From Hide and Horn (A Floating Outfit Book Number 5) (19 page)

‘
If you pair don’t have anything better
to do,’ Red said coldly. ‘Stay clear of the herd. Get
going.’

‘
How
dare y—!’ Barbe began in a loud voice.

‘
He’s right,’ Dawn put
in.
‘Turn your hoss and let’s get going.’

For a moment Barbe glared furiously at the
other girl and met cold challenge. Then the dark-haired girl swung
her mount and rode after the cowhands. Dawn turned to Red and
sighed.

‘
Damned fool
kid
!’
she said.

‘
Who me?’ asked Red.

‘
You too. Only I meant that damned fool
kid brother of mine. He’d’ve got licked for sure happen you hadn’t
cut in.’

‘
And still might, him and Burle both,
when Dusty hears what’s come off. You’d best get going back to
camp, Dawn. One I’m sorry for’s Jacko.’

‘
I reckon
he’
s
sorry for hisself,’ Dawn said without humor. ‘Only you had to stop
him and he’s lucky you didn’t do it with a gun. We’ll not come out
here again.’

Catching up to Jacko, Dawn tried to show him
what might have happened. He only snarled back at her and, wisely,
she let the matter drop. Leaving the cowhand, Dawn went after Barbe
to catch her just after she joined Willock.

‘
He had no right to talk
to you like that,’ Barbe was
saying when Dawn arrived. ‘It was shameful
and—’

‘
Yeah!’ Willock answered. ‘I’m not
going to forget it.’

‘
You mustn’t
antagoni
ze him, Burle,’ Barbe warned. ‘After all, his uncle is
leader of the trail drive.’

‘
Yeah!’ Willock muttered. ‘Goodnight
and his kin run the drive.’

‘
Which they don’t do bad at it,’ Dawn
commented, deftly inserting her horse between Barbe’s and Willock’s
mounts.

‘
Depends,’ Willock grunted.

‘
What on?’ Dawn asked
coldly.

‘
How good friends you are
with
’em,’ the cowhand answered. ‘There’s some of us get on
better with ’em than the others do.’

‘
What might that mean?’ Dawn
demanded.

‘
Look who’s been sent back to the
herd,’ Willock told her.

At that moment they saw Dusty riding towards
them. Halting his horse, the small Texan asked Willock what brought
him and Jacko away from the herd.

‘
Maybe you’d best tell him,’ Willock
said to Dawn, a hint of challenge in his voice.

Sucking in an angry breath, Dawn
did so. ‘Sure, if you don’t
have the guts to,’ she answered. ‘Him and Vern got
to tangling back there. It was Vern who started the
fight—’

‘
I think that it was no
more than a harmless piece of horseplay and neither were to blame,’
Barbe put in, smiling in her
most winning manner at Dusty. Then she put
on a frown. ‘But your cousin had no right to treat them so roughly.
He kicked that poor cowboy in the—well, he kicked him
savagely.’

‘
Jacko tried to pull a gun on Red,’
Dawn put in and Willock, annoyed at his crony for drawing Barbe’s
sympathy, nodded agreement.

‘
Then he got what he asked for and’s
lucky it’s not worse,’ Dusty said, showing no signs of being won
over. ‘What happened?’

‘
Red sent me
’n’ Jacko back to
tell you he wants two more—’

‘
Three
more!’ Dawn interrupted and corrected Willock. ‘He said
three more. Only reason he didn’t send Vern along was he figured
you pair’d be
loco
enough to start fussing again on the way in.’

‘
And he’d likely’ve been
right,’ Dusty said, his voice almost mild. ‘It sounds like
there’
s not enough work for you knobheads
^xix
out at the herd. I’ll have to see if
I can’t find you something to fill the time.’

By that time Willock had come to
know Dusty real well and he stifled a groan. One way or another, he
figured that he, Jacko and Vern were going to pay a stiff price for
their stupid attempts to gain Barbe’s fav
ors.

