A Thousand Texas Longhorns

by Johnny D. Boggs

  No. 40 Courtland St., New York

  L. M. Rumsey & Co., Agents

  No. 141 North Second St., St. Louis, Mo.

  The advertisement included a drawing of a Remington revolver at the top.

  “You plan to sell Remington revolvers in Virginia City, too?”

  “I’m a Colt man,” Story said. “But the rifles interest me. Breechloaders. Not muzzleloaders. They fire .56-50 Spencer rimfire cartridges. From what I’ve heard, you can fire one of these five, six, even seven times in one minute. A rifle like that will come in handy if we run into Indians. Or more herd thieves.”

  “If you got men who can shoot them. You turn west, you might have a bunch of Remingtons and nobody to pull a trigger but you.”

  “And you.”

  Hannah laughed. “And me.”

  “I lived in Leavenworth,” Story said. “There were several gunsmiths and gun dealers when I left a few years back. Town’s grown, from what I’ve been hearing. So I suspect there are more dealers and traders in town now.”

  “Those rifles won’t come cheap.”

  “Boone and I saw some in Philadelphia for thirty-five bucks. In Leavenworth this spring, they sold for a hundred dollars. But you spend money to make money. And you spend money to stay alive.”

  “Yeah. That’s a businessman talking. But how about I offer you a suggestion, from one businessman to another.” Hannah’s eyes gleamed with delight. “You let me and Sam and Combs ride off. I’ll get you those guns. It might cost you more than thirty-five bucks, but not a hundred or more. You use your money for grub and wagons and maybe more men. And to pay off the quitters we’ll have when you turn west.”

  “I don’t want the army or a posse chasing us out of Kansas,” Story said.

  “Now, Nelson, do you think I’d do something dishonest?”

  Story stared without blinking. Then asked, “How much money do you need?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The Cottonwood River roared like a Montana mountain stream during early summer runoff. Only deeper, wider, deadlier.

  There would be no quicksand to worry about here. The remuda crossed first, helped by Stubbings and Peña while Allen and Petty chopped down young cottonwoods, then with sweat and muscles from the cook and Story, roped the logs to the wheels. The mules swam. The wagons floated. The drivers cursed between prayers. Horses and wagons reached the far side, worn out, drenched, but alive. Afterward, Stubbings and Peña began pushing the lead steers into the raging Cottonwood, while Story rode back to urge the crew to drive the cattle in fast and keep them swimming.

  Flooding had turned the prairie into a quagmire. The bay’s legs sank into the mud up to its cannons, causing a sucking sound with each step. Longhorn cattle churned up the slop into a path of filth. The stench of mud reminded Story of Ohio, only here the piss and excrement of horses and beef mingled with the odor. He reined in, yelled at the men to keep the cattle moving, warned them of the river’s depth and current, and waited for the drag to arrive. The trench widened and deepened. Twisting in the saddle, Story looked back down the line of beef that led to the river. He could see cattle on the far bank, moving through more mud, and keeping on north.

  “This work is shit,” Kelvin Melean called out, slapping his hat against his horse’s rump. Globs of mud clung to the cowboy’s boots and stirrups. Story couldn’t even see the man’s spurs.

  “The river will wash you clean,” Story told him.

  “If I don’t drown.”

  Story shrugged. “There’s a pontoon bridge at Topeka.”

  “If the floods haven’t washed it away.”

  How many men will quit me? Story wondered. Here he sat, his horse sinking in mud, and he hadn’t gotten out of southern Kansas. Summer would officially be here in a day or two—or maybe it had already come—and he hadn’t made it to Leavenworth. He had a bet to win, to get a herd to Virginia City in December. He pictured Ellen. What kind of husband leaves a wife carrying his child in the dead of winter in a savage frontier where blizzards could bury an entire town? By thunder, he had a daughter he had never seen, yet here he was, with a thousand Texas longhorns and a crew ready to mutiny. A crew that had signed on to bring cattle to market in Kansas, not to follow a damned fool’s dream of starting a ranch and making another fortune in the wilds of Montana.

