“Get everything in the wagons that we can!” Clay said, and for the next five minutes there was a flurry of activity as everyone worked frantically to make certain that nothing loose was left outside. Then, the sand and dust storm struck them, and it was as if night had fallen again, only worse, for at night they had the moon and stars, and even lanterns to help them. The dust storm blinded them beyond the power of the sun, or of any lantern.
The cattle reacted to the storm, first by lowering their heads and turning their backs to the wind. Then, driven by the wind, they began to drift in one large mass. In the meantime the air was filled with the blowing sand which not only blinded the cowboys, but stung their skin as if they were being rubbed down with sandpaper.
The horses were having a hard time keeping their feet, and they trembled with fear, not quite aware of what was happening to them. Smoke, Falcon, Clay and Dusty managed to make it to the front of the herd, and they started shooting their pistols into the ground, hoping by the noise to check their movement. But so loud was the dust storm, and so abrasive were the wind-tossed granules of sand, that the men on the flank and to the rear of the herd couldn’t even hear the gunshots.
Rebecca, Sally and Maria huddled together in the hoodlum wagon listening to the roar of the wind, to the canvas flapping against the wagon bows, and to the rattle of the sand.
“Oh, the poor animals,” Maria said. “How awful this must be for them.”
“It’s not all that good for our men folk either,” Sally said.
“Maria, you don’t look well,” Rebecca said. “Are you ill?”
“I think maybe the baby will come sooner than I thought. I have been having some pains.”
“Maria, when you say very soon, you aren’t saying—I mean, you don’t think that the baby will be born before we get home, do you?” Rebecca asked.
“I don’t know,” Maria said. “Clay says he thinks we will be home before Christmas, and Mama says the baby will come in January.”
“Mrs. Bustamante? Not a doctor?”
“Mama is a comadrona,” Maria said. “How do you say—she is one who helps women have babies.”
“Midwife?” Sally asked.
“Si. Comadrona, midwife.”
“I hope she is right. I would hate for you to have to have the baby during this drive.”
“If she delivers during the drive, we’ll just take care of it,” Sally said reassuringly. “Hundreds of babies were born on the wagon trains going west.”
“That is true, isn’t it?” Rebecca said. “Still, I hope the baby doesn’t come until we get back to the ranch.”
Outside the wagon, the dust storm continued to roar and, even inside the wagon, with the canvas stretched over the bows to protect them against the sharp sting of the sand, the air was so full that they could barely see each other.
The wagon was broadside against the wind, and once or twice the two wheels on the right side of the wagon lifted slightly from the ground.
“We are going to have to turn the wagons into the wind,” Sally said. “If we don’t, they will surely tip over.”
“Not into the wind, away from the wind,” Rebecca suggested. “That way the mules will have some protection.”
“Yes,” Sally agreed.
Even as the men were out with the cattle, the three women, working on their own, managed to prod the mules into turning so that the backsides of the mules, as well as the backsides of the wagons, were into the wind. What normally would have taken no more than a minute or two took at least fifteen minutes because the mules were so hesitant to move.
Now, there was no longer any danger of the wagons tipping over, but without the canvas sides to stop the wind and the blowing sand, they whipped through the wagons at full force.
By the time the dust storm ended, the cattle had drifted more than three miles away. The good thing was that they had stayed together, so it was fairly easy to drive them back to where the wagons were waiting. It was late afternoon, and with the dust gone, the cold winter sky was a clear, bright blue. However it was late enough so that already the sun was sinking in the west. In addition the men, who had been fighting the dust storm for the entire day, were much too exhausted to push the cattle across the river, so they made the decision to spend one more night here.
Sally and the women warmed a big kettle of water and the men washed their faces, which were raw from the cold and the blowing sand. Tom’s eyes looked like two glowing embers glaring out from a sheet of parchment. Everyone else’s eyes looked the same.
Rebecca handed Tom a warm, wet cloth, and watched as he washed his face and his eyes. Inexplicably, she giggled.
“What is it?” Tom asked, surprised by her laughter.
“It is your eyes,” Rebecca said. “They are so red that I wonder if they will glow in the dark.”
“I’m Mephistopheles, Rebecca, didn’t you know that?” Tom said, making a frightening face.
Rebecca laughed again. “Don’t do that,” she said. “You’ll frighten the others.”
Amarillo, Texas, December 11
Lars Prewitt was a slender man with slumped shoulders and long arms. He had sunken cheeks and a Vandyke beard that was dark in color, contrasting sharply with his gray hair. Prewitt was also the largest cattleman in Potter County, Texas. What nobody in Amarillo or Potter County knew was that Prewitt had help in building his ranch. That help came by way of his providing a ready outlet for stolen stock, and every cattle rustler between Fort Worth and Denver knew that they could sell their stolen beef there.
At the moment, Prewitt was sitting at a table in the White Elephant Saloon, having a drink and a conversation with Red Coleman.
“Why do I need more cattle?” Prewitt asked, in response to a proposal made by Red. “Hell, I damn near have to give away the cows I got now, no more’n they are paying for them at the market.”
“What are they paying for Longhorns right now?” Red asked.
“The market opened this morning at four dollars and twenty cents a head,” Prewitt said. “I can barely feed them for that.”
“Uh, huh,” Red said, smiling broadly. “Suppose I told you I could get you two thousand, five hundred head of cattle that are paying seventeen dollars per head?”
“What kind of cattle would that be?” Prewitt asked.
Red reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the article about the cattle drive he had torn from the Dodge City newspaper. He showed it to Prewitt.
“Yeah, I’ve read some about these Black Angus cows,” Prewitt said shortly after he got into the article. He read for a moment, then slid the article back to Red. “You’re right, it says here that they are seventeen dollars a head.”
“It might even be more. And those cows could be yours.”
“What do you have in mind?” Prewitt asked.
“I have in mind to take that herd when they get into Texas,” he said. “After I have the herd, I’ll bring ’em to you for four dollars a head.”
“You are going to take the herd? Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You expect the cowboys who are driving the herd to just watch you ride away with the cows, do you?”
“In a manner of speaking, yeah, I do,” Red said. “From what I’ve been able to gather, there are only seven of them. Seven cowboys trying to drive two thousand, five hundred head four hundred fifty miles. That means they are goin’ to be all spread out. If I hit them with, oh, say eight men, in the middle of the night, I don’t expect any resistance at all.”
“This article says the cows are going to Ben Conyers,” Prewitt said.