The Bozeman Trail

Chapter Ten

First day of trail drive

Thursday, June 19, 1862:

When dawn broke the next morning, Matthew and Mark Scattergood were passed out drunk. Angrily, James ordered Luke and John to get their brothers on their horses, even if they had to be tied bellydown across their saddles. They weren’t tied down, but they were tied to their saddles, their hands crossed in front of them and secured to the saddle horn.

Everyone but Revelation had drunk a little the night before, but no one drank as much as Matthew and Mark. In fact, James didn’t think he had ever seen anyone drink as much as they did.

“Herd’s on the move,” Bob said, coming up to him then. “Luke is riding drag, Billy and Duke are flank and swing on the other side, I’ve got John riding swing on this side and I’ll ride up front as flank.”

“Thanks,” James said. “I’ll take point.”

“Say, James, have you thought of a name for our outfit yet?”

“A name?”

“Yes. We have to call it something. What shall we call it?”

“How about the Ferguson, Faglier, Swan, Scattergood, Cason Cattle Company?” James suggested.

“No, that’s no good. Too long. How about the Cason Cattle Company?”

James shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else. We all have a stake in the drive.”

“Well, we have to call it something.”

At that moment, James Cason saw a calf, hurrying quickly to catch up with its mother. The early morning sun cast a golden halo around the calf. He laughed, and pointed. “There’s our name,” he said.

“What?”

“Golden Calf. The Golden Calf Cattle Company.”

“Yes!” Bob replied. “Yes, that’s a great name.”

“Think we ought to check with the others?”

“Why? I’m the one who decided we should have a name, and you are the one who came up with it. Far as I’m concerned, that’s good enough.”

“Then the Golden Calf Cattle Company it is,” James said. He twisted around in his saddle. “By the way, have you seen Matthew and Mark this morning? Are they able to sit their saddle?”

“Barely. They’re riding alongside the wagon.”

“Will they be any use to us anytime soon? What do they look like?”

Bob chuckled. “Their eyes look like two pee holes in a snowbank,” he said. “I guess they’ll come around by noon. But right now the poor bastards don’t have an idea of what’s going on around them, except they’re feeling pretty sick.”

“I’ve never seen anyone drink that much,” James said. “I thought they were taking all that whiskey to sell. I’m beginning to think now that if we had kept it, they would’ve drunk it all.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Bob said.

“How are you doing?” James asked.

“What do you mean, how am I doing?”

James laughed. “I admit you didn’t drink much last night, but for you, it doesn’t take much. As long as I’ve known you, you haven’t been able to hold your liquor. The smell of a cork could make you drunk. To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure you’d answer the call this morning.”

“Hey, you don’t need to be worryin’ any about me, James Cason,” Bob replied. “When the tocsin sounds, I will respond.”

James laughed. “You are full of it,” he said. He pointed to the head of the herd. “All right, the tocsin is sounding now. Go.”

Bob slapped his legs against the side of his horse and urged it into a gallop, dashing alongside the slowly moving herd until he was in the flank position, which was near the front, on the right-hand side. James rode up the side of a small hill, then looked back down on the Golden Calf Cattle Company. It made an impressive sight, over three thousand head of longhorns, five abreast and over a mile long, moving slowly but inexorably across the South Texas plain. From his position he could see the entire herd. Billy Swan was the flank rider on the left side, near the front, and Duke Faglier was on the same side, riding in the swing position, or near the rear. John was riding swing on the right and Luke was riding drag, bringing up the rear. The wagon was already a mile ahead of the herd, with Revelation sitting straight in the driver’s seat. Alongside the wagon, with their horses tethered to the vehicle, the two older Scattergoods, Matthew and Mark, sat weaving in their saddles.

James had read once that any journey of a thousand miles must start with a single step. This was that step.

San Antonio, Texas Tuesday, July 1, 1862:

It was two weeks after James and the others left San Antonio when the Butrum brothers arrived. They didn’t even have to ask around to find Duke Faglier. They overheard his name when they were unsaddling their horses at the livery.

“Pardon me,” Angus said to the two men who were talking. “Did I just hear you say the name Faglier?”

“My name is Thornton,” the liveryman said. “I own this place.”

