Summer of the Star

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “It was the night of the Kitty Leroy show.”

  “You’re sure of this?”

  “No, he ain’t sure of nothing,” Phineas said.

  I spoke firmly: “Yes, sir, Mister Justus.”

  “Did you speak to Phineas?”

  Phineas shot out—“He didn’t ...!”—but I had the floor.

  “I called out his name,” I said, “but he was so caught up in the game, I don’t think he heard me. Paid me no mind, anyway.”

  Slowly Mr. Justus chuckled and shook his head. That sounded like Phineas. Everyone knew that, and this time Phineas didn’t argue or try to contradict my story.

  “This was on the Third, when you went to see that woman dance?” the major fired out, and I had to look at him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was Tommy with you?”

  Right then Tommy was circling the herd, and my face must have paled. I didn’t want to lie to the major. By thunder, I couldn’t lie to him, but, for a young cowpuncher, I thought of something real quick. “No, sir.. I grinned. “You know Tommy, Major Canton. You couldn’t hold him back when it came to seeing a dancer. Or Nauchville.”

  That, I figured, would get a chuckle or two, but the major, he just glared at me, saying: “I don’t want you two boys alone in Nauchville. You savvy?”

  My head dropped. “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

  “You stick together. Or the only females you’ll see will be the cows in our herd.”

  That caused Fenton Larue to point out. “But there ain’t no cows in this herd, Major Canton. We brung up nothin’ but steers.”

  This caused some laughter, finally, and eased the tension building in our camp, until everyone remembered Phineas and turned their attention back to him.

  “Well, Phineas?” Mr. Justus said.

  “I was in Nauchville,” he said.

  “You calling Mad Carter a liar?” Larry asked.

  Phineas slouched, and gingerly rubbed his chin. “Well, I thought I was in Nauchville,” he said.

  Our little parley broke up after that. I finished my coffee, and dragged my sougans away to get some shut-eye. I could hear the major and Mr. Justus still jawing away about Marshal Norton as I drifted off to sleep.

  When I woke up, a few hours later, they were still talking. I pulled my hat down over my eyes, wondering if I could sleep maybe twenty minutes more, but their words kept me awake.

  “More herds comin’ in, June,” the major said.

  “Yes. It seems to be a busy season.”

  “You haven’t brought any buyers out to inspect our beeves lately.”

  “No. I’ve met a few, but so far no offers or interest that I find acceptable,” June explained.”

  “K.P. Chesser says he was in the Drovers Cottage when a Chicago buyer offered you twenty-eight-fifty a head.”

  “I can do better.”

  “K.P. decided he couldn’t. He took it when the man ....”

  “I was there, Luke.”

  “And I’m like Perry Hopkins, June. I’d like to get home. One of our boys has gotten his plow cleaned by a lawman. And those lawdogs under Brocky Jack Norton are makin’ things tough on all Texas cowboys.”

  “You do sound like Perry Hopkins, Luke.. He let out a sigh. “I’d like to get back to Texas, too, Luke, but I’m busted, Luke. Between carpetbaggers and everything else, I’m just another cow-poor rancher. Thirty a head is a fine offer, but I am expecting Red Frazer in from Chicago. I did business with him the past two years. He promised me thirty-seven a head. If we can hold out until he arrives, that will be a blessing for everyone.”

  “When do you expect Frazer?”

  “Unfortunately he’s been delayed. I received a wire from him the evening before last.”

  A match flared, followed by a lengthy silence. I started to drift off to sleep, but my eyes opened when Major Canton asked: “June, how broke are you?”

  No answer.

  “How long can you afford to keep payin’ the boys. And, don’t forget, you just hired back one hand we don’t really need.”

  Again, there was no answer.

  “Well,” Major Canton said, “it was a good thing you did, June, hirin’ back Phineas.”

  “I hope so.”

  chapter

  16

  The next evening, we had visitor in camp. It wasn’t that buyer Mr. Justus was expecting, and he didn’t get the same welcome we gave Phineas O’Connor.

