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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Mystery
- Subject: Drama
- Published: 12/06/2015
The Young Cowboys
Born 1954, M, from St Louis Mo, United StatesThe Young Cowboy
My family and I lived on a small farm in Missouri's boot hill. The winters were cold and the summers hot and the land not very good too grow anything on but rocks. Now if I could have found a market for rocks we would be rich, but that was not the case. My Pa died on one cold winter's day. He had been out with his two-bit ax chopping trees down for firewood and I was busy sawing the tree that was already down with a cross cut into firewood.
I heard nothing more then a grunt and at first didn't think much about it, Pa was always grunting about one thing or another. He didn't say much and Ma always said that was more of a blessing then us kids would know. I was the oldest of four of us, and the only boy in the midst. Sometimes that was a good thing, because I never had to do dishes, but it was a bad thing when it came to the outside chores. Mary was the next oldest and she was raised more like a boy then a girl cause Pa and I needed help.
When after a few minutes I didn't hear the ax biting into the tree, I got up and strolled over. Pa was lying on the ground, the ax still in the butt of the tree and he was white as could be and holding his chest. I bent down over him and I guess shock had me so much in its grasp I didn't realize what was happening. "Pa now you would take a hickory switch to me for lying down and napping on the job.” He grunted again, "Son, I am not going to make it, you take care of Ma and the girls and don't let em go hungry." With that his eyes went blank and I knew he was gone on to be with Jesus.
Pa was never a mean man, but he was a firm man who thought the Bible was the only road map in life. The book said, beat a child and if we forgot our Bible learning he sure as the world would beat our back side with a big stick. But he was fun and would laugh at a joke and he never failed no matter how tired to hold the little ones before putting them to bed. We didn't have much but a two room log cabin and a lot of work, and the one thing that meant more, we were a family.
A trip to town was a two-day wagon ride and the preacher would come to the small town church only once a month to preach a bit of hell and damnation to us. I had no choice but to go home and tell Ma and the girls. Ma just sits in the one good chair we had an old rocker and cried. I got Mary and we headed off, after unloading the wood we had cut, to get Pa.
Pa was a big man of at least six foot tall and it took me and Mary till after dark to drag him into the wagon. Ma had us carry him in and lay him out in the living room, which also was our dinning room, and the little kids bedroom. We put him right on the homemade rough wood table. Ma sent me out to tell the neighbors about Pa. I spent most the night driving to the near by farms. When I got home, I slept in the loft for a few hours and Ma woke me and told me to eat a bite then go dig the grave out under the old oak by the road. She said Pa loved that old tree and I knew he did because he had craved into the bark the day he asked ma to marry him.
I worked all day and about noon the folks from around about us started showing up. Mr. Henry sent his boy out to help me dig and my cousin Paul who lived a few miles away came and helped supervise us. Paul was not much for working but darn good at talking and telling us stories as we dug.
The folks had brought in a little of what they could spare, for no one really had much and anything was a sacrifice. Mrs. Henry brought a molasses cake, Stump's brought a pot of beans and bacon, the Olsen's brought some bread though it was a week old, and Mr. Taylor who had lost his wife a few years before brought a cured ham.
We all stood around the table eating and telling good tales about Pa, some laughing, Ma told how he had stole her away from Jimmy Crawford and married her. Then she started to cry, Mr. Stump took Pa's bible and read: Psa 23:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; , Ma started crying along with Mrs. Henry and the girls, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:' Old Mr. Olsen said your Pa didn't have an enemy in the world.' thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. And everyone in the room said Amen. All the men folk picked Pa up and Ma wrapped him in her favorite quilt and they carried him to the hole I had dug. Then we all said the Lords prayer and I began tossing the dirt in.
That night when everyone had gone I thought about the words Pa had said to me and I didn't know how a boy of sixteen was going to take care of everyone. I was more then a little worried and I went out and sit next to Pa's grave and asked him how I was going to do it. I cried a long time then, it felt like Pa's hand on my shoulder, get up boy and get it done. There was no person I could see but I know it was Pa and I couldn't let him down. I slept right there rest of the night wrapped in my coat. The very next morning I got started early with the job of being the man for the family. I didn't know if I was up to so much responsibility but I knew one thing for sure if I didn't do it there was no one else to take care of Ma and the kids.
I carried in the firewood and got a good fire going in the stone fireplace. Then while Ma was up frying bacon, I collected the eggs and fed the chickens. We had a dozen or so white hens and on a good day got about a dozen eggs. Then I slopped the half dozen Hampshire Hogs. Milked the two Jersey cows and tossed out a bit of oats for the four horses. Time I was done with that I got in just in time to get a few pieces of bacon and some coffee.
Ma wanted to know what my plans for the day were. I told her was going to go hunting first off, we didn't have much meat left in the cold cellar. Pa and I a couple years back spent most of the summer digging down about 14 foot underground a big room, then we lined the room with logs and the floor, sides and top, covered it all up with a good 4 feet of dirt and planted some grapes on top. Pa said the grapes would drink up any water and help keep the room dry. It worked, the room was always at least 60 degrees on the hottest days and even on the coldest. We put big hooks, into the log walls and hung all the meat there, and right now it was getting bare. So I figured I might get a wild hog or two and a couple of nice deer bucks. I let Ma know I was headed over to get Cousin Paul and would be gone next couple of days unless we got really lucky.
Paul was always ready to go hunting, he wasn't much at work, but he was good at tracking. I always told him he had a noise like a dog, and could smell out game a mile away. I rode Pa's chestnut and took the dapple gray for packing. Paul took the big black mustang and a little Arabian mare to pack on. Then we headed for the deepest part of the woods. One thing those Missouri hills had beside rocks were lots of woods. Game wasn't so bad either, including the kind that you didn't want to see, like wolfs and foxes. Now I had only seen one black bear when Pa and I hunted and though we took a shot at him he got clean away. We had not gone more then five miles out into the woods then right in front of us the biggest bear you ever want to meet in the woods come a charging us. Now I am not a bad shot when ready to shoot and to this day I don't know how Paul did it. But he had a shot off when that bear was about ten feet from us, with his horse raising up on two legs and me trying to get my gun in line, he got that bear right between the eyes.
We spent the rest of the day dragging that thing with rope and tackle up on a big tree limb and skinning it after cutting its throat and bleeding it. Pa always said before you do anything else bleed the game or it won't taste good. I never had eaten bear, but I knew this one split between us was going to be a months worth of meat. And I claimed the fur, so once we hung the bear to let it bleed out, I stretched the skin and started curing it.
Over the next few days we got two deer not big enough to brag on, a wild turkey, two ducks and six squirrels, a half dozen rabbits and on the way home Paul got him some frogs for the legs.
Once I got home I had to start the cutting and hanging meat in the smoke house, some of it in the cold house cause it was going to be eaten over then next few weeks. Smoking took a couple of weeks and Pa always wanted me to use hickory or oak and we had us a good stack so I got the smoke house almost full. Then I took one of the young bull hogs and skinned him and butchered him up and hung some hams and shoulder and bacon to cure. Ma came out with some molasses and used that to give it a sugar taste by brushing it on the ham and shoulder. Then she would add some maple syrup the last few days of smoking and coat the meat with that.
A plan begins to form in my head. When the preacher had come through last time I heard him tell Pa how they were paying a dollar a pound on the hoof for beef at Kansas City, Kansas. Now that was about 200 miles or so from us, I figured that to trail a small herd there would take about twenty days. We had 15 head of good strong Black Angus cows ready now. Pa and I had talked about doing this. The cows would bring anywhere from a $1,000.00 to $1,500.00 each. $15,000.00 dollars would take care of Ma and the girls for the rest of their lives. That would still leave about 20 breeders and between our two bulls and Paul's family four bulls we should be able by next year to have another 10 to 15 cows ready to go. I knew too that Paul's family had at least five White Face cows that were ready for market. We could sell them closer but then would only get half the money and we needed the money with Pa gone. I had mentioned the ideal to Paul when we were hunting and he liked it a lot, but would only be us two to do it. That is one long trip through some really Bad Lands yet what choice did we have.
I waited till the meat was cured and started the jerky when I told Ma. She didn't like it one little bit and Mary decided if I was going she wanted to go too. I sure was powerful pleased Ma put her foot down too a firm no on that ideal. Spring was just starting to hit as Paul and I went out and rounded up our cattle. Between us we started out with 26 head of cattle. A few were older and we figured we might need to trade them to the Indians or use them to eat. We had about ten dollars in silver and a packhorse each with our bedrolls, rifles, and food. I think Ma was still not happy about the ideal but it didn't really show till I got Pa's pistol and holster off the peg and put it on. “Now why on earth are you going to take that iron with you son?” I explained, “you never knew about snakes or what kind of trouble would face us.” And Pa had taught all of us to shoot pretty well. I was a quick draw and straight shot, in fact I was far better with the colt then I was with the rifle. But if I was good, Mary was better. She could out draw me, and put two shots off to my one and never miss the target. Even Ma was a good shot, we never knew when Indian trouble might come our way and Pa insisted that we be ready. I could use a bow as well as the pistol and toss a knife. Paul was not that good of a draw but a very good shot and with a rifle the best in any of our kinfolk. Some would tease and say he could shoot the eye out of eagle a mile before the rest of us could even see the bird.
So off to KC we headed, a song on our lips, and thinking of the money at the end of the road brings a smile. We had no ideal of what lay ahead of us on our first cattle drive. I turned to Paul, about a mile down the road, does this make us cowboys? He slapped me on the back and said, nope, way you ride and shoot makes you a cowgirl.
Chapter Two
The first few miles went pretty easy. Paul and I knew the dirt path that some might call a road. We had gone down it many times, and making good time was not a surprise. In most cases with a herd this small all you had to do was keep the lead cow going straight and the others would follow. So all we needed to do was ride behind them and drive them forward.
Cows are no different then most people, they take the easy path. Life for me was not about hard or easy, it was just life. I guess Pa always said do the right thing and it will return to you. He wasn't one to complain nor did he allow us too, he liked to say, it rains on the just and the unjust, it's just life. Now he was one to pull out a bit from the Bible any time one of us kids went a stray. I guess if you stop and think about it, not much wrong with living by that book anyway, don't ever teach you anything bad and faith can't hurt anyone.
