The Reckoning Trail

By Richard B. Talbot

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 23, 2008
• ISBN: 9781477179062

Richard B. Talbot

Richard Talbot is a retired U.S. Army major. He served two tours in Viet Nam with the 1st Cavalry Division as a combat helicopter pilot. Since his retirement, he founded an educational manufacturing company and has worked as a town administrator. Richard has managed racquetball and health clubs and is a nine time national racquetball champion. He is the author of two other books: The Reckoning Trail and The Autumn of My Time.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

As I opened my eyes, the smell of boiling coffee and frying bacon brought me full awake. I stretched as I rolled from by blanket and looked over to the hatful of a campfire that Spike had started to cook our breakfast. The fire was placed down in a hole to keep its light from shining like a beacon for some Indian brave to spot in the early twilight and bring us trouble. I stood and shook the dew from my poncho that covered up my blanket. The nights had begun to cool down as we moved west across the plains toward the coming of fall.

I walked to the fire, nodded to Bob and Spike, dished out a plate of bacon and poured thick, black cowhand-coffee into my cup. No one saw the need to speak as each of us contemplated the day’s ride that lay ahead. I finished my food and cleaned off my plate with a handful of grass. We needed to save our water, since we’d made a dry camp the night before. Sandy Creek, where we’d stopped and expected to find water, had proved to be dry. I rolled up my bedding, saddled my Appaloosa and tied my bedroll to the back of my saddle.

Bob signaled, and we stepped into our saddles under stars that winked out with the coming of first light, as the sun shouldered its way above the endless prairie to the east. My saddle creaked as I climbed aboard the hurricane deck of ol’ App, and I felt him bunch up to hump his back to see if I was paying attention. That damned horse was meaner than a grizzly with a bad tooth, but I’d ride no other given half a chance.

We rode with care that morning as we had each day before. We’d been warned that Chief Running Bull was afield with several parties of his renegade Cheyenne braves—out for the joy of killing, the looting and the taking of hair.

It was come noon that we spied a curl of black smoke rising from a fold in the prairie a few miles ahead. All of us shucked our rifles from their scabbards. I levered a round up the spout of my Winchester and rode with the weapon across my saddle. Bob singled to spread out some so that if trouble came we’d not be caught bunched up and could give each other covering fire.

As we rode along, the only sounds were those that came from our horses as the tall grass swished against their flanks, the click of hoof against the occasional stone, the creaks from our saddles and the buzz of insects.

I mopped my face with my bandanna, as it was plum like an iron smith’s furnace out on those open plains. The sky was smeared with heat-haze, and the relentless sun beat down on the flat land like the strokes of the smith’s hammer on the anvil. In the mirage from the rising waves of heat, the very horizon seemed to shimmer and move. As we neared the column of smoke, several buzzards were circling high overhead on the updrafts caused by the sun, rising in rippling pillars of super-heated air. It was a sure sign that death lay in our path.

We topped a small rise in the ground, and a small bird rose from beneath the hoofs of my horse startling me. There below us in the fold of the prairie lay the fire blackened bones of a prairie schooner sending up the tendrils of smoke we had seen from afar. Halfway up the gentle slope on our side of the depression lay a spill of color in the tall, waving grass. As we drew nearer, the bright weave of colored cloth took on the small, lifeless shape of a child still clutching a doll in her hands. The back of her head was black with dried blood and swarming flies, where a brave’s tomahawk had struck home.

We rode on down to the smoking remains of the wagon with our rifles in our hands ready for war. As we came around the side of the vehicle, we were smote with the stench of the dead, and of burned flesh and charred wood. I saw the body of a man, or what was left of a man, hog-tied to the spokes of one of the wheels. Indians are a cruel people. He’d been scalped and his eyelids had been slit so he couldn’t close his eyes. They’d built a fire around his feet and roasted him alive.

