Tom Chantry thought of the disappearing buffalo with regret, but he could not deny the inevitable.
French moved up beside him. “They’re stringing out well, Chantry. We’re off to an easy start.” After a momentary pause he said, “Why’d you choose the long way? The Cut-Off is much the fastest. It’s drier, but we could make it. were you scared, or just cautious?”
“Maybe a little of both. Why take the chance?”
French glanced at him. “It doesn’t seem
to bother you much that the boys think you’re yellow.”
Chantry felt a quick surge of anger, but fought it down. His voice was calm when he replied. “It does bother me. There’s still enough of the kid in me for it to bother a lot, but I’ve got enough man in me not to be a damn fool about it.”
“You can’t duck a showdown. You can only postpone it.”
“Maybe. But when the showdown comes you’ll be the first to know.”
French looked at him sharply. “Are you saying that when you have a showdown it’ll be with me?”
“That’s hardly likely. I need you to get to Dodge. Anyway, I’m not a gunfighting man. Remember that.”
“I’ll be damned if I can figure you out, Chantry. You talk like a man with sand, but you sure don’t act up to it.”
“French, this will be a long drive. You know that better than I do. If I’m to get these cattle through I’d better stay alive, and I want you alive, too.”
“What if it comes to gun trouble?”
“They tell me you’re the fastest man in the
country. I’ll leave the gunfighting
to you.”
French Williams couldn’t leave it alone. “But you can shoot? I mean, you’re packing a Winchester … why?”
“Meat … we’ve men to feed, and I don’t want to butcher my own cattle if I can help it.”
“Can you hit anything?”
“Well,” Chantry said seriously, “the man
who sold me the rifle said that if I’d point it in the right direction I’d have a pretty good chance. Of course, he said, I’d have to hold steady.
I’ll give it a try sometime.”
French was silent, uncertain whether Chantry was serious or not. “What else did they tell you about me?” he asked finally.
“You know what they’d be likely to say. That your cows were the best in the country, giving you four or five calves a year … that sort of thing.”
French grinned. “Maybe I’m just lucky,” he said. He stood in his stirrups to scan the country ahead. “Why’d you pick me, then?”
“Because they said you might steal a man’s cows, but you’d never cheat at cards. They said whatever else you were, you were a man of your word. Also, they said you had guts and knew cattle. I decided you were the man I wanted.”
French swung his horse and rode back along the line of the drive.
Chantry, after a moment of hesitation, rode on ahead at a fast trot. He wanted to see the country, and if anybody was coming down the trail he wanted to see them first. He needed to know, needed desperately to know about that railroad.
He topped out on the low ridge that crossed the trail. Far off to the east he could see a moving black patch, some scattered black spots that must be buffalo. Nearer, there was nothing.
The sky was fantastically clear … no clouds, and a view that carried the eye away to a vast distance. The roan tugged at the bit, eager to be moving, but Chantry waited, studying the land. This was what he must do … he must learn to see, not merely to look. We must learn to recognize the things at which he looked, and to draw conclusions from them. Out here a man’s life might depend upon it.
Despite his feelings about carrying a gun, he found himself occasionally wishing he had one. It was a kind of insurance.
Now, feeling alone upon the plains, facing the situation in which he had placed himself, he had time to be afraid. He could not help but think of what he was risking for himself and for Earnshaw, gambling that he could stay with the herd to its shipping point. The presence of Dutch Akin was a hint as to the lengths to which French Williams would go to drive him off.
Had French expected him to turn tail and run? It was more than likely. But he had not run, and now the next move was up to French.
Turning in his saddle, he looked back at the long line of cattle. He was more than a mile in advance of the drive and from where he sat he could see it to advantage. The men riding drag appeared only occasionally through the dust, but the flankers on either side he could see easily, and the two men riding point. Off to the east was the chuck wagon, and not far behind it the wranglers with the horse herd.
Twenty-two hundred head, give or take a few, and fifteen men to ride herd on them— sixteen, including himself. And ahead of them twenty to thirty days’ drive, depending on conditions, and on how far west the railroad had progressed.
Aside from choosing the destination, he could do little in the way of planning. Their final destination was in his hands; the management of the herd and the men was up to French.
The season was well along. Here and there water holes would be drying up, but for most of the early part of the drive they would be near the Canadian or some of its branches.
To the east was buffalo country, and Indian country as well, and before very long they must turn east; at no time would they be safe either from Indians or from rustlers.
Chantry did not believe French would try to steal the herd … too many people knew the circumstances of their bargain, and French would deem it a personal failure to win by any means other than driving Chantry from the herd … or so Chantry believed.
For that reason, he must be wary of tricks. Searching back into his childhood, he tried to remember the tricks played by cowboys on trail drives or roundups. The bucking horse was the first and most obvious, and Chantry was sure that would come his way again. The rattlesnake in the blankets was another … or something that might appear to be a snake.
Worst of all, he had no friends in the crew, and Akin was the only one who even took the time to talk to him; but that might change. Slowly, he studied them in his mind, trying to pick out the ones who might at least stand for fair play.
McKay … a short, stocky man with a shock of rusty brown curls and a hard-boned face. He was twenty-four or comfive, a first-class bronc stomper and a good hand with cattle. A steady man, asking no favors of anyone, doing his share of the work and a little more. He packed a gun, and by all accounts could use it.
Helvie … a quiet-mannered man, somewhat reserved, and four or five years older than McKay. A good hand from Illinois, four years a soldier in the frontier cavalry, a year as a freighter, and four years a cowhand.
Hayden Gentry … called Hay Gent, from Uvalde, down in Texas, his family among the first settlers west of the Neuces. Long, lean, and tough as mule hide. Easy-going, full of humor, and fast with a gun, so it was said. Nobody wanted to be known as good with a gun around French, not unless he was a trouble-hunter.
Rugger, Kincaid, and Koch were good hands, but they were cronies of French, and probably not one of them had been born with the name he was using. A bad lot, as were most of the others.
Chantry rode on. The grass was dry, but there was plenty of it. Twice he saw buffalo, but only a few, and those were scattered out. Evidently they were on the outer edges of the great herd, or were forerunners of the herd.
The country was open, slightly rolling. Ahead loomed Eagle Rock, near where they expected to bed down for the night. Twice, Chantry drew up. He had the eerie, uncomfortable feeling of being watched, but he could see nothing, hear nothing. Nor was there any movement within sight, only the brown grass on an occasional slope being bent by the wind.
There were no fresh tracks.
Suddenly wary, he swung his horse and rode
off to the west, scouting for sign. He found nothing. Tracks of buffalo, occasionally old horse tracks. He stood in his stirrups and looked off toward the breaks of the Canadian, not far to the east.
The creeks that flowed into the river had cut deep at places, and the sides were lined with heavy growth of trees and brush. In those breaks, Chantry reflected, an army could be hidden … it was something to consider.