Chancy

by Louis L'Amour

  We had nigh onto six hundred head of cattle, mostly young stuff, but all of it was trail broke. I didn't have to do more than my share, for these men were all young. Tom Hacker was the oldest ... he was close to thirty. Handy Corbin was twenty-seven or -eight. They all knew cattle, and they were always ready to do their part, and a bit more.

  The route we were taking was on the north side of the Smoky Hill River, and parallel to it. The grass was good, and we watered at streams that would flow into the Smoky Hill, or sometimes at ones that would flow into the Republican River or some other river to the north. I never had been up into that part of the country, so it was mostly hearsay with me. The only difference the streams made was that some were fresh and some were alkali.

  In three days we made thirty-two miles, we figured. After the first day, we took it easy, and after that day we were driving over virgin grass. Once we saw a few buffalo in a grassy bottom, but on sighting us they had taken off, and we didn't give chase.

  Cotton killed three wild turkeys on the third day out, so we had a change from the usual grub. That night it was windy and chilly, and there were coyotes around. Jim was restless, and a little short of sundown he mounted up and rode out. Hacker watched him go.

  "There's a good Indian," he said. "You known him long?"

  "Long enough," I answered. "He'll do to ride the river with."

  Jim came back in time to take first guard, and I stood part of it with him, for I was some restless myself. We'd been lucky so far, but I had no faith in that, never being one to depend on luck. I knew Jim felt the same way, and maybe the others did. Tom Hacker and Cotton had their watch, and then it was Corbin's and my turn.

  But when the night showed itself to be quiet, I had sent Corbin in to get some sleep. I had a feeling we were going to need all the rest we could get. I stood watch alone for the last two hours. When the stars were fading I came into camp to stir the fire into life and put on the coffeepot.

  The truth of the matter was that I liked being alone out there in the early morning. I liked seeing the night pale and the stars wink out one by one, like candles snuffed by a quiet wind. I liked seeing the pink color the east and the dark trees begin to take on shape. At times like this I felt the way the Indians must have felt, for this was a country to be alone in—a broad, beautiful land with the grass bending to the faint stirring of wind, and the steers rising from the ground, humping their backs to stretch out the stiffness of night, looking around and beginning to crop grass a little.

  I liked the sound of the grass being cropped, and thought this was a fine land to rear children in, to see a man's sons grow tall, breathing deep of the fresh air, drinking cold stream water, and smelling bacon frying.

  Out there, I heard a stirring in the brush, and the cattle looked up, ears pricked, wary against danger. I spoke to them softly, walking my horse through them toward the sound, and then the brush parted and up from the stream came a huge old buffalo bull, his great head shaggy and wild. He stood for a minute, trying the wind and looking at us, but I held the buckskin still, not wanting to spook the old fellow, who looked to have had trouble enough in his time.

  After a moment he walked on, his big head swaying to his step, and then from the brush came a cow and a yearling, and they followed him across the clearing and out of the valley.

  "Go ahead, old fellow," I said. "We could use the meat, but you belong to this place more than I do, so go along, and the best of luck to you."

  They walked solemnly ahead, seeming to guess that I held no designs against them.

  The cattle were up and day had come while I watched. A bird was twittering in the bushes nearby, and I saw the bright crimson of a cardinal as it flitted off.

  Swinging my horse, I had started toward camp when I glanced once more toward the buffalo. They were up on the low hill that bordered the basin where we had camped and bedded the herd, and they had stopped there, heads up, peering off toward the west. As I looked, they suddenly tossed their heads and turned, trotting off toward the east.

  My rifle slid into my hand and I walked the buckskin toward the place where the buffalo had been. There I slid from the saddle, trailing the bridle reins. My boots made hardly a sound in the grass, only the faintest of whispers. At the crest of the hill I flattened out, and eased my head up beside a clump of butterfly bush.

