by Rita Hestand
“He won't go alone, Señora. We will go with him,” Concho said as all the men stood behind him.
Hunt eyed them with new respect, but shook his head negatively. “Someone's got to look after our herd, Concho. And I'm afraid you are the man for that job. I don't want to have to worry about us back here while I'm dealing with them.”
Concho frowned and bowed his head.
That's when Cole, Joe, Dutch, and Sparky stepped up. “We'll go with you, boss. The others can man our herd. You're right, something is wrong with that bunch.”
Hunt stared at the men, and then heaved a sigh. “I'd rather not lose any of you.”
“You won't be losin' anyone,” Cole corrected, his hand on his gun, a smile on his lips.
Hunter realized that Cole was probably very good with his gun, but preferred cattle to fighting. He liked that about him. There was this inexplicable feeling of understanding growing between him and his men now and it gave Hunt pride he hadn't felt in a long time.
“All right, but before we go, I want you all to understand, the main thing is to get those cattle across that river. If it takes two days or forty, we’ve got to move them. Basically, I'm going have to take over that herd to get them through. We might have to just string ours right behind them and keep them all moving. We'll need our oxen to do it. Concho, I want you to string our herd out, keep them thin, because as soon as we get theirs over, we'll be moving ours. I'm going to scout the river before I go, see how bad it is, where we can cross, and then we'll go in and check on those…drovers.”
The men all nodded and Hunt realized for the first time that they had complete trust in him. He couldn't get mushy on them and tell them how he felt about them, but he never was as proud as he was now.
“All right, I'll check the river, and then we'll move out.” He nodded to Cole.
“We'll be ready, boss,” Cole responded, his tone confident.
“Thanks,” Hunt said, unable to voice his own feelings.
Jodi came up to him as he was about to ride out. “Be careful.”
“I intend to.” He smiled and tipped his hat to her. Then, with one long look at her, he added, “I've got a reason to…don't I?”
“Just be careful.”
“Promise me, Jodi,” he demanded in a very low voice.
“Promise you what?”
“Think about what I said.” He stared down into her amazed face.
“Will you stay alive if I promise?” she whispered so only he could hear.
He came closer, bent to her, and touched his lips to hers as he murmured, “Promise me.”
Her smile was all he needed. That and the assurance that maybe they had a chance. A man didn't need much more than that to make his life complete.
But the river he faced now was way out of bounds. He spotted the camp ahead, but didn't go in. He wasn't ready to deal with that part of his problem yet. He wanted to find a place to cross first. He needed all the facts and some idea of how he was going to manage getting nearly seven thousand head of cattle across a swollen, mean-looking river.
Abilene wasn't that far now, but the river was his enemy. So far, he hadn't lost a single cow. In fact, he had gained some. But this herd ahead could cause him all kinds of grief, and he didn't want that happening.
He rode the river banks for miles. Occasionally, he stopped to check the water temperature. He'd let his horse wade through it, then he leaned over and touched it himself.
It was ice cold, and the current was moving too swiftly. He'd have to wait a few days and hope it would go down. He did find a narrower spot, but the embankment was too steep. He didn't like it and moved on. Better to cross where the embankment was lower and easier to manage.
There were signs of previous herd passages and a couple of crosses littered the banks. It seemed that every river had the crosses up, reminding him that he had to stay alive. Hunt noticed how fresh they were and realized instantly that whoever herded these cattle had lost more than they should have. There was a huge cottonwood at one point that had been struck by lightning and looked torn and jagged, not at all a pretty site. The weather and rivers in Kansas seemed treacherous. He'd wait it out as long as he thought feasible. That's all there was to it.
Hunt rode back toward camp and met up with Concho. The man had a big wad of tobacco in his mouth; he spit and was able to talk.
“The river…is she good?” Concho asked.
