Cattlemen

by Mari Sandoz

  There were many other ranch managers and foremen along, and several Association detectives and inspectors and occasional deputy U.S. marshals, including Canton, Elliott, Smith, and Morrison with Tom Horn hiding out but to join them somewhere when ambush was possible, the only way Horn liked to operate. Phil DuFran was coming in later with a report on the situation at Buffalo, and Mike Shonsey, Baxter's foreman up at the Western Union Beef, was out spying on Champion.

  The train started from the Cheyenne yards under the command of the short, strutting Major Wolcott, as was planned with Clay, eight, nine months ago in the alfalfa patch and now put into action, even against the wishes of some of the Association members. Second in command was Billy Irvine, of the Board of Live Stock Commissioners and manager of the Ogallala Cattle Company, tied in with Clay's Swan empire. With Billy was his bodyguard, "Quick-Shot" Davis, never far from his side. The lieutenants selected for Wolcott were Canton and Fred Hesse, back in Wyoming, too, and now doubly anxious to help clear his range up north of settlers and to punish those who drove him out after the killing of Jones and Tisdale last November.

  Afterward it was said there were fifteen members of the Association on the trail, representing most of the big outfits in Johnson County and around its fringes. Their total property was said to be 4,657 horses, $500,000 worth of improvements, and only 86,000 acres of range for their 116,905 head of cattle—little more than enough for holding pastures at roundup and shipping time. In addition, however, they claimed an empire larger than the state of Connecticut from the public domain, and it was this free grass they wanted to retain for their cows. To accomplish this they had the three wagons on the flat car behind them, with bedding and other supplies that Wolcott borrowed at Fort D. A. Russell and ammunition and dynamite enough for a fine little war. And in Frank Canton's valise was the long list of names made up during the last year, the list of Johnson County men called rustlers, ranging from Sheriff Red Angus, the new mayor, the commissioners, and other officials and businessmen down to Nate Champion and some that perhaps really were rustlers —a Dead List of seventy men.

  Gunbelts slung over shoulders, their boot heels loud on the frozen cinders, the Invaders left the special train out at the Casper yards and looked around for the force of cowboys that some still hoped would meet them there. The Texans had been promised a large local force, with around 100 men to join at Casper from the Sheridan region, 75 from over at Newcastle, 50 from Douglas, and perhaps up to 100 from the Big Horns and beyond. But as down at Cheyenne, not a cowboy appeared. So far not one from all of Wyoming had joined up, and the Texans grumbled, some cursed, but all stayed for the pay.

  The men to drive the wagons and cook for the expedition were waiting and the guides, three stock detectives, showed up, and H. W. Davis, called Hard Winter, some said to distinguish him from Quick Shot and a dozen other Davises on the range. Hard Winter's nature was belied by his neat Delawarian speech and neat little mustache and eyeglasses, fitting his Spectacle Ranch up north. He was president of the Association back in better days and now itched to get moving.

  Mounted, the Invaders started north, Hard Winter and Wolcott leading the column, with scouts out at 200 yards all around to warn travelers away before they could identify anyone, as though there could be much secrecy now. Few except Pap Whitcomb, long with the Indians, married to one, knew that here twenty-seven years ago painted and feathered Sioux had come charging down from the Powder River country to destroy the Platte Bridge, convinced that their cause was holy, certain they could drive the white men out forever. Now the Stetsoned riders were heading northward with impatience and fervor, too, each to his own kind and measure. Their plan was to strike at Buffalo first, where their men waited at strategic points over the town, ready to bring down the city marshal and the sheriff with the first two bullets. With these men and other town officials, and the county commissioners out of the way, and with Parmalee, and his National Guard on their side, they could ferret out the thirty or so on the Dead List in Buffalo. Dynamite squads would blow up the courthouse and the store of Foote, the white-bearded fanatic who might rally a foolish resistance. After that the only hurry was to tromp down the scattering rats as they took to the breaks. The Invaders would spread out through the country, picking off the rest of the seventy before they found out what was happening. Then the trails would be dark with settlers hitting it out of the country.