  He thought again of the dream. That damned dream that kept coming to him once or twice or even more times a night, two or three times each week. Nelson Story. Digging a grave. His own grave? The grave for the men he had killed? The grave of the boy who had drowned so many miles back while helping Story see his dream come true? The graves of men who would die in the coming months?

  He tugged hard on the reins, pressed his spurs, and nudged the bay closer to the beeves. “Move,” he barked, slapping his own hat against mud-splattered leggings. “Move.”

  Hooves sucked, though not as deep this far from the Cottonwood. The gelding moved down the line, slugging through the bog, till Story could see the last of the riders, the cattle. He waved his hat over his head, and yelled, “River’s up ahead. Half a mile or so.” Turning the bay, Story rode down with the cattle, his cattle, hurrying the animals through deeper mud, soggier ground, all the way until they plunged into the water.

  Stubbings and Peña swam fresh horses—they had already swapped out the mounts they had been riding—on the eastern side of the river, back and forth, keeping the cattle swimming with the current. Story could make out Luis Avala and Mason Boone on the other side. White smoke wafted over the tops of waterlogged cottonwoods on the far bank. José Pablo Tsoyio must be cooking coffee to keep the men fortified. Story’s stomach growled. Damnation, he would almost swim that river from hell just for one cup of the old Mexican’s brew. Instead, he spurred the bay and moved back down the herd.

  Two of his men were well behind the last of the steers, one mounted, one on the ground. That left two men pushing the slowest cattle, and one of those he recognized was Tom Allen, a good man, but far from a top cowboy. Cursing, Story kicked the horse into a lope, until the deepening swamp slowed him to a series of lunges through a stinking soup of manure and mud.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he yelled at Allen.

  “Calf.” Allen pointed.

  Allen might have said more, but Story kept on, leaving Allen and Ernesto Martinez to push the cattle through the marsh. He could see the men, and the calf now. Ryan Ward struggled, up to his thighs in filth, while Jody Barley had roped around the calf’s neck. “It’s no use,” Barley kept repeating.

  The calf could not be more than a few days old, stuck in the bog, struggling, crying like an infant. Story looked back, only to realize that the mother had to be near the river now.

  “It’s no use.”

  The calf bawled.

  Kelvin Melean slogged through the slop. “What the bloody hell is this? You dumb sons of bitches. Shoot that calf if it can’t get out of the mud, and get those beeves moving.”

  Barley and Ryan looked at each other, hoping for someone else to volunteer.

  “Jesus Christ. I’ll kill it.” The revolver’s hammer clicked as Melean urged the horse closer.

  “No.”

  It took a moment for Story to realize he had spoken.

  “What?” Melean turned.

  “You’re not killing that calf,” Story said.

  “I don’t like it no more than you do,” Melean argued, “but it’s got to be done. Unless you want to leave it to the wolves. Or have it starve to death.”

  Story swung down into the stink, moving to young Ryan Ward and the frightened calf. He came to the other side, nodded at Ward, then at Barley, and reached both arms into the foulness until he grabbed the belly of the bawling, smelling, calf. Barley began spurring his horse. The newborn cried out. Story and Ward tried lifting.

  “You crazy bastards.” Melean swung out of the saddle and moved into the muck until he was behind the calf. “There’s no point to this.” He cursed, pushed.

  Th
e calf lunged into some sort of vacuum, and suddenly it was free enough that Barley managed to drag it to firmer ground. Melean slung mud off his hands. Ward laughed, tried to find some way to get the globs and stink off his hands, arms, and face, and Barley let out a whoop and yelled, “We done it.”

  “And just what the bloody hell have you done? That runt’s so puny and tired it’ll drown in that river just like—” He stopped, spat, moved back to his horse.

  “It won’t have to swim.” Story slogged through knee-deep thickness until he reached his bay, then pulled it through the channel the herd had created. He handed Barley the reins.

  “Give me a hand,” he told Ward.

  They lifted the kicking, screaming brown and white baby onto the saddle, just behind the horn. The calf kicked. The horse whinnied, and almost bucked. Barley struggled with the reins, but Story swung into the saddle. By then, Barley had stepped off his horse, whispering or humming—Story couldn’t tell—to the bay. Barley carefully handed Story the reins.

  “Have you gone mad?” Melean said. “You’ll drown yourself, your horse, and this bastard of beef trying to swim across that current.”

