War on the Cimarron

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War on the Cimarron

Luke Short

Chapter I

The spring dusk of the Indian Nations was settling swiftly, and behind him Frank Christian could hear the uneasy bawling of the thirsty trail herd. Here, three days west of the Chisholm and Fort Reno and deep in the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation's vast grasslands, there were no familiar landmarks, and Frank was as lost as the cattle he was leading. Otey Fleer, sent ahead this afternoon to scout the country and locate Morg Wheelon's place, their destination, was not yet returned; and back on the swing Beach Freeman's young voice, rising in wild curses at the uneasy herd, gave a clue to the temper of the whole crew. Frank stood up in his stirrups to scan the rolling plain again for sight of Otey.

An idle stirring of wind touched his right cheek and lifted the mane of his buckskin gelding, and immediately the situation was taken out of his hands. The lead steer, a mossy-horned old coaster from the Nueces delta, paused in his stride, lifted his head and sniffed the wind and then quartered off to the north at a run. The herd broke then, smelling water, and Frank lifted both hands as a signal to the crew to let them go, and then pulled aside and lifted his horse into a canter. Over to the left the chuck wagon pulled abreast of him and passed him, the horses at a dead gallop, and then the land broke away to show a willow-fringed creek ahead.

In the half dark Frank saw a rider angling up the slope from the creek and he pulled over toward him, letting the cattle stream past on their blind way to water.

Otey Fleer called “Frank?” in the dusk, and Frank answered and they met.

“Was this shack of Morg's set on the hairpin bend in the creek, with a stand of live oaks behind it?”

“That's what Morg wrote. Where is he?”

“I never went up,” Otey said. “I figgered to come back and catch you before dark.”

“How far is it?”

“Four-five miles. I reckon we better bed down the herd here and not try to make it,” Otey said.

Frank looked sharply at his
segundo
, sensing the caution and lack of enthusiasm in his voice, and then pulled his horse around and headed for the creek and the fire that was already built beside the chuck wagon.

Samse Benson, the horse wrangler, already had his rope corral built for the night herder's mounts, and the rest of the crew of four men was drifting wearily toward the campfire and late supper.

They were waiting the word to offsaddle when Frank rode in among them. Seen in this dusk, he was unmistakably Texan, tall and bleach eyed and narrow hipped. Without dismounting he leaned wearily on his saddle horn, thumb-prodded his Stetson back off his forehead and scrubbed a lean, browned and beard-stubbled jaw with the flat of his hand. His glance was directed at the cattle beyond, who had tramped down the willows in their thirst and crowded the creek on both banks. He seemed to concur with Otey's opinion and called to the horse wrangler. “Turn out the whole remuda, Samse. No night herdin' tonight. We're on home ground.”

A whoop of joy lifted to the lowering night sky, and Frank Christian suddenly grinned. Immediately he seemed younger than his twenty-seven years. There was a kind of rash and friendly derisiveness in his gray eyes as he laughed at the relief of his crew, for the drive had been a long and hard one. But when he caught sight of Otey Fleer, still mounted, utterly silent, his grin faded and was replaced by a troubled frown. Beach Freeman, youngest man in the crew, walked over to him and said, “You ain't hoorawin' us, Frank? This is really home ground?”

“You'd be ridin' night herd, all right, if it wasn't.”

“I just wondered,” Beach said. “I choused thirty head of strange beef away from the creek tonight.”

A scowl creased Frank's forehead for a moment, and then he pulled his horse around. “I'm headin' for Morg's shack tonight, Beach. Bring the horses and the wagon up the creek to the shack tomorrow, and day after we'll scatter the herd.”

Afterward he rode over to Otey and said, “You come with me, Otey,” and his
segundo
pulled in alongside him and they rode out of the faint circle of firelight. Otey was a wry little man, wrinkled and unshaven and untidy and profane, and seldom given to enthusiasms. But in all the years he had punched cattle in Texas Otey had never seen grass like this, and Frank was irritated at his silence. He asked presently, “How does it look, Otey?”

“Oh, the range looks all right,” Otey said grudgingly.

Frank looked over at him, but coming darkness hid the little man's face. “Well, what don't you like about the rest of it?”

Otey said sulkily, after a minute's pause, “Nothin',” and they lapsed into silence. This creek, Paymaster by name, was a landmark in his life, Frank thought—the end of one part of his life and the beginning of another. Morg Wheelon, his partner, was waiting for him at the shack up ahead, and the prospect of that meeting gave him a small excitement.