“I'm afraid not. We are going have some trouble on this one. We’ll need to cross at the widest, shallowest end and the current is way too strong. We'll do it like we've always done, but we're going to have to let the water go down some first. Right now the banks are overflowing and it's flooding the area. It's hard to tell where the banks of the river are. If the cattle bog, they could freeze before we get them out,” Hunt said, rubbing his hands together to warm them.
“Si, mucho trouble.” Concho nodded. “And the other herd?”
“Yeah, well, I'm going across to talk to them,” Hunt said, glancing in that direction.
“You take Señor Cole with you, boss,” Concho encouraged.
“Yeah, I'll take Señor Cole,” Hunt laughed. Concho's effort to protect him from any and all dangers never faltered.
Cole and the others were waiting for Hunt in camp. He knew they wanted good news, but he didn't have any. Instead, he looked them over with grim foreboding. “I don't want any trouble if we can avoid it. No use someone getting shot up unless we have to. With this outfit it’s best, though, to keep an eye out for your back.”
“Don't you fret none about that, boss. We'll be there for you. We'll show those snot-nosed drovers what a real drover is like.” Cole chuckled. “So…how's the river lookin'?”
“Mean, Cole. Not good, not good at all. We'll have a heck of a time getting that other herd across unless we take our oxen. I know some cattle won't balk at the water, but it would be just our luck to get them all bunched in the middle of the river and they'd freeze. And I'm not standing for a bunch of greenhorns standing around watching us work either. They will work, or I'll personally see they don't get paid.”
Most of the men laughed at that.
Hunt spoke low so Jodi couldn't hear. “Check your ammo, and take your best mount. This will be a wait for us, but we're going to wait with them and make sure those cattle move out as soon as we can.”
Jodi was cooking, but when she saw Hunt, she left the job to Matt and went up to him. “So, how's the river?”
“Bad…” His face was grim, but he forced a smile. It was important to keep the morale in camp up, but he also knew he couldn't fool Jodi. She'd see right through it. “Don't you fret; everything is going to be fine.”
“How long you figure before we can cross?” she asked anxiously.
“I'm not sure. I'm not as familiar with this river as I am the Red. Don't know its temperament. But I may make a short run in a couple of days just to see if we can make it. I got a feeling this one is going to be a long haul. I don't know if those drovers over there are up to it or not. If the river isn't down in a day or two, we'll wait a little longer,” Hunt said, packing his gear. “The current is swift and icy; they aren't going to like that. Let's pray for a little sunshine.”
“Where are you going now?” she asked, seeing he was packing up his bedroll.
“I'm going on into the other camp.” When he saw her dismay, he added. “Look, we can't move till they do, and I've got to make sure they are ready as soon as the river goes down,” Hunt explained. “The weather being the way it is, it could stall us a long time. There's too many of us waiting to get across.”
“How long are you going to be gone?” she asked with impatience.
“Awhile,” he said, then looked down at her scowling face. “Don't you worry…” he began, but before he could explain, she reached up and grabbed his neck and pulled him against her. Her kiss was slow, exploratory, and thoughtful. Her lips tasted like honey: sweet and eager. More followed the first.
His c
alm was shattered by the raw hunger of her kisses. Jodi hung on to him with urgency, and she moaned a little sound in her throat as he pulled away regrettably. “I got every reason to come back,” he said and he turned away from her slowly.
She was breathless and gasping; he was totally in control, maybe more so than before, as though her kisses stabilized him.
“Matt, unhitch those oxen. Concho, we're taking them with us. As soon as we get that other herd moving, I want you to have our herd ready. I don't want us to gap; just keep them moving toward the river. There are three more herds to the south of us; we need to get these cows moving as soon as we can. I'll send someone back to signal when we start moving them across,” Hunt explained, a dozen things gnawing in his mind at once.
“Si, boss, we'll be ready.” Concho waved.
He was almost ready to ride out when a couple of cowboys rode into camp. One was tall and imposing, but his smiling, friendly manner set everyone at ease. Hunt knew instinctively that this man was a trail boss, and welcomed him.
