Chapter 29

The men of Crow Ridge Cattle Company loaded the second trainload of cattle bound for Kansas City and knew there wasn’t time to load another fifteen cars before dark. The first trainload would have to make it to the next sidetrack, near the Kansas state line, before the two empty trains could travel on down to Tulsa.

They made plans to start loading at daylight the next day. The empty trains would arrive during the night and have to lay over.

They gathered around after the first day of loading, talking for a few minutes before Iron Hammer and his brothers left for home. They had piled hay near the corrals and there was plenty of water. They knew most of the cattle would stay close during the night.

“We had a good first day. Tomorrow, if all goes this good, we’ll load three, maybe even four trains,” Howard Claymore told them.

“That means we’ll be through here in ten long days at most. We need to be rounding up cattle down at the other place. It’ll take us a week to round ‘em up and over a day and a half to get them drove over to Little Tree,” Eli said.

“Eli, I’ll ride down there and help Don get that started,” Joe spoke up.

“I’m going too then,” Sissy told them.

“Marshal, why don’t you send my brothers down too? They know how to ride the brush country and gather up cows. I can stay here and help finish this up before I ride down,” William Barkley said.

“Eli, if William is staying, he and I can run this end of it while you get the herds together down on the west side,” Howard told him.

“I reckon we can make it work like that. I know Iron Hammer and his people will be here to drive the cows down here to load. Duncan, you and Moses stay here with Howard and William. When you get the cows loaded, Moses can ride down with Howard,” Eli said as they made plans the load the two big herds, over a hundred miles apart.

“We can do that, Eli. We’ll need to take the scales down there though, that means we’ll need a wagon,” Howard told him.

“When I head down with the young’uns tomorrow, we’ll take a wagon instead of a pack horse. We’ll take the scales with us and be there a few days after Joe and Sissy,” Eli agreed.

“Eli, Sissy and me can leave out before daylight in the morning. We’ll be there in two and a half days, ridin’ hard,” Joe told him.

“Y’all do that, Joe. We’ll bring the wagon over here early tomorrow and load the scales. When we go back to the house, all you young’uns need to get your mommas to help get what all you’ll need packed and loaded in that covered wagon tonight. We’ll need pots and pans and some grub; we’ll need some extra clothes for all of you. We don’t need to have too much, but we need to take what we’ll need,” Eli said as he looked over at the young’uns, who were itching to leave right then.

With their plans set, they headed back to the house to get ready for the big day tomorrow. The men put the bows back on the freight wagon and stretched the canvas cover over it. They backed the empty wagon close to the back porch by hand, so they could start loading it. The young’uns pitched in and carried their own extra clothes and whatever else they wanted to take. The women packed the pots and pans, with enough food for two weeks at least. They filled three water barrels, two for the horses and one for them. They put a few bags of feed and some hay in the wagon for the horses.

Joe and Sissy were in the barn before daylight the next morning, when Eli walked in.

“Joe, you and Sissy stay away from the unassigned lands, stay way south of Fort Reno. We don’t need no more trouble with the cavalry.”

“We already talked, Eli. We’ll swing on down south into Chickasaw and Crow Cattle Lands to stay away from them. Y’all be careful when y’all ride down that way too.”

“We’ll have Ben and George with us. We’ll be looking out for whatever moves all the time, ain’t nobody gonna get close to my kids without gettin’ killed! You get Don Cowden to start rounding up the herds on the Chickasaw lands, then we’ll drive them back west across Cheyenne and Arapaho lands into Texas. Spotted Owl and White Elk will be glad to have their men help us round up the cattle out of the trees and brush country. We need to get them all, to get a count on them. The older cows and all the steers need to be gone, but we’ll keep the yearling heifers and weanling babies for next time. Leave the good bulls and drive the younger ones with the herd. Don Cowden will know all about that when you get there.”

“I got you, Eli. We’ll do it just like you say.”

“Sissy, you and Joe look out for one another. I can’t stand losing any more of my family.”

“We will, Daddy. You be careful with the little ones and Miranda, I really like her.”

“I like her already too, Sissy. I think she’ll be a good teacher for our kids.”

“Daddy, Joe and me will be having a baby early next year. We’re both proud and I wanted to tell you.”

“Sissy, I’m proud of you and Joe, too. Joe, you got more reasons to be extra careful out there now.”

“I know, we’ll be even more watchful this time, Eli.”

Sissy turned to hug her daddy and Joe shook his hand before they rode out of the barn and off into the darkness toward the river.

Eli stood for a long time, staring off into the darkness after them before turning and walking back to the house. The family was up and the women were cooking breakfast. The young’uns were raring to go.

Miranda came down stairs, dressed in her tight buckskins, with a Colt strapped to her hip and a bundle of clothes rolled and tied in a blanket.

“Morning, Marshal. Sissy and Joe gave me a gun. Don’t worry, I know how to use it,” she said as she put her bedroll by the back door and went over to help with the cooking.

