Snake River Slaughter

Chapter Twenty-four

Back at Coventry on the Snake, even as Kitty and Matt were making arrangements for the stock cars, Tyrone Canfield had Prew and the other riders rounding up the saddle horses that were to be shipped out. Kitty had asked that they gather them into one holding field so it would be easy to move them when the time came.

“We’ll put them in the north field. Castle Creek runs through that, so they will have plenty of water,” Tyrone said.

“How long we goin’ to keep ’em there?” Prew asked.

“As long as it takes. Which is until we move them down to the rail head,” Tyrone answered.

“The reason I ask is, there’s good grass in that field, but when you consider there’s goin’ to be five hunnert horses there.”

“I think there will be enough grass to last them three or four days, anyway,” Tyrone said. “And if we have to, we’ll bring in some hay just to stretch it out.”

“Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that,” Prew said. He chuckled. “I reckon that’s why you’re the foreman.”

“You got that right, sonny, and don’t you forget it,” Tyrone said. “All right boys, let’s go round up some horses.”

Tyrone, Prew, Jake, Crack, and four other spent the morning rounding up the horses. The cavalry had purchased Arabian horses, selecting that particular breed because they were known for their courage, intelligence, disposition, and endurance. It fit the army requirements perfectly, that they could run at a gallop, or trot for miles without stopping. Also, because the army had promised a bonus if all the horses would be the same color, Kitty had given specific instructions to round up only chestnuts.

It took from early morning until midafternoon before all the selected horses were cut from the herd, then moved into the smaller field where they would be held until they were shipped.

“You fellas don’t know it yet, but you’re all joinin’ the army,” Prew said to the horses, laughing as they were moved into the field. “Yes, sir, no more wanderin’ around free as the breeze. From now on you’ll have to get up early in the mornin’, work all day and listen to bugles and the such.”

“Hey, the cavalry ain’t a bad life for horses,” Jake said. “Hell, I was in the cavalry. The horses has it better than the privates. I mucked out their stalls, fed them, rubbed them down. Didn’t no horse ever do that for me.”

The others laughed as the last of the horses were put into the field.

“Did you get a count, Crack?” Tyrone asked.

“Yeah,” Crack answered. “I counted five hundred and twenty-three.”

“That’s good,” Tyrone said. “All right, boys, let’s get this fence up and stretched across the opening, here.”

For the next hour, the men worked at constructing a fence that stretched some fifty yards across the south end of the field, thus closing off the field to keep the horses put.

When Kitty and Matt returned from their trip into town they rode out to the field where the horses had been gathered, arriving just as the last part of the fence was finished, completing the enclosure. Seeing his boss, Tyrone rode over to her.

“How do they look?” Tyrone asked.

“They are beautiful,” Kitty said. “And it looks like they all match.”

“I tell you the truth, Mrs. Wellington, they are near ’bout all as alike as peas in a pod,” Tyrone said. “But you are right. They are a good looking bunch of horses. I bet you hate to sell them off.”

Kitty laughed and held up her hand. “Well, let’s not go that far with it,” she said. “I don’t have any choice. I have to sell them off.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know,” Tyrone said. “But don’t it make you feel good to know that you got ’em right here, ready to go?”

“It makes me feel very good,” Kitty replied. “You and the others did a really good job. And when you get back up to the house, I’ve got something that will show my appreciation.”

“Now, Mrs. Wellington, you don’t have to do nothin’ to show your appreciation,” Tyrone said. “You are real easy to work for, and the boys and me are glad to be here. And roundin’ up these horses? Well, that was our job, that’s all.”

“Then let’s just say we’ll be celebrating the fact that the horses will be sold soon, and there will be enough money to keep you and all the others working here.”

“Yes’m, well, keepin’ a job, now, that is somethin’ worth celebratin’.”

Even before the riders returned to the compound they could smell the rich, enticing aroma of cooking meat. Then, when they rode up the bunkhouse they saw, on the lawn between the bunkhouse and the big house, a huge haunch of beef on a spit, glistening a deep brown as the cook turned it slowly over an open fire.

