Hard Country (6 page)

“Was there any truth to it?”

Charlie’s face turned red. “I won’t say nothing bad about my brother. Maybe Cal thinks he had cause, but he knew Frank was no match with a six-shooter. He could’ve just given him a good hiding and been done with it.”

Ed nodded in agreement. “Big as Cal is, he could have whipped Frank good to teach the boy a lesson, kicked him off the ranch, and let it go at that.”

Kerney considered young Charlie Gambel. “Might be best for you to go home to Tennessee.”

“No, sir,” Charlie said emphatically as he stirred the campfire with a stick. “There’s nothing for me there anymore, and I’m bound to travel west.”

Across the clearing, some of the cattle started milling and snorting.

“That pen we threw up won’t hold those critters back if they decide to run,” Ed said. “Go calm them down, Charlie.”

Charlie grabbed the reins to his pony and walked it out of the light of the campfire toward the pen.

“He’s a good kid,” Ed said when Charlie was out of earshot, “but he’s got a ways to go to make a hand.”

“Maybe so, if he sticks at it,” Kerney replied.

Ed nodded. “After Cal gunned Frank down, Charlie took him to town to be buried. He lost a week’s wages doing it and gave the undertaker half a month’s wages to have him buried proper with a preacher saying words and a marker placed and all. Now, that’s brotherly love.”

“Losing close kin can be hard,” Kerney said, “especially a brother.”

“True enough.” Ed smiled, showing the gap where his two upper front teeth used to be, and spit a wad of tobacco juice on the ground. “I watched you eye that broomtail roan pony back at the remuda before we struck out.”

“Did you?”

Ed laughed and nodded. “Couldn’t wait for you to mount up. Wanted to see if your feet drug along the ground when you rode it. You weren’t for sure thinking of cutting it out to ride, were you?”

“No,” Kerney replied, smiling back at Ed. “I just liked the look of it and thought about a young boy I knew it would suit.” He remembered the image of Timmy, who sat a horse just like his father, galloping that pony across the plains. The memory dug into him like the thorns of a Texas ebony. “Is it owned by the outfit?” he asked.

“It surely is,” Ed answered. “I was there when Sam Wilcox bought a string of horses for the ranch, including that pony. Sam picked out that bay with the flame on his forehead that he favors and paid his own hard cash money for it. Got the best of the lot.”

Kerney held his breath to keep from prodding Ed with more questions, hoping he’d volunteer additional information.

Ed cocked an ear and listened. “Appears Charlie has those cows settled down,” he said.

Kerney swallowed his disappointment and nodded in agreement.

“He’s an easy boy to like,” Ed added, “although he gets riled if you call him that.”

“I’d say his boyhood days are pretty much behind him,” Kerney replied.

“That’s the truth of it.” Ed paused again to listen for a spell. “Yep, everything’s nice and quiet.”

Kerney stood and reached for his saddle. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Fine by me.” Ed stretched out on his blanket.

Kerney gave up his attempt to be cautious. “Who sold those horses to Sam Wilcox?”

“Don’t rightly remember his name. But Cal Doran seemed to know him. Both cut from the same cloth, I’d say—men intent on doing no good.”

“Does anyone ride that roan pony?”

“Cook does once in a while when he goes deer hunting. I ain’t seen anyone else on it.”

In the light of the full moon, Kerney saddled his horse and mounted up. “I’ll send Charlie in. Tell him he’s got third watch.”

“That boy has taken a shine to you,” Ed added, “and he may need as many friends as he can find.”

“Meaning?”

“I think Cal Doran has a grudge against Charlie over what his brother done.”

“Can Charlie count you among his friends?” Kerney asked.

“Yes, indeed, but I don’t plan on getting killed on account of it.”

“That’s prudent,” Kerney said as he turned his horse and trotted away.

Ed Pearl watched Kerney and his horse fade into a ghostly shape in the pale light of the full moon and then disappear. The sky was clear and full of stars. The night would cool down some, but tomorrow promised to be a scorcher. He wondered what held Kerney’s interest about those horses. He dozed off thinking the man had something pressing on his mind.

