Will said that was understandable. The old man spoke English as though he had used it all his life, which was probably the fact of the matter. Will had never seen a man who wanted trouble less.
The white man must understand that so many cows coming through the country ate a lot of grass and that left little for the Indian cattle. Will could have asked what Indian cattle, he hadn’t seen any so far, but he refrained. The old Indian said that his people had found it necessary to levy a toll on all cattle that came through here.
Will asked if there had been many herds this way.
“Yes,” the old man replied. There had been three in the last week.
This was a stunning blow to Will. He had thought that he was well ahead of most men bringing cows into Kansas. It was very possible that the wants of the Kansas buyers would be satisfied before he got there. Suddenly, he saw this long trek being done for nothing.
What, he asked, was the toll?
The old man looked him straight in the eye and said that he must hand over one cow in every hundred.
Mart who was with Will at the time, snorted in disgust.
Will didn’t get mad. Quietly, he said that wasn’t possible. Let the chief state a lower figure.
The old man said he couldn’t possibly do that. This was a figure set by his people in council. It was beyond his power to alter it.
“I am without power, too,” Will said. “I am authorized to give you three cows and no more.”
The old man’s quiet manner was wafted away. He looked amazed and insulted. The white man was joking and the joke was in poor taste. He consulted with the younger man for a moment. Finally, he said that Will should give him twenty cows. Then the white man would be allowed to go in peace.
This was funny and Will smiled. How these three pathetic Indians were going to stop them was a cause for speculation. He stopped smiling when Mart said: “Look over yonder, Will.”
Will turned in the saddle and saw the Indians on the crest of the ridge. There must have been a couple of hundred of them. He thought he saw the black lines of rifles among them.
His respect for the old man rose.
He started to be diplomatic.
He saw the chief’s point of view, he said. This was his country and he had every right to ask a levy. But let him see Will’s point of view too. He had to get so many cows to market and he could not fail to arrive with the right figure.
The old man smiled.
He knew the ways of cattle. As a herd moved north, it gathered to it many stray cattle. It was possible even that there were some Chickasaw cows in the herd now. Let the white man give them these strays. That would satisfy him.
Like hell I do, Will thought. I’m going through land that belongs to other tribes and I have to pay off on all of them.
“Five cows,” he said.
The old man shook his head.
They started to dicker. At first the chief was patient but slowly his patience started to dwindle. The white man was obstinate. He was not in his own land now. The Indians were here with the authority of the government in Washington. This was their land. If they wanted they could turn back every herd that came through. And they could do it. Will didn’t doubt he was telling the truth. He didn’t intend to resort to violence, even if it were possible, for the sake of a few cows that belonged to other men anyway. But he didn’t like being taken either.
He started to make warlike noises.
“My men are young,” he said. “If there is trouble, they will fight. Young men are the same the world over.”
He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the tail-end of the herd drifting by. Soon there would be some distance between himself and the cattle. He looked up on the ridge and saw several riders drifting north parallel with the herd.
The old chief nodded.
“My young men are the same,” he said. “They are impatient because the white man comes through our land without permission. It is as much as we older men can do to hold them.”
Will tried to remember all he could about the Chickasaws but it didn’t amount to much. However, he was pretty certain that they were civilized and didn’t make a habit of raiding white men. But he couldn’t be too sure.
“I will give you ten cows,” he said.
The old man thought that over. He spoke to the man at his side and the man nodded.
“All right,” the chief said. “Ten cows.”
“Mart,” Will said. “Go after the herd and cut out ten strays. Get rid of that muley cow that causes so much trouble at night.”
Mart turned his horse and rode off. The old chief made a sign with his raised arm and the Indians started down from the ridge. Will warned him to keep them away from the main herd or there’d be trouble. The old man agreed. Will rode after the herd and took a look at the Indians. He reckoned now that he would never have gotten a fight out of them. They looked as civilized as he’d heard. Now if they’d been Comanches or Kiowas . . . but they weren’t, so that was that.
When they halted that night, the Indians were all around the wagon begging, but Martha didn’t have anything to offer them except beef. Some of them seemed to find that welcome and they were some twenty or thirty for the evening meal that night. The old chief came into the camp and consented to smoke some of Will’s precious tobacco for him. Before midnight however they had all forked their horses and ridden away. Nobody was sorry to see the back of them.
Jody said: “How come folks’re scared of Indians?”
Mart said: “Because they can cut your throat, sonny.”
Will posted a strong guard that night, not so much because there was any physical danger, but because he thought individual thieves might make a try at least for the horses. But nothing happened and they moved on into several uneventful days going north through well-grassed and watered country. The cattle were started to put on weight as they went nearer to Kansas. Joe said wait till they got them onto Kansas grass, then they’d see some improvement. That buffalo grass sure did fatten cattle. Will wasn’t so interested in the grass. It was the Kansas men who concerned him. They had done well to come this far, but they hadn’t seen anything yet. Maybe if he had been able to fore tell the future, he would have turned back then and made no attempt to go on into Kansas.
