Good Man - Bad Enemy

by Gary Church

  The outlaws had seen Jace ride in, and they were watching when he rode out, headed back to the herd. They waited a bit and were going to wait longer, but they got anxious, thinking about the women.

  TWENTY

  Jace and Johnny ran their horses despite considerable danger of gopher holes, rocks, or uneven terrain that could break a horse’s leg and result in serious injury or death for a rider. There had been another sound, a clattering. Jace and Johnny sensed trouble. The wagon was less than a half-mile back from the herd, and as Jace got near, he saw three horses at the wagon. He slapped his horse’s neck with the reins, urging him on.

  The three men had entered the wagon stealthily, without their guns. The plan was to grab the women and scare the little boys into getting out of the wagon and staying quiet. It seemed easy enough, but the daughter went absolutely berserk, catching the men completely by surprise. The mother, trying to protect the little boys, jumped and struggled, and knocked over the pots and jars, making a terrible racket. Finally, one of the men got hold of the older woman by her hair. He hissed at the boys to get out and get under the wagon, and he said they would kill all of them if they made a sound. While the other man subdued the girl, who was still fighting like a wildcat, and the bearded man held their mother, the boys climbed out of the wagon and crawled underneath, crying uncontrollably.

  One man had the girl’s shoulders pinned while he sat on her legs. She turned her head and managed to bite him. He screamed and slugged her.

  Jace never slowed his horse. As it ran by the wagon, he jumped, hit the ground, rolled, came up, stumbled on his bum leg, then climbed into the back of the wagon. Johnny rode up, dismounted, and pulled his rifle from its scabbard. He could hear yells, screams, crashing, and banging from inside the wagon. He reached the wagon as Jace came tumbling out, backwards, hitting the ground hard.

  Johnny heard yelling and struggling as he walked to the front of the wagon and climbed up so he could see inside. It was dark, and he had seconds to assess the situation. He could see a man lying face down, groaning but not moving. So, Jace had taken out one man. Another man, with a huge beard, was wrestling with a woman who was crying in terror, and a third man was on top of a girl who was screaming and fighting. Johnny decided to deal with the man on top of the girl first. Stepping into the wagon, he used the butt of his rifle to smack the man right between the eyes. The man’s head snapped back, he looked at Johnny, then his eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed on top of the struggling girl.

  Johnny stepped around them and laid his rifle against the side of the wagon, as the girl tried to get out from under the unconscious man. Seeing Johnny moving toward him in the dark, the heavily bearded man flung the woman to one side, stepped forward, and swung at Johnny. Pulling back his head, Johnny felt the blow brush his chin, even as he stepped forward. With his left hand, Johnny grabbed a handful of the man’s beard and pulled downward with all his strength, hitting the man hard in the head with his elbow. But the man pushed off with his legs, and Johnny fell backwards onto the wagon floor, the man’s head buried in his belly. Johnny raised his hand to club the man’s ear, when a frying pan slammed into the man’s head, and the man went limp.

  Johnny turned his head and could just make out the girl in the dark. Getting to his feet, he picked up his rifle and told the girl to help her mother get out of the wagon. Johnny climbed out to check on Jace, who was sitting up, but dazed. He felt a huge knot swelling up on the back of his head. Once the women were out and huddled with the two young boys, and Jace had recovered a bit, Johnny and Jace managed to drag and threaten the outlaws until they had the three of them out of the wagon. All three were still dazed and in pain.

  The man Jace had confronted had a broken nose and maybe a busted jaw, given that he continued to hold it and groan. The man Johnny had smacked with the rifle butt was shaky on his feet, and the area around his eyes was already swelling and turning dark.

  The bearded man, whom Ruth had hit with the frying pan, was holding his head and looking around, disorientated.

  Ruth had a knot on her jaw and some bruising, but otherwise she was uninjured. Mrs. Covington’s arms were starting to bruise, but she was okay, and the boys, though terrified, were unhurt.

