by J. T. Edson
Chapter Twelve
Listen to the Blood Call
‘Bad, huh?’ Wardle said sympathetically, following the direction of Goodnight’s gaze.
‘It could’ve been a whole heap worse,’ the bearded rancher replied. ‘About that golondrino. It was part of a bunch Pitzer Chisum brought in with your stock. Only Dawn Sutherland had trailed them up here. It was her who first put me wise to Chisum’s game. Dustine helped me cut the herd and we took out all the D4S critters. Only she left them with me while she headed for home to see her pappy.’
‘Ain’t that Dawn the spunky one,’ grinned Jones. ‘We didn’t go to the D4S with Darby having that bust leg. Figured to fetch his stuff back without bothering him. Only young Dawn licked us to it.’
‘Trust her for that,’ grinned Hultze. ‘What happened to our stock?’
‘Chisum took it with him,’ Goodnight replied. ‘Allowed he’d turn it loose close to its home range. I couldn’t’ve got it without shooting, which’d’ve spooked the herd anyways.’
‘We’ll tend to his needings,’ Wardle promised grimly.
Before any more could be said, Dusty rode up. Nobody but a close friend could have told by looking at his face how concerned he felt about the stampede.
‘I’m real sorry I started the shooting, Uncle Charlie,’ Dusty said.
‘You didn’t start it,’ Goodnight corrected.
‘I wanted to stop those two yahoos busting through until you’d had time to tell these gents about Dawn Suth—’
‘They know now. And my boys wouldn’t’ve let them go into the herd.’
‘Say. Where the hell’re them two jaspers at?’ Colburn demanded, rising in his stirrups and staring around. ‘They could’ve easy got somebody killed, acting that ways.’
‘That’s what they was after doing, I’d say,’ Dusty put in as the other ranchers also looked around without locating Luhmere and Turner. ‘And it was three of them, not two.’
‘How do you figure that out, Cap’n Fog?’ asked Wardle.
‘Way I see it, that lanky cuss in the coonskin cap was in it up to his dirty neck,’ Dusty replied. ‘And I’ll be tolerable surprised if either of the others ride for the Lazy N.’
‘Comes to that,’ Colburn remarked. ‘I know Needles of the Lazy N, and I’ve never seed either of them fellers on his place. They allowed that he only took ’em on recent when I asked them about it.’
‘Unless things’re better for Needles than most of us,’ Wardle commented, ‘I can’t seeing him having the money to take on extra help.’
‘I didn’t give much thought to it at the time,’ Colburn answered. ‘Hell! When somebody rides in to say you’ve had your gather wide-looped, you don’t stand around asking questions.’
‘That’s for sure,’ Dusty agreed.
The ranchers dismounted to cool and rest their horses. While waiting, Wardle inquired, ‘Why’d you reckon Scroggins’s in cahoots with Luhmere and Turner, Cap’n Fog?’
‘He didn’t meet up with us until last night,’ Hultze went on.
‘Way I see it, this all ties in to a play at stopping Uncle Charlie taking his cattle to Fort Sumner,’ Dusty replied. ‘First they get to Chisum and persuade him to grab off your stock to replace that herd Pitzer lost. Then they have Luhmere and Turner telling you about the thefts and bringing you after whoever took your cattle. To make sure nothing went wrong, they had Scroggins hid out. He come to you on the trail after dark and said how he’d seen Chisum delivering cattle to Uncle Charlie, likely steered you here—’
‘He did,’ Wardle confirmed.
‘They knew you don’t like Yankees, Tom,’ Dusty went on, ‘and were counting on you regarding Uncle Charlie as one. When you didn’t bust in and start the shooting, Luhmere and Turner made a stab at doing it. That damned fool golondrino coming out gave them an excuse. Once the first shot’d been fired, you’d’ve cut in figuring Uncle Charlie was lying about sending your cattle back.’
‘I’d say they picked on you, figuring you’d make some loco move and they could handle you easy, Cap’n Fog,’ Jones remarked. ‘If you know what I mean?’
Dusty grinned at the worried expression on the gangling rancher’s face. It had been many years since the small Texan’s lack of inches had caused him either embarrassment or resentment. So he took no offence at Jones’ comment.
