Hard Country

by Michael McGarrity

  He ate his meal perched on a log with two fellows he’d worked with up north a ways on other spreads, and learned that the ranch had been sold and the drive west to New Mexico would start in a matter of days. Except for a shed and a low-slung cabin, about the only other improvement on the land was a large corral that held the remuda.

  After his meal, he washed his plate and went to the corral to look over the horses. It was a mix of the usual nondescript, hardworking stock found on any ranch; some of the animals appeared to be half-broke, others looked sturdy and relatively gentled, and none seemed paunchy or unsound. On the far side of the corral, he spied a broomtail roan not much bigger than a pony that drew his attention. He ducked into the corral and made his way to the animal. It had horny growths on the inside of its front legs, and a sharp, arched back. In spite of the shoulder brand being altered just like on Wilcox’s bay, it was young Timmy’s pony sure enough.

  In the morning Kerney would watch with interest to see who cut out the roan. Wilcox was small enough to ride the pony, but so were several other hands he’d met. But no matter who saddled the broomtail, two horses stolen from his brother, both with the same altered brand, were on this ranch. That made for some sober speculation that he might be working side by side with one or more of the killers.

  He left the remuda in time to see Wilcox walking in the light of a full moon toward the cabin, where a man stood framed in the open doorway, backlit by the flames of the fireplace. Kerney figured it was the rancher Robertson, who’d sold out to move west.

  Kerney didn’t discount Robertson as a suspect just because he bossed the outfit. Many a man in West Texas had grown respectable after whipping a tired horse out of a town in some other state where the law had a jail cell or a hangman’s knot waiting for him.

  Had he chanced upon one or more of the murderers? If not, maybe he could at least learn the name of the men who’d sold his brother’s stolen horses.

  Kerney had grit but was no shootist when it came to gunplay. He wore his hogleg high and strapped tight, not low and loose like the pistoleros. He spread out his bedroll thinking he could easily end up dead if he didn’t bide his time, get the facts straight, and keep his temper. He’d never bushwhacked anyone but wasn’t opposed to doing it if that was the only way he could put the killers in their graves.

  Wilcox walked up as he was about to bed down.

  “I’m sending you and three other men east at first light,” he said. “Work the timber and brush rough country around the water holes and gather as many cows as you can. Most are mavericks with longhorn blood that have been running wild for so many years that moss is growing on their horns. You’ve got two days. Bring in what you gather and watch out for the bulls.”

  Wilcox pointed to a snoring man stretched out near the embers of the campfire. “That’s Buck Moore. You’ll ride with him. Do what he tells you.”

  “As you say,” Kerney replied.

  Wilcox nodded and left.

  Disappointed that he’d be delayed meeting Cal Doran yet again, Kerney pulled off his boots and settled down with a full belly to get some sleep.

  * * *

  Let down to see Tim’s pony remain unsaddled in the corral the next morning, Kerney picked out a fresh mount from the remuda and trailed his own horse behind as he lit out with Buck Moore, the ramrod, and two other waddies named Ed Pearl and Charlie Gambel. For two long days, they worked the brush in dense chaparral, with thickets of prickly pear impassible in places.

  Passage at times had to be on foot to reach the cows deep in the brush. They fought their way through undergrowth that poked, stabbed, jabbed, and cut, skirted angry six-foot-long rattlesnakes, and faced mean, wild, long-back bulls that charged straight at them before veering away to vanish into the brush. They worked a parcel of bottomland where the mesquites grew large and the hackberries provided some shade, but not even the shade could cool ground so hot that it almost scorched the hand to touch.

  Some of the cattle they worked were descended from stock brought to the New World by the Spaniards. Born wild during the war years, when ranchers and cowboys left the land to fight as Johnny Rebs, the animals had never known a rope around their necks or the searing heat of a branding iron. In among the bovines were a few mean mother cows that could kill a man or a wolf with their horns or hooves, survive a summer drought or a winter freeze, drop a healthy calf like clockwork every year, and never suffer a day’s sickness. They were rough, rangy, and lanky, and many could outrun a man on horseback.

