This Calder Range Page 4

  “I want you to find out where Benteen is now, how many men he has with him, and what he’s doing,” he ordered.

  “And the old man?” Loman asked.

  “He hasn’t got much of an operation left.” A cold, humorless smile lifted the corners of his heavy mouth. “Soon he’s not going to have any.”

  Loman knew better than to ask what his boss planned. He was in awe of Boston’s intelligence and respected the ruthless determination in the man. There was a perverted sense of pride in being associated with the kind of power Boston held. Loman Janes was content to be the brawn to Boston’s brains. He knew Boston needed someone as closemouthed and merciless as he was to carry out his plans. In Loman’s mind, they were a team. Boston gave the orders and he took them, but they were dependent on one another. The more powerful Boston became, the more powerful Loman became by association.

  4

  There were no trails in the brush country of Texas. There wasn’t any room for trails. The brush grew in a dense thicket, defying the passage of man or beast and choking to death the prairie grass that had once covered these millions of acres of Texas land.

  It was downright unfriendly country, with every plant baring its forbidding set of clawlike thorns and needle-sharp spines. Among the scrubby mesquite trees dominating the landscape grow the palo verde, its green-black thorns more visible than its leaves, and mounds of prickly-pear cactus. There’s the catclaw that the Mexicans call “wait-a-minute,” a much more descriptive term, as anyone snared by its thorns would testify.

  No one claimed that God had a hand in making this black chaparral. It was said He gave the land to the devil as his playground.

  The short-tempered and sharp-tusked javelinas called it home, as did the rattlesnake. No horse and rider ever rode the thickets without the constant company of a rattler whirring its warning. There wouldn’t have been any reason to venture into the brush if the cunning and wild Longhorn cattle hadn’t hidden themselves in it.

  The hardy Longhorn wasn’t much to look at; flat-sided, narrow-hipped, with a swayed back and big drooping ears, it was a caricature of a cow. The long, sweeping set of horns that gave the breed its name would normally span four feet but they were rarely straight. One tip might point down and the other up. They drooped, twisted, and spiraled in unusual convolutions. The Longhorn came in all colors: washed-out earth colors, dull brindles and blues, duns and browns, and drab clay-reds—solid, speckled, or spotted.

  Slow to develop, a Longhorn didn’t reach its maximum weight of eight hundred to a thousand pounds until it was eight years old or better. But the tall, bony beast could travel for miles, fight off wolves, bears, and panthers, endure the droughts and blizzards, and adapt to the wildest land and roughest climates.

  So cowboys penetrated the thorny ramparts of these boundless thickets in search of maverick cattle that belonged to anyone who was man enough to catch them and drive them out. Cowboys fought the vicious brush country, cursed it, and acquired a healthy respect for it.

  With Shorty Niles riding beside him, Benteen walked his line-backed dun horse into a sparse section of the chaparral. It was late afternoon, time for one last sashay through the area before they lost the light. Two days before, they’d spotted a couple of cows with yearling calves in this vicinity, but they hadn’t been able to put a rope on them. Benteen wanted to make another try for them.

  Winter was the best time to search these thickets. The sharp-edged leaves had fallen, enabling a rider to see farther. The weather was cooler, so horses could run longer without becoming wind-broken, and there was less chance of cattle dying from overheating.

  Cow hunting in the brush country required clothes and equipment that offered the most resistance to the thorny vegetation. The leather chaps protecting Benteen’s legs were smooth and snug, without any ornamentation that could be snagged by a prickly branch. Tapaderos hooded the stirrups of his saddle to prevent a limb from poking through to gouge his boot or prod his foot from the stirrup. His jacket fit snugly around his shoulders, ribs, and waist, leaving no loose folds to be snared by the spiked brush, and his hat was lowcrowned.

  Benteen wore leather gloves to protect his hands from the skinning thorns, but Shorty didn’t, claiming they choked him. His hands, littered with painful scratches and scars, paid the price.

