CHAPTER 11
Sun was cracking the eastern sky when every hand that worked for the O’Malley Brothers Land and Cattle Company was on deck, save half owner Long O’Malley who had gone off to see the widow Greg. They rode out singing and swinging their ropes like the day would be a Sunday picnic and dance mixed in.
He recalled how his dad would drop them off, like he did his cowboys, in a wide circle. One by one he set them off until the circle was complete. He’d told each one to listen for the shot and charge. When Katy and he reached the other side, he drew the Colt .44 and smiled. “Ready, Mrs. O’Malley?”
“Yes, Mr. O’Malley.”
“Ee-ha!” The busted cap shocked his eardrums, and the men’s wild war cries must have sent every longhorn in that part of Texas into a stampede. The brush was tough to dodge through, but every horseman charged off the surrounding ridges and the dust from their flight boiled in the air. He caught glimpses of hysterical cattle jumping barriers and running to escape this new threat. The riders on the south forced them to thicken their ranks, and the north flank riders kept them moving.
Harp led the riders on the north side. He wanted them headed for the great meadow and then turned into the chute-like structure that boxed the Comanche, and into the stout pens. Kate wasn’t far away, paralleling his course after promising to take no chances if things went sour. The brush swept by them, and he saw a rider and horse go down. God protect him.
Harp spurred the buffalo horse on to the drum of a thousand hooves, cattle brawling and things crashing down. The leaders were approaching the open land and began to slow. His riders began to start the circle that would line them up with the corrals.
How long had they been running? He had no idea, and riding as hard as his hard-breathing horse could go he didn’t intend to check his pocket watch. Once in the great meadow he began to slack back.
The front steers took the lead and were heading north like a pretty picture. Harp shouted a war cry, and, as his line eased back, the cattle were making a beeline for the opening. Forty-eight hours before the Comanche took the same route. Now cattle were filing in through the open gates of the huge round pen. Hundreds of cattle and calves all went into the five-acre pen swirling around in a cloud of dust.
He reined up his horse and opened the gold watch. Twelve o’clock.
“What time is it?” she asked him, sitting her horse beside him as the cattle passed them flowing into the pens.
Red Culver took off his hat and wiped his sweaty face on his sleeve. Then taking a look at the sun, said, “A little after twelve, ma’am.”
“You got it pegged, Red,” Harp said.
Katy laughed. “Nice job, and, Red, you don’t have to wind yours.”
“How many did we catch?” Red asked him.
“Guessing, maybe three hundred? I don’t know. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“Hey, won’t Long be shocked when he sees ’em?” Chaw asked.
“Naw. He’ll want more.”
The others laughed.
“What now, boss man?” Katy asked, brushing the dust off her shirt.
“Ira will be serving lunch. Chaw, round up the boys. Was that rider who went down all right?”
“Yeah, he’s riding in double with Darvon. They had to shoot the horse and are going back for his saddle.”
When he and Katy got to camp, one of the men took both their horses. Harp saw the buckboard and team hitched nearby. Who was that?
Then he saw his banker, Jim Yale, hatless with a coffee cup in his hand. Ira pointed Harp out to the man.
“Well, let me wash up and then you can tell me what brings you out here,” Harp said.
“Miss Katy, good to see you. Harper, I came to talk some business if you have time. I thought it was an earthquake coming. How many head did you bring in?”
“Couple hundred, maybe. We ain’t counted them yet.”
“Wow.” Jim walked along to where they washed up. “You taking them back to Missouri?”
“At eighty dollars a head I damn sure would . . . if I could.” He dried his hands and face on a flour sack towel.
“I came to let you know the bank will accept your cash offer on that place with the cattle thrown in. Come in next week and sign the papers. We’d like to be your bank, too.”
“We can shift an account over to your bank; however, I need to talk to Long before I say for sure.”
“I understand,” Jim said. “Where is he? With the men coming in?”
“No. We gave him the day off to take the widow Greg to dinner and dance.”
Jim shot him a questioning look.
“Don’t ask me. He’s showing her around. I have no idea. Katy and I like her.”
“I just wondered.”
“Let’s eat. We can talk more then.”
“Ira has a table for us he said.”
Katy laughed. “He knew you were important.”
Jim looked a little embarrassed by her words. “Nice of him.”
The poor man was not used to being teased Harp noticed. The bashful guy would have a lot to learn, especially that some folks could and would gouge him.
Katy told them to sit and she’d get their food.
When she was out of hearing he asked Harp where he met her.
“Lee’s Creek, Arkansas.”
“You found her?”
“More like she found me. Her previous man was going to be hung and she asked if we could get acquainted.”
“He did what?”
“Killed a man.”
“Was she married to him?”
