Hard Country (47 page)

Gene pulled an earlobe. “Seems the old boy I hired to look after my place while I was gone went and said the cow I’d slaughtered for him to eat was stolen. Of course, that was after he ate the beef. To clear matters up, I had to bend my pistol over his head and escort him to Texas.”

“Are there warrants for your arrest?” Cal asked.

“After what I done to him, there could be,” Gene replied. “So I’d just as soon not be too easy to find for a spell.”

“You’re not gathering any cattle this fall?”

Gene shook his head. “I sold them sometime back, and my pa is wintering over his stock. I’m looking to hire on as a hand somewhere for a time.”

“We’ll take you on for fall works,” Patrick said, “and if you’ve a need, you can hunker down in our line cabin after we finish up.”

Gene smiled. “That’s mighty neighborly, and I’m obliged. Besides the hands from the John Cross, the 7TX, and the Bar Cross, who else is joining up?”

“That’s it,” Cal said.

“Should be enough,” Gene said, glancing at Patrick. “I sure hope your missus is gonna be the trail cook. She fixes a mighty fine table, as I recall.”

“Old George will be driving the chuck wagon and fixing the victuals,” Cal said. “He can’t fork a horse the way he used to, and Patrick’s wife, Emma, makes a hand.”

“Sorry to hear that about George,” Gene said, giving Patrick a glance. “Your wife makes a hand, does she? Why, that’s worth seeing, I reckon.”

“Maybe so,” Patrick said with a shrug.

* * *

B
efore the fall works, Cal and Patrick had moved most of the Double K cattle to a south pasture, a high-country valley with adequate water and good browse that stretched for ten miles through shallow canyons and around solitary peaks. There were some old, played-out mines tunneled into mountainsides, but it was all government land that had never been homesteaded or proved up, so the grasses hadn’t been overgrazed before the ruinous three-year drought.

The crew left the ranch before sunup and reached the valley campsite at noon, pushing stray stock they picked up ahead of them along the way. It was a mixed bunch of thirty-six half-wild steers, ornery mother cows, and bawling calves, all looking to skedaddle into nearby side canyons.

George had set up camp in a grassy field with browse nearby for the remuda, wood to fuel the cook fire, and a stream under a ridgeline that ran clear and cold. A fire was going when the waddies arrived, and George was busy cutting freshly butchered steaks from a side of beef he’d kept cool and covered in a washtub.

He’d fed the crew a breakfast of eggs and bacon at four in the morning, and they’d eaten until they were stacked to the fill. But that was eight hours ago and he’d hear gripes real quick if supper was late. He wasted no time frying the steaks, heating up canned corn seared in beef drippings, boiling rice, and warming up biscuits and gravy.

Patrick herded the remuda into a rope corral, and the riders picked out and saddled their fresh cutting horses for the afternoon’s work. When they finished, George called the crew to chow, and to a man they stood aside and let Emma go first. She didn’t hesitate to step to the head of the line.

At the stream where he was watering the stray cattle, Gene Rhodes watched the courtly display with amusement. He knew a number of hardworking womenfolk who toiled from daybreak to nighttime, but never one who made a hand. Stock raising was men’s work, and most women were glad to have nothing to do with it. Cal Doran was not a man given to exaggeration, so he was keen to see exactly how well Emma Kerney could fork a horse. Watching her make tracks from the ranch to camp didn’t prove anything one way or the other, but he had hopes she’d show spunk and grit when they started cutting and branding after supper.

With two years of college in California under his belt plus some audited courses he’d taken at the new agriculture and mechanical college in Las Cruces, Gene had an eye on becoming a writer. A story about a comely, slender, hard-riding cowgirl who put the boys to shame on a roundup just might sell to a magazine, even if it was a bit shy of the truth in the telling of it. The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea.

With a big beefsteak draped on his plate along with all the other fixings, he sat on a log across from Emma Kerney and gave her a close gander to sear her features in his mind’s eye.

“You stare at me like I ought to be home scrubbing the floor,” Emma said.

Gene blushed. “I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am, but I never worked a roundup with a woman before.”

“Is that what your wife does?” Emma asked, ignoring Gene’s comment. “Scrub and darn and clean and such?”