“The name I’m interested in is Faglier. Duke Faglier,” Angus said. “Didn’t I just hear one of you just say that name?”

“What’s it to you, mister?” Thornton asked.

“We’re the Goodsons, from Missouri,” Angus lied. “Duke Faglier is our cousin and we been alookin’ for ’im.”

Thornton smiled broadly. “Cousins, eh? Well, why didn’t you say you was kin? I knew Duke was from Missouri, but that’s about all I knew. Duke never talked much ’bout his past. Truth is, don’t nobody around here know too much about him. But he was a good worker while he was here, and never give anybody any trouble.”

“While he was here? You mean he ain’t here no more?”

“Afraid not.”

“What happened to him? Did he go off to fight in the war?”

“No, he didn’t go off with the regiment. Him and some other fellas who didn’t go are takin’ a herd of cows up to Dakota.”

By now, both Chance and Percy had joined their older brother, and when they heard Thornton say that Faglier was taking a herd to Dakota they looked at each other is surprise.

“Now what would he do a dumb-fool thing like that for?” Angus asked. He could barely conceal the frustration he felt at having almost found Faglier, only to miss him by a couple of weeks.

“Well, sir, that’s the same question lots of us have been askin’,” Thornton replied. “But when you look at it close, you see that it ain’t such a dumb-fool thing after all. That is, if they can do it. They’re takin’ a herd of over three thousand cows up to Dakota to sell ’em to the gold miners. They figure to get fifty dollars a head for them cows.”

“Gold miners? What gold miners?” Angus asked.

Thornton chuckled. “My, where have you fellas been that you ain’t heard the news. They’ve found gold up in Dakota.”

“Where?”

“According to what I’ve read they found it first at a place called Grassphopper Creek, but I reckon they’re findin’ it all over now. Why, from what I’ve heard, there are picking up nuggets as big as your thumb just clinging to the roots of the grass. Bigger, even, than the California find was, here a few years back.”

“I’ll be damned,” Angus said.

“Will you be boardin’ your horses for long?”

“What?” Angus asked, distractedly.

“Your horses,” Thornton repeated. “How long will you be leaving them with me?”

“Three, four days at least,” Percy said. “Maybe more.”

“Uh, no,” Angus said, overriding Percy’s response. “We’ll be takin’ ’em out first thing in the mornin’.”

“If you’re goin’ to take ’em out in the mornin’, that’ll be twenty-five cents apiece, in advance. If you leave ’em past noon tomorrow, it’ll cost you another twenty-five cents.”

“All right,” Angus said. He gave Thornton the money, then started out of the livery. Percy and Chance watched him for a moment, then put their own quarters in Thornton’s outstretched hand before they hurried after him.

“What are we going to do now?” Percy asked as he and Chance caught up with Angus.

“Right now, I aim to get me a little supper, and maybe somethin’ to drink,” Angus said.

“I mean, in the morning,” Percy said. “I thought we was goin’ to rest here for a few days.”

“That was before we heard about Faglier,” Angus replied.

“Listen, Angus, it ain’t goin’ to do none of us any good if we go out after him right away. We been ridin’ hard for a long time, we need a little rest,” Chance said. “Besides, if he’s trailing a herd all the way up to Dakota, he ain’t goin’ nowhere. We can catch up with him anytime we want.”

“Wait a minute,” Percy said. He smiled. “Wait a minute, I know what you’re doin’. I’ll be damned. You’re aimin’ to steal them cows, aren’t you?”

“No,” Angus replied.

“What? Why not? Didn’t you hear what that liveryman said? Them cows will be bringing fifty dollars a head up in Dakota. Why wouldn’t we steal ’em?”

“Yeah,” Chance said. “I’m with Percy on this, Angus. I mean, why, who knows how much money them cows would make?”

“ ’Bout a hunnert and fifty thousand dollars,” Angus said easily.

“A hunnert and fifty thousand dollars?” Percy gasped. “Lord, I didn’t know there was that much money in the whole world.”

“Wait a minute You’re sayin’ them cows is worth a hunnert and fifty thousand dollars, but we ain’t goin’ to steal them?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Damn, Angus, what’s got into you? You used to be the one with all the ideas,” Chance said.