Spike had been riding off to my right. I heard him lose his breakfast at what we saw. Me, I felt my stomach turn over a time or two as well.

Across from the burned-out shell of the wagon, in view of where the man was tied, was the body of his wife. Her torn skirts were up around her waist from where they had raped her while he had been forced to watch. When the braves had finished with her she’d been scalped, after they’d killed her with a knife.

It makes a body wonder about the foolishness of some damn tenderfoot who’d take his family off by themselves into danger in this savage land. Me and the boys are trail-wise cowpokes and are well armed. Each of us can shoot and give a good account when needed. This poor sod-buster could in no way protect his kin and, as a result, got them killed. Some come west for the adventure and the wanderlust, some come to find a new and better life, and some to get rich. It was sad, but these folks had come to die.

Bob had us break out our camp shovels, and we buried the family in the black earth of the prairie. We picked a spot on top of the rise that overlooked the little hollow where they’d died. Spike tore off a partly burned board from the side of the wagon. Not knowing their names, he carved : Here lies three poor souls done for by Injuns. He added the date, and we placed the marker over the graves.

When we finished, we moved off from the burned-out wagon and grabbed us a quick lunch to fill our queasy stomachs, washed down with a pot of black coffee. Then we mounted up and took out again to the west, toward our destination—the high, blue mountains of the Rockies. We were watchful as we traveled, knowing that those braves were not far off. We had places to go, and there was no place for us to stop and fort up anyway out on this barren plain over which we rode.

*         *         *

Spike Logan lay on his back in the tall grass and gazed with sightless eyes up at the hot, afternoon sun beating down upon the endless prairie. A black fly crawled lazily across his cheek, and a warm breeze stirred a lock of brown hair on his forehead. His life’s blood seeped slowly into the black earth from the terrible wound where the Indian lance had ripped through his shirt, driven deep into his chest and taken away his life.

Logan’s body rested two hundred yards from the buffalo wallow where Bob Price and I lay. The three of us had been riding west across the flat, unbroken prairie when a passel of the renegade Indians we’d been warned about had risen up from the concealing grass beneath the feet of our horses to end our lives and take our hair.

Logan had screamed, and I saw him pulled down from his saddle by several braves who had grabbed the reins of his horse.

Me, I kicked that Appaloosa I was astride in the ribs, and felt him bolt forward in a run. His right shoulder smashed into an Indian who seemed to appear from nowhere. The brave was grasping for his reins, and the horse slammed him down beneath his hoofs. That palouse had never much felt my spurs before, and it sure surprised him some. He lit out like ol’ Lucifer was mounted on him bareback.

I had been riding with my Winchester across the saddle and, as another Indian reached for my left stirrup, I levered a round into my rifle and shot him in the face. He was flung off to the side in a shower of blood.

A huge painted brave leaped from a hollow in the ground, and I swung the butt of the Winchester, caught him in the neck, and saw him tumble over backwards.

Bob was riding off to my right front about twenty yards away. We were spread out some, as we rode so’s not to be caught in a bunch. I saw him take an arrow in the chest, but he managed to stay in the saddle as we spurred away.

The rest of the Indians let out a howl at what they were missing and came at a run. Out of a fold in the prairie to our left front, several braves on horseback rode to head us off. It appeared that we’d run into Chief Running Bull’s Cheyenne raiding party out for what they could find, and they’d found us.

I winced, as I felt a burn across my left shoulder. Several shots rang out as our pursuers began to fire their rifles.

That’s when I spied that buffalo wallow that lay in our path. We pulled up our horses, leaped from the saddle and opened fire on the savages. I hit at least two of them, while Bob knocked one off his horse.

Our withering fire stopped them cold, and the Injuns just plum disappeared in the tall prairie grass. It was as if the land just swallowed them up. Yet, they were out there waiting in that waving sea of green and gold, waiting for us to make a mistake.

