Goodnight's Dream (A Floating Outfit Western Book 4) (21 page)

‘
He’ll not worry about
that when he sees what we’ve gathered,’ Poe guessed. ‘Damn it,
there’re
ladinos
coming out of the brush that we’ve never managed to catch
again since they were de-prided and turned loose.’

That was a factor of major
importance to Poe. The
ladinos
were outlaw cattle smart enough to realize that
the thickly grown thorn brush country offered them immunity against
their human enemies. So they moved in, adapting to a way of life
far removed from that of their open-range kin. Such creatures
developed the survival instincts of much-hunted whitetail deer.
Normally they were so acutely cautious that they only crept out to
graze on the open country during the hours of darkness. They
returned to the brush with the first glow of daylight, or fled
immediately to safety at the first hint of danger. Only the
attraction of the blood call drew them out and sufficiently lulled
their senses to make catching them remotely possible.

‘
What do you reckon, John?’ Dusty
whispered after almost an hour.

Studying the longhorns which were still
milling, pushing and shoving about the rock, Poe tried to listen to
the sounds rising from the brush. Deep in the thorn thickets, more
cattle sounded their answers to the mournful racket of those
already on the scene. However, the sounds came from far away. There
were other factors to be balanced against waiting for the distant
callers to gather.

‘
I’d say we take what we’ve got,
Dusty,’ the foreman decided. ‘There’re over a hundred head out
there and, with luck, at least half of them’ll be steers. If we
wait, we may lose them.’

‘
That’s what I figure,’ Dusty admitted.
‘I’ll let Red and Billy Jack know to get ready.’

While Poe went to his patiently waiting
horse, Dusty cautiously inched himself into sight of the other two.
He attracted their attention and they withdrew to collect their
mounts. Grinning slightly, as he wondered what Billy Jack was
figuring on going wrong, Dusty backed out of sight.

After tightening the girths and
making everything ready, Dusty swung astride the buckskin. He
unstrapped the forty-foot-long, hard-plaited Manila rope from the
saddle horn. Before he offered to ride out, he prepared the rope
for use. His right hand gripped just under the honda—the
spliced,
leather-coated
eyelet in the business end of the rope—and gave a few jerks
forward. Doing so caused the noose to open out to a usable size,
ready for throwing. A glance to his left told him that Poe was
duplicating his actions and he knew that Red and Billy Jack would
also be shaking out their loops in preparation for any roping that
was needed while gathering up the spoils of the blood
call.

Exchanging a nod with Poe, Dusty set off to
reap the harvest of his idea. The hide and blood of the butchered
cow had brought a number of cattle together around the rock and
still held their attention. Yet all still might come to nothing. A
premature or awkward appearance by the men might send most of the
assembled longhorns racing for safety.

With that in mind, the men stretched forward
alongside the necks of their horses and hoped that doing so would
delay the moment when the cattle recognized them for what they
were. They also held their mounts to a steady, aimless-seeming walk
instead of dashing into sight. Wanting to make their net as tight
as possible, Red and Poe made for the rock while the other two kept
to the fringe of the brush.

Carefully, without hurry, noise or commotion,
the men converged on the cattle. A slight movement in the brush
caught Dusty’s eye. Turning his head, he saw the face of a cougar
peering from among the undergrowth. Attracted by the sounds of the
cattle and scent of blood, the mountain lion had stalked up in the
hope of snatching a meal. With the wind blowing towards it, its
scent had not reached the longhorns around the rock. Finding itself
observed, the big cat turned and faded away silently.

Already the blood spilled on the ground had
been horn-hooked and hoof-churned almost into oblivion and the
bloody hide was losing most of its attraction. Fortunately, by that
time the tamer steers brought as decoys from the herd had been
forced, or had moved voluntarily, to the edge of the assembly.
Being used to the sight of men, they raised no alarm over the
approaching riders.

