Summer of the Star

by Johnny D. Boggs

  We followed that with some more hollering and back-slapping while the major told Tommy to saddle and fetch the horses for Ronan and Pierce. June Justus invited the two to spend the night or at least have supper with us, but they declined, saying they wanted to ride a bit farther south in case they might meet up with another herd. I expect they just didn’t want to eat Larry McNab’s grub, so they left, but not before Shanghai handed the major a slip of paper. After they left, we had a parley amongst ourselves.

  “That Ellsworth sounds mighty fine to me,” Davy Booker commented, and Phineas O’Connor agreed with him wholeheartedly.

  “You boys ain’t got a say in the matter,” the major snapped. “That’s between Mister Justus and me.. He unfolded the paper Pierce had given him.

  “What’s that?” Mr. Justus asked.

  “Map to Ellsworth,” he answered.

  “I’m surprised Shanghai didn’t charge you for it,” Larry said before heading back to the chuck wagon to fix our supper.

  Tommy Canton went along to help him. They returned with some pots and pans, moved the coffee pot off the fire, and started cooking.

  Staring at the map, the major began talking, more to himself, maybe, since he was trail boss, than to Mr. Justus, and especially to the rest of us listening.

  “Cox’s Trail,” he said. “We could ride west and intersect it. Map says it’s three hundred fifty miles from the Red to Ellsworth, thirty-five miles closer than Abilene was.”

  “I bet Shanghai’s filled his saddlebags with maps like that,” Mr. Justus said. “I bet the city of Ellsworth is paying him.”

  “Maybe so,” said the major, still looking at the map, tracing a route with his finger.

  “He’ll have every herd changin’ directions, comin’ to Ellsworth,” Perry Hopkins said. He was the only one, with the exception of Larry McNab, who’d speak his mind to the men who paid him, even knowing they were bound to disagree, and Larry wouldn’t say a thing unless he was provoked or strongly believed that he was in the right. “Market will be flooded. And they say it’s soft already.”

  All the major said was: “Maybe so.”

  “If Shanghai Pierce is boasting Ellsworth, there won’t only be Texas cattle there,” Mr. Justus said. “There will be buyers. The Drovers Cottage has moved there, and that’s one of the best hotels I’ve ever seen. The Gores know how to treat men right. Print Olive’s there already, and you know Print as well as I do, Luke. He’s not one to be hornswoggled, even by Shanghai.”

  The major nodded once more. “And it’s closer than Great Bend,” he added, before passing Shanghai’s map to Mr. Justus. The major looked at Perry Hopkins long and hard, not speaking, just staring, waiting for the point rider to give one more argument.

  “I don’t like changin’ things, Major,” Perry Hopkins said. “Don’t like surprises. Ain’t never been to Ellsworth, but I have seen Great Bend. To my way of thinkin’, there will be buyers there, buyers aplenty, and not as many herds to pick from. I’d say Mister Justus would get a fair price in Great Bend.”

  “Fair,” Mr. Justus said, trying to sound like Shanghai, “ain’t good, or great.”

  Perry’s face turned almost as red as his hair. I couldn’t figure why he was so all-fired set on not going to Ellsworth. “Good enough,” he said through clenched teeth. “But even Shanghai said you might have to wait to get top dollar in Ellsworth.”

  The major shrugged. “If the market’s flat, we’d have to wait in Great Bend, too. Let those beeves graze, fatten up. Fat cattle sell faster, and for a better price a head.. He glanced at Larry, and asked for his opinion.

  “I’m paid to cook,” was all he’d say.

  Perry pushed back his hat. “If it was me, I’d go to Great Bend.”

  “I appreciate that, Perry,” Mr. Justus said. “I really do.”

  “And I appreciate that free round of drinks that saloonkeeper promised us,” Phineas O’Connor said, which prompted a few soft chuckles.

  “It does sound tempting,” Mr. Justus agreed.

  “Which brings us to another matter.”

  We all turned at the voice of Le Fevre. He looked hideous with that poultice and bandanna across his cheek. We stared, waiting.

  “When you stopped me from mixin’ in with Pierce, you said you ain’t carryin’ no cash, and something about that if we quit you, or if you fired us, we’d ride back with a voucher, meanin’ we’d get paid when we got back to Pleasanton.”