Bob lay a few feet off to my left, and I crawled over to him to see about his wound. The arrow that had struck him had broken off when we went to ground. Just it’s stub stuck out from his shirt front. A trickle of bright, bloody foam ran from his lips and down his chin, and the right side of his chest and side were drenched with blood.

Harp, he gasped in pain as I drew close. I’m bad hit. That arrow done took me in the lung, and I won’t last long. I want you to light a shuck and get clear while I give you cover before they get us pinned down.

I can’t leave you, Bob, I stammered. You and me can stand them off till night. Then we’ll slip on out of here together before they know it.

It’s no use to argue, son, he rasped. "I’m done for and could never ride. With an arrow through my lung, I’m as good as dead right now. It’s up to you, kid! The money from the herd is in my saddle bags. It’s got to get back to Cramer and the other ranchers at Alamosa.

We’ll lay low here for a while until they make a try for us. If we can drive ’em off, you can make your bid when they go to ground. He started coughing, and blood foamed from the corners of his mouth.

I moved a few yards away from where Bob lay to give us as much cover as the shallow basin of the buffalo wallow allowed. To our front was an unending plain of slowly waving golden prairie grass. To our rear and sides, the tall grass gave out, and the ground was flat and bare for several hundred yards preventing the Indians from crawling up our backside. It was just an hour or two to sundown and, with the coming of night, the hot wind that had been blowing across the prairie became still.

As I hunkered down at the edge of the buffalo wallow watching the grass for any sign of the Indians, I thought back to what brought me and Bob to this spot on the prairie—a spot where we both might not see the light of another day.

*         *         *

Bob Price was the foreman of the TC Ranch located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside Alamosa, in Colorado country. He was a tough man and a no-nonsense boss who had helped the owner, Tom Cramer, build a fine spread. He was past forty years old and was known to have been a wild and dangerous man a few years back. He was tall and thin, yet broad across the shoulders, with yellow hair spun with gray. His square-jawed face was burnt red from years in the saddle under the hot sun. He was a fair hand with a gun, but never showed his skill unless pushed. Bob knew cattle better than anyone I’d ever met, and he had taught me plenty in the last two years that I’d ridden for the TC.

The three of us had been on a cattle drive, and Bob had gold-money in his saddle bags from the sale of the herd in Abilene. We were on our way back west to give old Tom Cramer and the other ranchers their share of the sale.

Me and the boys had "ram-rodded" four-thousand head of cattle through high country, between narrow mountain passes, and across the endless plains. We ate the dust of a traveling herd and suffered through rain and cold. We fought Indians and a few gents who thought they could cut our cattle, but didn’t. We left two of the boys buried deep out on the prairie. It’s a hard land out here in wild country. A body on the drive expects trouble to come his way and has to accept the good with the bad. We’d been on the trail for four months, and the three of us were plum tuckered out.

When we reached Abilene, we went to see Bob Callison, who was a friend of Cramers’. He was the owner of the Drover’s Cottage—one of the finest eating places in the West. It was here cattlemen liked to gather when in town. Callison steered Bob to Chuck Morrison, a horse trader and cattle buyer. Morrison was a short, thin man with black hair and a matching handle-bar mustache, with a perpetual smile on his face. His handshake was as good as anything in writing when making a deal. Men, like him, were known by their reputation for square dealing with folks. To a western man, reputation is everything. His reputation was the kind that helped build the West.

Bob made a palaver with Chuck and got us better than eighteen dollars a head (good for those times). He went to the bank with Morrison, got a bank draft, some cash money and paid off the rest of the boys who had been on the drive with us. With the money in hand, we just wanted to see the TC Ranch, give Tom and the others their share, and lay down and sleep for a week. It’s a long, long ride on the back of a horse from Kansas to Colorado. So, we saddled up, and me, Bob and Spike headed back west for Alamosa and the far blue mountains of the divide.

