by H. V. Elkin
“Need any help?” Cutler asked.
“Ain’t yet,” Baker said and continued the job, searing the young leather with his Open-B brand. The calf bawled, then was released to go and find its mother. Baker reheated the brand in the fire, then picked it up and brought it to the fence. He burned the brand in one of the rails, and as it smoked, he threw the brand back toward the fire. Now, for the first time, he looked at his visitors. There was a trace of belligerence in his eyes. “No sir, I ain’t needed help yet, John. And that’s a mighty lucky thing ’cause help ain’t easy to come by.”
“Lot of cowboys out of work these days,” Ellen said.
“That’s a fact, I hear tell,” Baker said, then smiled broadly when he saw the confusion on her face. “But most of ’em’s particular about where they work. Things is just black and white to them. And the only white here’s my buildings.”
“Sorry, Dave.”
“Okay, Miss Harmon.”
“Dave, stop callin’ me that. You been doin’ it ever since I can remember. If I can call you Dave, why can’t you call me Ellen?”
“Requires an invitation,” Baker said. “Ellen,” he added.
“You gonna be goin’ anywhere with your rifle today?” Cutler asked.
Baker shook his head and chuckled. “Guess not. Guess I finally got my mind straightened out about that.”
“Think Tom figures somebody was out to kill him,” Ellen said.
“Well no,” Baker said. “I wasn’t out to kill him. Didn’t get that idea ’til after I got there.”
“Had the same idea,” Cutler said.
“He was tryin’ to kill Mesteño, wasn’t he?”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Thought so. Thought I saw the dust rise near the horse after Chase fired his shot.”
“So then you fired at him.”
“That’s right.”
“But you say that wasn’t the reason you was there to begin with.”
“Yeah.” He pointed to the spot where he had burned the brand in the fence rail. “You see that brand of mine?” He traced it with his fingers. “An Open-B, kind of like the number ‘3.’ Some folks call it the 3, but it’s a B with the left side off. Know why that’s my brand?”
“B for Baker,” Ellen said. “But don’t know why it’s an open B.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. When my folks’ folks come to this country, they was strapped in leg irons. Not the kind with a chain between ’em so’s they’d be able to move a bit, but the kind that kept their legs tight together, kind of iron that looks like a B. Well, I think they always wore them irons in their minds. They died slaves, loyal to their owners, just like a horse might be loyal to its master. My own folks, they got their freedom after the war. Least the Government said they was free, but they stayed poor and didn’t know how to make any opportunities, certainly didn’t have any handed to ’em. They wore the leg irons, too, in their minds. It was me that got rid of them irons by comin’ here, workin’ hard and finally buildin’ up this ranch. That’s why I use the Open-B. It’s like the leg irons was opened, and this here’s the ranch of a man who got himself free. I know what freedom means ‘cause nobody gave it to me. I had to earn it.” He looked back at the brand, then at Cutler and Ellen. “Why don’t you two tie up your mounts? Think the coffee’s still warm on the stove inside.”
Baker continued his story as they went to the house. “Now maybe I made it sound simpler than it really is. ‘Cause me bein’ free means I got animals that ain’t. The ones that wear my freedom brand, they ain’t free. And that’s part of the problem I’m all the time wrestlin’ with.”
Baker’s kitchen smelled of coffee and woodsmoke. It was sparely furnished without any of the touches a woman might have given it. It was strictly a man’s kitchen. He poured them coffee, and they all sat at a handmade table.
“You ever had coffee this good?” he asked his guests.
“Not since this mornin’,” Cutler said.
