Ralph Compton the Empire Trail, page 10
In front of the chuck wagon the drive was having a difficult, chaotic time. The passage of nearly three hundred steers and the back-and-forth movement of the cowboys had turned the surface of the slop into suctioning mud. This left the herd in disarray. While the animals in front moved with some efficiency, those behind became stuck. The steers ended up at angles to the way forward and to one another, causing disarray among the beeves that came next. The drive quickly formed a bottle shape with a neck of forward-moving cattle up front and a bulge of crowded, unhappy animals behind.
Buchanan had ridden, in turn, to López and Mitchell on the east and west flanks, cutting through the crowded herd to reach them. Then he rode forward to Deems and Prescott on swing, and finally to Fremont. He had given them all the same instructions:
“The cattle are just sliding into each other, side to side and back to front, so keep about a hundred of ’em back until there’s room to move. That means wait for about two acres of ground between your lead cattle and the group in front before moving.”
It was not a neat solution, since each smaller herd still became mired in the pulped ground. But it prevented the kind of jams that caused backsliding. It was only the adhesion of the muck that prevented injury, since no cow moved fast enough or slid back far enough to harm another cow. Buchanan remained with Fremont on point, turning back whenever one of the other riders needed assistance moving his smaller herd.
“You want I should be with Griz on tail?” Fremont had asked. “He was strugglin’.”
“George Haywood is there, helpin’ out,” Buchanan informed him.
Fremont looked as though he’d been kicked in the skull, but there were more pressing matters than having his puzzlement cleared up. Amid grunts of disapproval from the mired cattle and snorts from the horses, Fremont went back to guiding the herd forward.
Over the course of the morning and into the late afternoon, the three groups managed to negotiate the slope. Toward the end, they were pushing so much mud backward that Griswold had to move the extra horses to the sides to give him extra pull. He relied on their panic and unhappiness to keep them moving forward.
Fremont was focused the entire time and continued to keep his feelings roped tight until the three groups plus Griswold and Haywood had reached the top. There was, in fact, a long, wide-open plateau, and Buchanan told Prescott, Mitchell, and Fremont to get the cattle into a bunch and then make camp.
While the cookie made supper, Haywood found a spot to nap. The tracker lay down off to the eastern side, where a plain continued with a very slight incline into the foothills. When the roundup was finished, Buchanan had gone back down the slope, the surface of it all but destroyed by their passage. Deems and López had ridden down to see about freeing the handful of cattle that had been left behind.
The herd above settled, Fremont rode down.
“Good job getting them up this mess,” Buchanan said.
“What the hell happened back at the Mohave?”
Buchanan looked at his trail boss briefly before turning his eyes back down the slope. “You talkin’ about George Haywood? The man who just got Griz up the slope?”
“Yeah, that man. The one who wanted to snatch our herd—him and his dry-gulch pardners.”
“It was either leave Haywood to be picked up by the Double-D riders, shoot him, or take him with us. What would you have done?”
“Not brought him here! A day ago that hombre was ready to shoot us. You took him right to where his guns is!”
“He gave me his word not to move against us. I believe him.”
Fremont was dumbfounded. “His word? Did you consider makin’ a deal that didn’t give him free run of the place, like tyin’ him to his horse? Hell, the Double-D riders don’t even need him now. I left a trail a schoolboy could follow.”
“Don’t go runnin’ yourself down—”
“I ain’t. Did you look over the side?”
“I did—”
“Then you saw that we wouldn’t’ve gotten through below, but that ain’t my point. You could’ve cut a deal that had him lie. You could’ve, I dunno, took his horse and offered to give it back if he told St. Jacques we continued west around the San Gabriels before turning south.”
“You would’ve trusted him but only to lie?”
“That’s what varmints do: They lie, cheat and steal. I know those Dawsons!”
Buchanan watched as Deems and López struggled up with a pair of steers. The two cattle were roped around the horns, the two cowboys’ horses fighting for footing.
“Will, it’s been a really tough day, for you especially. Why don’t you see if Prescott’s organized enough to lend these boys a hand, then get yourself some coffee?”
“Boss?”
Buchanan turned to his old friend. “Look, if I tried to tie him to anything, he would’ve resisted and I would’ve had to shoot him. Self-defense against an unarmed man? That would’ve been the end of me. Besides, I knew him in the war. And if you look past all the air in your lungs, you know he’s not like the others.”
“I have to take your say-so on that.”
“Will you?”
Fremont went silent.
“I don’t blame you for bein’ mad,” Buchanan said. “I truly do not. But we are where we are, so I’m asking you to let it rest.”
Fremont looked at his boss. He still felt betrayed but swallowed that along with anything else he thought to say. Reining his horse around, he cantered back to the plateau proper and sent Prescott back.
Buchanan did not blame his foreman for being incensed, even outraged. Fremont was the one who had taken the brunt of the threats and humiliation, not him. Except for Prescott, the men who were there would have their own beefs, and rightly so. Buchanan would have to have a talk with them as soon as things were settled. One thing the rancher could not afford to do was to doubt his own decisions or show indecision to the men. Not this early and with the roughest parts of the drive still to come.