We’d been on the trail for two weeks and time to time noticed dust along our back-trail. We figured it wasn’t the Indians we’d been warned about, as no self-respectin’ Indian would be that careless to draw attention to himself. I reckoned back to the Drover’s Cottage in Abilene where Bob had met the cattle buyer for the herd. There had been a couple of salty looking hombres who always seemed to be about when Price was with Morrison.

One was a no-account miner and part-time, slovenly-dressed cowhand named Jory Dannon. He was a man known as a back-shooter, handy with a knife, and willing to pick up blood money or an easy dollar—long as he was clear of the shooting. He had a reputation of mistreating women, which could get a man hung in most western towns.

The other, I’d never seen before either. He was a tall, well put-together man with a bold, tough way about him, with his gun tied down low. What caught my eye was a thin scar that ran along his left cheek from mouth to ear. Might have been bitten by a knife, I’d mused back then.

From time to time, we’d stop our ride, and me or Spike would cut our back trail. But, we never did see anyone following along. Yet, I had the feeling that someone was back there, a-coming our way, and I was a sight worried.

When we’d started for Alamosa, the last thing we were hunting was trouble. Yet, Price was carrying gold-money, and it and trouble usually come two of a kind. It takes a man years of struggle to put a little money aside and, when a man has it, trouble just seems to naturally come along his way.

My name is Harper Christie (Harp for short)—a count-for-nothing cowhand. Me, I’ve ridden the wild trails. I’ve been known to pick up a few loose horses here and there and some cattle too. From time to time, I’ve had folks coming down my trail like now. I’m Irish born and bred, a Black Irishman, mostly on my Ma’s side (which accounts for my temper).

I’m nineteen and some folks might count me as a young’un. Yet I’ve been up the river and back a time or two. I’ve got size, past six feet tall, weighing around one-ninety (when there’s enough grub to eat) with most of it in my chest and shoulders, tapering down to a slim waist. I was wearing what passed for a weeks growth of beard. But it didn’t show much, not like on Bob and Spike. My black hair hadn’t been trimmed since before the cattle drive, and my beat-up old hat was showing a bullet hole from back when we had trouble with rustlers trying to cut the herd.

My black and white checkered shirt was hanging open, my leather chaps were covered with dust from the prairie, and my boots were rundown at the heel so’s my spurs would drag in the dirt when I walked. I carried a Winchester in the scabbard on my saddle and an old Smith & Wesson .44 on my right hip. I had me a knife in a leather sheath hung down my back between my shoulder blades that I could reach back and get—a trick I’d learned down Mexico way.

*         *         *

I snapped out of my reflecting as suddenly, off to my left, in front of Bob, I saw a slight movement of the grass. I aimed low and let fly with my Winchester. I had the satisfaction of seeing an Indian rear up bad hit in the chest. Bob fired an instant later, and the Brave toppled over backwards and lay still. I could just make out one of his legs between some tufts of grass.

Me, I’m no Pilgrim, I knew if I kept a-gawking at that dead Indian, I might just join him. I swept my gaze across the land—but saw no more sign that any of his Cheyenne brothers were nearby. When I glanced back where the body lay, the darn critter was gone! It couldn’t have been but a few seconds from when I looked away, but he had disappeared. I fired three fast shots from my Winchester to the left and right of where he’d been, but saw no result.

Indians won’t let their dead or wounded lay about; they will carry them off given half a chance. But, it was hard to believe that his friends could have moved him without me or Bob noticing out on that flat land.

Time to time, I’d look back at where the horses were picketed. The renegades who’d killed the family we’d found had taken away the horses that pulled the wagon. If they took ours away, we were goners. A body could speculate that the Indians would kill our mounts to make sure we’d stay put. But good horse flesh was worth its weight in gold to a plains Indian, and those Cheyenne figured they had us for fair and our horses, too.

