The Third Western Novel

by Noel Loomis

  Ferguson said, half to himself, “I wonder what they were up to?”

  “Charlie Logan said they wanted an understanding with you about No Horse.”

  “What’s to be understood?”

  “They said No Horse was drinkin’ and makin’ threats.”

  “Mr. Benson, have you smelled liquor on his breath?” asked Ferguson.

  “Sure not lately,” said Benson.

  The ferry was nearing the other shore, and the group of kneeling emigrants began to break up. Sledge walked to the dock where Mawson stood, a giant of a man even at such a distance. There was some talk which Ferguson could not make out, and then Mawson shouted and fired his six-shooter twice into the air, and on one of the green hills covered with sheep, men and dogs began to move. The ferry stopped at the dock, and Teddy Root began to tie up. The sheep were moving down toward the meadow, and presently the herders got them squeezed down to something resembling a column. Ferguson caught up the sorrel, threw a saddle on it, and rode into the water.

  He walked the sorrel out on dry land before the sheep were within a quarter of a mile. Mawson was standing on the dock, grinning superciliously. “Not even the will of the Lord,” he said, “can prevail against the smell of twelve thousand sheep.”

  Ferguson looked at him steadily. “There are other things that stink worse,” he said.

  The big man took a breath, and his chest swelled out. “You and me will have a settlement after we get the sheep across,” he said. “I will whip you till your own mother won’t recognize you.”

  “I have no mother here, Mr. Mawson,” Ferguson said, and turned away to Teddy Root. “Mr. Root, we shall have to set the posts along the sides and ends, and run a rope through them.”

  Teddy Root nodded. “The posts are down there by the mule shed.”

  “Take the mule with you—and bring a coil of half-inch rope. We’ll have to build a fence so the sheep won’t walk off.”

  “We’ll sure have to scrub the ferry when we get through too, or the horses won’t walk on it.”

  Ferguson sighed. “We may have to burn it.”

  Mawson went down to meet the sheep, and Root took the mule to get the stakes and the rope. Ferguson examined the guide rope to see that it was in its three iron rings on the upstream side of the ferry, and then walked after Mawson toward the approaching sheep. At the head of the column were four men, and for an instant Ferguson stopped short. The four men were all huge, wore black hats, and were exact duplicates of Zachariah Mawson, only twenty years or so younger.

  Ferguson became aware that Mawson was watching him, for now he laughed shortly and said, “Ferguson, these are my four boys. They can’t whip me yet, but they can whip anybody else.”

  “Have you got a head sheep?” asked Ferguson.

  “We had an old ewe,” said the youngest boy, “but she died.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Ferguson.

  “Abner.” The boy was about twenty years old.

  “You got names for the rest of ’em?” asked Ferguson.

  Mawson scowled. “Abner, Dutch, Henry, and Matt. Matt’s the oldest and the biggest.”

  “Well,” said Ferguson, “since there’s no lead sheep, we’ll see if we can find one. Meantime, we’ll have to get them on board the best way we can. You fellows cut out a hundred and fifty and we’ll see what happens.”

  The four boys looked at their father, and he nodded. It was obvious that he made the decisions, and that was worth knowing.

  Two of the boys stayed alongside the front of the column to act as pointers; the other two went back to cut out the first load. They worked their way into the sheep and began to drive them forward. Teddy Root stood in the middle of the dock at the far side of the entrance to the ferry; the rope was in place.

  Ferguson noted half a dozen emigrants watching, and motioned to them. “If you fellows want this to get over with as soon as possible, spread yourselves along the dock and steer the sheep onto the ferry. Don’t shout or wave your arms unless you have to; just stand and keep quiet.”

  Sledge stepped forward. “Mr. Ferguson, we have been euchred out of our birthright, and we have submitted to it in the name of Christianity, but we recognize no obligation to put our shoulders to the wheel of the man who ran us off the road.”

  “All right,” said Ferguson. He hoped they had no intention of interfering.

