Stampede!

by Matt Chisholm

  The ride was short and brisk. During it, he thought he heard the sounds of guns popping, but couldn’t be sure. Then he overtook the running cows and slowly surged to the head of the fleeing mass. Horns gleamed and tossed in the starlight, they rattled together like lethal sabers. Now he heard gunfire distinctly and knew that most likely Mart and Joe were up ahead there firing their guns to turn the cattle. Will had changed his mind after the last run and at the threat of theft. He wanted the cows stopped before they split up, he wanted them stopped quickly.

  The head of the herd turned to the right. Riders up there showed in the flashes of the guns. Will reined to the right to escape the backsweep of the mass of animals. They tried to run off to the right, but he turned into them, drawing his gun and firing at their feet, yelling at the top of his voice. Above the din he heard a gun go off near him. He turned in the saddle and saw a dark form. A gun went off again and something whisked his hat from his head. He knew he’d been shot at. He turned his weapon on the man and found that it was empty.

  Enraged, he turned his horse and spurred it forward, charging blindly at the other man, too angry to fear the other gun. The shoulder of his horse caught the other’s animal amidships. Briefly, he heard the terror-stricken yell of the man and then horse and rider went down. Will whirled his horse and drove back for the herd, the downed man instantly forgotten.

  The cows were turning in on themselves. Riders joined him, whooping wildly, using their ropes and he knew they were his own crew. Within minutes they had the animals going in a circle, tighter and tighter, heads held high, eyes wild, tongues lolling. Then they halted and bawled and bawled like frustrated children. The heat thrown up from them was stifling; the dust was choking.

  There was a rider beside Will shouting. It was Mart. Will told him to ride back and check on the women and the wagon. Mart took a man with him and rode back.

  They stayed with the herd till dawn, then slowly drifted them until they were strung out and grazing, then they counted them. While this was going on, Will rode back and took a look at the fire. There was a lot of smoke but it seemed that the fire had died out at a natural break. It was one of those things that were hard to believe. He met Martha and the wagon on the way, intact, shaken but smiling. Kate and the two boys had managed to hold the remuda, which was a real bit of luck. Will didn’t doubt that things could have been a whole lot worse. He told Mart that as soon as the count was finished, the boys were to push the cows at a good pace for another twenty miles that day if they could. He wanted them out of this country, no matter if they were ganted down a mite. They’d make that up later with some slow marches.

  “What’re you aimin’ to do?” Mart asked.

  “Tend my business,” Will said shortly.

  The wagon passed the herd before the count was finished. The count showed that they were fifty-three head short. That didn’t surprise Will. He had expected as much. A few of the crew gathered around him and waited for what he meant to do.

  “Well,” he said, “they got some of our cows, but they ain’t goin’ to hold ‘em for long. Joe, circle and pick up sign.”

  He then sent Madders ahead to find a good bedding ground and when that was done, he was to direct the wagon there and stay with it. Madders nodded and rode north.

  After an hour, Joe came back and said he had a pretty good picture of what had happened. The trail itself where the herd had been milled was a mess of sign and he couldn’t tell much from it. But the sign to the east showed that about eight men had ridden down on the herd and cut a large bunch out of it. He’d followed the sign for a good ways and it looked the thieves had an injured man with them. It was then that Will remembered the man he’d charged.

  “All right,” he said, “we go after ‘em.”

  Mart said: “There’s eight of ‘em. We don’t have enough men to spare.”

  “Joe an’ me’ll settle their hash,” Will said.

  Mart saw his brother in a new light. So this was what trailing a herd did to a man. Will had always been the one to avoid trouble.

  Mart said: “You know you’re crazy, Will?”

  “’Bout time,” his brother said. “Now I want powder and lead from every man that can spare it. I used up my last on that damned stampede.” He looked at Mart.

  Mart said: “You ain’t havin’ none of mine because I’m comin’ with you.”

  Will was about to tell him to go to hell, but he thought better of it. Mart was the fighting man of the family. This was his kind of country.

