The Omaha Trail
Page 10
“You’ll be ridin’ with one of the others to track the herd. I want to know where Kramer is, whether or not he’s ridin’ point or drag or just bein’ a flanker.”
“Shouldn’t be hard,” Markham said. “He chaws on tobacco and has to spit ever’ so often.”
The men in the room chuckled or laughed.
“Likely, Kramer will foller one of them rivers into Kansas. In a week, we might know which one.” Concho rolled a cigarette. A couple of the men stuck quirlies in their mouths and struck matches to light them.
“He’ll play hob crossin’ the Canadian,” a man named Skip Hewes said. “If it rains he could be stalled there for a couple of days.”
“That’s why we’re goin’ to keep close watch on that herd,” Concho said. He turned to Randy.
“Did you hear the clank of a cowbell when that herd started movin’ out?”
Randy shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “I know what you mean. I listened but I didn’t hear one.”
“Okay,” Concho said. “Kramer ain’t sure of his lead cow yet. When he is, he’ll bell it and we ought to be able to hear it if we get within a couple hunnerd yards from the head of the column.”
“Yeah, you can hear one of them cowbells from a long ways off on a good day,” Dan Foster said. He was one of the older men and his hair was streaked with gray so that when his hat was off, his head resembled a badger. He smoked a ready-made cigarette and wore a faded gray bandanna around his scrawny neck.
“Logan,” Concho said, fixing his steely gaze on Logan Heckler, a grizzled man in his early forties with a dark beard, “you and Markham will scout the lead cow in that herd and I’ll spell you after your first report. We’ll take turns scoutin’ the herd so’s we don’t make no mistakes.”
“Sounds like a fair plan,” Lem said. “Easy trackin’ and there’s plenty of places up in Kansas where we might jump the drovers and relieve them of all them cattle.”
Some of the men laughed.
Concho scowled.
“Don’t think it’s going to be real easy,” he said. “Kansas is flatter’n a damned pancake. A man can see for miles.”
“See what?” Will Davis cracked. “Jackrabbits?”
Some of the men laughed.
“I see you’ve been there, Will,” Concho said, and blew a stream of gray-blue smoke from his mouth.
“I got out of Kansas fast as I could,” Davis said, and there was more laughter.
“Well, I see you’re all in a good mood and ready to ride,” Concho said. “Let’s saddle up and grab our grub and set out. Finish your coffee and we’ll all meet at the livery. The kid there is goin’ with us.”
There were a few groans, but Concho ignored them.
Randy shrank against the wall and did not look at any of the men.
The men gulped the rest of the coffee in their cups and filed out of the room. Finally there was only Concho, Lem, and Randy.
“On your feet, kid,” Concho said. “I hope you got plenty of cartridges for that hog leg you’re wearin’, and got a rifle stuck to your saddle.”
“Yes, sir, I have two extry boxes of cartridges for each of my guns.”
“Ever killed anybody?” Concho asked.
Randy stood up and shook his head.
Lem gave the young man a contemptuous look.
“Hell, he ain’t never swallered a frog neither,” Lem said.
“Well, maybe on this ride he can do both,” Concho said.
Randy’s knees began to shake and he was sure they were knocking together. But he knew enough to keep his mouth shut. If he said anything, both men would probably make fun of him.
“Let’s head out, then,” Concho said as he picked up his hat and his rifle, which were inside the wardrobe cabinet.
The three walked into the lobby of the hotel. Concho stopped at the desk and laid a bill on the counter.
“Jeff, you can have the maid clean up my room and take away the coffee and cups.”
The clerk looked at the double sawbuck.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Larabee,” Jeff Osteen said.
“I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. Maybe a month.”
“That’ll be fine, Mr. Larabee. I’ll hold your room for as long as you like.”
“He’ll want the presidential suite when he gets back,” Lem said.
Concho shot him a dirty look.
Then the three of them walked out of the hotel and into the burning dawn. They headed for the livery stable as the sun crept up the street and chased away the shadows of the buildings. It was a fine morning and they even heard birds chirping in the few trees that grew along the street.