‘There’s not many’d’ve thought their game out as quick as you did, Cap’n Fog,’ Hultze complimented. ‘Or gone at it the way you did to stop them.’
‘It was a fool way,’ Dusty grunted. ‘Turner moved faster than I expected to cock his Spencer and got off a shot.’
‘It turned out all right, boy,’ Goodnight assured him. ‘Damn it, though, Dawn’s flogging hell out of her horse to get back home and see you gents.’
‘How come?’ asked Wardle.
‘That’s something we could talk over better at the house,’ Goodnight replied. ‘If you gents can spare the time to take a meal and a drink, that is.’
‘We ought to be getting back and cutting Chisum’s sign,’ Jones said. ‘Time enough for it after we’ve taken Charlie up on his offer, though.’
‘If Cap’n Fog’s called the play right,’ Wardle continued, in a tone which showed that he did not doubt it, ‘Chisum’s done what he intended with the herd and’ll turn it loose. If I know those steers of mine, they’ll find their way back to their home range in the end.’
While waiting for the horses to recover from their strenuous exertions, the ranchers saw some of the cowhands returning. A few brought back cattle, but others came in empty-handed with tales of steers fleeing into the bush.
‘I went in after a bunch,’ the young cowhand, Austin, declared, his shirt torn to shreds and his face and torso sporting numerous vicious-looking scratches. ‘Was following a rattlesnake down a path that got narrower all the time. Only when that ole rattler started backing out of it, I figured that track was just a touch too tight for me to go along anymore.’
Knowing the manner in which brush-reared longhorns could pass through dense, almost impenetrable undergrowth, none of the listeners blamed him for failing to bring back the cattle. They gave him his laugh, but offered scant sympathy over his tattered condition. All the other Swinging G hands knew that they would most likely soon be brush-popping in an attempt to re-gather the lost cattle and bring the herd to its original strength.
Satisfied that the horses had recovered, the men started to move the herd back to the area from which they had fled. Tired by the stampede, the steers raised no further objections and went quietly. Looking back, Goodnight let out a low sigh of relief. They had come within a hundred yards of the thick country before he managed to turn the lead steer and he knew just how fortunate he had been.
Soon after moving the herd out, Goodnight asked for help to make a trail count. Accompanied by Wardle, he rode ahead. The two ranchers sat facing each other some twenty yards apart and the men channeled the cattle between them. Tactfully Goodnight placed the other rancher at the left, so that Wardle could study the brands on the passing steers while making his count.
Concern grew more apparent on Goodnight’s bearded face as he watched the last of the steers drawing ever nearer; but the numbers were falling short of the original two thousand. At least three-quarters of the herd had gone by before the count reached one thousand.
Wardle also counted, doing his work thoroughly although he was human enough to take notice of the brands. Seeing only Swinging G and D4S steers, he was fully satisfied that Goodnight had told the truth. The idea that maybe all his own and his companions’ stock had been with the herd, but escaped, never entered his head. He knew that would be almost an impossibility and trusted Goodnight’s honesty. In addition he was waiting with some eagerness to hear what the other rancher had to discuss. If it should be what Wardle hoped, Goodnight could count on at least one willing man in his audience.
At last the drag of the herd passed between the two ranchers. Tallying up their count, Goodni
ght and Wardle came together.
‘I make it fourteen hundred and sixty-five, Charlie,’ Wardle announced.
‘And me,’ Goodnight replied, knowing the number to be correct—and a whole lot short of the two thousand head he needed to finance his dream.
On the point of the herd, the first of the cattle drew near a victim of the stampede. Halting, the leader snuffled at the air. Then it cut loose with an eerie, mournful bellowing. Many of the following animals took up the sound, gathering around the gory body to paw in the earth and hook at the carcass with savage thrusts. Cursing cowhands forced the animals by their herd-mate’s body only to meet the same reaction when they came to the next dead steer.
‘Listen to the blood call!’ Jones said to Dusty as they rode towards the point. ‘Of all the noises a longhorn, or any other critter, can make, there’s nothing sounds worse.’
‘That’s for sure,’ agreed Hultze who was with them. ‘I’ve seen ’em gather off the range and bawl all night around a fresh-stripped hide that the cook’d left hanging on a corral fence. Not just home-range critters, but mossy-horned old ladinos’d most times run for cover at the first sight of a man.’