Gene blushed again, this time in irritation. “I reckon so. She sure doesn’t cowboy like I hear you do.”

“Don’t get her riled,” George cautioned as he sat down next to Gene and cut a slice off his steak.

“You don’t think I can do it?” Emma said, glaring at Rhodes.

“I didn’t say that,” Gene replied, looking to Patrick for help.

Patrick shook his head and cut another bite of steak.

“She’s riled,” George muttered.

“I’m not riled,” Emma snapped.

“I sure hope you can cowboy, ma’am,” Gene replied softly. “I truly do.”

Emma’s glare didn’t soften. “And why is that?”

“Because it would be a heck of a story,” Gene answered, “and one I’d be happy to tell around a campfire to a bunch of old boys.”

Emma studied Gene hard to judge if he was funning her.

“I mean it,” Gene said sincerely.

Emma stopped glaring and smiled. “I believe you.”

“I am truly relieved that you do,” Gene replied.

After dinner, the crew filled the wreck pan with dirty dishes and rode into the pasture to make the first cut. No one needed to be told what to do. They would gather all the stock, separate out the steers, brand the strays, and point the herd along in the direction of the next day’s roundup.

Emma had saddled up a cutting pony named Biscuit that looked thrifty enough for any good hand to fork. She didn’t hesitate going after a reluctant, bellowing steer that wanted to stay in the center of the shifting, nervous herd. She showed Biscuit the animal she wanted and the pony went right for it. The steer dodged, and Emma’s pony dodged with it. The steer twisted toward the center of the herd, and Biscuit cut it off, settling back on its heels, forcing the steer toward the perimeter. In the midst of the herd, Biscuit and the steer turned and dodged in lightning-fast, whirligig unison, until Emma cleared her quarry.

Gene dropped his lariat over the steer and tipped his hat to Emma as he led the panting animal away.

Emma smiled as she wheeled Biscuit back to cut out another critter.

Gene parked the steer with the others that had already been cut out, plunged his pony into the riled herd, whirled a steer to the fringe, and quickly cleared it, thinking he might not need to color up a story about a top-hand cowgirl after all.

By the time all the steers were separated and they began working the cows and calves, he was damn sure convinced that Emma made a hand.

He watched her go after an irritated mother cow bent on protecting her baby. It was a ticklish business, but Emma didn’t hesitate to turn Biscuit loose. The cow wheeled and charged. Biscuit dodged, closed on the animal, and hounded it until it broke away from its calf. Not once did Emma grab leather, and she dropped her lariat on the frightened calf in her first try and pulled it to the branding fire.

Gene followed along, dismounted, threw the quaking calf to the ground, twisted it until it was on its side, and held its head while a Bar Cross cowboy stomped his boot on a rear leg, pushed it forward, and pulled the other leg far to the rear to keep it from kicking.

Cal seared the Double K brand into its hide, clipped an ear, and castrated it.

“You weren’t blowing smoke about that gal,” Gene said as he released the bawling calf and threw the next one down. “Patrick has got himself one humdinger of a wife.”

Cal chuckled, repeated the same procedure on the calf, and said, “That’s a fact, although he’s still getting used to her.”

“I can see why,” Gene said. “She’s no ordinary filly.”

The outfit worked until sundown. Most of the gathered cattle belonged to the Double K, so there was no need for the stray men to begin separating the animals by brand. After supper, the first two night guards, Patrick and Emma, rode out to bed down the restless herd.

That slip of a gal purely amazed Gene. She had worked as hard as any hand during the day and seemed to take to the job like she was born to it. He started thinking on another story he could pen about a ranch-savvy gal who bamboozles a young cowboy into believing she is helpless in order to win his affection. He wanted to start in on it right away but was too darn weary. Instead he jotted the idea in a pocket notebook, along with the one about a girl who goes on a roundup and puts the boys to shame, rolled up in his blanket, put his head on his saddle, and went to sleep.

49

T
he camp stayed put the next two days as the riders popped stray cattle out of the nearby canyons and nudged them off surrounding mountainsides. The effort added eighty head of drifted steers, cows, calves, and a few yearlings to the growing herd, belonging mostly to the other outfits. There were even a few of Gene’s cows in the bunch, which pleased him greatly. He’d trail them to town with the Double K cut and sell them there.

