by Elmer Kelton
“I wish I could believe you,” she said. She turned away from him and walked out toward her brother.
They bunched the cattle in the back side of the canyon. Wade and Price Stockton rode into the herd and started cutting the cattle that weren’t to make the trip—cows with calves and the best of the young cows. These, and others like them in bunches to be rounded up later, might form the nucleus of a new herd for the Rafter T. Might, if enough other cattle could be taken out to liquidate the debt.
But if there were heavy losses on the trail—and Wade feared there would be—these cattle would probably have to be rounded up again and taken to market anyway. Then there would be no nucleus, there would be only a violent country of rock and cactus, jagged cliffs and rimrocks—and some broken dreams.
Wade knew these thoughts were eating at Stockton, too. He could feel the ranchman’s silent hostility whenever the two of them chanced to come close together in the herd.
By midafternoon about two hundred and fifty cattle had been cut out to stay a while longer. The rest, older cows, steers and outlawed bulls, were kept in a bunch. A thousand head, more or less. Not a big herd, as trail herds went. But with them would go the fate of the Rafter T.
As the little bunch of cows and calves was being pushed out of the canyon to scatter back into the hills, Wade managed to ride up beside Bess Henry.
“It’s a pretty long ride back to headquarters, Mrs. Henry. Don’t you think you better get started? It’s liable to be dark before you get home.”
She looked directly into his face. He could see a firmness in her eyes, but there was no longer any sign of hatred.
“I’m not going home. I’m staying with my cattle.”
A dozen protests immediately rose up in him, but he choked them off.
“It’s going to be a long, hard drive. It’s liable to be dangerous, too,” he spoke quietly. She kept looking into his eyes, to his discomfort. “They’re still my cattle.”
The crew was up long before daylight. As the first streaks of light began to play above the broken mountains to the east, cowboy yells rose in the sharp morning air, and the herd began moving uncertainly.
By the time the sun had risen to throw its light down across the canyon rims, a long, thin line of cattle was stringing through the rocky, broken hills. The point was moving westward. And it was moving fast.
“Keep crowding them,” Wade ordered the crew. “We’ve got too much wild stock in here to trail-break them easy. The first couple or three days have got to be hard and fast.”
It was a fearsome land to take cattle through. There were sheer canyon rims to skirt, steep washouts to cross. Always wherever the terrain was the roughest, some of the mossyhorns would make their break.
A few got away. Most of them came back at the end of a rope, bracing their legs vainly against the power of the horses that dragged them in. It was fearsome, sure. But it wasn’t impossible.
Wade wore down one horse after another, the way he kept riding back and forth, up and down the herd, keeping the cowboys pushing, helping drag back runaways, going out in front of the point men to find the best way through.
Occasionally he would pass Bess Henry, riding at one side of the herd, about halfway back from the point. She worked as hard as any of her cowboys.
Once he brought back a steer that bolted out from behind her, and she smiled at him. It was the first time she’d smiled at him since that day he had ridden into headquarters. She caught herself, and the smile faded quickly. But at least there had been one for a moment. Maybe later there would be others.
Toward nightfall Wade found a small box canyon. There was a good chance they would stampede tonight, if anything happened to set them off. In a box canyon, though, the chance of stopping them was much better. They wouldn’t run far up a steep canyon slope.
But the herd was thirsty. It had watered only once, shortly before noon. Now cattle’s tongues lolled out, and they walked with heads low.
Wade found water at the foot of a canyon. The walls were steep, but not too steep to climb. It was no trouble getting the cattle down to the water. But it took until dark to fight them up the other side after they had drunk their fill.
Finally the herd was bunched in the box canyon and the cook started unpacking his mules. The cattle started bedding down fairly easily. They were tired.
Lodge Agnew flopped down on the ground and sighed heavily. “I’m going to lay right here till daylight. There ain’t nobody going to get me up.”
Wearily Wade walked up beside Agnew. “I will, Lodge. We’re standing a double guard tonight.”
