GUN JUSTICE
by
John Howard
Copyright 2011 John Howard
Published on Smashwords
Winner of the
Crescent Suns eBooks
Patient Persistence Award 2011
* * *
Chapter 1
“Cancer! Now ain’t that a heckuva note,” I said to myself as I pondered the news Doc Simpson had given me. I sat there behind my desk, slowly shaking my head in disbelief as I recalled my visit to the doctor.
* * *
Doc Simpson lived in a neat little house with a white picket fence around it about a block past the business section of town. Doc had converted the living room of his house into an office and treatment room. The opening of the office door caused a little bell to tinkle letting Doc know he had a patient.
“What brings you around today, Ty?” Doc Simpson asked as I stepped into his office.
Standing just inside the door, I replied, “Just needed to talk to you, Doc. I haven’t been feelin’ too good lately and it ain’t gettin’ any better so I decided to come to see you.”
“You did the right thing by coming in, Ty, so take your shirt off and we’ll get started.”
Doc asked me a lot of questions, did a lot of listening with his stethoscope, poked around on my stomach for a while, and finally gave me the news.
“I hate to tell you this, Ty, but from this examination plus what you’ve told me, I think you’ve got cancer.”
“Cancer? Never heard of it.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that you’ve never heard of it because there are probably a lot of old time doctors who have never heard of it.”
“Okay, let’s say that’s what I’ve got. Is it bad?”
“It’s as bad as it gets, Ty. There is no known cure for cancer. Cancer is a growth that spreads throughout the body destroying the healthy tissues and organs until the body can’t take it anymore, then you die
“You wouldn’t be pullin’ my leg would you, Doc?”
“No, Ty, I’m not pulling your leg. A doctor would have to have a pretty sick sense of humor to joke about a thing like this.”
“So there’s nothin’ you can do for me?”
“That’s right, Ty. There is nothing I can do for you. I did hear about a famous Scottish doctor named John Hunter who was working on cancer in the late 1700’s. He suggested that some cancers could be cured by surgery. I don’t know whether he was right or wrong, but what I do know is this. I would never attempt surgery on you because I wouldn’t know where to start or what to do, so to answer your question again, there is nothing I can do for you.”
“Just when is this dyin’ supposed to take place, Doc?”
“That, I couldn’t say, Ty. It could be a year or two. It could be less. It seems to work faster on some than on others. Anyway, my advice to you would be to get your affairs in order.”
I paid Doc and walked out, not quite sure what to make of my situation. Thinking about what Doc had told me caused me to lose my appetite, so the next morning I had grits with milk and sugar on them rather than my normal breakfast of bacon and eggs with biscuits and gravy and lots of coffee. After a few days of nothing but grits for breakfast my stomach was feeling a lot better, so I decided to stay on the grits for a while.
That had been eight months ago. Eight months closer to the grave, according to Doc Simpson. I couldn’t believe it. I had been feeling better than ever lately. No more dizzy spells and no feelings of passing out. I caught myself slowly shaking my head back and forth, not willing to accept the fact that I was dying.
Ty Hardin. That’s me. Dark hair, clean shaven, a little over six feet tall in my bare feet, wide shouldered, narrow hipped, strong as a bull, and dying of cancer. It didn’t make sense. I had been in several stand-up gunfights and had never had a scratch. I didn’t figure there was anyone around that could handle me face to face in a gunfight so, unless I got bushwhacked, I figured I’d live a long time.
Time. When you think you don’t have much time it makes you wonder where it has all gone. It didn’t seem that long ago that I had been twenty years old and working for Charlie Hill on his spread south of San Antonio. I leaned back in my chair, put my feet up on my desk and let my mind take me back to that earlier time in my life.
* * *
Chapter 2
I was sitting on the bench outside the door to the bunkhouse just looking around and thinking about how much nicer the evenings were when the wind wasn’t blowing. The bunkhouse facing east was nice because that let us set in the shade whenever we sat out in the evening.
When I heard the cook shack door slam, I looked around and saw Jim Long standing there on the porch, picking his teeth. Jim was always the last one out of the cook shack because he ate the most, yet he never gained a pound. Jim finally strolled over to where I was and sat down beside me.
Jim and I were just shooting the breeze when I noticed Billy Clifton and Seth Adams headed our way. As usual, Billy had that goofy looking grin on his face.
I waited until Billy was within earshot of us and then said, “What do you think Billy’s up to this time, Jim? You know it’s gotta be somethin’ the way he’s grinnin’ from ear to ear.”
“Shoot, Ty. He’s got that grin on his face most of the time. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t know whether he was happy about somethin’, whether he was up to somethin’, or whether he was only about half bright.”
“Do you think that if we just ignore him, he’ll go away?” I asked.
“That’s highly unlikely and we both know that he can’t keep quiet very long, so if we just sit here he’ll tell us what he’s up to, that’s for sure.”
Jim and I stopped our two-sided conversation and just sat there, waiting. Billy had been grinning and listening to us talk about him and, just as Jim had predicted, as soon as we stopped talking, Billy started.
“Come on, Ty. Let’s go down to the creek and see who’s the fastest with these pistols we’ve been packin’ around. I know you’ve been practicin’ with that Colt, but I’ve been practicin’ too and I want to see who’s the best
I looked at Billy Clifton and Seth Adams as they both stood there waiting to see what I would do. The three of us were all about the same age and were the youngest hands on Charlie Hills C bar H ranch. Billy was almost as tall as me but a lot thinner. He had a mop of unruly light brown hair, a face full of freckles and that ever-present grin that Jim had referred to. Seth was just about medium in size, was the most stable of us three, took his work seriously and was turning into a fine hand.
