“I’ll put your horse up.”
“Good. John, tell Gretchen after we get the meal ready I’ll be back to see her.” She half ran for the chuck wagon being set up.
“She’ll love that,” John said, and they went to put their two horses in his corral with hay and water.
He had three more scheduled nights to stop. Then he’d have to start locating places for them to stop in on the day before they arrived. Some places he knew where to stop. Others were farther apart. They liked to make ten miles a day, then water the herd and let them graze all afternoon to maintain weight on the steers, but eight to twelve miles were the usual limits. Barriers, like fenced land, detoured them. Some places the new grass hadn’t had enough rain to be up tall enough. It was all a risk.
Both Long and Harp didn’t want all their groups to be the last cattle to reach Kansas. A flooded market was not any fun, and there were many rumors flowing down to Texas this year that this might be the lowest priced market yet.
The first few days of any drive had extra hands ride with each herd to keep the turn-back rebel steers who didn’t want to go in the herd. But after a few days they’d give up and follow the next tail. The social order was settled by then for the most part. Fighting upsets cattle drives when two animals try to decide who is boss, in an angry head-pushing for the status of lead steer.
Stampedes can be tough, and this would loom in Long’s mind all the way to Kansas. But these cattle were not as wild as the first ones who had been put into a herd right out of the Texas brush.
Everyone in their crew ate at the same mess tent. Several black cowboys were riding with the six herds, and they ate with all the rest. Long realized that rule cost them some cowboys who refused to eat meals with them, but their outfit paid the highest wages and his men had jobs after they got the cattle sold. Most of the outfits only paid wages till Kansas and no return money.
Long and his brother felt anyone that proved good enough to herd was good enough to eat with everyone else. Their own two point men on the first herd were black and taught the rest their skills. There was to be no fighting on the job, no matter what. Both would be fired. For teenage boys that was a stiff rule. But it kept down any trouble.
They made each stop he had set up and were well up the road. The Colorado River crossing was made on the coolest day so far, and there was a light rain. They had Hiram’s great lead bell steer to take them over. He went out in the river and swam across. Jimmy, the chuck wagon, Jan, and the two camp helpers took the ferry and went on to the next campsite.
Long had taken the ferry, too, to find the site he wanted and to be ready, so he missed the actual crossing. He did some hard riding north and found one herd in the way. They’d need to detour around to reach his place.
That left him in a quandary about how to flag their place as taken, then ride back to get them around that loose herd stumbling along. He cut some saplings and tied his ranch flags on them so the area was claimed for his usage. Then he topped some others about waist high to tie his flags on them.
He mounted his horse, hoping the other outfits recognized this as a valid identity to say the place was taken. Then he pushed his horse to go back to warn Harp of the herd in his path.
Harp was on the north shore, and when he got to him he was bragging on the whole crew. No one hurt, no cattle lost—a perfect crossing. He was proud of the entire bunch.
“There is a herd ahead, which is why I came back. We need to swing west and go around them. They are a sloppy bunch. I have my spot posted, if they even know what that means.”
“Is there enough open country west of them?”
“Yes. We need to hurry the herd up and then send some hands to deflect them away from our place.”
Harp went and talked to the two point riders. Long rode back telling riders to get ready to move around the other herd ahead. He knew that to get the cattle moving faster the two on point had to close the gap between them.
Long rounded the tail of the drive and told those men the plan that they were hurrying the herd. Then he spurred his horse up the left side telling those riders the same thing. By then the cattle were trotting hard, moving left enough he felt certain they would miss the herd lollygagging along before them. He reined up and headed back for the right side to do all he could to keep the herds separate.
Dust rose from cloven hooves, and the bawling cattle were hard on the move. Grateful for the stout horse between his knees pounding the ground, he pushed him. He and the herders ahead and behind him were shouting and waving their hats or beating their leather chaps with rope tails to keep the right side moving farther to the left.
Long could see their passing stream set the other herd moving to the right, shocked by the commotion of their sudden appearance. He began to feel certain they’d make the pass by and not mix herds. He spurred his hard-breathing horse up beside some cattle in their herd who acted interested in the ones they were going by, ready to shut off their escape.
In and out of small dust storms, he knew the worst was over and they could soon slow down. But the plan worked and they’d be ahead of that bunch from there on. He saw their mass begin to slow—no doubt Harp had the two point riders loosen the distance between them apart. They soon were down to a fast walk, and at that point Long reined in his horse and he began thanking the riders for their great job.
To most of them it was all in a day’s work. A few riders laughed.
“Hell it was all part of my job.”
“Well you did it right,” Long shot back at them.
With a dusty large kerchief around her neck, his wife showed up riding near the rear. “Hey, Long, that woke us all up.”
“I guess we didn’t lose anyone.”
She shook her head. “Wonder if that bunch we passed lost anything?”
“I don’t care. They were tottering around and stood in our way.”
“Well it was exciting for a while. Love you.”
“You just be careful. I only have one wife.”
