Shortgrass Song (64 page)

Hardworkin' farm boys and ranchers by trade,

They lived with the fortune the family had made,

But the drifter forever looked over the hills

And dreamed of the mountains' adventures and thrills.

When he came of age, he decided to roam.

He said, ‘There's a life I must live on my own.'

And he promised his brother, that day, one sure thing,

He'd return with his tales of adventure each spring.

And then he rode into the West,

Up to the Rockies, away from the plains,

From the land he loved best,

Where he could never remain.

The drifter was faithful, returned every year.

His brother was eager his stories to hear,

And he'd watch o'er the hilltop when wildflowers bloomed,

'Til the drifter rode down through the air they perfumed.

At nights, by the fireplace, he'd listen to tales

Of wild West adventures and hard-ridden trails,

Of mountains so high that the trees didn't grow,

Of deserts so wide and of canyons so low.

The brothers, together, would ride o'er the plains,

Bound by the blood that ran red through their veins,

And they'd savor each moment together until

The drifter would saddle up, bound o'er the hill.

And then he'd ride into the West,

Up to the Rockies, away from the plains,

From the land he loved best,

Where he could never remain.

Early one mornin' while coyotes cried,

The elder son went for a deer-huntin' ride,

For he'd saddled his pony and loaded his gun,

And was off with the first eastern glow of the sun.

The stallion was nervous to smell of the snow

Whistled in by a norther beginnin' to blow,

When across a box canyon, the hunter, in luck,

Leveled his sights on a wide-antlered buck.

The cloudy sky rumbled, the Winchester roared,

The cow pony stumbled, the freezin' rain poured,

The wide-antlered buck and the hunter both fell

Into the box canyon, as deep as a well.

He died there in the West.

Over the prairies, the drifter rode on.

When they laid him to rest,

None could bear sayin', ‘He's gone.'

So they buried him under the homecoming trail

That the drifter returned on each year without fail

When he read the inscription, he got down and cried,

For he knew from the gravestone his brother had died.

And his home was not even a mile down the hill,

But he stayed for a promise he had to fulfill.

He camped there that evenin', and he camps there each year

To tell his wild stories for his brother to hear.

And now every year when the drifter rides west,

He carries a package of seeds in his vest.

And he stops on the hill, throws 'em all 'round the tomb

And each spring a new wildflower memorial blooms.

And then he rides into the West,

Up to the Rockies, away from the plains,

From the land he loves best,

Where he can never remain.

The drifter found Bull Bannon alone that night and told him he couldn't go east with the show.

“Not you, too, Catgut,” the showman cried, throwing his hands into the air. “Seagrass was just in here to tell me the same damn thing. Said he didn't want to miss the cattle drive from Texas. Says there might not be many more of them. I hope you have a better reason.”

“I believe I do,” Caleb said. “I have to marry the mother of my children and take her home so's I can run my pa's ranch.”

Bannon shook his head. “You boys are fools for the cow business.” He tried to change the young man's mind, but he could tell it was no use. He was going to have to find another tent-show fiddler. Oh, but there would never be another like Catgut Caleb Holcomb.

SEVENTY-SIX

Sam Dugan didn't understand the principles of delegation. As manager of the Holcomb Ranch, he could have taken up a life of easy riding, making the rounds on the spread, looking after his subordinates. But Sam still roped, branded, castrated, and earmarked with the cowboys on the bottom of the payroll.

He even did fence work, a job so demeaning that Sam couldn't bear to force it on anybody else. He did almost all of the fence riding on his own, and lately there had been plenty of it to keep him busy.

The sentiment against fences on public land had been growing. Holcomb Ranch, as one of the most flagrant fence outfits on the Front Range, was a constant target for retaliation.

Ab didn't own most of the land he fenced. The only plots he held exclusive title to flanked Monument Creek. The rest of the range he claimed was public land. But since he owned the nearest water, Ab figured no one else could use the grass.

His argument had held up before Pete had ordered several wells drilled on the divide to the east of Monument Creek. A windmill at each well pumped just enough water to keep a trough full. The troughs allowed the cattle to better use the grass up on the divides. They didn't have to walk all the way down to Monument Creek to get water between feeds. They didn't walk off as much weight.

But because the windmills were on public land, some nesters thought anyone's cattle should be able to use the water they pumped. They didn't see how Ab had the right to fence the range in for his own personal use. Maybe he owned the windmills, but he didn't own the land or the well water.

So occasionally some small-time farmer would buy a few head of cattle, cut the Holcomb fence, and let his herd graze the public lands and drink from the wells Pete had drilled. Ab took a dim view of such practice. Any stray cow that showed up on his ranch would be drawn mysteriously into the mountains, and perhaps never found.

Most of the old nesters feared and respected Colonel Holcomb, even if they did disagree with him on the fencing issue. Only the newcomers attempted to break his monopoly of Monument Park, and none of them had the resources to fight long.

In his own mind Ab knew he was right in claiming everything inside his fences. It was not just a matter of legal ownership, private or public land. He was first in Monument Park. He had fought Indians and defended Colorado against the Confederates. He had beaten droughts and plagues. He had worked hard and buried loved ones. He knew what was rightfully his.

Sam Dugan, as ranch manager and head fence fixer, knew as well as anybody how powerful the antifencing sentiment had grown. He was not at all surprised one morning in midsummer to see all five strands of the south fence curled back like whiskers where once they had met between two posts.

The thing that did surprise him was the size of the herd that had been turned into the Holcomb pasture—the biggest incursion of beeves that had taken place yet. Hooves had turned the ground to bare sand at the hole in the fence. Sam decided to hunt up the cattle and run as many of them as he could find back out through the hole before fixing the fence.