Aided by the same steers, the
four men started the cattle moving. Not until a half mile or more
separated them from the brush did the first of the
ladinos
begin to realize
their danger. If the awareness had come simultaneously, all might
been lost. Luckily the inborn herd instincts dulled the
ladinos’
perceptions. Taking
comfort from the company of their kind, they allowed themselves to
be hazed farther and farther from safety.

Then one of the steers became
aware of what was happening. Twisting out of the gather, it tried
to escape. At a signal, Dusty’s buckskin sprang to head off the
bunch-quitter. Coming alive in the small Texan’s hands, the rope
flew through the air. Finding its forefeet suddenly trapped,
the
ladino
crashed to the ground with some force. On rising dazedly,
after being freed from the encircling noose, the animal went
willingly to rejoin its companions.

That was not the only attempt
at flight. If the animal making it was a cow, bull or too young for
their purposes, it would be allowed to go. Not so any steer. When
one suitable for shipment tried to escape, it found its efforts
frustrated by a fast-riding man with a well-trained horse and a
rope which seemed almost a living being eager to obey its user’s
will and enforce his demands. Even the most ardent
brush-popping
ladino
needed only to be busted to the ground once with a forefoot
catch
^xix
to learn the wisdom of
obedience.

At last the shipping herd came
into sight. Any indication Goodnight might have felt at his
nephew’s and
segundo’s
absence died when he saw what they brought with them.
Riding to meet them, he recognized several notorious
ladinos
among the cattle
and figured one of the quartet had come up with a mighty smart
notion for solving his problem of replacing the stock lost in the
stampede.

‘
Well,’ Red said in a challenging
manner as he let Billy Jack come alongside him. ‘It didn’t rain,
the wind didn’t change and we got ’em here without losing a single
steer.’

‘
I’ll bet they all die off with the
“big jaw”,’ the lanky cowhand replied.

It took a lot to make Billy Jack give up and
look at the bright side of life.

Faced with proof that Dusty’s ‘fool notion’
worked, Goodnight did not hesitate to put it to further use. In the
days while Wardle, Jones, Colburn and Hultze returned to Mineral
Wells, gathered their steers and got them headed towards Young
County, the Swinging G men placed out hides, poured blood on the
ground and learned much about utilizing the blood call as a means
of rounding up cattle. Goodnight saw the size of the shipping herd
grow far faster than it would have by any conventional method he
might have tried.

Not all the attempts were as
successful as the first. There had been times when the gory earth
and bloody hide evoked no response; or the blood call from the
reliable, decoy steers failed to produce any of their wilder kin.
Experiments taught the men that, from their point of view, the
blood and hide of a cow had a better effect than that of a bull or
steer. On occasion bad luck, or bad management, caused the
assembled cattle to take warning and flee before the trap closed on
them. Once an over-excited Austin forgot his orders and lost them
what would have been a good gather by bursting out of concealment
recklessly and spooking the longhorns. Another time, a poorly
positioned cowhand—it was Loving’s companion, Spat—was spotted by a
wily old
ladino,
which cut loose with a shattering bellow of warning as it
fled and frightened off other cattle headed for the bloody
hide.

Yet there had also been times
when all went well. Sufficient of them, in fact, for the herd to
regain its original numbers by the fifth day after the Mineral
Wells ranchers’ departure. Of course the
ladinos
needed constant watching, and there
were flurries of activity when determined efforts were made by
individual steers or groups to escape; but for the most part they
settled into their new environment in a satisfactory
manner.

All of the ranch crew found
work in plenty during the five days after the Mineral Wells’
ranchers’ departure. While the cowhands gathered cattle, Rowdy and
his louse attended to collecting food and supplies for the
six-hundred-mile journey, or saw to it that the two wagons were in
perfect working condition. The two wranglers and nighthawk who
would handle the sixty-strong
remuda
went over every horse, learning the habits of as
many of them as possible and making sure all kept in the best of
health. For three days the local blacksmith, helped by Billy Jack
and one of Goodnight’s men, made up and fitted cold shoes to the
horses. These, known as ‘good-enoughs’, would be carried in barrels
on the bed wagon, to be used for emergency replacements on the
trail.

