Again we turned west, and we managed thirty miles in the next two days. By that time our horses were worn down and frazzled, and were badly needing rest.
“Any ranches west of here?” I asked Jim.
“None I know of.”
He rode in silence for a few minutes and then he said, “Used to be a herd of wild stuff running between here and the Elkhorn, but mostly south of there. In the old days there were several hundred head, but last time I saw them there were only two bunches of about twenty to thirty head might be others further west.”
“You think we could round up a few?”
“It’s worth trying,” he said. “And we’ll need the horses.”
Tom Hacker was the best cook in the outfit, and gradually he took over the job. Each of us kept his eyes open so we could have some change in diet; sometimes it would be an antelope haunch, a few wild turkeys, or a sage hen.
It was about midafternoon when we came to a good-sized stream running about knee-deep, and we followed it northeast for a mile and a half before coming out on the bank. It was a good spot to camp, with a few cottonwoods, many willows, and some brush. The grass was good, for this was far from any trail where cattle had been driven. The route west through Nebraska lay not far to the north, but nobody traveled through the land where we rode.
Toward nightfall Handy Corbin got two sage hens. He saw them, palmed his six-gun, and fired the two shots with one sound. They were a good thirty yards off, but he nailed them both, drawing fast and smooth. I saw Hacker exchange a glance with his nephew. That was shooting, by any man’s standards.
The first man into camp started a fire, and on this night it was me. Breaking some branches from a fallen limb, long dead, I gathered leaves and bark, and soon had the fire going. After I’d rustled some fuel, I returned to my horse to help get the herd bedded down.
It was a tight little camp, sheltered on one side by the thick brush and trees, and on the other by a curve of the stream where there was a high bank.
We bunched the herd tighter. The most important thing about the campsite was that it was practically invisible until a body was right on top of it. Nevertheless I was worried. We had moved far, and for much of the distance we had covered our trail, but no trail could be covered completely, and much depended on how determined they were.
Hacker gnawed at a beef bone, then tossed it into the brush, wiping his hands on the grass. “Chancy, you decided where you’re goin’?” he asked. “I mean, have you picked a spot?”
“I’ve never been to Wyoming.”
“You open for suggestions?”
“You’re damned right. I’m supposed to locate these cattle on good grass and water, get some buildings up before cold weather, and get the outfit going. Now, that’s a right big order, and I’m open to suggestions.”
“I soldiered out here a few years back,” Hacker said. “There’s a big red wall cuts across the country, only one hole in it for miles, with a creek coming through. In back of that wall there’s some pretty country, mighty pretty.”
“We’ll look at it,” I told him, “though we may drive on farther. But it sounds like a place I’d like.”
Long after I’d fallen asleep, I awoke and heard Cotton Madden singing “The Hunters of Kentucky.” For a while I lay there, listening to his low, easy voice and watching the fire. It was then I started thinking about Kit Dunvegan, back in Tennessee.
How long before I would see her again? How would she have changed? And how would I have changed?
“That change,” I said, half aloud, “will be considerable. There’s room for it.”
Chapter 6
A cattle drive has a way of seeming to offer no change. Day after day we moved westward, the days varying only by the distance covered, the grazing we found, and the water.
We saw no human being, white man or Indian, and as we moved westward the grass became less and the soil more sandy. There were tracks of wild horses—many of them—and of antelope, which we saw almost every day, sometimes every hour of the day.
We drove our cattle, sang our songs, yarned a little around the fire at night, and came to know each other. Tom Hacker was not only the best cook, but the wisest of us all; Cotton had the best voice, and was the one most likely to be joking. Jim was by all odds the best tracker and the best rider, with Cotton a close second on the riding. Handy Corbin was considered the best shot nobody questioned that—not even me.
And there was no question about who was the strongest among us, either. My work as a boy, and then on the boats and on the freight teams had given me strength, although much of it I came by naturally.
From time to time in the saddle I gave thought to myself. I felt I wasn’t learning enough. Jim was teaching me about the grass, the plants, and the animals. What I hadn’t known about tracking he was also teaching me, but what I needed was book-reading. I had an envy of those who could study and go to schools.
Yet in my own way I had grown a little. Being the boss had given me responsibility. I had men, horses, and cattle to consider, and the future responsibility of finding a proper ranch for Tarlton and myself.
Many a man of my age was bossing a herd or an outfit, so there was nothing unusual about that, but it does change a man when he knows others depend upon him for decisions.
Though Corbin was considered the gunfighter of the outfit, I had killed two men, but I was not anxious to have it known. I wanted no such reputation. The man I wanted to be like was Tarlton, I suppose. He was educated, respected, well dressed, and well liked. He had dignity and he was a gentleman, and these things I wanted more than anything else.
It seems to me a man comes into this world with a little ready raw material—himself. His folks can only give him a sort of push, and a mite of teaching, but in the long run what a man becomes is his own problem. There’ve always been hard times, there’ve always been wars and troubles—famine, disease, and such-like—and some folks are born with money, some with none. In the end it is up to the man what he becomes, and none of those other things matter. In horses, dogs, and men it is character that counts.
For the first time, I had a definite goal—two of them, in fact: to build a prosperous ranch, and to build myself into a man I could be pleased with. The last idea I’d had for some time, but it hadn’t been formed into a goal until now. It had always been there, a sort of half-formed wish in the shadowy recesses of my mind; now it had come out into the open, and I had to do something about it.
When I went back to Tennessee I wasn’t going to be just a horse thief’s son. My pa had been a good man, and the best way I could convince folks they had done him wrong was by being somebody myself.
Tom Hacker rode out to where I sat my horse, watching the cattle. “You want some advice?” he said.
“Try me.”
“Rest up. The horses are dead-beat. We should have twice the remuda we’ve got for a drive like this. If those boys catch up with us we’ll make ’em wish they hadn’t.”
“All right. We’ll do it.” I hooked a leg around the pommel. “You ever read much, Tom?”
He gave me an odd look. “As a matter of fact, yes. When I can find something. A man can’t carry much in his saddlebags.” He paused. “Why do you ask?”
“This here’s a big country. It’s going to need big men to handle it, and I figure a big man ought to have more in his mind than I’ve got. Tarlton’s going to send me some books, but I’m lathering to get on with it.”
“I’ve got a couple,” Hacker said. “I can’t say they’d be considered an education, but they’re mighty good reading.” He stoked his pipe. “I’ve got Mayne Reid’s Afloat in the Forest, and Richardson’s Beyond the Mississippi.”
“I’d like to read them.”
“Sure thing.” He lighted his pipe. “When I left home I had four books. I swapped a McGuffey’s Reader with a storekeeper in Missouri for a copy of Mountains and Molehills, by Frank Marryat. You’d never believe the number of times I’ve swapped books along the way. Two or three times in the army, half a dozen times out on the trail. Seems like everybody’s hungry for reading, and there’s mighty few books going around. I swapped that Marryat book to a gambler in Cheyenne, and three years later I was offered the very same book, with my name writ in it, in Beeville, Texas. It sure does beat all how some of these books get around.”