A River of Horns

by Peter Grant

  “We’ll make that a priority, then. Can’t have her sleepin’ on a wood-framed leather thong bed in a dusty, windowless adobe room!” They chuckled together, then Tyler’s voice sobered. “You were right about another thing, too. Remember what you said about the Dakota grasslands, almost two years ago?”

  “Yeah. I see the Army’s movin’ in there right now.”

  “Uh-huh. They got three columns closin’ on the Sioux from the east, the west an’ the south. I reckon the Army’s doin’ the same thing there that it did durin’ the fight against the Comanche and Kiowa. The Sioux are gonna get ground down.”

  Walt shook his head. “It may not be that easy. I reckon the Army’s gotten over-confident after beatin’ the southern tribes. They’re too sure of themselves. The northern tribes are just as tough as the Comanche and Kiowa, and they’ve got even more fightin’ men.”

  “Waal, I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Still, you was right again. The western Dakota grasslands will be open to settlement soon enough, an’ I guess we’ll see another rush for ranchland there.”

  “Looks like it. I’m satisfied with what we’ve got, though.”

  “Me too! I’ll take a Texas bird in the hand over two in a Dakota Territory bush any day!”

  18

  June 1876

  Samson was at the station in Pueblo to greet Walt when his train pulled in. “Miz Colleen sends her love, and says she can’t wait to see you,” he said as he helped Walt load his baggage into the light, well-sprung wagon he’d brought. “She says she’s gotten too big with the baby to stand around on railroad platforms, so you’ll have to see her when you get home.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  Laughing, Samson flicked the reins, and the two-horse team pulling the buckboard sprang into motion. “Did everything go well, suh?”

  “It sure did.” Walt described the shared depot arrangement with Flanagan Freight, the wagons and teamsters already waiting there, and the sale of the herds. “We’ve sent the wagons out to collect bones for Flanagan, to keep ’em busy until the ranch’s orders reach Dodge City. Tyler will buy our depot site at Fort Elliott, and Sam will set up a schedule for wagon trains.”

  “He already has, suh. We sent off the second wagon train this year loaded with lumber while you were in Dodge City, and they’ll be back soon to get another load. I’m real glad to have the business. It’ll earn good money for us, even at discounted freight rates for the Circle CAR, ’cause we get to keep the profit on the lumber we sell to the Army and other settlers. Also, it’ll keep sixty or seventy teamsters in work for a few more years. I’m worried what’s goin’ to happen to them when the railroads take over the main cargo routes.”

  “Me too, but we’ll figure something out, find something else they can do.”

  At the house, Samson handed down the luggage, then got back on the wagon seat. “I won’t come in, boss. You’ll want time with your wife and son. I’ll see you at the freight yard tomorrow mornin’.”

  Colleen greeted him with a glad cry and a warm, loving hug and kiss, both of them laughing as her very pregnant belly got in the way. Young Thomas burbled his joy at seeing his father again, stumping over on his short legs and demanding to be picked up. He squealed with pleasure as Walt swung him high, laughing at the brightness in his eyes.

  They settled down on the sofa, sitting close together while Walt told Colleen all about events in Dodge City, and what Tyler had told him about the Panhandle and the Circle CAR. “We’re off and running,” he concluded with great satisfaction. “You checked our bank balance here, like I said in my telegraph message?”

  She laughed. “I did, and I don’t mind telling you, that was a very big weight off my mind! I had faith in you, I really did, but being so near to the bone on our cash reserves was worrying me a lot. Things are a whole lot better now.”

  “Yeah. If it’s all right with you, I reckon I’ll tell the builder to start on our ranch home first, and finish that before we build here in town. This house is a nice place, and we can stay here another year or two.”

  “I agree. The ranch house will be our home, won’t it?” She sounded almost pathetically eager. Walt reminded himself that she’d spent all of her life before marrying him on her father’s country estancia. She wasn’t a city girl at all.

  “Yeah, it will. We’ll move out there as soon as it’s ready. Our town house will be for me to use, when I come in for a week or two each month to work at Ames Transport, and for the family when we want to do some shopping; but it won’t be our home. In fact, we may not build another town house at all, if you reckon this one will do for that purpose. We can always add a wing with more bedrooms in due course.”

