The Cattle Drive from Southwest: Book 2 in the Southwest Series

By DIANE M. CECE

The Cattle Drive from Southwest
Tom Lacey and Samuel Embers were outlaws who split from the Younger Brothers Gang. Their handles were the Nevada Kid and Smokey. After the robbery of the
Kingston-Downey Express, they took honest jobs while seeking refuge at a prominent cattle ranch. Nevada had been shot through the left thigh, and taking on honest jobs
was the only way Smokey could get his pard back on his feet again without getting captured.

What they didnt figure into the equation was the ranchers beautiful, innocent young niece, Polly, falling in love with the Nevada Kid. She came from back East to live with
her aunt and uncle and to teach at the local schoolhouse. Smokey had a very tough time keeping the beautiful girl from controlling his partners soul and destiny. Polly was
the one witness to the robbery of the express who carried enough evidence against the two to get them imprisoned or, worse, hanged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493150502

DIANE M. CECE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Diane M. Cece is the best-selling author of the Southwest Series of novels. Her works include the Trails Southwest, The Cattle Drive from Southwest, The Rodeo Southwest, Whispering Ridge and Bitter End Trail. She worked for twenty-five years as a management assistant for supervisory military personnel. She was an unpublished Nashville songwriter, a designer and seamstress for custom eighteenth-century-period clothing, a living history and Civil War reenactor, a historian for the mountain-climbing Morris Canal in New Jersey, and a historic interpreter for historic Waterloo Village. She lives in a small New Jersey farming community and enjoys visiting the local stockyards on auction days and follows the local and Midwestern pro-rodeo action of the roughstock riders and the roping events. She can be reached on her website www.dianesoldwestnovels.com by going into the guest book tab.

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Copyright © 2014 by Diane M. Cece.

Library of Congress Control Number:                     2013922088

ISBN:                  Hardcover                             978-1-4931-5049-6

                            Softcover                               978-1-4931-5048-9

                            eBook                                    978-1-4931-5050-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 12/21/2013

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CONTENTS

The Cattle Drive from Southwest

Chapter I   Roundup Wranglers

Chapter II   Female Encounters

Chapter III   Bunkhouse Bunglings

Chapter IV   The Drive

Chapter V   Cowboys Don’t Cry

Summary of Book 3

DEDICATION

For my children

Bettina-Marie, Thomas J., and Ethan

May the trails in your lives be honest, patriotic, and adventurous,

for you three were God’s gift in my life.

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THE CATTLE DRIVE FROM SOUTHWEST

Tom Lacey and Samuel Embers were outlaws who split from the Younger Brothers Gang. Their handles were the Nevada Kid and Smokey. After the robbery of the Kingston-Downey Express, they took honest jobs while seeking refuge at a prominent cattle ranch. Nevada had been shot through the left thigh, and taking on honest jobs was the only way Smokey could get his pard back on his feet again without getting captured.

What they didn’t figure into the equation was the rancher’s beautiful, innocent young niece, Polly, falling in love with the Nevada Kid. She came from back East to live with her aunt and uncle and to teach at the local schoolhouse.

Smokey had a very tough time keeping this beautiful girl from controlling his partner’s soul and destiny. Polly was the one witness to the robbery of the express and knew enough about the two to get them imprisoned or, worse, hanged.

C:\Users\CECE FAMILY\Pictures\2013-10-13 Trails Southwest Map\Trails Southwest Map 001.jpgC:\Users\CECE FAMILY\Pictures\2013-10-07 Cattle Drive Diagram\Cattle Drive Diagram 001.jpg11277.png

CHAPTER I

Roundup Wranglers

Tom Lacey and Samuel Embers were outlaws who split from the Younger Brothers Gang. Their outlaw names were the Nevada Kid and Smokey. After the robbery of the Kingston-Downey Express, they took refuge at a prominent cattle ranch owned by John O’Connor.

Tom was having a rough time with the wound he received when he was shot clean through the left thigh, and taking on honest jobs was the only way they could get Tom back on his feet again and stay one step ahead of the law.

John O’Connor offered the drifters jobs as drovers for a roundup and trail drive he had coming up soon. He was shorthanded for the drive and was desperately looking for new hires.

John’s wife, Martha, felt compassion for the wounded young man, and so they took him in and called the town doctor to help the boy out. As soon as Tom recovered, he was to move into the bunkhouse with the rest of John’s drovers. Martha offered Tom a guest room in their large colonial home, which Smokey accepted with much gratitude for the almost-unconscious boy. Now that the young man was settled for the night, John led Smokey over to the bunkhouse to move in their gear.

Even for such a prominent ranch as this, the rough bunkhouse made of cottonwood logs had a raw, unfinished look from the outside. However, most cowhands knew that a ranch was set up for the care and well-being of livestock, not people. The bunkhouse was located next to a combination cookshack and mess hall. A roofed breezeway or dogtrot attached the cookshack to a tack shop, made from weatherboard, which sheltered dogs and served as a catchall for hanging saddles, bridles, and ropes.

