorrow?” Nevada asked.

  “I dunno.” Alex set his can of beans aside and leaned back on his elbows. “I can’t see much point in staying around here. Porter’s not going to take us back. He’s hired a new crew already.”

  “How’d he get enough punchers that fast?”

  “Beats me.”

  Nevada shook his head. “I never thought we were doing ourselves out of work. You reckon we’ll all have to move on to some other ranch?”

  “I do. And maybe a ways off. The other ranchmen around here likely won’t want to hire us.” Alex watched the fire for a minute then said, “I s’pose I could go home and haul freight with my pa.”

  “Freightin’? That’s no good.”

  Alex didn’t like the prospect. He’d left home because his father and his partner had left off running the stagecoach stop after the railroad went through and put their full energy into the business they’d started out with in the early 1850s—hauling freight with mule teams. Their ranch wasn’t big enough to run many cattle on, and the Bright-Garza operation was now strictly a freighting station.

  He wished he could go back to work for Martin Porter. The Rocking P used to be a good outfit. It could be again. He didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t see Maggie again, either. He smiled at the memory of how she’d ridden alone all the way out to the camp to see him. Feisty little thing. He already missed her.

  “I wonder if their new men got out there and watered the remuda.”

  Nevada leaned forward and tossed a dry stick into the fire. “You wanna ride to t
he camp in the mornin’ and see? Be awful if they let those horses go thirsty.”

  “All right. But let’s drop in and see Leo first. Maggie Porter gave me his pay yesterday. I want to give it to him myself.”

  “Sure thing.” Nevada stretched. “Reckon we’ll be safe riding into camp? Maybe we should pick up a couple of the other boys.”

  “Maggie!” Carlotta yelled. “Hannah fell off her horse.”

  Maggie ran toward the corral. They hadn’t even gotten out of camp this morning, and things were going wrong. Hannah was leaning on Rhonda’s shoulder while she hobbled toward the gate. Rhonda, the woman who kept house for Dr. Vargas and assisted with his patients, had an arm about her. Mariah and Sarah were trying to catch a chestnut gelding that darted about with a saddle hanging down on its ribs. It squealed and kicked at every horse that came near it.

  “Be careful,” Maggie called and then almost bit her tongue. Those two were ranch women and knew better than to get in the way of an angry horse’s heels. She turned to open the gate for Hannah and Rhonda, but Carlotta had beaten her to it. “Are you all right?”

  “Well, my ankle hurts, but I think it’ll be all right,” Hannah said.

  “Got the wind knocked out of her,” Carlotta told Maggie.

  “Let’s get your boot off before it swells too much,” Rhonda said.

  “But then I might not be able to get it back on.”

  Rhonda led her toward the chuck wagon. “Trust me, you don’t want to have me cut it off later.”

  Hannah sat down near the wagon and grimaced as Rhonda eased her boot off.

  “There we go.” Rhonda tossed the boot aside and peeled back Hannah’s stocking.

  “That doesn’t look too bad,” Carlotta said, leaning in close.

  “The bruises will take awhile to show.” Rhonda gently felt Hannah’s ankle.

  “Ouch.” Hannah gritted her teeth.

  “I’m going to get a wet cloth from Dolores,” Rhonda said.