Shortgrass Song

by Mike Blakely

  “See that formation on the ridge?” Amelia said, pointing as she stepped down from the coach. “That’s called the kissing camels.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Pete said. “It does look like camels kissin’, doesn’t it?”

  “And look over there. That one’s called the weeping Indian.”

  “Son of a gun! I’ve never seen such a thing! That’s God’s own artwork.”

  “Haven’t you ever come here before?” she asked.

  “Once or twice, lookin’ for cows. But I never stopped to name the rocks.”

  Pete found half a dozen servants cooking porterhouse steaks and lamb chops at the picnic grounds. The residents of the Fountain Colony considered him quite a curiosity. He answered spates of questions as he ate.

  “I learned to read in Pennsylvania,” he had to explain. “And me and my brothers went to school in Colorado City for a while, except when the Indians scared the schoolmarm off in ’68.”

  “And your theological training?” a British investor said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Captain Dubois tells us you conduct sermons on your ranch.”

  Pete shrugged. “I have a Bible, and I know how to pray.”

  The colonists snickered. “Which philosophy do you embrace?” one of them asked.

  “You’ve got me mixed up with Buster,” Pete said. “He’s our philosopher.”

  “The negro violinist,” Amelia explained.

  “The former slave? He studies philosophy?”

  “Not that kind you read in Latin,” Pete explained. “More the kind you can use in regular life.”

  After they ate, Pete managed to get Amelia away from the crowd for a walk among the rock formations in the garden. “Things are going good at the ranch,” he mentioned. “Beef is high and the grass is, too. In a few years we could raise the money to buy the rest of Monument Creek from the government.”

  “Oh, please, I find business such a tedious topic of conversation.”

  “I only brought it up so you would know I can make do for you. I aim to ask you to marry me.”

  Amelia scarcely faltered. She stopped in the shade of a rock pillar and batted her eyes at Pete. “You sound as sure of yourself as Matthew did.”

  “I ain’t like him, though. He wanted you so your papa would get him a job on the railroad. He thought you were pretty and all, but he was mostly lookin’ out for himself. I like where I am on the ranch. I don’t want a job on the railroad. I just want you. I knew it the first time Matthew brought you out to the ranch.”

  Amelia was so astounded that she blushed. “So, you think you can make a little ranch wife out of me?”

  “A little ranch wife with a big herd of children.”

  She blushed deeper. “You don’t really think you could keep me happy out there in that cabin on the plains, do you?”

  “Not for a minute. I aim to build you a big house. Bigger than your papa’s. I’m gonna plant trees and gardens all around it for you and have servants to wait on you from dawn to dusk. And you’ll have your own buggy and team of spotted horses, so you can visit your friends in town whenever you want.”

  “My, my. The price of beef must be very high if you think you can manage all that.”

  “Once we own the creek we’ll control all of Monument Park. We’ll have the biggest herd in the territory. Then the ranch will start payin’ dividends.”

  “Oh, I am so very bored with talk of dividends and stock values.” She put her arm through Pete’s and started him walking again. “We had better get out from behind this rock or father will question your intentions.”

  But before Pete escorted her back into view of the picnickers, he held her back and slipped his arm around her waist. “Just so long as you don’t question my intentions,” he said, and kissed her on the lips before she could even think about resisting.

  She gasped and pushed against his chest, but Pete was so much stronger she could only trust him to turn her loose. “You have made your intentions clear,” she said. “Now, please … Before father suspects.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Sam Dugan and Piggin’ String McCoy sat on the top rail of the corral fence where they could watch the odd procession arrive. The hunters came first, wearing red coats and white leather riding britches tucked into high top boots. They drove carriages, drawn by matched pairs, leading their thoroughbreds behind. The servants arrived next, driving wagons loaded with all the necessary foodstuffs for the feast that would follow the fox hunt. The dogs brought up the rear. A huntsman and two whippers-in kept the twenty foxhounds in a tight pack.

  “Look at that feller in the claw hammer coat and the stovepipe hat,” Sam said. “He must be the boss of the hunt. Everybody else is wearin’ them little velvet caps.”

  “Them saddles ain’t got no horns,” Piggin’ String replied.

