Centennial (77 page)

Therefore, each cowboy brought with him three personal possessions for which he remained responsible: his gun, his bedroll and his special horse. From the remuda paid for by the owner he would select his eleven work horses.

To tend the remuda Poteet sought a practiced wrangler. Among the applicants, there was one who seemed to satisfy this requirement, so Poteet went back to Sanderson, who was working sixteen hours a day on the wagon, and was told, “Real good man with a remuda is Buck, if you can stand his smell.”

When Poteet came within three yards of the wrangler he understood what Sanderson meant, for this unlovely man had worked around horses so much, and was so averse to water, that he smelled worse than a mare in heat. “He was sort of wonderful,” Poteet explained to Skimmerhorn later that day. “I figured that if we hired him, his smell alone would kill a rattlesnake downwind at a hundred yards.”

Buck was an older man who had been up the Kansas trail twice. At an early age he had visualized himself as an outcast and now he expected nothing better in life. His extraordinary smell came not only from his habitual uncleanliness, but also from a nervous glandular disorder he could not control. He was an unlikable loner who knew only one-thing: horses. “I wouldn’t dare hire him,” Poteet explained, “except that his job will keep him off to one side, away from the other men.”

“If he can handle horses, take him, smell and all,” Skimmerhorn said.

Eleven men had now been chosen, and the twelfth chose himself. He sauntered into the square one evening, a young man twenty-one years old, extremely thin, wearing a Confederate uniform, a LeMat revolver and a Texas bat. In his left hand he lugged a McClellan saddle, as different from the standard Texas saddle as could be imagined. It was a northern invention, much used by General Grant’s cavalry but held in contempt by the south. How a southern veteran happened to have such a saddle was a mystery. It had no horn, a single cinch, practically no cantle, and to the horror of any Texan, was slit down the middle of the seat!

“It’s to provide ventilation,” Canby explained to one of the astonished boys.

“Looks like a ball-pincher to me,” the boy replied, amid general laughter.

“Where’s the horn?” another asked

“It ain’t a real saddle,” Canby said. A good Texas saddle had a horn stout enough for roping an elephant, and to think that a cowboy would ever use a McClellan wasn’t worth discussing.

“M’name’s Coker,” the young man said. “Who’s boss?”

“I am,” Poteet said. “Where you from?”

“South Calinky,” the stranger said with obvious defiance, and when Poteet heard this pronunciation for South Carolina, first state to secede from the Union and foremost in heroic actions, he paid attention. Poteet had served in the Confederate cavalry and knew that no men equaled the South Carolinians, difficult, stubborn, sometimes even hateful, but always dependable. He had once moved with eighteen South Calinky boys, as they called themselves, youngsters barely sixteen, and they had assaulted a northern stronghold held by fifty. Such men. Of the eighteen, eleven had died, charging forward, and when the attack failed, as it had to, two of the survivors halted to run back into the face of terrible fire to toss grenades into the impregnable position. Had they lived, they would have been much like the man who now stood before him.

“What’s your name?”

Buford Coker. They call me Bufe.”

“Where’d you get that saddle?”

“Off’n a blue-coat officer.”

“What’s that revolver, a LeMat?” Coker nodded. “Where’d you get a LeMat?”

“Off’n a gray-coat officer.”

“Your horse?”

“Don’t have one.”

“You can ride?”

“Would I have a saddle other?”

“Why do you want to go north with us?”

“I been movin’ for some time.”

Desperately Poteet wanted to give this cantankerous young man a job, but he knew that the Confederate might be more trouble than he was worth. Then an idea struck him. “There might be a place ...” he began.

“Man at the wagon shop said there was a place,” Coker interrupted. “You’re one hand short.”

“There might be a place,” Poteet repeated without irritation, “if my top hand thought you’d fit.”

“I’ll fit.”

“Mr. Person.” Poteet waited till the black man rode up, then said formally, “Mr. Person, do you think you could work with this young man?”

