by J. T. Edson
‘Out with the herd. He’ll likely be back soon. Do you want to see him about something real important?’
‘Sure. But it can wait until he gets back. I’ll tend to my mount and eat. Then if he’s not back, we’ll ride out and meet him.’
‘I’ll come and help you with ’em, Kid,’ Vern offered.
‘Gracias,’ grinned the Kid. ‘We’ll split it up fair. You tend to the relay and I’ll see to ole Thunder here.’
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Vern replied, walking across but waiting until the Kid released the horses and handed over the reins. Anybody who took liberties like approaching the white stallion too closely would right soon come to regret the indiscretion.
Talk welled up around the fire as the Kid and Vern departed towards the remuda with the horses. Looking around, Dusty noted gratefully that the tension had gone from the atmosphere. The Kid’s arrival had given Willock a chance to let the showdown against Dusty pass without losing face. So the cowhand resumed his seat during the conversation and stayed quiet, studiously avoiding making any movement or sound that might catch the small Texan’s attention.
Not that Willock needed to worry about that. Satisfied that he had made his point, Dusty was quite prepared to let the matter drop. Later he might be compelled to prove himself by physical means, but felt content to wait until the moment was forced upon him. Dusty knew, as did the whole crew, that Willock had backed water. He would gain nothing and only increase any resentment Willock felt by emphasizing the point. So, as far as Dusty was concerned, the incident had run its course and was at an end.
Helped by Vern, the Kid made good time in attending to the needs of his five horses. Leaving his stallion to roam free for the night, secure in the knowledge that it would come when needed, he turned the other four in with the remuda. Then, carrying his saddle, he returned to the fire. In passing, Vern exchanged scowls with Willock. However they both knew better than to resume their quarrelling. They had come out of the first time without punishment, but Dusty would hot deal so gently with them in future.
The Kid had finished his meal and spread his blankets alongside Dusty’s, then was about to suggest he and Dusty went out to meet Goodnight, when the rancher returned. Hearing his scout’s request for an interview, Goodnight collected a meal and went to the bed-wagon. With his plate on the tailgate, he stood with the Kid and Dusty in the light of the lantern which hung from the canopy’s rear support. Interested eyes studied them from the fire, but none of the crew offered to come across and satisfy their curiosity.
‘Looks like you’ve been moving, Cuchilo,’ Goodnight remarked, using the Kid’s Comanche man-name ‘The Knife’, granted with regard to his skill in using one.
‘Some, Chaqueta-Tigre,’ the Kid answered, returning the compliment by addressing the rancher as ‘Jaguar Coat’, given to him by his Nemenuh x enemies in the days when he rode with Cureton’s Rangers. ‘I trailed that feller clear up to Throckmorton, only he was travelling so fast I couldn’t catch up to him, and I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Chisum neither. Got to thinking maybe the feller’d quit the Long Rail on account of them stolen cattle. Anyways, I was out of makings and with Throckmorton so close, I reckoned I’d ride in and buy some. I’m right pleased I did now.’
‘Apart from not believing the part about you buying tobacco,’ Dusty put in, ‘you’re starting to get me interested.’
‘What I learned was—’ the Kid began, speaking the deep-throated Pehnane dialect which Goodnight understood but Dusty did not.
‘Talk U.S., you damned slit-eye,’ Dusty grinned. ‘I apologize, you did buy some tobacco—once.’
‘Cut the fooling, blast you!’ Goodnight grunted, eyes sparkling good-humoredly. ‘You’re worse’n two old women.’
‘I accepts that apology, sir,’ the Kid replied, bowing to the rancher. ‘Like I said, I’d got to thinking that feller’d quit Chisum and was getting all set to bawl Mark out for wasting my valuable time when I got back. Only it come out that ole Mark’s smarter’n I figured—which he’d have to be comes to a point—’
‘Is he always like this?’ Goodnight groaned.
‘You’re seeing him at one of his better times,’ Dusty assured his uncle.
‘Anyways,’ the Kid continued, after giving a lofty sniff. ‘Seems like Chisum’d been to Throckmorton, with them Mineral Wells steers and left again—trail bossing a drive for some dudes who’d been around town for a spell.’
