Arizona Territory

by Dusty Richards

  “If there’s a way, I’m counting on you to find some.”

  “Does this sweet lady of yours have an older sister?”

  “No, she’s an only child.”

  “Hell, I wanted her older sister.”

  “What about Monica?” he asked Liz.

  She shook her head. “No, she is too fussy for him.”

  “There I go again. Off with no woman.”

  “Johnny will have breakfast for us here at five thirty.”

  “Night.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The four of them—Lou, Yeager, Jesus, and Cole—rode north the next morning. Chet hoped they brought him back a good plan. Only time would tell.

  Hampt was teaching the shooters to assemble. One man was to hold their horses. In practice, he fired a shot in the air and the men who were scattered rode to assemble in groups, laid belly down, and fired their rifles at targets. Chet decided he had taught them a lot. They looked impressive to him.

  When the four water scouts came back, they’d found water, but the first was the worst—thirty miles north. Yeager said he’d found it before, but wondered how they’d get there.

  “We drive that first day to water. Take us all day and into the night. It will be tiring, but the next one is how far?” Chet asked.

  “Twelve miles.”

  “Short day.”

  That evening at supper, Liz asked him when they’d leave.

  “When Acres gets here with the horses and we get them straight. Decker has his bronc riders selected.”

  Lou shook his head. “Bronc riders now, huh?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “No, that old man knows how deep those boys go. That’s why an illiterate man like him can run drives. Most men take cattle north with a handful of good cowboys. He’s got forty hands, enough so they can do the job.”

  “I think you’re right,” Chet said. “Five thirty tomorrow morning.”

  They groaned.

  “Better enjoy this bed,” he told Liz later.

  “Yes, we will share the old ground in a few nights. Saddle horses are all you lack?”

  “Yes. He sent word today. Acres is coming. Hope he found enough.”

  “I love that old man, Lou. He’s so sharp. He said, ‘grande hombre. I know what you found. ’” She shook her head. “I don’t have to be careful anymore talking to you, but I fear I will sound like those black cowboys next. You’s got any?”

  They both laughed.

  Three days later, Acres and five teenage ranch boys arrived with a hundred and thirty horses. Everyone in Tularosa turned out to admire them driven through the main street. Corralled in the gathering pens for cattle, Chet had hay to feed them for the night. He took Acres and his hands to supper, and his wife, Leona, too, who drove the buckboard loaded with bedrolls and supplies for the crew.

  “How is it going?” Acres asked him.

  “Exhausting. We go north in a few days. I believe we’ll be ready.”

  “It took me more time than I thought it would. Several outfits had turned their horses out and they had to gather them. But I knew you needed this many, or more, so I got every one I could get.”

  “You did great. I’ll wire the San Antonio Bank and have them pay you what I owe for them.”

  “Have them send it here to my account in the North Texas Bank.”

  “We can arrange that.”

  “Are things going as you planned?” Acres asked.

  “Too slow, but we are about to start.”

  “What was the holdup in the first place?”

  “Dry year. First water north of the Canadian of any amount is thirty miles.”

  “Yeah, it is getting late,” Acres agreed.

  “Maybe a good thing he stopped. They’re in tough shape. The rest here may have helped them. We needed those horses you brought. I’ve culled over a dozen out of what they had. This will really help us.”

  “I bet it does. I want to see them. The boys and I would like to see your outfit.”

  “Sure, and I’ll tell Liz to ride out with Leona in the buckboard tomorrow. We can bring the horses out in the morning.”

  “You tired yet?” Acres asked.

  “Ain’t had time to be that.”

  Acres motioned to the two wives at the next table. “Looks like they got plenty to talk about. Your wife looks the same as she did at our house.”

  “My wife is a tough lady.”

  “I know. She is sure pretty.”

  “Big help, too. She knows every penny we’ve spent, both ours and the bank’s.”

  “She’s rich, isn’t she? Leona told me she left a big hacienda in the hands of her ex-brother-in-law?”

