Authors: G. Clifton Wisler
“Comanches,” he whispered. He then turned his horse away from them and hurried to wake Payne Oakley.
“How many?” the ranch foreman asked when Rat jabbered his alarm. “I saw two, but there could be more.”
“Well, I'll get the boss. Then we'll have a look.”
“They could have half the herd run off by then,” Rat warned. “Don't you think we ought to fire a couple o' shots, wake the boys?”
“You want to spend all summer gettin' this herd back together?” Oakley cried. “No, leave the cows to their peace, Rat. We'll have a look see.”
So it was that Oakley roused Orville Hanks, and the two men followed Rat to where he'd spotted the Indians. The Comanches had vanished, but they'd left a moccasin trail. Rat picked it up easily and threaded his way down the ravine and along to the river. A small band of haggard Indians roasted slices of a slain longhorn over a campfire.
“Want me to fetch the others?” Rat asked when Hanks and Oakley joined him.
“No, they're about done for, those Indians,” Hanks observed. “Leave 'em to what days are left to 'em. Look good, Rat. Won't be too much longer you see Indians off a reservation.”
“No, sir,” Rat whispered.
“You go along back to the herd now, son. Payne and I'll see nothin' comes o' this.”
Rat nodded and headed back. He recalled his pa's terrifying tales of murderous Comanches. It seemed the wild had been worked out of them now. Others than Otto Plank had a whip, he supposed.
It wasn't but a few days later that the last calf was branded, and the trail crew took charge of the herd. Even as the mass of men and beeves turned northward, those left behind prepared to return home.
“You did a fine job, boy,” Hanks said as he paid off each of the roundup boys in turn. Besides the promised silver, Hanks had generously doled out a horse to each hand.
“Wouldn't want a cowboy walkin' home, would I, Rat?” he asked when he handed the boy his wages, plus a twenty-dollar gold piece as a sort of bonus. “You write your mother I send my respects, too.”
“Yes sir,” Rat said, thinking of how his last letter was written just after Christmas. He'd gotten three from Austin since then.
“And get some growth on you,” Hanks added. “Texas needs its Hadleys tall and rangy.”
“Never knew 'em to come that way,” Rat answered with a grin and a nod of thanks. “But we do our best anyway.”
“That's a truth, son. You write that letter now. I expect you've neglected it long enough.”
“Afraid it's true,” Rat confessed, gazing at his feet. “I promise to get after it, though.”
“See you do. And don't run all the rough off that mustang. Man needs a horse that' II take him places.”
“Yes, sir,” Rat agreed as the cattleman turned to leave. But there wasn't really any place to ride.
Just the same Rat wasn't in any mood to head back to Thayerville just yet, and he found Mitch equally reluctant. The two of them wandered along the river until they spied a low hill topped by the grandfather of all white oaks. There wasn't a bigger tree for twenty miles, and the boys were drawn to it like iron shavings to a magnet.
“I remember this tree,” Rat remarked. “Pa brought me up here once. We dug arrowheads out o' the river, and Pa said it must've been an old Indian campin' spot.”
“You sure?” Mitch asked.
“Shoot, Mitch, ain't no mistakin' that tree. She's a giant.”
“What's that there, Rat? Over to the rocks.”
Rat turned his horse and made his way cautiously past a pile of boulders and along to where someone had planted a wagon plank in the hard ground.
“It's a grave,” Rat said, sliding off his horse and gazing at the words scratched in the plank.
HEER LYS TOM BOSWELL
HOO WAS LONG ON HORS CINTS
BUT SHORT ON LUK
“Likely he was a cowboy,” Mitch said solemnly.
“More'n likely kilt trailin' cows last summer,” Rat added. “Lots o' out-fits cross the river hereabouts. Could be he got thrown. Or snake bit. Lots o' cottonmouths along here.”
“Could be. Poor luck, bein' kilt just settin' out.”
“Might've been halfway if he came up from way south o' San Antonio.”
“Not to Dodge City yet, though. All those miles just to drown or get bit.”
“Some men don't have much luck, Mitch.”
“Or none at all,” Mitch said, shaking his head sadly. “Me, I got some. I still got Ma and Pa, and I don't go to bed hungry. Still, it ain't exactly lively 'round our place.”