  I saw a man out there, staggering roughly in my direction. As I looked, he fell, lay still a moment, and then heaved himself up and came on. His shirt was bloody and he looked about gone; there was a familiar way about him that made me come to my feet. Then he fell again, and a rider came over the hill.

  The rider had not seen me. He came on down with his rifle ready, and it was plain to see that he meant to kill the wounded man. I started toward them, walking carefully. The wounded man was closer to me than to the other man. When the killer was about thirty yards off, the wounded man tried to rise up.

  "Leave me be!" he shouted hoarsely. "Leave me be, damn you!"

  The rider drew up and lifted his rifle. "You're the last of them, old man, an' I'm going to cut you down. I'm going to make buzzard bait of you."

  "Hello, Rad," I said, and he turned as if he'd been stabbed.

  I walked a couple of steps toward him. "Rad, you said Wild Bill was protecting me in Abilene. Well, there's no Wild Bill around now. Just you, me, and that old man you're itchin' to kill."

  He didn't like it. He'd figured me for a yellow-belly, a tenderfoot that he could take without trouble; but now I was ready, asking for it, and it bothered him.

  The old man on the ground had lost his gun, and was unarmed. It was just between Rad and me.

  "What's the matter, Rad?" I said. "You just like killing old men? Are you afraid to tackle a full-grown man in broad daylight?"

  Oh, he didn't like it—he didn't like it a-tall. I'd come up within about twenty-five yards of him now, almost abreast of him and on his right side. Now, it's a mighty easy thing to swing a rifle to cover your left, but sitting a horse when you have to bring it around to your right, it's slow ... and he knew it.

  He was starting to sweat, but I had no feeling of mercy for him. If he had me in that spot he'd have killed me as quick as he'd wink, and he had surely intended to kill that wounded man.

  "You boys opened the ball," I said, "now you can dance to the music."

  Deliberately, I was baiting him. This was a chance to lower the odds against us, so I took a step forward, moving a little farther into range. He thought he had me then, and he whipped up his rifle, turning halfway around as he swung to cover me.

  I took a step back and shot him right through the body above the hips. I worked the lever action and shot into him again, and he fell from the saddle. His horse started forward, circled around, and stopped.

  Rifle at the ready, I swept the country around, for he might not be alone. The prairie was empty, so I walked toward him. He stared up at me, hatred in his eyes. It was a wonder he was still alive.

  "You wait," he said. "Andy will kill you for this."

  "Maybe. That's what you figured to do, didn't you? And I'm still alive."

  "You goin' to let me die here?"

  "Mister," I said, "You're here because you chased an old man to kill him. I'm going to see to that old man. If you're still alive when I get back to you, 111 see what I can do."

  Walking over to where the wounded old man had fallen, I thought at first he was dead; but when I came up to him his eyes turned toward me. It was Harvey Bowers. He was badly shot up—how he had come any distance at all was more than I could see.

  "Follered me, he done," Bowers said. "Follered me an' shot into me. The rest is dead— they come upon us at night ... we figured there'd be no trouble. They opened up on us." The words came slowly. "Gates was killed first off ... Queenie done it."

  "She was with them?" I asked.

  "You bet—she shot Noah herself. That girl's a mean one..." His voice was getting fainter.

  He had taken three big ones right through
the mid-section. There was nothing I could do, and he wasn't asking it.

  With a slight movement of his eyes he indicated Rad Miller. "Is he dead?"

  "He will be. I hit him hard."

  "Serves him ... right ..."

  It was the last thing he said, and as I straightened up I heard horses coming. It was Handy Corbin and Jim Bigbear. Jim knew both the old man and Rad, and he needed no explanation. But Corbin wanted to know about the shooting, so I told him.

  "Smart," he said, "you comin' up on him like that."

  "It was pure accident," I said, "and he didn't see me until I called out to him."

  He gave me a wry look. "I've seen those accidents before. They only happen with a man who's careful."

  We buried them on the hillside in shallow graves, and marked both graves with crosses. I said a few words over them, the murderer and the murdered, and then we rode back to our cattle, knowing trouble was coming upon us. There was a sadness in me for old Harvey Bowers, and for Gates as well.