Just because Seth was the most stable didn’t automatically make me wild. In fact, I had been raised in a Christian home and had attended a Baptist church regularly until I was fourteen years old and my parents had been killed in an accident. After the accident, I lived with an aunt until I was eighteen. Then I had struck out on my own.
After getting a job with Charlie Hill, one of the first things I had bought was a pistol. I had spent a lot of time practicing with that pistol and knew I was really good with it. I had never bragged about how good I was with a gun, so nobody knew about it, but that secret wasn’t going to be a secret much longer.
I just shook my head, looked at Jim, and said, “Have you ever, in your whole life, seen anyone as anxious to get put in his place as this guy?”
“Can’t say that I have, Ty,” Jim replied.
“What makes you think you might be faster than I am with a gun?” I asked as I turned back to look at Billy. “You can’t saddle a horse as fast as I can. You can’t throw and tie a calf as fast as I can. You can’t even eat as fast as I can, and now you think you might be faster than I am with a gun? I can’t believe it.”
“Dang your hide, Ty. I know all that. You don’t have to remind me of it. But there’s gotta be somethin’ I can beat you at and since we ain’t never tried guns, let’s go.”
“What do you think, Seth,” I asked. “Do you think either of you are as fast as I am?”
“I know I’m not and it’s danged doubtful if Billy is either, but he ain’t gonna be satisfied ‘til you prove it to him. Personally, I don’t see the point in it. We ain’t plannin’ on bein’ gunfighters and you don’t have to be fast to shoot a rattlesnake or to shoot a horse that has a broken leg.”
That was a typical Seth response. He was never going to be daring or flashy. He was just going to be a good steady cowhand. Therefore, just like he said, he didn’t see any reason to be fast with a gun.
“What you just said is true enough, Seth, that’s for sure, but the point is this. It’s just a natural thing for men to want to see who’s the best at whatever it is they’re doin’. That’s why they have those bronc ridin’ contests at the Independence Day celebrations. The cowboys entered in those contests are ridin’ mostly for the braggin’ rights. The winner gets some prize money, but you can bet your boots those cowboys would still enter even if there wasn’t any prize money. They’d do it just so they could say they’re the best. That’s the same thing as those tales about gunfighters that we’ve heard when we’re sittin’ around the chuck wagon durin’ the roundup. Somebody gets a reputation of bein’ fast with a gun and it isn’t long until someone else comes along and has to try to prove that he’s faster. Right or wrong, that’s just the way it is.
“That’s why Billy is all excited, hoppin’ around like a toad on a hot rock. He can hardly wait to see if he’s faster than I am so he can brag about it. Well, there’s only one way to find out so let’s go,” I said as I got up from the bench and the three of us started for the corral to get our horses.
My horse was a buckskin that I had bought from Charlie the year before. Charlie had bought a new string of horses and I had taken an immediate liking to the three-year-old
buckskin that was in the bunch. Although the horses belonged to Charlie, they had been bought for the ranch hands to use. The hired hands would pick and choose the horses they wanted and would then use them as if they were their own. I really wanted that buckskin, but I figured he would be gone by the time it was my turn to pick, so I decided to talk to Charlie about buying the horse.
When I told Charlie what I wanted, he reminded me that he supplied the horses for the ranch work and that I didn’t need to buy a horse.
I pointed out the fact that when I had hired on I owned nothing but the clothes I wore. Now, two years later, all I owned was the clothes I wore and a gun. I wanted to own more than that and since it was obvious that I wouldn’t own a ranch or any cattle in the near future, I could at least own a horse.
Charlie heard me out, thought about it for a minute, and finally agreed to sell me the horse for what he had paid for it.
I named the horse Buck. I figured that every buckskin saddle horse in the country was named Buck, but I didn’t care. I liked the name and that was good enough for me. I had spent a lot of time currying, brushing, petting, and talking to Buck. As a result of all that care, Buck would come when I called his name.
When Billy, Seth, and I got to the corral, I called, “Here, Buck,” and stood there with pride as Buck trotted up to the fence. I rubbed his neck, told him how good a horse he was, dropped my loop over his neck and led him out to be saddled. I did all of that while Billy was trying to get his horse separated from all the other horses in the corral. Then I was able to tease Billy about being slow.
“Hey, Billy. I thought you wanted to go shootin’. What’s takin’ you so long to get ready?”
Billy just looked at me and didn’t bother to answer.
There was nice creek that ran through Charlie’s ranch. Cottonwood trees bordered the creek and I had spent a number of evenings sitting under one of those trees listening to the soothing sound the breeze made in the leaves overhead.
After the three of us were saddled up, it didn’t take long to ride to the creek and find a place with a high bank for a backstop. We dismounted, tied our horses to some bushes, and walked down to the water’s edge.
“Now that we’re here, what are we gonna do?” I asked.
“I ain’t shootin’,” Seth said. “I already know that Billy’s faster than I am. Why don’t you two face that bank with me standin’ behind you? When I holler, draw and shoot. If it’s too close for you to tell who shot first, I’ll be the judge.”
“Sounds fair to me. Come on, Ty. You’re about to meet your master,” Billy said.
