“That is Texas state land that those corrals are setting on. No one else owns that land,” Harp said, recalling checking the ownership out a year earlier when they discovered it.
“Was there a short mouthy guy named Carson in the bunch that ordered you away?”
“He never gave his name, but he wasn’t tall,” Doug said.
“Boys, you did well,” Long said. “That guy nearly got shot in town threatening Harp. Walk easy and always in pairs from now on. We found some new ranches we are going to buy west of here. Because of Carson, I guess they think all these unbranded cattle are theirs. They’re not. You boys showed how to work ’em, and they are jealous and mad. Roping and tying them down takes all day. We are having two of those squeeze chutes made to take along. They have not seen the O’Malley Brothers Land and Cattle Company in action, but I promise you that H Bar H brand will be stamped on more than you can count in the next six months.”
Harp felt damn proud of his brother’s speech. Katy winked at him when it was over. It was universal with them cowboys. Like it or lump it—the O’Malley brothers were to be reckoned with in that part of Texas.
CHAPTER 14
They bought what they called New Ranch for five thousand. Jim Yale arranged for them to get the maximum loans they’d probably need for the coming year and approval to use two banks. He shook his head in amazement at the new cattle count.
“That is amazing. What next?”
“We are going to work on lots more,” Harp said. “We’d like lots of the cattle we take north to be ours, but after the first of the year we will advertise for other folk’s cattle. Long and I plan to take two herds of two thousand head apiece.”
“I have small ranchers, all the time, wanting to ship cattle. Can I send them to you?”
“Big two-year-old steers, prefer three. No cows or heifers.”
“I will keep that in mind. Thanks. You now have one ranch of your own to put that sign that says O’MALLEY BROTHERS LAND AND CATTLE COMPANY on the cross bar over the gate. And I can say I knew those guys back when.”
The three of them laughed. They bought the other two parcels for three hundred dollars cash from Van Hook an hour later. Then they went and had a meal at Sam’s Place.
The café was near the river and lots of local rancher folks ate there when they were in town. Two guys they went to school with had heard their cattle drive story. Jeb Ransum and Orrie Carpenter both were taken aback by all the things they had to get around to get there.
“You going back?” Orrie asked.
“Yes, but farther west.”
“There’s this guy has a trail up through Kansas to Abilene, Joe McCoy. He says he has lots of markets for our cattle.” Orrie handed him the paper.
“Where’s Abilene, Long?” Harp studied the information.
“I don’t know.”
“He wants us to cross the Red River at Doane’s Store, go across the Indian Territory on wagon tracks left from the federal retreat to the Chouteau’s trading post, then take the tracks on to Jesse Chisholm’s Trading Post on the Salt Fork of the Arkansas. It says this winter McCoy’s men are plowing sod furrows and making sod markers the next seventy-five miles to Abilene, Kansas.”
“Anyone in here know McCoy?”
“All we’ve heard is good things.”
“What do you think, Harp?”
“Long, I think he designed that highway for us. But we better get more cattle branded.”
Katy’s blues eyes were following their conversation. She bent his head down to whisper in Harp’s ears. “Now you really are going to piss them ranchers off, branding mavericks.”
“They damn sure won’t be happy.”
“What’s that?” Long asked.
“For us branding mavericks.”
“The hell with them. What are you going to do next?” Long asked.
“I want to ride up to Camp Verde and get Mom and Katy together. My plowing people will be out there next Sunday at New Ranch, and I should have the oat seed to take out there and some of the foodstuff I promised them. We need three of our people out there. You got a foreman idea?”
“What about Hoot Crane?” Long asked.
“Him and three good boys can get the new ranch straight this winter. Damn, he will need some saddle stock and hay for them. Who’s going to cook?”
“Hoot usually has some Mexican wife. She can do that,” Long said.
“He don’t have one, he can find one.” Harp and Long laughed.
