Longhorn Country (10 page)

It was a good night camp and the grass was sweet, though the big herd had reduced it to stubble by
sunup
and, a couple hours later, three irate ranchers came spurring in, complaining.

‘You goddamn trail drivers!’ snarled a man about fifty with faded red hair hanging to his shoulders. ‘We ain’t seen any of you for years! Don’t figure you’re gonna start up again, stealin’ our grass!’

‘Open range, mister – check your survey maps and you’ll find this is all Public Road through here.’

‘That so?’ The redhead squinted at Blaine. ‘Breed, ain’t you? Well, let me talk to the trail boss—’

‘You’re talking to him. ‘

‘Judas! What kinda white man puts a breed in charge of his cows?’ The redhead’s companions growled their outrage, too. ‘A one-eyed one at that!’

The man’s friends laughed but Blaine simply sat more easily in the saddle and slapped his right hand against his thigh, close to his holstered six gun. ‘I’ll tell you his name – it’s Morgan O’Day of Broken Wheel – and I’m his adopted son, Blaine—’

He watched, deadpan, as the colour drained from all three faces. The redhead swallowed, looked at his companions who seemed ready to turn their horses and ride off.

‘But I’m the one here,’ Blaine added quietly, ‘so I’m the one you deal with – now, where were we …?’

The redhead spat. ‘Forget it – I’ve heard about you. Morg O’Day, too. But he don’t usually drive his cows across our range.’

‘
Public
range, remember, Red? I just told you: go
check your survey maps and see – now go do that and we’ll forget the whole thing….’

Red was happy enough with that and so were his pards, but he was reluctant to show it – until Blaine sighed and lifted his hand to his gun butt. Then he wheeled his mount and galloped off after the others.

Waco, coming up slowly, staring at Blaine, said quietly, ‘Facin’ down three hardcases like them ranchers took some doin’….’

‘I noticed you were just waiting to jump in and lend a hand,’ Blaine said and Waco flushed for he had had no such intention. ‘Go help Fernie haul in some wood for a big fire – think I heard wolves in those trees yonder.’

‘Gatherin’ firewood ain’t my job!’

‘It is when I tell you it is – you want to go back to Broken Wheel? I can tell you to do that, too.’

Waco didn’t want to leave this herd yet – he’d been paid half his money already by Lucas and he aimed to collect the other half as well. He jerked his horse’s head around savagely and spurred after Fernando who was swinging along, whistling, an axe over his shoulder, making for the line of timber.

Up around Uvalde, the grass thinned drastically and the naked red convolutions of the hills were hard on the eyes. The herd travelled down on the flats but even here they could smell the dust raised by the hopeful miners honeycombing the hillsides with shafts and tunnels.

It was hot and dusty, men, horses and cows were all parched. Then Calico rode back to say the
water-holes
he had checked out previously had shrunk
considerably, but there was likely enough to water the herd if they did it in small, tight groups, keeping the main herd out of sight of the water over a rise.

This worked well enough although the water was of low quality. But it kept the herd slogging along and a couple of days later, staying south of Hondo, they came to the usually deep-flowing White Creek. But the water was way down and some cattle bogged on the crossing, though they only lost three.

‘Gonna be drier up around San Antone,’ said Blaine to Kinnane a day later. He knew this part of the country: the Comanche Reservation was not far away, back in the hills. ‘And they’re mighty thirsty – if they get a sniff of water anywhere they’ll be damn impossible to stop.’

Calico had brought the news that the waterholes he had scouted were now no more than bogs.

‘Not gonna be able to risk givin’ ’em a drink here, Blaine,’ Kinnane said.

‘No, some are bound to smell the wet mud and they charge in there, they’ll be up to their bellies in nothin’ flat and we’ll end up shootin’ ’em.’

Blaine had seen this kind of thing happen before. There was only one thing to do – but his decision to keep driving the herd on through the night so as to be well clear of the muddy waterholes come morning was not a popular one.

Keeping so many cows on the move in pitch
darkness
was no easy matter and it meant every man, including the cook and Fernando, had to take his turn at riding herd.