Burle Willock found his guess to
be correct. Making sure to divide the work evenly, Dusty kept the
trio fully occupied. He did so well at it that all of them barely
found time to do more than glimpse the source of their rivalry in
passing from one chore to the next. At night they found themselves
riding guard on the herd or sent to man the lonely picket points
Dusty had set out to prevent any chance of a surprise attack. In
that manner he kept them away from the campfire at those times when
Barbe was near it. More than that, Dusty had taken each of the trio
aside on their return to the camp and given his opinion of their
conduct, intelligence and general worth. None had enjoyed the
interview. H
owever, Jacko appeared to realize that he had got no more
than he deserved and might have been far worse off. The other two
promised to mend their ways and seemed to be making a try at doing
it. If Barbe felt like going riding again, she never mentioned
it.

The work went ahead fast. After a thorough
check on each horse in the remuda, a party under Billy Jack started
work on replacing missing or badly worn shoes. Under old Boiler
Benson’s knowing eyes, saddlery was inspected and repairs carried
out. Then the cook organized the unloading of the chuck and
bed-wagons, bracing each of them in its turn so that its wheels
could be removed and the axles greased. On the morning of the
fourth day only the de Martins’ wagon remained to be put in a
condition where it could survive the hazardous crossing.

Wanting to see if they had learned their
lesson, Dusty let Vern, Willock and Jacko help the photographer
empty the wagon. Having Mark in charge, he felt that any trouble
would be dealt with promptly. Although Vern and Willock scowled at
and studiously pretended to ignore each other, they gave every
appearance of having profited by the lessons of the past days.

Boxes and trunks came from the wagon, while
Barbe hovered around. One of the boxes gave off a familiar clinking
sound which drew interested looks from Willock and Jacko.

‘
Thirsty
work this, Jacko,’ Willock commented, flickering a gaze at Barbe as
they spoke.

‘
Sure is,’ Jacko agreed, running his
tongue tip over his lips. ‘And nothing but water to take for
it.’

‘
You have nothing but water?’ Barbe
asked.

‘
Nary a thing but
that
’n’ coffee,’ Willock agreed. ‘Colonel Charlie don’t allow
no hard liquor on his drive.’

At that moment Mark came into
sight around the end of the wagon and the conversation ended. The
work went on without incident and towards evening they started to
reload the wagon. While passing a box up to where Turkey stood at
the
tailgate,
Vern heard the sound of approaching hooves. Both of them turned to
look, each expecting the other to retain his hold. Instead neither
did, so the box fell and burst open. It held items of feminine
underclothing and a large, leather-bound book. The latter bounced
and landed open at the feet of de Martin and Dusty as they walked
towards Goodnight’s returning party.

‘
You
clumsy b—!’ Barbe began furiously, then chopped off her words as de
Martin glared at her.

Bending down to help gather the scattered
contents, Dusty found himself looking at several photographs in the
book. All appeared to be of a wedding and in one de Martin stood at
Barbe’s side. He wore a top hat and fashionable suit while she was
dressed in white, with a veil over her hair and bouquet of flowers
in her hands. Before Dusty could do more than glimpse the picture,
Barbe snatched the book from him and slammed it shut.

‘
I’ll take that!’ she said, going to
place it in the box.

‘
I’m sorry, Dusty,’ de
Martin said. ‘But there are a few photographs which Barbe regards
as embarrassing. That was a picture of our cousin’s wedding.
Barb
e
was maid-of-honor and I was best man. It
was
disappointing. The rumor that the best man
has the first night just isn’t true.’

‘
I
found that out for
myself,’ Dusty admitted, watching a spluttering Vern and Turkey
blushingly help Barbe pick up the remainder of the contents. They
hurriedly handed over the various garments and she packed the box
then let them place it in the wagon. ‘I’d best go and see what
Uncle Charlie found out.’

‘
May I come with you?’ de Martin
asked.

‘
Feel free,’ Dusty replied and called
some of the men to give orders that they should take care of the
new arrivals’ horses. ‘How’d it go, Uncle Charlie?’

