“Deed he can. Don’t let him charge you more than two dollars for one, three dollars for two of them. Show him how big you want the letters.”
The anvil man scowled when they showed him what they wanted.
“Cost you ten dollars,” he said. He was a short chunky man with sweat beading his forehead from the forge heat.
“Marshal said to pay you three dollars for two irons. That’s all I can afford,” Sully said.
The smithy scowled, let loose a string of foreign sounding words and went to work. He was good and had the first iron done in twenty minutes. The second one took half that long.
Outside the blacksmith shop Sully tied his mount with a rope on the back of the wagon and they rode for what was getting to be home.
At the camp the cattle had moved closer to the fence but it was still intact. Sully saw one older cow walk up to the wire and test it with her horns, back off, snot and pushed at it again. When the wire didn’t move she turned and went back where the rest of the herd grazed.
“One convert,” Sully said.
Curley was hard at work on the lean to. He made it face east since he figured the rain would come from the west. He set it between two trees with the top rail at six feet and nailed to the two trees. Then he put stringers down from the top pole to the ground. On the stringers he nailed the two ground canvases they had to be sure to keep out any rain. Over that he piled branches and some evergreen boughs from a tree he found a short way away. He did the same on the sides and within an hour before dark he had the lean to done. He chopped out some of the sod at the very front and build a small fire pit with rocks ringing it.
“Not for cooking,” he said. “Be a nice little fire after it gets dark.”
The four new blankets went on the ground inside the lean to for mattresses, then their regular night time blankets. They had fed the three horses oats and watered them, then put them on a picket line where they could get some graze but stay inside the grove of trees. It was almost dark when Curley left the lean to and went to check on the horses.
Sully was ready to light a fire in the lean to when a rifle shot blasted into the quiet Texas air. A gravelly voice boomed into the clearing a moment later.
“Come out of there with your hands up. What the hell you doing trespassing on my land?”
Chapter Nine
Curley was half way back to the lean to from the horses when he stopped. He heard a strange voice shouting something. It didn’t sound friendly. He drew his six-gun and moved silently toward the lean to. From ten feet away he leaned around a thick tree trunk and saw a stranger holding a rifle on Sully. Sully was standing just outside of the lean to and he didn’t have his six-gun belt on.
“You heard me. What the hell you doing on my range?”
Curley put a round into the dirt at the stranger’s feet. The man turned, swinging the rifle with him and fired twice. The rounds missed. Curley shot once, the big slug tore into the stranger’s chest, and jolted him backwards. The rifle dropped from his hands and he turned to look at Curley who had stepped out from behind the tree.
“What the hell? Two of you?” He tried to sit up. Curley hurried up and pushed him back down.
“Who are you, mister and what’s your business out here?” Sully asked.
“Name’s Gomer. Rounding up some of these strays. You done shot me.”
“Right, what you were going to do to us,” Curley said. “You alone out here?”
“Hell no. Can’t do this alone. Got me two hands about three miles over. We got fifty head in a little swale.”
“On west?” Sully asked.
“Yeah, but don’t reckon I’ll be riding back that way. Hurts like hell.”
“Should be more careful who you shoot at,” Curley said. “Just two more over there at the herd?”
“Yep. Gonna drive them north to Kansas City.”
“You know how far that is?”
“Nope. Figure we’d find out.”
“How long you been at this?”
“Two weeks. Wanted a hundred head to get started. Don’t look like I’ll be there to help. Oh, God but that hurts. You got any whiskey?”
“Not a drop.”
“Yeah. Not my day.” He screamed, lifted half way to sitting then fell back one arm over his chest. His eyes stared up at the darkening sky.
“He’s gone,” Curley said. “We take him back to his outfit or bury him?”
“No chance we ride into their camp with one dead friend. We bury him.”
“We got a post hole digger and an axe. How we gonna dig a grave?”
They settled for scraping back the dirt six inches deep with the axe, putting the body on the ground, then piling rocks on the body until he was covered a foot deep.
“Best we can do,” Sully said. It was full dark by the time they finished. “We go look for these gents in the morning.”
They had supper then stretched out in the new lean to. It was eight feet wide in front and extended ten feet back to where the roofing poles came to the ground.
“All the comforts of home,” Curley said. He put out the small fire they had set in the tiny fire ring at the front of the shed and settled in for the night.
“I figure we need two hundred head in the pen before we start our drive to Fort Worth,” Sully said. “We’ll lose some along the way but should get there with most of them. We pay off our trail hands and head back. How many men we going to need to roust this herd two hundred and fifty miles?”
“Five of us should do it,” Curley said. “Been on a couple of drives. We have one man out front marking the trail, one man at the head, one pulling drag duty at the end of the line, and then one man on each side. Be nice to have two men oh the flanks but we can’t afford that.
“So how much we pay these riders?”
Curley turned over on his blankets. “Depends how hungry they are. We should be able to get three men for twenty five dollars each for a month. Say it takes us a month to make the drive. That’s only seventy five dollars for the crew. How much we get per animal in Fort Worth?”
“Depends how empty their livestock pens are. Heard anywhere from twenty five to forty dollars a head. All depends.”