  “It’s my calf,” Story said.

  “You’re the greediest, craziest son of a bitch I’ve ever worked for.”

  Ignoring the insult, Story turned the horse toward the river. The calf pissed, then crapped.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Melean spit, and hurried back toward his own horse, clawing the mud off his clothes. “I’ve had my say, and you two squirts will be my witness.”

  Story was already easing the horse toward the river.

  He entered upstream, more than a hundred yards from the last of the herd. The bay snorted, and Story took the reins in his left hand, tight, and pushed his right hand hard against the struggling, bawling calf. The coldness of the water shocked him, and even though he knew the current would be powerful, its intensity almost swept him out of the saddle. Three jumps into the river, and the bay was swimming, moving like a missile toward the herd. He probably should have ridden farther upstream or tried crossing farther down the Cottonwood.

  The calf bawled, almost slipped over, but the speed of the river worked in Story’s favor. Jordan Stubbings and Mason Boone plunged their mounts into the river from the far bank, moving toward him and the calf. An instant later, the baby slipped out of Story’s grasp. He twisted, turned, tried to grab it, then lost balance and stirrups, and plunged into the river.

  He came up, spitting, and felt a rope loop over his outstretched arm and head. Suddenly he was being dragged, but only a few feet. His boots felt something firm, and the tightness of the lariat loosened. He rose, knee-deep, freezing. Stubbings kicked his gray toward him and collected the rope as Story removed the lariat. On the banks, Story’s horse began shaking savagely, spraying water everywhere.

  Mason Boone swung out of his saddle.

  And there stood the calf, bawling in panic, but beside Boone’s horse. A moment later a brindle cow rushed to her calf.

  Shaking his head, Boone pulled his horse away.

  Kelvin Melean rode up to Story, his horse dripping wet, and he leaned down and extended his hand. “I won’t take back what I said,” Melean said. “You’re greedy, crazy, and a son of a bitch. But damn it all to hell, you’re a man to ride the river with.”

  “Swim a river with,” Boone called back. Someone laughed.

  The calf began to suckle. Turning north, Story started walking. “Where the hell is that coffee?” he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Trying to get Montana to burp, Ellen Story gracefully moved around the furniture to the cabin’s door and pulled it open to find Dr. Seth Beckstead standing, black satchel in one hand, his fine hat in the other.

  Montana burped, loud for a baby.

  “And good morning to you as well, Montana Story, and to your lovely mother.”

  She looked a fright, and now here she stood on a fine June morning, with spittle on the napkin she had placed on her shoulder. Montana cooed. Ellen stepped back and pulled the door open wider. “I’m sorry, Doctor . . .”

  Beckstead’s head cocked to one side, and he frowned.

  “Seth,” Ellen corrected.

  “Much better . . . Ellen.”

  “I am such a scatterbrain,” Ellen said. “I had forgotten that you were coming for a checkup.”

  Beckstead entered the cabin, the windows open, the air fresh, and he shook his head. “Your brain functions at full capacity, my lady. I called without invitation. I have been told, by none other than Professor Dimsdale himself, that such visits are allowed. It is considered western hospitality.”

  He started to close the door, but Ellen stopped him. “Please. Leave it open for a while. The breeze is so nice. It is such a beautiful day.”

  Nodding, he set his hat and satchel on the table.

  “How is Montana?”

  “Full.” Ellen laughed. “And contented. For now. She can be a handful.”

  “And how are you?”

  “Exhausted.”

  “Then have a seat.”

  They sipped coffee while Ellen bounced the baby on her knee, held her to her shoulder, rocked her gently, kissed her forehead, and counted her fingers over and over again. Five on each hand. She couldn’t help herself. Ellen just had to make sure she had not miscounted, that Montana was not deformed in any way. She usually counted the girl’s toes, as well, but not in front of company.

  “You work too hard, Ellen,” Seth Beckstead finally said.

  “Well, I have been told by several of our most respectable ladies in the Fourteen Mile City that my work will be done as soon as Nelson and I marry Montana off.”

  “I do not jest, Ellen.” She studied the doctor closely. “You should have a night for yourself.”

  “And who would look after Montana?”

