Cowgirl Trail

by Susan Page Davis

  “Joe and Early said it was all in fun.” Rhonda eyed her with expectation.

  “Well, it wasn’t fun for me having to pay so much to that sheepherder.” Maggie looked at them, not sure what to say. “Look, my family’s well-being depends on this drive’s success. If I don’t get the cattle to the buyers and sell them for a good price, the Rocking P will be in no position to hire anyone for the rest of the season.” Horrified that she’d revealed information that might be used against her and her father, she said quickly, “But you mustn’t tell anyone that.”

  Rhonda nodded soberly. “Don’t you worry about us. We won’t tell anybody. Will we?” She looked up at Bronc.

  “No, ma’am.”

  Maggie nodded, her throat tight and teary. “Thank you. You mustn’t tell Alex especially.”

  “I won’t.” Bronc pulled the saddle off Rhonda’s horse’s back. “Where you want me to put this, darlin’?”

  “Just set it down. I’ll take it over to the camp when I go.” She turned back to Maggie. “I did tell Bronc about when we met Tommy on the road.”

  Maggie snapped her gaze to Bronc again. “Is Tommy riding with you?”

  “No, ma’am. I didn’t know he was anywhere hereabouts. There’s just me and Alex and three other fellas—Early Shaw, Joe Moore, and Nevada Hatch.”

  Maggie nodded. She knew all of them, and a month ago she’d have said all were trustworthy employees.

  “All right. Do you think you can influence them not to pull any more so-called pranks on us?”

  “I’ll do my best, ma’am, but I’m low man in the camp. I come in late, and I was just glad they took me in. But if Joe or any of ’em wants to cross you, I’ll stand with Alex. I’m sorry I didn’t before. Didn’t know where the chips was going to fall.”

  “Alex wanted to go against them?” Maggie asked.

  “Well, not sure I should say that. I mean, they are treating me good. I don’t want no trouble with them fellas.”

  “Do you want me and Bronc not to see each other anymore?” Rhonda asked. “I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

  “I don’t expect we’ll go all the way to Fort Worth,” Bronc said. “I’m hoping to find a job.”

  Maggie hesitated. Now that she knew of their rendezvous, it might work to her advantage. Bronc didn’t seem to mind sharing with his wife, and even with Maggie, what the other men were up to.

  “I guess it’s all right, so long as the men aren’t using anything Bronc learns to cause us trouble.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am.” He grinned. “I’ll make sure that don’t happen.”

  Alex paced back and forth under the cottonwoods. What kind of idiot was he to go along with these men? He’d known talking to the sheepherder was a bad idea from the moment he heard it. Yet he’d let the others convince him it was “all in good fun” so that he wouldn’t interfere with their plot. It didn’t seem right to throw all the blame on Joe and Nevada, though. He should have gone and tried to straighten things out with Carter before Maggie got there, no matter what the other men did to him. He’d failed Maggie, and he’d failed himself.

  No “fun” that hurt Maggie was worth it. He didn’t care how badly her father had treated them, this came back directly on her.

  Nevada approached, lounging slowly toward him through the shadows, carrying two tin cups.

  “What’s got you frettin’ now?”

  Alex stopped walking. “Same old thing. I think maybe it’s time for me to cut loose from you fellas.”

  “Oh? Hate to see you go.” Nevada held out one of the cups and Alex realized it was his, with the blue enamel.

  “Thanks.”

  Nevada shrugged. “Saw it by the fire and figured you wouldn’t say no.”

  Alex held the cup to his lower lip and tested the temperature. The coffee must have been boiling when his friend poured it. He blew on it and took a cautious sip.

  “Early’s saying the same thing. Wants to go on up to Brownwood and put his name out there for work.” Nevada sipped his coffee and turned to look back toward the fire where Joe and Early were sitting.

  “What about Joe?”

  “He’s at loose ends, doesn’t know what he wants to do.”

  “That kind of mood is what gets us in trouble,” Alex said.

  “I’m sorry what happened with Maggie, but she’s a big girl. She can take it.”