“Right. Get him a team and a light wagon. Ten horses. A couple of tons of hay, and hell only knows what he will need besides that.” Harp’s head was spinning with costs and needs for all this.
“Those three boys need to be able to sit a horse real good.”
“Yes, and the boys will cost twenty a month, Hoot thirty-five, and twenty for her cooking. That’s a hundred and fifty a month counting food and needs. That will cost us eighteen hundred a year plus hay—I bet we need to take thirty steers to Kansas a year to pay our wages and them sell at sixty dollars apiece.”
Long kept on nodding. “I bet there are that many steers out there now. Maybe more.”
“You have to spend money to make money.”
“Yes you do. I’ll go find Hoot and probably have to sober him up.”
“I am going to take Katy out to the home place and let her talk to Mom about our wedding. I want that under way.”
“Amen.” Long shook his head at Katy. “Darling, you must get tired of all this business talk.”
“Long, after all the places I have been and put up with—this is like heaven. Don’t ever worry about me being bored. I do know four thousand steers won’t be enough for your and Harp’s plans,” she said.
Harp set in. “We may never get eighty dollars a head ever again, either, but at forty bucks that is eighty thousand dollars for one herd, and if we make twenty dollars a head on the other herd that’s forty thousand. Ranch expenses won’t be any problem.”
“The crew is fine at camp. I’ll swing up there today and take them to the far-away ranch and they can get it all set up. Then I’ll go find Hoot tonight, get him ready to be set up for New Ranch,” Long said. “Chaw can meet you in town at the mercantile with the wagon on Friday, get the supplies and the oat seed you will need, and take it up there and come back and get ready to move Hoot and his crew to New Ranch on Sunday.”
“Good plan. Fence builders next week up at the Ivy Mountain. Put up a corral. Have the blacksmith shop build us two squeeze chutes for that place that we can assemble and break down to move from place to place.”
“Go home and tell Mom I love her, Katy. You keep him out of gunfights,” Long said.
“I’ll sure try. You be careful, too.”
* * *
That night they got to his folk’s place late. Lights came on when the stock dogs barked. His folks got up all excited. What was it in the Bible? The prodigal son had come home. Lord.
His mom went to making coffee, scrambling eggs, hashing potatoes, and Katy sliced bacon. Then biscuits went in the oven and Easter asked a hundred questions all at one time.
But when Katy mentioned to his mom she needed help planning their wedding—you could’ve heard a pin drop.
Easter cried out. “See there, Hiram O’Malley, that boy of yours does have some of the bringing up in him I planted. Come here, Kate darling. God bless you—when?”
“I never had a big Christmas in my life. I figure this could be a big one.”
“You will, my dear. You certainly will.”
Hiram got up and fixed a plate of food and Harp followed.
“We bought that ranch,” Harp said.
“Get a good buy?”
“Cattle and all, five thousand.”
Hiram nodded. “That sounds really good.”
“We branded three hundred forty-two head at those big pens last Saturday.”
“Aw shit. How did you do that?”
“A squeeze chute.”
; “I heard they’re neat.”
“You recall those guys back a few years ago who were going to get rich turning free cattle into tallow and hides?”
“Yeah. Lost their backsides.”
“Well, we made a real big roundup and drove them into their corral and the next day we worked and branded them all in six hours.”
“That was a fast deal.”
“And you won’t believe the chewing out I took from a guy named Earl Carson in town over catching that many head. He said those cattle did not belong to us.”
His dad gave him a smug smile. “Aye, my laddie, you’re learning lots about the likes of people.”
“I am. Real quickly. He has had those cattle around him for years and never got off his chair to catch them.”
“They weren’t worth eighty dollars a head back then.” Hiram laughed. “Ignore those people.”
“I’ll try.”
“I take it you are happy with your Katy gal.”
“Yes. Very much so.”
“I felt like that the day I married your mother, and I am still happy. What’re your plans?”
