Centennial (82 page)

The men led the cows across to the western bank, then camped for three days till everyone recovered, but as they were about to move out, the wrangler, who had his horses to the north, shouted, “Calvary!” Like all Texans, he pronounced this word in its biblical form. Any soldier on horseback was calvary.

It was a detachment from Fort Sumner, riding out to scout the Mescalero Apaches, who were on a rampage through central New Mexico. “We want you to drive up the east bank,” a lieutenant shouted.

“Is there grass over there?” Poteet asked.

“Not good, but if you stay over here they’ll steal your horses. Keep a sharp eye on your remuda.”

“Much fighting?”

“Nope. Just raids. If you shoot, they shoot.”

When the cavalrymen finished their coffee they disappeared to the south, and Poteet laid plans to keep the remuda closer to camp, with extra men to help guard it. “An Apache can steal your blanket while you’re sittin’ on it,” he warned, “but they’re not goin’ to get our horses.”

With loud huzzahs the men brought the Crown Vee cattle back to the east bank, no great feat, and started them north. It was a curious trail the land bordering the river was loaded with cactus, barren of grass and blistering hot. In order for the cattle to feed, she cowboys led them about six miles away from the river, but for them to drink, they had to come back to one of the potable spots, and in this zigzag fashion they stumbled north.

“I’ll put this land up against the worst in Texas,” Lasater said.

One night Ragland asked abruptly, “Is it true, Lasater, that you was mighty near hung?”

“Yep.”

“How come?”

“Me and O. D. Cleaver was fixin’ to hold up a bank in a place called Falfurrias ...”

“They ain’t no such place as Falfurrias,” Ragland said.

“North of the border,” Lasater replied. It was important to him that the men acknowledge the truth of his claim. “You know Reynosa, where we used to pick up the Mexican herds? You cross the river to Hidalgo, which isn’t much, and come due north and you hit Falfurrias.”

“Yeah,” Savage agreed. “About halfway to San Antonio.”

His veracity established, Lasater said, “Me and O. D. was camped six miles south of Falfurrias, sort of scoutin’ out the place, and we figured the sheriff and most of the men would be out of town on Thursday afternoon—somethin’ doin’ to the north—and we rode into town easy-like, but they hadn’t gone. The sheriff spotted us and shouted, ‘Catch them swine!’ and they did, and somebody yelled, ‘Let’s hang ’em,’ and somebody else yelled, ‘We can’t hang ’em. They ain’t done nothin’,’ and this danged old sheriff shouts, ‘We can hang ’em for what they was gonna do,’ and danged if they didn’t haul us out to the edge of town and start to string us up when a young feller who musta been either a lawyer or a preacher interrupts in a loud voice cryin’, ‘This is unconstitutional and against the law of God,’ and the sheriff says, ‘You know danged well these two was gonna rob the bank. You seen ’em scoutin’ the place the last three days,’ and they tightened the rope, and the young feller draws his gun and says, ‘Then you gotta hang me too, because I’ve scouted that danged old bank many a day.’ So they let us go, and I got just one word for you fellers, ‘Stay away from Falfurrias,’ because down there they hang you for what you’re thinkin’.”

“How come you took to robbin’ banks?” Ragland asked.

Lasater stared at the fire and offered no explanation, so Ragland continued: “You goin’ back to it when we’re done?”

“I sure ain’t plannin’ to,” Lasater said, and Jim Lloyd, sitting near him as he said these words, saw the strange look on his face, as if the older cowboy knew that no man was complete master of his fate, and that sometimes a man found himself caught up in the robbing of a bank when that had not been his intention at all.

It now became difficult to find potable water, for the Pecos became loaded with alkali, and the water holes, which were frequent in the area, could not be used, because they were passing through land claimed by John Chisum, greatest cattle baron in the west. He was so determined to hold on to what he had grabbed that he designated a few holes for the use of his own cattle and directed his men to salt the others.

Some years ago Chisum had accomplished in New Mexico what Seccombe was trying to do in Colorado: by purchasing six hundred strategic acres with water he had established his iron rule over another six million. He considered all this land his and was ready to shoot anyone who dared trespass upon it with intention of staying. His own land would support at best twenty cows; he ran upward of forty thousand on land that rightfully belonged to the general public, but if one of that public tried to build a cabin anywhere on the vast reaches, or tried to water his cattle at a Chisum well, he faced the barrel of a gun.