  Being a small man, Shorty always figured he had a lot to prove. He was ready to risk life and limb at the blink of an eye. There were some who wondered how he managed to reach the age of seventeen and still be alive. His short, stocky build had the iron muscles of an older man, and the experience of countless frays was etched in his broad-featured face. Shorty was always the first to volunteer and the last to quit. He was a feisty friend, but Benteen wouldn’t have wanted him for an enemy.

  Neither man spoke as they slowly walked their horses through the brush. Talking required effort, and energy was saved for the chase. They rode past a coma bush with dirklike thorns. Its winter blossoms of small white flowers scented the air with a cloying fragrance; even that couldn’t cover up the stench of the four-foot-long rattlesnake lying in their path, trampled to death two days before. It was a sickening but familiar smell to any man who frequented the thickets, emitted by angry rattlers in their death throes.

  The line-backed dun hesitated in its stride and stopped. Benteen was immediately alert to the signals of his brush-wise mount. The dun’s nose and pricked ears pointed toward a solid wall of mesquite. As the horse trembled eagerly beneath him, Benteen spotted the almost camouflaged roan cow, and the twisted horns of a second. The animals remained motionless, hunkered down in the brush, until they were certain they’d been seen.

  Beside him, Shorty let out a Texas yell, a piercing sound that crossed a Comanche war whoop with a rebel yell. With the nerves released, both riders spurred their horses at the hidden Longhorns. Nature bred the Longhorns with the agility of a deer, enabling them to bound to their feet in one leap and be in a dead run by the next.

  There didn’t seem to be any opening in the thicket, but where a cow could go, a horse could follow. It was up to the riders to stay on board the best way they knew how.

  Benteen took after the roan cow while Shorty split away after the second Longhorn. They hit the brush at a run and tore a hole through it—a hole that seemed to close up the instant they were through. Branches popped and snapped; thorny limbs raked his leather leggings and tore at his clothes. To avoid being scraped off his horse, Benteen was all over the saddle, dodging and ducking, flattening himself along the dun’s neck, then stretching along the opposite side. He used his arms, his legs, his hands, his shoulders, his whole body, to shield his head from the thorny branches trying to gouge out his eyes. Benteen didn’t dare close them or he’d lose control and not see the next limb. Like the tawny horse he rode, Benteen was oblivious of everything but the curved horns of the roan cow racing through the brush ahead of them.

  It was a brutal, hair-raising race to catch up with the red roan. In this dense growth, there wasn’t room for long ropes and wide loops. As the dun gelding closed in on the wild cow, Benteen waited until he had a small opening in the brush the size of a saddle blanket. With a short rope, he reached over and cast his loop up to circle the cow’s head, taking advantage of the sparse plant growth close to the ground.

  The dun horse bunched and gathered itself to absorb the yank when the cow hit the end of the rope. When the loop tightened around its neck to pull it up short, it let out a bellow of fear and anger. Plunging and fighting at the restraint, the roan cow hooked its horn at the rope, but didn’t charge the rider, as some of her breed did.

  After an initially lengthy struggle, the cow turned out to be one of the more amenable ones, and grudgingly obeyed the pull of the rope, permitting Benteen to lead her from the thicket. Sometimes the wild cattle had to be left tied to a tree for a few days until they were tender-headed enough to lead. In extreme cases, the eyelids of outlaw cattle were sewed shut so they would blindly follow another animal to avoid t
reacherous branches.

  With the reluctant cow in tow, Benteen turned the dun gelding in the direction of the main camp, where they penned their catch. He didn’t wait for Shorty. The young cowboy was on his own. It wasn’t uncommon for brush riders not to make it back to camp before night fell, in which case they bedded down wherever they happened to be.

  Shorty caught up with him, though, about a mile before Benteen reached camp. Both horse and rider bore the marks of pursuit. There was a gash on the right wither of the bay horse where a horn had slashed through its hide. Like Benteen’s mount, the horse’s legs were scratched and studded with dislodged thorns. Shorty was sporting a long cut on his cheek, the blood from it starting to dry and cake.

  “I had to leave mine back there necked to a tree,” he told him, grinning widely. “I’ll go get her in a couple of days.”

