CHAPTER 20
Loading the first cattle began four days later. Things had gone smoothly aside from a rogue steer having to be roped and dragged to the rail yard after he had a wild party of horning hitched horses, chasing honest women off the street screaming, fighting some town curs, and wrecking a horse-watering trough and two hitch rails. The ex-bull was being dragged by two cowpony riders to the loading pens with a lariat on his right leg attached to the third cowboy’s horn to hold him from charging anything else.
Long, who rode up at the end of it all, laughed. It took three of them to bring him to submission.
“Thanks, guys . . . our bill for repairs won’t cost you over eighty apiece.”
The hands shook their heads and rode on past him and Jan on their horses.
“You really won’t charge them for the damages will you?” she asked.
“No, and they know it.”
“Good. I never saw any men as hardworking and determined as your outfit. Many are hardly more than boys but they do work, and loading all these cattle with no more outbreaks than that one is a miracle.”
He agreed. They should be shutting the door on the last cattle car for that first herd that afternoon. He sure hoped so anyway. Harp was to meet them for lunch at the Cattleman’s Restaurant. Katy sent him a letter that everything at home was fine and neither his father nor Hoot had mentioned any more trouble since they left for Abilene.
Herd two had arrived and so had three. The only serious occurrence was the one cowboy from herd two who had drowned at the Red River crossing. His body was not recovered and Long knew Chaw was upset.
Harp was there with Frank Ransom and Justin Coble from the National Cattle Buyers, Incorporated. Both men wore suits and derby hats they removed for Jan when they sat down.
Frank made her welcome and asked if she really enjoyed the trip up.
“I really did. I have worked cattle all my life, and it was a great adventure.”
“Most women would run away from such a task.”
She shook her head. “Before Long and I met, my ex-man and three cowboys, in sixty days, gathered and branded five hundred mavericks out of the south Texas brush. Now that was real work. The drive up here was a sleigh ride. I never rode in one, just heard about how smooth they were.”
“My, my, I am impressed.”
“No need in that. A gal just does what she has to do in Texas. This was my opportunity to see the Indian Territory and Kansas. A little cow chousing never hurt me none.”
“Jan is a Texas cowgirl,” Harp said.
“Well, Mrs. O’Malley, I am pleased to meet you, be assured, and so is Justin.”
He nodded.
They turned in their food order to the waiter.
“Frank told me this morning the last three herds could be sold at a five-dollar discount from the first. I sold them,” Harp said.
Long agreed. That wasn’t as bad as he had thought it might have been, ending up lots lower. Good. They had them all sold. When they got the second herd loaded, he and Jan might head home with some of the men.
The bunch back in Texas was spread way too thin if trouble began to brew again. And he felt certain that it would. The herds were now all in Abilene and it was a miracle that they had only had two deaths. Sad, but still, a miracle.
“Will you bring this many herds next year?” Justin asked as they ate their chicken-fried steak, green beans, mashed potatoes, and yeast rolls with coffee.
“We hope to.”
“They are talking about moving the loading spot next year south to Cottonwood Falls where the railroad track will be by then.”
“Save us a few miles,” Harp said.
“Oh, hell, it won’t be the same,” Justin said. “And we just got Abilene up to being half pleasurable. What is that town’s name? Anyway it is some dried-up farmer’s village.”
“Winfield I think.”
“Won’t be the same.”
There was lots of talk of more and larger processing packing plants in Chicago gearing up to do more slaughter business. Frank thought Chicago would be a much larger market in the future than St. Louis. Long didn’t give a damn what they did, but expansion meant more markets so that pleased him. These two were all right, but they had such airs about themselves they really got under his skin. Lunch with them was enough. Leave the rest to his brother. He liked straightforward talk like he got at home from ranchers and storekeepers. He almost laughed with their haughty talking about some big businessman inviting them to his mansion and what they served. And, oh, how his old French wine was so superb.
Going back to the hotel room he and Jan had, he slapped his knee laughing. “Did you get a little tired hearing about Crabtree and the fancy meal he served them?”
“Heavens, Long, I’d take a real Texas mesquite barbecue to any of that junk.”
When they reached the boardwalk on the farside, he swung her around and kissed her with a “Me too” on the end of it. Right there in downtown Abilene under the bright Kansas sunshine and he didn’t care who saw them do that, either.
They went laughing all the way to the hotel.
They hadn’t been back to the room very long when a knock came on the door.
Hat in hand it was Kirby Drone, one of the hands, and out of breath.
“Mister O’Malley, they’ve done shot Boone Allen and may kill the rest of them boys behind the corrals at the rail yard. I didn’t know who to ask for help. Clerk said you were up here.” He was still deep-breathing.
Long reached for the coatrack and gun holster, strapping it on while Kirby leaned on the doorjamb to recover his breath.
