Charlie Sunday's Texas Outfit

by Stephen Lodge

  “You bet your red ass I want you to,” encouraged Pike. “All right,” he went on, changing the tone of the conversation. “You just keep your eyes peeled and your ears flapped open for me until I can figure something out. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Pike,” replied Rod. “Oh, by the way, the National News Syndicate is sending a reporter along with the cattle drive. You can always find out just where we are by checking the latest edition of any newspaper.”

  “Geeze,” howled Pike. “Then you better keep a low profile … no interviews. Just keep a close watch on those old geezers for me. I’ll come up with something.”

  Early the next morning, after the herd had been watered and fed, the branding began. Charley had decided on a CAS brand instead of one that used Flora Mae’s initials, because the CAS brand was much easier—and faster—to make with a running iron.

  Even though Feather had reminded him there were laws against using running irons in Texas, Charley had thought: What the hell, we’re in Colorado now, so who cares?

  They used the running iron.

  Kelly had wanted Gerald to be down in the dirt with his camera and the cowboys, but Charley nixed her request. He told her Gerald and his camera were all right, but from a distance.

  “Too dangerous,” he had said. “That camera contraption might just spook the cattle.”

  “Grampa!” yelled Henry Ellis as Charley burned in the CAS initials on the first steer’s rear end. “You’re hurting him!”

  Charley looked up.

  “That’s not so,” he told the boy. “And even if it did, it’s only for a second or two.”

  Roscoe cut in with his own advice.

  “Us Texans have bin brandin’ longhorns like this fer as long as there’s bin cattle ta brand, son,” he added. “Don’t ya think some busybody would a’ made a fuss and then the government would a’ made it against the law ta do it by now if it really hurt the critters?”

  “But I saw the smoke,” the boy cried. “I could smell his hair burning. Plus the longhorn squealed.”

  “That’s all a part a’ brandin’, kid,” said Feather. “An’ brandin’ is all a part a’ bein’ a cowboy. Don’t you wanna be a cowboy?”

  Henry Ellis nodded timidly. “Uh-huh,” he answered.

  Rod stepped in, bending down beside the youth.

  “I felt like you do, Henry Ellis, the first time I ever saw a branding,” he told him gently.

  He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “But it’s got to be done,” Rod leveled with him. “Other wise, if some of the longhorns got loose, or lost, or even stolen, while we were driving them to Texas, we wouldn’t be able to identify them … and someone else might just claim them for their own.”

  “You don’t want that ta happen, now do ya, kid?” added a solemn Feather.

  “N-no,” answered Henry Ellis, shaking his head.

  “So ta be a real cowboy … a good cowboy … like yer grandfather an’ Feather Martin,” said Roscoe, “you just have ta learn to put up with some things ya don’t particularly like.”

  “That’s true,” said Rod. “I had to learn. These guys did. Now you can learn, too.”

  Charley, who had been watching the exchange all the while, now held the running iron out in front of his grandson.

  “Here,” he said to the boy. “Why don’t you give it a try? A real cowboy has to start sometime.”

  Henry Ellis hesitated. He started to move forward—then he paused again.

  “I’m scared, Grampa,” he told Charley.

  “Everyone’s frightened the first time,” Charley said. “Why, your uncle Roscoe over there was downright petrified. Feather, too.”

  “And me,” chimed in Rod. “I was so terrified I couldn’t even do it the first time … my father had to take me by the arm and guide me through it.”

  Henry Ellis’s face began to brighten.

  “Really?” he asked them all.

  Everyone nodded.

  “Your grampa, too,” said Charley himself. “I was probably the scaredest of ’em all.”

  He held out the iron once again.

  “Now come on over here,” he coaxed. “And I’ll personally guide your hand on your very first try at branding a Texas longhorn.”

  Henry Ellis’s mouth broke into a wide grin. He nodded to Rod as he started toward his grandfather.

  When the boy was ready, Charley’s experienced hands directed the boy’s own shaking hands—which held the cool end of the red-hot running iron—moving them, ever so carefully, toward their target. And when the tip of the iron was barely a fraction of an inch from the maverick’s behind …

  Buster, dreaming over by the buckboard, let out a piercing yelp!

