A Lone Star Christmas

CHAPTER TWENTY

“That was sweet of you to give me my own star,” Rebecca said later that night as Tom got ready to ride on night herd and she got ready to go to bed.

“I can be very generous when it doesn’t cost me anything,” Tom teased. “If you notice, I even gave one to Maria and Sally.”

Both were wearing fur-lined sheepskin coats, and as they breathed and spoke, clouds of vapor filled the air between them.

“Yes, but my star is, by far, the most beautiful,” Rebecca said.

Tom smiled. “If you say so.” Tom looked around and saw that they were shielded from everyone’s view by the hoodlum wagon.

As Tom looked at her, Rebecca saw a smoldering flame in his eyes, and she felt a tingling in the pit of her stomach. He moved toward her, paused for a moment, and encountering no resistance, put his hand behind her head and pulled her lips to his.

It was dark enough here that they could move in to the wagon and no one would ever be the wiser. Why not give in to the need that was clearly driving them both?

“Tom, are you ready?” Dusty called. “Let’s get out there.”

Tom and Rebecca jerked apart as abruptly as if Dusty had come upon them. Tom pulled his hands back, and Rebecca felt her skirt fall back into place. They stared at each other through the darkness for a long moment, the vapor in the night air almost luminous as it hung between them.

“I must go,” Tom said.

“Yes, you must,” Rebecca said.

“Tom, come on! You know that Matt and Falcon are getting cold out there!”

“I’ll be right there,” Tom called back, and with one last long gaze at Rebecca, he hurried out to join Dusty for the night.

Tom realized that he had gone too far now. He couldn’t treat Rebecca this way unless he was willing to make a commitment. Could he find the strength to make the commitment? And if he did, would Rebecca be strong enough to stand up to her father?

Red River, December 11

A strong wind came up during the night, making the cold even more difficult. Then, the next morning, as all were gathered around the breakfast fire for its warmth as well as breakfast, Dusty pointed to the west.

“That doesn’t look good, Clay,” he said.

To the west was a huge reddish-gray wall that, at first glance, looked like nothing more than a building cloud. But closer examination showed that it was an approaching sand storm.

“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.

“Yeah, I read that,” Red said.

“Conyers. As in Big Ben Conyers,” Prewitt said, emphasizing the name. “Don’t you know who he is?”

“I’ve never heard of him before this article,” Red said. “Should I have heard of him?”

“Richard King, John Chisolm, Shanghai Pierce, Big Ben Conyers,” Prewitt said. “They are the cattle giants of Texas, and there isn’t a one of them who would stand by and let their herds be taken.”

“It’s not his herd yet,” Red said easily. “I won’t be taking a herd from Conyers. I’ll be taking it from Smoke Jensen.”

Prewitt’s eyes opened wide. “Smoke Jensen? Good God man, that’s even worse. Don’t you know who Smoke Jensen is?”

“Yeah, I know who the son of a bitch is,” Red said. “And I have a score to settle with him.”

“Smoke Jensen doesn’t scare you off?”

“No,” Red said. “Does Conyers scare you off?”

Prewitt paused for a moment before he answered. “I’ll say this. I would like nothing better than to take Big Ben’s cows away from him.”

“Well, sir, I’m the man that can do it for you,” Red said. “All we have to do is come to some agreement on my cut.”

“Let’s take a walk down to Western Union,” Prewitt said.

“Western Union? What for?”

“I know how much Longhorns opened for this morning. I’d like to get a report on these Black Angus.”

Lars Prewitt was an average-sized man, but he elevated his height with high-heeled boots and a high-crowned hat. His eyes were such a pale blue that one had to look twice to see any color.

Prewitt was well known in Amarillo, and as he and Red ambled down the boardwalk between the White Elephant Saloon and the Western Union office, several of the citizens spoke to him.

When they stepped into the Western Union office, it smelled of the pipe tobacco the telegrapher was smoking. At the moment, he held the pipe clenched tightly in his teeth as he bent over the clacking telegraph key, writing on a pad the message that was coming in. Prewitt and Red remained quiet until the telegrapher worked the key to sign off. The telegrapher tore the page off the pad, folded it double, then turned in his swivel chair.

“Mr. Prewitt,” he said, recognizing one of the county’s leading citizens. “What can I do for you?”

“How about getting in touch with the cattle exchange market in Kansas City for me. I want you to check some prices.”

“I can save you some money, Mr. Prewitt,” the telegrapher said. “I checked on the Longhorns for the newspaper editor, not an hour ago.”

“I’m not interested in Longhorns,” Prewitt said.

“Oh? What are you interested in?”

“Black Angus.”

“Black Angus, you say? Well, now, that’s interesting. Who are you checking for? As far as I know, nobody in the whole county has Black Angus.”

“I have a chance to buy some Black Angus cattle at, what I think, is a good price. But I want to be certain.”

