The O'Malleys of Texas

by Dusty Richards

When he got back he could have called the home place “Tent City.” In no time, they had sidewall tents up for the men to sleep in in case of rain. One large tent for a mess hall and meetings was set up down near the large barn. A deep ditch was dug for their latrine and two sheepherder showers. Ira’s buddy’s name was Hopalong Sessions. He had a stiff right leg from the war, but he was a friendly guy and knew lots about minor doctor things. This was a good thing, since the cook was usually the acting physician on these trips. The third cook was Wing Chong. He cooked things more like what the boys would eat. He talked velly fast, but he came with good recommendations on how serious he was about his work.

  One of the boys in the groups breaking Comanche horses was Holy Wars Brown who was the wrangler on the Greg drive and now took the position with the number one herd.

  Harp had to know how he got that handle, but he had not had the chance to ask earlier.

  “Well, sir, when I was born my real dad named me that and it stuck. I learned later that my mother and dad did not get along very good together. I never knew my real dad. Mom remarried two other men after that.”

  “Thanks for sharing. Now, you will need to know every horse in your remuda. Each hand will be assigned five or six horses. They will give you the horse’s name that they want to ride; you rope it for them. They might not be a hand at doing it, but if you see some boy is a hand at roping horses, use him to help you. These horses, if used properly, won’t need grain. I mean them being rode on an every-five-day schedule. We only shoe the tender-footed ones. They get gaunt we can probably buy some grain—but that is expensive on the road. You are in charge . . . if we get a new hand, you will tell him what horses he will ride. Don’t give someone green a green bunch of horses. Let the bronc twisters have them. Savvy?”

  “I think I’ll enjoy that. Say, Harper, I have learned a lot the last few weeks. When we caught them I said, why is he messing with this wild-colored bunch of plugs? I learned quick that they are powerful horses and will be great on the drive.”

  “Holy, I know you are a great wrangler from the Sedalia drive. Thanks for staying on with us.”

  Ira took the orphan boy Billy McCall for his helper.

  * * *

  Chaw was wearing his new Boss of the Plains Stetson hat. He also sported a tailored, blue denim shirt, as well as a leather vest and tan pants. He told Harp not to worry, he’d find someone to wrangle his horses.

  Then he laughingly said, “I feel like a city dude in these clothes, but I know they make a man look like he’s a boss man. A year ago I wore a Confederate uniform and I agreed with you that none of us should wear them going north. I know that helped some in Missouri. I understand all what Long told me—you need to look like you’re the boss if you are the boss.”

  Doug took his crew and went from ranch to ranch, road-branding the cattle he would take on the consignment phase. Chaw and his men went to the Diamond Ranch to do the same with the sisters’ herd. They had plenty of vaqueros there who helped them. Long took Harp’s bunch to work their own cattle already in pasture number four.

  Long told him to take Katy, who was feeling much better, over and visit the old maids. They needed to be the team to satisfy those sisters, so they could do other drives for them over the years.

  Harp hated to spend the time drinking tea and eating dry cookies, but he went over there a little dressed up. His boot shined, hair trimmed by his wife, and he wore his suit coat with a white shirt.

  The two ladies were friendly and wanted to know how well the horse-drawn mowing machine that he ordered for Hoot would work.

  “The man I bought it from said that if you have a good team of horses, twenty acres a day can get it done.”

  “Is it hard to learn how to fix it?”

  “No. If you hire a boy knows a little about them, he could run it.”

  “Could you find us one?”

  “The war just being over, those mowers are scarce. But I will write my dealer in San Antonio on how to contact you. He also sells dump rakes.”

  “Thank you. Sister and I don’t know how you have done all this. Assembling three herds, and you find the nicest people—like Chaw, is it?—to do everything that is needed.”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s a top-notch drover.”

  “Is that his real name?”

  “I bet it is. My horse wrangler’s name is Holy Wars.”

