Johnny took off his chaps. They were leather and could be hot to wear, especially if you were on foot. With the chaps out of the way, he loosened his gunbelt so his holster was now once again riding low at his right side, and he tied it down.
Ches reached into the chuck wagon and pulled out a black slicker and tossed it to Johnny. “There’s a feel of rain on the air. This will keep your powder dry.”
Johnny rolled up the slicker and tucked it under one arm. He said, “I plan to be back no later than sunset.”
Dusty watched his father start off across the blackened plain.
He said to Ches, “At least it’s cloudy. If he had to walk in the hot sun, he’d dry out even faster.”
“Tell you what,” Ches said. “Help me get the water barrel down and we’ll take the lid off. Try to catch any rainwater we can.”
Johnny walked along. He headed east, because that was the direction in which the herd had been running.
After a half mile or so, a rain drop fell, followed by another. He unrolled the slicker and pulled it on over his shoulders. A few more drops came down, one splattering against the top of his head, another landing on his shoulder. Then it started driving down fast and hard, like God had lifted a flood gate. It flattened down his hair and if it hadn’t been for the slicker, his shirt would have been soaked as though he had jumped in a lake. But at least the rain stopped the little wisps of smoke that had been drifting from the charred grass, and it cleared the air. Washed away the scent of smoke that was so deeply imbedded in Johnny’s nose that he thought he would never be free of it, and brought the clean smell of water that a good rain brings.
Then the rain lightened up and within moments was gone. The clouds overhead were heavy and dark and he could see what looked like a patch of haze drifting from one distant cloud to the earth, and he knew it was raining over there. But where Johnny was, at least for the moment, the rain had stopped.
Johnny opened his slicker and let it fall open behind him like a cape. The wind caught it and flapped like a bedsheet on a clothes line.
He saw a blackened lump on the ground ahead of him and figured he had found the first casualty. It was a horse, and as he got closer, he realized it was his horse. He could tell by the odd angle at which one of the front legs was twisted. The leg had been fully broken when the horse stepped into a hole. He found the hole a few yards away, partially filled with soot and ash. The fur on the horse was charred black, but he didn’t think the fire had killed it. Probably the smoke. He checked the saddle and found it was burned beyond use.
He walked on. The land was barren, like a blackened desert. He uncorked the canteen and took a pull from it.
He hadn’t walked far beyond the horse when he saw an object bouncing along in the wind. He chased it down and found it was his hat. It was the color of soot, but had somehow managed not to be consumed by the fire. He was able to brush off some of the soot, and then pulled it down over his head.
He walked on for an hour more, and then the sun broke through the clouds. He took another drink from the canteen.
The blackened land rose to a small ridge up ahead, and he saw a rider atop it. The slicker had fallen over his right arm, so he flicked it back so he could have access to his revolver. But the rider saw him and started down the ridge toward him, and he recognized him by the set of his shoulders and the way he rode with the horse. Every rider has a way of riding that’s as distinctive as the way he walks. This rider’s hat was gone and his shirt has stained with soot, but Johnny knew it was his brother Matt.
Matt reined up. “Johnny.” He said with relief.
Johnny nodded and said, “Matt,” the same way.
He stepped out of the saddle to give his horse a rest. His canteen was empty so Johnny handed him his.
Matt’s face was streaked with blackness, like Johnny had seen with coal miners. Matt’s mustache was normally almost white, but was now as black as Falcone’s.
“The fire gave the beeves reason to keep running longer than they normally would have,” Matt said. “Some ran themselves out. I came across about fifteen carcasses on my way back here. There’s a dry crick bed about fifteen miles east of here, and that’s where the fire ended. Most of the herd got that far, and they spread out. I saw a couple head roaming about looking for grass.”
“You see any riders?”
He nodded. “I saw Josh and Coyote. They were heading south thinking they might find some water, and were trying to round up some of the stock. The grass is good beyond that crick bed, so Josh was thinking they might do a gather there.”