“It's paradise compared to some places,” Rat declared, thinking of the Plank farm three miles south of the river.
“You figure you got luck, Rat?”
“Oh, yeah, lots o' it. All hard. Truth is, if it wasn't for hard luck, I'd not have a drop o' it.”
“It was good luck the sheriff fetched you from ole man Plank's farm.”
“No, I figure that was you,” Rat declared. “Maybe you bein' my friend's good luck, though.”
“You might've done better if I was one o' the Hanks boys.”
“Oh, they got no time for the likes o' me, Mitch. Nobody much does. Rat Hadley ain't anything for folks to pay mind to. Most don't, you know.”
“Don't sell yourself so short. I know Mr. Hanks won't be settin' any praise on my horsemanship. Shoot, he give you a twenty-dollar bonus, too.”
“Most likely that was from feelin' guilty 'bout sendin' us packin' after Pa got kilt.”
“He promised to take you north next year.”
“Well, guess I'll have to see that 'fore I take it to heart more'n a little. It's a long time till next spring, and lots o' things can happen.”
“Won't any o' them happen as we stand 'round here gazin' at that grave. How 'bout tryin' your hand at Iandin' a big Brazos catfish for supper?”
“Cut some limbs,” Rat answered. “I'll tend the horses.”
“Tie 'em good, Rat. Heard there were Comanches hereabouts.”
“They got too good an eye for horseflesh to bother with yer mare, Mitch. Nor with this scraggly excuse for a mustang o' mine, neither. Now get along to work and we'll have time to swim some. It's more'n middlin' warm today.”
“Hot 'nough to fry bacon on the rocks,” Mitch muttered. “Likely the Lord's givin' us a taste o' what Ma's sure to preach us on when we get home.”
“Could be,” Rat said, laughing at the notion. “Or how our bottoms'll feel if yer pa cuts a switch.”
Mitch laughed along for a minute as he cut fishing poles with an oversized knife. Later, after Rat satisfied himself the horses had good grass, the boys dipped lines in the river and managed to snag a trio of fat river cats for their dinner. Then they splashed away the balance of the afternoon in the river before frying up the fish.
“Never knew the night to be so quiet,” Mitch said as they spread their blankets on either side of the dying embers.
“Oh, it's mostly quiet,” Rat explained. “Gives a man chance to do some thinkin'. So Pa used to tell me.”
“Think 'bout what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“And what you thinkin' on just now?”
“Poor ole Boswell over there and his bad luck. Wonder what it feels like, dyin' so young,” Rat mumbled.” 'Course, I suppose he might've been older.”
“Older'n us maybe,” Mitch admitted. “But I'd guess he was young all the same. Elsewise they wouldn't've thought it so ill luck o' him to mark his board the way they did.”
“Sure, you're likely right.”
“Rat, I worry 'bout dyin' sometimes. It worries me.”
“Not me. Ain't no more hurtin' when yer gone.”
“No more anything. And that scares me plenty.”
“Yeah, it does unsettle you some.”
There were other nights spent along the river those next two yearsâinterludes of adventure and distraction from a world of long, tedious days and stifling nights at the Morris place in Thayerville. A disappointed Rat Hadley listened soberly when Orville Hanks explained how sour cattle prices forced him to trim his trail crew and leave boys of sixteen behind.
“I'd go 'long for the adventure o' it,” Rat had pleaded.
“Only 'cause you never tasted trail dust, son,” Hanks had answered. “Learn this much. Never do a job without demandin' all that's due you, Rat. Folks don't respect a man doesn't call for his wages. There'll be another year for Kansas.”
So there was, but it sometimes seemed to Rat it was an eternity coming.
Rat could hardly conceal his excitement the day Payne Oakley strode into the mercantile with an invitation to join the Hanks roundup crew again.
“The boy's got duties here,” Mrs. Morris argued as she stepped between Rat and the veteran cowboy. “You haul him off, he and Mitch the both of them every spring, and I'm left with nobody to tend counter until you finish with them.”
“Ma'am, I know it's a hardship,” Oakley confessed, “but this town and this county eats off the money we collect at Dodge City. Can't be a trail herd without boys to scare up strays.”
“What about afterwards?” Rat asked. “Any chance o' signin' on for the ride north?”
