Chapter 17

Oh, the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander...

“Joss, I have never had as much enjoyment on a trail drive as we’ve had on this one. When we get to Cheyenne and deliver this herd, I’m going to take some of my winnings and put all of us up for a night at a hotel. John told me he was buying steaks for everyone with some of his winnings,” Mr. Charlie told me.

On my map, it showed to be about two hundred and fifty miles or so from Deer Trail up to Cheyenne. Mr. Charlie sure told us right, when he said this would be some of the most rugged parts of the trail we would travel.

The first ten days out of Deer Trail, we must have traveled over a hundred miles, yet when I looked at my map, I figured we were only fifty miles across the mountains from Deer Trail.

Mr. Charlie was still riding point with Nicolas. Behind them was Abuelo, with Indira riding beside his chuckwagon. In the Chuckwagon with Abuelo was Rosanna. She had saddle sores and she couldn’t ride a horse another mile, she’d told us. She rode the last month, sitting on a pile of blankets next to Abuelo.

Mr. Charlie had a map like the one Polk had given me. He’d marked every waterhole, river, stream and lake there was on the trail. He knew the best places to bed a herd down at night, no matter where we were.

We had cut back northwest from Deer Trail and now we were in the foothills of the Rockies. Some of the passes we went through, the cattle had to walk single file just to make it with their wide horns. Then, we’d break out into a wide open, high mountain pasture, where the herd slowed as they spread out to grab a mouthful of grass and keep walking. The nights were getting colder now, and at times we could see snow falling up on the higher slopes. Winter was coming on us fast here in the Rockies and I for one, was glad we were getting close to Cheyenne.

I had been riding left flank most all the way and Enrico was riding right flank. At times, we could talk to each other we were so close, then at times, we couldn’t even see each other, there would be so many cattle spread out between us on the slopes.

Most days, Abuelo, Indira and Rosanna would have supper cooked when the last of the herd made it to the valley, canyon, or riverbed where we stopped for the night.

Mr. Charlie and Mr. John both agreed that there was one good thing about making the trail drive this time of year, the rivers weren’t running so full from the spring snow-melt, that we couldn’t find a shallow place to ford the herd. I don’t reckon we had one cow in this herd, of over thirty-five hundred head, that didn’t like to stand in water up to their belly, or deeper. But you get one of them in water so deep their hooves won’t touch bottom and you better not be in the way ... nor any of the other cows either. They had only one thing in mind and that was getting to the other side and getting their hooves back on solid ground.

Of course, I was the same way before I learned to swim with Ruby Peters teaching me. Damn, what a time that was. I can hardly wait to get back there and see if things are like they were when I left. I’ve already come to think of The Windy Ridge as being my home now ... I hope to still have a home with the Peters family waiting for me when I get back there.

On Friday, October 20, Mr. Charlie sent a rider back to tell me I was wanted up on the point. I was near the tail end of the herd and it took me over thirty minutes to get there, riding Red at a fast gallop. Before I even caught up to the point of the herd, I could see the big buildings ahead of us.

Mr. Charlie and Mr. John were talking to a tall, well dressed man on horseback when I rode up.

Mr. Charlie introduced us, “John, I want you to meet our third partner on this trail drive, Joss Edmond Wayward.

“Joss, this is John Wesley Iliff – Wyoming Cattle Baron.”

I nudged Red around so we could shake hands, “Mr. Iliff, I’m proud to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you since I joined up with Mr. Charlie Goodnight and Mr. John Chisum, back in Texas. Though I have yet to settle on a spread back in Kansas, I hope to one day be as well known in the cattle business as the three of you men are.”

“Joss, in the time it took you to ride up here to the point, I’ve heard tales told on you that would take a grown man a lifetime to relive. Then, they told me you were fourteen years old, and I thought it was all a joke. When I saw you riding up on that Red Roan, large as a grown man, smiling like a friend, I knew right then it was all true. After hearing your story and meeting you in person, I have no doubt in my mind that you will one day surpass the three of us.”

There was no way the stockyards at Cheyenne could handle thirty-five hundred head of Longhorns at one time.

Mr. Iliff told us he wanted to take one thousand head straight to his ranch.

