White Moon Rising Page 16

  The uneventful drive took a week. He rode ahead as the two men he’d hired pushed them on. He hired four young boys to keep a watch on the cows once they got to San Antonio.

  He paid the two men off and again went hunting cows. A week later, he hadn’t bought many, but decided to look to the south. He was riding through a nice-looking herd looking for the headquarters when the clouds darkened. He’d put his slicker on moments before the sky opened up.

  With rain pounding him, he couldn’t see a hundred feet in front of him. He thought about stopping, but he didn’t have any shelter and might as well travel as stand. His horse pushed on as if he knew where he was going, and maybe he did. Cap had bought him in San Antone.

  Darkness descended and the horse stopped. There was just enough light for Cap to see a light in a window of a house.

  Dismounting, he stretched, and then removed the saddle from his horse and turned him into the corral with others.

  He lopped his saddlebags over his left shoulder and carried his Colt revolving shotgun in his right hand, then slogged through the mud to the door. He rapped on the frame with his gun barrel, but nothing happened. He waited as rain pelted him. Knocking again, he waited another minute, and then reached out and opened the door leading into the kitchen.

  He caught a whiff of baked bread, but no one was in the kitchen. He was about to call out, but a woman’s strident voice said, “Please get out of here. They are my cattle.”

  Her tone caught his attention. Something turned over in his stomach when a man laughed, and said, “Lady, you are all alone here and we can do what we choose with the cows and you, too.”

  Cap eased his saddlebags to the floor and then checked his gun. He’d see about that.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lightning flashed and the rain pounded the roof of the sod house. Cap hesitated. He didn’t know what he would walk into in the other room, or how many men were in there. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t any of his business, and he should stay out of it.

  He sucked in a deep breath. A woman was in there and she was in trouble. With his heart pounding like the thunder, he tightened his grip around the shotgun. He’d never been good with a pistol or rifle, but didn’t need to be with a shotgun that fired four shots.

  The woman’s strident cry for the men to get out helped him make up his mind. He held the shotgun down by his right leg, opened the door, and stepped in.

  Dim and sparsely furnished, the room had an overpowering scent of kerosene. Two men, big-gutted, bushy-bearded, and dirty, faced a slim woman who couldn’t be more than twenty. She had dark hair and eyes. She wasn’t pretty but not ugly either. What burned deep inside Cap’s belly was her obvious fear. From the stance of the two men, she needed to be.

  “I knocked but with the weather no one heard me,” Cap said.

  As he spoke he moved into the room, but in the direction of the woman. If he needed to shoot, he wanted her out of the line of fire.

  One of the men half-turned his attention from her and said, “Git out or we kill you. This ain’t none of your bisness.”

  Still in a reasonable voice, Cap said, “I’m looking to buy cows. Saw some outside. Ma’am, do they belong to you?”

  “Yes, sir, they do. These two say they are theirs, but I have a bill of sale.”

  “Will you sell them to me?” he asked.

  Before she could say anything, the man who’d told him to git stepped toward Cap.

  Cap sidestepped closer to the woman and whipped the shotgun up. The cocking hammer sounded ominous in the room.

  The big man pulled up as if he’d run into an invisible wall. His face turned a green shade. No one wanted to mess with a shotgun, especially at that distance. There was no way to miss.

  To dissuade any more movement, Cap said, “Gentlemen, in case you didn’t notice, this isn’t any ordinary shotgun. Won it in a poker game in Dodge, and it is a Colt revolving one. Holds four shells. In this space, as close as you are, it would rip both of you apart.”

  Without taking his eyes off the men, he asked, “Ma’am, we were discussing me buying your cows. Will you consider selling them to me?”

  “I will if you make these men leave me alone.”

  He nodded. “I was going to do that whether you sold to me or not.” He motioned the two men with the shotgun. “Let’s go. Your company isn’t wanted here.”

  The man who hadn’t spoken until then said, “You haven’t heard the last of this.”

