They rode at a slow trot. A chill night settled down. All four put on a coat over vest and gun.
The moment they climbed onto the bench just north of Red Fork, two campfires popped into view. The fires glittered in the distance like fallen meteors. The four approached rapidly across the parklike level. The near fire glowed under a spreading cottonwood, the farther fire out in the open under the stars. The first fire lit up the under branches of the cottonwood, giving each gaunt elbowing limb a paper-yellow color, with the gold leaves rustling and dancing in an updraft from the jumping orange flames. Off to the left, in the darkness, hovered the horse cavvy, the wrangler riding off to one side. A horse whinnied; was answered shrilly by another in the remuda. The white canvas on the near chuck wagon fluttered in the soft dusk breeze coming down off the blue Big Stonies. Beyond the fires a great herd of cattle lay thrown out on the bed ground. Cowboys rode guard around them slowly. A few calves bellered for lost mothers. The cowboys sang as they rode, raucous but comforting. They crooned with a coarse whooing like the sound of wind blowing across the rough opening of a broken jug.
Cain held up a hand. “At a walk now, boys. And around into the down-wind side along the creek there. So we won’t scare the herd. Or the horses. Let alone rile up the cooks with our dust.” He waved out a trail for them to ride, along the stream. “Pack your guns loose. Take off your gloves. But keep your hands lookin’ innocent.” Horseshoes spat sparks on the creek stones. Bridle bits, spurs, gingled gently.
A man rose from the near fire under the cottonwood. His back and sides were aglow, his face in shadow. From the way he rolled on his bowlegs and from his sloped shoulders, Cain made out it was Mitch the foreman. Some dozen faces along the outer edge of the light looked up, teeth and eyes flashing in the gold light. The faces belonged to punchers and all packed guns, loose. They were eating supper from plates set in their laps or placed on their crossed legs.
Left-handed Mitch dropped a hand to his gun. “Hold up out there. Who goes?” Every puncher behind Mitch held his chewing.
Cain reined in Bucky. The firelight played over his hollow walnut face and hollow-dented hat. Harry, Dale, Timberline halted in the darkness behind him. “Cain Hammett. And my boys.”
“What do you want here?” Mitch stood with legs apart, set to draw.
“Why, Mitch, you know what I came for. To rep my own beef. Sorry I was late to help you on circle. But I first had to shoe Bucky.”
Mitch stood hunched, tense. He growled something to himself. His crimped fingers worked over his gun.
Cain said, “Oh, I know we’re a blackballed outfit, Mitch. But we’ve come anyway. You know my calves are suckin’ the right cows.”
“Who’s your boys?”
“Neighbors. He-wolves on a horse. Come to help me cut out my beef. And help with the branding.”
Mitch tried to peer past Cain into the darkness behind him. “Who’d you say?”
Cain settled his left hand over his gun too. “Timberline. And my two brothers. Dale and Harry.”
Mitch stiffened. “Harry here?”
Cain said, grim, “That surprise you, Mitch?”
“After what was did to him, Harry still ain’t had enough?”
Dale laughed. His fish mouth drew back. “You don’t seem to know your Hammetts much, Mitch. You know you can’t hang a Hammett.”
Mitch glared. “And that peckerneck brother Dale of yours. Don’t he know he and his dummed ewe stink ain’t much welcome around beef?”
The devil in Harry let out some. “Oh, hells bells, Mitch, we’ve come because we want one hair apiece out of that damned chin of yours.”
Mitch jumped. “What’s that you say? What’s that you say?”
Cain said, calm, “The boys threw in with me because they’ve got their troubles too. Which they’ll tell you about when the time comes.”
“Well, if it’s stole beef them range burns is lookin’ for—”
“Mitch, let’s wait until morning with that. When we can see.”
“No, the devil with it. Now.”
“Hey, slow down a bit, Mitch,” Cain said, calm. Bucky moved restless under Cain, fawncing some at the bit. “Now ain’t you for-gettin’ you jumped the gun holdin’ your roundup this week? When your boss Jesse announced in the Weekly Bulletin it was to be next week?”
A growl from Mitch.
“Now I know that left-handers like you and me like to get the fall work done early. But yet, Mitch, that was hardly fair. You know that. It’s hard enough for the little man to prowl through a big roundup and pick his strays, without you first chasin’ them out of the country a week early.”