I heard Bob groan, and I tossed him my half-filled canteen. We’d not been able to fill the canteens last night at our dry camp on Sandy Creek. Water can be a scarce thing out on the Kansas prairie or any place else in wild country. It’s not like at home where a body can just traipse out to the well, or in town where there’s friendly barkeeps to slake your thirst.

It was plum hot a-layin’ there in that wallow. My checkered shirt was black with sweat under the armpits and across my back. With all that heat, I was working up a powerful thirst of my own. My mouth was dry, and I had the taste of gun-metal when I tried to swallow. I searched around a bit and found a small pebble that I stuck in my mouth. I sucked on it a bit and worked me up some saliva to ease my thirst. There was no telling when we’d see water again, and I wanted to make our canteens last.

By now, the sun was a hazy, red ball melting into the western edge of the plains making the tips of the dry prairie grass flame red as sundown approached. It is said by some that Indians will not attack at night. But I wasn’t about to trust campfire talk with my hair and planned to stay ready if they came at us in the dark.

Suddenly, seven painted Cheyenne warriors rose up from the grass. They came at us on the run, firing their bows and a rifle or two. I heard Bob’s Winchester boom out. I was too busy to know how he fared. I fired my rifle as fast as I could lever rounds into the chamber—yet, at a pace that allowed me to hit what I aimed at.

Two savages fell in front of my position, with one Brave very close. He slashed down with his tomahawk as I raised up my rifle. Sparks flew as steel met steel. I caught the downward stroke of the blade on the barrel of my rifle and felt the shock of the impact shiver up my arms.

Holding my rifle up in front of me with both hands, I twisted over on my back and kicked out with my legs. My feet slammed into his chest as he leaped to grapple with me. I felt my spurs rake across his exposed torso, and blood splattered my face as he was driven back. Letting go of the rifle, my right hand swept down to my six-gun. I drew and fired into his body before he could come for me again. The impact of my shot stood him up on his toes. My second bullet caught him in the throat, spraying me again with his warm blood. He went down, his tomahawk tumbling from his lifeless fingers.

I spun around on my knees and saw another Indian crouched over Price with his knife raised. From a distance of fifteen feet, I fired my Smith and Wesson and saw the knife fly from his hand. The savage rolled off Bob and disappeared into the grass even as I fired again. I figured I’d hit him hard—at least twice, but couldn’t tell for sure.

As quickly as the attack had started, it was over. Things had got too hot for them Injuns, and they’d gone to ground once more. That peaceful, deadly prairie was deserted. Me, Bob, two horses and the dead Indian laying next to me was all that was in sight.

Indians are not like white men when it comes to war. Kill a white man, and more and more just keep coming west over the lip of the horizon in a never ending stream to replace those that died. Kill an Indian brave, and his tribe suffers the loss of a provider, a warrior who protects the tribe and his family, and lessens the strength of his people.

If an Indian cannot profit by a fight, he withdraws and melts into the land. If his losses become too large, he simply disappears to fight another day. He never fights for the ownership of land, as he has no understanding of the concept that has driven the white settlers west to claim the earth and drive out the Indian. His is a wandering way of life and the western plains are his home. He fights to defend his tribe, his hunting lands, his family, for honor, for a good horse or rifle, or just for the love of battle. But, he never risks his life foolishly.

Careful-like, I crawled over to Price. He was bad. There was blood from his chest wound and from where the Brave with the knife had stabbed him in the left shoulder.

I propped up his head and fed him some water out of the canteen that was still laying by his side. Price was as salty as they come. He looked up at me and smiled through bloody lips and said, We done for them red savages damn good, Christie. But now’s the time for you to leave while they’re licking their wounds.

"Reload my rifle and put my pistol next to me where it’s handy. With you on your way, I’ll open the dance if’n they’re willin’ and give you some time to ride.

Harp, you’ve got to get the gold in those saddle bags back to Tom and the other ranchers. They’re in need, and most will lose their ranches if you can’t get back. The Indians will try and follow you. So, when you ride, don’t stop, just keep switching horses. That way, you should lose any that might get by me.

