by Lauran Paine
Ben finished, anxious to hear Connelly’s response. On his right, Bass Templeton was still and impassive. On his left sat Case Hyle, cigarette smoke trailing upward to break out and around his hat brim, pale eyes thinned out, and both gloved hands lying crossed upon his saddle horn.
Charles Connelly eyed each of the three mounted Texans for a long while without saying anything. Behind him stood that crowd of unnaturally stiff and wary settlers, as quiet as night perching crows, and about as alike, too.
“I told your cowboy yesterday, Mister Albright,” stated Connelly in his bull-bass and rumbling voice, “that we don’t want any Texas herds driven through our settlement here. If we refuse to ferry wagons across and refuse to sell drovers supplies, I think in time you people will change your course and leave Lansing’s Ferry alone.”
Ben’s reply to this was very soft, very cold. “Why don’t you want drovers at your town, Mister Connelly? Is it because you don’t care for Texans?”
“It’s because,” replied the burly, bearded man, his face hardening against Albright, “we aim to plow this land and put in crops, Mister Albright. We can’t fence our land in because that would cost a lot of money. We have to spend our cash on seed and tools. If Texas herds pass this way, the cattle will just naturally trample over our grain and vegetables. It doesn’t matter how careful you drovers are, that will happen and we can’t afford for it to. That’s the reason we won’t have anything to do with trail herds.” Connelly paused. Again, he studied the grim faces of all three horsemen in front of him. Then, in a hard tone, he said: “The fact that you are Texans hasn’t a lot to do with it. I think we proved in the war that Texans are mortal. At least I think that, Mister Albright.”
Bass Templeton turned slowly white down around the mouth. His eyes had in their deepest depths fire points of quickening anger. “If you’d care to step out from the protection of your men, I’m sure you and I...,” he stopped. Then: “God damn you, Mister Connelly, I’ll....”
“Bass!” Ben’s voice cracked.
The townsmen began to firm up over where they stood. Charles Connelly had his dark, sulphur gaze fixed steadily upon Templeton.
Ben Albright knew they had entered a bad moment, so he addressed Connelly in a voice loud enough for all to hear: “All right. I can understand your problem. Hereafter, my herds will detour around Lansing’s Ferry. I think that is fair. In return, I ask that, this time, you cross my wagon and sell me provisions.” He stopped, aimed a hard gaze at Connelly, and waited.
There was a faint murmuring from the line of townsmen behind the mayor of Lansing’s Ferry. Charles Connelly twisted to gaze over at them. He came back around slowly and just as slowly shook his head. “We discussed this yesterday and last night, Mister Albright. It was the unanimous decision of our town council that regardless...we would ferry no drover wagons over the creek and we’d sell them no supplies.” Connelly let this lie between the two groups over an interval of silence, before he concluded with: “We had trouble here last fall. Some men were killed. We aim to avoid that kind of thing now. We will not have anything to do with drovers at all, and that’s final.”
Ben’s face turned smooth, turned iron-like. He continued to gaze upon the townsmen for a time, then he lifted his rein hand, spun his mount, and without a look at either Bass or Case, he went in a long lope back toward his creek-side camp.
The three of them got back to the wagon and stiffly dismounted. Bass Templeton and Ben Albright were white-faced angry. Case Hyle stood a little apart from them as Ruben and Atlanta came up, saw the look on Ben’s face, and halted.
“Mister Ben...,” ventured Ruben, shuffling his feet.
“Get the men,” Ben rasped to Templeton. “We’ll cut willows and raft the wagon across.” Then he turned back toward Ruben. “You cook without flour until we hit the border,” he stated flatly, then dropped the reins of his horse and quickly walked away.
Atlanta gazed over at Case Hyle. “They weren’t friendly?” she murmured.
“No, ma’am.”
Atlanta looked thoughtful. She moved sideways to look down over the land toward the village. Where a thin line of men stood down there, well south of the buildings, other men, and even a few women, drifted up to stare toward the converging riders of Albright’s camp.
