Stampede

by Len Levinson

  Slipchuck looked at her hopefully, and she felt as if she’d been hit over the head with a broom. “I appreciate your offer,” she said, “and I’m very flattered that you’d want to marry me, but I only just lost my husband, and I’m not ready to get married again. I hope you understand.”

  Slipchuck held up the palm of his hand. “You don’t have to say no more. But you change yer mind, just gimme a holler.”

  Slipchuck winked, spat another gob of tobacco juice at the grass, and rode off, yodeling to the longhorns.

  Chapter Eight

  John Stone opened his eyes, and the roof of the chuck wagon came into sharp focus. He was wrapped in white cloth, the pain was greatly diminished, and his strength had returned. Somehow, miraculously, he was himself again, and he knew who was responsible, and why. He crawled to the front of the chuck wagon and looked outside.

  Ephraim was nearby, lighting the morning fire, a sardonic smile on his face. “How we feelin’ today, Massa John?”

  The cowboys and vaqueros spun around and stared at Stone with astonishment. There was silence as Stone jumped down from the chuck wagon and stood erectly, except for a few creaks in his bones, due to the long period of inactivity. Truscott took off his hat and scratched his head. The segundo bent forward and focused his unblinking eyes on Stone, and Stone knew they were brothers under the skin.

  “I said it once, I said it a hundred times,” Slipchuck declared. “God protects an honest cowboy.”

  Slipchuck placed his arm around Stone’s shoulders, and together they walked toward the campfire, where Ephraim fried their breakfast steaks, the aroma of charred meat curling past their nostrils. Stone felt starved, a massive hollow in his stomach, and took his place in line.

  The cowboys and vaqueros continued to stare at him, and he was ill at ease. Everyone knew Ephraim somehow had cured him, but nobody wanted to comment. Truscott cleared his throat and hitched his thumbs in his belt as he walked toward Stone.

  “Glad to see you’re feelin’ better, Johnny. If’n you can ride today, we sure can use yer he’p.”

  Ephraim said, “Better let him rest up a couple more days.”

  Truscott wasn’t about to argue with Ephraim, not about a goddamn thing. “Whenever you’re feelin’ up to it, Johnny, it’s okay with me.”

  Meanwhile, Cassandra was returning from the latrine, wondering if there was some way she could cut her hair, because it was becoming the murky nest for a variety of insects, and carried all manner of filth within its golden strands. Maybe, if she lay her head on a log, one of the cowboys could saw her hair off with his knife.

  She came to the clearing and headed for the chuck line, when her eyes widened at the sight of John Stone. He stood with the cowboys, and they all carried tin plates in their hands. At first she thought she was hallucinating, then moved toward him, her eyes narrowed in mystification. “Are you all right, Johnny?”

  “Much better, Mrs. Whiteside.”

  Cassandra stared at him as though he were a ghost. The four-inch scar on his head was covered with a black scab, whereas it had been open and bloody last time she saw it.

  “Brea’fass is ready!” Ephraim said.

  Cassandra made her way to the front of the line, and wondered if she were dreaming. How could a man recover so quickly from such wounds? She held out her plate, and Ephraim dropped a cut of tenderloin atop it, with several biscuits. She filled her cup with coffee and carried everything to her saddle, where she sat down. The line advanced, and finally it was Stone’s turn. Ephraim carefully placed an enormous steak upon it, and lay the biscuits to the side. “I made some special tea might he’p you, Massa John,” he said.

  Stone picked up the cup, and it was filled with medium brown liquid dotted with tiny black particles. It looked revolting, but he’d drink every disgusting drop. He made his way to a spot near Cassandra, cut off a gob of steak, and put it into his mouth. It was his first food in days, and he felt the taste explode throughout his body. Ephraim was taking good care of him so he could kill him, but he was in for a surprise. Stone knew Ephraim would be the one to die.

  Stone looked at the other cowboys. “Where’s Blakemore?”

  There was silence for a few moments, then Truscott said, “Dead.”

  Stone’s fork froze in midair. “How’d it happen?”