We were about five miles from home and coming upon Mr. Pit's farm. We knew he wouldn't mind and darkness was already catching up with us so we just hoarded the cattle right into his empty coral. Mrs. Pits was a woman of some size, tall and a bit round she came right out and asked us in for supper. Now farming in Missouri was not going to make anyone rich and the Pits were no exception to the rule. They were poor folk like us but very good and decent people. Missy Pits had a thing for Paul and you could see her eyes following him everywhere he went. As we put the last cow in I slapped Paul on the back and said. "No wonder you were in such a hurry to get down the road seems you got a girl at every farm." He shot back at me. "You think I would go after Missy, she might be alright for a cold night but look at that crooked noise and sides that she never stops staring at me give me the creeps." I told him I am sure that really was bothering him and I would be keeping an eye on him through the night and didn't want to see them slipping out to the barn.
Now don't be offended, boys are boys, and I don't know this for sure but my guess is the Missy was eying him, and that girls probably say about the same kind of things when alone with a friend. As we sit around the table enjoying beans and bacon, cooked just right with a bit of coffee to wash it all down, Mr. Pits asked if we would take a few of his cows with us, he had four head he could spare and he would let his boys, Rob and Bob go with us to give us a hand.
Now Rob was a bit of a clown and loved to play pranks on people, where Bob was a hot head and liked to fight. I mean some people fight if they have too but Bob would look for a good fight. He loved the fighting rather he won or lost, it was the fight that made him tick. We could use the help and said OK, when the next morning I saw the four cows, I wished I had said no. They were old cross breeds of God only knows what, and not in good shape. I told Mr. Pit’s maybe he would be better off taking them to Piedmont and send them by train. He said, nope, like you boys, I take em to town, I get .35 a pound I need the money I will send em with you and I get a $1. A pound and though you might lose one on the way, I still come out ahead. I couldn't tell him no and besides I like Rob and Bob and knew if we ran into trouble they would be a big help.
The next four days went smooth, just pushing down the trail. We would find a place to camp each night and build us a nice fire. Bob was more use then just fighting he was a great cook. Rob knew farming and farming ways; he managed to find wild herbs growing along the road. He came up with wild garlic and onions even found some Polk and put together a nice Polk salad one night. We decided that I was the best hunter in the group so that became my job. Paul was the one we gave the job of figuring out how to keep watch over the cows. He came up with a great ideal, each night the herd was small so he cut up some rope and hobbled the front legs of each cow, that way they could walk but not far and so we could all stay around the fire and keep warm.
On the fifth day I left the group to go do a bit of hunting. I decided I didn't want to take a chance of scaring the cows off or warning the game. I tired my horse to a tree and used the skills I had learned back when I was only seven or eight years old. Ma had a lot of Indian in her, her mother had been Sioux and she had spent a lot of her life learning the ways and she passed that down to us kids. So I started out through the woods on foot with bow in hand walking Indian style. What you do is walk on the rounded side of your feet and cross over each step. Walking like this your body turns in through limbs and brushes often not even moving a limb. It also left very little footprint to follow if someone tried to track you and was quiet because of lightness you took with each step. I had not gone far when I spotted a big buck deer. He was a ten pointer and I knew would give us enough meat for days. I put the arrow in the bow and pulled back. A perfect shot to the heart, the buck never even took a leap and he was down. I walked up, tied a piece of rope to his hind feet and hoisted him up using a tree limb. I bleed him then covered the blood up with dirt. I didn't want to cause the wild life to get scared and move off nor did I want to attract wolfs to us.
While the deer was hanging I went and got my horse and brought him up closer, then I butchered out the hams and shoulders then buried the rest. I headed back late at night the moon was my only light. I ate jerky on the way back knowing that tomorrow we would have a feast before heading down the trail. I guess as boys we were not really in too big a hurry. It was our first adventure and we were having the time of our lives. Paul would get his guitar off the packhorse and we would sing around the fire. All the songs any of us knew were hymns but we all figured we were pretty good at it. The other only song we knew was, When Johnny comes Marching Home.
As I rode on toward where camp should be, instinct took over and I stopped about a half mile away. Got off my horse and figured I would sneak in and give them a scare. Something wasn't right. Paul and the boys should have been singing and night bays of the cows, but there was nothing. I got to the camp and found it empty, but the fire was still warm and some our stuff was still laying about. I picked up our stuff and headed in what I hoped was the right direction. In the morning light I found the tracks, our cows and horses and three other horses. This could only mean trouble. I could tell by the dirt clumps I was getting close. I got off the trail and began to run along side the road. Didn't take long and I was up with them. The boys were pushing cows and behind them were three really rough looking guys all with guns trained on the boys. I saw Paul out in the lead.
Now all of us boys were pretty good with weapons and I was no slouch but none of us had ever used them against a human being. I was glad for my bow, because I figured it would be the best way was to get the last guy and do it quietly. To rustle cattle was to be hung or shot. There were not any lawmen in that part of the country; you found them only in the big towns. The law as Pa always said was made for the lawbreaker; he took that from the Bible too. And he taught us to defend our family, friends and home and this seemed like to me the day of my reckoning was upon me. I was scared, and not sure I could do it, but then I looked at Paul, Bob, and Rob and knew I must. I put an arrow into the bow pulled it back and let loose. Swoosh was all the sound there was as the arrow hit home right through the back into the heart. The man fell from the saddle and as he did the nearest rider turned to look. I knew I was up in the trees well enough hid and already had a new arrow in the bow I let her fly. He too dropped off his horse with a plod with the arrow going right into his neck. As the third rider turned to see what was going on he took his eyes off Bob who leaped on him knocking him to the ground. Now I have seen Bob fight, but never like this, he beat the man till he couldn't get off the ground. Bob stood over him smiling from ear to ear. Sure glad to see ya partner he yelled as I made my way down to them.
Every body grabbed up their guns and was busy for a while patting each other on the back. Paul told me they had just got camp going when these three caught them by surprise. Bob spoke up then, “let's hang this here fellow”, and Rob said, “no lets tie him to a tree and leave him”; Paul wanted to just shoot him. I thought maybe we should just take his horse and run it off and let him go. But after awhile we decided we had to do what the custom of the land was else he would just try and rob someone else. So we found an oak tree and Paul carved a note on the tree, cattle rustler hung here, and we put him on his horse and Bob hit it. The horse ran out from under him and there he hung. Now I got to tell ya this was not a pretty sight, shooting someone to save a life was one thing too hang a man was something altogether different. I watched him hang, he didn't die right away and the rope just sort of choked him till he died. When he died his bowels moved and his bladder opened, the smell was awful.
As we rode on our way pushing the cows, I couldn't eat that night when we made camp. I walked away saying I was going to keep watch, the camp was quiet, Paul didn't do any singing even Rob was quiet. I think we all became men that day, and I was not happy about the man I had become. Maybe what we did was right and had to be, but it didn't feel right inside. I walked around out in the woods, tears flowing down my cheeks. I had killed three men, and the burden of it was so heavy on my heart. I found an old log and knelt down, I don't know where the words came from but deep in my heart and I prayed. I asked God to forgive me and help me never have to take a man's life again. Maybe the book teaches an eye for an eye but my heart didn't feel it. I knew it would happen again because we lived in a land with out many laws but I also knew I had to find peace in my heart.
Over the next few days as we pushed down the trail things were quiet and I knew everyone was feeling what I was. Bob was the one to put his feeling out before the rest of us, "if this happens again, lets just beat the guy up, I don't want to do no more hanging.” I was glad that night Rob had found a young sassafras tree and taking some of the root made a big pot of tea. To anyone that has never had any, its root beer with out the fizz. It somehow lifted our hearts and we began to joke and wrestle around.
Little did we know what lay just over the next hill top, God give us strength?
Chapter Three
Over the next few days we pushed ahead. Going forward was work, moving a herd of cows takes a lot of effort and I was glad it was not just Paul and I after all. Rob was keeping us all laughing he could find a way to make a joke out of something no matter how small or big it was. He liked to play jokes, some of them not so funny, he put a bur under Paul's saddle and when Paul mounted up the horse went to bucking and tossed Paul right off onto a black berry bush. The thorns cut him up a bit and when he got to his feet he dragged Rob right off his horse, held him down and rubbed black berry's all over his face. I swear Rob looked like an Indian for the next two days from the stains. And we kept telling him to wash his face, so he decided to use a bit of the bottle of whiskey I had in my bag for medicine to wash his face. It worked in a way, left his face striped but what was funny was his running around in circles like a dog chasing its tail because he got some in his eyes.
We were getting close to the town of Fremont, maybe about ten miles away yet when the wind started up. Now one thing anyone who has been in Missouri knows is that the weather can change in just a few minutes. I remember once Pa and I was out hunting and when we left that morning it was so hot we were wearing short sleeve shirts, before the morning was over it was so cold I thought I was going to freeze before we got back home and Pa kept acting like he was doing OK, but he nearly knocked me over trying to get close to the fire place to warm up.
The wind was getting cold, it was early spring and I had not expected it to get really cold but here it was and I sure was glad I had my deerskin coat. It took Ma a month to tan the hides and get the lining just right and compared to the buckskin coats; mine was far better and warmer.
As we made camp that night snow started to fall. Now the area around Fremont is not like the mountains in TN but they are still mighty big hills with a lot of trees and wild life. We didn't have a tent so Bob went ahead of us and built a lean too and thank goodness he did. By morning we had a good six-inch's of snow on the ground and the nearby creeks we had been following was frozen solid. We decided not to try and push the cattle on while it was still snowing for fear of some slipping and falling or getting lost from out sight. I decided I should go hunting, sitting around all day and just looking at a bunch of cows grouped together was not my ideal of fun.
It took me till noon and with the snow falling, I was a bit lucky because I found some deer tracks. I headed down the hillside going into what was a gulf between the hills. The snow now made my moving pretty slow and with the coat and being so cold walking was hard. Just as I got to the bottom, the snow gave way under my feet, and worse I was on a pond, and the ice broke under me. I felt myself dropping down into the icy water and was only able to hang on to branch that was overhanging where I was. I tried to pull my self up but my boots were full of water and I was soon so cold I felt my hands loosing my grip. Now once again I found myself saying a prayer, but I just didn't see any hope of getting out of this one. I had walked in not wanting to take a chance of my horse falling and breaking a leg. I was so cold; my legs felt like a thousand needles in them, then no feeling at all. I closed my eyes and said my good byes in prayer to God and asked him to take care of Ma and Mary and the rest of the kids. I was just letting go when hands grabbed me and began pulling me up out of the water.
