Rampage of the Mountain Man

Chapter Ten

Sugarloaf Ranch

Smoke was surprised when he saw several head of cattle being pushed onto Sugarloaf. Riding out to see what was going on, he found a small, wiry young man, whistling and shouting as he drove the herd. He was riding one horse, and leading another.

When the young man saw Smoke, he rode toward him, touching the brim of his hat as he reached him. The hat was oversized, with a particularly high crown, almost as if the boy was trying to use it to make up for his small stature.

“You Smoke Jensen?” he asked.

“I am.”

The boy smiled and stuck out his hand. “Mr. Jensen, I heard you was plannin’ on makin’ a big cattle drive up north.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, these here is your cows that was way down on the south range. I reckon you would’a got around to ’em in time, but I thought I’d save you the trouble. The name’s Sanders. Jules Sanders. I come to join you on your drive, if you’ll have me.”

“Jules, don’t get the wrong idea here, but how old are you?” Smoke asked.

“Tell me how old you want me to be and I’ll accommodate you,” Jules said.

Smoke chuckled. “That’s not what I asked,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you, you don’t look a day over fifteen.”

Jules didn’t answer. “Where you want me to put these cows?”

“You say you drove them up from the south range?” Smoke asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s twelve miles from here. You brought—how many are there?”

“Sixty-three head,” Jules said.

“You brought sixty-three head up from the south range all by yourself?”

“Yes.”

Smoke stroked his chin. “That’s a pretty good drive for someone to make all by themselves, no matter how old they might be. You knew we’d be coming down there to get them, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Jules said. “I knew you’d be comin’ for ’em.”

“Then why didn’t you just leave them there for us?”

“I wanted to impress you,” Jules said.

“Well, I must confess, you did do that.”

“Mr. Jensen, I need the job,” Jules said.

“Jules, this is going to be one difficult drive. It’s late in the year and we’ve got a long way to go. We’ll be gone for some time. How would your mom and dad feel about that?”

“They’re the reason I need to do it,” Jules said. “My ma is bringin’ in washin’ and sech, all the while she’s doin’ for my dad. My dad is laid up with what the doc calls the cancer. I got to do somethin’ to help out, Mr. Jensen.”

Smoke was quiet for a moment, then he nodded. “All right, Jules. I reckon if you can bring this many head this far all by yourself, then you’re man enough to do the job.”

A big smile spread across Jules’s face, and he stuck out his hand. “Thanks, Mr. Jensen,” he said. “I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

Smoke shook Jules’s hand. “One thing, though, Jules.”

“Yes, sir, anything.”

“We’re sort of one big family here. I’m Smoke to all the men.”

“Yes, sir, Mister—uh, Smoke,” Jules said. He looked back at the cattle he had brought up. “Uh, what do I do with these critters?”

“Take ’em out to the north range, join them with the others you see there, then go on down to the house and see Sally.”

“Sally?”

“My wife,” Smoke said. “She’s taking care of the business end of this. She’ll make sure you’re on the payroll. Uh, by the way, could you use a little advance to send back to your folks?”

Jules shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “I appreciate the offer, I purely do. But I don’t want nothin’ till I’ve earned it.”

Smoke smiled, and nodded. “You’re a good man, Jules,” he said. “I don’t care how old you are, you’re a good man.”

“Thanks.”

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“I had me some jerky back this mornin’,” Jules said.

“Well, I know you don’t want any money before you’ve earned it, but you wouldn’t mind eatin’ with us, would you?”

The broad smile returned. “No, sir, I wouldn’t mind that,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind that none at all.”

“When you get back to the house, tell Sally there’ll be one more for supper.”

“Yes, sir!” Jules said. He turned to the cattle he had brought up. “Get along, cows. They’s grass for you and vittles for me.”

Smoke watched Jules ride off, driving the cattle before him. He didn’t really need another man, but there was something about this young man that reminded him of Matt, and there was no way he was going to turn him down.

Pearlie came riding up shortly after Jules rode off.

“Who was that?” Pearlie asked.

“Our new man.”

“I thought we had everyone we needed.”

“There’s always room for one more,” Smoke said.

Pearlie smiled. “Uh-huh,” he said. “And if you particular like a person, why, I reckon you’d make room for him even if there weren’t none.”

“I made room for you once, didn’t I?” Smoke asked.

Pearlie nodded. “Yes, sir, you done that all right,” Pearlie said. They were referring to the fact that Pearlie, who had once been hired as a gunman to run Smoke off his ranch, had wound up joining the same man he was supposed to kill.

As a means of allowing everyone to get better acquainted with each other, Sally invited all the cowboys to have supper in the big house that night. She fixed roast beef, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, lima beans, and hot rolls.

“Do you folks eat like this all the time?” Jules asked.

“We sure do,” Pearlie said.

“Ha!” Cal laughed. “Pearlie wishes we did.”

“I figure that during the trail drive,” said Sally, “there are bound to be times when you boys are going to get pretty frustrated by pushing a bunch of cows. So, if they start giving you too much trouble, maybe you can take some solace in having eaten their cousin tonight.”

The others laughed.

“Say, Smoke, the county fair starts tomorrow,” Cal said. “You reckon we could all go in for a bit? I mean, especially as we are going to be on the trail drive for so long.”

“I don’t see why not,” Smoke said.

“You know what we ought to do? We ought to play a baseball game,” Jules said.

“What?” Billy asked.

“We ought to play a baseball game,” Jules said again. “We’ve got enough for a baseball team. There’s Pearlie, Cal, Andy, Dooley, Hank, LeRoy, Billy, Mike, and me. That’s nine people.”

