Goodnight's Dream (A Floating Outfit Western Book 4) (17 page)

Leering in a taunting manner, calculated to
make an impetuous youngster—eager to prove himself a worthy nephew
of Colonel Goodnight—act in a hotheaded manner, Luhmere waited for
Dusty’s first hostile move. When none came, he swung his horse to
pass close on Dusty’s right while Turner aimed his horse to go by
on the other side.

Slowly Dusty lifted his right hand towards
his Stetson, giving the impression that he either meant to mop his
brow or push it back and scratch his head. Nothing in the way he
moved gave warning of his true purpose, but he was studying every
detail and making his plans. Each of the men carried a Spencer
carbine cradled across his left arm. While Turner’s barrel pointed
towards Dusty, that of Luhmere’s lined outwards and neither
weapon’s hammer was cocked. One of the Spencer’s failings was that
it must be cocked manually before each shot. Dusty figured that the
drawing back of the hammer ought to give him just the split-second
advantage he needed.

From its slow, hesitant crawl upwards,
Dusty’s hand flashed into the sudden, rapid movement for which he
was famous. Twitching off the Stetson, he spun it as hard as he
could at Luhmere’s face. Instinctively the man jerked himself
backwards in the saddle and, belatedly, tried to throw up his right
hand to deflect the flying hat. In doing so he jerked at his
horse’s mouth, causing it to rear in protest. Luhmere was
sufficiently off balance for the impact of the hat to do its work.
With a startled yell, he felt himself slipping backwards over the
cantle of his saddle. Losing his hold on the Spencer as he tried to
retain his seat, he fell rump-first to the ground.

After hurling the hat, Dusty gave his
attention to the second man. Swiveling in the paint’s saddle, he
saw Turner starting to thumb back the Spencer’s hammer and set
about correcting the threat. Even in the urgency of the situation,
Dusty did not forget to think. He realized that if he deflected the
carbine to his front, he might endanger the lives of the men before
him. So he grasped the end of the barrel and turned it to his rear.
Once he was no longer in danger, Dusty jerked savagely at the
weapon. Just an instant too late, he saw that Turner had acted
faster than he expected. The hammer had been taken far enough
backwards to be operative. Combined with the force of Dusty’s pull
and his own resistance, Turner squeezed the trigger. With a bellow,
the carbine spat out a ball that split the air by the ear of its
user’s horse and flew on to drive into the ribs of a grazing steer.
Letting out an agony-filled bellow, the stricken animal went
kicking to the ground. Its companions, already made restless by the
wolves during the night and the recent arrival of the D4S steers,
needed no other excuse to break and run.

Startled by the close-passing bullet and the
heat of the carbine’s muzzle-blast, Turner’s horse humped its back
and took off in a leaping buck. Timing his move perfectly, Dusty
gave a harder heave at the carbine and twisted it from Turner’s
grasp. Struggling to keep astride the horse, Turner lost his
balance as the Spencer left his fingers. Pitching out of the
saddle, the man crashed to the ground and looked as if he was
trying to plow up a furrow with his chin.

At the sight of his cattle stampeding,
Goodnight opened his mouth to bellow orders. Starting to rein his
horse around, he saw Scroggins begin to lift the Sharps. Down
lashed the rancher’s right hand, sliding the offside Colt from its
holster and getting off a fast shot. Fast or not, it flew in a
useful way. Striking the bottom of the rifle’s barrel, the bullet
batted it from Scroggins’ hands; although, it must be confessed,
the rancher had not tried for such a spectacular effect. Seeing
that he had removed the danger from that source, Goodnight
continued to turn his horse and, holstering his Colt, sent it
leaping after the departing cattle.

To give them their due, the other ranchers
showed no hesitation in going to help Goodnight. In addition to
their interest in whether the herd did hold their cattle, Wardle
and the others had the cattleman’s instinct to help when another of
their kind found himself in trouble. Even before Dusty could swing
his paint into movement, the ranchers and their men urged their
horses on Goodnight’s heels. Easing his big horse around the
unseated Turner, Dusty galloped after the other to lend a hand at
stopping the stampede.

