From Hide and Horn (A Floating Outfit Book Number 5) (5 page)

‘
You men always stick
together,’
Dawn sniffed, her good humor restored.

‘
We have to,’ Red
explained. ‘It’s the only way we can keep
half-ways ahead of
getting trampled underfoot by you women.’

‘
Vern’s not wild,’ Dawn
stated a
s they drew near the cook shack. ‘And all that talk he
gives about whooping it up in saloons’s just talk. He’s not been
around them anywhere nears as much as he’d have you think. Fact
being, he’s only snuck in a couple of times when he’s been sure
pappy wasn’t around.’

‘
It’s just part of growing
up,’ Mark replied. ‘And when you get to Vern’s age, you don’t want
a bossy sister only a year older
’n’ you trying to run your
life.’

‘
I’m near on
two
years
older!’

‘
Sure. But try to forget it. The more
you ride him, the harder he’ll set on showing the rest of us
fellers that you’re wrong.’

‘
Mark’s right on that,’
Red informed the girl. ‘I’ve got two older
brothers
and I didn’t cotton
to them trying to run things.’

‘
I’ll mind what you say,’ Dawn promised
and they walked into the building.

All the men present were eating heartily and
appeared to be in the best of spirits. Seated near the door, tall,
lanky, mournful Billy Jack of the OD Connected predicted all kinds
of doom and disaster. Nobody took any notice of him, knowing it to
be a sign that he felt all was well in the world. Under that
dolorous exterior lay a bone-tough fighting man and skilled
cowhand. One of the floating outfit, Billy Jack had been Dusty’s
sergeant major in the War and appearances in his case were very
deceptive.

With the meal over, the trail
crew headed for the corral. Rope
s swished and hooley-ann loops
^vi
sailed through the air to drop about
the necks of the horses selected for use while moving the herd out.
In very quick time, every hand had caught and saddled his horse;
the hooley-ann being a roping throw designed to allow several of
the crew to operate at the same time around the corral. One of the
first ready was Dawn, snaking her
bayo-tigre
gelding from the milling crush and
throwing on its rig with practiced speed.

Already Dusty and Goodnight were riding
towards the herd. Studying the steers with experienced eyes, the
rancher sought for signs of restlessness. Despite the addition of
the Mineral Wells stock, the assembled Swinging G animals seemed
quiet enough. Goodnight’s foreman, John Poe, who would be staying
in Young County to gather cattle for another drive, rode up. He
told his boss that the night had been quiet and uneventful, apart
from the inevitable attempts by some of the wilder cattle to regain
their freedom.

‘
You can expect that from
the sort of
ladinos
we’ve been hauling out of the thorn-brush,’ the rancher
said.

‘
Sure,’ Poe grinned. ‘Way
some of
’em act, you’d figure they didn’t want to go and feed up
all them hungry Apaches in New Mexico. Anyways, none of them got
away.’

‘
I didn’t think they would,’ Goodnight
replied, flashing a rare smile at his segundo and foreman. ‘Here’s
my crew. We’ll move out straight away, Dustine.’

‘
Yo!’ answered Dusty, and rode to meet
the approaching party.

For a long moment Goodnight sat silent, then
he sucked in a deep breath. This was the start of what might easily
be the salvation of Texas, or a fiasco. Whichever way it turned
out, he felt it was well worth the try. Turning to Poe, the rancher
offered his hand.

‘
I’ll see you when I get back,
John.’

‘
Everything’ll be ready for you,
Charlie,’ Poe replied as they shook hands. ‘Good luck.’

‘
Likely we’ll need it,’ Goodnight
said.

‘
All right!’ Dusty said to
the trail crew. ‘Head
’em up. Let’s move ’em!’

‘
Yeeah!’ Vern whooped, wriggling on his
saddle in excitement and eagerness.

‘
I said move
’em, not spook ’em!’
Dusty barked. ‘Hold it down and save that whooping for when we hit
Fort Sumner.’

‘
Sure, Cap’n Dusty,’ the
yo
ungster answered, face flushing with shame at the public
rebuke. ‘I—’

‘
You heard,’ Mark growled in Vern’s
ear. ‘Get to it.’

Much as Dusty would have liked to make up for
the sting of his words, the chance did not arise. Along with the
other hands, Vern rode to his position and made ready to start.
When setting out the order in which the hands would work that day,
Dusty had allocated Dawn to the swing, the forward third of the
herd. Approaching her place, the girl became aware for the first
time of just how many three thousand head of longhorns amounted to.
She had seen gathers almost as large, during communal round-ups,
but nobody had ever thought of moving so many from place to
place.

The range ahead seemed blanketed
with steers of almost every imaginable animal coloration. While
every bit as much
creatures of a herd as buffalo or pronghorn antelope, the
Texas longhorn showed none of their uniformity of appearance. No
two steers in that vast gathering looked completely alike. Apart
from the occasional muley, however, they all had one thing in
common, a set of spreading, powerful and needle-sharp
horns.

Not that Dawn found time to sit in awed
contemplation. Already the men were riding towards the cattle,
gently urging them to move. Slowly, yet surely, the tremendous
collection of steers started to walk in a westerly direction. At
the point, Mark Counter and Swede Ahlen closed in on either side of
the first steer ready to turn it anyway the trail boss
signaled.

Commencing the first day’s drive
was always a trying time for the trail crew. So far the steers had
not settled into a cohesive travelling unit. The Swinging G stock
was still unsettled by the arrival of the Mineral Wells herd not
thirty-six hours back. Due to t
he way they had been collected,
^vii
a number of Goodnight’s contingent
were
ladinos,
outlaws long used to free-ranging in the thorn-brush
country. Given time, they might have become accustomed to herd
life. Unfortunately, time was a commodity in very short supply if
they were to reach Fort Sumner by the end of June. The drive had to
be got on its way.

