“OKAY, HALLIDAY, TIME to earn your keep.”
Being awakened from a restful sleep didn’t worry Buck Halliday nearly as much as the kick in the ribs that preceded the command. He lay completely still, peering up into the darkness until he could make out the figure of Clay Horden above him.
“Your watch,” the trail boss said. “Relieve Sweeney. You know where he’s at.”
Halliday threw his blanket back and rose, fully dressed except for his boots and gunbelt. He reached for the gunbelt first, and as he flung it around his waist, Horden sneered.
“Guess you think you know how to use that, too, eh?” Halliday buckled up the belt and moved the gun up and down in the holster.
“The next time you sink a boot into my ribs, you’ll see just how good I am,” he said, then sat down and pulled on his boots. Horden remained standing over him, glowering. “Listen, wise-ass, let’s get one thing straight. I don’t want you on this drive, but since Mr. Beebe’s seen fit to sign you on, I’ll make the best of it. But you do like I say, and when I say it.”
Halliday finished pulling on his boots and stood up. The night was quiet around them, except for the lazy movement of some of the cattle who were still grazing.
“You finished?” Halliday asked.
“That’s about it, except you steer clear of Ella, too. I see you so much as even lookin’ at her, I’ll beat your head in.”
About to move away, Halliday turned slowly and said;
“I look where I like. That’s how it is with me, so I wouldn’t try to change it.”
“I’d make you change your ways but for the fact that we’d spook the cattle,” Horden scowled.
“Name the time and place,” Halliday told him, picking up his saddle and heading for the picket line and his sorrel.
When he had it saddled, he swung up and made his way along the side of the herd, seeing Lee Trent and Jim Sweeney slowly circling the herd in opposite directions. When they met, Halliday joined them and said;
“Time for a break, boys.”
Sweeney looked surprised. “You with us on the drive?”
“So Mr. Beebe said.”
“Don’t that beat all, Lee,” Sweeney beamed. “Here we was figurin’ we were lucky not to get thrown in a cell, but dammit, our luck’s still holdin’. You met Buck?”
A gangling, scrawny young man who sat his horse confidently, Trent nodded easily.
“He’ll make things interestin’, I bet.”
“You goin’ to tell us about them Partridge girls, Buck? All the details I mean,” Sweeney asked, unable to hide his interest.
Halliday looked from one young man to the other, knowing their friendship would be vital during the hard days and long nights ahead. Horden had made it clear that he wasn’t going to go out of his way to make him feel welcome, Beebe would be busy keeping a close eye on his daughter, Lascombe would mostly confine himself to the chuck wagon. So these two would be Halliday’s only saddlepards.
“What could I tell a couple hell-raisers like you about anythin’?”
Sweeney eyed him speculatively. “You joshin’ me, Buck?”
“No. Didn’t I see you join in that saloon fight with Trent right alongside you?”
Trent also eyed Halliday speculatively, then checked with Sweeney.
“I think you are joshin’ us, Buck. By hell, that ain’t no way to start with us.”
Halliday put his hands up in mock apology. “Easy, boys. All I’m sayin’ is I’m nothin’ but a drifter—old and mighty raw. Compared to you two, I don’t reckon I rate.”
Sweeney’s head came up sharply and his stare hardened. “You figure I didn’t see you beat the stuffin’ outta Kel and his brother, then fling Coulson over his counter? And you ain’t got as much as a scratch on you, Buck.”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Halliday told him.
“Like hell!” Sweeney snorted. “I seen how fast you were. So don’t go on with all that malarkey about us being better’n you. Hell, if it comes down to it, we ain’t goin’ to back down, you can bet, but we ain’t out to prove anythin’.”
“Neither am I.”
Halliday sensed the youngsters were becoming more uppity than he had intended. Hadn’t he been the same when he was their age, when he came to realize that he was alone in the world with nobody close to ask for help?
“I need this job and I’d like it to run smooth. You help me and I’ll help you.”
“How in hell—?” Sweeney began, but Halliday cut him off.
“I’m one out ... I’d like it to be three.”
Sweeney brightened and looked at Trent again. “That a deal, Lee?”
“On one condition,” Trent said.
“Name it,” Halliday invited.
“We’ll be pards if you tell us all about them Partridge gals. We maybe ain’t all that experienced with women, but we c’n tell when you’re lyin’.”
“It’s a deal,” Halliday told him.
Sweeney turned his horse and looked toward the campfires, which were now little more than flickering embers.