Just as they reached the front of the saloon, Angus turned to his two brothers. “You want to herd those cows all the way up to Dakota? Just the three of us?”

“What are you getting at?”

Angus smiled. “I say, let them do all the work, drive the cows to Dakota, find the buyer, then sell them. That’s when we’ll hit them. It’s going to be a lot easier to steal the money than it would be to steal the cows.”

Percy laughed out loud. “Damn, that’s right,” he said. “So, what’s the plan?”

“It’s going to take them three or four months to push a herd all the way to Dakota,” Percy said. “But if we ride back to Kansas City and catch a riverboat going up the Missouri, we can be there less than three weeks from now.”

“So, we’re going to wait on them?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, Angus, while we’re waiting, you think we could look for some of that gold?” Chance asked.

“Why bother to look?” Angus asked. “Why not just take our gold off the people who have already found it?”

With the Golden Calf Cattle Company, mile 300, Friday, July 11:

Although no one had driven a herd as far as they intended to take this herd, everyone in the outfit had previous experience except Duke. Ironically, the Scattergoods had the most experience in longer drives, since they had brought most of their stock up from Mexico.

Duke’s normally taciturn habit proved to be an asset to him. He talked little, listened a lot, observed, and learned. He was prepared for work, so the fact that the drive required the cowboys to be in the saddle for fifteen hours each day didn’t bother him.

He found the makeup of the drive interesting. The wagon Revelation drove was the chuck wagon, which carried the food, bedding, and tents. Revelation prepared the breakfast and supper meals, and served them from the tail-board of the wagon. The food was cooked over an open fire. Lunch was generally taken in the saddle, often consisting of a cold biscuit and bacon left over from breakfast, or perhaps a piece of jerky.

The herd moved across the country, not in one large mass, but in a long plodding column, generally no more than four or five abreast. An average day was twelve to fifteen miles, and while on the move, one of the cowboys would be riding as point man, ahead of the herd scouting for water and graze. Flankers rode on either side of the herd, keeping them moving, while one man rode drag, meaning the rear. This was the least desirable position because the cowboy who rode drag had to swallow all the dust. In many outfits, Duke, being the least experienced, would have been selected to ride drag every day. But James, who had been elected trail boss, was fair about it, and he rotated the position, even taking drag himself, when it was his turn.

Billy Swan was about five miles ahead of the herd, looking for water, when he crested a small hill and saw the military encampment. It wasn’t a large group as army units were measured back East, but there were at least one hundred men there on the banks of a swiftly flowing stream. A puff of red, white, and blue hung from the top of a makeshift flagpole. However, because it was a windless day, the flag hung straight down so it was impossible to determine whether it was the Stars and Stripes of the Union, or the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy. Turning his horse around, he rode quickly back to the herd.

“Is there any way to avoid them?” James asked, when Billy reported on his find.

Billy shook his head. “I don’t see how,” he answered. “Not if we want to water the herd.”

“We’ve got to water the herd,” Bob said.

“And you don’t know if them soldier-boys be theirs or our’n?” Mark Scattergood asked.

“Like us, you chose not to go to war,” James said. “Therefore, for us, there is no theirs or ours,” James said.

“What do you mean there ain’t no theirs or our’n?” Mark asked. “They got to be either Yankees or Southerners.”

“Listen to what I am saying. There is no theirs or ours,” James repeated, saying the words slowly and distinctly. “Not if we are going to make it through over a thousand miles. All of us chose to avoid this war. That means we are neutral.”

“Well, yeah, I guess we are neutral in a way,” Mark said. “But we are Southerners. I mean, we do come from the South.”

“We come from the West,” James insisted.

“You can’t just tell a fella to deny who he is,” Mark insisted.

“James is right, Mark,” Bob said. “That kind of thinking has no place now. We made a conscious decision to avoid the war. That means we are neutral.”

“We may be neutral,” Duke said. “But the men Bob saw aren’t. We’re going to have to come up with some way of handling them.”

“I guess the best thing to do is go see them,” James said. “Bob, you and Billy stay here with the herd. Duke, you come with me. You don’t sound quite as Southern as the rest of us do. Maybe the two of us can convince them, whoever they are, that we aren’t a threat.”