“Wait a minute,” I said, as I looked Billy right in the eye. “There’s one thing that I want to get straightened out before we go any further.”
“What’s that?” Billy asked.
“I know you can’t beat me, Billy, ‘cause to be truthful, I doubt if there’s more than two or three people in the whole state that are faster than I am. When we draw you’re gonna look so bad that you’ll probably be embarrassed and I don’t want you to be mad at me about it. If you’re gonna get mad, then I ain’t doin’ it.”
“I won’t be mad, Ty. If you beat me I’ll just make sure to hide behind you if we ever meet up with any real live bad-men.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Too be truthful, I don’t think I can win. I just want to see how I stack up against you.”
When we turned to face the bank, I asked “What are we gonna shoot at?”
“Why do we need to be shootin’ at somethin’? I thought we were just tryin’ to see who was the fastest.”
“What difference does it make how fast you get your gun out if all you do is pull the trigger? You need to be able to hit what you’re shootin’ at or what’s the use of drawin’?”
“It doesn’t make any difference what target you choose because I couldn’t hit it anyway,” Billy replied. “I have a heck of a time tryin’ to hit somethin’ when I’m aimin’ at it and holdin’ the gun in both hands.”
I scanned the clay bank on the other side of the creek for a target and finally spotted something that would do.
“Okay, I’ve got it. See that little white streak of bird droppings on the face of the bank over there. That’s what we’ll shoot at.”
“Fine with me,” Billy said as we got set to draw. Seth moved behind us, shouted, “Go”, and two shots rang out. The thing of it was they were both my shots.
“Good grief, Billy,” Seth exclaimed. “Just practicin’ against me, I thought you were pretty fast. You didn’t even clear leather before Ty got off his two shots.”
Billy just stood there with his mouth hanging open, speechless for one of the few times in his life. He finally shook his head a little, as if to clear his brain, and said, “Well, I was hopin’ to do better than that, but I ain’t surprised. I don’t guess there’s any reason to try it again’ cause I did about as good as I could and it wasn’t near good enough.”
“I know what!” Billy exclaimed. “Let’s go back to the ranch and play root-the-peg. I know there’s somethin’ I can beat you at and maybe that’s it.”
“I’ll pass on that,” I replied. “Call me chicken if you want to, but that just might be what you win at and I don’t have any intentions of chawin’ on that dirt, tryin’ to get ahold of that peg with my teeth while you sit there laughin’ at me.”
I could see that my last statement had made Billy feel better, so we started back to our horses. I looked back over my shoulder and smiled. They hadn’t noticed, but the bird droppings we had been shooting at were gone.
* * *
Chapter 3
One evening in early spring, I was sitting on the side of my bunk watching Seth mend a tear in his shirt.
“How did you get so good with a needle and thread, Seth?” I asked.
“My mother taught me. There was a period of time when she had me do all the mending. She said there would be a time when there wouldn’t be a woman around to do the sewing and it would be foolish to throw a shirt away just because it had a tear in it.”
“It sounds like she’s a pretty smart lady.”
“She was. She’s dead now, but I keep findin’ that most of the advice she gave me has been right on the money.”
“Well, if she could see you now, she’d be pleased with the way you’ve turned out.”
“I think she would. So far I haven’t done anything that would have made her ashamed of me, so I guess I’m doin’ all right.”
Looking around the bunkhouse, I saw Billy watching the nightly penny ante poker game. That meant Billy was broke or he would have been in the game. Jim Long was sitting in a chair that he had tipped back on two legs so his back was against the wall, reading an old newspaper. A couple of others were thumbing through some old magazines. It was just another typical night in the bunkhouse. Then Charlie came in with some astounding news.
Charlie didn’t come to the bunkhouse very often, so when he did make an appearance, there had to be a good reason. As soon as he was spotted the conversations came to an end. The card players were the last ones to realize what was happening, but as soon as they saw Charlie, they quit playing and turned to see what he had to say.
“Well, boys, there’s gonna be some changes around here this year,” Charlie said, after he had our attention. “I’ve been doin’ pretty good every year by sellin’ my cattle in San Antone’, but some ranchers have been gettin’ rich by drivin’ their cattle to Kansas. The cattle buyers are buyin’ entire herds and then shippin’ ‘em back east on the railroad. With the prices they’re payin’, a feller could lose half his herd and still come out smellin’ like a rose, and if you get your whole herd through, you can make an absolute killin’, so I’m gonna give it a try. Now that I’ve decided to try it, we’re gonna get started on it just as soon as we can.
“Pete and I will leave in the mornin’ to find a trail boss and to pick up a few more horses. Cookie will take the chuck wagon into town to get the spokes tightened, the hubs greased, and to buy the supplies he’ll need to get us started. When Pete and I get back, we’ll help with the roundup. When we’re ready to hit the trail, I’ll leave Pete and Abe here to look after things while we’re gone. The rest of us will go on the drive. Any questions?”
“How long will it take to get to Kansas?” Billy asked.
“From what I’ve picked up in talkin’ to some of ‘em who have made the trip, it’ll be somewhere around three or four months, dependin’ on the weather and whatever else might come up. Anything else?”
When there were no more questions, Charlie walked out, leaving us alone. As soon as the door closed behind him the bunkhouse was filled with chatter.
“Boy, this is gonna be great ain’t it, Ty,” Billy said as he came up to my bunk, grinning, as usual. “Just think. We’ll be takin’ a herd of cattle all the way to Kansas. This is gonna be one exciting trip, that’s for sure.”
