Sunday's Colt & Other Stories Read online

  The others musta thought she was giving lessons because about half of them tried the same stunt with varying degrees of success. Suffice it to say, none of them made the far bank, first try. Those that hadn’t broke something or busted a gut came to their feet and scrambled up the far bank like they had someplace to go. The other half took to fighting brambles and dodging tree limbs until they figured where the leaders were going and followed forthwith. After they crawled up the other bank they ran for Canada and a high rocky slope in between.

  By this time the dog pack had given up on pony chasing and was scrambling in pursuit. Only Rye stopped long enough to sniff the mossback and decide she was dead before lighting out after the herd.

  Sam drew up his pony and gazed down on the death and destruction of the wash. He counted three with broken legs, one busted-gut cow kicking in the dust, and the strange display of a blue-roan mossback in the middle, tail in the air, dead. Worst of all, old Fester wasn’t far from the others nursing a broken foreleg, just a-standing there in the sand and his distress.

  Sam eased his broomtail down the bank and drew his dragoon. He shot Fester first, and then worked his way through the others putting them out of their misery. When he got to the mossback he studied her for a moment, sorry he had an empty gun. He would have liked to have put one into her just for being like she was and leading Fester to his ruin.

  Ty Lee watched silently from the bank. “Thanks for putting Fester out of his misery,” he said softly.

  Sam nodded without looking up. “I know he was your horse and I didn’t have the right but I just couldn’t stand to watch it.”

  “That’s the way of it. I’d a-thought old Fester coulda seen better than that. He’d a-never crossed that wash in the dark. We’re gonna be a pony short now, and a good un,” Ty Lee said.

  Sam shook his head and sighed. “Naw, I saw two of them herd cutters’ nags running with the stock. We’ll trade them even up, saddles and all, for Fester.”

  Ty Lee nodded and started his pony down the bank. “Sounds good. We need to ride afore them Longhorns scatter in the breeze.”

  Sam drew up his pony’s head and gently spurred. “Good enough.”

  Both pronounced it a near miracle that the herd had stayed together as well as it had. By the time they had them rounded up, they were only ten head short, including the four littering the dry wash, and a net gain of one pony. Rather than waste time and possible reprisals from the herd cutters, they pushed on. By the next day the strays had caught up and rejoined the herd. Longhorns are like that.

  It went to raining the next day and continued solid for a week. The boys got so waterlogged that their ears started leaking. They spent several shivering nights in the saddle just keeping the herd milling, and dry firewood became so scarce that they ran cold camps three nights running. They came to a wash almost identical to the massacre site, but this time it was running bank-full. Longhorns that the week before would have balked crossing a piss trace bailed right in and tried to swim for the far bank. The current swept and scattered them for close to a mile. When they crawled up the other bank ten more head were gone, probably food for the catfish. It all happened so fast that the boys didn’t have time to consider their options. It was a major loss, however, and they could see their profits dwindling.

  They came to a gentle lowland meadow running along the Nueces River in Live Oak County. They stopped there and dried themselves out for a spell, letting them Longhorns belly down on the lush floodplain grass. Sam observed that it would be a fine place for a couple of fellows to run a two-loop outfit. They weren’t getting any younger and it was time to think about settling down. They could build a little cabin on the rise, get out the running iron, and maverick up a fine herd in no time. If they played their cards right they could find themselves a couple of lonely señoritas and have a fine life. Ty Lee didn’t say much but it was plain to see that he wasn’t opposed to the idea, especially the part about the señoritas. Of course, he was tired and easily swayed.

  A week later they drove a thoroughly trail broke herd of sixty Longhorns into Rockport and headed straight for the pens. They were out of flour and beans and hadn’t even had a hot cup of coffee in four days. They were so bad off that Ty Lee was talking of buying a new shirt with his share of the profits.

  A heavyset fellow with a peg leg stepped from the pen office to greet them. “You’re late,” he said with a smile.

  “Late for what?” Sam asked without dismounting.

  “The packets have already sailed. I don’t look for another cow market for four months.”

  “Well, we still got cattle for sale. What’s the market?”

