Katy wore a used pair of chaps to bust through brush with. Despite Harp telling her she wasn’t a vaquero and the men could do that, he knew she’d do anything those boys did. And had her hat on a cord so she wouldn’t have to get off her horse to recover it. They got to the RXB and split up into four bunches.
Chaw took two men. Doug Pharr two. Chadron three. Red Culver went with Katy, Harp, Long, and Hiram.
They left in four directions and were to meet back by five at the headquarters.
Harp and his bunch rode west. In the next few hours they found forty pair and fifteen yearlings. Harp booked the cows with Katy’s help, scribbling what he hoped he could read later. Going in they found twenty more head of yearlings.
Chadron found thirty cow calves and twenty yearlings. Doug found thirty cows and twenty-five yearlings. Chaw brought back the number forty-five pairs with a hundred yearlings.
That evening the men talked about the bulls and realized that no one had counted them. To the men, most were pure shorthorn and looked in very good shape. They were ready for chuck when the triangle was rung.
“I see, Miss Katy, you didn’t get your britches tore up today wearing them chaps.”
“No problem, boys,” she said. “These chaps are not easy to walk around in, but on horseback they are great.”
Things went well at supper. The men talked about the range and how good the grass looked to them.
After supper Kate and Harp rode the fenced hay and farm ground. The cropland had grown up in goose grass since no crop was planted. There also was no hay in the stacks except for a few old ones. They’d need to buy forage to get through winter.
“Too late to plant oats for next year?” he asked his father when he and Kate got back.
“No, but who will plow it and plant it?”
“I bet we can get some Mexicans to come do that,” one of the hands suggested.
Hiram agreed. “I guess there isn’t much you two can’t do once you set your mind to it.”
Long grinned big. “We think there are a hundred sixty cows and a hundred fifty calves. That isn’t a bad calf crop with no help. We counted over two hundred yearlings, some younger and about half heifers. We’ll need to cull old cows, sell some big cattle, and pasture about a hundred to sell next year. Then we should have a hundred to one fifty head to sell each year if we can trail them.” It was one of Long’s longest speeches in years—Harp liked it.
Hiram spoke up next. “There is no money in Texas, boys. The owner wants ten. He don’t have any cash buyers. If it was me I’d offer him five and you can always pay him more. Boys, you have the cash and spent right you might end up in taller cotton, huh? Missouri is out. You boys learned that this year. Where they going to find markets?”
“You really think we have that much advantage?”
“As I said, Texas has not got a thing to pay their debts with. You mind my thinking.”
“You never got those gray hairs sitting around, Dad.”
“This is a damn good place. One of us needs this place to raise their family. Harp, you thinking like I am?” Long asked.
“Oh, I’d buy it in a minute for five.”
“Hell, offer it to him. He might take it.”
“It could be good. I’ll do it.”
Long said, “Good. We’ve got two more to look at—one tomorrow and one the next day.”
Harp agreed. After supper, he and Katy crawled into his blankets off by themselves and discussed the place.
“If you are going off trailing steers somewhere next year, unless I’m big as a bear with a baby, I’m going along.”
He drew back. “You in a family way now?”
“No. But we keep working at it I will be. I still ain’t staying down here by myself.”
“Okay.”
“I like this ranch, but it is too isolated.”
“Ranches won’t be in towns.”
“I know. If your husband is on the ranch that’s fine, but if he’s off to hell knows where anyone can come by.”
“We can make it work.”
“We will. Your father is a smart man isn’t he?”
“He always has been. He never had a chance to make any big money like we did with Emory. Things turned out good for us, but we took care of Emory’s wife. Originally he was paying us fifteen dollars a month, which we’d been pleased with since there were no jobs anywhere.”
He hugged and kissed her. This ranch would be a solid one if they could get it for the price.
The next place they looked at, that Long wanted to see, was a decent range ranch. However, the headquarters looked like a Mexican bandito’s hideout. They had some scrubby yearling stock grazing it. In two days they found fifty head valued at five dollars apiece. Long said they owned two sections of mostly cedar–live oak hills.
The two women who were there smoked cob pipes, chewed snuff, and went barefoot. No one ate with them, and the women could not allure even the cowboys, though Harp heard the younger girls propositioning the men. Their own men folks were gone somewhere.
In conference before they left Harp asked his brother what they wanted for it.
“Too much. I’d only pay them six hundred for a clear title.”
“Or five,” Hiram piped in, and everyone laughed.
The next place was in some creek bottoms. This land was not fenced and there was only half a section. The adobe house was in bad shape and the corral might only hold a crippled horse. Harp liked the soil and said most of it could be turned into farmland.
Hiram agreed.
Long said he had no idea about the price but wondered what they could pay for it.
“A dollar an acre?”
Long said he’d see the owner about it.
Back in town, Harp and Kate went by the bank. They offered five thousand for RXB and Jim Yale took it under advisement. He had to ask the bank board, and he sounded certain they would turn it down.
On the way riding home together, she said, “So we did not get the ranch?”