  “They’re sure slick, all right. Look about as useful as a bull without a pecker.”

  “I ain’t seen a rifle one. How are they gonna hunt without no guns?”

  “Pete says they let them dogs kill the fox. The hunters just chouse along behind.”

  Piggin’ String shook his head and forced a brown stream of tobacco juice between his lips. “Let’s saddle up and ride drag. I gotta see this.”

  Colorado Springs had swelled with members of the Fountain Colony over the summer, many of them from England. Some of the old pioneer settlers had begun calling the place Little London.

  Fox hunting had become a popular diversion among the foreigners, though the chases produced as many coyotes and wolves as foxes. A few of the residents kept stables of fine Thoroughbreds and kennels of ready hounds.

  Thinking a fox hunt at Holcomb Ranch might help him cultivate acquaintances among Amelia’s friends, Pete had made the plans through Captain Dubois for this Saturday morning’s hunt. Ab had arranged to be out of the county on land-office business. He didn’t have much truck with Englishmen.

  Several of the hunters were accompanied by ladies, and so it was that Amelia, simply to aggravate Pete, had arrived with the master of hounds, the man in the black silk top hat.

  “Good morning, Mr. Holcomb,” she said haughtily, when Pete rode over to greet her. “I would like you to meet Mr. Wilson Chamberlain, my escort.”

  “Jolly good of you to invite us,” Chamberlain said, tapping his silk hat down on his head. He jumped down from the buggy to tighten the saddle on his hunter that trailed behind.

  It was Pete who thought to help Amelia down from the buggy. “Glad you could come,” he said, winking at her.

  “Wilson’s hounds will be running the foxes today,” she said. “He has them so expertly trained, I dare not question the prospects of the morning.” It was scandalous the way she forced the hint of a British accent into her voice.

  “Actually,” Chamberlain admitted, “I have a man who does the training for me. That’s him, the huntsman over there with the pack. He is quite the best man available, I believe. The dogs have performed splendidly in recent weeks. I call them the Colony Pack. They are ten couples.”

  “That means twenty,” Amelia said, looking down her nose at Pete. “Mr. Holcomb,” she said, regarding his pistol and chaps, “there are strict rules concerning hunting attire. But I suppose you wouldn’t have had exposure to them.”

  “I don’t mean to join the hunt,” Pete said, hitching up his chaps. “I just want to ride along behind and watch.”

  “Quite so,” Chamberlain said, mounting his Thoroughbred. “I should consider our host exempt from all rules of dress. Silly-looking costumes in this country anyway, what? Shall we?”

  Buster had built a walkway over the irrigation dam so the spectators could cross the creek to the bald hill over which the old Arapaho Trail ran. The hill afforded a splendid vantage for watching the action or listening to the dogs. By the time Amelia made it to the summit, the foxhounds were already on a trail up Monument Creek, and two dozen horses were thundering after them.

  Pete stayed to the rear of the
chase with Sam Dugan, Piggin’ String, and Buster. “Keep those green-broke horses away from the Englishmen,” he said to the cowboys when they started. “Especially you on that stud, Sam. You’re liable to cause ’em trouble.” Pete rode one of his finer mounts, a six-year-old spotted gelding.

  Buster rode his fastest mule—a big, surefooted brute that could pace any Thoroughbred in rough country. He figured a sensible fox would avoid the open plains with a pack of hounds on its trail and make for the foothills of the Rampart Range. His mule would make better time than any horse over the steep slopes strewn with deadfalls and boulders.

  The dogs worked the trail a half mile up Monument Creek, then turned west, yelping up the wooded draw where Buster had protected Caleb with the wolf-getter years before.

  “Damn if they can’t ride!” Sam Dugan shouted, trying to keep the foreigners in sight.

  The hunting horses jumped bluffs and deadfalls without hesitation. Pete saw one gent fly from the saddle and land face first on a bed of sharp rocks. Piggin’ String caught the Englishman’s horse, and the bloody-faced foreigner climbed back on to rejoin the chase.

  “That feller’s game as a Shanghai rooster,” Buster said, spurring his mule back up to speed.

