by H. V. Elkin
After that, the work went fast and there were no more problems to get in the way. The corral was finished in two days and, by that time, the digging team had reached the area of the water hole. The men who had been cutting trees finished before anyone else and completed the digging near the camp, running the furrows right up to the corral opening. The laboring was done, and now they could all be cowboys again. Morale had been good since the ruckus, but now spirits soared up another notch or two.
Cutler gathered everyone together at camp. He did not show how glad he was about how well the work had gone. Now that the others were going to have a little time on their hands and a chance to make mischief, it was no time for Cutler to stop being the boss.
“All that’s left now is the hard part,” he told them. “First, we got to be sure about the habits of the herd we’ve been stayin’ out of the way of all this time. Then we got to time it so we get an old saddle blanket at their old water hole when they ain’t there, be ready to watch ’em when they decide to go on to the second hole, then be ready to herd ’em when they get there. Tomorrow you can all have a day off, but stay around camp and keep the noise down. Next day we should be ready for the drive. Maybe the day after. Now where’s the man who said he wanted to get rid of his old saddle blanket.”
“That was Shorty,” someone said. “He don’t sit heavy enough to need one.”
“Like hell,” Shorty said. “I usually got to use two.”
“I’m just gonna pick one man to ride with me tomorrow,” Cutler said, “unless one of you wants to volunteer.”
No one spoke.
“Okay,” Cutler pointed at Bo, “I’ll take you.”
Next day as they were riding toward the mustang range, Bo said, “That man, Dave Baker . . . seems to be a good man.”
“He’ll do to ride the river with.”
“Suppose he’s got a lot of good men workin’ for him.”
“Hear he’s short on help. Hear he does it all himself.”
“Well,” Bo said, “I guess if you want a thing done right, you got to do it yourself.”
“Well, I’ll say this. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to have to do this job without help. Didn’t know cowboys could even move without a horse under ’em.”
“Well, I guess a man does what he’s got to.”
“And he does it himself,” Cutler said, “unless he can find another good man to help him out.”
They rode halfway up the hill on the north end of the valley. Then they dismounted and went the rest of the way on foot. They crouched down as they got to the rim and looked down into the valley. Bo got his chance to see the stallion herding the mares around in a drill.
“I’ll be damned!” Bo said.
“He keeps ’em in shape,” Cutler said. “This job might not be so easy as I’ve been makin’ it sound.”
“That the mule over there?”
“Yeah, that’s Kate.”
“What makes mares run off with mustangs like that?”
“Don’t know. Something in their blood, probably.”
The stallion finished his drill and walked proudly around the edge of the valley surveying his harem.
“Okay, Bo,” Cutler said. “I want you to get back to your horse and ride around that way to the southwest until Kate sees you.”
“Then what?”
“That’s all. Then come on back here.”
After Bo left, Cutler continued to watch the mustangs. They were as tightly knit together as the camp had become in the last two days. Soon the camp and the mustangs would be breaking up. It would take one well-trained army to capture the other. He did not like the job any better now than he did at first. But that feeling was now supplanted by another, one that until now had been only a nagging doubt in the back of his mind. Now as he looked at the proud band of horses, he was more certain that whatever they did to capture the herd, they had a very small chance of getting the stallion. Well, if that was the way it was going to be, all a man could do was take things in order with first things first.
On the rise to the south, Kate lifted her head, sniffed the breeze and then arched her neck as she looked down the other side. Then she lifted her head and made a loud braying sound. The stallion looked up, then gave out a tremendous snort, and the herd was instantly mobilized, racing up a hill to the east, with Kate leaving her post and coming down into the valley. The medicine hat lead mare once more outdistanced her closest follower. The stallion pranced in the valley until Kate got there, then Mesteño wagged his head from side to side and chased Kate toward the single file of mares disappearing over the hill. In a surprisingly short time all life in the valley had disappeared, and the sound of retreating hoofs was the only evidence that the mustangs had ever been there. And soon the only sound was Bo riding back.