“Yahoo!” Crack yelled, taking his hat off and beating it against his trouser leg. That action raised so much dust that some of the riders nearest him had to cough.

“Tell you what, boys,” Tyrone said. “I think maybe before we set down to this meal, we ought to get cleaned up.”

“Hell, I always wash up before I eat,” Crack said. “That’s somethin’ my mama taught me a long time ago.”

“I don’t mean just wash your face and hands,” Tyrone said. “I mean take a bath and put on clean clothes. This here is an occasion, and we need to act like gentlemen.”

“Tyrone is right,” Prew said. “We need to take us a real bath.”

“Hell, I took me a bath no more than two weeks ago,” one of the riders said.

“You’re goin’ to take another one today,” Tyrone said. “That is, if you want to eat with the rest of us.”

“All right, all right, I’ll take me another’n. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me none if you didn’t start sayin’ we had to take a bath ever’ other week, or so.”

Tubs were hauled out, filled with water, and the men, in turn, began washing away the dirt. As Matt and Kitty sat together on the back porch of the big house, they couldn’t see the ranch hands because the tubs were blocked by the bunkhouse, but they could hear the loud laughter and teasing as the men took their baths.

“Damn, Jake, look at that! You were so dirty you done turned that water into mud!” somebody shouted, and the taunt was met with more laughter.

The cook brought out a big pot of beans and several loaves of freshly baked bread to augment the meal. The aroma of the cooking meat continued to fill the entire compound.

“I hope they enjoy it,” Kitty said.

“Are you kidding? Listen to them. They are having the time of their lives,” Matt replied.

“They are one of the reasons I so want this to work,” Kitty said. “I’ve never had a family, Matt. The closest I ever came was at the orphanage, and Captain Mumford was so cruel that any sense of family was eliminated just by the effort of surviving. These men are truly my family. It’s not just for selfish reasons I want to save the ranch. I want to save this family.”

“You are not going to lose this ranch, Katherine. I promise you,” Matt said.

“Matt, after we go to Chicago, sell the horses, and get the money, you will come back with me, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” Matt said. “The way I see it, delivering the horses is only half of the job. The job won’t be finished until the bank has been paid off, and the ranch is in your hands, free and clear.”

“Then what?” Kitty asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What will you do after the bank is paid off, and the ranch is mine, free and clear?”

“All right, here we are,” Prew shouted, coming around from behind the bunkhouse, bathed, and wearing clean clothes. His appearance and shout precluded Matt from answering Kitty’s question.

“Yeah, when do we eat?” Crack asked.

By now, every rider had appeared, freshly scrubbed, all wearing clean, and in some cases, new clothes. Jake was particularly proud of his new yellow shirt, for which he was soliciting compliments.

“Hah, if you ask me, it looks like somethin’ a whore house piano player would be wearin’,” Prew said.

“All right, fellas, come and get it!” the cook called, and there was a rush of all the ranch hands to get plates, and get them filled. Kitty had even bought a barrel of beer, and within minutes, the evening meal had turned into a party.

“The only thing we need now is some women and music,” Crack said. “Iffen we had that, why we could dance and have us a fine time.”

“I’m a woman, and I can dance,” Kitty said. “And Jake, I’ve heard you play the harmonica.”

“No, that won’t do,” Prew said. “Mrs. Wellington, you’re a fine lady. You wouldn’t want to dance with the likes of us.”

“Sure I would,” Kitty said. “Tyrone, you’re the foreman, it’s only right that you get the first dance.”

Tyrone looked shocked at first, then he smiled and nodded. “I’d be right proud to dance with you, Mrs. Wellington,” he said.

There was something in the expression in Tyrone’s face that caught Matt’s attention. Then, he remembered that Tyrone had been foreman here long before Kitty ever arrived. Matt was certain that Tyrone knew about Kitty’s background, and he was equally certain that Kitty knew that he knew.