“Brand more mavericks. We bought two more ranches out on Ivy Mountain. Lots of wild cattle out there. That’s why we bought them. I’m still not over that Comanche attack we had last week.”
“They don’t go away easy.”
“No.”
Harp didn’t sleep that night, either.
CHAPTER 15
He took Kate and his mother to the dress shop the next day. The lady who ran it said they’d be one hour measuring his wife-to-be and for him to go find something to do.
For the hour, he spoke to the man Newell Kent at the Saddle and Harness Shop, told him he wanted to buy a matched team and a good buckboard. Kent asked what color.
“Bays, blood bays, unless someone’s got a sharp team of buckskins, but they’d probably want a fortune for them.”
“I think I know a man with such a pair. Would yah pay three hundred dollars for them and the rig?”
“No, but I’d pay two if they suited me.”
“Of course you’re talking federal money?”
“Of course.”
“If I kin buy ’em for that, would yah pay me twenty for the fee?”
“Yes. You know where they are?” Harp asked him.
“Yeah. Around town. They’re matched. Full brothers. When will you be needing them?”
“Christmas Eve at my father’s house. I am getting married and they are for her.”
Kent stuck his hand over and they shook on it, and he paid the man the money. Smugly he went back to the dress shop just as the two women walked out. He went around and helped them both onto the seats of his father’s rig.
“You ladies need anything else?” he asked, gathering the reins.
“Look, Katy. That’s that team of buckskins I told you about,” his mother said.
“Wow. They are pretty.”
He set his hat on his head and clucked to the team, with a small ripple in the lines to wake them. “Nice outfit. Someday I’ll have some like that.”
“No,” his mother said. “You are too much like your father. Plain ones work well, too. Oh, he once borrowed this fancy buggy and two high-stepping horses. It was that wild night we got married. I was so afraid he’d wreck it and spend all his life paying for it.”
“That must have been fun,” Katy said.
“Not really. I was showing Long by then. I knew his father had been killed and this huge Irishman, who would not take no for answer, was taking me to a dance. His wife drowned back that spring while on a picnic. He said we both lost our mates and we should be married. By the time we got to the dance, I agreed to marry him. After that we went back to my folks’ house, told them what we’d done, loaded some of my things in that coach, and went to his house. And we have never stopped since. I love him so much.”
“What would you have done if he had not come along?”
“I guess become an old maid with one boy.”
“No,” Kate said. “Someone would have found you, as pretty as you are.”
“If you say so, my dear. I hope you’ll tell me how this boy of mine swept you up.”
“Easter, my story is not as pretty as yours. When I was five years old my family’s house burned to the ground. I lost everyone and yet I survived and was not able to tell them how. That marked me as the Devil’s own. An older couple with no kids took me in and loved me in a neighborhood where I was not welcome. One winter they both died from pneumonia and the people in town said I was not their heir. They sold the estate and gave the money to a better cause, they said, their local church. A woman, and I know her name, Theresa Stone, sold me to a man for forty dollars. She probably kept the money. I was fourteen. He was a grimy, whiskered, fat old man. I became his wife and slave.”
Easter reached up and put her hand on Kate’s shoulder. “You were just fourteen?”
Katy nodded.
“Dear God, you have certainly saved this young woman for my son. Thank you, sir, amen.”
Not many things shocked his mother, but Kate’s story did that day. She was really taken aback hearing it. Harp knew that later his dad would hear the story. Everything about it bothered him. How badly she was treated growing up, about a fire she innocently escaped and her family didn’t, selling her into slavery. It was a bad deal, but that night in the attic, wanting her to forget and feel better, he showed her how much he loved her.
Wouldn’t that team of horses shock her? He could hardly hold the secret to himself.
* * *
Next morning they rode to New Ranch. On the way, they passed two heaping loads of hay he’d bought for horse fodder. Everyone was there. They were cleaning up everything, even had sickles to mow down weeds; axes and saws to trim trees and cut down excess brush. Dead oaks were being sawn down and split into firewood.