I was not surprised at Billy’s comment because that’s the way he was. Anything new to Billy was automatically exciting.
“It’s not gonna be as exciting as you think, Billy. Them cows ain’t gonna fly to Kansas, we’ve gotta drive ‘em there. That means they’ve gotta be kept in line, they’ve gotta be kept movin’, and you’ve gotta eat that trail dust every day for months. No more sleepin’ every night in a dry bunk. No more Saturday nights in town with Sunday off. The only time that drive will be exciting is when there’s a stampede and then that goes way beyond exciting into downright dangerous.”
“Oh, come on, Ty. You’re always tryin’ to put a damper on everything,” Billy said.
“No, I’m not. You just think that everything new is exciting and let it go at that whereas I take a closer look at things before I make up my mind.”
“Does that mean you might not be goin’ on the drive?” Billy asked in amazement.
“No, it doesn’t mean that at all. I work for Charlie and I’ll be goin’. When I said I take a closer look at things before deciding, I was talkin’ about deciding if the drive was gonna be exciting. I will admit that the drive will be different, I just don’t think it will be all that exciting.”
The next morning, when Charlie and Pete were ready to leave, Charlie left Abe in charge with the instructions to get started on the roundup. We normally had a roundup every fall. That is when we would brand all the calves that had been born that spring. When the calves were thrown to the ground to be branded, the bull calves would also be castrated. After the branding was finished, we would cut out the stock that Charlie would drive to San Antonio. This roundup would be different because of it being done in the spring while the cows were still having calves. Since the trail herd would be made up of steers and barren cows, the only branding we had to do was with the old stuff that had been missed in prior roundups. Branding full-grown cattle was a lot harder than branding calves. When branding a calf, the roper would rope the calf and drag it to the branding fire where two guys were working. One of them would lean over the calf, grab a leg, and flip the calf onto its side and hold it down while the other one slapped a brand on its hip. A different method was required to brand full-grown stock. One person would rope the steer around the neck and drag it to the fire where another roper would rope its back feet, causing the steer to fall. The ropers would keep the steer stretched out while one of the guys at the fire would drop onto the steer’s front quarters to keep it from trying to get up while the other guy was doing the branding. Working the branding fire was a dangerous job. The guy with the branding iron had to be very careful when approaching the cow. It was not unusual to have someone get careless and be laid up for a while from getting kicked by a cow that had gotten a leg loose.
Charlie wanted his entire range stripped of cattle so he could take as many as possible to Kansas. Even though there were very few full-grown cows or steers to be branded, it still took about a month to get everything rounded up and ready for the trail. That was because of the size of the ranch and the fact that it was hard to get some of the cattle out of the brush. After the herd was culled, the cattle that were to be sold were held off to the side while the remaining cattle were pushed back toward the open range where they would scatter.
Charlie had hired Al Timmons to be our trail boss. Al had been up the trail several times and had told Charlie that Dodge City was the place to go. The cattle shipping had been moving west from Abilene to Wichita, Newton, and Ellsworth. Now a new route, called the Western Trail, had been opened. It crossed the Red River at Doan’s Crossing and ran north to Dodge City. The cattle would then be shipped by rail from Dodge City to the slaughterhouses back east.
We finally finished the branding, and with nothing keep us there any longer we were ready to head out the next morning.
The first two days of the drive we moved the cattle at a good pace, making about twenty miles a day. After our noon stop on the third day, the cattle were broke to trail so we slowed down to the eight to twelve miles a day that a trail herd normally made.
Al had told Charlie that the cattle would lose a little weight from the pace of the first couple of days, but they would gain it back by the time we reached Dodge City.
Those first few days had really been hard on the horses in that constant battle between drovers and cattle. When a drover’s horse got tired he would get a fresh horse from the remuda and be back at it again. Al had told us how hard the start of the drive would be on the horses and why we needed such a big remuda. Not wanting to get Buck hurt in an accident, I had not ridden him at all the first three days, but now that the cattle were settled down I was riding Buck again.
One evening, as Billy and I sat by our bedrolls drinking coffee and talking, I said, “You said this drive would be exciting. Just how exciting do you think it is for the cook?”
“The cook? Why would I be thinkin’ about the cook? He doesn’t chase any of these cows around,” Billy replied.
“That’s right, he doesn’t. But have you noticed what he has to do? Here we are, all done for the night and takin’ it easy. He’s over there cleanin’ up after supper. Then he has to get up in the mornin’, way before the rest of us, build a fire, get the coffee goin’ and get breakfast for us. Then he has to clean up after breakfast, pack up the wagon, hitch up the horses, and drive to where we make noon camp. While we’re just sittin’ on our horses, lettin’ the cattle graze for a couple of hours, he has to build a fire, fix dinner, feed us, clean up after us, pack the wagon, and drive to where we’re gonna have supper. Then he has to build a fire, fix supper, feed us, clean up after us and what’s he got to look forward to? Doin’ the same thing again the next day. They couldn’t pay me enough to be a cook on a cattle drive.”
Billy just sat there and looked at me for a minute and finally said, “Like I said, I’ve never paid much attention to what the cook does. But, now that you’ve laid it all out for me like you did, it’ll make my job easier.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Well, the next time I’m ridin’ drag and thinkin’ I can’t take much more of that dust, I’ll think about the cook. Then, knowin’ that the cooks job will never change, and knowin’ that I’ll soon rotate out of ridin’ drag, it’ll make it easier for me.”