  Benteen nodded and glanced at the broken pieces of branches sticking out of the fork of Shorty’s saddle. “You’ve got enough wood there to start a small fire.”

  “Reckon I do.” Shorty laughed and began pulling it out.

  By the time they reached camp, the yellow light of dusk was filtering over the brushland. Jessie Trumbo already had a cook fire going. Steaks from a steer they’d butchered the day before were frying in a skillet. The coffee had already boiled, and the pot was sitting near the warming edge of the coals. When he saw Benteen leading in the maverick cow, Jessie stuck a branding iron in the fire.

  In front of a mesquite-pole pen, Shorty roped the hind legs of the animal. With Benteen at the head and Shorty stretching out the tail, they put the cow on the ground, flankside-up. The glowing iron was curved in the shape of a C. Jessie stamped it three times onto the cow’s hide, burning through the hair into the hide just deep enough to leave a permanent scar that read Triple C.

  In Jessie’s absence, another cowboy named Ely Stanton took over the cooking chores. In a cow camp, everyone pitched in to do whatever tasks needed to be done, without complaint. Counting Benteen, there were five riders working out of the camp. Four more, Andy Young and Woolie Willis and two others, were holding a herd of twelve hundred captured cattle on the prairie. There was a sizable bunch in the pen, enough to be driven out to the herd.

  After the cow was branded, Benteen turned it loose in the pen and unsaddled the dun gelding. Before turning it out with the cavvy, he extracted the thorns from its legs and treated cuts that needed attention.

  Night was thickening the sky when he finally joined the other riders at the campfire. Bruised and battered from the day’s work, he paused wearily to pour a cup of pitch-black coffee, then settled cross-legged on the ground. After three grueling months, it was almost over. He had a good-sized herd of mixed cattle carrying his brand. With the eleven hundred dollars he’d managed to accumulate these last three years from a combination of trail-boss wages and money from the sale of maverick cattle that he’d roped, branded, and driven north with the Ten Bar herds, he’d have enough to buy a remuda, a couple of wagons, and trail supplies. At Dodge City he could sell off some of the prime steers and get enough money to pay the drovers’ wages and have a good chunk left to carry him through the first lean years—if he was lucky.

  His glance swept the faces of the other men around the fire. “Anybody seen Spanish today?”

  The half-breed Mexican cowboy had been absent for three nights, but Spanish had practically been reared in the brush. He knew all its secrets. Of all the riders, Benteen was least concerned by the prolonged absence of Spanish Bill, but he took note of it.

  “Nope.” Ely stabbed a knife into the steak sizzling in the skillet’s tallow and turned the meat over.

  “I cut his sign this morning,” Jessie said. “But it was two days old.”

  “Where’d you cross his trail?”

  “Over by that draw of white brush.”

  “I’ll ride over that way tomorrow.” Benteen drank down a swallow of the scalding coffee, strong enough to stiffen his spine and bitter enough to waken his senses.

  Something rustled in the brush, attracting all eyes. The firelight flickered, throwing grotesque shadows through the thicket. Before any of them had time to reach for a weapon, a man called out in an accented voice, “It’s I, Spanish.”

  A lanky form separated itself from the shadows and approached the campfire on foot, lugging the bulky shape of his saddle. When Spanish Bill entered the circle of light, his dirty and ripped clothes told a lot of his story. His limping walk said a bit more.

  “Where’s your horse?” Shorty asked. No one mentioned the fact that Spanish had been absent for three days. His reception wasn’t any different than if they’d seen him that morning.

  “Back there.” Spanish indicated the brush with a nod of his head and set his saddle on a barren piece of ground. Dragging his left foot, he limped to the fire and poured himself a cup of coffee. “I thought I would have to spend another night in the bush, until I smelled those steaks.”

  “They’re just about burnt.” Ely indicated the meat was nearly done.

  Spanish limped back to his saddle and lowered himself to the ground, stretching his injured left leg in front of him and leaning against his saddle.

