by Lou Bradshaw
“In other words,” I said, “you want me to look like a fool kid trying to find his way around in the dark.” He smiled and nodded.
“Ben, have you still got that blunderbuss cannon of a shotgun?”
I said I did, and he told me to give it to Andy. “There are times when something like that can take all the fight out of a crowd. It’s a great way to get someone’s attention.”
Well, at least we were going to stay in Taos.
By the time we got back to the Esses, it was getting on to midnight, so I just found an empty bunk and spent the night. Andy would have to give Sam the news in the morning, and I knew he felt bad about that.
After breakfast the next morning both Andy and I went into Sam’s office to give him the word. Sam was pretty much in shock when Andy told him that he was leaving to become a deputy sheriff. That was the last reason he had expected. Andy went on, “Boss, back down the line, me and Ben have had to deal with some pretty bad hombres. They were killers and rapists and just plain vicious monsters. They killed our folks, and as soon as we were old enough we took out after them. We left two dead in our front yard, one dead in a Texas whorehouse, and saw one hanged in Dodge. Somewhere in Texas, I picked up a reputation of being a gunfighter, and folks started calling me Hickory Jack.” Sam dropped his pipe from his mouth and had to stamp out the embers.
“All told,” he said, “Me and Ben have been responsible for about 8 men dyin’. Some because we had to, and a couple we saw hung, but they were all fair killin’s of men who deserved to die. That’s not counting those rustlers a few years ago. When we came to New Mexico, we left any trace of Hickory Jack back in Texas, but I been recognized. The sheriff thinks that I’d make a pretty fair deputy, and a known man is more likely to be end trouble without shootin’ or gettin’ shot.”
Andy told him that he wanted to tell him about Hickory Jack Moore, himself before it became range gossip. He didn’t mention that we suspected one of the area ranchers and his foreman of being the last and the worst of the men we had hunted.”
The sheriff had agreed to let Andy finish out the month, and he could start his new job right after payday.
Sam was silent for a moment. He just sat there staring at his pipe. Then he said, “Andy, I appreciate you lettin me know before the word got out. We’re sure gonna miss you around here. You’ve been a good hand and a loyal rider. Patty will be sorriest of all. She boasted to all her friends that the S-S had the cutest cowboys on the range.” He thought for a little while then asked, “Do you want to tell the other fellas or would you like me to? I know some of those boys sure will miss havin you around.” Andy said he’d let them know. As we both got up to leave, and Sam asked me to stick around; we had some business to talk about.
When Andy had gone, Sam re-stoked his pipe and asked me if this had anything to do with what we had talked about a while back. I told him it did, and we had a lead, but I couldn’t talk about it yet. He understood and dropped it. Then he told me, “If there’s anything I can do, you just have to ask. We’ve gotten used to you comin by, and Patty’d get cranky as an old bear if she didn’t have somebody besides me to pick on.”
I went on out to the corral and picked up my new cowponies. I sturng out lead ropes and we commenced the ride up to my place. By the time I got them to my corral, they didn’t need lead ropes. They just followed right along.
One of the first things I’d need to do was cut some hay for the horses. They’d have that corral eaten down to the dirt in no time. That meant a wagon and a scythe and a lot of hard work. Before I did that, I needed to talk to Juan Domingo, and see what he had to say about the men in this valley. I figured that I could trust his opinions, since he knew my connection with Don Carlos. Plus he’d been in this area long enough to have a line on most everyone here.
So I threw a saddle on that dun I’d just gotten from Sam and headed for the Domingo spread. That horse wasn’t too happy about me getting into the saddle, but he got over it after a couple of jumps which were mostly for style. I can’t say that I blamed him much. I’m a pretty big fella. Standing up straight, I’ll top out at six foot two, and I’ll weigh in at about one ninty. I don’t figure that I’d want me sittin on my back either.
I found Juan sitting on the veranda, chewing on a cigar that looked like a piece of black rope. He didn’t know if it was lit or not, but he was moving it all around in his teeth while going through a stack of invoices and other assorted papers. He was sure happy to see me. I could have been a three headed mule and he would have been happy to see me rather that look at those papers.
“Ah, Benito,” he said. “It is good to see you. It is good to see anything but these numbers. Come… sit, and I’ll have some coffee brought out. Maria,” he called. “Bring some coffee for our guest. And some cakes por favor.”
Within a minute’s time, one of the prettiest black eyed beauties I’d ever seen came out of the house with a tray of cups, pastries, and a pot of coffee. She smiled and set the tray down, then she said something to Juan in Spanish, which was too fast for me to catch, and left. I was struck deaf, dumb, and blind by the beauty and femininity. She was like a picture painted by a great artist. I couldn’t help commenting to Juan, “That was a very beautiful young woman, Juan. I don’t know how you can concentrate on paperwork with her around.”
He laughed and said, “Oh, Benito, for me it is not so hard as it would be for young men like you and my vaqueros. I find many uncompleted tasks and tangled harness because of her. It is difficult for my men to keep their concentration, but for me, it is not so hard. You see she is my daughter. She will be wed in another month, and live in Santa Fe. The work on the ranch will be much improved, but my heart will be heavy.”
