CHAPTER 31
Wild cattle were spotted, and holding pens were close by on state-owned land. If anyone built such structures on state land, the facilities were free for the public to use. Of course it was first come, first to have possession and use. Doug had told him where they were located, and they sat right in the vicinity that would work well while gathering cattle over there.
Harp then sent Doug over to learn all about the Diamond Ranch from the retiring foreman Estevan Montoya. Red went along to back him since he spoke lots of border Spanish. Languages got murdered in isolated places by the users there. The Texas border lingo was bad, the real Hispanics said, having words no one else understood. But they made do and so could his men who were going to work it.
Some of the boys were left cleaning up the home place, plus repairing fences and even building some more for Hiram. Harp had wanted to hold the teams intact for the following year, so everyone had a job to do. The other two cooks fed them.
Chaw headed the roundup crew and all the top hands went with him along with the supply wagon headed by Ira, his helper Billy, and Candy who had become part of that team.
Until Chaw was comfortable enough with the job, Harp felt he needed to be with them. Harp and Chaw rode at the head of the line of over two dozen hands and two wagons behind bringing food, tents, bedrolls and gear they’d need including one of the squeeze chutes. They were coming through some short timber and cedars on a narrow set of tracks that resembled a road when Harp saw four armed men blocking their way.
He rode up and stopped a small distance from their roadblock.
“Morning, gentlemen, but we’d like to pass here. Any reason we can’t?”
“Gawdamn right. This is our range, and that brush-busting crew behind you ain’t clearing up our rangeland of the free cattle. Those are our cattle and we intend to brand them for ourselves.”
“Have you been trying to brand them?”
“Not yet.”
“Then that is now my business. If you are just trying to stop us and you have not been running them in and working them, then I say you aren’t interested enough in them to own them. We are.”
“No you ain’t. We ain’t going to let you come an inch farther.”
Harp was nodding his head. The hell you say. “Then who’s going to die here today? Those men back there have fought off Yankee veterans and tribes of Plains Indian. They won’t mind killing you like the snap of your finger. Men, if you have families and children to think about being orphaned, then think hard. Those men have been to Sedalia and Abilene and they fight to kill. So put your guns up and go home.”
They talked among themselves. Finally their spokesman said, “You better not rebrand any of our cattle while you are over here.”
Harp nodded. “I promise you we won’t do that. We are not thieves.”
And the men rode off. Harp sat for a long time on his horse not saying anything, letting his anger slowly slip away. Comanche stomped a hind foot at biting flies.
When the men were finally gone from sight, he turned to his men and said, “That was better than dying. Everyone goes out goes out in pairs. There may be more out there upset. Let’s go round up cattle.”
A loud cheer went up. No doubt in his mind his bunch would have won, but the price was too high to risk it.
By evening the camp was set up. Sweet wood smoke hung in the air. Good Arbuckle’s coffee was being shared and the guitar music with songs was resounding off the nearby hills. Chaw showed everyone the map on the tabletop they had, and how it was quartered to make the drives to bring the cattle into the pens. He appointed men as leaders with four or five riders each and what course they must take to bring the wild ones into the five-acre pen.
Harp thought about the face-off they had earlier. These damn cattle were not worth more than fifty cents when he and the outfit left for Sedalia eighteen months ago. Now that they were worth something, everyone claimed them. Well, he and the crew were rounding these up, branding them, and driving the big steers out to lock up on one of the Diamond Ranch–fenced sections to get fat before springtime.
And they could like it or lump it.
* * *
Before dawn the following morning, they ate breakfast and had saddled their mounts. Each group left in the early pink of day for their place to start bringing in the cattle. An hour later Chaw fired a pistol in the air. Another west of him went off, farther on one more, then Harp shot his gun off on the far western point.
Cattle were on the move, stampeding through brush timber and open meadows to escape the shots. Cowboys on horseback cut off any retreat and drove them toward the pen. The cattle ran to join others as they fled for the pens. Bawling in protest, they soon made a large herd. Those trying to escape joined others, all heading right where Harp wanted them. Cows, bulls, calves, and steers all with tails above their backs charging for where they didn’t want to go, but the force they were caught up in would eventually put them through the gates and locked up in the pen to be worked.
Harp was pleased, riding hard, sweeping through the cedar boughs and live oak to send them for the open gates. From here on there would be no breaking back, just running in the direction the bosses wanted them to go.
On a great horse, this was the place that Harp wanted to be the most on these drives. They would have branded cattle to sort off, but there must be hundreds here that would soon wear the H Bar H brand on their hide.
Hell, Long, you are missing all the fun.
The herd swept into the huge pen and soon settled while the crew ate lunch. The squeeze chute unit was set up. Maverick cows and calves plus yearlings would be returned to the open after being worked and branded. Steers and castrated bulls would be held to drive to the Diamond Ranch.
They worked cattle that day until dark, and there still were more head to work in the morning. Everyone ate hearty on the good tender roast beef Ira cooked along with potatoes and carrots, biscuits and peach cobbler.
