Open Range

by Lauran Paine

  He dropped the stick and looked slowly in all directions. That wolf had sounded close, but of course he wasn’t. Wolves had learned before most animals had that the sour scent of humans meant guns.

  “Hey,” a voice said from beneath the old wagon. “What’re you doing out there?”

  Button twisted toward the voice but said nothing. He went back to his blankets, and in the morning no one mentioned having seen him standing there in the moonlight listening to a mournful wolf.

  Before sunrise Mose left riding a large seal-brown horse and carrying two croaker sacks rolled and lashed behind his cantle. They figured he would be back tomorrow night; one day to reach the town and make the purchases, and one day getting back. When they had seen the town a week or so earlier, they were driving cattle, which moved much slower than horses.

  Charley led the way up where he had seen the cattle. The sun was hot again, so after sighting the critters they hunted creek shade to tank up their horses and to rest for a while.

  Boss was in a philosophical mood. Usually when he was like this he lectured Button. Today was no exception. He squinted in the direction of the herd and said, “Boy, when you’re on your own, get hired on in some town and learn a trade. Maybe like the mercantile business. Or the cafe business. Even blacksmithing is a good trade. There are lots of trades a feller can learn in a town.”

  Button was chewing a grass stalk when he said, “I don’t like towns. I never liked them.”

  Boss leaned with his back to a pair of creek willows. “Look at things like they are,” he said. “With a trade in a town you always got a roof over your head, a bed up off the ground to sleep in, food no farther away than a cafe, and whether it’s hot or cold, you can always stay dry.” Boss turned to see what impression his wisdom was having. It seemed to be having very little. Button was leaning on an elbow chewing the length of grass while gazing steadily far out.

  Boss glanced at Charley, who simply shrugged and arose to snug up the cinch, remove the hobbles, and rebridle his horse.

  They went more than a mile out of their way to get around the cattle, between them and the distant mountains. Boss stood in his stirrups to signal with an upraised arm for them to start down toward the herd.

  The cattle were a mixture of slab-sided razor-backs with horns that tipped upward, andredgrade animals with white faces, broad backs, and large hams.

  Under different circumstances they would have bet that the razorbacks would run at the firstsight of mounted men, but these animals had not been without someone on horseback pushing them along since some were calves. They accepted mounted men with something like equal parts of resignation and annoyance.

  The herd broke up a little, came together again with a rider on each wing, and finally settled in behind a mottled razorback steer nearly as tall as a saddle horse. He knew what he was supposed to do and where they were going, so he took the lead and plodded dutifully along.

  Button brought up the drag of young calves and their anxious mothers, along with a scattering of lame animals, or just plain lazy ones. Button was always put in the drag. At least this time he needed no handkerchief to keep from being stifled by manure-scented dust.

  Today the heat was a little drier, as was the ground. Because there was no hurry, the cattle were permitted to browse as they went along, something else they had become accustomed to.

  Two events broke the sameness. The first was a prime young pronghorn who was slow getting out of his bed when the riders came along, perhaps because he thought only the cattle were out there with him.

  His mistake. Boss shot him on the run. They had to halt and gut him for carrying. The cows got a mile ahead before the men were ready to ride again.

  The second event occurred with the wagon in sight. A short-backed brindle cow who looked as though she was in the last stages of bloat left the drive. All Charley Waite’s swearing could not make her go back, so he drew off and watched as she went looking for something she never found: a hiding place amid trees or thick underbrush where she could have privacy while calving.

  She didn’t have time enough for much of a search, so she settled for second best, a grassy high landswell that offered an unobstructed view in all directions. She stood skylined up there watching Charley, the nearest potential enemy, scored the ground with her left horn, then with her right, and pawed dirt. She was not challenging the horseman, nor threatening him; she was telling him very plainly to stay away and leave her alone.

  He looped his reins and lit up a smoke. When Boss came along Charley said, “It’s not coming right. When she passed me, only one foot was out.”

  They dismounted to wait. The herd went southward with only Button far back to keep it moving.

  Deerflies came out of nowhere to pester the waiting men. They kept gloved hands moving; deerflies didn’t just bite, they stung.

  The cow was up and down several times, lowing and looking back where her straining should have left a calf. Boss lifted his hat to scratch, dropped the hat back down, and smashed his quirley into the ground. Neither man said a word; they had to wait, whether they liked it or not. They could not approach her until she was wringing wet with sweat and too weak from straining to jump and charge them.

  Finally, when they saw her beating her head on the ground, they arose, snugged up cinches, mounted, and rode at a walk toward the low top-out. When they were about seventy-five feet away, Boss unslung his lariat and rode with it loosely draped around the saddlehorn.

  They widened the distance between them so as to approach the panting, wild-eyed cow from far out on both sides. They came together again behind the downed animal. Charley pointed. One jelly-like little hoof was out, along with half a leg. There was no sign of the other hoof.

