“You hear all sorts of stories.”
Cap spat into the fire. “Them ain’t stories. You can take it from me, Gil, an’ I’ve seen ’em all! There ain’t anybody who is any better!”
Gilcrist started to speak, stopped, then said, “You ain’t seen ’em all. You ain’t seen me.”
“I hope I never do,” Cap said dryly.
Gilcrist stared at him. “I don’t know how to take that.”
Cap smiled. “I just hate to see a man get killed,” he said. “You or anybody else.”
“I ain’t goin’ to get killed.”
Cap smiled again. “I helped bury twenty men who thought the same thing.”
It was a quiet night We ate and turned in, all of us dog tired. The stars were out, bright as lanterns in the sky, but nobody stayed awake long. Those days, when a man works from can see to can’t see, he just naturally passes out when he hits the bed. It was long days of hard work and no chance for daydreaming when the cattle were dry and wanting water.
Only Cap and me, we set late by the fire. I was thinking of what was to come. As for him, I didn’t know what he was thinking about. Or didn’t until he said, “You want me to ride back and see who that is? It may be trouble.”
“Not you. Anybody but you. A body can always find another cowhand but a good cook? No way you can find another cook without a miracle.”
There was a-plenty to consider. We were down to our last coffee, and as for other grub, we’d been making do on what we could rustle for days. Looked to me like we would have to strike north for Fort Carlton and lay in a stock of grub. It was going to throw us back, but I saw no way out of it.
Carlton was due north. Thinking of that, I wondered, but not aloud, about trying to go west from there. Traveling in strange country like this, where I knew nothing of the rivers. If there was a practical route west from Fort Carlton, we might lose no time at all.
“All right,” I said to Cap, ‘we’ll swing north.”
“You want I should have a look at who that is comin’ up the line?”
‘I’ll go.”
“You’re tired, man. You need rest.”
“Why, you old buffalo chaser, you say I’m tired? What about you?”
“You lose me, you ain’t lost much’. You get lost, and we’re all up the creek.”
Well, I got up and roped me a horse. “Stand by for trouble, Cap,” I told him. “I think we’ve got it coming.”
With that I rode off west. It was dark when I started, but that was a good night horse I had between my knees, and we found a trail that left the creek and went up on the bluffs. Off to the east, I spotted a campfire.
Down a trail through the forest, winding down where darkness was, winding among the silent trees. Only the hoof falls of my horse, only the soft whispering of night creatures moving. Now I was riding where danger might be. I was riding where a man’s life might hang in the wind, ready to be blown away by the slightest chance, yet I will not lie and say I did not like it.
That horse was easy in the night, moving like a cat on dainty feet. He knew we were riding into something, he knew there might be the smell of gunpowder, but he liked it, too. You could sense it in the way he moved. A man riding the same horse a lot comes to know his feelings and ways, for no two are alike, and I was one to make companions of my horses, and they seemed to understand. They knew we were in this together.
Time and again, I drew up to listen. A man can’t ride careless into wild country. The banks of the river had an easier slope below the elbow, and some grassy tongues of land pushed into the river. There was a rustling of water along the banks and a dampness in the air near the river. My horse pricked his ears, and we walked slowly forward. I heard no unnatural sound, smelled nothing until I caught a faint smell of wood smoke, and then a moment later an animal smell.
Cattle! I drew up again. There was much brush, almost as high as my head, but scattered. Suddenly, sensing something near, I drew rein again.
There were cattle near, and a large herd. I could smell them and hear the faint sounds a herd will make at night, the soft moanings, shiftings, click of horn against horn when lying close, and the gruntings as one rose to stretch.
Well, right then I had me a healthy hunch, but what I wanted was to locate the fire. I reined my horse over and rode him around a bush, speaking softly so’s not to startle the cattle, which, after all, were longhorns and wild animals by anybody’s figuring.
The fire was off across the herd, and I glimpsed a faint glow on the side of some leaves over yonder, on a tree trunk. So I let my horse fall into the rhythm of walking around the herd, just as if we were riding night herd ourselves, which we’d done often enough.
From the way my horse acted, I didn’t figure these were strange cattle, so when I saw the fire ahead, I rode over and let my horse walk up quiet.
Tyrel, he was a-settin’ by the fire, and he never even raised up his head. He just said, “Get down, Tell, we’ve been a-missin’ you.”
So I got down and shook his hand, and we Sacketts was together again.
Chapter XIX
“You got yourself some cows,” I said.
“Seems as though. We’ve had some losses. Right now we’re a few shy of having nine hundred head. We lost cattle in the stampede, and we lost a few head in the sand hills. All of them are worn down and beat.”
“We’ve got thirty-two head, last count,” I told him. Then I asked, “How you fixed for grub?”
“A-plenty. Orrin came along with his carts. Trouble was we under-guessetimated the size of the carts and the appetites of the boys. We’d about decided to go into Fort Carlton to take on more grub.”
“Suits me. We’ve been wishful for coffee the last couple of days, and as for grab, we’ve been fixin’ to chaw rawhide.”
“Come daylight,” Tyrel said, “we’ll move the herd on some fresh grass and go into camp. Give you boys a chance to catch up on your eating.”
“How you fixed on ammunition? We’ve been ridin’ scared of a fight.”
“We’ve enough.”
The coffee tasted good. We sat by the fire, comparing what had happened to each of us, and we studied some about what Logan’s trouble could be.
“Whoever it is that wants our hides,” Tyrel said, “is from below the border. At least, those I’ve talked to. Looks to me like ol’ Logan stumbled into something and he’s thrown or is about to throw some trouble their way.”
When I finished my coffee, I went to my horse and mounted up. We’d picked a place for meeting that he’d scouted the day before, and I rode back to our camp.
Brandy was standing guard, and I told him of the morning move. “All quiet here,” he said. Then he said, “Mr. Sackett? I ain’t been punchin’ cows long, but there’s something that puzzles me. Most of what we’ve got here are steers, so why do you call them cows?”
“Just a manner of speaking, Brandy. Lots of places you never hear cattle called anything else but cows.”
Well, I went in and bedded down, resting easy for the first time in days. Tyrel and Orrin were alive and close by, and tomorrow we’d join up with them. Most of my years I’d lived alone and rode alone; even when I was with other folks, I was usually a man alone. Now my brothers were close by, and it was a comfort.
They’d come a long way. Tyrel had married well and had him a nice ranch.
Orrin’s marriage hadn’t worked out, but he had studied law, been admitted to the bar, and had been making a name for himself in politics. He was the best educated of us all, and he’d never let up on learning.
We bunched our cattle on a flat among some low hills, and our boys all got together. I noticed Gilcrist had headed for the Ox as soon as the two outfits stopped, and they had them a long talk. Fleming rode nearby a couple of times but did not stop, yet I had an idea they spoke to him.
We started on at daybreak and pushed the cattle at their usual gait For the first couple of hours, we let them take their time, kind of spread out and grazing; then we moved them along at a steady gait until noontime.