From far away, it seemed, I heard the sound of alarm and the crazy bawling and the pound of hoofs. And a voice in the darkness shouted, “Stampede!” and the running boots headed for the chuck wagon suddenly stopped, wheeled, and ran toward the remuda pen for the horses. Over it all, the trail boss was bellowing wildly, but it all seemed far away and no concern of mine.
Pappy came out from under the shelter, looking at me strangely. Then he went over to what was left of Buck Creyton.
“Jesus Christ, son,” Pappy said, “did you have to shoot him all to pieces?”
“I couldn't stop,” I said. “I started shooting and something got ahold of me, and I couldn't stop.”
Pappy looked at me again in that strange way. I couldn't tell what was behind those gray expressionless eyes of his. I couldn't tell if he was glad or sorry that it had worked out the way it had. For a moment, as he looked at me, I thought there was fear in those eyes. But I must have been mistaken about that.
“Do you feel like riding?” Pappy said at last.
“Sure,” I said. “But why should we ride anywhere?”
He jerked his head toward the bedground where all the noise and commotion was going on. All hell was breaking loose, but I was just beginning to become conscious of it. It was almost like returning suddenly from a long visit in a strange place, and it took a while to get used to things as you used to know them. The cattle had broken toward the north, running blind and wild with fear. The riders, some of them just in the underwear they had been sleeping in, were riding hard on the flanks, trying to turn them.
“After starting this ruckus,” Pappy said, “the least we can do is help them turn the herd.”
Pappy started in an awkward half-lope toward his horse beside the chuck wagon. In a moment I came out of it. I ran toward Red, and on the way I passed the bloody, shapeless form that had been Buck Creyton a few minutes before. He lay twisted, in the mud, looking straight up, with the rain in his face. There were bright, shimmering puddles forming all around him.
I hit the saddle hard, and Red switched his head in angry protest. He didn't want to move. He had lulled himself into a kind of stupor there in the rain, and he just wanted to be let alone. I drove the iron to him and he reared sharply. Finally I pulled him around and he fell into a quick, ground-eating run to the north.
We caught Pappy on the herd's flank just as the break began to settle down to a real stampede. There wasn't time to be scared, the way they say you always are after a fight. There was just the blind race along the flanks of the herd, and once in a while I could feel Red slide and fight for his footing again in the mud, and I tried not to think what would happen if he put a hoof down on a loose rock or into a prairie-dog hole. Red and Pappy's big black spurted ahead of most of the other riders. Up ahead, I could hear the trail boss yelling and cursing.
He was trying to turn them by himself as Pappy and I came up alongside him. He drove his rugged little paint into the van of the stampede. Leaning far over his pony he shoved the muzzle of his pistol behind the shoulders of the lead steer and fired.
The big animal thundered down, rolling and churning the mud, slowing the herd's rush. Without looking back to see who we were, he roared, “Turn 'em, goddammit!”
I thought I could make out that faint grin of Pappy's as he drove his big black into the point of the herd. I shoved Red in after him, and the trail boss came in on our heels. The startled cattle began to slow down their crazy rush for nowhere. The point began to give, began to edge to the left as Pappy and the trail boss pushed in, yelling and firing their pistols over the animals' heads.
There wasn't much to it after the point began to give. We cut them over and headed them back until we had two columns of cattle going in opposite directions; then the riders came up and milled them in a wide circle.
After the riders got the mill going, there was nothing for me and Pappy to do. We pulled up the slope a way to let our horses blow after the hard run. I noticed then, for the first time, that it had stopped raining.
“One steer lost,” I said. “It could have been worse.”
Pappy looked at me. “One steer and one rider,” he said dryly. He nodded toward the bottom of the slope to where a rider was coming toward us. It was the trail boss.
Surprisingly, he didn't seem mad this time. He just looked relieved to get his herd under control with the loss of only one steer. He pulled up in front of us, mopping his face with a rain-soaked bandanna.
“By God,” he said wearily, “I ought to turn the two of you over to the bluebellies.”
Pappy straightened in the saddle. “What makes you think the bluebellies want us?”
The little Irishman laughed roughly. “You're Pappy Garret, the boys tell me. And this kid's name's Cameron, ain't it?” Without waiting for an answer, he took a folded, soggy square of paper from his hip pocket. It was too dark to read, but a sinking feeling in my stomach told me what it was.
“Reward,” the trail boss said pleasantly. “For killin' off some bluebelly cavalry down in northern Texas. Ten thousand for Garret, five for the kid. Here, read it for yourself.”
Pappy made no move to take the paper. “Are you aiming to make a try for that reward money?” he asked softly.
The trail boss laughed abruptly. “Hell, no.” Then his voice got serious. “It's no concern of mine if the army wants to take you in. I'm short of hands and good horses. From the way you two jumped in and turned that herd, it looks like my problem is taken care of. That is, if you want a job.”
Pappy looked at me. He was thinking the same thing I was. “I kind of figured,” he said, “that you'd be sore because the boy killed off one of your riders.”
The trail boss snorted. “It was small loss. Creyton was trouble from the first day I signed him on. He thought he was Godamighty with them two pistols of his... and I guess he had everybody else thinking it until tonight.” He looked at me with much the same expression that I had seen in Pappy's eyes. “I'll tell you the truth,” he said. “I never expected you to beat Buck Creyton, son. I was expecting we'd be burying a kid of a boy in the morning.” He shrugged. “But I guess you never know.”
He pulled his paint around and studied the herd for a minute. “Think it over,” he said. “If you want to sign up, I'll see you at the chuck wagon for breakfast.”
He rode down the slope again and into the darkness. I looked at Pappy and he was shaking his head slowly from side to side. “I guess it's like the man says,” he said soberly. “You never know.”