Chancy (1968) (9 page)

And there was no question about who was the strongest among us, either. My work as a boy, and then on the boats and on the freight teams had given me strength, although much of it I came by naturally.

From time to time in the saddle I gave thought to myself. I felt I wasn't learning enough. Jim was teaching me about the grass, the plants, and the animals. What I hadn't known about tracking he was also teaching me, but what I needed was book-reading. I had an envy of those who could study and go to schools.

Yet in my own way I had grown a little. Being the boss had given me responsibility. I had men, horses, and cattle to consider, and the future responsibility of finding a proper ranch for Tarlton and myself.

Many a man of my age was bossing a herd or an outfit, so there was nothing unusual about that, but it does change a man when he knows others depend upon him for decisions.

Though Corbin was considered the gunfighter of the outfit, I had killed two men, but I was not anxious to have it known. I wanted no such reputation. The man I wanted to be like was Tarlton, I suppose. He was educated, respected, well dressed, and well liked. He had dignity and he was a gentleman, and these things I wanted more than anything else.

It seems to me a man comes into this world with a little ready raw material--himself. His folks can only give him a sort of push, and a mite of teaching, but in the long run what a man becomes is his own problem. There've always been hard times, there've always been wars and troubles--famine, disease, and such-like--and some folks are born with money, some with none. In the end it is up to the man what he becomes, and none of those other things matter. In horses, dogs, and men it is character that counts.

For the first time, I had a definite goal--two of them, in fact: to build a prosperous ranch, and to build myself into a man I could be pleased with. The last idea I'd had for some time, but it hadn't been formed into a goal until now. It had always been there, a sort of half-formed wish in the shadowy recesses of my mind; now it had come out into the open, and I had to do something about it.

When I went back to Tennessee I wasn't going to be just a horse thief's son. My pa had been a good man, and the best way I could convince folks they had done him wrong was by being somebody myself.

Tom Hacker rode out to where I sat my horse, watching the cattle. "You want some advice?" he said.

"Try me."

"Rest up. The horses are dead-beat. We should have twice the remuda we've got for a drive like this. If those boys catch up with us we'll make 'em wish they hadn't."

"All right. We'll do it." I hooked a leg around the pommel. "You ever read much, Tom?"

He gave me an odd look. "As a matter of fact, yes. When I can find something. A man can't carry much in his saddlebags." He paused. "Why do you ask?"

"This here's a big country. It's going to need big men to handle it, and I figure a big man ought to have more in his mind than I've got. Tarlton's going to send me some books, but I'm lathering to get on with it."

"I've got a couple," Hacker said. "I can't say they'd be considered an education, but they're mighty good reading." He stoked his pipe. "I've got Mayne Reid'sAfloat in the Forest, and Richardson'sBeyond the Mississippi ."

"I'd like to read them."

"Sure thing." He lighted his pipe. "When I left home I had four books. I swapped aMcGuffey's Reader with a storekeeper in Missouri for a copy ofMountains and Molehills, by Frank Marryat. You'd never believe the number of times I've swapped books along the way. Two or three times in the army, half a dozen times out on the trail. Seems like everybody's hungry for reading, and there's mighty few books going around. I swapped that Marryat book to a gambler in Cheyenne, and three years later I was offered the very same book, with my name writ in it, in Beeville, Texas. It sure does beat all how some of these books get around."

We held the herd at that place for three days, keeping them off the horizon, and in the shallow valley along the stream. We rested ourselves and our horses, and the cattle seemed content to feed where they were. We ate, slept, yarned the hours away beside the fire; we repaired some gear, cleaned our guns, and watched the lazy cattle.

It was a good time, but in us all was the feeling that it could not last. We had been fortunate, but we were in Indian country, and somewhere out there were our enemies.

At daybreak on the third day we started them upstream, but moved them less than a mile, resting there for the last day on good fresh grass.

On the fourth day we started them again, moving them easily, letting them walk and graze, but keeping them all the time on the move toward the west. Jim, who was riding point, came back to the drag about an hour before noontime.

"I cut the trail of five shod horses," he said. "Maybe two days old ... came in from the south. One of them was Andy Miller's."

So they were with us again. They had missed our trail, but they would pick it up somewhere ahead. Over noon coffee I drew myself a rough map in the dirt. Northwest was Cheyenne, further north was Fort Laramie.

"We'll try to cross the Platte somewhere near Horsetail Creek," I told the men. "If anything happens to me, Hacker will take charge and you locate on the best grass you can find and wait for word from Tarlton."

Some folks think they'll live forever, but I wasn't one of them. How long a man lasts depends on how careful he is, and on the breaks of the game. Out here in this country a bullet or an arrow was only one way to go; there were many other ways--your horse could step in a prairie-dog hole when running; you could be gored by an outlaw steer, thrown by a horse, drowned in a river-crossing, caught in quicksand, or trampled in a stampede. To say nothing of rattlers or hydrophobia skunks--those skunks sometimes bit a man on the face when he was sleeping on the prairies. It was a rough, hard land, and we learned to walk careful and keep our eyes open, trusting in the Lord and a fast gun-hand.

We drove northwest while the sun blazed down and the dust clouds hung over our march, northwest across the sand dunes, over the swollen streams, up the long hills. Where water was scarce we lost some cattle, and the buzzards hung above us in the hot, empty sky. We sweated and swore and worked our horses to a frazzle, and slept when we had a chance.

And then the rains came, saving the herd and possibly ourselves, but turning the ground into a sea of mud, sometimes dimpled with the hard-striking hailstones. Tom Hacker's horse fell with him, and Tom's leg was scraped from hip to knee, his right arm badly wrenched.