Although the other two men continued to talk as they rode along in the wake of the slow-moving herd, Dusty took little part in the conversation. The small Texan found his thoughts returning to the other two’s comments on the ‘blood call’. Despite having witnessed the phenomenon on the OD Connected range and occasionally during his travels, he had given it little attention. He did not know what quirk of nature, or primeval urge, caused the longhorn cattle to behave in such a manner. Certainly neither sympathy nor solicitude prompted it, for the cattle would hook at and try to gore to death any badly wounded member of the herd. Whatever the cause, Dusty wondered if the ‘blood call’ might be utilized to help rebuild the scattered shipping herd.
As Dusty had said, he came from open-range country. Yet he was all too aware of what rounding up cattle in thick brush meant. If they hoped to gather sufficient steers to cover the stampede’s losses, something quicker than the conventional methods must be tried. So Dusty rode along, half-listening to the two ranchers as they talked of the cattle industry’s troubles, or the evils of Reconstruction. All the time he inserted such comments as he felt necessary but mostly he was formulating a plan and hoped for a chance to discuss it with his uncle.
The chance did not materialize. Unsure of whether his idea would work, Dusty wanted to sound Goodnight out in private and there was always somebody close to the rancher. On reaching the lake, Dusty left the others to settle the cattle down and collected his dilapidated hat. Looking at it, he grinned and decided that he was lucky in not having bought a new Stetson the previous afternoon in Graham. No opportunity presented itself to speak to Goodnight while riding from the lake to the ranch house. Approaching the buildings, Dusty found that the remaining members of the floating outfit had arrived and were walking towards him.
Red Blaze was a tall, well-built youngster Dusty’s age, with an untidy mop of flaming red hair and a freckled, pugnaciously handsome face. Dressed in range clothes, he carried twin walnut-handled Army Colts butt forward in twist-hand draw holsters. During the War he had been Dusty’s second-in-command and won a reputation for recklessness which somewhat obscured his true virtues. Sure Red managed to find himself in any fight taking place close by, but once involved he became cool and capable. Dusty understood his hotheaded cousin and never hesitated to trust Red in any matter he understood.
Few people, seeing the gangling length, prominent Adam’s apple and mournful features, would take Billy Jack for a bone-tough, shrewd and efficient cowhand. Dusty knew him to be all of that, and also a reliant sergeant major who had given loyalty and backing on numerous missions against the Yankees in Arkansas. Billy Jack equaled Red in height, but looked like a starving bean-pole. However, he could handle his low-hanging Army Colts with precision and accuracy. If he felt any pleasure at reaching the Swinging G, or seeing his own spread’s segundo, he manage to hide it.
‘I’m right pleased to see you pair,’ Dusty greeted.
‘That means there’s something danged risky to be done,’ Billy Jack wailed, face contorting into even more woe-filled lines. ‘You see if it don’t, Red. He’s likely got them other two varmints killed off already.’
‘Where’s Mark and Lon at, Cousin Dusty?’ Red inquired, harboring much the same suspicions as his companion, although on a less drastic level. Then he noticed something else. ‘Hey! What in hell’s happened to your hat?’
Nothing Dusty could do had managed to return the battered Stetson to its former shape. So he had carried it along hanging by its storm-strap from the saddle horn.
‘A feller stomped on it,’ Dusty explained sketchily.
‘Same feller’s put the bullet through it?’ asked Red.
‘Nope,’ Dusty answered. ‘That was somebody else.’
‘Now me,’ declaimed Billy Jack with mournful satisfaction, ‘I don’t have even one feller riled at me.’
‘Damned if I know why,’ Red grinned, then became seriously hopeful. ‘Do we have trouble, Cousin Dusty?’
‘Some,’ the small Texan admitted.
While unsaddling the paint, Dusty told Red and Billy Jack all that had happened since his arrival in Young County. Both the OD Connected riders showed that they understood the points he made and scowled when they heard his conclusion on the idea behind the trouble.