  “Rustlers got him, and damn near got you too. We buried him yesterday.”

  The food went tasteless in Stone’s mouth. The Gypsy hag in San Antone had told Blakemore he’d die young, and now he had. She’d said the same thing to Stone, and if she were right once, would she be right again? Stone looked at Ephraim, who smiled over the shimmering flames of the campfire. Stone’s hand trembled for a moment, then he pulled himself together. “How’d he die?”

  “With his boots on and a gun in his hand,” Truscott said. “Hope I go the same way.”

  The cowboys finished breakfast, climbed onto their horses, and drifted toward the herd. Stone remained near the campfire, munching his second helping of steak. Cassandra was last to leave. “Ephraim,” she said, “may I speak with you alone a moment?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied Ephraim, washing the plate that had held the biscuits. He wiped his hands on his apron and followed Cassandra to the far side of the chuck wagon, where no one could hear them.

  Cassandra narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she looked up at Ephraim. “How’d you do it?”

  “Do what, Mrs. Cassandra?”

  “Somehow you cured John Stone, and you also did something to the segundo. How can you do these things?”

  Something in his eyes frightened her, and she took a step back.

  “Don’t be afraid of me, Mrs. Cassandra,” he said. “I’d never do nothin’ to you. Old Ephraim’s on your side.”

  She wasn’t reassured. Something about him terrified her. “Bring up the chuck wagon soon as you can.”

  She walked toward her horse, and glanced at John Stone. He appeared almost as good as new, but yesterday had been at death’s door. And the segundo was a walking corpse. She’d expected Indians and rustlers on the drive, but not this.

  She climbed onto her horse and rode off with the cowboys. Stone finished the tea and returned the cup to the chuck wagon, where Ephraim was washing his big butcher knife. “Jest one more day, Massa John,” he said, holding up the butcher knife, and a sunbeam kissed the sharpened point. “Know what I mean?”

  ~*~

  Cassandra rode the drag, enveloped in dust and the stink of cattle. Ahead of her, the segundo chased an old cow back to the herd. Cassandra’s back was sore, and the effects of inadequate sleep took their toll. She’d never worked so hard in her life, and had too much to worry about.

  A figure rode toward her out of the swirling dust, and it was Don Emilio Maldonado, wearing his wide-brimmed sombrero. He was accompanied by Roberto, the vaquero who’d dragged Manuelo to death with his lariat.

  “I have good news!” Don Emilio said, removing his sombrero and bowing from the waist. “You have been promoted to flank rider! Roberto here will take your place on the drag!”

  “I thought,” Cassandra said, “that the newest hand rode the drag.”

  “That is true, señora, but we are trying something different here. Please do as I say.”

  “I don’t want to be treated any differently from anybody else,” she told him evenly. “If we hire a new man, he’ll ride the drag and I’ll take the flank position.”

  Don Emilio became exasperated. “If you want to keep the men happy, señora, you will not ride the drag anymore. They do not want you here, and if you stay, they will become a pack of devils that no one can control. So please be a flank rider, I beg you. Report to Duvall, and he will tell you what to do.”

  Cassandra didn’t want to upset the men, because everything was difficult enough as it was. “All right,” she said, “but I don’t like it.”

  His eyes sparkled. “If only you would let me kiss your foot, I would be happy for the rest of my life.”


  “I haven’t washed my feet in three days, and we’d better find water tonight, because I need a bath.”

  “If I could bathe you with my own two hands, you would be cleaner than ever in your life.”

  She prodded her horse, and the animal moved away from Don Emilio and Roberto, who watched her recede into the dust kicked up by the sick and lame longhorns in the drag. Moving from dust to fresh clear air, she pulled down her bandanna so she could suck it into her lungs. She rode forward leisurely for several hundred yards, exulting in her newfound freedom, and then spotted Duvall.

  “I’m the new flank rider,” she said, “and Don Emilio said you’d tell me what to do.”

  Duvall pointed to the herd ten yards to his right. “Ain’t much work at the moment. Herd’s settled pretty good—guess they’re finally gittin’ used to the drive.”