He reached up and touched my shoulder, Tell Tom and Mary, we built us a good place together an’ had us some good times. Just don’t forget an old cowboy who rode for the brand. Now, get while’st I can still shoot.

Staying low, I made a dash to the two horses. As I ran, I felt something wet in my eyes. It must have been sweat, for it had been a very hot day. I was a grown man, not some girl who might shed a tear. Gathering up the reins of Bob’s horse in one move, I put my left foot in the stirrup and swung up to the saddle. Crouching low along the neck of my horse, I kicked him into a run.

My move caught the remaining Cheyenne flat-footed. They hadn’t expected me to leave Bob alone, and I was twenty five yards away before a shot was fired. One of the savages made a mistake and stood up to shoot, and Price’s Winchester boomed out, sending death speeding across the plains.

I heard a burst of firing. Glancing back, I saw several Indians standing over Bob’s body. I saw no horsemen chasing me, but knew that some had gone to where their horses were hid. Lucky for me, I had the lead and fear in my heart to speed my journey toward Alamosa.

I rode west through the night, across the never-ending prairie, changing horses every hour or so to keep them fresh. As morning approached, rain began to fall. I shucked my slicker out of my bedroll and pulled it on. By mid-morning, the rain had turned into a downpour, and I knew that any Indian trying to trail me was out of luck as the rain washed my trail away. Now I needed a safe place to camp, rest my horses, and figure out what to do next.

The rain lasted until noon, when it turned into a fine mist and then stopped. The hot, prairie sun broke through the low, gray clouds and small birds darted through the air. Before an hour had past, I was drenched with my own sweat. You could hardly tell it had rained, as the land sucked up the life-giving moisture like a sponge. My horses were near tuckered out from the long hours of riding. So, when I found an old creek bed with a few pools of water left over from the rain, I drew up and made camp. Even though it wasn’t dark yet and there wasn’t much cover, we had to stop.

I unsaddled the horses, and gave them each a rubdown with their saddle blankets. Giving them a drink at the pools, I then put them out to graze on what they could find. Caring for your animals first was the western way. That’s what my Pa had taught me, when I was little growing up on our dirt farm. He whipped me something fierce once when I forgot to feed my dog before I had my supper. I never forgot my animals after that.

I found a spot that had been carved out by the rush of water from the storm earlier in the day. It gave me a low place to lay out my bedroll where I could be concealed from riders coming my way.

I built a fire, while it was still light, using some dry grass an’ buffalo chips that were laying about. A man out on the prairie has a hard time finding wood for his fire and must make do with what’s at hand. This was still a time when there were a few, scattered herds of buffalo that had not as yet been wiped out by the buffalo hunters. The huge herds of animals that numbered in the hundreds of thousands are no longer roaming the western plains. But, those that are left seem to like to winter near the breaks of the Rockies on the northwest edge of that great stretch of open grassland. A body could still find their dried-out droppings scattered about, which would make a likely fire. When the wagon trains first crossed the prairie, the women and children would walk behind their wagons and pick up the dried buffalo pies they found and throw them into nets or blankets tied behind their wagons. They would use the chips later for their campfires. Now with the slaughter of the great herds, the buffalo droppings were becoming scarce.

When the fire was hot, I put on a pot of coffee—coffee black enough to support a spoon standing straight up. That coffee was what I needed, as I was as beat as my horses. I dug out my camp pot, filled it with water from a nearby pool, shaved some jerky into it and added some dry beans I had in my saddle bag. When it came to a boil, it was the best eating I had tasted in a year, including at the Drover’s Cottage back in Abilene. (Or, maybe I was just plum hungry.)

I doused my fire before night fell, wanting no one out on that endless prairie to know I was here. A light of any kind can be seen a long way. I would have loved to roll me a cigarette, but couldn’t afford the glow or the smoke. It’s amazing how far a body can smell a campfire or tobacco when there’s a little wind to cast the smell around.

