Butch Cassidy the Lost Years (11 page)

I didn't care a whit about Largo's civic status. I said, “What about the girl with him?”

“Her? She's his daughter, I've heard.”

The other man chuckled and said, “If she is, she must take after her ma. You wouldn't think a peach that ripe could come from such a dried-up little prune as the preacher, would you?”

His words struck me as disrespectful, but I suppressed the urge to snap at him. Reverend Hatfield's daughter didn't need me to defend her honor.

I had to give in to my curiosity, though, one more time.

“Do you know her name?” I asked.

“Daisy, I think. Yeah, that's it. Daisy Hatfield.”

It suited her, I thought, as I started toward Tom Mulrooney's blacksmith shop to claim my buckboard team and settle up with Tom for keeping them in his stable for a few days.

But from time to time as I went about my business, I paused and said softly to myself, “Daisy Hatfield.” The name stuck with me, and so did the memory of red hair, green eyes, and the creamiest skin I'd ever seen in all my borned days.

CHAPTER 16

T
hat reaction wore off, of course. I wasn't a young man prone to getting all moon-eyed over every pretty girl who crossed my path. The fact of the matter was, I was almost old enough to be Daisy Hatfield's pa myself. When you got right down to it, I
was
old enough to be her pa. So I told myself to be sensible, and I went on about my real business, which was to make the Fishhook into a decent spread where I could live out the rest of my days in peace.

We made quite a procession as we headed back out to the ranch, me driving the buckboard with my saddle horse tied on behind, with the two young men and the two old men following on horseback. I wasn't sure the bunkhouse was big enough for all of them. Randy would have to move out there, too. He'd been staying in the house while he recuperated, but if he was going to be one of the crew I couldn't show him any favoritism. I was the boss, so I'd have the house to myself.

Well, except maybe for Scar. He could sleep at the foot of my bed, like the hounds did with the old Vikings I'd read about in a book one time. I like to think that I would have made a pretty good Viking.

The trail from town to the ranch was pretty easy to follow, but I pointed out various landmarks along the way to be sure the fellas wouldn't get lost the next time they had to make the trip. When I showed them the two little hills that looked like a camel's hump, Enoch said, “Looks more like a lady's bosoms to me.”

“You wish,” Gabe muttered.

“As a matter of fact—”

“And over yonder on the other side of the trail,” I said, “there's a tree that was struck by lightning sometime in the past. You can see the scar down its side where the fire went.”

“Let's see you compare that to some part of a lady's anatomy,” Gabe challenged his friend.

“Well, now that you mention it—,” Enoch began.

I interrupted him again by saying, “Then there's that rock spire with the two boulders at the base, and before you go tellin' us what it looks like, I reckon we can all guess, Enoch.”

“I've found that I can recall things better if I relate 'em to things I'm familiar with,” he said.

Gabe snorted.

The whole conversation made the two youngsters turn pink, or maybe it was just the sun. Anyway, we pushed on, and by late afternoon we reached the Fishhook.

Scar came out barking and snarling to greet us. Enoch said, “Lord, if that ain't the ugliest dog I ever seen.”

“He was here before you were,” I reminded him.

“But an ugly dog's got character, I always say.” That quick comeback made me smile. Enoch went on, “There's a fella at the door with a rifle.”

“That's Randy,” I told them. “Randy McClellan. He's been laid up with a bullet crease he got helpin' me fight some outlaws.” I'd been telling that story long enough I was almost starting to believe it. “He's part of the crew, too. Foreman's a vaquero by the name of Santiago Marquez. He and his two cousins Javier and Fernando ride with us, too. They have their own little rancho, though, so you won't have to share the bunkhouse with them.”

“Good,” Gabe said. “It don't look big enough for the rest of us as it is.”

“You might be a little crowded. I figure you'll work it out, though.”

I waved Randy out of the house and introduced him to the rest of the bunch. There was a certain wariness among them. That didn't surprise me. They didn't really know each other yet. They would have to ride together for a while before they became an actual crew.

“I reckon the cook shack's out back?” Gabe asked.

“Yep. The supplies are in the house because I've been doin' all the cooking in there, but you can move anything out there you want to.”

Gabe nodded and said, “Might as well get started rustlin' some supper now, I suppose. You boys are gonna have to get used to my cookin' sooner or later.”

He went off to have a look at the cook shack, and when he was gone I said to Enoch, “You did tell me he's a good cook, didn't you? What he said there at the end didn't sound too encouragin'.”

“Don't worry,” Enoch said. “You won't be disappointed.”

“We could've had ham for supper,” Randy put in, “but that wild beast got it.”

“Randy and Scar don't get along too well,” I explained.

That wasn't the case with Bert and Scar. The youngster's face lit up when he saw the dog, and I was about to warn him to be careful when I saw him approaching Scar. Then I realized that Scar wasn't growling and snarling like he usually did whenever anybody got too close to him. I held my breath a little as Bert reached out to scratch those ragged ears, but Scar not only tolerated it, he looked like he enjoyed it.

“Well, I'll swan,” I said. “I thought ol' Bert might get his hand bit off.”

“He's got a way with animals,” Vince said. “They all seem to like him, even when they don't like anybody else.”

Bert got down on one knee and loved all over Scar. I just shook my head in amazement and went on into the house.

Enoch turned out to be right about Gabe's skills in the cook shack. My biscuits weren't exactly hard as rocks, but Gabe's were a lot better. The stew he whipped up out of not much was pretty good, too.

After we'd eaten that evening, Gabe announced, “I'm takin' the buckboard back down to town tomorrow so I can stock up on some real food instead of the scraps you got around here. It takes plenty of provisions to feed a handful of hungry cowboys. Might need to slaughter a steer for beef, too.”

