Return to Red River

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “I didn’t know Milt Blasingame well.” She lifted her cup of coffee, shook her head, and dumped the dregs at the edge of the fire ring. “Who am I kidding? I didn’t know him at all. But I think I can cook better than he can. So I can help Groot.”

  He could not remember the last time she had actually cooked anything, but he played things safe. “Picking up dried dung, cattle now . . . used to be buffalo—or what else you can find that’ll burn when there’s no wood around. Can you handle a spade?”

  “A what?”

  “Shovel. Most ranches hire a cook who can drive team. You can. I’ll give you that. But how are you when it comes to handling a shovel?”

  She shrugged.

  “We made four miles today, Tess,” Mathew said grimly. “We’ve already had to bury one man.”

  “You want me to go home?”

  “Yes,” he said. Then. “No.”

  Her dark eyes lightened.

  “Leaving the ranch with Juan and Janeen worries me,” he said honestly.

  “I think they’ll be fine. They bark loud.” She drew in a breath, let it go, and said, “We have to make this drive. You’ve been nickel and diming things since the winter, Mathew. I know how tight things are. So when Yago rode in, told us what had happened, how you needed him, well, I looked at Miguel, and I saw a frightened boy. And I saw thirty dollars a month for three months going to him.”

  “He’d earn that working at the ranch, too,” Mathew pointed out.

  “But no bonus.”

  Mathew shrugged. “Fifteen. Thirty. Fifty dollars. You think that matters?”

  “Does the six hundred and forty acres and the buildings you built, Dunson built, we built, matter? Let’s put it this way. What if you came up thirty dollars short? You think Chico Miller would give you credit, extend your loan?” She spit. “Not by a damned sight. He wants our home. He’s not getting it. I’m staying.”

  She rose, dropped her empty cup in the wreck pan by Groot’s Studebaker, and stretched. He wondered if she planned on sleeping in that outfit, which had to be twenty years old now, but still in pretty good condition.

  “I’m also good luck for men I like,” she said.

  Like Cherry Valance, he almost said, but held that thought. Had he said it, he would have regretted it. And Tess would have never let him forget it.

  Besides, now that he sat there, watching her walk across the camp of snoring cowhands, he had to smile. She knelt over Lightning, pulled up his bedroll a bit, leaned over, kissed his forehead. Next she walked on her knees the few feet to Tom. She pushed a bang out of his eyes, patted his shoulder, and gave him a soft peck on his cheek. She rose, stretched, yawned, and walked toward the hoodlum wagon, where her soogans had been rolled out underneath the Abingdon.

  He stared at his sleeping sons, then glanced over at his wife. Finally, Mathew Garth stretched out in his own bedroll and looked at the stars, the moon, the endless Texas sky. But what he really saw was just a memory. A mother kissing her sons good night. It lifted his heart.

  At last, he fell into a peaceful sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Pecos River.

  Everyone seemed to talk about the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Colorado far to the west, but few—outside of Texas and New Mexico Territory—mentioned the Pecos.

  Really, it wasn’t much to look at out in Texas, except around Seminole Canyon, a few miles from where it converged with the Rio Grande. For nine hundred miles, it flowed, usually sixty-five to no more than a hundred feet wide. Except during wet years, it wouldn’t be more than seven or ten feet deep. Usually, no one wanted to drink the water. It might taste like pure brine in one spot, and a few miles downstream, turn to iron. Or you’d likely have to sift the sand out before you drank. Maybe you wouldn’t get sick. Probably, you would.

  If the river didn’t kill you.

  For it often proved deadly, to cattle, to horses, to men. Even at Horsehead Crossing.

  The banks flattened here, and while sandy on both sides—where you wouldn’t get ripped by the thorns on the mesquites—at least the bottom here was hard. Try to cross the Pecos anyplace else within a hundred miles, and you risked quicksand.

  Wind, cold, brutal, biting, slapped Mathew’s face as he rode the black gelding with the two white forefeet up and down the riverbank. He had to shout so that Teeler Lacey and Laredo Downs could hear him. Thunder rolled, rolled, and another streak of lightning lit up the western skies. Four o’clock in the afternoon, but it looked like midnight.