  Mr. Justus bristled. “And you would get paid. I pay all my riders. Ask any of these boys who’ve ridden for me in the past.”

  “Fine, but if you ain’t got any money, how are you gonna pay us once we get to Ellsworth or Great Bend or Hades itself, wherever we wind up?”

  “I sell the herd. I ....”

  “You’re talkin’ about grazin’ the herd first. I hired on for thirty a month. Figure I got three months’ pay comin’. I didn’t hire on to night herd this beef once we hit the railhead.”

  “There’s a ten-dollar bonus ....”

  “Justus, I can earn ten dollars buckin’ the tiger at a faro layout. And how are we gonna enjoy the comforts of town if you ain’t paid what you owe us?”

  Well, suddenly we began wishing that we hadn’t shunned Le Fevre like a leper. He was making a right smart of sense, and Mr. Justus knew it. I don’t think he considered what he was doing cheating us, but, after hearing all that stuff about Ellsworth from Ronan and Shanghai, we already longed for hot baths, toddies, and women. Which all came costly no matter if the town was Ellsworth or Great Bend.

  “All right,” Mr. Justus said. “I can get a loan against the herd from a bank or packing plant. I can pay you off once we reach town at thirty a month and the ten-dollar bonus, or, if you’ll take just a months’ pay and stay with the herd, I’ll increase that bonus to fifteen dollars ... after it’s sold. Plus, you’ll be earning a dollar a day like before, so, if we wait a month, that’ll be more money for y’all. That sound agreeable?”

  It was unanimous. Even Le Fevre agreed. The longer we stayed, the more money I’d have to spend on whiskey and still have more greenbacks for Mama.

  “Where are we goin’?” Perry Hopkins asked. “Ellsworth or Great Bend?”

  Mr. Justus looked at the major and shrugged. About that time, Larry McNab said to come eat before he tossed it all out.

  “Major Canton and I will talk during supper,” Mr. Justus asked. “We’ll make a decision after we eat.”

  We watched them two men talk while we forced down burned biscuits and beans with stout coffee. I didn’t have any idea what they were saying, or who argued for what town, and none of it really matters because you already know where we went that summer.

  “It’s Ellsworth,” Mr. Justus announced after he tossed his cup, fork, and plate into the wreck pan by the chuck wagon.

  We cheered the decision, that is, all of us except Perry Hopkins.

  chapter

  3

  No storms, no stampedes, no trouble.

  Fact is, things became downright peaceable as we pushed Mr. Justus’s beeves up the trail, following the map Shanghai Pierce had given Major Canton. Eager as we were to reach Ellsworth, the boss men made us keep those longhorns moving at a leisurely pace. Leisurely. I’d dare say a blind and crippled snail moved faster than we did. It struck me that I’d never get to taste a beer or dance with a chirpie till my beard reached my belly button.

  Cox’s Trail had been surveyed and mapped out that spring, proving, I reckon, that Sean Ronan and the Ellsworth city council weren’t sparing any expense to get Texians to their fair city. With that map as our guide, we turned off the old Great Bend trail about halfway between the Salt Fork of the Arkansas and Pond Creek. From the shape of that trail, or, rather, what was left of that grass, we certain sure weren’t the first drovers to send their beeves Ellsworth’s way. So it was a good thing Mr.
Justus and the major kept us moving laggardly.

  We followed Pond Creek up to the headwaters—at least, they called that mud hole the headwaters—and then turned a tad northwest toward Bluff Creek. Those Kansas folks most certainly were prepared. Even after Swell’s ranch at Pond Creek, we passed a store at Cox’s Crossing on Bluff Creek and then another one just east of the Ninnescah ford. ’Course, we didn’t stop at any of those places to stock up on grub. Like Mr. Justus had told us, he didn’t have any cash money on him, and he was a right principled fellow, who didn’t believe in going on tick. Or maybe it was like Byron Guy said: “Old man Justus can squeeze a nickel tighter than my stepdad.”