  Alex frowned. “She shouldn’t have to.”

  “You still thinking to go back to the Rocking P? Because I don’t see that happening, for any of us.”

  “No, I don’t either. Especially now. I’ll probably keep going once we hit Brownwood. Ride up to Abilene and over to my father’s place.”

  “Thought you hated freighting.”

  “I do.” Alex took another swallow of coffee. “Maybe he’ll let me run a few cattle on his land. There’s not enough range to build a very big herd, though.”

  “You might be able to hire on with a ranch around Abilene.”

  “Maybe. When I first came to the Rocking P seven years ago, I was heading for Mason County, where I’ve got a cousin with a small spread. I hoped he could give me some work, but I didn’t expect much, so I was glad to get on with Porter. But maybe Buck Morgan could help me now. Or I’ve got an uncle down near Victoria. He has a horse ranch. I could write to him and ask if he’d have a spot for me.”

  They stood in silence for a moment. “Mind if I ride along? If we don’t find anything right off, I might hang around Abilene.”

  Alex hesitated only a fraction of a second, but it was too long.

  “I won’t make trouble for you,” Nevada said. “We’ve been friends. If you want to go different trails now, it’s all right.”

  “Actually, it’d be nice to keep riding with you. I just can’t promise you a job or anything.”

  “I know that.”

  Alex nodded. He’d always liked Nevada, and they’d gotten along well, until the friction over the strike. Nevada occasionally went overboard at the saloon—but that wasn’t likely to happen with their current financial straits. Nevada could be very charming, and he was always a solid companion in a fight.

  “Let’s do it then. If the others want to head out tomorrow for Brownwood and leave Maggie’s herd behind—”

  “You don’t feel you need to see her to Fort Worth, then?” Nevada asked.

  “You said it. She’s a big girl. So far, she’d have been better off if we weren’t here. And it’s not helping us get work.”

  Hoofbeats approached, and Nevada jerked his head toward the trail. “Likely that’s Bronc.”

  They walked over to where their horses grazed and met Bronc as he rode in.

  “Everything all right with the missus?” Nevada asked.

  Bronc swung down from the saddle. “Oh, she’s right fine. Miss Maggie’s none too happy with us.”

  Nevada let out a deep chuckle. “Can’t imagine why.”

  “You saw her?” Alex asked.

  “Sure did. She’d liked to have Rhonda leave at first.”

  “Really?” Alex eyed him closely. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I hoped for a minute she would. Then she could come over here and tend to our vittles.” Bronc chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Course, then we’d both be out of work. We’d have to go back to Brady, and she’d have to take her job back from Sela.”

  “We don’t want that,” Nevada said.

  “Nope. Not if we can help it. So I was glad when Rhonda patched things up with Miss Maggie.”

  “We should have left them alone,” Alex said. “Driving cattle’s hard enough without any hijinks.”

  “Well, I have to agree with you, knowin’ what I know now,” Bronc said.

  Nevada stepped closer to him. “What do you know? Something we don’t?”

  “I reckon. Rhonda said she learned it at the doctor’s office, but she ain’t supposed to tell anybody what she hears there, not even me.”

  “But she did anyway, on account of you being her bi
g, handsome lout of a husband?” Nevada said.

  Bronc barked out a short laugh. “Mebbe so.”

  Alex had heard enough shilly-shallying. “So what is it?”

  “Mr. Porter,” Bronc said. “He’s dyin’.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Alex rode up a hill with Early, Nevada, Bronc, and Joe. They were nearly to Brownwood, the point where he and Nevada had tentatively agreed to leave the others. If they split up, today would be their last day to trail Maggie and the herd.

  Alex tried to think of a good reason why he should stay close to her, but he couldn’t. She seemed to be handling the everyday headaches that a trail boss faced, and they’d moved twelve miles or more the last two days. Maggie didn’t need him to help her survive the dust and fatigue. Might as well admit it and move on.

  Nevada was out in front on his big sorrel gelding, and as they broke from the trees for the last stretch to the top of the hill, where they’d be able to look down on the Rocking P herd, he held up a hand and stopped. Alex reined in Red and looked around at the others. All of them paused, waiting for a signal from Nevada. He turned and trotted back to them.