I looked up into the face of two young Indian braves. I was happy they were Sioux. I tried to talk to them but my words didn't come out. Soon they had me on shore and wrapped in skins. One brave built a fire and the other poured some kind of drink down my throat. It tasted awful but soon my legs were hurting again and I knew that was a good sign. I was glad for the pain and to just know I was alive.
The two braves took me under my arms and helped me walk; we didn't have to go far, until we came on a small village. There was about ten tepees’ that I could see. The braves didn't say much and I was shaking so badly and my tongue felt like it wouldn't work so talking was out for now. I was taken in a tepee and there a woman helped take off my clothes, she was old and her face wrinkled. Still I felt embarrassed, I was as helpless as a baby. Once she had my clothes off and my weapons piled in a dark area she wrapped me in a bear skin. She poured more of that foul tasting stuff down my throat and told me she was the wife to the chief and soon I would be well and able to travel. I have no ideal of time for I drifted in and out of sleep, but late or at least it seemed late into the night and the fire was very low, I noticed something strange. I looked over my shoulder a young Indian girl was up next to me. As my head cleared I realized I was naked and so was she, now I really felt embarrassed. I of course had seen my sisters and even Ma naked and they had seen me, but we were family living under the same roof in a very small cabin. During the winter we had too bath and change clothes and privacy was not something we had much of. But to be lying here with a naked girl, well now I don't know that the good book would approve of such a thing.
Her eyes opened and I asked whom she was trying to pull away. I knew she was close to my age and her eyes laughed at me. She told me her name was See and she was there to warm me with her body. It worked, look at me I was able to move and talk. She then lay back and closed her eyes and said now go back to sleep. I lay there by her, her backside up against me. I felt strange in other places too and yet somehow warm inside. The next morning by time I woke up See was gone. I got up and got dressed. I sit by the fire and cleaned my pistol and rifle. All the bullets were ruined and I used a little of some kind of animal fat that was in pot to oil the guns.
I found my coat dried and slipped it on and made my way out to where the men were gathered. They laughed and called me Man Who Walks Frozen. I was quickly made at home and we talked of hunting and the weather. I explained that I must return to my friends and they gave me directions. As I started out I had not gone but a half a mile when I spotted a big buck. I pulled an arrow and made a good shot. The deer dropped and I hung and bleed him. Then cut the best parts our, including the heart and guts and took back to the Indian camp. The chief thanked me, for food was running low and I won favor in their sight by returning the kindness they had shown me.
It took me rest of the day to get back to my own camp. I had gotten lucky on the way back, the snow was melting already and I got two rabbits on the way back. When I walked in Paul was the first to get to me. Man you had us worried what happened, where is the deer? I sit by the fire glad for some hot coffee and told the story. Rob kept teasing me that there would be some new babies in that camp and they would be hunting me down calling me White Dog Who Make Indian Baby. I had to throw a rock at him to get him to shut up.
Next morning we pushed forward for Fremont. None of us had ever been there and didn't know anything but stories about the town. We were looking forward to seeing the place because the stories we had heard made it sound like a big place with lots of things to do. Bob kept talking about the whorehouse and how he had a dollar and was going to spend it right there. Rob kept telling him it would be a waste of a dollar and soon the two of them were fighting on the side of the trail. I don't think either one won, and no one was hurt, but for the rest of the way they wouldn't talk to each other.
Just outside of town we made a rope coral and voted on who would stay behind to keep watch. Bob was voted in so he started saying we were cheating and wanted to fight again. I decided that we should draw straws, this time Paul lost. He was no more happy then Bob had been but decided not to fight over it and show us he was more a man then Bob had been.
We rode into town; it was not the big town we had expected instead it was a line of buildings one block long facing each other. There was a post office, a run down store, across from the store was a salon and town marshal's office; at the end of the street a black smith shop and a gun shop. Well Bob turned to me and said I don't see much here for us today. I went to the store and Bob and Paul went toward the salon. None of us ever had drunk alcohol except maybe a swig when sick. I didn't want to drink, don't like the taste and never could find any good reason not to be fully in my senses. Pa always said a man with his mind clouded with strong drink did stupid things that could cost him his life.
I was looking over some bacon when I heard a loud banging and in through the door ran Paul. You got to hurry and help Bob the marshal has done took him to jail. I couldn't see how that could be we had not even been in town twenty minutes yet.
I grabbed Paul by the shoulders, "slow down, and tell me what happened." Paul said that while on way to the salon Bob noticed a house set back off the street and seeing some woman hanging out over her porch waving thought she was a girl of the night. He went up and offered her his dollar for some sack rolling. She yelled in side the house to her husband who was the marshal. He came out and arrested Bob and wouldn't listen at all to his trying to explain but popped him over the head with his gun.
I started to the jail and before I got there I saw this very heavy pocked faced red headed woman, and she was yelling, "hang that no good for calling me a whore." I couldn't see why Bob would have even offered a dollar for that sour looking woman no matter how good a sack roll she might have made. Then I couldn't help laughing a little, would take a might big sack anyway to roll with that one.
When I walked in the marshal's office Bob was rolled on his side in the jail and not moving. I demanded to know if had killed Bob and he assured me he was just knocked out. I asked if I could pay his way out of the jail and marshal was about as sourly looking as his wife. Short, round and black hair with those black beady eyes. Well if you got twenty dollars I guess we could over look him making such remarks to our fine women folk. I said sir between us we got ten dollars can't that do and us get out of your town. The marshal said nope we’d just leave him locked up till next week when the judge comes to town. That made Paul mad and he called him a son of a biscuit eater and that was just plain stupid cause no one but a fool would want a sack roll with that cow outside anyway. Before I could shut Paul up the pistol was pointing at him and he too ended up in jail. The marshal turned to me, "you got any smart ass remarks you want to make too?” I said, “no sir”, he grinned showing broken teeth and said now it will cost you fifty dollars to get them out of my jail. I asked, very nicely, why did it cost more than double, he told me because you look like a smart ass too.
I left and headed back to meet up with Rob; all the way I was trying to figure out what to do now. Between all of us ten dollars is all we had in cash money. When I got to camp and told Rob, he wanted to break them out of jail. He worked out a plan to go in shooting. I told him no way was I going to do that and be a wanted man till I die.
I couldn't leave my cousin and friend in jail and I agreed with Rob that the charge and fine was a bunch of bull. Then I had an ideal, I went back to town, I went to the store and there I looked at the old skinny white haired man that owned the place, sir, what if I butcher you a fresh cow, how much would you pay me for it? He said well I guess I could give you fifty dollars. I knew right then this was one of those small town crooked games. OK, I'll bring in the cow and give you the beef, but you got to let my buddies go before I turn the meat over. I went back and found a small calf, which was so weak it probably wasn't go to make it all the way to KC. I butchered the calf, and then I went out and found a big doe deer and shot it. I butchered it too, and put the deer meat under the beef and went back to town. The old man came out and looked on my pack horse; all he could see was the beef, so while he went over and paid the money I unloaded the meat making sure I put all the deer on the bottom. Soon as the boys were let loose we caught up with Rob who had already started moving the cows on down the trail.
For the rest of the day we laughed about how that store keeper was going to feel when he started using that beef to find it was from a skinny little calf with maybe fifty pounds of beef and another eighty of good Ole deer. When it was about to get dark we begin to tease Bob about his sack roll.
We went off to sleep, thinking we had won that little war and feeling mighty proud of ourselves. Only we had no ideal what the sunlight would bring. As often is the case in cattle drives, each day brings a new beginning and some are days are good and some you wished you could forget.
Chapter Four
I lay there finding it hard to sleep, my mind gets that way once in a while, where it just won't shut off. I was thinking about how Rob had wanted to break the boys out of jail by shooting the marshal and anyone else that got in the way. I kept remembering that rustler hanging from the tree and the one's I had put arrows into. I didn't like killing, yet I was worried because Paul seemed indifferent, Bob and Rob seemed to enjoy it, as Rob put it, it's like the most powerful feeling in the world. Coming from small farms and not much money, power was not something any of us were used too. I couldn't help but wonder where the road of life was going to take us. We were all just kids and life was forcing us to become men, what kind of men would we be? My Pa and Ma had instilled in us a trust in God and his book and it bothered me that Bob wanted the pleasure of roll in the sack so bad he was willing to pay for it instead of finding a wife. My family would have never approved of such thing, I know its common in the world in which we live, but is it right?
All these kind of thoughts were nagging at my brain. I guess a roll in the sack with someone who wants to is OK. My head reasons it out like this, not cheating on a wife, because not married to one. And even in the good book the harlot was saved when the walls of Jericho was tumbling down. I guess too, God made man and woman to want to do those things and be attracted to each other for that purpose. Even with that in mind, killing was bad and wrong. His good book said not to kill, I know it also says later that to do so in war, or to protect oneself was not the same as to kill for the pleasure which was not a good thing and I was plenty worried about that. I don't know when slept came, but I sure know what woke me up. I heard Rob let out a yell just as the crack of a rifle sounded.
We all woke up at the same time, each of us grabbing our gun, but soon as we would rise up a shot fired. Now Pa had taught me to always put my bedroll with a log to my back and then between the fire and me a line of stones or another log. This way you were protected from ambush and also the stones would get heated up by the fire and help hold the heat and keep you warm, it let you build your bed closer to the fire too. Now I was glad that I had insisted that each of us sleep this way. Paul grumbled about having to cut down a tree sometimes and Rod was a little lazy and he would find a log that was not high enough to hide him. He was saying he was hit and I knew why, the old dead log he had pulled up on his backside left his whole belly showing when on his back.
We were pinned down and I was trying to think of a way to get out of this mess and still stay alive. I heard the voice of the marshal yell out, you boys thought you were smart, well now we will just kill you and take all those cows. Sun was just starting to come up and I could just catch a glimpse of one of the men hiding behind a tree maybe fifty feet away. I was blaming myself we should have put a night guard out but I would have never guessed they would have come after us.