* * *
As I was riding along the next day, I started thinking about the conversation I’d had with Billy the night before. I definitely wouldn’t want to be a cook on a cattle drive, but what would I like to be? What would I like to be? Why would I start thinking thoughts like that? I had been tickled to death to land a job with the C-H outfit and hadn’t thought any farther down the line than that. Now, all of a sudden I realized that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life riding along looking at the south end of a northbound cow. Well, what else could I do? I gave that some serious thought and came to a discouraging conclusion. There wasn’t anything else I could do that I knew of. I knew I was smart enough and could be trained to do something, but what would it be? What about being a doctor? No. It would take way more time to get the education needed to be a doctor than I would want to give to it. What about being a lawyer? That would be about the same thing. On top of not wanting to devote the time needed to be a doctor or lawyer, they both spent most of their time indoors and I wouldn’t like that at all. There was one thing I knew for sure. It was still a long way to Dodge City, so I would have plenty of time to think about it.
That evening, as Billy and I talked about the days drive, I suddenly asked, “How old are you, Billy?”
“How old am I?”
“Yes, how old are you?”
“I’m twenty years old, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
“That’s how old I thought you were. Now, let me ask you a question. What will you be doin’ ten or twenty or even thirty years from now?”
“How in the world would I know that? I’m not a fortune teller.”
“That’s true, and I didn’t expect an answer. What I’m gettin’ at is this. The only work that I know how to do is ranch work. That’s all I’ve been doin’ for the last couple of years. I’ve been satisfied with that and I never looked any further ahead than a day or two. Today, for some reason, I started thinkin’ about the conversation we had last night and how I had told you I wouldn’t want to be a cook. While I was thinkin’ about that, I suddenly realized that I didn’t want to be a cowhand for the rest of my life.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Billy asked with a concerned look on his face.
“There’s nothin’ wrong with it. It’s good honest work and I’m not ashamed to be doin’ it. But I was thinkin’ ahead today and for some reason, I just can’t see myself still doin’ this when I’m forty or fifty years old.”
“Did all that thinkin’ ahead tell you what you would be doin’ down the road a ways?”
“That’s the funny part. It didn’t tell me anything. It just seemed pretty clear that I wouldn’t be a cowhand all my life.”
“I guess that’s one more difference in us, Ty. Bein’ a cowpoke is all I know how to do, but I like it and I don’t have a problem with doin’ it for the rest of my life.”
“I almost wish I wouldn’t have had that thought today. Ever since I started thinkin’ about not bein’ a cowpoke, my brain won’t hold still. It just keeps flyin’ around thinkin’ about tryin’ this or thinkin’ about tryin’ that, and none of it soundin’ right to me.”
Billy just sat there staring at me for a few seconds and finally said, “I don’t know what you might end up bein’, but you’re gonna keep on bein’ a cowpoke until we get to Dodge City, that’s for sure. Maybe by then you’ll have it all figured out.”
* * *
Chapter 4
I had never been on a trail drive, but I couldn’t imagine one going any smoother than the one we were on. There had been plenty of grass and water for the cattle. We hadn’t had to cross any streams that were running at flood stage and, unless you were stuck riding drag, the drive wasn’t that bad.
Our good luck held all the way across Texas to Doan’s Crossing. The store at Doan’s Crossing was built on the Texas side of the Red River. Jonathan Doan and his nephew, Corwin, ran the store and profited by selling supplies to the cattle drives and anyone else crossing over into Indian Territory.
A few days after crossing the river our good luck came to an end. We were gathered around the chuck wagon eating supper when five strangers rode up and stopped far enough from the fire that the dust from their horse’s hooves wouldn’t drift into the food.
Everyone stopped eating and a hush fell over the camp as all eyes were glued to the five strangers.
“What do you think they want?” Billy whispered.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure they’re gonna tell us right quick,” I replied.
“Who’s the owner of this outfit?” the one in the middle asked while the two on either side of him sat there with their hands on their guns.
Charlie looked them over for a little bit and then, taking his cup of coffee with him, walked over to see what they wanted.
“I’m the owner,” Charlie replied as he looked up at the leader of the group. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, it’s like this,” the leader said. “We’ve been watchin’ you all day and you’ve been drivin’ those cows along as if this was all open range when it actually belongs to me, so you’re gonna have to pay a ten percent toll for crossin’ my property.”
“That’s a bunch of bull,” Charlie exclaimed. “This is Indian Territory and nobody owns it except the U. S. Government and nobody has to pay a toll to cross it.”
“Yeah, that’s the way it used to be, but I just bought the whole territory. In fact, I just bought it yesterday,” the gang leader said with a nasty grin that admitted he was lying and daring Charlie to do something about it.
“Now, ten percent of three thousand is three hundred, so we’ll just cut out three hundred head and be on our way and there won’t be any trouble.”
“No trouble!” Charlie blurted out, all mad and red in the face. “You try cuttin’ that herd and you’ll have more trouble than you can handle.”
“I won’t cut the herd without your permission,” the leader of the gang said. “That would be a foolish move on our part. There we’d be, tryin’ to cut the herd, and there you’d be, tryin’ to stop us. Some of us might get killed and some of you might get killed. That makes the whole thing too messy, so here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re goin’ to help us cut the herd, ‘cause if you don’t, we can lay up in ambush and pick your drovers off until there are none left. Then we can take the whole herd. If we don’t do it that way, we might just stampede the herd and pick off part of the strays. We’ll keep up the stampedes until we have way over three hundred head, and then we’ll probably keep up the stampedes just for the fun of it because you wouldn’t cooperate. Now, it’s your choice, so what’ll it be?”