They entered the quiet bunkhouse. The hands were not in from the range as yet. The inside walls were spruced up with a coat of whitewash, which the cowboys themselves splashed on. A real wood floor was over the dirt one. It was a rarity for a bunkhouse, thought Smokey. Some buffalo robes and wolf skins adorned the bunks for cold nights, and a crude fireplace was near the corner. Smokey sensed right away that this particular bunkhouse housed hands year-round. The familiar bunkhouse smell assaulted his senses. An aroma of dry steer manure, licorice of chewing-tobacco plugs, sweaty men, old work boots, and the smoke from a coal-oil lamp seemed to penetrate the air. Clothes on the floor were scattered in an untidy fashion. Pinups from magazines and mail-order catalogs were pasted on walls and ceilings near each bunk.

A pack of ancient, greasy playing cards fanned across a small table in front of the fireplace. A shoe box on the floor contained dominoes. Culture in the bunkhouse was as rare as a snowball in hell. Life in the bunkhouse was discomfort and boredom coupled with the raw-edged routine of work on the rangeland.

Those two bunks there are empty. It doesn’t matter whether you take the top one or the bottom. Help yourself to either. As soon as the hands come in, my cook, Yut Ng, will be ready with some chow. My boys have rigged a bucket shower behind the bunkhouse. You may want to rinse off the trail dust.

I really am obliged, Mr. O’Connor, said Smokey.

Just call me boss, like everyone else who works for me. You said you were looking for jobs. Well, I got a roundup coming in another month, then a trail drive. You and your partner can have jobs, if you want them. That will save me the trouble of going out to recruit more hands next weekend. Hands are hard to come by around this time of year. Herds are already pushing up the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Most of the boys from this area have already hired on and committed to the bigger spreads.

Well, you needn’t worry, boss. I’m an old hand at cattle. My pard, Tom, is a farmer, but he is young and smart and learns fast. I’ll teach him all I know about ranching as soon as he is on his feet.

He’s a farmer, huh? Does he know anything about soil? My wife is having some problems with her vegetable garden.

I’m sure he does, boss. He used to plant the fields for his old man every spring.

Maybe I ought to talk to that boy as soon as he is out and about.

You do that, boss. Tom’s a right smart fella. And he is a little book-learned too. He can read labels on cans and read magazine articles. He even has an ear for music. This guitar I’m toting around is his.

You don’t say. Well, Smokey, I guess it’s only fair to warn you, we have a few behavior rules around here. The first one is loyalty to me and this ranch. The second is, you take all your orders from my foreman, Buck, because his orders come from me. The third one is no gambling with money while playing cards in the bunkhouse. It only leads to trouble. And the fourth is, no hand will be permitted to own cattle or stock horses on the ranch except for one horse of his own. When you’re working, you use my stock horses. When you go into town, use your own horse.

Okay, boss, I got you, replied Smokey.

See you in the morning at daybreak. The door of the bunkhouse slammed behind him.

Smokey set to work unpacking his gear. He hung Tom’s guitar on a peg over the lower bunk and threw his own gear in the top bunk. As a kid in the mining camps, he always liked the top bunk. The air was better or something. Besides, there was a nude pinup on that wall that caught his eye. It was right next to a cattle-breeding chart.

It wasn’t long after his shower and change of clothes when the cowhands began to arrive one at a time. They were used to the invasion of strangers at roundup time and introduced themselves as they encountered Smokey. Smokey retold the story about being bushwhacked. They all listened, but no one questioned it. With the cattle drives starting up, rustlers could already be drifting into the area.

The cowhands flopped down on their bunks one at a time to unwind from a hard day’s work. Whose guitar is that? questioned one of the hands.

It’s my pard’s, said Smokey. He plays it and sings when he’s in the mood.

We can use a guitar like that around here. I play the mouth organ, and Sparky plays the fiddle. Sometimes we get together with hands from the other ranches and form a little band for the church social each year. We ain’t very good, but we have a good time.

Well, now I don’t rightly know if Tom will play it for a church social. He laughed. It would take some amount of persuading. He’s kind of shy.

Well, it doesn’t matter none. Maybe he will just loan it to us.

Hey, boys, the boss sent Blinky into town for the doc, said the one named Umbrella Head.

Oh yeah? Well, I hope he gets the doc before he gets a bottle, said the one named Sparky, or it was a waste of time sending him. Laughter echoed through the bunkhouse. Smokey knew right away he was going to like these cowboys. It felt good to have a roof over his head and a bunk to rest his weary trail-riding bones.

Umbrella Head was a frizzy-haired cowboy. He parted his hair straight down the middle of his head and his long frizzy locks hung down on both sides of his head making him look like he was wearing an umbrella over the top of his head. No one ever knew his real name, but they figured him to be pushing about twenty-three. One summer, he dropped into their cow camp looking for a job, and the trail boss hired him on. He hung around ever since and became one of John O’Connor’s regular hired hands. He was a decent hand on the range, but come payday, he headed straight for the saloons. When he was drunk, a nasty temperament was displayed. The cowhands never asked him what his name was,