More growls from Mitch.
“So let’s just say we come for strays that had the misfortune a getting lost in your bunch.”
Silence from Mitch.
Then from behind the chuck wagon came an old man wearing a grease-spotted leather apron and an old white blue-striped shirt without a collar. He was totally bald. The top of his head shone in the firelight like a well-licked bone joint. He was cricked forward from the hips and had more the look of one running in one spot than of one shuffling. It was Hambone the cook, or Bon Hamilton, as he signed his letters.
Hambone was the best cook in the valley. No foreman dared buck him. If he fell into a pet and quit, the cowboys attached to his wagon would quit in a bunch with him. Hambone could make fat apple cobblers and bear tracks or doughnuts to such a mouthy fare-thee-well his punchers spoke of them with tears of appreciation. It was said the boys would go to hell itself for one of his pies. Hambone ran a wagon that was home to his boys, bed as well as board. Hambone’s wagon was also the puncher’s social center. And, in time of trouble, Hambone’s wagon was a hospital as well as an underground hideout. When a puncher threw his bedroll into Hambone’s wagon, it was as good as saying he’d give his life for the outfit Hambone cooked for.
Hambone approached to where Cain sat easy on his horse. The fire sparked in Hambone’s old gimlet eyes, lit up the underside of his whiskery chin. “Cain. Well. And how be ye?”
“Hambone. You old buzzard you. Thought you was going to retire to Old Cheyenne come this fall?”
Hambone shrugged, smiling. “Couldn’t resist my own cookin’.” Hambone swung his head around from his humped neckbone. “What’s the trouble here, Mitch? Why hain’t you asked Cain and the boys to step down? We got more than enough chuck here.”
Mitch’s round pock-blond face worked. He was damned if he didn’t and damned if he did. Both Hambone’s request and usual camp courtesy demanded that he ask them to stay.
Hambone looked up at Cain again. “Climb down, Cain, and feed your tapeworm. Tell your boys they kin stake their hosses anywhere.”
Cain couldn’t resist throwing a bad pickle Mitch’s way. “Then we can sleep around here?”
Hambone exploded. “Hell yes, you can sleep around here! Anywhere. The world is open.”
“Thank you kindly.”
“And then come and set down to some grub. I wore out three hats trying to get this fire started and you might’s well enjoy it with me.” Again Hambone swung on Mitch, who still stood growling to himself. “Cain saved my life last summer, Mitch.” Hambone pointed toward the peak of the Old Man looming over them in the dark with purple-white majesty. “Shot a silvertip the size of a load of hay just as she was all set to jump me. While I was out wolfin’ for Lord Peter. We owe him that much.”
“What’s that got to do with me or Lord Peter?”
“By God, the way I read the Scriptures, it was wuth something to me, Mitch.”
“Oh, all right.” Mitch threw Cain a twisted sneering look out of his slanted Mongoloid ovals. “Step down then and be damned to you, you left-handed saint.”
Cain and his boys threw their bedrolls on the ground well back in the shadow behind the chuck wagon and also away from the second campfire further up the creek. They staked out their horses; slid off the saddles and blankets. They gave their mounts a brisk rubdown and the
n, with a final pat on the rump, left them to graze in what little grass there was around.
Cain drew near the fire, rubbing his hands. The night wind sliding down off the Big Stonies had chilled him. The fire was a good jumping one and it threw waves of warmth over him, over his face and belly and thick thighs. He glanced around at the firelit faces and recognized most of the boys, punchers he’d once ridden with when he worked for the Derby. Hair tufted out over the ears and collar, they were a wonderful hard-looking bunch. He nodded at each in turn. There was Stalker Smith with his crabbed look, and Four-eye Irish with his glinting glasses, and Stuttering Dick with his puckered-up lips. There were also Long Guts Ever-ding, Spade Burnett, Ringbone Sam, Beavertooth Kassen, Dried Apple Bill, Hog Johnson, Peakhead Jim—all of them top cowhands, all of them cut from the same leather.
The upright iron stakes to either side of the fire glowed dull red. The iron crossbar, from which pots and kettles hung on firehooks, was coated with soot. Over it sometimes ran a rim of racing glowing fire. Strongest of all smells was the coffee, but the smell of baking biscuits in the Dutch oven and frying beef in the skillet was the best.