  We had lost a lot of supplies in that stampede. By the time we reached the Ninnescah, meals had become skimpy to say the least, and I sure wouldn’t call what filled that old pot coffee. Larry McNab had been burning grain in his skillet and straining boiling water through that. No sugar, either, to help cut it down.

  It felt downright painful to pass that third and final trading post, but no one in our crew dared try Major Canton’s patience.

  One day stands out for me after all these years. I can’t tell you exactly what day it was—calendars were rare things to have on a trail drive—but it was warm, and Larry McNab was pouring coffee into the mugs of the major and Mr. Justus as they studied the map Shanghai Pierce had left them. Perry Hopkins just happened to be lugging his saddle past when Mr. Justus jabbed a finger at the map and said: “I figure us to be right about here.”

  Perry glanced at that map, and set his saddle in the dirt. Both Mr. Justus and Major Canton looked bewildered as Perry squatted beside them, uninvited, and said: “Here?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Justus answered.

  Pursing his lips, Larry rocked on his haunches, and pushed back his hat’s brim, studying on something. And when he set his coffee pot beside Perry’s saddle, I determined that I’d never get any brew unless I headed over to this growing confab. That’s how come I can recall that conversation.

  “Where’s Ellsworth?” Perry asked.

  Both the major and Mr. Justus stared at the drover before Mr. Justus showed him on the map.

  “If that’s not inside the quarantine line,” Perry said after a moment, “it’s mighty close to it.”

  “If Ellsworth were inside that line, Shanghai would have let us know,” Major Canton said, which prompted a sarcastic snort from Perry Hopkins. Even Mr. Justus looked a tad skeptical as he lowered the map, and rubbed a thumbnail across his bottom lip.

  The quarantine was the way dumb Kansas sodbusters dealt with Texas Fever. (Don’t I sound like a Texas waddy?. I can’t fault those hayseeds, and we didn’t know better back in the ’70s. Texas longhorns moved through Kansas to the rails, and suddenly Kansas cows starting dying off. Texas Fever, they called it. Red-water Fever. Dry Murrain. Bloody Murrain. Spanish Fever. Splenic Fever. It had quite a few handles, and some newfangled ones in those veterinary journals of the times.

  It killed cattle, quick.

  Not our cattle, however, only Kansas beef, milch cows and the like. Texas longhorns stayed healthy, and nobody ever got sick from eating Texas steaks. Kansas farmers, however, noticed that their cattle were healthy, too, until shortly after a Texas herd passed by. Like I say, I don’t blame those sodbusters any. It wasn’t until long after the quarantine line had pretty much stopped the trail drives to Kansas that scientists figured out what was causing it all. A tick. Just a little tick. Longhorns had grown immune to that parasite, but it killed off Kansas beef sure enough.

  To save their own cattle, Kansans adopted a quarantine line. Texas cattle weren’t allowed inside that boundary. That’s one reason Abilene lost the Texas trade, and that quarantine line would keep on stretching westward. Thus Newton, Wichita, Great Bend, even Ellsworth, and eventually Dodge City would come and go as cattle towns.

  “Just the same,” Mr. Justus said cautiously, “perhaps we should avoid any farm.”

  “Problem is,” Major Canton fired right back, “is that we’ve never been on this trail before, so how in Sam Hill are we to know where some fool has decided to farm this lousy country. Besides, I ain’t one to run with my tail tucked between my legs from some sorry nester.”

  “I’m just trying to avoid any run-in with the Kansas law.. That was just like Mr. Justus, always the peacekeeper, never one to rile, never one to incite. It always struck me as kind of peculiar how he and Major Canton partnered so well, being so different in their personalities.

  The major expressed his opinion of Kansas law, which I’m certain you can imagine without me spelling it out in words.

  It turned out, Perry Hopkins had been right. Ellsworth lay inside that quarantine boundary, and, in 1873, most of Kansas was enforcing that law. It also turned out that the very next night the major got a chance to speak his opinion about Kansas law to a county sheriff.

  * * * * *

  Chauncey Belton Whitney came drifting into our camp the next evening, shortly after we had our beeves bedded down. We were filing past the chuck wagon to drink coffee even worse than usual and platefuls of beans seasoned with Kansas dirt instead of salt and pepper.

