Cattle Kate (18 page)

Fales paused while I went to the storeroom for more cornstarch, then went on.

“The Durbin boys all went over to Deadwood during the Black Hills gold rush and bought themselves a little mine, and they made a fortune selling to that George Hearst who owns the paper up in San Francisco. Now it's called the Homestake Mine and they say it'll never play out and I wouldn't doubt that for a minute. Durbin took his millions and came out to the Sweetwater Valley before there were any real homesteaders here, and he's been makin' money every day of his life since. He got to be a big shot here real early. Helped form a group that became the Stock Growers Association—
that
kind of big. Don't know how many fortunes one man needs, but John Durbin is contendin' for the record.”

I noticed Fales was helping himself to a second cut of pie, but I passed it off as the price for the fine story he was telling.

“You know, he's a hard man to figure out. In Rawlins, they'll sing his praises as a real generous man—one time he bought out the entire bond issue to help build a school. And another time he put up all twenty-five thousand dollars for the courthouse bond. Imagine that. Rawlins just falls all over itself wherever John Durbin is concerned. And I have to give it to him—that was a right decent thing to do. Then he turns around and hires Tom Collins, and a man who hires scum like that just isn't thinkin' right.”

I needed no help understanding Fales' disgust, because like everyone else in the valley, I shared it. From the day Tom Collins came up from Texas, he'd been trouble. He always looked dirty to me, and he had those shifty eyes that couldn't meet yours square, and whenever he walked in the roadhouse, he acted like he owned the place. Officially, he was Durbin's foreman, but he was really a notorious cattle thief—the kind that would make Fales stretch his arms out as far as they would go. There was a big sigh of relief when his rustling became so blatant that even the stock growers blackballed him—they even publicly criticized John Durbin for looking the other way.

Fales said he knew why. “They say Durbin didn't dare turn Collins in or the foreman would have squealed on how Durbin's herds were full of other men's cattle. If I were you, I'd watch him like a dog at a rabbit hole.”

Why a man that rich would resort to stealing, I'll never figure out, but I was learning that when it came to rich in W.T., it was never enough.

“And I hate to tell you this part, but you gotta know it all and the worst piece of news I can give you is that John Durbin and A.J. Bothwell have a special tie. They both first tried to ranch in Colorado, but homesteaders got in their way and they moved over here to the Sweetwater Valley. I hear both of them have sworn they'll never let a homesteader drive them out again. Miss Ella, did you hear that? Do you know what it means?”

“Of course I do,” I shot back, like I wasn't a dunce. “So the two most powerful men in the valley hate homesteaders. Think I didn't already know that? John Durbin hasn't stuck his nose in my business, but Bothwell has certainly let me know I'm not wanted here. But you know what, my friend? I've got a legal claim, and I've got a cabin, and I've got cows, and I'm gonna get me a brand and I'm going to stay here in this beautiful valley for the rest of my life and there isn't a thing they can do about it.”

I saw Fales drop his head and stuff his mouth with yet more pie.

He stayed quiet for a long time and I thought I'd made a powerful point he couldn't counteract. But there was a chill down my spine when he finally said, “I hope so, Miss Ella. I sure as hell hope so.”

“Hey, do you know why Jimmy and Durbin hate each other?” I asked to move off the gloom Fales was spreading.

“Sure don't,” but I knew he was lying.

“Fales, come on, if there's a problem between my man and Durbin, don't you think I should know? That might be just the piece of information that's most important. Come on, I know you know.”

“You can't ever tell Jimmy I told you, because it makes Jimmy look bad. Believe me, Miss Ella, this was a long time ago and Jimmy was young and he wouldn't think of doing this now.…”

I was getting impatient with all his stalling, and the more he hemmed and hawed, the more awful this story grew in my mind, until I just screamed at him, “Fales, just spit it out!”

He knew me well enough to know that when I scream I'm not kidding around, so he finally told me the awful secret that Jimmy had once filed a fake homestead claim for Durbin, and then snookered him out of it by selling the claim for himself. That's where Jimmy got his grubstake to file his own first claim. “And Durbin will never forgive him for it, and Miss Ella, John Durbin is the last man you want as an enemy.”