  “Not your husband, I dare say. Have you heard from him?”

  She did not answer.

  He made himself laugh, as though he had been making a joke, but she knew he had been serious.

  “Allow me to give you a prescription,” Beckstead said. “Montana needs a healthy mother to grow up to be a strong girl and fine woman, but the mother needs something that does not mean changing diapers and feeding a baby and rocking and catching a minute of sleep if she can.”

  She waited.

  “Professor Dimsdale assures me that Missus Martin’s daughter has looked after babies all across Alder Gulch. And Missus Martin has assured me that Grace is free this evening.” He glanced out the open door. “It is a lovely day.” Turning back to Ellen, Beckstead said, “You have often mentioned how much you love the theater.”

  She looked down at Montana, now sleeping, and knew better than to move. The girl had this devilish way of waking if you moved her to the crib either too early or too late after the knee rocking. Virginia City had two theaters these days. The Montana Theater had opened in a cabin two years earlier and had staged a number of dances, burlesques, recitations, some concerts, one ax-throwing contest and an arm-wrestling match. No Shakespeare. The other, The People’s Theater, had only recently opened its doors—in what had been one of the town’s myriad billiard parlors. And Con Orem had renamed his Champion Saloon to Melodeon Hall, but his idea of theatrical entertainment had been a prizefight, London Prize Ring rules, in which young Con himself, all 138 pounds but packed into a hard, small frame, went up against Hugh O’Neil, older, heavier and a whole lot meaner. Nelson had dragged her to that one. All three hours and more, 185 rounds of blood and sweat and profanity before O’Neil called it quits because of darkness.

  “Theater.” The word came out as a sigh. Leavenworth . . . even Denver had staged Our American Cousin, Hamlet, and Richelieu; or, The Conspiracy.

  “Perhaps you have not heard that The People’s Theater tonight is staging The Poor of New York.”

  She stared in disbelief.

  “Jack Langrishe’s company is in town with his troupe. They are quite—”
/>   “I am quite familiar with Colonel Langrishe,” she said.

  She rose, carefully, and carried the baby to the crib, kneeling, praying that Montana would not wake in a screaming fit, and turned. Her knees felt weak. Her heart raced. “Colonel Langrishe . . . is here . . . really?”

  “With his wife—do you know Jenette?”

  “Just from seeing her perform.” She sat heavily in the chair across from the doctor.

  John “Jack” Langrishe. In Virginia City, Montana Territory. She had seen him and his Langrishe-Allen St. Joseph Theatre Company performing in Missouri and Kansas, and even briefly in Denver. From Ten Nights in a Bar Room to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. From Hamlet to Othello. The last she had heard, Langrishe had found a new partner and had taken over the Colorado Theatre in Denver. He was a true theater man, even if Nelson had told her that his theater company operated on the second floor of the building in Denver, while the first ran twenty-four hours nonstop, seven days a week, with performances of faro, roulette, chuck-a-luck, and monte.

  “I would like you to accompany me to tonight’s performance, Ellen.” His eyes held her. “For your own good. Do not think I ask with improper intentions. Professor Dimsdale will be with us. You will have an evening out, Montana will be cared for, it will do the both of you good, and I will beg your leave after the performance and let Professor Dimsdale escort you to home.”

  She could not speak.

  “If Montana proves inconsolable, Miss Grace will send a runner to The People’s Theatre to fetch you.”

  Her mouth moved, but all she could do was breathe.

  I will be delighted.

  She realized she had not spoken the words. After swallowing, her eyes brightened and she told him. His eyes beamed, and he sprang from his chair, said something about dinner at six, and hurried through the open door. Five minutes later, he came back, apologizing, collecting his hat and grip, his face bright red. Then he left.

  Montana slept peacefully.

  * * *

  She sat between Professor Dimsdale and Seth Beckstead, on the front row, staring at the closed curtain, aware of the bustling of the crowd behind her, and the energy, the jitters, the excitement behind that curtain. Ellen Story loved theater, always had, and as she had told Seth a few weeks earlier, how she had once dreamed of running away from home, then in Platte County, Missouri, to join a theatrical troupe. Seth had laughed and said that he had dreamed only of running away to join a circus.