The general store was a new experience for the solicitors, and they reveled in the nearly unlimited items for sale, knowing full well that they didn’t have the foggiest notion what the majority of them were designed for or how they would be used once their reasons for existence were explained. What struck them as most peculiar was the way the shelves were stocked - boots only inches away from canned peaches, and shovels next to crackers, and revolvers alongside bolts of cloth.
Each of them, including Paul, bought boots, woolen pants, shirts, leather jackets, and the popular wide-brimmed high-crown cowboy hat. It was a most exciting occasion, so unusual that a full dozen of the idlers from the streets and saloons gathered in the store to observe the harassed owner try to fit the solicitors, for with the exception of the cowboy hats, everything else was too big or too small or not made especially for apes. In desperation the owner sent down the street for a woman who was reputed to be an excellent seamstress. She took the trousers which fitted Mr. Blatherbell’s ample girth, and cut off twenty inches from the legs so he would not trip over them, then added these twenty inches to the boy’s size pants which fitted Mr. Poopcndal’s waist perfectly but only just covered his knees. Actually, Mr. Snoddergas turned out to be the easiest of the three to equip. The owner just pulled out piece after piece of goods until he found the squarest pants and the squarest shirt and the squarest jacket, and once these were made squarer by the seamstress, he had an almost acceptable wardrobe.
Everything fitted Paul to a tee. Once he was dressed, he selected a pair of leather chaps, long-shanked roweled spurs, then looked over an assortment of revolvers.
“Are these the smallest bore you have?” he asked incredulously, looking at the 44 and 45 calibered weapons.
“Wouldn’t do much good getting smaller bores,” said the owner. “Wouldn’t get cartridges - unless you loaded your own. They’re only good for shooting coyotes, anyhow.”
Paul selected a 44 caliber revolver, holster and belt, and stocked up with a box of cartridges. He saw a lever-feed rifle longer than the one loaned to him by Ned and bought that also, adding two boxes of shells and a strap to be made into a sling. A long knife took his fancy, its balance delighting him as he drew the twelve-inch blade from its sheath and felt the razor-edge of the finely-tempered steel and the solidity of the hilt.
“That’s a Bowie,” explained the owner. At the blank look on Paul’s face, he added, “Named after a knife fighter. Died at the Alamo nigh forty-five years ago.” He took another look at Paul’s face. “That’s a fort down in Texas. Had a big fight there with the Mexicans. Killed everybody. Real good knife. Butchers beef, chops wood - does just about everything.”
Paul didn’t have to be persuaded. When they were fully equipped, they carried their English clothes to their rooms, then went to the livery stable where they had left the wagon and horses, Paul rented a saddle horse for himself„ and with Mr. Snoddergas driving the wagon, perilously at first, but with increasing competence once they left the town limits, and with Paul riding to one side they covered the ten miles to the ranch boundary in an hour and a half and the additional five miles to the bunkhouse in another hour.
Paul had to explain the weals on his face to Ned before they sat down to a lunch of steaks and beans prepared by Li Chang, whose biscuits proved he was not the worst cook in the world. After eating, Paul and Ned mounted up to tour the ranch. Ned’s horse was a small one, but even so he had a struggle to climb into the saddle. He had developed a way of sitting back to accommodate his deformity, and he seemed comfortable enough as they rode through the fetlock-high grass, around deep ravines and by many more of those startling pylon-like stone outcrops. Paul could not help noticing the richness of the soil, fed by a number of streams that literally criss-crossed the range. When the land became so undulating that observation in all directions was difficult, Paul stopped his horse, drew out the rifle from its scabbard under his right leg, and attached the strap he had bought at the general store, slipping it over his head and across his chest to hold the weapon on his back.
“Why are you doing that?” asked Ned. “It’s not comfortable. Let the horse carry it.”
“A habit I’m used to. It’s a custom of the people I once rode with - to keep their weapons with them all the time in case they were separated from their horses.”
Ned looked closer at Paul. “You must have been around a bit handling yourself like you did with the Birman boys and now that idea with your rifle. And you sit that horse like you know what to do with it.”