“Howdy,” he declared in a deep Texas drawl. “The name's Bud Taylor.” He quickly extended his hand for a shake.
Hunt greeted him heartily and offered a shake in return. “Howdy…Hunt Johnson.”
“Ah…we got a herd just south of here, thought we'd get a little closer to the Arkansas and check it out. Unless you fellas already did?”
Hunt nodded. As the beginnings of a smile tipped the corners of his mouth, his brow shot upwards in warning. “Yeah, I just came from the banks of it myself. It's way out of bounds, the water is ice cold, and the current is rough. The water is so swollen you can't judge the depth of it. We're going to have to wait a few days for it to go down before we can start across. Looks like taking the wide end will work better than the steeper embankments to the north.”
The other trail boss nodded with a grunt. “All right, then we'll plan on camping and grazing for a spell. You folks have any trouble with the Indians?”
“No, we gave them some strays and fed them a couple of nights, but no real trouble. How about you?”
“Well, sir.” He began his story with exaggerated slowness. “Not with the one that came to camp, but one of my boys run into some Kiowa down the road a piece and they weren't too friendly. I think they were talkin' about somebody killin' off the buffalo, best I could make out. Told them it wasn't us. Gave them a beef or two and they let us alone, but followed us a day or two. Made my boys a little edgy. I guess they wanted to make sure we were leaving the area.” The man chuckled.
“There's been an unreasonable amount of buffalo killed. That riles the Indians. But what really ticks them off is for someone to kill the animals and leave them to rot on the land and not use them. They don't understand that, and I guess I don't blame them too much for that since the buffalo is of great importance to them.” Hunt smiled as the other man offered him some tobacco. Hunt only smoked if he was stressed, but he never turned tobacco down.
“You know, if people would only try to understand their way of thinking sometimes, maybe we wouldn't be fighting them all the time. I tell my boys to act friendly and not to start anything because it’s so much easier that way. I'd much rather give a cow or two to them than fight them or chase a stampeded herd all night,” Bud chuckled.
“I know,” Hunt agreed.
“Well say, what about the herd ahead there? You talk to their trail boss?”
“They don't have one anymore.”
Bud twisted his head as though he didn't understand that.
“He was killed back a ways in a gunfight. I've been herding them, if you know what I mean. But I'm going to have to get a lot rougher because they are sitting on their butts instead of working the herd.”
“Sounds like some trouble there. Need any help?”
Hunt studied Bud a minute and nodded. “I could sure use some backup if you can spare the time?”
“I'll be glad to go along. I don't cotton to sitting here any longer than we have to. It's a might cold at night up here in Kansas. We been on the trail for a couple of months and we're all a little anxious to get home.”
“You got that right,” Hunt agreed.
“Tom, you run on back to camp and tell them I'm going ahead with…what'd you say your name was?”
“Hunt Johnson.”
“Yeah, you tell them I’m going ahead with Hunt Johnson and get those greenhorns up there moving,” Bud hollered at his man.
The drover nodded, tipped his hat and left.
“Better get some coffee before you go, Bud, it's liable to be a really hard few days,” Hunt advised.
Hunt poured him a cup of coffee, stuffed some biscuits in his shirt, and winked at Jodi.
Before they left, he sat there in the saddle for a long moment, just staring down at her. He loved the way her cheeks blossomed with color when he looked at her. He knew they had a lot of problems to overcome, and maybe some wouldn’t be overcome, but somehow, he felt at least there was a chance of maybe a little happiness with this woman.
“I'll be back, Jodi. I've got plenty of reason to come back and you are one of them.”
≈≈≈
As he finally left, he winked at her and tipped his hat, then rode off as the other men joined him.
“Let's ride, boys,” he called, and they galloped off, the dust flying behind them. The oxen moved a little slower, but Cole kept up with them.
“I wish I was going with them.” Josh came to stand beside Jodi.
