Longarm had to rein in again. He lit a cheroot and watched with admiration as other workers grabbed hold of the loose rail with what looked like ice tongs, lifted it as one, and flipped it over like one hell of a long flapjack to clank smoothly into that long line of small steel cradles as the workers all laughed like kids. Longarm felt mighty pleased with himself as he rode on. The feeling passed by the time he caught up with the posse again. For he didn’t feel half as smart about outlaws in these parts. He didn’t have an educated guess as to what in blue blazes they were up to!
He knew there had to be some around, for they kept shooting at more honest folks. But there was just no saying why. Nobody but cranky old Granny Boggs had reported any missing stock, and even her losses seemed too modest to justify any killing.
As they forded the shallow Mudpuppy Creek, there was no mystery as to where it had come by its name. At this altitude you got trout where the streams ran cold between granite boulders. You got more frogs and mudpuppies, or big fat salamanders that seldom left the water, where the streams flowed sluggishly over muddy bottoms with no shade to keep the sun from warming the water to just too cold for much swimming. The trail picked up on the far side as a narrower pair of wagon ruts. Nobody paid any mind to the fresh horse apples or cow pats they passed. Nate Rothstein had said the trail ran past the Double Seven spread.
That turned out a bigger and handsomer home spread than one expected to find up here where the grass grew greener in far smaller amounts. Someone had left a salt block just outside the cattle guard gate through the six-strand Glidden-wire fence around the main house, outbuildings, horse corral, and such. So a dozen-odd cows of various breeds and original brands lazed around in the nearby grass, as if around the cracker barrel in some bovine general store.
You could raise some of the more tender Eastern beef critters on the greener summer grass and forbs of the front ranges. So it was no great surprise to see more shorthorn stock, and even one brute who could have passed for pure Durham. Nobody had denied that Jed Nolan of the Double Seven had been buying other stock right and left to fatten up and sell as kosher beef in nearby Denver. It hardly seemed possible a big froggy in a little puddle could just help himself to the stock of smaller and likely jealous neighbors without any of them noticing, and so far not even Granny Boggs had accused this outfit of running her brand.
There was a distinct and vital difference between running a brand and changing it lawfully. When a stockman bought a beef critter fair and square, he blotted or crossed out its original brand without any attempt to change it. Then he slapped his own brand on to show who the critter belonged to now. By the time a cow got to the slaughterhouse it often had quite a history inscribed across its hide. That might have been why the Eastern shoe factories paid more for Argentine hides. They didn’t brand beef cattle down Argentine way. Those gaucho riders just cut the balls off anyone they caught messing with their stock.
As the posse reined in out front, the burly but well-dressed Jed Nolan came out on his veranda to call in his hands and ask if anyone wanted coffee and cake.
When Nate Rothstein politely declined and told the local stockman what they had in mind, Nolan tried to sound sincere as he declared, “I’d sure like to ride with you boys. Amos Payne was a good man, and young Keen leaves a widow to mourn for his life. But you see, I’m all gussied up to ride into Denver, where I have to catch me a Chicago train. I hope to be back by the end of the month. But I ain’t coming back before I get a good price on at least one of those fancy refrigerated railroad cars such as Armour ships his butchered and trimmed beef to market in.”
Someone in the posse called out, “Them Chicago ice boxes on wheels are built broad-gauge, Jed! How in thunder do you expect to get one up all them miles of narrow gauge from Golden?”
Nolan smiled smugly and replied, “That’s for me to know and you to find out. We live in changing times and I paid for my education. So I don’t aim to pay for anyone else’s.”
Nate Rothstein laughed and said they’d best ride on. By this time a pouty-looking redhead in a mint-green summer frock had joined Nolan and the others out front. Nobody laughed when the obviously rich son of a bitch introduced the stunning young thing as his woman. Most of the locals already knew her, though not as well as most men would have wanted to. She seemed put out that nobody would come inside and even taste her swell chocolate layer cake. When Rothstein repeated best get going, the older stockman turned to a younger and taller cuss wearing a red shirt and chinked chaps cut off just below the knee, and suggested he gather some of the other hands and ride with the posse.
So he did. As they all made it back to the westbound trail, a single-file rut through the grass by then, Rothstein introduced the red shirt to Longarm as Buck Lewis, the ramrod of the Double Seven.
Longarm filed and forgot the names of the four other cowhands the big boss had sent along. Buck Lewis seemed neither elated nor depressed by what was shaping up to be an all-day ride. When Beavertail showed some interest in a fresh horse apple swarming with bluebottles, the foreman laughed easily and called out, “That’s be Casey or Old Dick, scouting for a lion we heard pestering the stock the other night. I sent them after the son of a bitch with some redbone lion dogs this very morning.”
Longarm asked how far Lewis figured his own hands might ride after a stock-raiding lion. When the ramrod figured no further than the next ridge west, Longarm casually asked whether that mule team bound for Holy Cross had passed by the spread back yonder.
It didn’t make him feel any better when Buck Lewis confirmed a handsome brunette had been riding in the party with a gambling man or that Red Robin had gotten along just swell with everyone save for Miss Amanda, the owner’s young wife. Longarm wasn’t surprised to hear Red Robin hadn’t cottoned to a genuine redhead after all the trouble she’d had to go to with henna dye and bleaching potion.
The trail got steeper and wound over some slickrock. Longarm’s borrowed buckskin made it to the far side, then commenced to limp like hell. So he rained in, dismounted, and lifted what seemed to be the offending hoof between his tweed-clad knees, muttering, “Aw, shit!”
Young Rothstein wheeled his paint to ride back and ask what was the matter.
Longarm explained, “She’s cast a shoe, Lord knows where, and now she’s split her hoof on that son of a bitching slickrock! You’d best ride on. This mare ain’t going nowheres. I’ll lead her back down on foot and they might be able to fix us up at the Double Seven.”
Buck Lewis, who’d ridden back to join them, called out, “Tell ‘em I said to. We got a well-founded forge out back, and our Mexican smith knows his job no matter how he talks.
Longarm thanked the ramrod for the information, and led the hurt pony to one side until all the others had passed by them on the narrow trail.
Once he had the gimpy mare back across the slickrock she was more willing to walk with him. He let her set her own pace and even brouse some aspen leaves along the way. For he knew he’d hate like hell to walk barefoot with the callus split to the quick.
So it took them a spell. But as all things good or bad must end, they got the crippled critter back down to the Double Seven. Once Longarm had asked him politely in Spanish, the skinny old Mexican farrier said he’d be proud to staple her split hoof and reshoe her.
As the older Mexican and his young helper got to work on the mare out back, the redheaded Amanda Nolan called Longarm inside from her back door. It would have been rude to snub the owners as he availed himself of their forge and hired help. So he strode on over and took off his hat as she led him inside for some of that chocolate layer cake.
They had it in the kitchen, served by her Indian cook, of course. He wasn’t surprised to find the cake over-sweet. The lovely but not too bright-looking Amanda seemed surprised when he declined her kind offer of canned milk and lump sugar for his coffee.