  Johnny led the horses and sat on his mount with his rifle at the ready as he marched the three outlaws, stumbling, into camp and tied them to the hoodlum wagon. Jace made sure the women were okay and everyone was settled before making his way back to camp and his bedroll in time to get a few hours of sleep.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Cookie, the first up the next morning, didn’t blink an eye at seeing three men, their faces battered and bruised, tied to the hoodlum wagon. He was old and had seen and experienced many things in his lifetime. He didn’t know, but guessed that the trail boss, Johnny Black, was somehow involved.

  Johnny briefed Christie that morning, and two cowboys were dispatched to take the criminals to the nearest town and deliver them to the sheriff. After breakfast, with the herd on the move, Johnny found Jace. Once he made sure that Jace was okay, Johnny told him he would ride his position for a bit, while Jace rode back to check on the women and kids.

  Riding back, Jace found the wagon on the move. Ruth was sitting on the buckboard seat beside her mother, reading, while Mrs. Covington drove the wagon. He circled and rode up alongside Ruth’s side of the wagon. “Morning,” he said.

  He was rewarded with a huge smile from Mrs. Covington. “Good morning, Jace!” she said.

  Jace touched his hat and looked at Ruth. “How are you, Miss Ruth?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” said Ruth, crunching up her face.

  Jace still wasn’t completely sure if that was a smile or a grimace.

  “Thank you for coming to our rescue,” said Ruth.

  “You’re welcome, but I only done what any cowboy would do,” he replied. He looked at Ruth and could have sworn she was looking at him with what the boys called “adoring eyes.”

  He rode beside the wagon for a few minutes, then said, “I gotta be getting back to my position.”

  Ruth smiled or grimaced, and Mrs. Covington waved. Jace spurred his mount away.

  B.R. was beside himself to have missed the action. “Now, let me get this straight. You’re telling me you jumped in that there wagon not knowing what the heck you were gonna find in there?”

  “Well, I figured wasn’t no party going on,” said Jace, causing B.R. to burst out laughing.

  “I can’t figure if you’re brave or dumb,” said B.R. “I expect it’s probably a little of both, dumb being on the high side.”

  “I reckon you’re right about that,” said Jace.

  “Say, how old are the woman’s kids?”

  “I don’t know. I guess the boys are ten or eleven.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “Hard to say. Twenty, give or take.”

  “Is that a fact?” said B.R., giving Jace an odd look. “Well, if she’s twenty and ain’t married…” He let the thought trail off.

  “Yep. Not to be impolite—she’s really a sweet girl, but you got the picture,” said Jace.

  Johnny was well known to be close-mouthed. He didn’t say a word about the events of the previous night, but everyone was curious about the three battered men tied to the hoodlum wagon. Soon the story was spreading, in various forms, throughout the group of cowboys.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The moon rose to reveal a beautiful night. The temperature was mild, the sky clear, and the herd quiet. The drive had made good time the last week, and everyone was in high spirits.

  Johnny, Jace, B.R., and Leo, the young wrangler who had nearly been snake-bit, were sitting, smoking, and sipping coffee.

  Jace took a chance. “Boss,” he said, “do you reckon there’s a God? You know, sitting here, looking at the sky, makes a man wonder.”

  Johnny looked thoughtful, sipped some coffee and said, “Well, cowboy, the world is pretty complex. Difficult for me see how it’s ha
ppenchance.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jace.

  “Course, truth be told, it’s all based on faith, and everybody sees God a little differently, or maybe not at all. The fact is, I personally find some comfort in religion and my belief in God.”

  B.R. spoke up. “I worked with a Chinese fellow out West. He was really old, probably fifty or so, but he told me some religions believe we are reborn, you know, what’s the word—reincarnated—after we die. He said the Buddhists believe in karma, something about how you act now will decide what kind of life you have when you’re reincarnated.” He paused. “Let’s see… oh yeah, the Hindus think your soul don’t die, but I think both of them say that at some point, you come to a peace or something.”

  Everyone in the small circle was staring at B.R. as though he had sprouted horns. Realizing he might find himself the subject of jokes, he said, “Now, I’m not saying I believe any of that. I was just telling you what the Chinese man told me.”