  Phineas O’Connor led our visitor straight to camp, announcing: “Boys, we’re getting a gen-u-wine escort into Ellsworth.. He pointed out Mr. Justus and the major, before turning his roan pony, and easing his way back to the herd.

  Our guest stayed in his saddle, which impressed me right off. I didn’t know who he was, but he had manners.

  There wasn’t anything impressive about him. He was slight of build, had a flowing mustache and beard, but no side whiskers, and his thinning hair was matted with sweat and dust. I took him to be in his thirties. After removing his straw hat, he mopped moisture off his forehead with the sleeve of a linen duster. He introduced himself, and, when Mr. Justus invited him to join us for grub and coffee, he swung off his paint horse.

  That’s right. A piebald gelding, probably part mustang, and I doubt if it topped fifteen hands. Paint horse. I spit. His manners might have impressed me, but not that glue bait he rode. Why, no self-respecting cowboy would be caught dead on a horse like that. Standing behind that ugly pinto, he took off his duster, and tossed it over the saddle. When he ducked underneath the horse’s neck, and moved toward Larry McNab’s coffee pot, every one of us took a step back. The major put his hand on the butt of his revolver. Le Fevre slowly pulled his from his holster.

  Our pale-eyed guest, Chauncey Belton Whitney, wore a tin star pinned to the lapel of his double-breasted vest.

  He took the cup McNab offered him, tasted the coffee, stared at the brew like his taste buds had played an awful trick on him, but said nothing other than a Yankee thank you, and moved toward the major. As he walked right past me, I got a good look at that badge: Sheriff.

  “Mister Justus?” he asked.

  Major Canton shook his head, but kept his hand on that revolver. “No,” he said, and nothing else.

  After an awkward silence, Mr. Justus cleared his throat. “I am June Justus, Mister ... Whitney, is it?”

  “That’s right.. He sipped more of what McNab labeled coffee. “I’m sheriff of Ellsworth County.”

  Slowly Mr. Justus pushed himself off the ground, and shook hands with the lawman. “We, sir, are bound for your city. I’m delivering two thousand two-year-olds to market.”

  “Yes, sir. Councilman Ronan asked me to come meet you.”

  That lightened the mood in our camp considerable. Major Canton’s right hand left his Colt, and picked up his coffee cup. Some of the boys relaxed, and went about their supper. André Le Fevre, I noticed, kept his eyes trained on that lawdog, his Smith & Wesson still in his lap.

  Whitney looked toward the setting sun. “Going to be a hot summer,” he remarked to no one in particular.

  “I’d dare say Texas will be hotter,” Mr. Justus said lightly.

  “Do you have
a buyer for your cattle?” the sheriff asked.

  “I do,” Mr. Justus said. “It’s whoever offers me the best price.”

  We laughed a bit, and even Chauncey Whitney cracked a smile, but only briefly, and he stopped all the sniggering when he asked his next question.

  “You are aware, sir, of the state’s quarantine laws?”

  This time, Major Canton answered. “Yeah.”

  Shaking his head, Whitney drained the rest of his coffee. “Well,” he said, setting the cup on the ground, “the council really thought that Ellsworth fell beyond that line, but, unfortunately, we are a couple of miles inside the quarantine area.”

  “You uninvitin’ us to your city, Sheriff?. The major’s hand returned to his Colt.

  “Far from it,” Whitney said. “Councilman Ronan asked me to make sure no farmer gave you any trouble.”

  “We can handle any farmer. That was Perry Hopkins talking. That’s right, Perry Hopkins, who had not wanted to head to Ellsworth in the first place, yet, like most Texas cowhands, he sure had a triple dose of pride.

  This time, Chauncey Whitney laughed. “Boys,” he said, “Print Olive’s in town. Willis McCutcheon and J.H. Stevens and their crews. Shanghai Pierce will be back directly. So are a bunch of drovers with stars on their boots, and that bull-headed gambler, Thompson.”

  “Thompson. Ben Thompson?” McNab asked.

  “Yeah,” Whitney replied. “And his brother Billy.”

  “Well, that’s just fine.. Our cook’s head bobbed, and he looked encouragingly at Byron Guy and the major’s son.