Nate studied him, knew that he could be difficult, knew from his Confederate uniform that he might present special problems. But he also knew, from his long acquaintance with Mr. Poteet, that the boss must want to hire the young man, if a justification could be found. So he stared straight into Coker’s eyes and said, “This trail could be just as dangerous as the war you were in, soldier,” and the Confederate replied slowly, without shifting his gaze, “Nothin’ scares me,” and Nate said, “I think he’s a good one, Mr. Poteet.”

There was one more test. Poteet asked Coker directly, “You think you could work with Mr. Person?”

“I worked with Colonel Biggerstaff, and if you can work with a bastard like that, you oughta be able to work with a gentleman like Mr. Person,” Coker replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Mr. Person will give you a horse,” Poteet said, but when the time came for Coker to select his mount, it became apparent to Person that the young man knew nothing of horses.

“You ain’t never been on a horse!” the black man cried.

“Don’t tell him,” Coker pleaded.

“You’ll kill yourself,” Nate protested.

“Pick me a good one, and I’ll ride ’im.”

“Son, you’re playin’ with fire.”

“Pick me a horse,” Coker begged, and Nate ran his judicious eye over the lot. Some were barely broken; they would be tamed by cowboys on the trail. Others were as good as they would ever be, which wasn’t much. A few, including the eleven purchased from Canby, were fine mounts, and Nate selected the best of these.

“How do you put the saddle on?” Coker asked.

“Always from the left. Then tighten the cinch.”

“What’s a cinch?”

Nate looked at the stubborn young man and said, “God have mercy on you, Buford, you got courage.”

For two days, while Mr. Poteet and Nacho bought supplies for the wagon, Bufe Coker rode his horse through the fields around Jacksborough, falling off, regaining his saddle and lugging his aching bones to bed in a state of exhaustion. In the afternoon of the second day he went to Person and said, “Now I know how to ride. Pick me out a real tough one,” and Person said, “You ain’t ready for that, son,” and Coker said, “I got to learn some time.” So Person lassoed a mean chalk-eyed pinto, the kind cowboys detested, and for the first half hour Coker couldn’t even get him saddled. When he did, the pinto bucked him off repeatedly, but each time Coker climbed back on.

“You better call it a day,” Person warned, but Coker said, “It’s either him or me.” Finally he managed to stay on, and the lightness of the McClellan saddle must have pleased the pinto after the heavy Texas saddles, for when he felt the man securely on his back he began to move with a new gracefulness, and for the first time in his life Bufe Coker understood what a horse could be.

When he reined in where Person was waiting, he jumped down with excitement in his eyes and cried, “I want him,” but Nate dashed his enthusiasm by explaining, “Son, in an outfit like this you draw for the horses, and you’ll take your chance with the rest.”

“But they wouldn’t pick a wild horse like this one ... would they?” Coker asked hopefully.

“Just the kind of spirit a cowboy looks for in a horse,” Person said, but that night he passed among the others and told them, “At the drawing tomorrow, don’t nobody pick the chalk-eyed pinto. Soldier boy seems to think he can handle him.”

At dawn the men made their pick of the remuda, by tradition each in turn choosing a horse, then a second, then a third, until every rider had a string of eleven mounts for the trail.

The Confederate watched with anxiety as Poteet and Person chose first, followed by the men. Ragland, with a sense of comedy, made believe he was going to take the pinto, but at the last moment chose another. So the pinto remained, and when Coker’s first turn came he shouted, “I’ll take that one,” and a rewarding partnership was launched.

At six Nacho Gómez drove up with four mules pulling the remarkable new wagon. From the front it looked like any standard long-bedded, canvas-covered prairie wagon, except that from its sides hung suspended an unusual array of pans, buckets, axes and canvas bags. It was from the rear that it seemed so striking, for there a boxlike structure had been fastened in such a way that the back could be lowered and made into a stout table, supported by a folding leg. Behind this collapsible table, hidden from sight until it was dropped, nested seven neat drawers, each with a brass handle, each with a store of useful or delicious items. One drawer was reserved for Mr. Poteet’s paper work, one for such medicines as were available, with emphasis on calomel to fight constipation, and various nauseous potions to combat diarrhea. The other five held spices, dried fruits, sugar and the exotic Mexican herbs Nacho intended introducing to his Texans.