  “I suppose we could buy them for the hides and tallow and make out. I’d go fifty cents a head.”

  “Fifty cents! What kind of a price is that? I heard they was selling for six dollars in New Orleans.”

  “They was bringing four dollars here six weeks ago. But the market is played out for now. In six months it’ll be up again. If I was you boys I’d grass them up and come back in April.”

  Sam turned to his disgusted partner. “What do you think?”

  “I ain’t gonna sell for fifty cents. We coulda done almost that well working for that skinflint, Townsen.”

  Sam spit and then thought for a while. “What about that meadow we stopped at back in Live Oak County? We could winter them there and build the herd. We been talking about starting our own herd. Some of these old girls are with calf. What do you think of that?”

  “I want some coffee and flour. I ain’t about to winter it out without some coffee and flour.”

  “We could sell one of them cutter’s nags. It ought to bring ten dollars or so. We could do that?”

  Ty Lee was sullen. “I need another shirt.”

  Sam nodded. “We both do. We’ll get ourselves a couple of shirts to boot. What do you say, partner?”

  Ty Lee thought for a moment. He thought so hard he almost forgot what it was he was considering. He nodded acceptance rather than have to hear Sam explain it again. They sold a horse, bought the supplies, and turned the herd back for the Nueces.

  They found that meadow again and built themselves a dugout along the floodplain. They even took time enough to build a wood shingled roof, a couple of rope cots, and a horse pen. They allowed those Longhorns to scatter along the river and went to mavericking up some more. They grew so fond of the place that they decided to head to Live Oak and register their brand.

  The County Clerk’s face turned a bright red when the boys told him their brand. “Are you boys trying to make some kind of joke?”

  Sam shook his head. “Ain’t no kind of joke. We want to register the Rafter-I as our brand. We built us a place and we got some cattle scattered all along that river.”

  “I hate to tell you boys this, but the Rafter-I is Hopper and Wade’s brand. They run the largest outfit in this county. I figure you just scattered your cattle in with about four thousand others with the same brand.”

  Sam’s mouth dropped and he felt sick to his stomach.

  “I guess we could go back and rebrand them,” Ty Lee said.

  The county clerk shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise that, boys. Hooper and Wade are running some of the best gun hands in this part of Texas. Hell, they hung four Mexicans just last week for stealing branded cattle. The way I figure it…if you like your skins…I’d just write those cattle off and decide on another brand.”

  Sam shook his head. “Forget it. We’ll mosey.” He led Ty Lee out of the building into the square.

  The boys sat on a low stone fence surrounding the courthouse square and waited to get up the gumption to ride home. It was a plum discouraging turn of fate and they were having difficulty dealing.

  A buggy came down the street and stopped in front of them. Neither looked up. Old Dil Towsen leaned out of the buggy. “Hey, what you boys doing in Live Oak? I’ve been looking for you all over creation.”

  Sam looked up and smiled. At that point he w
as glad to see any familiar face, even if it did belong to an old horse cutter. “Howdy, Dil. What are you doing here?”

  “Going to Rockport to line up some spring buyers. I’ve got a good-sized herd to bring in. I sure could use you boys if you’re willing.”

  “We’re sorta running an outfit of our own,” Sam said without looking up.

  “If you’ll excuse me for saying so, Sam, you boys don’t look too prosperous. You could trail in my cattle and mix in your own cows for nothing. I’d pay you wages and let yours go for the same lot price. Now, what could be fairer than that?”

  Ty Lee looked up and frowned. “I’d expect plenty of coffee and flour.”

  Dil nodded ashamedly. “I’m real sorry about that, Ty Lee. I’ve felt real bad about that incident ever since it happened. I shouldn’t have treated you boys that way. I’ll never short grub you boys again. You have my word. What do ya say?”

  They went to work for Dil that winter and nothing more was said on the matter. Ty Lee took along an extra stash of coffee and flour, just in case.

