Chancy (1968) (10 page)

Cattle are spooky, liable to scare themselves into a stampede at some sudden sound, some unexpected movement, at a flash of lightning or a rattle of pans. And every one of them seems gifted with a crazy imagination that sees ghosts, goblins, or wolves in every shadow. There may be hours on end when they plod placidly along, and then suddenly they'll be off and running and a longhorn steer can cover ground like a scared antelope.

We'd been having it mighty easy so far. Our herd was trail broke, and for the greater part of the drive the grazing had been good; except for a few short drives there had been water a-plenty. But now we were entering upon a long, dusty drive over dry country, where it would be a long while between drinks.

Kelsey and his outfit knew we were driving to Wyoming, for that had been no secret, and in a town like Abilene everybody knows what everybody else is doing, anyway. My hunch was they'd cut out for Cheyenne, spend some time around the saloons and gambling houses, and then ride south to meet us sometime during the last day or so of our drive .

My guess was they'd hole up their stolen herd somewhere on a hide-out ranch run by some outlaw, and come on without it. They wanted my cattle, but most of all they wanted my hide. Now, it doesn't pay to trust too much to what you think the other fellow may do; he might do something different that would throw you off stride.

We crossed the Lodgepole and drove north across the Chugwater Flats, making easy drives to save our horses. Twice we came upon wild mustangs, but they fled on our approach; then they trailed along, always curious, always at a distance.

Jim Bigbear dropped back to where I was working the drag. No matter that I was bossing this drive--I stood my regular turn with the rest of them, and switched the bad jobs among us. The drag was the dustiest, dirtiest job of them all, and usually it was the hottest, unless the wind was stirring. Then the hottest place was on the lee side of the herd, where a body caught the heat thrown up by several hundred cattle.

"This is Cheyenne country," Jim commented, "and you'll run into the Sioux up ahead. We'd best keep an eye out for trouble."

We watered the herd, and then pushed on a couple of miles to bed them down. The best we would find was the gentle slope of a hill that offered a mite of protection from the wind.

This night I saddled the buckskin and went to scouting. First of all, I wanted to get away from the herd, for I had some thinking to do. And next, Jim had been scouting now for weeks and it was high time I did some of it, just to get better acquainted with the country, if nothing else.

When I had been scouting for nearly an hour the buckskin made his way down into a hollow among the hills. There were several cottonwoods there, and some willows there might be water.

This was the route we would take tomorrow, and it would make it easy if we could water the herd well, and at the right time, so I walked the buckskin toward the trees.

The sun was low down in the sky, painting the clouds with a vivid brush. It would soon be dusk. The cottonwoods dusted thek leaves together softly. There was no other sound but the soft thud of my horse's hoofs.

An Indian, rifle in hand, stood silently awaiting me. Along the edge of the wood I then saw another, and another ... and another.

There were at least six of them, and I was alone.

Chapter
7

My horse had continued to walk forward, and I lifted my right hand, palm out. Closing my fist, I then raised the index and middle fingers together, and lifted them beside my face in the sign for friend. The Indians waited, making no move.

Now, there's mighty few Indians can resist a good horse trade, and what we needed most right now was a few horses. I had a feeling these Indians could use some beef, so as I drew nearer I made the sign for trade, raising the two fore-fingers and crossing the wrists so the fingers pointed in opposite directions, and sawed the wrists back and forth a couple of times. There were some variations of these signs among plains and mountain tribes, but they mattered little.

These were Cheyennes, I could see that, and a fine-looking lot, too, warriors every one of them. They were wearing no paint, and one of them had an antelope quarter and some other meat from the animal tied in the skin behind his saddle.

One of the Indians spoke suddenly. "Who you?"

"Otis Tom Chancy. I'm driving cattle, and we could use some horses. I figured we might swap--beef for horses."

He studied me, and then looked at the horse I was riding. Indicating the buckskin, he said, "Him Injun horse."

"I swapped for him," I said. "Got him from a Shawnee."

"What name this Shawnee?"

"Jim Bigbear. He's riding with me."

"How you know sign talk?"

"I grew up with the Cherokees." Here I made the sign for friend, then touched the fingers to my lips, which indicated brother.

Turning my horse, I motioned for them to follow, and after the briefest hesitation they trailed along behind, riding easily, but warily.

As this was Indian country we were going into, it seemed to me a good idea to try to be friends. A man can fight if he has to, but the worst thing he can do is to go looking for trouble. Of course he can make a fool of himself by assuming the other fellow wants peace, too, and this is a mistake sometimes made, for many Indians have nothing to gain except through war.

Jim saw us coming, and when we rode into camp everybody was relaxing, but at the same time everybody was armed and ready. You can be sure those Cheyennes noticed it, too.

Grub was on the fire, and Tom took one look at the Indians and started slicing chunks of beef. We sat around the fire and the Cheyennes put away the best part of a side of buffalo and a gallon or so of coffee before we settled down to palavering about horses.

Corbin sidled over to me. "You going to let them stay in camp all night?"

It was a problem, but I saw no way around it. I wanted horses, but I also wanted the Indians to know we were not afraid of them--and that if necessary we would fight.

By the time darkness was closing in we had made us a swap of beef for horses. They would ride back to their camp for the horses, and then we would make the swap. But we wantedgood horses this was the point I made. Good stock, or no trade.

As a matter of fact, I needed those horses almighty bad. Ours were worn down from overwork, and we were nearing the country where I planned to settle. Once there, we would have to keep a constant watch on our herds or Indians would run them off, and at the same time we would have to be building corrals, a cabin for ourselves, and some kind of shelter for our saddle stock.