  They had not liked me, nor had I cared for them, but we had shared some work together, some days and nights of trouble; and I knew something of their problems and they knew something of mine. They were good men, but worn by years and trouble—there are many such. All the good men who work hard and try to save do not end up with wealth or the good things of this world. I imagine that Noah Gates and Harvey Bowers had done much in their own way to open the way west. They had pioneered where Indians roamed, and where there was no law but what they could provide for themselves. And now they would lie in graves soon forgotten, their trails no longer marked; their few relatives would wait, and wait, and then gradually would cease to wonder about them. It is not only those who have put down foundations who have built upon the land, for such men as Noah Gates had given of blood and sweat and added their flesh to the soil.

  We got back to the herd and moved westward. The cattle grazed as they went along, pausing for a bite here, a bite there. The coolness passed and the day grew warm. Restlessly, I watched the country around.

  Kelsey and Miller would begin wondering what had become of Rad. It would be only a matter of hours until they started hunting him, and they would surely come upon the graves. Rad's was marked with his name, as best we could scratch it on with a knife point. Somebody would have been there to bury them, and Andy Miller would want to know who it had been.

  We drove into a stream and followed it up for half a mile, with Jim or me scouting ahead to be sure there was no quicksand. We drove out, dragged brush over our trail for another half-mile or so, and then went into another stream. The streams were all shallow around here, it seemed, and neither of these had been as much as knee-deep. When we came out of the water we drove north. The Saline River was behind us, the South Branch not far ahead to the north.

  Again we turned west, and we managed thirty miles in the next two days. By that time our horses were worn down and frazzled, and were badly needing rest.

  "Any ranches west of here?" I asked Jim.

  "None I know of."

  He rode in silence for a few minutes and then he said, "Used to be a herd of wild stuff running between here and the Elkhorn, but mostly south of there. In the old days there were several hundred head, but last time I saw them there were only two bunches of about twenty to thirty head might be others further west."

  "You think we could round up a few?"

  "It's worth trying," he said. "And we'll need the horses."

  Tom Hacker was the best cook in the outfit, and gradually he took over the job. Each of us kept his eyes open so we could have some change in diet; sometimes it would be an antelope haunch, a few wild turkeys, or a sage hen.

  It was about midafternoon when we came to a good-sized stream running about knee-deep, and we followed it northeast for a mile and a half before coming out on the bank. It was a good spot to camp, with a few cottonwoods, many willows, and some brush. The grass was good, for this was far from any trail where cattle had been driven. The route west through Nebraska lay not far to the north, but nobody traveled through the land where we rode.

  Toward nightfall Handy Corbin got two sage hens. He saw them, palmed his six-gun, and fired the two shots with one sound. They were a good thirty yards off, but he nailed them both, drawing fast and smooth. I saw Hacker exchange a glance with his nephew. That was shooting, by any man's standards.

  The first man into camp started a fire, and on this night it was me. Breaking some branches from a fallen limb, long dead, I gathered leaves and bark, and soon had the fire going. After I'd rustled some fuel, I returned to my horse to help get the herd bedded down.

  It was a tight little camp, sheltered on one side by the thick brush and trees, and on the other by a curve of the stream where there was a high bank.

  We bunched the herd tighter. The most important thing about the campsite was that it was practically invisible until a body was right on top of it. Nevertheless I was worried. We had moved far, and for much of the distance we had covered our trail, but no trail could be covered completely, and much depended on how determined they were.

  Hacker gnawed at a beef bone, then tossed it into the brush, wiping his hands on the grass. "Chancy, you decided where you're goin'?" he asked. "I mean, have you picked a spot?"

  "I've never been to Wyoming."

  "You open for suggestions?"

  "You're damned right. I'm supposed to locate these cattle on good grass and water, get some buildings up before cold weather, and get the outfit going. Now, that's a right big order, and I'm open to suggestions."