Paul chuckled and let his feet dangle out of the stirrups. “I’ve wandered a bit,” he admitted.
Later in the afternoon,. Ned motioned ahead with his thumb. “That’s the end of your range - on the other side of that stream. Wes Laughton’s Circle L starts there.”
“How far to his ranch house?”
“Three miles. Come on, I’d like to have you meet him.”
Kicking their horses into a canter, they were at the main house in twenty minutes. Slipping his rifle into its scabbard, Paul looked about, and it took only one glance to know that Wes Laughton was a wealthy rancher. His home was a stylish, clapboard-covered house, painted a dazzling white, with a wide verandah running completely around it. Off to one side were three neat cottages and a long bunkhouse, also freshly painted white. Sturdy stables, barns and outbuildings formed a square with the house. A large corral held more than fifty splendid-looking, well-groomed horses. Half a dozen cowboys were working near the barns, two changing a wheel on a buggy, three currying their mounts, and the sixth repairing some harness. They stopped work to wave a greeting to Ned and to inspect the newcomer.
As they rode up to the porch, the door opened and a large, red-faced man came out, chewing an unlit cigar to a pulp, wrinkles of good humor about his eyes and lips. He seemed about fifty years old.
“Howdy, Ned,” he boomed. “Set down and rest a spell.”
Ned and Paul dismounted, tied the reins of their horses to a hitching post, and climbed the steps. Ned shook hands with the large man. “This here’s Paul Sanderson, the owner of the Three Barbs.”
Paul felt his hand gripped in a firm clasp. “Glad you could visit so soon. Come on in, it’s a bit nippy out here.” He opened the door for them to enter. Inside was a large living room containing silk-covered chairs and couches, polished mahogany tables, ceiling to floor velvet drapes at the windows, and a wide fireplace holding logs crackling merrily away, which made the room comfortably warm and gave off the pleasant scent of pine wood.
Paul was more than surprised. “You have a beautiful home, Mr. Laughton.”
“Wes - that’s my name.” He looked about the room. “It is mighty fine. My Pa came from Virginie with most of the heavy things, like those tables, and my wife brought the rest when she moved here from South Carolina.” He turned as a small, chipper woman with a few flecks of grey in her brown hair came into the room. “Bess,” he said. “This gentleman is Paul Sanderson, the new owner of the Three Barbs.”
She raised her hand to shake his, but Paul bowed over it in European fashion.
“Why, I do declare, Mr. Sanderson,” said Mrs. Laughton, chuckling. “You are the nicest person I’ve seen in the longest time.” She turned to Ned and shook his hand. “And you’re looking a sight better, Ned. Do you think Li Chang would mind if I stuffed you with a bit of fresh-made apple pie?”
“I’d shoot him if he did, Bess,” said Ned smiling.
“Well, set yourself down,” she said, indicating the chairs. “Wes, pass around a nip to warm them up while I get the coffee boiling.” While Wes took out a bottle of whisky and glasses from a cupboard, she spread a snowy-white linen cloth over a table.
Paul had just seated himself when a girl walked in. Rising to his feet, his first thought was: by all the fates, two utterly beautiful women in two days in the wilderness of this incredible country. And she was beautiful. But while Tina was a flame, this one radiated serenity. Tina’s eyes were a sabre’s edge, this o
ne’s eyes were a smiling brown caress. She was of medium height, delightfully rounded at shoulders and hips with an almost figure-eight waist, fine arms and legs; not long or short, just perfectly proportioned to the rest of her body.
She was a woman of the sun, that was obvious, from the bleaching of her brown hair rolled into a bun at the nape of her neck to the smooth golden complexion of her face. Her forehead was high, with the faintest of lines above her brows, as if she was anticipating something of great wonder just beyond her sight. Her lips had the same good-natured curl he saw on Wes, and her chin was the rounded type that your hand itched to hold as you kissed the slightly sunburned tip of her nose.
She was dressed in a plain cotton blouse, brown whipcord jodhpurs, and low-cut boots.
It was unmistakably clear that she was the apple of Wes and Bess Laughton’s eyes. “Nora,” said Wes. “This is Paul Sanderson. He’s the new owner of the Three Barbs. Mr. Sanderson, this is my daughter, Nora.”