His friends and neighboring ranchers, the Thatcher Brothers, wanted one thousand head also.

Mr. Iliff had another friend in Laramie, who had asked for as many as a thousand head, if they were available.

“We’ll cut out five hundred head of the best young beeves and send them to the slaughterhouse here in Cheyenne. They too are running low on fresh beef,” he told us.

After the cowboys and wranglers spent a half a day cutting out the five hundred head of young beeves as Mr. Iliff pointed them out, the only way we could get a count on the remaining cattle, was walk them through a cattle chute single file, count them and divide them into three separate herds.

The first thousand was put into the corrals used for shipping. They would be the ones shipped to Laramie.

On the second thousand, Mr. Iliff’s ranch hands were waiting as the cattle came out of the chute and walked out into the open.

The third thousand, the Thatcher Brothers were there with their ranch hands to start their herd toward their ranch.

At the end of that last thousand, we still had over two hundred head. We made a fast count on them and Mr. Iliff’s men drove them out to join his herd.

That gave us a grand total of three thousand, seven hundred and seventy-nine head. With three of us doing the counting, Indira and I had the same number and Mr. Iliff’s foreman had one more than us.

A bill of sale for each herd and for the five hundred slaughter cattle was made out and signed by each of us three members on the cattle drive, and each man who was responsible for paying. This was all new to me and I paid close attention as the business part of the cattle drive was conducted and finalized.

When the four bills of sale were passed to me for my signature, I could hardly believe the total dollars on each of them. We were paid twenty-two dollars and sixty-eight cents a head for three thousand, seven hundred and seventy-nine head of cattle.

Tears came to my eyes as I did the arithmetic real quick. My part alone, was twenty-eight thousand, five hundred, sixty-nine dollars and twenty-four cents.

Mr. Charlie had figured the pay for all our cowboys and wranglers. When he had the total, he, Mr. John and I put a third into the pot for the wages. Each of us had agreed to give the men, Rosanna and Indira, a fifty dollar bonus and we split that total three ways and put that in too, before we paid them off.

True to their word, Mr. Charlie paid for us a room at the hotel. The men, he put two to a room. For Indira and me, he even paid for our room. Enrico and Rosanna were in a room together.

Before we went up to our room, I bought a fancy set of black saddle bags to carry all our money in, on our way back to Kansas.

Mr. John took all of us to the hotel dining room once we were bathed and wearing clean clothes. We were a tired bunch, but I reckon we were happy with the way we’d reached our trail’s end.

The men with families back home, planned to leave in the morning by train, and head back to Texas. Two of the cowboys and two of the wranglers didn’t have family waiting back in Texas and I hired them to travel to Kansas with me. I was going to need good, hard working hired hands ... no matter where I called home. I knew these men well and they knew me.

The bronc riding contests were scheduled for the next day and Mr. Iliff told us that if I’d stay over a day and enter the contest, he’d be open to taking bets from anyone who wanted to bet against me. He must really believe in me after hearing about me riding in just two contests.

I talked to all the wranglers and cowboys and told them that I’d rent a cattle car for our horses and pay their way back as far as Pueblo, if they’d wait a day and travel with us. They were easy to convince and every last one of them stayed.

The contest started early the next day, since there were so many entered. Cheyenne is about the biggest town I’ve been in, other than Topeka, Kansas City and Fort Worth. Everyone here either rode horses, raised horses, or traded horses.

I was feeling lucky again today and gave Indira a thousand dollars to bet any way she saw fit at the time. There were two more men taking bets besides Mr. Iliff.

There were twenty-one of us entered in the saddle bronc contest when we started out. It took two hours just for the first go-round. Then, there were only twelve of us left. I was riding eighth and in the second go-round alone, the first four riders were bucked off. The rider in front of me rode his horse and I rode mine. Then there were only three who came after me who rode the limit. They had a fifteen second time limit up here and I really felt like this was too easy. Most of the time, I rode horses until they stopped bucking.

By the fifth go-round, there was only the rider in seventh place, and me, left to ride. He rode his next three horses and I rode my next four. The winnings were more for me here than down on the Pecos and Deer Trail combined, and the betting was good for us too, since no one knew me and most bet on their local cowboys and wranglers.