As Cutler stood and started back down to meet Bo, he saw that Apache was agitated. Cutler’s horse was pawing the ground and snorting. This nervousness seemed to transfer to Bo’s horse as it got closer to Apache, and it shied to the right slightly.
“Easy there!” Bo said.
“Yeah,” Cutler picked up the thread of what they had been saying a half hour ago, “it must be something in their blood. It don’t just get to the mares either. It got to your stallion, Bo, and it got to my gelding. That’s good.”
Bo dismounted and tied his horse to some brush. “What’s good about it?”
“When we chase the band, our horses’ll want to keep up. They might be able to run faster than they ever did before. They’ll have to. Did you see how fast that band got out of sight?”
“No, I had a hill in the way.”
“Well, it was one of the fastest things I ever saw any kind of herd do. Like each horse was runnin’ alone without another one bein’ in the way.”
Cutler took the old saddle blanket down into the valley. He stuck a dead branch in the ground by the water hole and hung the blanket on it. Then he climbed back up to where Bo was watching him.
“And that’s gonna do it?” Bo asked. “That old blanket’s all it’s gonna take to make the mustangs decide to move on to the next water?”
“That’s all,” Cutler said.
They rode on to the next water hole. From above it they could see that the two dark furrows ran from a natural northern entrance, a cleft between two rock faces. The furrows traveled in almost a straight line to the north and then disappeared around the hill that hid the corral.
Cutler frowned. “Gonna ask you to give up your bandanna,” he said, and removed his own. “Hang yours in plain sight on that sage by you.” Cutler rode a few yards south along the rim and hung his own bandanna there. When he rode back to Bo, he said, “That ought to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Well, I figure the band might come over this ridge to get to that water. If they did, they’d see just what we see, those furrows leadin’ away to the north. They see that and they might decide to go on to water somewhere else. And that’d make all our work about as useful as a carbuncle between you and your saddle.”
“I get it,” Bo said. “If the herd’s the kind to be spooked by the saddle blanket, they’ll stay away from these bandannas up here.”
“That ought to force ’em to come to the water from the south where they won’t be able to see our hard work yonder.”
“Suppose they come from the north and see the furrows before they get to the water?”
“I’d take it kindly, Bo, if you kept that idea to yourself. There’s about one chance in ten of that happenin’ and, with those odds, I’m takin’ the gamble. But it wouldn’t do no good for the others to start worryin’ about it. Especially don’t tell that sidekick of yours.”
“Dan?”
“That’s the one.”
“Don’t think I’d even give him the time of day anymore. Hate to admit it, but I think I got myself in with some bad company there.”
Cutler looked at Bo but said nothing.
“It come to me,” Bo said, “when I was watchin�
�� the mustangs. Figured I’d be better off bein’ herded by a wild stallion than lettin’ Dan egg me on into the kind of trouble we had in camp a couple days back.”
Cutler was glad to hear Bo say it, but his feelings were even more bothered about the job. There was not much that was really free anymore, just some animals like the mustangs. Everybody reacted a little differently to the mustangs. Cutler, Baker, Ellen, Harmon, Chase—all different, and now Bo saw something none of the others had. But no man could look on the mustangs differently. Once you saw them, you got to know yourself better. And maybe that was a good reason for keeping them free. The more a man rid the world of what was wild and free, the more he was peeling off his own identity. Maybe when nothing was free anymore, all men would be alike.
The next day Cutler rode back to the valley where he had hung the saddle blanket. Kate was no longer at her usual post and the valley was empty. He rode on and made a wide arc under the cover of hills and woods to the northern approach to the second water hole, and he saw that the ground was undisturbed near the furrows. He rode partway up the rise on the northeast side, as he had done with Bo the previous day, dismounted and crept up to the ridge. The mustangs were watering below him and Kate was stationed on a rise to the south. The mustangs seemed more nervous about being at this unusual spot of low ground, and it looked like there would be no drill here. When the stallion had watered, he went up to the spot where Kate was stationed and stood guard himself while Kate went down to water. When Kate had finished, she went back to the rise, and the stallion came down and herded the mustangs away to the south. Only after they had disappeared from sight did Kate disappear over the rim.