  Jace and the young Leo were smiling now. “See if I try to educate you fools again,” said B.R., irritation in his voice.

  After some chuckling, the four were silent with their own thoughts. They heard a cowboy at the main campfire say, “Gents, I’ll be right back.” The four companions looked over to see what was taking place. “I hear some damsels in distress, and I have to rescue them from the bad guys,” the cowboy said loudly.

  Another cowboy said, “How many bad guys are there?”

  “Only a dozen or so. Shouldn’t take a minute, being as how I’m Jace, the toughest cowboy ever rode a trail drive.” Laughter broke out around the campfire, and Jace grimaced.

  Johnny chuckled, noticed Jace was turning a bit red, and B.R. was laughing loudly. He excused himself and found his gear. Pulling out the book Rosalinda had hidden in his saddlebags and walking to the outside of the campfire, he took a seat. He could just make out the pages in the light. He found his place in the book and drifted into another world where, for a bit, he escaped his worries about Rosalinda and home. Entering another place and time, just for a little while, he was able to stop thinking about his responsibilities as a trail boss.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The herd crossed Brushy Creek without incident, the big round rock that stood as a marker for the crossing area visible as the cowboys drove the longhorns across. The tiny community of Brushy Creek sprang up around 1851, some twenty or so miles north of Austin. As it grew, it changed its name to Round Rock, in honor of the big round limestone rock that marked the crossing point.

  They settled the herd about five miles past the creek. According to the map Christie and Johnny were consulting, they were a day’s drive from the San Gabriel crossing at Georgetown. They had covered one hundred miles, made some river crossings, and were gaining confidence and experience.

  Herbert, whom everyone was now calling Cookie or Old Lady, always kept two five-gallon coffee pots going during the day. He tasked the waddies (a name for the low-ranking teens), Leo and Jack, with keeping one five-gallon pot going all night for the night watch. The boys worked it out, between their other chores and taking care of the horses. Sometimes one of them would sleep a few hours on top of the bedrolls in the hoodlum wagon during the day, and Cookie didn’t mind. He knew where to find them when he needed them. Cookie decided he had best get to teaching them some cooking skills, so they could be more help. He hollered for the boys.

  Christie picked up the map laying on the table in his tent, and as he folded it, he said, “Johnny, I’m more than satisfied with your work. You’ve shown yourself to be an exceptional leader.”

  “I appreciate you saying so, Mr. Christie,” Johnny said.

  With the herd settling in for the evening and no immediate problems to address, Johnny walked over to the chuckwagon to grab an empty tin cup. There he found one of the young waddies sitting on a wooden Arbuckle’s Coffee box, working hard at grinding coffee beans. Johnny nodded to him, found a cup, and walked to the fire. After pouring himself a cup from one of the five-gallon pots, he stood back and sipped his coffee.

  A cowboy walked up with his own cup and addressed Johnny. “How’s the Arbuckle this evening? Last night I accidently dropped a horseshoe nail in mine, and the stuff was so thick, the nail didn’t even sink.”

  Johnny laughed and said, “Better not complain too loud. Cookie hears, and no telling what we’ll get.”

  It was the cowboy’s turn to laugh as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Don’t look too bad,” he said, peering into his cup. The cowboy looked thoughtful as he sipped at his coffee and said, “I reckon you remember, not so long ago, all the coffee beans was green and had to be roasted before they were ground. I was working a spread in East Texas, and sometimes the beans would be just right, and sometimes they’d be scorched so bad you’d think the coffee makings was ashes from a fire. At least with Arbuckle they come roasted.”

  “That’s a fact,” said Johnny. “I drank some different coffee in San Francisco, after the war. It was called Folgers. I heard it started out as Pioneer Coffee—you might have heard of it, but a fellow named Folgers bought it out and renamed it. It wasn’t bad.”

  “I never heard of nothing ’cept Arbuckle,” replied the cowboy.