  Changing the two-seat buckboard into a usable chuckwagon took longer than Charley had planned. In fact, it turned out to be much more difficult than branding three hundred head of Texas longhorns.

  They were able to find all the scrap wood they needed for the sides and a cook’s cupboard. The problem was finding larger wheels and axles.

  Feather finally located a set behind a gunsmith’s shop in town and got them for a good price. The only problem was that both the axles and the four wheels hadn’t turned in years and the wood used to make them was dried out and cracking.

  Charley told them to throw on as much grease as it would take to get everything moving properly and if something went wrong out on the trail they would worry about it then.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  1960

  The rain continued to fall outside.

  “I don’t think I’d be able to brand a cow even if I was getting money for it,” said Noel. “It’d probably hurt me more than it would hurt the cow, anyway.”

  “Don’t you be acting like a sissy, Noel,” said the girl’s great-grandfather, Hank. “Henry Ellis felt the same way until everyone told him about their own experiences with branding the first time, or haven’t you been listening?”

  “I could do it,” piped in Caleb.

  “Me too,” said Josh. “It wouldn’t be that hard if you knew it had to be done.”

  “I branded a steer once,” said their mother, Evie. “Grampa Hank taught me how.”

  “That’s right,” said Josh, “when Grampa Hank’s grampa passed on … Grampa Hank inherited the Longhorn Ranch.”

  “Not exactly,” said Hank. “My grampa Charley left my mother the ranch in his will … then she left it to me when she passed on. I had taken a course in college called Ranch Management and thought that between what I learned in school and what I got handed down to me from my grampa made me an expert when it came to running a ranch. But I never got to find out.”

  “Why was that?” asked Noel.

  “Because, back then I thought making money the quick and easy way would help me with fixing up the place a lot faster than if I waited for the longhorn herd that was on the ranch to grow large enough so I could sell some of ’em off.”

  “Then it was you who bet the ranch away in a poker game?” said Josh. “I remember hearing something about that when I was a little boy.”

  “I had a good hand,” said Hank. “Only it wasn’t as good as the one the guy I was playing with had. Four deuces,” he added.

  “You had four twos in your hand,” said Josh, “and you didn’t win?”

  “No,” answered Hank. “He had the four deuces. I had three aces.”

  “But before he lost the ranch he taught me how to brand a steer,” said Evie.

  “And you were darn good at it, too,” said Hank. “No whining or complaining.”

  “Anyone ready for more popcorn?” asked Evie.

  Four hands went up, including Hank’s.

  Evie grabbed the red bowl and got to her feet.

  “It won’t take me long,” she said.

  As she walked away Caleb raised his hand.

  Hank pointed to him.

  “Why did they turn the old buckboard into a chuckwagon when they could have just as easily bough
t or rented a real chuckwagon, Grampa Hank?”

  “Well,” Hank began, “Roscoe didn’t own a saddle horse of his own. He always used the two-seat buckboard if he needed to go anywhere. That’s why they took it along on the train in the first place.”

  “In case he needed to go somewhere,” said Noel.

  “The outfit was grateful they had brought the two-seat buckboard along,” said Hank. “The cost of a new chuckwagon back then was nothing to sneeze at. Remodeling the buckboard saved Charley a whole bunch of money in the long run.”

  “But he spent a lot of money on those extra horses, too,” said Caleb. “Why did he do that if he was trying to save money?”

  “All cattle drives need extra horses,” said Hank. “You need them if something happens to a horse on the first string, or if a horse gets tired out …”

  “Kind of like a football team,” said Josh.

  Hank nodded. “That’s a way of looking at it, Josh. The extra horses are there as insurance … And it usually takes at least one cowboy to watch over them, all the time. Charley couldn’t spare the extra man, so he let the horses run with the cattle.”

  “I don’t know how they slept on the ground every night,” said Noel. “They must have had a lot of aches and pains.”

  “Henry Ellis got to sleep in the chuckwagon with Buster the dog,” said Caleb.

