Black Hills (9781101559116)

by Thompson, Rod

  Around mid-day, he was plodding along on Horse, dozing off and on in the warm sun, when a dream of Lainey smiling at him was rudely interrupted by a group of what he had been told to watch out for but hadn’t: Cheyenne Indians. About five or six suddenly swooped down off a grassy hill on his right, whooping and hollering at the tops of their lungs.

  He turned Horse left, and there came another bunch of about the same size.

  “Okay guys!” he hollered, and bounced his spurless boots off Horse’s flanks. “Get us outta here!” That was very nearly his undoing. Horse’s acceleration darn near left him sitting in mid-air. He barely managed to grab the saddle horn to pull hisself back on top. Lop Ear was right beside them, runnin’ free and easy, and Cormac learned right quick an important fact of life: he had himself a couple of horses that took their runnin’ seriously.

  By the time he got his balance back and his bottom side back in the saddle, he was wide-awake and leaning teary-eyed into the wind with his hat following behind and the wind filling his mouth; he yelled with excitement. Those Indians liked to yell—let them hear what a real yell sounded like. A Johnny Reb stopping at the farm for supper and an overnight rest had taught him the Rebel yell that had put the fear of God into many hearts. He reared back and let one rip. Horse liked it: Cormac felt her muscles surge as she briefly pulled ahead of Lop Ear.

  Cormac hollered at Lop Ear, “You gonna let her get ahead of you like this? Come on, get up here!” Lop Ear was up for it, and get up there he did. Inch by inch, until they were again neck and neck, matching stride for stride and muscle for muscle; they were running low to the ground with grass-muffled hoof beats pounding, steel-like muscles straining, and loud breaths of exertion exhaling huge amounts of air with every stride to make room for the enormous amounts of oxygen their great bodies were consuming as they reached for every possible inch of ground. The three of them fairly flew over the fresh and new prairie grass. The excitement refused to be contained, and he yelled again just for the pure hell of it! He almost forgot the Indians were even back there.

  Cormac looked back to find his pursuers dropping farther and farther behind. He caught up his hat from where it was flopping in the wind behind his head and waved it at the Indians with another Rebel yell. This horse race wasn’t even close, and they damn well knew it. They knew it, and were pulling up, giving it up as a bad job.

  He had heard that Indians had a healthy respect for good horseflesh, and one of them waved back at him. Cormac returned the wave and let the horses run; they were having a good time and enjoying themselves. So was he. “Good job, guys!” he yelled into the wind. “I guess we showed them a thing or three.”

  Cormac Lynch was having a very, very good time. The sky was wide open, clear, and blue without a cloud in it, and there was an equal amount of rich green grass beneath it; the sun was bright and warm, new spring flowers and grasses were pushing their way into the world, and the occasional bird and a couple of flocks were flushing up in front of them. He was eighteen years old with money in the bank and not a care in the world, no responsibilities, and—as long as he kept some things pushed out of his mind—no cares or concerns. He didn’t know how far they had run, but it was far and the horses were still running easily, just beginning to sweat; it was time to start slowing them down. A covey of partridges flushed from the grass around them, and he was right in the middle of the bunch. The fast little birds were all around and under them with their wings fluttering in his ears, so close he coulda reached out and grabbed one. Again the excitement was too much to contain, and he turned loose another Rebel yell.

  First he found Virginia City, and then he found the Flying H. The sign over the front gate said he was in the right place. In large, handwriting style letters, it read FLYING H, with a wing on each side of the H. The Flying H was a big spread, cleanly maintained and busy. The ranch house was a large and sprawling two story with windows on all sides of the first as well as second stories, and a porch all the way across the front sporting a porch rail.

  A little behind and to the left sat the largest barn Cormac had ever seen. It had been easily visible for the last two miles. Also two stories, strangely enough with two small windows on all four sides at the second-story level, large double doors in the front and back with a third double door on the side opening into an oversize corral. The corral was partitioned in half with a cowboy in one of the halves doing his best to stay in the middle of a horse with other ideas, while another cowboy was roping a second horse out of a small herd in the remaining half.

