“Let’s go eat,” I said, “and I’ll lay it out for you. Then if you want to call it oft, you can.”
We were sitting over coffee when the marshal came in. “Chancy, I found your man.”
“Tarlton?”
“He’s over at the Doc’s office, and he’s in pretty bad shape. A rider brought him in just before daybreak. He’d been shot a couple of times, and he’d dragged himself a good ways. You’d better get on over there.”
We got up and I dropped money on the table to pay for our meal, then as the marshal reached the door, I asked, “Who was the man who brought him in? Do you know him?”
“He didn’t give his name. He was a man with a tied-down gun … sounded like Handy Corbin.”
We followed the marshal out the door and he pointed to indicate the Doc’s office. Nothing in this town was very far away. If you walked a hundred yards in any direction you’d be out on the prairie.
Corky Burdette walked along beside me. “This Corbin … do you know him?”
“He works for me.”
“Then you’ve got a good man,” Corky said, “a mighty good man. We worked for the same outfit back in the Nation, and again down Texas way.”
I found Tarlton drawn and pale. A stubble of reddish beard covered his cheeks, although I’d thought of him as a dark-haired man. He was asleep when we came in.
“How bad is he, Doc?” I asked.
“He’s got a fighting chance. The wounds wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d been cared for. But they’ve become infected, and he’s lost a lot of blood, as well as suffered from exposure and physical exhaustion.”
We left and rode out to the herd. The cattle were grazing on good grass, and seemed content. Cotton came to meet us with a rifle across his saddle.
“Keep your eyes open,” I warned. “Kelsey might show up any time.” Then I asked Cotton, “Did Handy ever say anything to you about being kin to LaSalle Prince?”
“Now, that don’t make sense. We talked about Prince, but he never said anything about even knowing him. Seemed to me he didn’t set much store by him. I sort of figured he’d just heard of him, like I have.”
Corky took first guard, and I rolled up in my blankets. I’d been on my feet or in the saddle for about twenty hours, and I was dead tired. I told him to call me for the next turn.
When he came in and shook me awake, I could see by the stars that he had let me sleep over my time by a good hour or more. “I was goin’ to let you sleep right on through,” he admitted, “only I just got too durned sleepy.”
He stood by while I tugged on my boots and had my coffee, and all the while kept listening toward the cattle. “There’s something out there,” he said in a minute, and he gestured toward the brush along the creek. “I figure it’s a varmint of some kind. The critters can smell it, and they’re spooky.”
When I was in the saddle, he added, “You watch that ol’ blaze-face mossy-horn on the far side. He’s got it in his head to run.”
“I know him,” I said. “He’s a trouble-maker. Next time the Indians come around hunting beef they’re going to get him.”
Now, a body never knows when he starts out to do something just what will come of it, else maybe nothing would ever get done. That night I was riding a hammer-headed roan that had belonged to the Gates outfit, and I headed for the herd and started to sing to ’em.
So far as I know there’s some Welsh as well as Irish blood in me, but when they were handing out the good voices they surely didn’t allow me to take after most Welshmen. I couldn’t carry a tune in a hand-basket. Maybe that’s one reason I like cows—they’re got no ear for music.
So I started out singing “Peter Grey,” “Skip to My Lou,” and “Buffalo Gals.” I made it around the herd a few tunes, singing soft and low, keeping an eye on that mossy-horn with the cross-grained notions in his head.
By the time I had ridden three times around the herd I knew Corky Burdette had been right. That old mossy-horn was going to make trouble, and not for the first time. He had always been a bunch-quitter, for he had been one of the original Gates herd, stolen by the Kelsey outfit, and I knew him well.
Whatever had been out there in the brush was gone now, and the rest of the cattle were settling down, but not that blaze-faced steer. He was prodding around, just hunting something to be scared of, so’s he could take off and run, stampeding the lot of them.
There’s times when any little noise will startle a herd into running, but those cattle knew me and they knew my horse, and I had an idea they wouldn’t be too upset if there was a little fussing around where I was. So I decided to side-line the mossy-horn before he could get the herd to spill over into a stampede.
Actually, I wasn’t about to side-line him, but I figured to tie his head down to his foreleg to persuade him he didn’t want to run. My intentions were good, and the steer would suffer no harm from having his neck canted over a bit; but a body can’t always have things the way he figures, and I was doing my figuring without remembering the horse I was on.
When I skirted the herd again, I dabbed a loop on that old steer and busted him, but just as I hit the ground to make my tie, that cantankerous, rattlebrained pony I’d been riding slacked up on the rope and the steer came for me, head down.
Now, a steer can bust a man considerable, so as he charged I grabbed for my gun and came up with it, but a mite too slow. Luckily, using the crossdraw I’d turned my left hip toward my right hand, and the steer hit me only a glancing blow. I went right over his horns and into the dirt, and my six-gun went a-flying.
My mouth and eyes scraped dirt and I rolled over, frantic to get away from the steer, and came up to my knees just in time to see him start back at me. Only this time that darned fool pony, scared now, started toward him and busted the mossy-horn right over on his back.
Coughing and spitting, fighting the dirt from my eyes, I looked around for my gun. It was nowhere in sight. Dark as it was, I knew I’d play hob trying to find it until daybreak, so I edged around toward camp.
The rest of the herd didn’t seem much bothered. They were well-fed, freshly watered, and bedded down in a good spot, and only a few of them that were nearby even showed interest. Me, I limped for camp.
Cotton was sitting up when I walked in. “What happened to you?” he asked.
He chuckled when I explained. “Wait up. It’s time for me to take over, anyway, and I’ll saddle up and collect them.”
We went back out together and he caught up my horse. The rope was still on the steer, which was backed off at the end of the rope, staring at us. I got into the saddle and Cotton eased around and put another rope on the steer, and we threw him and tied his head down. He would be of no mind to run now; and a few days of that would take some of the vinegar out of him. Back at camp again, I went to sleep.
Corky was up and putting together some bacon and eggs when I opened my eyes. He grinned at me. “Hear you went around and around with that old mossy-horn,” he said. “Well, it happens to the best of us.”
“It sure happened to me,” I said. “He really tossed me.”
As I started to swing my gunbelt into place, I noticed the empty holster. “Lost my gun,” I said. “Keep an eye out for it, will you?”
Not liking the feel of the empty holster, I dug into my pack and came up with the ivory-handled gun I’d taken off that would-be sheriff back in the Nation. It was a fine gun, one of the best I’d seen, with a great feel to it. I checked the load, then dropped it into my holster.
“Carry a spare, do you?” Corky said.
“Picked it up back in the Nation,” I answered. “It’ll do until I find my own. I feel naked without a gun.”
Bacon and eggs was a rare treat for a cowhand, and about the only time we ever got anything of the kind was when we were close to town, as we were now to Cheyenne. They tasted almighty good and I could see that Corky was a hand with a skillet as well as with his fists.