  “There’s three men up there on the ridge.”

  “What are they doing?” Alex asked.

  “Watching the herd, I reckon.”

  “No law agin’ that.” Joe spat a stream of tobacco juice off into the grass.

  Nevada met Alex’s gaze. “I think it’s Tommy Drescher. I don’t know who else.”

  “What do you suppose he wants?” Alex frowned and looked toward the hilltop, but he couldn’t see the men Nevada mentioned.

  “Rhonda told me Tommy gave Miss Bradley some grief the day we saw the ladies in Milburn,” Bronc said.

  Alex looked over at him. “Didn’t know that.”

  Bronc shrugged. “Slipped my mind. But he was alone when she saw him. Said he and Miss Bradley had some unpleasantness.”

  “Hmm.” Nevada glanced behind him. “How about if you all wait here, and I walk up a little closer and see what I see?”

  “All right.” Alex reached to take his horse’s reins.

  Nevada slid down and walked stealthily up the grade to where some brush blocked their view of the top. Joe walked his horse a few yards up the trail, but Alex called him back.

  “We don’t want them to see us until we know what’s up.”

  Joe shrugged and spat again.

  “That Tommy always was a hothead,” Early said. He fished in his shirt pocket and came out with a twist of tobacco.

  They waited in silence. Alex let Red and Nevada’s horse put their heads down and grab a few mouthfuls of grass.

  “Gonna be hot today,” Bronc said.

  Alex nodded his agreement and looked up as Nevada jogged down the trail toward them.

  He reached Alex and scooped up his reins. “It’s Tommy and Diego and one other I’m not sure of. I think he’s from the Star B.” Nevada swung up into the saddle.

  “Diego?” Early scratched his chin. None of them had shaved for a week or more, and Early’s beard was coming in nearly all gray, in contrast to his flowing brown mustache. “How’d he hitch up with Tommy?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “He was always pretty quiet.”

  “Them’s the ones you gotta watch,” Joe said.

  His logic didn’t make a lot of sense to Alex, since over the last couple of years, Tommy had seemed far more volatile than the vaquero from Chihuahua.

  “That fella from the Star B,” Nevada said. “What’s his name? Harris? The skinny puncher with the red hair.”

  “Harris?” Early snorted. “Didn’t Bradley fire him a month or so ago?”

  “Yeah, right before their roundup,” Bronc said. “I recollect that. Said he was all the time drinkin’.”

  Alex considered that and looked at Nevada. “So what do you think they’re up to?”

  “Maybe they want to make trouble for Sarah and her pa.”

  “And for the Porters at the same time,” Early added.

  They all looked at each other.

  “We’ve got ’em outnumbered.” Immediately Alex wondered if he’d live to regret those words.

  “Come on.” Nevada gathered his reins. “Let’s at least show ourselves. Let ’em know they’re not the only ones out here.”

  Alex took the lead, riding quietly up the hill. The others came behind him without talking. He glimpsed the horses and ducked a little lower in the saddle. As soon as he could clearly see the three riders, he stopped Red. Tommy was drawing a rifle from his scabbard, and Diego was holding up a revolver, pointing skyward.

  Nevada’s horse edged up beside him.

  “I believe they’re fixin’ to stampede the herd.” Alex could scarcely believe it, but as soon as he said it, he knew it was true. They had to stop the three men before they barreled down off the hill toward the cattle, guns drawn. He pulled his revolver and urged Red to leap forward and sensed Nevada’s mount close beside them.

  “Tommy!”

  At Alex’s shout, the three horsemen turned. Tommy Drescher’s face screwed into a scowl. Alex and the four men with him loped up the slope and encircled them.

  “You all best not be bothering Porter’s herd,” Alex said.

  “And why not? Porter owes us.”

  “He paid you everything you agreed to work for. Do you want your job back?”

  “Not at his wages.”