The tracks told him that the cattle had scattered after entering the pasture, probably spooked on purpose by the fence cutters, to make them harder to round up. He headed for the nearest windmill, following a trail left by about a dozen beeves. A half mile from the well, he spotted a scrawny bovine taking in grass on a prairie ridge. It looked at first like a skinny heifer or a young dogie steer. Upon closer examination, however, Sam saw that the stray was actually a bull—though a pitifully flaccid excuse for a breeder.

Colonel Holcomb wasn't going to like this at all—a mongrel bull undercutting his imported herd sires, corrupting his Hereford and Durham bloodlines. As he topped the ridge on which the puny bull grazed, Sam came into view of the windmill. Around it stood the sorriest gathering of bulls he had ever seen dangle a set of testicles, and Sam had seen his share. The bull on the ridge seemed like a prizewinner by comparison.

He loped northward, in search of more trespassing cattle. He found nothing but spindly legged, ridge-backed, ewe-necked bulls. Someone had set out to ruin the Holcomb pedigrees. Someone wanted war with Colonel Ab.

Before he reached the next windmill, Sam saw a derrick towering over the plains in a new place. Riding to a high roll in the prairie for a better view, he saw a collection of wagons bearing well-drilling tools, lumber, fencing, and farm implements. Half a dozen men were at work, two of them marking off corners. In the middle of them all stood a short, stout man with his hands placed on his hips in a stance of determination, a rifle hung from one shoulder by a leather sling. Sam recognized him instantly.

When he arrived at Ab's cabin, his horse was frothed with more sweat than Sam had caused any mount to produce in years. He didn't bother knocking on the door. It was almost midday, and he knew where Ab would be—sitting in his rocking chair, one legged, staring at the gravestone on the bald hill.

“Colonel,” he said, out of breath. “You ain't gonna believe this, but Terence Mayhall is back.”

The rocker creaked. Ab craned his neck to look at Sam. His eyes swiveled in the slack, pale skin of his face. “What do you mean, he's back?”

“Looks like he's stakin' a new claim, up near the divide, about a mile from the Pinery. He's got men with him. They're drillin' a well and buildin' a house.”

Ab turned back to the window.

“That ain't all,” Sam said. “They cut your fences and run in about a hundred head of the wormiest little bulls I ever seen. He's out to get your goat, colonel.”

Ab sighed. He was tired. He had been sitting there wondering if the history books would ever mention his name. They might describe him as a hero of two wars, pioneer of the Front Range, cattle king, land baron. They might paint his life as a glory or a triumph. They would never know how many days he had spent mired in depression, his mind numb with confusion, unable to sift through the complexities of living, his body almost paralyzed, detached from his brain and his will. He knew he was not like other people. Others did not dwell on death the way he did, hour after hour. No history would ever say how many times he had fought his way back from the tempting brink of self-obliteration.

But now, as he gathered Sam's words, one thought began to stray from the swarm. He lost his memories of Pete, Matthew, and Ella. He released the vexing specters of cattle, water, war. Children, grandchildren, wage hands, crops, and railroads—all intertwined—streamed away to some remote chamber of his mind. Caleb remained, plunging into a million horrors from here to Texas. But there was room for one other thought: land. Terence Mayhall, that worthless Georgia cracker, had no business coming back to Monument Park.

“Lee Fong,” he said. “Lee Pong! Where in Hades is my leg?”

*   *   *

When Mayhall saw the two men coming, he cocked his rifle and rested it on his burly shoulder, his finger on the trigger. For years he had worked toward this moment. He was going to show that Pennsylvania Yankee that a southern man would not be held down. Three men joined him as he gloated, waiting for Ab to arrive.

The colonel rode uneasily; he hadn't been in a saddle for months. “You're trespassing,” he said when he rode up with Sam.

Mayhall's muscles bunched under his tight shirtsleeves. “You are,” he replied. “You see those stakes you passed back yonder? That's my property line.”

“This is my ranch,” Ab said.

“This is public land, and I've filed on it. So have my brothers. Meet Joe, Frank, and Edgar Mayhall.” He tossed his head sideways to indicate his kin. “We've filed under the Homestead and Timber Culture acts. That'll make us owners of better than twelve hundred acres when we prove up. Plus we have all this free range around us.”

“This is not free range. You cut my fence to get in, didn't you? You can't go cutting a man's fence whenever it suits you.”

“I damn sure can. If a man fences public range, I have a right and duty to cut his fences.”

“And I have a right to notify the county sheriff.”

“Go ahead and notify him. But you ought to know that I cut your fence under the advice of the U.S. marshal.”

“Did he advise you to ruin my herd with your worthless bulls, too?”

The Mayhall brothers chuckled. “No,” Terence said, “that was our own idea. We must have hunted all over the state of Colorado for those bulls. You know, it's hard to find a sorry bull when you go lookin' for one.”

“They'll be harder to find once they get up in those mountains,” Ab said, pointing his thumb toward the Rampart Range.

Mayhall glared at Sam. “Anybody we catch rustling our cattle into the mountains will get a bullet through the head.” He lifted the rifle barrel from his shoulder and propped the butt against his hip. “We're prepared and authorized to kill stock thieves caught in the act of rustling.”

“You can't run that many bulls on the free range!” Ab shouted. “I'll notify the cattlemen's association!”

“The cattlemen's association can be damned and go to hell. I already sent them a letter telling them those bulls will stay on this range until you and all the others take down your illegal fences. Me and my brothers are not alone, Holcomb. Don't think you can outgun us. We can muster a hundred settlers on any day.”