“How many did you lose?” Kane asked.
“Five,” Mark said, “not counting some we gave the Indians and ate ourselves.”
“You were lucky,” Kane said.
“Start delivering in two days,” Ralston said to Ben. “Twenty-five apiece for four hundred, and ten extras. I’ll be lucky to get enough cars to ship more than two hundred at a time. So bring in two hundred and five and no culls.”
“You’ll break me,” Kane said. “But after we get Ralston’s shipped, I’ll take the big ones at forty-two a head. I’ll let you know how the rest goes. Getting enough cars is a problem.”
Ben shook both men’s hands. Mark and Chip did the same with polite nods.
“Kane. We weren’t lucky. These boys are good,” Ben said.
The cattle buyer looked hard at them and nodded sharply. “I guess so.” Then he clucked to his team and wheeled them around.
“Tell us something, Ben,” Chip said. “How’d you know they’d pay that?”
Ben watched a red-tailed hawk swoop across the herd. “I was holding the best hand in the poker game. If we’d come up here with mixed cattle or poor ones, we’d have been betting on the draw. We had four aces in these cattle. Those Mexicans never thought for one second that they wouldn’t get them back to sell over again. Or we’d never have bought them like we did.”
“You mean they sold them that cheap, not worrying they wouldn’t get them back to sell again?” Mark dropped his gaze to the ground and shook his head.
“That’s it, pard,” Chip said, and bolted in the saddle. “You think Mark and I know enough to bring a herd up here?”
“Maybe,” Ben said, and swung into the saddle.
“We got another test?” Chip asked.
“You go ride into Abilene and throw a damn two-day drunk, blow all your money, I’d say you’ll never amount to more than hired help.”
“That ain’t no damn problem for me,” Mark said.
Chip laughed. “Don’t take no math expert to figure that trail bosses make more money than trail hands. Hell, rangers don’t make any money. I won’t worry about Abilene.”
“How do we get the money to do this?” Mark asked as they rode back for camp.
“You two can have the difference between what I sell and the ones leftover, for starters.” Ben held up his finger. “Providing you make it on my terms.”
“Who’ll buy them?” Mark asked.
“Some local butcher, or a farmer needing to raise some meat. You can go look for a buyer tomorrow.”
“Can we both go look for a buyer tomorrow?”
“I reckon I can spare you two that long. But Thursday we need to be up and sorting come daylight.”
“Them small steers won’t be easy to get out either,” Chip said, and they short-loped their horses for camp.
Ben bent over to refill his coffee cup from the pot in the twilight. Whippoorwills were all over the place, sounding off, and he nodded to Hap.
“Guess that means we’ll head home soon?” Hap asked.
“I’ve been thinking all day.” Ben glanced around to be certain no one was close enough to hear. “l’lI need another buckboard in Texas.”
“Ben McColloughie! I can ride a horse home.”
“Yeah, and listen to you complain about that right hip clear past the Brazos?” He straightened and blew on his coffee. “Sell them mules and wagon. Buy me a buckboard and a good horse team.”
“Where?”
“Abilene, I’d say. And we can sell thirty horses. Have Lou help you cut them out.”
“Why . . . why . . . what if I don’t get enough for them?”
“Hell, I don’t care; what’s left is your money.”
“My . . . my money?” You lost your mind. You owe the bank, the store, the hands’ pay—”
“I sold twenty-eight thousand dollars’ worth of cattle today. You take the money from the horses, mules, and wagon and buy me a buckboard and team out of it.”
Hap closed his eyes. “You going back to buy another herd?”
Ben shook his head. “I’m going home to ranch. Buy some Durham bulls to cross on them longhorn cows. Buy some more land. A married man has no business trailing cattle this far from home.”
“But . . . but—”
“No buts.”
“I need a swallow of whiskey.” Hap got up and, swinging his stiff leg, headed for the front of the wagon. He held the bottle up toward the firelight to measure the contents and nodded. “Two good snorts left.”
With a head shake, Ben laughed aloud. “It ain’t the end, old man.”