As James and Bob approached the encampment, they were challenged by a sentry who suddenly popped up in front of them. He was wearing gray.

“Halt! Who goes there!” the sentry shouted, holding his rifle leveled toward them.

“The name is Cason, James Cason,” James said. “We’ve got a herd of cows near here, that we’re driving north.” He nodded toward the water. “We need to bring ’em to water. If I could just talk to your commanding officer?”

Half a steer hung on a spit over an open fire, the smell of its roasting permeating the air. The soldiers were in good spirits as they contemplated the feast that lay before them. James and Major Waldron, the commanding officer of the little army unit they had encountered, were sitting on a log near the fire.

“It was very generous of you to offer up a steer like that,” Major Waldron said. “My men haven’t eaten anything but beans, bacon, and hardtack since we left Arkansas.”

“Glad to do it,” James replied. “We were having a hunger for beef ourselves, but it made no sense to kill a steer for just nine of us. It would be too much of a waste.”

“How is it that you fellas aren’t in the war?” Major Waldron asked.

“I’ve got kin on both sides,” James answered.

Major Waldron got up from the log, walked over to the fire, and picked up a burning brand. Then, pulling the stub of a cigar from his pocket, he lit it, taking several long puffs. What he did next surprised James, because he pinched off the glowing end of the cigar, then returned the stub to his pocket.

“I have to ration them,” he explained when he saw the surprised look on James’s face. “I don’t know when I’ll get another one.”

“I imagine that might be difficult,” James said.

Major Waldron returned to the log and sat down again.

“Now, about you not wanting to fight against your kin. Well, I reckon most of us are in that same fix,” the major said. “But when you get right down to it, a fella has to go with his conscience, and fight for what he believes in.”

“That’s the way I look at it too,” James said. “And my conscience tells me—”

“You stay the hell away from her, Butler! I saw her first!”

The loud shout interrupted the conversation between James and the army commander. When they looked toward the commotion, they saw two men in angry confrontation.

“Well, hell, Dobbins, iff’en you ain’t man enough to keep her, you got no right to her,” Butler replied.

“I’ll show you who is man enough,” Dobbins said, launching a roundhouse right at his adversary. His unexpected blow landed on Butler’s chin, and though it didn’t knock him down, it did drive him back a few feet.

Butler rubbed his chin, then worked his jaw back and forth a few times. When he was certain nothing had been broken, he smiled at Dobbins, an evil and mirthless smile.

“Fight, fight!” someone shouted, and the camp came alive as soldiers hurried to the scene.

The expression on Dobbins’s face turned from anger to one of apprehension. He had just given Butler his best blow and Butler was able to shake it off as if it were no more than a mosquito bite.

“What the hell is going on over there?” Major Waldron asked.

Bellowing like a bull, Butler charged Dobbins. Dobbins turned and ran, chased not only by Butler, but by the laughter of the other men. That was when James saw Revelation Scattergood standing near the wagon.

He wasn’t that surprised to see her, but he was surprised to see what she was wearing. So far on this drive she had worn nothing but men’s trousers and shirts. In addition, she had kept her hair pinned up under her hat.

Now, Revelation was wearing a dress, and not just any dress. She was wearing a dress that flowed with her lithe body, displaying a womanly form that the trousers had managed to hide. In addition, her hair, which James now saw was the color of ripe wheat, fell across her shoulders in soft waves. This was the first time he had ever seen her like this and he had to admit, begrudgingly, that she was an attractive woman.

“I think I see the problem,” James said quietly, his voice reflecting the sense of guilt he felt over being the indirect cause.

Major Waldron also saw Revelation. “What the hell?” he asked in surprise. “Is that a camp follower? Where the hell did she come from? As far as I know there’s not a town within fifty miles of here.”

“She’s with us,” James said. “She’s driving the chuck wagon.”

“Hell’s bells, man, don’t you know better than to bring a good-looking woman like that into a camp full of soldiers?”

“I didn’t realize I was,” James replied.

“What do you mean? Didn’t you just tell me she was driving your chuck wagon?”