Bob yelled, “you yellow coward cur dogs,” and he rose up and got a face full of tree bark that cut his face. I was thinking it was all over when I heard a war hoot, and raised and started firing my repeater rifle as fast as I could at the men as they turned to see a group of Indians coming down up on them. They started to run but to run toward us was to die and they were surrounded. Bob too rose up and he shot two of the men, I noticed one was the store keeper and I knew he was dead by the way he fell and the other I didn't remember seeing. Before the arrows stopped flying and shots stopped ringing all the men from Fremont lay dead or dying.
To my surprise the Indians came on down to us, not fighting but smiling, it was the same group that had saved my life and I had given the deer too. We sit around the fire as Paul cooked up some bacon and Bob was bandaging up Rob. Rob had only gotten grazed but it was right across his big belly, so I took the whiskey and poured it right on the missing patch of skin. He was screaming like a woman having a baby and telling me that hurt worse then the bullet had. I told him his own darn fault if he had not been so lazy he would have put a log the right size behind him. I walked down and took one of my fattest cows and shot it, butchered it and gave it to the Indians to take back with them. After all they had saved out lives and what was one cow compared to that.
It was about noon when we began to push off, we had to bury the town men though Bob and Rob wanted to leave them lay, Paul and I couldn't do that. Didn't say any prayers over there mangy hide though. The next several days went well, we made about thirty miles and things were really beginning to look like we might make the rest of the trip with out to many more troubles. Rob was still grumbling about his stomach but it was not hurting his apatite any, and Paul was talking about the next town being only a few miles to go. Ellington, which was best known for all the mining camps. The herd was in good shape and we were feeling mighty fine.
Funny how the killing of the towns men wasn't bothering me so much, made me wonder if I was starting to like that power too. I don't think so, I think it was more they tried to kill us and made that choice to take the risk of dying. I did tell Bob he could go back now and get that roll in the sack and not cost him a dime, and he reached down out of his saddle and threw a cow patty at me. That started a new war, a cow patty war. Can't say I won or lost but I got my fair share of cow dung on him as he did me.
We were just a few miles outside of Ellington when we passed out first miners shack. We pulled up to talk a bit and the man was there with his girl. She was a beauty, blond hair and blue eyed and small nose. They didn't have much in the way of food, so I gave them a bit of our meat; we had plenty as hunting had been going very well along the way. The girl cooked up a big stew and invited us to stay, we couldn't say no, but I wish we had.
.Chapter Five
The shack was shabby at best, three rooms with big air cracks between the boards. Instead of being made out of logs like our little cabin this was made out of boards that looked like scraps from a junk heap. The girl's name turned out to be Meg and she was a wonderful cook. I don't know what all was in that stew but it was the best I had ever eaten. Bob and Meg hit it off right away, you could see their eyes hardly ever left each other. I could picture her in something besides a flour sack dress and with her dishwater blond hair combed and washed; I would say she would be very pretty. For the first time ever I saw Bob get up and help her with the dishes, this is not an everyday action for Bob. Rob was going to tease him, but the look he shot him with was enough that even Rob was smart enough to keep his big mouth shut.
While the dishes were being washed we went out on front porch, if you could call it that, and sat on a plank bench. The man's name was Peter and he was a talker once you got him started. He talked about all the mining going on and how that most of the miners had done well if they every found a way to get the ore to KC. We talked about the future of a train line coming through and that as for now they had to settle for wagon caravans. Peter wanted to know if we would be willing to sell the folks around there the cattle we had. Seeing that meat was hard to come by as most of the men didn't have time to hunt or raise cattle. I told him we would be happy too if they could buy all the cows and at the same price we could get at KC. He offered half the amount and the boy's and I considered it, but our families needed the best dollar we could get.
Later Bob and Meg joined us, I was surprised when Bob asked if we could maybe hang out here a few days and rest and give the cows a bit of time to regain some of the pounds they had lost on the drive. I decided that might not be a bad ideal and asked Peter if it would be OK with him. He was very happy to let us stay. Then a thought hit me, Peter how much would you folks be willing to pay for fresh meat, say deer and rabbit and anything else eatable I could kill. We dickered awhile and settled on ten cents a pound before skinning and he got to keep any hides. Peter said he would talk to the others the next day and make sure everyone agreed.
As the sun went down and the moon began to peak out we decided time to roll out bed packs and get some sleep. The shacks floor was a lot better then the cold ground. I woke up late in the night and looking around noticed Bob was not in his bedroll. I got up to slip out to find him when I heard noises behind an old quilt that hung over the area of the wall where Meg was sleeping. Now I may not be to smart, but I sure could tell where Bob was and he was not alone. I rolled over and went back to sleep, well at least he got his roll in a sack.
The next morning I woke up to see Bob was back in his bedroll and Meg was up making coffee and eggs. We got up and had a bite to eat, the boys headed off toward Peters mine with Meg in the lead and I took my horse and headed for the woods. I was more comfortable in the woods then with to many people anyway. By noon I had five deer each about hundred and fifty pounds. I knew we could use the cash to get supplies on the way and we needed things like coffee and bacon and tobacco.
I had made a drag and loaded the meat on it, pulling the drag with my pack horse I headed back and then went to cleaning the deer and doing a bit of cutting the hind quarters and trimming out the ribs. By the time the rest came from the mines they were all pretty dirty and still Bob had a silly smile on his face and he and Meg were holding hands. Meg and Bob took some of the fresh butt and headed in to cook up a very good meal. Meg had a few tatters she fried up to go with the meat.
The next few days went about the same, I had made a couple hundred dollars and the boys had been helping Peter in the mine. As I announced it was time for us to move on, Bob said, he was not going to go on, but for Rob to make sure when the cows sold to get all the money back to their folks. He and Meg were going to get married and he liked working with Peter in the mine. I gave them one of the yearling's we had out of the herd as a wedding present. As we rode away it was hard saying bye to Bob and I think I even saw a tear in Rob's eye. Yet you can be sad and happy at the same time. I knew Bob found what he was looking for in life, more then a roll in a sack, a family of his own.
Over the next few days we found it was not as much fun, there was not the usual bickering between the brothers and Paul tired to lift Rob's spirits but it was just not the same. We were getting close to Sedalia and couldn't wait. KC was not going to be but a week from there then we could all head home.
We pulled up about sun down in a little hollow; the grass was green and the river close by. We had no more then got a fire going and Rob was frying us some of rabbit when we heard our horses running off. I couldn't believe anyone would rustle our horses while you were still awake. We took off on foot guns in hand, and all we could see was the dust. I did a bit of looking at the tracks and could see there had been four riders all on shoed horses so it wasn't Indians. Now in those days every shoe was made by hand for each horse, no two-horse shoes were ever the same; I remembered these shoes well and didn't even wait to eat but started out trailing our horses. With out horses there would be no way to get the cattle to KC and even worse what would keep them from stealing the cows too. Rob stayed with the herd and Paul and I went after the thief's.
For the first few miles we followed the trail staying to the same route but being they seemed to be heading straight West I decided to get off the trail and cut across the hillside. Us on foot and them on horse back, even though we both were fast of foot and could walk long distance's catching them was going to take a lot of luck. We headed out over the hillside and were able to find their tracks after a good four hours walking. It looked as if they headed into a small town called Green way. The problem now became too many tracks to follow and sort out. My horse had shoes on it that Pa had made and he always cut a little notch in the edges, he said it helped the shoe to hold better on mud. I don't know that it worked but he thought it did.
Luck was on our side the town was small and we soon found a coral with all our horses. I would have been happy to just take the horses and head back to our camp. Paul on the other hand pointed out if we just took our horses back then they could accuse us of being the horse thief's and he was not ready to be hung. So we headed into town, checking horse hoofs of every horse tied to a hitching post. Right in front of Big Red's Golden Palace was the horse that had led the gang. We walked in; both of us had already taken the hold down tie off our guns. Now fast draw practice was something everyone did, or I guess they do. I was fast and Paul was faster, he stopped and sits down in a chair at the nearest table. I walked to the bar and asked if anyone knew whom the spotted pony belonged too. A big guy slowly rose to his feet, he spit out a big wad of chew and said, “I guess that would be me, what in hell do you want.” I looked at him and said, “Mr. seems to me you came into town with my horses, now maybe you thought they were lost but being tied to a drag line, I don't know how anyone with a brain would have thought that.” He laughed at me, not realizing Paul was with me, he drew his gun and three others at the table kicked back chairs and drew too.
The mind does not have time to think, you react, I took him with my first shot, didn't even look to see where as I dropped to my knee and took aim at the next one closest to him. Paul too had stood and drew down on them, yelling at them as he pulled leather. Two of them had turned to face him; one was falling and knocking over the table on the way down. The second one I was taking aim at got his shot off before me and I felt something bite my left shoulder. My shot got him, this time I saw where right in the center of the chest and he rolled to the floor. Paul second shot never had to be fired; the guy had turned and started to run. The only place to run to I guess was behind the bar toward what he hoped was a back door. Only thing was, there was no back door and with in a few minutes he was coming right back out at us hands in the air. The sheriff came in through the door and Paul and I laid our guns on the bar. He didn't need to ask many questions and soon was leading the guy out toward his jail.
As we made it back and got our horses, and headed back to Rob, I was glad not to be walking. We talked about how fast we had been, Paul swearing I was slower then an ant. The funny thing was, the shooting had not bothered me so much this time. Maybe because I was tired or maybe because I thought I had no choice. I hope it was not because this trip was making me less human. For to me a real man has to have feelings, caring, and regrets when even if righ,t he hurts others. Yet what I felt most was satisfaction, I had won, got back what was ours and still was alive. Paul was more then that, he was excited in a way I had never seen before; all he could do was talk about that fast draw.
We got back to camp the next morning, took time to get some sleep then headed out. I kept thinking about Paul, this shooting had changed him, I hoped it would pass. He kept drawing his gun and shooting at passing trees telling Rob, got em again.
That night as I fell asleep looking up into the stars, I prayed, God don't let this life road lead us to places where we shouldn't go. I don't know if he heard me or not, but I do know life changes us, or we change life.