  She hugged him again. “I think it’ll do. We’ll see. Thanks, sweetheart. I can hardly wait!”

  “I’ve got some more news you’ll like, too. In Dodge I found a Concord stagecoach for sale. It’d been damaged, an’ the stage line wanted to buy a new one right away, rather than wait for the time it’d take to get spare parts out from the factory to repair it. I bought it at a real good price. Sean Flanagan will get the parts and repair it, then he’ll bring it out here for us on the railroad. It’ll be the fastest way for us to travel back an’ forth as a family between the ranch and Pueblo. We might also use it for another venture I have in mind, which is why he’s coming here himself.”

  “How can he take that much time off from running his business? And what’s this about another venture?”

  “Dan will handle the freight yard for him for a few weeks. Sean wants to take a look at our part o’ the world, to see what the hunting’s like.” He explained about the arrangement Flanagan had made with his brother. “Their clients are mostly businessmen an’ New York politicians; the younger sort, on the way up. There may be a few shady characters, too. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  She began to laugh. “So you’ll set up a guided hunting outfit for them, as well as the ranch and Ames Transport? That’ll be your fourth business! Don’t you ever get tired?”

  Walt joined in her laughter. “Not yet. There’s big money to be made. These people will pay up to fifty dollars a day each for a good hunt, and not even blink an eye. I’ve just got to hire the right people to help me run it. I’m lookin’ around. I’ve already hired one of the cooks we sent to Tyler, to run the chuckwagon for them. He’ll be here soon. We’ll start each huntin’ trip from the Rafter A, where we’ve got good horses for them to ride, and where they can see our breedin’ stock an’ judge their quality for themselves. They’re the kind o’ people who’ll buy a good racehorse or a special ridin’ horse, to show off to their friends, and they’ve got the money to do it. We’ll build a nice guest house for them there. Treat ’em like kings, and give them a successful hunt, and a few weeks to think about our horses, and I reckon they’ll want to take some home with them.”

  “Not yet, of course. The foals are still too young.”

  “O’ course, not yet; but it’ll take a year or more to set this up. By then, our first generation of foals will be three to four years old, and properly trained. I reckon I’m gonna set a real high price for them, too. From what Sean told me, these people live or die by money. If something’s real costly, that actually makes it seem more worthwhile in their eyes. We’ll also play up the ‘pure-bred Spanish strain’ line for all we’re worth, and you can tell ’em all about your father’s efforts to breed it true. A beautiful woman always helps to sell things. We can mention Nastas and his Navajo breedin’ stock as well, and maybe even bring him out here to sell some of his horses, too. Back east, some people are real big on that ‘noble savage’ thing, and Nastas can sure look noble an’ savage when he puts his mind to it!” They chuckled.

  “So how much will you ask?”

  “How does five hundred dollars per horse sound?”

  She caught her breath. “Five hundred? That’s a huge sum for a horse! A cow pony is only about ten dollars, after all, and a cavalry remount twenty-five. Will people
pay that much?”

  “Maybe not at first, but let us win a couple o’ races with them, and have a few top people in New York ridin’ them where everyone can see ’em, and you’ll see that change, I think. Your father’s breedin’ stock are a whole different class of animal to cow ponies an’ remounts. Give it a few years, and we might even be able to charge double that.”

  She laughed again. “I love the way your mind works, darling. You’re setting up a guided hunting outfit in order to sell horses! Who else would have thought of that?”

  “You’ve got to think of all the angles, love. That’s how you stay on top o’ things – and with your help, together we’re gonna stay on top just as long as we can.”

  She smiled up at him as she snuggled into his arm. “We’ll teach our children that, too.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  They leaned into each other as they kissed.

  Author’s Note

  It's been a fascinating project to write "A River of Horns". There are so many facts and details about trail driving cattle that people just don't know, or which had become obscured beneath the overblown Hollywood legend and pulp fiction narratives of the cowboy and his era. I had to research this book very thoroughly indeed, in order to ensure that it's accurate. I read many of the surviving original accounts of trail drives and cowboys' lives, and learned from all of them. The incidents I describe fictionally all really happened, in approximately the way I describe them, to trail drives and cowhands in real life.