The telegrapher nodded, then bent over his key and gave it a few taps. There was a pause, then a response. The telegrapher responded again, then a moment later the key clacked very quickly as he took the message. When it was finished he swiveled around in his chair again.

“The latest price paid on Black Angus is as of two fifteen this afternoon,” automatically, they all looked at the clock, it was two forty-one. “And at that time it was seventeen dollars and seventy-five cents.”

“Thank you,” Prewitt said, and he gave the telegrapher a dollar.

The two men stepped back out onto the boardwalk in front of the telegrapher’s office.

“Do we have a deal?”

“Come out to the ranch,” Prewitt said. “This isn’t anything I want to talk about in town.”

Live Oaks Ranch, December 13

Two of Big Ben Conyers’ ranch hands, Roy Baker and Gene Finely, drove a wagon up to the front of the house. There was a coniferous tree in the wagon so large that the top, and fully one third of the tree, extended from the back of the wagon.

“This is about the largest one we could get in the wagon, Mr. Conyers. Fact is, it might be too big to go into your house,” Roy said.

“If we can get it in through the door without breaking off too many of the limbs, we can set it up in the parlor,” Big Ben said. “It has a twenty-foot-high ceiling.”

“I reckon we can get it in,” Gene said. “If we take it in bottom first, it’ll cause the limbs to bend up, and that way they won’t break off.”

“As soon as we get this one up, I want you to find another good tree, and take it in town to the Our Lady of Mercy Orphanage. I told the Sisters there that I’d be bringing them a tree.”

“Yes, sir, we got a real nice one picked out,” Roy said. “Soon as we get this one up for you, we’ll go get that one.”

There were at least ten children of the ranch hands, varying in ages from four to twelve. This being Saturday, there was no school, and as the tree was off-loaded from the wagon—it took four men—and moved toward the house, the children all gathered around in excitement.

“I’m going to need a lot of help with this tree,” Big Ben said. “I just don’t know who I can find to help.”

“Me, me!” one of the boys shouted, and he was joined by all the others.

“Well, I suppose you can help. Also, Mrs. Conyers made some peppermint candy—way too much for me to eat. I’ll need some help with that as well.”

Again the response was enthusiastic.

“Well, come on in then, we may as well get started,” Big Ben said.

The stand for the tree had been built long ago, a crisscross of boards that not only supplied a receptacle for the base of the tree, but also had long enough arms to hold the tree steady. Roy, Gene, and the other two cowboys got the tree mounted and secured.

“Well, I thank you men, I guess I don’t need the boys and girls after all,” Big Ben said. “The tree is in, we’re all finished.”

“No we aren’t,” a nine-year-old boy said.

“What do you mean, we aren’t? The tree is up, isn’t it?”

“But it’s not decorated,” the boy said.

“Oh!” Big Ben said, hitting himself in the forehead. “I knew it didn’t look right. Mrs. Conyers, do we have any decorations we could put on this tree?”

“How about this?” she asked, putting a box down on the floor.

With shouts of delight, the children opened the box and began applying the decorations.

“Nobody on the ladder unless you are at least twelve years old,” Big Ben ordered.

Roy, Gene, and the other two cowboys remained to help the children decorate the tree, especially the upper part of it. Big Ben and Julia stood back, drinking coffee and smiling as they watched.

“I certainly hope that Rebecca and Dalton are back by Christmas,” Julia said.

“I think they will be. And if they aren’t, well, we’ll just have a delayed Christmas, is all.”

With the herd

That same night while in camp, Dalton was riding night herd when his horse stepped into a hole, causing the horse and rider to go down. The sleeping herd, disturbed by the unexpected noise, came to their feet as one, and started running.

Dalton got to his feet quickly, but his horse, frightened now by the onrushing herd, ran away, and Dalton suddenly found himself standing in front of the herd with no way to escape.

Tom was the other night rider, and as the entire herd broke into a stampede, he saw at once the danger that Dalton was in. Although the riders rotated their horses from day to day, it was a fortunate turn of events that Tom just happened to be astride Thunder, who was the fastest and strongest horse in the entire remuda.

Tom urged Thunder into a gallop, quickly overtaking the running herd. He dashed across the space in front, and without breaking stride, leaned down from his saddle far enough to wrap his right arm around Dalton’s waist. Then, lifting him up from the ground and carrying him with one arm, as if he was a football, he galloped ahead of the herd until he had enough of a lead on them to take an angle to get out of their way. Once he was clear of the running herd, he stopped, then put Dalton down.

“All you all right?” Tom asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Dalton said, almost too stunned to react.

“There’s your horse,” Tom said, pointing to the animal that, once out of danger, started back. “I’ll get him.”

Tom recovered the horse, then brought him back to Dalton.

