While Shep and Riddle’s son—Carlotta’s erstwhile suitor—loaded the wagon, Maggie ventured to approach the storekeeper again.
“Oh, Mr. Riddle, I don’t know if you heard, but I’m sending my father’s spring herd to market, and I’ll want to settle the Rocking P’s account with you when that’s done. Could you give me an idea of how much is owed, please?”
“Certainly. It’s four hundred seventy-eight dollars and ten cents, counting what you’re taking this morning.”
She blinked. “So much.” It was a very large amount, but she’d honestly thought it could be worse. What startled her most was the fact that he had rattled off the amount so blithely, without even peeking at the ledger. He must have anticipated her asking, or at least been thinking about it while he totted up her bill.
“Thank you. It shouldn’t be more than three or four weeks before I can take care of that.” She went out into the sun and climbed aboard the wagon to wait for Shep. Their errands took all morning, and it was half past one when they returned to the ranch with a wagon full of supplies and a bundle of mail.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” she called to Dolores as they drove up.
Dolores waved from the kitchen doorway. “It’s all right. Your father’s up and ready to eat dinner with you.”
“You go on,” Shep said. “I’ll get this stuff unloaded later, when you’re ready to supervise. Most of it’s going right into the chuck wagon.”
Maggie washed up and went straight to the dining table. Her father was seated in his usual place, at the head of the table. Maggie’s spirits lifted, just seeing him there.
“You look well.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek.
“I may not be well, but I feel better.” He gave her a tired smile. “Dolores says she’s made chicken and dumplings, and I’m hankering for it.”
Maggie smiled. Papa hadn’t sounded so eager for food since she’d come home from San Francisco. He asked the blessing, then tucked his linen napkin into his shirt collar.
“So, you’re heading out again tomorrow?”
“That’s the plan.”
Dolores brought a tureen of hot chicken in gravy and set it on the table. The snowy dumplings bobbed in the dish, and the fragrance made Maggie’s mouth water.
“Dolores, I don’t know how you managed everything you did this morning, but I’m glad you did.”
The cook smiled. “It wasn’t hard, once all you ladies got out from underfoot. I have to admit it’s nice being back in my kitchen—even though I enjoyed the roundup.”
“Well, don’t get any ideas about traipsing off on the cattle drive,” her father said.
“How’s Hannah?” Dolores asked.
“She’ll be fine. She has to use crutches for a couple of weeks.”
Dolores retreated to the kitchen. As Maggie and her father began to eat, she noted that he consumed only a small portion of food. She didn’t comment but talked pleasantly about the people she’d seen in town and her anticipation of the drive.
“I’m glad you’ll have Shep along,” her father said, “though we’ll miss him here.”
“Papa, maybe you should see if one of the men would come back to work around the barn. You’ve got a few horses that will need to be tended.” She didn’t say that Dolores might need someone who could ride for the doctor, or in an emergency, help her lift him into bed.
“No.”
That was all he said, and she didn’t press him. But she knew that she and Dolores would both feel better if a reliable man was on call. Someone strong and honest. Alex.
Alex and Nevada sat on their horses, watching from the knoll west of the ranch house. They kept beneath the overhanging branches of a big cottonwood. Anyone would have to look sharp to spot them up there, with dawn just breaking.
“She’s a spunky gal,” Nevada said. “Didn’t think she had it in her.”
“Maggie Porter’s got a lot of steel in her spine.” Alex shook his head. No use wallowing in regrets. Maggie was lost to him, and so was his job.
“This will kill the strike, you know.”
Alex glanced over at his friend. “That’s what I’m thinking. I heard some of the men have drifted off to look for other jobs already. Harry told me yesterday he was heading for Wyoming.”
“Too bad. If the girls get those cattle to Fort Worth without any mishaps, Porter will no doubt start hiring other punchers.”
“We can’t do anything about it,” Alex said.
“Can’t we?”