  He came in quietly. He was a real quiet walker for a big man. When he stepped around Larry McNab’s Studebaker and I recognized him, I shot straight up, spilling my plate of beans, kicking over my coffee cup, then tripping over my saddle, and stumbling into a standing Perry Hopkins, who cussed, but held me up. We stared at Hagen Ackerman.

  The big Mennonite shifted his axe from one shoulder to the other, and gave me the hardest glare.

  “It’s that crazy sodbuster.. Rising deliberately, Tommy Canton touched the revolver he had started carrying on his hip instead of leaving it in his saddlebags. “What you want, pig man?”

  “Tommy,” Larry warned, “take your hand off that gun, kid. Or I’ll take it off.”

  Mr. Justus and the major were in town, and Fenton Larue was circling the herd. Those of us in camp watched as Larry stepped toward the Holyrood farmer, extending a cup of coffee.

  “’Evening, sir,” Larry said, like it was Wild Bill Hickok or Kitty Leroy he was speaking to. “If you’re hungry, we’ve got beans and biscuits. And the coffee’s mighty fine. Folgers. A lot of folks prefer Arbuckles’, but I’ve always had a taste for this brand. Even got some honey if you want it sweet. We’re out of store-bought sugar.”

  The farmer looked at the tin cup as if it were a bug.

  “I’m Larry McNab.”

  No response.

  “Seen you walking about these parts.”

  Nothing.

  “Storm’s coming in, feels like. If you need a place to roll your blankets for the night, you’re welcome here.”

  “My pa ain’t about to welcome no ...,” Tommy Canton started to say.

  “Shut up,” Perry Hopkins snapped, and Tommy fell silent.

  Ackerman’s eyes fell on me again, and he started walking. Larry set the cup down, and headed toward the back of the chuck wagon where he kept his shotgun. Perry started to move in front of me, but I didn’t need or want any protection. I stepped ahead of Perry, and waited on the big farmer with the two-bladed axe.

  Only he wasn’t looking at me any more. It wasn’t me that seemed to interest him so. In fact, he walked right past me, didn’t even see me or the Griswold and Gunnison I wore. Then he was standing over André Le Fevre, who kept eating his supper as if he were alone.

  Finally the man butted the axe by his feet, and said: “Your face.”

  Looking up at last, Le Fevre set aside his empty plate, and dabbed his lips and chin with the end of his bandanna. “You talkin’ to me?”

  With his free hand, Ackerman traced a line on his cheek bone, indicating the healing scratch on Le Fevre’s face. “How’d you get. Ven?”

  Le Fevre rose, stepping back, dropping his right hand near the butt of his revolver. Since we weren’t in town, every mother’s son of us was heeled, except for Phineas, who just stared at the giant in awe. Larry, who had retrieved his weapon, thumbed back the hammers on his double-barreled Westley-Richards twelve-gauge.

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Le Fevre said, and grinned. I guess he liked the odds—his six-shooter against the giant’s axe.

  “How?” the farmer repeated.

  “He fell off his horse,” Perry Hopkins offered.

  That riled Le Fevre. “You stay out of dis!”

  Perry didn’t listen. “He fell off his horse and into a briar patch while pushin’ our herd north.”

&
nbsp; Turning to face Perry, Ackerman lifted the axe off to his shoulder. He looked at me again, then at Tommy, who had forgotten about his revolver and was now rubbing his left arm. Next Ackerman studied Phineas, who grew uncomfortable and stared down at the sorry excuse for cowboy boots I’d given him. Finally the giant’s eyes moved to Larry, who had lowered the hammers on his shotgun, even put the Westley-Richards away.

  “Offer still stands, Mister,” Larry said, all pleasant-like, as he moved toward the coffee cup he had poured for our guest. “I make a fine cup of coffee.”

  Which was a lie, if you asked any member of our crew.

  Hagen Ackerman looked again at Le Fevre, shook his head, and turned with surprising agility. He made a beeline out of camp.

  “How about that coffee?” Larry called out.

  The German shook his head, grunted, and disappeared into the fading light.

  “What the Sam Hill was that about?” Le Fevre asked.

  The gunman was looking at me. So was everyone else in camp.

  “Tell him,” Larry ordered me.

  Thunder rolled in the distance, and lightning lit up the western sky. Pretty far away, but heading toward us. I picked up my dishes, dropped them in the wreck pan, turned to see everyone still training their eyes on me.