  “Sometimes even Miss Kelly slept on the ground,” said Hank.

  “I feel sorry for her just thinking about it,” said Noel. “I love my bed.”

  “I’m sure you do, little one,” said Hank. “I hope you’ll never have to sleep on the cold, hard ground.”

  Evie came back into the room carrying the red bowl filled with freshly popped popcorn.

  “Here you go,” she announced, “a fresh, new batch of Jiffy Pop for everyone.”

  She sat again on the floor placing the bowl where everyone could reach it.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” she continued, “but I’m ready for Grampa Hank to go on with his story.”

  “Me too,” said Noel.

  “Me too,” echoed Caleb.

  “I’m ready,” said Josh.

  “All right then,” said Hank. “Now where was I?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  1899

  The following day, it took more than a few hours before dawn to move the three hundred longhorns out of their corrals and shepherd them into a large bunch on a sizable, grassy, flat area near the Denver stockyards.

  As the early morning sun was barely beginning to throw its halo on the rim of the horizon, a small group of horsemen waited quietly in the center of the milling cattle—Feather, Rod, and the three Colorado cowboys Sunday had hired: Neil, Sleepy, and Lucky, who appeared to be almost as old and grizzled as Charley and his pals.

  Roscoe was sitting in the driver’s seat of the well-stocked chuckwagon-buckboard nearby. Like the others, he was looking off toward the sound of approaching hoofbeats.

  Henry Ellis sat beside Roscoe on the chuckwagon’s seat, with Buster secure in the bed behind them.

  The object of their interest was a lone horseman, silhouetted in the dawn’s early light. He spurred out, traveling the distance from the barn, to and through the stockyard gates, then on up to where the longhorns and his men awaited him.

  All remained calm, for the moment, as the rider reined up beside the cowboys.

  It was Charley Sunday.

  After a long look at his unique band of drovers, Charley’s determined eyes moved from one man to another, finally stopping at Rod.

  “You ready, son?” he asked calmly.

  Rod nodded.

  Charley took a good look at the herd in anticipation of the drive ahead.

  The cattle, surrounding them all, made low gentle sounds, braying peacefully.

  Roscoe and Henry Ellis looked on excitedly from the chuckwagon-buckboard’s front seat.

  Kelly was observing while Gerald photographed the scene from where he had set up his camera at the top of a loading chute near the rear of the horse-drawn darkroom.

  Feather was ready, as were Lucky, Neil, and Sleepy.

  Charley took one final look at his oddball outfit, rubbed his nose, spit a stream of tobacco juice, and looked around at the herd. Then he turned back to the others.

  With great pride in his voice, he told them, “Take ’em to Texas, gentlemen.”

  Feather flicked a toothpick from his teeth, stood in his stirrups, and raised his hand for all to see.

  “Yeeeee-haaa!” he yelled.

  The others began to swirl their hats and lassos in the air, their spurs finding horseflesh.

  Rod was next with a “Yaaaaaaa-heeeee!”

  Roscoe couldn’t resist.

  “Ahhhhhh-haaaaa!” he bellowed from behind the reins of the chuckwagon.

  Followed by Henry Ellis beside him, with a “Yaaaa-hooooo!”

  “Eeeeeeee-haaaaa!” shouted Charley.

  Rod urged them on with “Get going, you little doggies!”

  And Neil, Lucky, and Sleepy added their “Yaaaaa-haa!” “Shoooooo-Eeeee!” and “Yippy-yip-yip!”

  Even though Gerald was taking photos with the camera, Kelly couldn’t help herself—she had to add to her own excitement with a rip-roaring “Yaaaa-hooooo!”

  Then she stood up, turned to Gerald, and said, “See you down the road a piece.”

  Gerald acknowledged and continued taking pictures as Kelly ran over to the chuckwagon, gave Buster a quick pat, then climbed in beside Henry Ellis. A smiling Roscoe popped the reins on the horses’ rumps and the old, rickety wheel replacements began to turn.