‘That damned Chisum!’ Red growled. ‘We should take out after him—’
‘Chisum’s only part of the game,’ Dusty interrupted. ‘Likely he only went along with it because Pitzer lost that herd and he wanted to make some easy money. Unless I call it wrong, Chisum’s out of the deal now. Likely the fellers who used him won’t give up that easy. They damned near brought off their play today. And still might unless we can fetch at least five hundred steers out of the brush in the next few days.’
‘I told you so!’ Billy Jack announced dismally, turning to Red. ‘I said there was something risky a-foot.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Red.
‘Dustine, Charles,’ Goodnight called.
‘Yes, sir?’ Dusty answered and Red turned on hearing his seldom-used name.
‘These gents will be dining with me. Will you tell Rowdy to make the arrangements?’
‘Yo!’ Dusty replied and let his paint enter the corral. ‘We’ll do it now.’
‘I dearly love brush-popping,’ Billy Jack stated as he walked with the other two towards the cook-shack. ‘Effen a thorn don’t gouge your eyes out, the branches bust your ribs, or gut your hoss so it falls and rolls on top of you. And that’s only in thin brush.’
‘Young County’s different, though,’ Red informed him. ‘They don’t have wait-a-minute thorns up here—’
‘Naw,’ answered Billy Jack, stoutly refusing to be comforted. ‘They have wait-a-son-of-a-bitching-hour thorns in this no-account section.’
‘I figured you boys’d fight shy when it comes to hard work,’ Dusty put in. ‘So I thought up a fool notion that might just save us having to go in after them.’
Billy Jack let out an explosive snort which expressed disbelief at Dusty thinking out ways to make his life easier. However, Red saw what might provide a way of avoiding the drudgery involved in brush-popping.
‘Been thinking, Cousin Dusty,’ the redhead said. ‘Could be them jaspers who started the stampede’re still around and looking for another chance to make fuss for Uncle Charlie.’
‘Could be,’ Dusty agreed. ‘Only, afore you ask, you’re not taking out to look for them. I need you and Billy Jack to help me try out this notion of mine.’
By that time, they had reached the cook-shack and entered to find John Poe talking with Rowdy. Just awake, the segundo of the Swinging G wore a red undershirt, levis pants and moccasins. Looking at the battered condition of the hat in Dusty’s hand, Poe grinned and said:
‘Man’d say you’ve been mixed in some fuss, Dusty.’
> ‘Some,’ Dusty admitted and told about the stampede.
‘Damn it!’ Poe spat out. ‘We’ll play hell trying to get that five hundred head back again.’
Even given such an opportunity, Dusty hesitated before mentioning his idea to the more-experienced Poe. While not sycophants in any way, Red and Billy Jack had become so used to his ‘fool notions’ paying dividends that they expected it to happen. For all his comments on brush-popping, Billy Jack had done little of the work. On the other hand, Poe had been reared in brush country and could form a far better estimation than the OD Connected men of the scheme’s possibilities. Considering the novel nature of the suggestion he aimed to put out, Dusty wondered if he might be laying himself wide open for ridicule by making it.
‘What’re you looking so joyful about?’ Rowdy inquired, eyeing Billy Jack suspiciously.
‘Was thinking,’ the doleful one answered. ‘Cap’n Fog ain’t telled you the best of it yet.’
‘What’d that be, Cap’n?’ asked the cook.
‘Uncle Charlie’s entertaining four ranchers, Red and me to dinner at the house tonight,’ Dusty told him.
‘I can tend to it,’ Rowdy stated.
‘You ain’t heard the best of it yet,’ warned Billy Jack.
‘They’ve got ten men with them,’ Red went on. ‘And all of ’em look hungry.’
‘If they ain’t, my cooking’ll help ’em get that way,’ Rowdy replied. ‘Damn it, though, I’m going to need some more meat. How’s about getting somebody to go out and butcher a steer for me, John?’
‘You’ve got two of Rio Hondo County’s best butchers waiting here, all hot and eager to volunteer.’
‘Who else’s here, Red?’ Billy Jack inquired, looking around.
The cook’s words had acted as a spring to set Dusty in motion. It almost seemed to be a sign that Rowdy’s need for meat came at such a moment. Certainly the cook’s requirements came at a time to merge with the small Texan’s. So Dusty told Red and Billy Jack what he wanted them to do while demonstrating their talents as Rio Hondo County’s two best butchers.