Julesburg lay somewhere nearby, and we thought of it and longed for the food we could eat there that was not cooked by ourselves. We longed, too, to see other faces than those we saw every day. We drove the cattle into a hollow in the hills, rimmed by rocky cliffs. Tom, who was not able to ride with his bad leg, volunteered to stay with the herd while we rode into town. Jim offered to stay with him.

There was something inside me that warned me against Julesburg, and against leaving the herd with only two men. The town had a bad reputation, and the vicinity around was no better. But we needed supplies, and we needed the change, so Cotton, Corbin, and I rode into town.

This was the third town named Julesburg in the vicinity, and it was said by some to be the wickedest town in the country; from the beginning its history had been a bloody one.

We tied our horses at the hitching rail, but we led the pack animals around into the alley at the rear of the emporium where we expected to do our business. There we bought flour, sugar, dried fruit, coffee, and a dozen slabs of bacon, and I laid in a stock of papers and tobacco for those who smoked, and a big sack of hard candy. I also bought beans and rice, and a few cans of tomatoes. We packed it all on our pack animals, and had them ready to move out.

"Do you suppose they're in town?" Cotton asked.

"Who cares?" Corbin responded shortly. "If they come asking for it, they can have it."

"We're hunting no trouble," I said. "We'll eat, and then we'll ride out of town. Unless they come hunting us, we'll leave them alone."

Corbin stared at me. "What's the matter? You--"

"Don't say it." I was facing him. "I like you, Handy, and you're a good man, so don't say anything we'd both be sorry for. My first duty is to my partner and to those cattle, and I'm not getting myself or my men into a gun battle just to prove something to some no-accounts."

"Kelsey wouldn't like that," Corbin said with a grin. "You cauin' him a no-account."

"What else is he?" was my answer to that.

The streets were crowded with rigs and wagons, and it looked as if the hitching rail was lined with saddle stock wearing every brand west of the Mississippi. We joined the crowd along the boardwalk and worked our way to the Bon Ton Restaurant, a low-roofed building with a sign hung out over the street. Inside were long, family-style tables with benches along each side.

We found places, Handy and Cotton at one table, me across the room at another. We helped ourselves and set to eating. The dishes were enameled in blue, the cups the same. It was surely better than eating whilst squatting by a fire somewhere on the trail.

Of a sudden the door opened and Caxton Kelsey came in, LaSalle Prince with him. They crossed to a table and sat down, facing Cotton and Corbin. They hadn't seen me, for I was behind them.

Kelsey hadn't seen either Cotton Madden or Corbin riding with me, and they did not seem to notice them now. But I felt sure they knew they were there. They could have seen the brands on our saddle horses, right outside. And I noticed the careful way they were studying the rest of the crowd in the Bon Ton.

Usually I am a slow eater. Today I worked my way through a stack of grub in pretty fast style, knowing there might be little time before something happened. I refilled my cup from the coffeepot, and waited.

"Noticed some saddle stock outside wearing a Lazy TC," Kelsey commented. "Who's riding for that brand?"

Before Corbin or Madden could speak, I said, "That's my brand, Kelsey. Mine and Tarlton's. Have you got some business with us?"

He turned around very slowly and looked at me. "You haven't got Hickok here to protect you today, Chancy," he said.

"Now, that's odd. I had the idea he was protecting you."

There were at least forty people in the Bon Ton, and we had all their attention by now, so I decided to create some problems for him.

"I heard some renegades hit the Noah Gates herd," I said in a voice that could be heard by everyone there, "and they killed him and murdered his partners. Then they stole the herd."

I turned to glance around the room. "Too bad they were hard-up old men who drove clean up from Texas. Whoever murdered them must have been the lowest kind of coyotes."

Half a dozen voices spoke up in emphatic agreement. Then one man asked, "Do you have any idea who they were?"

"Well," I said, "the last of those old men ran to us for protection. He didn't quite make it, for he was dying when we found him, but his killer was right behind him, trying to finish him off."

"I hope you killed the skunk."

"He won't bother anybody again. His name was Rad Miller, a brother to Andy Miller, and one of the outfit he runs with."

LaSalle Prince wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He threw his leg over the bench, keeping his back to me, and got to his feet. Fumbling in his pockets, he dug out a coin and put it on the table. All around me a buzz of conversation began, and I heard more than one man say, "They ought to be lynched!"

Caxton Kelsey was getting up, too, and I spoke again. "There's no place in the Territory for men of that stripe. I hope to see every one of them hang."

Nobody seemed inclined to argue the question, and Kelsey and LaSalle Prince were already out of the door.

Suddenly a man spoke up. "Why, I saw Andy Miller right here in town--not more'n two hours ago!"

Several men got up hurriedly, paid for their meals, and left. Handy Corbin looked over at me as I filled my cup again. "I can't quite figure you out, Chancy," he said. "You like to blew the lid off the whole thing."

I shrugged. "They won't sell any Gates cattle around here. They've got a stolen herd, but they've also got themselves a full-sized problem on what to do with it."

A big bearded man slammed down his cup and stood up. "You mean those two were among 'em?"

"The ringleaders," I said.

"Well, why the billy-be-damned didn't you say so?" he exploded. "We could have nailed 'em."

"One of those men was Caxton Kelsey," I said; "the other was LaSalle Prince. You want me to start a gun battle in here with that outfit?"

He let the air out of him and dropped back on the bench. "No, I don't--I surely don't. But you took a chance."

"I made 'em leave," I said. "Now they'll have to move on, but I don't believe they can outrun the story that will be told."

When we rode up to the herd all was quiet, but we wasted no time. We saddled up fresh horses and moved the herd right out, driving due north.

A man ramrodding a herd of mixed stuff has got to be a worrier. He has to worry about what might happen, so he will be ready for it if it does happen; and the only thing he can be downright sure of is that if what he was afraid of doesn't happen, something else will.