Wade felt the eyes of the crew swinging around to him.
Agnew raised up onto one shoulder. “Hell, Massey, this bunch is wore out. We got to have rest.”
Wade knew. He was having a little trouble staying on his feet. “I’ll be right out there with you. That herd’s still not trail-broke, Lodge. I’d give you odds it stampedes. We’ve got to be ready to stop it.”
Agnew’s dust-reddened eyes smoldered. “You’re not getting me out for no double guard, Massey. You better not try.”
Wade looked at the regular Stockton hands. From their faces he could tell they felt the same way. He listened a moment to the quiet stir of the cattle. He wasn’t going to lose that herd now because men wanted to sleep.
“You’ll stand your guard, Lodge,” he declared, “if I’ve got to tie a rope around your feet and drag you out there. That goes for everybody else.”
He could feel the hostility of the Stockton men, even where he couldn’t see their faces. But every man rolled out and stood his guard duty that night. Even Lodge Agnew. And the herd didn’t run.
It was a sleepy group of cowboys who huddled around the cook fire for a silent breakfast the next morning. Everyone had stood guard but the cook and Bess Henry. By tradition the cook was exempt from that job. And by tradition Bess Henry should not have been with the herd in the first place.
Wade helped her mount her horse. He noticed how stiffly she swung up onto her sidesaddle. She was as tired as the rest, maybe more.
“It’s still just a short day’s ride back to headquarters when you haven’t got any cattle to slow you up,” he said. “Why don’t you go home?”
She shook her head. “I’m beginning to think you’re going to make it to market after all, Massey,” she answered quietly. There was no longer any hostility in her eyes. “I want to stay and see.”
Again the herd snaked out toward the west. There wasn’t any trail. Wade had to make one—Wade and the point men. As in the day before, he worked back and forth down the line, pushing men and pushing cattle.
They were tired, but they would have to get a lot tireder. He was going to walk the legs off this herd if he had to, to keep them from stampeding and getting away at night.
Today fewer cattle tried to break out. Of those that tried, all but one were brought back.
There wasn’t any box canyon that night. The cattle were bunched in a valley along a dry creek bed, where they could run either of two ways. But they were tired. Wade had hopes they wouldn’t stampede.
The sun sank below the bald rim. Wade found the rim holding his gaze more and more now. It looked a lot closer than it had back yonder at the roundup ground. But it appeared even more formidable.
Wade saw Stockton looking at it, too. In the ranchman’s eyes were doubt and dread. And as he turned to glance briefly toward Wade, the younger man could see something else there, too, the same grim warning Stockton had voiced before the drive began.
A full moon came up that night. In its gray light the rocky hills softened and took on beauty. There was something in them now he hadn’t felt before. A grandeur, and even a peace.
But the peace didn’t last long. Even though the herd was tired, it didn’t bed down the way it should have. Many of the cattle stayed on their feet, milling around aimlessly. There wasn’t anything Wade could put his finger on, but there was a tension in the herd, like a metal wagon spring
bent back almost to the breaking point.
He never knew what started it. Maybe a steer stumbled and fell. Maybe one bull hooked at another and boogered the rest of the herd. Whatever it was, it made the cattle jump to their feet and take out in one hard, mad clatter of hooves.
Three or four cowboys yelled at once. Wade spurred his horse into a hard run. He heard a voice shouting at the cattle and realized with a start that it was his own.
They headed north down the dry creek bed. It was a wild run, a combination of panic and plain outlawry.
Wade spurred hard to get up to the lead, but he couldn’t make it. There wouldn’t be any turning them back now, not until they had run themselves down. They might go two or three miles. But they were tired. They couldn’t keep it up too long.
Spurring along beside the stampede, he could feel his horse gradually slowing up. He could tell the cattle were slowing up, too, and stringing out farther and farther behind him. Near-panic edged through him as he watched the rough, tricky ground fly by under his horse’s hooves. He realized it was bad business to look at the ground.