I congratulated him, and wished the newlyweds much happiness, and then I got down to the purpose of my visit. I told him that I was going to have to cut hay for the horses and asked if he knew where I might buy a good serviceable wagon and team. He said that he too was planning to cut hay and if he might cut from my range that he would see to that my barn was filled. I told him that it would be fine and have his men let me know when they were cutting and I would join them.
Then I asked about a cattleman’s association or some such group. He said there were two different groups, one for Americans and one for New Mexicans. “There are still ill feelings among many, and when the American ranchers started moving in, they were not invited to join, so they started their own. Neither group is very well organized, and both tended to be more social than business.”
I asked him about some of the American ranchers, including Sam Stellers, although I knew him well already. Most of those I asked about were given passing grades. When he came to Pickering, he said that the man was arrogant and pushy, but he had a good crew. They tended to their work and there was little trouble. But when I asked about Barkley he hesitated. “I am not one to spread rumors or camp fire gossip, but you come highly recommended by Don Carlos as man of discretion beyond your years.
“Senor Barkley has done me no ill service; in fact he has been cordial and by no means offending nor offensive. His range is not near mine, so we do not cross paths often. I find him a likable and pleasant gentleman. But he must have very marvelous cows. Many of them tend to have multiple births, or breed several times each year. His foreman has found it necessary to hire more doubtful persons than cattlemen. His foreman is not nearly as pleasant and agreeable as Senor Barkley. He seems to be… how you say it, carrying a stick on his shoulder.”
“Have you lost any stock that you think may have been reborn in his herd?” I asked.
“No, Benito, I have not, but my cousin Javier, who shares the same range, has had many cows who seem to have misplaced their calves. That is as much as I know, but there are many in the Spanish community who ride with their rifles at the ready.”
“Does this only seem to be happening among the New Mexicans?”
“Si. There is always the chance of rustlers raiding and taking a small herd o
f cattle, but even that is rare since Senor Stellers’ man killed several and they hung one.”
I thanked him and told him that fortunately my range was far enough away from most of the others that I shouldn’t have to worry. But I’d keep an eye on the comings and goings of tracks passing through the gap, which was about the only way to take cattle out of that valley I called home.
If Barkley’s men were branding mavericks, then Barkely or his foreman should know about it. And if they are adding them to the herd, they’d have to know about it. Unless the boys were driving the beef off to a buyer. But Juan had said that Barkley’s herd was growing at an above normal rate, so they must know of it. That didn’t make him the Judge, but it made him a likely candidate for a dishonest man. And that was a start.
When I got home that evening, the first thing I did was write a letter to Jasper letting him know what I had learned from Juan Domingo. Rustling some calves doesn’t make a man a cold blooded killer, but a leopard doesn’t often change his spots, and a thief hardly ever does. I’d take it into the freight office and have Miguel deliver it. The post office was in the general store, and I didn’t want too many folks aware that I was sending mail to the US Marshal. That sort of information spreads too easily.
Tomorrow, I’d get acquainted with my high valley.
Chapter 29
I rolled out of my blankets when the sky was just turning gray. With that big mountain due east of my place, it would be full light before I ever saw the sun. It would be the same on the other end of the day. I would be long in the shadows before it was full dark. That would be something I’d have to learn to get used to… I would.
After a leisurely breakfast of whatever I could find without lighting a lamp, I went out to saddle up. This time I took the rangy brown. He was a color that I couldn’t describe if I owned a dictionary, so I just decided that it was brown. I figured to be gone a couple of days so I packed some extra grub and my bedroll.
Brownie had a good walking pace, by that I mean he covered a lot of ground with each step, but it took a bit to get used to his gate. If a fella didn’t soon fall into rhythm with his movements, a fella would be subject to a sore butt. We worked it out. At a jog, it took a little more getting used to, but again we worked it out. I had the feeling that this brown horse could stay with you all day and then some.
Starting south with the intention of riding all around that big bowl, so’s I could see just what I was king of. It was a fine mixture of grassland and high desert. In the south I ran into some deep canyons leading off into places I didn’t have time to explore. Whether or not those were dead end canyons I’d have to find out. If they were all box canyons then my cattle wouldn’t be wandering out of the valley.
I found many streams flowing from the mountains, and even at this late in the year, there was ample water in most of them. I suspected that most were fed from springs and snow melt because there wasn’t much snow left on the southern mountains. To the east, that big mountain still carried plenty of snow, even this late in the season. All morning I rode and took note of conditions and other pertinent information. There seemed to be no lack of grass and cedar. Farther up the slope I could see pine and fir in great quantities.
A number of seldom used trails headed up the slopes, but I didn’t pay them any mind because they weren’t usable by cattle, or at least hardly usable. Late morning I came on to a trail that seemed to be used with some regularity, but not recently. Not being a woodsman, or a woodsman of any value, I didn’t recognize the tracks. There were small horse like tracks overlaying them, so being the curious sort that I am I started up the trail. It was steep and narrow as it wound its way through the cedars and into the pine. I figured to find out who or what used this trail, and if nothing else I would be able to have a bird’s eye view of the bowl.
