Harry shrugged off Jesse’s arm. He laughed him in the face. “Jesse, I’ll see you in hell first, further than a wedge can fall in twenty years, before I hold hands with you. After this.”
Jesse reared back and began to cuss the country blue….
Lying on the ground in his bedroll, with brother Cain sleeping next to him, Harry laughed about it all again, reliving the wonderful ride on Old Blue in the moonlight.
Harry laughed—until he remembered the look that had passed between Jesse and himself that evening while Cain was looking on. Had Cain caught it? Both Jesse and Harry knew that despite Harry’s terrible oath at Butcherknife Bain’s, Harry had considered Jesse’s offer—and in a way, off to one side, was still considering it some.
Cain
At dawn a voice murmured, “Cain, lad, she’s breaking day.” A hand next touched him through the tarp and rocked his shoulder. “Cain, boy, chuck’s on.”
Cain’s mind awoke like a sprouted bean and rose out of black soil and blossomed into pink petals. Slowly he folded back the flap of his tarp. He saw the bald gnome head of Hambone against the stars. He murmured, “Comin’, Ham.” He sat up in his bed roll.
“Good. God helped me make the coffee this mornin’ and you might like it.” Hambone vanished.
Cain began dressing automatically: first his folded dented hat, then the cigarette he’d carefully rolled the night before which now needed only another wet lick of the tongue and a match, then his vest and coat, then his socks and pants, then his boots, and last his gun belt and chaps. The brass buckles of the last two were slippery with frost and worked stiff. Inhaling deeply, enjoying the crisp curling scent of the first smoke of the day as well as the fresh breeze off the snowcapped mountains, he leaned over and called low against the ground, “Arise and shine there, Harry boy, and give God the glory.” He touched Harry through the tarp, It was an old, and safe, range custom to call first and then touch a sleeping hand. A cowhand trained on the trail was always ready for instant action in the night. The least touch without warning and he’d come up shooting.
Harry stirred. “Cornin’,” Harry murmured. Harry’s movements under the tarp reminded Cain of a huge muscle stirring under a sleeve.
“Make sure now. Cookie’s given us a good hole card wakin’ us first.”
Harry’s tarp flipped back. He sat up.
Cain put a finger to his mouth. “Wake Tim soft there. And I’ll root Dale out of his velvet couch.”
By the time Cain finished his smoke, the boys were dressed. Together all four stepped softly to the splashing mountain stream and, stooping, washed hands and face and up around the neck in the ice-cold water. They splashed until faces were flushed and glowing. Minds clear, they next hit for the fire, where Hambone had coffee ready. The coffee was great; God had helped in the making of it; it woke a man all the way back to his animal. The boys wolfed down masty beans savored with bacon and fresh warm biscuits.
The air was crisp with frost; the nose cracked with it. Every now and then the nose dripped a string of fluid as clear as the white of an egg. The men snuffled as they ate. Fingers worked numb. The men took turns warming their hands over the fire, eating with one while warming the other.
Dawn opened vaguely beyond the Crimson Wall. The downside of the wall still lay in shadow. The morning star glittered bright. To the west, above the white crowns of the Old Man and the Throne, night’s late stars still twinkled lively. A coyote let go a last call from a nearby butte, a series of sharp staccato barks slowly merging off into a long dying call, to which another coyote from another hill sent back an echoing call. The second call came so close behind the first the two sounded like a pack of coyotes might have surrounded the camp. Behind the camp, the horses in the cavvy began their morning cavortings. Mothers in the herd on the bed ground called for lost calves. Some of the steers were up and grazing. The sliding wind coming down off the mountains brought the sounds straight into camp.
The horse wrangler and one of the morning cattle guards came in for breakfast. The sound of their tomping heels on the hard ground wakened Jesse and Mitch in their blankets.
Hambone spotted Jesse and Mitch stirring, and immediately threw back his head as far as his humpneck would allow and bawled, “Hurrah, boys! She’s breakin’ day. Roll out, you snakes, and bite a biscuit!”
Jesse and Mitch rose on their elbows, hair tousled, faces in the firelight as slack and as pale as brine bacon. It took the pair a couple of seconds to clear sleep-blurred eyes. All of a sudden both realized that Cain and his boys were ready to roll. They sat bolt upright. Their faces hardened. Quickly they slipped into their clothes. Some of the other Derby punchers, Stalker, Hog, Spade, were right behind them. Jesse got to his feet and with a groan limped over and poured himself a cup of coffee from the fire- blackened pot. Mitch and the others followed suit.