I didn't say anything. Fales looked at me like he was trying to teach me something, and I guess he was, but I didn't really take in his last words—I was back at the revelation that my Jimmy had started out cheating, just like the people he was fighting against now. There's a word for somebody who says ‘do as I say and not as I do' and it wasn't a word I wanted associated with my Jimmy. For a second I worried that Durbin would expose Jimmy for his cheating, but then I realized it had all begun with a cheat in the first place and Durbin would never expose himself. So the secret was safe. I hoped nobody besides Fales knew about it, and from the way folks around here admired my Jimmy, I bet that might be. I knew I'd never speak a word of this to anyone, because Fales was right, Jimmy was young then—he was a grown man now and he clearly knew right from wrong and so I passed it off as something to forget.

But my pondering left a big silence in the kitchen and it made Fales nervous, because he coughed real loud and said, “think we should move on because there's another man you need to know about.” I was about to say it was time for his chores when thunderclouds moved in and fierce lightning lit up the sky. We both saw the weather as a good omen that chores were to wait and the stories were to continue.

“Now if you want one just as bad, you only have to go upstream a little to your neighbor Bob Conner.” Fales rolled his eyes like this one was a doozie. “His brand is the Lazy UC, and by gosh, if that ain't fittin'. He's a rich man's son—well, stepson, I guess—and Daddy set him up out here and I don't know how much of a worker he is, but from what I hear, not much. He fancied himself a politician once and ran for office—he's a Republican, of course—but got his butt whipped and never tried that again. He's had some real characters for foremen, and everybody in these parts knows he thinks the longest rope belongs to him.”

Fales cackled and mimicked twirling a rope over his head, and that's how I learned the cowboy term for rustling.

“We used to have all these snooty foreigners around here, acting like they were still lords in England or Scotland, and they didn't know one end of a cow from the other. They never did any real ranchin' and if you asked them how many cows they had, they'd say something stupid like ‘a lot.' So of course, they were ripe for the longest rope, and Bob Conner built up his herds real good by goin' after those foreigners' cows. Word is he got a thousand cows before those foreigners pulled out and went away.”

By now, Fales was in full hilarity, slapping his sides at how funny it was that Bob Conner stole so many cows. I will never understand the mind of a cowboy. One minute he was swearing about rustling, and the next minute, laughing about it.

It took him a couple minutes and three bites of pie to move on.

“Then there's Cap'n Galbraith—you know, the mercantile man who's in the legislature.” I knew exactly who he meant, although the good captain had never been inside the roadhouse. “Of course, his claim to fame is that he helped inspire Thomas Edison's light bulb.”

I chortled, “In a pig's eye.”

Fales shot back, “No, he really did.” So I shut up and listened.

“Cap'n Galbraith was a railroad man, guess he learned in the Civil War how to keep them going and after the war, Union Pacific hired him on. He kept those boxcars and engines in good workin' order. He came to Rawlins as the main guy, and on the side, he bought a dry goods place—Hugus, where you shop, that used to be his. He's been elected a couple times and he's a real friend to the cattlemen, even has his own place in the Sweetwater now. His brand is the T Bar T. But you want to know about Edison and that's a story they love to tell around here.

“Back in '78, there was a total eclipse of the sun and they said the very best place in the whole country to see it was at the Separation Stage Station right here in W.T. So astronomers and scientists and dignitaries all came out—they brought a newspaperman from New York with 'em—and one of those boys was Thomas Edison. I guess Cap'n was about as close to a local dignitary as we had, so he was their host and after the eclipse, he took them all fishing on Battle Lake and that's where Edison saw lighting or a fishing line or something and got the inspiration for his light bulb. They brag about that all the time in W.T.”

Can you imagine? Turning a switch and having light? I don't think we'll ever have electricity in my cabin—maybe the roadhouse some day. Think of all the time I'd save not having to clean my kerosene lamps! But Fales was already moving on so I gave him my attention back.