  “Yes, isn’t that amazing? I was busy figuring how we might visit, and she came lock, stock, and barrel to meet me on the border.”

  “Is Arizona nice?”

  “I like the north. Pine country. Southern Arizona is cactus country. I have a large ranch down on the border that my nephew runs. Water is the largest issue.”

  “Never snows down there?”

  “Maybe once in several years, a little falls.”

  “I guess someday I’ll get out there and see you.”

  “You’re welcome anytime. If I’m home, or not.”

  “That might be hard, to catch you there. You have a son, too?”

  “Adam is eight months old. His mother was my first wife. She had jumping horses, and they were her life. She’d been married before and was twice widowed. She had never carried a baby full term. She quit jumping to carry our son. After he was born, she went back to jumping. While I was away, she had a serious wreck on a jump. She was a wonderful woman. I had no ambition to find another woman, when along came Liz.”

  “You were lucky, my friend. My boys’ mother died of a fever. I was alone for a long time and then Leona lost her husband. They had an epidemic that killed her children before they came up to Tularosa. He was killed in a wagon wreck. I talked her into marrying me.”

  “Hey, you were lucky, too. She’s a great lady.”

  “Oh, yes. But I can’t believe how yours rides with you all over hell.”

  “She told me I couldn’t go without her. She’s a tomboy, is all I can say. But she never complains about anything.”

  They both laughed.

  The horses were well received at the cow camp. A rope corral was set up with lots of the cowboys on hand. Decker’s chief wrangler was Apache Joe. Chet had no idea where his name came from. The short man could make a lariat fly over two horses and settle on number three’s neck. He picked a sorrel horse from the new lot. His first rider was another wrangler, Dickey Joe, with his saddle in his right hand and more hands ready to bridle him.

  The horse bridled and blindfolded, his saddle in place and cinched twice, Dickey flew onto the saddle, jerked off the blinds, and rode the gelding in a circle, reined him around and nodded. “Damn good horse.”

  He stepped off and the third man in the wranglers was Jerry Bird. His bay horse bucked pretty hard, but he straightened him out. The bay proved to be a reining fool. He could spin on his hind legs, and lots of eyes bugged out watching Jerry rein the horse around on his heels.

  Apache Joe beamed. “That is a real good one, huh?”

  “A dandy,” Chet agreed.

  They spent all day testing them, and Chet was a little amazed at the chief wrangler’s referral to some horse earlier that a new one resembled. Chet was satisfied that by dark, he’d know them all.

  “He can’t read or write,” Chet said. “But he knows every horse they rode.”

  “I saw that, too. They should make enough mounts. Acres did a good job finding that many,” Cole said. “He tell you what they cost?”

  “Thirty bucks a head. He didn’t get rich.”

  “These men are impressed. They never had this many good horses. They may even believe they’re real cowboys.”

  “I hope so. This drive will not be like going on a picnic.”

  “How much longer?�
� Cole asked.

  “Two days and we go north. I told Decker that an hour ago and he agreed.”

  “Yes, let’s get it behind us.”

  “This is hot country,” Cole said, drying his neck.

  “Yeah, it would be nice to be back at Preskitt, drinking lemonade with ice on that porch.”

  “I’d like to be at Camp Verde and dance on Saturday night with my wife.”

  “We’ll get back there,” Chet promised him.

  “I know. Having these horses does make it look like we may become a real outfit moving steers, too.”

  “I think Liz has them dressed for the trip, anyway.”

  “Boy, she did good at that.” They both laughed at Chet’s wife’s efforts to dress each man in a new shirt and overalls.