  Ty Lee Driscoll and Red River Sam Go to Abilene

  Old Dil Townsen decided that if he was ever going to have a pot to piss in he needed to find a better market for his cattle than south Texas. He’d heard stories that the railroad was pushing into Kansas and the Yankees were paying seven times the going price for linebacks than he could get in Williamson County. That made Old Dil’s mouth water since he reckoned he had nearly five thousand head scattered through the hills and thickets. He ordered his wranglers to bring in some full-grown steers and figured he’d risk sending a few up to Missouri to see if he could turn a dollar. Nobody in the outfit had ever been to Missouri or Kansas so he hired a gent named Tyco Reeves to help blaze a trail to Sedalia or wherever he could find a market. Tyco was an experienced hand and drove Texas Longhorns east throughout the war to keep Bedford Forest and that fool, Braxton Bragg, supplied with meat for their troops.

  Tyco was a tall redhead with a bushy beard and blue eyes so pale they glowed in the morning sun. He was a sure enough reb managing his business with a withered left arm and half his left foot gone from bullet wounds he received when he tried to run the blockade at Vicksburg. He knew how to trail cattle for long distances with a minimum of loss and the word was that Tyco could tell a man to “go to hell” and convince him he was overdue leaving without hurting his feelings or his pride…a born trail boss.

  Old Dil knew Tyco’s reputation but just to be on the safe side he sent two top hands along to keep an eye on his interests. Those old boys were Ty Lee Driscoll and Red River Sam Bonnet. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? They were the gents that slapped the brand on the original Murder steer and rode down the Black Queen when everyone else said that black would never be ridden by any pietistic mortal.

  Ty Lee Driscoll—his mother preferred his Christian name, Ty Lee—was a raggedy-ass, hawk-faced, nearly toothless drudge who looked and dressed like he had just been paroled from Andersonville prison after an expense cut. His pants were so loose fitting that he took to wearing an extra belt just to keep track of where they were under the folds of his shirt. He favored a moth-eaten grulla gelding from his pony string that he tagged Fester II, but nobody could figure how he came up with such a handle. He ate, slept, and rode with a motley pack of half-starved, flea-bitten, snake-eating, bluetick crosses that would just as soon bite a man as look at him. His hat was a fright, his boots a joke, he smelled like sin, and his shirt was an embarrassment in mixed company, but he was about the best Texas vaquero there ever was and anybody with a good eye could tell it.

  His partner, Red River Sam, was getting on in years to be a wrangler. Some said he was nearly forty, but he cowboyed almost as well as Ty Lee and he knew all his letters and sums. Being an educated man he was more philosophical and prone to expound on the theories of cattle breeding, horse breaking, and biscuit making. He was Christian enough to take kindly to saying the words and leading a good hymn or two when a friend, or stranger for that matter, needed putting under. His prize possession was a gold silk bandanna given him by Sugar Lil O’Brien herself, better known as the Arkansas Darling when she worked the troops in Little Rock. He had a broad nose that looked like it had been riddled with buckshot and during the high shine of the day his appearance was that of a mustache wearing a broad brimmed sombrero and a red fireman’s shirt. Generally, he kept his hat low and his opinions to himself to all except Ty Lee. They were solid saddle pals and their word was as good as a Philadelphia bank note.

  Even Old Dil was surprised when the boys cut out seventeen hundred steers from three to seven years old. Some of the older beasts probably weighed in at seven hundred pounds or so. They slapped on an H7-T road brand and pointed them north. Other than Ty Lee and Sam, the other six cowboys were all youngsters fresh off the sugar teat and raring for the high life. To keep the crew happy, Dil sent his prize thirty-dollar-a-month cook, an ex-slave named Candle Corn, to manage the supply wagon and fix the vittles. Those were the days before anyone had ever heard or even dreamed of a fancy Studebaker chuck wagon.

  Candle could make melt-in-the-mouth corn bread that was too princely for sopping up pinto beans and fat back. Most of the crew ate it like cake and preferred it to about anything a man could shove on a tin plate. No cook in Texas could slap together a more larapin apple pie or sandhill plumb cobbler. He could heat up a boiling pot of coffee quicker than any man alive and always had a fresh biscuit handy for a belly treat.