  “Then I’ll keep listening. You have something you want to say?” Cap asked.

  “You’ll git yours,” he grumbled.

  Instead of replying, Cap motioned with the gun for them to leave. He followed as they tramped to the kitchen and slammed the door, shaking the house.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

  “Sure, a cup would be mighty good about now.”

  An uncomfortable silence developed as she put the coffee on to boil. As most women do in tense situations, she went about putting some food together.

  As she worked, Cap watched her—how efficient she was—and wondered what her story was. Why she was out on the Texas prairie without a man around?

  Steam rose from the cup of coffee she handed him. She slid a plate of beans, beef, and corn bread across to him. With the bread was a hunk of butter. He nodded his thanks and slathered the bread with the butter and dug in, not realizing how hungry he was.

  She sat across from him with just a cup of coffee. Looking at her close up, he realized she was even younger than he’d first thought. “Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked.

  Shaking her head, she glanced down, seemingly embarrassed. Her hands shook as she held the cup in both hands. “I’d like to thank you for the help. I don’t know what I’d have done if you didn’t come by.”

  “I didn’t want to butt in, but I heard them threaten you. Who were they, anyway?”

  “Billy and Garland Sperry. They own a broken down ranch to the north. I can’t prove it, but I think they killed my husband six months ago. Someone shot him in the back. He thought they were stealing his cows.”

  Cap, chewing, nodded. That answered some of his questions.

  “Were you serious about buying the cattle, or was that just for them?” she asked.

  He set his fork down and sipped some coffee before replying. “I was serious. I’ve been buying in this area. “I’m paying five dollars a head. Plan to drive a herd to Dakota Territory.”

  She relaxed somewhat. “I need the money to get out of here.”

  Cap finished the food on his plate and pushed back in his seat, cup in hand. She seemed like she wanted to talk and he hadn’t talked to a woman in a long time. He relaxed, hoping she would continue.

  “Bergen, that was my husband, brought me here eight months ago. We were married in San Antone. My father had a small farm down south and promised me to him. My father thought an older man would be able to provide for me better.”

  “How old was your husband?”

  “Fifty-two. His wife died a couple of years ago and he needed someone to keep his house.”

  Wow. Cap blinked. Fifty-two was older than his father, and Cap was way older than her.

  Rising, she gathered his dishes and took them to the sink. With her back to him, washing the dishes, she said, “Would you let me go with you?” I can ride and you’ll need help driving the cows.”

  He frowned. “How old are you?” he asked.

  She continued to wash the dishes and didn’t say anything for a long moment, then said, “Eighteen.”

  “You going back to your parents?” he asked.

  Her back stiffened. “No, I wanted no part of marrying Bergen. They made me.” She spun around. “Why would I want to go back there? They’d just sell me to someone else.”

  Cap’s mouth fell open. “Sell?”

  “He gave my father two plow horses as a dowry for me. What do you call it?”

  Utterly astonished, Cap didn’t know what to say. Sold the
ir daughter for two plow horses? What kind of nonsense was that, anyway? He shook his head. “Two plow horses? Your parents sold you to a fifty-two-year-old man for two plow horses?”

  She turned back to the dishes, but not before Cap saw the tears trickling down her cheeks.

  A sympathetic hollowness formed deep in his chest. How could parents do that to their own daughter?

  “Can I ask you something?” he asked.

  Her back trembled but she turned, eyes red. In a low voice said, “Yes.”

  “What’s your name? I’m Capland Walters. My friends call me Cap.”

  She forced a smile. “Berta.” Her lips trembled. “I don’t have any friends.”

  He sipped his coffee a moment and then said, “Please call me Cap.”

  Cap stepped out of the sod house, stretched, and inhaled the morning air with a fresh clean scent from the rain. He’d slept on a pallet in the living room, and grateful to have it. It was better than outside in a storm.

