The others applauded and called out to Tom.
“Good man, Tom,” Clay said.
“Anyone else would have done the same thing,” Tom said. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“I doubt that,” Matt said. “How many others could ride by at full speed, and reach down and scoop Dalton up like he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes? I think you are a genuine hero, Tom, and you are just going to have to live with that.”
The others laughed.
“I’m not finished,” Dalton said. “I have something else to say. Tom, I know what you think of my sister, and I know what my sister thinks of you. I know too, what Pa thinks. So what I’m goin’ to do when we get back to Live Oaks is talk to Pa. I’m goin’ to tell him that if he doesn’t get out of the way, he’ll have Rebecca and me to deal with.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Our Lady of Mercy Orphanage, Fort Worth, December 20
It took two wagons and a surrey to bring everyone of Live Oaks Ranch into town to Our Lady of Mercy Orphanage. The Mother Superior had issued the invitation not only to Big Ben, but to all of his employees, to come to the orphanage to see the Christmas pageant.
The pageant was held in the orphanage cafeteria, and it was clear that a great deal of work had been done in preparation. The walls were papered with drawings of the hills of Judea, with a night sky filled with stars. One large star was located over a stable that the older boys had built. All of the children of the orphanage were in period costume.
Big Ben and Julia were provided with comfortable chairs. Because there were more people than chairs, everyone else, children and adults alike, sat on the floor.
“And now,” Sister Dominique said, “we’ll have a reading from Robert, who is one of our children. As Robert reads from the scripture, the rest of the children will act it out for us.”
Robert, a young boy of about fourteen, started the reading.
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”
As Robert read, two boys who were obviously dressed as Roman soldiers went to the others, and pantomimed the orders.
“And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city.”
There were giggles and oohs and ahhs from the audience as, coming in through the back door of the cafeteria, they saw a young boy leading a small donkey. A young girl was riding the donkey.
“And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem: (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.”
Mary and Joseph, as portrayed by the two young actors, went from place to place, trying to find a room, but in every case they were turned away.
“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”
Three shepherds came onto the stage then, leading three young lambs. Robert continued to read:
“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
The children sang “Away in the Manger.”
After the song, Robert read again: “When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. ’ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.”
The three “shepherds” hurried to the crèche where Joseph, Mary, and the Baby Jesus, who was actually an infant girl, the youngest child of the orphanage lay.
“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.”
As Robert read the Christmas story, three of the children, dressed as “wise men,” walked solemnly across the cafeteria, each of them bearing gifts. As they did so, the other children sang We Three Kings. With great pomp and ceremony they presented their gifts.
The program concluded with everyone singing Silent Night.
After the program, Sister Mary Katherine stood to address the visitors.
“We want to thank you very much for attending our Christmas pageant,” she said. “And we invite you to join us for cookies and apple cider.”
“Ho, ho, ho!”
“It’s Santa Claus!” one of the children shouted, and all yelled and cheered with excitement as they hurried toward the man dressed in red, and carrying a huge sack, filled with toys.
“What is this?” Sister Mary Katherine asked in surprise.
“Well, it’s like this, Mother Superior,” Big Ben said. “Santa Claus stopped by to see me at the ranch and I suggested that since he had gifts for the children there, he may as well stop by the orphanage as well.”
As the children all gathered around Santa Claus, who was actually one of the cowboys from Live Oaks, the adults sat to one side of the room, drinking coffee and watching.
“Mr. Conyers,” Sister Mary Katherine said. “I have been at this orphanage for thirty years, and this is the most wonderful Christmas ever. I can’t thank you enough.”
“I’m just sorry that I never thought about doing something like this earlier,” Big Ben said. “But I intend to see to it that every Christmas from here on out will be a happy one for the children here.”
“Bless you,” Sister Mary Katherine said, wiping tears from her eyes. “God bless you, Benjamin Conyers.”
Texas Panhandle, December 23
Red Coleman had gathered ten men for the job. He didn’t personally know all ten, but he knew several of them, and the ones he didn’t know were known by those that he did know. He was fully confident that the ten of them, choosing the time to make their move, would be able to overcome the seven cowboys who were driving the herd. He had been offered eight dollars a head for every cow he delivered to Prewitt. He had promised five hundred dollars apiece to the men who came with him. That would leave him fifteen thousand dollars’ profit from this job.
And, as a bonus, he would take care of Smoke Jensen.
There were also three women with the cattle drive, and Red had thrown them in “as a bonus” for his men. “After we kill the men, you can have your way with the women,” he said.
“Where are we going to hit them?”
“At the Canadian.”
