The memories came back. No, they didn’t come back, the memories never left; they were always there, just beneath the surface, a part of him, like an awareness of night and day, heat and cold.
He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he walked out onto the balcony. His knees were so weak that he had to grab hold of the banister to keep from falling. He looked down at his hands and saw the blood.
Why did he do it? Why? He could wash his hands, but the blood would not go away. He thought of a scene from Lady MacBeth. “Here’s the smell of the blood stilclass="underline" all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
Now, as he lay here in his bunk, Tom raised his hands to stare at them.
“Tom! Are you in here?” Clay’s shout brought Tom out of his reverie, and he sat up on his bed.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Dusty? Mo?” Clay called.
“Yeah, we’re here,” Dusty answered.
“Put down that guitar, Dusty, and you, Tom, and Mo come on over to my house for a few minutes, will you? We’ve got a job ahead of us and I’ll need to discuss it with you.”
Dusty hung his guitar up on a nail above his bunk, and then he, Tom, and Mo followed Clay back to the foreman’s house. Maria greeted them warmly when they arrived and, a moment later, all four of them were doing a balancing act with a cup of coffee in one hand and a small plate with a piece of freshly baked apple pie in the other.
There was a knock on the door and when Maria opened it, Dalton stepped in, with a big smile on his face.
“Pa says you’re taking me to Dodge to help bring back the herd he’s buying,” Dalton said.
“That’s right,” Clay replied.
“Hot dog. I’m going to enjoy this.”
“I’m filling the others in on the drive,” Clay said. “Get yourself a cup of coffee and a piece of pie and find a place to sit.”
“You can sit there, I will bring it to you,” Maria said.
“Thank you, Maria,” Dalton replied, sitting on the chair she offered.
“We’ll get underway day after tomorrow,” Clay said. “So get all your gear ready and throw it in the hoodlum wagon. And don’t forget to take warm coats and a couple of blankets. It’s not that bad now, but it’ll be the middle of December before we get back and it’s likely to get pretty cold.”
“Tom, I’m going to make you my Segundo, my second in command.”
“Why me?” Tom asked. “Dusty and Mo have both been here longer.”
“I’ve already spoken with them,” Clay said. “And they agree.”
“You are smart, like the officers I served under during the war,” Dusty said. “I like having someone smart to make the decisions.”
“That’s right,” Mo said. “We both agree.”
“Are you all right with that?” Clay asked.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Tom said. “I’ll try not to let anyone down.”
“What about horses?” Dusty asked.
“Pick out three apiece,” Clay said. “Get three good ones, you’ve all been here long enough to know what horses will fare the best. Mo, how about you picking out four mules, two for the chuck wagon and two for the hoodlum wagon?”
“Alright,” Mo said. “Who’ll be driving those?”
“Maria is going to drive the chuck wagon. She’ll be cooking for us.”
“All right,” Dusty said with a broad smile. He held up what remained of his pie. “If you’re goin’ to cook like this, then I say it’s goin’ to be one fine trail drive.”
“And Dalton will be driving the hoodlum wagon.”
“Wait a minute!” Dalton said sharply. “Who said I would be driving the hoodlum wagon?”
“I said,” Clay replied.
“I’m not going to be driving any damn hoodlum wagon, poking along with the chuck wagon while the rest of you gallop all over the country.”
“Dalton, your father didn’t order me to take you with me. He asked me to take you. To my way of thinking, that leaves the choice of taking you or leaving you behind up to me. Now, I’m giving you that choice. You will either drive the wagon, or you will damn sure stay behind. It’s up to you, boy, so which will it be?”
Dalton looked at the other three men in the room, but couldn’t find any of them who would return his gaze.
“I’m waiting,” Clay said.
“All right!” Dalton said, angrily. “I will drive the damn hoodlum wagon.”
“I thought you might see it my way,” Clay said. He returned to his briefing. “I figure we can make it up there in ten days. It will likely take forty to forty-five days to drive the herd down, but I can’t be too sure about that. They are Black Angus, and I’ve never driven Black Angus before so I don’t know how they will handle.”
“What is a Black Angus?” Dusty asked.
“It is a black cow,” Clay said.
“I can’t believe that Big Ben is getting out of the Longhorn business,” Dusty said.
“I have read about them,” Tom said. “They were developed in the Angus region of Scotland. They are not only black, they are also polled.”
“Polled?”
“That means they don’t have horns.”
“The hell you say?” Dusty said. “Are you telling me we are going to drive an entire herd of cows that don’t have horns?”
“That’s right,” Tom said.
“Who would want cattle without horns?”
“The Black Angus make very good beef cattle.”
“All right, if you say so, Tom,” Dusty said. “No horns, huh? I sure hope none of the boys from over at the Rocking H hear about this. They’ll be ridin’ us somethin’ fierce.”
“I want every one of you to take a pistol and a box of fifty rounds. I’ll have another five hundred rounds in the hoodlum wagon. Couple of you should also take Winchesters, and maybe a shotgun.”
“I’d better take a shotgun,” Tom said. “I don’t even own a pistol, and I’ve never become proficient in the use of firearms.”
Mo laughed. “Proficient in the use of firearms,” he repeated. He slapped his hand on his knee. “Damn, Tom, maybe you can’t shoot all that good, but you are the beatinist talker I ever run in to. But don’t worry about not having a pistol, I have an extra one, and a holster, that you can take.”
“And if you get a pistol from Mo it’ll be a good one,” Dalton said. “He’s the best with a gun there ever was.”
Of all the cowboys on the ranch, Mo was the one that Dalton was closest to, and one of the reasons Clay decided to bring Mo along was his hope that Mo would be an ameliorating influence on Dalton.
“All right, if nobody has any questions, go on back and get your personal gear together. We’ll spend tomorrow picking out our remuda and loading on our victuals and gear into the wagons. I plan to get underway Saturday morning.”
Sky Meadow Ranch, November 8
The drive from Sky Meadow Ranch to the railhead at Cheyenne would be one tenth as long, and would consist of a herd about two thirds of the number of cattle that would constitute the drive from Dodge City down to Live Oaks Ranch. Duff thought the drive to Cheyenne would be a very good trial run for them.
On the morning they were to leave, the cattle were all bunched up in a long, stretched-out herd, the lead steer was belled, and the chuck wagon was underway. Falcon was one of the cowboys of course, as was Duff. Elmer was there as well, along with two other cowboys from the ranch.
And then there was Meghan, wearing pants and a warm jacket, with a hat that she kept pulled down low. Because of the way she was dressed, and the fact that she was riding straddle, coupled with her riding ability, made it impossible to tell from a distance the difference between Meghan and any of the other cowboys. When one of the cows tended to go astray, Meghan would ride it down and push it back to the herd with as much skill as any cowboy present.