Goodnight's Dream (A Floating Outfit Western Book 4) (20 page)

A point which the other three ranchers
admitted had much to recommend it. On a trail drive there could
only be one boss and having four ranch owners along might prove
embarrassing to Goodnight.

‘
What’d be best, I reckon,’ Colburn
remarked, ‘is that we send along two of our best hands, only let
them know that they’re under Charlie’s orders. They’ll learn about
handling a big herd on the trail and be able to show the rest of us
when they get back.’

‘
While they’re gone, we can be rounding
up stock to go to Kansas,’ Jones continued. ‘Hey though! If Chisum
knows what the Army’s paying, he might take our steers to Fort
Sumner and sell them for hisself.’

‘
We should maybe get after him!’ Hultze
growled.

‘
You could,’ Goodnight agreed. ‘Only
wouldn’t it be better for you to high-tail it for your homes come
morning, get your cattle here and go all out to lick him to Fort
Sumner?’

‘
Reckon you can do it, Charlie?’ asked
Jones.

‘
He won’t take just eight hundred
head,’ Goodnight guessed. ‘Which means that he’ll have to gather
more, either on the range or from the Long Rail. That’ll take time.
So we stand a good chance of beating him. And when he gets there,
your boys will be on hand to claim any stock he’s got carrying your
brands.’

Clearly the idea appealed to his audience’s
sense of justice. Letting out a whoop of laughter, Colburn slapped
his hand on the tabletop. ‘Damned if it’s not worth risking them
steers on the chance of seeing Chisum’s face when we do it.’

‘
You’ll have the backing to pull it
off, anyways,’ Wardle went on enthusiastically. ‘Having Cap’n Fog
and John Poe along, and all.’

‘
John won’t be going.
He’s needed here to gather more stock to be trailed to Kansas,’
Goodnight pointed out. ‘But I’ll have Dustine as my
segundo
on the
drive.’

None of the men objected to the arrangement
and after some more talk about the drive they changed to other
topics. Excusing himself, Goodnight left the room.

‘
Where’s Cap’n Fog and John Poe?’ he
asked a passing cowhand.

‘
They rode out a piece back,’ the
cowboy answered.

‘
What for?’

‘
I dunno. John come to the bunkhouse,
put his hat, boots and gunbelt on, took his saddle and lit out with
Cap’n Dusty, Red Blaze ’n’ Billy Jack.’

‘
Going into town?’

‘
Didn’t head that way.’

‘
Blast
’em
!’ Goodnight growled. ‘I wanted to fix up with them about
starting the round-up tomorrow so’s we can get to it early in the
morning.’

‘
Likely they’ll be back,’ the cowboy
answered philosophically.

If Goodnight could have seen
his nephews,
segundo
and Billy Jack making their preparations or riding across
the range, he would have been even more puzzled. Not that he
worried about their absence, figuring that they had good reason for
going. So he returned to his guests, satisfied that he could make
all the necessary arrangements when the four returned.

With his Stetson tilted at the correct
‘jack-duce’ angle over the right eye, spur-carrying boots and
low-hanging Army Colt, Poe looked ready for anything and rode a
dark bay gelding noted for its skill as a cattle-handler. Dusty sat
astride a small but well-made buckskin belonging to his OD
Connected mount and brought along by Red and Billy Jack. The latter
pair had also selected horses packed with cow-savvy from their
mounts. Across Red’s saddle hung a cow’s freshly removed hide. A
wooden bucket, with a tight, secure cover on it, dangled from Billy
Jack’s saddle-horn and he commented bitterly every time it banged
against his leg.

‘
Hope you didn’t mind us butchering the
cow, John,’ Red remarked, for none of them took the slightest
notice of Billy Jack’s complaining. ‘It’d got a bad cut in its leg
and we figured it’d be better dead.’

‘
Any steers you’d’ve found, we could
use in the herd,’ Poe answered. ‘Even if Dusty’s notion
works.’

‘
You figure it won’t work?’ Dusty
inquired.

