The Palo Duro Trail

Chapter 23

Firefly became Dag’s chosen horse and it felt good to be back in the saddle again. They had come through rain and nights with the cold north winds blowing off the distant mountains, and he rode with the memory of them all back at that small hill with six rocky mounds paying their respects to the men who had died the day the Comanches attacked and robbed them of a dozen head of cattle, brands of which would never be known. He wept when Matlee read off the names of the dead, his own hands, and Barry’s: Ed Langley, Doofus Wallace, Paco Noriega, and Matlee’s hands, Tommy Colgan, Billy Lee Grant, Doug Hazlett.

They still had plenty of hands, too many, really, with the two Double C men, but all of them felt the loss of those six men keenly and deeply, as if part of their lives had been torn away from them, leaving them hollow inside, with the faces of the dead fading from memory at the end of each passing day.

And Dag remembered Fingers taking him from the wagon when he was so sick, to relieve himself and crying out for Laura in his delirium for a time, until he only called out for Jo, and Laura’s face was fading too. When he tried to think of her, her face would change and he would see only Jo’s and he cursed his memory and himself for being so faithless. But Jo had been his ministering angel, and when he saw her bending over him, in the soft twilight, spooning hot broth into his mouth, he wanted to draw her to him and hold her tight and run his fingers through her hair and kiss that little rosebud of a mouth and make it flower.

The wound had changed him, Dag reasoned. He would return to his true nature one day. Maybe when the drive was over, or when he was back home with Laura and their little baby. The place where the bullet had furrowed through his flesh had long since healed and he had full use of his arm. Once in a while, if he moved it in a certain way, he would feel a slight twinge, but he didn’t know if it was real or only his skin’s memory, like a man with an amputated foot would feel his toes wriggle when there were no toes there anymore.

They had passed the little town of Conchas, where they stocked up on supplies, and were now at the swollen Mora River, where they had been waiting two days to find a ford to cross. Dag was searching for a ford now, without finding any place shallow enough to risk putting cattle into without putting them and the drovers in danger. He rode back to where the herd was bunched, to see if anyone else had found a suitable ford.

“The water isn’t going down none,” Flagg said, “and it looks like we’re going to get more rain. Look at that sky to the west.”

Dag saw the black thunderheads gathering over the mountains, heading their way slowly. He shook his head.

“We’ve been here two days, Jubal,” he said.

“And we could be here a week. Dag, I’m going to send some of the men back. We can’t afford to keep ’em on the payroll. Fingers is strapped for supplies until we get to the next town.”

“We stocked up in Conchas.”

“Some of the food was plumb spoiled,” Flagg said.

“Shit.”

“Who do you want to send back?”

Dag thought for a moment. He looked at the men, many of whom had started to grumble, and the night before, some of his hands got into a fracas with some Box M drovers. Fists flew and blood was spilled. Hard feelings remained.

“How many?” Dag asked.

“We only need a dozen men at most to finish the drive. Maybe fifteen.”

“I think we’ll need fifteen, at least.”

“Make your choice, Dag.”

Dag drew a deep breath. “We can send Chad Myers back. He’s got a family that’s probably hurtin’ by now. And Carl Costello. Ricardo Mendoza, maybe. That’s about all I could spare.”

“All right. Matlee will send a couple or three back. I think you’re keeping the best hands, Dag.”

“Thanks.”

But it was a tough decision. Over the miles, he had drawn very close to not only his men, but to Matlee’s. And the two hands from the Double C were working out fine. They had a good crew.

Vince Sutphen, one of the two Double C hands, rode up from the east.

“I think I found a place to ford,” he told Flagg.

“Show me,” Flagg said.

Dag followed them downriver, past an oxbow, to a place where the river widened. He could see riffles showing that it was more shallow there than up above.

“Did you try it?” Flagg asked.

Sutphen shook his head.

“Well, head on into it, Vince. Take your time.”

Dag and Jubal watched as Sutphen put his horse in at a point where the bank was low. His horse stepped out gingerly, eyes rolling in their sockets showing more white than brown. The water came up to the horse’s knees just off the bank, but on firmer footing, the water was only ankle deep. Sutphen turned his horse halfway across and rode toward the hollow of the bend, stepping off gravel in the shallows. The water was belly deep for a few yards; then he was again in shallow water, clear to the opposite bank.

“Good enough,” Flagg said.

“Water’s awful swift,” Sutphen said. “My horse liked to have went down there a couple of times. I had to hold him against the current. Was a cow to founder, she’d be carried off.”

Flagg looked downstream. The river narrowed and the water roared just beyond the ford, rushing between its banks.

“All right, Vince. Come on back and see how it goes,” Flagg said. He turned to Dag. “We’re still droppin’ calves,” he said. “Wolves carried off two last night, but we still got a passel of ’em.”