“Have you seen the Canadian?” Sid Baker asked. “It’s higher than I’ve ever seen it.”
“Yes. We will let them cross the Canadian River first, then we will hit them,” Red said. “That way we won’t have to fool with taking them across ourselves.”
“Ha! Good idea!”
“Then, after they cross, while they are still concentrating on that, we’ll take their herd.”
When he was certain that everyone understood their roles in the operation, he stood in his stirrups, then waved them on.
It was a gray and overcast day, with threatening clouds hanging low. Storms upstream had made the Canadian River particularly treacherous, for it had flooded over its banks and was filled with uprooted brush and trees. The river, normally no more than one hundred yards wide, was nearly a quarter of a mile across.
“Whoa,” Dusty said. “It sure wasn’t like this when we came up.”
“Yeah, if were going to cross the river like this, it would have been better doing
it on the way up,” Clay agreed.
“How deep is it?” Smoke asked.
“This is the ford,” Clay replied. “Normally, it’s no more than ten to fifteen inches deep here. I have no idea how deep it is now.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Matt said. He rode down to the river, stopped at the edge for a moment to look at the swiftly flowing water, then urged Spirit ahead.
The water was cold, and Spirit reacted to that, but he went ahead. At no point during the crossing did the water rise higher than about three feet, and that was in the very middle. Once he reached the other side, he turned around and came back, purposely coming back on a different track just to make certain that the bottom was relatively the same.
“I don’t think we’ll have any problem with the depth of the river,” Matt said when he came back. “If we have any problem, it will be with what is floating downstream. A big log piling into the side of the herd as it is midway across could create all kinds of problems for us.”
“Suppose we stretched a rope across?” Tom suggested. “That way we could arrest anything big enough to be of danger.”
“That would be a good idea if we had a rope a quarter of a mile long,” Dusty said.
“It doesn’t have to be that long,” Tom insisted. “Bernoulli’s principle means that the flow will be more rapid in the middle, creating a suction around it which will draw everything toward the middle.”
“What principle?” Clay asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Look at the river,” Tom said. “Where do you see most of the trash?”
“He’s right,” Smoke said. “Most of it is in the middle. At least, the bigger pieces.”
“All we need to do is stretch a rope across the exact middle of the stream,” Tom said. “I’ll be on one end of the rope, and we’ll need someone on the other end. We’ll hold off anything big while the rest of you get the herd across.”
“What do you think, Smoke? Does it make sense to you?” Clay asked.
“I don’t know who this Bernoulli fella is,” Smoke said. “But if he will keep everything in the middle for us, then I say let’s try it.”
“Tom, if it’s all right with you, I’ll take the other end of the rope,” Dalton said.
“Fine with me,” Tom said.
The two men mounted, then rode out into the river, Dalton taking a position on the far side.
“Dalton!” Tom called. “There’s a really big log coming! Let this one go.”
“All right,” Dalton agreed.
“Clay!” Tom shouted as loudly as he could. When he got Clay’s attention, he pointed to the big log coming swiftly downstream.
“We are going to let this one go by! Let it pass before you come into the water!”
“Gotcha!” Clay called back.
Tom waved back at him, and they watched as the object Tom had pointed out floated by them. More than a log, it was a complete tree.
“Damn,” Dusty said. “If anything that big comes floating down the river, they aren’t going to be able to hold it back with just a rope.”
“True,” Clay said. “That’s why it is smart to let this one go on by.”
“What if another one comes by just as big?”
“We’ll just have to hope that it doesn’t,” Clay said. He looked at the others. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get these critters across.”
There was good grass here, and water, so the cows had been content to stay. Now they were somewhat less content to proceed on, but with Clay and Dusty on one side, Duff and Falcon on the other side, and Matt bringing up the rear, they pushed cattle down into the water. The lead steers formed a rank of eight across, and the rest of the herd, almost as if in military precision, lined up behind them. That stretched the herd out for nearly half a mile, and when the lead steers went into the water, the others followed docilely behind.
The herd was halfway across when another big log came floating swiftly downstream. It wasn’t as big as the tree, but it was big.
“Tom!” Dalton shouted. “Look!”
Tom feared that the log might be big enough to jerk Dalton out of the saddle if he tried to hold on to the rope.
“Dalton, wrap your rope around your saddlehorn!” Tom shouted.
“If I do that, I won’t be able to maneuver my end!”
“Don’t worry about that! Just do as I say!”
Nodding, Dalton wrapped his end of the rope around the saddlehorn, then waited.