“So,” Baker continued, “you can probably figure out the rest of it. Here’s a man what’s free by ownin’ animals that ain’t, same way my grandfolks’ masters was free because they had slaves. This man who puts stock in signs like an Open-B brand sees another kind of sign in Mesteño. Sometimes he thinks he ought to get his own mares back out of that mustang band because the more stock he’s got, the freer he is. Other times, he figures it’s more important that some horses run free the way he does. When I come to get you, John, I was one of them. Yesterday I was the other. I was at the valley, where I knew the band watered, because I figured if you found ’em there, I was gonna shoot in the air and scare ’em off. Figured you might understand, John. But you can see why I wouldn’t want to say something like this in front of Chase. I’m not a man to run away from trouble. But I’m not dumb enough, the way I think Chase is, to want to stir it up.”
“Guess I understand, all right,” Cutler said. “I can see there’s more’n one way of lookin’ at things, Dave, ‘cause I have that problem myself.”
“Guess I knew that from our ride down here from Thermopolis.”
“But it’s one thing to see a thing two different ways and another thing to do things. You got to make choices, I figure. Straddle the fence all the time and the most you’re gonna get is a sore butt.”
“Yeah.” Dave shook his head. “I know. In some ways, I figure my grandfolks was better off. Least they knew who they was when they got up in the mornin’. Man who’s of two minds is never more’n half a man.”
“I don’t know about that,” Cutler said. “But I do know you mean well all the time. Fact is, if you hadn’t been up on that ridge yesterday, Mesteño might be dead today, and that’s something neither one of us wants to happen. So it turned out okay for both of us. Now what’s important is what’s gonna happen from here on out—which side of the fence you gonna jump to. You gonna get in the way of our gettin’ Mesteño alive and give somebody like Chase an excuse to kill him, or are you gonna help us get him alive?”
“Do I want him dead or do I want him in leg irons.”
“It could amount to that, I can’t say. I’m hopin’ we can take the outlaw out of him without breakin’ his spirit.”
“I got a third choice, John. I could just sit it out and let the rest of you handle it. That way I wouldn’t be responsible for whatever happens.”
“My pa’s like that about some things,” Ellen said. “He’ll sit by and watch to see what’s gonna happen without takin’ a stand.”
“Like that night at your Statehood celebration.”
“And you stepped in in his place, Dave, right there in front of everybody. Somehow I just can’t see you bein’ like Pa. Even he isn’t that way about Mesteño.”
“I’ll have to think on it.”
“Those that’re helpin’,” Ellen said, “are meetin’ at our place in the mornin’.”
“I’ll try to figure it out by then.”
“That’s almost good enough,” Cutler said. “But before we leave here, I got to get your word that you’ll either choose helpin’ us or stayin’ out of it. I got to know you won’t interfere with what’s got to be done.”
“Okay, John, you got my word.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Cutler said. “Either we see you at the ranch tomorrow, or we don’t see you anywhere.”
Baker nodded. “That’s right.”
Ellen led Cutler to a rise of land where they could see for miles around. From up there, the land looked like a maze of trails formed by openings between hills and mountains, through an arroyo, between stands of timber—a patchwork landscape.
Below them to the south, they could see the valley where they had found the mustangs yesterday. The horses were back there.
“Almost as though nothin’ had happened,” Ellen said.
Cutler put his hand gently on her chin and smiled at her. “Take another look,” he said and turned her head toward the rise where they had lain watching the band before the gunshots had started. Emm
a was already looking in that direction, and Cutler looped his reins around her muzzle to choke off any braying.
There on the rise was the new sentry.
“Isn’t that your other mule?” Ellen asked.
“That’s right. That’s Kate. The stallion knew just which one of my mules to take. Kate always had a mind of her own when she wanted to, and she’d be just the kind of animal to respond to an adventure of some sort. Look at her.”
Kate stood proud and alert, sniffing the air.
“She can be trouble sometimes, Kate can,” Cutler said, “but she sure learns fast when she wants to.”
“If we catch them here,” Ellen said, “we’ll have to come through one of those two openings to the north.”
“No, we won’t be able to get ’em here now. Is that more water I see there about two miles north?”
“Yes. It dries up later, but it’s water now.”
“Let’s ride along this rise and get a better look at what’s beyond it.”
They left the mustang valley and rode north a mile.