She laughed and said, “That’s all you need.”
He nodded his head in agreement and rode on to thank the others.
When they were in camp, Harp was drinking water at the barrel on the side of the chuck wagon.
“It worked good,” Harp said. “I could tell you had things in hand at the rear.”
“Just riding with them. Everyone did a helluva good job.”
“We might make drovers someday, you think?” Harp teased.
“I’d hope so.” They both laughed.
Jan came walking up in her boots and divided skirt—with the quirt hanging from her wrist.
“You all right, Missus O’Malley?”
“Fine. Curly offered to put up my horse. I agreed. We did make a real smooth pass around that other bunch today.”
Harp agreed.
“You two do that often?”
“No,” Long said. “But sometimes you have to do things and there isn’t much time to plan. You simply do it and hope it all holds together.”
She kissed his cheek, dust and all. “I know it’s the pure D old tomboy in me, but I sure thank you two for letting me herd them.”
“You do a good job.”
Long’s arm on her shoulder, they headed for the chuck. “I kinda like having you along.”
“Me too. I’m seeing lots of country I never would have seen if I hadn’t got to come.”
“Plenty of it out here to see.”
“What were the Rockies like?”
“Towering tall and even in summer got snow on them, or so I hear.”
“Someday take me there. I’d love to see them.”
“I promise to do that. Jimmy, how was your day?” he asked the apron-wearing head cook.
“Fine as frog hair. You boys skinned by them lazy peckerwoods today?”
“Slick as a whistle.”
The three of them laughed about it.
Later, Harp and him talked about the “passing.”
�
�If we hadn’t had some experience we’d never done that,” Harp said, holding his coffee cup up to drink.
“I thought the same thing. And we have five more herds behind us who will have to make like decisions.”
Long nodded. “And we have heard lots of tales about outfits losing all their cattle in tornados, river crossings, rustlers, and outright thievery.”
“Remember that story you told about running into Pinkertons looking for some drovers who took the money and ran?” Harp asked.
“And I never heard they found them, either. You could bet if Pinkerton found them, every newspaper would have had a front-page story on the recovery.”
“I agree. Be a sad day for the folks at home who gave them their cattle to sell and were waiting for the money.”
“They said a cowboy wired for money to come home, or they’d not known about it for months.”
“Who can you trust, Long? Ever since the war there has been lots of cutthroat deals happening. Maybe the war taught folks the wrong ways to go.”
“You hear any more before we left from the Austin lawyers?”
Harp shook his head. “I am convinced it is all bluff, but it still eats at me they might get something done.”
“There is always that worry isn’t there?”
“Two years ago we worried how we’d get through with a pittance of the cattle we have today and we made it. How I will always wonder.”
Long was chuckling. “Jan, he had this fistfight with a man from a posse sworn to kill us all up there. He knocked him on his butt, and then he hired him and the whole posse to help us load cattle. We had lots of help in Sedalia.”
She smiled. “You two won’t ever forget it will you?”
“No. But things have changed a lot.”
Long said, “Now you have to rush by slow herds and have real big herds to manage.”
Harp spoke up, “Jan, I sure expected to have ulcers before we ever got to Sedalia. They say you can worry holes in your stomach, and I knew we’d been challenged. And with the captain dying and I’d never sold eight hundred steers nor ever been close to that many.”
She smiled. “And this year you have twelve thousand.”
He nodded. “And more worries to boot because I have less hold on those others and what they can get into.”
She shook her head. “Aw, guys, you two will make it fine. You are both professionals.”
“Thanks. Someone needs to remind me of that every day.”
Jimmy came over. “The boys said Alex was sick. I’m going down and check on him.”
“Need my help?” Jan asked.
“Not right now.”
“He the boy from Haleyville?” Long asked.
“Yes, Alex Thornton. Good worker.” She sat back down. “Wonder what he’s got?”
“No telling. We can wait until Jimmy comes back and find out.”
“Oh, I bet he has an upset stomach. Jimmy can cure that. Get some sleep while you have the chance,” Harp said as the sun dipped low.
So they left him and went to their bedroll outside the camp.
“I really miss taking a bath,” she said on her knees working to smooth out the blanket.
“We get somewhere we can go take one. We’ll do that. Fair enough?”
“I didn’t really expect one short of Abilene.”
“Aw there will be a private stream or creek somewhere up here.”
“That would be nice. But I am not nagging you.”
“No, you aren’t, and I am damn proud you are here. I am spoiled to death having you along.”
They were kissing under the covers.
She said, “You spoil awful easy.”
CHAPTER 16
Daylight cracked and they were eating breakfast in the cool morning air. The wrangler had his herd in the rope and an iron post portable corral ready to select the horses the cowboys needed. He’d already cut out both her, his, and Harp’s mounts for the day.
When Jimmy came by with the large coffeepots, she asked him about Alex.
“He’s riding in the chuck wagon today. Got a fever and he’s dizzy.”
“No idea?”
“I don’t have much medical training.”