“I reckon I can spare it,” I told him. “Do what you need to do.”

He nodded, and I knew that part of the operation was in good hands.

I hoped the rest of it would turn out to be, too.

CHAPTER 17

F
or the next two weeks, I worked as hard—maybe harder—than I ever had in my life, and the long days in the saddle were constant reminders that I wasn't as young as I used to be. Even though I was the boss, Santiago pushed me as much as he did the rest of the crew. I didn't mind, but sometimes my sore muscles did.

Since Santiago and the Gallardos had been working for Abner Tillotson for several years, I knew they had to be good hands. Enoch proved to be one, too, and even though he was considerably older than me the work didn't seem to bother him. He went from dawn to dusk and seemed as fresh when he stopped as when he started.

Randy, Bert, and Vince were the ones who really suffered starting out. I told Santiago to take it easy on Randy as much as he could because of that wound, but Santiago said, “He'll finish healing better if he gets out and moves around. The sun and the air will be good for him.”

I figured he knew what he was talking about, and sure enough Randy's pallor started to go away and he seemed stronger. It helped, too, that he was eating better once Gabe took over the cooking.

I heard Santiago muttering to himself in Spanish a few times when he tried to work with Bert and Vince. They didn't know what they were doing, but like I had told them, they kept their eyes open and gave every job an honest effort. Sure, they let some cows get away from them now and then, they couldn't handle a branding iron very well, and their throws with a lasso usually fell short or went way wide of the mark. But gradually they began to get better at those chores and the other things Santiago told them to do.

We hazed in the cattle from the east and west pastures first, since that was the easiest job. Then Santiago turned our attention to the rugged hills to the south, and we spent long days rounding up the stock that had strayed into the canyons and valleys and brush-choked draws. It was hot, difficult work chousing those critters out of their hidey-holes and driving them down to the bedground we'd established along the creek. Even before we finished doing that, Santiago split the crew in half, four men working on the roundup while the other four got started branding all the new calves.

Once, near the end of the two weeks, Santiago and I paused and sat our saddles while we watched Randy, Vince, and Bert struggling to herd a jag of balky cattle. Grim as ever, Santiago said, “A crew of experienced men would have done this job in half the time, Señor Strickland.”

“Next time, those boys will be experienced men,” I pointed out. “Well, less inexperienced, anyway.”

Santiago shrugged and said, “That is one way to look at it, I suppose.”

“Might as well,” I told him. “What matters to me is that we're getting it done.”

“Do you wish me to cut out a trail herd?”

I scratched my jaw and frowned in thought. I'd had a good deal of cash with me when I came across Abner on that cold night back in December, but most of it had gone to getting the ranch operating properly and keeping it that way during the time since then. I needed to fill out my poke a little, and since I'd decided not to do that the way I used to, I said, “Yeah, I guess we'd better drive some of them down to the county seat and sell them. You'll pick out the best ones for that?”

“Sí, señor. We can have the herd ready in another three or four days.”

“All right, then,” I told him with a grin. “Have at it, amigo.”

Gabe came to me that night and said, “If you're gonna have a cattle drive, you gotta have a chuck wagon, too.”

“We're just driving to the railroad at the county seat,” I said. “That'll take, what, three days?”

“If you want to go without eatin' for three days, that's up to you, but I ain't sure the rest of the bunch will go along with that idea.”

“We can use the mules as pack animals and just carry our supplies with us that way.”

Gabe drew himself up to his full height, which wasn't all that much, and glared at me.

“That ain't the way it's done,” he declared.

“Well, what about the buckboard? Can you turn the buckboard into a chuck wagon?”

“Not a proper one,” he answered without missing a lick. “But I suppose it'd be better than nothin'.”

“I ain't trying to make things harder on you, Gabe,” I told him. “But the truth of the matter is, I'm not all that flush right now. I can't afford to buy a chuck wagon. But maybe next time.”

“All right,” he said with grudging agreement. “Just nobody better complain about what I'm feedin' 'em, that's all I got to say.”

By the time Santiago and the rest of the boys got the trail herd ready to go, Gabe had hammered together some cabinets and attached them to the back of the buckboard. The provisions and all the pots and pans would go in them. He had found a Dutch oven stored in the house, as well, and loaded it up.

I asked Santiago, “How come Señor Tillotson didn't have his own chuck wagon? He must have driven herds to market before.”

“Sí, but the cook he always hired had his own wagon.”

“Well, why didn't you tell me that before? I could've hired that fella.”

Santiago shook his head and said, “No, you could not, señor. He passed away last fall.”

“Oh. Yeah, that would make it kind of hard to hire him, wouldn't it?”

“Señor Wolverton will do all right. He plans to take along tortillas and beans and cabrito, so my cousins and I will eat well.”

“Where's he gettin' the goat meat?”

“From my madre and papa. They raise the goats.”

“Nobody said anything to me about this. I'm not sure I can afford it.”

He shook his head and said, “Not to worry. They will extend credit.”

So I was going to be in the hole before we even started on the drive. I wasn't sure I liked that, but there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it.

The day came when we were ready to start the drive. We had two hundred head in the herd. I'd been under the impression that was how many cattle were on the ranch, period, but when we did the final tally the number was closer to four hundred. I was far from rich, and once I covered expenses, the money I made from this drive wouldn't amount to all that much. But it was a start, I told myself. I had come to being an honest man a mite late in life, but so far I sort of enjoyed it.

I had been on cattle drives before, of course, but it had been a good many years since my last one. The roundup had been necessary in more ways than one. It had gotten me in shape for the chore of prodding a couple of hundred unwilling cattle into walking thirty miles to their doom . . . although they didn't have any clue about that last part, of course.

Most of the time none of us do.