He adored her hand in his as they shook hands. She had a good, sensible, no-nonsense kind of hand that seemed to fit in exactly with the warm humor in her eyes and in the curve of her lips.
“Hello, Mr. Sanderson. Welcome to the wild west. I should tell you at once that the Laughtons are putting on a marvelous act, pretending you are merely a passerby. Not only were we leaping up and down at the prospect of meeting royalty, but Dad has had three or four of his hands reporting on your approach ever since you came on Circle L land. And if you think Mother bakes apple pies in the afternoon, well, she would be changing a custom of a lifetime.”
“Nora!” said Bess in pretended indignation. “Why, whatever will Mr. Sanderson think?”
Wes was laughing, tears in his eyes. “Guess she has us there, Bess, and I’m not about to say Nora exaggerates. Sit down, sit down,” he said to Paul and Ned.
While Bess and Nora went to fetch the pie and coffee from the kitchen, Wes poured glasses of whiskey and passed them around. “Luck!” said Wes, downing his neatly. Ned saluted and also downed his quickly. Paul copied them, and an instant later was unable to breathe. “Mountain dew,” explained Wes, when Paul had regained control of himself. “I have it brought especially from Kentucky.”
Nora came in carrying a tray of thick slices of steaming apple pie, and arranged the plates on the table. Directly behind her came Bess, bearing a gleaming silver pot of coffee which she poured into fine china cups., Soon they were seated around the table and digging in.
“Um. .m,” said Paul, at his first taste of the pie. “This is delicious.”
“We have a small apple orchard about a five minute ride away,” said Wes. “Makes the best deer hunting grounds in the Territory.” He shoveled a large piece of the pie into his mouth, then studied Paul. “What would you like to do with the Three Barbs?” he asked. There was a new expression in Wes’ eyes all of a sudden, as if the curtain of joviality had been pulled aside and the man revealed, a shrewd, intelligent, perceptive man of business.
“I’m still trying to make up my mind,” said Paul. “I know so little about raising cattle. How much does one get for a cow?”
“Denver’s paying thirty-one, thirty-one fifty now. Come December, it will go to thirty-three, maybe thirty-four. By February, the price will go to forty.”
“Why the sharp changes?”
“Demand. Right now the buyers are getting all they want from drives up from Mexico and down from Wyoming and Montana Territories. Come December and the snows, ain’t nobody going to take on a long drive, so the price of beef goes up. The more it snows, the less beef can be got to the railhead, and that means higher prices.”
“When do you sell?”
He was instantly aware that he had asked a question of such importance to Wes and Bess Laughton that they could barely wait to answer. They did everything to pretend otherwise, but it was almost a rehearsed action, such as Bess gently putting down her fork and sitting up straighter in her chair with her hands folded in her lap, and Wes leaning back into his seat and scanning his mind to make certain that not one of the words he had memorized so thoroughly had faded by accident, and the nearly imperceptible groan from Nora at having to hear this again after a thousand times or more.
“Well,” said Wes, “we used to sell during November and December. I don’t know whether you’ve studied a map of this area, but we’re about a hundred and seventy-five miles south of Denver. With small herds of less than five hundred head, a good trail boss can make ten or eleven miles a day. But come rain and mud and swollen rivers, it takes every bit of experience to get four, five miles a day. The worst is snow, cause there’s no grazing for the cows along the trail. So I’d time myself to get my herd there at the very last minute.
“But there was always so much snow in December that it was taking a gamble to start off after the end of November.
“Nora, though, came up with an idea when she was only sixteen years old - five years ago. My land goes north for forty-five miles, so if I gather the herd at the northern line, I have only one hundred and thirty miles to go. With good weather and a little grazing I can get a herd through in less than three weeks. But let it snow and I’m in trouble. Back in seventy-two, I went up with four hundred head the first week in December. A month later I was back with what was left of the steers - less than a hundred. We didn’t get past forty miles from my line. It’s not the cold so much that gets them, but lack of food. A cow can dig down a few inches and get enough grass to stay alive, but when the snow is a foot or two deep, you can move them along but they can’t get to their own fodder.