  A sheep trotted forward on the dock, hesitated, went to the edge, saw the water, turned away. Ferguson moved up, squeezing it toward the ferry. Teddy Root backed up a little to give the sheep a chance to go through the roped opening onto the ferry. The sheep ran around in a circle, darted past Root to the end of the dock, then wheeled and returned. Ferguson headed it away from the approaching band, which stopped dead as if it had been a single unit. The sheep tried to go past Ferguson, who got in its way; it ran back toward Root, looked at the entrance-way to the ferry, then suddenly wheeled and dashed straight at Ferguson, who tried to stop it. That time, however, it refused to be side-tracked. It ran straight at him, caught him off-balance, got his legs tangled up, and left him on his face on the dock while it leaped into the water and splashed off downstream.

  When two of the Mawson boys ran to catch the runaway, the rest of the sheep surged forward and broke into a dash down the dock. Ferguson got to his feet in a hurry and leaped to one side. Teddy Root stepped onto the ferry, and the sheep lumbered to the edge of the dock. There the foremost animals stopped, but those behind pressed on and pushed the first ones over the edge into the water. A moment later, twenty sheep were in the water; Mawson was cursing, and Sledge was looking on, stony-faced. Ferguson shouted at Mawson, “Send a couple of men!” and the other two boys got Mawson’s nod and ran forward into the water.

  Ferguson concentrated on those that were left, trying to steer them onto the ferry, but the first ranks would go only to the entrance, then wheel and make for the opposite side of the dock.

  Two boys had recovered the first sheep, but the other two were floundering in the water, shouting at the sheep, kicking them, beating them over the heads with their hats, and cursing fluently, while the Reverend Sledge still watched, stony-faced.

  Ferguson looked at the sheep huddled, bleating, on the dock, and said to the two boys approaching: “Close up slowly and see if you can push them toward the opening.”

  They got the sheep to the edge of the ferry. One anima put her foot on the deck, but at that moment one of that boys below, after wrestling with a sheep, picked it up and dropped it back into the water, creating a wave that made the ferry lurch, and the lead sheep leaped back and dived headfirst into those behind her. They resisted for a moment, then suddenly reversed themselves in their tracks and ran back to dry land.

  Ferguson worked hard for four hours without getting a single sheep on board except those he carried on bodily. By noon he had a nucleus of a dozen bleating sheep on the ferry, but they all had to be tied, for the first ones had gone over or through the ropes and landed in the river.

  Teddy Root took off his droopy hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a blue bandanna. “We ain’t gettin’ very far, Mr. Ferguson.”

  Ferguson drew a deep breath. “We aren’t getting anywhere,” he said. “Those sheep we carried on board haven’t missed a bleat since we put them there, and I wonder if they are scaring off the others. Let’s stop and eat.”

  Mawson stopped them. “When are you going to get started?”

  Ferguson lifted his eyebrows. “They’re your sheep. They aren’t telling me anything.”

  “You’re running the ferry.”

  “Maybe you would like to pay me for my time, and swim them across.”

  “No, sir, you made a deal,” said Mawson. “These critters are going across on the ferry if it takes a month.”

  Ferguson looked at him. “Do I get the feeling that you wish it would take a month?”

  “I have no idea what feeling you are getting.”

  They went to the shed—nothing more
than a sod roof on poles—where Root slept and kept his few belongings. He got a piece of meat, wrapped in a dishtowel, out of a stoneware jar set partly in the water. He sniffed it and said, “Still good. The cornbread’s in that tow-sack hangin’ from the ridgepole.” He unwrapped the meat on his blanket, and got a big jackknife out of his pocket. “Sure is hard to keep meat around here. Last night a ’coon knocked the lid off and drug the whole thing out and almost got away with it, but I hit him with a rock and he left it lay.”

  “It’s darn good meat, too,” said Ferguson, swallowing a half-chewed bite. “You’re a good cook, Mr. Root.”

  By the time they were through, Ferguson had decided his next move. “I’m going across,” he said, “to have a talk with Mr. Benson. It may be we can figure something out.”

  “Want me to keep on tryin’?”

  “Do your best. If you get them started, all the better.” He went back to get the sorrel, and Mawson confronted him. “Givin’ up?”