  “Oh, my, people name their children anything I guess nowadays.”

  “Katy and I are learning that signing up hands for the drive.”

  “Thank you so much for coming by and visiting with us. We appreciate you taking our cattle to Kansas.”

  “Well, ladies, we will be in the same business next year, so I hope you are satisfied with our work this year and allow us to work the same next year.”

  “Don’t worry, we are, and yes, we will continue next year. Katy, how have you been feeling, dear?”

  “Full. He is getting big and he kicks a lot.”

  “You don’t know how lucky you are to have him,” one of the sisters said.

  “Oh yes, I do, and I thank God every day for Harp finding me.”

  “Dear, were you living at home when he found you?”

  Katy shook her head. “I was orphaned at five and raised by an older couple. They died and I was on my own, but Harp found me and here I am expecting my first in a few months.”

  “Oh, what a nice story. Good luck with the baby. Bring him by to show him to us one day when you are well.”

  “I can do that this summer.”

  “We will look forward to your visit.”

  In the buckboard and heading home, he hugged her close. “Thanks for the short life story.”

  “They didn’t need the rest of it. That happened and is done. I still say some day you will be their heir.”

  “Whatever. They make good customers now.”

  “Oh my, yes. I will be praying a lot for your safe return.”

  It wouldn’t hurt to pray for their ranch, too.

  CHAPTER 22

  Their dad came back to his own ranch and took siestas when he wasn’t helping to get some things ready. He took the wagons, one at a time, into town and had the blacksmith in Kerrville mount water barrels—one on each side of the wagons. A shovel rack for the side and two ax holders, some towing chains with hooks on the ends in case they got stuck in the mud. He went over every inch of the new sets of harnesses and bragged on the mules. Best he ever drove were his words about the long ears. He was not a mule man so that meant a lot to Harp coming from him.

  Amos Thornton and his boys drove in the promised horse herd, much to Harp’s relief. He ordered three wagonloads of hay for them, from some farmers, to feed them until they left.

  The two head men, Doug and Chaw, plus Long and Harp met in the mess tent each morning. All the horses were divided between them. Each man had five horses to ride. Herd one had fourteen hands due to the herd size.

  Days warmed, rain fell generously, grass broke its dormancy, and the elms leaved out. Harp found sixty more horses and he bought them. The daylight hours lengthened.

  Chadron Turner was to be Doug’s scout. Chaw chose Eldon Morehouse to be his. Red Culver was to be Harp’s number two man. Harp wanted the herds to stay a day or two apart and not to get their herds mixed in with any other. Such a mess would take days to sort the many cattle from each other, out in the open country without corrals.

  Every supply wagon carried enough new Winchester rifles and ammo for each hand, plus. 45 lead bullets, gunpowder, and caps. The gunpowder and caps fit other calibers. The bullets were good for the .30- or .44-caliber side arms. His used saddles, and for those cowboys that did not own one, their mounts were gone over with new girths and latigo leathers. Things were as right as they could be or at least how Harp could make them.

  On the final day he took his pregnant wife to an isolated creek and they played in the water, picnicked, and made love on a blanket capped off with a can of peaches for each of them. It was a very
sweet yet sad day since they had not been apart for long since Lee’s Creek, and the few times he was gone he always missed her. This would be a tough period of time, not to have her with him.

  Their time to go back was closing. They were lying on their backs watching fluffy clouds pass over. She sat up and shook her hair, caressing her expanded stomach. “I never dreamed about this happening to me.”

  “I wouldn’t know. My dreams are all about horse wrecks that never happen and me falling off cliffs I’d never climb.”

  “Did you ever dream about getting ready for this drive?”

  “No. And I never dreamed of you before you came into my life. But there was some powerful force that showed me you should be mine. I wasn’t finding someone new—you were mine already. We made love on that beach like we had done it many times before. It was wonderful but not shockingly new.”