  “All right,” he said.

  Clay said: “I’m comin’ too.”

  “You’re takin’ charge of the herd. Go on now, git outa here.”

  Clay argued a little, but he did as he was told. He rode off sullenly.

  Mart said: “We need more’n three an’ you know it.”

  The only other man there was Jody. Will looked at him and the boy knew what he was thinking by the look.

  “For Crissake, pa,” he protested, “I went through the war without you holdin’ my hand. You think I ain’t never heard a gun go off?”

  Will said: “You take the Lord’s name in vain an’ I’ll take my belt to you, big as you are.

  “Let the boy come,” said Mart. “He knows how to handle himself.”

  Will demurred, but he knew he couldn’t refuse. It would be too much like favoritism.

  “All right,” he said. “But I don’t want no damned foolishness.”

  Joe said: “I ain’t goin’ after them cow-thieves with these popguns. We want rifles.”

  That made sense. But it meant getting the rifles from the wagon and when Martha learned what was afoot, she’d purely raise hell. Just the same they turned the horses north and went after the wagon.

  Martha raised hell all right. They told her they were going hunting for the pot. They’d spotted a bunch of deer off the trail.

  “That’s a black lie,” she said. “Some of those no-good men took some of your precious cattle and you’re goin’ after ‘em.”

  Will got mad.

  “All right,” he shouted, “so we’re goin’ after ‘em. Nobody ain’t thievin’ my cows and git away with it. I’m leavin’ those buzzards so they won’t trouble no more cowmen in a hurry.”

  He rode away with her screaming after him and the others followed. They felt a bit sheepish like boys doing something they shouldn’t.

  Chapter Eight

  Jody was excited. Joe was out there in front, reading sign and following it; the four of them rode east, the legs of their horses swishing through the long grass. Jody was young, but he had seen violent action enough in the war, so it wasn’t new to him, but he was excited just the same. During the war, he had been a small part of a vast machine, now he was one quarter of a fighting force. The outcome of this might be up to him. Once and for all he might be able to come up man-size in his father’s eyes. He was only too well-aware that the old man always thought of him as a kid, as irresponsible and reckless. Jody was also excited because there had been something impersonal about most of the fighting he had taken part in during the war. What lay ahead of him now was intensely personal. It was going to be gun against gun and man against man.

  They jogged steadily east for some hours and Jody started to get a little bored. He began to think that they would never come up with the enemy.

  The land started to rise before them and to break up. Soon they were picking their way through gullies and dry-washes; visibility lessened; their pace slowed. Joe, up ahead, rode with extra caution as if he wasn’t sure when they might come on somebody. The sun was high over head, it was blazing hot. They came to a trickle of water and let the horses dip their noses in it; men mopped their sweating faces. They didn’t talk much.

  “How far now, Joe?” Will asked.

  “Can’t be sure,” the Negro answered. “Maybe inside the hour.”

  Joe wasn’t ever wrong, not over a thing like that.

  They changed horses to freshen them with the change of rid
ers and went on. After a while, Joe held up his hand and halted, made signs that he was going on ahead. He went off at a walk and disappeared into the terrain. The others dismounted and waited. Will filled his pipe and puffed at it. The horses flicked their heads and swished their tails against the ever-present flies. Jody found his throat was dry and kept on swallowing. He thought that his father and uncle looked calmer than they had ever done and he envied them.

  After a half-hour or so, they heard a rattle of loose rocks and Joe came back.

  He thumbed his hat onto the back of his head and said:

  “They’m straight ahead,” he told them. “Cows’re penned in a gully. Eight men. They sure look a rough crew.”

  Will said: “Do we jump ‘em now or wait till dawn?”

  “We finish ‘em now,” Mart said, “then we can drive in the dark. Give us a chance if more come lookin’ for us.”

  Jody hoped they’d jump them now. He couldn’t wait till dawn. He wasn’t patient like these oldsters. He was relieved when he heard his father say: “All right, let’s get it finished. What’s the lay of the land, Joe?”