  The Invaders rode at a good clip. The sky grayed and the scattering of shaggy, winter-haired cattle they passed were seeking the sheltered slopes, feeding busily, with the urgency of a coming storm upon them. Once a cow hooked a couple of the others away, but only so far as the swift thrust of her horns reached. Then they all fell to cropping the winter-bleached prairie again.

  There weren't many carcasses around, the winter easy, promising a good cattle year. Add the work of the major and his followers here to that and it would be a year from which to count time.

  But there was real uneasiness among the men that nobody was joining from up here. Even the range boss from Senator Carey's outfit, supposed to cut the one telegraph line north, apparently got cold feet, or the senator objected, glad, as always, to let others do his dirty work for him. The hired man who was sent instead had protested but he needed his job mighty bad.

  The grumbling of the older Texans grew with the storm. "Looks like the country sure ain't with us. We was told we was just to spread the responsibility a little, bring in some strange faces, cut down the chances of you all up here being ambushed later."

  The wagons were a trouble, too, and finally one had to be dragged out of a spring bog with the lariats. Carelessly a couple of lone horsebackers were allowed very close, staring at the long string of riders with no sign of a herd anywhere, new Winchesters in the scabbards, the horses new branded, scarcely peeling. One of the strangers was put in front of the column with a Texas gunman on each side. "Keep looking straight ahead!" they ordered. After four, five hours he was turned loose, and the other man, too, with the warning to hit for some sheep camp and stay there with their snoots buttoned down.

  By now Dr. Penrose had found his horse too rough and wild and so he climbed in on the bedroll wagon. "Our fancy Tender Bottoms didn't last long," the Texans drawled, as they eased the set of their guns a little. Towse, representing the Cheyenne Sun, developed fainting spells and also took to the wagons. As the noontime passed and a gray filtering of snow rode the north wind, the men seemed to become more alike, the flashy Texan with a yellow neckerchief knotted at the nape, boots fancy enough for Bill Cody, rode as hunched over in his slicker as Mynett, in flopping old chaps bent to the bow of his legs, his clothing tattered from brush popping down home.

  Gradually the April flurries whitened the sage of the dry divide toward Salt Creek. Even the whirls of snowbirds were gone, and only the column of men moved in the early darkness. The Texans shivered and cursed, bit off more tobacco, and goddamned this Yankee country, good enough for Yankee cowpokes but not for a good soft-handed man. Jack Tisdale, the state senator, offered the sullen, freezing men his professional cheer. His ranch was just up ahead, with hot grub and a good rest waiting.

  They reached there around dawn, and although Canton argued hotly for pushing on, even Wolcott had to admit his men needed rehabilitation. This wasn't a hardened, disciplined military outfit, he had to admit. Not even Custer could have pushed on with this collection of saddle wolf in his Seventh.

  During the day Mike Shonsey came in. He had been trying to raise a force from the ranches up ahead. He had 100 horses at Baxter's ranch grained up for weeks, ready and rearing, and talked big about this to cover up that not one cowboy was coming to join them, not even from Baxter's, where he was the foreman.

  But Shonsey did have news. Last night he had stopped to spy on Nate Champion at the old Frewen line camp called the KC Ranch. Champion was wintering there. Rented the place with Nick Ray, who had a homestead up a mile or so. They fed Shonsey and gave him room for his bedroll, as was proper in the cow co
untry, even though they knew he was connected with the man behind the lynchings and the threats and even the attacks on Champion.

  "Many of the rustlers you are looking for are hanging around there, have been all winter," he told Wolcott and Irvine. "Billy Hill, Starr, Long Henry, and a lot of others with the rustler roundup wagon. They all swear by Champion, even Red Angus, since Nate ran Canton's outfit off."

  Nick Ray was camping there steady, Ray the man Billy Irvine claimed was wanted for murder down in Texas and who had followed Billy when he drove the 40,000 steers from Nebraska to his ranch north of Douglas—had been following him for years, picking off stock. Perhaps Shonsey knew that only Irvine's eagerness to get Nick Ray drew him to join the invasion at all. He was against the whole idea, preferring the old range detective system that had worked pretty well in the days before the settlers were allowed to get such a toehold.