  “What if I am?”

  “You’ll never take this ferry across the river until you get my sheep on it.”

  “Maybe you’d like to do it yourself.”

  “I’ll buy the ferry from you. How much do you want for it?”

  Ferguson was warned by the quickness with which Mawson had seized on an idle remark. “I will serve notice when I get ready to sell.”

  “I will buy it—if the price is right.”

  “Others have spoken ahead of you.”

  “Never mind them. You’ll have to negotiate with me before you get through.”

  “Is it your idea that I can’t sell where I want to?”

  “It’s my idea,” said Mawson, “that I’m the only one who has the cash to buy you out.”

  Ferguson studied him. “How long have you owned these sheep?” he asked.

  “Long enough,” said Mawson.

  “Did you buy them just to cause trouble at the ferry?”

  Mawson seemed amused. “They told me you was a smart feller.”

  Ferguson saddled the sorrel and rode again into the stream. He came out on the Nebraska side a few feet from Yeakel and Logan. Yeakel said cheerfully, “Trouble, Ferguson?”

  “I never have anything else when you’re around.”

  Yeakel pretended astonishment. “I never had trouble with sheep.”

  Ferguson looked at him. “If you cut the ferry-rope last night, Yeakel, take warning; the man who cuts my rope again may find his ax against his own throat.”

  “Big talk, Ferguson,” said Charlie Logan, “but we got more important business—about that Injun workin’ for you.”

  “Why are you after No Horse?”

  “To save trouble,” said Logan. “One of these here emigrants might take a shot at No Horse and set off an Injun war.”

  Ferguson said, “No Horse is a good man on the ferry.” Yeakel said, “Teddy Root runs his side by himself.”

  “Teddy Root gets lots of help from the emigrants who hope to speed up their turn. And Mr. Root is younger than Mr. Benson.”

  “Nevertheless, Ferguson,” said Yeakel, “the least you can do is send No Horse back to his tribe. He has been heard making threats against our women, and we won’t stand for no redskin to even think about such things.”

  Ferguson hesitated. “Who heard him make those threats?” he asked.

  “It was told me confidentially,” said Yeakel, staring at him.

  Ferguson looked up to the top of the slope. No Horse stood there, watching them—a lonely figure in moccasins and woolen trousers; his bronze skin and his straight black hair would have marked him anywhere—and he knew they were talking about him. Ferguson turned back. “I don’t believe it. He has a wife and two babies in Walking Bird’s band, and he is honest and hard-working.” He started to turn away. “When you get some honest evidence against him, tell me what it is. Meantime, I will not let anybody take advantage of him just because he is an Indian.”

  He walked with Benson out on the dock. “Do you know anything about sheep?”

  Benson scratched his whiskered chin. “Well, now, Mr. Ferguson, I know some good things about ’em; them I can tell in a minute. I know some bad things about ’em, and them would take me all day and half the night.”

  “Good or bad, I want just one thing: how to get them on board the ferry.”

  “You need a Judas goat.”

  “The worst way.”

  “You recall a feller come through here a while back in a prairie wagon? Had a bunch of kids, two milch cows, some chickens and ducks, half a dozen pigs, and ten sheep?”

  “I think I would remember any outfit like that—but I don’t.”

  “You might not of been here. Anyway, that feller had a black-faced goat he claimed was a Judas goat that would lead sheep anywhere.”

  “He must be halfway to Oregon by now.”

  “Nope, I heard yesterday that he bought himself a claim up near the Forks. Seems his wife was about to have a baby, and he was scared to deliver it hisself because the last one came out butt first and gave him a lot of trouble.”

  “So he decided to settle down near Doc Doddridge,” said Ferguson.

  “He gave some feller fifty dollars for a quit-claim deed.”

  “If he has a Judas goat, get him down here. You go up by Turner’s and send Obie down here to help No Horse with the ferry. These men won’t bother anyone so long as somebody is looking.”

  “Want me to take a look-in at Noah?”

  “Sally will take care of him. You get that Judas goat down here before we have a riot on the other side.”