  Dropping his reins over the black’s neck, Mathew cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled again.

  “How . . . is . . . it?”

  Laredo heard him this time, although Teeler Lacey did not. Laredo, on a sorrel, jammed a stick into the stream, already swollen from the rains upcountry. “Quicksand!” he shouted. “Here.”

  “Solid!” Teeler Lacey yelled. He must have heard Laredo’s yell. Lacey’s steeldust splashed water while making its way back to the western bank.

  Horsehead Crossing had been around forever, but crossings changed with the seasons and the flow of the river. It might move upstream or downstream, so you had to play things safe—if you wanted to reach the other side alive.

  “Flowin’ faster than usual, Mathew,” Teeler Lacey said.

  And the Pecos always had a savage, swift current.

  “Can we get them across?” Mathew asked.

  Lacey started to speak, but saw Laredo Downs crossing the river, so he held his tongue. He trotted his horse, reined in, and spit with the wind.

  “We best get that herd movin’, Mathew,” Laredo said. “Pronto. River ain’t risin’ right now, but there’s another turd float comin’, and if we ain’t got ’em beeves across soon, we’ll be waitin’ here a spell.”

  Mathew nodded. “Move ’em out,” he said, and spurred his horse to the two wagons.

  Groot, Tess, and Joey Corinth had lashed makeshift pontoons—nothing more than juniper logs—there were no cottonwoods or pines in this country—to the sides of the hoodlum and chuck wagon. The wrangler had returned to his horses, leaving Groot and Tess to await orders.

  “All right.” Mathew paused, wiped his face. It was wet, and not from the Pecos. A fine mist had started to fall. Lightning flashed again. Mathew waited until he heard the thunder, did some quick division in his head, and said, “Sixteen miles away. Moving fast. You’re going first, Tess.”

  She wet her lips. Her nod could barely be seen.

  “I can drive if you want me to,” Mathew told her.

  “You didn’t hire me on so you could drive this wagon.” Her smile was forced, but she unloosened the brake and snapped the lines to the mules.

  “Hi-ya! Hi-ya! C’mon, you damned mules!”

  The wagon lurched over mesquite saplings and cheap grass, and Mathew rode alongside, close to Tess. He pointed to the stick that could barely be seen in the darkness and the roiling water.

  “That’s quicksand over yonder,” he yelled. “That’s downstream, so the wagon’s gonna drift that way. Enter about there.” He pointed to a spot about ten yards past a small island in the center of the river, barren except for a few splotches of grass.

  “See you on the other side!” she said as the lead mules stepped into the river.

  The pontoons helped, and the mules showed strength and determination.

  Water filled the inside of his boots, and Mathew reached over to rest his left hand on the pontoon, but only for a minute. Then he felt his horse swimming, and he concentrated on staying in the saddle. Get caught in the river on a day like this, when the river ran wild, and he would find himself with a bedroll for his casket and a stick stuck at the head of the grave serving as his tombstone.

  Seventy-five feet. That was the distance here, bank to bank. It felt farther. The current did sweep the wagon toward the quicksand, but fifteen yards before, the mules had found their footing. Moments later, the wheels were on the hard bottom, and the wagon was climbing out of the river.
Mathew looked back. Lightning came straight from the blackness toward the ground. One. Two. Three. In less than two seconds. Sharp lightning, he had heard Texans call it. The kind that would kill a man.

  “You all right?” Mathew yelled over the wind as he circled his horse around toward Tess.

  “I’m wet,” she said.

  The rain had moved from mist to drizzle. Soon it would be a hard, pounding torrent.

  “You bring a slicker?”

  She gestured toward her grip, a small bag that served as her war bag.

  “Best put it on.”

  Turning in the saddle, he looked across the Pecos and waved his hat, but quickly understood that Groot was already moving the chuck wagon toward the bank. Mathew again looked at Tess and pointed off to the north and east. “Two hundred, maybe three hundred yards, you’ll find a clearing. Head there, unhitch the teams. Picket them good till Joey gets across with the remuda. That’s where we’ll set up camp for tonight. Cold camp. Most likely.”