“How many are against them?”
“A bunch.”
“Harp is at the cattle buyers’ office. Can you get him?”
“I can, sir. But I don’t know about—”
“I’ll see to him. Get Harp.” Then he turned and told Jan to stay there until he came back.
He silenced her with a kiss and tore out behind the man. They scrambled down the stairs and out into the street. He spotted one of the men riding by and shouted, “Bring me that horse. They have some of our boys treed behind the loading pens.”
The boy reined over, jumped down, stuttering what could he do?
“Get more boys.” He bolted in the saddle, tore the horse’s head around, and dodged him in and out of the street traffic. He arrived behind the pens in a sliding halt and reined the horse to the right.
He saw the smoke of a pistol being fired at him by someone standing there. He whipped out his .45 and returned fire. The shooter had missed him, but Long didn’t and the man went down.
The horse slid on his heels getting sat down. And several of the gathered were running away in all directions.
“Who did this to you, Boone?” he asked on his knees, looking over the obviously shot youth.
“Those bastards—you remember when we passed their herd back down there in Texas.”
“They found us huh?”
“Yes, sir, and they ain’t getting paid to go home, either.”
“That bullet hurting you bad?”
“Bad enough.” Boone nodded, tight-lipped.
“We need to find you a doctor—” Long turned at the sound of a man’s voice of authority.
“What in the hell happened here anyway?” The man talking to him had a big mustache and a badge.
“Some lowlife shot one of my hands. We need a way to convey him to a doctor.”
The lawman’s face formed a frown at his words. “Injun, where did you learn to talk like that?”
“Half Indian. This boy works for my firm and needs medical care. My name is Long O’Malley and I am part of the O’Malley Brothers Land and Cattle Company. That dead man over there I shot in self-defense—he was shooting at me.”
“Hickok is my name . . . most folks call me Bill or William. You got any name on the rest of those shooters?”
“I’ll find them. Right now this boy’s medical attention is more important.”
“Skipper, get us a wagon to carry him to Doc Proctor, he’s the best at gunshot wounds. His house is only a block and a half away. See me afterward, O’Malley. Boys, let’s all of us settle down. Things will be fine.”
Then Hickok told the guy he called Skipper to load the dead man in another wagon headed for the undertaker.
Harp and Kirby were there by then. Skipper found them a wagon and they lifted Boone into it, his pal Kirby going with him.
“Tell them your bosses will pay the bill,” Long shouted after him.
“I can handle it, sir.” Kirby jumped on the wagon to go along with Boone.
Harp asked Long, “What happened here besides Boone being shot?”
“Those boys from that herd we passed down in Texas shot him, I guess, for passing them.”
Harp shook his head in amazement. “Guess folks hold grudges.”
“They do. Anyway I see Jan coming. We’ll handle the doc business, but we better warn the others about this threat.”
“I will do that tonight. Is he real bad off?”
“He was bleeding. It was in his left shoulder.”
“We can talk later; go on down there. You kill a man?”
“He shot at me. I told them it was self-defense. They didn’t act like they had time for it and packed him off.”
“Reconsidering the whole thing, you may face a grand jury or revenge from that other outfit. I am sending two men to back you at the doctor’s office. Don’t say no. These are desperate times. Jan and I need you.”
She frowned. “I dang sure do.”
Long laughed and shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”
“I am going to be damn sure you are. Watch him,” he said to her, and turned on his heel.
“I will, Harp.”
They headed for the doctor’s office under the heating-up sun to check on Boone.
“This was over passing that bunch down in Texas?” she asked, hurrying along beside him.
“Boone said it was. He was the one they shot.”
“People have gone crazy.”
He agreed and led her across the traffic-crowded street. On edge that those shooters weren’t through—he eyed everyone in the crowds and on the sidewalk hurrying in case there was someone looking for him. When he shut the door of the house where the yard sign said DOCTOR HALE PROCTOR, he felt better to have her out of harm’s way.
A woman in white met him.
“You have my cowboy Boone here?”
“Yes. They are removing the bullet. Will you have a seat in the living room? Doctor Proctor will tell you all about it when he finishes.”
“Fine. Thank you.”
Behind his glasses, the gray-headed small man introduced himself as the physician. “Your employee should be fine in a few days. We have the bullet out of his shoulder. Barring an infection he should be back to his work in six weeks. He is a very tough young man.”
Long agreed. “Should one of us stay here?”
“No. He will be fine. I had them give him some painkiller to sleep. Rest will increase his recovery.”
“Will the damage cripple him?”
The doctor shook his head. “He may never know they did it.”
“Good. He works for us and is a valuable man.”
“We will get him well.”
“Thanks. Some of us will be by to check on him tomorrow. Good evening.”