“Anyhow, I own a strip of land that goes up another twenty miles. It’s not land I would go over during the drive, cause it’s too far to the west and runs into the mountains, but it’s only fifteen miles from where I pass and it has real fine soil. Nora suggested that we lease it out to some farmers and guarantee to buy their entire crop of hay if they’d store it at a point twenty-five miles further north. It would be easy for them to do so, as they would harvest in the fall and have it stored before the first snow came.” Wes looked proud enough to burst the buttons on his shirt. “I gave it a try and it worked wonders. The ribs were sticking out a little on the first steers we pushed through, but we lost only a handful. Then Nora recommended that we stock another supply further north, and the next year the herd reached Denver in right fine condition. So, now I sell in February and March, and you should see those buyers’ faces light up when my herd comes to the railhead.”
Paul was enthralled with the story, and he asked question after question of Wes and Nora and Ned, trying to absorb everything about breeding and raising cattle, growing crops for fodder, the preparation and requirements for a drive, the nature of the market for meat in the west. Time passed so quickly that they had to cut their visit short if Paul and the solicitors expected to make Rijos that night.
“One question before I go,” asked Paul. “Why do you not ship your cattle to the railroad south of here - the line which goes to Santa Fe?”
Wes nodded his head. “A good question. That line gets all kinds of beef, so the price is low. But Denver feeds not only the east but also the north and west, where the Santa Fe line doesn’t reach, so the price is much higher. It’s worth the drive up, you can be sure of that.”
It was with reluctance that Paul took his leave, especially after listening to Nora’s witty and intelligent comments on the subject she knew almost as well as Wes and Ned, and he was unable to put out of his mind the charm of her enthusiasm and her utter femininity as she leaned closer to explain a point.
“A wonderful family,” he said to Ned as they cantered through the gathering dusk, the rifle again slung across his back.
“Could be the best friends you have,” said Ned. He couldn’t have made a better prophecy.
CHAPTER VIII
“That’s the Rio Grande,” said Ned, pointing to a narrow- ribbon of water at the end of a sandy beach.
“Can we cross here?” asked Paul.
“
No trouble at all.” He motioned up the wagon which was halted a hundred yards behind them. Mr. Snoddergas flicked the whip at the rump of his off-side horse and the sturdy vehicle trundled up to them through bushes and small jackpines, leading along the two extra horses tied to its tailgate.
What a change Paul and Mr. Snoddergas presented from their arrival in Rijos just over three weeks ago. Their faces were weathered by the desert sun and late autumn winds, both were trimmed lean by the harshness of almost two weeks on the trail, even their cowboy clothes seemed as natural as their well-cut English clothes had once been.
Paul thought back over the past three weeks. Directly after his ride to Wes Laughton’s house, he had made the decision to restock his ranch. Making the decision was the easiest part of the whole affair. From that point on, surprisingly, Mr. Poopendal bad just about taken over. His sudden emergence as the chief organizer occurred while Paul, Ned, Mr. Blatherbell and Mr. Snoddergas were in the midst of listing down the essentials they must obtain to rebuild the ranch; cattle, housing, personnel, fencing, tactics to safeguard the herd - and out of mid-air, Mr. Poopendal interrupted to explain that the most immediate need was to hire some men to cut the grass.
The shock of Mr. Poopendal’s active participation kept them silent while he outlined the whys, wheres and whens in such detail that the only deviation later decided upon was the time Paul should depart to purchase cattle. Mr. Poopendal said to leave within forty-eight hours, but they were unable to do all the things necessary in less than fifty hours.
“The first thing we must do is to reap hay and to find covered storage areas for it. The walls of the house are still standing. We can store the fodder there and cover it with canvas. Your Grace,” he said to Paul, “we have only three weeks or so to harvest this grass, and with ten men working their utmost, we can gather only enough food for eight hundred cattle for the four months they will be snowed in. Mr. Fenton has stated there are one hundred of the beasts wandering about loose, so I see no need to purchase more than seven hundred cattle at this time.”
The Cossack Cowboy Page 11