“Okay,” Cutler said. “I can see it now.”
“Lot of high country and timber for ’em to get away,” Ellen said.
“We can control that. Might take us a week, though. That hole won’t be dry by then, will it?”
“No, probably not, not unless we get an early drought or something. That isn’t likely.”
“We’ll have to gamble on it.” He smiled at her. “Or I’ll have to tell your father the job’s gonna be even tougher than I thought again.”
Ellen laughed and slapped him playfully on the arm. He laughed, too.
Cutler shook his head and thought to himself, here he was with a horse and dog nursing wounded spirits, a mule gone to join a band of mustangs, a job maybe impossible to bring off, a showdown waiting with an ignorant cowpoke, and Cutler was feeling as close to happy as he had been in a long time. Only with Iris, when he was sober, had he ever gotten this close before, at least for a very long time. He did not think about how it would end yet. When you carried a lot of pain around inside you and then some good times came unexpectedly, you did not want to look beyond. Ellen did not want to look beyond either.
The next morning, Harmon had assembled two dozen men outside the ranch house. They stood around, waiting for their orders. Chase sat nearby on the corral fence but was not a part of the group. Harmon was on the porch with Cutler and Ellen.
“You boys ready to go to work?” Harmon asked them, and he heard a murmur of agreements.
“This here’s John Cutler, and he’ll be tellin’ you what’s got to be done. I can tell you this much. You ain’t goin’ to like the work. You’re gonna have to get off your horses and make some fence about five miles from here.” He waited for that to sink in and could see none of them was very happy about it. “It’s something that’s just got to be done, that’s all. Those of you what’s workin’ on one of the ranches already, think about gettin’ that mustang band and not havin’ to worry about them no more. And I guess there’s six of you that just come in to do this job. Well, in times like these, maybe any job’s better’n none. Maybe not. But if this plan of Cutler’s works, I’ll do what I can to see you get regular jobs, either here or on one of the other ranches you’re helpin’ out by bein’ here.”
“Fair enough!” yelled one of the cowboys.
“Okay then,” Harmon said. “Cutler’ll tell you about it.”
Cutler stepped to the front of the porch. “This is the worst part of the job for me,” he said. “I mean makin’ a speech.”
Laughter.
“But that’s got to be done, too. So here goes. What Ben’s been tellin’ you is true. This ain’t cowboy work. Least it ain’t to start with. You won’t just be buildin’ an eight. We’re gonna have to do it with timber that’s there because it’ll be faster than cartin’ it. It’s only gonna get used once, that eight corral, so it don’t have to be pretty. But you’re also gonna have to dig with shovels two furrows about six miles long, that’s twelve miles of dirt altogether. So anyone’s afraid of gettin’ his hands dirty better ride out now. Once you start on this job, I got to be able to depend on you to stay around ’til it’s done. Anybody leavin’?”
They were even less happy about it now than they were before, but no one moved.
“Good, because we need every hand we can get. Now comes the good part. After all that work’s done, you’ll be herdin’ mustangs. And this is just about one of the most important jobs you’ll ever do. You might just want to go off and get married after this so you’ll have some kids to tell about it when you’re old.”
“Can’t be that good!” yelled one of the men.
“Well, it might not be. You might as well know. You can’t be absolutely certain what a mustang band’s gonna do, but I know what we got to do to stack the deck in our favor. Still, we might not get all of ’em. We might not get the lead mare and we might not get Mesteño. If we don’t, the rest of the job’ll be up to me. But if we at least get most of the band, it’ll make it easier for me to get the rest. Now, what have we got? I guess it’s twenty-five of us.”
“What about Chase there?”
Harmon said, “I can’t spare him off the ranch.”
Chase spat on the ground. He knew that was not the real reason.
“Twenty-five then,” Cutler said.
“Twenty-six,” Ellen said.
“I was already countin’ you.”
“Not me.” She nodded to her right. Dave Baker was riding up.