Prescott arrived and Buchanan joined him lower on the slope. Between the four of them the cowboys managed to save all but one of the cattle, whose struggles to go forward had caused him to slide back and to the side of the slope. He tumbled down into the woods, on his side, still alive when he struck the ground. López went to the edge and put a rifle bullet in his head.
There were still two hours of daylight left and the men used it to check the condition of as many cattle as they could get to. There seemed to be no major injuries and, mercifully, the ground was solid there, away from the course of the runoff.
With Haywood still asleep, Buchanan waited while the men situated the herd. That meant placing the largest head on all sides, at the perimeter. Nighttime stampedes were not common. Predators caused local unrest among the herd. But nearby thunder or gunfire could send them running. If that happened, cowboys would run with the herd and fire guns at the feet of the big steer to get them to run in the other direction. The big animals in front would create a wall for the swelling, surging herd behind them, causing all the cattle to come to a quick, ugly stop. If there were no further noisemaking, the herd would stay where it was. If the cattle had not gone far, they could be moved back. If not, that meant the men would get no further sleep, instead watching to make sure the herd stayed put.
When the stockade area was established, Buchanan went over to talk to the men. There was resentment in the air, as real as the smoke of the campfire. Cowboys on a drive did not have secrets; there was never the time or energy to craft, tell, and remember lies. The truth always came out.
The trail boss had already heard most of what Buchanan had to say, and while the rancher spoke, Fremont remained silent behind a fresh cigar—although the frequency of his smoke signals communicated lingering unhappiness.
When the explanation was done, no one spoke until after the trail boss did. It took him a few puffs and then some more to gather his word.
“There isn’t a man here who, in the same situation, woulda pointed a gun at a Double-D man. Not one. But back on the last drive, the one where we ended up pushing some faces in, Haywood stayed out of it. I don’t think it was because he was afraid but because he knew they was wrong.” Fremont looked over to where the tracker was resting, silhouetted against the setting sun. “I don’t like what he did to us, but he’s here and it’s best to make peace with that.”
“I saw him help Griz up the hill,” Deems said. “Far as I’m concerned, that’s penance of some kind.”
“I didn’t even ask him to; he just did it,” Griswold remarked. “I’d still be back there or worse if he hadn’t.”
“And it’s not like we can’t use another good man,” Prescott said.
“As long as he don’t try and get his guns,” Mitchell said. “That could be why he agreed to ride with us.”
“I’ve got ’em in the chuck box, behind the tools,” Fremont said. “Whoever’s riding tail will be watching for him.”
“You’re gonna trust him,” Mitchell said. It was not a question.
“Any reason not to, other than that he’s a Dawson?” Buchanan asked.
Mitchell hesitated. He was not like St. Jacques, one of those Southerners who was still fighting for a different end to the war. Whatever ideas he dragged with him from the past had not affected anyone—so far. The man spent most of his time living in the field, alone in the cabin; he was the hand everyone knew least.
“I guess not, sir,” Mitchell said. “No objections, not if the boss an’ everyone else is okay.”
“You sure?” Fremont pressed. “I don’t want my men distracted because of an outsider.”
“I’m sure, Will. I’m sure.”
“Like that time we had a cowgirl with us, remember? The one Sloane was gonna marry?”
“She was good,” Griswold said. “When they busted up, we kept the wrong one.”
Prescott shook his head. “But horns and rattles, I did hate ridin’ behind her.”
There was soft laughter and a few campfire comments. Whether it was intentional or not, Prescott’s reminder lightened the mood and any objections. Fremont regarded Mitchell.
Before the sun had set, Haywood was invited to join them for a meal. He brought his own jerky so as not to burden the supplies, but there was a general acceptance of his being there.
For the moment, that was good enough for Andrew Buchanan.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Buchanan was sleeping more or less the way he had the night before. He was on the ground in his bedroll, handmade by himself before the previous drive so it was relatively fresh. Six feet long and wide enough to be doubled over, the roll was made of waterproof canvas that kept a man dry on the ground or could serve as a makeshift tent in the rain. Leather straps made it easy to bundle up and store behind the saddle.
The waterproofing was accomplished with a mixture of beeswax and linseed oil. Since he had bought his first bedroll from an old cowhand two score years before, that smell put him into a restful mind for slumber. Buchanan could not grab shut-eye in the saddle the way López could, a talent envied by every man on the ranch. But the familiar scent was the next best thing.
Warm inside the bedroll, Buchanan, like the others, rested his head on his jacket. Had they not contained the Double-D guns, Fremont would have taken that sack he carried and stuffed it with leaves or earth, having first filtered the large pebbles and worms through his fingers.