  “I swung my loop on a ladino,” Spanish said. He used the Mexican word, which has no true equivalent in the American language. “Outlaw” comes closest to describing a wild cow that will fight to the death for its freedom. “When the rope started to tighten around its neck, he switched ends like a cutting horse. That ladino had a horn spread five feet across, maybe six. He charged my horse and hooked a horn into its breast, twisting and pushing. I never had time to throw away the rope. The horse died right underneath me. It was a good horse.” He shook his head briefly. “But the ladino, he takes off with my rope.”

  Horses were more easily replaced than good rope.

  “Was it a big ole red devil?” Jessie asked.

  “Sí.” Spanish nodded.

  “I tangled with him a week back. That animal isn’t about to be taken. Don’t waste your time tryin’. You’re better off shootin’ him.”

  No one disagreed.

  Supper consisted of steaks and beans, sopped up with cornbread made out of meal, tallow, water, and a little salt. No one pretended it was delicious. It was food that stuck to the ribs and that was the important thing.

  After they’d eaten, each man scrubbed his own plate clean with sand. Water was too valuable in this country to waste as dishwater. There was still some coffee left in the pot. Benteen poured some of the thick black liquid into his tin cup and sat on the ground in the shadowed fringe of the firelight. When he took the pouch of Bull Durham tobacco from his pocket, he noticed it was nearly empty.

  “Hey, Benteen.” Shorty broke the weary silence that had settled over the camp. “Are you going to invite us to your wedding?”

  “I was thinking about asking all of you to come along with us on our honeymoon,” he replied while his fingers tapered off the rolled cigarette.

  “You serious?” Stretched out on the ground with his saddle for a pillow, Shorty lifted his head to frown narrowly at Benteen.

  “Sure I’m serious.” He leaned forward to take a burning limb from the fire and hold the glowing end to his cigarette. “Lorna and me could use some help trailin’ that herd up to the Montana Territory.”

  “Are you takin’ her on the cattle drive?” Jessie Trumbo sounded incredulous.

  “I’m not going to marry her and leave her behind,” Benteen replied. “The offer stands. Any of you wantin’ a job taking these cattle north are welcome to sign on.”

  “You can count me in.” Shorty was the first to speak up.

  “I got nothin’ keepin’ me in Texas,” Jessie included himself.

  “Spanish?” Benteen glanced at the Mexican. He wanted his experience on the drive.

  “I go with the cattle,” he agreed, and grinned when he added a quick qualification, “—as long as you get the herd there before it gets cold. My blood is too thin for such weather.”
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  The Mexican’s dislike of the cold was well-known and greatly exaggerated. It brought a lazy curve to Benteen’s mouth as he turned to the last man in the group. Ely Stanton was always the quiet one, the last to speak up, slow to decide anything until he’d thought it through. He was also the only married man present. He’d tried his hand at almost everything—from farming to storekeeping—but he wasn’t happy off a horse.

  “What about you, Ely?” asked Benteen.

  “I don’t think the idea would sit well with Mary,” he answered slowly, with reference to his wife. “She’s got relatives in Ioway. She’s wantin’ us to go there and see if I can’t find me a place with some good rich dirt.”

  “Aw, Ely, you ain’t gonna walk behind a plow and look at the back end of a horse all day when you could be ridin’ one, are you?” Shorty declared with a cowboy’s derision of a farmer.

  “I been thinkin’ about it.” There was a stiffness in the man as he poked at the campfire’s coals.

  “If you decide to pull up stakes for Iowa, you might consider throwin’ in with the herd as far as Dodge City,” Benteen suggested. “Lorna might like the idea of havin’ another woman along for part of the journey.”

  “I’ll let you know about that,” Ely said.

  The cattle milled in the pen, horns rattling together. The men around the campfire were immediately alert, expecting trouble, but the disturbance was only a minor shifting of positions. Within minutes the bunch had settled down and all was quiet.

  “You been away an awful long time, Benteen,” remarked Shorty. “How do you know yore gal’ll be waitin’ there to marry you? Maybe she changed her mind an’ run off with somebody else.”

  Unwittingly he touched a sore spot. Benteen had never forgotten his mother’s defection.