“Not yet. We are dickering for a lower price.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Darling, it is like horse trading. He wants one price, but we want a lower one. So we counter offer. I think Dad is right. Our money is more valuable since there is no other money around.”
“Harp, I have never had any money. I appreciate your explaining things to me.”
“Hey, it is my pleasure.”
At home, they planned to go find some maverick cattle they could catch and sell while they still had a crew. That suited the men, and plans were to check out the rough country north and west of them.
The cook’s wagon was to go through town and to restock, so Harp and Katy rode with him. A remuda was to be chosen by Holy Wars, who was going to go cross-country to meet them at a creek crossing where they would set up. Some of the hands would go with him in case of trouble. Things in Texas were upset. Federal officials were pouring in to run the state government. U.S. marshals were arriving by trainloads looking for anyone ready to cause unrest in the population.
Chaw, Darvon, and Red accompanied them to town. Before going into the mercantile, Ira told the boys to drink two beers, not start any fights, and be ready to ride. Harp and Kate went to a saddle maker shop to look for a saddle for her. She’d been using an old hull they took from her old home place, and Harp realized, riding to the new ranch, she needed a better one.
Newell Kent had a nice used one that fit her. He wanted thirty dollars, and after arguing a while Harp bought it for twenty-one. Packing it on his shoulders with her beside him, he came down the boardwalk, when he saw a fight spill out of the Red Bull Saloon.
Red Culver, bareheaded, stood exchanging blows with some other hatless puncher among the horses. Darvon threw another one by his shirt collar out through the parted swinging door into the street. Harp set the saddle down on its nose and hurried down to stop the fighting.
Hands on his hips, he shouted, “Red, Darvon, quit it. What the he
ll are you fighting over?”
Red’s head bobbed up over a horse’s saddle. “They called us Yankee sympathizers. Hell, you tell them we didn’t do a damn things for them Yankees.”
One of the town marshals was coming on the run. Harp called him down. “I can settle this for you.”
“Hi, Harp. I heard you guys sold cattle in Missouri.”
“Yes, we did, and now my boys were being accused of supporting the Yankees in that drive. Hell, we’re just trying to survive. I’ll settle the damages.”
Two of his men came out dusting off with their hats and cussing under their breaths. Red had his hat and was reshaping it.
Harp told Red where Kate’s new saddle was and to put it on her horse and set the old one in the wagon.
He walked by the other two and went inside.
Going by him, Chaw said, “We didn’t start it.”
The bartender shook his head. “Them other boys had it coming, Harp. Your boys tried to ignore them.”
“What’s broke?”
“Oh, two chairs.”
“What did they cost?”
“A dollar.”
“Here’s two.” He told him to take it, and he ran out to join his men.
The store workers were loading the wagon. Kate was smiling, sitting in her new saddle, and ready to start the wild cattle hunt.
* * *
They set up at a spring in some rough brush country. Harp had trapped mavericks with his father in this brushy area. They’d built traps around water holes; wild cattle came in and could not get out of the spear-loaded gates.
The chute-like trap had spear points shaved on the end of the gates. The gates closed by weights, which could be sprung open by squeezing through the spears to go back out. But that system was way too slow to use to get the whole job done.
The project, instead, was going to be to flush them out and then with many riders, force them into corrals to be branded using a squeeze chute. Roped, branded, ear marked, bulls would then be castrated and turned out.
Harp heard some old outfit had left a big corral in good shape nearby. They had gathered cattle for their hides and tallow, hauled two hundred miles or more down to the gulf, and put on a ship. Those cattle hides and tallow were maybe worth fifty cents each one, so in the end they couldn’t make any money at it.
The setup was built on unclaimed state land. There was lots of such land unused and unclaimed. Harp and his brother wanted the cattle still on four hooves to drive to a yet undesignated market the next spring. They might not be worth eighty dollars a head like in Sedalia, but whatever it was, it would beat the market at home in a cashless Texas. Folks could burn all their Confederate money for heat in the winter. All of it was worthless.
The cowboys found plenty of droppings and began to make short trips to get an idea how far around they needed to ride to flush the cattle out and down into the pens they had repaired. Harp and Katy were in some open country when he discovered some scattered horse droppings. He reined up and dropped off his horse and handed her the reins.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We aren’t the only ones here.” He swung into the saddle, anxious to get everyone together before hell broke loose.
“Who else?”
He sat and gripped the horn. “We’re going back to camp, now.”
“Who’s here besides us?” she insisted.
“There are Comanche in the area.”
She paled.
“We still have the good guns. They come we can whip them, but I want to do it up there.”
Woodenly she nodded. He tossed his head toward the camp, and they charged off for the headquarters. They went hard, others joining him when they saw them in a hurry.
“What’s wrong?” Doug asked, riding along beside him in a fast lope.
Harp said one word. “Comanche.”
“Damn.” Doug passed the word to others, telling them to spread out and go find the rest of the crew and bring them all back to camp.