“And I suppose you want to know about Tom Sun. Sure you do, because don't you have a tie to his missus?”

“We both worked for Mary Hayes in town—not at the same time, because Mrs. Sun was already married by the time I came around. I always hoped she'd come in to the roadhouse for dinner someday, but she hasn't. Guess she doesn't care we have a tie—maybe doesn't want to admit it!”

I expected Fales to lay out Tom Sun's sins and stealing, and it was a nice surprise when that's not the stories he told me at all.

“He's a real decent guy,” Fales began and there was true admiration in his voice.

“He's French Canadian—hey, ain't you and Jimmy from Canada originally? He's known Jimmy for ages. Sun was an Indian scout when Jimmy was at Fort Steele in the army. And they both end up here, as neighbors. Sun is good friends with Buffalo Bill—they scouted together and now and then he comes through here.”

Oh my, if that famous showman came here for dinner, I'd made him a special pie and have him carve his name in my counter!

“Sun's ranch over by Devil's Gate is the Hub and Spoke and he's been here longer than anybody. He filed the first claim on land in the valley and he respects the laws. You know, Jimmy made a mistake when he filed his claim last year, and he needed someone to vouch for him that it was only a clerical error and Sun stepped up for him. The man has a real feel for W.T. and the land. I'd be proud to work for him.”

By now the rainstorm had passed—they come and go so quickly here—and we both knew Fales' chores wouldn't do themselves, so he excused himself for the day. I finished up my baking and started frying chicken. I had to laugh out loud, “I sure ended up in a nest of snakes.”

***

I was determined to honor Pa with my brand, so next I came up with WT for Watson, Thomas, like on official papers. But it also could stand for Wyoming Territory and that meant it did double duty. Fales agreed. So that went on my list. So did a Triangle W brand—a triangle with a W inside—because I liked the look of it and couldn't see how anyone could mess with it. Fales thought that would be a fine brand. But I threw in four or five more ideas, like a Circle W and a Box W and that kind of thing, hoping all the time nobody had taken the WT yet. I took all those brands to the Carbon County Brand Committee in December of 1888.

Fales came with me to the meeting, held at a ranch nearby where the men had just finished a fine steak dinner when we arrived. I tried to peek if the platters were etched with the ranch's brand, but they were too greasy to tell.

“So Miss Ella, I hear you've got yourself some cows and are settin' up a ranch,” one of the men said to me, trying to sound friendly, but it came out like this was a ridiculous idea for a woman.

I smiled and ignored the tone. “I'm going to have a
little
spread,” I said in my sweetest voice. I learned long ago that a woman should minimize because “big” meant something special to men. I didn't tell them the brand was in honor of my Pa, because Fales had advised against that—“none of their business why you choose a brand.”

The men around the table pretended to be gentlemanly as I presented my brand ideas—Jimmy had taken care to write them out clear and clean, with no ink spots.

Their mouths curled up in an imitation of a smile when they told me that none of my brands would work and they were sorry but they had other business to take care of, dismissing me like I was the cleaning girl.

“But gentlemen…” That's as far as I got before Fales took my arm and pulled me out of the room.

“I know for a fact that some of those brands are available, so you didn't get rejected because of bad brands, but because of bad politics,” Jimmy stewed when we got home. “The cattle growers control the brand committee and they don't want small ranchers and homesteaders having brands. I should know, because they turned down a dozen of my ideas. And I don't even have any cows yet—but I wanted a brand for someday.”

They were doing the same to me, but I already had cows in my corral and now I had no way to mark them as my own.

Fales added his own two cents: “You knew to expect this. You're sittin' here in the middle of what Bothwell thinks is his pasture and you've got a legal claim and he had to buy an easement from Jimmy to get water from the creek and you can bet all that went into their thinking—you're bestin' them, ma'am, and they sure don't like it.”

I didn't feel much like a bester that day, but I had to admit the points were stacking up in Jimmy's and my corner.