Brownie took to the trail like it was just a stroll down Main Street. We climbed up and up back and forth through the cedars and into the pines. After about an hour and several thousand feet of elevation, the vegetation began to thin and the pines started giving way to brush and rock. Suddenly we topped out into a beautiful little hanging valley. It was a park like affair that looked at first glance like it had never been trod by man. The grass was tall but tawny colored, and I could feel a noticeable change in the temperature. It was maybe ten degrees cooler at this level.
I nudged Brownie toward the timber that ringed the valley, not wanting to ride out in the open. Just in case I was into someone’s back yard and didn’t know it, although I doubted it. Plus, I wanted to see if there was another trail out because if someone was using this park, I wanted to know how they got in and out.
I splashed through several live streams, they were clear and cold. They probably fed on down into the lower valley. About halfway around the roughly two hundred acre park I found another trail which looked to have been used recently. There were old tracks, that I still didn’t recognize, but I was beginning to have a notion of what they might be. And there were tracks of a small hoofed animal, probably a burro and tracks of a man wearing moccasins. Sheep, of course, it would be sheep. It dawned on me that I had probably never seen sheep tracks. They weren’t real popular back in Missouri, nor were they real popular in cattle country, although, those Ozark hills would have been perfect for sheep.
So I took the trail up to the next level, and when I reached the next valley I found a duplicate of the one a thousand feet below. Only it was a little larger and the grass was not quite as tall. I sat for a moment and looked down on my valley below. It was beautiful, and it was big. I could see bunches of cattle here and there, they were mostly in the northern end of the valley. With only thirty three hundred cattle grazing, there was a lot of valley left. I could see the cabin and barn. And I could see the other two cabins as well. I was right to choose the one I did.
I couldn’t see any riders, but that didn’t mean that one or two weren’t there. And Juan never said that he would have a vaquero with the cattle all the time. There really wasn’t a need for it. The biggest threat to the cattle would come from cougars or wolves. And with all the game tracks I’d seen, I doubted that either would be hungry enough to be raiding the herd, when there was plenty of deer available. I’d have to look for signs though.
Sitting there on Brownie, basking in the cool early autumn sun and letting my mind wonder around the valley below, I was unaware of the nagging deep throated growl that I’d been hearing. When it did register in my brain, I laid a hand on my colt and spun my head to the right. To my relief, there in the grass beside a boulder sat a medium sized mongrel dog. As my eyes took in the rest of the scene, I saw an old Indian sitting on the bolder about three feet above the dog. He had his knees drawn up with his moccasins bracing him upright with his hands clasped around his legs. A fact that didn’t fail to register was his rifle lying across his lap.
“You would be dead if you was Apache.” He said in Spanish. “I would be taking your scalp now.”
I smiled sheepishly, and replied in the same language, “I would have made a very poor Apache…. No?” then I asked, “Navajo?” He nodded, but there was no reply.
“I am happy that I am not Apache. I would not like to lose my scalp.” I told him.
“Pity.” He said, “I do not have one of that color.” Then as he thought about it, a slight smile appeared, and he said, “Next time maybe.”
I told him who I was and where I had set up my ranch. He said that he had been watching me come and go, but couldn’t see me well from so far away. He knew that I had five horses and no woman. “A man should have a woman.” I told him that I thought that was a fine idea, but I was only beginning to be able to take care of myself and could not afford a woman.
“Three horses would get you a nice fat ugly woman to keep you warm at night.” He said with another slight smile. Whoever said that Indians didn’t have a sense of humor, had never talked to this old warrior.
He told me to get down and sit, and I did. We talked for a while and then he
asked me to follow him to his camp where we would eat and smoke. I took that as a right friendly gesture, and told him to lead the way. This valley was much longer but narrower than the one below, and I could see that he would have little problem keeping track of his sheep.
As we neared the far end of the valley, we came to his flock of what looked to be about a hundred sheep more or less. There could have been five hundred there because I had no knowledge of how to judge a bunch of sheep, there were also about five goats. With his flock was another midsized mongrel dog prowling the perimeter of the group. The dog that had been with us fell in with the other and both stayed with the sheep.
At the camp, there was a young boy about ten or twelve; whom the old sheep herder said was his grandson. The lad was quick, quiet, and curious. He took my horse and tied him in the shade where there was some grass. The burro grazed nearby. They had a jacal, which is a mud stick structure with no floor and a thatched roof. There was a door and one window. It was a temporary home at best, and that’s what it was meant to be. The cooking was done outside usually, but could be done in the jacal if it was raining or in bad weather. There was a sheep pen where I suppose they were kept at night. I didn’t know much about sheep herding… for that matter, I didn’t know a whole lot about cattle ranching.
Over some very good venison stew, we talked about his life here in the high valleys. I found out that he had another camp above this one. It was much larger and was used for the hotter months. They would soon be moving to the lower camp, where they would stay until just before the snow falls. Then they would move to the winter camp in one of the lower canyons where they had a larger adobe house. He asked if there would be a problem about them living in the canyons. I said, “No. There is more grass than I will need for many many years. If ever.”