Cutler figured the band should have another day of freedom. One more day to be free. And one more day for them to get used to their new routine. He spent that day in camp and, with a stick, traced out the plan on the ground. He went over it twice to be sure that everyone knew what he had to do.
“Now, we got to get to our positions at noon. No sooner and no later. If it’s sooner, we might run into the herd goin’ to the water. And if it’s later, we might miss the best time. We got to do it after they’ve watered because if anything’s gonna slow ’em down, that will, though you might not think so when you see ’em run. If anyone’s got a question, better ask it. Don’t worry about it soundin’ dumb. You’ll feel a hell of a lot dumber if you make a mistake tomorrow.”
Bo asked, “Shouldn’t some of us be outside the furrows in case they break over them?”
“Nothin’ dumb about that question,” Cutler said. “If I could spare the men, we’d do it that way, but I can’t. We need all we got to make sure they only go away from that water in the direction we want ’em to go. It’s like part of a surround, except we’re not gonna box ’em in, just force ’em to go in one direction along the highway we got marked out for ’em.”
“It’s a chance we got to take,” Baker said.
“That’s right.” Cutler nodded. “A few things could go wrong, and you might as well know, when you’re goin’ after mustangs you can’t be dead sure about anything. You got to play the odds and use everything you got in the best way. That’s what we’re doin’. They reacted to the saddle blanket the way they’re supposed to, so maybe the rest of it’ll go the way it’s supposed to.”
“Anything else we can do to get ready?” Ellen asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got to ask you to do something that’s gonna be almost impossible tonight, and that’s get yourselves a good sleep.”
“Hell,” Dan said, “I could sleep on a steer’s back durin’ a stampede!” He looked to Bo for approval, but the young man did not react.
“Well,” Cutler said, “maybe so. But I wouldn’t bed down too close to anybody else tonight. That way, in case anybody can’t sleep, he won’t bother those that can.”
It was Dan that Cutler heard cursing to himself until just before daylight.
Cutler stood in the cover of the trees to the south of the rise where Kate was stationed. With one hand he held Apache’s muzzle to keep the horse quiet. In the other was his steerhorn trumpet. Gone for the moment were all the reservations he harbored about capturing mustangs. They had been replaced by the excitement of the blood he got just before any hunt, one of the times he felt most alive, when success or failure would happen within the next hour. It had been that feeling they were all experiencing last night when it was difficult to sleep. It would be that feeling now that made lost sleep the farthest thing from anyone’s mind.
The moment came. Mesteño appeared on the rise, and Kate went down to water. Cutler waited ten minutes to give Kate time enough to drink. Then he blew on his trumpet, one long blast, and jumped into his saddle. Mesteño, reacting to the sound, raised his head high, let out his own warning sound and went over the ridge.
The riders appeared from cover, forming a wall that moved toward the waterhole from all sides, all sides but the avenue of escape. When Cutler got to the spot where Mesteño had stood guard, he saw the band had veered from riders approaching over the eastern hill. The medicine hat was headed for the furrowed path. The riders closed in, forming a tighter wall as they neared the water, and the mustangs sped through the only way they could escape. Their first unsuccessful attempt to get away had bought the riders some time, and they were able to follow close behind the mustangs at the start. But the distance between them increased with each second.
Some of the riders fired their six-guns in the air. All of them used their spurs to encourage their mounts to make a better showing against the wild horses. But the distance between them continued to grow. Then something happened to Apache that had nothing to do with spurs, and the bay gelding shot forward through the ranks until Cutler was ten lengths ahead of the others. Some of the other horses—Bo’s and Baker’s— caught some of Apache’s spirit, and they also spurted ahead, the distance narrowing between them and Apache. The mustangs were running as expected between the two furrows of earth.