Tom was holding onto his end of the rope, and he was able to snag the log as it came by. The log was huge, and when it hit the rope it jerked the line taut, and for a moment, Dalton was afraid his horse might be pulled down. But the horse, after being jerked downriver a few steps, dug his feet in, locked his legs, and stayed up, holding his position.
Tom worked his end of the rope and managed to keep the log captured, and even with the additional items of trash floating downriver, was able to keep all the major pieces away from the herd. Finally, when the last cow had crossed and was climbing out of the water to the bank on the other side, Tom freed the trapped river debris and let it proceed on downstream, now as one great island.
With the herd safely on the other side of the river, it was now time to bring the wagons across. Once again, Tom and Dalton stretched the rope across to catch the debris. Everything was going well until Sally and Maria in the chuck wagon were three quarters of the way across, and Rebecca, following in the hoodlum wagon, was about one quarter of the way across. It was then that another huge tree, at least as big as the first tree to come down the river, came toward them.
The tree was moving downriver faster than a horse could gallop, and looking at it, Tom knew that he and Dalton weren’t going to be able to stop it. Glancing back toward Rebecca, he saw that she was directly in the path of the tree. It was too late for her to go back, her only hope was to go forward as fast as she could.
“Rebecca! Hurry!” Tom shouted. “Hurry, get out of the way!”
By now all of the others, including Rebecca, could see the tree coming, and she slapped the reins against the back of the team of mules she was driving, trying to hurry them across. But the mules, whether they perceived the danger and were frightened by it, or just decided to take that time to balk, halted in mid-stream.
“Tom, we aren’t going to be able to stop this thing!” Dalton shouted.
Realizing that Dalton was right, Tom dropped his end of the rope and urged Thunder into a gallop.
At first, the others thought Tom might be trying to escape with his own life, but they saw quickly that he was heading toward the wagon. Rebecca saw him coming toward her, and she stood up on the seat.
“Jump toward me!” Tom yelled, and Rebecca did so. Tom caught her, and managed to barely clear the tree as it slammed into the side of the hoodlum wagon, smashing it into two pieces, and spilling all the contents into the water, to be carried downstream along with the wreckage of the wagon, and the two mules, now braying in terror. Within seconds the mules were quiet, having been swept under the water.
Tom rode up the bank on the other side then turned to look back. Both mules were floating, legs up and silent, until they, what was left of the wagon, and its contents were quickly carried on downstream and out of sight.
“What are we going to do at night, now?” Dalton asked. “Our bedrolls and blankets were in that wagon.”
The seven men and three women looked at the raging river with an expression of apprehension on their faces. Dalton had merely vocalized what everyone in the company was thinking. What would they do?
“All right, folks,” Clay said. “Looking at the water isn’t going to get anything back for us. Let’s head ’em up and get ’em out. We need to keep moving, now more than ever before.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
On the Canadian River, Texas Panhandle, December 24
It was a cold camp, and because they had lost the hoodlum wagon there were no bedrolls or blankets. In addition, j
ust before sundown, it began to snow. Fortunately it had been cold enough during the day that everyone was wearing their heavy coats, so they didn’t lose them when they lost the wagon, and they made use of them by pairing off to put one coat on the ground to sleep on and the other over the top as a blanket. Sleeping in such a way provided both the warmth of the two coats and the body heat, to keep them from freezing. Clay was with Maria, Smoke with Sally, Matt with Dalton, and Falcon with Duff. That left Tom and Rebecca sleeping together. As odd man out, Dusty would be with whoever was left behind when the night guard was posted.
“You know what I think?” Rebecca asked that night as she and Tom bundled up together.
“What do you think?” Tom asked.
“I think you let that tree hit the wagon on purpose, just so we could do this.”
There was the suggestion of a laugh in her voice.
“Damn,” Tom said. “And here I thought I was being so clever.”
The snow continued to fall as Rebecca pushed her body up against his so that they were touching everywhere, from top to bottom.
Duff was riding nighthawk when he heard the sound of a rifle shot. At the sound of the shot, the cattle, which had been bedded down, were up as one, and instantly on the run.
“Dusty!” Duff called to the one who was riding nighthawk with him. “Dusty!”
It just so happened that in their circuitous route around the outside edge of the cattle, Duff was approaching Dusty. Dusty didn’t answer Duff’s call, and Duff urged his horse into a gallop, reaching Dusty just as he started to reel in his saddle.
“I been shot, Duff,” Dusty said. “Damn, I think I’ve been kilt.”
Dusty fell from the saddle, and Duff dismounted quickly to check on him. As it so happened, that dismount saved Duff’s life, for a second shot was fired. Duff saw the muzzle-flash, then heard the bullet whiz by, amazingly close, especially for a shot at night.
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