Panhandle

by Brett Cogburn

  “How’d you get him to come?”

  Billy eyed me with a crafty grin. “All the cattlemen in this country don’t belong to the Association. There are a lot of the old-timers who don’t like bloated old high-binders like Goodnight and his rich cronies telling them how the cow should eat its corn.”

  “I figured Houston would side with the power. I heard he wanted to run for the Senate or something.” I vaguely knew what I was speaking of.

  “Nope. The talk is that the Association cut him out of things when they were setting up the law here, and he’s dead set on fighting them on the State Land Lease Act they’re pushing for,” Billy said.

  “We’ll keep open range if Houston has his way,” Andy said like he’d read it in the Bible or something.

  “It’s bullshit, but at least it looks like you’re going to get a fair trial. Maybe Houston can make them eat crow.”

  Billy jumped up out off his cot like he was ready to fight. “Hell, I killed a crippled Spur steer for some beef, and they arrested me for it. I’ve got a trail herd going nowhere that I spent every dollar I had to buy. It’s costing me about fifteen dollars a day for the crew, and I’ve got a delivery date in Colorado that’s getting too close for comfort.” Billy paused long enough to kick his cot over before he continued. “A man can’t drive a herd of longhorns where he needs, because a bunch of bigwigs who got here first are claiming twice the country they own.”

  Billy started in again before I could answer. His unlit cigarette punched through the air like an orchestra conductor’s wand. “You can believe their spiel about law and order and honest dealing, but you remember that they’re paying bonus salaries to every county official and the district court. They claim it’s to help keep talented, honest men in jobs that the government pays too little for, but that’s a load of sheep crap. They want to make sure that no honest-to-goodness Texas cowman and his raggedy-ass old longhorns set foot on the state land they’re fencing. That’s what they’re doing.”

  “I’m with you, but when you pick a fight, you sure don’t look for a little guy.”

  “Open range was good enough for most of those shysters when they were small operators, but now that they’re rich they want to change the rules,” Andy threw in.

  “Some folks say the railroad is going to bring in farmers by the boxcar load, and that they’ll latch on to all the state land the Association ranchers are trying to hold,” I thought aloud.

  “That’d be about right. Between the railroad, farmers, and the dumb-ass Association there won’t be anywhere left to run a cow. If they had any sense they’d buy us all some dynamite to blow up the railroad and stop it from leaving Wichita Falls.” Billy cussed and kicked his cot over.

  “The country is going to hell in a handbag,” Andy moaned. “We ought to cut down every damned strand of bobwire we run across.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Tennessee, if they don’t let me out of this jail in time to get my herd to the delivery grounds by my contract’s date, they can’t even imagine the trouble I’m going to cause them.” There was a chill in Billy’s voice.

  Before I could say anything else, Cap Arrington stepped into the hallway. “If you’re going to stay any longer I’ll have to get you a cell.”

  It seemed visiting hours were over, and I rose to go. I stood up between Cap and Billy, and the two were staring at each other. Cap glanced down at the overturned cot, and the bedding strewn about the cell floor. One hand played at a corner of his mustache while he looked at Andy and then Billy again.

  “Are you boys taking it hard?”

  Billy smiled an easy smile, turned his cot right side up, and pitched the bedding on it. He propped one foot on the cot’s edge and struck a match on a cell bar. Once his cigarette was lit he shook out the match and pitched it against the far wall of the hallway, where it lay smoking on the floor. To all appearances Billy looked like he might have just finished reading to a Sunday school class.

  “I was sleeping like a baby until that cot threw me off.”

  Cap’s face didn’t so much as twitch. An old tom turkey like him knew not to gobble over just anything. He stepped aside to let me by to the hallway door, and when I was just about gone I heard Billy call to me down the hallway.

  “How are Barby and the kid doing?”

  Arrington was right behind me blocking my view into the cells, so I couldn’t see Billy’s face after he said it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The trial that brought so many to Mobeetie was never to be. The Association dropped the charges within five days of Billy’s arrest, and the opposing sides had massed their forces for nothing. They didn’t stand a chance in convicting Billy, but I expect they knew that from the start. They held him long enough that he had to send orders to his herd to make the dry swing to the west of the settled country, lest he go broke, and his arrest served notice to the country that bucking the Association wasn’t worth the hassle.

  I heard a lot of people made themselves scarce when Billy was let out of jail, and I reckon it was like accidentally catching your neighbor’s dog in your steel trap. Catching him isn’t all that difficult, but letting him go is a whole other story. Billy didn’t appreciate having his toes pinched any more than the dog would.

  The law may have turned Billy and Andy loose on the public, but they made sure to shadow their every move while in town. Arrington, his deputies, the city marshal, and two Texas Rangers made sure that Billy didn’t go to the outhouse without friendly escort. Billy and Andy paraded their entourage around town for most of a day, poking a little fun at all the attention they were getting and giving everybody time to notice the high number of absentee citizens.