Chapter Eleven
Will topped the ridge, stopped his horse and looked back to the trailing herd. It seemed that they had been on the trail for ever, as if they had known no other life. The routine had become a part of all of them, dogging the herd, keeping it together, riding in for a fresh horse and out again; rolling into blankets at night, stiff and too tired to talk almost; dreaming of as much sleep as you wanted, cold beer and fresh fruit. The drive seemed eternal. Will could imagine that a man could be lost when it was over.
The bulk of the distance now lay behind them. But distance was no problem, one could overcome it by just keeping on going and defying the elements.
It was what lay ahead that troubled him.
Kansas.
The raw wounds of the war were still fresh in his mind. Texans hadn’t forgotten, so it stood to reason that Kansas men hadn’t forgotten either. And economics followed where passions led. Or the other way around. Will was never certain which way it went.
What it added up to was what mattered. Kansas men said: We hate Texans, so let’s steal their cattle or turn them back.
They’d crossed the south fork of the Arkansas river. Ahead lay the Kansas line. Tomorrow, they would cross it.
He saw a stir of movement ahead. Dust rose lightly. Soon he saw the figure of a rider running his horse south. Will rode down from the ridge onto the trail and pretty soon the man came up with him. He was a small dried-up man on a short-coupled roan. He looked like a Texas man. He pulled in his horse and said: “Howdy. You with that herd back there?”
“Yes,” said Will, “The name’s Storm.”
“Henry Burrows,” the man said. “I’m with the Johnson herd. Mr. Johnson heard you was behind us and
sent me back to talk.”
“What about?”
“We crossed the line ten days back. Jayhawkers jumped us. We had a man shot. He ain’t goin’ to die, but he ain’t none too happy about it I can tell you.”
“They turn you back?” Will asked.
“They said that was what they wanted,” the man told him. “But I reckon they wanted us to keep on a-comin’ so they could take the whole herd. But the boss turned us back and we’re workin’ our way west this side of the line an’ I’d advise you to do the same.”
“How many Jayhawkers was there?” Will asked.
“Hard to tell, they was all over. But I reckon there was fifty if there was one. You don’t stand a chance the way you’re headed, Storm.”
“Thanks for comin’ back,” Will said.
“You’re purely welcome,” the man said. “Any more herds ahind you?”
“McDowell is a day behind. I’ll see he’s warned.”
“Good. I’ll get on back.”
Will thanked him again and the man rode off into the north-west.
Will sat his horse and thought awhile. Going west would lose him some time, but he didn’t see any alternative. He wondered if any of the herds ahead of him had gotten through. But there was no way of telling. He turned and rode back. When he told the crew they’d have to change course, there was a lot of cussing, but nobody was crazy enough to say they should get out their guns and blast their way through and he was thankful for that.
He turned the herd north-west right off because he didn’t want to be spotted from the Kansas side. He didn’t like the idea of the Kansas men trailing him west and then jumping him at their convenience. Of course, there was nothing to stop them crossing the line and trailing him. But there was nothing he could do about that.
They found a fair camp that night and the following day they headed on west. Will considered it was wiser to get at least thirty miles away from the point where the Johnson herd had been stopped. He couldn’t afford to go too far west because he was already losing time, but he wanted to be as safe as possible. He knew that he was adding several days to his trail time and that didn’t make him feel any happier. By the time they turned north and crossed the line, he’d worked up a rare old hate for Kansas men in general.
It was during the afternoon of the second day that Mart rode back from the point and reckoned they were in Kansas. Will couldn’t say that the country looked any different, but he thought Mart was right. They drifted on north, leaning slightly to the north-east because in a few days time he wanted to be back on the main trail again.
The day after that they caught up with the tail of the Johnson herd. He rode in and visited with the trail-boss, a youngish man named Whittington. It was now that he learned that there had been some further trouble. The remuda had been raided during the night and half the horses were missing. Some of the men claimed it was Indians, but the trail-boss was convinced that it was Jayhawkers. He had halted his herd, suddenly indecisive. Will felt sorry for him. He had over two thousand head of another man’s cattle in his care and he didn’t know what to do for the best.
Will took his herd a mile or two to the west of the halted cows and went on. He hoped to God it didn’t come to a fight, for he wasn’t forgetting that his crew didn’t have enough powder and ball to fire a salute. The men were getting jumpy now and Will bitterly regretted bringing his women along. If trouble started, he’d be hogtied with them. Martha was tense, but she wasn’t afraid. If there was shooting, she said, Melissa could lie down in the bed of the wagon. She had an old double-barreled shotgun and God help the Kansans who came near her looking for trouble. Her pluck didn’t comfort Will worth a damn. If anything it made him all the more uneasy. He was worried too about Kate, riding exposed on the right flank with the remuda. He called her in, told her to keep close to the wagon and told off Juan Mora to look after the horses. Kate didn’t like that one little bit, but Will told himself he didn’t give a monkey’s damn what she liked or disliked.
