The Cowboy Way

by Elmer Kelton

  In the six weeks Hall had been with the wagon crew, he had seen Coley ride any number of pitching broncs, and he hadn’t seen him thrown but once.

  What really got Hall’s hackles up was the morning when a bronc in his own string threw him off twice. Old Major March Steward rode up scowling as Hall swayed gasping to his feet the second time.

  “Coley,” the major said crisply, “you get up there and top off that bronc for the boy, will you?”

  The word boy had done it, for Hall was a grown man and proud to say so. But the breath was gone from him, and the only protest he could make was a wild waving of his arms. Coley rode that bronc and made it look easy. When Coley got down from the saddle, the fight was out of the horse. It was Hall who wanted to fight. But there was the old major, sitting yonder on his horse and looking fierce as an eagle perched over a baby lamb. A glance at those sharp eyes and that graying beard made Hall choke down whatever he had started to say. It wasn’t fittin’ for a boss to put somebody else on a man’s bronc that way and shame him. But the major was running a cow outfit, not a school in range etiquette. The roundup wouldn’t wait for some cowpuncher who couldn’t stay on. Some of those old mossy-horns like Major Steward were a lot more interested in getting cattle worked than in sparing some cowboy’s wounded pride. Cowboys came cheap.

  Coley handed Hall the reins and stepped back without a word. But try as he might, Coley couldn’t keep the smile out of his eyes. He had been proud to do something the white man couldn’t.

  For Coley’s skin was as black as a moonless night in May.

  Maybe one reason Hall had held his silence so long was that the other cowboys accepted Coley and rode alongside him as if he were the same as the rest of them. The only time you could tell his color meant anything was around the wagon at night, and at mealtime. Coley always toted his bedroll out to the edge of camp, a little apart from the others. Come mealtime, he waited till last to take his plate, and he always sat on the wagon tongue, to himself. Nobody had ever told him he had to, and likely no one would have said anything to him if he hadn’t. But he had spent his boyhood in slavery. He would carry the mark of that, even to the grave. He remembered, and he presumed little.

  The way the other cowboys told it to Hall, Coley had been a lanky, half-starved kid of maybe fifteen when the war ended. The Yankees had told him he was free, but they must have meant just free to starve. Nobody wanted him. Nobody had a home for him, or any work. One day Major Steward had come across the ragged, pathetic button and had felt compassion. Steward was a little lank himself in those days, just beginning to build what was later to become a huge herd of cattle. But he picked up the boy and found something for him to do. With the major’s coaching and his own natural ability, Coley had made himself a first-class cowboy. Many Negroes did, in those days.

  When you came right down to it, maybe that was what rankled Hall Jernigan the most. Hall had learned his cowboying the hard way. His diploma had been several scars, a couple of knocked-down knuckles and a broken leg that had almost but not quite healed back straight. All this, before he was twenty-three. And here was Coley Dawes, several years older with no visible scars of the trade. Coley could ride, and he could rope. Up to now Hall hadn’t found a thing he could do that Coley couldn’t do just a little better.

  It wasn’t fittin’. Broke though he was, Hall made up his mind he was going to ask for his time and leave this haywire outfit.

  He caught the old major by the branding-iron fire, watching the irons turn a searing red. Scowling, Steward drew his thick fingers down through his ragged, dusty beard. “It’s on account of Coley Dawes, I reckon. I been seein’ it come on. Coley don’t mean you any harm.”

  “Mean it or not, he’s done it.”

  “Leave now and you’re admittin’ he’s the better man.”

  Hotly Hall said, “I’m admittin’ no such-of-a-thing.”

  “Aren’t you?” The major’s eyebrows drew down, and his eyes seemed to burn a hole through Hall. When Steward stared like that, most men started looking for something to get behind. “The only thing you’ve got against Coley is his color, ain’t that right? If he was white like the rest of us, you’d pass it over and not get the ringtail just because he’s better than you.”

  Hall clenched his fist. “I ain’t said he’s better…” He broke off, knowing that indirectly he had. The major had a way of cutting through the foliage and getting right to the trunk.