  Some of the cattle were unbranded mavericks of mixed blood, not quite as wild and a bit easier to gather. But no matter the breed, busting them out of the brush was so perilous and painful that at the end of each day the men removed thorns and spines from their horses’ legs before tending to their own cuts and bruises.

  At one point they almost lost every animal they had gathered when a herd of fifty or more deer scampered through the cows and sent them stampeding for the breaks.

  During all of it, Buck Moore, who had a cleft palate that badly affected his speech, gave his orders with hand signals, which let him avoid talking.

  When they had seventy cows and calves corralled in a makeshift pen, Buck left to bring a few more men back from the ranch headquarters to help trail the animals to the main herd. Without the extra hands, they would lose most of the stock back into the brush, making it impossible to round them up in time to start the drive west.

  At camp that night, with Buck gone, Charlie and Ed were more talkative.

  “We don’t chew the fat much when we’re around Buck,” Ed Pearl explained in his gravelly voice. “It frets him that he can’t wag his tongue like an ordinary person.”

  “Gets angry ’cause he thinks he sounds stupid,” Charlie Gambel added. He held a stained, tightly folded piece of paper in his hand. “One of the boys you worked with on the Lazy Z says you can read.”

  “I can,” Kerney said.

  A boy of no more than sixteen years, Charlie had a button nose and cheeks that had yet to feel the sharp edge of a straight razor. He thrust the paper at Kerney. “I’d appreciate it if you’d read this to me. I’ve heard it read twice before but would sure like to hear it again.”

  Kerney unfolded the paper and in the light of the campfire scanned the one-page letter before reading it to Charlie. It was from a sister in Tennessee writing about the birth of her first child and the improving health of their mother, who had caught a bad chill that had laid her up over the winter. She closed by asking for news about Charlie and his older brother, Frank. The letter was nearly a year old.

  Kerney read it slowly as Charlie sat beside him, smiling and nodding his head.

  “Seems you and your brother are uncles,” Kerney said as he folded the letter and handed it back to Charlie. “Is Frank with the outfit?”

  Charlie’s smile vanished. “He’s dead. Cal Doran shot him down. I’d kill Doran myself, except he’s too good with a gun. Maybe I’ll bushwhack him.”

  Surprised to hear Charlie say exactly what he’d been thinking to avenge his own brother’s murder, Kerney gave him a long look.

  “It wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” Charlie said, flinching under Kerney’s stare, “him being a shootist and all.”

  “I can see how a fella might want to do that,” Kerney said.

  “I’ve told him not to talk that way,” Ed Pearl said with a disapproving shake of his head. “Either fight Cal square or let it be, is what I tell him.”

  “Who is this Cal Doran?” Kerney asked.

  Ed grunted. “A gunfighter by trade but a decent hand when he puts his mind to it; I’ll give him that.”

  It wasn’t unusual to have a hired gun on a trail drive. Oftentimes rustlers, criminals on the run from the law, ne’er-do-wells, and petty thieves worked as waddies and brushpoppers right along with the honest cowboys. And if the hard cases and ruffians weren’t working for an outfit, they were close by, ready to steal what they could from it any chance they got.

&nbs
p; That Cal Doran was a pistolero made the man all the more interesting to Kerney. “What happened between Doran and your brother?” he asked Charlie.

  Charlie shook his head sadly. “Cal called Frank out for stealing money from his bedroll.”

  “Was there any truth to it?”

  Charlie’s face turned red. “I won’t say nothing bad about my brother. Maybe Cal thinks he had cause, but he knew Frank was no match with a six-shooter. He could’ve just given him a good hiding and been done with it.”

  Ed nodded in agreement. “Big as Cal is, he could have whipped Frank good to teach the boy a lesson, kicked him off the ranch, and let it go at that.”

  Kerney considered young Charlie Gambel. “Might be best for you to go home to Tennessee.”

  “No, sir,” Charlie said emphatically as he stirred the campfire with a stick. “There’s nothing for me there anymore, and I’m bound to travel west.”