Jake pulled out his harmonica and began playing, and as he played, the other men stood around clapping and stomping their feet in time to the music.

Because the eating and the partying and the dancing went on until long after nightfall, Matt never did have to answer Kitty’s question.

Sleep did not come easily to Kitty that night. She lay in bed, tossing and turning as she thought about the question she had asked Matt—the question that had gone unanswered. It wasn’t as if he had specifically avoided answering the question, they were interrupted before he could do so. And yet Kitty could not escape the feeling that it was a question he didn’t particularly want to answer.

She couldn’t blame him, especially when she considered what she had been before she had married Tommy. Of course, Tommy had known that she was a whore when he married her, because that was where and how he had met her.

In marrying one of her clients, Kitty had realized the dream of nearly every soiled dove she had ever met. They all dreamed of meeting a man who would marry them and take them away from “the life.”

In Kitty’s case she had been particularly lucky, because the man who took her away from life on the line had not only been a loving and caring husband, he had also been exceptionally wealthy. And, most important, he had never, even once, made her feel guilty about her past.

That was why she told Matt what she had been. She sincerely believed that whatever relationship they were going to have, even if it went no further than the current relationship, would have to be based upon the truth.

Maybe she shouldn’t have told him.

No.

Whatever was causing Matt’s hesitance in deepening the relationship had nothing to do with her past life. She was sure of that.

She heard the clock strike one before she finally fell asleep.

At half past one in the morning, the Auxiliary Peace Officers approached Coventry on the Snake. Sherman held up his hand to halt the band, then he pointed. The moon was bright, and several horses could be seen bunched together in one field.

“Scraggs, you and Grimes go down and take a look. If there is anyone watching over the herd, take care of them. If no one is watching, come back and let me know,” Sherman ordered.

Sherman, and the other men with him, waited as Scraggs and Grimes checked out the herd. One of the men took out the makings and started to roll a cigarette but Sherman rode over and knocked the makings from his hand.

“You light up a cigarette and you may as well just ride down there and tell them we are here,” Sherman said.

“Sorry, Colonel, I wasn’t thinking,” the man said.

“A man in this business who doesn’t use his head, can easily lose his head,” Sherman said.

“I know. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“You damn well better be. It’s not just yourself you are putting in danger. It’s all of us,” Sherman scolded.

About five minutes after Scraggs and Grimes had ridden down to check the herd, they returned.

“What did you see?” Sherman asked.

“Nothin’, Colonel,” Scraggs reported. “There ain’t nobody down there at all.”

“Are you sure? You mean to tell me there is not one rider watching over the herd?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’ all right. Me’n Grimes rode all the way around. I’m tellin’ you, there ain’t nobody out there watchin’ ’em.”

Sherman smiled and nodded. “Damn, they are making this too easy for us. All right, Scraggs, take Carson, Anderson, and Burnett with you. You four go down to the south end of the field and take the fence down. The rest of you, move on down as quietly as you can, and start driving the herd south, away from the house.”

“How many are we going to take?” Scraggs asked.

“Why, we are going to take all of them, of course,” Sherman replied.

“All of them?”

“At least all of the horses they have gathered here. According to Marcus Kincaid, they were goin’ to gather all the horses they were planning on shipping in one small field. These are all saddle horses, the field isn’t all that big, so this has to them.”

“Hah,” Scraggs said. “And without nobody watchin’ the herd, this here is goin’ to be about the easiest thing we’ve ever done.”

As Scraggs and the men with him rode out to take down the fence, Sherman led the rest of his men into the field with the horses, then spread them out around the herd. Because there were so many of them, the herd was easily moved and within less than five minutes the field was completely empty as the horses moved at a rapid trot away from the main house. Within another ten minutes, the entire herd had passed over a low lying ridge two miles to the south, and nothing remained of where they had been but the un-cropped grass, moving in a gentle, night breeze.

“Prew, Jake, Crack, you boys wake up,” Tyrone said as he walked through the bunkhouse just after dawn.