One swallow and Jesse had his horns back. “Hambone, what in tarnation is the idee wakin’ Cain and his bunch first?”
Hambone smiled from the chuck-box lid where he was already pounding bread dough for dinner. “Why, Jesse, such swearin’. If you ain’t careful, you’re liable to melt the frost off the morning afore it’s here.”
“Answer my question.” Jesse lifted his sore leg and stroked it slowly.
“Why, boss, I stepped accidental on Cain when I went for fresh water for your coffee.”
Jesse’s face colored in the firelight. “Accidental, bull.”
“Well, ask Cain.”
“A little thin, Hambone, a little thin.”
A boss didn’t easily squash Hambone. “Jesse, I’ve never seen it to fail. The minute you get that first swallow into you in the morning, you get a bad rush to the head.”
Jesse turned on Cain. “Anyway, there’ll be no workin’ the herd today.”
“No?” Cain faced Jesse. Red light from the fire danced over his hollow face. “My cattle is comin’ out.”
Timberline turned too, standing over them, beard waggling. “So is our’n.”
Jesse glared at them over his cup of coffee. “There’ll be no workin’ the cattle until the reps from Senator Thorne’s and Governor Barb’s outfits gets here. I’m not going to first cut out your beef, then Thorne’s, then Barb’s, then work over what’s left for ourselves. We do it all at once, or nothing. Working them that often keeps ’em too ginned up.”
Punchers on the ground all around them began to sit up in their bedrolls. They rose up like prairie dogs, each alert from his private nest. A few began to dress cautiously in the half-dark; some put on a hat and lit up smokes first; others carefully laid their forty-fives ready to hand. Stalker, Hog, Spade, already by the fire, warily made a point of facing Cain and his boys.
At that moment full dawn broke over the high rim of the Crimson Wall. It limned all moving things with vague blue-pink haloes. For a few moments the eye saw all objects as double images. Cattle, horses, and men moved as if wading slowly through veils of violet fog.
Jesse looked down at where Dale still sat on his heels before the fire. “And you, you better go home to your woollies and that cousin-wife of yours. We don’t like the smell of ewes around here.”
Dale rose to his feet like a long-legged grasshopper coming up rampant. The corners of his mouth drew back into his lean cheeks. He tossed his cup into the bunch grass at his feet. “By thunder, Jesse, you say cows won’t feed where sheep have fed first. Well, by thunder, Jesse, I wish you’d let your durn cows in on that. It’d save me from having to chouse your damned lousy stuff off my range every day. Solve my grass problem.”
Jesse backed a step. He hadn’t expected the weaker Hammett to come up at him in a sudden rage.
“Jesse, will you tell me why it is your damned pesty cattle is always grazin’ on old sheep bed grounds? Hah?”
Jesse stooped down to help himself to another cup of coffee. “All I say is, I don’t want your ewe stink around here.”
“Jesse, bum me down if that’s your mind, but my sheep is my business.”
>
Jesse sipped his black coffee.
Slowly the violet fog of dawn subsided. Double vision came back to single.
Jesse looked around for another dog to kick. He saw Hunt was still asleep. He limped over and lightly kicked Hunt’s bedroll with the toe of his boot. “Wake up, inspector, time’s a drawin’.”
Hunt rose out of his cocoon with eyes ablaze, hair wild, and .45 caught in working claw. The gun gleamed blue in the rose dawn. Hunt snarled, “Blast you, Jesse, don’t you ever do that again!’’
“Hells bells, Hunt, trouble is bustin’ out all over this cow camp and you’re still snoozin’.”
Hunt glanced over to where Cain and his boys and Mitch and his men ringed the fire, stiff, waiting. Hunt’s black eyes halfclosed. He lowered his gun. “I see,” he said. “That’s different.” He began to slip on his clothes.
Hambone came wandering over, bald head aswing from his hump. “I jes’ wonder,” he said in a low voice. “I jes’ hope people ain’t forgot cow camp is holy ground.” An ancient smile worked his old leather face. “Holy ground to the cook.” Hambone waved his arm around, sudden. “For fifty feet around, by God. Let alone I don’t intend for it to be a horspital. Or a funeral parlor neither. So I say, if you want to fight, goddam it, go down wind a ways and shoot it out there. All both a yous.”