“Case, they look as though they’re armed,” Atlanta said, and turned to gaze upward at Hyle. “Are they that hostile to us?”
“Yes’m. I guess they have their reasons. But all your uncle asked was the right to pass this one time. He said hereafter he’d detour.”
“They refused?”
Hyle nodded.
Ruben Adams limped forward to glare at those watching townsmen. His lips moved jerkily but none of his words were audible. Then, back at the wagon, Ben bawled out for the cook, and Ruben gave a little hop and scuttled obediently away.
The silence where Case Hyle and Atlanta Pierson stood steadily deepened. Taciturn Owen Wallace, the only Albright rider who never appeared to be easy in the company of the others, came loping along. He was a swarthy man with exceptionally high cheek bones and a sloe-eyed black stare. He was strictly a loner; a man who seldom spoke, stayed to himself, and was so thoroughly unobtrusive the others rarely knew when he was close by at all.
Now, he stopped and tipped his head at Atlanta, then said to Hyle in his terse way of speaking: “No dice, huh?”
“No dice,” repeated Case. “No crossing and no supplies.”
Owen flicked his reins and looked ahead where the others were busy with the wagon. “He goin’ to float it across?”
“Yes.”
Owen eased forward in the saddle. “I wouldn’t,” he said as his horse began to move. “I’d burn their town and let ’em eat the ashes.” Then Owen passed along.
Atlanta looked surprised at this. She watched Wallace’s progress without saying anything, but her face showed troubled thoughts.
Case Hyle moved around her, murmuring — “Excuse me,” — and went along to add his considerable strength to the work ahead.
Floating their chuck wagon across the Trinchera was not really a dangerous or difficult undertaking. But Texan tempers were short as the men cut logs, lashed them to the wagon, and prepared to ease it down into the water.
Ben said to Case, as the latter came up: “You and Bass get on horseback and guide it across.” He turned next to Will Johns and Ferdinand Haight. “You two strip down to your britches and swim with the damned thing. And Ruben?”
“Yes, sir, Mister Ben?”
“Get up in the wagon and make sure that whatever the water will spoil is piled high enough so that it won’t get ruined.”
Ruben turned his worried face, got up on the wagon, reminding his boss: “Mister Ben, I can’t swim...remember?”
Case and Bass Templeton rode down into the creek and waited until the tongue had been lashed to the foremost wagon bow so that it would not drop down, strike creek bottom, and upset the wagon. Then, as the others got the rig moving, both riders eased forward with it. At once the creek’s firm current made their animals brace hard.
Atlanta was watching from the shore. When Ferdinand Haight went into the creek, he gave a howl at its coldness. Atlanta smiled at this, but her uncle, who turned back at the last moment to run for his saddle animal, did not smile at all.
They got the wagon across and upon the far prairie without incident. The Trinchera’s banks, like the banks of every waterway of the Staked Plains, was little more than a sandy sloping of earth to water’s edge.
Ben called: “Atlanta, can you swim?”
“No, Uncle.”
“Then get your horse and ride out into that creek, girl. You’ll never learn any younger!”
Chapter Four
Owen Wallace stayed with the cattle. He rode quietly back and forth, preventing most of them from breaking away from the creek. The few cutbacks w
ho headed around him did not go far. Texas cattle are gregarious. They do not like being alone and those cutbacks ran only a short distance before halting to throw up their horned heads and look down toward the water, and then they sidled close to the herd again.
Ruben got down from the wagon on the creek’s far side and broadly smiled as Case Hyle dismounted to stamp water from his legs.
“I wasn’t scairt,” Ruben stated. “Not for myself anyway...just for the little flour we got left.”
Hyle looked over. “Sure not,” he said in a knowing way, and remounted.