Charlie was so mad he couldn’t stand still. He was cussing and stomping around, but finally threw up his hands and said, “You win, but I’ve only got twenty seven hundred head, not three thousand.”
“It looks like three thousand to me, so we’ll take three hundred anyway,” the outlaw said. “Now, get on your horse and help us out. You can just figure this is part of the cost of doin’ business.”
Charlie went with them while they cut the herd and started their newly acquired cattle eastward. I was fuming by the time Charlie got back to camp.
I waited until Charlie had a fresh cup of coffee, then I walked over to talk to him.
“You shouldn’t have let ‘em have those cows Charlie. That was just plain old robbery.”
“Son, you’re young and you’re talkin’ from your heart without usin’ your head. All they took was some cattle. I can always get more cattle, but I can’t replace a life. If I woulda refused to let them have the cows and one of you ended up gettin’ killed because of it, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
He had a good point. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t want to argue about it, so I walked off without saying anything else.
* * *
Chapter 5
As I rode along the next day I kept thinking about the herd cutters. They sure had made the taking of Charlie’s cattle look easy. In fact, as smooth as it had gone probably meant that they had done the same thing a number of times before. There were plenty of herds coming up the trail, so there had been a lot of opportunities. The more I thought about what they had done, the madder I got. That evening, after supper, I walked over to where Charlie was sitting on a log.
“You got somethin’ on your mind, Ty?” Charlie asked as I stopped in front of him.
“Yeah, I have. It wasn’t right, them guys takin’ three hundred head of your cattle. I’m gonna go after ‘em and get ‘em back for you.”
“You’re talkin’ crazy, Ty. You can’t get those cattle back,” Charlie said with a concerned look on his face.
“I figured you’d say somethin’ like that, but I think I can do it. They don’t have a lever like they had when they talked to you. Now they’re the ones with the cows to watch.”
“I’m sorry, Ty, but I just can’t let you do it. It’s too dangerous.”
“I wasn’t askin’ for permission, Charlie. I’m just tellin’ you what I’m gonna do. If you fire me for leavin’ and hire me again when I get back with the cows, that’s fine. If you fire me and keep me fired after I get back with the cows, that’s fine too, but I’m goin’ after those cows tomorrow and that’s all there is to it,” I said and walked away before Charlie could say anything else.
“What was that all about?” Billy asked as I dropped down on my bedroll beside him.
“I just told Charlie I was leavin’ tomorrow to go get his cows back. He doesn’t think I can do it and doesn’t want me to go, but I’m goin’ anyway.”
“Well, just in case you can’t count or can’t remember that far back, there were five of those guys, Ty. How in the world do you think you can get those cows away from ‘em? And here’s another thing to think about. If you do manage to get the cows, how do you figure you can drive three hundred head by yourself?”
He had a good point there. Fuming all day at the injustice of it all, my entire focus had been to go get the cattle away from the gang. The problem of getting the cattle back to the herd hadn’t entered my mind. “I don’t know how I’m gonna handle it,” I said. “I don’t even have a plan. I’ve just got this strong feelin’ that it’s all gonna work out okay, so I’m gonna go give it a try and see what happens.”
“I could go along. That way, if we do manage to get the cows, there would be two of us to drive ‘em.”
I didn’t want Billy along and was hoping that I wouldn’t hurt his feelings when I said, “Thanks for offerin’, Billy, but I’d rather go alone. That way I don’t have to worry about where you are, or what you’re doin’, and I also won’t have to worry about you gettin’ hurt.”
“It’s because of how bad I did in our quick draw contest, isn’t it. You think I can’t hold up my end,” Billy said with a hangdog expression on his face.
It was pretty obvious, from the look on Billy’s face, and the tone of his voice, that my hope of not hurting his feelings had failed. “Holdin’ up your end ain’t got a thing to do with it, Billy. It’s the fact that I don’t know anything about those five guys or what they’re capable of. If I get killed because of this wild idea I have, that’s okay because it’s my wild idea. If I let you go along and you get killed, I would have a hard time dealin’ with that, so I’ll just go by myself.”
The next morning I was sitting beside Billy, eating my breakfast, when Charlie came over to talk to me.
“Are you still plannin’ on goin’ after the cattle?” Charlie asked.
“I’m just as upset this mornin’ as I was last night, so nothin’s changed. I’m about ready to go, so I’ll be leavin here shortly.”
“I don’t suppose you’d let me talk you out of goin’?”
“Not a chance, Charlie. If you start talkin’ about it, you’re just wastin’ your breath. I’m goin’, and that’s final.”
“Well, I still think it’s foolish and I think you’ve got a better than average chance of gettin’ yourself killed.”
“I told him that last night and again this mornin’, Charlie, but he has his mind made up and nobody is gonna change it,” Billy said.
Charlie stood there smoothing down his mustache and looking at me like he was in deep thought. Finally he said, “I’ll say one last thing, then I won’t mention your little adventure again. If you get yourself killed, you’ll lie wherever those cow thieves leave you because I’m not gonna send anybody back to check on you.”