‘Oughta get extra pay for this!’ Waco growled and
some of the others who, most likely hadn’t thought about that aspect until it was mentioned, grumbled their agreement. ‘By hell, we oughta!’

Waco hoped this further attempt of his to stir up trouble and unrest would get back to Lucas – he might be able to squeeze a few extra dollars out of him, too, if he pulled off his other part of the chore successfuly. He looked around at the bunched men drinking coffee and eating cold-cuts and jerked beef: tonight Blaine didn’t want a fire at all. The cows were too spooked from the long, dry trail and now to be pushed on when they figured to rest … Anything could happen when they were in this kind of mood.

And it did.

About two in the morning they rested a spell, the scent of green leaves coming from somewhere up ahead which might mean water. The cattle, perversely, didn’t want to stop now after smelling the trees and the riders were having a tough job trying to keep them bunched.

‘Don’t let ’em break!’ Blaine called, working the sorrel after two steers that were trying to make a run for it. He slapped one across the eyes with his coiled lariat and kicked the other hard behind the ear,
turning
both back into the edges of the main herd. Panting, sweating, he called, ‘Ah, we’re gonna wear ourselves out trying to hold ’em, dammit!’

There was a lot of riding and shouting and no one could say where another was exactly – just shadows, moving swiftly against the stars. The night was humid which might mean that a storm was brewing. Blaine
thought he had glimpsed a flare of light running along the horizon earlier, but it had been on his right side and by the time he had fully turned to check, it had gone.

So no one saw Waco fire the hay wagon with a weary, sleeping Fernando in the driver’s seat,
allowing
the tired team to make its own pace and
direction
as he nodded and swayed with the jerky rhythm of the over-loaded vehicle.

The first Fernando knew of it was when the flames leapt ten feet high and Waco, just a dark figure, hauled him roughly out of the driving seat, still mostly asleep, and smashed him brutally into the ground. The team hit the traces with a jarring slam as Waco threw some burning hay onto their backs and then it was too late.

Someone yelled so frantically his voice cracked high and panicky like a child’s, ‘Stam – peeeeede!’

The fiery wagon was bouncing in amongst the cattle now and they exploded all over the plains, horns raking at riders’ mounts and each other, bellowing and bawling in fear, eyes rolling whitely, hoofs raising a thunder that shook the earth, loose red dust blinding the riders as they tried to regain control.

But the herd was loose now and ripping the night apart like a burlap curtain, intermittently lit by the wagonload of fire which, eventually, crashed onto its side and spread a river of flames into the rear of the herd.

Nothing could stop them now.

And over the general commotion, Blaine heard
someone yell wildly, panicky,

‘Hell almighty! Injuns! Dozens of ’em. Injuns! Injuns….!’

There were Indians, all right, just visible as some raced to get behind the herd and were lit by the dying flames of the hay wagon.

No one noticed if they wore any paint or not, but they were letting loose with their war-whoops and riding as if they were part of the night wind. Some held rifles, others lances, and others bows and arrows.

A gun or two hammered as they swept in on the herd and bows twanged as arrows drove into
plunging
, snorting steers that barely resembled the
compliant
animals that had been driven up from Broken Wheel only days earlier. With rolled-back whites of eyes and horn tips catching fugitive flashes of light, wet mucus flying from distended nostrils and heads tossing, big bodies gyrating acrobatically, they
resembled
some of the beasts in the wildest imaginings of artists who liked to portray Hell as men could expect to find it.

Blaine was yelling, almost bursting a blood vessel in his neck, as he rode in when his men began
shooting
at the Indians. He was in danger of being shot for he was now between the cowboys and the redskins. His men cursed, threw their aim, wrenched running mounts aside. Whatever he was yelling was drowned in the general din.

Then an Indian was shot and somersaulted off his horse. Another lurched, dropping his lance, arm dangling. Suddenly, arrows were zipping across the heaving backs of the herd and a cowboy grunted, grabbing at a shaft quivering in his thigh. Another swore when his hat was impaled and torn from his head. A third’s mount reared, arrow in the chest.