“Hey say thirty greenbacks a head and we get say a hundred and eighty animals there. That would be a chunk of cash.’
“Yeah, five thousand four hundred dollars. Maybe stop by in the county seat, what was it called. Gunsight, and hope they have a lumber yard. Then we get some two by fours and some siding and make ourselves a cabin. Winter gonna be a bitch out here.”
“But first we talk nice with them other two cowboys up west a ways. Hope they just hired hands and that the dead guy was the boss.”
“We discourage them, get their weapons and send them riding back to Gunsight and on East.”
“Yeah, if they are just hired hands,” Curley said. “We find out tomorrow.”
The next morning they checked their herd and found it had plenty of graze left. Then they headed west along the range of low hills. There were rain squalls to the west and north but looked like they were headed away from them.
They rode for two hours and climbed a small hill to look ahead. Far off to the west they saw smoke. Had to be humans of some sort.
“How will we know if we find the right pair of riders?” Curley asked.
“Have to do some talking. If they are hired hands it won’t be hard to figure them out.”
“We could try to hire them on,” Curley said.
Sully shook his head. “Not a chance. They might have some loyalty to their dead boss, do us both in some dark night, and take both herd. Nope if they were with that dead one, we take their weapons and run them out of the country.”
They rode for the smoke. Well before they got there they saw the swale between two ridges. It was wet and wide with green grass around the edges. A herd could be kept there for weeks. They got to the camp about noon and found two men finishing their meal. Both were young, maybe in their twenties. Fro
m well off Sully put two rifle shots over their heads and called out.
“Drop your weapons, we just want to talk with you men. No sense anyone getting killed. Drop those revolvers and any rifles you have. Then stand aside while we ride in.”
They dd. As they came closer Sully saw he had been right. Both were young and had to be hired hands.
Sully kept his gun on them as Curley stepped down, picked up the weapons and moved back.
Sully walked up to them and told them to put their hands down.
“Well, looks like you men been busy. You must have thirty head rounded up.”
“Thirty hell. We’ve got sixty head in there. Old Gomer gonna have a fit when he sees you two. You doing same thing we are?”
“We are. Sorry to tell you that Gomer won’t be coming back. He tried to bushwhack us and we run him off with a round in his side. Said he was heading for Gunsight wherever that was.”
“Doubt it,” the older of the two said. “He was near thirty, range clothes and sunburned face and hands. “Gomer wouldn’t let one little round slow him down. You kill him?”
“Matter of fact, we did. He shot first. Told us you men were up here.”
“Dead? You sure? Didn’t think anything would ever kill old Gomer. Rough as a cob in winter.”
“He’s gone. You two thinking of driving a herd all the way up to Kansas City?”
“How you know that?” the younger cowboy asked. “You done talked to Gomer?”
“Did that. You men know you can’t get a herd up that far. Must be a thousand miles up there”
“Gomer said he had a plan. Drive some, sell some, drive the rest on up.”
“Wouldn’t work. So looks like you gents out of a job. Maybe you will want to ride for Gunsight or Fort Worth.”
“Came from Fort Worth. Don’t like it there.”
“Yeah, Gunsight closer.”
“What about our herd? You buy it?”
“Don’t see no brands on them critters. Just a wild bunch. Could belong to anybody.”
The older one shook his head. “He’s got us there, Zane. Told you I was worried when Gomer didn’t come back last night.”
“So we just roll our blankets and ride away,” the one called Zane said.
“You must have grub sacks full enough to get you back to Gunsight,” Curley said.
“Well, yeah. But we was working on shares with Gomer. We got fifteen percent of the sale price. Gonna be good money.”
“Hell, we’re beat, Zane,” the other cowboy said. “Might as well pack our gear and get moving while we still got some daylight. Take us all day to get to Gunsight.”
“Maybe not,” Zane said. He pulled a derringer from his vest and fired a shot at Sully who stood ten feet away. The shot missed. Sully acted automatically to the draw, pulled up his .44 and laced a round into the kid’s shoulder sending the two shot derringer skittering to the ground.
“Oh damn but that hurts,” Zane said. He blinked back tears. The other cowboy hurried to his side and used his kerchief to tie up the wound.
“Bullet went in, didn’t come out,” he said. “Means we got to get you to a doctor within three days or you won’t be riding anywhere ever again. Let’s get our gear together.”
“What about out herd?”
“Hell, Zane. If they think they can drive them critters out of that lush grass, more power to them. Them old cows ain’t gonna budge from that food and water. Been worried about that myself.”
“Yeah, wondered about that.” He shrugged then winced in pain. “Let’s get our gear stowed and out of here.”
Five minutes later the two cowboys rode away to the east. Neither of them looked back. Curley waved at Sully.
“Looks like about thirty head are on this side of the water working on that graze. Shall we try to whorrah them into a line to drive them to our hacienda?”
“Won’t hurt one damn thing,” Sully said. He stowed the two six-guns in his saddle bags and draped the gun belts over the back of his saddle. “Let’s give it a try.”