  Outside the kitchen door, a small shelf contained a pitcher of water. Using a small piece of soap sitting by the pitcher, he washed his face, grabbed a reasonably clean towel hanging on a hook, and dried his face. He sighed. The man who’d lived here had very little. Although the cows were in reasonable shape, the house wasn’t. From what he could see of the corrals, they needed major repairs, too.

  In fact, with the exception of the herd, the whole place looked like a rawhide outfit.

  Cleanliness inside the house was the only part resembling anything close to decent living. Although Berta had next to nothing to work with, she’d made do with what she had, and the food was good. Considering the fact that she’d lived on the ranch by herself for the last six months, it was an amazing accomplishment.

  He slogged through the mud to the corral. Besides his horse, four others milled around, but none of them were high quality cow ponies. The best of the bunch seemed to be a white-faced roan. Checking in the tack room close to the corral, he found a saddle, blanket, and reins. He made short work of saddling the roan and his horse, then he opened the gate and led them out.

  As he neared the kitchen door, it popped open, and Berta came out, dressed in an old calico dress that she appeared to have altered to fit her. From the looks of it, it might have belonged to the husband’s dead wife.

  Although the dress was old, it was clean and she’d contrived somehow to press it. Berta wore her hair up, tied with a bit of ribbon that appeared to come from another old dress. Besides that, she had a freshness about her, and when she came close, a fragrance of soap.

  Her appearance made Cap take a second look at himself.

  The day passed and so did Berta’s freshness. A blazing hot sun bore down on them as they gathered and tallied the cows. Cap used a rawhide string for tallying. He’d tie a knot in the string for every twenty cows. Fortunately, the range was on mostly open prairie with little brush to pop and very few gullies for the cattle to hide in.

  At mid-afternoon, Cap pulled up, removed his hat, and wiped the sweat off his brow. The cattle were in decent shape, but that would change soon. Like most people in the area, this rancher had also overstocked the grass. It appeared as if he’d attempted to move them around so they wouldn’t overgraze, but of course that stopped when the people killed him. For six months no one had worked the cows, and they had just about eaten up all the available grass.

  That was an advantage for Cap. With little graze available, the cows wouldn’t mind moving, especially if he drove them to a place with better grass. Considering the fact that he and a woman would be herding by themselves, he would take any advantage he could.

  Glancing around, he spotted Berta off a ways to the south. Not once during the day had she complained or slacked off. She’d worked as long and as hard as he had. As he watched, a cow darted out of the bunch she was moving. Berta was slow to react, and any male cowboy would have stopped the cow before she got ten feet. She was slow because of inexperience, not laziness. She was raised on a farm, not a cattle ranch. For someone, man or woman, who had not herded cows before, she was doing a heck of a job. Experience counted in the job they were doing, but it was something people could learn. A willingness to work was something people had, and Berta had it. As the old saying went, she would be someone to ride the river with.

  As the next couple of days passed, she lived up to that thought. The two days were exhausting, up at dawn, working to nightfall, eating, and falling into a deep sleep.

  When they finished the gather, the tally string said she had fourteen hundred and seventy-two cows.

  She had a downcast expression when she checked the tally. “Before Bergen was killed, he had over five thousand,” she said.

  Cap puckered his mouth and nodded. It figured. With no one working or watching the cows, he was amazed they hadn’t stolen all of them.

  As they loped towards the house, a man on a horse cut toward them. Although Cap couldn’t make out his features, he could tell the man rode well in the saddle. His body moved naturally with the movement of the horse like someone who had rode all his life.

  They slowed the horses to let him catch up, but Cap kept his hand on the butt of the shotgun.

  “Howdy,” the man said when he got close enough to speak.

  He was about average height and weight; clothes were well worn, as was his saddle, but Cap noticed two things right off. The man had bright red hair and he took good care of his horse. To Cap, the hair wasn’t important, but the way the man rode and took care of his horse said a lot about him.