They sat in silence for a couple more minutes, watching the activity below. At least ten women had ridden up to the Porters’ house. Two wagons were hitched—the chuck wagon and the buckboard that would haul the bedrolls and miscellaneous gear for the drive. The remuda in the corral near the barn looked a bit slim to Alex—if they had a dozen punchers, they’d have only three horses each. He hoped Maggie wasn’t trying to make the drive with fewer hands than that. He liked to have half a dozen horses per man on a cattle drive, but on a short trip like this they could probably make it with three each.
“Whatdaya reckon it would take to get our jobs back?” Nevada asked.
Alex shook his head. “Mr. Porter doesn’t want us back. He’s past that.”
Nevada eyed him sharply. “You really liked him, didn’t you?”
“Didn’t you? In the old days, I mean.”
After a moment, Nevada said, “He wasn’t a bad boss. Not until this last year or two. After the missus took sick and went away, seems like he went with her.”
“Yeah.”
“Makes me want to do whatever we can to make sure his cattle drive falls apart.”
Alex looked over at him. “What are you saying?”
“We could keep Miss High-and-Mighty Maggie from ever gettin’ those beeves to Fort Worth.”
“You sound like Tommy now.”
“We’ve seen the back of him.”
“Good thing,” Alex said. Tommy’s ideas for destroying the work of the roundup still bothered him. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Maggie and her friends.”
“Oh, I’m not talking about hurtin’ the ladies. Just making their job harder.”
“No. That’s just spiteful.”
“All right, not stop them, maybe … but just slow them down. Make them work a little harder. That’s our pay they’re earning, Alex.”
“But it’s our own fault.” Alex looked over at Nevada’s grim face. “We walked away from the job. We made that choice. It’s not Maggie’s fault she has to do this.”
Nevada just stared at the ranch in the valley. Another woman came up the road that led to the nearest ranch—Bradleys’. She led a horse behind her bay. An extra personal mount, probably.
“That must be Sarah,” Alex said.
Nevada grunted. “Can’t believe all these women can just pack up and leave their families for a month or more.”
“Me either.”
Alex knew that some of the cowgirls were single, like ranchers’ daughters Carlotta Herrera and Sarah Bradley. A few were married. Others had families in town. He’d spotted John Key’s wife and sister among them at the roundup, as well as the postmaster’s wife, Bitty Hale, and Nathan Wilson’s daughter. Then there was Rhonda, the doctor’s helper who’d given over her place to Sela while she worked the roundup. Was she going on the drive, too?
“One thing I gotta say, Maggie’s friends have stuck by her. This has got to be a hardship for some of them.”
“I heard Shep Rooney’s going with ’em,” Nevada said. Alex nodded. “That’s what I hear.”
“So they found out they need at least one man, I guess, even if he’s old and gimpy.”
Alex said nothing, but he did wonder who would tend to things around the home place while Shep was gone. Had anyone worked the palomino filly he’d been training since he left for the roundup? That beautiful horse would forget everything she’d learned if no one rode her. He’d hoped to have the filly ready for Maggie when she came home, but he had
n’t had time to put the finishing touches on its training.
“Come on,” Nevada said. “I can’t stand to watch ’em.” He turned his horse away.
Alex lingered another moment under the cottonwood. He got a final glimpse of Maggie—mounting a black-and-white pinto. She’d picked a good, stout horse. He lifted his hat and settled it back on his head.
“Godspeed, Maggie.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The sun was nearly overhead by the time they got all of the cattle bunched up and driven out of the pasture. Shep had stuck around to help them, and Maggie was grateful—without him they might never have gotten under way.
As soon as the last of the sixteen hundred cattle was through the gate of the north pasture, he climbed aboard the chuck wagon and struck out with the team trotting. He would get ahead of the herd and scout a good place for them to camp tonight. Maggie hated to lose him as a point man with the cattle, but she was sure his leg bothered him. Asking him to spend more time in the saddle would be cruel.