5

J
ohn Kerney finally met Cal Doran at dawn on the morning Sam Wilcox started the herd west to New Mexico Territory. He’d brought all the cowboys together, and as the men drank their coffee and ate breakfast, he told them to divide the herd into thirds and keep them apart on the trail until they reached good grass and water. Each drove would have a separate crew and trail boss, who’d report directly to Wilcox. Along with some other hands, Kerney, Charlie Gambel, and Ed Pearl were put under Buck Moore and given the job of herding the tailing bunch, which prompted Ed Pearl to whisper that they’d be eating dirt and dust for a month or more.

After Wilcox finished, Kerney sought out Cal Doran and sized up the man as he approached. Except for his low-slung pistol, nothing about him seemed hard case. He matched Kerney’s six-foot height and in spite of a bushy mustache had a boyish look about him. Kerney introduced himself and Doran responded with an easy smile and a firm handshake.

“I hear you might have some news for me out of Dodge City,” Kerney said.

Doran nodded. “A shopkeeper was asking his customers about you by name. He wanted anybody who crossed your trail to pass on a message that your widowed sister-in-law had run off with some man and took your son with her.”

“Did he say where she’d gone?”

Doran shrugged. “North a ways, if I recall correctly. Nebraska or Wyoming. I don’t think the shopkeeper was sure himself where she’d lit out for. But he seemed glad to see the last of her. Said she was a little touched in the head from what had happened to her family and all.”

“Did he say who she’d left with?” Kerney asked.

“I don’t recollect him mentioning a name,” Doran replied. “But he did say that he expected you to settle accounts for your son’s room and board.”

“I’ll surely do that,” Kerney said, wondering if Ida’s brother had run through all the money Kerney had given her to care for the baby when he’d sent her off to Dodge City on the wagon train. Or maybe Ida herself, in a weakened state of mind, had let her coin purse spring a leak.

Kerney changed the subject. “I understand you know the man who sold Sam Wilcox some horses for the remuda a short while back.”

Doran’s pleasant expression vanished. “Maybe I do, but I’d need to know your business with him before I give you a name.”

Kerney shrugged. “From the way Ed Pearl described him, I thought he might be a friend I served with during the war.”

Doran’s agreeable expression returned. He shook his head and chuckled. “Now, I hear you were a blue coat in the war, so unless you shook hands with a Johnny Reb across a picket line during a pause in the fighting, I surely doubt it. He’s a true son of Texas by the name of Dick Turknet, and he rode with a band of Confederate raiders who weren’t known for their genteel nature. He’s got a hard crust, if you get my drift.”

“I do,” Kerney said. “Mind me asking if you have a grudge against Charlie Gambel because of his brother’s thievery?”

Cal Doran laughed. “That boy Charlie surely has a fanciful turn of mind. I don’t know how many brushpoppers he’s convinced that I’m itching do him in. I put his brother, Frank, in his grave because of the stealing he did, and that’s the end of it. And while I think young Charlie isn’t the innocent little peckerwood he makes himself out to be, I’ve no personal reason to call him out.”

Doran pulled his gloves out of his belt and started walking toward his horse. “It appears you and Charlie will be at the back end of the drive, eating trail dust for a time.”

“Appears so,” Kerney replied as he kept pace.

“I noticed that Double K brand on your horse,” Doran said. “Someone handy with a running iron wouldn’t have much trouble altering it, if he were a mind to. Bet it might even come out looking like the brand on Sam Wilcox’s fine new bay. But then I’ve always thought Dick and his cousins admired other people’s horseflesh too much.”

“Do Turknet’s cousins have names?” Kerney asked.

“I’m done talking about Dick and his lot,” Doran replied. “I’ve no need to get myself in a squabble with him.”

“I had no mind to drag you into my business,” Kerney said.

Cal nodded. “I appreciate that.”

Over at the remuda, Buck Moore was signaling Kerney to get a move on.

“I’d keep an eye peeled on that boy Charlie, if I were you,” Doran added as he swung into his saddle. “He’s useless and probably ain’t fit to shoot at except for target practice. Still, he might need some killing before we get paid off at the end of the drive. See you when we reach water.”

Kerney touched a finger to the brim of his hat in response, mounted, and trotted his horse toward Buck, who waited at the corral. Although he didn’t think Charlie Gambel was as bad a kid as Doran made him out to be, the boy lacked the gumption needed to make a hand. Kerney decided it might be wise to keep Cal’s words in mind. He found himself inclined to like the man in spite of his outlaw reputation.