The Young Cowboys(Rich Puckett)
The Young Cowboy
My family and I lived on a small farm in Missouri's boot hill. The winters were cold and the summers hot and the land not very good too grow anything on but rocks. Now if I could have found a market for rocks we would be rich, but that was not the case. My Pa died on one cold winter's day. He had been out with his two-bit ax chopping trees down for firewood and I was busy sawing the tree that was already down with a cross cut into firewood.
I heard nothing more then a grunt and at first didn't think much about it, Pa was always grunting about one thing or another. He didn't say much and Ma always said that was more of a blessing then us kids would know. I was the oldest of four of us, and the only boy in the midst. Sometimes that was a good thing, because I never had to do dishes, but it was a bad thing when it came to the outside chores. Mary was the next oldest and she was raised more like a boy then a girl cause Pa and I needed help.
When after a few minutes I didn't hear the ax biting into the tree, I got up and strolled over. Pa was lying on the ground, the ax still in the butt of the tree and he was white as could be and holding his chest. I bent down over him and I guess shock had me so much in its grasp I didn't realize what was happening. "Pa now you would take a hickory switch to me for lying down and napping on the job.” He grunted again, "Son, I am not going to make it, you take care of Ma and the girls and don't let em go hungry." With that his eyes went blank and I knew he was gone on to be with Jesus.
Pa was never a mean man, but he was a firm man who thought the Bible was the only road map in life. The book said, beat a child and if we forgot our Bible learning he sure as the world would beat our back side with a big stick. But he was fun and would laugh at a joke and he never failed no matter how tired to hold the little ones before putting them to bed. We didn't have much but a two room log cabin and a lot of work, and the one thing that meant more, we were a family.
A trip to town was a two-day wagon ride and the preacher would come to the small town church only once a month to preach a bit of hell and damnation to us. I had no choice but to go home and tell Ma and the girls. Ma just sits in the one good chair we had an old rocker and cried. I got Mary and we headed off, after unloading the wood we had cut, to get Pa.
Pa was a big man of at least six foot tall and it took me and Mary till after dark to drag him into the wagon. Ma had us carry him in and lay him out in the living room, which also was our dinning room, and the little kids bedroom. We put him right on the homemade rough wood table. Ma sent me out to tell the neighbors about Pa. I spent most the night driving to the near by farms. When I got home, I slept in the loft for a few hours and Ma woke me and told me to eat a bite then go dig the grave out under the old oak by the road. She said Pa loved that old tree and I knew he did because he had craved into the bark the day he asked ma to marry him.
I worked all day and about noon the folks from around about us started showing up. Mr. Henry sent his boy out to help me dig and my cousin Paul who lived a few miles away came and helped supervise us. Paul was not much for working but darn good at talking and telling us stories as we dug.
The folks had brought in a little of what they could spare, for no one really had much and anything was a sacrifice. Mrs. Henry brought a molasses cake, Stump's brought a pot of beans and bacon, the Olsen's brought some bread though it was a week old, and Mr. Taylor who had lost his wife a few years before brought a cured ham.
We all stood around the table eating and telling good tales about Pa, some laughing, Ma told how he had stole her away from Jimmy Crawford and married her. Then she started to cry, Mr. Stump took Pa's bible and read: Psa 23:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; , Ma started crying along with Mrs. Henry and the girls, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:' Old Mr. Olsen said your Pa didn't have an enemy in the world.' thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. And everyone in the room said Amen. All the men folk picked Pa up and Ma wrapped him in her favorite quilt and they carried him to the hole I had dug. Then we all said the Lords prayer and I began tossing the dirt in.
That night when everyone had gone I thought about the words Pa had said to me and I didn't know how a boy of sixteen was going to take care of everyone. I was more then a little worried and I went out and sit next to Pa's grave and asked him how I was going to do it. I cried a long time then, it felt like Pa's hand on my shoulder, get up boy and get it done. There was no person I could see but I know it was Pa and I couldn't let him down. I slept right there rest of the night wrapped in my coat. The very next morning I got started early with the job of being the man for the family. I didn't know if I was up to so much responsibility but I knew one thing for sure if I didn't do it there was no one else to take care of Ma and the kids.
I carried in the firewood and got a good fire going in the stone fireplace. Then while Ma was up frying bacon, I collected the eggs and fed the chickens. We had a dozen or so white hens and on a good day got about a dozen eggs. Then I slopped the half dozen Hampshire Hogs. Milked the two Jersey cows and tossed out a bit of oats for the four horses. Time I was done with that I got in just in time to get a few pieces of bacon and some coffee.
Ma wanted to know what my plans for the day were. I told her was going to go hunting first off, we didn't have much meat left in the cold cellar. Pa and I a couple years back spent most of the summer digging down about 14 foot underground a big room, then we lined the room with logs and the floor, sides and top, covered it all up with a good 4 feet of dirt and planted some grapes on top. Pa said the grapes would drink up any water and help keep the room dry. It worked, the room was always at least 60 degrees on the hottest days and even on the coldest. We put big hooks, into the log walls and hung all the meat there, and right now it was getting bare. So I figured I might get a wild hog or two and a couple of nice deer bucks. I let Ma know I was headed over to get Cousin Paul and would be gone next couple of days unless we got really lucky.
Paul was always ready to go hunting, he wasn't much at work, but he was good at tracking. I always told him he had a noise like a dog, and could smell out game a mile away. I rode Pa's chestnut and took the dapple gray for packing. Paul took the big black mustang and a little Arabian mare to pack on. Then we headed for the deepest part of the woods. One thing those Missouri hills had beside rocks were lots of woods. Game wasn't so bad either, including the kind that you didn't want to see, like wolfs and foxes. Now I had only seen one black bear when Pa and I hunted and though we took a shot at him he got clean away. We had not gone more then five miles out into the woods then right in front of us the biggest bear you ever want to meet in the woods come a charging us. Now I am not a bad shot when ready to shoot and to this day I don't know how Paul did it. But he had a shot off when that bear was about ten feet from us, with his horse raising up on two legs and me trying to get my gun in line, he got that bear right between the eyes.
We spent the rest of the day dragging that thing with rope and tackle up on a big tree limb and skinning it after cutting its throat and bleeding it. Pa always said before you do anything else bleed the game or it won't taste good. I never had eaten bear, but I knew this one split between us was going to be a months worth of meat. And I claimed the fur, so once we hung the bear to let it bleed out, I stretched the skin and started curing it.
Over the next few days we got two deer not big enough to brag on, a wild turkey, two ducks and six squirrels, a half dozen rabbits and on the way home Paul got him some frogs for the legs.
Once I got home I had to start the cutting and hanging meat in the smoke house, some of it in the cold house cause it was going to be eaten over then next few weeks. Smoking took a couple of weeks and Pa always wanted me to use hickory or oak and we had us a good stack so I got the smoke house almost full. Then I took one of the young bull hogs and skinned him and butchered him up and hung some hams and shoulder and bacon to cure. Ma came out with some molasses and used that to give it a sugar taste by brushing it on the ham and shoulder. Then she would add some maple syrup the last few days of smoking and coat the meat with that.
A plan begins to form in my head. When the preacher had come through last time I heard him tell Pa how they were paying a dollar a pound on the hoof for beef at Kansas City, Kansas. Now that was about 200 miles or so from us, I figured that to trail a small herd there would take about twenty days. We had 15 head of good strong Black Angus cows ready now. Pa and I had talked about doing this. The cows would bring anywhere from a $1,000.00 to $1,500.00 each. $15,000.00 dollars would take care of Ma and the girls for the rest of their lives. That would still leave about 20 breeders and between our two bulls and Paul's family four bulls we should be able by next year to have another 10 to 15 cows ready to go. I knew too that Paul's family had at least five White Face cows that were ready for market. We could sell them closer but then would only get half the money and we needed the money with Pa gone. I had mentioned the ideal to Paul when we were hunting and he liked it a lot, but would only be us two to do it. That is one long trip through some really Bad Lands yet what choice did we have.
I waited till the meat was cured and started the jerky when I told Ma. She didn't like it one little bit and Mary decided if I was going she wanted to go too. I sure was powerful pleased Ma put her foot down too a firm no on that ideal. Spring was just starting to hit as Paul and I went out and rounded up our cattle. Between us we started out with 26 head of cattle. A few were older and we figured we might need to trade them to the Indians or use them to eat. We had about ten dollars in silver and a packhorse each with our bedrolls, rifles, and food. I think Ma was still not happy about the ideal but it didn't really show till I got Pa's pistol and holster off the peg and put it on. “Now why on earth are you going to take that iron with you son?” I explained, “you never knew about snakes or what kind of trouble would face us.” And Pa had taught all of us to shoot pretty well. I was a quick draw and straight shot, in fact I was far better with the colt then I was with the rifle. But if I was good, Mary was better. She could out draw me, and put two shots off to my one and never miss the target. Even Ma was a good shot, we never knew when Indian trouble might come our way and Pa insisted that we be ready. I could use a bow as well as the pistol and toss a knife. Paul was not that good of a draw but a very good shot and with a rifle the best in any of our kinfolk. Some would tease and say he could shoot the eye out of eagle a mile before the rest of us could even see the bird.
So off to KC we headed, a song on our lips, and thinking of the money at the end of the road brings a smile. We had no ideal of what lay ahead of us on our first cattle drive. I turned to Paul, about a mile down the road, does this make us cowboys? He slapped me on the back and said, nope, way you ride and shoot makes you a cowgirl.
Chapter Two
The first few miles went pretty easy. Paul and I knew the dirt path that some might call a road. We had gone down it many times, and making good time was not a surprise. In most cases with a herd this small all you had to do was keep the lead cow going straight and the others would follow. So all we needed to do was ride behind them and drive them forward.
Cows are no different then most people, they take the easy path. Life for me was not about hard or easy, it was just life. I guess Pa always said do the right thing and it will return to you. He wasn't one to complain nor did he allow us too, he liked to say, it rains on the just and the unjust, it's just life. Now he was one to pull out a bit from the Bible any time one of us kids went a stray. I guess if you stop and think about it, not much wrong with living by that book anyway, don't ever teach you anything bad and faith can't hurt anyone.