  “More reason to take care of yourself on this long trip. I agree it was like we were overcome by some spirit, and it has been like that every day since then. Let’s pray together.”

  He sat up and got on his knees.

  “You say the words,” Kate said in a soft voice.

  “Our dear heavenly father, tomorrow we part for a short while. Help her get through this pregnancy into motherhood. Be with me as I ride north on business . . .” His prayer went on, hands clasped, eyes shut tightly talking about facing the big undertaking and a long sentence of time away from his lovely wife.

  CHAPTER 23

  Cattle bawling woke him up. Harp gently kissed Kate and quietly dressed to not disturb her. Those incisive eternal cattle sounds would be with him until he loaded the last one onto the stock car in Abilene, Kansas. He finally no longer heard it after the last drive, but it took many hundreds of miles on the return trip for it to stop. His crew ate first that morning. Long joined him at the table and asked him if he had any regrets.

  “Only leaving her.”

  “You know you’re a lucky man. But I can see down the long road at our lives, well, yours, hers, and the kids. Katy is a special person. She bears few scars of her horrible past because she is so strong. God gave you a gift. I see you and her waltzing at governors’ balls someday in D.C., when the bad taste of the war is over and Texans are accepted again in those halls. You will come back to her this fall dancing a jig, and people will say those damn two O’Malley brothers have done it again.”

  “Amen, brother. Amen.”

  “What have they done again?” Katy asked, slipping onto the bench beside him.

  “That’s next fall,” Long whispered to her. “When you and Harp dance in the street and those O’Malley brothers have done it again.”

  “You bet and I’ll dance with you, too.”

  Long rose up, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. “I’ll watch out for him, little lady.”

  Hiram joined them. “I will help the others get out the gate after you’re gone.”

  “Thanks. The men we have are capable enough, but any help is appreciated,” Harp told him.

  “I knew Doug was a good candidate for the job. I was not around him ten minutes and I knew. But Chaw Michaels is the man impressed me the most. He not only wears that Boss of the Plains Stetson hat, he has become a boss of the plains leader since he got that job.”

  “Brother here got him out of a Reb uniform, and Chaw got the rest out of theirs to save any fights on the trip last year. First thing Long told him down here, about the job, was he had to dress to be the boss on this drive and he did, didn’t he?”

  “A radical change. It worked. He will be all right.”

  Harp told his leader, Red Culver, to have the two black point riders to get Old Blue up and take the rag off his clapper. The two black cousins had won the point rider’s jobs competing for it. They were horseback riders deluxe. The outfit was Kansas bound.

  They rode after Red, smiling. “Going to be a great day, Captain, sir.”

  Harp agreed they had to be formal toward Red so they called him Captain all the time.

  “We came to wish you well and we’ll see you at the end. Horses, equipment, and men all better than when we left last year,” Doug said. “I also have to thank you. Not only for firing that cook before you got to be boss last year, but the jobs you have provided us. Every one of us is damn proud to be part of the flagship of this cattle-driving business.”

  “Thanks, guys. Good luck to us all.”

  Cold chills ran up his cheeks as he waved to his wife standing back out of the way, then he short-loped his horse to check on his point men, leaders of the biggest herd they knew about going north.

  Long planned a twelve-mile trip that day. Ira and his new camp boy, Billy, had the same team of stout horses used on the Missouri trip, pulling his completely rebuilt supply wagon with a bright new canvas top, their names on it in red.

  The steers were doing some butting heads but nothing like a fresh mixed bunch. The bawling continued and a few tried for liberty but were turned back by much better horses than the last time. The worst three days lay ahead. After that, the herding business would ease a whole lot.

  Noontime they reached their goal and they spread the cattle out to graze. It was an uneventful day for all. Harp liked Red’s efficiency. The boys took his commands well and he encouraged them a lot, helped the new boys, and had a settling effect on everything. From here on it would be day-by-day, head-to-tail monotony. He hoped. Harp and Red visited privately before the evening meal.