“Ben McCollough settling down is sure the end.” He took the rest of the liquor, then capped it with a deep “Ah.”
“There’s a job for you anytime, pard.”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on quitting,” Hap said, and tossed the bottle away.
“Good, you ain’t getting sentimental on me then.”
“Ben McColloughie! I’ll have you know . . .” Not listening to Hap’s ranting and rambling, Ben went and found his bedroll. It would be hard for him to sleep counting that much money. He looked at the starry sky. Jenny, I’m coming home—rich, too. I’ll buy you fancy things, darling.
Chapter 24
A soft drizzle moistened his beard. Ben rode his stout bay horse called Blitz to the side of the steers. Stiffer gaited than his other horses, the animal could catch anything, and Ben’s concern that some of the steers might get a notion to break back for the herd had made him choose the bay.
“I counted ’em three times,” Billy Jim said, “and so did Mark.”
“Who’s got the most schooling, you or him?” Ben asked.
“Lord, Ben, I don’t know. We went about the same time to Mrs. Bryant’s classes.”
Ben laughed. “Didn’t mean to upset you. I just wondered.” He booted Blitz after a steer that broke from the procession and soon had him back.
“I ain’t upset,” Billy Jim said. “Fact, I’m sure glad you brought me along. I ain’t been throwed since we got over the Arkansas. But I still put my catch rope on them. Just in case one gets real rowdy.” He indicated the rope looped under his belt that went to the horse’s head.
“Good idea. What you going to do when we get back?” Ben asked, watching another veil of rain sweep over the horizon.
“Can’t say. You ain’t going to make another drive, are you?”
“Don’t plan to.”
Bill nodded like he understood. “Then I’ll look for work with someone else. I’m going to catch some cattle, too, this winter. Start me a herd of my own.”
“Good luck,” Ben said.
“Lord knows I’ll need it. Got to get better at roping too.”
“It’ll come; you’re a sticker.”
Billy Jim beamed from his praise and went after the next steer starting to break away.
Cattle in the pens and counted, Ralston came over and gave Ben a receipt. “Pay you in the morning. They all look good. Wish more folks could bring in uniform cattle like these.”
“They have to have a Mexican buyer,” Ben said, and shared a private grin with Mark and Chip. “Let’s get some lunch, boys, and head back. We’ve got lots of cutting to do.”
“McCollough?” Kane came from the scale house, calling to him. “I’ll be ready to start day after you finish with Ralston.”
Ben gave him a salute off the brim of his hat. If things kept moving along he’d be home with his Jenny in no time. He and his four hands went across the tracks to the Lucky Tiger Saloon. “Order a beer and we can have the free lunch,” he explained. “I’ll pay for the beer.”
He started to enter the bat-wing doors and a drunk in a suit staggered out. The haggard-looking, unshaven man raised his face, blinked his red eyes, and swore. “You sumbitch, you killed my brother!” He fumbled for a gun.
Ben’s hand went for his Colt. Radamacher! Then Chip stepped in and cold cocked the man over the head with his pistol butt. He crumpled into a pile.
“Give me a hand, Mark,” Chip said, bending over to pick him up by the arms. “Got to get this trash off the sidewalk.”
“He was the one with them rustlers that night, wasn’t he?” Billy Jim asked Ben under his breath.
“Yeah.” Ben scowled after him as the boys dragged him by his arms around to the side and left him on the ground. Lucky for Radamacher that Chip had stepped in or he’d be pushing up daisies instead of sleeping off his drunk in the mud.
“Learned that in the rangers,” Chip said. “Disable them. Saves shooting them sometimes.”
“Or puts it off for another time,” Ben said softly, going inside. “But thanks anyway.”
After they finished their lunch, they went back out. It was still cloudy, but the rain had lifted. They walked across the muddy street toward the pens and their saddle horses.
“No sign of him,” Mark said, searching around.
“Radamacher ain’t left the country; you can count on that,” Ben promised him. He’d have to be wary of the phony buyer until they rode out for Texas.