Eli looked at her as she walked across the kitchen with her gun belt strapped low across the skintight buckskins on her hips. He turned to see the young’uns watching him. They grinned at him and he grinned back, shaking his head.

When they’d eaten breakfast, the young’uns were ready to leave. Their mommas made them all come back to hug them special, since they’d be gone for at least two weeks.

By the time they went out to the wagon, Ben and George had the horses hitched and their own traveling needs packed away. William, Duncan, and Moses were there with Howard. They were ready to ride over to the loading pens.

When they had the scales and boom poles loaded, the men said their goodbyes. Pike and Isaac said goodbye to their daddies.

“Moses, we’ll see you and Howard in a few days, be careful on your way down.

“Duncan, we’ll see you and William when we get back. I don’t have to tell either of you what to do. I know you’ll look out for the family while we’re gone. If there’s even one man that comes here looking for trouble, kill him and throw him in the river. I’m damn tired of folks coming after our families.”

“We’ll make sure the family is watched over good, Eli. Y’all be careful down there. I know them young’uns will talk about this as long as they live,” Duncan said.

George tied his horse to the back of the wagon and drove the team of horses as they headed to the river, then west out of Tulsa.

The ten boys and girls rode their Paint horses. Eli rode his big Walking Horse stud and Miranda rode one of the Walking Horse mares. Ben was riding alongside the wagon on his horse, as Eli and the others rode on ahead.

Eli carried two sawed-off, double-barrel 12 gauge shotguns, one hanging down on either side of his saddle horn with the short, hand-grip butts sticking up. He had his new Sharps .50 caliber rifle and long scope in one scabbard and his Winchester on the other side. He was taking no chances with the ten young’uns and Miranda along. She wore the Colt .45 that Sissy and Joe had given her, and she too had a 12 gauge double-barrel shotgun tied to her saddle horn.

The sawed off shotgun she carried belonged to Duncan, who had it rigged with the bottom end of the scabbard cut out so all he had to do was pull up and shoot right through the scabbard. Moses had given her his bandoleer shell belt, loaded with double aught buckshot. Blue Whistlers, Duncan called them, for the twelve balls of lead, half the size of a marble, loaded in each shell.

After getting a late start on the first day, Eli was happy to make fifteen miles. He was glad now that he told George to hitch the horses instead of the slow walking mules. They weren’t loaded heavy by any means and they needed to make good time.

The first night on the trail, they camped on a small, bald rise where they had a good view in all directions for over a hundred yards. They built a fire and the young’uns helped Miranda and George warm the food the women had packed for them.

Before dark, Eli gave them each a piece of an old blanket and showed them how to rub their horses down after a long day of riding. They tied them to a picket line and fed each of them hay and a portion of oats, after watering them from the barrels.

When their horses were cared for, they lined up at the campfire, tin plates in hand, as they helped themselves to beef roast, biscuits, and beans. The one thing they had plenty of was beans. Not only did they have a big cast iron kettle of beans already cooked, so all they had to do was heat them, they had a big sack of dried beans from last year’s garden.

Kia and Michi are ten years old, according to their mother’s bible. Pike is eight and a half years old. The other boys will be nine years old in a few months, as would Lilly Beth and Lee Yu. They count the months to their next birthdays. They already wanted to be older, riding and shooting a gun like Sissy.

The second night on the trail, they camped by a small creek, after riding twelve hours without stopping except to relieve themselves. The young’uns cared for their horses and tied them off on the picket line, before going back to get a plate of beans and a biscuit.

When they bedded down each night, the two younger girls slept on one side of Miranda, Kia and Michi slept on the other. The six boys slept between the girls and Eli.

Eli was up three times during the night, walking the perimeter with his shotgun in his hand, his handgun strapped on his hip. The sky was clear and the waning crescent moon cast a dim light across the prairie.

When Eli came back to camp the third time he made a walk around, Ben and George were up and had coffee boiling in the big pot.

“Gettin’ close to time for us to get started,” Eli said as he sat down and grabbed a tin cup.

“Yep, I figure it’s comin’ on five,” George said.

“I’ll get the kids up and get them awake. We’ll need to be in the saddle by daylight if we’re gonna get there tomorrow,” Eli said as he set his cup down and went to wake the young’uns.

When he walked over to where they were, they were sitting up in the bedrolls, putting their moccasins on, in the dim light of the moon and the campfire.

“Y’all ready for another full day in the saddle?” he asked as they stood, yawning and stretching.

“We sure are, Daddy. Want me to wake Miss Miranda?” Michi asked.

“Yup, better get her up too. We’ll eat a biscuit and drink a cup of coffee, then saddle up. We need to make good time again today, if we’re gonna get there tomorrow before dark.”

When Michi shook Miranda, she jerked awake and sat up. She was lost and they could all tell. Finally she saw the girls and boys standing close to her, then she saw the campfire and she remembered where she was.

She stood and stretched.

“Girls, I need to pee, want to walk with me?” she asked, grabbing her handgun, as they all quickly walked to the other side of the wagon.