The drifted critters were a mite unruly, which kept the night guards alert during the cool, starlit dark hours. But by the time they were on the move to the new campground, they ambled along with the Double K herd without complaint. All together the tally reached over two hundred head.

At the new camp, the crew settled the cows, saddled fresh ponies for the afternoon roundup, and lined up with their plates waiting for George to spoon out the hot stew that was simmering over the fire in Dutch ovens. Along with it came stewed prunes, hot biscuits, and Arbuckles’ coffee.

“George, I swear you’re a better cook than you were a cowboy,” one of the Bar Cross boys joked as he walked away with a full plate.

A 7TX hand slapped his knee and hooted in agreement.

“Watch what you say or you’ll find grease in your boots come morning,” George growled.

The campground was in a shallow depression hard against a ridgeline that made a good holding area. From here, once the gathering was complete and branding done, the stray men from the other outfits would cut out their critters and trail them west over the rough mountain pass to the big spreads on the Jornada. The Double K would trail its beef herd east to the new town of Alamogordo, where the cattle buyer had arranged for stock cars to take the animals south to El Paso and east from there. Although it would be a longer trail drive by half a day, it would be less stressful on the animals and easier on the outfit.

“I’ll trail my cattle with yours, if you don’t mind,” Gene said to Patrick. He had eleven critters consisting of six cows, four calves, and a young steer.

“I thought you needed to lay low,” Patrick replied. He put his plate aside and rolled a cigarette.

“I got a hankering to see Alamogordo again.” Gene finished his Arbuckles’ coffee. “Last time I was there, it was the end of the tracks with a signboard on a bare patch of ground six miles from water. I hear it’s grown considerable.”

George sat himself down next to Gene, wiped his hands on his pants, and looked around at the crew. They were covered in dust from head to foot, kicked up by hundreds of hooves. He shook his head. “I don’t see the need for another town. We already got La Luz and Tularosa. Makes the whole damn valley seem crowded.”

“Now, hold on a minute, George,” Cal said. “A new town means more whiskey and women, and you’re partial to both, as I recall.”

“Don’t you go make Emma think bad of me,” George snapped.

“Why, I’d never,” Emma said in mock protest.

“See there,” George said, shaking a finger at Cal. “You’ve already gone and done it.”

“I hear whiskey and saloons have been outlawed,” Gene said.

“Then the town ain’t needed at all,” George said.

“Don’t you want to see it?” Emma asked.

“Once, maybe,” George grumbled.

The boys started teasing George about some of his more memorable drunks when he’d been a Bar Cross hand, and after they finished, Emma told them about George getting drunk at her wedding.

Gene watched, thinking she seemed a hell of a lot more at ease with Cal, old George, and a bunch of dusty cowboys she hardly knew than she did with her own husband. On top of that, Patrick didn’t seem troubled by it at all. That was something worth pondering but likely wouldn’t suit the story he had in mind.

He turned to Patrick. “This sure is broken country, with timber and rough canyons where cows can hide.”

Patrick nodded. “I know it. Four hands will hold the steers and cows separate while the rest of us pop strays. We should get it done by nightfall tomorrow. One more day to work the herd and we’ll be trailing our way to Alamogordo the morning after.”

“I’d be obliged if you don’t put me to minding those critters we’ve already gathered,” Gene said.

“I had no such idea,” Patrick replied as he stubbed out his cigarette and stood. “Time to start chasing strays,” he announced to the hands.

As the end of the roundup neared, the work got downright monotonous, but the boys didn’t tire of busting startled cattle from the thickets, breaks, and canyons out into the open. With a skill they knew few people had and without a grumble or complaint, the men rode out laughing and joking under a clear New Mexico sky.

* * *

T
he morning after the last of the cows were gathered, Cal and Patrick grazed the animals before starting them for Alamogordo. They’d turned most of the small remuda loose, knowing some would return to the ranch headquarters while others would need to be brought in before winter came.

The boys from the other outfits were long gone, pushing their strays up the foothills of the San Andres Mountains. Telltale dust hanging over the hills put them a good five miles away.