He and Jan lost no time heading for supper at the Cottage. They were there early enough to get seated and had turned in their food order, when a man in Texas-style clothing stopped at their table. He had an expensive-looking, weathered felt hat in his hand. “Ma’am, excuse me, but my name is Clyde Nelson and, well, I live in the same area down there in Texas you all live at. I wanted to introduce myself. I own some land inside your new ranch. It was my grandfather’s and he earned it in the war for Texas Independence. It is a full section. We have not used it for years, but they say you are buying land inside the borders.”
“Have a seat, Clyde,” Long said.
“No. I’ve been in the saddle a lot—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jan said. “Haven’t we all?”
“Yes. Thank you, ma’am.” He took a chair.
“After you introduced yourself, I remember seeing the name on my map. You don’t use the place?”
“It is very isolated . . . my brother and my wife wouldn’t consider it. My grandfather loved it and died there. My mother told my father if she had to live down there she would not marry him. He built a ranch west of Kerrville. And he and I talked about selling the place.”
“There is no ranch headquarters left?”
“Oh, I was there three years ago, and the house was boarded up and it is in good shape. Corrals are not. But it does have an eight-acre natural lake, which is why he took up that land. It is an unusual feature.”
“Very unusual. Six thousand dollars.”
“These cattle drives have raised the price of land haven’t they?”
“I would say so, Clyde. When Harp and I took eight hundred head to Missouri two years ago, you’d have had to pay someone to take it off your hands.”
Clyde raised his hat brim with a finger. “You are right. When I get back home I’ll talk to my dad and brother. I think you are making a fair offer. We’d like to buy some more land out our way; we can see prices soaring with this cattle money coming home even at a lower price than last year.”
“Exactly why Harp bought the big parcel when it was on sale. I didn’t get home until Christmas and he had already bought it.”
“Long, your brother is a real businessman. People all over say he may be the smartest man in west Texas.”
Clyde ordered his food.
“Harp is a smart guy. But two years ago we were near Sedalia, Missouri, facing an army out to kill us. He whipped up on their big man and then hired him and his men to work for us to deliver the cattle.”
“I’d not heard that story, but I knew you had plenty of opposition going up there. The war wasn’t over was it?”
Jan shook her head. “You two were at Fort Worth when they said Lee had surrendered?”
“Captain thought since the guard in the west was pretty thin we could skirt Van Buren, Arkansas, and get around the army and go on to the railhead.”
“Boy, you were lucky Lee surrendered.”
Long put down his fork and smiled before he sipped his coffee. Then said, “No, we were dedicated to do that job. There won’t ever be a force like them. Captain was going to pay us fifteen bucks a month if we got them through.”
“Cheap help.”
“Not really. There were no jobs at all in Texas, no money, nothing down there. It made the two of us tell Mom why we’d be rich coming home.”
“I see.”
“Those two have come a long ways, haven’t they?” Jan asked him.
“Yes, and I am honestly jealous because I could have done it if I’d seen the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was in Sedalia.”
“It was for us.”
“How did you find her?”
“You want me to tell it or you do it?” he asked his wife.
“I was married to a good honest man. An old man who lived up around Waco decided I needed to leave him and be his slave. My husband became so angry, he went off to find them and shot two of them—they killed him. Some ranch hands and I tried to hold the ranch together. They ran them off and came by, kidnapped, and doped me. I pretended to be more doped than I was and managed to escape them. But I passed out. Fell off my horse. He wandered off to Long’s camp who was just passing through. From there Long planted three of the old man’s boys and had him and his other sons arrested. Then deputies shot them.”
“Wow I never heard that story.”
“We’ve been together ever since.”
“Nothing comes easy, does it?”
“No, but I’m lucky. Not only for finding her, but our first cattle drive. Sure we broke some new ground, but I don’t think we’d ever be where we are had the captain not hired us to help drive his cattle to the railroad site at Sedalia.”
“I savvy that. Someone had to do it to show us all how. Why a longhorn cow prior to that wasn’t worth nothing.”
“Damn little and our dad must’ve saw something. We were branding mavericks hard—people almost laughed at his effort. Turns out they are all worth money.”
“Hey when we get back home I’ll contact you.”
“I’ve got your supper,” he said. “Nice meeting you.”
“I guess you could afford it.”
“We’ll manage to do that.”
Walking back to their hotel room, Jam mentioned how polite their new friend acted toward them.
“He sounds real levelheaded. I want to see that lake he talks about.”
“You’ve never heard about it before?”
“No. But it will be neat to go find it.”
She agreed.
That night he wondered about the lake some more. They were a rare thing in his country—he and Jan would need to go see it. Oh, well, still lots more cattle to load, but financially things looked good for him and Harp.