“No, but we now have plans.”
“She’s an unusual neat lady. Good luck.”
Katy brought them each a plate. “Ira said this is a special treat. He found some real good beef in town and bought it for all the crew to feast on and celebrate.”
Jim said, “Heavens, Miss Kate, you’ve put half a cow on my plate.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Ain’t that much.”
Harp laughed. She’d got the banker again.
They ate well, and Jim even had room for apple cobbler.
There was enough water in the corral from a spring-fed stream for the cattle. They’d need to work them quickly because there was no feed for them when they ate up the grass. His crew’d get it done, but they’d be tired by sundown next day, if they even had all of them done by then.
One ranch bought and things going on. They had lots of cattle to work and he even wondered how Long got along with his widow.
They had one squeeze chute. One of the men restrung a new pull rope on the squeeze portion. The head catch was in good shape, and the longhorns had lots of clearance to fit their rack in it before it was locked shut. Experienced hands told him it would work well and they’d not have to head-and heel-rope the cattle.
The men looked sleepy eyed at breakfast, but a few rode horseback to fill the pen that fed the cattle into the chute. Lots of jackknifes were re-sharpened to put the Hiram’s ear notch on the right ear, the H Bar H brand on the left. One cowboy had started the fire to heat the irons red-hot.
Harp finished his coffee standing.
“You can stay and help us today,” he said to his banker.
“I would but I hardly came dressed for it.”
“I understand. Long and I will be in and close that ranch deal next week.”
“I want to thank Ira for the great food and you, too, missy.”
“Come back any time. These two will find something for you to do.”
All three laughed.
There was a sharp smell in the smoke from a branding iron burning through the hair of a cow’s hide.
The men knew that branders had to have that iron red-hot and to press hard to get that right effect. The animal needed to be held down or held tight for the brand not to be smeared from the iron moving.
Keeping the irons red-hot was a full-time job for one of the men, while the man working as head catcher had to jerk the stanchion-like holder shut at a precise moment so it caught the neck and not farther back on the animal to be worked on. If they missed the head catch the animal had to be manually caught, laid on the ground, and tied for it to be worked. The strength to do that on mature stock was demandingly tough and even got arms and legs broken in the struggle. All the men were aware, and watchful.
Don’t miss was the advice given the head gate man.
They castrated all the bulls standing. The mountain oysters were a treasured product recovered during the surgery and kept in clean buckets for Ira to fry at the next meal. Harp remembered, at smaller roundups, them being thrown in the iron fire. When they popped out from the heat, they were chased down, speared on a pocketknife, brushed off, and eaten right there. That was manna from heaven to a real cowboy.
They worked on bulls, yearlings to five years old in that chute. With young calves, they opened the chute, flanked them on the ground, and two men stretched them out and did the same thing to them. It was nonstop work.
By mid-afternoon, Harp’s clerk and lady had recorded over three hundred head in the pocket-size logbook and made a duplicate on a Chief tablet to back up the count.
Harp hugged her after the last old cow came out of the chute.
“Men, I appreciate the job we did here. Help load up the wagons before you leave. You wranglers can pen the horses overnight here since we don’t need the pens. But I want them driven back to the place where we’re staying tomorrow. I am issuing a check to Chaw to cash in town. You’ll each get ten bucks of your wages for the month there. Be ready Monday morning; we’ll have another site to do this at next week.”
He took the tablet she handed him and continued, “We rounded up three hundred forty-two head that belong to us now. That might be a Texas record for great cowboys in that short a time. Thank you.”
Excited she squeezed and kissed him. “What will Long say?”
“Aw hell, I bet you missed a hundred head.”
Kate and Chaw laughed at the statement.
Ira served them mountain oysters, fresh-baked bread, and brown beans. He had the largest Dutch oven full of peach cobbler. Harp wasn’t certain the cowboys would even be back to celebrate later on. He knew, somehow, they’d be renewed enough to raise hell and help the town’s economy before sundown.
“I bet if you do this kind of catching cattle very often, that you are going to make some people mad,” she said, riding beside him.
He looked at her riding beside him. “Free country. They can do it as well as we can.”
“No. I bet there is not another outfit in this part of Texas that has the number of good hands as you two have to do this work. I am just warning you there will be some hotheads after it comes out what you did here today.”
“You can’t build a ranch catching a half dozen cattle a day.”
“I know that. But you watch my words.”
“Ah hell. Let’s find a water hole and swim some. It’s warm today. I know some secret ones.”
“Teach me how?”
“If I can find a deep enough one.”
They set their ponies into a trot. He was so damn lucky to have Kate. He doubted Anna Greg would even consider skinny-dipping with his brother. But that was his business. Harp and Kate were going to have some fun.