It took them an hour then they had about twenty five of the animals in a rough line and heading them east. Most were older cows and some young steers. No calves. They kept them moving and now and then raced to the side to shoo a steer back in line. It was nearly sunset when they got the line within a quarter mile from their enclosure. Sully rode ahead and pushed the cattle inside to the far back, then left the gate open and helped drive the stock into the pen. Sully had made a rough count as the animals passed through the gate. He grinned.
“Pardner, we just rounded up thirty two head of fine specimens ready for slaughter.”
“That makes a few over fifty head. Don’t see how we could keep two hundred in there. Maybe we should head for Fort Worth when we get our ropes around a hundred.”
“Might need to do that. First we get our total up there to a hundred. Wonder if we will run into any more outfits rounding up these strays?”
Chapter Ten
The next morning Sully woke with a start as something wet and fuzzy was nuzzling his face. His eyes flashed open to find a horse licking his cheek. He bolted upright and the animal backed off a step. It was a horse with a saddle in place and reins dragging on the ground.
“What the hell,” he blurted. Then he nodded. Had to be the dead wrangler’s horse. It must have got tired waiting for Gomer to come back and pulled free of however it was tied. It smelled out the camp and came looking for its rider.
Sully pulled on his boots, a shirt, and talked to the animal, soothing it down. It seemed to have no inclination to run off. Moments later Sully picked up the reins and led the animal to the side of their camp. He tied her securely to a tree then pulled off the saddle and saddle blanket. He went through the saddle and saddle bags, but found nothing important. Some letters an old bill of sale for the horse, and some blank sheets of paper along with two sharpened pencils.
Curley heard the commotion and sat up. Sully waved at the mount. “She wandered in here. Loos like Gomer’s mount.”
“Good, we can always use a spare riding horse. Gopher holes, bee swarms, lots of ways to lose a good horse.”
“She doesn’t look like she wants to go anywhere. I’ll put her with the others for now. You ready to get us some breakfast?”
“My specialty coming up. I call it egg fry toast. Wait until you try it.”
He had it ready a half hour later. Turned out to be slices of bread soaked in an egg batter and fried in a skillet to a golden brown. Curley poured hot maple syrup over it and set a tin plate in front of Sully. It had two slices of the toast and two slices of bacon.
Sully cut off a chunk and tried it. He came out grinning. “Now this is good. Why you never made it before?”
“Got to have the eggs for one and the bacon and we don’t get the two together much. Enjoy while you can I’m down to four eggs.”
“So today we go cattle hunting,” Sully said between bites. “Hope we don’t have to ride too far to find some more strays.”
“Make that a whole herd of strays. Rather bring back thirty than three.”
“We’ll try. You fix us up some food to take along and we’ll stop somewhere and make a small fire to boil us some coffee. You be ready in ten minutes?”
“Can be.”
He was.
They rode south a ways, then headed east for no good reason. They kept looking for any dust trails that might give away a small herd of cattle on the move. It was almost ten thirty that morning before they saw a smudge in the sky close to the ground.
“Might be,” Sully said. They angled toward the smudge that soon turned into a dust cloud. A half mile later they came over a small rise and in front of them a broad valley opened up. It was spotted with more than a dozen small herds of cows, steers, and calves.
“That second bunch in might be about our size,” Sully said. “Looks to be about a hundred. We might get fifty of then cut out and moving. First I thought a range bull might have tied onto a herd as his own
but then I remembered range bulls. They don’t get tied down. They will climb on board any cow in heat. Let’s go down and say hello to our new bunch of cattle.”
They rode slowly past the first herd of about two hundred head. Most of the animals kept on chomping on the sweet grass not bothering with strange horses. They came up on the front of the herd they had picked out. More than a hundred. They could start the whole bunch moving and hope to get half of them in a line heading back toward the pen six or seven miles away. At first the animals paid no attention the men on horses.
Then Sully cracked a leather long whip over the back of a crusty old cow, and she looked up, bleated once and moved away. She nudged a calf and cow in front of her and they in turn moved. It took then a half hour to get some lead animals in a line and moving north and west. By the time they had yahooed forty or fifty in line both men were sweating and swearing.
Three cows turned off and ran back to the rest of the herd. They let them go. The two riders worked the sides and then the back end of the herd and soon had them convinced that they should go in a group the direction they had been headed.
A half mile from the rest of the herd three cows tried to make a break for it, but Curley chased them down, fired one warning shot over their heads, and they stopped, stared at the rider a moment, then headed back to the line of animals marching to the west.
It was near one o’clock by Sully’s Waterbury when he decided they were about half way to the camp. No chance to stop and boil coffee. Curley rode by and handed Sully two big sandwiches, then took off after another cow that had independent thinking. He brought her back into the line. The men did their job of keeping the line moving and angling them the way they needed to go. They ate the sandwiches of fried egg and bacon. It was a combination that never got old.
An hour later three wolves came out of the brush and charged the two old cows that had taken over the leadership role. Sully used his rifle and killed one of the attacking wolves and sent the other two running for their lives. The wolves would find another target. It must be happy hunting out here for them.
The Devils Gunslinger Page 6