  From the bald hill, Amelia could hear the dogs working the trail up into the foothills. She couldn’t see the riders through the trees, but the dogs kept her apprised of the course of the hunt. Their voices faded as they trailed farther into the hills, until she heard a change in the pitch of yelps. The foxhounds, even after miles of running, had taken on a new frenzy.

  Captain Dubois came to stand beside his daughter on the hill. “Sounds as if they’ve sighted the fox,” he said. “Now the chase will begin in earnest.”

  “Father, why don’t you join the hunts?” Amelia asked.

  “I prefer your Mr. Holcomb’s form of hunting to Chamberlain’s. I like to bring a little venison back to camp instead of that ridiculous foxtail these Britishers…”

  “What do you mean, my Mr. Holcomb?” Amelia demanded.

  Captain Dubois stumbled back in his thoughts, grasping for an avenue of escape. “Did I say your Mr. Holcomb? A slip of the tongue, dear. I meant our Mr. Holcomb. Our host, you know. That’s all, darling.”

  The dogs led the hunters over a series of ridges and creek beds and began to swing to the south. Pete and his party of observers stopped on a ridge to let their horses breathe a few minutes, since the dogs seemed to be turning the game.

  “What do you ‘low they got?” Piggin’ String asked.

  “They’re fox-huntin’ dogs,” Pete said, “so I reckon they’re after a fox.”

  “Don’t make no difference what they started out after,” Sam said. “Many’s the time I went up the trail to chouse cows and wound up chousin’ Indians or whores.”

  “Them dogs have got a stronger will than you, Sam,” Piggin’ String said. “I’ll wager they can hold their concentration on whatever it is they’re chousin’.”

  Buster chuckled. “Sounded to me like they quit their first trail and picked up somethin’ fresher when their yelpin’ changed pitch a while back.”

  “Whatever they’ve got,” Pete said, “they’ve turned it back east now. They’re runnin’ it downhill along Horseshoe Creek.”

  In a few minutes the dogs passed within five hundred yards of Pete and his men, but the observers couldn’t get a glimpse of the prey through the trees. After they heard the hunters gallop by, the cowboys fell in behind and continued toward the plains. The yipping of the dogs reached its highest pitch, and Pete knew they were close to the quarry.

  The hunters were only a few hundred yards behind the dogs now, and the cowboys were on the heels of the hunters. They crashed through tree limbs, jumped fallen trunks, plunged down creek banks. Buster was thankful to have the solid feet of the mule under him.

  “They’re baying!” Pete shouted. “They’ve got it holed up.”

  “Or treed!” Buster said.

  A piercing yelp rang through the forest, and the dogs were on the run again.

  “That ain’t no fox!” Piggin’ String shouted. “I think they got ’em a lion!”

  “Maybe a wolf!” Pete said.

  Another minute brought the cowboys to the site of the brief skirmish. They found Wilson Chamberlain on the ground, cradling the head of a badly wounded dog. The poor hound’s stomach had been ripped open, and its innards were lying on the bare ground.

  “Oh, no,” Sam said.

  “Mr. Holcomb,” Chamberlain said. “Your pistol, if you please.”

  Pete handed over the revolver. Sam turned his head when Chamberlain used it to quiet the whining dog.

  Piggin’ String got down to look for tracks. “What was it?” he asked the Englishman. “Lion? Bear? I can’t see nothin’ but dog tracks.”

  “I don’t know,” Chamberlain replied, returning the pistol. “But I fear for the safety of my dogs. Let’s get back in the chase.”

  The five men spurred their mounts east and closed the ground on the dogs as quickly as they could. They heard baying again, but it lasted only a moment. Suddenly the riders broke from the trees and thundered out into the open grasslands of Monument Park. Pete saw the last of the hunters go over the opposite bank of Monument Creek. The horses were white with lather, but the hunters whipped them harder than ever.

  From her vantage on the hill, Amelia had seen the huge dark form burst from the tree line, followed by the pack of dogs and the red-coated hunters. Then came Wilson’s silk hat, followed by Pete and the Holcomb Ranch bunch.

  “They’ve jumped a bear!” Captain Dubois shouted as the hunt emerged onto the plains. One of the dogs caught a hind leg of the beast, and the others swarmed like bees. “He’ll rip the dogs to pieces!”

