Gather My Horses

by John D. Nesbitt

  “ ’Bout that time.”

  Roe moved his mouth and then spoke. “Him and me, we’re thinkin’ of havin’ our own roundup.”

  “I believe Lodge mentioned something like that when I saw him.”

  Isabel came out the front door. She walked forward, took the reins from her father, and led the horse away.

  Roe dug into the pocket of his cloth vest and brought out a sack of tobacco. He looked down at his work as he spoke. “The Association doesn’t control that anymore, so no one can tell us otherwise. A couple of others might throw in with us—you mentioned Lodge—and we’d like to have another hand or two.” Roe twisted his mouth as he rolled the cigarette tight with his fingers. Then he licked the edge and folded it down.

  When the man seemed to have his attention free, Fielding answered, “Lodge mentioned that, too. I think I might be able to help out.”

  Roe looked up with the cigarette hanging in his lips. “Just you? Selby said you had a kid workin’ for you, looked like he might be a hand.”

  “I can’t speak for him. He just did this one job for me, and now he’s on his own.”

  Roe lit his cigarette. “Oh. I thought he was workin’ for you.”

  “He was.”

  “Hmm.” Roe flicked the match on the ground.

  “Anyway, that was the main reason I dropped in. If I’d known you were at Selby’s, I’d have stopped there.”

  “All the same.” The pale brown eyes wandered across Fielding’s two horses. Then Roe walked to the chair Isabel left out, and he sat down with a sigh. “Sit here in the shade,” he said. He glanced at the stool. “You in a hurry?”

  “Not really,” said Fielding. “I picked up this horse in town, and I was takin’ him back to my camp. And I’ve got things to do there.”

  “I imagine.” Roe lifted the cigarette to his lips as he gazed off to the east.

  Fielding waited for the man to say more, but he didn’t. After a long moment, Fielding said, “Well, I guess I might be movin’ along before it warms up any more.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Roe. “Thanks for stoppin’. I’ll tell Bill I talked to you.”

  “That’ll be fine. What do you think, in about a week?”

  “Somethin’ like that. We’ll let you know ahead of time. And if you can get that kid to go, we could use him, too.”

  Fielding saw a bit of humor in Roe acting like a roundup boss, but he just said, “I’ll mention it if I talk to him.”

  “Do that.” Roe gave a backhand swipe at the goat, which had drawn near.

  “Well, so long, then,” said Fielding.

  “Sure. We’ll see you later.”

  Fielding turned the two horses and led them away. When he stopped to get them into position, he looked toward the stable. He expected to see Isabel, and there she was. She had unsaddled her papa’s horse and was leading him out into the sunlight. Fielding waved, and Isabel waved back. Then he stepped up into the saddle, nudged the buckskin, and set out with the brown horse at his side.

  Chapter Three

  The song of the lark fluted in the morning air as Fielding drank his coffee. Seated on a pile of canvas and using one of the two log sections for a workbench, he devoted his attention to putting a D-ring on a lash cinch. With his smallest punch he had made two sets of matching holes in the leather. Now, with the ring in place and the strap folded over, he was doing the stitching with two strands of waxed thread, each pulled with a two-inch needle. After a whole winter in which to go through his gear and make repairs, it took but one trip to bring this detail to his attention. The rope knot was about to pull through the eye of the leather, and putting on a D-ring now would save a lot of trouble later. Fielding was glad to have the time, and the peace and quiet, to tend to it.

  When he was done with his work and had his equipment put away, he saddled the dark horse he had kept in the corral overnight. Shading in color from deepest brown to black, the horse was well built for packing, with close quarters and a thick body. He was also a good saddle horse, poky at times, and Fielding had to ride him every once in a while to keep him in tune.

  With the horse rigged and ready to go, Fielding went out to gather the loose stock and bring them, with the picket horses, into the corral for the day. He looked over each one as he took the bells off, and finding no cuts or scratches, he climbed through the poles and put the bells and picket ropes in the gear tent. Then he led the dark horse out a few steps and mounted up.