‘Did you see the dudes?’
‘Nope, Colonel, they’d pulled out afore I got there.’
‘Where was Chisum driving to?’ asked Dusty, although he could guess at the answer.
‘Out to Fort Sumner. He’d left two days afore I got there, the dudes followed him later.’
‘Damn it to hell, Dustine!’ Goodnight barked. ‘You know what this means?’
‘Yes, sir. Chisum’s got near on a week’s head start on us.’
‘It means a heap more than that. Chisum knows that trail as well as I do. He can stick to a route we’ll have to follow and make sure that everything’s spoiled after he’s passed and afore we reach it. We’ll never beat him to Sumner.’
Dusty and the Kid exchanged glances which showed their complete agreement with Goodnight’s coldly logical summation of the situation. With Chisum so far in the lead, they could not hope to push their herd fast enough to pass and beat him to their destination. Nor would Chisum hesitate to use foul means to slow them down. Unscrupulous he might be, but he was also a master cattleman and would know ways to effectively hinder a following trail drive. However, Dusty, the Kid and Goodnight sprang from stock which did not mildly admit defeat. So they gave thought to how they might still beat Chisum to Fort Sumner despite his advantages.
‘I near on went after Chisum and gave him a mite of trouble collecting his herd after the stompede,’ the Kid remarked.
‘Which stompede?’ Dusty ejaculated.
‘The one I was going to start,’ the Kid said calmly. ‘Only I figured you white folks’d likely not think I was playing fair. And that I’d best make speed to tell Colonel Charlie what I’d learned.’
‘Damned Pehnane,’ Dusty grunted. ‘You’d be better hunting buffalo with—’
‘Hey though!’ interrupted the Kid, coming as close as the other two had ever seen to showing emotion. ‘If Chisum’s using your trail, Colonel, he’ll be going up the Clear Fork of the Brazos and across to the headwaters of the Pecos, won’t he?’
‘That’s the trail Oliver Loving and I blazed,’ Goodnight admitted bitterly. ‘And, knowing Chisum, that’s the way he’ll go.’
‘Only you allus went up it earlier in the year,’ the Kid went on.
‘We did!’ Goodnight breathed, beginning to guess what the dark youngster was leading up to.
‘And you never had any Injun trouble between the Clear Fork and the Pecos?’
‘Not on that stretch.’
‘Only this’s the time of the year when the Kweharehnuh xi be making their big buffalo and antelope hunting,’ the Kid went on. ‘If I know them, which I figure I do, they’ll not take kind to having a damned great herd of cattle drove through their hunting grounds.’
‘That’s for sure,’ Dusty agreed. ‘Which only makes things worse for us. Even if he manages to sneak his cattle through, Chisum’ll make good and sure that the Kweharehnuh’re all riled up by the time we get there.’
‘So why go?’ said the Kid.
‘Because there’s only one other way,’ Goodnight explained. ‘And it’d take us a damned sight longer to head south and circle around the Staked Plains. We’d still not get to Sumner on time.’
The Kid’s face was as gently innocent as a church-pew full of well-behaved choirboys and his voice mild as he said, ‘I wasn’t figuring on going ’round the Staked Plains.’
Chapter Five – Bad As It Is, It’s Our Only Chance
For a long moment neither Dusty nor Goodnight spoke. Taken any way a man looked at it, the Kid had made a mi
ghty startling—some would even say, considering his knowledge of the terrain involved—even crazy suggestion. The Staked Plains were a rolling, arid, semi-desert area between the South Concho and Pecos Rivers. Baked by the heat, parched for the want of water, the stunted vegetation offered poor grazing and little shade for the cattle and many hazards existed along the route they would be forced to follow. Under no circumstances could it be termed the kind of country into which a trail boss would willingly direct his herd.
At last Goodnight let out a long breath and said, ‘It’s near on ninety-six miles from the South Concho to the Pecos, Kid. With nothing but spike grass, horned toads and gila monsters from one side to the other.’
‘I knowed that all along,’ the Kid answered. ‘Back when I was a button with the Pehnane, I hunted desert sheep around it.’