Miranda and the young’uns ate, then helped George break camp. Eli and Ben had all the horses saddled by then. After they hitched the team to the wagon, they were ready. Ben drove the wagon and George rode his horse today. They were ever watchful of the trail behind them as they rode on southwest beside the railroad, toward the other ranch.

They camped on the north fork of the Canadian the third night and Eli knew they’d be at the other ranch before dark tomorrow.

The water was running slow with hardly any current to speak of. It looked thick and red, from the red clay washing into it. The horses drank it, but no one wanted to bathe in the red waters.

“Daddy, what’s wrong with that river? Are they all like that over here?” Little Eli asked as they stood looking down into the slow moving river. Eli and the boys had walked down to the river to relieve themselves and stood looking across the river.

“Right through here, all the creeks and rivers run red like this. It’s the red clay dirt in this part of the Territory that makes it look like dirty blood.”

“Will it be red like this where the other ranch is?” Micah asked as the boys threw stones and dirt clods into the reddish brown water.

“Not as bad, we’ll have some better water over there. We’ll just have to wait to take a bath when we get to the other ranch. We have windmills there too, for the cattle and for the house. Y’all can get a bath in the watering trough at the barn.”

“Daddy, where was it that Sissy and Joe had the ruckus with the cavalry?” Caleb asked as they walked back to camp.

“We’ll pass by there to the south tomorrow and I’ll show you about where it was. The same bunch of men rode up on me, Duncan, and Moses before that happened, and we had us a nice little go-round with them too.”

“Did you kill any of them like Joe and Sissy did?” Little Eli asked.

“No, we didn’t have to. I reckon they believed us when we told them we’d kill every damned last one of them if they didn’t get gone.”

“Daddy told me and Momma you rode right up to the main man and gave him a whack on his jaw with your fist that turned him a whole double flip backwards off his horse,” Pike said and they all laughed at that.

“Well, I reckon he asked for it. He was cussing and calling me names ‘cuz I was Indian and I had about all I was gonna to take, real quick. He was in a better mind set when he crawled back up on that wooden cavalry saddle.”

“Why are some men so hateful to Indians like that Daddy?” Ezra asked.

“I reckon some think the white man is just a might higher up the ladder than the Indian man is. Not real sure what it is that makes them hate like that.”

“If a white boy ever jumps on one of us and calls us names, can we whup his ass, Daddy?” Caleb asked.

“If you don’t, I’ll whup your asses for you. Don’t any of you ever take a cussing ‘cause you’re Indian and don’t ever let them white boys talk down on you either. We’re just as good as they are, and I don’t know a lot of them that’s got what we’ve worked for either.”

“Daddy, you get really mad about that stuff, don’t you?” Little Eli asked.

“Well, I reckon I was brought up a little different than you boys. My pa had a helluva temper and hardly no education to speak of. I reckon I took after him a lot. My ma always told me that my pa’s blood would come out one day. I reckon it does, no matter how hard I try to hold it back. We’re gonna make sure all of you got some good education and then there won’t be many that’ll be able to out-talk you or out-fight you.”

“Momma told us it wasn’t good to be fighting like all you men do. Are you telling us it’s alright if we whup some asses now and then?” Isaac asked.

“Isaac, I don’t want to go against what your momma told you, but a man has to defend himself and his family. Just don’t be coming home all bloody and bruised so they’ll know you been fightin’. Whup them asses and get it over with. I don’t care if you use a stick or a club, or a foot to his nuts. Whup his ass in a hurry and don’t get hurt.”

“We saw some boys down at the depot the other day who started saying some bad words to us. They ran when Little Eli jumped off the wooden platform and started after them,” Micah said.

“That’s good, but from now on, I want all you boys to come off that platform together and don’t stop ‘til you’ve run ‘em down and whupped them asses good. You need to be watchful of one another and be really watchful for them girls over there. If anyone ever hurts one of my girls again, I’ll kill’em.”

“Won’t nobody ever touch our sisters while we’re around, we’ll kill’em first,” Isaac said.

“Good, you better always stand up for your family, for old folks, and for women, no matter who they are. You boys always stand up for one another too, no matter how many is there wanting to whup your butts, all y’all gang up on their asses and whup hell out of ‘em. Show’em it don’t pay to jump on Crow kids.

“It’s called showing respect for one another and I want all you boys to have respect.”

“We will, Daddy. We really do like it out here with you, talking like this,” Ezra told him.

“Just don’t be going home and telling your mommas what all I said. They don’t need to know I said it’s alright for you boys to whup some asses now and then. This is between us and don’t everyone need to know we had this talk.”

“We know, Daddy, we all want to grow up and be just like you, Duncan, Moses, and Joe,” Little Eli said, looking around at all the other boys, as they nodded at each other in agreement.

Eli knew these boys were gonna grow up and be some tough young bucks, and he wanted to make sure they were. He wanted the Crow boys to be able to take up for each other, themselves, and their family.