  Hall shrugged, somehow wanting to explain. “I reckon it’s just that I never did have no use for his kind. I growed up in Georgia. The rich plantation people called us ‘poor white trash.’ We never owned no slaves, never hoped to. War came, mostly on account of the slaves. Rich landowners up the road had a hundred of them, and my pa had to go to war to try and keep them from losin’ their darkeys. Them rich plantation folks sat at home while Pa went and got hisself killed. There was seven of us kids, me the oldest, and just Ma to try and feed us. We like to’ve starved. Them rich folks up the road, they never gave us so much as a fat shoat. Just sat there and held those slaves till the end, till old Sherman come. All that misery on account of them slaves. That’s why I never had no use for a black man. They’ve caused too much misery. When I see one, I remember Pa, and all them hungry days.”

  Major Steward nodded. “Looks to me like you misplaced your hatred. Those slaves, they were caught in the middle same as you.”

  Hall shrugged. “If it hadn’t been for them, there wouldn’t of been no war. I can’t help how I feel. I’d be obliged if you’d just pay me and let me ride on.”

  The major shook his head. “If you’ll remember, I got you out of jail. I paid your fine and loaned you money to buy a new outfit. You haven’t worked here long enough yet to pay out.”

  Hall swore. It hadn’t been fair, that deal in town. They’d been cheating him at poker, and he had called their hand at it. Seemed like the law sided the gamblers, though, especially the one who had lost three teeth to Hall’s hard fist.

  “All right,” Hall said reluctantly, “I’ll stay long enough to get even. Till then, Major, I’ll thank you to keep that Coley out of my way.”

  So Hall stayed on, and Coley Dawes gave him plenty of room. It bothered Hall sometimes, the way most of the cowboys associated freely with Coley, talking, joshing, acting almost as if he were white. But there was always that color mark: when mealtime came, Coley sat alone on the wagon tongue.

  Bye and bye the outfit had put a steer herd together, something like fifteen hundred of them. From somewhere east came a pair of buyers with a whole trail outfit of cowboys, ready to push the steers up the trail to Kansas. Hall Jernigan was at the wagon the day the final tally had been finished and the buyers paid off the major in cold cash. They had brought it with them in a canvas bag. With the bunch of cowboys they had along, nobody would have dared try to take it. Hall got to wondering what the major was going to do with all that cash.

  He didn’t have to wonder long. That night the major called him over to the cook’s fire. Steward was sipping a cup of coffee, and he made silent sign for Hall to do likewise.

  “Hall,” he said, “I got a special job for you. From what I heard in town about that fight that put you in jail, you’re a right peart scrapper. And the boys tell me you’re a crack shot.”

  Hall shrugged. “I can shoot some,” he admitted.

  “Most of these cowhands I got couldn’t hit a barn from the inside. Dangerous, them even carryin’ a gun around.”

  Hall sipped the steaming coffee and nodded agreement. Cowboys and loaded guns had always bothered him.

  The major said, “I got a lot of cash on hand, and I need to get it to the bank in Fort Worth. Generally I take it myself, and nobody’s ever had the nerve to try and steal it from me. But this time I got so much cow work left that I can’t go. Got to send it with somebody I can trust.”

  Hall felt a glow of pride. “Thanks for the compliment.”

  “Don’t thank me till I tell you about the rest of the j
ob. I always take a man with me on my money trips. Even send him by himself when there’s not much of it and I figure there’s no risk. He knows all the ropes, but I wouldn’t call him a fighter.”

  “I’ll take care of him for you.”

  Major Steward brought his gaze down level with Hall’s eyes. “You’d better. I’m talkin about Coley Dawes.”

  “Coley?” Hall stiffened. “You mean you’d ask me to ride with that darkey all the way to Fort Worth?” He threw out his coffee and stomped around the fire a couple of times, face clouded as if the major had asked him to spit on the Confederate flag. “Hell no! Git yourself somebody else!”

  “Got nobody else I’d send. I’ll cancel out whatever you still owe me, Hall. Even give you fifty dollars extra bonus to fetch that money clear through to Fort Worth.”

  Fifty dollars! Hall paused to reflect. For that much he would almost shake hands with General Sherman.