  Things were going fine. They greased the loaded chuckwagon axles and hand-sewed and waxed the seams of the new cover stretched over the bows. The last night before they set out, to celebrate, No Ling Ling baked some big fruit turnover cakes, peach and apple ones, in his largest Dutch ovens. The cooks planned to ride some gentle horses and let the mule skinners drive the chuckwagon. That suited Chet, since he doubted the Orientals could handle those mules anyway. Ever since they ditched the first chuckwagon in the Indian Territory somewhere, they were used to riding horseback. He didn’t know the entire story, but he imagined they wrecked it. Mott and Horatio knew that driving mules beat riding drag on the herd, and Decker threatened them with that job if they lost the rig.

  Before they left, he settled his accounts, grateful for his wife’s neat paperwork. He notified the bank in San Antonio to pay the suppliers, including Acres’s horse account. He mailed them a copy of her accounting as well.

  “If we make fifteen miles a day, we will be there in three weeks,” she said.

  “If we make that mileage, but I want some weight gain.”

  “We are closer to leaving then?”

  He hugged her. “Hell, yes, girl. We are finally that close.”

  “Speaking of hell, it wouldn’t hurt for you to say a prayer for us tonight.” She hugged him around the waist.

  “You’re right. He will have a big hand in getting us there.”

  “Do it tonight.”

  Yeager came in. “I saw some of dem Injuns ’bout an hour ago. They be setting on horses and taking our roundup in.”

  Chet nodded that he heard him. “They’re good at that. Now what they will do next, is the big question. Thanks. Tell Hampt, too.”

  “What was he saying?” Liz asked.

  “Indians were watching us.”

  She frowned. “Oh, you said they were out there.”

  “You stay close. Comanche are the meanest, toughest, Indians that I know.”

  “You’ve fought them before?”

  “As a boy, yes. Several times. But the worst I can recall, we were going to San Antonio and they jumped us. We got holed up in some rocks. Dale Allen shot two of them with a shotgun. Both times that shotgun put him on his butt. He was maybe twelve. Some folks heard our shooting and came to run them off, or they might have got the whole family. Dad bought Dale Allen a pistol after that.”

  “How many were there?” she asked.

  “I was only about fourteen then. I thought there were a hundred of them, but I imagine now there were maybe eighteen. Some of those fighters were my age. But their shrill screaming chilled my blood.”

  “You were fighting Indians at fourteen?”

  “Yes, and I can recall it like it was yesterday.”

  “I hope they forget us here.”

  “It would be nice. They won’t. No matter what happens, don’t let them separate you from the men and the herd.”

  “I hear you.”

  “We will be on the edge of the knife blade all the way to Nebraska.”

  She nodded. “I am ready to go there.”

  “You’re amazing. We’ll soon be on our way.”

  “Don’t forget to give them one of your prayers tonight.”

  “I can do that.”

  After supper, he rose and in his best voice said, “Tomorrow we leave here. I am going to ask the good Lord to bless and protect us on this dangerous journey. You may kneel, stand, or sit. The good Lord knows that we’re out here.

  “Our most heavenly Father, before we begin our trip north, we want to thank you for getting us this far, and for our many blessings. All of these hardworking men and I will travel north tomorrow and the days after. Lord, be in our hearts and give us the strength and encouragement to work hard and get these cattle to Ogallala so we can return safely to our homes and families in Texas. In his name, amen.”

  “Amen,” echoed across the field of cowboys. Many of them waved and thanked him for the prayer.

  His wife squeezed his arm as they headed for their wall tent. “Thanks. That even helped me.”

  “Thank you for reminding me.”

  “I had to. Your sister wasn’t here.”

  “She’s always been a big help to me. Susie supported me when I brought that Texas bunch to Arizona.”

  “But she never found your Hilda, did she?”

  “I think she looked hard for her.” They both laughed.

  She removed his boots, and he shook his head in the shadowy light of the tent. “Here you were living a sheltered life on a nice hacienda, and you chose to run off with a guy crazy enough to try to make money out of a busted cattle drive.”

  “Oh, it might have been a sheltered life. But I didn’t laugh this much. I didn’t feel as warm and wanted as I do in your arms. I knew I missed something—but I ignored the fact that it was having a real man.

