The line-backed dun hesitated in its stride and stopped. Benteen was immediately alert to the signals of his brush-wise mount. The dun’s nose and pricked ears pointed toward a solid wall of mesquite. As the horse trembled eagerly beneath him, Benteen spotted the almost camouflaged roan cow, and the twisted horns of a second. The animals remained motionless, hunkered down in the brush, until they were certain they’d been seen.
Beside him, Shorty let out a Texas yell, a piercing sound that crossed a Comanche war whoop with a rebel yell. With the nerves released, both riders spurred their horses at the hidden Longhorns. Nature bred the Longhorns with the agility of a deer, enabling them to bound to their feet in one leap and be in a dead run by the next.
There didn’t seem to be any opening in the thicket, but where a cow could go, a horse could follow. It was up to the riders to stay on board the best way they knew how.
Benteen took after the roan cow while Shorty split away after the second Longhorn. They hit the brush at a run and tore a hole through it—a hole that seemed to close up the instant they were through. Branches popped and snapped; thorny limbs raked his leather leggings and tore at his clothes. To avoid being scraped off his horse, Benteen was all over the saddle, dodging and ducking, flattening himself along the dun’s neck, then stretching along the opposite side. He used his arms, his legs, his hands, his shoulders, his whole body, to shield his head from the thorny branches trying to gouge out his eyes. Benteen didn’t dare close them or he’d lose control and not see the next limb. Like the tawny horse he rode, Benteen was oblivious of everything but the curved horns of the roan cow racing through the brush ahead of them.
It was a brutal, hair-raising race to catch up with the red roan. In this dense growth, there wasn’t room for long ropes and wide loops. As the dun gelding closed in on the wild cow, Benteen waited until he had a small opening in the brush the size of a saddle blanket. With a short rope, he reached over and cast his loop up to circle the cow’s head, taking advantage of the sparse plant growth close to the ground.
The dun horse bunched and gathered itself to absorb the yank when the cow hit the end of the rope. When the loop tightened around its neck to pull it up short, it let out a bellow of fear and anger. Plunging and fighting at the restraint, the roan cow hooked its horn at the rope, but didn’t charge the rider, as some of her breed did.
After an initially lengthy struggle, the cow turned out to be one of the more amenable ones, and grudgingly obeyed the pull of the rope, permitting Benteen to lead her from the thicket. Sometimes the wild cattle had to be left tied to a tree for a few days until they were tender-headed enough to lead. In extreme cases, the eyelids of outlaw cattle were sewed shut so they would blindly follow another animal to avoid t
reacherous branches.
With the reluctant cow in tow, Benteen turned the dun gelding in the direction of the main camp, where they penned their catch. He didn’t wait for Shorty. The young cowboy was on his own. It wasn’t uncommon for brush riders not to make it back to camp before night fell, in which case they bedded down wherever they happened to be.
Shorty caught up with him, though, about a mile before Benteen reached camp. Both horse and rider bore the marks of pursuit. There was a gash on the right wither of the bay horse where a horn had slashed through its hide. Like Benteen’s mount, the horse’s legs were scratched and studded with dislodged thorns. Shorty was sporting a long cut on his cheek, the blood from it starting to dry and cake.
“I had to leave mine back there necked to a tree,” he told him, grinning widely. “I’ll go get her in a couple of days.”
Benteen nodded and glanced at the broken pieces of branches sticking out of the fork of Shorty’s saddle. “You’ve got enough wood there to start a small fire.”
“Reckon I do.” Shorty laughed and began pulling it out.
By the time they reached camp, the yellow light of dusk was filtering over the brushland. Jessie Trumbo already had a cook fire going. Steaks from a steer they’d butchered the day before were frying in a skillet. The coffee had already boiled, and the pot was sitting near the warming edge of the coals. When he saw Benteen leading in the maverick cow, Jessie stuck a branding iron in the fire.
In front of a mesquite-pole pen, Shorty roped the hind legs of the animal. With Benteen at the head and Shorty stretching out the tail, they put the cow on the ground, flankside-up. The glowing iron was curved in the shape of a C. Jessie stamped it three times onto the cow’s hide, burning through the hair into the hide just deep enough to leave a permanent scar that read Triple C.
In Jessie’s absence, another cowboy named Ely Stanton took over the cooking chores. In a cow camp, everyone pitched in to do whatever tasks needed to be done, without complaint. Counting Benteen, there were five riders working out of the camp. Four more, Andy Young and Woolie Willis and two others, were holding a herd of twelve hundred captured cattle on the prairie. There was a sizable bunch in the pen, enough to be driven out to the herd.
After the cow was branded, Benteen turned it loose in the pen and unsaddled the dun gelding. Before turning it out with the cavvy, he extracted the thorns from its legs and treated cuts that needed attention.
Night was thickening the sky when he finally joined the other riders at the campfire. Bruised and battered from the day’s work, he paused wearily to pour a cup of pitch-black coffee, then settled cross-legged on the ground. After three grueling months, it was almost over. He had a good-sized herd of mixed cattle carrying his brand. With the eleven hundred dollars he’d managed to accumulate these last three years from a combination of trail-boss wages and money from the sale of maverick cattle that he’d roped, branded, and driven north with the Ten Bar herds, he’d have enough to buy a remuda, a couple of wagons, and trail supplies. At Dodge City he could sell off some of the prime steers and get enough money to pay the drovers’ wages and have a good chunk left to carry him through the first lean years—if he was lucky.
His glance swept the faces of the other men around the fire. “Anybody seen Spanish today?”
The half-breed Mexican cowboy had been absent for three nights, but Spanish had practically been reared in the brush. He knew all its secrets. Of all the riders, Benteen was least concerned by the prolonged absence of Spanish Bill, but he took note of it.
“Nope.” Ely stabbed a knife into the steak sizzling in the skillet’s tallow and turned the meat over.
“I cut his sign this morning,” Jessie said. “But it was two days old.”
“Where’d you cross his trail?”
“Over by that draw of white brush.”
“I’ll ride over that way tomorrow.” Benteen drank down a swallow of the scalding coffee, strong enough to stiffen his spine and bitter enough to waken his senses.
Something rustled in the brush, attracting all eyes. The firelight flickered, throwing grotesque shadows through the thicket. Before any of them had time to reach for a weapon, a man called out in an accented voice, “It’s I, Spanish.”
A lanky form separated itself from the shadows and approached the campfire on foot, lugging the bulky shape of his saddle. When Spanish Bill entered the circle of light, his dirty and ripped clothes told a lot of his story. His limping walk said a bit more.
“Where’s your horse?” Shorty asked. No one mentioned the fact that Spanish had been absent for three days. His reception wasn’t any different than if they’d seen him that morning.
“Back there.” Spanish indicated the brush with a nod of his head and set his saddle on a barren piece of ground. Dragging his left foot, he limped to the fire and poured himself a cup of coffee. “I thought I would have to spend another night in the bush, until I smelled those steaks.”
“They’re just about burnt.” Ely indicated the meat was nearly done.