“I mean I didn’t know she was good-looking,” James said, looking at Revelation as if he had never seen her before.

In order to prevent any further outbreaks, Major Waldron ordered his men to break camp and prepare to leave. There was a lot of grumbling from the men, and some voiced protests from the Scattergoods, who had intended to turn a fair profit on the whiskey they had remaining.

“I’m sorry if our arrival caused you any trouble,” James apologized.

“It wasn’t that much trouble,” Major Waldron said. “Hell, men been fighting over good-looking women from the beginning of time. You can’t change nature.”

“No, I suppose not. Why don’t you take the other half of the beef we slaughtered?”

“That’s mighty big of you,” Waldron said.

“We can’t keep that much beef without it going bad on us,” James said.

“All right, thanks, I’ll get my quartermaster on it,” Waldron said. He called over a big, red haired captain, gave him the order to see to the half of beef, then came back to talk to James.

“You say you are going up to Dakota?”

“Yes.”

“How are you going?”

“Just head north, I reckon.”

“There’s a trail I’ve heard about, a new trail laid out by a fella named John Bozeman. The Bozeman Trail. You ever heard of it?”

James shook his head. “Can’t say as I have.”

“It’s a shortcut that will save you a lot of time. You might want to try it.”

“I will try it. Thanks for the information,” James said.

Major Waldron stroked his chin for a moment before speaking again. “I ought to warn you, though, the Bozeman Trail goes right through the middle of Sioux Indian territory. And the Sioux aren’t known for their hospitality toward whites, if you get my meanin’.”

“I understand,” James said. “We’ll be careful.”

When the Confederate cavalry pulled out half an hour later, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ran alongside the departing column, holding up whiskey jugs, selling “one last drink” for a dollar, and finding takers. Major Waldron saw what was going on and ordered his men to proceed at the gallop, thus leaving temptation behind.

“You fellas come on back!” Matthew called to the departing soldiers. He held the jug up. “You goin’ to have a long dry spell!” he shouted.

When none of the soldiers answered his call, Matthew took one final drink himself, then corked the jug.

“Well, that was twenty dollars, just as slick as a whistle,” Mark said.

“Wisht we could run into some more soldier-boys,” Luke said.

“We keep on goin’ north, the next soldier-boys we run in to is liable to be Yankees,” John suggested.

“Don’t make no never mind to us,” Matthew said. “They all drink whiskey.”

The others laughed.

James shook his head in disgust. They were driving thousands of dollars’ worth of cows to market, and the Scattergoods were concerned about twenty dollars’ worth of whiskey.

“If Revelation hadn’t got them two boys to fightin’ over her, we could’a made us a lot more,” Mark said.

Mark’s comment about his sister reminded James that he wanted to speak to her, to caution her against any future incidents of the kind she caused with her careless flirtation with the soldiers. He walked back to her wagon.

“Revelation, just what did you mean by causing all that commotion before?” James asked, even before he peeked into the wagon. “Don’t you know that—?” James’s question died on his lips when he looked in, because he caught her changing clothes. The dress she had been wearing was now lying across a sack of flour. She was wearing nothing but a camisole and underdrawers. Her long shapely legs were bare.

“Oh, excuse me!” James said, turning away from the wagon in embarrassment.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Revelation said, obviously unperturbed by the interruption.

“I’m sorry, Miss Scattergood,” James said. “I didn’t men to intrude like that.”

“Miss Scattergood, is it?” Revelation asked, a moment later. “When did you start calling me Miss Scattergood? You’ve been calling me Revelation for the entire drive.”

“I guess I just never thought of you as a woman before,” James said.

“And now?” Revelation asked, obviously flirting with him. “How do you think of me now?”

James cleared his throat. “I think you could be a troublemaker,” he said. “I would appreciate it if, in the future you, uh . . .” He turned back toward her.

“Yes, Mr. Cason?” Revelation asked. Bending over to pick up her trousers, she presented a generous spill of breasts above her camisole. “If I would what?”

Closing his eyes, James turned away again. “If you would make a less obvious display of your, uh, gender.”

Revelation chuckled, amused by James’s discomfort. “I will do what I can, Mr. Cason,” she said.