  They rode closer and sat a moment to see if the cow would try to stagger to her feet to charge them. She could not, because she was completely exhausted from straining. When they dismounted, the cow raised her head to try to see them over the enormously distended side of her body, then flung her head down hard against the ground, tongue lolling, eyes bloodshot and glazed.

  Charley took the hondo end of Boss’s lariat, went up behind the cow, knelt, removed his gloves, and rolled up one sleeve. He probed for the hung-up hoof, found it, got the hoof out where it was supposed to be, looped the rope, and raised his hand.

  Boss took one dally on his saddlehorn from the ground, kept the rope in his fist to pay out if he had to, and backed his horse.

  Twice Charley signaled for slack; they let the cow pant and groan for a few moments each time, then started up again. The third time the calf came out like the seed being popped out of a grape. Charley freed the rope and flung it away, tailing the calf around in front of the cow, where she could see it and start the cleaning-up process without getting up. Then he quickly mounted his horse and turned away.

  But this cow did not have even one charge left in her.

  They watched her for a while, then turned to catch up with the drive, Boss coiling his rope as they moved along. He studied the drive up ahead, then looked around the empty countryside, and finally squinted skyward. “No more rain,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Charley was squinting down where Button was sashaying to keep an old cutback with the herd, and grinned. “Another couple of years, Boss, an’ he’s going to make a pretty fair hand.”

  Boss Spearman watched Button until he got the cutback turned into the herd, then looped his rope and said, “It’s no life for a kid, Charley. In fact, it’s no life for a man. He’d ought to get settled in somewhere. Learn that there’s more to life than lookin’ at the back end of cows. Maybe in a few years take a wife.”

  Charley was silent for a while. They loped to catch up and when they hauled back down to a walk he said, “You can’t make up somebody else’s mind for him. He’s living better now than when we found him living out of scrap buckets behind cafes and such.”

  “Yeah. But this ain’t what a young feller had ought to want to do. Charley, we’ve had t
rouble ever since we come into this country. Our kind of work is about done for. But even if it wasn’t, what do either one of us have to show for it?”

  “Well, boss, I got a good saddle, two guns, and my blankets. You got a fortune in cattle. Neither one of us had them things when we was his age.”

  “That’s my point, Charley. We got just about everything we’re ever goin’ to have in this damned lifetime. But Button, hell, he’s ripe for better things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, bein’ a doctor, or a harness maker. Maybe go to work clerkin’ in a big store and someday owning it.”

  None of those sounded appealing to Charley Waite, so he put a screwed-up stare on the older man. If they hadn’t scuffed over a lot of campfires together, Charley might have held his tongue now. He said, “Too bad you never had a son.”

  Spearman gazed dead ahead for a long while, then simply said, “Yeah. Maybe.”

  They picked up the gait, fanned out to bunch up the herd where it was beginning to get too scattered, and kept their wing positions until they were close enough to camp to leave the cattle to themselves.

  Button had been picking up twigs as he rode along and had a tidy little bundle when they reached the wagon, where he threw them down before riding over to off-saddle and hobble his horse.

  Everyone was mostly silent through supper and afterward, when they eased back to smoke and let their thoughts wander. Boss went off to his blankets, leaving the kid and Charley near the dying fire. Button asked a question out of the blue that caught Waite unprepared. “If a man gets married an’ his wife gets heavy an’ it’s not coming right, what does a man do?”

  Charley gained time by leaning with elaborate precision to flip the butt of his quirley squarely into the center of the dying fire. Then he settled back and removed his hat to study the inside of it before answering. “He fetches in a doctor.”

  “If he’s out in a place like this?”

  Charley put his hat back on. “A man had ought to know better’n have his woman fifty miles from a town if she’s calvy.”

  Evidently these were not the answers Button had hoped for, so he simply grunted up to his feet and went off in the direction of his bedroll, leaving Charley sitting there stoically for another five minutes, before he rolled up his eyes, wagged his head, and went off to his own bedground.

  Chapter Three

  A Long Day

  They spent most of the following day emptying the wagon and rolling up its waterproofed covering to let hot sunlight reach in and thoroughly dry things.

  They also rode for firewood, which could only be found over along the crooked creek. Even that was not very burnable, because creek willows, even bone-dry ones, lacked whatever other woods possessed to burn well.

  In the midday heat, they bathed in the creek and dried themselves in the sunlight. They also made a slow ride around the cattle. It was getting past calving season, though with bulls and cows having free choice, calves could come just about any time after February. With old cows they occasionally did not arrive until midsummer or later.

  As the sun set, they began watching for Mose. When he did not appear even after dark they cobbled together a supper of antelope meat with tinned corn and stewed tomatoes.

  They ate without comment, their thoughts uncharitable. An hour later, with only moonlight to see by, Boss said, “You don’t suppose he got into a poker game, do you?”

  Charley had had similar thoughts earlier, had decided Mose’ wouldn’t do that with someone else’s money, and now said so. “Maybe his horse pulled up lame, or maybe he got a late start back.”

  Nothing more was said about Mose’s absence. When Boss eventually arose to seek his blankets, he stood a long time looking southeastward and listening. When he left the area of the dying little fire, he was scowling.