“Twenty-six,” Cutler said. “That’s just the right number.”
They rode in a wide arc out of their way to reach the spot where the corral would be built. This was so they had a better chance of not being sensed by the mustang band on its normal range. A movement of men like this, complete with chuck wagon and tool wagon, might have changed the band’s habits, and if the plan was going to work those habits had to stay the same.
Cutler rode Apache. The bay gelding seemed to have his old spirit back that first morning. And that sent Cutler’s spirits one notch higher. He was sure the project was going to pay off with some degree of success. He could almost taste it. But the more he felt this way, the more serious he got on the surface, his face looking more intent and grim the farther he rode toward the destination. Ellen rode beside him, and he knew she was wondering what his change of mood was all about.
“It’s like this,” he told her quietly so the others would not hear. “You make me feel too good.”
“What?” She did not know whether to feel flattered or insulted.
“I’m the boss of this job now, and a boss can’t afford to feel too good. If he does, it starts makin’ him careless one way or another. And that can make the men careless. One mistake and we could ruin the whole thing. From now on I got to think about nothin’ but the and seein’ it through to the end. I almost wish you hadn’t come along. Wish I’d ordered you to stay home.”
“It wouldn’t have done any good.”
He was about to disagree with her but could see where that would lead. There was no point in having a showdown with Ellen now.
“Maybe it wouldn’t,” he said. “But I got to point out something to you that you might not want to hear.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re a woman, and all of the rest of these are men.”
“John! For Pete’s sake!”
“Quiet! Keep your voice down. There can’t be any thought started among these men that there’s anything special between you’n me. As far as I’m concerned you’ve got to be just another one of the hands. No better’n no worse than any of the others,”
“That’s all I want to be.”
“I know that, and that’s the way I’m lookin’ at you now. You got more of a job than the rest do, though. You got to be careful you don’t do anything to remind them you’re a woman. Now, if the men around here are like the cowboys who used to work for me, they won’t bother you none. They’ll treat
you just the way they see me treatin’ you. But some of the men are new and they don’t hold down a regular job around here, so there’s no tellin’.”
“John, I’ve been takin’ care of myself for years now. You won’t have to defend my honor.”
“If I had to, it’d cause trouble in the camp.”
“Well, you won’t. And if you don’t want me raisin’ my voice again, you better shut up about it.”
He smiled slightly. “Guess I don’t have to worry about you takin’ over the cook’s duties, do I?”
“Not by a damn sight.”
“And if I come creepin’ up to your bedroll at night.”
“You’ll get my six-gun poked in your nose.”
He laughed. “Stop makin’ me feel so good, will you?”
She put on a thick Southern accent. “Ah shall remove temptation from yoah path, Mistah Cutlah, suh.” And she galloped up ahead to ride alongside Baker who happened to be riding alone.
Cutler laughed again.
“What’s so funny, boss. You thinkin’ of us diggin’ up that twelve-mile garden like farmers?”
“No.” Cutler grinned. “I was rememberin’ a joke I heard. You ever hear the one about the cowpoke and the boss’ daughter watchin’ two horses matin’?”
After Cutler told the joke, he got serious again. And the cowboy he told it to spread the word that Cutler was okay.
When they got to the spot Cutler had picked for the corral, everybody got to work immediately bringing small timber out of the nearby wooded area. The sounds of axes and saws cut through the quiet and echoed off the surrounding hills. Cutler took a pickaxe and marked the ground with the outline of the corral to be built.
It was a lopsided eight with the opening where the two ovals met. The idea was that when the mustangs entered the corral, they would circle against the fence of the left oval and that would lead them to the right oval without their being directed back to the opening. They would be able to run themselves out in an eight pattern and, when they tired, they would calm down and accept captivity. At least, Cutler was pretty sure it would work for most of the band which was made up of mares that had once been domesticated. He could not be so sure about the lead mare, even less sure about Mesteño who, judging by his markings, came from a long line of horses that had never worn a bridle.