Last year he and Morg had thrown in together as partners, pooling all the money they had earned as trail bosses and all they could borrow in Texas. That money had gone toward a scheme that most men thought fantastic. The Chisholm Trail, when it left Texas, passed successively through the Comanche-Kiowa, the Cheyenne-Arapaho and the Cherokee reservations, the vast land of the Indian Nations that stretched from Kansas to Texas and had a “no trespassing” sign on it for white settlers. It was a country filled with not-too-friendly Indians policed by the U.S. Army and with outlaws wanted in every state and territory of the West; but above and beyond that, it had grass belly deep to a horse. A few hardy cattlemen, incorporated into companies, had come onto the reservations and had leased hundreds of thousands of acres from the Indians. On these acres, which they protected by the sheer toughness and size of their crews, they wintered their herds of Texas beef and sold them at top prices at the near markets in Dodge City and Caldwell. It was no place for the small rancher, cattlemen opined. The big companies didn't need sheriffs, juries, jails and the protection of the law; they were their own law. The little rancher, on the other hand, didn't have a chance. And Morg Wheelon and Frank didn't agree.

Morg had stayed in the Nations this past winter while Frank went back to Texas to scrape together a trail herd. Two months ago Morg had written that he had leased fifty thousand acres on the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation from the Cheyenne chiefs, had built a shack and corrals and was waiting for the herd. Tonight, then, they were ready to begin proving that the Nations was a country for little men too.

Interrupting his own reverie, Frank said, “Otey, wait till you see what our herd looks like next fall.”

“I wisht I could,” Otey said sourly.

“Why won't you?” Frank said.

“It don't look like I'd be here.”

Frank didn't speak for a moment, and Otey said in sulky distaste, “Dammit, Frank, you and Morg should have got together better on what you planned.”

“Why's that?” Frank asked.

Otey looked at him in the darkness. “When you hired me you told me I was to stay on as foreman of the crew on the lease here, didn't you?”

“That's right.”

“You told them other boys—cook, Samse, Beach, Phil and Mitch—that they was hired permanent, didn't you?”

“That's right. They are.”

“Then what's Morg doin' with a crew a'ready?”

Frank glanced swiftly at him, but it was too dark to see the small man's face. He pulled up his horse and Otey pulled his up, and Frank said quietly, “What are you talkin' about?”

“Morg's hired a crew,” Otey said positively. “Even down to the cook. I counted eight men at that shack, besides the cook.”

“I thought you didn't go up.”

“I never. When I come in sight of it there was five men and a hell of a lot of horses in the pasture. I took a pasear back into the live oaks and watched the house, and I'm tellin' you, Frank, I counted eight men and a cook!”

“Morg never hired them, I know. He wrote me to bring the crew.”

“Them riders belonged there,” Otey said bluntly. “They wasn't just stoppin' off to pass the time of day.”

Frank didn't say anything but put his horse into motion. Presently Otey said, “All day long ridin' the creek I been seein' cattle that don't carry a brand you or Morg ever registered anywheres.”

Frank said in sharp disgust, “Hell, Otey, you're spotted the wrong place, I reckon.”

“Frank, pull up. I want to talk to you,” Otey said.

There was an urgency in his voice that made Frank obey. Otey went on in his tough, wry voice, “You know and I know that we've followed Morg's directions from Fort Reno. We've hit the right creeks, we've seen the right landmarks, and this here creek is Paymaster Creek. We've passed that red limestone outcrop that Morg wrote about, and that shack is in a hairpin bend of the creek. And just to make sure I took a pasear over to the north and spotted them salt licks that Morg wrote about. I got the right place. Now you tell me what Morg is doin' with strange cattle on your range and a crew to punch 'em.”

Frank said quietly, “Let's find out,” and moved on. Otey didn't say anything. They forded the creek at a place he had picked out that afternoon and followed the creek on the other side until it swung abruptly north. And then, up the gentle slope, a small pin point of light appeared.

“There's the bend and there's the light,” Otey said.

They rode on, turning up the slope. Presently they had to detour for a pasture fence, and then they were beside the corrals. Frank rode straight on toward the house. When he was a hundred feet or so from it the lamp suddenly winked out inside, and a voice from under the dark gloom of the porch said, “Sing out, boys!”