There wasn’t a word from anyone.
“All right,” Hambone said, “jes’ so that’s understood.” He turned and wandered back to his chuck-box lid and began pounding bread dough again.
The men ate in silence.
After a bit, Cain and his boys withdrew to one side.
Harry shivered in the chill wind. He drew his red bandanna tight around his thick neck. Dale trembled more from the excitement than from the cold. Timberline stood with his shirt open. His coat of red hair kept him warm.
Day-lily yellow burst high over on the mountains to the west of them; then cascaded down onto the footslopes of evergreen below; then streamed all across the high bench of red bunch grass.
“It’s going to be a sunny blue-eyed day,” Cain mused. Timberline looked up, sniffing. “Yeh, the sun’s burning off the fog in the valley. The weather is gonna fair off nice.”
Dale said low to Harry, “You look like you’re gettin’ cold feet.”
“Me?” Harry exclaimed. “Not at all. Put a rimfire cigar in my mouth and I’ll admire to meet the President himself.”
Cain glanced at his two brothers. “What’s this? Ain’t I got men with me? Or is it just boys grown tall?”
Dale said, “Just wanted to make sure Harry was going to side us all the way, is all.”
“He will. You kin lay to that. Let’s saddle our ponies.”
Jesse bulled up with horns again. “Oh, no, you don’t.” Jesse dropped his right hand to the butt of his six-gun. Mitch and Hunt followed suit.
Cain faced them, stub legs set apart. He kept his wild one in hand. His face assumed a rocklike cast. He said, calm, “Jesse, don’t forget you’ve got a visitor.” He nodded at somebody behind them.
Jesse and Hunt and Mitch whirled. There in the flap to the pup tent stood Lord Peter. His Lordship was up and fully dressed: riding boots, pants, coat, cane, and derby.
Jesse held. He looked at Lord Peter. He looked at Cain. He was as one being torn by two horses pulling in opposite directions. After a long second of time, Jesse said, “Mornin’, yer Lordship.”
Bland Lord Peter looked at Jesse, at Cain. He studied Cain. His smooth blond face and blue eyes were expressionless. Then he nodded to himself, once, quick.
Cain turned and went straight for his horse Bucky where he’d staked him the night before, beside the tumbling mountain stream.
Dale and Harry and Timberline followed him.
Dale kept one eye alert for any move Hunt might make. Dale said, low, “Cain, I still smell a mice.”
“It’ll be all right.” Cain growled. “That darn Jesse. He knows blame well he can’t push me too far. Because I know all about them times he shorted His Bullship on the yearly tally. I know for a fact that he sold yearlings and heifers as two-year fat beef, that he sold off both ends of the Derby herd. He got away with it so long’s His Bullship warn’t around. But now that Lord Peter wants to sell, Jesse’s got to quick fat up the tally. Which he’s trying to do with our little herds.”
Harry began to sing a tune, tauntingly, loud enough for Texas- born Jesse to hear:
“Abe Lincoln was our president,
Jeff Davis was a fool;
Abe Lincoln rode a big gray horse,
While Davis rode a mule.”
Cain couldn’t help but smile some. “That ain’t the way I heared it.”
Harry laughed. “Well, it ain’t the way I heared it either. But when I see a Texan that tune just naturally comes to mind. With the names reversed.”
“Abe ridin’ a mule is funnier. Forgettin’ that he’s Lincoln the President, that is.”
“High-vested Jeff on a mule is mighty funny too.”
Timberline began to curse his sorrel behind them. “So overnight ye’ve changed yore mind about the cow business, has ye?” Timberline had got the bridle on but the horse refused the saddle, explicit. Timberline jerked down the jawbreaker bit so hard the sorrel almost kneeled and its bright bulb eyes halfclosed. But only for a second. The next second the sorrel was up again and sunning his heels. Timberline lunged for his head and managed to get one of the horse’s ears in his hand. He gave it a vicious twist. The horse tried to circle away from him. At that, Timberline caught the tip of the ear in his teeth and bit in, fiercely. That instant the sorrel stood still, trembling.
With his free hand Timberline gestured for Cain to throw on blanket and saddle. Cain didn’t like Timberline’s brutal earing tactics much, but he went over anyway and picked up Timber- line’s rigging. He was about to slide it on with a throw, when he suddenly saw something. He dropped the rigging on the ground. “No wonder your mount is ringy, Tim. Why, he’s got a saddle sore on his back as big as a freighter’s pancake. Full of maggots.”
