McAllister knew what it was the instant that his tired mind snapped to consciousness.
Under him the earth shook. Far away in the night there came the popping of guns. But it was the fear that lunged coldly through him that told him the cows were running.
A man gave a startled yell, the tied horses tried to break loose, panic hit the remuda.
McAllister reached for a boot and heaved it on. As his hand touched the second he heard the most terrifying sound a drover could hear in the night – the sound of a stampede heading toward you. He got the second boot on and was on his feet running, cannoning into another man as he reared up from his blankets and sending him flying. He reached a horse, he couldn’t see whose, in the darkness and somehow got into the saddle.
He remembered Boss’s words: “If they run in the night, keep your head. Go with ’em. If you don’t yell or fire your fool gun under their noses to turn ’em, they’ll stay together and sometime they’ll stop runnin’.”
He rammed home the spurs as the first terrified animals hit the camp. He heard them go into the wagon and heard it turn over with a crash. And then the thunder almost reached him and he knew that his frightened pony was heading the herd, charging crazily ahead through the trees into the darkness. He got his head down and clung on. All he could do was ride and keep riding till the longhorns stopped. It was up to the horse, there was nothing he could do but cling on. If the animal put its foot in a hole they were both finished.
Once he looked back and in the starlight saw the sea of horns that he had heard crashing together all the while, saw the rolling eyes and the lolling tongues and prayed that the fact that horses were faster than cows was true. Once they hit a slope and strained up it. That slowed the cattle, but they attained speed again on the slope going down and McAllister feared they would run him into the ground. He spurred the little animal under him and got the right amount of speed from it.
How long they ran, he had no idea, but it seemed an eternity, but at last the pace started to slow. The flat run came down to a trot, the trot reduced itself to a walk. He did nothing except what Boss had told him to do. He stayed with them and before long they had stopped and one or two of them started grazing. Dawn found him cold and miserable with something like five hundred head of cattle, a bushed horse, no weapon of any kind but his knife and the rope on the saddle. He knew from the direction he had taken that he was now far into the state of Kansas. Which didn’t comfort a man much. He couldn’t hope to drive this many cattle and all he could do was wait there till some of the boys came and gave him a hand.
By noon he was hungry as hell and thinking that he would never see any of the boys again. Every time he saw a movement it was a Jayhawker. Finally, however, in the middle of the afternoon Curly Bent and Ike Doan came loping up.
McAllister was pretty glad to see them instead of a bunch of Kansas men. They told him they’d been rounding up strays and had only hit on his trail a short while ago. He thought they must have been stupid or blind, but he was too glad to see them to say so. Together, they got the cattle on the move back toward camp. Boss or no Boss, they moved them along. They wanted out of Kansas and to be well below the Nations line. Although McAllister questioned the two men, they could tell him nothing about what had happened back there at the camp. They had lit out with a bunch of running cows and had stayed with them with a couple of other fellows. They were driving them back to camp when they struck McAllister’s sign. They decided to divide up and here they were.
It was three hours of hard driving, keeping the cows at the trot and damn the tallow they ran off them, before they sighted camp. There seemed to be a couple of thousand other cows on the bedding ground, all looking rather the worse for wear and as if they hadn’t got another run in them. But McAllister wasn’t fooled. These cows would run again at the slightest excuse. They had found out it could be done. He helped the men throw their animals in with the main herd and looked around for Boss and couldn’t see him. He rode up toward the wagon. There were three men around it. Gus, the cook, was busy preparing food which he would have done under any circumstances. The wagon and Gus looked as though they had been through an osage hedge backward. The other two men were a cowhand named Jim Young with his arm in a sling and a Negro tophand named Sam Bostle.
As McAllister walked up, the cook handed him a mug of coffee. McAllister took it gratefully and sipped. Sam looked up at him. He was a tall gray-haired man in his middle-years and had been Boss Harding’s right-hand man for many years. It was said that before the war Sam had been his slave. Certainly there wasn’t a better man with cows in all Texas and that was saying something.
“Where’s Boss?’ McAllister asked.
Sam pointed with his chin. McAllister turned and saw the tarp, body-shaped and still.
Shock hit him.
Boss was dead.
“Trampled?” McAllister asked gently. He knew what Boss had meant to the Negro.
Sam nodded. McAllister walked across the camp, leaned down and lifted the tarp. He inspected the dead man closely. It was not a pleasant task, for there wasn’t much left of Boss that was recognisable. But there was something he noticed. He covered the body, straightened and walked back to the wagon.
“Sam,” he said, “Boss was trampled, but that wasn’t what killed him. He was shot twice. Once through the body and once in the head.”
Sam sighed.
“I didn’t think it possible the cows could have got him like that,” he said.
McAllister squatted, sipping the hot bitter coffee.
“What do you aim to do, Sam?” he asked.
The Negro raised his eyebrows.
“Me? Why, do whichever Boss would of done,” he said. “First thing, us hands’ll take things over and choose a corporal. Then we’ll work our way around east then head north for Combville, jest like Boss would of done.”
McAllister said: “We ain’t pickin’ no corporal, Sam. You’re tophand. Whatever Boss did you can do.”
“I’m a black man, boy,” Sam said.
“You never heard tell of a black trail boss?”
“I did.”
“Then you’re bossin’ this outfit. You know cows like nobody ever did. If there’s a man among us can get these critturs to Combville, you can. I ain’t puttin’ it to no vote. I’m tellin’ the boys you’ve took over an’ I’m backin’ you.”
Sam stared at him hard for a moment, then he said: “All right. I’ll do it.” He stood up. “Maybe we should ought to drift these cows back over the line. These Kansas men ain’t finished with us’ns yet.”
“Sam,” McAllister said, “I know you’re short-handed, but I don’t aim to go along with you.”
The Negro frowned.
“Rem, I need ever’ man I have.”
“Sure, I know that like I said. But I reckon we owe old Boss somethin’ too. I’m goin’ to pick my own horse outa the remuda an’ I’m goin’ to find the man that killed him.”
Sam said: “I know how you feel. I feel the same way. But there ain’t nothin’ you can do. There was a round dozen of them buzzards. An’ there’s more where they come from. You’re up against a hull state, Rem. You can’t do nothin’.”
“Look, Sam,” McAllister said, “if I want to go to hell, I’ll go in my own way. That fancy talkin’ son-of-a-bitch that come in an’ told Boss what was what he took our cows an’ he has to sell them some place. Quickest sale he can make is in Combville or some other burg along the line. That’s where I’ll find him. An’ when I do, I’m goin’ to plant him.”
He turned away and called to the remudero, a young farm boy on his first trip up the trail. The youngster caught up McAllister’s canelo horse and brought it over. McAllister quickly changed the bridle, blanket and saddle from the weary little bay he’d been riding onto the back of the California horse. He mounted and rode back toward the camp. He halted well clear of the cook and Gus called: “Got some chow for you to take along.”
McAllister took the rough parcel from Gus and stuffed it in the saddle-pocket. Gus stood watching him. When he had tied the pocket, Gus walked across to him.
“I’m going to push south with what I have, Rem,” he said. “Then I’m going to come back for the rest. I’m five hunnerd short. When I have them, I’ll head east thirty-forty miles, then going around north till I hit Combville. If I can’t reach there I’ll hit some other town. Take me maybe two-three weeks.”
“If I can hire some new hands, I’ll send ’em down to look for you-all.”
“You do that.”
They shook and McAllister mounted. He rode down to the herd and spoke to the boys guarding it. He talked to them one by one, telling them that Sam had taken over. Nobody argued; they all knew that he was the man with the most cow-savvy. He went on north, telling them he’d see them at the shipping point.