  As Pete charged over the creek bank, he saw a dog fly out of a dust cloud and roll among the hunting horses, turning instantly to charge back into the fray. The cloud erupted in black fur, and Pete got his first look at the bear as it lunged at a dog one tenth its size. The hunters were circling, the huntsman shouting at the hounds. None of the Englishmen seemed to know what to do. The huge old black bear was whirling, snapping its teeth, swatting at dogs, turning to attack others at his tail. One hound was already on the ground dead. Others virtually climbed the bear’s back to get in their licks.

  “My Lord!” Chamberlain shouted. “He’ll kill the dogs!”

  Pete jerked the coil of hemp from the leather tie on his saddle horn. “He won’t kill ’em all!” As he spurred his gelding on, he swung the loop underhanded, letting a round play out of the coil with every revolution, building the loop until it was almost big enough to take in the whole pack of dogs.

  “Stand clear!” Chamberlain shouted when he figured Pete’s plan. “Stand aside, men!”

  The hunters heard and made a path through which Pete could join the dog-and-bear fight. His loop cut the dust over his head as he made his first pass, but the bear presented a poor target, spinning to fight the foxhounds. Pete turned his prancing horse back to the fight and kept the loop swinging, waiting for a clean throw at the bear’s head.

  The old bruin whirled to swat a dog, and Pete threw the loop sidearmed, gathering in the head and one foreleg of the beast. The spotted gelding was taking up the slack even before the coils hit the ground. A dog straddling the rope went somersaulting over the plains when Pete’s saddle horn snapped the sagging hemp straight.

  The bear went over backward, roaring with rage, dredging a dust cloud behind him as the powerful gelding dragged him. Pete drew his revolver smoothly from the holster. He turned and aimed at the end of the rope stretched tight over his thigh. For a mere second, the dogs fell behind.

  Far away on the hill, Amelia saw the blasts of smoke and heard the reports follow. The great black heap fell still behind Pete’s horse, and the dogs milled around it in silence. A cheer rang from the spectators’ hill.

  Captain Dubois hurrahed among the loudest. “I hope you didn’t bring young Chamberlain along
to rival Pete,” he said. “If so, you seem to have achieved a reverse effect!”

  Amelia only heaved in disgust. What was she going to do about Pete Holcomb? Whatever did she want with a ranchman? How could she ever bear a rural life on the plains?

  THIRTY-SIX

  Winter was going to come early to the Medicine Bow Range. Burl Sandeen didn’t know how he could tell, but after forty years in the mountains he had learned to trust his instincts. He had hung up extra meat and ridden all the way out of North Park to Rawlins for more supplies than he thought he would need. Now he was anxious to get back to his cabin above the Michigan and get his wood chopped before the snow fell too deep. A blanket two inches thick already covered the ground, and the sky told him more was on the way.

  As he led his mule up the trail, he noticed a wisp of smoke filtering through the trees in a coulee ahead. He tied the mule to a pine sapling, slipped his fifty-caliber Warner carbine from its scabbard, and stalked ahead to investigate. It was late in the year for Indians to be out hunting. He suspected a greenhorn looking for a mountain pass, but not even Burl Sandeen expected anyone quite as green as Caleb Holcomb.

  Through the trees in the coulee, Burl saw a spotted mare and a young man holding a buffalo robe open to warm himself over a crackling fire. He could readily see that the kid was well muscled, for he was wearing a suit of buckskins that had shrunk to his knees and elbows and covered the rest of him like a second skin. As Burl crept silently through the powder, the spotted mare noticed him but the boy did not. The old mountain man eased up to Five Spot and scratched her on the rump. He rested his carbine over the spots on the mare’s hip and aimed in Caleb’s direction.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Caleb jumped all the way over the fire and ran three steps before he slid in the snow and turned with his hand on his pistol.

  “Whoa,” Sandeen said, “don’t get your hackles up.”

  Caleb looked over what he could see of the man behind the horse. He wore a hat of beaver fur and hobnailed boots laced with leather thongs. A gray beard seemed to gush from the collar of his red wool coat. Black eyebrows thick as horses’ manes hung over the old man’s squinting eyes.