  It was later explained by Mr. Haplander that the windows in the loft of the barn were for fighting off Indians, if needed. Although it hadn’t happened a second time, the Indians had attacked when he and his wife and oldest son, Lucas, had first started the spread. Mr. Haplander reckoned it was never tried a second time due to the high losses suffered by the Indians, what with Lucas shooting from the upper windows in the barn, and he and Mrs. Haplander from the second-story windows of the house.

  A bunkhouse was located between the barn and the house with its own outhouse behind. Everything was painted white, and a cowboy was just putting the finishing touches on a fresh coat of new paint on a shed behind the main living quarters.

  Over a slight rise on a trail coming into the ranch appeared a frustrated cowboy yelling at his dapple-gray horse to run faster in an attempt to catch a girl flying in on a black-and-white Paint staying easily in front of him. His dapple-gray was making a good effort, but in the end, just didn’t have what it took. Laughing, the girl slid her Paint to a stop at the corral and dismounted, as did the cowboy, but he wasn’t laughing.

  “I tried to tell you, Mark, but you wouldn’t listen,” called the cowboy with the rope. “What’d she get you for this time?”

  “None of your business,” snapped the loser, picking up the reins to the Paint and leading both horses into the barn. Cormac walked Horse up to the corral and stepped off as Lop Ear joined them.

  The girl was a year or two younger than Cormac, cute, with a pert nose in the middle of a round face framed by thick yellow hair. With a full, well-rounded body clothed in close-fitting jeans and a close-fitting checked shirt, she was an eyeful. Dressed like that on a ranch full of men, thought Cormac. I’ll bet she gives her pa fits.

  She had a pleasant smile and used it easily. “Hi. Can I help you?”

  Cormac snatched off his hat. “Yes, ma’am. I’m looking for Mr. Haplander. He hired me down Colorado way.” She was eyeing Horse and Lop Ear.

  She walked around them, running her hands over their skin and legs. “Nice horses. Can they run?”

  Cormac resisted the urge to tell her they had just outrun a gang of scalp-happy Indians. “They’re okay. I haven’t run them much.”

  “They both look like a lot of horse. Maybe we’ll have to try them out. Are you Mack Lynch?”

  “Yes, ma’am. May I know who you are?”

  “You’re the most polite cowboy I’ve ever met.” She smiled. “I’m Laurie Haplander. My daddy and mother built this spread from the ground up. Daddy told us that you would be coming soon. You seem to have impressed him in some way. What did you do?”

  If her daddy hadn’t told her, maybe he shouldn’t. “I don’t rightly know, ma’am. We met and talked a bit, we got along, and he knew I was needin’ a job and told me to come on up.” The cowboy who took the horses to the barn was returning, his face as grouchy as a tree full of owls. “Is Mr. Haplander here?” Cormac asked.

  “Sure,” she answered, “but let me introduce you to my kid brother first. Marcus, this is the Mack Lynch Daddy told us about. Mack, this is my brother Marcus. I’m the nice one; he’s the pain in the . . . Well, you know how teenage boys are.”

  Marcus shot her a dirty look as Cormac held out his hand, but it was refused. “Just what we need, another hotshot cowboy of some kind. What did you do to impress our father?”

  “I was just explaining to your sister that I don’t know. We met and got along. I needed a
job, and he hired me, but I’m no hotshot cowboy. Fact a the matter is, I’m no kinda cowboy. I was raised on a farm and don’t know a thing about cattle ranchin’. Mr. Haplander said y’all would teach me.”

  “Oh that’s wonderful. A greenhorn.” Marcus Haplander spun on the ball of one foot and strode toward the house.

  “Don’t forget,” Laurie called after him, “you’re doing dinner dishes next week.”

  “Don’t mind him,” Laurie told Cormac. “He’s a numbskull sometimes. Like I said, he’s a teenage boy; he doesn’t accomplish much. In fact, he’s been known to spend an hour trying to figure out how to do a twenty-minute job in ten. Come on. Let’s go find Daddy and let him know you’re here.”

  The inside of the house was equally clean and fresh painted, with pieces of large cowhide-covered furniture nicely arranged. Having never seen luxury, Cormac was duly impressed.

