Trail to Cottonwood Falls

by Ralph Compton

  He shook his head.

  They crossed the Colorado and headed for the Brazos. Rain caught them, and some wind for two days, but no bad storms. Ed held his molars close, thinking they’d get pyrotechnics out of the rain that blew in, but aside from everything they owned being wet through and through, the weather finally moved on.

  He replenished his pints from an old man and even found a Mexican woman with goats who sold him a quart for two bits. From the smile on her face, she was looking for more cowboys to drop by and buy her milk. He rode off thinking that Rosa’s product didn’t have such a hot, animal flavor, but he drank it down anyway. It helped his belly and he caught up with Caudle at midafternoon in camp.

  “Where next?” he asked the cook, hitching the roan to a front wheel where the Texas flag would flutter in his face while the gelding ate corn from a nose bag. The remuda didn’t get feed. The cowboys only used them one day a week, so they were well rested. He rode the roan every day.

  “I don’t think this weather will hold,” Ed said, looking at the azure-blue sky. “I’d like to be on the far side of the Brazos tomorrow night.”

  “No way. Why, we can’t cross the Brazos tomorrow,” Caudle said, and spit sideways. “Must be better’n twenty miles.”

  “Close to that I figure. But if it rains again we’d be better off on the north bank.”

  “What’re you looking at?”

  “Hot as it is today, I figure there’s a dandy brewing out there, not too far away.”

  Caudle spat aside and wiped his whiskered mouth on the back of his hand. “They could boil up any time. We know that this time of year.”

  “It’s that time of year. If I was in charge I’d push them and have it behind me.”

  Caudle nodded. “You’ll end up crossing in the dark and lose a bunch.”

  “No, before I’d do that I’d bed ’em on the south side and let the cowboys cross over to eat.”

  “Going to storm someday, but I think you’re nuts, pushing ’em that hard.”

  “Well, Caudle, that’s my take,” Ed said, took off the nose bag, and remounted his horse.

  When Ed caught up with Unita and the noisy, bawling herd, he realized he had never missed that drone of cattle voices, hooves pounding the ground, and horns knocking. She rode aside and looked tired when she reined up.

  “What’s it look like up ahead?” she asked.

  “Same old, but I want to talk to Shorty and Ich tonight. I think we need to push them across the Brazos tomorrow.”

  “Why?” She looked up at him after mopping her face with her kerchief.

  “Weather’s been good so far. But it’ll break one of these days, and if we get across another river, it’s one less to swim in a flood.”

  “Can we do it?”

  “We’d have to push them, but I think we can and if I was the boss that’s the way I’d do it.”

  “Fine, what does the other guide think?” She smiled at him.

  “I’m crazy.”

  “So?”

  “There’s a couple of creeks east of here. Why don’t we slip off and you take a bath in one. I’ll be the lookout.”

  She blinked at him, twisted, and looked around at the dust and cattle. “Guess they will be all right for that long.”

  “Trust me, they will.”

  She waved to one of the riders, making a sign that they were going over the hill, and he nodded. They set out in a short lope through the grass, pear, and mesquite. The creek was clear and looked inviting. When she dismounted, he tossed her a bar of soap and a towel from his bags. Then he bent over to catch her horse’s rein and lead him off.

  “We’ll be up on the hill. When you get done, call me.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and he rode off.

  Seated on his butt while the ponies grazed through their bits, he wondered if his idea to push hard the next day was smart or only his desire to take charge from cookie. Still, his gut feelings said, “Get across the Brazos.” He seldom went against his gut and when he did, he ended up regretting not listening. A good slug of whiskey might help settle him at the moment, but he decided to let his molars float in anticipation for one still later.

  Unita called and he pinched off some blades of grass to toss into the wind before he got up. “I’m coming.”

  He brought her horse down to her. She did look refreshed and that made him feel better. In a vault she was in the saddle and they headed back. Hat on the back of her head, she brushed her hair as she rode beside him

  “That was wonderful. Thanks.”

  “A little getting away once in a while helps.”