Cutler was twenty yards from Mesteño when the stallion rounded the hill that hid the corral. When Cutler rounded the corner, he could see the corral was a torrent of dust. “Is the gate closed?” he yelled to the man who had been left there.
“They ain’t all in yet!”
Then as the dust settled near the gate, Cutler saw Mesteño standing and looking toward his pursuer. Apache stopped short and reared. Mesteño reared in response, a cloud of dust rising up to his forefeet.
“Jump off!” Baker called to Cutler. “Get the hell out of their way!”
But Cutler sensed this had not been a preamble to a fight. Mesteño and Apache had already had their fight. This was a greeting. And something more, something else was communicated between the two. Cutler backed Apache from Mesteño who was holding his ground, and Cutler reached for his lasso. As he did, Apache reared again, and Mesteño began to run away toward the east. Cutler spurred Apache toward the stallion. He could hear voices behind him.
“She jumped the fence!”
“Close the damn gate quick!”
“That’s the medicine hat! She’s the lead mare!”
“Don’t let the others see her or they’ll all try jumpin’!”
“Throw up some dust!”
“Go after the medicine hat!”
“To hell with her! Let her go. Let her get out of sight! Throw up some dust, I tell you!”
“Baker! Dave!”
“Let her go, Dave!”
The voices got drowned by Apache’s hoofbeats, until Cutler could hear other hoofbeats in the dust rising to his left. Then, with Mesteño just visible ahead, the medicine hat materialized through the dust, as though she was inviting Cutler to forget the stallion and throw his loop over her neck instead.
Cutler heard Baker’s voice. “Never mind the mare, John. Get the stallion!”
So Cutler kept after Mesteño as the mare ran alongside him. Cutler could see that Mesteño was gaining distance and he knew they would not catch Mesteño this day, for despite Apache’s best effort
s to produce the speed his master wanted, the gelding’s heart was not in the chase that could result in the capture of Mesteño. Cutler pulled up and watched the stallion’s dust trailing over a rise and out of sight. He knew that he could never catch that horse with another horse, not even with Apache.
He looked around for the lead mare who had been running beside him but it was gone. Riding back, he came across Baker’s horse, and Baker was not on it. Then he was aware of the sound of cheering from the corral. And off to the north he saw Baker riding the medicine hat bareback, holding on tightly to its long, flowing mane, his legs clamped like a vise on the mare’s ribs.
Cutler raced closer to the corral. “We got the rest?”
“All but the medicine hat and the stallion. Dave’s on the mare.”
“I see that!” Cutler pulled up at the corral. “Now let’s be sure we keep what we got. Post yourselves around the corral facin’ it until those mares calm down, specially as long as they can see the medicine hat. Make sure they see you and not her. Some of you dig a furrow around the corral for good measure.”
“Look at that sonofabitch ride!”
“Never mind the show!” Cutler yelled. “Do what I said! One of you follow after me with Dave’s horse. You, Ellen.” And Cutler raced off toward Baker.
The mare was not running in a straight line now but in an erratic pattern in its attempts to unseat its rider. So, riding in a straight line himself and anticipating the mare’s movements, Cutler was able to get close enough to hand Baker his lasso. Baker took it and threw the loop around the horse’s neck. The mare stopped short at the feel of the rope and reared, then bucked.
“Can you get her to run again?” Cutler yelled, without expecting an answer. Baker was too busy to answer. He could not be distracted but had to keep his determination to stay on the horse as strong as the horse’s determination to throw him.
The mare bucked, turned and threatened several times to go over backwards and crush the rider. The bone-jarring ride lasted about ten minutes, and then the horse broke into a run again, with Cutler following on Apache. By this time, Ellen was there leading Baker’s horse.