  She couldn’t help noticing, through his open shirt, the scar on his neck. She’d always wondered where he got it, but thought she’d be better off without the information.

  “You know,” Duvall said, “I been thinkin’ ’bout you, all alone in the world like an orphan. A woman needs a man to look out for her, do the tough jobs that come up, know what I mean?”

  “I had a man, and he was no damn good,” she replied, and spat at the dirt.

  “There’s all kinds of men, Mrs. Whiteside. Some’re varmints, and some’re decent. Now you take John Stone, fer instance. You couldn’t ask for a finer man. You and him’d make a good couple, you ask me. ’Course, he drinks too much, but a good woman’s all he needs.”

  “He’s in love with the woman in that picture he carries around.”

  “He’ll git over her, ’specially if he had somebody else to keep him warm at night.” Duvall winked. “I’d ask fer yer hand myself, but I’m already spoken fer. I’m a-gittin’ married after this drive is over, to Miss Eulalie Parker of San Antone.”

  “Congratulations,” she said. “Glad to hear it.”

  “You should be gittin’ married too, because it ain’t good fer a woman to be alone. Onc’t you git that itch, you got to scratch it, and that’s when a woman can git into trouble. John Stone is the kind of man you can rely on. If he says he’s gonna do somethin’, you can build a house on it.”

  ~*~

  The chuck wagon rolled over the plains, tipping from side to side, its frame trembling, and Stone rode twenty yards to its left, atop Tomahawk. The pain was nearly gone from Stone’s body, and he was covered with healed scars. The bones in his chest that’d felt broken now were solid.

  Stone saw Ephraim sitting on the box seat of the chuck wagon, reins wrapped around his big hands. Tomorrow morning they’d fight it out, and when it was over, one man would be standing and the other dead. Stone expected to be the man standing, with a bloody knife in his hand, or a Gypsy’s curse on his gravestone.

  Stone’d rather fall into a well, or get trampled by longhorns, than let the ex-slave kill him. I didn’t come through five years of war to let a nigra piss on my grave.

  ~*~

  It was evening at the campsite, and Cassandra had just finished dinner. It was time to go to bed, but first she wanted to cut her filthy tangled hair, and she’d even found a grasshopper in it that afternoon. God only knew how many days it’d been there.

  On top of that, they hadn’t found a water hole, and she didn’t want to use precious drinking water for a bath. She stank the way her cowboys stank, sweat and horseshit, instead of the fine perfumes she’d worn in New Orleans, and had dirt in her ears and between her toes, unthinkable in the old days.

  But the big problem was her hair. She was afraid to look in the mirror, for fear of what she’d see. Better get rid of it. She leaned toward Slipchuck and said, “Is your knife sharp?”

  Slipchuck spat a gob of tobacco juice into the fire, where it sizzled and exuded a black puff of smoke. “Could split a skeeter’s peter.”

  “Do you think you could cut off my hair with it?”

  Slipchuck scowled. “Couldn’t do that, ma’am. Hand’s liable to slip, cut yer head off.”

  “Your hand’s steady as a rock, Slipchuck. Do me the favor, will you?”

  He shook his head and got to his feet. “Not me.”

  She turned to Truscott.

  “I ain’t no barber,” he told her.

  “It’ll just take a minute, and you don’t have to do a neat job.”

  “Nope.”

  She looked at Diego, the vaquero. “Will you help me, amigo?”

  “You hair is beautiful the way it ees, señora. Why you want to fock it up?”

  “It’s dirty—can’t you see?”

  “When you ride in the sun, I see what Coronado dreamed when he looked for El Dorado.”

  Cassandra turned to Duvall washing his tin plate. “Care to help me out?”

  “I like yer hair the way it is, Mrs. Whiteside. Sorry.”

  She looked at Ephraim, who stood near the fire, stirring tomorrow’s stewed beans. “Ephraim, would you cut off my hair, please?”

  Ephraim shuffled his feet. “If’n I cut off your hair, Mrs. Whiteside, your cowboys’re liable to cut somethin’ off’n me.”