By end of next day, Chaw had his weathered hat on the back of his head, counting numbers. “The men have three hundred head of cows and calves worked, and a hundred and twenty big steers ready to go to pasture.”
“Guys,” Harp shouted over their roaring about it. “That’s a great record and we ain’t half done here.”
In the next four days they branded about every head of stock they could find in a large radius of the pens. It moved the cow count on this drive to 600 and 520 calves. Big steers to go to Diamond numbered 240, near a quarter of the herd they needed for Abilene.
Two of the better hands went south to look for more pockets of cattle. The job there done, half the main crew went back to the ranch for a two-day break. Others took the big steers to pasture and planned to be back at the home ranch that night.
They were all worn out when they reached home. The pasture bunch never got in until after midnight. Only a handful of them were up the next morning with Harp to have breakfast in the tent with his wife. Her nanny had Lee and Kate was giving Ira a hard time.
“You know what to do about that girl, Candy?”
“No. I don’t want her hurt again.”
“You know as big and tough as you are, you have a softer than peach fuzz heart.”
“I can’t help it. She has no one she remembers to care for her.”
“I am seriously afraid of her getting hurt out there. Leave her with me for a short while. Maybe I can help her find herself.”
“Kate, I’d do anything I can for her. I will ask her if that’s all right.”
“Ira, you are the man. But maybe I can do something.”
Candy told Ira she feared being away from him. He told Katy her wishes and she accepted them.
Later Harp thanked her for trying. Katy was a little upset but nodded. “You can’t be helped if you don’t want help.”
The two men who had left to go looking for stock rode in and said there were several head in the region they called Hard Rocks. The boys said they could rent some pens and work them nearby. Harp decided he would send Chaw and two men to make the deal after they had some time off to relax.
He paid the returning men their needed ten bucks and sent them into town for some rest and rowdy time.
Things were going well. Harp and Hiram sat out in the sun and talked about needed deals. “You sure are making lots of progress on all this business. Why I know men been back damn near as long as you have been home and have not turned a tap; yet they were so worn out.”
“That won’t get it done. If Long was here we’d got twice this much done already.”
“Hey, hey, ye already have a good wife and a son. He’s only got himself, and going looking isn’t a bad thing for him.”
“Do you think he’s maybe looking for a woman?”
“It bothered him you just rode up and found Katy. It worked out as smooth as silk. You were lucky to find her. I lost me first wife on a picnic. A very good woman. The river stole her and I couldn’t swim fast enough to save her. One minute the woman I liked and appreciated was on a shelf wading in the river, the next she was shouting for help and was swept away under the water.
“I didn’t really want another woman. I wanted her back and I must have cursed God many times for letting her drown. A few months later I met your mother working in a big fine garden. I knew nothing about her except she was the first woman I saw since burying me last one that I really wanted to know better.
“She’d lost the man she was pledged to. I guess she had just found it out the second time I crossed paths with her in Cincinnati. She said he was dead, and I said like me, that I lost me wife three months ago so come and we will dance at the Cane Hill social Saturday night. Then she started talking about being pregnant. I didn’t care. She was a beautiful woman and a kinder soul as I had never met.
“Her mother said for her to answer my request. She said she may as well since I would not take no for me answer.
“We got engaged going to the social and a preacher married us when we got there. Then we turned around and I took her home and told her parents we were married. As you can see, we have lived happily ever after.”
Harp was laughing. “You believe in things being planned?”
“I guess. Why?”
“Katy was going to leave Lee’s Creek area but some voice said, no, stay at the store a while longer. So she stayed until I got there. And like you saw Mom, this nice lady told me to buy two cans of peaches and we’d go somewhere and eat them. We did and have been together ever since except for this last cattle drive. What do you call that?”
“Ah, Harp, me boy, they call that fate in Ireland. It was intended that you would be coming there, and that force held her there no matter how silly she considered it. Either some witch, or God, plans for things to happen to us all.”
“In all your years you haven’t found out which force does it?”
“Why worry about who does it? You’ll sure not change it anyway. We were surely having really wild times up there, when I courted your mother. There were raiders and they hurt people. I was the head of the safety unit. We were over a long day’s ride from the county seat and any real help.”
“She told you she was with child?”
“She said to her mother that I would not listen or take no for an answer. My heavens, her man was dead and my wife had drowned. I told her that life was left to the two of us and it might be short, too, so why not celebrate it together? Oh, Harp, it was one of the most glorious days in me life when she said she’d marry me.”
“You were on the way to a dance?”
“I was with her. The preacher must have thought I was drunk when I said hurry up and marry us before she changes her bloody mind. I was but not on any spirits. Still he married us. They threw rice at us driving back north in that fancy coach I had borrowed to impress her. It was like we had wings.”
“I hate to dig, but was your first marriage that wild?”
“Her husband died coming down from Iowa. A nice chap but obviously too fragile for the hardships we had on the road. She had two children and a wagon—her things. I only had a good saddle horse and was helping protect the train that was going to western Arkansas from Iowa. The captain said she needed a man after we buried him that afternoon. Three of us drew straws and she married me in the campfire light.