I refilled my canteen at the pool, and then I set out my bedroll. As I lay there looking up at the first stars twinkling in the twilight, waiting for sleep to come, I thought back to the TC ranch. It had been two years now that I’d been riding for Tom Cramer out in the San Luis Valley in Colorado. Tom had saved my bacon when he found me shot to doll-rags near his ranch on Deadman Creek. He’d taken me to his home, and his wife Mary had nursed me back to health. It took three months before I could slide a bronc between my legs. After that, I began helpin’ out around the place and before I knew it, two years just slid on by.

Before Tom found me, I’d been a wandering man, always looking over the next mountain, wanting to see the next town or the next wild place. I had no close family, just some brothers and sisters that were scattered hither and yon; I knew not where. But, Tom and Mary had showed me a different way of life—a home and family that cared. They just took me in like I was the son they never had. They showed me that a man needs a place to call his own, where a man could settle safely and raise a passel of kids. A body needs to set on his own porch come night and look out across his own land at the far blue mountains as the sun dips in the west, with folks about that cared.

Tom had never asked why I was laying out there in the brush shot, two years ago. He just took me in. I’d lost my folks when I was knee-high to a grasshopper and had been on my own since I was fourteen. I had lived as best I could. Even back then I had size and was big for seventeen. Many neighbors thought I was full grown. I’d been on the trail heading for Durango and joined up with some drifters one night at their campfire. They were a dog-eared looking outfit, but their coffee was hot and black and I was tuckered out.

A posse on the trail of the drifters hit us late that night and, in the dark, just naturally thought I was one of the men they were a-hunting. I managed to get away through the trees and brush, but caught three slugs for my trouble and was hard hit. Tom found me the next morning.

One day a few months after I’d mended and had showed that I was a hard working hand, Tom said to me, A man could make him some money, over in the breaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. There are lots of cows over there belonging to nobody, having drifted up from the Spanish settlements and New Mexico to the south.

When Tom spoke up, it was because there was an idea behind it. He was a knowing man. As young as I was, I had begun to hanker for a place of my own and to end my drifting ways. A lot of cattle belonging to no man . . . it sounded damn good to me.

It would take hard work for a man alone, Tom said. Out West, a man can be whatever he is man enough to be. Mary and me figure you’ve got the gumption to bring in some of them steers and give yourself a start.

From that day on, I began to put together a herd of my own.

Bob Price, now and again, would let me off to make me a gather. I’d ride over to the breaks to look over the country. I had in mind to find a hiding place to hold my cattle. I scouted around the broken ground near the base of the mountains and one day found a cold spring of water that came out of the rocks in the back end of a canyon. It was a canyon with only one, narrow crack of a trail leading in and had steep walls all around. There were maybe two hundred acres of good grass in the bottom, grass belly-high to a steer. From the look of it, no cowman had ever grazed cattle here or in the surrounding canyons.

First off, I chose my camp site. This was Indian country, and I had to be a might careful. I made my first camp where the cliffs lifted sheer and, in one spot, formed an overhang that provided shelter from above. Right out in front, there were several acres of meadow with good grass, bordered on the far side by small trees and rocks. Beyond that was the bowel with my private pasture, as I called it. In an adjoining canyon, there was a still larger area. I figured I would bring my wild cattle that I gathered here to stay as they grew in size. It was a place I could seal up and leave them without them scattering back into the breaks.

I spent some time stacking up fuel and adding a few rocks to the front of a cave I’d discovered in along the face of the cliffs. It would be my permanent camp when I got settled . Late that afternoon a deer drifted into my pasture and I downed it with one clean shot. I brought in the hide and the meat to my campsite and started jerking the lean flesh to prepare a reserve of food for when I was in need or had to hole up in my cave.

