“Here they are, Boss,” Stewart said. “But there ain’t none of ’em spoke a word yet that I can understand.”
“Spanish?” Cornett asked.
“It ain’t Spanish. I don’t speak the lingo all that good, but I do recognize Spanish when I hear it. I ain’t never heard nothin’ like this.”
“Leur dire pas que nous pouvons parler Anglais, jusqu’à ce que nous apprenons ce qu’ils veulent,” one of them said.
“They’re speaking French,” Julius Jackson, the black wrangler said. “This one,” he pointed to the man who had spoken, “just told the others not to let us know they can speak English until they find out what we want.”
“Damn, Julius, are you telling me that you can speak French?” Cornett asked. “I’m impressed.”
“No need to be impressed, Mr. Cornett. I’m what you call a Griffe. I’m from New Orleans. My Papa was a colored man, but my Mama was Cajun mulatto and she spoke French.”
“What’s your name?” Cornett asked the man who had spoken.
“Pas leur dire quoi que ce soit,” one of the three said.
“It is too late. They already know we speak English,” the shepherd Cornett had addressed said to the others. Then, to Cornett, he said, “My name is Gaston. This is Pierre and this is Andre.”
“Well, Gaston, Pierre, and Andre, I have a question for you. Are you just passing through here? And if so, how long to you plan to stay?”
“We are not passing through,” Gaston said. “We plan to stay here for the entire summer.”
“The hell you will!” Stewart said, angrily.
“Why are you so angry?” Gaston asked. “We mean you no harm.”
“Well, maybe you don’t mean us any harm, but here is the problem we have,” Cornett said. “You see, we have to trail our cattle through here. And our cattle need to graze. Now we’ve been using this trail for better than twenty years, not only us, but just about every cattle ranch in Texas. This is free range territory, and we depend on grass being available. Our cattle don’t eat all the grass, just enough grass to keep us going as we pass through. That way we leave grass for the others who are coming along behind us. And believe me, there will be other herds and thousands more cattle, and they will need grass as well. And, like us, after they pass through, they will leave enough grass for the following herds.
“But your sheep now, they are wiping the prairie clean. They’re eating right down to the roots so that there’s nothing left. So, here is what I’m going to ask you to do. I’m going to ask you to move your sheep, and I’m asking you nice.”
“We can’t move our sheep, Monsieur. Our employer told us to graze the sheep here,” Gaston said.
“All right, let’s take this to the next step,” Cornett said. “Bailey?”
“Yeah, Boss?” the trail cook replied.
“Do you know any recipes for lamb?”
“Oh, yeah, I could make a nice roast of lamb,” Bailey said.
“Stewart, go out and kill us a lamb for supper.”
“Yes, sir!” Stewart said, pulling his pistol and riding out toward the flock of sheep grazing peacefully nearby.
“Monsieur, non!” Gaston cried out.
“Do I have your attention yet, Gaston?” Cornett asked. “If you take your sheep on out of here, it will just end with us having lamb for supper. If you don’t, then we’ll kill as many as we can. And since cowboys hate sheep, I expect we can kill a hell of a lot of them. And if killin’ the sheep don’t make you move, well, we might just start havin’ to kill a couple of you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Even as Cornett was explaining the situation to Gaston, they heard the sound of a gunshot, then Stewart’s triumphant yell. Looking over toward the flock, Rebecca saw one of the sheep fall over onto its side, its legs sticking straight out.
“Oui, monsieur, I understand.”
“Do we need to kill any more of your animals?” Cornett asked.
“Non, monsier, please do not kill any more. We will move the flock.”
Cornett smiled. “I thought we might be able to come to some sort of an agreement. How much is that one lamb worth?”
“Nine dollars, monsieur,” Gaston said.
Cornett took out a ten-dollar bill and gave it to Gaston. “Here,” he said. “This is for the lamb we killed, with an extra dollar for your trouble. Now please, move the rest of them as quickly as you can.”
Bailey did an excellent job with the lamb, and that night the cowboys enjoyed the best meal they had eaten so far.
“Damn. If I had known that sheep tasted this good, I might ’a become a sheep herder myself,” Stewart said as he gnawed the meat away from a small bone.
“Ha! Can you see Stewart wearin’ one of them funny-lookin’ little hats and that jacket?” one of the other cowboys asked.
“What’s the hat got to do with it?” Another cowboy wanted to know.
“Well hell, you seen it, didn’t you? All three of them fellers was wearin’ those funny hats. You have to wear one of them funny hats to be a sheep herder. That’s the law.”
“That ain’t the law,” Stewart insisted.
“Yes it is. If you are goin’ to herd sheep, you’ve got to wear one of them hats and that jacket.”
As the others laughed and teased Stewart about the funny hat and jacket he would have to wear, Rebecca walked over to Cornett, who was sitting on the ground, leaning back against the wheel of the chuck wagon.
“That was a very good thing you did,” she said.
“What was?”
“Finding a way to resolve this issue without resorting to killing.”
“Hell, boy, did you really think I’d kill the sheep herders?”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said. “I suppose that I was afraid you might.”
Cornett had just taken a bite of meat. He chewed on it for a moment, then sucked his fingers and stared up at Rebecca before he answered. He stared at her for such long time that she became self-conscious. Had he recognized her?
“Yeah, well, that’s just what I wanted Gaston to think too,” Cornett said. “If I scared him as much as I scared you, then I guess I did my job.”
Rebecca’s laugh was one of relief.
“I wonder what those people are,” Cornett said. “They aren’t Mexicans, and they damn sure aren’t Americans. They was speakin’ French, but it don’t seem likely that there would be any Frenchmen over here herdin’ sheep.”
“I believe they were Basque,” Rebecca said.
“They were what?”
“Basque,” Rebecca repeated. “It’s a group of people who originated in the Pyrenees between France and Spain.”
“How do know that?”
“I read about it,” Rebecca said. “The Basque have a long history of tending sheep, and a lot of them have come to America for that purpose.”
“Carmody, you are a most interesting young man,” Cornett said.
Dodge City, Kansas, August 22
It took them forty-two days to reach Dodge City, and Cornett held them just south of the Arkansas River for two days before taking the herd into town. It was another two days before the herd was loaded onto the train and the cowboys were paid out.
Though everyone had missed a lot of sleep while on the trail, the cowboys were more eager to “have fun” than they were to catch up on their sleep. The first stop for most of them was a barbershop, where they had their hair trimmed and got professional shaves. Then they bought new clothes, took baths, dressed, and headed for the nearest saloon, dance hall, gambling establishment or whorehouse.