Bass Templeton drifted over. He sat his horse stiffly watching Atlanta swim her mount across. He would have gone down to the girl but Ben Albright, upon the far shore, was sitting his saddle on a loose rein, watching Atlanta’s progress also. It was very clear that Ben would, at the first inkling of trouble, jump his mount into the Trinchera to help his niece.
Atlanta’s horse was a high-strung Kentucky animal. It lunged in powerful bounds and made the west bank, then stopped there to settle its legs and shake with great vigor. Atlanta was not nearly as wet as the men were. When she dismounted, she took off her boots and turned them upside down to rid them of any water. When she was done, she smiled over where Will Johns stood.
Roughly, Bass Templeton said aside to Case Hyle: “Come on...let’s get the cattle.” He then started riding back toward the water. As he passed Will and Ferdinand Haight, he said: “Hey, you boys, hang onto the tails of our horses and go back with us for your mounts.”
Ben Albright was still sitting his horse across the creek. South of him the herd was spread out for over a mile along the creek, content there in the willow shade with good grass and water available. Northward was the settlement. Its people were darkening the plain below their village watching all this. A few were on horseback. Some of these were youths, and occasionally they would ride ahead for a closer view. They were all armed, these younger men, and they rode with an obvious insolence that made Ben consider them from a bleak face.
Case Hyle came up out of the water near Ben and started to say something, then he saw Albright’s expression, locked down in wrathful hostility toward the settlement, and he swung his animal to ride south where the herd was. Behind him Ferdinand Haight and young Will Johns ran for their saddle animals while Bass Templeton drew up and halted at Ben’s side.
“Everything’s fine so far,” Bass said, and waited.
Ben turned away from those cavorting riders, put his smoldering gaze on across the creek, then southward where Case and Owen Wallace were sitting in conversation, awaiting help with the herd. Ben didn’t say a word; he simply swung his mount and headed for the cattle. Behind him came Ferdinand and Will, drenched but not particularly troubled for the morning’s sun was increasing its warmth each passing moment.
“Take the point,” said Ben to Bass Templeton. “When I wave my hat, ride on across.”
Bass spurred ahead. He had done this dozens of times.
Ben looked to see that his other riders had taken their spaced positions on the herd’s flanks. This was nothing new to any of them. They knew what to do and how it should be done. Ben sat on, running his smoky gaze up and down, then he flagged at Bass Templeton with his hat.
Bass rode slowly down into the water. This was a signal for the riders farther back to begin closing in on the rearmost critters. These, in turn, shouldered the animals ahead of them until this irresistible force built up solidly upon the reluctant cattle behind Bass.
These were the lead steers. They went down into the Trinchera until little more than their high standing horns and shoulders showed, and began to swim. Behind them the balance of the herd came on. For a while it was difficult to see water at all, only a sea of shiny dark red hides accompanied by the sound of the clicking of horns.
The riders whooped and flagged with their arms and upheld coiled lariats. They gave the hesitant beasts no leeway for thought and in this manner nearly all the animals were forced into the creek. A few cutbacks panicked and turned around, heading in the direction from which they had been driven. Because longhorns customarily closed their eyes when charging, the cowboys made no frontal runs on these animals, but let them slow their furious rush, raise their heads, and look around. Then they rode wide around them, came in from behind, and started the process of easing these balky critters back toward the creek and their companions.
Will Johns and Case Hyle went after four of these cutbacks, got out around them, and were closing in, keeping their full attention upon the steers, when out of the east riding hard, came four youthful settlers who raised the yell and struck that little bunch of cattle, scattering them in wild panic in four different directions. Hyle reined back hard at this unaccustomed chousing and looked swiftly to see who these riders were. Will, closer and therefore quicker to understand what had happened, let off an angry shout and jumped his horse straight into the path of one of those settlement men.
The settler’s mount struck Johns’s head-on. The impact of that collision was clearly audible over where Case was turning his horse to face the other three riders. Will and the settler went down, a great burst of dust jerked to life where the horses hit, and the other settlers hauled back in sliding stops to stare at that tangled scene of threshing animals and frantically moving men.