Harp and those with him charged on, and in a short while they all slid to a halt at the wagon.
Ira came running. “What’s wrong?”
“I saw fresh Comanche sign.”
“Oh, hell. Break out the rifles, boys. We got some bad company out here.”
Everyone made it back to camp. Long came in with his party and frowned.
“Why in the hell is everyone armed?”
“I cut some real fresh Comanche tracks over south. They are around here.”
“Oh, hell.” Long dropped his head. “How many do you figure are out there?”
“Looked to me like a war party that might be scouting us out.”
“Boy, bro, that is going to mess up our stock roundup.”
“I damn sure didn’t invite them.”
“Good thing you were the one that saw it. Anyone else had seen the sign might not thought anything. You and I have done enough to recognize and know them. I think we need to grab some saws and axes, make a ring of cedar trees we can ignite to better see those red devils if they come at us in the night.”
“Yes, and I’ll get that canvas off the cook’s wagon or they may use fire arrows to burn it up. A few arrows won’t ignite it, but the canvas burning on the ribs will burn it down.”
“What about the horses?” Doug asked.
“Unsaddle them. The saddles will make good barriers to be behind and shoot from at the raiders. We need to put the horses in the corral and be certain they can’t bust them out. They’d like us out here on foot. Assign two men to guard them. It will be a dangerous job, but we will need horses to ride for help when this is over.”
Harp caught Long by the arm. “I think we need some trenches dug. There is no house here and that corral won’t stop bullets.”
“Lay it out and we can dig them. I am going to check the rifles, be sure they’re all in working condition, and see how much ammo we have.”
“Chaw, get some shovels and picks out. We are going to dig some trenches to get into.” Harp took off at a trot to look how an Indian racing in on a horse would see them. That would tell him where they needed to dig to face their enemy.
By felling a few big trees he could funnel the Indians in close enough for the men to shoot and stop them. They needed that funnel. He recalled the first time as a young boy when all the families took shelter in a log fort. The so-called fort became a nasty place fast. Babies crying, bad water to drink. Hysterical women screaming they’d all be killed.
But they weren’t all killed. A few years later Hiram sold out, left that country, and settled at Camp Verde. The first few years at the new ranch the Comanche gave them hell, but there were a greater number of people around, which was why their father sold the first place and bought the Camp Verde one. As boys they’d spend weeks camped out on the west side of civilization to watch for scattered horse poop and barefoot horses, which meant the red man was in the area.
He and Long had some close calls, but they managed to get away unharmed and shot a few of them every time they could score and get away. He could smell them on a soft wind from over a quarter mile away. His brother could do the same.
If they could force the Comanche to charge in from the north and were ready, they’d be able to cut them down. That was his plan. The largest thing he faced was where to put Katy. He didn’t let her come out here to lose her or have her hurt. He didn’t consider that the enemy would be this far east or she could have stayed with his parents. That regret stabbed him hard. She had to be the greatest thing to come in his life. Their successful cattle drive had been a super thing they’d pulled off, a good realization about people and their needs and his bargaining from a place of strength when he had it. The next twenty-four to thirty-six hours would prove their ability to stop the enemy, or his handful of great guys would be left for buzzards to angrily fight over their mutilated carcasses.
He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. It was a hot fall day, and the anxiety building inside
him from the impending trouble only added to his body heat. They needed two big live oaks felled to make the tunnel to herd them closer to his soldiers—ah, rangers would be a better name for them. People were so damn tired of war, the name soldier brought that back to him.
Chadron Turner could use a crosscut saw better than anyone, or an ax. He was with Chaw waiting for the trench design. Harp crossed the dusty open dirt churned up by all the horse traffic. Some of it was in all their noses and there would be lots more of it.
“Chaw, face the northwest. See that break in the trees. They will come down through to here, and our shooting at them will push them away. But the fallen trees, placed that way, will stop them. They will be stymied and we can cut them down. If you were in a trench to shoot at them do you see how we need it dug? Pile your dirt on the Indian side.”
“I got you.” Chaw spoke to the two others what to do.
“Chadron, let me show you a couple of trees I need felled to make it so they can’t turn away from us when they realize the firepower we have.”
“I’ll get a saw and get Eldon to help me. He’s a good timber man.”
“Good.”
When Chadron left him he saw Kate standing, hugging her arms and shifting her feet. He went to her. “I’m sorry I let you come, but I promise I will protect you from any harm.”
“Harp, I’d like to do anything I can to help you. I understand if we try to run they’d overtake us. Long told me you two knew Indian ways. I can shoot a gun, and being with you I am not afraid. I will stay low.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He hugged and kissed her, then ran off to see about his tree choppers. The big trees fell perfectly, and the attackers couldn’t turn away once they were channeled into the area in front of the crew. The day was slipping away fast. The trenches were being dug at a fast pace. Long had made two trips beyond the perimeter of the meadow to try to see where the Comanche were located.
He returned, shaking his head at Harp. “I didn’t locate them.”
The O'Malleys of Texas Page 11