  Mrs. Haplander was an older version of Laurie, grown past cuteness and pretty and into handsome, worn gracefully. Mr. and Mrs. Haplander were cordial and polite before telling him to pick out a bunk in the bunkhouse and look around until their son, Josh, returned. Josh was the ranch foreman and their son, Lucas, was the foreman at the silver mine they owned in the Rockies, on the northwest corner of their property. Although their other hands worked for one or the other, Cormac was told he would be splitting his time between the two, depending on where he was needed at the time.

  To say that Cormac was impressed was an understatement; he was awed. Mr. Haplander had said they had fifty thousand acres, and his idea of running a little beef was five thousand head. The Lynch farm had been thirty acres with two cows, five pigs, a few pullet chickens, and a couple of Rhode Island Reds.

  Josh had been out with the other men starting the spring roundup for counting and branding. He was nothing like Marcus. He held out his hand with a big smile. “My dad said he had hired a farmer, but warned me not to sell you short. He said you would probably be running the place in a couple weeks. I told him good. I’m tired of doing all the work around here.” Josh introduced him to the cook, an old Irishman that answered to the name of Duffy. Cormac would find out that the men affectionately called him King Duffy. His kingdom was the kitchen between the two dining rooms, and he ruled it with an iron hand. He put up with no cowboy nonsense, such as food stealing, or sneaking into the kitchen for snacks.

  There was a dining room for the Haplanders in the main house, and one that had been added onto the side of the house for the hands at some later date with the kitchen located between the two. Duffy served the Haplanders; the men served themselves from large bowls and plates of food placed on a wide shelf separating the kitchen from their dining room, and they were expected to keep their dining room clean. Duffy wasn’t gonna be their mother. From time to time, men were assigned to help him for the day or a week.

  It was decided that Cormac would start out working for Josh until the roundup was over, and he was warned that they started early. It was still dark when the ringing of the breakfast bell found Cormac taking care of Lop Ear and Horse. Breakfast was plenty of beans, beef, gravy, and all the bread they wanted. Duffy had started as their trail cook with his own chuck wagon. After his first trail drive, the house cook had been given a generous severance pay, and Duffy took over the kitchens, sleeping in the bunkhouse with the men.

  “The fastest way to learn,” Josh told Cormac as they were riding out to the branding corrals, “was just to start doing it. I’ll show you how.” Lop Ear wanted to be ridden that morning and Cormac obliged. Josh was amazed that Horse trotted freely alongside. “Your horses are beautiful and a lot of horse, but for the roundup, you need a cowpony. One that is small and fast and can turn on the spot for herding cattle.

  “They’ll be spinning and balking and doing everything they can to get away from you. I’ll loan you a pair of chaps until you can get into town and get your own. Otherwise the brush down in the washes and ravines will cut you to pieces, and you better take a last look at how pretty those new boots of yours are. By tonight, they’ll look ten years old. The most important thing to remember is this, when the dinner bell sounds, hightail it in here right quick, or you’re liable to find yourself suckin’ hind tit.”

  Lop Ear and Horse didn’t care for the idea, but Josh picked out a little brown mustang mare for him. Cormac soon learned what Josh had been talking about. “Your job,” Josh explained, “is to ride up and down the draws, in and out of the brush and anywhere else you might find any cattle. Run them into the pens and somebody else will take it from there for the branding. Try to keep a rough count of how many you bring in so we can double-check the cowboy’s counts with the final tally every day.

  The need for a quick cowpony soon became obvious. The first group Cormac found was five back in a draw. As he rode around to get behind them, they scattered in five different directions, and his horse took in after the closest one. Only a quick grab at the saddle horn and a lot of luck kept him on top of the horse as it went sideways, spun around, and burst forward; he was into top speed almost instantaneously.

  The horse was little compared to Lop Ear and Horse but she was a lot of horse. She seemed to read the cattle’s minds as they chased one after another to the pens, sometimes in singles and sometimes in groups. Groups were a lot of fun. That little horse ran her heart out. Two or three in a group would invariably try to go in two or three different directions at the same time. Cormac got in the habit of counting them when he first saw them. Once they started moving he would be far too busy, and sometimes just plain forgot about it.

  Duffy had rolled his chuck wagon out to the branding site and by the time Josh had called break-time on the first day, Cormac was an experienced cowhand, at least at running reasonable cattle. He didn’t know about a loco long-horned steer the men called old Mossy, a mean old son, they would tell him later.