‘The herd! The herd!’ Someone at last was able to distinguish Blaine’s words. ‘Save the herd!’

‘Is he loco?’ bawled Waco, glaring at Calico Benedict thundering alongside. ‘We save the cows and the goddam Injuns’ll nail us!’

‘I dunno, Waco,’ Calico called back, starting to haul on his reins. ‘Somethin’ queer about them Injuns – they weren’t shootn’ at us till we nailed a couple of them!’

‘Are you loco, too?’

Waco swung away, Winchester coming up to his shoulder as he started blazing at the redskins who seemed no more than fleeting shadows now, riding here and there, lying along their mustangs’ backs – and shooting into the herd! But not killing the animals, shooting so as to drive them together, forcing them to bunch and actually slow down….

Waco, frowned, holding his fire, but wheeling
wildly as he saw one Indian raising his old trade rifle. The Texan triggered and the Indian was blasted off his mount and fell into the edge of the herd.

Blaine was riding everywhere, yelling at his men who blinked at him uncertainly and then it became apparent that the cows were being wheeled in a wide arc that was gradually tightening in the legendary ‘wheel of steers’, a method used by the old-timers in desperation to stop a stampede. It was said to have been first successfully attempted by a man named Shakes Mulvane, a Black Irishman who, inflamed by some of his own
poteen
– some claimed his horse was drunk, too – turned his herd on the very edge of a cliff by forcing them into a circle, intermingling
leaders
with stragglers in a gradual milling until they came to rest. He lost no more than two dozen over the edge – out of almost three thousand head.

Someone said later that he had gotten the idea from the old Plains Indians who sometimes used the manoeuvre when hunting buffalo…. Now,
these
Indians were forming the mill wheel and the stunned and puzzled cowboys reined down slowly as the red men rode in among the bawling cattle, gentling them with nudges from moccasined feet or the horn-tipped end of a bow, the butt of a lance….

‘Now I really got somethin’ to tell my grandkids if I ever have any!’ breathed Lucky Kinnane, looking around for Blaine.

But Blaine was already talking with two of the Indians, one big warrior, the other shorter with a horseface but looking very powerful. There were gestures and signs and finally grins and Blaine and
the two Indians slapped each other on the back. He pointed to one corner of the herd and the Indians rode that way with their men following, some warily watching the white men who still held guns.

As the trail crew watched, slack—jawed in surprise, Blaine directed them to cutting out about thirty prime steers.

‘Christ, he’s gone plumb loco!’ growled Waco. He looked around at the bunched white men. ‘The son of a bitch is
givin
’ ’em all them prime beeves!
Our
beeves!’

He started to move across, the others hesitatingly following. Blaine reined up, lifting a hand.

‘Easy, boys – just rewarding the Comanche for their help.’

‘Help!’ exclaimed Waco. ‘
Help
he says! Christ, they were tryin’ to shoot us and steal the goddam cattle! Where the hell’s the help there? Except to
themselves
!’

Blaine shifted his one eye to Waco and the man let his words drift off. ‘Lucky, take some men and collect the strays and ride herd so they don’t cut loose again. We’ll camp here tonight – not you, Waco. You stay here.’

Waco swung back. ‘You know them Injuns, don’t you? You was happy-talkin’ with them two big
sonuvers
….’

‘Running Bird and Longhead,’ Blaine cut in. ‘My blood brothers.’

‘Hey, you rannies hear that?’ Waco called. ‘These Injuns are his
blood brothers
! This was a set-up!’

Lucky Kinnane and the others had stopped now.
They were even more surprised when Blaine admitted Waco was right.

‘Sure – sent word to Running Bird to have some men standing by when we entered White Creek country. I had a notion we were going to have trail trouble – and they were to be ready to ride in and help us out. Which they did, and for which I’ve rewarded ’em.’

‘Morg’s gonna love this!’ crowed Waco.

‘It’ll come out of my share,’ Blaine said easily. ‘And, Waco, Fernie says you dragged him out of that burning wagon and slugged him unconscious.’