“That’s the way it should be, Charlie. You don’t want me to go, so just keep on headin’ that herd north and if you never see me again you’ll know they got the best of me. And that part about me lyin’ wherever they leave me doesn’t bother me a bit. The body is just a house for the soul to live in. When the body dies the soul leaves to spend eternity in either heaven or hell. After that, whatever happens to the body is meaningless.”
“Well, I’ve got a herd to move so I better get started. I wish you luck and hope to see you again,” Charlie said as he shook my hand and then headed off to saddle his horse.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you? “ Billy asked.
“I’m sure Billy. You just go on helpin’ to get that herd to Dodge City.”
When Billy shook my hand he held on to it with both of his. With a solemn look on his face, he said, “We’re about the same age, but somehow you’ve always seemed more like a big brother to me, so don’t take any chances. If it looks like you can’t get the cattle away from those guys without gettin’ hurt, give it up and come on back here in one piece.”
“That’s good advice and I’ll keep it in mind.”
“You see that you do,” Billy said and then, giving me a slap on the shoulder, he headed for his horse.
I watched until Billy was saddled up and on his way to the herd, then I walked over to see the cook.
“Hey, Cookie. I’m gonna be gone for a few days. Do you have any food that you can put in a sack so I can take it with me?”
“I’ve got a piece of beef and about a half dozen leftover biscuits here. Will that do?”
“That’ll be just fine, Cookie.”
“What are you gonna be doin’ that’ll keep you gone for a few days?” Cookie asked as he was putting the food in the sack.
“I have to run an errand for Charlie.”
Cookie just stood there with the food sack in his hand waiting for me to tell him what the errand was about. When I didn’t say anything, he handed me the sack and went back to stowing things away in the chuck wagon.
It didn’t take me long to saddle Buck, tie my bedroll on behind the saddle, tie the food sack to the saddle horn, and then I was on my way.
As I rode along I figured the food Cookie had given me would last until I caught up with the herd cutters. Then it dawned on me that I didn’t have a coffeepot. I thought about that and decided it really wasn’t a problem. When I ate the biscuits I had, I could wash them down with water from my canteen. Then, if I managed to get the gang under control, I would eat their food and use their coffeepot. On the other hand, if they killed me I wouldn’t need any food, so what I had would do me just fine.
It didn’t take long to ride back the ten or twelve miles the herd had covered the day before. Then a blind man could have followed the trail the stolen cattle had made.
I started following their tracks and couldn’t believe it when I had only ridden for about an hour until I heard the cattle. I was kind of surprised that the outlaws hadn’t driven the cattle any further than they had, but then I realized there wasn’t any reason to keep driving east. The railhead for shipping cattle was north in Kansas. They must be changing brands or something, I thought as I rode closer.
When it sounded like the cattle were just over the next rise, I dismounted, tied Buck to a bush, and crept ahead. Just before I got to the top of the hill I flopped down on my belly, removed my hat, and crawled up behind a tall clump of grass. Then I spread the blades of grass so that I could see without being seen. The first thing I saw was the activity around the branding fire. They were re-branding the cattle, so they had to go through the same process that we had done at the ranch in getting the cattle ready for the trail. There was one big difference between the way we had done the branding and the way the rustlers were doing it. We had used branding irons, but the rustlers had to use a running iron to change the brands. A regular branding iron is a long metal stamp with the owner’s brand on the end of it. You just heat the branding iron, press it into the cow’s hide and you’re done. A running iron is usually a cinch ring. It is heated, but then the brand has to be drawn onto a cow’s hide, kind of like drawing with a pencil on a piece of paper. Actually, it is even harder than that because the cinch ring is really hot and has to be handled by holding it with two sticks. It takes a lot longer to change a brand with a running iron than it does to brand a cow with a branding iron, so I couldn’t even guess at how many days it would take to change three hundred brands. After watching for a little while, I crept back to Buck and headed off for some trees along a creek where I could hide out for the day and try to make some plans.
Plans? What kind of plans could I make when there is only one of me and five of them? Well, dummy? Maybe you should have given that some thought before running off at the mouth and telling Charlie that you were going to get his cows back.
I followed the creek until I found a place where I could keep Buck out of sight and still have good grass for him to feed on. After getting Buck taken care of, I sat down with my back against a tree trunk and proceeded to do some serious thinking.
There were five of them, but when they were done branding for the day they would have to have somebody riding night-herd. I knew I could take care of the night-herder, but what was I going to do about the other four. Maybe I could sneak up on them and get their guns. I only had to think about that for a few seconds until I realized that probably wouldn’t work. What if I was successful in sneaking up on them and then suddenly jumped out of the dark hollering, “hands up.” What would that do? Probably get me killed is what that would do. Campfires don’t light up the world, so, in the shadows and half-light, someone was sure to be able to get a gun out and start shooting at me. I didn’t like my chances if it played out that way. What if I just rode up to the camp, bold as brass, and got invited to join them? That might work. I would be able to see all four of them and, when the time was right, maybe I could get the drop on them. I wasn’t sure if that was a good plan or not, but I kept thinking about it all day and couldn’t come up with anything better.
* * *
Chapter 6
After it was dark, I picked up Buck’s saddle and bridle and walked out to where I had him tied to a tree.
“These next couple of hours could get kinda exciting, Buck. I just hope that, if anything happens to me, you end up with someone who isn’t mean to you,” I said as I put the saddle and bridle on him and mounted up.