  At first, everything went pretty smooth. The cattle appeared to move effortlessly across the Colorado countryside with the cowboys hazing them along—prodding the slow ones—and, every so often, riding out to bring in a pesky maverick.

  Roscoe, Henry Ellis, Kelly, and Buster bounced along in the chuckwagon, making their way through the dust and the slow-moving longhorns.

  Charley rode Dice at the head of the drive, directing the entire campaign.

  By the looks of him, Charles Abner Sunday was a satisfied man.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The newspaper photo showed the longhorns and the cowboys in progress. Kelly King’s written words below added the expected commentary:

  “An old-fashioned cattle drive began today,” she wrote for her reading audience, “just outside Denver, Colorado. Three hundred Texas longhorn cattle on their way home at last.

  “This modern-day cattle drive is being made possible by a group of crusty old cowboys from the Lone Star State of Texas, who are reliving the days of yore.

  “I will be traveling with these brave men as they make this amazing cattle drive back to Texas, courageously fighting their way across today’s contemporary obstacles, taking these longhorns back to where they historically belong.

  “An event such as this has not been undertaken with longhorn cattle in quite some time. A thousand-mile cattle drive: living with the elements, cooking every meal from scratch, eating from tin plates, outdoors twenty-four hours a day, sleeping under the stars every night for however long it may take.”

  The newspaper was crumpled by two well-manicured hands.

  Sidney Pike had been reading Kelly’s report at his office desk and was very upset by what he had just seen.

  He stood, grabbed a handful of cigars from a wooden humidor on his desk, then yelled into the next room.

  “I’ll be out of the office for a while, Quigley,” he snarled. “Take messages.”

  Later on that same day, Kelly was on the ground with Gerald, her photographer, taking some low-angle shots of the oncoming herd.

  From his lead position, Charley saw the two of them on the grassy knoll and he noticed that the cattle were headed directly for the two of them. They’re close … dangerously close to possible injury, he thought.

  He spurred out fast, riding on up ahead.

  Charley reined Dice in beside the twosome, moti
oning for Kelly to stand. When she did, Charley tipped his hat back and told her, “You best be riding with Roscoe and Henry Ellis in the chuckwagon, young lady. This ain’t safe at all, you bein’ out here afoot.”

  Kelly nodded.

  Gerald turned the camera toward Charley as he rode back to the herd and began shooing the longhorns away from the newspeople. But it was too late to get a good photograph.

  Feather rode up to Kelly and Gerald.

  Gerald immediately swung the camera around, training it on the pint-size cowboy.

  Seeing the lens aimed in his direction, Feather doffed his hat, posed, and smiled real pretty. The camera snapped. He winked at Kelly. “The boys back in Juanita will never believe this … my picture bein’ in the newspaper.”

  Later, Charley was dismounted, holding his horse by the reins. He chewed hard on his tobacco cud, contemplating something nearby.

  The entire herd surrounded him, having come to a standstill, held up by a four-strand, barbed wire fence.

  Feather rode up, reining to a stop.

  “What’s the holdup, boss?” he asked.

  Charley pointed to the fence.

  “You’re lookin’ at it, Feather.”

  Feather squinted down Charley’s finger.

  “You talkin’ ’bout them li’l ol’ rusty pieces a’ barbwar?” he inquired.

  Charley nodded.

  Feather dismounted in a jump, fished through his saddlebags, and brought out a pair of rusty old wire cutters.

  He clicked them a couple of times for Charley to see.

  “Little barbwar never stopped us back in the old days, now did it?” he said with a twinkle.

  “Nope,” answered Charley. “Because there weren’t no barbwire back then.”

  Feather moved in to do his snipping.

  It only took a few moments before the wire was cut between two posts.

  Feather went on to make another few cuts and the fencing dropped to the ground, leaving a space large enough for the cattle to pass.

  “Will ya lookit that,” beamed the knee-high night herder. “The ol’ fence just up an’ fell apart.”

  They both remounted.

  “We don’t want to go starting any range wars,” Charley said with a chuckle. “After they’re all through the hole,” he told the little cowboy, “get Sleepy and Lucky to help you restring that wire. Savvy?”