  As for me, I returned to freighting, and I hustled through the summer work, trying to make every cent I could. I’d promised Barby I’d come in for the last month of her pregnancy, so I had to make hay while the sun shined. I learned every trail from Dodge to Colorado City, and from Wichita Falls to Tascosa. By the time the summer ended I was becoming a regular muleskinner.

  Despite my good intentions to be with Barby in the weeks just before our child was to be born, I cut my scheduling just a little too fine and arrived home a week later than we’d planned. I knew I’d catch hell from her, but at least I’d made it before the baby was born.

  Nobody was out and about except for Fawn’s dogs when I drove into the yard. They all sat facing the doorway of the soddy with their ears perked forward, whimpering and whining and wagging tails in some strange excitement. I hollered to let Barby know I was home, but received no answer. I was making my way to the door, half angry at the poor reception I was receiving after having been gone so long, when I heard a strange cry, and one of those stew-meat curs let out a long, mournful howl that would have put an old lobo wolf to shame.

  There was a stirring within the house, and Fawn appeared in the doorway brandishing a broom in her hands. The dogs scattered instantly in all directions while the broom swished around them. Fawn looked up from her attack and instantly cut loose on me in a long breath of angry Cheyenne. At that time, I still couldn’t understand half of what she said, but I knew enough to know that she was a little put out with yours truly. I thought about following the dogs’ example and getting out of her reach, for I am sure a tomahawk wouldn’t have looked any more dangerous in her hands than that broom did.

  As it was, I headed for the door in a display of sheer bluff. That little savage gave me a vicious poke in the gut with the business end of the broom, and another spout of Cheyenne let me know in a hurry that I wasn’t going any farther. Once she was sure she had me stopped, Fawn started back inside, but threw a suspicious look back over her shoulder to make sure I was going to mind.

  I waited impatiently for what must have been a quarter of an hour after she shut the door and disappeared. I could hear all kinds of muffled noises from inside, and I was relieved to think that I heard Barby whispering more than once. The mules needed unhitched and put away, but I was beginning to su
rmise that my sweet wife had something special planned for me since I was home for a while. The thought put a happy inside me, and I decided the chores could wait a bit longer.

  The sun was setting, and the lights were showing through the windows when Fawn finally cracked the door open and stepped aside for me to enter. I ducked into the low doorway and the first thing I saw when I straightened up was Barby lying on her bed with our newborn bundled in her arms. She had the baby wrapped in a frilly little blanket, and I couldn’t see so much as its nose poking out.

  “Are you going to just stand there, or come over here and look at your son?” Barby teased, but I could detect a little note of tension in her voice.

  I took a seat on the bed beside her and placed my arm around her shoulders. She leaned against me and brushed the blanket back from around our son’s face. The little face looking back at me held me spellbound and all I could do was stare.

  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Barby watching me intently, and I knew she wasn’t sure what my reaction would be. When we had first married I’d worried some about how much the baby would look like Billy. Afraid that I wouldn’t give the child a fair shake, I had reminded myself for months that the child was mine, no matter who had sired it. I was ready to be a family man, but the baby had only been an idea to me when in the womb, intangible and unknown. As I sat with him before me, I was like a kid under the Christmas tree with something totally surprising and wonderful just unwrapped.

  For the time being, the flood of emotion I felt left me content to simply look at the child, but Barby placed him in my lap even though I was timid about holding him. I’d never held a baby before, and whether or not it was from the fear that I could not handle seven pounds of baby without dropping it, I was afraid I’d do something wrong. To my surprise, the little tyke didn’t seem to mind me holding him at all, and I swore he seemed to like it.

  “His name will be Owen Daniel, if that’s all right with you,” Barby said softly.

  “Howdy, Owen.” I touched his hand, and I’ll be danged if he didn’t grab a hold of my finger.

  Barby and I sat for a long while laughing and talking. She clung to my arm and pointed out everything from the baby’s feet to the strength of his tiny hands. She told me she’d made the little quilt herself, and Fawn showed me a little papoose sack she’d made from soft doeskin and lined with rabbit fur. There was a wooden frame for it that Long had whittled out and put together in his spare time. I couldn’t imagine Barby packing Owen around on her back like a squaw, but she informed me it would be handy to have around the place while she worked.

  Next, the two women showed me the contents of a great pile of gifts mounded by the front door. It seemed that over the last week every cowboy in the country had stopped by and left something or another. There were little silver bells, baby shoes, rattles, and wooden toys. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where they had found them, or imagine grown men walking up to the counter and requesting such items. Looking at my baby, I thought I understood; it’s all right to be silly where babies are concerned.

  Fawn retired to her tepee, and left us alone. I could have stayed up half the night talking to my wife, but I could tell she was awful tired. Fawn had told me of her long labor, and advised that I let her get some sleep. Barby didn’t argue with the suggestion, and reached out to take Owen from me.

  “It wouldn’t hurt if he stayed up with his daddy a little longer, would it?” I asked sheepishly.