Spitting out curses and shaking his stinging
hands, Scroggins rode towards the two hardcases.

‘
I’ll get the bas—!’ Scroggins swore,
snatching at his holstered revolver and glaring rage after
Goodnight.

‘
Forget him and catch our hosses!’
yelled Luhmere, getting to his feet and stamping furiously on
Dusty’s hat. ‘We’d best get the hell away from here.’

‘
Yeah!’ agreed Turner, rising and
retrieving his carbine. ‘It didn’t work like it should have. I
thought Wardle was supposed to hate Goodnight’s guts.’

‘
And me,’ Luhmere admitted. ‘He’s got
no cause to care for copperheads.’

‘
Looks like he don’t count Goodnight
that way,’ Turner growled. ‘And when him and them others find out
that Goodnight spoke the truth, they’re going to be wanting to ask
us some questions.’

Maybe Scroggins could not be rated among the
world’s great thinkers, but he fully understood what his companions
meant. Their motives for bringing the four ranchers to Goodnight’s
herd would not stand up to close scrutiny. Already cattlemen were
building up a reputation for dispensing effective, if not entirely
legal, justice to transgressors against their code. Finding out why
the trio acted as they had would cause the ranchers to act in a
swift, summary and permanent manner to prevent a recurrence. So
Scroggins wasted no more time and started his wiry horse moving
after Luhmere’s and Turner’s mounts.

‘
What do we do now, Lou?’ Turner
inquired. ‘We’ve done what we came to do, stampeding Goodnight’s
herd that way.’

‘
Goodnight’s still alive,’ Luhmere
pointed out. ‘The bosses wanted him dead. We’ll see if we can find
somewhere to hide out. Then one of us can head up to Throckmorton
and see if they want anything more doing while the other two keep
an eye on how things’re going down here.’

‘
It’d be best,’ Turner said and walked
over to collect Scroggins’ rifle.

When the buckskin-clad man returned with the
horses, the trio mounted. They saw the herd trailing off in the
distance and exchanged grins. Then they swung their mounts and rode
away chuckling and commenting on their success.

‘
Stampede!’ the Texans
called it. Mexicans said, ‘
Estampida.’
Both words meant what the ancient Greek
cattle-herders termed ‘fear-panic’ running; trouble, danger,
possibly sudden and violent death for the men trying to stop the
fleeing cattle.

Once started, the two thousand head of
longhorn steers tore across the range at their best speed. Hooves
thundered and shook the ground with the fury of their combined
impact. Occasionally horns clacked or clicked against each other
when two of the racing animals drew close together. Vocal as the
longhorn might be at times, with bellows and softer notes ranging
through the emotions from fear or love to challenge and roaring
rage, it made no sound when running. At such a time every breath of
air sucked in was expended on propelling the body onwards as fast
as the steel-spring power of the leg muscles could carry it.
Wild-eyed, heads tossing, tails spiked into the air, the steers
raced on in their wild, mindless, unthinking fear.

Not all of the herd followed its
self-appointed leaders. Small groups broke away from the main
bunch, cutting off at angles from the line of the stampede and
fleeing for the brush-country from which they had been gathered at
much cost in sweat, blood and hard work by the Swinging G
cowhands.

Cursing, hard-riding men followed the
fast-running, disintegrating herd. While some of them tried to
reach the lead steers, others attempted to turn back the segments
that separated from the main body. In this Wardle’s men found
themselves at a disadvantage. Going after a bunch of cow thieves
called for a horse with ‘bottom’, the ability to travel long and
fast, rather than for skill at working cattle. So, for the most
part, they sat horses not suited to handling fear-spooked steers.
Although they and the Swinging G’s six hands—the rest of the crew
had formed the night guard and were already back at the bunkhouse
asleep—did their best, a number of the groups escaped and fled.

After saving Dusty from being back-shot by
Scroggins, Goodnight gave his full attention to retrieving his
herd. Once cattle, especially longhorn steers, started to run in
wild stampede, there was considerable danger to themselves and the
men trying to halt them. Unless brought to a halt by their human
guardians, the cattle would run on until stopped by sheer
exhaustion. During that time they would also be scattered across
the range and have worked off every ounce of spare fat and meat.
There was, Goodnight knew, only one way to end a stampede and he
prepared to attempt it.

