“No, I don’t. Can’t we use yours?”
“They’re kind of long to pack down here on horses. I could drag ’em, but that might not be good. I usually just leave ’em put, and use ’em the next time I’m there. Make new ones if I go to a place I haven’t been. But I don’t think we’ll see many lodgepole pines where we’re goin’.”
Lodge spoke again. “Is it too much trouble to send a wagon up to his camp?”
Selby moved his head back and forth. “I guess I could. I didn’t have that much time figured in for such a little thing.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” said Roe as he rubbed his face.
“Ah, hell. Go ahead. Richard, maybe you can take my buckboard up there. I’ve got to stay here for Mullins. It’ll be worth it to have a good tent, though. Do you sleep in it, Tom?”
“I do now, but I’ll bring along a tepee tent for me and the kid to sleep in. This big one will sleep half a dozen, though. That’s why the poles are so long.”
“You think that kid’s all right?” asked Selby.
“I think so. He catches on pretty quick.”
“He looks like he eats a lot,” said Roe.
“They all do,” Lodge said. “We’ll be glad to have him along.”
Fielding spoke again. “One other small thing. I was hopin’ to find a place to store the gear I won’t be using. Packsaddles, panniers, canvas, the gear tent.”
Selby pushed out his lower lip. “We’ll find a place in the barn.”
“We can bring all that stuff in the wagon, too,” said Lodge. “Save you the trouble of packin’ ’em all up.”
Selby laid his hands flat on the table. “That should be pretty good, then. You boys come back this afternoon or evenin’, and we all roll out in the mornin’. This ought to be an easy job.”
Chapter Five
The roundup camp came into view as Fielding pushed the cow and calf down the last draw toward the valley. Bracken the day herder, on Fielding’s white horse with speckles and dark mane, was easy to pick out on the other side of the small herd. He waved to Fielding and worked his way around.
“Looks like dinner’s ready,” said Fielding.
“I think it is,” said Bracken. “The others came in a little while ago.”
“I’ll go eat, then, and I’ll come back and relieve you.”
“Sounds good.” Bracken reined the white horse around to watch the cow and calf that had just come in, and Fielding headed for the chuck wagon.
Selby, who knew the run of the valley better than the rest, had picked a good site for a camp. It lay about seven miles south of the town of Umber, on a stream called Richeau Creek. The crew had stayed here one night and planned to stay another, taking advantage of water for the cattle and horses as well as deadfall for firewood.
Across the valley to the east, a lone formation stood out from the ocher-colored bluffs. It was of the same height and color, but time and the elements had separated it. If it had stood farther out by itself, it might have been called Courthouse Bluff or Courthouse Rock, as such formations were called in other places, but it had no name that Fielding knew of. Named or not, it served as a good landmark for someone coming into the valley from the hills to the west.
Fielding yawned as he rode toward the camp. One day had stretched into the next on this drive—warm weather, with an occasional afternoon shower but no hail or lightning so far. The crew picked up a few head of stock each day and branded every three or four days. Although each day cost money in wages and grub, Selby did not push the crew.
At the moment, he and Lodge and Roe were seated in the shade of the canvas fly that Mullins set up in front of the entrance to the tent. Out in the open between the tent and the wagon, faint wisps of smoke rose from the fire pit, where two Dutch ovens and a coffeepot hung from the iron rack that ran lengthwise above the bed of coals. Mullins himself stood at the tailboard of the wagon with his hands in a metal mixing bowl. At his side, around the far corner of the work area but not out of sight behind the chuck box, Mullins’s son, Grant, stood with a clean lard can, pouring small splashes of water as his father commanded.
Fielding swung down from the bay horse, walked in for the last few steps, and tied the reins to the front wheel of the wagon. He glanced in the direction of the horse herd, where the granger kid named Topper, who had hired on at the last minute as day wrangler, seemed to be practicing the art of sleeping on his feet.
Fielding picked up a tin plate and a fork.
“You’ll need a spoon,” said Mullins. “Beans are in the first pot, biscuits are cookin’ in the second one.”
“Thanks,” said Fielding as he nodded at the cook.
Mullins was a slender man with a thin, worried face, but he did his work well and without much comment. Unlike other cooks who acted as if they owned the chuck wagon and everything related to it, Mullins had the air of working in someone else’s domain and using someone else’s equipment. The kid was mindful in the same way.
The two of them had joined the crew with nothing more than one bedroll and one duffel bag between them. The father slept in the same tent as the other men and got up every morning between three and four. On nights when Fielding rode that shift watching the herd, he saw Mullins hang the lighted lantern from a pole on the end of the wagon. The kid, who was horse wrangler by night and cook’s helper by day, slept when he could on his father’s bed, or beneath the wagon, or in the shade of the tent.
As Fielding passed the kid on his way to the grub, he saw the heavy eyelids and tired face. He felt sympathy for the kid, who was likeable in his quiet way. He did not complain, and he worked alongside his father to make a go of things.
At the fire pit, Fielding picked up the wooden pothook, lifted the lid from the first Dutch oven, and set it on a length of firewood that lay close by. Steam wafted from the pot, carrying the promise of beef and beans together. Fielding took the spoon from the end of the rack and served himself a plateful.
The other men were finishing up as he sat on the ground near them.
“Good grub today,” said Selby.
Lodge set his plate aside. “It’s all good. Just some of it’s better.”
“We’re a long ways from the café,” Selby countered.
“Oh, I meant this was a lot better than a good deal of the chuck wagon grub I’ve eaten. Boiled beans, without a pinch of salt.”
“You must’ve ate with the Mexicans,” said Roe. “That’s the way they cook ’em.”
“That’s not who I was thinkin’ of, though I’ve eaten with them, too. And even the boiled beans aren’t bad.” Lodge shook his head. “Better than boiled cabbage, refried the next day in old grease, or cornmeal mush with bacon grease mixed in. Sorry, Tom. Didn’t mean to spoil your appetite.”
“No danger there,” said Fielding.
Roe took out the makin’s and went about rolling a cigarette.
Selby picked at the drying grass next to him and said, “Well, this is slow goin’, but we knew it was goin’ to be that way.”
“It’s all right,” said Lodge.
Roe spoke without looking up. “You got nothin’ at home to be lookin’ after.”
“Everyone’s got somethin’,” said Lodge. “Well, almost everyone.”
Mullins appeared with a tin plate of biscuits. “Here, Tom,” he said as he lowered it.
Fielding took two.
“Anyone else?” asked Mullins. When the other three shook their heads, he said, “I’ll leave this at the wagon, Tom. Ed can have what you don’t eat, and I’ll make some more for the rest of us.”
No one spoke for the next few minutes as Fielding ate his meal and Roe smoked his cigarette. Fielding went for a second helping and two more biscuits, and he had just gotten settled in the shade again when Lodge spoke.