We were about five miles from home and coming upon Mr. Pit's farm. We knew he wouldn't mind and darkness was already catching up with us so we just hoarded the cattle right into his empty coral. Mrs. Pits was a woman of some size, tall and a bit round she came right out and asked us in for supper. Now farming in Missouri was not going to make anyone rich and the Pits were no exception to the rule. They were poor folk like us but very good and decent people. Missy Pits had a thing for Paul and you could see her eyes following him everywhere he went. As we put the last cow in I slapped Paul on the back and said. "No wonder you were in such a hurry to get down the road seems you got a girl at every farm." He shot back at me. "You think I would go after Missy, she might be alright for a cold night but look at that crooked noise and sides that she never stops staring at me give me the creeps." I told him I am sure that really was bothering him and I would be keeping an eye on him through the night and didn't want to see them slipping out to the barn.
Now don't be offended, boys are boys, and I don't know this for sure but my guess is the Missy was eying him, and that girls probably say about the same kind of things when alone with a friend. As we sit around the table enjoying beans and bacon, cooked just right with a bit of coffee to wash it all down, Mr. Pits asked if we would take a few of his cows with us, he had four head he could spare and he would let his boys, Rob and Bob go with us to give us a hand.
Now Rob was a bit of a clown and loved to play pranks on people, where Bob was a hot head and liked to fight. I mean some people fight if they have too but Bob would look for a good fight. He loved the fighting rather he won or lost, it was the fight that made him tick. We could use the help and said OK, when the next morning I saw the four cows, I wished I had said no. They were old cross breeds of God only knows what, and not in good shape. I told Mr. Pit’s maybe he would be better off taking them to Piedmont and send them by train. He said, nope, like you boys, I take em to town, I get .35 a pound I need the money I will send em with you and I get a $1. A pound and though you might lose one on the way, I still come out ahead. I couldn't tell him no and besides I like Rob and Bob and knew if we ran into trouble they would be a big help.
The next four days went smooth, just pushing down the trail. We would find a place to camp each night and build us a nice fire. Bob was more use then just fighting he was a great cook. Rob knew farming and farming ways; he managed to find wild herbs growing along the road. He came up with wild garlic and onions even found some Polk and put together a nice Polk salad one night. We decided that I was the best hunter in the group so that became my job. Paul was the one we gave the job of figuring out how to keep watch over the cows. He came up with a great ideal, each night the herd was small so he cut up some rope and hobbled the front legs of each cow, that way they could walk but not far and so we could all stay around the fire and keep warm.
On the fifth day I left the group to go do a bit of hunting. I decided I didn't want to take a chance of scaring the cows off or warning the game. I tired my horse to a tree and used the skills I had learned back when I was only seven or eight years old. Ma had a lot of Indian in her, her mother had been Sioux and she had spent a lot of her life learning the ways and she passed that down to us kids. So I started out through the woods on foot with bow in hand walking Indian style. What you do is walk on the rounded side of your feet and cross over each step. Walking like this your body turns in through limbs and brushes often not even moving a limb. It also left very little footprint to follow if someone tried to track you and was quiet because of lightness you took with each step. I had not gone far when I spotted a big buck deer. He was a ten pointer and I knew would give us enough meat for days. I put the arrow in the bow and pulled back. A perfect shot to the heart, the buck never even took a leap and he was down. I walked up, tied a piece of rope to his hind feet and hoisted him up using a tree limb. I bleed him then covered the blood up with dirt. I didn't want to cause the wild life to get scared and move off nor did I want to attract wolfs to us.
While the deer was hanging I went and got my horse and brought him up closer, then I butchered out the hams and shoulders then buried the rest. I headed back late at night the moon was my only light. I ate jerky on the way back knowing that tomorrow we would have a feast before heading down the trail. I guess as boys we were not really in too big a hurry. It was our first adventure and we were having the time of our lives. Paul would get his guitar off the packhorse and we would sing around the fire. All the songs any of us knew were hymns but we all figured we were pretty good at it. The other only song we knew was, When Johnny comes Marching Home.
As I rode on toward where camp should be, instinct took over and I stopped about a half mile away. Got off my horse and figured I would sneak in and give them a scare. Something wasn't right. Paul and the boys should have been singing and night bays of the cows, but there was nothing. I got to the camp and found it empty, but the fire was still warm and some our stuff was still laying about. I picked up our stuff and headed in what I hoped was the right direction. In the morning light I found the tracks, our cows and horses and three other horses. This could only mean trouble. I could tell by the dirt clumps I was getting close. I got off the trail and began to run along side the road. Didn't take long and I was up with them. The boys were pushing cows and behind them were three really rough looking guys all with guns trained on the boys. I saw Paul out in the lead.
Now all of us boys were pretty good with weapons and I was no slouch but none of us had ever used them against a human being. I was glad for my bow, because I figured it would be the best way was to get the last guy and do it quietly. To rustle cattle was to be hung or shot. There were not any lawmen in that part of the country; you found them only in the big towns. The law as Pa always said was made for the lawbreaker; he took that from the Bible too. And he taught us to defend our family, friends and home and this seemed like to me the day of my reckoning was upon me. I was scared, and not sure I could do it, but then I looked at Paul, Bob, and Rob and knew I must. I put an arrow into the bow pulled it back and let loose. Swoosh was all the sound there was as the arrow hit home right through the back into the heart. The man fell from the saddle and as he did the nearest rider turned to look. I knew I was up in the trees well enough hid and already had a new arrow in the bow I let her fly. He too dropped off his horse with a plod with the arrow going right into his neck. As the third rider turned to see what was going on he took his eyes off Bob who leaped on him knocking him to the ground. Now I have seen Bob fight, but never like this, he beat the man till he couldn't get off the ground. Bob stood over him smiling from ear to ear. Sure glad to see ya partner he yelled as I made my way down to them.
Every body grabbed up their guns and was busy for a while patting each other on the back. Paul told me they had just got camp going when these three caught them by surprise. Bob spoke up then, “let's hang this here fellow”, and Rob said, “no lets tie him to a tree and leave him”; Paul wanted to just shoot him. I thought maybe we should just take his horse and run it off and let him go. But after awhile we decided we had to do what the custom of the land was else he would just try and rob someone else. So we found an oak tree and Paul carved a note on the tree, cattle rustler hung here, and we put him on his horse and Bob hit it. The horse ran out from under him and there he hung. Now I got to tell ya this was not a pretty sight, shooting someone to save a life was one thing too hang a man was something altogether different. I watched him hang, he didn't die right away and the rope just sort of choked him till he died. When he died his bowels moved and his bladder opened, the smell was awful.
As we rode on our way pushing the cows, I couldn't eat that night when we made camp. I walked away saying I was going to keep watch, the camp was quiet, Paul didn't do any singing even Rob was quiet. I think we all became men that day, and I was not happy about the man I had become. Maybe what we did was right and had to be, but it didn't feel right inside. I walked around out in the woods, tears flowing down my cheeks. I had killed three men, and the burden of it was so heavy on my heart. I found an old log and knelt down, I don't know where the words came from but deep in my heart and I prayed. I asked God to forgive me and help me never have to take a man's life again. Maybe the book teaches an eye for an eye but my heart didn't feel it. I knew it would happen again because we lived in a land with out many laws but I also knew I had to find peace in my heart.
Over the next few days as we pushed down the trail things were quiet and I knew everyone was feeling what I was. Bob was the one to put his feeling out before the rest of us, "if this happens again, lets just beat the guy up, I don't want to do no more hanging.” I was glad that night Rob had found a young sassafras tree and taking some of the root made a big pot of tea. To anyone that has never had any, its root beer with out the fizz. It somehow lifted our hearts and we began to joke and wrestle around.
Little did we know what lay just over the next hill top, God give us strength?
Chapter Three
Over the next few days we pushed ahead. Going forward was work, moving a herd of cows takes a lot of effort and I was glad it was not just Paul and I after all. Rob was keeping us all laughing he could find a way to make a joke out of something no matter how small or big it was. He liked to play jokes, some of them not so funny, he put a bur under Paul's saddle and when Paul mounted up the horse went to bucking and tossed Paul right off onto a black berry bush. The thorns cut him up a bit and when he got to his feet he dragged Rob right off his horse, held him down and rubbed black berry's all over his face. I swear Rob looked like an Indian for the next two days from the stains. And we kept telling him to wash his face, so he decided to use a bit of the bottle of whiskey I had in my bag for medicine to wash his face. It worked in a way, left his face striped but what was funny was his running around in circles like a dog chasing its tail because he got some in his eyes.
We were getting close to the town of Fremont, maybe about ten miles away yet when the wind started up. Now one thing anyone who has been in Missouri knows is that the weather can change in just a few minutes. I remember once Pa and I was out hunting and when we left that morning it was so hot we were wearing short sleeve shirts, before the morning was over it was so cold I thought I was going to freeze before we got back home and Pa kept acting like he was doing OK, but he nearly knocked me over trying to get close to the fire place to warm up.
The wind was getting cold, it was early spring and I had not expected it to get really cold but here it was and I sure was glad I had my deerskin coat. It took Ma a month to tan the hides and get the lining just right and compared to the buckskin coats; mine was far better and warmer.
As we made camp that night snow started to fall. Now the area around Fremont is not like the mountains in TN but they are still mighty big hills with a lot of trees and wild life. We didn't have a tent so Bob went ahead of us and built a lean too and thank goodness he did. By morning we had a good six-inch's of snow on the ground and the nearby creeks we had been following was frozen solid. We decided not to try and push the cattle on while it was still snowing for fear of some slipping and falling or getting lost from out sight. I decided I should go hunting, sitting around all day and just looking at a bunch of cows grouped together was not my ideal of fun.
It took me till noon and with the snow falling, I was a bit lucky because I found some deer tracks. I headed down the hillside going into what was a gulf between the hills. The snow now made my moving pretty slow and with the coat and being so cold walking was hard. Just as I got to the bottom, the snow gave way under my feet, and worse I was on a pond, and the ice broke under me. I felt myself dropping down into the icy water and was only able to hang on to branch that was overhanging where I was. I tried to pull my self up but my boots were full of water and I was soon so cold I felt my hands loosing my grip. Now once again I found myself saying a prayer, but I just didn't see any hope of getting out of this one. I had walked in not wanting to take a chance of my horse falling and breaking a leg. I was so cold; my legs felt like a thousand needles in them, then no feeling at all. I closed my eyes and said my good byes in prayer to God and asked him to take care of Ma and Mary and the rest of the kids. I was just letting go when hands grabbed me and began pulling me up out of the water.