  Joe said: “You want ‘em to run or you want ‘em finished?”

  Will said mildly as if he were discussing the price of beef: “We don’t want this kind walkin’ around free.”

  Mart nodded in agreement.

  Jody’s heart thumped. He’d never seen this side of his father before. He’d never known him hold anything against any man.

  “Leave the horses here,” Joe said. He started to describe the country ahead and then left the decisions to Will. Jody’s father thought a moment, then said: “Mart and Jody, block the south end of the draw. Me an’ Joe’ll get above ‘em. We start the ball. Jody’s the best runner. Soon as it’s over, boy, you leg it back here for the horses. We want outa here as fast as we can make it. Maybe we should leave Jody with the horses.”

  “We need every gun we have,” Joe said just as Jody started to protest.

  “All right,” said Will, “let’s get at it. Check your guns.” He turned to his son. “See all the caps’re on secure, son, we don’t want any misfires.”

  Jody drew his old Beal’s gun and checked the caps were all safe on the nipples. His hands shook a little. He pulled the single-shot Remington carbine from his saddle and loaded it. There were a half-dozen shells for it in his pockets.

  Joe started east, going soft as a cat. The others followed. Pretty soon they heard the bawling of cattle. There was a tumble of low hills and scattered brush in front of them. Joe halted and signed to Mart to work his way south. Mart set off and Jody followed him. He eyed Mart’s Spencer repeating carbine and envied him. A man could take on an army with that. All the time they walked, their heads were turned left in the direction from which came the bawling of the cows. They saw nothing but brush and dirt.

  After a while, Mart stopped for a moment and peered north, then crouched down and started working his way forward. Jody moved to a distance of about forty feet from him and went forward to his left.

  As they worked their way through the brush, stumbled a little on the rough ground, the bawling of the cows grew louder and pretty soon they heard the voices of men.

  Suddenly, there was a man in front of Jody, high up. He was mounted and his back was to Jody. He was so close that the boy could have struck him with a thrown rock. The man called to another out of sight, then moved forward and went out of sight himself. Jody looked around for Mart and couldn’t see him. He felt very much alone, then, and found the hands that were holding the Remington carbine were sweating. Jody didn’t know whether to stay close in amongst the brush where he was or to go on forward. Maybe a few more steps and he would be in sight of the men. He decided to go ahead.

  He worked his way through the brush and seemed to make an awful noise as he did so. Then he caught sight of the cows. They were right ahead of him, scattered in a draw with the mouth of it blocked by a rough fence of brushwood. The only man he could see was a mounted man on the rim of the draw about a hundred yards from him. He looked around for the man he had just seen, but failed to find him. That made him uneasy. He wondered if there was a gun looking at him.

  The mounted man was shouting and gesticulating. Jody wondered if he had spotted Will and Joe.

  Now another man rode into sight from the east and joined the first man. They seemed to be conferring. One of them pointed down at the cattle.

  A long time seemed to pass. Jody began to wonder if something had happened to his father and Joe. A while longer and he wondered if something had happened to Uncle Mart and he was left alone here with a bunch of cow-thieves within a rock’s throw of him.

  One of the riders up there gigged his horse and rode away. The other fellow rolled a smoke, lacked a foot from the stirrup-iron and hooked a leg around his saddle-horn.

  Jody thought: Pa, do somethin’ for Crissake. He was tempted to bring his old carbine into action, shoot that man out of the saddle and see what happened.

  The thought no sooner entered his head then a shot sounded.

  For a full second nothing happened. Then the rider suddenly fell out of the saddle and raised the dust. The horse spooked and ran off into the east.

  At once there was a shout and scurry of movement. Jody became aware of the pounding of horses’ hoofs. A shot was fired from his right. There was a slight pause and he heard another. He guessed Mart was there all right.