I made five times more on my winnings than what it cost to pay for all the wranglers’ and cowboys’ fares back to Pueblo. Then Indira told me that we had won another twenty-five hundred on the betting.

Mr. Charlie and Mr. John rode the train with us back to Pueblo. At the train station, Mr. John Chisum and I said our goodbyes and wished each other luck as he stayed on the southbound train into New Mexico.

After Mr. Charlie went with me to withdraw my money from the bank, we said our farewells with a promise to meet again one day.

“Joss, I don’t have a son or a daughter, but if I ever do have a son, I want him to grow up to be just like you. You are a man who will one day, stand above a world of men who were never brave enough to risk it all, just to make their dreams come true. You are a man after my own heart and I can honestly say, you are a true friend.”

“Mr. Charlie, while we were on our way up to Cheyenne, Mr. John told Indira and me about you and your best friend, Mr. Oliver Loving. For you to stand here before me and tell me I’m a true friend of yours, comes as an honor. I will always look up to you as the man who taught me the true meaning of friendship and the true meaning of love between two men. Though I lived with my Pa for thirteen years, I never knew him as well as I have come to know, love, and respect you.”

“Thank you, Joss. Your words mean a lot to a man like me. When you get settled on that place of yours back in Kansas and the wild, restless wind has stopped calling you out – send a letter to me here in Pueblo and let me know where you are. I’d like to bring my wife, Molly up for a visit and let her meet the man we’ll want our son to grow up to be like, if we ever have a son.”

Indira, Enrico, Rosanna, Henri, Manuel, Piter, and Horacio boarded the next eastbound train out of Pueblo with me. We were headed to our new home in Kansas and they were as anxious to see it, as I was to see it again. We had all of our horses in the same cattle car in which we’d loaded them in Cheyenne. As my men took care of their horses, I made sure Red, Pintar, Diablo and Blue were well fed and cared for. We’ve come a long way together and they’re as close to me as my people friends.

I looked at my Kansas map and figured we were a little over five hundred miles from Silver Lake. I knew my trains well, and I knew the engineer had this big old girl strung out as we headed almost due east out of Colorado. I figured we were running at least fifty miles an hour and at that rate, we’d be in Silver Lake early tomorrow morning.

They wouldn’t let my Mexican friends in the diner car with me, and that made me madder than hell. I bribed a conductor and a Black porter into bringing us enough food for all of us. I gave them twenty-five dollars apiece with a promise of twenty-five more when they delivered our food. They must have cleaned out the kitchen on this train, as much as they brought us. Each of us had a big bowl of chili and that hit the spot with us. We ate soda crackers and chili, then we ate beans and cans of beef that we had to open with our knives. When we had eaten all of that, they brought out tin cups for each of us and two pots of hot coffee. I paid each of them an extra ten dollars for taking care of us.

With our bellies full we laid back on the fine leather seats and fell asleep to the rocking of the coach and the clicking of the rails, as dark fell across Kansas. We stopped a few times during the night, but not for long, then we were rolling again.

I had just looked at my watch to see that it was 6:00 in the morning, when the porter came in and saw me awake.

“We’ll be in Silver Lake soon. They’ll have to switch over on a side track to get your cattle car spotted. You folks have a good visit here in Kansas. We sure do thank you for being so kind and generous.”

“We’ve come to Kansas to stay and make our home. Thank you and the conductor for seeing to it that we were fed.”

By the time I had the others awake, the train was slowing for our stop at Silver Lake. They stopped at the depot first to let the passengers off, before they pulled forward, then backed onto the sidetrack to spot the cattle car at the loading ramps.

With Enrico, Henri, Manuel, Piter, and Horacio helping, we had lifted the heavy packsaddle off Blue’s back, by hand, when we first boarded the train in Cheyenne. Since the railroad switched the same car for us at Pueblo, we never unloaded our horses.

Now, it took everything the five of us could muster, lifting that heavy load up onto his back to cinch it down tight. I’ll say one thing for Blue, he never balks at hauling his load. He stood right there and let us shift and shove that heavy rack around to fit it in place, just right on his back.