“Great. We got a lot of desert in front of us and I guess we’ll have to take turns protectin’ the herd. But soon’s we get close to Pebble Ridge, in maybe a week’s time, Mr. Beebe’s gonna let the cattle fatten in a lush valley four miles outside town. I reckon we should lay up there for two, three days, and there won’t be much for anybody to do but get the dust outta our hair and throats. Then you tell us, eh, and leave nothin’ out.”
When Halliday nodded, Trent moved his horse alongside Sweeney’s, nodded a silent good night to Halliday then led the way along the side of the herd. As soon as they had disappeared, Halliday heeled his sorrel behind the herd and looked up at the night sky.
He figured it was two hours to sunup and Lascombe would have breakfast ready and everybody would have eaten before he’d finished his shift. Then Horden would get the herd moving.
Halliday smiled to himself, knowing the trail boss would make things hard on him. But he had known it hard before ... and by meaner men than Clay Horden. He let his sorrel circle the herd, wondering how big a burr Horden had under his saddle.
Ella Beebe came quickly to mind ...
Buck Halliday was right about Clay Horden on one score. Under the noise of striking camp, the cattle were struggling to their feet and beginning to mill about, and Halliday had his work cut out keeping them bunched. Finally, Sweeney relieved him, but before he had finished eating, Horden had the herd on the move. Handing his plate back to the cook, he said;
“No insult intended to your cooking, Hal, but maybe I’ll have more time to clean my plate tomorrow.”
“I doubt it,” Hal Lascombe said.
Halliday rode out and took up his position on the far side of the herd. He rode alone for the rest of the morning, eating plenty of dust. From time to time, Sweeney or Trent would drift back to have a brief word—more because they felt sorry for him, he knew. But he didn’t feel sorry for himself, he had always accepted what life threw up at him. If it was hard, he dealt with it.
He saw little of Horden that morning, just the occasional glimpse of the trail boss riding point. Halliday guessed Ella was riding the other point. They drove the herd across the hot sand with little trouble. A few stragglers attempted a breakout but were quickly driven back.
It was noon before Halliday caught sight of Beebe. It was obvious that the old man’s worries were already taking their toll. Ten days of this heat and Halliday knew the man would be spent.
“Bad back here?” Beebe asked, drawing rein and turning his head away from the choking dust.
“Not good,” Halliday admitted.
“It’s not going to change and I won’t be able to do much to relieve you.”
“Just so we keep the herd moving. Everything’s got to end sometime.”
Beebe wiped a layer of dust from his mouth.
“That fight in Calico Creek upset my plans. I’d been planning this drive for a month. With three more men, we could have made better time through here. There’s plenty of good graze and water on the other side. I figured by the time we reached Pebble Ridge we’d be able to spend a lazy week or two.”
“We’ll make it,” Halliday assured him.
“I don’t think you’ll let me down but it’s not you I’m worried about. It’s the young ’uns. They’re good men and I know their hearts are in the right places, but I’m not sure I can count on them in a crisis—they’re too inexperienced.”
“Have Cookie put his pans away and I doubt there’ll be any more trouble,” Halliday told him. “As long as you keep Clay Horden well out of my hair.”
Beebe turned quickly to study him, and asked;
“You don’t take to Clay?”
“I can take him or leave him, I guess.”
Beebe continued to look troubled. “Clay’s a good man, works hard, thinks ahead. If he’d been involved in the Calico Creek trouble, I’d really be in a bind.”
“I didn’t see him in town,” Halliday said quietly. “Doesn’t he like crowds?”
“He likes them well enough. It was because of his loyalty to me that he stayed with the herd and let the others have a break.”
“Nice gesture,” Halliday said flatly, and his tone caused Beebe to frown.
“I think it was,” he said sharply.
“So Horden’s a thoughtful trail boss. That what you came back here to tell me, Mr. Beebe?”
“I came back to check on how you were finding things, and I’m pleased to discover that you know what you’re doing. But if your attitude remains as it is, I can’t see why I should worry about you again.”
“I can handle my end, Mr. Beebe,” Halliday told him. “You handle the rest.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” Beebe said sharply, and swung his horse away.
Halliday wheeled the sorrel and rode off in the opposite direction.
The drive stopped an hour after noon and Jim Sweeney came back to relieve Halliday.
