by Marsha Ward
“Hey, you’re letting one get by you!” warned Clay, as a wild-eyed cow attempted to slip past Carl into the freedom of the desert.
Carl’s nerves rebounded, and he drew his gun halfway from its holster. “That’s my lookout, you half-grown busybody. Get along, or I’ll clip your tail feathers for you,” he shouted.
Clay’s face blanched beneath the coating of alkali already whitening his features, and he wheeled his horse away around the herd.
Horrified at his demented action, Carl dropped the pistol into its sheath and reined in to remove his hat and knead the back of his neck. “Hush, them cows give me such a pain, I came mighty near shooting my own brother. And now I’m talking to myself.”
He slapped his hat against his thigh, raising a billow of white. “I surely do wish I was back in Colorado, paying court to Miss Ellen, instead of pushing a bunch of cow critters down the trail.”
~~~
“Clay says he won’t ride near you until we get over to the Pecos, son. What happened?” Rod’s eyes skewered Carl’s as they rode side by side at drag position that afternoon.
Carl took a small sip from his almost-empty canteen. “I don’t reckon I blame him. If there’s one man on the crew who’s worse off than these cows, it’s me.”
Rod remained silent, and waited for more explanation.
“He was ridin’ me about letting a cow through. I pulled my pistol and yelled at him. I reckon he worried I was gonna shoot him.”
“We can’t get our work done if we’re fighting, Carl. You go—”
“I know, apologize to him.” He bit his lip, then regretted the action as alkali hit his tongue. He spat, then took off his hat, smoothed back his hair with his forearm, and reseated his hat. “I suppose you want me to apologize to James, too.”
“That would go a long way toward making peace in the family.” Rod rode off a short distance and slapped the rear of a weary cow with a rope coil he held in his hand. “Hi-yup, there,” he called, getting the animal started on the trail again before he returned to Carl’s side. “I’ve found that a man’s family needs to be peaceful to work well.”
“Pa, I can’t help that I fell in love with James’s girl.”
“Maybe not, but you can give her up with the same grace James showed about the Bingham girl.”
“He carried on something fierce, as I recall.” Carl attempted a grin, but noted that it didn’t go over well with Rod.
“He got used to the situation and did his duty to court her.”
“Pa, a girl don’t want duty from her husband. She wants romance, devotion.”
Rod’s glare was chilling. “You mend your fences with your brothers, both of them.”
Carl spat again. “Yes, Pa,” he grunted, and hurried out after a steer, thinking, I’ll say I’m sorry, but I won’t give up Ellen!
~~~
After three grueling days and three sleepless nights, the herd neared the Pecos, and the cattle, smelling water, stampeded. Bill Henry and the hands riding at point and flank tried to turn the lead animals in on the herd to circle them. By this time, though, the exhausted cows were unmanageable, and they broke through the shouting, cursing cowhands and continued toward the river. As they ran, their horns banged together, creating a din of clack and clatter. Then the drumming of their hooves crowded out any other sound, even the futile gunshots the cowhands fired off in hopes of turning the herd.
Carl watched in disbelief as the lead cattle disappeared from sight, bawling in fright as they galloped off a cliff.
“Owen!” Bill yelled at him from ahead. “Get down that bank! Use your rope. Don’t let them pile up and drown!”
Carl was halfway down the slope before he realized it, yelling, whooping, driving his horse down the steep incline. He hit the water with a great splash, and gasped for air as it cascaded on top of him. Grinning at the liberation from dust, he whirled his rope and snared a cow thrashing on top of a yearling in the water. “Hiy-hiy-hiy,” he hollered, dragging the cow off the other animal.
“Keep ‘em moving to the other side,” Bill called. “There’s quicksand yonder.”
Carl rode back and forth in the water with the others, yanking struggling cattle to their feet and hazing them to the other bank of the river. By nightfall, most of the cows had crossed the river.
Bill Henry called to Rod from the water. “Mr. Owen, hold up and wait for me!” He rode out of the river, then climbed off his mount and strode over to Rod. “Six cows are bogged down in the quicksand and they’re likely goners, and about twelve drowned at the start, but that’s a small loss, considering.”
“Considering what?” Rod growled.
“Considering they stampeded in.”
“Am I to be happy I lost any?” Rod stared down at his trail boss.
“You’re to be happy your crew is safe and you lost so few cows. You will lose cows, Mr. Owen.” Bill widened his stance. “I can guarantee that. My job is to keep the numbers low and try to keep the hands alive and well.”
“Then you’re doing your job,” Rod slowly agreed. He nodded at the Texan and rode away onto the flat, where the cattle were finally bedding down for the night.