Celine Martinez, who was married to one of the Herreras’ men, drove the buckboard, and the two of them were out of sight within thirty minutes, while Maggie and her lady cowpunchers concentrated on getting the cattle moving in the right direction.
For the first day, they would edge along the Rocking P land and then the Bradley ranch. The idea was to get the cattle far enough away from their home territory that they wouldn’t try to drift back there during the night.
If they made good time, they’d head across open range for twenty miles or so beyond that. The ranchers with grazing rights allowed drives to pass through. Later on, Maggie would have to deal with those not so accommodating. In this era of fencing and increased farming, the open range was shrinking faster than Maggie had realized.
The evening before, Shep and Papa had gone over maps with her, planning the route. Instead of a straight line, they would have to drive the herd where the landowners would allow it. There might be places where they’d have to pay a toll.
“At least nowadays we won’t have to worry much about the Injuns,” Shep said.
Maggie was glad—she’d heard some of the stories the older men told of the drives ten or twenty years ago. If they got to market with half the original herd, they counted themselves lucky. Of course, those were the days of thousand-mile or longer drives. But the women could still meet with plenty of hazards along the way.
Maggie asked the women to gather around. “Lord,” she prayed, “we ask for thy blessing on our travels. Guide us with thy hand, keep us safe, and if it be thy will, grant us success.” A chorus of amens followed her simple prayer.
She let Sarah and Mariah ride near the front of the herd, a coveted spot. The women would rotate positions during the course of the journey, but these two knew the local terrain well, and she especially wanted Sarah up front if they met with any cowboys from her family’s ranch.
Carlotta volunteered to ride drag with her for the first few miles. Cowboys detested the task because they had to eat dust as they followed the herd and constantly harry the rebellious cattle that wanted to veer off and the slower ones that wanted to stop and eat. While grazing was allowed along the way—otherwise the animals would arrive gaunt at the stockyards—it had to be discouraged the first day in order to get them farther up the trail.
“If you want to ride back and see your papa one more time, you should go now,” Carlotta called to her when they came to the boundary of the Rocking P.
Maggie shook her head. “We said our good-byes this morning.”
Carlotta nodded. “I know you don’t want to leave him so long, especially while he is ill.”
“I don’t like it, but I have to do this for him … and Dolores will take good care of him.”
“Si. We all will pray that he gets better while we are gone.”
“Thank you.” Maggie remembered the doctor’s words and knew she shouldn’t hope too strongly for that. Just the thought dragged her spirits down, and she drove herself to focus on the work before her.
Since it was nearly noon when they had all of the cattle in motion, Maggie decided not to stop for dinner. She passed the word for Poppy Wilson to ride up to the chuck wagon around two o’clock and bring back rations the women could eat in the saddle. Shep sent dried fruit, biscuits, strips of jerky, and cookies. Each of them carried a canteen of water, so they did all right, but Maggie looked forward to the hot meal Shep would prepare for supper.
As they crossed over the Bradleys’ range, Sarah’s father and two of his men rode out to meet them. Maggie was now riding swing position, along one side of the moving herd. Sarah waved to her, and she loped her horse up to join them.
“I expected you a couple of hours ago,” Mr. Bradley said as the two women rode up.
“It took longer to get going than we thought,” Sarah said. “The Porters’ pasture is huge, and about a quarter of the herd had gone to the far corner of it. It took us a while to drive them all out.”
“Well, I’m glad it wasn’t anything more serious than that.” He cast a critical eye over the beef cattle plodding past him. “The herd looks to be in good flesh. I hope the prices have held for you.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said.
Mr. Bradley gave her a rueful smile. “If my own hands were back from our drive, I’d lend you a few. I’m sorry I can’t spare the ones I’ve got left here. Your pa was so late getting ready, I thought he’d decided to wait until fall. Otherwise, we could have taken some of your cattle with ours.”
“It’s all right. We’ll make it. We’ve got Shep Rooney.”