  “I saw Sheriff Whitney in town two days ago,” Larry began, having given up on me providing an explanation. “He asked me if a big Mennonite had been into our camp. Said the farmer had ....”

  “His daughter was killed,” I cut in. “Murdered.. I made myself look in Le Fevre’s pale killer eyes. “Some place down south from here.”

  Larry added: “Sheriff seems to think some cowboy on a trail crew did it.”

  “When did this happen?” Phineas asked.

  Before Larry or I could reply, Le Fevre bellowed at me: “What are you lookin’ at, MacRae?”

  “I’m looking at the same thing Hagen Ackerman was looking at,” I told him. “The scratch on your face.”

  Larry added: “Sheriff Whitney said the girl had clawed the man who killed her pretty good.”

  “I got this from a thick patch of briars,” Le Fevre shot back. His fingers had left his gun and now traced the mark on his cheek.

  “We know that,” Larry said. “We all know that.”

  That riled me. Larry McNab defending a vicious murderer like Le Fevre. By thunder, Larry didn’t even like Le Fevre. No one in camp did. I knew in my gut that this man had killed that girl. And now ....

  My stomach turned as another thought struck me. If Larry had talked to Sheriff Whitney, had he mentioned the mark on Le Fevre’s cheek?

  “He’s just a crazy old sodbuster consumed by grief,” I heard our cook saying. “That’s all. He’s been moving from cow camp to cow camp, and I guess I don’t rightly blame him.”

  “We seen him before,” Tommy interrupted. “He came through some days back, out by the herd. Ain’t that right, Mad Carter?”

  My head bobbed.

  “He seems to know you,” Le Fevre said.

  “We met,” I said. “In town.. I decided to leave out the particulars.

  “Well, he’s gone now,” Larry said. “I’m guessing no one in our camp interested him.”

  “You reckon he’ll be back?” Tommy asked. “I mean ... he’s come here twice.”

  “Let him come,” Le Fevre said. “But if he swings that axe around me again, I’ll bury it with him.”

  Thunder rolled again. Larry studied the skies. “Boys, we’d better eat now. Storm’s moving fast. Finish eating, get you a good night horse, and let’s all keep Mister Justus’s beeves from running.”

  * * * * *

  I had spent many a night singing to longhorns in wretched weather, and I would spend many more. I had survived stampedes, and would again. Cold rain drove hard in slanted sheets, popping off the India rubber poncho I wore. My hat had become waterlogged, and it was hard to see anything except when the lightning flashed across the sky.

  We all rode night herd that night, excepting Larry, of course, and Phineas, who was still too stove up to fork a saddle.

  Cattle bawled. My brown horse, Davy Crockett, snorted. Shivering from the cold, I did my best to sing “Lorena”, and prayed the beeves would not run. Every once in a while, I’d hear some other rider singing softly or calling out prayers meant to calm the longhorns. Mostly, however, I just heard the wind and rain, and those nerve-racking cracks of thunder. Once, a longhorn jumped out of the mud at the booming, rolling thunder, and I let out a wail. My heart leaped into my throat, and I stopped singing and called out: “Easy, now. Easy, you crazy cuss. Nothing’s gonna hurt you.. I didn’t see that mossy horn again after the lightning streak. Maybe he had heard me.

  No, the cattle did not run that night, but only by the grace of God. Yet I think that was the longest night I ever spent. Every time a streak of lightning shot across the sky, I thought I saw him, Hagen Ackerman, coming across the rain-soaked prairie, swinging that axe. Once, I did see him, and cried out in terror. Even reached for the gun I wasn’t carrying.

  During thunderstorms, most cowhands would leave their hardware in the chuck wagon or hoodlum wagon. No spurs, no Barlow knives, no gun belts, and certainly no revolvers. Not even Winchesters in our scabbards. Fenton Larue had even shunned the only shirt he had because of the metal buttons. So Larue was riding herd that evening in only his duck trousers, boots, and hat. Anything we feared might draw lightning, we left in camp. That includes horses. Light-colored horses, especially whites and duns, were known to be prime targets for bolts of lightning. Say what you will, call me superstitious, but in all my days cowboying, the three boys I knew to be killed by lightning strikes were riding dun horses.