‘
No worse than we expected,’ Goodnight
replied. ‘There’s been some rain up this way, but we’ll still have
three days of solid dry driving to reach the Pecos. We’ll start the
crossing at sun-up tomorrow.’

‘
May I offer a suggestion, Charles?’ de
Martin put in.

‘
Go to it.’

‘
If
Dusty doesn’t have any further plans for us, how about letting all
hands have a night’s relaxation?’

‘
How do you mean?’

‘
I understand that Rowdy
plays the fiddle and has one
along. Perhaps we could have a social
evening. Of course Barbe and Dawn won’t be able to partner the
whole crew for dancing … ’

‘
That’s easy enough settled,’ Dusty
smiled. ‘We’ll put a heifer-brand on some of the boys.’

‘
I don’t follow you,’ de Martin
said.

‘
It’s the way we have out here, usually
being short on women for dances and such,’ Goodnight explained. ‘So
some of the fellers have a white rag tied around their left arms
and dance “lady” fashion.’

‘
Not many of them object
to being heifer-branded, seeing’
s how they get to sit with the
ladies,’ Dusty went on. ‘Although they most times wind up looking
at the bar most unladylike.’

‘
That won’t happen
tonight,’ Goodnight stated.
‘They can fun all they like, but there’ll
be no drinking.’

‘
With Rowdy keeping his medicine bottle
locked up tight in the wagon, they won’t have anything to drink,’
Dusty replied. ‘I’ll fix things up, if it’s all right with you,
Uncle Charlie.’

‘
Go to it,’
the rancher
authorized. ‘Ask Miss Barbe and Dawn to lend you a hand while
you’re at it.’

News of the proposed evening’s
entertainment was greeted with considerable enthusiasm by the trail
crew. Dusty warned them that night herding would continue, but
agreed to leave off the pickets. Knowing that the cattle came
first, the cowhands raised no objections. Especially when
the
y
discovered that he had organized a rota which allowed everybody to
spend as much time as possible at the festivities.

Due to the shortage of ‘for
real’ lady partners—heifer brands formed a poor substitute—Dawn was
excused taking her turn on the night herd. Following the rangeland
custom, she and Barbe were permitted to select the men who wore the
heifer brands. Although Dusty did not care for the girls
picking Vera and
Willock, they produced a mighty good argument in favor of their
choice. That way neither cowhand could partner Barbe, removing a
cause of friction between them. So Dusty gave in, it being the
ladies’ prerogative to select their own company.

Certainly the dance began with
reasonable decorum. Barbe wore the dress in which she had presented
herself on the night she arrived and Dawn produced a gingham frock
brought along to use on reaching Fort Sumner. The music was
supplied by Rowdy on his battered violin, Turkey playing a Jew’s
harp and Swede Ahlen giving backing with a blow-fiddle.
^xx
Perhaps the sounds they emitted would
not have been acceptable in a fancy Eastern hotel, but the
uncritical audience buckled down to dancing with vim if not
grace.

After a few dances, somebody called on the
Kid for a song. Once he had obliged with such of Juan Ortega’s
story as was fit for mixed company, other members of the crew
responded with their party-pieces. Everything was going smoothly
and in such good spirits that Dusty relaxed. It seemed that Vern
and Willock had forgotten the fight. Certainly they made the most
of their ‘heifer-brand’ positions, by allowing their ‘partners’ to
bring them cups of coffee or the minor luxuries Rowdy had been able
to produce at such short notice for the ‘guests’. Even Heenan
appeared to be joining in the fun for Dusty saw him handing a cup
of coffee to Willock in an interval between the dance sets.

‘
And I tell you there ain’t nobody can
lick Swede Ahlen at Injun-wrestling!’ Solly Sodak of the Lazy F
announced in a loud voice during a lull in the noise and brought
every eye his way.

‘
Mark there can,’ objected
Red Blaze, having been involved with the cowhand in a discussion
for some minutes. ‘W
hich I’ve got five whole dollars to prove
it.’