He didn’t know how long it took before the cattle up front finally began to falter. He spurred a little harder and passed them. Gradually he slowed them down until he was able to turn them back and get them to milling.
Soon another cowboy joined him. It was one of Stockton’s men. The puncher looked at him a moment before he finally grinned. “I thought I was doing some tall riding. But here I find you were ahead of me all the time. You’re a real hand, Massey.”
Wade enjoyed the warmth that went through him. It was the first time in days any Stockton hand except Milholland had tried to be friendly to him.
They started pushing the cattle back. Run down now, the cattle handled fairly well. Gradually as they moved back down the creek bed, the herd grew larger. Now and then a cowboy would join the bunch, bringing along some cattle he had managed to keep hold of.
It was hard to tell, even in the bright moonlight, but Wade thought he had most of the herd back already. In the morning they would scout and get the major part of the rest. Tired and sore, Wade couldn’t help feeling pretty good about the situation.
But then Lodge Agnew joined the bunch, not far above the original bed grounds. He brought no cattle with him. A sudden suspicion grew in Wade, so strong he couldn’t keep from voicing it.
“You didn’t try to help us stop them, Lodge,” he accused. “The hard run threw a booger into you, and you dropped out where nobody could see you. If we didn’t need every man we’ve got, I’d run you right out of camp.”
Agnew bristled. “You’ve been throwing it into me every chance you get, Massey. I’m warning you, one of these days you’ll get a bullet put through you.”
Wade wanted to knock Agnew right out of the saddle, but he gripped his saddle horn to keep from doing it. “If you do the shooting, Lodge, that bullet’ll be in my back.”
It took another hour to account for all the men. After sunup the cowboys started scouting up and down along the creek bed for scattered cattle. By noon the count was only about fifty head short.
“They’ll be halfway back to their old stomping grounds by now,” he told Snort Shanks. “They’ll be around when we round up the second batch. Let’s head out.”
Shanks scratched his chin as he looked across the wide expanse of desert ahead, this side of the rim. “You told me it’s still a three-day drive. You sure there’s water?”
Wade nodded. “Milholland and I found one water hole when we came to look this country over. But there’ll be some thirsty cattle before we get to it.”
Shanks and one of the Stockton hands took the point again, and the herd strung out. There was still some devil in part of the cattle. Wade could only hope he could walk it out of them. He issued the same orders he had given out the first day of the drive. Push them hard. Wear them down.
It was a question, though, who wore down more—the cattle or the cowboys. As the afternoon dragged on and the sun began dipping low over the rim, Wade knew the fatigue that worked through the men. He could see it in their tired, dusty faces, their sun and wind-cracked lips, their reddened eyes. He could feel it right through to the marrow of his own bones. But they kept pushing until the moon rose.
When at last the herd was bunched and most of the cowboys pulled into camp, they unsaddled their horses and flopped wearily down on the ground. Some never even ate supper. They slept like the hard, immovable rocks of the rim.
Next morning they got up still tired and irritable. Words were short as the men saddled fresh horses and went back to the cattle. One puncher sleepily let his horse bump another rider’s leg, and Wade thought he would have to drag the two men apart.
The cattle were getting thirsty, thirsty enough to set men to worrying. Wade thought about the water hole and hoped they wouldn’t be many hours in reaching it.
But they didn’t reach it. Before noon he struck out far ahead of the herd and tried to locate the place. But one canyon looked like another. One stretch of rock and sand and cactus was no different from a dozen others.
Wade rode his horse down, but he couldn’t find water. Returning to the herd, he picked up a fresh horse and got Milholland to come along with him. All afternoon they searched. But the hole could not be found.
“Like I told you,” Milholland explained apologetically, “I never had gotten over this far west before, and I didn’t know the country. There ain’t any landmarks hardly that a man can go by.
“The hole’s out there someplace. We know that. But we could walk the cattle to death, trying to find it.”
So they rode back to the herd.
Biting his dry, cracking lips, Wade reined up beside Snort Shanks. “Keep leading them, Snort, straight on for the rim. There won’t be any water tonight.”