  “Yes, I’d forgotten what a meadowlark sounded like with all those cattle sounds in my ears all day.”

  He looked off across the greening country. The wild plum thickets were through blooming and the blue bells were about to start. Lots of the country they crossed would soon be a sea of blue flowers, along with the Indian paintbrush colors of white, pink, and yellow being whipped on their fragile stems in a growing afternoon wind.

  “So we push for the Brazos in the morning?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ve not said anything so far, but I know how hard this is on you. I mean, going back over this same ground.” She rode in close, stood in the stirrups, leaned over, and kissed him.

  He chuckled, and she sat down in the saddle and frowned at him. “What’s so funny?”

  “Aw, Lordy, that must have been like kissing a cross between a boar hog and a prickly pear cactus.”

  “That’s my choice, said the old lady after she kissed the cow.”

  “I can’t beat that. I worry lots about you. This is a tough game. These are days I regret forcing you to be the trail boss.”

  “Why? I’m fine. Why, I’ll be singing after that bath for two days, anyhow.”

  He glanced over and appraised her. “I believe you will.”

  Chapter 23

  The push was on before the sun even thought about shining on them. Cattle on the move and the swing riders on each side compressed the line of march. This put them in a natural, fast-swinging gait that longhorns must have crossed the north African desert with when the Moors brought them over to Spain. During the war, Ed had read a book about the Moors and their Spanish conquest and occupation—along with their Barb horses and long-horned cattle, they brought their buildings to Spain, and it all fell into the new world when the king claimed Mexico and the southwest.

  There was no need to scout—they needed all hands. A cowboy’s girth broke and sent him sprawling. Ed saw it happen and rode down his horse, coming back to see an embarrassed youth named Hurley carrying his pack in both hands and cussing.

  “Give me the saddle,” Ed said. “I can run down the chuck wagon and get a new girth. You can ride bareback till I get back.”

  The freckle-faced boy of perhaps seventeen blinked his dust-coated eyelashes and grinned. “Damn, thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  A cowboy on the right side flagged Ed down and waved a girth that he’d pulled from his saddlebags. Ed shook his head in relief, grateful he wouldn’t have to catch Caudle.

  “I seen you carrying that and figured someone’s girth had busted,” J. T., another youth in the bunch, said.

  “Thanks. I’ll see you get paid for it.” Ed turned the roan back and found Hurley.

  “Damn, that was a fast trip,” Hurley said over the herd’s noise.

  “J. T. had one.”

  “Well, bless his pea-picking heart.”

  “I thought the same. If you ain’t got the money to pay him for it, I’ll give it to you.”

  “Naw, I can pay him. I was fixing to buy a new one in Fort Worth anyway.”

  They dismounted and tossed the saddle on Hurley’s dun horse. In minutes they had the latigos in place and the bellyband cinched up. Hurley stepped aboard, waved to him, and rode off to bring in a steer that had broken off from the bunch.

  Pushing hard was that—hard work. The pokey cattle grew
even more so, and Ed put up his bandanna and helped the drag riders prod them along. Noon came and went. Then the word came down the line that they were close to the river.

  Ed set his spurs to the roan and could see that the swing riders had eased off making the cattle loop to the east for delivery to the water. Experienced hands in the right places made lots of difference and he knew those two were the best. He managed to cross in front of Sam Houston and rode the last mile at a hard run, pulling the horse down when he could see the river.

  It wasn’t flooding and looked fairly manageable to cross. Caudle had gone to the ferry downstream, but he should be making his way to the point on the far bank where the cattle crossed. A herd had crossed that day. Probably in the morning, from the looks of the cow pies.

  Watering the cattle took over an hour. Then came swinging them out and heading them back. He told the two hands preparing to swim across to be on the other side not to let the cattle reaching the far side ever stall on the bank. “They stall, we’ll have a backlog in the river. Do what you have to do but keep them moving.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Use your pistols to shoot in the air if you have to, but keep them moving.”

  Both grim-faced boys agreed that they understood, and set out to swim the river.