  The cowboys chortled, and her eyes fell on Don Emilio Maldonado, leaning against his saddle, smoking a cigarette.

  “How about you?” she said.

  “I am very sorry, señora,” he replied, “but I cannot do it. It would be a crime against God to cut such beautiful hair.”

  “You told me once you and your men would do anything I wanted, and you’d be my slave, is that correct?”

  “Si, señora.”

  “You swore on your mother, I believe, is that not so?”

  “Si, that is so.”

  “Then cut off my hair!”

  “If I cut off your hair, señora, my vaqueros will kill me. They all love your hair, and so do I. You heard what Diego said—it reminds them of El Dorado. You are the queen of their hearts. How can you do such a crazy thing?”

  “May I borrow your knife, please?”

  He hesitated, but she darted forward quick as a minx and pulled his knife out of its scabbard before he knew what happened.

  “Now, señora,” he said, raising his hand in alarm.

  “Stay where you are, Maldonado. Don’t get in my road.”

  She threw her hat to the ground, raised her golden tresses in her left hand, and tried to cut through them with the knife in her right, but the knife wouldn’t go through. She grit her teeth and pushed the knife harder, but all it did was pull at her roots and hurt.

  She realized she couldn’t do it, and was so mad she could spit. “You sons of bitches!” she screamed, hurling the knife at the ground with such force that it went in four inches.

  The men burst into laughter. Cassandra placed both her hands on her hips and stared at them. If I were a man, I’d beat the shit out of them. And the worst part was they wouldn’t stop laughing. Several were actually rolling around on the ground. Don Emilio’s face was red, and he appeared to be having convulsions. Slipchuck looked as though he’d have a heart attack. There they were, in the middle of nowhere, having a great time! They could fight, kill, and laugh too! They really liked her, they’d paid her a beautiful compliment, and she hadn’t the grace to accept it.

  She felt like thanking them, but they wouldn’t play it that way, and neither could she. She put on her hat, tipped it to a rakish angle, and performed a direct Truscott imitation as she strolled away, thumbs in her gunbelt. “Wa’al, guess the old mop’s stayin’ on!”

  She walked into the darkness at the edge of the campsite. Before her the Milky Way cut a diagonal swathe toward the three-quarter moon. Four buttes stood like sentinels in the distance, and she thought this moment was worth all the cattle in the world. No matter where she went, no matter what happened to her, no one would ever be able to take away this glorious night.

  A figure loomed before her, and she went for her gun.

  “It’s me,” said Stone.

  “Thought you were an
injun,” she replied. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Look.” He pointed at Old Ben lying a few feet away, chewing his cud.

  She bent over and patted the bristly hair between the animal’s weirdly twisted horns. “It’s strange,” she said, “that he’d rather be here with us than back at the herd with his own kind.”

  “He likes us,” Stone replied.

  She dropped to the ground, and Stone sat beside her. Old Ben looked at them peacefully with huge glowing eyes as drool dripped from his lips.

  “I wonder what he has,” Cassandra said, “that makes him the leader.”

  “They’re afraid of him.”

  “Doesn’t look scary to me. I’d say he’s more of an eater and sleeper.”

  “Cowboys told me the bulls rip each other wide open with their horns during mating season. I don’t think they’d follow him if he wasn’t a good fighter.”

  “Truscott told me he’ll lead them right into the slaughterhouse. I wonder what he’ll think when they kill him. Do you imagine he’ll feel betrayed?”

  “Heard a story once about a steer like Old Ben, and when they got to the railhead, the boss decided to save him from the slaughterhouse, because he’d done such a good job. The boss hired cowboys to drive the steer all the way back to Texas, and that steer’ll probably live longer than you or me.”

  Cassandra brightened. “Maybe that’s what I should do for Old Ben, if we get through to Abilene.”

  “We’ll get through. There’s nothing that could stop this outfit now.”

  Her face floated before him in the light of the moon, and her breasts strained against her dirty shirt. Her first two buttons were undone, and he could see the cleavage.