All he got in response was a few disgruntled groans from the men whose names he had called.

“Come on get up, get up. This day is half over,” he called.

“Damn, Tyrone, don’t you ever sleep?” Crack asked, and a few of the others chuckled.

“Yeah, I sleep when it’s dark, and I’m awake when it’s light. If you hadn’t stayed up till midnight last night, you’d be all rested, and ready to go, now.”

“Midnight? We was all in bed by ten o’clock. You know that, you was right here with us.”

“As far as I’m concerned, ten o’clock is damn near midnight,” Tyrone said. “Now, come on, everybody get up. We have to feed the horses.”

“Can’t they eat grass like every other horse in the world does?” Prew asked, groggily.

“It’s your fault,” Tyrone replied.

“What do you mean, it’s my fault?”

“You’re the one that pointed out to me that there are too many of them put into too small a field.”

“Yeah, but you said there was enough grass for a few days.”

“There probably is, but I think we should get some hay out for them anyway, just in case.”

“Those damn horses live better than we do,” Jake said. “They get their breakfast in bed.”

“You want breakfast in bed?” Tyrone asked. “I’ll be glad to bring you breakfast in bed.”

“Really? Yeah, you do that, I might feel more like gettin’ up this morning.”

“All right, I’ll get you a handful of hay, right now,” Tyrone said, and the others in the bunkhouse laughed.

“Serve that hay with some bacon and eggs, and I might just take you up on it,” Jake said, sitting up and rolling out of bed.

“I have some coffee in the office,” Tyrone said, softening his tone a bit. “You boys can grab yourselves a cup before you come out to the barn. Then, soon as you get the hay out, you can come on back for breakfast.”

“That sure was nice of Miz Wellington to throw us that party last night,” Prew said.

“And to actually dance with us. Who would’a thought a lady like that would dance with regular hands like us?” Crack asked.

“I hear’d tell they was a time when she done more’n just dance with cowboys,” one of the newer hands said.

The laughing banter in the bunkhouse stopped as all the hands looked over toward the speaker.

“You need to watch that mouth of you’rn, Asa,” Prew said.

“What? What did I say? Are you boys sayin’ you don’t know that our boss lady used to be a whore?” Asa chuckled. “Folks say she was the best lookin’ whore in Ketchum.”

“Asa, there’s no need for you to help the boys this morning,” Tyrone said, his voice almost conversational.

“What do you mean, there’s no need?”

“I mean, you don’t work here any more,” Tyrone replied. “So, there’s no need for you to help out. In fact, why don’t you just gather your tack and get on out of here now?”

“You can’t fire me.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Believe me, Asa, Tyrone can fire you.”

Asa looked incredulous over the reaction of all the hands. “I can’t believe this. I tell the truth about something and you want to fire me?”

“Not just want to, Asa. I did fire you,” Tyrone said.

“How’m I goin’ to go? Shanks mare? You know I don’t have no horse of my own. The horse I’m a ridin’ belongs to the ranch.”

“You can ride your horse into town. Just leave it at the livery,” Tyrone said. “We’ll pick it up, later. And, Asa, if I go down to the livery and find out that you didn’t leave the horse, I’ll see that you are hunted down and tried as a horse thief.”

“All right, all right,” Asa said angrily. “I don’t want to work for no damn whore anyway.”

Crack stepped up to Asa then and, without another word, knocked Asa down.

“What the hell was that for?” Asa asked, lying on his back and rubbing his chin.

“I just didn’t want you to leave without somethin’ to remember us by,” Crack said, and the others laughed.

“And, Asa,” Prew said. “If word gets back to us that you’re talkin’ about Mrs. Wellington, I guarantee you, you’ll get a lot more than a punch on the chin.”

“I’ve never seen such a bunch of…”

“A bunch of what?” Jake asked.

Asa rubbed his chin and looked into the glaring faces of the other hands.

“Nothing,” Asa said. “I’m going.”

“Yeah, you do that. And don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out,” Crack said.