Ralston paid Ben in gold for the steers at the scale office. “You aren’t worried someone will rob you?” he asked, looking at the canvas sacks of double eagles on the counter.
“I won’t need it if they do,” Ben said.
“Why’s that?”
“ ’Cause it’ll be over my dead body.”
Ralston nodded as if considering the matter. “You’re right.”
With a nod, Ben packed a sack of coins in each side of his saddlebags, then the last two in Mark’s. Mark hoisted his pouches to his shoulder and they headed for the door.
The Kane deal started in the next morning. More rain threatened, and the big steers acted spooky at being separated. Ben held his breath until the first half was in the yards; then he rode back to relieve Hap, who was working on a mule sale.
“What’re they worth?” Ben asked before Hap rode out, driving the team and mules. All the cooking gear and chuck boxes were piled on the ground with the bedrolls. Hap’s canvas stretched over them on ropes strung from the cottonwoods and a few posts they’d cut for supports.
“I think six hundred.”
“Whew,” Ben said.
“You want out of the deal?” Hap asked sharply, ready to climb up.
“No, but you better get Lou to ride along with a spare hoss. You’ll need a ride back.”
“Yeah, that ain’t a bad idea.”
With a long exhale, Ben went to sit on the chuck box with enough gold inside it to buy a big place in Texas. Cash talked in the still war-battered economy at home. Even out on the frontier in Kansas things were better off than down there. He listened to thunder roll across the prairie. The storm was west of them and moving away. Jenny, Jenny, I’m coming home.
The buckboard with a well-broken team of sorrels cost Hap two hundred and fifty. Hap had the man at the funeral home make him a box for the back with a false bottom to hide Ben’s money. Then Hap bought a roll of canvas. The boys’ ground cloths were worn out, so Hap and the boys cut out new ones for themselves and a cover for the box in the buckboard, which could be tied down with ropes.
Mark and Chip kept back six spare horses to pack or ride if another went lame after the boys each chose a favorite to ride back.
Hap sold the rest of the horses for fifteen apiece to the local liveryman. From the boys’ sale of the culls, they deposited five hundred twenty-six dollars in Ben’s makeshift bank. Hap’s six hundred was there too.
Ben paid each hand the hundred dollars he owed them for the drive. “You ride back with us, I’ll feed you and pay you another twenty five.”
“When do we go back?” Toledo asked.
“How about day after tomorrow?” Ben asked them.
The crew’s heads bobbed in agreement.
“Now you all can take your turn at the bright lights.” Ben’s words drew laughter from the crew. “But I need at least three men here in camp at all times. I’m going in and get the pack saddle and panniers I bought for the four packhorses.”
“I help you,” Lou said, and rushed off to get the four horses.
The gray buttermilk sky made a low ceiling like the belly of a gray goose, Ben decided, with the Asian riding beside him.
“What’re you going to do next?” Ben asked his horse wrangler.
“Go home with you.”
“I mean after this is over?”
“Could go work with uncle in laundry. Me like to be someone cookie. I watch Hap all the way. I cook too. What they pay cookie?”
“They pay two hundred to two-fifty.”
“That good, me find outfit and be cookie.”
“You need any recommendation, you tell them Ben McCollough said so.”
“Me do that. More fun than laundry.”
Ben dismounted at the livery stable. The rain had begun again. He was taking down his slicker when he heard the shout, and then he saw someone taking a shot at them, the blue smoke of a pistol in the person’s hand. The shooter was coming down the street toward them.
“Ben! That crazy man shooting at us!” Lou screamed.
“I see him. Get some cover,” Ben shouted at him, jerking the Spencer out of the scabbard. Radamacher had better have his funeral paid for.
“McCollough, you bastard!”
Folks were running for cover. Radamacher ranted aloud like a wild man. He fired another wild round that smacked into the livery’s wooden front. Ben had him in his sights, curtained by the drizzle.