Johnny said, “I’m gonna continue on. Maybe you should ride on back to the chuck wagon. It’s about three miles behind me.”
“On foot?”
Johnny nodded. “That horse of yours is about done in. Take your time on the way to the wagon. I plan to be back there by nightfall. Maybe I can find some of the others.”
Matt headed out, on foot and leading his horse. Johnny continued on.
He knew he wouldn’t make the dry creek bed and then all the way back to the chuck wagon by nightfall. He was out here mainly to get a feel for the situation. How many beeves had died in the fire. Maybe see if he could find any more of the men.
Since Matt had come directly from the east, Johnny thought he would turn northwest. See what he could find.
He put another mile behind him when he saw a riderless horse. It was a roan and a saddle was still strapped to its back.
Johnny started toward it, and the horse gave him a look like it was ready to run in the other direction. Johnny was sure it was probably frightened. Johnny began talking gently, “Here, boy. Come on. It’s all right. Nothing to be scared of.”
The horse stood and looked at him, his mane waving in the breeze. Johnny walked up to him, holding out his hand and then rubbed the horse’s nose. He saw the Circle T brand on the rump.
“Easy, boy,” Johnny said.
He loosened the cinch so the horse could breathe a little easier, but kept hold of the rein as he did so. The horse was bound to be a little skittish, having survived a fire and a stampede all at the same time.
There was nothing for grazing. The grass had been burned clear to the roots. But Johnny thought the animal looked strong enough for riding.
He tightened the cinch and then stepped into the saddle. “Come on, boy,” he said. “Let’s see what we can find.”
The sun had dropped behind the horizon when Johnny made it back to the wagon. Matt was there, and his horse was grazing on some grass behind the firebreak. Johnny pulled the saddle from the roan and Ches filled a pan of water from the barrel and let the horse drink.
The following day, Johnny and Dusty rode out to meet up with Josh and the others. Beyond the dry creek bed, they found about thirty head of cattle grazing. Josh was there, and he greeted his father and brother with hearty handshakes.
He said, “I was afraid you were both dead.”
“Could easily have been,” Johnny said.
Josh looked over at the thirty steers and said, “That’s all we’ve found so far. Coyote’s scouting ahead. Searcy’s dead, we found his body.”
Johnny said, “I’d like to find the team for the chuck wagon, so we can bring the wagon over to this side of the creek.”
Turned out Josh had seen them. The two horses were sticking together, probably because they were used to each other’s company. He had brought them in, and also rounded up four horses that belonged to the remuda, so Johnny changed saddles with one of them and brought the team back to the chuck wagon. The following day, Ches was setting up shop on the green side of the creek bed.
Zack and Joe both came in on foot. Joe was a little shaken up from a fall he had taken, but he seemed all right. More horses were being located, so they were able to mount up and help rounding up the herd. One horse had a saddle strapped to it, and Ches had a spare saddle in the chuck wagon for the other.
Johnny found Taggart and Patterson. Both were afoot. Patterson’s foo
t had been caught in the stirrup and the horse ran a few steps before Patterson’s foot came free. It had been enough to twist the ankle badly. When Johnny found them, Taggart had his arm around Patterson’s back and was helping him limp along. Ches thought the ankle might be broken. He took a spare axe handle from the wagon and improvised a crude splint.
That evening, Palmer came riding into camp. He had seen Ches’s campfire from a distance. The following morning, Johnny found the remains of Moffit a few miles to the north.
On the fourth day after the stampede, Ches took the chuckwagon to the remains of the Bingum ranch and raided it for what he could find. Johnny didn’t like the idea of stealing and neither did Ches, but these were desperate times. Johnny sent Kennedy and Taggart with Ches. Kennedy was a good cowhand and a capable drover, and the man carried himself like one who had been in a few gun battles. Possibly military, or maybe even a gunfighter. It wasn’t the way of the West to pry into a man’s background, and Kennedy was a good hand and struck Johnny as honest. And Taggart wore his gun like he knew how to use it, and Joe said Taggart was a good man to have with you in a fight. Johnny figured the two of them could stand guard while Ches had a look about the remains of the Bingum ranch.