  Sharply he said, “Seems to me you’re puttin’ a heap of trust in Coley. How do you know he won’t take your money someday and just run off with it?”

  “First place, he’s too simple and honest. The thought probably never would enter his head. Second place, what could he do with it? Anybody would know he had no business with that kind of money. He couldn’t spend it.”

  “How do you know I won’t take your money and run with it?”

  A twinkle of humor flickered in the rancher’s eyes, one of the few Hall had seen in all the weeks he had worked here. “Same reason. You’ve got too much of a cowhand look about you. Anybody could tell you couldn’t have come by that much money honest.”

  Hall flinched. He had asked for that, and he had gotten it.

  Hall hadn’t accepted, but the major plowed right on as if assuming there was no doubt about it. “One more thing: Coley knows his way around, so he’s boss on this trip. You do what he says.”

  “Me, take orders from Coley?” It was unheard of, a thing like that.

  “You’ll do what he says or you’ll answer to me.”

  Hall stalked off talking under his breath. The things a man would submit to, just to get out of debt.

  The stars were still out crystal-sharp when Hall Jernigan and Coley Dawes finished breakfast and headed eastward away from the chuckwagon. Old Major Steward had taken Hall off to one side and had spoken quietly. “Coley would die before he’d let anybody get hold of them saddlebags. It’s your job to see he don’t have to.”

  From the beginning Hall had made it clear he didn’t care to do any jawing with Coley’s kind, so Coley quietly hung back and didn’t say a word. Hall thought perhaps the Negro was riding along asleep, but when he looked back he saw the man’s eyes thoughtfully appraising him. It wasn’t hard to guess what was running through Coley’s mind, for a quiet resentment showed plain and open.

  Hall turned back, shrugging. Didn’t make any difference, he told himself, what the likes of Coley thought of him.

  They rode along silently hour after hour, and the quiet began to get on Hall’s nerves. He had thought, before they started, that Coley would probably wear a man’s ear down to a nub with useless talk. But the only time Coley opened his mouth was to spit out a little dust. Time came when Hall wanted to loosen up and talk a little. He would turn in the saddle and try to start a conversation. All he got was a coldly polite “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” to his questions.

  Patience wearing thin, Hall finally growled, “Well, don’t just hang back there behind me. We’re not a couple of Indians that we got to go single file.”

  Coley’s teeth flashed in a momentary smile, then he caught himself and forced the smile away. The smile somehow brought up fresh anger in Hall. Suddenly he lost his wish for talk. Coley had won again. He always did, seemed like.

  They jogged along in a steady trot all that day. A while before sundown they stopped to cook a little supper. That done, they moved on and didn’t stop till dark. Hall had kept a good watch all day and hadn’t seen sign of anybody or anything suspicious. But when you carried enough money to start a new bank with, it didn’t pay to advertise.

  They didn’t see anything notable the second day, either. In the afternoon they turned into a well-worn wagon road that meandered in a more or less easterly direction. “This here trail,” Coley volunteered, “will take us to Fort Worth bye and bye.”

  That was almost the only thing the Negro had said, the whole two days. Hall had given up trying to lure him into conversation. Hall came to realize that Coley had a strong pride, and Hall had injured it.

  What does he think he is? Hall thought angrily, a white man?

  Late in the afternoon Coley reined his horse off the trail. “Settlement up yonder a little ways,” he said. “The major and me, we always cuts out around it when we got money with us. Major says most folks down there is honest, and he don’t want to be givin’ them no temptation that might cause them to stray.”

  Hall pulled his horse to a stop and eyed the trail speculatively. “Settlement, you say? Bound to have some drinkin’ whisky there, ain’t they?” When Coley nodded, Hall rubbed his hand across his mouth. “By George, I got a thirst that would kill a mule.”

  “Mister Hall, we can’t do that. We go to go on.”

  “It’s comin’ night. We go to stop some place. We ain’t seen no signs of trouble and I don’t think we’re goin’ to. I’m thirsty.”

  Worry was in Coley’s eyes. “Mister Hall, I know how you feels about me and all, and I know you don’t favor my complexion none. But the Major he done give us a job. We got to go to Fort Worth.” Coley’s argument only firmed Hall’s intentions.