  “I think Sam Houston will head right across,” Ich said, and Shorty agreed.

  Ed smiled, checking the sun time—close to five o’clock and the cattle looked weary. Many had laid down. “It’ll be up to him to get us across.”

  “I’m glad you sent Unita with the wagon. Them boys can cross in their underwear that way,” Ich said.

  “She’d not complain about that.”

  “No, but it would sure make them uneasy,” Shorty said.

  They laughed and Ed nodded to them. “Let’s cross over.”

  “We’re ready.” Ich stood in the stirrup and shouted, waving his large hat high over his head. “Head ’em up! Move ’em out!”

  From a high place on the bank, Ed watched the lead steer take to the water and the swing pair press the string on his tail into the river. Then one black steer spooked and turned around. Tail over his back, he headed against the tide. But Shorty drove his pony at him while waving a lariat coil. The black steer tried to duck aside but the bay, head down, ears flat, teeth flashing, covered his move. The black one thought better of his plan, turned tail, and in three leaps dove into the water belly deep, with a great splash, and began to swim with the others for the north shore.

  Ed used his brass telescope to view the slick-hided cattle reaching the far side. Shaking off water like wet cats when they emerged, the two hands were still keeping them rolling on and so far everything looked good.

  He checked the sun time. They had another forty-five minutes of good daylight left. It would take all of that, but the moon should be up with enough light to bed them. The last head were midstream when he tied his boots around his neck and, with the two drag riders, prepared to seek the far shore.

  “Sure went good, huh, Mr. Ed?” a short boy called Stubby said, bursting with pride.

  “It sure did,” Ed said, and smiled at them. “Helluva job.”

  The choppy water looked bloody in sundown’s glare. The roan drove off into the stirred-up, muddy water being cleared by the current. The water felt cold penetrating his clothes and soon Ed was hanging onto the horn and letting the roan swim. Both boys were laughing and oohing over the river’s chilly temperature until at last they rode out of the Brazos like triumphant knights and their horses shook hard enough to rattle their stirrups.

  “We made it,” Unita said as she rode down the mud-slick bank where the water shed from two thousand cattle and their hooves had made a slurry.

  “Caudle make it?” Ed asked.

  “Oh, he’s acting like this was all his idea.”

  Ed shook his head. The boots around his neck weren’t too badly wet, but they’d dry. He had clean socks in his bedroll. He’d change in camp, so he slung his linked footgear over the horn.

  “You have a good day?”

  “Fine, but I worried all day about the herd and the boys and not being with them.”

  “I savvy worry. Blondie make it?”

  “He was waiting on us up here.”

  Ed frowned at the sight of the chuck wagon and in the lantern light he saw several hands gathered round. “We better get up there and see what’s wrong.”

  “What is it?”

  “Damned if I know,” he said, and they hurried their horses.

  When he stepped down at the wagon he realized he was stocking-footed. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s J. T. got hisself snake bit,” Caudle said on his knees, tending to him. They had the boy’s pants off and his longhandle split up to the knee.

  The cook was using a tourniquet on his leg and one of the boys held a jackknife.

  “Pass that blade through the fire,” Ed said to him. “And Hurley, get that bottle of whiskey out of my war bag.” He nodded to J. T. The sweaty-faced boy seated on his butt, trying to mask his worst fears behind his ashen face, returned the head bob.

  Then the boys parted and Blondie came through them with a small, limp bobwhite quail in his hand. He took the knife from the cowboy and split the bird open, then dropped down beside Caudle. He indicated for cookie to take off the wrap, and then he slapped the bloody, split bird on top of the bite marks and pressed tightly on it.

  Ed saw the hard look in Blondie’s cold blue eyes as he held the quail to J. T.’s leg. No one said anything. Hurley handed Ed the pint and he nodded to thank him. Somewhere in the night a hoarse-voiced steer was bawling for his partners, lost in the crossing.

  “That going to work?” Caudle finally asked Blondie.

  “Sίί. Mucho bueno.”