  Seventeen, eighteen men were hanging around the KC, Shonsey said, and all of them would hit for the Hole in the Wall country the first wind they got of the invasion. "Swing around by the KC and clean out that rustlers' nest," he insisted, banking on the power of former Governor Baxter and the Western Union Beef outfit behind him.

  Frank Canton was set against it. They couldn't go clear around by the KC and get to Buffalo in time to back up their men he had staked out to stop Angus and his deputies and the rest.

  "Hell, my men got orders to drop Angus and everybody who can swear in deputies if they don't hear from us by tomorrow night," Wolcott bragged.

  Canton openly doubted Shonsey's story of so many men at KC, with the old line camp only big enough for six, seven to spread their bedrolls without double-decking. But Elliott and Tom Smith were anxious to get the wily Champion while they could, remembering that he drove them off in the attack last fall, if Frank had forgotten.

  "'Fraid he'll turn your own Winchester on yeh?" the big-mouth Texas Kid, with his first man to kill, put in.

  For a moment there was dead silence in the room, with an old anger blazing in Canton against Smith and all these Texas gunmen of his, some knowing that Frank had left Texas ahead of the sheriff. Slowly, without moving, the men seemed to divide into enemy camps, with too many hands casually near the guns.

  Wolcott, with his saddle wolf stiffening his movements, stepped between the men, his wry neck twisted. "Hell, Frank, you got it in for Champion more'n the rest of us. We better be moving."

  The two pack horses of extra ammunition came in from Irvine's ranch. With this on the wagons, the Invaders pushed out into the clouded night toward the KC, Canton still working to head them straight for Buffalo. But if he couldn't, KC would take no more than an hour or so and they could still make town by tomorrow night, if the Tender Bottoms held out.

  By now the whole state was alive with news and rumor. Suddenly every gun, every cartridge, was bought up, the loose powder and bullet molds, too, with men here and there stooping over the smell of molten lead, some wishing they had Ralph Cole and his homemade mold, claimed found in his ashes after the Averill hanging. There was particular stirring around Douglas, Glenrock, and Casper, the towns that profited from the spreading settlements to the north, and from rustlers, too, when they managed to get a little money for their cattle. The one telegraph line north from Douglas to Fort McKinney at Buffalo was kept cut by the Invaders. Nobody dared risk a ride up into the Powder country for information, and so rumors sprouted like horse-weed around an old corral.

  Somehow the roundabout mail route had been overlooked and the evening of the eighth Sheriff Angus received a letter about a suspicious-looking train routed through Cheyenne three days ago. Red mustache bristling, Angus was hurrying around to the likely victims among the officials, the businessmen, and to the preachers. About the same time the Invaders, on fresh horses, left the night-shadowed Tisdale ranch. They traveled light but Elliott carried ten pounds of giant powder behind the saddle and a hank of fuse.

  Instead of lengthening the column at Tisdale, they lost men. Hard Winter Davis let his extra horses get out and followed them to his place, twenty miles away, promising to meet the Invaders at Buffalo. Towse of the Cheyenne Sun and Dr. Penrose stayed behind as the dark string of riders hunched into the north wind spitting a little wet snow. The Wyoming men had their Stetsons tied down with neckerchiefs to meet the collars of their buffalo saddle coats, the Texans in their hen-skin slickers cursed the climate. Toward dawn the thin snow stopped and four miles from the KC they gathered around a few wet sagebrush fires in a deep gulch. While they thawed they waited for the spies out under Shonsey to size up the place, particularly for the blasting powder or the dynamite after the wagons came.

  The spies returned, wet and chilled. Shonsey drew the lay of the place at the firelight for the outsiders. The little log shack and the stable with some pole corrals squatted out on the snowy bottoms along south of the cottonwoods that lined the Middle Fork of the Powder. The bluff that stood across the southwest was cut by the road that angled down past the buildings and corrals to the bridge and off north to Buffalo. They had found a lot of noise until late last night, people passing by, a dog barking and running over toward Shonsey and the others, and a man coming out to look around. Fiddling and singing lasted until toward morning, cowboy stuff, and Johnny Reb, and somebody starting Jesus songs.