Not that Goodnight was given
much chance to think on the matter. The horse he sat was a
fourteen-hand
bayo-cebrunos
gelding of Spanish blood and with generations of
cattle-working savvy behind it. Seeing the stampede, the gelding
needed no urging and little instruction from its rider on what it
would be required to do.

Before the rancher had returned
his right hand to the reins from holstering his Colt, the
bayo-cebrunos
started running. In fact, skilled rider as he was,
he could not have halted or held in his mount at such a moment.
Stretching itself at full gallop, the gelding sped across the range
after the fleeing cattle.

Despite the publicity later
given to firing revolver shots alongside the lead steer’s head as a
means of turning a herd, it was a method only resorted to in the
direst emergency or by green hands. Perhaps it would be tried as a
last ditch attempt to make the cattle swing clear of a gully,
canyon rim or similar natural hazard. All too often, it did no more
than spur on and further frighten the herd. So Goodnight gave no
thought to his holstered Colts and concentrated on guiding the
fast-moving
bayo-cebrunos.

Experience had taught Goodnight that running
cattle tended to turn to the right more willingly than to the left.
He attributed the trait to the fact that, like human beings, the
majority of animals are ‘right handed’ and preferred to turn at
speed in the direction that offered them the greatest strength and
control. Whatever the reason, Goodnight wanted to utilize it as a
means to make his cattle ‘mill’ and so be forced to stop.

Achieving that intention presented a problem.
He was heading for the right side of the herd and must work on the
left if he hoped to make the most of the steers’ turning habits.
Going to the head of the line and crossing over was possible, but
risky, and he saw a quicker, safer way of doing it.

Excited and eager as the
bayo-cebrunos
had been at first, he knew it was still under
control and would obey his orders. In obedience to its rider’s
manipulations of the reins it swung towards the rear of the herd.
Ahead sprawled the mangled body of a steer which had fallen and
been trampled to death under the pounding hooves of its companions.
Ignoring the gory ruin, the gelding ran on. It bounded over the
carcass without hesitation, hardly breaking its stride. For a
moment it plunged among the swirling dust cloud churned up by the
steers’ hooves. Cutting by the very tails of the animals running at
the drag, it passed around them and started to hare along the left
flank towards the point.

Suddenly a dozen steers quit
the herd, rushing blindly in the
bayo-cebrunos’
direction. With sharp-horned death
bearing down its way, the little gelding gave no sign of flinching.
A touch of Goodnight’s spurs only helped to confirm the horse’s
appreciation of the danger. With that cat-footed agility so much
sought and rarely found, the
bayo-cebrunos
jinked clear of the leading steer and
avoided those following it. Conquering the horse’s momentary
inclination to give chase to the bunch-quitters, Goodnight kept it
running towards the head of the stampeding line.

Realizing what Goodnight planned, and aware
of his reasons for going to the left, the other ranchers followed
him. Best mounted of his party, Wardle took the lead and pounded
along close behind Goodnight in the desperate race to reach the
point. On they tore, relying upon luck and their mounts’ inborn
instincts to avoid holes and other hazards. A slip of a foot might
dislodge the rider and pitch him from the saddle. Or for the horse
to fall, the result would be equally fatal. Long-horned,
sharp-hoofed death ran by their sides and there would be small
chance of escape should any mishap befall them. Despite that, the
men still held their horses to a gallop and crossed rough ground
over which a fancy-coated Eastern sportsman would only canter while
following a hound pack after a fox.

Not a mile ahead loomed the start of thickly
overgrown, broken brush country and Goodnight knew the cattle must
be turned, if not completely stopped, before they reached it. Once
they smashed into the thorn-bristling growth, the riders could no
longer keep by the steers and so would be unable to bring the herd
to a halt.

At last Goodnight approached
the lead steer, a big, scimitar-horned, ring-streaked blue brute
which had given the Swing
ing G cowhands trouble ever since being forced out
of the black chaparral and
guajilla
thickets which had been its home during ten years
of life.