  “Then I suggest you start looking elsewhere.” As he spoke, Alex kept an eye on the rifle Tommy still held against his thigh. He didn’t spare a look for the others, but he knew Nevada at least would be keeping a sharp lookout on Diego and Harris.

  “Did you know they got women running the drive?” Tommy’s contempt hit Alex like a bucket of slop.

  “What’s wrong with that? We walked off the job and the boss needed punchers. Well, he found them.”

  Tommy laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know when folks started calling gals in corsets punchers.”

  His friends laughed, but Alex’s men remained stony-faced.

  “Whyn’t you put those guns away?” Nevada said quietly.

  “Whyn’t you put yours away?” the Star B man countered.

  “You’re Harris, ain’t you?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed as he looked Nevada up and down. Alex’s friend made an imposing figure on his big sorrel gelding. The man was tall, muscular, and darkly handsome. Cowboys in his outfit considered him a good man to ride with, while women at the ranch socials seemed to find him fascinating.

  “So?”

  Alex almost laughed at Harris’s response.

  “So, if you three have ideas about getting something back on Jim Bradley or his daughter, think again.”

  The air between them almost crackled.

  Diego looked to Alex. “Hey, we not gonna do nothin’ to them.”

  “Oh?” Alex looked pointedly at his revolver. “What do you need that for?”

  “Folks ride up behind you on the trail, you need to be prepared,” Tommy said, not moving a muscle.

  Alex lifted his hat with his left hand, swiped his brow with his cuff, and put his hat back. “Two things, Tommy. One, you’re off the trail. Two, you had those guns out before you knew we were here. Now put ’em away and get out of here. If I catch you near the Porters’ herd again, I’ll turn you over to the law.”

  “We ain’t doin’ anything wrong,” Tommy said.

  “The sheriff might think otherwise when I tell him we found you watching that herd and drawing your weapons.”

  “That’s your word against ours,” Harris said.

  Nevada barked out a laugh. “Whose word do you think the sheriff would take? Yours or Alex Bright’s?”

  Tommy gritted his teeth. “Seems to me you fellas are awfully protective of Porter’s property. Is he payin’ you to watch out for his little darlin’?”

  “No more’n he’s payin’ you,” Early growled.

  Harris shook his head. “I warn’t there, but it sou
nds to me like you all were too nice to Porter when you left.”

  “That’s right.” Tommy eyed Alex as if he was a manure heap. “Thanks to you, we tied everything up in a ribbon for him. We should have run those cattle off and taken all the remuda horses.”

  “He paid us all because we kept working,” Alex said.

  “Ha! Fifteen bucks don’t go far.” Tommy spat in the grass.

  Nevada nodded toward the trail but kept his revolver steady. “You’d best be on your way now.”

  “Put your guns away first,” Alex said.

  “Hey, we don’t mean any harm,” Diego said, sliding his revolver into his holster.

  Tommy glared at Alex but dropped the rifle into his scabbard.

  “You boys had better go look for work someplace else,” Nevada said.

  “Me, I think I’ll head down to Laredo,” Diego said with a smile. “I know somebody there. Maybe I can get on with a ranch down that way.”

  “I hope you find something,” Alex said. “I don’t think any of us can plan on going back to the Rocking P.”

  He moved Red aside, and the three men rode between him and Bronc, toward the trail. Alex and his men sat in silence, watching them go.

  “Think they’ll stay away?” Joe asked as they disappeared into the trees below.

  “I sure hope so.” Alex put his revolver away.

  “You gonna tell Maggie about this?” Nevada asked.

  Alex thought about that for a minute. “If I rode into her camp to tell her to watch her back, she’d probably dress me down right fine.”

  “I could tell Rhonda,” Bronc said. “I told her I’d see her tomorrow night, in Brownwood.”

  Alex came to a decision. “No, don’t tell her. They’ve got enough to worry about.”

  “You stickin’ with them?” Nevada asked.

  Alex looked into his friend’s eyes. “I know I said I’d go to Abilene with you …”

  Nevada shook his head and holstered his gun. “No need to explain. If you want to keep an eye on them all the way to Fort Worth, I’m with you.”