“I know,” Dag said. “They’d never get across here on their own.”

“We’ll have to carry ’em acrost,” Flagg said.

“Then we will.”

Sutphen had to fight the current coming back over a slightly different course. They could see the horse wobble and falter, slip and almost fall. In the deep part, the horse had to swim and it lost ground, but recovered, just barely, before it was swept away downstream.

“ ’At’s a son of a bitch in parts,” Sutphen said, when he put his horse back up on the bank. “We’ll have to be mighty careful.”

“Maybe we should wait another day,” Dag said.

Flagg shook his head, looking off to the northwest.

“Nope, we got to get ’em acrost today, Dag. And mighty quick. That storm’s a comin’ and it’ll be a frog strangler. Rain’ll come down like a cow pissin’ on a flat rock.”

They rode back and Flagg took over, ordering the drovers to turn the herd downriver. At the ford, he told Chavez to pick out two men to send downstream.

“Two good ropers, Manny. We’re going to have some cows get away from us and I want them to drag ’em out.”

“What about the little ones?” Chavez asked.

“We’ll all have to carry those calves across. I don’t want to lose a single one.” He pointed straight up at the sky. Buzzards were gathering like undertakers at a massacre.

Chavez nodded.

“You take the lead steer across, Manny, and the rest ought to follow. We may have to whip some of ’em into the river.”

While Flagg and Dagstaff led the chuck wagon across, holding on to the traces of the mules, the drovers turned the herd, moving them slowly down to the ford. Chavez sent Skip Hughes and Barry Matlee downstream with extra lariats to catch any cattle that washed their way. The wagon made it across at a very slow pace, but rumbled out on the other bank and up onto dry land, then proceeded on to the northwest at a lumbering pace.

Next, Chavez ordered Jimmy and Little Jake to run the remuda across, watching the progress of the stock and letting the cows watch, as well. The lead steer stood there, its forelegs extended and stiffened, showing Manny that he didn’t want to go anywhere near that rushing water.

“Ready, Jubal,” Chavez said, when all the horses were across and well out of the way.

“Dag, you come right on in after I get that lead steer in the water,” Flagg said. “Manny, you and your boys be ready to crowd ’em.”

When all hands were set, Flagg roped the lead steer, rode into the water, and pulled the steer in as Dag pushed with Firefly from the rear.

Once the cattle started into the water, those on the shore started bawling. Cows struggled against the current and one started to wash away, regained its footing, and continued on. It took hours to get the herd across and some did get swept downstream. Each drover picked up a calf and carried those across via a slightly different route. Dag carried five calves across himself.

Cowhands kept crowding the herd so that they became a steady stream fording the swift waters. In the west, the clouds moved closer and the sky overhead became overcast, then began to darken. By the time the entire herd had reached the opposite bank, it was late afternoon and looked like dusk.

The hands downstream had lost only five head, but they rescued more than a dozen and brought them back, and dragged them over with ropes around the bosses of the longhorns.

Dag was riding drag with the other late-crossing hands when the first raindrops began to spatter his face.

Then the temperature dropped sharply, and the wind picked up to a brisk thirty knots, gusting to forty or more. Riders slipped into their slickers and pulled down their hats.

A few moments later, it started to hail with a sudden ferocity. Pea-sized hailstones pelted Dag and the other riders, stinging their faces, chests, and arms. Then the hailstones grew larger until they were the size of walnuts. It grew sharply colder and the wind howled over the land with whipping and swirling gusts.

Dag could barely see twenty yards ahead and then his visibility dropped to less than ten feet, then to five. He heard a roar up ahead and the terrible sound of thousands of cattle bawling. He spurred Firefly ahead, ducking to avoid the steady blows of hailstones on his face. He saw, finally, the herd moving away from him in a full run, and out of the corners of his eyes, he saw cattle streaming out of the herd and disappearing into the rain, the hail, and the churned-up mist from the damp ground.

“Stampede,” Dag yelled, but there was no one to hear him. When he looked around, he saw none of the drag riders. The hailstones grew larger and he was nearly knocked senseless by one the size of a pear that struck him in the head. Another smashed into his cheek, drawing blood where it had cracked the skin.

Dag lost all sense of direction. He could feel the ground tremble beneath Firefly’s hooves when he stopped and hunkered down to escape the brunt of the wind’s blast and hurtling onslaught of lethal hailstones.

His heart pounded as the rumbling sound subsided and there was only the clatter of icy balls of hail striking the ground, smashing into rocks. Firefly quivered beneath him, his head hanging low, helpless against the cannonballs that struck his wet hide and staggered him nearly to his knees.

Dag writhed as each stone struck him, bringing a stinging pain, not only to his flesh, but his bones.

And worst of all, he thought, he was completely lost, with the precious herd in full stampede.