The Spencer slammed into Ben’s shoulder when he squeezed the trigger. The .50-caliber lead bullet struck the cow buyer in the chest and propelled him backward. The Colt in his hand fired harmlessly into the air. A wild-eyed horse broke loose from the hitching rack in front of the Lucky Tiger and went bucking off in the light rain.
A fresh shell levered in the chamber, Ben waited. Radamacher lay sprawled on his back. His boots twisted in what Ben figured was his death throes. The drip of rain ran off his hat brim as he waited.
A man walked out and bent over Radamacher. “He’s gone.”
Ben nodded that he heard him and jammed the rifle into the scabbard. He gave a head toss to the cowering Lou that it was safe and started for the store across the street.
“Ain’t you going to do anything about him?” the man called out.
“I already have,” Ben said, and never looked back. Good riddance to bad company. Radamacher came looking for what he got.
That night in camp, everyone listened as the Asian told his version of the shoot-out. “Bullets, they go zing-zing all around. Lou, me get down. Think maybe he shoot me. Splinter wood on livery building. Ben, him no care, him get rifle-bang. Him shoot that crazy man. Man come ’cross street, him say him dead. Him ask Ben what you do about him? Ben say I do it already.”
The boys all laughed.
“If you all have your business done, we’ll head for home in the morning.” Ben looked over their deeply tanned faces in the firelight.
“Man, you were right about the ugly women,” Billy Jim said, sitting on the ground, pulling off his new boots. “They were double ugly.”
“I told you go to Mexico with me,” Miguel said, and shook his head.
“Well, I never spent no money here on any,” Billy Jim said, “that’s for damn sure.”
Everyone laughed.
The days grew warmer and longer. They pushed hard for home and in a week rode past Dru’s cross. They used the logs left on the bank to float the buckboard, which made the Arkansas ford uneventful. Days grew longer and Ben pushed for thirty miles a day, doubling the miles a day they had driven the cattle. They avoided Indian settlements. He had Mark and Chip taking turns each day scouting their route.
They talked to other drovers heading north with herds in a steady stream. Was McCoy’s situation like he said, or a joke? How was this and that crossing? Had they seen so-and-so along the way?
They stopped over in San Antonio for hot baths in a tub, shaves for those needing one, and haircu
ts. In the Cattleman’s Hotel, with their money locked in the safe, they soon were beseeched with inquiries about the drive.
“Sam Gaines from Delo County,” a man in a white business suit introduced himself as the crew sat around eating supper, less Digger and Lou, who had gone off on their own. “I understand you boys just got back from Kansas.”
“That’s right, sir,” Mark said.
“You the man?” Gaines asked Ben rather pointedly.
Ben shook his head. “Mark and Chip here can tell you all you want to know, sir.”
“But they’re only boys. I need a man—”
“Mister.” Ben looked up, his patience short. “If you need some drovers, they can do it.”
“Oh.”
“Mr. Gaines, was it?” Chip stood up astraddle his chair and offered his hand. “What kind of cattle do you have?”
“What do you mean what kind? I’ve got longhorns.”
“Well, sir, it will make a big difference when you get there. . . .”
Mark, also standing, agreed. Those two boys would make it. Ben forked in another bite of the grilled beef. Things simply tasted better cooked over mesquite.
After the big meal, the two boys were off talking with their next employer.
“I bet those two want to go look at his herd,” Ben said to the Mexican boys and Hap.
“You know, I been thinking,” Hap said. “I may sign on with them boys. They’ll sure need a cook.”
“They’ll sure need one,” Ben said. “I ain’t running you off, am I?”
“Lord, no.”
“Hap, you and the boys deliver that money to the bank. I want to ride ahead. I can be there in two days’ hard riding,” Ben said.
“You leaving right now?” Hap asked.
“Yeah.”
“You could wait till daylight.”
Ben clapped him on the shoulder. He’d damn sure miss Hap. “I’ve already paid Digger and Lou. Pay the rest the twenty-five I owe them when you get to Teeville.”
“I’ll stick the rest in the bank,” Hap said.
“Good. What do I owe you?” Ben looked hard at the man he’d spent over five years with.
The Abilene Trail Page 17