  "I soldiered out here a few years back," Hacker said. "There's a big red wall cuts across the country, only one hole in it for miles, with a creek coming through. In back of that wall there's some pretty country, mighty pretty."

  "We'll look at it," I told him, "though we may drive on farther. But it sounds like a place I'd like."

  Long after I'd fallen asleep, I awoke and heard Cotton Madden singing "The Hunters of Kentucky." For a while I lay there, listening to his low, easy voice and watching the fire. It was then I started thinking about Kit Dunvegan, back in Tennessee.

  How long before I would see her again? How would she have changed? And how would I have changed?

  "That change," I said, half aloud, "will be considerable. There's room for it."

  Chapter 6

  A CATTLE DRIVE

  has a way of seeming to offer no change. Day after day we moved westward, the days varying only by the distance covered, the grazing we found, and the water.

  We saw no human being, white man or Indian, and as we moved westward the grass became less and the soil more sandy. There were tracks of wild horses—many of them—and of antelope, which we saw almost every day, sometimes every hour of the day.

  We drove our cattle, sang our songs, yarned a little around the fire at night, and came to know each other. Tom Hacker was not only the best cook, but the wisest of us all; Cotton had the best voice, and was the one most likely to be joking. Jim was by all odds the best tracker and the best rider, with Cotton a close second on the riding. Handy Corbin was considered the best shot nobody questioned that—not even me.

  And there was no question about who was the strongest among us, either. My work as a boy, and then on the boats and on the freight teams had given me strength, although much of it I came by naturally.

  From time to time in the saddle I gave thought to myself. I felt I wasn't learning enough. Jim was teaching me about the grass, the plants, and the animals. What I hadn't known about tracking he was also teaching me, but what I needed was book-reading. I had an envy of those who could study and go to schools.

  Yet in my own way I had grown a little. Being the boss had given me responsibility. I had men, horses, and cattle to consider, and the future responsibility of finding a proper ranch for Tarlton and myself.

  Many a man of my age was bossing a herd or an outfit, so there was nothing unusual about that, but it does change a man when he knows others depend upon him
for decisions.

  Though Corbin was considered the gunfighter of the outfit, I had killed two men, but I was not anxious to have it known. I wanted no such reputation. The man I wanted to be like was Tarlton, I suppose. He was educated, respected, well dressed, and well liked. He had dignity and he was a gentleman, and these things I wanted more than anything else.

  It seems to me a man comes into this world with a little ready raw material—himself. His folks can only give him a sort of push, and a mite of teaching, but in the long run what a man becomes is his own problem. There've always been hard times, there've always been wars and troubles—famine, disease, and such-like—and some folks are born with money, some with none. In the end it is up to the man what he becomes, and none of those other things matter. In horses, dogs, and men it is character that counts.

  For the first time, I had a definite goal—two of them, in fact: to build a prosperous ranch, and to build myself into a man I could be pleased with. The last idea I'd had for some time, but it hadn't been formed into a goal until now. It had always been there, a sort of half-formed wish in the shadowy recesses of my mind; now it had come out into the open, and I had to do something about it.

  When I went back to Tennessee I wasn't going to be just a horse thief's son. My pa had been a good man, and the best way I could convince folks they had done him wrong was by being somebody myself.

  Tom Hacker rode out to where I sat my horse, watching the cattle. "You want some advice?" he said.

  "Try me."

  "Rest up. The horses are dead-beat. We should have twice the remuda we've got for a drive like this. If those boys catch up with us we'll make 'em wish they hadn't."

  "All right. We'll do it." I hooked a leg around the pommel. "You ever read much, Tom?"

  He gave me an odd look. "As a matter of fact, yes. When I can find something. A man can't carry much in his saddlebags." He paused. "Why do you ask?"

  "This here's a big country. It's going to need big men to handle it, and I figure a big man ought to have more in his mind than I've got. Tarlton's going to send me some books, but I'm lathering to get on with it."