  “Name’s Johnny Meadows,” he said. “I’m riding the grub line and looking for a meal if one can be had, but I’m no bum.” He looked from Cap to Berta, where his gaze lingered, but continued, “I’m a rider but will work doing anything if a meal is to be had.”

  With a hand, palm up, Cap indicated Berta. “This is the lady you need to talk to.”

  The rider tipped his hat. “Ma’am, tell me what you need me to do, point me at it, and rest assured it will be done.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Meadows,” she said. “At the moment, all I need to do is get supper fixed. If you two men will wash up, I’ll do my best to hurry it up.”

  “I appreciate that ma’am, but you never told me what work I was to do to earn it.”

  “You just want to ride the grub line or do you want a job?” Cap asked.

  The rider had been facing Berta, but turned to look at Cap. “Mister, I’m riding the grub line because no one is hiring in these parts. I work for my keep. If I had a job, I’d do it.”

  Cap nodded. He thought the man would say that. He extended his hand. As they shook, he said, “Name’s Capland Walters—friends call me Cap. As it happens, I am in need of some hands. Thirty a month and found. I’ve bought this young lady’s cows and I have more in San Antone. Getting ready to make a drive to Dakota Territory. I have a partner up there getting a ranch ready.”

  Johnny whistled. “That’s a cow drive. About twice the distance to the Kansas cow towns.” He looked thoughtful a minute as they continued toward the house. “Right now, can’t promise anything about Dakota, but I’ll sure ride straight up to San Antone.”

  With dust, cow manure, and urine clogging his nostrils, Cap rode drag as he, Berta, and Johnny pushed the cows in a northwest direction to San Antone. Although he was the boss, of Johnny, anyway, if only temporarily, he took the worst job in a cattle drive. The drag position was always at least ten to fifteen degrees hotter than any other positions because the drag got heat from the sun and the cows.

  They made fifteen miles the first day and the three of them worked themselves into the ground trying to keep the cows gathered and heading in the right direction. But after the first day, the cows settled down and Cap found himself riding more and more with Berta. At times she would wander back to where he was, and at other times, he would find a reason to go help her.

  They spent a lot of time talking about what they liked and didn’t, what they wanted, and didn’t.

 
; By the fourth day, as they neared San Antone, Cap believed he had feelings for her. He thought she had feelings for him, too, but he wasn’t sure. How did a man know if a woman had feelings for him without words?

  As they drove the cows to where the boys held Cap’s others, Johnny rode back to where Cap was. “Cap, I’ve been thinking. I have no family left, nothing to keep me in Texas, and besides that, there’s not many jobs. I’m almost thirty years old—too old to be riding the grub line. If you’ll have me, I’ll ride all the way to the Dakota Territory with you. Come hell or high water, we’ll get these cows through.”

  “Podnar, something I need to tell you before you decide,” Cap said. “I’m buying cows for a cattle ranch in Dakota Territory. I told you that. “I’ve got a podnar in this venture. I call him Bull because he looks like one. That ain’t no never mind though. What I want you to know, he’s a young fellow and knows nothing about cows.

  “He’ll learn, I guarantee you. Anyway, Indians raised him. Captured when he was eight or so. Some of those people up there holds it against him. Thought you should know before you get into this.”

  Johnny took his hat off and swiped the sweat away, and put it back on before replying. “Seems to me he couldn’t help it. I judge a man by how he treats me. If this here partner pays me for the work I put in, what bissness is it of mine who raised him. I ride for the brand.”

  Cap extended his hand to shake. “I’d like to have you Johnny, but the pay won’t be thirty a month.” As Johnny’s expression fell, Cap said, “I pay the foreman forty.”

  Johnny snapped to attention like a soldier. “What do you want me to do, boss?”

  “Well, the boys can keep looking after the cows for a few days. What we really need is about ten good cowhands. If you can find any, bring them around for me to talk to. I want good ones who’ll stay the trip, do their jobs. I don’t like to kick men’s butts to get them to work for the money they hired on for.”