Hambone bowed in mock deference. “He’p yoreself, my lords. The banquet awaits. It’s all on the earl.”
Dale and Harry and huge Timberline filled their plates and cups and retired to the edge of the lighted area, scratching out a place for themselves in the rusty bunch grass, making sure there were no rattlesnakes or pricklepear cactuses underfoot on the red ground. Furtively they pulled their belts and guns around ready to hand under their coats.
Cain hung back. He was still studying Mitch’s glowering face on the other side of the fire.
Hambone touched Cain lightly on the elbow. “Grab her, Cain, boy. Or I’ll throw her out.”
Cain got himself a big white plate and a tin cup and a set of eating irons and filled up. He squatted near his boys.
As he ate, half-watching the punchers around the fire as well as the fire itself as it spit exploding wood worms out of burning poplar, his eyes roved the camp. He saw that Hambone ran his usual homelike wagon. The lid to the chuck box was down, set on two props, opening to view various drawers for plates, tin cups, spoons, knives, forks; shelves for coffee, sugar, lard, rice, dried fruit; partitions for salt, pepper, soda, baking powder, calomel, pills, black draught, horse liniment. Under the cupboard lid rested a keg of warm and ancient sourdough. Water barrels hung from the side between the front and rear wheels. Poking out above the wagon box stood various barrels of flour, bacon, canned goods. Freshly slaughtered beef bled from the top rim of both rear wheels. It had been hung out to cool in the night wind. Up front, on top, teetered a weathered spring seat, sagging a bit on the side where Old Hambone always sat while driving across country. A raw cowhide, commonly called the possum belly, had been slung under the wagon, its head and forelegs tied to the front and its rear legs tied to the back. In it the cook stored dry wood and cow chips against a rainy day. A canvas roof or fly stretched taut from the top of the wagon to a lower limb of the cottonwood. Under this, on a barrel, sat Hambone, where he’d retired while the boys ate up. He sat smoking a corncob pipe, musing to himself, eyes milky in the firelight.
A meteor flashed by overhead, almost within hand’s reach, leaving a powdery trail of momentary glowing coals, fading out in a trail of pink then ashen smoke. A horse in the cavvy snorted. Some of the mothers in the herd started to their feet. The circling cowboys out on killpecker guard quickly deepened their lowing lullaby songs. All the punchers around the two fires perked up, alert as squirrels and ready to jump for their night horses in case of stampede. Even Mitch momentarily forgot his grudging truculent air. But the night wind continued to slide down off the mountains, pushing softly but persistently against the side of the face, and after a while the cavvy quieted and the mothers in the herd lay down on the bed ground again.
Presently talk picked up around the fire. The boys liked to josh Hambone, mostly because he was the one cook in captivity who’d tolerate much of it. He enjoyed parrying their sallies. This made it all the more sweet.
Ringbone Sam called out from where he sat on the ground, “What’s that you got boilin’ in the fire there, cookie? Smells bad from here.”
Hambone smiled from his throne on the barrel under the fly. He removed pipe from mouth. “Sheep dip. The boss says all you lambs’ve got a bad case of the scab.”
All the eyes around the fire rolled and glimmered with mirth.
Hog Johnson called out from across the winking fire next. “What in God’s name did you salt this slumgullion with, coosie? I swear it’s worn me teeth down to the gooms.”
“Well, son, it got tangled up with one of them dummed sand whirlwinds this afternoon. Eat it. You kin use the grit.”
Teeth showed all around the fire.
Long Guts Everding called out, “Hey, cookie, how come this warsher”—Long Guts held up a sourdough biscuit—“how come you flavored this warsher with leather?”
“Son, if you’d pay up what you owe Jesse on your new Sunday saddle, you wouldn’t have to hide it in my dough barrel no more.”
Cain followed the repartee with relief. It meant the boys had relaxed some. Cain guessed that more than one of them might even be secretly on his side, because he’d done what they’d all dreamed of doing someday—quit and set up a spread on his own.
Timberline behind Cain growled to himself. “Burn me, if this ain’t the way I like my coffee. Black as night and plumb barefooted. With the real Arbuckle brand comin’ through.”