~~~
Bill Henry held the herd in camp for a day, watering the cows until they’d had their fill before he gave the word to move them out again.
Two nights later, Carl rode slowly out to the herd, chewing on the last of his biscuit. He was to relieve James on night guard, and his nerves were taut. Earlier in the day, he had tried to speak to James, but his brother shrugged off the hand he’d placed on his shoulder, and walked away. Now he hoped James’s weariness would work in his favor.
As he approached, he heard the twang of the jaw’s harp as James played a song for the cattle. Carl made sure James saw him coming, and halted his horse in front of him. James continued to play until he came to the end of the song, then he lowered the instrument and blinked Carl’s dust out of his eyes.
“Are they quiet?” Carl asked.
“All bedded down. They like the music.” James sounded defensive.
Carl put out his hand. “Will you teach me to play that harp?”
James slowly raised his chin and stared long at his brother. He finally put the instrument into his shirt pocket. “I keep what’s mine.”
“I’m sorry things ain’t smooth between us, brother.” Carl dropped his hand, and brushed at his trousers.
“That’s not my doing.”
“I know, I know. I reckon I should have left Miss Ellen at the dance. I didn’t, though, and James, I can’t change that.”
“You can leave her be.” James’s voice was husky.
Carl shook his head slightly. “It ain’t as simple as that, brother.”
“Sure it is. You just pull your heart out, cut it into strips, stomp it into the dust, and do your duty. I done it.” James took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh.
“I don’t want to do that.”
James swore. “Then don’t come to me with that thin excuse for an apology. You just tell Pa I didn’t accept it.”
“She wants me, James.”
James swore again, kicked his horse away from Carl, and headed toward the campfire.
~~~
By the time Rod Owen’s slightly diminished herd of cattle came through Raton Pass and entered Colorado Territory, Carl had a collection of sixty-three rattles from snakes he’d shot along the Pecos, a wild mustang, and a healthy respect for Bill Henry and his instructions.
“That Texan knows his business,” he told Albert, as the two brothers rode along at the drag position. “Who would have thought he could teach us to twirl a rope and grab a cow with it?”
“I reckon,” the youngest Owen son answered. “I’m just glad to be back in the Territory.” He raked at his tousled hair. “I want a good, long, hot bath.” Albert looked at the dirty blond locks spilling over the neck of Carl’s shirt, and the red-gold beard masking the front of his visage, and a slow grin stole across his mou
th. “From the looks of you, you’d better hunt up a razor when we get back. You smell scruffy as a mossy horn steer, too.”
Carl rubbed his bushy beard and grinned back. “I reckon when a man’s busy night and day, he has a right to grow himself a little face hair. As to smell, you don’t take no first prize, little brother. When Ma catches a whiff of you, she’ll plunge you into the wash kettle so fast you won’t have a chance to get your clothes off first. ‘Course, that’ll save her some time and labor, having you wash your own filthy clothes at the same time you scrub your hide.”
Albert’s tanned face reddened. Grasping at a straw, he countered, “Well, you better have yourself a bath before you go a-visiting, or Miss Ellen will catch the first freight wagon back to civilization and take her chances with them rowdies we scared off back on the plains.”
Now Carl colored, and rode off after a lagging cow, thankful for the action to divert his mind. He’d tried not to spend much time thinking about Ellen, because the memory of her face brought up the remembrance of Chester Bates refusing his proposal.
“James has the right to say yeah or nay whether he’ll marry Ellen. You don’t hold any cards there. You’re not to speak to her, nor come near her in any fashion, until he plays his hand. If he won’t marry her, you still have to wipe clean the blot you’ve set against her name,” Chester had said, blue eyes drilling into Carl’s. “You prove to me that you’re a man of honor, then I’ll consider giving my leave for you to court her.”
As he swung around the heels of the cow he’d set after, Carl acknowledged to himself that he’d been a bit callous in observing that ban when he spoke to Ellen the night before he left, but now a great joy surged through him as he remembered her reply to his frenzied speech.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha-a-a!” he cried out, throwing his hat into the air. The cow he’d been following shied away and started toward the herd at a lope. Carl laughed again and trotted the horse back to retrieve his hat, bending far down to pick it out of a patch of Spanish bayonet. “Ellen wants me to call,” he shouted to the hills. “ELLEN WANTS ME TO CALL!” He gave another great whoop, then started after the moving herd.
~~~
“I heard quite a commotion back in your neck of the woods today,” Bill Henry remarked around the fire that night. “Did you happen across some loco weed out there?”