‘Well – yeah! I seen it was on fire an’ he was asleep in the goddamn drivin’ seat, so I hauled him out before he got burned … I was gonna try an’ drive it from the herd….’ Blaine’s gaze was steady and Waco made his face hard, curling his lips, as he glared back. ‘You can’t prove different!’

‘Guess not – no more’n I can
prove
you fired the hay wagon, but I know damn well you did. Maybe even on Lucas’ orders….’

‘You’re a goddamn liar!’

The words splashed into the dusty night air like a rock falling into a pool. There was a hushed silence that rippled through the riders and Waco was already aware that he had gone too far: call a man a liar out here and you better have your gun half-way out of leather. He didn’t give Blaine a chance, rammed his horse into the breed’s sorrel, and snatched at his six gun. Blaine was unseated and grabbed at Waco’s gun arm, twisted as he continued to fall, dragging the cursing Texan with him.

They hit hard and Waco lost his grip on his Colt and swung his free hand in a backward blow. It knocked Blaine’s hat off, coming in as it did on his right side, and then Waco’s jaw seemed to explode off his face, leaving him halfblinded as his eyeballs rolled in their sockets and pain shot through his neck and upper spine. A second blow almost tore his head off his shoulders – he said later – and he went over backwards, but kicked out instinctively. Whether by accident or design it came in on Blaine’s eyeless side and took him on the temple, knocking the eyepatch askew and the watching cowpokes glimpsed the mangled socket for the first time. Blaine sat down, started to rise a little groggily, and Waco launched himself bodily, clubbing with his right fist.

Blaine took one blow and went down flat, brought up his knees into Waco’s midriff as the man crowded him. Blaine straightened his legs and Waco groaned as he rolled to one side, scrabbling in his winded efforts to get up. He made it halfway, and then Blaine lunged, right fist striking with the force of a
sledgehammer
smashing into rock. Waco completely somersaulted, face dragging in gravel as he skidded down the slight slope. He moaned and rolled his head a little, but didn’t get up. Blaine kicked him hard and Lucky Kinnane steadied him as he stood, handed him a canteen. ‘I seen Waco trailin’ that hay wagon for quite a spell, twice had to tell him to get back on point.’

Blaine rinsed his mouth, then drank, panting. He nodded. ‘He’s Lucas’ man.’

Kinnane stiffened. ‘Surely you ain’t sayin’…’

‘Said all I’m gonna for now – let’s get these cows settled for the night. We’ll make the run into San Antone tomorrow.’

‘What about him?’ Kinnane gestured to the unconscious Waco.

‘Leave him – he can follow or not. But far as I’m concerned, he’s all through.’

Waco didn’t join up with the rest of the Broken Wheel men although Lucky Kinnane and Calico saw him in one of the San Antone saloons, drunk and on the prod.

Because of his swollen, crooked jaw, he spoke with a slur and the barkeep changed shift with a new man just as Waco emptied his glass. He ordered another, and while the previous man had learned what Waco was drinking, this man asked three times what it was he wanted.

‘You wanna talk with a foot in your mouth, mister, I ain’t got time to listen. Other customers’re waitin’….’

Waco’s left hand darted out, grabbed the man’s fresh, clean shirt and hauled him back. The ’keep swore when the shirt sleeve tore. He reached under the counter for his billy and Waco drew his Colt and laid it across the man’s head – not once, but back and forth three or four times. The barkeep’s face was a torn, bloody mess by the time he sagged to the floor.

Men waiting for bar service growled and turned threateningly towards Waco. He backed up, Colt still in his hand, thumb on the trigger now.

‘U’ll shoot yuh ull!’ he slurred, easing towards the side door. He waved the Colt, hammer back now, and the men stopped.

‘Go on!’ one bearded man growled. ‘Git – before we stomp you into the sawdust!’

Waco slid out of the side door, fired a couple of shots into the air, and the men scattered. He had gone by the time they wrenched open the door.

‘Mean sonuver that Waco, when he’s riled,’ opined Calico.