What with helping on the blood call
round-ups, riding his turn at night guard on the herd and helping
Goodnight with the organization. Dusty had less time than anybody
else for leisure. Yet always at the back of his mind lay the memory
of the stampede and his thoughts on why it had been caused. So he
kept a wary eye open for further attempts at preventing his uncle
gathering enough stock to fill the contract.

‘
I make it five hundred and ninety,
Dustine,’ Goodnight commented at noon on the fifth day, as they
watched a further twenty steers added to the herd. ‘We’ve covered
the losses, with a few over, thanks to your “fool
notion”.’

‘
Yes, sir,’ Dusty replied, flushing a
little with pride at what, for Goodnight, was high praise. ‘No word
from Mineral Wells yet, though.’

‘
It’s early yet. Mark’ll probably send
the Kid as soon as they know something. Why don’t you ride back to
the ranch and see if he’s come?’

‘
Isn’t there anything I can be doing
here?’

‘
Nothing that we can’t tend to. While
you’re at the house, ask Rowdy if he needs any more
supplies.’

‘
Yo!’ Dusty said. ‘We could send
somebody along the Mineral Wells trail to see if they’re
coming.’

‘
We’ll do it tomorrow,’ Goodnight
promised.

Having been engaged on the unexacting task of
riding circle around the shipping herd, Dusty sat a light dun
gelding he was training to take its place in his mount. The horse
was still fairly fresh, but he did not rush it as he started in the
direction of the main house. Riding along at a leisurely walk, he
kept alert and constantly searched the surrounding country for
signs of danger. His every instinct warned him that Goodnight’s
enemies had not given up. Not having seen anything to disturb him
did nothing to lessen his suspicions.

So he came to a halt as he saw a rider appear
among the bushes on a distant slope. While he had left his bedroll
at the ranch house, he still carried the little Winchester carbine
in the saddle boot. Reaching down, he coiled his fingers around the
wrist of the carbine’s butt. The rider came to a halt at this first
sight of Dusty, then he removed his hat and waved it vigorously
overhead. After looking back over his shoulder, the man started his
horse moving in the small Texan’s direction. Dusty replaced the
half-drawn carbine as he recognized the other.

‘
What’s up, Spat?’ Dusty inquired as
they came together. ‘Did you find any cattle up on the north
ranges?’

‘
A few bunches, mostly cows and
yearlings like Colonel Charlie figured,’ Spat replied, having been
sent to make a search in case the morning’s attempt came to
nothing.

‘
That won’t matter,’ Dusty assured the
other. ‘We’ve got all we need.’

‘
Saw a feller just a short ways
back.’

‘
Know him?’

‘
Nope,’ Spat admitted. ‘Way he was
sneaking along, I figured he didn’t want no close looking at. He
wasn’t a cowhand, that’s for sure. Maybe an Army deserter. He was a
lean cuss, wearing a sword—’

‘
And a buckskin shirt ’n’ coonskin
cap?’ Dusty interrupted.

‘
Sure. Only he’d got a sword on his
belt, and was wearing cavalry pants, so I figured—’

‘
You must’ve been riding the herd on
the night before the stampede, I’d say.’

‘
Sure I was. Why?’

‘
If you hadn’t been, you’d likely have
recognized that feller. He was one of the three who caused
it.’

‘
Damn it, Cap’n Dusty!’ Spat growled,
his voice brittle. ‘I didn’t know that. When I saw how he was
dressed, I took him for a deserter. Allowed he’d not want anybody
to know which way he was going and stayed out of his sight rather
than chance starting a shooting fuss.’

Knowing the severe punishments inflicted by
the Army on its recaptured deserters, Dusty appreciated Spat’s
point. A man desperate enough to chance going over the hill might
try to kill rather than leave a witness who could guide the Army to
him. So Dusty considered that Spat had acted correctly in not
permitting Scroggins to know he had been seen.