  “Those cousins have good control as point riders. They damn sure can ride and they get lots out of their horses.”

  “You ever hear where they learned all that?” Harp asked.

  “No. But I bet they’ll tell us some day.”

  “That blond boy—”

  “Harold Nelson.”

  “Someone said he had brought a guitar. Maybe he’d make some music after supper.”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  “It might build a little fellowship in the crew.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  Harp went to make notes in his diary about their first day. As the shadows grew long, he put his pencil down and closed the leather-bound book. With care, he placed it back in the wooden secretary box Kate had bought him in San Antonio on their last trip. “Make a record, Harp, for your son to read someday about these days of yours on the cattle drive. When he is old enough these days will all be over. Our world is changing so fast. Tell him the inside thinking of an emerging cattle baron.”

  How did an orphan learn to talk like she did? Maybe the old people who raised her instilled that in her. He and Long had read many books, Shakespeare even, but he never imagined such things like someday there would be no more cattle drives . . .

  Those people will be mad you branded their cattle.

  And he could not ask her a single question until he came back in the fall. He should start a list of them. He had to get to the bottom of her source of all the things she knew, he didn’t, and why. Bless her pea-picking soul—he sure loved her.

  He heard the guitar and the crew singing what they knew about “leaving this valley.” Good. That might pass the time faster. At the moment the trip, looked to him, like a woodpecker trying to peck down a big oak.

  Time to go to bed. “Katy, I already miss you.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Day two started out with a bang. One of those Comanche buffalo ponies gave a hand named Hank Dryer a wild ride and bucked his damndest. He covered a lot of ground and finally quit and blew the snot out of his nose. The crew shouted and tossed hats at him to make him buck some more. Instead he went off single-footing like he’d never done anything, and Hank acted like it simply was another day to top a bronc.

  He’d jot that down in his diary when he got to camp that evening. His son could laugh about it someday. They had the herd moving out. Blue’s bell was clacking and the steers followed the next tail ahead of them—going north.

  Somewhere over that northern horizon on this side of the Arctic Circle was a dusty cattle
-shipping town called Abilene—probably at the end of the tracks like Sedalia. Harp jobbed the buffalo horse with his spur to get back to work, and the gelding ducked his head and went to bucking, grunting like a fat hog on legs of steel springs, landing hard and going for another leap into the sky with Harp sawing his jaw off with the bridle.

  He never quit bucking until they were near a quarter mile from the herd. Red came whipping and driving his pony hard across the flat to come to his aid, but by then Harp was loping him in a circle, the fit over. Red slid to a halt.

  “You all right, boss?”

  Harp reined up his horse and shook his head. “My dad said a horse that won’t buck ain’t worth his salt. I’ve rode that horse two thousand miles or more, and he never bucked before today.”

  They both laughed about it. In three hours they were spreading the cattle out to graze. The cousins rode in. Sly shouted, “Hey, boss man, that Comanche can really buck.”

  “You see my ride?”

  “Damn good one.”

  “Naw, I was damn lucky he quit.”

  “No, sir, he’s not gonna be the first one or the last one you rode like that.”

  “Thanks.”

  Long had rode in, heard the laughter, and asked what it was about.

  “My horse was dinking along and I spurred him. He broke and bucked all the way across the flat, having a fit. I wasn’t the only one. Hank had one break earlier this morning and he had a helluva ride on him. All is good now. How does tomorrow look?”

  “No problem,” Long said. “I’ll give Ira and Holy Wars Brown, your wrangler, good directions. I guess we were just green when we left with Emory. This drive is too smooth compared to then.”

  “Well, we do know more about how to handle cattle, we’re mounted better, and we’re having good weather. There’s already been some herds ahead of us. I hear a different rumor each day. The price for cattle is sky high in some place named Springs in south Kansas, but I think we better stick with this road and go all the way.”

  “I am with you. I guess tomorrow the last herd starts out?”