  “Lightning and Tom?” she cried out.

  “I’ll look after them.”

  Tess swallowed and reached for the brake.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. He hooked his leg over the horn, reached down, jerked on the leather strap. Carefully, he removed the spur and tossed it into the back of the wagon, then did the same with his other spur. After that, he fetched out his pocketknife and dropped it into the Abingdon’s bed. Followed by his gun belt and revolver. Even his Winchester came from the scabbard.

  Tess stared. “Superstitious?”

  “Careful,” Mathew corrected. “Storm’s getting closer.”

  Her head shook. “Not that. I mean the black horse you’re riding.”

  Smiling, Mathew turned back. Groot was already across the Pecos, coming up toward the hoodlum wagon. “That’s not superstition, Tess. That’s fact. Everybody knows that a pale horse in a thunderstorm draws lightning. See you soon.”

  He kicked his horse and hurried the black across the Pecos again.

  * * *

  He had crossed rivers in bad weather, but never like this. The river churned as the cattle swam across, pushed hard by drovers cursing, trying to stay in their saddles while the wind roared, lightning flashed, and thunder boomed. Soon, the rain came, icy, cold, each drop feeling like rock salt fired from some jealous husband’s double-barreled shotgun. Afternoon, yet you could barely see, except when lightning lit up the sky.

  The key, Mathew understood, to any river crossing was to keep the cattle from milling. Longhorns were good on dry land, but in a river, they panicked. They herded close together, swinging their heads, slashing their horns. One tip would tear into a hide, the injured steer would scream and swing its own head. You had to break them up, just ride right into them, and get the dumb critters moving again. Otherwise, they might drown.

  Mathew positioned himself and the black near the quicksand. The long stick Laredo had plunged into the bottoms had been swept away. Rain and wind had pasted his clothes to his skin, and he felt freezing. Or maybe he felt like a damned fool, because he had asked Tess if she had a slicker, yet Mathew had not donned his. It remained strapped behind the cantle.

  But for a good reason.

  He remembered Harker Lockhart, a good-natured cowboy with a melodic voice. That had been in the Nations, back in ’70 on the trail to Abilene. They had been crossing the Cimarron during a storm, not as bad as this one, but the Cimarron was wider and deeper that year. Harker Lockhart’s horse had lost its footing, and Lockhart had kicked free of the stirrups. He had always bragged that he was the best swimmer in Texas—most cowhands would sink like a horseshoe—and maybe he was. But the water filled his tall stovepipe boots, and the slicker weighted him down.

  They had searched two days for his body, but never found it. Groot had fashioned a tombstone from a sideboard on the wagon.

  “Lightnin’! Stop ’em from millin’!”

  The shout snapped Mathew from his memories. He turned the black gelding, stood in the stirrups, and strained to see across the herd. A figure on a dun horse—Lightning. Mathew could recognize the horse. Although he had warned the boy about riding a light-colored horse in an electrical storm, Lightning had gone ahead and settled the dun anyway, saying, “What’s next, Pa? Hobgoblins and haints?”

  Another rider splashed through the churning water. Lightning brightened the sky, burning Mathew’s eyes. He had to squeeze them shut as thunder spoke. His horse did a little buck in the river, but Mathew kept his seat, pulled on the reins hard to the left, and the black settled down. When his eyes opened, and his vision adjusted again to the darkness, he found another figure had joined Lightning as they rode their horses into the river, now as black as death.

  The new rider wore a tan hat. Mathew could just make it out. He held his breath. Tom.

  Thirty yards of cattle separated Mathew from his sons, one by birth, one by, more or less, adoption. If something happened to one, or both, of those boys, he would be powerless to do anything about it. He felt like a liar. Hadn’t he assured Tess that he would look after those two?

  Rain poured off his hat brim. Another succession of lightning shot across the sky, allowing Mathew brief glimpses. Lightning rode his dun horse straight into the milling herd. Tom put his horse dangerously close to the thrashing longhorns, slapping his hat, leaning in the saddle. One slip and . . .