Turned out the firewood hadn’t all burned. At the bottom of the ashen remains, Ches found enough good wood to account for almost half a cord, and loaded it into the possum belly.
With about half of the remuda recovered, the men were able to start gathering the herd, but it was slow going. They had roamed far and spread out over miles. Twelve head were found in a creek bed that looked like it probably ran a couple feet deep at the height of spring runoff but was now little more than a trickle. Occasionally a steer was found in bushes and had to be driven out. Scattered head were found in the open, grazing contentedly.
Johnny saw Old Blue standing among a small grouping of eighteen head. Blue saw Johnny and came walking toward him.
Johnny said to him, “Glad you made it old friend.”
They were hindered a bit by more rain on the sixth day, but Ches took advantage of it to fill the water barrel.
At the end of the seventh day, with the sky mostly clear and a couple of clouds hanging overhead and glowing red from the sunset, Josh was having a cup of coffee when Johnny came riding in.
Josh said, “We’re losing too much time. It’s been six days and we only have eight hundred head rounded up. That’s way less than half the herd. The buyers are expecting us the second week of July. They know to wait a while because you can’t predict exactly when a herd will arrive, but how long will they wait?”
Johnny understood the buyers had come out by train from Chicago. In the days of the big herds coming up from Texas, buyers tended to be on hand at the railheads. But those days were largely gone.
Josh said, “If we show up with what we have, it won’t be enough to cover the ranch’s bills. But if we stay here and keep the roundup going, we might miss the buyers altogether.”
Zack was there and had wandered over. Johnny looked at him and then at Josh. Johnny said, “There’s no telegraph station between here and Cheyenne. But maybe we could send a rider down to Cheyenne and have him leave a letter for the buyers for when they get there.”
Josh nodded. “I’ll write up a letter and we can send someone down tomorrow.”
Zack volunteered to go. He said, “If I make good time, I should be there in maybe five days. Maybe six.”
“I think maybe we should send Joe,” Johnny said. “We need you and Josh both here for leadership. I’ve got some business to attend to, and I might be gone a few days.”
Josh said, “Huh?”
But Zack had ridden with Johnny enough to have an idea as to what Johnny meant.
Zack said, “You’re gonna go hunting for those men who started that fire, and killed Bingum and his men.”
Johnny nodded. “I’m riding out in the morning.”
Josh didn’t like this idea at all. He said, “Pa, you can’t go off and do this alone.”
“Sometimes one man can get a job done where a group can’t.”
Zack said, “I hate to admit it, but your Pa is right. Besides, we can’t spare too many men from the gather.”
Johnny said, “I’ll be riding out before sun-up. In case this camp is being watched, I want to be on my way while it’s still dark.”
Before first light, Johnny was rolling up his soogan and dropping it into the chuck wagon. He grabbed his Sharps and dropped a box of ammunition into his saddle bags. He filled a canteen and then saddled a bay gelding.
Zack was awake and stood by the chuck wagon as Johnny started off into the darkness. Johnny was walking, leading his horse. He would do this until the sky began to lighten enough for him to feel it was safe to ride.
Josh and Dusty came up behind Zack.
Zack said to them, “If he finds them, then God help them.”
28
Johnny headed south. He was a mile from camp by the time the sun began to peek over the horizon. It was now light enough to ride safely, so he swung into the saddle.
He now regretted leaving Thunder back at the ranch. For the job he was now doing, there was no better horse than Thunder. But the mustang he was riding would have to suffice.
He two more miles, then dismounted and loosened the cinch so the horse could breathe easier, and left the rein trailing. The horse was in a low area between a low rise and a small hump of grassy earth. Johnny held his Sharps ready, and he climbed the hump.