Concho twirled his rifle like a baton and started to whistle “Billy Boy.”
Randy was beginning to admire Concho, while he was taking a strong dislike to Lem.
One thing he knew.
He sure didn’t want to kill nobody.
Nor eat a damned frog.
Chapter 17
That first day of the drive was pure hell for Paddy O’Riley.
The cattle were unruly, to put it mildly, and the drovers ran their horses to a lather running wayward cattle back into the herd. The homeward urge was strong in those cattle bringing up the middle and the rear. Several bolted and turned back toward the home range, so the drovers had to corral them with agile horses, and sometimes it took two or three riders to stem the tide of runaways.
Paddy rode point and kept his eye on the leaders in the herd. The next morning, after making a distance of some eight or nine miles, he got the bell from the chuck wagon and attached it to a collar he put on the lead cow’s neck. Now, with the cattle following his lead, the herd could hear the bell and know where the leader was. It was an old trick, but it worked.
When Paddy turned the herd to bed down for the night on a long stretch of grassy plain, he was plumb worn out.
“We just barely broke the gravity of Shawnee Mission,” he told Steve Atkins, who had assisted him on point.
“They’ll settle down tomorrow,” Steve said. “We’re gettin’ ’em trail broke, I think.”
“I think them cows can still smell the home range,” Paddy said. “Another day or two, they’ll sniff new ground and grass and maybe get the idea that they’re goin’ someplace where the grazin’s better.”
“I guess you have to think like a cow,” Steve said.
“It helps,” Paddy replied.
The nighthawks circled the herd all night, singing to them and chasing a few head trying to escape the herd, but not a head was lost, and by morning, Paddy was satisfied that his drovers were top-notch. They all listened to the yodeling of coyotes during the night, but they had a full moon and could spot any furry marauders before they got after the bedded-down cattle.
Wu made a large campfire that first night with kindling carried in the supply wagon, and some of the drovers gathered enough wood from along a creek to keep the blaze going all night. Men grabbed plates of chow, ate quickly, then returned to their duties as nighthawks tending the herd. Alfredo Alicante finished hobbling the horses in the remuda that he quartered near the supply wagon. He gave them each a dip of corn and oats before joining the men at the campfire.
Paddy sat there, scraping up the last morsels of beef and beans on his plate.
“How’re the horses, Fredo?” he asked.
“Jumpy,” he said. “The horses are not accustomed to be around so many cattle.”
“They’ll get used to it after they’ve been under saddle in the days to come.”
Wu filled Alicante’s pewter plate and handed him a tin cup full of hot coffee. The Mexican sat on the bare ground like the others and gobbled his food. Paddy watched him. He knew a hungry man when he saw one, and Alfredo, he knew, had put in a good day’s work leading all the horses in the wake of the cattle.
“We want to have an early start in the morning,” Paddy told the men around the campfire. “Dane’s going to be comin’ up behind us and we got to make more miles tomorrow.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Paddy said. He looked up at the stars and the round moon that flickered its eerie glow. “We can’t expect all the goin’ to be as easy as it was today.”
Wu came over and stood next to Paddy.
“I will make the sandwiches,” he said. “In two weeks, you must kill cows for me to butcher.”
“I know,” Paddy said. “We allowed extry head for that.”
“Good,” Wu said, and bowed slightly before he went back to the wagon to make sandwiches for the drovers to take with them before the herd moved out again around dawn.
Harvey Tolliver had just finished laying out his bedroll and was taking off his boots to lie down and get some sleep when Paddy called over to him.
“Harve, got a wee minute?” Paddy said.
“Sure, boss,” Tolliver said. He pulled his boots back on and walked over to the fire.
“You relieve Bill at midnight, don’t you?” Paddy said.
“Bill or Whit. We’re doubled up on the night herd.”
“You got a spyglass or field glass?”