  In the lantern light, Caudle rose with a scowl. “Beats the hell out of me how it would work.” He pushed off Ed, who had uncorked the bottle the cowboy brought him and handed it to J. T.

  “What beats the hell out of me is how that Comanche ever got the damn bird in the first place,” one of the hands said.

  “Ain’t’cha heard of rocks, Nort?”

  “There ain’t none around here.”

  Ed took the bottle back from J. T., who quietly thanked him as if settled. The cork in place, Ed sat back on the ground and watched Blondie, who continued to press his feathery hands full on J. T.’s calf. Then he realized that Unita was squatted beside him.

  “What’s it doing?” she asked.

  “I guess drawing the poison out,” he said softly.

  She nodded.

  Ed had to join the cowhands’ line of questioning how Blondie, without a gun, ever killed a bobwhite that fast?

  It was late when they finished supper, with the cattle bedded down and the night guards out. Ed and Unita sat on his bedroll and watched lightning streak the western sky as storm after storm ran northward, parallel to them.

  “J. T. going to be all right?” she asked.

  “His leg ain’t swelling like most snakebite victims I’ve seen. I think Blondie saved his life.”

  She leaned over and put her head on his shoulder. “It was a helluva day.”

  He agreed. “But we’re across the Brazos. If we ever get past the Red, I’ll kind of relax some, ’cause the rest, outside of the Arkansas, ain’t too bad.”

  “It was a good move. Those storms out there could have been here.”

  “Yes, and it gave us a chance to rest up.”

  “I better get to my tent,” she said. “Morning will sure come early.”

  Light rain fell before the sun crept up and everyone was crowded under the fly eating a breakfast of ham, biscuits, gravy, and fried mush off their tin plates, standing up to make room for everyone.

  “Take you some biscuits and ham for your snack today,” Caudle said to them. “We may have to eat jerky tonight.”

  “We’re going to eat that cursed black steer next,” Shorty announced. “If he cuts back on another river crossing h
e’ll be dead meat.”

  “All your beef used up?” Unita asked.

  “Used it all last night.”

  “There will be one turn up,” Ed said. “If not, we’ll sacrifice Shorty’s pet black one.”

  Everyone laughed. Even J. T., who was on crutches, but recovering in shorter time than any snakebite victim Ed could recall. He was to ride with Caudle in the wagon for a couple of days, which Ed considered just punishment for letting a diamondback bite him.

  They only went five miles in the cold drizzle and found some good graze. It was a day to get caught up. Under Caudle’s fly, Ed even shaved and felt human again, though his boots were not drying out and had squished all day in the stirrups. He went over to Unita’s tent after shaving and cleared his throat, waiting for her to answer. The cold mist on his slick face, he looked across the gray world and nodded to himself. They always needed the moisture.

  “Come in,” she said, parting the tent fold.

  “How’re you doing?” he asked, squatting down in his wet boots.

  “Busy making a list.” She sat on the folding cot, brushing her hair. “We’ll need more supplies when we get up to Fort Worth.”

  “I know. Take us a month to cross the Indian Territory. Oh, about six weeks from the Red River to Newton.”

  “Take a week to get up there from Fort Worth. So that’s an even two months.”

  “Close.”

  “I want you to go into Fort Worth. Get the supplies and have them hauled out to the herd. Figured you’d want to check on those killers while you were there.”

  He nodded, busy reflecting on what all the trip entailed. “I can do that.”

  “Good. I know this trip has pulled a curtain between us—” She was busy rolling the loose hair out of her brush. “Ever since the boys’ death you’ve pulled yourself back into a burrow.”

  “Had lots on my mind. Sorry.”

  “No need. I appreciate all your hard work and guidance. Knowing men like Ich and Shorty, and what they could do. I’d never have made it without you, but I am worried you’re falling back in the bottle and will waste a good life you could have.”

  He raised his gaze, looked at her, and nodded. It was the first time she’d addressed his drinking since the drive started, and it wasn’t like he’d expected her to act. It was like she’d given up on them and only worried about him.