Although the process was the same as the previous night, Buchanan always felt a strong sense of home when he bedded down with the men and horses. It had the familiar sounds and smells of a home, and there was the familiar comfort of the campfire. While the scent of each was different depending on the kind of wood being burned, a campfire was basically the same. It was like Griz’s meals: sometimes a little dull when he got low on some ingredient, sometimes fancy—like tonight, flavored with the leaves he had gathered—but there was no mistaking who made them. Buchanan had once tried to explain to his wife how he endured the months away from his family. Lying with her husband on a bearskin rug before their hearth, she did not understand how a campfire could be anything like the home fire.
“Random rocks and sticks don’t have the memories of love and family,” she had said. “They don’t come with shelter, of comfort in a storm. Of the birth of our children.”
“It’s different,” Buchanan had agreed. He had relied on his lack of inflection to weaken the word “different” to mean “lesser” as opposed to “a home away from home.” She and her father had traveled widely, but in a covered wagon with overnight stays mostly at missions or rectories. She would not understand how a sense of home could be transportable and re-created each night with a group of men, seven-by-fourteen-foot canvas sheets, a circle of rocks around burning sticks, and—most of all—a shared sense of purpose.
Most of which Buchanan had been lacking the night before. That, plus exhaustion from a day’s work well done, was what allowed cowboys to sleep better under the stars than under their own roofs.
At least writing in his journal helped him to sleep wherever he was. Something about doing that before bed, in dim campfire or moonlight, made his eyes want to shut.
Then there was the sea of cattle, a wall of meat and hide, hooves and horns, all of it dressed in a brand he had designed himself. It was something else Patsy seemed incapable of understanding, not that he tried hard to explain it. But he took a pride in their raising and feeding that he did not believe he could ever get from an orange. There had not been a lot of time to think about groves, but just the thought of them filled him with a kind of sickness; he could never have done to a cow what he did to Jacob’s orange. There was something about pitting his will against a calf or a grown steer or a herd of them that watering and picking could not equal . . . or replace. The idea frightened him. It scared him more than a rattler shaded by a rock.
Finally, he had lain down with a deep sense of pride in his men, in himself. They had overcome an unexpected obstacle, he had dealt fairly with an enemy—Patsy would approve of that act of Christian charity—and he had allowed his men to have their say in it. A drive was not democracy, but he had read the parts of the U.S. Constitution that applied: free speech and the right to bear arms. He had applied the ideas of the late Mr. Lincoln by showing malice toward none—to George Haywood, anyway. Buchanan felt patriotic by his conduct.
Which was why, even though there was danger ahead and also now behind, this first night with the herd, with his hands, brought a kind of comfort Buchanan had sorely needed. It also strengthened the resolve he felt to persevere.
Deems was on watch, and it was at some point after Buchanan had fallen asleep that the cowboy bent close.
“There’s movement by the wagon.”
Buchanan was fully awake and easing from the bedroll as Deems moved off. The rancher had his gun belt across his saddle; he drew the gun nearest to him as he rose. He followed Deems. The campfire had died down but Buchanan was quickly able to orient himself. Despite the urgency—any unexpected noise could stampede the cattle—the two men moved as quietly as possible. If there was no cause for concern, it did not pay to deprive the other hands of sleep.
The wagon was at the north end of the camp, away from the cattle. It was dark but they could hear Griswold snoring inside and followed the sound. Buchanan heard the gentle ruckus now as well. The chuck wagon was situated between the camp and the slope, all four horses tethered to a stunted juniper to the east. The sound was coming from behind the wagon. It sounded just the right size to be a raccoon.
Stepping lightly but swiftly, Buchanan took the lead from Deems. The horses were corralled there, not just Griswold’s but the others. They were quiet, which argued against a scavenger. Buchanan wished that were not so.
Ideally, the men would have separated and come at the wagon from both sides. But the prospect of accidentally shooting each other was a real possibility, especially in the dark. Because he was on watch, the cowboy was carrying his rifle; that was also not the most effective weapon at close range.
It was cold enough to see his breath, and Buchanan forced himself to relax so as not to shiver. When they were just a few steps away, the sound behind the wagon stopped.
The men stopped as well.
“Whoever’s there, don’t shoot!” a deep voice whispered.
It was George Haywood. Buchanan came around, his Colt held waist-high. The tracker was standing at the chuck box. The doors were open and he was feeling inside.
“You shoulda had biscuits when they were offered,” Buchanan said. “Or is there something else you’re after?”
“I’m looking for matches,” Haywood said, withdrawing the box and holding it up.
“Matches, sir? Why?”
“Back by the herd, I heard dry pine cones snapping and the bleat of what I think was a mountain goat. Thought to light a torch, scare him off.”
“A goat,” Deems said. “At night.”
“Kids wander off, get lost, cry for their ma. That can spook a herd. You want to take that chance?”
Buchanan considered the explanation. It was a much shorter walk to get a match here than to go where Deems and the campfire had been.
“All right, show me where you heard it,” Buchanan said.
Fremont joined them just then, rifle in hand, sleep still in his eyes. The men started in the direction Haywood indicated. Except for Griswold, all the men were now awake, and armed. More alert now, Fremont quietly told the cowboys to be ready to steady the herd in case there was shooting. That was all he said; it was basically all he knew, although he had his suspicions.