  Candle’s only drawback was that he was so damned ugly. He had whiplash scars on the back of his neck and side of his face the size of a lariat end and a white right eye from one of his beatings that never seemed to track with the good one. Word was that he was a Mississippi cotton slave managed by a white trash field master who took a shine to his mamma. When Candle caught the overseer taking his pleasures with her down by the creek, he laid hands on him and was nearly lashed into the next world for his trouble. He ran off a couple of times and received worse whippings after the bloodhounds ran him down. They even trimmed the toes of his right foot with a hatchet to slow him down some but it failed to slacken Candle’s determination to be a free man. When he finally did manage to make a getaway, he came to Texas and went to work for Townsen. By that time Mississippi was in smoldering ruins and nobody bothered to check him out. Candle didn’t carry a side arm, but he packed a bone-handled butcher knife Indian fashion along the small of his back. No wrangler in his right mind went up against Candle when his temper was up and he had that knife in his hand. That twelve-inch blade fare-thee-well lived there when it wasn’t in its sheath.

  Little Billy Nix was the remuda wrangler and all of thirteen summers old. Like most of Townsen’s crew he was a throw-away who rode shirtless and barefoot into the ranch on a bareback mule with nothing but a tote sack and worn out harmonica. Old Dil took a shine to the orphan and put him on as Candle’s “Cook’s Mary.” In a couple of years he was in the saddle and learning the trade from Ty Lee and Red River. He was on his way to being a first-class wrangler and all the boys thought the sun sat in his pants. He was never too proud to shirk nor never too meek to take shit off of anybody. The other boys knew he was a favorite and gave Billy a wide berth. It was also to their credit to be associated with such a goer and top broncobuster even if he wasn’t more than seven stone soaking wet.

  Those steers trailed out about as good as any bunch of Longhorns could manage. They stampeded only once during a lightning and hail storm in the Indian Territory and seemed to get fatter as they made their way north. Tyco knew just the pace to keep them eating steady and traveling smoothly. The pickings on the trail were a heap better than any of that scrub brush in Williamson County and Tyco made sure that they got every blade he could muster along the way. Other than the ten head of stragglers they paid the Shawnee to cross their land and a couple of drop deads, they kept their losses to a minimum. With the unbranded stray cows and calves that joined up with them on the trail, they crossed the Kansas line with al
most break even numbers.

  They turned east toward Sedalia after Tyco felt they were past the threat of border ruffians. Not ten miles later they ran into a cowboy riding out to inform the Texas herds that the railroad had pushed west to a new settlement called Abilene in Kansas. From the rider’s directions and some flyers from his saddlebags, Tyco figured he could cut almost two hundred miles off the trip if he drove for Abilene and made the risky decision to take the man’s word that the place was for real and wasn’t part of a swindle. Twenty days later they milled the herd seven miles south of a single ragged line of unpainted frame buildings, a few tents and a fine set of railroad loading pens called Abilene. They were the third and smallest herd in, so they had to wait their turn for the buyers to make a bid. Tyco rode into town to make the arrangements and the boys lined up for Candle to get out his mixing bowl and give them a fresh haircut.

  One gent, a feminine fat loafer from Kansas City named Orrie Gates, offered them fifteen dollars a head for the steers, but they had to take his note for payment. Ty Lee and Red River would have nothing to do with the offer and came close to having it out with Tyco over the matter. Since the cattle weren’t made out of paper, the boys figured they should have something other than paper for a settlement. When the loafer took offense and said that his note was as good as gold in Kansas City, Red River countered by saying that Kansas City paper was good for only one thing in Texas and he would look him up when he was ready to have a movement. Two days later the loafer returned with an offer of twelve dollars a head in notes and coin. Sam studied the paper carefully and although it looked genuine enough, he sent him packing. By this time Tyco was getting plum disagreeable, but the boys stuck to their guns. Horse cutter that Old Dil was, he deserved better than paper and the boys would settle for nothing less than gold or silver coins. They had a bunkhouse papered with Confederate currency and didn’t trust that Union script one bit better.