  Yet he didn’t slip. Another figure—No Sabe, Mathew thought—joined them. The lightning ceased. Mathew had to wait until he could make out the figures again in the darkness. They were moving away. The cattle had stopped milling, and they reached the shallow part of the Pecos.

  The boys had done their job. Which made Mathew realize that he wasn’t doing his. He pushed a speckled steer back into line, and let the black swim across the deep part of the river, making sure he stayed away from the quicksand. Again, the black found its footing, and they climbed out of the river. Mathew saw the line of soggy beef heading toward camp, heard the splashing, the bawling, the thunder, the curses of cowboys. A long line of cattle still needed to cross. On the other side of the herd, Lightning and Tom were swimming their horses back across to help move more longhorns to the eastern bank.

  He wiped the rain from his face and kicked his horse again into the river.

  It would be a long, wet, miserable night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  No one brought tents on a cattle drive. Where would you store a tent? In the chuck wagon? Hoodlum wagon? No, there just was no room for such a luxury. If it rained, you got wet.

  Tess Millay was wet.

  She had rolled out her soogans underneath the hoodlum wagon and now lay atop them on her stomach, head propped up in her hands, her elbows in the mud just off the bedroll. At least she was on higher ground. By the chuck wagon, men came inside the makeshift shelter Groot had put up so he could at least get a fire going. They loaded up on coffee and beans and then stepped back into the pouring rain. It wasn’t coming down as hard as it had been, but it remained steady, and cold. The lightning flashes had moved far off to the southwest, and the thunder sounded like an ancient rumble.

  A pair of boots stopped beside the wheel next to her, and the man wearing those boots squatted, and gloved hands put two coffee cups just out of the rain. The black liquid inside the blue-specked enamel steamed. The man swore softly and then dragged himself underneath the wagon with her. Mathew Garth did not attempt to get onto her soogans. As soaking wet and as muddy as he looked, he likely figured she would have raised hell with him had he tried. Actually, she would have welcomed him, and the heat his body might provide. He picked up one cup and handed it to Tess. The second, he took for himself, and sipped without even blowing on the steaming brew first.

  “Now you wish you were back home?” Mathew asked.

  Her head shook.

  They watched Lightning and Tom, last in the line, get their supper and walk, miserably, into the rain to find some semblance of shelter, somewhere they could eat and drink. Darkness swallo
wed them.

  “They did well,” Mathew said. “Both of them.”

  “I would not have expected otherwise.” Tess found the coffee, blew on the lip of the cup, but did not drink. She enjoyed the warmth in her hands too much to move. “Would you?”

  “It was no easy chore,” he said.

  “Did we lose any cattle?”

  He shrugged. “Too dark to do a head count. We’ll try that in the morning before we move off. But Laredo and Joe Nambel said that if we lost any, it would be probably no more than a few. And no men. No horses, either, according to Joey.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  He sniffed, drank. “It’s just one river, Tess.”

  Finally, she lifted the cup and let the warmth flow down her throat, into her stomach. Mathew always bragged about Groot Nadine’s coffee. She preferred Janeen’s but this was, well, hot.

  “Does this remind you of anything?” She turned to see him smile.

  “No stampede,” he said.

  “No. No stampede . . . this time.”

  “A hoodlum wagon instead of a Conestoga.”

  She felt warmer now, not just from the coffee. “And we were inside the back of the wagon.”

  “With a woman having a baby.”

  She remembered Mathew’s voice, screaming at them to get out of the wagon, which had split a wheel and lay crippled with five thousand frightened longhorns running all around it. And then her telling him that they couldn’t go anywhere, that he needed to get inside the wagon. He had climbed in over the tailgate.

  “Remember what you said when I told you Edna was about to have a baby?”

  His shaking head sent raindrops onto her face, but Tess did not mind. “It probably wasn’t very polite,” he said, and reached down to wipe away the water with the ends of his drenched bandanna. That didn’t help much.

  “You said something like ‘Sweet Jesus,’ or ‘Great God.’ And I said, ‘I pray that He is sweet, or that He . . .’ No. ‘Good God.’ That’s what you said. And I said, ‘I sure hope He’s good,’ or ‘He better be good.’” Another sip of coffee. “Sweet Edna.”