  “Nathan”—she was the only one except my own Mama who ever called me that—“he’s been asleep for an hour.”

  “It won’t be any trouble for me to hold him a bit longer.”

  Once she was asleep I took him outside into the night where the stars shown down as far as the eye could see, and the nighthawks dipped and dove in the light of the moon. I walked and told him of the things I’d do for him, and told him of the country where he now lived. I informed him of the good mother he had, and thanked the Almighty that I was lucky enough to have them both.

  Barby had gone into labor in the middle of the previous night and she’d been at it throughout the day with no doctor within a hundred miles, and nobody but Fawn to help her. The hardware company thermometer I’d tacked to the wall beside the door read a hundred and two degrees in the shade of the eave that day. The West had a reputation for tough men, but somebody ought to give credit to the women brave enough and tough enough to survive in the early days on the frontier. The women of Troy who cut their hair for bowstrings didn’t have a thing on the pioneer women of the West.

  The night air was growing cooler, and I took my boy back into the house. I laid him down against his mother, and she opened her eyes for a second and smiled faintly at me as she clutched Owen to her chest. Once I had the mules put away I returned to the house to slip into the bed beside Barby with Owen snuggled between us. I threw my arm across them both and lay awake long into the night, staring into the dark of the room and wondering how I wound up at such a point in life.

  Just before I fell asleep I heard that dog again. Somewhere out in the night he howled long and deep, sad and happy at the same time, and my heart went out to that mutt so alive as to find reason to sing in the dark.

  That winter was one of the happiest times of my life, and even the cold couldn’t dampen my spirits. My wife was happy, the baby was healthy, and the weather wasn’t too terrible. Every morning I rose early, and after my chores I’d walk down the path to where Long was building his house. We’d have us some coffee and talk about the day’s carpentry plans and other such things until the women had breakfast ready. Then we’d troop back down to my soddy, where we all gathered at the breakfast table.

  When the weather wasn’t bad, I helped Long with his house some, and kept an eye on my cattle. Other than chopping a little ice, and keeping my mules close to home, I didn’t work too hard. Long freighted little that winter, spending most of his time building his house. He mostly used oxen to freight, and they didn’t work as well as mules in the wintertime with the grass not growing. You could operate a mule team giving them some feed, and it wouldn’t get into your profit too much. I thought I had enough jingle in my pockets to get us through to spring, and I was having too much fun to work, so my mules stayed turned out for most of the winter with only a little corn to keep them closer to home.

  By the time spring finally rolled around, Long had a nice three-room frame house built, and the novelty of Fawn’s featherbed in a tepee disappeared forever. Being wiser than most, Long and I kept the tepee up in case after a domestic dispute our wives accidentally locked the doors for a night.

  My season of leisure left me cash broke, and I was anxious to remedy that. My team was paid for, my cattle had wintered well, and I planned on making some real money for once in my life. I’d promised Barby that this would be my last summer away from her so the pressure was on me to make the next several months extra profitable. So one fine morning in April, I kissed my wife and child good-bye and left home once again to seek our fortune.

  Poor folks know in their hearts that no matter how good life is going, things are just bound to get worse. My team was a little on the thin side after the winter, and my first load was too heavy for them even if they’d been in good shape. My trip from Dodge was a slow, difficult journey to say the least. Before I reached Tascosa I busted a wagon axel, had a mule go lame, and I was coming down with some sort of sickness.

  By the time I returned to Dodge to pick up another load I was more than sick—I was just about dead. Somebody had the sense to pull me from my wagon seat, and I spent a week in bed with pneumonia. I don’t remember much about that week, but the doctor said it was touch and go with me for a while, and he’d just about given up on my living.

  Even after I was up and going again I was still so weak I couldn’t stand without my heart racing, and threatening to cough up a bloody lung. I was in no shape for much of anything, but Barby would be worried, and I needed to get back to work. I paid off the doctor,
and went to get my outfit. It was easy enough to find, and the crooked livery man presented me with a board bill that was unreasonable to say the least, especially to a man in my condition.

  After beating him about the head and shoulders with a singletree for a minute or two I had him just about ready to adjust his bill when the Law showed up. They returned the favor by buffaloing me over my head with a pistol barrel and throwing me in jail. My fever came back and I ended up on my deathbed again at the doctor’s place with a concussion added to my list of ailments.

  Another week passed, and when I was ready to leave again, the Law took me before a judge who promptly extracted a hefty fine from me, and my livery charges, plus damages. The law in Dodge must have placed a pretty high value on the headache I gave that liveryman, because they just about took all the money I had. I had about two dollars left in my pocket, and couldn’t help but wonder how many more times they would let me hit him for that price.

  I figured it was time to cut my losses, so I took a load of freight bound for Mobeetie and left good old Dodge City. If anybody was watching they sure didn’t see me wave good-bye. I drove out of there hunched over on my wagon seat with the fever shivers racking me under my blanket wrapped carcass, and my hat sitting crooked on a head too knotted up to fit inside it.