Shanks’s mouth dropped open. For the first time Wade could see silent disapproval in the cowhand’s eyes.
“No water? But the whole outfit’s dried up. How long have we got to go till we do get water?”
Wade lowered his head. “Till we get over the rim.”
The lanky cowboy stared incredulously at him. He blinked his dust-bitten eyes and rubbed a big hand across his parched lips.
“All right. There ain’t much we can do except try it. But if you know any prayers, you better dust them off.”
When the word passed on down the line, it brought near-rebellion. Far behind him, Wade could see Lodge Agnew talking and gesturing bitterly with Price Stockton. Wade knew what he was up to. He was working on Stockton’s anger and distrust.
Finally Stockton rode up toward Wade. Lodge followed a full length behind him. Bess Henry came along a little behind Agnew.
Stockton’s eyes were blazing. “You can’t do it, Massey. No telling what another couple of days without water might do to this herd, or to the men, for that matter.”
Wade tried to stare him down. “What had you rather do?”
“Anything besides keep going this way, without water.”
Wade rested his hand on his saddle horn and noticed it trembled a little. He was mad. “Maybe you’d like to turn back and call the whole thing a failure. Maybe you’d like to turn your whole herd over to the bank and let them worry about getting their money out of it. Maybe you’d like to leave this country and admit it whipped you.”
He knew instantly that he had hit a soft spot there. Price Stockton might not be the best manager in the world, but he wasn’t a quitter. And he wouldn’t let anything make him out as one.
“I can last as long as you can, Massey. Longer. Keep driving, then, and be damned. But just remember what I told you. If this herd doesn’t reach the railroad, you’ll never get there either!”
Stockton jerked his horse around and headed back toward the men in a long trot. Agnew followed him. Wade knew Lodge was still talking to him, firing him up.
Bess Henry stayed. Wade sat his horse as she rode on up to him. Dust streaked her face, and her long hair strung out windblown bene
ath her wide hat brim. Her clothes were dusty and grimy, and ripped in places. But she was still pretty. She still stirred his blood just as she had the day he first rode up to the Rafter T.
“It looks like you need a friend, Massey.”
He nodded and forced a thin smile. “I haven’t got many around here right now.”
She smiled back at him. “You have at least one. Me.”
Wade’s heart drummed. “You’ve changed a lot, then. You weren’t having much to do with me.”
Her smile faded, but there was earnestness in her blue eyes.
“You’ve worked hard these last few days. You’ve ridden hard and you’ve worried yourself sick. I’m getting more convinced all the time that you’re not doing it for the bank. You’re doing it for us. Price still thinks you’re trying to beat us out of our cattle. But I think he’s wrong. I’m betting on it.”
Wade’s eyes were on her face. Even with the dust, it was lovely to him. He wanted to reach out and touch her. He felt his own face coloring, and he swallowed hard.
“Thanks,” he managed. “I’ll try to see that you win your bet.”
They bunched the cattle by moonlight, but they never did get them bedded down. The cattle were restless and irritable, hooking at each other and bawling. By the end of the first guard shift Wade knew there was no use trying to make them rest.
“They’re all up and walking anyway. They might just as well be walking on toward the rim,” he told Snort Shanks. “We’ll get the men up and head them out again. The more we move, the sooner this outfit reaches water.”
He thought he would have to whip half of the crew to get them up and into their saddles. Even the cook, who hadn’t been saying much, acted as if he wanted to take the bottom of a skillet to Wade’s head.
Price Stockton rode along stolidly with Lodge Agnew beside him. Even in the moonlight, where he couldn’t see Stockton’s face, Wade could feel the hatred that seethed through the ranchman. Wade could almost reach out and touch it.
Sunrise found the herd plodding along a good four or five miles from the bed ground. The cattle’s heads bent low. Saliva dripped from their muzzles and trailed along the ground and in the short, dusty bunch grass. All up and down the line, proddy cattle hooked at one another, kept each other at a distance.