Harry nodded, hat bobbing on the back of his head. A throw of silver hair glittered down his forehead, and under it his eyes roved from face to face, alert. “None of that dehorned stuff you get in the town restaurants, hey, Timberline?”
“That’s a gut,” Timberline grunted. His little red pig eyes roved the camp too. The big plow handle of his gun struck out plain and its hand-worn shiny surface caught the dancing light. “I once ran out of coffee back in the hills and had to drink milk.” Timberline swallowed. Firelight danced orange then scarlet on his red beard. “I’m tellin’ y’u, my breath stunk like a young calf’s for a week. Even to me.”
Dale laughed. His lean cheek muscles bulged and unbulged as he chewed. His eyes were also alert to all around him. “I guess there ain’t ary a man on a trail but what he wants his coffee to kick up in the middle and carry double.”
Timberline helped himself to a large hunk of fried beef. He ate the beef with his hands, delicately parting the strands of flesh with his finger tips. “Yessiree, one thing you got to say for our old Hambone. He’s right free with the chuck. Not like that Neckyoke Jones the coosie over there.” Timberline pointed at the other campfire upstream a ways. With his heavy gloves off, Timberline’s fingers were white and graceful in gesture, even courtly. “Neck- yoke? Why, he’s so tight with the boss’s chuck he’ll skin a flea for its hide and tallow.”
Cain chuckled. “You’re right about that, Tim. I once worked from Neckyoke’s wagon. All we got was mostly beans for breakfast, beans for dinner, and beans for supper. So many beans so often it got ye downright plumb discouraged with life.”
“And beans in between times,” Harry added. “I remember.”
Timberline’s eyes rolled. “Wal, now, I’ll have to say this for the bean. Except for the bean bein’ tiresome, the bean’s got a lot of feed in it. Why, out on line camp where I had to eat the bean by the barrel,’caze there just wasn’t nothin’ else around, why, I used to wake up in the momin’ with my fists full a strengt’.” Timber-line rolled his shaggy head. “No, except for the bean that Old Neckyoke serves, the bean is a friend.”
Dale bit. “Except for Neckyoke’s? Why, what kind of a bean does he serve?”
Timberline’s lip twitched. “Why, Neckyoke serves the deceitful bean. It talks behind your back the next day.”
Laughter rumbled up amongst the four of them. It spread to the other punchers sitting close by.
Timberline said,
“Yep, poor Old Neckyoke, he must’ve been brung up on sour milk to get that mean.” Timberline got to his feet and lumbered over to the coffeepot set in the edge of the fire.
All eyes followed him. He’d barely begun pouring for himself, when a voice, Spade Burnett’s, called out, “Man at the pot!”
Timberline slowly turned around and glowered down at Spade. “Durn it, was I the first to go for a refill on the java?” The penalty for getting up first to serve oneself seconds on coffee was to pour coffee for all.
“Man at the pot!” Spade bawled out again.
“All right, all right. Comin’ up.” Timberline carried the fire-blackened pot from one cup to the next. Even Mitch held out his tin cup.
Beavertooth Kassen was last in line and he couldn’t resist making some kind of comment. He asked, coarse front teeth gleaming like a yawning horse’s, “Where in hell have I met you before?”
Timberline gave him eye for eye. “I don’t know. What part of hell do you hail from?”
Again eyes rolled and glimmered with mirth in the hard-rock faces around the fire.
Timberline put back the coffee pot and went back to his place.
A horse whinnied in the cavvy off in the dark. A nervous steer got up off the herd bed ground. Then Bucky, standing erect, light flowing over his dun coat and black ears shot forward toward the downside of the trickling creek, suddenly shrilled out a high inquiring hinny. Lonesome called then too and shot his ears ahead into the dark.
Cain said, low, “Someone’s cornin’.”
Mitch set aside his cup and stood up. “More range burns, I suppose. What the devil do they think this is, a U. P. depot?”
First came the sound of iron hooves ringing on stones; then the bark of a man’s voice urging on horses; then the curious scrinching sound of iron rims on sand.
“It’s three men in a democrat,” Timberline said.
“Crissakes,” Mitch sputtered, “it’s the boss !” Quickly he turned on Hambone. “Cookie, throw your best foot in the pot, we’ve got company and lots of it.”
Riders of Judgment Page 16