I rode out to where I had been earlier in the day when I first found the herd. I tied Buck to a bush again and crept up to the top of the hill. After observing the nighthawk’s route around the cattle a few times, I found the perfect spot for an ambush. When the nighthawk was on the other side of the herd, I hurried down the hill and hid in a patch of sumac. The next time the guard got to the sumac, I stepped out with my gun in my hand.
“Step down off that horse and don’t make a sound,” I said as the guard jerked his horse to a halt at my sudden appearance.
“What are you tryin’ to pull, mister?” he asked after he had his horse settled down.
“What I’m tryin’ to pull shouldn’t concern you. What should concern you is this gun in my hand. Now, if you don’t want to wake up shakin’ hands with that ol’ boy with the horns and the pitchfork, you’d better climb off that horse.”
e sat there mumbling something under his breath, but finally got down and stood there holding the reins in his hand.
“Now, turn around,” I said.
“What for?” he asked without turning.
“You know, we’ve only been talkin’ for a minute or two and havin’ to tell you twice every time I want you to do somethin’ is already gettin’ old. I didn’t stutter the first time, so just turn around.”
He finally turned around, and as soon as he did I smacked him on the head with my gun barrel. When he slumped to the ground, I stuffed his neckerchief into his mouth and I tied my neckerchief around his to keep it in place. Then, using some rawhide strips that I had brought with me, I tied his hands behind his back and tied his feet together. Then I tied his horse to a stalk of sumac and went back to retrieve Buck. After mounting up, I circled way around and came into camp from the east.
“Hello the camp,” I called out as I stopped Buck just short of the firelight.
“Come on in,” came back a reply.
I rode into the firelight and found all four of the outlaws facing me with their hands on their guns.
“Who are you and what are you doin’ ridin’ around in the dark?” asked the one who had talked to Charlie.
“I’m nobody and I’m ridin’ in the dark to get to your camp. I’ve been headin’ west, lookin’ for one of them cattle drives to hook on with. I was just fixin’ to make camp for myself when I spotted the light from your fire. I thought I might have got lucky and that this was a cattle drive camp fire, but I can see it ain’t.”
“You’re right, it ain’t, so you can just keep on lookin’,” the leader said.
“Wait a minute. I ain’t wantin’ to join up with you guys, but if I could bum a cup of that coffee off of you, I wouldn’t have to build a fire ‘til mornin’.”
“All right, go ahead and get some if you want to. We’ve got plenty.”
They watched me pretty close as I tied Buck to a tree and dug a cup out of my saddlebag, but after I had both hands wrapped around the cup of coffee, they seemed to relax and three of them sat down on their bedrolls.
“So you’re lookin’ to hook up with a cattle drive. Why would you want to do that,” the leader asked as I stood there sipping my coffee.
“Well, I was workin’ on a little spread south and east of here. The owner died and his wife sold out and went back east. I thought I’d just keep on workin’ for the new owner, but that didn’t pan out. I didn’t know who had bought the place until he showed up at the ranch. I knew my chance to keep workin’ there was down to zero when I saw who the new owner was. I’d had some trouble with him in the past and when he saw that I was workin’ there he fired me on the spot. That left me without a job. None of the other ranchers around there needed another hand, so I figured if I could find a trail herd, maybe the owner would put me on. Then, if I did a good job, maybe he would take me back to Texas with him when the drive was finished.”
“That might work,” the leader said. “It ain’t unusual to have a drover or two quit after the drive is finished.”
“Well, that’s what I’m hopin’ for. Now all I have to do is find a herd.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” the leader said. “All you have to do is keep ridin’ west until you come to the trail the cattle have been makin’. Then you can either ride hard to the north to catch up with the last herd that went past, or you can ride back south until you come to the next herd headed north.”
I managed to ask enough questions about cattle drives to keep them talking and by the time I poured myself a second cup of coffee, I had their names all figured out. Just as I was finishing my coffee, Chuck sent Roy out to relieve Ed at the herd.
When Roy found Ed all trussed up, I was going to be in deep trouble, so I had better do something pretty darned quick. The problem of trying to think of something to do was taken out of my hands by the one they called George.
Roy had hardly gotten out of the firelight when George spoke up. “There’s somethin’ fishy about this, Chuck. I knew, as soon as I saw this guy, that I had seen him somewhere before. It took a while for me to remember where it was, but I’m sure he was one of the drovers in that camp where we got those cows.”
“What the …” Chuck yelled and grabbed for his gun. I drew and shot him dead center twice, and then spun to shoot at George who was trying to get up and draw at the same time. My shot took him right in the throat.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Vince was yelling with his hands in the air.
“You get rid of that gun and I won’t,” I said, as I kept him covered.
Vince jerked his gun out and threw it away like it had been burning his leg.
I heard hoof beats pounding up to camp and Roy pulled up in the firelight.
“What’s all the shootin’ about?” he asked before he realized he was looking right down my gun barrel.
“Get rid of that gun and get down off that horse, Roy, and don’t try anything funny or you’ll be hearin’ some more shootin’ and you won’t like the results.”
Roy looked at Vince sitting there with his hands raised and reluctantly pulled his gun, dropped it, and dismounted.
“What’s goin’ on, Vince?” Roy asked.
“This jasper’s from that cattle drive we hit. I don’t know what he wants, but when we found out who he was, Chuck went for his gun and wasn’t fast enough. Then George joined in and that’s the last bad decision he’ll ever make.”