Dry Divide (21 page)

During the next couple of weeks it was easy for me to see that Judy had proved the old saying, “Telaphone, telagraph, or tell a woman.” Whenever I didn't need the old Maxwell she was out on the roads with it, and she must have told every farmer within fifteen miles of Cedar Bluffs that I'd pay him a third in cash for any cattle mortgaged to Bones. I could seldom take a load of wheat to town without having some farmer stop me on the road, or wait for me at the elevator, and every one of them had cattle to sell.

I was greener than a frog about the cattle trading business, but there were a few things I did know; I'd have to buy my cattle by the head, and sell them by the pound, at auction, when they reached the big city stockyards. Then too, I would have to pay for freight, feeding on the way, and the commission agent's fee.

I had Judy get me a Kansas City paper at McCook, so I could check on the most recent prices being paid for various grades of cattle at the auctions. Then I talked to the depot agent at The Bluffs, and found out that freight and feeding would cost about a cent and a quarter a pound. Allowing another quarter-cent for commission, I could figure out how much a pound I could afford to pay, but that wasn't too much help when I had to buy by the head. I'd have to guess at the weights, and if I guessed too high on high-priced cattle I could lose my eye teeth. I decided that I'd start off by shipping skinny old cows for my first carload. They were the cheapest cattle on the list, selling for 3½¢ a pound, so it wouldn't break me if I guessed wrong by as much as a thousand pounds on a carload.

I made one more check before I did any buying. From having my wagons weighed at the elevator, I knew the exact weight of each one, so we loaded the two skinniest cows I'd bought from Mrs. Hudson—one on each wagon of my rig—and I drove them down to the elevator for weighing. By studying them carefully after I brought them back, I got a pretty good idea of what almost any skinny old cow would weigh.

During the first eight days of October Judy and I kept the old Maxwell on the run every hour between my morning and evening hauling trips, and I must have dickered on more than a hundred skinny old cows. Most of the farmers wanted more than their cows were worth, but by the afternoon of the eighth I'd bought thirty at prices I thought I could afford to pay. I got only one from some farmers, but two or three from others, and told them all to deliver their cows to the shipping pen at Cedar Bluffs late Saturday afternoon. Then I stopped at the depot, and left an order for a cattle car to be set off at the chute when the noon train went west.

Friday fell on October 10th, and the axe fell on my hauling business. Late that afternoon Ted Harmon pulled his thrashing rig out of the last field, and I started Doc off for the elevator with little more than half a load. The first of the next week we'd have a dozen or so loads to haul from a small machine, but Paco and I could take care of that, and Paco was going to stay with me for the winter. He'd help me reshingle the barn to make a place for storing our wagons and harness, and keep an eye on the stock while I was busy with my cattle trading business. The rest of the crew decided they'd go to Denver next day, taking the afternoon express from McCook, so that Friday night I rented the pitcher's flivver again.

Saturday morning Paco hung the harnesses away, and turned the horses we would no longer need out to pasture, while the other fellows packed their gear, and Judy and I figured up the books and wrote checks. Gus, Lars, and Judy had drawn nothing, so her check was for $966; $256 for her share of the harvest money, and $10 for every day since the end of July. Theirs were $4.50 higher, because of splitting my first day's pay. Paco's check was for $956, and both Bill and Jaikus had well over $900 coming. Doc had drawn the most, but still had $876 due him. When I wrote his check I made it for $926, and when I handed it to him I told him the extra fifty was for the clothes I'd ruined. At first he didn't want to take it, and said I'd done him a favor by ruining them, but when I told him I'd still have a good cash profit left he was glad enough to have the extra money.

I did have a good cash profit, too; far beyond anything I'd thought I could possibly make. I'd paid off my second note to Bones, my grocery and team-hiring bills, spent $512 for my skinny old cows, sent $200 to my mother, and when I'd collected for the hauling job we'd just finished, would have $1,156 in the bank.

It was nearly noon before we got started for McCook; Judy driving Gus, Lars, and Old Bill in the Maxwell, and I followed with Doc, Jaikus, and Paco in the flivver. I'd called the hotel in McCook so they'd have a fine dinner ready for us, and we must have been at the table two hours—just remembering and talking about little things that happened during the summer. Then all but Paco and Judy excused themselves and went out, saying they wanted to cash their checks and buy their railroad tickets. They were gone more than half an hour, then Doc came hurrying back into the dining room, fumbling in his pockets. “Did you notice if I left my watch on the kitchen table?” he asked Judy. “I can't find it any place, and I wanted to set it by the depot clock, so we won't risk missing the train.”

Judy and I both knew there hadn't been any watch left on the table, because we'd cleared it off when we put the books away.

“Never mind,” Doc said when we'd told him, “I'll pick up another one when I get to Denver. Let me borrow yours, Bud, so I can set the right time on it.”

Doc hadn't had time to go farther than the lobby before the whole crew came trooping back into the dining room. I wasn't surprised to see that they were all carrying packages for Judy, but I had a hard time to keep from bawling like a baby when they all crowded around my chair, and Doc handed me back my watch. It was a seventeen-jewel Waltham.

I felt almost like a man who has lost his family when the train pulled out, and I'd probably have felt worse if we hadn't had to hurry right back to The Bluffs, to load out my first shipment as a cattle trader.

All thirty of the old cows were in the shipping pen when we got there, bawling and probably feeling about as I had when I watched the Denver express pull out of McCook. Only one old sister gave us any trouble in loading. She had no intention of leaving her native land, and to get her up the chute and into the car, Paco had to twist her tail while I hauled her along by the horns.

We'd barely closed and bolted the door when the eastbound freight whistled as it pulled away from Trear, so I had to run back to the depot and get my bill of lading made out. It took only a few minutes to uncouple the engine, pull my car from the siding, and couple it into the train. Then the engineer blew a couple of toots on the whistle, to call in the flagman, and my first shipment was on its way to Kansas City.

It was just a carload of skinny old cows, but I was as proud as if it had been prime steers. I think Judy was proud, too. We stood on the depot platform, with her arm tucked under mine, and watched until the train disappeared beyond the wooded curve of Beaver Creek. By my Waltham, it was exactly 6:13.