  He rode south through the grassland, following the course of Antelope Creek but staying up and away from the cutbanks and debris. Lodge’s place was about four miles off, and the first half of the way had easier riding on this side of the creek. Fielding relaxed in the saddle and gazed at the rangeland as it rolled out to the southwest.

  The dark horse seemed restless, however. He was throwing his head and snorting, so Fielding put him on a lope for half a mile. When they slowed to a walk again, the horse settled down.

  Fielding rode on until the little valley narrowed. He reined the horse to the left, went down a short bank, and crossed the creek in a wide, shallow spot where he could see pebbles in the silt below. The creek was less than a foot deep here, so the dark horse splashed right through and climbed up on the opposite bank. Fielding pointed the horse south again, with the creek now on his right.

  A quarter of a mile later, Fielding thought he saw movement through the trees where the watercourse made a bend in front of him. Riding out and around and then veering to his right, he came upon a camp. Foremost in the site and a little to the left stood a small box elder tree about ten feet tall with a curved trunk and full foliage. In the background, a grove of young cottonwoods rose to a height of twenty feet or so. Midway between the box elder and the cottonwoods sat a pyramid-shaped tepee tent, and to the right edge of the site a blackish mule stood tied to one of the cottonwoods. A human form stepped into view from behind the mule and called out.

  “What do you want?” The voice came in a growl.

  Fielding reined his horse to a stop and took a full look at the man. He was a dark, wild-looking character, topped with a battered, full-crowned hat with a flat brim. Long hair flowed out on the sides and matched the spreading beard in its unruly appearance. The man was not armed, so Fielding did not sense a great deal to fear. He knew that some men, especially prospectors but other loners as well, were jealous about their campsites, so he dismounted and held his reins. If the man was camped in this area, it was worthwhile to know what he was up to.

  “Mornin’,” said Fielding.

  “What do you want?” came the voice again.

  “Nothin’ in particular. I saw your camp, so I thought I’d stop and say hello.”

  “Well, hallo, then.”

  Fielding walked forward with the horse tagging along. The wild-looking man took a few steps forward as well, and when Fielding was within five yards he stopped and smiled at the man. “Name’s Tom Fielding,” he said. “I’ve got a camp myself, about two miles downstream on the other side.”

  “Cattleman?”

  “No, I’m a packer.”

  The man’s eyes widened, and Fielding saw that they were of that changeable color called hazel. “I don’t like these sons a’ bitches that think they can run cattle through your camp. Think they own the whole range, but they don’t. This is public.”

  “I know.”

  “For every dollar they make, a poor man’s sweated some of his life away. They walk on the backs of the workin’man. Rich as Kreesus, with more than they ever need.”

  Fielding shrugged. “Some of these cattlemen don’t have much.”

  The hazel eyes flashed. “I’m talkin’ about them that does. Hand in glove with the robber barons, Morgan and Stanford and the rest. For every railroad tie they laid, a laboring-man died. Everyone knows it, but the rich just get richer and keep the poor man under his heel.” As the man spoke, his yellow teeth showed, and flecks of saliva flew out.

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Fielding.
At first he was surprised at how the man launched into his diatribe, but he was beginning to place the fellow now. Mahoney had said there was a crazy man living out this way. So he had been here over a week at least.

  “Everywhere you go,” continued the stranger. “Railroads, cattle barons, slaughterhouses, gold and silver mines. They send men down into hard-rock mines to die in the poison air like canaries. And they wonder why people blow ’em up!”

  Fielding winced. That kind of talk made him uneasy. Keeping his voice calm, he said, “This is not a bad place to be. We leave one another alone, at least I do, and so does our good neighbor Lodge, off to the south here. Couldn’t ask for better.”

  “Oh, he’s all right.”

  “Sure he is. And I’m no robber baron myself. If you ever need anything, don’t be afraid to ask. If I’m around, I’ll help. That is, if it’s within my means.”

  “I don’t go visitin’ much.”

  “That’s all right, too. By the way, friend, if it’s not too forward of me to ask, what do you go by?”

  The stranger had a matter-of-fact expression on his face, as if he were buying a sack of flour. “My name? It’s Dunvil.”