Case spun out in a run toward the dust cloud. Over the steady bawl of cattle, down by the creek, a man’s quick shout echoed. Will Johns was on his feet first. He had lost his hat, and his shirt was torn from hip to shoulder. He stood briefly without moving, then hurled himself with a ripped-out roar upon the rising settler, struck this other youth as the settler was coming upright, and knocked him back down to his knees. The settler, still stunned from the collision, hung there on all fours, shaking his head, dazed. Will caught him by the shoulder, hauled him upright, and felled him with a sledging blow.
Case Hyle left his horse on the fly twenty feet away. He sprinted to get between Will Johns, who was furious, and the settler, who was awkwardly rolling over, scrabbling at the ground with numbed fingers, trying instinctively to regain his feet. He could not do it. He listed off to one side and fell back, wallowing in dust and making grunting sounds deep in his chest.
“That’s enough!” shouted Hyle. “Will, get hold of yourself!”
Young Johns’s face was a deep red from the fall. His gaze was glassy with hot wrath. “They deliberately spooked those critters,” he rasped. “Case, didn’t you see how they run on them cattle deliberately, tryin’ to bust ’em like that?”
“I saw,” answered Case, twisting a little at the sound of oncoming riders. “Now you slack off, boy.”
The other three youths came up and halted to sit there, staring down at their groggy companion. One or two of them put their steady looks upon Will and Case. All the young settlers were armed. All looked furious.
Case said to them: “Don’t make it any worse, fellows.”
Onward from the creek came two loping horsemen. Sunlight flashed along a naked carbine barrel over the lap of one of the men. Case saw this and looked higher, at the face above that gun. These two were Ben Albright and dark Owen Wallace. Ben had the gun. His expression was like granite as he slowed to a walk and covered the last hundred feet in that gait.
Before Ben could speak, Case said to the settlers: “Get down and help your friend there. Then go on back where you belong, and the next time you feel like trying to run off someone’s cattle...don’t do it.”
Ben sat there glaring at the four teens from the settlement. A warning of danger was written on his face, in his terrible silence. His hand, which had remained curled about that Winchester saddle gun, was white with straining.
Will Johns went for his hat, struck dust from it, crushed it upon his head, and walked on to where his horse stood, to examine the animal for injuries. There were none, but the animal was shaking from head to tail with reaction to that powerful blow he
had sustained. Will turned him several times, watching for a limp or a favoring of a leg, then he stepped over the saddle and sat back there, watching those settlers move forward to help their badly beaten companion to his feet and lead him away.
Case Hyle stood aside for a time, then turned to look down toward Lansing’s Ferry. Men were beginning to gather into a group down there on horseback. For a time, Case watched this, then he moved to bring up the injured settler’s horse. He stood at the animal’s head while its owner was hoisted aboard. He waited before flinging the reins to another of the settlers. All this was accomplished in total silence.
Ben and Owen Wallace looked on, their expressions fierce and near to violence.
Case said to the settlers: “Go on now. And for their sake, I think you’d better turn back those men down there who look to be planning on riding out here.” He made a short motion with one hand, then went along to his own mount, got astride it, and shortened the reins. He turned to Wallace, saying: “Owen, help me round up those damned steers.” He did not acknowledge or speak to Ben at all. When he reined away, swarthy Owen Wallace rode with him.
The settlers walked their animals back toward Lansing’s Ferry, holding in close to their dazed companion. Ahead of them, coming on at a stiff jog, were nearly two dozen other riders. Among these men rode Charles Connelly, the mayor, his bearded countenance and flapping blanket coat making identification easy.
Ben Albright sat on, watching this cavalcade swirl up around those other four riders. Behind him, from the creekbank, Bass Templeton and Ferdinand Haight came trotting forward and farther back. Across the creek, Ruben Adams ran up and down near where Atlanta sat her horse, patently perturbed by all this, but, because he had no saddled horse, unable to get back over the creek.