“That'd be Mr. Hanks's say so,” Oakley answered, “but I'd judge you've earned your spurs. Little more o' you than last year, too. Could just be you'll measure up to what's taken for a Texas cowboy along the Brazos.”
Rat grinned as he discarded his apron and carefully closed out the daily totals in Mrs. Morris's ledger. Then he gave the woman a faint smile.
“That's no kind o' farewell,” Oakley barked, and the boy trotted over and gave Mrs. Morris a warm hug.
“I'll not likely keep a job open for you,” she warned with a softening frown.
“No, ma'am. Wouldn't expect it,” Rat told her. “I never was a man to tend counter all his days, though. I belong out on the range atop some shaggy ole mustang.”
“Once,” she admitted. “But you've developed a fair hand, and you're quick with the figures. I'd take you for a banker if I didn't know better.”
“Thanks, ma'am,” Rat said, sweeping a wayward hank of hair off his forehead. “I'll be back to see you 'fore headin' north. I promise you that.”
“I suppose Mitch is sure to want to go, too,” she grumbled. “Well, you've got time to pack up some things. Get yourself a fresh shirt and an extra pair of trousers. You wear out the seats of them faster than anybody I ever saw. I'll pack you up some food, too. No trail cook ever fed a boy enough to keep him from starving.”
“Guess I'll be a while,” Rat told Oakley. “I'll fetch Mitch along with me. We'll be in 'fore dark.”
“Take your time. No hurry, Rat. Long as you're ready to chase cows tomorrow at dawn.”
“Yessir,” Rat said, grinning at the thought.
Once Mary Morris had satisfied herself the boys had all that was needed for their stint in the roundup camp, Rat summoned Mitch from the store-room, and the two friends hurried down to the livery to get their horses. Once mounted, they returned to the mercantile so Mitch could make his farewells, and soon they were racing each other north to the river and to the Hanks place. They arrived to a mixture of taunts and cheers, for the cowboys had heard all about Rat's extended good-bye.
“Sure you don't want to bring Ma along, sonny?” a lanky South Texan named Bob Tripp asked.
“She's too old for you, Bob,” Oakley cried. “And married to boot.”
“Don't take 'em old,” Tripp said, shaking his head as the other men hooted. “As to married, well ⦠“
It was good that Rat Hadley began that arduous week and a half of roundup with a grin, for there were few to follow. Most days he was too weary to share an evening swim with Mitch down by where the river flowed past unlucky Tom Boswell's grave. Roundup was a world of dust and sweat and bloodâmore exhaustion than adventure. And where before men seemed to enjoy a boy's company, they now expected a man's labors.
“They're testin' us,” Mitch observed as the two of them shared night watch. “Seein' if we're up to goin' north.”
“I am,” Rat declared. “But my backside's nary so sure.”
Mitch laughed. “Do better if you didn't go draggin' it through every bed o' cactus in tarnation. Cain't you stay atop a horse nowadays?”
Mitch was referring to Rat's efforts at breaking in a pair of range ponies. There was a fearful lot of learning due before Rat Hadley would pass for anybody's notion of a bronc buster!
“I didn't notice you takin' a hand at it,” Rat growled. “And wasn't it you roped the corral yesterday chasin' that heifer to the branders?”
“Yeah, that was me,” Mitch said, hiding his red face. “I'm not much of a cowboy. But then it's not me has to prove himself.”
“Eh?”
“I figure if the old man takes you, he'll ask me. And I'd judge he wouldn't leave you back again. Not with you sproutin' chin whiskers and growin' out o' yer trousers.”
“Ain't size makes a cowboy,” Rat said, sitting up straighter so that the four inches he was shy of Mitch wouldn't seem so much. “It's what he can do on a horse. And I'll put myself up against the best in the outfit.”
“ 'Specially at collectin' cactus spines,” Mitch said, laughing.
Rat continued to put his all into the roundup. Each time he saw Orville Hanks, the boy spoke of the trail drive and hinted at his eagerness to join the outfit.
“Yessir, be a fine chance for a man,” Rat remarked. Hanks nodded, but offered nothing further.
Finally the roundup came to an end. The trail herd grazed beside the river, and the younger boys rolled their possessions into their blankets and prepared to set off homeward. Hanks paid them off one by one. Rat and Mitch stood to one side, nervously dreading the moment when their own names might be called.