Now came the first test of the cowboys as a team. Before the herd could be thrown onto the trail, each animal had to be branded, horses as well as cattle, not only as proof of ownership but also to facilitate sorting in case the herd should become mixed with other cattle on northern sections of the route or at some river crossing.

Poteet said, “I’ll get the smithy to make us some irons, but what brand will your ranch be usin’?”

On this delicate matter Skimmerhorn had been given no instructions, so he said, “Use a V,” but Poteet said, “Can’t. An outfit down the line’s already usin’ that.

“How about Lazy Vee?” But that too had been preempted. So had Bar Vee and Diamond Vee.

“Wait a minute,” Poteet said. “Didn’t you tell me Venneford was a king or somethin’?”

“I don’t rightly know what he is,” Skimmerhorn confessed. “Sometimes they call him an earl, sometimes a lord.”

“In either case he’d have a crown, wouldn’t he? Poteet asked, and when Skimmerhorn said he guessed so, that was enough. “I’ve got a dandy!” Poteet cried, and off he went to the blacksmith. Next day he returned with irons for making the handsome brand that would became famous throughout the west, Crown Vee:

Branding day always carried with it a festive spirit, and the testing of the new irons lived up to tradition. Each of the Texans took pleasure in laying his rope over the horns of the cattle or spinning it deftly around their rear legs. Poteet, surmising that Coker had never thrown a rope, forestalled embarrassment by directing him to the dirtiest, dustiest job of all—wrestling with the roped animals and holding them down while the brand was being applied.

It required three days, from first light till fading dusk, to get through all the animals, and even then the job could not have been completed had not local cattlemen volunteered to help. They did so for two reasons: they loved the excitement of hot iron singeing hair, of cattle bawling in protest, of ropers dragging the next reluctant steer into position, of the hullabaloo caused by six teams working at the same time at the same dusty job; but they also anticipated the feast and the drinking that would come afterward, and as they pitched in to help, they kept one eye on Nacho Gómez and his cook wagon.

“Best brandin’ I been to in a long time,” one old-timer declared the last night as he chewed on one of Nacho’s thickest steaks, set aside for this celebration. “Good whiskey, too,” Canby added, drawing on a bottle of Tennessee mash which Skimmerhorn had bought from a Jacksborough bar.

“Drink up,” Poteet encouraged the men. “Last whiskey you’ll have for months.”

So the Crown Vee animals were branded, eighteen hundred and ten cows and heifers ready to breed, one hundred and forty-two good bulls eager to breed them, and eight hundred and twenty-six steers, a herd of twenty-seven hundred and seventy-eight, all marked on the left hip, plus one hundred and thirty-two remuda horses and six mules branded lightly on the left shoulder by Nacho and the wrangler. These were the animals on which Oliver Seccombe’s dream of riches depended.

On the fifteenth of March, 1868, Mr. Poteet indicated with a wave of his hat that the massive herd should move westward, and the full complement of men, horses and cattle started forward.
(
See Map 08 – The Skimmerhorn Trail 1868
)
Far in the lead rode Mr. Poteet, accompanied for the moment by Mr. Skimmerhorn. Behind them rode eight cowboys so spaced that they formed a permanent floating box around the herd. At the front rode the two points, Person to the left, Canby to the right. About a third of the way back rode the two swing men. Two-thirds of the way back rode the two flank men, whose special job it was to see that the main body of cattle did not bunch up and become overheated, for cattle moving close-bunched generated a tremendous heat which could actually melt off fat. And in the rear, where the dust was thickest and the cattle most difficult to handle, for stragglers must be made to close up, rode the two drags. To the left, in the humblest position of all, rode Bufe Coker, so stiff he could hardly stay in his saddle, his bandanna pulled over his face to repel the incredible dust. To the right, escaping some of the dust, rode Lasater.