  “Good enough, friend.” Fielding held out his hand.

  Dunvil shook. He was an average-sized man, and he had a normal handshake.

  Fielding stepped back with his horse. “Well, I think I’ll be on my way,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

  “If I’m here.”

  Fielding paused at the crest of a hill and looked downslope at Lodge’s homestead. At each corner of the one-hundred-and-sixty-acre parcel, a pile of rocks marked the boundary of what Lodge called the Magpie. It was a hardscrabble place, with sparse grass competing with prickly pear and sagebrush, but Lodge had a neat, clean layout. The house, a two-room cabin made of lumber already weathered, faced south. To the west of it stood an equally grayed stable and a plank corral. Lodge himself was standing in the middle of his property with his two sorrels, so Fielding rode down to meet him.

  The horses looked up, and one of them nickered. Lodge turned and waved.

  As Fielding came to a stop and dismounted, he saw that the two horses were loose and Lodge did not have a rope or halter with him. To all appearances, he had been having a conversation with the sorrels. They were well matched, each with white socks on the hind legs, and one with a blaze narrower than the other’s.

  “How do you do?” said Fielding.

  “Came to see me in your time of leisure, did you?”

  “Looks like it. Did I interrupt a conversation?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait.” Lodge bent over, picked up a reddish pink stone a little smaller than a hen’s egg, and put it in his trouser pocket. He eyed the dark horse and said, “If you want to, we can go up to the house, and you can give him some water.”

  “That’s fine.” Fielding turned and walked side by side with Lodge as the two sorrels followed.

  “Grass is takin’ a while to grow,” said Lodge.

  “It varies. It’s pretty good in the valley.”

  “Oh, yeah. My few head don’t wander that far, and if I didn’t keep ’em back here closer, those gunhappy cowpunchers would run ’em off anyway.”

  “I imagine.”

  They walked the rest of the way up the slope without talking. At the cabin door, Lodge reached into his pocket and dropped a handful of stones, the reddish one among them, onto a small pile. A white stone and a dark one also settled into place. Without a word, Lodge walked to the trough in front of the stable and started pumping.

  Lodge was about forty-five by Fielding’s guess, but he was in good shape for his age. No exertion seemed to bother him. After walking up the hill and now working the pump, he was breathing easy. As the water splashed out, he said, “Go ahead.”

  Fielding took off his hat and set it on the saddle horn, then bent over and cupped his hands. After washing off his face, he caught water for a drink.

  “That’s good,” he said. “Thanks.”

  The dark horse had put his lower lip below the surface of the water and was taking in a drink. Lodge pumped a few more times and let the handle rest.

  “I’ll put these two away,” he said. He made a clicking sound with the corner of his mouth, and the pair of sorrels followed him to the corral gate. When he opened it, they walked in and turned around. He closed the gate and slid the board latch.

  The dark horse lifted his dripping muzzle as Lodge came back.

  “Do you want to tie him up?”

  “I could,” Fielding answered. He led the horse to the hitching rail and wrapped the reins. As he walked back toward the trough, Lodge spoke.

  “What’s new today?”

  Fielding reflected. “I met your neighbor, or I guess he’s mine, too. Said his name was Dunvil.”

  “Oh, him.”

  Fielding settled his hat on his head. “Seems like a powder keg.”

  “Might be. He rants like an anarchist. Did he talk about the kings who ride their carriages across the backs of the poor?”

  “Not in those words, but along those lines. Says it all in a rush. Seems like he might be a long ways from those that think like him.”

  Lodge gave a shrug. “Like as not, he won’t be around here very long.” He laughed. “Unless he’s layin’ low from his last dynamite job. Here, let’s sit in the shade.”

  The host led the way to a bench on the west side of the house. When the two men were seated, Lodge asked, “What else is new?”

  “Well, let me see. Buchanan said he didn’t want me to do any work for him.”

  “Huh. Because of your run-in with Cronin’s boys?”

  Fielding nodded. “That seems to be the reason.”

  “That figures. They stick together, you know, and Buchanan won’t do anything to get him on Cronin’s bad side. Wouldn’t want to lose his support if he needed it.”