Indira had thrown the saddle on Diablo already and I cinched it for her. I saddled Red while Enrico saddled his horse and Rosanna’s. The hired hands were ready before we were. They were as anxious to see our new home as I was.

I wanted to do something special for Enrico and our four Mexican hired hands. Each of them wore handguns on their hips and more than once, I’d seen them pull those old Remington, cap and ball pistols only to have them misfire.

We stopped at Collin’s Hardware Store just as he was opening, and I told them I’d be right back, just stay there with the women and horses.

When I went into the store, Mr. Collins was already waiting on another man and I went back to look at the handguns. I wanted to buy each of my men a Colt like I carry.

“Joss, is that you?” Mr. Collins asked as he walked back to where I was.

“Yes Sir. I’ve come back here to make my home out on the Peters’ spread, like Mr. Merle asked me to.”

“Joss, you may be too late to help them. I hate to tell you ... Merle passed on, two months after you rode out. I’ve wished many times over the past month or so, that I knew how to get ahold of you.”

“What do you mean? Too late? What’s happened out there?” I was about sick at my stomach as I waited for him to answer.

“That Parker man and woman you helped Merle and his family hire before you left, brought some of their kinfolk in with them about a month ago. They’ve just about taken over the place, from what I understand. I never see any of the Peters family anymore, just those three young men who come here and purchase goods and wasteful items on The Windy Ridge account. At first, I refused selling to them on the Peters’ account. Then they threatened me and left. The next day, they brought Mrs. Peters into town with them and I knew from the way she was talking and behaving, that she was being threatened with harm if she didn’t tell me to sell them anything they wanted. I was almost certain that they had her daughters held against their will out there on The Windy Ridge. Things have really changed out there, especially after those Parkers brought them no good boys of theirs in here.”

“You say there are three of them?”

“That’s right and they’re some rough, ornery looking scoundrels too.”

“I have five men with me that I’ve hired to help run The Windy Ridge. We’ve just came off a cattle drive from Texas up to Cheyenne and I need a new Colt pistol for each them and plenty of cartridges to go with them ... I’m back now and I’ll see to it those bastards are gone from Windy Ridge by the end of the day.”

“You mean to tell me that you drove cattle all the way from Texas to Cheyenne, Wyoming?” He asked as he gathered the five pistols and cartridges to put them in a poke for me.

“I sure did, I was partners on a trail drive with Mr. Charlie Goodnight and Mr. John Chisum. We rounded up wild horses and broke them for our remuda, then rounded up the wild Longhorn cattle from all over the Texas Panhandle. We drove more than thirty-five hundred head of cattle close to two thousand miles, up the Goodnight-Loving Trail, beginning May 30^th and making Cheyenne the 20^th of this month.”

“You’ve really changed, Joss. You’ve got a full mustache with chin whiskers coming, and your hair is down to the middle your back. You’re a lot bigger and I can tell by listening to you talk, you’re even more of a man than you were when you first came to Silver Lake the day we met last spring.”

“I have changed, Mr. Collins. I’ve had more than a few hard lessons in growing up and I’ve learned to take charge of myself and others. Though I’m only fourteen years old, I feel like I have become a man in the past seven months since I left here ... I’m mad now, and I’m headed out to The Windy Ridge to rid that place of some rats, and help my friends ... If you will, send word to the sheriff and tell him I’m back ... what I’m about to do and why. He can come do his job after I’ve done mine.”

Outside, before I mounted up, I went to each of the five men and handed them a new pistol. “Put your old pistols in this sack and stuff them down in one of your saddle bags. Load these pistols right now, men. We’re going to have a fight on our hands when we get out to The Windy Ridge. There’s been some no good saddle-tramps move in out there and they’ve taken over the place. We’re taking it back no matter how we have to do it.”

“We’re with you no matter what, Joss,” Enrico told me and the others agreed with him.

I didn’t want to just ride in and start shooting rats as they ran out of the hole, I was afraid they’d have Ruby, Jamie and Jonnie inside the house and do them more harm.

I took them west of the house and barns and came up the back way to the swimming hole. I was already trying to come up with a plan before we stepped off our horses. The swimming hole looked just like it did the day I left. It didn’t show any signs of being used recently. I explained to them what the apparatus was and why it was here.