‘We’ll not be hunting around it, we’ll be trailing cattle across,’ Goodnight pointed out. ‘There’s not much drinking water, but plenty of alkali and salt lakes scattered about. Let a thirsty herd get just a teensy smell of one of ’em, and there’d be a stompede that nothing could stop. And any steer that drinks from one of them lakes’ll be buzzard bait in twenty minutes.’
‘I know that, too,’ the Kid admitted.
For all his words, Goodnight was clearly giving the suggestion his close consideration. Watching his uncle, Dusty could almost follow the other’s train of thought. Novel, wild, impractical though the Kid’s idea might have sounded at first hearing, it was possibly their only chance of beating Chisum to Fort Sumner. The very nature of the animals in the herd made that so.
Unlike the pampered beef breeds that would follow them, the Texas longhorns lived an almost completely natural existence. Left to forage for themselves upon the unfenced ranges, they had over the generations developed the survival instincts of wild animals. In nature only the fittest survive. So any longhorn that reached maturity was perfectly capable of standing up to hardships and the rigors of climatic conditions.
Maybe, just maybe, the Kid had offered a solution to Goodnight’s problem. Crossing the Staked Plains would be desperately risky, but better than no chance at all. No Texan ever cared to go down without fighting.
‘Damn it!’ Goodnight growled. ‘I’d hate like hell for Chisum and that slimy cuss Hayden to lick me this easy.’
‘And me,’ Dusty agreed. ‘Especially after they cost me the price of two new Stetsons.’
‘Two?’ grinned the Kid. ‘Don’t tell me that you lost that one you bought after them fellers shot up your old woolsey?’
‘Somebody put a hole in the new one,’ Dusty explained, ignoring the suggestion that he would wear a cheap, poor quality ‘woolsey’ hat. ‘You haven’t got kin around here, have you?’
‘Damned if I don’t start talking Comanche soon!’ Goodnight groaned. ‘Kid, if you could find each of those lakes afore we come to it, we could point the cattle up-wind until we get by and they won’t smell the water.’
‘It’ll not be easy doing, Uncle Charlie,’ Dusty cautioned.
‘Don’t I know it?’ demanded the rancher grimly. ‘But, bad as it is, it’s our only chance of licking Chisum to Fort Sumner.’
‘Which we all want to do, for more reasons than one. I tell you, Uncle Charlie, if we fail there’ll be few who chance trying. And Chisum’ll cheat ’em blind on taking their stock to sell for them.’
‘There’s one thing in our favor,’ Goodnight said. ‘It’s good grazing and easy going from here to the South Concho. So we’ll let the steers take on fat and tallow up to there. After that, we’ll push them day and night without stopping until we hit the Pecos. It’ll be all of three-four days to get across.’
‘By then the crew’ll’ve learned plenty about their work,’ Dusty replied and remembered something. ‘Hell’s fire. We’ve got Dawn along. Maybe we should send her back.’
‘Whee doggie!’ chuckled the Kid. ‘So that li’l gal made it, did she? Way she talked ’n’ acted going home, I got to figuring she had it in mind to come along. And I sure admire you, whichever of you’s the one who’s fixing to make her go back. That’s no Nemenuh naive xii as’s been trained right ’n’ proper from the cradle-board to do as the men-folks tells her regardless.’
‘What does delegation of authority mean, Dustine?’ Goodnight inquired.
‘You do it, I’m scared to, I’ve always been told. Poor ole Mark, I hope she don’t chaw his ears off when he passes the word.’
‘Does she have to go back?’ asked the Kid. ‘She’s got sand to burn and spunk enough to see it through.’
‘Having her along might even help,’ Dusty went on. ‘No matter how tough the going, the fellers won’t quit while she’s sticking it out—and stick she will.’
‘We’d best ask her how she feels about it, anyways,’ Goodnight decided. ‘And do it tonight, so’s she’s close enough to the Swinging G house to make it back without an escort; happen she wants to go.’
‘I’ll bet my next month’s pay that she’s still with us at Fort Sumner,’ the Kid offered, looking at Dusty. ‘Are you on?’
‘No bet. And, anyways, you’ve already drawn most of your next month’s pay to buy shells for that fool rifle.’
‘Injun-giver!’