At the summit, he looked about. He was watching not for any riders specifically because the human eye doesn’t pick up detail as well as you might think. He was watching for any sign of motion. While he did this, he stood still so that he himself wasn’t creating any motion that anyone out there might detect.
When he was a young man with the Texas Rangers, one of the senior Rangers had told him oftentimes the best way to anticipate what your enemy might be doing is to figure what you would do in their place. Johnny had done some of this figuring the night before while he was wrapped in his blankets. In their place, he would have gotten away from the fire-damaged range because his horse wouldn’t have been able to graze. Since the wind was currently from the northwest, he would have headed to the south or east. From one of these directions he would be able to approach the camp without being concerned about one of the horses in the remuda catching his scent. A horse is as good as a watch dog.
When he felt the horse was rested enough, he climbed down from hump of earth and tightened the cinch and swung back in the saddle. Time to cut for sign.
He rode in a rough perimeter, maintaining a distance of three miles from camp. As he rode, he saw two steers roaming about. He let them be. He was not out here to round up strays. He was on a manhunt.
The sun was three hours in the sky when he found the trail of a shod horse. The trail seemed to meander about. It could have been made by one of their own drovers the day before, but he decided to follow it for a bit.
The trail led him further away from camp. After a time, he saw the tracks of a steer. The rider had found a stray but was leading it away from camp. Johnny figured the rider wasn’t one of theirs.
He followed along. The rider seemed to find another steer, and was leading both of them.
Johnny followed them for another mile. Then he heard what sounded like a rifle shot. It was muffled, but sometimes sound can be like that when the wind is blowing against it. It came from somewhere further ahead, so he continued along.
He decided not to follow the rider’s tracks directly, but to swing wide. Just in case the rider was watching his back trail.
He came to a basin that was similar to the one where the Bingum ranch headquarters had been built, but it was not quite as wide or deep. There was also no grass. It was gravelly and there were sections of flat rock.
He saw carcasses of steers lying in the basin. Maybe thirty head. He saw no riders, so he rode down in and dismounted by a steer.
There was a bulle
t hole, right behind the ear. Someone had shot the animal. The wound was fresh, within the past hour, so he figured the shot he had heard was this one. Which meant the rider was nearby.
The brand on the steer was the Circle M.
Strange, he thought. Someone was rounding up strays and leading them in here, and then shooting them. He couldn’t imagine what the reason could be.
The wall at one end of the basin was sharp and broken and there were small alders growing. Johnny mounted up and rode on over. It looked almost like God had carved a notch in the wall, and small thin alders were growing.
Johnny dismounted and walked in. At the edge of a rocky section of wall was a pool of water maybe five feet across. He cupped his hands and brought some of it to his mouth. It was cool and clear, with that almost sweet taste of fresh water from a spring.
This wasn’t just a reservoir of rain water from the previous day’s storm. This was fresh water running from a small break in the rock wall.
Just beyond the notch were the remains of a campfire. Looked like whoever was shooting cattle had camped here the night before. Johnny and Josh hadn’t found this place when they scouted the trail earlier because it was more than fifteen miles east of the route they had planned for the trail drive.
The ground around the remains of the campfire was covered with tracks, but Johnny saw they all seemed to belong to only two pair of boots. This meant the rider had a partner.
Johnny was not a gambling man, but it was a safe bet these were the same men who had killed Bingum and his men, and who had started the grass fire.
They would be back. Only a fool would abandon a source of fresh water, and this basin was a good place to use as a sort of natural corral.
Johnny let the horse drink a little, then loosened the cinch and let the horse graze. Some grass grew in among the alders, and the horse would be hidden from view until a rider was fully at the floor of the basin.
Johnny found a chunk of rock just inside the tree line. Looked like bedrock. He sat on it, his rifle across his lap, and waited.
Trail Drive (The McCabes Book 5) Page 13