Mart sought him out to suggest that they leave a skeleton crew on the herd and keep a small group of fighting men together ready for fast action and trouble. Will wouldn’t hear of it. The men were all wanted on the herd or they could lose the whole lot. But he later saw the wisdom of the suggestion and took Mart off the herd. Mart was a fighting man and he wouldn’t back down in the face of trouble. If Will had to face guns he would rather be sided by Mart than a half-dozen green hands with guns they were not so good with.
Mart accepted his decision with a smile. He was always at his best when there was physical danger in the offing. It was hard for Will to realize that his kid brother was one of the most feared men in Texas, a fast and deadly accurate gun. But it was a fact. He didn’t relish the idea of Mart being a so-called bad man, neither did he look a gift horse in the mouth. Mart could be said to be a professional and right now it looked as if he needed all the help he could get.
Trouble, when it came, did so quietly.
Three men rode in from the east, quietly, almost respectably. They were well-mounted, fairly well dressed men. They all wore badges, so neither Will nor Mart were surprised to hear the big man in the center of the trio say that he was sheriff of the county through which they were now driving.
He was one of the biggest men Will had ever seen and he rode a chunky dun horse that seemed strong enough to take his great weight. He must have stood six and a half feet in his sox and he was built to suit his height. A full-bearded calm-eyed man with a quiet deep voice that carried well. The other two men were nondescript beside him. They were hard-faced and their eyes were mean. Their clothes might be respectable enough, but Will didn’t miss the fact that they wore open, well-used holsters and the butts of their guns were smooth from use. Faced by these three men it seemed small comfort that Mart, the fast gun, was beside him, with three spare loaded chambers in his pockets.
Will knew that he was a little scared. What he wasn’t to know was that he didn’t show it. To the three Kansas men he looked like a hardened Texas cattleman, a hard nut to crack. It was Mart, lounging easily in the saddle, who looked the harmless one.
“Name’s Sloan,” said the big man. “Sheriff.”
“Will Storm,” said Will. “What can we do for you, sheriff?”
“Just hold up your herd awhile. I want to look it over,” the deep voice purred.
“May I ask why?”
“Sure. We’re lookin’ for sick animals. There’s a law in this state against bringing sick animals in.”
“None of my animals’re sick.”
“I have to be the judge of that, mister.”
Will nodded.
“If you’re the law here, I reckon you have to do your duty,” Will said.
“Glad you see it that way,” said Sloan. “Some Texas men ain’t so agreeable.”
“I know my herd’s clean,” Will said, “Mart, stop the herd.”
Mart wheeled his horse and rode off. It wasn’t long before one of the Kansans rode into the herd and singled out a big roan steer. The crew sat their horses and watched tensely. Will spurred his horse forward and intercepted the man.
“You pick your cows out,” Will said. “My men’ll do the cutting.”
The deputy turned to the big man for guidance.
Sloan said: “Go ahead, Storm. I should worry who does the work.”
Will signed to Pepe Mora who was near. The Mexican boy rode into the herd and cut out the wanted animal.
“That line-back yonder,” Sloan called.
Pepe cut it out.
Sloan called again and again. Cow after cow was pulled out of the herd. Will sat his horse patiently until over twenty animals had been cut from the herd. Mart came up beside him.
“For God’s sake, Will,” he said, “you ain’t goin’ to let ‘em get away with this.”
“Nobody’s goin’ to get away with anything,” Will said. “Keep clear of me and watch his back. Don’t let either of the other men outflank you.”
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Mart looked at his brother in surprise. It sounded as if Will was getting set for a shoot out. That wasn’t the brother he knew, he thought. Neither did it seem that the affair had come to the point where guns had to be drawn.
Will approached the sheriff.
“How many more you goin’ to cut out?” Will asked.
“As many more as there’s sick,” came the answer.
Will smiled.
“Make more sense if you cut the well ones outa the sick,” he said.
The sheriff nodded coolly.
“It could come to that,” he answered.
“You say these animals’re sick,” Will said. “Show me where?” He suspected that the Kansan didn’t know Texas fever when he saw it. He also didn’t doubt that he had some sick cows in his herd. The longhorns were immune to the fever, but the Kansas cows would die if they caught it. That didn’t worry Will unduly, because he didn’t see any chance of his going near enough to any settlements for the disease to be spread. He also knew that not one of the animals cut out by Sloan were sick. He was talking the best he could find.
Sloan tried to bluff it out now.
“You think I don’t know a sick cow when I see it, mister?” he demanded. “You think I don’t know Texas tick?”
“That’s what I think,” Will said.
He saw that Joe was in the offing. Mart was well back. If it came to trouble, the three strangers would be boxed. But if Will made these three back down now, he reckoned that would not be the end of it. There’d be more jayhawkers around. This was their country. The Texans would be wide open till they reached Abilene.
The big man leaned on his saddle horn and said very calmly: “It ain’t no good you talkin’, Storm. I’m takin’ these cows and any more I think should be took.”
Will said: “You’re mistaken. You’ve cut out twenty good cows. There ain’t one of ‘em sick. Now maybe you’re a lawman an’ maybe you ain’t. It don’t matter. All that matters is I’m takin’ this herd through an’ I’m takin’ it through whole.”
Sloan looked at him with monumental calm for a moment.
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