“Yeah, me too. I got a feeling about this, and it isn't good,” Jodi said as she stared after her husband. His last words had come as close to telling her how he felt as she was going to get. It was enough.
Funny, she hadn't thought of him as her husband until now, but she kind of liked it.
Maybe Hunt was right. Maybe things could work out for the best.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Where's your straw, boss?” Hunt asked the first cowboy he saw as they rode into the camp. There was a lot of nothing going on and both bosses looked at each other as though they couldn't quite believe it. What really set them off was that not a cowboy looked guilty either.
“Over there by the cottonwood,” the cowboy said, and nodded to the men.
Hunt and Bud dismounted and walked their horses over to the man sitting by the tree. He was eating an apple and staring at the water as though that was all he needed to be doing.
Hunt stared at him unblinking. His shoulders tensed because of his squashed temper. “Excuse me, but are you ready to cross the river?”
The man turned to look at them with a shrug. “Ready as I'll ever be. Ain't gonna cross until it goes down, though. Sure no rush on that.”
“You checked the banks down river?” Hunt asked, wanting to know if this man did anything other than eat and talk big.
“I checked a few days ago. It ain't changed,” he said and continued eating. He took a long drag on his cigarette, then flicked it into the water's edge.
“You got them strung out?” Bud asked, as impatient with the man as Hunt.
“Well now.” the young cowboy gazed up at them with speculation. “I don't see any use stringing them out any sooner than necessary. Besides, what business is it of yours?” the man asked, eyeing Bud with curiosity.
Bud Taylor was not a man to be messed with. He wasted no time in jerking the little fella off his butt, holding him inches from his angry face, and pulling his clean shirt from his jeans. “Look you little pike, you got four herds waiting to cross this mess after you, and when the time is right, you better be ready. That means you can't sit on your butt and wait till the water goes down. It means, you better get up and get moving.”
The younger man looked startled at the affront. “Hey, no use getting hostile. I cain't hep it if the river is swollen.”
Hunt moved in on him too, his eyes going around the camp with disgust. “Doesn't look like a single man is preparing for it.”
“What do you mean?” the man asked, his face going r
ed. “What's to prepare? We cain't do nothin' till the water goes down.”
Hunt shook his head in disbelief. “A good cow man knows he has to take this time to check his ropes, and grease the axle on the chuck wagon. He has to keep checking the banks, maybe a better embankment. You sit around camp like there's nothing to do. Cull out your leads and move them up river. You check saddles, horses, and keep the cattle tight. Build a raft for your wagon. Gather wood for the caboose. Anything but sit on your butt and try to talk big.”
“Okay, okay, we'll do it, but it ain't going down anyway soon,” the man hollered. “I just don't see the rush.”
“You don't see no rush with nearly fifteen thousand cows waiting to cross that river and you aren't ready?”
Hunt nodded. “You best get on what I just told you because if the water isn't down in a couple of days, we are going to move them anyway. Understand?”
“But you cain't do that,” the young cowboy objected vehemently.
“What's your name?” Bud Taylor asked, his tone no longer hiding his disgust.
“Charlie Miller,” the man replied a little hesitantly.
Bud nodded. “You heard the man. You are moving out in two days, so get ready.”
“Okay, okay, let go, will you?” Charlie hollered again, jerking his shirt back in place and straightening himself. Hunt noted the young man's confidence waning.
After that, the camp seemed to come to life again. Every cowboy found something to do, even if he didn't know what to do. Hunt and Bud watched. They spoke to the cook who was the only man in camp who seemed concerned that no one had done anything. He was fussing at a cowboy as Hunt and Bud walked up.
“I'm sure glad you boys showed up. I've been tellin' them we needed a raft and no one was doing anything. Said they would get to it. If we go this low end down here it will be a long one, but probably the shallowest. That sorry excuse for a straw boss doesn't see it that way. He thinks it would be faster to head to the north end. He has no idea how steep those embankments are. He don't know nothing and he don't care. He just wants to be through with the drive.”