Carl grinned and shook his head. “Uh-uh,” was all he said.
Clay looked up from his plate, chewing his food. “I reckon he’s fired up about us being back in Colorado. He thinks he’s got a girl waiting for him.” His voice was light and bantering. “I think she’ll take one look at that set of fox tails he’s got stuck on his cheeks, and she’ll walk right into my arms.” He ducked his head as the men around the fire laughed.
Carl wiped his knife blade on his jean trousers leg and stood up. “I reckon there ain’t nothing wrong with a red beard, ‘specially since it matches the color of her hair so nice.”
Rulon looked up from scraping his plate. “It’s a good thing James is out with the herd, Carl.” He stood up and dumped the plate into the cook’s washtub.
“James don’t scare me,” Carl retorted. “He’ll come to see things my way, by and by.”
“I don’t think you should sell James short, brother.” Rulon wiped his hands on his trousers. “He still claims Miss Ellen’s hand.”
“Well, I claim Miss Ellen’s heart!”
~~~
Frank Tilden rose and put his dinnerware in the tub. Nodding to the others, he strolled over to his horse and mounted it, then moved off in the direction of the herd. After a few minutes’ ride, he came alongside Pete Dawes, who—with James on the far side of the herd—was holding the cattle while the others ate.
“Go in and eat, Pete. No, wait a minute.” Tilden took out a tobacco pouch and prepared to roll a cigarette. “They’re all joshing Carl back there about his red beard. He says it’s the same color as his girl’s hair. She, I gather, is also under the claim of the black-haired brother. I thought the boss was going after some yellow-haired dame that’s supposed to be Carl’s girl.” He licked the cigarette paper and carefully pinched it together. “I get a piece of that red-head when we’ve finished off the men, if I recollect rightly.”
“I do recall your saying so.” Pete’s voice was quiet in the darkness. “There’s a dark-haired one, too, ain’t there?”
“That’s Marie, the old man’s daughter.” The cigarette between his lips muffled Tilden’s voice. A match flared in the night.
“I’m partial to dark hair,” Pete said, sniffing. “I earned it, too. Trailing cattle ain’t my favorite occupation.”
“You’d rather plug Rebels full of holes, eh, Pete?” Frank laughed.
“Don’t even have to be Rebels.” Pete sat his horse in silence for a long time. “Just anybody I don’t like.” His saddle creaked as he shifted weight.
Frank felt a chill scurrying along his backbone, raising goose bumps. He hurried to change the subject. “You figure Berto’s out there behind us?”
“He said he’d be there, didn’t he? Berto don’t tell no lies. I reckon he’s going to close the noose pretty quick now. You look sharp, and don’t get caught sleeping when he comes down on this bunch of high-thinking Rebels.” Pete rode off toward the campfire.
~~~
When they had driven the herd past Edward Morgan’s farm down on the Cuchara River, Ed and his sons had come out to meet them, and to keep the cattle out of the young corn crop. Tom Morgan told Rulon that Ellen was still up at the Owen’s place, and Rulon passed on the information to Carl.
“I ain’t seen her for such a long spell,” he said, coughing on the dust the cattle raised from the prairie. “I’m almighty scared I’m going to take her right into my arms and hug her to pieces without asking her pa’s leave.”
“Not to mention, James’s,” Rulon said wryly.
Carl shrugged, and spurred his horse after a hungry cow trotting off toward Ed Morgan’s field.
~~~
“I have a meadow picked out on the flank of the mountain,” Rod said at dawn in the final camp near the homesteads. “It connects to another one higher up, and there’s plenty of grass and water. We’ll drive the cattle back in there and they’ll pretty near take care of themselves all summer. That’s good, because we’ve got plenty of work and lots of building to do down at headquarters.”
Rulon nudged Carl. “Pa likes that word, ‘headquarters’. He ain’t called the cabins anything but that since we got back this side of the Colorado line. I reckon he’s got a dream again.”
Carl laughed. “He can dream all he wants as long as we got the muscle to bring it to life. I don’t take no offense. I reckon I dream a mite myself.”
Rod took the lead and showed where a game trail led through the trees toward the meadow he had in mind. All hands fell back into position around the herd, driving it along the narrow trail and preventing cows from breaking loose into the brush and trees.
Riding at flank position well back along the side of the herd, Carl found that keeping the cattle from wandering into the trees was hard work, and it left him little time for thinking how close by Ellen was. He turned the brown gelding he was using that day toward a cow bent on escaping through the underbrush. The horse cut off its route, and the cow loped back to the herd, bawling in protest.