  So the lightning flashed, and I was thankful I was on my brown, and then I was letting loose with a scream carried away by the wind and the rain. Hagen Ackerman was coming for me. I was about to kick Davy Crockett into a lope, but the next flash of lightning showed me it was Perry Hopkins riding toward me, not the big Mennonite with that feared axe.

  “You all right?” he called to me.

  I barely found my voice. “Yeah.”

  Reining in, he pulled up the collar of his slicker. Water rolled off our hat brims. “Thought I heard something just now. You hear anything?”

  It had to have been my shriek, but my head shook.

  “You look a fright.”

  “Thought you was somebody else.. But he didn’t hear me because thunder sounded again.

  “Just keep singin’,” Perry told me. “They don’t want to stampede. I think the heat today took out any energy they might have had. Hang in there,” he said as he rode away. “Don’t look up too much. You might drown. Like a turkey.”

  I couldn’t even smile.

  It was a gully washer, that storm. More rain fell in two hours than I’d seen in six months down in Texas. Those heavy clouds left us, but another trailed it, and this one brought with it even sharper lightning. I thanked God that I had left my revolver and spurs back in the chuck wagon. The cattle, extremely nervous, rose. We circled them, letting them walk, our backs to the wind and rain, then turned them toward the Smoky Hill, and let them mill.

  “Don’t let ’em into the river!” bellowed Major Canton, who had joined us at some point during the thunderhead. “Keep ’em off the banks, off the slopes!”

  Even Mr. Justus rode with us that night, like any thirty-a-month cowhand, taking his orders from the major, quoting Psalms to the cattle.

  Thankfully that storm passed quickly. The wind didn’t stop, however, and my wet duds turned to ice on my skin.

  It was one miserable night. I figured I’d come down with pneumonia or the grippe or at the least a lousy head cold. That is, if I didn’t freeze to death in the middle of July.

  Yet there was one good thing. No longer did I see Hagen Ackerman and his axe.

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sp; Dark clouds blackened the skies, but no more rain fell. We moved the cattle back to our position, or as near to our position as we could tell in the dark, but we continued to circle them, singing, humming, speaking slowly until dawn broke a few hours later.

  The worst had passed, leaving behind quagmires that would suck a man down to his knees, a flooding river, tired longhorns, worn-out night horses, and soaked, miserable, exhausted, freezing cowboys.

  And a dead man.

  chapter

  17

  A couple of Shanghai Pierce’s boys found him.

  They had been cutting out some of Pierce’s cattle that had drifted toward us during the storm late that morning, and, tuckered out though I was, I was helping them. Me and Tommy Canton. Oh, neither of us had volunteered. The major’s orders, you see.

  Perry Hopkins and André Le Fevre were cutting out some of Print Olive’s cattle, and Fenton Larue was counting our own herd, making sure we weren’t short any. Larry McNab and Phineas O’Connor had to get a noon meal cooking, and Mr. Justus had ridden into town, hoping to find his Chicago buyer arriving on the westbound K.P.

  It wasn’t a bad day. The clouds were gone, and the sun warmed us, drying out our soaked duds with help from the wind, which blew hot now. Besides, those two Mexicans who rode for Shanghai Pierce were doing most of the work. And they were something to watch. Vaqueros. You want to see a real horseman, a real cowboy, you find yourself a Mexican vaquero.

  Hazing a couple of brindle steers back to the group Tommy was holding, I saw the Pierce rider lope out of the prairie grass on a blaze-faced black, rein in, draw a pistol. I saw the smoke belch out of his gun before I heard the shot. The other vaquero, the one riding a palomino, came out of the river bottoms, and dashed toward his friend. A second shot was fired, and I spurred Sad Sarah into a gallop.

  The vaquero won that race. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tommy loping his roan, and Major Canton was coming out of our own herd, spurring his big buckskin. Ahead of me, the Mexican who had fired the warning shots spoke to his compadre in rapid Spanish, and then they were both galloping across the flats. They reined in maybe a half mile later, their horses jumping, side-stepping, snorting.