‘Are you figuring on telling the rest of the hands, Uncle Charlie?’ Dusty asked, ignoring his friend’s comment.
‘What do you think?’ asked Goodnight.
‘I’d say no, was it me,’ Dusty decided. ‘At least until after they’ve been on the trail a mite longer.’
Goodnight nodded soberly. Told of his intention of taking the herd across the Staked Plains, while still new to the notion of handling it, the Mineral Wells men might figure that they faced an impossible task. After a few weeks on the trail, they would have widened their experience and, more important, gained at first hand complete confidence in the abilities of their trail boss and his segundo. Knowing they were led by competent, trail-wise bosses, the men would be more willing to risk the dangerous crossing.
‘I think you’re right,’ the rancher said approvingly. It seemed that his nephew had learned the lessons of leadership well; small wonder Dustine had done so well during the War and since. ‘When Dawn comes from the night herd, I’ll tell her what we’ve decided and ask what she wants to do. Then I’ll ask her not to tell any of the others.’
‘It’d be best,’ Dusty agreed.
On her return from riding the night herd, Dawn found herself taken to one side and told of Goodnight’s intention to cross the Staked Plains. Without attempting to influence her one way or the other, he warned of the difficulties and dangers they would face. At the end, the girl stated her determination to see the drive through. Then she promised not to mention his plans, even to her brother. After a meal, she went to where her blankets were spread in the bed-wagon. Allowing her to sleep there was the only concession the men made to her sex, but agreed it was less embarrassing for all if she did not sleep among the male members of the crew.
Taking his horse—the big paint stallion which had crippled Ole Devil Hardin before Dusty tamed it for use as his personal mount xiii —from the picket line, the small Texan rode out to the herd. He had waited to see the girl’s response to Goodnight’s question, and left grinning a little at the calm manner in which she heard the startling news then gave her answer. As he drew near to the bed-ground, he could hear the droning, near-tuneless singing which experience had taught cowboys soothed the cattle and prevented them from becoming frightened by the unheralded appearance of a rider from the darkness.
‘Now say, you fool critters,
Why don’t you lay down?
And quit this forever moving around,
My hoss is leg-weary,
My butt-end aches like hell,
So I could feel the bumps,
If I sat on a smell,
Lay down, you_____bastards, lay down,
Lay down; you_____sons-of-bitches, lay down.’ xiv
Looming from the blackness, riding at a leis
urely walking pace, Swede Ahlen brought his song to a stop and grinned a greeting as he saw Dusty coming his way.
‘That sure was a beautiful tune, Swede,’ complimented Dusty. ‘And the chorus would make a deacon proud.’
‘You should’ve heard the words Dawn was singing when we come out to relieve her,’ Ahlen answered, still grinning. ‘It like to start ole Billy Jack and me to blushing.’
‘I’ll have to come out and listen next time she’s on,’ Dusty decided. ‘Everything all right?’
‘We’ve been quiet enough so far. Knowed we would be. Billy Jack was saying how he figured we’d have a stompede come half an hour.’
Turning in their saddles, the two men looked across the night-darkened range. Before them, the cattle were assembled in a loosely-formed square with a rider patrolling each side. Experience and good luck had allowed the trail boss to pick a nearly perfect location, clear of ravines or draws into which a restless steer might blunder, or where wild animals could hide. Nor was there any wooded land, always a source of trouble and danger, close by. Some of the steers lay quietly chewing their cud, others slept on their feet. Here and there, a restless animal stirred a flurry of complaint as it moved from place to place in search of choicer grass on which to chew. However, having been pushed hard all day, allowed to feed on the way and carefully watered, the majority of the herd showed no inclination to travel.
Yet Dusty and Ahlen were aware of how easily the peaceful state could be changed. A sudden, loud, unexpected noise, the wind-carried scent of a passing predatory animal—be it cougar, wolf, black or grizzly bear—the appearance of a rattlesnake from a hole down which it had slipped during the day, any of them might send the cattle racing off in wild stampede. That was more likely to happen, however, when the steers were hungry, thirsty, riled up or disturbed for some reason; but the men knew better than to take unnecessary risks.
‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ Dusty said after a moment’s study of the herd. ‘Unless you feel like taking a gallop after them, that is.’