“What about Smoke?” Billy asked.

“Smoke can be our manager.”

“What’s a manager?”

“A manager is someone who doesn’t play, but sort of bosses the ones that do.”

“Ha! That’s Smoke all right,” Cal said. “The bossin’ part, I mean.”

“Well, tell me just who we are goin’ to play with this baseball team?” Pearlie asked.

“The St. Louis Unions.”

“The what?”

“The St. Louis Unions,” Jules repeated. “They are a professional baseball team and they go around playing local teams. If you beat them, they’ll give you two hundred dollars.”

“Two hundred dollars? That’s a lot of money,” LeRoy said.

“Yeah, that would be twenty dollars apiece,” Dooley added.

“You can forget that,” Pearlie said.

“What do you mean, we can forget it?” Jules asked. “It would be good to leave twenty dollars with my mom before we started on this trail drive.”

“You can forget it, because we ain’t likely to win.”

“Well, come on, don’t give up before we even try,” Jules said.

“Didn’t you say this St. Louis Unions was a bunch of professional baseball players?”

“Yes.”

“Then that means that they play baseball all the time. I prob’ly ain’t played more’n two or three times in my entire life.”

“Me’n Dooley have played a lot,” Andy said. “We used to have baseball games out at the fort.”

“Yeah, and Andy’s real good at it,” Dooley said.

“I’ve played a lot too,” Jules said. “Come on, we can at least try.”

“Jules, you’re young so I don’t hold it against you none that you ain’t really got no sense,” Pearlie said. “But this whole idea of playing a baseball game against a bunch of people who make a living playing baseball is a…”

“Great idea,” Sally said, finishing Pearlie’s sentence.

“What?” several of the others replied at the same time.

“I think Jules has a great idea,” Sally said. “I think you should play a baseball game against these people.”

“Sally, I tend to agree with Pearlie,” Smoke said. “Why humiliate ourselves before our neighbors against a bunch of professionals?”

“We’re going to be working together for the next several weeks, right?” Sally asked.

“Yes.”

“Then what better way to learn to work together than to play a baseball game now? I think it will create a sense of cooperation and belonging.”

“Even if we lose?” Cal asked.

“Yes, even if you lose,” Sally said. “Win or lose, if you all play together, you are going to come out ahead. Go on, Smoke, sign them up to play a game.”

Smoke chuckled and shook his head. “All right,” he said, “I’ll challenge the—what are they called?”

“The St. Louis Unions,” Jules said.

“I’ll challenge the St. Louis Unions. But if we are humiliated, it’s on your shoulders.”

“I can take it,” Sally said.

As Smoke, Sally, and the contingent from Sugarloaf rode into town, they passed under a banner that was stretched across the street, tied up on one side at Andersons’s Apothecary and on the other at Miller’s Meat Market. In big red letters the sign read:

WELCOME TO COUNTY FAIR

A series of exploding firecrackers made Billy’s horse rear up, but Billy got it under control very quickly. The young boys who had set off the firecrackers laughed as they ran up the street.

Several vendors had set up booths in the street and were selling such things as taffy, roasted peanuts, fudge, and slices of pie. The city band, resplendent in their red and black uniforms, was seated on a temporary stage, playing a rousing march.

“Look, over there,” Jules said, pointing to an open field. There, several men wearing identical straw hats, white shirts, and matching trousers were throwing a ball back and forth.

“Why are they all dressed alike?” Cal asked.

“They are in their uniforms,” Jules answered.

“Uniforms? You mean like the suits the soldiers wear?”

“Sort of like that,” Jules said. “They all wear the same uniform so you can tell who is on your side.”

“Well, now, that don’t make no sense a’tall,” LeRoy said. “I mean, all you got to do is look at who the person is.”

“It’s probably for a little intimidation as well,” Sally suggested.

“What does that mean?” Cal asked.

“It’s just a way of giving them an edge,” Sally explained.

“I see. Well, it ain’t workin’, whatever it’s supposed to be doin’,” Cal said.

“Shall we go over there and challenge them?” Smoke asked.

“Yeah,” Pearlie said. “Let’s do it.”

“Really? You were one of the ones who thought it was such a crazy idea,” Jules said.

“Yeah, but that was before I saw what a bunch of sissies these guys are. I think we won’t have any trouble with them.”

Smoke cut his horse over toward the field where the uniformed baseball players were throwing the ball around. Half-a-dozen kids were sitting on the top of a split-rail fence, watching the players.

“Who’s in charge here?” Smoke called when he rode up.

At Smoke’s call, one of the players threw a ball to another, put his glove in his back pocket, expectorated a wad of chewing tobacco, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then came over to talk to Smoke.

“I’m in charge here,” he said. “What do you need?”

“Is it true that you will give two hundred dollars to any team that can beat you?” Smoke asked.

“Well, to a degree, that is true,” the player said.

“What isn’t true?”

“We don’t just give the money away. You have to enter the contest. And enterin’ the contest is goin’ to cost you money.”

“How much?”

“Fifty dollars.”

“Fifty dollars?” Jules groaned. “Why does it cost fifty dollars?”

“Where do you think we get the money to pay those who beat us?” the player asked.

“Does anyone ever actually beat you?” Smoke asked.

“Not very often,” the ballplayer admitted.

“When can we play?” Smoke asked.

“As soon as we get the fifty dollars.”

“Smoke, I’m sorry,” Jules said. “I didn’t have no idea it was going to cost money to play.”

“That’s all right,” Smoke said, taking out the money and giving it to the ballplayer. “Here’s your money, mister,” he said. “Let’s play.”

“Yes.”