‘
I’m hoping like hell it
does,’ the Swinging G’s
segundo
stated fervently. ‘It’s sure a novel
idea.’

On arrival at the herd’s
bed-ground, Poe warned the night-guard to keep an extra careful
watch during the hours of darkness. With the steers tired after
their wild stampede, there would be little trouble from them. What
Poe feared was a further attempt to scatter the cattle. After
giving his orders, he pointed out twenty of the steers that were
cut from their companions. He made his selection with care, picking
with the ease of long practice. Among the selected score was a
large ten-year-old, wide-horned animal with a dark brown body and
black head and shoulders. Dusty and the two OD Connected men were
to come to know that particular steer very well in the near
future.
^xviii

‘
All of
’em
’s quiet and’ve been living on the home ranges,’ the
foreman explained to his three companions. ‘I’d reckon Antelope
Ridge’d be a good place for us to try first. The wind’ll be right
for us and it’s clear of where the bunch-quitters’ll’ve
gone.’

‘
It’s your range, John,’ Dusty
answered, knowing that such local details were beyond him. ‘Let’s
get them moving.’

‘
Reckon we’ll get done before night?’
Billy Jack inquired.

‘
The best we can hope for is to make a
start tonight,’ Poe answered.

Even that hope did not materialize. By the
time they drew near to the Antelope Ridge area, the sun hung just
at the lip of the western horizon. So they knew that they could not
hope to put Dusty’s scheme into operation that day. Not that any of
them felt especially concerned, they had brought along all the food
and bedding they found necessary. Sleeping with the sky for a roof
and the ground as a mattress was never such a novelty in a working
cowhand’s life that it attracted comment when he found himself
faced with doing it.

Making camp about half a mile from their
destination, Dusty left Red and Billy Jack to bed down the cattle
while he accompanied Poe on an examination of the area selected.
From what Dusty saw, conditions there would be ideally favorable to
his plan. He spent the last minutes of daylight fixing the
geography of the location in his head. Satisfied, he and Poe
returned to their companions.

‘
It’s all we want,’ Dusty
announced. ‘There’s open ground
before the thick brush starts, but
enough places for us to hide in while we’re waiting.’

‘
Likely it’ll rain, or the wind’ll
change,’ Billy Jack commented dolefully. ‘Something’ll go wrong for
sure.’

‘
Maybe you’ll die of the miseries in
the night,’ Red suggested.

‘
I ain’t that lucky,’ Billy Jack
answered, refusing to take comfort. ‘I’ll just have to go on and on
the way I am.’

Despite the lanky cowhand’s gloomy
predictions, the night passed uneventfully and without any
significant change in the weather conditions. Towards dawn, the men
left their blankets and made a cold breakfast, for a fire would
definitely ruin any hope of Dusty’s scheme working. With the food
finished, they gathered the cow’s hide and bucket, then moved off
on foot. Advancing cautiously towards the brush-covered side of
Antelope Ridge, Dusty brought the men to a halt by a large rock
about a hundred yards from the edge of the dense undergrowth.

‘
Here’ll do,’ the small Texan told
them, feeling the wind blowing from behind him and towards the
slope. ‘Spread the hide on this rock, Cousin Red.’

‘
Yo!’ Red answered, as he had so often
in the past when receiving an order from his small
kinsman.

Taking the hide, Red draped it with its hair
inwards on the rock. Although it had dried out a little, it was
still slick with blood from its removal. Stepping aside, Red
allowed Billy Jack to bring up the bucket.

‘
The hired help get all the worst
chores,’ the lanky cowhand moaned as he removed the cover from the
bucket.

‘
That’s what us rich folk have hired
help for,’ Dusty informed him.

Making a sour face at the odor which rose to
his nostrils, Billy Jack tossed the cover aside and started to
raise the bucket. A red stream of blood oozed out as Billy Jack
tipped the bucket, spreading itself over the hide before forming a
pool on the ground.

‘
Now let’s get the cattle,’ Poe said,
showing what for him was remarkable eagerness.