  CHAPTER X

  Ferguson found a soft place in the grass near the dock, and lay down with his head on the saddle, while the sorrel grazed downstream; the horse would not go far. He was asleep by the time he got his long legs stretched out, and then Obie was calling his name and touching his shoulder. “Mr. Ferguson, you want me to do anything?”

  Ferguson shook his head vigorously and got his eyes open. “Just keep an eye on things. Noah all right?”

  “He was at noon. Here, Mr. Ferguson.” He set down a bucket covered with a clean cloth. “There’s sandwiches—buff’lo meat and light-bread. We heard you was on the other side all morning fixing the ferry, and Sally thought you might not have had any chance to eat.”

  Ferguson sat up straight “Your sister Sally is a rare jewel,” he said. “I am starving.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Obie. “She’s nice, too.”

  Ferguson ate ravenously, and at the same time made fresh coffee. “Anything happening at the road ranch?”

  “Not much, I guess. People talkin’ about the meeting tonight.”

  “What meeting?”

  “To organize a claim club.”

  “That’s right. It is tonight. Good thing you reminded me.”

  “Obie,” he said, “there’s a pile of wood we use to build a fire on a real dark night, so the people can see in order to get off. You can grab the ax there and chop it into two-foot lengths, and just act busy and let people know you are here, so people won’t bother things.”

  “You mean so people won’t cut the rope again?” Ferguson nodded and lay back down to sleep. The next time he woke up, it was to the blatting of a goat; he opened his eyes, and there was Benson coming up on his mule, leading at the end of a rope a black-and-white goat that protested every step of the way. “I got him, Mr. Ferguson,” the old man said proudly.

  “It’s a her,” said Ferguson, “but it makes no difference, if that goat will just lead those sheep onto the ferry. I wonder if she will swim.”

  “He never said.”

  “How much did he want for her?”

  “I rented her for two dollars a day. He said that was his reg’lar price.”

  “If she does the work, she will be worth it.” Ferguson rubbed his eyes. He felt pretty good after his nap. “Did anybody holler from the other side?” he asked Obie.

  “No, sir. Lots of hollerin’ went on, but not to us.”


  “You finished the wood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ferguson looked at the sun, and judged it to be about three o’clock. “You’d better go look in on Noah.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But catch up the sorrel first.”

  He watched activities on the other side. Apparently they were still trying, but not very hard, and he figured that bunch of sheep had been so thoroughly scared that they would not go aboard the ferry for a week.

  He rode out into the water, pulling the goat behind him. At first she tried to hold back, but when the rope pulled her head down, she quit balking and began to swim like a veteran.

  He rode out on the other shore, and the goat followed. Mawson was waiting for him. “What you got there?” he asked.

  “A Judas goat.”

  “What do goats have to do with sheep?” Mawson demanded.

  “A Judas goat will go where you want it to go, and the sheep will follow it,” said Ferguson. “Have your boys bring up a fresh band, and we’ll give them a try.” He studied a train of three wagons going north out of the valley. “What’s that?” he asked Teddy Root.

  Root shrugged helplessly. “They had a meeting, Mr. Ferguson, and some of ’em decided to go up north and try to find a ford.”

  “They won’t find a ford for two thousand miles.”

  “Then they’re figuring on building a ferry of their own.”

  “If this keeps up,” said Mawson, “pretty soon you will have nothing but a ferry for sheep. The price of your ferry just dropped a hundred dollars, and I figure another hundred for every three wagons that pull out.”

  Ferguson turned on him. “Mawson, are you trying to ruin my ferry?”

  Mawson’s sardonic eyes became calculating. “I’ll get it, one way or another.”

  “There is no chance of that.”

  “You’ll never move these sheep across on that ferry, but I will keep them here until you do.”

  It seemed obvious that Mawson had deliberately moved his sheep into position to force Ferguson out of the picture; his reason was not apparent, but might be guessed.

  “I expect to move your sheep,” Ferguson said.

  Mawson said, “I hear you’re a gambler.”

  “Any man who comes west is a gambler, the way I figure it.”