I looked up into the face of two young Indian braves. I was happy they were Sioux. I tried to talk to them but my words didn't come out. Soon they had me on shore and wrapped in skins. One brave built a fire and the other poured some kind of drink down my throat. It tasted awful but soon my legs were hurting again and I knew that was a good sign. I was glad for the pain and to just know I was alive.
The two braves took me under my arms and helped me walk; we didn't have to go far, until we came on a small village. There was about ten tepees’ that I could see. The braves didn't say much and I was shaking so badly and my tongue felt like it wouldn't work so talking was out for now. I was taken in a tepee and there a woman helped take off my clothes, she was old and her face wrinkled. Still I felt embarrassed, I was as helpless as a baby. Once she had my clothes off and my weapons piled in a dark area she wrapped me in a bear skin. She poured more of that foul tasting stuff down my throat and told me she was the wife to the chief and soon I would be well and able to travel. I have no ideal of time for I drifted in and out of sleep, but late or at least it seemed late into the night and the fire was very low, I noticed something strange. I looked over my shoulder a young Indian girl was up next to me. As my head cleared I realized I was naked and so was she, now I really felt embarrassed. I of course had seen my sisters and even Ma naked and they had seen me, but we were family living under the same roof in a very small cabin. During the winter we had too bath and change clothes and privacy was not something we had much of. But to be lying here with a naked girl, well now I don't know that the good book would approve of such a thing.
Her eyes opened and I asked whom she was trying to pull away. I knew she was close to my age and her eyes laughed at me. She told me her name was See and she was there to warm me with her body. It worked, look at me I was able to move and talk. She then lay back and closed her eyes and said now go back to sleep. I lay there by her, her backside up against me. I felt strange in other places too and yet somehow warm inside. The next morning by time I woke up See was gone. I got up and got dressed. I sit by the fire and cleaned my pistol and rifle. All the bullets were ruined and I used a little of some kind of animal fat that was in pot to oil the guns.
I found my coat dried and slipped it on and made my way out to where the men were gathered. They laughed and called me Man Who Walks Frozen. I was quickly made at home and we talked of hunting and the weather. I explained that I must return to my friends and they gave me directions. As I started out I had not gone but a half a mile when I spotted a big buck. I pulled an arrow and made a good shot. The deer dropped and I hung and bleed him. Then cut the best parts our, including the heart and guts and took back to the Indian camp. The chief thanked me, for food was running low and I won favor in their sight by returning the kindness they had shown me.
It took me rest of the day to get back to my own camp. I had gotten lucky on the way back, the snow was melting already and I got two rabbits on the way back. When I walked in Paul was the first to get to me. Man you had us worried what happened, where is the deer? I sit by the fire glad for some hot coffee and told the story. Rob kept teasing me that there would be some new babies in that camp and they would be hunting me down calling me White Dog Who Make Indian Baby. I had to throw a rock at him to get him to shut up.
Next morning we pushed forward for Fremont. None of us had ever been there and didn't know anything but stories about the town. We were looking forward to seeing the place because the stories we had heard made it sound like a big place with lots of things to do. Bob kept talking about the whorehouse and how he had a dollar and was going to spend it right there. Rob kept telling him it would be a waste of a dollar and soon the two of them were fighting on the side of the trail. I don't think either one won, and no one was hurt, but for the rest of the way they wouldn't talk to each other.
Just outside of town we made a rope coral and voted on who would stay behind to keep watch. Bob was voted in so he started saying we were cheating and wanted to fight again. I decided that we should draw straws, this time Paul lost. He was no more happy then Bob had been but decided not to fight over it and show us he was more a man then Bob had been.
We rode into town; it was not the big town we had expected instead it was a line of buildings one block long facing each other. There was a post office, a run down store, across from the store was a salon and town marshal's office; at the end of the street a black smith shop and a gun shop. Well Bob turned to me and said I don't see much here for us today. I went to the store and Bob and Paul went toward the salon. None of us ever had drunk alcohol except maybe a swig when sick. I didn't want to drink, don't like the taste and never could find any good reason not to be fully in my senses. Pa always said a man with his mind clouded with strong drink did stupid things that could cost him his life.
I was looking over some bacon when I heard a loud banging and in through the door ran Paul. You got to hurry and help Bob the marshal has done took him to jail. I couldn't see how that could be we had not even been in town twenty minutes yet.
I grabbed Paul by the shoulders, "slow down, and tell me what happened." Paul said that while on way to the salon Bob noticed a house set back off the street and seeing some woman hanging out over her porch waving thought she was a girl of the night. He went up and offered her his dollar for some sack rolling. She yelled in side the house to her husband who was the marshal. He came out and arrested Bob and wouldn't listen at all to his trying to explain but popped him over the head with his gun.
I started to the jail and before I got there I saw this very heavy pocked faced red headed woman, and she was yelling, "hang that no good for calling me a whore." I couldn't see why Bob would have even offered a dollar for that sour looking woman no matter how good a sack roll she might have made. Then I couldn't help laughing a little, would take a might big sack anyway to roll with that one.
When I walked in the marshal's office Bob was rolled on his side in the jail and not moving. I demanded to know if had killed Bob and he assured me he was just knocked out. I asked if I could pay his way out of the jail and marshal was about as sourly looking as his wife. Short, round and black hair with those black beady eyes. Well if you got twenty dollars I guess we could over look him making such remarks to our fine women folk. I said sir between us we got ten dollars can't that do and us get out of your town. The marshal said nope we’d just leave him locked up till next week when the judge comes to town. That made Paul mad and he called him a son of a biscuit eater and that was just plain stupid cause no one but a fool would want a sack roll with that cow outside anyway. Before I could shut Paul up the pistol was pointing at him and he too ended up in jail. The marshal turned to me, "you got any smart ass remarks you want to make too?” I said, “no sir”, he grinned showing broken teeth and said now it will cost you fifty dollars to get them out of my jail. I asked, very nicely, why did it cost more than double, he told me because you look like a smart ass too.
I left and headed back to meet up with Rob; all the way I was trying to figure out what to do now. Between all of us ten dollars is all we had in cash money. When I got to camp and told Rob, he wanted to break them out of jail. He worked out a plan to go in shooting. I told him no way was I going to do that and be a wanted man till I die.
I couldn't leave my cousin and friend in jail and I agreed with Rob that the charge and fine was a bunch of bull. Then I had an ideal, I went back to town, I went to the store and there I looked at the old skinny white haired man that owned the place, sir, what if I butcher you a fresh cow, how much would you pay me for it? He said well I guess I could give you fifty dollars. I knew right then this was one of those small town crooked games. OK, I'll bring in the cow and give you the beef, but you got to let my buddies go before I turn the meat over. I went back and found a small calf, which was so weak it probably wasn't go to make it all the way to KC. I butchered the calf, and then I went out and found a big doe deer and shot it. I butchered it too, and put the deer meat under the beef and went back to town. The old man came out and looked on my pack horse; all he could see was the beef, so while he went over and paid the money I unloaded the meat making sure I put all the deer on the bottom. Soon as the boys were let loose we caught up with Rob who had already started moving the cows on down the trail.
For the rest of the day we laughed about how that store keeper was going to feel when he started using that beef to find it was from a skinny little calf with maybe fifty pounds of beef and another eighty of good Ole deer. When it was about to get dark we begin to tease Bob about his sack roll.
We went off to sleep, thinking we had won that little war and feeling mighty proud of ourselves. Only we had no ideal what the sunlight would bring. As often is the case in cattle drives, each day brings a new beginning and some are days are good and some you wished you could forget.
Chapter Four
I lay there finding it hard to sleep, my mind gets that way once in a while, where it just won't shut off. I was thinking about how Rob had wanted to break the boys out of jail by shooting the marshal and anyone else that got in the way. I kept remembering that rustler hanging from the tree and the one's I had put arrows into. I didn't like killing, yet I was worried because Paul seemed indifferent, Bob and Rob seemed to enjoy it, as Rob put it, it's like the most powerful feeling in the world. Coming from small farms and not much money, power was not something any of us were used too. I couldn't help but wonder where the road of life was going to take us. We were all just kids and life was forcing us to become men, what kind of men would we be? My Pa and Ma had instilled in us a trust in God and his book and it bothered me that Bob wanted the pleasure of roll in the sack so bad he was willing to pay for it instead of finding a wife. My family would have never approved of such thing, I know its common in the world in which we live, but is it right?
All these kind of thoughts were nagging at my brain. I guess a roll in the sack with someone who wants to is OK. My head reasons it out like this, not cheating on a wife, because not married to one. And even in the good book the harlot was saved when the walls of Jericho was tumbling down. I guess too, God made man and woman to want to do those things and be attracted to each other for that purpose. Even with that in mind, killing was bad and wrong. His good book said not to kill, I know it also says later that to do so in war, or to protect oneself was not the same as to kill for the pleasure which was not a good thing and I was plenty worried about that. I don't know when slept came, but I sure know what woke me up. I heard Rob let out a yell just as the crack of a rifle sounded.
We all woke up at the same time, each of us grabbing our gun, but soon as we would rise up a shot fired. Now Pa had taught me to always put my bedroll with a log to my back and then between the fire and me a line of stones or another log. This way you were protected from ambush and also the stones would get heated up by the fire and help hold the heat and keep you warm, it let you build your bed closer to the fire too. Now I was glad that I had insisted that each of us sleep this way. Paul grumbled about having to cut down a tree sometimes and Rod was a little lazy and he would find a log that was not high enough to hide him. He was saying he was hit and I knew why, the old dead log he had pulled up on his backside left his whole belly showing when on his back.
We were pinned down and I was trying to think of a way to get out of this mess and still stay alive. I heard the voice of the marshal yell out, you boys thought you were smart, well now we will just kill you and take all those cows. Sun was just starting to come up and I could just catch a glimpse of one of the men hiding behind a tree maybe fifty feet away. I was blaming myself we should have put a night guard out but I would have never guessed they would have come after us.