“We’re now on John Chisum land,” Poteet warned the men as they moved north. The range, farther than a man could see in ten days of travel, was Chisum’s because he said so. Scores of good men would die before this unique theory of land ownership could be successfully challenged.

After the cowboys had learned to grapple with this problem of no drinkable water in the Pecos and none in John Chisum’s wells, they were confronted with another trying situation. For some time the older hands had noticed that two or three of the cows were growing distressingly fat, and one morning they woke to find that one of them had thrown a calf. They looked at Jim.

When Mr. Poteet heard of the matter he said, “Well, Jim. The drag takes care of the calves. That’s the rule.”

“How?” Jim asked.

“You kill ’em.”

“I what?” Jim asked, his face turning white.

“Tell him, Nate,” and Person took Jim and Coker aside and said, “Every outfit that trails cows has this problem. Calves. They can’t possibly keep up. You’d lose cow and calf.” He shook his head and told the drags, “It’s your job to kill ’em.”

“But how?’ Jim pleaded.

“Some shoots ’em. Some bangs ’em over the head with a club.”

“But I ... Before the boy could speak Person left, taking Coker with him.

Jim went to where the cow was suckling her newborn, and one look at the white snout and the eager lips of the calf as it found the teat undid Jim completely for his task. He touched his revolver but could not take it from his holster. He looked about for a club and was gratified when he found none. Finally, in despair, he lifted the calf and took it from its protecting mother, who followed him almost to the camp.

“I can’t kill a calf, Mr. Poteet. I raise ’em.”

“Put the damned thing down,” Poteet shouted, “and get rid of it.” He turned away in disgust, and Jim appealed to the others, but no one would help. He was ashamed of the tears that came into his eyes, but he would not put down the calf. Finally, off to the left he saw Nacho driving his team to the next stop and he ran to him.

“Let me put the calf in your wagon ... just for a while. I’ll think of somethin’,” so Nacho hid the calf, but when they stopped and the men were eating, the calf bawled, and Mr. Poteet started to say, “What in hell ...” but he stopped. There were some things a trail boss was wise not to hear.

So Jim fed the calf and tended it, and when another was born the job of destroying it was given to Coker, but he proved no more valiant than Jim. “Hell, I can’t use a LeMat that was carried by a Confederate colonel to kill no calf,” he said, and his found a place with Nacho, too.

But when a third was born and Jim could not kill it, Mr. Poteet had had enough of first-time drags. “Out those calves go, and you two men finish them off,” he snapped, but Jim found reprieve in an unlikely quarter. Nacho in his singsong voice said, “Mr. Poteet, I theenk I got sometheeng ... sometheeng goood,” and he asked permission to keep the calves till they got to Fort Sumner, and Poteet gave grudging consent.

Three days shy of Fort Sumner the Apaches struck, but they did so with such cunning, crossing the Pecos after midnight and moving with the stealth of coyotes, that three of the horses were on the west bank of the river before anyone realized they had been stolen, and the cowboys wouldn’t have known it even then except that a bay horse much loved by Gompert whinnied, and he leaped up from his sleeping bag with a wild shout, “They’re stealin’ my horse.”

The cowboys couldn’t believe it. The Apaches had come right into the camp, had passed the remuda where the three guards waited, and had stalked through the space between the sleepers and the cook wagon, leading three good horses away with them.

“We didn’t see nothin’,” the wrangler reported on behalf of the guards, and Nacho said the calves had kept him awake and he had heard nothing. Gompert wanted to organize a posse to ride after the Apache and shoot it out, and Lasater and Coker were eager to go, but Mr. Skimmerhorn counseled prudence.

“Apaches have been stealing horses for centuries,” he said.

“They could of killed us in our sleep,” Lasater said.

“Why in hell didn’t they steal the calves?” Poteet asked. During the next two days the cowboys were unusually sensitive to their surroundings, and twice the younger fellows thought they saw Apaches on the western hills, but nothing came of it. Jim Lloyd, inspecting the landscape with extra care, made the acquaintance of a bird that he would always remember as the symbol of the drive, a doughty, quick, amusing creature that stayed on the ground much of the time, tilting his head from side to side while his crest of brown and white feathers glistened in the sun.