Tolliver shook his head. “Nope,” he said. He was a tall, gangly man with light flaxen hair that blew into his face when his hat was off. His hat was off now and he kept brushing away the rampant strands of hair. Half of his teeth were missing and, with his twice-broken nose, he looked like a half-wit.
“I got me a spyglass in those saddlebags over yonder by the wheel of Wu’s chuck wagon. ’Fore you go to sleep, you get it. Don’t double up, but widen your ridin’ circle. Okay?”
“Sure, boss, but why?”
“You’re going to be lookin’ for any distant campfire, listenin’ for any hoofbeats out on the prairie. You look and you listen good, hear?”
“Sure, boss, but why? There ain’t nothin’ out there but jackrabbits and coyotes.”
Paddy spat into the fire. The fire hissed and the spittle evaporated. “Might be some folks a-watchin’ where we go.”
“Rustlers?” Tolliver asked.
“Could be.”
The others at the fire turned their heads and listened more intently.
Wu peeked out through the back flap of the chuck wagon, then backed out of sight just like a curious prairie dog.
“Well, a rustler ain’t goin’ to light no fire,” Tolliver said.
“If they’s a bunch of ’em laggin’ ahind us, they might. It can get mighty cold out here at night.”
Tolliver scratched the side of his head.
“Yeah, yeah, they might,” he said. “If they be a long ways off and think we’re not goin’ to pay them no mind.”
“Or if you hear some riders checkin’ anywheres on our tail or maybe tryin’ to steal our horses, you come tell me. I’m sleepin’ right behind the cook wagon.”
“Sure, boss,” Tolliver said. “But I’d rather be ridin’ with someone. I don’t see too good in the dark.”
“You got big ears, Harve. Seein’ at night is mostly listenin’.”
Tolliver’s face wrinkled up in perplexity, but after thinking if over for a few seconds, he nodded. “Yeah, I got good ears,” he said.
“Big ears, Harve,” Steve piped in.
Alicante laughed softly and then drank a swallow of coffee.
“Left saddlebag,” Paddy said to Harvey when he walked over and picked up the bags next to the wheel. “Looks like a black tube or box. It’s one o’ them collapsin’ thingamajigs.”
Tolliver pulled out the spyglass and turned it one way, then another.
“Pull on the end of it,” Paddy said.
Harvey tugged at the wrong end, then tried the other end. To his surprise the tube elongated and he marveled at its new size.
“Now you look up at the sky and twist that ring on the end to make it come into focus.”
Tolliver put the eyepiece to his eye and tilted the tube upward. All he saw was a blur of lights in the sky. He twisted the ring and saw the lights converge and give him a clear image.
“I got it,” he exclaimed.
Cheers from the campfire.
Tolliver walked back to where Paddy was sitting and tried the spyglass on others seated there. He twisted the ring to bring their faces into focus.
“It’s a marvel,” he said.
“You use that and move it real slow when you’re lookin’,” Paddy said. “You see a fire or riders, you come and get me.”
“I’ll do ’er, boss,” he said.
He walked off then, looking at everything within view. He stumbled a few times and finally retracted the telescope and went to his bedroll and took off his boots. He slept with the instrument close at hand.
Paddy stayed by the fire until his eyes began to droop. He listened to the lowing of the cattle after he crawled into his bedroll and heard the cowhands on night watch singing off-key songs to keep the cows bedded down. He fell asleep with the smell of cattle, coffee, beef, and beans in his nostrils.
Wu made beef sandwiches with mustard and ketchup, stacked them in wooden boxes lined with butcher paper.
Finally the fire died down and red and orange sparks flew up in the air whenever the breeze tugged at the burning wood. The camp was quiet and the cowhands’ songs floated over the cattle and lulled them to sleep.
The long drive had begun and by morning, another herd would be wending its way north, following a parallel path to the same destination.
And above it all, the North Star was the guiding light for all travelers, near and far, friend or foe.
Chapter 18
Ora Lee touched Dane on the shoulder and gently shook him awake.
“Len Crowell is here,” she said to him. “He’s having coffee with your pa.”
