Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"We're still shy a hundred or more," said Tom. "Give us to-day and we'll find most of 'em off there in the coulees and cedar brakes."

Major Bob shook his head. "I'll take the loss. No more time to be wasted. Riding north this morning I found the tracks of another herd. Somebody's before us, cutting west. San Saba!"

The foreman rode slowly to the fore, eyeing the Gillettes warily. "Yes, suh."

"Time for us to be watching our direction," said Major Bob. "Seems to me we ought to swing westerly somewhere round here. You remember the country from last year?"

San Saba swept the horizon. "Yes, suh, tole'bly well."

"Lead out, then. There's a party ahead of us. Steer as straight a line as you can."

The foreman nodded. The swing and drag pressed against the herd. It moved forward, on the last leg of the journey. The sullen skies gave way, the sun beat down day after day, the prairie steamed and grew dry, the coulees were bereft of water once more. North they travelled, arrow straight, with San Saba in the lead, never saying a word, never revealing what thoughts stirred behind his small red eyes. They crossed the trail of the other herd and lost it at a point where it swung directly into the dark and timbered land westward. Tom kept his peace. Yet all the while a vague suspicion stirred in the back of his head. And one day he came alongside his father and spoke quietly.

"You said you were bound for the country around the head waters of the Little Missouri, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Then it seems to me we're going too far north. We've passed the Grand and it sticks to my mind the Little Missouri makes an ox bow and sweeps south. I think I remember it from a map I've seen."

Major Bob rode for a mile without speaking. But his eyes were fixed on the back of San Saba, who was a hundred yards in front. "San Saba has been there. He's been a capable foreman to me. I have trusted him." He turned to his son. "You don't rub well with the man, do you?"

"I'll say nothing against him," replied Tom.

"No, of course you wouldn't. Matter of principle. East didn't wholly convert you. I hope, Son, you have never lost your eye for the centre of a target."

Tom held his silence, and Major Bob shook his head, just a little sadly. "Men must be as they are. God knows there is little enough softness in this world. Not that I would have it otherwise. San Saba!"

The foreman checked his horse and waited until the Gillettes came along. "Is it not time to swing west?" asked Major Bob, studying the foreman keenly.

San Saba appeared to verify his surrounding from the visible landmarks. "Not yet, suh, fo' a day. I am lookin' fo' a table-top butte with red streaks through it."

"Well, you know best. Remember, we can't afford to lose ground. That trail we passed makes me very uneasy—very uneasy."

San Saba raised his shoulders, saying nothing. His inscrutable eyes rested momentarily on Tom and the latter thought he saw a point of light break through the red pall. A point of light that gleamed and was suppressed. Then the foreman dropped his narrow chin, murmuring, "I'm doin' the best I can, suh. If yo' aim to turn west I'll say nothin'."

"Go ahead," replied Major Bob.

Tom dropped to the rear where Quagmire rode. Upon the wizened face was imprinted the sorrow of the universe. But he grinned at Tom and threw a leg around the saddle horn.

"Was a fortune teller once what told me I'd take a long trip. Paid him a dollar. Well, look what I got for my dollar. He said I was a gent that liked life. Hell, I got to like it! He tol' me I'd meet up with a dark lady an' she'd be a great influence to me. That gipsy sho' read my periscope."

"Met the lady, did you?" inquired Tom.

Quagmire squinted at the sun, the earth, and the remote horizon. "Rode a pitchin' hoss down by El Paso one year. Broke both collar bones, sprained a laig, an' bit myse'f in the middle o' the back. Laid up three months."

"What's that got to do with a dark lady?"

Quagmire spread his palms upward. "It was a black lady hoss."

Tom smiled. "Well, we live and we learn."

"Sometimes," amended Quagmire lugubriously, "we only live."

"It's the only life we've got," mused Tom.

Quagmire shifted his weight. "Now you spoke like my own son."

"If you'd had a son. Ever tried the institution of marriage for a reasonable length of time, Quagmire?"

"Shucks, no. I'm too stingy to divide my affections."

But much later, after a brooding study of the matter, he amplified this. "'Tain't exactly that, either, Tom. But, I tell you—I can sleep on grass and I can eat navy beans until said navy quits makin' 'em. Sorter hate to make a woman share that. My mamma was death on havin' me comb my hair. Mebbe that got me shy. Company ahead."

The herd came to a straggling halt Over an adjacent ridge came a solitary rider clad in fringed buckskin. Tom trotted to the fore to join the ensuing parley. Major Bob rode out to meet the stranger. The man's skin was like so much parfleche, and a beard draped itself from cheek bone to collar, out of which glittered two intensely black and exploring eyes. He raised a hand, Indian fashion, and kept his peace.

"Know this country?" asked Major Bob.

"Ort to," responded the man. "Yallerstone Bill be my name."

Major Bob signalled to San Saba, meanwhile pursuing his point. "Then you'll know in what direction is the junction of Red Willow Creek with the Little Missouri."

"If you be goin' thar," replied the plainsman, "ye sh'd of turned due west couple days back."

San Saba arrived in time to overhear this and immediately spoke up. "They's a table-topped butte with red streaks hereabouts, ain't they, suh?"

The plainsman spent one very short and noncommittal glance on the foreman. "Dunno of any."

Major Bob's face turned unexpectedly harsh. "Will you guide us?"

The man nodded after a little reflection. San Saba again broke in, a trace of heat in his words, "Major, suh, it strikes me oth'wise," but Major Bob shook his head.

"We'll depend on this man. Forward, now. By Godfrey, we have lost time! Forward."

San Saba held himself very straight. "Suh, if yo' mean to doubt my..."

The Major cut him short. "Never mind—never mind! Get back with the herd!"

The long line of cattle formed a dun-coloured crescent across the prairie. The speed increased, dust rose higher. And still Major Bob was unsatisfied, ranging back impatiently. Tom saw the mood of angry recklessness riding his father then, and it was with something akin to a shock that he discovered the same stirring impulse in himself. And when Lispenard, who seemed to hold himself aloof these days from all men but the foreman, came up with a subdued warning—"I'd trust San Saba sooner than I would that tough-looking fellow"—Tom broke in with unusual curtness.

"I wouldn't trust San Saba out of my sight, Blondy."

"Oh, look here! He's my friend, and I don't like to hear that said behind his back—"

"Then," said Tom, "you are at liberty to tell him I made the statement."

They left the level prairie behind, wound in and out of what seemed to be an old buffalo trail through the black, tree-studded hills. The guide kept almost out of sight, never stopping. Hour after hour, on the trail long before light until long after dusk. It even wrung a dismal groan from Quagmire.

"They say death is a long sleep. Mebbe that's why we ain't doin' none of it now."

But the day at last came when the guide poised himself on a ridge and waited for them to catch up. Major Bob galloped ahead, beckoning to the men nearest him. When Tom arrived, the guide was pointing to the west. "Thar she is."

The rugged land formed a kind of bowl, the bottom of which made an isolated valley. In the distance, one side of the bowl gave way to the banks of the Little Missouri. Directly across the grassy plain ran a creek, sparkling under the sun. Cottonwoods fringed the edge of the distant rive and above the trees wavered a spiral of smoke. That caught and held their attention. Major Bob studied it long and in tently. "Must be Big Ruddy's fire."