By now Matt and Dusty, who were already about to come on duty anyway, were in the saddle chasing after the runaway herd. Matt was riding his own horse, Spirit. Spirit was fast, and the ground in front was clear, so he was easily able to overtake and then pass the herd.

Matt pulled his pistol and began firing into the air, hoping that the cattle would be more frightened by the noise in front than the noise in back. The gunfire didn’t stop the cattle, but it did have the effect of letting the rest of the outfit know what was going on.

The wagons were about one hundred fifty yards away from where the cattle had been sleeping, so even without Matt’s warning shots, there wasn’t a man or woman on the drive who didn’t know what was going on. Matt knew that the others would come as soon as possible, so he kept Spirit galloping, angling toward the side farthest from the wagon until he was no longer in front of, but even with the leaders. Once in position, he did what he could to keep the herd from splitting.

After a moment he heard gunfire coming from the other side of the herd. He didn’t know who was there, but was pleased to know that he was no longer alone in trying to stop the stampede. Unlike for a horse, running is not a natural gait for cattle, so Matt knew that if they could keep them from splitting up, the cattle would quickly tire. Then it would be easier to bring them under control.

Dusty and Falcon came up beside him then.

“We have to turn them!” Falcon shouted.

With the three of them shooting their pistols into the air, and swinging ropes, they managed to deflect the leaders for a few moments, but they had only managed to turn a few hundred head, while the momentum of the main body was such that the rest of the herd continued to bore straight ahead.

Abandoning the animals they had turned, they returned to the herd, once again trying to turn them. The idea was to get the cows running in a huge circle, called milling. Since one cow would follow the cow in front, once you got the herd to milling they would essentially stay in the same place, just running in one huge circle.

But so far they had not been able to do that.

Realizing that the relatively few head of cattle they had turned would have no effect on the rest of the herd, they abandoned the ones they had turned, and returned to the rest of the herd. Those they had turned quickly rejoined the herd as well.

By now every member of the camp except for Maria had joined, and they stretched out their line until there was one rider about every thirty feet. They threw everything against the right point and lead, hoping to gradually swing the entire herd. For a while it looked as if they might be successful, but they were stretched too thin, and the cattle went right between the riders until some found themselves on the opposite side of the herd.

Once more, Clay brought all the riders together with the idea of turning the stampede. Then, as it looked as if they may be achieving some success, they suddenly encountered a mesquite thicket which the lead animals crashed into. Before he knew it, Matt was also in the thicket, and he held on to the saddlehorn to keep his seat as horse and rider tore through the spines, sometimes encountering bushes higher than his head.

When Matt emerged through the other side of the thicket, he found himself in the lead of a long string of cattle. Shortly after that, Smoke came out behind him, then overtook him. Matt started to make another attempt to turn the herd, but Smoke waved him off.

“Let ’em run awhile!” Smoke shouted.

Matt knew that it was Smoke’s intention to run them until they were tired, so he ran along with them, his only purpose to keep them from scattering.

There were about sixty big steers in the lead, and Matt and Smoke dashed in front of them, shooting their guns into the ground right in front of them. At that, the lead animals turned and started back the other way. With the rear animals coming up behind them, they were finally able to turn the leaders until, running in a circle, they reentered the herd from the rear. As they were the leaders, it had the effect of creating a mill, and now, giving the horses a much-needed break, the cowboys had an easy time of circling around outside the mill, letting the cows continue in one endless circle until they ran themselves into total exhaustion.

This being December, the nights were long and it was still an hour before daylight. The riders had no idea of the number of cattle they had in the mill, but from the size of the area they covered, and the compactness of the herd, they believed they had captured all twenty-five hundred of them.

By daylight, the cattle had grown quiet and were contentedly grazing, just as if they had just risen. Within a couple of hours after daybreak the wagons came up, Sally and Rebecca having gone back to retrieve them. An hour later they were enjoying breakfast.

“I have something to say,” Dalton said, standing up to address the others.

Dalton pointed to Tom. “Tom Whitman saved my life,” he said. “I was de-horsed, and standing there watching that whole herd running right at me. There was nowhere for me to go, no way for me to escape them, until Tom come along. He reached down and scooped me up like I was no more than a rag doll, and carried me out of danger.”

The others applauded and called out to Tom.

“Good man, Tom,” Clay said.

“Anyone else would have done the same thing,” Tom said. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“I doubt that,” Matt said. “How many others could ride by at full speed, and reach down and scoop Dalton up like he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes? I think you are a genuine hero, Tom, and you are just going to have to live with that.”

The others laughed.

“I’m not finished,” Dalton said. “I have something else to say. Tom, I know what you think of my sister, and I know what my sister thinks of you. I know too, what Pa thinks. So what I’m goin’ to do when we get back to Live Oaks is talk to Pa. I’m goin’ to tell him that if he doesn’t get out of the way, he’ll have Rebecca and me to deal with.”