“If I can do anything, tell me,” Jan said.
“Maybe resting some will help him. I just fear it is a deeper thing. He’s no crybaby and has a really high fever.”
“If you need me call out,” she said.
But nothing stopped the fever that consumed him. By that mid-afternoon Jimmy shook his head when he met Long with the chuck wagon at the night’s site.
Mid-day in north Texas, the spring sun shone hard. The tender new grass blades waved in the eternal wind.
“That boy ain’t doing good.” He reined up his mules.
“I hate to hear that,” Long said, hitching his horse to a small tree sprout.
Jimmy looked around. “Ain’t no sign of a town is there?”
“Probably not short of the Red River. We’re two to three days’ short of there.”
Jimmy shook his head. “He won’t last that long. And I doubt a doctor could save him.”
“My wife will hate that.”
“No more than I do.”
“I agree. Sorry I am not a medicine man, either.” He kicked a pile of horse apples. There were things in life beyond a human’s ability to repair them, no matter how hard they were to swallow when they happened.
“He won’t last through the night.” Jimmy tucked his upper lip over his mouth and shook his head. “I guess we can pray God accepts him?”
“Yes.”
They both dropped to their knees.
Long began, “Lord, we are some cowboys who have a good friend about to be delivered to you, sir. His mother is a widow and we will help her, but make him at home in your big meadow and hold him in the palm of your hand. He is a great person, generous and polite—in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”
“Thanks.”
They helped each other up. He could hardly stand the sorrow he knew his wife would feel when she learned what was happening—God bless her.
CHAPTER 17
They buried the boy after sundown. In the orange glow of the coal oil lanterns, many wet faces stood in the circle. Alex Thornton was interred on the north Texas prairie. His mother could never visit his grave. The crude cross they marked it with would be stamped away by the oncoming waves of thoughtless bovines. He held Jan in his arms to comfort her as her tears soaked his shirt.
“Darling, he’s out of his pain.”
“I know, but he had such a strong leadership quality in him. We will miss him. He got things done and could accomplish what most his age stumble over.”
“I know we lost a strong soldier. We will support his mother. But we, the living, must go on. He is in God’s hands now.”
“I’m sorry I am so sad, but it really gets to me when such a great young person is stolen from us.”
They ate supper in silence and everyone talked soft. Despite Jimmy’s great dry apple–raisin cobbler dessert they loved, they remained silent.
The days ahead they had crossing the Red River were troubled, with the herd having to cross on high water. Two hands were nearly lost save for the effort of two cowboys who got out into the cold water among steers circling in the current. Harp had shed his boots to go in but was restrained by the men.
Each lifesaver grabbed a hand or collar and pulled the men into shallow water. Saved their lives, all happening within a few minutes of tension. Long saw the dripping four cowboys standing on the bank when he rode his horse out of the river with the last steer. Good. They were all right. He only saw part of the wreck but could tell they were unharmed. Good deal.
They brought him a blanket and his bundle of clothes and gun.
“We have a good fire to warm you up on top of the bank,” Chuck Matthews told him. “Let me have the horse.”
“Thanks. Those two boys saved Tim and Bucky didn’t they?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded sharply. “Harry’s black. Murray’s white.”
“They’re both heroes.”
“Oh, yeah they never hesitated going to their aid.”
“I’m going to the fire. Next time I want heated water to cross that damn river.”
“I’ll turn the heat up next time, Long.”
Harp had his boots on and met him. “I recalled us saving the captain all over again.”
“Me too. Those four boys lost their hats. Get their hat sizes and send someone across by the ferry to buy them new ones.”
“Good idea. I might have them go pick them out themselves. We can rest tomorrow and catch up.”
Long agreed. “There is plenty of grass off to the west. Nice idea. We have been pushing hard. I’ll let you settle the hat deal.”
He looked up and saw Jan coming on her horse off the high bank. Most of the boys were dressed or wrapped up and waved at her. She didn’t mind. They were like him anxious to get warm again.
“Where we going?” she asked.
“When I get dressed, you and I are taking the ferry back over to the store. Take a bath, wash our clothes, sleep in a bed, and eat a meal at a real table.”
She smiled and turned the horse around. “You know there are times I think I really did marry a great guy.”
“Quit thinking.”
“You had an incident in the river today?”
“Two boys that didn’t swim got in a merry-go-round with some steers circling. Two boys, one was black, swam out there and snatched them out of harm’s way. Harp is buying them four new hats over at the store on the Texas side. Everyone is resting for a day on the bank, so you and I are taking a holiday.”
When he was dried out he dressed and they brought him his horse to ride with her back to the farside by ferry. He’d told Harp his plans and his brother sent them packing. Laughing he shouted after them, “I’m jealous.”
CHAPTER 18
The next morning they left their overnight room to ride back to the herd. They crossed on the ferry and reached the camp mid-afternoon. The men were mostly lying around trying to catch up on their sleep. Jimmy was resting in a canvas-folding chair and rose to his feet to welcome her.
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