“The children both died shortly after. She was a kind, generous woman. But those losses had shocked her into what I called a numb stage. She wasn’t really all there, and the day of the picnic she wandered away from the crowd like she intended to do it. Then I discovered she’d gone wading out in the swift stream and that water swept her away. I never said it was suicide, but losses piled on more losses were more than her mind could stand, I always believed.
“It was never love between us, like me and your mother found. She was like a sewn rag doll, just there. I wanted her to spring up and be the woman I saw before her husband died, but that never happened. Your mother was the biggest blessing in me life from the first minute right up to today.
“I am glad Katy came along and waited that extra time for you to come. She did what I wanted me first wife to do—forget the past and live for tomorrow. And, Harper, I pray that God will find Long a woman as great as the ones we have.”
“Oh, yes. Emory’s woman wasn’t ready. But there are lots more out there—good ones, too.”
His dad agreed.
* * *
About to be off to another cattle chasing, Harp kissed Katy and Lee good-bye. He greeted his buffalo horse Comanche and soon was leading the gang to another roundup. It was getting to be a regular thing for him to saddle up and go find the elusive unbranded livestock with his men, then come home like Roman soldiers with a tally book full of newly claimed cattle. But as their circle widened, he knew his competition also was doing the same thing and they would soon have every damn stray longhorn in west Texas wearing someone’s brand.
The place the men rented from one of the landowners, for a small fee, had some large corrals and looked suited to buy. The elderly man who owned the land had no teeth and looked like he’d been put away wet.
Harp stepped off his Comanche horse. “Mr. Erickson, how much land have you got here?”
“Ten sections.”
“You have a price for it?”
“Yeah, I want a nice little house paid for near a town to live in. Nothing fancy but where I can walk to and fish for bullheads and pan fish and forty dollar a month income until I die.”
Harp nodded his head maybe ten times. “How many head of cows you got?”
“About a hundred and there are calves, too.”
Harp nodded. “You and I are going to town and find that house tomorrow, and you will have that income. I will buy your land and cows.”
“Good.”
“Mr. Erickson, thank you, sir. Chaw, you better ask him where the corners are on this land.”
Chaw looked hard at him. “Why?”
“Mr. Erickson, what brand do you have?”
“CHX.”
“Chaw, you are going to be the foreman of the CHX Ranch. I just bought it from Mr. Erickson. He says there are a hundred cows and calves. You better learn all about it.”
Chaw took off his weather-beaten hat and slapped his chap-clad leg with it. “I can damn sure handle that. Harp, you ever met Calamity Morton?”
“No.” The name didn’t strike a bell for him.
“She’s Watson Morton’s daughter up at Mason. We’re engaged. Now I can marry her. Boss man, that is just dandy.”
He hugged Harp.
“Boss man, you made my day. My whole day. That little gal will holler so loud you will hear, at the home ranch, when she learns we will have our own place and can afford to be married.”
Harp was laughing too hard to speak. Finally he managed, “Damn you, Chaw. You are the biggest mess in Texas, but I am pleased she will be that happy being your missus. You know Katy will want to help you two get married, buy her a wedding dress if her folks can’t afford one.”
“Oh, that girl would be pleased. I expect her folks are like the rest of Texas, penniless.”
“Tell her not to worry. Who is next in command behind you to lead the cattle drive?”
“Chadron Turner. The boys will listen to him. Could I run up there to tell her and then meet you in Kerrville? I’d really like to do that.”
“Get a fresh horse. Mr. Erickson can wait a couple of days to show you what is what. You go take care of business. And then report back here.”
“Oh, sure.”
The old man was really amused, listening to it all, and told Chaw, “Just don’t break your neck doing it. I’m plumb tickled I won’t have to worry about a thing thanks to Mr. O’Malley’s deal.”
The crew was congratulating poor Chaw, and Harp could see he was shaken by the entire situation.
Harp was now owner of another rough ranch—ten sections. He hoped his brother liked it. Hell, Long liked Texas; he wouldn’t be hard to please with his name on ten more sections.
Chadron sauntered over leading his horse, while they all watched Chaw saddle a fresh horse. “Chaw said you wanted me.”
“I am surprised he did anything, as excited as he is. Yes. He said you should be the one to lead the cattle drive in his place.”
“Well, thanks. I won’t go plumb crazy, but thanks, I believe I can handle it.”
“I do, too. You lay out the plan with the men. I am taking Mr. Erickson to town tomorrow to find him a house and make out some plans for him to move closer to a fishing hole.”
“I can handle it.” They both watched Chaw on his fresh horse barreling north.
“He’s going to get his life with her, boss man.”
“No doubt about that.”
* * *
At times he could not believe all that happened over two cattle drives. Two dumb boys taking eight hundred head to the railhead in Missouri with a dying boss and enough opposition to turn back an army. Then the Abilene trip.
Wherever you are, bro, I hope you’re being careful.