  Cookie arrived at that moment, ordering everybody away so he could check on the beans. A moment later, Leo appeared. Cookie had told the boy to come to him whenever he had a question. The urge to ask something was evident on Leo’s face.

  “What is it?” asked Cookie. “We’ve both got work to do.”

  “I was just wondering, you know the tall cowboy who talks funny?”

  Cookie, stirring the beans, said, “I know who you’re talking about. He talks funny because he’s from an island on the other side of the world—Australia.”

  “Okay,” said Leo, “but he keeps calling people drover or drovers.”

  Cookie smiled and turned to the boy, the large spoon in his hand. “I wondered about that myself, first time I heard it. Thought the fellow who called me that might be wanting to fight.” He chuckled. “It means cowboy, or cowpuncher, or maybe cow herder, in foreign.”

  The boy’s face lit up. “Dang,” he said. “I thought it was a cuss word.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Georgetown

  Johnny sat on Loco, staring at the churning San Gabriel River. John Christie sat on his horse beside Johnny, also staring at the river.

  “Well,” said Christie, “there’s some good limestone bottom down river a way, but it’s just too deep. Shallow enough here, but mud bottom, and the river’s running pretty good. We’ll likely need some horses and ropes to help the wagons.”

  Johnny nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

  As the sun broke over the horizon, the lead rider drove the old, big bull toward the river. It was fairly swift, and the bull hesitated, but finally moved into the water, and the beeves began to follow. A very long, very difficult day followed. Christie had foreseen the difficulties with the wagons. Both of them had to be pulled across with a team of horses and several cowboys, standing in the chest-high water, pushing. At one point, a cowboy was swept off his horse and carried away, but one of the black cowboys made an incredible throw with his lariat, dropping his loop on the water, circling the man’s head. The man was able to grab it and he was pulled to safety.

  Shouting, snorting, bellowing, and yells filled the air. There wasn’t a noon meal, as beeves were lumbering off away from the herd on both sides of the river, and cowboys were in constant motion trying to round them up. A count that afternoon showed a loss of some forty longhorns. Christie planned to send out men to look for them the next day.

  The cowboys changed horses often; swimming in the water, running after strays, and wrangling the mavericks exhausted the horses as well as the cowboys. They hadn’t lost any men, although there were some injuries. The only serious one was to one of the Mexican cowboys. He was gored in the leg as he drove back some mavericks into the main flow of the herd. Cookie, who served as the drive’s doctor
as well as its cook, tended to the man.

  Once the herd was clear and settled, Jace didn’t have any trouble finding a couple of cowboys to help him pull the Covington’s wagon across. With the story of outlaws attacking the wagon, Johnny and Jace intervening, and the girl taking out one of the bad men with a skillet, well, the Covingtons had become sort of family to the herders.

  The coffee brewing and supper preparations well underway, Cookie called Jace over and silently handed him a small, paper-wrapped package. “Venison roast. Thought you might take that out to our rear guard,” he said, his voice gruff, as always, but there was a hint of a smile on his lips. “One of the cowboys ran across it chasing beeves and took the time to shoot it and field dress it. I reckon he’ll find his pay docked, should Mr. Christie think to ask where it came from.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Herbert,” said Jace. His horse was worn out, and he had turned him into the remuda. Johnny had called an early halt, allowing everyone to recover from the crossing, so there was plenty of daylight left for a quick trip to the wagon. Jace stopped by his spot, put the meat in his saddlebags, picked up his horse bridle, and went to draw a horse from the remuda.

  The young boy tending to the horses told Jace the popular horses were done-in from the river crossings, but there were a half-dozen nobody rode, and he could take his pick. Jace settled on a black and white Appaloosa. He lurched over to where the horse stood, struggling because of his bad leg.

  As he reached the horse, it looked at him, and as he tried to walk up beside it, the horse kept sidestepping, always facing Jace, watching him. Finally, Jace got hold of the horse’s mane. He had a hard time with the bridle, but he finally got it on him and walked the horse to his saddle, which started another series of shenanigans by the horse. No wonder this was a horse no one rode.