Timberline still had the horse’s ear in his mouth. He grimaced fiercely for Cain to throw on the rigging anyway.
“And your blanket. Man, it’s crawling with maggots. You can’t treat a horse that way and expect him to let you ride him all day without a kick.” Cain drew up his nose in great disgust. “Wash it.”
Timberline’s red pig eyes rolled in his red whiskery face. He turned slightly, teeth still sunk into the horse’s ear, and gestured for Harry to throw the rigging on.
Shrugging at Cain, Harry did so.
The horse shivered with pain; would have bucked it off except that Timberline had taken a deeper bite into its ear.
After Harry finished cinching the girths tight, Timberline let go the ear, spitting sorrel hair from lips and tongue. “What a bunch a Monday wimmen I woke up with! I suppose the next thing, Cain, ye’ll be recommendin’ we scrub the hosses down with Cologne soap. Sspt!”
“You and your hoss could stand it,” Cain said flatly.
Timberline let out a great snort. He stepped across and socked his spurs in.
The sorrel jumped straight up and broke wind with a loud report. Then, despite Timberline’s great weight, the horse exploded in all directions like a Fourth of July celebration. In the flick of an eye Timberline was flying through the air. Both Cain and Harry had to run for it or Timberline would have fallen on them. Timberline hit the ground hard on his back. A burst of red dust rose up around him.
Harry laughed and whacked his knee. “I’ve heard of it rainin’ cats and dogs, by golly. But I’ll be go-to-grass if I ever saw it rain old red bulls.”
Timberline grunted. He got to his feet. “This time, you devil, I’ll haul back on the lines till the bit splits your mouth clear back to your brains.” Once more he grabbed the sorrel by the reins and climbed across. But the sorrel had given up after that one outburst. He stood quietly, four legs astraddle to sustain heavy Timberline.
“
Yahh,” Timberline said, eyes glinting with satisfaction, “so I’ve got you finally where you’re plumb tender about a bite in the ear, eh?”
By the time Cain, Harry, and Dale finished saddling up and tying on their bedrolls, Jesse had his boys routed out for their mounts too.
Some of the hands formed a rope corral around the cavvy, and the expert ropers, with quick low almost casual throws, caught the mounts one by one for the others. No matter how cleverly a cow pony might duck its head behind another, the roper always guessed the exact moment when it would show ears again, and with a long slurplike motion the loop was around its head. Dust boiled up in rolling columns of pink from the hooves. The cowhands became vague figures in it. Only their bright gay bandannas and the shining silver on their belt buckles and spurs showed through.
The crisp cold morning put springs in most of the ponies and presently, mounting, the lads were falling off like wormy apples in a high wind. It made Cain laugh to see it. And laughing, a vague regret shot through him. Those good old carefree days when, except for hoss and rigging, a man hadn’t a worry in the world were done for him. It was the boss who worried about a herd them days.
Off to one side of the camp, the branders were busy too, sharpening knives and cleaning irons. The low morning sun caught the side of their bronzen faces, giving their cheeks a rich healthy color not unlike the cherry red of polished riding boots. Above the moiling of the bucking ponies, Cain could hear the wet snick of knife edge on emery stone. Liskh. Liskh. The sound always gave him the shivers. He had never quite got himself used to the idea of castration. The sound of a knife being honed was always the same to him as the actual slice of a knife across a testicle. It was a sound no woman could ever come to appreciate, let alone understand.
Harry called across to the branders, gaily. “Put it on good, boys. She’ll wear it all her life.”
One of the men threw Harry a mean look from under his hat- brim. “We’ll put it on so you won’t be able to mistake it in moonlight, ye blinkin’ night rider.”
Cain and his boys rode to the edge of the great herd, with Jesse and a dozen of his men following close behind. The cows and calves, the steers and the other market stuff all were up on the bed ground. Red dust twisted high. Only whites showed through: white faces, white legs, white patches over the spine, slick horns. Red hair was impossible to make out. A few of the mothers nosed for grass. In some areas the grass was completely cropped off or pulverized underfoot. Cow plotches dotted the ground everywhere, thin dark green pies sprinkled over with cinnamonlike dust. The sky over the bench seemed but shoulder high all around.
Riders of Judgment Page 20