  “You can go to Fort Worth … even to hell if it suits you. I’m goin’ to the settlement.”

  He touched spurs to his horse and rode on down the trail toward the settlement. He didn’t look back to see what Coley was doing, but in a minute or two he heard the sound of Coley’s horse, following.

  It wasn’t much of a settlement, just a rude scattering of log and picket houses and a few small frame buildings. Whole place probably couldn’t roust out seventy-five people. Hall picked what was plainly a small saloon and stepped down in front of it. Looking back, he caught the sharp disapproval in Coley’s eyes. It only strengthened his own resolve.

  “You comin’ in, Coley?”

  “Them folks don’t want me in there.”

  “Then I’ll bring you a bottle. They won’t mind you sittin’ here on the front porch.”

  Coley’s back was stiff. “I don’t want no bottle. I reckon I’ll just sit here and wait till you’re ready to go.”

  It was a typical small-settlement saloon, one kerosene lamp giving it what little light it had. There obviously wasn’t a broom on the premises, and the rough pine bar would leave splinters in a man if he dragged his arm across it. The whisky was made to match. It tasted bad as kerosene, but it had a jolt like the shod hoof of a Missouri mule. Hall paid twice what the bottle was worth and took it back to sit down at a table that rocked unevenly when he touched it. Each drink seemed to taste better than the one before it. Under the whisky’s rough glow he began losing the sense of degradation that had pressed down on him ever since he had left the major’s chuckwagon. This would show them, he told himself defiantly. They might make him ride with a Negro, but they couldn’t make him take orders from one.

  He had been in the place an hour or more when he became aware of rough voices out front.

  “Turn around here to the light so we can see you, boy,” someone was saying. Then, “You was right, Hob, it is the major’s old pet Coley. What you doin’ here, Coley? The old man must be around someplace, ain’t he?”

  Coley’s voice was strained. “Mister Good, I ain’t wantin’ no trouble.”

  “We ain’t fixin’ to give you none, Coley. But seein’ you reminds us that a couple of cattle buyers was through here a few days ago with a bunch of cowboys on their way to get some stock off the major. And it strikes us that the only time you’re ever away from the ranch is when you and the
old man are a-carryin’ money to the bank. So you tell us where he’s at, Coley. Us boys want to pay him our respects.”

  “The major ain’t here, and there ain’t no money,” Coley lied. “I done quit workin’ for the major.”

  “Quit? A pet dog don’t quit its master. And that’s all you are—just a pet dog. Quit lyin’ and tell us where the major’s at. Tell us or we’ll take the double of a rope to you.”

  Hall was suddenly cold sober. He pushed to his feet, knocking the bottle over. It rolled off the table, and whisky gurgled out into the sawdust at his feet. Pistol in his hand, he pushed through the door and shoved the muzzle against the back of the nearest man’s neck.

  A startled gust of breath went out of the man at the touch of cold metal. Hall said, “You boys lookin’ for trouble, you better come talk to me. Take your hands off of Coley before I do somethin’ my conscience will plague me for.”

  The two men jerked away from Coley as if he had suddenly turned hot. Hall said, “Coley, you get on your horse.”

  Coley wasted no time. Hall’s voice was brittle as he faced the pair. “Now, was there anything else you-all wanted to say?”

  Neither man spoke. Hall said, “Next time you-all go to jump somebody, see if you’ve got the guts to take on a white man. Now git!”

  They got. Hall swung into the saddle. “Coley, I think it’s time we moseyed.”

  Coley nodded. “Yes, sir, Mister Hall. High time.”

  They left town in a walk, for Hall didn’t want to appear in a hurry. Out of sight, they spurred into a lope and held it awhile. When he felt his horse tiring, Hall pulled him down to a trot.

  “Who were they, Coley?”

  “They ain’t no friends of the major, I’ll guarantee you that. They’re the Good brothers, and there sure ain’t much good about them. Used to work for the major till he found out they was stealin’ every maverick they could get a rope on. Major ran them off—said they was lucky he didn’t just go and hang them.” His face twisted in worry. “They’ll be trailin’ after us, I reckon. They smell a skunk in the woodpile, sure as sin.”