‘Yeah, ‘Lucky Kinnane said thoughtfully. ‘Reckon Blaine’s gonna have trouble with him yet….’

Kinnane was right – and the trouble was waiting for Blaine when he arrived back at Broken Wheel.

He’d left the crew in town to have a few drinks – on him as promised – before returning to the ranch, and as he dismounted stiffly in the early evening Clay Winton called from the bunkhouse,

‘Where’re the boys, Blaine?’

‘Let ’em stay in town to wash the dust outta their throats – you fellers can go on in if you like – put it on my bill but be back here by midnight.’

The off-duty men needed no second invitation and even the cook banked his fires and rode with them as they whooped and hollered their way towards the town road.

As Blaine mounted the porch steps Lucas stepped out of the shadows. ‘Someone make you ramrod?’

‘No – but I reckon they’ll’ve earned a drink or two, the way you work ’em. Keep ’em happy.’

Lucas grunted. ‘Pa wants to see you right away.’

The Old Man was waiting in his office and Blaine was surprised to find Waco there, too. The man’s face showed signs of his beating, but he managed a crooked grin that warned Blaine he was in for some trouble.

‘How much’d you get for the herd?’ demanded Morgan without preamble. Blaine heard the faint slurring of his words, surprised – Morg was already well on the way to getting drunk: a state he seemed to favour lately. Blaine took some crumpled papers from his vest pocket, smoothed them out and dropped them on to the desk in front of the rancher.

Morgan scanned the figures swiftly, adjusting his wire-framed eye-glasses. He looked up. ‘Work out how much a head that comes to – then multiply it by thirty.’ He took off the glasses and set his granite gaze on Blaine as Lucas entered the office. ‘That’s how much comes out of your share.’

Blaine nodded. ‘Already calculated that – was worth it to save the herd.’

Morgan swivelled his gaze to Waco. ‘That what he was doin’?’

‘He says!’ Waco said, scowling. ‘He had to try and save face some way! – he had them Injuns waitin’ to stampede the herd and rustle all they could before we could round-up the cows again – but the stampede got tangled up and stopped early … He had to do somethin’, so he came up with this hogwash about havin’ the Injuns waitin’ to help out –
in case there was trouble
.’

‘And that’s your story, uh?’ Morgan grated, boring his gaze into Blaine again. ‘
In case there was trouble
.’
‘Figured there could be – after Lucas’ stampede went wrong at El Salto.’

‘Damn you, Blaine! I had nothing to do with that!’

Morgan held up a hand for his son to calm down. ‘You got a fair price in San Antone, but I don’t care for this stuff with the Injuns.’

Blaine waited.

‘Your tribe, weren’t they?’ Blaine nodded and Morgan sat back in his chair. ‘Don’t look good, does it?’

‘Depends what you believe.’

‘I believe it seems mighty strange that he left the crew in town, Pa – like keep ’em outta the way so they can’t tell
their
side of the stampede story – and
tomorrow
, after he’s paid for their booze….’ He shrugged. ‘They’ll likely go along with anythin’ he says.’

‘That’s a nice, devious mind you got there, Lucas,’ opined Blaine.

‘Why’d you beat-up on Waco?’ asked Morgan, scowling.

‘For setting fire to the hay wagon.’

‘I never did that!’ Waco snapped, rubbing his aching jaw, looking at Lucas first, then Morgan. ‘Boss, I just happened to be the one saw it burnin’ – and I saved that damn lazy Mex’s hide! Ask me, he coulda started it, tossed a cigarillo butt into it or somethin’.’

‘Fernie doesn’t smoke,’ Blaine said quietly.

‘I’ve seen him smoke!’ Waco said forcefully,
turning
to Lucas who nodded slowly.

‘Believe I have, too.’

Blaine’s face gave nothing away.

‘Or it coulda been a fire arrow from them damn Injuns you had waitin’,’ Waco allowed, looking pleased with himself at the notion. ‘Hell, there was lightnin’ about – fire arrow coulda dropped right into that hay durin’ a lightnin’ flash – I reckon them Injuns’d be rat-cunnin’ enough to time it just right.’