  No, there was no telling who the visitors were. Even Mike Shonsey was against using the blasting powder, even if they could. Night before last he would have been blown up with the rustlers. Besides, the dynamite back in the wagons would work out better.

  With Canton and Smith as lieutenants to compete from opposite sides, Wolcott distributed his men around the little line camp before daylight. Those sent to crawl up to the stable wished they had a chunk of fresh meat. Baited up with a good dose of the well poison they had along the dog would soon be a goner. But instead they took a piece of whang leather with them and garroted him when he came around the stable and dragged his carcass off into the weeds down behind the building. Then they waited for the cold morning, watching the log shack, ready to shoot down every man who stuck his head out.

  The Invaders had received their orders quietly, almost without interest. Only the stripling of the southerners, the Texas Kid, was still spoiling for his first fight, and so Canton and his partner took him along to watch at the stable, less than a good pistol shot from the doorway.

  In a little while the door opened and Jones, an old trapper that Canton knew, stepped out with a bucket and started for the river. The moment, he came around the stable he found two Winchesters on him and the barrel of a pistol motioning him to the river. He stumbled down to the cotton-woods where Jack Tisdale took him over, questioned him.

  Next the old man's partner, Bill Walker, came out in his flannel shirt sleeves. He flipped a rock at a couple of cackling sage hens and was grabbed, too, when he turned the corner of the stable. Down at the stream he stared in amazement at the men he had known for years, and heard of others along—Hesse, his former boss, and Billy Irvine whom he knew as far back as Nebraska.

  Hesse and Wolcott and Canton, too, talked strong for sending the two men back to the house and sneaking up behind them, to rush Champion and Ray, but Jones and Walker refused.

  "I ain't no stalking-horse for a murderer," old Jones said, and it was plain that he would not be moved.

  For a long time there was no stirring up at the house from the men, two men, if the captives were to be believed, surrounded by over fifty ready Winchesters. Impatiently the Texans and Canton looked up at the gray sky running in low-rolling windrows of cloud that carried more snow. Finally the door opened and a tall, lanky man came out. It was Nick Ray, and the overeager Texas Kid couldn't hold himself, but shot. The man went down and before the report had rolled over the frosty valley he was on his knees trying to crawl back as replying shots came from the shack. Slowly blue smoke spread upward from the old loopholes between the logs, enough to keep the attackers back while the wounded man made his desperate, faltering crawl, blood streamin
g down his face from the bullet through the head. When he neared the door, Nate Champion jerked it open, and with bullets spurting all around him, striking the ground, splintering the casing of the door, hitting him, too, he fired with his left hand, drawing blood from the reckless Texas Kid as he dragged the wounded man inside with his right. The door slammed, Champion sent bullets and blue smoke from the windows and loopholes of the house, both front and back.

  The Texas Kid was excited by his hit, but most of the others, even Irvine, who wanted to get Ray, had watched the two men in amazement. Yet now was the time for a rush on the house Irvine argued, hurrying in his buffalo coat from one man to another. Now, before Champion had time to collect himself, barricade the place. But some of the Texans, even those who had never heard of Nate Champion, knew of the family. Others had heard that he was the best pistol shot in the country and saw his nerve here. So Champion managed to hold them off, shooting from one side and then the other, making even their blasting powder worthless because no one could get up close. That first hour one of the Texans was hit in the arm, another in the thigh, and so they kept down, although five, six were as close as the stable now, and watched the impatient Canton throw a rope out the door and drag it back several times, wondering.

  Toward nine o'clock a neighboring settler, Terrence Smith, rode over to investigate all the shooting. Cautiously he crawled up to look into the smoke-blued valley, saw men clustered here and there behind cut banks and brush. New bursts of fire showed him others—forty, fifty men held off by a little scattered firing from the log shack.