  Even the economics of the cattle business are true as described, from the prices paid for cattle, to the wages earned by cowhands, to the costs of a trail drive. For example, many big cattle ranches started out with no land at all! A man with drive, ambition and a little money would hire a few cowhands, even if he didn't have a home to live in. They'd all camp out on the range, with a cart or wagon for their supplies, while they rounded up unbranded stock (so-called "mavericks", named after Samuel A. Maverick, a Texas lawyer who was infamous for never branding his cattle).

  The crew would gather enough cattle to form a herd, brand them, and drive them to market in New Mexico (to the Indian reservations near Fort Sumner), or the railheads in Kansas (for shipment to the stockyards in Chicago and other cities), or elsewhere. The boss would bring back the money he'd earned, and use it to buy the land that would later grow into a major ranch. He’d do it all over again, year after year, until his "cattle empire" had become established.

  Some men made good money (like one of my protagonists, Tyler Reese) by contracting with a number of small ranches and farms to collect their cattle into a larger herd, then driving them to the railhead in Kansas for a fee of a dollar or two per head, plus expenses. They might take several such herds up the trail every year. In later years (the 1880's and after), big money entered the picture with the advent of British and northern American investors, who transformed the cattle industry into something approaching what it is today. Walt Ames and Tyler Reese will encounter that in future books.

  However, the first fifteen to twenty years after the Civil War saw individuals who wanted to "make it big" do so on the basis of their own very hard work, gathering and selling cattle to raise money to found their big ranches. That's what Charles Goodnight, Oliver Loving, John Chisum, Samuel Burk Burnett and other famous ranchers and cattlemen did; and that's what Walt and Tyler do in this book.

  The figures cited here for the size of the biggest trail drives are also historically accurate. A 15,000-strong herd was trailed to California in 1869, divided into four smaller herds to make them easier to handle. In the mid-1870’s, the King Ranch in south-eastern Texas drove about 30,000 head to the new railhead in Ogalalla, Nebraska, a distance of over a thousand miles. They did so over a six-month period, also dividing the cattle into smaller herds. Thus, Walt’s and Tyler’s herd of 15,000 cattle, divided into five smaller herds and driven over a distance of about 800 miles, is large by the standards of the day, but by no means unique or unheard of.

  The era of the big, long-distance cattle drive lasted only about twenty-five years, from shortly after the Civil War to the early 1890’s. By that time, the railroads had branched out to cover much of cattle country, so that herds could be driven to the railhead in a few days, rather than taking several months to get there. However, while they lasted, the great cattle drives set their stamp on a whole generation, and came to epitomize a very large part of the so-called “Wild West” era. It was truly named.

  * * *

  PETER GRANT

  Texas, December 2019

  About the Author

  Peter Grant was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. Between military service, the IT industry and humanitarian involvement, he traveled throughout sub-Saharan Africa before being ordained as a pastor. He later immigrated to the USA, where he worked as a pastor and prison chaplain until an injury forced his retirement. He is now a full-time writer, and married to a pilot from Alaska. They currently live in Texas.

  See all of Peter’s books at his Amazon.com author page, or visit him at his blog, Bayou Renaissance Man, where you can also sign up for his mailing list.

  Books by Peter Grant

  SCIENCE FICTION:

  * * *

  The Maxwell Saga

  Take The Star Road

  Ride The Rising Tide

  Adapt And Overcome

  Stand Against The Storm

  Stoke The Flames Higher

  Venom Strike (forthcoming)

  * * *

  The Laredo War (a trilogy)

  War To The Knife

  Forge A New Blade

  Knife To The Hilt (forthcoming)

  * * *

  Cochrane’s Company (a trilogy)

  The Stones Of Silence

  An Airless Storm

  The Pride Of The Damned

  * * *

  FANTASY:

  * * *

  King’s Champion

  Taghri’s Prize

  * * *

  WESTERNS:

  * * *

  The Ames Archives

  Brings The Lightning

  Rocky Mountain Retribution

  Gold On The Hoof

  A River of Horns

  * * *

  ANTHOLOGIES:

  * * *

  Forged In Blood (ed. Michael Z. Williamson)

  Terra Nova: The Wars of Liberation (ed. Tom Kratman)

  Trouble in the Wind (ed. Chris Kennedy and James Young)

  * * *

  MEMOIR:

  * * *

  Walls, Wire, Bars And Souls