  “You blame me for the smell of hay bothering you. That night, when we made love in the hay, a brickbat fell on top of my head. This is exactly what I had not had. The experience was so revealing to me, I even wondered if the novelty would go away—at your house, it was even better. I wasn’t jittery that night in the hay. I was playing around with a man I did not know much about, and me trusting him with all my love.”

  “In the short times we have been together, you never say no, you never have a bad day, you never fail to smile when we make love. That I realize and appreciate.”

  “Should I?”

  “Hell, no. Is there anything you regret about us?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is that?”

  “I didn’t find you sooner.”

  “Maybe it was best you were a widow all that time. I never looked at another woman when I was married to Marge. You could have come and gone. I really was as faithful with her as I am to you today.”

  “Then I will stop telling myself how foolish I was not having a man in those times.”

  “Those two that ride with me will tell you I never let any woman bother me, except for my wife. The two were shocked, I think, when I met you, but they pushed me in your direction.”

  “I know Jesus found me a bath. Boy, I had to swallow a lot to get the nerve up to ask you to wash me. You were not shocked, were you?”

  “No, and yes. That was an exciting event. I was shaking inside so bad, I couldn’t dare touch you.”

  “What a horrible thing to do. Here I was like some puta showing you my body, trying to be intimate with you so you could never forget me—I hoped. No, I prayed for God to forgive me for my wild ways, but I had faith you would not forget me, either.”

  “The diffused sunlight coming through that old canvas shone on your tan skin. I can see it now—all over again.”

  “I washed your shoulders later and thought how powerful you must be.”

  Then they were in each other’s arms, making love again. All his concerns dissolved about taking off for the time they spent making love. Cattle drive or no cattle drive, he had her for himself.

  CHAPTER 13

  To get things rolling the next morning, they sent Apache Joe and his two wranglers north first. That way, the horse herd didn’t get scrambled up in the herding operations. Then Mott and his skinner took the chuckwagon, and the t
hree stick-like figures of the cook’s party on horseback followed it. Poor Orientals looked like the round bottom boys, bouncing on their mounts in a stiff fashion going north.

  Decker was riding around blowing a trumpet, no music involved, just blasts like some bull bellowing, and the ear-shattering bawling of upset cattle accompanied him. The great bell on the lead steer clanged, plus, at the same time, all the horses with their riders that cussed a blue streak filled his ears, too. The lost herd began the long trail that crawled northward.

  This day would challenge them. Cole’s estimate was thirty miles. But it was the first adequate water source and, no doubt, why Decker stopped where he did on the Canadian where there was water. At last, under way, he wanted the cattle’s body condition to improve, not get worse. They had obviously been out of water too often, and run too hard in a combination of events before, so they needed to heal. Decker was already balking at some of the ways Lou James said they must go on this trip. Lou’s way was to zigzag on short daily trips northward to water sources, something Decker didn’t like. No doubt, that was why he stopped where he did and threw his hands up. So Chet had to stubbornly deal with him to overcome his reluctance, but so far he’d heeded Chet’s plans.

  He could tell that part wasn’t over. In the old Chisholm Trail days, there was usually adequate water sources back east to follow a straight trail, but in this arid country you had to crisscross to get to water. And if it took two weeks more, who cared, just so the cattle put back on some of their earlier weight loss.

  Hampt had done a helluva job of making soldiers out of those black cowboys. That first morning, Chet rode beside his wife parallel to the herd and avoided the dust of thousands of cloven hooves. He could only hope Hampt’s efforts were enough to hold off any attack they encountered from any renegade Indians.

  The day was hot, and the distance long, and he hoped the playa had enough water to satisfy their thirst. Hour by hour crept by. Noontime came and went. Thank God, the summer days were long. He watched a distant wall cloud build in the west and then vanish.

  Cole and Lou joined him. He knew they must be close to their first destination. He and Liz shared a nod of approval at their appearance.

  “See any Injuns?” he asked.