  Button, who had been silent up until this time, finally spoke. “He could have got hurt between that town and camp.”

  Charley nodded. “Maybe. But we’d never find him at night.”

  Button sat slumped nursing a thin brown-paper smoke, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. “Charley?”

  The older man raised his eyes, turning cautious and wary. The kid sometimes came up with the damndest questions.

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember that fight Mose got into with those horse ranchers couple months back near that Mex town near the border?”

  Waite remembered. Mose hadn’t started the fight, the horse ranchers had. When it was over, Mose was bleeding from the nose and had a split lip and raw knuckles. The horse ranchers had four cowboys beaten unconscious and one of the ranch owners, an older, graying man, unable to straighten up. He had gone for his hip holster when Mose had been occupied with two riders, and Mose had somehow managed to kick him squarely between the legs while battering his riders.

  “I remember it, kid. I don’t expect to ever forget it. That’s something about Mose I never could figure out. How can a man be so sort of—well—slow in the head sometimes, and yet be such a smart fighter.”

  “Maybe he’s not back because he got into another fight. Maybe he’s lyin’ hurt in town or they got him locked up.”

  Charley gazed at the pale coals that blushed soft red at the slightest breath of moving air. He really had thought Boss should have sent him, or gone himself, rather than send Mose to that town. He said, “Go bed down. Nothing we can do tonight anyway.”

  Button obediently arose and went toward the front of the wagon where his blankets were. It was the first bedroll he’d ever owned. It wasn’t much, three old moth-eaten brown army blankets Boss had dug out and a ground canvas with most of the waterproofing worn off it. But it was his and he treasured it.

  Charley had a final smoke for the day and was sitting hunched when Boss appeared soundlessly in his stocking feet, hair awry, solemn as an owl. He sat down like an Indian, neither addressed Charley nor looked at him, but sat there peering into the rusty red ash of their supper fire for a long time before finally speaking.

  “I heard the kid,” Boss said.

  Charley’s answer to that was short. “He’s worried.”

  Boss still did not raise his eyes. “You worried?”

  Charley trickled bluish smoke while replying. “Yeah, I’m worried. Have been worried since sundown. You should have gone or sent me.”

  “Mose can look out for himself.”

  Charley dropped the quirley among the ash. “I know that. But not against a whole town of ’em, Boss.”

  “This time of year riders pass through towns every blessed day of the week. What’s one more stranger?” Boss finally looked across at Charley. “They wouldn’t have no idea who he is.”

  “Then why isn’t he sittin’ here with us?”

  Boss was silent. He was also annoyed. Ever since Charley Waite had been working for him, Charley had shown a very irritating knack for making a statement or asking a question that knocked the props out from under Boss’s arguments.

  “Well, like Button said, maybe his horse came up lame and he’s walking instead of riding.”

  Charley did not pursue it. Instead he said, “What do you want to do?”

  “That’s what I came back here to talk about. You’n me could strike out real early to find him. Button can watch the outfit. We’ll most likely be back with Mose and the supplies before supper-time.”

  Charley was agreeable. There was nothing pressing: the cattle were in sight again, the horses weren’t too far out, the ground was drying. In another couple of days they’d be able to move the wagon again, then they’d leave this place looking for new grass somewhere else. He nodded and arose. “Meet you here an hour or so before sunup.”

  They parted and bedded down. The slightly lopsided moon shone eerily silver and the night was quiet right up until its coldest point, an hour or so before daybreak, when Charley heard Boss bringing in two horses.

  Charley rolled out, feeling around for his boots, which he upended and shook vigorously to dislodg
e whatever might have crawled in during the night.

  Button called out sleepily from up near the front of the wagon, “Did Mose get back? Is that him back there with the horses?”

  Charley was cinching up his belt as he replied. “No, it’s Boss. Him and I are goin’ back a ways to meet Mose. You go on back to sleep, Button. No need for you to roll out.”

  When Charley and Boss were saddling their horses, Button came back there rumpled, bootless, and unhappy. “I could go along,” he said to Boss. “Three sets of eyes is better’n two sets.”

  Boss lifted down the stirrup leather after cinching up. He spoke without looking around. “No need. We’ll find him. Someone had ought to stay with the wagon, Button.”

  “No one’s going to bother it, Boss. We haven’t seen a single person out here since we set up camp.”

  Boss turned, reins in hand, ready to mount. “We won’t be gone long. I always feel better about leavin’ the wagon if someone is close around.” He watched Charley swing up and made a parting remark to the youth. “You been working hard lately anyway, Button. You deserve a little loafing time. Maybe later if you want to you could ride out and look for calvy cows that’re in trouble so’s when we get back we can take care of ’em.”

  Though they did not look back, neither of them felt exactly comfortable. Boss was buttoning his old coat under his neck when he said, “One of these days we got to take him into a town and get him a haircut, maybe some new pants, a decent shirt, and a cafe-cooked meal.”