To an unknowing onlooker,
everything might have seemed to be in wild confusion. There were
steers which objected to being moved from such easy grazing,
or
ladinos
striving to return to their wild existence, demanding
attention and keeping the trail hands fully occupied.

Horses spurted, twisted, pivoted
and galloped into a muck-sweat, cutting off would-be bunch-quitters
and turning the departing steers back into the marching column.
After the resting mass had been converted into a mobile line, there
was a continuous changing
of positions. The better travelers shoved their
way by the slower, less fit, or plain lazy remainder. Already some
of the steers, particularly those from the Mineral Wells area, had
teamed up with ‘traveling partners’. Finding themselves separated,
the partners would shatter the air with their bawling and try to
balk against moving forward until reunited. They added to the
confusion, as did the ‘lone wolves’. These steers appeared to have
only one aim in life, to amble up as far as the point, cut across
before the leading
animals, make their way down the other flank to the drag
and repeat the circle. More than one cowhand started to chase a
lone wolf, thinking it was trying to escape, and retired cursing on
discovering its harmless purpose.

Yet the drive continued.
Following the cattle came the remuda, available for when a hand
wanted a f
resh horse from his work-mount.
^viii
Bringing up the rear were the chuck-
and bed-wagons, driven by Rowdy Lincoln and his tall, lanky,
freckle-faced and excitable louse, Turkey Trott. Towards evening
they would speed up their teams, pass along the side of the drive,
find a suitable camping-ground and prepare a hot meal—the first
since breakfast—for the crew.

Throughout the day Dusty and
Goodnight seemed to be everywhere. Sometimes at the point, then
among the swing or flank men, or back with the drag, either the
rancher or the segundo would materiali
ze wherever he was needed most.

Two hours after moving the herd off its
bed-ground, Dusty heard a sound that called for investigation. Two
steers faced each other in menacing attitudes among the bushes to
the flank of the herd. Pawing up dirt, throwing back their heads
and cutting loose with as masculine bawls as their castrated
condition allowed, they prepared for hostilities. It was a
situation which demanded an instant attention on the part of the
nearest trail hand. Like some human beings, longhorns could not
resist the temptation to watch a good fight. So other steers would
attempt to quit the herd as spectators.

Yet stopping the contestants would not be
without risks, as Burle Willock well knew. When one of the fighting
steers decided to quit, it would not linger. Twirling around, it
would leave like a bat out of hell, giving all its attention to its
rival and oblivious of anything ahead. Only by such tactics could
the loser hope to protect its vulnerable, unprotected rear from a
severe goring by the victor. Not even a cutting-horse—most agile of
the equine breed—could equal the turn-and-go prowess of a longhorn
under those conditions. Nor did the flight necessarily follow a
fight. Should one of the steers be bluffed out by the other’s
aggressive mien, it would take just as drastic evasion
measures.

So Willock hesitated before
going in too close to the animals. Not so Dusty Fog. Charging up,
he made straight for the steers. Dusty sat a buckskin gelding,
noted through the Rio
Hondo country for its cattle-savvy, and it knew
just what to do. Ignoring the chance of a fear-inspired charge, the
horse rushed forward, slammed a shoulder into the nearest steer and
knocked it staggering. Seeing its rival at a disadvantage, the
second steer attacked. Letting out a squeal, the buckskin’s victim
fled for the safety of the herd.

‘
Stop it!’ Dusty roared, guiding his
horse after the triumphant assailant.

While Willock chased and turned the fleeing
steer, preventing it from rushing among the other cattle, Dusty
caught up with the victor. Knowing only rough treatment would calm
the beast, Dusty rode alongside its rump. By catching and jerking
at the steer’s tail, he caused it to lose its balance and crash to
the ground. On rising, as was mostly the case after a good ‘tailing
down’, the steer forgot all its anti-social notions and went
quietly into the moving line.

Shortly before noon, Vern
Sutherland pushed his
tobiano
down a draw after three steers which had escaped.
In a foolhardy attempt to show how good a horse he rode, he had not
changed mounts since starting out. While the
tobiano
overtook the steers and swung them
back in the direction of the herd, it was tired.

Hearing a low snort to his left,
Vera turned his head and saw a big black
ladino
coming towards him. Everything about the
animal showed its mean nature and it clearly aimed to fight its way
to freedom. The
tobiano
faced the steer, but Vern knew it was too leg-weary to deal
with such a dangerous proposition. For all that, the youngster sat
his ground. While he carried a holstered Colt and knew how to use
it, he made no attempt to do so. The sound of a shot might easily
cause the herd to stampede.

On his way to the drag,
Goodnight saw the youngster’s predicament and raced his
bayo-cebrunos
^ix
gelding to the
rescue. Unshipping the rope, with one end ready-tied to the
saddlehorn, he shook out its loop and gauged the distance with his
eye. The rancher approached from the side of the steer as it began
its charge. Rising to stand in his stirrups, as a means of making a
more accurate throw, Goodnight sent the rope curling through the
air. As the loop fell and tightened about the steer’s neck, the
rancher cued the
bayo-cebrunos
with his knees and brought it to a turning halt.
Manila twanged taut between longhorn and saddlehorn. Fixing to keep
anything he roped, the Texan always tied his lariat securely to the
horn and relied upon his saddle’s double girths to hold all firm.
Braced ready for the impact, the
bayo-cebrunos
kept its feet. Not so the steer.
Stopped unexpectedly with its feet off the ground, its legs shot
sideways and it slammed down hard on its flank.

‘
Get them others back to the herd!’
Goodnight called to Vern. ‘Then go pick a fresh hoss from the
remuda.’

‘
Yo!’ the youngster answered and turned
to obey.