  Across the clearing, some of the cattle started milling and snorting.

  “That pen we threw up won’t hold those critters back if they decide to run,” Ed said. “Go calm them down, Charlie.”

  Charlie grabbed the reins to his pony and walked it out of the light of the campfire toward the pen.

  “He’s a good kid,” Ed said when Charlie was out of earshot, “but he’s got a ways to go to make a hand.”

  “Maybe so, if he sticks at it,” Kerney replied.

  Ed nodded. “After Cal gunned Frank down, Charlie took him to town to be buried. He lost a week’s wages doing it and gave the undertaker half a month’s wages to have him buried proper with a preacher saying words and a marker placed and all. Now, that’s brotherly love.”

  “Losing close kin can be hard,” Kerney said, “especially a brother.”

  “True enough.” Ed smiled, showing the gap where his two upper front teeth used to be, and spit a wad of tobacco juice on the ground. “I watched you eye that broomtail roan pony back at the remuda before we struck out.”

  “Did you?”

  Ed laughed and nodded. “Couldn’t wait for you to mount up. Wanted to see if your feet drug along the ground when you rode it. You weren’t for sure thinking of cutting it out to ride, were you?”

  “No,” Kerney replied, smiling back at Ed. “I just liked the look of it and thought about a young boy I knew it would suit.” He remembered the image of Timmy, who sat a horse just like his father, galloping that pony across the plains. The memory dug into him like the thorns of a Texas ebony. “Is it owned by the outfit?” he asked.

  “It surely is,” Ed answered. “I was there when Sam Wilcox bought a string of horses for the ranch, including that pony. Sam picked out that bay with the flame on his forehead that he favors and paid his own hard cash money for it. Got the best of the lot.”

  Kerney held his breath to keep from prodding Ed with more questions, hoping he’d volunteer additional information.

  Ed cocked an ear and listened. “Appears Charlie has those cows settled down,” he said.

  Kerney swallowed his disappointment and nodded in agreement.

  “He’s an easy boy to like,” Ed added, “although he gets riled if you call him that.”

  “I’d say his boyhood days are pretty much behind him,” Kerney replied.

  “That’s the truth of it.” Ed paused again to listen for a spell. “Yep, everything’s nice and quiet.”

  Kerney stood and reached for his saddle. “I’ll take first watch.”

  “Fine by me.” Ed stretched out on his blanket.

  Kerney gave up his attempt to be cautious. “Who sold those horses to Sam Wilcox?”

  “Don’t rightly remember his name. But Cal Doran seemed to know him. Both cut from the same cloth, I’d say—men intent on doing no good.”

  “Does anyone ride that roan pony?”

  “Cook does once in a while when he goes deer hunting. I ain’t seen anyone else on it.”

  In the light of the full moon, Kerney saddled his horse and mounted up. “I’ll send Charlie in. Tell him he’s got third watch.”

  “That boy has taken a shine to you,” Ed added, “and he may need as many friends as he can find.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I think Cal Doran has a grudge against Charlie over what his brother done.”

  “Can Charlie count you among his friends?” Kerney asked.

  “Yes, indeed, but I don’t plan on getting killed on account of it.”

  “That’s prudent,” Kerney said as he turned his horse and trotted away.

  Ed Pearl watched Kerney and his horse fade into a ghostly shape in the pale light of the full moon and then disappear. The sky was clear and full of stars. The night would cool down some, but tomorrow promised to be a scorcher. He wondered what held Kerney’s interest about those horses. He dozed off thinking the man had something pressing on his mind.

  5

  John Kerney finally met Cal Doran at dawn on the morning Sam Wilcox started the herd west to New Mexico Territory. He’d brought all the cowboys together, and as the men drank their coffee and ate breakfast, he told them to divide the herd into thirds and keep them apart on the trail until they reached good grass and water. Each drove would have a separate crew and trail boss, who’d report directly to Wilcox. Along with some other hands, Kerney, Charlie Gambel, and Ed Pearl were put under Buck Moore and given the job of herding the tailing bunch, which prompted Ed Pearl to whisper that they’d be eating dirt and dust for a month or more.