“Oh, Shep’s a good man to have around. He’s got a head full of wisdom.”
Maggie smiled. “He’s an asset, for sure.”
Mr. Bradley and the two cowboys rode along with them for an hour, and Maggie began to relax. When a dozen steers bolted and tried to turn back to their home range, the men quickly turned them back into the herd. Maggie appreciated their effort, but she wondered if the women could have executed the maneuver so swiftly. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was overly optimistic.
Mr. Bradley rode back to her position when he was ready to return home.
“You take good care of my girl, won’t you, Miss Maggie?”
“I sure will.”
He nodded. “She told me about your run-in with the Bar D men. Be careful, and don’t take any guff from anyone.”
“Thanks—I’ll remember that.”
The rancher frowned. “Well, I hate to let you go, but I s’pose you’ll be all right. Sarah’s a good shot, and I expect you and Carlotta Herrera are too.”
“Not half bad, Mr. Bradley. Mariah Key is another one who knows which end of a gun is which.”
“All right. I’ll get moving. See you in a few weeks.”
He and his cowpunchers waved and loped away from the herd.
Maggie let her horse walk along at a leisurely pace, watching the cattle to make sure they all kept heading in the right direction. She’d hoped to make at least ten miles today, but now that goal seemed out of reach. Mr. Bradley had suggested they stop for the night just inside his far boundary. That was eight miles from where they started. She’d have to be content with that, since it looked like they wouldn’t be able to make the planned stop before dark.
She hailed Bitty, and she rode over to walk her horse alongside Maggie’s.
“Can you ride ahead and see where Shep and Celine are settled? I don’t think we’ll make it farther than the creek on the Key ranch line.”
Bitty cantered off ahead of the cattle, and Maggie wished she’d undertaken the pleasant task herself. To be free from the dust and the lowing, shifting herd for half an hour would make a nice break.
She laughed aloud. They’d been out half a day, and she was already tired of running cattle. That was a bad sign.
They neared a watering hole that held a substantial amount of water, and the leaders of the herd veered toward it. Maggie had instructed her cowgirls to let the cattle
drink at such spots, but not to let them linger. A few weeks from now, ponds like this one would be dry, so it was a blessing, but it also was a bother for the women. It kept the cattle from continuing on toward their goal. The camping place was on the edge of a creek, so the cattle would be able to drink again there.
It proved harder than she’d anticipated to get the herd away from the pond. As surely as the women drove a bunch away, they circled back toward the water. At last the drovers managed to push them onward, but the pond had cost them at least an hour.
When they rode into camp, the sun was down and twilight had fallen. Maggie slid from the saddle, weary to the bone.
She quickly made night herd assignments. She’d ended up with twelve people, counting herself, Shep, and Celine. Rhonda had unexpectedly received her husband’s blessing, along with her employer’s, to take part in the cattle drive. Maggie was delighted to have her along, since the skills she’d learned in Dr. Vargas’s office amounted almost to those of a nurse. Mariah Key had also brought along her cousin, Helen Branch, who was visiting from Mason County. Though they would miss Lottie Key, Mariah’s sister-in-law, Helen’s deft touch with horses was a welcome addition.
They could make three night-herd shifts, but this close to home Maggie chose to divide the workers into two shifts of six people. If the herd broke for home now, they could lose two days rounding them up and bringing them this far again.
She assigned herself to the first shift, but Carlotta came to her as the gathering broke up to eat supper and then take up night watch or retire to their bedrolls.
“You need to sleep first, Maggie.”
“I won’t ask the others to keep watch while I rest. The trail boss shouldn’t do that.”
“You’re fooling yourself. The boss gives the worst assignments to the newest hands.”
“Maybe when there are plenty of punchers to choose from, though I’m sure they always put one or two experienced men on a crew. But we don’t have any spare workers, Carlotta. I want all my ladies to be fresh and rested.”
Cowgirl Trail Page 17