Two hands were running the pack rats off and cleaning the house. They had the wall tents and wagon fly up for shade. The corrals were being repaired. One guy was on a tall ladder, with flattened tin cans, replacing shingles on the barn roof to stop the leaks.
Long came up from checking something in the hollow.
“Well?” he asked Harper.
“They are making Katy a dress. Best man, you can pack the ring and Dad said he wanted to give her away since she’s an orphan. She cried about that. She’s up talking to Ira about how she can help him on meals here.”
“Glad she’s back. She makes better desserts than he does. Oh, they had a springhouse to keep milk and butter cool down in that holler I just came from. We need to build a stock tank below it to catch the water for stock. It is a real strong spring.
“Windmill works, too, but we need to replace the main bearings. They must not have turned it off when they left, so it ran all the time and not having grease hurt them. It works, jacking water upstairs into a big copper tank, but not great.”
“How is Hoot?”
“He’s excited. His latest wife, Bonita, wants to be the cook. He can’t believe all we’ve done since he knew us as boys from Dad’s ranch. We have two wagons moving them. They should be here any time now.”
“You ever see that buckskin team and buckboard in town?”
“Yeah. Nice rig. Belongs to the Peabody Ranch.”
“Not after Christmas Eve. I bought it for her for our wedding.”
Long frowned at him. “What did that cost?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
He shook his head, smiling. “Money does talks doesn’t it?”
“Yes. We plan to get married on Christmas Day.”
“Good. Your plow people are coming. Some are set up already. I see we need a bunkhouse for cowboys and maybe two jacales for farm hands and their families.”
“At least one horse-drawn mower, rake, hayracks, and a couple of draft teams.” Harp was adding them all up in his head.
“I think we can make them jacales from adobe. Find some suitable clay and make our own bricks here.
Then the windows, roof, and doors will be the only cash outlay. We can make our own cedar shingles.”
“I hope Hoot can manage all that. We will be off, branding cattle.”
“He will.” Long said it like he had no doubts about the older man.
“We need everyone armed here, though. Comanche will find this place. Those Winchesters we have for the crew proved vital even going north. This ranch business would be a hell of a lot easier if we were rich.”
Long gave him a hard look. “Next fall I plan to be that rich.”
“I bet we both are. That’s Hoot leading the parade coming in.”
Under the widest brim black felt hat they made, smoking a quirley, a starched long-sleeve white shirt buttoned to his Adam’s apple, an expensive blue silk neckerchief around his chicken neck, came their new foreman. A very pregnant young Mexican woman sat on the spring seat driving one of the wagons. She was wearing a loud red rose–patterned dress and a wide straw hat. That was his wife.
What did his father say? Snow on the mountain but still fire in the chimney. Hoot reined up. His clear blue eyes looked dark staring at Harp.
“By damn, Hiram does have two—men. Howdy, Long. Harper, Hiram said you were around, glad you could make it.”
He stepped off the Mexican big wooden-horned saddle like a kid, hitched his holster, and strode over to shake Harp’s hand. Instead, he threw down the small cigarette butt, ground it under his pointed toed boots, and hugged him and then Long.
“Why you boys have got a helluva reputation since going to Missouri with them cattle. I tell everyone I helped raise you both. No one believes me, but I know the truth. Come meet my woman, Bonita. She’s a little big in the family way”—he stopped and looked around—“he said.”
“Katy is helping Ira, the crew cook. She’s up there.”
“Good. Come down, darling. I’ll help you. Thanks, boys, for letting me bring her here. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
Coming off the wagon seat backward and using a spoke for a step, Bonita’s dark eyes flashed at him. “Oh, you know. Find another one.”
“That is not fair, Bonita. I love you and that baby.”
On the ground and out of wind, she tossed her luxurious curly head of hair back and hugged Harp as close to her belly as it would let him. “You are as handsome as your father.” She then turned to Long and did the same.
The O'Malleys of Texas Page 15