Dane blinked his eyes and sat up in his bed.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“By my clock it’s four thirty,” she said. “Dark as pitch outside.”
“Tell Pa and Len I’ll be right there.”
Ora Lee left the bedroom and Dane could hear her pattering footsteps down the hall. Then he heard low voices. He rubbed his eyes, swung out of bed, and touched the cold floor with his bare feet.
He walked to the sideboard and poured water from a porcelain pitcher into a metal bowl. He splashed water onto his face and rubbed some in his hair, smoothed it out. He looked in the small oval mirror hanging from the wall and pulled the skin down from under both eyes.
“Not too red,” he said to himself.
He dressed quickly and strapped on his gun belt. He carried a Colt .45 single-action revolver in a plain black leather holster. The pistol had five cartridges in the chamber. The firing pin rested on an empty cylinder. His belt held two dozen cartridges in its leather loops.
He pulled on his boots, retrieved his hat and bandanna from the wardrobe, and walked out to the front room.
Dane sat down at the table with Len. A moment later, Ora Lee appeared and poured coffee into his empty cup.
“I got ham and eggs for you,” she said.
“No. Too much goin’ on, Ora Lee. I’ll skip breakfast this morning.”
“Suit yourself. I knew you wouldn’t eat anyway. So I’ll eat it myself.”
Dane chuckled.
He sipped his coffee. He could tell that Len was waiting to talk to him, holding a whole spate of conversation inside like a kid who had just caught his first crawdad. Wisely, Len waited.
Thor sat in his chair trying not to doze off. He smelled of talcum powder and mustard plaster. Dane had heard him coughing the night before and then the soothing voice of Ora Lee as she doctored him with home medications, honey and sorghum, the chest pack.
“All right, Len,” Dane said after his third sip of coffee. “Men all up and rarin’ to go?”
“Yep. Bunkhouse is plumb empty. Your horse, Reno, is saddled and the saddlebags packed with grub, your canteens are both full, and all you got to bring is your bedroll a
nd rifle. We’re all set.”
“Barney all packed up?”
“Chuck wagon’s loaded to the gills,” Len said.
“Remuda?”
“Rufio’s got ’em all on a long leash. One other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“You know that Mex that Joe Eagle said wouldn’t come on the drive?”
“Carlos something,” Dane said.
“Well, sir, he showed up last night and I hired him on. Of course, you can fire him. Name’s Carlos Montoya.”
“Why’d he change his mind—do you know?”
“Well, he said he sold some horses to a man named Concho and then he saw Concho and some other hard cases head out yesterday mornin’.”
“Head out where?”
“Carlos heard them talkin’ about trackin’ a big herd of cattle and rustlin’ them. Made Carlos mad because he knew his friends were on that drive. He said there were about a dozen men, all armed to the teeth, and they lit a shuck for the north.”
“Damn,” Dane said.
Thor roused from his torpor and let out a long wheeze.
“Throckmorton,” Thor said. “You can bet your britches he’s behind all that.”
“Yeah, Pa, I think you’re right.”
“Carlos is ready to fight those hombres, he said. He said they are all killers and he don’t want to lose his friends.”
“You did right to hire him on, Len. We can use another hand anyway. Paddy and I are both on the light side as far as hands go.”
“Good,” Len said.
“Well, you go on and make sure everything’s ready to start those cattle. I’ll be along directly.”
“Sure thing, Dane.” Len got up from the table and left through the front door.
Dane turned to speak to his father.
“You all right, Pa?” he asked.
“I been better.”
“I’ll be gone a good three months, I reckon.”
“Wisht I was a-goin’ with you.”
“You got something you wanted to tell me about Throckmorton before I go?”
“I been thinkin’ on it. Ain’t somethin’ I’m right proud of.”
“Families shouldn’t have secrets from each other,” Dane said.
“Well, families do have secrets. Plenty of them. I don’t know. Maybe I ought to tell you. Case I ain’t here when you get back from Omaha.”