  Suddenly, the boy nearly took leave of his skin. There was a horse and rider almost on top of him. Automatically, he rammed the butt of the carbine into his right shoulder and loosed off a shot. Then the rider was going past him, crouched low over the neck of his racing animal. Jody took his right hand from the trigger of the carbine and slapped it down on the butt of the old Beal’s gun. It was a totally unthinking action. He got that old gun out of leather faster than it had ever come before, his thumb-ball cocked the hammer, he lined his front sight up on the fleeing man and pulled the trigger.

  The retreating man seemed to slump over the horse’s neck. Jody couldn’t believe he’d hit him. He thumbed and fired again. The horse seemed to jerk to the left, the man went away to the right, he hit the ground with his head and was whisked away across the rough ground his foot caught in the stirrup-iron. The horse ran on no more than a short way, then stopped.

  My God, Jody thought, I killed a man.

  For a moment, he felt nothing. Guns were going off all around him.

  He wanted to go and look at the man he had shot, but he knew that the others might need him. He thrust the revolver away, jacked the empty from the carbine and slid a new load home. Then he started walking through the brush toward the draw. He saw that the cattle were going a little crazy at the shooting. He wondered if they’d bust through the brush fence and make a break for it. There was a man up on the lip of the draw and he saw that it was his father. A sound came from his right. He looked that way and saw Mart coming forward at a shambling run. When he looked back at the draw again, he saw that there was a man standing there with his hands above his head.

  Joe came walking in from the left. His carbine was in his left hand, a revolver in his right. His face was shining like polished ebony with sweat.

  Jody went on a dozen paces and saw something lying on the ground. It was a man. He lay on his face and his hat had fallen off. The side of his head was all bloody and there was a large splotch of dark blood on the back of his coat. The man standing with his hands up looked very frightened.

  Now Jody found that he was shaking.

  His father came walking up and he had a look on his face the boy had never seen before.

  Will said: “You all right, boy?”

  “Sure,” Jody said. “Pa, I killed a man.”

  Mart said: “You make sure?”

  “No.”

  “Go an’ make sure.”

  Jody turned and walked back the way he had come.

  There were black flies bunching on the man he had shot. They were on the back of the head
where one of the bullets had entered. The man was no older than Jody.

  Jody found his legs buckling under him. His guts heaved. The others came up while he was still retching. He felt so damned ill he didn’t care that he was shamed in their eyes.

  Mart said: “I did the same thing, the first time.”

  Joe said: “Won’t do no good to stand around all day. Do we bury ‘em?”

  Will jerked his head at the prisoner.

  “Either he can bury ‘em or we stretch his neck.”

  “I’ll bury ‘em,” the man said. He looked as sick as Jody felt.

  “Jody,” Will said, “I thought I told you to bring the horses up on the run.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jody. He still didn’t feel steady, but he wanted to get out of their sight for a moment. He started off, running. Five minutes later, he came back with the horses and he felt a little better, though he seemed to be seeing the world as he had never seen it before.

  The others had opened a gap in the brush fence and were chowsing the cows out of the draw. The cow-thief had a shovel and was trying to dig some sort of a grave from the hard soil. Jody wondered how many men had gotten away. He wondered if his father really would have hung this man.

  He took the horses to the other three and joined his father in the drag.

  Will gave him a long look.

  “Boy,” he said. “You killed your first man today. You seen how easy it is. Don’t make a habit of it.”

  “No, sir,” said Jody and they followed the cows west.

  Chapter Nine

  They didn’t get back to the herd until after dawn the following day and Martha was so worried about them that she could show them nothing but the evil side of her temper. Will shrugged it off. He was too tired to listen and he seemed to be removed from what was going on around him. Jody wanted to sleep, but there was no chance to do so. Missing a night’s sleep on the trail was just a part of the routine. He joined young Charlie Quintin on drag. Charlie wanted to know all about the jumping of the cow-thieves. His interest revived Jody’s interest and he brightened to give a lively account of the short fight and his part in it. He forgot to say that he had brought up his dinner.