Next morning at daybreak, I started out to study the country and to look for several sources of water for my cattle. Without plenty of water and grass for beefs to fatten on, a man might as well take up knitting or become a school marm.

First off, I rode around my two-hundred acre pasture. At the north end, a small, steady stream of water flowed out from a wide crack in the steep side of the cliffs. It formed several small pools before disappearing amongst some boulders. I went back to my camp, got a shovel and, for the next few hours, deepened and enlarged the pools. I figured, if I spent a few hours each day, I could have a supply of water that would last and might supply my herd.

At noon, I took a rest and chewed on some jerky and drank sweet water from my spring. As I sat there looking over my little valley, I made plans on all I needed to do. After finishing lunch, I set out to look over the neighborhood. Within an hour’s ride, I’d seen sixty or seventy head of wild stuff. A man never saw such cattle. There was a longhorn bull in that bunch that stood six or seven feet tall and weighed better than sixteen hundred pounds. He had huge, needle sharp horns, big around as my arm and a six foot span. I could tell he fancied himself as the bull of the woods in them parts.

By nightfall, I had ten cows in that bowl, and ten more drifted toward it. By the third day, I had more than twenty-five head in that pasture. I was beginning to count my money! It was slow, hard, miserable work for one man. Push them too fast and they would scatter from pillar to post. So I drifted them slow and easy without them reading what I planned or what road map I was using.

I was tuckered out by the end of the day. I built a small fire next to the cliff-face under the overhang, put on a pot of coffee and cooked up some beans and beef. After supper, while enjoying a cup of coffee, I dreamed about building my ranch and my future.

The next day, I moved my camp into the cave I’d found. It was easy to defend and offered shelter and warmth from storms that came a plenty in the breaks of the mountains. I stored my jerked meat in the back where the ceiling of the cave sloped down to four feet, and where it was cool. I built up a wall of boulders making a storeroom for my extra vittles. I planned to add more food each time I came out from the ranch. There were plenty of downed trees from storms nearby my new digs, giving me piles of dead limbs to place near the entrance of the cave.

One problem I had besides gathering cows—Indians. There was a passel of them here about and, though I loved cattle, I loved my hair more. Although the Indians around Alamosa were not on the warpath then, any self-respecting brave coming upon a white man all alone would, just by his very nature, lift that cowpoke’s hair if he had a chance. He’d do it for the sport of it, or for the cowboy’s horse and weapons. A brave’s way of life was the good fight or the successful hunt, as is the warrior’s way.

Indians were not the only danger for me. Some of those mossy-horned cows were meaner than the Devil himself. If I was unlucky enough to get tossed off my horse, one of those critters would be on me like a cat. Why, I’d once seen a rider who was thrown, chased right up a tree by an old bull and kept there until we ran the animal off a half day later. He’d lost his six gun when he’d tumbled from his horse, so couldn’t kill the beast.

Folks back East think a cowboy carries a belt-gun to shoot each other with, or to fight off Indians. The truth is that if we’re thrown from a horse and your foot is caught in the stirrup, or maybe treed by a loco steer, we need a hand gun to shoot the animal and save our life.

In the days that followed, I kept my fires small, used the driest wood to limit the smoke, and moved around only when I worked and tried to leave no tracks. I wouldn’t dare use any set trails in or out of my cave whereby Indians could lay an ambush for me. When I drove cattle that I’d dug out of the breaks back to the pasture, I’d drag brush behind my horse to wipe out the tracks. And, most of all, I rode careful.

I spent me a week out in those broken canyons that first time. I sweated, swore, and ate dust. At night I was bone-weary and fell asleep before my head hit my blanket. I gathered thirty-five head and got them in the bowl where there was tall grass and plenty of water. There, those beefs could grow fat, settle down, and multiply. They were all mine!

One thing about that canyon—it had a narrow entrance and only one way in and out for cattle. I dragged some brush into the opening and