Returning to their comfortless
camp, the four men saddled their horses and rode to where the
twenty head brought from the herd were still resting. Although the
steers showed some reluctance at leaving their bed-ground, they
gave no sign of trying to escape. That was where Poe’s local
knowledge had been so invaluable. He knew the cattle in the herd
and had selected animals that were born and grew on the open ranges
of the Swinging G. So they had no desire to plunge into the black
chaparral,
guajilla
and
granjeno
thickets of the slope. All they wanted to do was be left to
resume their sleeping or contented cud-chewing.

Keeping the steers moving slowly, Dusty and
the other riders watched them approaching the hide-draped rock. Red
suddenly became aware that his hands were crushing hard on the
reins, while Billy Jack was almost holding his breath and forgot to
complain. Even Poe exhibited anticipation and excitement. Only
Dusty retained an air of complete calm, for all that he was
seething inside. The next few minutes would be vital to his
idea.

At last the big brown and black steer
approached the rock. Pausing for a moment, which seemed to last for
hours to the watching men, it sniffed the air. Then it went closer,
nostrils quivering as it sucked in the odor of blood and green
hide.

‘
Cut loose, blast you!’ Red breathed.
‘Damn it, let’s hear you.’

Almost as if it heard, understood the words
and was willing to comply, the steer tilted back its head and let
out the dolorous notes of the blood call. More of the assembled
longhorns caught the smell of death and gathered around the rock.
Some of them pawed at the gory earth, others tilted their heads
skywards and joined in their leader’s mournful bawling.

‘
It’s working!’ Billy Jack enthused,
dropping his pose for a moment and making an effort to recover it.
‘I’ll bet there ain’t any cattle close enough to hear them,
though.’

‘
It could be,’ Dusty admitted. ‘In
which case, you’ll have to butcher another cow and we’ll try some
other place. Come on, let’s get hid and wait to see what
happens.’

During his examination of the area, Dusty had
picked out places of concealment for his party. Leaving the cattle
about the bloody hide, they split up and went to the points he had
allotted to them. Taking cover, they dismounted and prepared for a
long wait to see whether the rest of Dusty’s scheme would pay.
Dusty thought that it might. Even as he swung from the buckskin’s
saddle, he heard cattle in the brush echoing the eerie sound of the
blood call.

On the right side of what Dusty
hoped would be the trap, there was only one piece of cover large
enough to conceal the waiting men. So he and Poe stood behind the
same clump of cat-claw bushes. Beyond the steers, about fifty yards
from where Dusty hid, Red stood behind a large rock. Billy Jack was
in a hollow, shielded from sight by a growth of
granjeno,
close to where the brush began
in earnest.

A few minutes ticked by, then Dusty saw the
first of the longhorns emerge from the brush. Loping into view, it
headed for the rock and had barely arrived before more cattle left
cover.

Slowly the sun started to creep above the
eastern rims and the darkness faded away. Yet the blood call
continued to vibrate miserably across the range, growing in volume
as other longhorns gathered to investigate. They came from the
thorny thickets, or trotting across the open land, animals in every
stage of development, all drawn as if by a magnet.

Wild excitement filled the cattle. Driven by
their frantic eagerness, they thrust and pushed at each other in
attempts to reach the centre of the crowd. Pawing or tearing at the
ground, some of them sent the blood-soaked earth flying into the
air. Others reared, almost climbing over their more fortunate
companions as they tried to get closer. On the fringes of the
growing crowd, cows, calves or steers too light to force their way
into the crush, circled around and bawled out bitter protests at
being so deprived.

Concealed in their places behind the cat-claw
bushes, Dusty and Poe looked at the scene. A growing sense of
elation wore away the awe which filled them at what they had
started. The latter man, particularly, stared at the sight. Poe
could not help wondering why the hell nobody had previously thought
of using the blood call as a means of gathering cattle.

‘
It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw,
Dusty!’ Poe breathed. ‘You’ve come up with the right
answer.’

‘
I sure hope so,’ Dusty replied. ‘I’ll
bet Uncle Charlie’s set to roast our hides for not telling him what
we planned to do, or that we’d be away all night.’