* * *

C
harlie Gambel sorely missed the company of his brother, Frank, laid dead by Cal Doran. Days back, he’d considered asking John Kerney to write his mother telling of Frank’s death, but he let the idea die unspoken for fear that the news might put the law onto him.

Truth was, no matter how lonesome he felt without Frank around, Charlie wasn’t about to head home, not after all the stealing and robbing they’d done coming west. And even if he did avoid the passel of lawmen looking for him in Arkansas and East Texas, all that waited for him in Tennessee was backbreaking work on a farm that barely made a dime and a dollar in a good year and a drunken father with a mean streak who’d whipped his two sons one too many times.

Even before he buried Frank, Charlie decided he’d stay with the outfit until it got to New Mexico Territory, draw his pay, and strike out for the gold camps around Silver City. He’d stake a claim and, if luck was with him, find a vein of silver or pan a stream filled with gold nuggets. If that didn’t work out, he could always return to thieving for a stake and ride down into Old Mexico to avoid the law, or push on farther west to California.

But now Charlie wasn’t so sure about staying with the drive. He’d originally thought that working from the back side of a horse would be a lot easier than wrestling a plow behind a team of cantankerous mules. Fact was, it was worse, especially riding drag day in and day out, prodding a bunch of weak, hungry, and thirsty cattle that trailed behind the two main herds several miles ahead.

He wanted to shoot the starving mother cows, their bony calves, and the scrawny half-dead yearlings that made up the herd and be done with it. Then if he had his druthers, just for fun he’d shoot the pack of gaunt coyotes that followed close behind.

Today he rode left drag, and it was well nigh intolerable with the wind blowing dust from the herd straight at him. Even with his neckerchief over his face and his hat pulled low, it wasn’t enough to keep the sand out of his eyes. His mouth and throat felt like he’d been eating dirt and chewing cactus thorns for a week or more. Not only were the wind, sun, sand, and dust about all a body could bear, but he itched from top to bottom, to the point of painful distraction.

Four thousand animals were strung out over ten miles of nothing but parched grass, dry water holes, and thick brush, and the pace was damnably slow. By noontime each day the cattle kicked up so much dirt that even with no wind to speak of, the haze was thick enough to weaken the glare of the blinding sun. Every night Charlie looked skyward, hoping for a sign that a rip-roaring gulley washer would come along and give everything a good soaking, but the sky held nary a cloud.

Across the way, he could make out John Kerney working a reluctant mother cow and her calf back toward the slow-moving, lowing animals. Up ahead, Ed Pearl rode flank with a few other boys to keep some cattle from breaking for the brush, where they’d be lost for good.

The stragglers that couldn’t keep up were left behind for the coyotes, wolves, and buzzards to pick over. When the coyotes made a kill, the wolves closed in and drove them away with enough yipping, barking, snarling, and howling to wake a man up from a sound sleep. Charlie figured Robertson had lost about twenty cows so far.

Charlie was choking on some dust in his gullet when Ed Pearl rode up and told him there was water one day’s drive farther on.

“You look a sight,” he added with a smile. “Push them critters along, now. Wilcox wants the herd bedded down by dusk. Cook is bringing water back from the river.”

“Enough water so I can wash my face?” Charlie asked.

“Doubtful,” Ed replied. “Besides, you look more agreeable when no one can see that ugly mug of yours.”

“You’re a whole lot uglier than me, old man,” Charlie shot back with a snarl.

“No need to get put out, Charlie,” Ed replied with a chuckle. “You’re as touchy as a riled rattlesnake. Now, move those cows before Buck comes back here and gives us both a tongue lashing.”

When the herd was settled and the early night riders sent out, the cowboys that remained in camp talked over a meal of warmed-up beans, biscuits, beef, and coffee thick enough to eat with a spoon about the prospects of freshwater come one more sundown and what the cattle might do once they caught scent of it. Stories of past stampedes circulated among the men, most with dire warnings of deadly consequences suffered by careless cowboys.

Not about to wait another day for water, Charlie left the waddies to their stories and pondered a plan. If he lit out before dawn on a fast horse he could make the river crossing with nobody missing him till he was long gone. And if he did take off, there would be no coming back, so he’d first need to steal a few things he could sell for ready cash.