Jim Bigbear was taking the first guard, and when he rode out the Cheyennes watched him go. These Indians looked fit for any kind of a scrap. We were five to their six, but aside from our six-shooters we were no better armed.

Tom and Cotton turned in, and the Indians rolled up in their blankets, but none of us was fooled. We knew they would be awake, or at least some of them would. After a while, Handy Corbin went to his blankets, and I sat alone by the fire, rifle across my knees.

It was quiet ... we heard nothing but a coyote howling in the far-off distance. The cattle bedded down and seemed content. After a time I went to my blankets and turned in, but I kept a six-gun in my hand, and my rifle close by.

Cotton got up shortly before midnight, added some water to the coffee, and Tom joined him. Cotton rode out to relieve Jim, and after having his coffee, Tom went out, too. Jim idled about the fire and I went to sleep with him still there. We had agreed amongst us that either Tom or Cotton would ride up to the fire off and on during the night to sort of keep an eye on things after Jim turned in.

It was about two hours after midnight that I woke up. It was time for Handy and me to relieve the others. For a few minutes I lay still, just listening, studying the night with my ears.

From where I lay I could see the fire, which was down to red coals. There was some smoke drifting up, mingling with a mite of steam from the pot. All of a sudden I saw one of the Indians move under his blanket. He came out from under it like a snake, and he had a knife in his hand.

I don't know what he had in mind. With an Indian, a body never knows. We had a lot of fixings around camp that an Indian could use, and to an Indian anybody not of his tribe is fair game. To his way of thinking, to stick a knife into each one of us would be a fine piece of business. But I wanted no trouble unless it was necessary, so I merely eared back the hammer of my Winchester.

That Cheyenne froze as if somebody had nailed his feet to the ground, but I just got up, easy-like and walked over to the fire, seeming to pay him no mind. He could see the hammer was back on my Winchester, and he could make his own choices.

He simply picked up a stick and began cutting some shavings to kindle up the fire, as if that had been his idea all the time ... and maybe it was.

The fire began to blaze up and I poured him a cup of coffee and handed it across the fire to him--with my left hand. And he taken it, also with his left hand. I thought I glimpsed a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.

We both drank coffee, and then Corbin came up to the fire. I could tell from his eyes that he, too, had been awake. And so could the Cheyenne. If he had lifted that knife to anybody, he would have been blasted right out of his tracks by at least two rifles and well he knew it.

When daylight came the Indians rode off, and a few hours later they were back with some saddle stock. We made a swap, picking up six fresh ponies, and the Cheyennes left with us a buffalo quarter for good measure.

We shook hands, that big Cheyenne and me, and grinned at each other. Neither of us was fooled, and each of us was liking the other.

He had walked his horse some thirty yards when he turned in the saddle. "Where you go?"

"Somewhere up on the Powder."

"That's Cheyenne country."

"We don't figure to cause any trouble. We're just going to run a few head of cattle up there. You come and see me. I'll have a beef for you."

They rode away, and we watched them go, and then we started our cattle again.

In the cool of the evening we came up to the red wall that Tom Hacker had told me about. We'd been taking our time, and the cattle were fat and sassy. The wall towered up above the grassy plain, barring all progress.

"You say there's a hole in that? How far up?"

"I'm guessing," Jim said, after studying the country and the wall, "but I'd say four, five miles north. The Middle Fork of the Powder runs through it, and it's a big, wide hole. That's not to say that a few riflemen couldn't hold it if they were of a mind to. There's water and grass in behind it ... good grazing along Buffalo or Spring creeks."

A couple of hours later we rode through the Hole-in-the-Wall and let the herd spread out a mite along the Middle Fork. It was almost dark, but we let them eat a little before we bunched them for the night.

Two days later we found the spot we were searching for, a hollow of the hills with some scattered trees and brush, and a creek that turned around under the edge of the fringing cliffs that shaded the water. It was good water, sweet and cold. There was good grass around, mostly blue grama on the flatlands and low hills, wheat-grass on the higher ridges.

We turned the herd loose in the rock-walled basin and set to work to build a cabin under the trees. Hacker, Madden, and I did most of the building, while Handy Corbin and Jim Bigbear guarded the cattle. They sometimes killed an antelope or a deer, and once in a while a bufialo. The weeks passed quickly, and there was no sign of trouble.

"You think we lost 'em?" Madden asked me.

"No," I said, "they'll be coming."

"I feel that you are right," Jim Bigbear commented soberly.

As the best hand with an axe, I notched the logs for the cabin. We could expect cold winters, and we made the cabin tight and strong, allowing no chinks, and we built a good fireplace that would take a good-size log. But every day, no matter how heavy the work load, I managed to let one rider loose to explore the country. At night we'd talk about what he'd seen during the day, and as most cowhands have a good feeling for terrain and the general lay of the land, we soon began to get a picture of what it was like around our ranch.

"We're going to have to cut hay," I told them, "so keep an eye out for some good meadows."

We snaked logs out of the timber, taking the fallen stuff wherever possible, and building a stack of wood against the coming whiter. And in all that time we saw nobody at all, not even an Indian.

By the time the cool winds started to blow down off the mountains we had wood stacked near the cabin, hay stacked in the meadows, and near one of the cliffs that bordered our little basin we had built a shelter for cattle that used the wall of the cliff to keep the wind off them. We had worked hard and steady, and still no trouble.

But I was worried. Not so much by what might happen when Caxton Kelsey and LaSalle Prince found us as by thinking of Tarlton's coming.

When we made our deal in Abilene he had said he would join us with another herd this year. That meant he'd best be getting here soon if he was coming. There was no post office within many a mile, and it seemed as if the best chance to get some news was to ride to Cheyenne, or to Fort Laramie, which was a bit closer.