  “He doesn’t seem that bad, otherwise.”

  “Nah, he’s not,” said Lodge. “He came here early and worked for what he’s got. You can see it in him.”

  Fielding recalled the weathered features. “Oh, yeah.”

  “But he’s got to keep his fences mended, so to speak. Too bad.”

  The trill of a songbird sounded, and Fielding looked over to see a small black bird with white wing patches sitting on the edge of the horse trough.

  “That’s a pretty bird,” said Lodge. “Lark bunting. Pretty song, too.” After a couple of seconds he said, “Now, where were we?”

  “Buchanan. I think we finished with him.”

  “Oh, uh-huh.”

  “So, after talkin’ to him, I stopped in to see Roe. I told him I could probably help out on this roundup they’re planning.”

  Lodge gave him an appraising look and said, “That’s good.”

  “Work’s work, and it’ll be a while till some of these other jobs come in. And without Buchanan and Cronin, I’m going to have to scrape up a few more. But there’s work. I’m not worried about that. It’s just a little later.”

  “Sure. And you’re young. You’ve got plenty of time to catch up. This trouble won’t last long.”

  Fielding held his gaze on the older man. “You think it’s trouble, then?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have put it so certain. I don’t know how much trouble there’ll be. Maybe part of it depends on the resistance.”

  “You mean, whether Selby lets ’em run all over him.”

  Lodge pursed his lips and nodded. “Him, and others. Like Roe, just to look close by. But there’s others farther out, and up on the flats, too.”

  “You think Cronin wants it all, then?”

  As he took a slow look around, Lodge set his hat cockeyed for ventilation. Then he said, “Here’s how I read it. The range and the whole cattle business in this part of the country has made a slow comeback since the big die-up of ’eighty-six, ’eighty-seven. But the numbers are up, and you told me yourself it looked like a good calf crop this year.”

 
; “From what I’ve seen.”

  “Well, we can figure on the basis of what we’ve seen and what we know close at hand. Selby’s got about eighty head of cows, and most of them calved out. Roe’s got half that much or more. Now, let’s say there’s half a dozen others on that same scale. Add it all up, and what’s it come to?”

  Fielding looked up at the underside of his hat brim. “Almost five hundred cows, plus calves.”

  “That’s right. And from what I’ve heard, which may or may not be the straight truth, this fella that Dunvil would call a mucky-muck would like to bring in about that many more himself.”

  Fielding cocked his head. “Really?”

  “That’s just what I heard. Thinkin’ to bring ’em down from the Powder River Basin. One of his English investor friends has got that many to sell.”

  “That sounds like a big move for this bit of range.”

  “It does to me, too. But as long as the grass is free, a man could make himself a pile while the gittin’s good.”

  “So in order to do that, he pushes out some of the small operators.”

  Lodge set his hat back on straight. “That’s what it seems like. Push out one or two, make examples of ’em, and hope the others get the idea.”

  “It does make sense if you add it up,” Fielding said. “He brings in a new foreman, and they go to work on someone who would be a good example.”

  “That was my tip-off. Like we said the other day, he’s just a bit slick for your average foreman. And nobody knows him from around here. Chances are, he’ll stick around long enough to do what he was brought in for, and then he’ll be gone.”

  Fielding sorted out what he had just heard. “Seems to me like a big idea for someone.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s a big thinker,” said Lodge. “Most of these ideas have already been proven.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Especially the idea that a man can get away with what he wants if he’s in a good position. You take the case of that woman they hung over on the Sweetwater. The ones that did it got off scot-free, and a couple of ’em ended up with some nice pieces of land to boot. That’s no news. But you see, they had connections. Same with those over on Powder River, in Johnson County. They get a hired gun and a foreman both, and when they don’t get everyone that way, they bring in a small army. Everyone knows that, too. The ones behind it had money and political influence, and they never had to answer for a bit of it.” Lodge took a deep breath and settled down. “I’d better not get started on that. Makes me mad every time I think of it. But the point is, when the big operators pull stunts like that and get away with it, someone else figures he can do it, too. Bad part is, he probably can.”