Bob yelled, “you yellow coward cur dogs,” and he rose up and got a face full of tree bark that cut his face. I was thinking it was all over when I heard a war hoot, and raised and started firing my repeater rifle as fast as I could at the men as they turned to see a group of Indians coming down up on them. They started to run but to run toward us was to die and they were surrounded. Bob too rose up and he shot two of the men, I noticed one was the store keeper and I knew he was dead by the way he fell and the other I didn't remember seeing. Before the arrows stopped flying and shots stopped ringing all the men from Fremont lay dead or dying.
To my surprise the Indians came on down to us, not fighting but smiling, it was the same group that had saved my life and I had given the deer too. We sit around the fire as Paul cooked up some bacon and Bob was bandaging up Rob. Rob had only gotten grazed but it was right across his big belly, so I took the whiskey and poured it right on the missing patch of skin. He was screaming like a woman having a baby and telling me that hurt worse then the bullet had. I told him his own darn fault if he had not been so lazy he would have put a log the right size behind him. I walked down and took one of my fattest cows and shot it, butchered it and gave it to the Indians to take back with them. After all they had saved out lives and what was one cow compared to that.
It was about noon when we began to push off, we had to bury the town men though Bob and Rob wanted to leave them lay, Paul and I couldn't do that. Didn't say any prayers over there mangy hide though. The next several days went well, we made about thirty miles and things were really beginning to look like we might make the rest of the trip with out to many more troubles. Rob was still grumbling about his stomach but it was not hurting his apatite any, and Paul was talking about the next town being only a few miles to go. Ellington, which was best known for all the mining camps. The herd was in good shape and we were feeling mighty fine.
Funny how the killing of the towns men wasn't bothering me so much, made me wonder if I was starting to like that power too. I don't think so, I think it was more they tried to kill us and made that choice to take the risk of dying. I did tell Bob he could go back now and get that roll in the sack and not cost him a dime, and he reached down out of his saddle and threw a cow patty at me. That started a new war, a cow patty war. Can't say I won or lost but I got my fair share of cow dung on him as he did me.
We were just a few miles outside of Ellington when we passed out first miners shack. We pulled up to talk a bit and the man was there with his girl. She was a beauty, blond hair and blue eyed and small nose. They didn't have much in the way of food, so I gave them a bit of our meat; we had plenty as hunting had been going very well along the way. The girl cooked up a big stew and invited us to stay, we couldn't say no, but I wish we had.
.Chapter Five
The shack was shabby at best, three rooms with big air cracks between the boards. Instead of being made out of logs like our little cabin this was made out of boards that looked like scraps from a junk heap. The girl's name turned out to be Meg and she was a wonderful cook. I don't know what all was in that stew but it was the best I had ever eaten. Bob and Meg hit it off right away, you could see their eyes hardly ever left each other. I could picture her in something besides a flour sack dress and with her dishwater blond hair combed and washed; I would say she would be very pretty. For the first time ever I saw Bob get up and help her with the dishes, this is not an everyday action for Bob. Rob was going to tease him, but the look he shot him with was enough that even Rob was smart enough to keep his big mouth shut.
While the dishes were being washed we went out on front porch, if you could call it that, and sat on a plank bench. The man's name was Peter and he was a talker once you got him started. He talked about all the mining going on and how that most of the miners had done well if they every found a way to get the ore to KC. We talked about the future of a train line coming through and that as for now they had to settle for wagon caravans. Peter wanted to know if we would be willing to sell the folks around there the cattle we had. Seeing that meat was hard to come by as most of the men didn't have time to hunt or raise cattle. I told him we would be happy too if they could buy all the cows and at the same price we could get at KC. He offered half the amount and the boy's and I considered it, but our families needed the best dollar we could get.
Later Bob and Meg joined us, I was surprised when Bob asked if we could maybe hang out here a few days and rest and give the cows a bit of time to regain some of the pounds they had lost on the drive. I decided that might not be a bad ideal and asked Peter if it would be OK with him. He was very happy to let us stay. Then a thought hit me, Peter how much would you folks be willing to pay for fresh meat, say deer and rabbit and anything else eatable I could kill. We dickered awhile and settled on ten cents a pound before skinning and he got to keep any hides. Peter said he would talk to the others the next day and make sure everyone agreed.
As the sun went down and the moon began to peak out we decided time to roll out bed packs and get some sleep. The shacks floor was a lot better then the cold ground. I woke up late in the night and looking around noticed Bob was not in his bedroll. I got up to slip out to find him when I heard noises behind an old quilt that hung over the area of the wall where Meg was sleeping. Now I may not be to smart, but I sure could tell where Bob was and he was not alone. I rolled over and went back to sleep, well at least he got his roll in a sack.
The next morning I woke up to see Bob was back in his bedroll and Meg was up making coffee and eggs. We got up and had a bite to eat, the boys headed off toward Peters mine with Meg in the lead and I took my horse and headed for the woods. I was more comfortable in the woods then with to many people anyway. By noon I had five deer each about hundred and fifty pounds. I knew we could use the cash to get supplies on the way and we needed things like coffee and bacon and tobacco.
I had made a drag and loaded the meat on it, pulling the drag with my pack horse I headed back and then went to cleaning the deer and doing a bit of cutting the hind quarters and trimming out the ribs. By the time the rest came from the mines they were all pretty dirty and still Bob had a silly smile on his face and he and Meg were holding hands. Meg and Bob took some of the fresh butt and headed in to cook up a very good meal. Meg had a few tatters she fried up to go with the meat.
The next few days went about the same, I had made a couple hundred dollars and the boys had been helping Peter in the mine. As I announced it was time for us to move on, Bob said, he was not going to go on, but for Rob to make sure when the cows sold to get all the money back to their folks. He and Meg were going to get married and he liked working with Peter in the mine. I gave them one of the yearling's we had out of the herd as a wedding present. As we rode away it was hard saying bye to Bob and I think I even saw a tear in Rob's eye. Yet you can be sad and happy at the same time. I knew Bob found what he was looking for in life, more then a roll in a sack, a family of his own.
Over the next few days we found it was not as much fun, there was not the usual bickering between the brothers and Paul tired to lift Rob's spirits but it was just not the same. We were getting close to Sedalia and couldn't wait. KC was not going to be but a week from there then we could all head home.
We pulled up about sun down in a little hollow; the grass was green and the river close by. We had no more then got a fire going and Rob was frying us some of rabbit when we heard our horses running off. I couldn't believe anyone would rustle our horses while you were still awake. We took off on foot guns in hand, and all we could see was the dust. I did a bit of looking at the tracks and could see there had been four riders all on shoed horses so it wasn't Indians. Now in those days every shoe was made by hand for each horse, no two-horse shoes were ever the same; I remembered these shoes well and didn't even wait to eat but started out trailing our horses. With out horses there would be no way to get the cattle to KC and even worse what would keep them from stealing the cows too. Rob stayed with the herd and Paul and I went after the thief's.
For the first few miles we followed the trail staying to the same route but being they seemed to be heading straight West I decided to get off the trail and cut across the hillside. Us on foot and them on horse back, even though we both were fast of foot and could walk long distance's catching them was going to take a lot of luck. We headed out over the hillside and were able to find their tracks after a good four hours walking. It looked as if they headed into a small town called Green way. The problem now became too many tracks to follow and sort out. My horse had shoes on it that Pa had made and he always cut a little notch in the edges, he said it helped the shoe to hold better on mud. I don't know that it worked but he thought it did.
Luck was on our side the town was small and we soon found a coral with all our horses. I would have been happy to just take the horses and head back to our camp. Paul on the other hand pointed out if we just took our horses back then they could accuse us of being the horse thief's and he was not ready to be hung. So we headed into town, checking horse hoofs of every horse tied to a hitching post. Right in front of Big Red's Golden Palace was the horse that had led the gang. We walked in; both of us had already taken the hold down tie off our guns. Now fast draw practice was something everyone did, or I guess they do. I was fast and Paul was faster, he stopped and sits down in a chair at the nearest table. I walked to the bar and asked if anyone knew whom the spotted pony belonged too. A big guy slowly rose to his feet, he spit out a big wad of chew and said, “I guess that would be me, what in hell do you want.” I looked at him and said, “Mr. seems to me you came into town with my horses, now maybe you thought they were lost but being tied to a drag line, I don't know how anyone with a brain would have thought that.” He laughed at me, not realizing Paul was with me, he drew his gun and three others at the table kicked back chairs and drew too.
The mind does not have time to think, you react, I took him with my first shot, didn't even look to see where as I dropped to my knee and took aim at the next one closest to him. Paul too had stood and drew down on them, yelling at them as he pulled leather. Two of them had turned to face him; one was falling and knocking over the table on the way down. The second one I was taking aim at got his shot off before me and I felt something bite my left shoulder. My shot got him, this time I saw where right in the center of the chest and he rolled to the floor. Paul second shot never had to be fired; the guy had turned and started to run. The only place to run to I guess was behind the bar toward what he hoped was a back door. Only thing was, there was no back door and with in a few minutes he was coming right back out at us hands in the air. The sheriff came in through the door and Paul and I laid our guns on the bar. He didn't need to ask many questions and soon was leading the guy out toward his jail.
As we made it back and got our horses, and headed back to Rob, I was glad not to be walking. We talked about how fast we had been, Paul swearing I was slower then an ant. The funny thing was, the shooting had not bothered me so much this time. Maybe because I was tired or maybe because I thought I had no choice. I hope it was not because this trip was making me less human. For to me a real man has to have feelings, caring, and regrets when even if righ,t he hurts others. Yet what I felt most was satisfaction, I had won, got back what was ours and still was alive. Paul was more then that, he was excited in a way I had never seen before; all he could do was talk about that fast draw.
We got back to camp the next morning, took time to get some sleep then headed out. I kept thinking about Paul, this shooting had changed him, I hoped it would pass. He kept drawing his gun and shooting at passing trees telling Rob, got em again.
That night as I fell asleep looking up into the stars, I prayed, God don't let this life road lead us to places where we shouldn't go. I don't know if he heard me or not, but I do know life changes us, or we change life.
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