It was the cook who told him the herd would stop each day for two hours to avoid traveling in the worst of the heat—also that Ella Beebe had been sent on ahead to scout for likely campsites. Over a good-sized plate of stew, Halliday asked;
“Knowin’ how hard this drive might be, why did Mr. Beebe sign on two inexperienced cowhands?”
“He didn’t,” Hal Lascombe told him.
When Halliday eyed the cook curiously, Lascombe added; “Luke Kennedy is about the best man with a horse that I’ve ever come across. He c’n be wild at times, but once he’s ’round cattle or horses, he’s as much at home as a cactus in a desert.”
“Yet he lost his temper and got himself thrown in jail.”
“Funny thing, that,” Lascombe mused.
Halliday wiped his plate clean with a chunk of corn bread and reached for his coffee. On one side of the herd, he could see Trent idly sitting his horse. Further back, Sweeney was circling behind. Looking across the dusty backs of the cattle, he saw Clarence Beebe holding the left flank quiet, but there was no sign of Clay Horden. Halliday figured that with another three cowhands on the payroll, this drive would have been a breeze.
“So you didn’t expect Kennedy to lose his temper, knowing that Mr. Beebe depended on him?” Halliday finally asked.
“No. Even when thet ruckus started, with Partridge and his boys crowdin’ you, I still didn’t figure Luke was gonna buy in. I thought he’d mebbe break a couple chairs, hoot and holler a bit, then stay outta it. Guess things just got away from him.”
“And the others?”
“I was mostly concerned with gettin’ Trent and Sweeney away, so I didn’t actually see what Rosen and Goode did. Mebbe thet barkeep panicked. Maybe he picked out the wrong men for Whittaker to lock up.”
“The barkeep had it right,” Halliday said. “Kennedy and his friends gave it everythin’ they had. For mine, they wouldn’t have stopped even if the roof caved in.”
Lascombe seemed deeply confused. “Ain’t like them, I tell you. Musta been the heat. But sure enough, they got themselves out of this drive and I guess we’ve seen the last of ’em. How you comin’ along?”
“I’m making out.”
Lascombe grinned. “Figured you would. But Horden’s gonna make it hard on you.”
“Why?”
“He’s sure enough got it in fer you. Just before we started the drive this mornin’, he was at Mr. Beebe again, tellin’ him what a big mistake he was makin’ takin’ you on. But Mr. Beebe said that he didn’t have a choice, bein’ so short-handed.”
“So what’s Horden got against me?” Halliday asked.
“You don’t know?” Lascombe asked, making no attempt to hide his surprise.
Halliday shook his head.
“Hell, that talk about you and those twins got right up his nose, no mistake.”
“Is he keen on them?” Halliday inquired.
“Could be. If I was a couple years younger, I’d be in there tryin’ my luck with Dora. But I don’t reckon Clay would, even if he wanted her. He’s got his sights on Miss Ella.”
Halliday accepted this without showing surprise.
“She set on him, too?”
“Hard to tell about Miss Ella,” Lascombe shrugged. “She ain’t exactly the kind who airs her thoughts. Plays her cards close to her chest, an’ that sure is some chest.”
Halliday smiled and finished his coffee, feeling he had a better understanding of how things were now.
He rose and thanked Lascombe for the meal and swung onto his sorrel again. He was about to ride back to take his place with the herd when Ella came riding toward him. There was plenty of dust in her hair and on her clothes, and her face was flushed from the heat. Halliday removed his hat and gave her a nod, but she merely looked him over then turned to Lascombe and asked him to pour her a mug of coffee. As he rode out, Halliday heard Lascombe ask her;
“Any water up ahead, Miss Ella?”
“None that I could find, Hal,” she replied.
“Be seven, eight days crossing this stretch of hell, Miss Ella, so you keep at it, huh? I c’n look after the crew, but the cattle are gonna cause a heap of damn trouble if they don’t get to water soon.”
“Don’t I know it,” Halliday heard the young woman say, then he saw Sweeney riding toward him, a troubled look on his young face.
“Mr. Horden just come by, Buck. He said you was to ride drag while I get some rest. I said maybe you should get a break from back there, too, but he told me to do as I was told or draw my pay.”
“Who’d want to ride drag if they didn’t have to, Jim?” Halliday grinned easily.
Sweeney sucked in a long breath. “Well, I don’t reckon it’s fair, Buck. Lee and me don’t mind takin’ turns.”
“Do what the boss says, Jim, and you’ll stay outta trouble,” Halliday told him, and rode to the back of the herd.