  After Wilcox finished, Kerney sought out Cal Doran and sized up the man as he approached. Except for his low-slung pistol, nothing about him seemed hard case. He matched Kerney’s six-foot height and in spite of a bushy mustache had a boyish look about him. Kerney introduced himself and Doran responded with an easy smile and a firm handshake.

  “I hear you might have some news for me out of Dodge City,” Kerney said.

  Doran nodded. “A shopkeeper was asking his customers about you by name. He wanted anybody who crossed your trail to pass on a message that your widowed sister-in-law had run off with some man and took your son with her.”

  “Did he say where she’d gone?”

  Doran shrugged. “North a ways, if I recall correctly. Nebraska or Wyoming. I don’t think the shopkeeper was sure himself where she’d lit out for. But he seemed glad to see the last of her. Said she was a little touched in the head from what had happened to her family and all.”

  “Did he say who she’d left with?” Kerney asked.

  “I don’t recollect him mentioning a name,” Doran replied. “But he did say that he expected you to settle accounts for your son’s room and board.”

  “I’ll surely do that,” Kerney said, wondering if Ida’s brother had run through all the money Kerney had given her to care for the baby when he’d sent her off to Dodge City on the wagon train. Or maybe Ida herself, in a weakened state of mind, had let her coin purse spring a leak.

  Kerney changed the subject. “I understand you know the man who sold Sam Wilcox some horses for the remuda a short while back.”

  Doran’s pleasant expression vanished. “Maybe I do, but I’d need to know your business with him before I give you a name.”

  Kerney shrugged. “From the way Ed Pearl described him, I thought he might be a friend I served with during the war.”

  Doran’s agreeable expression returned. He shook his head and chuckled. “Now, I hear you were a blue coat in the war, so unless you shook hands with a Johnny Reb across a picket line during a pause in the fighting, I surely doubt it. He’s a true son of Texas by the name of Dick Turknet, and he rode with a band of Confederate raiders who weren’t known for their genteel nature. He’s got a hard crust, if you get my drift.”

  “I do,” Kerney said. “Mind me asking if you have a grudge against Charlie Gambel because of his brother’s thievery?”

  Cal Doran laughed. “That boy Charlie surely has a fanciful turn of mind. I don’t know how many brushpoppers he’s convinced that I’m itching do him in. I put his b
rother, Frank, in his grave because of the stealing he did, and that’s the end of it. And while I think young Charlie isn’t the innocent little peckerwood he makes himself out to be, I’ve no personal reason to call him out.”

  Doran pulled his gloves out of his belt and started walking toward his horse. “It appears you and Charlie will be at the back end of the drive, eating trail dust for a time.”

  “Appears so,” Kerney replied as he kept pace.

  “I noticed that Double K brand on your horse,” Doran said. “Someone handy with a running iron wouldn’t have much trouble altering it, if he were a mind to. Bet it might even come out looking like the brand on Sam Wilcox’s fine new bay. But then I’ve always thought Dick and his cousins admired other people’s horseflesh too much.”

  “Do Turknet’s cousins have names?” Kerney asked.

  “I’m done talking about Dick and his lot,” Doran replied. “I’ve no need to get myself in a squabble with him.”

  “I had no mind to drag you into my business,” Kerney said.

  Cal nodded. “I appreciate that.”

  Over at the remuda, Buck Moore was signaling Kerney to get a move on.

  “I’d keep an eye peeled on that boy Charlie, if I were you,” Doran added as he swung into his saddle. “He’s useless and probably ain’t fit to shoot at except for target practice. Still, he might need some killing before we get paid off at the end of the drive. See you when we reach water.”

  Kerney touched a finger to the brim of his hat in response, mounted, and trotted his horse toward Buck, who waited at the corral. Although he didn’t think Charlie Gambel was as bad a kid as Doran made him out to be, the boy lacked the gumption needed to make a hand. Kerney decided it might be wise to keep Cal’s words in mind. He found himself inclined to like the man in spite of his outlaw reputation.