  He was glad when the dinner bell rang. He had just spotted a small group of cattle in a wash, and decided to run them in with him. Wrong idea. By the time he got them to the pen, there was nobody at the gate, and he had to open it and try to get his bunch in without letting the others out. It was a challenge, but he got it done and went eagerly to the chuck wagon. All that was left was a half plate of beans and a little coffee. He stood looking at his plate in dismay. That round-up stuff was making an appetite. And he was hungry. Dismally, he turned to locate a place to sit when everyone began laughing at him, and the cook called him back. “Here you go, boy,” he said. “We was just havin’ some fun with ya. Here’s your plate.” He handed Cormac a plate piled high with beans and beef. After eating, they relaxed, napped, or smoked, and were back in the saddle within the hour.

  King Duffy’s chuck wagon was designed and built by Duffy himself. On each side of the exterior rode a fifty-gallon water barrel while inside were two five-gallon water buckets for back-up, and storage cabinets with doors, drawers, and storage bins for potatoes and such laid out horseshoe-shaped around the front and sides leaving room for movement in the center or as a bed area for an injured cowboy on the trail, or for himself during the cold or rainy season.

  Opening the tailgate would give him a kitchen counter with daily-usage cabinet and storage for his beloved Dutch ovens from which he produced delicious stews, sourdough biscuits and bread from his working base-stock, and occasionally a cake or some pies. All under the wagon hung a large drooping tarp into which he gathered firewood or dried cow-chips as they became available when on the trail. A shaving cabinet with mirror and needed shaving items was planned that would hang outside when on the trail for cowboys who wished to make use of it.

  Cormac had been looking forward to an easy job of just riding a horse all day. By the end of the day, he had used up three horses and rounded up nearly three hundred head of cattle, and he was one tired farm boy. He was glad to climb back on his big, smooth-riding horse for the ride back to the ranch. So much for thinking a cowboy’s life was an easy life.

  He spent time with Lop Ear and Horse every morning
and rode them back and forth to the ranch. The hands weren’t expected to work late on Saturday night and not at all on Sunday, unless there was a need. Cormac took his horse-duo for long rides every Sunday morning that almost always turned into runs. Having learned that not only could they run, but loved doing it, was like found money.

  Any little excuse found them flying over the flat prairie or sloping hills, jumping streams or logs, cutting up like the youngsters they all were. He kept working with them on kneeling and lying down on command and began teaching them to play hide-and-seek by following his scent. Whenever they found him, he gave them a carrot or an apple if he had one, sugar water if he didn’t.

  Within four days’ time, Cormac was in and out of the brush like he had been born to it and hitting most rope throws successfully. He had been knocked off his horse twice, had his horse knocked down once with him on it, and had his hand mashed between the rope and the saddle horn. He never complained about any of it.

  He got made fun of regularly, but only because someone else was usually around to see his tumbles and mistakes, and the fun-making was just that: all in fun. Cowboys worked hard and appreciated a good joke. As was his nature, Cormac jumped right in and was the first one in the saddle in the morning, and the last one to give it up of a night. The job was a good fit, and Cormac had made friends by the end of the second day.

  The branding corrals were portable and had to be moved every three or four days. Cormac took his turn at roping and branding, getting the bumps, bruises, cuts, and rope burns that went with the territory—Josh had lost two fingers on his left hand and walked with a limp. Cormac twisted his leg throwing a large calf, burned the hip of his other leg when a steer bounced the iron out of his hands and it fell against his hip, with the red-hot iron sticking to his skin.

  He learned to top off an unruly bronc feeling his oats on a cold morning. Some did love to buck first thing in the morning. Often they would stand half asleep while paying no attention to the saddling process, and as soon as a cowboy’s bottom hit the saddle, they would stick their nose in the dirt and go to bucking. Cormac thought it a hell of way to start the morning. On day four, there were more cowboys than usual getting ready to go out, but Cormac didn’t notice. Maddy, a young wrangler from Colorado, had Cormac’s horse already saddled for him and tied outside of the corral. “She looks so much like mine, I had her roped and haltered before I realized she wasn’t my horse and as long as I had her, I figured I would throw your saddle on for you.”