It was the roadrunner, a member of the cuckoo family, with an extensive tail which balanced beautifully as he ran across open spaces looking for insects. He was a friendly, curious bird, and he made the cowboys laugh, for his crest rose and fell according to his interest in things at hand. Often he would halt, look up at Jim and cock his head, fluttering his tail to maintain balance.

Jim was surprised to find that it was Lasater, the robber, who most appreciated the animals they encountered. “Mom told us that God sent the roadrunner to show us the way through difficult places,” he said, and this started a lugubrious fireside discussion of mothers and other noble women the cowboys had known. Tale after tale of frontier heroism unfolded, invariably with some gallant women at the core of the action.

“They was this woman down along the Rio Grande,” Canby said. “Husband killed in the war with Mexico. Big ranch to care for, thousands Of cattle and no one around her but a bunch of greasy damned Mexicans ...”

Nacho Gómez was cleaning up after the night meal and listened with rapt attention. He liked stories of brave women.

Canby’s tale went on and on, but never too long or tedious for his listeners. The stars of spring rose high in the heavens and Jim thought how sad it was to see Orion go to bed in the west, taking the long sleep till next winter.

That night as he and Ragland rode the two-to-four, listening for Apaches, they traveled at their regular, monotonous speed, but each time as they passed in the darkness they stopped their singing to exchange a few words, the subject continuing to be women.

FIRST PASS: “Jim, you ever kissed a girl?”

“Nope.”

SECOND PASS: “It can be rather satisfyin’.”

THIRD PASS: “But parts of it can be mystifyin’, too.”

That was the lesson for the night, and Jim brooded upon it till his watch ended. Two nights later he and Ragland resumed their discussion, which became more specific.

FIRST PASS: “Jim, you ever been in a whorehouse?”

“Nope.”

SECOND PASS: “Jim, you know what a whorehouse is?”

“Nope.”

THIRD PASS: “We get to Las Vegas, you’re gonna find out.” In this fragmentary but highly gratifying manner Jim Lloyd was introduced to the mysteries of life. God, sex, money, acquiring a ranch and, above all, how to handle women were explained to him by the night riders. Once as he passed Gompert on the ten-to-twelve that young cowboy sort of summarized the whole subject.

FIRST PASS: “Jim, don’t you believe everything Old Rags tells you.”

SECOND PASS: “There’s one hell of a lot Mr. Smart-ass Ragland don’t know.”

THIRD PASS: “Always remember, the finest woman you’ll ever meet was your maw.”

“I know.”

FOURTH PASS: “Of course, other girls can be pretty nice, too.”

“I know.”

FIFTH PASS: “Of course, Jim, I’m speakin’ only of nice girls.”

“So am I.”

There was a sense of relief when the column reached Fort Sumner, a dismal outpost on the Pecos, established to keep the Mescalero Apaches in line. When the commander heard that Poteet’s group had lost only three horses, he laughed. “We keep a line of old crocks over there so the braves can practice stealing. Makes ’em think the old days are still here.” He told Gompert, “If you lost only one horse, it was cheap,” but Gompert wanted to know if he could ride out with a scouting party, to see if he could recover his horse.

“Son, forget it! You’ll have real problems on your hands if the Comanche decide to move westward.”

“Where are they now?” Poteet asked.

“Our scouts have them spotted way to the east. North of Texas in the Indian country. But they could be moving west. I’d take my cattle over to the west bank. Forget the Apaches and keep an eye out pretty firmly to the east.

Now Nacho Gómez sprang his surprise regarding the calves. Asking for a horse, he spoke with some of the soldiers, then rode directly west into Apache country. Some hours later he returned with a dozen Mexican farmers leading a horse laden with trading goods. Going to his wagon, he produced the three calves, and the Mexicans groaned with delight. “A bull!” one cried, and Mr. Poteet watched as Nacho entered into frenetic bargaining.

The Mexicans offered chickens, long strings of garlic, onions, peppers and bundles of herbs none of the cowboys could identify. Nacho accepted each with a delighted grin, turning to inform the cowboys, “Now we feast!” In the end the Mexicans appointed three riders to follow the herd north, to collect any additional new calves, and the leader said to Mr. Poteet, “Pray God there will be bulls! For then we can start our own herd.”